Iron Pentacle - Points of Self and Passion

 

As we only have 4 days of Path but there are 5 points to the Iron Pentacle, we explored two of the points today. There is a six-week offering of the Iron Pentacle that I would love the opportunity to take part in at some point (hah, no pun intended but gratefully used with amusement!) because I felt quite rushed through the Passion Point in particular and that one enlivened me and led me to something I know I have unconsciously, maybe slightly consciously avoided looking at and I would have loved to have sat in that energy for a while longer. Perhaps we will touch on it a little bit more tomorrow.

We seem to be going around the outside of the pentacle rather than the course of running the Iron Pentacle where we run the iron from our head - the Sex Point, down to the right foot - the Pride Point, back up to the left hand - the Self Point, across to the right hand, the Power Point, down to the left foot - the Passion Point and back up to the head. Thus, after exploring the Sex Point yesterday, this morning we moved into the Self Point and then to the Passion Point.

The Self wasn't a big or deep exploration for me, perhaps I am already too self-absorbed or self-ish or self-aware or self-knowing, I don't know but there wasn't a lot there for me on this journey with the Iron Pentacle tool. We did a process where we scraped off all the masks and false selves that we tend to wear and were invited to pick up any we still wanted to keep while the rest was composted back into the Earth. We also went on a treasure hunt through our house to find parts of ourselves that perhaps have been lost or gone missing or are forgotten. We found something to represent each of the different points of the Iron Pentacle in relation to the Self, so sex in our Self, the self in our Self, the passion in our Self, the pride in our Self and the power in our Self. 

Sex wasn't so hard, I immediately had my large carnelian heart pop into my mind's eye.

Self was easy too but interesting for me. My Monkey popped into my mind's eye. I find it interesting because my Monkey is comforting and I have had my Monkey for 40 years. It makes sense though you know. My Monkey originates from a time when I was young and new to the world, where the world was open and waiting for me to explore, when things were new and all sorts of things were possible. Also, my Monkey holds a lot of my life in him. My grief, my pain, my sadness, my losses, my desires, my wishes, my dreams, my successes. He has been with me almost my entire life and he kind of holds that entire life within him, so I guess it really makes sense that he is what represented my Self. I didn't even realise the photo of my Nan, who stepped in as mother for me as a child, ended up in this photo beside my Monkey and it's quite appropriate that she is there, for she was a strong influence in shaping me, raising me, conditioning me and creating the Self I am today.

Power took a beat to figure out but I soon landed on my books, specifically my non-fiction books. I guess because I believe knowledge is power and knowledge often comes from books. (as I sit here editing this one last time before publishing it and having now tapped into the point of Power, this feels really superficial to me. Not superficial in a negative way, simply superficial in that I stayed in the shallows here but only because I was simply unaware of how deep this goes - more on that in a future post)

Pride was quite difficult for me... well, not the finding of something to represent it because the second I thought of pride a wine glass, clean, clear, sleek and beautiful popped into my mind's eye. I don't know why though, that's what part of the difficulty is. I'm still not entirely sure why the wine glass was what came to me to represent pride. Pride is also difficult because I was raised by my grandparents who conditioned into me that Pride was a sin and it was sinful to be proud yet there is a part of me that doesn't feel like there is anything wrong with being proud, proud of who you are, proud of what you do, proud of who you show up in the world, proud of your and others accomplishments, to take pride in your home or how you present yourself, to feel proud about how you choose to behave. I think pride can be a good thing. Yet there's the wine glass...

TANGENT: I don't even drink wine. I just love wine glasses and sometimes I want to drink out of one so I bought wine glasses so I could when I wanted to. Also, my Bella drinks out of a wine glass. Yeap, you read that right! When I first got Bella when she was around 1 year old, she wasn't drinking water and I asked the vet who suggested I set out a number of different water containers and find which one she decided to drink out of and she chose the wine glass so voila! My Bella is a Queen. I love her so much.

My Queen

The last one was passion and that one was quite difficult as well to represent, mostly because I have a lot of passion apparently. I am passionate about art and art therapy, I am passionate about the craft and self-development, I am passionate about books and reading, I am passionate about learning, I am passionate about dragons, I am passionate about advocacy and equality and inclusion and honouring however someone wants to show up in the world, I am passionate about a lot of things. As I thought of all these things, red candles showed up in my mind's eye. So I gathered my three red candles and lit them in honour of all the passion I have in my life, so much passion.

We had a little trance to travel back to our soul before we were born then were brought slowly back to the present making stops along the way. I am incredibly grateful for how vivid my mind's eye is. So vivid. I am truly blessed with vividness in both voice and image. I will not go into the details but suffice to say, it was a lovely journey.

We moved into Passion after that. I feel like I could happily have spent days there. Like I said before, when I was thinking of Passion in relation to Self there was already so much there and I simply did not get enough time to explore my own nor hear about others. Passion excites me, it enlivens me, both my own and hearing about others. So today, I'd love to know what lights up your face when you talk about it? What makes you bounce in your seat? What could you talk about for days and find yourself wanting to apologise to the other person cause you feel like you're boring them even though you probably are not? I could have listened to my partners-in-breakout for hours!

Needless to say, I spoke about art and art therapy but apparently, when I talk about parenting that is when my face lights up. When I talk about wanting to help parents relate to their children as the divine beings they are, my face lights up. When I talk about wanting to help people accept children and all they have to offer and to recognise they are simply little adults with big emotions and when an adult can't even self-regulate an emotion, imagine how much harder it is for a child to if they haven't had an adult around to help co-regulate them?! The kid thing is something that has been bubbling under the surface of my being for a really long time. A really long time. I ignore it rather thoroughly. I see it, I feel it, I turn my back on it. It scares me. It scares me because I am The Great Unwanted One and this Great Unwanted One has discovered she parents in a REALLY different way to ... well, pretty much everyone she's ever come across. 

It's like every day I have 1 or 2 things pop into my awareness that wants my attention and sometimes I feel pulled in a lot of different directions. Camp is only over 5 days though so I figure I will allow what arises to arise, I will hold it lightly, I will give it attention when it arises, I will put a pin in it and then after camp, we will see what we see.

The rest of camp today was made up of an Affinity Group ritual and Bardic Night. I'll save that for another post. So until next time you awesome creatures, so long, farewell, with love, laughter and blessings. In Joy!