WARNING! There will be people on this site you do NOT like.

[Leila Raven]

In fact, unless you have the compassion, empathy, heart and mind of a saint, as the site grows I can pretty much guarantee it.

There will be those people here. Those people you try so desperately to avoid. Those people that grate on your nerves. Those people that believe in *that* stuff, you know, maybe it's the scary stuff, or maybe it's fluffy bunny stuff. Maybe it's not what they believe, but how they shove it down your throat. Or so it seems. Or maybe it's that they just seem to know it all, and they're SO wrong. You know THOSE people.

Well guess what, we're all one of those people. All of us come off the wrong way to someone sometime. Yeah, we might whine in our heads, but we know better. I'm really a NICE person, a SMART person, a RIGHT person. My intentions are all in the right place. Well guess what, we're all one of those people too.

Ayup.

There will be people here that will use words you don't like, and find offensive.

There will be people here that have beliefs and practices, that you find disturbing, upsetting, or maybe silly, stupid, or trivial. All of us, will have SOME negative assumptions about someone on this site.

Bottom line, we are all who we are.

If we want the freedom to be ourselves, we must extend that freedom to others.

If we want to be respected for our own choices, faiths, ideas, beliefs, we have to extend it to others.

What then to do with those individuals that rub many people the wrong way? Who are more extreme on the edge of a more out there belief, or method of expressing themselves that they disrupt a lot of people a lot of the time. I'm not sure honestly how I will deal with individuals that may really push this sites members buttons.

My first line of approach is trying to work toward an inclusive solution. Bring resolution and positive change without excluding someone. I would like to make removing someone from this site a really last resort.

There are people who thrive on conflict, and conflict is also often a positive part of people who are going through periods of growth and change. Overcoming conflicts. Learning how to resolve conflict. As well as learning how to communicate with others effectively and to co-operate with others, is one of the most meaningful things we can do actually in terms of our self growth and development.

You can use conflict with others on this site as catalysts for positive growth and change, for yourself, and for others. You can choose to try to change what you can change, not that other person, but yourself. You can choose to try to expand your empathy and compassion. You can make an effort to try harder to understand why that other person is who they are, believes what they believe, and feels how they feel, or expresses themselves how they do. All of us have baggage, history, triggers, brainwashing, etc, to overcome. All of us. We are all the walking wounded. If you want a less judgemental more compassionate world. WE have to co-create it.

We can start co-creating it here.

Defuse conflict, keep conflict to places where people who want to embrace it only can, and not impose our conflict onto others who do not want to be a part of it. Recognize trolling behaviours and people who feed on negative energy, or are addicted, literally to the adrenaline rush of the 'fight' or flight response, and just like a good fight (yup, some do, let them fight with others that like to do battle, and if your the pacifist type like me, learn to walk away). I have a tendency as a pacifist to want to repress or smooth over conflict, perhaps more than is ultimately healthy. Really, who gets to decide? and maybe what is healthy for one person isn't the same for another...

I know you're all intelligent enough to really get what I'm saying here.

Conflict will happen, be ready for it, focus not on what I can do as a site owner to fix it for you, or what the other person has to do to stop bothering you, and focus on the only change that really matters, the one you can bring with you off site and everywhere you go. Learn your own personal way of dealing with it, create strategies and plans for self for sharing spiritual space with a diverse group of people.

This place will have a lot of freedom, for many people, that may feel like a lack of 'security', that lack of security, is not coming from the site, that feeling of insecurity, is a feeling, and it comes from within you, and only you, can address it. You can avoid it, or you can understand it, and control it, rather than letting it control you.

Leila

[2zvw9kxsea7gt]

Something in another discussion reminded me of why there is no such thing as "pure" Wiccanism, paganism, etc. At least for the most part. Yes there are some who adhere strictly to the tenets of druidism or Asatru (or native American shamanism, etc.), but the majority of modern pagans identify themselves as European or Celtic based witches (using the generic term.)

So, why do they also believe in Karma? That is not a European or Celtic concept in the strictest interpretation. Personally I believe in re-incarnation and the concept of Karma, but I am one who believes that every religion has a pice of the Truth.

"Now I'm serving time for mistakes, made by another, in another lifetime..." Galileo by the Indigo Girls

[23c7woc1q8ltv]

I loved reading this today. It makes me feel like I'm not alone in being different. I only wish my own family would live by these words as well. I keep an open mind about my beliefs because I am always learning new things. The more I learn about all aspects of religion, the more I stick out like a sore thumb in my family. I come from an extremely evangelical home and was told at the age of 14 that I was a whore and going to hell because I have not adopted the religious beliefs of my family. They would literally drag me to church three days a week to force me to change. Pasters would pray for me in the middle of sermons as if I were a hopeless soul. It was tortuously humiliating.

I'm here to learn. I'm here to find my own personal enlightenment. I'm also trying to break the cycle of my family, and show my children that they should make their own decisions on what religious path they want take, if any. All I can do is open the doors and show them their many options.

[Grigori Rho Gharveyn]

We love your spiritual gravy Dangel, well said.

We try to participate in other cultures and traditions whenever the opportunity presents itself, we have found it diificult to be accepted by many groups at times.

Wiccans are often very defensive, they have faced some serious challenges that inspire greater caution than their creeds would ordinarily wish to exhibit.  Together with Pagans, Wiccans bear much of the burdens of prejudices inspired by several popular religions and cultures.

Wiccans are relighting ther faith with inner wisdom because their true traditions were nearly entirely lost to them due to cultural warfare perpetrated against them in the past.

Inner wisdom often leaves a great deal of room for self-doubt; self-doubt tends to make people more reactive and defensive.

We try to support all sides of any inter-religious grievance, because regardless of what faith we carry in our individual hearts, all of our hearts, collectively, are headed to a common Unity.

Now or later, we will learn to get along, lets make it now!

 

Namaste

 

[3fjf7lgqz9mi4]

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.

I think many of us come form such conformist background that we take baggage with us on our new spiritual paths.  One thing I've learned in my studies is that my Qabala is not your Qabala,  I translate that into life by figuring that if it's stupid, but it works, it's not stupid! 

Especially from what I know of Wicca and the NeoPagan world in general, there is so much diversity that one would be hard pressed to say what is the "right" way of going everything.  Those who would try to enforce a form of "orthodoxy" often are either genuinely concerned for well being and/or just on an ego trip.

 

Love is the Law, love under will.

 

[Leila Raven]

"I translate that into life by figuring that if it's stupid, but it works, it's not stupid! "

What you say here I think is really key and is really my understanding of 'do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law'

The key for my understanding, is that - people do what works for them. Plain and simple, if someone believes something, does something, is something, it's because it's working for them in some way. We all make choices constantly everything we do, is what we feel is the best compilation of choices at any given moment, we are always choosing what we think works best for us given the options we perceive as available.

When you come to realize this about human psychology and the world, that each and every once of is simply doing our own will to do what we perceive works best for us. There are no stupid decisions, at the time, we always make the choice we think is best for us in that moment, the choice we will. In hindsight, if our perception shifts, we may change our minds, but in that moment, it's the choice we prefered, or we would not have taken it.

We have free will and we are continually using that free will to do what we will. There is nothing more beyond that. You cannot do, what you do not will, if you do it or have done it it is because you have chosen to, even if under duress or within the perception of extremely limited options, we are still constantly choosing/willing our lives.

When we make choices from a place of 'love', instead of say a place of fear, anger, etc, we tend to make the best choices...

Live in Love

[185nd9mbznww4]

always expect the unexpected. because there is always something you will need to learn...

[01xfwrnxtzt7e]

True true

[00f30ypq1uj6l]

I LOVE THIS PHILOSOPHY! Hear hear :)

[3nhfalupls5mp]

Love it!!! Never a truer word spoken.

 

And one piece of wisdom handed to me which I find a kick in the guts but is so true.

"What other people think of you is NONE of your business!"

 

So we walk in our own footsteps and along the way connect with those who resonate, those who dont are lessons to face the reflection that stands before and release the negative into space and grow.

 

Love you for that wisdom Liela xx

[1kma5f610bmnp]

Love it! havent heard that in ages!

Thank you :)

[0454id00ngfcr]

Thank you for the wisdom, Leila. Very well said. I really like your non-exclusive policy. Being all together at one place will help us know each other better and understand we are not really so much different. It is so nice to be among people with similar frequency, but at the same time these are our "opponents" who teach us the best lessons. So let us live in love and respect the diversity of this world.

[1t28x0t0cyje1]

I agree with you Leila and all the others who have replied, respect all. Love and light )O(