Mental Discipline

Mental Discipline:

My attempts at finding a meditation practice that works for me began long before I joined ADF.  Even before leaving the Catholic Church, I found myself using meditation to try and listen for the inner voice that would direct me to the path that the universe wanted me to be one.  Back then, meditation consisted of going early in the morning to church, arriving around six in the morning and spending an hour on my knees in front of a statue of Mary, rosary in hand, and candles flickering before me.  The repetition of the “Hail Mary” to the point where I didn’t have to focus on the words, let my mind wander to the day ahead or the day just passed, to what I would do or had done, what I should have done differently, or what I needed to make sure to do that day in order to live my life for the glory of god.  Usually about the time my knees said ENOUGH it was time for early morning mass.  So when I first joined ADF, I wasn’t all that thrilled with the idea of going back to meditation.  The word had a lot of bad associations for me (knees aside).

Also before joining ADF, I joined a local shamanic group that was dedicated to journeying.  They used a drum and rattles, and many of them took their inspiration from Native American cultures.  I tried that for three months without ever finding much in the way of success.  I was too distracted by the sounds.  I’ve always been a very sound oriented person, and the drumming, rattles, and chanting of the group were always present for me.  I focuses on them too much to ever let go.  The inconstancies of the sounds kept me grounded in the exact opposite way that was intended.  I don’t know if it was my background in music, or just that I’ve never been able to tune out music/noise, but what seemed to be a magical experience for everyone else always left me frustrated.

Then I joined ADF.  More specifically, I joined Cedarsong Grove, and we had a DP study night.  During that evening, we put on a drumming tape, but instead of just the drumming, Melissa led us through the Two Powers meditation.  The drumming was just background, but the words gave us direction, gave us focus, and for the first time, I found myself able to follow along on the guided meditation.  She didn’t stop there, though.  As we completed the Two Powers meditation, she led us on a further guided journey to find an ally in the spirit world.  I only got an impression at that point of the smell of the marsh, and the feeling of being watched, but it was significantly more than I’d ever managed to achieve before.  That was now a year ago.

Over the next few months, I continued to practice the Two Powers meditation on my own, slowly refining it so that it worked better for me.  In my version, the column connecting the worlds is Ygdrassil.  The light above is the North Star, and I feel a strong connection with Tyr.  The well is the Well of Wyrd, connecting me to what has been and what is.  This has worked very well for me as a starting place for other journey work, and now after eight months of doing this consistently several times a week, the imagery is easier for me to find in my mind’s eye.  For me, that has always been one of the struggles.  I am much more auditory than visual, so visual journeying has never been easy for me.  Still, success has bred interest, which has bred further success. 

In the last few months, I have written a short chant (compiled might be more accurate as part of it is a prayer from another source) that I set to Gregorian chant cadences (my Catholic heritage apparently won’t go away) and I find that singing through it three times before I begin my meditation centers me and lets me move more easily into the guided portion of my practice, which I begin using the Two Powers meditation.  I have found that if I complete the two powers portion with the visualization of a cave, and then move from the cave into the other realms, I have a better chance of being successful with whatever visualization I was attempting. 

I have also lately been returning to the practice of repetitive sounds in my meditation practice.  In some ways, this brings me full circle to where I started as a Catholic.  In fact, I have changed the words to the traditional Ave Maria to invoke instead the Norse Pantheon, and I frequently sing it to the traditional chant pattern (although in English, not latin).  Other traditional mass parts, such as the Doxology, have also been reworded to allow me to sing praises to my patrons using the tunes of my childhood.

Hail Frigga, Queen of Asgard, your Handmaids with thee.

All you see from your High Seat, yet silence you keep.

Holy Frigga, Almother, watch over us and our kin as you weave your blessings.