#polytheistic monasticism

[blackcrowing]

Book Review of 'Polytheistic Monasticism: Voices from Pagan Cloisters'

I wasn't entirely sure what I was expecting when I picked up this book but... generally I was expecting... more.

I don't feel like I learned much from reading this book, aside from prehaps that (unsurprisingly) those being called to deeper devotional practices in the Pagan/Polytheistic world are mostly being offered options based firmly in Western traditions. While I was sure that inspiration for such a movement would draw from monastic Christian traditions I had hoped to see it also drawing from antiquities temple traditions and, more modern, Eastern traditions where temples for worship are often maintained by monks/nuns and in this way monistaries and temples are one in the same.

Aside from getting a feel for the current climate and areas of inspiration that seem to be present inside this community... I don't feel like I learned... much of anything... most of the essays felt... a bit like advertisements to me... and most didn't feel particularly helpful to one interested in the path or particularly insightful in anyway.

To be honest this felt like a book that was created mearly to mark the phenomenon and offer a screenshot of it for the purposes of third-party study as opposed to a tool for someone genuinely seeking information about what this kind of calling might look like in their own lives.

[mannazandwyrd]

A modern pagan prayer bracelet or meditation aid, suitable for broom-closeted devotional polytheists:

Start with your base bracelet. This can be a leather or slicone strap or a silver charm bracelet - whatever you already have or suits your budget.

Choose European-style big-hole slider beads for your bracelet (or a smaller hole if your base bracelet will allow), in colours that you associate with your deity/deities, in a number that’s sacred in your tradition.

Beard/hair beads and artisan lampwork made for SCA / historical reconstruction purposes work nicely. Support the artisans doing that work, and check out Etsy’s vintage section and your local vintage stores and antique malls (I like smoke-cleansing and repurposing vintage finds because it has a smaller environmental footprint than buying new). The silver charms from the 50s-80s may need an adapter bead to dangle from a newer bracelet, and major manufacturers (Trollbeads, Pandora, every chain jewelry store) have made and are making sterling beads in every theme imaginable. Semi-precious gemstone beads are also available.

Then write (or adapt) a meditative chant to go with the beads. A list of your deities’ aspects/names/heiti can be a good place to start. Different chants for different purposes are worth exploring, and you don’t need to do them out loud. Put the chant(s) and the cleansed bracelet on your altar and ask your deities to consecrate them.

I’m hanging with the Norse, so I snagged a vintage foxtail-chain bracelet (Trollbeads), and went through my Viking-and-earlier-replica bead stash looking for ones with 4mm holes. I chose nine lamp-worked glass beads and a few sterling ones; it’s a work in progress. I’m going to keep my eye on Trollbeads, too, because as a Danish company they have a number of beads directly inspired by Norse mythology (and even a Mjolnir bead).

In the photo: Lampwork mostly by Grimfrost, LykosLeather, and VikingsHagedisen - my fancy replica beads from other vendors have a smaller hole (through my own lack of foresight) so will stay on my necklace-slash-brooch-chain. Sterling is all vintage, and the beads with a gold stripe in them are vintage Trollbeads but still mostly available on their website. Some of these will become Yule gifts.

In my UPG, Loki is using my energy centres (chakras in reiki and yoga) as part of teaching me energy and trancework, so my nine glass beads currently are: black, red, orange, yellow, green, sky blue, sapphire blue, purple, white. Kurt Hoogstraat’s “On Contemporary Seiðr” talks about this syncretic practice a bit; I am including the ‘earth root’ and ‘soul star’ centres in my version, and thinking of it as my Bifröst bracelet. It doesn’t hurt that at a glance people think it’s a gay pride thing (everyone I know knows I’m momma bear to a trans teen).

The photo also includes some other options I’m playing with based on what I currently have at hand. I also have repurposed my childhood sterling charm bracelet, reusing the chain for beads (it needs a new clasp) and the charms for sortilege divination purposes, with the help of some sterling split-rings and skinny Thai hill-tribe silver spacers.

What I like about this idea is that it’s so versatile: it can read as whatever gender feels best for you, it can be simple or maximalist, casual or dressy, work-appropriate or wildly artsy, and as subtle and stealth as you need it to be. Because charm bracelets of various kinds have been around for decades, you can do it on whatever budget you have, or ask to be gifted one from that place in the mall. Childrens’ plastic letter-block beads and pony beads can be used, if it suits you and your deity (a certain trickster I know would be delighted with that). You can swap out the beads as you go.

[theflytingfox]

Can a Lokean be a Monk? Part Deux!

I am currently reading "The Monk Within" by Beverly Lanzetta.

Very early on in the book I came across this quote:

"Often, the monk is a person whose inner nature balks at the norm, who lives in protest to what convention finds significant or meaningful, and who dedicates his or her life to the pursuit. For this reason, the monastic person is often a spiritual revolutionary—not at peace with what fuels and inspires mainstream society."

This makes my Lokean heart sing!

I have never been one to follow the crowd. Even at an early age, I just never fit in. In hindsight it is probably one of the reasons Loki found me.

When I pray to him, one of the epithets I use is "God of Outcasts". There is a comfort in that, that Loki not only appreciates but encourages the unique and different.

So, when I read the quote above, it really made me feel like not only is a Monastic practice possible with Loki, it actually makes perfect sense with this definition!

Anything that challenges the established norm is a chaos most welcome indeed.

[elizatungusnakur]

Seeking a Hermitage of the Heart

“Heathenry is all well and good, but never underestimate the Temple of the Self.” This was the message scrawled across the child-like painting that appeared to me in my dream one mornin…

Sometimes I write.

[theflytingfox]

Can a Lokean be a Monk?

I will be using this blog to share my experiences of trying to follow a Monastic calling with Loki as my Patron deity.

The first series of posts will explore Monastic ideology and how it correlates to practice as a Lokean.

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Can a Lokean be a Monk? This is a question I ponder quite often and I still don't have an answer. Truth be told, I am not sure I ever will.

In my research and experience though, I think it is possible but I believe the landscape of Lokean Monasticism will look quite different than a more traditional Monastic calling and even amongst other Pagans and Polytheists.

For one, there is a great deal of importance placed on asceticism within Christian and Buddhist Monastic traditions and that is something that I feel Loki would not require. In fact, in my UPG, it is very much the opposite. Obviously he doesn't want us to move towards gluttony or excessiveness, but he does want us to engage fully in the experience of life and living. We don't have to deprive ourselves to be closer to him or to deepen our spirituality.

If asceticism is necessary to Monasticism, then a Lokean would probably not follow or be called to a Monastic path, but with the ever changing landscape of pagan Monasticism and polytheistic Monasticism, we are the trail blazers here and can ascribe our own definitions of what Monasticism means to us.

At the end of the day, it is just words. What really matters is what we do and what is in our hearts. If we follow our truth, the title is irrelevant.

[mannazandwyrd]

I am jumping in on @elizatungusnakur ‘s brilliant Seven Days of Lokabrenna devotional blogging exercise. I like that it’s easier to manage than a full month, although my 7 posts may not be on consecutive days, and I love that it’ll be like playing tag with my mutuals. For me, living at Latitude 52(ish) above the equator, I am guesstimating that Sirius A & B pop above the horizon of the Canadian prairies around August 23rd this year (2022), although it may in fact be a couple of days earlier depending on the calculators’ accuracy. It’s much earlier for Mexico and the United States, and later for those parts of Europe north of the British Isles. I have no idea how Sirius moves through the sky for the Southern Hemisphere. But it’ll be like the blog version of a relay race as various Norse pagans who interact with Loki and his friends and family join in the fun. I like the mental image of us passing the baton to each other.

I also like the wide open format, that you’re not guided with or limited by daily prompts. At first, I thought I might do seven posts about the runes, or seven days of the devotional fibre art I am making using various techniques. But I think instead my topic may vary from day to day.

Today’s topic: pagan monasticism.

Mutuals who are on Discord with me (heyyy gang) know this topic has been much on my mind lately; a few of us have read the essay collection edited by Janet Munin, we discussed it in our book club, and two of us are currently in John Beckett’s course on the topic. (Those essays vary in quality but all provide food for thought on what a devotional polytheist’s practice could be. I’d recommend the course for anyone who processes information through audiovisuals better, or who hopes to plug into a community of like-minded people, but so far it hasn’t offered many ideas beyond the book.) For the past couple of months I have been writing and refining my plans for how my version of inclusive norse heathen monasticism might work in practical terms. When I checked in with Loki by divination, he was insistent that this should be my first topic.

Many modern Catholic and Orthodox monasteries in North America have downsized from large campuses to a single house shared by a handful of monks or nuns, not so different to how the (fascinating) medieval Beguines lived. That downsizing made me think about how a pagan monk or nun - or a group of two or three - could convert a typical urban or suburban home into a live/work space, and then combine their devotional/contemplative work as an artist or writer with teaching workshops or facilitating retreats on their areas of expertise. I'm not yet at a life stage or level of expertise where I can do this myself, being married with teen kids and elderly parents and in-laws who could need caregivers, but my husband and I will likely in the next decade or so be empty-nesters with spare bedrooms, so I plan to work toward that goal and level of expertise.

This idea seems like an easy-to-reproduce and versatile way to create small-scale pagan sanctuaries, so I am sharing it here. Some of you may be able to adapt it to suit your own practices.

In my case, my suburban-retrofit mini-monastery will be Roasted Heart Fibre Arts Studio & Sanctuary, a contemplative space that offers a full suite of fibre artists’ tools, workshops on fibre arts (and related disciplines like seidr), and a stacked library of reference materials. The arts can help keep it going, and residencies could require the visiting artists to teach a workshop and/or create a body of work. Alternatively, visiting artists could be advanced students looking for mentorship in skills the permanent residents teach. The space could also be a community hub for events and daytime workshops. In my personal practice, I’d like to pair my textile art with work to mitigate the climate crisis’ effects (the focus of much of my volunteer work already), and to develop pagan monasticism and theology.

As an aspiring polytheist monastic, I strive to embody my deities’ values. I can live my life as an example, and I can be my deities’ hands in this realm, in addition to offering them my head and heart.

This, I think, is my answer to John Beckett's question, "What about monasticism calls to you?" I'm already a devotional polytheist and deity-partnered with an evolving lifetime vow, so using what abilities I have to help my pragmatic, opportunist, loving deities do work that needs doing, in service to communities of various types (local and nonlocal, human and other-than-human) — it feels like a logical next step to studying lore, runes, and seidr in my role as a vitki-trainee for my local kindred. It’ll allow me to continue to deepen my spiritual practice while integrating devotional textile art and fibre magic seamlessly into my artistic practice.

For accountability and mutual support I will share my to do list here:

1. Mundane before magical: I need to declutter my home and my life in preparation for this next phase, and years living in the same home with children means lots of accumulated stuff to sort and donate. I think I’ll take a Konmari approach to it, which will help me strengthen some animist thought patterns too. Knowing my long-term goal should make this process easier - but it’s an ongoing elephantine task to tackle one bite at a time.

2. Study and practice. I am in the process of getting certified as a textile arts instructor in my primary technique (hand-hooked rug making, like many textile arts, emerged from the Arts & Crafts movement with a guild-based training and mentorship model). I am also at beginner level in other techniques I want to incorporate into my artistic and devotional practices. I need to set aside a little time each day for handwork.

3. Study and contemplate and practice. My current focus is still the runes, but soon I will be finished version 1.3 of the rune card project and able to shift my focus to reading all the books and academic articles I have been collecting on seidr. I am also assisting my gothi with updating study circle notes, participating in a couple of local and online study circles, and reading books on lore. I need to set aside time each week for reading, writing. and integrating new (to me) information into my practice.

4. Prayer and meditation and connecting with Deity. Right now, almost three years into my path, the Gods are never far from my thoughts, and all my meals and daily activities are offered to Them in one way or another, but I don’t have a particularly disciplined day-to-day schedule — so I need to develop and gradually add to that. The beginning of my kids’ schoolyear seems like a good time to work on adding new habits. The seasonal rhythm of worship is already part of my practice, as I have from the outset tried to build a bioregional and garden-witchery version of a Nordic wheel of the year for myself, and I now have local community in addition to online community to do ritual with. But I would like to deepen that, too.

5. Developing a simple pagan monastic habit / wardrobe. I have experimented with slow fashion and wearing a capsule wardrobe previously, so as I declutter my closet I will be drawing on that experience (I recommend Project 3/33 to anyone wanting to give a capsule wardrobe a go.). I already have some ideas about this: modern, pragmatic, unisex, partially handmade from zero-waste sewing patterns, in natural fibres, with inspiration from the past. As an artist, the utility of workwear and artists’ smocks with deep pockets is appealing; this could be adapted from a medieval tunic, or the tunics already in my closet. As a protester, I am aware that sometimes you need to blend into a crowd in solidarity rather than stand out, so clothing reflecting that modern reality seems necessary, and I already live in t-shirts and jeans. For ritual, I am working on a modern version of a Skaldenhamn hood for cool days, and a hand-dyed linen duster coat of a type popular among textile artists but reminiscent of the Vendel-period klappenrock riding coat.

If you’re interested in following along as I explore a polytheist monastic path, I will be tagging all my posts on it with #monkposting as well as tags already in use by the community.

XO Eira

[theflytingfox]

I have a new home here on tumblr:

@thelabyrinthinepath · The Labyrinthine Path

A polytheistic monastic blog

It has been a wild ride these last several months, with some good things happening, and some not so good things happening. The one constant has been a call to be of service to Hades. I am exploring devotion to him as a polytheistic monastic and will be using my blog to share my experiences and practices.