Another beginning

I confess: I really don’t know how to explain this pattern of mine.

It’s been two years now since my last words here. It’s not that I’ve been gone from the path, but more that my heart has been in hibernation.

The truth is, I don’t know what causes my drawing away. I know that – in some respect – this is depression. I’ve suffered from depression for many years, and sometimes it’s just harder than others. It doesn’t help that I’m in a country where mental health resources are hard to find, and harder for a foreigner to access than even a native.

But some of it is…I don’t know. Something else.

I continue to think about the gods, about my path. I continue to read and to study. I look at the stars. I touch the earth and rejoice. I give thanks to spirits of place when they aid me. I tell stories to my children.

But then the cycle turns again and it seems as though I just wake.

Like there are other things my spirit needs to be doing, and deep down I know the gods will understand.

And then things happen. I meet some new people. I stumble on things. I have a dream.

And then suddenly I need to come back. I need to return to the path and take a few more steps along it.

And somehow, it always seems to come around now: in the fall, in the days before the equinox.

In the days that lead to Calan Gaeaf.

Is it that the gods want me back? Is it that I want them.

Is it both?

I don’t really know, but after so many years away from my precious soil I’m grateful for one thing:

A place where I can go home.

More Than Stones

Beginning the Path - Part 3 - The Door

Part 1
Part 2

Realising that I needed other guides was a big step forward –

A door had opened.

But the problem was that I had little idea where to turn: The local pagan community had given me support, but as anyone with this experience knows there is only so far others can lead you. The library had already given up all it could offer in this area.

I had struggled and read and asked all the rational questions that were possible, and now it seemed as though I had come to the end of the road.  For weeks I wrestled with the problem, tied up in my need to find signs, a map, a guide – something to tell me where to step next, how to lead myself out of the maze.  I spent the summer plagued by insomnia as I lay awake thinking.  Most nights, I eventually gave up trying to sleep and walked for hours, alone in the early hours of the morning – bathed in moonlight and soaking up the silence of the sleeping city streets. My summer job suffered, my friends thought I was cracking up, and maybe they were almost right.