Laying Out a Life

I pray to Artemis when I go to the gym.

I don't generally like going to the gym. I like it once I'm there, but the gym I signed up for is a twenty minute drive away and going to a class takes most of my evening. I hurt for days after a work out. (Less after a kickboxing class.) I despise burpees and the trainers love them. But I go because I do not enjoy feeling weak in my skin. And I go to that gym -- even though it's more expensive, even though it's farther away -- because their philosophy is in line with my own and if I don't have someone to kick my ass I'll sit on the couch and be lazy.

I only manage to go once a week (sometimes twice if I'm doing a yoga class as well). Before each class starts I go to the washroom, touch water to my hands, heart, and third eye, ground, align, and pray. I pray for strength, for endurance, for joy, for power, for determination, for whatever I feel I'm lacking in that moment that will help me get through the next hour. It's my devotional to Her.

I pray to Demeter when I cook dinner. It's a simple food blessing, but it sanctifies the meal and the act of making and eating it:

Goddess bless this food

Bless those who cook it and eat it

Bless those who gave their lives and livelihoods for it

Bless the great green Earth from which it came

I recently had a consultation with a naturopath who suggests a variety of ways to adjust my diet with the aim of improving my overall energy. I know that this deeper relationship with food and energy will also involve a deeper relationship with the Grain Mother.

This is how I honour my gods. It is not just carving out a space and time that is distinct in its spiritual purpose. It is inviting them into my life. It is laying my life out before them and saying "Bless this, enter this, make this better, help it to fuel my purpose." The Sacred is everywhere. We only realize this, and the immense possibility of such a statement, when we start to treat it as such.

What Will You Birth?

What will you birth this year? As the Goddess (re)births the Sun Child take a moment for reflection. What light will you offer to the world? What will you manifest in this turn of the Wheel? What will you create? What will you bring into being? What choice can you make now that will grow your own sacred purpose?

A New Moon, a Bright Moon

Two years ago I moved from a cramped, one bedroom apartment into the house that I share with my fiancé. I finally have my own piece of earth and realized that I have no idea what to do with it. In truth, it goes beyond the land my house sits on. I’ve come to realize that there is little seasonal flow to my life. And as two working under-thirties, my non-pagan partner and I have few traditions that we have built for ourselves. While those will come with time, it’s the lack of spiritual traditions for my solitary practice that leaves me dissatisfied. I have wonderful people that I share circle with every couple of weeks and I do small rituals and devotionals on my own but they don’t feel intrinsic. They don’t feel connected to the greater forces, to where I want my work to bring me.

This is something that I am aiming to change. Seasonal flow, that awareness of the turning of the Earth and how it impacts my life and what I do. That is what I am focusing on this year. I know that it will take work, and patience, and spectacular failures. But I finally know what I want my life to look like in a few years time and I have a plan for getting there in other aspects of my life. My spirituality is too important to me to allow it to lag behind while I plan a wedding and take online courses to prepare for a new career.

I have always thought of Samhain as the end of the old year and the marking of a liminal time of reflection that ends with the return of the light at the Winter Solstice. So it didn’t surprise me when the idea for this blog took hold last month and refused to let go. I fully admit that it is a way to keep track and keep accountable of my efforts towards building a home spiritual practice that I can call mine. New years bring new chances, with the benefit of more experience. Each year we know ourselves a bit better, and each year we are better equipped to work for what we want our lives to be.

Those efforts begin tonight. It is the New Moon before Yule, and so I am building a bridge between the lunar and solar calendars. Each night of this lunar cycle I will light a special pillar candle as part of my devotional practice to call back the light, to call back the parts of myself that I will need to embark on this journey, to begin the work of this turn of the Wheel.

So welcome to my new project! May your homes be filled with love and laughter and may the imminent return of the light bring with it the promise of exciting new opportunities for the year to come.