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Katherine Ariadne
20 July 2007 @ 10:41 am
$)(!^, We are going on RAGBRAI  
I really thought we weren't going this year. I haven't packed. I haven't lined up the things I need to line up.

I just found out last night. Our team stages at my parents' in West Des Moines at 9:00 A.M. tomorrow.

Wish me luck. See you in a week.

www.ragbrai.org
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Current Mood: rushed
 
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Katherine Ariadne
19 July 2007 @ 07:06 am
June Intensive at the Grove  
I'm still processing all the ways this year's story, and particularly *this*part* of the story is affecting me. I was at Diana's Grove from June 28th through July 1st and it seems that life leading up to it and since then is at a heightened state of "profound."

The Mystery School is living the Tam Lin myth this year, and we were just at the point where Jennet has gotten pregnant and Tam Lin says he will meet her again the next afternoon. He doesn't show... nor the next day, nor the next... Of course he's in the land of faery where time runs a little differently, but Jennet feels betrayed and after weeks and weeks of indecision and confusion she comes to a decision and reaches for "the bitter herb." And in the silence of that moment, that moment as she is reaching her arm out and pulling the herb from the ground, she hears Tam Lin's voice. "Hold on. Believe in me. Hold on."

The story as we are living it is allegory. It's the story of a mortal in love with a dream. I am a mortal in love with a dream. Dreams don't know time as we do. (For example, I expected my dream to have manifested a good URL by now.) I have at times felt betrayed by my dream and have come so very close to wanting to give up. In the silence of the weekend I was able to hear my dream again. To know that my dream needs me as much as I need my dream.

Big. And that's not even all of it!

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Current Mood: grateful
 
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Katherine Ariadne
18 July 2007 @ 11:59 am
July New Moon  
Hey look! A Moon Shadows post! That was the original intention of this blog. It looks like I stopped doing the Moon Shadows work in Ferbruary; well, it wasn’t long after that, but I don’t think it worth it to try to recreate those missing entries. Moving forward…
 
As before, the bold text is from the Diana's Grove Mystery School Moon Shadows journal.
 
Belief
New Moon - July 14
During the time of the new moon, the land calls to the wild within you.
 
The wild believes in you. From the shadows of the stones, the brambles and the stars, a wild voice is calling. Listen. Step outside your door, outside your tower, into the night, to your own wild borders – and beyond.
 
Reach for the wild
 
A Celtic Cross, spread before you, and – we come to what covers you. What do you believe? And what believes in you?
 
Tam Lin asked Jennet to believe in him. And here is a secret that is powerful beyond imagination – the wild believes in you. It must. It must, because, just as you long for magic, the wild yearns for its magic to become part of reality. And for that, dear Mystery, it needs you. No wonder the wild knows your name so well.
 
Magic and reality, and you as the bridge between. So will you put down your work? Lay it aside, lay it in your lap, close your eyes and listen. Outside, the land and the shadows are calling. Within you – do you feel your own shadows answering? Kin to kin, wild to wild – let the wild mystery within you answer, and step outside, into the night.
 
Wild without – will you listen to the call?
From the shadows under the trees, the stars, the crescent moon, how does the wild call to you? What voice does it use, when it asks you to believe magic exists?
 
The wild knows I want to be larger. To be a part of something larger. To make a difference. To let go of my attachment to small things. Petty things. It knows this, and it whispers in my ear that it is possible.
 
From the wild without to the wild within –
Tam Lin asked Jennet to have faith, and believe. When you reach into your own wild shadows, what do you find to believe in?
 
A local organized Pagan community which offers some of the things a church does. Support for families. Study groups. Celebrations. Scouting. Meets the needs of its members.
 
What happens when you act on that belief?
 
Things actually happen! I don’t know why this should surprise me. If, instead of sitting and feeling blue and thinking nothing will ever turn out, I schedule a lunch date with a friend to plan an upcoming event, the event gets planned. Like magic!
 
Name this new moon for what you believe in.
This is the new moon of . . . Making it happen.
 
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Current Mood: cheerful
 
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Katherine Ariadne
17 July 2007 @ 06:55 am
Dual voice trance with a 6 year old  
No, I'm not talking about offering dual voice trance to 6 year olds. I'm talking about the 6 year old was one voice and I was the other. Okay, she will be 7 next month, but still.

Let me interrupt my story with a little information. Here is how dual voice trance is defined at Diana's Grove: "Trance speaks to the subconscious in its own native tongue--that of imagery and metaphor. Dual-voice trance, in which two voices speak at the same time, confuses the conscious mind with two streams of thematically-linked but linearly divergent language. The steady beat of the drum becomes an anchor of stability, an island of safety on which to stand when the conscious mind gives up, lets old patterns fall away, and the subconscious takes over, hearing only what it needs to hear, and beginning to fill that space with its own personal story." (- [info]raenefall and [info]sisalfish)

Now I will admit we didn't use a drum (I can't make a steady beat while talking, so I knew it was better to do without) and we did not speak exactly at the same time; I did something of an echo voice.

So back to my story. Yesterday it was our family's turn to plan and lead our local children's circle. After talking about this time beween the holidays of Summer Solstice and August Eve and reading several stories, Zoe and I chose a theme--vegetation gods--and planned several activities around this.

After a discussion on that topic we wanted to offer a meditation or trance piece on the experience of being a plant going through the cycle of seed, growth, harvest, rebirth. I thought that she was going to do the "find a comfortable position and get settled" part and that I was going to lead the trace for all the children. However, after she got us settled she told us to imagine that we are a seed, and then she kept going! As she went through the whole cycle, I threw out questions like, "what do your leaves feel like?" and "what fruit do you bear?" She kept up the main part and brought it to conclusion.

I'll be honest that I was so caught up in my proud mama moment, that I didn't really check the others in the circle for any kind of feedback on how the trance was working for them. Nobody got up and wandered away, anyway. :-) I was really focused on her in the moment and supporting her in any way I could to make this experience as successful as possible for her.
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Katherine Ariadne
16 July 2007 @ 09:55 pm
The incredible moving labyrinth  
I've been meaning to write about this here in my blog for some time. (Oh heck, I've been meaning to write in my blog period for some time. -lol-)

On Mother's Day I put a labyrinth in my yard. A huge mowable labyrinth. The path is 38 inches wide with about that much space between the paths.

I was out there with little orange flags for hours. I can draw the with pencil (or with lawn paint as I did back in 2005) in my sleep. But having those wide spaces between the paths really throws off the math! I did get it in, and it is huge.

Because it was touching both the back property line and the side property line, I let it grow out and moved it last Wednesday (11th). This went a lot faster. Amazing what a little experience will do!

I love having a labyrinth. It's great to go out there and walk it. It's big enough that I can forget where I am in it, and if my mind has wandered particularly far, I can even forget if I am on my way in or my way out. I haven't biked it since I moved it, but that is fun, too. (Hey, [info]antijengrrl bring your bike over!)

It's still too close to the back property line, so I will be moving it again. Maybe next spring. I want to be able to put some kind of trellis/fence with vine on it along that property line so we have some kind of boundary when the farmer sells out and we get a housing development. Then between that and the labyrinth, Husband wants an extension of the mountain bike trails from the west yard.
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Katherine Ariadne
25 April 2007 @ 03:59 pm
Disruption  

Saturday, April 21st I went to the IPAN Weaving Community Symposium 2007 (www.ipan.org). Thank you to all the organizers! I had a good time and plan to come back next year.

The evening ritual was a labyrinth walk. A lighted labyrinth walk. Have I told you how much I love labyrinths?

We all stood outside the circle/labyrinth while the invocations were done. After a grounding, we walked in, evenly spaced, to contemplate our life's path. The priest/esses at the quarters called out "simple" questions. What do you leave behind? Where are you going? Following the path we each reached the center, turned, and walked out again. I was sheparding several children, and with my dual awareness the questions got into me. Very powerful.

At the entrance, now the exit, we were offered a stone to represent the next step on our path. I drew mine from the basket and sheparded the children to the top of the hill for our two hour drive home. They compared the writing on their stones. Flow. Intuition. I looked at mine. Disruption.

Disruption? What kind of crappy next step is that? Who the hell wants diruption? Clearly it was my fault for not being fully present in the ritual.

Disruption. Upheaval. To interupt the course. Hmmmm. I realized that I'd been in a funk. A non-blogging funk. A no daily practice funk. A dissapeared from friends funk. An unproductive, not doing laundry, not cleaning the house well, not doing the things I love, I-just-want-to-escape-from-this-funk funk.

Disruption. Interruption. Upheaval. Granted, I had already started taking steps to get out of it (after all, I did drive two hours to get here), but with disruption as my motto of the day, I'm shaking off the lethargy and cobwebs. I'm disrupting them. Blessed be.

 
 
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Katherine Ariadne
28 February 2007 @ 11:44 am
Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse March 3rd, 2007  
I have seen a lot of talk about the Lunar Eclipse this weekend, and I've seen some incorrect information.

Here is my contribution. I believe all my calculations are correct, and I provide links so that you can double check.


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Katherine Ariadne
18 February 2007 @ 01:12 pm
February New Moon  
As before, the bold text is from the Diana's Grove Mystery School Moon Shadows journal.

Laying Down your Work
February 17 - New Moon
During the time of the new moon, the land calls to the wild within you.

The shadows the new moon casts – the wild within you hides in those shadowed corners. From the shadows of the trees, the stones, the brambles, a wild voice is calling your name. Listen – step outside your door, outside your tower, into the night, and step into the hidden possibilities the wild holds.
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Katherine Ariadne
17 February 2007 @ 03:20 pm
Dedication to an Element  
I've been mulling this over since I began the February Moon Shadows work at the beginning of the month.

Water - rains and rivers, tears and blood...

Will you learn to flow, to rise and fall? Will you, like the seas, answer the call of the moon and leave the depths as you reach out for the shore and then, leave the shore to find again your own depths? Will you rise and fall in the endless movement between self and other that is told by the tides of all relating and relationships?

Water - Offer to hold and serve the element of communion and serve the one who brings the gift of softening that allows intimacy.

To water in its many forms and to the people we become when we have the courage to reach out to one another...I dedicate myself. I am willing to learn the mysteries of water.

In reading the monthly Mystery School packet I realized that this is what I want to do.

The packet says that, in the context of this year's story, when choosing to become an apprentice, "It was customary to bring a gift, to make an offering as a gesture of respect."

We are instructed, "As a dedicant, begin an apprenticeship with an element and an elemental by offering a gift and then, by offering yourself as a gift."

Thursday evening (2/15), Zoe and I took my jar of Waters of the World to the western edge of our yard at sunset (5:47 p.m.)--had to run the last bit of the way to make it in time. I poured some of the water into the snow and told water why I had come.
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Katherine Ariadne
14 February 2007 @ 01:15 pm
A Robin. Really?  
I was standing in my kitchen this morning and looked out the window. There, perched on the evergreen bush, was a big, fat robin!

When, back on February 3rd, my friend Rebecca said she had already seen a robin, I first thought she was insane. I know she's not, so I assumed that robin must have been. Who wants to be in Iowa during single digit weather?

Today, February 14th, marks my official first robin of 2007 date.

My only other dates I managed to record are March 12th (of the year I forgot to record the year) and March 5th of 2006.

Could spring be coming?
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Katherine Ariadne
07 February 2007 @ 11:18 am
My 6 year old is a more formal ritualist than I am  
Sometime between Winter Solstice and Brighid’s Day, I got one of our attic spaces partially cleaned out and organized. (We live in a one-and-a-half story, so we have lots of little attic-like spaces.) Zoe and I turned it into a “meditation room.”
 
Sometimes we get out the cornerstones (actual stones with the names of the Diana’s Grove cornerstones Dremeled into them) and talk about them. Last night I decided to pull out colored candles and talk about the elements. So we did that and lit them. Then we sat and talked about whatever was on her mind, and we snuggled and chanted.
 
When it time to go, all I said was “let’s thank each element and blow out the candles.” I said, “Thank you, Earth.” She said, “Thank you, Water, for being in our circle. Go if you must. Stay if you will.” She makes me smile.
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Katherine Ariadne
06 February 2007 @ 03:57 pm
Imbolc Thoughts  
I had a really good Imbolc/Brighid’s Day/Candlemas/Groundhog’s Day weekend.
 
Early in the week Zoe and I set up a Brighid altar on the buffet in the dining room. She remembered the Brighid statues—mine from JBL and hers she made at our community celebration last year. She’s six and a half now. I’ve really only made a conscious effort to keep a seasonal altar in the house for a little over a year or so. How neat that she feels the pattern already.
 
On Friday the 2nd we went outside together shortly after the sun had risen high enough to appear over the trees and took turns standing in the sunlight and watching our shadows on the bush in front of the house. Darn. Looks like six more weeks of winter here.
 
Saturday we had 30 some people over for our community Brighid’s Day celebration. You can read about here: http://www.geocities.com/momtose/kariadne/brighidsday07.html

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Katherine Ariadne
02 February 2007 @ 11:15 am
February Full Moon  
The moon rose here last night around 5:00 P.M and was full at 11:46 P.M. in the Central time zone (12:46 A.M. on the 2nd for those in the Eastern time zone).
 
I saw the moon low in the east when I was driving home from work. Big, but pale. Very ethereal. By the time I picked up Zoe and we got home, twilight was over, the sky was dark and the moon was higher and smaller. We sat in the car in the driveway and watched a rabbit nibbling on a locust pod. When we got out, it scared the rabbit who bounded away across the snow in the moonlight. We hurried through the bitter cold into the house.
 
February 2
Full Moon
 
The full moon calls the water to the shore, to high tide. The full moon covers the sandy beach, covers the pebbles that lightning has blasted and washed ashore. The full moon shines its light upon your world.

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Katherine Ariadne
02 February 2007 @ 09:55 am
Tarot as Monthly Oracle: February  
This month we are asked to make a dedication to an element for a year. A dedication to air--to inspiration, respiration, inhalation, exhalation... A dedication to fire--to light, flame, energy and heat... A dedication to water--to rains and rivers, tears and blood... A dedication to earth--to land and rock, all that greens and grows and takes a temporal form...

They all sound delicious. How to choose? Consult the oracle.

(Bold text is from the Diana’s Grove Moon Shadows journal.)

Tarot as Monthly Oracle

What is the gift I will receive as I listen to the elements?

Four of Cups. I see a person sitting under a tree with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Three cups sit on the grass in front of him. A hand comes out of a cloud (as on the ace) and offers him a fourth cup.

He seems to have plenty but is unhappy with it. The gift could be realizing and being thankful for what I have.

What will air ask of me or give me if I become a dedicant of air? 



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Katherine Ariadne
20 January 2007 @ 11:07 am
January New Moon  

I'll say upfront that this is not the most positive journal entry I have ever made. It does reflect how I have felt this week, though. I'll journal again in a couple days.

As before, the bold text is from the Diana's Grove Mystery School Moon Shadows journal.

Running into the Wild
January 19 - New Moon

During the time of the new moon, the land calls to the wild within you.

The wild knows your name. From the shadows of the trees, the stones, the brambles, a wild voice is calling. Listen – step outside your door, outside your tower, into the night, and step to the edge of your own wild borders.

( Read more... )
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Katherine Ariadne
03 January 2007 @ 02:06 pm
January Full Moon  

This was orignally posted this morning.

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Yesterday when I was looking at the full moon time (7:58 a.m. CST, 1/3/07) and the moonset, sunrise, and moonrise times, my eyes must have shifted because I had thought she was going to set before she reached full. However, that is not the case, and last night's moon was definitely "the" full moon.

Here is my favorite link for moon data.
http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/

I wasn't too worried because I do like the three days back, three days forward "rule." I value flexibility. -lol- Speaking of flexibility, the coven isn't getting together until the 7th to accommodate everyone's schedules and to avoid the moon's void of course on the 6th. I value people. :-D

I did want to do something for myself close to the actual moon, so when I got up this morning and headed out of the house to my car I took a few moments to gaze at the moon. I do not think I have ever (or certainly have not often) gazed upon the full moon in the morning. I am not what one would call "a morning person."

( Read more... )
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Katherine Ariadne
03 January 2007 @ 02:04 pm
Tarot as Monthly Oracle: January  

Originally posted the morning of Tuesday, January 2, 2007 .

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I just downloaded the first chapter of the Moon Shadows journal for Diana's Grove Mystery School 2007. Every year my work in that journal is somewhat hit or miss. I think this year I will use this blog as tool to keep me on track with it. There are many activities in the Journal, but I will try to share the monthly oracle and the naming of the full and new moons.

( Read more... )
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Katherine Ariadne
03 January 2007 @ 02:02 pm
Yule Thoughts  

Originally posted the morning of Friday, December 29, 2006.

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Perhaps not the most timely topic, but something that was on my mind last week and still is:

Wow, what a busy time of year. I had hoped to see many of my friends on Thursday evening the 21st at the Yule celebration at the Unitarian Universalist church in Des Moines, and again Friday night at our children's circle Yule sleepover at -------'s house, and again at social get-togethers.

However, I chose to skip the UU event in order to have a quiet Solstice evening at home with my husband and 6-year-old daughter. We planned to light the beeswax candles we made at Blessed Bee the Sun the previous Saturday, sit in front of the tree, enjoy "breakfast for dinner," and watch Zoe open her presents. We had just hurriedly done the shopping and wrapping the night before, and I was looking forward to sitting and putting my feet up.

You know what? That is exactly what we did.

There were some friends whom I did not get to see that weekend because the UU event was the only chance I had to see them. However, spending quiet time with my family and teaching my daughter how to phrase a spell and light a candle was so worth it, and seemed to be part of the true meaning of the holiday.

Love and bright blessings to all!

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Katherine Ariadne
03 January 2007 @ 01:50 pm
First Entry  

I hope I have finally found a journal/blog/whatever with features I want.

I have a few entries from the last few days that I'm going to post and get everything caught up in one place.

 
 
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