#fallow time

Recently I've been going through a bit of a fallow time spiritually. I've been extremely busy in my day job, with multiple demanding projects as well as going through a promotion process, and it had me approaching burnout and feeling unable to spend time on my personal and religious life or get into that spiritual headspace.

In my personal practice, I see the Vernal Equinox as a holy tide focused on Hrēðe, an Old English Goddess I venerate as Goddess of victory, of sacrifice, and of right relationship, and Tīw, God of justice, democracy, and integrity as well as war. At this time, Tīw leads the Gods to defeat the Ettins, representing the destructive power of the natural world, with Hrēðe sanctifying the victory. This mirrors the defeat of winter as the daylight hours overtake the night.

With the days growing longer and warmer, flowers blooming and trees budding, spring is definitely here in London. I've been feeling the pull and the yearning to get back to my regular practice, my heart opening up like the cherry blossoms and magnolia trees on my road.

I made offerings of salt and sesame seeds to Hrēðe and Tīw, representing the price of sacrifice and the sweetness of victory. I asked Them for strength and stamina as I worked through hard times, that my struggles would pay off and be successful. When I got news that I had passed promotion, I shared a glass of my best pink gin with Them and my Beloved Ancestors.

The transition to a new season is also an opportune time for divination. One form of divination I use is bibliomancy, opening Feather, Leaf, Bark & Stone by Jackie Morris to a random poem for insight and inspiration.

This poem seemed beautifully apt, speaking of dawn and renewal -- of joy and hope and love carrying us forward like birdsong carries the new day.

Going through a mental illness induced fallow time right now, so I made a meme to cope.

Well one of the first things I’d recommend is finding more methods to cope with your depression and the fatigue (or as you label it “laziness”) that comes along with it. Finding ways to keep your depression more in check will possibly give you more energy to practice your religion.

That being said, even for those of us who do have their mental illness in check, its very common to fall in and out of practice depending on what is going on in our lives. So I guess what I”m saying is: you’re not alone in that. Most of us have dry spells in our practice. Fallow times that span months or years. Times where we finally get our practice moving only to drop it a few weeks later because life or our mental health or what have you took a nose dive.

The advice I always give during these sorts of conversations is: do what you can.

Doesn’t matter how small it is, how infrequent it is, how insignificant that it might seem. Keep doing what you can. Only by trying to keep at it will you find a format or method that works well for your particular needs. Whether that looks like just living Kemeticism but not actively maintaining a shrine. Or whether it looks like giving offerings 3 times a month. Or whether it looks like only offering your meals to the gods. Or just drawing artwork for the gods, etc. 

The gods tend to understand when extenuating circumstances are limiting our abilities to devote time or energy to them, and most of the time they don’t seem to call mental health issues “excuses”. That’s more what humans do. They tend to be more forgiving about our shortcomings than we are. So all in all, I’d say not to worry too much about that, and instead focus on what you can do, what they request of you (if anything), and try to train your mind to focus on these sorts of things, as opposed to ripping yourself apart for being “inadequate.” At the end of the day, if the gods aren’t yelling at you for whatever you are or are not doing, then you’re fine. We seem to place much higher standards on ourselves than many of the gods do.

So I guess the TL;DR is:

A lot of us have this issue, so you’re in good company.

Do what you can, even if its just small stuff.

Keep trying, even if you feel like you’re never going to “get it”. Only through repeated attempts will you be able to find success.

Remember that the gods don’t seem to be nearly as strict about things as we are. If they’re not mad, then don’t sweat it if you’re not living up to your own personal standards.

Worst worst worst case–focus on living in ma’at and let everything else come to you in time. But like I said above, keep trying as best as you can.

Don’t be so hard on yourself.