Pagan Wrimos!
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Pagan Wrimos!
Hey everyone! Any Pagans doing NaNo this year??
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Oh, I can't edit my post! So I'll reply to it instead. Introducing myself!
I'm a Heathen and a religious Hedgewitch, practising for about 11 years now. :D
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Merry Meet and Blessings.
Just popping in to say hello again this year and thank you guys for mentioning the Cauldron Cafe thread. :-) I'm busy this week with a brand new granddaughter but will be in full swing after the 25th.
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Happy Pagan here. First time doing NaNo. Been a pagan for 10 years+. Worked in Countryside Managament so learnt a lot from that and it just makes more sense to me! Im not writing a pagan themed book so to speak for this nano, but an Iron Age king story as this is also a speciality.
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Merry meet, I'm a hedge Pagan with druidic leanings.
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I'm actually newly dedicated Pagan Writing Witch when we're entering NaNo this year. I'm gonna self-dedicate on Samhain.
Nice to meet you! :)
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I dedicated on a Samhain too, many years ago now :D I think it's a good time for it.
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really? That's cool! Someone told me Samhain wasn't good for dedication, that I shuold wait 'till Yule, but I can't wait. For me It's important to do it at Samhain.
Are you gonna write about something Pagan-ish?
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Oh man. Honestly, you can find any reason why one holiday "is good" or "isn't good" for dedication. I've heard that self-dedication is best at Samhain, at Yule, at Litha, at Beltane, on a full moon, on a new moon, and everything in between. It's all absolutely superfluous. The gods don't care when you dedicate, only that you do. When you feel it's the right time, then it's the right time. Witches don't make a witch; the gods make a witch. At least, that's how I feel.
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I disagree. There are plenty of atheist witches. Gods don't necessarily have much of anything to do with witchcraft, and I say this as a religious witch.
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Hm, perhaps I just meant under the context of Wicca. I forget sometimes that some witches do not believe in anything, haha.
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Lady Noble, Samhain is perfect for dedicating because it's the pagan New Year's Eve, the begnning of the calendar that takes you through the eight high holidays: Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Spring Equinox, Beltaine, Summer Solstice, Lughnasad, Fall Equinox, and then starting over again with Samhain. (What you call these holidays—and how you spell their names—may vary, of course.)
Thanks for starting this thread, Cadaverine! I'm a 56 y.o. retired doctor currently living in Maryland (near DC). I dedicated (my coven at that time call it "initiation") on Samhain in 1987. My religion is a mix of neopagan flavors: My most recent affiliation was a long period in a mostly Celtic-focused druid grove, but that grove fell apart (as all pagan groups do, sooner or later) in 2009. So I guess I'm a solitary now, but I do go to the occasional holiday ritual held by a druid grove in Baltimore.
Anyone here who worships Hindu deities? They're part of the great IndoEuropean family, of course, so even my druid grove didn't consider them out of place in pagan rituals. I have a statue of the goddess Durga (warrior w/ ten arms, rides a tiger) on my writing desk. =smile=
Fiona
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There's a certain amount of Hinduism in Romani traditions and such, Shaktism is a big deal, so I have a statue of Shakti, called Sati-Sara, as the goddess of fate and leader of the vursitorja. I have a little coin of Vayu, which is kept in my purse so the winds draw money too it, and a little statue of Parvati that belonged to my mother -- that's on my writing desk too.
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Noble: What that time of year means to you and what the holiday you celebrate symbolises to your dedication is not for other people to say ;) It was the right time for year for me for a variety of reasons and it may well be the right time of year for you, so go for it. For me it's not New Years, but it was still the right time to hold it.
I don't write Pagan-themed novels - or at least I haven't yet. I tried it once but the idea wasn't workable, and it would have become preachy. I'd hate for something to become preachy. So I tend to leave religion out of it entirely.
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I'm a new Wiccan - Ostara was my first Pagan Holiday, although I have felt for the past 30 years that a church is just a building full of people and that my "church" was to be found out in Nature - that it doesn't matter where or how you worship, but how you carry yourself in life. I am currently reading Celtic Myth and Magick. I have been mostly reading on my own but will be starting classes in town soon.
I don't know enough about Wicca yet to feel comfortable including it in my novel
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Ohhh... by Edain McCoy? I wouldn't. She's not the world's best author, particularly on Celtic stuff. (She thought they had potatoes. There's even a website dedicated to debunking her.)
Unfortunately many MANY books in the Pagan world contain awful amounts of misinformation. Edain McCoy is one of the poorer authors. Others to avoid are DJ Conway and Silver Ravenwolf. Starhawk's "Spiral Dance" is one of the worst books ever. Just letting you know ahead of time, just in case, because these books are all over the place - the poorer the information the easiest it is to find, unfortunately. The Pagan publishing world is full of bad information, cultural and religious misappropriation (including tacking the word "Wicca" onto anything and everything) and even racism and bigotry. Generally speaking, it's best to avoid stuff published by Llewellyn, though other publishers aren't guilt-free in these areas and there are a few Llewellyn gems.
Just read critically ^_^ That's really the key.
Check out "Witches' Bible" by the Farrars, "Wicca: the Old Religion in the New Age" by Vivianne Crowley and the works of Gardner himself for good sources on Wicca ^_^ I've also heard great things about Deborah Lipp.
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Thanks for the advice! I always try to take whatever I read with a grain of salt - I like to be open-minded and come to my own conclusions.
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Ditto on these writers. (Though I consider Douglas Monroe's "The 21 Lessons of Merlin" to be among the worst.)
For Celtic information, I usually prefer the likes of Alexie Kondratiev's "The Apple Branch" and some older historical stuff, though they aren't as easy to read.
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Haha omggg the 21 Lessons of Merlin! That one's famous it's so awful. That essay about it is hilarious.
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I'm also pagan, with hints of druidry, elements from wicca, and an interest in the fae. I've been officially pagan for about 6 or so years, and am a solitary, as there's not many pagans in the far north of the Highlands of Scotland.
nice to meet you all!
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Except for location in the world, I could almost have written this word for word!
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I'm a chaote. I've been on the pagan path for 14years ish.
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thanx to all you ppl answering me. It's difficult, cause it's so much in this religion.
I'm christian as well, so I think that leavs me as an eclectic witch.
I'm starting my own coven by my self. I want to be a soitary, cause for me this is very personal.
But I love to talk about it with others online. In RL I think it's difficult to talk about it, cause if you say "I'm a witch" here in Norway, you'll just end up with ppl laughing at you.
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Oh! Why celebrate Samhain if you're a Christian, then?
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I'm seeing my self as an eclectic. So for me that means I'm both Pagan and Christian. That also means I'm choosing parts from both religions.
I've always felt it good to celebrate both pagan/wiccan holidays and christian holidays.
Actually the holyday i'm celebrite that's christian is just christmas.
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There are usually Christian holidays held at a similar time to, and sharing cultural similarities with, some Pagan holidays. You could celebrate All Hallows instead. I am just curious...
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Let's just say I follow my heart. THat's the strongest spirit in me.
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Celtic xtianity was formed very early on when the pagan europeans took christianity into its own activities and rites. To counteract this Monks, such as Boniface, around 6th century, were sent out from the early vatican and told to convert the pagans. Boniface showed his god was stronger than the pagan gods by cutting down the trees that grew in the pagan temples.
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Horrible things. And this sort of thing still goes on! There are poor people whose shops and herms are desecrated even now. We can only hope that people become more understanding and learn to respect the holy places of others.
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I'm an Australian eclectic witch, practicing for 8 years now (how time flies!). I later founded a coven with some like-minded pagans and the coven has just celebrated it's 5th birthday last Ostara, which is Sept 21st-ish for us -Southern Hemisphere = Sabbats are adjusted by 6 months. Makes reading most pagan books interesting, since you have to keep adjusting the dates in your head. Otherwise you find yourself trying to celebrate Yule in 35°C/95°F weather!!
I've never included my religion -or even religious themes of any sort -in my stories. The story ideas I've come up with just haven't ever focussed on it.
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Lord! isn't that annoying? I'm in New Zealand and I can't bloody stand it when a NH book completely disregards anything about the SH. They'll conflate deosil with clockwise without realising the sun goes the other way across the sky for us! It's just so thoughtless.
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...I actually did not realize that the sun went the other way around the sky in the Southern Hemisphere!
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Nor me, I mean the earth spins one revolution per day, and it does a circle around the sun in a year. The bottom of the earth, south, goes in the same direction as the top, so I can't get my head round the sun going in a different direction unless, because the orbit of the earth is in line with the sun at the level of the equator, those in the south look up, whereas we in the north look down on it?
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That's more or less how it works. The sun is in the northern half of the sky, so moving from east to west, it appears to be travelling anticlockwise.
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Hi all!
I'm Anjirika. I'm 23 years old and I've been a practising (though not always regularly) greco-roman witch since 2001-ish. Vesta is my patron goddess and I'm bound to throw in a few pagan references in my regency romance novel, though I'm not so such it'll fit.
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hello everyone,
my name is Lorna and I'm a pagan.
I (like others in this thread) dedicated on Samhain, ten years ago. I'm a solitary witch (and not as active lately as I should be, maybe...) and I'm from California.
In a funny sorta of way, paganism does affect my writing. I don't address it as such but writing does make me feel closer to the Goddess and reading all the different myths out there does give me a lot of inspiration.
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Hey. *waves* I'm Aneith (virtual cookies to whoever can figure out why). I'm sort of pagan and the reason I say sort of is because I'm also sort of agnostic and I don't actually follow any particular religion. I believe in the otherworld and I believe in faeries (which I have wider definition than most for). To get into any further detail would be a very long post.
It's nice to meet you.
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Yay to my pagan people! Shout out what what! :D
Pagan since I was 14. Self-initiated self studied and a writer to boot! :D I have a fannish personality (aka fangurl to a lot of things...)
Lets get this party STARTED!
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Is anyone celebrating a holiday at the beginning of November? I have three XP
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Found the group. Very happy now. I am among friends.
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Hi AnnNoE! :D
I hope so. There are always sooo many arguments and disagreements in Pagan threads, lol... I'd like to keep the frith in this place.
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I am a tolerant person who believes life is way too short and everyone is entitled to their own peace. There is nothing really worth agruing about. We each believe what we believe.
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I don't really agree entirely, but there are better places and better times for the airing of grievances than the NaNo forums.
As a Heathen, I do occasionally get grief from Pagans who insist everyone should follow their system of morality, "harm none" or some law of return or something. And of course as a Heathen it upsets me when people misuse the sacred and powerful Mysteries that are the runes.
So it goes both ways. One tries to keep both frith and honour ;)
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I have heard of such differences, and I find it sad. I believe no group has the right to impose their beliefs on another or to claim their's is the only way. I left Christianity because of that (among other things). BTW, I am fascinated by the runes and desire to learn more. Any good sources?