Children without empathy - Alias - Bullies

Kids are Cruel

A statement I've heard many times over the years when discussing bullying, "Kids are cruel". Yet, whenever the cruelty so many children seem to possess is mentioned in conversation that isn't following a story of bullying, many peoples knee jerk reaction is to defend them:

Bullying starts at home...

They learn it from their parents...

The media nowadays...

They just don't realize....

And to this I have one very firm statement to make 

 

BULL

Maybe you were a child 5 years ago, 10, 50 - whatever, think back, did you occasionally say things that hurt peoples feelings without realizing that it might do so? OF COURSE! That happens when you've yet to be taught social etiquette and thus have no brain to mouth filter. But can you think of an instance where another child took your toy or made you angry and you said something intentionally cruel? No? Then you were either a saint or have poor/selective memory.

I remember the one person I've really ever bullied and I'll never forget her. I was in 4th grade and had just started a new school; and on my very first day two of the "popular girls" started talking to me and we just clicked - for the first time in my life. This aggravated the first girl I met in my class though (lets call her Tiffany) and Tiffany threw a fit. Both of my new friends tried to tell her to calm down but she blew up to the point that teachers actually came to check on the situation. 

Now, my new friends were not normally bullies and in fact were nice and funny; they quickly became my best friends. But something about Tiffany's outburst that first day seemed to draw a target on her back and, in large part I believe, because it embarrassed all three of us when every eye on the playground was watching.

For the the rest of that school year and the one that followed - we didn't call her names and encourage others too - we simply shunned her ourselves and our large (by 5th grade) group of friends followed suite - and it was only made worse by the fact that she insisted on tagging along with us every school-day despite knowing when she was excluded from birthday parties and weekend sleepovers. She kept trying.

That knowledge breaks my heart looking back - because we thought it was funny! I'd been bullied before but something about that tiny bit of power without 'stepping over some line', as I chose to see it, was like a high.

The summer between 5th and 6th grade I was past my power-hungry-at-others-expense attitudeand by high school I was back to being bullied though this time relentlessly. Part of me felt it was karma, the fact that I was suicidal.

But now onto the present. My son is in kindergarten and I volunteer weekly at his school. Tutoring kids in the hallway, reading books, organizing stuff for his teacher, etc. Already - at the tender ages of 5-6 - I've seen bullying. 

Right before Winter Vacation I was out in the hall doing an activity with each child individually and once complete I'd send the child into the classroom and have them send out another. I'm working with this adorably tiny girl, she's barely taller than my 3 year old and she's almost 6, and I send her in to get another girl. Her face falls and her skin tone yellows when I mention who to get and she whispers, "O...ok". I asked her if she felt ok and she just nodded her head and walked into the class.

The next girl comes out and we proceed to work on the assignment. After a few minutes however she says, "Why did you send in the weird girl?" Perplexed, I asked her what she meant, "That weird girl you sent in to get me. She's stupid and everybody knows it."

My jaw dropped - and for a moment I felt like I was in high school and the child in me wanted to say "Well she understood what we're doing better than you do" (which was true but not the point). I took a deep breathe and said, "Listen, those aren't the kinds of things you say about people - someday it might be you - just think about that." I closed the activity we were working on and told her to go and got the next child myself.

After class I stayed to let the teacher know what I'd heard, bullying should never have to be endured in silence. That's when she informed me of something that made me so proud:
"Did your son not tell you about what happened a few weeks ago?"
"Tell me what?"
"Well, he did the sweetest thing. (Mean girl) and a group of her friends were teasing (Little girl) on the playground. I had just noticed it myself when your son came up and put his arm around her, looked straight into the group of girls and said, "She's my friend, so I wouldn't. Go find something else to do!" Made my heart swell!"





Mine did too.

It made me feel like he heard me this past spring when he was being mean to a couple of kids on his t-ball team. I was trying to talk to him about bullying and he wasn't paying attention and finally I ended up talking to him a little bit about what I was forced to deal with in school. By the end of my short explanation I was crying (something I rarely do) and I guess it stuck with him. 

I am not harsh with my children, I don't yell often, I don't smack, I don't name call or shame but my son was bullying - where did he learn it then?

Now, before I go any further just let me say this - I am not in any ways saying that children don't learn these things from home - some do - some also learn it from the TV, other children they meet, etc. This is just one thing in particular I've noticed. Kids shows.

Have you ever watched, for example, iCarly? A spunky spoiled girl being raised by her older brother, has way too much freedom, her best friend is a girl named Sam who's a notorious thief, has a reputation for fighting and seems to be on the frequent fliers list at their local juvenile prison and her mother seems to be all but entirely absent. Her other best friend is a boy whose mother cares but they have her character so psychotic that you cant see the regular parent through all the crazy - she is the over dramatic dramatization of over protective parent and the boy, Freddy, is made fun of all the time for it. I had to ban the show from our house because my son was starting to think that Sam was cool and started trying to mimic her which left him shoving his sister down, stealing out of my purse, and back mouthing - he was 3.

Children are not born with empathy, its not like breathing, blinking, eating, etc. It is a learned behavior and from what I'm seeing and constantly hearing tells me that too many kids these days aren't learning it.

The ground roots of empathy begin with the ability to put yourself in someone else's shoes. Even if its something you've never experienced before, you can read a story about someone losing a child for example and you find yourself tearing up - its heart breaking - your mind shuns even trying to truly imagine what they have to be going through but your heart feels constricted at just the thought.

I was a very sensitive child - I think a lot of this came from my mother (who is a major drama queen, gods love her) constantly telling me horror/cautionary tales that left me fearful of pretty much everything for a long time. But it also came from movies like, Old Yeller. 

I got my first puppy, Katie, when I was 4 and she was my best friend just like Yeller was to Travis and Arliss. Then they had to watch him get sick and finally Travis was forced to shoot him. I bawled, who didn't the first time they saw that movie? But it gave me a new perspective, a new appreciation and when my neighbors dog was hit by a car I felt like I could imagine it - I'd never been there - but I understood it a little better.

What children's movie in this day and age doesn't have a happy ending? I can't think of any. They all seem to end happily with no loose ends and the only losers are the villains who obviously deserve it, right? At my kids ages, they're too young to have to be subjected to the full repercussions of when the bad guy does win but it would be nice to have some reinforcement beyond my telling them that sometimes it works out that way.

Kids need to be allowed to have a childhood - and yes - that childhood NEEDS to be a happy one. But kids also need to learn a full range of emotions and not only understand them but control them when necessary. They take cues from their parents but also their super heroes, their princesses, their cartoons, etc.

Childhood comes and goes in what feels like the blink of an eye, and in the end it is the very foundation of adulthood. What are we unleashing on the world with future generations who've never been taught to understand that there's not always a happy ending to every story - and it brings anger and it brings depression - but if you pick yourself up and try again and write a new chapter in your life - that story just might have the desired results.

We want our children to be the heroes not the villains. Whether that child becomes the accountant working tirelessly to help their client and their family keep their home or the fire fighter pulling people from burning buildings - they are heroes and these are the acts of strength and kindness we hope to see in their futures.

A little empathy goes a long way.

Blessings,
Willow

M is for Mourning

I've promised myself repeatedly that I'm going to work to devote more time to this blog and HOPEFULLY I can actually do that from this point.

On June 16th, 2 days after my last post, my grandmother passed away in her sleep around 3:15 am. The nursing home called us a little after 3 saying they didn't think she'd make it through the night. We rushed to get there as quickly as possible - dashed into her room and I grabbed her hand to find that she had no pulse...we'd just missed her.

I survived until 11pm on 3 hours of sleep because, and if you've every lost a close family member you'll know what I'm talking about but if you haven't, there are about a zillion things to do right after a family member passes that no one really ever talks about or that you never really think about.

We're lucky in the respect that my uncle and I had taken my grandmother in January of this year to pre-plan her funeral so I suppose the majority of things were taken care of but they wanted 30 pictures for a slideshow that would play during the showing/funeral and a picture of the obituary for the next day - sooo - I spent hours upon hours going through boxes of photos to try and narrow down just 30 - a number that felt nearly impossible to narrow down to with pictures of over 75 years of life but I managed.

Then there was setting up where the reception would take place and letting family members know and sharing their tears repeatedly and it was just a lot to deal with. Project after project went by throughout the week from creating picture boards for the funeral to choosing clothing for her burial and finally we reached the day of her funeral.

I knew what to expect in the sense that it would be extremely religious - extremely Christian - and that was all extremely fine with me because that's exactly how she would've wanted it.

But still...."Jesus loves you and you know your grandma did too", "Ya know you can see her again and I know you were raised in church so I know you know how to do it", etc, etc.

All I wanted to hear was 1 person just say, "Your grandmother lived a long, eventful, and fulfilling life - whatever it is that she need to learn in this lifetime - I'm sure she succeeded and the Goddess took her happily into the Otherworld and whether its there or in another life you'll meet again - she's happy."

But no one said it.

Which really isn't surprising, all of the attendees were Christians - again which is fine - but I was hurting inside and I needed to mourn my way too.

Things weren't helped when my son ran up to me bawling because someone corrected him saying that grandma was with the Goddess and that she'd live again someday but saying quite bluntly, "Your grandma is never going to live here again - she's in Heaven with God and she'll stay there, there is no Goddess."

That was fun

Oh and my favorite moment when the wife of one of my grandma's old friends - lets call her "Eve" in place of her actual biblical name. Comes up to me and hugs me for a really long time; I don't know this woman well and never have, and I'm really not comfortable with contact with people to begin with let alone people I don't know anything besides their name - and the entire time she's talking about Jesus and church and redemption and damnation. Finally she gets to the point, "And ya know if ya wanna see you're grandma again you're going to have to stop all this partying." I push out of her arms at that point, "Excuse me, I don't party - having the occasional drink with dinner while at a restaurant does not constitute as partying and you don't know anything about me." She gives me a condescending/knowing look and says in her best kindergarten teachers voice, "Well, you stopped going to church and..." I cut her off, "Not going to church does not mean I'm a partyer - I don't drink - I don't do drugs - and frankly, if I did what business of yours would it be. Doesn't the Bible say something about dealing with the log in your own eye before worrying about the splinter in your brothers or something along that line? My relationship or lack of it is between me and God - you're not involved. Now, I'm here mourning the passing of my grandmother - if you've got any further issue with me, my lifestyle or anything I just said - then you're not welcome here." and walked away. She was smart and said nothing else to me either that day or the day of the funeral.

But all in all - the showing - the funeral - they were lovely...as lovely as the event could be. The shell of my grandmother laying at the front of the room while people milled about mingling and looking at pictures of her as she was in life disturbed me - she was a bright white spot in a cream blue casket and she drew the eye - it hurt my heart.

It might be selfish of me, but to some extent I was relieved when it was all over. Funerals are supposed to lead to closure but to me it took away from the whole mourning process. I wanted time to remember her in my own way, heal in my own way, and part of that healing was to get things back to normal as much as possible for myself and for my family. Remember her in my way.

She was a nurse and a pastor for a long time, she was the woman who helped raised me, she was the woman who helped me get a way with things in my childhood and my adolescence, she was the first person I told I was pregnant with my son, she was short-tempered and quick to yell cause she was full of fire, she was the biggest procrastinator I've ever met, she would spy on the neighbors and gossip like a teenager but never to someone who would spread it, she cussed and smoked like a chimney and watched way way WAY too much Fox News for health, she loved pigs and had more pictures of Jesus than every church in this town put together, she doodled on every piece of paper left in front of her too long and her hand writing and mine are so similar we could forge each others signatures, she judged me and we screamed at each other but in the end we loved each other - and I find comfort in being able to say that when it mattered I was there and I loved her and I let go of the past so that I could be there when she needed me.

2 nights after her funeral was the full moon. I took one of the flower arrangements from the funeral and went out into the backyard and used the flowers to mark my circle - I called the quarters and cast my circle and I had a heart to heart with my patroness - she was very there with me; a strong listening presence. We spoke of life, and love and loss - my thankfulness for the people in my life and the time I have with them. In times of loss we can't help but be reminded of our own mortality - feel vulnerable to the hands of death. Death may lead to the next great adventure but I'm not done with this one, time just feels so precious.

Its been almost 2 months now and life is evening back out. Her estate is settled, her paperwork has been gone through (and believe me there was a ton of it, my poor neck) and I can focus on my life and what a life I have ahead of me. My children, my wedding, my kids graduating elementary, junior high, high school, college maybe, their marriages, my grand babies....it brings tears to my eyes. So much joy. So much life.

Thank you Mother Goddess, Father God for it.

Willow

I should be writing more now that things have settled down. Look for more posts in the near future!

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I Don't Wanna be a Hypocrite (One Pagans Feelings on Christianity)

This is has been a very difficult post for me to write. I want to make clear up front that this in no way reflects the way all or even the way most of Pagans feel. This is my own personal struggle on something that became important to me to express because no one seems to want to and I feel that its important to weed out hate and misunderstandings wherever we can to better ourselves and our community.

One of the hardest things for me to admit is when I've been a hypocrite. We've all done it at one point or another whether its damning our neighbor for his addictions while we smoke a cigarette or getting mad at a friend for gossiping then turning around and doing the same thing.

We don't like to think of ourselves as hypocrites as we do these things but like it or not we are.

And as I sit here writing this I must shamefully admit that I've been a hypocrite.

I get so frustrated with my family when they lecture me about my faith, my sexuality, etc. All I want is for them to shut up, realize that I'm happy, that my first crush at 5 was a girl and that I've been a practicing Pagan for almost a decade - neither of them are "childish phases" - and to just be happy for me because I'm happy.

Earlier this year we had to put my grandmother into a nursing home. We'd originally thought it would be a temporary stay as she recovered from surgery but her Alzheimer's has progressed so much we had to face that she would probably never live on her own again and get rid of her apartmnet.

My grandmother is a hoarder and - lucky me - the job of sorting through her things - pack, sort, or donate - mainly fell on my shoulders.

Going through her things was hard, not just because it was acknowleding her physical and mental decline - but also because she had book case after book case full of Christian books, cassettes, CD's, VHS's, and DVD's. I had to through these individually (she's preaching on some of them and they were mixed in with everything else) and read such titles as, "The Pocket Guid to Demons, Witches, and the Occult" and "Overcoming Witchcraft". There were also sermons entitled, "The Homosexual Spirit: The Demon that Plagues Our Society", and my personal favorite, "Thou Shalt Suffer Not a Witch to Live: Protecting Your Home and Family from Witchcraft and the Occult."

My grandmother and I had fought for years prior to her illness, it was pretty clear to anyone who saw us together that she hated me. She even went so far, one time, as to accuse me of eventually molesting my son "like all gays do". I'm not a violent person, but she's very lucky my gay girlfriend was there that day when I couldn't see through the red.

So, as I'm going through these things this is all I can think about: Whos the person you threatened to call children services on for dating a woman? This girl. Who is the one who memorized your medial history at 14 and has kept track of all your medical and finances because you were having trouble keeping track of everything? This girl. Who's the girl you called the police on when you found a book on Wicca in her room? This girl. Who's the girl who made sure you made it to the hospital when I knew you were ill and everyone else thought I was exaggerating but the doctor said you would have died had I not? This girl.

Sure its probably childish and petty to think this way under the circumstances but I've seen her multiple times since then and never breathed a word of my momentary anger. All the same, in the moment all the old anger was dredged up again.

Every Christian article I picked up my lip curled in disgust, I would scoff at some things, throw some things away on the principle of refusing to spread hate.

A couple days later when my hind sight was a little clearer I realized how haughty I was being - which led to me realizing that this had been going on for some time to a lesser degree.

The pang of annoyance when my incredibly sweet dentists cross hangs in my eyes while he's working, the impatience I feel when my live-in relative comes home and starts talking about the sermon he heard at church, the small flare of anger I felt when the eye doctor told my daughter to kneel like she was praying in church before he examined her eyes.

Am I really beginning to resent Christianity this much?

I try to teach my children to be accepting of all spiritual paths - all religions - I pray that my family can just come to accept me as I am and stop asking me to change - then here I am - my lip curling without conscious thought when I see their religious symbols.

There's part of me that says, "This is a religion that has rarely shown me any face besides that of condemnation and judgment. This is the faith that my parents hold that caused them to mock me, question my sanity; my character all because I love differently. Why should I like them?"

Then there's that better part of me that replies, "Because you cant paint them all with the same brush - prejudice is prejudice. You have friends that are Christians that treat you fine and you love them! You're better than this. Acceptance goes both ways!"

So the question is:  is it really necessary...important...to try to be accepting/understanding of people who see us this way? As demon possessed and stupid, whose "Good Book" teaches them not to care whether we live or die, some of them may even pity the eternal damnation in hell they believe we're destined for on this path. Its hard to be too accepting of a faith that encourages its followers to fear us - especially when fear so often leads to hate in the human heart.

Is it enough to be ok with and be accepting of the fact that they believe differently than I while simultaneously rolling your eyes at so much they believe? Is this normal or too conflicting?

How do you align what you know to be right with how you feel when it isn't?

Each of us are individuals - I think this is what I need to remind myself of right now - you're going to find your Christians who are fine with everyone believing what they feel is right for them and then you're going to find others who want to begin quoting scripture at you and lecturing.

I just need to take my own advice and make the decision to work on this; to catch and correct myself when I start thinking that way, etc.

One day at a time I guess.

Have you dealt with this? How do you feel about it? What do you think? Am I right or wrong?

Willow
www.facebook.com/pagansayswhat

Tug of War Baby

As a parent, each of us feel like we know whats best for our children. Especially while they're young; absorbing information like little sponges.

We do our best to teach them right from wrong, we teach them their ABC's and 123's, try to teach them healthy habits, this is also when we usually start trying to instill them with the values that are important to us. Those values often include ones that are taught by our beliefs/religions.

With my daughter, things are simpler. E's father and I are still together, and though he's not concerned with spirituality at this point in his life, he is open minded enough that he's fine with my teaching our daughter my beliefs.

With my son...eh...things are a little more complicated. Admittedly, my relationship with his dad is much easier and cival than most I see between parents - espeically parents who had a child young, as we did. It might not hurt that he and I have known each other since the 4th Grade as well.

V's dad has never been the religious type - so I didn't think anything of it when I started teaching him my beliefs. At this age (and attention and energy level) I have yet to involve him in ritual though I'm starting to consider it. Anyways - I'm basically starting him off by helping him to find a love of nature.

I've taught him that the tree's, flowers - everything is alive - that we're never really alone and he seemed to take great joy and comfort in that.

                                                                Looks like a party to me!

I've told him stories about Cerridwen and Taliesin, The Morrigan and Cuchulain, Macha and the Men of Ulster, Demeter and Persephone, Thor, Odin, Loki, Frigg, Wakantanka, White Calf Woman, the trickster Coyote, and many more.

I want children that are open minded; to be accepting of all religions and eventually, I hope, that they will work to find what works for them - what makes them happy.

So, one day when my son comes home from his dads and tell me, "My daddy says that when we die we go to Heaven and that there is no Goddess in Heaven. But I told him that its called The Otherworld and that there is a Goddess so there!"

I was quietly angry, V's dad has never been religious. In the 13 years I've known him I've never heard about him going to church, he never expressed any interest in faith of any sort including Christianity when those topics were discussed. So why press this upon him now? Why work to close his mind? Its not like I was teaching him to be anti-Christian!

So V and I sat together and I hold him the Christian story of creation, I told him the story of Jesus and I answered his questions.

After that he started questioning me on my beliefs. I've never been too specific on that before wanting them to draw their own conclusions. He then told me his beliefs and though they were vague by adult standards I was so proud! I could tell it was something he'd actually put thought into and some of those thoughts are different from my own even. I'll admit it - my 5-year-old made me glow with pride!

After I put the kids to bed that night I couldn't stop thinking about it. My thoughts kept circling around on the some of things that V told me his dad said that day, "Its not called Otherworld its called Heaven...", "There is no Goddess in Heaven....", "....There is no Goddess..."

                                                 Yep - because my brain doesn't understand what bedtime is

I knew I needed to talk to his dad about this. If he wanted to talk to our son about his beliefs - fine - but I wasn't going to stand for him devaluing mine in the process.

But the time never seemed right - though our relationship is civil its not exactly buddy-buddy either. I feared that the mole hill would quickly become a mountain. Sometimes rational people become entirely irrational where religion is concerned and I had no idea what to expect.

How exactly do you even brooch the subject?

Well - finally I had to remind myself to make the decision to follow through no matter how difficult it might be - this was important to me and beyond that it could set the president for how other things are handled in the future.

Finally, the opportunity revealed itself when my son decided to pick up some colorful language from - of all places - playing Call of Duty online with his 16-year-old uncle at this dads.

Side tangent:
I love video games! (Even though I never get to play them) but COD....really? I don't know if you've ever heard the language used on those games but the stereotypical sailor would feel right at home. Super Mario? Cool. Donkey Kong? Cool. Call of Duty and other shooting games at 5? Pssshhh....NOPE.

I digress lol. So, his dad and I opened our schedules to have a talk about punishments for cussing and things like that - basically make sure we're doing the same things and that we agree with each others tactics. That conversation went smoothly and I realized that this was my moment. We're talking about V and agreeing on things so why not?

I brought it up by letting him know some of the things V was coming home and repeating to me. He informed me that V had made comments about things I said there as well (phew - good thing I kept my anger to myself right?) and ended up saying something along the lines of, "Now, I've never known you to be a religious person and I apologize if I'm wrong but my faith is something important to me. I don't follow any mainstream faith - I'm actually, in the simplest terms, Pagan. I don't know if you know what that is or anything but no its not devil worship or anything close to that - in the most basic of terms I love and worship the spirits of nature." 

The conversation, luckily, was simple enough in my case. He confirmed that he isn't really religious but that he has been reading V some Bible stories that his grandmother had bought for him (she is religious). I also breathed a sigh of relief when he told me what some of his conversations were with V.

V asked, "Why isn't the Goddess in these stories?" His dad replied, "Well, some people believe that there isn't a Goddess - just a God. A lot of those people, like your grandma and great-grandma, believe that you only die once and that when you do you go to a place called Heaven."

In the end, he has no problem whatsoever with me teaching V about different faiths and religious beliefs. He's fine with me involving him in rituals as long as I'm fine with him occasionally going to church and things with his grandparents (which I am). Basically I just ask that he continue to stay mindful with his wording of things just like I do. I did tell him to never be be afraid to clarify things and answer questions when V has them though - and believe me - he has good questions...most recently its about babies and where they come from...and how they come out. (Might I add I'm not entirely prepared to give these answers? lol)

So in the end, I was lucky - I am lucky. The fathers of my children are open minded despite the fact that they don't really put much weight into spirituality right now. With luck my children will take after us and grow to be open minded, intelligent, loving individuals. 

I know that not everyone gets off so easy on these points - I mean - my nephews father was reluctant to even let R around me for a while after he found out I wasn't a Christian (it becomes ironic when you know him). So not everyone is going to stay accepting and that mole hill may turn into a mountain.

But if its important to you - its up to you to decide if its important enough to risk it. 

So now I'll send off this post with some of the hilarious things I found out my son said to his father:

-"Ya know what dad? There are millions of Goddess' and millions of Gods - they'll kick your butt because they love me."

-"So....Jesus died on a cross with some nails....umm...that's not very tough - I'd feel bad for whoever tried that on MY God!"

-"Well - if grandma doesn't believe in the Goddess maybe the Goddess doesn't believe in Grandma"

-"I don't know where the ball went - maybe the fairies wanted to play with it."

-"That crow is one of mommys friends - she loves crows - he's just making sure I look both ways before I cross the street cause he will go tattle!"

 -"Oh I know how to ride a bike dad. I just have to remember cause that was in my last life."

Hope you got a giggle - I know I did when I heard these! lol

Willow

A Cure for Laziness - Difficult Despite its Simplicity

We've all been there, whether its exercise

 Meditating

 Or even spiritual

We get really into something - it excites us, we feel good when we do it, we might even brag about it - but then something happens, "I was going to jog then it started raining and I just don't feel like getting soaked" or "God I'm so sick...there's no way I can do a full moon ritual tonight." "Well...I started my breathing to meditate and then Katelyn woke up and after I had to get her fed and changed it was time to start dinner."

For some people 1 day's interruption isn't enough to throw them off track, but for others with busier schedules from work, kids, and other obligations that one day can turn into a week - two weeks.

Personally, this happens to me a lot. I have two children who are both at very mischievous ages; you take you're eyes off them and something is drawn on, they've suddenly snuck 5 cans of soda out of the fridge and have them all simultaneously opened and hidden under a bed where they sneak drinks, the bathroom floor is soaked - you get it - they've got a little Loki in'em and because this my practices of all of the above often look like this:
Exercise 3-4 days a week
Yoga 5-6 days a week
Mediation 3-5 days a week
Morning Devotional: 6-7 days a week
and I'll stay really steady on this schedule for a month or so...
Then something happens - the dishes from the night before didn't get done and the sink is over flowing "Well...I'll exercise after I get the dishes done." So I do the dishes...then I wipe of the counters....then I polish the cupboard doors...then I dust the blinds and window sills...wash windows...scrub baseboards...sweep and mop...and I am suddenly exhausted! No exercise today!
The next day I hadn't planned to exercise so had something else planned instead and the day after that there's something else and something else and finally I start guiltily finding excuses not to.

One thing in your life tends to leak into another - much like how people bring work home with them whether they mean to or not even if its just with their attitude. I start finding myself waking up and telling myself I'll do my morning devotional after I wake up a little more or that I'll meditate after the kids go to bed and get wrapped up in back to back episodes of The Big Bang Theory instead.

After a while I start getting restless - my muscles not getting the workout they're used to and my heart aching for that purposeful connection with deity, my stress level aching for the beautiful peace I find in my meditations - and I find myself fighting it for a while. I have no idea why other than maybe my mind starts thinking of these things as more obligations instead of the 'something for me, my health, and my growth' that they really are. Each time I have to come to that realization again and then I toss myself back into all those practices again but its...sooo....HARD!

In some cases I think its hard because we have to face others that know we gave up for while (intentionally or not) -  friends at the gym or even the members of your coven; but most of the time I think its admitting it to yourself. When we stop doing things that are important to us at some point it becomes important to go back and evaluate why it keeps happening and sometimes those answers are rough.

The hardest part for me is I cant draw lines between things - everything is connected - as I showed before - if I stop doing one thing everything else will trickle off into temporary obsoletion as well. So, when a relative of mine lost his job and moved in with my family and I, a relative I might add who has meant a lot to me throughout my life and is in full disagreeance with my spiritual beliefs, I ran into the broom closet and slammed the door.

I couldn't stand the idea of being ridiculed for my beliefs in my own home and as often as I've sworn to myself that I'm not going to care and do what I want - I'm an adult I can make my own decisions and he is staying in my home - there's still that little coward in me that says, "He wont be here forever right? You can just pick back up in full and be the witchiest witch you wanna be - you can prance around in robes and roll around in tarot cards and yell your questions to your Ouija board if you want! But for now you can avoid the fight."

I'm a non-confrontational person with a hot head - yes it sounds like an oxymoron. I do my best to to talk things out before aggravation turns into anger and that's why in the nearly four years my partner and I have been together we've argued all of one time. Once confrontation begins I can't censor myself - I don't say hurtful thinks like 'I hate you' just to be hurtful - but I will tell you what I think and not everyone appreciates that quality especially when its loud and usually by that point I have no volume control. It doesn't happen often and I avoid it the best I can.

I could chalk up hiding in the closet to that - but in the end it comes down to a painful truth for me - I'm not as grown up as I think I am. I had to grow up young - circumstances made me - and I pride myself on the hardships I've overcome, the fact that my closest friends tell me that I won't sugar coat things for them and the fact that I follow my own advice when so many people don't and that they trust, love, and respect me all the more for it. So I can't help but feel ashamed when I realize that there's a part of me that still cares what some people think so much so that I'll push aside what means so much to me.

I'm not ashamed of being pagan, I don't have to worry about losing a job, a spouse, or anything like that over it - so why should I hide? My challenge - to let MY flag fly. I don't want to hide for anyone and its time that I don't.

Everything in life is a decision - even not actively making a decision is still a decision in the sense that life still happens - you really cant hit the 'pause' button on life. You have to make the decision to evaluate your priorities and what's important to you, you have to make the decision to start back up you have to make the decision to follow through. Its all up to you - the trick is remembering that. There's no shame in having the mundane parts of your life (work, cleaning, etc.) take over for a time - at times its very very necessary - its just remembering that you have the choice of when other things become the focus point again and the choice to work towards finding a balance.

So make a choice today - you'll be happy you did! ;)

Willow

Because my computer died

Please bear with me during this time! Horrible timing that it is my computer decided to die on me. I will do my best to try and get more posts up here in the very near future I have not abandon my blog I've just not been able to use it lol
So in the meantime if you have any questions or any suggestions for blog post feel free to post them message me or email me. I still have access to my blog via my phone however it might be a pain to try to make much of a post through my phone but if I don't get a computer here soon or get my computer fixed I will be attempting it nonetheless.
In the meantime
Brightest blessings,
Willow

The Road to “Butt Out!” is Paved with Good Intentions: Their Hell is a Scary Place (even if you don’t believe in it )

Pretty much every Pagan I know has grown up in a Christian family, ranging from Pentecostal to Mormon, Baptist to Lutheran, (and though not Christian but still Judaic) even Jewish. Their parents ranged from Church at every opportunity to church never but pretty much all of these parents hold the same belief: if you don’t worship God, their God and no other, you go to Hell.

                                                                          HELL WITH A CAPITAL ‘H’ for emphasis!

For most of the Pagans I know, Hell was the hardest fear to let go of. For those of us raised in the Christian faith, Hell is that place that we heard about in church, were warned about by our parents; it was the ultimate punishment of our wrong doings. Now, it’s become an expression ranging from the classic, “What the hell?” to the dramatized comparison during unwanted situations, “This is hell!” Though this transition from fear to blasé didn’t happen overnight for any of them.

I often hear a term used, to describe this first stage of leaving Christianity, known as ‘Christian Guilt’. Now, the ‘guilt’ may be true in the sense that you might feel bad about how your family will react but beyond that I’m not so sure that it quite fits. If you went through this you may be able to look back and think about the emotions you felt there in the beginning. I know, for me personally and the friends I’ve spoken with, it was fear.

Fear is difficult; it doesn’t have to be rational or have any real basis and often times the most irrational of fears are the hardest to let go of. Getting over fears is kind of like reprogramming yourself, you face your fear, often by repeated exposure, and eventually it stops having the same effect. But when it comes to Hell? That’s a fear that really cant be faced in the same way unless you can manage to die repeatedly. Its strictly based on faith and when the faith in your beliefs becomes strong enough (and if one of those beliefs is that there is no hell) eventually the fear fades into nothing but a memory.

But for our family, friends, etc. whose beliefs are in the Christian faith, hell is a very real, very scary place.

I realized my faith back in 2005, I had already been estranged from the Pentecostal beliefs I’d been raised with for years – I’d let those beliefs go around the same time as I did Santa. I moved from that to just believing there was something bigger without really giving much thought as to what, faith just wasn’t that important to me; that changed in the summer of ’05.

There was an incident one day that summer that sparked a change in me. It was a normal day that changed when my grandmother and I seen 2 women walking hand in hand down the road and made the comment, “That’s just disgusting! I don’t know why those people aren’t just rounded up, put on an island, and then we can have the place blown up.” And I was so hurt and so angry by it that I ended up coming out as bisexual right then and there. 

It caused a massive blow up resulting in my mother bawling, my grandmother screaming and calling me a ‘Lesbian Anti-Christ’ (its ok – laugh – I know I do now) and quoting scripture at me, their contemplating taking me to the hospital to have me psychologically evaluated, and finally resulting in locking me in my room where all the anti-depressants were from the year before when I had lost my 2 best friends in a car accident and my mom didn’t feel like I was coping well so had me try multiple kinds before abandoning the idea. I ODed that night, obviously survived, and though it only made my mom voice her opinions more quietly and didn’t change my grandma an ounce on the subject – it sparked a major change in me.

I’d hit bottom at that point – and I was ready to find faith again but I didn’t want to turn to a faith that caused my own family to treat me like that. I first started looking into Buddhism and though parts of it resonated with me it wasn’t enough to really commit. 

One night when I was feeling especially down I snuck out and went to the park near my house – it was windy and it was going to rain soon but I didn’t care. I found my favorite place to go in the woods and that’s when it started raining – just a total downpour. Something about the rain was so soothing – and the trees were swaying and it was like the wind between the trees created a melody – the rain slapping the leaves and the ground around me percussion – and I danced with the trees. I don’t know how long I was there but that night saved my life - in large part because the beautiful, amazing, terrifying, yet loving woman who appeared to me in my dream that night and all she said was, "Wake up my Willow, it is your time to come back to me."
I didn't know who she was but I felt her strength, her love, her knowledge, the fear that she could cause when necessary - I felt it and I knew that she was what I'd been searching for - whoever she was, and I never looked back.

I knew that there were nature religions but I knew nothing about them so I started researching. Boy was I surprised when I found out that Wicca was a nature religion, I’d always heard it referred to as Satanism. I remember being afraid to even read about it at first, I didn’t believe in Satan but, again, fear doesn’t need to be rational – I was conditioned to fear him. 

But study I did and I fell more deeply in love with nature. I didn’t stick with Wicca and ended up on the path of Drudiry where I believe I've truly found my place.

I didn’t come out about my faith to my family until 2009 – my mom cried again and still claims to get nauseas every time it comes up, my grandmother was in the starting phases of Alzheimer’s when she found out from my mom and didn’t express much of an opinion, and another family member lectured me for over an hour about how it’s ‘the Devil’ – half way through the lecture I was having Water Boy flash backs and suppressing my laughter.

I had dealt with the worst of my ‘coming outs’ so was better equipped to help my friend….

I have a friend that, for the sake of his privacy, I’m gonna call Jake. Jake is an extremely intelligent and hard working man, he has a good heart, a gorgeous son, and a very involved family. Jake has also been practicing Wicca for at least 9-10 years now. 

Jake stayed in, what is jokingly known as, The Broom Closet for a very long time – and then he got sick of it. His son, whom he has full custody of, was old enough to finally start getting a grasp on religion, to start figuring out his own beliefs, to think for himself, and because of that Jakes family decided they wanted to start getting him involved in their Mormon faith. 

Jakes wasn’t too happy about this, he wanted the right to teach his son what he believed just as his parents did with him and realized that in order to do this he would have to come out – so he did. Many parents get upset, cry, get angry – but his parents just seemed semi-aggravated and didn’t take him seriously – and although he is a full grown adult and has been for many years – treated it as if it was a stage of teenage rebellion.

This attitude, and the fact that they continued to (and redoubled their efforts to) teach Jake Jr. their Mormon faith, caused many a heated argument between them. These arguments only increased when Jake came out of the closet in another way, he’s gay. The real irony of this situation is the fact they didn’t take his faith seriously until then, he had to come out as Gay to be accepted as Wiccan.

At this point they started pushing him to get involved at their church, to get him to go out with their groups and proselytize about the Mormon faith, to get him to go their churches Single’s Night and meet a woman (you can laugh, we did), and even bought his son his first Mormon Bible. 

Jake and I talked endlessly about this, it was a great source of stress for him. He was tired of working 90 hour weeks and coming home to find them helping his son memorize scripture, tired of his family ushering him off to events that he had no interest in going to – but he loves his family – pushing them too hard to butt out, as he so badly wanted them to, could have repercussions he wasn’t sure he could handle but tensions were so high between them all that they were nearing a breaking point anyways.

THE HARD PART:
Well that’s pretty obvious – it’s a combination of dealing with the fights between friends and family – sometimes even losing those friends/family from our lives. The ones that stick around – some are accepting and that’s the easy part – the hard parts are when the ones we care about so much are pushing their ideas on us to the point that we just want them to shut up! Often times it makes us feel like they think we’re too stupid to form our own thoughts, opinions, and beliefs. 

THE REMINDER:
His story, even more than my own, is what inspired me to write this post; in large part because he and I spoke of it so often there for a while.
Sometimes, one of the hardest things for us to do is put ourselves in someone else’s shoes especially when that other person is hurting us or infringing on our personal rights or privacy in some way. Believe me, in this case I know how annoying it is to have to deal with your family/friends butting in and telling you that you’re wrong, trying to get you to go to church or read the Bible, using Bible verses as reference to why your beliefs are wrong. It gets old and it gets old fast. But this is exactly what I did to keep from losing my mind, put myself in their shoes – especially my moms. 

My mom has never been an overly religious woman but she does believe in the Christian God – she did grow up going to church, etc. and though she fell out of the practice as she got older she didn’t stop believing. I had to look past my anger at her interference in parts of my life I didn’t feel she had any business in, and just remember – she loves me. Its that simple, she loves me. 

I really don’t believe in hell – at all – never entirely had. So I had to liken it to having a friend getting addicted to a horrible drug like heroine and the fear of her dying horribly. That’s as close as I can get with it – because to them its so much worse. An eternity in hell? An eternity is such a long time we cant possibly wrap our minds around it as much as we might try – eternity is a concept that we have no actual point of reference to.

My mom, just like Jakes parents, just like many friends and family of mine, yours, his – believe in this eternity – whether it be in Heaven or Hell – they just want the best for us. 

Now, don’t get me wrong! In this caring I am in absolutely no way saying that their caring means that you have to let them drag you to church, and listen to their lectures, and let them degrade you and your faith. What it does mean is letting comments like, “Your false religion” slide from your shoulders a little so it doesn’t turn into a fight right off the bat and trying something like, “I respect your right to have your beliefs so please respect mine.” Don’t rise to the bait whether intentional or not. Being the bigger person is hard but when you make a choice that your family doesn’t agree with sometimes its required of you if you want to keep them in your life and still live yours the way you see fit.

So now to you, have you dealt with these issues? What advice would you give to someone considering coming out of the Broom Closet or who is dealing with this now?

(By the way, Pagan Says What? now has a Facebook page! Like us at: Pagan Says What?

Willow