One thing I really like about Pagan religions for the most part is they are empowering. Most Pagans believe we are beings capable of great things. When we stand in a moonlit circle joining energy together you feel like we can do anything we put our mines to. I know for me I can do things at a ritual I can do normally. I can stand longer and sometime I have even danced. I think it is because of the combined power of my fellow Pagan, that gives me my extra strength.

I know it is very empowering for women, you don't see many Pagan women who have men who beat on them or boss them around. I saw some Pagan women give a guy the boot out of a festival for being a real jerk. I offered to help, but they sent me off to bed saying they could take care of it and they did.

Another thing about Pagan religions is there is no original sin or dogma telling you your evil my the nature of being human. We are the Children of the Earth and she teaches us what we need to know to live. It is when we don't listen to her teachings we get into trouble. Like don't build your house in the storm drain. lol.

I walk a solitary path, and the fact I have the ability to realise truths on my own is empowering. No need to receive packages of dogma, no subscribing to doctrine, no succumbing to dangerous group-think. I think for myself.

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use"
Galileo Galilei

What exactly do you mean by empowerment?...or to be empowered. I'm not sure I understand. Please elaborate. Thanks Jody

Great post Darkwind. I really love when other realigions share their views with us

Well said.

Agreed.

It means to feel like you have the power to control your own life. It means you have self worth. In my case when I say my MS (illness) is not going to control my life nor are my doctors no matter how messed up I get I am going to walk as long as I can. If a woman is in an abusive relationship and she gets up and says no more I am worth more than that and walks away. She is empowered.

Its got nothing to do with religion, its how you are told to feel.
Your told, this is going to make you feel good or "empower" you.
and you will feel good or empowered.
if you dont, you will get a fellow believer tell you that you are doing it wrong and you have miss interpreted the text.
Just like if you had a religion which based itself around the followers feeling helpless and not feeling empowered
the followers will feel helpless and i suspect NOT every empowered. unless of-course they are not following this religion correctly.

being empowered or happy or what ever you want to call it is just a state of mind, if you are the sort of person you needs religion to achieve this, fair enough...some prefer a more realistic approach

and that approach would be?

I really like that. It's always nice to have positive people around to back and support you. Thanks

No more and no less that anyone else is or thinks they are.

empowerment is an inside job and ones path would simply reflect what they had tuned in on the inside first......i would not search outside of myself for empowerment as its what i am a state of being...... all things spring from a state of being for me based in preference.......

Hmmmmm. Thanks for that one Jody

An individual is blessed when he/she adopts a frame of mind from which possiblities can be made reality. All too often, we're told "you can't". It is when we acknowledge the potential of "I/We can" that we can realize the power within ourselves.

Out of curiousity, Darkwind...skyclad?

or one must be out his mind to come to his senses.....


our thoughts are simply tools not who we are....

You always make the most wonderful points DeVol. Excellent

No, many of our ritual are open to the public. It someone wants to we don't object. Most of us have ritual cloths we wear. I think most of like getting dressed up in cloaks, robes and (women) long skirts, sarongs, sparkling tops. You have to understand this is Florida and mosquitoes are the state bird. They love nice fat juicy Pagans.

What I see is some religions love to say we human are naturally evil, sinful, and some put women in a sub servant roll to men. In most Pagan religions men and women are equal, and we are not inherently sinful. It is something when some people become Pagans form another religion they have to work through. Some people as children are told they are wicked sinful child over and over again. It is truly a release for them when they come round to the Pagan way of thinking. I didn't go through that because I didn't have a religion when I came to Paganism. I had dumped all that baggage a long time ago. I think I had been a Pagan for a long time, but didn't know there were others who felt the what I did or had the vocabulary to express it.

I am not putting down other religions if you want to feel you are a wicked sinful creature not deserving of life that's ok. Its works for some people. Each must seek their own path. I am trying to be tackful, but I don't think it's working. I am not just talking about Abrahamic religions there are others like that.

...or so you think. How odd, that thought can be so unique, and yet so redundant.


Do I? To paraphrase Petrucci...or was it Portnoy?...if I seem extraordinary, I have been misunderstood.

great post Dark...