Hello dear Pagans!
So were are in the first throes of a New Year with a lot of changes coming down the pike. We are moving towards Imbolc (and Imbolc Poetry Blogging…YAY!!) and I am contemplating the core of Imbolc just as I did for Yule a few weeks ago.
I have decided to honor the new year, and look into new things and ideas as a lead in to Imbolctide.
2009 c.e. ( or e.v. for those Thelemites out there) has proven to be a time of great changing tides in the U.S. with a new and historic Presidency about to begin.
Nor are the times and tide of change limited to the National level, our own community has seen a burst of creativity and discussion in the wake of The Wild Hunt’s recent article and recent update about the end of the fine Pagan podcast Deos Shadow.
The amazing conversations that emerged in the comments section have spurred a lot of interesting posts and a lot of discussion across the Pagan blogasphere.
Inspired by these conversation I have started a new project and am trying to reinvigorate an old one…
The Pagan Community Builders list is a project I started a couple of years ago.. and then my daily life took several complicated turns… I entered school for my A.S. degree in Hospitality and Restaurant Management. I started working a new job at a theme park, and my daily life became a mad rush of days… that eventually led me to start this blog… which led me to the Wild Hunt which led me to reinvigorate the Pagan Community Builders List.
(strange how life cycles around on us isn’t it?!)
The new project is The Pagan Collegium, where I am trying to get folks interested in polite and intelligent conversations about some of the academic topics related to modern Paganism to get together and discuss things… please check it out!
As I mentioned, I have decided to honor the new year, and look into new things and ideas as a lead in to Imbolctide.
This will be a series of posts highlighting sites and links that I find amusing or inspiring when viewed through the lens of my identity and world-view as a Witch and Pagan. I hope you will join me in exploring the spirit of change and honoring 2009!
Chrysalis 
I am not an academic, but I am a public figure (I have a popular podcast) and I want to encourage critical thinking in my listeners. I’m also an agnostic pagan (I refer to myself as a pantheist) and would like to bump minds with other pantheists/agnostics/atheists about what it means to be a pagan without having an attachment to specific deities. I’m loving all the hard work you’re doing as a result of the conversation in the blogosphere, and I hope to contribute in some way in the months to come! 🙂
You know,
I am a little disturbed by the fact that a lot of the agnostic & pantheistic & atheistic Pagans I have been reading/encountering as I bounce around the net in the aftermath of the Deo’s Shadow Pagan Blogquake of ’09; I am disturbed that so many of them seem to see theistic and magick believing Pagans as anti-scholarly!
….hrrmmm maybe there’s a post topic in there somewhere…
OH!! btw… Fabulous podcast and blog Fey!!!
Peace,
Pax
Hmmmmmmmmm……..
So there are some folks who see theistic pagans and magic-using pagans as anti-scholarly, eh?
They haven’t run into Joe yet.
And once they do, they’ll be picking themselves up off the sidewalk, their heads spinning and with little cartoon stars spinning around said heads, mumbling, “Did someone get the tag number on that semi that just hit me?”
I don’t see theists or magic users as anti-scholarly *at all*. I just wasn’t aware that there was a problem among agnostics and atheists with being pagan, since I’ve been that very thing for a long time. I *wish* I could have the kind of experience I think I’d need with deity to become a bona-fide theist, but it just hasn’t happened after twenty some odd years of intense immersion in paganism. I’m not willing to give up what works, though, so I claim paganism as my own, keep studying and working magic, and enjoy the fruits of all that labour. It could be that my pantheistic experiences are very similar to someone else’s experience with polytheism and I’m just splitting hairs. 🙂
Sorry Fey… LOTS of projects suddenly emerging and I am trying to sort things out…
I was speaking more about the discussions from Wild Hunt when I made my earlier remark.
“It could be that my pantheistic experiences are very similar to someone else’s experience with polytheism and I’m just splitting hairs.”
I would say, from my own experiences, that there is a deep difference in the experience of a ‘pantheistic’ moment vs. a ‘polytheistic’ moment
or perhaps simply a ‘theistic’ moment…
… ok, the typos have it… I am WAY to sleepy to be trying to write this…
Blessed BE all!
Hope you had an excellent sleep! I look forward to continuing this discussion, since I’m not sure what a polytheist’s experience actually is, except for what I read here and there. I like to keep an open mind and spirit. If the Gods wish to make themselves known, I’m totally okay with that. 🙂 I’ll even take a clue by four!
Have a Happy Sunday!
“I *wish* I could have the kind of experience I think I’d need with deity to become a bona-fide theist, but it just hasn’t happened after twenty some odd years of intense immersion in paganism.”
“If the Gods wish to make themselves known, I’m totally okay with that.”
Wow, well, it’s not like your not asking for it!
(steps a couple of steps away from Fey so as to be out of way of any Gods wishing to take her up on her offers)
Seriously, though, I really do not understand why I’ve been stricken with the occasional and ( to my mind and experience anyway) undeniable experience of the Gods…
You will note I used the word stricken rather than blessed… it seems to me as I think on it that my most powerful experiences with the Divine have come when I least expected it…
…You might get the impression from reading my blog that I am immersed in a theistic and magickal experience each day… I do try. I strive for that, even on the days I don’t feel well or am just not feeling it… I continue what I’m doing.
Sometimes when I make my offerings of incense or water, there isn’t that subtle shift in something… I still do it.
Sometimes I pray and it feels like I may be talking only to myself… other times something I label an encounter with divine happens…WHY? I wish I knew.
Let me ask you this, how would you describe your experiences as a Pantheist? Why pantheism?
Given that you seem interested in pursuing an encounter with Divinity, I am wondering if you aren’t just experiencing a whisper of Divinity rather than a shoulder-shaking-and-a-shout?
Peace and curiosity,
Pax
And as I read that I am forced to wonder what it is about me that the gods feel I have needed some shoulder-shaking-and-a-shouts… Am I as dense as all that!?!
My experience as a pantheist has been simply this: when I am ‘in nature’, attuned with the seasons of the year, working with elemental concepts (as in the classical elements of air, fire, water, earth), or just being in the present moment, in my body, firmly grounded on the planet, I feel at my most spiritual. I feel touched by something awesome and inspiring.
When I try to narrow this ‘something’ down, to discover its name, or even to attach a name to it, the effect is diluted or in many cases lost altogether.
The less I ‘apply’ to this ‘something’ in terms of language, the more connected I feel.
So, where someone might feel deeply connected to a particular deity (Let’s say Pan!) and make offerings to that deity or invoke (or evoke) that deity, I find that as soon as I start to cosy up to a particular image of deity, it all goes kind of dull and lifeless for me. If I stand beneath a full moon, and think of it as the full moon in all its natural glory, I get gooseflesh and feel awed and connected to our universe. As soon as I think “Diana” or “Selene” or any other deity construct, poof. That awe is essentially gone.
Maybe I have a pantheon, and it is the Unnameable. I dunno…
I’m working on two different ‘tracks’ at the moment. Trad Wicca (Blue Star) and Druidry (mostly OBOD, but I’m also in possession of the ADF materials). Both have a lot to offer, but only druidry really works with my pantheist agnostic leanings.
Rambling…must. have. more. coffee…