*Insert Dramatic Music Here*

I have moved to a new state; I’m not living in my own home yet.  I haven’t been able to practice and I no longer live close to the friend I was studying with.  I haven’t given up.  I just haven’t had anything to blog about.  Out of respect for the people letting us stay with them I have my books and tools packed away for the time being.  I still meditate but I miss my study and my ritual. 

Advice to anyone thinking of getting into paganism: when you start, if it’s the thing for you, it will feel very fulfilling and exciting and you will want to let people know.   You’ll want to identify yourself as pagan or wiccan or what have you, to the people you care about.   Be very careful who you choose to tell.  It was fine when the people I told were there for the whole thing; they had their worries and concerns but there was a boundary to it.   Here it is different; so when you tell people, be ready to be ‘the pagan friend’ be ready for them not to realize it’s a personal and private thing. 

Because I don’t have my own home at the moment, my things are packed away.  Because it’s more private now, because I feel a little more isolated for the moment, the friends up here that know (I told them at the beginning when I first started) have decided I’m not dedicated and that it’s a phase.   At this point I’m inclined to let them think that because I have come to regret them knowing.   Out of the four that know: one of them wants to make money off me with tarot readings and helping her to sell ‘witch stuff’ to people when she sells jewelry, one of them teases me and tells me I’m as much a ‘pagan’ as most people are ‘christian’, and two of them seem intent on finding out what went wrong with me to make me so confused and wonder why I am trying to get back at god.   I was told “If you just keep at it with Christianity you will eventually feel something, and if not, then you still have the support of the church community.”   No one has been truly mean to me, so that is not the complaint, they are all nice and the topic has dropped lately so it’s not something I hear all the time anymore.  

My husband remains extremely supportive; he often suggests that I pull out my books and that it will be ok.  We are both working hard to get into our own place and have found good jobs; now we just have to chip away at the money we owe and we should have a place by the end of next month. 

I haven’t been posting because there hasn’t been much to talk about.  As usual my separation is in many ways my own fault.  I have people’s numbers that I could call and talk to.  I have websites I could use to find stores and groups in the new area.  I just feel like I am on hold and I’m not sure what my next step should be. 

So that’s where it stands.  I may resume posting once we’ve gotten settled into a place of our own. 

My Yule Celebration

I'm still not very versed in holiday ritual; so for this Yule I simply made a turkey dinner and had my neighbors over.  Spent some time with good company and after that was done spent some time planning for the coming year and meditating.  

I was unable to find a Yule Log in time; so this was my stand-in this year.  A pine candle surrounded by live seasonal plants. Next year I will know to start much earlier in my search for a log; but I am still happy with the way this turned out anyway.  Also I have no fireplace to burn it in so that was another hindrance.

Recently I have been adrift in a sea of random information and haven't properly focused myself; so I will be attempting to create a schedule for myself to help focus myself and my learning. 

Adventures in Confusion

I am working on getting back into reading and meditation; I feel I have let some of the basics slip in the upheaval of the past few months.  So I am working on adjusting my personal/mental label and considering myself to be a person who lives in a pagan state of mind as opposed to trying at the moment to define every aspect of my beliefs all on one word.  I’m not trying to sound pretentious, and I really hope that I don’t.  I’m just loosening my grip a tiny bit; which I think is a good thing.  I feel this will free me up to relax and let myself feel how much I believe or don’t believe.   I love my esbbat rituals, fall a little more hit and miss on the sabbats, and generally find myself slacking when it comes to meditations.   This year I plan to set the goal of following each possible sabbat starting with Yule and we will see how it goes.  

Since I have been a tad over-stressed I want to balance between taking a slower and more relaxed approach (as opposed to the excited mad dash I was in) and keeping myself on a steady track practice-wise.  

To be honest, I was so excited about everything that I allowed myself to stress out about things like “who needs to know”, “how out do I need to be”, “am I doing this right or wrong” and in general that I need to have all my personal answers now.  I became defensive from time to time (though I think I did a fairly good job of keeping it in check) and overly worried about what the world would think of me, feeling I needed to hide anything about myself that might tip people off. 

People will have problems with me; that is inevitable, and the sad thing is it’s mostly going to be problems of semantics.  “I meditate…you pray…it’s magik…it’s a miracle…the divine…God…” and so it goes on.  I could be content to boil it all down to yes I do believe there is a power/energy/divinity (what have you) in this world that is bigger than myself and I feel a connection to it in my own way.   I think that’s a pretty good starting place and how I choose to envision/communicate/honor that divinity is personal to me.   This isn’t groundbreaking stuff really…but I think it might have been something I let myself overlook for a little while and that began to drive me crazy.   That’s my fault;  I’m new at this and figure I’m a little entitled to step in a few puddles while I make my way down the path. LOL 

Basically, this shouldn’t be something that stresses me out; it’s what makes me happy, so if it is stressing me out then I am looking at it wrong.  It’s not easy to admit that I got confused and lost sight of a lot of things for a while but I put this blog up to reach out and get answers and share my experience – and that was part of it.