What is a Pagan

A friend asked me this after I announced my pagan blog intentions of facebook so I decided that I would try to answer this question as best I could in a post here.

This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer.  When we move away from the traditional and original meaning of the word pagan and attempt to classify it within the realms of the modern world things become decidedly difficult.  What I have attempted to do is identify some of what I believe are core concepts of paganism – if people have differing opinions please express them.

• Pagans tend to believe everything has a soul/spirit/energy, they see the divine in all life.
• Some examples of Pagan paths are: Buddhism, Shintoism, Native religions (American, Australian, African etc), Wicca, Druidism, Shamanism, Asatru etc
• Pagan’s honor nature, her cycles and her lessons.
• We try to live as best we can in harmony with the earth and to honor life and all its cycles.
• Generally we all recognize some form of the divine – the shape of that divine differs depending on your path and your personal outlook.
• We acknowledge the divine within all and attempt to attain a spiritual union with that divine through various methods.

It’s a broad umbrella really that a lot of different beliefs come under.  It is impossible to narrow it down to a particular set of beliefs that all pagans follow because there are so many different paths.