Dealing with dark times...

There is no denying it, life has taken a drastic turn for many people around the globe.  The world we have known and lived in all our lives has changed, and pretty much everyone is having to adjust.  Our daily routines have been altered and many people are struggling with new restrictions on top of fear and uncertainty.

And this is a time when our spiritual beliefs and practices really shine.  As Pagans and witches I think we are blessed to have many tools at our disposal for dealing with tough times, and doing it mostly on our own.  We may get together for gatherings or rituals, be we also practice on our own, and we practice in our home.  Our connection to the things we believe in and work with isn't diminished by isolation and being home bound.

There is so much we can do, that is helpful in these times, and making time for practice is something that is even more important than usual.  No matter what you are struggling with, there are things you can do to help yourself, and by helping yourself you in turn help those around you.  Being able to keep your calm and presence in a time like this is something that ripples outward and the benefits reach beyond even what you are aware of.

There is so much information flying around, and so many things to worry about, and one thing I am finding extremely helpful right now is journaling.  I am an anxious person, and there are always a million thoughts in my head.  The not-so-helpful ones fly about and keep coming back until I am just thinking them over and over.  Getting them outside my head gives me a measure of peace. 

But I don't necessarily want to be sharing all my crazy thoughts with the world.  Crazy breeds crazy, and while it is good to vent with other people from time to time (and healthy!), doing nothing but sharing fears and worries means that you are just passing them back and forth....when you get rid of yours, you give them to someone else, and you take some from another person.

With my journal, I have given myself permission to not only write down what is going on and how I feel about it, but also every crazy, worried, anxious, fearful thought in my head.  I write them out and put them to rest in my journal.  And I have found that when I do this, I don't feel as big a need to share those thoughts with other people.

What I do share with other people is hope.  I think that it is really vital for people who have hope to share it.  I love divination, I love tarot decks, and normally I'm all about the dark and spooky.  For me, the darkness is comforting.  But I also have a few very encouraging, "all light" kind of decks.  So, I've been using those as a way to share a bit of hope and light with people. 

It's different from regular divination.  I'm not asking for information or an update on what's going on.   Instead, I'm specifically asking for something to inspire me for the day.  You can absolutely do this with a regular deck, but I feel like some of the less positive cards can be hard for people to see as truly good (this really isn't about finding silver linings to the bad, it's about seeing something that is pure and beautiful and wonderful).  If you don't have a deck that is positive focused, you can absolutely sort out the best and most amazing cards from one of your normal decks and use it to pull an inspiration card!

This is also a great time to turn to meditation.  There are SO many different types of meditation, and they all bring benefits, especially when you are stressed and cooped up.  One of the big things to remember with meditation, is it's the journey that is important, not the destination.  If you sit to meditate, and your mind is racing all over, and you have a kid begging for a snack or your spouse trying to talk to you, you are still getting benefits! 

One of my favorite ways to meditate is to embrace the chaos.  I normally sit and meditate in the morning, and often there were distractions.  There would be people talking to me, or videos playing, all kinds of things to pull my attention away.  Instead of trying to distance myself from it all, I would focus on different things.  I would become aware of the sounds I was hearing, letting my attention notice all he different things.  Think of it like cataloguing the noises.

If you have little ones home, and want to include them in the meditation (which can be very helpful for everyone's calm!), then focusing on the breath is a great way to help them.  Depending on how old they are, you can have them feel how breathing in feels versus breathing out.  When I was first learning, my teacher (in grade school) said to think of the mind like a garden.  When I breathed out, I should picture weeds (the bad thoughts) getting blown away, and when I breathed in, I pictured the flowers (the good thoughts) unfolding.  You can also do this with just colors, so have them think of a color that represents unpleasant thoughts and one for their happy thoughts.  When they breath out, they can imagine it like breathing out a cloud of colored mist (in the bad color), and then when they breathe in, they can see the good colored mist filling their whole body.

I feel like this is a great time to embrace a gratitude and prayer practice.  When we are experiencing hard times, it can be easy to focus on the negatives.  We feel constrained, so we think about all the things we can't do.  We worry that we won't have enough supplies or that people we care about will get sick.  Making a daily (or more!) practice of laying out an offering, and giving thanks, can help bring us back into a place of gratitude.

The offerings you lay out can be as simple as your words.  You might pour a glass of clean water and offer it to the spirits of the land you live on, thanking them for giving you a safe place to stay.  You might offer up service, taking time to clean something in your house, thanking your home for protecting you and your family.

What I find most important is really naming things you are grateful for.  Be specific!  Give thanks for the food you do have, for the time to spend with family, for the internet through which you can still talk to people.  Try to name as many things as you possibly can.  If you have children and they are upset about the things they can't do, get them involved too.  Make it a game, to see who can name the most things to be thankful for! 

Protection work is very useful now as well.  We are reminded to take extra precautions and clean more thoroughly, and when we clean we can cleanse.  Whenever someone in my house is sick or feeling upset, I always feel a need to cleanse, to get that energy moving and cleared out of the house.  As we practice things like social distancing, we can also practice more energetic protections, helping to guard our house and family against stress and worry.  If you have people who still need to go out for their job, having protections in place to help them leave those stresses outside can be very helpful.

When I cleanse, I like to clear a room first, so I'll often bring in some incense and bless the room, casting out the old energy, and filling the room with an appropriate energy, based on what room it is (so bedrooms is often calm and rest, living room is joy and peace, dining room and kitchen is nourishment, bathroom is cleansing).  Then I'll ward the doors and windows, to help keep undesired energy from coming in.

Along with journaling to get thoughts out of your head, banishing them is another thing that you can do.  Begin by either writing or drawing out what you are feeling.  I like drawing, because it's not like drawing a picture of something.  You just grab crayons, colored pencils or paint and put color on the page.  You might scribble or you might draw things, either way works!  If you want to write, don't worry about your handwriting or try to think too hard, just write as fast as you can, whatever comes to mind...it doesn't have to make sense.  Think of it as purging out your emotions on the page.  Then you can tear it up, burn it, bury it....get rid of it! 

Even though it feels like times are dark, there is a lot we can do to nurture the light in our lives....and to shine light for other people, so they can become their own light too.  Pay attention to where your thoughts are going, and practice ways to direct them to where you want them to be.  Take little actions, to protect yourself and your family.  And keep hope alive, for that is how we fight against the darkness!