Stranger In A Strange Land…And My Compass Is Broken

Well, it’s a bit a little while. February been a weird struggle of a month for me and I’ve spent a lot of time working through things. Every time I thought I was getting a handle on it and what it meant, I’ve felt spun off in another direction. Finally, I think it’s coming together though and it was a bit like one of those tablecloth tricks—nothing fell, nothing broke, but everything had to resettle again after.

People kind of take it as a joke when I say I’m an expatriate of the Otherworlds, and I’m usually happy to let them, but it’s one of the truer things I’ve shared. I never really belonged anywhere or even understood what homesickness was before astral traveling Out There—and even when I tried to forget that foreign feeling, no one ever let me. There’s so much talk of accepting and embracing yourself and your path, but less about how sometimes it’s not just finding the right things but also letting go of all the others—even good things. It’s not a simple, easy dichotomy between things that make you happy and lead you in the right direction and crap that makes you miserable and derails you. Sometimes I look at my journey and wonder if all this is really worth it and leading me where I’m supposed to be after all; other times, I believe and hope in and want things so deeply that even once I know they’re illusional, not real, pulling me in the wrong direction, it’s still so hard to give up holding onto the idea of them.

I think that’s been at the core of this month. Maybe it should have been a no-brainer, but it was a realization that if I’m different, my life is different, my journey is different…then maybe (duh) the choices and rewards available to me are also different. That means sometimes I’m going to look around this world and want things, or be taught I should want things because you can’t be happy without them, or see friends having something in common so I feel left out, but find that those things aren’t for me. I have to find how to allow that and work through it without feeling hurt or cheated or like it’s because I failed. At the same time, though, it must mean there are joys and rewards unique to my path also and I just have to reckognize them and enjoy them for what they are.

February was hard times but this strange pattern developed where every time it felt too hard, something happened: an unexpected boon, an event going better than I planned, something I needed spontaneously being on sale at the right time, or encouragement coming from a direction I didn’t foresee. Nothing big, but every time. Whenever I asked for help or reached out there was always a (noncorporeal) hand there for me and that seems like People making good on promises They made me in January, to be present and with me. I think my Gods and spirits are trying to show me, if I’ll just trust Them and look. It seems They don’t want to be asterisks anymore. I don’t have a home or belong anywhere (*except in the Otherworlds), and that sort of thinking. And if this is who I am, I can’t see those as extras or add-ons, either. It changes everything and nothing, but it’s a mental shift around what elements of my experience I center in my thoughts.

Honestly, the process is made even weirder for me because growing up I did think that way and had it right. It wasn’t until my mid-teens I wore down, started doubting and wondering if something was wrong with me, and began to adopt external worldviews (or elements of them) as my own. In a way…I went native and now I’m trying to go back and undo it. I can remember exactly how it felt back then, just not the thought processes that led to it yet. I think if I can manage that, though, my internal compass will recalibrate to point me forward and toward my own milestones rather than someone else’s again—which will help me find them to embrace and appreciate.

Candles For Spring

It was the first of my spring rituals over the weekend, celebrating the life beginning to stir again under the ground before everything starts growing. I’ve written about it before, a couple years ago (here), and then again and about my slightly modified experience last year astral travelling also to Vanaheim (here).

This year was very much the same, back with just the Free Court in the Between. Winter Torch extinguished, energy and magick raised, did not set my head on fire, same old same old really. And…at this point that feels special, too. More and more now, there’s a sense with these spirit rituals that they are what they should be, and so am I. It feels like I finally know what I’m doing and can feel confident in it.

The one thing that did seem new this year was how close the spring energies felt—almost like I had just done this ritual, even though every other one from last year feels like such a long time ago. I’m wondering if it was because I brought out the old candles from this ritual for Yule this year for the first time? Perhaps that worked even better than I thought and felt at the time? I didn’t really experience the deep after-holiday lull I usually feel that leaves me feeling tired and down and wanting to just hibernate.

After all the magick is done and the ritual is ended, I have a candle left that I burn until it’s out while I work on projects and then bury in my garden to bless it with all that energy for the next year. Usually, I work on a ritual item or something, but there was nothing in particular I had in mind this year so instead I worked a bit on a whole bunch of different projects I felt stuck with or was up to some point I just didn’t want to do. None of them are done, but I got all of them past whatever that speedbump was so I feel motivated to finish them again now.

And I’m thinking I want to plant in my garden wagon again this year. I didn’t the last couple of years because I thought I wouldn’t be here by harvest, but given that it took all of last year to get the camper torn down and the big structural stuff repaired and all the year before to figure out what I was looking for and find the right one, realistically the chances that I’m going to get done and be full-time on the road by summer or early autumn when things are grown is almost nil. Also, I’ve quite missed seeing everything grow… 🌱🌿