Wheel of the Year - Midsummer

Tonight I performed a Midsummer rite in honor of Sol. Other than myself, my husband and our dogs were also present. Sol is a new Goddess to me, and I have not worked with Her before. She is the Goddess that rides a chariot across the sky, drawn by two horses and pursued by wolves. Yesterday was Her longest ride, and now She is starting to make her descent into shorter, darker days. As my household has decided on the Norse hearth and pantheon, I want to celebrate rites that are true to heathen hearths.
Midsummer, or Litha as I have known it for a long time, is not new to me. I have celebrated it with previous covens and have led a Wiccan version of the rite before. I'm not as intuitively aware of this day, however, as I am of Samhain and Beltane. Some year I hope to perform a proper vigil through the night.
Secularly, summer to me has never carried any special memories, so this solstice rite is not something that I look forward to regularly. This year is different, as it was my first ADF rite, and it also carried some celebratory feelings from having finished our fence finally. We had a fire pit last night, letting the dogs run around and enjoy themselves finally.
The omens I drew were...interesting? Speaking of a friendship I have and perhaps warning me of what can come depending on my choices now. I feel that now is a good time to start branching out a bit and perhaps connecting with people of similar spiritual walks of life. I miss that community and congregation a lot.

New Paths, Old Cobblestones

In here are musings of a witch. I have been Pagan for over two decades, sometimes proudly, sometimes with shame, sometimes not very Pagan at all. I have let myself be led, and I have led. I have taught, initiated, and been part of Great Mysteries. I have been in a coven, led a coven, and been solitary. I am now solitary in practice, but have joyously joined the Druidic church of Ár nDraíocht Féin, or ADF for those (like myself) who find the Celtic words hard to get one's tongue around.

These are notes taken about the Dedicant Path, my journey on it, and hopefully these notes will continue on through Advanced Study.

The first week of homework is to answer these questions:

1. Why have you chosen to take the first steps on the Dedicant Path?
2. Is this a step on your path, or will this become the Path itself?
3. What do you expect to learn?
4. What would you like to get out of this journey?
5. Do you know where this path will take you?
6. If you have just joined ADF, why have you chosen to work on this immediately?
7. If you have been in ADF for a long time, why are you starting only now?
8. Does it look hard or easy?
9. Which requirements appear to be difficult to you now, and which appear to be easy?
10. Do you have doubts, questions, or concerns that you need to ask about? 

The answers, as they come to me:

1. I want to become clergy. Currently, I have some clergical (it's a word, I promise!) training, but the path to continue that training is not as practical and no longer calls to me. Having found Ár nDraíocht Féin, I feel much more at home and like this is the path that is right. Sometimes I must trust my intuition.
2. This is but a step. The Path is my life, woven into the tapestry of life and fate.
3. I expect to learn how to minister to a congregation. I expect to learn Paleo-Indo-European history of various peoples and cultures and their Deities. I expect that I will also learn a lot more about ritual, trance, divination, and other Works be they great or small. I expect also that I will learn a lot about myself on this path.
4. A good foundation on which to build further steps towards becoming a Priestess of ADF.
5. No. I would not presume to know, but I have hope that it will take me there where I will be of most use to my community and people.
6. I feel it is the right time for me to start putting in serious hours of study and contemplation. I have been Pagan for over twenty years, and I feel comfortable with a lot of ground work, now it is time to lay that foundation in one particular church and start reaching towards ministry work.
7. This does not apply to me.
8. It looks neither hard nor easy. It will have some challenges to overcome, and I am not discouraged.
9. Energy requirements, mostly, because I have difficulty with my physical health. Staying up late for vigils, doing rituals after work days or social days. Ritual is easy for me, I have held many rituals throughout the years. Meditation and trance work will be hard, as I have admittedly let both fall to the wayside in my daily life.
10. I have no doubts, questions, or concerns about the path itself. My questions are about specifics, like certain ritual traditions, how best to start growing a Grove, etc., but these questions will be answered through reading more material and bylaws, and applying myself in my studies.

With that, I finish up this note. I have also completed the second week of homework, which was a personal oathing to the Shining Ones. That oath I describe in more details in a physical journal.