Like many Pagans in my acquaintance, I was raised in a Christian household. "The Wizard of Oz", "Bedknobs and Broomsticks", and "Bewitched" were perfectly acceptable, but "Harry Potter" was of the devil. I went to a Bible college after high school that turned out to be a less-than-pleasant experience. Those nearly-two years were what made me decide that I'd had enough of so-called "Christians" that act nothing like the Christ. I'd seen people start at that school behaving very kindly for the most part but then turn into horrid, judgmental jerks as time went on. There was this one dude named Sam who seemed to think that it was so holy to tell my roommate (I'll just refer to her as R) that a friend of hers who had committed suicide had gone to hell. Yes, asshat, Comfort one another with those words. I'd wanted to punch him because his torrid insistence very greatly upset R and it's not even a belief I've ever been able to subscribe to.
There was this other gal who had started out one of my most favorite people there (I'll refer to her as J). She used to be so nice to me and she was a very happy, bouncy, and hyper person. I used to love being around her. But as time went on, hers was the change that was the most horrible. She became someone who was so uptight, stick up her ass, judgmental, and haughty. At one point during the second year I was having to deal with a very bad sickness. It was like the cold that wouldn't go away. I'd feel the cold coming on, I'd get full-blown sick for a couple weeks, finally get better and be fine for about a week and then it would start all over again. It was an absolutely MISERABLE few months. Well, one afternoon a bunch of us had congregated at my former roommate's apartment for a study group. I looked at R and told her that I could feel this sickness coming back on me.
Well, despite the fact that it was a private conversation, J apparently overheard me and butted her oh-so-holy nose in to tell me in a very snotty, hoity-toity voice, "Well, quit calling it on yourself!"
-_- Gee. Thanks, bitch. I was SO comforted and that was UBER helpful.
Even now, all these years later, that shit still burns quite honestly. J is one of the main reasons why I don't label myself a Christian anymore. Even as a Pagan, I look at God the same as I did when I was a Christian, I still believe in Christ, but it's like that bumper sticker: "I'm fine with God; it's His fan-club I can't stand."
Hell, Gandhi couldn't have put it any better when he said "I like your Christ, I just don't like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
Aaaaaaanywho, getting past the bitter stuff, a few months after I left the school I was in a store not far from where I lived and I stumbled across a book. It was a spell book specifically for helping someone in regards to sleeping and dreams. I remember feeling a curious surprise as I paged through the book. None of the magick that I saw in there had anything to do with trying to cause someone else harm, killing cats for Halloween, or eating children. Nothing in there about hexes or curses. Oh, I wasn't dumb enough to think that stuff like that didn't happen, but this was a stark contrast to what I'd always been brought up to believe about witchcraft.
That piqued my interest for sure.
At first I had no idea what to start reading to learn more, but I eventually was introduced to Silver Ravenwolf's books. And, while I know that her books tend to be very controversial, she was still a good start for me. She cleared up a lot of the questions and misgivings I initially had and enabled me to get my foot in the door to learn more progressively. However, my very most favorite Pagan author is Ellen Dugan. Her book Elements of Witchcraft: Natural Magick for Teens was the first book of hers that I ever read and, even though I wasn't a teenager when I first read it, I found it to be a delightful book for any beginner to read no matter what the age range.
There are several authors I enjoy reading, though (as previously mentioned), I'm not exactly practiced yet. Practice-wise, I'm still a newbie. Between my own lack of self-discipline to keep at trying to practice along with life situations that have prevented it from being a possibility? Yeah. I've still got a long way to go.
Druid has been trying to help me progress. He's got a copy of The Complete Book of Witchcraft by Raymond Buckland (or Uncle Bucky as we jokingly refer to him as) and I've got the first book in the WitchSchool.com series that I've been wanting to go through (and I very much enjoy listening to the "Pagans Tonight!" radio show that's put on by the WitchSchool crew). But, like I said, life has not exactly seen us in situations where we really could work on it more.
One thing I'm very much wanting to focus on is also raising our children in Paganism. I grew up in Christianity and that was about as easy as going to church every Sunday, reading the Bible and the occasional devotional, etc. Really, there wasn't much to it and, of course, the materials for Christian parenting abound. Pagan Parenting, on the other hand, is not as prevalent. There aren't very many books geared toward Pagan children or, even, Pagan Parenting.
So, bearing that in mind, I have been badly wanting to find a family-oriented coven to be a part of. I'd tried that at the last place I'd lived and…..it didn't go so well. They seemed like really nice, welcoming people. We got to enjoy two Sabbats with them (Beltane and Midsummer) and then after that we basically got shunned because, as they so put it, "We have two coven members who work at DHS and they could be fired if they were found to be socializing with DHS clients outside of work," the aforementioned DHS clients being us of course. I'd written about that on my Pagan Mommy blog and the people who commented as well as Druid all thought that that was a bunch of hooey. But what could we do? *shrug* As much as it hurt back then, I'm over it at this point and hoping that we can find a coven to belong to here.
One of the big disappointments about that coven not working out was because the kids and done so well at the rituals! I was thrilled enough for myself to be able to take part, but my biggest happiness and pride came from watching my children participate. Aspen, my oldest, got to have a big part of the Midsummer ritual (he got to represent the element of Earth and be the Gnome for the ritual) and he did so good with it, I almost cried! I wanted to be part of that not only for my own learning but also for the kids. That coven placed a big emphasis on including children in ritual that I really thought that it would have been a good fit for us. But considering the way that life went down several months later, I suppose it was for the best that we ultimately were not welcomed into the group. Our abrupt departure would have been quite disruptive to the balance and they didn't need that.
So I am hoping to be able to find a coven here that we can join. I think it would not only be a huge help for me in becoming more practiced but also to help me to learn how to raise my children in the Craft. They really enjoyed the Sabbat rituals and I think it was beneficial to them to get to be around other children being raised in Paganism as well.
In the meantime, Druid and I will have to just figure it out by ourselves. I know he knows more about Pagan Parenting than I do, but having other people to be around would just be incredibly helpful.
Well, I suppose that wraps up this first entry for the 44 Days of Witchery challenge. I'm really hoping to do better at keeping up with it than I did at my last attempt of it.
Don't let the line under the blog title fool you: While I may feel spiritually starved, it's not because I don't place my spirituality as an important priority within my life. I try to integrate my spirituality very firmly in my life even if I hardly ever seem to have the time, energy, etc. to do what I want to in order to further my growth beyond what it is. And? I'm not going to lie: I feel kinda stunted. For someone who's been a Pagan for the better part of 10 years, I haven't progressed very much beyond book learning. Which is sad. Really sad. For me, anyway. I know I'm not the only Pagan to be in this particular place.
I have quite a bit of book knowledge as well as knowledge that, basically, are my own conclusions based off what I've learned. But, as anyone knows, you can be book-learned to the Nth degree but that doesn't make one practiced.
I can read books galore as to how to perform a heart surgery but does that make me qualified to do so? Nuh uh.
This isn't my first Pagan blog here on Blogger. I used to have The Journey of a Pagan Mommy blog. But my life has changed a lot in the months since I last wrote in it (and I just deleted that blog today) and it felt to me that I needed a new start. I felt as though trying to go back to that blog would be like keeping a tie to the life that I just left behind and I have no interest in maintaining that tie.
Also the fact that my former blog had encouraged a narrow focus on only one aspect of my life, I wanted to embrace a format that I could feel comfortable in writing about EVERYTHING.
Have you ever been on a message board where there where the Topic Police that would squelch you in a split second if they felt that you talked about anything that was even an iota Off Topic?
I kinda felt that way personally with my last blog, and I know that's stupid. The only one restricting me was me. But still. I wanted a fresh start and to start with something where I could feel more open to write about everything going on. My college classes, parenting my children and trying to raise them in Paganism, my personal daily struggles to incorporate Paganism into my life and to try to progress beyond the Beginner level of practice.
Where my life was at with my last blog, I felt like I was beating my head against a brick wall. I had even found a family-oriented coven in the area that I had BADLY wanted to join and, for whatever reason, they seemed welcoming at first and then they turned around and shunned me and my family. They had claimed that because I was involved with the local DHS (as in I was a client) and they had people that worked at DHS that could get fired if it was found that they were socializing with clients outside of work that they could be fired.
The people who commented on that post as well as my boyfriend, Druid, were quite confused at that and some even called bullshit. Hell. After a while I did too. But, whatever. Beyond memories, it is long past being irrelevant.
Now I have been able to leave just about everything bad from my old life behind. Oh don't get me wrong, things aren't sunshine and rainbows. There are still some things that I'm currently having to deal with that are EXTREMELY stressful. But being that I've gotten to come to a better place and I feel like I can start healing, I have better faith that we'll make it through this crap somehow and we're going to be ok.
I'll just REALLY feel better when it all is completely behind me.
And in the spirit of starting anew, I'm signing this blog up for the Pagan Blog Project 2012. I've already missed the first 2 weeks, but I can still do the entries for them even if they can't be counted and submit an entry for Week 3.
I want to do something to try to bring my spirituality to a more centralized focus. That is my problem. I'm a flibbertigibbet Gemini/Taurus who has time management problems as well as self-discipline issues. And I know that, without those tools, I'm not going to be a very effective Witch.
