The Cup

The sacred drinking vessel is an essential ritual tool in almost every spiritual practice. Entire mythologies have been written solely on the subject such as the Akshaya Pathram, the Holy Grail, the Cup of Jamsshid and the Cornucopia just to name a few. As a tool it is used in any ritual where drinking something is done, be it blood, wine, or some hallucinogenic lubricant. As mentioned in The Sacred Meal, the cup is used to hold the blessings of the divine and to return those blessings to them. 

And of course, in Traditional Wicca there are certain ways that it should be made. As the Receptive Feminine Tool it should be made of feminine materials such as clay or stone. I thought glass would have been fine, but I was told that it was too common and too modern to have the desired effect.

 Silver is an option, but it tarnishes and can have odd chemical reactions with certain things like salt. Furthermore, one must be certain that what you are drinking out of is actually silver instead of plated because other showy metals can be toxic - just ask the Tudors.

As far as the general look of things go there isn't anything expressly traditional. Wiccans call their cup a "chalice" for religious and ostentatious reasons and as such the overall expected look of the sacred cup is that of a stemmed bowl or goblet. Though Indiana Jones would have us believe that the Holy Grail is a simple wooden cup fit for a carpenter and his fishermen buddies, the religious expression of that has been anything but simple. 

Following in the footsteps of other sacred vessels like the Gunderstrup Cauldron or the Ardagh Chalice, most Pagans today like to have symbols of their faith on them. Depending on the tradition they may be simple or ornate, traditionally feminine like moons or symbolic of male deities like grapes.

Of course, there are those that take it too far...

And not all Contemporary Pagans choose to drink from a cup as their sacred vessel. Anything that can hold liquid qualifies and drinking horns are fairly common among Northern European Traditions like the Asatru. I actually use a horn on my person shrine because the stoneware cup I had for years was finally retired by a cat that was too curious about its contents. They generally require a stand to be set down on a surface and this can add some decoration and permanency to the altar even while the vessel is in use. 

I would like to find or make a kylix eventually for my own uses. A kylix is a Classical Greek drinking vessel with a shallow bowl with two handles atop a stemmed base. They generally are decorated with images inside the bowl. The word kylix is the Greek root for the Latin calix that is in turn the root for the English chalice.

~A. Fox

Aspects of the Soul

Something that isn't held by every Pagan, but a belief of my own is that there as aspects to the whole of the person. Their are a lot of Traditions, ancient and modern, that profess that the soul is divided into certain parts. I could go into great detail here, but this isn't about all of those other Traditions, this blog is about what I believe and why I believe it.
Plato spoke of three parts and he also spoke of the daemon. In his "Allegory of the Chariot" he said that Reason drove the chariot while Will and Desire where its horses. Though I believe that all three of these forces reside in us and make up aspects of our whole, I do not think Reason is in the driver seat. In his "Myth of Er" he spoke of the Will choosing its fate without the influence of either these Reasons or Desires but based purely on the habits that it had gathered in previous lifetimes. This destiny is then handed over to a guiding spirit so that the Will can drink of the River Lethe to suppress its knowledge of the Unseen world.
I've taken my own spin on things, but I find a lot of wisdom in these stories.
I may at some point down the line go into greater detail about each of these parts, but here is the general idea as I see them.

Ikon 
Not mentioned by Plato at all, this could actually be seen as more of an influence of Nietzsche though I hadn't read anything of his at the time of configuring this thought. The Ikon is everything that we perceive with our physical senses as an outward expression of the other four aspects. If you knew all the cues then you could judge every book by its cover. Everyday we make simple, little choices about our actions and our appearance that express who we are, what we think, how we feel and where we're going. The words we use, the way we stand, the clothing we wear and how we wear it are all subtle clues to who we are. This is an aspect of your whole.
Ego 
The very core of your being and your Will to Power is the "ego." The ego is the only part of you that is consistently you throughout every incarnation. In each of these incarnations we make choices based on our Reasons and our Desires and these choices eventually become habits. Once our Reasons and our Desires fade away the ego is left as a pure creature of habit, only making habitual choices. In each incarnation we are given a chance to mold and change these habits through acting with or against them based upon the influences of our Reasons and Desires.
Eros 
This aspect of the soul is that which keeps you tied to this mortal coil. Buddhists say that "life is suffering," and this suffering comes from desires. I don't go in for that whole suffering thing, but I do believe that our desires keep up living. Eros can be thought of the energy that links the Ego to the flesh, literally. Theses desires can be carnal like sex or food, they can be emotional like vengeance or love, they can be "higher" like the search for enlightenment or the need to leave the world better than it was when you came into it. 
Logos 
Reason can be the opposing force to Desire or they can compliment each other. More than just your ability to deduce ideas or basic problem solving skills, this Aspect could better be called the Observer and Cataloguer. The Logos observes the Ikon of the world, catalogs the information and deduces their meanings. In turn the Logos whispers to the Ego to change its habits based on the new information. The Reason should not be confused with "hard fact" because the Logos deals only in abstractions. In the abstract logic and facts are two different ideas. Logic dictates 1+1=2 which is subjective to the idea of more than one objective.
Daemon
Socrates and Plato both spoke of a guiding spirit, a personal god, that warned them when they were about to do something foolish. I purpose that this personal god is just that: you're own... personal... Jesus... By that I mean that when you call out to the divine, when you pray and when you seek guidance, you're talking to your Daemon. The Daemon acts as your advocate among the Divine, speaking to other Daemons, to Gods and other such thought-forms and entities. The Daemon sways your Reasons and Desires guiding you along to your destiny.


I chose Greek because the words are already there and the ideas were inspired by Greek philosophers. Daemon is the actual word used by Plato and Socrates, and it means "personification" or "spirit" and it is the root word for "demon." As it so often happens with innocuous concepts from classical cultures, the word has become bastardized. Logos has a very rich spiritual association, be the word used for the word 'word' in the opening of the gospel of John, "In the beginning was the Word." Eros was the Greek personification of Desire, better known in the modern day as his Roman counterpart (but not equivocation): Cupid. While Ego and Ikon are just the words for "Will" and "Image."
~A. Fox

The Sacred Meal

Sometimes called "Cakes and Wine" or "Cakes and Ale," the Sacred Meal is like the Contemporary Pagan version of the Eucharistic. Almost all religions have a sacred meal. Food is brought before the Divine and blessed then consumed. Sometimes the idea is that the god or spirit consumes the essence of the food and then replaces that essence with a blessing.
In Contemporary Paganism we use bread and wine most often, but this isn't always the case. I like to use mead instead of wine when I can. Some use fruits or grains like rice or oats instead of bread.
I learned this from Traditional Wicca, but other denominations have been inspired by other sources. In Traditional Wicca the meal is blessed just after the Divine has been brought down into the bodies of the High Priestess and her High Priest. These two figures bless the wine in a symbolic sexual act, bringing the athame down into the chalice that holds it. As a symbolic act of orgasm the wine is then asperged onto the bread or cakes that sit on top of the altar tile which locks in the blessing. The blessing is then returned in thanks to the gods through libation and then the cup and bread are passed around the coven to be consumed, each member making their own libation before consumption. Whatever works they have gathered for are then carried out with the blessings of the gods within them to empower the works.
In non-traditional Wicca  the sacred meal takes place at the end as an act of grounding out the energies raised during the ritual and libation is often not given.
I prefer to do the meal at the beginning of the ritual and meditate at the end to ground out any unwanted excess energy.
~A. Fox

Tile of the Earth

I've been working on crafting the Earth Tile for my shrine. Calling it an "Earth Tile" isn't the normal name. Before it was called anything else it was simply the Pentacle. A pentacle is an object with a pentagram drawn or carved on it. Traditional Wicca has a slew of other symbols that they include on their's depending on their degree of initiation. The triangles and smaller pentagram represent those degrees, the horned circle symbolizes the Divine Masculine and the back-to-back crescents symbolize the Divine Feminine and the two S's are symbols for "Mercy/Kiss" and "Severity/Scourge."

Like the blade, there are recommended materials to make the Pentacle or Tile out of. Of all the tools, this one is deviated on the most in both substance and in image. It's supposed to be made of a masculine material. Though this is generally a metal such a bronze or better-yet gold the Pentacle is most often made of copper, which is the metal associated with Venus, and hence a feminine material. A masculine wood would work and the most common of those is Oak.

Eclectic (or non-traditional) Wiccans and other NeoPagans deviate on every aspect of the tradition standards of the altar tile, incorporating other symbols, leaving it at just a star (and not always a five-pointed one) in a circle or some other shape or changing the focal symbol all together. These variant tiles have been made in every conceivable material and I've even know temporary ones to be drawn out on paper. The fun part about all these variations is that most of them do not take into consideration exactly what the altar tile is for.

As the tool for the element of Earth the tile is to center and ground or lock energies into place. So, at the end of any ritual in which the practitioner has charged an object with magical or psychic or divine or whatever sort of energy they place it on the tile to lock it into place. When it comes time for the Sacred Meal this tool takes on an even more specific role: the role of the Sacred Serving Plate. The tile becomes either a platter or the base of another platter upon which the cakes at set. 

This last image is what I've decided to put on my altar tile. As a symbol and tool of the element of Earth goes, this one is fairly well rounded. The overall symbol is called a "squared circle" that is a circle with an equal armed cross inside. On top of being the astronomical symbol for our planet it represents the ritual circle that is supposed to be a plain of existence in and of itself. The other four symbols are the symbol for Earth in four different cultures: (Starting from the top left, moving clockwise) Adinkra or West African, European Alchemy, Chinese Hanzi, and  the Mayan Glyph. I've painted this on a round mirror in brown and yellow furthering the symbolism.
~ A. Fox

To Make Sacred

It went a little something like this:
"I need a new sacred cup because my last one broke." I say.
"Well, just take a cup and write 'sacred' on it." He says.
"It doesn't work like that." I say.
"Why?" He asks.
I didn't wait until my time-released blog post got around to answering the questions, but I only really gave him the sort version (which is what he prefers) so that he could come here and read this at his leisure.

A sacred thing is something that is set aside in service of the gods or is in itself worthy of devotion. Either way, it needs to be pretty. The object needs to inspire the one that holds it as sacred. The use of special materials and gifted craftsmanship go a long way to helping with this.

In Contemporary Paganism, this is a tricky business. As our Goddess is eminent and everything is of Her, everything is divine. How does one set aside something as sacred above the rest of divine creation? Just as we have "special china" from weddings or for fancy dinner parties, so to do Pagans have tools and items that are special in their use for devotion and ritual. It isn't that the things on my shrine are better than other things around the house, but some of them hold specific purposes that goes beyond normal items they may be related and are generally difficult to replace because that bond has to be built all over again.

This ritual generally consists of cleansing the item of any previous associations so that it my serve it's new purpose fully without the consideration of others. This cleansing is done with Water and Earth in the form of salt. These are considered the feminine elements, imply that the Mother is the source of compassion that cleanses us of the things we no longer want, making us purely and perfectly ourselves once more. After this is done then there is a consecration to this new and specific purpose. This consecration is done with Fire and Air in for form of incense smoke. These two elements are considered masculine and help us see the God as the divine aspect of Doing and Purpose.
~ A. Fox

Embarrassed to be Pagan

I'm posting this on a day other than a Monday because it isn't so much about Paganism but about me, as a Pagan. For the longest time I was embarrassed to tell others that I was Pagan. Prior to that it was practically written on my forehead or one of the first things out of my mouth when I was asked to describe myself.
I turned to Paganism in my teens because I had been raised Christian and I didn't like that god, the god of my father whom I also wished to create distance from. It wasn't an act of rebellion, because Father wasn't around to rebel against and Mother has approved of just about every choice I've ever made (so long as she didn't have to hear to dirty details). I grew up loving magic and fantasy and this sacred my step-grandmother to total craziness (not that the religious of any faith need a reason to be crazy [as I'll post about here in a moment], just a reason to let it out). She just knew that it would lead me down a path to witchcraft and devil worship. As much as I hate to say it, she was right, too. Witchcraft was my go-to after leaving Christianity and worshiping a horned god that dances naked in the fields and seduces maidens and boys alike while encouraging us to "Know Theyself," especially the darker parts, while at the same time being the Illuminating Sun; he might as well be the Christian Devil.
In those early days it was mostly about the magic and I called it Wicca. It wasn't Wicca, but I didn't know that until quite some time later. When I moved out from under my mother's roof and away to a place that had a college I finally got to meet other Pagans. It was a mixed group: older and younger, learned and ignorant, naive and jaded, practice-oriented and spiritual. They invited me to my very first Gathering and that weekend my life changed. I was in love with Pagan People and the Spirit that binds us together. It wasn't about the magic anymore, it was about Spirit and ironically, it was very magical.
So, then I shifted my focus of study from spells and rituals to gods and connection. Eventually the two came to overlap for me.
I soon got involved with the greater Pagan community. And I met people.
I met "Merlin"s and "Maeven"s, "FeatherWind"s and "StormWolf"s.
I met people that wear fantasy-faire clothing to their religious events and people that wear gaudy, over-the top jewelry that provoked others to work as an expression of faith.
I met people that could talk to plants in their own special little language, heard voices telling them to do things, or saw things that no one else could see (ever) and believed that it had nothing to do with any sort of psychiatric disorder.
I met people that were the reincarnations of one of the Dragon Priest-Kings of Atlantis.
I met people that knew about this sudden tear between our world and the Astral Realm and they were the only ones capable of fixing it.
I met people so crippled by how tremendously psychic they were that going out to a bar would kill them and it had nothing to do with agoraphobia, a dislike of cigarette smoke, or loud music but was instead because the emotions of the place and its people would reek havoc on their more empathic (as opposed to empathetic) psyche.
I met people that poured over text books and demanded source material for every aspect of your practice because if it hadn't been research and documented by an archaeological or an anthropologist then it was completely false and blasphemous to do, regardless of the fact that those ancient cultures didn't have some academic instructing them on how to talk to their gods.
I met people that had gone on to become Lords, Ladies, Masters and Third Degrees of their respective traditions and still couldn't manage to achieve anything in their own lives, see beyond themselves or muster up the Will to do some of the most basic of tasks.
And then I started talking to people outside of the Pagan community about being Pagan, and they had met all of those other people, first. I went on to college and met teachers that were honestly shocked that I called myself Pagan because of how informed I was about history, philosophy, psychology and the intricacies of other religions. I told them that intelligent, grounded, non-diluted Pagans existed, we just kept our faith to ourselves, I guess, and seemingly for good reason.
I'll admit that most of my friends call me Fox, I like eccentric clothing and jewelry, I communicate with the Unseen, I talk to my cats, I believe that some of my disorders are enhanced by certain psychic influences, I love to reference my books, and I have a hard time mustering the will to get out of bed some days, too. But, while all of that may be the case, I generally know the right place and time to express all that and I'm medicated to help some of it, too.
I'm not embarrassed as much to say that I'm Pagan anymore, but I'm not so quick to tell people without having proven myself to them in some way, first.
~A. Fox

Define "Pagan"

I've been told that I'm a rather conservative person when it comes to the use of words (but most certainly not in political leanings).
I personally believe that words as abstract titles that literally define the world around us we should use them accordingly.
That being said, I'm not The Authority on Paganism (yet... <^.^>), so my definition is just as (in)valid as anyone else's.
Paganism comes in many shapes and sizes and so I like to use the terms coined by Isaac Bonewits. (*Note: the terms are his, the definitions are mine)
PaleoPaganism - The rare indigenous beliefs and practices that have gone completely unmarred by outside influence.
MesoPaganism - Those primal indigenous beliefs and practices that have evolved and been influenced by (and often sync with) official religio-political groups or had been created from those influences prior to 1900ce.
NeoPaganism - (or Contemporary Paganism) Beliefs and practices that have evolved and been influenced by both previous forms of Paganism but are often divorced from certain cultural contexts as well as exhibiting  Romantic Theo-Philosophical thoughts and blends them with psychology.

 To a Meso- or PaleoPagan, the idea of worshiping gods for pantheons was very alien. The Roman concurred cultures were often subverted into renaming their gods to be synced with Roman gods. They got to worship their Old Ones in idea, but not in name. The Greeks believed that gods other than their own existed, but viewed them on a plain of demigods, as only one set of gods could have really created everything, and the Greeks were "obviously the correct ones." The Norse believed that they were blood related to their gods, and revered them as ancestors.
Polytheists today and back then would be very offended to hear someone say that their gods are anything but very real, unique and distinct entities (sometimes having actual, physical bodies). There are others out there that will tell you quite plainly that the gods, all the gods, are just symbols or metaphors that we use to personify and understand cosmic ideas and energies.
Most Contemporary Pagans fall somewhere in between.