I know this sounds terribly naff but all the last week I've just been busting with excitement because the further I travel into Paganism the more I feel that I was born a Pagan. I feel like I was a Pagan when I was a little child. I went and rambled around in some woods at the weekend and I felt like ME again.... after 22 years trying to suppress my true self and be a "good Christian". I've been so sad about the apparent loss of "me" over the last few years and now I understand why I felt like that. I thought my old self was gone forever but it was still there just waiting to be listened to again .

I know, I know, naff and fluffy but I can't help it!!

No worries Moonrising, I know exactly what you mean. I was never baptized, indoctrinated or convinced by Christianity or any of its self-defeating moral schizms. These cannot recognize that no matter where you are, there you are. Indeed, live and explore the being of yourself. There is no one who can do it for you.

Thats exactly how it was for me, like coming home and finally seeing the real me!
So enjoy it, embrace it and as Quas says, enjoy your voyage of re-discovery!

tree xx

Dear Moonrising,



Nothing naff or fluffy about that. A lot of us seem to have found as we got involved in Paganism, we were actually finding a name for something we'd felt in, or even since, childhood. It's rather fine to have a religion that creates its own belief in itself from just living in the world, rather than through all that tiresome business of going around knocking on doors and trying to convert people .

BB,

John Macintyre

It seems to me that with some faiths, people decide on the faith and then shape their beliefs to fit the faith. With pagan religions the beliefs come first and then we find out that the shape fits a certain path or spirituality.

bb
Rhiannon

I can relate to what you are saying on a very personal level. Like you, the more I delve in to this the more I begin to realise that I probably was never a christian to start with (even though I was christened).

Little things seem to emerge about my grandparents, esp my gran - who was always considered superstitious (yay! spelled it right this time) and I begin to wonder whether that was my mother trying to hide something (mum's not religious but she hates anything that walks away from what's accepted by society).

I sometimes think that in some ways we never stopped being a bit pagan anyway as alot of the festivals have been converted in christian faith.

fizzy

Not naff at all. Don't know if I was born a Pagan but I always felt "different" to the christians I was surrounded by (the other children were the worst, nasty pious little beasts). I've struggled with the concept of the christian trinity all my life, but once I started reading about various forms of Paganism everything slotted into place. It was like the penny finally dropped.
I don't know what I beleive yet or what my path is but at least now I know I'm looking in the right places.

Just out of interest, do Pagan children (ie those brought up as Pagans) rebel against their upbringing and become buttoned up little flowers for jesus?
Badger's Moon
xx

PS. Rejoice in your fluffiness! Sometimes fluffy is good.

Dear Badgersmoon,



In my experience, children brought up in Pagan families (which usually doesn't involve being brought up to be Pagans - that's a choice they need to make for themselves when they're big enough and ugly enough to make it) get really, really embarassed by their parents during their teenage years. If their friends think their Pagan parents are vaguely cool, then that merely heaps further humiliation on their heads.

But I don't know of any who've become sunbeam types.

Do know of one child of Pagan parents who became a Christian, but they're a decent, liberal, freethinking, tolerant, downright admirable, Christian who respects Paganism and likes Pagans, so that's alright.

BB,

John Macintyre

Just out of interest, do Pagan children (ie those brought up as Pagans) rebel against their upbringing and become buttoned up little flowers for jesus?
Badger's Moon
xx

Neither of my two have gone down that route. My daughter (18) describes herself as agnostic, but says that if she's ever to be convinced it's more likely to be by paganism in some form than any of the monotheisms. My son (16) now identifies as Heathen - he's always been a lot more interested than his sister. I didn't bring them up as Pagan or Heathen, but it was there and I never hid it from them either. They've both thought it through for themselves and come to their own decisions. We've always talked about religion and belief a lot and I've answered their questions.

I don't think that either of them found me terminally embarrassing (well no more so than any teenager finds their parent embarrassing that is). If they did they were polite enough to hide it quite well. I still go to gigs with my son sometimes and I'm quietly pleased that he still likes my company now that he's old enough to get in on his own!

It's not silly (What is "naff"?)

I think a lot of us here that were brought up christian worked out pretty early that it wasn't for them

Not silly at all! I actually believe all children are born "pagan" or at least with pagan values. Children have a natural closeness to nature and a holistic approach. That seems to bend and stretch as we get older and socialised into whatever culture we belong to.
So, as I see it pagan is the natural way to be and that´s why it feels like coming home.

Blessings
Deerheart

Perhaps the path we later choose was given to us before we were born (our future belief is pre-determined). But it is down to us whether we follow it or do our own thing in later life. We wouldn't necessarily know what path we will choose but might explain why when we do find that right one it seems like "coming home" or it "speaks to us".

Just a thought wandering through an idle brain!

This may be a huge generalisation, but thinking further about it, I would have imagined that children brought up in Pagan households are taught to think for themselves, and so whatever path they choose for themselves is likely to be of a more liberal, open-minded persuasion, be it christian, jedi or what.
Badger's Moon
xx

Now that's an interesting question: do children of pagans become christians?

Well, my son has never believed in christianity - he says god doesn't exist - so I don't think he'll be one of jesus' flock when he grows up.

What's surprising is that since I've told him about my pagan beliefs he has become very interested in the whole pagan thing. (surprising because he's never really had any interest at all before now)

fizzy

I don't think you are being fluffy at all Moonrising. Since finding this forum and reading about all your different paths and beliefs, I have become a much more happier person. Sounds silly, but I feel fullfilled. I actually feel that my beliefs are valid and not silly. I now do not care what other people think about what I think. It makes me happy.


When I spoke to my children about "coming out" as Pagan, they didn't seem surprised. I think I mentioned in an earlier thread, that the only thing that bothered my daughter was whether she would get any presents.

I just asked my daughter if she thinks we are all born Pagan (she is 14) and she said "yes", because she would only have been a Christian if we had taken her to church and told her what she was supposed to believe in. As it is, no one tells her what she should be thinking and she is happy in the belief that one day she will find her own path when it starts to interest her.

My son asked what it all meant, so I just asked what he believed, and he said that there is no way that one being can have made the earth, that there must be lots of gods who have different duties (he has just turned 12). I said in that case, he was a Pagan and he has his own beliefs. My daughter has never believed in "God", but believes in something. I don't push them into anything and they will find their own way.


love
gina
xxx

Any presents for xmas is what I meant to say. Daughter was looking over my shoulder as I was typing and put me off.

I'm sure giving presents is a Pagan custom anyway. The stricter end of peoples like presbyterians and baptist ignore the whole Xmas thing anyway.
BM
xx

they still do that? - interesting - my son and I were studying about the puritans when Oliver cromwell banned christmas - are these the modern day equivalent of puritans then?

love fizzy

Nope I don't think taht sounds fluffy. I think a lot of people look back on their childhood and think.. hey up I was a pagan in waiting.

As a very ickle child about 5, the school wanted to call in the Ed Psych cos I would go around telling everyone I was a witch. Luckily my mum refused and said I was just an imaginative child (but she did hide all my Meg and Mog books).

Q

AWWWW Meg and Mog!!!!!!!
I LOVED them as a child.

My mother used to slap me silly for speaking about the people I saw at night, although my father understood. At least, he maintained he did, and didn't disaprove or tell me it was all imagination.
She also always gave me a hard time for talking to the cats who lived outdoors on my Auntie's croft (stayed there every summer for 7 weeks, Mull) and for wanting to be alone and for reading all the time. Cow.
I reckon I survived my childhood relatively well, considering.
And thank f**** I am now well away from the poisonous attitudes of the bigots, also that I have allowed my own kids to decide their own way of living, faith-wise. Oddly enough, all are atheists, as is the partner ...

Yup. Some of 'em. When I was very little, before I started school, we didn't really have xmas in our house. Thankfully my parents came round a bit once peer pressure kicked in. We weren't brought up to think of xmas as a christian thing in our house, Mum & Dad freely admitted it was a leftover Pagan feast, but somehow they managed to accept it.
A few years ago, long before I'd even begun to consider the possibility of Paganism, I told my Mum I didn't want to celebrate Xmas any more, I was going to call it Yule, and do the eating, drinking to excess, presents, decorating thing, but cut out references to christianity as being hypocritical.
Interestingly she's always backed me on that...
BM
xx

It is interesting how my wee boy (3 and 1/2) is developing his pagan side (despite going to church and having sunday school!) He freely talks about Jesus, but also the goddess(!) with no prompting from us. And he has really taken to the altar in our house and brings in 'special things' from nature to put on it which is very sweet!
My wife thinks I have passed on my innate druid to him!

i so feel better reading this. i have always thought of myself as a little bit different. i have always loved the out doors the open spaces, the way it makes me feel. its as if i have a calling that i am part of nature. my family are religious and i was christend but that was never my choice. as i belive that the path you follow should be one that is part of you, where you feel you should go. and thats the way i am bringing up my children. i have never met a pagan person in my life and am only just starting on my journey.