I’m religious, not spiritual.

I used to be fond of the phrase “I’m spiritual, not religious.” It seemed like a good way to indicate that I was interested in spirituality, but not Christianity specifically. At a certain point, I realized it was a huge problem for me to use that phrase, or to use “religion” to refer to Christianity …

What I learned this month (about hymn-writing, mostly)

Note: this post contains animated gifs. Setting out to write 30 hymns in 30 days didn’t feel like a super-ambitious goal, initially. I mean, it was a bit daunting, because I’d never written hymns specifically before, but the idea of writing something every day wasn’t scary (even if it was poetry). I figured it wouldn’t be …

30 Days of Hymns, Day 9: hymn round-up and reflection on my progress

Let’s start with the reflection. It didn’t take long for me to fuck this up in some way. The first three days were great. I got up, got coffee, and made my first priority writing the hymn of the day. I did well, as those prompts were easy for me to get into. Day 4, …

Imbolc and the 30 Days of Hymns project

Happy Imbolc, or Lughnasdh/Lammas if you’re in the Southern Hemisphere! I finished up Imbolc Advent last night before I went to sleep (so, 10:30am), and tonight I’ve got a few Imbolc projects I want to tackle. 1, writing on this blog and my Brighid blog-shrine. 2, cleaning the kitchen. (It’s yikes!ariffic.) 3, changing the hearth …

Places where the gods are NOT

So I was thinking about my wording in my post from the other day, about how my faith has helped me in difficult times: In my faith I’m well aware that the gods are not omnipotent, nor omniscient. (Omnipresent? maybe, but not in the way it’s usually meant when speaking of any particular deity, I …

30 Days of Paganism: Places of spiritual significance

There are two types of “place” that I’m going to talk about here. One is a general type of place. The other is a specific spot in the world that I’d like to make pilgrimage to. General types of places Rivers Why: A few main reasons. Rivers are associated not only with Brighid and (tangentially) Manannan …

30 Days of Paganism: Any “secular” pastimes with religious significance, and why

I do have some secular pastimes that have, over time, acquired religious significance. Knitting/Crochet For the longest time it was just a way for me to carry on family traditions, and I loved doing it. At some point I got the lightbulb that it was Brighidine work, and it turned out I’m not the only …

30 Days of Paganism: My ways of worship

You are the hole in my head You are the space in my bed You are the silence in between What I thought and what I said You are the night time fear You are the morning when it’s clear When it’s over you’re the start You’re my head, you’re my heart No Light, No …

30 Days of Paganism: The meaning of terms like “earth-based” and what they mean to this path

Ah, this old chestnut. The idea of pagan religions all being “earth-based” is actually a pretty persistent myth. As in, it’s not true, yet it’s the thing that comes up most often when people are trying to explain paganism to the layman. Of course, you need to actually examine what people mean when they say …

30 Days of Paganism: Pantheon — Hellenic Gods

I don’t honor all the gods of the Hellenic pantheon. There’s some evidence that They prefer you take the pantheon as a whole, but I have a geas on me from my Father that I shall have no interaction with Poseidon, unless I am absolutely forced into a situation where it is unavoidable — at …