potholes in my spiritual path

I have previously and at great length related how I went from Catholic schoolgirl to tree hugging daughter of the Goddess so I won't go into all that again, but each of us come to this path in our own unique way and my path, I am discovering, has some large holes in it.

I have cruised along mostly on auto pilot since opening myself up to the Goddess and I have been most happy doing this, no regrets. I have just been happy to be released from the feeling of judgement and doom hanging over my head. I have done some magick on a semi regular basis and once I learned to just let go in my rituals I found that simple and from the heart gave me great satisfaction and peace. I have not really pushed myself to go farther, rather I have just let my curiousity drag me along in a scattered fashion.

I started the blog A Pagan Tapestry primarily as a learning experience for myself and it certainly has been that, and hopefully will continue to be. So as I am doing more and more studying and more and more research for the blog I am discovering some things lacking in my education.

On the plus side, I understand from many sources that I do some fairly advanced work in the Craft.
For example, I am heavily involve in working with the Elements, not just invoking and calling and asking them to guard but really working with them, often just with one of them, no other entities involved. Now supposedly (or so I read) this takes much study and dedication to the Craft, but I cheated. I have been talking to the Elements since I was a small child and have been guided by them often.

Another example, I have begun some formal study of Shamanism and find it fascinating, but again, I jumped ahead of where I should be. I have had a relationship with The Trickster of the southwest since I was in high school. I lived in New Mexico, spent quite a lot of time on the reservations and met some Healers and met The Trickster, so I did not come to know him through years of study and trial and error. He is another familiar entity that I made excuses for in my Catholic days.

On the minus side...I call myself Celtic. I am actually half Irish and my grandfather was an immigrant and full of stories about banshees and stuff. I do know most of the major Celtic gods and goddesses. I dedicated a (horse related) business to Epona, I give cursory salutes to the appropriate Goddesses at certain times of the year. I have even studied some of the nearly incomprehensible Celtic mythology. But I have never bothered to really study the myths for information about how better to relate to the deities. I have never really delved at any depth into the pantheon that I claim.
My relationship with them has been superficial.

The primary focus of my path to divinity has been The Goddess, the Mother Goddess, Mother Earth, Gaia, The Creator, whatever you want to call her/him. That won't change, but I do believe in a multitude of deities, not just multiple faces of one, and yet I have been neglecting all the rest.

So in this upcoming year I am planning to start filling in all those potholes in my path. I want to learn how people have related to the Elements over time, especially if they did not consider them childhood playmates, and how this relationship has evolved.

I want to start at the beginning of Shamanism and begin to learn the mysteries. Even The Trickster says this is a good idea, there is more to it than an overly familiar relationship with him.

And most important, I want to explore the history of the Celtic gods and goddesses and learn more about this history with a goal to develop a better understanding of them and a better relationship with them. A more personal relationship.

I plan to work on some of that here on this blog and it will spill over onto A Pagan Tapestry which will begin to reflect more "who" instead of the "what" that I have limited myself to.