Let me tell you a once-upon-a-time story.
Once upon a time, after a big break up, I started a new journal. I decided, in this journal, I was going to be brutally, totally honest with myself about what I was feeling and thinking and I wouldn’t censor anything out. So if I felt like Shitwoman, I’d write about that. If I was annoyed at someone I loved, I’d write about that and not pretend everything was rosyperfect. If I was ashamed of something I’d done, I’d get it out there on paper and see it in front of me and DEAL with it.
It was so fantastically healthy for me. Uncover shame! Deal with guilt! Be pissed! Hurrah!
And then I finished that journal, met Superman, and after starting a new journal spent most of it gushing about how awesome Superman was and getting annoyed that I didn’t have anything else to write about except ohmigodsupermanissodreamy. Blech. I did not want to be that person.
So I stopped regularly journalling. Gushy honesty was just too much for me, even though the whole point in the first place was honesty no matter what. Um.
This whole honesty thing is really important for healthy everything. I really admire bloggers like Goddess Leonie who have a complete transparency policy on what they write. So I’m gonna bring the honesty policy right here right now.
I know I am a witch and everything, and I love Halloween and I blog about witchyness and goddessness and spirituality whenever I can, but
I did nothing particularly witchy for halloween.
Do you know what I did instead?
After a big awesome Halloween party (where I dressed up as a voudou shaman, woohoo!) I got Superman’s cold, and have spent the week with a face full of snot feeling sorry for myself. On Samhain night I watched South Park, carved my pumpkin (into a mermaid! Woohoo!) and went to bed early after teaching and working all day.
All week, I have been working, being poorly, preparing for a gig and sewing. This week, I specifically have not been very witchy at all.
Part of my thing is about self love, so I am trying to not beat myself up about this. But my thing is that I am exceptional at missing sabbat celebrations. So so good. Buddhabear and I have a practice we use a lot in our life. It goes like this:
This is too important to do right now. I will do it later.
I didn’t say it was a smart practice.
It’s also my sabbat prep mantra. It’s ridiculous. Unless I have a sabbat ritual properly planned from to top to bottom, it won’t happen, because it’s too important to do without prep, and it’s too important to do right now when the moment is not important enough.
So I am going to go away now and plan a late Samhain ritual dammit. I’m not going to let this festival run away from me.
You know – I am so happy I found your blog, you make me feel good and I know it´s becaurse you are for REAL, and I´m sayin´this from one witch to another:
Just like you I decide when I want to celebrate with a ceremony or create a new ritual…
Having a framework (like the wheel of the year) is all good, but hey, the whole point of my own witchyness is having the FREEDOM to be all that I am.
So here´s to us!
And.. let´s do whatever it is – another day!!
Blessings from a swedish you-know – what – sister.
Charlotte
Thank you so much for your lovely comments! 😀
I always reason with myself that Sabbats are about the essence of the season rather than the particular day, so if I’m out by a bit, it’s OK. 😀
I missed Samhain completely this year. And decided that for next year I am going to have a witchy calendar wall, with all holidays on the same page and lots of information glued to the wall. ^^ (Thinking about buying this one and taking ot from there… http://www.snakeandsnake.com/lunar.htm)
I’m so great at missing sabbats. I have a witchy diary but I never remember to look at it or use it properly! Sigh. I had this great moon phase calander one year – it was a tiny credit card sized foldable thing, that had all the moon phases and astrological signs in it for the whole year. it was great. Some one gave me it as a freebie in Glastonbury. I’d dearly like to track another one of them down.
I’m getting much better at the celebrating of Sabbats – I used to have grand ideas of what I’d like to do and then be disappointed with myself when I didn’t get everything ready in time.
Now I get the framework for the ritual from “a Year in Ritual – Sabbats and esbats for solitaries and covens” by Sandra Kynes. I normally do a guided meditation as part of my ritual, and I’ve read and recorded them from Yasmine Galenorn’s most excellent “Magical Meditations: Guided Imagery for the Pagan Path” – it has crystals and incense suggestions as well. I’ll often do a tarot or oracle reading as well. Even if I’ve been really disorganised, I can still perform a ritual without being so hard on myself.
Now, while some might view my approach as lazy ….. I prefer to think of it as forward planning. Celebrating Sabbats and honoring the Goddess and the God are so important to me, that I’m not letting myself use the excuse of not enough preparation time to miss one.
Cheers
Kym
I often miss sabbats – they pop up at the most inconvenient of times. Life gets too busy and, although I suppose it shouldn’t, something has to give. I always think that it’s ok because it’s the thought that counts 😉
I cannot be honest with myself in a journal. I’ve tried but I begin to annoy myself and then I worry about what if other people will find it. So I don’t journal. I might have to start – it looks like I have an issue lol 😉