Oh, ow.

What’s more, it makes me hopeful that we can remember what makes us, if not unique among the world’s religions, rare: our willingness to listen to what our gods have to say to us directly, in our lived experience of ritual, dream, and trance… and to take that more seriously than any doctrine or teaching not also supported by experience.

Blessed be–and many thanks to all who have shared.

My first Pagan ritual, ever was MIT’s Samhain ritual in 1997. I was still Catholic at the time, and it was a particularly bad year for remembering my father (who died Nov. 3rd, 1990). A friend invited me to join her at MIT’s ritual. I went from playing piano for the Catholic mass that evening to getting on a bus to meet her.

I don’t truly remember the ritual. The memories are lost in the twist of the spiral dance, the endless harmonies of a hundred singing voices, in the careful step in the dim light down into their basement chapel, thick with incense smoke. Part of my brain, even then, was comparing it to what I’d read about, and to the rituals I knew – but part of it was far, far away, dancing, and singing, and tasting the sweet tang of the pomegranate.

My experience now tells me it was a beautifully done large public ritual. But the important part is that it worked. It helped, it eased, it did things deep inside me that I didn’t know needed doing.

the main thing he said to me i want to pass on to all of you is: “don’t take yourself so seriously. you don’t need to call on me for help. you already have everything you need inside of you. so stop pretending to be weaker and smaller than you are, and live your life!” it sounds like a cliche, but when a god tells you, it kind of carries more weight.

With the caveat that the mysteries can only be experienced, not told in a literal, expository sense. We have poetry and dance, music and art, to share as well as we can our experiences of the numinous.

And, I might add, that no one can tell another that her experience wasn’t ‘real,’ or wasn’t of this or that particular deity.

Thank you, Cat.

The experience of having formed a relationship, spirit to spirit, with the land on which I live, is also a treasure beyond words or price.
When the land says I Love You, you will reciprocate.

Love,
Terri in Joburg

As a teenager I studied the Warrior path, always pushing myself through pain, fear, anxiety, feelings of worthlessness. Meditation and kata became my rituals, a place where I found the Morrigan. Working with animals, particularly horses, brought me to Epona, whom I still revere.

As an adult, coming to terms with being a lesbian, I found I didn’t need a male lover to find the Divine Male. He was there as Father, Brother, Mentor/Trainer/Sensei. My beloved Loki, the Trickster, showed me as any older brother would how to successfully smile and duck, and trip up those who would hurt me for being what the Gods, in Their wisdom, chose to create.

I found comfort in the Elder Gods, and in Their archetypes, that I never found in christianity. There was always someplace I could belong, grow, thrive, and move from. It’s never been a phase, an outlet of rebellion, or an attempt to define myself outside of socially accepted norms. It’s just always been home, from my earliest memories.