I know it is only New Year’s Eve (well, the calendar new year, the Wiccan/Pagan new year was back on October 31/Nov 1), but I am saying it now in case that I do not get back to this blog in order to talk about it. Normally I do not make resolutions simply because I am not very good at keeping them, but I have decided to make a few resolutions this year.
1. My first resolution is to find a way to be “witchy” without offending my housemates. If this entails nothing more than quietly sitting outside just gazing at the moon and counting the blessings that Goddess has brought me, then so be it. But I will find a way to be “witchy.”
2. My second resolution is to get more familiar with my tarot decks. I will spend some time with each card – 1 per day. I believe what I am going to do is start a daily blog/twitter exercise. I will take one card from my deck, going in order. I will study the card and give my impressions. On the blog, I will probably also give the meaning for the card given in the book.
3. My third resolution ties in with the second in that I am resolving to be more active on my blog here. I need to start working towards blogging here more. I have been very lax with this blog in the last year or two and that needs to stop. There is no point in having a blog if I am not going to utilize it.
Have you made any resolutions for the coming year of 2010?? Anything you want or need? I am hopeful for more blessings through the coming year and that any and all drama and unhappiness will be far outshined by the good and happy times!
Well, here we are. Yule. I hope you all have a blessed day today. I am planning on seeing when the sun is supposed to rise today and hopefully will be able to be outside to greet the newborn sun. It is not much, but it is something I can do that will, hopefully, not raise any alarms as to the fact that I am “practicing” my faith where I live. I can’t wait until I am able to find a job and get my own place again so that I might begin to replace my tools and books and start to live my life the way I wish to live it again.
A friend of mine and I were having a discussion about some issues she has going on and she said someone at her church told her it was the devil. I have always hated this explanation, even when I was a Christian because it felt to me like I was putting the blame on someone else for what could have been caused by my own actions. My friend said this is what her church believes – that bad things that happen are because of the devil. So I asked her how she could say that God tests people’s faith if all of the bad things are of the devil and she said because she attributes the good things to God and then said let’s not talk about faith, you don’t see me putting your faith down.
Funny – because in a way she does all the time. She’s always telling me I don’t believe in God – at which point I have to correct her and remind her that I DO believe in God just not in the face/form she does. I also keep having to tell her that I do not believe in the Devil because humans are to blame for their own actions. If I pick up a gun and shoot and kill someone, it was not the Devil, it was ME. I did it. Not the Devil. I also do not see how God/dess can test one’s faith if they are not the ones causing the accident/illness/etc that is testing your faith.
I know that all of the things I have gone through during the past year have been things that are of my own doing, and I know that some of it may have been with the nudging of the Goddess so that I might learn an important lesson. What that lesson is may not be clear now, but who is to say that in 2, 3, 5, or 10 years I will not look back and say “so that is what the Goddess was trying to show me?” It’s a possibility and frankly, I believe that will happen some day.
But to sit here and tell me that a church believes (and I’ve heard it before in other churches, not just this friend’s church) that bad things that happen are because of the Devil just grates on my nerves. I’ve said it before, I will say it again. The Devil is a scapegoat to not have to believe that God could allow anything bad to happen in the world. The Devil is a scapegoat for people to be able to blame someone else other than themselves for their bad decisions. That is all the Devil is. Just a way for people to be able to put the blame off on someone other than where it should lay.
I have to thank Witchy Mama for finding this video, because it was when I was reading my blog feeds and found her post containing this video that I first saw it. However, it places an extremely interesting perspective on Yule, Christmas, etc.
I knew previously that there were a lot of things that are Pagan in nature that are tied into the Christian Christmas holiday – the tree, reindeer (symbol of the God), etc. But this explains a lot about why we celebrate at this time of year.
I do wish to point out that if you speak with the LDS church, their missionaries will tell you that the reason they celebrate Christ’s birth on Dec 25th was it was a way for the Christians to get the Pagan peoples to convert. Knowing that the Pagan people celebrated the Solstice, they changed their celebration to reflect when the Star in the East/Star of David/Sirius appeared in the sky. According to what I was told by several different sets of missionaries, and according to the history of the LDS church, which was founded on April 6, is that Christ was actually born on April 6. Supposedly it would have taken the three wise men/kings that long to reach Bethlehem from where they were in the first place after having seen the Star.
I hope you all have a blessed day today. I am planning on seeing when the sun is supposed to rise today and hopefully will be able to be outside to greet the newborn sun. It is not much, but it is something I can do that will, hopefully, not raise any alarms as to the fact that I am “practicing” my faith where I live. I can’t wait until I am able to find a job and get my own place again so that I might begin to replace my tools and books and start to live my life the way I wish to live it again.