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Many of my friends and family have asked why I have included these Earth Spirituality pages on our web site. I am not attempting to make any religious or political statements. I just enjoy what some call "The Wheel of Life" or cycles of the season. I find the links between these 8 ancient traditions and our present traditions fascinating. (Believe me - if you had to spend the last 3 1/2 years - including 4 winters - in Watertown, NY, you'd be celebrating the Spring Equinox, too!).
I am, however, on a spiritual path that inspires me to deepen my understanding and expand my vision. I am grateful for the religious pluralism which enriches my life and hope to continue my spiritual growth by direct experiences, words and deeds of prophetic women and men, wisdom from the world's religions, humanist teachings, and spiritual teachings of Earth-centered traditions.
Regardless of what your religious or spiritual beliefs may be, the one thing we all share is existence on this planet. "If we could strip away ideologies that separate us, stop the greedy destruction, and meet by the riverside, we would discover that we are all children of the same earth and that our lives are patterned by the ceremonial flow of the sun, moon, seasons, and tides. We are all one in the spirit and in the body." - Sedonia Cahill and Joshua Halpern
Okay... I guess this was a little bit of a statement...
Blessed be, Tasha |
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What is Earth-Centered Spirituality?
"Honoring the spiritual
interconnectedness of life on planet Earth, often as Mother Earth or
Gaia, but sometimes as a gender neutral Earth Spirit. Sometimes called
Earth religion and Gaian (Gaean) religion. Related EcoChristian form is
Creation-Centered Spirituality." - Selena Fox
"Earth-based spirituality includes people drawn to traditions of the sacred that put the earth at center ranging from Native American Elders to Pagans to creation-centered Christians, including most of the indigenous peoples on the planet." - Starhawk, Baker and Hill
"Earth Centered Spiritualists identify with many different pre-Christian spiritual paths. These "Earth Religions" share many truths with the Judeo-Christian tradition, as well as other world religions. But they are unique in their degree of emphasis on experience over doctrine, immanence over transcendence, and the idea that there can and indeed should be multiple pathways to the divine." - UUA |
You might be saying, "Yikes! Tasha is talking about paganism." Some may have an adverse reaction to the word "pagan". If so, I encourage you to read the following excerpt from a sermon by Reverend Roberta Finkelstein, Unitarian Universalist.
"Many of the negative connotations of the word pagan are cultural baggage, remnants of the attempts by both Christianity and Judaism to eliminate those so-called primitive earth based religions from the cultures that they wished to dominate. The word pagan is derived from a Latin root, which meant a country dweller. In the early centuries of the Common Era, Christianity remained the religion mostly of the cities. In rural portions of the Roman Empire, the people who worked the earth continued to practice their earth religion, centered on the cycles of the season. Similarly, the word heathen refereed simply to those people who lived on the heaths in England. Again these were the rural farmers, tied to the soil and to the agricultural cycles. The old pagan religions recognized the cyclical nature of life - not just the agricultural cycles but the movement of the sun, the monthly waxing and waning of the moon."
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