An Update, A Rethink, and Some Nature Awareness

Ok, so it's been, like, months since I've updated the blog. It's been months since I did any of my Dedicant Program work. But we're through winter now, and that's great. The last month or so, from mid-February until now, has been a blitz of new projects, mostly involving one of my other major hobbies.

I'd really wanted to get to Cedarlight for the Imbolc ritual,  but they decided to have a dawn ritual and I had to work that weekend. I downloaded the liturgy from Teo Bishop's Solitary Druid Fellowship, and even customized it, and then proceeded to procrastinate my way through the entire weekend. While, yes, it was my birthday weekend, I was still unhappy with myself.

This leads to the rethink...

I'm honestly surprised it's taken me this long to understand that I will never have the motivation to do complicated rituals at home. Now, it's not like I've never done my own solo rituals. I started out as a solitary Wiccan in the late 90s, and did ritual work on my own prior to joining a coven.

What I mean is that I'm just not going to sit down and do a full COoR at home on my own. It's a lot of steps, a lot of materials to gather, and those things give me an easy out for the procrastination. "Oh, I can't do ritual, I don't have all my offerings!" "Oh, I can't do ritual, it'll take an hour and I'm tired!"

Going forward, this means that if I do need to do ritual on my own, I'm going to "plan" a much more relaxed, "kitchen witch" sort of thing. I've always had success with these, and it doesn't matter if half the rituals for my DP are done in another style, anyhow. I can cast circle and wrap up a holiday ritual in 20 minutes if I want to, because I don't have to think about it.

Being Wiccan for almost 20 years, I'm familiar enough with those ritual patterns to do it in my sleep. Sometimes I kind of have. ADF-style ritual is still new to me, even though I've been a card carrying member for like 7 years now, and I have to think about all the steps if I'm alone. If I'm at the Grove, I just follow along with everyone else. I get a lot out of participating, but participating is nowhere near the level of "running things".

So that's that. As a part of my rethink, I've retooled my timeline for completing my DP, as I did not legitimately celebrate Imbolc. Oh, I thought about lying and writing it up anyway, so I could get the project completed at Samhain this year. No one would have known. Except me. And the Gods. And how can I build a foundation on dishonesty? I never cheated at school. Why cheat now?

As part of that rethink, I've decided that it isn't that important to strictly follow the Wheel of the Year booklet. I think it's fabulous, and I do want to make DP work a regular, mostly-weekly part of my life. But again, a weekly regimen gives me ample opportunity to shoot myself in the foot. "Oh, I missed 6 weeks now! I have to start again!"

The only requirements for the DP that have any sort of time-frame attached are the 8 holiday rituals, which must be completed in a 12 month period; the mental discipline training, which needs to take place over a certain number of months; and I think the nature awareness requirement, though I need to look that up. So if I don't write an Ostara essay this month, no big deal. If I don't get my home shrine set up for a while longer, no big deal. No reason to tank things because I'm not doing it perfectly.

Wow. That was long. In other news, I submitted my application to join Cedarlight last night at Ostara. New Grove membership involve a trial/training period, so that'll start once they get me into the system. I can't wait. :)

And a bit of nature awareness... winter is a rough season for me, as I've said before. This year, though, I think I'm more in tune with nature than ever before. In mid-February, I started noticing that the days were actually getting longer, well before I usually do. I've noticed the daffodils have started coming up around my area, and trees are budding... all in the last couple of weeks. This isn't something I've consciously worked at, but it's coming to me all the same, and I'm delighted. I'm also delighted that spring is just around the corner, because I'm SOOOOO ready for flip-flop weather. I hate wearing shoes!