Work Goes On

So, right about now I’m wishing that I’d mastered all the shielding and grounding and centering techniques I’ve been taught over the years, because I find that I’m needing them very badly in my job. In working with people who are emotionally and mentally unbalanced an awful lot, and with coworkers who are very stressed, I’m finding that yep, I can be just as sensitive as I was afraid I could be. There’s so much stuff flying around I feel like I’m being bombarded with ick almost all the time. There’s no other word for it. Since that’s going on, well, I wish I’d gotten used to using all those skills I have at one point or another been able to do. You never know when you’ll want to be able to build a brick wall between you and a client, or be able to block out everyone else around you, or be able to tell just how someone is doing right now. It would especially come in handy with my profession, but I think these things could be arguably useful to pretty much everyone.

So, let this be a lesson to you. If you can, learn to use that stuff. Don’t make all the excuses I did and regret it later when you have trouble making it through a day because your soul is being sucked out because someone next to you is so out of touch with reality, or got up on the wrong side of the bed or whatever else it is that is stressing them and causing you to feel it. Right now, instead of being able to sort through feelings flying at me and filter what I want out, I’ve put up what amounts to a castle around me. Sometimes that’s not effective enough either, and things get through. It’s hard to sort through everything. It was incredibly frustrating for me, and now I wish I could go back and use all those skills regularly when I had access to my teacher. Vent over.

O is for Oppression

… and how we deal with it in the pagan community. It’s a word that is thrown around an awful lot. Sometimes too much, I think. Why? Well, people tend to take the thing about themselves that is ‘different’ and decide that it’s the reason why they got fired, or they never get asked out on dates, or their friends avoid them, or whatever. Sometimes is has absolutely nothing to do with how you’re different. Maybe you got fired because you were always late. Maybe you never get asked out because you’re a bitch. Just because you’re different doesn’t automatically mean you are being discriminated against, or that anyone really cares about it. I think that most people really don’t care that you are different if you don’t actually go out of your way to point it out to them, and I think that there is little reason to do such.

For example, I have a friend (who isn’t pagan, btw) who likes to point out at every opportunity how she is divergent from the mainstream. Sales tactics don’t work on her. Vanilla sex is boring and awful. No, that isn’t how she thinks about the earth rotating around the sun. And she certainly isn’t as weak willed as you are. Now, I love her a lot, but this does get very old very fast. I have tried to figure out many times why she says these things, and why it is so important for us to know how she is different. I’ve had some conversations with this girl, and I know that’s not how she confides in others. I don’t know if she wants to lash out at ‘the man,’ if she doesn’t want to have any sort of visible vulnerability, if she’s just being contrary, or if everything she says really is true. Well, alright. I believe it’s true, but I suppose I question her motivations behind it sometimes. Why this story? Because I see pagans doing this quite frequently. We all know someone like this, who has a neon ‘I AM DIFFERENT!’ sign over their head and if someone misses the sign, well they are willing to tell them all about it.

I actually ran into very oppressed people when I worked at a metaphysical store. There would be people who came in who were worried about being different, and I loved talking with them. I was able to reassure them that they weren’t crazy or strange, and what they were feeling and experiencing was unique to them yet completely normal. Then there were the people who pointedly did not do things the same way others did. They were oppositional to whatever you said, and I think a few of them were just contrary people.

Now, not everyone who’s incredibly contrary likes to cry ‘Oppression!’ at every opportunity. Really, it’s just a trend I’ve noticed. My own thoughts behind it? The people who feel this way would feel this way no matter where they were at that point. Our lives shapes how we feel about this sort of thing. It is something to keep in mind the next time you are thinking about blaming your current situation on being pagan, however. Not everything s completely tied in with that. Can it happen? Sure, but be mindful. We find the reasons and justifications we want to find.

APT on Jealousy/Envy

We all know jealousy/envy. We are all very familiar with it, from the time that our parents spent more time with our siblings to when we wished we had this better job that our friend has. It can apply to anything, from the physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental planes, although many people have one thing in particular that gets them. There is a difference between jealousy and envy, though, that is not always made, but a distinction that I want to make in this post. I will use jealousy to refer to fear of competition in couples, and envy refers to the way we feel about other peoples’ attributes or accomplishments.

Jealousy in relationships is quite common, and it stems from insecurity. Honestly, we would not be jealous of our boyfriend talking to another girl if we were secure in our relationship and felt  it was strong. It is the symptom of a problem that needs to be addressed. Has there been something in the past that has increased your insecurity in your relationship, like an affair? Or are you worried that he may not love you as much as you think he does? What if there’ s something she has that you don’t, and he’s more attracted to that? What if he really doesn’t like me? Etc. We all know how this goes. I think we have all been there at one point or another. If we feel this way strongly, we should talk about it with our partner, and vocalize our feelings if they are willing to listen. We must always remember, however, that we cannot control their actions. They are their own people.

Envy, I feel, is more common but less admitted to in mainstream society. The psychological community doesn’t have a lot of research on envy specifically because there are so many conflicting responses to interviews and surveys that are given. Because of that, I’ll go on my own experience. I go crazy when I see other people with some sort of personal quality or physical attribute that I wish I had. Skills can set me off too. It’s sad, and a lot of people are surprised when I say it, but it’s true, as I’ve made reference to previously.

One side of envy that is not often addressed is our unhappiness at the good fortune of others. It is often, if not always, described as us wanting something that someone else has for ourselves, but I’ve noticed that this other component is also a pretty regular guest. The Germans have a word for it, just like they do everything else: Gluckschmerz. This literally means your unhappiness at someone else’s happiness.

Envy is often not something that we like to admit to, especially if we feel it very intensely. Admitting to it almost feels like a sign of weakness, like we are admitting that we are less than they are. If we do admit to it, we often add some sort of negative description of the person to make us feel better about ourselves, and make it sound like the person doesn’t deserve this quality that we want so badly ourselves. I will admit, I’ve recently taken to befriending the people I am the most envious of, to see if exposure to them and whatever it is that drives me crazy helps get rid of the feeling. So far, it hasn’t backfired too much yet. We’ll see what happens. I’m trying to practice seeing past the bad taste in my mouth where they are concerned, so I can like them for who they are and not hate them for what they have or what they can do. I am also willing to admit that dealing with envy is a lot easier when the person you’re envious of isn’t the type of person to rub it in your face. If they do, it’s easier to dislike them, but I personally hate to feel bitter towards others.

How does this matter or affect us as pagans? I shouldn’t have to spell it out too much, honestly. Envy is a circle killer. We have all seen it, experienced it, or heard about it at some point. Person A has a talent, or seems to be some sort of favorite. Person B has low self esteem and is unsatisfied with their own progress and wants whatever it is Person A has. They will either turn it inward and increase their self loathing, their priestess or someone else will notice and it will either be dealt with or it will be made worse by either negligence or bad handling, or they will turn it outward and do their best to sabotage this person they are envious of. They many spread nasty rumors, try to find out what will hurt them, or try to get other members of the group to tell Person B that they are absolutely better than Person A, thus alienating themselves or making others turn on Person A. At its worst, this can end in the splintering of a group and a witch war. At its best, this can be the chance for everyone to learn something, and it may be the chance for Person B to scrape up some self esteem (not that it is that easy, mind you, but you have to learn sometime). Sometimes the jealous person is a covenmate, sometimes it is the priestess. When the leader of a coven is jealous of someone in the coven, that needs to be dealt with immediately, and they need to do some serious self-examination to figure out what is going on in their head that would bring this about. Now, I’m not talking about the passing envy you experience when you hear someone got a promotion and you’ve been wanting one too. I’m talking about the feelings that can change your behavior towards someone else, which can make you bitter and leave you reassuring yourself as soon as you’re out of this person’s presence. That is what needs to be dealt with, and if you are leading a coven and experiencing these kinds of feelings towards others, well, you need to think hard about whether or not you should be leading that coven.

One way of looking at it which I’m sure we’re all tired of hearing is looking at it like it is an experience for growth. We can certainly learn an awful lot about ourselves when we are dealing with this sort of issue. It’s not that the gods are doing this to punish you (I personally don’t believe they do that sort of thing). It could be a lesson your soul wants to learn in this lifetime. It could be prepping you for something very important down the line, and if you learn to manage this now it will be incredibly important. Clearing up these sorts of negative feelings can also help open us up to more positive energy.

All of this sounds like no one will ever do it. As I write it out, I’m not proud to admit that this is a feeling I feel on a regular basis, though it has been decreasing ever so slightly recently, which I’m honestly very proud of. Everyone needs to find their own way to deal with this problem, as I believe that it is much more common than others let on, and I also believe that it is absolutely fixable, because of where this stems from (insecurity and low self esteem). An easy fix? No, but one is possible. Yes, you will have to admit some rather unflattering things about yourself. Yes, you will have to actually look at what your capabilities are. That, to me, is one of the hardest parts of this entire experience is trying to get rid of it the right way. So, the next time you find yourself acting in a way that you think indicates an unhealthy amount of jealousy or envy, stop and think for a minute about what is actually going on, and what you can do to either divert or solve the feeling. You’ll be happier about it. Don’t let this fester like I have. Trust me, it sucks.

A Pagan Take on…

The seven deadly sins! I really only want to do one at a time, because there is honestly a lot to talk about with each of them, so consider this my intro to it. As a group, pagans are generally opposed to the idea of sins, or at least the labeling of certain actions as ‘sinful,’ because it seems that as a group we tend to have a knee-jerk reaction against anyone telling us what we should and shouldn’t do. We rule our own lives, and everything in them. The choices we make are determined by our own personal moral codes, and nothing will change that. Operating this way can have its benefits, but can also have its serious downsides. One of these downsides is a lack of guidance about what is right or wrong in our everyday lives. Knowing what sins are is supposed to help guide someone in their daily actions.

The big winners are the ones we are mostly familiar with: greed, lust, envy, wrath, sloth, pride, and gluttony. These are meant as guidelines for examining our actions to see if they are appropriate for our lives and harmful to ourselves or others. But how do we keep these things healthy? Pride isn’t a bad thing, you say. And that’s true, to a certain extent. But where’s that line? And where is that line for us? So, I want to start looking at these lines.

Offerings

Offerings are a pagan practice that go back to the beginning of worshiping a greater power. The Aryans offered huge amounts of clarified butter to Agni, god of Fire, and rice balls to their ancestors. Animals, portions of harvests, precious metals, time, love, people… our ancestors saw the gods as deserving of all of these things. I hear offerings mentioned often in beginning books about paganism and wicca, but they never seem to go into much detail, which left me confused about what the heck I was supposed to do. What goes with an offering? How often should I make them? What do I give for an offering, anyway? Over time, and as I read more and got the feeling for my own practices, I started to realize how offerings fit into my own personal idea of celebrating the gods.

I think the first, most important thing to say about offerings is that they are the best way to show your appreciation for the gods and all that they give you. But I say thank you all the time!, you say. I call them into my circle and thank them for showing up, and every now and then I think about what I’m grateful for. Well, really, that’s nice, but that is not always enough. Our gods aren’t demanding (generally), so we don’t have to sacrifice a lot to them, but the important thing about offerings is the effort that you put into them. Effort is what truly shows our gratitude, so giving something that is harder for you to give is more meaningful. Makes sense, right? But little things matter, and show that you’re thinking of them, and that you care and appreciate their presence in your life.

So, what kind of stuff am I talking about? Where are my concrete examples? Here are a couple that I have either tried or read about and think would be meaningful.

– Start small, finding out what kinds of foods are associated with your deity and offering those can be a very simple way of showing gratitude, because you took the time to find that information about them. And what do you do with it? Leave it out during a ritual or prayer time. DO NOT let it go bad or get stale or sour. Throw it out in the garbage if that is your only option, or you can try and dispose of it in nature too if it isn’t poisonous or a non-native plant.

– Make something that makes you think of the deity you are making the offering to, and leave that on your altar for them. This is a personal gesture that takes a fair amount of effort, and you can use the entire process of making it as a prayer or meditation as well.

– Some deities are associated with certain animals, especially as sacrificing. Since pretty much everyone does not perform animal sacrifice anymore, this is a practice that we usually can’t do for them. Another way to still incorporate the animal into the ritual as an offering is to find a picture of the animal and either leave it on the altar, or burn it in the spirit of offering it.

– If your deity has a specific cause that may be close to their heart, make a donation to it. If you’re talking to Papa Legba, for example, make a donation to an aid organization in Haiti. If you’re giving to Kuan Yin, the Red Cross or any organization that provides humanitarian aide would be appropriate. Artemis might merit a donation to the ASPCA. Demeter or abundance deities may appreciate a donation to Heifer International. You get the idea.

– In a similar vein to donating money, if you don’t have the $20 to donate, do your best to donate time instead because as they say, time is money. The same sort of idea applies to the time.

If you plan on leaving the offering altar set up for some time, if it were a devotional altar or the like, make sure you keep it clean. Dust, get rid of burned out candles, don’t set your keys on it, and make sure that you spend some time at it. Setting out the altar is the first step, but spending time at it is the most important thing. Don’t worry too much about not being completely sure what to offer, but know that the more you do it, the more confident you will become, and the more your relationship with your deity will deepen.

Waiting Period Over

My waiting is over, and I’ve gotten my job! I’m very excited about it, and I still haven’t come up with a suitable way to thank the universe for what they sent my way. I know I need a job, because A. doesn’t make enough for the two of us, but now that I have one I’m not 100% sure how to feel. I know I’m happy about it, because I want to be more financially independent, and it is a very appropriate job for me, and it’s normal hours with excellent benefits, and a long list of cool stuff. This is also the first full time job I will have, ever, and the first job I will stay at for more than a summer. I think I’m going to get confused after a certain point, and not know what to do with myself because I’ll be staying there longer.

This is a big transition period for me. It is finally sinking in that I am out here for quite a while. My parents just came and brought the rest of my stuff, and I need to finish unpacking that and organizing it. I have to pay rent and bills starting next week. I can’t believe it, and I don’t know if I want to. Sometimes it’s very difficult to find an upside to growing up. I guess that’s the point I’ve hit. I’m going to be an adult and I don’t know if I actually want to be one.

I’m told that I will like it, that I’ll enjoy the feeling of self-sufficiency that comes with a job and a paycheck, and I will love the independence, being tied to no one else’s schedule. There are so many more things you can do when you’re an ‘adult,’ and it will broaden my horizons and be fun. I can move one, get married/be alone/be a crazy cat lady. These things may all be true, but to be honest, none of them sound very appealing to me. I was happy the way I was, going to school, living with my parents. It was what I wanted. Now I’m in OH with people I can’t depend on, feeling like I am essentially by myself even though I’m living with someone else. I’m not very independent, nor do I ever think I will be.

But these sorts of things cannot defeat me. I will learn how to like working, or at least find what I enjoy. My first job won’t be the best one ever, of course, but I’ve got one that will pay pretty decently. I will have insurance. I will not be at home doing nothing, waiting for A. to get home so I’m not bored anymore. I will have to start making big changes in my life, and even though I’m not incredibly enthused about it, I know that once it starts going it won’t look so scary because it’s looming above me.

The point of this crazy ramble is be careful when you’re impatient, or feel that you’re behind. What you’re waiting for so impatiently will show up one day, and then you’ll have to deal with it. Make sure it’s something you’re actually excited about and want to do. Namaste.

I Hate Waiting

Well, I do. I don’t really know anyone who would tell me ‘oh, gee, I love sitting here in limbo not knowing what’s going to happen next.’ I, however, seem to have an especially bad relationship with waiting and patience. Maybe it’s because I worry so much, or maybe it’s because of the instant gratification that we all get used to. Who knows. Right now, I’m currently waiting to hear back from a job I really, really want. I had the interview almost 2 weeks ago, and have been in contact with them since then, mostly trying to sort out my references. There’s only so much a girl can take, you know?

My impatience with my daily life certainly doesn’t do anything positive for my spiritual life, unless you count ‘giving me a challenge’ as something positive, though I know I would have many even without this particular one. I can’t lie, it can make things like ritual and spell work very tiresome, because I never know when (or if, for that matter) I will see results. Prayer, too, when there is something I need and I’m not just being chatty, can be frustrating. Am I going to get what I need or want this year? I think we’ve all had at least one prayer answered in a strange time frame or fashion, like when you’re praying you’ll get this promotion because you need the money, but then you don’t and things get tight, you lose your job, but then a year later lo and behold, an even better job with better pay falls into your lap! God may work in mysterious ways, but sometimes I wish it wasn’t quite such a requirement.

My awesome tarot reader J2B tells me to carry around the Strength card from the Major Arcana with me, and to have it on my altar. And my bathroom mirror, my nightstand, and anywhere else that I will see it often. (His suggestion was to color copy it several times.) I did eventually put it on my altar, but I don’t spend a whole lot of time there, but I started. The Strength card, for those of you unfamiliar with the tarot, is about patience, inner strength, and leading without being forceful about it, as well as possessing the wisdom to use your own qualities to their fullest. The image is one of a woman leading a lion by the head, usually just with her hands on or around his mouth. You’d think she’d get eaten, but that’s the message of the strength card: You have the power inside yourself to do difficult things and survive. This does mean the power to survive waiting, even though you feel like it will kill you.

Many parts of our particular brand of spirituality call for taking time. (I think that’s true for many other things as well, though.) Meditation takes time to learn, and then takes time to work. Spells, rituals, and prayers take time to work. Affirmations take time to work. Trance work is the same way, and can take even longer to master. Divination takes more time to learn, though it ‘works’ pretty quickly. But as I write this list, I am reminded that many, many things take time and patience for us to improve in, but some of them aren’t as fun for us as the hobbies we excel at.

As a Gemini through and through (what that means will be a whole different post), I don’t do very will when I have to stick with something for long periods of time. Honestly, I’m not that good at anything because I don’t have the skills or self discipline I need to stick with it. I know I’m not the only one in this position, but being in it is annoying. Once I hit that skill plateau where I’m not really improving but if I kept going I would, I start to lose interest. It stops feeling challenging and starts becoming monotonous. It is a pattern I’ve been trying to change, but it is coming along slowly. Sometimes, it’s not so much a case of hitting a plateau, but a case of having trouble getting started or having no clear progression. Meditation has been like that for me. Without someone guiding you, it is really easy to get unfocused and go all over the place, get frustrated, and give up. I’m doing my best to stop that, though, and will hopefully be able to write about my triumphs soon.

To deal with this waiting thing, I’m doing my best to learn how to see little, tiny steps as progress. Not needing to look up a stitch for my fingerless gloves that I didn’t know before is progress. Getting done quicker is progress. Being able to make dinner without feeling incredibly spazzed out is progress. (You can see where I’m going with this.) Part of all of this is how you look at it and think about it. Finding small things or being glad that you aren’t backsliding is not incredibly satisfying to a perfectionist like me, but I’m learning how to suck it up and get it done.

I can’t do much about waiting for the people to call me back about my job except to sit and wait, unfortunately. While I’m waiting, though, I can try and take some sort of lesson from my desire to run to the company the next state over and shake someone until they give me an answer. Since that isn’t plausible, maybe I’ll try and go to the gym instead. Namaste.

Personal Losses

Death is a really under discussed topic among people in general, and I think the pagan community also avoids this topic, as it is a shitty one. I have recently experienced 2 different types of losses, and I’d like to talk about my thoughts on both of them.

The first loss I experienced about a week ago, and that was that a friend of mine, my oldest friend’s boyfriend, killed himself. We don’t know why. We don’t know what happened, as he was on base at the time. It’s taken some time for this to sink in for me, as I just moved from home and I haven’t yet experienced the sensation of him not being there when he’s supposed to be. I haven’t really talked to my friend about it, because she’s not ready to deal with it at all yet. It’s hard to think about someone who was just a little older than me simply not being there anymore, let alone that he made that decision. I wish that he hadn’t felt that way about life, and I wish he’d reached out to someone. Having been to that mental/emotional place before, I know how hard it can be, but I know that not doing it is worth it. Any one of his many family or friends would have done everything in their power to help him, but he did it away from them with no warning that any of them could see.

The second loss was today, when one of my dogs, Patty, got very sick very quickly and needed to be put to sleep at around 4 this morning. She had a septic infection in her abdomen. She was old, had a compromised immune system because she had recently finished fighting cancer, and her symptoms showed up yesterday afternoon, and then she had to be taken to the emergency vet yesterday night. I’m sorry my parents had to make that decision, and I will moss her a lot. I bonded with her when we first got her, and she trusted me. It was best for her, as she is no longer suffering.

Death honestly doesn’t hit very close to home very often with me, but recently it has been happening more and more. I haven’t quite figure out how to deal with it, honestly, and I’m not sure I ever will. Something or someone ceasing to exist anymore is a big thing to deal with, and it is hard to think about. As for how I’m going to deal with this spiritually, I don’t really know either. I’ve burned a candle for my friend, and I’m going to put one on the altar for my dog. Sounds like I may need to make a whole separate altar for ancestors/those who have passed on, as it’s happening a lot. Beyond that, I haven’t dealt with spirits or ghosts very much, and I don’t know that I plan on starting now. Since JD died the way he did, I’m not sure that I want to get in touch with him. I don’t know how to handle it. I am going to ask Patty to come stay with me or my family, and I will see what happens. I suppose putting up a photo and remembering them is all I can really do. Also, I know that neither of them is in any more pain. They are with the God and Goddess, living in peace until they are ready to come back to the world. I wish I could console myself a little bit more, by either talking with them or something, but I don’t know that I can. Death is one of those things that we really can’t change and need to accept. I can’t sit here and what if about either of them. What if I had realized that the changes I’d noticed in Patty’s snoring were the sign of large growths on her liver? What if I’d realized something relevant about JD? And then there’s always the guilt that some feel when someone passes on. We wonder if we could have done more for them while they were alive.

Well, I’m hoping that the God and Goddess will be able to help soothe some of my upset. Since this is really the first time I’ve had to deal with this, I want to keep track of what I experience and how I deal with it. It’s a difficult thing, and I think it will be a very important thing to understand. Namaste.

N is for Negativity

Negativity is a force that we fight in our lives nearly every day. It can consume us, it can scare us, and it can inspire us. No matter what we do, negativity will arrive in our lives. We cannot stick our heads in the sand and pretend that it all doesn’t exist, and if we don’t acknowledge it it won’t exist. That’s not how life works, as much as we wish it could.

Negativity that we come across in our lives can come to us from a few different sources.

1) Other people can be sources of negativity around us. We’ve all had that friend who isn’t happy until she’s miserable and everyone around her knows about it. She’ll always have something bad to tell you, even if it seems like nothing at all in your opinion. No matter what you try, you can’t talk her out of it, or give her any suggestions that she will accept.

2) Your environment can actually be an incredible source of negativity. Think about what’s on the news, on the internet, in magazines, newspapers, and advertisements. Our surroundings bombard us with messages that do little to brighten our days, or even make us think well of ourselves. We often don’t notice this influence, unless you have high anxiety or are very sensitive. If you’ve noticed that you’re in a worse mood after watching the news, good! I’m glad you noticed. Turn it off. The other source of environmental negativity can be negativity that has literally been stored in your environment. If you don’t cleanse your house or room, the negativity will start to gather like cobwebs and when you walk around, you will be picking up this icky energy and carrying it around with you. (Granted, this source is pretty easy to deal with, but it can still be a source not everyone thinks of.)

3) The last, and most difficult to deal with, source is the negativity that lives within us. With low self esteem, we tear ourselves to shreds with negative thoughts. We believe that we are incapable of doing anything good enough, and we wear ourselves down more than those around us or our environment is capable of doing. How can we do this to ourselves in the first place? Well, negative thinking becomes a pattern, and we can become used to it.

With these three sources in mind, we should all take the time to identify where our negativity is coming from. This isn’t even finding out so you can get rid of it, but the first step of changing something you don’t like is to identify the sources of it. Be honest, too. Maybe your best friend really is a huge source of negativity in your life. It is ok to acknowledge this. Nothing wrong with knowing it. Once you have identified sources in your life, remember this: it takes two for this sort of negativity to continue. Without your active participation, it could not continue to go on. You don’t choose to turn off the news, or get off facebook, or address your negative thought process, and by not addressing these problems, you are contributing to them.

Now, everyone has negativity. It’s not a bad thing, just something that exists. Negativity is what encourages us to grow and change, shows us what isn’t working and where our personal limits are. Remember the saying, though, that there can be too much of a good thing (not that negativity can really go under the category of ‘good things’). Too much negativity is something for you to address in your life, hopefully by reducing the sources or accepting them. There are some sources of stress that cause negativity which are outside our control, but we can control how much power negativity has in our lives.

For instance: Negativity for me manifests in many different ways, but the issues I have with jealousy I have are really the most prominent thing in my mind. They are the source of negativity that I think of most often, and they are the ones that bother me the most. If I want to be honest with myself, this source of negativity is completely within my control. I really can decide whether or not I let myself be jealous. I can deal with these issues when they come up. I could. Now, that isn’t exactly something I want to admit to myself when I’m having a jealous fit, but it is the truth. I could accept the feeling. I could do my best to root out the cause of the problem, and once I’ve rooted out the cause, I could try and fix it, even just a little, to decrease the intensity of the feeling, until I am able to eliminate it to a more comfortable level. This is honestly true for most things. We can decide how much unnecessary negativity we allow in our lives.

“This may sound all well and good on paper,” you say, “but it is just so difficult to not succumb to it when all these things are going wrong in my life! How do I do that?  And isn’t negativity just part of life?” I actually want to address those questions in a separate post about dealing with everyday negativity. I do want everyone to think about what sorts of extra negativity they might have in their lives, and what its source might be, and what sorts of fixes they might be able to implement in their lives to decrease what they think they can eliminate.

Truly yours.

A Pagan Take

This is a series I’ve been wanting to do for a little while, and I think that it will be a good way to examine issues I think are ignored in the pagan community. I want to start with issues that are generally Christian in nature, but I hope to branch out into other religions after I have more time to become more familiar with them.

My intent behind these entries will not be to throw ideas in anyone’s face. I want to examine the morality present in other religions, since we as pagans don’t have any set morality. Before anyone waves anything in my face, the rede is considered ‘advice.’ That’s what the word rede means. Other than that, we have a document stating the beliefs of witches, the 13 Principles of Witchcraft. We have the Charge of the Goddess, the God, The Witches Rune, and the Witches Creed. The ThreeFold Law has to do more with magic than it does with everyday living, I feel, and a lot of people are rejecting that because they feel that the idea of being punished if you do something wrong is very Christian and inappropriate for pagans.

I’ve wanted to examine how other moral systems compare to what is generally believed and accepted by pagans. From the Christian side of things, I’m interested in our views on the seven deadly sins, virtues, fruits of knowledge, and the like, as well as the ten commandments and how they may translate into pagan terms. We butt heads with this system of beliefs, but we mostly take issue with specific verses that are thrown at us in anger. I don’t care about those, honestly. It seems that they should not have anything to do with daily Christian life. I’m just curious about how other beliefs compare to what I think we think. Well, what I think, anyway. So, here is my experiment with how other concepts fit in with what I think.