Pagan Discovery Journal - a.k.a. - Pagan Journal Prompt Week 1 - Day 2

Three things about Paganism I would be interested in studying further are

1. The connection it helps you create between nature, the gods/goddess, other spirits & not least of all other people.
2. The peace & ease of life that would seem to come with being that much more in tune with the cycles of the seasons & even of the days.
3. I’ve also always been very interested in the signs & symbols of different things & cultures. It’s been very attractive to me how things that aren’t even words can have so much meaning associated with them; they have so many different layers, connections & profound significance. Paganism at large has always been full of symbol & ritual, so many different ways to connect to the spiritual side of everyday life & give meaning to every part of what you do.

My religion before I was Pagan was Pentecostal Christian. That is to say, I was forced by my mother (who very much meant well by all of it, & I appreciate her love & care) to go to an Apostolic/Pentecostal church from the time I was roughly 7 to 19. I genuinely participated for a few years but it didn’t last long, & it was mostly during my relatively short transition from being too young to understand things properly/being too young to truly be my own person with fully formed interests, opinions & personal beliefs that are properly my own. As I mentioned in what is basically the prologue to this journal that transition to my own beliefs ended up with me separating from the church due to not finding the proper answers & the right things for what I needed spiritually in it. Saying my religion before I was pagan was Pentecostal is the simple & easy answer but it’s not exactly the accurate one. More precisely I never truly had one before deciding to embrace this path. I was surrounded by the Christian church growing up, but was never truly a part of it & it failed me when it came time to discover my own spiritual path.

Five things I appreciate about my previous religion are null. Unfortunately, this line of thought is rather obviously null & void by the time you get to it due to how thoroughly & honestly I wrote out the previous one.