reflection

Annual Clergy Report for 2023

I’ve gotten away from posting these on a monthly basis, but we’re still required by ADF to compile our report for the year, and I shockingly find it fulfilling.  

I tend to suffer from imposter syndrome, and one of the best ways I’ve found for me to fight that is to list out all the things I’ve done and reflect on them.  So, this report, in the way that I fill it out, helps me combat the feeling that I don’t know what I’m doing.  So, without further ado, here’s how I fulfilled my oath last year:

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A Winter Solstice Reflection: Passing the Light

I wrote this brief reflection/working for the Winter Solstice Rite I’m running at ORW this year. I really like the imagery of passing the light. It gives us time to honor the holy dark, but also look to finding hope. If you’d like to do this working, you’ll need a candle (or electric candle) for each person present, and the overhead lights turned off. 

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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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2022 In Review – Clergy Council Priestwork Report

Clergy Council Member Annual Report Form

Priest Name: Rev. Jan Avende

Time covered: January 1 2022 – January 1 2023

This report is designed to illustrate how each individual priest has chosen to fulfill their oath to love the land, honor the deities, serve the folk, and continue in their studies as best suits their individual vocations. 

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Use the Fancy Art Supplies

I’ve been thinking lately about the Winning of the Waters myth.  In brief, the Winning of the Waters is when one deity hoards all of the blessings and other “good stuff” for themselves.  They are often described with imagery relating to dragons, and the hoarding of wealth.  Then another deity acts as the hero who fights on behalf of mankind to get the Waters (the blessings, good stuff, the hoard) for us.  The hero deity fights the hoarding deity, with the former ultimately winning, and thus allowing the Waters and blessings to flow once more from the realms of the gods to us.  

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Teaching Ritual Performance

Teaching Ritual Performance was designed to assist students to instruct others in ritual performance. In this course students are required to journal their work directing several rituals. Students do not necessarily need to write the rituals, nor do they need to write all the parts for the rituals. In fact, students may find it more challenging to allow others to write the ritual and then simply teach others how to work with the text they are given or come up with on their own.

The primary goal of this course is for students to enhance their skills for directing group ritual performance.

Course Objectives

  1. Students will increase their knowledge and skill in celebrant selection for assigned ritual roles and develop an awareness of how their selection impacts ritual performance.
  2. Students will enhance their skills for effectively directing ritual performances.
  3. Students will develop the skills necessary to effectively instruct the celebrants in working with ritual text, as well as specific elements of ritual performance, including movement, voice, and the internalization of text.
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Theater for Ritual 2

Building on the theories in Theatre for Ritual 1, this course delves deeper into the practicum of how we work in public ritual.

The primary goal of this course is for students to develop the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively utilize physical techniques, such as voice, internalization of text, props, etc., to enhance ritual.

Course Objectives

  1. Students will increase their awareness of the importance of internalization of text and effectively apply this technique in ritual.
  2. Students will demonstrate knowledge of the importance of voice in ritual to include developing an understanding of projection and diction.
  3. Students will demonstrate increased knowledge of physical techniques, such as internalization of text, the use of space, props, theatricality and movement in ritual.
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I’ve Been Praying All Along

As my kids have gotten older, it’s gotten more difficult to have a regularly scheduled personal practice. I used to have a very solid devotion/prayer schedule: daily devotion (often at dawn), twice weekly trance work, weekly solitary rite, full moon rite, new moon rite, Druid moon rite, and high day rite. These days I’m lucky if I manage a devotion once a week, trance work really only happens about once a month, and I’m down to just the grove Druid moons and high days. I’ll admit: I was feeling pretty guilty and inferior about it.

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