Category Archives: Personal

The New Year, the End of Reunion

As evening settles in I busy myself making a new type of pasta dish. Rather than straining the liquid from the noodles, the pasta is cooked in the liquid as if making a risotto. It may not be a traditional New Year’s meal, but it tastes good and sits, still warm, as I wait for my husband to return from work. Glühwein sits in the crockpot, heated and ready to warm us on this cold January night. Rain came down all day in gentle swishes of water. The air was cold and prickly but smelled so nice, seeping into the house through the open windows before I couldn’t handle it and had to shutter them up and warm myself near the radiator.

As the new year came in I sat, Otherfaith books on one side of my laptop, writing away about the prayers and devotions of the Other People. I sat for a good few minutes (or more) trying to figure out how to write about the practical aspects. Do I start with the shrines? Do I start with prayers? How do I break it all down?

Strong incense drifted from my shrine in the entrance room. I breathed in and centered myself. My skin was almost buzzing with excitement. I could break down the practicals, because I had to, and because doing so would solidify my own practice.

I am adapting previous writings of mine concerning the Other People’s devotional life. While many prayers will remain intact, the timing and devotional schedule will change. This is to accommodate the realities of my current life. It is also so I can more easily advise people how to begin practicing in the ‘faith. Rather than the devotional week being Monday through Sunday, it is shortened to Monday through Friday, with the weekends having optional devotions but more focused on integrating the gods into our general lives.

Of course I can’t share everything that I’ll be writing. It will be published in a few months as ‘A Brief Introduction to the Otherfaith’. Patrons on Patreon will get a first look as well as an option to receive physical copies if they want.

And now it’s time to get back to dinner and the house and enjoying this cold new year.

New Year Expectations

Happy November!

We are getting into moving properly now. Despite this, I have so much to bring you in terms of content and updates.

Wiki.wiki, the site that hosts our current wiki, will be shutting down on December 1. Because of this we will be going back to Wikia for our wiki-hosting needs for the foreseeable future. The good news is that Wikia is a bit more newbie friendly! I had been hoping to put a MediaWiki-like plugin here but I haven’t had luck with that. Wikia lets users create apps from their wikis, however, so that will become useful in the future.

I have already moved our sizable FAQs from Wikia over here. Not all the FAQs on Wikia were transferred, as some of them are answered elsewhere on the site or are no longer relevant. You can find all our current FAQs under our main page. We have a new FAQs page under Practice FAQs.

Life is going to become incredibly busy for me during the move. On top of the move is the post-move: settling in, settling down, setting up. I hope to bring updates on this new chapter of my life and how it impacts my practice, but actually living it comes before writing about it. All the same, I look forward to sharing my religious practice and developing the Otherfaith.

Mid-November into December will be the busiest time when it comes to moving. January and February will focus on my first impressions of my new living area, as well as sharing setting up shrine spaces and settling into a new religious grove with the spirits. I am hoping to spend these winter months honing info in the Otherfaith and writing up some much needed ritual practices that people have asked for.

March is the time I am looking forward to most. That will be the time we will have our household really swinging together, and I’ll have my dear sewing machine returned to me. Here in Arizona I’ve already begun working on sewing cloaks. Cloaks and capes in godly colors are items I associate strongly with the Other People’s spirits and a physical representation of, well, so many things! They can show godly favor or preference for a deity, or they may simply show that one honors a deity specifically. I am working on red ones currently (of course) and hope to make some nice, if simple, embroidered cloaks to give (and eventually sell) to Other People. I have also made my first fleece blanket and absolutely loved creating it. The one I worked on was for my spouse and themed after his favorite Pokemon. I would like to make more religious-oriented blankets and throws, though, and will naturally focus on the Four+ Gods.

I think it fitting that as winter settles into this town, and as I am about to embark to a place where winter is truly cold, there will be much of my life stripped away. It will leave time for contemplation and consideration and rebuilding my religious practice. And I must admit to a certain joy to escaping this desert land. I love Tucson for what she is, but she and I do not get along. This fall has been especially rough on my body, with the late season pollen absolutely devastating my sinuses. I may be allergic to the plants in my new home, but it will also be greener, and wetter, and cold, and an adventure. I’ve been melancholy about leaving Tucson, this city that has cultivated me, but by gods I am ready.

Ready for a new home and the many new years ahead.

[Saturday] Life Updates

Traditionally women have prepared their homes for summer by getting rid of anything that was hot or heavy-looking. Sarah Ban Breathnach

Prayers:

from Ceisiwr Serith’s A Book of Pagan Prayer (Amazon link)
(Alterations are noted with brackets)

As comings in and goings out,
my prayers bracket my day.

It is my privilege to perform my morning prayers.
It is my honor to do what should be done.
As I rise with the morning, fog lifting slowly from my mind,
I pray not to forget these truths.

My day begins again,
and again I dedicate myself to the service of the gods.
May it be their tasks I perform.
As the day wears on, keep before my eyes, [Hand Holder],
the path of the [Four Gods],
that I may not forget that it is to them that I have dedicated my life,
so that every action may be an offering to them.

In the morning, everything is new.
The day’s blank slate lies before me,
ready for my writing.
May it be words of beauty I write.
May it be deeds of grace I do.
May it be thoughts of joy I think.
[Holy Ones], listen:
This is what I pray.

 

from the Otherfaith prayer book:

‘The First Prayer’
Speak we now, the first prayer of the People.
Clarene Ophelia Laetha Dierne
We praise the Four Gods of Western Faery –
you who burn, you who bury, you who dance, you who drown;
We sing to you your praises,
We speak to you your words,
that we may know and love you.
This we pray.

‘Morning Prayer’
Clarene Ophelia Laetha Dierne –
I wake today to thoughts of you.
Laethelia Ophelene Darren Liathane –
I go through the day along with you.
This I pray.

Reading List:

Turning Point: Essays on a new Unitarian Universalism edited by Frediric Muir (Amazon link)

Managing Your Mind: The Mental Fitness Guide by Gillian Butler and Tony Hope (Amazon link)

Taking Sacred Back by Nels and Judy Linde (Amazon link)