Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ah yes but there are plenty of Neo-Druids alive today... unfortunately alot of information from the ancient times when Druidry was thriving is scarce... so... I think I'll go with your necromancy suggestion lol 3nodding

lol Yes I do agree with you there about the druids... thats why I reconsidered meeting a neodruid and using necromancy as cyrus said haha 3nodding As for the shaman... I know the chances of me meeting a real shaman are very very VERY slim... I would still like to meet one though... a girl can dream cant she xd

Hey all. I'm new here, sorry for stating the obvious. For starters, I started off on the wrong foot in ED with some of you so I want to address that first. Scorplett and CuAnnan, the concept of a closed culture is very new and foreign to me, but that doesn't mean I cannot grow and learn to respect it. I'm sorry I took so long to come around and I hope you'll forgive my prior ignorance, and my inability to learn from it till more recently. The same goes for anyone I may have offended in this way, particularly those of Irish heritage. DB and Gho, I apologized to you for separate reasons via PM.


Apologies aren't the best way to make a first impression, but I felt they were necessary. Now that I've gotten that stuff off my chest I can get to the rest of my little introduction. A lot of my story is probably a little bit common, I was raised catholic, didn't feel it was right for me. I felt compelled to pagan beliefs even when I was a child. At an older age my significant other introduced me to "Wicca" with quotations. It wasn't Wicca, it was misguided, I didn't know then what I do now. But I do know that while the word Wicca was misplaced the pagan ideas in general did call to me for some reason. I stopped calling myself a Wicca many years ago, because I knew that it described a specific set of beliefs, even if I still didn't understand what it was really about. It was, recently on Gaia that I got some Idea of what Wicca really meant. By then I already knew it wasn't the path for me but, I was happy to finally not be so misinformed about the topic. Eclectic Paganism is probably the path that summons me, but I'm not really content just saying I'm a pagan, and not knowing much about any of the traditions.

This is probably where I'm going to start sounding more and more fluffy, but hey I guess that's what I'm here to work on. For one, I have an interest, some would say obcession, with Fairies, and finding out what, if any spiritual significance they hold. I'm not one of those loops that say "I'm a fairy, in a human body" or anything like that, I just find Fairy art, and fairy folklore, (I don't know which fairy folklore is which, or which cultures are closed or not regarding this topic, I'm hoping to learn more about that) seem spiritual and compelling to me for some reason. I'm hoping to investigate, why, if for any reason I feel this way, and what fairies actually are and what spiritual significance they actually have... if any. This pursuit is how I stumbled into my aforementioned cultural ignorance in the past, and I hope, it is possible to continue this pursuit without being so insensitive or ignorant about cultures I'm not a part of.
CuAnnan mentioned a french fairy tradition, and said I won't find it on the internet. This is probably the best clue I have, though frankly I have little resources outside the internet. My girlfriend is french, so this might help, but I don't think her family has any history of believing in fairies, so I've no idea where to look into or research such a thing.

Lastly this is probably the fluffiest part of my post but here goes. I remember when I had no idea what to do, I decided I'd look up what full moons were supposed to mean. I remember hearing that the full moon is sacred in certain cultures or beliefs, and I figured it would be worth a try to see if there was some kind of ritual or magic I could try during this time period. I read, probably on a fluff site, that it was supposed to be a time of cleansing, so I figured I'd focus on things about myself and about my life I wanted to change or cleanse myself of. Having read on a different website (a seemingly less fluffy one though I do not for the life of me remember either source or I'd post them) that some pagans connect themselves to their deities or to mystical energies by expressing creativity. So I tried doing a little drawing, writing down some things on a piece of paper, and doing a little meditation. This was in a very difficult time in my life. I do not know what Deity or celestial or natural force heard my call if any, but I can honestly say, that since then, coincidence or not, my life has changed dramatically for the better. I try to do this every full moon since, for whatever good it brings me, though I do not know if its just fluff.

Sorry for dramatically long post, and thank you for taking the time to read it or even just for browsing through. Please forgive me for any ignorance expressed within this post, and please believe I'll try to be more receptive to learning and changing from such ignorance than I have been in the past.

Very good to meet you!

What path of paganism are you most interested in?

Interesting...I do not know much about shamanism. Ronald Hutton has a book on it entitled Shamans: Siberian Spirituality and the Western Imagination and he is an excellent author on pagan practices.

Hmm...this article makes me question her...

Good, anything else is just Fluffy to the extreme!

But as a personal bias I tend to stay away from Llewellyn books.

Wait...Amber Wolfe...ok Nevermind. Thought it was Amber K I was going to destroy a few things.

As far as my understanding of shamanism goes shamanism is a range of traditional beliefs and practices concerned with communication with the spirit world (source:Wikipedia). The Britannica says the same thing, but Wikipedia is free razz They really have nothing to do with the four elements.

I terribly suggest you read The Way of Wyrd by Brian Bates. It's fiction but it is a wonderful story about Anglo-Saxon shamanism and sorcery.