A certain pattern...

At long last my life is starting to settle down out of the holiday bustle, which is largely imposed on me by others.  This is a particularly exhausting time of year for me, and I suspect that only some of it is the rushing about I invariably have to do every year.  As my spiritual practise has been deepening, I'm beginning to realize a much closer connection to the Sun that I really understood as a BabyPagan.  Not that I don't love the Moon.  The Sun and I have always had a love-hate relationship.  I burn to a crisp every summer because of my fair Irish skin, unless I slather myself in SPF 90, which keeps me quite pale.  But I love to watch motes of dust drifting through a sunbeam, and much like a cat, I do love finding a sunny spot to nap in, provided it's not in my eyes.  As I work with the gods of the Unnamed Path, and especially as my relationship with the Light God deepens, I find myself missing the sunlight.  I'm more and more tired in the evenings, and especially so as the year has waned.  This is very strange for me, because no matter what my work schedule is I'm usually such a night person.

I'm struggling through my spiritual practise right now, through a feeling of lethargy and sluggish energy.  I'll get through it - I always do.  Right now my focus is on completing the half-done tasks all around me, and continuing to commune with my People.  For now that will have to do.

Maddening Cthulhumass to all, and to all, a Good Night!

I crocheted myself a little amigurumi Cthulhu this weekend, to sit on my monitor at work and remind me that no matter how crazy my job may be, it can always be just a little more insane. ;)

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn

Isn't he cute?

In other news, I'm preparing for my trip to Pantheacon little by little, and also starting the process of paring down my belongings for my eventual move this coming summer.  I have too much stuff!  So some of it's got to go.
I'm almost finished with my Doctor Who scarf, only have a foot or so left; it's just been a challenge to motivate myself to FINISH it.  It's actually cold here now, though, so I have a little more motivation.

Nice v. Good

I've never claimed to be a nice person.  I can be spiteful, vindictive, passive-aggressive, catty, and cutting.  I dislike children and refuse to respect people based solely on their age.  I am irritable, demanding, and a little high-maintenance from time to time.  I am also a cynic.  I almost always see the glass half-empty.

No, I'm not a nice person.

But I do help out my friends and family, I do give people I care about the benefit of the doubt.  To those I am close to I am generous to a fault with.  Am I altruistic? No.  The plight of children in Africa does not move me.  But if a friend is suffering because his family is treating him like shit, I'll be there for him.  When a friend is miserable in his job, I will be there to support him and to encourage him to find something that makes him happy.

Even when people I care about say things to me that hurt my feelings, I will still care about them.

And even though there have been a few notable exceptions to the rules, they are just exceptions. 

Thoughts on the Holiday season

This falls under the heading of Everything I Know About Magic I Learned From Granny Weatherwax… 

I tend to be a groaner and an eye-roller this time of year.  The tie-ins to Christianity don’t particularly bother me, but the focus on gross commercialism really does.  Because I tend to be what most people would consider a humbug, it should come as very little surprise that I don’t believe in Santa Claus.

I never have.  Mom and Dad had that conversation with me at a very early age, and I was the kid who got in trouble for telling the other kids there was no Santa Claus.  There wasn’t any malice in it; I was just a very honest child.

My friend, who is in his 30’s, does believe in Santa.  Now, I’m all for to-each-his-own, but I do expect the same courtesy.  When an off-handed comment turns into a heated magico-religious debate, there’s obviously a miscommunication somewhere.

Suffice to say, I don’t understand how practicing magic and working with gods and goddesses means that I should believe in Santa.

The thing is, I don’t believe in magic, or in pagan gods.  I don’t have to believe in them.  I’ve experienced them.  You believe in something you’ve never had experience with.  I’ve experienced the workings of magic, and I’ve experienced, quite viscerally if not physically, gods.  I’ve never experienced anything that would lead me to think that there’s a fat guy in a sleigh drawn by deer all over the world in a night.  I have experienced gravity, and wind-drag, and running into a wall.  The experience of all these things only reinforces the dis-belief in Santa.

Do we believe that the Sun will rise in the east(ish) every day?  No.  We have experienced that it has risen every day and so we expect that it will do the same.  You can believe that it’ll rise in the west, or not at all, and that doesn’t make it so.

What do you think?  Does it make me less of a magical person that I don’t share the worldview that “If you just BELIEVE, anything can happen?”