1. Name (optional): Joshua Tenpenny

2. Age: 25

3. Nationality: US

4. Gender: male

5. How would you explain your path to someone else with no knowledge of it?

I am a devout eclectic pagan. My spiritual practices are drawn from myths and practices of various cultures, but not an attempt at recreating them directly. I believe that the natural world reflects the greater cosmos and is reflected in the human experience. I believe in the real existence of deities, those whose stories are recorded in myth, those whose stories are lost to us, and those whose stories we may never know. I believe that we can communicate with the divine, through personal prayer and revelation, as well as through an intermediary, and that for many of us, our lives are enriched by giving reverence to the divine powers which speak most clearly to us. I believe that we all, to a greater or lesser extent, play a part in a larger plan, one too large to be comprehended by any person but a true mystic, and then only briefly. I believe in celebrating life here, as we live it and experience it, rather than living for glory in the afterlife.

I most often worship in the Asphodel tradition, but it doesn't define my belief or practice. Rather, it provides a supportive community with which I can explore my beliefs.

6. How is your path expressed in practice?

I live on a small homestead farm, which allows me to meet my physical needs in a way that is spiritually fulfilling for me. I am intimately involved with the earth that sustains me, and can form a personal relationship with many of the souls of that which I eat and use in my daily life.

I honor the divine through celebratory worship, generally in conjunction with a local eclectic group, and privately with friends and loved ones. When I or my loved ones are in need, we may request aid through prayer or ritual, or seek advice through divination, or ask someone who has a close connection to the spirits. I don't do much in the way of magic, but many of my friends do. The study of magic is not central to my spiritual practice.

I am the full-time assistant of a spirit worker, and I feel this was my calling. As part of this, I have studied history, herbalism, acupuncture, t'ai ch'i, Reiki, and music. I assist him when he travels to speak to various groups, and generally help him with his day-to-day activities.

I do a great deal of organizational work for my local Pagan church.

In my personal practice, I work with the Love God/desses of many cultures, and I provide counsel related to sex, love, and relationships, and assist people who wish to do healing or celebratory sex ritual.

For reasons I've never quite been clear on, I occasionally go out by myself and play violin for the Ancestors.

7. How do you know if your practice is successful?

That isn't something that has ever occurred to me to ask. I suppose I simply walk the path that lays in front of me.

8. Why have you chosen the particular path you are following?

I have always had a good sense of what I was supposed to be doing with my life. I always felt as if I could occasionally take a peek at Fate, and see the branches of possible futures and where they lead. Not for little things, but for big ones. When I met my Master, the spirit-worker I mentioned, it was if someone had picked up all the free ends of those branches, wound them together, and tied them to him. It all followed quite naturally from there.

9. What is your experience of otherworld beings? Could you give some examples.

Aphrodite once scolded me... I had just begun working with Her. I had fallen in love for the first time, and was griping terribly to anyone who would listen about what an unpleasant, disorienting, and utterly senseless experience it was. One evening, there was an unmistakable presence in my apartment. I couldn't see Her, but I could feel Her standing there, like divine fire. She spoke to me, but not in words, or rather, Her words were like babbling streams and birdsong. Somehow, I got the general idea. She was Not Pleased. She put her hand over my heart, and all of my emotion just went away. All the annoying irrational love feelings I'd been complaining about just blinked out of existence. It scared me senseless. After a few minutes, She put it back. I still struggle with honoring my emotions, but it was certainly a memorable lesson.

I have also had the honor of seeing someone possessed by a deity on a few occasions. To feel that divine fire animating a human form is awe inspiring, and to be able to interact with an aspect of the divine in that way is truly priceless. I can't describe it adequately.

I ran into two dead people in our barn once and I've related to a few land-wights, but they aren't otherworld beings. They are local. I've discussed with many people their experiences with otherworld beings, and the non-ordinary beings of this world, and that has definitely informed my worldview.

10. How do you see your relationship with them?

That is a difficult question. It varies, but I show a great deal of reverence and respect toward the divine, more than is generally fashionable among Pagans. Based on my experiences, I can't imagine doing otherwise.

11. How does your path relate to other areas of your life?

I find my life is pretty squarely on my path. I don't know that I could properly define areas of my life which are not part of my path.

12. How do you see the relationship of life and death?

Death feeds life, and life springs from death. We live by consuming the bodies and souls of plants and animals, just as all living things do. We die, and our bodies go back to the earth. Without death, decay and destruction, we would have a non-living stasis.

I think that our souls go to one of a number of possible places when we die, and that most (but not all) of us eventually reincarnate here. Perhaps some of us reincarnate elsewhere. I am fairly sure that some of us had a few incarnations elsewhere before we came here. I don?t think reincarnation is necessarily all part of some big lesson plan to get us all to eventual enlightenment, but I could be wrong on that.

13. How do you see time?

I gave more thought to this sort of thing when I was agnostic. Issues of relativity, time and fourth dimensional space fascinated me. Now I find I have lost interest in the theoretical and mathematical aspects of it. But still, I'll give this question a shot.

I believe in the real existence of other worlds, the other worlds described in myth, existing somehow outside of our 3D space, and that some folks can learn to journey to these other worlds. I believe that time does not flow the same in all worlds, and that one can journey to another time as well as to another place, but that navigating time is exponentially harder for us.

I think that reality unfolds as we experience it, and that while things follow certain patterns, the future is not set. There are many possible futures, but not quite infinitely many. That is to say, I do not believe every imaginable future exists, only a mind-bogglingly large number of possible ones. I believe that mucking about with the flow of time will get you in trouble with the powers which control Fate... the nice Ladies who spin and weave the threads of time.

14. How do you handle ideas of good and evil?

I believe our actions have consequences, and dishonorable actions are detrimental to a person?s soul. There is some kind of cosmic recordkeeping that goes on, but defining and enforcing human morality is not primary function of the divine. There are generative and destructive forces in any system, and they are needed to maintain a dynamic balance. The gods and spirits are part of that balance. Without this dynamic balance, you can?t have life. In the natural world, the virus, the predator, the earthquake, the forest fire, and so on enact the destructive force without being evil. People produce greater order and structure for themselves by the process of civilization, and by this define good and evil.

Sometimes people act in a way that is in harmony with their purpose. Sometimes they act in a way that is out of harmony. Sometimes they need to make a long hard journey towards being in harmony, and cause themselves and others a lot of pain in the meanwhile. Sometimes they enact the destructive force in a necessary way, and may suffer for it anyway.

15. How do you view different spaces and objects in your practice or experience?

There are a lot of ways to answer this. I suppose animism is the most obvious. All living things, most naturally occurring objects (like rocks and metal), many constructed things (buildings, mindfully used tools, handcrafted items), and most places (both wild and populated) have souls and some level of sentience. Whether they care to communicate that sentience with you and whether it is in any form you can understand is very variable.

I try to act with a reasonable level of consideration towards the things, places and other beings around me. I do not believe that this world and all things in it are the property of humans, but I also do not believe there is an inherent moral or spiritual error in making mindful use of the resources of the world.

16. How do you feel about other religions?

I think sincere religious practice of any kind is generally good for a person. I am friends with Christians and Jews and Buddhists whose faith is as pure and heartfelt as my own. I hold no animosity towards organized religion. Not everyone feels strongly drawn to religious practice, and that is also a valid and worthwhile way of being in the world.

I find a strong sense of kinship with devoutly religious people of all denominations. Anyone who puts their will aside in favor of the will of the Powers That Be has a certain commonality of experience. I have found a great depth of inspiration in the writings of the Christian desert fathers and monastics from St. Benedict, to Thomas Merton. Buddhism and Taoism have provided a great deal of philosophical support and inspiration to me, and had I not encountered my Master, I may have ended up a Buddhist monk.

I worry about modern Paganism's rejection of the more serious parts of the spiritual experience, and its tendency base their faith almost exclusively on their political agenda while loudly criticizing others who do the same. Also, so many Pagans are still working through emotional damage they associate with organized religion, and basing their practices on rebellion rather than faith.

17. How do you feel about science?

I think that gaining a greater understanding of the functioning of the world can increase our awe and wonder, and that curiosity naturally springs from reverence. I believe the astronomer is better able to marvel at the clockwork of the heavens and the doctor better able to marvel at the wonder of the human body. Perhaps it is done badly by so many, but this is the fault of the scientist, not of science.

18. How do you feel modern Paganisms relate to ancient paganisms?

I think we live our faiths, here and now. I hate to see modern Pagans adopting the idea that once upon a time all things were sacred and people had a perfect connection with the spirits, but that is lost now. Our ancestors did not live in Eden. They lived in this world, just as we do now, and the world is still sacred. Although our ancestors knew much that we have forgotten, the spirits still remember. We can learn to live our faiths the way they did -- not by copying their rites, reconstructed from scraps of poorly translated stories that were half forgotten before they were ever written down -- but by talking to the spirits as they did, learning from the spirits as they did, opening ourselves up to the spirits as they did.

Some of us feel called to live our lives a bit closer to the ancestors because of this, some of us do not. The ancient paganisms we draw on differed wildly from each other, embracing all aspects of the lives of the people who believed in them. I believe our modern paganisms can do the same.

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