Today is the Wiccan Sabbat of Yule, a celebration of the longest night and the return of the sun. Today, though, I am pooped. Unfortunately, my celebrations will have to wait a few days until I can do them justice. I would like to wish a happy Yule to all my Pagan readers. I am sorry I wasn’t able to get around to all your blogs to leave a message.
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Yesterday I was thinking about my attempts to keep a gratitude journal over the past several years. I usually only managed to keep it up for a few days, or a week at most, before I forgot. Today, I came across this link: Gratitude Experiment. While it may seem to be a little New Age airy-fairy, I think it has a wonderful message. I wonder if a lot of what is wrong with everyday interactions between people is the lack of gratitude.
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“Reflections on life from a somewhat confused spiritual seeker” reads the description of my blog. My title on Aeclectic Tarot Forum is “spiritual seeker.” Why? I am certain that I am Pagan, my own reformed Eclectic branch of Wicca to be exact. I suppose I’ve taken on this title of confused spiritual seeker because I am still trying to find a way to blend the religion of my childhood with Wicca. I was raised Presbyterian. Although neither of my parents were particularly avid church goers, my maternal grandfather the elder of our church and encouraged by attendance. I loved Sunday…
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To many Wiccans the time between Samhain (October 31st) and Yule (approx. December 21st) is a time set aside for reflection and meditation. I find this difficult though, because for the average person, this time is the busiest of the year with parties, shopping, dinners, etc. I don’t know how to balance my spiritual needs with everyday life, especially this time of year.
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As any Tarotist will tell you, the search for the perfect deck is endless. I’ve gone through over thirty different decks since I started reading Tarot over fourteen years ago. Some decks have stayed with me for a long time, while others were passed on almost as soon as I had bought them. It can be hard to say what is wrong with a deck; it may have a different set of correspondences then what I am used to, or the illustrations aren’t to my taste, or it just doesn’t feel right. One day, I’d like to create my own…
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Blessed Samhain to all my Pagan readers. A day late is better then not at all. Now that Halloween/Samhain is over, it is full steam ahead into the holiday season. The gift shop where I work (still!) has been slowing putting out Christmas items for the past couple of weeks. And, surprisingly, people have been asking about cards and various gift items since the end of September. This Sunday, when the store is closed, we will do out annual all day blitz to get most of the Christmas items out. The following day we will start to see the the…
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Sometimes I am so very, very frustrated by what I see when I go looking at pagan websites. The internet is supposed to have been this wonderful social revolution, yet everything is the same no matter where you look. It seems like every site has the same collection of spells, blinking graphics, and plagiarized material from Llewellyn books. Where is orginal thought? Yeah, I realize that I can easily be included in this group too. Maybe being part of a religion means that you will produce similar material as other members of your religion. Religion gives you a framework, and…
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Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself. I’ve sworn off self-help books many time in the past, yet I always find myself drawn back to them. My current rotation includes The Power of Now (which I’m not very impressed with), Emotional Alchemy (not bad, but not quite right for me), The Comfort Queen’s Guide to Life (a fun read and very helpful), How to Make Your Creative Dreams Real (wonderfully helpful and also a little painful), Simple Abundance (an inspirational daybook). Looking over that list, I think I just learned something. Books written for women and/or about…
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I often feel like the time isn’t right to work on my spiritual well-being. I’m either too tired, too busy, too unfocused or too stressed. In short, I let real life get the better of my spiritual life. But what if that is the way it is supposed to be? Is part of spiritual growth learning to integrate our spirituality into “real life”? What if we don’t need to go on meditation retreats in order to hear our inner voice or the divine? How would my life be different if I could hear Them on the subway or while making…
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I am very well aware that Wicca is not a perfect religion. Our history is a little questionable when it comes to Gardner, who claimed he had rediscovered an ancient Goddess religion. There are also many contradictory views about our gods: are They male and female?, do They have names?, are we Them?, etc. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing a trend towards questioning the “Wiccanness” of the Threefold Law. Simply put, the Threefold Law states that any action we do, for good or bad, will return to us three times. To me this seems too reminiscent of those punishment/reward faiths…