So this week I went on a little self journey, to "find myself" so to speak, as cliché as that sounds. and uh.. what can I say? a lot has happened this week.
I found a certain name for my weirdness. It's called "Disney Pagan". OK now before y'all go on a tangent and be all like AHH SHE'S A WITCH -- no. i just worship nature and respect it, and believe we should take care of mother earth because she provides for us. (side note: HEY i know YOU THREE SPECIFIC LADIES are reading this. don't the lot of you go "The Crucible" on me, KAY?)
So how did i figure out a name for this weirdness?
1) As you all know, I am a super big Disney chick (and i don't plan on giving up that title of Disney's Biggest Crybaby) and I frequently watch a lot of Disney Movies & anything Disney related (behind the scenes, special features, interviews, etcetera). Disney has raised me and brought me up with morals that my parents couldn't or didn't give to me. I'll name you a few just as an example.
-"How high does a sycamore grow? If you'll cut it down, then you'll never know. And you'll never hear the wolf cry to the blue-corn moon, for whether we are white or copper skin, we need to sing with all the voices of the mountain, we need to paint with all the colours of the wind"- Pocahontas, Colours of the Wind ... we're all people, it doesn't matter what race, culture, or religion you have, or where we all came from. you need to respect the earth and what she gives you, and protect it because it can't protect itself, or else our future generations will never be able to witness the majesty and magic and wonders of the Earth if it's destroyed.
-"We are all connected in the great Circle of Life" - Mufasa. I think Mufasa was the wisest of the Disney Characters. One part of the movie he was telling his son Simba that when we die our bodies return back to the Earth, and we become flowers, or grass, or trees that bear fruit, and the animals like the birds eat the fruit. So this rings especially true. i never really understood it when i was younger but now i do.
-I don't know if you guys know the story of beauty and the beast (most of you probably do) but the point of the movie was to show, looks don't matter. it's what's on the inside that counts. simple as that. if you're a jerk like Gaston, you can bet your sweet ass no one is gonna be around you no matter how filthy rich or how attractive you are.
This is just a few, i can name so much more but if i type any more I'll soak my keyboard with my tears. Getting back on track, this week i actually re-watched the Lion King with Steven since he's never seen it. Since he was preoccupied working i thought i might watch behind the scenes before he has time to watch the actual film. I saw so much heart and effort and thought put into their final piece, that i couldn't hold back my tears. These were the people that made my childhood. these were the people who instilled these morals (above) in me. They made me who i am today, these people I've never even met, people who don't even know me. I've never felt so grateful. ..... Oh look here we go the water works. ***
The Biggest revelation i made today actually was when i was watching Once Upon a Time. FINALLY. i can see why it's so good. They had a lot of Disney Characters and other fairy tales that Disney never really made "Disney Official", but anyway. It was quite dark for a series that borrow Disney characters. they've completely altered and connected a lot of stories, made simple characters more complex and with a back story for everyone... and i actually made it 9 episodes into season 1. I wanted to cry in each episode. they tugged at my heart strings. how come Disney always does this to me. I don't do it with any other movies or TV series...oh right, my revelation. i realised that the world can be a dark place. it can be full of evil and it will never go your way, just like in the little fictional town of Storybrooke. But like the little boy Henry and Snow White's long lost daughter Emma Swan, strive to be good and keep the magic alive in your heart. Keep the child inside of you alive. (This was another thing I've learned this week.) oh no the waterworks again.*** Oh i especially now how female dominated this series is. It's no longer the prince saving the damsel. always the other way around!
OK now i know there's a lot of controversy behind Disney owning labels that promote bad stuff and i know they own a few soft-core porn industries.. but think of it this way. Disney was basically my Third Parent. i really don't are if they were doing the Nasty behind my back or anyone else's. They serve as a reminder that the world is still a dark place, but with the money they've earned from doing the Nasty they were able to put it into some good to teach children and people like me that good still exists. they remind us that it's our job to turn the bad into good.
2) Right so now that that's said and done, the pagan part of it. well you can judge from the above 2 Disney quotes that it really is quite nature based. But these have stuck to me for years. I haven't watched Pocahontas or the Lion King (until recently) in maybe 15 years? and yet these particular ones stayed with me. Really, because i do respect nature. i do realise i take it for granted but I'm improving. I've strayed away from pharmaceutical medicines and opted for homoeopathic medicines, i know how to properly recycle and sort out trash (lol don't judge me), I'm actually going to an "empty the tanks"/down with Marineland demonstration down town Toronto in May, I'm beginning to respect where my food came from (hint, its not the grocery store) and i haven't bought clothes recently even though i should probably invest in business attire and not show up dressed in a sweater like a teenager to work? :| hm.. i wonder if that's why I've been getting a lot of disrespect lately...
Oops, digressing. The pagan part. I decided to research what it entails and what is required... and you know what? its basically whatever I've been practising and whatever i believed in. I just now have a name for it. all it required of me is to keep a "book of shadows" ... which is really a journal of your dreams, personal beliefs.. yknow a day to day journal like what we had in school. it's really just a spiritual thing, and not a "worship this because you have to" kind of deal. it 'll serve as a reminder of what my purpose on Earth is. some people prefer to have spells and a witches creed in their books... but I'm not looking into doing any spells. i know there's some sort of science behind it and all that frequency mumbojumbo, but i believe everything has to come naturally. so no spells for me. some people also have recipes for food. yeah almost like a cookbook. no, not a cook book for potions OK la? The other requirement is to meditate and focus on positive energy (as with every religion, but i prefer not to think of this as a religion, just spiritual practise).
So what convinced me that i should be more pagan? well after doing a lot of research i found a video of how to find/connect to your totem animal(s)... "huh i wonder what that means" i thought. after doing this one mediation, i found out that i had like... 5. basically, the animals are a way to communicate an aspect of you. they represent your "personal or spiritual identity".
In my meditation, my first animal that came to me was a young doe. i asked it Twice if it was my totem animal and she nodded. Twice. i was feeling pretty sceptical about this meditation, but then to make sure i understood, the deer actually came up to my left side and walked with me down to this path where i met a great horned owl. i asked the owl if it was also my totem animal. it flew way ;_; i walked along the path with my deer and came to a beach where three dolphins were jumping at me, and before i could even complete my question they squealed and leaped in the air. and then a lion came up to my right and roared for my attention. when i asked him if he was also my totem animal. he roared at me pretty loud. almost like a "yes, how could you forget about me" and then laid down on the sand. the owl came back and said yes, and then i heard a humpback whale going .. OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.. kinda like this:
so i asked the whale, and it leaped in the air with the dolphins. And then it was the end of the meditation so i had to say goodbye. i felt pretty damn sceptical about the entire thing... until i opened my eyes and saw my calendar. I've never actually taken a look at my calendar but it showed a scenic view of the water and the forest and the rocks just like in my meditation. here i am thinking i must be crazy.
i go over to Steven and when he was doing the meditation (i didn't force him to do it, he did it on his own because he wanted to try it out) he came across a deer in the forest... when he asked the deer it shrugged and jumped away. but then (here's the tear-jerker) our pet hamster Katie came to see him. so Katie was Steven's animal totem. and when it came time to say goodbye he cried :( anyway this had a profound affect on me because .. well i believe in spirits. I've had the ghost of a little girl beside my bedside, and i have encountered her like 3 times. when i was awake in my bed. and she was always creeping beside my bed. and so what happened was i think through this meditation i realised that "yes animals have spirits too."
i go over to Steven and when he was doing the meditation (i didn't force him to do it, he did it on his own because he wanted to try it out) he came across a deer in the forest... when he asked the deer it shrugged and jumped away. but then (here's the tear-jerker) our pet hamster Katie came to see him. so Katie was Steven's animal totem. and when it came time to say goodbye he cried :( anyway this had a profound affect on me because .. well i believe in spirits. I've had the ghost of a little girl beside my bedside, and i have encountered her like 3 times. when i was awake in my bed. and she was always creeping beside my bed. and so what happened was i think through this meditation i realised that "yes animals have spirits too."
3) so now that rambling number two is finished... i dunno, I've been feeling a lot more connected to the earth and it's animals... and I've been getting sick of eating meat :| and I've actually had a talk with one of my friend's mothers about this whole thing (which is how the Disney pagan thing came about lol.. I'm not serious about this title i made up BTW, it was all in good humour...)
... this pagan thing is something that makes sense to me. being pagan makes sense. Worshipping the earth. Mother Earth. and we can prove the earth exists lol!
Rereading what i wrote, i guess a lot of this decision to become pagan is coming from the negative male energies form work... because being pagan also means female pride. just because the men have penis doesn't mean they're superior.. they go around disrespecting women, telling them to make them sammiches, and have them stay home to look after the kids... but if you really think about it, who gave birth to them? mhm, their MOTHER. Now i know a lot of male friends who don't do this, and they're one of the rare few who respect women. props to them. but let me ask the guys who i know take women for granted... would you talk the same way to you mother? disrespect your mother? then why would they disrespect the women in their lives? including the women outside the home who are also mothers, human beings with feelings, who have the vagina to take a pounding and shove a human head out of a tiny hole, and has enough strength to endure the pain of labour, and to carry a human inside their uterus... with also the risk of death? and actually in the past in tribes it's been very matriarchal until somebody had the balls (lol pun) to change the system and put male dominance over the women. and now look at what the world has become. no respect to mother earth. in more ways than one.
you know what else? scientifically we don't need the male to reproduce because we can find other ways to give birth on our own. SCIENTIFICALLY PROVEN. for example the female hammerhead shark who asexually reproduced her own offspring. so i don't understand the need to hold the penis over our heads. literally and metaphorically speaking.
but i wont get into that. i just feel that i need some woman power in my life and this will help me.
