Monday, October 29, 2007

Bonfires, are they important aspects of your faith?

I was just curious, particularly with Halloween upon us, if bonfires are important to your specific and various faiths within Paganism? As someone born and raised in the U.S., here we always think of Paganism and bonfires going hand in hand, but I'm wondering how true this is. Are bonfires part of liturgical orders of worship, or are they just something nice to have?

Personally to me, bonfires are an important aspect of human life, but not necessarily for religious reasons. To me, standing or sitting around a campfire/bonfire is just part of being human, going back to our ancestors both modern human and other ancestors. There is some ancient connection between mankind and nature, and the past in a bonfire...as I live in the northwoods now, they are also a part of northern culture....I tend to have bonfires on specific days, like the hunter's moon, as well as religious feast days like Christmas etc...

Of course there are also religious reasons behind it too, as in some Slavic Orthodox Churches burn a Yule Log on Christmas Eve, thus keeping an ancient pagan tradition alive, but imbuing it with new meaning.

Anyways I guess I'm just interested in seeing how bonfires play a role in different types of Paganism, if at all...or are they just something you do for fun, with no religious significance at all?

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