Altars

Thinking on various things from Tresholds and the aftermath. Likely to come out disjointed, and I've decided not to fight that... organization can come after I get my thoughts out.

Ri did a great workshop on Faery Cairns/Altars at Thresholds this year, and if I learned one thing at it, this is it: altars are places for setting up relationships. The relationships you are asking for are symbolized by the offerings/symbols you leave on it.

To that, from recent experience, I would add this: One should be as careful of the symbolic relationships they omit from an altar, as they are of the ones they include.

(Edit: Dear gods, my mind just made a re-connection between this and fae-work through the sleeping beauty fairy-tale and the fairy that wasn't invited at the beginning.)

I think I may add more elements of altar-work to my practice. Though my ritual-bag has become something of a personal "altar" as it is... I wonder if anyone else works with nonstandard tools which function according to the natural functions and dynamics commonly associated with the formal altar?

Darkfire

Edit: while the following thoughts were inspired by conversations at a reiki workshop at thresholds, darkfire was not discussed as part of that workshop and all thoughts expressed here on the subject of unmaking are entirely my own.

i have long regarded reiki and darkfire as opposites or near-opposites, and reiki and purefire as the same or very closely related. Recently, I have come to believe that unmaking through the application of darkfire is not nearly as permanent an end as most believe, and I have also been thinking about the concept of darkfire possibly having positive applications and even a place in the grand scheme of things. I believe that, thanks to a discussion at WtT of why some individuals seem to have problems working with Reiki, I may have found at least one positive application for darkfire and the energies of unmaking.

According to the theory that I heard at Thresholds, some people may have a problem with Reiki precisely because of the fact that it works to restore you to your energetic template. Some people have worked very hard to divorce themselves from their natural state; ie, people born with intense tempers who have worked to excise that aspect of their personality. These individuals would not be well-served by a healing system working to restore them to that state.

This brings me to the positive application of darkfire: unmaking those portions of a pattern/template that need to be changed. Making a truly blank slate for the creation of something new. In fact, I believe that the "negative" aspect of darkfire, commonly referred to as corruption, is the result of darkfire being applied by someone experiencing deeply negative emotions of fear and anger and particularly despair and erasing the existing pattern of something only to replace it with a warped and dark parody.

If it was not being wielded as a weapon, but as a tool, I think that it could ultimately help wipe away things we have outgrown or that have failed us, so that they can be replaced by newer, brighter dreams of how things could be.

That said, this is still just theory and will remain so for quite some time while I think on this more and make certain that there are no obvious holes in the theory.

Altars Part 2

Thought for WtT8 next year: either a gathering altar where everyone who comes to Thresholds places an object symbolizing the relationship they want with the gathering and the others present, or even better (since the faery cairn in a sense could be seen this way as well, plus the added elements of ties to the land and farm itself) an opening ritual where offerings are left at the fairy cairn by everyone specifically for this purpose. I think this may have actually been where Ri was going with his initial speech at the opening ritual around the faery cairn about everyone thinking about what they wanted from this Thresholds, but since that came before his workshop on faery cairns and altars I'm not sure how many people took it in that manner. I know I didn't until now, when I have the time to look back and digest everything in retrospect. Next year, maybe it would be useful to spell it out a little more, in terms that people would understand even never having attended the workshop. I think that, if seen in that light by those participating in the ritual, it could be a very powerful tool towards setting up the relationships with each other and the event and the land itself that people are looking for in the course of the weekend and seem to have trouble finding.

On a similar note, I think that my yearly tradition of giving the fae something it feels that they would like just in thanks may come to an end... it feels a little too much like the way that I buy my human family christmas presents and that's a little too superficial a connection to foster with the primal/elemental spirits of the immanent otherworlds, I'm thinking. On the other hand, they did seem to really like and appreciate the work I did helping fix up some of the bits of the altar, and the wand I offered up that became part of the stone statue silvaerina_tael left for them. I still don't know where that wand came from, or how it got in among my rock collection, but the fact that I found it while packing to move at a point in time where offerings to the fae were being discussed on LJ made me think it belonged with them more than it did with me. And it felt right when added there... hopefully it will help balance out some of the energies that sword may have left there from its long presence. Next year, I'll need to think about what to give them that will help foster a deeper relationship and truly represent the connections I want with them, the land, and with Walking the Thresholds itself.

Aumakua

I find myself thinking back on my Huna workshop today (and yes, it will get written up soon, that's on my to-do list for the week) and thinking of the portion about Aumakua. "Often associated with ones ancestors, particularly ones grandparents." "The aumakua will never interfere with your life unless there is a danger of moving off your life path." "When the aumakua does interfere, it is usually in the form of little accidents or coincidences, in other words synchronicity."

I don't know if I mentioned this or not, but I recently "inherited" a set of leatherworking tools that belonged to my grandfather. They were in good condition for not having seen the light of day in 23 years, and though I was surprised to learn of their existence I didn't think too much of it at the time apart from getting them cleaned up and ready to take with me this summer.

I'm thinking about them now, though. See, today we hired people to clean out the years of junk and debris from the garage, in preparation for moving at the end of this month. Got a lot of things removed that were trashed, and cleaned all the way to the back of the garage. There, just sitting on a shelf, I found some paperwork that had belonged to my grandfather. It was sitting in the garage for my entire life, a garage that leaked and had regular visits by various wild animals that got in through the roof or the broken window on the side... yet curiously, it had survived intact. Mere inches away, the outer layers other paperwork had been somewhat shredded by mice, yet not so much as a nibble marred this paperwork.

I now have all of the instruction manuals, kits, and patterns that go with the leatherworking kit that I inherited.

Someone trying to tell me something here?

I foresee learning to work with leather in my free time this summer.... and perhaps with the human half of my personal Aumakua as well.