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Prayer for You
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Feast of Torches
Compiled by newsletter editor Gretchen GilesIn recent celebration of the Feb. 2 Pagan holiday of Imbolc, Rob suggested that you make a pledge to the Goddess about your main intentions for the coming year. Also known as Brigid's Day, Candlemas, the Snowdrop Festival, and Ground Hog Day -- among others -- this festival originally marked the first day of spring. Now working from a different calendar, we instead celebrate those first stirrings of fecundity marked by the calving of new animals, the Goddess appearing as a maiden again, and the smallest sprigs of crocus beginning to appear. Imbolc is a time of reflection and divination. How, Rob asked, is this rebirth be apparent in you? What intentions will you intone? As always, our newsletter readership was pleased to oblige. HOMMEDEPLUME's response is lengthy but eloquent. She writes, "I am a writer and artist celebrating my first year living in New York City. Any year is a difficult time to live in this city, but this past year was particularly challenging, as I know it was for people living all over the country. They say you know you are a New Yorker if you know where something used to be and is no longer. The events of this past September have ensured that we are all New Yorkers. "Last week my boyfriend finally confessed to me that he had withheld information from me that would have led to two performing arts gigs, one as a singer, another as an actress. As my boyfriend is also an aspiring actor, I have withheld or downplayed my own abilities and interests in the arts. I didn't want to compete with him or his self-involved friends. I have focused instead on my aspirations as a writer, which is truly my number one passion. "Oddly, I have not written well or much this year. Instead my entire year has been spent in some twisted and bizarre form of self-enforced humility. Granted, what I have achieved this year: moving to the big city, finding a job, a place to live, and a fantastic a cappella women's choir to sing in -- have been no small achievements. Still, I can't help but feel it is partially due to my own attitudes concerning my talents and desirability that I lost these two opportunities. "This year I intend to honor my talents and my abilities as what they are god(dess) given rights. It is my hope that this is the year that they will also begin to be profitable yielding to an abundance of creative joy and cash that I can share with the world." "Last Imbolc," writes ALLISON, "I was walking widdershins around a well with other Imbolc celebrants feeling like a kitten out of her box. I left the circle and just stared into the moving mass of Witches, wanting to be anywhere else. I finally stated my intention at the well like everyone else, and it was something about manifestation. Well, even that confused statement of intent resulted in all sorts of crazy doings in my reality since last February. Well, I'm going to try it again. And this year, with the Chinese Horse behind my intention, I will ask the healing, fire wielding creative Brigid to stand behind my intention to manifest passion: Passionate love. Passionate work. Passionate life. Oh, my! Blessed Be." RON responds, "My true intent for 2002 is to free my life of all its clutter -- not just the obvious material clutter that sits in piles around my apartment, but all of the emotional, and even spiritual, clutter that distracts me from focusing my attention on my truest goals and desires." And MS. VENUS JONES vows, "My main intention for the coming year will be to try to live in the present moment as much as possible. Simple, but not easy, and a great place to start making changes." MVKYUMMY declares, "I intend to outdo the thrice-weekly average perpetrated by pea-brained publishers of women's magazines by making love thrice daily: once with my Beloved; once with my own heart-center; and finally, slowly, deeply, with the vision I wish to manifest in this world. Let's hear it for the power of the root chakra!" Whilst WENDY intends to "live a brave life of love and treat my mind, mouth, hands as prolific lasers of free verse." LIZ will "get away from losers and find a nice guy." And DONNA aims to "allow more love into my life." And JOCI vows, "My true intent for the coming year is to fall in love, not with a lover (or at least, not just with a lover), but with life and all that embracing it entails. I have spent a stagnant half-a-decade pining and mourning for things lost and cowering in fear. No one ever told me that fear is the antithesis of love, so I could not figure out why, when I was being so careful, that which I most sought so completely eluded me." KK pledges to "be love, and beauty, and serenity. I will allow all that is me to bloom forth with feverish grace. I will be open to the openings and nourish myself with the unexpected. I will not plan my outcome, for the universe holds more for me than I could ever imagine." NADIYA plans to "love myself silly. . . . and to make my life the grandest, loudest song and most eloquent, spiritually-erotic poem that cannot be denied by any fear, any self-pity, or any self-righteousness." GREG is vociferously wise, set on kicking "the emotionally abusive alcoholic stepdad out of my head and heart and to at last live the life that is MINE to live. To take my revenge on him not by acting against him, but by living well in the way of MY choosing!" KRISTINE has hopes, not absolutes. She writes that she will, "try to appreciate all the goodness in my life instead of concentrating on any negatives. I will be aware of the negatives, I will tackle them head on -- fixing problems, leaping obstacles and smoothing rough edges where possible. But, where it isn't possible, I will simply accept that I cannot do everything and focus on what I can do." "I've kept myself in the desert for too long," says AS. "It's time to let myself come home to the moist, dewy, leafy, verdant rainforest gardens I have pined for, both metaphorically and geographically. And lastly, to learn the lessons life has been patiently trying to teach me -- to let go with grace, to hold hope in my heart, not my hands, and to love myself." OSKARBLU gets authentic when he or she declares, "My true intent for the coming year is to let go of the psychological and physiological padding that I have mistakenly taken on in an effort to 'protect' myself from the sharp corners and rough surfaces of this world. I do not need these insulating beliefs and extra pounds -- they are not serving my higher and lighter purpose. I release them! I cavort in the snow and wear outrageous clothes and I speak my mind and believe in the value and truth of my own experience!" SARAH's main intent is to "hold love. . . . I don't invite challenges, but with love I will meet them, love will grow and the challenge will wither. I invite passionate collaboration and confident creativity to live in the world from my roots up and not from my tummy out, from assurance and fulfillment and not from need. This year I will hold love and ground." "I want to see with my heart first, using my brain to help with the details later," writes JENNIFER. "I want to add to the positive flow of love and life force here on this troubled plane. I want to find another soul willing to go head-to-head, heart-to- heart, and toe-to-whatever to try to build a relationship that one day might spur a family. My intent is to forgive myself from my past mistakes in order to give myself more openly to today." CEACEA plans to "be true to myself. . . . I have always been in abusive relationships whether work-related, or even my children not treating me right as a mother. This year I will . . . learn my Goddess in me. I've put this off for four years since I really became enlightened. This will be the year of my healing and strengthening." "I don't want to be scared anymore," admits ROSENDA. "I want to do what I want to do regardless of what anyone thinks. Forever. And not be afraid of the consequences (like pissing off my father, horrifying my mother, alienating my friends, etc.). I am so tired of being so considerate and caring in that way; I've done so my whole life, and the only person not happy is me. . . ." GASCONNE writes, "The specific goddess whom I honor at Imbolc, Brighid, is one to whom I do owe several promises. The big one is to use the creative fire she gives me in constructive ways. Asking for something and not using it is a good way to lose it. I've already taken steps toward that end, but I need to take more and not rest on those laurels -- or should I say snowdrops? It being her time of year when I am contemplating this doesn't amaze me. She's been working her way into my life these past several years, and the urge to vent some creative power has been rising in parallel." And TT dedicates this year to "generosity. I am generously acknowledging the perfection of my life and getting out of the way to let it happen. Each night I tell myself a story while falling asleep. The story is about someone who's made a difference, and how those differences have brought me ultimately to bliss. A cleaning of my closets, under the bed, hidden boxes, and hidden agendas is taking place to set my material and mental energy free to follow its intended path. I generously give myself up to the universe to take me down this honey river. My friend Mona and I have been sending each other letters with PRONOIAD lists of evidence that the universe IS conspiring for our happiness. Watching for the evidence, I've found that the universe has been extra kind and bent over backwards to make sure I feel included in my own life. Putting up giant road signs and dropping hints on scraps of paper like fortune cookies must be hard work when trying to convince me that THIS LIFE THING IS NOT A SPECTATOR SPORT! This whole year is a chance to give back. The giving IS the getting." GODDESS SHEWHOBEHOT solemnly intones, "My true intention is allowing the once sleeping seeds buried deep within the rich fertile soil of the garden of my life to germinate and grow, springing forth with an abundance of love, sex, and money. I want and now call forth to receive love; love and sex; love and money; love and sex and money; love and money and sex. I want and now call forth to receive sex; sex and money; sex and love; sex and money and love; sex and love and money. I want and now call forth to receive money; money and love; money and sex; money and love and sex; money and sex and love." And ALISON briefly rhymes, "My true intent for the upcoming year is to tone down my temper. I want to discuss rather than argue, laugh rather than yell, and wish all the maniacs on the road well rather than an eternity in hell." ANAM CARA shortly reports an intent, "To buy a cherry/firecracker red Honda EX with leather to celebrate my 72nd year on old Mother Earth." Whilst DEVORAHMUSE will "tell those I love in the most detailed terms how much they mean to me and how I recognize where and how I may have faltered and failed now and then in the past and that I wish to acknowledge this and promise to be mindful of my actions where they are concerned. I intend to hold simple gatherings with loved ones and to simply be enjoying the simplicity of our greatest gift -- each other." ANGELIC DAWN cries out her desire to "be wildly, fabulously FREE! To be unbound, unfettered, unleashed. To be bold and take the reigns of my life, to be the warrior on the back of the wild, winged steed that is my passion! To love passionately, without attachment, fully and with courage. To spread the love and joy of my life everywhere, to the farthest reaches of the universe. To be ME!" NUFF SAID intones: "I want to practice my art for the rest of my life. I want to move people. I want to inspire others. I want to grow." And MIRIAM rouses herself just long enough to write, "My true intent is to dedicate and dictate my life to the pursuits of sensual, productive laziness -- a warm fatty layer of dreams gently softening the tension of my musculature -- and to absolve lovers everywhere from the general obligation to obey any scientific laws that detract from, destroy, or deconstruct the minutiae of bliss. . . ." LINDA's aim is to "live authentically. No more will I bruise my body and sicken my spirit by forcing myself to follow a path of someone else's choice. I will invite Bride to comfort me as I give birth to the Divine child. Myself." TERESA gets out the metal (and mental) glaze, intending to "paint my own mirrors, to find my reflection not in others but in my self." While VIOLET breathes, "I intend to understand the spaces between." HUNTWINN plans both the chase and the victory by declaring, "I will light candles around my apartment with the express intent of manifesting a new career and getting off of disability. I am going to drag my middle-aged butt back to school in order to study computer graphics and to flirt with younger men; hopefully, as a result, I will be back in the workforce and have a new slave at my feet, too." JOHN's aspirations also have him by the seat. He relates from Missouri, "A page on my 'Little Zen Calendar' for Jan. 27 featured a quote from a Rabindrath Tagore. It says, 'Don't let your whole life go by in the dark. Evidently the only way to find the path is to set fire to my own life.' My main intention for 2002 is to do something every day that sets fire to my own life. My other main intention is to get off my butt and move to Los Angeles." And PHOEBE sings, "My Intention for the New Year is to heal my Wimp/Bitch split. I have seen great progress in transforming the Wimp into Kwan Yin, The Compassionate One, She Who Is Without Anger. Last night I dreamed she gave me a magical pair of iron arms as big as my carpenter boyfriend's and she showed my how they are used for aiding, comforting, and showing off! But who will the Bitch transform into? And what power will be released as I live that transformation this year? I INTEND Her to be warm, strong, passionate and perhaps less pig-headed than I know myself capable of being." While MERI trills her intent to, "divine a path through the treacherous forest of Good Intentions to reach the waterfall of Successful Delight." KATE pledges to "grab firm the renewed purity that the season offers. I managed to defile last year's [purity] through self- deception and cowardice, believing the 'reality' that the world has dictated to me, afraid to follow what my heart croons as my fate." KHADIJAH admits to having just fallen deeply in love. Ah, but here's the rub: "Neither he nor I are ready for what this connection entails because we are nowhere near as deeply in love with ourselves. Thanks to this love from another, I have deepened my intention to learn to love myself." And finally, SHERI speaks of her true intent to revive "all of those untried, forgotten, or otherwise tucked away 'yes's.'" |
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© 1995-2008 -- Rob Brezsny. All rights reserved
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