What do you do with existential ennui? At my age, most people would be inclined to call it a mid-life crisis and buy a sports car but, given the proclivity of women in my family to live to a ripe old age and the advances of modern medicine, I think I'm really only a third of the way through my life expectancy. I'm not quite sure that third-of-the-way-life-crisis is a term that has much potential for catching on, however, there's still this feeling I have to deal with. It seems a bit silly, when one is in her early 40's, to ask "what do I want to be when I grow up?" yet here I am, pondering this question nonetheless.

As I examine different areas of my life to take stock of what I've accomplished, created or simply arrived at, I am largely displeased. It's not that I haven't done things, plenty of them good, in the course of my four decades on this planet, but there's some nagging feeling I have that at this point some of these things should be adding up in a way that they just don't. In my younger days I looked to others - friends, distinguished alumnae of my alma mater, colleagues, etc. - as a yard stick to measure whether or not I was succeeding in life. A major point of growth came when I realized that no one's definition of success mattered except for mine, and for a while even coming to that realization felt like a major accomplishment. But now, as I consider what shape it is that I want my life to take, I am both filled with questions and haunted by disappointments.

Let's look at my practice of the Craft as an illustrative example. Coming relatively late in life to Paganism, and witchcraft in particular, I absorbed everything I could and started formal training at the first opportunity. I discovered and developed skills, nurtured and delighted in particular talents, and for a while all was well. Somewhere along the way I began to feel that my beliefs and experiences were leading me in a different direction than where I had started and I planned to pursue training in a particular tradition that felt like the right way to get where I wanted to go. This, as it turned out, wasn't destined to be after all. And then, my practice lagging a bit more with every week that passed, I became a lapsed Wiccan. Which is a shame really, because I have tremendous potential to be a very good witch indeed. I suppose in my defense is the fact that being a solitary is, well, solitary, and not always easy without a great deal of discipline. Story of my life - but that's better left to be told as the story of my life and not my story as a witch

Before I even knew I was a witch, I had been an incredibly powerful broadcaster. I was capable of raising tremendous amounts of energy and drawing to me the things that I needed. Oddly, once I became aware of what it was that I had been doing all those years, I stopped being as effective with the application of the skill, as if my conscious awareness of it rendered it less powerful. Was I messing with my own success?

One of my earliest experiences with the magickal arts came when I learned to read tarot from a friend who was a professional reader, astrologer and author. Fed by interest my in symbology, which I'd developed during my art historical studies, I had an avid interest in tarot and quickly became an extremely intuitive and uncannily accurate reader. I read cards for my friends all the time and, after moving from San Francisco to Boston, considered hanging out a shingle and doing readings to supplement my freelance income. Did I do this? No. Silly woman. And to make matters worse, I lost my ability to read for a while when I took a tarot class with the intention of learning a different perspective on the cards. There is a reason why people say if it ain't broke don't fix it. I shouldn't have messed with a good thing.

In the course of my training in the Craft I discovered that I was a natural shaman. I hadn't thought I would enjoy our shamanic exercises, much less become very good at them. I had hoped to build my practice around these skills and even apply them in service to others. Yet once class was over, despite offering to undertake shamanic journeys for some friends of mine, I never had or created opportunities to hone my shamanic skills, and eventually I even stopped journeying for myself. Despicable laziness. So easy to create excuses and justifications. It's called practice for a reason!

I always wanted to be one of those witches who knew all of the magickal meanings for herbs and other things and could just whip up a potion or a charm from my abundantly stocked magickal cabinet. This desire went the way of becoming a jam-making fiend or a baker extraordinaire. Nigella Lawson I am not. Nor have I managed to become little Suzie Spellcaster. It wouldn't have been difficult. Books on the subject are plenty and readily available. I have friends who are good at these things that would certainly have given me pointers. I'm sure I could have found a class or two or more. I'm wont to quote here the immortal words of Nike (the sports company, not winged victory, alas). Just. Do. It. So why is that even though I am acutely aware of the effectiveness of this advice, I just can't?

These fits and starts I've experienced as a witch are indicative of the way I've seemed to move through other areas of my life. Career. Relationships. Two steps forward, one step back. Yikes, this time it's three! I feel like the Four of Pentacles, clutching on to the things that I have before they get away because at this stage in the game I can't afford to lose any of my hard-won pentacles. But how did I go from being the confident Nine to the paranoid Four? How did I squander such promise and so many opportunities? Or perhaps the better question is, why? How is it that I woke up to my forties filled with such ennui?

Some of these questions I may not be able to answer. If I get mired in the attempt I may be forever stuck. Instead, I think the way for me to deal with the situation is to make a short list of things to do and just do them. Really. Not big things but small, meaningful things, the accomplishing of which will make me feel better and may even start me on the path toward finding the sense of fulfillment that has been so illusive of late.

For example:

1. Plant some flowers and some herbs on my back deck. The last time I really felt like an effective witch was when I planted bulbs in the yard of my boyfriend's house in Connecticut. My dahlias are growing wonderfully, and the one by my fairy fountain has three buds on it. If I can do it once, I can do it again. And it's a much shorter trip to my back deck than to Connecticut.

2. Develop a recipe for magickal cupcakes. I love cupcakes. It's an odd and utterly inexplicable fascination with a childish pastry. I found the recipe for the famous Magnolia cupcakes and made a batch myself. They were the best cupcakes I've ever tasted. So, I'm going to treat myself to a Kitchen Aid mixer and I'm going to get mixing. Maybe I'll make Happy Cupcakes or Love Cupcakes or Hope Cupcakes. We'll see. But they will be good. They will be beautiful. And they will be effective.

3. Start writing again. I know, I've been writing this blog. But I mean Writing, with a capital W. I've been a writer my whole life. When I was a little girl I wrote books about fairies and bound and illustrated them myself. I was a prolific writer of short stories throughout college. The first question everyone asked me at the one and only high school reunion I attended was whether I had published a book yet. So, it's time to rediscover one of the truest parts of myself and take up the proverbial pen. Maybe I'll become the Candace Bushnell of the 40's set. Maybe I'll have a story published in The New Yorker. Whatever the ultimate outcome, the trick is to write every day. This is a piece of advice that many writers will share with you, and where I've been lacking in discipline as a witch I plan to be more dedicated as a writer.

4. Design and program my own blog. While I've become fairly proficient writing html and making small adjustments here and there to Blogickal's layout and design, I had someone else design and set up the original site itself. Granted, I am an excellent creative director and the end result was exactly what I wanted, representing my personality and the sensibility of my fun with witchcraft approach. But my blog software is outdated and so is my blog. It's time to make Blogickal the blog that I need now - a place for me to explore more than just magick. Doing this myself is turning out to be a bit of a big thing because figuring out Movable Type 4 is a bit like deciphering the Rosetta stone. But I am determined.

This is my short list. Four things.

Soon, I hope, you will see the fruits of my efforts. I hope that all of you who have so kindly read Blogickal over the past three years will find enough interest in its new direction to continue to do so. I'm forever amazed and flattered by your attention. And for those of you who recently told me I was missed, bless your hearts (okay, I sound like my grandmother now!).

Maybe some day I'll wake up and the ennui will be eradicated. Perhaps along the way I'll discover the kind of witch I'm meant to be. I can only hope. Cupcake anyone?

Posted by Angela-Eloise at 12:48 PM