D is for Daily Devotional

D is for Daily Devotional - Pagan Blog Project - Week 8

I know some of you cringe at the idea. When I say daily devotional, I’m not talking about a Christian prayer book or pamphlet, though I’m sure they can be just as effective. I’m referring to a few minutes set aside each day to commune with our deities or guides – a reminder of the things that are important to us, but often get lost in the shuffle of our busy, everyday lives.

I’d always wanted to be one of those committed sorts who actually walked the talk when it came to spiritual and religious beliefs. I don’t think I truly understood what that meant. For years, I dreamt of a daily practice in which I’d be continuously and fully connected to the divine. I don’t aspire to be a nun, though I have dreamt of a school of priestesses, think Mists of Avalon, in which each day is spent in study and practice in an ever evolving understanding of self and the divine. This may sound wonderful to some, boring to others, but the idea just isn't practical in this day and age. With such an integrated and all-encompassing routine, we cannot remain grounded. While I feel that a strong connection is important, I also feel that it’s crucial to form and cultivate strong roots in the here and now. We need to come back down to earth every once in a while - eat, bathe, make love and so on.

                What can we do to insure a constant connection while continuing to be dedicated to school, career, family, and all the other rigorous commitments of human existence? We can begin a practice of daily devotionals. Most of us don’t have time for a spell a day or extensive meditation, but I think the majority can set aside a few moments to communicate with our gods and guides.

                The daily devotional can be an elaborate affair, done before your altar and complete with an offering of sorts, or it can be as simple as a few words of recognition and gratitude whispered during your daily commute. You can fancy it up with a formal recitation, or take a simple walk around the yard and let them know how you’re feeling that day.

                I constructed a hearth altar a few months ago. I consider it the heart of my home. It contains important statuary, protective and cleansing stones, a few tributes to the elements, and a photograph of my boyfriend and me. This is where I perform my daily devotionals. I've written a rather lengthy speech which I recite each night. This is a formal “thank-you” for the many blessings in my life. I have spoken the words so many times that much of the beginning of the recitation comes directly from memory. If I find myself trudging through the deed in the monotonous drone of a high-school student forced to read in front of the class, I stop, remind myself of why I’m performing the task, and begin again, “once more with feeling”. This portion of the devotional serves two important purposes – an offering of gratitude to my gods and guides, and a reminder on some occasions, that while I may have had a bad day, things are really not that damn bad.

                The second part of my devotional consists of healing work. I ask for aid in channeling healing energies to myself and to the people whose names are in my healing basket. I take a few moments to guide that energy, focusing on immediate issues and then allowing it to flow where it is best needed.

                On a normal day, I would end the devotional by lighting a red candle for my matron, another for my boyfriend’s spirit guide, and a stick of incense in offering to both. I change things up a bit when circumstance calls for it. I may throw in an extra thank-you for additional guidance received, or unload if things have gotten too heavy. I also tend to use that time to ask for aid in tarot readings or any other small working I indent to do outside of circle.

                The point of this exercise is to strengthen your connection. It’s a small reminder, each day, of the path you walk, and why you do it. It’s perfectly permissible to tailor fit a devotional to the needs of your guides, and of course, yourself. While I feel that it is an important part of my day, I don’t want it to feel like a chore. Be flexible, and don’t beat yourself up if you miss a day or two. Whatever you do, don’t give up. You may find yourself enjoying and actually looking forward to the practice.

Mind, Body, and Spirit – Week 1

Mind, Body, and Spirit – Week 1

                This will be my first non-PBP post. I realize that the contents are terribly personal and may be all together uninteresting. However, I feel that it will help to reinforce my objectives and keep me on yonder “straight and narrow”. On with the show!

                The last two years of my life have been rather amazing. I took a step out of my comfort zone and decided to network with a group of like-minded individuals in the immediate area. This group consisted of witches and a few interested parties who were seeking to network and form some sort of community to study with and celebrate Wiccan holidays. The original plan had been to gather once monthly at a local restaurant and share ideas. This quickly transformed into a study group, led by a woman who has become a very dear friend to me. She and her husband are taking the Temple of Witchcraft courses provided by Christopher Penczak. Her work and dedication is of such quality that Mr. Penczak has allowed her to form an offshoot of his studies, while he provides the end certification throughout the courses. This has been a very exciting time for all of us. We've seen our small group, which in the first year began with nine individuals including our teacher and her husband, first shrink down to four, and then explode to quadruple in number of students and participants in our public rituals.

I had, in the past, been in a coven of sorts. We were really just a small group of eclectic solitaires bumbling around and trying to make sense of our spirituality. These women became sisters to me. But eventually, our happy little group split apart. It had nothing to do with a loss of friendship or power struggles. I simply took a job three hours away and had to relocate. The others ended up moving away after Katrina tore our coastal hometown apart. In the eight years following the move, I sort of drifted, unable to make a solid connection with the divine or even with like-minded people.

Finding the new group was like a reawakening, only I've come to realize that I’d been sleep walking even back then. I miss my old friends dearly, especially a lady whom I consider a second mother. But I have forged new friendships and gained even more sisters (and a few brothers) since the onset of this little movement, which has now extended beyond the classes and transformed into a budding spiritual organization. The class that started it all, The Inner Temple of Witchcraft, was presented in an orderly fashion; the information was rather eclectic and fairly unbiased. Through a combination of the exercises, guidance, sharing with peers, massive introspection, and of course the aid of my guides and gods, my mental and spiritual health is vastly improved.

That being said, I realize it isn't quite time to toss confetti and cue up the rainbows and unicorns. I’m having a hard time balancing it all. While mind and spirit have been reaping the benefits of my hard work, body has been suffering. Not that it was terribly healthy to begin with. Being an introvert and a fairly ungrounded Pisces, I never really understood that whole “my body is a temple” thing. I've been an on again, off again (mostly on) smoker for the past twelve years and a yo-yo dieter for even longer. I’m aware of the wonderful resources at my disposal and have educated myself as to what aids one can use to remedy these issues. I’m well versed in the various drugs and techniques used to kick the smoking habit. I’m schooled in portion sizes and fat and calorie counts as well as the dangers of sugar and sodium. Over the years, I have joined websites, bought food scales, frequented gyms, enrolled in programs, and even started a weight loss blog in fruitless attempts to change my unhealthy lifestyle. While these things worked for a little while, they were not able to magically transform my mind so that I was able to enjoy my veggies more than a greasy slice of pizza.

                I tried the Adipex thing for a while. For six full months, my mind and body ran a non-stop marathon. I couldn't sit still long enough to meditate and couldn't sleep more than five or six hours at a time. I went to the gym five times a week and ate like a finicky toddler. I lost thirty pounds and went from a size 18 to a curvy (and very sexy in my opinion) size 10. Being a pear shape, I ended up replacing every bra I owned and my waist had gotten so thin that my rib cage was clearly visible. Unfortunately, becoming thinner did nothing to cure my psychological problems. I thought my self-esteem has improved, but in reality, my ego was far more fragile than when I’d begun the process. I’m not sure how it was even possible, but I became even more obsessed with my weight and looks. I formed a habit of checking myself out in every shiny surface available. I constantly worried that my tummy was poking out, which was ridiculous considering just how much weight I’d lost. I became a narcissistic bitch, teetering between extreme self-confidence and crushing depression. It all came tumbling down when I decided to blame my emotional problems on my boyfriend and nearly left him. I still look back upon that time with shame and even a sense of awe when I consider what he put up with and the fact that we were able to salvage our relationship. Not a high point in my life, to be sure.

                Here we are, going on three years later and my self-esteem is better than it’s ever been. Oddly enough, my weight has climbed right along with it. I’m back in a 16, seams screaming. I suppose it’s healthy to no longer attach my state of mind to my pants size.

                While I’d love to return to that size 10, body image is not my only concern. In fact, it’s not even my first. I’ll be 31 on Friday, and with age comes wisdom, hopefully. Being an overweight smoker can lead to a plethora of health concerns. I've got hearth disease on both sides of the family, and cancer on my father’s. My mum combats high cholesterol while my dad struggles with high blood pressure. With these things in mind, worries about how I look in that all natural cotton or hemp blouse take a back seat. Rocking a healthy heart seems a hell of a lot more important than those skinny leg jeans and UGG boots.

                In my experience, small, slow, and steady changes seem to work the best. In all the times I've raged forward, full steam ahead, I've ended up crashing and burning rather quickly. Admittedly, while the slow changes seem to last longer, I have always ended up reverting back to the same unhealthy choices. I haven’t quite figured it all out yet, but I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet. I've learned a few things in my Psych 101 class that might be useful. Hilarious, I know! Psych 101 and she thinks she knows it all! I've done some light studying on conditioning and neurons and how they function. I’m going to look at this recent attempt to better my physical condition as something of an experiment. Instead of simply halting my unhealthy behaviors, I’m going to try to actually replace them with healthy ones. Novel idea! I know!

                My first step is a tiny one, though it has proved to be rather challenging in the past. As of yesterday, I have begun to replace my soda intake with water. This change will not only help in ridding myself of empty calories, but actually has an additional health benefit. I have a condition called interstitial cystitis, IC for short. People suffering with IC have pinpoint sized holes in the wall of their bladder which can cause a great deal of discomfort and pain, urgency, and various other embarrassing and seemingly non-related issues. My doctor has suggested that my flare-ups could be linked to a dietary issue and recommended I eat less acidic foods. I have noted that flare-ups occur more often following a period in which I've had more soda than normal. One such flare-up, the worst yet, occurred a few weeks ago. I ended up in her office twice, the later visit ending with a dose of medicine injected directly into my bladder. That is not a good feeling.

I've done the switch from soda to water a few times with varying degrees of success, but have always ended up back on “the coke”. I don’t understand why I revert back to this unhealthy habit after kicking it for so long. I've found that drinking a soda after abstaining for a week or so is actually an unpleasant experience. I can taste the sodium in the cola. It takes a special kind of stupid to continue drinking it long enough to re-deaden the taste buds. I vow to be more mindful of my slip-ups, and set the can aside if it happens again.

                To aid against the physical struggle, I will also combat the cravings in the spiritual. In the next day or two, I will do a binding spell. I know it may sound kind of odd to do a binding against a beverage, but I honestly cannot think of a scenario in which I’d be regretful of the decision. The easiest thing to do would be to remove the offensive product from my home. Unfortunately, it’s the only thing my boyfriend will drink. I may brainstorm a bit and see what other measures I can take, and I will of course ask my guides and gods to help me with the issue. I've spend the better part of my life programming my brain to enjoy Coka-Cola. I realize it will take a bit of time to get over this breakup. I’m giving myself a full month before evaluating how I feel. If all is well, I’ll move on to phase two, the dreaded cigarette addiction.

D is for Determination and Dedication

D is for Determination and Dedication - Pagan Blog Project - Week 7

                We set goals in our lives. We have dreams, grand visions of how we would like things to be. I think this is an essential part of human existence. Without aspirations, we’d have nothing to strive for. We’d become bored or perhaps even depressed. Change is the only combatant against stagnation.

                Unfortunately for some people, the stagnation sets in during the dreaming process. They languish in their desires, unable to muster the courage or will to make that vision a reality. We find this block in every aspect of life, whether it’s a lack of drive in the pursuit of a new career, or that extra umph it takes to get up off the couch and light a candle at the altar. This is where the striving part comes in.

It takes determination and dedication to start a regular religious or spiritual practice. For some, this comes easily, for others, not so much. When I first began my journey into Wicca and Witchcraft, I lacked the double D’s (I’m not talking about cup size people!). I pretty much lacked them in every aspect of my life. This lead to a great deal of bitching and a whole lot of nothing else. For some strange reason I thought that carrying the dream would be enough to actually manifest it. I was sorely wrong.

                If you’d like to forge a strong connection with your gods or guides, then you have to communicate. If you want to learn how to read the tarot, then you should start by actually picking up the deck. Dreams are wonderful, but you must follow up with determination and dedication to transform them into reality.

                I suppose another good word for this week would be “DO”.

DO

v  Start a regular practice of meditation and introspection. Spending time with self will reveal our strengths and weaknesses. With the double D’s, we can fortify our gifts while striving to understand, accept, and even work past our shadows. Meditation is a great tool for this, and will also help to establish new and stronger bonds with divinity.

v  Build an altar. I realize that some people do not think an altar is necessary. We should always do what feels best for us. But I will submit that an altar can help greatly in the dedication department. Situating it in a high-traffic area of your home, the altar will serve as a constant reminder. You’ll be more likely to make a stop there if it’s constantly in your face.

v  Being a practice of daily devotions or prayer. Take a few minutes each day to commune with your gods or guides. This can be a formal recital or a simple conversation. Tell them how your day is going, celebrate your accomplishments, or blow off some steam. Let them know that their presence in your life is welcome and appreciated.

v  Make an offering. Pour a glass of wine, prepare a plate for your ancestors, or light some special incense. If you've started a practice of meditation or devotion, chances are you’ll know what they want.

v  Keep a detailed journal or Book of Shadows of the things you've done and experienced. This might help to keep the momentum going and has the added bonus of displaying how your practices have changed and grown.

v  Seek out ways to commune with the Earth and all her systems and cycles. You don’t have to celebrate the Wiccan Sabbats to enjoy the changing of the seasons. Take a walk around the yard or visit a local park. Even concrete jungles hold their own sort of beauty while fostering as much spirit as the rural areas. Open yourself to the energy around you.

v  Write and perform a spell. I know that not all pagans are witches, but if you aspire to be one, get out there and start moving the energy around. Wield that determination and dedication. Research, find a spell aligned with your goals, or write your own, and then just do it. Fear can be a major block when it comes to spell work, but you’ll never move past it if you don’t experiment.

Life is busy, frightening, and even exhausting at times. If you want to break the cycle and free yourself from stagnation, you must gather the courage and willpower to make a change. Whatever path you choose to walk, do so with determination and dedication. 

C is for Creation, the Art of

C is for Creation, the Art of - Pagan Blog Project - Week 6

Thanks Nasa.

                Creation begins with an idea, an intention. In many of mythology’s creation stories, we find that the world began of nothingness or chaos. From the primordial waters or the darkened void springs forth an idea. This idea is given form, a shape, a name, and a purpose. The gods are born, and from them, everything else.

                Humans create in much the same way. First comes the idea and followed by action, something great or beautiful or simply useful is born. In my journey as a witch, I've taken the vital steps toward creating my own life. No longer do I sit ideally and allow time and circumstance to mold my path. If I wish for something better, something more, I reach out and grab it. Through introspection and action, I am no longer a passive bystander. My life, my world, is not a movie. This is the live action version, and I am the director, the star role, and the audience all rolled into one.

                Some of us are born with that realization. It doesn't take a magick wand to motivate people to strive for their own version of greatness. Others, like myself, need a little extra push. I've been an on again off again practitioner since December of 2000. It wasn't until two years ago when I began a daily practice of self-exploration (not that kind, you perverts!) and meditation that it finally clicked. Witches are weavers, energy workers, and the very nature of what we do is a form of creation. While we use what is readily available, the energy around us, we direct this energy toward our own desired outcome. We start with an idea, an intention, the wish for a new job or the yearning of a romantic partner. We follow this with action, a spell, the statement of our desires. We raise the energy, a dance or drumming, and then release that energy into the universe. Of course we follow this with more action, submitting applications, networking, etc. Thus, we direct and create our lives.

Shameless self-promotion!
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The Eccentric Muse

                And then there is the fun stuff. People create for pleasure. Sometimes we take our pleasure and end up creating, but that one is self-explanatory. In my strolls through the PBP I've run across a plethora of talented artists, musicians, and writers. Their creations are meant to entertain, to enlighten. Their art is a form of personal expression or made in dedication to their gods or spirit guides. Some of us are born with artistic talent, a calling which we cannot ignore. We channel this energy and display it in our words, with the stroke of a brush or pencil, or the strumming of fingers against taunt strings. I like to write; I also enjoy crafting. While I couldn't draw a straight line if Bast demanded it of me, I feel compelled to create beautiful things. In this respect, I’m something of a thief. I like to mix and mingle others’ creations. It begins with something that was already there, but transforms into something new, something I created.

I REALLY appreciate the TP.

                People tell me all the time that they aren't creative. To them I say, “Bullshit.” You don’t have to be an artist, writer, or musician to create. We do it every day, in every decision that we make. I've recently met several talented cooks in the local pagan community. Their baked, stewed, and fried concoctions are as appreciated and enthusiastically welcomed as any good book or treasured sculpture. Factory workers create the products that aid our daily lives, police officers and judges create peace (yes, I acknowledge that they can also create discord), and even custodians have a hand in creation by producing a cleaner and healthier environment. These things may not be as widely celebrated as Beethoven’s 9^th or the latest teeny-bopper Bieber craze, but they are appreciated. I can certainly live without hearing Justin’s “Baby” again, but I’d sorely miss toilet paper if it were to suddenly stop being produced. Maybe I’d embrace that weird French invention, the bidet, but you get the point.

We are all creators in our own right. Take a moment to consider what you've created today and celebrate your accomplishment. Bieber will be gone tomorrow, replaced by another teenage heart throb, but your creations will leave a lasting impression without your own life and lives the of the ones closest to you.