Finding My Way
I've had a year fraught with emotional turmoil. Mostly, it has been from what direction that my witchcraft path was taking. I struggled with Wicca for numerous reasons. That path seems to be taking on more dogma every day. If not actual, then it implied or stressed by all those so-called experts out there, especially on the Internet. Those "helpful" folks want to tell you how to be Wiccan, who is, and isn't Wiccan, how to do rituals and spells, and what the "rules" are. What sucks is that most people have come to the path to get the hell away from all that. It's almost like the Christians who have dragged all their personal dogma baggage to Wicca, and can't shake it. To me, Christian Wiccans are just Christians who want to play with witchcraft, while covering their asses on the whole afterlife thing.
I seem to have moved firmly into the left hand path, for a multiple of reasons. I've been doing a lot of reading about cosmology. I've been reading books by Stephen Hawking, works by Carl Sagan, and doing a lot of research. It's funny because I avoided this stuff in school like the plague. The result of this has been a distancing from deity. If you understand science's view of the creation of our world, it makes it extremely difficult to believe in gods and goddesses.
At best, I have a pantheistic take. Basically that deity is nature. It is us. The wonder of the universe is the powerful force. I've come to see the deities as archetypes of the self. We all have an Aphrodite in us, we have a darkness, some type of demon side to our personalities. We have a Ra, a sun god in us, liking the bright shining days, and a Nuit, goddess of the night in us. They are reflections of the soul and mind.
I've found a deeper connection with the darkness within. This is not evilness, rather it is a fondness for enlightenment, challenge to the self, and to a degree, an opposser to religious fundamentalism. I don't begrudge anyone having their beliefs, but I do find it distasteful when people try to impose their belief systems upon others. When a candidate for office has to prove their belief in Jesus over another belief system in order to pacify the fundamental Christians, that seems to be a slight to other spiritual paths. Shouldn't morality and ethics be placed before religion? I've seen a lot of immoral and unethical Christian politicians and preachers.
Witchcraft has been equated with evil by religion and Hollywood. Most Wiccans and witches I know have more reverence for nature, the universe, and life than anyone else I know. Witchcraft is a hands-on avenue for change, much like prayer. Witches use their knowledge of the properties of nature to effect change, rather than relying on the possibility of an invisible God granting a wish. If there were a God, wouldn't he or she marvel at the use of nature and knowledge?
So I've moved to the personal enlightenment path. Tapping into the god within. Taking that left fork in the road.
I seem to have moved firmly into the left hand path, for a multiple of reasons. I've been doing a lot of reading about cosmology. I've been reading books by Stephen Hawking, works by Carl Sagan, and doing a lot of research. It's funny because I avoided this stuff in school like the plague. The result of this has been a distancing from deity. If you understand science's view of the creation of our world, it makes it extremely difficult to believe in gods and goddesses.
At best, I have a pantheistic take. Basically that deity is nature. It is us. The wonder of the universe is the powerful force. I've come to see the deities as archetypes of the self. We all have an Aphrodite in us, we have a darkness, some type of demon side to our personalities. We have a Ra, a sun god in us, liking the bright shining days, and a Nuit, goddess of the night in us. They are reflections of the soul and mind.
I've found a deeper connection with the darkness within. This is not evilness, rather it is a fondness for enlightenment, challenge to the self, and to a degree, an opposser to religious fundamentalism. I don't begrudge anyone having their beliefs, but I do find it distasteful when people try to impose their belief systems upon others. When a candidate for office has to prove their belief in Jesus over another belief system in order to pacify the fundamental Christians, that seems to be a slight to other spiritual paths. Shouldn't morality and ethics be placed before religion? I've seen a lot of immoral and unethical Christian politicians and preachers.
Witchcraft has been equated with evil by religion and Hollywood. Most Wiccans and witches I know have more reverence for nature, the universe, and life than anyone else I know. Witchcraft is a hands-on avenue for change, much like prayer. Witches use their knowledge of the properties of nature to effect change, rather than relying on the possibility of an invisible God granting a wish. If there were a God, wouldn't he or she marvel at the use of nature and knowledge?
So I've moved to the personal enlightenment path. Tapping into the god within. Taking that left fork in the road.