Why Would an Agnostic Celebrate Samhain?

It's no secret, as far as this blog is concerned, that my religious history is very complicated. Here, in words and phrases, is a recap: Fundamentalist Christian, Liberal Christian, Neo-Pagan, Buddhist, Neo-Pagan, Santerían, flirter with Islam, Agnostic.

I don't know whether or not the ancestors/dead flitter around me day-to-day, or not. I. Do. Not. Know. That is the Agnostic 'mantra' right there. To my mind, the mysteries I observed among Christians, Santeríans, Neo-Pagans and Buddhists were simply mental states and brain-avenues not usually found in day-to-day living. Including, but not limited to, access to one's ancestors/dead (or what their meaning/influence is for one).

Honoring one's ancestors and dearly departed means honoring thoses aspects of one's own psyche. Tomorrow I will celebrate an actual holiday for just that: honoring parts of myself that have come and gone before (hell, even my past relationships are fodder for this celebration).

Happy Halloween/Samhain, and All Saints and All Souls, my friends. Enjoy the decline and resurrection of the solar and agricultural years. Your dead sit within you, desiring recognition and honor. My suggestion: give it to them, and live.

Mestizo

I think a person's mind is a constant conversation. If there are unitary, unquestioning consciousnesses out there, I strongly suspect they are psychopathic. I have a host of difficulties, but I am not psychopathic.

An inner conversation consists of interrogating who one sees oneself as being. I.e., am I gay, am I a Christian, am I white, etc. What do these identities mean? How do I recognize the fluid and changeable, as opposed to the essential and immutable?

I realize I am agnostic. This was as much a discovery as a choice. I realized I couldn't push myself into trying to have faith any longer. I just do not know. I always, I suspect, will not know.

So why do I wear a Guadalupe medallion? It's simple. In it I see a recognition of my mestizaje.

I Just Don't Know

Age is just a number. Yes, but human minds latch onto symbols, metaphors, markers and shiny things, and then work with those to try and make meaning in our existences. In just under six months I will have marked off fifty years of existence on this earth. My life to this point hasn't been a big failure, but it hasn't been an unalloyed success either. (Of course there are no unalloyed successes, but my alloys have partook pretty heavily of base metals up to now, it seems.)

I want the next few years of my life to involve a lot of conscious meaning-making. I have come to see that I cannot expect meaning to fall from the sky into my lap. It will not hit me over the head like a holy pillow. I must grow up and make my own meaning for my own life.

I do not know whether or not there is a deity or a plane of existence beyond this one. I have no proof nor incontrovertible evidence. I also have no proof or incontrovertible evidence these things do not exist either. I could spend the rest of my days speculating one way or the other, but it would only be speculation, and nothing more. The truth is I do not know. I admit I am agnostic.

Therefore meaning making falls on my shoulders (as I believe it falls on each individual human beings shoulders, whether he or she admits it or not, and whether he or she embraces it or not). I have to choose the ethics I want to live by, and the meaning I want to make in my life.