{"id":140,"date":"2016-08-11T11:20:41","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T19:20:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/tempest\/?p=140"},"modified":"2017-07-25T07:54:42","modified_gmt":"2017-07-25T15:54:42","slug":"experiencing-the-gods","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/tempest\/2016\/08\/experiencing-the-gods.html","title":{"rendered":"Experiencing The Gods"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I will openly admit that I have some baggage originating from my Catholic upbringing \u2013 despite having some pretty radical\/forward\/progressive concepts instilled upon me by my parents (and their mixed religion marriage) and certain Catholic school teachers over the years. \u00a0It mainly involves my hackles getting raised when people insist on dictating about practice and what my relationship to the Gods should<\/em>\u00a0apparently be.<\/p>\n

\"Self
Self Portrait by the author, circa 1999.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I have previously mentioned<\/a>, at a very early age I did not respond well to the idea that only someone else (particularly endowed with a sacred, yet supposedly inactive penis)<\/em> could talk to God and perform the rites. \u00a0I got straight A\u2019s in all of my religion classes, was thoroughly familiar with the Old\u00a0and New\u00a0Testaments, but it still did not make any sort of logical or spiritual sense to me. \u00a0I felt a deep sense of spiritual longing, but for all my appreciation of the rites and stories surrounding Mary, it felt like I was standing in a kiddie pool with barely any water in it trying to cool off,\u00a0while\u00a0there was a hidden ocean looming nearby.<\/p>\n

In my teens, I searched for that ocean, and pretty much fell into it backwards \u2013 or perhaps more precisely, it found me. \u00a0Rather than swallowing me up whole and drowning me, this ocean taught me how to swim in it, showed me how to ebb and flow with it, and work with its requests. \u00a0And to clear up the metaphor, that ocean was the Gods I work with, and They instructed me on how to work with Them. \u00a0They continue to reveal, to guide, and to inspire two decades latter as I change, and the world around me changes.<\/p>\n

One of those revelations I received early on is\u00a0the concept of the Self Divine. \u00a0That is, within us all is a thread that connects our physical bodies, our conscious self (the mind), and our spirit selves. \u00a0The spirit self in particular is connected to a larger weaving \u2013 our connection to the Divine, and in itself, that thread is divine. Therefore, within us, part of us is an element of the Gods. \u00a0This is a major element within the Modern Tradition<\/a>, and I also later found that the Feri Tradition also has a similar structure for explaining it.<\/p>\n

I could talk more about the Self Divine\u00a0for many more pages, but I bring it up here as my basis in understanding that we are not separate from the Gods. \u00a0We can prepare ourselves better to work with Them, but we are not innately impure or unclean if we already contain a part of them within us. \u00a0To suggest otherwise starts to toe the line of saying that we are separate and unconnected from Them. \u00a0To argue about who is more pure to engage the Gods makes me extremely wary that the matter has a lot more to do with prejudice than piety, othering each other more than anything else.<\/p>\n

Which brings us to the question of what ARE the Gods? Well, the Gods created us. \u00a0But also, we created Them. Both are true. It\u2019s my favorite chicken\/egg example. \u00a0They help me connect to the world, understand it better, and guide me on my path. \u00a0But it\u2019s also clearly apparent that They need me (us) as well \u2013 whether that\u2019s through feeding Them energy through rites, rituals, and other devotional acts, or it\u2019s because They require us to do things in the physical world for a variety of reasons. It\u2019s a symbiotic relationship, one of give and take, and working together.<\/p>\n

Thinking back to the atom I drew<\/a> while John Beckett talked about starting community by putting the Gods at the center<\/a>\u00a0at Many Gods West last weekend. \u00a0I\u2019m not sure if John meant it to be taken so literally, and I do believe I understand the various levels he meant by that phrase, but that aforementioned baggage came rising up again as I thought about it. \u00a0In my head, that puts the Gods as the nucleus of the atom, and we as humans the electrons circling Them. \u00a0But the more I considered the atom and the Gods, you can\u2019t have a functioning atom without all of the parts, they are ALL important. \u00a0And what if WE are the nucleus and the Gods are the electrons keeping us in balance and causing shifts in our awareness? \u00a0We could argue who is which part, but the end result is: together we make up the atom. \u00a0How stable it is depends on its orbit and the atoms around it. \u00a0We must also recognize the Divine in others to achieve balance and understanding, and there are many different kinds of atoms out there.<\/p>\n

\"atom\"Which gets us to one more parcel of baggage for me. \u00a0Devotion. \u00a0When I think of \u201cdevotion\u201d and \u201cdevotional\u201d, the image that comes to mind is of the\u00a0old Italian women sitting in their solitary pews at my Grandparent\u2019s church in Philadelphia, reciting the rosary. \u00a0All together, yet all alone, relying on ritual for comfort and peace, in the place of their God\/s, yet separate from Them. \u00a0If we look at the definition of devotion, it can be \u201clove, loyalty, or enthusiasm for a person, activity, or cause\u201d as well as \u201creligious worship or observance.\u201d \u00a0I would have to lean towards the first definition if I am to find personal connection with it, because of one primary fact:\u00a0I don\u2019t worship the Gods.<\/strong> \u00a0I am devoted to my partner, but I don\u2019t worship them. Similarly, I have an intense and intimate relationship with the Gods, but that relationship is not defined by being separate from them or connection only through specific rites. They are ever-present, whether I\u2019m in the middle of a ritual or driving to the grocery store. (Talk about backseat drivers\u2026) \u00a0<\/em>You can argue semantics (because it is), but the meaning in those particular words can\u2019t express the relationship for me<\/em>. \u00a0And They would be sure to let me know if something \u00a0is or isn\u2019t working for Them \u2013 as I am also in the position to inform Them of the same.<\/p>\n

Which is why I feel the best word to sum up my relationship with the Gods is that I experience Them, and They I<\/strong>. The details involved in that experience are defined and set by Us. \u00a0It cannot be judged or determined by anyone else. \u00a0And as we create the Gods as They create us, each experience is going to be different for every individual. \u00a0I think that truth is something that everyone should keep in mind as they walk their path. \u00a0Listen and you will hear Them.<\/p>\n

(I also realize to some, that most or all of what I just wrote here is a heaping load of blasphemy. \u00a0 You can speak\u00a0<\/em>of your experience, I can speak of mine. \u00a0In the end, I\u2019m a Witch regardless and that works fine for Them.)\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I will openly admit that I have some baggage originating from my Catholic upbringing \u2013 despite having some pretty radical\/forward\/progressive concepts instilled upon me by my parents (and their mixed religion marriage) and certain Catholic school teachers over the years. \u00a0It mainly involves my hackles getting raised when people insist on dictating about practice and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2676,"featured_media":141,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,12,13,14],"tags":[18,19,26,88,27,89,7],"class_list":["post-140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-metaphysics","category-modernpractice","category-myth-and-folklore","category-tradition","tag-god","tag-gods","tag-pagan","tag-polytheism","tag-polytheist","tag-self-divine","tag-witch"],"yoast_head":"\nExperiencing The Gods<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I will openly admit that I have some baggage originating from my Catholic upbringing - 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