QUESTION - Is there a ritual or prayer for a person who has became disconnected with her path? I have found myself adrift lately and have failed to do a daily divination by lighting a candle and incense. I feel guilty.
ANSWER - I can really identify with this question because it was something that really bothered me when I first started practising as a witch. I felt very much that if I wasn't dedicated to it with all my free time I wasn't doing it properly...
Witchcraft/Spiritualism is no different to anything else in life - there is an initial honeymoon period where it is all you think about and it absorbs every element of your life. Then the initial enthusiasm drops out and it becomes harder to maintain the energy you used to invest in it. Eventually you either give it up or adapt your life to fit around it.
The thing that does set the Craft or spiritualism apart is, as you so rightly observe, the guilt you feel at neglecting it. This guilt can take many forms, you might feel you are letting the Gods down, you might feel foolish for having told other people this is your world and then deciding it isn't the reason for your existence. You might feel frustrated that you can't summon that initial passion back again. And if your path has worked for you it is likely you feel some element of cheating yourself. All this is entirely normal and understandable.
The trick to committing to your path in the long term is to achieve a balance. Speaking personally Witchcraft is part of my life but it isn't everything I do. If I pushed everything else to one side I would eventually start to resent the Craft which would be a shame. There are times it plays a more significant role in my life than it does at other times but I feel no guilt if something else takes priority. I barely bothered to acknowledge the Solstice yesterday due to being immersed in a series of very enjoyable books but that doesn't make me feel guilty or less of a witch, it just means that as with most people different things take precedence at different times. Think of it like a new relationship -at the start you want to spend every moment together but after a while you rediscover the value of spending time alone or with friends. It doesn't mean you love your partner any less, it just means that you can't sustain an existence based on him alone.
I think where you are going wrong is making the following of your path into a must do. No matter how much you value you get out of doing something if you make doing it into a daily task you are going to find it becomes mundane and repetitive. Eventually the acts loses significance and becomes another job on the job list. This is worse than useless because it breeds discontent and frustration directed at the very act that was supposed to be helping you in the first place. Setting yourself the challenge of doing anything daily is pretty much always doomed to failure. Life always gets in the way...
My advice is this - strip your path back down to its basics. Drop the idea of daily divination and focus on performing fewer rituals but with greater meaning and undertaken when you feel like doing them not because you feel you ought to do them every day. Set time aside on an adhoc basis to perform divination when you have a need to divine not as part of your daily structure. I often say the same thing to witches who seem to believe their magic will run out if they don't cast on a regular basis. I can go weeks without casting - if I have no discernable reason to use magic then I'm not going to the trouble of casting just for the sake of it. Same thing here, just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to do it everyday. You don't lose the ability and it doesn't make you less of a Witch/Wiccan/Pagan/Spiritualist if you don't work with the skills and abilities you have on a daily basis.
Shrug off the guilt and focus on what your path means to you. You ask for ideas for ritual - I would suggest a binding ritual to remove you from the monotony that your path has become. Take a cloth and tie up all the things you currently associate with your path. Seal the bundle with candle wax and a simple incantation and store them away carefully.
"I seal the work I have done
For a new way has begun."
Then with your tried and trusted (repetitive) ways of following your path behind you, start to look for new ways to move forward. If you've always relied on your tarot cards to divine - go lie on your back in a field and use the clouds. If you've always used candles for spell work try some cord magic. Make yourself the promise that you won't undo your bundle of old ways until you have learned how to be innovative and how to inject new vitality into what you do.
And above all, don't let it become a job. Your path is something you follow because you want to. Embrace it as a part of who you are and take the control back that you will walk it when it suits you to do so and not from a misguided notion that you must do it.
Image http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rosalie-s-Unhappy-Ending-123853473
ANSWER - I can really identify with this question because it was something that really bothered me when I first started practising as a witch. I felt very much that if I wasn't dedicated to it with all my free time I wasn't doing it properly...
Witchcraft/Spiritualism is no different to anything else in life - there is an initial honeymoon period where it is all you think about and it absorbs every element of your life. Then the initial enthusiasm drops out and it becomes harder to maintain the energy you used to invest in it. Eventually you either give it up or adapt your life to fit around it.
The thing that does set the Craft or spiritualism apart is, as you so rightly observe, the guilt you feel at neglecting it. This guilt can take many forms, you might feel you are letting the Gods down, you might feel foolish for having told other people this is your world and then deciding it isn't the reason for your existence. You might feel frustrated that you can't summon that initial passion back again. And if your path has worked for you it is likely you feel some element of cheating yourself. All this is entirely normal and understandable.
The trick to committing to your path in the long term is to achieve a balance. Speaking personally Witchcraft is part of my life but it isn't everything I do. If I pushed everything else to one side I would eventually start to resent the Craft which would be a shame. There are times it plays a more significant role in my life than it does at other times but I feel no guilt if something else takes priority. I barely bothered to acknowledge the Solstice yesterday due to being immersed in a series of very enjoyable books but that doesn't make me feel guilty or less of a witch, it just means that as with most people different things take precedence at different times. Think of it like a new relationship -at the start you want to spend every moment together but after a while you rediscover the value of spending time alone or with friends. It doesn't mean you love your partner any less, it just means that you can't sustain an existence based on him alone.
I think where you are going wrong is making the following of your path into a must do. No matter how much you value you get out of doing something if you make doing it into a daily task you are going to find it becomes mundane and repetitive. Eventually the acts loses significance and becomes another job on the job list. This is worse than useless because it breeds discontent and frustration directed at the very act that was supposed to be helping you in the first place. Setting yourself the challenge of doing anything daily is pretty much always doomed to failure. Life always gets in the way...
My advice is this - strip your path back down to its basics. Drop the idea of daily divination and focus on performing fewer rituals but with greater meaning and undertaken when you feel like doing them not because you feel you ought to do them every day. Set time aside on an adhoc basis to perform divination when you have a need to divine not as part of your daily structure. I often say the same thing to witches who seem to believe their magic will run out if they don't cast on a regular basis. I can go weeks without casting - if I have no discernable reason to use magic then I'm not going to the trouble of casting just for the sake of it. Same thing here, just because you can do something doesn't mean you have to do it everyday. You don't lose the ability and it doesn't make you less of a Witch/Wiccan/Pagan/Spiritualist if you don't work with the skills and abilities you have on a daily basis.
Shrug off the guilt and focus on what your path means to you. You ask for ideas for ritual - I would suggest a binding ritual to remove you from the monotony that your path has become. Take a cloth and tie up all the things you currently associate with your path. Seal the bundle with candle wax and a simple incantation and store them away carefully.
"I seal the work I have done
For a new way has begun."
Then with your tried and trusted (repetitive) ways of following your path behind you, start to look for new ways to move forward. If you've always relied on your tarot cards to divine - go lie on your back in a field and use the clouds. If you've always used candles for spell work try some cord magic. Make yourself the promise that you won't undo your bundle of old ways until you have learned how to be innovative and how to inject new vitality into what you do.
And above all, don't let it become a job. Your path is something you follow because you want to. Embrace it as a part of who you are and take the control back that you will walk it when it suits you to do so and not from a misguided notion that you must do it.
Image http://www.deviantart.com/art/Rosalie-s-Unhappy-Ending-123853473
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