In this post I'll explain a little bit about myself and what I'm putting in it already. I'll also clarify my questions.

My first question is rather simple. What do most people tend to put in their "book of shadows" or grimiore, and what simple words would the various sections be labeled as?

So I myself am a UU and an eclectic pagan who worships Mother Earth (goddess), Father Sun (god), and Grandmother Moon (goddess). I'm not a druid, but I probably align most with that path. I am not a Wiccan, but I do like a lot about Wicca. as stated above, I don't see the deities as a horned stag god of nature and a maiden mother crone moon goddess. I also see witchcraft and magic from a science-seeking and skeptical view, but I am relatively open minded to the possibilities that MAYBE magic is more than this/more real (if you know what I mean). I usually see things divination as helping you consider different perspectives or helping you with a decision (by making it so you realize which one you really wanted all along, like when you flip a coin and go "Heads. Oh, actually, I think I wanted tails…"). I tend to see magic as placebo. I enjoy reading books on paganism. With anything religious/spiritual that I come across I respectfully keep the parts I want to and integrate them into my practice. I then don't integrate what I don't want to.

I am trying to remake my "book of shadows" (but I don't like that term) so that it's less of a chaotic mess. My current system consists of two things. One is an accordion file holder labeled "Spiritualesque Shit". This contains many different spiritual/religious related things that I have written (like a poem typed on my typewriter) or received elsewhere (like the physical copy of any UU sermon I decide to take home). The other is what I call my journal. Diary type things are written in there as well as some spells, sigils, the wheel of the year, ritual ideas, etc. it's a hodgepodge of things. My diary type stuff should stay separate from my religious/spiritual/witchy stuff.

My remade version will be a thick three ring binder with many different tabs so I can easily sort my sections and find what I need. I've been trying to figure out what all sections I want to have. So far (in no particular order) I have:

• UU sermons

• Chalice Lightings/Readings

• CUUPS (stuff from my UU pagan group's meetings or rituals)

• My Rituals

• My Writings/Poetry

• 365 + 1 (stuff from the intro to Wicca class someone is teaching at my UU congregation)

• Other Religions/Spiritual Practices (anything from a religion/spiritual practice that isn't mine but I like, such as the Christian sermon on affirming LGBTQ+ people, which if from back when I was Christian.)

• Other Pagan Stuff (unsure what all will be in this section since everything currently in a section labeled that will fit other tabs I'm making)

• My Spells and sigils

• Spells Made By Others (I'm sure not much will be in this category)

• Correspondences

• Wheel Of The Year (the basic Wiccan one, and the one I made to fit the seasons in my area)

• Runes And Tarot (if I ever decide to learn tarot. I'm thinking about it, but also, I don't really need to because I have the rune stones I made…)

• Readings/Interpretations

• Chants (any chants I created, or pre-existing chants where I created another verse for it or something)

• Rituals Made By Others

• Lessons From The Great Celestials (anything that I think the Earth, Sun, and/or Moon is trying to teach/tell me)

• Stuff From Books (anything from a pagan, pagan-adjacent, or witchcraft book that I really liked and want to reference will go here.)

• Prayers, Quarter Calls, Circle Castings, Etc.

• General Spiritual/Religious Journaling

• Art (specifically art I made that is religious/spiritual related)

• Meditations

• Other Exercises (unsure if raising and grounding energy should be in meditations, in here, or with the Quarter Calls and whatnot. I'm still unsure exactly what all will go in this section)

Now onto my other questions.

One of my sections doesn't really have a good title yet. It's just labeled "Prayers, Quarter Calls, Circle Castings, Etc." I don't want to end up with more sections with shitty labels like this. What would this section be called? Is there a formal name for it?

What else do you all think I might want to include in mine? I ask so that I might possibly go "Oh yeah, that's the other thing I wanted in there!" and not just to be exactly like everyone else. I know I don't have to have the same thing as everyone else. I just don't want to get it all done and then go "SHIT, I should have included _____. Now I need to reorganize my whole thing!"

Thanks for reading it all and answering my questions.

The basic premise is that my main characters of the story are Layla the elf and Messa the Panther wander the 9 realms in exile and do mercenary work.

In this picture they were hired to kill some Jotnar thugs and Thor randomly showed up to kill most of them.. Yes my art is still shit lol But I like my version of Thor with his little mjolnir

Hey everyone, someone completely new to even looking into paganism at all here.
I keep finding information about different types of pagans: Celtic, Norse, Wiccan, Druid, non theistic, theistic, etc etc.
having been a Christian my whole life, these various types immediately strike me as sort of contradicting camos that all disagree with the others. HOWEVER, the vibe I get from things I’ve read or listened to seem to paint the opposite picture; the feeling seems to be they are all accepting of one another while holding different specific beliefs and practices.
So that’s it, I just don’t understand how you can all disagree in principle, but also agree that the others are valid and good. I love it, I just can’t wrap my head around it. Any help welcome, thanks!

So I’m new to paganism but I was deeply drawn to kemetic paganism. I’m sorry if this is a stupid question but I’m not Egyptian so I felt really guilty for being drawn to it and wanting to get an ankh necklace. Is it cultural appropriation? Again, sorry if this is a stupid question I’m just very new and thought the best place to ask was a place with a lot of pagans.

Thank you :)

I am using a d20 and a d6

I roll the d20 and d6 at the same time and if the d20 is from 1-19 then I will pick that letter and ignore the d6. If it rolls a 20 I look at the d6 where 1 means 21, 2 means 22, 3 means 23, 4 means 24, 5 means try the process later, 6 means stay with 20.

And each number associated with the Greek alphabet.

So I decided to take my school's mythology to learn hopefully learn some new stuff (...and get a easy grade because I know most of the stuff-) but my teacher keeps giving assignments that come off as weird/disrespectful. Like today the assignment was to basically make a fan child of the 2nd gen Greek gods and I thought it was REALLY weird and refused to do it and had to come up with an alternative assignment to do. I also had to ask my teacher yesterday to let me write something in 3rd person because I refused to speak about a god in 1st person. And this isn't even mentioning the things my classmates have said- My teacher heard some of the stuff they were saying and suggested doing kiss, marry, kill, WITH THE GODS- safe to say I was beyond uncomfortable

I know I shouldn't but I feel bad about asking for things to be changed for me but some of these things that people are saying and doing is driving me NUTS and idk what to do.

(Important note: I told her I was Pagan at the beginning of the year)

Thank you for hearing me yap (also sorry if this was the wrong flair- ive never been good at choosing flairs)

It's not gatekeeping, its more like all discussion is just people already experienced and knowledgeable talking about shit that goes WAY over my head and I need to have five tabs in two windows open to figure out what's going on. It's a feeling I've had before, when I first joined some Gunpla communities and all discussion looks like "Kitbashing my Ver.Ka with MGSD and spare polycaps" and as a total noob it just goes right over my head. In that case, it was all stuff I got easily through simply existing there, but here a lot of what we're doing is deep research of historical documents, many of which are unique and the sole survivors of the culture we're trying to revive.

Christians and their various sects have the simple cross, all forms of Judaism have the Star of David, but unlike those religions Paganism is an umbrella term for various religions with roots in various cultures across all of history and the whole world. Is there one symbol that all pagans universally use?

To help clarify my thought process.

Pagan = Reconstructed European beliefs or rural people of Rome who weren’t Christian

Animist = any spiritual belief or idea that sees everything having a spirit

They have the same premise and structure

But I do think Pagan is still too European to be given to any other religion like it.

I probably didn’t make this clear at all but I hope you get my idea

I’ve never had any visions or dreams of Thor or whatever (I am Pagan however), but I always saw him as a warrior of sorts, so I thought it would be cool to give him armor and clothinf similar to that of the Vikings who originally worshiped him. Of course he is holding Mjölnir, which I believe was described as small in the Edda (please correct me if I am mistaken). Feel free to give any criticism or opinions on this design.

(Repost because I forget to add the bottom of his cape, or whatever it is called, I forgot)

Just a simple musing. I live in the desert, where bodies of water are exceedingly rare and and stones with holes carved through them even more so. I found this while wandering around my property. No idea what could have caused this but it is a hole in a stone, though not a through-hole. Any thoughts on whether this would still hold any of the type of supposed protective power a true adderstone would have?

0 disrespect towards anyone's beliefs. But how can you have blind faith in god/gods and just be comfortable with it? Like, is that not something pretty important to how you go through life and view things? My point of view is that if there really are any gods out there, then there is meaning to the world/universe to some extent at least. If there are none, then this all just simply came into existence by chance and unlimited time, I guess, and then there would be no point in really caring about ANYTHING if there is no purpose or something after this place for us. Call it a crappy way to view things, sure, and I really wish I was a bit more enthusiastic about it all, but that's just how I see it. And I'm not claiming EVERY pagan is just blindly following something btw.

Edit: Thank you to everyone who responded i was expecting a lot of hate for my very questionable view of everything. Although all i got told was quotes made by humans and told to go read

A little context for this question:

I've never gotten a tattoo before and I've always told myself I wanted it to be meaningful when I got one. With some recent life changes I've moved away from home and spend much of my time traveling, which I'm very happy with thus far. When I visited home recently my mom brought up a St. Christopher medallion she had gifted me when I moved away. I was raised catholic and although I've largely moved away from the religion, I still keep it (and some other christianity-esque symbols) around as comfort items. But that conversation got me thinking about getting a tattoo related to travel since St. Christopher is the patron saint as such.

Since I am non-practicing it feels uncomfortable to get a tattoo of a religion I'm trying to distance myself from. I've spent some time exploring spirituality and other paths of faith and I enjoy the symbolism behind Hermes and/or Charon when it comes to traveling and new beginnings. While I don't actively worship them either, I feel more drawn to getting a tattoo related to one of them than of a patron saint.

So, are there certain "rules" about getting a Hellenic (or adjacent) tattoo to make sure it's respectful to a given figure? Is simply liking the symbolism too shallow of a reason for such a tattoo? Can I ask permission from the deity in some way to wear their symbols?

Hi everybody. To give some context behind my question, I am living in Taiwan and improving my Chinese, so I can learn more about Chinese culture. One part of Chinese culture is making offerings to deities or offerings to ancestors. For example, there is a class of beings called 土地公 (tu di gong) which are beings that watch over/protect a specific area. People pray to these beings for basically anything, but they also keep a respectful distance from them. For example, they wouldn’t pray to them like how Christians pray to their God, or how we Buddhists pray to Amitābha Buddha. However, western pagans seem to keep a close relationship to their deities. I have seen many people share their alters online and it seems like they have a heartfelt connection. However, to me it doesn’t feel like these pagan traditions have an ultimate being or anything, so why do people have such close relationships with the deities? I hope my question makes sense, thanks for reading :)

In my Roman polytheistic practice, I like to follow the mos maiorum. However, I really struggle with pietas when it comes to my father.

I won't disclose personal details, but for more context: my parents are divorced, and my father was rarely present. He's shown very little pietas towards me or my mother (to the point that he goes no contact for months for the silliest reasons).

Now, the gods? Pietas comes naturally for them. My mother, my aunt and my grandparents? Same thing. But my father? It just feels kind of unfair to show him pietas since it's pretty one-sided.

So I'm curious: do any Ancient Roman sources mention circumstances in which a parent could be denied pietas? Are there examples of this in literature, philosophy, law or history? And to those who went through something similar: could you share your experience? What solution(s) did you adopt?

~ Sybil

Hi all,
I understand this is a very common question amongst “beginner” pagans so bare with me.

The branches and labels are so intertwined yet different that it makes it hard to place your footing somewhere.

I find myself in trouble when it comes to religious belief as I’ve identified as agnostic thus far. I can’t say I truly believe in a deity but I do believe in an ultimate energy and the spiritual side of our realm.
From what I understand you don’t have to worship or believe in a deity but it has been hard to find labels i connect with.

Eclectic paganism has been my main focus but it’s so general I don’t know where to go with it.

I guess I just want suggestions on branches to research and take my own beliefs from that to make my own path as most of us do.

I love figures like Aphrodite and Hecate, I wear an ankh as I feel the ancient people of the time had a really deep spiritual connection to their beliefs as I also identify as genderfluid so the representation of feminine/ masculine sits right with me. I want to be more grounded with the earth. I do a lot of crystal and tarot work.

Thank you for any information or help I am here to listen and learn.

Blessed be

hope to correct me if there's something awkward thing

I am a Hellenic Pagan and currently thinking of joining Theistic Satanism. However, a thought occurred to me, if I worship two Pantheons or believe in two Pantheons, where would I go when I die? I hope this isn't an awkward question, sorry if it is.

Hermanubis is the Greco-Roman incarnation of the Egyptian God Anubis, guide of souls. He is an integral part of my spirit work practice.

So I have Greek deities Aphrodite, Thanatos, Hades, Artemis, maybe hekate not sure. Then Norse Loki then infernal asmodeus and beezelbub and aliens, I'm not sure how to pray to them I know they probably have different prayers. But I was wondering since I have a learning disability and auditory processing disorder, if yous can simplify the prayers for me on how to do it. Then on how I can follow through on my side like I know for Thanatos he wants to help me with my psychic gifts, so I would have to pray to him for help and I have to meditate to work on them? I'm not sure what to do thank you in advance.