Connection is a word that means a lot to me lately.  It’s something I’m looking for.

I want to connect to my husband more.  I want to connect to the power of abundance in the universe.  I want to connect to my chosen family and close friends.  We’re starting to see someone new, and I hope there’s a connection there.  I want to connect to the Pagan community in a larger sense.  I want this blog to create connections for readers, whether mental, emotional, spiritual, or even social.  I want to connect to spirit.  I want my novel to connect with people on a deep level, showing them the beauty of the world I’ve tried to create for them.  I’m trying to connect with my characters to make them come alive.

In fact, the reason I started writing The Altars Series was because I wanted to explore connection in a Pagan context.  I wanted to build the sort of tight-knit, loving, Pagan community that I had always dreamed of.

Connection is a weird thing.  Sometimes it flows, sometimes it just doesn’t.  Lately, for me, it’s been flowing in my offline life, and not so much in my online life.  So I’ve been quiet here.  But I’ve been editing, applying for jobs, making new friends, and connecting.

A new friend and I have been talking a lot about the concept of ‘tribe’.  It’s something that always sounded ideal to me, but being the weirdo introvert that I am, I never found it.  He’s a bit of an introvert too, so we decided that instead of looking for it, we can build it.  I’m excited.  It’s a fun project.  The idea is that THESE are the people you would call if you ended up in the hospital.  A tribe would be a small group, closer than just friends, that you could count on.  Also, it would be a fun group to go camping with at gatherings, and to do ritual or celebrate sabbats with.  I dig it.

That’s not to say that I don’t love my non-Pagan friends just as much as I ever did, and in fact, I have that kind of relationship with several of my friends.  I consider them family.  But there’s something about being able to share things with people of similar faith that has always been tantalizing and intimidating to me.

That being said, covens have never been my style.  There are too many covens that really want you to agree with their teachings, attain their degrees, practice their way, and drink their Koolaid.  I’ve always been solitary, because my spirituality is deeply personal.  I don’t think that anyone is qualified to tell me how to practice or what to believe.  Faith comes from within, not without.

So this group will be more of a group of friends that celebrates together.  We’re all on different paths, and instead of trying to rein everyone in to our way of thinking, we’ll learn from each other and find new ways to deepen our spiritual practice by trying different things.  We agree that we want to focus on learning and building a chosen family.  Building CONNECTIONS.

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So for Samhain, we met said friend, and had pizza.  Then we snuck into a park after dark that was closed, and found a small dock on a lake.  We spread some blankets, lit a candle, and wrote the things we wanted to banish from the past year onto a piece of parchment.  We then burned the parchment, chanting ‘I banish thee’.  We wrote the things we wanted to invoke for the new year, and tore those papers into pieces.  We scattered them to the wind and water, chanting ‘I invoke thee’.

It’s a simple ritual, and I do some variation of it every Samhain, though often more elaborately.  This time was especially good, because not only did I have the husbear with me, we had a friend there as well.  Afterwards we laid on the dock and tried to keep warm as we talked and listened to the lapping water and geese in the distance.  Cold as it was, the experience felt like a warm, snuggly, familiar blanket.  🙂