Pagan sayings refer to the wisdom, beliefs, and principles expressed by individuals who follow pagan or nature-based spiritual traditions. These sayings often reflect the reverence and connection pagans feel towards the natural world and the cycles of life. One common pagan saying is "As above, so below," which encapsulates the belief that the patterns and processes seen in the natural world are reflected in the spiritual realms. This saying implies that what happens in one's internal world is often mirrored in their external experiences as well. It serves as a reminder to pay attention to the interconnectedness of various aspects of life. Another well-known pagan saying is "Nature is my church.
Paganism Quotes
“Holy places are dark places. It is life and strength, not knowledge and words, that we get in them. Holy wisdom is not clear and thin like water, but thick and dark like blood.”
― C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces
“We are not on this planet to ask forgiveness of our deities”
― Scott Cunningham, Living Wicca: A Further Guide for the Solitary Practitioner
“Christian morality (so called) has all the characters of a reaction; it is, in great part, a protest against Paganism. Its ideal is negative rather than positive; passive rather than action; innocence rather than Nobleness; Abstinence from Evil, rather than energetic Pursuit of Good: in its precepts (as has been well said) 'thou shalt not' predominates unduly over 'thou shalt.”
― John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
“If you are drawn to the left hand path, it's usually because you've had some kind of life experience that has shocked you, awakened you.”
― Nikolas Schreck
“Beware of organizations that proclaim their devotion to the light without embracing, bowing to the dark; for when they idealize half the world they must devalue the rest.”
― Starhawk
“What comes, when it comes, will be what it is.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“A spiritual organization with a hierarchical structure can convey only the consciousness of estrangement, regardless of what teachings or deep inspirations are at its root.The structure itself reinforces the idea that some people are inherently more worthy than others.”
― Starhawk
“I don’t have a philosophy: I have senses.
If I talk about Nature, it’s not because I know what it is,
But because I love it, and that’s why I love it,
Because when you love you never know what you love,
Or why you love, or what love is.
Loving is eternal innocence,
And the only innocence is not thinking.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep
“I’d like to have enough time and quiet
To think about absolutely nothing,
To not ever feel myself living,
To only know myself in others’ eyes, reflected.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“She’s a manner of speaking.
Even the flowers don’t come back, or the green leaves.
There are new flowers, new green leaves.
There are other beautiful days.
Nothing comes back, nothing repeats itself, because everything is real.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“Accept the universe
As the gods gave it to you.
If the gods wanted to give you something else
They’d have done it.
If there are other matters and other worlds
There are.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“That was their way, their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts they remembered hell.”
― Seamus Heaney, Beowulf
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“WINTER'S GHOST:
Autumn moon
incautious in the dark river
Winter’s ghost walks
with a covered face
and silver bones wait in all animals
to be bone cloth upon her shoulder
wait for her happiness in that they are silver”
― Tamara Rendell, Mystical Tides
“I don’t regret anything I was before because I still am.
I only regret not having loved you.
Put your hands in mine
And let’s be quiet, surrounded by life.”
― Alberto Caeiro, O Pastor Amoroso
“If I could take a bite of the whole world
And feel it on my palate
I’d be more happy for a minute or so.
But I don’t always want to be happy.
Sometimes you have to be
Unhappy to be natural.
Not every day is sunny.
When there’s been no rain for a while, you pray for it to come.
So I take unhappiness with happiness
Naturally, like someone who doesn’t find it strange
That there are mountains and plains
And that there are cliffs and grass.
What you need is to be natural and calm
In happiness and in unhappiness,
To feel like someone seeing,
To think like someone walking,
And when it’s time to die, remember the day dies,
And the sunset is beautiful, and the endless night is beautiful.
That’s how it is and that’s how it should be. ”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep
“If I knew I was going to die tomorrow,
And Spring came the day after tomorrow,
I would die peacefully, because it came the day after tomorrow.
If that’s its time, when else should it come?
I like it that everything is real and everything is right;
And I like that it would be like this even if I didn’t like it.
And so, if I die now, I die peacefully
Because everything is real and everything is right.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“And I find a happiness in the fact of accepting —
In the sublimely scientific and difficult fact of accepting the inevitable natural.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“. I don't believe in Him, and if He does exist, I don't like Him. His type of gods aren't gods who echo how mortals behave. They're gods who are held up as example of perfection to be emulated. They're not gods of the people. They're remote and inaccessible, they demand blind, unthinking obedience from their followers. They're dictators. We Aesir and Vanir, by contrast, are mirrors. Other gods rule. We reflect and magnify. We are you, only more so. We share your flaws and foibles. We are as humanlike as we are divine, and I think we are all the better for that.”
― James Lovegrove
“I should add, however, that, particularly on the occasion of Samhain, bonfires were lit with the express intention of scaring away the demonic forces of winter, and we know that, at Bealltainn in Scotland, offerings of baked custard were made within the last hundred and seventy years to the eponymous spirits of wild animals which were particularly prone to prey upon the flocks - the eagle, the crow, and the fox, among others. Indeed, at these seasons all supernatural beings were held in peculiar dread. It seems by no means improbable that these circumstances reveal conditions arising out of a later solar pagan worship in respect of which the cult of fairy was relatively greatly more ancient, and perhaps held to be somewhat inimical.”
― Lewis Spence, British Fairy Origins
“Even so, I’m somebody.
I’m the Discoverer of Nature.
I’m the Argonaut of true sensations.
I bring a new Universe to the Universe
Because I bring the Universe to itself.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Keeper of Sheep
“I’m glad I see with my eyes and not the pages I’ve read.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“The portraits, of more historical than artistic interest, had gone; and tapestry, full of the blue and bronze of peacocks, fell over the doors, and shut out all history and activity untouched with beauty and peace; and now when I looked at my Crevelli and pondered on the rose in the hand of the Virgin, wherein the form was so delicate and precise that it seemed more like a thought than a flower, or at the grey dawn and rapturous faces of my Francesca, I knew all a Christian's ecstasy without his slavery to rule and custom; when I pondered over the antique bronze gods and goddesses, which I had mortgaged my house to buy, I had all a pagan's delight in various beauty and without his terror at sleepless destiny and his labour with many sacrifices; and I had only to go to my bookshelf, where every book was bound in leather, stamped with intricate ornament, and of a carefully chosen colour: Shakespeare in the orange of the glory of the world, Dante in the dull red of his anger, Milton in the blue grey of his formal calm; and I could experience what I would of human passions without their bitterness and without satiety. I had gathered about me all gods because I believed in none, and experienced every pleasure because I gave myself to none, but held myself apart, individual, indissoluble, a mirror of polished steel: I looked in the triumph of this imagination at the birds of Hera, glowing in the firelight as though they were wrought of jewels; and to my mind, for which symbolism was a necessity, they seemed the doorkeepers of my world, shutting out all that was not of as affluent a beauty as their own; and for a moment I thought as I had thought in so many other moments, that it was possible to rob life of every bitterness except the bitterness of death; and then a thought which had followed this thought, time after time, filled me with a passionate sorrow.”
― W.B. Yeats, Rosa Alchemica
“Night doesn’t fall for my eyes
But my idea of the night is that it falls for my eyes.
Beyond my thinking and having any thoughts
The night falls concretely
And the shining of stars exists like it had weight.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“Eat of my deep earth, drink of my living streams, for I am your Mother. Your heart is my wild drum, your breath my eternal song. If you would live, dance with me!”
― Juliet Marillier, Cybele's Secret
“What we do internally affects the world around us and the world around us affects our inner world. With this notion, nothing is separate, and our inner and outer worlds are intricately tied to one another.”
― Mat Auryn, Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation
“And since today’s all there is for now, that’s everything.
Who knows if I’ll be dead the day after tomorrow?
If I’m dead the day after tomorrow, the thunderstorm day after tomorrow
Will be another thunderstorm than if I hadn’t died.
Of course I know thunderstorms don’t fall because I see them,
But if I weren’t in the world,
The world would be different —
There would be me the less —
And the thunderstorm would fall on a different world and would be another thunderstorm.
No matter what happens, what’s falling is what’ll be falling when it falls.
“If science wants to be truthful,
What science is more truthful than the science of things without science?
I close my eyes and the hard earth where I’m lying
Has a reality so real even my back feels it.
I don’t need reason — I have shoulderblades.”
― Alberto Caeiro, The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro
“A kid thinking about fairy tales and believing in fairy tales
Acts like a sick god, but like a god.
Because even though he affirms that what doesn’t exist exists,
He knows things exist, that he exists,
He knows existing exists and doesn’t explain itself,
And he knows there’s no reason at all for anything to exist.
He knows being is the point.
All he doesn’t know is that thought isn’t the point.
(10/1/1917)”
― Alberto Caeiro
“It’s the poet we love in Caeiro, not the philosopher. What we really get from these poems is a childlike sense of life, with all the direct materiality of the child’s mind, and all the vital spirituality of hope and increase that exist in the body and soul of nescient childhood. Caeiro’s work is a dawn that wakes us up and quickens us; a more that material, more than anti-spiritual dawn. It’s an abstract effect, pure vacuum, nothingness.”
― Álvaro de Campos
Witches Sayings and Pagan Abbreviations
Another well-known pagan saying is "Nature is my church." This saying highlights the belief that pagans see the natural world as sacred and divine, and they often seek spiritual connection and guidance through their interactions with nature. For pagans, being in nature can be a source of solace, inspiration, and spiritual awakening.
Wicca and Paganism for Beginners – every day sayings
Getting to know the Wicca world? This page helps you understand what other witches are saying. In the process you will understand how wicca rituals are built up a bit better as well.
"Sunrise is a reminder of new beginnings" is another pagan saying that emphasizes the significance of the cycles and rhythms of nature. Pagans often celebrate and honor seasonal changes, such as the solstices and equinoxes, as times of transition and transformation. By recognizing the symbolism and energy associated with each season, pagans strive to align themselves with the natural flow of life. Other pagan sayings may focus on the importance of intuition, such as "Trust in your instincts, for they are the whispers of the divine." Paganism often encourages individuals to tap into their own inner wisdom and guidance, believing that everyone has a direct connection to the divine or spiritual realms. Following one's intuition is seen as a way to access this guidance and make decisions aligned with one's higher purpose. Overall, pagan sayings provide insight into the beliefs and values held by individuals connected to nature-based spiritual paths. They serve as reminders to honor the interconnectedness of all things, find divinity in nature, embrace change and transformation, and trust in one's own innate wisdom. These sayings help to encapsulate the deep spiritual connection and reverence pagans have for the natural world..
Reviews for "Embracing Change: Pagan Sayings for Transformation"
1. Emily - 2 stars - I was really disappointed with "Pagan sayings". I was expecting insightful and meaningful quotes related to Paganism, but instead, I found them to be cliché and uninspiring. It felt like a collection of generic quotes that were vaguely related to nature or spirituality, without any depth or originality. I was hoping to connect with the wisdom of Paganism through this book, but unfortunately, it missed the mark for me.
2. John - 1 star - "Pagan sayings" was a complete waste of my time and money. The quotes in this book were repetitive and lacked any substance. It seems like the author just compiled a bunch of random sayings without much thought or consideration. I was hoping for a more profound exploration of Pagan beliefs and practices, but this book fell flat on its face. I would not recommend it to anyone looking for a meaningful and insightful read.
3. Sarah - 2 stars - As someone who is deeply interested in Paganism, I had high expectations for "Pagan sayings". Unfortunately, it fell short of my expectations. The quotes in this book were too simplistic and lacked the depth and richness I was looking for. I believe that Paganism offers a lot of wisdom and guidance, but this book failed to capture it. It felt like a watered-down version of what could have been a profound collection of Pagan sayings.
4. Michael - 1 star - I found "Pagan sayings" to be unimpressive and unoriginal. The quotes were predictable and didn't offer any unique insights. It felt like the author didn't put much effort into curating a diverse selection of quotes. Additionally, the formatting of the book was subpar, with typos and inconsistencies throughout. Overall, I would not recommend this book to anyone interested in exploring the depth of Pagan wisdom.
5. Emma - 2 stars - I was hoping for a more thought-provoking and enlightening collection of Pagan sayings, but unfortunately, "Pagan sayings" failed to meet my expectations. The quotes in this book lacked depth and seemed more like superficial affirmations rather than profound insights. It also lacked diversity in terms of the topics covered, focusing mainly on nature and spirituality. I was looking for a more comprehensive exploration of Pagan beliefs, but this book missed the mark.