Keeping the Days: Sky and Flame

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Sunset from Cadillac Mountain, Acadia National Park, Maine

Participating in Enchantment: Reflections on Magic

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Susan Greenwood, The Anthropology of Magic.
New York: Berg Publishers Ltd, 2009.
Review by Alison Shaffer

After the flight to Charlotte, North Carolina, two days earlier, I had learned one thing for certain: I was not a natural flyer. My first time in an airplane in more than fifteen years had left me feeling queazy and disoriented, retreating to the quiet sanctuary of my hotel room for the evening as I attempted to ground myself in a new landscape and a new city hundreds of miles from my home in chilly, hilly western Pennsylvania. High-rise buildings, a depressing lack of trees and green park space, people walking around without jackets in early December: I'd spent the trip feeling out of sorts and cut off from my usual sense of place. Now, I sat anxiously in the claustrophobic cabin of the plane, preparing for the flight back to Pittsburgh and worrying that I was in for another nauseating, jolting ride.

Susan Greenwood's latest book, The Anthropology of Magic, was tucked into my carry-on. The text was academic in flavor as well as subject matter, and clearly it had been written with the new student of anthropology, rather than the lay magical practitioner, in mind. A more accurate title for the book might have been "Competing Theories About Magic, And What It Really Is, In Anthropology," though that would have admittedly been far less catchy, and a bit cramped on the spine. The text introduced a good number of scientists and researchers who had spent their long, distinguished careers studying the practice of magic and shamanic techniques in tribal cultures throughout history and all over the world. Some of the names I recognized from my college days studying comparative religions, but even still I had often felt my head swimming as I worked through Greenwood's arguments. I'd spent the past few days reading her intense (and sometimes convoluted) discussions of the myriad competing theories of consciousness, ritual, reason and myth that have been informing and shaping the field of anthropology for the past several generations. While I knew such a book wasn't your typical how-to Magic 101 that many Pagans might enjoy, I also knew that the text held something immensely valuable for those seeking to deepen their understanding of magical work as a spiritual practice. It would take time, and some rigorous intellectual work on the part of the reader, but it would be worth it. As our plane taxied into place on the runway, I took a deep breath and pulled out the book, flipping through the loose pages of notes I'd taken and thinking once again about the nature of magic.

Keeping the Days: Earth and Stone

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Mushrooms of Acadia National Park, Maine

Love What Makes Us Wonder

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Folks, it's been a sniffly, mopey week here chez Ali, as I do my best to sweat and sleep my way to good health in time for my partner's and my up-coming week-long Big Fall Wedding Tour 2010, during which we will be doing things like: driving all over creation, camping on the beach, praising the gods of the threshold, investigating potential vendors and venues for our wedding, and introducing me to my future mother-in-law and other relatives. Not to mention, yesterday a hacker-virus-thing made its way into my gmail, triggering an automatic suspension of my account and officially deleting this blog for an hour or two, sending me into panicked sobs and hysterical blubbering (overly-invested much?) before it was eventually restored, but not before thoroughly nailing into my thick, mucus-filled skull that it's definitely time to begin the long process of transferring this blog to its own official domain name (more on this a bit later in the month). So let's just say I've had a lot on my mind this week.

But all you loyal readers deserve a post before I head off into the great southern roadscape. So I'm going to do my best, despite my head-cold-muddled mind, to give you one.

What I'd like to talk about is mystery.

The subject is prompted most immediately by a post by a fellow who goes by the name of Ravendark over at the blog Atheist Druid, which I stumbled upon a week or so ago thanks to Heather of Say the Trees Have Ears. Both of these writers are well worth keeping your eyes on. I've been reading Heather for a while, enjoying her emphasis on art, science and observation of the natural world which is modulated by a certain humility about her own experiences and uncertainties — something that is quite refreshing when so many other writers out there in the Pagan blogosphere are so full of snark and self-importance (not that I mind a little snark now and then, don't get me wrong). Ravendark's atheist blog, quite a new venture it looks like, has so far been intriguing; I've always enjoyed engaging atheists and agnostics in conversation (which may be why I've dated quite a few of them in my time — that is, when there wasn't a good Zen Buddhist around), and so far Ravendark's musing on deity and organized religion have proved quite interesting. (We'll forgive him for skipping over the niceties with me and instead emailing my partner, Jeff, to commend him for his excellent Druid Journal, which he found through this blog. This is one of the effects of the Druid archetype, I'm afraid: the older man with the beard must surely be the wiser and more experienced Druid than the young woman with the Celtic armband tattoo — even if she has been practicing almost twice as long. But no, I'm not jealous of my fiancé's clout, not at all. I mean, he's like, what?, fifty or something? and his blog has its own domain name, so clearly he must be more qualified, Ali continues her plotting...^[1])

Keeping the Days: Water and Well

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Witch Hole Pond, Acadia National Park, Maine

Excerpts from the Qur'an and the Poetry of Rumi

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The most helpful book on the Qur'an that I have ever read is Michael Sells's Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations (with audio CD). In this book, he not only provides subtle translations of the text, a sound introduction to the history and cultural background of Bedouin/Arabic poetry at the time of the Qur'an's writing, and a thorough discussion of the role of recitation and verbal prayer within Islam — he also provides extensive commentary on each sura, exploring some of the many themes and recurring imagery throughout the text. Below are some excerpts from his translations of the earliest suras, along with my own attempts to paraphrase and expand on some of his commentary.



The Small Kindness (107:1-7)

In the Name of God the Compassionate the Caring

Do you see him who calls the reckoning a lie?
He is the one who casts the orphan away
who fails to urge the feeding of one in need
Cursed are those who perform the prayer
unmindful of how they pray
who make of themselves a display
but hold back the small kindness

Keeping the Days: Northern Ireland

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Normally these photographs would be entirely my own, but I wanted to take this opportunity to share some beautiful photography by others who also attended the "Celtic Spirituality and Peacemaking" retreat in Rostrevor, County Down, Northern Ireland last month. All of the photographs are copyright and owned by the artists themselves; please do not use or reproduce them.


Around Rostrevor




Church Street, Rostrevor (Amy Kong)

Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal (8)

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In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, I attended a retreat on Celtic spirituality and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. The hosts of the retreat asked us to respect the safe and sacred space created by the community, and refrain from attributing direct quotes to any of the attendants or speakers. With that in mind, the following are excerpts from the journal I kept.

Day Eight — The Last Day

It's a little after 4 PM, and we've just returned from our last trip into Belfast. I feel... full. Emotionally, mentally — this past week has been intense, meeting with so many people, processing so many perspectives, and then having so many wonderful conversations in the meantime.

~*~

Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal (7)

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In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, I attended a retreat on Celtic spirituality and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. The hosts of the retreat asked us to respect the safe and sacred space created by the community, and refrain from attributing direct quotes to any of the attendants or speakers. With that in mind, the following are excerpts from the journal I kept.

Day Seven — Day of Silence

Is this a dream of mine, or something somebody told me? There is a house full of people, all of them moving and silent, and you cannot know where they are because you cannot hear them moving. It is dark. And so every once in a while, in the dark, suddenly you come upon another person — and you are both surprised, and horrified, to discover one another in the quiet, busy emptiness of the world.

Today, the house reminds me of this dream — except the rooms are full of sunlight, and against every windowpane a bee churns away its noisy presence into dust and nothing.

~*~

Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal (6)

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In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, I attended a retreat on Celtic spirituality and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. The hosts of the retreat asked us to respect the safe and sacred space created by the community, and refrain from attributing direct quotes to any of the attendants or speakers. With that in mind, the following are excerpts from the journal I kept.

Day Six — The Wise Man in the Woods

It's about 10 PM, and our day of silence has technically begun. Which means I may actually have half a second to write and complete my thoughts.

~*~

We came to a bird lookout-hut, a small wooden hut with horizontal slits all along its walls giving a view of the shoreline of the lake. The weather was rainy and gray — my hair was damp and matted down from the walk there — wind whipping the blue-gray waters of the lake into whitecaps. Absolutely gorgeous.

Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal (5)

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In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, I attended a retreat on Celtic spirituality and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. The hosts of the retreat asked us to respect the safe and sacred space created by the community, and refrain from attributing direct quotes to any of the attendants or speakers. With that in mind, the following are excerpts from the journal I kept.

Day Five — Brigid, Patrick and the Pub

I read something interesting in Thomas Berry this morning, connecting the Eastern religious traditions with a focus on the spatial, and Western religious traditions with a focus on the temporal. (p. 42, The Sacred Universe) The search and process of true-self authenticity, as he claims is the purpose of any religion, is located in the ever-present moment of wholeness and interconnection, and is in this way spatial, in Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Hinduism; whereas Western religious traditions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, conceive of the authentic self as a work-in-process, a being-becoming, so that at any given moment we are only a fragment of our whole selves along a linear journey towards an ultimate end. What we need, he says then, is a balance between the two, and more specifically to restore the balance in a Western society too overly focused on the temporal and linear, which has sacrificed the sacredness of the here-now immediate moment for the sake of some indefinite, idealized future.

Bonus Post: Gettin' Hitched!

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This is just a brief post to announce some very exciting news! For those not yet aware, at the beginning of August my partner, Jeff, proposed! (No, this is not an April Fool's joke!) Looks like Ali's gettin' hitched...

And being that we are both huge nerds (read: bloggers), naturally we figured our first order of business should be to launch a co-hosted wedding blog and website. So without further ado, introducing:

We're not exactly your typical mainstream bride and groom. We are pacifists, feminists and environmentalists. We are Pagans. And we are, as they say kindly, "creative types." We're a couple of weirdos, and we know it. And while this makes us practically perfect for each other — and quite cute as a couple, I like to think — we also know that we have family members and friends out there wondering, "What exactly is a pacifist, feminist, eco-friendly Pagan wedding going to look like, anyway? I'm not going to have to dance naked around a bonfire under a full moon chanting prayers to Gaia, am I?"

Wedding on the Edge is our answer to those uncertainties. (The short answer is, only if you want to!) We hope it will be a way of reassuring our loved ones, and inviting them into these wilder places on the edges of the normal. Let us begin with a picnic basket and a friendly wave. And who knows, maybe it'll provide a bit of inspiration for other couples out there, too, who want to know how they can plan a low-budget, eco-friendly, fringe-faith love-fest of their own.

This blog will mostly be a place for friends and family members to come for tidbits and insights over the course of the year leading up to the wedding. But it is our hope that other readers might also enjoy following along with our goofy struggles and mushy love stories, as we stumble towards a low-budget, eco-friendly, fringe-faith love-fest celebration. Maybe you're thinking about tying the knot yourself? Maybe you crave craft and party-planning suggestions that embrace alternative lifestyles? Maybe you just want to indulge your voyeuristic urge to learn about the intimate secrets of that intrepid author and blogger, yours truly. Whatever your reason, stop on by! (And if you like what you see, grab a badge and spread the word!)

We know we're not the only Pagans out there getting hitched (or handfasted, or whatever)! We'd love to hear from you!

Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal (4)

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In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, I attended a retreat on Celtic spirituality and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. The hosts of the retreat asked us to respect the safe and sacred space created by the community, and refrain from attributing direct quotes to any of the attendants or speakers. With that in mind, the following are excerpts from the journal I kept.

Day Four — Poetry, Landscape, Lectio Devina

I sat to pray by the side of the water, and everywhere in the mountains it was morning. I could watch the sun creep down towards the shore, slowly down the sloping hills, down the green, down from the low clouds where they drifted like hardly-held breath.

I sat to pray, and no words came, except the sacred silence, the intake of breath, the slow and gentle rearranging of my body to open and let in just a little more sky. What kind of prayer could I utter after this? When what I wanted most was only to keep moving, to keep shifting in this way, until every part of me was open, and the waters and the clouds and the mountains in their shining came rolling in.

~*~

I wonder if the gods feel this intimacy too, and if, in coming with my ancestors to America, they feel the loss of it as well. Does the land seem larger to them, sprawled out and scaled up — do they miss the smallness of it? That such a small and intimate land could be so full of gods — how could there be enough room? — and yet such a large land have only one.... In some ways it makes no sense.

Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal (3)

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In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, I attended a retreat on Celtic spirituality and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. The hosts of the retreat asked us to respect the safe and sacred space created by the community, and refrain from attributing direct quotes to any of the attendants or speakers. With that in mind, the following are excerpts from the journal I kept.

Day Three — Telling Our Stories

I find that I very much want to tell my story and that as I rehearse it in my head, new aspects come out, come into focus, in the narrative of my journey towards peacemaking. I want to share this.

Perhaps I want to share this more than I want to listen to others — and I wonder why this is. I'm trying to sit with that and not come down too hard on myself. There is a process of articulation that I am longing for, not even to be heard, but to hear myself telling the story again. Yet I do want to hear the stories of others as well, and as I listen (sometimes through thick accents) I can hear resonating ideas that I have experienced, too. The violence and sense of silent invasion of both illness and Western medicine, for instance. The lessons of dealing with abuse and creating and defending that safe space into which even the violent cannot and will not come. The experiences of war and the implications of being part of the culture of aggression, being implicated and a part of that violence against our own individual will — and how we resist, in all the little ways.