Weathering the Storm...s (Solia Seasonal Post May 2017)
So, you've found some good footing on your path and your trucking along nicely. Then you slip and fall in the mud. It will happen. In your faith and in witchcraft. Sometimes you'll see it coming a mile away so you brace yourself, other times you'll see it but try desperately to what seems no avail to keep from falling, and then other times it'll come out of left field leaving you hurt and confused.
You will find you lose inspiration or motivation. You will have some scheduling issues that make it so you just can't find the time to get in any type of celebrations for a Sabbat. A candle will go out mid spell or ritual. You'll say or do something you really wish you hadn't and get some fall out from that.
It happens to a lot people. Every single pagan and/or witch I've known has had rough patches on their path. One problem in particular that can very hard to deal with is feeling cut off and/or numb. When you just can't get a handle or feel for energies... you know.. a big part of witchcraft... working with energies. Those tingly feelings and vibrations that are supposed build and pulse just do not happen. There's no point in attempting manipulation because you can't tap in to begin with. Even trying to ground you can't shake it because you can't work with because you don't feel it. If you feel anything it's just emotions varying from frustration to despair and everything in between but even that is not the same as energy manipulation because those emotions are so strong it can overload your senses leaving you frazzled and unable to help yourself. It's a slippery slope and very tricky to pull yourself out. It can take a long time.
You may also not come out on the other side the same as you were before. Chances are, in fact, that you wont. Whatever in life made us take a tumble to begin with has changed us and in turn our spirituality and our practices will change. What worked before may never work again or feel the same again. That, from personal experience, can sting. Quite a bit. As if to add insult to injury, when little snippets of feeling come back the interaction with them is drastically different or just empty in meaning. What you thrived at before now holds no interest or doesn't comfort/work the way it once did. Much in line with Dacey's last seasonal post with is where being able to improvise can really come into play. We must adapt and try to dredge on even when it looks bleak.
Of course that is at times considerably easier said than done. In fact, it is the reason this post was written on the topic at hand. I am in a bit of low. I'm a month into new meds and they are not helping like I had hoped. I just had a visit from someone I love unconditionally and I can't even begin to express what they mean to me. Even that, did not help as much as I had hoped and then to add to it then there are feelings of guilt for ungratefulness for the time I did get with that person. I'm bottoming out. I'm not even going to pretend that I have some amazingly inspired pagany and witchy topical post to share at this point. What flickers of inspiration I get these days soon crash and burn. There are some very little things I can still do that help me cope to the best of my ability but I've really no honest desire to go on about them. The main point of my post this time is just honest venting and a hope that others who've felt this way or wind up feeling this way in the future know, your not alone.
There's a particularly nasty sting about it all when your path is one that has largely to do with communing and learning to work with and manipulate your energies and energies around you in your environment to thrive spiritually and mentally and you can't do that or feel that your not doing it at as well as you should. It can easily make a person ask, "Really!? What kind of witch and pagan can't even ground or raise energy?" Well, my depression would have me believe the answer to that is, "None worth their salt." or "It's all BS anyway and doesn't matter." On good day though or at least more stable day I know a couple things:
A) Even if I don't feel it when I try to tap in and commune or work, I know how strongly I have felt it in the past and have some incredible experiences to hold onto as well as an even deeper appreciation now for the very little things I find myself able to do.[Not to mention I always try to look at the balance of things on a huge scale.. I honestly should expect to feel this way at some point with having been on the opposite side of the scale for many years in the beginning of my practices] B) I know that faith and craft are just a couple parts of who I am. The lessons learned from it all do indeed shape my core, identity, and beliefs but I'm not solely defined as a witch and/or pagan. I am ultimately a person. A person who's going through some bad weather at the moment. Of which anyone of any belief system or no belief system may go through.
I think I do feel more shame that I'm unable to use what I've learned over the years to aid myself but I feel shame (along with guilt and no self worth) most of the time at any rate. When I'm able to think logically I know this is part of a mental illness. Even if I didn't battle with such a thing there would still be bouts of bad weather on the spiritual front. Growing hurts. Rebirths hurt. Then to add to it just in general the other complications life can through at a person, spirituality aside, and well it just sucks.
BUT if you have, are, or in the future feel the weight of the scale come crashing down on you and you find yourself unable to perform/practice or be as devout in the way you feel you should or would like to for whatever reasons, know that you are not alone. It sucks a lot, and no ones troubles are exactly like another person's troubles but it doesn't make you less of a witch or unfaithful. At least I keep telling myself that along with knowing there are others that push through very similar storms so, there's no reason I can't, right?
