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10 April 2019 10:11Related to this, I'm experimenting with taboo as an alternative to traditional centering & purifying techniques.
I'm going to write about this properly once I've got a bit more time, but the tl;Dr is:
Taboo is found in a lot of religions. It can be stuff around food or behavior, like kosher or halal, or refraining from sex occasionally/permanently, or keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest, or going to regular confession, etc etc etc. I use the term Fast to describe a temporary adoption of a Taboo (for a week before ritual, on the day of ritual, for a holy month)
I've been thinking about these as alternatives to taking a purifying bath. All of them are small, daily habits which keep body and soul in a fit state to please the divine. A purifying bath gets grot off you ahead of ritual, but perhaps use of taboo could help prevent that grot accumulating in the first place.
I started of thinking of the Three Practices as like, equivalent to beginner/daily meditation, and as goal-oriented routes to discovering the divine. But I think they appeal bevause they're so executive function friendly - developing ongoing habits is so much easier than abruptly taking a bath.
And I'm wondering whether they can function as a taboo. I think they can. Especially Walking/Disconnection: if you're regularly practicing them, then you're cultivating a centered lifestyle, which is equal to and maybe even better than centering in the moment. At rhe least, it's going to absolutely support you to find that centered place far more easily.
Pagan stuff is not as restrictive or cold as mainstream faiths - we welcome pleasure and feasting and will. But for that reason, we don't tend to use or talk about taboos and fasts, even though they're an ancient and widespread religious technology which a lot of the faithful have used. I'm hoping to write more about this soon in a fuller way, because it leads to problems when a taboo is imposed on you by your religious subculture or family - but super valuable IMO as a choice you can make.
I'm going to write about this properly once I've got a bit more time, but the tl;Dr is:
Taboo is found in a lot of religions. It can be stuff around food or behavior, like kosher or halal, or refraining from sex occasionally/permanently, or keeping the Sabbath as a day of rest, or going to regular confession, etc etc etc. I use the term Fast to describe a temporary adoption of a Taboo (for a week before ritual, on the day of ritual, for a holy month)
I've been thinking about these as alternatives to taking a purifying bath. All of them are small, daily habits which keep body and soul in a fit state to please the divine. A purifying bath gets grot off you ahead of ritual, but perhaps use of taboo could help prevent that grot accumulating in the first place.
I started of thinking of the Three Practices as like, equivalent to beginner/daily meditation, and as goal-oriented routes to discovering the divine. But I think they appeal bevause they're so executive function friendly - developing ongoing habits is so much easier than abruptly taking a bath.
And I'm wondering whether they can function as a taboo. I think they can. Especially Walking/Disconnection: if you're regularly practicing them, then you're cultivating a centered lifestyle, which is equal to and maybe even better than centering in the moment. At rhe least, it's going to absolutely support you to find that centered place far more easily.
Pagan stuff is not as restrictive or cold as mainstream faiths - we welcome pleasure and feasting and will. But for that reason, we don't tend to use or talk about taboos and fasts, even though they're an ancient and widespread religious technology which a lot of the faithful have used. I'm hoping to write more about this soon in a fuller way, because it leads to problems when a taboo is imposed on you by your religious subculture or family - but super valuable IMO as a choice you can make.
