In a thread on Ex-Witch, the conversation turned to sitting outside and listening to the divine. The thread started out as my venting my frustrations in a vein similar to my article below.

I was asked what I hear. I was surprised, I think, because I never had been asked that and never tried to put it all in to words.

I hear a lot of things, I think. “Feel” is a better word, but I have had actual conversations with spirits, also. Part of me cringes at saying that — the “rational and logical” part. But even it cannot deny the evidence presented to me that it was more than just “in my head.” It just rebels at something that sounds so “crazy.”

I spent 20 years as a Zen Buddhist. I always sat indoors for meditation, facing a wall. As a druid, now, I try to meditate outside as much as possible. Outside, the skills I developed through Zen come in to play, but take on a whole new dynamic. Zen teaches to listen, but the walls of the temple block the sound. The real sound is outside, under the sky.

It is a symbiotic thing. A give and take. It’s a symphony, and I am floating with the music. It’s almost as if I am co-operating with nature in meditation. It’s feeling the relationship, what we share with nature, which can only be felt when the mind is quiet, still, and listening.

Thanks to Sojourner, I recently read an article written by Jenavira, a Wiccan questioning the use of salt as an altar fixture. Personally, as a Reconstructionist, I don’t keep a bowl of salt on my shrine, but I do use it as an offering from time to time. I had some of the same questions she did, especially the disposing of it.

I couldn’t just throw it in the trash; it had been on my altar, and it deserved better than that. I couldn’t bury it, as I did the other bits and pieces which wouldn’t be coming with me; salted soil is barren, and that’s hardly what I intended to leave behind.

Her ultimate solution is to replace salt with plain earth. I think that works to the extent salt is a symbol of earth, but I think it is much more than that. Her article impelled me to do some further research.

The Magic of the Horseshoe by Robert Lawrence, discusses many folklore magical uses of salt. In general, salt is a symbol of protection, purity, and hospitality. It is vital to life. It’s a component of holy water in Catholicism and other religions and used in various purification and protection rituals the world around.

So, if it is used or offered, how should it be disposed of? Just how dangerous is it to plant life? One source says that soil has to reach a level of 0.5 - 1.0 percent to kill plants. Another suggests it takes about a pound per square foot. This suggests to me that the amounts we typically use, if scattered over a wide area, would not pose a threat to vegetation. I would also consider dumping it in a river or bog along with other offerings as a Celtic Recon.

I’m glad Jenavira wrote her article. The use and disposal of salt and understanding its meaning, as with all ritual items and symbols, is well worth careful consideration. I would love to hear other thoughts and comments on this subject.

The NonFluffyPagans Live Journal has a thread in which contributors are asked to share “the most tramatic ritual” they had ever been a part of. Some of the stories are doozies. If I had experienced some of these things, I doubt I’d participate in public ritual ever again. I count my blessings that our very few public rituals are lead by sane and sensible people. It seems not everyone is so fortunate.
…and we wonder why the mainstream doesn’t take us seriously.

In rituals both formal and informal, we make offerings to the gods, to the spirits, and to the ancestors. I usually use rice, cornmeal, fruit, bread, oil, incense, and alcohol (preferably wine or good Irish whiskey). Different entities like different things. Sometimes I offer money, especially to give thanks for a good business month. That money gets anonymously donated to a local women’s shelter. I recently offered a silver bracelet to Ixchel during my travels. But why do we do this? I think making offerings benefit us on two levels.

First is the “religious” or literal level: the gods like it. We know this because our ancient ancestors knew it. We also know it because we can feel it in our bones when we make our offerings — the fact that gods have wants and maybe even needs; likes and dislikes. When we see the world as the ancients saw it, we realize the importance of exchanges in our relationships. They are about reciprocity; give and take. Even though we can’t truly repay our debts to the ancients we offer to, we feel they appreciate the jesture, at least, and it strenthens our relationship to them.

But I think it helps us on a psychological level as well. Performing the physical acts of ritual has a way of driving home philosophical messages to the deepest parts of our psyche. Its a way of talking to our deeper self in a language it can understand. We understand more deeply by doing rather than just by thinking about abstract concepts. Performing offering in ritual expresses, and at the same time, develops our sense of gratitude.

To realize how blessed we are (no matter who you think is doing the blessing), how much we have to be thankful for, and how indebted we are to those around us and who have come before us to make our very existence possible is an important spiritual experience. One of my favorite triads says there are three debts which can never be fully paid: to our parents, to a good teacher, and to the Shining Ones. That sense of indebtedness is one of the strongest motivators we have to live honorably and do what is right out of respect for those we are indebted to.

While I am relatively new to neo-paganism, I am no stranger to meditative disciplines. I’ve come to realize that, though there is a great deal of information available about various mental techniques of different styles of meditation, I’ve have found practically nothing about the physical aspects. In twenty years of practicing Zen, I’ve gathered a lot of information that is useful for any sitting style of meditation, which I would like to share. Done properly, one can sit still in meditation easily for half an hour or more with no physical discomfort. When done improperly, the alignment of the back can be thrown out of wack, causing pain and possibly even injury.

The essence of proper sitting posture is balance. The goal is to balance the body in such a way that the muscles can relax. When your sitting posture is off balance, muscles have to be tensed to hold the posture, which quickly becomes distracting, painful, and possibly damaging. All sitting postures involve sitting with the spine straight. There are two natural curves in the spine: one at the neck and shoulders, and one in the lower back. These must both be pulled fairly straight. This kind of upright posture is best exemplified by a small baby just able to sit up for the first time. The back is in a properly relaxed state because the baby’s muscles are too weak to hold itself any other way.

The curve of the neck is straightened by tucking the chin in. It helps to imagine a string attached to the very top of the back of the head, directly above the spine, gently pulling up. The mouth should be fully closed, teeth touching, tongue touching the top of the pallette, with breathing through the nose.

The lower curve is a bit trickier and is very individual. Generally, you should use a small pillow or rolled up towel placed at the back edge of your seat so that you are just barely sitting on it, and it is supporting the tailbone This allows the pelvis to rotate slightly. This rotation is such that the belly is pulled lower and buttocks upward, but it’s a very slight movement. You should be able to sit without your back resting on anything, yet be able to completely relax your back.

Once you have the basic posture, take a deep breath, and rock back and forth, then side to side, gradually reducing the amount of rocking until you come to a stop in the center. This allows you to find the proper center of balance, with the vertebrae stacked on top of each other like toy blocks. Once you find the right balance, let the breath out forcibly, allowing your body to settle into place.

In the proper posture, it should be easy to breathe deeply. Pull the air in deeply, allowing your belly to expand forward, filling your torso with your breath from bottom to top. Then exhale, feeling the breath empty from top to bottom. Your breath should be so slow and steady, that you cannot hear or feel it entering and exiting your nose.

When sitting on the floor with a pillow, fold your legs in whatever way is comfortable. Ideally, the knees should be touching the ground to give a firm base. The legs can be folded into the ‘lotus,’ ‘half lotus’ or ‘burmese’ positions. The only important thing to keep in mind is to switch which leg is forward or on top on some regular basis. Otherwise, there is an uneven torque put on the lower back causing possible lower back problems.

There are many ways to hold your hands and arms. The most important point is that they are placed in a way that does not pull on the shoulders or pull your body out of balance. Palms down on the thighs or palms up in the lap, thumbs touching, are two popular styles.

Whether your eyes should be open or closed depends on the nature of the meditation you are engaging in. In Zen meditation, in which one is developing awareness of one’s mind and surroundings, the eyes should be open. With meditation that employs visualization techniques or other means of visiting alternate realities, the eyes are probably better closed. Admittedly, there is debate on this point and some meditation practitioners even in Zen do close their eyes. My opinion, based on my own experience and researching the teachings of various masters, is that it is better to have the eyes open. The eyes are only slightly open, though, and your gaze directed to a point on a wall or the floor that is at the right distance so the eyes can focus without strain. That point is normally about 18″ to two feet away.

One last caveat about sitting meditation: don’t sit for more than about 45 minutes in a row. Even in Zen traditions where long sitting periods are normal, practitioners do not normally go longer than about 45 minutes at a time. Practitioners may get up after 45 minutes and conduct some kind of moving meditation, such as slow walking, for about 15 minutes between 45 minute sitting periods, thus going on for several hours in a row but not sitting for too long at a stretch. Remember: it’s all about being comfortable and relaxed. If anything hurts, you need to adjust something about what you are doing.