Before we start - pic taken by an old friend, near his Sainsburys. Amazing sun, huh? Anyway...
It's quite amusing that I laid out what I was going to do, then didn't do anything for months!
This was for 2 reasons: (a) my summer facing job just stayed busy - people at the restaurant took holidays, I was needed to ccover, as was my eldest, one of the chefs, who is wasting away for lack of holiday time off as we speak, and then there's my other job, also extremely busy, and then theres home life...and (b) I was/am overwhelmed with the amount of reading and study I've already done since the 90s - which was when I got into my spirituality in a big way.
I'm a total bookworm. If I like a subject my first thought is to buy a swathe of books about it from various angles, create a mini library and then begin. In a sort of hither and thither slapdash way, bit of this, bit of that, on the subject. Then, as I always know it will, my focus will change, and I'll be on to the next thing. But I also know I'm going to cycle back to first thing and want to go over it more: so now I have a base. Then, lo - attitudes change on the subject, so I need to get more books, read more the second time round. And thus it continues. I have a mighty selection of books about everything I'm interested in. And thats just the practical subjects. We won't go there on my fiction reading. I really need a larger place to live, to fit my bookshelves and book piles (which are everywhere, as you can imagine).
So I got overwhelmed with my awesome plan of actually working through some of books. Which ones? Should I pick a subject - say my paganism, and then a sub heading - say herbal medicine or herbal magic. So, we've narrowed it down to less than 60 books, hopefully. Should I start at the 90s and follow the thinking forward? Should I go backwards to all the texts recommended in the original 90s books? Should I be be proper and read lots of gardening books too, so I actually know what I'm doing by the time it comes to growing my own herbs, which all the books get you doing in the end? This bearing in mind I kill everything I grow - I'm not one of life's natural gardeners. I'm a city born girl who romanticizes the country life, while being perfectly aware that the grass isn't always greener and looks aren't reality. And BBC period dramas and Gardeners World are not slices of my life, but of daydreams and wishes (like most drama). I do love watching Gardeners World - gardening is magical. And they are never afraid of, or significantly put off by the whole bugs issue, which I often am. (My mum walked under an unidentified tree on one of her small recovering from a hip replacement walks recently, and I was picking odd little black bugs out of her hair for several hours afterwards. Ewwww!)
So - say herbalism. Which book? Where to start?
Then I thought - where to start altogether? If it was paganism, I'd have to take it right back to basics and focus on a very few topics that drew me to it in the first place. That would be:
- herbalism - medicinal and magical, and history of
- the moon and her cycles - effect on us, moon cycle based gardening, paying attention to quarters and traditional (English) meanings of, rituals etc
- crystals - ideas of what each stone has and does, grids, rituals - I loved geology in school, and I really don't care how woo my other half thinks crystals are for pagans; it's such a beautiful thing to study; and if you pay attention to geopolitics and mining for sources of at the same time, you'll end up all educated too ;-)
- the seasons and sabbats - the idea of marking the year and stopping at pause points to check in and tap the energy of the season as its been agreed on so far - this is also the topic causing me the most trouble, as climate change is all over it and I feel stressed and sad when studying it. Rachel Patterson, hugely prolific and lovely English witch author, has said in several of her books that she finds the wheel of the year unhelpful as the seasons don't quite hit when they should, so she does them or not, and observes the changes in wildlife and weather when she thinks they are relevant - very fair and pragmatic.
You notice I'm not saying anything about spells. When I first got into paganism, like most people, I did loads of spells, wasn't very focussed, they were pretty and smelled interesting...but I'm unsure if the majority of them even worked. Because I gave them no time, didn't keep quiet as such, and doubted them. Which is a problem I still have now - the doubting bit. I worry that someone who has periodic depressive episodes and has Generalised Anxiety Disorder can really be any good at this part of witchery. But there are plenty of witches who also have these issues and still cast, and it still works for them. So I really could just do my best with what I am, and see how it goes, adapt, improve. Etc.
I'm also in two minds about deities - I have several I have altars for and talk to, but I feel they feel I'm phoning it in; which I think I have been for a while. I've been so life-stressed I'm just not really present with anything very much. I'm scattered as feck (enter the Buddhism and Quakerism, both of which have got excellent practices for being here, now).
So this is my post to say I've not vanished - I'm still waiting for winter to come so I have more time to get consistent with anything spiritual. I need to get consistent over winter, so that when summer comes around and life is massively busy again I'll be prepared with a super slinky slimmed down version of somesort of daily ritual - bit of Buddhism, bit of paganism, bit of Quakerism. I want to get regular, so its a proper support to me; and I'll be a person better able to do things - goals, helping the world...
On top of all this, watching/reading the news about the planet in general (we're still killing it), and the planet in miniature (oh my god we are killing each other in horrible ways and all civilians suffer, be it Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, obviously I could go on). In the face of all that, and feeling so far away and unable to do much except give small bits of money to charity (winter is coming, I'm about to be monumentally broke for months), the only thing I can really do is try to make my bit of the world a bit better and kinder. So I hope some of the actions I'll take while I'm reporting back to you on my studies, will be practical.
Anyway. I'm done for this post, and here is a beautiful flower - the kind I totally wish I could grow myself! Pic I took while walking, nothing fancy, just a beautiful little plant!
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