Spokes on a Wheel

The wheel has a place in many philosophies, spiritual or no, and an honored place in many pagan philosophies. 

I often see our type of eclectic paganism as a sort of unravelled DNA shape. If you were to look down on it, straight down through the core...it would look like spokes inside a wheel.

We are earth based, and

that leads to respect for that which nurtures us,

which leads us to be environmentally active.

We are filled with compassion, love and mercy (or seek to be as a tenet), and

that leads to actively and passively trying to enhance our response to ourselves and those around us with more love and forgiveness, 

which leads us towards social justice

which leads us towards remembrance and mourning of genocides, conflicts and wars

which we hold among our sacred days to observe

which leads us to respect for diversity

and leads us to seek a pluralistic framework

which leads us to a support of secularism in the public sphere

We are scientific

which leads us to explore and understand our faith, our world, our minds and bodies

which leads us to non-deify our environment (though we respect those who do)

which leads us to connect with it on an atomic and sub-atomic level and cherish it up through the system levels

We are spiritual

which leads us to seek understanding

to believe that the world is bigger than us

to believe that we are pieces of God

to believe that God is the universe and everything in it are pieces and layers of God

to believe that we are all God

We are spiritual and scientific

which leads us to agnosticism - that we hold our beliefs, but ultimately that we do not know

which leads us to a non-deity form though we use the word God

which leads us to pantheism

which leads us to hope and peace

which leads us to constant inquiry

which leads us to an open mind

I have a beaufitul sea colored blanket --marbled blue and green.  It hangs in the window, but occludes the nature of the wheel an artist has imprinted on it. I look at it and realize it really should be featured somewhere in our home as a comforting reminder of the nature of the wheel in the essences of who we are.