Origins of Ritual Wear

Do you, or your ritual group, use special clothing or accessories (like jewelry, cords, head covering, whatever) during ritual? If you do not practice with others, why did you select the particular items you use? If you work within a group, do you know why you use those particular items instead of something else?

For those that follow recon or recon-ish paths- do you wear or use anything related to the ancient culture you emulate? Why, or why not? How do you feel about those who have the opposite practice as you? (As in, if you wear jeans and they wear togas, or the other way around.)

For those of you who don't have ritual clothing or accessories, was that a conscious choice or has it just ended up that way? If you chose not to demarcate anything as ritually significant, why did you do so?

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Spiritual and/or Magical Journals

Back when I was in my Wiccan phase I had my own Book of Shadows, but even now I still keep a spiritual journal and I consider it to be a very important part of my spiritual development. It contains not only prayers and rituals, but also interesting facts and quotes that I have found whilst researching the many Pagan paths. I feel as though writing these things down helps me to realize and validate my own personal beliefs.

Something else I keep in my journal- my aromatherapy and herb recipes. I need a good place to jot down things that have been tried and tested.

So, who else keeps a spiritual journal? And if you do, how important/useful do you find it to be?

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Finding Peace?

One of the things that years ago attracted me to paganism ( I think thats a real word lol ) is that everyone that I had met that claimed to be Pagan had a real sense of peace about them. Not the butterflies and bunnies kind of peace but a calm that was almost soothing to be around. Very attractive to someone that has spent most their life pissed off at everything LOL.

So my question to you all is - has your faith/practice/belief brought that kind of peace into your life?

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Explaining Your Religious/Spiritual/Occult Symbols and Images

An idea I got from Aisling's 'Describing Your Religion'-thread. I'm interested to hear how people came to their religious/spiritual/occult symbols and images and what they do represent for them. I've seen a lot of interesting things in avatars for example like sacred geometry (Moon Ivy?), Gods or animals/plants and other nature features.

* Which symbols and images do represent your religion/spirituality for you or have a magical purpose?

* Do you wear them, display them or work with them? Does your avatar or signature include features with religious/spiritual/occult meaning for you?

* Are there any forms of sacred geometry in your symbols/images or do they symbolize or show Gods, animals, plants, nature features or any other beings or objects which are significant to you in a religious/spiritual/magical way?

* Which personal meanings do you attribute to symbols/images with a variety of traditional meanings (for example a pentagram, the moon etc.)? Do your personal meanings vary from the traditional ones or is one meaning out of a larger variety more important to you than others?

* Have you ever experienced misunderstandings of your personal religious/spiritual/occult symbols and images? Which?

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Newbie Mistakes

This one is information for the newbies, as we all made mistakes when we were new, and I thought that newbies would benefit from hearing the ones we had made so they wouldn't make the same.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I thought you had to have a path and a deity. Now I've met people I've respected who don't have either.

The really big one, which confused me for six months was thinking that all books are gospel. I have a Christian background, and Scottish Protestants believe that the bible is written through men by God. So I read the books I could get my hands on about paganism, and they were mainly wiccan books and thought that they were texts. Took me six months to find out that I didn't have to follow everything in the neo-wiccan books I'd read. If you'd asked me about a text then I'd've cited Scott Cunningham...

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Do you get 'assignments' from deity?

So do ya? No seriously. What type of work do you do for your deity/ies?

Do you have an agreement or contract?

How have these assignments affected your life personally? Good bad indifferent?

Have you ever refused and assignment? Were there consequences?

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Ideas for Quick Rituals or Offerings?

I want to know if there are any real quick rituals I can do daily or even offerings? I have been trying to do small little offerings daily or just prayer type things to honor the gods and such but I find that I either forget due to the hectic schedule of that day or I wake up too close to the time I have to leave for work.

The thing is that my altar is in my bedroom, I have a very tiny apartment and have no where to place this altar other than my room. My "husband" isn't pagan by any means and our daughter is young and keeps playing with my Bast statue.

I don't want to disrespect the gods by having the altar a mess, because my daughter always is touching it. It's pretty high up, but she gets things to stand on to play with the statues. I would love to think that she is attracted to Bast, but she just loves cats. Also she loves playing with her grandma's Jesus statues, so I can't really say she's leaning more towards the pagan.

So moving on, I really would love to do small rituals and offerings that are basically part of the day for me so I don't forget.

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The Invasion Cycle as a Creation Myth?

I was reading a book on Celtic Myths (sure it's an old one) and listening to some Celtic Folk Music (and Celtic Folk Metal) and began rethinking about the Invasion Cycle as a creation story.

First you have the Partholan and then the Nemed come after them, the Partholan fight off the local Formorians, which could be representative of Chaos, The Partholan then die, and then you have the Nemed, who also die. This could be the first stage of creation, Order beating back Chaos, the Partholan and the Nemed could represent the cycle of Life and Death, and the bringing of order to a chaotic world.

Then you have the Fir Bolg, they are almost proto gods. Almost like the Greek Titans, but not quite. They still can't conquer the Formorians, but they come close.

Then the coming of the Tuatha De Dannan, they are the actual gods and beings of power that make up everything. In an animist twist, the non-important common people are the spirits of the land. They are briefly conquered by the formorians, but then Lugh comes, brining Arts and Sciences together to beat them, thus Order beating Chaos.

Finally, the Milead come, they are the humans, they finally bring everything into full being, they are the final invasion and reap the benefits of the Ireland that has been formed by the other four invasions.

So, what do you think? Completely off the mark or maybe on to something? It's all strictly UPG mind you.

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Taking Anti-Christian Beliefs Too Far?

I have recently heard accounts of people who are taking anti-christian beliefs a little too far. My question here is do you believe that some of these people are actually anti christion or do you think that alot of them are just wanting to drar attention to themselves? THe behavior itselgf annoys them because if they get asked and say the reason they do it is because they're polytheist then it gives us all a bad name simply because some people will sterotype us.

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Were Your Parents Satisfied with Their Religion?

Do you feel your parents were satisfied with their religion?

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