Slate

New relationships are weird.

Recently I've started meeting with a group of other Pagans to do worships and rituals that are common between us all.  A few of the people in the group are people who I've known and have been close to for several years and some are new friends and there's potential for others to join who I have no real connection to whatsoever.

Having that contrast between good friends who I have no trouble talking to and who I love and respect and being around and sharing these deeply personal beliefs with people I barely know has been a little eyeopening.  I don't know these new people and, on a personal level, I have a difficult time trusting people and getting new relationships of any kind off the ground.

There's a sort of awkward toddling that's happening in our group, where we're comfortable talking about spirituality and beliefs but it's clear that we aren't close enough to share everything.  It's clear that connection on a personal level is both difficult to achieve and necessary to have.

During our rituals, we plan on having someone different lead a ceremony each week, focusing on things that that person needs from the group and needs from the Goddess/the Earth/the Universe (whatever each of us believes).  There's a good chance that this will help us learn about and relate to one another but it's not guaranteed.  It's been inspiring a lot of thought within me about the dynamics of young relationships.

Parallel to this, I have personally started a new romantic relationship with a couple.  My past relationships have been pretty consistently evolved from friendship.  There has been a theme of established foundation of friendship before anything romantic happens and that is absolutely not what has been happening here.

This couple and I, from the beginning, have had the expectation of a romantic relationship from the beginning.  We weren't friends (comparatively to other people I've dated) and we didn't know each other before we started this relationship.

Despite this, I feel connected and trusting of these new people.  We don't have a lot of foundation when it comes to knowledge on each other's pasts or likes and dislikes or hobbies or anything, but there's still that spark that I believe is required for each new relationship.

This exists also in the Pagan group I've become involved with and the disparity is uncanny.

Learning to trust, learning to connect, learning to take a plunge into new relationships, new beginnings, is a skill I have not yet honed.  I haven't had a lot of opportunity to and it's both exciting and terrifying that it is happening on such an extreme scale now.  Not only am I faced with newness in my romantic relationships, but also in my spiritual ones.  Being closed in on both sides by the unknown is incredible and frightening and nerve wracking and so, so good.

Getting the chance to start so new is amazing and I'm so grateful of the Goddess for giving me these opportunities, no matter how nervous it makes me.  It's such a wonderful gift that I would like to believe has been a long time coming for me.  It's a necessary gift, something like a test, and I am fucking raring to go.

- Dorian