Paganism Sets You Free

The Meaning of Life

What is the Meaning of Life?

It's the age old question and people are still asking.

Religious people tell us, find God, be saved and have eternal salvation, that's your purpose.

Avoiding Hell and making it to Heaven has been the answer throughout the ages, but lately people expect a better answer.

Let's just say the answer is Heaven, okay great, now what?

What purpose do we have after we get there?

Many religious people according to recent surveys are asking just that.

Other than praising, what’s our purpose?

So for us the questions remains, who are we, what's our purpose, what is the meaning of life?

As Pagans it's important to understand that we are nature, nature is not something separate from us, so when we reconnect with nature, we reconnect with ourselves.

This nature we're talking about brings challenges, trials and tribulations to each of our lives.

It is that struggle that brings knowledge, wisdom, self empowerment and a better understanding of who we are and not what others want us to be.

It doesn't matter who or what other people want you to be, it only matters who you really are, and by loving yourself you will find your purpose in life.

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.” 

― Joseph Campbell

That's right, life has no meaning, but you do, you have meaning.

The purpose of life is to give it purpose, by accepting and loving who you are.

By ignoring all the distractions and loving yourself, you give your life meaning.

Nature, The Great Equalizer

Nature provides us with the elements, cures and answers, but it doesn’t care who we are or what we have.

Nature is the ultimate equalizer, it doesn’t play favorites, it is what it is.

If we fight nature, we will lose every time.

Nature is both a creator and a destroyer.

If we learn to work with nature we can reap its rewards, like food, medicine, oxygen, minerals, water, fire, and learn lessons we didn’t even know we needed.

That’s the real magic.

The Old Religion is the magic of the Earth itself. 

It is the essence which binds all things together.

Lyrics

CREATOR DESTROYER

From the depth of the forest she will find you

She will drag you up and call you into being

She will lay her naked body on the debris

She will howl until her spirit

Overruns the city

She will rise up through the cracks between the pavements

She will buckle train lines, bridges all collapsing

And the towers of the mighty become frail

As she opens up her belly to devour.

Come and take over

Creator Destroyer

Come and take over

She will pour her molten core upon the runways

She will leave her rusting hulls upon the shoreline

She will swallow up the iron that was stolen

She will vomit up the plastic and the poison

Her oceans will make islands of the mainland

Her tendrils will be wrapped around the cables

And the buried bones of buildings will lie vacant

As she feeds upon the ribcage of forever, forever

Come and take over

Creator Destroyer

Come and take over

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Wendy Rule

Food Doesn't Originate From The Grocery Store

Hopefully most people realize food doesn't originate from the grocery store nor does coffee come from Starbucks, it's nature that provides these wonderful things to us.

From Providr we bring you the following...

1) Sesame Seeds: Sesame is a flowering plant that is native to tropical regions near the equator. The countries that are the world’s largest producers of sesame seeds are India and Sudan. It’s one of the oldest oilseed crops known in all of humanity! It grows in large capsules, almost like peas, and is harvested for baked goods around the world.

2) Pistachios: Pistachios are members of the cashew family, and originate from growing regions in the world around Central Asia and the Middle East. The pistachio is actually the seed of the tree, which comes from a beautiful flower.

3) Vanilla: One of our favorite flavors actually comes from a flowering orchid plant! This species has been cultivated for centuries, and its origin roughly stems from the early Totonac people in Mexico, who are said to be the first to cultivate the plant. When the Aztecs took over the Totonac culture, they developed a taste for the plant and called it “The black flower” for it turns black shortly after cultivation.

4) Kiwi: Kiwifruit grows on vines, like grapes! The fruit is a commercially grown crop from virtually everywhere in the world, including China, Italy, New Zealand, Chile, Greece, and France. The fruit is native to most of China, and the original name for the popular fruit was the “Chinese Gooseberry.”

5) Peanuts: Known for their edible seeds, many don’t realize that peanuts are actually quite a beautiful looking flower. The seeds are classified as an oil crop for its high oil content. In 2014, world production of the crop saw about 42 million tonnes grown and distributed. 

6) Brussels Sprout: The origin of this bizarre-looking plant famously comes from Brussels, Belgium, where the plant gained its name. It’s a relative of the cabbage family, but instead of growing closer to the ground, these pods grow upwards from the ground, ‘sprouting’ edible buds that we all have come to love (or hate.)

7) Almonds: The almond tree is a species of tree native to the Middle East and parts of North America. The seed itself grows in the fruit of the tree, called a drupe, which is a hard shell that grows around the almond, which is not actually a seed. Believe it or not, almonds are more closely related to peaches than actual nuts.

8) Cinnamon: This spice comes from the inner bark of trees called Cinnamomum. This spice has been around for so long, it was first recorded in history to be imported into Egypt as early as 2000 BCE. This aromatic can be seen in cultures and history from around the world. Just think.

9) Saffron: There’s a reason why this spice is so expensive! Saffron which comes from the flower “Saffron Crocus” is carefully harvested by hand. Saffron grows and is cultivated from the West of Spain all the way to the East of India.

10) Cashews: These strange looking fruits are actually cashews from a cashew tree. This tropical evergreen tree produces these large cashew seeds and cashew apples. Not only do people consume the cashew nuts worldwide, believe it or not, the cashew apple can also be used to make a sweet fruit drink or even liquor!

11) Coffee: This marvelous plant has been around since the earliest record histories. Legend has it that the Oromo people in Kaffa in Ethiopia were believed to be the first to recognize the caffeine effects in the plant, but this has yet to be proven. Coffee comes from the cherry of a Coffea plant, where the coffee bean is harvested from the inside, and later roasted to make your familiar cup of joe. There are several growing regions for coffee around the world, including Latin America, Africa, and the Asia-Pacific regions. The plant grows closest to the earth’s equator.

12) Chocolate: The cacao bean is the dried and fermented seed of the Cacao, from which cocoa butter and chocolate come from. There is a long and convoluted process of growing and manufacturing chocolate, but mainly chocolate comes from these strange looking seed pods that grow in hot rainy climates near the equator.

Knowledge, Education And Nature

 

 

Health Benefits of Lime

For Pagans, there is the natural appreciation and kinship for our biological connection to life, nature, and the living world. 

All humans have a deep relationship with nature that is rooted in our own biology. 

We are connected to everything living because somewhere deep inside, we are wired to be so, because we are nature.

From the time we are born, human beings are drawn to nature because we are nature.

These genetic memory marks are sometimes called “instincts.” 

Why do ordinary people care for and domestic and wild animals? 

Why do we feel a need to surround ourselves with plants and flowers in our homes, workplace and during our leisure time? Why does a well-set dining table always have a centerpiece of flowers or plants? 

When we go shop for food at the grocery store, there is a flower and plant department. 

Plants, fruits and flowers are as important to us as food. 

Speaking of fruits, Let's talk about the lime.

Best know for its role in key lime pie, many great food dishes and margaritas, but did you know it offers amazing healing properties as well?

While billions of dollars are spent on research for pharmaceutical drugs, the lime has been proven to cure diseases that cause millions of people to suffer each 

The National Library of Medicine reports that lime could either cure or improve the healing times from a life-threatening illnesses including:

Sickle Cell Anemia (SCA):

According to the CDC, SCA afflicts about 95,000 Americans and is diagnosed in 1 in every 500,000 African-American births. 

A clinical trial on lime juice was recently found to reduce painful episodes (50.0% lime juice intervention versus 92.7% control); febrile illness (46.6% lime juice intervention versus 87.3% control) and hospital admission rate (3.4% lime juice intervention versus 34.5% control) for sickle cell anemia in children.

Malaria:

Malaria is a mosquito-borne parasitic disease, which the WHO estimates causes 219 million of illness resulting in 660,000 deaths each year. A wide range of highly toxic drugs are used to treat the disease, but a recent study found that lime juice greatly increased malarial clearance when combined with standard drug therapy. 

Bacterial Agents in Food:

A recent study found that the popular food known as ceviche, naturally containing pathogenic agents from fish, could be completely sanitized with lime juice. Both Vibrio parahaemolyticus and Salmonella enterica (two common causes of food poisoning) were all reduced to below detection limits through the addition of lime extract.

Disinfecting Water:

Lime has been found to enhance the disinfection of water, by both killing norovirus as well as Escherichia coli.

Lime has also been found to kill the cholera pathogen, which is believed to affect 3–5 million people and causes 100,000–130,000 deaths a year as of 2010.

And that's just a sample of the benefits of natures offerings, from Limes to Green Tea, from Bitter Melon to Moringa, or the Woolly Lambs Ear and Colloidal Silver, this is only the beginning.

Reconnect With Nature And Yourself

School in the Wild

A growing number of Germans are sending their children to Waldkindergärten: forest nurseries where they spend their days outside, learning in Nature's classroom. 

Parents and the school believe it's important for children to experience nature.

You can see they are much more balanced as a result. 

Music of the Earth

Bunnies