Cult Of The Moon - Hybrid Paganism

Being of 5/8 British 1/8 Irish and 1/4 German heritage I consider myself a kind of mix of Celtic / Heathen origin. I am not bound by these origins though. I grew up in an environment that was an awkward mix of atheism, which I simply define here by a lack of spirituality and Christianity, as defined by the general culture around me. I could, by default, define myself as one or both of those. A further option would be to adopt an entirely foreign religion to my heritage, origins, or surroundings such as Buddhism, Islam, or even Hindu. But the truly Canadian thing to do would be the most multi-cultural thing and that would be to become a hybrid.

I've always told people, particularly Christians, that I am a pagan. I especially loved to say this to those Mormons and/or Christian fundamentalists that often come to your door unannounced, it seems, just to disturb you at the most inopportune times. It had such a bent for the malicious. It was my way of taking revenge on those souls that dared disturb my tranquility with their grossly misguided intentions.

I never quite believed I was pagan. It just seemed to be the default zone I fell into for lack of commitment to any other. I am so not a joiner anyway. But I could believe that, as the definition of a pagan suggests in its broadest sense, that I was of the earth. I began studying religions and the occult, including astrology in my early twenties. Of greatest impact to me was how I could understand things much better if I assigned an elemental quality to them, such as fire, air, earth, or water. The simplicity of this seemed quite pagan to me, and quite natural.

That was also around the time Bauhaus, which I like to call 'the original Goth band' was breaking up and reforming into Love And Rockets and Tones On Tail on one side with Peter Murphy solos on the other. The occult and religious studies, combined with my taste in the Gothic has been a great influence on my spirituality. Its become a real mash up of many European pre-Christian and medieval Christian ideas, Buddhism and even Native American culture.

A very long time ago, I read in some very detailed astrology book about the interpretations of my natal chart. It was said there that I might have tendencies towards creating a new religion. I now finally understand what they were talking about in that book. For now, I give it a name and say it out loud:

My religion is the Cult of the Moon, a highly personal hybrid form of paganism that chooses to not look at the light directly, but to examine the spiritual life in a more subtle, intuitive and reflective way. The darkness is gently permeated by a soft indirect light reflected off the surface of the moon. The Cult of the Moon is timeless, yet defines time as it waxes and wanes in natural cycles. It is clear that the moon worships the earth; if not directly 'of the earth'  it is definitely 'for the earth.' Yet it is more. It is surrounded and defined by darkness. The darkness is infinite. It is everything and nothing. It is the birthplace of creation in all its forms. It is the void, and the moon tenderly yet firmly defines that it is there, even though we cannot see it.

To know and to not know all that there is and to be as close to the origin of creation as I possibly can, this is the Cult of the Moon.

Dark Spirituality

It's one of those days I have too much to do I'm so overwhelmed and I'm getting nothing done at all, although I am feeling better.

My thoughts have been on dark spirituality and how much I think about this. I decided to hash through it yesterday and this is what I came up with:

Everything else. That's what I concern myself with. I refer to everything other than what is commonly considered good. I'm not going to say good vs evil because that is primitive juvenile thinking perpetuated by dogma and fiction. I say 'why do people 'want' to be good and try to be good? To do good things to try to be a better person? To be enlightened even?' I've never understood it and I've never understood the concept of wanting to become enlightened so one does not have to return to the realm of human existence. This is pretty much the highest aspiration for all Buddhists. Why wouldn't I want to return to life here on earth? I like it here. In fact I embrace the here and now here and now. I don't know what else there is so I'm not going to bank on it. I like to flirt with the unknown, which should explain my fascination with death, but I actually really like living and being human. I love human things, like emotions. Even the nasty ones... they make me feel alive. No emotion = not alive... this is not cool. Death is cool and I love to peer into its inky blackness and create from it, or just revel, but not for one minute is death on my wish list of 'states' I'd like to be in here and now.
Is this desire to do good to be good yadda yadda yadda a need for some kind of acceptance? Is it buying into the Christian doctrine that we are sinners and must strive to escape a hellish fate? And as for enlightenment, is that the pursuit of escape as well?
Recently I've been wondering why I don't have too many friends. I'm sure it has to do with my lack of presence on the path to goodness. That and/or my unrealizable goal of trying to sink everyone else into the mire of things 'not necessarily good' and to do it for the pure pleasure of it. Meh,.. I'm (semi)alone in my thinking and I'm unfazed by the view others have of me. Evil is a fiction in a polarized mind. I'll just leave that to them and concern myself with everything else.

After reading Nocturnal Witchcraft Magick After Dark by Konstantinos which was suggested to me by the talented bard Christopher Courtley, poet of dark fantasy fiction rendered in the Gothic persuasion (to appease my troubled mind he offered a simple idealogy suggested in Konstantino's book for framing an understanding of dark spirituality which he himself finds useful. I did too. Thank you Christopher.), what struck me most importantly in that book was the idea, and importance placed on connecting to a spiritual dimension outside oneself. I know that in the past I have flirted with the idea of this, but found nothing personally satisfying to connect to. I realized there might be some sort of trend out there having to do with dark spirituality so I typed 'dark paganism' into Google and lo and behold there is an actual book about that written by John J. Coughlin called Out of the Shadows: An Exploration of Dark Paganism and Magick. Well I'm not so interested in magick per se, but the dark paganism part as it pertains to talking care of my spiritual health does interest me. And while we are on the subject of dark spirituality, if you are also interested in this sort of thing have a look at Adventures Of A Spooky Old City Fox, a blog of interest with an open-minded agnostic skeptic (his words) of an author who also writes about these kinds of dark explorations of the spirit, albeit much more articulately and in depth than I do. I'm just a hack in a forest of dark souls intent on destroying themselves with an overdose of denial... oops, I mean goodness.

Lots is happening for me and I've wasted another several hours writing this and finding all the proper links et al so now I'm heading back to my work on the children's book I'm trying to finish before year's end. Working title is Darkling Child. I'm writing and illustrating it. I'll post about it when it's nearer to being finished.

A Perspective On Darkness Pt 2: The Christians

Understanding my thinking has to do with understanding my reason for living. Why now? Why descend into such darkness at this point in my life? No, I'm not depressed. But I easily could be if it weren't for the life goal I set for myself. The goal is simple - balance the overabundance of 'lightness' in the world with 'darkness.' Sound crazy? Certainly it doesn't sound achievable. But no matter.
As I said in an earlier post, there are few things I dislike more than organized religion. In my opinion most of the problems in western culture are the result of fundamental Christian belief which is taught as truth in our schools and is generally accepted and supported by the mainstream media; television, literature etc. The problems I refer to are the common ones; the global environmental crisis, cultural religious clashes, economic disparity, mass psychological sickness, and poverty to name a few.

Until recently I had a habit of employing a human coping mechanism common to many; addiction. I have the 'addictive' type personality that allows me to escape the helplessness I feel as a result of the injustice and mass insanity that occur around me and around the world by partaking in some activity which is designed to distract me from these troubling issues. If I didn't employ addiction as a coping mechanism, how on earth could I sleep at night?

There is a reason that the youth of the world are the most vocal about the injustices of war, capitalist greed, poverty, genocide, tyrannical government and so on. Youth have yet to resign themselves to the futility of trying to create actual change. I applaud their effort. I've been there. But they will soon realize that human civilization propels itself onward on a scale that is unfathomable and unstoppable. The 2nd human fall from grace (the 1st when we realize mom and dad are in fact not the Gods we felt they should be) happens when one realizes that 1, 10 or even 10,000 people marching to the drum of a self-righteous Christian lie can have little to no effect on a world of billions intent on destroying itself through denial of reality. The veil of Christianity creates self destructive behaviour on a massive scale. The problem is amplified by the fact that we are not only destroying ourselves, but while we are at that, we are destroying the world too.
Frankly I should be depressed. So should you. There has been little to bring me comfort in this world except knowing that something has to bring the Christians down. Their lies are perpetuated by popular belief to their self-righteous claims of salvation.

Western culture is afflicted with an inability to see light and dark, happy and sad, good and evil, along with most other polarities. Christianity recommends we only look at one side of the coin. The Christian gospel has smeared the legitimacy of the yin/yang principle. The dichotomy of shadow and light created by their one sided incorrect view of life's fundamental laws is causing a case of mass neglect that is practically invisible to western culture. Christianity, throughout its history, has managed to coerce conformity of populations, through deception and/or force. Christianity is now the biggest cult ever to reign in the history of the western civilization. This has largely gone unnoticed by almost everyone because there is something the Christians would prefer that you didn't know about. The Christian lies, their fear of the unknown, and the demonic terms they use to define this fear; evil, filth, debauchery.

Well, I have only one reason for living, and that is to take back the shadows, the lies, the dark aspects neglected, rejected.

Einstein wrote that the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over expecting different results. I figure it should take about a thousand years or so for this to catch on. But I don't care. I have no other good reason to live.

The Problem With Life

There is really little I dislike more than organized religion. It's a matter of distrust I suppose, which goes to say that I obviously trusted at one time and then later was let down, betrayed, disappointed. The proverbial fall from grace.

When we are children, we all think of our parents as Gods; Goddess Mom, Goddess Dad. Parents usually have no idea what they are doing and even if they do, they are doomed to fail because their children will fall from grace at some point regardless of how much care and effort went into their 'parenting' and the children will blame the ensuing horror on the parents... the former Gods and Goddesses of their lives.

Aside from the psychology of it all I figure this is why I dislike organized religion so much. It's just a reiteration of the parent / child relationship that failed to live up to my grandiose expectation of it.

I have some experience with this. I have been a child and a parent. I've seen both sides. It can go wrong. Very wrong. I can't say that I've seen a situation where it has not gone wrong. Even if the parent / child relationship seems to have survived the inevitable fall from grace (I'm talking about age 14... think back people) and been repaired there is residual resentment that causes us to go our own way and not follow in the footsteps of our parents. It is natural.

So how can I believe that following in another's footsteps would be beneficial in any way? This is what organized religion asks of us. It beckons us to follow its doctrines, learn it's wisdom and let it guide our lives.

Hah... like I would ever let that happen.

My mistrust is obvious.

Yet I yearn, as I suspect many do, for a connection with a group of like-minded people. Wanting to connect is something so powerful it can drive us to do things that go against our better judgement. Such as falling in love. Who in their right mind would fall off a cliff in the hopes that someone would catch them before they smashed to bits on the rocks at the bottom? But that is what is happening when people fall in love. They do it all the time. The desire to connect overpowers the rational judgement that following another is not a logical thing to do.

This is also the case in organized religion. Giving one's self, one's sense of moral judgement, even one's center of gravity over to a set of principles belonging to a bunch of people interpreting a fictional character's experiences of the world. Even if this experience seems like good advice, what drives people to abandon themselves in this way?

Well, I'll tell you. Like wolves, humans are pack animals. We depend on each other to survive. We must get along or none of us survive. So people tend to do what everyone else is doing... and this is because of organized religion. The bible, the koran, the saints, the goddesses, they tell us what to do and none of the fallout or the consequences of our actions are our responsibility because they told us to do it.

Our world is built on the insanity of organized religion... and it started with our parents. It's their fault. Lol.

Again its obvious I struggle with this, not in a superficial way, but in an endless war with myself over my actions that has caused my life to be shaped into a perverse amalgamation of addiction, passion, action and the lack of action that leaves my center of gravity wobbling to and fro in in a static nightmare of indecision, like jogging on the spot, looking left to right to left to right and I can no longer move because everywhere I look there is reason to believe I will fall off that cliff if I move.

Hahahaha... why am I not insane? The definition of insane is doing the same thing over and over with the same results. I would say jogging on the spot looking left to right to left to right qualifies.

Well maybe I am insane.

I have no answers.

For sure I am at least a little bit crazy. Maybe when I run out of steam I'll end up somewhere else, by default.

This is my fascination with death and the reason for it. I see no answers in all the places I've looked in life. Death is the only religion I know nothing about and have no mistrust of. No one else knows anything about it either. Therefore there can be no authority to bastardize its existence.

Seems like a safe haven for me.