Temporary Hiatus

Due to a great many things, I'm putting this blog on a temporary hiatus. I want to be able to dedicate myself completely to the green thing and right now, I don't feel confident that I can do that. Once I get my apartment back to myself again, I'll be able to study and grow in the direction I want to the most.

See you then!

God and Gaia

I don't worship a deity. Paganism for me is a deep respect and a close relationship with the earth. I believe in the exchange of energies, the turning of the wheel, the balance and equality of everything. I do believe in spirits and the fae, but more with the understanding that they are forces of energy. Everything, for me, comes back to energy. We are energy even physically. It's like Mufasa said: when we die, we become the grass, and animals eat the grass, and we eat the animals (or the grass). The wheel turns (or the circle of life, or whatever).

A lot of people have a difficult time grasping the idea that I don't believe in god or any deity in general. Many pagans even seem baffled by the thought—no pantheon, no God and Goddess. I say that I can appreciate the idea of a a god and goddess figure, but not as a cognitive being. I can use the idea of them, the idea of duality, of water and fire, earth and air, light and dark, male and female. On my altar, I have two statues, one male and one female, and above the altar I actually have plaques representative of the Lady and the Lord of the Greenwood. I have a bowl of salt and a bowl of water. But I am particularly fond of things that display threes, or things that come in threes, for instance I have three candle holders on my altar. They represent the duality and the whole; the in-between, the neither male nor female, yet both. Even better are symbols that display things that are different, but as a whole. The pentacle is a perfect example of this, because it not only combines the physical elements but also the element of spirit (or energy), all in one neat and tidy symbol. My favorite though is the trisquette, which represents the three realms; earth, sea and air. They are all separate, but connect in the middle, because they are one.

I have never liked the idea of a god(dess) presiding over us, planning our lives for us, basically running things. It feels, more often than not, like a scapegoat. Crops don't grow? It's because of god. Didn't win the lottery? It's because of god. People blame god for things that, even if there is a god, no deity would be in control of. There are fair-weather worshipers just as there are Christmas-Easter Christians (as my Mom would have called them). Even when I was Christian (raised Methodist) I believed more in the idea that the earth was the sentient being and that it provided for us as we provided for it. I hated church, much preferring talking to God in the sanctity of my back yard, or the woods, or the meadow.

It was easy for me, after my mom gave me the book on shamanism, to relate to the ideals it presented. Even from a young age, I had a respect for the planet, and I talked to trees and animals. My mom instilled in me the idea that everything had feelings and everything was alive. When I plucked a leaf from a tree, she said, “How would you feel if a tree pulled out a piece of your hair?” I learned to ask the trees before taking from them. I learned how to pick flowers, so that the rooted plant wouldn't die, and I always said thank you.

On Holidays

Yule marks the beginning of the year for many pagans. It's when we celebrate the return of the sun, the turning of the wheel, the start of a new cycle. Symbolically the god is the Holly King, the child of the great mother, young and fresh to the world. As the days grow longer, the god symbol ages and and on the next holy day, Imbloc, he is represented as a toddler. I've always been interested in the myth behind the goddess and her consort. They are not actual deities to me but actually representations of the earth and the sun and the moon, and nature all around us, symbols to help us appreciate and recognize the changes that are going on around us. Not that I don't notice the seasonal changes, but even though I don't worship a god, I still hold onto the story. If I had kids, I'd tell them the story.

I mentioned Yule, and the rebirth of the god, representative of the sun. Imbloc, in February, the goddess is recovering from birth and the god is, as I said, a toddler. The sun is still making its comeback. I have written on my page for Imbloc to “burn yule greens” which is supposed to be kind of a final farewell to the winter, but I don't use any live plants in my house due to allergies, cats and an aversion to killing an entire tree for my entertainment. Also, I like to leave the lights on the tree, so we have a little 3' white tree that came pre-lit, with some earthy decorations (which are pretty easy to find lately).

After Imbloc is Ostara, which we celebrate with baskets of candy and little gifts. I usually want to dye eggs but never get around to it for one reason or another (mostly because I don't like eggs). Ostara is a celebration of reproduction, so common themes are eggs and bunnies. It takes place in March and usually coincides easily with the Christian Easter, so it's easy to find goodies for baskets (not to mention... baskets). However, this is not when the god and goddess mate. Beltane, in May, is when the sacred union between them is celebrated. It is also a fertility festival.

I haven't really seen any story to go with Litha, so I guess the goddess and the god are just enjoying the peak of the summer like the rest of us. On my Litha page, I've written that it's a good time to pick herbs and contact faeries.

Then come the harvests. The first is Lughnassadh, where symbolically the god impregnates the goddess, giving himself to the earth so that the crops can be harvested. On my Lughnassadh page I call it the “Feast of Bread”. Next is Mabon, also called Harvest Home or Thanksgiving, though this occurs in September. It is the wine harvest. In October we have Samhain, the last harvest celebration, where the god enters the summerland and we honor the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. For me this is not really a time for a feast so much as feeding the dead; we'd put a setting of bread, salt and beer out for the spirits and bury a pomegranate outside.

This year for Yule, I covered pine cones in peanut butter and bird seed, then a friend and I hung them on trees outside for the birds. There was a total lunar eclipse early that morning, but I was too tired to see the whole thing. We exchanged gifts and I made a brunch for several friends, using a recipe for apple scones I'd found on a website with recipes for Yule, but they were pretty bland. No Yule fire, no wassailing, no popcorn and fruit strings. I wanted to do more than we did, but at the last minute we ran out of money (bills... I hate them) and I had to make do. Though I'm still learning, and sometimes I get out of touch, there are moments where I really feel the connection I have with the earth and all of the energy around me. Even though this is more of a way of life than a religion for me, I know I am walking the right path and it makes me feel good to be a part of such an intense, amazing whole.

Sorry about the rambly first post, I promise they'll get better.

I Ramble an Introduction

It isn't hard to find books on how to become a witch. The first book I bought on the subject is called Wicca: The Complete Craft by DJ Conway. It is very easy to read and follow, and is full of so much information about every little nook and cranny in the religion and practice of Wicca. I was fifteen or sixteen when I bought this book. It opened up a whole new world for me.

Well, that probably isn't true. I was raised Methodist (Christian), but once I was too old for Sunday School, we just kind of stopped going. It was never a heavy theme at home, but we did celebrate Christmas and Easter. I knew who Jesus was and I respected him both as a man, and as the purported son of God. I knew bible stories and lore, and I even read the entire bible when I was still very young (though honestly, I can't say I understood very much of it). I had the normal, unwavering faith in Jesus and God that anyone can expect of a young child raised to be a Christian. Even when church was not a part of my life anymore, I still said my prayers ("Now I lay me, down to sleep...") every night with my mom and my sister. I believed in God the same way I believed in the monster that lived under my bed. I never had to see it to know it was there. Heaven was the place the cat went to after being sick.

My belief in the tooth fairy outlasted Santa and the Easter bunny mostly because my sister actually saw the tooth fairy when we were kids (apparently, the tooth fairy was blue). I never saw any correlation between Santa, Easter and Christianity. I knew that Christmas was supposed to be like a birthday party, and that was why we got gifts. But Easter never really made sense to me. I remember one year, when I was in high school, my mom prompted me, "Jesus is…" I had no idea what she was talking about. She wanted me to say "Jesus is the reason for the season," and apparently I had at some point known this response, but I still to this day can't remember ever hearing it before then.

When I was twelve or thirteen, my mom gave me an old book she had about Shamanism. I ate it up. I was always into nature, and I "totally got" that there was living spirit in everything around us, even rocks. Mainly what I took away from that book was the method of meditation. I would often sit outside with my back against a thick tree trunk and practice meditation. I learned that there were other ways of connecting with the world around me.

I didn't drop Christianity all at once. Since we were not churchgoers, I firmly believed that I didn't have to be in a church to talk to God or even to worship. I felt more at home outside with nature than I did in a church (and, as I grew older, I started to grow even more uncomfortable with churches). My book on Shamanism and a healthy interest in astrology opened the door for me. I can't say there was a "moment" where I decided I wasn't Christian. I just grew out of it, the same way I grew out of Santa and the monster under the bed. It felt less and less "right," and I moved away from it.

In a lot of pagan books, there is an underlying theme of Christian hate. Some of it is based on information which may or not be true, but is usually blown far out of proportion. Yes, there were burning times. Yes, there were the Crusades. And yes, a great many Christian folk still do bad things to our people in the name of God. But not all Christians are like this, nor is Christianity necessarily a bad religion. I chose to be a pagan not because I hated Christians or the Christian religion, but because it is my path—a path I found while looking for my own version of the truth. But that's another story.

You will not hear me unjustly bad-mouthing any other religion. I'm just here to learn (with an open heart and an open mind), and hopefully you'll learn with me.

I'm older now, and I still have the DJ Conway book. It has some post-its sticking out of some pages, and the cover is a little frayed on the corners, but it still has a place on my shelf. I haven't read many books on the subject of wicca (I do not consider myself to be "wiccan") but a lot of the information in those pages is worth keeping around. I still have the Shamanism book, too. And a great many other books.

The idea I have for this blog is to learn, and to record my learning. I'll be using the Internet, along with books, and hopefully every once in awhile, I'll have someone to talk to in person about paganism. Though I've been studying it for a long time and I do consider myself a pagan, I have not officially "dedicated" or "initiated" myself and I have never worked with (or actually been around) other pagans or witches. I interact with nature on a daily basis even though I live in an urban area. My goal is to become a practicing pagan, to celebrate the sabbats, to get to know my religion and my practice inside and out. I hope you'll stick with me, and maybe even help me out in this. The blog will have some more structure after this post, I promise!

with love -- greenwhiskers