Got-Wicca.Org The Ramblings of A Woman Seeking Her Path

As I prepare to help my best friend in the entire world through a time that I find difficult to move through myself, Chapter 6′s question seems to ring with a lot of resonance.

In Ch. 6 of KISSING THE LIMITLESS, Thorn turns our attention toward “Will”, how it is tested, how it is defined, freed, and fed “Will is the action of our intention. It is the coupling of a goal with discipline & skill.” But often we find that our will fails us “Our altars grow dusty & our jogging shoes are buried at the bottom of the closet. So we say we are lazy or procrastinators. What we really are is afraid.” Where does this fear come from? “Sometimes resistance…arises from an old self-image that has buried itself so deeply into our identities that even though we have gone through radical changes, we may find this appearing still … Old parts of self can establish internal contracts w/us in order to keep us safe, which often means keeping us small.”

In our last discussion we wrote to our ancestors (spiritual & blood), today, on the auspicious date of Friday the 13th let’s write to that broken mirror image, the self we once were that wants to keep us safe, small, & in pieces. “The dance of the forging process is that of knowing when one state is more necessary than another.” All quotes are from T. Thorn Coyle’s KISSING THE LIMITLESS: DEEP MAGIC & THE GREAT WORK OF TRANSFORMING YOURSELF & THE WORLD

There is a part of me that wants to shut the entire world out. Shut away the death, destruction, and pain of the world. Of life. A friend of mine is facing the loss of her father, a man I myself have called “Dad” for the past 18-20 years as my own Dad has already passed (21 years ago). This part of me wants me to shut out the unknown. Shut out the fears of what will happen to my dearest friend, to her mother, to my friend’s sister. Shut out the pain of losing yet another parent, even though not mine by blood or law.

I understand where she comes from. She has seen this before. She has stood, broken, in front of the doorway to the unknown so many times before. I understand that she wants to shelter me from this again. Shelter me from dealing with this yet again. And yet, I must ask her why?

Is it the pounding heart reaction to the unknown that I get when I manage to get past her and think about it? What is it she fears? What does she know that I don’t? I know who she is – she is me. She is the girl I see in the mirror. The girl who is broken in pieces there because she cannot be here. She is the one who hides the pain of the past. She is the one who tries to hide the pain of the future. She is the one who tries to pretend there is no pain in the present.

She holds the outside me close to herself, hoping that if she does, I cannot be noticed by the pain, cannot be noticed by the unknown. If she keeps me small and hidden, I cannot be found by what she doesn’t want me to be found by. But pain, fear, the unknown, they are part of this world. Part of this life. Without them, I cannot grow. Without them, I cannot fully be myself. Without them, I cannot truly have life.

Continue reading Kissing the Limitless – Chapter 6 – Weiser Book Club

On to Chapter 5 of Kissing the Limitless. We are now in Part II of the book, and so far, it has been a very insightful book. As stated before, I am not doing the “work” of the book until after I have read through the book. However, Lisa (@WeiserBooks) has posted yet another soul searching question in our book club:

Before we move on to our discussion of Part II and Chapter 5 of Kissing the Limitless, I’d like to go back to Chapter 2 for a moment. There Thorn writes “Things may need to stay in the darkness for some time. There is power in darkness: the power of gestation, deep dreaming, and the sweetness of night.” In Chapter 5, Thorn asks us to access that power through divination, dream journaling, fantasy, and “Naming the Nameless” (taboo, thoughts/emotions that hide along the edges of our awareness). She also urges us to connect with our mythic and historical forebearers “Be they ancestors of blood or spirit, they can both gift us and ‘curse’ us with their legacy.” On this murky March day (a haunted month if there ever was one) let’s take Thorn’s advice and listen to the ghosts of our own past. If as Thorn suggests, you were to write a letter to your ancestors and ask for help in understanding your own journey, who would you write to and what would it say?

To be honest, I think I would probably write first to my Grandmother. Now my grandparents adopted me, and so the person I called Mom was my Grandmother and this is who I would write to. For her, I would simply ask if she knew that I was “different” from the rest of the family. The fact that I am drastically different from the rest of my family is quite obvious at times. I’m the only Wiccan/Pagan member of the family that I’m aware of. So I would ask her if I had always been different from the rest of the family in spiritual matters.

Another person I would write to would be my birth father’s mother. I want to know if the tendencies I have towards spirituality are from his side of the family, as I know they aren’t from my mother’s side. This may seem silly to you, but your spirituality is a large part of who you are. Whether you believe in the Divine or not, it is a major component of your self.

And believe it or not, it is greatly shaped by your ancestors’ spirituality and who they were. These things are passed down, whether by blood or by spirit, through the generations. Yes, you are your own person, your own self, your own soul. But who and what you are were shaped by those who came before you regardless. Knowing where you came from is as important to your journey as looking at yourself and your life in the here and now.

The past shapes the present, the present shapes the future. It is all interconnected. Knowing what is in your past will help you to understand what is here today.

Continue reading Kissing the Limitless – Chapter 5 – Weiser Book Club

I know, I’m way late on this, but life was a bit in the way and I just haven’t been feeling up to being on the computer and blogging lately. We’re up to Chapter 4 of Kissing the Limitless and today, Lisa from @WeiserBooks asked:

In Chapter 4 of Kissing The Limitless, Thorn continues to examine how our connections to and in the physical affect our spiritual quest. She urges us to examine how we relate to home, work, money, and the natural world. It is the latter that brings up one of my favorite quotes “We are part animal, part human, and part divine, & the moment we forget the possibility of any one of those, we are lost.”

The final reflection asks us “Listen now to your animal soul, the part most closely connected to your body and your instincts. If you could be wild for one hour or one day, what would that feel like, what would that look like?”

That is the thought I leave you to ponder this wild Spring day! “What does your animal soul call for?”

For me, I honestly have to say that I don’t know what my animal soul calls for. To be honest, I must be lost as I had no idea that I had an animal soul. This just goes to prove how out of touch I, and many others, are with ourselves. I don’t know what my animal soul calls for. I don’t know what my animal soul wants or needs.

If I were wild for an hour or a day, I have no idea what it would feel or look like. I cannot even begin to estimate what it would be like to be wild for an hour or a day. The only thing I do know is that as drawn as I am to cats, big and small, my animal soul is more than likely feline. Other than that, I honestly have no idea.

Which brings me to ponder this – how is it that we lose sight of so much of ourselves. How do we lose sight of our animal souls? Is it because we’re forced into the realm of the “higher intelligence” of the human part of us? Is it taught out of us? Do we know when we are younger that we are part human, part animal, and part divine?

The fact that we are able to forget this fact is obvious. The question is, how do we get it back? Thorn talks in Chapter 4 about reflecting on what being wild for an hour or a day would feel like or look like. This is a great exercise, except if you’ve already forgotten about your animal soul, first you will need to reflect on yourself and find that animal soul.

To be perfectly honest here, I think the simplest answer of all to the question of what does my animal soul call for would be – remember me!

Continue reading Kissing the Limitless – Chapter 4 – Weiser Book Club