EMLC Retreat

Just got back from the EMLC retreat this weekend. When I say "just got back", I mean that after a weekend of dancing around the fire, sucking up ash, sleeping on the ground in a tent, I crashed hard when I got home and I am only now just able to function at the higher level that is required for actually pressing the correct key on the keyboard for spelling out words.

Part of the retreat was a ritual where we were to bring a representation of a particular Goddess we wanted to honour or that we felt close to, and an offering for Her. For almost the entire week before ritual, I kept seeing owls. I found my owl candle, and regardless of where I put them, they always managed to come back to the surface so I saw them again. And I kept dreaming of owls, too. So I figured that Athena had a message for me. So I brought my owl ornament to circle (and left it *pout*)and left an offering to Athena during ritual.

Ritual was odd. It was an "audience participation" ritual, where each person in circle had a different part. Whether it was censing the circle or calling West or whatnot. The HP's officiated, but didn't cast or close the circle. The energy, therefore, was a little weird for me. I'm very used to a very structured circle casting. The energies that were abound were definately not organized. Though, it felt like they were inside another circle, which I found out later was cast by Lord Reikin. During ritual, my job was to dismiss the Goddess. I've never done anything like this before, and I was a little hesitant. What do I say? What do I do?

In the end, I did what I felt was necessary. I thanked the Lady for attending our rite and asked her to accept our offerings. I bid Her fairwell, and did feel like an energy sort of spiraled away from the altar towards the Moon. It was very powerful. I felt a little woozy afterwards.

Being with the other ELMC people was great fun. I met a lot of new people, and got a chance to attend several workshops. I'm now the "Other Stacy from DragonWhisper" - because Pantera is very popular :) I found the mead making workshop very interesting. Doug now has something he can do that's easy and will produce mead! I didn't really get a lot from the pastoral counseling workshop, as it was a lot of stuff I already knew and impliment when people come to me for assistance. I loved Lady Bridget's bracelet workshop. It was soooooo much fun to make my natal bracelet! And I love spending any amount of time with Lady Bridget. She's so down to earth, and explains things in a way that I really understand.

I keep thinking of new ways to incorporate the bracelets. She has a suggestion about anniversaries and whatnot. I was thinking that, for pagans, a good thing to make bracelets for would be to commemorate initiations!

The workshop that I thought was very interesting was the "Most Important Aspect of Ritual". Arachne, who led the workshop, said that this was the Great Rite - the Union of the God and Goddess that formed the Universe. And I have been thinking about that, because I know that the ritual rites themselves are all a celebration of the unioon of the God and Goddess and their love for each other and their children. And by working within the ritual framework, we attune ourselves to the energies at play - as the love of the Lord and Lady manifest in different ways, whether it's physically joining to produce the new Sun God, or if it's the separation that is necessary for rebirth to occur, but they are still joined together emotionally.

I guess it was an "ah ha" moment. I know that ritual is also to build community and align yourself with the energies at play around you. But those energies would not exist without the God and Goddess, and their love for each other.

The rest of the weekend was nice. We danced around the fire. Gods, it's so wonderful to dance around the fire with my coven sisters! It's such a magickal place that we get to, and we raise very good energy together moving in our spiral around the flames.

Coming home I got to spend some time chatting with Amaranthea, as she needed to have a little bit of a rest before driving the rest of the way home. It's always nice to have some one-on-one time with her just talking. I'm going to be looking for some Ostara material that maybe we can incorporate into our Strega Primavera rite. Just gotta be something that will not take away or detract from what we do for Primavera already.