Meme: Day 21 – Another moment/21. Other paths I've explored

[witchscauldron]

What, this again?

This isn't a significant moment, but it's one I remember because it's kinda funny. It wasn't at the time, but it's been several years now.

I'm lying on our air mattress in my mother's apartment - we're home for Christmas. Earlier in the evening I'd done some dinner prep, and this involved chopping some hot peppers. I can't remember what we actually cooked, but that's not important.

So I'm curling up with J, trying to fall asleep...and suddenly I am -burning- 'downstairs'. I cannot figure out for the life of me what the hell is going on in my half-awake brain, until:

J thoughtfully points out to me I may have idly...scratched...at something...and perhaps I didn't get all the pepper off my hands. Since now I'm on goddamn fire, I am forced to agree.

Utterly flabbergasted. I'd washed my hands like seven times since then AND gone to the bathroom twice without a hitch like this. So....yeah.

Hot peppers: $2.
Handsoap: $1.50
Managing to not get all the peppers off your hands and spending the night with a cold facecloth on your genitalia: Priceless.




The Path(s) Not Taken

I research everything, when I get the notion. I love to read about other religions, so I've at least done academic exploration of the major faiths, and whatever smaller ones catch my eye.

I practice Native spirituality, at least to some degree. It's a parallel practice, not one I blend with anything else. I hesitate to get into it much deeper than I have, simply because I've taken oaths and I'm not sure how well they'll interact. For me this is my heritage, so it's a connection to my living family, and to my Grandmothers.

I spent several years working at Celtic Reconstructionism. Some of it makes a great deal of sense to me, and has helped me flesh out my own sense of cosmology and the Gods. Most of my major, deep relationships with my Gods occured in this time period - I remember feeling an intense sense of finding 'home', for the first time in my adult life. It gave me a greater sense of my own strengths, and helped me establish my own hearth. And while I still fight with anxiety, this period of time marked a point where I found my own autonomy, and wasn't afraid of it. I dictated my own path, and owned it. Many of my own household practices originate here.

What I had a problem with, overall, was that it felt super-dry to me - too much research, and not enough... passion? I didn't find joy or pleasure in the rites I did - there was a spark of something missing for me. I realized after a while that may be on my part - I was never really certain if what I was doing was ok, or 'right', and things got bogged down in the details. I think if I had let myself be led more by my own intuition, and perhaps developed more along ecstatic lines, it might have stuck with me better. Also, I found the CR community is very contentious over certain things, and tends to split off into little factions really easily. I never felt welcomed by them, or that there was really more than small 'tribes' of people whose research agreed with each other...so in the end I ended up moving back towards seeking Wicca.

Sitting here thinking about this, now, I wonder also if I missed a boat (longboat?) somewhere. As a child the myths I loved the most were Norse. I still have a huge love for their stories, and their lore. I never really got 'tapped' by Them, so to speak, but I have had many friendly and positive encounters with them, and lately I do feel something 'poking' me from that direction. I've always maintained open lines with Odhinn, since I do use the Elder Futhark. Who knows? It never hurts to explore. (And I'm sure my crazy Viking student would be thrilled. :p)

Comments

[misslynx.livejournal.com]

I have learned the hard way that disposable latex gloves are your friend when it comes to cutting up hot peppers. Though in my case, the burn-from-hell was upstairs rather than down - as in, I wear contact lenses. Ow ow ow ow ow.