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Author Topic: Personal Relationship?  (Read 5945 times)

Kraken

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Personal Relationship?
« on: August 28, 2015, 11:34:42 am »
Hello friends,

I was wondering if there was a protocol for how to keep in contact with Mother Goddess...can I have a personal relationship with her? Are there good offerings I can make? Can I go to her/pray to her for comfort? I only ask because when I find myself in a trying situation, I want to pray but I only know the Christian practice...of course I feel much more peaceful when I call out to Goddess (as I often imagined "Holy Spirit" as a woman figure when I practiced Christianity).

Sort of a branch off of that...is there any "pagan" belief system for how life began? I can see how reincarnation would work...I am believing that more and more...is it a cycle of life or were we created with love and purpose? I just want to believe that whichever supernatural power I worship loves me and wants me to live peacefully and successfully and I'm not just worshiping to get something from Father God or Mother Goddess.

Or is this all part of my own practice and I believe what I choose to believe? I hope that's not the case because then I don't want to imagine that Father God and Mother Goddess are pretending to care for me when it's neutral.

Does this make sense?
"you have risen from the ashes, with outspread arms, face to the sun, eyes closed, full of radiance..."

Darkhawk

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #1 on: August 28, 2015, 12:26:06 pm »
Quote from: Kraken;179336
I was wondering if there was a protocol for how to keep in contact with Mother Goddess...can I have a personal relationship with her?


It is worth keeping in mind that the idea of "personal relationship with [god]" is very, very Christian in origin, and in fact more evangelical Christian than other forms, and other religions - not just pagan ones - do not necessarily operate the same way.

Some people have some sort of personal/intimate/mystical interaction with some Powers, and that's neither universal nor something that you can generically expect to happen.  Some people have Powers they offer to, do work for, work with, without any sort of intimacy.  Some people have Powers that they honour or venerate and that's all.  Everyone's got Powers that they don't deal with, because there are too many Powers to know everyone, just like there are too many people to know everyone.

The question of whether you, a specific person, can form an intimate relationship with a specific Power?  That's between you and that Power.

Quote
Are there good offerings I can make?


Depends on your religious system and the Power you're dealing with.

Quote
Can I go to her/pray to her for comfort?


That's a general thing people do with gods, yes.

Quote
Sort of a branch off of that...is there any "pagan" belief system for how life began?


Um, in my experience most pagans, like most modern Western humans, understand the basics of the scientific origins of life?

Or are you asking about mythologies and such?  Mythologies and such depend on your religion, obviously.

Quote
I just want to believe that whichever supernatural power I worship loves me and wants me to live peacefully and successfully and I'm not just worshiping to get something from Father God or Mother Goddess.


Another thing that's worth noting: many pagans are really uninterested in belief.  Your beliefs are your problem.  What brings most pagan religion together is shared practice or shared experience; what you believe to be the case about those practices and experiences is up to you.
 
This can be a big shock for people coming in from belief-is-all overcultural religious backgrounds.

Quote
Or is this all part of my own practice and I believe what I choose to believe? I hope that's not the case because then I don't want to imagine that Father God and Mother Goddess are pretending to care for me when it's neutral.

 
What relationships you have with your Powers are between you and Them.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Faemon

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #2 on: August 29, 2015, 01:56:35 am »
Quote from: Kraken;179336
is this all part of my own practice and I believe what I choose to believe? I hope that's not the case because then I don't want to imagine that Father God and Mother Goddess are pretending to care for me when it's neutral.


By my experience, belief isn't a choice but a compulsion. Your own practice might benefit by examining where that compulsion comes from.

For example, I'd think to have a personal relationship with the Goddess takes as a given the phenomenon of Anthropomorphic Personification. The author of The Religion of the Ancient Celts J.A. Maculloch put it most concisely in proposing the development of pagan religion from primitive Animism all the way up to the Anthropomorphic Personification of the classical civilizations.

Note that even that secular analysis is a belief, and subject to further analysis and criticism...not only from pagans who would rather that ethnographers not document something "that we have experienced and know to be true!" The criticisms could be, "Uhm, 'primitive'...seriously?" Or, "Maybe the Hellenistic gods fit that mold, but the Hindu gods don't..."

In any case, what is a goddess then, and why would a goddess have an identifiable and interactable form that is yet not usually corporeal?

As for Darkhawk's statement that the personal relationship is a feature of Christianity, I agree that it can be but I disagree that it's exclusively that influence that is somehow irreconcilable with paganism at it should be? There are Abrahamic approaches that are more focused on cosmic grandeur at the exclusion of having Jesus In Your Heart--a few Catholics I know viewed Pentacostal witnessing as almost a sort of verboten miracle-imitative witchcraft. Meanwhile, a number of Greek myths feature mere mortals who got a specific kind of attention that seemed awfully personal. Those probably wouldn't have been a how-to then so much as cautionary tales, but I think it's the present interpretations that come to be part of a living faith. That said...

Quote
is there any "pagan" belief system for how life began? I can see how reincarnation would work...I am believing that more and more...is it a cycle of life or were we created with love and purpose? I just want to believe that whichever supernatural power I worship loves me and wants me to live peacefully and successfully


"Pagan" is more of an adjective than a mythology. I gather that from a number of explanations or thoughts from cultures that became pagan, though, it might have either been the case that Creation Myths 1.) have been suppressed and forgotten from cultural conquest, or 2.) never existed because maybe people just don't necessarily make such a big deal about things like that.

Some new agers might be inclined to rephrase Genesis in less culture-specific terms. Reincarnation with loving purpose from the supernatural realm is a common theme that I've seen in new age writings, but the new age is less about a monolithic canon and more about what "resonates" or activates the intuitive acceptance, that compulsion of belief. (I have my own views about the material privileges that influenced the most prominent features of New Age and New Thought, but won't bore anyone with that right now.)

Otherwise, I think Metamythos has a good one.

But if you're really seeking religious aspects that can be cited without source, that applies universally, and comes with a community of unanimous opinion in which any variety or dissent can be dismissed as imaginative...paganism might not be for you.

But to answer your first questions:

Quote
I was wondering if there was a protocol for how to keep in contact with Mother Goddess...


Step One: Identify the contact. You already have this to go by: "Mother Goddess".
Step Two: Identify purpose of contact. You mentioned that you want love, peace, and success to be the main features of this relationship and interaction.
Step Three: Identify how you are to receive the response. What is imagination as opposed to the interpretation of an event as a sign, or as opposed to the extrasensory perception of a presence? What would you count as a result of this protocol being performed?
Step Four: Identify the nature of the relationship beyond this interaction. On the one hand, protocol such as this suggests that communication is extraordinary. This would call for going back to the ordinary: saying thank you, and expecting the contact to lose contact.

I'm guessing the sort of answer you really wanted was more like:
1.) designate an altar to keep a collection of relevant items: a geode, a statue of Venus de Milo, light a votive candle or incense of a specific scent for an offering
2.) cleanse the area around the altar with bells or water splashes
3.) stand or kneel at altar with hands cupped and palms up...

Something like that. Or taking your wand or dagger and walking around the room, drawing pentagrams in the air and shouting the appropriate corresponding names.

Instead, I write epistles. I start with "To Whom It May Concern:" or "Dearest (deity name here)," the first paragraphs an explanation why I'm writing, and then if I sense what I've read best described as "an inner voice that originates externally" then I switch the color of my clicky-top pen and try to translate that response. Then I switch it back when I write back. Sometimes, what I sense comes through not as a different color of translated intuition but as questions for clarification. ("Are you instructing me not to panic? Or are you expressing that you yourself are calm?") At the end of it, I sign off, but remain open to contact in other ways. I also want to make clear that how personal or purposeful this even is, is something I'm still figuring out.

Maybe going on your knees with your hands together is what works for you, or maybe you can do that with a request to intuit some other protocol. If you're an Exploring Pagan, then explore! :) If you were more specific than Exploring Pagan, then maybe there would be an established protocol as specific as khernips versus libations.
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Kraken

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #3 on: August 31, 2015, 10:25:46 am »
Quote from: Darkhawk;179337
Some people have some sort of personal/intimate/mystical interaction with some Powers, and that's neither universal nor something that you can generically expect to happen.  Some people have Powers they offer to, do work for, work with, without any sort of intimacy.  Some people have Powers that they honour or venerate and that's all.  Everyone's got Powers that they don't deal with, because there are too many Powers to know everyone, just like there are too many people to know everyone.


Am I to understand this is mostly a business transaction with "Powers"? As in, I need something from you and I would like you to help me, so I'm gonna do these things for you so you can lend me your powers, etc?

Quote
The question of whether you, a specific person, can form an intimate relationship with a specific Power?  That's between you and that Power.


So I speak to the "Power" and hope to have some audible conversation of whether we can have a personal relationship?


Quote
Or are you asking about mythologies and such?  Mythologies and such depend on your religion, obviously.


Yeah, I was talking about mythologies. I have no idea of which religions to look into at this point, so I have no idea what to believe.


Quote
Another thing that's worth noting: many pagans are really uninterested in belief.  Your beliefs are your problem.


So, what is the point in being pagan?

 
Quote
This can be a big shock for people coming in from belief-is-all overcultural religious backgrounds.


It is. I'm at even more of a loss than I started with :(
"you have risen from the ashes, with outspread arms, face to the sun, eyes closed, full of radiance..."

Kraken

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #4 on: August 31, 2015, 10:36:20 am »
Quote from: Faemon;179351
By my experience, belief isn't a choice but a compulsion. Your own practice might benefit by examining where that compulsion comes from.


Grew up Christian and starting to come out of it...I'm trying desperately to leave it behind so I know my "belief" compulsions are still there.

Quote
But if you're really seeking religious aspects that can be cited without source, that applies universally, and comes with a community of unanimous opinion in which any variety or dissent can be dismissed as imaginative...paganism might not be for you.


I am in desperate need of guidance and mentorship. I have no idea where to start or where I am going. I'm not really looking for anything that applies universally, I just want so desperately to belong to a community that accepts me for me and we have similar basic belief systems (gods/goddesses/practices of shabbats etc). I think Wicca/Druidry appeals to me so much, I'm trying to fit into a mould but I'm still so very lost. I want to practice and live as these people do but still stuck in my old thoughts and habits and so very lost...even more so than what I started. Who is paganism for? Wouldn't what some pagans practice and believe be dismissed as imaginative?

Quote
But to answer your first questions:

Step One: Identify the contact. You already have this to go by: "Mother Goddess".
Step Two: Identify purpose of contact. You mentioned that you want love, peace, and success to be the main features of this relationship and interaction.
Step Three: Identify how you are to receive the response. What is imagination as opposed to the interpretation of an event as a sign, or as opposed to the extrasensory perception of a presence? What would you count as a result of this protocol being performed?
Step Four: Identify the nature of the relationship beyond this interaction. On the one hand, protocol such as this suggests that communication is extraordinary. This would call for going back to the ordinary: saying thank you, and expecting the contact to lose contact.

I'm guessing the sort of answer you really wanted was more like:
1.) designate an altar to keep a collection of relevant items: a geode, a statue of Venus de Milo, light a votive candle or incense of a specific scent for an offering
2.) cleanse the area around the altar with bells or water splashes
3.) stand or kneel at altar with hands cupped and palms up...

Something like that. Or taking your wand or dagger and walking around the room, drawing pentagrams in the air and shouting the appropriate corresponding names.

Instead, I write epistles. I start with "To Whom It May Concern:" or "Dearest (deity name here)," the first paragraphs an explanation why I'm writing, and then if I sense what I've read best described as "an inner voice that originates externally" then I switch the color of my clicky-top pen and try to translate that response. Then I switch it back when I write back. Sometimes, what I sense comes through not as a different color of translated intuition but as questions for clarification. ("Are you instructing me not to panic? Or are you expressing that you yourself are calm?") At the end of it, I sign off, but remain open to contact in other ways. I also want to make clear that how personal or purposeful this even is, is something I'm still figuring out.

Maybe going on your knees with your hands together is what works for you, or maybe you can do that with a request to intuit some other protocol. If you're an Exploring Pagan, then explore! :) If you were more specific than Exploring Pagan, then maybe there would be an established protocol as specific as khernips versus libations.


I want to start an altar but I have no idea how to assemble one or what's important to have on it and at what point during the year.

Your response was helpful but perhaps too "advanced" for my understanding as a new explorer. I'm not sure what khernips or libations are.

As stated above in my first response to DarkHawk...I am more lost than before I came :( Frustrated and saddened.
"you have risen from the ashes, with outspread arms, face to the sun, eyes closed, full of radiance..."

Redfaery

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #5 on: August 31, 2015, 11:09:35 am »
Quote from: Kraken;179336
I was wondering if there was a protocol for how to keep in contact with Mother Goddess...can I have a personal relationship with her?


I'm not sure I understand the first question, but yes, you can have a personal relationship with a deity.
Quote
Are there good offerings I can make? Can I go to her/pray to her for comfort? I only ask because when I find myself in a trying situation, I want to pray but I only know the Christian practice...of course I feel much more peaceful when I call out to Goddess (as I often imagined "Holy Spirit" as a woman figure when I practiced Christianity).


This is going to sound, really, REALLY silly, but if what you've been doing is working, I see no reason to change it, even if it is Christian-influenced. As for offerings, that will depend on what tradition you choose. You might have to experiment. (I know. Super unhelpful. Sorry!) :(

Quote
Sort of a branch off of that...is there any "pagan" belief system for how life began? I can see how reincarnation would work...I am believing that more and more...is it a cycle of life or were we created with love and purpose? I just want to believe that whichever supernatural power I worship loves me and wants me to live peacefully and successfully and I'm not just worshiping to get something from Father God or Mother Goddess.

Or is this all part of my own practice and I believe what I choose to believe? I hope that's not the case because then I don't want to imagine that Father God and Mother Goddess are pretending to care for me when it's neutral.

Does this make sense?

 
Honestly, if you feel that your deities love you and care about you, I see no reason not to believe that. Beliefs are personal things, and in the end you're really going to have to figure them out yourself.

Also remember that there is no one "pagan" religion, and that each tradition is a separate religion, with its own guidelines. I know this isn't terribly helpful, but the best advice I can give you right now is to let yourself be fine not having it all settled. It will take time. In fact, faith and spirituality are often best if they're allowed to grow and evolve constantly, so it's GREAT that you're questioning yourself like this. :)
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Darkhawk

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #6 on: August 31, 2015, 11:30:57 am »
Quote from: Kraken;179387
Am I to understand this is mostly a business transaction with "Powers"? As in, I need something from you and I would like you to help me, so I'm gonna do these things for you so you can lend me your powers, etc?


That is one of the many ways that people have interacted with the Powers over the millenia.  There are, as I said, many others, but it's not like that's where one starts from.  The Powers aren't all that different from any other entity - it's a whole lot easier to build a relationship on traded favours than to make best friends.  A relationship with a god is still a relationship, and still takes the same sort of maintenance, effort, and mutual interest that any other relationship does; it doesn't just come for free because one shows up.

(You don't need to put Powers in the scare quotes; I use it primarily because not all the entities I deal with are correctly described by the word 'gods'.)

Quote
So I speak to the "Power" and hope to have some audible conversation of whether we can have a personal relationship?


If you're holding out for something audible (or even just 'voice in my head' audible) you're highly, highly unlikely to get that; most people, including people who have intimate relationships with some of their Powers, don't get that.

You may find, hmm.  A few threads that might touch on some of the range (I haven't reread them all):
http://ecauldron.com/forum/showthread.php?7831-Experiencing-the-Gods
http://ecauldron.com/forum/showthread.php?10707-God-Perceptive/
http://ecauldron.com/forum/showthread.php?9320-The-godphone-concept
http://ecauldron.com/forum/showthread.php?8101-Talking-to-the-gods-goddesses


Quote
Yeah, I was talking about mythologies. I have no idea of which religions to look into at this point, so I have no idea what to believe.


Mythologies are mythologies.  You take the story, you wrestle with it, you engage with it, you work at figuring out what it is trying to say about the nature of the universe.  You weigh what you extract from working with the story against the world as you understand it.  It's a trellis, a way of growing, not a box to fit into.

Treating mythology as The Story Of What Happened is missing the essence of those stories, which are to be engaged with, wrestled with, struggled with, not passively observed.

Quote
So, what is the point in being pagan?


What's the point of cultivating mindful relationships with the entities that live in the cosmos, and conducting oneself according to a code of conduct that is productive and meaningful, and performing rituals which are healing and nurturing to the soul?
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Darkhawk

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #7 on: August 31, 2015, 11:42:20 am »
Quote from: Redfaery;179389
Honestly, if you feel that your deities love you and care about you, I see no reason not to believe that. Beliefs are personal things, and in the end you're really going to have to figure them out yourself.

 
You've reminded me of this excellent blog post:
https://goldentrail.wordpress.com/2015/01/10/my-religion-has-no-moral-doctrine/

The blogger divides stuff people are pointing at with 'religion' into three categories - personal faith/belief, traditional ritual, and social morality - and notes that while they're overlapped, in their particular religion (and in many others) the only thing that is religiously regulated is ritual.  Belief is wholly personal; social/moral behaviour is regulated socially.

A lot of people coming from a(n especially more conservative or evangelical) Christian background are looking to find out what beliefs are religiously regulated in pagan religions, and that's a hard transition.

A wisdom from my tradition:  Perceive first.  Then believe.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Darkhawk

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #8 on: August 31, 2015, 12:23:18 pm »
Quote from: Kraken;179388
I want to start an altar but I have no idea how to assemble one or what's important to have on it and at what point during the year.

 
There are two ways of answering this.

One of them is "that depends on your religion", and any given religion will have certain things that are desirable on a shrine or altar, or ways of going through things, or traditional structure.

These things include - not universally, but commonly:
- icons of relevant Powers
- ritual tools
- items for presenting offerings
- things of relevance to season or festival (currently blooming flowers; currently harvestable food; symbolic representations relevant to current holidays)

The other one is "So what's important to you?"

You may look at the above list and go "Okay, but what do I do, I don't have a set of traditions yet!"  What that means is that you need to work some things through.

Do you feel drawn to any particular Power?  You can include an icon, a symbol, or something of that sort, no matter whether you've gotten some sort of personal okay from the numinous.

Do you want to honour Deity in general, or whatever unspecified Powers that may be personally interested in you even if you don't know Who they are yet?  Maybe a big pillar candle will do for representing that relationship or potential relationship.

Maybe in time your intuition will say, "Okay, the big pillar candle is great, but I kind of want a green taper too".  Maybe some Power is saying 'my color is green'; maybe your heart or your aesthetic sense is saying 'this needs more green'; maybe you're saying 'I feel the need to call upon a Power who would like green'.  It varies.  It's personal.  But try things, see if they work.

Ritual tools: if you're not doing rituals, you aren't likely to have any.  If you are doing rituals, your rituals will help you figure out what tools you need and where makes sense to put them.

Offering things: liquids go in cups, bowls, pitchers.  Solid things go on plates.  Incense needs a burner of some sort.  Those oil diffuser things are neat.  Find what works.  Again, trust your intuition.  Think about function: what does it mean to you to put out this thing or that one?  Does using an oil diffuser or incense mean the lingering scent gives you a sense of divine presence?  That's data.

Seasons and holidays: What's going on in your world right now?  What food gets harvested now?  What are the trees doing?  What colours are in the world?

Did you find a seashell on your last trip to the beach that just seemed to Mean Something?  A perfect leaf?  Do you have a stone that you picked up when you were seven and have kept with you every move since?  Do you have an old prayerbook that belonged to your grandmother?  A chipped teacup that your best friend gave you when you moved away?  These are things that matter, and might go into an altarspace.




For the record, stuff that's on a couple of my shrines, just so you can see the variety available in one person's practice:

- the ancestor shrine:
* a bouquet of fake roses made from the skeletons of leaves
* an incense burner shaped like a boat
* a pewter cup from colonial Williamsburg, purchased by my grandparents on a trip, used for water offerings
* photographs
* items that belonged to my beloved dead and/or were given to me by them (grandmother's prayerbook, grandfather's license plate, a bit of painting done by the neighbour lady, a crafty thing done by my great-aunt)
* a glass ashtray (property of my grandmother) that I use as a candleholder

- the Hathor shrine
* a bit of art I commissioned from Ursula Vernon in a standing frame
* all of my eyepaint
* the garland I wore when I was May Queen for a ritual
* a gold-colored costume mask
* a postcard with an image of Sekhmet
* a hookah

- the Thoth shrine
* a tea set with cranes and blossoms on it
* a statue of a scribe with an awesome d20 put in his lap (seriously, this thing is great, 3D printing is SO COOL)
* my runes and ogham staves
* some Mardi Gras beads

- the self shrine
* a copy of every book I've contributed to or written
* a large skull candle
* a ma'at poster
* a black latex heart
* the perfumes I use for various magical purposes
* a huge bright blue Christmas tree ornament
* a plaque I made in sixth grade with my legal first name written on it in cruddy hieroglyphs
* a statue of Lilith

- Ganesha's spot
* a small icon of Ganesha sitting on a stack of chocolate bars

- GW's shrine
* a table fountain
* a small copy of the Capitoline Wolf statue
* a decorated mask
* an offering bowl

- the visitors' shrine
* a slab of salvaged marble counter wodged into a dip behind the hill in the back yard
* I keep planting wintergreen around it and I think one of them has lived
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Kraken

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #9 on: August 31, 2015, 12:24:35 pm »
Quote from: Darkhawk;179390

What's the point of cultivating mindful relationships with the entities that live in the cosmos, and conducting oneself according to a code of conduct that is productive and meaningful, and performing rituals which are healing and nurturing to the soul?

 
Okay...I'm confused. I am legitimately asking what it means to be pagan :o( why do people become pagan (in a broad sense of the term---why do people choose the path of Wicca or Druidry or whatever)? You say it has very little to do with belief. But as paganism involves a wide variety of beliefs, I would assume people believe something and that's why they practice what they do...because it means something to them. I'm trying to find meaning for why I am so drawn to these paths, figuring out what that is and I'm coming across a whole lot of "it doesn't matter what you believe, that's your problem." It's quite confusing and off-putting.
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Redfaery

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #10 on: August 31, 2015, 12:42:48 pm »
Quote from: Kraken;179395
Okay...I'm confused. I am legitimately asking what it means to be pagan :o( why do people become pagan (in a broad sense of the term---why do people choose the path of Wicca or Druidry or whatever)? You say it has very little to do with belief. But as paganism involves a wide variety of beliefs, I would assume people believe something and that's why they practice what they do...because it means something to them. I'm trying to find meaning for why I am so drawn to these paths, figuring out what that is and I'm coming across a whole lot of "it doesn't matter what you believe, that's your problem." It's quite confusing and off-putting.
It's confusing, yes. But there's really *no* commonly agreed upon set of beliefs that define paganism. That's just a common misconception.

Beliefs really are *personal*. The reasons behind them are personal too.
KARMA: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Darkhawk

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #11 on: August 31, 2015, 12:46:25 pm »
Quote from: Kraken;179395
Okay...I'm confused. I am legitimately asking what it means to be pagan :o(


The problem with that question is that meaning is something that's created by individuals, not something that people can answer for an entire movement.  Especially something as broad as "be pagan", which at root means "to be a practitioner of one of the many religions associated with the pagan movement".

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why do people become pagan (in a broad sense of the term---why do people choose the path of Wicca or Druidry or whatever)? You say it has very little to do with belief. But as paganism involves a wide variety of beliefs, I would assume people believe something and that's why they practice what they do...because it means something to them. I'm trying to find meaning for why I am so drawn to these paths, figuring out what that is and I'm coming across a whole lot of "it doesn't matter what you believe, that's your problem." It's quite confusing and off-putting.

 
The short answer to your question is: because it works for them.  And that's why there's no general, easy answer to the question; what works for people, why it works for people, that's individual to the people involved.  The answers to why I do what I do are my answers, but they may not mean anything to you.  We don't share a background or experiences; we probably don't share needs, either.

Helio's blog post (I linked it a couple of my wordy posts up) may help you some; it's certainly better at this stuff than I am.

But my point in 'being pagan' (if I assume that the meaning there is "in adhering to my particular religions") is the thing you quoted - these provide me with tools to form good relationships with the beings that I share reality with, corporeal and otherwise; they help me to conduct myself well, healthily, and improve myself; they are beautiful and satisfying.

There are beliefs and theologies associated with this, but they either came before the religion ("What do I think 'being a good person' looks like?") or developed after my conversion ("What is the nature of the ka?").  They are not part of the reasons why, and I don't think they could have been.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

Kraken

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #12 on: August 31, 2015, 02:03:19 pm »
Quote from: Darkhawk;179394
There are two ways of answering this.

One of them is "that depends on your religion", and any given religion will have certain things that are desirable on a shrine or altar, or ways of going through things, or traditional structure.

These things include - not universally, but commonly:
- icons of relevant Powers
- ritual tools
- items for presenting offerings
- things of relevance to season or festival (currently blooming flowers; currently harvestable food; symbolic representations relevant to current holidays)


This is super helpful, thank you!!

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Do you feel drawn to any particular Power?  You can include an icon, a symbol, or something of that sort, no matter whether you've gotten some sort of personal okay from the numinous.

Do you want to honour Deity in general, or whatever unspecified Powers that may be personally interested in you even if you don't know Who they are yet?  Maybe a big pillar candle will do for representing that relationship or potential relationship.


(I only used the "power" quotations because I was trying to keep in line with what language you were using but not something I would use per se). I feel drawn to...Mother Goddess mostly. I know it's not any specific deity from the polytheistic religions but I don't know much about many others...I've heard of Diana and Brigid...but I don't know if that's specifically Wicca or if there are other gods o goddesses I cold check out.

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Ritual tools: if you're not doing rituals, you aren't likely to have any.  If you are doing rituals, your rituals will help you figure out what tools you need and where makes sense to put them.


I would like to try rituals, but, again, I'm not sure who or what or where etc...

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Seasons and holidays: What's going on in your world right now?  What food gets harvested now?  What are the trees doing?  What colours are in the world?


I just got a book in the mail called "The Kitchen Witch" by Soraya and I'm super looking forward to cooking and working with the 8 sabbat festivals etc!! This is very exciting for me! :)

Quote
Did you find a seashell on your last trip to the beach that just seemed to Mean Something?  A perfect leaf?  Do you have a stone that you picked up when you were seven and have kept with you every move since?  Do you have an old prayerbook that belonged to your grandmother?  A chipped teacup that your best friend gave you when you moved away?  These are things that matter, and might go into an altarspace.


This is super helpful too, thank you!!


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For the record, stuff that's on a couple of my shrines, just so you can see the variety available in one person's practice:

- the ancestor shrine...


This is neat...if you don't mind me asking, what is the purpose of honouring and worshiping ancestors? Does it mostly have to do with giving thanks to be part of a line that has brought you to where you are? Does this involve research of where yo family came from many many many years ago?

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- the Hathor shrine...
- the Thoth shrine

which gods are these? Do you mind if I ask how you became drawn to them?

Quote
- the self shrine

This is very interesting...is this like celebrating yourself?

Quote
- the visitors' shrine

What is a visitor's shrine? Is it like honouring guests or blessing people that come into your home?

Thank you so much for sharing with me your personal practice :) I very much appreciate this. This gives me a neat idea for what I can do. Are your shrines scattered throughout your home? How did you come to practice rituals and magic? Did you use resources or do whatever felt right??
"you have risen from the ashes, with outspread arms, face to the sun, eyes closed, full of radiance..."

Emerald

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #13 on: August 31, 2015, 02:59:54 pm »
Quote from: Kraken;179395
Okay...I'm confused. I am legitimately asking what it means to be pagan :o( why do people become pagan (in a broad sense of the term---why do people choose the path of Wicca or Druidry or whatever)? You say it has very little to do with belief. But as paganism involves a wide variety of beliefs, I would assume people believe something and that's why they practice what they do...because it means something to them. I'm trying to find meaning for why I am so drawn to these paths, figuring out what that is and I'm coming across a whole lot of "it doesn't matter what you believe, that's your problem." It's quite confusing and off-putting.

 
For me, I started exploring paganism out of a sense that there had to be more to life and the world than I was yet aware of. Also a reverence for nature.

I read about a variety of paths to get a better idea of which interested me or felt meaningful, and which I didn't connect to at all. Then I read books and participated in discussions about what did interest me. With the nature reverence I was drawn particularly to Druidry.

I read about different druid paths and found that the style of ADF particularly appealed, so I joined them and studied the dedicant path material. One chooses a "hearth culture" which is like working with the pantheon of Deities from a specific country. (it's too early in the morning to find better words for that). I was most drawn to Irish so those are the Deities I've ended up working with. As I recall I had tried reaching out to Deities of inspiration from other pantheons but it was Brighid of the Irish pantheon that I felt a connection with.

There are a couple of good links to check out for information about different paths and what Paganism is.

One of the members of the forum here, Jenett, has a website with good information for getting started.
http://gleewood.org/seeking/basics/

TC's Pagan Primer.
http://www.ecauldron.net/newpagan.php

Darkhawk

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Re: Personal Relationship?
« Reply #14 on: August 31, 2015, 04:49:49 pm »
Quote from: Kraken;179398
I feel drawn to...Mother Goddess mostly. I know it's not any specific deity from the polytheistic religions but I don't know much about many others...I've heard of Diana and Brigid...but I don't know if that's specifically Wicca or if there are other gods o goddesses I cold check out.


There are many, many powers in the world.  If you want to explore that further, one thing you can do is dip into the mythology sections of your library and have a look at various cultures' myths.  Also, if you see Someone who looks interesting mentioned on the board, do ask for more information, either in that thread, or starting a new one.

So, for example, you might find it interesting to pop over to the 'gods, goddesses, and mythology' forum and ask people to talk about the specific goddesses they deal with who might be "mother goddesses".  It may be that you're drawn to the more abstract entity, but it also might be that someone will say something that makes you go "Oooh!" and then you'll have more direction.

Quote
This is neat...if you don't mind me asking, what is the purpose of honouring and worshiping ancestors? Does it mostly have to do with giving thanks to be part of a line that has brought you to where you are? Does this involve research of where yo family came from many many many years ago?


Speaking here from my religious tradition: the dead are our closest kin in the unseen/spirit world.  They are our most immediate family, whether literally (literal relatives) or symbolically (mentors, heroes of history that matter particularly to us, adopted kin, the people who defined the work we now do).  Without the people who came before us, we couldn't exist.

On a religious-meaning level, talking about beliefs, the living and the dead reach across the boundaries of life-energy.  You're using the Wheel-Year, right?  So if you think of Samhain as being 'the veil is thin and we remember the dead', and Beltaine as 'the veil is thin and the new life is breaking through', they're basically... the same thing but in opposite directions, right?  Energy flows into the realm of spirit, towards the dead, on one breath of the year; energy flows out, and things grow and flourish, towards the living, on the exhale.  The dead are the ones most immediately responsible for making sure that breath keeps going.

I consider it my first religious responsibility to pray for the dead.

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which gods are these? Do you mind if I ask how you became drawn to them?


Hathor and Thoth?  They're Egyptian.  (Well, the Greek forms of the Egyptian names, which I used because I figured it was more beginner-friendly.)  Hathor is a goddess of joy and ecstasy, of attraction and repulsion, of green and blue opaque stones, of gold, of music, of motherhood (among other things); Thoth a god of wisdom, magic, time, order, mathematics, strategy, writing, and cheating at cards.

The short version of the story of how I got there:

I was introduced to Wicca-through-books when I was fourteen or fifteen, by a friend who had relevant books.  I read them, found that it was ... a better fit for me than anything that I'd encountered before, tried a few things, mostly felt like a right idiot with the sorts of rituals I could find, and lapsed into a vague sort of "I'm pagan but I don't actually do anything" for a while after that.

Early on, though, I had picked up a sense of a numinous presence, female, weird sense of humour.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what she was like, mostly just testing my instinct against things and seeing what felt particularly good.  Never had a name for her; wound up, after a while, calling her 'Baubo', not because I thought that was Who I was dealing with, but because it was funny.  (Baubo is a minor Greek goddess associated with bawdy sex jokes; she plays a minor part in one of the Demeter and Persephone myth versions, flashing Demeter to cheer her up.)

Fast forward to about 2001, I guess, and I'm reading a book about spiritual experiences and tattooing, and it has this chart in the back, listing off symbols and what Powers are associated with them.  I get a really intense flash of "OOH THAT IS SHINY" off one of them, which is listed as associated with Bast.  It was the sort of book that one says "Okay, that's nice, let me research it and see if the author pulled it out of their ass" about, so I did research, discovered Egyptian reconstructionism.

I started studying that.  The ethos was something that felt like it fit, as I understood it.  I also had the amazing experience of doing a ritual and feeling like it worked, rather than it made me feel like a dope.  Not "it worked" in the sense of "I had an experience with a god" but "it worked" in the sense of "I feel calm, centred, and happy with my life".

Which had me going, "Okay, nebulous female presence, are you an Egyptian goddess, and if so which one?" and doing a lot of poking at things.  Eventually I decided that nebulous female presence was Hathor, and have acted accordingly since.

From there, it was a matter of expanding out to the other members of the pantheon that made sense, and as I am a Giant Fussy Nerd, honoring a god with associations with Giant Fussy Nerdery was sensible.

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This is very interesting...is this like celebrating yourself?


It's a tool of self-awareness, self-care, and self-respect.  It reminds me of a set of magical techniques that I tend to forget about to my detriment, stores my tools for various things, and generally helps keep me from flaking out quite so much. :P

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What is a visitor's shrine? Is it like honouring guests or blessing people that come into your home?


The more incorporeal sorts of visitors, really.  Mostly the Good Folk.

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Are your shrines scattered throughout your home? How did you come to practice rituals and magic? Did you use resources or do whatever felt right??

 
Most of them are in the bedroom, some are in the kitchen, some are in the yard.  They're built out of a combination of "this is my instinct of what should do" and lore-based stuff where lore is an option.
as the water grinds the stone
we rise and fall
as our ashes turn to dust
we shine like stars    - Covenant, "Bullet"

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