overcoming fear
Tomorrow morning I’m going to do something I haven’t done in a very long time. I’m going to get up a little early, and I’m going to do ritual before I go to work. Over the last few days, I’ve realized that fear has been keeping me from taking the next step into the unknown. Last year, when I was taking the second module at the dojo for restoration therapy, we were given exercises to do to develop our internal abilities. Chi strengtheners, things along that line. For reasons that have only become clear to me to this week, I never did them.
I finally realized that I never did them because I was afraid. Not afraid of the exercises themselves - the exercises themselves are simple, easy, and relatively harmless. No, what I was afraid of was the results they would produce. I was afraid I might change and be alienated from my friends, thrust into a world I didn’t understand or feel I was ready for. To the me a year ago, the changes would have been revolutionary. To the me of today, these changes will be evolutionary. Don’t get me wrong - I still don’t know what changes are going to happen, or even where they will lead me. But the time has come to make them.
So what does this have to do with doing ritual? Why don’t I just make these changes and be done with it? Simple. I want witnesses. Whether they’re from this world or another. And, as I’ve only just discovered, Wicca is still my choice for spiritual and religious expression. When I fall back on my religious beliefs, it’s not Buddhism or Christianity I go back to, it’s Wicca and paganism in general. For reasons I can’t really explain because I don’t completely understand them myself, I feel like it’s important to do this. I could speculate on why that is, but there’s not point. It’s important, and I’m going to do it.
So tomorrow morning, things are going to change. Again. They already are. It will just be an acknowledgement of what’s already happening, a commitment to a process whose ultimate result, for now, remains a mystery. Be seeing you.