Letting Go
January 8, 2008
by Jeffrey Pierce

The latest lesson in The First Cycle, covering the theory and technique of employing ritual and magickal tools in our rites, is now online. What many of you may not realize is that I'm following an outline as I write these lessons. The entire course will take three years to complete and, using the finished lessons as a guide, will be almost 300 single-spaced pages and over 150,000 words in length.

And I've already made a mistake.

The latest lesson (Tools) should have been published in December with December's lesson (The Concept of the Divine) coming to you this month. I've put them back in order on The First Cycle's homepage. While it may not seem like a big deal, there's a method behind the madness.

Each year covers a certain array of topics - and then those topics are addressed again in both the second and third years of the course, the concepts building upon each other in what I've referred to in the past as the spiral method of teaching.

For instance, the first lesson in The First Cycle ("Learning to See") is only the first installment in that sequence. When we begin Year Two in the course, we'll build on those concepts, learning to see patterns in the weave of reality using the same skills we began to explore in our very first lesson. Then, to open year three, we'll learn how to see energy, read time lines, and see the very fabric of reality and the stories it holds.

Each of our lessons will build in this manner. Year One will lay the foundation, Year Two will build upon it, and Year Three will take us places we never imagined we could go. That's one of the reasons why I've begun presenting articles such as Offering the First Seed and Spinning in Circles - they begin the process of removing some of our preconceived ideas and opening us to the power and possibilities of the pagan path.

The First Cycle course is also laid out following the same guidelines and concepts that are employed in crafting a ritual. Each year is broken into thirds and each third is broken into four parts, mirroring each of the four Elements in turn. Air was represented by "Learning to See," Fire by "Energy from Physical Sources," Water by "How to Craft a Ritual," and Earth should have been represented by "Tools" not "The Concept of the Divine" (which is the first installment of Air in the second third of Year One.) I'm not sure how I transposed them, considering that I'm working from an outline. In all honesty, I think I was just overly tired and missed one.

So that's the story behind what may end up as the most thorough course in paganism, ritual and magick. Remember when you were in school and groaned when you had to write a 500 word paper? The First Cycle should end up approximately 300 of those papers in length.

And then? Well, the very name of the course implies that it's the first in a series. The concept of Cycles is something that is integral to my own practice and, just in case you're curious, there are three Cycles in all. I'll probably take a short break, offer some other materials while I work on an outline and take a deep breath, and then I'll begin work on The Second Cycle. If the gods are willing, The Third Cycle will be written to conclude the series.

Originally published at www.oldways.com/blog/2008/01/080110.html