Normally, you’re supposed to magickally clean things out at Samhain, so you’re ready to plant in the spring. Instead, we’re having spring and summer cleaning here – really, it’s likely to be all year cleaning, which makes some sense, given the instability we’ve had the last 2 years with my son’s medical condition. Things have built up, and we need to figure out what’s working and what’s not so that we can move forward.

This year, we’ve sold off the remnants of our Pagan wholesaling business. I’ve shut down one ill-timed writing project. I’m closing up my baby sign language classes. I’ve shut down a number of websites, left a lot of groups and message boards, and spent a lot of time conserving energy.

At the same time, I’ve been planting a few new seeds, in corners of my life, to see what takes root and what doesn’t. Things that make me happy and things for my family are at the top of the priority list. We’re hoping for some great strides on the medical front over the next year, and we will see where that leaves us.

So, with that, Happy Solstice, one and all – I hope that this next turn of the wheel brings you everything you desire.

When I think of energy work, I often think of the Reiki shares I participated in as a part of my training, or of the healing groups who work at psychic fairs I’ve been to, standing around someone on a massage table, waving their hands around the person they’re working on. I did energy work on my own, long before I could afford Reiki training, and long before one of my former high priestesses declared that every witch in her circle would get an official Reiki attunement as a part of their training.

I’ve been doing Reiki on my son since before he was born. I actually took my Reiki II attunement when I was 5 months pregnant, shortly before his premature birth. After he was born, Reiki was one thing we could do to help him grow stronger, even when he was too fragile to be held.

My son, Acorn, is now almost two. Even now, we use energy work to help his body grow and heal the damage that was cause by his early birth, and we use it extensively when he’s upset or unable to calm down enough to sleep.

In addition to normal toddler anxieties, Acorn has had a lot of traumatic medical experiences in his short life, and as a result, shows extreme anxiety about a lot of things. I’ve been thinking lately that if I could help him learn to do a little of his own energy work, it may help things.

Now, keep in mind, I’m talking about something age appropriate here – toddler-level visualizations, like colors and shapes, not complex symbols and attunements, and not working on other people, just himself.

The technique we’re using thus far has been to start with bedtime. It’s a good time for us to work on intentionally calming ourselves, since we must make a transition from active to more calm and relaxed to go to sleep, and a good time to focus without being rushed. Besides, anything that helps make bedtime go more smoothly is a positive thing.

We start by sitting together, with Acorn in my lap. I talk a lot about how we’re going to sit quietly and relax, how we’re going to take deep breaths, and just sink into the chair. Then I start describing a glowing ball of light around him – a big sparkly egg of white light. Once his shielding is pretty well in place, we talk about reaching down into the earth, and letting all our extra energy go down into the earth, or if we need a little extra, pulling it up into our bodies. Finally, I run my
hands from chakra to chakra, explaining what each one is for, and what it should look like, and work on clearing any blockages we find.

Usually, he watches and listens very attentively, even if he was otherwise distractable before the session. I can tell from his reaction that he knows something has changed when I clear blockages. Sometimes he grabs my hand and moves it from one chakra to a different one – inevitably that’s the one that needs work.

Over the last few months, I can see a difference in his ability to maintain his own shields. There’s less patching to do, less overall balancing that needs to be done.

Finally, we get him in a comfortable position, and I gently guide his energy into a more relaxed state. Sometimes it’s as simple as a bit of Reiki, other times it’s actively shifting the energies of an over-tired and over-stimulated toddler into something calm.

I think, overall, that it helps us have a more calm and manageable life, and it helps him learn to control his energies on his own, something I wish I’d learned earlier in life.

I’ve been reading the blogs of a few big-name bloggers who recently went on a “mission trip” to Africa. While there, they learned what poverty looks like, up close and personal. They encouraged their readers to sponsor children. They saw both the natural wonders of the area they were in, and the misery of the people.

Several have said that they’ve come back, and are feeling spiritually broken – under attack – because they feel overwhelmed by this new knowledge, and by the comparison of their very comfortable lives at home to the lives of their hosts.

I think, though, that they’re not any more broken than they were when they left…it’s just that they see their disconnection from the world now, whereas before they could safely ignore what their consciences told them was true: Most of us talk a good game, but rarely get off the couch, and when we do, it’s only to move to a slightly less comfy position.

We don’t step out of our comfort zones.

We don’t help people who don’t look/act/think like us.

We think taking care of the earth means separating paper and plastic for the recycling guy to pick up.

I think being more mindful of our place in the world and the privledges we have come to expect is a good thing; I don’t think beating ourselves up over it serves any purpose other than to look for a way to close the door on the knowledge that we *are* separated from the world around us by the things we say and do.

…specifically, the smallest ones.

Granted, this issue comes up regularly in my head because I have a toddler, and I’m Pagan.

It seems to me that there are a lot of “Pagan Parenting” resources, if you’re willing to look for them, but that most are geared towards teens and tweens, and most assume that the child is something of a blank slate – they basically become Pagan 101 for big kids (actually, most are Wicca 101 for big kids, but that’s another essay)…and that leaves those of us with littles, exposing them to Pagan beliefs every day, in something of a black hole.

Part of the problem, of course, is fear – fear that others will use our religion against our children, fear that “concerned citizens” will try to have our children taken away. But the truth is that there are bullies everywhere – even Christian kids get bullied…and if the rest of your life isn’t in a shambles (ie, your house isn’t filthy, there’s food to eat, the utilities are working, and your kids have a place to sleep), even children’s services isn’t likely to do more than ask some questions.

Another part of the problem, though, is how things are structured. Because our communities are so small, most of us are solitary practitioners most of the time, or we belong to covens and circles meant for adults. While there are more and more Pagan “church” organizations out there, it’s still hard to find places that are really open to having children in ritual, or who have plans for the Pagan version of “kids church” and/or “Sunday school.” It leaves us with no obvious way to fulfill both our personal spiritual needs and those of our children.

We don’t know *how* to raise our kids as Pagan children, because we weren’t Pagan as children, and we see so few children who really are Pagan. We see parents who raise their children to be open minded…parents who teach their children to write in magickal alphabets and to recite lists of correspondences…but these are the outer trappings of being Pagan, like going to church is to Christianity. Sure, most Christians go to church, but not all who go to church are truely Christian, and so it is with lighting incense and colored candles.

This sort of hole for parents of younger kids frustrates me…and you’d think it’d be a source of inspiration for an aspiring writer, but right now, what I need is simple, straightforward information, because I’m the mom of a toddler, and chronically sleep deprived.

The other morning, I woke up, and it hurt. My arms hurt, my calf muscles hurt.

Hurting was a good thing though. I’d spent the previous day’s karate class working pretty hard, but at my private lesson after class, I said to my instructor, “you know, I think I’m doing something strange when I punch – can we work on that?”

And so we did – 30 minutes of punching over and over again, with plenty of constructive criticism. One thing my instructor points out is that as you become stronger, you have to go back and refine the things you learn in the beginning – a few tweaks here for more power, a tweak there to your form so that the next move works better – but that needing to make those refinements is a good thing, because it shows that your technique and endurance are improving enough that form matters.

I’ve been taking karate classes for about 2 1/2 years, minus a break for my health before and after giving birth to my son. I’ve earned 4 belts in that time  – I’m slow on that front, but I’m also balancing enough things that I only make it to class one day a week, so that’s ok. Most of the time, I come out of class tired and hungry but otherwise unfazed. Those first few months, sure, I hurt after every class. But now? Now my muscles are used to doing these things.

So the soreness was a surprise – a welcome surprise, really, because it means that I did good work, and learned to use muscles in a way they don’t normally get used. Knowing that I’m improving, that I’m slowly but surely getting to the point of being physically able to do things I never dreamed of doing….that’s good for the soul.

I look around though, and I see the same thing in the spiritual and magickal practices of many people. Most of the time, we don’t stretch our muscles. We do the same things over and over, and end up in a bit of a rut. And while there’s something to be said for daily practice, I have to wonder if anyone else thinks about how to perfect that practice, how to stretch a bit or expand on it. Even non-daily practice, we do what we’re comfortable with after a while, rather than trying something new or different.

My intent for this year: stretch, metaphysically speaking. Do something new, something different, something unexpected.

And while I’m at it, maybe you should look around and consider doing a little metaphysical stretching of your own.