Calling all pagans...

[pillars]

and i am the opposite ....i dont care to witness ...as a pagan i resent anyone who witnesses ....just another yoke of religions....i would bitch slap most wiccans with no remorse....sisterhood my ass....when the do so much to dirty the name of witch craft....you bitches really try to ban crones on halloween what the fuck? you do know the mostnoted goddess was a crone and a witch....hecrate but they just go on and on like they got a fucking clue....

i will discuss issues in pms when i feel comfie with the other person but like all things spiritual its a private thing for me....

and this good witch shit...who the fuck wants to be a good witch?

So does this thread seem like witnessing? I hope not.

 

[Gracie]

It doesn't to me, Pillars. I love it. You lit a candle for those who go different ways besides the usual that is being said here.

 

[Derideo_Te]

I am pretty deeply in the closet about my beliefs, and have really only started talking about them to my son, because he asked a lot of questions and I thought he was old enough for me to talk to him like an adult. But, I have no intention of talking about my beliefs at work or really anywhere else in real life, people are too scared of what they don't understand.

But since I have been more open with him, it has kind of made me want to talk about it with other people who have been on a similar journey...not to witness, but just because it is sometimes strange to be so different from the norm. My daughter doesn't know. I could never talk about this stuff with my parents, either.

I grew up in a fundy family, when I was in college, I was very drawn to catholicism, and actually had an altar to Mary in my dorm room my senior year. I have no idea why, it just seemed right. I think even in that time in my life, I was deeply drawn to the idea of a female god. About 20 years ago, I ended up researching Wicca for my job, and actually met with people from the pagan community. I was very drawn to their beliefs, and had a little shrine in a hidden corner of our yard where I often meditated and prayed. I could never have talked about this stuff with my ex-husband, though, he'd have lost his goddamn mind. Once we were divorced, I was actually almost an atheist for a long time, but in the last 4-5 years have started being more open to spirituality, but my strongest attraction is to earth religions, and I guess it really has been for a long damn time.

I'm curious about how other people felt called to this path, and what books/philosophies/writing/experiences have influenced your views.

I am of the opinion that almost all religions started out as "earth spirits" for want of a better term. I can imagine a scenario that goes something like this;

Scene 1: Smoke filled cave with a mixed group of stone age people surrounding their dying leader. He dies and they look around to see who will assume the leadership role. There are two contenders. One is a hulking brute who is the best hunter in the tribe and the other is smaller but smarter and it was he who managed to figure out how to use fire to cook their meat. The traditional way of choosing the next leader is to fight and the brute pounds the smart guy into the dirt and assumes the role of leader.

Scene 2: Coming on for dusk and the smart guy is leaning against the cave entrance recovering from his beating. Thunder starts rumbling and the cave people all move towards the entrance. Just as the new leader pushes his way to the front there is a bolt of lightning that strikes a tree right outside the cave turning it into a flaming pyre. Everyone is frightened by this event except for the smart guy who sees the opportunity it presents. Immediately he points his finger at the brute and blames him for making the "fire gods" angry for beating him up. He demands that the brute apologize and treat him with respect and dignity since he speaks for the "fire gods".

And thus was born the unholy alliance between church and state. Those with the most physical power become the rulers while those with the brains become the powers behind the throne.

Yes, that it purely imaginary on my part but like the people of the stone age we make up stories to explain things we don't understand.

 

[strollingbones]

Puyallup schools ban Halloween festivities

i dont think i have ever confused christians with pagans......but there is debate on who ask for what....wiccans just annoy the fuck outta me....its like a sorority and they are more than guilty of trying to convert...to me that is not pagan and certainly not witchie at all....my gift....spirituality with animals....i have a sense with them...when grown ass men were too afraid to try to rescue a horse trapped in traffic.....i took my dogs leash and haltered him....covered his eyes with a spare shirt and brought him outta traffic.....i have done that with rotties and other trapped things....birds seem to really like me...i have held many hummingbirds...when my friends have hummingbird issues...normally a hummer trapped they call me..

btw i am not hostile to the thread.....at all....just like to call bullshit on what is bullshit

wiccans dont respect the power it takes.... and they do not seem to respect men....kinda a backlash i guess but still wrong

 

[Derideo_Te]

Puyallup schools ban Halloween festivities

i dont think i have ever confused christians with pagans......but there is debate on who ask for what....wiccans just annoy the fuck outta me....its like a sorority and they are more than guilty of trying to convert...to me that is not pagan and certainly not witchie at all....my gift....spirituality with animals....i have a sense with them...when grown ass men were too afraid to try to rescue a horse trapped in traffic.....i took my dogs leash and haltered him....covered his eyes with a spare shirt and brought him outta traffic.....i have done that with rotties and other trapped things....birds seem to really like me...i have held many hummingbirds...when my friends have hummingbird issues...normally a hummer trapped they call me..

btw i am not hostile to the thread.....at all....just like to call bullshit on what is bullshit

wiccans dont respect the power it takes.... and they do not seem to respect men....kinda a backlash i guess but still wrong

Great power to have, Bones.

I seem to have a calming effect on small infants. They can be crying in their mother's arms and then I take them and put them against my shoulder and with some gently rubbing on their backs they calm right down and stop crying, some even go off to sleep.

I have no idea where this comes from but I know it works and I saw that my father had a similar effect so perhaps it is genetic.

 

[September]

What is the pagan community like? What does it mean to be a pagan? And what benefits do you think come from holding pagan beliefs?

What is the Pagan community like?

Depends... the thing with Pagans is that we can be so radically different from one another that it would be complete and foolish nonsense to consider us all united in any sense of the word, no matter how "alike" we may seem to be.

What does it mean to be a Pagan?

"Pagan" is a broad term that describes many people- past and present- who aside from some common similarities are often extremely different from one another. It would seem most Pagans honor and respect various aspects of nature to a greater extent than most, are fascinated with the earth and the cosmos and resonate with them on some kind of profound spiritual level, incorporate the seasons and the "Sabbats" into our traditions, possess a grand fascination towards religion, mythology, and/ or spirituality.. and often develop or adopt a spiritual/ religious system that reflects and embraces all of the above mentioned things.

Pagans also have a tendency to seek answers that can only be found in the shadows, or in the long forgotten past... and most will never find them. Still, the journey itself can be an adventure and may become just as rewarding as the impossible task of acquiring all the answers we seek.

What benefits come from holding Pagan beliefs?

Depends on the Pagan. For me? You can believe what you want. Do what you Will. Study and learn from any religion you Will. Align yourself with "good" or "evil" or both or neither whenever you Will. Align yourself with any god or gods or pantheon of your choosing or making. You can be monotheistic, polytheistic, monolotristic, henotheistic, atheistic, etc... anything.

Experience the Earth and Nature with more open eyes. Experience the Sabbats in all their glory. Create your own rituals, symbols, traditions, and culture or embrace whatever suits you. Go RHP or LHP whenever you Will. Embrace chaos or order or both or neither. Embrace love and peace or hate and violence or all of these things or none of these things. Embrace creation or destruction or both or neither. Embrace Night or Day or both or neither.

Experience a very free and highly customized Weltanschauung that can help you live however you Will and become whoever you Will.

​

 

[pillars]

Puyallup schools ban Halloween festivities

i dont think i have ever confused christians with pagans......but there is debate on who ask for what....wiccans just annoy the fuck outta me....its like a sorority and they are more than guilty of trying to convert...to me that is not pagan and certainly not witchie at all....my gift....spirituality with animals....i have a sense with them...when grown ass men were too afraid to try to rescue a horse trapped in traffic.....i took my dogs leash and haltered him....covered his eyes with a spare shirt and brought him outta traffic.....i have done that with rotties and other trapped things....birds seem to really like me...i have held many hummingbirds...when my friends have hummingbird issues...normally a hummer trapped they call me..

btw i am not hostile to the thread.....at all....just like to call bullshit on what is bullshit

wiccans dont respect the power it takes.... and they do not seem to respect men....kinda a backlash i guess but still wrong

I don't consider myself Wiccan, though there are things I have learned from them. Too many approach it as if they are reading from a cookbook without exploring their own experiences and gifts. I think my gift is in seeing who people can be, their potential on multiple levels, that is not readily apparent on the surface and in inspiring them to reach that higher self.

 

[Treeshepherd]

"Earth my body
Water my blood
Air my breath
and fire my spirit"

 

[Derideo_Te]

"Earth my body
Water my blood
Air my breath
and fire my spirit"

Yes indeed, because we are made of the basic elements of the Universe.

Neil deGrasse Tyson > Quotes > Quotable Quote

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”

― Neil deGrasse Tyson

 

[Treeshepherd]

Technology is transforming my mind. Certain centers of my brain are growing while others are shrinking. But I like to think that there's still a roadless wilderness area somewhere in my brain, undeveloped, full of unassigned stem cells… I’m speaking figuratively.

In Derideo's cave story, it is the intelligent guy who becomes the power behind the scenes. In my version, intuition would rule. Ancient hunters had an intuitive sense of when and where the elk would pass by, rather than a rational hypothesis. And besides intuition, they could smell and otherwise sense things that would elude us.

I was reading Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason last night. At one point he seems to lament the supplanting of gaian intuition in the age of pure reason. Something has been lost. He quotes the Roman poet Ovid's story where the Queen of Troy is utterly vanquished;

“Modo maxima rerum, Tot generis, natisque potens… Nunc trahor exul, inops”. [“Greatest of all lineages, I am now cast out, powerless”]

 

[Derideo_Te]

Technology is transforming my mind. Certain centers of my brain are growing while others are shrinking. But I like to think that there's still a roadless wilderness area somewhere in my brain, undeveloped, full of unassigned stem cells… I’m speaking figuratively.

In Derideo's cave story, it is the intelligent guy who becomes the power behind the scenes. In my version, intuition would rule. Ancient hunters had an intuitive sense of when and where the elk would pass by, rather than a rational hypothesis. And besides intuition, they could smell and otherwise sense things that would elude us.

I was reading Immanuel Kant's Critique of Pure Reason last night. At one point he seems to lament the supplanting of gaian intuition in the age of pure reason. Something has been lost. He quotes the Roman poet Ovid's story where the Queen of Troy is utterly vanquished;

“Modo maxima rerum, Tot generis, natisque potens… Nunc trahor exul, inops”. [“Greatest of all lineages, I am now cast out, powerless”]

When our survival depended upon knowing that we needed to always be downwind of our prey and what plants and berries were edible rather than poisonous those areas of our brains were filled with that knowledge.

Today we just need to know how to get to the supermarket.

So all that spare brain capacity is now dedicated to exploring the cyber wilderness and in some ways it is safer and in others more dangerous. There are great open plains where the wild datalopes roam free and deep dark binary forests where the trolls lurk and feed on those who are hapless enough to fall into their clutches.

What I find most fascinating about the internet is how it might become the sentience for the planet itself. When you stub your toe the pain travels to your brain and you move your hand to rub away the pain. When the Arab Spring started the awareness reached everyone in the world via the internet. Today we are aware of the Syrian refugee crisis and we are reacting accordingly.

So we live in interesting times and we have to use our primitive brains to explore something that only exists as electrons and magnetic alignments of iron atoms. Is there something spiritual that can be derived from this experience?

 

[Luddly Neddite]

I think where I would disagree with Pogo and agree with Ashtara is Pogo's suggestion that Christianity is limiting.

Of course its limiting, just as Christianity is limiting for Pagans.

More to the point, the limitation is in the definition, the difference between faith and proof, perception and reality.

As a spiritual atheist the feelings you experience are no different to mine or anyone else's.

The only difference is that you choose to ascribe them to your religion whereas I am more pragmatic and understand that they are normal, measurable trance state of mind that is common in mammals.

Very well put.

I get great comfort and satisfaction from my daily interaction with Nature but it would never occur to me to even think about some invisible super being.

The Pagans were the very first religion - the elders of the community and the women who were the healers had a very close relationship with Nature. Most of that has been long lost in the superstitions and aimless rituals of Christianity and other religions.

To each their own.

Bright Blessings.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

"Earth my body
Water my blood
Air my breath
and fire my spirit"

Yes indeed, because we are made of the basic elements of the Universe.

Neil deGrasse Tyson > Quotes > Quotable Quote

“The atoms of our bodies are traceable to stars that manufactured them in their cores and exploded these enriched ingredients across our galaxy, billions of years ago. For this reason, we are biologically connected to every other living thing in the world. We are chemically connected to all molecules on Earth. And we are atomically connected to all atoms in the universe. We are not figuratively, but literally stardust.”

― Neil deGrasse Tyson

I like knowing that. I like knowing that we are all connected.

Love that man.

 

[Luddly Neddite]

Some may want to look at this site.

THE CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL ATHEISM

 

[pillars]

ON THE SEA
By John Keats
It keeps eternal whisperings around
Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell
Gluts twice ten thousand Caverns, till the spell
Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.
Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,
That scarcely will the very smallest shell
Be moved for days from where it sometime fell.
When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.
Oh, ye! who have your eyeballs vexed and tired,
Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;
Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude,
Or fed too much with cloying melody---
Sit ye near some old Cavern's Mouth and brood,
Until ye start, as if the sea nymphs quired!

 

[Treeshepherd]

"SCREAMS round the Arch-druid's brow the seamew, white As Menai's foam; and toward the mystic ring Where Augurs stand, the Future questioning, Slowly the cormorant aims her heavy flight, Portending ruin to each baleful rite, That, in the lapse of ages, hath crept o'er Diluvian truths, and patriarchal lore. Haughty the Bard: can these meek doctrines blight His transports? wither his heroic strains? But all shall be fulfilled;--the Julian spear. A way first opened; and, with Roman chains, The tidings come of Jesus crucified; They come--they spread--the weak, the suffering, hear; Receive the faith, and in the hope abide." - Wordsworth

all shall be fulfilled. Receive the faith. Not Christendom, nor the narrow purview of deGrassianism can stop Jah time

 

[Damaged Eagle]

Pantheist

*****HAPPY SMILE*****

 

[Treeshepherd]

If you read Tolstoy you gleen the sense that there is an impetus to history. Same with a Victor Hugo. Their god is a subtle god, unlike that all-meddlesome ‘invisible sky fairy' puppetmaster- that cartoonish piñata that many atheists construct in order to take swings at.

In Les Miserables we see Napoleon as the inevitable ruler of all of Europe. It's a given. But one brief rain shower sets in motion an unlikely cascade of events leading serendipitously to the defeat of the French at Waterloo. The atheist calls it dumb luck. Hugo/Tolstoy (Christians) call it Providence.

The pagan, for her part, senses that the earth is blessed in some way. In classical paganism, much like Christianity, our existence is enabled through divine sacrifice, something most worthy of our gratitude.

 

[Treeshepherd]

Can't quote properly on this contraption, but I disagree with Luddly Neddite that some or another religion is necessarily limiting. His statement is that Christianity is necessarily limiting to pagans. I live in a city where we fairly recently had a green party majority on the city council. Here, there is no strife between monotheism and polytheism. They live side by side in harmony.

Furthermore, there is no conflict in my mind between religion and every scientific wonder that Derideo describes. Can a theist not be a brain surgeon, or an astrophysicist? I myself enjoy learning about natural history and evolutionary biology. Anyone can embrace the empirical dimension. To embrace further dimensions beyond that is the opposite of limiting.

Love. Is it an adaptive biochemical response resulting from a series of evolutionary contingencies? Yes. That's a dimension of love. The atheist stops there, because that's as far as empirical knowledge can go. It would seem, therefore, that he must suspend his belief in order to be carried away in the follies of romanticism (much like anyone would suspend their belief in order to enjoy a fantasy movie).

 

[Derideo_Te]

Can't quote properly on this contraption, but I disagree with Luddly Neddite that some or another religion is necessarily limiting. His statement is that Christianity is necessarily limiting to pagans. I live in a city where we fairly recently had a green party majority on the city council. Here, there is no strife between monotheism and polytheism. They live side by side in harmony.

Furthermore, there is no conflict in my mind between religion and every scientific wonder that Derideo describes. Can a theist not be a brain surgeon, or an astrophysicist? I myself enjoy learning about natural history and evolutionary biology. Anyone can embrace the empirical dimension. To embrace further dimensions beyond that is the opposite of limiting.

Love. Is it an adaptive biochemical response resulting from a series of evolutionary contingencies? Yes. That's a dimension of love. The atheist stops there, because that's as far as empirical knowledge can go. It would seem, therefore, that he must suspend his belief in order to be carried away in the follies of romanticism (much like anyone would suspend their belief in order to enjoy a fantasy movie).

Your criticism would be valid if atheists were as two dimensional as you are painting them to be.

But reality is that atheists are exactly the same as theists when it comes to emotions and how they impact our lives. There is nothing stopping an atheist from being a romantic or a lover for that matter. Some of the most famous romantic poets were atheists.

Positive Atheism's Big List of Percy Bysshe Shelley Quotations

If ignorance of nature gave birth to gods, knowledge of nature is made for their destruction.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Necessity of Atheism

A God made by man undoubtedly has need of man to make himself known to man.
-- Percy Bysshe Shelley, The Necessity of Atheism

Love's Philosophy - Poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley

O World! O Life! O Time!
On whose last steps I climb,
Trembling at that where I had stood before;
When will return the glory of your prime?
No more -Oh, never more!

Out of the day and night
A joy has taken flight:
Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar
Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight
No more -Oh, never more! ​

Shelley was not the only romantic atheist.

Romantic Atheism

Romantic Atheism explores the links between English Romantic poetry and the first burst of outspoken atheism in Britain, from the 1780s onward. Martin Priestman examines the work of Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, Byron and Keats in their most intellectually radical periods, as well as a host of less canonical poet-intellectuals and controversialists of the time. Above all, the book conveys the excitement of Romantic atheism, whose dramatic appeals to new developments in politics, science and comparative mythology lent it a protean energy belied by the more recent conception of "loss of faith."

"Priestman's study adds the obvious but still overlooked and unquestionably important feature of atheism, especially as it gets expressed in the discourse of Romantic poetry. By addressing attacks (both oblique and direct) on conventional religion expressed in Romantic poetry, Priestman presents us with a study that is long overdue." Religion & Literature​