PaganSquare


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

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Abrahamic religions

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

The One Ring Forums: Tolkien Topics: Reading Room: ** Mount Doom ** - 3.  The Slopes of Mount Doom

 Pagan Spring

 

My friend and I are celebrating the break in the winter weather with a walk together.

The sidewalks, icy no longer, are wet with snowmelt. Talking about religious imperialism and imperialist religion, we pass first a church, then a mosque.

Straight-faced, he begins to chant.

One god to rule them all, one god to find them;

one god to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them:

in the land of Israel, where the shadows lie.

Last modified on
On 'Abrahamic' Privilege and the Pagan Consolation

So: a rabbi, an imam, and a pastor walk into a radio studio.

Actually, they skype in.

Are you as sick as I am of hearing the media's treatment of “the religious response to covid-19” being reduced (over and over and over and over and over again) to the usual voices of the usual Big Three?

Where are the Hindu voices, the Buddhist? Where are the Native elders? You'd think that the rest of us don't even exist.

Ironically, the media thinks that it's being inclusive. Good old "Abrahamic" privilege.

These segments always end with the same question: In these hard times, what gives you strength?

Said rabbi, imam, or pastor invariably respond with some navel-gazing citation from Scripture or well-polished nugget of wisdom from their respective traditions.

Figures. Their narcissistic fixation on humanity is one of the great historic wrongs that the “A-list” religions have visited on the world.

As for me, I'm a pagan. For me—as for the ancestors, as for Indigenous peoples of the world to this very day—the very heart of our living inheres not so much in looking in as in looking out.

What gives me strength in these hard times? I'll tell you.

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Sarah Israelson
    Sarah Israelson says #
    Yes! I was just saying this to myself as I took time to witness Nature around me yesterday. The whales are migrating by our beach,
  • Mark Green
    Mark Green says #
    YES. This.
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Venice is under lockdown for, what, a month now? Already the fish are coming back into the canals. "Nature"'s ability to regenerat
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I've looked at a couple of coronavirus lock down effects on wild animals videos on YouTube. The sight of wild boars in the streets
  • Katie
    Katie says #
    Every time I go outside, breathe the air, feel the breeze, I am strengthened. Every time I see the sun shining, I am energized. Wh

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The True and the Free

To the pagan eye, the main difference between our religions and the Abraham ones isn't the difference between One or Many.

It's the difference between Slave and Free.

With the spread of the Slave Religions across the world, loss of spiritual freedom has invariably gone hand in hand with loss of political freedom: spiritual imperialism with political imperialism. Pagan peoples everywhere have fought to preserve our political, cultural, and intellectual freedom. Sometimes we've won, most often we've lost, but in our hearts, even when shackled, we have never submitted, and we never will.

Unlike some, the pagan gods don't want slaves, and they don't want eternal children. They expect us to grow up, to stand on our own two feet, and to do for ourselves. If you raise your children to be dependent on you, you've failed as a parent.

We, the Pagans, have been here since the beginning; we've never gone away, and we never will. We dare to dream of a day when the Slavers and their ways will vanish from the Earth, when once again we will all live as our gods want us to live: as Free peoples, everywhere.

We are the Pagans, but “pagan” is a name from without. What do we call ourselves from within?

Last modified on
How Thunder Slew the Three-Headed Giant

They say there was once a three-headed giant named Motho.

Well, that's what they say.

You know giants: they're greedy. Motho just couldn't be content until everyone, everywhere, was his slave.

He went through the whole world, chaining the people. Wherever he went, balance was broken. Wherever he went, hatred and discord sprang up.

In time, it seemed as if he might enslave all the world. Then from their chains, the people called to mighty Thunder: men, women, and children, they called.

Mighty Thunder arose. His anger burned hot. He took up his lightning hammer and smote, smote, smote. He broke the baleful heads of Motho; he broke the chains that bound the people.

In this way, Motho was killed, and the world was freed from his tyranny.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Studies Blogs
To Be A Pagan Chaplain: Compassion

I field many questions about what I do as a chaplain from people who are curious, but who also are under the misconception that as a Pagan I don't actually have a faith tradition (or my faith tradition is not acceptable). A large reason I am pursuing this path is to do the work of representing my faith group at the table with other groups--to do the work of "legitimacy" if you will. We have a long way to go in this battle, as I will demonstrate in the example I will leave here. As I do this work, I am beginning to realize people need to understand why Pagan chaplaincy is necessary. It isn't just the interfaith work, though that is important too. But for every Pagan who is in the hospital and wants a chaplain of their faith to be there with them, for every Pagan in prison, or the military, or in universities, there will need to be someone willing to do the work of fighting this battle of legitimacy.

**Note: For those who are familiar with what verbatims looks like, this format will be familiar. This was an actual encounter with someone I work with, recollected to the best of my ability and presented to my group for processing. This is the reality I live with everyday.** 

...
Last modified on
Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Aline "Macha" O'Brien
    Aline "Macha" O'Brien says #
    Thanks for sharing your experience and insights. Respectfully, I'd like to offer some variations on your replies. FWIW, I've bee
Pagan News Beagle: Faithful Friday, January 15

A group of Icelanders turns to a particularly ancient religion for apparently mundane reasons. The religiosity of religious leaders in Germany and Britain are compared. And the pantheon of deities in Chinese folk religion (also called Shenism or Shenjiao) is examined. It's Faithful Friday, our weekly segment on news about faiths and religious communities from around the world! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

Last modified on

Posted by on in Studies Blogs

 

A little while back I wrote an article about The Broom Closet in the 21st Century. Recently the New York Times had an opinion article about the persecution of Witches in various parts of the world. In that article the opinion writer argued that the age of the internet has increased the witch hunting that occurs. One of the problems is that many of the people accused of witchcraft may not even be witches. They are accused for reasons that may have nothing to do witchcraft, but nonetheless it is used because it's convenient. In such places, the brutality that occurs involves burning people alive, or beheading or stoning them. The majority of such atrocities occur to women and the the people doing the assault are men doing it for prestige or as a way to enforce dominant social values. I mention all of this make a point: That such atrocities, far from being history, are still happening. In some cases, they are even happening in the U.S. And even here in the U.S. we also see the proliferation of ignorant perspectives about magic, because of how the mainstream religion fears the spread of any spiritual beliefs that run counter to that religion. Now whether every single one of those victims did or didn't identify as a Pagan or a Witch doesn't really matter, because those people were still labeled as such and punished for beliefs they may or may not have held.

...
Last modified on

Additional information