FlameKeeping: Discussion of the Week - 6Mar12 through 12Mar12

[veggiewolf]

Welcome to the FlameKeeping Discussion of the Week for 6Mar12 through 12Mar12! This week's topic is oddly appropriate for the Pagan Blog Project that is going on now.

Topic: Ecstasy

Background reading: The Oddities of Ecstasy; Ecstasy and Boxes of Words



Questions:

Do you allow room for ecstasy in your life? Do you try to keep it boxed?

Could you accept transformation if it happened to you? Do you want it?

If ecstasy came to you, what parts of your life would have to change? What box of words would it open?

[Annie Roonie]

[QUOTE=veggiewolf;45056]
Questions:

Do you allow room for ecstasy in your life? Do you try to keep it boxed?

No. I don't allow for it and I am not sure how I would. It has come to disturb me over the last few years that I seem to have forgotten even how to have silly fun for no reason at all. There is always a justification. This troubles me.

Could you accept transformation if it happened to you? Do you want it?

I can accept what happens to me. I am not sure if I want transformation to happen to me without my consent. It has happened that way before and it took years for me to get back to some semblance of myself. Certainly this must be the root of my need to justify things.

If ecstasy came to you, what parts of your life would have to change? What box of words would it open?

I'm waiting cynically for ecstasy to come to me and the cynicism is my shield for when and if it should arrive. I've met people who have "seen the light" in many ways and have dedicated themselves to something and then proselytized. It is a pattern and if I spot it in myself, it signals me to cease whatever brought me to that state. From good yogurt to a good read, I'll stop eating or reading if I catch myself tugging another into it. I am not even sure if I can change that about myself as when it happens I am overcome with a kind of rage that seems from without myself. Other's wills are sacred to me to a sometimes hyper degree. When I see it, ecstasy or the residual effects thereof happen without the proselytizing, I study it and try to learn from it. I regard that condition as grace.

The words for ecstasy are elusive as the post eloquently puts it. I give so many superlatives and encouragements to others in a given day, that it may be beyond my comprehension and it is at present beyond my vocabulary to put a name on something that would constitute ecstasy for me. It might be like naming a baby. Every name would carry with it some other significance and might not fit quite precisely. Or perhaps would devalue or diminish.

I am not afraid of that box, I just do not have the slightest idea what would be in it.

TY again for the place to think and the kernels to think upon. Much needed.

[earth_dragon]

Welcome to the FlameKeeping Discussion of the Week for 6Mar12 through 12Mar12! This week's topic is oddly appropriate for the Pagan Blog Project that is going on now.

Topic: Ecstasy

Background reading: The Oddities of Ecstasy; Ecstasy and Boxes of Words

Questions:

Do you allow room for ecstasy in your life? Do you try to keep it boxed?

Could you accept transformation if it happened to you? Do you want it?

If ecstasy came to you, what parts of your life would have to change? What box of words would it open?

Hope it's okay if I go back and answer some of these.

I actually easily allow ecstasy into my life because I'm the kind that is struck by it often. It come naturally to me, and I mean that in more ways than one. I'll give you an example.

Yesterday was Ostara, and I was sitting outside when a bunny came hopping up to me. *RIGHT UP TO ME*. He was within 3 feet of me. He just sat there, happily munching away on grass, and completely chill around me. That little bunny knew that spring had sprung, and he knew *I* knew it too. He played near me, even around my feet, for a couple of minutes, before finally going on his way.

Something like that, for me, is religion. It is god/ess. It is ecstasy. It might not have meant much to someone else, but it meant a lot to me. It was real in a physical sense. The rabbit was *there*, right beside me, showing absolutely no fear and no hurry to leave. It was symbolic because it was, again, a rabbit, that chose to show itself to me in such a manner on Ostara of all days. And even typing about this right now fills me, again, with delight and makes me smile.

Now to the question of whether or not I keep my ecstasy boxed. No, I honestly don't, but to someone who might be observing me from an outside perspective, I could see where *they* might think I was. When true ecstasy hits me, I am filled with the kind of happiness that drives me to silence, or even tears. It's reverence. When I'm happy about something in a material or traditional sense, I'll scream and jump around, generally make a grinning fool of myself. But when I am hit with ecstatic reverence I will usually only smile a little, sometimes tear up, and go very silent. It's nothing I plan, it's just my innate reaction.

Transformations. How could I NOT accept transformation? It happens whether or not I want it to. The only constant is change. I'm in a transistory period right now anyway. I've been a staunch Wiccan since I was 19, but I'm finding now that my path is branching out, beginning to include things I didn't even know existed a few months, and dropping other things that I had long held onto but no longer feel apply to me. It's a rocky but always ultimately enlightening experience because I know the journey, and not the destination, is what really matters. Other big transistions for me right now include buying my first home back in Nov. and getting married this May. Both of these things are huge life experiences, and believe me, they've come with their share of problems. But I'm learning from them and moving on because ultimately I still think they're the right direction for me.