The Journal for Magick Women, Pagan Girls and Female Spirituality (original) (raw)
June 29th, 2011
So, haven't been on here in forever. I'm Andrea, 20 year old single mother. I've been drawn to paganism since I was fourteen, I've just never gotten into it. I always chalked it up to feeling akward, or being lazy, or not wanting to do it because I didn't have anyone to learn with.
My boyfriend said he really wanted a partner he could connect with spiritually and it got me thinking. The reason I've never gotten into this is I'm not sure what I want. Well, in a way I am. All throughout my childhood I've had this vision of being in the woods, at one with the earth, at peace and not in any physical pain. Somehow I've wanted to integrate this into whatever profession I chose. But, I've always been ambivalent about becoming really involved with magick because I feel inadequate, and I'm afraid of going crazy. My mother suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and we've never been able to get her to seek treatment- I fear if I don't constantly tell myself how crazy I am, I'll become crazy. At the same time I know my spiritual experiences aren't insanity- so I put on this facade of non-belief and spiritual apathy to everyone.
While energy work is fun and there have been times when I've done really awesome stuff, it's not my bliss. My problem with spiritual progression is I live very much in the here and now. I like learning about herbal healing because it makes me sick less often. I like yoga because it reduces the pain in my joints and from the two bulging discs in my spine. I want to learn reiki because my friend did a short reiki session on my daughter and turned her from a screaming three year old into a much calmer, soon sleeping three year old. My interest in spirituality has always been "how can I make life more bearable here and now?" because my life is kinda crappy.
I refused to learn my times tables in school, and hated math, because my teachers couldn't explain to me how exactly it would help me later on- or they couldn't give me a satisfactory example. Other things that I loved just came to me easily. I find it very hard to do something, to put my extremely valuable and hard to find time into something that is hard work and doesn't produce any immediate results. Doesn't have to be big- just has to be noticeable.
And yet it seems like whoever is watching over me is trying to yank my arm and say HEY, LEARN THIS. I just... idk. Energy work is awesome and all, I can see why it's so popular among my friends, it just isn't my passion. I can do it pretty well for someone who doesn't know what they're doing, but it's work. It takes faith.
That's something else. In the movie Constantine, the main character knows God is real, but doesn't believe. I've been striving to know God is real, and I do. I know it in my bones. But I also know the earth revolves around the sun and we're all made up of atoms. I don't believe, and I don't know how to start. I don't even believe in myself, sometimes, and I'm kinda scared to.
input? Please it's taken me a long time to get this far.