Walking the Path

Thoughts about the things happening in my life, often with some relation to the Kindreds and how my relationship with them is deepening.

Spiritual Experience, Daydream, or Mental Illness

It is not uncommon for me to field questions and concerns around the theme of “I had this really intense dream/meditation/trance, and I’m worried I might be crazy” or “such and such spirit came to me and told me things, and I’m pretty sure it’s true, but it doesn’t match anything that’s written or anybody else’s experiences” or “Am I just taking myself on wish fulfillment, fantastical adventures in my head and believing it’s true?”  As pagans, we work with spirits (including the gods and dead, and those who defy categorization) who are often fairly close to the human world (or share it with us entirely), and in a post-colonial Western society we don’t have a good frame of reference for what is “normal” in spiritwork.  

So, how do you find the balance between mental illness, your imagination, and a spiritual experience (or UPG – Unverified Personal Gnosis)? How do you know what is “real” and what is maybe just daydreaming? If you’re already neurodivergent, how do you navigate spiritual experiences while honoring your brain’s very real differences?

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Reflections on My Installation as Archdruid

Rev. Drum (dressed in white robes) holds sickle to throat of Rev. Jan (dressed in multi-colored robes)

There are rites of passage that happen throughout our lives, and sometimes they pass without much fanfare, but other times they are spiritually significant and marked as such through ritual and community engagement.

At Wellspring this year I was installed at the 7th Archdruid of ADF at the main rite.  I planned most of the rite and scripted portions of it, but there was also a very real sense of “this is something that I need to let happen to me, and not control the experience.”  That’s hard to do for a very liturgical and spiritwork focused Priest. 😉 I’m used to making these experiences meaningful for others, but in this case I trusted others to make it meaningful, not just for me, but for ADF as a whole.

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Queer Grief and Ancestor Veneration

Queer Grief and Ancestor Veneration

originally published for Oak Leaves Winter 2024

“As our ancestors did before, so we do now, so our descendants may do in the future.” This is what we say in every ritual, in every statement of purpose and precedent.  But how do we live it?

[cw: this article will touch on themes of death, grief, transphobia, homophobia, epidemics, and suicide]

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Reflecting on the ‘Total Eclipse of the Heartland’

This past week I had the privilege to travel to Tredara with my family and many other pagan (and pagan-adjacent) folks to experience the totality of the solar eclipse that stretched across the United States on April 8th.  “Tredara is a 22-acre facility owned and operated by druids of Stone Creed Grove. It features multiple nemetons, an Ancestor Mound, a shrine to the Nature Spirits, and many other sacred spots” (Stone Creed).  Every time I have visited Tredara has been amazing, especially because they always seem to have new shrines each year (this year was a lovely Hekate shrine), but it was especially wonderful this visit because experiencing Totality is absolutely awe-inspiring, and then to see it on sacred ground amongst my spiritual community was ineffable.   

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“Reflections on Prison Chaplaincy”

It’s amazing how serendipitous life changes can really affect your spirituality and the ways that you interact with the world.  Since becoming ordained in 2015 I’ve had an interest in pursuing professional chaplaincy, but as a minority religion there are even more barriers in place that there would be otherwise.  Even then, I thought I’d like higher education or hospital chaplaincy, and was pretty sure that prison chaplaincy was not for me.  But then this opportunity to work at the local women’s state prison fell into my lap, and I have found myself spirituality reinvigorated and deeply humbled in this work.  

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Teaching Chaplains About Paganism

I had the amazing opportunity to teach a class of Chaplaincy students doing CPE with OhioHealth this week.  Their instructor had reached out to me to see if I could help give them some perspective on what types of things pagans belief, and what would help them in times of crisis.  The talk went really well, the students were engaged and had good questions.  Hopefully I get the opportunity to go back with each new cohort.  

Here’s the outline that I sent along to the students:

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Reigniting Your Devotional Practice

For many people, including me, November and December are so busy with family obligations and other social functions thanks to the over-culture, that our own personal devotional practice tends to fall by the wayside for awhile.  Devotional practices, whether they be daily or weekly prayers, meditation, or magical workings, ebb and flow.  They go in cycles like the seasons, and that’s okay.  A dormant season is necessary for a fruitful growing and harvest season.  So, as we’re coming out of the dormant season, it’s okay that our practice may have been dormant for awhile. Now is the time to reignite it.  

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