Reboot. Regenerate. Start over.

Better luck this time.

This blog went through a couple of false starts, first as a rather pretentous foray into blogging in an unfamiliar community (oh Livejournal, you are so incestuous), then as a serious attempt at Pagan blogging that lasted about a week. This one has a good chance of ending up as sad and pathetic as the first two, but if you can't have hope, what can you have? So now, recently graduated from college and struggling to start a life on my own, I'm starting a blog. Here goes nothing.

I blame my religious studies class, first semester senior year. I don't remember why I signed up for it; probably because I needed a fourth class and it filled the time slot. I quite like religious studies, as a rule, but it's not something I seek out, not least because it does tend to make me feel marginalized and I don't like feeling marginalized. On one of the most secular campuses in the US, though, it was a welcome relief from the scientism of my anthropology major. More than that, it was inspiring. We covered just the basics -- Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism -- and I don't think I learned any facts I didn't already know, but it was presented in such a thorough and passionate way that I couldn't help but be moved. For once, rather than sulk irrationally about the exclusion of non-organized religion from an intro religous studies course, I could draw comparisons between my philosophy and what we were studying, between what other people did and what I do.

I started writing again. Those of you who do not write may not understand what a powerful thing that is. Suddenly the ability and moreover the desire to express myself in words had returned to me. I started writing whole bloody essays in the margins of my class notes, typing them up when I should have been writing response papers that were a little more relevant to what was actually going on in class.

I have some material now, you see, so that makes this a lovely time to open up the blog again. I should be able to keep it going for at least a week or two on pre-written stuff, and hopefully by then I'll have something else. And if I can keep doing that for a while...I can keep thinking, keep writing, keep myself going. I have a tendancy to burn myself out on projects -- and that includes my faith, sometimes. Solitary Paganism is work, and it's exhausting. The blog is supposed to help me pace myself. We'll see.