Review of Pagan Generation; A Young Person's Guide to Paganism

This review is part of the Read Along with the Witchipedia event for March 2013


Pagan Generation: A Young Person's Guide to Paganism by Luthaneal Adams is a guide for young Pagan seekers new to Paganism who have not yet found their path. It offers guidance for navigating the Pagan community and an overview of several Pagan paths including Kemetic Paganism, Hellenismos, Druidry, Heathenry and, of course, Wicca. The overviews are pretty good, though they are very British in focus and the magical community in the US are quite different from that in Europe. For instance, the Druidry section had me quite confused, as I have spent some time with Druids myself, until I realized he was talking about the British Druidic organizations, about which I am unfamiliar. He did mention American Druidry in passing and provided contact information for both British and American Druid organizations. I don't fault him for this since if I were writing about Druidry, my writing would most certainly be skewed toward the American version. There are other mildly confusing Britishisms in there too. He keeps telling you to bring a torch. I know he means a flashlight, but I keep imagining teenagers running through the woods with flaming sticks and thinking what a bad idea that is. Again, I can't fault him for this as he's only speaking his native language.

There were some other problems that made me say "hmmm". While most of the book seemed well-written in simple, conversational style, there were whole sections that were grammatical nightmares. It was as if the editor skipped a few pages here and there. This wasn't as annoying as the fact that the "general" information was very skewed toward Wicca. This just annoys me because that is my biggest pet peeve. Every time anyone "generalizes" about Paganism it's skewed toward Wicca... so I it's probably actually a point in this book's favor since it's reflects the way things are.

That all being said, this is a good book that fills a niche that I think really needed filling. I learned something from reading it about Pagan paths I'm not overly familiar with and I have been around a block or two. I would definitely recommend this book to a young person, or any person, who is new to and exploring the Pagan community. This book is useful even if you aren't looking for a new path because it offers information about the various paths within the community and if you're going to be social at all, it is very helpful to know a bit about the other folks as well.

Get Moving #myheartdayresolution

My very first goal for my Heart Day Resolution project is probably the hardest so I thought I'd get it out of the way early. Unfortunately, I wasn't entirely successful. Now is the time to re-commit!

First, I would like to identify some obstacles I have run into while pursuing this goal:

1. I am the primary caregiver for a one year old. My husband is gone 12 hours a day five day a week at his day job plus rehearsals and gigs (he's a musician). I don't trust a lot of people to watch my son. And I don't have a lot of people to choose from as it is.
2. I haven't got a lot of discretionary money so joining a health club is out of the question.
3. It's freezing cold outside!
4. I am lazy.
5. I would rather be writing or knitting.
6. For the majority of this month, I have been down to one car because my husband's car has been broken. It is fixed now.
7. Work has been out of control. Today is my first day off in 6 days and the last one I will have for the forseeable future. Although I will be training dogs at home instead of out two days a week starting next week. So that's almost like having a day off. But not really.

I need to find activities I can do with my son that won't require me to take him out into the cold
And
I also need to figure out where I can squeeze in some solo activities.

Here are the solutions I came up with.

1. The Mall! Okay, so I'm broke and I can't shop at the mall but I can take the baby there in the stroller and walk around for an hour! When the weather gets nice, I'll go to the park instead.
     I haven't been able to do this yet, due to car issues, but I will be trying this in the mornings when I work evenings and my days off.

2. The Museum! I got my husband a family membership to the museum for his birthday (It was an Amazon Local http://local.amazon.com/ deal). We spent an afternoon at the museum on Saturday after I taught a class and then took a class (I felt very accomplished on Saturday!). This is a great way to spend time with the family and once the membership card arrives in the mail (I hope there are two, we do't share these things well), my little Sunshine and I can visit the museum just the two of us. When the weather improves, we plan to get a zoo membership as well.

3. Work out at the community center at night. Our community has a fitness center which is free for residents of our town. They are open till 9pm. My husband gets home at 7:45pm. If I have dinner on the table, myself already fed and the baby in the high chair when he walks in the door, I can dash out and have a real workout for 30 to 45 minutes before they close.
   I have not managed this yet. We are spending our evenings making sure mom gets her car back. Now that the car is back, I may be able to pull this  off once in awhile. The only problem is, at 8pm, I do not feel like working out at all.

4. Exercise videos. These make me feel self-conscious. But I have found that Baby Einstein's Baby's First Moves is something the baby and I can do together and while it's not a workout per se, it is active.
   We've done this a few times. It's fun.

5. Dancing. I used to go dancing at the bar once a week and at drum circles once a month before the baby came. It's time to get out of the house again.
   I haven't done this yet. I am not sure how much I really want to.

6. Yoga. I know how to do Yoga. I don't need a class or a video. I have even created a daily devotional to Eos incorporating Yoga. My daily devotions have been neglected too long.
  I have no excuses for not doing this. I am just ridiculously lazy!

I have also slacked off quite a bit on my journaling. But I've picked it back up. On the other hand, the fact that I am so busy with work means that I'm more active by default - although the majority of my work time is spent in my car.

The biggest hurdle is to get over my laziness and my rather-be-doing-something else-ness. To help with this I have created a schedule to try to fit everything in. Every morning I wake up at 6am and do my morning devotions. I  write for an hour till the baby wakes up and then feed him breakfast and do the Baby's First Moves video together. We leave at 10am no matter what. If I don't have clients that day, if we don't have any errands to run, we go to the mall and walk for an hour, then come home. Lunch at noon followed by a nap then I write (assuming I'm not out training dogs). Snack at 4pm then we get dinner started. Daddy is home at 7:45 (if he doesn't have a gig or rehearsal and I don't have to drop off or pick up a dog) and I dash out to the fitness center for a workout. Back at 9:15 in time for storytime and tuck in. Knit for an hour then to bed.

On Friday or Saturday night instead of the fitness center I will go out dancing (if daddy doesn't have a gig)! Yay!

Monthly Goal Check In
Days Exercised
This Week: Yoga:  Fitness Center:   Walking: 1  Video:  Baby Video: 1 Dancing:

Weight: 195.3
BMI calculation: 32.54
Waist measurement: 39.5
Hip Measurement: 43
Waist to Hip Ratio: .90


Next Month's Habit: Menu Planning

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools

I Am a Creature of Air

So my goals of late have been focused on my body and that's a good thing. My body is a much neglected part of my life. I have been thinking about why that is and why it's so difficult for me to focus on improving it and then I realized that it's mostly because I don't give a shit about it. I just don't think about it much.

This morning I was getting ready for my day. I washed and moisturized and brushed my hair and put it up. I didn't do any of these things because I wanted to. And I didn't do any of them because they give me particular pleasure. I do these things every day because I have to, and I am rather annoyed that I have to. You see, I wash so as not to offend anyone with my stink. I moisturize because if I don't then when I train dogs it won't be damaged as easily when they scratch or mouth me. I brush my hair so I can get it in the ponytail which it must be in or it falls in my face when I bend down to handle a dog- and annoys the hell out of me. I only have hair because my husband reacts with horror whenever I suggest that I want to shave it all off.

My body is nothing much to me. It is a vessel to move me from one mental experience to another. After writing my article about elements on Friday and thinking about how annoying my body is, I realized that I am suffering from a severe lack of the Earth element. It is no wonder that I crave carbs like I do. It's no wonder exercise is abhorrent to me. I am a mental creature. A creature of air. I haven't always been this way, at least not to this extreme. But now here I am.

The first thing I realize I'm going to have to do to rectify this situation is to get a little self-discipline. Honestly, this is not an easy thing for a creature of air to do. I'm going to have to get creative.

I am also going to have to focus a little more on my balance. The excess Air element I carry probably has something to do with the high anxiety state I've found myself in for the past few months. There was a time when my mental health issue was depression. Meditation will help me here. I need to establish a daily routine of elemental balance meditation. We're back then to that self-discipline.

Another thing I'm going to have to do is spend some time enjoying my skin. There are things I have in the past enjoyed in my skin. Sex, something I don't do often enough since the baby was born. Dancing, I can't remember the last time I went dancing. Gardening, well, I'll have to wait for spring for that. Houseplants aren't even an option since the cat and the baby are united against all houseplants. Baking, I have been avoiding baking because it results in things that make one chubby...

I will have to give this more thought.

Falling Off the Wagon

So I haven't journaled in days and I haven't managed to do anything resembling physical activity. Ever. I have lots of excuses. Helping my grandma pack up her house (sad job). Sick baby. My husband's car broke. It's freaking cold out. Is there more? Probably. I am completely off kilter. I need to take some time to refocus on my goals. Maybe add in some incentives. More to come.

Journal It #myheartdayresolution

I am a big fan of journaling. I encourage my clients to use journals as a tool to help them change their dog's behavior, especially during housebreaking and I used journaling to help establish a sleeping and eating schedule for my little one, so I was right on board with the suggestion of many weight loss sites to begin my journey with journaling.

According to an article on WebMD (which apparently first came from Good Housekeeping) entitled The Single Best Way to Lose Weight, journaling is the single best way to lose weight. According to the article, most folks have no idea how much they eat and if you make it a rule that you write it all down, you tend to eat less and lose weight by default. Wouldn't that be awesome? (Well I can tell you right now I didn't lose anything this week.)

Now originally I was thinking I'd just journal for the month and then do my monthly check-in, but it's really a waste of time. When I tell my clients to journal it's for a week or two, never a whole month. The idea is to identify patterns of behavior, triggers, habits you're not aware of and to target them and I feel that after a week I have really gained all I'm going to from just journaling.  So, here's what I've found.

Diet Journaling Tools

The first tool I tried was a handy diet journal at http://www.webmd.com/diet/food-fitness-planner/fitness-log but I had some trouble adding foods because I am a home cook. So I needed a way to record my own recipes and determine their nutritional content. You can record additional foods in the WebMd journal, but you have to know their nutritional content first. I was excited to see that http://www.nutritiondata.com has this feature, but it doesn't work. Very disappointing! But I was able to find what I was looking for at http://recipes.sparkpeople.com. However, from what I can see you have to share in order to save your recipes and I don't feel like sharing so I can't save. Bummer. But I can save the nutritional information from recipes on the WebMD site so I guess it's okay...

All of this got to be rather cumbersome, so I looked for something that had more of what I wanted and that's when I found http://www.myfitnesspal.com which seems to be the best of both worlds and it has an app for a smartphone, which I can't use. It also links you Facebook which I might play with a bit. Best of all, I can share or not, whatever I feel like doing. And, it has tickers:

Created by MyFitnessPal - Free Weight Loss Tools

Cool

While journaling online is handy and a little bit fun, it's not practical when you spend half your life in the car so I needed something I could take along with me. Some solutions have smartphone apps which would be awesome if I had a smartphone or my husband's Kindle Fire, but I only have my little old Kindle Keyboard and I rather like it. I have an app on my Kindle called Notepad which suits my needs just fine although I did look for a journaling app and couldn't find one. Someone who knows about apps should take note of that. I want a journaling app for my Kindle keyboard, mkay? I know probably nobody is making new apps for the Kindle Keyboard.

My Discoveries

When I tell my clients to begin by journaling, the idea is to discover their dog's natural patterns as well as to identify triggers for unacceptable behavior and habits that may need to be broken or adjusted to reach the goal. So that was really the goal for this journaling project. So here is what I found.

1. I actually have a lot of good eating habits.

• I don't get a lot of calories from beverages. Aside from my morning cup of coffee, I drink only water and skim milk. 
• I always eat breakfast. (I frankly don't understand how anybody can function without it.) And my breakfasts tend to be pretty healthy. Usually oatmeal with raisins, cinnamon and pecans OR a scrambled omelette with veggies and feta cheese and a banana. Occasionally I have pancakes, but we're talking once a month at the most. I have found by analyzing my recipes, however, that my breakfasts aren't the healthiest and have adapted my recipes accordingly.
• I am disgusted by super-sweet things. When I do have a sweet tooth, it can usually be satisfied by a few semi-sweet chocolate chips or a piece of dried fruit.

2. When I don't eat on time, I tend to overeat or eat all the wrong things when I finally get the opportunity to eat.
3. The "junk food" I eat is usually of the fatty and salty variety. I love gravy, french fries, fried chicken, chips, the fatty bits on meat, cheese.
4. Most of my eating of all the wrong things tends to happen when I'm on the road.
5. I also eat when I'm stressed.
6. I will eat as long as I am at the table and I eat a lot faster than my husband and infant son. (My older son scarfs down his meal and bails. He doesn't stick around for the conversation.)
7. I will continue eating as long as there is food within reach, even if I am not hungry.
8. I get almost no exercise. I do the occasional "how to walk your dog on a leash" lesson, but these only last about 30 minutes maybe once a week and I do as much standing around shouting orders while they walk as I do walking myself. Other than that, my exercise consists of pushing a cart around the grocery store for an hour once or twice a week.
9. I drink a lot of water.

All in all I think the journaling project was useful and enlightening and I will continue journaling for the duration of my weight loss project in order to keep track of my progress.


Check-In
Days journaled this week: 5

Weight: 196.5
BMI calculation: 32.76
Waist measurement: 42.0
Hip Measurement: 45.5
Waist to Hip Ratio: .93
(WTF! Not the early success I'd hoped for. Oh well.)

Next week's goal/habit: Get active



Some other interesting links I've found:
http://www.rd.com/health/diet-weight-loss/50-weight-loss-secrets-and-slim-down-tips/

My Heart Day Resolution #myheartdayresolution

Okay, here it is. Heart Day and my Heart Day Resolution is:

I resolve to lose 30 pounds.

I actually need to lose 50 pounds but I am thinking 30 is much more attainable. Hopefully, all the wonderful habits I practice over the next year will result in continued gradual weight loss past the deadline. My doctor has been griping about my weight since before my last pregnancy and I am now heavier than I was at its peak. Not pretty. I used to be really proud of my physical health. Being chubby is somewhat depressing. I have never dieted before. This is going to suck. BUT I can do it. I know I can.

Just to remind me, my resolution steps are:
1. Set a reasonable goal to be met in one year. (Check)
2. Set monthly checkpoints to review my progress. (Check -  I will check in monthly on the 14th with a weigh-in and measurements.)
3. Develop new habits or mini goals and explore them each month in my checkpoint blog.

Exploration Questions

Why do I want to achieve this goal?
Being fat is no fun. My doctor says I am endangering my health. My favorite clothes don't fit. I wear out easily. A 110 pound rotty kicked my ass last weekend. That doesn't happen to me!

How will it benefit me?
I will be a better dog trainer when I can match the dogs for strength and endurance (I know speed is too much to hope for). I am looking at borderline diabetes here. I don't want diabetes. My clothes will fit again (yay) and I'll feel better buying new clothes. I will feel and look sexier and have more sex. More sex is good. Also I will be a better mom and wife, more active, stronger, better able to keep up and enjoy activities. I will be healthier for the rest of my life if I lose the weight now.

What are the drawbacks?
I am sure this is totally going to interfere with my lifestyle and eating habits.
Let me just say, that I love pie. And I am going to keep eating it. This goes for fruit pie as well as meat pie. Cream pie I think I can give up. Does cheese cake count as pie? I can't give that up either. Besides that, I am sure there will be some serious schedule issues.

How does it fit my values?
Hearth- My family deserves a healthy, energetic mother.
Heart - That is self-evident.
Earth - I am not sure how it will benefit the Earth, but it won't do Her any harm either.

How will this help with my ultimate goal of Arete?
Physical fitness was often mentioned as an example of the excellence of greatness in ancient Greece.

What are my obstacles?
I am breastfeeding. This precludes most chemical interventions. I can take no weight loss herbal supplements or drugs.
I am lazy.
I have very little time to myself. Babysitters are scarce unless I'm working.
I am on the road a lot and eat on the go pretty often.
I love food.

How will I measure success?
My goal is to lose 30 pounds. When I get there I will know I've succeeded. Also, see first check-in below. I expect the check in section to grow as things progress and I add more mini-goals to this project.

What are some habits I will need to develop to make this a success?
Some ideas I've gotten from the internet include: Keeping a food and exercise journal, meal planning, controlling portion sizes, eating in more than out, watching sugary beverages(I don't drink these, bonus), eat breakfast (I already do that. Bonus again), increasing physical activity, working out in the morning, brushing your teeth after meals, lay off the simple carbs

Some mini-goals I can accomplish along the way?
 Establish a regular work out schedule, join a community, start journaling, explore more tools to help me on my way, consult with my doctor, consult with a personal trainer.

First Check-in
Weight: 195.1 lbs
BMI calculation: 32.51 (according to my Wii Fit)
Waist measurement: 40
Hip Measurement: 45
Waist to Hip Ratio: 0.88 (Per http://www.healthcalculators.org/calculators/waist_hip.asp)
Goal Weight: 165 lbs

The first habit I will explore is...
Diet and exercise journaling

My Heart Day Resolution Pre-amble

This year (and if it works out every year hereafter) I am setting a resolution on Valentine's Day to do something good for my Heart. Not just my physical heart, but everything it symbolizes. My Self. My health. My emotions. My relationships. But I am only allowed to pick one goal per year.

So, Heart Day is only two days away and I am formulating my resolution in the back of my head but first I wanted to come up with a plan, a sort of framework for what I'm doing to keep my brain organized.

First, I thought it would be nice to have some sort of special ritual to mark the occasion. I haven't been able to think of a ceremony per se, but I think I have a good idea for a ritual.

I am going out today to buy myself a greeting card and on it I am going to write:

Dearest Heart:
I love you and I want you to be strong, happy and healthy and so today I promise you that I will do this thing for you:
{Insert resolution here}
Yours forever,
Signed me

I will put it in my card box and mail it to myself when I send out my Valentine's Day cards next year.
Won't that be sweet.
I think I'll also buy myself a present.

As for the resolution itself, I wanted to set a few guidelines for myself and for that I turn am digging some goal-setting wisdom out of the back of my brain from a class I took years ago and adapting it because that's what I do.

First, we must look at the resolution or goal itself. When I set my goal it needs to meet the following criteria:
1. It must be attainable and realistic.
2. It must be something that results in a tangible, measurable change. That is, I can say here is the proof that I have achieved this goal and point to it.
3. It must have a reasonable deadline. In the case of my Heart Day (and other) resolution, the deadline is one year.

It is one thing to set a goal and give myself a deadline but the most important thing is to keep myself on track. These are the steps I will take to do that:
1. I will assign regular check in days to review my progress. I will make this the 14th of each month.
2. I will create mini-goals to accomplish throughout the year. One per month, to give myself little victories and successes to keep myself positive and so that I am not trying to do everything all at once.
3. I will share with you, dear readers, my progress and what I learned in pursuit of my goals. In part to keep myself honest and also to maybe help you out on similar goals. I will tag my Heart Day posts every 14th of the month with #myheartdayresolution. Yea, it's long. Whatever.

Exploring My Goals
I will structure my Resolutions with a series of questions to give me a clear view of what I'm trying to accomplish and what my path will be.

Why do I want to achieve this goal?
How will it benefit me?
What are the drawbacks?
How does it fit my values?
What are my obstacles?
How will I measure success?
What are some habits I will need to develop to make this a success?
Some mini-goals I can accomplish along the way?

Check-In
Check in will take place each month on the same day the resolution was originally made. For each resolution the check in will be slightly different. I will define the check in to suit each goal at the time the resolution is set with the understanding that its structure may have to be adapted as I go along.


Now that I have a plan, I am ready for Heart Day!
Please let me know if you're going to join me. I would love it if you did!!
(And if you're reading this and it's like August, who cares, pick your own Heart Day and jump right in!)