Sunday, May 1, 2011

Bunnies and Fairies and Warlocks, Oh My!

Goodness, it's been quite a while since I've posted anything....

I received my initiation into the Unnamed Path in early March, and that has been....quite an experience.  Suffice to say, that I'm feeling a -whole- lot more plugged in than I ever have before, to a number of things, and it is both exhausting and energizing at once.  Now I am involved in learning to teach the path as well.  I look forward to watching and helping the next round of men come into our little brotherhood, and am immensely honored to be able to do so.

As I work on deepening and exploring my path, I am finding myself drawn back to basic practices again, and though there was some initial resistance to it, I am glad I've started to do it again.  For a while after my initiation my world was in one upheaval or another, and I feel like I'm just now dragging myself up by the collar and setting my feet back on the ground.  From helping my friend in the aftermath of his apartment fire, through a rather protracted cold, to finally being completely out to my parents...this has been an eventful couple of months.

It's really hard to believe it's only been two months.

At any rate.  I'm struggling right now with work, and with this lingering feeling of being stifled, and smothered.  Amusingly enough, I just did a Tarot reading for myself, around where I am now, and what should come up but the 9 of swords for the spot about my spirit or fate.  This is...not acceptable to me.  So now I'm going to work on remedying that.  Some of that, I suspect, is my unwillingness to let go of some of the petty shit I find myself dealing with on a nearly daily basis at my job, which is definitely stealing a lot of the joy I had about it.  I let myself get too wound up in the drama, and too intimately involved with the personalities of my co-workers.  That's going to have to change.  So I'm going to start the process of disentangling myself, and just focus on doing my job and let other people focus on doing theirs.

Something else that I've been watching is the recent eruption of several sources of drama and contention in the Pagan community.  Granted, these are largely only things that affect me through friends and loved ones that I see embroiled in this, but it's in my nature to try and jump in to help those I care about.

I have seen this ongoing argument about who is a "true" pagan and who isn't, and to be painfully honest, it bores me to tears.  I don't give two flying goat-fucks about who thinks what I do is or is not valid.  As long as it works for me, then it does.  I don't feel that anyone else has the right to tell me I'm "doing it wrong."  This is something that I do agree with from certain...contentious corners.  HOWEVER, I also believe that it is not right and proper to label myself a certain brand of Pagan if I am not in fact adhering to the rites and rituals and practices of that path.  I am not a Wiccan.  I do not practice Wicca.  I do NOT believe in the three-fold law, or the Rede.  Certainly much less now than I used to.  It is not okay to call oneself something that one isn't - trying to seek validity is quite possibly the most futile and useless thing a pagan can do.  Who CARES if some initiated muckety muck thinks that your practice of magic and spirituality is less valid because it doesn't mirror their own?  You will never convince them of it's validity, and trying to change their mind ultimately detracts from the whole POINT of this weird (wyrd?) Pagan path we're on...to, y'know, grow and evolve ourselves, to be more OURSELVES.  Anyone can practise a path without being initiated formally into the tradition.  If you do the Work, and it's Working for you, then you're doing it.  But you can't claim to be an initiate, and claiming to be from an 'ancient and venerable family tradition' just makes you seem like...well, like a fluffy bunny.  Which is a term that I just ADORE, by the way.  Everyone starts out as a fluffy bunny.  The world is full of love and light and we must stick ONLY to the right hand path because to do anything is is just naughty and the Mighty Silver Goddess will frown at us and perhaps we shall be reincarnated into lesser beings!  Oh NOES.

Sorry, excuse my venom. :D  Seriously though...Sufficient magical and spiritual practice and inner work, shadow work, self-healing will educate almost ANYONE regardless of fluffiness.  And I hate to break it to you, Princess Amberglow Moonfyre RavenLyte, but you can claim to be a reincarnated fairy princess with half-dragon half-vampyre half-unicorn half-elf, and I will still think of you as WHOLLY fluffy.  But hey, if it works for you, then what do you care if I think you're insane.  Don't let my utter dismissal and/or contempt stop you from continuing your search for Truth - and don't bother trying to change my mind.

I do not take myself seriously.  I am a Shaman and a Magician and a Warlock (thank you Storm Faerywolf for that SUPERB article, by the way) and I am, ultimately, myself.  And I don't give a boggart's left asscheek whether anyone else thinks I am or not.