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A. Worship Magick
Magick we perform together, and at the Great Days and Moons. a. Worship - In the sense of friendship, rapport, love and honor. b. The Gods - Mortal beings who are in a merged state. We do not "worship" the gods in the sense of "reverent love and allegiance accorded a deity, idol, or sacred object." The gods seek to be our honest friends and nothing more. Worship is the love and rapport we establish with our gods. 1. Personal Rapport The friendship we establish with the gods. The first task of the Seeker is to establish rapport with one of the gods of the Tuatha. Rapport takes time to build. This being the case, it is wise to be very careful in the choosing of a god or goddess first. After this commitment has been made, next you would begin the process of choosing a "craft name." Your Craft Name is very important and one that is to be chosen carefully. Your Craft Name will be the name by which the other members of your College acknowledge you. It is desirable to choose a name that tells something of your personality. It could be the name that represents what you may aspire to be, or maybe you would wish to name yourself after one of the Gods or Goddesses, possibly your own personal Patron or Patroness. Once you have decided on a particular Craft Name, you may wish to translate this name into the original Welsh. A Welsh-English, English-Welsh dictionary is very handy for this purpose, and most of the dictionaries available will have a pronunciation guide also. An example of this could be illustrated as such: Let us say that you wish to take the name "Moon Child." The Welsh word for "Moon" is "Lleuad." The Welsh word for "Child" is "Plentyn." In Welsh, this will translate to "Plentyn o Lleuad." The word "o" means "Of," which is added to the structure making the translation "Child Of (the) Moon." This is only an example, and you may not wish to translate the name that you choose into Welsh. This is perfectly all right and is a matter of personal preference. If you have any questions about this, you will need to contact a 3rd degree Gwyddon. Please note that in some cases, you will have to intuit whether the noun and the adjective are reversed. This is an excellent example of Merging to find an answer to the question set before you. 2. Group Rapport Group Rapport is the love and friendships we establish with our "Tuath", or "Family". Our "tuath", or "llwyth", being our College family and the Family of Gods: The Tuatha of Kerridwen. We take an Oath of the Tuatha before initiation to show our true intent, and then we are asked to re-affirm it at initiation. In the Oath, we swear to worship no gods but those of our Tuatha. Why do we do this? Worship = Rapport (love), Rapport = Power. If we give rapport to other gods outside of our family (Tuath), we weaken the power-bond of the family by that much. The stronger the rapport of our "tuatha', the stronger the power we express in our group magick. At the same time, our "group consciousness", or family bond, is a collective of our uniqueness, as well as our commonality. As the tuatha grows, so does the scope of our rapport. Just as occurs in human biological relationships, your family may include persons that do not look like you, that does not mean that they are not your family. Their inclusion does not weaken the tuatha, rather it enriches it. We, as Gwyddons, do give honor and respect to other gods outside of our tuatha. However, we do not build rapport with them. To take the Oath of the Tuatha is a matter of great responsibility. In fact, one could say that it is one of the very first steps that the Seeker makes toward learning Self-responsibility. After you have taken the tentative oath, you will receive the God List. Then it is completely up to you to establish rapport with the gods. If you need help or direction, however, just ask. If a Seeker makes no effort at all towards rapport, then that's exactly what they'll receive-nothing. If they're loving and warm in their feelings towards the gods, then they'll receive love and warmth in return. You can't fool the gods. You can't bribe them. If you burn a thousand candles to a god, and in your heart, you're counting the cost, or there is an effort to influence them, then it is a waste of time and candles. They respond to worthwhile efforts of love, warmth, and honesty. Out of love, warmth, and honesty, can bloom a real friendship between a human and a god. If a god comes to love a human deeply, that love can last for many lifetimes of the human. A human may live a complete lifetime, unaware that a god is watching over them, because the god had loved them in a previous lifetime. Or, a god may reveal themselves to the human in lifetime after lifetime so that their love and friendship can continue. We are not alone in this perception. The African Voudoun, for instance, report a same experience with the deity "impressing" the human almost from birth. The deity in this case is called the "Master of the Head." Questions may arise, however, in what the Tuatha's limits are. Certainly, we give honor and respect to more than the 81 gods in our Greater Book. An example of what doesn't work very well, are those groups who put D'Anu, Pan, and the Tetragramaton, in one amalgamation, with no real personal connection - they are just names. Many of our deities, who we share with other cultures in linguistical variations, which were because of ancient migrations, are also members of the Tuatha, though this may not be readily apparent. B. Mind Magick 1. The Concept Of The Boundless "Everything is the One, and the One is ALL." This being so, it behooves us to measure all things, whether animate or inanimate, by the "yardstick of Oneness," that no thing, and no one, is more or less of the Boundless than anything or anyone else. It is wise then for us to love all life and to respect it. A Gwyddoniaid Saying: "Measure all things with the yardstick of Oneness." What this saying means is that when one finds that they are having a Self-struggle, or an attack of Self-importance, or find themselves looking at life with connotations, that it is wise to turn one's mind to the contemplation of the laws and principles of the Concept of the Boundlessness. This will help one to put all things in their true perspective. The Concept of the Boundless The Concept of the Boundless is not a theory or opinion. It is a door to understanding reality. It is called a "concept: because it is most readily perceived by that area of the brain which makes use of "concept-symbol," rather than that area of the brain which makes use of what is known as "logic," or rational thought. Simply put, the Concept of the Boundless maintains that all things, regardless of energy, state, form, color, density, duration, etc., is One Boundless Being. And though each aspect of the Oneness is truly unique, nevertheless, that aspect (or any aspect) is completely and fully the All, the One, the Boundless. Nor can any aspect ever be more or less of the Boundlessness. The human mind, through a process, which we call "merging," can experience an awareness of the Boundless and thereafter know that such is the true state of existence. This knowledge can be applied with practical advantage to one's life process. |