What Kind Of Pagan Am I

For the last 15 years, my personal practice has always been more deity centered than nature centered. I've never kept it a secret that I view paganism as my religion. It's never been just spirituality to me. Well when I began researching Eostre I didn't want to believe that everything I have always believed about the myth is possibly incorrect. It was shocking to learn that an entire holiday (two really) are given credit because of a handful of sentences about a supposed deity. Now I'm not saying this should bother every person. Maybe you are fine with it, but for me it felt like a lie - it's just a story, and likely an incorrect one at that.

Notice I said likely. I'm not interested in debating whether or not Eostre really existed. They still can't prove whether or not Jesus really existed, so I don't see either one of us winning the Eostre debate!

After I wrote those posts, I started thinking about all the myths and stories about deities and I tried to think of a time when one of those deities felt real to me. The truth is never. Whether it's Jesus or Persephone they are archetypes to me. For others they are the many faces of God/dess, but for me, they are just ideas about the Divine.

So if I feel myths and stories about deities are just ideas, what do I feel is the truth about God/dess? Who or what is the Divine to me? Is it nature? Is it an intelligent being? For the first time in many many years, I don't know.

Asking these questions led to a very hard question that is difficult for me to come to terms with - Do I even believe that God/dess exists? I got hints of it when I felt so drawn to humanistic paganism some months ago. This isn't about what I believe is truth about Eostre. I'm searching for my truth about God/dess.

And by extension what kind of pagan am I? Am I a soft polytheist? Am I a strictly a nature based pagan? Am I an agnostic? Am I a humanist? Do I even need to decide? If and when I decide what it is I believe about God/dess, will I be on a different path and begin studying a new branch of paganism? How do I continue to incorporate myths into paganism if I believe they are just stories? What would a spiritual practice without Deity be like?

These are profound life changing questions. I feel like I'm at a crossroads in my life. One commenter on my Facebook page described it as an initiation. However, right now it feels like a "dark night of the soul."