Let Us Teach Not Preach

My fellow followers of Earth-centered religious (Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft, Druidism, and the like);

I have found myself browsing social networking and other blogging forums and dicovered a degrading attitude among some of us toward those new or still fresh in these faith systems. This is my plea to those of you who feel it necessary to correct others based on your "knowledge": Let us Teach not Preach.

 We are a group of people whose purpose is to accept and love others, even if they turn their backs to us or knock us down because we are all creatures in Nature and She is a part of us. We are a minority group, who need to constantly learn and grow (I've met many High Priests and High Priestesses who still learn something new every day) in order to maintain one-ness with Mother Earth.

We must teach those new to our various spiritual paths, and accept differences in belief between our various paths. No two pagans believe exactly the same thing-- no two witches worship the same deities in the same way. What I love about Earth-centered paths of spiritual enlightenment, you can mold a set of core ideals to not only fit your lifestyle, but your personal moral ideals.

And if there must be bickering in the ranks, let it not be to give someone new to the faiths a poor taste in their mouths of our chosen spiritualities. Let it not be to argue minor points and always try to be right above others different than us. This is not what our Goddess hold in highest regard.

Why don't those willing to persecute become Christians so they may bicker the technicalities and try to prove themselves right over all others in a religion where this behavior has been accepted? It is not accepted in the Earth-Centered community, and it should never be.

My Spiritual Journey #5: What Wicca Means to Me

So I've done some soulsearching and research since my last journal entry, and I've decided that in order to bring back the feeling of being spiritually fulfilled I need to make a point to focus on Wicca as a whole and less on the intricacies. I'm beginning to feel overwhelmed and maybe it's better if I start with the big picture.
Why am I Wiccan? I understand the energies the Earth gives off. I understand the concept of maneuvering them. I agree with the idea that all things in nature are masculine, feminine, and hermaphroditic. I also agree that nature regulates itself and everything in it-- plants, animals, humans, insects, and all unnatural things. In order to adapt to change that a species in nature created, nature will accommodate for or against it. I agree that since I am a part of nature I must respect it, show my respect, and thereby attach representing names to aspects of nature in order show it my respect. I feel as though this path best represents how I feel about things I can't see, touch, or taste.
What is Wicca to me? It's a special understanding of not only the natural but the supernatural. It's a reverence for the things that existed before humanity, and a willingness to live in a respectful manner with nature. It is a belief that natural energies can be manipulated, with or without ritual.

My Spiritual Journey #4: Finding Comfort in Yourself

It's still a task to keep true to my beliefs, as different and unusual as they may seem to some. My fiancé doesn't actually help at all, in fact, in many ways Robert is sort of shoving me back into the broom-closet I have been free from since 2003. I know he isn't actually doing it on purpose, but expecting me to hide my altar furniture in a china cabinet, being upset when I want to do the simplest ritual when he's home, criticizing the very basest of concepts that have been proven as fact by historians, anthropologists, and the like... I find it so frustrating.

You know, I used to enjoy conversations with people about our differences in opinion in regard to religion or even a lack thereof. Neither would try to force the other to concede as being incorrect or false, but when I have these conversations with Robert I feel as though he is trying to force me into changing my beliefs in order to fit into his Leave it to Beaver-esque idea of how a family properly functions and how a relationship, even a marriage, works. We are to be of the same religious background. We are to be in total agreement on everything, all the time, and if we aren't, his decision supersedes mine. I have allowed it to be this way for the first month of living in our own house, officially a family, just to see if his way is something I could tolerate, or even accept. I have decided through careful thought that it isn't. I cannot bend, I cannot live in secret, I cannot become some subservient housewife with a drinking problem because that's the only way she can cope with the loss of her sense of self. Granted, I had children at a young age, and to a point, I lost a lot of my "self" years ago. But that sacrifice I made intentionally because I wanted my child (and now children) to know that the piece of myself I lost I got back in her. It sounds cliché, but there are some things I refuse to give up for the love of another. Yes, I will stay home and take care of the household and the children, but when it comes to household decisions, we are to compromise and communicate. The man of the house no longer has the right to dictate his significant other, even in their spiritual journey. Especially in their spiritual journey. I know it's not place to do it to him, and he should respect me enough to show me the same courtesy.