The Festival of the Spring Equinox: the Sermon
Here is the last part of the section on the Spring Equinox in The New Pagan’s Handbook:
The Sermon
What makes us is our climate. It tempers the way we think of our Gods and suggests the ceremonies whereby we celebrate Them. It determines, even in cities, many of our behaviour patterns. The Gods Themselves are in us and form the substrate of our beings, but Their expression in us is framed by our climate and our psychological expectations of that climate. Therefore we have to recognise that our ceremonies must be regional. Our rites with variations in time, place and climate nevertheless have a basic validity, and however the expression and timing alters, the core of myth remains and is the prompter of our religious thought and expression. In recognising this we also recognise that religious toleration is essential to a pagan and causes him no discomfort of mind nor conscience. Old Rome and Greece sheltered many religions. The Christians were persecuted as they offered a direct political threat to the stability of Rome, no other sect so suffered. The worst form of bigotry and intolerance is to despise another man’s religion, his myth and his Gods.
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