pagan group

For the first time in my life, I'm part of a group.  Of Pagans.  I have gone... 14 years, now, as a solitary traveler, and now my path is converging with others.  Or, if it is not converging, it is at least running roughly parallel within shouting distance of others' paths.  The UU Church Pagans got together last Sunday, and decided to meet at Sabbats to hold ritual, celebration, and just to get together.  We'll also be meeting monthly at the First Sunday potluck, which will be nice.  Ten of us met at that first meeting to decide why we were interested in a group and what we wanted to get out of it.  Our ideas were pretty similar: do ritual, converse with like-minded peoples, learn, and accountability for our own practice (I need this so much!).

Since we aren't forming a coven, just a group of differently traditioned people, we decided to take turns leading the Sabbat rituals.  The first one we have coming up is Beltane, and I volunteered to lead it with my friend Erin (who has also always been solitary) and a woman I've met through the UU Church, who has experience working with groups.  I'm looking forward to planning and doing the ritual!  Hopefully I will be able to get some pictures (maybe I'll make my husband come just for that, hah!).

pantheist? non-theist? atheist?

"But as I continue developing my spiritual practice, the feelings it evokes reminds me that I am engaging in this ritual, in this reverence, for the very reason that I am not entirely an atheist. For me, I feel the Cosmos to be divine. I feel a divinity in its mystery, its vastness, its connectedness, in the very fact of its being. But I have yet to define for myself what this concept of the divine really means for me – and if the reverence and connectedness I feel can be called theism of any kind." Áine W., The Spinning of the Wheel

For such a long time I've identified with the term pantheism.  If you don't know, pantheism is the idea that the Divine is in everything, everything is Divine.  God or Deity or Whomever can be found in rocks, trees, stars, plastics, buildings, shoes.  Everything.  So I always said I was a pantheist.  Or I thought it, at the very least.  God, for me, was never personal, which is a large part of why I didn't continue with Christopaganism, or whatever I may have been calling it at the start of this blog.  The Christian god is supposed to be personal. And even in Paganism, with polytheism abound, choosing pantheons or choosing fitting gods from one culture or another always seemed like a large part of celebrating the Divine.  Gods have personalities; it makes them personable.  

But I never felt that.  Praying to Gaia felt no different than praying to Cernunnos. So when I stumbled across this term, pantheism, I ran with it.  It was awesome.  I felt... comfortable with the Divine, although I think the word comfortable is wrong here.  It felt sensible to me, at any rate.

As the years went by and I stepped away from the Pagan path (not to any other particular path except maybe secularism), I began losing pantheism.  It became muddied in my mind.  I would laughingly joke that I was an atheist pagan because god, for me, was all and nothing at the same time.  Could I really claim to be a pagan if my view of god was so broad that I lost any sense of the divine?  

I always hated trying to define my beliefs, because it always came down to, "Well, I'm a Pagan... kinda.  Maybe I'm an atheist... but not really.  It's complicated."  And it is complicated. Like Áine, in the quote above, I am still hammering out my definition of what god is and means to me.  It's something I'll probably still be hammering away at when I am on my deathbed, if I am still lucid.  But I like what Áine says, that the divinity of existence is in its vastness and (inter)connectedness.  

So. Pantheist? Non-theist? Atheist?

I'm a Pagan, and I view god through pantheist eyes.  God is the energy that moves the universe and moves through the universe.  God is impersonal, despite the fact that I sometimes give it a face and a name for my own comfort.  I feel the Divine whether I am lighting incense and saying a prayer, cleaning a stream, or hugging a tree, because the Divine is in all there is.  The Wiccan Goddess saying "all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals" describes my view of god, because the energy moving through the universe is love and acts of love bring us closer to experiencing the Divine.

Finally, Spring!

I've found Spring! I only had to drive 200 miles south to find it. And look what else I found:

That's right! I've finally found my elusive crocuses! So far, that's the only flower I've found, though.


It's spring break, and I've taken the chance to visit my parents, who seem to be living in the tropics compared to my arctic home in NEMO. Today, Cam and I were able to get out and enjoy the warmth, going to thrift shops and also to Haha Tonka, which is quite possibly my most favourite place in the world. Haha Tonka has just about everything one could ask for: a castle, amazing rock formations, beautiful glades, long rambling trails, and a spring. The spring is where it gets its name: Haha Tonka means "Laughing Waters," which is what the spring sounds like, I suppose.


The castle was built in the early 1900's, and along the path are displays with gorgeous pictures of it in its prime. There's also a water tower, which pumped water up from the spring.
Sadly, fires in both the water tower (two) and in the main castle left it unlivable, and, as you can see, it now lies as an empty shell, a fading shadow of its former glory.


Yesterday I did some spring cleaning, and quite possibly finally said goodbye to my childhood. I was trying to clean out my childhood bedroom, trying to decide what to throw away and what to keep, and I came across a few of my journals. As I read through them, I was horrified. I have come so far from that poor, scared child I was at 12, 13, 15. But sitting there, reading that, brought back all of those dark thoughts I thought I'd left behind. I realised then that I had to get rid of that negativity. So my journals, once so precious, found their new home in the trash. I'm still not sure how I feel about that. Those were once my only friends... But I've grown beyond who and what I was. And I can't really say I want those reminders hanging around, even if only at my parents' house.

Dream interpretation

So I've managed to find a place to grow a real garden, and not just a container garden. The University farm has garden plots available to students/staff/faculty, which is pretty nifty. Last night I spent some time mapping out what I want and where I want it. And, I think I have some subconscious... hesitations or uncertainties about my garden! I think I have some work to do... read on!

Last night I had a dream that I was going to pick out my spot with my friend who was in a wheel chair. She's not in a wheel chair in real life, but her legs were weak or something in the dream. I told her that they wouldn't get any stronger if she relied on the chair, and she agreed and hopped out and walked just fine! So we started off to the farm. The walk started out just fine, but soon we began to climb a mountain side that had lots of train tracks, or maybe mining cart tracks? We came to where the garden plots were supposed to be, which ended up being a HUGE wooden door in the side of the mountain.

Turns out my garden was supposed to be in a prison for dragons and demons. :( There was a bit more to the dream, but those are the main things that stand out in my mind, the things that I can remember.

Dreammoods.com suggests:

+that my friend in a wheelchair means that she needs my help.
+that climbing the mountain signifies my determination and ambition (to have a garden?)
+that mountains signify obstacles and challenges to overcome and also denote a higher realm of consciousness, knowledge, and spiritual truth.
+that seeing a railroad signifies that I have laid out a set track toward achieving your goals
+that entering through the door symbolises my desire for inner exploration and self-discovery.
+that seeing the "convicts," ie the dragons and demons, indicates that an aspect of myself is unable to freely express itself
+that seeing dragons signifies that I let myself get carried away by my passion.
+that seeing demons dreams represents ignorance, negativity, distress or your shadow self. It also forewarns of overindulgence and letting lust give way to one's better judgment.

I have to say that this seems to be a very telling dream! Perhaps the dream is not about gardening at all, but about my quest for spiritual fulfillment and betterment. I entered the door to my inner self and faced my darker side. And to be honest, it scared me! I ran away and left those negative emotions in their mountainside prison. The interpretation says that I'm not allowing my passion, ignorance, negativity, etc free expression, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I confronted it, saw it, and said "No, thank you!" (in my dream at least.) Dreammoods.com suggests that seeing gardens in dreams mirrors your spiritual health. I don't know what to think that my "garden" was up the side of a mountain, in a prison, and surrounded by dragons and demons. I suppose I will have to face my demons in a more direct way than I did in the dream (um.. turn tail and run) before I can begin nurturing my spiritual growth.