A bit of a rant on the “War on Christians”

The idea of the “War on Christianity” is something I find quite funny. When I hear it, I automatically think less of the person. A lot less. In fact, to Christians in America that think they are “persecuted,” I only have this to say:

On what Sunday in America did someone show up with guns to the steps of your churches and badger the congregation? On what Monday in Illinois were you fired because of your Methodism? On what Tuesday in Topeka were you refused service for wearing a cross necklace? On what Wednesday in Macon did your child’s teacher call you because another student has beat up your child because they believe in Jesus–the same student that has been bullying the child all year long, and despite many conversations with the school because being a Southern Baptist makes your child a fair target? On what Thursday in Phoenix did you leave work to find that someone has spray painted your car with slurs for married to a being a Jesus-lover? On what Friday in Missouri did you find out that your Lutheran friend lost custody of their child for taking them to church? On what Saturday in South Bend was a Catholic berated and publicly humiliated by a perfect stranger simply for carrying a Bible?

When you all can tell me that someone, on a daily basis, somewhere is actively harassing you, barring you from worship, holding Bible-burning bonfires in front of your house, beating you or your children up, refusing you service, or taking your children away simply because you are a Christian, maybe I’ll take this so-called “persecution” seriously.

…Because all of these things have and do happen to non-Christians on a regular basis, while your puerile whining over red Starbucks cups and sharing nativity scenes with menorahs and the kid with gay parents in your kid’s class highlights the log in your eye.

The fact that people are refusing to kowtow to your so-called Christianity any longer isn’t persecution…but I’m sure it feels that way to someone whose faith is so shaky that it can’t stand the diversity of the human experience. I feel sorry for you. But I feel worse for the people that are actually seeking to live a life with Christ, to love their neighbor (their Jewish neighbor, their gay neighbor, their homeless neighbor, their atheist neighbor, their Muslim neighbor, their poor neighbor, their PoC neighbor) because you sure make them look bad.

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Definition by Metaphor

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boxes, deity, god, gods, metaphors, monotheism, panentheism, pantheism, polytheism, religion, theism opinions, views of deity

…Useful if you don’t take yourself too seriously.  If you take yourself too seriously, you might be offended.  Then again, if you’re the type of person that takes yourself too seriously and might be offended, I’m not sure why you read my blog in the first place!

Although, in all actual seriousness, this is how I first explained the differences in how people view deity to my kids (though I’ve added a few since then)–and it was something they understood easily.

 

Connecting with Spirit: Part IV

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4 centers of paganism, ancestor worship, community centered paganism, humanism, humanity

Connecting With Community

For a while, I wasn’t sure how I wanted to approach this topic.  Of the Four Centers of Paganism, this is probably the one I engage with the least in a formal way.  And then, I read a book.  It wasn’t a Pagan book, and heck, it wasn’t a book I would normally ever read.  I can’t even say that I truly *liked* the book (thought I gave it 4 stars on Amazon because it was easy to read, unique, and rather interesting).  But anyhow, I got a hold of a copy of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-hour Bookstore on my Kindle, and read it in about 2 1/2 hours (I read fast) one night, sacrificing about 2 hours a sleep to finish it. 

The heart of the book is a message that true “magic” is what we do with our own two hands, that immortality comes from what we make than endures, and that the answers we are looking for are usually not what we find.  It achieves this through the narrative of an out-of-work failed start-up guy (with relatively successful friends) that gets the night shift at a bookstore front for the library of a cult-like secret society of bibliophiles trying to find immortality in the coded book of a 16th century Italian typesetter.  And (without any real spoilers in terms of plot, because I’m pretty sure you can figure out that there is no immortality magic bullet to be found in the coded book of a 16th century Italian typesetter) the real immortality is in the connections we make with one another, and in the things we make with our own two hands, that endure.  Which is sort of a big fat “duh”, but until reading that, I’m not sure of how I would have articulated it…and why I’ve been sitting on this blog post for a hot minute.

Were I the one to name the Four Centers of Paganism, I think I’d rename “Community Centered as “Humanity-Centered”, and on the topic of “connecting with spirit” (from the To Walk a Pagan Path read along I’m doing), I think I’d call it “connecting with humanity”, rather than community.  While community makes more room linguistically for non-humans, I think we choose to do so because of the incatracies of what it really means to *be* human, as our best selves (and sometimes as our worst).

Community centered Pagans find the Divine within the family and the tribe – however they choose to define those groups. Ancient tribal religion was (and is, in the few places where it still exists) about maintaining harmonious relationships and preserving the way things have always been. Individuals are secondary to the family, and immortality is in the continuation of the family, not in the continuation of the individual.

It usually includes some form of ancestor worship, and may include offerings to the Agathos Daimon – the “good spirit” or guardian spirit of the household.
~John Beckett, The Four Centers of Paganism @ Under the Ancient Oaks

A humanity-centered Paganism that incorporates on a connection with spirit through our human-ness most certainly incorporates a certain level of humanism (religious or not).  It often includes kinship (whether kin-by-blood or kin-by-choice) as a type of spiritual bond, and will likely include ancestor veneration.  But it can also include the idea of humanity itself (or aspects of humanity) as an active, even deified, force working in the Cosmos (in the same manner as nature spirits).

Ancestor Veneration

AV is often called ancestor “worship” and I think this gives many people unfamiliar with the practice the wrong impression. Most of us who practice AV don’t worship their ancestors as higher powers that require bended knee or think the dead attain godhood. AV is a way of recognizing and remembering those who came before us. It’s honoring and thanking them, asking for help or advice, or just sharing time and remembering shared history (if there is any) – much like we would with a respected member of our living family. For those, like me, who practice AV, the dead don’t leave us behind. They are still present in our lives and can help in times of need. We take comfort from the belief that one day we will be ancestors to whom our descendants will (hopefully) pray, so that we, too, can watch over our family from the beyond and help strengthen the family wyrd^* (or whatever a particular religious tradition calls the linking of one generation to the next).

from The Pagan Princess, “Ancestor Veneration–A World Tradition

I choose to honor non-biological ancestors as part of my tradition, but I don’t practice a traditional veneration of my biological ancestors.  So, rather than explain something I don’t do, I’ll share some words and wisdom from a couple of folks that do practice ancestor veneration (and you might notice that, while similar, they offer some very different persectives.

The first thing to consider is that not all ancestors are blood relatives:

It’s not all that unusual to have unrelated “ancestors” become part of your ancestral house. Some indigenous traditions actually have specific names for the various types of ancestors: blood vs. affinity. Besides, friends, teachers, and mentors who have died can and should also be honored as respected ancestors. I don’t think that one is more important than the other. If we go far enough back, we all share common ancestry and I think it’s good and proper to honor them all, regardless of whether the association is one of blood, adoption, or affinity.

~Galina Krasskova writing @ Patheos in 2011

John Beckett (blogger @ Patheos), in a post entitiled “Who are our ancestors?” breaks down ancestors into 4 groups–the ones we know (in our lineage), the ones we don’t (in our lineage), ancestors “of spirit” (teachers, neighbors, mentors, civil leaders, etc), and our “ancestors most ancient” (from our human ancestors on back down the evolutionary line).  I like this, in that is acknowleges that kinship is complicated and that it involves more than genetics and more than just humans.  Galina Krasskova also acknowleges other-than-human ancestors of a different sort–the gods themselves, the elements, etc.  When you look at ancestry in this way, well then, yeah, I venerate my ancestors…but in my experience, most people aren’t venerating Water as an ancestor.  But…when you look at what people are actually doing on a routine basis, ancestor veneration is mostly about hominids, and usually ones we are related to or consider close to us in some way.

When we honor these ancestors, we subtly affirm an important fact: most of them weren’t Christians. If I assume my ancestors in the British Isles converted to Christianity in 500 CE (it could have been earlier – it also could have been much later) then I’ve got about 50 generations of Christians in my heritage. While the “out of Africa” migration date is highly contentious, even using the conservative date of 70,000 years ago I’ve got about 2300 generations of non-Christian ancestors – and that’s in addition to thousands more generations of human ancestors who lived in Africa.

Yes, in leaving Christianity I have rejected the religion of some of my ancestors. But I’m working to restore the polytheist, animist, and pantheist religions of many, many more.

One theme that emerges from some people practicing ancestor veneration is that it restores a pre-Christian mindset.  Some more extreme views here (as mentioned in the elsewhere blog post I previously quoted by Galina Krasskova), considers those ancestors that converted (and lets be honest, it was probably forcefully) to Christianity to be a sort of traitor, and not worthy of worship until they renounce their choice (which sounds oh-so-Christian to me…hey, lets engage in this spiritual shunning because you didn’t do what I think is right).  Others (like John Beckett, above) are quite reasonable, and perhaps admirable.  But I personally think that this view depends too much on fallacy of antiquity–its right because its old and we were doing it longer as a species (maybe that’s also part of my person hang-up on ancestor veneration).  

People are animals like any other species, and the religions that developled in antiquity are as much a byproduct of biological and cultural evolution as any other adaptative technology (like clothing) as it is part of the *something else* that separates us from other animals.  I personally think that we should be looking at our ancestors as lessons as *what not to do* as we do inspiration for *what we should do*.  In this same vein, many of us will have issues to address when it comes to “Honoring our Toublesome Ancestors”, a wonderfully thoughtful blog post by John Beckett.  (Hey, just because I don’t do something doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate someone else’s views!)

Venerating Humanity

  Humanity isn’t a chain, one generation linking to the next; it is a river, flowing and overlapping.

What matters to me is remembering the lessons of history and humankind that have impacted our lives in a general sense, and in a more specific and personal sense. Sometimes those people are our relations. Sometimes those people are friends. Sometimes those are people that we’ve never even met. Sometimes, they might even be fictional.

me, from here

On Memorial Day, our family holds a ritual of acknowlegement and thanks to the men and women that have died of war.  On Samhain we honor those that we loved and have lost–relations, friends, and personally influential individuals to us. On Darwin Day, we celebrate the tool of inquiry known as science that offers another layer by which to encounter and interact with the world, a tool that has (thanks to Mr. Darwin) given us great insight into our place in the Tree of Life.  On “Columbus Day” we hold a mirror to the great injustices perpetrated by Columbus and the genocide that followed, one of our great sins of our modern history.  On Martin Luther King Day, we do the same for the second (in terms of commencement, not in terms of magnitude or importance) of our great sins of modern history.  There are others–for example we celebrate Demokratia (aka Libertas)–a deity that exists from a human ideal, on the 4th of July. Additionally, I regularly remember a number persons from Ben Franklin to Wangari Maathai and dedicate certain activites to their memory.

After all, the greatest mystery of life is what happens when we die. The only sure bet for the parts of us that remain are the memories we leave behind, the actions we inspire in others, the stories that are passed on, and the material legacy that we can’t take with us. I know that elephants mourn their dead, and that other animals show signs of stress and perhaps even grief when offspring die, but as far as I know, we are the only species that contemplates our ending with a mind to legacy as a method to find immortality. I don’t know whether that tendency is good or bad…though I am certain there are bits of both in there. But ultimately, it is who we are as a species, and I would rather honor the things that make us human in the best way than reject them because some choose to use them in the worst.

For me, connecting with community can be something practical–seeking a community of similarly-spiritual folks to socialize with, perhaps to do ritual with, to exchange ideas and support and take action together for the betterment of our wider community (even those that surely believe I am hell-bound), as with the Midsummer ritual and beach clean-up my daughter and I attended last weekend. Connecting with community can be a matter of embracing or confronting those ideas and ideals (and the gods that represent them) that are a part of what makes us human–democracy (Demokratia/Libertas), retribution (Nemesis), justice (Dike), retaliation, (Poene), victory (Nike), Adicia (injustice), etc. (a list of the Greek minor deities that “preside over the human condition”). It might mean volunteering or giving to charities that assist those in need in honor of a loved one, venerating one’s ancestors as a regular religious practice, or something else all together that I’ve not thought about.

The question is, what do you do to connect with community as a part of your spiritual practice?

Connecting with Spirit: Part III

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aspects of the self, chakras, connecting with spirit, druidry, Feri, Jung, paganism, Self, self-centric paganism, shadow, talking self, to walk a pagan path

Connecting Within the Self

I don’t mean this in the pejorative sense of ego-centrism, and for that reason I have capitalized the word “Self”, by which I mean something which transcends the ego and even the individual. This analogy may be helpful: as the Vedantic Brahman is to the Atman, so the Self is to the ego. “Self” can be a misleading term, but I think it is actually appropriate for that reason, because the danger of Self-centered spiritual practice is always that it will become ego-centered. (My own spiritual path partially overlaps with this kind of Paganism.) Self-centered Paganism includes Jungian Neopaganism, many forms of Wicca and feminist witchcraft, and more ceremonial or esoteric forms of Paganism. The Pagan identity of Self-centered Pagans is defined by spiritual practices which aim at development of the individual, spiritually or psychologically. Paganism is, for some Self-centered Pagans, a form of therapy or self-help. Authenticity is determined by one’s relationship with one’s Self, with that larger sense of Self which extends beyond the boundaries of one’s ego and one’s individual person. To put it another way, Pagan authenticity for this group is measured in terms of personal growth, whether that growth be toward psychological wholeness or ecstatic union with a divine “One”.
~John Halstead Three (or more?) Centers of Paganism @ The Allergic Pagan

Lets just get the first problem with a Self-centered Paganism out of the way.  Its the name, right?  Makes you think selfish, egocentric, arrogant, asshole by default?  Maybe its just me, but from now on, I think I’ll go with calling it Self-centric…  Now what about problem two–wtf do we mean by “Self” in this context anyhow?   Probably one of the more prolific Pagan bloggers on this subject (particularly with regard to the influence of Jung) is John Halstead, so I’m going to be defaulting to his explanation of what “the Self” *is* with regard to Self-centric Paganism.

Here, I’m going to talk about Self-centric Paganism as I practice it; as a sort of In-scape or Innerworld work that strives to make connections with what I see as the various aspects of (my) Self.  These aspects are eclectic–some of the ideas are Jungian, some are Jungian-ish, and there are influences from the three aspects of the soul in the Feri tradition, and from chakra work.  I work with (my) Self in 7 aspects; certainly it could be divided into many more (or less), or the aspects could be viewed differently, with different names and characteristics.  This is just my personal preference, as the most useful way I’ve found to work with the different facets of my personality, as well as to help the kiddos work through different issues of their own.  But regardless of what aspects of your Self you chose, the important thing to remember is that these aspects aren’t something you have, its something you are.

1.  Connecting with your Wild Child.  In the Feri tradition, what I call the Wild Child is fairly analogous to the fetch.  Your inner Wild Child is child-like, from a sensory perspective, but more adult in his/her interests.  S/he craves sensations and a little bit of mayhem–dance, play in the mud, play with play dough, swing on a swing, stomp in puddles…but (like a child) still needs structure and discipline.  The Wild Child is the part ourselves that is the most connected with nature and the Earth and, I would argue, the most embracing of its magic.  If you are into chakra work, this part of yourself is most strongly connected with the root chakra; it craves security AND freedom.  For some of us, our Wild Child may be overly repressed, and needs to be let out; for others it may be overly loud and need some reigning in.

2.  Connecting with your Wounded Self.  Almost no one escapes life without scars, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, or all of the above.  We all carry wounds somewhere on our soul, some of which have healed well, some that have healed poorly, some that have become infected, and some that remain open and gaping.  When we connect with our Wounded Self, we become our own healer and identify those wounds, how they were made, and how we can facilitate their healing in a way that minimizes the impact of their scars on our daily lives.  It is connected with the sacral chakra, for those that do chakra work.  The wounded self, IMO, is also where our conscience starts–if something hurts you, you know it will hurt another; someone with a well-developed Wounded Self (and well-developed does not mean oft injured) generally has a strong sense of empathy, and therefore, a strong sense of right and wrong.  The kids call this their Jiminy Cricket.

3.  Connecting with your Shadow.  Our shadow is generally a part of ourselves that we don’t like and try to bury.  Basically, its the flip side or the hidden side of the Talking Self.  In the interest of parsing words, I recommend another of John’s posts on the Shadow Self.   By connecting with our Shadow Self, we can come to terms with (and maybe even honor) those parts of our-self that we spend too much time denying.  I have a hard time dealing with anger, because it was an emotion that I learned to repress very early on in life for fear of getting hit by my father…anger tends to leak from me in the form of sarcasm, or occasionally explode in a burst of temper because (and I’m certain I’m not alone here) I never learned to deal with it in a healthy way as a child, and was made to feel ashamed of being angry.  As a parent, part of my shadow work is acknowledging my anger, accepting it, and finding a safe place to express it (because all parents know kids know how and when to push our buttons for maximum impact).  For anyone doing chakra work, the Shadow can be connected with via the solar plexus chakra.

4.  Connecting with your Mirrored-Self.  The Ancient Greeks had six words for love.  You are likely familiar with 5 of them, but its the sixth that is pertinent here–Philautia, or love of the self (something best done in moderation).  The Mirrored-Self is connected to both our social identity and our self-identity.  When we are well connected with our Mirrored-Self, we are able to let go of how we think others view us (which is generally the source of bias for how we see ourselves) and seek an objective self (an unblemished mirror) that is worthy of philautia (but not so much that we become narcissistic).  Connecting with our Mirrored-Self is about acknowledging our flaws (because we are all flawed human beings) and both seeking to overcome or rectify them AND to forgive ourselves for having them or falling short on getting rid of them.  For those that do chakra work, the Mirrored-Self is in the realm of the heart chakra, because you can’t truly love another flawed human being, unless you accept and love yourself.

5.  Connecting with your Talking Self.  Jung would call this the Ego, but I prefer the Feri term for it… Realistically, most of us are nearly always connected to our Talking Self, so when I say “connecting” with it, I’m not suggesting we need to find it, but rather that we need to acknowledge it and define its edges so that we can release it for a while and move beyond it.   Talking Self falls under the aegis of the throat chakra.  The Shadow is a sublimated aspect of the Talking Self and often shows up in unexpected ways when dealing with Talker.  When dealing with Talking Self, we first need to know the limitations of him/her:

Talker is the part you are used to thinking of as yourself. It’s your social self, the one you present to the world. Talker’s favorite tool is language, because that’s how we social-animal hominids evolved to connect with one another. Talker has its own magic, to do with glamorie and storytelling, but often the more rigid and less charming aspects of it tend to take over. Since it is by necessity focused outward and towards other people, Talker is also the most prone to being pulled out of whack.

~from “Align Your Souls (Feri part 6)” by Sara Amis via Pantheon @ Patheos

6.  Connecting with your Judging Self.  Because I love watching Star Trek (but not enough to go to conventions), I like to call this my Inner Vulcan, because I tend to have a strong empirical streak.  This is the aspect of our-self that is the most concerned with what we value, and is connected to the pineal chakra.  It is the part of our-self that is capable of being reasonable and rational, sometimes even to the point of being unreasonable and irrational (pretty much like most of the Vulcans during the entire Enterprise series).  It is also the part of our-self that can choose to reject the rational, in favor of the intuitive, sometimes to the point of denying reality and being flighty.  When our Judging Self is balanced, we are able to look at both objective and subjective realities and value both as important to the human condition.  Our Judging Self and our Wounded Self are in flux together, one feeding the other in a sort of feedback loop.

7.  Connecting to your Expansive Self.  In the Feri tradition, this is known as the God-self or Deep Self (its also called this in the Reclaiming tradition).   Another way that one can think of this aspect of our-self is as part of the Anima Mundi, or as part of a Universal Consciousness.  Our Expansive self is connected to the Crown Chakra.  This is the part of us that can connect with divinity, in what ever form we conceive of it, and connection to our Expansive Self is highly personalized and dependent on the ways that we perceive sacredness and communicate with what we see as the Divine.  Our Expansive Self is sort of the flip side of a coin with Wild Child, and to some degree, we are working to keep them in a state of equilibrium.

Methods for Connection

We can connect with these different aspects of the Self in a variety of ways, such as through meditation and visualization (guided or otherwise), through direct worship–via prayer or offerings, and from mundane activities that honor the qualities and preferences of the various aspects.  By extablishing a religious relationship with the Self, we are engaging in worship of the Divine-within, an important source of connection and power.

Common Pagna shrine-work often focuses on the Three Kindreds, on honoring the gods of one’s house, one’s ancestors the spirits of one’s land.  All of these things are important for practical magic, but it is also important for magicians to take up the cult of the Inner Divine.  We know that within us is the very Fire of the Druids, the true Holy Well.  The very powers by which the Gods make and nourish the world are ours to use, according to our strength, wisdom, and skill.

This power–this Divine in Us–is worthy of our worship.  It is our own magic…by which we work our will in the world.

~Ian Corrigan, Sacred Fire, Holy Well: A Druid’s Grimoire

One of the most basic ways I connect with these aspects of (my) Self is through a modified chakra meditation.  Using chakra imagery, I sort of “check in” which the different aspects of (my) Self–are they balanced, are they operating optimally, are they being fulfilled, and (most importantly) are they working together?  Usually the answer is yes…while I do have to fight a tendency to live inside my head more than is healthy, along with a bit of a habit of procrastination, some issues with repressing anger that I need to work on, and I constantly feel like I need to prove myself to myself, I think over all, I’m fairly operational and balanced.  But sometimes the answer is no–maybe work stress or parenting stress is getting to me, maybe I’ve been sick, maybe I’ve had to push off too much work around the house to play chauffeur for the minions while the hubby is out of town–regardless of the reason, sometimes one aspect or another gets overworked or neglected and they all get out of whack.

I am not of the opinion that these aspects are subpersonalities, but rather that they are different lenses through which we see the world.  For example, I’m a mom and a wife–what I do and value as mother for my children and our relationship isn’t necessarily the same as what I do and value as a wife to my husband and our relationship (just as what he does and values as a father for our children and as a husband to me isn’t necessarily the same).  When the roles are related and the goals are similar, there is bound to be overlap…but when they have less in common (for example, my role as a member of the military often was at odds with my role as a wife and mother), there is less overlap and occasional conflict.  The aspects of (my) Self, are more like being a mom and a wife and a veteran and a scientist, etc., than the personalities The Three Faces of Eve.  I deal with “conflict” between these aspects in a variety of ways…most commonly by reengaging (generally in mundane ways) with that aspect, or sometimes through meditation or ritual.  I also occasionally engage with them through creative visualization as if they were separate entities, but I’m fairly sure this is not a good idea for everyone to try…I know a number of people whose level of discernment combined with an activity like this would lead to trouble.

Because I also think these are sort of Universal archetypes (though not in the traditional sense) that can be seen on personal, family, community, and societal levels, and even on the level of humanity as a whole, as well as having deities that are representative of these archetypes (there are several trickster-type gods with strong Wild Child and Shadow tendencies in particular), I don’t feel out of place honoring the Divine-within through actual worship, mostly in the form of prayer, but also in offerings.  While I’m fairly sure this system isn’t quite what Ian Corrigan had in mind when he talked about our Inner Fire being worthy of worship, I find that it works for me, not as a means to increase my magical power, but as a means to foster a greater balance and connection to a Universal consciousness and to Earth Herself.

Ultimately, this is just one Self-centric Paganism.  Other Paganisms often have a Self-centric aspect, even if they are not explicitly so–Druidry (see Ian Corrigan’s book for an example, if you have Kindle Unlimited, you can check it out), Wicca, a number of witchcraft traditions, etc.  Others might be explicitly Self-centric–atheistic Pagans, Satanists (theistic or non) that choose to self-identify with the Pagan community , and practitioners of certain forms of magic or witchcraft.  Additionally, something to consider when one is approaching Divinity from a Self-centric perspective is that while a connection with the Self is certainly be an authentic Pagan experience, there is a danger of dipping into little-s, self-centered Paganism* (or perhaps ego-centric Paganism is a better moniker?).  But done well, Self-centric Paganism is one more way that we can connect with spirit as Pagans trying to walk a Pagan path in the day-to-day.

*Actually, I would argue that all four of the centers of Paganism have their own “dark side”–community-centered Pagansim and folkishness, deity-centered Paganism and zealotry, Earth/nature-centered Paganism and a sort of anti-humanist nihilism, and the aforementioned ego-tripping.

Connecting with Spirit: Part II

Tags

4 centers of paganism, bioregionalism, earth-based relgion, genus loci, landspirits, nature, nature spirits, paganism

When you need to pray, go down to the sea.  Breathe with the rhythm of the waves. Become the sun, the surf, the sand.  And when you no longer know one from the other, let your hopes, your fears, your dreams, your very soul become one with the world, with the universe.

Don’t worry, when you are finished you will find your way back to yourself.  You will have cleansed the stain of civilization from your soul to one again embrace your true self.  And you will know that you can come back anytime, you are only a small thought away from god.

If you lack a handy nearby ocean, don’t worry.  You can do this anywhere…just shut off your computer or put down your book, open your front door and go outside (shoes are optional, but generally not recommended).

Connecting with Nature—

Earth-centered Paganism would include those Paganisms concerned primarily with ecology, those more local forms of Paganism that I would call “backyard Paganism” or are sometimes called “dirt worship”, and many forms of (neo-)animism which view humans as non-privileged part of an interconnected more-than-human community of beings. The Pagan identity of earth-centered Pagans is defined by their relationship to their natural environment. Authenticity for these Pagans is defined by one’s ability to connect with the more-than-human world.
~John Halstead, Three (or more?) Centers of Paganism @ The Allergic Pagan

Nature Centered Pagans find the Divine in Nature – their primary concern is the natural world and our relationship with it. You may hear terms like “Earth centered” “tree hugger” and “dirt worshipper.”

This may be a non-theistic practice, though not necessarily so. It includes Animism, the idea that whatever animates you and me and the birds and bees also animates the wind and rain and even the mountains.
~John Beckett, The Four Centers of Paganism @ Under the Ancient Oaks

My “Connection with Spirit” is primarily a connection with nature.  Yes (as mentioned in the last post), I worship deities, but do so in relation to their relationship to the natural world. My connection with nature is specifically a relationship with my bioregion (but not an animistic one), the Chesapeake Bay watershed. I worship personified natural forces as a way of worshiping Nature Herself (through the Nereids). Land is steeped in sacredness, whether one sees these as individual spirits (what one might call land wights, or nature spirits) or part of a greater (almost pantheistic) spirit is (IMO) beside the point. It has been my experience that the land doesn’t care about what you call it, it cares that you have heard its call (and it doesn’t care whether you believe that call is literal or figurative).

A Nature or Earth centered Pagan may work with only one of these aspects–spirits, nature, and Nature; a naturalistic Pagan might work with nature, an animist might work with their local bioregion, a pantheistic Pagan with Nature Herself, etc. Or a Nature-centered Pagan may work in the area where Nature and the gods overlap (if we think of this as a Venn diagram), or with all three aspects. Either way, the focus for most Nature centered Pagans generally seems to be building a relationship between the various aspects of nature and one’s self. This may mean building a relationship with one’s local land spirits, incorporating service and/or activism as a sign of reverence (which can be as simple as picking up trash at the local park), or creating a tradition unique to yourself and your bioregion. For me, it includes all of the above, as well as things like being ecologically thoughtful about my offerings, being a conscious and responsbile consumer, and striving to teach all of these things to my children.

I found it surprising that Albertsson didn’t address nature worship much as part of “connecting with spirit”, as he comes from an ADF background (though I suppose one could argue that he does address various ways to do so in the rest of the book).  ADF considers nature part of the Three Kindred–gods, nature, and ancestors.  The ADF Dedicant Path though the Wheel of the Year (a book that can be used to help complete ADF’s Dedicant Path) explains Nature awareness as having three facets–awareness of the physical and material existence of nature, an awareness of the spirits of Nature, and the awareness of the Earth as a sort of Mother deity (akin to what I call “Nature, Herself”).   One of the activities incalls upon its new members to find a place near enough to their home that they can visit it at least weekly for at least an hour, and to observe and experience that place with their entire being for the entire year of their Dedicant Path work.

I’m a big fan of the “find a place in nature and exhalt in spending time there regularly” practice as the most effective way to connect with nature. Too bad there isn’t a simpler word for that idea the English lanugage–after all, the Norwegians have the word friluftsliv and the Japanese have the term shinrin yoku, both of which come close…  The myriad of physical benefits from spending time in Nature–decreased stress, improves memory and attention (especially for persons with ADHD), an increased sense of vitality, and a strengthened immune system (to name a few) should have Pagans (of all sorts) lining up to go outside on a regular basis.  Physical reasons for going outside and spending time in nature aside, Paganism is ultimately a religion steeped in the idea of gods that are of this world–gods that are imminent and accessible, that are the forces and features of this existence.

If we truly believe this, whether we do so literally or figuratively, I would hope our worship would include getting to know those forces and features beyond the personality said to represent them. Spend an hour in nature (at least) each week. Learn about your bioregion, your ecosystem, your backyard.  You don’t have to do anything crazy or go anywhere fancy, though activities (like flying a kite to get to know your local Air or planting a native garden to attract your local animal spirits) can absolutely be a part of this process.  Pick up a field guide or two, go on a plant walk with your local Native Plant society, volunteer for a bird count with your local Audobon, pick up trash at the park where you walk your dog.  Talk to your garden, sleep in your woods, swim at your beach.  And do them all with reverence. But no matter what you choose do, let your feet greet the earth and get to know your bit of land, in both the mundane sense and the spiritual sense.

Once you’ve gotten to know your bioregion, make an offering to it or to an aspect of it that you are interested in working with, or to a particular spirit of your region, or to a deity or entity that you feel is representative of your bioregion at large or a particular aspect of it.  Whichever one of these options you choose (or which ever one chooses you) is, in my experience, largely unimportant–it is my experience that the land doesn’t care what you call it or how you relate to it (provided it is in keeping with its features and forces), it “cares” that you are called.  Beyond that, the process of getting to know a landspirit can be much the same as the process in getting to know any other deity.    I would also hope (and here’s where I will take great effort to stay off my soapbox as to not get off topic) that if our spirituality includes the idea of these forces and features as sacred that our everyday actions would reflect that concept of sacredness…particularly once we get to know them.

Thalassa’s Recommended Reading for the Nature-Centered Pagan:

*The Wakeful World: Animism, Mind, and the Self in Nature by Emma Restall Orr
*Biophilia by Christopher Marley
*My “bioregional awareness” post, as well as a post on bioregional witchcraft, and another on spiritual bioregionalism
*The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World and Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology by David Abram
*Bless the Waters Thrice: Making Environmentally Sustainable Offerings, What Will Druidry Look Like on Mars?, and Talking About Anthropocentrism in Modern Paganism (blog posts by Alison Leigh Lilly)
*The Song of the Land: Bioregional Animism, Land Guardianship, and How to Create a Genius Loci Profile (blog posts by Sarah Anne Lawless)
*The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert
*The Sacred Depths of Nature by Ursula Goodenough
*The Forest Unseen: A Year’s Watch in Nature by David George Haskell
*A Pagan at Donner’s Pass, The Collapse of the West and the Future of the Human Species, and (blog posts by John Beckett @ Under the Ancient Oaks)
*Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie
*Deconstructing Local Mythologies, Only Connect, and Lost Watercourses and Resacredization (blog posts on Gods and Radicals)
*How Earth-Centered is Neo-Paganism Really? (blog post by John Halstead @ Humanistic Paganism)
*The World in One Cubic Foot: A Portrait of Biodiversity by David Liittschwager
*Depth Ecology (an essay by David Abram)
*A Natural History of the Senses and The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman
*The Meaning of Human Existence, The Social Conquest of Earth, The Future of Life, On Human Nature, Biophilia, The Diversity of Life, and Conscience: The Unity of Knowledge, all by E. O. Wilson