Tad Envious

written:  October 6th

Photo for the day:

 

I went with a photo to embody the “Inner Witch October Photo Challenge” for Day 3: Candles. A lovely photo of my Dream Wolf Altar. I definitely plan to do MORE with it, but for now? It’s very nice, the Wolf is happy, and my dreams have been very pleasant. So I would say it’s doing its job.
I am thinking of not doing some of the “Inner Witch October Photo Challenges”. Waning/Waxing moon? God? Meh. Not inspiring at all. ::chuckles:: Who knows? I’m mentally all over the place.

Sarah (my rock star aide) is chomping at the bit to learn more. She is talking about the fact that it was discussed she might become a supervisor floater (“floater” is our term for substitutes). If that’s true, I’m going to be hella pissed. Not that I don’t think she’d make a great supervisor floater – she really would. But that would take her away from my campus and I would much rather keep her as long as I can! Though it does seem pretty par for the course – I FINALLY get a good one, and they may end up taking her away from me. But no sense in worrying about that until I know it’s a real thing. For now, I’m just going to keep my fingers crossed and hope she at least stays this school year. After that, I can worry. ::chuckles:: No sense in stressing about it now.

So my three aides today – Sarah, Alexia, and Jess (Alaina had the day off, so she wasn’t there) got to talking about all the amazing things they do through their respective churches. That really caught me off guard. This is the first time that all of my aides are very active in their Christianity. And I’m over here, planning out pagan rituals. ::laughs:: I’m pretty sure Jess has a vague idea that I’m not a Christian. But the others are brand new to my campus, so I’m fairly sure they are completely in the dark on that regard. It’s amazing that they just assume I am a Christian because it’s the dominant religion in our area (and most of the US as well).

The whole situation also struck an envious chord with me – they can openly discuss their religion and it’s ok. They can wear shirts with logos from Churches or Christian universities – hell they HAVE well established Christian universities! With all the freedom they have, I know that the same liberties would not be afforded to me if I were to do any of the above with my Pagan religion.

I know a lot of people would say that I should speak up. I should be out about my religion. I should active combat the negative stereotypes and educate people about Paganism, so that Pagans all around me wouldn’t have to fear about being public about their beliefs. And I get that. I really do. But, I cannot afford to risk my employment and there’s a very real possibility that I could lose my job working with children. If the parents created a big enough stink about it, my bosses would use some other excuse (because I technically cannot be terminated based on religion) to fire me. I just can’t risk that right now.