Month 3, Day 31: My Last Day as a Pagan

Last month couldn’t end fast enough for me, but I’ve got to say that the end of this month makes me a little sad. I’ve really loved being a pagan. The lack of organization and the freedom of choice—for both personal deities and the structure of daily worship—were just right for me. I’m starting to think I’m just not a very structured person in general, and I want my religion to reflect my inherent craziness.

To me, religion is best when it doesn’t feel like an obligation. I mean, is worship really worship if you do it because you’re afraid of the consequences and not because you’re actually expressing love for God?

As a Christian, I felt like I had to go to church and I had to say prayers and I had to read the Bible, because the alternative was spending eternity in hell.

As a pagan, however, I prayed and did rituals and read spiritual texts because I wanted to, and because it kind of seemed like fun. It was a whole different experience, unlike anything I remember from growing up in the Catholic Church.

They always say that the best way to live is to find work you love to do, because then work seems like play. Shouldn’t religion be the same way? Now that I know religion can be that way, I’d be hard-pressed to ever consider going back to the “fire and brimstone,” “do it or you’ll fry” style of religion I knew as a child.

So, I’ll definitely miss paganism—even the things I thought were a bit kooky, like fairies and divination and magic. I think I might even miss nature—the bugs and the wind and the scrawny Texas trees.

But the good news is that I have a whole new religion—actually, two religions—to look forward to next month. Who knows? Maybe I’ll discover that I like being traditional Chinese even better than I liked being a wild, nature-loving pagan who meditates naked in the bath. I guess we’ll see.

Month 3, Day 30: Chakras

I’ve been thinking that maybe all this negativity—all my hopelessness and lack of faith—is something that can be fixed, and maybe even fixed in a pagan way while I still have the chance, before this month is over. I don’t want to go into a new month and a new religion feeling as bad as I do right now. So I’ve been exploring my options.

Paganism borrows a lot from Eastern religions—things like reincarnation and karma. Some pagans also believe in the idea of chakras, a concept popular in India.

The word chakra means “wheel of light” in Sanskrit. There are supposed to be a bunch of chakras in the human body. They’re basically little vortexes of energy that spin around at different points.

When the chakras are spinning freely, your energy flows well and you’re supposed to feel healthy and balanced. But if one or more chakras get blocked—by stress or negativity or some other everyday problem—it can affect your health and your whole outlook on life.

Man, my chakras must be welded into a fixed position, because I am in bad shape these days.

So where are the chakras and what do they do?

Most sources agree that there are seven main chakras, conveniently located in a straight line down the center of the body.

Starting from the bottom and working our way up, the first is the root chakra, found at the bottom of the spine. It’s related to material existence and the instinct for survival. All chakras are associated with colors (and together they form a rainbow—see the illustration below). The root chakra’s color is red.

 

The second chakra is the sacral, located just above the . . . um . . . genital area. Associated with the color orange, it’s related to sexuality and reproduction (so it’s in the right place on the body), as well as pleasure and creativity.

The third chakra, which is yellow, is the solar plexus chakra. It’s located (surprise, surprise) at the solar plexus, above the navel (is it weird that I’m pushing 40 and still prefer the term belly-button over navel?). The solar plexus chakra relates to personal power and decision-making. It also helps keep the other chakras going strong. I’m guessing that mine is pretty screwed up.

The fourth chakra is the heart. You might expect it to be associated with red, or at least pink, but nope. It’s green. It relates to love (stunner!), compassion, balance, and healing.

The fifth chakra is the throat. Associated with the color blue, the throat chakra is related to communication, self-expression, magic (oh, no!), and creativity. Again, I must have a pretty dysfunctional throat chakra, since I can’t seem to get out a single sentence lately without somebody taking it the wrong way.

Sixth is the brow, or third eye, chakra, located in the center of the forehead. Its color is indigo or violet (indigo works better with the whole “seven chakras make a rainbow” idea, if you ask me). The third eye chakra relates to intuition, wisdom, and other mental abilities.

Finally, the seventh chakra is the crown, located at the very top of the head. Associated with either violet/purple or white, depending on who you ask, the crown chakra deals with our relationship to Spirit, universal consciousness, and spiritual transformation.

Based on all this, I’ve got to wonder if any of my chakras are working properly. I think I have some kind of problem going on at all seven stations—and, I’d hazard to guess, in the 21 minor chakra locations, too (but we won’t get into those now—let’s stick with the big seven for the sake of brevity, okay?).

So how do you fix a problem in the chakras, considering that some pagans say they’re not even real, that they’re just imaginary things created to help us better visualize our internal energy flow? Well, apparently, there are lots of methods for clearing or healing the chakras. I’ve even found entire books written on the subject. But the one that looks easiest to me is a basic meditation—and in my current fragile state, easy is good.

The way it works is this: You visualize each chakra, one at a time, picturing them in all their vibrant color and spinning freely with lots of force and energy. You can picture them in any way that works for you: as swirling flowers, colored flames, or maybe (and this is how I envision them) as one of those little pinwheel things on a stick that you probably played with as a child (see the picture below if you don’t know what I mean).

The point behind the meditation is to see for yourself how well your chakras are spinning. If they’re having any trouble, you’re supposed to be able to focus and concentrate to make them spin more freely.

I figure it’s worth a shot. I’m still pretty good at visualization, even if I usually only visualize horrible things. If there’s even a chance I can start to feel better, I’ll take it. So, here I go.

Okay, I’m back. (That was quick, right?) I got in the bath to do the meditation. I know, it’s probably not the ideal place, since there’s always the chance you could fall asleep and drown, but hey, isn’t everything better naked?

So anyway, I did the meditation and had a close look at my chakras. I know it’s probably all nonsense and nothing more than my imagination, but when I pictured those little pinwheels, I saw color but no spinning. They were just sitting there. And then I noticed that the crevices between the “leaves” or whatever you call the pieces of pinwheel were full of gunk—black, sludgy gunk.

I wasn’t sure what to do, because none of the books I read mentioned anything about gunk clogging up the chakras, but I did what I would do in real life if I saw gunk gumming up the works. I imagined scraping it out. And when I did, the little wheels started to spin. A lot. And—again, even though I know it’s probably all just crap—I actually feel a little better.

So, whether it’s real or not, I’ll take it.

Month 3, Day 29: Failure

I haven’t posted in a while because I really wanted to wait and see how my spell turned out before I gave you the update. I didn’t want to jinx it if it was going well, but now I know it’s not worth the effort. I’m a jinx by definition.

I was a little ambivalent about the whole idea of magic, but I was willing to give it a try. I’ve really loved being pagan, and I wanted to love every aspect of it, even if magic did seem to be a little nutty. Everybody has something they’d like to change in their lives, and I’m no exception. Actually, I’d like to change pretty much everything about my life. But I picked one specific thing—a “little” thing. Or so I thought.

Okay, here it is. The backstory is that I quit smoking six years ago. And then I started again almost two years ago. It was stupid, and I knew it, and I didn’t want to keep smoking forever, so I decided to quit again. Well, actually, I tried quitting several times, and it never quite worked out. As I’ve said before, I’m not great with the willpower and focus.

But this past July, I was finally doing well. I gave up cigarettes, using nicotine lozenges instead. But, because I’m apparently weak and pathetic in every way, I immediately became addicted to the lozenges. Truth be told, I liked the lozenges even better than smoking—same rush of nicotine, no lingering cloud of smoke. Win-win.

But there’s a downside to everything. The lozenges cost around $42 a week, and in my present financial circumstances, that’s a lot to spend on something that isn’t essential for survival. At least, I thought the lozenges weren’t essential for survival. I may have been wrong there.

When I learned that magic was supposed to be helpful in overcoming a bad habit, I was thrilled. If the spell worked, I could be free from the damn nicotine once and for all, and also have a bonus $42 in my pocket every week. Again, win-win.

So I did the spell. And I thought I did it well. I did it during the waning phase of the moon—all the better to banish something you no longer want in your life. I concentrated hard—which, for me, is no small task. I even waited until I thought I felt something when I invited the elements and the God and Goddess to be with me at the ritual.

But I guess all I felt was gas. Or maybe a craving for nicotine. It’s abundantly clear now that I was doing the spell completely alone. And it’s also clear that it did not work.

Within 12 hours after I had my last dose of nicotine, I was in bad shape and getting worse. I had all the classic symptoms of withdrawal—irritability, headache, dizziness, and even hallucinations. The bed was breathing, no kidding around.

I tried everything to make it all go away. I tried taking deep breaths. I tried meditation. I even tried begging Ganesha, who was supposed to be “removing an obstacle” for me, to help out. Nothing worked. It all just made me even crazier.

So, because I like having a boyfriend and pets that are alive, and I didn’t want to end up slicing anybody’s throat in a fit of rage, today I’m back on nicotine, sucking on a lozenge even as I write this.

I don’t know. I’m losing faith in this project—and in myself. If I can’t stop taking these stupid lozenges, how can I possibly attempt to make real changes in my life? How can I even think I’ll be able to finish this stupid year of religion in one piece? Let’s face it. I don’t have enough faith or vision or whatever I’m supposed to have to do any of this.

I guess sometimes magic just ain’t enough.

Month 3, Day 26: Magic

When pagans talk about “magic,” they don’t mean waving a wand and turning somebody into a toad. Although a lot of pagans do have a wand, they don’t believe they can just wave it and change a human being into an amphibian. 

Okay, I take that back. I’m sure a few pagans—and non-pagans, for that matter—do believe they can do that sort of thing. But we have a word for those people: nuts.

So, although most pagans believe in magic, I’m slowly learning that pagan magic is not quite as exciting as it sounds. As Wiccan writer Scott Cunningham explains, “Contrary to popular belief, magic isn’t supernatural.” Which means I won’t be turning anybody into a toad. Damn.

Real magic—the kind most pagans practice—is, in the words of writer Carl McColman, “nothing more—or less—than harnessing your own inherent mental and spiritual power to create the life you desire.”

For lack of a better comparison, pagan magic is kind of like the power of positive thinking. What you think—whether it’s good or bad—eventually becomes reality. So pagans try to shape their worlds for the better through affirmations, visualization, and yes, magic spells.

I guess maybe I was hoping for a little abracadabra-type “real” magic, but this pagan magic stuff kind of sounds like work. It’s not necessarily about changing the physical world in obvious ways or changing your ex into a toad. It’s much simpler than that—and much more difficult, if you ask me.

Carl McColman describes it pretty well. He says: “The more you say positive and powerful things about your life, the more you train yourself to believe that you deserve good things and the more conscious you become of opportunities that come your way.”

Ugh. So it’s basically that same old “happy, positive thoughts” stuff—like The Secret. The thing is, I do believe I deserve good things. I just don’t have those things. If I didn’t think I deserved better, I wouldn’t be so pissed off all the time.

I do think I deserve good things, and sometimes I even think positive thoughts. But . . . nothing. My regular old everyday "magic" just doesn’t seem to work.

I guess I was kind of hoping that having a wand would help, but so far, not so much. Again, Carl McColman sets me straight: “The various tools and props we use are merely objects to help in the real work of magic: focusing the mind.”

Oh, crap. I’m in trouble. If you’ve read more than a single post here, you know I’m not all that great at “focusing the mind.”

But I refuse to give up. And I refuse to accept my crappy life—oops, what I meant to say is “I am paving the way for a wonderful life full of amazing things.”

So, just to prove that I’m willing to go the distance every month and with every religion, today, I’m going to do a spell. I am going to change myself and the world around me. I’m going to rock this magic thing!

See? I’m all about this positive thinking crap. I mean, stuff. Whatever. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Month 3, Day 24: A Day in the Life of a Pagan

You probably already have some basic idea of what most people who follow most of the major world religions do each day. A lot of Christians say grace before meals, whisper prayers at night before bed, and go to church on Sundays. Muslims pray five times a day facing Mecca (something I’m not looking forward to). But what about pagans?

Well, here you go. Here’s the skinny on what it’s like to be a pagan in daily life.

In the morning, when I wake up, I say a little hello to the God and Goddess and the four elements. It goes something like this:

Good morning, Spirits of the East, Creatures of Air

Today with your blessing, I walk the path of inspiration and laughter

I follow the hawk on the ghost of the wind

I find my voice and speak the truth.

Good morning, Spirits of the North, Creatures of Earth

Today with your blessing, I walk the path of strength and success

I follow the steps of the wolf and bear

Abundance grows all around me.

Good morning, Spirits of the South, Creatures of Fire

Today with your blessing, I walk the path of passion and courage

I follow the snake through the silver desert

I create change with the flame of my will.

Good morning, Spirits of the West, Creatures of Water

Today with your blessing, I walk the path of beauty and love

I follow the dolphin into the hidden depths

My blood is the healing blood of the sea.

Good morning, Lord and Lady

Today with your blessing, I walk with you upon a path of my own choosing

Guide and guard me this day and always

By your grace, with harm to none, blessed be.

It’s kind of pretty, don’t you think? I memorized the basic words from a book somewhere, but now I can’t figure out which book it was and I can’t find it again, so if you have any idea who wrote it, I’d love to know so I can give him/her credit. I just know it wasn’t me. There’s far too much nature imagery for it to be something I would write.

Anyway, after morning prayers, I spend most of the rest of the day like everybody else does—working, eating (lots of eating), exercising (just a smidge and only if I can’t avoid it), whatever. In theory, I’m supposed to say a little prayer of thanks when I begin a meal, just like good Christians do, but I’ll be honest enough to admit that I’m usually so hungry that I forget all about praying and dive right in.

Depending on my mood and how much time I have, I might try to meditate. For pagans, meditation doesn’t necessarily have to be the mind-clearing, painful, boring nightmare that we talked about when I was Hindu. Pagans are big into visualization, so you can use your meditation time to visualize what you want in life and how you want it to happen. I’m very good at that. I never have any trouble at all picturing myself in fabulous surroundings because, hey, I deserve it, right?

So, at some point during the day, I try to get outside and spend some time in nature, as much as I hate it. Sure, my time in nature usually just involves walking the dogs, but at least I’m trying. 

Besides, what constitutes “nature” around here is pretty appalling. Have a look at the photos below, and I think you’ll agree that it’s a wonder I go outside at all. The Dallas area is not quite the forested, hilly majesty that a girl from the Northeast is used to. They call these sad, scrawny things trees? Really?

Finally, at night, before bed, I say some good night prayers to the God and Goddess—pretty much the same stuff I say in the morning, but it’s “good night” instead of “good morning”—not too difficult to remember.

Overall, it’s not too taxing an existence. Being pagan is actually kind of pleasant. There’s no kneeling for hours, begging an angry God for mercy. There’s no underlying guilt over having committed “sins” when you really don’t think you did anything wrong. And there are no dietary restrictions. I’ve got to say, I’ll be very sorry to see this paganism thing go.