From: cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu (Janis Maria Cortese)
Subject: Re: long rambling question from a newbie
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Organization: University of California, Irvine
Date: 13 Sep 92 20:16:19 GMT

In article <13SEP199212392431@venus.tamu.edu> a1z5868@venus.tamu.edu (Jay) writes:
>Howdy.  Got a few questions for y'all.  Note, I'm new to this list and
>paganism, and I'm not real sure about my direction at the moment...
>
>3)  In spite of having a deep romantic/poetic bent, I also tend to
>over-intellectualize everthing.  This year, I have begun to explore
>many different religions but cannot in good faith choose one as
>a religion rather than merely a philosophy until I experience one
>of those famed "religious experiences".  

Hon, this at least doesn't sound like over-intellectuallizing to me.
You are just skeptical about what is best for you and are looking out
for yourself.

What with the influx of new and old-recycled ideas, people are starting
to do the exact opposite of what has been done for the last 2,000 years.
Previously, the intellectual part of the brain was overvalued, and the
intuitive side denigrated.  Now, people are running down the analytic
skills and overvaluing the artistic ones.  Please, don't fall into this
trap.  Your analytic skills are as wonderful as any of your poetic
skills; hell, the fact that they are both found inside of one skull
(yours) attests to the fact that they work well together!  Like I said
in a previous post, analytic and artistic skills are both human talents,
and you want ALL of yourself to be welcome in a spirituality. 

What you want to beware of doing is keeping yourself from permitting
"because I wanna" to be a valid reason for doing something.  Using
rational decision-making to choose between options is fine, and it's how
you make the best choice, but be sure to allow simple personal desires
to be on an equal footing at LEAST.

It sounds to me as if you are a healthy skeptic looking for something
that fits you well.  This is good!   

>    This year, I have sung hymns at my first Catholic mass during Lent.
>I have danced in my first witch's circle during Ostarra.  I have an
>invitation to join the Quakers at one of their gatherings.  I have
>talked with Krishna's.  I have read of Buddhism and Taoism.  And I
>was raised Primitive Baptist.  (My father's a deacon.)  There are
>parts to each of these religions that I admire.  There are very small
>parts of most of them that make me say "YES!  THAT'S EXACTLY IT!"
>But no one body encompasses my deepest beliefs.

I have found exactly the same thing, as have many people.  I don't think
you are going to find something that is a custom fit for your spiritual
needs and wants.  If someone else wrote the stuff, there are going to
be differences between what THEY want and need and what YOU want and
need.

Try what everyone else seems to do (myself HEAVILY included).  Look for
something that synthesizes all this together, and leaves you enough
elbow room to diverge when you feel it's necessary.  Or failing that,
just make your own. 

I think you'll find that little bits of what you agree with are
scattered all over the place.  

>    I'm hoping to find such a symbol of my thoughts.  If I absolutely
>had to choose a description of myself, it'd be something along the lines
>of "buddhist pagan solipsist".  Completely incongruous, I know, but so
>is my nickname of "The Mellow Tigger" and my habit of romantic 
>intellectualizing.  

Again, there isn't anything wrong with intellectualizing.  It's fun and
it gets your brain moving.  Your brain is going to give you advice, and
so are your emotions.  Listen to them BOTH.  The emotions are useful
after all, for sharpening your intellect and focusing your senses.  Use
`em! 

>*shrug*  I believe without suitable evidence in
>a purposeful creation, though I don't necessarily believe in a creator.

Sounds legit to me, maybe because I agree.  Without a reason for
everything to exist, it wouldn't (this won't exactly stand up in
physics, though, and I'm looking for an analogous conserved quantity to
the symmetry breaking).  Try imagining what nothing -- no universe --
is.  I used to do this as a kid, and it made me very quiet -- a very
numinous contemplation.  There is likely as not, SOMETHING else "out
there."  Whatever it is, we'll find out when we die.  Or maybe we won't.
At any rate, I find it hard to believe that there isn't SOME kind of
higher reality, or at least a very different reality.  Else what is all
THIS doing here? 

>    I'm not real sure how paganism can help me find what I want (since
>I'm not sure even what it is that I want.)

Paganism may give you the freedom to think this out.  Think of it as a
spiritual pitstop where you get to take a deep breath and a rest, and
get your head straightened out.  Besides, you meet some really neat
people!  

>    I would like to see myself as someone who practices "green"
>medicine/magic, who accepts both "good" and "evil" traits in people
>(who seem to be naturally a mixture of the two), who encourages
>compassion in spite of this understanding of duality, who aids
>people in their personal/religious/educational/political pursuits
>where they would lead to wholeness/self-fulfillment even if I don't
>share the need to follow those same pursuits, who can perform minor
>miracles to shock people out of believing that the ordinary is mundane
>rather than a miracle in itself, who isn't particularly concerned
>about life/afterlife/whatever because being is enough and I'm content
>with that, who encourages love even when I'm not particularly sure
>what love means, and even more stuff that I don't yet know how to 
>verbalize.

You are looking for something in Paganism, and you just might have
written a paragraph that condenses it out better than I've ever seen.
Pick up a pen -- start writing it out.  After all, nobody writes a book
for other people.  You write `em for YOURSELF, and publish them so that
other people can see the process, too.  

Even the net will help.  Since coming to alt.pagan, I've straightened
out my opinions and desires on many things.  You'll be amazed at how
quickly your thoughts crystallize, once you've accepted that you can
think them. 

>    So...  is there a deity who encompasses the essence of "Mother
>Nature", combined with "The Most Secret Knowledge" of the Bhagavad-Gita,
>mixed with the selflessness of Buddha, laced with the compassion and
>miracles of Jesus, and garnished with a touch of a peculiar strain
>of solipsism?  All in a form that understands the value and usefulness
>of my homosexuality in the needs of our growing culture?

Hon, I don't know.  If it's in your head, it exists.  If you fail to
find it, INVENT it right out of your head.  If the concept is clearly
thought out with sensitivity and logic, it will be as valid as any that
have surfaced in the past. 

>Tough question and lots of rambling, I know.
>Just in that kinda mood today.   :)

Well, you sound like a sweetie to me!

Blessings,
Janis 


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