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.
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!
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