The Purpose of Things

The world can be a chaotic and overwhelming place. One Wiccan shares her insights on her own spiritual journey and what it’s like to walk a road rarely taken. By Melantha.

She is a girl and would not be afraid
to walk the whole world with herself.

- Lady Gregory
Visions and Beliefs in the West of Ireland

A year ago, I went on a journey – a spiritual sojourn to find and achieve the balance that I felt had disappeared from my life. The journey wasn’t of the physical kind – there were no great distances to cross, nor were there unfamiliar roads to walk. I didn’t have to go anywhere far. Instead, this was a journey of the inner self, one where I would still live and move as I always did in the waking world, yet in my heart and mind I would travel to other roads – farther roads perhaps, seeking the answers to concerns that were always left hanging at the end of the day. This was a journey to find balance that I believed and felt that I had lost it somewhere along the way.

Everyday I felt as though something was wrong, and I tried my best to give it a name. I needed to in order to identify what was happening, because, without a name, I couldn’t explain to those who worried that there was something wrong.

In response to it, I tried a lot of things: going from extremely organized to incredibly lax, piling work and then panicking when I had nothing to do. But still the continuity that I’d become familiar with in my life, something which was as natural as the shift of night to day and day to night, was still missing.

I began to doubt who I was. I began to doubt my heart, my own thoughts, and my chosen path. I was fumbling in a way that reminded me of how one can be so used to standing on two feet that the prospect of being forced to rely on just one was daunting. I felt frightened and a little angry inside. Angry at the doubt that began to fester inside of me, at the doubt that left me questioning what was real and genuine, and whether or not I could consider myself these two traits.

I asked questions and dwelled on thoughts that I knew I would not have considered had my balance not been disrupted, had I still the faith in myself. At the end of the day, when these questions were left unanswered, when these thoughts still lingered, I felt as though a part of me was a shadow of what it once was.

Who was I? Why did I believe in these things? Why did I have to be a deviant, choosing a path that so many were against, even if they opposed it only out of fear? I began to think back on others I’d known - others who’d asked me often enough how I managed to be who I am despite all the biases against my chosen path. It’s not uncommon, after all, to know the fear of speaking up and speaking out – the apprehension to open up to others about ourselves. An apprehension fueled by the fear of being ostracized and thus being forced to lead dual lives: one where we live as “normal” people – random faces in the crowd of the city, and the other life, where we are called “strange” (at best) and/or “wrong” (at worst).

I hoped for emptiness in these times, because at least in utter and total emptiness, one is still complete and whole. To feel as if something was just missing, to be unsure of myself, was to feel more alone than I had ever been.

I was almost ready to give up. I say “almost” because even then, the idea of giving up completely still felt wrong to me. It felt emptier; not empty in the way a new space or room may feel when you’re bringing boxes and furniture in for the first time. Instead, it was the feeling of leaving a room that has always been a part of you.

But half a year later all was made clear. I was clearing out and arranging papers, deciding whether or not I would keep them or send them to the paper-recycler. I may have felt like I was fumbling, having lost my sense of continuity, but I am not one who would abandon the other cycles that are tasked to me. As Wiccan, I had responsibilities to keep, and as a good Wiccan, I did not shirk from these responsibilities.

So there I was, arranging, organizing, all the while listening and singing to the music I played in the background, when I found myself stumbling on several pages of a story that I’d found on the internet when I was thirteen. Thirteen was a point in time where I questioned just as much as I did during my sojourn. Purpose, reason – these were things that I looked for back then, and these were the very same things I was seeking.

I sat on the floor, forgetting for a moment the chaos of papers that I’d set out to arrange, engrossed in nine pages of a story that spoke of another who was looking for reason, for purpose. And at the end of nine pages, the answer I’d been unable to name looked back at me, black ink on white paper:

Just Live.

With these words I was reminded of the truth that while worlds may sometimes spiral out of axis, this will only be until such a time that these same worlds are allowed to remake themselves in order to progress. At thirteen, my world had crumbled into what I considered as nothing: I had known abandonment, a loss of self-esteem, a lack of purpose and hope. But as you can see, I am writing this now, and it just shows that my world eventually rebuilt itself in the same manner that a phoenix rises from its own ashes. With two words, all the chaos that I’d been feeling in the past months seeped away like the dark of night shies away from the rising sun.

Uncertainty will continue in the same cycle as certainty; this is what I have realized. I have been to the realm of uncertainty, again and again, and though it may be odd to some, I know now that even in my moments of seeming certainty, I can still be there. I can still be uncertain.

What the lesson I learned is though, is that uncertainty is alright. In the chaos of emotion and the moments of fumbling in the dark, all that we must remember is that we have to hold on and trust and have faith. Because thoughts and questions must be allowed to flow from the mind to make room for answers, emotions must simply be in order to find expression.

I’ve realized that balance – at least the kind of balance that I search for each and every day can never be attained in the waking world unless I find it within.

It is not always easy - it hardly ever is. But now I know at least that falling back or stumbling forward at times is not wrong at all. It is fine, no matter how clumsy it may make me feel. Clumsy, I now know, is not bad or embarrassing: it is merely a phase for transition. After all, I can never find balance if I don’t learn to stumble a bit every now and then. I would not always strive for something good, something better, if I simply allowed the barrage of hurtful, unfeeling statements that tell me that I am wrong to choose my path to sting me into submission.

Bide the Wiccan Laws I must, in Perfect Love and Perfect Trust.

If perfection is merely a state devoid of mistakes, then this cannot be perfection. The process of attaining perfection exists because without the need to strive for the final goal, the end is meaningless.

To know light, they say, one must understand the necessity of the dark. To walk a path and to find balance while one walks, one must first learn to have faith in falling, and the truth that the other foot will meet the ground.


About the Author: MELANTHA has been practicing Wicca for a little over thirteen years and has been officially out of the ‘broom closet’ for a little over eight. She practices an eclectic mix of Faery, Music and Celtic magick, and is always open to new insights and whatever forms the Goddess and God may send them. She offers guidance and camaraderie as both mentor and friend to those who ask and wants nothing more than to dance in the rain and sleep in on Sundays when no demands are made of her. Her creative outlets are dance, music and writing, and she incorporates these into her spellwork. She dreams one day of teaching Tolkien or mythology, researching the Green Man phenomenon and to travel what she can of the world.

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