But what of the stars?

Courtesy of NASA - a photo of Jupiter taken by
New Horizons

Like many of us who follow the pagan path, the sky is very important to me.

My first clear memory of awareness of the sky is from when I was five years old.  Our family had moved to the far north of Canada – literally in the tundra – and it was winter.  My father knew the science teacher at the local high school, and had been invited to join a star-viewing party during which some pretty amazing aurorae were expected.  There were several impressive telescopes, the sky was as clear as crystal, the aurorae were as amazing as advertised, and I was hooked.

Walk your own path

Many pagans yearn for the chance to visit a sacred place that is particularly important to them.  Stonehenge, Newgrange, the White Horse, the Cerne Abbas Giant, Ynys Môn, and dozens of other sites are common pilgrimage dreams for pagans following a British tradition, for example.

There’s nothing wrong with this of course, and these places are sacred for a reason – if nothing else, the simple weight of historical significance is enough to imbue such places with spiritual power to energize an enthusiastic pilgrim.  It’s perfectly natural and appropriate for people to want to visit powerful places they’ve read about for years. Nevertheless, I have heard many people say that they scrimped and saved for a dream trip to visit one or another sacred that had a special place in their heart only to be underwhelmed. 

Part of this is to be expected – after months or even years of anticipation, it would be hard for the real thing to measure up to the dream, particularly when the real thing is wrapped up in the tinsel of a tourist attraction. 

More Than Stones

Syncretic Thoughts

I began my journey back in 1989, fumbling with ideas of Jungian archetypes and shamanic travelling and anthropological understandings of spirit.

I took my first steps on that path with the goal of learning who these gods were, and how to do them proper honour.  Before long, I had returned to my homeland Wales for a visit, and from the resonance with those ancient places it seemed clear that I should be devoting myself to Welsh and Brythonic deities. 

At first, I was a determined reconstructionist.  It was my academic background, I’m sure, that demanded I know what the “truth” was and adhere to it. I’m sure many new converts of any spiritual path are the same – and like those others, I gradually grew out of it.

Beginning the Path - Part 2 - Mazed

Part 1

My new path was confusing.

The Elders were good to me. They could tell that something different had happened to me than to any of he other visitors, and while the young First Nation participants went to join a discussion circle and the visitors went to join a seminar, I ended up sitting at a desk in the back office of the community center, shuddering like a new-born colt as I stared into a cup of black coffee.

The kind Elder who had tended me in the last moments of my journey had gone, but in her place was a younger man who lived in the city. We talked about my experience, explored it as best we could, but he had no context to work with and I was completely unprepared for the strike of lightning. When he was sure I wasn't just having a trip and was safe to go home he let me go. He gave me his number and offered to talk again, but I could tell he wasn't sure what he thought he'd be able to do for me. I did call a few times, but he was right. 

I needed other guides.

Beginning the Path - Part 1 - The Path

It was 1989, and I was a student.

I was confirmed Anglican, enrolled in the Anglican college at Uni, but I had long been curious about the old gods.

At that point it had mainly been a matter of reading – Wales has its fair share of myths and storied locales, and I’d inherited a deep interest in such things from my grandfather.  I’d read kids versions of the Mabinogi, I’d gone to see stone circles and wells and valleys with reputations.

But it was all academic, you know?

Then we moved away, emigrating to Canada, and I found myself stuck far from home in the prairies.  Interest didn’t wane, exactly, but it was a harder thing to follow.  And anyway there was church, which I went to mainly for the politics of it, and the locals were sometimes terrifyingly evangelical so it didn’t do to say too much about such things.

When I went to Uni, and everything changed.