187 Signs You’re Trying To Avoid Doing Your Own Spiritual Work

March 17, 2019 By John Beckett

6 Signs You’re A Natural Witch!

7 Signs You’re A Born Healer!

8 Signs You’re A Light Bringer!

9 Signs You’re Going To Click On This Link Because You’re Hoping Someone Else Will Do Your Spiritual Work For You!

Maybe I’m just in a cynical mood. Maybe Mercury Retrograde is making me miss the point of all these “signs” posts. Maybe this is going to end up being one of those pieces I work on for hours and then decide “nope, not going to post it” (but if you’re reading this, it wasn’t).

But I’m pretty sure I’ve seen one too many “signs you’re really something special but you just don’t know it” clickbait listicles and I need to vent.

And I’m also pretty sure that somebody out there is searching desperately for their calling in life and they need better guidance than “match a handful of vague traits and discover your superpower.”

Finding your true calling takes research

I remember taking “aptitude tests” in high school (are they still a thing?). They gauge your skills and interests and tell you which careers you should consider. I still occasionally hear rumors about the “secret questions” in the SAT that will get you a recruiting visit from the CIA – or from the Men In Black. So I understand the lure of these tests.

But all an aptitude test can do is make suggestions. You’ve still got to do the research on just what a particular career or craft or path involves. Read books, talk to experienced practitioners, and try things out yourself.

And just as importantly, you’ve got do decide if you’re willing to do what that takes. Do you really want to be a spiritual healer? You’ve got a lot of work to do… starting with getting your own house in order… and in the process, figuring out that you can’t heal anyone. You can only point them in the right direction, and then love and support them as they do their own work to recover, to learn, and to grow.

You’re going to make some wrong turns

And it may not be fair to call them “wrong turns.” Unless you’re happy and fulfilled in the tradition of your childhood, you’re going to need to explore different spiritual paths. For some of them, all you have to do is read a Wikipedia description to realize “no, this one’s not for me.” Sometimes it takes reading a book, or working with a local group for a few months to cross it off your list.

Sometimes you think you’ve got it, only to later realize you don’t. I really really wanted to be a witch. I tried for years and it didn’t work. When I discovered Druidry I knew I was onto something. That’s worked out rather well, but I still had to do five years of formal training – only to later realize my true calling is to be a Druid in a the context of a polytheist religion, not in a Druid order (although I happily remain a member of both OBOD and ADF).

If I had done my foundational work sooner it wouldn’t have taken me eight years to figure out that witchcraft and Wicca weren’t my calling.

You’re going to make some wrong turns. The sooner you get moving, the sooner you can make those wrong turns, recover from them, and then find the path where you belong.

Almost everyone can work magic

Back in December I wrote My Biggest Complaint With Magical Fiction, which is

the idea that magic is hereditary. People are either born witches or they’re not. Or worse still, witches aren’t entirely human, and they live in their own world – Harry Potter, I’m looking at you. If it was one or two or even half the stories I’d be fine with it. But it seems like it’s every single one.

This idea from fiction has made its way into spirituality and magic. And it’s as false in reality as it is annoying in fiction.

Like all abilities, magical ability isn’t evenly distributed throughout the population. Some people have a greater aptitude for math than others, some have a greater aptitude for art, and some have a greater aptitude for magic. But almost all of us can balance a checkbook, or express ourselves through drawing or music or photography or something.

And almost all of us can work magic.

If you feel drawn to magic you can work magic. Find some Witchcraft 101 or basic chaos magic books and get started. You’ll have some successes and you’ll learn from them. You’ll have some failures – you’ll learn from those even more.

You don’t need a magical aptitude test to figure out if you can pursue the spiritual path you want. You can.

You just have to get started.

Spiritual orientation is real

Last year I wrote Paganism as an Orientation, where I looked at the very long odds of me ending up Pagan and not Christian or atheist. That post was a response to Heron Michelle’s Witchery as an Orientation and Sacred Mission where she said “witchery isn’t a choice for me.” And at last year’s Mystic South, the Anomalous Thracian presented a paper titled “Theistic Orientation” where he looked at religious orientation as an expression of identity, especially in response to oppression.

Orientation is a real thing, and identities are necessary and helpful. One of the reasons so many of us – particularly here in the United States – search desperately for spiritual identity is that the culture we grew up in is so bland and commercial it doesn’t satisfy us.

But discovering a non-mainstream orientation takes time and effort. Nurturing that orientation takes even more.

And at the end of the day, religion is a choice.

Spiritual and religious orientation, identity, and affiliation are deep, serious matters. Trying to reduce them to “6 Signs You’re Really A Hellenic Polytheist” is at best naïve and disrespectful. It trivializes the sacred.

What you are is human – what you become is up to you

I think this is what annoys me so much about the “17 Signs You’re Something Special” articles – they take away human agency and replace it with the luck of the draw.

The luck of the draw is already huge – your family circumstances at birth have a tremendous impact on your life. But you can follow almost any spiritual path that calls to you. You can become a witch, or a Druid, or even a light bringer (whatever that is). You may be better suited to one or the other, but the choice is yours… as is the obligation.

Anybody can call themselves a witch, but if you don’t actually practice witchcraft, all you’re doing is adopting an aesthetic.

Explore, then choose, then become…

Sorry there aren’t 187 signs in this post

I originally titled this “9 Signs You’re Trying To Avoid Doing Your Own Spiritual Work.” But I was afraid some people might not recognize the sarcasm and get mad when there was no bright and cheery listicle to tell them they’re special. If you missed the sarcasm in “187 Signs” I can’t help you.

I don’t mean to be a killjoy. I click on these silly listicles too sometimes, if only to silently make fun of them. And if they occasionally point someone in the right direction, that’s a good thing. There are certainly worse things on the internet.

But our world needs more magical people. It needs more spiritual people. It needs more people who are deeply and authentically following Pagan, polytheist, and other non-fundamentalist religious traditions. Trying to reduce any of that down to a list of a dozen or less “signs” isn’t helpful.

Finding your true calling takes work, and it usually takes a lot of trial and error. Getting good at it takes even more work. Those of us who’ve made this journey (or rather, those of us who are making this journey – you’re never there, or at least, I’m not) can draw maps for you, but you have to walk the path yourself.

Would you have it any other way?

Now get off my lawn!

4 Mundane Skills To Support Your Spiritual Work

February 26, 2019 By John Beckett

There are two popular attitudes around the role of the spiritual and the mundane in our lives and both of them are wrong.

One says that everything is spiritual. We’re in constant communion with all living beings. Our Gods and ancestors walk beside us every step. We inhale energy and exhale magic. All those pesky little things like rent and disease and a dysfunctional society? Those are just distractions on our path toward enlightenment.

The other says that the spiritual is sacred, everything else is profane, and we must always keep them separate. We’ll talk about Pagan virtues in ritual but on Monday morning business is business. Keep politics out of Paganism, no matter who’s being hurt. And don’t dare bring anything from mundane society – much less from the evil corporate world – into our work as Pagans and polytheists.

Both of these approaches are unhelpful. The first subtly reinforces the Christian idea that the world is fallen and needs to be escaped. The second locks our spirituality away in temples (most metaphorical, some literal) where it remains frozen in time, unable to respond to our needs here and now. The first is a useless religion. The second is a dead religion.

A good religion stays with us always – we should not have one set of values for Pagan circles on Saturday and another set for our paying jobs on Monday. But while we may be walkers between the worlds, that doesn’t mean we live in a permanent liminal state. Sometimes we’re in sacred space but most times we’re in ordinary space.

The phrase “dual use technology” refers to items and software that can be used in both military and civilian applications. I sometimes speak of “dual use skills” – things I learn in my paying job that I can use in my religious work, or things I learn in my Pagan practice I can use in secular situations.

Here are four mundane skills that can be very helpful in spiritual applications.

Critical thinking skills

There is no more universally applicable skill than critical thinking. Also no other skill that’s in such short supply in both our wider society and in the Pagan community.

At its most basic level, critical thinking is about separating facts from opinions and about properly establishing cause and effect. It’s about separating experiences (which are undeniably true) from interpretations (which can be more or less accurate, and more or less helpful). Critical thinking is accepting that many times our knowledge must be expressed as probabilities rather than as certainties.

The biggest challenge to critical thinking is setting aside what we’ve always thought was true and what we wish was true and instead seeing what the evidence – all the evidence – tells us is true.

Critical thinking requires a rational approach and a certain amount of skepticism. It does not require materialism. Sometimes critical thinking leads us to an ordinary, this-world conclusion. Other times, though, it leads us to conclude that something Otherworldly is going on.

We need critical thinking in our religions and in our paying jobs; we need it in our spirituality and in our politics. We need critical thinking in all aspects of our lives.

Writing skills

Has my blogging improved my business communication skills, or has business communication improved my blogging? A little of both.

Like most of us, I learned composition in high school and college. I got better at it in graduate school where I wrote paper after paper. Still, Ray Bradbury’s old adage that everyone’s first million words are crap was as true for me as it is for anyone else. Best I can tell I hit a million words sometime in 2011. My blog posts from mid-2011 and on have a fairly consistent feel to them, whereas the older ones are all over the place.

Business writing taught me the value of “executive summaries.” Teenagers aren’t the only ones with short attention spans – executives don’t want to spend the time to read a wall of text either. Be concise and make things easy to read or it won’t get read.

And although ritual composition is different from both Pagan blogging and business communication, the same writing skills are helpful here too. What are you trying to communicate and how can you do it without losing people’s attention? Ritual uses more than words (good ritual does, anyway) but the principles work the same.

Speaking and presentation skills

Every place I’ve worked has either had a Toastmasters group or has encouraged employees to participate in one off-site. Virtually everyone where I work now gets coaching on making presentations: how you can communicate clearly and effectively, without losing people’s attention. And nobody gets promoted past a certain level without being at least an adequate speaker – otherwise you can’t do the job.

For me, this is a case of sacred skills being used in a secular context. I always avoided public speaking as much as I could. I learned how to do it because I wanted to lead public ritual – because I was called to lead public ritual. But the skills definitely transfer. I’m far more capable and confident in my business presentations because of all the work I’ve done leading Pagan rituals and speaking in UU Sunday services.

There has been an element of sacred theatre in ritual since at least the ancient Greeks. The skills are the same whether you use them in a sacred setting or in a mundane one.

leading a workshop at the 2019 ADF Texas Imbolc Retreat

Time management

Some Pagans like to rant against the Western obsession with time. But they’re fighting the wrong battle. The problem isn’t time management – it’s feeling like we have to do so much to avoid missing out. Or in some cases, being forced to do so much to avoid poverty and homelessness. They have a valid complaint, but rejecting time management skills doesn’t fix the problem. It just takes away one of our best tools for dealing with it.

At its core, time management is simply knowing how much time a task will take, planning your day so that you have at least that much time available to work on it, and then doing it. It can’t put more hours in the day and it can’t eliminate the need to spend some of them on things like sleep and eating and doing a few seemingly-trivial things that bring you pleasure and joy.

But when it’s time to get serious, good time management practices will help you get done what you need and want to get done, whether those things are sacred or mundane.

Cooking a Spiritual Feast in a Potluck Community

January 13, 2019 By John Beckett

Late last month Canadian hedgewitch Juniper Jeni Birch had a Facebook post that really grabbed me. Juniper said:

People come to the table of the Pagan community like a starving man expecting a spiritual feast.

Instead, what they find is a small and loosely organized potluck. Along with the polite suggestion that they contribute a dish next time.

Some folks never quite reconcile the cognitive dissonance.

This is a metaphor. And it’s a high level, generalized metaphor – it isn’t universally true. People come into the Pagan community for all kinds of reasons, looking for all kinds of things. But it is generally true, and for some of us, disturbingly true. And so I think it’s worth exploring in more depth.

Why do we have so many small potlucks instead of spiritual feasts? And what can we do about it?

The Feast of Venus - Peter Paul Rubens (1637) - image via Wikimedia Commons — *The Feast of Venus* – Peter Paul Rubens (1637) – image via Wikimedia Commons

We had bad experiences at other religions’ feasts

Perhaps the hosts were demanding: give us your money or else. Love who we tell you to love, and even then only in the approved ways. And more subtly (most of the time, anyway) hate who we tell you to hate.

Perhaps you got spiritual food poisoning. New Atheist Christopher Hitchens was wrong – religion doesn’t poison everything. But bad religion can poison a lot of things. I certainly got spiritual food poisoning growing up in a fundamentalist church.

The power of association is a lot stronger than deductive logic. All we know for sure is that we got hurt at a spiritual feast. The problem wasn’t the idea of a feast – the problem was the dishes on the table and how they were cooked. But we want to be sure we don’t get hurt again, so we avoid feasts – even the ones that serve the food we’re craving most.

We need to get over our fear of religion. And then get to work building (or rebuilding) our own.

We’ve been told egalitarianism is better than excellence

In response to Juniper’s post, I said:

Too many of the participants get indignant if anyone suggests that a gourmet dinner is better than their green bean casserole.

There’s nothing wrong with green bean casserole. No, that’s not true – green bean casserole is disgusting. But this is a metaphor – there’s nothing wrong with spiritual beliefs and practices that are simple enough for beginners to handle with ease.

The problem is that some Pagans think that because not everyone can do deep spiritual work (or more frequently, wants to do it), none of us should. Or if we do, we should keep it to ourselves.

Last year we had a rash of Pagan elders behaving badly. Or perhaps, the practice of Pagan elders behaving badly stopped being overlooked (the first is a bad thing – the second is a good thing). But once again our association was stronger than our deductive logic and too many people decided rather than holding elders and leaders accountable, we should simply have no elders or leaders.

But we will never get beyond the green bean casserole level of Paganism if we don’t have people who are skilled and experienced, who practice and experiment and refine their beliefs and practices, and then show us what a spiritual feast can be.

Egalitarianism is no substitute for excellence.

Feasts are a lot of work

I’ve always loved Thanksgiving. What’s not to like about a holiday centered on food, family, and football? But I wasn’t the one doing the cooking. When I was growing up my mother would cook a turkey, a ham, cornbread dressing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, green beans, corn, rolls, and several desserts. She started prepping early in the week, then cooked all morning on Thanksgiving Day.

Spiritual feasts are a lot of work too. It takes years to learn how to cook in the kitchen of the Gods. And so many people settle for the spiritual equivalent of a baloney sandwich: quick, easy, and filling, but not particularly nutritious or satisfying.

Actually creating a spiritual feast requires as much work as my mother put into her Thanksgiving dinners. And as with cooking, much of that work is hot, dirty, and tiring.

But Thanksgiving wouldn’t be the same without all the great food, and Paganism isn’t the same without study and practice, and without rituals that are anything but easy and quick.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. This is where we are and why we’re here. Now, what can we do about it?

Learn what a spiritual feast looks like

The good news for all our Pagan uber-individualists is that there’s no one right way to have a feast. A gourmet French dinner looks and tastes very different from a Texas barbeque. But both make excellent feasts.

Like both of those culinary examples, a good spiritual feast stays within one tradition. If you want to be a Wiccan, set your sights on becoming a 3^rd degree Gardnerian. If you want to be a Druid, start the OBOD training program and work your way through Bard, Ovate, and Druid. Or do the training program in one of the other Druid orders. A spiritual feast requires spiritual depth, and you’ll never get spiritual depth if you keep sampling a bit of this and a bit of that from the all you can eat religious buffet.

The best way to learn what a spiritual feast looks like – whether we’re using “feast” as a metaphor for an individual ritual or for a whole spiritual tradition – is to see one first-hand. One of the best rituals I’ve ever been a part of was the main ritual at the 2012 Between the Worlds conference, presented by the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel. This wasn’t a ritual I’d ever lead: ASW is a Qabalistic Wiccan group – I’m a devotional polytheist. But I could see and feel the depth and the attention to detail in their ritual (not to mention the results that came from it) and that inspired me to keep adding more depth and attention to detail in my own.

Learn to cook

If you want more spiritual feasts in the Pagan community, more Pagans are going to have to learn how to cook.

This starts with mastering ingredients: the history and lore of your tradition, its cosmology and theology. In the case of magical traditions, this means mastering literal ingredients: herbs, stones, and other items that go into magical workings. As a Druid I studied Celtic lore, sacred sites, ogham and the trees it’s based on, and what we know about the ancient Druids. Among other things.

Then move on to learning cooking techniques – the practices we use to collect, assemble, and manipulate our ingredients. This is mediation, prayer, offerings, and all the many forms of daily spiritual practice. It’s ritual composition and all the things to take into consideration when composing special rituals.

This takes study and practice. Lots and lots of study and practice. Anybody can make a baloney sandwich and almost anybody can scramble an egg. Learning how to make a good chocolate soufflé or how to smoke a brisket is another matter entirely. Read the best books. Study with the best teachers. Practice again and again and again.

I wouldn’t call the first public ritual I ever led a spiritual feast, but it was pretty good. It should have been good – I put a ton of time and prep work into it. The rituals I lead now are far better, because I’ve been practicing for 15 years.

There is no substitute for dedicated study and practice.

Invite others to your feasts

If I’m alone I don’t hesitate to cook good food for myself, or go to a nice restaurant by myself. Fine food shouldn’t be restricted to couples. But all those Thanksgiving feasts wouldn’t have been nearly as good without the family to share them with.

Likewise, our spiritual feasts are better when shared with our co-religionists. Even two people in a ritual makes it stronger than with just one. Nine or thirteen or nineteen are better still. More than that and the nature of the ritual changes, but if they’re written for large groups, more is better.

Inviting others to our feasts enables us to practice hospitality, arguable the first among Pagan virtues.

And when you’re invited, support other people’s feasts. More participants helps them just as much as it helps you. And while their main dish may not be your main dish, you can learn something just the same.

Travel off the map

It’s fairly easy to move from a snack to a meal. Moving from a meal to a whole Pagan feast is harder. There is so much we lost when Christianity became the dominant religion in the West: temples, books, statues, priesthoods, liturgies, and more. Druidry disappeared for a thousand years. Magic was preserved better than anything else, but even that was mixed with the official religion.

Reconstruction brought back some of what was lost. Mainstream history, archaeology, and anthropology help build a scholarly foundation for our Paganism(s). But there are some things that will never be reconstructed. Those things have to be rediscovered.

Some of us regularly journey off the map. We experience the Gods and spirits first-hand, listen to what they have to say, and then do our best to manifest it in this world. And then we draw maps – or to continue the food metaphor, we write recipes – so those who come after us can follow in our footsteps, and then go farther on their own.

People who do this kind of work tend to not talk about it, and people who talk about it usually haven’t done nearly as much as they claim. But show you’re serious – show you understand what’s involved – and you may find yourself in a traveling party with nothing but the stars to guide you.

There’s a place for small, loosely-organized potlucks, both metaphorically and literally. They’re easy, they can be fun, and anybody can participate in them. But they’re no substitute for a real feast.

A common Pagan blessing says “may you never hunger.” That’s a noble sentiment. But in this case I prefer to say “may your hunger lead you to the feast you need, and may you prepare a true feast for those who hunger.”

The Spiritual Authority of Oracles is Dangerous but Necessary

November 27, 2018 By John Beckett

Last week Morgan Daimler had a great post on the Agora blog titled Be Your Own Spiritual Leader. Morgan discussed the necessity of mundane leadership in Pagan groups, and the value of teachers, guides, and mentors. But the main point of the post was that there are serious dangers in giving your spiritual autonomy to someone else. Here’s a key quote:

Ultimately I think we must all become our own spiritual leaders … You don’t need any other human to mediate your spirituality. You can find everything you need yourself, if you look.

I’m in strong agreement with this post. My only caveat is that I see too many people who assume that “you don’t need any other human to mediate your spirituality” means “anything I come up with is good and right.” If it works for you, have at it – but don’t try to convince me that the Morrigan is a sex goddess.

I’m a public Pagan, a blogger, and a published author. People sometimes invest me with more authority than I have – and more than I want. Even when my writing takes the tone of a Pagan revival preacher, I try to be clear that these are my experiences and the conclusions I’ve drawn from them. If you find them helpful, I hope you’ll join me. If you don’t, I hope you find the path that calls to you. Different doesn’t mean wrong.

I do the same thing with other Pagans. If what you say makes sense I’ll give it serious consideration. If you convince me I’m wrong I’ll change my beliefs and practices – getting closer to “right” is more important than pretending I’m already there. And conversely, I don’t care who you are or how many books you’ve published – if I’m not convinced I’m not buying it.

Giving anyone spiritual authority is dangerous. But sometimes it’s necessary, and that’s what I want to talk about today.

Oracular religion

I sometimes describe myself as an ancestral, devotional, ecstatic, oracular, magical, public, Pagan polytheist. For this post, the key term is oracular – meaning the Gods speak to us. Sometimes They speak in signs and omens, sometimes in divination, sometimes through thoughts in your head that you know aren’t yours.

And sometimes a deity will take over a person and use their body to verbally deliver a message.

In most cases, these pronouncements are treated as UPG – unverified personal gnosis. They are authoritative only for the person who receives them. The rest of us are free to accept them, reject them, or hold them for further consideration as we see fit. That’s simple enough.

But the polytheist religions we are reconstructing – and in some cases, building from scratch – are not only a human endeavor. Our Gods are also participating in their construction. And many times what They have to say is intended for more than the person who serves as the oracle.

Now things get complicated.

Bound together by messages from our Gods

The English word “religion” comes from the Latin religare meaning “to bind together.” If we are building a religious tradition (as opposed to a magical tradition or an academic tradition) there must be something that binds us together. Typically those are common beliefs and/or common practices. For polytheists there is nothing more central than our Gods.

I am not saying that all polytheists practice an oracular religion – many do not. But for those of us who do, the messages we receive from our Gods are of tremendous importance. These messages are rarely concerned with trivial matters. They call us to action, usually with more than a bit of urgency. And they are frequently mysterious, requiring interpretation.

Some of them come through ourselves. But others come through other people – not random strangers on the internet, but people who are our co-religionists, our circle mates, and our friends.

How much authority do we give messages that come through other humans?

Getting it right is a terrifying obligation

I’ve stood in a circle where an oracle spoke on behalf of a deity. I’ve been the oracle. I’m not sure which one is scarier.

I’ve never felt threatened. But I’ve always known I was in the presence of something holy, of Someone bigger and stronger and wiser than me. It’s like floating down a raging river, caught up in Purpose and Will and Power, hoping you can get through the rapids without being smashed on the rocks.

And when you finally make it to the calmer waters, you try to remember as much as you can, and start figuring out what you’re supposed to do with it.

That’s how it’s supposed to work. For me, that’s how it usually works. But what if this is your first time hearing strange words coming out of your friend’s mouth? What if you’re still not sure how real the whole God-speaking thing is? What if you weren’t there, but someone says “Brighid had a message for you”?

How much do you trust the oracle to get it right?

Building an oracular framework

“Everybody just do their own thing” may work for some religions and spiritualities. It won’t work for oracular-driven polytheism. Someday I hope we’ll have oracular institutions that can develop best practices and teach them to beginners. For now, we need to develop an oracular framework.

This begins with a polytheist worldview: there are many Gods, who are external to humans, each with Their own sovereignty, agency, and will.

It means developing close devotional relationships with the deities who work with the group. If you want the Gods to talk to you, start by talking to Them.

It means studying Their lore, so we learn about Their personalities and characters and we can more readily recognize Their words when we hear them.

It means knowing ourselves, so we can more readily recognize thoughts and words that are not our own.

This post is not intended to be a how-to on oracular work and divine possession. That would require a book, or several books. But if we are going to accept the spiritual authority of oracular pronouncements – and I believe we must – we need an agreed-upon framework for their reception and interpretation.

Trust the oracle… or not

I am not a trusting person. I want evidence and reason. I want credible sources. I want a track record of getting it right.

[Note to any atheist readers: read Facts and Reason in Paganism – Avoiding Materialist Assumptions before commenting. Pay particular attention to the warning at the very end.]

This kind of trust is best developed in face to face workings. It’s one thing if you tell me “the Morrigan told me this.” It’s a very different thing if we’re both in the same circle and I hear the same voice delivering the same words.

When people have shown themselves to be knowledgeable about a particular deity and culture, and respectful of them, I give their words great credence. If Morgan Daimler tells me a Fairy Queen said this or that I’m going to believe it. If someone I just friended on Facebook says it, I’m going to be very skeptical.

The words of the oracle are authoritative – their interpretation is not

This is the truth of any religious experience: what happened, happened. You saw what you saw. You heard what you heard. The experience is 100% real. That’s the easy part, or at least it would be easy if our mainstream culture didn’t try to insist we made it all up because it breaks their model of reality.

The hard part is figuring out what it means.

So if I’m participating in an oracular ritual, and the Morrigan uses the voice of one of the participants to say “Tell him to do Brighid’s work before I come for him,” and it takes place within a framework that we’ve used successfully in the past, and I have no reason to question the ability or the integrity of the oracle, then those words are authoritative and I had better pay attention to them.

This isn’t a hypothetical case – it happened pretty much exactly this way in 2015. But the interpretation was still up to me. I interpreted it as saying I needed to finish what would become The Path of Paganism and I needed to do it quickly, and that if I didn’t there would be serious consequences.

And so I did.

Many times the Gods do not speak in words, especially when They’re speaking through omens and through divination. Instead, They speak in concepts, images, and feelings. Those are very difficult messages to relay. When I’m the messenger, I do my best to tell the whole truth (even when it’s unpleasant) but also to communicate my level of uncertainty with the words I’m using. In this case, it is the concept that is authoritative, not the words I use to express it.

Why we must accept the spiritual authority of oracles

Obviously, if you are not part of an oracular tradition, you have no obligation to accept the authority of any oracle or the messages they relay.

But in the case of a group (formal or informal) working with the same Gods and spirits in the same spiritual paradigm, the expectation that everyone will accept the received gnosis is strong. I think that’s necessary in order to build a tradition of ecstatic communion and communication between us and Them.

And at the same time, the problems Morgan Daimler warned us about in Be Your Own Spiritual Leader are real. We who are called to build or rebuild polytheist religions where the Gods actively speak to us must find a way to deal with these problems.

Build an oracular framework. Train oracles, particularly those who exhibit an aptitude for such work. Learn who you can trust, and when you do, trust their words.

Ultimately, you must decide what those words mean.

And when you decide, act on them like the holy mandates they are.

Many Gods in the Bible, Spiritual Warnings, Owning Knowledge, and More

September 2, 2018 By John Beckett

I’ve already answered several of the August Conversations Under the Oaks questions, either in the usual Q&A format, or in their own post. I’ve got two more that will require their own post, but now I want to address the questions that didn’t fit in with any larger theme.

As always, I’m including names only where I have explicit permission, and I’m editing the questions for brevity.

The Christian view is that their God created all that is and ever was. If so, it follows that “he” also created the other Gods. Why would he create the other Gods, if only to admonish his followers to ignore them?

This is a very good question, but one that Pagans should take great care how they answer. It is grounded in a literal reading of the Old Testament, which says their God created everything. It mentions other Gods and it tells its followers to put their God first. If you accept their narrative, then you find yourself asking this question.

The key to answering this question is to reject that narrative – don’t read the Old Testament literally.

The people who wrote Genesis (there were four authors, not one) lived in a society where polytheism was at least as predominant as monotheism is in the modern West. So of course they mentioned other Gods – how could they not? The two creation stories in Genesis are the creation stories of those writers’ people, just as the Norse and the Egyptians and most other peoples have their own creation stories.

The idea that the creator God of Genesis was the only God didn’t come until long after these stories had been written down. And by that time it was too late to go back and remove all those other Gods. Jews mostly don’t worry about it – they focus on honoring their God and minding their own business. Christians who claim their religion is for everyone have to jump through all kinds of theological hoops to explain this discrepancy.

As Pagans, we can accept the simple historical answer: the Bible is a collection of many stories from many authors and they don’t always line up.

And then we can get back to worshipping our own Gods.

I have, distinctly and with clear intent, received warnings from time to time. They come in differing forms, sometimes a realization, at other times a tidal wave of emotional response to a seemingly insignificant trigger, startling awake from a deep sleep upon hearing a demand from someone who isn’t there, and so on. I have no clear approach to responding to this and wish to move forward with intent. What do you suggest?

First, pay attention to what you hear and see and feel. Write it down as soon after it’s over as you can, before your memories start to fade. What you experience is real. What it means is subject to interpretation.

The first question I’d ask is where these warnings are coming from. From a God or a spirit? From your unconscious mind? From sources unknown? If your answer doesn’t seem to fit, challenge your foundational assumptions about what is and isn’t possible (to be clear, I don’t know what your particular foundational assumptions are, so I’m not criticizing them).

Are they all related? Do they all come from the same source? If you’re hearing from the Morrigan, Hermes, and your great great grandfather, you may be hearing multiple unrelated messages. Don’t assume they’re all about the same thing.

If they’re coming from different sources (or if they’re not) do you trust them all? Gods are virtuous, but less-than-divine spirits may not be. And just because your great great grandfather is dead doesn’t mean he knows everything. Ancestral spirits often still have the same weaknesses and blind spots they had in life.

What do they mean? What are they talking about? What are they asking you to do? Divination is helpful here, particularly the Tarot, with its deep imagery. So is meditation. I find walking meditation to be an excellent way to sort through these things.

Finally, how do you want to respond? Spirits can be very helpful, and I’m happy to be in service to several Gods, but ultimately this is your life. Make your own decisions, based on your values.

Good luck. If you’d like to discuss this in more detail, I’m available for private consultation.

My grandmother, mother, and I carry the same middle name. The name was taken from a family friend. While this individual is not part of my DNA, I wonder if the name itself carries a certain ancestry with it?

There is power in a name. Your name – be it a family name, a given name, or a nickname – ties you to every person who’s ever had that name. My parents named me after the apostle John, but I was born during the presidency of John F. Kennedy – I have strong connections to both of them. I have lesser connections to all the other Johns, living and dead.

Just how strong your “name ancestry” is depends on many different factors. How was the name given? How well does it “fit”? How much do you use it? How and how well are the connections maintained?

If this is a simple curiosity, I encourage you to explore this name and its connections at your leisure. If you think there may be a problem, you may want to find someone knowledgeable in ancestral magic.

There are people who offer the opportunity to take you back through your past lives. Some of them offer to assist you in repairing broken bits of yourself from the past. What’s your opinion on all of this? Are there dangers or warning signs that you can see?

I have so many mixed feelings on this…

I’ve had spontaneous past life memories. I’ve been guided through past life regressions. I’ve found this to be very helpful in understanding why I am the way I am. I won’t talk about it on-line, but if you see me in person, ask me about my most recent past life.

But once you understand why parts of you are broken, you have to do the work to repair them. No one can do it for you. Someone trained in this process can serve as a guide and can make helpful recommendations, but they can’t “fix” you. No one can.

I found that understanding why was enough. That helped me understand what I need to work on in this life. I’m now at an age where I can see that I’ve done (and am doing) much of that. But there are some areas where I haven’t – too much work for one lifetime. So we do what we can and worry about the rest in its own due time.

Tommy Van Hook asks “Kristoffer Hughes says the Druids of the future will look to the Druids of today for reference when it comes to ritual. What do you think the Druids of tomorrow will look to us for?”

As always, future generations will look to the past for foundations and for inspiration.

Modern Druidry is 300 years old, but it has only been in our lifetime that Druid orders have offered a full spiritual path. Ronald Hutton said the OBOD course “arguably represents one of the major documents of British spirituality from the late twentieth century.” It has given thousands of people a strong and positive spiritual foundation, and it will continue to do so in the future. On this side of the Atlantic, ADF continues to grow into its founders’ vision of a full-fledged Pagan church. The other Druid orders are building their own foundations and leaving their own legacies. This gives future Druids a good place to start.

I think future Druids will especially be inspired by our attempts at Nature spirituality. They will build on what we’re getting right, and they’ll move in new directions where we’re getting it wrong.

Who ‘owns’ the knowledge? Whether it’s Druidism, Goddess centered, Wicca, Heathenry… there is a tendency to insist there’s a single way and that becomes THE way. I am ordained as a priestess, but there are many groups that would not accept my ordination as real. It appears that a few make the ‘the rules’ and if you don’t follow, you are excluded.

Christianity says they’re the One True Way. That has left our society with the idea that there should be a One True Way, even if it isn’t Christian. So, as you say, one way becomes The Way and everyone who disagrees is obviously doing it wrong.

As a polytheist, this strikes me as silly. Many Gods call many people to worship Them in many different ways. This results in the development of many cults (in the academic sense of the term). Each of them has their own sources and their own traditions. They own that. They set their own boundaries – sometimes low and loose, other times hard and high. If someone doesn’t agree with those boundaries, they go somewhere else.

I’m also a Unitarian Universalist – we have very low theological boundaries. We come together based on shared values, not shared beliefs.

But when I’m doing devotions to the Morrigan, I don’t want humanists trying to edit the ritual to make it more inclusive. If they want to “work with” the Morrigan as a metaphor, they’re welcome to do so – nobody owns a deity. And I’ll be happy to work with them on social justice and environmental issues. But I’m not toning down my polytheism to make them feel included.

So each tradition owns its own knowledge and traditions.

The question of who owns various cultural practices, what can be freely adopted, and what is cultural appropriation is a different question. I addressed that in 2015.

Finding Your Spiritual Path Later In Life

August 21, 2018 By John Beckett

Here’s a question one person asked that I suspect applies to many people.

One of the things that drew me to your writing was that you described yourself as a Pagan who didn’t get serious until later on in your life. I am used to hearing people talk about being multiple decades into their practice because they started as children or teens.

This was not the case for me. I’m only a few years into my practice, and I only started getting serious recently. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m really behind and I need to catch up ASAP, or worse—I’ll never catch up no matter what I do because it’s too late.

How can someone move past the feeling of being behind if they start their Pagan practice later in life?

This bothered me early on my Pagan journey. It especially bothered me when I came to Denton CUUPS at age 41 and the best ritual leader (and the most skilled witch) was 22. I felt bad about it, but what could I do? There was no way to get those years back. I could either start working and see how far I could go, or I could give up and do nothing.

I started working. Along the way I’ve learned a few things.

my first Egyptian Summer Solstice ritual – I was 42

We all have to play the hand we’re dealt

I wish I had grown up in a Pagan family, or at least, in a liberal and mystical church. I wish I had discovered witchcraft as a child and Pagan religion as a teen. I wish I had been able to recognize Cernunnos for who and what He is when I was an eight year old wandering through the woods.

I also wish I had been born with enough athletic talent to become a professional baseball player. But that wasn’t the hand I was dealt.

There’s only one place we can start, and that’s where we are.

I grew up where and when I did, in the environment I did. That led me to think I’d find fulfillment in making money. I had to try that out and see for myself that it didn’t work. I tried to find a compromise with my fundamentalist upbringing – that had to fail so I’d move on to something else.

I wish I had been dealt a better hand. I wasn’t. But it wasn’t a bad hand, and I’ve played it pretty well. I can be happy with that… so long as I don’t stop here.

Our journeys make us who we are

I really, really wish I hadn’t grown up in a fundamentalist church. It made my life fearful for years. But I got out, and I’ve been able to show others how to get out. If I hadn’t done that, I couldn’t help many of the people I’ve helped.

I’m sorry I spent so many years trying to find fulfillment in the corporate world. I’m not sorry I got an engineering degree and an MBA. That’s provided a stable income throughout my adult life that’s enabled me to travel and to write what I’m called without worrying about how well it will sell.

Someone who finds a spiritual path later in life will bring a different perspective from someone who grows up in it. They have things to contribute that others don’t, which helps build a diverse and robust community.

I am not the true king of Ireland – but my paying job has allowed me to visit there three times

Time on the path is irrelevant

I used to have a boss who liked to ask “do you have ten years’ experience or do you have one year’s experience ten times over?”

I know elders whose Paganism is stuck in 1979. I know long-time Pagans who use Scott Cunningham like a bible. I know OBOD folks who’ve been “working on” the Bardic grade for 10 years and they’re not close to being done yet.

Not everyone is called to the kind of deep practice into uncharted waters that I write about here. Some people just want to do the same thing year after year – it brings them comfort and stability. So be it – we need to make a place for them in our communities.

On the other hand, I know Pagans in their early 20s who’ve been on this path for just a couple years and they’re already doing deeper work than 80% of the people in the wider community.

Time on the path is irrelevant. What you do with your time on the path is what’s important.

It’s not a competition

“It’s not a competition – just be yourself.” Most times when I hear that, someone is making excuses for mediocrity… or encouraging someone else to be mediocre so they don’t feel pressure to improve themselves. Again, if you’re happy where you are, that’s fine. But those of us who are called to do and be more are going to keep moving forward.

Still, the cliché is true – it’s not a competition. Other people may be further along their paths, but your path will be different.

When I started getting serious, I wanted to be John Michael Greer or Thorn Coyle. I learned a lot from both of them at key points on my Pagan journey – they were my role models. But as I got further down the road, I realized I was going someplace different. “Catching up” with them didn’t make sense – I needed to take what they taught me and start moving down my own path.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint

This is another cliché that’s overused, but it’s still true. Where you are now is not where you’ll be in three years, and where you’ll be in three years isn’t where you’ll be in ten years. If you’re really serious about your religion and spirituality, this is something you’re going to be working on for the rest of your life.

It’s going to be a long journey. The sooner you get moving, the further you’ll go.

Build a strong foundation where you are

One of the problems I ran into was that I knew I wanted more, but more of what? When you’re just starting out you don’t really know what you want to be when you grow up. It’s not like the Catholic church where if you’re really really serious about it (and if you were born with a penis) you can become a priest, then a bishop, then a cardinal, then maybe the pope. Even Pagan groups with good structures can only take you so far: completing the Druid grade in OBOD just means your formal training is done, not that you’ve “made it.”

If you don’t know where to go, then build a good foundation where you are. Begin a devotional practice, or expand the one you’ve already got. Read, with particular emphasis on history, art, literature, and science: all the non-religious subjects that influence your religion. Find a local Pagan group to practice with. If you can’t find one, start one. If you can’t start one, find a virtual group – anything to form a regular connection with people who think and practice like you do.

If you aren’t sure which Gods or tradition to follow, then pick one. Put some research, meditation, and divination behind it, but pick something. If you find out it’s not for you, then you’ll have learned something and you can try something else.

No spiritual journey moves at a consistent rate of speed. Sometimes stuff comes at you so fast you can barely keep up, while other times it seems like you’ve been in the same place for months and months. Either way, keep doing the foundational work that will support you in good times and in bad, and that will prepare you for what comes next – whatever that is.

But there’s no time to waste

A quote attributed to “an old Chinese proverb” (which usually means “we don’t know where it came from”) says: “The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

You can’t get those years back. But if you wait until you think you’re ready or until you’ve done this or accomplished that, or if you despair because of the time you’ve lost, you’ll just waste more years.

The older I get – and the more I see the direction of the world at large – the more sense of urgency I feel about my deeper spirituality. How long it took to get here doesn’t matter. All that matters is what we do going forward. And I have a lot more I need to do.

So how do you get past the feeling of being behind?

Accept that you are where you are. Probably that’s not your fault. Even if it is, this is still where you are. This is where you begin: here, today.

Get started. Start small or start big, just don’t try to do too much at first.

Keep a journal. Oftentimes we don’t realize how far we’ve come until we look back at our own words from a year or three or ten ago.

Stay with it. Perseverance is a virtue.

Keep moving. I started this blog because I wanted to discuss some religious issues. The blog led to moving to Patheos. That led to me getting invited to speak and teach at various Pagan gatherings. That led to my first book. That led to my second book (which is due out sometime next year). I’m not sure where all this is leading, but I’m enjoying the journey.

The good thing about feeling like you’re behind is that you’re motivated to start catching up. And with consistent effort, you will.

Knowing Through Practice, Experience, and Results

August 19, 2018 By John Beckett

Last weekend an atheist left a very good comment where he took issue with my use of the word “to know.” The conversation went like this.

John: “I’ve always known the Divine has a feminine side”

MNb: “Unfortunately I only can guess what you mean with the word ‘to know’ here. But I’m pretty sure it’s not the same as what I mean with it.”

John: “I use ‘to know’ somewhat hesitantly here, likely for the same reasons behind your comment. There is a qualitative difference between ‘to believe intensely’ and ‘to be able to prove objectively.’ But I have no other word for the kind of deep, intuitive, experiential understanding that something is true even though I can’t prove it objectively.

Then the next day, I led the Sunday Service at Denton UU where I spoke on Becoming Invincible: Overcoming Fear Through Reason and Experience. Here’s a key excerpt:

Becoming invincible begins with reason … but reason alone is not enough … This knowledge does not come from reading books or even from diligent study. It comes from years and years of dedicated and consistent spiritual practice: meditation, prayer, and devotion.

Or, it comes from a one-time first-hand ecstatic religious experience so powerful it rewires your consciousness, changes your foundational assumptions about what is and isn’t possible, and basically turns your life upside down.

I didn’t go into details. A UU Sunday Service is not the place to discuss entheogens and the Headless Rite – particularly not in August when lots of people are church shopping.

Is it a contradiction – or even an outright error – to say we “know” in a religious context? I don’t think so or I wouldn’t use it. But it is a hard question that likely rises to the level of a mystery.

Believing is not the same as knowing

I grew up in a fundamentalist church where I constantly heard the preacher saying “I know this is true!” and “you can know this is true!” Meanwhile, I was biting my tongue and screaming inside my head “no, you believe it’s true!” Sacred texts and church doctrines may be deeply meaningful to followers of that religion, but that doesn’t make them factually true.

A quote of dubious origins often attributed to Mark Twain says “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” In an era of fake news and of the dismissal of inconvenient facts as fake, it’s important to know the difference between facts, theories, opinions, and lies.

We can never know the true nature of the Gods in the same way we know truth of the Pythagorean Theorem. But that doesn’t mean we can know nothing about Them.

Hold loosely but practice deeply

There is no certainty in matters of religion. If you must have religious certainty, your only honest option is to become an agnostic. But many of us – myself included – find agnosticism unfulfilling.

The solution is to hold our beliefs loosely. Never assume we know it all, never forget that we might be wrong, and most importantly, always remain open to new evidence and new lines of thinking. Our polarized political debates have shown that when most people are confronted with clear evidence that their beliefs are wrong, they deny the evidence and dig in defensively. Their fear of change (and their fear of admitting that they were wrong) is greater than their desire to actually be right. We must do better – hold loosely.

But while we hold a belief, we act as though it is absolutely true. Do you believe the Gods are real, distinct, individual beings? Then act as though They are. Speak to Them individually, pour offerings to Them individually, and think of Them as individuals, not as “aspects” or “faces” or some other metaphor that assumes or implies that They’re really all part of one God.

Do you believe in magic? Then stop trying to come up with a “rational” explanation for it, accept that it’s real, and start practicing magic as deeply as you can.

If you later find enough evidence to refute your beliefs, then change them. But while you hold them, act as though they’re true. You may be surprised how deep that approach can take you.

Mundane knowledge is still required

Like the problematic Mark Twain quote, the problem with those Baptist preachers was that much of what they “knew” was demonstrably false. The Earth is a lot more than 6000 years old. Noah’s flood is the cultural memory of localized devastations at the end of the last ice age, not a worldwide event.

Pagans aren’t exempt from this. It’s only been in the past 30 years or so that the majority of Pagans have understood that nine million witches weren’t burned in the “burning times” (it was under 100,000, and the vast majority of them weren’t witches). I still occasionally run into people who claim to be a “hereditary Druid” with roots in antiquity. We have to know our own history.

If you want to read omens and auguries in Nature, you have to know what’s normal animal and plant behavior. Yes, sometimes a crow is the Morrigan, but most times it’s a crow doing its own things for its own reasons.

Ground yourself in ordinary science and history and don’t pretend you “know” something that isn’t really true.

Foundational assumptions control your conclusions…

When materialists scream “you have no evidence!” what they mean is “you have no evidence that aligns with my assumptions that nothing exists except for matter and the interactions of matter.” Evidence that doesn’t fit those assumptions is ignored or rationalized away. If you assume that the Gods are abstractions and metaphors then Odin could appear bodily before you and all you’d do is wonder why that odd old man doesn’t have a glass eye instead of a patch.

Our experiences are undeniably real. Our foundational assumptions control which interpretations we will consider and which ones we will reject out of hand.

Holding loosely but practicing deeply allows us to “bracket” our foundational assumptions and suspend them temporarily. We don’t have to suddenly change our thinking about the nature of reality, we just have to be open to the possibility that reality may be bigger than we’ve always been told.

And then go experiment.

…But results add up

James Bond creator Ian Fleming had one of his characters say “Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. The third time it’s enemy action.” Fleming served in World War II – he knew what he was talking about. If you jump at every noise you’ll never get anything done. But eventually, it becomes clear that something’s there and you’d better deal with it.

Do you have a need where magic would be helpful? Something you just can’t get through ordinary effort? Or something that’s so important you want all the help you can get? Then work magic. If you don’t know any other method, use sigil magic – it’s very simple and it’s very effective. Don’t think magic is real? Doesn’t matter – magic works on action, not on faith.

The first time your spell brings results, you’re likely to dismiss it as a coincidence. The second time you’ll dismiss it as confirmation bias. Throw in a time or two when it doesn’t work (likely because you chose the wrong target – more in that in the coming days) and your materialistic assumptions are still firmly in place.

But after the ninth or tenth or fiftieth time, those assumptions start to shift. The results add up. Now it’s easier to assume that magic is real than to assume it’s not.

After years of devotion, including multiple ecstatic experiences, it’s easier to assume the Gods and spirits and ancestors are real than to assume they’re not. If you follow your own experiences, the way you see the world will change.

Knowing through intuition

I told the commenter “I’ve always known the Divine has a feminine side.” This wasn’t an experimentally verified result. It wasn’t a logical inference. It was intuition – something I knew was true in the depth of my soul.

Sometimes intuition is your subconscious spotting cause and effect at a level your conscious mind ignores. Sometimes it’s the whispers of Gods and spirits. Sometimes it’s something we can’t explain even to ourselves, but there it is.

We have to be careful relying on intuition. Sometimes it tells us what we wish was true. Sometimes it tells us what we fear might be true. Many times it simply repeats what we’ve always been told is true.

But when we know ourselves, and when we practice good discernment, our intuition points us toward truths we would otherwise never see.

But do we really know?

Here’s what I know, by any standard of knowing there is:

When I work magic, I get favorable results far more often than I don’t.

The more I honor the Gods the more experiences I have of Them, and the deeper those experiences get.

My life is more meaningful, more connected, less fearful, and happier – though to be honest, not any easier – than before I started this Pagan journey.

That’s enough evidence to convince me that I’m doing something right. So I’m going to keep doing it.

What does it mean to know? Is it to be certain, in the way we can be certain the Pythagorean Theorem is true? Is it to be able to win arguments with atheists and fundamentalists? If that’s the standard then we can know nothing in the realm of religion. But experience shows that certainty is not necessary.

And at this point, I’m convinced it’s all true.

No, I can’t convert atheists or fundamentalists. I don’t need to – that’s not part of my religion.

This isn’t “my truth” – this is “truth as I understand it.” Those aren’t the same things, and that’s important. When people say truth is relative and this is “their” truth, 99% of the time they’re trying to deflect criticism – they’re not being open to new evidence and new experiences. “Truth as I understand it” says “this is where I am right now, but that may change.”

I know magic works. I know the Gods are real. I’m open to someone proving me wrong, but I don’t see how that can happen.

And that’s a very good place to be.

Meditation: A Pagan Approach to a Universal Practice

January 9, 2018 By John Beckett

For all I’ve talked about the importance of meditation over nine years of blogging, I’ve never written a post specifically on meditation.

It’s not my strongest practice. And the kind of meditation I do most frequently isn’t the kind people are most familiar with. But meditation is a foundational spiritual practice and it’s long past time I gave it a post of its own.

I have two interrelated definitions of meditation. Meditation is reflection, contemplation, and focusing your thoughts on a single point. Meditation is also listening, especially when we listen for the presence of the Gods and spirits.

Mindfulness meditation

This is the meditation our Buddhist friends teach, and that has caught on with people of many religions. Simply sit and focus your attention on your breathing. That’s all. When your mind starts to wander, gently bring your focus back to your breath.

Some traditions place importance on proper posture. Some say the goal is to empty the mind, while others say the goal is simply to sit. As a Pagan, I’m less concerned about Buddhist thoughts about meditation than I am about learning Buddhist techniques for meditation. I’ve taken two classes from local Buddhist groups on meditation – I could probably use another one.

The benefits of mindfulness meditation are many and verifiable. It can lower blood pressure, reduce stress and depression (though it is not a panacea), and there is evidence it can improve overall brain health. Mainly, it trains the mind to ignore distractions and focus only on the task at hand. This skill is extremely helpful in other spiritual practices.

It’s also a difficult skill to cultivate. It’s not like riding a bicycle, where once you’ve got it, you’ve got it for life. The “monkey mind” is always there, eager to latch on to the next shiny distraction. Mindfulness meditation requires constant practice.

Contemplative meditation

This is the form of meditation I practice most often. In this situation, we are still trying to focus our attention on just one thing, but instead of the breath we’re focusing on a concept, an ideal, or a person – in particular the person of a deity.

I find it easiest to meditate in a darkened room. The dark hides many this-world distractions and makes it easier to focus on Otherworldly persons and what they have to say. I usually sit on the floor, in part because that’s what I learned from Buddhist meditation classes, but also because it’s convenient. However, I injured my back in 2016 and sometimes that makes it difficult to sit on the floor (actually, I can sit on the floor just fine – it’s getting up off the floor that’s the challenge). If I’m having a bad day I sit in a chair instead.

If I’m going to meditate on a deity, I’ll place Their statue or other representation in front of me. I light just enough candles to see the image clearly – usually one candle will do.

I begin with a couple of deep breaths to relax, and then I offer a prayer of invocation.

“Cernunnos, Lord of the Animals and Lord of the Hunt, God of the Forest and of Green Growing Things, I ask you to join me here and bless me with your presence. Great Hunter and Hunted, be welcome here.” If I’m doing this as part of a larger devotional ritual I’ll make offerings here. If this is just a meditation, this is the extent of my invocation.

And then I sit, gaze at the statue, and contemplate the deity of the occasion. In the case of Cernunnos, I may begin by concentrating on a mighty stag, or on a man with antlers on his head. Unlike mindfulness meditation where the goal is to empty the mind or to keep it focused solely on the breath, in this meditation I let my mind go where it will – but only within the limits of the object of the meditation.

So, if I’m meditating on Cernunnos, and I start to see a forest, I explore the forest. If an animal catches my attention, I watch it. I may smell the air, feel the wind, or drink the water. If my mind starts to wander from drinking water to drinking wine to the bottle of wine I want to pick up next time I’m out, then I bring my focus back to the statue and back to Cernunnos and all the virtues, values, and persons associated with Him.

Nature meditation

This same technique works very well in Nature. Instead of using a statue or other image, go outside and focus on a tree, a rock, the moon, or a star.

These meditations tend to be much shorter than indoor sitting meditations. You can only stand looking up at the moon for so long before your neck or back or legs start to become an unavoidable distraction. That’s OK – I’ve had some amazing experiences of the night sky that lasted less than a minute… and some that lasted much longer.

If you’re watching the sunrise or sunset, it’s OK to move around a bit. It’s OK to sit in a chair and take in the whole landscape.

Some of the most powerful Nature meditations involve trees. Find a suitable tree, introduce yourself, and ask if the tree would like to speak with you. If you get a positive response (you’ll feel it, not hear it) sit on the ground with your back resting on the trunk of the tree. Now contemplate the tree, its roots and branches, the sap flowing through it, and the creatures living in it. See what it sees, feel what it feels. Listen.

Don’t expect the tree to “teach” you anything. Trees are persons who do their own things for their own reasons – they’re not here to serve humans. But like all persons, we can form relationships with them, relationships that when done right are beneficial to both parties.

Walking meditation

This is my favorite and most frequent form of meditation. It can be devotional or contemplative or even mindful, but it’s done while walking outdoors (there are people who can do walking meditation on a treadmill – that’s extremely difficult for me and I rarely try).

I exercise before work most weekday mornings. Because of the hours of my job, that means I’m usually outdoors before dawn, but it starts to get light before I’m done. There is something magical about beginning a meditation in darkness and finishing in light – liminal zones are powerful times.

Some of my best writing is done while walking. Is that meditation? Not exactly, but the process is very similar. As with the contemplative meditation, I let my mind go where it will, within the boundaries of the topic at hand. If it starts to wander into the upcoming work day or next month’s vacation, I bring it back to what I’m trying to write about.

Listening

Mindfulness meditation builds skills in focusing. Contemplative meditation builds skills in listening.

Contemplate a deity and you will inevitably begin with the things you know about Them: Cernunnos is a God of the Animals. Continue the contemplation and you will start to realize that the things you know carry implications: if I’m devoted to a God of the Animals then I should make sure my home is welcoming to animals, or at least not hostile to them. These implications can be many and deep.

But after a while, contemplation morphs into listening. Now you “hear” things that are neither your thoughts nor the implications of your thoughts. Now you “hear” the voices of Others.

That always raises the question of how you know which thoughts are yours and which thoughts are communication from someone else.

The first clue comes from the Temple of Apollo at Delphi: know thyself. If you know yourself well, it’s fairly easy to know which thoughts are yours and which aren’t. But knowing yourself is a continuous challenge.

Does what you hear tell you something you already know? Does it tell you something you want to be true? Does it tell you things will be just fine the way they are – that you don’t have to do anything? That’s probably you.

If it tells you something you had no way of knowing, something that challenges you to move out of your comfort zone, or something you don’t really want to do? That’s likely not you.

Compare what you hear with what’s known about the God, ancestor, or spirit who’s talking to you – is it “in character” for them? Compare it with what other practitioners are hearing – let UPG (unverified personal gnosis) become SPG (shared personal gnosis). Pull out your favorite divination tool… or better yet, contact an experienced diviner.

Is hearing from a God just too much for you? I’m a polytheist who has heard from Gods and spirits for so long I don’t think to question it anymore, but I know some of you do. If you can’t wrap your head around the idea of Gods and spirits communicating directly with humans, don’t worry about the source and concentrate on the message. What are you hearing? Does it make good sense? Is it in alignment with your values and your ethics? Then just do it.

Meditation is most commonly associated with Buddhism, but it is practiced in every religion and occasionally by people with no religion. Its regular practice has demonstrable benefits, and it builds the skills necessary for many spiritual experiences.

If you’re looking for a spiritual practice to begin this January, try meditation.