Resurgam

Again, another long hiatus. "Write on Arachne" has lingered on my to-do list every day for two months now. But as a wise woman says, you're not a failed writer till you stop writing. Or something like that.

This hiatus be connected to a recent feeling that despite years of thinking hard and writing hard about it, despite years of individual practice, I'm still not able to articulate what it means for me to be a Pagan. An authority figure asked me the other day, and I wasn't especially eloquent in my response. There's also the awareness that I'm not the most *literate* of Pagans when it comes to Pagan texts and rites. I'm kind of unschooled, probably as a side effect of being a solitary--and being stupidly busy.

If Heathenism is "Paganism with homework," I've been skipping class entirely.

I'm not a 'bad Pagan,' I think; I worship and pray and cast and suchlike, and as long as I'm studying religion I'll be facing all the questions thrown up by another's faith into my own. It's just sometimes overwhelming how much there is to learn, whether I'm looking at the All or one goddess among many in a pantheon, among many more in a pantheon. There are so many books, ideas, techniques, rituals that I'm unskilled in. (Note to self: Study Hellenism.) My lover's recently taken up a new instrument, and he feels "like a neanderthal" when plucking out melodies that usually simply flow off his fingers. I feel similarly stumped and slow when facing the deep mysteries of Paganism, even as I know it to be my home.

Perhaps the best offering I can give is that learning curve, and the willingness to speak of my own uncertainty and encounters on that path.

I picture a learning curve graph, with a wiggly line swooping all over, showing how hard and easy it will be. I picture myself like Calvin, ready at the top of the curve with my sled and trusty tiger companion, about to go hurtling down it...