On being a modern pagan

I've been practicing some form of paganism or another since I was 15 years old. My 'practice' has seen many incarnations over the years, including some very dull spots. Only in the past seven years or so have I really felt connected to my spirituality; my former husband, now deceased, was made uncomfortable by Wicca when I first became open about my religion. He had been experiencing a crisis of faith his whole life, and wasn't comfortable with the idea of my completely renouncing Christ and Christianity. He had no faith of his own, and felt Christianity was nothing more than small-minded indoctrination, but when I offered him something different he was terrified. Because renouncing Christ was the one thing a person could do to get relegated to the fiery pit of hell. This didn't make sense to me, and (in my wee opinion) was simply evidence of his having been indoctrinated.

Colin's big concern was that he desperately wanted to believe but didn't. He felt his non-belief was damning and forever confined him to a place of discordant existence, out of touch with the "truth" of religion, and out of hope for relating to the rest of humanity. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get him to understand that he need not fear a place that he didn't fundamentally believe in.

While he wasn't rude enough to forbid me from practicing Wicca, he was not at all comfortable with it. Out of deference to him, I wasn't very open about my faith. Lack of nurturing that faith resulted in my practice falling off. After he died, I turned back to Wicca with a renewed sense of my own spirituality and a desperate desire to have some peace after his death.

Today, after seven years of continued practice, I face all the difficulties that a modern-day pagan faces. I cannot celebrate a solstice from sun-down to sun-up; I haven't the time to make wreaths at Yule; I cannot spend three days in a cemetery honouring my loved ones during the Days of the Dead (and truly, my departed loved ones do not reside in the ground); I don't have a community with which to share the fruits of my garden - indeed, I don't have a garden. You see, the rental community in which I live prohibits us from planting anything except in the 2-foot bed of bark dust around the perimeter of our homes. Nothing I'm interested in planting grows in bark-dust; I've tried.

So, what can I do? For starters, I'll use this blog as my own sacred space where I can chart my pagan journey, accept suggestions from the web community, and perhaps learn a thing or two about life in general.

Wish me luck.