Welcome to Gaia! ::

I apologize for taking so incredibly long to post in this thread, but I just haven't been that motivated to take on a task as long and tedious as this. But here it is, as simply put as I could(for the sake of space).

My spiritual path is something that may take a while to explain fully so I apologize ahead of time for this post's length. Put in the simplest terms I am an Eclectic Pagan, I only believe in what I have seen or experienced first hand, I use a little logic and reasoning to fill in the blanks. The reason I call myself an eclectic pagan instead of just eclectic is because I have found that certain forms of paganism come closer than any other spiritual paths to my own beliefs and experience. It simply makes my path easier for people to understand because the word eclectic can mean anything. Alright then here goes. I am not Wiccan and I do not follow any of the traditions specific only to Wicca (such as the Wiccan Rede), although because Wicca was based on several forms of older paganism, there are certain things that my path has in common with it. I recognize two deities, a Goddess and a God, although I follow no particular mythology or pantheon. I only define them by what I have seen for myself. I give the Goddess no name because she has never told me a name to call her, when referring to her I usually call her the Silver Maiden because that is how she appears to me. For me the God is not really a specific being but existence and time itself, or if you prefer, nature. The God although not a being in and of itself should be respected as divine in my eyes. I do not worship the God, Goddess or anything else. I feel that my relationship with her is closer than worship, a thing that I find distant and impersonal. I treat her with respect and she treats me the same, I do not view her as a mother (for reasons I will not mention here), more like a companion. She is for me a friend, a teacher and a love. The "God" for me is nature and so I interact with it every day, it is the ground beneath my feet, the air I breath and the passage of time. I merely use the term "God" to show my respect for nature, existence and time. I feel that the Goddess and nature are separate and yet very much connected. I don't believe that the Goddess created existence, but that she is a part of it as each of us are, although I do believe that she created us or what led to us. But I'll cover Evolution v.s. Creationism in a moment. I also believe that she can effect nature, like we can but to a far greater extent. As for the specifics of her creation, I'm not sure, I never asked.
I told you at the beginning of this post that I do not believe in anything that I have not seen or experienced personally. I find it pertinent to remind readers of that because some may wonder that if that is true why I believe in a deity at all. The answer is because I have seen her, face to face and not in that prayer sort of way. This is obviously going to be hard to believe but what extraordinary experience is not? I have and still do visit with her to discuss certain things on a regular basis. It is a truly wonderful experience to have and I am sad that most will not experience it themselves. It is possible to meet with her face to face and anyone can do it the way I did, although hopefully it won't take them years to figure it out like it took me. Regardless of if you believe me or not doesn't really matter to me, but there you have it.
Moving along Evolution v.s. Creationism has been a long standing controversy between the religious and the logical. I however am not religious, but spiritual and I am also logical. I believe that both are true. The divine did create life as we know it, but not all at once, life was allowed to grow and change, adapt and evolve. Life was given a nudge here and there from the divine but for the most part was allowed to become what it is by it's own merit.
You see I believe that the divine is not as perfect as the overzealous would have you believe. She is far wiser than any of us to be sure, and she has power that most would not be able to comprehend, but I don't believe that she is omniscient or omnipresent. I feel that she knows all that has transpired since her existence began, but not what will happen, not any more than we do. I'm sure she can assure certain things happen when she wants to, but not everything.
I believe that all beings have free will and none of us can, without a shadow of a doubt, tell what others may do from one moment to the next. It is one of the greatest things in the universe to have the freedom and power to choose and it is also the only way that things can grow and change. I feel that without change all existence can grow stagnant and thus cannot survive, therefore free will is not only a gift but it is necessary. On a related topic I feel that certain beings, angels and demons in this case, were created with inherent knowledge, making them more(not completely)perfect beings.(Perfection in this case has nothing to do with good or evil.) I also feel that these beings came before humans. Humans on the other hand are born with no inherent knowledge beyond basic instincts. They are clean slates with the greatest potential of any other being because they are imperfect. Their imperfection is what makes them have such potential, beings with inherent knowledge already have purpose and understanding and thus do not have as much potential to grow and learn and certainly not in so many directions. Which in the end proves the old saying of the journey being more important, or the difference between giving someone something and making them get it themselves. Knowledge is far more precious and potent when learned rather than received. However, the semantics of creation and life is a discussion for another time.
Moving along, I most definitely believe in magic. Most simply put I feel it is the raising of an energy that nearly all things possess, then focusing that energy and releasing it to fulfill a particular purpose. In my opinion it is all based on the sciences of physics and biology, which may come as a surprise to some. In physics all things are caused by energy, action and reaction, whether this energy is kinetic, electrical, thermal, etc. makes little difference in the result, merely the method. It is also a well known fact that our bodies create many types of energy, thermal, kinetic, bio-electrical, etc. We use this energy to send signals to our body and then to create change, like moving ones arm for example. This takes focus and thought, however minuscule it may seem since we have done it for so long. The same is true with magic, we are simply using a different type of energy and far more focus at first because our minds are not used to it. I believe that anything can be done with magic and indeed I have done and seen much, however not everyone can do whatever they want. This is due to a either a lack of energy or a lack of knowledge. You see it takes a tremendous amount of energy to physically effect things and that is what most people want to do, but not everyone has enough energy to do it, at least not at first or possibly ever. However, this is no reason to become disheartened. The reason that it takes so much energy to physically effect things is because this particular kind of energy is not naturally geared towards doing so. A good analogy is using something like light to burn something instead of fire. In order to use light there needs to be a vast quantity of it and it needs to be incredibly focused as with a laser where as fire only needs ignition and something to burn. The same is true of magic, it is not geared towards the physical but it can do what more physical energies cannot. Using the same analogy that I did before, light can travel through space where as fire cannot because it requires fuel. Magic can effect the non-physical where as something like kinetic energy cannot. There is obviously more that can be said about magic but that is where I'm going to stop for now.
I think that that about covers my spirituality and philosophy in a basic way. I may post more later and anyone is free to discuss things that I have said here with me to better understand my views.

I'm glad you think so, any comments in particular? Questions?