Theology/practice question for neopagans (and others in good faith)

[WhyNot]

IOW, if all you have to say is how stupid religion is, please find another thread to say it in. I put this in The Crucible quite literally - so we can share ideas and perhaps distill them down into Truth.

Smart Aleq's reply in this thread reminds me of a meditation I had once after reading an excerpt of a Lon Milo Duquette writing about Alistair Crowley's Aeon theory. (The theory that all the religions of the world have shifted focus nearly simultaneously as our knowledge about the sun changes.)

Back in The Ancient Times (define that historically or mythically, as you like), our awareness was focused on The Earth. The Earth gave us life, via food. Mothers gave us life, by birthing us. And we thought that was really fucking cool, and so we carved statues of women who had birthed many babies (although not so much women who WERE pregnant, or even were lactating. Older women with saggy bodies, evidence of having given life and nursed probably multiple times, that was the respected body.) We may have worshiped the Earth and Womanhood as concept or deity. The sun warmed the Earth and it was a little disconcerting when it went away and days became shorter and shorter, but there was always some sort of life on Earth to sustain us through the dark months. She provided.

Then someone noticed that plants only grow where seeds fall. Not only that, but if you clear the ground a little bit and push the seeds into the ground a bit, they grow even better. And...wait a sec! Nothing really grows during the winter when the sun goes away. Maybe (and I can only imagine this whispered in shocked and sacrilegious tones) maybe the power comes not from the Earth, but from the Sun! And look, Seed and Sun both die, and then come back again. The Sun does it every night! Now THAT'S what's really fucking cool. Death and re-birth! And so death cults arose and, no longer cowed by the "power" of the Earth (which is obviously not the giver of Life, just some sort of repository for Seed and Sun to work their magic) convinced people that they, like the Seed and Sun, may die, but they will be reborn. But just as planting seed requires that you do everything just so if you want a good crop, attaining this rebirth requires a list of do's and don'ts for it to work. And just as you'd ask the most successful farmer for his tips and follow them exactly if you want to get good results, so should you listen carefully to the priest to learn the secret of rebirth. Trying to figure it all out on your own is a foolish waste of time and effort when spiritual salvation is the crop and you only have one season (lifetime) to get this right! The power is in the Sun to bring life to your seed, if you do everything the priest tells you.

Now, of course, we know that our Sun is just* a star. And there are billions of them. And about the same time this knowledge was really sinking in, this idea of individualism really raised its spiritual head. There isn't One Path any more than there is One Sun. Billions of personal universes and billions of Stars, all whirling around, doing a sacred dance, but never colliding, never really understanding one another except in brief, beautiful fleeting moments of Stellar Fire. And they never really die, either - they may transform, they may shift from red to yellow to black holes or however that goes, but they transform, they don't die. Energy and matter are never created or destroyed, but you can transform one to the other. So maybe we transform, instead of ceasing to be or being reborn, too.

And, as cool as this meditation and the awareness it gave me has been, it's also been a problem for me in my spiritual work. Because now I'm stuck. I can't, in good conscience, go back to being "a Goddess worshiper", because that's so 10 millennia ago! And I'm really not down with the death cult thing, either. But I don't know what this new view of the universe is telling me. What, on a practical level, do I do once I'm past the concepts of God and Goddess? I've been stuck here for about 5 years now. Any advice?







*I have a whole 'nother one about how all the secrets of the universe are hidden behind the word "just". I think I stole that one from The Seventh Telling. But I'll spare you.

[Julie]

Perhaps you've already hit on it when you talk about matter and energy never being created nor destroyed. You're moving from ends to processes, from respect for what it gets to you respect for what it is?

[Zuul]

Following the idea that we can gain spiritual insights from our observations of the natural world, here is where my thought process eventually leads me:

Observe a proton. Now, draw back a step. The proton is clustered with other protons and neutrons, in the nucleus of an atom. Draw back further. The atom is part of a molecule. Further? The molecule is part of a cell, which is part of an organ, which is part of an animal.

Now, in evolutionary terms, we begin with the self-replicating molecules. Eventually, we get cells. Somewhere along the way is the leap to those cells, once discrete beings, becoming pieces of a single organism. Eventually, those single organisms form communities.

Metaphorically, then, I view each human being as a cell. Together, we are all one organ. Taken with the entire universe, we are one being. Within each cell of a body, there is DNA. What aspects of that DNA are accessible in that cell will vary depending on its purpose within the body. In the case of this metaphor, then, our understanding of the universe and spirituality are our "DNA." Just little cells inside of a huge, grander body, we can't generally hope to comprehend the totality of what we are part of and simply work on that which we understand. The dermis cell makes other skin cells, unaware of the greater potential. (In this metaphor, I suppose those with great spiritual insight are stem cells. )

In that case, any divine beings are simply reflections of that grand, universal body that we make up. We are each part of each other. There is no personal immortality or afterlife, as I see no reflection of such a thing in the living world. But, if we are all part of the same body and our spiritual "DNA" is shared throughout it, then none of us ever truly die, because we were never as separate as we might have felt. We simply go back into the whole. The best we can do is to love others as we love ourselves (because they are, in the end, all extensions of us) and find peace in our oneness.

[Orual]

It seems to me (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that you've moved from a reverence of "beings" to "doings", as it were. Activities rather than personalities.

I'm a little at a loss as far as what you should do with this, because I'm not entirely clear on what you do now. I think you are pretty involved in the neopagan community, are you concerned that your current worldview no longer syncs with those practices?

[WhyNot]

I'm a little at a loss as far as what you should do with this, because I'm not entirely clear on what you do now. I think you are pretty involved in the neopagan community, are you concerned that your current worldview no longer syncs with those practices?

I don't really have any practices at the moment. I used to run Circles at Sabbats and Esbats and study with a group and individually (Hermetic flavored panpaganism). I was never the greatest student in terms of memorizing facts and correspondences, but not a day went by when I didn't have some sort of pondering and generally a conversation about spiritual stuff with a person or three. My spiritual teacher was also my herbalism teacher and my employer, and lots of my Circlemates attended school or worked in the same building. When that group dissolved, my practices abruptly stopped. Now I get together with some of the old gang for about 4 or 5 of the Esbats a year, but we're not an organized (or even disorganized) group any more. I go camping at pagan festivals, but most often find myself my kitchen tent during ritual. My private practice is most often nothing. Occasionally I get inspired to light some sage and ground and center, but mostly my experience right now is this: intellectual, on a message board.

Which, y'know, leaves me lots of time free, but I feel kinda stuck. When I do attend someone else's ritual, it feels like playacting. Once in a while I feel that old energy, but it's fleeting. Surely this can't be it. I can't have reached the peak of my spiritual development at 34!

I did do one awesome working recently that I was really able to throw my heart and soul into, and it was the clearest best spell I've ever done. Got me into nursing school. It wasn't a binding on the school or anything, but sparking a light in me that the professors could see and take notice of me. And it worked - beginning the day after the working, nursing professors, including the head the program, suddenly looked at me in the hallway, started asking me questions and encouraging me by name. So I'm not having a crisis of faith. I know this stuff is as real as anything else, I'm just not sure what to do with it.

[WhyNot]

Ack! And I just realized I made this a Jibba-Jabba thread All About Me. Let me attempt to redirect:

A. Do you think that humanity has moved beyond a One Right Way view of religion?
B. Do you think that we're ready to let go of the Earth Goddess/Solar God concept?
C. If so, then what? What does religion mean if we're all our own priests on our own paths?

[Orual]

Ack! And I just realized I made this a Jibba-Jabba thread All About Me.

Hey, I asked. I was just trying to see more clearly where you're coming from.

A. Do you think that humanity has moved beyond a One Right Way view of religion?
B. Do you think that we're ready to let go of the Earth Goddess/Solar God concept?
C. If so, then what? What does religion mean if we're all our own priests on our own paths?

A. I think that the concept of Universalism is growing. But on the whole, no. I think humanity is very attached to the idea of One Right Way (that way, everyone else is WRONG.)

B. I'm not really equipped to answer that, since I've never gone in much for that particular dyad. In fact, the whole One God/One Goddess thing was one of the primary reasons I never really got into Wicca - my perception of divinity is much more ... diffuse, I guess is the right word. So, personally, I can't let go of a concept I never held.

C. That's the tough one. I think it means that we're all free, but it does make the seeking kind of difficult, since we're without something or someone ahead of us, pointing the way.

[WhyNot]

Julie, that's a good point, by the way - so the question becomes, what does religion look like without an end? If it's a process, but it's an individual process, then what, in everyday reality, does that look like? How do you know what the next step is - isn't the step itself an end?

Caerie, I love that imagery, and it's not unlike what I've pondered in my woah...what if? moments. Sometimes I wonder if, on someone else's scale, our whole planet is the equivalent of an atomic particle - an elearthtron spinning around the nucleus we call Sol...and our whole solar system just one atom in someone else's....what? Tree? Bread knife? And do our electrons have an unfathomable sentience, unaware that they're part of that stapler, or this keyboard? But, of course, I love your biological imagery even more. Melding science and spiritual is a big hobbyhorse of mine, and that was wonderfully articulated. (And I definitely think Ascended Masters are like stem cells!)

Orual, I'm not sure I ever personally held the Divine Dyad to be a literal thing. I'm definitely a believer in immanent divinity, and think that God/desses are simply a good way of understanding bits and pieces of an unfathomable Whole. But I used to think They were tools for expansion, and now They seem so limiting... Do you have a personal practice? What do you do?

[Orual]

Orual, I'm not sure I ever personally held the Divine Dyad to be a literal thing. I'm definitely a believer in immanent divinity, and think that God/desses are simply a good way of understanding bits and pieces of an unfathomable Whole. But I used to think They were tools for expansion, and now They seem so limiting... Do you have a personal practice? What do you do?

"Immanent divinity" ... that's a good phrase. ::squirrels away for future use::

As for what I do, lately I've been praying a lot. For me, praying tend to take on the form of long, drawn-out arguments with the universe (I find gods to be very useful for this particular purpose). This is due to the fact that lately I've been feeling kind of disconnected and emotionally at sea, and hopefully these arguments will eventually get me some clarity. It's not asking for guidance so much as trying to get myself in sync.

When I am feeling calmer, I tend to be more contemplative. Communication with the divine takes a form more like meditation, where I'm happy to just sit inside myself and consider things.

But then, my particular line of religious thought isn't particularly goal-oriented. I am by nature introverted and passive. I like to let new ideas come to me, I don't necessarily go out looking for them. You seem to have the opposite impulses when it comes to religion. Lots of momentum, and the desire to do rather than be - and I can see why your current situation is frustrating: you've got all this energy and don't know where to put it.

I feel I'm being very inarticulate. Please let me know if I seem to be speaking nonsense.

[WhyNot]

But then, my particular line of religious thought isn't particularly goal-oriented. I am by nature introverted and passive. I like to let new ideas come to me, I don't necessarily go out looking for them. You seem to have the opposite impulses when it comes to religion. Lots of momentum, and the desire to do rather than be - and I can see why your current situation is frustrating: you've got all this energy and don't know where to put it.

I feel I'm being very inarticulate. Please let me know if I seem to be speaking nonsense.

No, not nonsense at all! It's funny, because generally I am very passive and waiting...to the point where I'd say generally I'm lazy. Just in the past few weeks, though, it's like someone put itching powder in my drawers! My house is clean, my paperwork for school is in early, I've already got my CPR certification lined up, and I'm aching for some good old time religion!

After a great conversation with a Domer via PM, I decided to do a Tarot reading for myself, and got basically, "You're on the cusp of change leading to really great things. Don't let overthinking the small stuff distract you from the big picture. Your Magickal self will find fulfillment through your nursing studies. Oh, and have sex with your husband more often, it will keep him from being too cranky."