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Earth-centered Spirituality: Pagan, Wiccan, Druid, Native American, Other
- Post starter BloomInWinter
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- #74
BloomInWinter
VIP Member
I'm currently reading "Drawing Down the Moon" by Margo Adler of NPR. It's slow going for me as it's so packed with information that I want to consider what it means to me given the rigid religious upbringing I had. Has anyone else read this?
The historical perspective of the origins of words and their meanings are fascinating. I generally am ignorant about languages, thanks to my ethnocentric American right-wing conservative public school upbringing. I feel like I have missed out on a broader understanding of the world because of it. Now learning how words like "witch," "druid," "heathen," and "pagan" have come to hold the meanings they do only serves to confirm my feelings about how patriarchal religions have separated us humans from our inner divinity and our natural connection to our world and each other.
I know I will need to heal a lot more from my traumas to put my anger, shame, and ongoing resentments in the past. I don't wish to be a carrier of bitterness and I think spending a lot more time meditating, exercising, yoga, and being at one with nature is helping me do that. I wonder if western medicine denies us the support for these things because the doctors who set policies for medical schools, the AMA, insurance companies, and others in the medical field allow their prejudices against healing modalities with non-Christian origins to block these options out unfairly.
The historical perspective of the origins of words and their meanings are fascinating. I generally am ignorant about languages, thanks to my ethnocentric American right-wing conservative public school upbringing. I feel like I have missed out on a broader understanding of the world because of it. Now learning how words like "witch," "druid," "heathen," and "pagan" have come to hold the meanings they do only serves to confirm my feelings about how patriarchal religions have separated us humans from our inner divinity and our natural connection to our world and each other.
I know I will need to heal a lot more from my traumas to put my anger, shame, and ongoing resentments in the past. I don't wish to be a carrier of bitterness and I think spending a lot more time meditating, exercising, yoga, and being at one with nature is helping me do that. I wonder if western medicine denies us the support for these things because the doctors who set policies for medical schools, the AMA, insurance companies, and others in the medical field allow their prejudices against healing modalities with non-Christian origins to block these options out unfairly.
Chimera
Diamond Member
Chimera
Diamond Member
But I believe there are many down here who share this frustration. I know I do,
it would be nice to have like minded sisters and brothers that I could spend rl time with again.
I have it but I have only read like the first chapter. Doreen Valiente is good. Nancy B Watson's Practical Solitary Magic is one I really enjoyed. She focuses on the psychological aspect of it with heavy Jungian influence. She has a MBTI personality quiz in the back for you take and applies different things to your personality type. So if you are an ISFP for example, you might want to try certain techniques versus someone who is ENTJ
- Post starter
- #78
BloomInWinter
VIP Member
Thanks! I've added those to my reading list.
My Sundays are quite different now than they were when I was first diagnosed. I had meditation time, quiet time, time with a friend, and have been playing my tim whistle I'm trying to learn. In a few hours will be my drum circle but in the meantime I've been giving my kids my full attention.
I shall also fill my bird feeders and feel grateful that my days are no longer spent in endless rumination and trapped in the past.
Reading for pleasure is still hard for me, but wanting to learn more about ways to connect with nature is a great motivator for me to overcome my brain's resistance to reading. I'm hoping the spiritual practices with nature help heal the parts of my brain that still seem scrambled.
My Sundays are quite different now than they were when I was first diagnosed. I had meditation time, quiet time, time with a friend, and have been playing my tim whistle I'm trying to learn. In a few hours will be my drum circle but in the meantime I've been giving my kids my full attention.
I shall also fill my bird feeders and feel grateful that my days are no longer spent in endless rumination and trapped in the past.
Reading for pleasure is still hard for me, but wanting to learn more about ways to connect with nature is a great motivator for me to overcome my brain's resistance to reading. I'm hoping the spiritual practices with nature help heal the parts of my brain that still seem scrambled.
ladee
VIP Member
I am planning a Cord cutting ceremony. Am learning about why my energy is so scattered and heavy. This will be a wonderful, spiritual cleansing that my my body,mind and spirit need. Making the plans and making sure I have alone time, getting things lined up.. Looking forward to having more clean energy.
Recovery4Me
VIP Member
There are Christian Lilith gathers, Medicine Women such as my Grandmother who wore the cross and did her Shaman work, alters to the Great Spirit on a sacred burial mountain, medicine wheels next to white bark lodges that pray during Solstice. There are many that line walk, such as with radical acceptance in DBT ...it does not always have to be an either/or division. Witches can be right, giants can be good... you decide.
May the sage bloom and honor your door...
- Post starter
- #81
BloomInWinter
VIP Member
I know many wonderful individuals who don't ascribe to the patriarchal teachings of their particular religions though they do consider themselves to be of that overall. I have no problem with that. I'm glad for all those who find peace and support, no matter what their spiritual journey looks like.
It's the rejection of the feminine divine that I just couldn't buy into anymore. I do believe that any deity/deities would certainly not be all one gender or the other...or even have a gender as our culture defines roles. Religions that put one gender in power and use that power at the expense of other genders and children hold no spiritual call for me, other than being something I want no part of, nor do I want it inserted into my children's education or the laws of that land.
I find myself most at peace acknowledging both my masculine and feminine characteristics. I utterly rejected all feminine characteristics in a fruitless effort to get some love from my abusive "father" to no avail. This caused me to see the feminine divine in myself and others as weak and something to be avoided. When I asked for help from "Christian" churches along the way, the help I was offered was advice to further fragment my psyche, denying the abuse and neglect I was suffering and making up a false reality that what I was feeling inside was wrong and what was being done to me was ok...and that I deserved it and just needed to keep praying and trying harder to twist myself into meeting the needs of abusive people.
That separated me from so many wonderful, peaceful human beings of all genders along the way, but especially women, to my great sadness. Having discovered what it's like to allow the feminine divine to work within myself and celebrate it in others has brought me deeply, profoundly rewarding friendships and peace.
It has been such a relief to acknowledge that I actually deserve to be here. I don't have to earn it. I don't believe that I or any women or girls carry the "sin" of a woman who was denied education and wisdom then set up to be tempted by the strongest evil there was, then judged for failing the test. I no longer believe in the supernatural "evil" or "hell" but I do believe in people having evil intentions.
I don't need to fear the darkness within me, nor denying my feelings. That I was told I was evil and going to hell simply for being angry at being mistreated really damaged me and stole so much of my life. I do think telling children they are evil and going to hell is abuse.
The wisdom and friendship of pagan/wiccan/witch/druid/etc... women who honor themselves and this earth have been truly transformational. I feel called to bring more peace into my life and home, and in my relations with others.
I just never found anything like it in all the different patriarchal religions I've tried, and I've tried many. Though I've learned many good things, the overall feelings of trying to cram my psyche into rigid belief systems just wasn't healing for me. I'm a differently-shaped peg and I no longer waste my time trying to fit into a hole shaped for someone vastly different.
What has been healing and truly freeing was finding people who don't tell me what to believe, but instead just support me in my spiritual journey to discovering for myself what that is.
Learning more about all the earth-based spiritual practices feels like discovering my tribe, finally.
I got my abalone shell and smudging feather in the mail. I've been reading, meditating, and practicing. I'm going to finally smudge my home on Saturday morning. I finally feel like I'm prepared.
It's the rejection of the feminine divine that I just couldn't buy into anymore. I do believe that any deity/deities would certainly not be all one gender or the other...or even have a gender as our culture defines roles. Religions that put one gender in power and use that power at the expense of other genders and children hold no spiritual call for me, other than being something I want no part of, nor do I want it inserted into my children's education or the laws of that land.
I find myself most at peace acknowledging both my masculine and feminine characteristics. I utterly rejected all feminine characteristics in a fruitless effort to get some love from my abusive "father" to no avail. This caused me to see the feminine divine in myself and others as weak and something to be avoided. When I asked for help from "Christian" churches along the way, the help I was offered was advice to further fragment my psyche, denying the abuse and neglect I was suffering and making up a false reality that what I was feeling inside was wrong and what was being done to me was ok...and that I deserved it and just needed to keep praying and trying harder to twist myself into meeting the needs of abusive people.
That separated me from so many wonderful, peaceful human beings of all genders along the way, but especially women, to my great sadness. Having discovered what it's like to allow the feminine divine to work within myself and celebrate it in others has brought me deeply, profoundly rewarding friendships and peace.
It has been such a relief to acknowledge that I actually deserve to be here. I don't have to earn it. I don't believe that I or any women or girls carry the "sin" of a woman who was denied education and wisdom then set up to be tempted by the strongest evil there was, then judged for failing the test. I no longer believe in the supernatural "evil" or "hell" but I do believe in people having evil intentions.
I don't need to fear the darkness within me, nor denying my feelings. That I was told I was evil and going to hell simply for being angry at being mistreated really damaged me and stole so much of my life. I do think telling children they are evil and going to hell is abuse.
The wisdom and friendship of pagan/wiccan/witch/druid/etc... women who honor themselves and this earth have been truly transformational. I feel called to bring more peace into my life and home, and in my relations with others.
I just never found anything like it in all the different patriarchal religions I've tried, and I've tried many. Though I've learned many good things, the overall feelings of trying to cram my psyche into rigid belief systems just wasn't healing for me. I'm a differently-shaped peg and I no longer waste my time trying to fit into a hole shaped for someone vastly different.
What has been healing and truly freeing was finding people who don't tell me what to believe, but instead just support me in my spiritual journey to discovering for myself what that is.
Learning more about all the earth-based spiritual practices feels like discovering my tribe, finally.
I got my abalone shell and smudging feather in the mail. I've been reading, meditating, and practicing. I'm going to finally smudge my home on Saturday morning. I finally feel like I'm prepared.
UnKnown-Self
Diamond Member
I am very spiritual but I am not drawn to joining any religion. The embracing any specific religion I find restraining.
The us/them judgment that always weaves in. Even if it is to complain offensively how one is being judged wrongly by another.
Do I believe there was a Jesus, Mohamed or Buddah. Yes, I do but I don't believe they were on anything but their own spiritual quest and saying if I can, so can you.
They were not trying to convert or become idols. They were saying I was able to do this by following my own path
I like many things about many religions.
I pick the things I like as I do a special shell walking along the beach and I save it. .. Perhaps I'll modify it a little
The Mother Earth. The Lord Our Father, Jehovah, Yahweh, it's all the same.
The us/them judgment that always weaves in. Even if it is to complain offensively how one is being judged wrongly by another.
Do I believe there was a Jesus, Mohamed or Buddah. Yes, I do but I don't believe they were on anything but their own spiritual quest and saying if I can, so can you.
They were not trying to convert or become idols. They were saying I was able to do this by following my own path
I like many things about many religions.
I pick the things I like as I do a special shell walking along the beach and I save it. .. Perhaps I'll modify it a little
The Mother Earth. The Lord Our Father, Jehovah, Yahweh, it's all the same.
- Post starter
- #83
BloomInWinter
VIP Member
A pedophile was trolling an online pagan community I've been a part of for awhile. I reported the account, and provided links to his crimes detailing his sick, twisted perverse views using Paganism as a vehicle for finding new victims.
Many were shocked. This person had already inserted himself deeply into many of their lives and gatherings. It was very triggering for me. He's been blocked from the site and banned from events.
How I wish I didn't keep seeing these creeps. Yes, it's good to out them but why don't more people speak up? I just want to practice my craft without being triggered into rescue mode.
I'm very satisfied with the group's response as a whole. Guess these jerks are everywhere.
Many were shocked. This person had already inserted himself deeply into many of their lives and gatherings. It was very triggering for me. He's been blocked from the site and banned from events.
How I wish I didn't keep seeing these creeps. Yes, it's good to out them but why don't more people speak up? I just want to practice my craft without being triggered into rescue mode.
I'm very satisfied with the group's response as a whole. Guess these jerks are everywhere.
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