I had been dreading going back into the classroom this year.  It was over the past spring that I had finally adopted the label “Pagan” to describe myself spiritually, but at that point, I had acknowledged it to myself and no one else.  I spent much of late spring time and my summer break from teaching to explore my newly adopted spiritual identity.  With loads of time that I could call my own each day, I read books on Pagan spirituality and history that were stimulating and challenging, I worked in my garden, I started this blog, I walked and worked out regularly, I observed Lammas, and . . . I became preoccupied about whether I could return to my teaching job.  You see, although I have stepped onto the Pagan spiritual path, I still teach in a Catholic school, and I am bound by contract to uphold Catholic teachings and to be a model of Catholic living to my students.

Although I had already gone through a period of spiritual barrenness that had lasted several years, I had—up to last spring—continued to consider myself Catholic.  During those barren years I just went through the motions of attending Mass but doing little else to bolster any Catholic belief I might still have had.  And as I look back on it now, I am not entirely sure of what moment and what incident it was that was pivotal in bringing me to the full, conscious realization that I had found the Goddess.  But whatever it was, when I acknowledged to myself what I was feeling, it was as if I finally realized I had been holding my breath and could at last exhale.  At first, I felt exhilarated.  It was like a new romantic relationship—a crush, if you will.  I wasn’t concerned with anything beyond spending time together and getting to know as much as possible about my new lover.

As I grew in understanding over weeks of intense learning and spiritual reflection, I was sometimes overwhelmed by the beauty of my unfolding relationship with the Goddess, and I realized I did not want to keep it secret any longer, so at an appropriate moment I told my husband.  Happily for me, he not only accepted my revelation, he has embraced it to a large degree by encouraging me to take the time I need to celebrate and to continue learning. 

And so for a short while, it was easy to push aside any thoughts of my impending return to teaching in a Catholic school classroom, but as July turned to August and I began doing some of the mundane tasks associated with preparing for another year of teaching, I started to ruminate over that contract I had signed in the spring.  Could I truly uphold Catholic teachings and model Catholic living and still be spiritually true to myself?  To return to the romantic relationship analogy for a moment, it felt in some ways as if the school I work for would be the sugar daddy that would provide me a regular paycheck—how far would I have to forsake my lover to maintain that financial security?

As it turns out so far, it has been easier than I expected it would be for me to resume teaching in a Catholic setting for four main reasons:

 I really like teaching in general—it’s challenging and intellectually stimulating.

I like the subject matter I teach.  I haven’t taught religion for a number of years, so I don’t have any conflict there. 

I really like the other teachers I work with.  We may not be on precisely the same page spiritually right now, but many of them do have active Catholic spiritual lives, and I respect them for that.  My respect for them in this regard has always been there, but it has been fed and supported by my recent reading of the book Pagan Spirituality by Joyce and River Higganbottham, which goes into great detail in explaining various “levels” of spirituality.  I saw a lot in this book that could be applied not only to Pagans but to people of many other belief systems as well.

I realized that even if I do eventually seek employment in a non-religious school, public or private, I am a fairly private person, so I would still keep my spiritual life separate from my professional life.

I had actually found it more difficult to teach in a Catholic school over the last few years—during my period of spiritual barrenness—than I do now that I am on the Pagan spiritual path, and since I am a solitary practitioner of Paganism right now, I am tempted to just let things lie as they are.  But I can see that there will come a time, and it may be sooner than I think, that I will want to engage in group rituals or do some more formalized learning with a teacher, which would mean that I would need to become more publicly Pagan than I am just now.  I live in a fairly small, tight-knit community within a large city, and I would just feel more at ease about coming out as a Pagan if the terms of my employment contract did not include modeling and upholding the Catholic faith.  So although my immediate dilemma has been resolved, I am now looking more seriously at teaching jobs in non-religious settings.  Who knows?  Maybe 8 months from now I will be posting an entry here about my impending new position!  As it is right now, I am feeling a lot less anxious about it all than I was a month ago.

I’m a great fan of National Public Radio and our local affiliate, KUOW 94.9, for a number of reasons, not the least of which are the programs The Splendid Table with Lynne Rosetto Kasper and Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion (both from American Public Media) as well as This American Life with Ira Glass and To The Point with Warren Olney (both from Public Radio International).  In addition, both NPR and KUOW provide top-notch, in-depth reporting, including work for NPR’s national desk by highly respected journalist, author, and Wiccan priestess Margot Adler! 

But what inspires me to bring up NPR/KUOW today is retired Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl and her frequent talks on KUOW that come under the heading “Book Lust.”  She has also produced at least four books—the first of which was titled (of course) Book Lust–on reading “for every mood, moment, and reason.”  She is an absolutely passionate reader, and I’m bringing her up today because I have recently reconnected with my passion for reading via a stack of excellent books on the history and practice of neo-paganism. 

As I mentioned in a previous post, I worked my way through Ronald Hutton’s Triumph of the Moon and when I say “work” I mean WORK!  It was some of the most challenging reading I have done in years, but definitely worth all the effort, as it provides a detailed history of the growth of neo-paganism (mostly in Great Britain, although there was one chapter devoted to some of the key personal and professional relationships between British and American developers/practitioners of paganism and witchcraft).  It is based on an absolute plethora of research of many primary sources and presented in a very even-handed way.  If you are willing to exercise your mental muscles a bit in order to gain a very detailed understanding of neo-paganism in Great Britain and the U.S., I would highly recommend Triumph of the Moon.

Prior to reading Hutton’s book, I devoured When God Was A Woman by Merlin Stone.  Shorter than Hutton’s book and somewhat less scholarly in tone, it nonetheless did an excellent job, I felt, of arguing that interpretation of evidence of goddess religions of the distant past was biased due to the fact that most researchers in the 18^th and 19^th centuries were males operating in a Judeo-Christian, male-centric academic atmosphere.  Stone points out that the term cult, which has very negative connotations, was frequently used by those scholars in connection with goddess-based religions, while the less pejorative term “religion” was more often employed to describe the male-dominant belief systems of old.   Stone also does a fascinating take (with some conjecture on her part, I think) on the Bible as a history of the conquest of goddess-worshipping peoples by the descendents of Abraham.  Although this book doesn’t seem as meticulously researched as Triumph of the Moon, I consider the time I spent reading it worthwhile in that it affirmed and expanded my understanding of the feminine aspects of divinity. 

Since finishing those two books one at a time, I have begun reading four other books simultaneously:  Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon, Joyce and River Higginbotham’s Pagan Spirituality, Scott Cunningham’s Wicca-A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, and A Witch Alone:  Thirteen Moons to Master Natural Magic by Marian Green.  A Witch Alone lends itself to being read a little bit at a time—each of the thirteen chapters is meant to be read and followed up with activities and journaling that would ideally be done over the course of one lunar cycle, and Scott Cunningham’s Guide seems to be more of a resource book than a read-it-straight-through type of book.  I’ve looked at enough of all four of these books to more or less safely say I would recommend them to others wanting to know the basics of neo-paganism.  I’ve also received, through comments on my previous post, suggestions for one or two other books that sound like must-reads, but I’m not complaining about the growing size of my reading list—I love this feeling of book lust!

With so many worthwhile books to read, I really wish there were more hours in the day, but I’m afraid I’ll have to make do with the typical 24 . . . but really, not even that, as I have started transitioning back into my life as a middle school teacher.  These last several weeks, with oodles of time to read, reflect, and attempt a ritual or two, work in the garden and kitchen, and get enough sleep each night have been a glorious time of learning and personal reflection for me, and even though I’ll probably have to start cutting back to reading just a page or two each evening before hitting the sheets, I’m determined not to drop the ball, the books, or the blog completely. J