PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Yule Blessings

I am wishing you all blessings in the holiday season and new year. 

 

And may we be like snowflakes, 

 

dancing with joy joy joy,

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Easier Ways to Change, Grow, and Become More Powerful

Part One: The Problem with Trying to Change

 

Healing my spirit, increasing inner power, becoming my biggest self—these can be terribly challenging. 

 

I suspect everyone becomes discouraged about inner growth, now and then, feeling like it’s just too much to take on. It is not unusual to think that life’s hard enough as is without also trying to grow spiritually and emotionally. 

 

Personal transformation can be daunting. Faced with all the effort that might be required, a person might end up just watching Netflix instead.

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Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Molly
    Molly says #
    This is a great reminder!
Hedgewitch? Priestess or Priest? You decide.

You will often hear the terms Priest and Priestess used within Wiccan traditions. In Wicca it is often noted that each practitioner is a priest or priestess of their tradition, after studying and learning its ways. This is a way of saying that within the tradition, we have no need of an intermediary between ourselves and the divine, and so we can all become a priest or priestess of our path.

In some initiatory traditions, one can only call themselves a priest or priestess after having obtained certain levels of training with the Craft. Hedgewitches or Solitary Wiccans, alongside many other solitary forms of Witchcraft, train themselves, sometimes with the guidance of a teacher or a group and then working on their own, with all due diligence in research and practice. Initiation comes directly from the gods and goddesses themselves, not through another person. Should you wish to refer yourself as a priest or priestess, I would highly recommend that you study and practice for quite some time before taking on that title, as it is not something to be taken lightly. Modern Wicca and Witchcraft often uses the length of time as a year and a day of study before certain levels (degrees in coven training) can be obtained, and this can be a good rule of thumb to go by. You have to truly live your religion or spiritual path, each and every day, in order to really understand and come to know it inside and out. Otherwise, you are just paying it lip service, and any titles or roles that you decide to take on can be hollow and meaningless if the work is not put in wholeheartedly.

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Avalon: The Building of a Vegan Pagan Legend

A lesson that I keep on learning in life is that even the worst things usually have some sort of benefit to be wrestled from them with skill, patience, grace, or often luck. One such blessing was my ability to fulfill an adulthood-long dream to attend some of the Glastonbury Goddess Conference this year. Due to social distancing and travel restrictions and all, this was one of many annual events that transitioned to fully virtual. Sure, not everything works as well. Yet, some things work even better. I sat in (zoom) circles with women and men from Germany, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, Australia, England (of course) and more to discuss everything from the loss of children to owning our power--writing sacred stories and manifesting peace. Of course, it awakened my own past meanderings through my internal isle of Avalon, where (doubly of course) everything is vegan like me! Here's the apple isle as I see it. If you read to the end, you will see that I've solved the riddle of that infamous quest, "Who does the Grail serve, and what is its purpose?" Read ahead at your peril. (JK there's no peril).

 b2ap3_thumbnail_1200px-Arthur_Hughes_-_Sir_Galahad.jpg

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
With Harm to None

Cooped up at home, feeling nostalgic? Jump in my vegetarian time machine and take it back. Way back. I wrote and delivered this sermon for a contest held by the Unitarian Universalist Animal Ministry. I had to pare it down for delivery time, but enough of the history section includes "Pagan" vegetarian forebears that I think it deserves a spot here. Also included are modern reasons for a plant-based diet, such as personal health and environmentalism. For more info on the Unitarian Universalist Society (which also includes a covenant for UU Pagans), check out https://www.uua.org/.

 

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Crisis, Compassion, and Accountability

During crisis, I find being gentle with myself vital. However, were gentleness with myself to take precedence over gentleness with other people, I’d be widely amiss.

 

Gentleness with myself is not tantamount to forgoing moral accountability, but rather acknowledging what I’ve done wrong without shaming myself for it. We are all only human. We will all make mistakes. Compassion for others means rectifying whatever errors I make.

 

Compassion for others also requires the practice of self-awareness, so I spot my ill behavior, as well as notice an impulse toward an unkind deed so I can nip it in the bud.

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My Favorite Incense Books: The Trail Of Time by Dr. Silvio Bedini

Not only is The Trail of Time one of my very favorite incense books, it’s also one of the few academic books on the topics that’s available in English.  Dr. Bedini uses the pages of this book to shine a light on a nearly forgotten aspect of human history.  Before the advent of reliable mechanical clocks, humans used a wide variety of ways to keep time, especially during the hours of darkness when the sun could not be used as a reference.  Candles, water, sand, rope, and other materials were often utilized in an attempt to keep time when the sun was uncooperative.  The many ways that incense was employed to keep time is fascinating and has inspired me to attempt a variety of projects of my own.

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