Order from chaos

I have the house torn apart trying to reconfigure my bedroom again, this time for the upcoming summer.  I have the window the air conditioner goes in blocked off and the way my room is situated, there is very little floor space as well.  It's a tiny room.  Originally, when this house was first built, this was a bedroom, then the original owners turned it into a living room but putting a couch in there was nearly impossible if you wanted any other furniture in there as well.

So when my knees went arthritic and the fibromyalgia became an impediment to climbing stairs many times a night, I moved into the living room and slept on the couch.  We bought a futon eventually and I would make up the bed every night but that became a huge burden as well with my arthritis and fibromyalgia.  So I just turned the futon into a bed all the time and the living room into a bedroom permanently.

Except when I feel guilty about not having a living room.  Then I try to make it convertible again.  It never works so I should just give in and let it be a bedroom all the time.

Which is what I'm working on now.

To be honest, the energy in there has been wrong ever since I tried to make it convertible.  I tried a few different approaches to it but nothing felt right so I'm working on putting it back the way I had it.  It's taking all day because I don't have the energy I used to have now that my heart refuses to work at capacity.  So I take frequent breaks and use Zach for the heavy stuff.  I have so far to go and it's nearly 5 p.m.  I'll be doing this at midnight when Tom gets home, I'm sure.

But another reason I need to do this is because I need room for spiritual things.  I like my altar being the focus of my room and not tucked away in a corner, which is where it is now.  I like looking at my altar, the pictures and even the statues, when I have them.  Not to mention having room to actually stand in front of the altar for ritual and prayer.  I don't even have that right now.

Well, back to work.  Unfortunately the room won't clean itself.

This, that, and the other

I'm feeling a bit rambly today...thoughts running though my head.  I'm not focused on a particular subject but my mind is full of all kinds of thoughts and word seeds. Might as well plant them here.

I don't capitalize the word god or the word pagan (most of the time).  I spent a half century capitalizing the christian god's name...which was just god...and capitalizing all pronouns and such because of christian privilege.  I just won't do it anymore.  I've seen it popping up more and more lately on pagan blogs, where the pronouns are being capitalized.  While I'm not one to insist people do things my way, I also reserve the right to be creeped out by it.  It seems a bit along the lines of christian wannabe shit.  I'm sure the people doing it aren't thinking along those lines but are merely honoring their deities the way they believe they should, but I'm still healing from the shit I had to deal with for over 50 years.  I'm going to feel that way.

I've got nearly all the deities up on the wall above my altar now.  Just pictures off the internet in cheap plastic frames, but I like it.  I like how it focuses my mind when I pray.  While statues would be icing on the cake, they're expensive and too big for my altar.  I had a few when I was on the Norse path but again...expensive and didn't leave me any room for anything else on my altar.  Now that I am honoring many more gods, this works better for me.  I have some decals of the gods but I like the pictures better.  Maybe Tuesday I'll take some pictures.  Tomorrow I have errands to run and bills to pay and tons of other stuff that needs doing.

I don't really have one particular god who is all-important to me, any moreso than the others, that is. I do love some more than others, but I haven't felt a pull in any one direction.  I love too many of them to single out just one or two.  I think part of my problem in finding my direction has been seeing what others do and thinking that's what I needed to do, too.  Maybe someday I'll have that intimate relationship with one or two gods, but honestly, I haven't felt that way since leaving christianity.  No reason why I should have to.

I'm looking forward to spring when I can get out and work in my yard, when I can get to the car without slipping and sliding or wading through knee-deep snow.  I used to love winter but this year has been particularly hard on me.  Not sure why although the sub-zero temps were definitely a factor.  That and the higher-than-normal heating bills.  But oddly I feel more nature-oriented on the Greek path than I did on the Norse path.  Initially I did have a problem finding nature while worshiping the Greeks but I feel a connection with Pan and the nature spirits now that I didn't feel last time around.  Or maybe it's just my longing for shirt-sleeve weather.

Zach's path has diverted as well.  He has also gone back to his first love:  eclectic witchcraft (non-Wiccan).  Odd how we often end up back where we started.  Even though many who worship the Greek gods believe that magic is hubris to the gods, I'm not one of them.  So I do intend to continue my work and study of magic.  Which puts Zach and me again on similar paths, studying together just like we used to.

I'm getting more and more excited about walking this path.  Or maybe that's just the promise of spring as well.  Who knows?  At any rate, the Greeks do inspire me more than any other deities I've honored.  I feel more creative, more aware of myself and my environment and more familiar with the deities I worship.

I hope this works out.  I do get tired of finding a path only to lose sight of the road ahead of me.

A god dream

Changes are happening here...again.  I don't feel bad about it anymore, now that I've seen people who have been settled for years in their path finding that their path has veered in another direction only to veer back.  It's the journey, after all...not the destination.

It was hard for me to articulate the problem.  I didn't want to post about my path, didn't want to study it much and was bored to tears with the mythology.  Still I feel an affection for the Norse gods and have statues on the top of my entertainment center in my bedroom where I can see them.

But the Greeks have always been my first love and I think I have to stay with them.

I have never had a god dream.  I've had dreams about animals before and thought that might be about the gods but it was never clear that it was.  This one,  however, was about the gods and no mistake about it.  In the course of the dream I told Zeus off and told him I was tired of the gods toying with me, playing with my emotions.  His eyes flashed but then he chuckled and took off to Olympus.  I still don't know what the dream means but it has stayed with me for weeks.  I tried resisting returning to the Greeks but I just got worn down.

I love them.  I don't just have affection for them; I love them.  I'm excited about them.  I want to learn everything I can about them.

And more importantly...I know them.  They aren't strangers I'm trying to get to know.  Certainly I don't know everything about them.  Or even most things about them, but I have known them since I was in early elementary school.   

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm going to dive into reconstructionism.  I tend to believe that, as I said before, the gods didn't stop doing things when the mythologies stopped being written.  I think stuff goes on and while I can respect what the ancients did, I'm not an ancient.  I think the gods have moved on just as civilization has.  The things from the past that are good and helpful I'll keep.  The things that are oppressive, I'll discard.

But tonight I'm going to light my candles & incense and utter a few prayers and go to bed.  The past few weeks have been a blur of activity and errands and I'm finally done with appointments and hopefully all those errands.  I want to organize my house and my thoughts and concentrate on writing more.  Not to mention the knitting that hasn't been getting done.

So...here I am, a Hellenic pagan/polytheist, feeling the love again.  It's like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.