Neopagan naturalism

I was attracted to neopaganism for its claims of being earth-based and became disappointed and bitter to find the majority of the movement was more concerned about the occult, what magick could get them, and mired in misinformation, and having a history of being mislead by nefarious leaders serving their own selfish desires for power. That is not to say there is some genuine good berried within it all which kept me bouncing from one tradition to another before giving up completely.

Embracing the mystery in life, I feel is an important lesson learned from neopaganism. The power of communal ceremony is another good trait I have taken from neopaganism. I continue to associate with neopagans who have integrity and understand that whether it is Druidry, Asatru, Witchcraft, or Wicca that they are all Modern religions.

There is also a growing trend of neopagan naturalism which embraces the modernity of neopagan symbolism and adapts them to a naturalist frame work incorporating both the known science of the living world and its mysteries. There are few sites online which explore this trend:

The Allergic Pagan
Humanistic paganism
No Unsacred Place
Naturalistic Paganism (on Yahoo! Groups)

Neopagan naturalism is the closet thread of neopaganism to my world-view and what I have been trying to express with the postpagan project from the beginning. In fact an article about naturalistic polytheism was featured on Humanistic Paganism a few months ago. Yet I am unsure I fit into that thread of neopaganism well.

What seems to set me apart is I am no longer drawn to the symbolism and traditions of neopaganism, even through a naturalistic interpretation. I am more interested in working within the context of the land where I live and have difficulty seeing the mythology from other places and times as relevant to where I am. Instead I feel these cultural narratives of European traditions teaches me that the culture and religion was a product of local ecology. The best way for me to be true to this heritage is not to import their gods and symbols as much as it is to re learn to relate to my local ecology in deep meaningful and transcendent ways.

As a result I adapt no anthropomorphic pantheon from cultures and time that doesn't directly influence me. Yet these traditions still inform my attempt at a post-modern Euro-American animism specific to the Inland Northwest of the United States. The narratives and deities of many European traditions do not tell me what to do, but show me how to relate to this land in a way aligned with the core of Indo-European ancestral memory.