Solar Reflection 2

[goatgodschild]

The Practices teach our values. What lessons and values have you discovered in Walking?

Silence: Out of the four traditional magical principles, that fourth has always been the most difficult for me. 

I am not, as a rule, a quiet person. Silence often feels judgemental to me, that I feel like I need to make sure that there’s some sound I either am encouraging or creating. I don’t necessarily want to inflict it on other people who don’t want it, but silence is very difficult. In fact, I’ve put off typing up this reflection because I’ve been trying to find exactly what would be right to listen to while writing it. But recording progress is important, as well as experiments and their results. 

At the same time, silence online is very easy for me. I prefer to lurk, speaking only to a few people at a time, and rarely posting publicly. This can combine into bursts of sharing too much with a handful of online friends, and putting too much pressure on them. 

 

Community service: I am no stranger to volunteer work, having achieved a Community Service Star in high school for 200 hours of service. I have been a volunteer around town since I was 12 years old, but I never thought of seeing it as a religious value. It always seemed to be what you did to help other people, or animals, to have a way to do what you loved -- or a way to integrate oneself with people higher up. But it is different to view it as part of a greater whole, and as a part of religious practice, to align oneself with the Solar. 

Crafting: As my ability to physically Walk is periodically limited, I was glad to use the Solar as a chance to do magical forms of crafting. I made a pentacle plate out of salt dough, then covered a lot of it with a layer of clear nail polish to seal it as best I could. Then I added a layer of paint, followed by a layer of melted beeswax on the bottom and rim of it. Meanwhile, my mother has allowed me to start taking care of the compost worm bin, since she hasn’t been able to do so for a while.