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.

Clue-by-four of the week: I know what I’m doing, I know what I need, and if I don’t find it within, I will surely not find it without – so I might as well get on with it.

 

Last night, I did the unthinkable. I went, completely blind, to a meeting about a local “women’s circle” and their upcoming initiation program for the year.

I should have checked the website out before I decided to go, but I really needed out of the house for an evening, and several friends from my online attachment parenting group were going, so it was, as far as I was concerned, a safe place.

And it was, really…a room full of women, some seeking that elusive something deep in their souls, and others who felt they’d found it or were finding it.

And really, what I was looking for was that experience of circling with women – being together as sisters with the same goal. As I mentioned last night in circle, sitting with women offers a very different balance than anything else I’ve ever done. But this group was just not right for me – the energy was off, the “eclectic mix of Native American and Eastern Religions” not my thing, their designation of elements and directions jarringly uncoordinated….just the wrong energy for me.

To be fair, I have a few quibbles with their way of doing things. Starting the meeting by casting a circle without actually explaining anything about what you believe or giving anyone an out, for example, was something I was always taught was poor form. And the salesmanship while in circle, because, you know, personal development is never about the money, but there’s a cost for this training, see…a FOUR FIGURE cost…and if it’s important, you’ll find a way to afford it – that’s just tacky.

I also was disappointed in the way they went around and asked each of us whether or not we’d be joining them. Of course, the two who said yes were congratulated. There was approval for the woman 8+ months pregnant who said no (because while they’ve had pregnant women do their training, doing it with a babe-in-arms is probably not manageable), and for the mother with the 4 month old who said no….but not for the out-of-work mother whose husband is working a waitstaff job to pay the rent because he’s been unemployed 2 years. Nor was there approval for the mom who said she needed to think about it. And there wasn’t support for my answer that I’d normally want time to sit with this energy and understand how/where/if it fit, but that my child needed me and I couldn’t commit to the time….when questioned further, my explanation of preemie on a vent was met not with compassion, but with quiet resignation that I could not put my own needs first (hello, kid needs to keep breathing?!?)

If I’d done a bit more homework, the fact that they do sweat lodges would have made me stay far away. Not that there’s anything wrong with sweat lodges, mind you – I’m sure my finally-enrolled-Oglala-self ought to get back to the reservation and do a real one some day. But people who aren’t Native American who claim to run “authentic” sweats that they supposedly learned from “real” Indians always make me cautious…even more so when they charge for their services.

When I got home last night, I was torn. I realized that I really do want that connection, that sisterhood experience, in my life – and the sisterhood aspect was at odds with what I’d just experienced. The family-based work I’ve been doing is not bad, or wrong, but it doesn’t fulfill this other hole in my life. And because my own spiritual well isn’t being filled up most of the time, it’s hard for me to carry that over into my husband and my child and the stream of people in and out of our house to care for my child.

Talking it over with a close friend, I realized my take on the group was probably reasonable, and that I definitely didn’t belong there. I made an off-hand comment that I wished I could find a reasonable group, and that it still looked like I was going to have to start my own to get it, and I was just so damn tired of being in charge.

The response: You end up in charge because you’re good at it, so when are you going to take the hint and get on with it and make it happen?

 

Yeah…even my friends are handing out clue-by-fours these days.

So, in between everything else, I suppose I need to figure out what I’m going to do now that I’ve got the clue. How do you start a circle from the ground up? How do I want to structure it? How do I want to advertise, so to speak? Do I want to stick with the same initiation structure that my former coven used? Way too much to think about really, given everything else on my plate.

So, I suppose it’s like eating an elephant – one bite at a time.

Long time, no post. It has been a rather complicated year, with the baby spending more than 9 months in the hospital, my husband breaking his leg in a car accident, and so on and so on. It’s kind of put spiritual life on hold, because there’s just been too many other things that needed to be dealt with.

But it’s time to get reorganized, and get things back into a more regular rhythm.

I’ve been studying with FWTI’s degree program, which has been interesting. Having things rooted in our household rather than in a coven out there somewhere is a good place for me right now – I often don’t have the time or energy to put things together to go somewhere else, and even when I do, I have to leave my son with my husband – we have no one who can babysit,  because of his medical issues  – and that takes up one of my “credits” for time that I will take solo baby duty.

Another thing I’ve been studying this past few months is Zen Buddhism. I really like the zen approach to dealing with suffering – separating emotions from events. Not that emotions aren’t important, but I have a bad habit of getting tied up in the emotion, rather than dealing with it and moving on.

For the record: me and antidepressants have some issues…like not being able to write or meditate. There’s a fine line between enough meds to cope with major issues, and too much. I gave up on them again a few months ago, and I suspect I will be working on more effective ways for me to deal with life.

For now though, I am feeling more connected to my Gods than I have in months, more whole, more comfortable in my skin, and more at peace with where I am on the path. I do not need power over others to be powerful. I do not need to stand in my own way of manifesting the things I need and want. I am beautiful, and I am Goddess – and so are all of you.

It occurred to me this morning that blogging (and, by extension, writing in general) is something I use as a magickal tool.

In most magickal systems, we talk about words having power – and writing weaves those words together. Writing creates a sigil of sorts – while the typical sigil condenses an idea into a single symbol, writing works in something of an opposite way, constructing lots of little symbols into a coherent whole (where the post or article or poem or story is, as a whole, the sigil).

The beauty of blogging is the submit button. It’s the ultimate symbol of sending that energy out into the universe – you know that while you might go back and edit your post, you must assume that people will have already read that initial burst of words as soon as you hit submit, and thus it’s hard to change what you’ve written once it’s sent. It’s somewhat akin to the commonly used technique of writing on a piece of paper and then burning it in ritual.

My preferred usage for this technique is for transforming negative energy into something more positive, or for drawing specific things into my life. I frequently post something because I’ve spent too much time thinking about it – and at the moment, battling depression and under a lot of stress, it’s easy for that energy to build up in a destructive way – and by posting, I can let it go, and forget about it (which is what is typically done with sigils – charge, release, and ignore).

So, when stress builds up, I use that energy to write down all the things that are bothering me, in hopes of excising them from my life, and I post that on my blog. I always feel better after I do, because I’ve cleared out the energy blockage and have provided a way for the energy to be more productive.

I had a rather odd encounter in a meditation last night. But I think you need the background to really understand it.

Not quite a year ago, I took Kali up on a promise she’d offered me: she would wield her axe on my behalf if I chose the target wisely. I had sat on that promise more than a year before being ready to choose, not sure that I was wise enough to make that leap, or strong enough to accept the consequences. In that time I spent waiting, I got to know her better, left libations for her, and came to something of a working arrangement. And when the time was right and the need was great, I asked for something I couldn’t have gotten to easily without divine intervention: a lack of fear.

Not that I’m not still afraid from time to time, but what I got out of this request was a profound diminishing of unjustified unreasonable fears, and a better grip on the difference between things that are worth being afraid of and those that are not.

Was it a wise choice? I’m still not sure, but I think it’s better that I’ve made the choice than not.

Over the last few months, with the growing baby in my womb foremost in my thoughts,  I had felt somewhat of a distancing from Kali, and from the Gods in general. Not that they weren’t there, but that they were taking a step back to let me ponder things in my own time. And for a while there, I wondered if Kali was going to let me go completely.

When things got a bit rocky with the pregnancy, I remembered a story I’d read about her – unborn children were often offered to her for safekeeping; she’d either see them survive and flourish or take them as her own in death. A fitting request for me to make then, since she had played a hand in me getting pregnant to begin with. But still I felt a distance.

When we did the reiki workshop, one of the other girls came out of a practice session with a message for me: Hera had once been the Goddess  people prayed to for children, and some of her priestesses had been given the gift of bestowing the blessing of a child on women. If I wanted this gift, I should work with Hera and ask her for it.

Hera has never been much on my radar screen. I thought the timing was interesting, given the seeming distance growing between Kali and I, and that maybe it was time to move on and grow in a new direction. I even started running across articles on Hera here and there as I worked my way through the backlog of magazines at our house.

This weekend I ended up back in the hospital, and it appears that, barely 6 months pregnant, we’ll be staying here until the baby is born due to the continuing complications. Lots of rest, and lots of meditation have been the order of the week, trying to keep blood pressures down (or at least stable and treatable, since I’m now on two separate meds, and the key factor on my side is that as long as the BP is manageable, the baby stays in unless she shows signs of distress).

At any rate,  it’s been a rough few days, and the clarity of what to be afraid of and what to let go has been a blessing – although the things that don’t involve fear are harder to erase, like, “what did we do wrong?” and “why do so many good things in life get ruined?”

Meditating on those last night, I found myself in my hospital room. Arianrhod, who has always been beside me on my journey sat on my bed, holding my hand and comforting me. Kali stood between me and the door, sword and axe drawn, looking rather vicious, in a very obvious “guard” stance. She stepped aside to reveal that the door now had a window, and knocking on the door looking in was Hera, looking regal and composed, waiting to be let into the room.

I was a bit taken aback by this, and Kali looked at me and said, very plainly, “Maybe you should ask her what you get out of this deal. What has she done for you that makes her worthy of your honor?” I looked at Hera intently, and there was no answer. I looked at Kali, trying to understand her motives.

And then life interrupted as the real-world door opened,  snapping me back to reality.

I don’t quite know what to think of this all at this point. It will take some thinking to figure out where to go with it, and what to do about Hera.

Maybe my Gods seem far away because I’ve been in such an odd spot, sort of backed into my own little corner,  not paying much attention to anything else while I dealt with life here in my immediate sphere. And it’s hard to say, but maybe this suggests that I should learn more about Hera before I jump in with both feet, more the way I did with Kali – Kali is still here as guard and guide; certainly that strength is something I need right now. But over the next few weeks, there is plenty of time to ponder the situation, since I’m officially on medical leave for the duration.