Found my old BoS

I found my BoS the other day...it was inside a box at the bottom of my wardrobe. I had a quick browse through it (it was a quick browse, too, as I'd only written two pages, lol). I had last written in it over two years ago, Beltane 2007. I'd done a self dedication to the Gods using a Wicca based ritual that I'd found in a book and adapted. Looking at the 5 pages of guff that I once used, I can't believe that I actually said it...just goes to show how much I've grown/matured/mellowed in my path since then!

When I think of how different my path is now to how I started out, it's hard to believe one led into the other.

I remember when I first started exploring paganism...I started with Wicca (I think that most people do as it's the most widely written about pagan branch), but I quickly realised that it wasn't enough for me. I got sick of hearing all the merry-meet's, blessed be's and all of the other word pairings that have been used by people that seem to bring nothing but scorn onto the pagan community. Or maybe I grew to hate the words because whenever I have used them I have been advised not to...by people who need to shut the hell up on later reflection, but at the time they made me feel like some sort of second class pagan for using them...like they were going to catch "fluffy" disease from the mere words. There is only so much eye rolling and snide little comment/s that a person can take before you just give in and stop doing something! Sad as that is.

Or maybe it's a kind of test, of sorts...you can tell the growth of the pagan by the words they use...people that are new or uncertain in their path use words that make them feel as if they belong, whereas people that have explored more and are now secure in their beliefs no longer need them, or find others to replace them that have deeper meaning, like FFF (flag, flax and fodder) or HOH (hand on heart).

I don't know...maybe I'm reading far too much into things.

On the other hand, why should people not use words like blessed be if they want to...there is nothing wrong with the words...they are just a way of saying bless you, or something of that sentiment.

Maybe the problem lies in the fact that they are Wiccan words and most pagans that are not Wiccans are horrifed at the thought of people thinking of them as Wiccan...I think that Wicca is the pagan leper...always there for slagging off and putting down, to keep at a distance for fear of being contaminated...so much for tolerance!!

I'm kind of angry to find that I have become a sort of pagan snob that looks down on people for the things that they believe...in actual fact I'm horrifed!! I never thought that I would become so jaded and unaccepting of people based purely on the words that they say...and they are not even nasty words, they are just words that I have come to treat as inferior by people that consider them inferior. Trying very hard to prove that I'm not a Wiccan to people whose opinion really doesn't matter one hell of alot.

Elitist Pagans...just as bad as, if not worse than, the very people that they dislike...in fact the people that they dislike are normally much nicer than they are, because they don't look down on people or consider them less than pagan because they dare to do things that Elitist's despise!!

Screw the Elistist's!! From now on if I want to say words, I will bloody well say them! No-one is going to make me feel inferior for saying words that I like...if people feel better by making others feel small and inconsequential then that is their problem, not mine...I don't like it, I won't do it and I am past the point of caring what others think about me now.