…Self-Determination and Co-Creation…
one of the biggest concerns within the eclectic community is the idea that when it comes to our expressions of god, we’re just ‘making it all up’, or even worse, ‘stealing it’ from some other culture without any regard or sensitivity to the context from which those expressions come. the subtext to this argument is that our visions of god and our practices are somehow invalid or wrong because of their newness or their alleged ‘theft’. the question becomes, can any one individual or culture or nation or religion claim a sort of copyright on religious beliefs about god? can rituals and practices and prayers be trademarked?
i believe that the one quality which members of all religions and cultures share is our humanness; and that humanness secures us the right to experience and express our relationship with god in whatever way we determine is best for ourselves – even if the experience is similar to the experience from another culture or religious framework. i believe we have the right to adopt practices and beliefs that work for us, and to reject those that do not, regardless of the time period or tradition from which they originate. i believe we have the right to wear or discard the labels of our choosing, or to refuse to label ourselves or accept the labels imposed by others if that is our choice. ultimately, i believe in religious self-determinism… that we are beholden to no one but ourselves and our gods in developing our spiritual relationships.
but with this level of freedom comes a measure of responsibility. we must work very hard to maintain honesty and integrity within our practice. when we lay claim to a heritage that is not ours, or change elements of established traditions, we must have the fortitude to acknowledge that fact – even if it means that we will be criticized for those choices. just as we have the right to judge the practices and beliefs of others for possible inclusion in our own world-views, other people have the right to judge our actions and words in light of their world-views… and we must accept the fact that those judgments will not always be positive.
and we must be very careful not to misrepresent what we do in our practice as one and the same with the legitimate practices of another group, unless they actually are one and the same. for example, there is nothing wrong with our practices being ‘inspired by native american shamanistic techniques’ but there is something very wrong with laying claim to practicing authentic native american shamanism if we are not native american (either by birth or by adoption). there is nothing wrong with our version of eclectic wicca being ‘based on the published material of alexandrian wicca’, but there is something very wrong with claiming that our eclectic wicca is alexandrian wicca if we ourselves are not alexandrian initiates. with the freedom of religious self-determination comes the obligation to be scrupulously honest in regards to where our practices and beliefs come from.
but adapting beliefs and practices of others is only one way in which we flesh out our spiritual experience. we also have the right to create our own expressions of god, and this process is one of direct divine inspiration into our personal lives.
we co-create because that is how godhead expresses itself through us – we create our gods the way our gods wish us to create them. painters paint. sculptors sculpt. desire and talent are gifts. our nature is to use them. reality is shaped by natural law, of which rules and limitations are a part – and we are all bound by such law, whether we acknowledge it or not. faith matters, but trappings are just that… traps. god comes to us, because god is us. but we aren’t the entirety of god, and we are subject to maya and limitations – so there is confusion, and ambiguity, and doubt. this results in searching which leads us back to creation.
i created god once. he is all the potential of mankind that hasn’t been tapped into yet. i named him Orion, after the constellation – because i like to stand under the stars and reach up to heaven while thinking of all the things i aspire to be. right here and now, he matters because *i* matter. but people have been standing under the stars reaching up for as long as there have been people and stars. if it wasn’t me then it would be somebody else; maybe someone a thousand years ago. so everything ‘new’ is ‘old’ again.
-justin