The Pagan Community is one filled with diversity and individuality - characteristics we celebrate. Our religious beliefs are often quite disparate. Yet, although we walk different paths, we do so in harmony with one another. We connect - often deeply - on a spiritual level. And it is through our spirituality that we become more than just a community. We become a family.

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Mentoring
By Axiom

In the Pagan community I believe mentoring is crucial. While we practice ancient beliefs, we are still a young and developing religion. We do not have the solid foundation of centuries of practice and development of faith to support us. Many of us live within communities marked by a strong religious preference towards one of the five mainstream paths - Christianity being probably the most common. This makes it harder as everywhere we go, everything we see and hear within the public space is likely to be biased towards that religion. The blind assumption that everyone is of that faith, whether it is true or not, marks many many communities and as such is a part of the infrastructure.
Extract from Myth, Magic and Madness

Cracking the Shell
By Nokomis Dream

...When I started questioning Easter, I was afraid that I was going against everything that had been hammered into my little head. I was learning that Easter has some beautiful, peaceful roots, not just the story of a man that gets killed and comes back to life....
Extract from Holidays Around the World

Artwork

Share your art with the community - guidelines can be found on the Submissions page

Whispers in the Dark
By Albineus Equinus

A thundering sound approaches from behind. It sounds like a herd of horses and I turn to see a naked woman running towards me. Her skin is pearlescent in the dawn, and her white hair snaps behind her. She almost glides over the wheat.

As she nears me she bends forward and places her hands upon the ground and then rears back, shifting into a white mare. Silver dapples her belly and flanks. And then she leaps forward and canters past me towards the rising sun.
Extract from Editorials

Images of the Divine

This issue focuses upon our immediate connection with the Divine and how the past manifests within the now. Many of the images we present are ones that are centred within this moment, neither harkening backwards nor yearning forwards in time.

Festival of Ostara
Reader submission by Avril H.

This is the symbolism of Ostara's Day - not fluffy bunnies and flowers, but fire blazing against the cold night that threatens us all, as the year turns.

This month we look at Ostara, but not the generic Pagan festival. Rather one of our readers has provided us with a glimpse into the Heathen past of this celebration and shown how her family continues to uphold the old ways in a vibrant and living fashion.
Extract from Festivals and Holidays

Food for the Soul
By Axiom

I like the idea of that - that my soul is inspiration that has momentarily alit upon this mortal plane, and, finding itself enfleshed, spends a lifetime trying to speak in words this flesh can hear and comprehend.

Is this why in my moments of greatest artistic creation I cry? Because I hear my soul? Is this why certain melodies, or images, or experiences can bring such ecstacy, such poignant yearning, such bittersweet desire? Because the creative urge they awaken is the language my soul uses to speak to me?

Is that a moment when I see the face of God/dess?
Extract from Crossroads of the Pagans
   

From the Desk of
Albineus Equinus

This month is meant to have been a small edition, yet looking at it I can't help but think that it managed to grow despite us. Somewhat like families and children. Have you noticed that? You turn around and there's an extra child or two...not always yours, but as often as not it is. Or the children you have have grown - much more than they should have recently.

I find it happens to me a lot. It's not that I don't pay attention to my children, but more that I don't see them for themselves all the time. I get so caught up on the incredible wonder of who they are right now, that I hold onto it unconsciously and view them through that perfect image. Then something happens. My baby suddenly speaks a sentence, or my ten year old writes an incredible story about the trip we took to Skye, and I am shocked into awareness that they changed. Grew. And I missed some of it.

I swear to pay closer attention. To live for the moment and enjoy each new stage - even the infuriating ones, for aren't they signs of the growth of independence and individuality? And then I fall in love with this new, more incredible version of my child, and it happens again.

The downside to this is that as a result I often judge my children based upon past ability or actions. Not upon who and what they are now.

This chance I have right now to stay home and be a house-parent is the most incredible gift. I love being a father. It may be one of the reasons I have remained devoted to Bubona throughout the years. Bubona, protector of home and hearth, and fertility deity. Under her I have explored those aspects of myself, and to be comfortable with them. Indeed, to revel in them. I have this chance - while at home - to work upon seeing my children for themselves. Easier when you are confronted with them all the time.

Families - living examples of how the past affects the present. This is the theme of this month's edition. How does your religious past manifest itself within your present? Does it blind you to the reality you live in, or are you able to continually remind yourself to refresh your view, and live in the moment, for the moment?

Light and Love,
Albi
Managing Editor
   

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