Sparkyisfourty@yahoo.com???

I have known that this year that when that this time of inward travel was going to be deep and difficult.  This whole past year I have been lost and confused.  I no longer felt comfortable in Of the Goddess Sisterhood, I have felt like it was not my place, the path of the Dianic Witch seemed foreign and unwelcoming.  I did not know why.  I decided that it was okay to not understand for awhile, it was okay to be uncomfortable and it was okay to walk away.  I felt the need to explore a different way of thinking, a need to find balance and in my deepest knowing I new I had to bring the God aspect into my life.  So in this period of not understanding the wall I felt in OGST, I began to read and research the Gods of different pantheons.

In September I decided that the only Gods I was drawn to were the Norse ones.  Uncomfortable to change from Dianic to Heathen but feeling right at the same time.  I spent the next month and a half studying Odin, Thor, Ulhr and Tyr.   Tyr was the one that called.  Mid October comes and I go to COVA, Colorado Organization of Victim Assistance.  Sat through classes on death notifications and Sexual Assault Psychology, Protective Orders all interesting, seemingly irrelavent to my spiritual path.  It was a great experience.

The Witches Ball comes, I go with my sister Sarajane and we talked about various things including my journey of the year.  We talked about the Goddesses I worked with and Ishtar was brought up.  She who called me, claimed me as her own.  I told Sarajane how nothing I had planned on doing this past year had happened, and Sarajane tells me how she could see Ishtar stepping back allowing me seach my God, because she new I could not grow until I understood the male side of my path, that Divine God Energy. 

We went to the ball, I left early.  On the way home, the veil opened and realization after realization hit me.  Last February I invited a friend of mine into OTGS, a friend who was experienced in Drawing Down.  She did a Drawing Down for the circle, many of the women on OTGS are solitary, do not do the public rituals and had never experienced a Drawing Down before.  The night progressed, I went last.  The first part of the message was a divine message, I still remember the words, but somewhere in the midst of this message the energy shifted, the Divine Energy left and the message became personal.  It was a message of this friends love for me and how much she loved me, how my daughters needed to be aroud her.  I let her talk and kept a straight face for the rest of the women in OTGS.  Inwardly I was pissed, totally livid.  After that incident, my daily communion with Goddess ceased, I stopped going to Circle, I aligned myself with other people.  I began to question the Dianic path, how so many Dianic circles are "man haters."  I don't hate men, I am not a lesbian, I am not a Femi Nazi.  The exclusion of men in Goddess worship, even in Wicca, though it is supposedly about balance it is Goddess heavy, the Gods are sexual and fluffy.  The is unbalance in a supposedly balanced path.  I found myself questioning more than I was finding answers. 

  Remembering this incident reminded me of an exercise we did in one of my COVA Classes.  It was an exercise that basically allowed us a glimpse of what a rape victim goes through.  And I realized that in my mind, this friend had violated the sacred space I held dear, it was no longer my safe place, thus I shut myself away from it, and removed myself from the circle. I made a vow right then to reclaim my sacred space and to reclaim my spiritual path.

So I set up new altars, began daily moments remembering Goddess and the vow of Service I claimed when I recieved my 3rd Degree.  I also began working with Tyr, in the way I knew as I read and research daily more traditional ways to work with Tyr.

The veil is still thin, there are spirits still wondering and close, I can feel it in the air.  Yesterday I sit down to sign into Facebook and Bill's email address pops up on the screen.  It made me feel weird and I had to think about it.  I asked last night before I went to sleep for insight.  The insight did not come in a dream, it first began to become clear in an email I recieved from an old friend of mine who asked:
 "Question..
Are you in a relationship at this time? When was the last time you were in a serious, real give and take, healthy relationship with a man?
Yes, there is a reason for the question. heehee..no trickery here."

Bills email address, these questions...I realized how much resentment I have harbored silently inside towards Bill.  Everytime the girls have a breakdown, act out because they miss their dad.  When they have Dads Week at school, and they don't have a dad to go with them.   How much I resent the the financial situation I have left because of him and people promising to help pay the bills but never actually helping. 

I begin to realize, I am drawn to work with Tyr to learn healthy interaction with men. Why Tyr, because he is just, fair, sacrificing, and wise.    I have to really analyse my resentments towards Bill and get rid of them. If I am to have a healthy relationship with men, I have to learn to trust myself in trusting men.  If I cannot trust, how will my girls ever learn to trust. 

Then I get an email from my friend who sent me the question.  I won't go into the email other than something she wrote, " We got to talking about men and how as a Dianic I've been accused of "man hating". The strangest thing happened was that I was explaining to her that I didn't hate men at all. In no way shape or form but I don't know...she said what do you mean you dont' know ...I said you know, it's not so much I hate them but rather I'm like you know, terrified of them. "

Which is exactly part of the realization that came to me this morning.  I do believe that working with Tyr in the spiritual, and seeking being around a Kindred, are steps necessary for me to heal, to get rid of resentments and to no longer be terrified of men, but to live with them in harmony and balance.  This is a harmony and balance I need to find within myself, and find in the physical world I live.