Imbolic: Begining with a Trial by Fire and Being Burned

I'm always trying to expand my practice. I feel very strongly that my religion is a creation mid progress. I have beliefs. I have ritual foundation work, and I have my experience with the divine. Still, I feel the always present need for more. To re-tool how I practice and to add on.

One aspect I was considering adding was a fast the week of Imbolic. I'm anemic, so it would never have been 100% traditional because I need solid food and I need to make sure my iron is right, but I was considering a juicing raw food fast for seven days.

I had great justifications for this fast. It would make me more aware of the earth's local fertility, which doesn't truly bloom here until March, but we're only six hours from Florida and we enjoy quite a bit of their early season produces. I keep talking about sustainable food and being in touch with the earth's cycles. I'll talk about small seasonal observations. But food is something we all need. It's a real and tangible piece of the human puzzle that could help make more meaning in the year. After all ancient cultures followed the seasons because of agriculture, not because it was something transcendent and holy. Following the seasons and choosing nature now a days is just that:a choice. It's as much a social, political, and economic choice as it is religious. I know I'm someone with the privilege to ignore a lot of nature if I wanted to.

Juicing, while controversial, couldn't hurt for seven days, especially considering I would still choose to each whole fruits, vegetables, and nuts during this time. It would be a financial sacrifice and one I'm lucky enough to consider, but it wouldn't hurt my health. It may even help it.

It would make me aware of what I eat and how it makes me feel. I could put real effort into considering my meal choices and what I would do with this information and my diet after 7 days.

Guess how far I got into this plan? One day and I was out. I learned I'm very attached to my coffee, too much so if the killer headache I had that made me dizzy meant anything. I learned that while I like juice, fruits, vegetables, and seeds, I'm not up for creating such an exclusion in my diet. Not being able to each chocolate or fried food made me crave it in a way I haven't for months, and as soon as I decided to stop the fast and eat like more normally, those cravings left me.

I now know I'm not drinking anywhere near enough water if how quickly the water and juice passed through me is any indication and I'm still committed to drinking at least 72oz of water a day to improve that aspect of my health.

I learned that while maybe I like the idea of fasting, my body is still in the same place I was in college when I decided fasting was dumb. I have a more nuanced idea of fasting, but it's still not for me.

Some things I got from the experience is that I need to limit my coffee to one cup a day and then try again to stop drinking it in a month. I've let my caffeine intake get way out of control with the new job at Starbucks. Truthfully, at home I drink my coffee with coconut sugar and unsweetened almond milk so it's not as bad as it could be, the problem is at work where I drink too much coffee with all those syrup sweeteners. I'm sure I'm holding on to a lot of bad addictive things my mind and body need to release.

I do need to cut my oils, butters, and sugars. Planning for this fast helped show me how far I've strayed from healthier food choices I used to make in the past. I need leaner meat and will stick to chicken, turkey, and some fish. I really like eating more fruits and vegetables, they can replace some of my current leanings and I need to stop eyeballing my oils and butters and measure them out so I'm sure. I also realized that I eat way too much. The juice and raw foods wasn't enough but what I was eating was way too much. I might need to stop cooking for the mate because catering to his taste is part of how I fell into these messy habits.

Part of me is really discouraged that I couldn't do this fast. I knew that working as I do with food everyday on my feet would make it very hard. I knew that I would have some unpleasant after effects and that I might seriously have to dis-continue the fast so that I could do the right kind of job at work. I never thought that at the end of a day I would so thoroughly and completely reject the whole concept. It's hard to decide if this is a sign that I'm weak or strong or something else entirely. Then the whole concept of weak and strong makes me wonder why I care. My Gods don't compel this. Self denial has never been a value I've treasured just for the sake of denial.

I think it goes back to this idea of being a super dedicated committed pagan. Which, honestly, I've lapses some from practice and am getting back into. Imbolic was supposed to be a big jump start. I've done some of the background work, praying, reading, re-connecting to local pagans, tentatively planning a holiday schedule and set of goals, but I was going to plunge in with this fast and yoga and mediation and writing my daily gratitude down instead of just thinking them. I'm seeing that I can't just dive into a massive series of life restructures. I hate admitting both that I'm not super pagan and that I was trying so hard to be super pagan. My practice is a building project and not an instant of divine spontaneous creation. I am not perfection, which for some reason is where I want to be, even though I follow imperfect Gods, love imperfect people, and revere a nature that is as brutal as it is beautiful. There's not even anyone to impress or let down and I'm still trying to put on a show.

Beyond the fast that is not happening, I'm waiting to do my full Imbolic ritual on Wed, my day off. It involves a lot of cleaning in part because I'm a mess and in part because for me starting something new means we have to clear away the old. Anyhow I thought I'd at least try to start my year off with honesty and real talk. My first religious rite was a lemon. And that's the short version.

Short Note On Rituals, Calendars, Technology and Whatnot

Good Day to all.  I've been off the grid for a long time, but I had a quick set of thoughts that I wanted to share. 

This past month, I've been trying to pull together a pagan calendar for my personal reference and use.  Since I'm trying to record lunar phases, Neo-pagan holiday, and the traditional holidays in the Roman, Greek, Norse and Celtic calendar, I'm having a crazy time of it.  Every second I get a bit of air I feel like suddenly a new holiday or bit of information I should consider pops up and I'm further down the rabbit hole than when I started.  My ipad calendar app enjoys at least one note on it every day of the year, whether it's just marking different faiths methods to tell time like the 1st Nation's set of months or the Celtic tree months, or it has festival days on it. 

I haven't even gotten to when Mercury goes retrograde.  I haven't decided if I want to track any other planetary motions. 

And I haven't gotten to adding the other holidays outside my pagan bubble!  Why add these holidays you ask, because I want to be that person who knows when Diwali and wish my friends a Happy Festival of Light and I want to acknowledge when Hannukkah and Passover start for my Jewish peeps.  Part of making he world less Christian and more multi-faith, is about more than showing solidarity with other pagans.  It's also about the simple courtesy of knowing when other groups holy days are and knowing just a little information so I can show appropriate support/acknowledgement.

This brings me to a major calendar application's failing.  I would love a master calendar that already marked the phases of the moon.  Short if that, I'd like a calendar that would let me repeat an event every x amount of days instead of limiting my repetition options to weekly, monthly, and yearly.  The timing means that each month I have to hand write in lunar notations.  Each year I'll have to write in the closes approximation to the Greek reference calendar I can find with each holiday.

Going farther than that,  I would love for that calendar to have an option where it would joint mark the Gregorian calendar with the Jewish, Hindu, First Nations, Celtic, Chinese, Lunar, Greek, and other calendars I don't know of.  Heck I'd love to be able to swap from one dominate form to another but have all my appointments be understood no matter which format I swapped to.  And I'd love a calendar that gave me an option to create my own wheel of the year and over lay it with the Gregorian Calendar.  I do follow my own completely unique schedule tailored both to my belief and to the weather here in the Alabama, as opposed to a calendar I used to follow in MA. 

The mate told me if I was willing to pay money for such an app (which I am, for one with the right layout and sophistication, I'd drop big dollars like as much as $30 cause it is something I can and do use every year) I should learn to make it.  Part of the problem here it that it would take me literally years to part time gather all the information with good sourcing which I would need to create calendar dates and do a quick explanation write up of the holiday/different calendar cycles.  Forget how long it would take me to learn the coding and build an attractive friendly layout.  Plus I'm torn about whether this whole need to schedule, mark time, and be aware of how others are marking time is something that a lot of people feel as a gaping hole in their lives, or if it's just me.  I'm kind of an A type personality when it comes to scheduling and considering other's schedules.

Of course beyond researching holidays dates and meanings, that has me diving into other general research information of what is on the world wide web that may be of interest to me.  I always start out so curious and glowing with hope and thirst for more.  I keep thinking there is real collective power and deep innovative new thought I'll stumble across.  And some of the information I'm reading is certainly valid.  Some of the crafts and recipes offered are fantastic. 

Something I wish I wasn't seeing so much of is all these seasonal rituals which are riddled with assumptions about the practitioner.  My seasons do not run correctly for me to use these rituals on a lot of major Sabbat days. 

And I wish the rituals didn't make so many presumptions about what kind of tools I use and so on.  I don't have an altar.  By this I mean both that I don't have a singular place of worship as these suggested practices imply but also that I have no altar in my practice.  I have shrines.  Plural here is very important because I focus my energies on multiple things and in multiple places in ritual.  Occasionally, I will focus on just one shrine and one aspect in ritual, it's something I'm trying to write in more time to do in my practice, but my faith, as a whole is really more about opening myself up to differences than drawing things together in the singular.

I wish there was more explanation regarding the selected details too.  Out of all the themes one can choose in any Sabbat, why does this ritual celebrate this one in specific?  Why certain numbers of candles and why those colors?  Why this food and drink?  Why these scents or oils? 

This is not to say that I can't guess why. Heck, this isn't even to tell others that every detail needs to be written into a posted ritual, though a link to the information that our using would be nice.  It's not about critiquing another's practice or offering (you'll notice I haven't posted any links or made this post about specific information), it's just about helping a person to see specifically where your ritual and your practice are coming from so he or she can best judge if this information will be helpful to him or her.  I mean if the the information were very helpful and I wanted to learn more about the tradition from which the knowledge comes from, how would I do that? 

I know this is a lot of questions and a lot of complaining I'm doing about people who have for free offered their time and insights to our community.  I do want to acknowledge that anything they chose to share online is a gift of sorts to those seeking.  I also want to acknowledge that quite a bit of the information was rich and meaningful to me, despite this little nit picks I have.  So let me close with a than you to those who share their thoughts and content online and simply add that this post is asking for more not trying to silence anyone into giving less.

Weekly Tarot Share

I work a lot with tarot cards, for more on why I do that I have a post called: Why I Use Tarot.  This post is more of my attempt to bring my experience with tarot into the discussion here.  The following is the daily reading I've done for myself today.

Four Messages to Carry With me Today Per the Halloween Tarot  (review of tarot at aeclectic):

The Star: This card is thought of as the calm after the storm of the Tower. I've faced the unreality or intentional self deceptions with in my life plans (hopefully-I've tried to be very realistic, but I never know for sure until I'm knee deep in a mess) and what's left is the hope, inspiration, and beginnings of a new strong project. I believe that this card is talking about my blog directly here. I've wanted to write one one about religion for a while, and I've spent a few months looking up different ways to go about writing, getting my thoughts out to a larger audience successfully, how to online network, how I can do this and still work a full time job and live an active offline life. It's daunting, but a series of events in my personal life have signaled that now is the time.

So today, like the star card is a day of new beginnings, of hope, and creativity. My energy is focused on the spiritual/divine aspect in the this card more than the social and structural aspects of actually starting a successful blog. I know I have to face those and work as hard, perhaps harder on those ends, but in writing this post and drawing my cards, I have no choice but to turn inward and hear what it before me instead of what would make the best post or what I could drive people here with.

Two of Pumpkins: The two of pentacles (pumpkins in this deck) should be my repeating life theme. The card signifies that I am juggling two very differing aspects of my life trying to find balance and sure footing between two objects or ideas that need my time and attention. This particular deck shows a literal light hearted juggler balancing two pumpkins but if you look at the expression on the juggler's face, you will see her smile is very similar to a frown of concentration. Disaster can strike if she drops what she is managing. In the real world we often perceive a disastrous end to the “show” if we drop the ball too, but it is important to remember, that a good juggler, can drop everything in the act and recover for a huge audience applause at the end.

It seems I always have one foot in the intangible world and one in the real world. It's probably my major life struggle to balance this pull I feel towards an ideal life path and the reality it takes to get there. If money were no object, I know I'd float away in hypothetical and religious intangibles and never look back. I'd be happier and my life would be easier, but I think that I would lose my connection to others whom are struggling in much the same way. I don't always feel this way, especially when this card comes up, but my connection to something more than myself is a huge gift that I may use for positive change, so long as I don't drift too far into ether that I no long can relate to others.

This card is a huge message for me because I'd love to get lost in what I love, where I feel confident, and in work I feel I was placed here to do. However, to survive, I need to reserve some focus for my day job and for the people who are put in front of me and what their needs are. I have a lot to contribute, but I can't get so caught up in contributing my thoughts and experiences that I neglect the finances and people who have made it possible for me to speak up.

Ten of Pumpkins: This card shows a child wandering blindfolded towards an unknown object which he hopes to swing at, hit, and receive reward for. I think everyone knows the feeling of wandering in blind to what we hope is a good opportunity and working in good faith to see if we can achieve rewards. While the feeling is unsettling, this card is a good omen. It implies that hard earnest work will achieve massive rewards. Beyond the excitement and thrill of the candy in the pinata, there is a a ladder on the tree that will lead the child up to untold amounts of reward. Once I get the hang of this new project, taste the beginnings of rewards from it, the blindfold will come off (as I will have experience and know what I'm doing), and I'll be able to apply that knowledge easily to earn larger rewards.

Another thing this card points out that is important to nervous people like myself, is while we feel exposed and at risk during the beginning of our journey, we're not. Being in the dark and wandering around with a stick feels very scary. From viewing this card as an outsider though, I can see the danger to child (myself) is in is minimal. The ground is free of anything that may trip me, and the person pulling the string of the pumpkin while masked, is an impersonal obstacle. He has not targeted the child, and he doesn't care about the child's success or loss. He only cares about his specific job of moving the pinata up and down, there is no malice personal or otherwise from him, he is only doing his job to make sure those who hit the pinata have earned their rewards.

Six of Pumpkins: This reading was meant to be a standard three card pull, but as I was putting the deck away this one fell out and I decided to add it in. This does happen fairly often, whether it's because I have the world's smallest adult hands or because divine always has a little more to say than I intend to pull is immaterial as the cards always seem relevant and helpful. In this case the card is even in line with the suit my reading has been in.

This card re-emphasizes the unexpected success in the Ten of Pumpkins. The two cards diverge in where in the process they show me, as the Ten of Pumpkins shows me swinging blindly for reward, while the six of Pumpkins shows me already with these rewards in hand.

The concept that I will have more than enough is prevalent as the witch in the card is giving candy to trick or treaters without anxiety and there bowl she has is large and overflowing. This brings in a new element of the reading.  Once I have earned my rewards, I need to give back to the community which has helped me achieve success. I believe in charity, good work and giving back to the community both monetarily, through prayer/ritual, and in writing/giving shout outs/ adding positively to the discussion. This card is a reminder that achieving reward for hard work isn't the end of the journey, I have to remember to give back to my community and to give credit to all those who have helped me get to where I am.

Even though this is the beginning of my blog project and I have no following or anything but my writing and ideas right now, there are still people who have made this start possible without whom I'd never have attempted this. I need to keep those people in mind and remember to continue to support them. My mind wanders particularly to Jason Pitzl-Waters at the Wild Hunt who is the gold standard of pagan blogging and whom needs the community's financial support in particular right now (I've already donated if you have any income to spare go help Jason be independent pagan press, we need someone like him and his services working for us). My mind also wanders to Star Foster and her new blog Beyond Pink, she is currently transitioning in a huge move and life change. As someone who's done something similar I understand how much she needs community support. There are my gods, my guides, and a million personal people near me who have encouraged, bolstered, and otherwise helped me be at this juncture. I will strive to support them in their own projects and life paths as they have mine.

Over All Thoughts On the Reading:

This reading was heavily focused on both the creation of this new blog which is a baby I've been imagining for years and working towards actively for a few months, but it also drew in some interesting thoughts about maintaining my day job and keeping up relationships with people.  I liked the well rounded feeling of the reading. I like how it captured the mindset I had when I drew the cards and I thought that the advice was directly applicable to my life right now. While I was focused on today specifically, I did appreciate who the cards drew out what may be a possible outcome of my actions today.

An interesting thing to note is that while the reading starts out in the spiritual world and intangibles like inspiration and hope, it immediately grounds to the material work with pumpkins (pentacles in a traditional tarot). This shows that while the blog I'm starting may be about religion, god, and faith, there are specific material outcomes I want and there are direct steps I need to take to reach these goals. It won't be enough to connect to a divine line and write, I'll have to reach out to others to comment/read. I'll have to make writing tag lines that will pop on a search engine, and I'll have to create supporting media to bring others in. I have to do all this and balance working a full time 60-70hr a week job, keep up relationships with those close to me, and continue to practice as I see fit. It's a tall order, but it's something I'm going to try for.

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Why I Use Tarot

Tarot cards are a huge part of my practice and is one of the few aspects of my practice that has been with me since the beginning and only grown rather than changed or diminished. Since the beginning, I have found that I have a talent in reading cards together to make a story that directly applies to myself or to my client. They are a focusing tool.  When I'm in energy, I'm bombarded with a million different thoughts, feelings, paths, images, aspects, and options. Sometimes I know what I find important, what I would need to hear but not what would connect best with my client. Sometimes all the information is just too much period.  Where do I start, what do I tell, how will I bring another person into the experience instead of just conversing with myself, there are all questions working with tarot helps me to solve. Drawing cards creates a path to focus on and helps to direct me to the most needed information.

Use of Tarot:

1. To read the future. We all have questions that need answering. Is this project a good one? Is Billy the right boy for me? If I do this or that will I like it? There are also the general “show me the future/ what's coming down the pipeline I should be aware of” spreads too. I can draw cards and come to a specific answer for myself and for others. It's something I've found immensely helpful.
   
   
2. To set tone for the day. Doing a one card pull to see what the day has in store more like asking the cards to tell you a little about the present. I like having a daily theme or thought to come back to, the one card draw in the morning helps me to shape that thought or idea.
   
   
3. To give more information about others or situations. I find myself stuck in my own head or fixated on certain things. Why did so and so do this? What does this action mean about me as a person? How is this happening or what does this happening mean about me? These drawings are similar to future drawing because they are meant to reveal information about a situation or person that would otherwise be hidden to our observation, but different in that there are no predictions made.
   
   
4. To speak with the divine. During ritual or ceremony I ask for the divine to share through the cards a message, action, or ethic with me. I draw the cards and hear what my Gods or guides have to tell me in these messages. I have other ways to speak with my higher powers and they do choose the method sometimes, but I do find the tarot the quickest and clearest.
   
   
5. To inspire. Sometimes I pick topics that are so broad and in which I have so much to say, that I don't know how to start. Often times I draw two or three tarot and use their messages or their themes to start off my writing or to start expressing information I'm looking to share. 
   
   
6. To choose which information is most important in an experience. When I am overwhelmed by the amount of information that I can pick out of a conversation, book, or spiritual experience, I will draw between 1-4 cards to see what specifically I should focus on out of all the information. I can come back and re-evaluate those choices later, but having fewer themes to look at in the beginning helps me to start acting instead of being bogged in my head.
   
   
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   Article copyright Swift Rabbit/ Southern Pagan Muses
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