I've spent a lot of my free time lately browsing pagan forums again, trying to gain a sense of communion and community with people of like minds. Many of them seem like great people, but there are a few who shit rainbows and expect every pagan to embrace the concept of love and light. I am not one of those pagans, needless to say.
I don't know why I'm writing this other than an innate need to bitch and complain and generally let my hair down. I'm tired of being compliant and quiet and generally submissive to just about everyone in my life right now. This at least I can BITCH about.
So lets jump to the beginning shall we?
I am a Pagan..or neo pagan if you prefer. To all too many I've encountered lately this means LOVE and LIGHT, Wicca beliefs such as a 3-fold law, a bastardized version of karma, and an eclectic pillaging of beliefs from various cultures without much respect for the cultures these beliefs came from. According to some the very fact that I am a Pagan means I should bond to them, and stick with them through various times of adversity and we should all just get along. I digress! I should even love the Earth, recycle, be a leee-buh-rul, hate the GOP, be an activist, shun "darkness" (aka evil to them), call them brethren, and in many cases believe in a duality. I should also be love and light and all things good and often times I feel I should greet them with merry meet and merry we part..or whatever the F&$K they say to eachother.
As you can tell, I despise all of the above. Nothing pisses me off quicker than some fellow neo-pagan telling me I should be their best friend or strongest ally simply because we both worship under the gigantic umbrella of "paganism".
Let me tell you about my gods. I worship at the altars of Odin, Thor, Tyr, Freya and others of the Norse pantheon. The only non-Norse gods I pay homage to are Hekate and Cernunnos. My gods are dark and scary. Sometimes they demand blood and sometimes they really put me through the ringer. They are as harsh and cold as their landscapes and as serious. They don't dabble with love and light. They expect and demand as much from me as I from them and nothing comes easy. Nothing is ever simply given. It takes devotion, sacrifice, offerings and gifts, dedication, and years and years of learning to get to know them. There is no 3-fold law, only Wyrd and Orlaeg. My path does not allow for "anything goes", it consists of a number of virtues that dictate how one should live.
I do not worship goddesses over gods. I do not believe in "do no harm". I believe that self-preservation is THE HIGHEST law. The leader of my gods, Odin, demands warriors, blood, and death for his army. He has a vast array of Valkyries which carry slain warriors from the battle grounds to Valhalla. He is the epitome of self sacrifice, and he demands no less from his followers.
In the end, my gods will fight a great battle during which they will die, Ragnarok it is called.
No, MY Gods do not concern themselves with love and light, the three fold law, or any such rot. Wicca is great for others, but not for me, so don't assume that because I am Pagan that I am also composed of love and light, because I am not. My gods are dark and fierce. Most of the gods I have been drawn to over the course of my time studying paganism have been of the night, rulers of ghosts, battle and war, magic and witchcraft, etc. Freya is probably the gentlest deity I've ever worshiped, and yet she too has her own set of claws.
Anyways, just a rant. I am no scholar, I still have a lot to learn and acknowledge that fact. Indeed, we all still have a lot to learn, do we not?
I don't know why I'm writing this other than an innate need to bitch and complain and generally let my hair down. I'm tired of being compliant and quiet and generally submissive to just about everyone in my life right now. This at least I can BITCH about.
So lets jump to the beginning shall we?
I am a Pagan..or neo pagan if you prefer. To all too many I've encountered lately this means LOVE and LIGHT, Wicca beliefs such as a 3-fold law, a bastardized version of karma, and an eclectic pillaging of beliefs from various cultures without much respect for the cultures these beliefs came from. According to some the very fact that I am a Pagan means I should bond to them, and stick with them through various times of adversity and we should all just get along. I digress! I should even love the Earth, recycle, be a leee-buh-rul, hate the GOP, be an activist, shun "darkness" (aka evil to them), call them brethren, and in many cases believe in a duality. I should also be love and light and all things good and often times I feel I should greet them with merry meet and merry we part..or whatever the F&$K they say to eachother.
As you can tell, I despise all of the above. Nothing pisses me off quicker than some fellow neo-pagan telling me I should be their best friend or strongest ally simply because we both worship under the gigantic umbrella of "paganism".
Let me tell you about my gods. I worship at the altars of Odin, Thor, Tyr, Freya and others of the Norse pantheon. The only non-Norse gods I pay homage to are Hekate and Cernunnos. My gods are dark and scary. Sometimes they demand blood and sometimes they really put me through the ringer. They are as harsh and cold as their landscapes and as serious. They don't dabble with love and light. They expect and demand as much from me as I from them and nothing comes easy. Nothing is ever simply given. It takes devotion, sacrifice, offerings and gifts, dedication, and years and years of learning to get to know them. There is no 3-fold law, only Wyrd and Orlaeg. My path does not allow for "anything goes", it consists of a number of virtues that dictate how one should live.
I do not worship goddesses over gods. I do not believe in "do no harm". I believe that self-preservation is THE HIGHEST law. The leader of my gods, Odin, demands warriors, blood, and death for his army. He has a vast array of Valkyries which carry slain warriors from the battle grounds to Valhalla. He is the epitome of self sacrifice, and he demands no less from his followers.
In the end, my gods will fight a great battle during which they will die, Ragnarok it is called.
No, MY Gods do not concern themselves with love and light, the three fold law, or any such rot. Wicca is great for others, but not for me, so don't assume that because I am Pagan that I am also composed of love and light, because I am not. My gods are dark and fierce. Most of the gods I have been drawn to over the course of my time studying paganism have been of the night, rulers of ghosts, battle and war, magic and witchcraft, etc. Freya is probably the gentlest deity I've ever worshiped, and yet she too has her own set of claws.
Anyways, just a rant. I am no scholar, I still have a lot to learn and acknowledge that fact. Indeed, we all still have a lot to learn, do we not?
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