I'm back from China! It was amazing and I'm going to save it for a series of posts in the future. Let's just say that I enjoyed it so much that I'm considering moving there for a short period of time . . . but one thing at a time.

So, Eat, Pray, Love is going to become a movie. Usually when a book gets as much hype as this one has, I ignore it. I generally assume that the general public does not have the same taste as I do. This book would not leave me alone though. The title kept getting tossed around by friends and then the movie commercials came out and I thought, "fine, I give in."

I loved every minute of this book! Having gone through a divorce myself, I completely understood Elizabeth Gilbert's feelings and having burned out of my career several years ago, I understood the restlessness. Did I go off traveling around the world having spiritual insights? No, I played it safe and went back to school to start a career that I had quite a lot of success with at first and then quit and went back to my first career. Should I have traveled around the world finding myself? Probably. What makes this book so enjoyable is not so much the places she goes in the physical world but her adventures and insights into her mind. She doesn't hold much back in what she's thinking. She even discusses "taboo" subjects like masturbation when she needs to make a point and she paints the true and often raw expression of her soul.

As a Wiccan, the part that struck home with me most was her insight into ritual. Having gone through a messy divorce Gilbert says that it is so difficult to find closure because she was longing for that conversation with her ex-husband where they set everything straight and move on. Because it was so messy, that wasn't going to happen. She had to rectify her emotions and spirit through ritual. I won't tell you how exactly because that would give away too much of the book but she does say:

We do spiritual ceremonies as human beings in order to create a safe resting place for our most complicated feelings of joy or trauma, so that we don't have to haul those feelings around with us forever, weighing us down. We all need such places of ritual safekeeping. And I do believe that if your culture or tradition doesn't have the specific ritual you're craving, then you are absolutely permitted to make up a ceremony of your own devising, fixing your own broken-down emotional systems with all the do-it-yourself resourcefulness of a generous plumber/poet. If you bring the right earnestness to your homemade ceremony, God will prove the grace. And that is why we need God.

Developing ritual through Wicca is one of the most empowering part of the craft! I spend a great deal of time finding and writing what I find meaningful, rather than using or copying other people's leads because that is what I'm "supposed to do." I'm going to share some of those ideas in the future posts.

Will the movie do the book justice? Julia Roberts is a good start . . . but we'll see!

Out of the Broom Closet (Book Review)

In an attempt to figure out how "out of the closet" I should be when it comes to Wicca, I bought a book called Out of the Broom Closet; 50 True Stories of Witches Who Found and Embraced the Craft. What a great treasure of short stories! Before I went to bed every night I read a couple of them. Some were incredibly touching and other were quite straight forward and what I would expect. The nice part, being a Canadian, is that many of them were based in Hamilton or Montreal. Some of those people had eventually started the Montreal Pagan festivals or Hamilton's Pub Moot. These are events that I actually know about and have heard about. So often these books are American and I have no idea what they're referring to if they mention events or places.

Recently I started wearing a pentacle ring all the time. I was nervous to do so but I thought, "what the heck!?" I used the example of one woman in this book, when she was approached in a bathroom by a co-worker and asked if her symbol was satanic. She simply responded that Wiccans don't believe in the devil. So, when I was in a similar situation and someone asked me if I worshipped the devil (I'm still quite offended by this, as most of my work is to help people) I used the same line . . . but then I got all these questions about, "How can you not believe in the Devil? If there is a God there must be Devil." I simply explained, "Yes, there is evil in the world but it doesn't have to take the form of a Christian Boogeyman." I understand that I was probably challenging this person's core values but why do conversations around religion always have to be so awkward . . . especially with some Christians.

There were quite a few very touching stories in this book. Some to do with death or illness and one in particular dealing with a boy who had a horse that dealt with mental and physical abuse from his father. Both the boy and the horse were abused and they bonded because of this fact and when the boy grew older realized that he felt the love of the God and Goddess through this horse named Dan. It was a very sad story but I'm glad to hear that people find places of strength through extreme violence in their lives.

It was also nice to hear of stories similar to my own where people grew up in the Catholic church and had to work through all of the dogma they were brainwashed with . . . mind you, many Catholic traditions grew out of Paganism, so that' part is okay, I got ahead there. I would highly recommend this book if you're contemplating being more open about your spiritual beliefs and want to quit hiding them. I found it quite motivational!