This was sent to my email box this morning via an online group I subscribe to; I do not know the author as it wasn't listed. I love rites to make my home just a bit cozier and more spiritual. I think part of being a homemaker is keeping the spiritual side of your home stable as well, not just swiping dust bunnies from under the couch and doing endless loads of laundry. So at any rate, when I got this in my email box I was very pleased. I think I will be trying this on the next Full Moon!
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Bread is a potent symbol of the hearth as the heart of the home. To bless your home, pack a basket with a loaf of bread, salt, spice, and wine and cover with a cloth. Identify the heart of your home and set up a small altar that includes your chalice and athame, rose quartz for affection, and a green candle. Place the basket on the altar. Create sacred space, calling in the guardian spirits. Unpack the basket and arrange the items on the altar. Present each item to the elements and the gods. For the bread say, "May this home always have nourishment. " Eat some bread. For the salt say, "May this home always have flavor." Put some salt in your chalice. For the spice say, "May this home always have spice to keep things lively." Put some spice in the chalice. For the wine say, "May this home always have something to celebrate." Present your chalice and athame to the elements and the gods. Slowly lower the blade into the chalice and say, "As the blade is to the God, so the chalice is to the Goddess, together they are one. Meld these blessings to hearth and home. So mote it be!" Close your circle and enjoy the bounty of your hearth.
Never, under any circumstances, leave a sealed gallon of milk on your counter overnight. I forgot to put it in the fridge after we went grocery shopping, and when I noticed it in the evening, I thought, "oh well, it's probably spoiled already, I don't want to risk it. I'll throw it out tomorrow with the other trash that's being picked up. What a waste." It didn't strike me as super-important to actually get it out of the house ASAP, though. Big mistake.
This morning I walk downstairs, suspiciously sniffing the air... what was that unfamiliar smell... did my husband buy some sort of odd cheese that I wasn't used to? And then I saw it. At first it didn't look too bad - it just looked as if the milk had separated, top to bottom, in the jar. Vague thoughts of, "oh yeah, that's how you make yoghurt or cheese or some other random dairy product" floated through my head. (I know *nothing* about the process!) But then I got curious as to exactly WHY it smelled so strong when everything was still inside the sealed jar.
I flipped on the kitchen light. Oh, ugh. Apparently the sour milk had semi-exploded everywhere... on the floor, on the things on the counter, into the drawers... My kitchen counters are typically pretty uncluttered, but the trash cans are in my miniature office corner, where I keep all our mail/home management things/camera/cookbook pile... all soaked. Well, the small blessing is that the milk stopped about a centimeter short of reaching my camera... so that wasn't harmed. But everything else, including bills, the children's library books, my purse... yup, all totally soaked. In completely foul smelling ew ew ew stuff.
NOT a good way to start off the morning. Grumble grumble.
This is another article from a Catholic perspective, yet one that I think contains wisdom that can be carried over anyone's home, regardless of the actual faith being practiced there. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
Carlo Carretto, one of the leading spiritual writers of the past half-century, lived for more than a dozen years as a hermit in the Sahara desert. Alone, with only the Blessed Sacrament for company milking a goat for his food, and translating the bible into the local Bedouin language, he prayed for long hours by himself. Returning to Italy one day to visit his mother, he came to a startling realization: His mother, who for more than thirty years of her life had been so busy raising a family that she scarcely ever had a private minute for herself, was more contemplative than he was.
Carretto, though, was careful to draw the right lesson from this. What this taught was not that there was anything wrong with what he had been doing in living as a hermit. The lesson was rather that there was something wonderfully right about what his mother had been doing all these years as she lived the interrupted life amidst the noise and incessant demands of small children. He had been in a monastery, but so had she.
What is a monastery? A monastery is not so much a place set apart for monks and nuns as it is a place set apart (period). It is also a place to learn the value of powerlessness and a place to learn that time is not ours, but God's.
Our home and our duties can, just like a monastery, teach us those things. John of the Cross once described the inner essence of monasticism in these words: "But they, O my God and my life, will see and experience your mild touch, who withdraw from the world and become mild, bringing the mild into harmony with the mild, thus enabling themselves to experience and enjoy you." What John suggests here is that two elements make for a monastery: withdrawal from the world and bringing oneself into harmony with the mild.
Although he was speaking about the vocation of monastic monks and nuns, who physically withdraw from the world, the principle is equally valid for those of us who cannot go off to monasteries and become monks and nuns. Certain vocations offer the same kind of opportunity for contemplation. They too provide a desert for reflection.
For example, the mother who stays home with small children experiences a very real withdrawal from the world. Her existence is definitely monastic. Her tasks and preoccupations remove her from the centres of power and social importance. And she feels it. Moreover her sustained contact with young children (the mildest of the mild) gives her a privileged opportunity to be in harmony with the mild, that is, to attune herself to the powerlessness rather than to the powerful.
Moreover, the demands of young children also provide her with what St. Bernard, one of the great architects of monasticism, called the "monastic bell". All monasteries have a bell. Bernard, in writing his rules for monasticism, told his monks that whenever the monastic bell rang, they were to drop whatever they were doing and go immediately to the particular activity (prayer, meals, work, study, sleep) to which the bell was summoning them. He was adamant that they respond immediately, stating that if they were writing a letter they were to stop in mid-sentence when the bell rang. The idea in his mind was that when the bell called, it called you to the next task and you were to respond immediately, not because you want to, but because it's time for that task and time isn't your time, it's God's time. For him, the monastic bell was intended as a discipline to stretch the heart by always taking you beyond your own agenda to God's agenda.
Hence, a mother raising children, perhaps in a more privileged way even than a professional contemplative, is forced, almost against her will, to constantly stretch her heart. For years, while raising children, her time is never her own, her own needs have to be kept in second place, and every time she turns around a hand is reaching out and demanding something. She hears the monastic bell many times during the day and she has to drop things in mid-sentence and respond, not because she wants to, but because it's time for that activity and time isn't her time, but God's time. The rest of us experience the monastic bell each morning when our alarm clock rings and we get out of bed and ready ourselves for the day, not because we want to, but because it's time.
The principles of monasticism are time-tested, saint-sanctioned, and altogether-trustworthy. But there are different kinds of monasteries, different ways of putting ourselves into harmony with the mild, and different kinds of monastic bells. Response to duty can monastic prayer, a needy hand can be a monastic bell, and working without status and power can constitute a withdrawal into a monastery where God can meet us. The domestic can be the monastic.
This article was reprinted from http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/ron/ron_14domesticmonastery.html .
I've completed my little project - sort of! There is still SO much work that has to be done on it, still hundreds of files to actually format and upload, and still whole sections that are not even close to up. I figure the entire project would take at least another... 3-4 months at a minimum. But nonetheless, the skeleton site is up at this point, and it's just DYING for user contribution! There are directories to browse and add to, articles and activities that need to be submitted, a lovely forum to contribute to... All in all, I'm pleased with the BEGINNING!
Won't you please visit it? Pretty please? And don't be too harsh - constructive criticism is appreciated, but give a girl some slack - I know it still needs a lot of work. ;)
I realize this is quite the bad timing, seeing as how I just got so many wonderful visitors to my blog. However, I have been quite over-committed lately and need to cut down on my day to day tasks so I maintain some sanity (and get some sleep!). Unfortunately, while this blog is more of a pleasure than a responsibility, and I haven't been posting for it regularly for the past few weeks, it is always one more thing at the back of my mind: "I should post tonight... no really, I really SHOULD post tonight..." etc etc. When I realized that earlier today, I also realized that it wasn't healthy. So I'm going into my little hibernation cave and shall emerge sometime in November or so, when things (hopefully) settle down on the home front a little bit. I might post something I find here or there, but not regularly. Any emails will still of course be answered (kaleanani at gmail dot com).
Bright blessings everyone, and I hope to touch base with everyone again when I return!
The bulk of these quotes are from a Judeo-Christian background. However, if you read them with an open mind you will begin to see how they can fit into a Pagan outlook; there is great wisdom and beauty in them!
What is Prayer?
Prayer consists of attention. It is the orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God. (Simone Weil; 1909-1943)
Certain thoughts are prayers. There are moments when, whatever be the attitude of the body, the soul is on its knees. (Victor Hugo; 1802-1885)
Prayer is nothing but love. (Saint Augustine of Hippo; 354-430)
Prayer is naught else but a yearning of soul. When it is practiced with the whole heart, it has great power. (St. Mechthild of Magdeburg; 1210-1280)
Prayer is a surge of the heart, a cry of recognition and love embracing both trial and joy. (St Therese of Lisieux; 1873-1897)
Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view. (Ralph Waldo Emerson; 1803-1882)
Why Is Prayer Important?
Be not forgetful of prayer. Every time you pray, if your prayer is sincere, there will be a new feeling and new meaning in it, which will give you fresh courage, and you will understand that prayer is an education. (Father Zossima in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karmazov)
Prayer is the highest achievement of which the human person is capable. (St. Edith Stein; 1891-1942)
Prayer does not change God, but changes the one who prays. (Soren Kerkegaard; 1813-1855)
Prayer is the mortar that holds our house together. (St. Teresa of Avila; 1515-1582)
When [prayer] is practiced with the whole heart, it has great power. (St. Mechthild of Magdeburg; 1210-1280)
How Do We Pray?
Pray without ceasing. (I Thessalonians 5:17)
Those who pray as well as work at the tasks they have to do, and combine their prayer with suitable activity, will be praying always. That is the only way in which it is possible never to stop praying. (Origen; 185-254)
Prayer need not always be vocal. It can be a more complete awareness and appreciation for the beauty with which God has surrounded us. Prayer helps us to look inward, to examine our lives more clearly, and makes us more aware of the things that truly matter. (Loretta Winter)
We need to learn ways of praying which are compatible with the maturing of our minds and our faith... No one should be content to remain atre one level in the life of prayer, nor should we abandon prayer even when ... prayer seems impossible. When we do not know how or what to pray, this too should be part of our prayer. (Perry LeFevre)
Whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. For your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. (Matthew, 6:6,8)
Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds. (Phillippians, 4:6-7)
