Doubt and Confusion?

[SilverDragonLily]

umm...what is after Wicca 101:-/ I feel like I know the basics...but I also have some mixed feelings that I'm not sure I can express in words...
I think perhaps something is missing..and I don't know what. either that or I've been so preoccupied that I haven't had time to study other things and I;m loosing touch and why I became interested in Wicca:-/ of course, its not like I can go to my minister and get my faith strengthened...so I came to ask your advice!
I think I need to...strengthen my relationship and get to know the God and Goddess better. maybe that would improve my rituals because I have read that dedication means learning about the God and Goddess and initiation means getting to know them? and I also think maybe I need to keep a journal and relfect on what and why I belive in...so that if I come to this point again, I can read it and see how I felt. therefore...I would analyze what I learned and why I feel that I should stick to it.
please tell me what you think. I have been talking about this to my Christian friend...oddly he is supportive with me being Wiccan. I actually think he was reading Bible verses..lol but he gave me alot to think about!
does anyone else have any advice? thanks

[SlayerDrow]

Whoa! Deja vu here! I just posted a thread like this lol...I am going through almost the exact same thing, so I know how it feels! Sry no advice tho

[SilverDragonLily]

SD-its ok that you don't have any advice.
I had posted a similar message on another forum, and someone replied with an interesting concept.
The Dark Night of the Soul

"The Dark Night of the Soul" is the name given to that experience of
spiritual desolation that all students of the Occult pass through at
one time or another. It is sometimes characterized by feelings that
your occult studies or practices are not taken you anywhere, that
the initial success that one is sometimes granted after a few months
of occult working, has suddenly dried up. There comes a desire to
give up on everything, to abandon exercises and meditation, as
nothing seems to be working. St.John of the Cross. a christian mystic,
said of this experience, that it; "...puts the sensory spiritual
appetites to sleep, deadens them,
and deprives them of the ability to find pleasure in anything. It
binds the imagination, and impedes it from doing any good discursive
work. It makes the memory cease, the intellect become dark and unable
to understand anything, and hence it causes the will to become arid
and constrained, and all the faculties empty and useless. And over
this hangs a dense and burdensome cloud, which afflicts the soul, and
keeps it withdrawn from the good."

Though the beginner may view the onset of such an experience with
alarm (I know I did), the "Dark Night" is not something bad or
destructive. In one sense it may be seen as a trial, a test by
which the Gods examine our resolve to continue with occult work, and
if you are not completely whole-hearted about your magical studies,
it is during this period (at its beginning) that you will give up.
The Dark Night of the Soul should be welcomed, once recognized for
what it is (I have always received an innate "warning" just before
the onset of such a period), as a person might welcome an operation
that will secure health and well-being. St.John of the Cross
embraced the soul`s Dark Night as a Divine Appointment, calling it
a period of "sheer grace" and adding;

"O guiding Night,
O Night more lovely than Dawn,
O Night that has united the lover with his beloved
Transforming the Lover in her Beloved."
When entering the Dark Night one is overcome by a sense of spiritual
dryness and depression. The notion, in some quarters, that all such
experiences should be avoided, for a peaceful existence, shows up
the superficiality of so much of contemporary living. The Dark Night
is a way of bringing the Soul to stillness, so that deep psychic
transformation may take place. All distractions must be set aside,
and it is no good attempting to fight or channel the bursts of raw
energy that from time to time may course through your being. This
inner compulsion to set everything aside results in the outer
depression, when nothing seems to excite.

The only thing to do is obey your inner voice and become still,
waiting for the inner transformation, (which the "Dark Night" heralds)
, to take place. You may not be aware for a very long time of the
results of that inner change, but when the desire to work comes again
and the depression lifts, the Dark Night has (for a moment) passed.
No one can help during this time, and in many cases there is hardly
anyone to turn for advice. One must disregard the well-meaning advice
of family and friends to "snap out of it" this is no ordinary
depression, but a deep spiritual experience which only those who have
passed through themselves (in other words to a magical retreat) but
for many, as the routines of everyday life prohibits this, all you
can do is cultivate an inner solitude, a stillness and silence of
heart, and wait, (like a chrysalis waits for the inner changes that
will result in a butterfly) for the
Transformation to work itself out. There are many such "Dark Nights"
that the occult seeker must pass through during the mysterious
process of mitigation. They are all trials but experience teaches
one to cope more efficiently.
***
I also think that I am going on a spiritual journey...and that I will eventually pass through this phase and realize more about who I am, the God and Goddess...and what path I am meant to follow...
I hope it all works out, for both of us! Remeber not to fear the darkness...for it is only the light's twin:P
Good Luck! and Blessed Be