It was several months ago that a prompt in my interfaith discussion group got me started thinking about stated values for our household practice. I scoured threads here, the CR FAQ, and various books we had around. I asked Brigid for her input. I shared various draft lists with the two members of my household- my fiancee, and the man we were both dating and hoping to someday raise a family with. It was a fun exercise, but I never got much beyond draft lists.

Then, over the past couple of weeks, things with him got steadily worse and worse, until the intervention of a social worker friend made us realize that what he was doing to us qualified as emotional abuse, and we needed to get him out of our lives. We did, but not before he did a real number on my sense of self-worth, particularly from a moral/religious perspective.

So last night, after the dust had settled from the long hard day of getting him out, I sat down and slowly calligraphed a list to hang on our wall:

Our House Is Built Upon:
Hospitality
Respect
Honor
Truth
Loyalty
Courage
Eloquence
Knowledge & Wisdom
Gentleness & Strength
Mercy & Justice
and
the Duty of the Strong
to Support the Weak

And looking at it, I know that I have done the best I can, I will continue to do better, and he never belonged in this household in the first place.

One of my threads at The Cauldron has sparked a HUGE debate on three things:

1) I'm arrogant enough to think Aengus Og has taken an interest in me.

2) I may have a lurking mental illness that causes Option #1, especially since he advises against therapy at the moment.

3) I must be getting misled by a spirit pretending to be Aengus, especially since he advises me against therapy at the moment. Also, apparently the Ancient Celts' idea of love is not "nurturing/caring/helping with sexual or emotional issues," it's "SEXSEXSEX AND POLYAMORY AND MOAR SEX. READ THE FUCKING MANUAL--YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A BARD."

4) I've been asking too many questions. STOP SPAMMING US.

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( My counterarguments. )

Suggestions? Help? "Get something pointy and let's set them all straight OR ELSE?"

EDIT: Well, we've all calmed down enough for them to not give up on me YET--I admitted that I've only been so insistent that this being is Aengus Og because I'm not COMPLETELY sure of it myself (more like 80-90%), and that 10-20 percent bugs me even though he responds when I call for Aengus, he lets me call him that name, and he's not a BAD influence on me.

EDIT EDIT 5/28: So, even though I believe that the gods are genuinely contacting me, I just realized that to deal with my confusion, I've fallen into the "I nearly killed myself and this isn't NEARLY as bad" trap. When I get a free hour, I'm calling my city's crisis hotline.

Fuck.

I went to the park yesterday after I read Yeats' poem about Aengus Og, and I feel it had something to do with the solar eclipse. Unfortunately, Aengus was too busy screaming at me to GO TO THE PARK NOW to give more detailed answers, so I went to the park at 5PM. I also headed down to the beach, because I kept feeling like something was important about the sea.

I went out to the outcropping where people go to fish because the poem mentions Aengus fishing, and I was looking out across the bay and had this growing urge to just... jump in. Which was NOT a good idea, because I can't swim very well and I didn't bring any extra clothes with me anyway.

When the eclipse happened, I got this fluttery nervous feeling in my chest and for the next few hours, I kept feeling the mental equivalent of "double vision" like my glasses were off. And even when my vision was normal, everything was swimming around in my head and I couldn't really "tell" if this was the present or the future.

So I thought about the Tarot reading I got that morning: The Flowering of Logres, the Stone Hallow, and the Stone Knight. I'd also drawn a summary/clarification card and gotten Merlin, who told me to "watch things unfold, but don't manipulate them."

I went to bed early to meditate (and I was tired), but after half an hour my niece and sister came in and I told Aengus that we might have to finish with a dream. Which, at first, was about Narnia. So in the back of my head I asked, "Narnia, Aengus? REALLY?" And he went, "Well, you were tired."

So the normal dream faded, and I saw myself lying on my side in the dark with him. He touched my chest, and the other dream started.

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( A suspiciously symbolic one. )

If anyone has input or needs more details, feel free to post.

Cross-posted to my normal journal.

Yesterday I drew a seven-card spread, ended up confused, drew some clarification cards and ended up MORE confused, so then I just reshuffled and drew three cards asking "Am I on the right track?"

First card was the Spear Knight, second was Spear 6, third was the Lady of the Lake. They all have something to do with intuition and being fearless/confident. Which is precisely the problem, since I've had to make lots of internal changes and I'm pretty much feeling the opposite right now.

( And then it gets odd. )

So, I know the Morrigan deals with justice and righteous fury and all, but... it seems she's fine with playing dirty as long as the other side starts it and I make sure to "be nice" about it. And I'm really not playing that dirty at all--I just feel like it since I'm not used to putting myself out like this. (It may also be a vestige of my Catholic "forgiving is better than revenge" upbringing.)

So my prayer to the Morrigan and Aengus Og last night started out great, and ended up... kind of terrifying.

Don't really know why or how, but SOMETHING went wrong with my praying to Aengus and the Morrigan last night. I was like, "Okay, I'm ready to be a fuck-awesome Ilse when you're ready to make your moves," and their reactions were good since my chest felt all warm and fiery. I had my usual tears-of-joy reaction to it when I thanked them for everything.

Then I got this vision that I wasn't really comfortable with, but when I tried to talk it out with Aengus like I usually do, I started flashing back to EVERYTHING that happened when I was eight.

( This probably shouldn't happen after you've literally (and sincerely) thanked the gods. )

Cross-posted to my normal journal.

Cross-posted to my normal journal.

I did a guided meditation/visualization with Aengus Og about a Tarot reading I got involving The White Hart, Taliesin, and Arthur.

Here's the gist of my conversation with Aengus Og. Italics are what he "said" back.

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( In some ways, he's even worse than the Morrigan. )

-
( Later in the afternoon. )

It's Monday morning, and I'm feeling like stirring up some discussions here and there across the Internets, so....

With all respect to everyone who labored so long on the CR FAQ, the reading recommendations there are seriously outdated. The newest book on the introductory list is Erynn's Circle of Stones, which was originally published in 1995. The newest book on the "general Celtic" list is Ellis-Davidson's Myths and Symbols in Pagan Europe, published in 1988. Both of those lists share the remainder of their contents: Sjoestedt's book was published in 1949, Rees and Rees in 1961, Mac Cana in 1970. I know that we want to recommend things that people can actually find and afford, but I start to question whether we're doing it at the expense of perpetuating obsolete scholarship. What can we recommend that might be more up-to-date?

I might start with MacKillop's Myths and Legends of the Celts (2006) and the edited volume Prehistoric and Early Ireland (2005); the latter is expensive, but covers the archaeology, history, and literature of Ireland into the Norman period extensively, with chapters by some very well-regarded scholars. (I haven't actually read that one yet, but it's on the way to my library.) Anyone else got some ideas?

Crossposted to crossoverqueen (my normal journal).

Sorry to clog your feeds up with my constant posts, but you know how I've been obsessed with Spring Awakening, the musical I desperately want to be in? I've been talking about this among three forums plus LJ to make sense of it all, which means "KEEPING TRACK OF WHO I'VE TOLD WHAT? LOL DON'T BE SILLY."

Which means I forgot to tell you guys that I've been getting visions where 1) the Spring Awakening director needs to recast and chooses me as the most fuck-awesome Ilse, 2) I hook up with the guy playing Moritz, and 3) my SA cast-mates in general are strongly implied to become a surrogate family that is entirely different from my blood family, whose well-meant smothering has been holding me back from everything.

And they're all real, since I've actually been ignoring them for the most part until the Morrigan smacked me and went "THEY'RE REAL. NOW START BELIEVING THEY'LL HAPPEN."

Which is, essentially, a fairy tale.

( And fairy tales are harder to live through than you'd think. )

So, my contact with the gods? Reassuring and depressing as hell at the same time.

I have noticed a difference between reenactment and reconstructionist. I think part of that difference is the importance of honoring the living cultures and participating in their protection and traditions.

I wondered if you folks could elaborate a bit more on the distinction between reenactment and reconstruction. I saw a few lines about it in the CR FAQ, but I was thinking more like, how that shows in your life.

For example, I enjoy tartans and wear them sometimes for ritual. I consider them a part of Celtic culture that is of course a modern version of something more ancient. Ancient Celts did wear patterned woven woolens like checks and stripes. EDITED TO ADD: I see the modern tartans as an evolution of those. Whereas some folks would not wear a tartan kilt because it is not ancient. I see it having value because it is part of the culture that I think reflects a lot of the more traditional values that I want to include in reconstruction.

I had a very long, detailed epiphany on Saturday that ended in the Morrigan telling me that something good was going to happen for Bealtaine, and I think what's been happening is it.

For the past few days I've been listening to "The Song of Purple Summer" (Spring Awakening's final song) and taking a good look at all the flowers I pass by on the way to work/school/home. The weird part happens whenever I get to this line: "And all shall know the wonder: I will sing the song of purple summer."

Doesn't matter whether I sing it or I listen on my iPod, but when the song gets to that point, I feel something in the flowers surge up with this "YEEEEEES" vibe. They tend to feel louder when I'm actually singing, and if I'm not singing already, I get this "Go for it!" vibe, so... I do. XD

It can't be my imagination because despite no other human being with me, it feels like an audience is responding to what I'm doing, and that's a hard kind of energy to manufacture alone. Also, to confirm my suspicions: I tried singing this song to the peace-lilies at home, budding plants, and the trees near my apartment--nothing "responds" unless it's in full blossom.

It's really nice, don't get me wrong, it's just that I've never actually felt plants' spirits before. It doesn't feel like a specific plant/area--it's literally ANY blooming plant that I come across, and not always the same ones. It might be a general earth-spirit, since I live in California.

Someone mentioned on another forum that I should leave offerings if I'm comfortable with it. The problem is that I am, but most of the plants are on city/private property, so I probably shouldn't. And then I thought, "Hey, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area--there are oaks EVERYWHERE. Maybe I should leave an offering to one of the park's oaks and... tell it to spread the message, I guess?"

Is that feasible for Irish Recon? It doesn't feel like the plants actually WANT anything--they're essentially being a good audience, and I want to thank them for it. The problem is that I can't thank them directly without breaking littering/trespassing laws.