Casting with Feri Fire

The first blog today will be the one I intended to write yesterday. I have this excellent book called Evolutionary Witchcraft, written by T Thorn Coyle, a Reclaiming and Feri practitioner, that I've adopted some of my regular spiritual practice from. I want to work more on some of the exercises in the book, so my idea is to do some of the writing exercises from each chapter here on my blog. I'm going to be as open and honest and possible here. It is not my intent to offend anyone. The purpose of doing these exercises here is to continue the idea of writing often to overcome my fear that writing and doing things that are important to me is a waste of time.

The first chapter is called The Sacred Sphere: Casting with Feri Fire. It deals with opening to the energies unique to the Feri Tradition and some ritual basics that are familiar to many Pagans, grounding and centering, and casting a circle.

This exercise is called Finding your Feyness. Exact text of the exercise from T. Thorn Coyle's book is given in italics.

Divide a piece of paper into three sections and begin to answer the following questions, one for each section. What in your life makes you feel "different"? What fears keep you from cultivating the sense of walking "in-between" What changes would you make in your life to cultivate the fey point of view - to dance, to dream, to stand tall, to have deep knowing? Make a list of all these things in your three sections. Check back with them in a few months. Are you answers different, or the same?

I think that last portion of the exercise is the most important. Checking back in, seeing what still holds true, which things are still holding you back. Maybe after facing one fear, another takes its place. Spiritual work is not completed in a few weeks or months, it is the work of your lifetime

Section 1 - What in my life makes me feel "different"?

Being intelligent, thinking about things in a way other friends and family don't. For example, I find it fascinating the word methelglin derives from the Welsh word meddyglyn. The Welsh for mead is medd and the word "metheglin" is from a compound of meddyg, "healing" + llyn, "liquor." My family cares about the taste and the alcohol content. And they think beer is better anyway. (specific details here from Wikipedia article)

Section 2 - What fears keep you from cultivating the sense of walking in-between?

I'm afraid of being thought crazy if I spend too much time in the "magical" world. I don't want to lose touch with reality. I want to know that my choices are responsible for what's happening to me, not outside "occult" forces. At the same time, I fear separation from my friends who do walk more in that world, because I find myself judging them as nuts when they look for magical solutions before practical ones. At the same time, I'm envious of their freedom from the mundane, 9 to 5 working world I live in most of the time.

Section 3 - What changes would you make in your life to cultivate the fey point of view - to dance, to dream, to stand tall, to have deep knowing?

The magic I do believe in is the magic of action. You can light green candles all day long, but if you don't send out some resumes and make some calls, you'll never find a new job. You can tie up rose petals in pink sachets all you want, but if you never go out on a date, you won't find love. Action in accordance with will is what makes change. To cultivate a more fey point of view, I need to not be afraid of the weirdness as long as I know I am acting in accord with my own wishes and needs. For a long time, I put my needs before my wishes. When I ignore my wishes, I'm ignoring my own feyness. In Feri/Reclaiming terms, I'm ignoring my Sticky One/Younger Self, which is the part of the spirit that lives closest to the space between the worlds. This part of me doesn't deal with practical needs (money to put food on the table, a roof over my head, a car to get me to work to keep getting the money I need to put food on the table, etc.) It deals with the needs of my heart and soul, the need for bright colors, good smells, cake, dancing and singing.

So my challenges from this exercise are to eat more cake, and create magical symbols of the things I am working to bring into my life.