April 1st Moot 2015 with Medway Pagans

The “Labyrinth Walk” created by Kevin Groves

Medway Pagans had its monthly moot on April 1st, and this month we did something a little different – a public night of tarot readings and spiritual healing. I’ve never actually had any sort of reading or healing performed before so it was quite a new experience for me!

The evening started with a very simple ritual, calling upon the quarters and asking the deities to protect us and bless us with insight. Then we could move on to the readings.

First I had a tarot reading with my very old friend, Phoenix Rose. She knows me pretty well so it was quite funny having a reading with her, as she could guess what many of the signs indicated alluded to in my life – for example, the male figure in my life providing strength and support could be none other than my husband! She then told me that sudden, unexpected change was on the horizon – something that ultimately would be positive, but for which I would require the support of my friends and family.

The second tarot reading I had seemed to confirm a lot of what I had heard from Phoenix – the main theme was going “out with the old, and in with the new.” So change would seem to be on the books!

I then had a rune reading with Kevin Groves, a Kemetic Pagan who practises a number of different spiritual readings and healings. Unfortunately, the runes didn’t seem to like me as much as the cards – the runes refused to reveal anything on the first two attempts, and on the third attempt one of the unluckiest runes leapt out of the pile straight at me as they were dropped! Kevin recommended taking some magical protective precautions against any misfortune. On the fourth attempt we finally got something – an indication of an anxious day occurring in the future, but that everything would turn out for the best eventually. This did seem to fit with something upcoming in my family life.

I then tried Kevin’s “Labyrinth Walk,” in which one walks around a spiritually-charged labyrinth made from ropes laid on the ground, the idea being to try to find answers to questions in one’s mind, or simply enter a meditative state. I decided not to have a question in mind for the labyrinth (since trying to have a question in mind for the rune reading didn’t seem to work!) and let it take me on its own journey. It reminded me of Zentsuji Temple in Shikoku, Japan, which features a long maze-like path underneath it is completely pitch black; one must keep one hand against the wall in order to follow the path in the darkness. Again, the idea is that walking this path puts one into a meditative state.

Finally I had a combined crystal/tarot reading from one of the ladies at Woodland Magick in Gilligham. I first picked out three gemstones that I was drawn to, and then had a reading from a “Crystal Tarot” deck. This proved to be really insightful – even thought we’d never met before, everything that she told me about my past and present was spot on, and when suggesting what could happen in the future, she gave me some answers to questions I’d had at the back of my mind.

At the end of the evening, we said farewell and thanks to the quarters and deities for their presence.

It was a really enjoyable evening and I’m so glad I managed to have so many different spiritual experiences!

Yule Moot 2014 with Medway Pagans

Tonight was a particularly special moot with Medway Pagans – a Yule ritual followed by traditional Christmas dinner. This is an annual event for Medway Pagans, but for the first time it was held at the social club where we meet rather than a restaurant.

The moot began with a ritual by one of Medway Pagans’ founders, who also happens to be one of my oldest friends (she also wrote our handfasting ritual). It’s the first time I’ve seen her perform a ritual and as always it was great – both serene and energising at the same time. She follows a particularly Wiccan-oriented path, and this showed in her ritual, which included casting a circle with an athame. That’s one thing I love about Medway Pagans – anyone can choose to lead a Sabbat ritual which leads to a lot of variation and personalisation. In keeping with Yule, she served spiced cider and chocolate yule log for the simple feast, which went down really well – although I regretted taking such a big slice of yule log once I saw the size of the dishes served at our three-course Yule meal!

One other thing that was a little different to other Medway Pagan rituals I’ve been to was we had some Pagan-friendly Christmas music playing in the background throughout the evening, including the ritual – I think it really added to the atmosphere and perhaps I’ll try the same thing when I come to lead my first ritual (Lammas).

The ritual was followed by the full Christmas dinner, including turkey, beef, sprouts, roast potatoes, mince pies, Christmas pudding – you name it! It was really, really delicious but so generous that we all struggled to finish it! We also did Secret Santa (the present my husband and I got was perfect because it was two bangles with pentagrams on them – his and hers!), pulled crackers and got merry and silly.

Right at the end, one of our members brought out some crystals that she sells, and I decided to buy a Chiastolite, a mineral I’ve never seen before – it has a distinct, natural cross pattern in the centre which I found fascinating.

It was a lot of fun and a fantastic way of celebrating the rebirth of the sun at the solstice.

The Good Things about the New Age Movement

Chunky piece of quartz crystal, which you can buy at my Dad’s shop http://www.spiral.org.uk/acatalog/Crystals_and_Fossils.html

In recent years, the New Age movement has been subject to plenty of bashing. At best, its detractors call it tacky, insincere, self-indulgent and a rather silly mash-mash of cultural appropriations. At its worse, critics accuse it of pedalling pseudo-science and magical “cure alls” that exploit the desperation of vulnerable people while dangerously discouraging those who are ill from getting genuine medical help.

I think that these are all genuine concerns and I absolutely detest seeing greedy and manipulative people using “New Age” cures and treatments to con people out of thousands of pounds’ worth of money. While I don’t think there’s anything wrong at all with selling crystals and charms for “good luck” or charging money for things such as tarot readings or psychic readings (the charge involved is usually small and the clients tend to enjoy it, so it’s worth paying for the “entertainment” value if nothing else), I think there is something very wrong with claiming to be a substitute for proper medical care and saying that you can cure anything for the right price. And I’ve seen plenty of practitioners who could be labelled “New Age” who do just that. For the record, I think that alternative medicine should be seen as “complementary” medicine and is absolutely not a substitute for mainstream medicine. If alternative healing methods work for you, that’s great – but I personally will always go to the doctors before seeking alternative medicine.

Anyway, despite those unethical individuals who have given the New Age movement a rather bad name, I actually think that New Age has done plenty of good – in fact, most of it has been positive, in my opinion. And I think that today’s Pagans have a lot to thank the New Age movement for. And here’s why I think the New Age movement really isn’t so bad:

1. The New Age movement is extremely eclectic, borrowing from absolutely everywhere – Hinduism, Buddhism, Daoism, Christianity, Judaism, Native American beliefs, secular movements such as Humanism, and plenty of weird and wonderful beliefs such as the UFO movement. In fact, I would say that New Age is a spirituality of everything – perhaps the very first popular movement of its kind to say that all religions and beliefs were linked together and should be celebrated. And as I’ve mentioned before, I think eclecticism in spirituality is a very good thing; I believe it can make us more tolerant, open-minded and spiritually enriched.

2. Like the Hippie movement to which it is related, New Age encourages a degree of political engagement, especially in environmentalism, feminism, World Peace and the preservation of indigenous culture. It got people to stand up and work for a better world.

3. New Age provides a form of spirituality suited to modern, urban society – but, arguably, without supplanting those religions already in place. For example, say you are a Christian who feels disillusioned with the way the religion is practised and taught. You would find the New Age moment embracing slightly different aspects of Christianity, such as focussing on angels or using Gregorian chants as music for meditation. And the New Age movement would also tell you that Christianity was also linked to all the other religions in the world, meaning none are “right” or “wrong,” and that they merely reflect different aspects of the Divine. In this way, New Age would help you to embrace Christianity and perhaps re-capture your faith, albeit in a slightly different manner to what is traditional.

4. Through its emphasis on sensual experiences, such as music, aromatherapy etc., New Age encourages creativity and open-mindedness.

5. New Age strongly acknowledges the link between a healthy mind and a healthy body, and encourages the individual to focus on both.

6. There is a certain element of enjoyment in New Age. Those who practise aspects of the New Age moment do so because they find it fun and fulfilling, not because they are told they must do so to fulfil societal obligations or, worse, they will be punished in the afterlife if they don’t. (This is of course with the exception of those unscrupulous businessmen who make claims that you will get sick if you don’t purchase their particular brand of New Age snake oil.)

7. Finally, this is rather contentious, but I think the New Age movement did a lot to popularise Paganism, and enrich it as well. Before it was picked up by the New Age movement, Paganism was practised rather secretly and was poorly understood by the masses. But by linking Paganism to all its other belief systems, New Age helped to build Paganism into a religion which soon became perhaps the fastest-growing religion in the UK (the other contender for this title, Islam, is easier to measure because it is an organised religion, and so we may well see Islam come out on top for this title in official records for this reason). In part thanks to New Age, many of the old ideas surrounding Paganism (and Wicca) as an anti-Christian, “satanic” path were much dispelled, and people began to see Pagans instead as being rather much like Hippies – harmless, earth-loving and peaceful.

What’s more, Paganism picked up lots beliefs and practises from the New Age movement. A good example is crystals. When I first started going to moots, I was rather surprised as how much emphasis was placed on crystals – the way I saw it, crystals belonged more in the New Age tradition than in the Pagan one because our ancestors probably wouldn’t have used crystals that much – mining didn’t really exist in the time of the druids after all! But the fact is, crystals fit very well with the Pagan and Wiccan ideas of the energy that is contained within the natural world, and using that energy for beneficial effects, and it therefore seems natural to incorporate working with crystals into Pagan ritual. It doesn’t really matter that the practise probably didn’t happen among the Pagans of the past.

Of course, there are plenty of Pagans who aren’t keen on the New Age movement, and accuse it of creating a generation of “Fluffy Pagans” – in other words, those who have learned about Paganism only from the more dubious pocket-sized books on Paganism from New Age shops (or popular TV shows), and those for whom Paganism is all sweetness and light without any dark sides (I personally see nothing wrong with this…). And perhaps this is a valid point – one could argue it is a form of cultural appropriation, just like the affectation of Native American rituals without a full understanding of their meaning. But I believe that, all in all, the New Age movement has done a lot of good for Paganism. And let’s face it, we’ve all spent plenty of hours in New Age shops stocking up on crystals, essential oils and candles…

May Moot with Medway Pagans

Selenite cluster. My own selenite isn’t quite as impressive…

Yesterday I went to the May moot of Medway Pagans. It was on the New Moon, which is apparently a good time for charging crystals. Which is what we did.

We all brought the crystals we like to use in rituals – it was really interesting to see all the different crystals people have, and hear the stories about how they acquired them, and why that particular crystal is special to them. One member of the moot is particularly knowledgeable about crystals, and identified any crystals we owned that we couldn’t identify. I only brought one crystal – my large chunk of selenite, which I used as a Maypole over Beltane – but it turned out by far to be the largest crystal anyone brought! I’m not sure what that says about me…

I’d never charged a crystal before, but the ritual is very similar to consecration – we blessed the crystals with the powers of the four elements by first immersing them in earth, then sprinkling them with water, then passing them through fire, and finally holding them over incense smoke. We then held the crystals out to charge them, by imagine our own energies passing into the crystal and focussing on what purposes we would like the crystal to serve. I often find these parts of ritual, where we stand still for an extended time, rather amusing – because I have POTS, standing in a fixed pose for an extended period makes my heart beat very fast, so it literally does feel like I’m in contact with the spirit world! Finally, we anointed our crystals with an essential oil of our choice. I selected patchouli (a favourite among Goths!) and it was very strong – I only put three drops on my crystal and even now, a day later, I can still smell the patchouli when I walk into my living room where the crystal stands!

This was followed by a bit of handicrafts. Some might say that arts and crafts has little to do with paganism, but I would argue that actually, arts and crafts engenders many of the characteristics also promoted by paganism – creativity, taking pride in making things for yourself, and helping the environment by recycling things in order to make something beautiful. I wasn’t feeling particularly inspired so I didn’t make anything,although I did contribute to the moot’s collection of craft supplies with a few ribbons and trinkets from my own collection. But there definitely are a few things I’d like to make, so next time we have an arts & crafts session at the moot, I’ll try to remember to bring some more specific materials for my own craft projects.

Some Spontaneous Spirituality

Throughout the May Day and Sweeps period, I’ve had this small, simple centre piece on my living room table, consisting of an upright piece of selenite (my “May Pole”) sitting on a mosaic mirror and encircled with a wreath of paper leaves and roses. The other night, I decided to light a “Forest Walk” scented candle I’d just purchased from Gaia Creations and place it in front of the crystal. Although I did this purely on a whim and without any ritual purpose, the effect was hypnotic. I sat there for ages simply gazing at the way in which the crystal caught the flickering glow of the candle, which was also gently reflected off the tiled mirror. It made me picture mighty, ancient mountains and the immense power buried deep within the earth.

It’s funny how sometimes the most simple things can be the most enchanting and spiritual.