Cats Bits 10-7/10-13 Wiccan Voices: Contact Beyond the Gods with Crystal Blanton

Cat's Bits for the Week of Oct 7 - Oct 13

Upcoming Events & Holidays

Oct 15: New Moon at 8:02 am EDT

Oct 22: Sun Enters Scorpio 8:14 pm EDT

Oct 28: Celtic Tree Month of Reed begins

Oct 29: Full Blood Moon at 3:49 pm EDT

Oct 31: Samhain / Halloween

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Pagan Birthdays for October

Isaac Bonewits (10-1), Timothy Roderick-author(10-2), Aleister Crowley (10-12), Selena Fox (10-20)

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Thought of the Week:

Both abundance and lack exist simultaneously in our lives, as parallel realities. It is always our conscious choice which secret garden we will tend ... when we choose not to focus on what is missing from our lives but are grateful for the abundance that's present-love, health, family, friends, work, the joys of nature, and personal pursuits that bring us pleasure-the wasteland of illusion falls away and we experience heaven on earth.

- Sarah Ban Breathnach
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Article for the Week:

Wiccan Voices
~ Contact Beyond the Gods ~
with Crystal Blanton

Many times we talk about connection with divinity when referring to the importance of contact. While having contact with deity is very important, regardless of what path you travel, I think the concept is even broader than that when thinking about the needs of Pagans and Wiccans.

While many Pagan paths stress the interconnectedness of nature and energy, we don't often talk about the importance of connecting with one another. The Pagan path can be one of inner reflection and growth, isolating the practitioner from others in practice. It is common for Pagans and Wiccans to come to a place of reaching out to others of like-mind for social engagement but there is a purely spiritual reason to do this that aids in our development as well.

The celebration of the soul does not just exist inside oneself. We are creatures who crave connection with others and are born into our nuclear family and the family of the Gods. The Lord and Lady connect to each child as an extension of themselves, creating a wholeness that is maximized by spiritual practice and the ability to grow in acknowledgement of our sacred nature. As with human development, spiritual development grows and changes as people are able to identify, learn and integrate the lessons that are happening to them and around them. Nothing grows in isolation and without the aid of the elements around it. This counts for people too.

The energy of our brothers and sisters in faith help us to acknowledge our lineage to the Gods and to grow by contact with other energy. We are able to interface with others who are on their journey and together we learn to acknowledge and paved the path ahead. As energy aligns, it creates.

Interacting with others of faith helps to cultivate hope, question, reason, answers, insight, knowledge and can even provide reflection. Often times the Gods will display our lessons in the actions of others like a movie reel on a screen; we learn by experiencing and watching behaviour of others so that we can challenge our own. While we can do this in other ways with ourselves, it is challenging to identify all of our lessons within the self since personal judgment is biased and we are more objective when viewing others. Again, nothing grows in isolation and this includes the expansion of the spiritual soul.

In light of the interconnectedness of all things, when a person grows individually, he or she also affects others. Contact is a two-way street allowing for growth on both sides of any engagement. Contact with others becomes a spiritual gift to you that you are also giving back to another. How much more spiritual can we get? That is the greatest gift we can expect to receive and to give, the gift of one another.

In moving forward and looking at your path, do not limit yourself to building your contact with deity alone. Think on the myriad of opportunities available to you in your path and how those very opportunities may come in the form of people. When you consider the complexity of interacting with others, remember the vision that the Lord and Lady have for each of their children and the immense power of the Gods manifested in each of us. ?

Crystal Blanton is a Wiccan High Priestess, member of the Northern California Local Council of Covenant of the Goddess and a published author living in the Bay Area.

She has worked in Social Services for 15 years, specializing in addiction and counseling. Her book Bridging the Gap; Working Within the Dynamics of Pagan Groups and Society and the Shades of Faith; Minority Voices in Paganism anthology are currently available through Immanion Press.

courtesy of Lisa Day rec'd 3-18-2011
© http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Spiritually_Speaking
[email protected] : )

Permission to share freely as long as footer is included.

Brightest blessings for a magical week!

Cat

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