Spring Cleaning, Pagan Style

I knew someone in college whose first step to cleaning her room was always to take the pictures down from the wall. She worked her way down from there. I never considered that step to be necessary, but I understand the mentality behind it.

When you are manifesting new things, you can't always build on what you've got. Sometimes you have to set aside everything that is not necessary. Sometimes you even have to specify what that is--as quickly as reasonably possible, of course, so that you can move on to creating rather than destroying.

Recently my brother has been remodeling parts of the house that were damaged by water. The previous residents had just slapped wood over the particleboard the floor was originally made of (okay, it's a mobile home and an old one at that) and called it a day. This didn't solve the problem of essentially shoddy construction but only covered it up. When we opened up the floor and the wall, they were filled with nests of big red ants. When I think of what I was sleeping right next to, it still makes me shudder. It had to come out, and fast. (For any that didn't get out of my house on their own, I wish them lemon-fresh bliss in the ant afterlife. Go in peace.)

So there's been some rebuilding going on there. In my spiritual life, I'm still in the process of removing the rotten stuff and whatever feeds on it. I need to be clear about what is not welcome in my sacred space in addition to what is.

And in some cases, I just need to take the pictures off the wall and get down to the bare essentials.

I don't need any glamour when I get together with my spiritual community. I declare that stuff busted. Now.

I don't need a Pagan version of Disney World. The real world, inside and out, is breathtaking in and of itself.

I don't need to frak a Pagan to have a good time (not every time we gather, anyway). That's missing the whole point.

I don't need to support anyone who doesn't recognize the Goddess in me. She is there, even when it's inconvenient or disturbing the status quo or just not 'nice'. Goddess is in all of us, to be respected and cherished, and that means there's no place for hierarchy upon hierarchy or ego games. Go in peace, if that's your bag, but just go. (There's no bug spray for humans, as far as I'm concerned. You gotta stay alive wherever you're going.) I'm keeping the friends I love, along with their naturally beautiful souls and generous work ethic, and tossing the rotten situations that surrounded our meeting. (Once uncovered, some of these can be rebuilt better than ever.) And of course, I'm keeping my Divine nature and theirs.

Since there are healthier and safer settings where we can manifest wholeness and truth and community, let's do this. It doesn't have to be fancy, backbreaking, or expensive. It doesn't have to look good in pictures. It just has to be real.

Let's wake up and make it real.

*snaps fingers*

Now.

Hurrying to the Harvest

First harvest?  This time of year in zone 10, only a few things can still grow. If you have something to harvest, you'd best grab it while you can, before the overwhelming rays of the sun scorch it.

So it's a good time to reap what you've sown. Yes, justice is on my mind once again.

A little over a year ago, I was shining the light on an outrageous situation and letting someone in power know it was not acceptable to ignore what was going on. Despite the person's best efforts to do just that, it didn't stay ignored--it came right back out with a vengeance and finally sealed the man's fate.

That was in the Pagan community. Now I've become aware of something or someone even more outrageous in the Christian community. It's too graphic to go into here, but let's just say the world is now safe from him and his puppets. (Go look if you want. I'm not even going to link it here.) I am relieved that whatever he did, it can't happen again.

Days after his personal day of reckoning, the television network that made him semi-famous had nothing to say and was still broadcasting the reruns, perhaps hoping it would all go away. I had to tell them it wouldn't.

Throughout the heartfelt and heated exchange, I thought of childhood memories, the kind that wouldn't interest the news. Being a child of 8 or 9, I was so excited to be on the set of a real TV show. The deputy badge was the best thing I ever got in the mail.

The actors--some of them, anyway--remained in my life well into my teens, when we performed skits and such locally. The 'sheriff' host was a sweet old man, just full of sunshine. I'm sure they're all mortified that this show they worked on for years, however long it's been out of production, is now associated with crimes.

I cried and felt very close to my sometime stage buddies, if only for a moment. I suppose it could be called an interfaith effort with some stretch of the imagination, but right now it's more about being inter-human. It's about doing what we need to do to feel grounded, purified, safe, more like ourselves.

We all do this differently, but we all have ways of making ourselves safe. Sometimes we need to come together to do this.

So let us harvest what we have sown: compassion, community, and come-uppance. Let's get together and bring in the harvest. There's so much left to gather, we need to help each other.