Blessed be! I wanted to create a place on Daily Kos where all members of the Neo-Pagan community could join and find kindred spirits. I've always felt that us treehuggers should have a high propensity for neo-Pagan ideals, and the various witchy places on the internet are predictably liberal, so I figured there must be an interested group here. And in any case, religious tolerance is an inherently left-wing characteristic.
As this is my group, I think it fair to take a minute to introduce myself.
I was raised with a marked absence of religion, not that I minded. If nothing else, it gave me the opportunity to find a religion with meaning for myself. I think that growing up I was pretty much always a fairly moral, ethical person- a "Good without God" type. Yet I never felt satiated simply being "good." So I spent a long time browsing for something. I never really dove headfirst looking for answers- I had enough concerns in high school and college. But I always kept an eye out should they present themselves.
Well, that's not entirely true. I did dabble in Christianity a few times, a period I now recognize was mostly a phase. Honestly, my main connection to Christianity was that it was the faith I was most familiar with and I had plenty of Christian friends. But never did Christianity give me what I needed. The only conclusion that Christianity ever brought me to was that the reason of my existence was a bored supreme being seeking entertainment and external approval. So the point of my being here is, ultimately, to seek a land of supreme happiness? Forgive me, but I can do that without religion. It became apparent that Christianity did indeed provide answers, but answers that weren't relevant to my questions. I looked for religion because the thought that my existence is nothing more fundamental than a transient association of atoms undergoing a series of chemical reactions left me feeling hollow. What's the point to life if life has no greater point? Unless the answer is hedonism, which would present its own set of moral issues, I didn't buy it. Even the point of Christianity- getting to Heaven- always struck me as a rather hedonistic point itself.
By the time I was finishing up high school and starting college, I was mostly existing under the banner of "spiritual but not religious," though not really contentedly so. Then a friend of mine mentioned to me her interest in Paganism. At the time, my understanding of Paganism was mostly animal sacrifice and bloodletting- or more shortly, highly ignorant. Intrigued for no real discernible reason, I went onto Amazon and got myself a copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to Paganism. Suddenly, everything made sense! The whole paradigm of nature being the manifestation of divine energy and power was what I'd always felt, yet had never been able to put into a coherent thought. In short, I was hooked.
It's been about 5 years since and in the intervening time, I've done a lot of reading and exploring but no real hard dedicated work. It's been a challenge being a student, living part of the year at home with parents who I'd prefer remain oblivious, making my way into the world, and trying to scrap together a living and a career. I'm part of a New Age practitioners' group through my church, but what I get out of it is limited as we're not a strictly organized following. I've toyed with the thought of finding a coven, but with the fact that my academic career makes me constantly unsure of my future beyond 18 months (or less), I've been reluctant to incorporate myself into such a group without a degree of permanency.
And here we are. For the time being, the purpose of this diary is to give me a place to explore my own thoughts and musings related to Paganism and other New Age followings. For the time being the Group is limited to me, but I'm always open to more people becoming involved and helping to turn this into a community.
Merry meet, merry part, and merry meet again!