Puja, hard work, and opening doors.

Honoring a deity can become a fulltime job!

This past winter I began my group coaching practice (with a kickass group exploring women's sexuality and animal spirit guides), continued in my counseling program, worked with new clients as a coach for special needs, and built up my etsy store with quilts honoring Maman Brigitte and St. Bridget!  Lost in the work was keeping up with my Bridget blog.

Yet I have kept up with my writing.   I am working hard on my first totem counseling book, and hope to release it this spring.  Since my work as an augur continues (phoebe has been prevalent in my daily walks), I have expanded my coaching to include animal spirit guides as a means to creating better relationships.  The result of that work has been so much fun!

But at times I have been overwhelmed! Advertising my coaching program, meeting new clients, school work, parenting my kids, quilting and weaving, all of this has required some juggling.  (and sometimes lots of juggling!)  In the meantime, Bridget continues to ride my ass pretty hard, with coaching ideas and new paths opening, and an endless push to healing, art and poetry.

Hang your worship on a deity, and this is what you find.  I have friends who honor Allah and Jesus and Buddha, as well as friends who worship Lugh and Danu and Aengus and Isis and Diana.  Each of these deities will reveal a different path to you the worshipper.  Aengus inspires an artist friend with her pottery; Diana draws another friend in to work with rescued animals; Allah calls for daily remembrance and prayer; Jesus calls for us to leave traditional family and pursue a communal good.

Worship can be bloody hard work!

But the results are so amazing.

Just in the past week, casually walking my dogs (I have a little of Diana in me!), I met a neighbor I haven't seen in years.  Her dogs have passed away, and she no longer walks, but the spring weather brought her outside.  As we talked about her dogs and her grief, she suddenly asked me:  "are you a fiber artist?"  When I told her about my etsy store and my quilts and weaving and smithing, she invited me to a fiber arts guild here in Pennsylvania.  She herself remarked, "I don't know why I just had to ask you that question!"

Then a few days later a poet in the eastern part of Pennsylvania contacted me about sharing our poems and some poetry venues, again completely out of the blue!  Since one of my goals this year is to find more forums for sharing my poetry, this was a great - and surprising - meeting!  These unforeseen opportunities are an example of what puja brings in our life.  Yup, I have been juggling many projects and yup, I have felt Bridget riding my ass, but then She presents opportunities and connections that I never would have dreamed up myself.

So if you are on a puja path, and at times you find worship to be hard work, remember that there is that return moment when puja brings an endlessly opening door.  That is what a relationship with the divine ultimately is - a door to worlds we can not envision.

Faith is holding on until the door can be found.



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