Pagan Student Fellowship

A safe, accepting place to discuss our beliefs, feelings, experiences, and knowledge about Paganism. Pagan Student Fellowship is always accepting members with open minds and kind hearts. Visit us Tuesdays at 5 in LBJ 3-21.2!

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Welcome back!

Hello everyone! Welcome to the first blog post of the semester! While we enter into this new and very different semester, the PSF officer team is excited to jump back into our Zoom room and talk all things pagan and magical. Today, I wanted to pull some cards for some semester intention setting and talk about the actual act of it as well. Let’s jump into the reading!

I used a three card spread I found on Pinterest (link:https://pin.it/14pfnLw) that shows us what we need to know, where we need to grow, and what we can let go. I also pulled an oracle card to give us some focus.

What we need to know: Justice

The card Justice shows a very prominent theme that we have seen building throughout the year, and likely culminating with the election in November. It speaks on moral decisions and law and order, both mundane and divine. What seems clear is that we need to take our moral decisions more seriously and stay accountable for the consequences they yield. This card is heavily associated with the astrological sign Libra, which is known for social relationships and balance, showing an impact on people outside of ourselves. We will need to find a balance that works for us and others, in all areas of life, to bring harmony. I see this being particularly relevant to how it pertains to socializing, academics, and self-care. A great way to go about that is to find sensible boundaries. Know them and act on them accordingly. 

Where we need to grow: Death

Honestly, when I flipped this one, I had to laugh just because of the contradiction that we need to grow in death. This card is one of the most misunderstood cards in the whole deck by those who don’t read Tarot often. What I’m seeing is the need to transform and grow past our former selves. Much like a snake shedding it’s skin so it can continue to grow, we must transcend things in ourselves that we find restricting, like limiting beliefs and attitudes that keep you in a stagnant mindset. Holding space for this will be accompanied with growing pains. We may lose parts of ourselves and find that we are completely different from the people we began this semester as, but just as the sun starts to rise in the card artwork, this transformation will bring about new opportunities to bring us closer to our highest good. Death (the card) is associated with the astrological sign of Scorpio which links it to secrets and the inner world/underworld. It looks like this will be a great time to start some shadow work!

What we can let go of: Queen of Swords

The suit of swords is often associated with air and with the mind/thoughts, while the Queen is typically associated with water and feelings. She is someone who is articulate and analyzing. Normally, we are told this is a positive trait, but I think rationalizing our feelings can sometimes be to our detriment. This semester, let go of the habit that is over analyzing or overthinking your feelings. Some things need only to be observed and released, while persistent and prolonged emotions deserve more attention. This card is also referred to as the widow, being the only matriarch portrayed from her profile, looking like a ruler in action. Even though we are mostly virtual and avoiding in person hangouts, it doesn’t mean we have to be fully independent in everything we do. Find some ways to get social support! I know that PSF will be doing our best to get some social time built in virtually for everyone who wants to participate.

Focus: Truth

This is a good season to find and live your truth, whatever that means to you. While we have this abundance of time with ourselves, learn how to live with the person you are. Oftentimes, the beginning of the semester is met with auspicious goals that leave us putting personal development, in terms of spiritual and psychological wellness, on the back burner to tackle the semester ahead of us. This fall, focus on how to integrate your authentic self into your scholastic goals. How can you genuinely interact with the material you are subject to in class and find meaning that is applicable to your life? When can you hold space for yourself to rest when the burnout sets in? As the Northern Hemisphere shifts into darkness that comes with the Autumnal Equinox, we are called to find the place within ourselves that we call home. Make it comfortable and stay awhile. 

With this message in mind and Virgo season in full swing, now is a great time to set intentions for the semester ahead of us. Take the time to picture what you want your life to look like come December when final exams are over. Sure, we all want to pass our classes, be happy, and have a stable financial situation, but what does that specifically look like for you? Having detailed goals gives us a better framework to structure our time around.

Coming up with the nitty-gritty details of a goal is difficult but a good method for goal setting is to keep it SMART, which is Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-Bound. Yes, even mundane goal setting can be used for spiritual goal setting or intention making! Specifics make sure the goal is clearly written, for example, “I want to read more” versus “I want to read the Hunger Games trilogy”. The more specific you make it, the less ambiguity there is in how to accomplish the goal. Adding specificity also makes the goal easier to measure which deals in quantities like how many, how much, and how often. “I want to read three books” is better than “I want to read more” because you know exactly what successfully achieving the goal looks like. 

Two very important parts of goals are being attainable and relevant - both require self-awareness and reflection to determine. A goal must be possible to do or you risk setting yourself up for failure. You still want the goal to feel like somewhat of a challenge, but not so much that it is anxiety-inducing just to think about it. Relevancy makes sure that the goal serves a purpose and isn’t just something you feel like you have to do. Does this goal further you down a path you want to take? Will this goal be easily integrated into your everyday life because it is a skill or habit you want to use? This isn’t to say that you can’t have random intentions that are different from your usual interests, but you should have enough interest in them to follow through on the goal. This quality also establishes why the goal is important to you. It will keep you coming back to work on the intention. 

Being time-bound helps us measure our success and add urgency to accomplishing things. Few things are more motivating than a due date for college students. Some people work with a regular calendar, like days, weeks, months, or years. Others set their goals with the astrological calendar like by moon phases, sabbats, and certain astrological placements. If having an ultimate due date causes anxiety, the best thing is to break your goal down into smaller tasks and give them suggested due dates. For example, if I want to save $400 for holiday gifts, I may feel rushed to save it all up at the last minute, but if I give myself one month for each $100, I can have my goal in four months. It makes the intention seem much more doable and grants us a specific time to reflect on our process. 

This month, we will be talking about intentions and how we can work to manifest our goals. It is hard to be motivated in a time where we rarely leave the house and are still configuring our normal lives, but we can become our own motivator. Some of the days I’ve felt the sanest were the ones I spent working towards skills or knowledge I really wanted, both academically and spiritually. So we want you to think about something to manifest over this semester, big or small, magical or mundane. Let’s see what we can accomplish this semester!

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Druidry and Irish Polytheism 101

Hi all!

I know this time of isolation and global crisis is wildly boring and stressful, so hopefully a few informative posts will help to keep you busy and distracted! Remember to practice tons of self care, and keep a regular cleaning schedule to stay healthy. I love you all!

- Wren

See below the read more break for Druidry 101!

DISCLAIMER: this is my own personal understanding and experience with Druidry (based on research, but still filtered through my perspective), so, like with all research you do, take this with a grain of salt! I consider myself an Irish Polytheist Reconstructionist as well, so this article will be based on Irish Druidry in particular.

First off, let’s explore what “reconstructionism” is. Reconstructionism is looking to history and finding (to the best of our ability) the practices ancient practitioners used and recreating the tradition as if it had evolved naturally with time. Not all Pagans/Druids/witches are reconstructionists, and that’s perfectly valid! If you know me or have heard any of my workshops before, you know how much I love research, and that’s partly because of the reconstructionist approach I take to my practice. I like to know why I do the things I do in the way that I do them, as well as the most “authentic” way to practice and honor my deities (for lack of a better word! Other approaches to Paganism and witchcraft are valid as well, it all depends on the practitioner. No two paths are the same, and that’s part of the beauty of Paganism and magic!).

That being said, the history of Druidry is complicated and muddy, due to the stark lack of primary sources. A lot of the information we have is filtered through a prejudiced Roman or Christian perspective, so we have to sift through the resources we do have very carefully to try to piece together the true history of Druidry and ancient Celtic practices. It’s also enough content to warrant several other posts... So let me know if you’d like to hear more about it and how Druids fit into ancient society (and if you just can’t wait, a good start is researching the four cycles of Irish mythology)!

For now, I’ll focus on what my favorite author (Morgan Daimler) considers to be “commonly held beliefs” in Irish Reconstructionist Polytheism, “...polytheism, animism, belief in honoring spirits and ancestors, immortality of the soul, and shared cosmology.”

Polytheism and Animism

Polytheism is the belief in more than one deity, or a pantheon of deities, and animism is the belief that everything has a soul/spirit. Irish Reconstructionist Pagans believe in and/or worship Irish deities, otherworldly spirits, land spirits, and ancestral spirits, often through offerings, stories, prayers, and song. There are several landmarks in Ireland (wells, rivers, trees, boulders, mounds, etc.) that ancient Irish folks held to be sacred spaces with their own spirit and personalities.

Belief in Honoring Spirits and Ancestors

There’s a loose hierarchy of spirits, depending on who you ask. First, there are land spirits, the physical, topographical features I was describing earlier. They’re thought to be fairly sedentary and tied to their respective feature, rarely traveling far away from it. They have their own personalities, which can be malicious, especially if associated with a place that’s perceived to be dangerous, and usually have myths about their danger.

Next, there are sovereign spirits. These are like land spirits, but with a larger area associated with them, from a field to cities to sometimes entire counties in Ireland. They’re perceived as guardians of the land spirits in their area, and can travel a bit farther from their spot, but rarely do. They’re said to occasionally take the form of a person or animal to communicate with folks that can see them, and can also communicate through visions or dreams.

Higher up the hierarchy are the Fae, or faeries, Good Neighbors, Fair Folk, Other Crowd, daoine sidhe, aos sidhe... etc. According to another of my favorite authors, O hOgain: “In Irish lore the Fair Folk live in the land, on the sea, and in the air, being associated with the mounds, stone circles, watery locations including the sea and bogs, caverns, and strange swirls of wind, as well as specific trees, especially lone hawthorn trees.” Working with the Good Neighbors is generally an important aspect of Druidry. Honoring them can be incredibly rewarding if you can get on their good side and strike up a safe deal with them. They’ll teach you magic and healing, enhance artistic performance, and bring good luck and blessing. It’s important to note that a relationship with the Good Neighbors should be based on respect and friendship, not what you want from them. I could write several posts about the Good Neighbors, but for now, I’ll leave it at this: be very careful, and very respectful when dealing with the Fae. Like with any practice, be sure to do your research before jumping into it.

Fourth, we have ancestors! Since this tradition generally believes in the immortality of the soul, it’s only natural that we’d honor our ancestors. They’re probably one of the easiest spirits to commune with, since they’re closer to us and have an established interest in us and our well-being. A lot of folks have ancestor shrines and celebrate holidays with their ancestors when they come back to visit. It’s also important to note that our ancestors don’t have to be blood relatives! Some folks prefer to count family friends or chosen family members who have passed on as their ancestors, or even mythic heroes.

Immortality of the Soul

Some myths mention reincarnation into animals, like Lebor na hUidre and Tochmarc Etain. This is debated, but some believe that the mortal dead can join the Good Neighbors. Other than that, I truly have no idea where souls go between lives. It’s fairly debated, and from my understanding, not well known. There are several possibilities: Tech Duinn (the house of Donn), Tír Tairngire (Land of Promise), Tír fo Thuinn (Land under the Wave), Mag Mell (Plane of Delight), and Tír na nÓg (Land of Youth), to name a few. Basically, we have no clue where we’re gonna end up, but we do know that we’ll keep on goin’!

Shared Cosmology

First off, what is cosmology? Basically, it’s the understanding of the universe, how and why it works, and how it'll end. We have something close to an end of the world story, which is the Morrigan’s second prophecy in the Cath Maige Tuired, but we don’t have much of a creation story, as far as I know. We do have hints that some folks have tried to fill in the holes for, like Lebor Gabala Erenn, where the world is divided into 5 (five being the number that implied a sacred whole) sections, each representing important qualities to the ancient Celts.

According to druidry.org, North was for battle and conflict, represented by fire, the sword, and the eagle. East was for prosperity, represented by earth, riches and bees, and the salmon. South was for creativity and intuition, represented by water, music and poetry, and the sow. West was for intellect and remembrance, represented by air, learning and teaching, and the stag. The center was thought to complete the ritual space, and was for “mastery and rulership.” It was usually represented by a stone and the Mare of Sovereignty.

The ancient Irish invented the wheel of the year, and believed in two seasons, the light half of the year (Summer) and the dark half of the year (Winter). Summer began with Bealtaine/Beltane (pronounced kind of like bee-YELL-ten-uh in Irish), and Winter began with Samhain (pronounced s-OW-ehn).

They also believed in a threefold world, represented by the triskele/triskelion, three spirals connected at the center. The three spirals represented the three realms (the sea, the land, and the sky), and the middle, where they all meet, represents the center or the sacred fire.

The sea, and some bodies of water, were believed to be connected/portals to the Otherworld, as the various otherworlds were generally thought of as islands across the sea. The land was the physical world, inhabited by our Kindreds - other people. The sky was the realm of the Gods, or Shining Ones, from which they watch over the world. Offerings were often made in sacred fires, as the belief was that the smoke would carry the offering to the Gods.

The three realms are also represented as energy centers in the body. We call them the cauldron of the mind, of the heart, and of the belly. The cauldron of the mind holds our wisdom, and is upside down at birth. It’s turned upwards through learning and spirituality. The cauldron of the heart holds our emotions and artistry, and is sideways at birth. It’s turned upwards through artistic mastery and emotional maturity. The cauldron of the belly holds our health, and is upright in a healthy person, sideways in a sick person, and turned upside down at death.

I’d like to reiterate that this is by no means a complete guide to Druidry! I’m not an authority on the subject either, just a gal who reads a lot. Regardless, I hope this helps someone in their path!

- Wren

Resources:

Irish Paganism: Reconstructing Irish Polytheism by Morgan Daimler

https://druidry.org/druid-way/other-paths/druidry-dharma/two-seasons-three-worlds-four-treasures-five-directions-pillars

https://www.adf.org/articles/cosmology/worlds-kindreds.html

Chris Godwin, Senior Druid for Hearthstone Grove, ADF

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I mean... you get to hang out with the coolest cats on campus. Need I say more? Disclaimer: There will be no legitimate cats at the meeting tonight PS. If you plan on running for an officer position, today is your last day to declare! Please let us know at the meeting or email an officer to let us know your intent! https://www.instagram.com/p/BwUU1MbHw8aZXdiVR_7KAKeioxBpPLMXz7HwEs0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1k1jcoeokxki7

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Whoop whoop! Come meet some other orgs and have a great time at game night tonight! Please feel free to bring friends, snacks to share, and any board games you’d like to play! It’s gonna be a great time and I hope to see everybody there! Alkek 118, 4pm, today! https://www.instagram.com/p/BvmtH5enWRtyapHhJzgYfsIKJ_S-XiAq9W8Fz80/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=sn17wacsxeu0

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Anyone else wishing it isn’t freezing outside? Well come down to PSF today and we can all pretend it’s warm outside together! Alkek 148 Doors open at 5, starts at 5:30 https://www.instagram.com/p/BuobSUrnemyHFb1z4MGCWPoeiJfSIVEAiFxXbw0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1s0kn0s128gtx

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Come see us, tonight, at our meeting! It’s craft night, so come prepared to make mojo bags for our quad days in the upcoming days! Alkek 148, doors open at 5, starts at 5:30 https://www.instagram.com/p/BtzF3ZZHlZcKb_hLPs65fcJrTBA-w5Hg41ex000/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1069ubx0alim0

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Hip hip hooray! It’s PSF day! Will we see you at the meeting tonight? Alkek 148, doors open at 5:00, starts at 5:30 https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs8IvMVHaVg_sh1FCuO9VQjWEjn8T38bFjj1SM0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=5h697dcispcu

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It’s party time! Come hang out, bring a white elephant gift, and enjoy some pizza 🍕Please let us know if you are coming so we can plan accordingly. Also, please remember to go vote on tracs for our new VP! Your vote needs to be in before 5pm today! https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq-V5hnn3Ixk_QOPNlVwQVye90Asezv0nXgxeE0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=buokbhwt7x9j

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Do you feel like you have some great ideas for contributions you could make as our Vice President? Email an officer to tell us your intention to run and have a speech for why you’d be a good choice by our meeting tomorrow! I hope to see everyone there to either present your speech or to hear them! https://www.instagram.com/p/BqqtDSNHc8eg_cp2qewEbKzmC1g5tyWYSLm6CA0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=6g1hh4z4nkqs

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hey friendly psa/reminder that with the seasons changing right now, a lot of people with mood disorders (and even people without them) can get all messed up and wonky from that so try to go a little easy on yourself if you find yourself spiraling or getting emotional a lot lately okay? youre doin your best. love u

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Come talk about festival with us! Will we see you there tonight? https://www.instagram.com/p/BpRp0d1nqEKoy_IWw74rDVQeX_Wv2hf5A41WBM0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1tlrygez1wqg3

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Hey y’all, guess what! We’ll be on the quad tomorrow! If you’re able to help out, please email Chloe with your times, or sign up on tracs! Sign up ends at 10pm tonight. We are so excited to see y’all! https://www.instagram.com/p/Bop4WvpnANG4q89XQjGghuQZGNmfmHDjte9Myk0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=j0dqb8m34v2c

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Meet us tomorrow for a workshop on belly dancing! https://www.instagram.com/p/BoZVgdcnozxC980oIfouXwniRWTOX5j0sPl5BU0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=10ig9ms8uo5ml