The Three-Fold Name

The Naming of Cats is a difficult matter,
It isn’t just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I’m as mad as a hatter
When I tell you, a cat must have THREE DIFFERENT NAMES.

I’ve been thinking a bit about names lately, inspired in part by an episode of Peter Paddon’s recently revived Crooked Path podcast (episode 4, to be precise), wherein he talked about the power of magical names, and the importance of treating them as distinct from online personas.  The show made me realize that although I’ve talked a little about the origin of the name Oraia Sphinx, I haven’t talked about my approach to names in general.  I encourage you to go listen to that episode of the Crooked Path, because I agree with what Peter says about names, but most of what follows is my own take on the subject (with inspiration from T.S. Eliot) and isn’t meant to represent his thoughts on the matter.

First of all, there’s the name that the family use daily

We each have a name we were given by our parents, the name that’s on our birth certificate, driver’s license, tax returns, and other official documents.  That name may have profound meaning for us, especially if we were named for someone special, or if we have come to identify with the original meaning of the name.  Or, it may simply be the name by which we are known to most of the world, important to us only out of long familiarity.

But I tell you, a cat needs a name that’s particular,
A name that’s peculiar, and more dignified

Whatever we may think of our given names, though,  many of us have chosen another name, one that we use in Pagan circles to represent our spiritual aspirations, our connection to a totem animal, or simply that part of ourselves we identify as magical.  In ceremonial magick, the parallel to this name is the magical motto and the initials thereof.  “Oraia Sphinx” is one of these sorts of names, and it’s one that I could see using at public events as well as online, but it isn’t the same as my magical name.

(When it comes to these names, of course, one might argue against the “more dignified” part of the quote when contemplating names like Lady Sparkle Moonstone Fluffybutt, in which case I encourage you to emphasize the “peculiar” part of the same line. *grin*)

But above and beyond there’s still one name left over,
And that is the name that you never will guess;
The name that no human research can discover–
But THE CAT HIMSELF KNOWS, and will never confess.

And then there is the magical name, what one might call the True Name.  This is a name that is known only to the individual and the Gods, and perhaps his or her coven, grove, lodge, or working group, as appropriate.  Whether chosen or conferred, this is a name of great power because it forms a direct link with the magical self and, I would argue, with the Divine Self or personal Godhood of the individual.  This power is not meant to be squandered through the indiscriminate use of the name in public contexts, and the revelation of it should not be taken lightly.

While the second name, the public “craft name,” may change several times as we grow in our practice, this third name is less likely to change, though it may well do so after profound shifts in our spiritual awareness, such as initiations.  In ceremonial magick, this corresponds to the name of one’s Holy Guardian Angel, and though there are (in)famous examples of such names being made public, I would still argue that doing so is best done after a great deal of contemplation.

At this time, my magical name is known only to me and the Gods, but that doesn’t mean I don’t use it.  One thing I have been doing as I create a body of ritual to work with, is incorporating this name as a sort of self-invocation.  After I intone the names of my primary deities, I vibrate my own Name as well; this has the effect of aligning me with my own Divine Self as well as my Divine patrons.  There are different ways to incorporate this, depending on your particular path, but even if you use your everyday, given name, you might find it interesting to try, and see what happens.

Personally, I think all of these names are meaningful.  We can look at names like layers of an onion, or octaves of a single note.  Perhaps all of our representations of ourselves are nothing more than variations on a theme, ways of expressing the inexpressible essence of our

Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

(Quotes are from T.S. Eliot’s poem “The Naming of Cats,” from Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.)

Spiders

I don’t like spiders.  They lurk, they jump, and they simply have too many legs.  And yet, there is a certain grace and elegance to them.  Their webs, a distasteful surprise when strung across a hiking trail, shine like works of otherworldly art when they hold the morning dew.  While I have long had a healthy respect for the role spiders play, in recent years I have also come to appreciate the aesthetics of spiders.

I have actually had to work at this.  A few years ago, I lived in a house on the bank of a river, and discovered a whole new world of spiders, both inside and outside the house.  I began taking pictures of the ones that built webs outside the windows, and bought books to learn more about the different species I encountered.  My approach was to ease my discomfort through familiarity, on the assumption that the unknown is much scarier than the known.  (To be honest, though, I still can’t leaf through those books for any length of time without starting to feel like something’s crawling on me, so I guess I’ve still got work to do.)

So I’m making progress on spiders, and I feel like that’s started to help me look squarely at other things that frighten and repulse me.  I can’t say I’ve found any beauty in oil-slicked wetlands, religious fanaticism, or people who turn to cruelty as a way to quell their own fear.  And I’m not saying I want to find beauty in them; frankly, I want to oppose them and prevent them any way I can.  But the first step is to be able to face them without flinching – heck, even with flinching, if that’s what it takes – and see them for what they are.  I’m not always able to do that, but I think it’s worth the effort.

And I’m making progress on spiders.  That’s a start.

Always More

I mentioned last week that I was going to be attending a workshop on identifying wild edibles and mushrooms, and so I did!  It was about a three-hour workshop, most of which took place in the woods with our two instructors, one of whom was a mushroom expert while the other was well-versed in other edible plants.

The weather conditions turned out to be unfavorable for finding many mushrooms; it’s been a bit dry, so there wasn’t much to harvest.  To compensate for that, however, the mushroom expert (must…resist…fun-guy joke) brought everything we needed to learn how to inoculate oak logs with shiitake mushroom spores!  So we each went home with our own pet log that will sprout yummy mushrooms in, well, maybe as much as a year from now – but still, very cool!

On the “other edibles” front, we had more luck.  I’m actually not going to go into too much detail about what kinds of things we learned to identify, or what you can do with them – I don’t feel comfortable passing that kind of information on because I’m a completely raw beginner in this field and whatever I say should not be taken as a suggestion to go out and eat something in the woods.  Even the people teaching this class carried multiple field guides with them to be sure of their identification skills.  But if you can find a workshop of this type in your local area, I highly recommend taking it; there’s no substitute for personal instruction by knowledgeable people in a hands-on setting.

The thing that really struck me was how my perceptions changed after about an hour in the woods.  Instead of lumping most of the plants into a general category of “green things to avoid stepping on,” I was spotting individual species, and even noting differences between some of the look-alikes that tend to grow together.  (For example, we found some Solomon’s Seal and False Solomon’s Seal growing right alongside each other.)  On the one hand, this was very satisfying, as it meant that I was picking up some skill at identification, but given how many plants I was noticing that I couldn’t identify, it also reinforced the experience I so often have – realizing how little I actually know.

And isn’t it exhilarating to realize that the more you look, the more there is to find?

All and Nothing

I was going to title this post “All or Nothing,” but then I decided to get all Buddhist on you.  That was after my schedule decided to go wall-to-wall crazy on me – but right in the middle of the upcoming fullness is a dharma talk by a Tibetan khenpo on discovering emptiness.  So I don’t know what to make of it.

Today I found a fantastic martial arts school that I think will suit me perfectly – it’s tiny, eclectic, with beautiful forms and friendly people who clearly work their butts off.  I’ve been itching to get back into training (and no, they don’t have a cream for that, so I had to find a school.)  Then I went off to sitting meditation, hoping to meet the aforementioned khenpo, who unfortunately had a headache.  But Friday’s talk should be awesome.

Then on Saturday I am attending a lecture/hike on identifying wild mushrooms and other edibles in my local area, plus a later workshop (elsewhere) on psychic shielding.  And on Sunday, if I am still able to sit upright, I have a tea party.  A corgi tea party.

(Have I mentioned I also have a podcast to put out on Friday and a book that still needs editing?)

As you can tell I’m feeling a little zany tonight, not to mention pressed for time, so this will have to do for my weekly blog post – but hopefully with all this awesomeness coming up, I will have plenty to talk about next week. 

But for now, I leave you this.  Pretty flower.  Calm flower.

Grins and Blessings,
Oraia

Kreativity

So yesterday I was surprised and honored to discover that Cory at New World Witchery has nominated me for a Kreativ Blogger award!  Thank you, Cory!

Now, this award has rules:

1. You must thank the person who has given you the award.  (Thanks again, Cory!)
2. Copy the logo and place it on your blog (Check!)
3. Link the person who has nominated you for the award (Done.)
4. Name 7 things about yourself that people might find interesting
5. Nominate 7 other Kreativ Bloggers
6. Post links to the 7 blogs you nominate
7. Let the nominated victims bloggers know they have been tagged

So now for 7 things that people might find interesting about me.  Hmm.

1. I took flying lessons before I took driving lessons.  My dad was a private pilot instructor at the time, and I was crazy about planes, so when I was about 15 or so, I started  lessons.  And…I didn’t actually like it.  (These things happen sometimes.)  But I continued to love planes, and when I was in the Air Force I did get to ride in several interesting aircraft, including a B-52 Stratofortress where – because B-52′s had only just been opened up to women pilots – I was the first woman that the crew had ever flown with.  I was  just a cadet along for the ride, and I wasn’t going to be a pilot, but it was still an honor to be acknowledged that way.

2. I am an unrepentant musical dilettante.  After being forced to take clarinet as a kid (and quitting at my first opportunity), I’ve dabbled in guitar, harp, tin whistle, flute, octave mandolin, and – most recently – fiddle.  But the instrument I have maintained the most consistent relationship with has been my voice.  For the most part, that just means I sing in the car. 

3. My degree is in physics, but I minored in Russian, which I started learning in high school. My high school class took a trip to what was then the Soviet Union, in fact, where I was introduced to the dessert possibilities of whipped cream.  Not on anything, mind you.  Just whipped cream.

4. I have been writing stories for as long as I can remember, mostly fantasy and science fiction, and for the past five years or so I’ve been writing novels.  There’s something addicting about feeling a story come together, especially when it takes months to write it.

5. All my life, I have had a memory of (what I believe to be) my death in a past life, in the form of a very specific physical sensation and a visceral reaction to certain imagery.  Only recently have I recovered enough detail to put it in context.  And I’m afraid that’s all I’m going to say about that for now. 

6. I spent a lot of time in trees as a kid.  There was this one sugar maple at the edge of our yard that I considered my friend, and I would sit in her branches for hours, reading a book or just hanging out.  We had some woods behind our house, and when I wasn’t climbing trees I was out sitting among them.  One year I trained a squirrel to eat out of my hand.

7. I am a huge Joss Whedon fan, and have watched the entire arc of Buffy the Vampire Slayer more times than I could say.  My favorite show of all time, though, has to be Firefly, short-lived as it was.  Is it wrong that I want to be River Tam?

And now for my 7 nominations:

1.Poetry’s Reclamation. This is a fantastic poetry blog maintained by Laura Gail Grohe, a close friend of mine whose work is often intensely mystical. Awesome stuff, and I hope she posts more. 

2. New World Witchery.  I hope it’s kosher to nominate the blog that nominated me, but Cory and Laine have done such an awesome job with both their blog and their podcast (both focused on American traditional witchcraft) that I couldn’t leave them off the list.

3. Earth & Magick. Meical ab Awen blends earth science and earth spirituality in his blog (and the podcast of the same name.)  Plus he’s got a wickedly funny sense of humor. 

4. The Abysmal Witch’s Blog. Saturn Darkhope, from the podcast Pennies in the Well, has a new blog!  There aren’t many entries yet, but what’s up there so far is inspired.

5. The Pagan Podcast Index.  Hedon’s Dog has done a phenomenal job in creating this resource for all of us who enjoy Pagan podcasts.  There is so much to keep up with!

6. Walking the Hedge. Juniper Jeni (from the Standing Stone & Garden Gate podcast) has created a fantastic blog full of humor, insight, and forthright honesty.  Definitely worth reading.

7. The Infinite and the Beyond. Mainly a support blog for Chris Orapello’s podcast of the same name (and I’ve been trying not to mix podcasts with blogs), Chris puts some great graphics and links into his posts for each episode. It’s always worth stopping by to see what’s going on with the show, which is one of my favorites.

So that’s that!  This post has taken all evening to put together, but I hope you’ve enjoyed my random thoughts about what you might find interesting.    Thanks again to Cory, and I’m thrilled to keep spreading the Kreativ blogger love.

Bright and Dark Blessings,
Oraia Sphinx

The Old Familiar Track

I went for a walk in the woods today, and found myself following the old familiar track without really thinking about it.  I haven’t been down this way in a while, but it’s comfortable, it’s familiar, it’s known.  I could go off the trail and explore – and I usually do, eventually – but I like the familiar track.

For one thing, it’s easy going.  I can lift my eyes and look around more, instead of having to watch my feet.  I also like following the same path on different days, and at different times of year, to see how this ground, and these trees, change over time.  Having a path to come back to after exploring also keeps me oriented, and gives me reference points in the landscape that can tell me where I am.

Spiritual paths can be a lot like that, too, with all of the benefits and drawbacks that come with familiarity.  On the one hand, having a long-term relationship with a single path lends depth to our understanding of it, and gives us something to steer by even when we step off it.  On the other hand, we can grow complacent walking that old familiar track, to the point where we no longer notice the details or pay attention to the very things that drew us to it in the first place.

An even larger pitfall, however, is that we can forget that we can step off the trail, and that there may be other paths through the woods. At its worst, this leads to fundamentalism, but even in small doses can lead to  parochialism and small-minded dismissal of alternative approaches.  The flip side of this is “path envy” – we see people on other trails and start to wonder if they know something we don’t.  We might start to wonder if the path we’re on is somehow inadequate, and either abandon it or get a bit defensive about where we’re walking.

That defensiveness can circle back around to a type of close-minded fundamentalism itself, when we look at where other people are walking and try to convince them that they’re on the wrong trail. “Oh, dear,” we say, “you’ll hurt yourself if you keep going that way.  The path is over here!”

Or we might approach them a little more casually, suggesting that they should be open-minded and try coming over to our path for a while, to see the woods from another perspective.  But how often do we make that suggestion when we aren’t willing to follow it ourselves?

Maybe I’m abusing the “path” metaphor, which has become something of a cliche.  And I often don’t like the way the language of “paths” is used in spiritual practice.  But sometimes it just fits the way I’m thinking, and today was one of those days.

On a final note, while no one accompanied me on the trail today, I did find evidence of those who had walked it before me.  And that felt nice. 

Restraint

Every now and then, I just have to take a deep breath and remind myself of this XKCD comic:

And then I have to go away and not post anything else.

Showing Up

Maybe it’s the spring buds starting to open on the trees, or maybe it’s today’s New Moon (in Aries, no less – the sign that epitomizes “charging in.”)  But something has got me really rarin’ to go on a number of projects, and I find myself having to be careful not to get overextended.  I’m in a phase right now where I’ve got a lot of things on my plate, and most of them are large or long-term projects that aren’t easy to be completely done with.  So I feel like I’m getting a lot done, making progress every day, and yet part of me feels like I’m going nowhere because I can’t completely check things off my list.

All of this got me thinking about the importance of showing up – to our lives, our work, our passion.  And by “work” I don’t necessarily mean what we do for money (although we’d better show up there, too, if we want to eat!)  I mean that work that we feel called to do, which may or may not be the same work we do in our careers.  Whether we know what it is or not, whether it’s one thing or many, we’ve all got something we feel passionate about.

Trouble is, sometimes we don’t follow that passion, even in our free time.  Maybe we were told that it was silly, or we think we’re no good at it, or we get discouraged by a lack of recognition for all the work we have put into it.  Maybe we’re afraid of the risk involved in changing our lives to follow that passion, or the risk involved in sharing our efforts with others.  So we decide that it really is silly, or impractical, or stupid – but in the back of our minds we think, Someday.  Someday I’ll write that book, learn to paint, go back to school, or whatever else is calling.  But it just feels too big to try now.

And, you know, sometimes it isn’t the right thing to do, or the right time to do it.  I certainly haven’t followed through on every interest I’ve ever tried out, and there are always trade offs to be made.  But at the same time, great things are built a little at a time, and showing up every day to do that little bit is what gets things done.  I look out at those trees budding now, watching them get a little greener each day, and think, “This is how they do it, year after year, unfurling those leaves one curl at a time until they have all the solar cells they need to grow another inch toward the sky.”  Now that’s passion.

This long, slow evolution can be hard to sustain, especially when you get past that first enthusiastic growth spurt.  There might be years when you feel like you’re almost there, and things feel even harder precisely because of all the time you’ve invested.  That’s when it really helps to have the support of at least one other person, especially someone who knows what it feels like.

I was just talking with a friend today about this stage of things, and how hard it can be to remember why you’re doing it.  And I realized that very often, our conversations function as a way of “putting ourselves on the record” with ourselves and the Divine, of speaking out loud our intention to show up and do what Spirit leads us to do.  In fact, the conversation itself is often a form of showing up, and connecting with that drive, that passion, to be who we are meant to be.

So how do you show up to engage with your passion, whatever it may be?  Is there anything you’ve been putting off until “someday” that you can begin to unfurl in your life, a little at a time?

The Whole Enchilada

Last week, we had one of those gorgeous spring days where the weather is perfect, life is waking up all over, and you just want to bask in the sunlight.  And that’s exactly what I did: my sweetie and I went for a long walk, then came home and sat outside, planning to have a nice dinner by firing up the grill for the first time this season.

That’s when a yellow-jacket decided to sting me for what I’m pretty sure was no good reason at all.  I was sitting in my chair, not even moving, when I felt a sudden pinch on my arm and caught a glimpse of the culprit just as it flew away.

Now, I don’t usually get stung; in fact, I had only been stung once before in my life, by a paper wasp after I had accidentally put my thumb right on it.  Kinda deserved that one.  But that was years ago, and like I said, this time I had been sitting still and couldn’t think of any reason for the wasp to have stung me.  Maybe that’s why I was tempted to think of it in spiritual terms rather than as a simple physical nuisance.  I was looking for some deeper reason for it, I guess, or at least some way I could find meaning in it myself.

In any case, I had a choice before me: I could go inside and put something on the sting to numb the pain, or I could stay outside and feel it.  At this point it was starting to burn a bit, in that way that stings have of getting worse before they get better.  And of course, I was tempted to think of the sting as ruining my beautiful afternoon, but instead (looking for that spiritual angle on it) I chose to treat it as simply part of my beautiful afternoon outside.  After all, bee stings and bug bites are part of the deal, right?  So I decided not to get up to find something to put on it that would push away the unwelcome discomfort — and yes, it hurt, quite a bit more than I expected, in fact.

But what was really cool about my decision not to go inside at that moment was that, if I had, I would have missed out on something wonderful.  Because just a few minutes after the yellow-jacket stung me, a pair of mink came to our little pond, just a few yards away from where we were sitting.  We rarely see them for more than a few seconds, and never when we’re that close.  If I had gone inside, either I would have missed seeing them, or — much more likely — my moving around, opening and closing doors, etc., would have scared them away before they ever came out into the open.

So I ended up having an even more memorable day because I decided to take in the whole experience, rather than just those parts that were pleasant.  And at this point I don’t even think of the sting as detracting from my afternoon at all.

No, now I just keep kicking myself for not having had my camera with me, to get a shot of the mink!  Grr.  Argh.

*grin*

Blessings,
Oraia Sphinx

New Sphinxy Artwork

You may have noticed (if you’ve visited before) that the blog has new artwork!  The podcast site does, as well, and starting with the next episode, the show will have the new logo attached to it.  The design was created by me, but the lovely artwork was done by a young and talented artist named Rachael Cattel.  She’s still working on her site, but she does have some art and writing samples up there, so please take a look if you like what you see here.

I’ve been waiting until the design was done before posting my thoughts on the sphinx, and why I chose it as my namesake — so that post will be coming up very soon now!