My Path?

[pokeybear100]

*Side Note* I just finished typing everything out on my journal so that it was pretty and in subsections, but I went to preview and it was all gone.... So forget pretty, organized, etc. I'm typing it all out again here, and it'll be shorter and more to the point just because of how angry I am stressed


Where Did It Start?

Raised and baptized Christian Methodist. I went to church every Sunday, learned the lessons, memorized various verses, sang with the choir, prayed regularly. I was deeply religious and devout in my faith without pressing it upon others. When I was confirmed I started to have questions. As an example, I was told we don't believe in ghosts, but I had encounters with what could only be described as ghosts when I was little so they were real to me. Little things kept coming up that didn't make sense to me. I could no longer just "believe".

After my parents divorced my mom moved away and married my step-father on Samhain! When discussing my questions about my faith with my mom she told me she was a witch (I think I was all of, 10 years old maybe?) and she had had many of the same questions about her own faith as a child. She went in search of answers and she had finally found something that encompassed her own beliefs - Paganism. She told me that if I had any questions or wanted to do any research on any religion or faith that she would do everything in her power to get me some reliable information and help me learn. I finally started my search to see if there was anything out there with my ideas. The easiest place to start was to ask my mom about Paganism, to which she gave me the book Solitary Witch: The Ultimate Book of Shadows for the New Generation by Silver Ravenwolf. Wow. It made so much more sense to me than anything I had been taught in Christianity. And now here I am, knowing that Ravenwolf is definitely not the end-all-be-all of my path, and while many people feel he's, to put lightly, not the best writer on the subject, it's where I started to open my eyes to the possibility of a happier path.


My Own Personal Beliefs

~ I believe in many Gods! All deities of every religion do exists. Think about Greek Gods and Goddesses and how they're responsible for many things in life, each respectively. That's what I feel about every religions' god(s)/goddess(es). They all coexist, but are responsible for their own religions or various parts of it (Sorry if this is confusing or at all contradicting). Though I'm not sure which set of deities I should follow.
~ I believe in Angels and Demons, ghosts, imps, banshees, and various forms of vampires. I also believe that if these beings are strong enough that they can affect the physical world we live in. This is those instances of haunting and things move or something touches you, etc.
~ I believe in astral projection and the like, meeting on separate planes and such.
~ I do believe in reincarnation and past life recall, but not really in a "Heaven" or "Hell". I think that your soul continuously is. You are born into a body and learn what your soul needs to learn from that life. If you choose to come back, you learn new things, but you don't have to come back right away. If you don't choose to come back you relive the happiest parts of your lives - I guess this is my idea of "Heaven".
~ From the above you may have guessed that I do believe in Fate, but I also believe in free will. You are destined to learn certain things in life, certain events MUST happen, but you are able to choose from various paths to get those events.
~ I do believe that trees and other various parts of nature has a sort of soul. You can hear the trees, ask questions, sort of talk with nature as long as you are willing to learn and listen.
~ I think that souls are different colors at different times, and that some people are able to see them (I think I can sometimes redface )
~ I do believe in faeries! I do! I do! I have Brian Freud's Good Faeries/Bad Faeries book - it's quite entertaining heart
~ I do think that certain lights and colors and stones/crystals have certain powers or influences over the body and mind.
~ I think that spells or anything are much like "prayer" in that your mind goes towards what you think. If you receive what you asked for you should acknowledge it and give a thanks - even if it's just simply saying a general "thank you".
~ I don't believe in, "Are you a good witch, or a bad witch?!" rolleyes


My Practices

~ I recently got a tarot deck - The Legacy of the Divine Tarot by Ciro Marghetti, gorgeous! - from my mom. She has about a 90% accuracy with her readings and used to work with a telephone company and at in a shop in Nebraska. She recommended that I NOT read the information about the cards that came with the deck, but rather than I discern my own meaning about what I focus on first in the cards (Any tips on tarot readings would be greatly appreciated, as I have only done 2 readings thus far).
~ I have a pendulum that I use for "yes/no" questions, finding something i've lost, or predicting the sex and amount of children (a trick my mom taught me).
~ I can cast a simple circle, and do so especially before reading for someone.
~ I have done some faerie magic/glamor in order to appear more confident or to blend in with my background and surroundings.
~ I shield, which protects me from creepy hair-on-the-back-of-my-neck-standing-up feelings or for general protection (it just makes me feel safer sometimes), and can shield some other people I know.
~ I NEVER play with the Ouija board, NEVER summon or invite anything anywhere, and NEVER try to come into contact with any sort of energy, being, thing, whatever you want to call it. Mostly because it scares the hell outta me - Yes I know there are some good things out there, but the scariest nasties completely negate any positive effects that could come out of such things.
~ Oh I do celebrate Yule - the winter solstice, but Santa still comes, only it's not celebrating the birth of Christ, it's just the longest night of the year. We just light up the fire place to help bring back the sun (this was a tradition when I lived with my mom, but we called it "Christmas" for the sake of my 6 year old sister. We all learned, unfortunately, that mainstream Christians are rarely tolerant of any kind of "witchcraft", "witches", or anything at all resembling it, so we thought it best for her not to have to explain this to her friends). Same thing for Ostara, but again for my little sister we called it Easter. Samhain is our favorite! I haven't ever really done any "rituals" or such on these holidays - or ever to be exact, but I still celebrate them biggrin
~ *edits* I like to meditate, and ground - it's very calming :}



*I'm sure I've forgotten quite a lot of things, but please keep in mind this is the second time I've written this out, plus I'm only human razz *



So Now What?
~ I would love any kind of direction to find a more specific path to research!
~ If you have any questions or suggestions based on my ideals, please fire away! I'm very open, and after reading quite a bit of the forums here before joining I feel this is a safe place to share these kinds of things.
~ Oh, also, any suggestions for tarot readings would be IMMENSELY appreciated!!! I find it difficult to practice because I don't want to read for my family and be biased about the reading, and quite a few of my friends have already said "No" to let me practice on them.




heart

*Good thing I copied this whole thing, otherwise I would have had to retype it all again!!! When I tried to post this it deferred me back to the login page!! Maybe I'm not supposed to post this today xD*  

[pokeybear100]

Sad, lonely thread emo  

[Cranium Squirrel]

I don't have much to say in regards to your path, but I have a minor correction to make.

The author of Good Fairies/Bad Fairies is Brian Froud, not Brian Freud. 3nodding  

[Deoridhe]

pokeybear100

Sad, lonely thread emo

With all due respect, it is not our responsibility to come into your thread and educate you on possible religions you might like. Our threads have reams of educational information. It is your job to make use of them as resources.  

[Adalyna]

So I made this HUGE post on being a responsible eclectic pagan, and how its difficult and rewarding, and of course, Gaia ate my post, and I cried.

What you're describing is Eclectic Neopaganism and it does not have a name beyond that. I went on a huge rant, albeit I think, a friendly rant, about how its very hard to be eclectic without being irresponsible.

Hard, but not impossible. In the recommended reading list the portion of the list written by Scorplett devoted to Wicca, has a nice section on Eclecticism and the whole movement after Wicca. Please remember to think critically when reading and remember that no matter how bad the movement likes to refer to itself as Wicca, Wicca owns the title, period. Also it likes to steal from other closed traditions, just be careful about what you call what, some gods are committed to a specific land and a specific people, and some gods just don't like being called out to on accident.

Faeries, are even harder. Nobody ever seems to offer me an objective answer as to whether we can call them faeries or not, but I think we're ok, I don't think faerie, or fairy in and of itself implies entitlement to a closed tradition, but most of the traditions themselves or the myths referred to as faerie traditions, are closed tradtions. Ireland from what I read of Faeries by Brian Froud and Alan Lee, it seems pretty accurate, but fails to mention that. It do think Froud ties his art into his own animistic beliefs, seemingly inspired by Welsh and Cornish folklore. We have a right to our beliefs but we have to be reasonable about where we are and who we are, our faeries are ours and not theirs, if their faeries at all. I'm making a guild about sorting this stuff out specifically, I can pm you more info if you're interested.

I replied because I relate, so I wish you luck in developing your path.