I am just wondering how your spiritual and religious beliefs affect your ethics and day to day living. Are there things that you do, or wont do, because you are 'a pagan' (or whatever). As this isn't a rule laden religion with a set of rules we can recognise eachother by I was just wondering how your daily life is affected - is there such a thing as a 'pagan lifestyle', and if your lifestyle is special because you are a pagan (or whatever name you take) tell me *how*.

In answer to my own question and to start the bowl rolling:

I try to live ethically in terms of my impact on the environment, recycling, cloth nappies, eating only a small amount of meat, buying from ethical businesses and charity shops.

I volunteer with an agency helping suididal people a few hours a week and my beliefs have affected my career choices (stay at home mumma to be, and trainee counsellor) because I feel I have found a niche in my role as 'wife/mother/healer'

I don't believe in turning the other cheek - I act when people hurt me or mine, and will act to prevent it if I deem it necessary. Blood, friends, home and hearth are deeply important.

I don't send religious christmas cards, but always choose winter-cards with 'seasonal greetings' or something like that written in.

I try to cook with foods that are in season, and make a special effort to cook meals of traditional foods around the festival times.

I don't know if I'd say that I consciously am "pagan" in my day-to-day living - most times I'm just getting on with it. Like you, I try and live ethically/"green-ly" and have respect for my fellow earth-residents! But I don't know if I'd say that was because I was pagan or just because I would do it anyway!

Conscious Pagan acts are a daily ritual at one of my altars, even if it's just a few minutes to say thank you. The first glass out of every new bottle of wine goes to the Gods in offering, as does the first harvest of the first veg to be picked. I always try and make some offering on a daily basis, even if it's incense or a few flowers or something. I celebrate the turning of the seasons with a special meal etc. Like you, I don't send traditional christmas cards, but try and find ones with holly or something similar. I practise magick, small charms etc to try and ease some things in life. But, things like that are so much part of my "normal" living that I don't really see them as being separate from it in any way.

Yes - me too, and seeing as I do little in the way of formal ritual its hard for me sometimes to really grasp and explain to others what my pagan-identity really is. There are plenty of people who do the things that I do without being pagan.

Thanks for sharing.
Oak

Being more of a Heathen than a Pagan, I just try to follow the words of The Havamal as closely as I can.

That is except for the verse about not trusting women. If I followed that, I'd be a right Billy No-Mates, since most of my friends, and people I trust most are women!

T

Hmmmmm, good question.

Me too Thunarr,lol.
i don't think i would be classed as living too pagan a lifestyle, although like Thunarr here i call myself heathen. Have much happen recently so i think i'm concentrating on healing and getting back on my feet more than learning.
But having said that i do try to be fairly eco friendly, re use as much as poss. Try not to buy from certain companies. One thing i fail on is my diet, it's meat meat n more meat, but i am buying more and more from farmers and local producers, who i know treat thier animals with respect and give them some quality of life.

When taking a drink(way too many sometimes,lol)i usually offer my first to several heathen gods and ask they make sure i don't fall over too much . But thinking about it is there truely anyone who could claim to live a pagan life??, we know only fragments about their day to day lives anyway, so what is a pagan life??.


Lion

I've gone back to basics and now try not to `believe' so much as to feel and experience. I don't have a set of rules and regulations about what I can and can't eat or wear; only intuition and feeling as to what is right and apt.

I think I try and be mindful on a daily basis. I don't practice any formal ritual but see the job as I do in helping people as part my overall belief system. I couldn't do a job I didn't believe in for example like a sales rep for a company purely concerned about profit, etc.

i too try to live greenly, i try to educate my children on environmental issues by us all taking the recylables to the right places. i also try to instill humanistic values such as caring for people in need and respecting other peoples cultures.

In my career choices my pagan beliefs show too; i am an adult tutor, i teach a variety of subjects such as basic I.T. skill, arts and crafts, and an assertiveness confidence building course designed for women.

I dont do any form of ritual either so i too sometimes find it hard to explain to other people how pganism affects my life.

its hard to say in what way my beliefs affect my life because to some extent they affect everything on some level. ands its not easy to pinpoint what would be different if my beliefs were different. if that makes sense

my ritual practice is somwhat erratic, sometimes i can go months without doing any formal ritual and other times i do more, so i suppose at the moment i'm conciously trying to do something regularly that connects me to my lord and lady.

i try to do the non-religious xmas card thing too, recycle what i can, be nice to wildlife (especially when i'm in my car!) etc. etc.

There is little difference between how I live now, and how I was before. I recycle what I can, don't get hung up on the 'I've got have it' thing, and generally just enjoy the simple things in life.

Having said that, there are some things which have changed. Whereas I have always enjoyed nature, I now appreciate it. Whether it be the call of the birds in the early morn or watching the bees busy in the lavender, I now take time to sit and watch, and offer a thank you for such simple pleasures.

I don't think I live the way I do because I'm a pagan... I would live the way I do even if I wasn't - I think! It's hard to know, because I don't know what I would be like if I wasn't a pagan!

I do think there are certain aspects of life (nudity, sex) that I am more confortable with than I would be if I were a Christian or something And as Freebird said, whilst I always enjoyed nature, I perhaps appreciate it more because of being pagan.

I am learning a Heathen path but most of the life changes I have made are not specifically heathen. I try and grow some of my food and recycle where I can and avoid conspicuous consumption and increasing debt. The major thing I have done is teach myself to ride a bike last year so I can commute to work by bike for 7months of the year. I have also cut down on car usage and no longer drive the 5km to work in winter, but take the bus instead.

I guess what everyone is saying, more or less, is that there isn't a 'pagan' or 'heathen' lifestyle - that they things they do would be a part of their life whether they were pagan or not, aside from specific things like ritual and magical practice.

I tend to think of it in the same way as Kaliana - there are things about me that I would be less comfortable with if I was a Christian - things about me that would be unacknowledged by by religion if I was Jewish or a Buddhist, but seeing as I am not, those parts are catered for.

Does that make sense?

Thanks for your answers so far, curious and nosey me has found it really interesting hearing about how you all live your lives (I should get out more, really)

Oak

Couldn't have put it better myself Freebird. When I first started on my path, I tried to keep an additional diary about my practices to the one about my daily life, but the more I progress along it, the more impossible it has become to seperate the two. I don't send Christmas cards - the holiday means nothing to me really, it's just a convenient time to remember those I love and exchange gifts with them, simply because of the secular nature of the holiday.
I agree with DarkCelticLion - what is a Pagan lifestyle? I certainly don't go around smiting my enemies or foraging for food, as much earlier Pagan communities might have.
I just take one step at a time down my path, and all that's really changed is I'm more comfortable with who I am.

Well, I do try to recycle things, though have to say I can be guilty of not doing so when things are hectic/not convenient to do so. I do recycle bottles, glass, newspaper/paper, tin cans, garden rubbish and some household waste. I also send a lot of old clothes to charity, or else designate old shirts/underpants as rags for cleaning.

I try to avoid chemicals in the garden and hope to garden as organically/naturally as possible, encouraging birds and insects (spiders, ants, bees, wasps, butterflies & ladybugs) into the garden to do a lot of the dirty work.

I confess to not cleaning the house from top to bottom every week and feel that a little dust is no big deal to put up with for a short while - though I hate dirty kitchens and bathrooms. For this reason I do not use many in the way of chemical cleaners and do try to find alternative, green ones where I can. I do not buy air freshners of any sort preferring an open window or incense/oil burner.

In politics I am an independent and will vote for the most likely candidate that has the best environmental policy.

I do not send Christmas or Easter cards but Yule/Spring ones - usually that I have designed and made myself, having found it very hard to find non-Christian "Seasons Greetings" ones. I also like to make my own present wrappings from recycled brown paper with decorative ribbon, rather than commercial papers.

I do investigate alternative therapies to health problems, though by the same turn do not dismiss conventional ones either as I believe that both sides have their benefits, and where one's health is concerned no stone should be left unturned.

I do like to cook traditional foods at the feast days.

I guess I am not whole hog pagan as such, but this is a reflection of my living with a non-pagan and I am therefore flexible in what I do do.