I’ve spent the past week listening to several songs from Ancient Mother, an album from 1993. We played several of the pieces from that album a lot when I was young. I love both the title song (“Ancient Mother”) and “The Circle Is Cast,” in addition to “Lady of the Flowing Waters.” Playing the songs have been grounding, and I am also in the percolating stage of gathering things together for some new playlists that I’m hoping to finish by next weekend when I will need them.
The style of “The Circle Is Cast” reminds me of another song, “Come On, Aphrodite,” which often makes me smile. The lyrics of the song have that characteristic that Hermias pulls out in the commentary on the Phaedrus when he is discussing the confidence of poets approaching the Muses and of the passage in Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis Book IV when Iamblichus is responding to the question of “[why] we invoke the Gods as our superiors, but then give them orders as if they were our inferiors” (IV.1). There’s a lot of joy in connecting contemporary music that would be well at home in a polytheistic world to the theological texts written over fifteen hundred years ago.
In the percolating stage, I am making mental lists of things I’ve listened to over the years — Mirabilis’ Pleiades, the pagan songs on the Ancient Mother album, the discography of Daemonia Nymphe, Anatolian Weapons’ To the Mother of the Gods, The Wong Janice’s Cello for the Moon Phases, pieces from SEIKILO Ancient World Music’s YouTube channel, and so on, which will end up in a playlist of things to listen to while incapacitated. I’m considering making a separate morning prayer playlist with songs that follow the sequence of deities I pray to as closely as possible.
The way I resolve uncertainty is to center myself on solutions, which probably came across a lot if you’ve read The Soul’s Inner Statues — there is always a way to come into the steadiness of prayer. It’s often difficult for people to problem-solve their ways through these challenges because so much of the polytheistic and pagan social media space focuses on highly aestheticized and idealized practices. There’s also a social media idea floating around that if you have to take a break from shrine practices, you’re suddenly not pagan or a polytheist or that you’re “taking a break” as if religion were a hobby. But we’re human and we’re not always in those high-capacity states. We have surgeries, we get sick either physically or emotionally or in combination, we have spiritually challenging periods — the weather of our lives, some of which lingers, some of which passes quickly. It’s hard to know which. And many people also manage chronic conditions. Fixating on aesthetics can do more harm than good, as it can disconnect people from the Gods when they yearn for that grounding the most.
Finally, as a heads up, it’s difficult for me to say when I might post next here. As I said in the paragraph above, weather systems sometimes linger and sometimes pass quickly. So, given that: If you’ve read A Matter of Oracles or The Village of Strong Branches, I would really appreciate reviews on your website of choice to help others know if the book is a good fit for them. If you’re also dealing with some uncertainty around your own devotional capacity, I recommend taking a look at this section of The Soul’s Inner Statues.
I hope that you all have an excellent weekend and a fruitful harvest season.
KALLISTI 
I have spent a lot of time working on playlists as I find them to be an effective focus for prayer and/or meditation when in front of the god or gods.
Here are some playlists that I’ve made:
https://music.youtube.com/channel/UCk2hn-0zs-IW9os7ZcAhdtA?si=V9rlxjcr9ZKbVEmd
Perhaps in one or more, you can find some tracks which help you in your devotions. Thanks, as always, for your wonderful posts, Kaye!
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Thank you so much for that link!!
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I love the sentence where you wrote, “…there is always a way to come into the steadiness of prayer.” That’s such a wonderful — and true — sentiment, even though it can be hard to remember when life feels unsettling.
Playlists can definitely be used as prayers, or even just to meditate on, or focus on the Gods and the holy. I also use them sometimes for divination. I have a playlist each for most of my Gods, as well as playlists for my Ancestors and Beloved Dead, the Land Spirits, and the Good Neighbors. I have chronic illnesses and disabilities, and they’re really wonderful and helpful tools/digital devotional items to have during flairs. It never occurred to me to make one that combines songs for each of my Gods, but reading your plans for it, that sounds like a great idea that I think I’m going to try.
A few other things I’ve found helpful when I’m partially or mostly incapacitated are:
a) having books handy in several options of formats (paperbacks and ebooks, but also especially audiobooks) that focus on the Gods and religious themes.
b) keeping a couple of the shortest prayers that I pray most frequently typed up and framed hanging on the wall in a place that’s visible from my bed.
c) keeping my primary prayer book and most sets of my prayer beads on my nightstand (the latter in a small metal box)
d) several of our household shrines are in our bedroom. I realize that won’t work for everyone, and in our case, it’s partially due to space constraints, though not entirely. One thing I do try to do, where ever we live (though a couple of times I haven’t been able to manage it) is to keep Gaia’s shrine directly across from the bed, so I can always see Her shrine, even on days when I’m mostly confined to bed.
I hope whatever you have coming up goes as well and as smoothly as possible, that you’re able to return to a state of equilibrium swiftly, and that you feel the presence of your Gods guiding and guarding you every step of the way.
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Thank you for all of these suggestions! I’m definitely going to do some rearranging at my bedside table after reading your points, hopefully in a way that keeps everything safe if the anesthesia/pain meds make me super nauseous!
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I’m so glad they might be helpful to you! Well, for what it’s worth, the way I resolved that particular issue is that one of the best purchases I’ve made in my adult life is buying a desk organizer for my nightstand. Mine is metal, so not easily knocked about, and it elevates things slightly off the nightstand surface. It also keeps things contained and, well — organized. Mine has three vertical sections that I keep notebooks (including my prayer book), books, and a portable shrine in a box in, and a horizontal drawer underneath where I store my prayer beads in a tin, a candle and lighter I use in nighttime devotions, and things like lip balm and fidget toys (because I’m AuDHD). I hesitated to mention it, because I know minimalism is an important factor in your life, and I certainly don’t want to encourage people to buy things they don’t want or need, but it has been really helpful for me.
For me, the portable shrine and the prayer beads are also in metal tins, the prayer book is a hardcover that closes with an elastic band, and the regular shrines are across the room, so most of the things that need an extra level of protection have it.
And I apologize if this is too graphic, but when feeling nauseated, I keep a bucket lined with a trash bag on the floor in front of my nightstand, so it’s well away from everything else.
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That’s an interesting setup you have — thank you for sharing it in more detail. For me, it’s a combo of being aware of eco minimalism, my mortality, and the limitations imposed by my dust mite allergy. I’ve been using handheld focus tools for about a month now because I learned that they’re a great alternative to pacing and fiddling with my hair (which gets worse when I’m under stress, and the FMLA paperwork is so anxiety-inducing …), so I’ll definitely move the ones I like into arm’s reach!
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oh I remember this group! I’ve often thought of all the chants and songs that weren’t recorded but were used ALL THE TIME across Wiccan and Pagan traditions… I wish we could go back and record them all for posterity.
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Hopefully, someone will do an archival project sooner or later to archive these things. The chanting and the drumming from my childhood are something I miss a lot even though I now know that drum circles are cultural appropriation and should never be done. I haven’t seen hours-long chanting after any rituals I have attended since I was in my early 20s, probably because they go hand-in-hand.
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I disagree that drum circles are cultural appropriation — our own ancestors had similar practices. I guess you don’t want to listen to jazz, rock and roll, or anything else made by people of color. From the beginning of time, music, religious practices, food-ways, clothing were shared, adapted, adopted, integrated into one’s own household. sometimes this happened brutally yes, but more often it was trade, nearness of neighbors, marriage, etc. by the same rubric, this logic would lead to saying BIPOC folks can’t use inventions by those of European, traditionally “white” cultures. it’s foolishness. Do the drum circle. Jesus. We know drumming was part of Greco-Roman culture. We know it was part of Scandinavian and Germanic culture. Those are the traditions I engage in and that’s not counting Saami, Kemetic, Sardinians, Japanese, etc. We really need to bring a little common sense and sanity back to the world.
I do miss the chanting and circles and such. But I think part of the problem there is that amazon and other online sellers killed the little local pagan shops that often offered space for public gatherings.
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I agree that this doesn’t make logical sense — people definitely do not call me out for listening to world classical (sitar, kora, &c. &c.) at all. I am not sure when drum circles actually started fading because I didn’t go to any during grad school, but by the time I was out, I didn’t really see any marketing anywhere and only learned that many of them had stopped (at least in this area) during the discourse about cultural appropriation later.
About the broader context of our conversation, I am not actually certain at all how to fix the polarized atmosphere in the USA about ritual and chanting and all else. My sense from talking to people abroad is that these are mostly American and America-based diasporic issues. This country is so charged with polarization right now that finding a route through that to help people sometimes feels like trying to cut through a wall made of diamonds, which is why I’m focusing a lot more on the basic household ritual and theological things when I talk about things. I get the sense that you’re problem-solving through similar issues from a different perspective angle.
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I think the circles really stopped when the shops closed. I’m old enough to remember Magical Childe in NY and the original Enchantments, and several other shops whose names I’ve forgotten. They were gathering places in many respects and there was a much more cohesive sense of community. To have a drum circle you need a group. it’s not something easily done in an apartment with neighbors who might complain. I think it was the early 2000s that they just started disappearing. maybe slightly earlier. It’s sad. Some of the shops started disappearing first, mind you.
I don’t know how to fix it either but I think focusing on household cultus and if possible in-person ritual groups is important. The internet can be a wonderful thing, likewise social media when it’s used to foster education and connection but that’s never what rises to the surface and it’s really contributed to the divisiveness writ large. No one has to move out of his or her own comfort zone anymore. There’s no common cultural media. these things may sound innocent, but I’ve seen the results with the students I teach: their worlds, the worlds in their heads get smaller, the points of connection narrower, and the insanity that spreads like a mental disease louder. So I always suggest praying, doing devotion, and finding hobbies offline (not cutting out one’s online work) to balance the time online.
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Ah, I think I see the convergence now. So it’s because of the shops closing that there wasn’t as much of a will to forge a path forward because that would have required humans getting together, then. Maybe that can be contrasted with smoke cleansing — similar appropriation concerns came up about it; however, people were able to forge a path forward by differentiating terminology and being clearer about the sources, and that was likely helped by how solitary- and apartment-friendly the practice is … unlike, as you say, apartment drumming.
I agree about the Internet, although the cultural touchstone bit is trickier to think through. Sometime last year, I started to realize that it was a really terrible idea for people to be doing solo study in polytheistic theology and Platonism based on my observations. A person can have all of the mystic experiences in the world and all of the best intentions, but being in a learning community (Zoom, IRL, or a combo, depending) cannot really be skipped over. Some find that idea uncomfortable, and Gods know I have my own share of social awkwardness that makes things difficult sometimes, but it being a tad uncomfortable doesn’t make it less true.
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people should care more about devotion than “appropriation concerns”. rolls eyes. Be respectful — and I think that’s where those concerns stem from; but if people knew the history of their own traditions, their own ancestries, they’d realize that for every practice they think they’re appropriating, there’s probably a similar one in their own ancestral ways. Taking smudging…Heathens did it. They didn’t use sage, but we have reliable Anglo-Saxon sources for nine different herbs, especially mugwort. So, smudge away. and those working in Umbanda and Heathenry realized that our Gods and the Orisha talk. So, give Odin tobacco…Ellegua and He have shared it. Gods travel and talk and share practices and sometimes practitioners. If we thought (not you specifically or me, but across the board) more carefully about what our Gods want and what pleases Them, I think we’d be less inclined toward this mental contagion where everything is somehow offensive. Now, I agree with you about a learning community. But learning without the experience is not going to drive a tradition forward. It’s the mystical experiences that are the heart of any living tradition BUT, th tradition itself should provide a framework for unpacking those experiences, putting them to good use, and integrating them into the common shared knowledge of that particular tradition’s community. we’re not there yet. I like the idea that I learned about from a Jewish colleague: when studying Talmud, each student must have a study-buddy. They read together, argue, encourage…I love this idea of having one or two people to share that learning and study time — which is a way of honoring the Gods. It’s a model we might find useful. I’m lucky: in a household of five, that has turned itself into a monastery, we constantly have conversations, read together, argue, talk. But not everyone is that fortunate. Here’s where the internet CAN be a godsend!
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If I may be so bold as to jump into your exchange here, Kaye and Galina, it seems to me that the critical question you’re both getting at is: Am I looking for reasons to give to my Gods, or am I looking for reasons not to? Coming back to that question—and making sure that I’m answering in the first way—seems to me like it will resolve all the other problems here.
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I would so love to have a study partner.
About 10 years ago I got involved with a Pagan group in my hometown, and it turned out they were harboring a sexual predator who got to stay because he was pals with the group leader. As I was so new to paganism, being a survivor of that situation was quite toxic to my spiritual development. I haven’t stopped longing for a spiritual community though.
I’m skirting around getting back into the organization. (Not the group in town; they collapsed inward and disbanded from what I can tell.)
tl;dr great post, going to make some devotional playlists and add finding one or two irl folks to study with to my prayer list.
Gods all bless! 🙏🙌
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That sounds like a terrible situation‼️ It’s yet another reason why it’s so important to start with household practices because they can be an anchor — psychologically, having the solid core home practice means that leaving a toxic group doesn’t create quite so deep spiritual wounds because one’s religious identity is not bound up in the group, if that makes sense.
My co-study people are on Zoom. For a bit, I was trying to go to open events from the main localish-to-me umbrella group. First time, I was suffering from a bad allergy reaction to dust from cleaning the day before and could barely talk; second time, there was torrential rain, and the space they’d rented had the fans on despite it being March, so dust was getting into my eyes, and they were stinging. I haven’t tried a third time because I’m a bit preoccupied by life things.
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Thank you so much.
I’m definitely focusing on building a strong home practice now. I was so new to Paganism then and too used to the non-denominational Christian view that religion only happens on Sunday during church services that I didn’t have much of a solid base to turn to when the, ahem, manure hit the oscillating device.
I feel like Odysseus, wandering for 10 years on my way back home, but I am finally ready to roll up my sleeves and build a solid foundation of devotion and prayer.
By the way, your Soul’s Inner Statutes is such a treasure. Thanks for writing it and publishing it!
I’m sorry to hear about your attempts to have in-person meetings not going well. Yay allergies…I hope third time will be the charm for you! And that whatever life stuff you’ve got coming up goes smoothly.
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