Can you remember 2017? It was just five years ago, even though it feels like a million years have passed. In the future I think we’re going to see 2020 as a historical fault line, splitting time into “before” and “after.” I think we’re already doing that intuitively… and “before” is fading rapidly.
In 2020 we set some things down, because we had to. They were meaningful and helpful and important, but trying to stay healthy and keep everyone else healthy was more urgent.
Some of those things we set down are gone. They were time-bound, and the fact we could not do them is irrelevant. Milk eventually spoils whether you forgot about it or simply decided not to drink it.
Other things are still there, waiting for us to pick them up again.
Do you remember?
Five years ago I wrote The Call of the Morrigan is Louder and More Urgent. I was writing about a call that lots of people heard and responded to. Some of those calls (from the Morrigan and from other deities) were difficult, which led to Am I Hearing a God or Am I Going Crazy? later in 2017. Then in 2018 I wrote How Do I Know If A God Is Calling Me? which is now the #3 post all-time on Under the Ancient Oaks.
All of this originated with the many Gods. I wasn’t driving it, and if I was a prophet I was one of many. Lots of people were being called by lots of different Gods. I tried to help people figure out what that meant, understanding that each call was at least slightly different.
Were you one of those people who were called by a God five years ago? Or six or seven or ten years ago? Or perhaps two years ago, at the very end of the “before time”?
How did it go?
So, how did it go? What did you do? Read books? There are a lot more books on deities and pantheons than there were ten years ago – they’re a great place to get started. Did you begin a devotional practice: prayer, meditations, offerings, and such? What did you hear or feel or sense? What was the God who called you trying to get you to understand?
Did your call inspire you to do something in the ordinary world? Did Cernunnos inspire you to care for wild places? Did the Morrigan inspire you to reclaim your sovereignty, and to help protect the sovereignty of others? Were you inspired to work for religious freedom? That’s the freedom for everyone to believe and practice as they see fit, not the “religious freedom” to force others to live by the dictates of your religion, as some claim.
How did it go? What did you do? How far did you get?
How’s it going now?
Where are you now that we’ve had two years of pandemic and “all this” to deal with? Are you still on the journey you started in 2017 or whenever you were called? Did you get distracted? Or perhaps called away?
This isn’t an attempt to make anyone feel bad about what they did or didn’t do. Paganism isn’t a guilt-driven religion. But it is a reality-driven religion. And part of answering a divine call (or any other call) is to periodically assess where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re headed now. Do you like that? Great – keep doing it.
But if you don’t, maybe it’s time to make a change.
What have you learned?
Regardless of where you are at the moment – and whether you’re happy with it or not – if you’ve followed the call of a God for any length of time, you’ve learned something along the way. You’ve learned something about the deity in question: something about Their stories, something about Their virtues and values, something about the offerings They prefer.
What have you learned? How are you better because of it? Or perhaps, how are you challenged because of it?
What have you forgotten?
This may take a little more time. It’s hard to remember what you’ve forgotten unless someone gives you a list to review. Perhaps it would be better to ask “what have you forgotten about?” or “what have you forgotten to do?” What did your call inspire you to do that you don’t do anymore?
Again, this isn’t about guilt. Five years is a long time, and these last five years have been a very long time. I’m sure you had good reasons why you forgot this or forgot about that. But “interesting times” have a way of making us forget about things that used to be important to us: things that brought us pleasure, joy, and satisfaction. Things that made us part of something bigger than ourselves. Things that helped make tomorrow better than today, for ourselves and for others.
Do your best to remember what you’ve forgotten.
Do you need to return to your call?
This is the main point of this post: do you need to return to your call? Do you need to pick up something you set down? Do you need to reboot your devotion?
Maybe you can pick up where you left off. Maybe you need to go back to the beginning and start over.
If you broke an oath you may need to begin with an apology. You may be asked for some sort of restitution. More likely you’ll simply be asked to pick it up again and do your best to do better this time.
The important thing is that you were called for a reason. You said “yes” for a reason. The world has changed in the past five years, but the essence of the human condition and the essence of the Gods have not.
If you wait for things to get “back to normal” you’ll be waiting forever. The world is never going back to the “before times.” If you’ve been looking for a sign that you need to restart your devotion or other calling, this is it.
Do you need to move on?
I would be dishonest if I didn’t ask this question. Perhaps your call was a short-term thing. Perhaps you were unable to do what was asked of you then and you’re not going to able to do it now. Perhaps your circumstances have changed so dramatically that what seemed possible and desirable then is simply not possible now. If so, perhaps you need to move on to something else.
Even if this is the case, you cannot abandon an oath. Oh, you can, but it’s not likely to go well for you. Renegotiate it. Ask to be released from it. Or find creative ways to fulfill it.
If you made no promises then you have none to break.
Either way, you may need some sort of ritual to formally close this chapter in your life. Such ritual need not be elaborate, but should make it clear that you will no longer continue down the path you started five years or eight years or however many years ago.
The world is better off when you’re enthusiastically pursuing what you can do, rather than half-heartedly grinding out what you thought you wanted to do before “all this” happened.
Where will you go now?
I hope some of you will remember the excitement and the possibilities of being called by a God. I hope you’ll decide to pick that calling up again, in whatever form works for you and for Them. But if you can’t, or if you no longer want to, I hope you’ll close that part of your life and move on to whatever is next for you.
Because the time to wait and see is gone. A new world is evolving, and it’s not a very nice place. Of course, for many people, the “before world” wasn’t a very nice place either. But this isn’t the time to argue about who has it worse.
This is the time to take care of yourself, your family, and your community. It’s the time to build good, strong, reciprocal relationships with all your allies, in this world and in the Otherworld – especially our divine allies.
Strengthen your old relationships with your Gods. Pick up the work you set down because you had to set it down. Or move on to whatever – and Whoever – comes next.
May you answer your calling wisely.
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