What does it mean to be a pagan in the modern world?

I suppose you will get as many answers to this as there are pagans. Let me give you my take on this.

Being a pagan in the modern world means looking around the concrete and steel to see the grass that stubbornly grows in the cracks and the birds that somehow find a way to make a living anyway. It's reveling in what we have accomplished through science, but being aware that there will always be something for which science has no measurement, no way to classify - and being OK with that.

It is understanding the science of a thing and still being awed by it. I understand why a 747 can fly, but it still amazes me every time I see one actually do it.

Being pagan in the modern world is to seek that which is hidden, and to know that both the hider and the hidden are important reflections of each other.

Being pagan in the modern world isn't about denying what man has accomplished or looking back to a more agrarian time, some perfect green utopia that never existed except in fantasy novels. It's seeing nature as indominable, omnipresent and that Spririt is a part of everything and everyone. Spirit is the self-awareness of Life.

Being a pagan in the modern world is to celebrate Life Elemental.

There are two things in this world that are unavoidable: change and Life.

Change:
Life is change - without change, life does not develop, does not mature, does not reproduce, does not teach, does not continue. Change isn't something to be feared or avoided. It's something to be embraced for what is it - the Universe continuing to find new ways to express itself and the miracle of being. I've always thought that one of the prime differences between conservatives and liberals isn't religion, isn't morality, isn't "family values", isn't fiscal policy. At their core, conservatives fear change. They look to the past as the ideal state and seek to keep the "now" in a perpetual state of "then". Liberals, on the other hand, encourage change, sometimes just for change's sake. Neither extreme is a terribly balanced way to look at the world. Between the two is a space when you can honor the past, recognize that change has happened, enjoy the present, anticipate further change, and be ready for the future when it comes.

Life:
Life, Nature, Spirit - there are many ways to think about that special "spark" that takes an inanimate object and makes it something awake and aware. Some pagans personify Nature in the guise of classical gods and godesses, some approach it through the Earth Mother and the Horned One, some see the Lord and Lady, some see the Green Man and the Maiden. For me, nature is something completely outside the bounds of classification. It's a pervasive force that seeks life, IS life. It's a name we apply to something that somehow includes every living thing, past present and future, in a connected whole. It's everywhere, in everything. You can never be separated from it, but you can think you are. Life is a continuum, and through Life we and every other living thing participate in the wholeness that is Spirit. Call it by whatever name seems most appropriate, see it in whatever light makes sense to you - it's inescapably there.

If you listen closely enough, Spirit will tell you things. Just as you always know where your own hand is through the kinesthetic sense, if you really pay attention, you can "feel" the other parts of the Spirit through your inner sense. They are you, you are them. Not in some cosmic, philosophical sense, but in a very real, very practical sense. That's the foundation upon which spellcraft and magick is based. More about them in later posts. If you need a temporary metaphor, think of them as prayer. It's pretty close.

So, being a pagan in the modern world isn't really that much of a stretch, after all. What it does require is the willingness to expand your sense of "self" to include everything else that shares Life. My entire moral code starts with that simple idea.

So then, what is morality to a pagan? That's the next question, and probably the next post.

Blessed Be