If you’re visiting the blog itself and not reading from a feed or email, you probably notice something different.
As in, the entire theme.
I get bored easily. I’m a creature of change. I like flame because it’s never static. I need earth in my life just to centre me and ground me long enough so I’m not constantly shooting into space, dying and being reborn. (Read: why I’m going to marry my Virgo Ogre. He keeps me grounded.)
I decided that it was time to change my blog’s look.
I found the theme “Monster” and immediately knew it had to be I&I’s new look. It’s so cute. And witchy/Halloweeny. And it has the option to have a member of the latrodectus family in the monster-spot, though drawn in an abstract enough way to not trigger my aracnophobia. (If it triggers yours, I apologize.)
Only thing I wish I could do with this theme is change the accent color — green — to purple. But as I like green just fine, I will live.
More on topic: I’m also feeling restless in my religious life, truth be told. Specifically, ADF.
Recently a pregnancy scare had me seriously thinking about how I’m going to raise my future children. (Don’t worry; I bleed still. The world doesn’t end this year.) I plan on having kids with the Ogre in about three years. It’s important; Ogres are endangered, you know. He’s not exactly pagan; he’s more agnostic-who-makes-fun-of-all-religions-equally, but he’s fairly involved with the local pagan community via his mom. Everyone knows him, at least.
This is great for me, and for the Ogrelets we will spawn in the future. The community is already here, and I’m pretty much already part of it. I never have to worry about my kids not having a religious community.
Which makes me question my remaining in ADF. Though technically I’m not still; my membership has lapsed and lack of any money has forced me to not renew quite yet. But there isn’t a huge ADF presence in Vancouver. There’s a protogrove in Kelowna, and I hate that place and never wish to go there again that’s quite a drive away. I’m sure there are ADF-ers in Van, but no grove.
I joined ADF because I wanted to be part of a church-like structure in preparation for having kids. That was my main reasoning. I want to raise my future kids as pagans. Not any specific denomination; I plan on taking them to as many varied events as I possibly can. But Druidry seemed the best bet.
Now I find my interest waning. I won’t lie; this is in no small part related to some of the things I’ve witnessed on the email lists. I suppose I’m spoiled in my online pagan dealings — my main place of residence in online-Pagandom has been The Cauldron, the rules of which focus on discussion and debate over fellowship. I come to expect a high level of discussion from folks, and most other places — the ADF email-lists included — just aren’t up to the task. Disagreements seen as personal attacks; a large amount of privilege-fail; some staggeringly bad scholarship combined with wilful ignorance. (Morrigan is not a gorram blossom-goddess, and She is not married to Lugh. Sorry. Never going to happen.)
I suppose it’s all made me feel rather soured towards ADF as a source for fellowship. I’ll still do the requirements for the Dedicant’s Path, because I believe in finishing a job, and I find it interesting regardless. But I’ve unsubscribed from the email lists, and I doubt I’ll be signing up again for any of them any time soon. Maybe I just…need a break.
Anyway. I’m finding myself more and more drawn to ATC as a place to [religiously] raise my kids. I had a good time at Spring Mysteries Fest, and one thing I remember seeing and feeling really happy about was a collection of kids, walking together, and talking about the gods. ATC also runs SpiralScouts, and while there’s currently no group here in Vancouver (there is one in British Columbia, way up in the north), there may be by the time I have Ogrelets of an age to join. If not in Vancouver, there may be one in Nanaimo, which is only a short ferry ride away.
I’m still not sure if I’m going to formally become a member of ATC or if I’ll just continue to hang out at their parties as a bit of a gate-crasher. But I do feel myself more and more drawn to them — even if they are Wicca and I sort of vehemently, angrily, genderqueerly swore off Wicca at some point. They seem to be of a brand of Wicca that I can tolerate for extended periods of time — this may be enough for me to consider doing the Postulancy.
Maybe.
Love the new look!
Thanks Catherine!
*claps hands* I loved that template, too! Picked it for another blog. 🙂
It is awesome.
And yes – baaad TC – we are spoiled, I say, spoiled beyond hope. 😉
I had a feeling you would love the theme! I saw it and thought “Oh my gods, that’s perfect. Also I think Tana will love it.” 😉
And yeah, we are spoiled rotten, as my Oma used to say. 😉
How do you feel about UU? I’m sure Van City must have a church of theirs there, if Winnipeg has one! Lol. I haven’t been to the local UU church yet, although I’ve considered it. We have a growing pagan community and for the most part people don’t do the whole public “what church do you go to? how do you pray?” thing publicly, so my hopes are up. The website seemed inviting, at least…
I feel pretty open, actually, to doing UU as well as ATC or something similar. 🙂 I went to a Unity church in Hawaii for three years, and it was great for me spiritually and socially. I was part of their youth group (Y.O.U. — Youth of Unity), and they all knew I was a Witch and it was no biggie. The church actually saved my life, truth be told, and gave me plenty of leadership opportunities and helped me grow a lot.
I’ve heard UU is similar enough to Unity that I’ll probably feel comfortable in it. There are apparently four congregations in Vancouver alone (ok, one in West Van, one in New West, one in Surrey, and one in Van proper — whatever, they’re all in the GVRD), and two close enough for me to check out. Maybe I’ll do that on Sunday morning. 🙂
I will second checking out the UU option as well…when we decided to have kids (our oldest is 5), the Pagan community wasn’t (and still isn’t) very convenient or accommodating to families–its fine if your kids are babies, and fine if they are teenagers, but for that awkward phase from 2-14, its just not all that friendly. The other nice thing about UU is that they get a decent introduction to world religion as a whole–beliefs, religions, holidays, mythology…but no specific “indoctrination” (not that I consider that the dirty word that many Pagans do–indoctrination is pretty much a parent’s job…from saying please and thank you to eating your veggies on down to whatever one holds dear, the problem in indoctrination is not that it happens, but how it happens and what it happens with…but now I’m on a tangent, so I’ll stop, lol).
And I like the theme!
Thanks!
And I agree with you about the use of the word indoctrination. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
I’m glad to hear that UU does an intro to world religions but nothing specific — that’s what I’d be looking for from a weekly service, as I plan on raising my kids with specific beliefs but having them learn about other beliefs as well. (Like my mom raised me; for all intents and purposes I was Buddhist, but I still read the Bible and learned all I could about other religions. I think, though, my religious education was lacking, and I’d like to give my kids more options than I had (this is my dad’s fault; he was severely anti-religious, to the point of getting murderously angry if I even wanted to learn about peoples’ faiths).)
Anyway. Thanks for commenting; I was really glad to read your views. 🙂
Cool new theme!
And I support ATC and ATCCanada (of course!). It is pretty flexible as far as what you do with your own practice. Yes, there is a liturgy, and things you are expected to know if you undertake postulancy/degrees. What you do on your own is completely up to you, though. If you are interested in the postulancy, I recommend waiting just a bit. We’re working on a training program so it is more clear what you need to know, and there is some standardization in what/how it is taught.
Thanks!
And yeah. 😉 Actually, funny story: I was rereading your Hecate post after writing this post, and read — again — that She’s the patron goddess of ATC. “Well. No WONDER I’m feeling more drawn to it. DUH.” And I swore I heard Her chuckle.
I will definitely wait to do the postulancy. Probably wouldn’t start until after SMF13, when I do the Greaters. I will say my only issue, really, with ATC is the focus on oathbound stuff surrounding the Mysteries. Because in my experience, you don’t actually need to oathbind Mysteries — the very definition of a Mystery is that it’s experiential. You can read all you want about it, but you won’t know what it’s actually like until you experience it. And if you can figure out what it’s really like just from reading about it…then it’s not a Mystery.
Anyway. Don’t want to rip into the Church or anything. 😉 I realize other people love having stuff oathbound; I just personally don’t see the use in it, and it kind of bugs me. Personal ish.
Maybe I should do a post on oathbound; if I get into it now this comment will be very, very long. *ponders*
I’d be interested in reading your post on oathbound…