Embracing Joy in Spirituality

I talk often, I know, about the work that goes into my spirituality - and I think that's fair enough because it is work and we shouldn't underestimate that. But there's joy in what we do as well, or their should be, its just easier often times to focus on the effort instead of the fun.

When I first began on my spiritual path I think I had the idea that it would all be fun and adventure, that witchcraft was a plunge into the numinous every few minutes - and that the numinous was always a good feeling. As time went on of course I realized that this wasn't the case, that spirituality is as often frustrating as it is fulfilling, that it can be rewarding but it can also be real work. I also realized that the numinous can be take-your-breath-away-scary just as much as it can be ecstatic. Sometimes it's both at once.

As time goes on though I found that it was easy to start focusing more and more on the work and the effort, and the joy got lost sometimes. There are, as the saying goes, dark nights of the soul and there are also points I think were we get so caught up in what we are trying to build or connect to that we lose sight of why we are doing it. Trying to make our ritual perfect eclipses being in the moment of the ritual itself. Trying to get every detail of a spell correct obscures that feeling of being surrounded by magic. Trying to invoke and connect to Gods or spirits becomes such an overwhelming focus that experiencing those same Gods and spirits when they show up gets lost.

It's easy to forget as we go along and our spirituality becomes more challenging or more tedious that it's also supposed to be enjoyable. It is work and effort but it's also joy and ecstasy. We seem to lose that over time, or at least I know that I can struggle with it. I overthink things, and I can take things too seriously if they matter a lot to me. Which means that with my religion and my magic it's easy for me to get so caught up in the need to do it well as an aspect of offering it to the Gods and spirits that I forget to enjoy it in the moment.

One of my best memories of a ritual happened about 20 years ago. A few friends and I were doing a Lughnasadh ritual at one of my friend's houses, and that friend had a daughter who was around three. All the adults were trying to be very serious, making sure we had all the stuff together, deciding who would handle what, and all that. And we get going and it's a good enough ritual, very by the book 'pagan standard', but when we get to making offerings the little girl takes her share of the bread we had to offer and starts skipping around the space, tossing bits of bread very enthusiastically into the air to share with the spirits. It was adorable, and everyone started laughing; then the adults started doing it too. The whole energy changed from somber to light hearted in an instant.

Ultimately spirituality is about both effort and enjoyment. We should work at what we are doing so that we can be good at it, and we should take what we are doing seriously, but it shouldn't all be serious and it shouldn't all be work. There should be joy and enjoyment in there as well. I often say, and it's true, that my spirituality has its share of blood, sweat, and tears but it also has laughter and has layers of ecstasy. Not in balance, but in turns and shifts and unexpected moments. And those moments of joy are invaluable and are just as important to my spirituality as the effort and study and practice.

Don't stop doing the work, but never forget to have fun along the way.

Excerpt from 'Travelling the Fairy Path'

I have a new book coming out in September of this year, called 'Travelling the Fairy Path' so today I'd like to offer an excerpt from it. Its going to focus on the more experiential side of my own spirituality but it also includes some discussion of things I've learned from the folklore, with a chapter on the ballad material. This excerpt is from that chapter. 

The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice [the Queen of Elfland’s Nurse]

The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice is the story of a human woman taken by the Queen of Fairy to be a nursemaid. It gives us a unique look at one of the common reasons that the Fey folk were known to take new mothers, from the mother’s point of view. [I'm including the complete ballad below with the language updated to modern English].

I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,

And a cow low down in yonder glen;

Long, long will my young son weep

For his mother to bid him come in.

I heard a cow low, a bonnie cow low,

And a cow low down in yonder fold;

Long, long will my young son weep

For his mother to take him from the cold.

       * * * * *

'Waken, Queen of Elfland,

And hear your nurse moan.’

‘O moan you for your meat,

Or moan you for your money,

Or moan you for the other bounties

That ladies are want to give?’

‘I moan not for my meat,

Nor moan I for my money,

Nor moan I for the other bounties

That ladies are want to give.

         ****

But I moan for my young son

I left at four nights old.

‘I moan not for my meat,

Nor yet for my money,

But I mourn for Christian land,

It’s there I gladly would be.’

‘O nurse my child, nurse,’ she says,

‘Till he stands at your knee,

And you’ll win home to Christian land,

Where glad it’s you would be.

‘O keep my child, nurse,

Till he goes by the hand,

And you’ll win home to your young son

You left at four nights old.’

       * * * *

‘O nurse lay your head

Upon my knee:

See you not that narrow road

Up by yon tree?

       . . . . .

That’s the road the righteous goes,

And that’s the road to heaven.

‘And see not you that broad road,

Down by yonder sunny hill?

That’s the road the wicked go,

And that’s the road to hell.’

(modified from Child, 1898)

The ballad opens seemingly from the human woman’s point of view, as she talks about how long her son will cry over her loss. The next verse picks up with the Queen of Elfland being awoken by someone telling her that her nurse is weeping; the Queen then asks if the nurse is hungry, wanting to be paid or wanting some other small gift. The nurse replies that she wants none of those things but is crying for her baby son who she left as a newborn and for mortal earth. The Queen replies that if she nurses the Fairy Queen’s son until he ‘stands at [her] knee’ and ‘goes by the hand’ – one may assume is walking on his own – then she will be returned to her own son. Then, as we saw previously in the ballad of Thomas the Rhymer, we see the Queen comforting the nurse by telling her to lay her head on the Queen’s knee and showing her a vision of two roads, one to heaven and one to hell. Obviously since they are already in Fairy she doesn’t show her a third road, perhaps not wanting to show her the way to escape back to mortal earth.

It is interesting that we see here again the idea of the different roads or paths and that again they are being shown to a mortal by the Fairy Queen herself. In Thomas the Rhymer this vision was called a ‘wonder’ and it was also used to soothe a person who was upset. To me this indicates that the idea of the roads has some significance worth considering. In both poems the road to heaven is described as the less attractive and more difficult and the road to Hell is more pleasant looking and ‘broad’.

The Queen of Elfan’s Nourice is a more obscure poem but it is valuable because it shows us another side of dealing with the Fairy Queen and fairies more generally. The new mother has been taken by the Fey folk but her unhappiness does seem to matter to them and the Queen makes some attempt to comfort her, although at no point is her freedom immediately offered. She is however promised that when certain conditions are met, in this case nursing the Queen’s child for a specific period of time, she will be returned to mortal earth and her own child. There is also the implication in the Queen’s words, asking the nurse whether she is moaning about money, food, or gifts, that imply she was willing to pay for the services in other ways as well. Only when the nurse explains that she doesn’t want those things but is upset about her baby son and her home is she offered her eventual freedom. This however suggests that negotiation is an option even with the Fairy Queen. 

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Travelling the Fairy Path will represent the third, and I anticipate final, book in my Fairy Witchcraft series.