#multiple episodes about pagan cults and practices? absolutely!

[microsuedemouse]

Midsomer Murders is not afraid to reuse episode tropes in slightly different ways, and honestly? I kinda respect it! like - yeah, you’re on season eighteen! go ahead and do another UFOs and aliens episode! you’ve earned it!

[thatferalbogdruid]

Grimoire Blog #1 - 10/13/23 @ 6:33am, Friday

_my thoughts on gods and doubt_

This definitely won't be comprehensive, just me starting a little blog journal of my thoughts. This topic is one that's very present for me now that I'm in my own space with time to think, and quite honestly is on my mind a lot, so I'm starting here. As I always feel a bit lost on the gods front.

Since I grew up in a cult-ish environment with an oppressive god that I tried so hard to believe in, I think it'll always be hard to wrap my head around deity work. I'm aware of this, and know that's my own road block to face. I absolutely love to hear other pagans speak about their super personified relationships with their deities! I think sometimes I try to mirror that in my speech too, but it's never really resonated for me.

For me, my relationships with the beyond have fallen past words, at least now that I've connected to what I feel are their sources instead of their ideas. Before I even started deity work, when I first started my path, I wanted to be a secular witch, because I was so far traumatized by the idea of having a "god." But then I "felt" them, and got curious. Then I started having dreams that eventually led to my meeting An Mórrígan, Helja, Venus, and who I call 'the Wilds,' over a span of many years. Through many of the dreams, things were impressed upon me that surpassed any human language I know of. But even just writing that out makes me feel kind of insane.

Maybe I'm gaslighting myself? I am quite the skeptic! But at my core, I do believe there's more than the physical world in front of me. Maybe I'm fucking off my rocker -- and I am, I don't put that past myself -- but I still haven't found the balance here for myself. I don't know how to fully incorporate this belief into my practice in a way that feels solid and consistent because I continue to have these doubts.

I'm also, completely open to the idea that it's something like a placebo. Maybe the gods that have chosen me are just personifications of different facets of myself. Maybe it's all just psychological and I find myself drawn to archetypes that help me better myself. Maybe I'm giving an old name to concepts and physical aspects of the world so that they're easier to digest and incorporate. Like if I were to honor a sun god, I would simply be acknowledging that the sun exists, and giving it reverence. But does that reference really beg for me to name it? Why do I feel the need to name them? Because I often don't, that's why I ended up working with 'the Wilds,' because there is still something incredibly formless that sits beside my soul and helps me grow and break out of the confines I was steeped in in my youth and adolescence.

I guess the point of this entire blog is that I don't know who the gods are to me or how they fit into the fold of my perception of reality. To what degree am I leaning too far into "magical thinking" and losing touch with reality? As someone who's experienced an episode of minor psychosis, I'm scared to slip too far out of reality, and scared that my spirituality doesn't help. However, my spirituality is very important to me, and I don't see the harm in looking at life through a metaphysical lens. But then, I was never allowed to know a scientific reality in my youth, so am I still avoiding it? Where do these things mesh?

Maybe I just don't have it figured out. That's fine with me, because I know I never will in full. But I do want to find some explanation for myself as to why these things are hard for me to conceptualize. And maybe I don't need an explanation either, but I almost feel like I need a solid defense for myself, especially living in the South, where people get very in-your-face about religious beliefs. Hell, the reason I still lovingly cling to the term "Heathen" even when I've started following the Druid path more exclusively is because it's been used against me in a derogatory sense multiple times before, even by my own family (shocker, lol).

For now, I will still wake up and call out to Anmórheljave, and call to them before I sleep. I will still stand in the rain and call to the Wilds and ask them to stay with me. I will still talk to all of them through my days like a revered friend with more wisdom and experience than me. I will still set up altar spaces for them when I'm finally settled into my new house. I will still offer what I can to them. I will still request their aid. I will still love them.

And one way or another, I'll find the other side of these doubts. I can't wait for that day to come.

~ Willow ~