PAGANISM

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" rowspan="2" width=210 BGCOLOR="#99CC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="03f8dfc3.jpg"> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=82 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0408dfe1esnpes.jpg"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" ><B>COVENANT OF THE SILVEROWLS</B></FONT><B>     </B><B>|</B><B>     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="COVENANT OF THE SILVEROWLS"><U><B>home</B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id131.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="welcome"><U>welcome</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="WHO ARE WE"><U>WHO ARE WE</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id18.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Sabbats "><U>Sabbats </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="basic ritual "><U>basic ritual </U></A>   |   <A HREF="id21.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="what we do"><U>what we do</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id22.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Favourite Links"><U>Favourite Links</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id23.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U>Contact Me</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id24.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Miscellaneous"><U>Miscellaneous</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id20.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="basics pdf"><U>basics pdf</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id243.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="history"><U>history</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id81.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dates"><U>Dates</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id268.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="the local pagans of milton keynes"><U>the local pagans of milton keynes</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id82.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="up coming events"><U>up coming events</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id244.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="covenant of the owl"><U>covenant of the owl</U></A>   |   <A HREF="id83.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="INDEX"><U>INDEX</U></A>   |   <B>PAGANISM </B>   |   <A HREF="id132.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Our thanks to"><U>Our thanks to</U></A></div> <div> </div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" height=398 colspan=2 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="0408dfc3.jpg"> <div> <I>PAGANISM </I></div> <bR> <bR> <div> <I>What is a pagan</I><FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <bR> <div> Pagans are people who lead their lives in harmony with nature and its principles. </div> <div> We believe in equality for all. Justice in fairness. Friendship and love is offered to all. Living one's life to full and enjoying it. Having fun and harming none. </div> <div> We follow many religions as long as they fulfil the above aims. These include Shamanism, Druidism, Odinism, and witchcraft (Wicca) in its many forms. </div> <div> These are religions which can be worshipped alone with friends or in groups. </div> <div> These religions are not organized in the ways churches are, they tend to be small groups who do not pay levy or up keep to their groups. They do not have to give up anything . they may appear to have a hierarchy but these titles are just words to explain roles. They hold no power each is equal to the next. The only difference may be knowledge but even the most learned can still learn some thing from the new. </div> <bR> <div> Paganism. </div> <div> Paganism is the ancestral religion of the whole of humanity. This ancient religious outlook remains active throughout much of the world today, both in complex civilizations such as Japan and India, and in less complex tribal societies world-wide. It was the outlook of the European religions of classical antiquity - Persia, Egypt, Greece and Rome - as well as of their "barbarian" neighbours on the northern fringes, and its European form is re-emerging into explicit awareness in the modern West as the articulation of urgent contemporary religious priorities.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> The Pagan outlook can be seen as threefold. Its adherents venerate Nature and worship many deities, both goddesses and gods.</div> <bR> <div> Heathenary<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Heathenry is a term used to describe the religious practices of two main groups of people, one historical and one modern.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> The original Heathens were the pre-Christian North European peoples who lived a thousand and more years ago in the lands around what is now called the North Sea. These included the peoples of Anglo-Saxon England, Scandinavia, Germany and Frisia (Friesland).<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Modern Heathen groups around the world are reviving these old practices and call their religion by various names including Asatru, The Northern Tradition, Odinism, Forn Sed, Germanic Pagan Reconstructionism or, simply, Heathenry. In Iceland, which did not convert to Christianity until the 11th Century, Heathenry has once again become an official i.e. nationally recognised, religion.<FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Arial" > </FONT></div> <div> Heathens work to build healthy relationships with gods and goddesses, ancestors, spirits of the land, and others in their communities, both through holy rites and through their day to day actions.</div> <bR> <div> ___________________________________________</div> <div> Druid and Wicca </div> <bR> <div> Druidcraft, Druidry and Wicca, are ways of empowerment and of freedom – not dogmatic religious systems, but new spiritualities, magical ones, that draw their inspiration from the ancient past, while offering ways of celebration and working that are constantly changing and evolving. Rather than presenting us with ready-made systems that we must slavishly adopt wholesale, they offer instead inspiration and the ingredients that we can creatively use to fashion our own unique path to suit our own unique lives. </div> <div> The whole reason most of us are drawn to this path, rather than to one of the mainstream ready-made religions offering ‘all the answers’, is that somewhere inside, we know that we are not supposed to be a passive consumer of spirituality, but instead an active participant in a life that is inherently spiritual. We are not in the restaurant, we are in the kitchen! Earth religions like Druidry and Wicca offer us ingredients – ideas for rituals, stories, folklore, techniques – that can be combined in dozens of different ways to provide us, our family and friends with exactly what we need. They are ways of empowerment because they put us in charge of our lives, not ways of disempowerment with a priest or guru telling us what to do. </div> <div> In the end it all boils down to this. There is you and the ocean. You and the sky. You and the land. Now and here. The old lore is not meant to remain preserved in a glass case. It is meant to be used, changed, added to and improved. It only stays alive if each of us takes it, and uses it in our own way, with our own creative additions and insights, to help us live a life of depth and meaning, beauty and celebration, here and now - upon this earth, beneath this sky, beside this sea.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> Shamen </div> <div> What is a shaman? </div> <div> The shaman in tribal cultures is the person who sees into the sacred world. The shaman brings their sacred visions of ancient spirits and power animals out as ritual. By this ritual process, most similar to prayer, imagery, and art, the shaman heals themselves, others, and the earth. By having visions of healing, and doing sacred ritual, the shaman makes the visions come true. The shaman manifests reality in the outer world, from the visionary world. That is the same way the world was created from Her vision. We are all Her vision on earth, we are. </div> <bR> <bR> <div> What is a vision quest? </div> <div> A vision quest is a quest for the visions in anyone’s life that will heal them and make them whole. In traditional first nations cultures young people were sent into nature to listen to the voices of the living earth. The elders taught them to do this to find their path in life and to find their power animal helpers. The person on the vision quest spent days in caves, on mountaintops, on rivers, in the desert, waiting, and inviting the voices to come to them. When they heard the voices and saw their vision, they would return to their people and know who they were and what they were to do. This book will be about how to evoke a similar experience for you in our own contemporary culture. </div> <bR> <bR> <div> What is a spirit animal? </div> <div> A spirit animal or power animal is the spiritual energy of the animal on earth. The spirit animal is greater than the actual animal because it embodies the essence of that animal. It is the animal. It is not a human form of the animal or a human dressed as an animal, it is the animal spirit itself. For example with a spirit bear, it is the voice of all the bears that have ever lived. It is the shamanic bear. It is the bear that can see itself and speak. A spirit animal appears to the shaman as a vision. It is the voice of the wild, the voice of nature, the voice of the earth. This animal informs the shaman of the earth energy it holds. It gives the shaman power and protection. It is a helper that assists the shaman on the journey inward. No shaman would attempt an inner journey without the help of a power animal. The power animal conveys to the shaman and their people an energy they need to heal. </div> <bR> <bR> <div> Who are the ancient spirits? </div> <div> The ancient spirits are the embodiment of the ancient peoples of the earth. Ancient spirits speak in the collective voices of ancient peoples. They are the spirit guides, the inner voices of the earth. Ancient spirits are archetypal visions given form. They appear to the shaman in visions to give them messages from the earth. They come you with the intention to communicate with you. They come to you to help you heal. Initially you see them from afar. They make themselves known to you. When it is clear that you invite them, their voices become clearer. Ancient spirits need to have a relationship cultivated to stay visible. They bring you back into forest. They coax you deeper into nature. They take you on their ancient paths. When you follow an ancient spirit, that is when you discover the feather and understand its meaning. The ancient ones take you on The Path of the Feather. The ancient ones tell us the story of The Path of the Feather. </div> <bR> <bR> <div> What is a medicine wheel? </div> <div> A medicine wheel is an ancient way of creating a sacred space. In a medicine wheel each direction has an animal that lives there and stands for one type of energy. For example in our medicine wheel the East has the owl and stands for change, the South has the lion and stands for passion, the West has the bear and stands for healing power and the North has the turtle and stands for grounding. Each person calls in their own animals that hold or represent for them each energy and each direction. The medicine wheel can be populated by many of the animals that live on the earth. </div> <div> The medicine wheel is built by placing a small object that stands for the animal or energy in each direction around a circle. The circle can be as small as a hand or as large as the earth. The object can be a animal fetish, a feather, a seashell or a special stone. It is always something deeply meaningful to you, something you have found or been given as a gift. In the process a center is also created and another special object can be put there. Through this process you create a sacred space that becomes a mini vortex of power. It is used to create intention. Balance is created by the equal presence of all four energies acting at once. </div> <div> By creating the medicine wheel, you make a physical manifestation of earth’s energies. It is a sacred alter which evokes the powers of the earth. Like an alter it brings your prayers in harmony with the energies of the earth. By actually making something real in physical space you act and create. The energy and prayer to heal is embodied and seen and can be touched. </div> <div> A medicine wheel is simply a way of making sacred space more real and more visible. Ancient peoples believed that the medicine wheel in itself had great power and helped create change and healing. Medicine wheel are circles that were made all over the world. They come from the most ancient cultures and persist to the present. They were found throughout history in every culture. </div> <div> Medicine wheels were always a place of ceremony and ritual. The rituals that were done at the medicine wheel are hidden or long forgotten. They probably were about the hunt, rites of passage, the stars, planting, migrations, and the spirits. They were done at a community level, and involved huge amounts of energy. Often the making of a medicine wheel involved moving huge stones hundreds or thousands of miles. It was like the making of the pyramids in Egypt. The technology of making a medicine wheel or stone circle is not clear, how did they move those huge stones? Medicine wheel or stones circles exist from Europe to North America. There are stone circles in Florida cedar key England. They were certainly a place of great ceremony, a place for the gathering of peoples, and were often away from village sites. Sometimes they were places of burial and temples too.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>