I'm a Heathen, not a New Ager. New Agers on movies, television or the internet do not represent me or my beliefs. I would not trust anyone who wears a pentagram or a pentacle around their neck to speak for me or to accurately represent the beliefs and practices of historical or modern Heathens.
I don't believe that "all gods are one god", nor that the Gods or the worlds beyond this one can be reduced to one being, two forces, a trinity, or any other such idea that over-simplifies everything and tries to fit every other religious belief on the planet into a tidy model.
My ancestors believed in many Gods and Goddesses, and so do I. It's not important that I know them all, or know how many Gods and Goddesses there really might be- I just need to know enough to make a good effort at joining my living kin and friends in the worship of Gods we know are real.
To be Heathen doesn't mean to be immoral or misguided. The historical Heathen cultures and their worldviews were very well structured, principled, heroic, and deep. We modern Heathens have codes and perspectives inspired by ancestral examples that help us to live good lives and which provide excellent insight into the nature of things.
My Gods and Goddesses are not "archetypes". They are not just "natural forces personified." They are living, non-human persons of immense age and power that share this world with us, and whom the ancestors knew and worshiped for good reasons. My ancestors didn't mistake statues of the Gods for the Gods themselves, and my ancestors didn't believe that the Gods could or would spare them from everything dangerous or unpleasant- but the Gods could still help them to be better, braver, wiser people, and they still help people today.
Don't assume that because I'm a Heathen- part of an religious minority and a polytheist- that I'm a super-radical environmentalist or a great social liberal or anything of the kind. Believing in the Gods and studying my ancestor's beliefs and ways does not necessarily make me pro-choice; I'm not necessarily a recycler, a Democrat, a socialist, a feminist, a pacifist, an animal rights activist, a vegetarian, nor do I automatically feel some warm solidarity with every other suffering minority group on the planet. Even If I personally chose to have very liberal beliefs, not all Heathens will, and I'm not upset by this.
I don't believe in religious "revelations" that come from any God to some special human and which are further intended for all humanity; if a God talks to someone or reveals something to someone, it's for that person and possibly those closest to them, not the rest of the world for all ages to come.
I don't believe in religious "revelations" that come from any God to some special human and which are further intended for all humanity; if a God talks to someone or reveals something to someone, it's for that person and possibly those closest to them, not the rest of the world for all ages to come.
I don't believe in the idea of a "chosen people", and I don't believe that a "messiah" is coming one day, or needs to come to save us all. My ancestors had no such beliefs, the vast majority of the world's cultures never had and still have no such beliefs, and neither do I.
I don't think that a "Great Goddess" once ruled over everything in ancient Asia or Europe, or that simply changing the gender of the mainstream concept of "God" will bring about sudden social equality, psychic healing and wholeness for all, or world peace. I don't think that Marion Zimmer Bradley, Margaret Murray, Riane Eisler, Merlin Stone or any writers like them reveal some great lost truth about western religious and cultural history.
I don't think that any "great being" once ruled over everything; everything that exists came into being from the basic stuff of nature- fire, ice, and other mysterious powers and forces that the ancestors felt were best expressed through poetry. I don't have to know where everything comes from to be a good or wise person, or to live a good life.
I do believe in an afterlife like my Ancestors did, but that issue is not as simple as modern religions have made the afterlife out to be, and I don't think to tell others what will "happen to them" when they die- unless they really want to know what I personally think, and they ask.
What I believe has nothing to do with "karma", "threefold laws", "chakras", "reincarnation", "energy", "the god and the goddess", "auras", "crystals", "yin and yang", "angels", "the great one above", "learning lessons from each life", "opening by watchtower", "calling quarters", "demons", "fivefold kisses", "drawing down the moon", "handfasting", "cones of power", being "skyclad", vegetarianism, veganism, or any of a hundred more such terms that the internet and your local new-age bookstore shelf will associate with Paganism or Heathenry for you.
Almost no one who, in the course of their religious practice, takes a first, middle, or last name which is the same as an animal, a plant, a weather-based phenomenon, an element, a mineral, or a combination of any of those things can speak for me, nor do they likely believe anything like me.
Just because some Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists, or other sagely people from the east said some cool or wise-sounding things, doesn't mean that my religion and theirs have any sort of relationship. I can read books on other religions, east or west and appreciate their wisdom without belonging to those religions or mixing their beliefs into my own, and I do often read those books- so don't be confused about what I'm doing.
I don't look back to men or women who lived 50 or 60 years ago for what I believe. I look back to some of the greatest minds that the human race has ever produced- the Pagan philosophers of antiquity, the ancient storytellers and poets who gave us the foundational epics and sagas of the western world, and to the brave example of those heroic people that struggled to maintain the spiritual treasures of Pagan cultures in the centuries when Christian powers were using legal compulsion, murder, and propaganda to destroy them.
I respect, admire, and support the native spiritual traditions of living cultures that never fully succumbed to Christian missionaries- such as the animistic and polytheistic traditions of the Native Americans, Asians, Africans, and people of the Afro-Caribbean world, but I am not a part of those cultures, and therefore, not a part of those traditions. No one that has anything to do with my religious beliefs and practices will dress like those people, act like those people, or claim to be a part of those cultures. An exception is made, of course, for those cultures whose agents actively seek to integrate outsiders, and for those outsiders who integrate respectfully and genuinely- but those are very, very rare.Heathens don't have a pope; we don't have a high priest or leadership that speaks for all Heathens everywhere. Every home is a temple; every family or group of friends is its own kindred or hearth congregation. There is no "congress" of "all Heathens", nor is there a possibility for a centralized "Heathen" identity from which we can all seek formal relations with other world religions. Not being centralized, "we" can't "send" representatives to things like the Parliament of World Religions. The "umbrella" organizations of Heathens that have formed do not speak for us all; they only speak to the visions of their founders.
A lot of people out there like to say that they are "spiritual, but not religious." This doesn't make them Heathens, or associate them with Heathenry at all- Heathens of any stripe are religious people, alongside any spirituality they may personally possess. Heathenry, in all its forms, is a religion, or, should I say, Heathenry contains many related forms of a common religious impulse, which comes from a common historical tradition and background. Heathens participate in worship of Gods, alone or with others; they have formal rites of sacrificing and toasting; they have a fund of ancestral organic religious lore that informs their thinking about Gods, human beings, morals, the natural world, and the worlds that lie beyond this one.
Almost no one who, in the course of their religious practice, takes a first, middle, or last name which is the same as an animal, a plant, a weather-based phenomenon, an element, a mineral, or a combination of any of those things can speak for me, nor do they likely believe anything like me.
Just because some Hindus, Taoists, Buddhists, or other sagely people from the east said some cool or wise-sounding things, doesn't mean that my religion and theirs have any sort of relationship. I can read books on other religions, east or west and appreciate their wisdom without belonging to those religions or mixing their beliefs into my own, and I do often read those books- so don't be confused about what I'm doing.
I don't look back to men or women who lived 50 or 60 years ago for what I believe. I look back to some of the greatest minds that the human race has ever produced- the Pagan philosophers of antiquity, the ancient storytellers and poets who gave us the foundational epics and sagas of the western world, and to the brave example of those heroic people that struggled to maintain the spiritual treasures of Pagan cultures in the centuries when Christian powers were using legal compulsion, murder, and propaganda to destroy them.
I respect, admire, and support the native spiritual traditions of living cultures that never fully succumbed to Christian missionaries- such as the animistic and polytheistic traditions of the Native Americans, Asians, Africans, and people of the Afro-Caribbean world, but I am not a part of those cultures, and therefore, not a part of those traditions. No one that has anything to do with my religious beliefs and practices will dress like those people, act like those people, or claim to be a part of those cultures. An exception is made, of course, for those cultures whose agents actively seek to integrate outsiders, and for those outsiders who integrate respectfully and genuinely- but those are very, very rare.Heathens don't have a pope; we don't have a high priest or leadership that speaks for all Heathens everywhere. Every home is a temple; every family or group of friends is its own kindred or hearth congregation. There is no "congress" of "all Heathens", nor is there a possibility for a centralized "Heathen" identity from which we can all seek formal relations with other world religions. Not being centralized, "we" can't "send" representatives to things like the Parliament of World Religions. The "umbrella" organizations of Heathens that have formed do not speak for us all; they only speak to the visions of their founders.
A lot of people out there like to say that they are "spiritual, but not religious." This doesn't make them Heathens, or associate them with Heathenry at all- Heathens of any stripe are religious people, alongside any spirituality they may personally possess. Heathenry, in all its forms, is a religion, or, should I say, Heathenry contains many related forms of a common religious impulse, which comes from a common historical tradition and background. Heathens participate in worship of Gods, alone or with others; they have formal rites of sacrificing and toasting; they have a fund of ancestral organic religious lore that informs their thinking about Gods, human beings, morals, the natural world, and the worlds that lie beyond this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment