Just got to share my afternoon experience – can’t tell anyone else cos I get the rolly-eyes “here goes the mad tree woman” thing! Lol

A little background! I had a rotten night’s sleep. I was woken at 3:30am with a migraine, it was so painful, I cried myself back to sleep, trying not to wake Man, because he had to be up for work at 6am. Suffice to say, I woke up this morning feeling really groggy…still with migraine remnants (you know when you feel like you’ve been punched in the head and have a mahoosive inside bruise.) I sat and felt very sorry for myself.

Then the phone rang. Then it rang again, and again and again. It was so painful to my head to hear it ring, I turned it off.

Then I logged online to find loads of really taxing emails (about funding for workshops) that I need to deal with. Feeling quite sick, I turned off my email, and moaned a bit on Facebook (as I do! Lol)

Then the dog started staring at me – doing the mindbending “take me for a walk before I poo in your shoes” thing.

The last thing I wanted to do was go for a walk. Outside it is blowing a hoolie, there is horizontal rain…and my head…OH MY HEAD! BUT. I have dog, and I have a duty to dog…

I wrapped myself up warm, long waterproof coat, comfy walking shoes, and off we went to the beach. No one else around, just me, the waves crashing, the wind a-blowing and…Dog.

Until I saw a young woman of about 18 years old - she was wearing a long blue floral skirt, a white hoodie, and looked flipping-freezing! She had long dark hair that was whipping around her face in the wind and she was running bare foot over the sand, down to the sea. The wind was really lashing and it was POURING down, yet, she ran with total gay-abandon, her skirt pulled up and being blown by the wind to the sea, where she twirled herself round and round.

Her (what I can only suppose) boyfriend, was stood on the sea wall calling to her to come back – but, she was oblivious, completely lost in her own world, knee deep in the cold sea, spinning and spinning round and round entirely revelling in the elements…and I stood there watching her desperate to spin round and round too, shouting “isn’t it wonderful!” – but I couldn’t, and didn’t…this was her moment and I had no idea whether she knew I was there…it was such a special, private moment for her…I didn’t want to burst her joy-filled bubble!

But Oh my goodness, what a wonderful thing to see!…because I know that feeling…I’ve been that girl, spinning around and around, arms raised to the sky tasting the rain, and there is no other feeling that even comes close…and I miss it!

The young woman finally came back to this world, and ran bouncing like a child to her boyfriend, “you’re crazy” I heard him call to her as she ran towards him. She was grinning from ear to ear! He just stood giggling with his arms open, waiting for her.

I walked away in my own dream world, with a little of the girl I used to be re-lit in my heart. Life throws some bloody awful blows sometimes…and you have no choice but to pick yourself up and carry on, and sometimes you lose who you really are underneath all the layers of care and worry (and waterproof coats and sensible shoes!) That young woman taught me a big lesson!

There is of course always room for “sensible”, but it’s also essential to let yourself be who you are. Others will shout at you, call you back, and try and make you into something you’re not – and it’s true, you sometimes have to bend for others, because that’s life, and that’s how we all survive together – but, there are times when you just HAVE to be yourself and just “be”, because life will keep throwing the hard times at you – and unless you take a little time to run with gay abandon (either metaphorically or literally) you’ll always be the observer, the one looking on…wishing you had the balls to run bare foot into the stormy sea and feel it’s energy rush through you.

My lesson this afternoon has been heeded, and tomorrow, even if it is raining horizontal rain, I’m going to have me a little paddle in the sea!

Comments are welcomed on this blog post, and any of the others, at the Pagan Heart Forum which you can find by clicking here.

An age old Pagan debate

By Lazuli of Pagan Heart

I know that this will be, and has been, an ongoing debate forever, but, it’s something that caught my eye today, and I wanted to highlight the story.

A 4^th grade school girl in Minnesota has recently hit the pagan headlines. This young girl has been chastised for wearing her pentacle at school. The girl had worn the pendant for some time without anyone taking much notice, but when a supply teacher started at her school, he demanded that she hide her pentacle inside her shirt. Children wearing other religious symbols as pendants weren’t chastised. He told the child, “You should keep things like that to yourself."

The girl was upset and told her mother, who complained to the school. The mother received an immediate reaction from the head of the school and the supply teacher in question was black-listed within his profession.

Here’s where the debate starts.

Apart from a squabble amongst commenters about what the pentacle actually means…the debate ensues. Some points:

• It is not made clear whether the teacher is a Christian or not. Although the assumption that he is has prompted many of the comments left on the story. But, I’d like to point out that the purpose of me including this story is not that it becomes a Christian vs Pagan thing, but more a debate on how the situation was handled.
• Some commenters believe that this man has been made an example of. However, others point out how many pagans have been tortured by people with his kinds of opinions over the centuries, and feel it was the correct response.

One commenter on the story says:

“The child should have been given a public apology. The teacher should have been reprimanded publicly. And then he should have been allowed to teach provided that he knew it would not be tolerated.” She continues: “How did this help her [the child] in her religious experience? I think not much. But maybe someone will have taken the time to point out that pagans are strong enough to feel sorry for people whose religion is so fear filled.”

The comments then develop and describe suicides of young people who have been so badly bullied at school for their Pagan beliefs.

Another says (we don’t know if they are pagan or not) that the teacher had singled this child out, and that “Stupidity should be painful.”

So, was this man, the teacher, a victim of overreaction? Has this just fuelled the fire of people who have such closed minds (religiously)? Could this have made them more adamant that they are right, and we are to be ousted? Has it pushed the universal understanding of pagan beliefs a few steps backward and gone against the essence of pagan belief by causing harm to another? Or should he have been reprimanded as such and made an example of, as a stand for all pagans to be allowed their basic human rights and to be able to, without fear, openly disclose what they believe in should they wish to do so? Is this karma or are we (I say ‘we’ as a collective, but do not wish to put all pagans into one bowl!) condoning the very behaviour that has caused such misinformed nonsense of our beliefs over generations?

This story is included on the Pagan Heart Forum – where comments and discussion about this story, all things pagan (and not pagan!) are welcome. We are a really friendly bunch of people from all over the world, with all kinds of experiences and backgrounds. Feel free to come and say hi!

You can find the Pagan Heart Website here.