prayersofadryad

[prayersofadryad]

Frosty Morning of Early Spring

Good morning, Hestia.

As I light this candle, please lend me a bit of inspiration, motivation, whatever you find for me to give. I’m going to find my broom… Gods know I have been sweeping as though my life depends on it. The house is… there’s no word but devastation. The baby woke us up early, he’s still a bit sick, but the beginning of spring is the time for sniffles and light coughs. There was frost this morning, and while I worry for my plants, I know that nature will do what it does. Persephone knows what she is doing. Orpheus is still sleeping, and he’s come down with the same cold. The baby, of course, is faring much better.

I pray for peace, for a feeling for gratification as I sweep away the mess and chaos the last week left me with. My heart is still heavy, but instead of fighting the burden, I’m just… praying, dancing, and hopefully making some clean space for it to release.

Thank you for my home. It’s a place of magic, safety, and where you lay down whatever masks you wear for the world and just be. I’ll start the coffee now, maybe a bit of tea for myself, and begin. Thank you for your presence and wisdom. I’d pray the entire day if it meant I didn’t have to clean. But, as it be, it’s getting hard to walk through and all of us find ourselves tripping over something.

Farewell for now.

[prayersofadryad]

Mother Wound

Dearest Hecate,

As the mother, maiden, and crone… you have experienced the life of all three. You’d know of the mother wound. Before having my children, there was always a hole inside me that I desperately tried to fill. I just wanted someone to try and understand me before causing me pain. Believe me. Listen to me. Try to see what it was I was trying to learn. Love was an option, but I just craved dignity. A child doesn’t have any experience that the adult has, but the child does have a better way of listening and understanding that many adults lack, or were themselves never taught.

I was scared to become a mother, afraid that whenever I’d get mad, I’d turn into a giant squid with wide, crazed blue eyes and the scariest roar of a voice you’d ever heard. She squeezed the life out of others to live, my mother. So many things were sacrificed to her delusions. Those crazed blue eyes… I’ve always been afraid to look in the mirror when I’m upset, afraid my own would shine with such hatred and violence. Sometimes when someone remarks on my eyes, I remember that my mother and I share them, and I get a fleeting, similar feeling to the one Oedipus must have had had before he cut into his face. 

I’m not as dedicated to the idea.

Hecate, I got word from my Grandmother. She has been dying for the better of twenty years, and I’m afraid I have no more favors to give “before she dies”. Is it cold? Maybe, but I know you believe that I’ve done the best I could.

Tonight I ache in the blood that is still shared with a family that never gave me the gift of dignity. I’ll prune the tree of my soul, and cut off those branches that question if I am deserving, or enough for the beauty and love in the world. We all are. I may not have been shown kindness to the self as a child, but I’m learning as an adult… and I have way more opportunities now.

Hecate, I know you’ll reward and punish as you see fit. I concede all my emotions save those of forgiveness… to myself. I did everything I could. I offered peace, I offered love, and I offered my boundaries. Now I will inhale the chaos, hold for you to take, then release my breath full of grace and love to the world.

#oedipus #greekmythroleplay #greekmyth #hecate #prayers #pagan #mothertrauma #ptsd #dryad #processingtrauma

[prayersofadryad]

As I light this candle, I hope you hear me, Chiron.

The body remembers, even if the head doesn’t. That’s why we know Daphne, the cleverest of us, turned into a tree. The only way to free herself was to feel safe again. Women have bark. And they have bite. Most of the men I’ve known in my life have been far more bark than bite. 

I know humility and kindness are the greatest virtues, and I leave offerings at their altars daily.... but without others one won’t be very interesting, so it’s very important to also worship at other altars. I have sixteen altars, but… I tend to overdo everything. I mean it, it’s a thing. I’m the Leslie knope of dryads, okay? I turned into a tree at a very very young age, and it wasn’t until 33 that I discovered you can crawl outside the bark. This is why we need those stories. You can relate your own experiences to a universal story. We need to always feel safe in knowing that every human and god will have faults and weaknesses. Perfection is unattainable, but everything else is fair game. We bit the apple, man. We chose joy, happiness, ambitions, and dreams… but also curiosity. 

Pandora, herself, opened up a whole box of the darker emotions as well. It should have been called the tree of emotions. Not the tree of knowledge. You have emotions, and those emotions define you. Knowledge is how you learn to harness and control your power. If you harness the right one, you’ll discover you have talent in there too. Trust your heart, and the gods you choose to make altars to.

This is... what I took from lessons today. It helps to write them down in my own world, and go over them again. Sometimes I get tripped up in the words of other people. Sometimes it’s just simpler to ask them what they meant. Gives them another chance to see if they had good intentions. 

The next chapter was about how dreams can be shadows. As a teen, as of a woman, and as of now… the only thing I wished to be was happy. A fairly constant state of peace… because that is where I flourished. I created characters I wanted to be… because I didn’t want to be myself. My life was too dark. Too scary. No one believed my truth anyways, and there was nothing worth remembering about those experiences. Too much pain. Confusion. A shame I couldn’t quite…understand. I couldn’t remember. And… if I did remember, everyone told me just why I was wrong. But, I remember everything. EVERYTHING important. All my heroes keep journals, so now it my time to keep one. Let the pages hold the burden. It’s a spin off what my Papa said. I don’t have a father anymore. He died a long time ago, consumed by one of the gorgons. He was a kind man. A patient man. He loved me like the perfect sunny day you see out the window and can’t wait to get outside. When he dies again, I’ll grieve more, but I’ve done all that I can now.

I think the burden of feeling is on my fingertips as well. They feel heavy as they type each letter to form the words of my past. It’s a forest I have to get through to move forward. Some turn into the tree. I am finding my legs again to keep stepping forward. I can no longer write forward. Goodnight for now.

Without you, Chiron, I wouldn’t know where to go. Thank you for your guidance, strength, and a wisdom you’re generous with.

#prayers #pagan #greekmyth #greekmythroleplay #grief #shadowwork #dryad #processingtrauma #chiron

[prayersofadryad]

Hestia

I’ve finally found a safe place in my heart for myself. I’m building my world around it. As a dryad, we instinctively know what evils people can do... a tree lives for many many years. We are born into it, adopted by it, and some of us rise, and some of us fall. 

I’m rising to a sacred place, wherever I belong to it. I know the story of Icarus, but then I’ve never been as drawn to the sun. At least, not enough to burn. I love the light and power the sun gives us, but I’m rooted in earth. Just like you. Home and hearthfire.

I need to clean, and the child of my brain wants to do anything more. Please help me concentrate, and tell her that we can make cleaning fun, and that if we clean now tomorrow will not be a day of stress. For me.

She giggles, my inner child. I love when she laughs. I hear her in the laughter of my own children as they play. I have so many plans for this summer, and they all begin tomorrow. Mayday. Celebrating longer days, sowing, and harvesting. So much to do before winter, our time of learning. We’ll learn from the earth, learn less from the world, and be kind to everyone we meet.

Seriously, though, you <i>blessed</i> me with ADHD, I took my medication, and I still have no motivation. Any tiny little push would help.

Ahhh. Right. No candles lit in your name. No broom. How can I start anything without a bit of ritual? I give to you all the time, but when I’m asking a favor I could do the fine deed of thinking only of you for a moment.

To all the Gods, I love you. Though I may not have altars in your name, please know that I’ll respect every person as yourself, because they have a bit of all of the gods inside themselves too.

#druidry #dryad #witchcraft #prayer #hestia #celtic #sacred #ADHD