Nowadays the word pagan has come to mean someone who sees the spirit within nature and follows the cycles of the seasons, the moon and the sun. They regard all plants, animals, and even humans as sacred and divine, believing that there’s a bit of the divine in every corner of the earth. The God and Goddess are often symbols used to personify the great, unknowable energy that makes the seasons turn and brings life to the world. Pagans often believe that the image of a God and Goddess represent a harmony and balance of opposites within the universe, i.e. light and dark, male and female, similar to the concept of yin and yang. The real root of paganism though is the respect and love for our mother earth, Gaia.
Paganism is also about respecting all of us including our different outlooks on life or religious beliefs. You could follow a conventional formal religion or have no particular formal beliefs yet still follow the pagan way of life. Paganism itself is not a religion, it is more a way of living your life and respecting and loving our earth.
You do not have to live in the countryside to be close to nature and follow a pagan path. There is beauty all around us every day: feeling the rain on your face, noticing the starlings squabbling for food, observing blackberries ripe for picking at the side of the road, and seeing the wonders of the sky at night. We are very blessed to be on this earth and should look after and appreciate its myriad of wonders.
There are many different forms of Paganism, Wicca and ‘neo-paganism’, and I couldn’t possibly do justice to them all, there are many sites which are extremely informative, some of which I have listed in the links section.
Paganism is about picking the path that is right for you, listening to your inner self and feeling in your heart where your own spirituality is leading you.
