Monday Musing

This is going to be a whiny, mopey, woe is me post, so feel free to skip it - I just need to 'vocalize' it.

Not much to muse on today, just not really feeling it.  What I am feeling is overwhelmed and very ready to beat myself up.  Stress, its a wonderful thing isn't it.  And despite the progress I've made, and I've made a lot  over the years, I still find myself falling back on bad habits when the stress really piles itself on.  I know that working on ourselves is a lifetime project, and that I should be happy that I recognize these things about myself, I just wish I was better able to fight them at the very least and to not have them at all would be great.

So what do I do when I'm stressed, I eat my stress - although I'm trying to be much better at this, and I have improved, it takes a lot of effort not to feel the pull of sugary, fatty goodness when those stress levels rise.  Damaging as well is the attitude I take towards myself.   I have no patience with myself, I have no faith in my abilities and I just feel like a pathetic, useless lump.  This is how I've felt over the last week - progressively getting worse until I had a day yesterday where I basically sat on the couch depressed and tired as all hell and did nothing.  And of course in wasting that day doing nothing I end up beating myself up about the amount of work I have to do and how crappy a human being I am for not having done anything.

I recognize this behavior, yet I can't seem to shift it.  It doesn't last as long as it used to, but it still takes its toll.  I am very much a work in progress.

I need to shake these feelings, I have a thesis to write - and after this experience I have to say I don't know why anyone would put themselves through this, I personally think I'm nuts.  I just have no faith right now in my ability to do this.

Free Friday

Thoughts

How long do you think they'll wait?
Sending signs, pounding on the door, desperately trying to get my attention.
Hopes rise in moments of clarity, when it looks like I've got it,
and then I step back, the edge is too close, there is too much else to do.
Afraid to step forward, dive with arms spread wide and have faith in what is bellow.
Scared to step back too far and break the connection tentatively held.
To want, to need to ache to step forth and yet fight it, fear it.
Fear, not of failing but of succeeding.
Fear of letting go, of not having control.
Fear of being greater in self and having others notice that.
Fear is the journey though, I shall sit stagnant until it is conquered,
but will they sit their on the other side waiting for me?

Copyright Julie Grucza 2012-2013

Thankful Thursday

This week I am thankful for...

1. Little spurts of creativity that come in time to keep me from despairing that I've lost that creative aspect.
2. Time spent with my husband.
3. The ability to afford to spend the weekend in Stanford using their library for my thesis.
4. My family and their unconditional support of what I do (at least the side I still have contact with)
5. My own inner strength, determination and stubbornness. 

Balance

Balance

Windy days have blown away the cobwebs of the past

Now the sun is here again new growth blooms at last

Yet too much sun and life is drained under those beating rays

Too much shade and disease begins, life begins to fade

Balance is what is needed, in life, in us, in all

To walk in the sun, dance in the rain and embrace our shadowy place

To tap into our spirit, to open our wings and embrace the rise and the fall.

Copyright Julie Grucza, 2012-2013.

Musing Monday

I saw this quote this morning and it made me think of a conversation I had last week and that I've had a few times.  We often look at people whom we admire, whom we think are doing and being things that we wish that we could be and we long to be like them yet we forget that everyone has fears, everyone has a past and nobody is as put together as we think they are.  We are all really good at masks.  Masks that we feel we need to wear for our own safety, for the sake of society, because we're just so damn used to wearing them.  But if we are lucky enough we can find a few select people with whom we can drop these masks, people who will listen to your heartbreaking story and hold space for you to be you.  And in having experienced this we can come to see that every person has a story that they hide, that we are all imperfect and that it is okay.

Thankful Thursday

This week I am thankful for...

1. The ability to get together with great friends and discuss spirituality
2. Having a supportive husband who is dealing well with cranky thesis writing me so far
3. Sunshine and rainy days - yes I love them both equally and I'm one of those strange people who doesn't like too much sunshine.
4. Tea, Hugs and Sleep - they make anything better
5. Sleep - I just wish I could get more of it.

What are your tools?

What are your tools?

I've been thinking a lot lately about the 'tools' of my craft.  Its something I've contemplated on and off for quite some time and recently I did a huge cull of my props.  I'm going through a period of re-evaluating my beliefs and solidifying my practice and one of those aspects is looking at the tools I use.  I will admit that much like many who pick up this path (especially at a young age) I started feeling like I needed to have all the tools that the books said.  You know the kinds of books, they tell you how to set up your altar and give you a list of 20+ items that you must have in order to be a Wiccan.  Obviously I progressed past that point, mostly this is a part of growing up, partly it came from moving countries and having to get rid of a lot of stuff, and partly it was an extension of realizing I didn't want to be Wiccan.  I was a witch, but Wicca wasn't the specific path I wanted to follow.

So I moved forward, I didn't have all the paraphernalia but as I recently discovered when I pulled apart my altar and bagged up a lot of things to go to a gypsy swap I still have a lot of tools that I just never used.  There were tools I used to use, when I did more elaborate rituals on Full Moons and High Holy Days but I have moved away from elaborate practices in the past few months.  I have come to realize that I enjoy the simple yet meaningful in my spiritual practice as in my life.  I was trying to create these elaborate rituals etc (and sometimes it is fun and I may do it still occasionally) when in essence I felt more just making it up as I went along, doing what the moment and event moved me to do.  So I got rid of things

I had an athame that I sometimes used to cast circle, but most often I would cast through visualization alone.  Its a very pretty dagger and I will keep it because of that, but it is no longer a part of my ritual toolkit.  I had a chalice, it was a makeshift one that I'd always meant to replace with something prettier but that I never used, so out it went.  My little cast iron cauldron with my salt is still awesome, so it has remained in my home and will eventually reside on my ancestor altar as a place to put offerings (the salt is gone).  My wand - I had a beautiful wand, I never used it, I don't see myself ever using it, so it is gone.  I do have a selenite wand and a sodalite wand (both smaller than the size of my palm) that now reside on my new altar, they each serve a purpose and have special meaning in my heart so they stay, but I don't use them as wands.  I also got rid of my pentacle.

So what do I have now.  Firstly, I no longer have a large altar space in a separate room.  I have a small meaningful altar located in my bedroom and several shrines throughout the house.  What is on this altar?  I have my two crystal wands, an offering bowl, a candle, an oil burner (or sometimes and incense burner) my meditation beads and some crystals for the fey.  It is simple, what is there serves a purpose and provides a trigger for my practices.