Delphic Maxim #8: Know Thyself

This is part of my commitment to posting once a week on the Delphic Maxims.  

This particular maxim is just straight out excellent advise, which is probably why it's one of the most repeated maxims from the original list.

Particularly in Paganism, we are a group of faiths that attempts to be self aware and in the present moment at all times. While the last maxim, perceive what you have heard, discussed how to be aware in the world around you, this maxim lets us know we also have to be present in our internal emotional conflicts.

Knowing one's limits, tolerances, and preferences can only help us further enjoy our lives and being frank with others about ourselves and personalities should lead to better personal relationships.

While the maxim is probably core to most Pagans' journeys, I find the language so direct and specific that I have little to add.

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Article copyright Swift Rabbit/ Southern Pagan Muses
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Offerings and Whether or Not I'm Doing it Right

What, if anything do you offer to the Gods or to your Guides or to your Ancestors? What do you do with the offering after the ceremony/ritual/presentation? How do you is your offering enjoyed/received and is this always the same reaction? When do you make offerings? Does your deity/guide/ancestor ever make demands of offerings when you had no plans to give them?

I ask because the concept of offerings fascinates me. It seems like every book or ritual I read right now no matter the source, integrates offerings on the most basic level. Usually the offering is some kind of food/beverage. I understand how this idea came about. Most pagans have some value on hospitality, and when inviting a deity into our home or lives or practice, it seems best to offer them something to eat or drink as we would any other guest. Beyond that, if we are asking something from a more powerful knowing being, it only makes sense we offer up something of ourselves in return. How else do we demonstrate respect if we offer nothing when meeting a deity?

My problem with offering food/items to another being is what do I do with this stuff after the ritual is over. Especially food where it can not sit an indefinite time inside and will attract unwanted critters if it's left alone outside. What do people do with this stuff afterward? It seems disrespectful to throw away a portion of something I've assigned to deity and it seems a waste of the food. In the case of my land gods, I suppose I could ritually release my offering to the sewer system, via the garbage disposal, is that like a cosmic doggy bag?

In the case of items I offer to Gods, am I supposed to hold onto all that forever? I mean if I make an offering for ever ritual have that's a ridiculous amount of stuff to build up. With coin and money offerings, should I be able to donate the money after a certain time and which charities would my Gods accept? Am I just going to have a small dragon's hoard of quarters and dollar coins around my symbols of deity, and do my deities even value a concept of human wealth?

Personally, I think I'd like to offer more to my Gods, guides, and ancestors, but I'm unsure on how to implement it. There's a lot of talk about how to offer in ritual, and very little about what to do with the stuff when the ritual is done that is responsible (I don't think leaving food outside or leaving non-organic material outside is responsible and further I don't think most pagans have access to an outside space to worship so this plan isn't really a feasible premise).

What I do offer is often candles and incense. I like the ritual of dressing the candles, blessing them, charging them, and lighting them. A lite candle can give me a focus point in a meditation and it can feel like opening a door into deity. I like the symbolism of offering my Gods light, power, heat, passion, and hope. I can use the size of the candle to dictate the length or a ritual or period I plan to make offerings. The best part about a candle, is that I can just keep lighting it and enjoying it until it burns out, in which case, I may dispose of the candle.

With incense there is a similar blessing, charging and lighting process. The stick lasts for shorter periods than the candle does, and the scent can correspond to deity, mood, or type of offering. Again the best part about this sort of offering is that when it's used, I can dispose if it. I suppose I could store he ashes for some kind of religious use, but if you can't tell from this post, I don't like to collect things either for myself or my deity.

I prefer to make offerings of my time and energy, in the form of meditation, hiking, or wandering sacredly lands mindfully. Occasionally I've been moved to make an offering of writings or sacred words. Those experiences are entirely different than the experiences I have with objects because they are rarer, more spontaneous, and are clearly required by my deity, they're almost puled from me.

With candle offerings, it's a ritual respect thing, the same way I offer someone a drink when they enter my home. Deity, especially the one which values hospitality wants it but Ze doesn't compel it. I often wonder if I'm offering the right things. When I offer someone something to drink at my home, sometimes I can tell they've picked the least offensive of the choices instead of choosing what they wanted to have. I wonder if deity is ever doing that too.

At the same time, I always strive to be the best host I can be, and sometimes it isn't about what is on offer but that someone made the offer regardless of the cost to them.

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Article copyright Swift Rabbit/ Southern Pagan Muses
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Energy Working and Various Approaches to Healings

Over at Daughter's of Eve Nadirah Adeye is discussing Vibration, Entrainment, Teaching and Healing.  I highly reccomend you go read to whole article but to summarize Adeye states that living beings occupying the same space will energetically align.  She takes this premise and muses on whether it is best for an energy healer to work at a high frequency or at the frequency of everyone in the room.  She points out good and bad points to both. 

As someone who started in energy work and branched out into the larger world of paganism, I was deeply drawn the Adeye's article, but lost on exactly where I wanted to start responding to her post.

I think part of what throws me with her article is that there appears to be flaws in the questions.  First of all, energy is not static and energy levels are not static.  People have good days and bad days and will act differently in varying situations.  The whole concept that an energy worker will always present with a certain energy level or amount isn't true.  I am personally of a school of belief that it shouldn't be true because energy is a constantly flowing changing substance, it isn't healthy to be static in a person or place.

Even when I assume the question is about how an energy worker goes into a session and therefor has taken a moment to gather his or her energy appropriately, I don't think a healer should choose to always have one specific energy signature, but rather I think the healer needs to alter their energy to the client's needs.  Maybe the client does better with someone who starts at the same frequency and the two raise the energy together.  Maybe the client need subtle energy working and is spooked by really "feeling" the energy too directly.  Maybe the client's energy levels in a certain area are so low or so disconnected the best thing to do is to blast it with high amounts of energy until one finally works out the issue. 

I am very blessed in that I "see" a lot about what a client does or doesn't need within the first five or so minutes or speaking with them, but it's always been best practice to have a frank and honest discussion about what will happen in an energy session and what the client can realistically expect. I find with people who are inexperienced in energy healing, it's often best to ask are you comfortable with x or y or z, I have alternatives if you prefer to hear those options.

Certain energy workers have different preferences on how they would like to heal.  It's good to ask a healer what their general procedure is and why if they don't offer that information.  I prefer to keep my energy potential a bit shadowed until I know a person or know a situation better.  I think there is a smoother healing to start slowly in energy work and to gradually build a healing together.  I personally think it helps empower the client and it lets him or her know that he or she can do this for themselves if he or she chooses.  The process has to be done with empathy and awareness to how the other person is doing.  I can see where some people may feel that starting on one frequency level when one's natural/ practiced frequency is different may not be authentic. 
It's also possible that someone is just coming from a place that a healer can't relate to or know.  Attempting to begin at the client's frequency may be a wasted effort.  I've never had a problem getting down in the dirt of the lower emotions but I've met people whose energy level always seemed to be just a half pitch away from mine.  I think if I were going to attempt energy work on them, it would have to be done through the sheer force of whatever energy I can raise than through a more mutual raising and effort.

A possible risk is that an energy worker may get "stuck" in their client's energy level while attempting to mimic it.  We've probably all felt pulled into another person's emotions before and I think energy workers trying to align their energies are particularly vulnerable to getting trapped in the very energies they were working to clear.  I know that I've been with clients before where their upset has made me begin to fall apart.  Only a few deep breathes and quick meditative work to rebuild some space between them and me helped to keep disaster away.

While I prefer one method over the other, I see value in both approaches.  I think a person needs to choose an energy approach that they feel safe and secure in which they feel will yield the best results.