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Re: Tidying up offerings
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Its like stepping on sharp pieces of glass when you enter the debate on 'tat', how do we qualify it? who gets upset the most. If for instance you went into a pristine rainforest and deposited 'European tat' i.e. plastic, glass, barbie dolls etc it would look terrible and be environmentally destructive.
But I also came across a small 'remembering' (shrine perhaps) on a barrow up on the Ridgeway; a laminated photo, a few words and plastic flowers for goodness sake, all for a young lad who was most obviously loved and grieved over by his family. Respect stays the hand, but this problem of adorning trees with anything that comes to hand, plastic dolls, christmas decorations, ribbons etc has no meaning in the natural world to which the pagans aspire to. I would love it if someone would explain why decorating a tree has any religious significance, is it in the hope that it shows acknowledgment of the wonders of nature? a private wish for something to come good in ones life? A gift to a god/goddess? It is a typical human response of 'me-ism'...

Then we get the other side of the debate, another me-ism, which states that it is non-religious, that it finds offerings visually intrusive, it does'nt like druids dressing up,(though we live in a society perfectly happy to dress in any going fashion) to me that sometimes smacks of religious intolerance, religion after all is a belief system

Personally I think pagans have to stop and think about where they are going and perhaps invest in something less ephemeral then any passing tree, well or stone...


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moss
Posted by moss
21st May 2010ce
07:15

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Re: Tidying up offerings (cerrig)

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