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General Paganism
I am a Pagan
In my hearts of hearts I have always been a pagan, although I didn't know that when I was young. But what I did know, was that I loved to celebrate the seasonal festivals. My mother was sentimental to a fault created beautiful celebrations for us children all year round, and all under a Christian veneer.
The community that I grew up in have, while Christian on the surface, many festivals and celebrations from folklore and have a pagan flavour.
One particular such feast stuck in my memory when the whole village community is processing over the fields, all girls wearing flower crowns and scattering flower pedals on the path. The priest would walk ahead in some festival gear blessing the fields. Each of the surrounding villages had a goddess statue carried on a tray and sticks, carried on the shoulders by four women. The procession would lead to four altars in the fields entirely build of flower carpets. The four altars were of course considered the four evangelists, but my much older mind can't help but think they might have as well represented the four directions and four elements.
But one moment please, did I say they carried Goddess Statues? Well truth be told, they were statues representing Mary, the mother of god, but in my mind they were the Goddess and in fact many decades later I created a Green Lady statue for the London Pagan Pride Parade based on those models of my childhood.
So what does it mean to be a Pagan?
Many years later and already having a leaning towards paganism, I went to Glastonbury, and what should I see, a procession, with Mary statues and banner with her image. Making me remember that I had read about such a procession in the pagan inspired Mists of Avalon too.
So what does it mean to be a pagan? There are probably as many different pagan expressions as there are people involved in paganism. Each has their own flavour. Pagans have a tendency to be quite eclectic, which in my opinion is how it should be.
Having escaped a far more rigid religious body with a fixed narrative, to have found a deeper connection and spirituality in a nature based religion is far more meaningful to me. Many pagans state that once they found paganism they have a sense of home-coming and that is true for me too.
But lets look at some of the different pagan streams that can be found in paganism and just to be clear we are talking about Neopaganism.
Pagans can be both traditional or newly identified, like Druids, Heathens, Shamans and many more subgroups like hedge witches, green spirits, Eco witches etc.
Some pagans adhere to a particular pantheon and mythologies, some might be quite close to reenactment. They try and recreate rituals as close to historic sources as they can.
There are others who might adhere to one particular pantheon, but are not too concerned with following the original ritual formats (provided they are even known), but take aspects of mythology as inspiration to create their own expression of their spirituality. I think this might apply to the majority of pagans.
Personally the pantheon I am closest to comes from Norse mythology. God/esses like Freyja, Thor and Sif are very dear to me, but at times I feel a strong connection to Ishtar/Inanna. And my primary moon Goddess is the Celtic Arianrhod, while my main god is Cernunnos, Yes, I know, quite the mix.
An initiatory path working in covens. I am running a coven called Aurora Veritatis and a monthly ritual group called Luna Iter, which is open to all and is both a community service as well as training ground for new Witchlings.
My first draw and an important venture is the celebration of the wheel of the year. There are eight festivals based on much older festivals.
Just wanted to say that I am a Gardnerian HPS running a coven and I would challenge the idea that Gardnerian Wicca uses only strict forms of rituals. In fact coven's practise greatly differ from each other and Animism, Shamanic trance work and a great variety of pantheons are used and celebrated.
Then there is Wicca
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