I’ve been doing a lot of work in/with Chaos Magick lately. The basic tenet of Chaos Magick is that there is no basic tenet; that is to say, it does not require a belief in any individuated deity or consciousness. I like it because it simply addresses the laws of how things work and takes the belief and faith out of it. Between that and reading some Robert Anton Wilson, I am more aware of the myths that I play with, the rituals I do, and the way I celebrate my own spirituality. I find that I am capable of being both skeptical and faithful at the same time. Even more complicated than that, I am capable of holding several competing or divergent beliefs simultaneously, with no trouble whatsoever.

This was especially amusing to me on Good Friday. A friend of mine, when she lived in town, would have a cocktail party every year to celebrate the fact that, on this one day, everyone could agree that God is dead. I have a tradition of walking the Labyrinth on Good Friday to contemplate the ideas of sacrifice and rebirth. I have a number of Christian-ish traditions that I celebrate. I like the idea of the All That Is; sometimes I ascribe it a personalized consciousness, sometimes I don’t. I’m fairly sure it doesn’t care whether I do or not. I also like the idea of manifestations of the Divine, individuations, in the various Gods and Goddesses. I also firmly believe that we are each Creators and contain within us all of the potential of the Godhead. None of these things are in conflict for me, but I understand how they could be.

When I call myself a multi-denominational Shaman, it confuses people. They want to know what path I follow. Honestly, I follow the one that makes the most sense at the time. I like data. I like to know the traditions and legends of as many belief systems as possible. I like to see the  patterns, the similarities, the nuances. I also like to know the laws of How Things Work. I like to weave things together, to blend ideas and traditions and rituals. Shamanism, to me, is the art of seeing the patterns between things. A Shaman has many functions, but their Art is one of patterns. So I can be a Shaman, a mystic, a Gnostic, a magician, a hedge witch, a minister, a healer, a Christian, and anything else I feel an affinity towards without conflict. I suppose if my paradigm included the idea of a judgmental God, this wouldn’t work, but that strikes me as weak, and a weak God is no God at all, really.

It is good to examine your beliefs, your myths, your faith. It is good to take stock every once in a while and make sure the stories you are telling yourself work for you. They don’t have to work for anyone else, really, and that’s a good thing; but they should work for you. You should be comfortable with them, familiar, so that you can see when something isn’t working for you and revise it. I’m not talking about following or believing what’s convenient; I’m talking about self-knowledge and self-understanding.