{"id":3563,"date":"2015-05-06T17:37:38","date_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:37:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?p=3563"},"modified":"2015-05-06T17:48:17","modified_gmt":"2015-05-06T23:48:17","slug":"walking-between-the-worlds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html","title":{"rendered":"Walking Between the Worlds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Between<\/a>Shamans and witches have long been said to walk between the worlds \u2013 to move back and forth between the world of the living and the world of the Gods and ancestors.\u00a0 As Pagans, we live in the ordinary world, in trance and dreams we visit the Otherworld, and in our circles we stand liminally between the worlds.<\/p>\n

We also walk between the worlds in our daily lives.<\/p>\n

Part of our work as Pagans is to honor the Gods, ancestors, and spirits of Nature.\u00a0 We pray and meditate, we make offerings and sacrifices, we read Their stories and we tell them again and again.\u00a0 Call it worship, call it piety, call it rendering due honor; this work is about building and maintaining relationships with the spiritual beings who participate in the great work of the Universe.\u00a0 Metaphorically, this work is part of the Otherworld.<\/p>\n

Another part of our work as Pagans is to do the everyday things necessary to support ourselves, our families, and our communities.\u00a0 We go to work or school.\u00a0 We care for the very young and very old.\u00a0 We challenge those in power to rule fairly and justly, and we work to overturn and replace systems that are inherently unjust.\u00a0 In our walking between the worlds metaphor, this work is part of this world.<\/p>\n

\"Between<\/a>But let us always remember that the ordinary world is not the Otherworld.\u00a0 Service is not devotion and devotion is not service.\u00a0 Prayer is no substitute for action and action is no substitute for prayer.<\/p>\n

If we ignore the local spirits, we cut ourselves off from the ground we walk on and the life that shares this space with us.\u00a0 If we ignore our ancestors, we cut ourselves off from our roots and from our most readily available support.\u00a0 If we ignore the Gods, we lose our connection to the source of our inspiration and sustenance.<\/p>\n

If we ignore our spiritual work, we lose our power.\u00a0 Look at the mainline Protestants.\u00a0 They\u2019re good people doing good work and many of them are my good friends.\u00a0 But they\u2019ve become almost exclusively concerned with this-world issues and their numbers and their influence have dropped dramatically<\/a> in my lifetime.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, if we ignore the ordinary world, we leave the running of society to people whose values are at great odds with our own.\u00a0 If we leave business to those who view people as commodities<\/a>, people will continue to be treated like disposable property.\u00a0 If we leave international relations to those who value empire over sovereignty, we will continue to spend billions propping up a declining empire.\u00a0 If we leave laws concerning social conventions<\/a> to those who yearn for the 1950s, the gay, lesbian, and other gender non-conforming among us will continue to be treated as second class citizens.<\/p>\n

My Baptist father used to complain about people who were \u201cso heavenly minded they\u2019re no earthly good.\u201d\u00a0 His Pagan son understands all too well.<\/p>\n

As Pagans, we not only walk between the worlds, we are active in both worlds.<\/p>\n

Each individual Pagan need not be perfectly balanced between the ordinary world and the Otherworld. \u00a0Trying to do that would be as big a disaster as any other time you try to force widely varying individuals into one mold of The Way Things Ought To Be.\u00a0 Just look around the Pagan community.\u00a0 There are Pagans whose primary emphasis is social justice.\u00a0 There are others whose primary emphasis is devotion to the Gods.\u00a0 Some focus on teaching, while others focus on doing.\u00a0 Some try to rally large groups, while others work solely on their own.<\/p>\n

The wider Pagan community needs them all.\u00a0 We need priests and activists, witches and doctors, shamans and auto mechanics.\u00a0 If we are wise, each of us will focus our own efforts on those activities where our skills and interests intersect with the needs of the worlds:\u00a0 the ordinary world and the Otherworld.<\/p>\n

Individually, none of us can fully embody what it means to be Pagan.\u00a0 The good news is that we don\u2019t have to.\u00a0 We only have to do what we\u2019re called to do and support others as they do the same \u2013 even if their Paganism looks a lot different from ours.<\/p>\n

\"07<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Paganism is neither solely concerned with Gods and spirits, nor with social justice and other this-world concerns. A healthy, vibrant Paganism needs both.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1129,"featured_media":3569,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[272],"tags":[681,4,5,143,682],"class_list":["post-3563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-2","tag-otherworld","tag-pagan","tag-paganism","tag-piety","tag-practice-2"],"yoast_head":"\nWalking Between the Worlds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Paganism is neither solely concerned with Gods and spirits, nor with social justice and other this-world concerns. A healthy, vibrant Paganism needs both.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Walking Between the Worlds\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Paganism is neither solely concerned with Gods and spirits, nor with social justice and other this-world concerns. A healthy, vibrant Paganism needs both.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-05-06T23:37:38+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-05-06T23:48:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2015\/05\/07-33-cliffs-600x300.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"300\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"John Beckett\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html\",\"name\":\"Walking Between the Worlds\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-05-06T23:37:38+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2015-05-06T23:48:17+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\"},\"description\":\"Paganism is neither solely concerned with Gods and spirits, nor with social justice and other this-world concerns. A healthy, vibrant Paganism needs both.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Walking Between the Worlds\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"description\":\"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad\",\"name\":\"John Beckett\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"John Beckett\"},\"description\":\"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. Wandering through them gave me a sense of connection to Nature and to a certain Forest God. I\u2019m a Druid graduate of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, the Coordinating Officer of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. I\u2019ve been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals for the past eleven years. I live in the Dallas \u2013 Fort Worth area and I earn my keep as an engineer.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/author\/johnbeckett\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Walking Between the Worlds","description":"Paganism is neither solely concerned with Gods and spirits, nor with social justice and other this-world concerns. A healthy, vibrant Paganism needs both.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Walking Between the Worlds","og_description":"Paganism is neither solely concerned with Gods and spirits, nor with social justice and other this-world concerns. A healthy, vibrant Paganism needs both.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html","og_site_name":"John Beckett","article_published_time":"2015-05-06T23:37:38+00:00","article_modified_time":"2015-05-06T23:48:17+00:00","og_image":[{"width":600,"height":300,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/243\/2015\/05\/07-33-cliffs-600x300.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"John Beckett","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"John Beckett","Est. reading time":"4 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html","name":"Walking Between the Worlds","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-05-06T23:37:38+00:00","dateModified":"2015-05-06T23:48:17+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad"},"description":"Paganism is neither solely concerned with Gods and spirits, nor with social justice and other this-world concerns. A healthy, vibrant Paganism needs both.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/2015\/05\/walking-between-the-worlds.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Walking Between the Worlds"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/","name":"John Beckett","description":"Musings of a Druid, Pagan, and Unitarian Universalist.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/b4c8980dc36f971434424c304ca429ad","name":"John Beckett","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0f50bfa2a79f70103847fe75540bb29c?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"John Beckett"},"description":"I grew up in Tennessee with the woods right outside my back door. Wandering through them gave me a sense of connection to Nature and to a certain Forest God. I\u2019m a Druid graduate of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, the Coordinating Officer of the Denton Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans and a former Vice President of CUUPS Continental. I\u2019ve been writing, speaking, teaching, and leading public rituals for the past eleven years. I live in the Dallas \u2013 Fort Worth area and I earn my keep as an engineer.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/author\/johnbeckett"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1129"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/johnbeckett\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}