status quo

So this became normal. I knew what I believed, I prayed to the Goddess, my rituals were primarily just appreciating the beauty of an outdoor walk. I made it a point to go outside where there were few or no people to just appreciate the moment. Spellwork was sporadic, I was still unsure of it.

Then I started finding sites on the internet that became the next step in my education.
Joelle's Sacred Grove is a lovely site with a lot of Celtic information and some good Wicca 101 info. As an aside I was pleased to visit it recently and find that it had been updated. It sat untouched for several years and I was afraid it had been abandoned.

That led to Magicka School. Magicka School is a (mostly) free school of magick that is well organized and well run. There are lots of beginner level classes to chose from that are all free including all the study material. There is a smaller set of advanced classes that require a small fee.
I signed up with Magicka and read everything that my level allowed. I really liked the HUGE chat rooms that included private chats for students with their mentor/instructor.
Unfortunately, life intervened to stop me from completing any classes. A family member diagnosed with cancer meant that I had to quit my full time job, find a part time job and sandwich all the appointments, schedules etc into the remaining time.
I just did not have the focus or time to study the material or take the tests.
I feel badly about that, my instructor was very helpful and patient but I just could not come up with the energy.
So everything except an occasional ritual and prayer went on hold for almost two years.
That may not have been a bad thing. It gave me a lot of time to sort out my feelings about this path, resolve old conflicts with my Catholic upbringing and decide on a course of action for the future.
I knew at this point that being a passive follower of the Goddess, as many people are passive in their religion, was not what I wanted. I wanted to study, to practice magick, to learn more about all the little bits of information that kept floating past me without meaning as I read articles and books.
I was growing a list of subjects to look into;

• divination, especially the Tarot

• differences in magickal practices, i.e., earth magick, green magick, wiccan magick, kitchen magick, high magick, magick with and without a spiritual aspect

• The Golden Dawn, the Kabbalah and High Magic
  

• symbols in magickal writings

• history of the Old Religions with an eye to making connections to neoPagan beliefs

I was beginning to study more and practice less....a conundrum that has plagued me since the start of this journey and continues to.