Ever feel like you're all alone?

The Egg

Being in the closet magickally is like being in an egg. Many of us start out solitary by chance not by choice, so the walls of the "egg" are there, because you just don't have contact with the outside world. It's not good or bad, it just is. At first, you have everything you need to develop and grow, Our Mother makes sure there's enough energy and nourishment from Her to get us through our beginning phases of growth and development. But as time goes by and you grow, the quarters become more and more cramped -- and one day, just moving around naturally, your foot or your head breaks through the shell of external barriers or internally-imposed fear, which has become quite thin and brittle. You see for the first time how large the magickal world really is. Once you've broken through, there's no going back. You can ignore the world, but you can't crawl back in the egg.

The air of the wide world is so cold compared to the warmth of the egg -- the first thing most hatchlings do is to search for others of like kind, and look for the big bird (teacher) who help them grow into big birds themselves. Some things you find in the big "out there" are scary and threatening, especially if you haven't found a mother hen to hide under. Others are excited by the light and the openness, and want to jump out of the nest before they're really ready to fly.

And so it is with being closeted. Once the crack appears, you can choose to sit in your broken shell, ignoring others and dreaming of the days when everything was simple and self-directed, or you can hop out from the broken bits and join the rest of us in the nest. Though some of us are birds of the mountains, and some of us are birds of the sea, and some of us are birds that hang out over parking lots when there's no lakes or oceans nearby, we're mostly birds. We've all broken out from our own shells to be togther right now-- so we actually have a lot in common, despite outward differences.

I'm not saying it's easy -- history tells us how hard it is for individuals to make communities and keep peace among themselves. We do it to futher mutual goals --protecting our families from dangers, providing shelter and food -- that's why the first peoples got together to create community. Because they needed each other. Generally, we can provide our own food and shelter - but we need each other no less.

What do you do if you land in an empty nest with only a few other birds and no mother birds to help you along? You need to find your community to take strength from it. You need to get to know people. If you can initially lean toward people who are postively motivated and community minded, and lean away from negatively motivated, selfishly-minded individuals, you will find community to be a rewarding resource. But if your first contact with Magickal society is one of the few "bad eggs" in our communities, it could put you off of community for a lifetime -- but even though they might be the loudest squawkers, they might enjoy argument and conflagration -- these people are the minority. Most of the people in our communities are decent, good people. Keep the faith, and follow your way, and the flock will find you.

Last Updated 2/2003

Pooklaroux @ 1999, 2000, 2001. 2002, 2003

Concept/Look/Feel Original Writings/Original Graphics Reserved

To use or republish in any form, please contact pooklaroux@NOSPAMyahoo.com

if others who are near to you don't understand your needs very well. You may need to make the extra effort to bridge the gap of understanding between yourself and those in your most local community to avoid "ruffled feathers, but ou will want to look for other lizards or fish eventually, and there's nothing wrong with that. Being aligned with others who most closely share your values is strengthening on an individual and community level, so long as it doesn't degenerate into separatism. And it doesn't have to -- remember -- most of us came from eggs -- fish eggs, bird eggs, lizard eggs -- but eggs, nonetheless.

Once you realize what life could be like if all your friends and neighbors were Pagan, and vegetarian, and didn't have to own cars or work more than a stone's throw from home -- you may start to dream of life in something like an intentional community. Intentional communities are wonderful and necessary, but if all Pagans lived in them, it would be nothing more than a basket of bigger eggs. We give diversity to our local communities when we decide to live among others rather than in separatist communities, and we get the benefits of our local resources that are hard for smaller, specialized communities to duplicate.

What could life be like without the shell? What if we'd been born children of horses, cats or kargaroos -- not hatched from eggs? We'd be born live into communities that could train us and teach us from the first, born into whole tribes of people who would give us the cultural foundations we admire in indigenous societies and from peoples of the past. Do you ever wish that your parents had been magickal? That from your first steps and first words, you could have grown up with the training and values you're struggling to assimilate now? When we bear our children into the Pagan communities we've lovingly crafted, we're going to gain the full benefit of the value we've invested in webweaving.

What will life be like when we can tell our neighbors "We're a Pagan family" without fear of reprisals? What will you feel like the day you can go into a card shop and see a commercially produced Imbolc card on sale from a big card company? When you can ask for the Quarters and Cross Quarters off from work in total seriousness, and without having to explain very much? When do I think this is all going to come to pass? Not in the near future, but it's coming. And we'll have to know how to live without the closet but without sacrificing our secrets or profaning our mysteries.

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If this has reminded you that most of us start out alone as unknown beginners -- and for some of us, the end of the flight brings us happily back to a hollow in a shady tree, where we spend most of our Magickal life alone by choice, others find the most satisfaction amongst others in a great gaggle or covey. I want you to have the tools to make the Solitary/Social decision in a way that will give you the most joy and make the most of our collective efforts. I'd love to hear about your experiences, write to me..