The Song and the Flame

So over on TC, Shad says something along the lines of that if you’re dealing with a full plate already, you might not have the energy to reach out to Deity. (I use that here as a generic term, rather than typing out “the deity of your choice, or who chose you, or who you have a relationship with, or whatever”.) And I won’t say it thwacked me upside the head in a major way the way some things have, but there was a definite “this is significant” feeling going on.

I think it’s not so much that my plate is full, but that I don’t have the energy to give proper attention to my religious activities. It got me thinking about why that might be. Because… It doesn’t seem like I have any more to do than I ever did. And yet I still do feel that lack of energy. And I feel its impact in the way Apollo seems more distant than He used to–perhaps because I haven’t devoted enough energy to keeping up the relationship. I think there are three possibilities here. One is that I need to come up with a way to increase my energy level overall. Another is that I need to reallocate what I have. Not sure exactly how to do either, but they both bear thinking about.

The third… The third. To accept things the way they are. I don’t like that option. But… Sometimes, lately, I’ve wondered if I’ve been trying too hard at maintaining this relationship. What if the distance is simply because there isn’t a relationship there anymore? What if all the effort and interest is on my side? I don’t think I’ve gotten any indication that that’s the case, but… What if I just haven’t been hearing what I don’t want to hear?

Doubt. Heh. Self-doubt as much as anything. Am I too focused on me and what I want? Am I so focused on what I’m experiencing and what I want and what I need to do that I’ve somehow managed to ignore Him or drive Him away with my incessant self-centered babble?

Do I need to stop talking and just listen?

I’ve added a new question to my list: How much power do words have?

Over at TC, a poster mentioned that during the terrorist attacks in London, a lady next to her had started reciting the Lord’s Prayer. The poster, despite having been Pagan for ten years and running, joined in. She wanted to know if that made her not a Pagan.

Now… There’s a whole big long debate about that, and most of it doesn’t bear repeating here. Part of my response to one of the other responses, though, was to ask whether just saying the words with no intent of really asking the Christian God for help was really the same as praying to him–did words matter that much?

The thing is, I discovered, that I’m not really sure. My initial reaction was that if you had no intent of praying to God, it didn’t matter, because there was nothing behind the words. Words only have the power you give them. I pray with my family when I go visit them, and I don’t consider that really praying to another God because–well, I’m just being polite, just following the customs of where I’m at. I sing Christian songs and I don’t consider that praising another God, just making beautiful music regardless of the actual content.

But… Words do have meaning. If they didn’t, they’d be useless, after all. And I do think words have power, to some extent. Otherwise, what would a promise or a vow mean? Think of how hurtful the wrong words can be, or how healing the right ones. To take it a little farther–if words didn’t matter, neither would names, would they? You could call any deity any name you wanted. But I don’t believe that’s true. Hell, it’s not even true with human names. How many times have I been annoyed because someone put an H on the end of my name? (Me, or any other Sara-without-an-H…)

I haven’t figured this out yet. This post is mostly just outlining the problem; I’ll work on solving it later, I guess. Just wanted to ramble for a bit.

Okay. I had quite a bit of babble here about this, because frankly I’m nervous about exposing my poetry to the light of day again, but I decided I should spare you that. *G* I won’t post everything I write here, but since this is sort of the kickoff, I figured I’d post this.

I know it sucks. I won’t go into why because I’m sure it’s horribly obvious. But–hey, I haven’t written anything in years… And then not in structure. Be gentle? I’m proud of myself just for getting it written, sucky or not. Hopefully things will only get better from here.

The world was dim; I did not live but dreamed;
I loved the all-surrounding gentle dark.
For though it blinded me, so deep and stark,
It hid me too, and I was safe, it seemed.
I reveled in this death where no hope gleamed
And pain was muse to me, creative spark–
In verses bleak I sought to make my mark,
In poems dark and often deadly-themed.

But then in dusk I saw a change, a flare!
I moved toward it, wanting to know more,
To life, away from all the death of night;
I wondered at the brilliance I saw there
The warmth, the sight, my heart had so yearned for…
I took a breath and stepped into the light.

It’s difficult to tell whether this is my idea, or whether it’s an external suggestion/command… But today as I was doing weekly ritual (a little late this week), I had the strong feeling that I should be making some attempt to start writing poetry again.

No, that’s not right. Not “making some attempt”… Like I should be doing it, period.

I think… I think it wouldn’t be a bad thing for me to do anyway. And if I’m going to be doing it, it makes sense to make some kind of connection to Apollo there, whether that’s simply dedicating the effort to Him, or writing poetry inspired by my relationship with Him or what, given that His areas of influence include poetry. Or so I understand. So maybe it doesn’t matter whether the idea is coming from me or from Him–other than I have some irrational fear of going overboard and getting all fangirl with my attentions. But then if I start to be in danger of that, I’m sure Apollo is perfectly capable of telling me that!

The problem here is that there’s a reason why I haven’t been writing poetry… I have lately had no inspiration for it. But perhaps that’s part of this–it’s not something that’s just coming naturally. It’s something that’s going to take effort. And perhaps it means a little more that way?

Now. The really tough part is going to be getting myself to actually get started, I think, and not just forget about this. Which I guess is part of why I’m posting here!