I got an email last night from a friend of my containing what I call the How question.
"How do you (meaning Witches, Wiccans, Pagans, Druids etc.) find the time to learn everything about your religion? My aunt let me borrow her Book of Shadows when I told her I was interested in Paganism. But I was working full time, taking two night classes, and could barley manage to keep a social life much less learn a Religion. I tried for two years to learn what I could but I couldn't even master basic meditation. How to you find the time to balance your regular life and your Magickal life? I can't seem to see where I went wrong and three years later I'm still interested in learning. Is this why I couldn't find that many teens who were real Magickal people? The ones I met all turned out to be posers who didn't want to study or work hard for anything. How do you do it?"
Would anyone like to share tips or tell how you learned to balance your life to include Magick? You can comment or make a post about it in your blog if you'll link it here.
Just to throw in my 2 cents:
ReplyDeleteThe only thing you need to do, to practice a Pagan religion, is to have a relationship with the deity of your choice - which can be as simple as recognizing the general terms "God" and "Goddess" or perhaps "Lord" and "Lady".
Any of the other trappings, or the magic work, is nice to study and master, but none of it is required to be a Pagan or practice a religion.
My suggestion would be to start off by just taking 2 minutes out of every day to honor deity in some way - weather it's as simple as lighting a candle and saying "I honor you this day" or praying before bed. Then, as you start to build a real relationship with deity, see what pantheon/s call to you. Read a book or two on those.
Then maybe start exploring the different forms of Paganism to see if any one kind appeals to you - Wicca, Domestic Witchery, Hedgewitchery. When you find something that calls to you, start studying it in more detail.
There is so much that you can learn about, so many choices - it can be almost overwhelming when you think you need to learn everything. Just take it one step at a time, relax, and take it slowly. You have your whole life ahead of you to explore all your choices, and you will never stop learning, believe me!
I've been a Pagan for almost 15 years now, and I still learn something new almost every day!
Replies from witchforum.net:
ReplyDeleteLila Nachtfang:
You pose a very good question. I have actually been studying since I was 9 and still don't feel like I know it very well. LOL
When I am at work and have a few minutes between doing things, I do some research online, I look up sites that others have said are good, I look for new ones, etc. and I print everything out. When I am bored I read some stuff here and there, before bed, lunch breaks, that type of thing.
More importantly, I learned the basics and thought about my own feelings on religion and my beliefs. I incorporated how I already felt into the God and Goddess and the elements, and I let my own beliefs form my religion. If that makes sense. LOL Basically I don't "follow" anything unless it feels right to me and I learn as I go. A lot of people I explain this to don't like to hear it; they want a straight answer and they want it written and "this is how it is". Once they let go of that they are able to understand what I am saying. I was like that at one point to. I wanted to learn about Wicca, but I wanted someone to tell me what to do. After a while, I learned to do things on my own, I stopped reading so many books, and I just did what felt right.
Edon:
Well to me it was like learning my old religion. I used to be a Christian and know some of their stories and such. It was just a matter this is a better fit. I have a social life, school, and activities plus a relationship but I practiced meditation before bed when I needed to relax for sleep. I read books and asked questions from older witches. I feel comfortable with it. It never seemed like added work it seems natural to cast a circle and meditate and all sorts of magickal practices. And I just absorbed what I read
The "how" becomes a question of priorities. Is it more important to go to another Saturday night party or to meditate and perform a holiday ritual?
ReplyDeleteEveryone has time issues and constraints in this day and age and life is an ongoing effort to balance them all. If your chosen religion and becoming dedicated to it is truly important, you'll find the time to study, learn to meditate, take a nature walk, whatever you need to become closer to the religion.
I know so many people who are "Sunday Morning Christians" and even some who are "Sunday Morning Pagans", meaning they only show up for rituals. They have no interest in doing the outside work, meditating, studying and growing spiritually, they only want to participate in the "fun stuff" (ie. rituals and/or spellwork). This is not dedicating yourself to a religion, this is paying lipservice and going through the motions.
I just booted a guy out of one of my classes. It's a 12 week class on Beginning Paganism. He was constantly late, had never done the reading, didn't have worksheets done. But, he always managed to show up in time for the closing ritual/hands-on work. He always had an excuse why he couldn't do his work; I had to work, I had school, my GF was mad and wanted to go out etc... My reply after the sixth week was "Everyone else here has the same or more commitments and they get the work done". This guy was someone who didn't want to create time. He wanted all the trappings and fun of being pagan without expending the energy and work to actually become pagan.
So, as to "How" it is done, one must simply decided their priorities and create the time in the schedule for what you or the Gods feel needs done. If you can't find 10 minutes in your day to sit down for quiet reflection or to read a quick chapter of a book before bed, then you really need to reexamine the priorities of your life and where religion ranks in that list.
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How to you find the time to balance your regular life and your Magickal life?
As for this quote above. The two lives should be one and the same. Magic is taking your regular life and making it Magical.