When
you realise that you're not the same as everyone else it starts
you thinking as to why you're different.
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Hogbear |
In
my personal ancient history when I realised I was gay I was still
a practising Christian. My church told me it was wrong to have these
feelings about men but it also said thats the way god made
me and he loved everything he had made. All a bit confusing!
I came
to terms with being gay but in doing so I lost my faith in the church,
I still believed in God but I just did not believe in his church
on earth.
Over
time the drive that made me explore what made me attracted to other
men drove me to explore my spiritual nature. I found I still believed
in a great spirit that surrounded and included everything on earth
but also the universe as a whole.
I realised
that I could no more understand the workings of this great mystery
than my finger could understand my eye. I was part of the great
mystery but such a small part that I could not see the whole.
I looked
back at how societies had explored their relationship with the universe
before the narrow concepts of Christianity had told us what was
right and wrong. I found out about Archetypes, constants in belief
from the pregnant mother and the horned hunter image of the most
ancient man.
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Stonehenge |
They
struck a spiritual note within me. I found that the old beliefs
had been revived in the form of modern Paganism but that was an
umbrella term that covered a number of different faiths or paths,
from Druids to Wiccans and to people like myself who were exploring
the idea of a Great mystery and how it can be expressed in the form
of a God and Goddess and the four elements of earth, fire, water
and air and how the fifth element of spirit unites them.
This
exploration of faith stems from having to look at the world through
the eyes of an outsider, a gay man in a world that is straight.
I am not saying that being gay we have a extra spiritual ability
but the fact that we are on the edge of society gives us a special
view.
Virtually
every pre-Christian culture from the native American to the Celts
recognised the special nature of those on the outskirts of the normal
society.
Are
gay people accepted in the pagan community?
To a large degree I would say that being gay in the Pagan community
is not such a big issue. There are some who believe that gay people
dont have the right energy for certain rituals or that we
should conform to the roles laid down but they are not the majority.
In
part I think it's because most Pagans have gone through the same
sort of exploration of self that gay people have had to do. A Pagan
is an outsider in a world that is for the most part believes in
one God (whether it is Islamic, Jewish or Christian).
To
believe that there is more than the ONE god and that the gods have
a female side makes you explore more of yourself . It also opens
you to new ideas and makes you accept that not everyone is going
to share your view.
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