paganism in a christian world

Dedication Rituals

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This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is about dedication rituals, and honestly?  I had to look that shit up. Seriously.

Topic for the Week of 2/3:  Did any of you do dedication rituals, and what are your experiences and thoughts on them?

fern

Okay, so what I understand is that this is a type of ritual where you dedicate yourself to a specific deity/deities or a specific religious path.   Sort of like a baptism, but in relation to pagan beliefs, deity, or paths.

The closest that I have come to something like this was early on after I’d left my parent’s home and was living on my own, and had decided to discard the use of deity in my practice.   That summer I hiked up into the Olympic National Park via the Hoh Rainforest access point.

Deep within the forests here, I had stripped free of my clothing at a spot deep within the threads of the liminal spaces there and laid myself down upon the forest floor among the cedars, ferns, and moss.  In the deep, damp embrace of the forest, draped in the shadows of dense vegetation, I closed my eyes and sought the earth.

Like a grounding exercise, I threaded my energy into the soil beneath me like roots digging into the earth.  I let my energy expand and flow, opening myself up to the energies around me and connecting myself fully to the environment I was in.

I sought what was real and true for me.  I sought direction and connection, and I found both.   I didn’t sleep, but I was there for a few hours, and once done I picked myself up and dressed, then set up camp for the night.

Is this a dedication ritual?  I’m not sure.  But it’s the closest I can think of to something that might qualify.

 

My Meditation Practice, and Some Advice for Beginners

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This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is about a whole bunch of things concerning the new year, including goals and what I’m currently into.  I pretty much answered all this last week, so today’s question is coming from one of the Discord servers I am a member of instead.

Topic for the Week of 1/27:  What are some ways in which you meditate? What are some techniques and tips you could give to beginners? What helps you stay focused?

dog

I personally do not use music during meditation most of the time because I am an aural synesthete, so music can become extremely distracting and I don’t consider the “riding of sound” to be a meditation in and of itself (although, of course it is… it’s just not for me personally).

I do a variety of meditation techniques including incorporating it into my yoga/physiotherapy, body scans, five senses scans, guided meditation (primarily using the Calm app), visualization techniques, etc. (Not all at once, obviously.) It really depends on how I feel each day as to which one I use.

For beginners to meditation…

1) Start small. Five minutes a day. Ten minutes a day. It doesn’t have to be some marathon session. Just set aside those five or ten minutes and do it.

2) EVERYONE struggles with focus. Don’t try so hard to block everything out. Instead, consider yourself like a window screen. The outside distractions flow through you like a breeze but do not move you.

3) Again, EVERYONE struggles with focus. Our minds wander. It’s natural. One of the main purposes of meditation is to exercise your mind’s ability to find calm. You do this not by staying in that focused and clam state 100% of the time, but by bringing yourself back to it each time you notice that your mind has strayed. By setting aside what your mind has wandered to and coming back to center, you are essentially doing a mental push-up.

4) Try different types of meditation. Everyone is different. Maybe chanting helps you focus… maybe not. Maybe visualization is your thing… or maybe not. Maybe you need a guided meditation to assist in your focus, or maybe the guided ones irk you. It’s completely individual, so don’t be afraid to experiment to find what feels best to you.

5) Not everyone focuses on their breath. It’s true that it’s very common as a focus, but it’s not for everyone. I personally find that I have better results focusing on my solar plexus and how I am feeling there (which is what I consider the seat of the soul and definitely have fluctuations concerning).

For my own focusing challenges… I personally struggle with “I should be doing this right now” and the constant fidget to get moving again.  I deal with this by reminding myself that this is TEN minutes.  That’s all it is.  Ten minutes out of the thousands and thousands of minutes in a day.   Ten minutes to set everything aside and take a break.  It might be the ONLY break I get all day, so enjoy it while it’s there in my grasp.

 

Impact of One’s Path

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So… I think that Pagan Perspective is taking a week off this week, as there’s no new question to work with.   Due to this, I decided to snag a question from one of the pagan/witchy type groups I’m a member of on Discord and use that instead.

sun

Topic for the Week of 12/16: How has your religion impacted your overall well-being? Has it changed how you see the world and other people?

The first part of this question is immeasurable for me. I get a great sense of peace and overall well being from connecting with nature, and the communion of that practice. It is a part of me at my very core, a part of not just who I am but of my internal makeup and my soul.  Because of that, it’s impossible for me to differentiate myself from that enough to really clearly delineate my path from myself and my well-being.  They are simply too integrated to be able to separate them.

I also can’t really say if my path has changed my outlook on the world or other people, as I’ve been (essentially) on the same path my entire life.  Yes, I transitioned from Wicca to a non-theistic Paganism when I left my parent’s home, but not a lot of my inner beliefs really changed in that shift, as I never really connected with deity in the first place.

What I can say is that the deeper I go into my spirituality, the healthier my emotional and mental health become… which in turn improves my outlook on just about everything.

 

Art Upon the Path

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This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is about finding your path.

Topic for the Week of 12/2: “Do you do any art related to your path that you would like to share? Or is there art by others that is meaningful to you?”

Jewelry

Jewelry design and creation is one of my favorite hobbies, and one that I ended up turning into a business.

I use this creative outlet to express my love for nature and color and… symmetry.  I love creating beautiful things, and while doing so, filling them with positive intention.

Those pieces I create and the intentions set within them are then sent out into the world to bring a bit of joy, pleasure, and/or happiness to those that see, wear, and own these pieces.

With this hobby, I seek to spread out small touches of positivity out around the globe, one piece at a time.  I find a sense of peace and joy in doing so, and feel that in some small way I am contributing to a better world.  My creations are now spread across more than sixty countries, and I hope that with piece that I ship out, I send out just a little more positive energy into the world to be enjoyed and shared.

As for art from others that is meaningful to me… there is a reason that I own so many cartomancy decks.  I connect to the imagery in the cards, which means that there are many, many artists out there that create art that is meaningful to me.

I have also mentioned before the poem “The Dash” written by Linda Ellis.  This too is a type of art that I admire, and this one piece in particular really touched my soul.

 

SocioEconomics and Eco-Justice

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This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is about how socioeconomics and eco-justice tie into our beliefs and path.

field

Topic for the Week of 11/11:

from soul seeker:
“I am wondering if and how your path supports socioeconomic justice and eco-justice?”

from Rebekah Getchell:
“…in reading the book ‘For Earths Sake’ I found the argument and perspective that the domination of nature and women go hand in hand in our patriarchal society. it submits as evidence pointing to this fact, that we refer to nature in a feminist view, mother nature, mother earth, the now stopped practice of naming hurricanes after women. It supposes that we cannot fix one without fixing the other. Curious your thoughts and beliefs about this idea and argument.”

Okay so honestly?  I’m kind of confused by this question.  I did some research on the topic and it sounds to me like this is primarily a question on how my personal path supports equality and outreach to assist and lift up into equality those that qualify as minorities and the less fortunate.  (The word “eco-justice” confused me as well, because I was thinking ecology… but it’s in reference to economy.)

The thing is?  I am very disconnected from my community.  Aside from supporting balance and minorities through the way that I vote, supporting public services and small businesses in struggling areas,  etc. I don’t really have a lot of contact with others.

I do enjoy spending time sharing my path through online to those that can reach out through that medium, and providing ideas and perspectives in those areas online where I share such information.   These include places like Discord, where I often run into people new to the path that are unable to find learning resources through their local environment.

As for no longer naming hurricanes after women.  This is incorrect.  They have simply begun including the names of men into the practice as well.

As for the “mother” nature view.   I am devout to the energies of creation, evolution, and balance.  These energies are neither male or female.   I lately got myself nipped by a woman in a chat that justified the fact that there are hundreds of exclusively “sacred feminine” tarot decks out there and no “sacred masculine” tarot out there by the fact that women have been suppressed for centuries.

I disagree with this viewpoint, because if we are seeking balance in these things, then at this point we have swung out of balance far and beyond rectifying the imbalance between how the two genders are treated and the equality that is lacking.    So yes, maybe “mother” nature is not fostering balance in this area…. but I think that there are a lot of women out there that are very much pushing for what is not balance, but restitution and atonement for those hundreds of years in the past.

I may be male, but I as a Korean man in America?  I am also very much a minority.  (Not to mention I looked like a tall twelve year old until in my 20s, which means that I dealt with that issue as well.)  I know how that feels, and I know it can breed resentment.   But I do feel that there needs to be less of an expectation of being “owed” recompense, and more of a focus on balance and equality.

It feels like I’ve gotten off topic, but I have a little confusion as to the topic as a whole to begin with, I think.  I guess because I never considered my faith and practice as something that was a part of this particular topic.   I hope that my answer made some sense, though.

Coming Out as Pagan

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This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is about coming out as Pagan later in life.

sunbeam

Topic for the Week of 10/28: “So how to start a conversation of coming out of the broom closet if I became a pagan later in life and I need to tell my husband? How can I bring this up. This is the right path for me. But I’m scared. (Neither of us are church goers either).”

Obviously, this topic doesn’t really apply to me all that much, as I was raised pagan and have never been in the closet about my beliefs (aside from briefly while traveling for personal safety reasons).

That said, I do actually have an opinion on this and I’d like to share that here, but I would like to precursor my opinion by stating that IF coming out with your faith to others is going to put you in danger?  I don’t think it’s a good idea.

If it is not going to put you in danger, though?  I think it’s important to be your authentic self with those you love.   Even if you aren’t shouting from the rooftops what you are (which doesn’t really happen all that often unless it’s someone coming out of the closet, before they realize that most people outside of their loved ones really don’t care LOL), I think that letting your loved ones know what is near and dear to your heart is important.  One of those things should (naturally) be your faith.

If they can’t accept that, it’s really their problem.  Not yours.  Let them deal with it, process it, and find a way past it.   If they love you, even if it matters?  It won’t matter.   That is to say that yes, they might have an issue with it, but it won’t change how they feel about you.   If it does?  Well then they don’t really love you after all.

That takes bravery tho, yes?  Because some people don’t want to find out if there really are conditions to being loved by those that they love.

It doesn’t change my opinion tho.   We need people in our lives that accept us and love us for who we are, not for who they want us to be.

As for how you bring it up, it really depends on who you’re telling.  Some people process things better when it comes from an off-hand comment and they can then ask questions.  Other people need the “sit down and have a heart to heart” approach.  You know your loved ones best, and if you think about it, should know which approach they’ll respond best to.

And lastly… do not confuse fear of telling someone your path with doubt on if the path is right for you.   They are two separate issues.

If you’re not sure if it’s the right path yet, but you still want to tell them?  I suggest approaching it along the line of “I have started to explore…..” or “I’ve begun to have an interest in….”   That way you are not committing to the path, but still giving them a heads up about what’s going on.