As I’ve traveled deeper down the rabbit hole of spirituality, I’ve learned that I feel most connected to God, the Source, the Universe.. what ever you’d like to refer to it as, when I’m one with nature. Being in nature calms me, restores me, strengthens me, and it brings me such bliss and inspiration that it feels as sacred to me as a church probably feels to others.
As I started to realize my connection to nature, I grew more interested in pre-Christianity traditions. When you stop to think about the age of Christianity verses the age of humans, specifically homo sapiens, Christianity would be considered fairly new in the grand scheme of things.
According to Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, while the most current evolution of humans (homo sapiens) have been around on this planet for roughly 200,000 years, it was about 12,000 years ago that we began modernizing ourselves as a species. Our oldest ancestors had passed down nomadic traditions of scavenging and hunting, while our more recent ancestors learned how to make tools for fishing, cooking and sewing.
It would only be natural in our evolution to build upon their knowledge. It was than that we discovered we could control our environment and grow our own food. We learned how to herd animals. These practices allowed us start settling down and creating villages. It was the start of globalization.
Christianity, on the other hand, started with the birth of Christ (who was believed to have been prophesied as being the Messiah in the Old Testament of the Bible). Christ was born roughly 2,000 years ago which would technically be the start of Christianity, but for the sake of argument, let’s take into account the age of the Old Testament which adds roughly 1,200 years to the equation. We are now looking at at combined age of 3,200 years. That’s a quarter of the time that we as a species have been modernized.
Considering that Christianity is the world’s largest religion, that’s actually a pretty incredible feat. The more that I consider the newness of this religion, it really doesn’t surprise me that a new movement of Modern Paganism is on the rise (also referred to as Contemporary and Neopaganism). More and more people are looking back on the spiritual traditions of our ancestors in a pre-Christian world.
As an old soul, I’ve found this very fascinating and in one way or another, I’ve been drawn to different aspects of it my whole life. And really, when I stop to think about it, it makes so much sense and falls so perfectly in alignment with my belief in past lives. If I’ve served several lifetimes on this planet, it would make sense that I would have lived more lives where spirituality was based on the celestial heavens and respecting and connecting to the our Earth.
I also believe that the rise in Paganism coincides with an age of awakening on our planet. I believe that people are starting to open their eyes to the programming that surrounds us. People are slowly starting to realize the power that lies within themselves. If we can separate from the labels that society puts us into, and realize that we are all beings made up of energy and love, we could coexist as individuals sharing an experience in this world. We could mindfully support each other on our journeys instead of allowing fear based emotions to further separate us.
The more that I connect with these old ways, the more I see the magic that exists in this world. It really is an amazing, beautiful, powerful thing that has sadly been dimmed down as we’ve been led away from it during the last several generations.
It’s a topic that I’ve been skirting around during these last few years. Carefully crafting my words and limiting my stories, partly because I was (and still am, and to some extent hopefully always will be) finding myself. But the other part was that I was letting my fear-based emotions hold me back. The second half of 2018 really allowed me to self-identify and step into my power, something that I plan to talk about more in future posts.
Today though, I wanted to set the groundwork for the shift that you may see in 2019. StayWonderfull was created with the intention of holding space for wonderment in our lives. I’ve often talked about nature and spirituality in my posts, and those will still be my focus, but in 2019 I intend to step into my authenticity even more as I talk about topics that I previously may have hesitated on.
I hope you stay with me on my journey. Please share my site with others who you feel could relate. Also, connect with me on Facebook (@StayWonderfull) and Instagram (@stay_wonderfull). While I may not write blog posts as frequently as I’d like, you can always find me on social media spreading light, love and positivity to all. Happy New Year everyone! May magic, wonder, and love find their way to you this year, and always.
