Updated June 11, 2020: See end of post for further info.
June 1, 2011
Part of my morning routine is to carefully hobble through the house every day, for 10 to 20 minutes, to get my body moving and loose enough to function reasonably well. Note the term “carefully.” I cannot manage—let alone risk—careless moves first thing in the day. Without my cautious warm-up hobble, further movements will be painful, and possibly injurious.
This morning I hobbled to Faerie. (I was already there, actually, but not aware of that blessing.) I asked the Faerie Queen to guide me. She said she preferred to walk next to me. I enjoyed that.
Mind you, I am not one to suffer from the illusion that I should exchange the all-knowing guidance of a Divinity—and God’s omnipotent care—for an ego-ridden reduction of Deity to merely a friend. However, God can be both parent and friend. After all, She has all powers. I want to benefit from all of them! And, if my ego is checked, walking next to God is walking next to the Holy Friend.
I try to use my morning shuffle, and the subsequent physical-therapy work-out, as meditation (ritual, contemplation). Integrative being.
I’ve been thinking about Faerie cats the past few days. It’s not uncommon for me to muse on Fey felines. One of my favorite myths is about the cat who slept in the light bearer’s bed. (See Aradia, Gospel of Witches.) Also, I find all cats to be Fey, and haven’t been without a cat familiar by my side for decades. (See my painting of my Faerie cat. Along with the picture, I discuss my familiar—a trickster kitty—and how absurd synchronicities constantly show me the beautiful cosmic pattern of life.)
For years, I’ve been doing a dance with the white Fey feline down the road. The dance continues the past few days. (See Today’s Walk: The Forest and I are Angry, a story about the lessons that cat and a wild rabbit gave me about anger and peace.)
For some reason, when I first opened my eyes this morning, I glanced down at the floor. The aforementioned Faerie cat who lives with me was there, right below my head. She wasn’t sitting but lying down, as if she’d been comfortably waiting for a while, to surprise me with her gaze.
Her eyes are a signpost pointing to Fey lands, if those eyes are not an actual gate opening into Gaia’s mystic realms. Or sometimes she just transmits otherworldly energy to me—if I am open.
There are blessings all around me. The cat by my bed with the eyes to Faerie wants to give those blessings to me as soon as I am awake. The cat down the road wants to help me find them when I walk the road. Every atom in this room tries to both show the blessings to me as I hobble and bestow those blessings upon me. Instead of being aware of and accepting these gifts, I often unhappily scramble after happiness, hurriedly and hence injuriously hobble toward it, feeling forlorn, feeling happiness is impossible to achieve.
I pray:
Let me accept the small blessings because each is a portal into a happy and entire world.
The eyes of the cat are a doorway into wonder.
I take a single ordinary breath, and it echoes God’s breath, causing Her inhalation and exhalation to reverberate back on me till I am stardrenched.
Even each moment of my befuddled unhappy wandering is a descendant of my ancestors still dancing—my ancestors, the ancient stars. Each moment.
Each minuscule forward-movement of my crippled body or spirit is that same ancient but ever-wholly-new dance, a world unto itself.
Note re June 11, 2020 update: Liking to combine my visual art and writing, I made myself and some of my students an ornamented Book of Shadows page that has this post’s prayer, and thought it’d be nice to add the BoS page at the bottom of this post. (Then I saw it might also be nice to add a few tiny paintings to the post as accents, noticed ways to make its language clearer, and fixed a link. Typical elf. Elves are always polishing shoes, pots and pans, and their own work.)
On those rare occasions when I find myself walking with a God beside me in my morning glory. I give gratitude for the moment they shared power with me. Sometimes it is in a time that I need to process thoughts and organize ideas and other times I am dancing in some emotional dance that has music blasting in my own head. In each instance I find that She shows us to say we are together in this so I will walk with you so that you are not alone in your Godself. From those moments I make it a point to walk beside people and smile. The person maybe the Crone who cruises around my block I join her on her walk so she can share her joy with one other person. Other times it is my daughter and she needs space not to say a single thing but know that I right there with her all the way. Other times it is beside my husband walking into an attorney’s office to do business. Walking beside someone is the most beautiful exercise in healthy power sharing that I have ever experienced. Thank God for the simple blessings.
I know I have already shared this with you, Francesca, but I want to share it out in the open.
This “Let me accept the small blessings, because each is a portal into a happy and entire world.” being the first part of the prayer stopped me dead in my tracks with a realization- I am big enough to be given small blessings. I am important enough for even the smallest of blessings to be laid at my feet. *That* is something powerful for someone with such self-loathing, such low self-esteem to be able to feel so deeply. And that was just the first line!
Beautiful beautiful beautiful as always.
-Maggie
Parent and friend. Yes. And also child, I believe. I believe that the Divine learns from us as well as us from Her. First by teaching us. You can’t teach, really teach, without learning. But also because of how we see the world. Our “limited” perspective means we see things differently than the Divine, and I believe She learns from that difference. Or maybe those two ways are really one.
On cats, this reminded me of a scene in Constantine (the movie). Constantine is trying to find someone and he’s in her apartment. He asks if the cat was hers and it was. He said, “Cats are good. Half in, half out anyway.” Good meaning they work well for what he was about to do. He puts his feet in a pan of water and stares into the eyes of the cat. The water begins to boil and then he finds himself standing in Hell.
I like the idea of cats being liminal, neither here nor there. One foot in each world, be it heaven (or the Upper World) and earth, earth and hell (or the Underworld), or earth and Faerie (or the Otherworld). There’s a lot of meaning, symbolism, and power in that.
FFF,
~Muninn’s Kiss
God as one’s child whom one instructs. Yes. I believe that theoretically, because I believe we are co-creators with God, creating an unfinished universe. So if we are co-creating the universe, we must also be creating God. The sticking point of that for me is feeling it in my gut, experientially. Believing it with my breath. So that is something I can work on – a visceral belief that I can actually live as opposed to something I just think.
Moving on: I am interested by what u say about a “limited perspective.” I teach people processes that help them honor their so-called limits as strengths and sources of insight and wisdom, but had not applied that to limits being a perspective from which we can educate God. Though it logically makes sense, I am not sure I agree. It goes against some gut knowledge that I can’t put my finger on yet. But maybe it is just a gut prejudice. 🙂 I’ll have to give this thought!
I luv that scene with the cat and Constantine. Thanks a bunch for posting yr thoughts!!!
God/Goddess can INDEED be both Parent and Friend, along with many other relationship types. I love the idea of walking with my “Holy Friend.” I can feel her hand in mine just thinking about it – like walking with my best friend down a dirt road as a pre-teen, giggling about silly stuff… Awesome 🙂 Ellen
Oh… and I will have to look up the story about the cat in the bed of the light bearer. Did you know that “Ellen” actually means “She who brings the Light?” And you know how I am about cats!!! 🙂
Thanks, I really appreciate the comment, Ellen. Heck, I would appreciate any comments, I’m so grateful that anyone’s willing to read this page, let alone respond. 🙂
Yes, if God is everything, there are so many ways we can have deity in our lives. The hard part of that for me is forgetting to apply it: I can know in my head that God is everything, but then I don’t think I have enough in my life, and forget to draw on the Divine for those things that I’m lacking.
I am so glad you like the Holy Friend part! Big hug.