On Monastic Restrictions: Clothing October 28, 2009

Interestingly, there has been some debate in the last couple of decades about whether or not Catholic nuns should forgo wearing the habit entirely. Some feel that modest clothing and maybe a head covering is enough, while more traditional orders (particularly cloistered ones) have retained the full habit. Since I am neither a member of an established order nor cloistered (nor Catholic) and am a material-world-loving Pagan to boot, theoretically I should be able to wear anything, but that isn’t necessarily the case. As with the dietary restrictions, some of them come from Those whom I serve and some are self-generated.

The question of whether or not Loki and Hela really give a damn what I’m wearing from day to day is beside the point. I don’t bother with specific types of clothing because my connection to Them rests on what I have on at any given time (though you’d be surprised how interested Loki can act about these things). I wear certain clothing items because doing so is the most tangible outward symbol of my vocation — even if no one else recognizes that. It’s kind of like wearing a uniform. It signals to my subconscious that I should strive to be in a certain frame of mind when I’m so attired. Which is every waking hour that I’m active in my household and beyond.

First of all, I’ve been confined to wearing certain colors — red and black, specifically. Red for Loki and the Iron Wood Jotnar, black for Hela and the dead. It is much easier to find decent-looking black clothing than red (or at least, I think so) and therefore the former color predominates in my wardrobe, making me look like the world’s plainest, most impoverished goth. Except for occasional bursts of wistful thinking, experimentation or outward rebellion, I’ve actually been wearing those two colors for years now. I suppose that counts as a fashion rut, but I’ve never been very concerned with being stylish even before I was a monastic.

Which is good, since I’m also wearing some rather unfashionably long skirts. I’m less sure about the reasons for this, but the garments in question tend to be made of sturdy material like twill and in the words of one of my housemates, they look “industrial.” They’re practical and can be layered or thrown on with whatever shirt I happen to have clean and ready to wear. They remind me of a cross between a monk’s cassock and a nun’s habit, which is entirely appropriate for me. I do actually own a cassock which a friend made for me (it’s black with red flames) but it is not very practical for daily wear and might get me stoned to death by hostile preppies if I wore it through Harvard Square.

I’m also covering my hair. I’m currently growing it out after having worn it short and spiky for about eight years and right now it looks tragic, neither long nor short but bushy as hell. Flattened under a bandanna, it’s even more so; when I wake up in the morning I resemble Ludwig van Beethoven and in my head I hear “da da da DAAAA!”  each time I gaze into a mirror. However, the reasoning behind this requirement doesn’t have to do with being modest and asexual; it has to do with Loki and me, but I’m not willing to go into the details here. Suffice it to say that some things in my life are reserved for Himself.

Also, I’m in the habit of buying secondhand clothing and looking for organic, fairly traded items whenever possible. This is largely a personal choice based on concerns about waste, environmental sensibilities and the fact that although I’ve not taken a vow of poverty my cash reserves are limited, devotional writing not being a highly paying market. I do find it perversely entertaining to buy Ralph Lauren shirts at the Salvation Army for my monastic uniform (hey, they may even keep me from the aforementioned stoning.)

To my surprise, I was not made to give away my bellydancing costume, maybe because I only dance for Himself (and whoever else happens to be watching). It is hard to bellydance successfully in combat boots, an ankle-length skirt and a T-shirt. Similarly, I have no restrictions against wearing yoga clothes for class, overalls or jeans for certain farm chores, or bizarre costumes for ritual purposes. (I do not regret giving away the neon orange, traffic-cone-shaped hat with CAUTION: VIAGRA IN USE that I wore for a large ritual where I played an archetypal Trickster. It’s times like this when I feel grateful for Hela’s presence in my life, since if it were solely up to Loki, no doubt I’d be required to wear the Viagra cone wherever I went.)

As for jewelry, I have my wedding ring, a copy of a late medieval Icelandic Thor’s hammer with a wolf’s head, and one or two items worn expressly for occult purposes. I don’t wear makeup except as part of a costume, but that’s another thing I’ve been doing for years anyway. All my shoes are black and/or red, too.

So there you have it. There are times when I avidly do not want to wear a skirt, and times when I long to wear something purple or green, and times when I feel like some misguided Grateful Dead burnout wandering around the vegetable garden in a long skirt, T-shirt and bandanna. Shopping for clothing is both easier and harder. On the other hand, when I get dressed I need only put on any one of a number of shirts with one of my skirts, tie my hair up, and I’m more or less ready to go. I don’t have to fuss over my appearance because I look the same every day. I don’t have to worry about whether or not something is appropriate for work because I don’t work an office job. I don’t care about whether or not people think I dress funny because A) I do, and B) I know the reasons I’m doing it. As with any monastic practice, wearing particular items of clothing is best done with an open mind and a clear sense of why.

Pagan Prayer Beads: Another Interpretation October 27, 2009

Galina Krasskova has written an article called “Retooling the Rosary” that might interest Norse-inclined Pagan readers of this blog, particularly those who were raised Catholic and miss the familiarity of the Rosary.

On Monastic Restrictions: Dietary October 24, 2009

This afternoon, I took my life-oath as a monastic. The ceremony was short and to the point, witnessed by ten people and held up in my room (a.k.a. the “Convent of Our Lady of the Pointy Boot,”  a tongue-in-cheek reference to Hela). As of now I’m supposed to be living according to the restrictions my gods have placed upon me or which I’ve chosen to follow for my own reasons. The main areas of my life which this affects are clothing, diet and personal conduct. I’d like to talk about these in the next three posts. First, I’ll address food.

In other traditions, the reasons why a monk or nun might live by dietary rules usually have to do with one of two things: transcending the physical body, or avoiding violence against other sentient beings. Sometimes it’s both. My reasons for adopting particular restrictions are somewhat different. I do not believe that killing animals for food is intrinsically wrong, nor do I believe in the mortification of the flesh. I can’t really fast anyway, what with being a diabetic on time-released medication. As with any diet, my success at sticking to the rules will have a great deal to do with how mindful I am.

First, I have decided to swear off refined sugar entirely. Honestly, I should have done this long ago. I am also avoiding artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose, and high fructose corn syrup which I’m convinced is an evil substance anyway (and which is in a shocking number of processed foods). I’ll be using honey or agave in my tea and limiting my consumption of baked goods with these sweeteners or maple syrup in them. Having a bit once in a while won’t hurt me; having sweet things every day eventually will.

I no longer drink alcohol, but that’s nothing new because I’m on medication which interacts badly with liquor. Despite having been a binge drinker in my college and grad school days, I don’t really like booze that much and was never very fond of beer, so this has been an easy thing to give up. I still buy it for offering to my gods, however, and I just pour a bit out on the ground when the horn or cup is passed to me in a ritual. Similarly, I’m swearing off caffeine, as it does me no good — it makes me jittery and keeps me awake at night.  Since I can’t drink most sodas because of the sweeteners and am not that fond of coffee, I won’t miss those things — but I will miss my dear friends Earl Grey and Lapsang Souchong. Anybody have tasty herbal tea recommendations?

Any meat, eggs or dairy I consume from now on must not be factory farmed. This was most adamantly “suggested” by Hela, although I feel obligated to obey it for the sake of Frey and Nerthus as well. It might seem odd that a goddess of death would care about such things, but as I perceive Hela to be a parsimonious deity who does not approve of waste, I can see how She would not think highly of an industry that causes animal and human suffering, poisons the water and earth, and is guilty of all manner of unhealthy, underhanded practices. Why Frey and Nerthus would not think highly of all this should be fairly obvious to those familiar with the Vanic deities.

I do live on a small farm and the meat, dairy and eggs we produce here are “safe” for me to eat, as is any animal food I can verify beyond the shadow of a doubt was humanely raised without dubious industrial practices. I’ll also not be consuming seafood species that are overfished or come from certain kinds of farms, as my dedication to the sea-gods demands that I treat all Their creatures with respect as well. (The Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch program offers brochures for download that list good and bad seafood choices.) Essentially, what this means is that overall I’ll be eating a lot less meat, eggs and dairy, and that when I go out to eat I’ll mostly have to stick to the vegetarian options.

Along these same lines, I’ll be eating organic and/or local produce whenever possible. If it’s a toss-up between something local and something organic, I’m better off picking the lesser of two evils.  How much damage do apples from a partially sprayed apple orchard down the road cause the environment versus organic apples driven in a petrol-belching truck all the way from Oregon? Also, paying attention to what foods are or aren’t in season has been advised. (The Order of the Horae has a page about eating seasonal foods based on a Northern European climate, and eat the seasons has lists of foods that are currently in season, though not necessarily local to everyone). The idea is to think about what I’m doing and make the best judgment I can.

Finally, although this may sound strange, even contraindicative of a monastic point of view, I have to eat at least three decent meals a day. Because of the kind of medication I’m on, I can’t just wake up in the morning, avoid breakfast, eat a snack in mid-afternoon and then overdo it at a late-night dinner — which is what I’ve done most of my life. (Not that that’s good for a person anyway, monastic or not.) So I’ll be endeavoring to stick to a regular meal schedule for the first time in my life. And by “decent meals,” I don’t mean a three-course dinner, a bag of fast food or the meat-and-potatoes model most of us understand. I mean mostly vegetables, some grain and a bit of protein. I’ll have to actually cook more, but it isn’t as if I have an office job, kids or the other responsibilities that prevent most people from cooking meals from scratch these days.

I get a little bit of leeway from these rules on holidays. If I want a piece of pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving, I can have one without guilt or feeling that I’m breaking the rules. But that’s no excuse for going overboard and stuffing all the cookies within reach into my mouth, or getting smashed on mead at Beltane, or going to McDonald’s on Litha because it’s too hot to cook. Once again, the keyword here is mindfulness. Thinking about where food comes from, how it was raised or grown and what has gone into getting it onto one’s plate might be viewed as a holy act of contemplation for a Pagan concerned with the state of the planet and dedicated to the reverence of nature. I hope to find a new appreciation of the agriculturally-based seasonal cycle of Sabbats by doing all of this.

Of course, I don’t believe all Pagan monastics should abide by these rules. This is what my gods expect of me and what I want for myself. This is how my food choices express my reverence for the earth and the holiness of embodied existence while at the same time being careful not to cause more harm than necessary, to myself as well as to other beings.

Pagan Convent Needs Help! October 21, 2009

There’s an article up at The Wild Hunt about the Maetreum of Cybele, which is apparently experiencing problems with local harassment and religious discrimination.

I had the good fortune to meet Rev. Cathryn a few years ago. She is a sensible, devout and honest woman who has been involved in Paganism for decades. Her Cybelline reconstructionist organization currently runs (to my knowledge) the only brick-and-mortar Pagan convent in the United States.

If you can help the Maetreum find a sympathetic, competent attorney or would like to make a donation to their legal fund, I encourage you to do so. The Maetreum is at the vanguard of modern Pagan monasticism, and it would be a great shame for it to have to close its temple and convent doors over something so pointless and harmful as this.

…You Get What You Need October 10, 2009

Not long after I made the post about being in the grip of acedia, I had an epiphany. The timing doesn’t surprise me. When you’re associated with a deity like Loki, that’s what tends to happen: as soon as you realize what’s actually going on, it changes. Basically, I needed to give the problem of my lack of commitment to my vocation a name and a shape before I could make the final leap into wholehearted dedication.

This was spurred by an incident that took place a few weeks ago. I was present at a ritual where Loki “rode” a human spirit-worker. This means that for a short period of time, He possessed the body of the person in order to interact with those of us present. It is akin to the way Voudon and other Afro-Carribean religionists are “ridden” by the spirits. Indeed, the terminology used by other spirit-workers is often borrowed from those traditions since most other traditions lack vocabulary to describe what is becoming a widespread phenomenon. Anyway, while I was not the person who was the focus of the ritual, I did indeed have some contact with Him. This was only the second time I’d interacted with Loki in the flesh, so to speak, in the six years I have been His. And well…it kind of sucked, actually.

One of Loki’s faces is one that I call “Breaker of Worlds.” This is the unrepentant jerk who eventually killed Baldur and went slowly insane bound in a dark cavern beneath the world, and who is an unpredictable bastard when you call upon Him in that guise and with that expectation. That is not the whole of what Loki is. However, it is a very real part of Him that is often ignored by those Lokeans who view Him as simply a fun-loving prankster or an excuse to try and get away with bad behavior.

I don’t often experience Loki that way; He generally comes to me wearing a different face. But the gods are complex beings, and I know that He is both of these things, more than both of these. I do know the mad, bad and dangerous-to-know Loki, perhaps not as well as I do the one who fills me with both joy and longing. But I know Him.

That knowing made it hurt no less when He walked up and insulted me with a single sentence that went to the heart of many of my personal insecurities about myself. He is deadly accurate and unerringly cruel when He wants to really get to someone. For a moment I was stung. However, instead of breaking down sobbing or walking away in silence and denial, as I might have done before, I simply shrugged and answered “I am what I am.”

I’m not sure where I found the presence of mind to say that, unless it was that I had spent some time before the rite bracing myself for whatever He would do or say, and as He had insisted I attend the ritual in the first place, I knew He’d do or say something to me. Apparently that was the right answer, for to my surprise, Loki didn’t respond or insult me further, and soon went back to what He’d being doing before.

It was a test, I realized later, a small but significant one that made me think harder about why I want to be a nun — as opposed to just calling myself one because it’s what Loki and Hela want. It made me think further about why I am Loki’s consort and what it means to be the wife of a god (one of many mortal spouses, and not the pretentious title some people claim it to be, but a different way of understanding a god or goddess than through other kinds of devotional roles). It made me decide that, rather than passively do whatever I feel They expect me to do, I need to do certain things because I want to. Because it’s right and good that I do them, because I see the need for those things to be done. Because it’s my choice.

I had to choose to really be Loki’s consort, and choose to dedicate my life to Him and to Hela’s service. Even though I’m one of those people whom the gods seemingly picked out of a lineup and informed, “You’re ours.” Even though a great many things in my life as a result have not been not my choice — where I live, what I do for a living, where I spend my money, even what kinds of clothing I wear. Even though I’d already accepted that this was how things were going to be from now on. My choice was key to this — my willingness to embrace my vocation as a monastic and my status as Loki’s wife freely and because I really wanted it, not because I was just doing as I was told.

It seems so obvious now, but like many things, it isn’t so obvious when you are too close to see the whole picture and can only make out the details right in front of your face. In some way, standing up to Loki that day helped me gain the necessary distance to see what I had been ignoring or unable to see before. True, He wasn’t as hard on me as He was on the person for whom the ritual had been arranged, but then again, even Loki is capable of subtlety, and being shouted at in front of a crowd of onlookers was not what I needed.

The thing is, I already knew what I needed to know. I just didn’t realize it. I remember having a conversation with a friend some time ago. We were discussing the number of devotional books dedicated to various gods and goddesses that have been published lately. Both of us think this is an excellent thing, but he was saying how glad he was that he didn’t “have” to write a devotional for his particular patron as someone else already had one in the works. I found myself growing annoyed and self-righteous. “I’ve never written anything, except for my nun blog, because They told me to. That’s not the point — devotional work is done because you want to do it. It’s a gift, it doesn’t mean anything if They have to force it out of you.”

Well, duh. That is what Loki has been trying to get me to see for several years. That is why He hasn’t demanded that I stop doing certain things or given me a deadline for my profession of vows. He wanted me to decide for myself that I wanted it. Would I still have to be a monastic if I hadn’t reached this point? Possibly. I imagine I could have conceivably dragged this whole acedia thing out for years, the prospect of which is unappealing.

So the long and the short of it is that now I am finally and fully ready to commit to a monastic life, and to enter into the deep, commited kind of devotional relationship with Himself that by necessity will require some personal sacrifices. I have chosen a date later this month on which, in front of friends who have agreed to witness the oath-taking, I will formally make the vows I wrote about in an earlier post. I will begin from there on in to live according to the rules They and I have set out for me to abide by. I’m finally ready.

I’m fairly amused that this rather undermines the whole Master/slave paradigm that some god-bothered people (myself included) have claimed to have with their gods. It also reinforces both the contradictory nature of dealing with a trickster and the liminal space that people like me have to inhabit in order to do so without going mad ourselves. I’m a solitary monastic who has a community, a nun whose vows do not include complete celibacy, a polytheist whose life-work is to devote the majority of my energies to the worship of one god, a Lokean whose relationship with Himself is bounded by certain rules. Irony is so much a part of my life at this point that I take it for granted.

I’m also under no illusions that I won’t wrestle with acedia again in future. After all, I’m still a beginner in many ways, and it’s always hardest for new monastics, so they say, to resist the grip of apathy and despair. But having chosen to live the life I have been given has filled me with new determination, so I feel better about things than I have in a long time.

I’ll write an account of the actual oath-taking, as well as a post on the monastic rules that are going to govern my life from then on. I also plan to write about the high holidays, as I’d mentioned some time ago. Now that I have a clearer idea of what I’m going to be doing it’s much easier to find things to write about here.

In honor of Mani October 5, 2009

How can I see the splendor of the moon
If his face shines over my heart,
Flaming like the sun?

The Turks in his eyes charge through my soul,
While untrue curling hair
Defeats faith.

Yet if he lifted the veil from his face,
The world would be undone,
The universe astounded.

He walks through the garden
With grace, erect,
His exquisite posture mocking even the straight cypresses.

He charges, riding his gnostic horse
Into the holy space of divinity,
The sacred sphere.

Tonight the Saki with its red-stained ruby lips
Pours wine for the luxury of every drunk,
And sates every reveler’s taste.

As Hayati has drunk his ecstasy,
Her soul now satisfied by the wine of his pure heart,
How can she drink any other nectar?

– Bibi Hayati (19th Century), translated by Aliki Barnstone

Mani is the Norse deity associated with the moon. He travels the night skies and observes much of what happens in the Nine Worlds. His is a gentle, joyous presence, and as a friend once pointed out during a faining for him, Mani is a god whose face you can see right in front of you every night, if you only take the time to look. His sister, Sunna, is the goddess of the sun.

(I found this via the Poetry Chaikhana email newsletter. I highly recommend a visit to this site if you are interested at all in devotional poetry, as it has a stunning collection of works by poets from many religious traditions around the world.)