Opening of the Madrid Goddess temple

The next day we had a ritual to formally open the temple in Mostoles, Madrid. The main altar has the Dama de Elche and Saucco created a small altar for the Horned God. The walls are decorated with flags and banners of god and goddess images.
Upon entering the temple, we got a stone each, and the elements and deities were invoked in the Iberian tradition (which appears to be similar to the Avalonian tradition in ritual style.). Katie held the flame of Avalon and Jana held the flame of Ibea, and both were blessed together to create a bridge between Avalon and Ibera. We did meditations pouring energy into the stones which no longer serves us, and placed them in a container with water. Then we had messages from the oracles, and I was told to swim like a fish out of my cage, now that the door was open!
We sang songs, opened the circle and took pictures, then went to a big meal then as a community. I have wanted to visit this wonderful temple for a while and look forward to rituals and workshops in the future!

Stepping on the Path - Sacred Drama with Elen of the Trackways

Katie Player, a priestess of Avalon, came to give a workshop on the British Goddess Elen called 'Stepping onto the Path - Sacred Drama with Elen of the trackways, in the recently opened Goddess Temple of Madrid.
We begin with a discussion on the relationship between women and the sacred drama in history.
In ancient times there was no separation between the theatre and ceremony, but now all actors are famous. The Greek theatre that survives is patriarchal, and masks serve as embodiment of the characters. When a Greek actor put on a mask he embodied the god, as the god dwelt in the mask. It was not designed to hide the power, but to empower it! Spanish theatre began as a sacred drama, and today it is manifested in carnival masks.
In Britain, we learned sacred drama almost doesn't exist apart from medieval plays, Bible stories and puppet shows, although some practices survived as Mummer's plays, Morris dancing and May Day festivals. It began to die in World War II, when many actors died - the same family members could play the same roles for centuries - but they were all men! The fear of the power of women on a scene prevailed until the eighteenth century. The first actresses were prostitutes, since for thousands of years a woman could only be one thing; if you are not a virgin, or wife and mother, you're the bitch. The journey to sacred drama is a way out of this lie, and we are turning the wheel.
Katie told us that the woman should be the maid (pure), and the mother is she who gives everything and has nothing left for herself. We reclaim the lover and the Crone (whose wisdom is often discarded). The more we focus on this the less we are affected by the outside world. Women begin to tell their stories, and we begin to change the stories of shame and guilt.
I mentioned how it was at my school, which set a single path for us and forbade us to imagine otherwise. It was expected that women would end up in business - to be trained to be like men.
When a man wakes up in the morning, he thinks, "I'll do this! ', But when a woman wakes up in the morning, she thought," Can I do this? Is it safe to do this? '. Next we talked about voices and the fact that in our culture high voices are beautiful and feminine and masculine undertones are not. Women are taught to make their voices sound higher to be accepted, and some oriental languages, for a woman to pronounce a word in a lower voice is pronouncing it wrong!
In reindeer society the leader is not the strongest male, but the oldest female. The UK was covered in forest long ago, and deer are the largest wild mammals that we have not killed and we are not used to large animals which are not tame. The creatures of the forest know where to hide!
Following this, we saw a slide show of images from Elen, many different representations of artwork, some by people I know. Through this we learned that Elen is associated with mushrooms and Fey - both natural and a queen.
After participating in the sacred drama groups, first creating still drama pieces with our bodies from a word, and other groups had to guess which was our word; and then we were instructed simply to dance to different types of music in any way felt best for us at that time.
We finished with a sharing circle and I found it a very useful workshop and added that the great experiences I've had working with Elen in the past.

Espiral 3

I didn't say too much about Espiral 2 as it was a funny time of year, but I feel the final installment is worth a mention as it was the culmination of the year's study I'd worked so hard for. There had been a lot of additional work building up to Espiral 3, which for me was held at the end of May, so this camp had much more of a feel of introspection and self-study to it. This one felt more akin to the Iron Pentacle of working on the self, rather than the Pearl Pentacle nature of learning the technical side of things and caring for the community.
We wrote our own vows for the initiation ceremony and Morgaine even let me do mine in English and Katrin's in German. I think it's quite important for these things to be done in your native language when it's a promise so personal between you and the Divine - I think with your own words you can connect to deity in a way unlike any other. Irantzu invoked Eguzki in Basque and it of-course wasn't a problem that no-one else understood it because everyone could feel the energy despite not being familiar with the words.
Some of my classmates later told me I'd opened up a good deal more since Espiral 1, but I attributed that to better Spanish and better familiarity with Spain and it's varying degrees of weirdness. It was good though to have my progess recognised by others if not by myself!

Springcamp in Gredos 4-6 April

Springcamp in Gredos was something I'd wanted to do for years (my previous opportunity had been dashed by, ironically, a Spanish exam at the same time.) After finally getting to go last April, and successfully roping Ginger along when I convinced her everything was translated into English, she told me shortly after, "this was one of the best weekends of my life." Needless to say we had a fabulous time, and it made me happy it was the same for her too. When we arrived on the Friday it was overcast and a misty rain hung in the air, but fortunately this turned out to be Ginger's favourite kind of weather and I couldn't drag her away from the river that flows through the bottom of the site (the water baby that she is). She describes such weather as 'ginger friendly', but fortunately by the final day the weather had turned in my favour (I need plenty of sun to recharge the old solar cells.)
Next came the welcome and shared meal between about 25 of us including two adorable kids who were *nice* for *most of the trip*. After dinner we had an icebreaker in the circle, sang songs, and Halo (who'd come from the UK) set the theme for the camp, a story of the faerys. Being the International camp, people of many European nationalities were present and Jana, an English teacher was on hand for translation for whom Spanish or English might be peoples' second or third language. There's a tradition within Reclaiming to have a 'thread' for each camp - for this one it was the faerys and the loyalty of our shadows, and following them through every challenge.
On the Saturday we did a ritual of the Waters of the World, collecting water from bottles that people had brought from home, in a bowl in the centre of the circle. Also in Reclaiming there is the tradition of sending energy from the current camp towards the next camp, in whatever part of the world it is to be held. At the beginning we received energy from Australia, and at the end we sent it to the next camp in California for June. I was even roped into invoking and thanking the element of Fire (which I didn't fluff up as badly as I thought I might.)
Next we had Halo's workshop, 'Reclaiming your inner shadow.' She told us another story and we did some activities to work with our shadows, including automatic writing (an exercise I know from British Reclaiming training), which there are ways to work other than through writing as we were advised for those who don't express themselves the best this way. Afterwards we walked the quartz labyrinth laid outside the roundhouse, chose a crystal from a bowl in the middle while we sang 'Labyrinth of my Shadow'.
After lunch we formed 'afinity groups' according to which object we took from a table - a flower, a twig or a stone. It surprised me that Ginger, as an archaeologist took a twig instead of a stone (then later informed me she already had a stone.) In our small groups we talked about our work, homes, and magickal work in the best Spanish I could scrape together.
After dinner we had the main ritual of Goddess oracles, similar to the ones from the beginning of my stay in Spain. Saucco invoked Cernunnos and three priestesses invoked varias Spring goddesses, one Basque. My translation skills were reigned in and tested, with varying degrees of success, and the sobremesa that went on til 3am  was pretty unwelcome for those who weren't expecting it!
The next morning we were all awoken eye-wateringly early by a nine year old screaming "TIME TO GET UPPPP," (which was the only irritating thing the kids did - Pagan parenting I guess?), and after breakfast Ginger and I had some away time to take photos of some of the stunning views Gredos has to offer.
The last workshop was in dance, taught by Saucco and Irantzu. Saucco taught us the difference between 'danza' (more from the soul) and 'baile' (more artistic and of set movements), and the importance of dance and moving the body in magickal work. We danced slowly first, then more quickly with more upbeat tunes, and we had the chance to dance with everyone in turn. Then we made a circle in the clearing at the top of the hill to do a dance in a circle divided into quarters with pieces of string. There was a representation of each element in each section, and we danced accompanied by Reclaiming chants from the states, feeling the energy of each element. We bid the elements farewell and ended by sending the energy to California.
Afterwards I was engaged in translating a conversation between Halo and Saucco about Iberian deities and interpretations of cards for the kids.
From this trip I learned from Halo a lot more about the style of Reclaiming as it's practiced in the UK and the States. To finish off Jana told me, "Si sigues en tener problemas con las bestias (the kids at work), sólo tienes que gritar ’¡orgasmo!’ y ya está.’ Awesome, I'll remember that one. This was definitely one of the best camps and left me in greater anticipation of Espiral 3 which would be held in this amazing place.

Imbolc in Gredos 2014

I didn´t realise how much I´d missed the snow capped mountains, miles of pine forest and crystal clear water in the river until I came back to Gredos for Imbolc after 2 and a half years. I was fortunate enough to get a lift with some others to the camp from Madrid this time (including three first timers who giggled all the way there, you know the types - and one of them was crying by the end of the weekend.)
We began with a walk around, which included looking at the new roundhouse they´ve built since the last time I was there (ooh, shiny).

We had a communal lunch and then began the ritual. I helped smudge people as they came into the room, and then we had an icebreaker circle where I said in the best Spanish I could cobble together that a lot had changed since the last time I´d been there, I hoped my Spanish had improved and I hoped to make new friends. There always comes a time during these terrifying weekends of immersion when I think, what on Earth am I doing here, my Spanish simply isn´t good enough to to this on my own. Fortunately those moments are getting later and later on into the weekends and hopefully as soon as six months down the line they´ll all but disappear.
We continued with opening the ritual and doing a meditation to visualise what we wanted to manifest in the coming year, then drew it with chalk on black card. We put these cards around the room with oracle cards we´d drawn earlier. Next we prepared for the sweatlodge, which last time I swore I´d never do again, and there I was 2 and a half years later doing it again and  feeling like I was about to hurl by the end of it. There were a lot of Camino Rojo people there and I´m sure they got a good deal out of it, but I´ve tried it twice now (and know I hate it), and in any case it´s not part of my path so next time I´m ducking out of it for sure. Next we had a meditation with giant quartz singing bowls which was lovely, and then, at 10:45, dinner. It seems to be a thing in Spain that they´ll leave eating dinner as late as possible, and if they feel like they´re on holiday they´ll have it even later. So there I´d been ravenous for a good 4 hours but I´m hardly in a position to argue since I can barely communicate in the first place. It was an enormous relief to have Saucco there as a facilitator, my Spanish-English exchange student, as he at least now grasps the idea of having something you barely understand bombarded at you all day and having to deal with people getting frustrated because they can´t communicate with you properly, never mind your own frustration at not being able to communicate with anyone properly. Yet I inflict immersion on myself for a good reason for all its unpleasantness, and someday the grinding hard work, terror and isolation will pay off when I´ve mastered another language and integrated myself into this wonderful community.
We slept in the roundhouse and the fire keepers gallantly kept the fire and woodstove going all night, and we rose early for breakfast the next day. We had a closing circle and then, when we were getting ready to leave, impressed by my work with Saucco, a lot of people came up to me saying they wanted English lessons. In our line of work speaking English is an enormous advantage and this lot are beginning to cotton on. I´d rather have them for students anywho rather than some random kid who doesn´t want to be there.
One thing I really noticed this time around was the behaviour of animals in circle. It´s a Wiccan belief that animals can pass in and out of a sacred circle freely without disrupting the energy flow, and someone brought their dog with them and we saw this in practice. During the spiral dance she stood in the middle as if entranced by the vortex of energy, then fell asleep during meditations. She seemed to very much enjoy it and didn´t at all get in the way.
In any case I thoroughly enjoyed it as usual (and I hope I got that across) and I'm very much looking forward to Springcamp if I'm not back before then. :)

Samhain

Samhain this year was much more eventful than Mabon, which unfortunately is one of those sabbats which I often neglect to mark as it's usually moving time. On Thursday night I did my own ritual, and my mini altar ended up looking pretty swish given the limited resources I had to hand. My little ritual consisted of meditations to old Loreena McKennitt favourites 'All Soul's Night' and 'Dante's prayer', and the bulk of it consisted of writing things I wanted to get rid of on pieces of paper and burned them in a bowl, disposing the ashes to the four winds out my balcony window. The smoke went everywhere somewhat but I'm sure Spirit got the message. I also did two rune casts, Samhain night being the best night for divination, one for a general overview, and one for advice in what to put energy into manifesting over the coming year. Afterwards I went to the Halloween special of the weekly Beerlingual pub quiz (which I did badly at as usual lol.)

On Saturday I braved a trip to the wilds of Getafe (or so it felt for how long it took to get there) in the South of Madrid where I took part in a ritual recommended to me by someone in the Espiral group. It was in the local civic centre and we had a lot of space in a room used as a gym space for the fifteen of us to work in. They had me cleansing the space and calling in and out Fire in the South (which of-course I ballsed up, as I always do when I have to say something of any length in Spanish that I can't read off a sheet.) Funnily enough once again we had the task of putting things into knots in a cord that we wanted to get rid of and burning them in a central cauldron (great minds think alike), and the rest of the ritual consisted of meditations with ancestor candles, song and dance. As for the journey back, well I'd like to say I've got a firm grip on the Madrid public transport system - this journey back flushed that down the toilet. But hey, on the plus side, we all got hideously lost together so it was at least an opportunity to get to know some of the lovely faces there. :) Til next time. xx

Espiral 1

Espiral 1 took place the 26th and 27th October, and is the Spanish version of the first course of Reclaiming training. Having taken something similar online in English I was able to follow the course content more easily than the rest of the group despite the obvious difficulty with the language barriers. We began with a lecture on the history of Paganism in Spain, then went onto temple chakra dance (opening the chakras with dance.) We raised energy and drew oracle cards (moon cards and deity cards) and had their meanings explained to us:

I tried to get the most out of the meditations we did but my mind tends to wander during meditations in Spanish as it's so much harder to concentrate on the words. The first day was 11 hours of rapid-fire Spanish which in itself was exhausting and it's annoying being so much more tired than everyone else when I want to engage as much as possible.... and also hungrier than everyone else lol. Mealtimes is one of those things I simply won't adjust to, yet the entire working day/ school day/ anything day that involves other people or even leaving the flat (if you want to go to the shop lol) is structured around it. We had lunch around 2:30, and the workshop was scheduled to finish at 9. So around 7 the instructor said, ok, if you want to go out and get some chocolate and a coffee or something, we'll have a short break now.... so I shit you not we hiked to the nearest supermarket, sat in a coffee shop and filled up on hot drinks and snacks. Now really, Spaniards.... why snack all evening just to eat dinner when you get home at 10 when you can eat dinner at a sensible time. Arghhh! Anywho the ritual at the end was nice, (something we helped put together in groups), and one of many nice Spanish quirks of ritual is to have a mini altar for each element, so here they were for Espiral 1:

The next day we went to the park on a bright and sunny morning to do work with the Iron and Pearl pentacles (I did Iron online last year and am now in the middle of Pearl, work I explained to them was more detailed in the online English version but it was really nicer in a group.) We explored the points of the Iron and Pearl Pentacles and other pentacles too I hadn't worked with before, and learned there were different movements for each one, in a kind of stadha/ yoga type approach which I liked.
Espiral 2 will take place with the same group in mid-December, conveniently just after I finish Pearl Pentacle in English :).
xx