operative of Bonewits founded ADF

I found the title of this blog post from a link within another blog post referencing the personal Social Media account post of Author / Founder of Group characterizing the  Groups new leader, a couple years ago.

Funny that gate keeper and hostile takeover have popped up this spring in my essential magical current within the organization I have associated with for thirty years, referenced in this blog title.

Funnier yet that I could see a photo of the Author / Founder with his real name readily available to anyone with technology today, not so before I was yet thirty years of age with treasured books and a passion for study and practice relating to the Pagan Past.


Runes were a part of a cultural expression of specific peoples ,real people in a real time and place.
I never met Author/ Founder in person, but I did meet the other Author ~ Founder referenced above.
I began a practice that involved and incorporated other peoples, other spirits,other ideas,
 all real in this time and space.
My sense of reverence and appreciation is not limited to supernatural wonders and ancient ways.


?Funny?
 associations for Me
 the chicken or the egg?

keeper - gate

My Wife gets back from the city, and I feel I have to ask her if my last blog post was OK.
She said that I had not mentioned his referencing book ends, books and chapters, Our Son, so literary.
I had him read over what I had posted last, and this post , title, image and first two lines.
He said I didn't really give my opinion on the gate keeper controversy,She said the same.

For Me the Gate Keeper is the gateway with intelligence, will and sense of purpose of it's own.
Existing unnoticed , disappearing doorways. that do not open and close by your own control.
It represents the acknowledgement of spiritual help in the form of a spiritual contact.
It is good to be in the habit of acknowledging spiritual assistance.
One can never be certain where you are going to find yourself.

The gate is outside of oneself , not a product of individual imagination, not a construct of group desire,
The gateway experience  is not one of automatic mechanistic predetermined paths .
It is preceded by discovery.
landmarks
clues.

 It becomes problematic when this gateway representative of initial spirit help,
                 Druid    Drama    Door    is treated as a superfluous imposition on the ability to have direct contact and control by some who mistakenly think the door is a game in the mind of the group, or worse a special exclusive talent to be claimed by group or individual.

The present controversy contrivance conspiracy is not about the truth of the claim of cultural appropriation of the Gate Keeper in Ritual, It is about testing the organizations ability to timely and fairly investigate complaints / accusations.
It is also election politics, no cover up
Gate Keeper                Keeper Gate

gate keeper

equinox e-bay eggs

Fortunate and timely for me that I could seek counsel from my son on spring break from his first year at Bard.

There is an uproar on the clergy council list, a few of the members  have expressed the need to remove the gatekeeper from the core order of ritual.

The  Gatekeeper followed by the spirits of inspiration take us to where we want to be.

They are recognized appreciated and respected as conductors of appreciation and respect.

The process is one of  ascending and uplifting the platform, the -altar- the attention, the spirit.

another step away from the common or normal perception of experience on our way to a different place.

away from home.

The Earth Mother is  Our Familiar Home.

I took it upon myself to fix the personas  of gate keeper and spirit of inspiration  to those that were called upon here , my new-old home with my yet to be born son in the belly of my wife , not knowing it would be the last ritual we would share as members of  Green Man Grove.

This was breaking with a tradition of promoting group experimentation with under represented god forms and cosmology that would or could change from ritual to ritual. such rotational devotion strategies tend to create spin off fragmentary groupings people with a greater or lesser degree of acceptance and belonging in what the group is doing, or scheduled to be doing at any given time.

          

         The outsiders are offered to outside of the ritual area without insult or provocation between the gate keeper and the spirits of inspiration in ritual transition in the holiday rituals of Our Whole Grove.

I explained to my son how difficult it was for me to know what people think of an aspect of ritual when I am involved in the process...... What did he think about the gate keeper? 

He said it was important for new people to be able to have an introduction to the relationship of the portals spatially to one another, to get an idea of what they are, and how they are used by the group.

He likes the clear cut, " Let the gates be open"-"Let the gates be closed" as a definitive sacred time changer , easy and simple concepts to grasp , the gatekeeper the guide for the ritual journey combined entrance and exit. making it clear to the assembled beginning and ending.

That is what I recall , in my own words of the thoughts of  a long time ritual participant on this full worm moon - on this vernal equinox.

eventuate elementary episodic ecological environment envelope excitement

The inner workings of inner space
distant sensing ...... dream voyage
telepathic transit ..... dimensional divisions

does diametric determinism dominate discourse directing developed divisive disposition dynamic dilemmas?

If memory and imagination are the spiritual connective tissue - conductive pathway.....
 and passion - feeling,  make up the volume and substance of the body its' flow,
currents tides, things that pull at you unseen.....
The atmospheric  pressure, and contents we respond to.

Has the asking of, " choose a favorite! " been elevated to sacred duty? reason for being?
 socially accepted, corporately promoted appreciated,expected.

But is it really an expression of free will and agency of individual sense of right action to contribute to a popularity contest that promotes factionalism and polarization?
this is the reward? this is the cost?of acceptance? of recognition?

Is the encouragement of models of political theory an example of social cohesion or social coercion?
Are the spectacles of witnessing struggle of competition related to social aggression?
Predatory behavior a perceptual prioritizing,
 a justification for psychic violence and physical brutality, the harming or disturbing-defeating, killing, ending and erasing of another.

How much is the challenging of ideas, criticism of projects,review of procedures supportive for a aggressively counter productive opposition and confrontation between and within.
Environmental standards of group behavior:

 PLAY  NICE!

is there a split in group behavior ( shape )  based around

  ?comfort access - safe space ~~~~ way out - adventure novelty?

Disengagement is not just a phenomenon of the individual and social awareness ,
A  proto-instinctual impulse exists that seeks to distance " things" from threat  and harm.
 Inter species - inter generational guardian angels involved with the preservation and well being of the young things that don't know any better.
All creatures great and small have spiritual assistance with " being" .
Survival is not the invention of a individual .
Survival spirit helpers set the stage in a symbiotic sail - surf - slide through life/death experience.
The relationship preexists with or without the knowledge awareness or consent of entities known or yet to be discovered.

careful continuing complex cryptic conscientiousness conduits

there may be magic pagan power in what is inconvenient.
what is difficult, the challenge, the struggle, the work,
 considered attractive spirit food, sacrifice, bait.


Promoting attention getting and deal making as a group activity and reason for being functions for social cohesion, not sensitivity to existing relationships to unseen or unknown spirits.

Claiming to understand is wrong, claiming to control a delusion,claiming special powers problematic.
The regularly repeated ritual referencing of relations returns realigns and rekindles.
Something
Somewhere
Outside of the awareness of the ritual participants.

vanity and arrogance , boastful certainty of person or process
 are  not conductive complementary collaborative creative consciousness.

begin belong beyond

ascension into dimension
projection out of convention
attention  around connection
affection based intention