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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."
At the present time copy the at first day of Informer, the same as the days start to plow long, and the night's half. This is the time for reappearance and transformation somewhere we group the lushness of the earth. In the role of we sow our seeds of notion for our goals and dreams. We've exhausted time working on our inner selves taking part in the long winter. Now its time to open ourselves up to the fertility of Informer and be diagnosed with our own form of reappearance.
At Ostara, or the Informer equinox, we propriety the Divine being Persephone, and her once a year trip from the criminal world back to the earth. In the role of she take-home pay to her mother Demeter and our world is flaxen and blossoming over. We as well propriety the Divine being Eostre, Germanic Divine being of the dawn. She was highly praised at cock-crow to characterize the suns reappearance.
This is the time of court somewhere we direct the sacred net to find disinterest in our lives. The net helps us to get to our composite and the inquire into of any issues we are by. As Ostara is a time for disinterest and activity, its a good time to "clean area" so to speak, and firm up any issues that are plaguing you. You can make a net using different mixed equipment, depending on whether or not you longing a permanent one. For a non permanent net, you can use flour, brackish, seeds, no matter what that you can organically clean up afterwards. I ready a permanent net dash court, that I decorated on a big bed coat. I've particularly inconsequential equipment to it in the course of the dash court to personalize it. Commands on how to make a net are here: How to make a labryinth, I would put forward making the seven knees labryinth.
Another way to group Ostara, is to make decorated reproduce which characterize the lushness of the toughen. You can incline hard boiled reproduce with your children for a kid friendly moving picture. Make sacred your reproduce taking part in your Ostara ritual, and eat them while to amuse the energy of Informer. You can as well start a inconsequential herb garden. Make sacred your seeds taking part in your Ostara ritual and okay them with your goals and dreams. In the role of you plant them, you can picture your vegetation plow as well as the energies you empowered them with.
On your altar for Ostara, fasten candle colors in yellows, purples, pinks and greens, crystals of the exceptionally color, A aura of the lushness of Informer, such as reproduce, seeds, or a not a lot statue of a hare. You might as well fasten a statue of the Goddesses Persephone, Eostre, Blodeuwedd or any other Informer Divine being. Cart Informer flowers and Ostara incense as well.
I hope you all fasten a wonderful Ostara and an striking Informer season!
Illustrate chivalry of Wendy Andrews sunny art
Origin: paganism-new-age.blogspot.com
