Everyone's path

[Lillady]

Great thread idea here!

I consider myself Pagan, I am more into the old ways/beliefs than the new. As far as practices go I am a solitary witch. I have been studying & practicing since I was about 13. I can remember before that though I was always interested in witchy and "off the wall" type things. I would find myself talking to animals and plants all the time growing up. I still do. My cats and I are always talking to one another. I do not get to enjoy nature much as I live in the city. I have sparked an interest in starting working with plants and herbs. I have done a few spells requiring herbs but nothing major. I am about to be on a differrent work shift again so this will enable me to try out my green thumb. Mind you last time I tried it was disaster but that was years ago, so I am willing to try again.

I follow Isis right now, she is the first in the past 20 years to come to me. She wound up coming to me during a meditation I was doing when I was about to go head to head with my ex over our children again. Since she has been by my side after being there for me in that time of need. I have worked with Diana and Hecate as well but not as much as Isis. I am a person who tends to protect and be motherly by nature so I believe this is why she came to me.

I hope this gives you all a little more insight on who I am Blessed Be.

[Seraphin]

Hey, I didn't see that other thread, cool. This is something good to do from time to time I think though, I don't see many of those people around much right now, and we have some new members. Also, Seraphin, I think we share a lot, although I am a "Hermetic soft polytheist". I threw that together to make a term, but basically mean that the Divine as a unity is split by our minds into chunks that make sense to us.

In any case, I guess our approach is very similar, but our views different. I bet we'll have lots of interesting discussions

Hiya random!

Actually, I find myself in agreement with a LOT of what you write in your posts. You may have some different views with me but that's alright as I'm content to live my faith and path in harmony with others, and shuns conflict with some.

I consider myself as spiritual and mystical individual so I really enjoy being in a room full of people of all traditions, embracing each other as brothers and sisters.

[famouspoet1999]

I am just starting my path of self discovery. Growing up I had many gifts. I found them to be curses and I hated them until I was in high school. As a child I knew about a close one's death before anyone else. I would dream about it. I knew when something bad would happen and I could most of the time finish a person sentence knowing what they were about to say and what they were thinking. I hated it growing up and it scared me a lot. When I turned 14 these gifts became stronger when I met a friend who shared a connection with me. To this day we can since when the other person needs us for any reason and we have always known when the other person was happy, sad, hurt or just needed to talk to someone. After meeting him I began to embrace my gifts and were not scared of them anymore. I have dreams of future events and have been able to change the outcome of them. I have had dreams of terrible things that were going to happen and then have seen them come true unfortunately. I have seen spirits and even have pulled people into my dreams before. I can walk by certain places and can tell when something good or bad has happened before. I have always been comfortable in nature and have always seemed to be welcomed by it including while animals. I dated someone years ago who tried to follow the Wicca path but I didn't agree with how he and his coven did things and it caused me to shy away from it for years. I am now trying to learn more on nature religions to find out which path is best for me. I know I wish to be a solitary person for now. But not sure where to start. I am a very private person and believe religion is for you and only you. My family does not share my same beliefs and are devoted Christians so it makes it hard to read things other than what I can find online. So if anyone can offer any good suggestions on where I can head from here I am glad to hear them. I love to learn and am always eager to hear what others have learned or what others can help me with. I am not asking for a mentor or anything like that, I just want to let people know I always value others opinions and suggestions.

[spikeychick]

My path has been quite...interesting. I have a Christian family on both my mother and father's side and grew up with that. I never really bought into the whole thing, due to denying yourself as well as the shame and guilt associated with natural processes. After dealing with some harsh personal issues, mental breakdowns, teenage angst, as well as struggling with accepting my sexuality, I decided it wasn't for me. At 19, I had enough courage to tell my parents I would no longer be joining them for church. It resulted in my father quite violently grabbing my arm, dragging me to the car and shoving me inside. I was told that my opinion didn't matter, and I had no choice in the matter. Due to how aggressively I was dealt with, as well as how intolerant they were of any other sexuality/religion/opinion, I kept most of my life hidden from them. Since then, I've spent so long trying to understand and accept Christianity as a path. (I burned with anger at the religion as well as my family for a long time, the phrase "holding onto anger is like drinking poison and hoping the other person dies" really has helped me through that.)
I believe I could describe myself as a soft-polytheist. Still searching for my pantheon that fits me. And for the first time I've had people say that my perception of energy is real, and valid. It's helped me feel a tad less crazy and abnormal, lol. My perception of energy I describe as my "wubs" they feel very vibrational. I percieve everything having it's own individual frequency as well as people, pathways, streets, plants, everything. Music is awesome to experience, because along with wubs I get bursts and lines of color along with it. I have made my partner flabberghasted using my wubs to find stuff that he's lost. But other than that, I'm learning basics and doing some study to see what path will choose me.
Sorry for it being lengthy by the way

[EmeraldWind]

I am rebuilding my path from having previously left. I am incorporating aspects from diannic, green, and other areas of paganism. I focus on the goddess, but honor the god, I always call the guardians of the cardinal directions, and spirits of the elements and will soon begin incorporating the fairies into my path.

I enjoy the ceremonial/ritual side of solitary practice, as it feels more personal between me and the goddess. I also like the ceremonial aspect of it because it encourages discipline within myself.

When it comes to spell work I never use a spell from someone else BoS. I always make my own using other peoples spells as a sort of reference point to build my own. again, this is more personal and makes it feel more powerful. Plus I would like to have a family BoS to pass down to my children one day.

I want to incorporate celebration of the sabbats and esbats as well as a few of the minor holidays as well.

I feel that one of the most important aspects of my path is building and maintaining a habit of performing ritual meditations when waking up and going to bed.

[Mashiigwe]

Hi All, I must say that you all seem like such wonderful people, and reading what you've written makes me happy to be a part of this adventure. I'm very nature oriented and am lucky enough to be able to live in a very green place next to a nice body of water. By profession, I'm supposed to know a bit about everything that lives here whether plant, critter.... Along with teaching it to others, and keeping the "others" from damaging the area when they walk the trails. Along the way, I've had the honor of holding council with members of the local Native community and learning what they shared with me. I do live ceremonially, and in a combination of ways that blend my European roots with my Native roots. Because of the land on which I live and what is here, more Native. The spirits are definitely aligned that way. I rarely do anything that would be considered spell casting, but I do on occasion. Gee, if I knew how to add pictures on one of these, I would show you all pictures of my fire circle and gardens. I know that it's possible that I may come off as a know-it-all. Trust me, I know that more often than not, I can be really dumb, but always actually pretty humble. Pretty soon, it will be quiet here, really quiet. And I could go days without seeing another person. In winter it's almost like I'm the last person on Earth. I've actually walked out on the ice and yelled "Is anyone out there?", with the only signs of life being the lights on the other side of the bay.

Well, that's me. I want to finish by saying, thank you. I appreciate this connection.

[Siona]

In short, I currently consider myself a hedgewitch with heavy Hellenic (Greek) leanings. Longer version, I practice a form of witchcraft that has a heavy focus on spirit-work, which includes things like spirit-flight, honoring and working with local nature spirits, ancestors, and so on. Having a local focus is a big part of my path, and that includes knowing the plants that grow here, where and when they grow, their uses, knowing what animals are here, what the seasons are like, and so on, as well as knowing the spiritual side of the land. The cycle of the seasons, both solar and lunar, is a huge focus for me, as well. There's a lot of "outside" practice, so I try to keep myself grounded, so to speak, by also including a fair bit of hearth and home based practice, too. The whole thing is much more folk-magic than ceremonial.

I'm somewhere between hard and soft polytheism. My beliefs are based more to soft polytheism, but my practice generally looks more like hard polytheism. I don't know, I don't worry about it too much, because it's working for me. I primarily focus on the Greek pantheon (but I'm an ex-Egyptian reconstructionist, and the Egyptian deities are still a part of my path on rare occasion). I don't consider myself a Hellenic reconstructionist, but I do draw very heavily from historical practice, and having a good understanding of the history and having that context is important to me.

[Firewolfy]

What a fascinating thread so I guess I will share a bit about myself and path in fact I really don't think I could come up with a name for what I do but, most of what I have learned has come from spirits, I only discovered paganism as a result of drawing a highly negative being with my inexperience, but in that I met what you could call a spirit guide but he was more of a mentor and I was able to get away from that negativity. I recognize the lord and lady from wiccan practices but the only two divine beings that ever reached out to me where Hecate and Anubis.

I used to be very ceremonial in my practices but I find that most of my work is better without the candles and what not, only when I am working for a very important purpose or working with the spirit world do I use ritual but its been quite a while since I have felt the need to do so. I just do what feels rights honestly.

[random417]

I used to be very ceremonial in my practices but I find that most of my work is better without the candles and what not, only when I am working for a very important purpose or working with the spirit world do I use ritual but its been quite a while since I have felt the need to do so. I just do what feels rights honestly.

It's funny, almost everyone starts with bits of ceremony, then usually you either find it works for you and add more, or find its distracting and take it out. I totally get only using it with important purposes. Ceremony is great at reminding us of the gravity of a situation

[random417]

This has been a great way to get to know everyone!