Okay, I'll admit it...I'm a technopagan. I follow a nature based spiritual path, but I love the toys and tools of technology. An oxymoron seeking balance.
My PDA (Personal Digital Assistant, i.e. PalmPilot) runs programs on Astrology, Tarot, Runes, Herbology, Biorhythms, Moon Phases and contains documents like the Charge of the Goddess/God, the Wiccan Wheel, chants, and various correspondences. It contains spiritual books such as the Tao te Ching, the Gospel of Thomas and the teachings of Buddha. I often plan my spiritual rites using an abbreviated Book of Shadows that I keep on my PDA.
My electronic calendar on both computer and PDA is filled with coven meetings, pagan community meetings and events. The major planetary retrogrades are marked as well as all esbats and sabbats. It will even beep and sing electronic songs to remind me, should I forget these important events. I'm sure that I can get software that will let me program "We All Come from the Goddess" as my reminder song.
My email contacts have screennames containing words like "Dragon", "Wolf", "Lady", "Lord", and other deriviations from the pagan name generator program <wink>.
I have participated in online circles. I have given readings over the computer. I have joined and led email study groups. The Internet has created a safe place for pagans to meet and maintain anonymity if need be. It has also made the various pagan paths as they are practiced all over the globe more accessible. I have wallowed in the wealth of information available online.
I have taken to the tools of the TechnoPagan. But in spite of my obvious delight in all that the tools given to me, I am aware that this is not a gift without a price. Information - and misinformation - has never been so readily available to students and practioners. What I read online still needs to be backed up with my own research. Anonymity means that I must practice discernment as people are not always who they present themselves to be online, and I must be diligent to be truthful in my own presentation. Reliance on computer gadgets can not and should not replace the development and refinement of a personal connection to nature to tell me the phase of the moon and the turning of the seasons. Email and chat rooms cannot replace "real life" connections in circles and gatherings. Losing myself in a "magick" based online role playing game does not replace meditation practices.
I make a conscious effort to keep my techno "head", my nature "heart", and my magical "spirit" balanced. The Internet and personal computers have changed how I walk my pagan path. But
they are tools, and not the path itself. I'm a technopagan, a spiritual marriage of head, heart and spirit.
I love my toys. There's nothing like communing with the Lord and Lady, under the full moon, walking a path lit by the backlight on my PDA...now, to find that software so that it will chime "We All Come from the Goddess."
