[Main Blog Post] Thoughts on the "Way of the Rose"

[jprussell]

So far, I keep on with getting a blog post out for each week, if only barely. This week, my thoughts on the book The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary by Clark Strand and Perdita Finn. I found it helpful in thinking about my work on a "Heathen Rosary", and I think anyone who thinks the Rosary might be helpful or at least interesting, but is not all that Catholic, might find this book worth checking out.

Comments

[open_space]

Hey there Jeff, wondering how your Heather Rosary is going. Any ideas you would like to share?

Cheers!

[jprussell]

Thank you for the question!

The short answer is that it is ongoing, but maybe not with as much directness as I would hope. I'm trying to strike the right balance between "buckle down and get it done" and "don't force anything that isn't right", and I'm using prayer, meditation, and divination to work that balance out.

Prayer-wise, I've got the Mark of the Wells at the very start in stead of the Sign of the Cross, I've got the Tree "Creed" instead of the Apostle's Creed (which this makes me realize is not on my blog! I should fix that), and my steadholder All-Father Prayer and Hail Idun. Divination suggests that I need to work out new equivalents for the "All Father" and "Hail Idun", and I'm currently working on the "Hail Idun" in Germanish meter, but I haven't hit on anything I'm happy with.

As for the physical beads, I have a lovely Anglo-Saxon replica pendant with bird-of-prey heads on it that I associate with Freyja's falcon/hawk-hame to use in stead of a crucifix, I have a rough design for a "Tree of Life" carving to put in place of a medallion (where the circle of the regular beads starts and stops), along with some yew rounds to carve it into, and I have yew beads, jade spacers, and lapis lazuli beads to put between the groups of 9 prayer beads (these are the equivalent of the "Glory Be"/"Our Father" beads in a traditional rosary). The set up is Pendant, 3 prayer beads with spacers, the medallion, four groups of nine prayer beads with spacers, which means three lapis beads between them.

I'm not yet praying with the beads, as I feel like I need to get at least the "All Father" and "Hail Idun" right, but those are proving tricky.

If you've got any thoughts or words of encouragement, I'd very much welcome them! This project has already alternated multiple times between "divinely-inspired enthusiasm" and "listless spiritual dryness", so I'm trying to keep plugging away.

Cheers,
Jeff