I really like what Teo Bishop is doing over at Solitary Druid Fellowship. From the website: “The Solitary Druid Fellowship (SDF) is an extension of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF), an independent tradition of Neo-Pagan Druidism. It is organized to provide solitary Druids, as well as any solitary Pagan in the general public, with an opportunity to engage more deeply with their ritual practice, while at the same time forging spiritual bonds with other solitaries through the adoption of a shared liturgical form.”
I’m not a part of the ADF, and I’m not a druid. I’m also not really a solitary, since I have a coven that I’m a part of. I do fit under the “Pagan in the general public” label, though, so I guess I can be in the club. And even though I’m already a part of a spiritual community, being the spiritual slut that I am, I also do a lot of stuff in my own personal practice. For my personal practice I draw from lots of different sources and I’m always looking for ideas and bits of liturgies – you know, stuff that works – to fit into my own rituals and magical practice. So I like what Teo is doing because it’s something that I can mold to my own praxis. There’s only been one ritual released so far, but it was very well done, and having been following Teo’s blog and writing for a while now, I expect future stuff to be of equal quality.
In preparation for the next High Day (he refers to it as the February Cross Quarter. Many Pagans call it Imbolc), he’s trying something I think is pretty nifty. He’s hosting an exercise in crowdsourced poetry. Think of it as a poetry flash mob. In this case the poem begins and ends with “I keep vigil to the fire in my heart.” What goes in between that first verse and last verse is left up to the individual to create. It’s like a devotional game of telephone, except you can’t fuck it up.
Here’s the contribution I made to the exercise:
I keep vigil
to the fire
in my heart
Is it the same fire
the burns in your heart too?
Do you feel it
spark in sync
with mine?
Is it the same fire
that burns in the hearts
of the gods?
Do they feel
the flicker when
my heart jumps?
I keep vigil
to the fire
in our hearts.
It’s the fire
that burns in unison
when
we smile at each other
we laugh with each other
we dance together
we make love
we reach out in compassion.
And so I
smile
laugh
dance
fuck
and cry…
and in doing so
I keep vigil
to the fire
in my heart.
I encourage you to head on over to Solitary Druid Fellowship and see what’s going on there, and if you feel the tug, take part in the exercise.
Whereto We Speed 