I spent the better part of a year reading everything I could get my hands on about nature centered paganism, devotional polytheism, and meditative journeying work. Like any new-comer pagan, I wanted to be thorough, and find where I seem to resonate the most on the spiritual spectrum. I.e. I am I a hard or soft polytheist? Do I believe in gods at all? Is it that I believe that there are various manifestations of cosmological and natural forces? I am sure that I am not the only one, that while browsing the pagan blogosphere, felt as though finding answers to these questions was crucial before engaging socially with others concerning their religion.
While I am not saying that knowing the answer to these questions is not important, I did find myself so preoccupied with research and dialectical debates on the matter that I actually didn't allow myself the room to spiritually experience the possibilities of all this theological theorizing. I tried to intellectually analyze all of the "data" - which was really, in the end, accounts of how others experience the spiritual and the occult- and then mentally determine which "fit" was best from my personal bias. Whoa, boy, was I going about it wrong!
When I just let all of the research and book knowledge go, and opened myself to the world around me, I found that it was rife with energy, that genius loci and entities (gods, spirits, fae, whatever you would like to call them) are present, that nature's power is tangible, regardless of how you metaphysically and religiously categorize it. This was how I should have started - from experience and then researched how those experiences might have been codified and transcribed into religious tradition.
Once I encountered a seemingly moon/night based deity in a spiritual journey that, had I based it on my research, I would have tried to stuff in my mind as the role of Nyx or Selene. But as she appeared to me at that time, she was a murky mixture of aspects of both, and even still to this day I am hesitant to ascribe names to her lest that back her into an identity corner that would limit my understanding of the experience of her. After letting go of my assumptions, it was easier to just let her be in my mind as she manifested, not what I tried to limit her to.
When I was learning about the "green man" I also tried to ascribe this role to a genius loci I call the "Old Man" who is a steward of the land, but never once has he presently conveyed to me that he is the virile stud that many pagans experience the green man as being. I tried so hard to fit him into my paradigm of nature, but his first lesson was of course that he and all of the natural world is unbound by our preconceptions, no matter how ingrained they may be.
So with this in mind, I believe that research and knowledge is of course vital to a pagan in respectfully engaging with other traditions and faiths, but in the end Spirit is not going to just appear a certain way because you wish it. Be open to possibilities, and I have found with that comes a world of spiritual discovery.
p.s. This is all based on my personal UPG, so please take this post within that context.
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