posted October 30, 2012 10:09 AM            

While I embrace all "religions" and have learned from many, I am quite "Pagan" at heart.

Not the traditional "witch" and not a Wiccan for sure, and I have been called both, but more of a natural "witch."

I was raised in the Christian church and would sit as a very young girl and toss around in my head, during sermon, why we worshipped a dead man on a cross...

Over the years I have found myself.

A dear friend, fellow nurse (who is Wiccan) told me one day, many, many years ago, "you are truely Pagan at heart...."

Years later a doc, a very, very Aqua doc (a 1962 brand of Aqua) told me "you ARE a witch, but a nautural witch..."

Am I alone in my quasi-Pagan belief system?

blessins all!!

posted October 30, 2012 10:41 PM            

I'd say I have a pagan orientation in that I accept multiple realities and possibilities even when it creates a paradox (at least seemingly so).

Also because I believe there's spirit in about everything, which, for example, means any transcendent divine force is one that is equally male & female as well as both & neither. As part of accepting multiple realities I can see good reasons for all-male and all-female religious circles, covens, and churches, neither offends me as long as they don't impose themselves on everyone else, though I think an ideal version is one that embraces both (as opposed to ascribing a specific, or at least preferred, gender to God/dess). But different strokes for different folks.

Back when I mixed with some political radicals I was equally comfortable with the more ("small-l") libertarian survivalists who tended to be very right wing (though I liked the ones best who thought only freedom was important and right or left was an irrelevant detail), anarchafeminists (who tended to lean strongly to the left), ecoanarchists, and plenty of others. I found them all interesting and while I never signed on fully with any of them I thought they all had things to say worth considering and I had a hard time understanding why they felt so threatened by each other when I found beneath their diversity was a desire for freedom (and if people are free then multiple visions need to be accepted). I realize trying to organize such freedom-loving people is like trying to herd cats but if they could focus more on what they have in common over what separates them then I think they could all finally become a force to be reckoned with.

And I also had no problem mixing with various subcultures, such as goths & ravers (and listening to both on how the other group was messed up). Then I could go back to Texas to visit the family and pass for a redneck and trade up my freestyle for Texas Two Step.

And speaking of which I shrugged off like how my cousin loves the Dixie flag as I know what it means to HIM rather than deciding everyone who waves it has a real problem. I understand the arguments on why it's bad, but if I were to accept that then I'd be hard pressed to think of a flag--especially the United States flag (as just one of countless examples, the US flag represents the Trail of Tears, one reason why the Cherokee joined the South in fighting the Civil War against the Union)--that I could accept, and have to judge everyone harshly who waved a flag. In any case, if I were to ever protest the Dixie flag for being a flag (as opposed to whoever happens to be waving it at the time) then I'd have to protest the American flag (which can represent imperialism and injustice as much as freedom and equal opportunity, the intent is in the one waving--or burning--the flag, not the flag itself) right along with it. But luckily it just doesn't bother me much, I know there are different aspects and meanings change and I look to what's embraced by the individual (which may be good and/or bad) instead.

And then returning from Texas I could blend back in with some Discordians in which we came from a widely divergent background with no problem whatsoever.

I've met both Christians and Satanists that I've gotten along with and even admired as individuals.

Likewise I've enjoyed the company of and philosophizing with eco-communalists who tend to "back to the land" philosophies who are cautious about accepting dependence on technology one day and then transhumanists seeking to cybernetically enhance their capabilities and possibly even become immortal (hey, they can dream) on another day.

But beyond that I see a spiritual layer to everything, not that we can fully understand it at this time (we're blind men and the elephant), and that also allows for multiple paths. One can develop spirituality through asceticism or sexual practices, by abstaining from intoxicants to using them, from meditation and retreat from the world to becoming an active force in the world itself (of course one can really mess up using any of these ways as well). And God/dess is in nature, but as we're part of nature that means we're sacred as well, and I see the attempt of some to persecute a certain gender, race, sexual orientation, and the like as attacking God/dess, and the goal should be harmony with nature, not the belief that all of nature is beneath us or all of us are beneath nature (both extremes come off as having the same fallacy to me in the belief that we humans are neither animals nor part of nature when we are).

And my belief that the spirit world is reflected in the natural world (and vice versa) is not only what makes magic possible to my way of thinking but also the reason for astrology. I have multiple levels of thinking on this (for example, the stars & planets represent the spiritual level which reflect the physical and thus astrology can tell us about ourselves and our lives, but also think that identifying heavenly objects imbues them with their effects meaning enough people associating Mars with, well, Mars imbues it with its Martian energy which in turn imbues us with that energy and thus why astrology works, though I'm open to the idea that we as a species don't name them so much as recognize them for what they are and subconsciously attribute the appropriate Jungian archetype to them).

And that's a pretty polytheistic & pagan way to be. And as an example of how I see multiple realities at work and experienced the goddess Freya but later wondered if She were somehow connected to Granny praying to Jesus see here:
http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum21/HTML/000401.html

posted November 01, 2012 01:46 AM            

I was rAised Catholic but my nan was a tribal wise woman witch. Sadly nan was not able to teach me her tradition, but I always felt drawn to her and the old ways in spite of that. I strongly disagreed w Catholicism from a young age. After reading of Joan of Arc and the inquisition, my heart died towards my old religion.

I began to study my craft and follow what comes naturally years ago. I strayed off my path for a bit, in order to deal w the old fears and guilt programmed into me by my old religion. Today I do attend mass at times w family and read the bible.

posted November 01, 2012 01:42 PM            

quote:

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Originally posted by PhoenixFire:
Thank you for starting this thread, I've often wondered the same... If there are any other pagans on this forum. Yes, I consider myself pagan in that nature is alive within me and all are connected. Divinity for me, is found within nature and the universe.

I was rAised Catholic but my nan was a tribal wise woman witch. Sadly nan was not able to teach me her tradition, but I always felt drawn to her and the old ways in spite of that. I strongly disagreed w Catholicism from a young age. After reading of Joan of Arc and the inquisition, my heart died towards my old religion.

I began to study my craft and follow what comes naturally years ago. I strayed off my path for a bit, in order to deal w the old fears and guilt programmed into me by my old religion. Today I do attend mass at times w family and read the bible.

I find some wisdom in the bible but do not take it literally. I continue walking my path and am still learning about myself. I've met wonderful friends in the pagan community, but am surprised that astrology doesn't seem to be well represented outside of ceremonial magick.

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Xactly!

My gosh how hard it must have been in a Catholic home with your heart pulling toward your nan...

In my experience Catholicism is the hardest to break away from. It is almost like it is part of one's DNA~