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moonvoiceFrom the wonderful community ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
pagan_prompt
When attending a public ritual how do you reconcile differences in beliefs/styles/etc? Do these differences ever prevent you from seeking out the pagan community for support and religious solidarity? Describe a time in which a public ritual contained elements contrary or different from your path and yet still proved to be meaningful and worthwhile.
When attending a public ritual how do you reconcile differences in beliefs/styles/etc?
Well... I was a member of a coven and went to a few public rituals, both through that coven, and also via my Grandmother (including the sanctifying of a medicine wheel by a Core Shamanist, among many other things). For me it has always been fairly easy to reconcile differences because - quite simply - it is virtually impossible to find anyone who practices the same way that I do in Western Australia.
Most shamanists here seem to be focused on Native American worldvies, Celtic shamanism ones (a whole other kettle of fish I won't go into here), or Asian forms. Not only that, but they don't seem to be too interested in psychopomping or soul retrieval if they can join a drumming session instead. It's very easy to learn tolerance when you are, for the most part, a solo agent. Or at least I think it is! Even while I practiced in Alexandrian Wicca I knew it never really fit me...
So reconciling differences for me was simply a matter of learning about those differences, and also knowing that we had our vast similarities. Joining in a public ritual to open a medicine wheel generally meant that all of us sought to raise power and also consecrate the land and make it a healing place. We could all do that, no matter what we believed, and so the public ritual created a common ground which was a great listening point for our differences, but ultimately a great meeting point for our common goals.
Do these differences ever prevent you from seeking out the pagan community for support and religious solidarity?
No, my social phobias / anxieties do this just fine for me. ;) Seriously though, I do love the Perth pagan community (or my memories of it, which I've heard are quite different from the reality these days).
Even though I know the chances of me finding another shamanist I share common ground with, let alone a shamanist I can practice with, are slim... I still like the idea of solidarity of different pagans hanging out and basically showing that we're okay peoples, and that many of us want to learn and grow and be together.
So my differences don't really prevent me. My PTSD does, for sure, but if I didn't have that I know I would be at Spring camp and the Yule Fete and I'd be going to drumming circles, because solidarity is found in spiritual friendship, and not just in spiritual 'sameness.'
Describe a time in which a public ritual contained elements contrary or different from your path and yet still proved to be meaningful and worthwhile.
Ah, a Samhain ritual I attended when I was still in coven. It wasn't 'public,' in the sense that anyone could go, but it was 'public' in the sense that involved the uniting of about 4 covens at Lady Tree's. It involved creating a protection charm under the light of the moon, one for each of us, which was saturated with everyone's energy.
It was a lovely ritual, but I believe the moon is male and not female, and every time the 'Goddess' of the moon was worshipped or mentioned, I felt a little grating cringe in my spirit. I didn't bother saying 'male,' I went along with it, but it was wrong for me. But by the same token, the raising of power was genuine, the charm was effective, and it still protects my room. It is so effective (I charge it with power every year) that I've had people who have gone to send me healing energy or meet me while journeying say that they just can't get in around me. I either have to take the charm down, or not journey in my room. It's lovely. Nothing spiritual bothers me there. And even my spirit helpers know that that is my private place.
That ritual had a great and meaningful outcome to me, and also let me know that at least - back then - the pagan community was filled with loving, spiritual and powerful people - young and old, who would support each other despite differences.
pagan_promptWhen attending a public ritual how do you reconcile differences in beliefs/styles/etc? Do these differences ever prevent you from seeking out the pagan community for support and religious solidarity? Describe a time in which a public ritual contained elements contrary or different from your path and yet still proved to be meaningful and worthwhile.
When attending a public ritual how do you reconcile differences in beliefs/styles/etc?
Well... I was a member of a coven and went to a few public rituals, both through that coven, and also via my Grandmother (including the sanctifying of a medicine wheel by a Core Shamanist, among many other things). For me it has always been fairly easy to reconcile differences because - quite simply - it is virtually impossible to find anyone who practices the same way that I do in Western Australia.
Most shamanists here seem to be focused on Native American worldvies, Celtic shamanism ones (a whole other kettle of fish I won't go into here), or Asian forms. Not only that, but they don't seem to be too interested in psychopomping or soul retrieval if they can join a drumming session instead. It's very easy to learn tolerance when you are, for the most part, a solo agent. Or at least I think it is! Even while I practiced in Alexandrian Wicca I knew it never really fit me...
So reconciling differences for me was simply a matter of learning about those differences, and also knowing that we had our vast similarities. Joining in a public ritual to open a medicine wheel generally meant that all of us sought to raise power and also consecrate the land and make it a healing place. We could all do that, no matter what we believed, and so the public ritual created a common ground which was a great listening point for our differences, but ultimately a great meeting point for our common goals.
Do these differences ever prevent you from seeking out the pagan community for support and religious solidarity?
No, my social phobias / anxieties do this just fine for me. ;) Seriously though, I do love the Perth pagan community (or my memories of it, which I've heard are quite different from the reality these days).
Even though I know the chances of me finding another shamanist I share common ground with, let alone a shamanist I can practice with, are slim... I still like the idea of solidarity of different pagans hanging out and basically showing that we're okay peoples, and that many of us want to learn and grow and be together.
So my differences don't really prevent me. My PTSD does, for sure, but if I didn't have that I know I would be at Spring camp and the Yule Fete and I'd be going to drumming circles, because solidarity is found in spiritual friendship, and not just in spiritual 'sameness.'
Describe a time in which a public ritual contained elements contrary or different from your path and yet still proved to be meaningful and worthwhile.
Ah, a Samhain ritual I attended when I was still in coven. It wasn't 'public,' in the sense that anyone could go, but it was 'public' in the sense that involved the uniting of about 4 covens at Lady Tree's. It involved creating a protection charm under the light of the moon, one for each of us, which was saturated with everyone's energy.
It was a lovely ritual, but I believe the moon is male and not female, and every time the 'Goddess' of the moon was worshipped or mentioned, I felt a little grating cringe in my spirit. I didn't bother saying 'male,' I went along with it, but it was wrong for me. But by the same token, the raising of power was genuine, the charm was effective, and it still protects my room. It is so effective (I charge it with power every year) that I've had people who have gone to send me healing energy or meet me while journeying say that they just can't get in around me. I either have to take the charm down, or not journey in my room. It's lovely. Nothing spiritual bothers me there. And even my spirit helpers know that that is my private place.
That ritual had a great and meaningful outcome to me, and also let me know that at least - back then - the pagan community was filled with loving, spiritual and powerful people - young and old, who would support each other despite differences.
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no subject
Date: 2008-04-16 09:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 02:55 am (UTC)I think it would be a good idea for me to go to an open ritual one day, it would help shake my feeling that Paganism is a private, 'hidey' thing.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-16 09:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 10:56 am (UTC)I know of quite a number of things that would ward off unwanted spirits but nothing that "truly" stops them entirely, if they want in they will still find a way. Also full protection would stop you as well, in theory it should stop everything form projecting/journeying to that room or place. It is a lot easier to make it so that say they can only enter with a password, or if they turn clockwise while dancing the cheese dance, something like that would require less power. Excluding everything say bar those spirits you invite, would be a lot easier because the connection remains but it is protected, like putting a deadlock on the door rather than bricking it up.
That was probably a unnecessarily long post of what I think is really quite complex meta physics.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 04:10 pm (UTC)I suppose here it depends on some level of rationality, but addressing where you are likely to get attacked from; assuming you're even going to be attacked. I protect from the worlds and realms I walk in, because it's reasonable that I've left a more significant spiritual / energy imprint there.
I'd never bother to protect against say... the millions of manifestations of my room in supposed alternative universes that I don't even know if I believe in.
I know of quite a number of things that would ward off unwanted spirits but nothing that "truly" stops them entirely, if they want in they will still find a way.
Aside from gods, I've actually not personally found this to be the case; but maybe I've just never raised anyone's ire enough in the otherworlds for this to happen. I do have treaties with demons, who respect my space as long as I respect theirs - they're the only beings I can really see who would want to trespass into my room to hurt me. But as Goetic magic has shown, it IS possible to prevent demons from getting at you, no matter how much they desire to get at you. It has to do with the personal power and will of the magician involves, and the personal power and will of the demon.
Also full protection would stop you as well, in theory it should stop everything form projecting/journeying to that room or place.
It's fine with me, but then the charm is tuned to my energy. For me it's like a key that I hold, that others do not. I guess it's like your 'password' idea, except the key is the charm itself which was made with my energy, the added oomph of the presence of others. As opposed to a word or something.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-18 11:17 am (UTC)I'd never bother to protect against say... the millions of manifestations of my room in supposed alternative universes that I don't even know if I believe in
I generally use a generic shielding rather than something that protects against everything. Full protection for something that I wanted to keep completely secret and safe I would perhaps put on a bag or a draw, a small space which would be easier to shut off. Of course one also has to think that shutting something off could be as attention grabbing as say not doing the protection at all.
Aside from gods, I've actually not personally found this to be the case; but maybe I've just never raised anyone's ire enough in the otherworlds for this to happen. I do have treaties with demons, who respect my space as long as I respect theirs - they're the only beings I can really see who would want to trespass into my room to hurt me. But as Goetic magic has shown, it IS possible to prevent demons from getting at you, no matter how much they desire to get at you. It has to do with the personal power and will of the magician involves, and the personal power and will of the demon.
I think it may also have to do with how the demon attacks but I have never been attacked by demons, just "bad spirits" which aren't demons.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-16 11:04 am (UTC)I regularly attend open rituals do both by my own moot and by the local Druid grove, where the numbers are large.
As Moonvioce says, its not the seeking of sameness it's the seeking of like minds in a spiritual sense. So It's no bother to me how they practise. Plus I have been priviledged in working with many different traditions and I find I can fit into them quite easily. I think most of us have this 'shape shifter' element in our workings.
"Do these differences ever prevent you from seeking out the pagan community for support and religious solidarity?"
Only once, when I was asked to a farm camp out where all the participants were gay males, and I knew there would be sexual activity during and after the ritual. I was puzzled why I was asked to such a ritual, they told me that I would be representing the Goddess in the circle for them. I left them to it, not my sort of thing. Besides a wet Welsh hillside in only gumboots! yuck!
"Describe a time in which a public ritual contained elements contrary or different from your path and yet still proved to be meaningful and worthwhile."
Loads and loads, so where can I start?
I know I'll give you one my HPs told me.
She was asked to 'guest' in a coven, and she was given the honour of calling South/fire. She was suprised in the fact that they called Angelic forces. She couldn't get her head around the fact she had to call an Arch Angel. Anyway she tried her best to remember the wording, but when it came to the crunch she made a slip of the tongue and called an Arch BISHOP! She and it seemed all the others had this vision of a very angry red faced Arch Bishop towering above them wanting to know why these witches had called him up! They cracked up for a while laughing so much. But the ritual went ahead and everything seemed to work ok.
no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 12:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-16 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-04-17 12:59 am (UTC)So these days I don't know. I do know that I would like to get to that point again.