Oh You of Light, of form and hue,
Who has created all things new,
Create in me, from shapeless clay,
An instrument on which you play.

You, of the dance that planets tread,
Who walks beside and soars ahead,
O let me move to merge with thee;
come, Great Spirit dance with me

You of the pulse of life, poet of time

teach me your words in your cadence and rhyme.

O you of beauty, you of art,
Who gives a song for every heart,
carve out my life, reshape and mold;
And be the artist of my soul

Paganism is empowering.

It's empowering to understand that all of us, from the leaves of grass to the dragonfly to the human geniuses to the life forms not yet known by humans are all facets of the same spark of Diety.

All facets of the same spark of Diety.

 It’s no secret that I was raised Southern Baptist, and am still in Recovery. My daddy is a pastor, and my mom, the perfect rural Alabama pastor’s wife told me just yesterday that the reason bad stuff happens to me and mine is because I’m depending on the moon and the stars instead of on God. Le sigh…

I make no secret of my spirituality to them. I don’t attempt to “convert” them, but neither am I in the broom closet. But I know that they think that it is just a matter of time until I come back to their path and start teaching Sunday School again.

Anyhoo, this being rural Alabama, there are “Get Saved Now, Get Right or Get Left” road signs every 10 or 15 feet.  I usually read them, and let them go over me like water off a duck’s back.  But today I saw one that stuck in my craw. Oddly, there shouldn’t have been anything about it to bother me. All it said was “Give Your  Troubles to the Lord”. That’s actually pretty innocuous. Why did it bother me? The phrase “the Lord”.

It was an epiphany. When I pray, I do not pray to the Lord and Lady. I can’t use those titles.  I’m really not trying to be argumentative, or “oh, I am such a victim of my raising”, but for so long, “the Lord” meant that guy who was going to send me to hell if I wasn’t perfect.

When I first started my pagan path, I came up with my own names for the duality of the deity. I won’t tell  you their names, because it’s personal, but I will say that I can not call them Lord and Lady, and that they (he, she, it, them we) are loving and accepting and much more a web of connection to all, than something “out there”, separate from myself and others.

I sent my Pagan Parenting Essay to Dr. Kendra Vaughan Hovey of the First Church of  Wicca in MA. She was collecting essays from folks telling their stories about how they came to find the pagan/wiccan faith, because there is a book compliation in the works, called "Out of the Broom Closet". My essay is a finalist! She sent me a contract yesterday!

I am 2 weeks away from graduating with a degree in Health Informatics. This has been a long road for me. I'm 35 years old, a mom of 2, wife, and have had lots of trouble deciding what I wanted to be when I grew up. I have music skills and crafty skills, but those skills just don't offer security, and let's face it, with a 10 1/2 year old, and 8 year old, a mortgage, security is what we need.

I think the job will be a great fit for my personality. I am a Scorpio, so really like my hidey holes. I am detail oriented and like to have a specific task to complete. The specific job that I want is "Coder of ER charts" at a hospital about 30 miles away. So I did a spell. Firstly, I left all my tools out on the back deck to charge under last night's full moon. This morning when I woke up, I went outside, cast my circle, lit my candles and thanked Mother moon for Her energy (I get up really early, so I could still see her). Normally, I don't like to bring any objects that haven't been cleansed or charged into my circle, but I felt this spell called for exaclty that. Here's what I did:

Yesterday afternoon I thought long and hard about what I wanted in and from a job. I want financial security, flexibility, so that if I need to drop everything and be mama, I can do that. I want to feel as though I am doing good things for others. I know that most wouldn't consider organizing and abstracting medical data to be beneficial to others, but we information nerds know the beauty in having pertinent data at the touch of a computer keyboard. I want a job that will not stagnate. Meaning, once I have my experience and expertise, I can move onto bigger things, ie, consulting, travel positions, etc...

The elements of my spell? It was actually really simple. I laid a dollar bill on my table, and laid my watch on top of that, lit a candle, spoke what I wanted, finished with "and it harm none" and sent the energy out with a big push.The dollar and the watch had not been cleansed, because, as I am going into the world, I wanted to prove to myself that 40 hours per week in the work force will not change who I am. I will be influenced, surely, but will remain me. The dollar was a symbol of financial security, the watch a symbol of using my time efficiently, the candle the light and heat of my hopes and dreams.

So mote it be.