These are the torches I’m using in place of candles for my ritual. Each of the painted ones represents a realm, Blue for Sea, Green for Land and White for Sky. The two plain ones are for the God and Goddess. These are required for the ritual I’m doing. And all rituals, in the ODU, I may add.
Well, those of you who read this should know that I was *supposed* to do a ritual this weekend, but my Sister was in town. It got worse.
We had 8 guests over last night, eating and talking, making a general party of it. Because of this, nothing got done. Not my ritual, not the laundry, not the shopping, nothing. Playing host and obeying the Celtic Virtue of “Hospitality” is a bitch, let me tell you. It’s harder than it looks to be.
PLUS (as if that wasn’t enough), I decided to format my C:> drive on my home PC and do what’s called a “clean install” of Windows 2000 and the rest of the programs, just to make certain that everything worked properly. Then my cousin gets my PC in his hands.
Now, mind you, he’s a really competant tech. He knows his shit. But my PC is MY PC, and I don’t go redesigning his truck’s engine simply because I know how to, without his permission.
So, the OS gets installed, and he decides to help, which resulted in 8 hours of installation and configuration on my part being completely lost, ensuring that I couldn’t do crap at 1 AM (about the time I was going to be doing the rite).
By this time I’m so tired I just go to bed. I managed to get the PC working with the minimal apps that my wife needs to do her job out of the home, but I was so livid at the end of it last night, I wanted to punch a hole in the wall. I think that my cousin needs a crash course in “Guest Obligations” (because one of the guests we had to take care of last night was invited by him, without any notification to us, or to the guest he invited either).
So, watch this space, I’ll be doing the ritual sometime soon. I’m considering taking a half day today, so who knows, I may be lighting torches at 1 PM or so. LOL
Well, I’m going to be doing my ritual sometime tonight (Sunday), but there is a couple problems.
First, my sister is here. She’s Mormon, but pretty cool about it, but still a Mormon. Second, I can do this in a public park, the complex quad or I can find someplace else. The problem with this one is because I’m going to be burning the torches, and that’s going to attract attention.
I don’t care if these people know about what I”m doing or not, but it’s the police that I’m worried about. I really don’t want them coming around and telling me what to do. I’ll try to get some pictures of the torches made later and post them like I did with the Ogham sticks.
Okay, as promised: First the picture of the ogham sticks I carved.
And now the report:
“CROM CROICH
Also known as Cenn Crûach (Bloody Head) Crom-Cruaghaûr (The Great Creator) Crom Dubh (Dark, Bent One) Crom Cruach, Crom Crûich (Bloody Crescent) Crom Darail and Crom Derûil (Bent One of the Mound, The Little Nut) Soo ny Braih, Soo ny Hoarn (John Barleycorn)
A god called “the Bent one of the Mound” who was, according to multiple sources, worshiped in many different ways who was bloodthirsty rites, to the point where worshipers died in observing the rites attributed to him. A god who was bansihed when Patrick exorcised it and the fall of Druidism on the Isle. A God who had 12 sub-gods to join him in his tribute. This is, however, bound up in the story of Patrick and his driving of the Druids out of Ireland.
The actual breakdown of his name is this: Crom Cruaich means “crooked-mound”. Cruach is a common adjective meaning bloody or gory, derived from Cru’ blood or gore.
According to the reference at members.tripod.com/~deanjones/crom.html, Lughnasaad is his holiday, also known as “Crom’s Sunday”. Apparently, also, crying “Dar Crom” is like crying “by Jove”, meaning that it’s simply an exclamation of surprise, simmilar to Conan’s “By Crom!” exclamation. Which, come to think of it, is possibly where it came from, according to a reference at http://www.folklegend.com/article1072.html .
According to The Encyclopedia Mythica (www.pantheon.org/articles/c/crom_cruach.html) he was an idol of Irleand. Apparently, the classical definitions of this god, backed up to a point with Charles Squires in Celtic Mythology, on Samhain one third of the children were sacraficed to him to ensure the continuation of the crops and the land’s fertility. I think, however, that this is mixed up with the Standing Stones of Ireland. The evidence is that they are deleniating him, in this entry, as an idol, and that there were 12 other idols encircling this god along with the constant referral of this entry as an “it”, saying that Patrick cursed it and it sunk into the ground. There is also a mention that this god was never part of the active Irish Pantheon, for which we can all be thankful I’m sure. The place name for where this god was at is Mag Sleach or “The plain of adoration or prostration”.
From what I’m seeing, he was a local god. Although there was apparently a reference where Zelysium chief of the Tuatha de Dannan called for continual opposition to Crom Cruach (http://www.fictician.com/dragons/lawandlore/religion/crom-cruach.jsp) This reference seems to be more complete than others, but it also seems to be somewhat paranoid. It states that Crom Cruach has come back and will destroy us if we are not careful. It also says that the Nemedians are the ones who were doing the adoring, which no other source specificed. There also seems to be a connection to the harvest in his archetype, as shown by the sacrafice of 1/3 of the children to ensure a good harvest. This source also says that it was the Tuatha de, not Patrick, who finally banished him forever, as he was a problem to the Nemedians and the Firbolg.
There is a story at http://www.lorgaine.com/site_html/mythos_folder/portraits/crom_cruach.html
Finally, the best reference I found was at http://www.folklegend.com/article1072.html. There just does not seem to be that much about this deity, and I didn’t want to write the same article again.
Daven”
Well, it’s Friday. Payday.
Heard from DarkOwl a couple days ago, he’s apparently just going back to work with his hurt back, so he’s burried up with work. Said I wasn’t going to bother him unless I didn’t hear from him for 2 weeks.
I passed the report. Said that while the continuity was a bit sparce (I was writing it on the fly while doing about 50 other things), the content was top notch. If I can find it I’ll post it here.
But what’s holding me up now is the ritual. One of the things that we are supposed to do is rituals whenever possible. So, I have never done a ritual with the ODU, and now I need to. It will be interesting as I’m not a huge fan of doing rituals in general, not because of anything bad, just that I don’t see a need to perform the actions when I’m there anyhow most of the time. I don’t need a ceremony to connect me with the Gods, I hear Them talking to me all the time anyhow. Oh well, I’ll be a good boy.
See, it’s important for a person who is learning to do what is required. It doesn’t matter that I actually know what the ritual entails and that I have done multiple rituals in the past, if I don’t do the rituals in the manner specified, then I won’t be able to understand later information that I may not know in the correct context. So, I do the ritual.
For this ritual I have come up with a set of Ogham Sticks that have the runes carved on them (did that last night) because part of the ritual is doing a divination to see what’s coming up.
I know the theme of my ritual, it’s “Let me introduce myself to the Gods”. It’s not to celebrate anything (although I should do it to celebrate Beltane) and I don’t need to consecrate anything, so this is me coming to the House of the Gods and bringing a housewarming gift. LOL
Soon as I get a photo of the runesticks, I’ll post them. I wonder if this will count when I’m required to make a set of Ogham runes later when I’m actually studying them. 
Well, I’m still waiting on pins and needles for the judgment of my essay. I turned it in days ago, and I have heard nothing, even though I know that DarkOwl is around (he posted to the board earlier today).
I guess I should calm down, I mean, he IS a cop, and he IS working second shift, and he DOES have a hurt leg that he’s recovering from, and this IS one of the more busy times for cops, but it doesn’t make things easier.
As far as other things go, I finished my lesson in Christian Magick (Lesson 13) which makes me happy, and I’m sure that it releves some of my students too. Odd that I’m learning and teaching at the same time.
Then I’m also deconstructing the “Principals of Belief” by the Council of American Witches back in 1974. Interesting. I’ll post it to the Journal when I have it done. But none of this is helping my waiting. But it is allowing me to rest for a while. LOL
I am trying to read “The Making of a Druid — Hidden Teachings from The Colloquy of Two Sages”. So far, I’m not even past the Introduction, but the Colloquy is not that difficult, only about 300 lines. But, the explanations and expansions are what make it so long.
I have two other books that I’m supposed to read too. But tehy are due on the 30th, but I won’t be able to read them all. So I’ll renew.
Lastly, I have an article that I wrote for the ODU, at DarkOwl’s request for the newsletter. This is when I was still not taking classes there. So, I’ll be posting it here eventually, but not till after Beltane.
That’s all for now.
