My turn

At a crossroads in many ways.

Air: new thoughts
fire: new actions
water: deeper intuition
earth: new path

I'll skip the practical physical description for now and write about the new/old spiritual path.  This year, I tried to go with a formalized style of clergy-training. It felt like going back to kindergarten. Maybe that's necessary. Or maybe I'm not willing to trade what I have for what may come if I follow some nailed-down curriculum.

Spirit won't be trapped. Sure, cop an attitude of prayer and the feeling may come. It does so with ritual. If I don't feel like doing ritual, that's when i need it most. I step in, set up the foundation and in comes Spirit and does the rest. Or, moves me to do the rest.

But I have this way. It's not found in any book (least of all, the one I wrote).

Basically, I collect energy and direct it. It's that simple. And it's not simple. Because to collect and to send requires a lot of training. I've trained myself through no formal textbook method. My "method" has been to listen and to feel.

I walk and I find the song. I dance or drum and I find the pulse. I use the methods (candles, cards, stars, thread, art...) and tap in to what has gone before. I call on Ancestors, Spirit Guides, Gods and Goddesses and Otherkin. ( I know someone uses the word, Otherkin to mean something different than what I mean, so let me explain that Otherkin, here, means the non-human helpers and associates who work with me). My offerings may be food, drink, tangible items such as coins, tobacco, grain -- or whatever presents itself in the moment. But the offering itself is only part of the thing. What the offering represents is my ever-deepening commitment to the way that is in front of me.

I pay attention. I train my will. What I will, I do.  Often, when I don't want to. Resistance means you're almost there. Break through resistance and the water begins to flow downstream.

I've got ways I've not mentioned to anyone. Because. A lot of what I did give got trashed. Because. Some of it can't be put into words -- or not words that bring it through vividly.  My way is vivid, fresh, alive, ever-changing, and vibrant.  But not up for critique.

I say my Goddess is All-Mother, Frigga. That my God is Forsetti. That's partly true. They are streams of energy that I have tapped into, that have found  me. Frigga and her Handmaidens are important to me. Forsetti, Thor, the Dagha, Brighid, Cerridwen, Cernnunos, Taliessen, Skathi...

But who is my God/dess? S/he may not have a name. S/he may be the Glimmer, the Spark. There are Gods I have no truck with -- no kinship. These include the Greek Gods and the Christian God. The Eastern Gods don't attract me. Sometimes, you know what is by what isn't. I'm not attracted to any God with a "Thou must!" attitude, nor any who claims to be the One.

I think, once, people understood more clearly the stream of energy that is the ONE. Then religions came on board and began to proclaim their god as THE God.   Once there was a statue to the "unnamed God" and along came the disciples of the Christ and claimed their God was THAT God. And God diminished in size until he would fit inside a book, a list of rules, and a building with a steeple.

We Pagans know better than this, but still, we think we can explain it all. We can't even explain Paganism. I'm reading a book right now called Her Hidden Children, in which the author  (Chas. S. Clifton) "explains" the origin of Wicca and Paganism.  He seems to think we can't call ourselves a nature religion if we also do astrology or work with cards. Why make everything so small. Why this tendency?  Nature includes all the workings of the Universe. Of COURSE we include astrology and all the mysterious workings of the way of nature.

Hmmm... Well, that was my morning ramble in trying to explain the unexplainable. Now, I'll go walk the woodspath, just past the neighborhood, and hear what the Earth is saying.