The Cauldron: A Pagan Forum

Hello all! Happy Solstice! In a stroke of luck, my family is actually having a Christmas party today. I hope I can convince them to build a big fire in the chiminea on the patio. AND THEN I WILL DANCE AROUND IT.

Um Sorry. What was I saying?

Oh yes. I have a question for those of you who are like me - eclectic and solitary. How do you make your practice work? How do you fit the pieces together? What do you think helps move an eclectic practice from "a bunch of random shiny bits" to "hey, this works"? Is it experience? Is it creativity? Is it the compatibility of the various bits? Is it how they are fitted together? Is it a combination of these, or none of these?

Thinky thoughts please!

 
I am solitary and very eclectic.  What I find works for me is to have a base line and then to tie other practices onto that base in ways that make sense.  For me, my base is witchcraft (or neo-wicca), a spiritual path revolving around honoring the divine, both within and without.  I am Norse oriented, but I do work outside the Norse pantheon.  I also have practices that are drawn from way outside the Pagan umbrella:  CM, chaos, even Christianity.

I think the thing that makes my eclecticism work is that I look at my practice through the eyes of honor.  I try to see into the heart of a practice I like and find it's essence.  That is the part that I honor, and that is the part I try to bring into my own path.  When I try to work with two inspirations that seem to be at odds, I look for the things in common.  

Sometimes, I do think that some things just don't work together.  Sometimes I find that separation of time works, so I may not work with two particular energies or ideas in the same working.  Sometimes, no matter how much I love a practice, I just feel like it wouldn't work with the rest of my life and beliefs, and I have to appreciate it from a distance and not use it in my own path.

I think a lot of it is trial and error, especially when you are on your own.  Sometimes things that don't seem to be working are just rough, kind of like when you pick up a new skill.  I just recently started crocheting again, and my chain stitches were all over the place when I picked it back up.  The more I did it, the more even they became.  I see that in my path as well.  Some things start out very patchy and seem kind of thrown together, but the more I do them, the more I smooth out the rough edges and the more it all seems to fit together.

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Sometimes, I do think that some things just don't work together.  Sometimes I find that separation of time works, so I may not work with two particular energies or ideas in the same working.  Sometimes, no matter how much I love a practice, I just feel like it wouldn't work with the rest of my life and beliefs, and I have to appreciate it from a distance and not use it in my own path.
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I think one of the most important thing is to make sure the essence of the pieces fit.  Think about folk traditions.  It doesn't matter where it comes from, if something works, and the basis of the practice isn't out of line with everything else, then it gets used.  

In my own practices, I have fought with this for a long time.  I've come to the conclusion that I just have to trust my gut.  I have a rough idea, and a "feeling" of what my practice is.  If I learn about something new, and it feels out of place, even when I look at it with all of the bells and whistles removed(just the core of what and why), then I don't use it.  

For example, there's the whole argument over sage: is it appropriation, does it make sense out of the cultural context, etc.  I know how it is used by Native Americans(though not really sure on the capitalization issues), and my own use isn't the same.  I use the more common smudging method.  Why?  As far as I can see, based on my own cosmology and worldview, spiritual purification is a property of burning the plant itself.  I do petition the spirit of the plant, but this is more out of respect. I don't view it as necessary for the smudging to actually work.
 The essence of the practice makes sense from the view of my practice, and doesn't contradict anything, so I use it.  

Bit rambly, but I hope this helps, even a little.

How do you make your practice work? How do you fit the pieces together? What do you think helps move an eclectic practice from "a bunch of random shiny bits" to "hey, this works"?

Is it experience? Is it creativity? Is it the compatibility of the various bits? Is it how they are fitted together? Is it a combination of these, or none of these?

I take for granted that there are already workings in this. It's only up to me to figure out how to name this operation or that piece, and what to call it.

How do I fit the pieces together? I'm still working on that. Like, I'm very attracted to my understanding of psychological Alchemy as a metaphor for transformative experiences, and I'm very attracted to my understanding of faery Glamour as this sort of divine universal algorithm through which Alchemical processes can occur. But, I associate Glamour with music and Alchemy with metals. I can get them to gel if I associate Glamour with metalwork as a metaphor (beware faery gold, faeries loathe iron) except that they sort of don't do one-to-one. And I don't do any physical metalwork at all, which I think ought to be necessary if I'm making that a metaphor so that I know how well it aligns, but I don't.

So, it's all of them and then some: what you know, what you do with what you know, how you think about what you know, what you know about what you think, how you think about what you think, how you think about what you think you know...

I go through these waxing and waning phases of stepping into the syncretism where I just do what I do, and also sometimes stepping away from it to kind of meta-narrate what it's really all about.

For example, there's the whole argument over sage: is it appropriation, does it make sense out of the cultural context, etc.  I know how it is used by Native Americans(though not really sure on the capitalization issues), and my own use isn't the same.  I use the more common smudging method.  Why?  As far as I can see, based on my own cosmology and worldview, spiritual purification is a property of burning the plant itself.  I do petition the spirit of the plant, but this is more out of respect. I don't view it as necessary for the smudging to actually work.

How do you think certain Native groups use it then??? Like, it is used in several ways, but the idea of burning it as a bundle or a ball was pretty heavily lifted from northern groups who considered the plant sacred. What is the "common smudging method"?