Sham-olitics: When Power Shapes the Sacred

Listen Now: 09-01-26 Sep Musings

35:51

Before women were called witches, they were called wise.  Before sacred lands were destroyed, they were temples. Before there were scriptures, there were stars.  Before herbs were labeled dangerous, they were healing medicine. Before the Goddess was prostituted, she was worshipped.  This month, we're traveling even further back... to a time before the witch hunts...

…to a time when the Earth was our teacher, the sky our calendar, and spirituality was less about being “right” and more about living in connection with the cosmos.  The Quechuan concept of ayni captures this idea of reciprocal relationship—with the land, with one another, and with something greater than ourselves.  Before institutions, there was right relationship.  And, as usual, I have questions.  Lots of them!

When did the mystic become the heretic, the healer become the witch, and the sacred become regulated?  When did spirituality become religion?  What happens when spiritual wisdom becomes institutionalized?  When did direct experience give way to doctrine? Where is the line between genuine spiritual experience and systems designed to maintain power?  What if the sacred rhythms of nature were humanity’s first “religion”? These are deep questions.

Before Religion, there was Reverence

Our ancestors learned from the rhythms of the Earth.  The rising & setting of the sun, the waxing & waning of the moon, the migration of animals, and the changing constellations. The arrival of spring, then the harvest, followed by the darkness of winter.

Long before Judaism, Christianity, Islam, or even written language, our ancestors honored these sacred seasons - solstices, equinoxes, planting seasons, harvests, birth, death, and renewal.  The cycles of nature shaped every aspect of life, so honoring those cycles through celebration became an expression of gratitude and respect for that which sustained them.

Today, the word pagan often conjures images of darkness, witchcraft, devil worship, black magic, or something sinister.  Yet historically, the word simply referred to people whose spiritual lives remained rooted in nature and the cosmic cycles.  Nature-based spirituality isn't inherently evil.  It encompassed hundreds of very different traditions.  Many practiced what anthropologists call animism - the understanding that life itself is sacred, and that rivers, mountains, forests, animals, and even the elements possess spirit.

Animism is a simple, yet reverent, practice of earth-honoring ways of life. Maybe we should call this naturalism.  These weren't simply curiosities; they were the difference between survival & starvation.  They needed to know the natural cycles.  Knowing when birds migrated meant knowing when food might arrive. Understanding the stars meant successful navigation. Watching the moon phases & tides helped determine when to travel, hunt, plant, and harvest.  Our world wasn't built upon doctrine, it was built upon reverence.  It was practical knowledge.  Nature was sacred because human beings understood that they were part of it, not separate from it.  And that raises a bigger question:  What if reverence for the Earth was humanity's first spirituality?

A Calendar Written in the Stars

It’s well documented that agricultural societies across the world naturally developed festivals to celebrate certain milestones throughout the year.  Many of these celebrations contain mythological, theological, seasonal, agricultural, social, and cultural layers accumulated over a long period of history.  So, what did human beings consider sacred enough to mark on the calendar?  And how did different traditions give those experiences their own meaning? Below is not a complete chart of celebrations but you can see the pagan origin and the religious overlap. 

Season/Month	Theme
Winter	Darkness, Hibernation & Rebirth
January	·   January was named for Janus, God of beginnings, and Romans offered gifts to Janus on New Year’s Day. ·   Buddhist Mahayana New Year ushering in new beginnings. ·   Christian Epiphany/Three Kings Day celebrating rebirth & return of divine light. ·   Jewish Tu BiShvat/Tree New Year renewal of nature. ·   Hindu Makar Sankranti/Pongal honors the Sun’s northward journey.
February	·   Nature festivals like Imbolc (anticipating early spring). ·   Chinese Lunar New Year. ·   Hindu Maha Shivaratri honors the union of divine masculine/ feminine. ·   Lupercalia/St. Valentine's Day celebrate love & fertility rites. ·   Anthesteria, the feast of love.
March	·   Spring Equinox where day & night are equal length ·   Mardi Gras (“Fat Tuesday”), the feasting & fasting before Lent. ·   Jewish Purim with reading of the Book of Esher. ·   Islamic Ramadan a period of fasting. ·   The colorful Hindu Holi celebrates the arrival of Spring. ·   Buddhist Magha Puja unity of disciples. ·   St. Patrick's Day commemorates the historical saint. ·   Celtic Ostara which honors the spring equinox.
Spring	Rebirth
April	·   Christian Lent/Easter season with its resurrection & spiritual springtime theme. ·   Passover/Pesach the Jewish festival of liberation. ·   Both Buddhist Theravada New Year & Hindu Rama Navami with their renewal theme.
May	·   Pagan Beltane’s union of God/Goddess. ·   Christian May Day/Mary’s Month honoring Mary. ·   Jewish festival of harvest Shavuot & the reading the Book of Ruth. ·   Vesak honors Buddha’s birth & enlightenment. ·   The auspicious festival Hindu Akshaya Tritiya for growth & abundance.
June	·   Summer Solstice – longest day & shortest night of the year. ·   Pagan/Litha celebration of peak light. ·   Christian St. John’s Day celebrating the “light bearer” before Christ. ·   Hindu Ratha Yatra’s divine journey. ·   Islamic Hajj/Eid al-Adha with its sacrifice & surrender theme. ·   Buddhist Asalha Puja commemorating Buddha’s first sermon.
Summer	Light & Abundance
July	·   US Independence Day celebration of freedom. ·   Hindu Guru Purnima honoring the wise teachers. ·   Buddhist Vassa when the rains retreat.
August	·   Pagan Lughnasadh/Lammas the Christianized form of blessing of loaves. ·   Hindu Krishna Janmashtami celebrating the birth of beloved Krishna. ·   The quiet & reflective Islamic New Year (a lunar calendar)
September	·   Fall Equinox where day & night are equal in length. ·   Pagan Mabon second harvest. ·   Christian Michaelmas or Archangel Michael’s feast. ·   Rosh Hashanah/Yom Kippur Jewish High Holy Days. ·   Hindu Navaratri honoring the divine feminine. ·   Buddhist Pavarana Day of forgiveness.
Fall/Autumn	Harvest & Gratitude
October	·   Halloween the Christianized version of Pagan Samhain celebrates the final harvest & end of the abundance season. ·   Christian All Saints' Day remembering the dead. ·   Hindu Diwali worship of the Goddess. ·   Buddhist Kathina ceremony about reciprocity & generosity and retreating of the rains/monsoons.
November	·   Thanksgiving honors the final harvest festivals. ·   Christian Advent anticipating the birth of divine light.
December	·   Winter Solstice – shortest day & longest night of the year. ·   Pagan Saturnalia/Yule ushers in the darker half of the year. ·   Solstice Night was also called Alban Arthuan (King Arthur), a Druidic name which means the “light of Arthur” ·   The lunar-based tradition of the Celtic 13 Days of Christmas honoring their trees was later blended in the Christian 12 Days of Christmas. ·   Christmas celebrating the birth of Christ. ·   Hanukkah the Jewish Festival of Light hailing renewed illumination. ·   African Kwanzaa about community & Winter Solstice ·   Zoroastrian Yalda Night honors the rebirth of light. ·   Buddhist Bodhi Day celebrating Buddha’s enlightenment.

Whether we light candles for Hanukkah, gather around the Christmas tree, celebrate Yule, observe Bodhi Day, or simply spend quiet time with family as the year comes to a close, we are celebrating the longest nights of the year and the hope that light will return, just like our ancestors did. 

Every culture developed festivals to honor light overcoming darkness, hope overcoming despair, and life emerging from death. 

Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Indigenous traditions, Celtic spirituality, and Norse mythology express their own symbols and sacred stories while responding to the same Earth below and the same sky above.  After all, we share the same sun, moon & stars.

In fact, even the days of the week followed the cosmic cycles and the old pagan tradition of giving thanks to the gods & goddesses.

The seven-day week originates from the mystical beliefs of ancient Babylon prior to 600 BC, when time was marked with the lunar cycle.  The word month comes from moonth, one cycle of the moon.  Astrologers back then assigned each day of the week in honor of one of the 7 celestial bodies visible to the naked eye.  Centuries later, Emperor Constantine converted Rome to Christianity and standardized the seven-day week across the Empire as well as adopting the names of the week to fit their own gods/goddesses.  As the Roman Empire declined, the days were adjusted to accommodate the Norse gods/goddesses.  The Anglo-Saxons brought these day names to Britain where they remain a part of the English language today.  (See the chart below.) 

Day of Week	Planet/God/Goddess
Monday	Moon’s Day, day of the Moon Artemis/Diana’s Day, Goddess of the Moon
Tuesday	Mar’s Day, day of Mars Tyr’s Day, Norse God of war & sky
Wednesday	Mercury’s Day, day of Mercury Woden/Odin’s Day, Norse God & green robed gift giver
Thursday	Jupiter’s Day, day of Jupiter Thor’s Day, Norse God of thunder & lightning
Friday	Venus’s Day, day of Venus Freya’s Day, Norse Goddess of love, marriage & fertility
Saturday	Saturn’s Day, day of Saturn Roman God of time & agriculture
Sunday	Sun’s Day, day of the Sun Sol/Helios/Apollo’s Day And Sun gods like the Egyptian Ra, lord of time Christian Lord’s Day, a day of rest

Sunday literally retains the name of the Sun. Yet a Christian attending church on Sunday isn't worshipping Sol or Apollo. The day has inherited an ancient name while carrying a distinctly Christian meaning - the remembrance of Christ's resurrection.  The day remained, but the meaning changed.

As my honorable hubby & esteemed editor, Dan, was reading this he noted that most of the names of the week spoken in Spanish still sound similar to the planetary names (Lunes, Martes, Miércoles, Jueves, Viernes, Sabado & Domingo).

Earth-centered rituals, seasonal symbolism, mystical merriment, and the traditions of old invite us to rediscover the sacred intention woven into these seasonal markers. Personally, I have found that remembering the origins of these celebrations adds intriguing layers of meaning to what has been lost in our modern observances. Rather than diminishing the meaning of today's holidays, understanding their layered history reminds me that humanity has long sought to honor the same eternal rhythms of light & dark, death & rebirth, inhale & exhale, and our enduring relationship with the natural world. 

“They didn’t eradicate paganism. The church stole it, copied it,

rebranded it and sold it back to you.”

~ Ellen Redd.

How Traditions Evolve

Many pagan traditions were absorbed and adapted.  And many of these seasonal rituals were reinterpreted within Christianity.  Either way, you can see there are common themes throughout the year.  Many celebrations developed along with existing Roman and European seasonal festivals, and this is where my curiosity moves from paganism into religion.

History can tell us where a ritual, symbol, or celebration came from, but it cannot always tell us what it means to the person practicing it today.  And that brings me back to a conversation I had with a mid-western minister about paganism, Christianity, and the holidays we continue to celebrate.  It was about the negative view of paganism and the controversy over whether holidays with ancient pagan roots should still be celebrated. His conclusion was simple…people today aren't celebrating pagan gods, they're celebrating what those holidays have come to mean in their own hearts.

For example, the Roman world already had midwinter celebrations such as Saturnalia, and other cultures had their own solstice traditions. Over time, Christian celebrations developed alongside and sometimes incorporated existing seasonal customs.  But most Christians don't celebrate Christmas because of Saturnalia.  They celebrate the birth of Christ.  They don't celebrate Easter because of ancient fertility festivals.  They celebrate resurrection, renewal & hope, even if some of the symbols (eggs & chicks) have seeped into the traditions over time.  A tradition can be absorbed, adapted, or reinterpreted without its original meaning remaining intact. Many customs and celebrations have incorporated elements of traditions that predate Christianity.

What fascinates me is how spiritual traditions evolve. Religions change and stories change, but the rhythms of nature remain.  People across cultures have always celebrated the return of light, spring renewal, harvest, and remembrance of the dead.  Christianity entered cultures that already had sacred calendars, and over time there was both continuity & change.

The Story of Mother Christmas...

Today Santa leads Rudolph and his flying reindeer across our skies.  However, since the Neolithic, the female horned reindeer was venerated as the ‘life-giving mother’ in the Northern hemisphere.  We have forgotten that it was the “Deer Mother” who led the herds and drew the sleigh of the mother or sun goddess.  It is likely that this winter solstice celebration of the deer mother brought us the stories of flying horned reindeer who take to the sky on the longest night of the year.  In Siberia, female shamans wore red & white costumes trimmed with fur, horned headdresses and practiced the tradition of shamanic flight.  Similarly, Rozhanitsa was an antlered winter goddess of the Ukraine.  We have clearly forgotten the winter goddesses and their magical reindeer and replaced them with a portly old man in a red & white suit.

The History of the Yule Log…

The custom of burning the Yule Log dates back before medieval times. It was originally a Nordic tradition. Yule is the name of the old Winter Solstice festivals in Scandinavia and other parts of northern Europe, such as Germany.

The custom of the Yule Log spread all over Europe with different kinds of wood being used in different countries. In Scotland, it is Birch; in France, it's Cherry; while in England, Oak is traditional.  In Devon and Somerset in the UK, some people have a very large bunch of Ash twigs instead of the log.  In some parts of Ireland, people have a large candle instead of a log and it is only lit on New Year's Eve and Twelfth Night.  Fire has long symbolized purification, transformation & the return of light.

Green Man, Green Woman…

Interestingly, many medieval Christian churches throughout Europe feature carvings of the Green Man (and occasionally the Green Woman), a foliate figure often associated with nature, renewal, and the vitality of the living world.  This reminds me of the Guardian Seeds.  

Whether these images represent the continuation of earlier nature symbolism or were reinterpreted through Christian beliefs remains a subject of debate. What they do reveal is that many local traditions and symbols were absorbed, adapted, and given new meaning rather than simply erased. 

As Christianity spread through Europe and the Middle East, it encountered communities that already had deeply rooted spiritual traditions. People were already gathering at solstices & equinoxes, honoring ancestors, watching the stars, celebrating harvests, and living according to seasonal rhythms long before churches were built in their villages. 

Many local customs were discouraged or abandoned.  Some traditions were preserved. Others were absorbed into Christian practice and given new meaning.  Still others quietly faded into history, leaving only traces hidden in architecture, folklore, and ritual.  

Cultures rarely disappear overnight, they evolve.  They inherit languages, customs, stories, symbols, and ceremonies from those who came before.  This wasn't unique to Christianity.  Throughout history, religions and cultures have borrowed from one another through migration, conquest, trade, and cultural exchange.

The Church faced a choice.  It could attempt to erase these traditions or reinterpret them. History suggests it did a little of both.  Perhaps that is less a story of theft than it is of alteration.  Goddesses became saints, seasonal rituals were given Christian meaning, and the feminine face of the divine was hidden to let the masculine have voice & power instead which led to a predominantly patriarchal religious structure that shaped spiritual beliefs.

Your freedom does not come from the system.

It comes from within.

When Traditions Become Institutions

What interests me most isn't simply what changed.  It's what happens when spiritual wisdom becomes institutionalized.  When does spirituality become religion?  When does direct experience give way to doctrine?  When does a teacher become an authority/guru?  When does a spiritual community become an institution?  And most importantly: What happens when an institution becomes more focused on preserving its own power than serving the people it was created to support?

That question isn't limited to religion.  It applies to governments, politics, medicine, corporations, organizations, movements, even spirituality itself.  Any system can become a tool for liberation…or a tool for control.  The tool isn't necessarily the problem, it’s how we use it.

The Forgotten Feminine

One of the patterns that keeps appearing as I explore these traditions is the sacred feminine.  Before organized religions became predominantly patriarchal, many cultures honored both masculine and feminine expressions of the Divine - gods & goddesses, priests & priestesses, healers, midwives and oracles.

Women often served as keepers of medicinal knowledge, spiritual wisdom, and community rituals. While ancient societies were not all equal, many acknowledged that creation itself depends upon balance - day & night, sun & moon, giving & receiving.  The Taoists call it yin & yang.  Yoga speaks of Shiva & Shakti.  Science describes polarity.  Balance requires both.

The feminine isn't simply “women.”  It represents qualities such as receptivity, intuition, embodiment, cycles, nurturing, creation, and listening.

The masculine isn't simply “men.”  It represents action, structure, direction, protection, and manifestation.

  There is dark & light.  We need both in order to dance through this world of duality.

The disappearance of feminine wisdom may not simply be about women losing power.  Maybe humanity lost something within itself.  And this brings me back to the Witch Wound and direct experience of the mystical, magical & maternal.  It isn't just about the persecution of women accused of witchcraft.  It's about humanity's disconnection from intuition, embodiment, ancestral wisdom, and our relationship with Mother Earth.  Healing is about putting back together what has been dismembered - our relationship with nature, the feminine, ancestral wisdom, and the sacred cycles of life.

Religion & Spirituality

I respect sincere faith & devotion.  I also respect someone's personal relationship with Source. What I question is what happens when any belief system becomes more important than the human being it was meant to serve.

As a child, my parents took me to church. I never really understood the idea of going to a particular building to find God when Source is supposedly everywhere.  If we teach children to pray before bed, why do we need a separate building to experience the Divine?  Just saying.

I do believe in a Source creator.  Some call it a higher power but now you just created a hierarchy!  This causes more separation between you and the divine as well as disempowering us to believe we are not the co-creator of our reality.  I love how the shamans say, “You who are known by a thousand names and yet are un-nameable.”  It’s all that and more.  Whether we call it – God/Goddess, Source, the one infinite Creator, infinite Consciousness, the Universe, Great Spirit, Buddha, Yahweh, Allah, I AM, whatever – matters less to me than the relationship.  I believe in a divine love-light, regardless of what label you give it. 

And maybe this is why so many people describe themselves today as spiritual but not religious.  They aren't necessarily rejecting God.  They may simply be searching for direct experience rather than secondhand belief.

This is why I am drawn to yoga, shamanism, and indigenous teachings.  For many, yoga, meditation, contemplative prayer, nature, art, and silence have become ways of encountering the sacred without needing someone else to interpret the experience for them.

Maybe the deepest spiritual journey isn't about choosing between religion & spirituality but to recognize the sacred wherever it appears…in a church, on a yoga mat, in the forest, in meditation, at the bedside of someone dying, in the birth of a child, in the breath, or within our own hearts.  Perhaps our ancestors understood something we've largely forgotten.  Spirituality was never meant to separate us from the Earth, it was meant to remind us that we belong to it.

The Wise Ones

I sometimes think we've become so focused on the differences between religions that we've forgotten to look at their similarities.

Jesus was a Jew, not a Christian.  He was a Bodhisattva.  He didn’t preach Christianity, he lived forgiveness, mercy, and unconditional love.  He never taught religion, he taught ascension.  Jesus wasn’t the only one.  He was an ascended master as was Buddha, Krishna, etc.

Buddha was not a Buddhist.  He didn’t teach Buddhism, he taught awareness, compassion, and freedom from suffering.

Muhammad was not a Muslim.  He didn’t promote Islam as an identity. He emphasized justice, humility, and mercy.

Krishna was not a Hindu.  He didn’t sermonize Hinduism.  He spoke of devotion & surrender and taught the path of union with the Divine.

These teachers emerged from different cultures, histories and spiritual traditions.  But beneath the theological differences, I see the similarities…they were teachers who taught humility, compassion, service, and love.  Love was their religion.  This reminds me of the sign I made for the one and only protest I attended.  It said: “Earth is my Church.  Love is my Religion.”  

“I have a religion; it’s called love.

I have a church; it’s called Earth.

I have a scripture; it’s called heart.

I have a prayer; it’s called compassion.”

~ Sofo Archon

And Jesus' own life offers a particularly powerful example.  In first-century Judea, the relationship between Jews & Gentiles was complicated by deep religious, cultural and political divisions. Roman rule was oppressive, and many Jews viewed the religious practices of surrounding non-Jewish peoples as unclean or incompatible with Jewish faith.  Yet Jesus repeatedly crossed those boundaries.

Whether we call these people Gentiles, outsiders, pagans, or earth lovers, Jesus did not allow religious or cultural difference to become an excuse for withholding love.  He crossed the lines his society had drawn between “us” and “them.”  That's important.  Because it's easy to love people who believe what we believe.  It's much harder to love someone whose religion, politics, worldview or understanding of God is completely different from our own.

The mystics of Judaism sought direct experience of God.  Sufi poets spoke of dissolving the illusion of separation.  Indigenous traditions taught relationship with Mother Earth.  Yoga invites us to recognize the deeper Self beneath the layers of identity & ego.

They weren’t trying to create followers; they were trying to create awakened human beings.  To realize the divine nature that already exists as YOU. 

The institutional religions that formed around these teachers may have developed doctrines, hierarchies, rules, and boundaries, but the original message is simpler.

These wise teachers were trying to open hearts.  What came first was love.  Love without conditions.  Love without borders.  Love without superiority.  They didn’t ask people what they believed, they showed people HOW to live.  What came later…religion, rules, and divisions.

Their message wasn’t about following rules; it was about realizing (SELF-realized) that you are divine.  They were showing you how to break free from the matrix of control.  Question yourself and you will see that all religions are an invention...of man.  KNOW THYSELF.

They weren't simply telling people what to believe, they were showing people how to live.  I mean if our spiritual beliefs make us more judgmental, have we missed the point?  If our search for truth makes us cruel, have we mistaken information for wisdom?  If our awakening makes us feel superior to people who are “still asleep,” have we simply created another ego identity?  Consciousness isn't how much we know, it's how much love we can embody.

A pry bar doesn't work

to open other people's third eye.

~ Tim Chabot

Question Everything, Including Yourself

I’ve spent much of my life questioning things. Sometimes that questioning has led me down fascinating rabbit holes. Sometimes I’ve discovered information that challenged everything I thought I knew. Other times, I’ve had to question the information I thought was the “truth.”  That’s the part we don’t talk about enough.

It’s easy to question the narratives we’ve inherited from our families, cultures, governments, religions, schools, and media. It’s much harder to question ourselves - to recognize how easily we can replace one programming with another.  How we can reject one authority and immediately make someone else our authority.  We can become so certain that we’ve “woken up” that we stop questioning our own assumptions.  Elizabeth April goes deeper:  “When you attach yourself to one construct of what reality is, of what you deem to be real, then everything else exists contained within that limitation. What you fail to recognize in this state is that the world around you…is you.”

True discernment asks us to remain curious, to investigate, to listen, to question, and ultimately, to be willing to say, “I don’t know.”

I don't know if any of us will ever know the absolute truth. I don't know whether every ancient story is literal or symbolic.  I don't know whether the gods were gods, archetypes, extraterrestrials, or something we don't yet have language to describe. I don't know whether Jesus was exactly who history tells us he was.  And I don't know if humanity will ever agree on what God is.

 

But I do know what I've experienced.  I’ve had moments when I felt something larger than myself.  I've felt the extreme intelligence of nature.  I've experienced the stillness of meditation (a blissful yogic state called samadhi).  I've felt the healing power of yoga.  I've witnessed the mystery of birth & death.  And through all of it, I've come to believe that the sacred is not something reserved for a select few.  It is everywhere…in the soil, the stars, the breath, the body, the silence, and the space between us.

 

The Problem Isn't Religion, It’s the Need to be Saved

A religious institution can nurture community…or protect power. A spiritual practice can liberate us…or become another way of avoiding ourselves (spiritual bypassing).  A political movement can serve humanity…or manipulate fear.  Again, the tool itself isn't necessarily the problem. It is how the tool is used, and whether it leads us toward greater consciousness, sovereignty, compassion, and truth.

This is where I think the idea of salvation deserves some questioning.  What if the greatest spiritual trap isn't believing the wrong thing but believing that something or someone outside ourselves must save or rescue us?

We can become dependent on the institution, guru, priest, politician, prophet or teacher to tell us what is true, who we are, and what we need to become.

Awakening asks something different from us.  Not surrendering our discernment.  Not waiting for someone else to save us.  Not outsourcing our relationship with the Divine.  Not abandoning Source but discovering our relationship with the Divine within ourselves.

The journey isn't about finding an external savior, it’s about returning to the sovereign Creator Self and remembering that our connection to Source was never something another person, institution, or religion could give us in the first place.  As I’ve said over & over…go within. 

 

There is no second coming of Christ, only Christ Consciousness.

I AM Christ Consciousness

What if “Christ” isn't simply the name of a being we're waiting for to return but a state of consciousness waiting to awaken within us?

In mystical and esoteric traditions, Christ Consciousness has come to represent an awakened state of divine love, unity, compassion, wisdom and remembrance of our connection with Source.  This doesn't reject Jesus, it invites us to look more deeply at the teachings attributed to him.

If Christ Consciousness is kindness, can we practice compassion?  If it is forgiveness, can we truly forgive?  If it is unity, can we stop dividing ourselves into “us” versus “them”?  If it is divine love, can we recognize that same sacred spark in ourselves and one another?  Maybe the true messenger isn't someone asking us to worship them, but someone who reminds us of what we've forgotten.  The Christ within isn't something we need to acquire, it is something we need to awaken to.

Returning Home to the Sacred

The more I study religion, spirituality, mythology, and the ancient wisdom traditions, the more I find myself coming back to a simple idea that the divine is not something we have to find, it is something we have to remember.

We don’t need a new religion, another doctrine, or another group telling us what to believe. We need a direct relationship with the mystery of existence.  Whatever you call it – God/Goddess, Source, Universe, Great Spirit - we are part of that greater whole.  You have a piece of that divine vibration, that infinity spark, within; it’s what makes you, uniquely you.

There is something within us that connects us to something much larger than ourselves.  Rather than humanity abandoning spirituality, maybe we're remembering it.  Remembering that before religions, there was reverence.  Before doctrines, there was direct experience.  Before temples, there were forests.  And before institutions, there was relationship.

There is still so much I don't know.  I don't need to know exactly what God is to experience awe. I don't need to agree with someone else's religion to recognize their humanity.  I don't need to know which ancient story is literally true to learn from its wisdom.  And I don't need to decide which religion is “right” to recognize that something sacred is moving through all of us.

Beneath the different gods, prophets, saviors, stories, symbols and sacred calendars, there are remarkably universal human themes: birth & death, renewal & harvest, light & dark, compassion, gratitude, hope, and our relationship with the Earth.  Isn't this what all these traditions are ultimately reminding us?

The world doesn't need more people arguing about who has the "right" God, which holiday is the "right" one to celebrate, or whose tradition came first.  It needs more people embodying love, practicing compassion, protecting the Earth, questioning their own certainty, listening before judging, disagreeing without dehumanizing, seeking truth without believing we possess all of it, and remembering that beneath all our labels, roles and identities…we are still human beings sharing this extraordinary planet.  That is the most sacred thing we have in common!

The sacred wasn't stolen from us, it was covered over.  Covered by doctrine, fear, shame, hierarchy, and the belief that we are separate.  But, the sacred was never lost.  We've simply forgotten how to see it.  And now…we are remembering.

#ShamOlitics #Paganism #Spirituality #ReligionAndSpirituality #YogaandSpirituality #ChristConsciousness #SacredFeminine #DivineFeminine #AncientWisdom #SacredEarth #EarthCenteredSpirituality #QuestionEverything

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