Homework, Week 1

We had a make-up meeting of the study group Thursday night.  We went over most/ all these then, but I want to document my answers and possibly a little less flippant?  Because I'm actually really concerned about some of this and what it'll mean if I fail.

I was going to write all this up Thursday, but Luna decided that I'd been ignoring her far too much and wouldn't let me type or even concentrate.  I'm sure part of this is because I came home covered in dog saliva.  So I'm doing this a couple days later than planned, but writing it up all the same.

DP Through the Wheel of The Year, week 1, homework questions:

• Why have you chosen to take the first steps on the Dedicant Path?

Because I'm the biggest nerd ever.  Because I need to work through many of the questions/puzzles/whatever anyway, and if I do it as part of DP, I both get a guide AND, at the end, outside validation.  2013 was the worst year of a decade that already had very few bright spots.  So I'm also hoping that DP will help me find, if not my balance, at least my footing again.

• Is this a step on your path, or will this become the Path itself?

I have no idea.  ADF is the first organized group that I've not felt like an outsider or fool in investigating. Particularly since the Norse/ Viking end of paganism tends to be full of racist and/or homophobic asshats*, it is more than likely that this will be home for a while.

• What do you expect to learn?

Is it even possible for me to be zen?  To like myself.  To develop and maintain a decent meditation habit.

• What would you like to get out of this journey?

Re-strengthened faith in the basic goodness of humanity.  A rudimentary understanding of the relationship between gods/ deities and humanity and myself.  I feel that I'm missing something.  

• Do you know where this path will take you?

Nope.  And I'm trying to be okay with not being in control.

• If you have just joined ADF, why have you chosen to work on this immediately?

If I do it now, I'll have a study group to work with.  Which is a really superficial reason, but I'm afraid that if I do this at my pace and on my own, it'll just slide to the wayside.

• Does it look hard or easy?
• Which requirements appear to be difficult to you now, and which appear to be easy?

Answering these two together. 

I'm not concerned at all about the readings or writing requirements.  

The daily devotion/ meditation will be difficult.  I have to lifehack myself to remember to take my medication every day.  I'm not sure how to lifehack 'sit down, put the phone and knitting away, and be at peace'.  How do I write an "essay describing the Dedicants understanding of and relationship to ... the Gods." when I've spent my entire life without such a relationship?  By the time I was reading well enough to be reading the Bible, I was feeling the... lack of presence (I guess?).

• Do you have doubts, questions, or concerns that you need to ask about?

How do you even begin to look to find a patron spirit/ deity?  Seriously.  Everyone I know who has that sort of special connection was called.  I have no idea.

*I know not every heathen, norse, arastu, whatever group is white supremacist.  but the vocal (and thus findable) groups online are. And I have neither the time nor the stomach to sort through the hundreds of awful sites and posts for the good groups.