Catching up

It's been a while since I posted about my dedicant's path progress, and it's true, I've fallen off the wagon a little bit with the work. I think I got thrown off kilter around New Year's, and I haven't completed one of the weekly assignments since then. It's not looking good for this week, either...but I'll get back to it next week, I promise.

That doesn't mean I haven't been doing anything. I've been meditating pretty much every day. It's amazing what it does for my stability - it used to be that if I had a bad evening, that spoiled my whole day, and probably the next one too, because I'd stay up late trying to get something to balance out the bad evening to happen. (Spoiler: it usually didn't.) Now, I meditate every night at 10:00, and all the crap just goes away. It's sometimes there waiting for me in the morning, but it doesn't ruin my whole evening.

I've played with the Two Powers meditation as well, ADF's particular variation on the grounding-and-centering exercise. I like it, but it doesn't yet feel like I'm connecting to something real more than it feels like a particularly pretty set of images. I expect that will come with time.

I have not been good about getting out into nature - but it's January in Chicago, and I'm sorry, nature is not hospitable in this climate at this time of year. I'm starting to think I should have chosen something I can do from indoors for this particular aspect of the work - tracking the phases of the moon, maybe, or feeding the squirrels who live right outside my window. I suppose there's nothing stopping me from doing that now.

But this Sunday is Imbolc, my favorite holiday, and the one I keep missing due to inattentiveness. I just finished painting my altar decorations (which also may become sacrifices; I'm not sure yet) and I'm planning on doing some baking later in the week. I'm excited. And this should help get me back in the swing of things.