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A Reaction to Living

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I am on the cusp of a new beginning.

New beginnings are terrifying. And liberating. And challenging. And not without a degree of nostalgia and loss. Things have to end in order for other things to begin.

Circle of life, and all that stuff.

My house is almost completely packed up. Our bed is on the floor, without a frame. We sold the bedroom set a few weeks back — in part because we’d grown tired of it, but also for the cash. Sleeping on the floor has been a strange, college-like experience. I feel like I’m in my early 20’s again. That is… until I see someone in their early 20’s. They all have so much hair.

My blog has been still and silent for over a month. It’s the longest hiatus I’ve ever taken from blogging since I started this project in December of 2010. (See the archives for proof.) I haven’t really known what to blog about, for one. But even more than that, I’ve been aware of the fact that what I needed most was not documentation of my life, but rather a fuller engagement with my life. Blogging, or any kind of self-reflective, memoir-esque style of writing, when done with extreme regularity, can begin to transform one’s perception of their life. Instead of it being the thing that you are doing it becomes the thing that you might be able to write about.

Life is more than just content.

So I stepped back. No need for a big announcement. The blog wasn’t expiring, nor did I have any real sense of when it would pick up again. I’m not even sure it’s picking up right now, to be honest. But the time away was necessary considering the transitions that were on the horizon.

In two days I will say goodbye to Denver, to all the people who I love, and I will drive across country with my husband, our three dogs, and our truckload of stuff. We’ll arrive in Portland on Monday and then something new will begin.

And I have no idea what that will look like.

natura_pagana - Le Mat

Image by Diego da Silva

When we first started talking about moving to Portland, I had this vision of finding other like-minded Druids and starting up an ADF grove. Oregon seems like a good breeding ground for Druids, and I romanticized the idea of fostering a small community once I arrived. This could still happen, although it won’t be with ADF. I couldn’t say which group it would be affiliated with, as I haven’t been inclined to pursue membership anywhere else just yet. I’m still very, very much a solitary.

A solitary without a regular practice, at that.

So it’s interesting to imagine what this blog could become in the coming months. How, without any religious structure or form, will I continue to reflect on or engage in a spiritual life? Have I been that dependent on belonging to a group in the past that I cannot write and reflect without one?

I don’t think so, but I don’t know.

That’s the thing about new beginnings. The are necessarily shrouded. They are not transparent. There is mystery inexorably woven into every aspect of them. We don’t know where we’ll get our food, walk our dogs, build community. We don’t know how the weather will feel, how the land will look as the seasons change, or how we will be embraced by the people of Portland. We have no clear sense of what the future will bring.

But I think that those are the conditions which make possible some real magic.

So maybe when we get to Portland I’ll start blogging with more regularity. Maybe I’ll write about what it feels like to live around so much lush greenery. Maybe I’ll write about what it’s like to live so close to a river, or in a place that’s not dry as a bone. Maybe I’ll stumble upon some little metaphysical shop and spark up a conversation that leads to a post, or I’ll meet a Witch or a Druid or a Unitarian that I’d only known on Facebook, and maybe that interaction will shed light on something that has, unbeknownst to me, been hidden. Maybe I’ll discover a spiritual practice again. Maybe I’ll find the room to try something new, or better yet, to try something old, something forgotten, underutilized, or neglected. Maybe there will be more new beginnings than I know what to do with, and I’ll have to write about all of them.

Or maybe I’ll do something altogether different.

I don’t know.

This time away from blogging has reminded me that you have to live a meaningful life first, and then write about it. You can’t write your way into happiness, or understanding, or peace, or even wisdom. You — or, more specifically, I — cannot just parse out life within the pixels. I have to get a little dirty. I need to spend some actual time being embodied.

Writing is not a substitute for living. Writing is simply a reaction to living.

 

A few added notes:

• Check out the upcoming edition of Witches & Pagans with Your’s truly on the cover and pre-order your copy here. T. Thorn Coyle asks some insightful questions, and the conversation that ensued went to places I hadn’t expected it to go.

• The good people at Belham Apothecary (aka Horn of Hern Home Arts) sent me a delightful little gift basket of incenses, soaps, perfume blends and ritual items. The owners of the shop are a delightful young couple from Georgia, and I’d highly recommend paying their Etsy shop a visit.

• In case you missed it here is my writeup of the Sacred Harvest Festival on The Wild Hunt. I have a feeling I may do more reflecting on this experience once we get settled into our new home.

• Lastly, if you’re an Oregonian and we haven’t already met on Facebook or Twitter, please say “hello” in the comments. We don’t know many people in town, and it would be great to feel like we aren’t complete strangers when we arrive.

The Intersection of the Myth and the Meaning

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To those participating in the Bishop In The Grove’s Bookclub reading of T. Thorn Coyle’s Make Magic of Your Life, join me on Twitter throughout the month of April and engage in a Twitter dialogue about the questions raised in this book. Be sure to @reply with the hashtag, #MakeMagic and Thorn’s handle, @ThornCoyle.

Now, onto today’s BITG post…

The Intersection of the Myth and the Meaning

Hot Cross Buns

My husband and I were standing in the kitchen, preparing a meal to take to my grandmother’s house for Easter. We were talking about the difference between Easter and Christmas, and how he had always preferred Christmas.

He talked about how the Jesus of Christmas and the Jesus of Easter seemed like two different people. To him, the lead-up to Christmas was always so intense and exciting, filled with anticipation. And the payoff, the birth of Christ, spoke to something wonderful about humanity. It was the moment in the myth when the divine became humble.

I’d never thought of it that way.

I proceeded to explain to him why Easter had always been more important to me than Christmas.

Easter brought into clarity how humans like me were in relationship with God. As a Christian, it made my station clear. It made the need for Jesus clear. It brought home the reason for being a Christian: reconciliation to God, and reconciliation to ourselves about our imperfect nature.

[Side note #1: I no longer hold this belief.]

Perhaps most importantly, Easter made the Christian myth relevant in the world. It provided me a way of applying the myth in my life. It said, “This thing happened, and because this thing happened you can better understand yourself. You can now go into the world and better understand the nature of the world.” Lent, the season preceding Easter, was equally important for me because it rooted the myth into my personal life, and encouraged in me a deep reflection on the parts of myself I often avoid acknowledging.

Christmas, on the other hand, was less visceral for me. Funny, right? Christmas is all about incarnation; about the divine being made human through birth — the most visceral act. Yet it did not feel as immediate or as potent as the Easter myth. Easter was about the complexity of humanity. Holy Week, even, provided all of these opportunities to reflect on the ways in which, in spite of all of our virtues, human beings do ghastly things to one another. It forced me to looks at my own potential for complicity in hatred and cruelty. It was humbling.

[Side note #2: It would be incorrect to dismiss this exploration of what Easter or Christmas meant to me in my early Christian life as “Christian baggage.” Having conversation about our past, or engaging with the stories which have been relevant to us at different times is not “baggage.” The term is reductive. I think we can be bigger than that.]

When I think about my proclivity toward inquiry about different ethical, and perhaps even moral convictions within the Pagan community, it is not because I believe in replicating a Christian-like, sin-based, transactional model of interaction with the divine; rather, it is because I have always believed that the stories you tell about the gods you worship need to be relevant in the world you live in. They must be more than just stories. They must have application.

I was never an advocate of literalism in the Church. I thought that was missing the point. The stories of Easter didn’t need to actually happen in order for them to be important or applicable. They could be symbolic while still being relevant.

And the point is that they were. Relevant.

So when I write about Pagan bubbles, or the effects of casting circle, or the function of love within a Pagan paradigm, I’m doing so because I am a person whose initial religious identity was heavily influenced by the idea that one’s religion must inform how they understand themselves in the world. I’m sure there are plenty of Pagans who can explain how their religious practices and mythologies directly influence their engagement with the world, and I’d like to hear from you here.

While the m-word (morality) may reek of wine and wafers and be stained with a duality that makes many of us cringe (myself included), the intersection of the myth and the meaning is where morality is born.

Is that correct? Can you find a way to phrase that last part more accurately?

But that’s beside the point of the original realization. Easter meant more to me because it made my myth into something I could apply in my life while informing me of my relationship to God. I may now see divinity as something different than I did then (and I do), but I still long to find, uncover, or create stories which make a similar connection. I’m not interested in finding the exact right one (I don’t think such a thing exists), but I am on a quest for meaning.

It all has to mean something, or it means nothing.

Faitheist: A Lesson for Pagans in Storytelling

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By Markos Zouridakis

By Markos Zouridakis

Faitheist serves as an example to Pagans, polytheists, Witches, Druids and Heathens (I think it’s time we get our own LGBTQAI abbreve, no?) of the impact and power that storytelling can have on furthering our ideals.

Browse the bookshelf at a local metaphysical bookstore, and you will find book after book which explains the hows of our different systems. You may find a title or two that dives deeper into the why, but you will be hard pressed to find many books which unpack the personal stories of the author. We don’t do memoir very often, and I’m not sure why.

As I was reading to the end of the first chapter of Make Magic of Your Life by T. Thorn Coyle, the March BITG Book Club title (which I am enjoying very much, and which I encourage you all to start reading), I was struck with a sense of longing to know more about Thorn’s life. I was curious about what had transpired that led to these deep and expansive awarenesses.

Last week, in response to a blog comment that asked something to the effect of, “How does love permeate a hostile universe?,” Thorn quoted an old blog post of hers to illustrate her point about love’s presence:

“This week, while cleaning the old sixteen burner stove at the house of hospitality, pressing the rough green scrubber against the tough metal “I love you” rose unbidden to my thoughts. This was not some practice of connecting to the stove, this was connection to the stove. The divine presence was there.”

This.

This is what I mean. This is what I was longing for.

To be fair, I’m only in the introductory portion of Make Magic of Your Life, and I’m not criticizing Thorn or the book. I just found myself, having moved from Chris’s memoir to what I suppose you might call an empowerment guidebook, wanting to be reading Thorn’s memoir so that I could better understand her (and, in turn, so that I might better understand myself).

Stories do that for me. I think they do that for all of us.

Stories provide context that instruction does not. Parables get at meaning in ways that user manuals do not. Our stories are what make us who we are, and the telling of our stories is what affirms our interconnectedness, our sameness, our differences, and the sacredness that weaves it all together.

A good memoir (which I believe Faitheist to be) weaves the messages and teachings that are important to the author directly into the narrative. My copy of Chris’s book has a couple dozen dog-eared pages, and the statements I underlined were (I think) the meat of Chris’s message:

“[Our world needs] people of all different stripes and convictions coming together to deal with things that matter, announcing our differences without fear, enthusiastically embracing our commonalities, and intentionally seeking out points of mutuality and understanding in the face of vastly different metaphysical commitments.”

Or,

“A bit of intellectual humility and self-awareness goes a long way; a quick perusal of human history shows that when one person’s idea of “rationality” trumps basic human decency for others, we all suffer.”

Or,

“To build a strong society, my Humanistic ethics encourage me to engage. This is much more than mere atheism, which is only a statment about what I don’t believe in. After years of witnessing the ugliness that arises when rejection-based beliefs lead to the rejection of people, I now seek out ties that will bind us together.”

These are messages that our community — that every community — needs desperately to hear.

Chris could have written a book that explained how to be a Humanist, but he didn’t. And I’m glad that he didn’t. I don’t think it would have made the profound impact that it is making on our culture. His messages would have read as platitudes, and we would be missing the valuable context.

Context is key.

I would like to see a Pagan Memoir section at Isis Books or online, and I’d like to read the stories of our teachers, leaders, magick workers, priests and priestesses. I would like to know what all of this spiritual and religious work has meant in their lives. I’d like to know when they felt doubt, or when they encountered something transformative. I’d like to read their lives and not just their instructions. I think it would be revelatory, really. (I’m putting In the Center of the Fire on my reading list.)

Chris told stories, and then stepped back to allow the conversation to begin.

And that’s what I’d like to happen here.

What story in Faitheist resonated most with you? Was there any one piece of Chris’s narrative that led you to a new awareness about interfaith work? About religious pluralism?

How did Chris’s storytelling affect you, personally?

The Heart Is The Only Nation

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I have met the Morrígan.

I have stood in a circle, a shape unlike any circle I’ve stood in before, and beside my human kin, a spiritual kin sharing breath and space and smell and touch, I made contact with the Warrior inside myself.

At this moment it feels as though I have never been in this body before, nor have I ever been to a ritual before this one.

I expected something great from Thorn and her tribe, but I did not know I would be shaken so profoundly.

And I feel shaken. Shaken to the core. The hot lava core. Forge fire core. The core of something that both transcends and embodies; all at once harmonious, and resonant, and ripe with the tension of anticipation and climax.

This is not what being alive is like. This is what being alive is.

Photo by Olivier Bacquet

Photo by Olivier Bacquet

My focus has been directed toward liturgy, which I continue to believe is a valuable tool. But at this moment, charged with the energy of an army calling out to a Queen, I recognize the need for something greater than just ceremony.

Ritual and ceremony are not the same thing.

The tools we use for ritual are tools, and they are not the same thing as the juicy, bloody, fleshy, powerful potential of what ritual can be. There must be magick.

There must be.

There must be a movement of that stuff in the belly of bellies, in the gut of all guts. The words you speak are only useful if they mean something. They have to mean something. If you are going to speak — if you are going to stand before an altar and recite words to your Gods — you better say something that matters.

Liturgy is empty without heart, and as we sang at the tops of our lungs tonight —

The heart is the only nation.

A Goddess cut me deep tonight.

Cut a hole and filled it up with…

reverence…

awe…

wonder…

power…

unexpected gratitude for the force which drives me to fight, to have sex, to use this body for all it’s worth, to stand up and speak…

These are the things which flow through me right now.

There may be no one right way to have a spiritual life, but fuck if this wasn’t a right way tonight.

If I had wings, they would be those of the raven.

Two Pagans, an ex-Druid, and a Pastor Walk Into a Bar

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I wrote a post on Storify, a website which helps its users tell stories by curating social media. Not only can you read and embed (usually) Storify posts, but you can Like, Comment, or Share any of the individual messages inside a Storify post.

High-tech, no? It takes dialogue to a micro-level.

Give the post a read, engage in some dialogue, both inside the post and in the traditional comments, and then pay a visit to my Indiegogo Campaign, Sacred Electric Grove.

The Spiritual, the Mundane, and the Cash Money

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Some days, it’s all we can do not to break.

Yesterday felt like one of those days.

I’ve done well to keep my focus on matters of spiritual growth since returning from my Pagan pilgrimage. I’ve kept my daily practice, and I’ve delighted in the conversations we’ve had here on the blog about leadership, purpose and the wants and needs of the Pagan community. I’ve approximated the feeling of being swept up in the fervor of rituals, workshops and sacred dancing, as best I could. But yesterday felt like a cold bucket of water got dropped on my sacred fire.

Discussions of finance, budgets, work prospects and work shortages don’t feel all that mystical. If there was a moment when the perceived difference between the magickal and the mundane was clearly evident, it happened yesterday as I sat at my dining room table, papers spread out in front of me, forehead to palm. Mundane is not strong enough a word to describe how un-enchanted the whole process felt.

I don’t suspect that I’m alone in this experience. How many of us feel weighed down by the practical matters of our life? The last days of the month, the first days of the month, the middle of the month — these are moment where we are called to focus on what it really takes to power our laptops, pay for our sage smudges and keep us connected to our real and virtual communities through sites like this. In truth, my transformative experience at PantheaCon was only made possible by charging a hotel room, a plane ticket and registration costs to my credit card.

I’m paying interest on my transcendental weekend. Chew on that for a second.

Judge if you will, but anyone with student loan bills understands what this feels like. We borrow money in order to have the experience we wish to have. It’s how it works for most of us, right? As I think about returning to college to become better educated in religious studies, the very real question of “How am I going to pay for this?” is on repeat in my mind, and I don’t know the answer right now.

(He feels his palm drifting back to his forehead.)

I took a Money Magick class once, and I loved it. The teacher, who has since become a friend, talked about money being magickal. She encouraged us to use paper money, and to think of each bill as a talisman. She taught us how to charge our cash-money with our intentions, how and why to keep it well-organized in our wallets, and she emphasized the value in only spending the money you have. She kept saying that money, a source of so much stress, should be thought of in spiritual terms. It isn’t mundane; it’s magick.

Now, on the morning after my stress-binge, I feel the need to consider, either out of a desperate desire to reclaim my lost PantheaCon-bliss or a less-selfish, more compulsive need to understand a universal truth, that there is no mundane reality; it’s all spiritual.

I’ve heard this idea suggested before. T. Thorn Coyle is campaigning across the Pagan world to eliminate the word from our vocabulary, and she’s not alone. It came up in several venues at PantheaCon. People want to ditch the idea of mundane, and I wonder if this is possible. More importantly, I wonder if that would really benefit us.

I know that when I do ritual, as many of us do, I envision the space being made sacred, either through some sort of visualization or through a physical act. If there is no mundane reality, and all is spiritual or holy, then is my act of sanctifying the space more about me than it is the space? I value my rites of sanctification. Whether or not they serve some essential, spiritual purpose, they are psychologically effective. I wonder, though, if that’s all they are.

How do you reconcile this difference between spiritual and mundane? Is there one, from your perspective? Could you conceive of the mundane as a kind of forgetfulness? A lack of remembrance about the true, spiritual nature of reality? If you’ve ever found yourself sitting at your dining room table, bills and forms staring back at you, did the experience feel particularly spiritual to you? Could you find a way to perceive it as such?

I’d love to know what you think about this subject. Sharing your thoughts and experiences in the comment section might provide me, or another reader of Bishop in the Grove, with some very valuable, very useful insights.

Witness to the Protest at Pantheacon 2012

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This is my witness of the silent meditation led by T. Thorn Coyle to protest the Z Budapest ritual at Pantheacon 2012.

[Note: I use the term “cisgender women” or “cis woman” to distinguish from “transgender women” or “trans woman.” Both groups may identity with the word “woman.”]

8:33pm I arrive in the City Foyer, a long hallway on the main floor of the DoubleTree hotel, and make my way toward the San Martin room. I find a corner in which to sit. I feel the strong need to write down all of what is happening.

Beside me sits a man with a spinning wheel in front of him. He pedals gently and spins the roving into thread.

8:35pm I watch a coordinator of Pantheacon show Thorn the statement prepared by Z Budapest. Queens in white face and glitter makeup gather and shimmer while cisgender women line up to enter San Martin.

Thorn speaks to the coordinator.

“My aim is just to keep the energy smooth.”

The coordinator responds.

“It’s an imperfect world. I’m doing my best.”

The coordinator exhibits genuine concern for those gathering behind Thorn.

“We are on your side.”

A group of three cisgender crones sit beside the entrance to the presentation room; one on the floor, and two on chairs. The one on the floor sits with legs crossed, eyes closed, and focus directed inward. She rocks, chanting and muttering words under her breath. It appears that the three are holding space.

Thorn walks back and forth in front of the growing group of protestors, instructing them on “keeping the energy smooth.”

8:40pm The cisgender woman continues to rock, her voice more audible than before.

Thorn stands, faces the protestors.

“Let’s all take a breath together. Find your center.”

I write down: For Thorn, protest is magick. Leading is the art of expanding the boundaries of sacred space.

8:42pm The number of cisgender women in line for the ritual: 9

The number of people sitting in protest: 22

I stand in the corner, watching.

Coordinators ask if anyone wants water. I see no one take water. The protestors sit and kneel behind a barrier of white tape on brown and beige conference hotel carpet.

The crones continue to pray and chant. A cisgender woman standing at the front of the line holds beads in her hand, repeating what sounds like a Vedic chant.

Thorn speaks.

“Take a breath and enter silence.”

Both sides are holding space, seeking peace in the face of the other.

Thorn places a sign before her. It reads: All Bodies Are Sacred.

8:45pm A processional of The Amazons & Living Temple of Diana lines up, their faces marked with black paint around their eyes, their attire coordinated as if for ritual. They hold drums.

All are holding space.

I see one cis woman stare at the silent protestors with a bemused smirk. Others in line with her look at the floor.

8:47pm The crone rocks, eyes closed. She lifts her hands up to the sky, to her left, to her right; entreating. The cis woman in line continues to chant with her mala.

8:50pm More gather to kneel beside Thorn.

The Amazons sing.

“We all come from the Goddess…and to her we shall return…”

Their voices fill the space. The begin to walk from the far end of the hall, between the protestors and the ritualists, moving slowly and intentionally.

At the end of the processional of singers is Z Budapest.

8:51pm Someone at the front of the door is attempting to film **, and there is an argument between her and the Pantheacon coordinators. I overhear something about “consent to be filmed.” This argument is the only palpable conflict yet. Until this point, it has felt like two groups holding space.

But, the energy feels different now.

The singing continues.

8:54pm Z Budapest speaks, and the camera person has been given permission to film her. She is offered her prepared statement, which she takes, but she does not speak from the paper. She asks the Amazons if they are present to support her, to which they respond that they are present to support all; they are “in between.” Lady Yeshe Rabbit says,

“There is no them; only us.“

Z looks at the group of men who have gathered behind the cisgender women. They are led by Hyperion of The Unnamed Path.

“There are my guardians,” Z says to them.

“No,” Hyperion responded to her. “We are only here to bear witness and hold space.” ***

Z begins to speak off script, and the following are excerpts from her spoken statement.

“I am not your enemy….

I understand the new consciousness….it’s very Aquarian.

I love the transsexuals… interesting costumes… very colorful…”

I am struck by the fact that she is a person, where up until now she has been spoken of primarily as a symbol.

I hear one of the protestors begin to weep.

“Every minute a woman dies in childbirth…EVERY MINUTE A WOMAN DIES IN CHILDBIRTH. And from there, it just goes on….

I am your mother’s mothers….

I am the elder on whom you can build revolution!“

9:00pm Z Budapest turns and enters the San Martin conference room.

The singers leave as they came.

The Pantheacon coordinator faces the protestors, and reads them the prepared statement which Z chose not to read.

Then, silence. Stillness. The only sound, the spinning of the wheel and the chanting of the crone.

9:12pm Glenn Turner counts the number of silent protestors in attendance. There are 89 present.

9:15pm Thorn walks up to the front, and chants the OM. The protestors break their silence.

“I love you all so much. It’s an honor to sit with you…”

The protestors begin to rise, many embracing. Thanks are expressed. Someone passes out girl scout cookies. They silently move through the hallway, away from the sounds of the cis women laughing, chanting, calling the quarters.

There is a spirit of relief and exhausting.

The crones stay behind, and continue to hold space.

*** UPDATE on 2/23/12 When first published, this post did not contain a quote from Hyperion. I was unable to make out the exact words he said to Z, and because of this I did not include his statement in my notes or in my account of the event. I appreciate his coming forth to clarify, because it is important to understand the motivations and intentions behind all those present (as best we can).

** It has been reported that the camera person was Bobbie, Z Budapest’s wife.
For more insight into Hyperion’s perspective, and a link to his website, please read through the comments.

Oh my Gods, I’m at #Pantheacon.

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I’m buzzing. Vibrating. I know that sounds New Age-y, but that’s really what it feels like to be in my body at this moment.

I’m sitting in the lobby of the San Jose DoubleTree Hotel, and Pantheacon is exploding all around me. There are men in skirts, women in top hats, people whose gender is a complete mystery, elders, newbies (like me), and a general spirit of something happening.

This is the place to be, and I’m here.

*grin*

Oh, and did I mention that there is a strong corseted faction? Because there is, and it’s amazing.

I’m overwhelmed, really. I didn’t know it would feel quite so exhilarating to be near this many strange, and delightfully decorated people. It’s as though my books have been made flesh.

For real.

I’ve spoken with Jim Dickinson, the Project Manager for the Pagan Library in Delaware, Ivo Domínguez, Jr., Author and Teacher, and Candace Kant, Ph.D, the new Dean of Students for Cherry Hill Seminary.

All before lunch.

For the majority of my time as an out-and-about Pagan, I’ve lived on the page and the screen. But this? This is something all together different. This is real. Real, and feathered, and leathered, and bearded, and adorned, and sitting right across from me.

All accoutrements aside, I’m thrilled that my day is scheduled to include:

1. A presentation by Raven Grimassi, Lon Milo DuQuette, T. Thorn Coyle, Diana Paxson, Orion Foxwood, Mary K. Greer, and Jacki Smith (“A Witch, A Seer, and a Crowleyite Walk Into a Bar”) put on by Weiser Books.

2. Introductions to many an ADF member, including Rev. Medb Olson when she leads her presentation, “Group Dynamics for Pagan Organizations.”

3. Ivo’s presentation, “Triple Shadow: The Shadow of the Lower, Middle, & Higher Self.” (He has the most impressive beard, doesn’t he?)

4. Who KNOWS what else!!

I’ve been reminded on many occasion to eat regular meals, drink water, and breathe. I’ll try to remember those.

I’m not going to attempt to do anything now except relish this feeling. There will be time to process later, time to sort through the images, the messages and the emotions and see what it might all mean.

For now, I soak in the energy!

(If you want to follow my up-to-the-minute posts, follow me on Twitter and Facebook. I’ll be posting…a lot.)

Pagan Is The New Gay

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My Queer friends don’t want to be called Gay or Lesbian. Too many connotations. Not accurate enough to their own personal experiences. They’re much more complex than what those labels allow for. Gay is too easily marketed to, and at this point completely co-opted by the mainstream.

Gay is Will & Grace. Queer doesn’t even own a TV.

My Gay friends don’t really understand Queer. What’s wrong with Gay, they ask? There’s a history to the label; rich and complicated, and worth preserving. You lose that legacy when you abandon the label. So what if you’re anti-mainstream? You’re still subject to oppression from the mainstream, aren’t you? Bigots don’t care if you call yourself queer or gay or faggot or tranny. Its all the same to them. You’re Other, no matter how you choose to self-identify.

Thus, the Gays, Lesbians and Queers remain distant, abbreviated letters — G’s, L’s & Q’s, with B’s & T’s squeezed tightly between the three stodgy siblings.

Pagans Are SO Gay

I’m watching this debate go on about the validity of the term “Pagan”, and whether or not it’s useful anymore. Admittedly, I’m a newbie in the Pagan community. But, I am no newbie Gay. And, I feel there’s a valuable parallel between our struggles that no one is picking up on.

The GLBTQ…xyz community, in actuality, is not the tightest knit community. We have little pockets of community. We micro-organize. We have bars, community centers, gathering places, apps. We have parades. But, we’re a tiny minority living in the midst of an often antagonistic majority, and the subcultures within our subculture often don’t understand each other or work toward a common end.

I see the same thing going on right now with Pagans.

Some Polytheists may not consider themselves Pagan any more than most Queers consider themselves Gay. But, the Queers are out there having that crazy homo-sex. You know… the thing that first led the Gays to seek one another out, to organize in protest of widespread oppression? Remember all that Stonewall jazz?….

And the Polytheists are out there worshipping those same Old Gods that all the Pagans are buying statues of in our local metaphysical shops. Polytheists may approach their religion with more academic backing (or they may not), and they may feel compelled to reestablish and align themselves with cultural identifiers and practices which have long since disappeared (i.e. Reconstructionism). But, whether you trace back your spiritual lineage to Gardner or to an unnamed Celtic Warrior of Old, you’re still a part of something that’s happening right now, in the world. This world. The present.

Identity v.s. Branding

This isn’t so much a question of identity. We’re pluralistic, the LGBTQ’s & the Pollies/Pagans. There isn’t ever going to be a single identity which we can embody, and I think it would be a shame to make that a goal. Our diversity is what gives our respective cultures their intrinsic value. I don’t think anyone is trying to reduce us down to the lowest common denominator.

This is really a question of how do we — Polytheists and Pagans — wish to be portrayed outside of the festival grounds. I wouldn’t use the battle language that Laura LaVoie used, but the sentiment here is mostly the same. When we try to make our place in this world, amidst a religious majority that might not allow us the space or respect we deserve, what will unite us as a people. Our title?

T. Thorn Coyle may have said it best when she wrote:

What do I think is this thing that ties such diverse ways and means of practice, experience, and belief together? We all have a sense of “Divine with us on earth.” The Gods are not just far off in Asgard, they are in our gardens and our homes. Goddesses don’t just live in some distant place, they help us run our businesses, and teach our children. And these Gods and Goddesses have their own agency, too. Paganism(s) and systems of magick – as they exist in contemporary religious expression in this loosely knit group of practitioners – hold theologies of immanence in common, whether this is directly acknowledged or not.

Do we need to develop any more interfaith language around this? Must we have a single word that defines the whole group? Or, is it possible for us to make space for an individual’s choice to reject Capital Letter Titles in favor of a label that feels more specific and resonant with her own religious approach (like, for example “I am a priest of the Old Belief, a polytheist through and through, and more than anything else the Heroic Life is my religion“).

It’s a Queer approach, but if done with respect for the hardcore Pagans and the diehard Gays it may be the next step in our spiritual and cultural evolution.

What do you think?

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