It's not just me...

Doesn't it suck that the people closest to you have no real idea who you are? In my case it's mostly my family, but it can be true with long-term friends too.

It's not their fault, really... not entirely anyway. As we get older and our opinions and lifestyle change, we hide things from the people we think won't approve. It would be nice if the people who "love" us would make us feel comfortable enough to share everything with them, but let's be honest... we are all judgemental and close-minded to something, even the best of us.

And then, of course, we all have those people in our lives that just don't listen. You try to share parts of yourself with them and they either don't stop talking about themselves long enough to absorb it, or they are the type of person who has already formed their opinion of you and nothing you say will change it. I have had both of those types in my "inner circle" and I had to finally walk away to save my sanity.

When you break it down, it's all about self-preservation. I get the psychology of it, it makes sense to me, but sometimes it just feels lonely. We just want people to like us, which is why we essentially lie about who we really are, but what we truly want is for people to like us for who we are.

It's much easier with new people in your life. You can tell them things about yourself and they can accept them or not and you're not too emotionally invested when you or they have to walk away. But with family and close friends there is too much at stake - too many years of history to risk. In most cases it's just not worth the argument, especially with family because you have the rest of your lives to be around them or you can cut them out completely, which is sometimes more painful than helpful.

It really is a balancing act, constantly having to remember who in your life knows what about you and who in your life you can tell certain things to. Imagine what we could accomplish as individuals if we freed up that portion of our brain for better purposes. It would probably just give us more room for song lyrics and quotes from our favorite movies, but it would be nice to have the option.

In the end, interpersonal relationships are just complicated and stressful. I'm not sure there is any way to get around it shy of living alone, having your groceries shipped in and ordering your underwear online.

People are Strange

My beliefs are so strange they even confuse me sometimes.

I don't really believe in anything supernatural, but I still do Tarot and light candles and smudge Sage. I wear a Pentacle ring every day and charge my jewelry on the Full Moon. I long to have my house full of incense and crystals and stones. I would love to get the point where I practice specific rituals on a daily basis.

I call myself an Atheist with Pagan Tendencies. I say that I believe in the "Power of the Earth"... whatever that means! In reality, I can't really explain what I believe, I just do what feels right. I don't feel like I need to know everything in life (or after-life). There are things that we will never know the answers to and maybe we shouldn't.

All we can do is sort out the best way to keep ourselves sane and if that falls into a specific belief or religion, or a dozen, who is to say that we're doing it wrong?

Ignorance is Marital Bliss

A lot has been going on in my life recently; separating from my husband being the catalyst, it seems. I've been struggling with depression for years and I think my unhappiness with my marital situation was the root cause, although I never really fully formed that theory. It's not that I don't love him as a person, even tho we disagree on nearly everything, but I just don't have any romantic feelings for him and I haven't in a long time. Again, however, I never really fully formed that into a conclusion until recently. I honestly thought that since we had been doing it for so long and I never knew anything any different that I didn't really have the option to change it and do something else. It was my own ignorance and fear keeping me from being happy.

Looking at my life now, I'm most excited about being single for what is really the first time. My excitement is not in having the opportunity to meet someone new or to pursue relationships, serious or otherwise, but in being left alone to make the decisions I feel are best for me. I'm most excited about getting to be myself without worrying about someone else's opinions or criticism on a daily basis. I never really realized how much of my time was spent on wondering what he was going to say about what I was doing, the choices I was making, the paths I was trying to discover, and then dealing with the opinions I knew he was going to give me. We see the world from completely different perspectives.

It just occurred to me today how many silly things I would keep from him: the times I forgot the keys, let the car battery die, left the front door wide open... stupid things that normal people would laugh about, but I didn't tell him because I didn't want him to think that I was stupid and make fun of me for it, or even know that I was capable of such mindlessness. It was like our lives were a competition all the time and we were (and still are) afraid to let the other see weakness. That can't be normal. Or if it is, I vote no.

I think what I'm most looking forward to as I look at what I want my life to be now, is in having all of the POWER back in my life. The power to make decisions without worrying about criticism, have opinions without worrying about being judged, being myself without worrying about being mocked.

At 30 years old, I finally feel like an adult.

Faith

I had an interesting revelation recently. Nothing life-altering, really, more like an insight.

My parents live in what I would call the "Deep South". Ocilla/Tifton/Fitzgerald, Georgia. My dad had a heart attack and was admitted to the hospital in Tifton and then Albany, Georgia. For a week straight I've been hearing religious comments from the nurses and the other patient's families. All of them were specifically Christian (and mostly Baptist) statements.

Two of them were repeated often, by various people:

When faced with good news, "God was here today/yesterday, etc."

My favorite is: "I don't know how people without Faith get through this."

I capitalize the word faith because in the Christian culture faith is a tangible, specific idea relating only to the Christian god. When they say "people without faith" they truly mean non-Christians, not just atheists. They are almost all completely unaware that faith can exist in any religion but their own, and if it does exist, it is wrongly placed, or even "a deception by Satan" as I have been told personally.

People only have the strength to handle life's tough situations if they have Faith in God, therefore Strength comes from God alone.

This is the same argument that religious people make about morality. People can only behave well if they are religious (or are of a certain Religion, depending on who you ask), therefore Morality comes from God alone.

This idea that only god makes these things possible seems to go against my opinion that religion serves only as an outlet for Man's egocentrism, but it really doesn't.

Being Strong or being Morally Just is really just the gold star you get to wear for having enough Faith in your God. It's the pat on the back you get from yourself and others for being more Righteous than the next guy.

Fun With Ticks

I camped with my friend Wendy's Girl Scout troop as her First Aider this weekend at Camp Seminole Springs. It was fun, it was hot, and there's never enough food!

Oh, and then there's the ticks. Between 9 girls and 4 adults, each person had at least 2. Some attached, some just creepy-crawling around.

I had 3. Yay. There was a big, fat sucker stuck to the middle of my ass. Double yay.

But no incidents that required any real First Aid skills, so that's good at least. And every time I go camping I learn new things to teach to my own troop.

Girl Scout Camping Guide: Fun With Ticks

I'll write that book some day.

Merry Beltane!!

Happy May Day to everyone.

I had every intention of sending my daughter off to school with ribbons in her hair, but fatigue won out.

It's the thought that counts, right?

I found a couple of great sites yesterday that explain the history and some of the traditions of Beltane/May Day. Enjoy!

here and here

My Religiography

I was raised Baptist by a Preacher's Son dad and a wishy-washy mother who goes along with everything my dad says. I say Southern Baptist, but officially my Papaw is Independent... less organizational rules that way. Fire, brimstone, sin, damnation... the whole 9. He would scream from the pulpit until his face turned the color of a tomato. I wish I were exaggerating. My dad is prudish and strict and both he and his dad are all about appearances. We had to behave and be perfect little angels so that it would reflect well on them both, but ultimately my dad just wanted to impress his father, and still does anything that is asked (or told) by him.Lucky for us, however, my parents only attended church when Papaw was around to see it, and every Sunday for those couple years that we lived by them. They aren't even C&E Christians (Christmas & Easter) when left to their own devices. I got a vague concept of Christianity from my parents.

My mother's parents, however, are the Christ-Loving Christians. They love everyone, do good works, and honestly if it weren't for them, I'd have no concept at all of how Christians are supposed to be and what unconditional love really is. Now, this isn't to say that they weren't taught the same fears and falsehoods, but they handled them better. My Grandpa was judgemental, but it wasn't in regards to religious choices, more of taking responsibility for yourself and the opportunity to better yourself and make a better life (I wonder where I get that from, huh?). I've always had a very close relationship to my mom's parents. Now only my Grandma, and she was the first to sit down with me and try to get a better understanding of my Paganism. Yeah, she freaked out at first and threw holy hell... but after a few days she came back with a piece of paper and a list of questions. We've worked out our issues.

Here's the part where I mention that my dad's parents are rich and my mom's parents were dirt poor. Shocking, I know. Entitlement vs. True Charity and Love.

I always had questions about Christianity that I wasn't allowed to ask (I tried a couple times, not pretty). I always had more Nature leaning beliefs and found more comfort in the woods in the rain than I ever felt in a church. I don't recall ever praying to Jesus. Mine was more a broader concept of God as "Giver of Life" and "Creator of All". I saw God in the sunset, a rainstorm and funny enough, the moon. However, I was married for 2 years before I realized I had the option to be something other than what I was taught. I don't even remember how or when exactly it started, but I began searching online for definitions to other religions and found Paganism. It was a perfect fit. Not necessarily the magical and spell casting aspects, but their view of deity and the innate divinity of Nature itself was exactly how I felt.

It was still a few years after that before I started on my spiritual journey and actually became a practicing Pagan. Complete with the altar that my Grandma found and went ballistic over and called my dad so he could let me have it. And he did. My beliefs didn't waver. By then I had already learned why Christians were taught to hate Pagans so much and how much of their religion is adopted from it. My mom told me "Witches aren't real. They fly broomsticks and are only in the movies." I had already discovered that being a Witch is more about your frame of mind and your connection to the earth and it's cycles.

I was Pagan (never a Wiccan) for a couple years, but I still continued to study and learn about other religions and religion in general. I went from fervently believing in God as a being in direct contact with us, to more of a Deistic view, to full-on Atheism over a period of 3 years. It was hard for me to let go of God. I had a rough childhood and believing that God was watching and loving me through it all is probably what got me through it with my sanity intact (okay, with my sanity only slightly broken).

At this point my beliefs are a little hard to nail down. I believe that all religions are man-made. I don't believe in god in any form. The term "god" alludes to a sentient being that is cognitive. I believe more in a source of energy that is neither. I believe that life and all of existence is about balance. Dark and light, positive and negative. You need one for the other, but you cannot have an overabundance of either. I believe in Karma because the negative energy that you send out is bound to come back to you. (Tho my spiteful nature says that Karma is too damn slow.)

I believe that Reincarnation is entirely possible, but I also believe in the idea of ghosts and earth-bound spirits... so I haven't worked out all the details yet and have no plans to. The same goes for my sometimes-belief in the supernatural and possible magical aspects of life. I don't believe in fate or destiny, but sometimes I do believe that the universe gives us "signs" if we are observant enough to see them. I think that this comes out of my belief in our connection to the universe and all things... we are part of it, it is part of us... what we send out we get back. It's a bit sticky and I'm okay with that.

When it comes down to the base of it, I am probably a Humanist. I believe that the ability to know right from wrong, and behave as such, is a Human characteristic, not one that is dependent on a belief in god. God did not impose his morality on us, we attributed our morality to god. My biggest problem with religion is taking the responsibility away from the individual, both the positive and negative. When a person misbehaves, he is possessed or influenced by Satan (or some other dark force), when a person behaves admirably it is probably because he is a follower of god and full of god's love and righteousness. That takes the credit and the blame away from where it should be: on the individual.

So I guess the biggest question is: Can you be Pagan and be an Atheist? I say yes because my beliefs center on Nature as Divine, not in a sense of Deity, but in the sense of it's innate perfection and balance. It is a balance with Nature and the Universe that I strive for. And since we Humans are a part of Nature and connected to it, that Divinity lies in us as well.