Autumn Equinox

I know I've written a bit my struggles with religion on a personal level. It's been difficult for me to figure out how and what I want to worship, I think, because of what I study. I know that I have a desire for religion in my life and I was very clear about what was out (any kind of Christian Evangelicalism). What I really wanted was to go back in time to Neopaganism but alas we can only simulate time machines not actually be them. I couldn't go back to practicing Neopaganism the way I had when I was twenty. However, I'm finding that I can work Neopaganism into the person I am now. It is of course taking a little trial and error.

Having purchased Star Hawk's book Circle Round, I was giddy with plans to introduce my children to Goddess' rituals. This has not been the case. I bought the book in March and have yet to implement any of the rituals into our lives. We've talked a lot about goddesses, Wicca, etc but haven't really done anything. Right now it just seems like a lot of work with everything else going on in my life. Since I'm a perfectionist I want everything to go according to this model inside my head. This means having just the right material, doing the perfect circle, etc. When I don't have the things I feel like I need, I scrap everything.

I knew Autumn Equinox was coming so I just decided this was going to be our first official ritual. I made plans and a list of things I needed. And naturally the weekend up just being entirely too hectic for me to get what I needed. I didn't have an altar and really had no idea what was going to be the altar. I didn't have the right color candles, no gourds to decorate with, etc. So when Monday came, i felt really bummed out. I talked to the kids throughout the day about autumn, and we talked about what we liked and didn't like about the season changing. We made plans for some for fun fall things to do (apple picking, picking out pumpkins, etc). As I was handing out candy caramels for dessert after lunch, I suddenly realized my kids had never made caramel apples. What a perfect "fall" thing to do. I didn't see it as a ritual really until my friend Amber said "That's what it's all about." And I realized how right she was.

Getting wrapped up in having all the right material was way too much like my formal religion days. What had attracted me to Wicca was that it was the complete opposite in so many ways of formal church. Rituals could be fun or serious. They could be about simple things like making candy apples, or working through some anger. The group I was in certainly had formal rituals complete with candles, altars, and ceremony but in my private devotion things were not always so formal. I found that just being open to different things could turn something as ordinary as a walk into a sacred moment. And really that was one i wanted from religion. Despite my family's grand talk of religion being everyday, and blah blah, most of them practice Xianity on Sunday. And the rest of the week was totally devalued of any kind of sacredness. They might pray everyday but there was no religion in simple movements through life. What I want for my children is that they appreciate the sacred in being together and in the small things that make life breathtaking wonderful even if only for a moment.