Thank you for calling the Moirai. Your call is very important to us. Please press one if you are having god related technical difficulties, two if you are unsure about the destiny assigned to you, three if you are considering becoming immortal. Please hold.[/caption]A note: I use Goddess/Goddesses as gender neutral.
And even God Herself/Has fewer plans than me
But She never helps me out with my scams for free,/ though She grabs a stick and then She points it at me/ When I say nothing, I say everything/ Yeah when I say nothing, I say everything. - Lazaretto, Jack White
Sometimes God Herself Finds You Super Tedious
As some of you may recall, I was raised Catholic. There was a lot of God works in mysterious ways and a lot of one sided conversations.
The idea that you could (sometimes literally) hear a goddess speak to you, was incomprehensible to me when I first became a Witch. Prayer always seemed to require a lot of tedious repetition, waiting and then repeating steps 1 and 2 and never ever getting mad at God for failing to deliver ponies, boyfriends, good hair or extra trips to the library. Getting pissy with God meant that you doubted Her plan, weren't patient and were possibly faithless. Also, God is very busy and She doesn't have time to fulfill every tedious little request you put in. It's always like requesting paid time off in August when you work for an eyeglass store. Maybe, just maybe, but probably not.
I was no Lady Margaret Beaufort even on my best of days. I got restless from being on my knees too long, I didn't want to fast, there were no religious destiny dreams being sent my way, I cussed a lot, I got into cars with boys and few people would describe Catholic Teen Deb as pious, though I was as faithful as I knew how to be.
When I became a Witch, it took some time before I met people who had two sided conversations with Goddesses and Spirits. It took me a while to trust that voice because . . .hearing voices was usually not the sign that a long and prosperous life was impending for most people.
I'm still not one of those people who receives verbal messages from goddesses all that often. My indicators that my Witchcraft is working tend to be more along the lines of radiomancy, Golden Moth Illumination and sometimes dreams. My sister who is generally universally thumbs down on all magical experiences regardless of spiritual background, is actually more attuned to the other side of the veil than I am.
Reading Eat, Pray, Love of all things actually made me trust in my connections to my spirits more:
"Of course, I’ve had a lot of time to formulate my opinions about divinity since that night on the bathroom floor when I spoke to God directly for the first time. In the middle of that dark November crisis, though, I was not interested in formulating my views on theology. I was interested only in saving my life. I had finally noticed that I seemed to have reached a state of hopeless and life-threatening despair, and it occurred to me that sometimes people in this state will approach God for help. I think I’d read that in a book somewhere.
What I said to God through my gasping sobs was something like this: “Hello, God. How are you? I’m Liz. It’s nice to meet you."
What I said to God through my gasping sobs was something like this: “Hello, God. How are you? I’m Liz. It’s nice to meet you."
That’s right—I was speaking to the creator of the universe as though we’d just been introduced at a cocktail party. But we work with what we know in this life, and these are the words I always use at the beginning of a relationship. In fact, it was all I could do to stop myself from saying, "I’ve always been a big fan of your work ..."
“I’m sorry to bother you so late at night,” I continued. “But I’m in serious trouble. And I’m sorry I haven’t ever spoken directly to you before, but I do hope I have always expressed ample gratitude for all the blessings that you’ve given me in my life.”
This thought caused me to sob even harder. God waited me out. I pulled myself together enough to go on: “I am not an expert at praying, as you know. But can you please help me? I am in desperate need of help. I don’t know what to do. I need an answer. Please tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do. Please tell me what to do ...”
And so the prayer narrowed itself down to that simple entreaty—Please tell me what to do—repeated again and again. I don’t know how many times I begged. I only know that I begged like someone who was pleading for her life. And the crying went on forever.
Until—quite abruptly—it stopped.
Quite abruptly, I found that I was not crying anymore. I’d stopped crying, in fact, in mid-sob. My misery had been completely vacuumed out of me. I lifted my forehead off the floor and sat up in surprise, wondering if I would see now some Great Being who had taken my weeping away. But nobody was there. I was just alone. But not really alone, either. I was surrounded by something I can only describe as a little pocket of silence—a silence so rare that I didn’t want to exhale, for fear of scaring it off. I was seamlessly still. I don’t know when I’d ever felt such stillness.
Then I heard a voice. Please don’t be alarmed—it was not an Old Testament Hollywood Charlton Heston voice, nor was it a voice telling me I must build a baseball field in my backyard. It was merely my own voice, speaking from within my own self. But this was my voice as I had never heard it before. This was my voice, but perfectly wise, calm and compassionate. This was what my voice would sound like if I’d only ever experienced love and certainty in my life. How can I describe the warmth of affection in that voice, as it gave me the answer that would forever seal my faith in the divine?
The voice said: Go back to bed, Liz.
I exhaled.
It was so immediately clear that this was the only thing to do. I would not have accepted any other answer. I would not have trusted a great booming voice that said either: You Must Divorce Your Husband! or You Must Not Divorce Your Husband! Because that’s not true wisdom. True wisdom gives the only possible answer at any given moment, and that night, going back to bed was the only possible answer. Go back to bed, said this omniscient interior voice, because you don’t need to know the final answer right now, at three o’clock in the morning on a Thursday in November. Go back to bed, because I love you. Go back to bed, because the only thing you need to do for now is get some rest and take good care of yourself until you do know the answer. Go back to bed so that, when the tempest comes, you’ll be strong enough to deal with it. And the tempest is coming, dear one. Very soon. But not tonight. Therefore:
Go back to bed, Liz."
Indeed.
1. Who is initiating this conversation? Sometimes, when a Goddess or spirit is interested in you, much like when a person is interested in you, They will show little signs that They are interested in you. A small bit of good fortune with something that symbolizes Them, seeing and hearing about Them everywhere, a dream with Them, etc.
If you are Not That Into Them, much like in regular life either keep hitting ignore until They get the message or firmly (but kindly) let Them know that you aren't into it.
If you are interested, you could ask for a specific omen that the Goddess/Spirit you think is trying to contact you is actually trying to contact you.
If you are the one trying to make contact, it is generally good manners to try to make contact with the Goddess/Spirt much like when you are invited to someone's house for the first time. Tell Them what you admire about Them, offer gifts (tea lights, fresh water, incense and flowers are just about universally well received) and be polite. Do this once a week for a month. After the second week, ask for a small omen that They are interested in continuing the conversation.
If They Are Not That Into You, you'll know because either things will get worse in your life, or more likely, nothing happens. All your little niceties will amount to a dead, wet, cold fish on the floor. Jesus is tasked to love all of our sad, sorry little selves. The rest of the pantheons are not.
2. Received a positive omen! What next? Well, what kind of relationship do you want to have with this Spirit or Goddess? What kind of relationship do They appear to want to have with you? Do both visions match up? If you want to be equals and pals and She wants you to be a devotee with devotee boundaries, that may not be a great fit. How deeply involved do you want to get? Do you want your Witchcraft to be centered around this relationship or for your Craft to be something that you do and your Goddess or Spirit occasionally steps in to lend a hand?
3. Don't Give Into Spiritual NRE (New Relationship Energy). You know when you first start dating someone, you want to spend every minute of every day with that person and you would promise them anything? You know how you think that person is the smartest, prettiest, funnest person alive? You know how three months later you sometimes would rather light yourself on fire than spend another minute with this person, you have nothing in common, and you now think this person is vain, shallow and stupid? Welllllll. That experience isn't limited to the physical world. Sometimes it feels like a "click" with a Goddess or Spirit and you make vows and then you don't want to keep them in a few months. The problem is, generally speaking Goddesses and Spirits have access to energy that you don't have access to. That's part of why you decided to work with Goddesses and Spirits. It can be a really good reciprocal relationship but if one of you no longer wishes to reciprocate, then it can be a problem. Imagine working in a company of ten people and you start dating your boss. You dump your boss. Jobs at other companies in your field are few and far between.