Winged Migration

I should have written this post months ago, but I wasn't sure what to say.  Bear with me a moment, for my thoughts are a bit disorganized of late, and I don't mean any offense in the following--as with everything I've ever written here, it's about my own experiences, and your mileage may vary.

I know very few Elder Wiccans.  I'm told that they're out there--in retirement, or working with their own groups, or in a few cases out in public trying to establish and maintain the tenuous crack-addled spider web of Pagan Community.  But where are they for my generation?  Where are our counselors, our role models?  Who do we look to when our spiritual development hits a wall, or our lives fall apart and the usual 101 or even 201 rituals prove inadequate? 

Are we supposed to turn to the coven leaders sleeping with their coveners?  Website authors who attack other authors or blatantly copy their entire sites?  Or the online forum folk who pounce on every newcomer and brand him or her "fluffy," "Neo-Wiccan," or whatever, automatically labeling him not worth their time?  Should we cast ourselves to the trolls for guidance?  Because it seems that online communities are made up of mostly trolls and Wicca-er-than-thou types who want it made very clear that they are NOT NEO WICCAN, whatever that means, that they're the REAL DEAL.

When the true Elders are impossible to find because they too have been driven out of Community by, well, the Community, who do we turn to in a spiritual crisis, especially if like many Wiccans in America, our own personal tribe is made up mostly of people near our own age, the Gen-X and Gen-Y of Wicca, who self-taught and built covens from the ground up with our bare hands while ripping our hair out and trying to negotiate jobs, families, and a hostile political climate without going insane.  Many of us started teaching less than five years in, so we aren't much more advanced than our students, most of whom may be older than us.  Hubris, perhaps--but it kept Wicca moving.  The idea of a religion like ours sparks a fire deep in the soul of many, but that fire takes tending. 

Who is tending the fire now?  Who will tend it then?  It's easy to start a fire and to put one out given the right equipment, but to keep one burning takes time, patience, and attention.  It takes knowing when to add fuel and when to bank the coals.  Who can we count on for this?

Where we fall short is that stretch of time after conversion and initiation but before...well, really, what then?  Except in a coven or someplace online like Cherry Hill Seminary, which most Pagans can't afford, where is our advanced training?  Is that really something we can do ourselves?  What does that term mean, anyway? 

And what is it that we're looking for?  Magical power?  Personal empowerment?  Spiritual gnosis?  Mystical union with the Divine?  A chance to get laid eight times a year?  There's only so far you can go in Wiccan teachings without simply running aground and having to look for another vessel.  So I've seen many, no most, of the advanced practitioners I know over the years wander out of Wicca and into Buddhism, Hinduism, self-created general Paganism, Judaism, Catholicism. 

Tell me this.  If Wicca is so damn old, then why does it have nothing in place to cope with later life and deeper spiritual questions?  Centuries underground you would think would give Witches time to ponder these things.  Did medieval Witches have crises of faith, or were they too focused on not ending up at the stake, in which case, how is Wicca supposed to adapt to life where that doesn't happen anymore?  Was the best our ancestors ever got dying of the influenza at 30 with no idea what would come after?  And if so, how does this religion that's supposed to be the Olde One apply to our modern lives at all? 

At the opposite end of the spectrum, where my own beliefs lie, there is a conundrum just as daunting:  there's nothing.  There are no great tomes, there are no trodden paths.  Oh, sure, we're supposed to figure things out for ourselves, but when have humans ever done that?  We are a social species for a reason.  We have our shamans and our healers and at no time before in history has everyone expected to be everything to everyone.  Who are we, exactly, and where are we going?  Do any of us even know?  Or are we simply slogging ahead day by day, festival by festival, without looking at the larger picture of what we're creating together? 

None of these are new questions.  None of them have easy answers.  I'm not writing this to start some kind of huge flaming debate over the future of Wicca, or because I expect the community to rise up and reassure me.  I'm writing this because I, personally, have no answers.  And I think it's time I admitted how deeply that runs.

For over a year now my spirituality has been nonexistent.  It may even have started before that.  Every attempt I've made to rekindle that precious spark has met with a broken pilot light.  I've tried calling, and not calling; going with the flow and creating reality.  And to tell you the truth I'm just not sure anyone is listening anymore.

The rituals of Wicca as I learned it have ceased to have any meaning for me.  The ideas and ideals of Pagan spirituality still do, but I'm not sure how much really resonates, and how much just sounds good so I cling to it even though, at heart, I come up empty.  Group rituals make me deeply uneasy no matter how intimate I am with the other practitioners--and not just Wiccan rituals, any kind.  I just can't do it anymore.

What do I still believe in?  I believe in the Earth and Sky, the trees and rivers.  I believe there's some kind of God out there and that it cannot be confined to one gender or shape.  I believe that this God is love, and this God is interested in its creation, not abandoning us to the whims of an uncaring universe, but actively involved in every molecule. 

But I don't believe so much in Sabbat rituals and athames and elaborate Circle castings.  It's not that I think those things are fake, or unnecessary to Wicca, I just don't think they mean anything to me anymore.  Maiden/Mother/Crone symbology always bothered me.  The traditions and myths my religion is based on squicked me out with their implied incestuous symbolism and their duly assigned gender roles. 

Just like I don't believe I need Jesus to save me or Buddha to liberate me or to observe kosher law to be worthy or to jump up and down in a three-cornered hat singing "I'm a Little Sacred Teapot, Motherfucker" to earn the love of God.  I don't know what sacred hoo-ha I need to feel right about religion, but I haven't found it yet.

I've tried so hard to keep myself in some kind of Wicca-shaped box, for fifteen years, carefully reshaping the box around me into groups and traditions and covens and realizing every time that the box still didn't fit.  I finally realized that it's not the box that's the problem, it's me trying to live in a box when I'm supposed to be building a circle. 

I'm not declaring myself un-Wiccan or anything like that, at least not at present.  I'm certainly still a Witch, for the arts of Witchcraft are a part of me.  What I am doing is dropping all the bullshit.  Here's the truth.

I have no idea who or what I am or what that means.  I don't know where I'm going and I don't know what all I still believe in.  I don't hear the voice of God anymore, I haven't for a long time.  I feel nothing in Circle.  That connection to Deity I worked so hard to foster for so long--and wrote an entire book about--just isn't there anymore.  Poof!

So I'm going to find it.  Not force it, not drag it back, but put a call out to the universe: 

Single White Witch Seeks Divine Presence.  Enjoys ecstatic dance, dark chocolate, good sleep, occasional mind-blowing sex, and living by her values.  If you're a visceral, sensual, compassionate but firm teacher, a lover, a friend, a mother, a father, with a great sense of humor and an even better sense of rhythm, please send a universal clue-by-four or sacred messenger (animal form ok) to Sylvan's Seventh Chakra ASAP.  Must love cats.  Nonsmokers only.

What does that mean for this blog?  Well, it may not mean much.  Obviously I haven't blogged this past year anywhere near the volume I did the year before.  What I'd like to do is continue to write about my personal journey and my various rantings and meanderings on spirituality, even if they have nothing to do with Wicca, and document where I'm headed....if indeed I'm headed anywhere.  I'd also like to start up with Stumbling Towards Ahimsa again, although I think I may change the focus a little (more on that later).  For now, you my gentle reader have stumbled upon the blog of a woman whose entire soul is in flux.  I don't know what's going to happen, but I hope you'll stick with me, out of morbid curiosity at least, as it does. 

Thank you, as always, for reading.  Knowing that someone is listening, sometimes, is all that keeps me going.

Comments

[Celestite]

For me, the greatest thing about finding paganism and then wicca is that it freed my mind from dogma and all the 'you have to...' rules. Sometimes my beliefs are hot and passionate and encourage exploration. Other times they are quiet and comforting and just a deep silent connection with nature is all that is there. I don't force this path, sometimes I am standing still, but I don't have any urge to turn off of it.

[Marya]

I found this so moving -- and so many of us are still finding our way forward without the support and continuity of community, without guides or definitions.

Ageing isn't any easier -- and I feel haunted by how little some of us have been able to hand on.

Strength to you

[Angela Raincatcher]

I am here and I am listening. I would much rather know and listen to your real struggles of grappling with your beliefs and trying to reconnect with the divine.

Blessings and strength (and much love to you) on your journey.

[Gaithel Ema]

I just wrote a post like this myself -- well, two posts really. One about a year ago about my crises of faith and loss of deity, and one just a couple of days ago about being ready to open myself up again and put my own call out to the universe.

Here's hoping we both find whatever it is that we're looking for.

[Mr. Wednesday]

I'm listening and I love you!
Being this frank in a public forum takes guts.
Thank You-
Love Always,
Mr. Wednesday

[s1ren]

I agree with MW, dear, and I'll add that it takes all those guts, and strength, too, to have stuck with things this long all the while not knowing which direction to go. In a community without [visible] elders immediately available, we turn to people who are elders in spirit. You certainly have been one to me when I've needed it. Luck, and wisdom, and hugs, and cookies to you on your journey. *squeeze*

[Renee]

i too have lost my way ... thanks for the post, itwas moving. i am here for you and listening and wishing you strength. love and hugs ~

[linda]

very eloquent questions. your asking will, no doubt, bring lots of new and delicious experiences. i enjoy your writing~

[Alii]

I wish you wisdom and grace, luck and inspiration.

You'll find 'it', whatever definition of 'it' you choose to search for. I have faith in that. :)

[Maritzia]

I so wish I lived in close proximity to you, because much of what you say resonates so strongly with me.

I've been somewhat pagan for years, and been a practicing pagan for about 5 years. In that time, I've connected had face to face interactions with other pagans maybe 3 times. Everything I know and do and practice is self-taught in a vacuum. I went to on-line communities and met a wall of "you're not doing it right". Well, that's one of the biggest reasons I stopped being a Christian. I don't believe there's just one way to do things. We each have a path to follow, and must follow that path.

It's been so frustrating for me because I *like* celebrating the divine in community. It's the one thing I miss about being Catholic, having a community to celebrate and worship with.

How does one find a guide and teacher in the pagan world when everyone is underground and the only ones you can find are the ones that want to control your path?

So I keep stumbling around in the dark, hands outstretched searching for...something...I'm not sure what. I assume that when the time is right I'll find what it is I need. Until then, I'll continue groping uselessly.

[Pam]

I know your feelings all too well. Years ago, before I married, I was openly and happily Wiccan. And then I married, and my husband didn't approve of me being out of the broom closet, and I didn't have outside Wiccan contact. And then... I left... and I thought I'd find my spirit again.

But I didn't. Instead I found a community very anti-Wiccan and divided about what is and isn't "Wiccan" and who can and can't be called as such and who is and isn't worthy. And my spirit has faded.

I still feel the desire and need for spirituality, but I have lost my way... and there is no one, not even ONE out there that I can call on, especially given that I live far away from any covens or groups that would "legitimize" me...

[Ari]

You are a Witch...plain and simple. You don't have to try and fit yourself into any box, circle, square (or any other geometric shape out there). This is your path...it's a personal path and there are no rights or wrongs. I genuinely hope that this blog survives...even if it goes through a makeover. I enjoy reading your posts. They have made me think, ponder and most often laugh. I am here for you....even if it's nothing more to listen (read) your ponderings and rants. Don't give up...you'll find your niche eventually.

Much love...Ari

[Oli]

I appreciated this, particularly your honesty about your relationship to the Divine and how it is not being fed by your ostensible tradition/current practices.

My experience has been that my own awareness of or permeability to that deep, abiding, daily, undeniable *presence* of G-d, the Gods, waxes and wanes. The Divine itself hasn't withdrawn, but maybe my own openness has shifted, or maybe the forms by which They once revealed Themselves no longer come, or...

But, it comes back. The relationship comes back. We are literally children of the Gods; how could it not? The form may change. The practices may have to be reformed. But They love us, and we are of Them (I mean, this has been my experience-- I don't mean to say This is how you must see it!), and the opportunity to be in communion is always there. I think the longing you've articulated here is crucial.

[devcy]

Your blog as always been a great inspiration to me as a spiritual seeker. You have consistantly set yourself apart from the "neo-pagan" crazies with your honesty. A lot of us are exactly at the point of crisis that you are at. We live in a very confusing and painful time. The things that we used to depend on have been exposed to the harsh light of a bitter reality. I have found that in the end every box that I have ever created for myself has ended up shattered. I can't really define my spirituality. It has almost become a joke (neo-pagan celtic recontructionist with Buddhist and Christian trappings and a side order of fries please). I would encourage you to hold the line and continue your blog struggling with the rest of us. At least for me, the Universe is a much better place for having you in it. Thank you and with all my heart Blessed Be...

[Joe]

Diane,

I have missed your posts these past couple months and hope you continue in some form. Much of what you write resenates with me.
I also wish there was some sort of temple or organization for pagans to go to for guidance and assistance. I also feel terribly alone sometimes. Like I am the only one of my kind in the world. I have no desire to join a group or coven. That is not appealing at all. It helps to know that other people feel exactly like me.

Joe

[DeepKissez]

Dianne, I have been reading (since I found you had a LJ) after I purchased and read your books because I felt the need to. And just the other day I was wondering where the posts about Jeff had disappeared to. Or if they were still happening for you. Now, it's clear to me why I haven't read any.

Honestly I think you've tapped into something. I'm not declaring that I am spiritually wiser than you or anyone else for that matter - it's just that I've felt that something is shifting. That there is a huge change occurring. Something that will not only effect our country but something BIGGER. Something that will effect all of humanity on some level.

Now I know that sounds like the ranting of some crazed religious cultist but I'm not.

I just wanted you to know that I think you're more in tune with The Universe than you think you are.

[Lisa]

There was a time for me when the Gods were close, I could feel a gentle hand on my shoulder or a whisper on my cheek. That was a long time ago. Sometimes I miss it, connection is not effortless as it once was.

I wonder if it our coming of age that has Gods stand back and watch us toddler, walk, fall and walk again. If they were still close holding our hand - could we dance?

I'm part of a working coven and its hard work, good work. Its the connection with each other that I see the Gods laughing: a glance across the circle, making mistakes and lifting each other up. As above, so below.

As a mom of two it was quite the reality check - do I still believe this? Is it what I want my children to know and believe? As I see them grow into their talents I know for sure that we are giving a solid and flexible foundation for where ever they want to go.

The Gods don't speak to me the same way, but then faith, love and magic are rarely easy things. The require work, risk, and willingness to fall. How else do you learn to you learn to dance?

[Lisa]

There was a time for me when the Gods were close, I could feel a gentle hand on my shoulder or a whisper on my cheek. That was a long time ago. Sometimes I miss it, connection is not effortless as it once was.

I wonder if it our coming of age that has Gods stand back and watch us toddler, walk, fall and walk again. If they were still close holding our hand - could we dance?

I'm part of a working coven and its hard work, good work. Its the connection with each other that I see the Gods laughing: a glance across the circle, making mistakes and lifting each other up. As above, so below.

As a mom of two it was quite the reality check - do I still believe this? Is it what I want my children to know and believe? As I see them grow into their talents I know for sure that we are giving a solid and flexible foundation for where ever they want to go.

The Gods don't speak to me the same way, but then faith, love and magic are rarely easy things. The require work, risk, and willingness to fall. How else do you learn to you learn to dance?

[Kai]

I have experienced what you are going through. It was a desolute, disturbing feeling. When I reflect back I see it as a gray time with no color.

I am no wiser than any other but I can tell you what I did when nothing else worked. I stopped all ritual. I sat at my altar every night and asked the Goddess to speak to me--contact me in some way--that I felt disconnected from Her. And I sat there every night with myself open to any answer.

When it came it came in a big and personal way. And now when I have no other contact with Her, She sends a hawk or hawks to let me know She is watching over me and not to worry.

That gray time lasted several years I hate to tell you. But that was over 10 years ago and I don't regret the wait.

I know that you have already been through alot in your short life. I don't mean that to sound condescending as I have about 20 years on you. Be patient. Be open. You have touched so many lives and will touch many more.

[Ali]

In Christian mysticism, there's this thing called the "Dark Night of the Soul," which is actually the more familiar term and refers to a period of time so devastating, spiritually, that the ego itself is ripped away and destroyed. But before that comes something called a "Dark Night of the Senses," in which the mystic can no longer "sense" the presence of the Divine in their lives, when the rituals and traditions of their particular religion suddenly seem empty and meaningless. The Dark Night of the Senses can happen several times during one person's life, and every time, the advice that the Christian tradition gives is the same: rely on your personal will, your commitment alone, to get you through it. Don't do it because you get a nice tingly "Jesus loves me" feeling, do it simply because you think it's right and important. In some ways, it's like confronting the possibility that you may be completely wrong all this time and maybe there is a Hell and you're headed straight for it--and deciding that your conviction is so strong that you would rather risk the possibility of Hell than capitulate. Not because you get something out of it, but because the world is bigger than you, God is bigger than you.

That is, of course, all from a Christian perspective. It's always bothered me a little that Paganism and Wicca do not seem to have an equivalent, a way of coping with life crises, as you point out. In many ways, Paganism is so heavily based on personal spiritual experiences and dismisses ideas of "faith" so readily, that the message is: "Do what feels right, and when it stops feeling right, do something else." That kind of message doesn't help someone who feels lost, who doesn't know what "feels right" anymore.

But Wicca won't grow and incorporate responses to these crises unless people who do experience them stick it out and keep writing and speaking about their journeys. Don't worry so much about whether or not you're "still Wiccan".... Just allow yourself to accept that, whatever you are, that's what Wicca can become, and by doing so, you'll push the boundaries, strengthen the internal diversity of the tradition and future generations will find in you the role models you wished to find in others. If the rituals don't do anything for you, or they make you feel downright uncomfortable, don't do them. If you believe God-or-Whoever appreciates the candles and incense anyway, even if you only believe it theoretically, then keep lighting candles and incense and stop worrying if you don't "feel something" in response. This is a time to exercise self-discipline but also to grow in self-knowledge. Up till now, maybe all your attention has been on the Someone or Something Else that has been energizing you and carrying you along. Now's the time to discover what you're made of. :)

[RevAllyson]

I second what others have said. But I also ask... What is an Elder? At one time, I agonized over finding Elders, too. I gave that up years ago, when I realized that Elders were just people like me, but with more problems. ;)

I have more experienced (sometimes older biologically, sometimes not) people that I turn to in times of unsteadiness. One is Jewish. One is Wiccan. One is agnostic. I don't worry so much about their religion, because it doesn't really matter. What matters is that their words are wise and well thought out, and said for my benefit. It's up to me to do the leg-work and put it into my own spiritual context.

There is a point within Wicca when you can really go no farther. You can hone skills, certainly, but the "learning curve" flattens out. It's a new religion - there isn't that much to learn, in the grand scheme of things. For me, it was a deal breaker. I stepped away, stopped associating with Wicca. While I don't bear any ill will toward it, it isn't for me. I need that constant upward learning curve, personally.

I find many people do switch to more "mature" religions as they grow up within Wicca. Not that any religion is better than another, but the older ones have unplumbed depths that appeal to those of us who have reached the pinacle of "new stuff" within Wicca. For me, it was Hellenic paganism, for a variety of reasons.

Yet the dark times still come, sometimes. When stress levels rise, and depression is high, it happens. Like others have said, at those times I kneel before my altar, or sit, and I simply ask politely for contact, please. Eventually, it happens.. Sometimes eventually is sooner than others, that's all.

[Rose]

Wicca I think, is a doorway to a new way for society to think about spirituality and religion. I don't think it's ever been anything other than that.

I've been where you are. It lasted many, many years. It culminated in a period of atheism. I was angry at Kuan Yin of all deities!

Because we are learning a new way to be spiritual and religious it's going to be like this for a very long time, until we as a society find our footing. If you haven't read _Paganism_ by the Higgenbotham's, do so. Their book was the only book on the subject that I didn't find myself coming up with my own ways of understanding the topic that felt more comfortable.

Because of the nature of your understanding of and belligerence towards a lot of the NeoPagan community, I would suggest you take a look at another blossoming spirituality that has no real name yet. Starhawk talked in the language of that religion in her last book _Earth Path_. Read _The Universe Story_ by Brian Swimme. Some of the cosmology has been slightly outdated and updated, but otherwise it's fabulous. And don't forget www.pagaian.org.

I found that the distance between me and deity came when I realized that they are bound by the same Laws of the universe that everyone is. Miracles are a thing of myth. I don't rely on deity to guide my every move, or anything. I hardly pull out a deck of tarot cards anymore; and never to ask what will happen. Rules of divination I learned the hard way: 1-Shit can change at the drop of a hat no matter what the cards say; 2. Fate and destiny in a Taoist form works in everyone's life; everyone has a path to lead, if they resist it and try to change it, things don't go well; if they learn to watch for the flow of the river and follow the currents no matter how scary or how much they don't want to go that way, things happen smoother and less chaotically. The gods cannot change your path only work with it. 3. The gods will stop talking to you if you try to manipulate their answers.

I stopped searching within Wicca many years ago for any deep answers. Wicca was my doorway into an interesting new place. I listened to what was important to me and followed where that lead. It's difficult to take someone seriously when they say they talk to fairies and would rather spend all their time in Hobbitland. I don't look backwards; I look forward. I find the unfolding of the universe to be so much more spiritually satisfying than any old myth.

I'm rambling.

Rose

[Sia]

Thank you for writing such an honest post. It can't have been easy. This is something we've all talked about, written about and wondered about but few of us do it as clearly as you have done here.

I liked Hecate's answer to your essay at her blog. Trust her to find the positive, poetic answer to this challenge.
http://hecatedemetersdatter.blogspot.com/2009/01/whats-wrong-with-wicca.html

I would add to what Hecate has said with something a bit more prosaic. When I was working out my thoughts about this some years ago I wrote an essay titled "The Shadow Knows". It's not an answer for everyone, it is simply my own answer, which in brief is this: We get beyond teachers and circles and at this point we learn from ourselves and our choices. We turn around, look in the mirror and ask the hard questions that lurk in the shadows. We go back to blood and bone. In doing so we often find others on the path who ask the same questions and who arn't afraid of the answers. Sometimes we walk a path together for a while, not in ritual, per se, but simply by living as earthwise people every day. It may come to be that the only rituals we do are to go outside and say "Thank you" or that we keep them only for special times in our lives. Your call.

Paying attention was crucial for me then and now. Clearing out my emotional closet was also key because there were things there that were standing between me and my highest good (define that as one will). This is a challenge, a deep one, but there is no pass or fail here. It is simply that we choose to walk through this time and learn what is next for us or we do not. The essence of this journey for me was to seek my highest good, as I said, but also to find the will and the wisdom to follow it.

So, for what it's worth, I'll offer the link to the essay. Take what you need and leave the rest. It may be that no one can lead us because the path becomes so deeply individual at this point - that's necessary because so much of it is about healing - but it still doesn't mean we walk alone. Many of us leave circles, groups and teachers at this point and we often find people who share our quest in the oddest of places. May you find what you seek.

The Shadow Knows
http://www.witchvox.com/va/dt_va.html?a=&c=fritz&id=6619

Go well, stay well,

Sia Vogel

[Simon]

"Maiden/Mother/Crone symbology always bothered me. The traditions and myths my religion is based on squicked me out with their implied incestuous symbolism and their duly assigned gender roles."

I hear you. I hear you on all of this post, actually, but especially this. How am I supposed to follow a cycle of festivals predicated upon something I'm intrinsically against? Spirituality's hard, and it's even harder, I think, to carve one out for yourself when the motivation just isn't always there.

All the best to you.

[rachel]

I thought your post honest and courageous. Ive been a pagan for many years, ran covens, taught and written books myself. there are times when i have found myself in a void, unanswered, unmoved and lost. sometimes they have lasted a considerable time. i always think of these as the long dark night of the soul. almost as though you have emptied yourself in order to locate that chink of light that leads to another step in my spiritual path.
At first these voids scared me. i thought i had lost something precious that would never come back. the comfort of the sabbat celebration. the company and companionship of others who 'agreed' with me as to the meaning of wicca and life, the universe and everything.
then i began to take the experience as another learning experience.
the myths, the stories, the tools, the rituals are just ways to express the spiritual side of wicca. and wicca is not old - it is a spiritual path that was made up from many pagan/spritual/earth beliefs that were gathered up by people such as gerald gardner, alex sanders, and many others in the middle of the 20th century.
some of the activities are old, some are newer.
none of this matters.
if you connect with the maid mother and crone - thats good and right for you. if after several years you find you have found you moving away from this, thats ok. God/Goddess/Creator/Creatrix/Mother/Father - these are just human names and labels.
Im just rambling here about how I feel regarding my own spiritual journey..
but you will find your footing - you may feel that you've stalled but you are still on the journey.
and dont feel you are being disloyal to the craft/wicca/paganism or any of your previous beliefs. you are exploring and this is the right thing to do.
any path should be something organic, that develops, that opens and grows to include that which works.
i wish you all you need to continue your journey - wherever it takes you.

rachel xx

[Kim]

Thanks so much for you honesty and for sharing your journey with us.

I too have shifted in and out of my spiritual practice throughout the past several years. It has morphed over time and the one thing I have come up with from the whole experience is that I hesitate to label myself as any one faith. So, I have taken to calling myself an ecclectic spiritualist. Yes, much of my "practice" is steeped heavily on pagan and/or Wiccan beliefs and practices, but there are doses of Christianity and Buddhism splashed in as well.

I just wanted you to know that I am with you and I will keep listening (reading) to this blog regardless of what you label your spiritual path. You are intelligent and witty and sarcastic as hell, all of which keep me hanging on for the next time I see one of your posts come across my mailbox.

Blessings,
Kim

[Beth]

So many people have commented on this blog, it is obvious to me (and I hope it is to you) that you deeply loved, respected and heard.

It's nice to know that we are not alone in our quest to evolve into something amazing, to feel the mud between our toes again and not just "remember" that it feels good.

You provide humor, thought and most of all connection. That is the deepest spiritual ritual of all....reaching out and sharing the love you have to give.

Thanks Sylvan.

~B

[Pitch313]

I suspect that Neo-Pagan Craft started as a way for a small group of enthusiasts to do things in concert. I don't imagine that it really started as a "religion" offering its adherents institutional support services or complicated theological insights.

It offered an alternative.

Now, following decades of barely managed growth as a spirituality, a social movement, a consumerist charge, a marketing opportunity, a patch of discourse, a power center, an illusion, and whatever else--Neo-Pagan Craft is what it is. Not what we want it to be. Probably not what most of its founders wanted it to become.

I think that Neo-Pagan Craft elders are the practioners who, when they get to the edge of Beyond, go ahead and see what they can find there--out past the edge of Beyond.

It could be just Nothing...Or a very bad pun...Or, maybe, an orgy of Goddesses and Gods...creating and destroying and having a ball...a hearty laugh..or getting bored...

[Chas S. Clifton]

Your concern is real, but I wonder if you might not re0frame it.

Wiccan spirituality is not an educational path with a "core curriculum" and diplomas issued along the way.

What matters is the daily-ness, the doing, the repitition. Maybe that *is* what there is.

Do you ever hear people of traditional tribal religions say, "I am not progressing in my Navajo [or whatever] spirituality"?

I doubt it.

[lisa]

I could have written this post 12 years ago, and I empathize with the abandonment you are feeling at this moment. I remember that feeling very well; it felt as if the goddess had abandoned me, and for a woman with abandonment issues it was a crushing feeling.

When I experienced that dark night of the soul, I decided that since I was fall I might as well dive.

So I peeled the Wiccan onion, and tried to reveal the layers of mystery. I'd been through 3 degrees; 1 coven; and had been the most dysfunctional group in the ways you've so eloquently described. I went back into solitude and only then did I begin to truly learn magick and spirituality and mystery.

Perhaps Wicca is a religion structured religion for those that need that but for others it can be a foundation to build a personal deeply fulling pagan spirituality? That is what it became for me; while I do ritual around the eight sabbots I recognize their worth and honor their meaning for others.

Hell I still raise energy and say prayers in the four directions, practice lucid dreaming, and do small personal rituals etc. So somethings never go away. Oh gods- I just did the math I've been doing this 18 years - although I do not call myself Wiccan I am most definitely pagan with a direct connection with the Divine Loving Universe. I leave you with one thought:

Realizing your life isn't what you wanted isn't the end of everything...it is the beginning.