January Esbat: A Full Moon Ritual
Jan. 31st, 2010 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
windinthemaplesSarah's (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
mermaiden) recent visit and the Full Moon's appearance while she was here, provided us an opportunity to celebrate an esbat together. Other factors conspired to create my favorite sort of ritual environment...that moonlit, deserted beach that I grew into a witch upon. So it was, on Saturday night, that the two of us descended the dune at Juno Beach in time to watch that full moon rising over the dark ocean. We were able to stand barefoot in the surf--rocking with the energetic pull of moon and tides, waves and wind--for a few precious hours. We talked and the Divine talked and the whole natural world around us joined the conversation. I remembered, as I often do at full moons, exactly who I am. I am a priestess, I am a bit of the divine embodied, I am part of that incredible, ever-changing whole. I am.
It was the first day of their visit with overcast skies. That night, as I mentally prepared for ritual, as I stood and relaxed into the cool pull of the tide zone sands, the moon presented only a vague hint of light behind a veil of heavy gray clouds.
We sat and the moon pulled herself slowly out from the clouds, casting a wide pavement of light across the ocean from horizon to shore. In that rippling path, I could See thousands and thousands and thousands of silver-backed fish, little fish of moonlight, and felt their silent, inobtrusive listening. I could feel that one of those many, many magickal fish was waiting on my words--one on Sarah's--and that whatever we said, whatever soul message we had would be born by those fish safely to the heart of the sea. All those moonlit magick fish, that incomprehensibly large ocean, able to hear and hold the secrets, the pain, the experience-of-living of every being that is ever, has ever been embodied. The great cleansing place, the emotional plane itself, pure feeling and Mystery and dark, cocooned rest.
That ocean, that cloudy night sky, the constant cycling whispering rush of it all made maintaining a walking meditative state almost inevitable. I didn't have to journey to the gods I honor, they came to me, and I found myself in that brilliant, brief state where I knew exactly what to say because I wasn't the one saying it. I had so much energy, I could feel it pushing outward past my skin, the layers of me bowing outward, expanding without feeling weightier. I was outside of my normal self-imposed limits. I was having micro-second flashes of knowing, those perfect and ungraspable moments when everything made sense on a Universal level before tumbling away like an elusive rolling shell in the surf.
I was brimming with stillness and certainty.
We chose, with the environment, not to cast a circle. We acknowledged the Elements, the Lord and Lady, and watched the sky as the Moon pulled free from the tangle of clouds. A large circle of light formed among the clouds, a perfect moon-circle cast around us. Sarah bent to collect sea water to anoint me and I did the same. At some point, we walked our separate ways to commune with our own gods and goddesses, to receive our own individual messages in privacy.
I was filled with an uncharacteristic exuberance. I wanted to laugh and leap and throw myself into the waves. I wanted to sing and shriek and run around like a wild woman dragging my skirts through the water. There was such pure joy.
I got to a wide, perfectly planed patch of wet sand. I had no tools but my feet and I was compelled to walk a pentacle of footprints into the sand. I chanted to Isis, the first song I ever wrote to Her, and as I finished the last encompassing circle, turned to find the tide already surging up to cover the edge of it. I stood in the center of my giant pentacle of footprints and sang my heart out to the moon. By the time I was done, all that crazy, cascading energy had drained completely away and I was left feeling hollowed out and whole, still and at peace, perfectly placed in my life. Around me, in every direction, my footsteps had already been filled in and smoothed out to that glass-like surface of the ocean's edge.
My offering, those footsteps, that path I walked in honor of the gods I serve, was accepted and taken into the vastness of the water.
I walked down the beach and reunited with Sarah. There were more quiet moments and words, more singing and a closing of the ritual, but frankly I don't carry much memory of it. I know that the moon shone down on us with the Perfect Love of a doting Mother and I know that everything I needed to clear out and recharge this month, I received.
It was perfect. Perfect love, perfect trust, perfect moment, perfect place, perfect understanding, perfect timing. For just a moment, I wasn't seeing my life through my embodied eyes but through those divine, immortal soul's eyes.
mermaiden) recent visit and the Full Moon's appearance while she was here, provided us an opportunity to celebrate an esbat together. Other factors conspired to create my favorite sort of ritual environment...that moonlit, deserted beach that I grew into a witch upon. So it was, on Saturday night, that the two of us descended the dune at Juno Beach in time to watch that full moon rising over the dark ocean. We were able to stand barefoot in the surf--rocking with the energetic pull of moon and tides, waves and wind--for a few precious hours. We talked and the Divine talked and the whole natural world around us joined the conversation. I remembered, as I often do at full moons, exactly who I am. I am a priestess, I am a bit of the divine embodied, I am part of that incredible, ever-changing whole. I am.It was the first day of their visit with overcast skies. That night, as I mentally prepared for ritual, as I stood and relaxed into the cool pull of the tide zone sands, the moon presented only a vague hint of light behind a veil of heavy gray clouds.
We sat and the moon pulled herself slowly out from the clouds, casting a wide pavement of light across the ocean from horizon to shore. In that rippling path, I could See thousands and thousands and thousands of silver-backed fish, little fish of moonlight, and felt their silent, inobtrusive listening. I could feel that one of those many, many magickal fish was waiting on my words--one on Sarah's--and that whatever we said, whatever soul message we had would be born by those fish safely to the heart of the sea. All those moonlit magick fish, that incomprehensibly large ocean, able to hear and hold the secrets, the pain, the experience-of-living of every being that is ever, has ever been embodied. The great cleansing place, the emotional plane itself, pure feeling and Mystery and dark, cocooned rest.
That ocean, that cloudy night sky, the constant cycling whispering rush of it all made maintaining a walking meditative state almost inevitable. I didn't have to journey to the gods I honor, they came to me, and I found myself in that brilliant, brief state where I knew exactly what to say because I wasn't the one saying it. I had so much energy, I could feel it pushing outward past my skin, the layers of me bowing outward, expanding without feeling weightier. I was outside of my normal self-imposed limits. I was having micro-second flashes of knowing, those perfect and ungraspable moments when everything made sense on a Universal level before tumbling away like an elusive rolling shell in the surf.
I was brimming with stillness and certainty.
We chose, with the environment, not to cast a circle. We acknowledged the Elements, the Lord and Lady, and watched the sky as the Moon pulled free from the tangle of clouds. A large circle of light formed among the clouds, a perfect moon-circle cast around us. Sarah bent to collect sea water to anoint me and I did the same. At some point, we walked our separate ways to commune with our own gods and goddesses, to receive our own individual messages in privacy.
I was filled with an uncharacteristic exuberance. I wanted to laugh and leap and throw myself into the waves. I wanted to sing and shriek and run around like a wild woman dragging my skirts through the water. There was such pure joy.
I got to a wide, perfectly planed patch of wet sand. I had no tools but my feet and I was compelled to walk a pentacle of footprints into the sand. I chanted to Isis, the first song I ever wrote to Her, and as I finished the last encompassing circle, turned to find the tide already surging up to cover the edge of it. I stood in the center of my giant pentacle of footprints and sang my heart out to the moon. By the time I was done, all that crazy, cascading energy had drained completely away and I was left feeling hollowed out and whole, still and at peace, perfectly placed in my life. Around me, in every direction, my footsteps had already been filled in and smoothed out to that glass-like surface of the ocean's edge.
My offering, those footsteps, that path I walked in honor of the gods I serve, was accepted and taken into the vastness of the water.
I walked down the beach and reunited with Sarah. There were more quiet moments and words, more singing and a closing of the ritual, but frankly I don't carry much memory of it. I know that the moon shone down on us with the Perfect Love of a doting Mother and I know that everything I needed to clear out and recharge this month, I received.
It was perfect. Perfect love, perfect trust, perfect moment, perfect place, perfect understanding, perfect timing. For just a moment, I wasn't seeing my life through my embodied eyes but through those divine, immortal soul's eyes.
