For years, I have been allergic to Katrina Messenger. I generally do not deal well with brash people. Over time, I've been learning that aversion means that I need to pay attention. The first glimmer of this was at the Between the Worlds Conference last December. Who would have known that Katrina was going to do an entire myers-briggs and paganism discussion, an area that I am very interested in. I began to see other dimensions of her through this workshop and came away with a more positive understanding.
So it was that when I saw her on the conference schedule for a ritual, I was very interested in attending. The ritual began with an invocation to Brigid, which is always a good sign. We did a pathworking with chant that led us to a pool of water. The ritual was in two parts. Part one was to identify the face of your double reflected back in the water. After a bit of time, a sycamore tree presented itself, which I thought was interesting, but being druidic did not shock me. The second part was to see your companion self - anima, animus whatever.
OBOD ovate work does the second part very well. Without revealing details, early on you develop a companion self, although in Philip Carr-Gomm's beautifully indirect way, you might not immediately recognize it. So I was not surprised to see her face form in the water, this time more dark haired/fair skinned Celtic than Native American. I reached out to her as an old friend, made physical contact and stayed in communion. The message here was to reconnect and I was grateful for that.
Afterwards, I asked Katrina about the tree. She was fairly surprised and then went into a very direct discussion of precisely why that was a challenge. The double is your image in the world. You can have ego inflation and get a lion in the pool of vision or ego deflation and get a mouse or some such. She went on that the first generation of pagan teachers were ego inflated and that having a realistic double was critical to mental health and work in the community.
I don't see the sycamore as either ego inflation or deflation, but an inaccuracy. Among other things, it indicates a general disconnection from the real world that may be limiting what I can accomplish. It may be a defensive -not revealing my self to the world. Certainly this is part of the dark side of the INTP.
Coming out of this, I wonder whether I need to follow up with Katrina through some sort of spiritual counseling.