Chapter two starts out by talking about sacred space. What is sacred space? Depending on your path or "religion" as Silver calls it, it is where ever you feel the most safe, a place that has been cleansed and blessed as a place for ritual and spell work. Silver is a lot mroe formal in these things then I am in my own practice and she is very into the ritual and all of it's components. She has some great ideas here and a lot can be learned from her. She discusses shrines to the areas where you sacred space might be. In your home, your yard, etc. I love how she talks about walking the land, your space, getting to know the area where you live. Learn the weather patterns, learn about the energies that are there, learn which way the winds blow and what comes and goes with them. Some really great information here. Introducing yourself and speaking with the earth energies in any given place is a great idea and will help you not only in your work, but also give you a better understanding of the spirit world would have availble for you to work with in your area.
One of the "Your Work" sections in this chapter asks you to think about what makes you feel sacred and what makes you feel no so sacred. This was a difficult task for me an it took a lot of thought. Things that make me feel sacred are the love from my family and friends, but I am far away from my family at the moment and really do not have many friends. Unfortunately, due to axiety issues and being quite shy, friends are difficult for me and I find that I am not a very good friend to even the best of friends. I try, but lately times have been difficult and I find that I tend to be on my own most of the time. I also feel sacred when I am in my grove, when speaking to my druid guide, completely my bardic grade studies through OBOD, and/or working on my own personal studies such as working throught this book. When do I not feel so sacred? When I am angry or frustrated which recently has been often. I do not feel very sacred when I am sick (as I am today) or when I feel that I am not accomplishing or able to accomplish the things I need to do.
In this chapter she also talks about centering yourself and then seeing yourself from outside of your body. I would say that this is the beginning of an astral travel kind of thing. I am looking forward to trying this but am not at a place in my home where I can at the moment. My mom is going to be leaving, going back to Spokane and then I will have more time alone, lots of time alone, where I will be able to focus more on these types of skills. The idea of astral travel has always scared me but I feel that I am ready to try and the way that Silver approaches it is easy and slow paced. Sounds like a plan to me.
She goes on to talk about various salutes and triggers. The salutes are really not soemthing I am intersted it but the triggers, I think, is something that we all do maybe without even realizing that we do it. Triggers are movements of things you can say that bring you to a specific feeling, spot, or idea. For example, to calm yourself you might have a hand movement or a quick prayer or saying that automatically brnigs calm to your being. I love this and know that I do it often.. especially in my car when I am having a bad day... "goddess bless me with peace" does it and I immediately feel that peace and calm throughout my body allowing me to smile a bit and move forward with whatever it is I need to do.
Silver loves speeches and shrines. If I have learned nothing else (I have learned a lot from this book by the way) from this book, I do know this. There is one shrine idea that I love and plan to do myself once my home is all my own. the Eternal Flame House Shrine sounds amazing. Decorating your shrine to your goddess/god of house and home sounds amazing and like a great way to keep things in your home as they should be. My goddess of hearth and home is Macha (one aspect of the Morrigan, my patron Goddess). This will be an amazing project to do.
The information about the meditation fo the five winds was interesting and there is some great information here. I loved reading about it and plan to learn about the winds, the directions they come from, and what each directions does for us. This could be so usful when wanting to bring things into being or rid ourselves of things we do not want. Can't wait to get started on this reasearch project and be able to use it in my own spell work.
Laughter. We all know that laughter has healing powers. When performing rituals, spells, whatever, we need to remember to laugh at ourselves. Everything does not have to be all serious all of the time. I would not start laughing if your priestess is perfomring a great rite that you are part of, but knowing when to laugh, espicially at yourself, can be a wonderful thing. We all make mistakes and the Gods know this. They are not going to strike you donw because you get the giggles during the calling of the directions or the closing of the circle. Don't take youself quite so serious all of the time.
Important: Remember, it's all about intent. What does this mean? It means that reading a ritual from a card means that you are probably going to spend more time on reading it correctly then the feels, the intent, the focus of what you are trying to do. Intent is everything. Not tools, not works. intent. Memorize what you want to do. It's not a race, take your time, visualize, focus, see what you want. Spend time with each aspect of your ritual or spell... It's all about intent. Without strong intent, strong will, your spell or ritual will not have the power you want tor need to do what you desire.
I'm not going to tell you about the Robe of Star because I want you to read about it. it's awesome! Check it out.
This is a full chapter... I have skipped talking about much of it, touching on parts that I found interesting for my own practice or that I found particularly cool... I highly advise reading this book so far so that you can see what I have neglected to discuss here.
Choosing your patron dieties. This, now, is a serious matter. You do not have to choose a patron diety if you do not want to. However, many prefer to have one diety or set of dieties to work with. This can help to bring specific qualities and powers to what you do. I myself was chosen by my patron Goddess, The Morrigan chose me a little over a year ago. Well, actually, she chose me before that but told me who she was a little over a year ago... I call to her three sides, Macha, Anu, and Badb. She covers all areas of my life msot of the time and we work well together. Don't get me wrong, she is touch on me. Definitely not all peaches and cream and she has kicked me in the butt to straighten me out on more then one occassion.. But she also leads me, protects me, and watches over me as I move through my days.
Well, you are not caught up with me in this book, all the way through chapter three. I have actually read chatper four too but will catch you up there next time. Have to say I am loving it so far and wish I could spend more time with it... It will most definitely become a new go to for info along with my my Scott Cunningham and Anne Moura books. Can't wait to delve deeper into Silver's work.
