Day 7: My natal chart

I'm not super into astrology-- basically because I think that unless you go really deep it's too general to be of real use-- but I was interested in seeing my natal chart after watching this video on Youtube.

I used this website to get my chart. I found it through Google. The first time I generated my chart I couldn't remember the exact time I was born, so I just did the generic "12pm" time stamp. My results were:

Sun: Pisces (6 degrees)
Moon: Gemini (20 degrees)
Rising: Gemini (11 degrees)

I wasn't entirely happy with this-- Gemini in rising didn't seem to fit me at all, except for maybe one or two things. I know astrology is normally very vague/general anyway, but when you don't fit what the thing says your sign means except in maybe one instance, then...what do you do? (On a side note, I've always wondered if there were people out there who didn't think they fit their sun sign in any way. I feel like I'm a very typical Pisces, but what if I wasn't any of the things that Pisces people are supposed to be? Anyway.) I went away slightly pissed off...but still wondered what would happen if I put in the correct time.

Luckily my mother remembers exactly what time I was born. So I put that in, and my results are almost radically different. Yay!

Sun: Pisces (6 degrees)
Moon: Gemini (23 degrees)
Rising: Virgo (4 degrees)

I like this result much better. My rising sign being Virgo makes SO much more sense to me than when it was Gemini.

Day 5: Some free pagan resources

Keeping up with a daily post is going easier than I thought it would, although to be fair I'm currently writing them two days in advance, so. Maybe it's cheating a bit? Hm.

Anyway, I've been looking for free online pagan resources for a few weeks now-- mainly books, since it's harder to find those than it is blogs or videos. There's actually a decent amount of free pagan/magic/witchcraft-related books available for free online (legally, I mean), and since most of them are related to the history of witchcraft (one of my interests) I'm really happy to have found them.

If you're interested in the history of witchcraft or just want some free pagan-related books to read, here's what I've found so far:

• Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches by Charles G. Leland (1899)
• The Fairy-Faith in Celtic Countries by W. Y. Evans-Wentz (1911)
• The Golden Bough: a study of magic and religion by Sir James George Frazer (1890)
• various books by S. L. MacGregor Mathers
• The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies by Robert Kirk and Andrew Lang (1893)
• De Occulta Philosophia by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1509-ish)
• Cornell University Library's Digital Witchcraft Collection
• The Witch-cult in Western Europe by Margaret Alice Murray (1921) !!! Kind of stupidly excited to finally read this and see what the big deal is.

I've been looking for more modern (1920s-present) stuff, but there are very little ebooks available and what I have found seems to be pretty expensive. Hm. Seems a bit of a missed opportunity, there.

Day 4: My electronic BoS

Since my research is, for the moment, completely electronic, I wanted some way to keep track of all the bits and pieces without having a ton of text files to sort through. Eventually, when I start reading actual paper books and whatnot, I think I'll transfer stuff to a paper notebook-- although I'm planning on that being more of a "here are my reactions to things that I read/do" than a "proper" grimoire/Book of Shadows. At least for now. Anyway.

I use Zotero to keep track of stuff. It works really well for the most part; you can add notes and tags, connect one item to another, and sort things into collections and sub-collections. The Chrome port is sometimes finicky, but it mostly works okay. I've got one collection that's just theories, info, opinions and interesting things I've found online (that's the YAAD folder) and another for my BoS, which is for how-to things, spells, etc.

(Click to enlarge.)

The nice thing about having an electronic notebook thing is that you can add videos as well as essays, blog posts, and so on. Since there are so many pagans on Youtube nowadays, I think that's a good thing!

How do you keep track of the stuff you learn? Do you write it down somewhere special?

Day 3: What I'm researching

My first foray into paganism was mainly in the Wiccan area, since that's what was most available at my local bookstores and whatnot. I still like the idea of Wicca, and I like some of the things its got in it, but it doesn't fit exactly what I need or believe. I'm not overly familiar with other types of paganism, so I'm hoping to explore the non-Wiccan stuff this year.

I've got a few topics that I plan on focusing my research on for the first few weeks (or months, depending). I like having something to focus on, as it means I'm not just wandering around willy-nilly for a year. Here my current topics of interest:

• "Third gender" gods, by which I mean gods that aren't wholly male nor wholly female (or maybe even non-gendered!). It seems like there's a lack of non-binary gendered gods in the bits of paganism I know about; I'm interested in seeing what people are doing outside of that.
• Eclectic paganism, since I think that's basically what I'll end up being, anyway.
• Ancient Egyptian gods and the magic/belief system associated with them. I've been interested in Ancient Egypt since I was about 8 years old, so I'd love to learn more about the history and reconstruction of AE's religion.
• Non-Northern Hemisphere magic. Most of the info online seems to be focused on the northern hemisphere, and on the traditions/magic/religions in the northern hemisphere. I want to know what people do in the southern hemisphere! Do they just switch the dates around for Yule, etc? Or do they do something else?
• Asexuality/celibacy in paganism. I'm asexual, and while I don't mind sex or the emphasis non-asexual people put on it, I'm interested in learning about the asexual/celibate side of paganism. Are there asexual gods? (I know there are celibate ones.) What do asexual/celibate pagans do during rites that have sexual components? 

I'll be writing about what I find out re:these topics here on the blog, no worries! 

Day 2: Some of my thoughts re:religion, magic, and the divine

I don't have any set guidelines for my YAAD except that I want to learn enough about paganism to decide on a path for myself afterwards. However, I saw a video on Youtube about making a Book of Shadows/spiritual diary and what sort of things you can put into it-- one of those things being a list of what you believe. So! Here are some of my thoughts about religion, magic, and the divine. I've tried to group them roughly by subject, so hopefully it's easy to read.

Day 1: Intro

Happy Yule, everyone! Today's the first day of my official year-and-a-day of studying, and I thought I'd start off by talking a bit about how I became interested in paganism, what I hope to get my from my year of study, and where I hope to be a year from now. So!

Beginnings
I was "raised" in the Christian faith, although my immediate family is very lax about, uh, everything. I don't remember actually being taught anything by my parents, though my grandmother tried to impart some knowledge on me. We only sometimes went to church, and when we did I think everyone was bored. I never really connected with anything in Christianity, though I did try really hard to do so one summer when I went to a Bible camp. Basically, by the time I was in sixth grade I knew that I wasn't a Christian.

I first became interested in witchcraft/paganism in middle school, somewhere in sixth grade. A friend of mine was really into Wicca and the like, and we spent three years or so delving into witchcraft/Wicca/etc. Like most newbie pagan teenagers, we made a lot of "mistakes." We didn't study a lot, we used nebulous sources for our info, and we tried doing stuff before we were properly ready. Still, we had a lot of fun, and the things I learned during that period will no doubt help me now as I become more serious about my pagan journey.

High school and college was spent mainly worrying about being in a new city, homework, and watching new Doctor Who episodes. I did spend time thinking about the divine/gods, however, and I came to the conclusion that I was probably agnostic. I didn't really care if there were gods, but I wasn't about to tell anyone that there was a definite yes or no answer to that question.

Now
Though I hadn't lately been overtly studying anything magical/pagan-y/etc., all that stuff has been cooking in the back of my mind for the past eight years or so. I've been thinking about magic, about gods and their relationships to humans, and about my relationship to those things. Recently I've become extremely dissatisfied with my life, and I can feel a kind of hole in my spirit. Sometimes I can fill that hole with a good book, an exciting TV show, or a trip to somewhere new, but...I kinda want something more permanent.

I feel like I haven't found my "thing" yet. You know how some people have a thing that they dedicate their lives to? The thing that makes them feel really awesome and like they could conquer the world? I want a thing like that. I haven't found my thing among material objects, or among anything else I'm doing, so I'm wondering if maybe it's somewhere spiritual. Lots of people find satisfaction through religion and spirituality, so why couldn't I?

My Journey
I'm hoping that by seriously dedicating a year and a day (abbreviated YAAD from now on) to studying paganism, religion, and the divine, I'll be able to determine if my thing is there or not. When I was younger I spent maybe only a month learning about witchcraft/paganism before jumping in and doing spells; I'm determined now to now do anything like that until I can be sure that it's really what I want.

I'm going to explore different aspects of paganism, including the various religions it encompasses. I'm thinking I'm more of an eclectic sort of (neo-)pagan than anything else, but I'm open to sticking to a certain path if it calls to me. My main goal is to learn as much as I can about paganism while keeping an eye out for anything that calls to me. I'll be keeping track of these things, and my journey, both here on my blog and in my grimoire/Book of Shadows (which is currently just made of text files on my computer).

Expect to see book reviews, posts about my thoughts on paganism/witchcraft/etc., lists, links to interesting articles or websites, and more! I don't know if I'll post every day (I do have two other blogs to maintain as well, and hopefully a job soon that'll take up some time), but I'll try to update at least regularly. Either way, I've got a few posts pre-written, so there'll be some good stuff showing up in the next few days.