Monthly Meanderings and Spiritual Crossroads

So here I sit in my parents house down in Florida, i packed light this time b/c i knew i wouldnt be down long. i grabbed by book and a deck of cards and left everything else up north. its been odd and i hadnt realized just how much i had gotten used to having ritual space. my altar is my ground, the place where i focus my thoughts and meditate on what i believe and what i want to do... without it ive been a bit sluggish. id like to blame my lack of exposition here and in my Book on that but its deeper and more concerting. i believe that everything i write within it must be a heartfelt reflection of my path and to be fair its still too wonky to nail into a concrete form. Am i pagan, yes. Am i a witch, yes. Do i have a ridiculously complicated view of the divine, maybe. but thats not it.

My problem stems from an online class i took on wicca and the books ive read over the years on witchcraft. my own practice is one of give and take based on what ive found to be expressive in nature, a craft based on my own experiences with the divine and magick. ive tried to expand on it over the years but every where i read it was the same. i even told my friend while in the shoppes of salem so. after a certain point you can open any book on modern witchcraft and wicca especially and their all the same. wicca especially seems watered down for the masses. and when i try to apply what i learn it amounts to very little if anything in my personal book.

Is it wrong of me to want some meat and potatoes with my craft? I certainly dont think so, and i entail no offence to my readers  when i say they'res something off with modern magick. while i believe there is a certain amount of personal will needed, intention only goes so far. magick is about communication with the divine and the forces of creation. building a bridge of communication, a working vocabulary with the universe.

Im looking for meaning, a deeper meaning than ive found in my books or at the bookstores. its about the experience and until i can resonate with a set of practices my book will remain a series of ethics, tables, ritual work, and prayers. i hold it in my hands and feel proud of my accomplishments, of everything ive written and made, but it also feels shallow because im on such shaky grounds with my practice.    

Mercurys Gone Retrograde...?

If nothing else i found it humorous that i can say this, and it's a convenient cop out for my post Lughnasadh frustrations. But before i get to that some pictures!!

 Harvested in the morning for a kitchen charm to promote health and love, the ritual itself was short but meaningful to me and  the bundle is tied with nine knots in a red thread that i've kept in the drawer since Imbolc.

 Yay, fixed the time stamp!!! this is my seasonal alter that blends in with the mantle, stay tuned for updates.

My personal alter from yesterday, it kind of clamshells into a semicircle for the actual working space. my smaller bos is the book standing up  and is where i keep my everyday musings, journals, and ritual notes. My big bos in any incarnation is usually only out like this on the sabbats, otherwise id have nowhere to function... >.<

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So back to my story. ive felt awful most of the day,  tired and more than a bit lazy, which i blame mostly on being a little overzealous during yesterdays ritual and not properly grounding afterwards. im such a noob sometimes, but eh it happens to all of us once and a while. that besides everything else my minds been a maelstrom of activity and frustration  at naming God.

Blame my christian upbringing but  i have some qualms about putting a name to God in general as i hang my hat with some Wiccans in that i view all god/goddessess as emanations of God/Goddess, and that they inturn are polarities of the One. In my head it all makes perfect sense but throw some names into the batter and it all goes down hill.

For me I first understood "god" like the depiction from the tv series Joan of Arcadia. a being beyond our comprehension capable of being everywhere and nowhere, wear any face and voice it chooses, beyond gender and yet gendered. so i fit well with the monotheistic take on wicca, but deep inside i wanted more.

im a very visual person, so ill site Harry P. Book 1 and the Mirror of Erised. i wanted that feeling of the gods, divine parents and cocreaters standing at my sides ready for counsel. i wanted them to be sentient and individual beings. but even then when i work with them together one always seems hollow, as though the divinity rests in one and then the other. its a bit of a conundrum for me.

but then i think, well... they're emanations arn't they? so are we in a way, just further removed from the true nature of "god" and we are sentient individuals. so it works, but the more i try to personify the deity the more wrong it feels, because to me they are much more than us. It gives me a headache sometimes that im technically a mono, duo, pan, and polytheist all at the same time...

with the exception of two goddesses that im perpetually drawn to despite my nature. Hecate and the Morrigan. of all the stories i know these two are the only ones to ever elicit feeling from me. Being greek ive know about hecate for years and my own gifts engender admiration and reverence for her and she sometimes feels so real that i dare not ask for her assistance. the morrigan is an odd one or me. Crows are a fact of life for me ever since i was little, they follow me everywhere, so much so that ive even gotten good a mimicking their calls. but quite frankly the morrigan scares me royally and despite that  i cant stop but be drawn to her.
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Long story short ive taken a few steps back and realised i have some growing to do. with few exceptions im uneasy about locking the Gods into named people. ill just have to find another way to embrace them.