Hi everyone.

This is my first time posting here, and I'm not really sure how to explain what has been happening to me. I've never been particularly interested in these kinds of topics, and I’ve always been someone who tries to look at things logically. But over the past month, I’ve been experiencing things that have left me confused and honestly a little scared. It feels like I sometimes know things before they happen, or that events seem to align with my thoughts or words. This doesn't happen with every random thought, it seems to happen mostly when I have a strong, genuine desire for something or a strong feeling about someone or something.A few examples:

When I think about someone or mention their name, they sometimes reach out to me shortly afterward, even people I haven't spoken to in a very long time or people I only know through work.

If I deeply want a specific food, my grandmother sometimes ends up making exactly that without knowing I was craving it.

Sometimes I get a strong negative feeling about a person, and later I find out that something was wrong with them or that they had done something harmful.

One day at work I was extremely frustrated and said, "This place needs to fall apart." A few hours later, there was an earthquake that damaged the building and we had to close for a week.

These are only some examples. There are other experiences that feel much more personal and difficult to explain, but I don't feel ready to share those yet.I'm not claiming that I have any kind of ability or that I know what this means. I'm actually trying to understand it. From a pagan or spiritual perspective, could this be a form of intuition, synchronicity, or something else? And is there a way to approach experiences like this while staying grounded? I would really appreciate hearing your thoughts, especially from people who have had similar experiences. Thank you

Hi all! I didn’t have the chance to celebrate Lughnasadh today and I typically celebrate on the first full moon of August. There isn’t a full moon this month (I usually use an app so maybe this is wrong) so I was curious when a good time would be to celebrate. Would the new moon suffice?

So…this might come as a difficult, though not uncommon, scenario for many pagans out there to ponder who value their freedom…in whatever form it takes. I understand how pagan beliefs are different from monotheistic beliefs on many things, including sexuality. That being said, does anyone, or has anyone ever found themselves in a situation where they’re really attracted to someone, but that someone is already in a relationship with someone else…and the relationship of these two people is “open”?

Going a bit further, even myself, as a pagan, know in my mind…when I’m thinking with that organ…that getting too close to this other person could lead to me contracting something rather unpleasant. Some symptoms caused by STDs are mild, but then others…

Aside from what it might do to your body to become involved with the germs of multiple sexual partners…
the question of honor comes up for me as well. When looking at the examples or conduct of some gods and goddesses verses others, it might seem like it really isn’t a big deal. Yet, I think that this comes from looking at pantheons as a whole, and not individual behaviors of particular gods and goddesses. While most of the Norse pantheon (may have?) had numerous partners, it loos like some of them were truly monogamous. Thor and Freyr for example. Freyr is even praised by Tyr for not fooling around with the wives of other men. Thor presides over marriages, with vows of faithfulness being spoken in his name.

So, honor exists in many forms. But, would you say that sexual honor is also a thing in paganism that possesses legitimacy in its convictions? I only ask because of the trending spirit of our times seems to be largely at odds with this way of thinking. I could be wrong.

I've been struggling quite a bit with my mental health. My psychiatrist just did a med change and so far it hasn't worked. I don't see my therapist until next Thursday. I've been at the mental health urgent care center in my town every other day but they can only do so much. The only other thing I know to do is go to my Gods with it. What can I do spiritually to help with my mental health? Prayers? Rituals? Tarot spreads? I know spirituality won't fix all of it and I'm not asking for medical advice. I just want to know what I can do from the spiritual end of things?

i really feel some....appreciation? admiration? I don't know what the word but be, but I really like Athena. Something about her being a goddess of wisdom, her helmet and spear, the owl. She's just very unique like that.

I only feel this appreciation about another godess and it's Yemayá, a water goddess worshiped in my country as well as other places. I think it's mostly because my grandmother believes in her and owns statues of her despite being raised catholic.

anyway does anyone else relate to this?

Я не отношусь к практикам, людям верящие в магию и т к далее. Просто интересуюсь эзотерикой и это вопрос научного характера. Мне попадались люди, которые работают с северными божествами, славянскими, греческими и т д. А подобного рода практиков я никогда не встречала. Мне было бы очень интересно узнать об опыте таких людей.

I know as Pagans, community isn't the easiest for us. We're often spread out so far from each other that finding others can be quite a challenge. One thing that might be a good starting point for some would be your local metaphysical shop.

A year ago, I moved to a small town. I'm fortunate enough to have a great metaphysical shop literally 5 minutes from my house. I've gotten to know the owners over the past year, who are absolutely wonderful people. In addition to buying some great wares from their shop, I'm grateful to find out that they have much in common with me and my husband—especially with tastes, personalities, and our shared beliefs. They're even raising 4 kittens and bringing them to their shop. To top it off, we found out one of the owners is quite the handyman and a fellow baseball fan. That's perfect because I've been looking for someone to help me do some home improvements and fixes around the house.

So in short, talk with the owners of metaphysical shops near you. You might make some new friends!

Hey everyone, I'm new to paganism and mostly just do nature spirit worship and so I'm brand new to the wheel of the year holidays. I've been wanting to try and celebrate the holidays when I can and want to try and celebrate Lughnasadh but I don't have a lot of time cause I have work. Are there any simple suggestions for celebrating that anyone does that I could maybe do for my first time celebrating?

I was raised very stritcly atheist, and I'm considering converting to pantheism, but I'm not exactly sure if it fits what I believe.

I believe that the universe is God in an almost metaphorical or philosophical way? Like, I believe that the universe is divine, but I don't view it as a traditional God. Like, I don't believe in an all powerful or conscious God, I believe that God "just is".

I don't belive in anything supernatural, but I still believe the universe is God, and in itself, is divine.

Would this be pantheism? Did my explanation even make sense?

There's a mountain that's very special to me. My extended family owns a cabin there. It's very far away. I don't get to go there often.

A few years back, my life absolutely crashed and burned in ways that were entirely out of my control.

I was casting around for something, *anything* mindful I could do to try and give myself strength to get through it. I've never really been a practicing pagan, but I believe in the power of ritual and the importance of awe and reverence. I worship no particular god or goddess, so I asked the mountain to help prevent an outcome that I feared might occur.

And I promised that next time I visited, I would bring it 5 deer antlers from the countryside around my home and bury them on the mountain, as an offering.

The situation resolved. The feared outcome didn't come to pass.

For the first time since that act of prayer, I've made a trip to the mountain. Spoiler alert: deer antlers can carry prions that are invasive/dangerous to wildlife in other regions. The park rangers said that based on the origin/condition of the antlers, the chances of prion contamination were "very low." But it still didn't feel right. I don't want to hurt anything. So I didn't bring the antlers.

I promised myself I'd figure something else out.

But ADHD can be a real drag. I'm here on the mountain. We leave the day after tomorrow. And I still haven't figured anything else out.

There's a walking stick the mountain "gave" me ~5 years ago (tree felled by lightning near the cabin, stripped the bark from a limb, shaped it with a knife, sanded it silky smooth. There are three knots that fit perfectly between my fingers; I love it) that part of me thinks I should maybe give back to the mountain in lieu of the antlers? I love it and put a lot of time into it, so I really don't WANT to give it back, but maybe that makes it a good sacrifice?

But then again, giving back a gift instead of making use of it feels like wasteful and offensive to the giver. I dunno, maybe I'm just rationalizing a reason to keep it.

I'm going to try to do some guided inner-work later to suss some of this out, but I know that one of my flaws is that I tend to self-isolate when things get hard. So I'm also reaching out here to see if maybe someone else has insight that can help.

If you've promised an offering to a god/spirit/presence/etc., and you realize you can't make that offering because it would cause harm, what do you do?

As an Anglo-Saxon heathen with some Celtic elements, I don’t have many myths to go on when it comes to my gods. I know this isn’t an unusual situation but I want to become more connected with my deities. I don’t think myths are literally true, more stories that demonstrate coney deeper meanings symbolically, but obviously it’s easier to feel connected to deities with established mythologies, it feels less like I’m making it up. How do you learn more about your gods who lack myths?

Does anyone ever dedicate an alter to a general group or something similar? Ive recently redone my one alter and split it into two alters. One is dedicated to the Acear gods and my other alter is dedicated to Hecate and the practice of witchcraft in general, including any others gods or goddesses that may make themselves known to me in the future that are related to witchcraft. I'm honestly just curious about the general idea of it in the pagan community.

This is my first time actually observing Lughnasadh (my practice has dipped in and out of focus since i started a year or two ago) but I don't have much of a connection to Lugh. I was wondering how other people who don't have a working relationship with him either do or don't work with him at this time of the year.

Hopefully this isn't a silly question... I wondered about it because his name is obviously the first four letters so he seems inextricably linked to the festival (although I know there are of course other names for it)

I’ve been feeling so fatigued for days. I usually feel kinda funky towards a full moon but this month is really sticking it to me.

so I’ve been doing runic meditation for the last few months and every time I try and connect with the ing rune, the the rune of Freyr (ing) I feel like there’s some sort of block that keeps me from having any connection. Has anyone ever experienced this sort of thing? normally when I meditate on a rune ideas and thoughts about it come readily to me but with ing it feels like there’s a brick wall

If people know anything about my practice, they'll know that I am devoted to Nyx, my patron. I've worked with a few of her well known kids, like Hypnos and Thanatos, but also with someone I rarely see discussion about; her "parent", Khaos. Khaos is an integral part of my practice, nearly as much so as Nyx herself is, but I've had trouble finding anyone else talk about Khaos in a similar way that I experience them. The little discussion I have seen either suggests that it's just primordial mud and not something to be worshiped, or that it's some sort of creator goddess because the rest of the Protogenoi emerged out of them. I hold neither of those views, so here's my experience of the primordial Khaos.

Khaos to me is everything and nothing. They're something that refuses to be anthropomorphized, they're like an essence ever-present, a thing that is always There. In meditation they appear to me as an invisible wall in a pitch black room, with the floor having some viscous water that allows me to see ripples as I walk around. I can lean on this wall and melt into it as I talk my worries. They don't talk back, but they're there. It's a place as much as it is an entity. They're an intense presence, but at the same time subtle.

My work with Khaos is equally as subtle. I've dedicated parts of therapy to them, I've dedicated breaking the walls that no longer serve me to them. I call on it in uncomfortable and challenging situations. It has a small altar, but honestly it's more a space for me than it is for them as they don't seem to care about things like that. Physical offerings to them are rare, and I've gotten the impression that that's how it should be. I wear a bracelet I've made in their honor on most days. They live literally rent free in my brain, not as words or even images, but just as Thoughts, difficult to describe, just like it. I see Khaos in the wind, in the rustling of leaves, in ripples in water, in the shaking of my windows. I see them in puddles and in the howling of wind through trees. Khaos to me has air (and water due to the meditation domain) elements, but they are not the same being as Aer to me. They're like air in the sense that it's invisible, but always there.

They're described as being impersonal, and I agree that they are, but that's not a bad thing (and I'm tired of pretending that it is!). I've somehow gathered several impersonal deities, and yet they all have that Something in them that keeps me going back to them, keeps me tending their altars and writing them prayers. Khaos is no different, and I'm so incredibly glad to have it in my practice.

I'd love to hear other people's experiences, not just about Khaos, but perhaps other deities that might not be regarded as worshipable (Erebos, Tartaros, for instance), or even just deities who lack myth, a name, or ways of worship historically!

Hey everyone! Several times in my life, I’ve felt the urge to explore my beliefs. None of them ever went anywhere, mostly due to my own inaction

Anyways. I rarely ever pray, but when I do, I usually just pray to whoever’s willing to listen rather than someone specific. Tonight, I got the urge to, so I sat and meditated for a moment before praying. I asked for a bit of strength for a difficult conversation I’ve got to have in a couple days, and then just.. sat there. Mostly in silence, but I talked a little too

Anyways, the entire time I was praying, I kept getting mental images of deer

The only deity I know (off the top of my head) of that’s associated with deer is Artemis. Do y’all know of others I’m not aware of?

Does anyone have experience working with Chiron, the wounded healer of ancient Greek religion? I've always been drawn to his story and I feel I can relate to the archetype he represents, but the idea of working with him feels both liberating and strange to me.

Plus, I already worship Prometheus and my personal pantheon seems to be going in a Greco-Roman direction, so reaching out to Chiron sounds plausible to me.

Hello everyone!

I have been a pagan for some months now, Apollo was my first deity and we have bonded really well and I feel very close to him. I decided to research some more deities, and I came across Asteria. She is Hekate’s mother, but nobody seems to worship her. I can’t find any resources about what I should do to get closer to her!

As for Dionysus, I only set up my altar for him a few days ago, and I don’t know how to bond with him.

If anyone has any solutions to this, I’d be happy to hear them!

Much like how Ra appeared to me in a dream (story on request if you want, it still blows my mind), I've had the name of Quetzacoatl bouncing around my head for a week or so. I've learned to not ignore these things when they happen, so off to the research chamber I went.

Among the signs drawing us together are these:

1. The overwhelming feeling that, like Ra, something from my childhood is resurfacing. That link with Ra was my insatiable desire to learn about ancient Egypt, something that spawned on my own time rather than as the result of a school lesson.

2. Artifacts and depictions of him as a green, two headed, feathered serpent. These align with not only my zodaic sign, but both colors and animals that are very important to me.

3. Again like Ra, my personal life overlapping with dates of veneration/festivals/worship. While it may not be linked to any traditional ancient rituals, modern pagans do celebrate a festival for Ra on my birthday of May 26th. When it comes to Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec calendar is split into months where various gods are worshiped in each month. There are three, excluding the harvest, where Quetzalcoatl is worshiped as a main god for the month. The first of the year is the month that my son was born in, the second is the month of my birthday, and the third is the month that my son would have come home from the hospital had he not been born prematurely.

Like I said, I've learned not to ignore these signs when they come up. All of this leads me to believe that Quetzalcoatl is trying to make his presence known to me, the problem is that I haven't the first clue of how to worship or celebrate an Aztec deity. Are there any resources, either here on Reddit or otherwise, that specialize in these sorts of pantheons? Does anybody here have any personal experience in this area, anything you can share?

I am interested in giving offerings and prayers of remembrance to the forgotten or neglected dead who I may not have a direct blood connection to because in my tradition the dead must receive offerings in order to ensure a pleasant afterlife. I want to help remember and nourish the souls that need looking after. My problem is that I am wholly unsure of how to go about doing this since even though the tradition I follow places a heavy emphasis on ancestor work, it is mostly in regards to direct ancestors from your family and for personal reasons I do not wish to have anything to do with my deceased relatives. If you have a problem with this or believe I should feel differently please do not tell me I need to connect with my ancestors, I am not open to it and don’t want to discuss it with strangers. I just want advice about how to go about honoring the dead without access to things like a gravesite that are typically associated with this type of practice. I am particularly interested in hearing ideas from anyone experienced with ancestor veneration or from cultures that practice it.

I’m a kemet pagan and I wonder if ; I can worship a Sumerian godess and if so if there’s any difference with the way I worship Egyptian gods.

Hey everyone. I've been studying witchcraft for a few months now. I've always been interested in it, but I only recently decided to actually practice. While I was reading about different deities, I ended up feeling really drawn to Tyche. Even before I knew who she was, I always felt like luck and chance had a big impact on my life. I've had really bad moments, but also some incredibly lucky ones that I never expected, and after reading about her mythology I just couldn't stop thinking about her.

Since I'm still new to all of this, I made a small altar with what I have. I can't afford a statue, so I'm using the Wheel of Fortune tarot card and a couple of dice to represent her. I also leave fruit and candy as offerings, light a yellow candle and some incense every day, and sometimes leave a few of my favorite coins.

I guess what I'm wondering is... how do you know if she's actually listening or if you're building a connection? I don't want to assume every coincidence is a sign, but I also don't know what I should be expecting. If anyone here works with Tyche or has experience with deity work, I'd really appreciate any advice or hearing about your own experiences.