This is the post I had originally intended to follow my intro post.  It’s the one in which I attempt to make some sense for myself of what works for me out of the many ways Pagans think about and interact with the Divine.  Coming from a Catholic background and having a pretty analytical mindset in general, often I try to categorize and tidy things up too much.  But during my recent months of exploring Paganism, I have found delight in discovering that there is no such thing as neat and tidy in describing many Pagans’ spirituality.   There’s a bumper sticker I’ve seen every so often that says something like “My karma ran over your dogma,” which, years ago, I found to be merely a clever play on words.  Now that I am a recovering Catholic walking the Pagan path, I see the sentiment in a whole new light, and with a little editing I have (figuratively speaking) pasted that bumper sticker on my consciousness.  In my mind it now says, “My karma ran over your MY dogma,” a little reminder to myself that I am no longer constrained by institutional rules for being in touch with the Divine, while at the same time acknowledging that other spiritual paths (including Catholicism–I know many wonderful Catholics!) are right for some others.

So, I know what I have departed from (Catholicism), but I’m not as sure I’ve arrived anywhere else yet.  I find this both unsettling and exhilarating.  At times in my earlier years, I took great comfort and pride in knowing Catholic theology and practice well enough to teach it (I am a former Catholic school religion teacher), but now, as I enter middle age, I am seeing things in a different way.  I’m tempted to call it my midlife crisis, except that this has such negative connotations.  I’ve heard that the Chinese ideogram “crisis” is made up of two other ideograms meaning “danger” and “opportunity.”  (According to a University of Pennsylvania professor of Chinese language and literature, however, this is not really accurate, nor is the use of “ideogram” really correct in referring to Chinese characters.  For more information, please see http://www.pinyin.info/chinese/crisis.html .)  Regardless of whether or not the Chinese character for crisis actually conveys a sense of opportunity, I see my own midlife spiritual crisis as being a time of opportunity.

I see that I’ve wandered pretty far afield from my original intent, which was to try to give some sort of definition or description of my spiritual location.  I know that if I wrap this post up without having done that, I will either be preoccupied by it while doing other things, or I soon will be back at my computer doing another post on it anyway, so to meet my own need for efficiency (I have a lot to do today!), I am going to finish up by describing my location right now in the Pagan world as solitary and eclectic but with leanings toward hedgecraft.  I see Divine Energy in every aspect of nature, and I  view my body as a temple of Divine Energy (admittedly, a temple, which at this point needs more nurturing–but that is a subject for another post. . .).