Pagan Attitude and Responsibility
by walks alone

I am responsible for my actions: This includes what I say and do, how I treat people and animals and plants and property. The world influences me, but ultimately I choose my actions.

I am responsible for my attitudes: This includes my feelings, prejudices and outlooks about a specific situation and about life in general. The world influences me, but ultimately I choose my attitudes.

I am responsible for my choices: This includes what I do when no one is around to judge me. This includes my reactions to others. This includes every decision, every day. The world influences me, but ultimately it is my choice.

I composed the above in my third year of studying Wicca and practicing my personal interpretation of it. Enthusiastic, devoted and idealistic, I vowed to follow my creed to the letter. The Universe stepped right in and gave me plenty of opportunities to practice. I found it infinitely demanding to be self-aware at every moment, constantly evaluating my emotional state, motivations and reactions. It was a relatively simple matter to sweetly and gently remind a friend in turmoil to think things through and to act from a place of love; after all, I often had a somewhat lesser emotional investment in someone else's tragedy or conflict. The challenge presented to me was to take my own advice and apply it when immersed in a heated moment. Fortunately, I have found with practice, it has become easier to think before acting so that I may act responsibly and as productively as possible. My mother's admonition succinctly summarizes the responsibility of which I wrote in my creed: If you must choose between being right and being kind, choose kindness.

The path toward personal responsibility and self-knowledge has been long and challenging, and I regularly find new facets of myself to examine and polish. I understand now there is no end to the journey, and just as I am always growing and changing, so are my responses and processes.

Every day we are presented with an opportunity to affect and change the world on whatever scale we operate. We are accountable for what we emanate into our environment, whatever that environment may be. Whether at school, the workplace, home, grocery store, post office or gas station, we come in contact with a multitude of people. Our emotional state flows from us in waves that wash over everything and everyone around us, and continue out into perpetuity like ripples in a shore-less pond. The effects of our emissions are likewise boundless. When we choose to see events in a negative light, we create the negative waves that in turn create more negative events for us to grumble about. We can easily become victims of our own creations. We taint those around us with our pessimism and so the destructive chain continues. Even if we refuse to accept responsibility for our emotional output, the Universe still holds us accountable. We, as magickal and spiritual people, have a responsibility and a duty to create positively.

When we joke with the cashier and compliment our office mate and praise our children, we share the infinite joy that is the gift of the Universe. When we live in a state of conscious gratitude, enjoying the abundance that surrounds us, there remains little time or energy for sulking about what we do not have.

Almost every day, I blow bubbles with my daughter. She gleefully chases them around the yard, and we watch the colors swirl and shift as they float and whirl away through the neighborhood. I see the power-walking pair of ladies come upon our cloud of bubbles, and see the wonder and surprise on their faces as they search out the source of the miraculous little gift that appears, well, like magic. I am grateful to have the time to spend with my daughter, to have eyes to see the wonder on her face, and the breath to create that wonder.

Taking time to enjoy the small things in life generates joy. Being aware of our environment is vital to this process. Take a moment to feel the fluffy weeds that grow along the fence instead of resenting their presence as a chore to be tackled. Foggy mornings offer us the opportunity to experience tiny particles of moisture caressing our faces and, hopefully, the whole of our naked bodies. Fog on nude skin feels like barely perceptible fairy kisses. And so do bubbles, in case you were wondering. Take notice of the rings of light and shadow that are created by the parking lot lights. We can bathe in the sunlight or the starlight that accompanies us to work. The steam wafting up from our morning coffee and our evening tea is a vision waiting to happen. As we become aware of our environment on a micro- scale, we become more and more sensitive to the people around us, and better able to heal and to help. The more we revel in the tiny details of our world, the bigger our window of perception becomes.

There is no difference between our physical life, our spiritual life or our magickal life. It is all the same life, and when we truly live as a spiritual being, every moment is a miracle and an opportunity to send out love and joy. The bliss we emit into the atmosphere when we relish a delicious meal is just as productive as giving chicken soup to our ill sister or mowing the elderly neighbor's lawn. The energy is the same. For those of us who have magickal knowledge and experience, we have a doubled responsibility to live in the awareness of the connectivity of all things. We must ask ourselves with every choice, every action, every response, "Am I creating positively?"

Developing empathy is crucial to shaping a positive attitude. If, on our date-night restaurant outing, our meal is taking forever to be delivered, we can imagine what our server may be feeling. Is this his first week on the job? Is the bistro busier than usual? Is the cook slower than usual? Did the other waiter call in sick, leaving our waitress with a doubled load of tables? Did her husband lose his job today? Is our server missing his daughter's birthday party? A smile and an understanding word to a harried worker may be enough to ease the stress inherent in that one person's occupation and help them to have a better day. (Have I ever been a waitress? You betcha! Please be kind to food service workers.)

We can choose to focus on our own frustration and impatience and irritation, thereby amplifying those emotions and transmitting them to and through the other people in the restaurant, possibly contaminating and aggravating many others. Alternately, we can choose to enjoy the extra minutes afforded us to enjoy our glass of wine and our companion's conversation, emanating pleasurable relaxation. We can take a bit of pressure off our busy waiter, thereby allowing her or him to give better, more effective service to all his or her guests. This strategy applies to any situation in which we are forced to wait: in line at the grocery store, the doctor's office, the bank. We must be there, so we can make it as enjoyable as possible. If we can share a moment of humor and sympathy with just one person, we have accomplished something wonderful. Doing it on purpose feels sublime.

When we are asked to perform a healing or cast a spell for abundance or help a friend or client in any way, we put all of our skill to use because we feel the depth and breadth of our responsibility. We reflect on all aspects of the issue, and take into consideration all approaches that will be effective for a solution. We harvest the right herbs, select the appropriate stones and prepare the candles, incense, and the myriad of other accoutrements we deem useful and meaningful. Our tools are placed just so, our correlations cross- referenced, our symbols carefully chosen. We cleanse and consecrate and meditate and pray and carry out our rituals. Our magic places us in a sacred place where intention is pure and we are focused on the best possible outcome. We approach Spirit and Divinity with the noblest of intentions. After the spell is complete, we hang up our cloak, snuff the candles, put the tools away and resume "normal life."

We can live every moment in a state of purposeful creation! Every interaction with every human we encounter can transform into an opportunity to spread our fairy dust and the joy inherent in magick. It need not cease with the closing of the formal circle. When we give the same amount of reflection, consideration and understanding to our every-day interactions with family, friends and strangers, our every thought becomes the ritual. Instead of casting a spell, we become the spell. We are the magick.

The innate challenge in being the magick as opposed to doing the magick is large. We must retrain ourselves to evaluate our emotions and their origins. It is easy to become angry and lash out at the person who has hurt our feelings with words of criticism. It is more difficult to take a moment to acknowledge the hurt and consider where the person's motivation behind the harsh words lies. I ask myself a litany of questions:
Why am I hurt by these words?
Is there any truth (however small) in them that I don't want to see?
How have I contributed to the conflict?
What is the basis for so-and-so's observation?
How did he or she come to this particular conclusion?
Is it a valid evaluation?
Is he or she in a position to judge my actions/work/choices?
Should I concern myself with his or her opinion?
Is there a deeper issue at the root of the discord?
Is this a symptom of other, unrelated problems in his or her life?
Is this person trying to hurt me intentionally?

The answer to the last question, 98% of the time, is "No". Very few people wake up and say, "I think I'll try to hurt (insert name) today." Have you ever thought to yourself, "I'm going to really mess with (my sister/the store clerk/my coworker) just to see if I can ruin her day?" Probably…hopefully…not. Seeking out the motivations for another's criticism does not feel as immediately gratifying as telling him or her to shove it in a moment of hurt. We often want to defend our position so as to uphold the picture we create of our world and ourselves. However, with honest communication we can create positively instead of adding to the whirl of negativity.

Take the following example into consideration:
I had made plans with my sister to carpool on a shopping outing. When discussing what time to meet, she said she needed to run a few errands. I thought that was perfect, as I needed to eat lunch and shower. It took me 45 minutes to complete these tasks, and I waited another hour and a half with growing anger and impatience for her to show up. She is chronically late, a fact she openly acknowledges, and I decided enough was enough. I grumbled furiously about the inconsiderate actions of this relative, how far behind my schedule her thoughtlessness placed me, and on and on until I had myself worked up into quite a tizzy. Thankfully, that extra time also afforded me the time to cool down and to think about the situation. When my sister finally arrived, I asked her what time frame she inferred from "lunch and shower;" how much time did she take for these events? Her answer surprised me: "About two hours." We obviously had two differing ideas of how much time lunch and showering takes!

I explained that I felt very irritated by my perception of her behavior as thoughtless. I wanted to acknowledge my anger and communicate the seriousness with which I viewed the situation. I suggested we decide upon specific times to avoid such misunderstandings in the future. Had I snapped at my sister, her hurt feelings and the resulting rift between us could have damaged a loving, open relationship. Instead, we gained a better understanding of each other. It left me feeling good about the situation; a much more lasting satisfaction than jumping her case might have temporarily brought me.

Halting an unnecessarily destructive reaction before it begins is a grand accomplishment. The personal dedication required to turn the other cheek, ignore groundless accusations or disengage from a hurtful and useless argument is worthy of the highest praise. Though we have the duty to head off negativity when we can, the flip side of this responsibility is the privilege of creating joyfully for the benefit of all.

We must be ever alert for a chance to generate happiness by means of our own actions. Small things, such as opening a door for another or saying "thank you" for a door being held, make a large contribution to the positive energy in the world. As each person we touch feels a bit better and in turn passes that good feeling on, the ripples expand in every direction. We can practice being aware of others, searching out the people we can be kind to.

As Pagans, we have an awareness of the connectivity of all life. We can purposefully set out each day to create joy and happiness and peace. If we maintain a positive attitude and focus on generating love, we can make the world a better place – one person at a time. This ability is not limited to the ritual circle or the formal casting; it exists in every exchange with every person we meet every day. Be the magick!