Week 2

Survived my first week into Wicca, the first of many, and onto the second, which deals with meditation.  This concept is integral to the study of Wicca, as well as to leading a healthy and balanced life.  Yesterday, we were asked to consider two different methods of meditation, Eastern and Western, and to see which best suits our personality by answer the following questions.

Do you like your life to be perfectly organized or do you not mind a bit of chaos?

Do you respond to most queries with action or with contemplation?

Are you active and mobile, or are you laid back and sedate?

Do you believe that every question has a definite, logical answer, or do you think that questions can sometimes beget more questions?

Are you naturally internally focused or externally focused?

Are you naturally patient or not?

Are you strong-willed, decisive, and direct?  Or are you easy-going and more indirect in your approach to people and tasks?

I find that I lean more towards the Eastern style of meditation, being more laid back, easy-going, and internally focused.  So much of the day is spent thinking and moving that I enjoy being able to simply sit quietly breathing or chanting a mantra.  The Western style of meditation has the same goal, but uses imagery and guided meditation to accomplish it.  I've not yet tried guided meditation, but this week will give me the opportunity to try it out and see how it works.

Today was spent simply learning to breathe.  Most of us, myself included, take this action for granted, something that happens automatically while we're out living our lives.  It takes time to sit and notice how we're breathing and to learn to take slow, deep breaths.  This is something that I learned during massage school, to ground and center myself by taking deep breaths and quieting the mind.  As the book states, I can use this whenever I feel stressed or unfocused to re-align my thoughts and emotions.  Breathing keeps us alive, it only makes sense that we should learn to do it well!

The all-important question:

There have been a lot of new beginnings for me in the past few months: new career, new apartment, new band, new boyfriend....all of which demand so much of my time (let's not forget studying for the national certification, I haven't even begun to start that).  We add to all that the study of a new religion.  Something, it seems, has to give.  But I'm determined to see this through; all of these new beginnings help teach me about myself, about limitations and time management, about being able to say 'no'.  It's been frustrating, the last day I have had off from work was Friday the 13th (not kidding) and I will welcome this upcoming vacation.

Back to the subject: part of this week's exercises, appropriately, is to contemplate our reasons for choosing to study Wicca.  For a long time, I've felt this emptiness caused by my lack of spirituality.  Even as a child, I couldn't identify with Western religions and later felt drawn to religions like Buddhism.  After learning a little about Wicca from Mary and Natalie, I felt that it might help to strengthen my spirituality and my relationship with nature.  I may not end up following Wicca at the end, but I won't dismiss it as a possibility.

I've come to realize that I don't like to follow directions exactly as someone else has laid them out, but at the same time, I feel guilty for not doing the exercises as specified by the book.  I must learn that I won't be punished for doing them out of order, Timothy Roderick (the author) isn't going to stand over me and demand that I do everything exactly as written.  I am only accountable to myself, and if it's necessary to take a few days to get re-settled, I will take them.  This journey isn't about doing things correctly, it's all about learning and being patient.

The real Day 2

On this day, we're asked to consider certain words, our comfort level and understanding of each, and how we think they will impact those not involved in Wicca.

Wicca

I haven't had much experience with this word or its concepts until I met Mary and Natalie at DePauw, and I learned a little bit about it by spending time with them.  I was raised in a Catholic family, but it wasn't so strict that I couldn't explore other religions.  While I knew there were other systems of belief in the world, I was still too nervous of what my parents would think to actually pursue any one seriously.  They were fine (sort of) with me not being Catholic, but how would they react to my studying Buddhism or even Wicca?  There are times when I realize that the limits to my parents' open-mindedness  are not as far as I thought.  I personally am comfortable with using the word and talking about it with other people, but I think that I would have to keep it from my parents' friends and my family, who are mostly Catholic.  I wonder that they might be uncomfortable at first, but if I explained it to them, their comfort would increase...

Witchcraft

This word has way too many negative connotations in my memory to be able to use it comfortably, after reading about the Salem witch trials and the treatment of witches and those thought to be witches during the Middle Ages.  I like to think that we've evolved past such narrow ways of thinking, but that's being too idealistic.  If I were to begin to seriously practice Wicca, I couldn't refer to myself as a witch, because of all the popular misconceptions and my own discomfort with the word.

Power

After starting massage therapy school last summer, I began to view power more as an energetic force rather than the physical.  As we got more in touch with ourselves, I could start to feel other people's energy, and now I regard those who have a very strong personal energy as being powerful.  It's all in what you project that makes you powerful or not.  The physical body is a fragile thing, easily damaged; it's the spirit that defines a person.  I could go on and on, repeating myself and being redundant....

Ritual

This word isn't all too discomforting, since it seems to be used so commonly.  There are rituals in every religion and people have their daily rituals, before they go to work or go to bed....

Magic

This word, to me, is most often used in reference to magicians performing tricks.  My experience with magic has been superficial, as has many people's experiences, so I don't know how I could use this word in explaining Wicca with others....

Occult

I honestly don't know much about the occult; I've heard it used many times, but I've never bothered to look up the true meaning, so I'm not sure how it relates to Wicca....

Pagan

I actually really like this word, it refers to a time period and a people that I feel really drawn to, a time before Christianity became the popular religion.  I feel this intense desire to live in closer connection with the earth, and hopefully this journey through Wicca will help it to become at least partially realized...

*as it gets later in the evening, my answers become shorter and shorter...

Spell

Casting spells has always been portrayed negatively, in my experience, in order to harm another person or for selfish gain.  I realize that spells can be positive and I hope that I can learn more about that aspect of Wicca.  Again, since it has rather negative connotations in popular society, I don't think I could this word comfortably with anyone outside this sphere of knowledge....

Earth-Religion

This phrase seems a bit hokey to me, like some stereotypical New Age-y phrase used by people pretending to be Wiccan or Pagan.  I hadn't heard of it until now, but I wouldn't necessarily use it to describe Wicca....

Well, that's it for me, I'm caught up (look at this, two days in and I'm already behind!)  I was wondering, in case you read this and have to comment, do you think that, instead of writing themes on a candle, burning it and then burying the wax, I could write the themes on bits of paper, burn them and scatter the ashes?  Honestly, I don't have the time to bury the wax, and like the idea of watching my old beliefs burn away and being able to really let them go.What do you think?

Day 2

So I'll be honest, I skipped Day 1's exercise, to spend ten minutes or more sitting in a natural setting, feeling your connection to the earth.  I worked from 12 until 6 pm at Massage Envy, and then going straight over to Justin's house thinking the band was going to rehearse and play at an open mic night.  Turns out that we didn't play at all and I completely forgot about reading the first day.  Now that we've actually started, I realize that I need to make time for it.  Lately it's been all work, band, and going out, making very little time just for me.  Going through the process of learning Wicca will force me to do just that, since I can't do any self-discovery without making any time for the self!

I can remember previous times that I've spent laying on the ground, simply feeling the earth.  I could feel the grass all around and underneath, almost cradling me, and a pulse deep in ground, like a heart beating.  I've always felt a strong connection to the earth, at peace when laying in the backyard or walking through a forest.  Living in the city has always seemed stressful, trying to get from one place to the next.  I would rather live in the country, doing everything for myself, but I've become so accustomed to living in the city, where everything is pretty ready-made and ready for me to buy.  It would be such a stretch to go from one to the other, and I dream of finding a happy medium.  My weakness lies in my dependence on such creature comforts, on someone else making my food and clothes, and one thing I can do to strengthen myself is to start cooking more from scratch and attempting to make clothes with my sewing machine (which is currently gathering dust in the corner of my bedroom).

Now on to Day 2!

So it begins....

Sunday begins my introduction to Wicca, which involves a year and a day of study.  It's decidedly easier to take on something like learning about a religion when you have a support group; Mary, Natalie and I are all starting tomorrow, and we're going to keep each other on track by discussing what we've done each week.  Just reading through some of the days, this seems overwhelming, but the fact that the Mary and Natalie have attempted this before makes it less so.  It's exciting and frightening, to learn more about myself, to give up past hurts and perceptions and start anew.  I can't wait!