Who Are You Anyway?

So, I recently began the ADF's Dedicant Program. More precisely, I recently paid my dues to become an ADF member and am waiting for the DP materials to come in the mail. In the meantime I've been reading over the electronic copy of the Manual and seeing what's in store. I have been contemplating working through the DP for quite a few years now hesitating only because the word "Druid" has always set off alarm bells in my head. You know, visions of berobed hippies dancing around oak trees and murmuring about how the Morrigan* is really quite sweet actually once you get to know her. (And, you know, pry the steaming entrails from her teeth and wipe the blood off.)

But I've been letting it roll around in the back of my head while I spent time pursuing other ways of connecting with the Divine like occasionally lighting a candle or spending long, pensive moments trying to determine if that dream I had about the stag in the woods was a message from a deity or a sign that I should maybe cut back on pre-bedtime burrito consumption. The depths of my dedication know no bounds. Why I must have devoted entire MINUTES to developing my third eye! I think I saw an aura once or twice but it was a little foggy that day so who can be sure?

My main problem, aside from abject laziness, is that while I know SOMETHING is out there I don't know who They are. Here's what I have figured out so far:

1. There are at least two of 'em. I think.
2. One is female and one is male, so far as any probably-immortal, immensely powerful, far-seeing Divine creature can be said to have a gender.
3. He thinks I'm a bit of a tool.
4. She likes red.

There you have it. The extent of my personal cosmology. All I know. I have read and read and read about this pantheon and that culture and this religion and that reconstruction, looking for anything that could lead me closer to discovering who They are and...I got nothin'. It could be argued that if I had spent less time reading and more time getting off my ass and actually trying to spiritually connect to Them I might know more by now but that's just crazy talk, I'm sure.

In all seriousness I am devoted to finding out who They are and what They want from me. I think I just need more structure and motivation. The DP program, from what I have read about it, seems like a good way of developing that structure. A religious framework within which I can begin to seek out my Gods on a more active spiritual level instead of just an intellectual one.

I am envious of those who are 100% sure of Who it is that's jerking them around the Universe. I read about people who have known from a very young age that they were being contacted by someone Other. They spend their lives having conversations and receiving visions and seeing signs and then one day they read a book about one mythology or another and have their breakthrough moment. "Hey! The ravens, the wolves, that weird one-eyed old man who accosted me on the street that time! And when my brother pushed me into the well when I was eight and when I came out I could read Old Norse! It was Odin all along!" And then it's just a matter of reading about Him and the culture of His people and putting some things in place and there you go! A deeply meaningful spiritual experience in which they have total faith. I don't mean for that to sound trite or like these folks don't have to work for their faith. I know that they do. I'm just jealous of y'all.

And then there are people like me who didn't have Supreme Beings whispering into their ears as a kid and didn't see any signs of anything much as an adult except maybe they should get more exercise because their ass is getting chubby. But there is something there. And that something is being extremely coy and maybe I'm not ready or maybe the signs are there and I just haven't seen them but whatever. The point is. They are not making it easy. And I am not making enough of an effort. Which is probably WHY They aren't making it easy.

So, how will the DP help? I am hoping it will help me to develop a personal spiritual plan of attack. The push I need to stop reading and start doing.

Why can't there be a Goddess of Lazy Bums? I think she and I would get on really well together.

*The drawing of the Morrigan is from the online portfolio of J. "Kythera" Contreras. Check her out! She is incredibly talented. I love her comic-style artworks and her painted miniatures.