Accidental Experiment- and What I Learned About Myself and My Spirituality

I have been quiet for a little while, and honestly, that has been due to being lost in the timelessness that the current global situation has caused many of us to live in the last few weeks. Having been laid off in the middle of March, I find my days and nights blending together lately, and much to my chagrin, I fell into a bit of malaise and ennui. I am, after all, like many other human beings, and I do have flaws. I want to make sure that this is understood; I do not put myself up as an ideal example of anything, all I am is one person sharing my point of view and experience in the hopes that it might help someone else along their path.

In order to explain my “accidental experiment” I need to explain a little bit about what my ideal is and what things I had put into place, prior to other changes. When I was laid off I decided to take this time to better myself and do somethings that I hadn’t had the time or energy to do while I was working. I cleaned my house, I organized my library, and I started working devotional rituals into my day.

My devotional ritual included two practices that I have found very helpful and moving for my own experience: Making Kala, and the Prayer for Alignment. In the morning, I perform the Prayer for Alignment, and then make Kala. I say a prayer that includes the acknowledgment of each of the Elements, and I draw an oracle card and meditate on what this may mean for my day. THEN I start my day. At night, I perform the Prayer for Alignment again and if I feel it is needed I make Kala (doing this rite too regularly has in my opinion, cleared out things I was not ready to deal with, so I am careful with my performance of making Kala) I journal and review my day, sit in quiet meditation and then speak a prayer of gratitude and then go to sleep. This was the new practices that I had put into place at the beginning of quarantine period, and I was successful at performing them each day for seven days. During that time I was energetic, and productive, I was calm and at peace, despite the major changes in life.

Then, unfortunately, I started staying up very late at night (in fact many times I ended up not going to bed around 6 a.m.) and when waking up in the afternoon, I didn’t take the time to perform my morning ritual, or my evening ritual. While, some things still got done, however, I was more lethargic, more worried and less productive. After about a week of feeling this way I began to ask myself what was different, the answer was that I was not honoring my spiritual path or putting in the effort to commune with spirit , the elements or my Gods. I wasn’t putting forth the effort for myself either.

It is very interesting to me how differently I felt without performing my devotional practice in comparison to the week that I had performed the rituals. It sparked curiosity, and I began contemplating the differences, and the effects of each portion of the rituals I was performing. (understanding the theory of ritual is important to the creation and performance of ritual, it is much more interesting when you can see the effects each section has on your own self.)

The Prayer for Alignment is a form of centering, it pulls your energy into alignment, increases your awareness of your different energy bodies, and increases your capacity to hold energy. Now, what exactly does “hold energy” mean? Our energy bodies are capable of sustaining large amounts of energy. Generally, we tend to make ourselves smaller energetically, whether as a response to adverse experiences, or from an unconscious want to blend in. However, in order to do the work we were put here to do, we need to access our capacity to BE, and we need to be capable of being comfortable with the energy that is naturally ours. The Prayer for Alignment helps us to remember what being in alignment feels like, and stores life force energy, first at a level we are used to and then gradually increasing it. We grow bigger energetically and we accept our own sovereignty and step into our power. The use of breath connects us to the world around us in a new way. In performing this rite twice a day I was increasing my own healthy energetic flow, connection to the Divine, and alignment. When I no longer performed this rite, I began to shrink back to the smaller size that is comfortable, but not a natural state for my spirit; thus the lethargy, the lack of productivity.

Making Kala, helps to clear out the debris, negativity, and any blockages that may be holding us from our work. It clears the channel so that your inner voice, your guides, your ancestors and your Gods can reach you. It helps to silence the distractions and thus it helps to increase your creativity. It helps you to deal with old emotional trauma and debris and helps you to create the perfect vessel to do your work. Without this you tend to fall back into old habits, and allows you to be distracted and sidelined.

The Prayers- (I realize for some pagans the idea of Prayer is a triggering term/activity- especially if you haven’t resolved any of your tension with a previous religion, and I would like to address this very quickly.) Prayer is a conversation between you and the Divine, the Elements, the Ancestors, Your Guides and Your Gods. We as pagans seek to have a more personal relationship with the spirits and Divine around us. Prayers are where we talk to those spirits, the ones we ask for guidance and enlist to help us when we work magic. This is something that irked me when I originally began to study the path of the Witch; (I preference this with saying that this is not a generalized statement, not all pagans/witches are like this and it may only be a select few.) Many witches and pagans, would work spells and call on Deities to assist them in spellwork; without making any offerings, without having a relationship…this seemed rude to me. I put myself in the place of the deity called on: minding my own business, when someone I don’t know calls my name and asks (sometimes commands) me to help them with some project or goal they are trying to accomplish, without ever introducing them self, without getting to know me or my preferences, what I would like; just out of the blue they want me to do something for them, and while they may call on me for other things, they don’t talk to me in between and only seek for my presence when they want something. Most people have had a friend like that in their lives, and most people have ceased to socialize with that person because they felt used. If we would not want to be treated that way, we certainly shouldn’t be treating the Divine this way. We should instead cultivate a relationship with the Divine. We have tools to do this: Prayer and Meditation and Divination. Prayer is where WE TALK. This talk can be a multitude of things: expressing gratitude, sharing details of your life that make you happy or sad, celebrating your accomplishments, celebrating the turning of the seasons, honoring the Deity/Spirit/Guide/Ancestor/ Element. Mediation and Divination are where WE LISTEN. Meditation creates space and silence for the small silent voice of Spirit to whisper into. Divination allows the Divine to talk to us through the use of symbols. My daily morning ritual allows both of these: TALKING and LISTENING with the Divine. It is my daily morning visit with the energies, spirits and Divine that exist within the world.

In my evening ritual has a period for contemplation and introspection as well as writing a journal entry, this allows me time to review my day: What am I proud of? What did I wish I had done better? Did I reach my goals for that day? What lessons did I learn? What am I grateful for? What messages have I received from Spirit? This review of the day allows me to process, review and record these important moments and lessons on my spiritual path. Processing and reviewing the day can help a person to integrate the lessons and blessings they have received into their spirit. It has also been suggested in many different traditions as a very vital part of a spiritual practice. Not only does it help you to integrate the important parts of the day, it writing in a journal can also help you to let go of anything negative and harmful from the day as well. As an insomniac I have found that doing this can help quiet my mind, thus allowing me to be more relaxed and able to fall asleep more easily. It allows me to get a lot of the excessive thoughts out of my head, which allows me to quiet down and actually get some restful sleep.

All of these elements weave together to create a calming, centering devotional practice, that obviously helped me to thrive. While I never expected to have such insight from not doing ritual- it has definitely given me food for thought and it has motivated me to renew my commitment to performing my devotional routine, hopefully it will expand my views and capabilities and help me to continue to build my practice.