Several months ago, one of the parking garages at my workplace was shut down due to maintenance that had been deferred for too long. Small problems that could’ve been ameliorated early on had instead become large safety hazards that required an extended shutdown and expensive rehabilitation. There was a message in that for me, and I completely disregarded it. As a result, I had to take a leave of absence from work recently to change and adjust to new meds, heal my mind and body, see a lot of doctors (and get appointments set up with even more doctors), and relearn skills that I had lost due to working with bad brain chemistry for too long. Like driving a car with the ‘check engine’ light on, I did damage to myself by continuing to push through. In the midst of all that, I realized that my spiritual practice had suffered as a result of doggedly persisting in putting one foot in front of the other. Little rituals that I used to enjoy had fallen by the wayside, and my personal communion with my spiritual allies (both corporeal and otherwise) had been jettisoned in order to conserve spoons for essential tasks. My daily prayer became, “Goddess, just get me through the day.” And there came a point when I couldn’t even do that.
Needless to say, I’m rebuilding from the ground up and I’m very thankful for the foundations that a longstanding practice has left for me.
One of the things I had to do as my mind began to recover was to become more aware of the capabilities I have now – at 42 years old – instead of holding myself to the same standards that I did at 32 or even 22 years old. That in itself was a difficult reality to face, both as an Xennial experiencing the beginnings of middle age and as a priestex standing at a spiritual crossroads. However, it gave me the opportunity to give myself permission to let some things go. I can do big rituals for public events, but it wears me out for days afterward, so I let go of the expectation of contributing to the community in that way. I can hold workshops and intensives and retreats, and I enjoy participating in community that way, but I need to be aware of my own limitations, so I let go of my shame about asking for accommodations. I can teach new students, but I sometimes get caught up with their potential and fail to see the student as they currently are, so I let go of the notion that pushing inexperienced practitioners to pursue high standards will invariably help them on their path. That one was a difficult one to let go of because there was a great deal of underlying trauma in play and I hadn’t really engaged with those feelings and experiences before. But I had plenty of time to reflect while I was on leave, so engage with them I did.
As a young seeker, years before my first coven initiation, I prayed to the Goddess that I wanted to be her priestess. Even though I didn’t understand at the time all that I would be sacrificing to do that, I still wholeheartedly wanted to devote my life to service to the Divine. My friend, pure-hearted wishes like that are Oaths in disguise. And the thing about Oaths is that once you make them, it’s on you to keep them however you are able to do so. There are consequences for being unwilling to live up to the promises you’ve made – a Witch is only as good as their word, after all – but there comes a time when we are all unable to continue to fulfill our Oaths, whether it be due to declining health or cognition, some sort of disability, financial considerations (i.e. having the resources to do the mundane things associated with the Oath), or simply the end of that chapter in your life. In my case, my physical and mental health has taken quite a hit, I’ve developed mobility difficulties, and I find myself increasingly drawn to priestessing a small, closed coven. My Oaths from the very beginning were to serve the Gods and preserve the Craft, and there are myriad ways to do that.
Probably the most difficult thing I had to do as a practitioner who was starting back at square one was to release was my own expectations, my own should-statements. Some of those should-statements came from working with a fantastic initiating priestess and wonderful friend, Taz Chance. If anyone ever doggedly persisted in the pursuit of service to the Divine, it’s Taz, and there was a time that I aspired to that sort of relentless devotion. Over the years we’ve both developed health and mobility difficulties, so we’ve both had to adapt to the changes that come with age, but Taz is still as on fire for Goddess as she ever was. I’ve come to realize that my own service is quieter than that.
Some of my should-statements came from working with an amazing spirit-mama and elder, Susan Stoddard. Susan was also on fire for Goddess, and she was also very concerned with politics and self-sufficiency. Far from being a “God, guns, and gold”-style stereotypical prepper, she was a “corn, beans, and squash” sort of community-builder. During my years as an apprentice, I learned the power of human connection, local thinking, and ad-hoc infrastructure resources such as mutual aid societies and cooperatives. For a long while I wanted to be “Sasa Junior”, but I’ve come to realize that I can’t be “Sasa Junior” and “Amy” at the same time. So I let go of my expectation to be a nexus in the world-wide web of Witches and other people who do The Work and chose to focus just on my local face-to-face connections and let all the witchy web-weaving and mundane networking be a secondary consideration.
In releasing all of these things from my life, I’ve found the resources to focus on what I love the most: writing, teaching, reading, crafting, and experiencing the magick and inspiration of each moment. I was able to define what I really wanted at this stage of my life: coven, community, and a safe harbor in the growing chaos of the Trump regime. And I was able to reorder my inner self to fit those things into my life. My inner temple needed a hell of a lot of cleanup, but it was worth it to be who I am, not who I think I should be.
Another thing I did was to sit with my altar and figure out what I really wanted to put on it. Not what I thought I should put on it. Not what looked aesthetically pleasing. What I <i>wanted</i> to put on it. Even though I had done this exercise recently, I found that things had changed enough for me to repeat it. A lot of things on and in my altar that were decommissioned as a result, and a few new items were consecrated and installed.
I think the most challenging part of rebuilding my practice was giving in to the inspirations of the moment. I’m a planner. I plan and prepare and gather everything and then get bored with all the work and don’t actually do what I was planning to do. So 9am Coffee with the Goddess every Saturday? Not happening. But on a random weeknight when I feel like having a cup of tea? Sure! Magick is intuitive – so I let myself be intuitive about it. Writing at noon on Sunday? Only if I’m doing the laundry at the same time. But at the witching hour when it’s dark and quiet and liminal? That’s my prime writing time right there. Instead of resisting these quirky ways of doing things, I’m leaning in to them. And it has worked wonders to renew my practice.