hizgeorgiapeach
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Aneirin
I notice here many who are pagan are quick and keen to label the deities they have pledged themselves to, of those that have pledged themselves, how did you come to recognise the deity you follow ? Did it just come to you, did you search and reseach, or did you adopt anothers belief ?
If you do not mind publicising your belief on the net, can you say who you follow and why, how did you come to this belief ?
I'm very open about my religious practices, for the most part. I don't have to worry about a boss catching wind and firing me - or a landlord suddenly finding an excuse to terminate a lease - and since the vast majority of my close friends either stay Strictly away from the subject of religon (to avoid potential conflict) or share some of my non-christian beliefs, I don't have to much worry about them taking a hike either. Besides which, if my "friends" decide to walk away from friendship based on differences in religion, they weren't much of a friend to begin with and I can do without them.
I was raised in a Southern Missionary Baptist household throughout childhood. At least, where organized religion was concerned, and at the insisted of my maternal grandmother. Dad always encouraged questioning authority - whether it be secular authority or religious - and never particularly condoned simply accepting anything having to do with Religion simply because that's what someone else told me I "should" do or was "supposed" to do. Blind faith that didn't spring from a strict internal source was rigerously discouraged. Instead, he encouraged me to start doing independant study of a wide variety of religious beliefs and practices when I was about 8 or 9. He included a wide variety of christian sects, as well as things so far removed from christianity as to have no similarities whatsoever. Over the years I attended services in a variety of settings for a variety of faiths, in order to both observe and ask questions. Everything from attending a couple of Catholic services, along with an adult catchism class - to sweat lodges in a couple of native american traditions - to coven meetings for a group of observing wiccans. I specifically turned my back on the Abrahamic faiths (christianity, judeism, and islam) due to the imbalance I felt was inherant in such strictly patriarchal systems that denied any sort of Divine Feminine. (I've had a few folks accuse me of going polytheist as a form of feminist rebellion - they're wrong.) I strongly believe that Nature Mirrors the Divine - and what you find in Nature is that both genders are required in order to Create, unless you're talking about a life form of such low order that there literally is no gender whatsoever.
What I specifically "follow" by way of the Divine - if you can even call it "following" rather than "reverencing" or "revering" - I found through meshing similar core ideas from several of the religions that I studied over the years. I practice a polytheistic system which places equal emphesis on both the Feminine and Masculine aspects of diety. Goddess and God as a duelist pair - both infinate in their individual aspects, yet infinity multiplied by several orders of magnitude when both are taken into consideration rather than one or the other being relegated to obscurity or non-existance. I observe a modified celtic/druidic seasonally based calender that centers around observances of the Solstices and Equinoxs - primarily because that fits both with my own internal rhythms, and with the study that I've done over the years. I practice some ritual obserances as a Solitary, though rarely with others. I've never been comfortable practicing high ritual in the company of others, and so have eschewed any lasting ties to various covens or religious groups. I continue to study, I continue to observe, and I continue to question everything - even my own basic beliefs and observances - and will likely do so until I die.
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Rhi
Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.
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