The Gods of Your Environment

Image by StarrGazr via Flickr

I've been trying to figure out my spirituality lately, looking into different branches of Paganism (particularly Celtic), and generally trying to find some way to categorize myself so that I can find a community to join comfortably with. It's not that I feel I need a category, but it's hard to know where to look for fellowship or what to read and study if you don't at least have some direction. One thing I'm beginning to realize is that I feel a real longing to connect with my particular landscape--Southern Vermont, in particular. And this is where I'm finding some trouble.

For me, any idea of the divine is tied to my physical environment. I have trouble with the idea of transplanting a mythology/pantheon/rituals of another place to my particular environment, but the religions native to my landscape--various Native American beliefs--do not feel like a good fit for me, mostly because it would feel like a gross appropriation of a religion and culture that I couldn't begin to understand or enter as a person of British/French descent.

So I suppose I'm just asking for some ideas--how do you all deal with the issue of the divine as it is tied to the particular landscape you live in vs. the particular path you have chosen, which may or may not be "native" of the place you live?

Maybe this isn't a problem for anyone else, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

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