{"id":1452,"date":"2022-12-12T10:00:39","date_gmt":"2022-12-12T15:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thegardnerianlibrarian\/?p=1452"},"modified":"2022-12-11T17:49:53","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T22:49:53","slug":"keep-the-candle-burning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thegardnerianlibrarian\/2022\/12\/keep-the-candle-burning\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep the Candle Burning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The holidays are a particularly challenging time of year for many folks. Reports and rates of loneliness, substance abuse, and suicide all increase this time of year. Many pagans talk about the Dark Half of the Year as a time for introspection, and I\u2019ve anecdotally found this to be true for myself. I\u2019m less active this time of year and spend much more time reading, indoors, and socializing much less. It\u2019s a fabulous time to have an existential or spiritual crisis, right?<\/p>\n

This is the first year, in a long time, that I\u2019ve felt in the Yuletide spirit. I remember loving the holiday season when I was a kid \u2013 the lights, the music, smells, and bells. A lot of that holiday magic I experienced as a kid drained away over the years, though, and the holiday season became a source of anxiety for me. But this year I feel\u2026different. I\u2019ve put up a few decorations around the house, I\u2019ve been humming popular holiday tunes, and I even watched \u201cFalling for Christmas\u201d on Netflix. It\u2019s basically Lindsay Lohan\u2019s comeback movie \u2013 with a few throwback references to \u201cMean Girls\u201d \u2013 and I thought it was charming. It\u2019s a typical feel-good, Christmas cliche type movie but I mainly watched it for The Lohan.<\/p>\n

The Wilderness<\/h3>\n Something about my spiritual self has been changing this season alongside my reinvigorated Yuletide spirit. It all started out with me feeling restless in spirit and practice. Then it morphed into dissatisfaction. And now I\u2019m in a place of timid exploration of practices and theology that haven\u2019t mirrored mine in many, many years. Going through this experience has felt like grieving to me and I\u2019ve felt so lonely in it. I\u2019m a\u00a0priestess<\/em>, for goodness sake. I\u2019m supposed to have all this spiritual and religious shit figured out and mapped out for my entire lifetime, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cWilderness follows Liberation.\u201d<\/h4>\n The above is a phrase that\u2019s been rattling around in my brain all week. I\u2019ve been sussing out what it means to me and this is where I currently am: there are many moments in our lives when we experience liberation. Liberation from someone, something, somewhere, some moment<\/em>. The immediate period that follows liberation from anything is the Unknown. While we might have a goal we want to hit on the other side of Liberation, the spaces in between Imprisonment and Liberation, and Liberation and Autonomy are unknown. We often don\u2019t know what is needed to traverse the spaces in between those bigger concepts. Essentially, it\u2019s, \u201cI made it! I\u2019m finally free! Now what? I\u2019ve never been free from this (person, place, thing, or experience) before.\u201d<\/p>\n Traversing the Wilderness can be scary, simply because we\u2019ve never walked it before. Some of us walk the Wilderness alone, in the dark, and without a plan. And the concept of \u201cWilderness\u201d will vary from person to person. What\u2019s the first image that pops into your mind when you think of \u201cWilderness\u201d? I can bet many of you are thinking of a desert, but forests can be wildernesses too. What seems like a Wilderness to you may be a walk in the park for someone else, and vice versa.<\/p>\n Image via Pixabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nKeep the Candle Burning<\/h3>\n All of us experience moments of despair. You know, that dark night of the soul type shit. I\u2019m walking in my Wilderness right now but I\u2019m fortunate to say that I\u2019m not walking it alone this time. My best friend and I have known one another for 15 years. We went to college together; we started our college\u2019s first pagan club together; we even studied and experienced Gardnerian Wicca together. We\u2019ve witnessed each other\u2019s growth from late teens to our early thirties, and so we\u2019ve been through and shared a lot with one another.<\/p>\n My dear friend has re-lit my snuffed out spiritual metaphor of a candle several times over the years. I\u2019ve had moments where I\u2019ve questioned the existence of the gods, my purpose as priestess, my role as coven leader, and numerous other things. And yet, over and over, she\u2019s re-lit my candle from her own. This is one friend that never lets me drown in my darkness or get lost for too long in my Wilderness.<\/p>\n I charge you with keeping the candle burning during this holiday season, whether it\u2019s your own or someone else\u2019s. Your light may serve as a beacon for the lost and warmth for the frozen. And remember that the darkest night will eventually bring the brightest dawn \u2013 there\u2019s mercy in knowing nothing lasts forever. Whether you\u2019re at the precipice of Liberation or you\u2019re already wandering the Wilderness, I wish you a bright and hopeful Yuletide season.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The holidays are a particularly challenging time of year for many folks. Reports and rates of loneliness, substance abuse, and suicide all increase this time of year. Many pagans talk about the Dark Half of the Year as a time for introspection, and I\u2019ve anecdotally found this to be true for myself. I\u2019m less active […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4476,"featured_media":1473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[378,32,381],"class_list":["post-1452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-liberation","tag-wicca","tag-wilderness"],"yoast_head":"\nKeep the Candle Burning<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Keep the candle burning during this holiday season, whether it's your own or someone else's. 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