104 replies to this topic

[OwlGoddess]

Wow!  sorry to come to this thread a wee bit late - was flapping back from winter break in the netherlands of oklahoma over ye olde holiday.  glad to be back in soggy northern california...

looks like i'm not alone in the native american tradition, here... i'm a lifelong sensitive that comes from a line of family healers and magicians / medicine people on the cherokee (dad's) side of the family.  i was designated as a spirit-talker and an owl person at the tender age of two or three by my cherokee great-grandpa.

great-grandpa was a medicine man of sorts - lived on his alotment in talequah and passed a lot of his wisdom down to his grandson, my dad... and from my dad to me.  i got the honor of being an owl person when my great-grandpa noticed that owls would park themselves outside of the room where i slept when i would visit him.  he also put two and two together and realized that my "imagination" and my "nightmares" were really linked and that i was seeing spirits and talking to them in my sleep.

my mom's side of the family is superstitious to the hilt, but they are more in the irish / scottish / basque european belief with bits of the old paganism stirred into their brand of christianity.

OG

[whispers_of_fire]

Welcome back, OG ;D
*LOL*I was raised Christian but my Mom kept pointing me towards para/supernatural and mythology and really encouraged my interest in both...Owlie, your point about the varied pagan beliefs in Western and Central Europe made me think of that. The owls visiting outside your window at your Great Grand-Da's was fascinating

[OwlGoddess]

yeah, whispers... i love the moms that have one foot in the christian bucket and the other in the pagan bucket -- my mom certainly had no bones about teaching me tarot one day and taking me to church the other to pray a prayer of thanks for my tarot talents!  gotta love my mom!

[hawkerdriver]

Oh good!  Looks like my kids will not be alone, Owlie. It feels absolutely okay to me to combine, so I do!

[OwlGoddess]

you cool mammas ROCK!  i will, one day, be a cool mom that will teach my children comparative religion !

[shtina]

      [smiley=cwm17.gif]Hey guys, has the world been  [smiley=cwm20.gif] or have i been gone to long? [smiley=cwm2.gif] [smiley=cwm2.gif] [smiley=cwm2.gif]

I'm glad to see this forum still up and running.

 Hawkerdriver;.... Wild birds have carried signs in my family as well. Sparrows entering the dewelling of a person is a sure sign of a loved one passing(transporter of souls). Crows/Ravens are also soul keepers. One carries them away while the other consumes the soul. But are we born with the abiliteies, Yes!! Everone is. Not everone knows or can tap into it.

  Aloha Spirit;.... Nice to meet ya. interesting family background, but if you don't mind me asking..... Do you have any personal experiences like those of your family?

  OWLGODESS...Hey there. Thanks for the moms rock. Your right we can be pretty cool.. Just one thing, if you don't mind,..; do you think that Comparative Religion will be a NEW AGE RELIGION?? Or one that will be hid underground like Pagan/Druids/Witches of the Past?

[UnkleBunny]

Owl, I know when i have kids, they are getting my faiths passed to them. I may not pass my Totem, as that obviously depends wholly on the person..(I am an extremely strong Bear Medicine practioner)  now in my own opinion here.. I don't think a lot who would fall under "cpmparative religions" think of the old folk ways, as religions, if that is what youa re talking about? most just feel they are what they do, and they thank god, that they do them, or whoever they pray to.

Whisper; sadly I don't think he'd show anyone else how he does it, as I half the wonder, if he himself knows...it's just something he started doing... demon eaters haven't appeared in my familiy in about 150 years or so....that's why one day, when I caught him killing a SOmething, I was shocked....

[OwlGoddess]

i guess i'm using the term "comparative religions" pretty liberally here... of course, if you take the college classes in comparative religions you're generally going to get stuck talking only about judaism, christianity, islam, buddhism, and hinduism.  

i suppose what i had in mind encompasses those, but has a greater focus on the inter-connectedness of mythologies - into which paganism and all of the earth / animistic religions get featured prominently.  it is my personal belief that most of the organized religions that we know today all stemmed from the old earth religions and animistic traditions -- and the true basis of the old religions has been twisted beyond recognition, at least on a large-scale organizational / dogma level.  

i also believe that if you're going to teach a child to respect religions - even if you are passing on your own tradition to your child as a primary focus - you need to educate them about all of the other religions not as something radically different, but as connected to your own faith or path in some small but vital way!

i think that lumping anything blindly into the category of "new age" or making it some kind of "mc-study" is just as bad as force-feeding youngsters hard-line doctrine of ANY one particular faith.  the best part about this is that you can learn and grow along with your kids, as many of you do - AND YOU ROCK!!

OG

[UnkleBunny]

well, I'm not a big fan of the whole "new Age" movement, in that I view it as a bunch of inscense smoking hippies, trying to get in touch with rocks, and herbs, that made Cheech marin famous... however... I do agree, that children should be given a choice of faiths... so they make the right choice, for them,w hen the time is right.

[shtina]

Your right Unck .. Our children should know of many religions and each be respected for their own incorperated belief system.

[whispers_of_fire]

Hi, Shtina...long time no see [smiley=cwm9.gif]

WOW...while my Mum didn't rush out to buy my first deck, she
didn't discourage it or any interest I had*LOL*She also was the one who suggested I write my dreams down

I agree, I think its best to kind of give them a belief in a
higher power and expose them to other faiths and let them choose what they're most comfortable with when they're a bit older as I think enforced belief and being dragged bodily to church leads to resentment no matter how well-intentioned the dragging was*bats eyelashes*Hawky, you looking to adopt?

Hey, Unk, no blood no report, Amigo It sounds like your Bro's demon eating ability is an inherent talent rather than
a learned one, if its anything like mine, when I've been asked if I can teach or how to do something, I'm at a loss. Its like asking a Sensitive "How do you see spirits?" or a zebra, why do you graze?

[lmackey]

My mother was a sensitive, and my sister is also but my family past stops there.  I think paranormal subjects are taboo on my mother's side of the family (they are all allittle weird about things), there is probably much more on that side of the family than meets the eye.  I'm pretty sure my fathers side doesn't have too much in the way of a paranormal past because that side is interested in my experiences, and always wanting to know more, at least they are supportive and non judgemental.


Lydia [smiley=cwm7.gif]

[hawkerdriver]

Shtina- glad to know that I have some substantiated support on the wild bird thing.  

Owlie, I just want them to be 'limber' in the spiritual side because well, just because.  But I want them to be able to sort out what deception is too.  Know what I mean?  One way I think to sort out deceptions is to know about all types of spirituality.  But to develop their souls is the best deception detector out there.

Whiskers, according to my LG you would want to find another home.  I DO drag them to church.  Know why?  Because I want the little buggers to know there's something even bigger than Mummsy and Dadsy that they are gonna have to answer to.  SO even if the folks don't see their bad deeds someone else who has a lot more clout does!!  

Motherhood, the biggest guilt trip you'll ever take. :-[

[Crone]

My maternal grandmother had a gift of communitcating with those who had crossed over.  When I was young, she would tell me 'bedtime stories' of some of her encounters.  (Of course, at the time, I probably thought they were just made-up stories....only later did I learn they were true!)  On of our favorites was the story of when she was still at home as a young girl.  One morning she kept hearing someone knocking at their kitchen door, only to find there was no one there.  Her father (my great-grandfather) became angry at her for disrupting their breakfast.  They later found out that her uncle (my great-grandfather's brother) had died that morning.  She swears it was him knocking.  She could feel his presence.  The funny thing about it, was that my grandmother and her family were in Michigan, and the uncle was in Germany.  Another story she repeatedly told, was riding on a horse-drawn wagon(this was at the turn of the last century), with a friend and her friend's father.  She said that out of the shadows came a huge, beast-like face that soared right up to them. It scared the horse so badly that it reared, and almost caused the wagon to tip over.  This gift, by the way, has been passed on to my sister.

[UnkleBunny]

whisp, I have kinda thought that about hima s well, I have asked him before, and instead of saying how he does it, he either describes what happens, or he shrugs, and uses a long string of profanity, ended with " the same way you heal"... personally, I do feel that among lines, you can have those with exclusively passed gifts, kinda like this one gets grandma's tablelamp, while this one gets her rocking chair.....also another thing that puzzles me with family gifts... can some gifts actually not only inhereited, but downright selective? for example... grandmother Mary is a Spirit Talker, and while her granddaughter is already born, she shows no signs..... after mary dies, the child starts to see spirits.... can some gifts in fact be only One Gift that passes from person to person in a line?

Imackey.. I've often found in a family, the more tight-lipped they on ghosts, and spirits, the more sensitive that line really is... took me forever before my great aunt admitted, that she sees things, outside of our family blessing lines..(see above) sometimes, you jsut need to wait for the right moment, in order to let them feel comfortable enough to talk to ya...a fter all, it wasn't too long ago, that you would be locked up for life, for talking about ghosts.... and for that matter, some are afraid, that they  still might be locked up.