Tag Archives: Spirituality

Podcast Episode: Recognizing the Everyday Sacred

For those of you have been reading my blog for some time, it may interest you to know that I have just started producing a podcast called “The Bed and The Blade.” It’s a podcast that will explore witchcraft, Pagan spirituality, and living life passionately, three things that are incredibly intertwined in my own life. I’m both excited and nervous.

For those of you who may be just now finding me through the podcast, welcome! This post is for the very first episode of the podcast, “Recognizing the Everyday Sacred.”

I think that the understanding that the sacred is something to be discovered in everyday life rather than something that has to be sought out in special places is central and essential to my Craft and pagan practice on a number of levels. Listen in using the embedded player before to find out why.

I would like to take a moment to thank Ana Mardoll for xer help when I reached out to xer with my concerns about erasing or otherwise harming people who live with chronic illness or disability or are trans or nonbinary during my discussion of sacred bodies. I suspect that even with Ana’s words of wisdom, I probably failed in some ways and I take responsibility for that. Thank you Ana (if you read this) for helping me do better and I promise to keep striving toward further improvement in the future.

As a final note, I hope you enjoy the music that introduces the show and closes it out. It’s all from a wonderful track that I found and was able to buy a license to use in the podcast. In accordance with the license agreement, here is the information regarding it:

Esther Garcia — Outdated Time — Provided by Jamendo.

I hope you enjoy the episode. Feel free to share your own thoughts in the comments.

Recognizing the Everyday Sacred

In the pilot episode, Jarred introduces himself before discussing how many Pagan and witchcraft traditions see the sacred in everyone and everything. He explores how our own bodies and emotions are sacred and all interactions with other people have the potential of being a sacred act.

Subscribe to the Podcast

My Perspective on People of Other Faith Traditions and No Faith

After my previous post, I thought it only fair to explore my own theological views regarding people who follow a different religion and the nonreligious. I will admit up front that what I’m about to share is fragmented and tentative. It’s not actually something I think about because, for me, my spiritual tradition is about my own relationship with the Divine. Other people’s relationship with the Divine (or lack thereof) is none of my business, and I’m inclined to trust them to find their own way through this world as long as they don’t devalue or harm others.

To explore this question, I need to talk about my most abstract and “highest” understanding of the Divine. If you peel back all the “isms,” I think that ultimately, the Divine is the universe itself. In my old coven, we would acknowledge this ultimate form of the Divine when we spoke of “The One Eternal Reality, in which we live, move, and have our being” or “The One” for short. All life — divine, human, animal, plant, micro-bacterial, and other — is a part of and flows from that One Eternal Reality. And each individual relates to that One Eternal Reality in a way that is appropriate for them.

For atheists and agnostics, that relationship is a purely materialistic one. For pantheists and many mystics, they develop a relationship with The One by seeking union with and/or connection to it on a spiritual level. For other theists, we find one or more expressions/manifestations of the One that we relate to on a more personal level.(1) We pray to them. We talk to them. We draw them into our bodies and attune our energies to them. We obey what we understand/believe their commandments to be. Or some combination of those things.

I believe that the way in which each individual connects to the Divine is something that they are ultimately drawn to by the Divine for itself. It is something that they and The One Eternal Reality understand is appropriate and best for them.(2) And as every individual’s needs are different and complex, it makes sense that the “right relationship” would also look different for every individual.

I will say a bit about monotheistic religions like Christianity. Yes, I believe there is a god that responds to their prayers and all attempts to reach out. I do not, however, believe that said god is actually the only god and I doubt it’s exactly like many of the followers it draws to itself envision it to be.(3) I’m not sure why said deity allows them to continue to believe some of the things they do, but I mostly trust that to be a matter best kept between those believers and their own deity to be resolved as they see fit.

As I mentioned previously, all I care about others’ religious paths is the fruit: how do they treat others in this world? Are they loving, affirming, and a seeker of dignity and justice for all? Or are they othering, dehumanizing, tearing down, and harming others? Because if they’re doing any of the latter, I have a Divine mandate to call that out.

Otherwise, may you have a blessed journey as you find your own way through this wonderful world we share.

Notes:

(1) There are probably other ways to relate to The One and/or its many manifestations that I’m not even thinking of — and maybe that I’m not even aware of.

(2) It occurs to me that I’m actually suggesting that a Divine force that atheists don’t believe in is actually drawing them toward being atheists. I’m curious what atheists might think of my presumption here. I hope they can at least forgive me on the grounds that I believe that they are drawn to that because it is the proper and best path for them to take.

(3) Then again, I’m not convinced my favorite goddess, Freyja, is exactly like I currently envision her to be. At the very least, I suspect she’s much more than I currently understand her to be.

Sharing Your Beliefs vs. Selling a Religious Product

Last week, I had a chance to discuss my beliefs with a coworker, who I will call Nick for this post.  I don’t think it lasted more than five minutes, but I feel there was a lot I told Nick in those five minutes.  Enough information at I worried I was overwhelming him with more than he really wanted to know.

I won’t get into a lengthy backstory about how the conversation came up. I’ll just note that we were discussing a different topic and I made him ask me if I had any religious beliefs. I said, “Yeah, I’m actually a witch.”  He asked me to clarify what that meant and over a period of five minutes I told him about my personal affinity for the Norse deities, what I perceived as the subtle differences and relationship between the terms Wiccan, witch, and Pagan, and a brief bit about my beliefs surrounding magic.  Eventually, the conversation was over and we both fell silent as we continued doing our jobs.

I was instantly reminded of this experience later in the week when Libby Anne posted a link to an article about evangelical Christians looking for ways to “share the gospel.” The article talked about how evangelicals weren’t doing it enough (as determined by the author of the article, I guess) and often struggled with it.  Given how easily I just discussed my beliefs with a coworker mere days before, I found this somewhat amusing. I considered why it was so much easier for me, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the matter with my readers.

I was only interested in sharing what I believed.

Nick asked me a question about a topic that is important to me and that I’m passionate about, and I told him about it.  But in the end, I was just sharing information with him about what I believe.  I had neither the desire nor the need to get Nick to strip down1 and declare his devotion to Freyja. I wasn’t out to convince him that lighting certain candles would somehow shape what happened in the future. All I expected him to do is listen to the answers I gave him like any polite person who asked any question.

To most evangelical Christians (and to me, back when I was counted among their number), “sharing the gospel” is not about usually just about telling other people what they believe. It’s usually about trying to convince people that they should believe the same thing they do. It’s about getting them to say the sinner’s prayer, accepting Jesus as their personal savior (which means convincing people they need a personal savior in the first place), and so on. At best, that turns into a sales pitch, and most of us don’t like sales pitches. At worst, it can turn into an argument. Is it any wonder evangelical Christians find it so hard to keep doing that?

I followed Nick’s lead.

If Nick hadn’t asked me that first question, the whole conversation never would have happened.  And the conversation ended when I answered his last question.  Actually, there were several pauses in the conversation.  I would finish answering a question and I would look back down at my work computer to continue editing my document that was under peer review.  Several second later, Nick would ask another question and I’d look up to give him an answer. I can get passionate about my beliefs and spiritual practices and I wanted to take care that I didn’t turn into a boor that started spouting things Nick wasn’t interested in hearing.

In my experience, evangelical Christians tend to try to control the conversation when they share the gospel.  There’s a definite point B they want to get to and they will often plow right on through, trying to get there.  They’ll have some sort of prepared script (such as the Romans Road or, especially when dealing with younger children, the Wordless Book) they plan to work through.

Perhaps they have one or two standard opening lines, like “Oh I see you have a tattoo, tell me about it.”  And then they try to figure out how to use your answer as a segue into their sales pitch.  As Libby Anne pointed out, that sort of approach often comes across as insincere and manipulative (because, let’s be honest, it is both of those things).  At any rate, this sort of “sharing” isn’t about “sharing” anymore.  It’s about making a sale and acting completely like a salesman to do it. I don’t know of anyone who actually enjoys conversations with door-to-door salesmen or telemarketers, unless they just enjoy messing with them.

Nick and I have a working relationship and casual friendship.

Nick and I have been working on the same project for over a year now. We’ve had ample opportunities to work together to solve problems and help each other with our work-related tasks.  We have a great deal of respect for each other.

During that year, we’ve also spent a lot of time talking about various things.  We’ve each talked about our day-to-day lives, our relationships, and our interests.  We’ve even shared a bit of our personal histories with each other.  All of this added up to an organic relationship which allowed Nick to ask me about my beliefs.  I didn’t have to look for an opportunity to bring them up myself.  I didn’t have to figure out a way to steer the conversation where I wanted it to go.  (Again, I just followed Nick’s lead the entire way.)

Many – and I would even daresay most – evangelical Christians live rather insular lives.  They don’t know many people outside of their own families and their church circles.  Regarding those few people outside those circles, they don’t really take time to get to know or build mutually fulfilling friendships or acquaintanceships. So there’s no way for discussions about beliefs to come up naturally.

If an evangelical Christian does decide to make friends outside of their family and church circles, it’s often explicitly for the purpose of “sharing the gospel.” To be blunt, that usually taints the whole endeavor. Instead of looking for common ground, common interests, and learning about the other person, it usually becomes all about talking just enough to find that “hook” that will get the conversation to the “sales pitch.” No one wants to be a “project” or part of a “target market.”

Not many people have a lot of exposure to or experience with my beliefs or those who follow it.

Nick didn’t know much about witchcraft, let alone the particulars of how I practice it.  He knew one other coworker that identifies as Pagan, and he had had a few conversations with that coworker. Those experiences shaped some of the questions he asked me.  His limited knowledge also inspired an open curiosity to learn more, which I was happy to oblige while (again) not overwhelming him or turning into a bore. This created a large space in which our conversation could occur.

Despite many of them insisting that we live in a “Christian nation” many evangelical Christians seem to believe that the rest of us have never heard about what they believe.  Or they assume that we heard wrong or misunderstand what they believe. I personally find this belief amusing. I suspect it would be difficult to live in this country and never once hear about the belief that Jesus is God’s son, that he is (or wants to be) the savior of the world and that people need to believe in him in order to be saved.  So many evangelicals start out foolishly trying to tell us things we already know, then jumping to trying to convince of us why we should believe those things (often without ever asking or listening to why we don’t already believe them). Again, this often and even usually leads to an antagonistic exchange rather than a comfortable and open dialogue.

People’s knowledge of and past experiences with Christianity in general and evangelical Christianity in particular also negatively impacts future conversations on the topic.  While this may not be the fault of the evangelical now trying to share what they believe, they still have to accept and deal with that reality in a compassionate and constructive way. Telling people that their past experiences (or the past history of Christianity that’s less personal but may still be equally troubling) are just because those other Christians “got it wrong” and you’re not like that just isn’t going to work. It usually comes off as dismissive.  Sometimes, the only hope is to put the desire to “share the gospel” on the backburner and sit with that person’s distrust of the Christian faith and the reasons for it for a time.  But again, this is the different between trying to build a relationship with someone and looking for an opening for the “sales pitch.”

Those are the fundamental differences that I perceive between my experiences sharing my beliefs with Nick and the attempts to “share the gospel” that I’ve seen.  I think they are important differences and serve to explain why I find my approach to be much easier, organic, and successful.  I imagine that some evangelical question might rightly ask me how many such opportunities to share I experience.  I will admit that this is the first time at my current job (which I’ve had for seven years) that I’ve discussed my beliefs with a coworker.  I also don’t know if Nick and I will ever discuss the topic again.  At this point, that depends on whether it comes up again (and possibly whether Nick brings it up again).  I suppose that if you’re an evangelical Christian looking for a large number of opportunities to make your “sales pitch,” that will be a problem. But then, I think you need to be honest about what you’re really after and how that makes other people see you. You can be a religious salesman making dozens of “cold calls” or you can build friendships in which you can occasionally discuss something that is very near and dear to your heart in a sensitive and compassionate manner. I doubt you can do both.


1Getting naked isn’t strictly necessary to declare one’s devotion to Freyja. I’ve just personally found that doing so has certain beneficial impacts on the process and experience. But again, I have neither the desire nor the need to convince other devotees of Freyja or those who might consider devoting themselves to her to follow suit.

Rune of The Day: Ing

As I have mentioned previously, I have studied runes and use then for both divination and magic. In an attempt to build up a regular spiritual practice and get back to basics, I”m starting to draw a rune each morning and meditating on how it applies to my life and current circumstances throughout the day.  I’ve also decided to start occasionally blogging about the rune I pick for a given day.  Today’s post is the first such post.

Rune:  Ing, Inguz, or Ingwaz Image of the most common stave for the rune Ing.

One word meaning: The God Ing.

Information: Ing was another name for Freyr, the Vanic god of leadership and fertility. Freyr was married to the giant woman Gerd, who is often associated with the earth. In order to win her hand in marriage, he had to offer up and hand over his own sword. In some areas of Northern Europe, statues of Freyr were driven around the countryside in carts and hailed as the king and husband of the land who would bring prosperity to it.

The rune is strongly associated with the fertility and sexuality aspect of Ing, to the point where some of suggested that one stave (a diamond) commonly used to represent it is reminiscent and representative of a male gonad.

Interpretation and Other Thoughts

Ing calls us to consider our creative side, especially for those endeavors that are just beginning or are even still in the planning side. We would do well to consider what projects are at hand or just coming up that would benefit from our attention, energies, and efforts to help them gestate and develop so that they can eventually blossom into full fruition.

In group situations, Ing may call for us to act as peacemakers and attempt to calm and resolve conflicts, especially if it is our own “sword” that needs to be put away. The possibility of gentle leadership and mentoring might also be suggested, as Ing is generous and prefers to share in both the work towards prosperity and its benefits.

(Image taken from Raven Runes.  Note:  A link of this sort is not an endorsement.)

Spirituality Corner: On Teaching and Traditions

Over the past five or so years, I’ve found myself in the position to help various people on their spiritual journeys. Most particularly, I’ve found myself helping people to learn to communicate with spirit, be it spirit guides, individuals who have passed from this life, or even deity. My most recent experience has been helping someone make a connection to and contact with a particular deity he felt drawn to.

This last experience has been most interesting and even a bit challenging to me, as I have no real knowledge of or connection with this deity myself. If someone were ask me how to connect with and contact Freyja – or even one of the other Norse gods and possibly even a few of the Irish ones – I’d have a plethora of experience and knowledge to draw on. I’d be able to recommend stories to become intimately familiar with, suggestions on offerings to give, and recommendations on how to craft an invocation for calling out to that particular deity.

In this case, I simply had to show the other person how to figure out much of that information himself and explaining to him how he needed to enter a meditative state, set up a sacred space where he could meet the deity, and how to call out to said deity in his own words.

The good news is that it worked beautifully. Contact with the deity was almost immediate and awe-inspiring, which I credit to said deity’s own deep interest in working with and teaching this person. I am pleased that I was able to help make this happen, but I have no delusions that I was anything other than a helpful middle-man helping two individuals meet sooner than if they had to arrange said meeting by themselves.

Back to the struggle to help someone contact a deity I personally have no knowledge of or connection to, though, the experience has given me yet another appreciation for what it must be like to work with a more narrowly defined tradition. I imagine that those covens that focus on working with a specific deity or small group of deities must have a great advantage when it comes to teaching new members and interested people. I imagine they have a great deal of lore and very specific techniques (such as detailed visualizations and invocations) they can employ and teach those seeking to make that same connection. I imagine that said tools have been developed as a result of the tradition and learning what works best for that specific tradition and working with that specific deity or groups of deity.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t plan on leaving my eclectic coven to join or form a tradition with a narrower focus. Nor do I plan on trying to change my current coven into something other than what it currently is. I love my coven and its members exactly for who they are. They are my family and I wouldn’t change or leave them for the world.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t form an appreciation for the way others have come to do things.

Paganism, Escapism, and the Nature of Reality

Pentacle

Image by giest via Flickr

Pax wrote an excellent post about the tension between Liberation and Escapism on his blog yesterday.  I highly recommend it.  One of the things that he talks about is the tendency for some Pagans to get so focused on the mystical and magical aspects of the Pagan traditions and tend to remain rooted in reality as well.  Pax shares his own past experiences along those lines:

Even though I could see and perceive and experience the many ways in which the practice of my spirituality and faith as a Witch were leading me to greater personal strength and a deeper understanding of myself and a healthier relationship with the world around me… at the same time I was not dealing with the mundane issues at work in my life, like dissatisfaction with work and living in a bad housing situation and so many of the other planes of stability as Thorn has labeled them in her writing and teaching…. so even as I pursued the Liberation of my self and spirit, I was also using that pursuit as an Escape rather than confronting those things that I was seeking escape from!

I offered my own thoughts on the matter with the following comment:

Excellent points, Pax. I’d add that I strongly believe that an essential part of making sure my spirituality is rooted in reality is making sure that my spirituality manifests itself in my everyday reality. I’m reminded of closing of my own coven’s ritual, where we affirm that we have walked with the Divine and now seek to carry the Divine blessings we have received into the world with us.

To me, that’s a very practical thing. Did the ritual increase my sense of Oneness with everyone and the interconnectedness of all of us? Then I’m going to be looking for opportunities to build and strengthen relationship with others. Did the ritual leave me with a sense of greater perspective and inner strength? Then I’m going to look for those areas in my life that are challenging to me and those obstacles with a fresh eye, looking for how I can overcome or change them.

For those interested, the quote I’m referencing from the ritual my coven uses is as follows:

We have walked with the Stars, Sun, and Moon. Together we now bring Love, Power, and Balance to our Earth Home.

The more I think about Pax’s post and my response, the more I’m reminded of one of my own criticisms of certain streams of Pagan thought.  I feel strongly that far too often, Pagans tend to make too much out of the distinction between the “spiritual,” the “magical,” and the so-called “mundane.”  In reality, there is only one reality, which is multi-faceted, tightly interrelated, and tightly interdependent.  And I think it’s that failure to see that the “spiritual,” “magical,” and “mundane” all inhabit the same space that often leads to the escapism issues Pax is talking about.

Of course, I think a related issue is the tendency of some to seek “spiritual experiences” as an end in themselves.  Don’t get me wrong, I love spiritual experiences as much as the next person, and I have my fair share.  I channel a goddess on a semi-regular basis, participate in monthly rituals, and am even attending a seance tonight, where this is a better-than-average chance that I will receive at least one message to give to at least one person.

But the nature of the universe demands that such experience spill over into all of that reality in some way.  Each legitimate spiritual experience by it’s very nature should manifest itself in my life and the lives of others around me in some tangible, practical way.  And if that’s not happening, it behooves me to ask why it’s not happening, and why I’m having or seeking out those experiences if nothing’s ever coming from it.