Devotional: Neighborhoods

A lot of Paganism is spent trying to “get back” to nature. For some of us, this means we get an itch to leave the apartment complexes or suburbs and buy that little farm out in the country. However, this is not always an easy, or even possible, scenario. My husband works for a large telecommunications company as a Linux admin, and needs to be able to drive into work at a moment’s notice in case a server or network goes out. It would not be easy for us to just pack up and forsake Society. We’re not even sure we’ll ever *buy* a house, as we tend to need to move around quite a bit. So we are living in one of the forests that are apartment complexes. This does mean we’ve got neighbors and lots of them. I recently seem to have struck up an unlikely friendship with the seven year old girl who lives above us. She wants to move in…

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Deities

Paganism tends to be very much about the Journey rather than the Destination, and as there is no root Dogma, we tend to  be incredibly flexible when it comes to Deity. Someone once remarked to me, Paganism was very much a practice of perception, and I would have to agree. There are many out there who follow Bast, the Egyptian Lady of Cats, but I can guarantee you, each of them will view Her in a different light, or have an individual relationship with Her.

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Introduction to Various Pagan Paths

This is by no means a complete list, and I doubt it ever will be. This is just to get anyone who’s interested started. Everyone needs a starting point.

Wicca – A diverse religion with no central authority or figure defining it. It is divided into various lineages and denominations, referred to as traditions, each with its own organisational structure and level of centralisation. Due to its decentralized nature, there is some disagreement over what actually constitutes Wicca. Some traditions, collectively referred to as British Traditional Wicca, strictly follow the initiatory lineage of Gardner and consider the term Wicca to apply only to such lineaged traditions, while other eclectic traditions do not.

Druidism – A form of modern spirituality or religion that generally promotes harmony and worship of nature, and respect for all beings, including the environment.

Ásatrú – A reconstruction of the old Nordic religions

Hellenism – A reconstruction of Greek practices

Kemetism – A reconstruction of Egyptian practices

Native American faiths – Very, very diverse. Each Nation will have its own stories and practices

Eclectic – A melting pot of various traditions. Bits taken from other practices to form a new, individual practice.

Occult – Hidden, or secret magic/practice

Syncretic – A blend of pagan and (usually) non-pagan beliefs

Folkloric – Practice that is influenced by legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are cultural traditions

Reconstructed – Practice that is constructed (or reconstructed) using literature, archeology, music, etc. of a particular people using a single pantheon.

Faery Tradition – Practice that focuses on the Fey and their lore and relation to our world

Family Traiditions – Traditions that are passed down between families

Strega Witches – Sect of Italian magic

Ceremonial Magic – a broad term used in the context of Hermeticism or Western esotericism to encompass a wide variety of long, elaborate, and complex rituals of magic.

– Alfrún