MENTAL DISCIPLINE

Over the past year I have experimented with a number of methods for building mental discipline. One of the most basic methods, and one highly recommended by many druids, is simply the discipline of journaling. I already knew I was bad at this; I have had a LiveJournal for more than five years and my pattern tends to be sporadic, with periods of enthusiastic entries separated by spaces of silence. A journal is a very useful record of any sort of introspective pursuit, so I have attempted with varying levels of success to keep such a journal for my Dedicant work. I have not been as faithful in my maintenance of my journal as I would like to have been, but this is an ongoing project; I don't think my journaling should stop at the formal conclusion of my Dedicant work, after other study programs or, indeed, at any other time. To this end, I have dedicated a fresh blank journal to this journaling work and am trying to enforce a weekly habit of writing in it. My journaling has not been entirely in vain, however; I will use some of the journal entries I have managed to write to illustrate some of the methods I've used to develop my mental discipline.

The method that has worked the most reliably for me has been devotional work. My shrine was one of the first things I managed to create when I started the work and it has constantly evolved since, becoming a reliable meeting place for the Kindreds and me. I developed a liturgy for my daily devotionals slightly reworked from Ian Corrigan's work; it follows the Core Order of Ritual in a brief format that is meaningful to me. This liturgy can be found here. This devotional and the accompanying incense offerings have been essential, I think, in developing and strengthening my ties to the Kindreds and really writing the pattern of ADF ritual into my spirit. As so many of us do, I came to ADF through eclectic Wicca, so the ADF ways took a long time to gel for me, but doing these devotionals has made it second nature to me and has given me a much deeper understanding of what we do, why we do it, and why we do it the way we do it. My discipline in the regular performance of these devotions has varied, from months when I have performed the devotional every evening, to months when I do it maybe twice a week. I always feel more connected when I am performing them regularly, though!

Divination has been another way of building discipline. I have been working with Ian Corrigan's 9x9 oracle, trying to achieve enough facility with it that I could use it to take the Omen at a ritual without needing the accompanying manual. I thought a good way to incorporate the symbols into my mind and life would be to do a daily drawing each morning of one of the cards. I start with a short prayer to the Kindreds, saying good morning and asking for clarity of vision, and then I draw one of the cards. Before I look at Ian's summary of the card, I examine my reactions to the symbol and what it brings up for me, and I try also to condense these findings into a few keywords that I can use later to aid my recall when taking an omen. Then I read what Ian has written about the card, and see how closely my interpretation matches his. I finish by thinking of ways that the symbol I've drawn connects to my daily life, and resolve to look for the influences of that symbol throughout the day. This little ritual has been an easy way to start my day with a quick prayer to the Kindreds and to allow them to give me a little daily guidance, as well as giving me a way to focus on some element of Indo-European symbolism throughout the course of every day.

I have done some trance and ecstatic work as well with varying amounts of success. I obtained an MP3 of "shamanic"-style drumming and have used that a number of times to attempt journeying to the Otherworld. Heretofore it's been very difficult to secure the sort of environment I really need to do this work well; now that I have my own room where I can close myself away and have the sort of privacy I need, this should get much easier. I have had some interesting results (see this for an example from my journal) and am hoping that I can improve upon them. I am becoming quite adept at achieving a light trance state in ritual, primarily through the Two Powers meditation, and I am getting better at identifying when I am entering an altered state like that. I have increased the amount of time I can maintain basic meditation quite a bit too; I have a ways to go but I am easily able to quiet my mind, which is a very useful skill.

This mental work does not end with my completion of the Dedicant Program, but the ideas given in the DP have given me a good basis on which to build my further work and studies.

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