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Between Tradition & Soul: How to Navigate a Modern Practice

Between Tradition & Soul: How to Navigate a Modern Practice

Last updated on: December 27, 2025 at 5:19 pm by Esa

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Between Tradition & Soul: How to Navigate a Modern Practice 2025-12-27T17:19:17-06:00 Esa

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

There are so many choices and an abundance of choice can be just as much of a struggle as too little choice. Each can trap and paralyze us. Each has the potential to set us free.

Growing up in the Pagan and Witchy community before the internet – choices were limited. Not from the aspect of what was possible, but from the information and books that were easily accessible without being deep in a group/ tradition. That came with its own challenges.

Instead of having a solid framework to help you get started, it was a lot of exploring various different perspectives, ideas, traditions, and religions – Not just specifically magical books, but digging into historical texts, scientific research, a wide variety of religious texts from all over the world, and the like. Building great research, discernment, and critical thinking skills – but also a very slow process with a lot of experimenting and blending movements.

In today’s world we have a completely different issue going on – over saturation and many conflicting voices telling you “This is the way.” From social media, blogs, videos, and other online resources, you can find an answer to just about anything you ever wanted to know – and you will also find a host of opposing opinions on the “right” one. I feel this is a product of both “black and white” thinking and capitalism – because let us be honest here, capitalism is really shaping spiritual communities across the globe for good and ill (many times it feels more ill than good for the ones consuming).

We went from very little content, to an over-saturation of content. From narrow paths that gave us a fixed starting point, to so much information that the brain is overwhelmed and people are unsure of the “right” on-ramp to enter the path of paganism and witchcraft.

three galss pillars with tea light candles burning on them

From my altar

So what if we broke it down into some simple perspectives?

Two Types of Gods – Two Types of Religions

From a High View perspective, there are two types of Gods and two types of religions/ traditions.

The most common seen, especially in main stream spaces: One that will teach you. Instructions of how to be and think. One that gives you a solid box to fit yourself within, and giving you a clear step-by-step blueprint of how to enter, what to do, and outlines what it will give you in return.

It looks familiar because it is how we see “learning” in our western society – It is how our education, schools, and work are structured. The brain looks for familiar because it gives a sense of comfort and safety.

A “Tried and True” perspective – It is old, established, so it must work well. People have followed this and have said they have had true experiences from this, so it must have power. What I have heard often though, in those quiet little corners of honesty when talking one-on-one, is that they didn’t have the deep experiences, the ones that plant the seeds of real belief and outward change in their lives. I am not saying this doesn’t happen in these spaces, I just question based on what people have told me, if it is more people saying they had experience to “fit in”, opposed to actually having those life-changing deep experiences that lead to real transformations within themselves.

This form of Religion and Deity work is from the Body, designed by other people. Structured boxes, rules, and an already created path you can follow. This isn’t inherently bad, it gives you a solid place to get your feet wet, some structure to help you see how something can work and actions to help it along. It is a solid box though – it does not encourage you to crawl out of it, to grow beyond it – it tries to keep you contained in it. Many choose to not push on the sides of that box or to open its lid, crawl out, and expand beyond it – and that is where I see the failure of this type of religion/ Deity work/ magical work. Not the box itself, but the desperate attempt to keep others locked within it.

The second type is one that is Guided – walking with, not telling how. It connects us to our Soul, who we are, how we move as an individual. It is based in our strengths and weaknesses, acknowledging them, seeing how they can balance each other, and how to take our weaknesses and turn them into strengths for our goals instead of hindrances. What we specifically need to heal, and what we desire to grow. How we connect, feel, and move in the varying aspects of the work.

This is a movement of learning directly from the source, instead of being told how to see the source – whatever that source may be. For example, we can learn about a Deity from historical views and context. How others saw and connected to them, layered with their own cultural and societal contexts of the time it was written. “All dogma started as someone’s personal experience(upg).”

This second approach would be directly connecting to that Deity, learning directly from them – asking them to tell us their own stories, to show us their domains – the lessons they can guide us through, what our exchange/offerings should look like, how we should build bond with them. Not following what others say, but learning directly from the Deity themselves. Moving this way allows us to understand how they work in our practices, our lives. Specific to us and our personal growth. To build a solid bond and get real results that give us deep change within ourselves and our lives.

The same is said for building and forging your own path, your own practices. It is not about what anyone else says – it is about how you connect to different energies, which energies, your lived experience with them, and what you learn from them. It requires experimenting to find out what actually works for you and provides real measurable results for you. There will be a lot of failures – but the successes will be deep, long term, and transformative in all aspects.

This movement is from Soul, from you, letting the Unseen (Spirits/ Energy) and inner Knowing Guide you.

This second movement is hard in the beginning because it requires trusting yourself and building trust with your Guide.

There are no solid instructions or a neatly laid out path to follow. It requires self honesty and humility – discernment, patience, and a lot of effort. It requires you to be ok with getting things wrong at first until you can see the full picture clearly. There are no solid starting places, just your decisions on where to begin.

Instead of Either-Or, Choose Both

You do not have to choose between them, you can choose to blend them. Let the first give you a place to start, some ideas, some inspirations, and then experiment, listen to your Guides, and forge your own way. Climb into the box for a time if you feel like it, but climb back out and expand, taking what you learned there and re-shaping it, breaking its boundaries, to see what lays beyond it for you.

Having a place to get started, some tools and frameworks are extremely helpful – but do not allow them to limit you or become your path. A Framework is a loose an unfixed method – your path is what you build from it and beyond it.

Expansion and Collapse – Deities

In the beginning every aspect had its own life, its own soul, its own connection – this is a perspective of Animism. Seeing the world in this way, and the reflections of us, as humans, within it. Air is our breath, water is our blood, the bird our imagination and limitless expansion, the rock is our body the solid foundations to build with and from. These are just some examples to give perspective.

Animism shifted to Pantheons. Deities, shaped in our image – or us from theirs, that presided over domains of living. Agriculture, magic, health, and hearth just to name a few. Collapsing the endless nature into governing bodies of it. Condensing and isolating in order for us to connect and understand them better – in context and from a living perspective.

A Pantheon in its wholeness touches every aspect of nature and the human experience. Each individual Deities, with individual lessons and wisdom, so we can focus specifically on those areas of life and expand.

Pantheons moved from the many to the Two, or the One. As the idea of religion evolved, the many melted into one. In some form you can see two – the Goddess and the God – but the newer abrahamic religions that dominated western society moved to one. In the end though, it moved to a place of one source. All came from one source, all returns to one source (think of it like a black hole – all that is formed comes from it and eventually falls back into it).

I personally have found it easier to see and understand all three of these modes by experiencing them. First from a Pantheon perspective, then animistic, and now in wholeness. Working in this way I can collapse or expand the aspect I need to work with or work on at any given time. In the end, for me, it is always the Divine Mother at the source, in wholeness, but She is only wholeness knowing She has many different side, dualities, faces and names that bring Her there. All are Her, but each are their own separate aspect of Her. Sometimes you need the individual, sometimes the wholeness.

three candles burning in a round fancy candle holder

Her Trinity of Colors

Ending Thoughts

Neither are wrong – both sides, whether we are talking Teaching or Guiding, Individual Deity or a Source. Both come with their challenges and their own kind of ease. Experiencing both can help us see clearly and gain more depth of insight.

Tradition/ Religions can give us solid places to start, inspirations, tools to experiment with – It can also cage you and limit your growth and potential. Forging your own path, aligned with your actual lived experiences and where your individual Soul wants and needs to go. It requires trust and knowing how to walk with it.

Blessings and curses go hand in hand. One can lead you to the next – each giving you foundational pieces – each giving perspectives – each serving a purpose in the whole.

Balance is learning what we need. Weaving is the creation of the parts into wholeness.

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About Esa

Esa is a Crane Practitioner, a Sister of the Well, as well as a professional Death Doula and teacher. Through her writing, published works, courses, and community connections she sets the stage for personal transformation and personal path development through effective frameworks, skills, and being a Guide for others. Her personal work and tradition is rooted in the pattern of Death and Rebirth, personal transformation, soul healing, and Death Emissary work. If you want to learn more, check out her website and work! You can read more about the author here.

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