Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

A Witch's Ashram

Home
Pagan
Playing Catch Up

Playing Catch Up

Last updated on: May 12, 2015 at 9:51 am by Niki Whiting

Playing Catch Up 2015-05-12T09:51:16-08:00 Niki Whiting

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

In late winter I promised that I would write less. I keep forgetting this promise and instead, getting down on myself for not writing “enough.” Here is what is happening in between the posts:

Blackberry, comfrey and morning glory. All over the yard. All over.

Family life is busy, as usual. The baby is over a year old and is mobile. She needs more attention. The four year old is out of preschool. She is bright, needing more stimulation. She is also a little lonely with Mama writing all the time and big brother at school. She needs more attention.

We avoided a lot of winter sicknesses, but have been slammed in May. After I recovered from strep throat last week, all of the kids caught a puking bug on Mother’s Day. Good times.

I don’t know what this is, but it grows in several places on our property. I don’t weed it out because it’s pretty.

I continue to feel the pull to move inward with my work. I am craving fewer voices in my head. To facilitate that silence I’ve significantly muted my Facebook activity, as well as my online time. This inward pull is part of an ongoing case of mid-life crisis (a numerically important birthday approaches in just three weeks). I am looking closely at my spiritual practices, my “work/life” balance, and the angst I carry with me regarding my connection to Place and this Land.

That latter one is exacerbated by the fact that I know next to nothing about gardening and plants, and our property is a riot of weeds. I’m learning a TON just by getting out and talking with the weeds. Even my four year old now goes out and will talk to Morning Glory: “You can grow on the fence, but Mama told you not to grow here.” The Morning Glory is as obedient as the 4 year old.

But crammed between the chores, the devotions, and the cuddles is the writing.

My most recent piece for Polytheist.com went up yesterday. It’s about raising Polytheist kids. What I failed to mention in that piece is that we also read a LOT of myth and lore in our house. We read fairly tales (the older Grimm versions and so on). We read stories from around the world. We read creation stories. This develops a vocabulary for religions of every kind and type.

What’s important to me is that my children witness devotion and practice as a part of life, as a joy and blessing, and as something that benefits our family and communities. Some practices are done alone and with my door shut, but for the most part I let my kids see, hear, smell, and touch what I do. My practice is significantly messier than it was before kids, but if I want them to develop a practice they need to see what that looks like! Kids learn from watching and copying.

I am working on a piece for Gods & Radicals next week, a piece that is a bit of a departure from the writing I do here. Gods & Radicals is a contentious new site that looks at the intersection between Paganism and anti-Capitalism. I don’t get very political on this blog, but I am a very political person. How can I not be? Feminism has taught me that the personal is the political. I see politics as the manifestation of my values in the world. Just writing openly about witchcraft and Paganism is a political act. Being a loud-mouthed, educated woman is a political act. And so on.

I plan to post a companion piece here next week about why I think anti-Capitalism is important, how it fits in to our work as Pagans and witches, and hopefully dispel a few myths about what anti-Capitalism is and is not. (Spoiler alert: it’s not about burning civilization to the ground and reverting back to the pre-modern era.)

As always I am plugging away at work for Many Gods West. Please come join us this summer in Olympia!

Lastly, I am preparing to speak tomorrow to a Sociology of Religions class at Seattle Pacific University, an evangelical Methodist university. I will be representing Paganism and Pagans (and also polytheists and witches). This is a new sort of presentation for me, as it combines academic explanation of this huge mess of identities and practices that is Big Umbrella Paganism with personal experience and expression of me as a invidual. I’ll try to do us all proud. And I’ll post about it later this week!

Previous Post

May 8, 2015

The Vocabulary of Spiritual Practice, Part 2

Next Post

May 14, 2015 Paganism 101

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Alaska altar altars Ana Ancestors Anderson witchcraft Arddu Bhairava Biography bodies books Christianity Christmas community current events death Delphic Maxims Dhumavati dual observance Durga Faery family life feminism Feri Feri tradition Feri witchcraft food ganesha gratitude Guest Post guru health Hinduism holidays Jesus Kali Lakshmi land links magic Many Gods West movie review movies music my heart mystery myth Navratri Orthodoxy pagan pagan culture paganism pantheacon parenting Place politics polytheism practice pratice prayer Red Goddess review ritual sacred arts Samhain Saraswati Shinto Shiva singing Star Goddess Tantra tarot the Gods theory Uncategorized values virgin mary wales washington winter witchcraft year in review yoga

Select a Month September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was thrown in a lion's den and survived?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Peter Daniel Joshua Paul