MEET UP #5: Full Moon Circle

Ready to find out everything you ever wanted to know about a Wiccan full moon circle?

After work on Friday (another Friday, don't people like to crash after the work week?) I drove to a church about forty minutes away in suburbia near where my parents live.

I forget how DARK suburbia is until I'm driving through pitch black streets, usually lost. The streetlights are few and far between and the signs not that big so finding the church was a challenge. Suburbia is also pretty quiet. No honking horns and people fighting with each other at the top of their lungs as they walk down the street, dogs barking incessantly, or loud music. Ah city life.

So the feeling of suburbia is at once peaceful and kind of unearthly.

I reached the church in plenty of time and had to wander about a bit to find the entrance. It's a two story structure with a deck and elaborate stairs all around the building. It looked octagonal. I could see into the main room on the second floor, which sort of floated above me.

Inside, people greeted me but were involved in their own conversations so I drifted about a bit looking "new" until someone took me in hand and started introducing me to people. Many were also new, which was nice. Many were dressed in long flowing skirts or pants and tops with braided cords around their necks. These were the 'weavers,' which means they held some sort of status with the group, including administrative (planning the meeting).

In the kitchen there was a huge spread of brownies, chocolate covered strawberries, fruit salad, cookies and All Things Sugar. Normally this would make me very happy, but I hadn't eaten dinner so craved some vegetables, of which there were none.

Soon we were called into 'the circle' outside the kitchen. We were instructed to get a cup of tea with some honey if we liked (I liked), and to write an intention for the evening (one or two words) on the tea bag itself with a food marker. Who knew such things existed? Wonderful!

Being that I was feeling tired and hungry and unsocial, I wrote love on mine because I needed to feel some of that for myself and the project at that moment. I wanted to really engage (I want to do that at each event) with the other people and myself and whatever the group is about, if only for the two hours I'm there - really try it on to see how it fits and feels.

We then formed a circle and held hands and practiced some chanting that would be used during the main circle (I'll give the chants to you later). Someone turned off the lights and we formed a procession into the main room of the church, each bowing to the person who held the door and whispering our intention sort of into our tea mug.

Did this feel weird - absolutely! But I did it anyway.

Inside the room looked like this (sorry so dark!):

The above shape was expanded to more of an oval because we had 33 women and some wanted chairs (like me) not pillows. Eventually, we were all situated. That's the cauldron in the middle. On the table below it were written cards for different parts of the ritual, lots of tea lights, matches, other objects I couldn't make out in the dim light. Two large candles stood in the center of the cauldron. One had "Thirteen Moons" written on it which, because I'm a writer, made me think of the Mary Oliver book of poetry, Twelve Moons (great book).

We again held hands and this time the circle was officially cast. A circle in Wicca is a sacred space where the energy of the participants and the resulting power of that gathered energy are kept in and anything negative is kept out. The visualization one of the women led us through was actually great: she told us to imagine a pool of our own personal energy sparkling beneath our feet, to draw that energy up through our bodies, up through our head to cascade down on us in a glittering shower (I pictured sparklers on the Fourth of July). Then we were to concentrate the image of that energy in our torso - chest or abdomen - and pass it to the person on the left through our hand. By each person doing this, a circle of energy would be created. Then we imagined that energy expanding outward to fill the room and then out past the walls of the church, rising up to form an egg-shaped cone around us and the church.

For some reason, I had no trouble imagining this. I've watched enough science fiction movies, I guess!

What's interesting is that my hands heated up during this practice, as did my neighbors' hands. Hmmm.....

Someone stepped forward from the four cardinal directions: north, south, east, and west, picked up one of the cards in each of those spots and read what was on the card.  I couldn't tell you what was said, couldn't retain everything, but here's what the directions basically stand for:

NORTH:  Earth - considered the ultimate feminine element. Fertile, associated with the Goddess (what most religions would consider a saint - more info)

EAST:  Air - connected to soul and the breath. Communication, wisdom, the power of the mind. 

SOUTH:  Fire - purifying, masculine energy, strong will and energy. Creates and destroys. Symbolizes fertility of the God. 

WEST:  Water - feminine energy, connected to aspects of the Goddess. Healing, cleansing, purifying. Associated with passion and emotion.  

After the card was read a candle was lit and the next person stepped forward for the next direction.

For this full moon circle Brigid was being focused on. Known as St. Bridget in Christianity. Associated with Imbolc (St. Brigid's Day):

The Pagan goddess Brigid is perhaps one of the oldest goddesses of
Celtic Europe still recognized and worshipped. In fact, until the
mid-twentieth century in Scotland, she was still welcomed in at
Imbolc by the symbolic rekindling of the hearth fire after
the house had been cleaned from top to bottom for spring.

Brigid has been known by many names, mostly depending upon the specific
location or time period. Worshipped in Ireland, Wales, Spain, France,
and Britain, she was called Brighde in Ireland, Bride in Scotland,
Brigantia in Northern Britain, Brigandu in France, and also
known as Brid, Brig and Brighid. The name Bridget is the Christianization
of these pre-Christian goddess names as will be discussed below.
Her name is taken to mean "Power," "Renown" and "Fiery Arrow of Power."

(For more on the myths and legends about her.)

The woman leading the ritual held up a God's Eye, which we all made in grade school (only it probably wasn't called that!). You make it out of sticks and yarn. It originated with the Huichol people in Mexico. It was made with sticks and a straw colored yarn. A sun symbol.

The Ojo de Dios or God's eye is a ritual tool, magical object, and cultural symbol evoking the weaving motif and its spiritual associations. For the Huichol peoples of western Mexico, the God's Eye is symbolic of the power of seeing and understanding that which is unknown and unknowable, The Mystery. The four points represent the elemental processes earth, fire, air, and water. The Ojo de Dios, or God's Eye, is a simple or complex weaving made across two or more sticks and is thought to have originated with the Huichol Indians of Jalisco, Mexico. (More info)

As you can see, there are so many associations related to this event, I'm trying to give you opportunities to explore further if you wish. I can't go into so much detail. Bear with me!

The God's Eye was passed from one woman to the next and we were to each tell the group the following:

Our name
Magical name if we had one - I don't, of course.
The name of our mother, grandmothers, and great grandmothers (if known). So mine are: Ann, Thelma, Victorine, Rose, and Clara.
Where we were in our cycle (period).
What was 'brewing' for us in our lives right now.
Then we were to say 'aho'

'Aho' is often used by Native American tribes to conclude a prayer. Similar to the use of 'namaste'. Anyone who has taken a yoga or meditation class knows namaste.

Aho: The meaning of the Native American word "aho" is to honor the union of the spirit with self, others, nature and the Creator.

One young woman said her name was Caroline and her magical name was Carrie. Don't think she understood the difference between magical name and nickname....

I forgot to say that we were told several times that we could 'pass' on doing or saying something any time. We could leave the circle and come back in whenever we felt uncomfortable. As I was going for it as much as possible, I answered all the questions.

There were some deep things 'brewing' for people. I was surprised by the frank honesty: sobriety, a miscarriage, a terminal illness in the family, a canceled wedding. Intense stuff.

As you can imagine, with 33 women, this took a while. One woman bounced in at the last minute and slid into the circle just in time to take the God's Eye and give her spiel. She sort of took over and got very "me-centric" which I found annoying. She talked on and on about herself when most of us had taken 30 seconds. She obviously had had a positive day, but we were all much mellower and her insertion into the group and high energy delivery of the required information felt like nails on a chalkboard to me.  I tried to be glad that she was in such good spirits, but once you rub me the wrong way, it's hard to go back.

Next the leader read a passage from Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (surprisingly, happily, not the passage everyone always reads about living the questions, etc.):

Here, where an immense country lies about me, over which the winds pass coming from the seas, here I feel that no human being anywhere can answer for you those questions and feelings that deep within them have a life of their own; for even the best err in words when they are meant to mean most delicate and almost in- expressible things. But I believe nevertheless that you will not have to remain without a solution if you will hold to objects that are similar to those from which my eyes now draw refreshment If you will cling to Nature, to the simple in Nature, to the little things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so unexpectedly become big and beyond measuring; if you have this love of inconsiderable things and seek quite simply, as one who serves, to win the confidence of what seems poor: then everything will become easier, more coherent and somehow more conciliatory for you, not in your intellect, perhaps, which lags marveling behind, but in your inmost consciousness, waking and cognizance.

After this we all picked a tea light candle and wrote a wish or word of intention or short phrase around the metal base with a Sharpie, lit it, and placed it in the cauldron of water so there were 33 of them floating about.

Apparently Brigid is connected to the forge in some way so someone passed around a sort of anvil and hammer (very small) and we each hit the hammer against a copperish looking metal shape (a heart) a few times. This part I found a little forced and lame.

Once that had passed around the circle, we fished out a candle (not ours), blew it out and poured the wax in the water to see what shape it formed. This is a form of divination we were told, called cremancy, if I heard correctly. Couldn't find info about this. It's an interesting idea. Mine was mostly a clump of wax with a few squiggles, which immediate crumbled to pieces when I scooped it out of the water.

The young woman next to me, Sally, decided hers was a pirate. Much more imaginative than the many rabbits and bird nests others said they had. One woman decided hers resembled a python. She owns them, and some are sick, so I heard a great deal about AIDS for pythons. Sad - one doesn't like to hear of any creature suffering - but quite odd.

We were then to take our candle to Raven, who was a poetess, as she called herself, who then transcribed the words or phrase onto a giant poster board of blue sky and clouds, into a group poem.

Again, I tanked - my candle base was blank. Someone had put some of the blank votives into the water with the written ones and I'd pulled one of those out. I guess that's the Universe saying I struck out on my wish/intention.

Still, I like the candle thing better than a fortune cookie.

Raven read the group poem (think Hallmark card, not a poem), everyone seemed to be amazed or misty-eyed except me. It was more a pep talk than anything else, with some nice, uplifting ideas like 'open to love' etc.

The leader of the group led a blessing, The Nine Waves:

Nine waves before you,
Nine winds above you,
Nine paths beneath you,
Nine fires transform you,
Nine wells sustain you,
Nine wisdoms open you,
Nine gifts given you,
Nine skills given you,
Nine strengths given you,
All Ninefold the blessings of the Goddess.

from a blessing by Caitlin Matthews
Encyclopedia of Celtic Tradition

In the Celtic tradition the ninth wave marks the end of the mortal world. Beyond that is 'Otherworld' where magic happens, where only the soul can travel. The practice is a spiritual one, again related to the Goddess.

I like the blessing, but still just don't get the Goddess thing. I can relate to Nature (with a capital N), but once you anthropomorphize things like the moon and sun and earth and wind, etc. into Gods and Goddesses, you've lost me.

Are you tired yet? Because I was exhausted. I felt so drained and I had a headache. So ready to leave.

More chanting: The Way of the Well by Starhawk (I actually read her book Spiral Dance in my twenties, when I was 'exploring').  She is a theorist of Paganism and a leader of Eco-Feminism. I found out later this chant is set to the tune of a South African freedom song:

We will never
Never lose our way to the well
Of her memory
And the power
Of the living flame it will rise
It will rise again

We circled and chanted while one of the women drummed. She got really into it with the drumming and singing - harmonizing and doing variations. Many of the women seemed to be in a semi-trance-like state during this part. I shuffled along with my head down, as if part of a chain gang, desperately wanting to run back to my car. I had reached my comfort threshold, but kept going because it's good to step over that threshold, but I hated every minute of that circling and chanting and drumming. I'll be honest. Even as I admired the women for throwing themselves into it because they loved it.

Because I'm a writer, I will always be the observer. Sometimes 50% the observer, sometimes 10%, sometimes 100%. I can never totally disengage.

Drumming and chanting finally ended (OMG this went on for 10 minutes it felt like), we merged into one circle again, and the circle was closed and broken with a drawing in of the energy that had been raised at the beginning.

It was 9:00 p.m. and there was 'feasting' - tables with cloths and chairs being set up and the platters of sweets and fruit brought out but I couldn't face it. I slinked off to the car, made a quick list of the night's activities (with the heater at full blast, it was freezing), took two Advil, drove home and fell into bed.

Despite the weird moments, I would go again. There was a kind of magic in being in a ritual and circle with so many women. I'm curious to see if my discomfort would fade somewhat. The activities vary based on the time of year so I'd like to find out what the evening might consist of in, say, April, my birth month.

I forgot to mention that on my way out I picked up one of their free pens:

Gotta love a group with a sense of humor!

I hope I've earned a good grade on this post. I feel like I've just written a paper for a college class. Go ahead and mark me off for all the 'to be' verbs. I don't care.

Aho.

WHEN:         February 3, 2012
WHERE:       Unitarian Church
WHO:           33 women (ranging twenties to fifties)
COST:           $0
MILES:         73.6 miles RT
RATING:      8/10
THEME:       Spiritual (Divine Feminine)

MEET UP #3: Knitting

The morning of the knitting Meet Up I woke up to this:

This is actually not the view outside my window - I live in the city in a neighborhood of row homes - but it's prettier. It's near the Mill where the Meet Up was being held.

So, an inch or two of snow, but with icy rain on top and still falling. Very cold. Very gray. Blech. AND, I had to be there by 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday. AND it was a half hour drive.

I'm sorry, but I am not a morning person. I don't pop out of bed all perky and excited for a new day at 5 a.m., meditate, exercise for two hours, then yoga, then a smoothie with algae in it. Gag me. I am very much the kind of person who, on a gray snowy day, stays in bed with tea and a book and maybe gets up to brush my hair around two.

If only one could just have a Meet Up in bed. Not that kind. At least, not yet!

But that's not the point. The point is to get out there and meet people. To do what I normally wouldn't do. To not take the easy way out on a Saturday morning and let inertia win.

To look back in December and have an accumulation of experiences that add up to a well-lived year.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I was sick on Wednesday and missed the knitting Meet Up on Wednesday (fortunately, they have three of them a week in various places, so I didn't actually miss anything). I did get ready, drive there, and start walking up to the restaurant clutching my needles and yarn, ready to join in, but I saw the 25 or so people in the window, sitting in a packed cluster together, knitting and talking and I felt so tired.

Going to a Meet Up requires some level of being 'on' and I just didn't have it in me at that moment. Not for 25 people. Not for 5 people. What I had was a sore throat and a headache. So I went home.

That meant no excuses on Saturday morning. It took me a bit to find the place; I kept making wrong turns. I finally found it but had to park in the lower area because I couldn't figure out how to get to the upper parking lot (twisty turny roads). This meant a treacherous climb up some thickly iced steps in sneakers, and a long walk in the cold across the mill 'campus' to the other side where the weaving building had been. Inside I found a boutique mall with some cafe-ish type places to eat. It was totally empty - some of the stores were still locked up, except for two women knitting by one of the cafes. Couldn't miss them.

I introduced myself and they were very welcoming. This is a theme so far. Everyone I meet seems to be very happy that I've joined the group and showed up at an event. This is a new thing, in my experience. A friend and I were just discussing this phenomenon last night.

It hasn't always been the case that people are glad that you're suddenly inserting yourself into their group. Groups used to be clique-ish and closed off. If you weren't invited or brought by a member, you were an intruder and not wanted. Frozen out.  I have been guilty of this behavior myself, in my twenties. You feel really powerful in your twenties. Like high school power (if you had some then) but with the freedom of adulthood thrown in. You don't live with your parents and you have your own money. No one is the boss of you! And that means you can decide not to like someone because of how they look or talk or whatever stupid reason you think is a good one. You and your group will be together forever and no one who doesn't belong is going to get in.

What a load of crap. Of all the people I hung with at that time, I only talk to one person still. My best friend. The rest? I have no idea where they are and, though I wish them well, I don't care. I'm open to anyone now. People are fascinating (most of them) and I can usually find one interesting thing in every one I meet, even if I don't plan on meeting them again.

So, knitting. Carol and Jenny (again, not real names) made me feel welcome. Carol moved her chair over and immediately started teaching me to knit. I was relieved that there were only two people. One: because the crowd of 25 at the restaurant on Wednesday was too much for me (I need a smaller group, if possible, I've discovered - better chance of connecting than being swallowed up by a crowd), and two: if I'm learning something new, I don't need a big audience to make me any more self conscious than I already am.

I'd borrowed yarn and needles from my sister, who took up knitting with a group, then abandoned the knitting but kept the group for the wine and conversation. That's my kind of hobby! you might say, but I'd actually like to make a scarf, so....

It's clear to me now that my brain is a bit of a jumble these days (maybe I haven't learned anything new in a while, which is not a good thing), because I had trouble following how to 'cast on' (get the first round of stitches onto the first needle), which they called a 'gauge' stitch, probably related to the gauge of the needle, but others I've told about my experience called it a 'knit' stitch or 'plain' stitch.

You do a sort of cat's cradle thing with your left hand and then weave the needle through the loops and then pull through so the 'stitch' is now a loop on the needle. Then you repeat until you run out of yarn (hopefully you pulled out the right amount for the right length or width of your project).

I'm usually a visual learner, but something about the weaving and looping and cats cradling at 9:30 on a very cold Saturday morning was not working for me. I had eaten chocolate for breakfast because running late so I think all the synapses I needed were firing merrily in the wrong directions as a result.

I did finally get it. If you're interested, here is a video with the basics. The cast on method is different, but actually easier, I think, because it mimics the plain stitch moves you do once you have one needle full of stitches and are ready for the next row using the second needle.




There is annoying music with this video that I muted while watching. Very distracting and not at all suited to the subject! I guess it was trying to make knitting hip or sexy, neither of which it is.

Eventually I had both needles in play and managed a few rows of the plain stitch. My moves with the needles could not have been more awkward but I did feel fairly proud of myself and Carol was very encouraging, telling me I'd picked it up very quickly and that I'd just learned 90% of what I needed to know in ten minutes. That's a pretty good return on one's time. Why aren't more things like knitting? Like college?

We then tried the purl stitch, which creates a 'V' shape, and seems to be a reverse of the moves for the plain stitch. This one turned out even more awkward and I kept messing it up and having to pull out a stitch and do it again. The result looked nice, but I got myself into something of a snarl with very tight loops on one needle that made it hard to pull the other needle and yarn through. I managed to fix it and decided to do a plain stitch for the rest of the piece.

By then seven more women had shown up with various complicated projects (to me): sweaters and booties and reversible scarves with ruffles. The woman with the sweater, Sandy, needed help figuring out the number of stitches for the size she wanted and I could not repeat the talk of how to calculate them that went on for ten minutes. It was way too complicated for my reptile knitting brain.

Some women had these cool, slim metal needles attached to cables that enabled them to make both booties at once, or a sweater or a very long scarf. I want these now!

If I have the cables, I can knit a scarf lengthwise rather than width-wise, which takes longer. I'm committed to width-wise now, but for future reference, that's the way to go - with cables. For now, whatever. I'm happy with what I have. I'd like to be able to check 'knitted scarf' off my list of things (great and small) that I'd like to accomplish this year. Apparently, a good sized scarf is 60 inches.

I made lots of mistakes, but also learned that multi-colored yarn covers up a multitude of sins. Hurray!

I also learned:

1) Knitting needles don't click. The metal ones sometimes do, very very quietly. So if you're a writer and one of your characters knits, don't put in as a sensory detail that the needles clicked. They don't. Not really. I will never make that error again.

2) The women don't talk like wise crone mothers or something, telling folktales, exchanging herbal medicine recipes, and dispensing sage advice. They talked about deaths, illnesses, shoes, and football (big game that weekend). Sigh.

The closest we got to fulfilling the second myth was when one woman told a story of finding a stash of yarn bought by her husband's grandmother decades before. The grandmother bought it for ten cents, fifty cents, etc. and the color was a lovely pale peach it seemed would be hard to find nowadays (especially now, jewel tones are in). The yarn itself was very thin and tight. The woman in the group and her daughter (who wasn't there) were making a sweater together to sort of carry on the grandmother's hobby and purpose for the yarn. Nice, but not as good as a folktale.

Another knitting group collected at a nearby table; they seemed like a class. They were a noisy bunch, but my group didn't seem to notice or feel competitive. We were quite quiet, actually. There were long stretches of silence like I've not experienced before. A mix of slightly uncomfortable (not, OhMyGodWouldSomebodySaySomething. More like, It would be nice if someone said something, I'd prefer it, but it's okay if not, still, could someone say something?), and slightly focused and peaceful. A bit of tension, a bit of calm.

I really wanted to tell them about my Meet Up project and ask them what they thought of gathering like this. What prompted them to join. Who had they met? Had friendships formed? What did they get from the experience? I figure I should be asking people these types of questions. Be a Meet Up Anthropologist/Sociologist.

But I chickened out and when asked why I'd joined the group said I wanted to meet people outside my regular social circle. Which is true.

I stayed over two hours, though, and knitted two inches. Later, in the evening, I knitted another two inches, and did one more last night. That's 5 inches. Only 55 to go!

Next Up:  A meeting of a pagan group. We're going to make our own runes then learn how to cast them. It will be my fourth Meet Up event and I'll have completed January.

Here's my knitting so far - that really is 5 inches; it gets bunched up! - and a (hopefully) cool picture of a bridge near the Mill. (Seriously, doesn't it make you want to go back to bed?)

WHEN:        January 21, 2012
WHERE:      Old mill buildings converted to boutique mall
PEOPLE:      9 (all women in forties or fifties)
COST:          $3 (toll road)
MILES:        46.94 miles RT
RATING:     7/10
THEME:       Craft