*I realise that the idea of a 'post-Christian' world might seem contentious to some. I am not intending to suggest that Christianity is no longer viable or valid. Rather, I am recognising that our spiritual life in 'the West' is now comprised of a number of faith traditions, of which Christianity is one - in a similar spirit to Prince Charles wishing to be invested as 'Defender of the Faiths'! The term 'post-Christian' further recognises that many people identify with a Humanist (or even Atheist) position, whilst a great many others have no coherent position on, or interaction with, any faith at all - we can no longer accurately describe ourselves as a Christian nation.
My journey towards spiritual growth and understanding has introduced me to elements of many diverse traditions and practices. Early years spent in an Anglo-Catholic church and school gave way to a period of disillusionment and rejection of religion.
Later, a growing need to understand (or 'interface with') the immanent mystery of life, led me to search within Paganism, as well as Buddhism, Islam, Humanism and Eastern Mysticism. I also found other approaches to Christianity (within mysticism, contemporary Celtic and the 'Sea of Faith') which give me inspiration. I feel I have gained much from, and perhaps tasted a little of the 'essential truth' within all of these paths.
It is 'Earth Centred Spirituality', or Paganism, however, that has resonated most with the core of my being - I feel it as my 'foundation' on which all else rests. This is one reason why I was so pleased to find, with Unitarianism, a path that did not require me to recant, lose or deny my multi-faith experience of reality.
Nonetheless, although Unitarianism allows, and to some extent embraces, the validity of Paganism as a path (hence the possibility of the Unitarian Earth Spirit Network for example), I feel that there is still relatively little wider understanding of what such a path might mean or involve. Thus I offer my own perspective on Paganism, in the hope that it might be useful to others. I must stress that it is a purely personal take, and not in any way 'authoritative' - Indeed such a thing would be even more impossible with Paganism than with Unitarianism, both happily existing without creed or dogma!
For me, the central uniting characteristic of Paganism is that of relationship with the natural world. Pagan 'theology' and rite aims primarily to celebrate and deepen our experience of living as an interdependent part of a dynamic, totally alive universe. The discipline of Ecology provides a scientific rationale for many aspects of Paganism, revealing the world as a vast series of interpenetrating cycles of being, largely without absolutes, defying all attempts to pin down a set of eternal truths. Everything in life is dynamic - anything that appears static or 'eternal' is revealed on closer inspection to be rather in a state of balance or 'dynamic equilibrium'.
This worldview could be seen as less than comforting to beings such as ourselves, with our brief 'mayfly' existence. Indeed many manifestations of modern Paganism offer few certainties, little in the way of redemption, and no clear-cut set of commandments to follow. Nonetheless, it invites you to celebrate the dance of being alive now, and the wonder of being a part of the unfolding mystery of existence. In this way it has much in common with some forms of Buddhism, in which acceptance and understanding of mortality can bring relief from the burden of personal fear, leaving you freer to live more fully. Within Paganism, humans are not the centre, purpose or pinnacle of creation any more than any other being is.
One of the most fundamental patterns in life is that of the cycle. From the great galactic spiral wheels to our own little earth spinning in its orbit around the life giving Sun, cycles are everywhere, and we can apply the maxim "As above, so below; As without, so within" - our bodies, (and hence our minds and emotions) consist of a myriad of cyclical processes, some unfolding over a whole lifetime, whilst others are as rapid as a breath or a heartbeat.
The Pagan concept of the year wheel symbolizes that most fundamental cycle which is the Earth's journey around the Sun, and the unending pageant of the seasons that is its manifestation. As dwellers in this 21 st century hi-tech, resource rich country, most of us seem to exist at a great remove from the natural world around us, but our apparent security and comfort is in part an illusion, maintained at great cost and effort by a huge and complex conglomeration of media, business and politics.
Please don't misunderstand what I'm saying here. I am not a believer in some mythical golden age in the past. I know that life for much of humanity was all too often short, painful and brutal. I celebrate the freedoms and richness of being here now - I am an enthusiastic user of modern technology and communication tools, and appreciate how much science, medicine and a relatively accountable social and political system support me in a lifestyle formerly only available to the very few. I believe it best that many aspects of the past be consigned to history, especially many social and religious attitudes (including those of pre-Christian paganism!).
No, the problem is that we have lost our intimacy with the natural world, and this is not just a shame, but could prove fatal, both to us and to many parts of nature. For much of our time on earth the processes of our evolution, (emotional and spiritual, as well as physical), ensured our healthy growth and 'fitness' for our role in the biosphere. The activities of hunting & gathering, and later of agriculture engendered an intimacy with nature, which shaped our spiritual life and 'theology'. The divine, experienced as both female and (later) as male, manifested as Goddesses and Gods who embodied and mediated the forces and phenomena of the natural universe. Over time, however, societies became more complex, stratified and urban centred. Specialisation and division of labour gradually eroded many people's direct relationship with Nature.
The emergent power-based, hierarchical way of life was of course mirrored in theology - 'The Gods' became structured in pantheons, which reflected (and legitimised) the actions of the society's rulers. When monotheism arose, it offered a much better (divinely validated!) form of social control - For example 'God's chosen people' ousting the Philistines (Palestinians) from 'their' promised land; or the Crusades; or Jihad; or even ultimately invasion of Iraq, with bombing and wholesale slaughter to 'liberate' the (surviving) people and to bring them the Pax Romana of 'free trade' and 'democracy' American style.
I digress - or do I? Monotheism tends towards an essentially linear view of time. The world, and humanity, may be envisaged as progressing and developing towards an end point - a 'second coming', an Armageddon when sheep will be divided from goats and time's slate will be wiped clean with a new creation or 'return' to 'heaven'. This type of worldview ironically can promote short-term thinking! Why worry about the environment, for example, if God will renew the earth after destroying the old? I know that such beliefs are today only consciously held by fundamentalists, but these and similar ideas were present for many centuries within mainstream Christianity and have profoundly influenced modern thought, both sacred and secular - Hence the almost universally accepted idea that economic growth is in itself a good thing. The work ethic, the need to strive to accumulate wealth, and the blind worship of 'progress' are driving us to an early (linear!) grave. Contrast this with the attitude of the Indian mystic Osho who said that we are "human beings, not human doings."
Paganism sees the process of life unfolding in a cyclical way. Natural phenomena tend to wax and wane. A seed that is sown in Autumn may spend the winter in preparation for its rebirth in the spring, its growth in the Summer leading to its fruition in Autumn and then, having produced the seed of what is to come it may die. And such cycles are omnipresent in the universe. We humans are cyclical, but so are the flows of the ocean, the migration of animals, the rise and fall of mountains and the life of stars.
Even mental and emotional states and abstract ideas have their cycles - The love between two people, an individual's intellectual growth, the acceptance of Newtonian physics, the rise and fall of religious traditions. Tracing the cycles within all of these phenomena can offer new insight and understanding.
This brings us back to the Year Wheel. If you accept that we have our cycles, and are subject to and affected by the cycles of the natural world we live in (e.g., the Moon, the seasons and weather), then an awareness and celebration of these cycles may serve both to 'locate' us (enhance our sense of time, space and 'belonging' to where we are), and to 'align our energies' (so that we can flow with the tides rather than exhaust ourselves trying to swim upstream)! If you think this sounds 'woolly' or 'new-agey', then consider Ecclesiastes 3: 1-8. ("To every thing there is a season..."). The Year Wheel is a 'map' of the cycle of the seasons and their attendant 'energies', particularly as experienced by those living in the world's temperate and boreal regions. (Cultures of the Tropics in contrast may have little experience of 'spring' or 'autumn').
In pre-agricultural times, hunter-gatherer cultures may have only divided the year into two seasons, broadly speaking a 'time of plenty' and a 'time of hunger'. This is the idea represented by the ancient myth of the Oak King and the Holly King. These were two brothers who fought to rule the year. At the approach of the dark part of the year, the Holly King would be victorious, whereas the return of light and heat would bring a resurgence and victory for the Oak King, who would usher in the time of plenty.
The development of agriculture brought humans into a more complex relationship with the seasons, and this gave rise over time to the eight festivals that make up today's Year Wheel. Each of these represents a turning or change in the season. They should not really be seen as divisions of the year, but rather as 'high tides' of the particular energies and phenomena current to that part of the cycle. They are also, in reality, a conflation of two separate cycles of four!
The festivals that comprise the 'first' of these cycles, (first because it seems to pre-date the other in most cultures), are often called the 'Fire Festivals', as ceremonial fires are a key feature of their observance. They occur, roughly evenly spaced across the year at:
• The end of October, (typically known as 'Samhain', which Christianity overlaid with 'Hallowe'en'),
• Early February, ('Imbolc', Christian 'Candlemas'),
• The beginning of May, ('Beltane', or 'Mayday'), and
• The beginning of August, ('Lughnassadh', old Christian 'Lammas', or harvest festival).
The other four festivals map out the cardinal points of the solar cycle:
• Winter Solstice, 21 st -22 nd December, (known as 'Yule', the rebirth of the Sun or perhaps the 'Son' if you are Christian?),
• Spring Equinox, around the 21 st March, ('Ostara' or 'Eostre', or for Christians 'Lady Day' or the Annunciation),
• Summer Solstice, 21 st -22 nd June, ('Midsummer' or 'Litha'), and
• Autumn Equinox, around the 21 st September, ('Mabon' or 'Harvest Home', or for Christians Michaelmas).
When these two cycles are overlaid, they describe an evenly spaced journey through the year, with a festival roughly every six weeks.
The symbolism, meaning and rite associated with the festivals is too deep, complex and multilayered to be adequately covered within an article, but I will attempt here to give at least a 'flavour' of it.
The Pagan year is typically seen as starting at the end of October with the festival of Samhain. ( 'Starting' the cycle here is based on the idea that the dark, fallow, underground part of the year comes before the light and later growth of what is to come. This is echoed in the way we see the Moon's cycle as beginning and ending in the dark of the new moon.) At this time of year, many living things are 'turning inwards' (E.G., to hibernate, to become dormant), and so this general trend is seen as affecting us too - We may be involved in tasks that prepare us for Winter, and the mood is generally one of introspection, and looking back over what has been. Traditionally it was believed that the 'veils' between the worlds of the living and the dead were at their thinnest and most insubstantial at this time, and that it was possible to move between worlds, hence the ghosts etc. of Hallowe'en. While some modern Pagans may still believe this as literal truth, for many others its meaning is metaphoric - It is a time for remembering, honouring and 'communing' with our departed loved ones and ancestors, for celebrating their continuing legacy and for 'making our peace' or letting go of pain and regret. It is also a time to examine our own life cycle, and to confront our mortality. As such it can be a 'dark' and scary time too, but not in any negative or 'evil' sense such as that often promulgated by the media and fundamentalist Christians.
After Samhain, at the Winter Solstice we celebrate Yule. Having 'looked into' the dark we now celebrate the rebirth of the light, and look beyond the harsh Winter still to come, to the assurance of a new spring. In many traditional cultures, by this time of year the harvest was all laid in and accounted for, and it was possible to predict how much of a surplus there was. Some of this surplus could be 'blown' in a morale-boosting midwinter feast, which also coincided with the time of least work to do! It was also the time for ensuring the survival and wellbeing of others in the community, hence the emphasis on sharing and charity. The many symbols and traditions of Yule will be familiar to most Christians - Bringing in the Holly, Ivy and Mistletoe, candles, the Yule log, present giving etc. This can make Christmas an uncomfortable time for many fundamentalists, who cannot accept Christianity as an evolution of Paganism, and see this all as the Devil's work!
February brings the festival known as Imbolc, or Oimelc. These names are believed to mean 'in the belly', or 'ewe's milk'. Although February is often the harshest month of all, the first signs of spring are found too - Sheep give birth and lactate, and the first flowers appear. It is a time of purification, for 'spring cleaning' and inviting light into homes and buildings, hence the Christian 'Candlemas' and feast of the purification of Mary (40 days after Christmas, this being the traditional period of time within Judaism in which a woman remained 'impure' after giving birth). Interestingly, as Mary entered the temple at Jerusalem to undertake this ritual, the baby Jesus was recognised as the messiah and 'light to lighten the gentiles' by Simeon. Within Celtic pagan cultures, Imbolc was sacred to the powerful goddess known as Bride, or Brigit. She became subsumed into Christianity as St. Brigid, and had great importance within the rites of the Celtic churches.
The Spring Equinox (Eostre, or Ostara) is the time when light (day length) begins to exceed dark (night). An almost universal motif among ancient Pagan cultures was that of a 3 day 'descent into the underworld' and the rebirth/resurrection following it, whereby a deity returns bringing liberation from the dark. There is evidence that in many of these cultures the lunar cycle (associated primarily with deity as female) originally held primacy until, over time the solar cycle (and male deity) superseded it. Ostara is a case in point. It seems originally to have been celebrated at the first full moon after the equinox, and the '3 days' relate to the period of the lunar cycle when no moon is visible. There are startling parallels between these Pagan beliefs and the Christian Easter - The death, descent and rising on the third day, and even the determining of the date of Easter (within the western churches) by the first Sunday after the full moon that follows the equinox! The name 'Easter' derives from a Saxon lunar goddess Eostre, whose symbols were the rabbit, and the egg.
May brings Beltane, the festival of fertility. It is a time of great celebration, with dancing, feasting and merrymaking, preferably in a natural setting such as woodland, beach or mountain. Fire is a key element, and leaping the Beltane fire is an expression of joy, 'purification' and a kind of 'initiation' into the wild energy of the nuptial meeting of Goddess and God. The flowering May tree is another symbol of Beltane, and is sometimes gathered to decorate the home. Singing, dancing and games are all features of the celebration. Again many aspects of Beltane will be familiar to non-pagans - Dancing around the maypole, the May Queen, and parties and fayres at this time still abound in many places.
Litha, (the Summer Solstice) is also celebratory in its nature. 'Solstice' literally means 'Sun standing still', and that is what happens on the longest day - The Sun reaches the limits of its journey along the horizon, and 'stands still' prior to beginning its return journey towards winter. Many ancient sites were built in alignment to this awesome event, and it is 'traditional' to see in the dawn, preferably at such a site. The ensuing Midsummer gatherings were (and are) also a gathering of extended families, tribes and friends, who might not meet up often. As such, it is a popular time for marriages, celebrations of recent births, remembrance of recent deaths, and general sharing of news. The gatherings at Stonehenge, Glastonbury etc, which have recently become the focus of media attention and controversy, are not new phenomena, but rather a continuation of an age-old tradition.
Lughnassadh, at the beginning of August, is the festival of the start of the harvest, and is named after Lugh, the Celtic god of light and wisdom. It is a time for taking stock, for considering what we have 'sown and reaped', and to learn from this. Despite being the hottest part of the year, the days are getting noticeably shorter by now, and this is often considered symbolically to represent the waning power of the male deity and perhaps his sacrifice. The Goddess is in her pregnant 'Earth Mother' phase, and carrying the child of the God, so the God will be reborn, and life will continue. The first harvest is often that of the corn, and we see the God's story echoed in the tradition of John Barleycorn. The flour from the new harvest was baked into a loaf, which was then blessed. This tradition was passed on to Christianity, with its feast of 'Hlaf-mas' (or 'Loaf Mass'), which became 'Lammas'.
The final festival of the year wheel is that of Mabon, the Autumn Equinox. This is the second time in the year that day and night are equal, but this time the dark is in the ascendant. Mabon is the name of the Celtic god of youth, who was abducted and hidden, to return later, and thus it is with the season of plenty, which is already drawing towards an end, becoming Keats' 'season of mist and mellow fruitfulness'. It is a time of 'harvest home', when fruit, nuts etc are gathered and stored. The year's energies begin to turn inward, becoming reflective, retrospective and contemplative. It is a good time to take stock of your life, and to decide what to take forward and what to leave behind, in preparation for the deep and solemn start of the new year at Samhain.
It may be seen from the above tour of the Year Wheel, that I regard Christianity as a development, or offshoot, from the old religions of Paganism. Many will take issue with this view - surely Christianity developed from within Judaism, and Judaism is monotheistic? Well...
A polytheistic or pantheistic worldview can accommodate other traditions and cultures with relative ease. For example, the pagan Romans were adept at fitting local deities into their existing pantheons - Hence Bath's goddess Sulis became regarded as a form of the Romans' Minerva. Indeed, this is part of the reason why Christianity was able to permeate and become accepted within the traditional Pagan cultures. The stories of Jesus would have led to him being seeing by many Pagans as a development of the Solar deity. Much of Northwest Europe was evangalised by the energetic Celtic Christians, and there is evidence that their interactions with, and acceptance of, pre-existing native traditions allowed paganism to 'evolve' or develop into Christianity.
It was only later, as the church developed as a temporal power, that its exclusive monotheist nature began to impinge on the rights of people to worship freely according to their customs. Thereafter, increasingly, the worship, rites and sacred places of the old Gods and (especially!) Goddesses became increasingly portrayed as evil and Satanic, and thus began nearly a millenium and a half of often brutal suppression. The experience of the divine as female was sidelined or forbidden, and women, with their wisdom and perspective, became completely disenfranchised. The sense of humans being part of the natural world, with the sense of humility, responsibility and kinship to other living beings, began to be eroded. Some parts of the church (notably the Celtic traditions) retained some balance for a time, but were eventually forced to 'toe the line'.
The reformation, and arrival of Protestantism made the situation both better and worse. On one hand it opened a door that would eventually allow rationalism to ameliorate the excesses of supernatural-based religion, and thus ironically to pave the way for today's more enlightened situation - where we can openly have some choice in our belief structure and in how we choose to express it. Unfortunately it also fostered a worldview that validated and encouraged exploitative, power-based empire builders, who enforced Christianity and European morals and practices on indigenous cultures around the world, often in complete ignorance of the richness, balance and sophistication of what they were destroying. (For a flavour of what was lost, see Chief Seattle's Letter , Dreaming Online etc.etc.)
Max Weber clearly demonstrates the links between Protestantism and Capitalism in his seminal work of 1904
'The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism'
At this point, I feel I must restate that this article is not intended as a critique of Christianity. In truth there are many shameful and regrettable episodes within the history of every religion and culture, including Paganism. We have all repeatedly failed to live up to the ideals and messages of love and peace that lay at the heart and beginning of all spiritual expression. This does not negate the essence of the message, nor indeed remove its contemporary relevance. It is rather that, to be freed from our failures, we first need to see clearly what we have done, to accept it (perhaps to seek forgiveness if that is appropriate to our beliefs) and then to move on to the much more important work of bringing peace, love and justice to today's world. In my opinion we need all the help and wisdom we can get, from Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed(pbuh), Krishna, and all the great teachers and manifestations of the divine, all the Goddesses and Gods.
The Christian church has never completely succeeded in eradicating Paganism, even here in Britain, even within its own congregations! Ironically, some churches, in an attempt to 'modernise' and to appeal to the sceptical, increasingly secular folk (who are the true inheritors of Enlightenment rationalism) have discarded the rituals, symbolism and mystery of traditional Christianity, thereby losing the last vestiges of the Pagan heritage that spoke to peoples' hearts from time immemorial. Not so much 'throwing out the baby with the bathwater' as 'throwing out the baby instead of the bathwater'?
So what about Unitarianism? It is my sincere hope that the open-mindedness and freedom from a central dogma that seems to exist within Unitarianism, will allow us to take the best from each and all traditions, to develop a path that can satisfy the mind, heart and soul. Perhaps something with the compassionate ethic of universal service and commitment to peace and justice, which can be seen within the best of modern liberal Christianity, allied to the ecological wisdom and celebration of the ecstatic mystery of life that Paganism offers?
Willow Songsmith
Leicester Unitarian Fellowship
last updated 20th May 2007
This article is available online from http://leicesterunitarians.org/