The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Hey all!

I wanted to ask a question that may seem simple, but that I think is actually quite...sensitive. How have your deities changed you?

Sarasvati Benzaiten-sama has made me want to be more productive, for one. I am no longer satisfied to sit on my ass all day and loaf. Now I feel bad unless I do something. I'm not sure how she managed this. I just know it was quite a sudden change in me. I prayed to her for help in my schoolwork. All of a sudden, I would feel like: "Hey, I've got some spare time right now and I don't feel too bad. Why don't I work on that paper since my head is clear?" In fact, my last semester at Guilford, I kind of went overboard and burned out a couple of times. My mom finally told me to just relax, and Herself was just like "listen to your mom this time."

She's also made me much, much less willing to tolerate willful ignorance, anti-intellectualism, or attacks on education as a whole. I've always been one to correct people whose facts are simply incorrect (this is one reason She likes me - I can be a real pain in the ass with the corrections, especially if you're an authority figure who should know better).

I've been much more assertive in dealing with those who are willfully ignorant. I no longer try to correct them. In fact, nowadays I pointedly refuse to engage with them when they approach me. I am polite about it, but I am also firm to the point of curtness.

I think I first realized the way Sarasvati Benzaiten had changed the way I deal with things when I had a run-in with a FaceBook acquaintance. I met this guy on the same writer's website I met Stephy on, and I think I'd actually known him longer, since he joined about the same time I did, whereas Stephy joined a couple of years later. (Stephy, feel free to chime in here; I think you know who I'm talking about).

Well, this guy and I had been FaceBook buddies for a few years. Nothing more. I actually liked a lot of his posts, because he put up a lot of stuff about his swordplay group and martial arts that I found really interesting. Even our vastly different political beliefs didn't seem to be much of a problem, because he never even posted on any of my things, and I always was civil replying to him, no matter how inflammatory his posts were.

Yet...then he went and posted a Someecard with that old and incredibly stupid line "100 years ago Greek and Latin were taught in High School. Now Remedial English is being taught in College." Paraphrasing, but you get the gist.

Here's the thing though: that line is very famous and I've heard it before. I've also experienced enough education in America to tell you that it's incredibly misleading. My sister took Latin in High School. Plenty of High Schools offer honors courses in Latin (not sure about Greek, though, honestly...but there are other languages that wouldn't have been available in High Schools 100 years ago!). As for the "remedial English?" Yeah, you can go to a college and take a course in it. Just not a four year college. Community Colleges offer 000 level courses in it (000 being the super basic courses that won't transfer to a four-year institution), usually for adult students who've had to drop out of high school, or who have otherwise been unable to complete their education.

So the whole thing is bullshit. Pardon my language.

Wait. Don't pardon my language. Calling it bullshit is too nice, because bullshit is a wonderful fertilizer. I shouldn't impugn organic gardening in that way.

Um...sorry. Going off on a tangent. Anyway, I replied to him very politely to point out that not only could one still take Latin in High School, and that most 4-year colleges do not offer remedial courses (and thus his initial statement was based on a false premise), but I also tried to gently remind him that 100 years ago, education was the preserve of wealthy, white men.

His response was basically: "well yeah, whatever, but so many people are going to college nowadays that college isn't so good anymore." Or, to quote him more accurately, too many people had jumped on the "buss" and the system was getting "wattered down."

I think it was the misspellings of such basic words in his statement pissing on the attempts of the underprivileged to get an education that really did it for me. I unfriended him.

The whole time though, I had the conscious awareness in my head that what he was saying about education was offensive to my goddess. Therefore, something that I would have previously let slide became an unforgivable offense.

Wow.... this became kind of an essay. Sorry.

So. Do y'all have any stories of how your deities have changed you? Have they impelled you to do things you wouldn't have done before? Let me hear. I'm interested.

So. Do y'all have any stories of how your deities have changed you? Have they impelled you to do things you wouldn't have done before? Let me hear. I'm interested.

Kuan Yin has really just been encouraging me to slow down. I think she's largely come to me to help me with self-love and healing, and I find myself almost apologising to her when I'm down on myself or self-sabotaging. Sounds simple, but it is actually helping! We're often so mean to ourselves with self talk, that even just pulling up and becoming aware of it can be a really useful step.

Since she's been in my life, I've also been eating a lot less meat. And I mean a lot less. She is associated with vegetarianism, and whilst I'm certainly not vegetarian, I've gone from the average meat for lunch and dinner almost every day, to meat two or three times a weak. I've found myself cooking only vegetarian meals and only eating meat if I'm out and about and there's not really any other (cheap!) options.

So, small changes, but changes nonetheless, which I have found very interesting!

Do y'all have any stories of how your deities have changed you? Have they impelled you to do things you wouldn't have done before? Let me hear. I'm interested.

I don't feel like sharing a lot of details but I experienced 2 major changes in my life.

One, Freya mysteriously came into my life when I was 15, but it's a long story to explain. Suffice to say it was an intense moment and it radically changed my attitude. Before, I simply accepted what the adult world dumped on me (not to say I was resigned, but I felt they had more power over my lives than I did my own), but after Freya came to me I realized I shaped my own destiny, not them, and given my circumstances (and that I was a homeless runaway at the time) it was exactly what I needed. People who knew me quickly realized something had changed about me, and my entire life would change over the next few years as a result.

When I was 19 I joined a Discordian cabal, though I pretty much did so only for the laughs (there were 4 others, we each had our reasons). Odd and often subtle synchronicity began to haunt all our lives and I came to see Eris as just as real a goddess as I did Freya, and just as we pranked society and challenged their views so did that goddess do the same to us. All our lives experienced major changes for the better and worse.

As for me I contacted my family again shortly before I turned 22 after years of nothing (I'd become an adult while still a runaway, too) and not only do I see Eris as being involved in that, but also using it to challenge my views (as I'd learned that the exact time, or very close anyway, Freya came to me was when my granny had a nightmare of me and prayed to Jesus to help me until she felt I would be okay, which makes me think her prayer and my vision were very much connected and got me to questioning what divinity actually was). I also learned to "let go" so I found peace but also became ignostic (like agnostic, but I'm sure there's a divine reality, I'm just not sure our human minds can adequately describe it, let alone discuss it with any accuracy).

Similar radical changes in belief and practice happened to all of us during those years (and the more we played with society the more Eris played with us) until our cabal finally dissolved and then our lives stabilized and changes began happening more normal (small and slowly, for the most part).

Those are the big ones and I'm not including the little things, like how Diana may have helped me with my marksmanship.

So. Do y'all have any stories of how your deities have changed you? Have they impelled you to do things you wouldn't have done before? Let me hear. I'm interested.

I took a few minutes to think this, trying to think of anything recent and then realized:

Lucifer changed/shifted me via my views, beliefs and perspectives when I was a teenager and decided to learn about him. I came across Satanism and Luciferianism through that research and begun to develop the philosophy I have because of it.

I learned I wanted to be equal, on equal grounds with and stand beside a god or deity through all that. I value enlightenment through that. I value knowledge through that. I view morality as subjective through that. I view gods as indifferent to morality through that.

More recently, I have gotten a bit more motivated and focused more on myself a bit more than just him. I am important too and I need to remember that.

So I guess that's some of how he changed me?

Hey all!

I wanted to ask a question that may seem simple, but that I think is actually quite...sensitive. How have your deities changed you?

Sarasvati Benzaiten-sama has made me want to be more productive, for one. I am no longer satisfied to sit on my ass all day and loaf. Now I feel bad unless I do something. I'm not sure how she managed this. I just know it was quite a sudden change in me. I prayed to her for help in my schoolwork. All of a sudden, I would feel like: "Hey, I've got some spare time right now and I don't feel too bad. Why don't I work on that paper since my head is clear?" In fact, my last semester at Guilford, I kind of went overboard and burned out a couple of times. My mom finally told me to just relax, and Herself was just like "listen to your mom this time."

She's also made me much, much less willing to tolerate willful ignorance, anti-intellectualism, or attacks on education as a whole. I've always been one to correct people whose facts are simply incorrect (this is one reason She likes me - I can be a real pain in the ass with the corrections, especially if you're an authority figure who should know better).

I've been much more assertive in dealing with those who are willfully ignorant. I no longer try to correct them. In fact, nowadays I pointedly refuse to engage with them when they approach me. I am polite about it, but I am also firm to the point of curtness.

I think I first realized the way Sarasvati Benzaiten had changed the way I deal with things when I had a run-in with a FaceBook acquaintance. I met this guy on the same writer's website I met Stephy on, and I think I'd actually known him longer, since he joined about the same time I did, whereas Stephy joined a couple of years later. (Stephy, feel free to chime in here; I think you know who I'm talking about).

Well, this guy and I had been FaceBook buddies for a few years. Nothing more. I actually liked a lot of his posts, because he put up a lot of stuff about his swordplay group and martial arts that I found really interesting. Even our vastly different political beliefs didn't seem to be much of a problem, because he never even posted on any of my things, and I always was civil replying to him, no matter how inflammatory his posts were.

Yet...then he went and posted a Someecard with that old and incredibly stupid line "100 years ago Greek and Latin were taught in High School. Now Remedial English is being taught in College." Paraphrasing, but you get the gist.

Here's the thing though: that line is very famous and I've heard it before. I've also experienced enough education in America to tell you that it's incredibly misleading. My sister took Latin in High School. Plenty of High Schools offer honors courses in Latin (not sure about Greek, though, honestly...but there are other languages that wouldn't have been available in High Schools 100 years ago!). As for the "remedial English?" Yeah, you can go to a college and take a course in it. Just not a four year college. Community Colleges offer 000 level courses in it (000 being the super basic courses that won't transfer to a four-year institution), usually for adult students who've had to drop out of high school, or who have otherwise been unable to complete their education.

So the whole thing is bullshit. Pardon my language.

Wait. Don't pardon my language. Calling it bullshit is too nice, because bullshit is a wonderful fertilizer. I shouldn't impugn organic gardening in that way.

Um...sorry. Going off on a tangent. Anyway, I replied to him very politely to point out that not only could one still take Latin in High School, and that most 4-year colleges do not offer remedial courses (and thus his initial statement was based on a false premise), but I also tried to gently remind him that 100 years ago, education was the preserve of wealthy, white men.

His response was basically: "well yeah, whatever, but so many people are going to college nowadays that college isn't so good anymore." Or, to quote him more accurately, too many people had jumped on the "buss" and the system was getting "wattered down."

I think it was the misspellings of such basic words in his statement pissing on the attempts of the underprivileged to get an education that really did it for me. I unfriended him.

The whole time though, I had the conscious awareness in my head that what he was saying about education was offensive to my goddess. Therefore, something that I would have previously let slide became an unforgivable offense.

Wow.... this became kind of an essay. Sorry.

So. Do y'all have any stories of how your deities have changed you? Have they impelled you to do things you wouldn't have done before? Let me hear. I'm interested.

 
Since I work with Lilith most of the time, it's easier to tell about what has changed about me since. She has helped me so much, I am more willing to ask for help when I need it for one. I used to absolutely refused help. I figured, anything I do, I should do myself, any mess I get into I should get myself out of, it was no one's responsibility to help me, no one should have to. It actually sort of brought on a lot of anxiety to ask for help, asking for anything in general did that (still sort of does but not as bad now). I'm also more...kind to myself and more willing to say I am good at something. I used to be rather harsh to myself and I always thought I was terrible at everything. It's still something I am working on getting better with but I'm already much better then I used to be. I didn't like myself very much at all before, but now I've gotten to the point where I like myself the way I am. Every time we talk I always give so much thanks for such help. :ange: