Helping to plan Yule for my local #pagan group. I am new to this kind of thing. Anybody got a good source for Yule celebrations? Rituals?
@jasod Yule is FILLED with all kinds of rites and rituals you could celebrate with! May I ask what path you study? I may be able to boost you for others that share the same path.
Hi, @jasod
Dunno if you've noticed yet, but there is a small subculture of #CoSoPagans here. Click that tag (the common one we use, as opposed to just #pagans), you should see some posts from some who ascribe to Paganism. And I think @PaganMother got a list recently.
As for rituals, I like to rethinnk them each time, consider the cycle, what meaning it could have for us, what nature teaches me in this time, & where the celebrations may have come from. Then I try writing meaningful words/acts.
@FernLovebond @jasod Yep! #CoSoPagans is basically anyone not in a specific domination of Christianity really. Even got a few Buddhists among us. ^^
Mm, Buddhism comes in a lot of forms, and in the West/Global North it's become deeply secularized. I still use Buddhist practices for my meditation, & live largely by the layperson's vows.
IDK how much I'd include "non-Christian" of w/e kind within Pagan: there's all the Judaic faiths, the Islamic variants, then Hinduism & its offspring (Buddhism, Jainism, Hare Krishna, et al), Zoroastrians, Baha'i, Scientology, & similar nonsense. [Neo]Pagan for me is far more specific.
@FernLovebond
Just for fun, I looked up the etymology of the word Pagan and it just means "of the countryside" or "rural" as does heathen (lit. of the heath lands).
Never knew that till just now!
So in my imagination that means in a religious sense that it's the way of the rural people. I like that. 😁
Especially when you consider how many old rural traditions have been retained in European (and especially British) Christianity.
@stueytheround
Re: retaining pagan traditions in Christianity:
It's actually a great lament to me that Christianity assimilated traditions, altered them to fit the aesthetic of their age. The assimilation which spread the church was often brutal in suppression of native ways, insisting locals obey missionary edicts, reinforced by the local leadership, about celebration of their indigenous traditions.
How much more would we know if they'd simply been allowed to go on?
@FernLovebond
I feel it worth acknowledging that there were two fronts in the "conversion" of British pagans.
The Romans who as you rightly pointed out, subjugated Pagans came to our Eastern shores and spread North, mostly. They arrived in 55BCE and didn't convert until Constantine.
But there is an older way.
Those we call The Celts, converted much earlier through interactions with mediterranean traders in the British South West.
THEY retained more Pagan tradition. 1/2
@PaganMother @jasod
Such folk gladly received the Gospel because it was offered gently and with great respect. They recognised much of their religion in Jesus and were not subjugated, but chose to redirect their traditional practices. Especially with regard to prayer. To this day, those of us who follow a Celtic Christian model still do.
For instance:
I have hearth prayers, kitchen, bedroom and doorway prayers.
I pray the Caim (an encircling prayer).
I venerate nature.
(Ok 2/3)
3/3
Sadly, eventually the Church of Rome took overall control in 664CE when the old Celtic priests were 'defeated' at the Synod of Whitby and brought under the auspicices of Roman Catholicism.
That's when it all went horribly wrong for those who still practiced their ancient religion.
The Romans were 'conquerors' not 'evangelists' and so wiping out traces of old religion was standard practice even before Christianity.
@FernLovebond @PaganMother @jasod
@stueytheround
Mm, that's a really fair point, I'll admit. The "gentler" conversions the church writes of were also much more about manipulating extant narratives to become the Christian equivalents.
Locals have a tradition of kicking around a flaming ball of leaves and hides during harvest celebrations? No, no, that's actually a celebration of Christ's light in the world, & commemorative of St. Florian! It's a harvest celebration honoring the Florian.
¯\_( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)_/¯
@FernLovebond
Kind of.
A lovely piece of evidence of very ancient trade between the far South West of Britain and The Mediterranian is botanical.
The crocus from which we get saffron grows wild ONLY in Cornwall and the tradition of saffron buns continues to this day.
Crocus bulbs were traded by Iberian merchants (Spain ir Portugal nowadays) before the Romans ever even landed!
Also, the Cornish language itself is a form of Breton, one of the 'P Celtic' languages.
@PaganMother @jasod
@stueytheround
Okay, much as I love these anthropology thread hijacks, and you for your passion, I gotta wrap up and sleep.
One other reply, I'll catch you kids tomorrow.
Love to all.
🖖🌿💚
ᓚᘏᗢ
@FernLovebond Yeah.I shoulda made another thread. Sweet dreams, dear friend.
@PaganMother @jasod
@stueytheround @FernLovebond @jasod it's alright knowledge use power!