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.