Witchvox Article

Author: ShadowWolf
Posted: May 21st. 2006
Times Viewed: 2,769

I don�t follow a specific tradition. I�m Eclectic, and I feel that if my personality can shift through my experiences in life, then my spiritual path should be able to do so as well. Sure, I get information on different traditions, but I�ve never found one specific one that calls to me.

I can�t go Dianic; I respect the God far too much to go exclusive with the Goddess. I�ve looked into the Wiccan traditions, but have found myself feeling like something was missing. I�ve delved into different Reconstructionist traditions, but have found that there isn�t any single culture that I can relate to. Eastern-based paths are too foreign for me to truly understand or appreciate. I care about the earth, but I�m just a little too conservative for the hippie-ish circles.

Am I complaining that �I can�t find anywhere to belong?� No� I�m just trying to justify why I�m pull from lots of traditions instead of following just one.

Should I have to justify myself? Shouldn�t the fact that I worship the Goddess and God and revere nature and that I pull my beliefs from various Pagan traditions be enough to justify calling myself Pagan?

Look, I�m not trying to rant here, and I�m not trying to cause an argument. I can clearly see the reason for people not wanting to accept Eclectics into the big, leafy, already-complicated and misunderstood tree that is Paganism.

I see the teenagers doing it to rebel against their conservative Christian parents. But don�t you think that they�ll either fade away from Paganism, or that they�ll actually start to get serious? I see the people who don�t commit to one tradition because they just want to follow what they think is cool at the time. I see the people who try to be evangelical and holier-than-thou about what they believe. I see the people who don�t want to go to a mentor because they can�t admit to themselves that they aren�t the all-powerful being that they think they are.

But the thing is, there will be people like that no matter what religion you look at. It�s inevitable. The only way to avoid that is to go completely underground and create secret societies, and make vows of silence� But there is already so much information out, new societies and traditions will spring up above the surface anyways - so that approach still wouldn�t work.

But even though there are those people that are Eclectic Pagans for the wrong reasons, that doesn�t mean that you should think that every Eclectic is like that.

I�ll admit it right now: I haven�t had any formal training in anything spiritual� unless you include the Pastor from my childhood Christian church. But that is not because I�m so arrogant as to believe that I�m too good to seek help. It�s because if I haven�t found a path that suits me, I don�t want that teacher to waste their time trying to dedicate me to something I know I can�t follow, and I don�t want them trying to make me think in a way that I don�t want to.

I trust my heart and intuition when it comes to my spiritual path. I read books, and I experiment with different ways of doing things. Sometimes I find out that I already do things that a certain path follows, and sometimes I come up with my own ways that no one else has thought of. But I always make sure that it feels right.

I�ve tried to classify myself as one tradition or another. I used to desperately search for something already established to relate to; a circle to worship with. I doubted my own thoughts and ways of doing things and scoured books for the �right way� of doing things.

But who came up with those traditions? Wasn�t it just a human, guided by his/her intuition who did things in a certain way and had other people who decided to do things the same way? Why should I feel guilty for doing things the way I want to? I�m not going to try and establish my own tradition; I just want to feel like what I�m doing spiritually is doing justice to the Goddess and God within me.

All of what I do and believe stems from different Pagan traditions or thoughts; so it�s not like I�m taking Buddhism, Christianity, and Hinduism and deciding to call myself Pagan. I revere Mother Earth, celebrate the Celtic Sabbats, praise Apollon and Demeter, do magical cooking, read tarot cards, cast runes, and I have a picture of Isis and Anubis above my statues of the Snake Goddess of Crete and a bulls head. I call the four quarters, and create a circle, and sometimes I invoke only Venus, while other times I invoke Mars.

This is not to say that I won�t ever find a path that suits me. There are far too many different traditions for me to say that I�ve looked at it all. If I find a path that interests me enough, I�m willing to go outside of my comfort zones to explore it.

But I�m not willing to put up with a religious path I don�t follow to please people who have the wrong idea of why I (and lots of other Eclectics) do what we do. The Goddess and God love me whether I call the quarters starting from the East, or starting from the North. They�d even love me if I didn�t call the quarters at all!

Think about it. The Divine isn�t going to fret whether you believe that Lugh or Apollo is stronger. They�re not going to care about whether you think an athame corresponds to the East or the South. So why is there such a huge debate about it among us humans?

I think that people shouldn�t judge people just on the basis that they decide they don�t want to define themselves as one tradition or another. If they are one of the people who get interested in Paganism for the wrong reasons� then by all means, scorn them. Go ahead. I do! All I�m saying is that maybe you should make sure that you know that they�re doing it for the wrong reasons; don�t just scorn them because you don�t think they qualify as Pagan.

I have no formal training, and I pull from many, many different traditions. I don�t think that the Goddess existed before the God did, and I don�t think that men should be submissive to women. I don�t think that you need to wear robes or jewelry when you hold a ritual. I don�t think you have to be skyclad either. I don�t follow anything that is already established as a tradition. But whether you like it or not: I call myself Pagan.

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