Etherial Feri Thoughts [entries|friends|calendar]
Etherial Feri Thots

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What is the Feri tradition?
Sensual and sexual, ecstatic and mystical, creative and eclectic, invocatory and shamanic and trance-possessory, imbued with a respect for the wisdom of Nature and a love of beauty. An initiatory witchcraft tradition and religion of faery magick.

About Feri trad, and related trads
Described by Anna Korn
Described by Stephen Hewell
Described by Storm Faerywolf
Compost Coven
Third Road
Draconian Pictish - Elven Witchcraft
Differences between Feri and Wicca

What the Immortals
Confide to thy keeping.
Tell unto no man;
Waking or sleeping,
Closed be thy portals
To friend as to foeman.

Silence conceals it;
The word that is spoken
Betrays and reveals it;
By breath or by token
The charm may be broken.

Style: S1
Coding: gawariel_design
Graphics: Getty Images
Photo's: Jose Luis Pelaez, Inc
Brushes: Annika von Holdt and my own
Fonts: Amaze, Georgia, Verdana

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Iron Pentacle [18/02/2009
@ 23:54
]

elfwreck
For the last few weeks, we've done pentacle studies. This post is loosely based on the discussions we're having.

Iron Pentacle: Clockwise from top--Sex, Self, Passion, Pride, Power. Through the points: Sex/Head, Pride/RightFoot, Self/LeftHand, Power/RightHand, Passion/LeftFoot, back to Sex/Head.

Iron is, to me, a social tool. While many people call it "fetch-y," I don't--not because sex/pride/self/power/passion aren't nonverbal, fetch-related concepts, but because what makes them important, what makes them areas of blockages and trouble, is Talker-related. We have hangups about "sex" and not "hunger" (or not as much) because of our social connections, not because sex is a more primal, more important physical drive than hunger. The reason sex is essential to us as humans is Talker/relational--or at least, the reason it is more essential than drives like hunger or the desire to be comfortable (do we even have a name for that one?) or pain avoidance is Talker/relational. Ditto the other points: while they all deal with nonverbal drives, and they are all essential to our emotional and spiritual well-being, often moreso than our social and interpersonal health, they are rooted in our relationships with people and other entities around us. (If you can accept that as a premise, fine; if not, I'd be willing to discuss it. I'm open to other perspectives on the IP, but I'm not teaching from them, for the fairly obvious reason that I can only teach what I grok.)

My contemplations/explanations behind the cut )

"Doing the Work" [17/05/2008
@ 09:19
]

elfwreck
I think [info]eldriwolf is on to something with the idea that we should find another word than "work" to describe what we do, what skills we develop, what relationships we seek and maintain. The American "work ethic" is not life-affirming, not creative, does not mix well with the ethics of Witchcraft. There's other memetic thoughts in here... the process of giving birth should not have the same name as the process of digging ditches.

Glorifying "work" as the most noble activity a person can do is not part of my goals, not part of my values. The whole labor revolution--the 40-hour workweek the unions fought for, the insistence on paid sick leave & vacation time, the growing number of silly kitchen gadgets (and some incredibly useful kitchen gadgets--this week, I love my fridge), are all about *eliminating* work and the need for work.

Work is not something we should treasure. Work is something you have to do towards a goal... work, in itself, is not valuable. Finding a way to reach the goal without work, or with less of it, should be rewarded. If the goal involves activity, and that activity is desirable in itself, *that activity should not be called work*.

Call it play. Or art. Or active creativity. Or expression. ("The real test of a Feri is not initiation, but whether s/he's expressed Feri through his/her life.") Maybe we need brainstorming to find a new word.

Changes in trad over time [12/04/2008
@ 23:56
]

elfwreck
Been contemplating Feri trad, and how it's changing. Or rather, how public perception of it is changing.

Feri's a small trad. A cluster of lines, really, pointing to a single originator (although there's some debate about lines that don't trace to Victor Anderson, there are few enough of them, and they're not publicly active much, so the debate remains mostly academic). So: fifteen years ago, Feri was a little-known Wicca-ish variant active in the SF Bay Area. (It's not really Wicca-ish, in that it doesn't trace to Gardner at all. But it does cast circles, call four elements, honor a moon goddess, and so on. From the outside, especially from a non-pagan outside, it looks like Wicca. Fine.)

Simple history & ponderings inside )

Feri year-long intensive [07/04/2008
@ 20:39
]

elfwreck
These are the topics I intend to cover in the (intended) year-long Feri intensive. Won't be dealing with them in any pre-arranged order, although there'll probably be a bit more planning than "hey, we're here; which one do we tackle tonight?"
  • Pentacles (Iron, Pearl, others)
  • Guardians & elements
  • (Lemniscate) Gods and ritual practices
  • Kala
  • 3 Souls
  • Black Heart of Innocence
  • Blue fire & Feri magic(k)
  • Demon work--self-transformation
  • History of the tradition; different lines; related traditions; common practices (i.e. wand systems)
A year of weekly sessions gives 5 sessions per, with a handful of sessions left over for review for those who missed a week, or extra discussion, or planning for future sessions. In those 5 sessions (which may not be anytime near each other), I want to make sure we cover: Cut to save your f'page )

Welcome! [05/04/2008
@ 21:49
]

elfwreck
I'm planning to start posting here; I've got a potential Feri project to work on. I've got a rough outline of a year-long Feri intensive leading to initiation, and am planning to post some of the segments here as I work them out. (But mostly, this post is an excuse to show off the new layout. Say hi to the shiny layout and thanks to gawariel_design. And let me know if you find any bugs in it; even using the predesigned layout, there were bits I had to touch up myself, and I could've scrambled something. (No idea why the userpic doesn't show on the main page. Maybe it does for other screen resolutions.)

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