The world is always falling apart

How do you hold against the tide?

What is the point of religious practice if not to make our lives better? I’ve been needing better. There’s a great deal that’s good in my life now because I asked the gods for help and support and they gave it. I also worked my ass off, but that’s required. I've been in a good place for a few years. Probably the best in my life. But things have been slipping.

In the last few weeks, my stress levels have been soaring. It's partly the upcoming election. Like many people, I see some sort of doom threatening. You don’t need to be watching the MSM to see increasing levels of conflict everywhere. That goes right down to the personal level where speaking about what’s real and what matters to you can risk friendships and family relationships. The opposite is equally taxing. When my cousin casually tosses out an opinion with which I vehemently disagree, I have to fight the urge to drag us down a rabbit-hole into a hellscape of rational arguments she won’t hear. Just because we’re family, doesn't mean we’re close enough to like each other. No one changes their mind if they don't like you.

It’s not just what's happening in the world. Mom is elderly and while I don't have to directly care for her, there are still associated challenges. [I had to arrange to have her cat sent over the rainbow bridge a couple of weeks ago.] My body is protesting. My digestion is bad, my immune system is lagging, and my sleep had been improving but has gone to Hades again. I'm also thinking about what happens at the end of my own life. I don’t have a daughter or son to help me as I’m helping with my mother. I don’t have siblings and my cousins are all older than me. My stepdaughter is schizophrenic. My stepson has his mom to think about and is more invested in his dog than he is other humans. [Which is also a source of pain.] Will I die alone?

None of this is trivial.

The gods aren’t there to lift our burdens but to help us carry them with dignity and grace.

What do we do in the darkness when our bodies or souls convulse with pain and our minds can’t stop spinning? This is why a spiritual practice matters. The habit of a achieving a quiet mind and sense of purpose is like any other habit or skill, it’s one we have to engage in well before the stuff hits the fan.

I’m not talking about monthly rituals but about some form of daily practice, which was once referred to as piety. Piety got itself a bad name when, in the context of Christianity, it became a reference to rigid behavior that justified abusive acts. My grandfather ran away from home (permanently) because he was getting beaten for not saying his catechism correctly. However, piety is simply showing reverence for deity in a consistent manner. [Yes, of course we could go deeper here.] In other words, some form of daily prayer.

While we can just talk to our gods and don’t hesitate to do so, it’s better to involve the body. Ritual does this spectacularly well but I don't have time to do a full ritual every day. Practice is mini ritual. Done daily, it’s like money in the bank. When the stuff hits the fan, we have the tools to calm ourselves immediately, and make a connection with the gods and ancestors when we really (really) need it.

Ideally, a practice should fit naturally into your daily routine. If one is lucky enough to live near a natural environment, regular meditative excursions into nature are a common Pagan practice. But if you live in an environment that gets a great deal of snow, this isn’t physically possible for part of the year. Practice is that it needs to be something you can do every day without fail. Getting out in nature works great when you can make it out the door. If seasonality, or other concerns, blocks this kind of practice, you need more than one. The nature of a crisis is its unpredictability, so it’s good to have two or three ways to consistently alter consciousness and connect with the unseen world. Mini-practices.

I love working with my prayer beads. They’re a representation of Plato’s cosmology. and a mirror of a full ritual. Because each bead is different. I can tell easily by touch where I am in the sequence. This means I can do prayers as I fall asleep.

As I touch each bead, I say the evocation and offer a feeling of respect and love. deliberately creating this feeling is much better than the rabid anxiety that swamps me a few hours after I get to sleep. I start at the bottom of the strand with the land spirits. This first bead is wood from a tree that saved our house during Hurricane Sandy, preventing it from being smashed. That beautiful maple couldn’t be saved when they came to take down the tangle. Having that bead is an ever-present reminder of the magic around me.

Then there is a bead for each element, a bead for ancestors of the blood, and a series of smaller beads for those of my bloodline who have gone beyond the veil. Then a bead for the ancestors of the land; those that lived here before us. Next is a bead for ancestors of the spirit; those that cared for me but are not in my bloodline. Then a bead for the guides, one for the planets, one for angels and daemons, then beads for each of the gods with whom I work directly, and one last one for all the gods. I don’t always make it through the whole strand before dosing off, but the beads are on a leatherette cord so it won’t break if it floats around under my pillow. They go with me when I travel.

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Because the last few years have been far more peaceful for me, I stopped doing the prayer beads and they've been living on my altar. [I continued to do light ritual, however.] Then my mom fell and broke her wrist and things went downhill. She began to struggle with dementia and is now in full-time care. I’m learning how to manage people and how to deal with insurance companies.

When my basement tenant mentioned how her friend was sleeping with her rosary, a light went on and I realized I needed something hands-on again. The beads were waiting for me. When I put my hands on them I felt an outflow of reassurance. Of love. I slept. The next night as well.

Bad things are always coming and the world is always falling apart. But we are also building. Building homes, building relationships, building communities. As we get better at ourselves together, we can then hold together our families, our institutions, our tribes, and our countries. The gods are here to help us find our way through.

Here are some other practices that have worked for me.

• I take a sage leaf and smudge the house. When I first started doing this, I just said the words, but gradually my brain started to come along for the ride, and now just picking up the sage is enough to trigger a different state of mind.

• After smudging, if I am going to be home, I light a candle to one of my deities and dedicate the day’s work to them. If I need to head out, I do the dedication without the candle.

• I get out in my garden through all four seasons. Unless there is snow on the ground, there’s always something to do out there, and communing with the land spirits is calming.

• I have a black cup, decorated inside with a maw. When my thoughts get too dark, I put my hand over the cup and let those emotions pour into it. Some gods and spirits will compost that stuff into something useful.

What mini rituals nurture you, and build your connection to the unseen?

If you’re curious about Paganism/Heathenism/Wicca/Druidry, please feel free to message me and I’ll be happy to answer questions.

Selina Rifkin, M.S. [Nutrition], LMT, has been Pagan since she was 14 [which was a long time ago] and been to Hades in a handbasket. More than once. This has given her some opinions. She has direct communication with her gods and they’ve always given her answers when she asks. [One does have to ask.] Like most of her generation [X] she’s okay with snark. Most days she tries for good writing. But the snark, and side comments creep in. Be warned.