I get all kinds of Emails with everything from commentary (not so much) to criticism (a whole lot more) and sometimes there are even questions. The commentary is nice to read, the criticism is just a reminder that not everyone likes coffee (or a lot of other things), but the questions are usually fun. Fun to answer because there is usually an exploratory side to things from an angle I had never considered. Today provides a question, but its one I have only barely scratched the surface of. To make it more difficult, this one crosses over into another area of my Spirituality – one that a lot of folks may be sick of hearing about – figuring out where I am going as a Priest.

So, let’s back up a short bit and hit the question…

Why do you write your blog? Your topics are all over the spectrum of Paganism, but I haven’t been able to deduce why you write. –Torey S.

Well Torey, to answer this, I have to take a short turn towards the somewhat distance past – my podcasting past. I started out with the podcast “From the Edge of the Circle”, where I talked about various topics and bored the living crap out of anyone listening for quite a few years. In essence, this blog gets its beginnings from there. I do the same thing here on the blog, except I write the stuff – and honestly, I’m a better writer than I was a speaker. I started the podcast with the hopes of returning something back to my Pagan community. Some folks really dug what I was doing…others just wanted to dig deeper in the litter box and bury it. Whatever the case may be, the idea was to provide some of what I have experienced in my lifetime as an out-of-the-closet Pagan to those who wanted to listen. The same holds true for the blog, but in a slightly different manner.

Much of what I write comes right off the top of my head. I don’t have an army of potential blogs and articles waiting in the wings for me to further massage and annotate what I write. I write from the top of my head, on the day that I publish these blogs. Thus, my writing style is kind of raw. This off-the-top style of writing lets me add pieces of emotion to what I write, but it is intended to be (a) a record of what I was thinking at the time, (b) a potential recollection of what I have gone through in a little over thirty years as a Pagan, and (c) a potential sounding board on various topics for others.

Now, that said, I am nobody special, whatsoever. What I am, is a Pagan, Polytheist Druid making my way through Life the best that I can. Crow, Coyote and Abnoba are the two Gods and one Goddess who are a daily part of my Life and my Spiritual Path. None of that makes me any different or more special than anyone else. All of that just explains who I am, what I believe, and the Gods I am tethered to. In comparison to anyone else’s Path and beliefs…its really just the same.

Much of what I write is basically me working thoughts out in my head. Instead of talking out loud, I write – or if you prefer, hunt-and-peck type at my computer keyboard. What I hope that writing my thinking process out, is that someone else reading it might see some validation in their own thought processes or beliefs and realize that they are not alone in this world. Even if they stumble across the writings of this blog many years down the road. Perhaps reading my explanation of how I got to a point might be helpful in helping someone else untangle their own Gordian knot in some thought process or issue that they have been working on. I write, in the hopes of being helpful. I write in the hopes of being informative. I don’t write to make a name for myself. Fame and infamy are the last damn things I would ever want in this Lifetime.

This is why I have always considered this blog to be a gift, which I give to the wider Pagan community. A place that might be helpful for others to see a different way of thinking or to validate some of what they were thinking themselves. I am neither right nor wrong. I am not an authority on anything, except the Path that I follow. I can tell you, as a subject matter expert, what Tommy’s Path is because I walk it every single day. Just as I would expect you to be the subject matter expert on what you believe. Its a principle that I completely believe in and live by – I know my Path, I walk it every single day.

All of this leads me back to one of the tangles that I have always struggled with – being a Priest. I have the typical Christian baggage and hang-ups with the term, all of which is difficult to complete disregard and discard. But as I step further and further out of the lingering shadows to embrace the concept of being a Priest, I start to see how much of what I do with this blog resonates in that arena. Surely, I am not the Priest that leads ritual. I am also not the Priest that works to keep a community of people Spiritually on-track and satisfied. I am surely not the Priest that steps out front to handle and control ritual. But whether I see it or not, providing my running-off-at-the-mouth commentary here in the blog, that certainly is providing guidance and advice to others, a function of a Priest. So, Torey, as you can see, I struggle with concepts here as well. And sometimes writing about some things, makes others just a little more clear.

Certainly, I can attest that life changes – even at the ripe old age of fifty-four. And to be honest, I’m really not old. Its not the age that makes things rough – its the mileage. Writing about those change in Life, here in the blog, leaves a record that I can come back to and read later. Perhaps, I can see where the knot that I am currently working on was twisted. Perhaps…but I write and will continue to do so – for a lot of complicated reasons. Thanks for asking, Torey.

–T /|\