I am pagan.

Some of you may be pagan, or at least open to it, while others may be imagining pointy hats, flying broomsticks, devils, and all that stuff. Some of you may wonder why I am mentioning this. My reason is simply because I want to and I hope others will be encouraged to open up about their own beliefs, even if they go against the norm. No, this isn’t going to become a spiritual website. It’s still going to be all about the nature and photography and whatnot. I am simply making this post for personal reasons.

Before any finger pointing and cries of “burn the witch!” starts, let me clarify one thing:

I am not a witch.

Paganism is a very broad-spectrum faith. Yes, it includes witches, but it also includes druids, shamans, and many others. It is a faith that comes with many options and many choices, and will even allow you to mix and match different traditions. There are no pre-requisites or mandatory things that need to be done. Even all the tools they talk about (cauldrons, wands, athames) aren’t completely necessary. In fact, there are only 3 things you truly need to be pagan: yourself, nature, and faith in something. This “something” can be the trees, the animals, the elements, faeries, dragons, or any number of deity.

What’s more, paganism can be tied into every day interests. For example:

I love nature and always have. I’ve always been interested in conservation, helping the environment, veterinary studies, hiking, camping, and so forth. Since paganism is a nature-based faith, it felt only natural to walk that path. My main chosen path is shamanism. I am interested in natural or holistic healing practices. Shamanism allows me to work on a physical and spiritual level, to know which plant will help what ailment in ways that a textbook may not suggest. Of course, that is only one part of my path, faith, and who I am. And it is always a learning process.

Do I sacrifice things? No.
Do I worship the devil? No.
Do I place curses or hexes on people? No.

I keep to myself and stick to my path. If I need help, I ask for it. If I need protection, I create it. I believe good and evil exists in every thing, and I believe in all things existing (faeries, demons, angels, all gods, spirits, etc.), but my main focus has always been Nature and that is where my faith lies, with Nature. Nature is everything: it can be cruel and kind, orderly or chaotic, good and evil, all at once, all the time. It is something we see every day and it is a part of who we are; even a small patch of grass or a cloud in the sky is still part of Nature.

The next time you are among Nature, in a park or hiking a mountain or relaxing on a beach, open yourself up to her. Open all your senses and see what things you learn or notice or feel from Nature that you may not have before. The results may surprise you.

Have you ever been somewhere, anywhere, that made you feel at peace, or absolute wonder? Maybe you saw the Grand Canyon for the first time, or visited Giant’s Causeway, and the view and surrounding landscape was so much to take in, so powerful and overwhelming. Maybe you climbed a great, big mountain, and felt a great sense of pride or accomplishment when you reached the top. When you open yourself up to nature, to the spirit of nature, and you feel that overwhelming awe and inspiration, that breathtaking feeling that makes your whole being tingle or vibrate with energy, that unspeakable connection–that is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to being pagan. That is where it all begins.

My question is: once you take that first step, where will you go from there?

If you are curious about paganism, I suggest you browse some websites or read a lot of books on the topic. It may surprise you to learn that some every day routines have a smidge of pagan faith in them

In the Yelwa village of Nigeria, you’ll find one of the greatest architectural creations of our time: houses made from recycled plastic bottles.

A total of 25 houses are expected to be built and it takes almost 8,000 bottles to build one house. The bottles were donated from local hotels and restaurants. To build the house, the bottles are filled with sand and held together with mud. The sand provides a  high heat capacity, but keeps the interior cool. And it makes the walls bullet-proof.

Each house includes one bedroom, living room, bathroom, toilet, and kitchen. The only part of the houses that are not made from the bottles is the foundation, which is made from concrete.

There are also plans to build a new school from recycled plastic bottles, but that won’t happen for a while yet.

Click here for more info.

The oceans of the world are highly polluted, especially with plastic. Areas that are particularly dense with trash are known as “garbage patches”. While many people are concerned about the larger pieces of plastic, the smallest pieces pose just as much of a threat.

These super tiny pieces of plastic are known as “mermaid tears” and they come from the larger pieces, as the ocean slowly breaks them down over time. The breaking-down process takes thousands of years and these little plastic pieces can be found on beaches all over the globe.

Imagine if there was a ship designed to clean up that plastic and turn it into something useful. Three graduates (Alexander Groves, Azusa Murakami, and Kieren Jones) from the UK Royal College of Art are working on such a project: The Sea Chair.

The idea is to turn a fishing trawler into a plastic chair factory. The trawler will collect the plastic, separate it by size, and that plastic will be recycled into new chairs, all right on the ship!

You can find out more about the project here.