Living Paganism

Paganism means something different to each pagan. That was one of the things that I love about it, there is no book says how to be a "good pagan". It is wonderful in be in control of your spiritual path, however this does mean that there's no one way to be pagan, or what is means for a pagan to be a good person.

In other religions there are different ways to express their connection to their faith, for some it's being informed on the religion, for others it is going to set meetings of their religion, and for some it's about incorporating the teachings and values into everyday, every moment of their lives. For me it's all about living it in every moment, however it not an easy thing to do. You first need to have a clear idea of what paganism is to you and then you need to decide how live that.

For a long time I focused on the holidays or Sabbaths. I worked hard to figure out the root ideas and themes of those holidays I felt strongest about. Yule became about family or community, Imbolc was about dreams, wishes and planning for the future, Ostara was about freedom, Beltane about pure enjoyment of all kinds, Lithia was personal strength, Lughnasa about harvesting the things you planned at Imbolc, Mabon was about restraint and preparing for the coming darkness, and Samhain was about death, ancestors and the darkness within ourselves. From here I thought on how to best express/practice this themes during the holidays, which I will share with you in future posts.

Recently, I have focused more on how to live by morals developed from my pagan values. I have been asking myself some big questions as I learn more about agriculture and decided how I will interact with my environment. This is an important thing for every person to examine. I think more than any decision you make, it's more important to make the decision for yourself. Not just keep doing what your family, or everyone else does, because it's easy. It's important to take the time to really think about what you feel is right or wrong and live by that.

Daily life in our society has a way of making it easy to forget about spiritual things and just move through your schedule. I found that to be true for myself as I'm finishing up my Bachelor's degree. Being connected to the world around me is very supportive to my well being, because of this I started to focus on how I could increase the spiritual in my life.

I made some goals for myself regarding things I wanted to do or increase in my life.

1. Learn more about local plants, especially trees. To connect to things and creatures around me it has always been easy to start with learning more about them and what their lives are like. I've always revered and felt a strong connection to trees, but I don't have as much knowledge about them as I would like. Here's the book I want to get to begin my studies.
2. Learn more about local animals. I have much more knowledge on my local animals than I do the plants, but there are some creatures that I could learn more about. Insects tend to be me weakness and I would like to at least know more about local California bees and butterflies.
3. Use more reusable objects and use more natural materials. I've been working on getting away from using plastic at all, but it's a slow process. I'm starting first with only using reusable things, especially in the kitchen. Some of the things I've been trying to get away from is freezer bags, and plastic wrap. For the wrap I've found these bees' wax cloth wraps that you can make yourself and as soon as I get some time I'm going to make a bunch!
4. Get more serious about recycling. We do recycle, however it's just trash and recycling bin. I spent a year in Germany and would like to get closer to that system then what we are doing now.
5. Start a vermicompost. We've been working on composting and what kind of system would work best. We only just moved into a house instead of an apartment, which makes composting easier. However, we have to go through the garage to get to the backyard, making it a pain to go out to put kitchen scraps on a compost pile. We've decided to set up a vermicompost right inside the garage, so we just have to open the door and put the kitchen scraps in for the worms. The cool part about this is worms need constant feeding and it would encourage us to cook even more to have scraps for the worms. 
6. Start more cultures in the kitchen, Kombucha, sour dough, and ginger bug. I used to have a sour dough starter going, but in the last two years we've moved three year and things outside the house have gotten busier. This meant I had to put the bread baking on the back burner, which is a huge bummer. If you want to get into caring for your own cultures I would recommend Kombucha. It's really pretty easy and you only have to feed it once a week after you make your batch of Kombucha. I got a scoobe from a friend two weeks ago and can make a batch of six bottles per week. It's been really great! When I'm done with school (next spring) or if next semester isn't so crazy, I'll start a sour dough starter and a ginger bug (which is for making homemade sodas).
7. Maintain household better, cleaning and general management. This is one, to keep myself well centered and generally to help cope with life, but also I have a strong connection to the Earth element and it helps me feel connected and satisfied in that way.
8. Work with spirits more, especially household spirits, encourage development of home guardians. When I first became a pagan I basically only did spirit work. It has been the base of my practice from a long time and I haven't had enough time for it recently. I want to develop deeper connections with the spirits close to me and generally have a more magical home.
9. Build shrines in garden and yard, for fey and other spirits. This kind of goes along with the more magical home and spirit work. I have always loved the idea of shrines, especially in nature, so we can leave offering and show our respect to the spirits/creatures around us. I want to create a shrine or two in my yard and garden to not only encourage spirits to live or visit there, but also to have a place to thank spirits that are around already.
10. Build shrines in natural areas for spirits I work with there, like the Bay tree spirits so I can have a place to leaving offerings after I gather my bay leaves. I often gather different things from a near by forest and I would like to have a place to leave offering and to maintain for the creatures I depend on there. This may also become somewhere that other people can use to do the same or some other form of practice. It will also be messed with by people who are not respectful, but I feel this is part of the maintenance. 
11. Take weekly walks in the forest, maybe invite pagan friends to come along. This is to give myself scheduled time to spend out in nature. If I don't get around to anything else that week, I can at least depend on this time to recharge myself. It also helps me become more familiar with the forest, which is important to me.
12. Study more herbalism. I have studied this in the past and often mix teas for colds and such. However, I want to expand this area to tinctures, ointments, creams on other medicines. I also have a pagan friend that is going to study this with me, which will make it even more rewarding.
13. Start a garden.
14. Harvest more wild foods. I have a book, California Foraging, that I used to gather some wild foods, but I would like to do this more. It's also important for me that I care for the species that I harvest, so they grow more abundant and more healthy.
15. Learn to hunt and fish. This last summer I dedicated myself to Cernunnos, and learning to hunt and fish for my own food has a sacred meaning for me. I want to learn to do this, although I am looking for someone to hopefully mentor me in this.

These are things that I feel will draw my pagan values into my everyday life. If you have questions about any of these things and want me to do a separate post on them, please let me know! I will post more about each of them as I accomplish them. For now I hope it gave you some inspiration for how to bring your values, pagan or otherwise, into your everyday lives. I'd love to know things you do to connect to your values in your lives as well!

Spring Fever!

Spring has come to our little valley town. The bulbs and almond trees are blooming all over. We've been feeling it too and have been outside working on the yard every moment outside of work and classes. It's slightly slow going, but definitely rewarding. We bought ten yards of soil and and have been moving it into the places it needs to go. Which is the front flower bed and in the back for the produce garden.

We have so many plans for this place! Little by little we've been getting them done. When we first moved in the grass had all died from getting no water in the summer heat and was covered by years of decomposing leaves. It was straight dirt. However, the winter rains have brought back the grass and we've been maintaining it well as it fills out. We also had a large flower bed, or at least it had been at some point. It had been filled in with gravel and looked terrible! When we first moved in we raked up the gravel and got rid of it. We finally filled it with soil just last week and I seeded it over with several pollinator flower mixes. That bed will be my play ground for flowers and herbs.

In the back yard it was a leaf and stick covered dirt lot. since July we have raked and slowly picked up stick into a pile and we still don't have all the sticks up! We were able to get some soil back there already to put in two strawberry beds and just finished putting in the starts we bought. We plan to make an asparagus bed next to the strawberries and then 14 annual beds to grow other produce. We are going to put a little fence to split up the garden from the other side of the yard as a mental barrier for our dog (he like to eat small corn plants) and for the chickens. I found this cute little fence at Lowe's and Tom is going to make a little gate for it so we can get the wheelbarrow through.

On the other side of the fence we are going to have a "lawn". I bought a poultry seed mix and plan to seed that over the backyard as a duel purpose lawn and pasture for the chickens. We are going to finish cleaning up the sticks and then seed that in. The stick have been giving us some warmth during this last sudden frost in our fireplace. It's been great to get rid of the all at once, because there's no way all of that is going to fit in the yard waste bin.

That's what has been going on here in my little home. I'll post an update when we make more progress =]. Do any of you have spring project going? See you next time!