Just somebody.

I’m just somebody. I find it hard to stick a label on myself.

Anyone can call themselves a pagan. The label says very little about you other than that you are unhappy with the confining effects of major religious traditions and want to find a way that means more to you personally. It doesn’t even mean that you are anti- established religion. In fact it seems to me that a lot of the pagan type traditions nowadays are derivative of established religion, though some people argue that it’s the other way around.

Traditions can be based in witchcraft, Norse myth, Druidry, Kabbalah or shamanism, amongst others. If you don’t know which one to go for, you can call yourself an ‘eclectic’ and dabble where your interest takes you. This doesn’t make you a bad person, though it might not take you as far as you, in the first rush of enthusiasm, envisioned that you would go.

I have been interested in ‘New Age’ writings for some years. When I moved to Eastbourne and started to look for like-minded people, I found ‘pagans’. I thought they would be similar, until I came across the term ‘fluffy’ on the internet.

Apparently, New Age is synonymous with Fluffy, and means somebody who claims to know a lot on the basis of having read a book or two. It means people who espouse the ideals of love and light, and refuse to acknowledge the dark side of life. It means people who like pretty labels such as ‘Silver Unicorn Moonshadow’. People who believe things without testing them out. Well, we all have our fluffy moments, I’m afraid. I still have an attachment to channelled writings. I still hold to the ideals of love and light.

I do read books. I think books and the internet are the greatest gifts of this age. You can find out anything anybody else has written about. You can share so much knowledge that if knowledge was all it needed to become enlightened, there would be no excuse for any of us. But besides books, we need each other. Being with people, feeling that you matter to each other, is what makes any path worthwhile.

The people involved with Eastbourne Pagan Circle are no better and no worse than anybody else. Even the Quakers are bitchy and fall out with one another, so you can’t expect us to be all sweetness and light, even those of us who profess to it. Personally, I feel that you can only make something better if you engage in it. Communication is often difficult because our emotions get in the way, but I believe we have to try anyway. I would go further and say that the sole reason for being in a group – any kind of group – is to learn to work together.

My other influences are….Christianity, anthroposophy, spiritualism, shamanism. I have tried to gain access to non-physical realities by various means, but what it comes back to is lack of application, plus cowardice. I would love to see nature spirits, commune with my Guides, and help my fellow humans in some astonishing mystical manner. I may well never do any of these things. Never mind.

Julia

Oct 2006