THINKING ABOUT FAITH IS A LOT HARDER THAN YOU THINK

I’m having one of those days today.  I should be doing x, y and z, but I'm not in the mood, so I'm trying to do a, b and c instead.  And that isn't working out to brilliantly either.

I should be making fudge for partner’s birthday on Sunday; I say I should be making it, but really I should be helping my son make it, but neither of us is in the mood.

I should be sewing something for my daughter's birthday on Tuesday, but that isn't working out too well either as I need to go and get a couple of bits and I can't be bothered to get dressed.  Obviously in a lazy mood today although did run down to the post box earlier in my pjs as I had a form that desperately needed posting (it should have got there today rather than being posted today).  Luckily post box is less than 100 yards from the house.

So, after deciding that the above two things won't get done today, I turned to the other stuff.  The form, as I've said, got done and posted.  The urgent bill got paid, although I'm surprised as my bank account is rather heavily overdrawn at the moment; thank goodness for overdraft facilities. The washing got done, although now I have to bung it in the tumble dryer as it's a bit late to get it outside and even if it wasn't, it's been raining.  The last thing I should be doing and I am trying to do is my homework.

"What homework?" I hear you say.

Well, I have had a book called A Witch Alone for years.  I've dipped in and out of it, checking and researching information, but I've never read it from cover to cover and never followed it as it should be followed. It's basically a practical guide to being a Hedgewitch and has lunar monthly chapters with reading, exercises and research to do.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Witch-Alone-Thirteen-Master-Natural/dp/0007133235/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1424447199&sr=1-1&keywords=a+witch+alone

http://hedgewitchforest.com/

I've been wanting to do it since I bought it and have finally decided that this year was the year to start.  January's went well and I've got rather a lot of info printed up and I enjoyed it, but this month, I'm struggling. 

This month is all about The Goddess and her consort The God.  I'm supposed to consider what it means to have a Goddess and a God with many forms, also to read and think about religious experience and how it has affected me in the past. Plus I'm supposed to divide a page and list attributes, symbols or titles for each; matching as I go if I can.  There are a couple of other things that are mainly reading and research and that isn't too bad, neither is the list of attributes, but the bit about religious experience and how it has affected me is, how shall we say, really hard.

I was brought up Christian, by Sunday school teacher parents and, although they never made me go to church as I grew older, I certainly had to go as a child.  Religion then and does still have issues for me. 

I always felt that there was something missing, something unsaid, something hidden and as I've got older I'm even more suspect of religions. The more research I do, the more I found out about missing books, texts, different translations, etc, the more suspicious I get.  I’m not a lover of rules and rituals as they seem so 'man'made rather than 'god'made and to discover that a lot of woman have been removed from religious text or condemned as evil reinforces the ‘man’made element to me.

Even in the pagan world I have issues with wording and ritual.  For starters I don’t like the word ‘invoke’.  I know that it means ‘to ask’ ‘to appeal’ but it can also mean ‘to call forth or upon (a spirit) by incantation’ or ‘to cause, call forth, or bring about’ which seems to me to be a demand.  Now I won’t demand anything to come to me (apart from my dog of course); I don’t feel that I need to invoke anything, I feel that spirits, corners, whatever you want to call it/them are all around me anyway; including God if I was to think in my Christian upbringing.  If this is the case, they will help me or not as they will.  I can pay homage to them, ask their help, but I certainly cannot and will not demand or call in.

Does this mean that any work I do with the Goddess won’t be valued?  I don’t think so, but maybe others would.  I suppose the very fact that I’m thinking about it on a deeper, emotional level is exactly what the book is asking me to do, but even as I’m writing this and I’ve been attempting to write it all evening, I’m coming up with more conflicting views on the whole thing.

Must admit, learning is never an easy thing and when it comes to choosing and following a path of faith it’s even harder.

Perhaps I should just step back for a bit, have a really good think and come back to it a bit later on when I’m not stressing about overdrafts, birthday presents and such like.

I need to meditate!

RANT OF THE DAY: MOBILE PHONES

Ok, I know I’m over 50 and that when I was a teen mobile phones looked like bricks and the most exciting thing you could play on a computer was ping pong, but do the youth of today really need to be on their phones 24/7?

I’m not against technology, I use it; a lot! It gives me access to information that I use for our home ed adventure, it keeps me in contact with friends; close and long distance (which saves phone calls) and it’s a great place to while away a few hours on pointless games on Facebook when I really can’t be arsed to craft or watch my partner play Lara or read (you get the picture), but I do not under any circumstances feel the need to be ‘connected’ all the time.

My biggest bugbear is when I have visitors or if I’m visiting and the person who is visiting or being visited is on their mobile the whole time they are here/I’m there.  Did you want to see me or not?  Its bloody rude peeps!  Now if an emergency phone call comes through or you’re waiting for a call re a job/appointment/long lost relative, then fine, but, to be honest, everything else can damn well wait!

Ok, the odd text message that might come through and you think “I’ll quickly answer that” is fine, but to be constantly checking your Facebook account is not!  No, it really isn’t people, it really isn’t. 

I see it on the street as well, babies or toddlers sitting in pushchairs gurgling away or chatting and their parents totally ignoring them and checking their profiles on FB, Twitter, Instagram, Googleplus, etc.  Those kids need interaction too you know and their interaction is with you.  We are raising a bunch of people who have been, basically, ignored the whole of their childhood and then, obviously, get addicted to social media when adults because, finally, they think they have ‘friends’; people who care.  Does anyone else wonder if this is why kids get sucked in by paedophiles online?  They have someone who wants to be with them, talk to them, tell them how special they are; ‘cause they certainly haven’t been told that when they were young on a regular basis.

Sorry, I’m off on an extreme now, but what if?  Social Media has its place, in fact it’s fantastic, but remember it isn’t ‘real’; what is real is the physical people around you, the life that goes past your window each day, the people you meet up with, family, friends and your children.  Put the phone down!  Turn it off for a couple of hours (better still, turn it off for a day) and start living in the real world; you’ll be surprised at what you can get done when not ‘tied’ to the phone. If you must visit Social Media, set aside an hour or two a day and 'check in', it really doesn't take longer than that to catch up, believe me (I'm not including emails here by the way which are a bit different).

And, most importantly to me, if you are at my house, you are visiting me!  If you constantly check your phone I will take it off you and slam it against the wall.  You know who you are and have been warned.

Cya

IT DEPENDS ON THE WEATHER

Okay, new year and new resolutions?  Nah, as I'm hopeless at them; making them and keeping them.  So I'm not going to promise that I'll keep this up, I will probably not write it every day/week/month, but I will write when I feel up to it or because I want to.

So, update!  Been on antidepressants for a while, but am now off them.  Not by doctor's orders I might add, but accidentally.  I knew I was running short, so took the final couple of weeks as one every other day as getting to the doctors wasn't going to be an easy thing to fit in and I'm supposed to have had an appointment anyway.  So, finally managed to get to docs, went in, only to be turned away as they were having a monthly meeting and no-one was allowed in!!!!!  Popped prescription repeat request into box and hoped for the best.  A few days later, I called the docs for an appointment only to discover that I couldn't get one for 3 weeks!!!!!!!  Unless an emergency one of course, which meant ringing in the morning for a morning appointment or the afternoon for an afternoon one.  The latter is something I never understand especially as I'd rung at 11am.  Surely they would have known by then if there was an afternoon appointment available.  Hate their stupid system, almost as much as I hate the fact that all doctor practices in the building have automatic sign in for appointments on a little computer screen except mine.  Screen never seems to be working, so you have to queue up just to tell the receptionist, who is invariably on the phone or chatting to a patient, that you've arrived. Hrumph!!  I digress. So realising that I couldn't get an appointment I went on my merry way through life until I suddenly realised a week later that I hadn't picked up the prescription.  By this point I'd been out of tablets for two weeks and as I wasn't feeling too bad and that I was also skint, I decided not to bother picking the damn thing up and spending £8.05 for something that I might not need anymore (what is it with the 5p?  A nice round £8 would be preferrable).  So here I am, not on tablets, not feeling too bad and awaiting another week before doc gets back from wherever he may be so I can make an appointment.

During this time of being half off and completely off tablets, I've also noticed how much the weather affects me!  Take yesterday.  Sunny day, although cold, was up early as having guttering man coming to clean out the gutters (obviously) and the downpipe.  I managed to get so much done yesterday and I felt amazing doing it.  Thought to myself, "this is it, the answer to everything, get up extra early and spend the day doing 'stuff'."  But no!  Today, I'm tired, miserable (although that has more to do with hearing some pretty awful news about a very close friend), I can't be bothered to go out and I want to curl up on sofa.  Why?  Because the weather is dark, dingy and miserable too!  So I'm not depressed, I'm just weather dependant.

Although now I've said that I must add that I actually was depressed when I first started taken the little pills of joy.  I hated everything and pretty much couldn't stand most people either.  That has changed, but I have realised that it's me that had to change.  I had to realise that there are some people you have to spell everything out to; you have to explain it all, give them instructions and tell them when you want it done by.  They, then, happily get on with it, throwing themselves into it with full enthusiam and the job gets done to a fab standard.  I wish it didn't have to be that way; I wish they could think for themselves, get on with stuff that is obvious to me and be enthusiastic about sorting it out in the first place, but no, that isn't going to happen.  So I've accepted that I have to be 'mum' to a man who is a year older than me and tell him what I want him to do and if I can't get him to do it, I'll have to pay a man who can and then reclaim the money back after a small arguement of "I asked you. No you didn't. Yes I did! Well I couldn't do it due to xyz or I was going to do it later (which of course is never). But it needed doing now!  Well it's done now so how much?" As to everyone else, I need to shut up and let them get on with it.

Well, that's tablets update, me update, me having another moan, me curling up on sofa writing this instead of actually doing something, although I did just nip off an put the spuds in the oven (rosemary and garlic flavoured mini roasties; son's favourite) and me signing off as I can't be bothered to write any more.

Cya