When you consider any of the world's major religions, you will often find a glimpse into the heart of their beliefs as you look at their philosophies and the imagery they use to symbolize their view of the sacred as well as their quest to reach the divine. Taoists look to the Tao Te Ching and the works of Zhuangzi, Christians study the Bible and listen to the words of their clergy, and pagans find their answers reflected in the cycles of life around them.
One of the fundamental misunderstandings between religions today is that, while we each hold true to the belief that there is only one source of the sacred, we can't seem to make the connection that other religions look to this source of the divine as well. Many of us seem to believe that we have a monopoly on God, that our religion is the only one with a direct line to the heavens. I sometimes wonder how many conflicts could have been avoided when the challenge, "My God is the only true God," was met with a simple response of, "Your God is my God."
Regardless of whether you believe that mankind is a creation of the divine or that we are co-creators and simply reflect that divine energy, each of the world's major religions hold that life is sacred, that we are a precious spiritual commodity intimately connected with the sacred. Christians typically believe that all of existence is part of God's creation. Taoists generally hold that we are part of (or are) the Tao, an unnamable energy many in western society would equate to God. And many pagans believe that we are part of a cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, that we are constantly and intimately a part of that sacred energy.
If your culture had grown and developed in the desert, to you, the touch of the divine might be found in water and salt, in the way that wildflowers bloom from the desolation after a rain. To you, "God" may be "The Water Bearer," "The Life Giver," or "The Flower Bringer." To Christians, their God is often known as "Father," as "The Good Shepherd," or "The Holy Spirit," each name reflecting Christianity's birth in the culture of the Middle East. To witches and Wiccans, God is often both the God and the Goddess, reflecting the male and female duality we see in nature. Many of us further see the Goddess as "Maiden," "Mother," and "Crone," and the God as both light and darkness, both "Oak King" and "Holly King."
At first glance, the pagan view of the divine may seem odd to you, but what you have to understand is that each of our perceptions of the sacred was born in a culture that found "God" in the natural world around them. To a hunter/gather culture with no husbandry or agriculture, the Christian concept of the divine as "The Good Shepherd" is as alien as viewing "God" as "the Crone" would be to a modern day church-goer. Many of the beliefs that modern pagans value today were born in a pre-industrial culture that existed in the United Kingdom and the European continent. Our mirror of the divine was found in the slow change of life around us. We could see the touch of the divine in the cycle of the seasons and in the cycle of human life. It was in these simple, tangible cycles where we found "God," and our symbology of the divine is drawn directly from these patterns. We found the aspects of the divine we call the God in the solar year, in the movement of the sun through the heavens. The sun isn't God to us - but it is a reminder and a symbol of specific aspects of the sacred. In much the same way, we found the Goddess in the phases of the moon. To those peoples who do not follow a monotheistic system of belief, we found the divine reflected in other places as well - in the hearth, in the harvest, and in the life that blossomed from the earth around us. None of these things is a god or goddess itself, but each is a constant reminder of the touch of the divine, of the sacred moments that pagans hold dear.
If we step back for a moment, if we allow our individual concepts of the divine to expand to a point of true divinity, it's not difficult to imagine that people in different parts of the world could find "God" in the world around them. If the divine was truly everywhere, it only makes sense that the divine nature could be found everywhere that there is life. Peoples from vastly different walks of life, in radically different environments, would be able to find the sacred in the world they knew. In time, given the isolation of global populations before the establishment of an international travel network and the widespread availability of information, those people would find ways unique to their culture and way of life to draw closer to the divine.
And that's exactly what happened. Christians still gather in churches, much as the culture which the historical Christ was born into gathered in temples. They still seek God through prayer and the study of the scriptures, much as the middle eastern culture of the time did. Taoist still use meditation as a tool to embrace the sacred. Indigenous Shamans the world over reach for the divine through techniques handed down for untold generations. And pagans still turn our eyes to the natural world around us, we still honor the cycles of the moon and the sun, and we still hold our rituals.
Imagine for a moment that, regardless of our chosen spiritual path, that we gave God, the God and the Goddess, the Great Spirit - however we view the divine - enough influence that the entire world could be held in that sacred embrace. That through the environmental and cultural diversity that developed on this planet, we each saw a different facet of that spirit. As each people developed in relative isolation, over a period of thousands, if not tens of thousands of years, a multitude of very valid spiritual path would be born. Each path would lead to the same source of the divine; each would be as unique as the populace it grew in. As time passed and our global village became more interconnected, those of us who felt a need to embrace the sacred would have access to countless systems of belief and the opportunity to accept the path where our heart felt most at ease, where the beliefs, precepts, and understandings echoed most strongly within us. For some, the choice has been Christianity, a religion born two thousand years ago in modern day Israel. Others are of the Jewish faith, a religion thousands of years older. Taoism was started by Lao Tzu, a man who little is known about but who was probably an older contemporary of Confucius, roughly 2,500 years ago. Still others turn to pagan beliefs which, while young in their modern incarnation, look to the natural cycles around them much as early agricultural societies did thousands if not tens of thousands of years ago.
Are any of these spiritual paths right? Yes. In fact, all of them are right for the people drawn to them. When you look at the heart of each path, you begin to find amazing similarities. You'll see that each group strives to draw closer to the sacred energy they know as the divine. Each path has certain ethical and moral values - each religion's guidelines very similar to the next - with which to focus on personal and spiritual growth. On each spiritual path, we find the raw materials with which to change our lives for the better, to express who we are and how we see the world around us. The diversity of our beliefs is a beautiful, sacred thing which we should honor; it's not something that should divide us and drive us apart.
The next time you encounter a spiritual path that's different from your own, for just a moment stop looking at the difference between your beliefs and open yourself to the similarities we share. We can learn from each other as each path has a uniqueness of spirit and understanding that is all their own. Together, we can celebrate so many facets of the divine. Alone and separated by misunderstanding, we can only see the ones we know.
As pagans, we typically understand the divine as both male and female, as both the Goddess and the God. This isn't generally assumed to mean that there are two sources of the divine, but rather it is used to develop a greater understanding of the diversity of life and to honor different aspects within ourselves. Just as we look to the natural world around us and see that both male and female species exist in life, so we look to the divine as encompassing both types of energy. The properties we normally associate with the feminine are those we also see in the Goddess, just as we see the masculine aspects of life within the God. To us, this isn't a limitation which restricts genders to certain roles or establishes strict criteria for what can or cannot be feminine or masculine. These associations simply give us a tool with which to understand ourselves and our spirituality as we draw nearer the sacred. In practice, this actually gives us freedom from many gender-associated roles. If both male and female are present in the divine, then both are also present within us - both male and female are equal partners in all aspects of life. This simple understanding actually encourages us to honor both the masculine and feminine within our lives and to express those things which call to us the strongest.
We also associate the Goddess and the God with certain celestial bodies - the God with the sun and the Goddess with the moon. At first, especially if you come from a Judeo-Christian background, this may seem primitive and strange and you may assume that we look to the sun and moon as gods or goddess.
To understand the concept, you must realize that early cultures didn't have a written language to draw upon. Those who followed early pagan beliefs had no scriptures; most were simple peasants who couldn't read. To capture the concepts that other cultures would have written down, early pagans instead found symbolism within the natural world with which to teach the concepts to those new to the path. The journey of the sun through the heavens became associated with the God. Certain special days - equinoxes and solstices and the days that fell at the points in between - became holy days or Sabbats, each with specific ideology connected to it. The solar year told a story as it connected the important aspects of an early agricultural society, a connection to the changing seasons so that preparations could be made to till the soil, plant and harvest the crops, and to prepare for the coming winter. In much the same way, the moon became associated with the Goddess. Each of the lunar phases connected to an aspect of life and the attributes a person was encouraged to develop within themselves. Each moon also divided the year into portions, thirteen lunar months, so that early pagans had yet another tool with which to understand their world.
In modern times we look to these concepts and apply them to our daily lives. We still honor the Sabbats and reconnect to the seasons in the midst of a culture saturated with technology. We still observe the phases of the moon and use the symbology of the Goddess as a mirror for personal growth.
Does that make the pagan path better or worse than any other system of belief? No. It only makes us as unique and diverse as many of the spiritual paths which are honored today. Like many religions, we see the divine in our own way, a mirror of the cultures from which many of our modern beliefs originated.
To put it simply, my wife and I have a tool which we'll use to teach our daughter the concept of the divine. We call it our God Box. It's a large box, about the size of a basketball, and each side displays a drawing of a different animal, much like a child's building block. When you hold it up and ask the viewer what they see, they may tell you a goat. When you turn the box and ask them what you see, they may tell you a horse. Each of us sees a different side when we look at the sacred, but in a very real sense, we're all looking at the same box.