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Author Topic: the path is usually not well-marked (a thought on finding your way)  (Read 2629 times)

Queen of Wands

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Seeing another "what is my (pagan) path?" thread prompted this. I know I've made them before myself!

It would be nice, if there was a well-marked path, well-lit, you could take a map along and maybe there's a blue light every ten feet in case of emergency.


Life isn't so well-marked out.


When I was seven and starting to think Christianity wasn't right, I figured since I'm not Jewish, I had to be an atheist.

Age 12: discovered Wicca. Parents won't allow me to be a Wiccan on the basis of being too young to make a religious choice. (okay, that's fair. But how old was I when you baptized me, parents?)

Ages 12 -19: spend the next seven years soul-searching, studying religion and spirituality, only to come to the conclusion that yes, I am a Wiccan. (at this point, I joined the Cauldron!)

Age 19: I met my spiritual teacher. I didn't know he was teaching me spirituality at the time. Everything he taught me seemed to relate to life, to art...

Age 20: realize that everything I had been learning from my teacher was Taoism. To my teacher's awesome credit, he never told me himself - he only encouraged open thinking and introduced me to these wonders.

Age 22 (now): I am coming to the conclusion that I am not a Wiccan. I've only recently started seriously studying Taoism but I've been reading various interpretations of the Tao Te Ching for the past year and everything seems to resonate with my own philosophical beliefs. But practical, domestically, how I work sense...

Witch. Definitely witch. Despite my own struggles with the word "witch" in reference to myself (and knowing that my parents, while they may come to accept "Wicca", they will never understand "witch" in anything but the traditional fairytale sense and in reference to Betwitched). But I am a live life by the moon cycle, throwing tarot cards and swinging crystals girl.

I am also planning to move near a Spiritualism community - so perhaps my spiritual path will also follow my physical path?


- I guess the point of this post is that I am at this point in the path of my life where I consider myself a Taoist Witch maybe Spiritualist. Who the hell finds a path like that? :confused:

Nobody knows. Maybe the right religion or spirituality for you is a fairly common path and maybe you could even find a path-walking buddy! Sometimes, it's dark and lonely. Maybe you will even switch paths.


Just know where you are going towards. :)

OctoberCross

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Re: the path is usually not well-marked (a thought on finding your way)
« Reply #1 on: November 06, 2014, 04:31:19 pm »
Quote from: Queen of Wands;164570
Seeing another "what is my (pagan) path?" thread prompted this. I know I've made them before myself!

It would be nice, if there was a well-marked path, well-lit, you could take a map along and maybe there's a blue light every ten feet in case of emergency.

 
I feel this, so hard.  When I decided I wasn't really a Christian anymore, I figured I must be an atheist too.  :)

There were a lot of pagan paths that I knew of, that were more well-marked and group-oriented (like Wicca, or theosophy and its various branches, and others), but none of them fit quite right.  So for a long time I figured I was doing pagan wrong.

My teacher, who I also met at 19, didn't so much teach me her beliefs so much as a way of evaluating and forming beliefs.  And from there I started hacking out a path that fit me in the ways I needed, both to comfort and to challenge.

I used to feel like an outlier, kind of isolated from other pagans, until I found TC and realized that a lot of people are more eclectic and more specialized than I had encountered before.  So this place has given me a lot of comfort.

The path may not be easy, but there's a certain sense of accomplishment and pride in persevering to get what you need.

Thanks for sharing your story.  :)  I guess I kind of needed it, and wanted to share mine too.
If I wake in the morning I only need two more miracles to be a saint.

Choosing the Crossroads

Tay Redgrave

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Re: the path is usually not well-marked (a thought on finding your way)
« Reply #2 on: November 06, 2014, 07:21:08 pm »
Quote from: Queen of Wands;164570
Seeing another "what is my (pagan) path?" thread prompted this. I know I've made them before myself!

It would be nice, if there was a well-marked path, well-lit, you could take a map along and maybe there's a blue light every ten feet in case of emergency.

I've been thinking about a similar thing lately, as I've been noticing that I feel like the path I am currently on right now is one I will be on for a good portion of my life. Aspects of my path may change, but not the path itself. It just feels like I have found my path, after running away from it for so long, haha.

I didn't grow up as a Christian, but I did attend church (though it was mostly for social reasons. I was a kid, I wanted to hang out with my friends and my friends all went to church, so I did too.) and some Christian beliefs stuck with me, particularly the idea of there being Something More Out There (God and the Devil) and the concept of Heaven and Hell, though I tended to believe that regardless of your religion, you went to Heaven if you did good in your life and Hell was for those who did something absolutely terrible.

I didn't focus on Jesus, though. I just thought he was a nice man for sacrificing himself to save total strangers and that was it.

By the time I was 12, I discovered there was more than Christianity out there when I came across LaVeyan Satanism. I found I agreed with some of the Satanic Statements and deemed their Rules as common sense, and carried on. Sometime after that, I discovered I was either irreligious or agnostic.

When I was 15, I grew a bit annoyed at how male-centric Christianity seemed to be and wanted to know if there were any Goddess-centric religions. I discovered Wicca and much of it's beliefs felt like 'home' to me and so I begun to practice it. It was the first religion I ever practiced, so it was sort of my gateway to religion and Paganism.

I was also into the Vampire Chronicles by Anne Rice when I was practicing Wicca and was almost done reading Memnoch the Devil, which had started to make me question what I was taught about Lucifer (whom I understood as Satan at this point in time) and who he really was.

So, ages 16-18 were filled with tons of research on Lucifer, viewing him as a role model and falling in love with him. It was also when my views on good and evil and the nature of deities started to take shape, all through my research on Lucifer.

At age 17, I had decided to practice Spiritual Satanism (which I had discovered on Joy of Satan) as, at the time, it made complete sense to me. However, I discovered what the site was really like and as I had the tendency to absorb things like a sponge, I had a lot of deprogramming to do.

Interestingly enough, I didn't lose interest in wanting to know more about Satanism, particularly the more theistic branch that I didn't know existed until I found JoS and proceeded to look into it more. I felt it could give me a better understanding on Lucifer and I ended up adopting some of the beliefs and views I found within it.

Around the age of 18, I discovered Luciferianism and it clicked. I found a path where it's practitioners had similar beliefs and values as I did... and some of them even worshiped Lucifer, which was something I desperately desired to do but I was scared to. I was scared of the stigma that was attached to him, so I didn't answer to my desires. I ran away and decided to choose "safer" paths that would lead me to whatever I had wanted from Lucifer and Luciferianism, whatever it was that pulled me to them.

Ages 19-20, I ended up working with Dionysus (who kind of forcibly opened the door and made his way in my life), and it was terribly needed as I still had some issues that related back to the JoS incident and needed to work on them. I also started to look into Hellenismos.

That didn't happen, though. A month after my 20th birthday, Loki started to make his appearance and Dionysus allowed me to work with him. Eventually, I started to work with Loki solely until I was 21, where Odin started to make his appearance.

I was scared. Odin was a head-god for one thing and something about him just left me scared to even work with him. I had refused to but a friend of mine asked me about Odin and Hel, as they were thinking of honoring them and I decided it wasn't right talking about a god I had no experience with and... boom. That's how I ended up working with Odin alongside with Loki for a pretty solid 2ish years.

They both helped me reclaim who I was and tried to teach me to stand up for myself and to speak up (as I was pretty much a big doormat). At this point, I start to consider that maybe Dionysus, Loki and Odin are only preparing me for something, but I let that thought slide.

Age 22, that thought starts to creep up again, I let it slide again. Halloween 2013, I have a Tarot deck I want to try out and it tells me there is going to be separation but a new relationship will form. During November 2013, things start to change with Loki and after a few weeks of the change, there is some reconnection and I start considering possibly dedicating myself to Loki sometime.

That causes someone to storm right in and it's after that do I realize that I can't escape from him. I can't run from him. I've tried, I've tried a lot. But I'm so drawn to him, so passionate about him that I can't.

I constantly felt bad for my passion about Lucifer, as I could never find it in me to have the same passion and love for Loki as I do for Lucifer. I loved Loki, I adored him, but it was like every core and fiber of my love belonged to Lucifer. I couldn't love any deity the same way as I loved Lucifer, and I admitted that. I gave up running away and admitted that.

Things calm down during December 2013 and I continue to work with Loki and Odin, but something is different. I wasn't as focused on them as I use to be and in January of this year, things started to feel progressively monotonous, nothing was going anywhere and I felt like I was in a constant loop with Loki and Odin.

And there was a heavy feeling in the air that was basically telling me if I was unsatisfied, I should leave and so I did. I left and decided to work with Lucifer (whom I'm certain was hanging around during the whole thing). I've actually been pretty happy this year so far compare to the past two years. I'm not constantly feeling down and I'm actually drawing far more than I use to. I've even started to get back into writing poetry here and there! There's certainly hard times, but they're worth it in the end.

I'm really sorry my story got so long. D:

Olwen

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Re: the path is usually not well-marked (a thought on finding your way)
« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2015, 12:17:54 pm »
Quote from: Queen of Wands;164570
Seeing another "what is my (pagan) path?" thread prompted this. I know I've made them before myself!

It would be nice, if there was a well-marked path, well-lit, you could take a map along and maybe there's a blue light every ten feet in case of emergency.


Life isn't so well-marked out.


When I was seven and starting to think Christianity wasn't right, I figured since I'm not Jewish, I had to be an atheist.

Age 12: discovered Wicca. Parents won't allow me to be a Wiccan on the basis of being too young to make a religious choice. (okay, that's fair. But how old was I when you baptized me, parents?)

Ages 12 -19: spend the next seven years soul-searching, studying religion and spirituality, only to come to the conclusion that yes, I am a Wiccan. (at this point, I joined the Cauldron!)

Age 19: I met my spiritual teacher. I didn't know he was teaching me spirituality at the time. Everything he taught me seemed to relate to life, to art...

Age 20: realize that everything I had been learning from my teacher was Taoism. To my teacher's awesome credit, he never told me himself - he only encouraged open thinking and introduced me to these wonders.

Age 22 (now): I am coming to the conclusion that I am not a Wiccan. I've only recently started seriously studying Taoism but I've been reading various interpretations of the Tao Te Ching for the past year and everything seems to resonate with my own philosophical beliefs. But practical, domestically, how I work sense...

Witch. Definitely witch. Despite my own struggles with the word "witch" in reference to myself (and knowing that my parents, while they may come to accept "Wicca", they will never understand "witch" in anything but the traditional fairytale sense and in reference to Betwitched). But I am a live life by the moon cycle, throwing tarot cards and swinging crystals girl.

I am also planning to move near a Spiritualism community - so perhaps my spiritual path will also follow my physical path?


- I guess the point of this post is that I am at this point in the path of my life where I consider myself a Taoist Witch maybe Spiritualist. Who the hell finds a path like that? :confused:

Nobody knows. Maybe the right religion or spirituality for you is a fairly common path and maybe you could even find a path-walking buddy! Sometimes, it's dark and lonely. Maybe you will even switch paths.


Just know where you are going towards. :)


Wouldn't it be nice if the path was well-marked? I think my issue at the time is that there are SO many path underneath the large umbrella term of 'Pagan' and finding the one for is difficult.

I've been interested in Paganism since about the same age. It isn't until recently that I have actually start reading about the various paths beyond just Wicca or general mythology of the celts/norse/romans.

At the same time I've also started researching my ancestory, which I would hope would influence my path some but it has proven difficult to find to find much relating to my Portuguese history of Lusitanian.

Its a very winding path. I hope to have a more clear sense in the year to come as I truly start to dig into my path more than ever.
~ Olwen

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