Faith

I thought maybe I would describe my faith, my belief. I think I believe in possibilities. I believe the truth, the fundamental is so vast it has room for everything within it. It is hard to pin such things down then, because what I actually believe, the details, changes from day to day, year to year, with the wind, with my mood....

It all began with that utterly beautiful moment I had as a teenager, stood watching the Summer sun rise through a field of tall grasses, gone to seed. The empty seed pods caught that light and they glowed. It was so beautiful.... such a moment - and it probably happened on many, many days, just so early in the morning that rarely was there anyone there to see it.

Before this moment I had been hunting for a home in Christianity. Christianity was the religion of my home village and my school. Back then, in the country it was the tadition, the way. I tried very hard to make it mine, but it just didn't fit me. I had no trouble with ethics of the New Testament and I guess really, not a problem with Jesus. I just could not accept the religion.

After the moment though, I discovered I had something else. Faith. I began to realise that this was different to religion in many cases. Some people had faith, but not religion while others had religion but not faith....

So what did I believe? Fundamentally I decided that there was something in everything, some energy and it was all connected somehow. And it was strongest in nature. And nature made me feel at peace. This was my faith. I didn't believe that this made the world a good place, or a bad place, just that it was.

Around this time I wrote a story about Father Sun and Mother Earth. There was no place in my upbringing that such a story could have come from. It didn't come from me. It came out as one story, complete.

After my breakdown I began searching for religion, for a label, for a tribe. i took bits from all sorts of religions, whatever fitted. Witchiness fit quite strongly at that time, at least the hedgewitchery side of it. but then, that makes sense because the witch and the druid are the two oldest pagan archetypes in my homeland that remain. Wicca never felt quite right.

So I struggled on with these labels. I believe in Gods and Goddesses as archetypes, collections of energy within the web of energy, partly conjured up by us maybe? I don't know. But I couldn't follow a God or Goddess either.

And then I started to get further back, I began to see that both the Druid and Witch were derived from an even older faith, that of the shaman. Even better, this faith survived in some places. It even seems to be a common, first religion. The worlds it explored were explored by people who were separate in space and time.

So am I shaman? No, that is a term for a special person within the tribes of those who held these believes. I am not sure what the name for someone of this set of believes is exactly....

It is almost as if religion is a tree.... the faith of the shaman is the roots, buried deep, almost forgotten, but there above ground in places so you can see it flourishing, but much lost in time.... The leaves on the tree are all our current cults and sects. I feel as if I have been traveling from leave to root all my life......

So what do I believe? About what exactly? I am not sure I have a religion. I have faith.

I still believe we are made of energy. I still believe we are all connected. I believe there are other dimensions. I believe our brains are capable of doing incredible things. What there would science disagree with?

Do I believe in prophets and gods and miracles - well..... I wasn't there.... Was that prophet a strong and powerful shaman who came back with knowledge from other worlds or someone who communed with God? I don't know - how much difference is there really - if you can let go of a certain world view, a certain religious superiority and separateness.... How much of our religious texts is propaganda - altered by religous bodies over time and how much is fact of what actually happened back then, interpreted in the same way as a person of my time and culture would interpret it if they were there to?

So yes, i believe in possibilities but I know very little (or a lot depending on how you look at it). I have not experienced this directly myself to a huge degree. I believe there are whole worlds to explore and anything is possible out there in the multi-dream-verse. I have no religion. i do have faith and I do have tribe....

I am learning and I shall learn more. but gently. there are dangers in unknown worlds maybe? I am open to listen and learn. I believe.