autumn twilight

What being pagan means to me.

Recently my father asked me what I meant by pagan. He asked me what a pagan is. I’m used to fielding these sorts of questions. I’ve been a public figure in the pagan community for years now, and I get asked questions like that regularly.

I usually answer that a pagan is someone who’s spiritual life is focused on the concept of immanent divinity. A pagan is someone who realizes that the earth and all it’s creatures have some measure of Spirit or Soul, and that God/dess can be found in nature. If our discussion is longer I will say that pagans are most often pantheistic or polytheistic. Pagans in general live by one or both of two primary ethical tenets. They strive towards the ideal of ‘doing no harm,’ or towards a principle of balance with the world around them.

I gave my father the same answers I’ve given so many questioning people. Pagans often practice some form of magic and divination. They believe that symbolic reality has the power to change actual reality, or at least actual reality as they perceive it. Pagans rarely acknowledge a single spiritual authority; by virtue of divine immanence, all paths to recognizing divinity have intrinsic value and place.

It was clear my father doesn’t really get it. He’s kind of practical that way. He’s agnostic. He is a kind of scientist and academic in his own way. Of course he has no qualms about telling my mother not to leave the house on x day because he has a bad feeling, or dreamt something bad. There is an inherent conflict there, that I suspect has more to do with my fathers adoration of skepticism than any true disbelief of the principles I espouse.

But My father got me thinking. Paganism is a broad stroke category. It encompasses religious and spiritual practices so diverse that our community can’t even agree on a definition of what is and is not paganism. As much as I hate it, the best test of what is or is not paganism is a negative test. Is the religion abrahamic? Is it revelationary? Is it Ascetic? Is it purely contemplative, not seeking divinity at all? If the answer is no to all of these questions, what you’re dealing with is probably pagan of some variety.

But with that, every pagan brings their own world view, their own understanding of things to their experience. And this wild variety of people and ways of life brings a challenge to the pagan community. It is difficult for the pagan community, and I use the term lightly, to bond deeply. Differences of opinion are common place, and pagans, like people of all other lifestyles, can rarely accept that other peoples beliefs are as valid as their own, and even less often agree to disagree.

So paganism is divided. We have more religious sects than any other religious classification, primarily because every time there is a disagreement there is the potential for schism, and the pagan community schisms regularly. Unlike religious classifications that are bound together by a common book, or law, or belief in a single unifying principle, pagan organizations schism easily, and suddenly there are two denominations where there were once one.

So what does it mean to be a pagan? I can’t speak for anyone else. This is what it means to me.

Being pagan means living your life with simple reverence for the immanent divine in all things.

Being pagan means communing with yourself and acting rightly according to your own ethical standards.

Being pagan means accepting that your path is not the path for everyone, and that all journeys to the divine are equally valid and sacred.

I could add a lot more things here, but they don’t mean as much, and they aren’t quintessentially pagan to my mind. So it is.