Stepping way outside my normal way of thinking

We had a short full moon ritual last night.  Winging it as I had no formal ritual to follow.  I thought it went well and so did Zach.

Still plugging along this eclectic path.  Not feeling overly excited about it but I think that's a good thing for now.  It feels normal, if that makes any sense.

Last night I put Bast on my altar but felt really uncomfortable doing that so I took her off only to realize she wanted on the altar but on the upper shelf, not below where I normally put my statues.  She's still there and it feels pretty right.  I've never seriously considered her before, mostly because my drawing has been toward European gods for the most part.  Now that I've opened up to any and all gods, I've discovered several out there who just want to stop in and say hi, including the spirits of some animals.

I've been drawn to the eagle for years, as well as the crow or raven.  Lately I've felt the wolf's presence as well and thought they might represent gods but now I'm not so sure.  I think they might just represent the spirits of the animals.  I did notice that our full moon ritual had some Native American influences.  I have a miniscule amount of NA ancestry but I never considered that path either, thinking my more European ancestors were more dominant.

I'm not sure where I'll end up, if I even end up anywhere, but I am discovering more about the environment around me, the aspects of Nature and the elements.  I seem to notice more about me, the influences of spirits and Nature on my life.

I also put a statue that has been identified as Frigg on my altar but I'm not so sure she is Frigg.  I definitely sense Persephone in that statue.  That might be why I never could connect well with Frigg when I was worshiping her in that representation.  I am learning that the gods manifest themselves as they choose and not how we perceive them.  The horned god is there as well.  I think of him as Cernnunos mostly but he might be every horned god out there.  I have no idea right now.

I really do believe that the pantheons are artificial constructs that we humans devised in order to define who our gods are.  Getting rid of the idea that the gods exist in distinctly narrow slots has really opened up the universe to me.

Insanity

I know it's insane to keep doing the same things over and over again and getting the same result so I've got to figure out just what it is I'm doing so I can affect a different outcome.  It's not that I don't love the Greek gods.  I do.  It's just that I'm not certain that they're all that different from the Norse or Celtic or Gaulish gods.  And pantheons are giving me a lot of grief.  Who really decides who is in a pantheon?  I mean, as people migrated, they took their gods with them, mingled them with the gods who were already there and new patheons rose up.

And mythologies?  Oh, dear.  That's my kryptonite.  Mythologies will turn me away from the particular gods I'm focused on quicker than anything.  I don't believe in them and yet since that's the only way we "know" the gods (before we get to "know" them) they seem to be an integral part of the whole shebang. 

So I figure I should take a break from the gods. Period. 

I'll figure out the spirituality first and then figure out the gods later.  This is hard for me because there is a void that I keep needing to fill where the gods are concerned, but as that seems to be the biggest problem for me, I think I should fill the void up with me rather than gods before I try to find gods to fill the emptiness inside of me.

It's time to take care of myself.  The gods will do fine on their own.

Doing it better this time around

I'm still doing well here so far aside from the debilitating fatigue and now my occasional sciatica acting up.  Spiritually, at least, I'm fine.  Physically it's like cascade failure.

I'm spending more time just contemplating the gods and meditating on them instead of reading about them.  This is working out very well for me.  I feel my relationships growing steadily instead of feeling like I'm battling an insurmountable obstacle.  While I haven't focused on a particular deity (I don't do patron gods) I've noticed that I'm not collecting rooster designs all over the place.  The rooster seems to represent Hermes and I can attest that he is definitely present in my life.  Last night I had a situation with the car on the way home that circumstances prevented us ending up in the back country roads stranded (temporarily)...in the cold and dark.  Coincidence?  Perhaps.  I'm inclined to think the god of travelers was there helping us out. 

This feels more organic this time around. 

I'm also seeing a definite division between my magical practices and my religious practices.  Perhaps that's another area I had been making mistakes in. 

Also, while this latest brouhaha in the pagan community...that is, the reference to Wiccanate as a description for those practices that have a Wiccan "flavor" to them...has caused some battle lines to be drawn, in our household, we've found the term beneficial.  It has resolved a lot of issues for Zach and has explained a lot to me.  Although I do wish pagans would stop the pissing contests.  They're behaving much like the christians we had hoped to leave behind.

Life is good here...at least spiritually.  With Spring waking up we feel like we're coming back to life as well.

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.

Trying to organize my thoughts

I am still here.  Dealing with post-holiday depression among other things, but mostly trying to organize my thoughts enough to write coherently instead of babbling.  Although babbling is what I do best.

I'm still very much on the same path.  I think this is something of a record.  Toward the end of last year, I was faced with some incredibly hurtful things out there on the internet that weren't directed toward me at all.  But still pretty painful.  Mostly by people I would deem rigorists in their beliefs.  Those who think there is only one way to think about things.

It was hard watching Teo Bishop's journey in his last months as a pagan.  I had told Zach way back in 2012 that he was going back to Christianity so it wasn't a surprise that he did.  It was simply that he wasn't done with it yet.  He still had those longings for the ritual and the community and the...well, privilege that exists within that world.  I know because I had similar feelings.  I never missed the deity the way he did though and I think that's why when he made that change in his life, it triggered a definitive decision on mine that I could never go back.  Although I do think he won't be happy with that path either.  But I could be wrong.

But the hate-mongering that went on toward him really disappointed me.  I had discovered long ago that pagans aren't really different from Christians in their attitudes.  Not really.  I nearly left paganism initially when I saw the rigorists that existed within this group.  I hung on because I had nothing else.  I couldn't go back to Christianity because I no longer believed in Jesus.  I don't even believe that he ever existed.  Most likely he is a compilation of many different messianic characters from that era, when you couldn't throw a rock without hitting a messiah, they were so numerous.

Still, it was bothersome that there were people within paganism that were as hateful and mean-spirited as the religion I left behind.  I felt abandoned by my new "community."  Until I realized it wasn't a community at all.  My attempts at joining up with other pagans in the area ended when I merely disagreed with someone in an online group..didn't get in a rage...simply disagreed...and was ripped a new one by the moderator for not letting her handle it.  She didn't like it that I said something to a friend on facebook, without mentioning her name at all.  She went there and bitched me up one side and down another because I didn't bow to her authority on the local group.  There was an obvious power struggle going on within this group and as that was the only group I knew of in my local area, I was pretty much shut out.  As this power-hungry person is in charge of the Pagan Pride thing, I'm pretty much shut out of that community as well.

That was years ago, but still...way to shut down someone new to the path.

I've pretty much decided my path is solitary because there is no real community out there.  I know that I suffer from social anxiety and it's hard for me to interact with people, even online, but I'm not inclined to get involved in a group that has "all" the answers and won't let me find my own way.  It took me a long time to find this path.  I'm certainly not going to let someone else tell me what my path entails.

I've been reading a lot about the Norse/Anglo Saxon gods in blogs and in books.  I've read that you can't combine the paths because they are too different and not to be merged.  Too bad.  I'm merging them because it's the path I've chosen and the path that I was drawn to.  I've read that you can't wear certain symbols because they mean something specific and it's "dangerous" to wear them if you haven't committed to that deity or if you're the wrong gender.  I've read that the gods are "dangerous" and not to be trifled with and if you can't dot your i's and cross your t's then your life can be a living hell.

Too fucking bad.

Quite frankly I don't get how the myths are still the main way we "know" the gods when the myths were written by men ages ago and not always by the same cultures of men.  And why do we no longer view the gods as still having adventures and things going on in their lives?  Why do we only see them as men saw them in the past?

I'm absolutely not about to charge in and devise a new religion.  But I'm also going to get to know the gods and rely on that more than I do old words written (and revised by Christian monks) ages ago.  I believe the gods change with the times, as they did back in ancient times.  I know there are people out there who hate the thought of someone seeing the gods in a different way from the way they see them.  For some reason they feel threatened by that.  Again...too fucking bad.

I don't see the gods as fluffy kittens and rainbows by any stretch of the imagination.  They're not my buddies and they're not going to relate to me on an equal level.  They can be frightening at times.  But they're not dangerous.  I lived with that kind of thinking for 50 years as a Christian...a god who "loved" me so much he killed his own kid and then sends people who don't love him back to hell for all eternity to endure torture and torment.  Yeah...not going to worship any god who thinks punishing me is for my own good.  Just not going to do it.

I'm totally going to respect the Eddas and the old writings but I'm basing my knowledge of the gods on who they are to me.  It's what we do in any real-life relationship, isn't it?  We don't base our relationships on what other people tell us about the person in our lives.  We base it on our relationship with them.

It's pretty obvious I still don't have my thoughts organized and ended up just babbling anyway.  Maybe next time I'll be better at getting my thoughts out there.  Fibromyalgia does mess with my concentration so it's hard sometimes to get it all out there.

Still, thanks for reading.  I hope to be more faithful about posting.