 Hi, my name is Danny and welcome to Esoteric Moment. Today, I wanted to answer a question that the regular hosts on pagan perspective answered a few weeks ago. And that was, how do you wear your pagan religious symbols confidently? And if you wear pagan symbols, what those symbols are? For me, I think the easiest way to approach this topic is to think about the worst case scenario. A lot of people fear kind of how people will see those religious symbols and what kind of assumptions people will make about you as an individual. And I think if you walk through kind of what you fear most about the situation, you'll realize that it's not the worst thing in the world if someone makes an outrageous assumption about you, or if they confront you with their Christian dogma, or if they are really insulted by what you are wearing. There will be people who see those symbols and think outrageous things, like they'll see a pentacle and they'll assume you worship the devil. But those are things that are educational opportunities, times where if someone talks to us or approaches us about those symbols, we can be like, well this symbol means X for me, and it is important because of Y. If you aren't out of the burden closet and you still keep your religious beliefs mainly to yourself, it might seem really scary to tell someone what those symbols mean to you. But you can always play down the meaning when you describe these things. For instance, you can say that the pentacle is just a symbol that makes you feel safe and protected. You don't have to go into what religious beliefs you have or how you came to wear the pentacle or what each element of the star means to you or how you use it in your regular practice. You can be very vague and simple. The regular host angel also mentioned starting with something that is less obvious as being a pagan symbol and work your way up to whatever symbol you hope to wear. I think this is a great idea. I myself have always worn crystals which have a lot of spiritual meaning for me but are not as obvious when someone asks why I'm wearing it or where did I get it, it's really interesting. I'm actually wearing the quartz crystal, which was the first crystal that I wore as kind of a symbol of my spiritual beliefs and I wear it off and on still to this day. Many people wear crystals, it's very fashionable these days so I don't get a lot of questions about it. And if I do, it's usually because, oh that's nice, where did you get it? And I can talk about that. I don't have to talk in about what crystals mean for my practice, how I use it for healing, how I use it for confidence and inspiration. I can just answer basic simple questions. I also occasionally wear my sister's pentacle. She wore this most of the time as her symbol of spiritual belief and I inherited it when she passed away. So if someone asks about the pentacle, I have an easy explanation and can say it was my sister's. The pentacle is a symbol of protection to me, but it's not as crucial to my practice or beliefs as many people in the pagan community use it as. I am more apt to wear this, which I don't know if you can see all the detail. My brother got this for me in Ireland and it's made of turf. It's hand carved and it's a truckada, I can't say that word properly, so excuse me. I don't get a lot of questions about this symbol. I think they just assume it's just a random kind of bulky fashionable necklace. Occasionally I get asked where I got it from and I can explain my brother brought it back from Ireland and leave it at that. But the symbol on a whole has a lot to do with the number 3 and its significance to my practice. It also is an interconnected knot, which I think works really well as a symbol for the cycles and interconnectedness that we have with nature and our environment. I also wear a bunch of crystals occasionally. This is a rose quartz that I did the wire work on. I have a fire quartz that I wear quite frequently. It sadly broke the wirewrapping and I haven't rewrapped it. I wear this quartz, I've gotten some crystals as gifts, a piece of coral and some blood stone. I wear those occasionally. I also wear, technically it's my class ring but it's a ring that has a hematite in it so I wear that every day. So crystals are definitely incorporated into the symbols that I wear. I also have a tattoo, my spiritual significance. So my tattoo is a combination of two symbols, the troqueta and the triple spiral. So the triple spiral is again the number 3, the spiral which is used often in Irish symbols and in paganism in general, especially with Celtic Reconstructionism and for me it has a lot of meaning about finding the depth of ourselves, finding the depths with divinity and kind of how we cycle through the same things over and over again but in a deeper more meaningful way. It also just is a really empowering symbol for me and has been for a while. I got the tattoo 3 or 2 years ago or so and it was during a time when a lot of changes were happening. I was working on a new job, I was living on my own for the first time, like no roommates, no one, just myself. I was kind of coming out of my grief for my sisters passing away and being more honest about my spirituality, what I wanted for my life and who I was as a person. So it was a powerful time and powerful symbols. I don't, it's on my back so you don't see it frequently but I do have some tops and pieces of clothing that kind of show off and I will wear those at work or going around town so I'm not hiding that. It's just easy to expose or not expose depending on the setting that I'm at. I have surprisingly only gotten a few comments about why I have a tattoo. I've gotten more comments about being shocked that I have a tattoo so I guess that doesn't come up with the confidence factor but when you permanently etch something into your skin you really have no other option but to be confident about that symbol and it's meaning to you. I don't recommend everyone to go get a tattoo just to gain confidence but it is a big step for having confidence in your faith and being able to talk about it and answer those questions and feel like you can do that. So I hope those rambly thoughts were interesting to those of you looking to be a little bit more confident about wearing your symbols. I think the more you wear it and the less you encounter those worst case scenarios the better and easier you'll feel about wearing this and it just feels really great to wear things that are meaningful for you and represent or help you in a magical or spiritual way. In the comments below I would love to hear what symbols you like to wear or how you incorporate your faith into your everyday outfit and go to look. Thanks for watching and as always may you find peace in the sacred grove.