I'm sorry Gods but I'm just too busy !

[Mule of Liz Sama]

Alright so I've managed to find myself in a bit of a bind. I'm so stressed out between two courses in college and the projects due that I literally can't seem to find my center anymore. I try to meditate and something always happens where I can't relax.

I know I can't be the only one who's had real life just pile up and then find it really hard to reconnect with a deity. So Tell me about points in your life you had this happen and then how you fixed it.  

[TeaDidikai]

Actually... I've never had this problem.

I see this more in people who have faceted theologies over integrated theologies.

At some point you have to do chop wood and carry water. No reason those can't be times when one speaks with and honors one's gods.  

[Vertigo_Kiwi]

I've had times when I felt disconnected with gods, or just completely forgot about them. xp
College definitely adds to it, right now I have an 8am-5pm schedule (plus coming in at nights to work on projects). And a bunch of other crap that happened since November (bad car accident, my mom moving in with me, and my disorder has been bothering me). I guess I haven't really fixed it yet, I still feel disconnected. My whole life is chaotic right now, so I guess it makes sense for my spirituality to be the same.  

[PurpleDragonsGems]

I don't really get much privacy, as my family has five people shoved into a tiny two bedroom apartment. I try to do little things when I can, like light an incense or candle on the porch, or take five minutes when I wake up to walk outside and pray. Another good time, is when I get asked to walk the dog, or do laundry.  

[Collowrath]

Within my practice, I can always find time for my Gods because practice has two forms: ritualized, formal practice (requiring katharsis/ritual cleaning), and then there is the mundane. Mundane things are both clean and profane, simply because there is nothing bad about them, but nothing inherently divine either.

So for Hellenismos, mundane life is pure life (as per the customs of your polis, which I interpret as the culture you're born into or the culture of the region where you live). For me, it is perfectly acceptable to speak to my gods as I clean dishes, do laundry, or any other mundane household task, as long as I haven't done something to make myself polluted beforehand (such as exposing myself to blood, etc).  

[TeaDidikai]

Dragon_Witch_Woman

Another good time, is when I get asked to walk the dog, or do laundry.

Bingo. wink  

[TeaDidikai]

Another small note:

Many pagans would dedicate their life's work to certain deities (feats of architecture, art, battle, etc), and even smaller measures of effort (a specific trade run to a specific place etc)

Mayhaps dedicating a deeply important effort in the correct context might be an option for some.  

[Starlock]

TeaDidikai

Another small note:

Many pagans would dedicate their life's work to certain deities (feats of architecture, art, battle, etc), and even smaller measures of effort (a specific trade run to a specific place etc)

Mayhaps dedicating a deeply important effort in the correct context might be an option for some.

Definately. It's a curiousity though that a relatively high number of Neopagans (at least in surveys I've seen) work in computer tech fields. It seems at odds with honoring the old Gods and I wonder for those who are Neopagan and work in such a field if they see any connection between their job and their practice. Is anyone here in that sittuation who cares to offer some thoughts on that?

As for stress causing a disconnect... I'm not sure I've really experienced that either. I mean, there've been days I've felt ungrounded for a while but not a real serious disconnect. But my Path is also something I embody on a daily basis so it'd actually be rather hard to get away from it. sweatdrop  

[TeaDidikai]

Starlock

It seems at odds with honoring the old Gods

For heavens sake why?! eek

It isn't like ancient pagan theologies looked at the tools of their time and abstained from their use because of their gods! Can you picture it?

"Oooonopenopenopenopenope... those pesky roads these Roman guys built weren't here before the gods. I think I'll hike up dangerous trails and stuff rather than walk on the stones some people transported here to make walking easier..."

Or the Aqueduct.

Also note that Heron of Alexandria used steam powered devices within the temples of the Greeks and Egyptians.  

[Mule of Liz Sama]

Vertigo_Kiwi

I've had times when I felt disconnected with gods, or just completely forgot about them. xp
College definitely adds to it, right now I have an 8am-5pm schedule (plus coming in at nights to work on projects). And a bunch of other crap that happened since November (bad car accident, my mom moving in with me, and my disorder has been bothering me). I guess I haven't really fixed it yet, I still feel disconnected. My whole life is chaotic right now, so I guess it makes sense for my spirituality to be the same.

I'm pretty much there as well. My boyfriends family celebrates the commercialized forms (since his father is atheist aunt roman catholic ect) of the holidays so that has been keeping me busy trying to do shopping and finals on top of everything else.


Star - I am actually studying to be a game developer so I can kind of relate to your statement. Personally I really don't feel any type of connection between my studies and the Gods. The disconnectedness I'm guessing is mostly because I really haven't found a path to follow as of yet. The overload of stress doesn't really help the case much with all of its distractions. sweatdrop

Side note - Tea I love how you spill your knowledge. I learn so much from your postings. heart  

[TeaDidikai]

Dristinia

Star - I am actually studying to be a game developer so I can kind of relate to your statement. Personally I really don't feel any type of connection between my studies and the Gods. The disconnectedness I'm guessing is mostly because I really haven't found a path to follow as of yet. The overload of stress doesn't really help the case much with all of its distractions. sweatdrop

Question- who are your gods?

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Side note - Tea I love how you spill your knowledge.

Shoot. Someone get the mop! wink

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I learn so much from your postings. heart

Glad you enjoy. Keep asking questions and getting many points of view.  

[ShadowSharrow]

I consider my kitchen sink to be a sacred space esp if I have lit the hearth candle in it, I have had just so many chat/encounters/communication with deity while there.  

[TatteredAngel]

For the lighter side... I think that tech support is all at once the most and least magical thing I do. I don't feel connected to the divine by my computer, particularly. I don't consider tech work to be... spiritual, and baffling fixes to even more baffling problems are not magic, they're just cute puzzles for someone with a more engineer mindset than mine. But when I finally give up on a problem only to find that it has, moments later, fixed itself, well, that's as conducive to magical thinking as just about anything else in my life.

On the less light side... it's hard and confusing sometimes, not having particular gods. Not having a name for who I'm talking to, but still hoping someone's listening. It's what I've chosen, but it can make me a little more prone, during busy times, to just kind of forget any sort of connection with spirituality.

And those are times that maybe I desperately need it, because whenever I return to what is for me a familiar and comforting piece of ritual spirituality, I'm relieved. I wonder why I disregarded it for so long at those times, until the next period of flux. It's a learning curve.  

[Starlock]

TeaDidikai

Starlock

It seems at odds with honoring the old Gods

For heavens sake why?! eek

It isn't like ancient pagan theologies looked at the tools of their time and abstained from their use because of their gods! Can you picture it?

"Oooonopenopenopenopenope... those pesky roads these Roman guys built weren't here before the gods. I think I'll hike up dangerous trails and stuff rather than walk on the stones some people transported here to make walking easier..."

Or the Aqueduct.

Also note that Heron of Alexandria used steam powered devices within the temples of the Greeks and Egyptians.

It seems that way more because during the time the old Gods were principally worshiped these specific technologies didn't exist so there is no old God that directly has bearing on this new technology if you go by the original mythos. There's no God of the internet, there's no God of computers in the old pantheons, for instance.

Unless of course, you extend the general domain of one of the old Gods to include the new ideas, but I suspect some people might find that a bit iffy since it is a modernized interpretation of what these Gods were about. Would or would not Mercury like being attributed as God of electronic modes of comunication like the internet? Has anyone asked him?  

[TeaDidikai]

Starlock

It seems that way more because during the time the old Gods were principally worshiped these specific technologies didn't exist so there is no old God that directly has bearing on this new technology if you go by the original mythos. There's no God of the internet, there's no God of computers in the old pantheons, for instance.

This is part of why using deities names as synonyms for the things they take interest in makes my teeth itch.

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Has anyone asked him?

Not I, but one of the local Hellenics asked Hermes. ~shrugs~