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 Posted: Tue May 19, 2009 6:18 pm
One of my visions for a group would be for each person to have their own thread about their personal path: what do they believe, what do they know, what do they not know, what are they studying. Each pagan has their own vision.
Perhaps, in the past I would not have titled my own spot as 'walk the walk' but I have been thinking about this for a long time and may have reached that point in my understanding where I would want to put my ways into words. So I have considered my ambience: I have taken the laptop out to my back patio and we have a fire going on a warm late spring evening, when the sun has been set for just a little while, the day's work is done and some quiet can seep into my mind. I reach out to the spirits of the place and feel at peace; the conflicts of the day are set aside, nothing needs to be figured out, judgment is suspended. Even my canine has done circling, is done stealing the sticks which have been set out to go on the fire, no interesting smells travel in on the breeze. The birds have gone to roost and the squirrels to nest; the stars are out but the moon is not - it is getting towards full and has yet to rise.
In the Now I need know nothing more and am at Peace.
Blessed Be....
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Posted: Wed May 20, 2009 6:31 pm
So, what is the basis of a system of belief? What is the minimum framework needed to define a spiritual path or religion? I picked up Joseph Campbell's books and began to read....
It isn't that we search for a meaning of Life, it is that we search for the experience of being Alive. We search for the essence of Life even as we observe the leavings of Death. The symbols used depend on the Life we lead: is it centered on creatures or on the Seed.
A spiritual path attempts to explain the transcendent, often guides behavior and is delineated by mythology. Our steps on the path ever seek the sacred.
I don't find so much that religion is a construct of morals, Creation stories or always concerned with explaining what happens after we die. Yes, it is about living but, at its most basic, it seems to be about outlook, perspective and values.
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Posted: Thu May 21, 2009 6:22 pm
Well that last wasn't the easiest comment to read. The ways of the spirit can lead into the abstract - it is like walking on fog when you long for bricks or pavement or packed dirt......
Let me consider Gods and Goddesses. I don't feel like I'm in contact with deity at all times or that they necessarily dwell within. I don't feel like deity but I can touch the sacred and THAT is always here....as are the spirits all around if only one would listen.
Are the Gods and Goddesses the same today as they were when their stories were written down? I think no....I am thinking that as we have evolved over the centuries that, perhaps, they have as well, coming to know the joys of motorized transportation and indoor plumbing, advances in the production of alcoholic beverages and improvements in infrastructure. I don't think the sense of adventure that most deities once indulged, as told in the stories, would have come to an end.....
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Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 6:15 pm
I am deep in planting season, here, now that the final spring frost has passed. Tending plants is one of the ways I explore my simple form of paganism: I plant the seeds, I tend the sprouts, I care for the plants, harvest their fruits/leaves/roots and, finally, lay them to rest in the compost bin. The next year I begin by shoveling the two-year-old pile back to the garden plot, planting seeds and so on.
I am very tempted to start tying my High Days to my personal agricultural cycle.
One of the next books I am going to read for my spiritual development is Matthew Crawford's new book (coming out 5/2 cool "Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry Into the Value of Work." An essay which previews the book is appearing in the Sunday New York Times tomorrow:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine
The author has a PhD in Political Philosophy but fixes mainly vintage motorcycles for a living.
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Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 6:33 pm
So what you're saying you'd like us to do is make our own thread with our beliefs and such, correct?
*I can delete this post if you'd like. I'm just not sure if we can make the threads now, or should wait.
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Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 7:26 pm
Yes, I would love to see each person make their own thread, as you have taken a look at mine. I'm thinking that, eventually, as we grow, these threads would go into a subforum.
If a person doesn't feel ready for their own thread then I would hope that they would suggest a discussion topic and I will start it up. I don't want anyone to progress any faster than they feel ready for but I also want each and every one of us to feel that our thoughts are worth just as much as the next person's.
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Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 9:27 am
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Posted: Sun May 24, 2009 7:10 pm
Among the social things I did today, I took the time to perform a small ritual. The surface task: I cut down last year's large thorny blackberry (it died over the winter), snapped it into 18-inch lengths with the pruners and fed it to our holiday fire. The underlying meaning: this bush made me pay in pain for every berry I picked from it as it had thorns an inch long. Even in death this was a fearsome bush, pricking and sticking to me, resisting the shears. It felt good to consign its pieces to the flames rather than placing them on my stick pile to slowly decay. The ashes will go to the compost heap, instead, and nurture the rest of the garden all that much sooner. I feel a sense of peace in doing this, releasing the malice of the bush.
Of course, there is this year's blackberry bushes standing tall, ready to bite.....
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Posted: Fri May 29, 2009 6:47 pm
A note on that blackberry.....it left bits of thorns in my work gloves! I had to work a couple of thorn bits out of my one hand - they had gotten in like slivers....
I have been watching a week of mostly rain and think tomorrow will be good planting....and a different sort of ritual, one for the fertility of the plants I set out.
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Posted: Tue Jun 02, 2009 6:15 pm
I think today the last of the blackberry thorn splinters worked its way out of my fingers. I need to rethink that statement I made about my contact with the surrounding spirits always being cordial - the imps in my blackberry bushes are downright maniacal!
So many evenings I have been out planting and the end is in sight! All the major crops are in except planting the green beans but they wait partly because patches of them go into the odd spots where something didn't come up or where I have leftover space. So the garden comes together without over much planning, just as long as I'm not planting the same thing in the same spot year after year.
By Summer Solstice all is green and growing! I love that time of year because it is the respite between planting and harvest - and a short respite it is since I hardly get done setting out plants when it is time to pick peas and radishes and lettuce. I needed to beseech my major land spirits a couple nights ago because we had record cold, with a freeze watch. The tomato plants were already out so I needed that extra protection.
Ah, the work is good.
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Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 7:01 am
you can delete this post if you wish.
Is there a certain name that we should give our threads? This is a great idea, in my opinion.
And its basically a journal?
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Posted: Wed Jun 03, 2009 9:40 am
Scubas_girl you can delete this post if you wish. Is there a certain name that we should give our threads? This is a great idea, in my opinion. And its basically a journal? The name you give your own spot is completely up to you. What you do with it is your decision, as well. I am thinking that, yes, they will look like little journals but also be part Book of Shadows. Only put in what you want to share of your journey as, of course, they are accessible to the rest of us. Mine will have lots of garden/Nature stuff, workings and rituals I do, little things I think of.
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Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2009 6:25 pm
I was part of an exchange of messages about plants in someone else's personal thread, just these past couple of days. We were typing about different plants that had come into our space, where they had come from and, perhaps, skirting the question of why they had come to us. But then, there was the idea of 'rescuing' a plant.....I mean in the sense that you would rescue an animal.
And then it happened. The light went on.
Out on my walk with my canine companion I spotted these poor de-potted plants tossed by the side of the road to be picked up as yard waste. I felt sad but kept going. Oh, I didn't have a speciman of a couple of those poor bedraggled green things lying on the pavement....I passed the house where, last year, someone had set out these huge clumps of barely-sprouted hostas (these are a shade-loving perennial foliage plant) for the yard pick-up. I walked by those clumps several times, on various days, and finally brought the car around and picked them up (yes, they filled the back of my Forester), got them home, split the clumps and planted them. Those 'rescued' Hostas are doing very well - they are all various types of variegated leaf patterns; they even flowered that very first year.
So....I put those poor plants on my route home. My canine didn't feel the 'urge' so I had an empty little bag with me! It was big enough for the three plants that looked like they might have a chance....there was a philodendron, a small palm and an unknown; a former dish garden that someone tired of? The identifiable plants went into new dirt with plenty of water to try and revive them; the unknown is soaking - it doesn't look good but I'll do what I can.
So, I guess I rescued plants today. Funny how we were talking about here in the past couple of days.
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Posted: Mon Jun 15, 2009 6:32 pm
At least two of the rescued plants are doing well. I'm waiting to see if the third resprouts from the roots.
I decided to try working with the Froud Fairies this evening.....and drew the Goddess card. I took this as a overwhelmingly positive message needing no clarification. If I tossed the runes would Perthro and Berkana turn up?
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Posted: Tue Jun 16, 2009 1:26 pm
Quote: Are the Gods and Goddesses the same today as they were when their stories were written down? I think no....I am thinking that as we have evolved over the centuries that, perhaps, they have as well, coming to know the joys of motorized transportation and indoor plumbing, advances in the production of alcoholic beverages and improvements in infrastructure. I don't think the sense of adventure that most deities once indulged, as told in the stories, would have come to an end..... So in other words... Apollo has probably traded in his chariot for a Ferarri, and Artemis has probably upgraded to a Winchester. Mars, I suppose, might be driving a tank. Makes sense to me. Quote: The underlying meaning: this bush made me pay in pain for every berry I picked from it as it had thorns an inch long. Even in death this was a fearsome bush, pricking and sticking to me, resisting the shears. It felt good to consign its pieces to the flames rather than placing them on my stick pile to slowly decay. The ashes will go to the compost heap, instead, and nurture the rest of the garden all that much sooner. I feel a sense of peace in doing this, releasing the malice of the bush. Malice? How does one suppose that a blackberry is malicious because it has thorns? Thorns are a defensive measure to keep pests like us from munching its ovaries. razz
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