Saturday 26 March 2011

OCD and being Quaker/Pagan

So, okay, I've dealt with being a dyspraxic, candle-phobic Pagan, and I thought that that was big.  It isn't really though, because I'm Quagan, not Wiccan.  I'm deeply influenced by Wicca, but I'm not Wiccan and I never will be.  But, anyway, I still aim to live by the Wiccan Rede, and to me, that's the most important part.  I mean, "An ye harm none, do as ye will" - who can argue with that?  It's beautiful and it's true.

Anyway, the OCD - now that is bigger - especially the hygiene obsessions.  How can you hold Quaker/Pagan beliefs and values and then do totally the opposite?  I feel disconnected from Mother Earth because I am afraid to touch Her.  The whole eco thing is a problem, and it's hard to instantly overcome it.  Yes, I know that washing your hands every five minutes, using tumble driers, using vast quantities of cleaning wipes, etc are all totally wrong.  And I can go on about the fact that I don't drive or go on foreign holidays and various other things, but that's not really the point.  The things is: guilt.  When I was into going to LDS and C. of E. churches, and into Christianity (apart from the fact that I always believed in the female Divine, etc), guilt was such a massive thing for me.  Repentance - yes, in a way, that was perfect for me, because I want to punish myself constantly for not being good enough and messing up throughout my life.  I like that Quakerism and Paganism doesn't have the same emphasis on guilt - but then I have all these issues, and I think that really I have as much Quaker guilt and Pagan guilt as I ever had Christian guilt, and I don't want to go into that.  I want to fight my OCD and I want to fight my guilt feelings, too.  Regretting the past is unavoidable, but I just have to dwell on it less.  And stuff that I know I'm still doing wrong in my life, I need to work towards correcting or improving.  Who is perfect, anyway?

I hope that I will go back to Quaker meetings eventually.  That is still one of my ambitions.  But I'm not so sure that Pagan Quakers go down well in Basingstoke, UK.  I just know that I believe what I believe and I'm proud of what I believe, so I guess that they either accept me as I am or they don't - but, anyway, that is a whole issue in itself, which maybe I'll return to in a future blog post.

Tuesday 22 March 2011

Rest in peace, Raz budgie and Kit the zebra finch.

I'm sad to say that we lost Raz budgie a week ago, and one of our zebra finches, Kit, yesterday.

I copied this from my other blog (http://www.paulap.blog.com/):

This morning (a week since Raz passed), I heard from our grey budgie, Bert, who passed away in December 2008.  Bert appeared by my bed in a dream, just before I woke up.  I have heard from Bert before since his death.  Raz was also grey, but very different to Bert - much smaller, with black markings and a pale yellow face.  After we lost Bert, I always knew that another grey budgie would come into our lives but that he wouldn't look like Bert, or Silver (a budgie whom my parents inherited from my late nan), or a grey budgie who a lady bought for her son in a pet shop on the day we bought Nephi, Lehi, Robin and Vernon finches (which also ended up being the day before we lost our beloved lineolated parakeet, Pear).  

I know that it is lazy to copy a whole paragraph from one blog to the other, but I didn't want to have to struggle for the words all over again.  In fact, there are so many aspects to the all of the stories connected with our birds - and I don't think that I've done a great job of explaining.  It reads quite badly, in my own, self-critical opinion - but it will have to do for now.

I updated my poetry site: http://paulapuddephatt.tripod.com/poetry.

More from me soon, hopefully...x

Sunday 13 March 2011

Saturday 12 March 2011

Poetry and my past

A while ago, I started writing this long, rambling confessional poem - about stuff that happened in my life twenty years ago - and I went back to it yesterday, but it hurt so much.  I had to hear "End of the World" again - and "Foolish Beat", although I listen to Deborah Gibson regularly anyway, so have kept listening to that.  I can't explain the significance of the songs, not without opening the whole thing up again, and I'm not ready.  I'm going to come back to the poem.  I know my limits. 

Anyway, I've shared the two videos on this blog.  I don't know if I should be sharing music on my blog, as I'm not sure if there is any sort of maximum on megabites, etc - but I wouldn't have thought so - and I really needed to do this.  I don't think that my old Sonia tape - if I could find it at all - even plays anymore - so really You Tube was my best bet for listening to the song.  I know that "End of the World" is a cover, and probably will listen to the original as well at some point, which I expect is technically better - but sometimes you really need to hear the version of a song that is familiar to you, and unlocks your own memories.  If it happens to be "rubbish pop" then so be it.

I don't know if this is exactly the type of post that I had intended to include on my "Quagan Poet" blog - probably not - but life and emotions just happen, I guess.

I had a dream the night before I started to write the poem again, and it all ties in with that part of my life.  The pain is so deep and overwhelming.  There have been too many issues and emotions which I haven't addressed.

That's all for now.  Love to you all, and thank you for reading this. xxx

Foolish Beat+Lyrics Debbie Gibson

Sonia - End of the world (PWL 1990)

Saturday 5 March 2011

Tried to create a new blog here...

but having technical difficulties, at the moment...

So, anyway, I'm thinking of various ways of achieving what I want to, or as near as possible, given the limitations.  It's all good fun, really - and does at least takes my mind off my dodgy tummy, if nothing else!!!

Friday 4 March 2011

Poetry

This is one of my recent poems.  I am partly including it on this blog so that I can see if poetry displays properly on Blogger/Blogspot sites.  I had problems in this respect on Blog.com, in that the software couldn't deal with stanza breaks! 

Anyway, if poetry does display properly on this blog then I might start up a new poetry blog here, in addition to my Tripod poetry site - http://paulapuddephatt.tripod.com/poetry.  I'm always looking for alternative ways in which to share my work, and there have been indications that Tripod may not always offer their current web-building facility for free customers.  And I can't afford to pay for web space!!!

Anyway, here it is:

Why Can’t We?

Why can’t we all just get along?
Why can’t we all be friends?
I heard the line “Thou shalt not kill” –
not, “Oh well, it depends…”

I’m sick of funding pointless wars
until this country’s broke,
and can’t afford an NHS
that works.  What kind of joke

is this supposed to be, and must
we blow The Planet up to
test out which, if any,
religious text is true?