There are hundreds, no, thousands of different “pagan” religious paths that an individual can take. What drew me to Gaelic Polytheism, then? Well, this requires a bit of a story.
I was introduced to the idea of paganism around age 11 or 12. I used to ride my bike in to town (I lived 5 miles outside of it) – and then bus into the center of the city, where I would spend the day at the library. In the teen section, I stumbled across a series of books called Circle of Three, by Isobel Bird. They’re about three girls who are brought together by a mutual interest in witchcraft and Wicca. Intrigued, I checked out the first one and proceeded to chew through all 15 in the series. After that, I began checking out a few of the “New Age” books. I fondly remember Where to Park your Broomstick by Lauren Manoy in particular. Eventually, one of the librarians confronted me.
“Are you serious about this, or just dabbling?” she asked as she eyed the books on the counter.
“Serious.” I told her nervously, caught off guard by her prying.
” . . . I don’t want to check this out to you,” she said, “you need to come back to Jesus.”
I took the book back from her and used one of the self check-outs instead, and did forever more after that, but her questioning had gotten to me and I started looking for another source for my studies. I wandered a bit downtown and, to my surprise and delight, found a metaphysical shop. The people there were, obviously, more friendly about the subject. They didn’t mind that I came in and sat on their floor to read and rarely bought anything. They were nice and the conversations were always good (I actually still go back and talk to them). This also led to me being able to attend a couple of Sabbat gatherings with the local eclectic pagan circle, which was exciting. Before this, I had self-identified as Wiccan, but I quickly found out that that wasn’t quite right – it didn’t fit what I believed, what I felt, what I did. I started calling myself an eclectic pagan then, and it made it easier to open up and learn about other things that weren’t Wicca. The community setting was great and I really enjoyed being in such a group.
It couldn’t last forever, though, and eventually I had to go off to college in another town.
I’ve been here for 3 years now and a lot has happened. I found the local large coven pretty quickly through Witchvox, and I often go to their events – but their practice is Eastern Hellenistic with some other eclecticism thrown in there, and our practices actually rarely coincided even before I discovered Gaelic polytheism. A smaller circle in the area has more similar practices to mine, but we don’t meet very often because of conflicting schedules (When two people can’t make it, but the circle only consists of 4 to begin with, we don’t have much of a circle anymore!). We actually haven’t met since I transferred my practice from “eclectic paganism” to Gaelic polytheism. I don’t expect much to change with them whenever we meet again – except maybe that now I feel more secure and confident in my own beliefs and might be interested in taking a more active role.
Speaking of which, I suppose we’d better start talking about what my practice has become! So you have some background, now. As a newbie first discovering paganism, I called myself a Wiccan. From there, probably around age 15/16, I began calling myself an eclectic pagan instead. The most recent change came about just this year . . .
It was the third week of February, and a medical emergency put me in bed for a week at home. I had a wealth of neopagan books that I had acquired over the years and, to pass the time, I started picking through one of the newer ones – Edain McCoy’s “Celtic Myth and Magick.” I had been feeling disconnected from Paganism for a while, and was hoping for some sort of spark to remind me why I chose this path in the first place.
I didn’t find a spark so much as I found a metaphysical bag of bricks, dropping on my head as my eyes glanced over the name “Lugh.”
In the 8 or 9 years prior to this, I had never once felt the presence, voice, or will of a deity. What I was used to feeling in ritual was energy, but not like this. This here was an unmistakable force, and it stopped me in my tracks.
I took the hint and began reading all I could about Lugh from the books I had, but most of my collection was (and still is, unfortunately) made up of neopagan pseudowicca stuff, and finding good, credible information was hard. I began poking around the internet, and it didn’t take me too long to come across Celtic Polytheism, which felt like a piece of a puzzle sliding into place. I had set out looking for information on Lugh, and how to honor him, and nothing made more sense to me than honoring him in the context of his original culture: Irish, which is one of the cultures included in the umbrella term “Celtic”. Further research into that brought me to Gaelic Polytheism, where I rest. I firmly believe that Lugh brought me here, and it feels more right to me than anything has in nearly a decade of pagan practice.
Why is that? Why does it click so much with me?
Well, it feels right. The deities, the practices, the ideals – they speak to me. I feel better than I have in years, more fulfilled. Which sounds a little silly, I guess – but it’s true. That in itself, the fact that I enjoy it, is really enough for me to continue it – but there’s more.
And, as I have already mentioned, I believe that honoring deities in the context of their origin culture is important. Removing them from that context, I feel, is disrespectful both to the deity and to the culture. Since it is Lugh in particular that I’m pursuing a relationship, it only makes sense to practice Gaelic Polytheism.
I have a bit of a reconstructionist bent going on, though I no longer consider myself a reconstructionist. I really like the idea of basing my practice in historical traditions, I like having sources to turn to, studying to do. Having a historical basis also makes me feel validated, and wanting that validation isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Irish Celtic cosmology sits really well with me also. The Three Realms is a system that feels more tangible to me than the four elements, and incorporating them into my practice and thought processes has been surprisingly smooth.
I mean really, in short: I feel at home, here in Gaelic Polytheism. It fits me and I fit it.
Now that we have all of the preliminary “Who I am and what I do” stuff out of the way, I really hope to use this blog to tackle some writing projects, maybe some craft how-to’s . . who knows where it will take us!
It’s an adventure!
echtrai 