Welcome to the second installment of the Raven’s Mantle. First, I want to say I appreciate follows and the likes on the first post. It is my hope that I will be able to routinely deliver content that is useful, or at least entertaining. I might be a bit erratic for a bit with my posts until I settle down into a routine, but that’s how I am.

What’s on my mind today? First, that I ate too many cookies (I only had two, but that’s a lot for me), and second, the usefulness of a fitness tracker. Now what does that have to do with the main theme of this site, which is paganism and spirituality? Well, there is a definite tie between physical health, mental health, emotional health, and spiritual health. Over the last several years I’ve had some health challenges, and I am trying to get my game back, if you will. During this time there was a dramatic downturn in the “level” of my spirituality as well. Most of the time I just didn’t have the energy to engage in any practices, so much of what I was doing disappeared. I had a regular meditation practice, was fairly active physically, and was in routine practice with divination and seeing. But that has fallen away and now I am struggling to get back to it. My physical health has been a major part of my spiritual atrophy, hence the fitness tracker.

Yesterday I bought a Garmin. No, I do not get any kickbacks for mentioning it. I am just telling you in case you were wondering. I am intrigued by the amount of data it can track, and look forward to seeing what my trends are over time. So far I am not surprised by what it is telling me. Aside from tracking my health stats, I decided to spring for it now because I want to register for some virtual events and need a way to track my progress. Today I registered for a virtual 5k. This is my first, and I plan on completing it this weekend with my husband. That virtual events like this even existed hadn’t crossed my mind until I saw a post about them. Then, of course, Facebook had a bunch of ads relating to virtual races, so I chose one and registered. As much as I have wanted to get back to my prior physical fitness levels I just couldn’t find consistent motivation to do it. I guess I am one of those people that needs a carrot to follow, especially when I am resistant to the task. I’ll let you know how it goes.

On another note, I am knee-deep in graduate classes, studying health and human performance. Interestingly, this term the focus of one of the classes is personal development, which entails all aspects of developing the self. Just one more avenue for me to redevelop myself. I have always found academic study to be beneficial to my growth, and have a small library in my home because of it. Yes, I have a ton of books that I have yet to read, but that’s part of the fun, isn’t it? As I finish some books I’ll like do a short review here, if anyone is interested.

If there is a particular topic you’d like me to discuss just drop me a line or leave a comment, I’ll see what I can do. Stay healthy everyone!