As you may or may not know, In wicca, a new initiate must undergo a year and a day of training before being initiated into a coven. I, personally, have never been initiated into a coven. I have a bit of a social phobia anyway and at the time that I was first devoting myself to Wicca I was underage, and most covens do not allow minors to join their covens (most likely because usually pre-teens who get into Wicca are either just screwing around and trying to make it rain on their command, or are rebelling from their Christian parents. If I were an elder in a coven, I too wouldn't want to get caught up in a tiff between a teen and their parents.)
I did, however, undergo a year and a day of informal self-training before my self dedication rite on Ostara several years ago. It was a crazy experience. I didn't have any experience with self motivating to prepare myself for a years worth of study and I was armed only with sketchy internet sites and what books I could afford with my allowance to search for information. I am sad to admit that it was a disappointing failure. I would go for weeks at a time completely forgetting that I was supposed to be training. At the start of the year and a day I had come up with an entire calender, each day with a topic of study that I was to research and meditate on. I think that was one of the big problems. I had come up with those topics so early on and felt obligated to follow them exactly as they were laid out, but say, for example, that one day i was supposed to memorize the correspondences of common herbs, but I had recently gotten in an argument with someone at school and, really, a more relevant topic for that day might have been Conflict Resolution in the Wiccan faith. It felt like homework to me, and as such, I rarely got around to it.
It wasn't a complete failure though, because I did memorize the correspondences of common herbs and other such lists, which is good to know because now I don't have to break out the big book of badass mojo to see what tea I should be drinking or what it means when mercury is in retrograde.
Since the teeny bopper phase in my faith I have grown a lot. I used to do spells for everything. Got in a fight with a boyfriend? Break out the stones and oils! Feeling ugly? Break out the herbs and candles! Nervous about a test? Forget studying, tarot cards will tell me what to do! Today, I rely much more heavily on prayer (confused about how prayer fits in with Wicca? That topic should be discussed sometime this year. Wait for it.) and mindfulness. I actually haven't done a 'spell' in years. In the beginning, I was just thrilled to be doing something 'edgy' and wanted everyone to know how 'alternative' I was. Now I don't really care. What started as a cool hobby has grown into a full fledged faith and I treat it as a religion now, not a fashion statement.
Anyway, I digress. I was recently inspired by this blog. Laurie is not new to Wicca and has already been dedicated to it, but now she is undergoing a new year and a day training to deepen what she already has and, if she is anything like me, maybe get it better this time than the first time around.
So that is what I am doing. I will try to write a new post every day that is relevant to my topic of the day. I hope you guys find this interesting, because it will probably monopolize the blog for a while. Don't worry too much though if you find this all terribly boring, because I am getting a new sewing machine and will also be posting pictures and tutorials on the patterns that I am going to devise. If sewing is boring to you too then...you are shit outta luck, son.
So, that is my post for day one. The topic for today, if you haven't figured it out yet, is "Why the heck am I doing this again?"
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