Browse 346 quotes about Paganism.
“So now, as the Maiden form of the Goddess whispers to us of hope and new beginnings at the festival of Imbolc, it is on a cold February morning that you are invited to step onto the ‘Wheel of the Year.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Cleansing and clearing are two words which suit the essence of Imbolc, as this is February, the Roman month of purification. This can be a cleansing of the self, in undertaking a good ‘detox’, or a clearing and cleansing of the home, in keeping with the tradition of spring-cleaning.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Legend tells us that the High King of Tara, who ruled supreme over all the Kings of Ireland, looked out from his castle one day during the festival of Eostre and saw a fire blazing away on a far hillside. Furious with this obvious disregard for the law, for which the penalty was death, he sent out soldiers to arrest the guilty party. When the soldiers arrived at the hillside they found St Patrick, the patron Saint of Ireland, piling wood onto his fire and immediately seized him. Standing before the King he was asked why he disobeyed the law, and he explained that his fire was a sign that Christ had risen from the dead and was the light of the world. The King so admired Patrick’s courage that he forgave him and became a convert to Christianity!”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The festival of Lughnasadh speaks of fullness and bounty of richness and sacrifice. As cornfields ripple in the late summer breeze and whisper golden promises of the grain harvest to come, we know deep within our psyche that the darkness is but a heartbeat away.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“My work as a Meridian Psychotherapist and Clinical Hypnotherapist has taught me that people often feel guilty about the way they feel or think and many do not realise that seasonal changes can have a profound effect on the psyche.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“I have since learned that although the festival of Imbolc was far less romantic and far more practical to our Celtic ancestors than the initial image portrayed to me by Mrs Darley, it was no less magical, for it marked the beginning of the lambing season which to the Celts meant the difference between survival and extinction.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“It is easy to see how the myths and legends which built up around the Goddess Bride became entwined with Christian doctrine, and there is one source which tells of St Brigid’s ale harvest being so abundant that enough ale was made to serve seventeen churches!”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The Bronze and Iron Age peoples saw water as having supernatural powers whilst its dark mysterious depths were seen as the gateway to the underworld. People felt compelled to make offerings to the Deities, which they believed inhabited these magical places, as evidenced by many archaeological finds including jewellery, plaques, coins and both animal and human remains. No doubt these were the original ‘wishing wells’ that we throw our small change into today, in the hope that the spirit of the place will grant our heart’s desire!”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Saturday morning brought an Imbolc gift of thick fog, as our select company of three set off onto the rain-sodden moor. ‘Here we are,’ said Mrs Darley, as the well appeared before us after a ten minute climb. She immediately began to unwrap a joint offering from Phyllis and herself of an ivy swag interwoven with white ribbons and laid it across the lintel of the well. I followed suit but with a far more modest bunch of pine branches and silver honesty.
‘Drinks, dear?’ Mrs Darley looked at Phyllis, who right on cue produced three paper cups from her bag and filled them with whiskey from a hip flask.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Horned humans are not unknown to medical science as there is a rare skin disease, which goes by the name of ‘Cornu Cutaneum’, a cutaneous growth, which resembles a horn and grows from the scalp.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The spring equinox celebration included a dawn trip to the nearby Rillaton Barrow, a Bronze Age burial mound high up on the Cheesewring Moor, with its entrance facing directly east.
‘A great archaeological find, dear,’ Mrs Darley informed me, rather breathlessly, as we climbed up to the entrance. ‘A skeleton, dagger and gold cup were all found here. However, the gold cup ended up in the royal bathroom for some considerable time until the death of George V and now stands in the British Museum, although you can see a copy of it in Truro if you wish. Come,’ she said, patting the top of the lintel, ‘we’ll sit here a while and wait for the sun.’
The sun duly arrived in all its spring glory over the eastern horizon, bringing a golden glow to the swathes of mist, which hung in the fields between Dartmoor and Bodmin.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“In Cornwall, the long poles which marked the boundaries of the tin mines were crowned with St John’s Wort to ensure protection for the mine and its workers.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“In times when the grain was harvested by hand, many traditions and superstitions grew up around this important event.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“The Old Cornwall Society decided during the 1920s to revive the custom of lighting fires along the Cornish peninsula, beginning in the east and moving westward as dusk approached. It is a custom which continues today and, when watched from a distance, still has the power to evoke in anyone who observes this ritual a deep connection with the earth and the ancestors.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Tell me, as a pagan, who do you worship?'
'Worship?'
'That's right. I imagine you must have a pretty wide open field. So to whom do you set up your household altar? To whom do you bow down? To whom do you pray to at dawn and at dusk?'
'The female principle. It's an empowerment thing. You know.'
'Indeed. And this female principle of yours. Does she have a name?'
'She's the goddess within us all. She doesn't need a name.'
'Ah,' said Wednesday, with a wide monkey grin, 'so do you hold mighty bacchanals in her honour? Do you drink blood wine under the full moon, while scarlet candles burn in silver candle holders? Do you step naked into the seafoam, chanting ecstactically to your nameless goddess while the waves lick at your legs, lapping your thighs like the tongues of a thousand leopards?”
Source: American Gods
“Listen,’ she whispered and pointed towards the window. ‘Whenever the wind blows from the east and the wind chimes dance in the moonlight, there is magic in the air.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“It is interesting to note that the overwhelming majority of all human beings who have ever lived were or currently are Pagans.”
Source: The Complete Idiot's Guide(R) to Women's Spirituality
“Upon moving to Cornwall in 1991, I became bewitched by its enchanting timeless beauty, which captured my heart and holds me still. Brooding and mysterious, the south-eastern edge of Bodmin Moor provided the wild backdrop against which the introduction to my magical training and love of nature began.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Nothing is ever lost as time passes, it merely metamorphoses into something as wonderful or, in some cases, into something even better than before.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“We sang, we danced, we talked, we laughed, we ate, we drank, but most of all we shared our contributions and I learned, that Lughnasadh night, that true gifts come from the heart and not necessarily from the purse.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“To those Romans December twenty-fifth was the birthday of the sun. They wrote that in gold letters in their calendar. Every year about that time, the middle of winter, the sun was born once more and it was going to put an end to the darkness and misery of winter. So they had a great feast, with presents and dolls for everybody, and the best day of all was December twenty-fifth. That feast, they would tell you, was thousands of years old- before Christ was ever heard of.”
Source: Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth
“Mrs Darley, I noticed, always had her corn dolly amidst an arrangement of cornflowers and poppies (albeit they were artificial!). The corn, I was to later understand, represented the God, the red poppies his sacrificial blood and the blue cornflowers his death and this is something I still adhere to today.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“Making corn dollies under the watchful eye of Mrs Darley was an absolute must for all of us living in the tiny Cornish hamlet on Bodmin Moor.”
Source: Mrs Darley's Pagan Whispers: A Celebration of Pagan Festivals, Sacred Days, Spirituality and Traditions of the Year
“By setting such strong, harsh dichotomies God taught Israel that any assimilation to pagan idolatry is intolerable. It was His way of preserving Israel’s spiritual health and posterity. God knew that if these Canaanite children were allowed to live, they would spell the undoing of Israel. The killing of the Canaanite children not only served to prevent assimilation to Canaanite identity but also served as a shattering, tangible illustration of Israel’s being set exclusively apart for God.”
“One afternoon more than thirty-five years ago I set foot on a path that changed my life. I found a name in a book – Brigit – and a brief column of text about her. A spark was kindled and I knew I wanted more. This led me to a search for information about Brigit and connection with her that has never ceased. Though my understanding of her has grown and shifted since those first few paragraphs, I remain drawn to Brigit like a lamb to its mother.”
Source: A Brigit of Ireland Devotional: Sun Among Stars
“As all things come from and are imbued with the quintessence of Spirit, all things are holy and alive in their own right—and anything that has a physical existence contains within it a unique personality, energy, and expression of Spirit.”
Source: Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
“The failure of Hellenism has been, largely, a matter of organization. Rome never tried to impose any sort of worship upon the countries it conquered and civilized; in fact, quite the contrary, Rome was eclectic. All religions were given an equal opportunity and even Isis—after some resistance—was worshipped at Rome. As a result we have a hundred important gods and a dozen mysteries. Certain rites are—or were—supported by the state because they involved the genius of Rome. But no attempt was ever made to coordinate the worship of Zeus on the Capitol with, let us say, the Vestals who kept the sacred fire in the old forum. As time passed our rites became, and one must admit it bluntly, merely form, a reassuring reminder of the great age of the city, a token gesture to the old gods who were thought to have founded and guided Rome from a village by the Tiber to world empire. Yet from the beginning, there were always those who mocked. A senator of the old Republic once asked an auger how he was able to get through a ceremony of divination without laughing. I am not so light-minded, though I concede that many of our rites have lost their meaning over the centuries; witness those temples at Rome where certain verses learned by rote are chanted year in and year out, yet no one, including the priests, knows what they mean, for they are in the early language of the Etruscans, long since forgotten.
As the religious forms of the state became more and more rigid and perfunctory, the people were drawn to the mystery cults, many of them Asiatic in origin. At Eleusis or in the various caves of Mithras, they were able to get a vision of what this life can be, as well as a foretaste of the one that follows. There are, then, three sorts of religious experiences. The ancient rites, which are essentially propitiatory. The mysteries, which purge the soul and allow us to glimpse eternity. And philosophy, which attempts to define not only the material world but to suggest practical ways to the good life, as well as attempting to synthesize (as Iamblichos does so beautifully) all true religion in a single comprehensive system.”
Source: JULIAN
“He possesses the minimum sensibility necessary for his intelligence not to be merely mathematical, the minimum a human being needs so that it can be proven with a thermometer that he's not dead.”
“It is the distinction between transpersonal and interpersonal relationships with deities which sets naturalistic polytheism apart from neopolytheism. Interpersonal relationships are between two or more persons and are focused upon individual perspectives. A transpersonal relationship extends beyond the individual perspective, transcending the distinctions of ego and personality. For example:
A neopolytheist has a close personal relationship with a modernized personification of Thor, to whom she prays to daily.
A naturalistic polytheist practices breathing as a sacrament which allows her to focus on life’s connection to the atmosphere, altering her perception of separateness, resulting in viewing the at-mosphere as a deity." - Glen Gordon, "Naturalism and the Gods”
Source: Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans
“Plato’s heirs—armed with his methods, but unchained from his wistful predilections—abstracted away the faces of the pagan gods: the marbles that in Homer’s day were warm Olympian flesh were philosophized into dust and that dust into theology. Consequently, the labor of keeping beauty and goodness yoked became moot as their separation in the realm of experience, in art and religion—their correspondent spheres of human activity—became so obviously distinct. Christianity supplanted paganism and the art of yore, which had formerly been principally confined to civil and religious expression, was gradually supplanted by an art that was its own unique means by which humanity understood itself. In due course, following the birth of Romanticism, art stood on the field of history its own inexorable self.”
“Heritage is the conventional, if lightweight, motive for the preservation of megalithic monuments – but spirituality is the harder motive to admit to, even though it is the deeper of the two, provided it remains true to the prehistoric builders’ awe of the natural world.”
Source: Earthwork
“Thabit ibn Qurra (AD 836-901, and also born in Harran), would have had little patience with loaded terms like "star idolatry" which seek to place the "paganism" of the Sabians on a lower level than the deadly, and often bigoted, narrow-minded and unscientific clerical monotheism of religions like Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Thabit was well aware that, underlying the ancient Sabian practices misunderstood by these young religions as "star idolatry," were indeed exact sciences of great benefit to mankind, and thus he wrote: 'Who else have civilized the world, and built the cities, if not the nobles and kings of Paganism? Who else have set in order the harbors and rivers? And who else have taught the hidden wisdom? To whom else has the Deity revealed itself, given oracles, and told about the future, if not the famous men among the Pagans? The Pagans have made known all this. They have discovered the art of healing the soul; they have also made known the art of healing the body. They have filled the earth with settled forms of government, and with wisdom, which is the highest good. Without Paganism the world would be empty and miserable.”
Source: Magicians of the Gods: The Forgotten Wisdom of Earth's Lost Civilization
“in exceptional circumstances — exceptional in that all circumstances in life are exceptional, especially those which are nothing in themselves and come to be everything in their results.”
“The amorous shepherd has lost his staff,
And his sheep are straying on the hillside,
And he didn’t even play the flute he brought to play because he was thinking so much.
No one came to him or went away. He never found his staff again.
Others, cursing at him, gathered his sheep for him.
No one had loved him, in the end.
When he got up from the hillside and the false truth, he saw everything:
The great valleys full of the same green as always,
The great distant mountains, more real than any feeling,
All reality, with the sky and the air and the fields that exist, is present.
(And once again the air, that he’d missed for so long, entered coolly into his lungs)
And he felt that the air was opening again, but with pain, a liberty in his chest.
(7/10/1930)”
Source: O Pastor Amoroso
“[Langdon] thought about all the religions of the world, about their shared origins, about the earliest gods of the sun, moon, sea and wind. Nature was once the core. For all of us.' - p. 456”
Source: Origin
“It’s important to understand that all initiations are beginnings and not endings.”
Source: Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
“I think Scandinavian Paganism, to us here, is more interesting than any other. It is, for one thing, the latest; it continued in these regions of Europe till the eleventh century; 800 years ago the Norwegians were still worshippers of Odin. It is interesting also as the creed of our fathers; the men whose blood still runs in our veins, whom doubtless we still resemble in so many ways.”
“Just because something is basic or simple does not mean that it isn’t immensely powerful.”
Source: Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
“I have found continual unfolding of attunement and depth in the basic practices that many others may set aside as being part of their past practice as beginners.”
Source: Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
“Is it true we Greeks are really dead
and only seem alive—in our fallen state
where we imagine that a dream is life?
Or are we truly alive and is life dead?”
“I’m in no hurry: the sun and the moon aren’t, either.
Nobody goes faster than the legs they have.
If where I want to go is far away, I’m not there in an instant.
(6/20/1919)”
Source: The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“On the conversion of the European tribes to Christianity the ancient pagan worship was by no means incontinently abandoned. So wholesale had been the conversion of many peoples, whose chiefs or rulers had accepted the new faith on their behalf in a summary manner, that it would be absurd to suppose that any, general acquiescence in the new gospel immediately took place. Indeed, the old beliefs lurked in many neighbourhoods, and even a renaissance of some of them occurred in more than one area. Little by little, however, the Church succeeded in rooting out the public worship of the old pagan deities, but it found it quite impossible to effect an entire reversion of pagan ways, and in the end compromised by exalting the ancient deities to the position of saints in its calendar, either officially, or by usage. In the popular mind, however, these remained as the fairies of woodland and stream, whose worship in a broken-down form still flourished at wayside wells and forest shrines. The Matres, or Mother gods, particularly those of Celtic France and Ireland, the former of which had come to be Romanized, became the bonnes dames of folklore, while the dusii and pilosi, or hairy house-sprites, were so commonly paid tribute that the Church introduced a special question concerning them into its catechism of persons suspected of pagan practice. Nevertheless, the Roman Church, at a somewhat later era, reversed its older and more catholic policy, and sternly set its face against the cultus of paganism in Europe, stigmatizing the several kinds of spirits and derelict gods who were the objects of its worship as demons and devils, whom mankind must eschew with the most pious care if it were to avoid damnation.”
Source: British Fairy Origins
“O’ Cernunnos, with antler crown,
you rid us all of the ungrateful kind with new
life sown, amongst the moss, we’ve lain down
to weep, diolch for the peace of mind,
the pain you have (for centuries) known,
hir yw pob ymaros, in wake and sleep,
we knew you’d return to us!”
Source: Adrift in Acheron
“Where once I prayed for forgiveness from a father God who held up huge palms and said “Thou shalt not,” now I find peace with a sister god who takes my open hands in hers and says, “You will.”
“In art and mythology, the Goddess appears in three forms. White represents the virgin, red the mother, and black, the crone, or the death-goddess.”
Source: Cut
“Eril iktidar Doğa'yı tahakküm altına aldığı gibi, Doğa'nın bir temsilcisi ve uzantısı olarak kadını da tahakküm altına almaya çalışır ve onu ilk olarak kamusal alandan uzaklaştırır; sonrasında da onu kötülüğün temsilcisi olarak gösterir. İşte cadı avları da bu sürecin farklı bir biçimde devamıdır.”
Source: Avrupa’da ve Osmanlı’da Cadılık;Bilge Kadının Yolculuğu
“I am the Maiden,
the Mother,
and the Crone.”
Source: Winter's Maiden 1
“Nothing: a landscape, a glass of wine, a little loveless love, and the vague sadness caused by our understanding nothing and having lost the little we're given.”
“Salt Marsh Goddess by Michelle Joers
"You may need
a super-human
super-hero
super-natural god/dess,
hammer or harp in hand,
horse-bodied or jackal-headed,
Lady of the Lake or Lord of the Seas.*
But I have the deep, deep ocean
and strong winds driving waves upon the shore
driving me to my knees for absolution
driving me to oblivion;
I have a sun that warms tender shoots,
crooning them from the loamy body of a Living Earth;
The caress of the Willow branch as I lie beneath her roots,
book in hand, and squirmy child in lap.
The Salt Marsh Goddess speaks to me in ringing tones,
as clear as any god of myth does for you
& she speaks in a thousand tongues—
Spartina, Juniperus, Myrica, Sesarma,
Uca, Littorina, Malaclemys, Ardea, Alligator
…just to name a few.
I have prayed at her temple as the tide pours into my boots
And divined my future with her bones
I have bled for her | I have tasted her flesh
And drank of her blood | And given her mine
While you argue
over how to resurrect
gods of long passed cultures,
I’ll be the one covered in mud and dancing with the rushes,
celebrating a goddess born of glaciers.”
Source: Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans
“I sing to you of many more gods, gods of wind and water, gods of each mineral and the events that created them. I sing to you of the gods of protons, of quarks, of atomic forces binding and holding. I sing to you of the god of the dust that flies off the ice-burned comet, and the god of the spaces in between. I sing to you of the god that twists like a serpent at the center of every sun and is found again coiled within every electron, shared by both and worshiped by each in its own way. I sing to you of the god that collects asteroids together in mockeries of his sister’s solar systems, jealous of his elder sibling’s power. I sing to you of all these, and many, many more." - Lupa, "The Forgotten Gods of Nature”
Source: Godless Paganism: Voices of Non-Theistic Pagans