Beltane, Depression, and Religion Switcheroos

(Photo above from the amazing Beltane Fire Festival of Edinburgh, which, wow, how much to I want to go there someday?)

Beltane was on Saturday, and for the first time ever, I took an actual role in the ritual, reading the antiphonal chant for the east. Marge had specifically and pointedly asked me if I would like to volunteer, and antiphonal chant seemed like something that would be hard for me to mess up.

I'm glad I did it — it's a good stepping stone for further volunteering for rituals and establishing myself in this community, other than just "that girl that shows up at the opens."

However, Beltane has a habit of bringing me down a bit. It's not supposed to: we're ushering in the summer season, celebrating the fertility of the earth, and it's a time of purification and unity. But let's face it: It's also about sex. The May Queen is crowned and she chooses her May King, someone who is equal to her in strength, intelligence, and affection. The May Queen and King are usually represented at the ritual by a couple, and this year's were particularly wrapped up in one another.

While I know that this is (again) a time for me to focus on myself and unifying the aspects of my personality so I can better unify with others around me, or whatever, that doesn't stop it from being lonely. I couldn't help but remember every dastardly breakup, every ghastly and humiliating crush, all the doomed romances in my failed life.

Part of this is the depression I've been dealing with lately. I can't seem to shake myself of my winter gloom — I'm convinced this due to my impending graduation, among other things. Graduating from college was daunting to be sure, but graduating from graduate school is a whole other ball game. Because, now what? It's not like college graduation where my adult life was waiting to begin. I'm still stuck in the same place, albeit $25,000 poorer and with a fancy piece of paper to show for it. The next logical step would be marriage, or buying a house or something equally grown-up. I'm obviously not ready for any of those things, and as someone rapidly approaching 30, I feel kind of like a mess. A failure. Which, I KNOW, is ridiculous and wrong. I think I've come to the root of my greatest fear though, which is: I'm afraid of not changing or growing and becoming stagnant.

ANYWAY, Beltane brings this into sharp relief for me, somehow. The summer is coming, everything is changing and growing, and while I'm completing this milestone and thus, changing myself, it doesn't feel like that to me. Single again, no longer in school, I regained any weight I had lost, and the constant drone of work, bills, and blah is bringing me down.

Clearly, I'm a head case and must get control over my fucked up notions.

Still, I did have a really good time at Beltane. We danced around the Maypole, which is always good for a laugh. It always looks so easy on TV and whatnot, but in reality, it's tricky because you're trying to weave the ribbons together, not just spin around the pole. So there's a whole over/under dance and when you've got 30 people, inevitably you end up getting confused, knocking into one another, and giggling like loons.

We also did the spiral dance, which is one of my favorites and which we haven't done in ages. Plus, there was a lot of May wine to partake in. And! I made a new friend. You can't ask for more than that.

---

Time has an interesting article on "Church Shopping," the act of changing faiths.

First of all, I love the image that accompanies that article. I love how the young priest is giving the How you doin'? look to those two hot pew babes. LIKE THAT EVER HAPPENS. Snort. Priests these days are not that young, trust me. Given the way every church I've ever been to begs for vocations each time during Prayer of the Faithful, young men are not entering the priesthood.

Second, as someone who is also shopping around for religion (If I am even "shopping around" any more), this confirms my theories that religion doesn't matter so much as spirituality. I felt more connected to the Divine last Monday during a new moon ritual than I did last Saturday at Billy's 1st Communion. Do I think that both religions set out to achieve the same things and are, ultimately, worshiping the same deity? Yes. But people relate to God in different ways*. What should it matter if I do it by dancing in the moonlight or by praying the rosary?

Being a long-time student of the Doc, I can tell you that religion is vernacular. Even the most dedicated strict Catholic performs rituals unsanctioned by the Church. Take, for example, the Catholic superstition of burying a statue of St. Joseph in your yard when you're trying to sell your house. My cousin Robin and I were discussing this last week and she chastised me, "Don't discount your saints!" And while I don't discount them in the slightest**, there is nowhere in the catechism that tells us to do that. No priest has ever advised that. It's purely a vernacular practice, a personal ritual and spiritual belief. It has little to do with the religion itself.

Which, I guess is my long-winded and poorly illustrated point. Religion < Spirituality.

And then, today, I heard possibly one of the most brilliant, touching and beautifully written essays. Go take a listen to TAL's latest show, and go to the 39:00 minute mark and listen to Dan Savage's piece on his mother and Catholicism. Brilliant, perfect, and true. I don't think I will ever leave Catholicism behind me — as Pagan as I become, it will always be a part of me. I will always find comfort in the motions, the colors of the stained glass, and the smell of incense.

A Catholic Pagan I will always be.

*Or in the case of atheists, not at all. And yet, even atheists I believe are highly spiritual, finding faith not in a higher power, but rather themselves. Take, for example, my two favorite atheists, Jim and Stephanie. (With whom I've had many conversations about God, usually whilst drunk.) While not believing in a God, they have a strong sense of morality and ethics, having the utmost respect for all living things (hence their veganism). If that behavior isn't showing a spiritual connection to the world around them, then I don't know what is.

** I've always had a fascination with the saints. I used to have this book of saints that I would spend ages pouring over. Even now, I feel an affinity with so many of them, and take comfort that there's a patron for everything: from television to beer, from eye afflictions to motherhood.