There are days that I wake up and I am tired in my soul. I feel burnt out and unappreciated and forgotten and ready to give up. I question whether I have the ability to suck it up and keep on going for just one more day. For my students. For my colleagues. For my community.
Well, it finally happened. My give-a-fuck broke. And in the process, I said ‘fuck off’ to a bunch of projects that I should myself into. I should write a book — but it’s all been said before and I can add very little to the conversation, so that can fuck off. I should be a priestess-at-large for the community — but honestly, I’m not a weddings-and-funerals kind of person, so that can fuck off. I should be out and proud as a Queer Pagan — but it’s exhausting being a citizen educator all the time, so that can fuck off as well.
The Goddess did not put me on this planet to run a nonprofit organization or to be a witch for hire. I’m here to serve the Gods and preserve the Craft. And I haven’t been doing either of those things nearly enough in the past year. Granted, there’s been a pandemic going on, and that has made it extremely difficult to work the rites in a group. But even my personal practice has dwindled to nearly nothing. I feel less like a human and more like a half-tame animal struggling to survive.
I may never write that book. I may never perform that wedding. I may never speak on that panel. But even though my give-a-fuck is broken, I’m struggling to let go of the should. You should write that book, Amy, even if someone’s said it all before. You should make yourself available for ceremonies, Amy, because not everyone has access to a traditionally trained priestess. You should go to that festival, Amy, because that’s how people get to know you. You don’t really want to be an unknown, do you?
Of course not.
But I also want to scribe in my Book of Shadows that’s been sitting, blank and neglected, for years so that maybe one day if my daughter wants to learn the Craft she has somewhere to start from. I also want to grow my own coven and outer court. I also want to focus on my own spiritual goals of healing and reconciliation. And I also want to free myself from respectability politics and be who I truly am inside. And I absolutely want to live up to the oaths I gave during my initiations. So that’s what I’ve decided to do: to will myself away from should.
One of the things about oaths is, when you give oaths to the Gods, it’s not a fair-weather deal. You are still oathbound even when you’re depressed, even when you don’t know when your next meal will be, even when you’re short on rent, even when the world is falling down around you. That’s why we carefully examine potential initiates throughout their dedicancy and ensure that they are truly ready to take on the responsibility of an oath.
And what are those oaths? To harm none. To keep secret the ways of the Art. To serve the Gods. To preserve the Craft. That is the core mission of Wicca.
My teacher told me once that if you’re really doing the Work, you will never go hungry and you will always have a roof over your head. You might be eating beans and rice and doing some couch-surfing for a little while, but you will have the resources available to you to survive. Just as our worship strengthens the Gods, their patronage strengthens us. So, for all of you who are struggling right now, go ahead and let your give-a-fuck break. Go ahead and rid yourself of should. And then get back to the heart of the Craft and all the possibilities it brings.
That’s where the wellspring of true strength comes from.