My spirituality
Nov. 12th, 2002 10:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hkellickI don't often discuss my spirituality with people. It's not that I'm ashamed of what I am, I just don't see the point to going on and on about being what I am or thinking what I think. I think that the most important part about my life is.. me, my personality.
That said, I do have a set of spiritual beliefs.
What follows below is for my own benefit mostly, but feel free to write it (after all if I didn't want you to read it, I wouldn't be posting it.)
As some of you know, I started out Jewish. Judaism really is a spectacular religion. What I like best about it is the fact that it's OK to not believe. You have to find god on your own terms. And if you don't find him, that's also OK. No hell or any such to go to. I sometimes wonder how I would have turned out if I'd been born christian. But that's neither here nor there, really. I became dissatisfied with the all-good jewish god when I was in my early teens. My father had left, divorced my mother and took everything and it was really difficult to believe that an all-good god could allow it all to happen.
As I contemplate it now... all that was probably good for me. We went down to terrible depths, but we always had a house, we always had food and heat and water. We lived through tough times and I'm probably a better person because of it. Despite that, however, I've never seriously reconsidered "rebecoming" a jew again. I just don't think it suits me.
Through my first years of college, I was most definately agnostic. I couldn't believe in an all-good all-knowing god (still can't) and I was
not sure what I believed in. What really brought me to Wicca, though, was two things... a set of
discussions about magick with arabella and borrowing a book from a girl named Pandora (Stacey). I learned to control my innate magick (and whether you believe this part or not makes no difference to me) and work things for myself or my friends. Truth be told, I probably did a working of some sort nearly every day. Truth be told, I did alot of workings without asking people. I did, for people, what I THOUGHT was best for them, not necessarily what they wanted or deserved. Free will? Silly person... I was the law. I was good, after all. I spent most of my day testing out to see what I could and could not do and spent an awful lot of time with talking about others about what we could or could not do.
In my mind, I had formed a (yes, I know how pathetic this sounds) superteam, of sorts.. with arabella,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kareila and a guy named Lemming (online) to fight the nasty-baddies... Sometimes human, but mostly inhuman beings bent on causing misery and pain.
Let me see if I can remember... arabella was good at fortune telling, kareila was empathic.. lemming.. I want to say shielding, but I don't
remember.. and me , I was a "powerhouse". My aura, I recall ara telling me, was so big that it scared people. It made me seem even more looming than I normally did at 6'4"... even on the internet. Oh, and I was really a reborn pixie.
These beliefs were important because they were part of the path of spirituality I still walk. I still buy into some of this, but I'll explain later where and when things changed.
I remember as I was first getting into magick, I went into a psychic faire near my house and spent $20 for a horoscope. What I remember most about it was when the two of them disappeared out of the room to confer quietly and I heard whispers of look at the.. something or other.. and then the one girl came to talk to me about how to say no to evil.
What I gleaned from this was that ara was right and I did have enough magick that people had to be concerned, at least. that I would do no harm.
On, I believe, the spring equinox of 1995, I decided I was a Wiccan, doing a small ceremony to devote myself to the Lord and Lady. It was an extremely small and individual ceremony that worked for me. I've never cared for ceremony.
Through my time at RIT, I still worked towards finding out what I could and could not do and still fighting the good fight against nasty-baddies of all sorts. Lemming left the group andkareila seemed to stop talking about it and so the team broke up.
It was all good, though, because I fell in with a group of other magick users online on GlobalMUSH. Some of them were wiccans, some were just magick users.
Where this leads is that in my first year, I believe, of UB, I met my first (and only) "real teacher". She was there to help lead me through a big change, magickally. What she did, mainly, was answer my questions about a number of things I wasn't sure in. Not really about wicca, but about magick and what you could do. She basically fed the fairy tale I was living in, but she upgraded it to something I found, at the time, frankly unbelievable. She could fly.. REALLY fly.. and she could exchange messages with others instantly (like telepathy, but less general and choosy). Vampyres existed.. oh yes.. and she was one too. And I'm powerful enough that some super secret organization was interested in me and what I could do so that I didn't fuck with reality too much.
Like I said, it was important in context only.
The one odd thing about all of this is that before I met her.. I was at a certain magickal level and when she left I was at a higher magickal level so perhaps there was a kernel of truth to what she believed in and she did, in some ways, act as a teacher. Or perhaps it was a right place/right time sort of thing.
The next important event in my life was.. the Marci Saga
The Marci saga went something like this...
Marci Miezio was a girl that my friend Dave was interested in. Oh, and she was a Wiccan who was going to introduce him to the faith.
Sounds good so far?
Here's where things get messy...
First off, I met Marci and there was something about her that bugged me.
Second off, she was using Dave to drive her to Pennsylvania, used him for money.. and that bothered me.
Oh, and she taught Dave alright.. she taught Dave how to use his anger and misery in magick and then she shackled him, magickally, to her.
Being the type of person who is against evil and pro-good, I tried to intervene.
What followed was... altogether the messiest thing I've ever been a part of.
I don't feel the need to go over everything that happened all over again.. but it took a long time and it was nasty and messy and in the end, Dave still lusted over Marci and still used his negative emotions to work magick and I'd done nothing but piss someone off.
It took me years to get over it and move on. I'd done my best and I still couldn't do anything and then I had to deal with her being angry at me and him whining because he didn't have her and then there was Brad...
Wait, that's a bit I want to discuss.
Brad thought he was a vampire as well. Brad was... freaky. He was one of those leather jackets and spiked dog collar type guys who liked to drink blood. That wasn't the part I REALLY wanted to discuss, though...
Somewhere along the way, Brad said he'd found total enlightenment. He'd tried to explain it to me and Dave and to share his insghts with us, but alas... nothing.
I do recall him saying, however, that at the time I would reach enlightenment in two years and Dave in four or five.
Needless to say, that was more than two years ago and I still haven't found it.. not that I'm sure I believe him.
On the other hand, I feel alot more peaceful in the place I am now, but I still wouldn't call it total spiritual enlightenment.
The next chapter... a couple months into the end of the Marci saga ... were three individuals I hung with for a couple of months. I don't remember their names.. but one thought he was Myrddin (Merlin) reincarnated. Another thought she was the "Goddess" Nnyxx (who, to this day, I've still never heard of). I don't remember what the third said she was. They were a couple of Wiccans I met out Midnite Bowling of all places. I hung with them and among the thoughts they tried to get me to believe in was that I wasn't just a pixie, but a faerie PRINCE (Oy Vey). They tried to help me work on my shields and, to some extent, that was probably the most useful thing about them. What's important to realize about these three was this was the first time I began to doubt what people had been telling me. This was right after Marci and I knew I didn't believe her.. but how much of the things I'd been told along the way DID I believe?
Was I a pixie? Was I a "powerhouse"? What was my connection to the Lord and Lady?
And yet, before I totally dismiss them, I need to admit one thing... during my time with them, some of the oddest things happened in my life.
One was I swear, to this day, I heard a cat say Mommy.. Not Meow-me.. but Mommy.
Another was.. I had a moped once (laugh and I shall kill you!) and one day I came home and had forgotten the garage door opener. For some reason I still can't grasp, I honked the horn (on the moped).. and then.. the garage door opened.
Somewhere between those three and the penultimate chapter in my spiritual journey, I became a teacher of sorts. I openly discussed magick and wicca on ChaoticMUX on the, then, pretty well used Pagan Channel. Along the way, I tried to helpvissith learn to control his magick.. but he never seemed to grasp whatever it was he needed to. A more succesful story (and I can't claim full credit for this because malytwotails played a part in this as well, but I helped soreth find his own spiritual enlightenment. I helped him, at least, through his first baby steps out. He's since moved on to bigger and better things, but for that moment, at least, I helped someone by explaining, as ara had, what I believed in and trying to get soreth try out his own magick.
The penultimate chapter of my spiritual journey can, perhaps, best be explained by a total disillusionment with people's mythologies, my own spiritual maturity and... datingpeachtess, the last Wiccan I've really spoken with in a while, which is probably important all in its own.
One of the things I recall, most prominently, from datingpeachtess was how proud she was when she and her friend had found a bible (I forget where) and thrown it off a bridge to cleanse it of it's evil (or some such. I don't remember the exact conversation)
I remember shaking my head at this and being a little disturbed by it.
It's a prevalent thought throughout Wicca.. that Christianity (and, by default, Christians) are small-minded and stupid.
The irony of such a small-minded sentiment is not lost on me.
Perhaps that was when I became seriously disillusioned with Wicca in general and Wiccans in specific.
That leads us, really, to now.
Somewhere last year, I don't recall when exactly I made the following statement.
The only important thing about person is who they are.. their personality and the type of person they are (honest, caring, cruel etc.). The rest is details only. It isn't just a flippant statement but what I REALLY believe.
The fact that you are a christian does not make you in any way evil. The fact that you are Wiccan doesn't make you right.
Race, Religion, Sex.. these are all details. Some people want to make bigger deals out of them than I do, but I don't want to buy into it.
The Wiccan Rede is (approximately) As long as you hurt no one (including yourself), do what you want. I truly beleive this.
My spirituality, now, comes down to something like this.
1) First and foremost... there is an energy out there above and beyond the purely physical plane. Call it souls, call it what you will.. this energy is infused into everyone and everything and it's origins are divine.
2) All religions have a kernel of truth to them. If you look behind the words of the myths and realize that they are one persons or one culture's take on something, there is still truth there.
3) All Gods and Goddesses exist, to some extent, as a reflection of the Divine. The Divine is neither male nor female, white nor black nor yellow nor red. The Divine is beyond human understanding.. but it is still there. We break it up into small manageable pieces and call them God, Jesus, Zeus, The Lady, Brigid or.. whatever else. They're still a reflection of the divine we can understand.
4) Magick exists. We all have the capability to access it and they have been accessed over the years under different names.. Magick, Faith Healing, whatever... it's all the same basic thing. HOWEVER, with great power comes great responsibility. Yes, you can magick people if you want.. but it's not right. People should have free will. Just because I think it's the best thing for you, doesn't mean it is.
Personally.. what do I believe about myself?
Well... unlike when I first started.. I no longer believe I am a reincarnated pixie. I think I needed to believe that because I needed, in some way, to be different from the other people. When it comes down to it, though, I'm more normal than I sometimes want to admit. :)
I do believe I can do magick.. and I do believe I have the potential to do a fair amount of it. I don't know if I believe I can do so much I need to be watched over, but I honestly believe that, if I wanted to, I could do all sorts of things. Heck, I don't mind publicly admitting I think I used my magick to help me lose weight last year. I know the weight went fast and I'm not sad to see it go. I needed to lose it and I did.
I don't believe that I necessarily need to involve myself in everyone's problems unless asked. I offer assistance when I see a need, but otherwise, people have the right to try to get through things themselves. In fact, my life's been a lot quieter since I stopped getting involved in everyone else's life and just stuck to getting through my own. It's been alot more peaceful that way too. I sort of like it, too.
I can't think of anything else i need to say and this has become a looong post. I may edit it later if I think of things I need to add.
That said, I do have a set of spiritual beliefs.
What follows below is for my own benefit mostly, but feel free to write it (after all if I didn't want you to read it, I wouldn't be posting it.)
As some of you know, I started out Jewish. Judaism really is a spectacular religion. What I like best about it is the fact that it's OK to not believe. You have to find god on your own terms. And if you don't find him, that's also OK. No hell or any such to go to. I sometimes wonder how I would have turned out if I'd been born christian. But that's neither here nor there, really. I became dissatisfied with the all-good jewish god when I was in my early teens. My father had left, divorced my mother and took everything and it was really difficult to believe that an all-good god could allow it all to happen.
As I contemplate it now... all that was probably good for me. We went down to terrible depths, but we always had a house, we always had food and heat and water. We lived through tough times and I'm probably a better person because of it. Despite that, however, I've never seriously reconsidered "rebecoming" a jew again. I just don't think it suits me.
Through my first years of college, I was most definately agnostic. I couldn't believe in an all-good all-knowing god (still can't) and I was
not sure what I believed in. What really brought me to Wicca, though, was two things... a set of
discussions about magick with arabella and borrowing a book from a girl named Pandora (Stacey). I learned to control my innate magick (and whether you believe this part or not makes no difference to me) and work things for myself or my friends. Truth be told, I probably did a working of some sort nearly every day. Truth be told, I did alot of workings without asking people. I did, for people, what I THOUGHT was best for them, not necessarily what they wanted or deserved. Free will? Silly person... I was the law. I was good, after all. I spent most of my day testing out to see what I could and could not do and spent an awful lot of time with talking about others about what we could or could not do.
In my mind, I had formed a (yes, I know how pathetic this sounds) superteam, of sorts.. with arabella,
kareila and a guy named Lemming (online) to fight the nasty-baddies... Sometimes human, but mostly inhuman beings bent on causing misery and pain.Let me see if I can remember... arabella was good at fortune telling, kareila was empathic.. lemming.. I want to say shielding, but I don't
remember.. and me , I was a "powerhouse". My aura, I recall ara telling me, was so big that it scared people. It made me seem even more looming than I normally did at 6'4"... even on the internet. Oh, and I was really a reborn pixie.
These beliefs were important because they were part of the path of spirituality I still walk. I still buy into some of this, but I'll explain later where and when things changed.
I remember as I was first getting into magick, I went into a psychic faire near my house and spent $20 for a horoscope. What I remember most about it was when the two of them disappeared out of the room to confer quietly and I heard whispers of look at the.. something or other.. and then the one girl came to talk to me about how to say no to evil.
What I gleaned from this was that ara was right and I did have enough magick that people had to be concerned, at least. that I would do no harm.
On, I believe, the spring equinox of 1995, I decided I was a Wiccan, doing a small ceremony to devote myself to the Lord and Lady. It was an extremely small and individual ceremony that worked for me. I've never cared for ceremony.
Through my time at RIT, I still worked towards finding out what I could and could not do and still fighting the good fight against nasty-baddies of all sorts. Lemming left the group and
kareila seemed to stop talking about it and so the team broke up.It was all good, though, because I fell in with a group of other magick users online on GlobalMUSH. Some of them were wiccans, some were just magick users.
Where this leads is that in my first year, I believe, of UB, I met my first (and only) "real teacher". She was there to help lead me through a big change, magickally. What she did, mainly, was answer my questions about a number of things I wasn't sure in. Not really about wicca, but about magick and what you could do. She basically fed the fairy tale I was living in, but she upgraded it to something I found, at the time, frankly unbelievable. She could fly.. REALLY fly.. and she could exchange messages with others instantly (like telepathy, but less general and choosy). Vampyres existed.. oh yes.. and she was one too. And I'm powerful enough that some super secret organization was interested in me and what I could do so that I didn't fuck with reality too much.
Like I said, it was important in context only.
The one odd thing about all of this is that before I met her.. I was at a certain magickal level and when she left I was at a higher magickal level so perhaps there was a kernel of truth to what she believed in and she did, in some ways, act as a teacher. Or perhaps it was a right place/right time sort of thing.
The next important event in my life was.. the Marci Saga
The Marci saga went something like this...
Marci Miezio was a girl that my friend Dave was interested in. Oh, and she was a Wiccan who was going to introduce him to the faith.
Sounds good so far?
Here's where things get messy...
First off, I met Marci and there was something about her that bugged me.
Second off, she was using Dave to drive her to Pennsylvania, used him for money.. and that bothered me.
Oh, and she taught Dave alright.. she taught Dave how to use his anger and misery in magick and then she shackled him, magickally, to her.
Being the type of person who is against evil and pro-good, I tried to intervene.
What followed was... altogether the messiest thing I've ever been a part of.
I don't feel the need to go over everything that happened all over again.. but it took a long time and it was nasty and messy and in the end, Dave still lusted over Marci and still used his negative emotions to work magick and I'd done nothing but piss someone off.
It took me years to get over it and move on. I'd done my best and I still couldn't do anything and then I had to deal with her being angry at me and him whining because he didn't have her and then there was Brad...
Wait, that's a bit I want to discuss.
Brad thought he was a vampire as well. Brad was... freaky. He was one of those leather jackets and spiked dog collar type guys who liked to drink blood. That wasn't the part I REALLY wanted to discuss, though...
Somewhere along the way, Brad said he'd found total enlightenment. He'd tried to explain it to me and Dave and to share his insghts with us, but alas... nothing.
I do recall him saying, however, that at the time I would reach enlightenment in two years and Dave in four or five.
Needless to say, that was more than two years ago and I still haven't found it.. not that I'm sure I believe him.
On the other hand, I feel alot more peaceful in the place I am now, but I still wouldn't call it total spiritual enlightenment.
The next chapter... a couple months into the end of the Marci saga ... were three individuals I hung with for a couple of months. I don't remember their names.. but one thought he was Myrddin (Merlin) reincarnated. Another thought she was the "Goddess" Nnyxx (who, to this day, I've still never heard of). I don't remember what the third said she was. They were a couple of Wiccans I met out Midnite Bowling of all places. I hung with them and among the thoughts they tried to get me to believe in was that I wasn't just a pixie, but a faerie PRINCE (Oy Vey). They tried to help me work on my shields and, to some extent, that was probably the most useful thing about them. What's important to realize about these three was this was the first time I began to doubt what people had been telling me. This was right after Marci and I knew I didn't believe her.. but how much of the things I'd been told along the way DID I believe?
Was I a pixie? Was I a "powerhouse"? What was my connection to the Lord and Lady?
And yet, before I totally dismiss them, I need to admit one thing... during my time with them, some of the oddest things happened in my life.
One was I swear, to this day, I heard a cat say Mommy.. Not Meow-me.. but Mommy.
Another was.. I had a moped once (laugh and I shall kill you!) and one day I came home and had forgotten the garage door opener. For some reason I still can't grasp, I honked the horn (on the moped).. and then.. the garage door opened.
Somewhere between those three and the penultimate chapter in my spiritual journey, I became a teacher of sorts. I openly discussed magick and wicca on ChaoticMUX on the, then, pretty well used Pagan Channel. Along the way, I tried to help
vissith learn to control his magick.. but he never seemed to grasp whatever it was he needed to. A more succesful story (and I can't claim full credit for this because malytwotails played a part in this as well, but I helped soreth find his own spiritual enlightenment. I helped him, at least, through his first baby steps out. He's since moved on to bigger and better things, but for that moment, at least, I helped someone by explaining, as ara had, what I believed in and trying to get soreth try out his own magick.The penultimate chapter of my spiritual journey can, perhaps, best be explained by a total disillusionment with people's mythologies, my own spiritual maturity and... dating
peachtess, the last Wiccan I've really spoken with in a while, which is probably important all in its own. One of the things I recall, most prominently, from dating
peachtess was how proud she was when she and her friend had found a bible (I forget where) and thrown it off a bridge to cleanse it of it's evil (or some such. I don't remember the exact conversation)I remember shaking my head at this and being a little disturbed by it.
It's a prevalent thought throughout Wicca.. that Christianity (and, by default, Christians) are small-minded and stupid.
The irony of such a small-minded sentiment is not lost on me.
Perhaps that was when I became seriously disillusioned with Wicca in general and Wiccans in specific.
That leads us, really, to now.
Somewhere last year, I don't recall when exactly I made the following statement.
The only important thing about person is who they are.. their personality and the type of person they are (honest, caring, cruel etc.). The rest is details only. It isn't just a flippant statement but what I REALLY believe.
The fact that you are a christian does not make you in any way evil. The fact that you are Wiccan doesn't make you right.
Race, Religion, Sex.. these are all details. Some people want to make bigger deals out of them than I do, but I don't want to buy into it.
The Wiccan Rede is (approximately) As long as you hurt no one (including yourself), do what you want. I truly beleive this.
My spirituality, now, comes down to something like this.
1) First and foremost... there is an energy out there above and beyond the purely physical plane. Call it souls, call it what you will.. this energy is infused into everyone and everything and it's origins are divine.
2) All religions have a kernel of truth to them. If you look behind the words of the myths and realize that they are one persons or one culture's take on something, there is still truth there.
3) All Gods and Goddesses exist, to some extent, as a reflection of the Divine. The Divine is neither male nor female, white nor black nor yellow nor red. The Divine is beyond human understanding.. but it is still there. We break it up into small manageable pieces and call them God, Jesus, Zeus, The Lady, Brigid or.. whatever else. They're still a reflection of the divine we can understand.
4) Magick exists. We all have the capability to access it and they have been accessed over the years under different names.. Magick, Faith Healing, whatever... it's all the same basic thing. HOWEVER, with great power comes great responsibility. Yes, you can magick people if you want.. but it's not right. People should have free will. Just because I think it's the best thing for you, doesn't mean it is.
Personally.. what do I believe about myself?
Well... unlike when I first started.. I no longer believe I am a reincarnated pixie. I think I needed to believe that because I needed, in some way, to be different from the other people. When it comes down to it, though, I'm more normal than I sometimes want to admit. :)
I do believe I can do magick.. and I do believe I have the potential to do a fair amount of it. I don't know if I believe I can do so much I need to be watched over, but I honestly believe that, if I wanted to, I could do all sorts of things. Heck, I don't mind publicly admitting I think I used my magick to help me lose weight last year. I know the weight went fast and I'm not sad to see it go. I needed to lose it and I did.
I don't believe that I necessarily need to involve myself in everyone's problems unless asked. I offer assistance when I see a need, but otherwise, people have the right to try to get through things themselves. In fact, my life's been a lot quieter since I stopped getting involved in everyone else's life and just stuck to getting through my own. It's been alot more peaceful that way too. I sort of like it, too.
I can't think of anything else i need to say and this has become a looong post. I may edit it later if I think of things I need to add.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: Wow
Date: 2002-11-14 04:04 am (UTC)Everything I typed up took 9 and some years to go through.
And to be annoyingly mysterious.. I'm always in touch if you know where to find me.