To put it simply, paganism has always seemed right to me.  Even when I was child and didn’t know that it existed, I knew I had a strong connection to nature and was meant to respect it.  As I got older and became more involved in the more material matters of life, I felt that something was missing.

When I was in my mid teens, I acted upon the long-lingering doubt that I had been experiencing in the LDS faith and obtained the strength of will to leave it.  My family did not approve and, for a while, employed any and every tactic they could think of (including bribery) to get me to return.  Though I retained my closest friends, my real friends, I grew distant from many others.  They could no longer associate with me because I had “strayed from the path of righteousness” and was bound to be a bad influence.

Immediately after high school I moved up to Logan and started attending USU.  I enjoyed a freedom that I had never experienced before and for my first year simply enjoyed being without any pressure or obligation to do something on Sunday.  I gained a sense of independence and explore my personal beliefs without rebuke, I developed my thoughts about the world and finally acknowledged the innate certainties that I had always possessed.

It was soon after this that I discovered the newly established Utah State University Pagan Alliance.  It was something that I had always been curious about and I immediately became involved.  The community was welcoming and open to any and all topics of discussion, and I learned a lot by listening to the other members and avidly attending the classes and events.  I found areas that I wanted to explore in greater depth, and knew I could go from there when I felt like I was ready.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had an odd certainty about certain aspects of the world that I could not explain.  They didn’t really match up with anything that I had been brought up to believe, and yet, they were deeply ingrained within me and more real than the teachings of any book.  I was delighted to find that paganism agreed with and encompassed these ideas like nothing else had.

I’ll admit that for the first couple months I wasn’t sure what I was doing.  It took me a long time to have any idea when or what any of the festivals were, and, because I was so content with where I was and who I was with, I didn’t feel the need to do a lot of research.  All I knew in those first few months was that I was in the right place.  I was finally reestablishing my connection with nature and honoring the earth; I thought I couldn’t be happier.

After a few months of solitary practice, meditation, and group ritual, I received an intuitive reading from a dear friend that directed me to my path.  Through meditation and a bit of research I learned the identity of my spiritual guide, my goddess Isis, whose influence I had felt but could not recognize.  I became far more confident, more content, more enthralled in life than I had ever been, and it was only then that I was able to solidify my beliefs and obtain a level of specificity that had previously eluded me.

I believe in all gods and goddesses.  In my opinion, any and every pantheon is valid.  My thought behind this is that every god, both known and unknown in modern times, has, at one point or another, had some sort of offering or energy directed to it.  I believe that this energy, this directed thought, is powerful.  Whether the gods or the devotion came first I do not know, but I think that this is trivial when considering the idea that, yes, the gods exist and, if we want them to, can have a place in our lives.

To be clear, I do not claim to know that deities exist.  I have more personal validation for my experiences than anything else, and I make it a point to approach every aspect of my spirituality with logic and reason.

I try to examine my beliefs from a psychological perspective (as a student of psychology, self-analysis is a fairly pervasive side effect).   I support the idea that gods and goddesses may not be external forces, but rather influences from within ourselves as a perfectly viable option.  No matter what being you interact with, whether they be a certain deity, spirit, angel, demon, or ancestor, they tell you something about yourself, your subconscious, that you would not have been able to see otherwise.  Being open to these deeply psychological, these “spiritual” experiences makes you more aware of who you are and how you need to change to be who you want to be.

And so, I am a pagan because the spirituality that I have found and continue to find within it enhances my connection to the world, provides me with an outlet for continuous self-discovery as well as improvement, and is the epitome of truth as I know it.

Ex animo,
Megan