Quotes Tagged "pagan"

Let my worship be within the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. Therefore, let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

One of the strengths of the belief in Antinous was its appeal to the most sensitive and inward of mystical natures as well as to the exuberant, joyous and ecstatic sides of human experience.

The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.

It is symptomatic of the constricting specialism and the oppressive burden of fact of our time that it has been left to the imagination of a novelist, Marguerite Yourcenar, to create the broadest, the most balanced and in many ways the most authentic interpretation of the affair.

WINTER'S GHOST: Autumn moon incautious in the dark river Winter’s ghost walks with a covered face and silver bones wait in all animals to be bone cloth upon her shoulder wait for her happiness in that they are silver

The forest rose like a dream from the mind of Chaos’s lonely daughter and the sun fell heavy and thick to warm the blood of a world not quite ready to live but so tired of its own imagination

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.

Yet rather than calling the earliest religions, which embraced such an open acceptance of all human sexuality, 'fertility cults,' we might consider the religions of today as strange in that they seem to associate shame and even sin with the very process of conceiving new human life. Perhaps centuries from now scholars and historians will be classifying them as 'sterility cults.

Witchcraft is not inherently a religion, thought it can be for some. Witchcraft is more of a spirituality, or rather how one relates to the world of spirit, and that’s going to be unique and individual for each witch.

The New Testament doesn’t mention any of these Christian feasts, and some Christians think it’s wrong for the church to observe any feast besides the weekly Lord’s Day. Since it’s not commanded, it’s forbidden. But we aren’t children any more. Our calendar isn’t controlled by the sun, moon, and stars. We don’t need direct revelation from God to schedule times with the Bridegroom. We’re in heavenly places with Jesus as time lords. The church’s leaders, like Mordecai, have authority to establish feasts and commemorations in keeping with the model of Israel’s calendar, which is laid out so carefully in the Bible.

What we do internally affects the world around us and the world around us affects our inner world. With this notion, nothing is separate, and our inner and outer worlds are intricately tied to one another.

Drink in the heat of an ancient sun held in the cold fire of water rising from earth and rock Spilling over your cupped hands and drawn to lips and tongue Pouring water’s memory of the azure mist it fell from into the chalice of your flesh Turning your eyes skywards with desire for the freedom it was born of

Today, there are very few unicorns left, and not many witches or wizards. But there is always magic—the power to create sufficient conditions for spirits to manifest, to bring consciousness from the realms of potential into the world of action.

Above me, sister moon and her union of stars.

It looked like a pagan banner planted on a Christian rampart.