Learning to Be a Witch

Another posting idea from Pagan Blog Prompts!

I heard a joke a while back (I can't remember where):  How many Wiccans does it take to change a light bulb?  Answer:  Just one, but she has to read 20 books about it first.

I don't know if that stereotype is true of EVERY Wiccan, but it was certainly true for me.  The first six months or so after discovering Wicca I must have bought thirty books or more on that subject alone.  And I continued doing so for quite a while.  And there's still plenty that I WANT, but don't want to buy at the moment.

It makes sense.  Since the vast majority of us come to Pagan paths from Christian upbringings, we have a LOT to learn as we seek those paths--not only one new religion, but often many new religions, not one god, but many, and that includes goddesses, too!  We also have new holidays, new philosophies, new moral compasses, new everything!  (I didn't realize just how much I actually knew about Catholicism, most gleaned from just growing up with it, until I started learning a new religion from scratch.)

And while it's relatively easy to find teachers on the 'net, it's generally very difficult to find real live people in real life to with which to interact and from whom to learn.  I'm lucky--the Wiccan Church of Canada has two locations fairly near me--in Hamilton and in Toronto.  If I wished, I could attend weekly classes at either of those locations.  (I don't, but that's a whole other story.) I am also unlucky in that they are so close--I haven't been able to find a small local coven which I do want to join because searches for such things in this area tend to bring back only the aforementioned Wiccan Church of Canada.  Which leaves me with books and the internet.

Not that I'm knocking the internet.  I've found many wonderful places to learn on it, met many great Pagans (and non-Pagans), and made some really good friends besides.  I'm currently enrolled in three classes at The Magical Circle School. (And I'd be learning a lot more there if I didn't have a personal problem with self-paced and semi-self-paced classes, but that, too is another story.)  And any halfway decent search will find at least dozens of other such locations, some free, some not.

But my first love is still books.  Actual paper books that I can hold in my hands, stick notes in (DH HATES highlighted books, so I don't do that anymore), and refer to just by walking over to a bookshelf.  So I will probably continue to do most of my learning on my own, through those books.

I think I'll go do some reading right now.  :)

To Garden or Not To Garden

Something to blog about from last week's Pagan Blog Prompts:

I loved my potted herbs last year, I really did.  But keeping them going inside over the winter didn't work--the house is in general too dark for houseplants, and the puppy gates we have up to protect both our puppies and our stuff (not to mention the cats) make watering where there IS sunlight extremely difficult.  Add to that the fact that I have at best a brown thumb, and it spells failure.

Oh, that I had even a touch of my late aunt Juana's green thumb.  She could grow anything, and I mean ANYTHING in her South Texas garden--and she made it look easy!  The only thing I ever really tried growing on my own when I lived in Texas was a fern, which I killed.  LOL.  (DH and I (mostly DH) did have a small vegetable garden there once.  We (he) had a successful crop of tomatoes and jalapeños.)

I guess I didn't really like gardening until I became a Witch.  Or until I realized I was a Witch, that is.  At that point, as I became more and more aware of the cycle of life around me, and wanted to be outside more and more, I realized that I did actually WANT a garden.  I changed from a few flowering plants, grown mostly to "pretty-up" the house, to a combination of flowers, vegetables, and herbs.  I even got to where I didn't mind dirt under my fingernails, at least not much!  And I did pretty well at it--nothing died!!!

I did have problems, though.  I had to restrict myself to container gardening--the ever-present possibility that we will be able to put the house on the market keeps me from digging up the now-disliked lawn.  And I had to place those containers where they wouldn't get knocked over or otherwise damaged by two rambunctious, rapidly-growing puppies, which limited the amount of space with a proper amount of sunlight.

I got around those problems last year, but I don't think I'm willing to struggle with them again this year.  DH and I have talked about using fencing to cut the yard in half--one side for the dogs, the other for a garden--but there's that ever-present "what if the market improves" feeling.  And we're looking at a community garden plot, but we're not sure we'll be able to swing it financially in time to actually get a plot for this year. 

All of which makes me think that this year maybe I should be thinking about gardening, researching plants, and planning for next year instead of actually trying to garden.  The dogs will be older, and presumably calmer by then, our financial situation will hopefully be better, and maybe, just maybe, we will have sold the house by then, or maybe even decided not to do so.

Anybody know how long it takes grass to grow and re-establish itself in Southern Ontario?

Free Stuff

Since I've re-injured my knee AGAIN (this time with swelling and everything), I spent last week on the couch with my leg elevated.  Fun, fun, fun.  Not.  Working with a laptop actually on your lap is not the best way to work, and I got so sick of watching tv that I wanted to pull my hair out.

The knee is much improved this week--I can actually get around pretty well with a knee brace on it.  And, even better, I can sit up at the table for long periods of time, especially if I alternate elevating the leg on a chair and putting it down.  This means I can actually work and play on the 'net with relative ease.  Yay!

I've spent the last couple of days downloading free stuff off the web, from the Kindle Store over at Amazon, and from Microsoft.  The Microsoft stuff was pretty basic--I just discovered the joys of Microsoft OneNote, and I was busy downloading tons of notebook templates for it.  (And a bunch of Powerpoint and Word templates, too!)

The Kindle Store, however, was fabulous!  A friend of mine pointed out over Facebook that you could get Kindle for PC for FREE!  (Thanks, Sue!)  I also found out you can get a Kindle app for your iPhone or your Blackberry or just about anything else you can think of, all free.  The best thing, however, was all the free books you can download.  Most of them are older (like cookbooks or classic literature), or the first in a series, or some such, but still--plenty of reading material, and some really useful volumes besides!  (For you preppers out there, I found some great TEOTWAWKI materials.)

A word of warning to Canadians and anyone else not residing in the U.S.--You can only get the books at the U.S. Amazon site, and the prices are in U.S. dollars.  Also, not all volumes are available outside the U.S., and some of the ones that are available are at different, usually higher, prices.  Most particularly, some of the books that are free in the U.S. are NOT free if you live elsewhere.  All in all it wasn't too bad, though.

Especially worth it if you're somewhat bedridden, and not sick!