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Lisa over at Feminist Mormon Housewives posted today on small sins with, “It’s easy to condemn the simply evil, but most people aren’t. Our motivations are complex and our sins are small or necessary or thoughtless or convenient. I’ve never sewn a tiny military uniform, but I’m sure I own things that were produced by child labor. I know I have habits that contribute to global warming.”

In my continuing journey of exploring Christianity and Wicca, this struck a cord in me and probably would in many pagans, since one of the most common reasons for leaving a church and converting to Wicca is how that faith deals with sin. In Christianity, we are forever reminded of how imperfect we are, how we’ll never measure up, how we have to keep striving no matter how tired we are or how hard life has gotten lately. I often feel like the child of over-achieving parents since nothing I do will ever be good enough.

In Wicca, we’re taught that everything we do will come back to us threefold, possibly even in this lifetime, that punishment could be immediate and severe and yet… pagans tend to obsess over their faults alot less than Christians. Since punishment for Christian sin is delayed until after death I had to ask myself why the difference in outlook, logic says it should be the other way around.

The answer seems to lie in how pagans view humanity in general. In Wicca, people are not inherently bad even if imperfect. In fact, in many ways we view our imperfections as opportunities to be individuals. We do try to do what’s right, and self-examination is a huge part of the faith, but we know we’re not going to be perfect and we don’t even try. We just do the best we can, accept responsibility for our faults and the results of our actions (even the unintended ones) and move on.

Given what Christianity often does to self-esteem, I think the Wiccan viewpoint is alot healthier. But going back to Lisa’s post, I agree that we all need to strive to improve and not let apathy or general “busy-ness” keep us from doing this.

Stan asked some very good questions in “How Gods work in Wicca” which I’m going to answer here. The first one I’ll answer is “I see you mention a belief in Satan as well, so what do you believe about him?” First, I don’t believe that Christianity is monotheistic. That principle is very important to the rest of this post. It has a pantheon consisting in the very least of Jehovah the Father, Christ the Son, the Holy Spirit and Satan. Depending on what flavor you’re looking at you can add any number of angels, saints, Mary, etc.

This is based on how “dead” religions are viewed by anthropologists. There were faiths very similar to Christianity, with a “supreme god” and a family of lesser gods around them but no one now calls them monotheistic, although the followers then did so. See this site for details. In all other faiths, the son of God was a God just not the Supreme God.

All that said, I believe in Satan as a God of Evil. I believe Satan is wrong and wants to harm us. I believe he works in direct cross purposes to Jehovah the Father. I believe he’ll use every means at his command to do so as well.

Stan continues, “As I believe that Satan is out to destroy mankind, creating false gods and setting them up to be worshiped strikes me as a very logical thing to do.” And I agree this is very possible and leads right into “The question, then–when one presupposes a belief in a belligerent devil with great skill at deception–is how does one determine which faces and facets of Deity are correct and trustworthy?” Anyone in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints already knows the answer to this, you pray. You ask, you listen, you evaluate the effects on your life, and heath and soul and you keep on praying.

Stan commented on “How God works in Wicca” with the question, “.. what do you think of the idea of a separation God and Goddess, in the sense of “King and Queen,” (a.k.a “The Crown”) where they’re both acting as a single, governing entity, and yet are two, distinct individuals?”

I’m sure that’s very much what happens. I do not think they work to cross purposes at all. An example of this in Wicca is the Wheel of the Year, the Wiccan liturgical calendar, a celebration of the life of the Gods, male and female, and how they compliment each other and work together. One person might relate better to the female aspect and work with it more, where another like myself might do the same with the male aspect but both are generally acknowledged and celebrated and considered equal in power.

They do generally have different attributes and “kingdoms” if you will. Men and women are quite different in general, and the Duality celebrates and finds joy in these differences. The male aspect is generally more celebrated in summer, the female in winter, the male is usually associated with the sun, the female the moon, etc. There are exceptions to this in individual worship but Wicca is nothing if not a highly individualistic faith, which is part of what makes it so challenging.

One of my favorite things about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is their focus on families and the effort they go to as a group to create activities for them. Now, as someone who’s children are grown, I do sometimes feel a bit left out, although never actively excluded but I still think it’s a great thing.

Pagans don’t do as much of this. I think part of why we avoid it is fear. There are still cases where children are removed from the home of pagan parents based solely on the religion of those parents. You see this more in the south, I think, than elsewhere but that it still happens at all is scary for parents, and understandably so.

Another reason is a common belief that religion is something you choose as an adult and that to “indoctrinate” a child into any particular path is a disservice to the child at best, and emotional abuse at worst. While many pagan parents will expose their children to Wicca, many allow the children to say, “No, I’m bored and not interested.” and go do other activities. This is of course something all parents must decide for themselves, but I don’t think it would be a bad idea to create some activities the family did as a group that were based around principles, rather than ritual details.

Lastly, especially in more recent years, paganism is growing more amongst the teen demographic than anywhere else. So many pagans don’t even have children let alone think of ways to involve them.

For those who do, adapting some of the family activities from the LDS Church might be a great idea. For example, LDS Living Magazine has this article about the Godhead. A parent might take that and explain to their kids how they believe that Deity is male and female, or has many aspects. How detailed an explanation you made it would depend on the age of your children. Of course, the first step in any adaptation of this nature will be to determine what you believe to be true. You can’t teach what you don’t have faith in.

From there, you can still use the activity and the refreshment recipes from the article. Kids could clip images from magazines of things the gods created, perhaps parents could even work in the idea of connectivity to all life into that. And what kid, of any age, doesn’t love chocolate? Making them together while you discuss what the gods are gives your kids a reason to want to stay and talk instead of run off and play the Gameboy in the living room.

If your family isn’t used to this kind of thing, the first two or three times you do it will probably be uncomfortable or feel forced but as you continue these kinds of activities, you’re all going to enjoy them more and even look forward to them and I think it’s a great way to teach kids the principles of your faith without indoctrinating them into the rituals and trappings.

Darius099 commented on Deity Concepts, “Creating your own religion? I mean… what for? Seems silly, childish, and altogether not what faith is about to just go and make up something to worship.” If that’s what I was doing, I’d agree completely so let me explain.

First, and foremost, I’m Wiccan and follow one over-riding rule no matter what I do, which practices I choose, how I go about doing things and that is: “An it harm none, do as you will.” This has been the Rede for over a hundred years now and tends to be what defines a Wiccan as a Wiccan.

The second important concept is that most Wiccans believe the God and Goddess are one God and Goddess with many faces and aspects. Some take it farther and say there is one Source to whom the Duality themselves are just different faces. The idea here is that Deity speaks to us in languages we can understand and relate to and so the “face” of Deity changes. Deity itself has no name, no face, is not truly knowable but humans cannot relate to that very well, thus the belief is that it used aspects to interact with humanity.

Once you accept that concept, you move onto “All gods are true.” because all gods are just a different face of the God and Goddess. For me, this includes the Christian gods of Jehovah and Satan and Christ but many Wiccans don’t take it that far and exclude the currently popular pantheon from the aspects of Deity they’re willing to relate to in any way. To be fair to them, many have bitter and unhappy experiences involving Christianity and wouldn’t relate to these aspects well without alot of negative subconscious baggage anyhow.

If all gods are true, then any god I can relate to is the God I can worship, as they’re all same God anyhow. This also holds true for Goddess, obviously. Therefore, choosing which “face” I’m going to use is of great importance as I need to be honest enough with myself and know myself well enough, to be able to choose “faces” of the God that will work for me.

The first step in any new Tradition is to define the focus. Who are you going to worship most of the time anyhow? This very important piece of information defines a great deal of everything else you do – from holidays to colors to attitudes. Well, I always tell people “Google is your friend.” so… I googled “Dragon gods”. Interesting results including one of the best pieces of art I have ever seen. Gorgeous. But for gods themselves, the data was thin as apparently worshipping Dragons isn’t something people have really done much of in history.

As a fan of Dungeons and Dragons, of course some of my first interest was in Bahamut and Tiamat. The writers of the Monster Manual must have had very active imaginations for while they do exist, neither one was historically a dragon. Bahamut was a very large fish who supported the world and Tiamat was the ocean, among other things, but not a dragon. This is not what I’m looking for at all.

I decided to go back to the drawing board and simplify my thoughts a bit, and entered “dragon” into Wikipedia. This turned out to be an excellent idea. Almost immediately, I have results I can use and went to take a closer look at Quetzalcoatl. He has a long, varied history due to cultural changes in the regions where his followers lived. Most importantly to me right now is this, “He was known as the inventor of books and the calendar, the giver of maize (corn) to mankind, and sometimes as a symbol of death and resurrection.” Given my love of education, the inventor of books is an excellent focus and since, up to this point at any rate, my main deity of choice was Anubis, his being a symbol of resurrection works out well, too. Shortcomings? I wouldn’t be interested in doing this halfway so I’d have to look more into learning about the Mayan calendar, symbology, culture, etc. Having already done this once for Egyptian mythology, I’m not sure yet if I’m up to that kind of time investment – something to seriously consider.

As for female dragon figures, there don’t seem to have ever been many of those at all. Almost all dragons in any cultural mythology around the world were apparently male. Well, given I literally went years before discovering Neith in Egypt, this could take awhile.

First, a little history for you. For a few years, I played an online MMORPG called TDZK, that’s since gone into retirement. Nice game, poisoned community. Someone online said (I think it was ProBlogger) “The art of the Internet is the insult.” Those people were virtuosos. You had to learn to write well just to hold your own ground. My boyfriend reads this blog, who incidentally I met through that game and community. He recently commented that my writing had gotten alot better in the last few years. I guess it had to, given how involved I was with the game forums as well as the game itself.

Fast-forward to the present. I was tripping across the internet when I encountered this post by David G who linked us all to a site that will check the reading level of your blog. Well, of course I had to go check it out for myself for Musings of a Housewife, especially after the comments by my better half. Having browsed some of the results David got for a variety of blogs, I expected a reading level of high school perhaps. Imagine my surprise…

I guess it really is a dark cloud that has no silver lining, as this is a result I really like!

Well, I’m sure you haven’t escaped the fact that today is Easter Sunday. But you’re probably clueless to the celebration of Ostara this last week on March 20, the Spring Equinox.

The date of Easter is recalculated every year based on a formula devised by the Catholic Church relevant to the Jewish calendar and the date of Passover. It’s based on the timing of a real world event and our best guess as to its date in history. Ostara is always the Spring Equinox, one of two days of the year (the other being in autumn) where day and night are of equal length.

Easter is a celebration of hope and joy, a day when Christians honor the sacrifice made by Christ that allows them to strive to attain Heaven. In Christian mythology, Heaven wasn’t obtainable after death before this point, just a time of limbo or waiting – it really depends on what sect of Christianity you’re referring to as some think the dead still wait in various states.

Ostara is a celebration of hope and joy, a day when Pagans honor the Gods for continuing the cycle of life that allows them to strive to attain happiness. In many pagan mythologies, although by no means all, the world was in a state of dormancy up to this point and now re-awakens to life and fruitfulness.

They have alot more in common than many in either religion want to acknowledge. There are Christians, Jehovah’s Witnesses being a great example of this, who do see the comparisons but instead of enjoying the similarities and working for understanding, they take the celebration out of the holiday in question, along with a great deal of its joy and happiness. Holidays as celebrated by Jehovah’s Witnesses might well be sacred affairs, but they’re often boring as well. Their choice, I suppose, but I think in many ways they miss the point.

The author of the Book of Mormon project said, “What does it mean to be a Christian? A basic definition is one who follows a Christ-like life. Christ has taught to love one another as I have loved you.” Further emphasizing differences is not an expression of love and caring. So I’m going to ask the Christians who read this site, and there have been a few this week, think about this today. Think about the religions you dislike the most, not just the ones you don’t agree with and ask yourself, “What do we have in common and how can I foster greater understanding and love between myself and the followers of that faith?”

I challenge pagans to do the same, in the spirit of the idea that Ostara is a time of new beginnings and hope and we could all of us use a little more love and light in our lives.

Well, I just finished reading a good starter book, Silver Ravenwolf’s “To Ride a Silver Broomstick”. Not a bad book but definitely a beginner’s tool, it was a good refresher course. But it’s time to move on to something more advanced.

Since I can’t find a coven, “Living Wicca” by Scott Cunningham seems to be a good choice. In this book is a whole section on creating your own tradition. I could probably do this without the book but it never hurts to use it and cover all the bases.

One thing that has drawn me for years is Dragons. I’ve been involved with them by owning figurines, being an active member of an online fan group, editing and publishing a newsletter for that same group. So it makes sense that dragons and dragon magick should be a huge part of anything I do ritually. And it’s definitely going to be the western variety of dragon. Celtic dragons just don’t do it for me. I’ll probably work Chinese dragons in somewhere, but as Elder advisors perhaps, not real totems of power. Their wisdom is undeniable but they don’t thrum many of my subconscious mental strings.

I already use dragons as elemental guardians when circle casting. Water, earth, air and fire dragons all guard my watchtowers every ritual now. It’s not that large a step to include them more and seek doing more work with them in other ways as well.

For God/Goddess archtypes… I don’t know. I’ve followed Anubis so long, had him looking over my shoulder, challenging me to grow, that I don’t know if I’ll change that at all.

Note to self: this is a great site for dragon art. Print it out, color it, paint it, do something with it.