Koren's blog

The Fool (0)

Unless I'm prompted otherwise, I almost always read the Fool as the beginning of something. I lean very strongly towards the journey/traveler motif in my interpretation. The character himself seems to be the focal point or main character of the story - he is the one who begins and travels through witnessing and experiencing all the other cards/archetypes in the Major Arcana. I do see an innocence there, but I usually see it as innocent of whatever the themes or lessons the journey is going to entail. Most any journey story can probably be made to fill this mold, but the ones that stand out for me the most are John Crichton sitting on the beach watching the sunrise before his mission (Farscape), Dana Scully walking into the basement of the FBI building (The X-Files), Nikita as a street kid (La Femme Nikita), Rose going to work (Doctor Who), and Richard building a bridge (Legend of the Seeker).

Rose’s Meditations

The Quilting Path: A Guide to Spiritual Discovery Through Fabric, Thread and Kabbalah

"... we all have limits placed upon us by our past.  We come out of the womb, newborn, and then we are bombarded with one thing after another.  There is always something.  Some are benign and harmless, but too many are malignant, ugly, hurtful, and limiting.  My mom's statement made me realize what I'd been struggling with all of my life.  Not only did my nana think I was cute and stupid, my mom also thought I was cute and stupid.  That's part of the source of my early childhood wounding.  Understanding this brought the pieces and struggles of my life into focus.

"It's quite a challenge to prove yourself to your mother.  It becomes the work of a lifetime.  Each and every one of us has it in some form.  No one is exempt.  It's part of the human process.  Each of us has a history, a family, and some life situation we are striving to overcome -- and that's part of why we do spiritual work.  It helps us to discover, accept, and go beyond the limits placed upon us by others.  At the same time this spiritual work provides direct understanding of our place in the divine plan."  (pg 1-2)

"Because we are made in the likeness of the Divine, our spiritual practice affords us the opportunity to realize what life is, who we truly are, and what tasks the Divine wants us to perform." ^1  (pg 3)

1 -- we also, because we are sentient beings, perform the tasks that we want to perform, as well.  Some religious actions are done at the behest of the Divine, others we perform at our *own* behest.  (Example: feeling the call from the Divine to observe a holy day - this is a task that the Divine wants us to perform.  On the other hand, a prayer request, petition, or spell is a spiritual practice we perform for ourselves.) Both parts of this equation are valid and acceptable within the boundaries of our individual ethics and moral codes, and are parts of the greater whole of experience.  Slavish obedience is balanced with free thought and willfull personality.

Am confused about religion, says I

Am confused about religion, says I.

Once upon a time, I thought I was wiccan.  At the time, the vast majority of my research and experience (albeit book form, since in junior high and high school I didn't have access to any other practitioners or covens... nor anything like the range of online resources one has now) was with traditional British witchcraft.  The books I had access to were primarily things by Sybil Leek, Gerald Gardner, and Stewart Farrar (not to mention the rather slanted treatise by Montague Summers which is a decent survey of folk beliefs and superstitions on the subject of witchcraft, magic, and demonology, but is rather sensational and not terribly anthropological).  Now, I didn't so much read these cover to cover or memorize them or anything, and none of them had what one might call "how-to" sections like so many books do these days (I totally wouldn't have had the nerve to do much more than I did at the time anyway, even if the material had been available) - I did eventually pick up books by people like Buckland, Ravenwolf, and Cunningham, but only after the others were pretty deeply set in my brain.  And the tone and character of the former were very much in line with what I had always had an affinity for even as a small child.  The occult, the mysterious, and the slightly dangerous and forbidden appealled to me.  It always has.

For awhile, the "lighter, brighter" tone of the later sources grabbed me, perhaps because it seemed so much more accessible and acceptable to me (and frankly, I don't think that I was old enough at the time to really appreciate the deeper, darker (and by that I in no way mean "evil" kind of dark) mysteries and themes that seem prevalent in older texts.  I think that both kinds of wicca are valid spiritual paths, but I don't think that either one is for everyone.  I also don't think that those deeper, darker mysteries should be synonymous with suffering or pain or depression or tribulation, thanks - but that's a whole other rant entirely.

In any case, I went to college, I met other pagans, and joined a coven.  And most of the people that I worked with were on the more eclectic side of things, and focused less (at least in their public group rituals) on the sorts of things you find in those older sources and more on the modern reinventions.  I'm not sure I'm explaining this very well, and I'm certainly not doing it an academic sort of justice, but go with me here a ways, and understand that I'm thinking out loud and much of this is emotional tone and impression that I perceive but am not sure how to translate.  

I'm certainly not saying that they were doing anything *wrong* - far from it.  What I am saying is that the very things that had drawn me to this kind of a path weren't present, and I started seriously questioning whether or not I should be there.  And I eventually decided that I wasn't, in fact, wiccan, which i maintained for a long, long time.  A couple of my friends wanted to start a non-wiccan circle, and because they knew I was without group and didn't consider myself such or anything like it, asked me to join them, and we've been talking about things.  So now, because of all kinds of circumstances, I've been reading Doreen Valiente's "Witchcraft for Tomorrow" in an attempt to figure out what's going on in my head, and I'm realizing that what she is talking about... it *does* appeal to me.  There are certainly things I would tweak, change, add and remove (no system is individually perfect), but the essence of things that drew me in the first place is there.

A good comparison might be this:  if I had read books on Catholicism as a child initially that had interested me in the subject of Christianity, and then had joined a protestant church... and ultimately decided that I must not be Christian because the protestant method and specifics of belief and emphasis(s?) didn't work for me without realizing that what I really wanted was a traditional latin-mass Catholic church?  Only to have this realization along with one that no such church exists around me and I don't do well worshipping alone.  Something like that, anyway.

Ultimately, I have the blood and bones of traditional British magic in my veins and psyche, along with all the other things that make me.  And currently I have very little outlet for them.  I'm not sure what to do with that.

And the Belief-O-Matic Says...

1.	Neo-Pagan (100%)
2.	New Age (95%)
3.	Unitarian Universalism (89%)
4.	Reform Judaism (82%)
5.	Mahayana Buddhism (82%)
6.	Theravada Buddhism (82%)
7.	Liberal Quakers (76%)
8.	Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (73%)
9.	Sikhism (73%)
10.	Orthodox Judaism (64%)
11.	New Thought (60%)
12.	Secular Humanism (56%)
13.	Scientology (56%)
14.	Jainism (54%)
15.	Bahá'í Faith (51%)
16.	Islam (48%)
17.	Nontheist (48%)
18.	Hinduism (45%)
19.	Taoism (43%)
20.	Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (42%)
21.	Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (38%)
22.	Orthodox Quaker (36%)
23.	Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (34%)
24.	Jehovah's Witness (23%)
25.	Eastern Orthodox (22%)
26.	Roman Catholic (22%)
27.	Seventh Day Adventist (21%)

I think I must have answered somewhat differently this time, because usually I get Reformed Judaism at the top of my list.   Of course, I probably need to go back again when I'm not sick with a head cold and make sure that I read everything correctly. 

Chakras, health and food

So I went and had an energy-work session with LiquidWoman.

Did you know that your chakras can atrophy from lack of use, nurture, and care?  I certainly hadn't realized it.  I also hadn't realized that just about all my energy was being pulled from outside sources, like others, things, and the divine and other realms.  She said that I wasn't producing any of my own energy which explains all sorts of things like why I'm so chaotic and confused and edgy and anxious and over-sensitive all the time. 

Which also made me realize that I don't have emotional boundaries.  As an empath, any energy I get from others is flavored emotionally.  And if all my energy is coming from others, well, so are all those emotions.  I've started to become aware of how everyone around me are feeling and how that's affecting me, and well, yeah.  Virtually no "this is them, this is me" boundaries there.  Fun.

The advice that she gave me after the sessions was first and foremost to start breathing into my energetic center.  Deep breathing, conscious breathing.  Also, exercises that will keep me/put me into my body, like stretching and tai-chi, rather than things like running which would cause an ecstatic state and kick me out of my body.  (I'm totally ok with that - I HATE running.  Blech.)  I also feel a call to change my eating habits, which could be because of all the time I've started spending with Butterfly Awakening and Dragonfly who are healthier-eaters, or might have to do with this health-related wake-up call.  But more organic foods, less processed foods, and a more balanced diet.  I tracked my diet for about a week and found that my sodium is insane and I'm hugely deficient in my potassium. 

I'm also planning on making a string of chakra prayer-beads to help with the breathing excercises, and have had both Butterfly Awakening and Dragonfly do some chakra work on me.  They worked on me some on Friday, and Saturday, when Brian and I were at the movies, he stopped and looked at me and said that he just realized that I hadn't asked him to decide where to sit in the movie theatre, or what to eat at lunch previously.  I'd just decided for myself, which is something I've *really* had trouble with in the past.