changes inside

Today I went earlier for Commune and there was no sunlight by the creek. It's a different place at 8:30 in the morning. It seems sleepier, as if the plants, like me, are still waking. 

Today I just sat and observed. There weren't many deep thoughts running through my head, except that I noticed the instant relief as soon as I was there. Similar, though not entirely the same, as the relief I feel when I sit down on the bed to go to sleep at night. Also similar, sometimes, to the experience of drinking a good glass of wine. One could become addicted to Commune. 

Curly Sue stole something from a boy at school yesterday. We've been dealing with this a lot, and believed that this was getting better, so last night was a bad night. Curly Sue had been earning back a lot of privileges that she had lost a long time ago (due to stealing). Now these privileges were taken away and everyone was feeling tired and disheartened.

I'm from a family that self medicates. When we're anxious, we drink. Actually, we drink for lots of reasons--because we like to drink, and to celebrate, to socialize, to enjoy the experience of drinking. I believe in alcohol. I mean, it's kind of a spiritual experience in my family. My mom and I talk about different kinds of beer the way that some people talk about different television shows or books they liked. 

I know that this can be taken too far. Some people might think this sounds sick. Maybe it is.

Lately I've been worrying that I'm self medicating too much. I don't think I'm an alcoholic, but I know it can go that way if one's not careful, and beer and wine are too good to be wasted on bad times.

And last night was the kind of night when I would have had a couple glasses of wine. But I didn't. I had some tea. I felt...just fine. Inside. Those shrieking voices in my head, the anxiety voices, were quiet. Even though there was fighting in the house and unhappiness and disappointment. I felt strong. Not happy, but strong. 

And then that relief this morning during morning Commune...which made me realize that I'm doing something good for myself. And I don't want to waste wine on bad times. 

beach going, and the problem with moths

On Sunday we went to the beach to fly a kite. We live fairly close to the beach but spend most of our swimming time in the pool in our backyard. 

Four years ago as residents of New York City, we used to spend every possible weekend at the beach. It started in May; buying our season passes. On Saturday and sometimes even Sunday afternoons, we'd wake early and take the subway to Penn station. Buy iced coffees at Starbucks, sandwiches for lunch at Subway. Take the train from Manhattan past Queens to the last stop on the Long Beach line. We'd drag our bags and our towels to the beach and then walk sometimes for a quarter of a mile over the sand to find the best spot. Spend all morning and part of the afternoon making sand castles. On the way home, we'd have salad pizza at the restaurant not far from the train station. 

I thought when we moved to California that we would spend every possible moment on the beach. That this was like moving to our mecca. 

We found out when we moved here, it's the Atlantic we love. The Atlantic ocean is my darling. It's freezing cold in the early summer, but warms up gradually. By August, it's the perfect temperature. Even so, it's like a different ocean every day. Sometimes calm and smooth, sometimes full of rough waves, dangerous. Terrifying.

The Pacific is a different beast. The waves in the Pacific ocean are rough and frigid all year long. And the beach here is often chilly and windy. 

Still, there is a beach we sometimes go to. It's tucked away in a residential area, surrounded by expensive houses. To reach the beach, you park on the street then climb down a long staircase. It's not a popular beach, so most of the time it feels deserted and magical. Sometimes we see starfish there. Once, we found a cave.

At home, we're having a problem with moths. they're all over the place, particularly in the kitchen. I'm a bad pagan because I'm supposed to love nature and preserve life, but I kill insects I find in my house. We saw a waterbug in the house once last summer, and I killed it. And I've been smashing the moths with my bare hands. The only bugs that I don't kill when I find them in the house are spiders. I believe spiders are Good. 

I'm thinking about doing a banishing ritual, but I'm brand new at this and that sounds a little negative. I don't want to banish the moths and burn down my house, and I don't want to perform negative spells. 

not that killing the moths is really any better. 

I was looking through my practical magic book today and came upon this suggestion for prosperity and change: place seeds (pumpkin, sunflower, etc) in a bowl and place your wish for the future inside. Place it on an alter. 

This sounds like something simple I'd like to try but...I need to make an alter. This is a cart before the horse scenario. There's a dresser at home, in the spare room, I think I can easily make into an alter. There's a cloth draped over the top. It's a tall dresser, the top is just at my shoulders. 

I'd also like to try these Prosperity cakes from Zedral. 

Reiki and kids and raising them pagan

Told Ms. Red Hair yesterday that I wanted to start doing the eastern healing again. That's what we called Reiki, when I used to do it. I'm not sure if I do it right, never was sure. I already did it to myself a little during the Commune yesterday morning, and then in the evening I spent about 10 minutes with Curly Sue, and about 10 minutes with Ms. Red Hair. The question arises whether this is enough time to make a difference, but I think so.

Earlier today I came upon a post from Nydia, whose blog I just started to follow. Specifically I stumbled on her article, on being a witch and raising a witch. She mentions that many pagans raise their children on a "neutral" path, and she has chosen not to. It seems natural to her to raise her son with pagan beliefs as long as they feel right to him. She raises an interesting point: if she were Jewish or Christian or Muslim, she would likely raise her son to follow her religion, and so why not raise him to be Pagan? And, why not? Why should paganism be different from other faiths passed down from parent to child?

Maybe because paganism is mostly made up of solitary practitioners. It's so personalized. What is right for the parent may not be right for the child.

Religion would do Curly Sue good--she's got a lot of Lost in her. But I can't raise her in the Christian faith because I don't believe in it myself, I can't raise her as a pagan because I've barely started to follow it. We tried taking her to the Unitarian Universalist church when we moved here several years ago, but the fit wasn't right.

If I felt like my roots in paganism were firm and deep, I would be more open about this with Curly Sue. And maybe someday I will be in that place. I applaud the parents who teach their children about their faith, and raise their children with religious beliefs.

Today during Commune I took a picture of the beautiful orange flower below. I went a little deeper down the creek today and had to duck under a tree to get to this spot. I don't want anyone to see me at work. I'm already somewhat known for my weirdness around the office but I'd rather not be that spacey chick who meditates by the creek too.

I'm wearing a skirt today, looking semi-pretty, so I brought a box top to sit on. It so happened that I sat down in front of a tree trunk where some ants were marching up and down in a single file line. There was a crazy bird across the creek who was bouncing up and down in the dirt, pushing dirt around, as if digging. 

I brought a blank book from home. It's my hope to start writing some prayers or helpful observations; make note of some colors or some feelings that will help me develop some rituals.

And then I talked to goddess again and said thanks to her. I wish I was back there right now. I'm thinking about increasing Commune time to 20 minutes but I'm just so busy.

talking to god

The title of my last post was something like "In the broom closet", but I didn't really say anything about being in the broom closet. Well I am. Ms. Red Hair knows that I flirt with these ideas, but I don't talk to her much about it. I have little to say, and she's far more interested in politics than religion.

Not that I would try very hard to hide it, either. The books sit out on my desk at work, from time to time. My daughter sees me carrying them around. My parents, I'm guessing, took note of them on one of their visits. I don't think anyone will ask, and if asked, I plan to dodge the question via a joke. I just don't particularly want to explain myself.

Lately, the last several weeks or months, I've been talking to god. God. As I mentioned before, I was brought up in a basically secular home, but my family identified with Christianity in the vague way that secular homes in the US often do. I knew the story of the birth of Jesus, and we celebrated Christmas and Easter. As a kid, I talked to God sometimes. I wanted to have a relationship with God, like a friend that was always on your side and always there, but not within the confines of church, where I was uncomfortable and unconvinced.

Now as an adult, I talk to that same god. God. (capitalized?) I'm not strictly monotheistic, but I really only communicate with the one guy. God. And he's definitely male. Many pagans out there talk more to the goddess than the god, and I don't deny her existence, but she, the moon or the ocean that she is, remains a distant figure. The God in my comfort zone is the god of sunlight and trees and the broad blue sky, while she is the goddess of the moon and darkness and the ocean, wide and deep and endless. I like his brightness and brilliance. I like his sunlight, and that is how I think of him. The bright star in my sky.

Like a true LA resident, I talk to god most often in the car. Sometimes I initiate the conversation to give thanks, but most often I'm asking for help.

I've decided it's time for us to interact more, god and I. There needs to be less begging for help here, more open communication. I've made an agreement with myself to spend 15 minutes each day having a daily scheduled chat with myself and the natural world. I will commune with god or goddess, or myself or whatever happens to come my way.

There's a creek on the property where I work a full time job. I went down for 15 minutes this morning, for my first commune.

I set the timer on my phone for 15 minutes. It seems like I shouldn't set a timer, that it should all happen organically and naturally, and for that matter I should have more than 15 minutes to give, but I've got a schedule and this is the way life is. I set the timer to make a cricket chirping sound when it went off so it wouldn't completely yank me out of the experience.

At first I just sat.

Saw things. listened. a bumblebee. Water running slowly down the creek bed. waving moss. children at the school 75 feet away, playing at recess. A rock or a marbled egg that later turned out to be a leaf. A dead unidentified plant that turned out to be not so dead because I later noticed tiny green leaflings shooting from the browned stump.

I kind of thought, should I say something to god? With the water nearby it seemed more like goddess territory, and I felt her presence more than his, as I was sitting in dappled shade. I sent out a very vague, meek "hi" to the world. And then my left leg started to get twitchy.

I get restless legs at the worst times.

I was initiated into the first level of reiki (there's like a terminology for it but I can't remember that right now) a few years ago. Ms. Red Hair wanted me to perform it on Curly Sue, who we both fear has some spiritual and psychological scarring. I haven't done reiki in a while, but it seemed the right time. I placed both hands on my left leg. Concentrated on breath and breathing. Then it all started to come together. Breath and breathing, the reiki, the bumble bee, the water, goddess and dirt.

I started repeating blessed be over and over in my mind. I like these words, although at the wrong times they come across as corny to me. But I kept repeating them, like an amen, and I felt right and sane and whole.

After only 15 minutes I felt like I'd done something. Like something had happened to me. I felt energized and rejuvinated.

in the broom closet, comfy here

K, Internet World, this is my first post and I don't know what I'm doing, starting this blog. It's 9:28AM on a Wednesday and I've got work to do, a daughter to take to the doctor later today, a house to clean, books to read, a dead career to jump start.

Oh, look: 9:29!

In some ways, to say my life is a mess would be an understatement. I'm going bankrupt. I mean that actually. Bankrupt. My partner, Ms. Red Hair, and I want to have another child, but being that we both work full time, have our hands full with our current daughter and then my money problems are impeding our ability to move forward with our family. I'm 31 and I'm not getting younger. Or richer. I work 2 or 3 jobs and it's never enough.

My daughter...Curly Sue we'll call her...god love her...is also a mess. The best time with my daughter is in the mornings, when she's eating breakfast. That's just about the only time of the day it feels like we have time to talk and enjoy just being together. By the time she's gone to school and gotten in trouble and lied about having homework and come home and been rude and I've become frustrated and am having an anxiety attack...well the day is usually completely ruined by 6PM if not earlier.

And then, in other ways, life is great. More than great. Lovely. Amazing. I am so blessed. I have a house, a garden, a partner and daughter. We're vegetarians. I brew beer and read and fuss over my plants and talk to my mom once a week. I live in a city I love, in a neighborhood I love. I have a car and I love it. I love my mechanic and my local grocery store and my coffee shop and the people at my full time job. I have best friends, people I would do anything for, who I feel like would do anything for me.

So all these good things and bad things come crashing together every day. I feel torn apart sometimes. I cuss in traffic a lot--that makes me feel good. I drink beer (too much, really). I bake bread and make lemonade at home. I kiss my daughter every night but fear I don't get enough pleasure from it. I also tell Ms. Red Hair and Curly Sue that I love them every day as I send them off to school and I get a great deal of pleasure from that. Every new day feels good. Some nights I just feel wasted.

More than anything, I am lost. I want to move forward, but I want to enjoy every moment.

A few years ago, feeling this feeling of intense lostness, I started to read books about wicca and paganism. Religion has never been a good fit for me. My mom has been basically estranged from Catholicism ever since her divorce when I was just a baby. In third grade, I had my first communion, but that's the last time I ever considered myself to be Catholic. I had Catholic and Baptist grandparents, my best friend growing up (now my partner) was Methodist. I grew up in a little town in the midwest, where almost everyone is Christian if not in practice then at least by label, and Evangelicalism is prevalent. I have been saved but wasn't convinced by it (didn't even want it), I have been told (many times) I was going to hell, and for like most of my grade school through high school years, I was terrified of God.

9:49 now.

The summer before we adopted Curly Sue, we took her home to the midwest to meet her new grandparents -to-be. I was stressed. Wandering through the Borders bookstore, I stumbled on some books about spirituality. I've read many books by Thich Nhat Hanh and found them to be comforting, soothing.

I don't know if I found a book about magic or spells or just about wicca, whatever it was, I just picked one up. I read. I picked up another. Read more. Took an armful back to the cafe where the family was and I read, and read, and read. took notes.

That summer I did a lot of research and I found it to be comforting. I wanted to do spells and develop a spiritual path, one that made sense for me. Something that would see me through the conflicting feelings I had, about Curly Sue, whom I loved but who scared me, about Ms. Red Hair, who is an intense personality.

My pagan path stalled sometime in the following two years--I didn't have time to do the spells or practice the rituals. Actually, more than that, I didn't have time to decide which rituals were right, what were my rituals. I also became somewhat frustrated with the pagan community--there are a lot of vampyres and fayries and 15 year old girls with black eye makeup out there. I encountered them on the Internets. They made me think maybe this was all just a stupid waste of my time and that perhaps I was trying to recapture some lost opportunity to dress up like a Goth in high school.

I've got a lot of books on my shelf at home now, and I'm feeling lost again, and I've realized again that the pagan path is primarily a solitary one, and I don't need to affiliate myself with the vampyres and fayries and Buffy the whatevers. I'm just me. And I need a path. I'm looking, searching.

I'm going to start reading my books again. The pagan books. Maybe I can start practicing in little ways. Making up my own rituals. I know that there are a lot of kitchen witches out there--and that does fit me well. I live my life in the kitchen.

On Sunday night, with Ms. Red Hair and Curly Sue playing cards and drinking Pepsi at the kitchen table, ceiling fans blowing and a breeze coming in from the open windows, I remembered how blessed I was. My eyes landed on the purple magic book I bought from the Borders because Ms. Red Hair's dad spilled coffee all over it. And I remembered that I believe myself to be a pagan and I want to give that a shot again.