For a long time, my "active daily" religious routine has revolved around Mara alone. This was fine, until it wasn't.
I've written about my Dark Lady before. I've gone through various and sundry names for her before, and worked with many wonderful goddesses and entities on the way, but never "found" her, and last year I'd given up on her having a name I'd find and resolved to just deal with her as Herself and not worry about it.
And then I had occasion to call on Hekate in early November, and some things she said made me think she might be... my first reaction was to say no, you can't mean that. Why?
This is where I reveal myself for a hipster, dear readers, because I didn't think it could be Hekate because everybody works with Hekate. Hekate is popular, with loads of Serious Real Witches giving her offerings and hallowing her. The only way I could possibly be cool enough to warrant attention is by finding the bands gods nobody else works with, right?
Um, so yeah, that was a thing I thought and then as soon as I find things like that I get to work on them. Yay personal development?
My super awesome magical assignment from Hekate? "Get your shit together. I will provide the boot. You will provide the ass."
A large part of the inspiration to make this year about keeping going and finishing things is because those are things I am bad at. I spiral down and I drop everything and I claw myself out with something new and shiny and then the process repeats. The process of making causes me to feel good. The process of finishing scares the crap out of me.
There were times I kept going on the Daily Mara project solely because of scrupulosity, which is a kind of fear and a facet of OCD. Fear can be useful, if I learn how to use it, the same as anything else. Anything can keep me going.
I'm working on using my discomfort, listening to it, instead of shutting down and waiting for something to break through. Part of that is attacking the things that make my OCD flare. Sometimes that's picking apart what scares me about approaching a certain god, and sometimes that's spending twenty minutes cleaning the range hood because it felt contaminated. That thought process needs unpacking. That range hood needed cleaning. I might as well have something to show for it at the end of the day.
After all, that's how I know I kept going.