My background is solitary eclectic for the last 25 or so years. I have at times, described myself as an atheist who can’t quite shake deep roots of animisim, a witch, a Saganist (will explain in a bit). I am a librarian by training, a manager of librarianish folk by day-to-day function. Much of my management style was informed by reading Starhawk’s materials on activist/coven dynamics at an impressionistic age early on and these readings continue to be some of my favorite business reading when social dynamics seem to be going sideways in terms of understanding what is going on, and practical ways to resolve issues. My whiteboard reads: “Breathe (pri 1) [gratitude, compassion].”
My current altar is in the process of slowly expanding again. For about the last six or so years, it was mostly comprised of a simple compass & a pocket sun dial that was my great uncle’s. The associated elements being cemented in my mind, it was enough of a reminder of what I needed to keep me grounded and directed. In the last nine months or so, as we unpack from a move several years ago (still!), I’ve found a postcard I love of Green Tara with the word ‘gratitude’ at the bottom of it. In the last two weeks or so, I found my tiny brass Buddha who now sits next to Tara, laughing. I often pause in front of them, remembering to be thankful for All The Things.
I no longer place much weight on trappings and complexity of altar display, or ritual, or theo/thealogy. God/dess doesn’t particularly resonate, but is occasionally a useful generic label for an ineffable but distinct *something*. Hekate is an ineffable that I occasionally encounter in odd places and times (most recently in the middle of a bookstore). Demeter, now and again. The Greek goddesses and mythos were my first loves at a young age, I have come to appreciate and recognize many others over time, even if not all of them have names. Serendipitous and spontaneous are words I would use to describe my interactions in moments of ineffability, more so than invoked and planned. I find moving meditations such as yoga and gyrokinesis as much a part of my spiritual practice as pausing in front of my altar/s. Seasons, the things that happen each season, mushrooms, I love mushrooms, a kingdom of their own! Water & being in boats, the damp cool of soil on a hot day, medicinal and magical herbal gardens, walks in the forest, the natural world and all the tiny individual ineffabilities that inhabit everything.
Right, so Saganist, I said I’d explain… I don’t believe in god/desses as anything other than simply ineffable. I find amazing magic in the natural world as it is without needing to layer the seemingly inevitable why mythological stories over them. Today I was marveling about the nervous system (so amaze!), and trees, and atoms and the unlikeliness of it all, and how a nervous system looks a little like an upside down unrooted tree with a bulb for a root (it was much more magical and amazing in my head than this description, I swear!). Carl Sagan says, “We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars.” My seven pointed star reminds me -- We are all starstuff, Love is the law. For as Carl Sagan also points out, “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”
I expect my insights to change over time -- the ocean will be the ocean, but the tides will come in and go out again (and come in differently to the shore the next time, and wear away at some pieces differently over time)...
