Our local pagan community, OLOTEAS, has a ritual every month on the fourth Saturday. My partner and I have decided to make a real committment to attending this every month unless the weather is ungodly. Or perhaps I mean to say, too godly. It is a very cool place. There is a large stone circle, a communal kitchen, and a clothing optional swimming pool among the other things available like restricted wetlands and an outdoor Aphrodite shrine. We love it there and the minute we open the car doors and then our feet alight on the soil, we exhale with relief and our shoulders lift. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

The freedom of the pool, which we partake of in nude like 98% of the folks there, is lovely. I was very nervous at first having assimilated the thought constructs of the Fashion and Image Borg. But this pool, along with the Clothing-Is-Not-An-Option Lughnasadh rite, has done wonders for my physical self esteem. That and all the reading I’ve been doing and the self analysis that has gone along with that. My two favorite things to read regarding the body right now? The Body Sacred by Dianne Sylvan, also one of my favorite blogs, and Crafting the Body Divine by Yasmine Galenorn, another witchy gal. I’m blossoming in ways I never expected to at the age of 48. While my intellectual mind knew it was crap, my monkey mind still thought I was supposed to look like I did at 25. *sigh* Progress is being made and I’m grateful. My partner sees me as gorgeous and tells me all the time and one day, soon I hope, I will believe him to the core of my being.

What does that have to do with Birth and Creation stories I hear you asking? Good job staying on topic, that. Well, you see it does. See, my body image thing has to do with a story I’ve been taught to tell myself on a daily, if not an hourly, basis. It is a story that was crafted by someone else. A story designed to make me think that I need to spend every dollar, every penny, to be beautiful and to be loved in this society. And to my dismay, most of us have that same story, men and women alike, and to some extent it is true. We are what we believe. Our body image story has become like an agregore, that magical energy cloud that lives where our temples live, that grows stronger the more energy we give it.

And I realized as I was reading our assignment for the next month’s ritual at OLOTEAS that I had a birth story that didn’t feed me. At all. There are examples and suggestions on how to write this Birth Creation Story but I didn’t even go look at it. You see, I was adopted at birth. And when I was 20 I gave my only child, a son, up for adoption at Yule. How intense is that?  And what is interesting is that at this very time, my brother, also adopted, has been contacted by his biological father’s family. Several years ago his biological mother contacted him too. It didn’t turn out as well as they show on Oprah, not at all. But there is a chance that something good might come of meeting his BF’s family. His BF is dead and so is his BioGMother, but his bio uncle wants to meet him.

Until now I have never thought i wanted to meet my biological family.  Too risky for one thing.  And my adopted family has been very wonderful, I was missing nothing.  Or so I thought.  And I had no intention of even going there for the ritual. I was going to stay away from the workshop before hand and hope that whatever happened in ritual would be enough.  But you know how rituals go. Chances are likely that I might very well go there. 

The ritual is described as:

Grasp your own divinity by the hand and step with us from the womb of the Goddess into your own life, refreshed and renewed in purpose. There is a guided meditation as part of the ritual—children are welcome to join. [snip] There is also a celebration as part of the ritual—you are invited to bring drums and other instruments for dancing.

I have hope that this will be very rewarding for me. Possibly painful and possibly tearful but none of that scares me. What scares me is not progressing on my self discovery. Know thyself. It is my mantra.  To know that I have discovered something important to my psyche and then to not do something about it? THAT scares me.

I found myself feeling very vulnerable. What is my birth creation story? My partner is happily writing his and prompted me again to go look at the suggestions. I’m glad he did. They are not suggesting that I write the real story of my birth and creation, which I know nothing about, but to write the story in a mythological context, what would I *like* my birth/creation story to say? You could have hit me. That vulnerable part… And I don’t know how to answer that either. But I think I want to. The example story given on the website begins thus:

I coalesced into wholeness from the thoughts that shape the universe. I stepped out into love, laughter, and light at age 30, fully myself, a beautiful, whole person with the words “I own me.”

Wow.

I tend to process things a long time before presenting them to the world. Born in the year of the Pig this isn’t surprising. Folks who know me well are surprised when I tell them that I am shy and introverted but for those who do not know me well, that isn’t surprising at all. Sometimes that shy and retiring part comes off as aloof or even arrogant but it isn’t the case. I’m just not sure you want me to join you. And I think some of that, while it can stem from my alcoholism, I think it also stems from my earliest days on this planet, this lifetime.

So, I plan on letting the idea of creating my own creation percolate and bubble to the surface as most of my ideas and designs do. They will change, metamorphize, blend, and be shaped by me, instead of shaping me. The story will be mine and mine alone.

It starts out:

I am.