Let's Get Metaphysical

I suppose you could say I'm a lapsed Pagan. I've dabbled (the most accurate term in my case, I'm afraid) in assorted branches of Pagan religion since my pre-teens. Recently, due to my increased interest in and connection with nature, history, folklore and more, I've been taking another look at these faiths and traditions. My intuition suggests that introducing a spiritual aspect into my life will help to fill the void inside that I've previously papered over with excessive shopping.

This void is not the gaping darkness it once was. These last couple of years have done me good - I've picked up a variety of creative hobbies, renewed connections with family and friends, and even with the wider world through activism, and disconnected somewhat from my gadgets. I'm not as painfully self-conscious, not as distracted, and not as prone to constant comparison. Lately I've picked up my long-neglected yoga and meditation practice too. It's a bit sporadic, but it helps. Looking deeper into the spiritual now feels like a natural next step - one I've avoided for a long time, for fear of looking or sounding 'woo-woo', upsetting the die-hard sceptics amongst my family and friends (admittedly there are some people I just won't discuss anything of this nature with), or simply feeling worried that I don't know what I'm doing, and might not find what I've always felt I'm looking for.

(Do you ever have the feeling that you're following a trail of breadcrumbs through life? Since childhood I've felt 'nudges' or seen signs that I do my best to follow, trying to piece together a bizarre map of coincidences, hunches, feelings, and notes from a plethora of old books. More and more lately I find myself musing on the saying, "That which you seek is seeking you.")

Why Paganism? Because it feels right to me. I grew up with remedies from the herb garden and food from the hedgerows. When I walk on the land, I feel part of a huge and intricate web. The more I see and come to know of nature, the more it feels miraculous, magical. I feel my ancestors, my history, my connection to the soil and the chalk and the bones of the land. In our home, this year we have begun to celebrate the turning of the seasons by marking the solstices and traditional fire festivals - I think it's a good way for all of us to feel connected to nature, and the little one enjoys gathering greenery and blossoms to decorate the table for our feasts.

Our table for Beltane (May Eve)

Once when I was young, I stayed up all night reading poetry, and the dawn chorus and the breaking light seemed like such a gift, such a wondrous and incredible thing, that for a short time I thought I had found God, and became a devoted churchgoer. I can still feel that sense of awe and joy, of reverence, for the natural world, but I no longer feel it fits within the framework of patriarchal religion. That was just the only frame of reference I had at the time, the only hook on which I could hang such emotions and experience (having attended C of E school).

I'm also psychic. Or perhaps that's a bit strong - intuitive, or sensitive, might be a better term. In really small ways usually - dreams that come true being the most common. I also briefly had a sideline in telling fortunes at secondary school for fifty pence a pop, until my accuracy was denounced as 'creepy' and one girl spread a rumour that I could tell you when you were going to die (spoiler: no I can't). I've never made any real effort to work with it or hone it - in fact I've generally suppressed it (that fear of being too woo-woo, again) - but every now and again I get something a bit more dramatic and difficult to explain, such as the way I met my second boyfriend. I woke up one Saturday morning, and could 'see', in my head, exactly what was going to happen that day. Not as a vision, but the knowledge was just THERE, whole and complete.

I got into action before my rational mind could talk me out of it. I got up and dressed, tidied my room, took my guitar out of the cupboard and stood it in the corner. I wrote my phone number on a slip of card and put it in my pocket. I walked to my friend Ana's house down the street, and together we walked to a house we'd never visited before. My now-ex was in the garden. We looked at each other. Ana and I walked away. In my head, I was counting down - and on cue, he came running after us. I gave him my number.

An hour or so later we were all hanging out in my conspicuously tidy room. Ana was stroking my pet rat. The new guy was playing Basket Case by Green Day on my guitar. We were together for over a decade. In fact, part of the reason I stuck out the relationship was so long was because of the circumstances in which we met - I felt perhaps we were capital-F Fated. Now I suspect I simply wanted a boyfriend so much that I accidentally manifested one.

It's not that I think this kind of experience is a prerequisite for choosing a Pagan path, but I do feel that these traditions provide a good structure for learning how to use and channel this 'ability', so that - I hope - it can become something I can work with and direct rather than being something that just happens to me.

I've had other weird experiences - both in similar vein, and very much not - which I may talk about at some point, as some of them have shaped my world view in a big way. I don't often discuss any of this, as I know even my most supportive friends might be disbelieving, and I don't want to feel I have to excuse or justify what I have felt and experienced. But I'm done with pretending that such experiences and feelings don't have a huge influence on who I am. I don't want to suppress this part of myself any more - I want to embrace it, and go deeper.

As a teenage Wiccan, I very much followed a Pagan-by-numbers approach. I bought a book that told me the names of some deities, and the right words to say for this or that ritual, and which herbs or coloured candles to buy. I dutifully followed the steps, but I never FELT anything. It was like shouting into an abyss.

Now I am a bit older, it's obvious why this approach didn't work. You can't just read a name in a book and tell yourself to believe in it. This time around, I intend to listen to my intuition, read widely, get my hands muddy, and find a path based on what I know, feel, experience and believe.

It's time to get my woo-woo on.