About a
month ago, I started working with the men’s Wiccan group on energy raising. It
was a bit of a rough start. I had been making myself a list of short and
relatively easy-tuned chants from the top of my head when I decided to print
off a bunch of copies and give them as handouts to the group.
Just the idea of them singing
gave a few of them the sweats. They didn’t know a stitch about energy raising
and I had yet to see anything that remotely resembled energy raising in their
circles. I was glad to see that many of them returned to the meetings even when
they knew they were going to do something new, and had to come prepared with an
idea of energy raising as well as an intent. One asked if a story was energy raising.
Cathy told him that if it evoked emotion like an Evangelical Preacher, than
yes, it could raise energy. I gave him the reference point of Martin Luther
King Jr.’s ‘I have a dream,’ speech. I also talked about pieces of music they
might like that gets their emotions stirring, whether recorded or live, and the
points of climax in songs so they’d have some kind of personal reference to the
topic. They seemed to understand that.
Our first attempts at it, like
I said, were so-so. I didn’t expect a lot, but I did hope for some kind of
spark. I think it’s hard to raise energy, even as a teaching example when you
have no real circle in place, and these guys don’t really cast a circle. I say this matter of factly and without any
sarcasm, and in the future I hope to teach more about this. Anyway, they gave a
few of the chants a try but it was like pulling teeth.
These men
are different, of course, than most men hanging out a Pagan gatherings or those
that you might find in your coven. They are living in a very restricted
environment, which can also be somewhat chaotic. They have learned, probably
years before they were sent to prison, to have their guards up. Trying to get a
group of men who have pretty thick walls around them most of the time to chant,
is harder than herding cats… and it’s hard to herd cats as most who’ve lead a
ritual know! The first attempt was using the Goddess chant because both Cathy
and Ray knew that one. It was hard for them to recall the names of the
Goddesses in that chant, but I’d seen other people new to that one catch on a
bit quicker than they did. Also, they didn’t use their voices. It was like
Vespers at a Church. I coached them with ‘louder’ or ‘use your voice’, but while
I saw some lips moving there was no sound coming out.
The next
attempt was with the chant ‘Air I Am’. They seemed to like that one a lot, and
Cathy had them walk around the circle as they chanted. While they tried this
one out, I used a plastic chair to pound out a beat. It’s amazing what a ‘drum’
can do. It was with this chant and with the sound of a beat that seemed to clue
them into the possibilities. While I wasn’t really a fan of them trudging
around in a circle (because it was the definition of trudging) their ability to
recall the chant and hear the beat put their emotion into it, and viola –
energy raising.
May 1st
was the first day at the Women’s Prison. I was pretty nervous as this is my gig
but Cathy did come with me for the training (something I still haven’t received
from the Men’s Facility) since they require two people to be trained about that
facility. The woman there Rita seemed very thankful that I was willing to be
their volunteer and knew that it was a specific need that was difficult to
fill. Just a day or two before we went to the prison, Cathy received a letter from
an inmate there via the pastor at the UU in Indy, requesting a volunteer again.
It was dated early February, right when I started at the Men’s prison.
I had been
planning to be at my NYC Coven’s Beltaine this year. Beltaine of 2011 was my
last Sabbat with them since I couldn’t afford trips to NY at Samhain and later
Yule like I’d planned. With the death of my Maternal Grandmother on April 12 I
had to move my trip to NY up a few weeks.
Missing a
few dates at the Men’s facility isn’t a big deal, as at the time there were two
other volunteers able to go to them. But with the Women’s prison starting on
May 1st I felt very responsible to be there. Could I have moved it?
Yes. I’m a volunteer; they do not pay me. On the outside this isn’t a job, but
as a Priestess, it’s a vocation.
Did I need
my own batteries charged, need to be in Circle with my family? Yes. No one
would have been upset with me if I’d stayed in NY longer and moved the date,
but I couldn’t do it. In my gut I knew where it was most important for me to be
and it wasn’t in NY. Luckliy, though, I was able to see some of the Coven at a
coven gathering before Beltaine and it was fantastic. So, I did get something
for me after a year of being ‘alone’.
It was the
night before the women’s Beltaine that I had a realization (also mentioned in last posting). It was last
Beltaine that I learned about Prison Chaplaincy via Starhawk’s e-list. After I
read the story of the Beltaine rituals that she and Patrick McCollum (an
advocate for pagan inmates who has been fighting the California DOC for years
to get them rights) at two women’s facilities. One went smashingly, the other
was not so great thanks to the control Officer. I requested a pen-pal as
Starhawk said that many women were requesting pagans to write to. I got one a
few weeks later, who was at the second facility. A week after that, the edition
of Witches & Pagans came out with Patrick McCollun on the cover. The fact
that there had been only one full turn of the Wheel since then shocked me.
Could I really be walking into my own Ministry at a women’s prison one year
after learning about the topic? It was at that moment that I really felt some kind
of Divine Order in this whole thing of moving to Indiana.
They seem
to be a nice group of ladies, and there were many tears in that circle that
day. I knew by the end of it that my being there was important to them, as they
did not have an ability to meet but twice a year. Now, we’ll be meeting every
other Sunday.
There was a
moment or about a week and a half that I wasn’t sure if I was going to be let
back into the prison. After the ritual, Scott reminded me that his cousin Tammy
is locked up. When I filled out the paperwork, it specifically asked me if I
was related to anyone in the IDOC. In using the online Offender Locator, I
found his cousin. She was at the same facility I’m now volunteering in.
I emailed
my contact person. She emailed me back in a heart beat asking how well I knew
this girl and if she would recognize me. I replied that in 15 years I’d maybe
met her three times, but with the advent of Facebook, I wasn’t sure if she’d
recognize me in person. I was told that my position as a volunteer was then
going to have to be approved by her supervisors.
I was
crushed, but I understood the situation on their end. His cousin could try to
come to the group, even if she is not Wiccan or Pagan, because I’m family even
if I hardly know her. Then that constitutes as a visit which they are limited
and restricted on.
I was
worried for the ladies in the group. They expressed so many times how happy
they were to now have a volunteer, how much they were looking forward to and
needing the group. And now it was being threatened to be cancelled or delayed
until the Fall if Tammy gets out on her projected release date.
All that
said, I was upset on a personal level. Tammy’s actions in having a warrant out
and in having a prescription drug problem, as well a problem stealing, was
affecting my life… and she had no idea about it. It was also affecting 12 other
women’s lives too. It made me think about Ripple Effects, and how what we do, both
positive and negative affect things that we sometimes may have no idea about,
that may extend out so far that we can never imagine the outcomes.
Beltaine at
the Men’s facility was great. They requested the Chapel stage instead of their
little room. They asked to use the Chapel drums and bells and tambourine. They
planned to use the Goddess chant and the instruments to raise energy in their ritual with the
intent to send off the two guys who were leaving, as well as Ray as it was her
last day. And while they need some fine tuning with the energy work, their ritual had
a spark that it never had before.
Positive Ripple
Effect. They raised some energy and understood the purpose.
Negative Ripple
Effect. Tammy’s poor choices were delaying my plans and intentions.
And plans
turned out to just be delayed (thank you Hekate!) Instead of going back on the
13th, I go back this Sunday the 27th.
If I think
about it, this ‘ripple’ started a ways back. Maybe with the Starhawk article,
maybe with Votary training, maybe the minute I picked up my first Wiccan book.
Who knows? And who knows where the ripple will take me, us, them.
All I know
is that I’m glad to be riding the wave and I hope that I continue to, and
whoever this ripple effect affects, I hope it does so in a positive, life-bettering
way.
