druidspell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
druidspell) wrote2011-06-02 08:31 pm
druidspell) wrote2011-06-02 08:31 pm
30 Days of Paganism - Day 1
1. Beliefs - Why Paganism?
I'm choosing to interpret this question as "Why did you choose Paganism?"
And the answer to that, most simply, is this: my people are pagan people. Not the people I was born to (although arguments could be made that some portions of my ancestry practiced a form of what would now be called paganism), but the people I found and fit. Not only are my people pagan, but my worldview as well. "There are more things in heaven or earth than are dreamt in your philosophy." I believe in the existence of beings that are not explained through purely scientific or logical means, including multiple deities and spirits.
I first got interested in paganism in the 8th grade, when my religion class had to do a project on a world faith *other* than Christianity. One of the websites that I found was ReligiousTolerance.org--which at the time (in 2000) had a sidebar of all the faith systems it had articles about. One of the faiths was Wicca. In between reading articles and critiques of Judaism, I started researching Wicca. I encountered Ravenwolf, but never read any of her stuff; I encountered Starhawk with the help of a teacher, and found her stuff very dense (of course, I was 13 at the time; things may have changed in 11 years).
In high school (after a brief period of being reinvigorated in my Catholicism after confirmation), I began exploring paganism again. By my freshman year of college, I'd decided that this was my path.
The best terminology for my path (rather than "tradition" as I am not an initiate of any tradition) is solitary eclectic Celtic shaman (shaman used in the anthropological sense of a part-time spiritual practitioner). I would like to someday find a coven or a grove and be initiated as a druid; until that time, I will refer to myself as being a Celtic pagan.
I'm choosing to interpret this question as "Why did you choose Paganism?"
And the answer to that, most simply, is this: my people are pagan people. Not the people I was born to (although arguments could be made that some portions of my ancestry practiced a form of what would now be called paganism), but the people I found and fit. Not only are my people pagan, but my worldview as well. "There are more things in heaven or earth than are dreamt in your philosophy." I believe in the existence of beings that are not explained through purely scientific or logical means, including multiple deities and spirits.
I first got interested in paganism in the 8th grade, when my religion class had to do a project on a world faith *other* than Christianity. One of the websites that I found was ReligiousTolerance.org--which at the time (in 2000) had a sidebar of all the faith systems it had articles about. One of the faiths was Wicca. In between reading articles and critiques of Judaism, I started researching Wicca. I encountered Ravenwolf, but never read any of her stuff; I encountered Starhawk with the help of a teacher, and found her stuff very dense (of course, I was 13 at the time; things may have changed in 11 years).
In high school (after a brief period of being reinvigorated in my Catholicism after confirmation), I began exploring paganism again. By my freshman year of college, I'd decided that this was my path.
The best terminology for my path (rather than "tradition" as I am not an initiate of any tradition) is solitary eclectic Celtic shaman (shaman used in the anthropological sense of a part-time spiritual practitioner). I would like to someday find a coven or a grove and be initiated as a druid; until that time, I will refer to myself as being a Celtic pagan.