it's been a long time since i can remember being both this
nervous and this
excited all at once. Ok, honeslty i'm scared
shitless.
I've suspected for a goodly time i would follow the path of a wiccan priestess at some time in my life. I just didn't realize it would be quite so soon. I thought i'd have longer to prepare, to adjust, to reach a point of study in which i found myself possibly worthy. But i don't have a choice, really, anymore.
If i'm following this path, ever, i start now, or i never do. I've ... been made aware... that by this time next year, by next samhain, i need to have achieved at least first degree, if not second degree, on the Path. I'm not positive, but i have the feeling if there is to *be* a public ritual next year i may have to get all muddled up in the middle of it. I may not, in the end, need to do the public ritual at all. Not sure yet. But regardless, i need to start down the path, and now.
I've been doing some preliminary work... i've been studying in books for nearly a year and a half now, i participated in an energy workshop last year. But these were always headed at a nebulous someday. This summer i bought a crescent moon circlet, that still sits on my altar. I wasn't to wear in in public to ritual until i was priestessing it, but it was for me to wear in private works, and to have as a goal to reach for. This was still a faroff maybe though. Suddenly it's become solid.
I'm nearly qualified, already, through my time and studies for a first level already. I've been 'cramming' as it were at a site called witchschool.com ; they offer a series of lessons and then tests, and offer upon completion ordination (if you wish) into the Correllian Nativist Wicca tradition. At the moment i'm not sure i'll take the ordination or take one in another wiccan path i prefer; it's more of a self-test to prove to myself i'm ready before i go seeking a mentor or advisor. I don't quite know where to turn for that, most of the people i'd ask are not interested in mentoring right now, and i don't want to make a huge fuss and make this widely known until i've completed it, or at lest gotten a solid start.
I took one other 'concrete' step last night. I applied for an ordination by the Universal Life Church. Scoff if you want, "you are ordained online, that doesn't count you idiot." What people think is irrelavent; this ordination gives me the LEGAL rights my ordination in my own religion does not always provide. Most branches of paganism are given dubious legal rights at best, varying from state to state, but mostly slim. As a pagan priestess, i could not nessecarily perform a legally binding handfasting in most states. But with a ULC liscense, i can perform the same ceremony in our own way that is sacred to our tradition, and then be able to also fill out the paperwork that legalizes what's already bound together in soul. Almost all pagan clergy carry this second ordination to give them rights of legality.
I'm doing productive things. Somewhat. I'm also, at the moment flailing. It's a lot to process in such a short amount of time. All of a sudden someday became NOW!, and i'm just a little frightened. But i'm heading where i've been aiming all along. We'll see where things go.
But wish me brightest blessings... i'm gonna need them.