Native American Culture And Religion: Hallowed Ground Paganism

The darkness of the evening slowly blankets the land. The harvest moon gowned in silver attire is rising on the velvety black backdrop of night peeking shyly from behind her misty veil. Below, a wisp of smoke conveying an ancient prayer dances upward toward the heavens. The lone worshipper feels the magic in her blood and bones as she casts her magic circle in the clearing. She methodically lights the colored candles she has placed in each of the cardinal directions: North is green and represents earth, the east candle is yellow and represents air, South is red and represents fire, and west is blue and represents water. As the flame takes hold of each blessed wick, she invokes the spirits of the Watchtowers. She has created hallowed ground

It is a spiritual way of life often used to refer to the group of Abrahamic religions and to the indigenous religions of the world. The philosophical belief system of paganism is as fluid and changing as the water that flows in the mountain stream. Traditions evolved from myths, histories and lore of ancient civilizations such as the Greeks, Celts, Romans and Egyptians and these deities are often called upon in rituals. African and Caribbean spiritual traditions such as voodoo and Santeria represent a unique set of blended indigenous beliefs, practices, rituals brought to the Americas by slaves. Native American spirituality, including the Cherokee, Navajo, and Mayan Indians where symbolism tends to focus around nature or Mother Earth as represented are

Unlike most major religious traditions, there are no dogmas, no churches, or temples, and no membership lists. There is no official doctrine or founder. One’s own responsibility to self and nature supersedes doctrine. While there is a great deal of diversity among Neo-Pagan religions, at the same time, it is possible to identify collective ideas that most Neo-Pagans share. Many pagans believe “if it harms none, do what you will.” Pagan theology is founded primarily on experience, with the aim of Pagan ritual being to make contact with the divine in the domain that surrounds them. The concept of sin does not exist in Neo-Paganism. There is no belief in the concept of sin; souls are not born with the stain of the ‘Original Sin” and have no need for a guru or a messiah. Neo-Pagans feel a strong linking with ancient cultures. Neo-Pagans consider the “Devil” as a Christian entity, and do not believe in him nor worship him. Many Pagan traditions are deliberately Reconstructionist in that their drive is to resuscitate the lost rituals of the ancient traditions by finding divinity through the ancient deities. There is a resilient acceptance in the immortality of the spirit and in the interminable cycles of the seasons and of life itself: birth, death, and rebirth. The corporeal world is a good place shared and