This picture is in color Or so I have been told Yet all I see are streaks of gray Like stinking, putrid mold Something isn't quite right Something sacred isn't here But as I count up all I have There's the taste of rancid beer It lingers when there's laughter It whispers when there's warmth And when I count my sins at bedtime That haunting taste comes forth Yet the world keeps on shifting In its infinite monochrome haze I stare in the mirror and smile But the gray dwells in my gaze. © Mu Antoun "The Feathered Pagan"
Lunar Gods–A Poem By Mu Antoun
Does it glitter in the moonlight Like a dancing flame of life? Does it spin and twirl in the breeze With the grace of a frozen knife? Can you see it if you squint And look beyond yourself in a mirror? Does it lurk within the pages Of your heart in ink, laid bare? If you saw it in the shadows, would you greet it or flee in rage? If you fled, would it still love you As it whimpers from its cage? And if it did, would you feel it As you glorify the sun? Would you know your soul is missing? Would you know your self is shunned? © Mu Antoun "The Feathered Pagan"
Futility–A Poem By Mu Antoun
Baggage, baggage, wherever I go It haunts my frame and fills my clothes I turn around, but feel it tugging A constant reminder of all I'm lugging Numbers and salads for days on end Until at last, I can put it to bed Baggage be gone, I scream in victory! Little I knew, it was all contradictory For my hunger raises its starving head And my will, weak, can no longer plead Food galore, a feast for a shrunken stomach At that point, I begin my fated plummet There it is again, my hated friend I knew the baggage would return in the end The seams are ripping and my eyes keep tearing And in the mirror all I see is a girl forever veering. The whispers keep coming, the disappointed stares They know you have failed and believe you are unaware So I burrow away and throw the key in the gutter Better alone than surrounded by their wounding, crippling mutters. © Mu Antoun "The Feathered Pagan"
The Word Janitor
I mentioned in my last post that I want to stick with this blog, simply because it’s important to me. The exact reasons why it’s important are long, varied, and honestly probably very boring to just about anyone out there but me. But on the off chance someone is interested, I’ll share one of these engrossing reasons.
Simple: I used to be a word janitor, and I figured it’s high time I created my own messes instead of cleaning up after others.
What’s a word janitor, you ask? You may know them as editors and proofreaders. That’s what I used to call them, too, when it was my dream to be an editor in the publishing industry. I just couldn’t wait to clean up all that literary gunk and make it beautiful for the adoring public.
As you can probably guess by my rather dry, not-amused tone, I consider my past self to have been a major idiot in this regard. Just like real janitors, there is no glory in being a word janitor. None at all.
I was excited at first, sure. I had a job (multiple jobs actually) in my field, and isn’t that the dream of every college student? To be fair, in this area I was pretty lucky, not going to lie. Plenty of people don’t get jobs in their fields and I AM thankful I found some related to my degree, so there is that.
But the sad truth is that I was forced to realize I simply don’t like my field. At all. In fact, I came to absolutely detest it. It wasn’t my coworkers or bosses or any of that; they were actually wonderful people, not going to lie. No complaints there at all.
It was, unfortunately, much deeper and more personal than that. See, my dream for many years was to be a writer. A novelist specifically, but a poet or blogger would be great as well. The thought of sharing my writing with the world was like a jolt of caffeine straight into the bloodstream (albeit much less deadly, I’m sure)–it got me out of bed and moving forward on days I really wanted to forget the outside world existed.
But, see, there is a tiny little problem here. Everyone knows being a writer isn’t practical, unless you happen to hit it big, right? Everyone knows most writers have a day job and write as a hobby or side gig, right? Of course, those last two statements are not hard truths by any stretch, but the younger, meeker version of myself believed it completely, and so she sought to find a career that was more practical instead. Editing fit the bill quite nicely; I could get my English degree and work in a related field, while writing on the side. A perfect combo!
It didn’t quite work out like that, though. When I was editing all day and doing my best to make someone’s work not look like it was written by a middle schooler who skipped out on their English classes, I had no desire to write in my spare time. I would sit down to write, and all I would see are errors, errors, gunk, slop, utter garbage to drag out. After spending hours a day being a word janitor for others, I simply couldn’t turn off that part of my brain when it came time to do my own writing. I’ve always been highly critical of myself and a perfectionist, and working as an editor enabled my inner critic like nothing else before this point. I was so focused on finding mistakes and taking out the trash that I no longer enjoyed writing. Everything I wrote became junk, in my eyes. Any criticism I would then receive from outside readers became downright crippling; already believing my writing to be trash, it was far too easy for me to swallow all their sharp words and let them cut me up inside. Such was the fall of my self-esteem.
And worse than that was the resentment. Because I lost my desire to write, I never did do any writing as a side gig or a hobby once I became an editor. Now, remember that writing had been my REAL dream, not editing. Yet I spent my time at work cleaning up the messes of other writers so they could pursue their dreams. It didn’t take long for me to realize I had shelved my own goals so other people could reach theirs, and that was a bitter cup of tea indeed.
Sometimes I would receive particularly bad drafts, filled with terrible run-ons, grammatical errors, and sentences that must have been conceived after a couple rounds of a drinking game, and I would just lose it. I don’t mean visibly; I always kept my cool and worked on. I’m talking internally here. The resentment would rear its head like a grouchy old beast and hiss, “Why do THEY get to be published authors and not me? They don’t even know how to string a sentence together! Why are THEY going to get all the credit, while my name won’t be on the finished product in any way? Why are THEY bringing home double or triple or ten times my pay when I’m spending more time on this then they do?” (That last one was particularly damaging; there were many times I spent more time editing a draft than the writer did creating it. Not fun at all).
And yes, I am aware that a good chunk of these writers (or doctors, depending on the industry; like I said, I had multiple jobs doing editing work) were actually quite talented and just had a rushed day, like we all do. My accusations certainly were not always fair; many times, they were warped and downright arrogant. But fair or not, those intense feelings of hate and poison that rushed through me were very much real, and they stemmed from the simple truth that I did not like the career I had chosen. I had gone from considering myself a writer’s trusty assistant to a word janitor, and that alone shows the downward spiral that went on in my mind. There are many wonderful editors out there, and many wonderful authors who just need a helping hand now and then, but I realized this was not the path for me. I was done being an editor.
Here I am now. I quit my last editing job a few months ago, with the initial intention of running a candle business. As you may have read in my last post, Destroyed Dreams, that didn’t go over so well and I’m quite happy to let that “dream” die alone. After distancing myself from editing and letting go of all that resentment, the blur that was covering my vision for so long has faded. I remember what I want to do, always wanted: To write and share my writing. This is what I should have pursued back then, but the past is over. It’s never too late to try again, though, so here I am, world!
And the best part? I only reread this post once after writing it, before hitting that terrifying “Publish” button up there. So long, inner critic and word janitor! I’m sure another couple look-overs would have served this piece well, but that’s just fine by me. It may be garbage, but this is my garbage, made by me and me alone. Nothing fills me with more joy than that.
Destroyed Dreams
It’s been over a year now since I’ve written anything on here. Unfortunately, this is not at all unexpected. I have a rather bad habit of starting a project with these grand ambitions, engines blazing, and then…I sputter out. Every single time. This blog was just one of many fatalities. I could go on and on about the others, too; I have been trying to start a candle business for the last half a year, and that flopped royally. I bought a (relatively cheap) drumset, played it for two weeks, and never touched it again. I take up drawing or writing a novel or hell knows what and, without fail, I end up torching it and sprinting the other way, trying my best to ignore all my dreams burning behind me.
Why?
I’ve been pondering this question for a while now…or rather, hitting it over and over again while shrieking madly until I finally got an answer. The vast majority of the projects listed above simply did not matter to me, and the few that did ended up dying in my fear.
More specifically: I came to realize I actually have little interest in starting a candle business. I don’t even USE candles all that much, for crying out loud! Sure, I have some on my altar, but other than that, they don’t see much use in my house. If I don’t have a passion for candles, why would I think devoting myself to a candle business would turn out well? It was a stupid idea, and while I won’t go into the nitty-gritty on why I even entertained it to begin with, suffice to say I’m happy to let it rest.
The same can be said for a Paganism-oriented blog, which is what this blog was supposed to be originally. Yes, I’m an Eclectic Neopagan. Yes, I love my path. No, I do not want to write on it every single day for the rest of my mortal lifespan, thank you very much. I just don’t care enough to actually see it through. While that might be sad, that doesn’t mean I have to scrap blogging entirely. From now on, I’ll be taking a very loose, whatever-floats-my-whimsical-boat approach to this site.
And I’m going to do my best to see this one through, because it does matter to me. Writing has always been my life goal, the juice that keeps me plodding forward. The last several years have been a marvelous display of burying myself–and my writing–as best as I can. The criticism I received bit me so deeply that I cowered and stepped away, off of the writing path that was my dream. It wasn’t until I was covered under a mountain of dirt, far off my path, that I realized something has to give here. I want to write, to be a writer. And to be a writer, I need to share what I write in some form. I can’t hide forever, as comfortable as that is.
Maybe someday I’ll actually finish and self-publish that irritating novel that’s been nipping at my mind for the last decade. For now, I’m doing what I can and posting here, as my way of practicing this craft and forcing myself to get used to a public setting. Let’s be honest here: No one is probably going to read this, but someone could, and that’s all that really matters here at the end of the day. I know it’s entirely possible some bleary-eyed anon on the internet stumbles on my blog, thinks it’s the most ridiculous thing ever made, and laughs in my (virtual) face.
Good. That’s better than hiding away in my little private corner, in complete silence and solitude. Something has to change here if I want to finally realize one of my dreams–and if that means dealing with my screeching lizard brain 24/7, so be it.
Happy Spring Equinox!
For those of you who celebrate the Spring Equinox/Ostara, I hope you have a wonderful holiday! The day is off to a nice start here, with my altar being refreshed and updated for the springtime.
I’ve been eagerly awaiting this day for a while. It’s horribly cold around here, and winter lasts forever, so the start of spring is always an amazing day. To celebrate, I’ll be going for a walk later (that may sound trite, but considering it was well below zero here up until recently, being able to safely go for a walk is a godsend). Hopefully, there will be some wildflowers I can respectfully pick and add to my altar later.
For dinner, we’ll be having an egg dish of some sort with lots of leafy greens, ideally. If any of you have Ostara recipes that you enjoy, please feel free to share them in the Comments below. I’m always on the lookout for new meals.
Again, hope you all have a lovely day and can enjoy the outdoors, wherever you may be!
My Personal Rules and Ethics
I have always enjoyed reading about other Pagans’ personal rules, since they can vary so greatly. The following is my own set, which I have in my Book of Shadows. There is quite a bit of repetition in it, since I struggle with some factors more than others (such as setting healthy boundaries between myself and others). In the past, I focused too much on helping others to my own eventual detriment, and so you’ll see this expressed multiple times throughout. Some of the rules I also struggle to follow, such as being open about what I believe with others. I’m trying my best to better live up to these rules as of late, however.
My Rules and Ethics
Do your best not to harm others intentionally. Try not to harm others unintentionally as well, but understand you are part of a giant web, and sometimes, mistakes will happen. Try to live well, respect others, and take care of yourself.
Listen to others, but know you have the final say over your life, beliefs, and actions.
Take responsibility for your actions and life. No one else controls you; only you have the power to decide how you live.
Tragedies and obstacles will appear, but you are always in control of your reactions.
Always seek to better yourself. Understand stagnation is comfortable, but ultimately fruitless. Push your boundaries and find new limits. When mistakes happen, embrace them as opportunities for learning.
Never give away your power. Your strength and freedom is your own.
Respect others’ beliefs, thoughts, and feelings, but not to the extent that they override your own. You are also a person, and you are also deserving of respect.
Try to help others, but realize you are also in need of care. Never focus on others to the extent you make yourself miserable. Others are important, but you are as well. Find a balance.
You can never please everyone. There are 7 billion people in this world; do your best to be polite, but understand there is only so much to be done.
Never take someone’s words at face value. Think for yourself. Decide for yourself. If something doesn’t seem right, analyze why, no matter how strongly the other party may feel about their opinions.
Practice gratitude daily. Thank the gods and higher powers for all they have done for you.
Live honestly and in a forthright manner. Do not hide what you believe or who you are.
Do not cast spells or prayers to harm others. Focus on yourself, when possible.
If someone’s actions are hurting yourself or others, you may protect yourselves or them. Do your best to word it in a way which doesn’t bring specific harm to the person, but protects people, throws the negativity back at the party who created it (since it came from them, you may send it back), or exposes the truth.
Always finish every spell with, “Let this be true only if it harms none, is meant to be, and is for the good of all.”
You may cast positive general spells/prayers for people, such as healing, happiness, and safety. Always finish with your safety catch. Anything more specific or iffy, and ask for permission first.
Your beliefs are your own. Worship any deity or being you please. Practice however you want. Spirituality is personal; you do not need to cast aside something that works for you because it offends others. Actual harm is the only factor you must avoid (such as murder, assault, theft, lying, cheating, slander, etc.). Anything beyond that is subjective and up to you to decide.
Only you will be held accountable for your actions.
Pagan Perfectionist
“Perfectionism” tends to get marked as a flaw that is actually a strength in disguise. People laugh about mentioning it in a job interview, trying to convince the employer that their “flaw” is how hard they work. So it’s a positive trait, then, isn’t it?
I think many perfectionists out there would shake their heads at a blinding speed. Yes, it can be useful in some situations, but for those of us who take it too far, there is hardly anything more insidious and destructive. As a lifelong perfectionist myself, curbing this impulse has always been an issue; it even manages to flare up in my Pagan practices, no matter how much I tell myself to relax.
“Is this offering right?” I muse to myself for the umpteenth time as I sit at my altar, lighting incense for my deities. “Maybe I should give food or a drink instead. Maybe this isn’t good enough, and I have to do better.” Unbidden, my mind latches onto all the perceived inadequacies in my craft: Not sitting at my altar two times a day, as I promised myself I would at the start of the year. Not reading enough books to truly call myself “educated” in my designated path. Not actively working with my guides enough—when was the last time I went on a shamanic journey, anyway?
“I’ll do better,” I think to myself firmly. And sometimes, I do. But oftentimes, by pushing myself forward at maximum speed, always seeking something gleaming in the distance, I stumble. And after stumbling, it can be hard to get up. Drained and exhausted from trying to be a perfectionist, my path switches from something that gives me strength to a soul-sucking force. At these times, the very thought of calling myself a Pagan seems not only ludicrous, but almost insulting to other Pagans. When I am so clearly a “failure”, as I believe in those times, how can I call myself a Pagan amongst those who are so much more put together than myself? They are much more knowledgeable in their path, more certain in their direction, more devoted in their everyday practices. What right do I have to call myself one of their peers, or to attempt writing on Pagan topics?
The silliness of these thoughts is obvious, of course; there isn’t any proof I have truly failed, and I don’t actually know if other Pagans are truly “better” than me, whatever that even means to begin with. It’s nothing but the irritating whispers of anxiety and low self-esteem, fed by my perfectionism. But during these times, the fear can feel very real, and I regret to say it has led to me freezing in the past, where I stay in one place out of fear of moving forward and making my (perceived) situation worse.
At the end of the day, though, it doesn’t matter if I reach the high bar I set for myself, or how I compare to others. All that matters is whether my gods and guides are happy with my progress, and whether that is enough for me. If Ammit tells me she’s happy with my worship, Anuket is telling me to slow down and go with the flow, and Ganesh reminds me I have lessons to learn from these obstacles…maybe, just maybe, it’s time to ratchet down the self-deprecating thoughts and pay attention to what they are saying. After all, they more likely than not have a much better view of the situation than I do. If they think I’m doing just fine and don’t need to be at 110% all the time, then why do I care? What does it matter if I can’t always meet my lofty expectations? All the gods demand of me is that I honor them and keep moving forward, even at a slow pace. One solid step forward is much better than three leaping jumps, followed by stagnancy once the exhaustion sets in.
It can be hard to ignore the pictures of beautiful, expensive altars online, or the recountings of extravagant offerings for patron deities. But whenever I find myself wondering if my bar is too low, if I should set it higher once again, I look at the statues of my deities and remind myself they’re fine with me just as I am.
Finding My Path (Part 2)
This is the continuation to Finding My Path (Part 1). If you haven’t read it yet, please check it out now, and then head back here.
Caught up? Then let’s get going!
As a new, solitary Wiccan, I filled the lack of a coven with books. Many, many books, more than I could possibly name. I read books on Wicca voraciously, trying to learn and implement as much as I could. My first altar was placed on my bookshelf with pride, a little zen garden with various crystals used for the Lord and Lady, along with representations for the elements.
I felt far more nourished than I ever did in my old religion; this helped lessen the trepidation that naturally comes from leaving one path and starting another. When your past religion says everything about your new one is evil and to be avoided, it can place much stress on your mind. There were quite a few moments I almost fled from Wicca, not out of any bad experiences, but because of the old whispers of hell and demons. When these moments cropped up, I batted them away by reminding myself that I was quite unhappy in my old religion, while my new one helped me through difficult battles. Through attempting to rationally compare and contrast my experiences in both religions, I was able to justify continuing forward in Wicca. As time passed, my fears ebbed away more and more, as it became obvious I was much happier than before.
However, while Wicca did give me spiritual satisfaction, it wasn’t perfect. Now, nothing is, of course—chasing perfection is a futile game. However, there were simply some aspects that did not resonate with me. For instance, I felt no connection to the elements, despite trying to honor and include them in my practices regularly. The concepts of fire, water, air, and earth failed to ring true for me, and so I started incorporating them less and less. And then there was the matter of the Lord and Lady. I appreciated the idea of the Goddess, but I didn’t spend much time on the Lord. Slowly, my altar began to shift, with the elements’ symbols disappearing, followed sometime after by my removal of the Lord’s crystal.
Around a year after starting my Wiccan path, I decided it was high-time to interact with others of like mind. Being solitary in real life, while freeing, was more than a little lonely on occasion. I registered on multiple Pagan sites and followed posts on Wicca/Paganism, eager to see all the rich ways others practice their craft. It was through all these online interactions that I realized my view on Paganism had been so very sparse. I had thought Wicca was by far the dominant path in Paganism, followed (at least in part) by nearly all who called themselves Pagan. I had taken for granted that all would follow the Wiccan Rede, or the Threefold Law. Suffice to say it was quite a shock to find that the Threefold Law is not followed by the general Pagan community. In hindsight, this was incredibly narrow-minded of me to assume, but with only specifically Wiccan books as my guide before this point, I simply did not know any better.
After my initial shock wore off, I was enchanted by what I found: I discovered that many Pagans do not worship the Lord and Lady, with some choosing to solely honor specific deities instead. Some Pagans were completely fine with casting curses, while others worked with demons or darker entities. On the flip side, there were those who refused to touch any of these things with a pole. And then there were all the varied groups under the umbrella of Paganism: Druidry, Kemetism, Asatru, and many others. While in theory I was aware of at least some of these groups, it had never hit me how relevant they were until I interacted with others. My limited view of Paganism expanded in such a short amount of time.
While some areas did admittedly scare me away, such as working curses, I began implementing these new discoveries into my path. Specific deities entered my practice, while the Goddess took a back seat and eventually disappeared. I gave up trying to find meaning in the elements and cardinal directions entirely. I followed the Wiccan Rede, more out of personal philosophy than anything, but discarded the Threefold Law as a hard truth. More time passed, and one day, it hit me: I was no longer Wiccan. While I had never tried to deliberately leave the religion, all my little edits and substitutions here and there had added up. With gods from multiple pantheons, a strange hodgepodge of many different paths, and a penchant for discarding anything that did not make sense to me, I was solidly an Eclectic Pagan by this point.
What I lost in structure, I more than gained in freedom and unlimited potential. I have never been the type to take something at face value; if people claim that something is the correct way, but I can’t logically understand their reasoning, I’ll walk the other way. Being eclectic gave me the ability to not accept anyone else’s dogma. My path was my own, which meant I was free to pick, choose, and make mistakes. If something did not work, I would understand why because I had tried it for myself. From there, all there was to do was pick myself up and move on.
And this is where I am now, as an Eclectic Pagan who loves getting messy. Piecing together a path can be difficult, but it’s one of the most rewarding experiences I can imagine. For me, there is nothing more satisfying on a spiritual level than communing with my gods, practicing my craft, and knowing my path is always free to evolve with me as time passes.
Finding My Path (Part 1)
Everyone has their story on how they found the spirituality that best suits them. This is my own. Please note: I refer to the religion I was born in, Christianity, throughout this post, as I do not want to censor anything. However, I do not mean any disrespect to Christianity whatsoever; there is much wisdom in the path, and I know it works wonderfully for many. This is just my story on where I came from.
Back in my earlier years, shortly before I was to begin Confirmation (a sacrament in Christianity where children decide they want to devote themselves to the religion), I was very much torn on what I believed. On the one hand, all my family and friends were devout Christians, and I didn’t want to go against them; after all, they meant the world to me, and if something worked so well for them, why wouldn’t it work for me? On the other hand, I knew that I was not being spiritually fulfilled. Where my family talked about the love and grace of Jesus, I felt only a hollowness; no matter how often I tried to pray through Him, I never heard or felt anything in return.
The distance and repetition of the weekly mass also left me feeling dissatisfied. Attending mass never nurtured me. I felt only lost and alone, wishing I could be out in nature or actively participating in the worship in some way. Knowing that my Confirmation was quickly approaching, I wanted to study other religions first, to be sure that Christianity truly was the right religion to me. If I was going to devote myself to something, I should know inside and out that this was the right path for myself.
Around this same time, a well-meaning teacher was shocked by my love of the Harry Potter series. Wanting to turn me away from the series, she gave me one of those many anti-Harry Potter books. You know the kind; they were everywhere back in the heyday of the Potter craze, preaching about the dangers of the series and how your children will fall into witchcraft and the like. Since I had great respect for this teacher, I read the book cover to cover, hoping to gain some insight as to what was wrong with the beloved series.
There was just one problem—it didn’t quite work out that way. To this day, I will forever point to that book as what started me on my Pagan path. I was incredibly disappointed by what I found within that book’s covers. The Christianity it spoke of was filled with judgment and fear, and in my time of questioning the religion, it only served to push me further away. Of course, in hindsight I know that this book presented a very skewed, extremist view, but at the time, this had a huge influence in how I viewed the religion.
There was also the matter of how it presented Wicca. Before reading the book, I had never heard of Wicca, thanks to my sheltered upbringing. The book chastised Wicca as being an evil religion of the devil, citing how children who read Harry Potter were bound to be led into its grasp. The way Wicca was presented didn’t seem right to me; even having never heard of it before now, I could tell the book was again heavily biased. None of its arguments convinced me Wicca was evil, as the author’s reasoning revolved around verses in the Bible. To be fair, this certainly works for fellow believers. However, for someone on the fence about Christianity, I wanted actual examples and statistics on why Wicca was a negative movement.
I went to my library and found actual books on Wicca, and sure enough, my suspicions were confirmed: Wicca was not even remotely devil-worship, but was instead a peaceful nature religion. This served to lower my impressions of the book even more, but more importantly, it gave me a direction: I had always loved nature, and equality of the sexes was (and still is) very important to me. Here was a religion that honored both. Wiccan teachings resonated with me far more than Christianity ever did, especially with the doom-and-gloom judgments in the anti-Harry Potter book still ringing in my ears.
I was forced to go through Confirmation, as I was not allowed to seriously consider other religions at the time. However, I kept Wicca in the back of my mind regardless. Under the guise of school projects, I researched various religions in zeal throughout the years, including Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and many others. This gave me plenty of time to see what religions resonated with me; while there were many aspects of other religions I appreciated, it was always Wicca that called to me the most. Once I became old enough to truly choose for myself, I started practicing Wicca and officially cut ties with my old religion. And so began my path.
While I am no longer Wiccan anymore (being Eclectic Pagan, which will be covered in Part 2), this was how I initially started down the road, and so I like to pay it homage from time to time. I still find it rather interesting that it was not Harry Potter that led me astray, but rather, an anti-Harry Potter book meant to warn of its dangers. As much as I may dislike the book, for this reason it holds an almost spiritual significance for me. It just goes to show how inspiration can come through in the most unexpected places.
A Final Note: I want to take another moment to stress I do not mean to insult Christianity in my above post. Nowadays I have a much more positive view on the religion, but ill feelings were admittedly part of what led me away back then. I wanted to share that, rather than cover it up. I mean no ill will to any Christian readers out there; if your path brings you happiness, then I’m glad for you!
The Plump Gryphon 