Putting It Out There

The following is a post that I had written for another blog:

When CJ came to me a while ago and asked me to write a guest post about my religion for her blog, my initial reaction was that it was quite an honor. My next reaction was, "Oh no, what should I write????" I am Pagan and have been for almost 11 years. My religion has a bad reputation and is widely misunderstood, so having the opportunity to explain things is both exciting and daunting.

I'll start off by clearing up a few common misconceptions. Pagans do not worship Satan. Pagans do not eat babies. Pagans do not sacrifice people or animals. Pagans are not interested in converting you, your children, or anyone else to our religion. If you've seen the movie, "The Craft," then you've seen a perfect example of what we are not.

Talking about what Paganism is, well, that's a lot more challenging. Paganism is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of belief systems. At the core of all of them is the concept that God/Goddess/Deity/Universal Spirit (or whatever you want to call him/her/it/them) is imminent. Divinity is present in the earth and in all living and natural things. That means that god is within me, within you, within my cat, within the trees, within the soil, within butterflies, within spiders, within the food we eat, even within the mountains and stones. God is not to be found, however, in man-made creations such as plastic, vinyl, or polyester, etc. Because of this belief, you'll find that most Pagans have a very strong sense of environmentalism, social justice, and a reverence for life and nature.

From there, it branches into multitudes of sub-religions. Paganism is an non-illuminated religion; there are no holy texts or prophets. It's about your personal experience with the divine, so there are almost as many variations as there are Pagans. It's common to find Pagans who are polytheistic - ranging from as few as 2 deities to as many as thousands. Some believe in only one god or universal spirit, and some believe that all gods are facets of one overarching power. Most of us believe in reincarnation, and few, if any, of us believe in eternal damnation. Some believe that they are practicing truly ancient traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation, dating back to pre-Christian times. Others have done their best to reconstruct what they think was practiced in ancient times based on archaeological evidence and texts. Still others, myself included, think that we are worshipping ancient gods in a completely new way that is pertinent to modern life. Some of the more common Pagan traditions are Wicca, Druidism (or neo-Druidism), Asatru, Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Order of the Golden Dawn.

One of the most controversial practices common in Paganism is the use of magic. The word conjures images of wart-faced hags chanting evil things over a massive cauldron filled with vile substances like eye of newt and tongue of bat. The reality is much less dramatic, and much less scary. At its core, magic is putting your will into the universe in order to affect change. Many Pagans ask for their spells to be blessed by a deity or deities. In fact, prayer is one very potent form of magic. Making a wish and blowing out the candles on a birthday cake is another somewhat less potent form of magic. At its core, magic is not evil or good. It is a tool, and just as a chainsaw can be used constructively, it can also be used for nefarious purposes. Fortunately, Pagans have very strict ethical codes regarding magic. The most common rule boils down to: do what you want, as long as it doesn't harm anyone. This means that curses and hexes (spells intended to hurt someone), and even most love spells are forbidden. The most common spells are those of healing, good luck, and in today's economy, help finding a job. The second most common rule is that you may never cast a spell on someone or for someone without their knowledge and consent. Another is the "rule of three," which states that whatever you do comes back to you three times. It's basically karma - if you do something good, good things will happen to you, but if you do something bad, bad things happen to you. It's a very strong motivator to only cast benevolent spells!

Obviously, this post only touches on the smallest fraction of what Paganism is. www.witchvox.com is a great online resource for additional information if you're interested.

Happy Ostara

Two posts in one day? What is the world coming to??? I guess that's what happens when I am free from the burden of finals.

Today is Ostara, the spring equinox, the first day of spring. A lot of Easter traditions come from this Pagan holiday - specifically the eggs and the bunny, two potent fertility symbols. According to lore, Ostara is the day the Goddess and God get it on and conceive... the God (he gets reborn in nine months on the winter solstice). This is the perfect time for new endeavors, and of course, it's a great time for sex if you have someone special.

My original plan for the day was to go to the garden store, buy loads of gardening supplies and begin my experimental vegetable garden on my extremely small balcony that only gets partial sun. After all, today is all about growth and seeds becoming something new. Alas, my back decided it wanted none of that and has been killing me all day. I guess my little garden will have to wait until I am able to bend over again. I have been online for a good deal of the day perusing gardening websites and blogs, getting ideas and trying to figure out how best to use the very limited space I have. I wish my cat didn't like to eat plants so much, or I would try an indoor garden as well.

Tomorrow, I will be having dinner with my parents, and my mom is going to give me a bunch of pots that she and my dad aren't using. Hooray for free pots! Figuring out how not to spend more money than I have on this garden is just as much work as gardening will be.

My Favorite Drug

The following post was a response to a question posed in a friend's blog. My friend is Mormon, and she asked about whether her readers (most of whom, presumably, are also Mormon) drink coffee, which is verboten in their religion. She also asked about how "evil" it really is.

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I am not Mormon, and I don't base my actions on the words of profits, though I do recognize that there is often a great deal of wisdom in what they said. Personal wisdom comes, in part, from understanding the reasons behind rules that we are given. Once we know the reason, we can choose for ourselves whether or not the rules are just and should be obeyed.

I am a caffeine addict. At the end of March I'll be one year "sober." I had to quit drinking all caffeine because of the havoc it wreaked on my stomach. I used to drink copious amounts of coffee, tea, and soda. I still crave it at times, and I have even had dreams of drinking Dr. Pepper.

That being said, caffeine simply isn't good for you. From a Chinese Medicine standpoint, caffeine is the equivalent of a credit card (where you're talking about qi/energy instead of money). It creates false energy, borrowing from resources that you don't have, leading to exhaustion. As caffeine use increases, it becomes harder and harder to stop because you have smaller and smaller quantities of your own natural resources to draw from. Ultimately, this will lead to health problems that can range from fatigue to much more serious conditions.

I had several signs that came from divine origin (a story for another day) that indicated quite clearly that I needed to stop drinking caffeine. I chose to ignore the signs, and my health took a nosedive. I didn't follow a directive from my Goddess, and that made me less faithful. That doesn't mean that I stopped having faith and belief. It doesn't mean that I didn't strive to do my Goddess's will in other aspects of my life. It simply means that I wasn't living up to my full potential as a religious person.

In life and in religion, there are big rules and small rules. The big rules tend to be easier to follow - don't kill people, don't steal things, etc. The little rules are easy to bend because the effects and the consequences aren't as noticeable, and it's easier to justify them. Murdering someone is wrong, plain and simple. Drinking coffee... wellll... that's just not as clear. I would go so far as to say that from a moral standpoint, it isn't wrong; it's just a bad idea.

The problem with ignoring small rules - especially when dealing with religion - is that it becomes easier to ignore other, bigger rules. I know that when I don't act on what the Goddess says in one area, a lot of other things tend to slip, and it takes a lot of effort to get back on track.

The other thing that I try to always keep in mind is that if the reasoning behind a rule is sound (which, if it's coming from a deity, it's pretty safe to assume that it will be), then following it will ultimately make your life easier. Yes, it sure is convenient to have a nice, hot, grande soy no-whip white mocha in the morning to wake you up, but in the long run, there will be consequences. If you're lucky, they won't be as serious as mine, but there are, of course, no guarantees. Coffee won't keep me from heaven, but it can make life miserable.

Festival of Lights

In the modern Pagan tradition, today is Imbolc, the festival of lights. It's one of the 8 major holidays that celebrate the turning of the wheel (a.k.a. the changes of the seasons). You may also know today by the names Candlemas (the Catholic version of the holiday), or Groundhog Day. February 2 falls roughly in the middle of the winter solstice and the spring equinox, which are supposedly the first day of winter and the first day of spring. It's kind of like hump day for winter. You've gotten through the first half. Hooray! So you light a bunch of candles to brighten up the gloom, and party like it's 1999 because dammit, you've survived so far, and it's good to have a reason to celebrate.

The reality is kind of different here in Seattle. Today, I went for a walk in Discovery Park. When I started my walk, it was about 52 degrees, sunny, and beautiful. I walked until after sunset, and the temperature had dropped a good bit, but I was still comfortable without a hat on. Leaves were just starting to come out on some of the trees, one particularly hearty plant had put out some flowers, and the pussy willows had fuzzy tips. There were robins, ducks, loons, and seagulls out and about, foraging for food. It's hard to get worked up about winter when, for all intents and purposes, it's over. Oh sure, it's possible we'll get another night or two where the temperature drops below freezing, and it's still a little too early to plant most seeds outside, but really, it's spring. To that I say, "Hooray! Winter is over!!!!!" I don't care if the groundhog sees his shadow, the fact is that it's just going to get warmer and greener and more wonderful every day, and that makes my heart happy. I've lit a candle - not to help stave off the remaining winter, but to honor the return of life and to celebrate new beginnings.