A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Now Playing: Forest of Hope – Pikmin | Jazz Cover (insaneintherainmusic)

Paganism as a religion is incredibly varied. Much of the reason for this, in my opinion, is because the word “pagan” as we use it today is an umbrella term for many distinct pre-Christian European religions, as well as the modern practice of these religions being reconstructed from what little we know of these ancient cultures, most of which comes from outside observers.

These religions also didn’t have a centralised holy text or doctrine, and if there was a governing body, they were either forcibly converted to another religion (Christianity, in most cases) or killed for non compliance. Many of the cultures around these religions also didn’t have a writing system that they used in every day life. If they did have a writing system, it was often reserved for ceremonial use. Many of these cultures were oral cultures, telling their stories to the next generation continually for centuries.

Having so few first hand accounts on these pre Christian religions makes it this weird mix of mostly second hand accounts, each one with its own kind of bias. While most modern pagans take this into account when looking at these second hand accounts, many non-pagans will assume that these second hand accounts and biased retellings are things that we take as real, actual holy texts, kind of like how Christians so often take the Bible as a real, actual holy text and many of them take it very literally, despite the fact that most versions of the Bible that are in circulation now are translations of a translation (looking at you, Creationists).

The flaw in that observation of pagans is that the vast majority of us don’t take the texts that we have concerning the old religions as holy texts or as fully factual information that has no errors ever. We, as modern pagans, generally look at these texts the same way a historian would look at an account written by a winning general of some war 400 years ago. There is some truth to the accounts, and there are some things that are correct about what happened, but there’s also a certain degree of bias that needs to be accounted for, since the person looking on from the outside might want to paint the other group in a specific light. So, we look at multiple sources and try to find what is the same and what is different between these different sources, in hopes of trying to figure out what the case actually was.

As a result of a lack of information on the old religions, we don’t really have much to go off when it comes to how to revive and reconstruct the religion in any sort of centralized way. This lack of centralisation in the reconstruction efforts leads to a lot of individuality and nuance in practice.

Having such nuance in practice means that each person will connect to the religion in their own way. Some will connect through specific ritualized practice with specific prayers and specific offerings on the major high days. Others connect through general worship on the high days and sporadic worship otherwise, often taking small moments to connect with the gods through nature and small acts of devotion in whatever way feels best to them.

With this lack of first hand information and diversity in modern practice, figuring out one’s own practice can be very overwhelming to new pagans, especially when the majority of the practices that are seen online are from people who may be more established in their life, often with a full time job or a respectable following online. This can cause a bit of a disparity between most pagan resources online and individual practitioners who may not have that same stability in their lives. This is even more apparent when considering that many of the pagans that I know in real life are in university or have just graduated, and may not have the time to practice in a very structured and organized way, between classes, homework, assignments, and maybe even a part time job.

All things considered, asking for advice on how to practice as a pagan is not a bad thing. Trying things and figuring out what works is probably the best thing that anyone can do when the religion is as varied in methods of worship as this. Religion, especially paganism, is an intensely personal experience, and should be treated as such, but asking for advice is never a bad thing. If you’re confused or you don’t know how to do something, asking other pagans for advice is probably the best thing you can do, since they may think of something you never did.