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I’ve decided to close the comments at Bishop in the Grove.

It’s something I’ve considered for some time, but in recent days it’s become clear that this would be a good decision to make for my own well being. Let me explain a bit of why this seems like the right choice.

I blog about very personal things. That’s been my modus operandi since day 1. My writing is a means of processing through my ideas and my experiences, and for a long time that processing has been wide open to community discussion and involvement. By and large I’ve cherished the dialogues that have taken place here on the blog. It’s been affirmed time and time again that my own spiritual exploration mirrors that of many in the Pagan, polytheist, and even Christian communities.

Not every comment has been supportive. Some have been condescending. Other chiding. What I’m coming to discover, though, is that it doesn’t really matter whether or not the comments are positive or negative, for every comment that exists as an addendum to the writing I’ve done on the blog changes the context of the subject I’m writing about. The feedback re-contextualizes the original writing, and sometimes I find myself feeling the need to be in dialogue with this new, altered perspective rather than the experience that brought me to write in the first place (which may explain why, as some of you have pointed out, it seems that I’m unnecessarily focussed on what other people might think about my spiritual or religious life).

I’m not beyond having my opinion challenged or my perspective changed. But after three years of blogging I’ve come to understand that there is value in having the content of the blog posts I write stand alone as pieces of writing. There are other forums for conversation and dialogue, like Facebook or Twitter, and many times my posts will receive ten, twenty, or even more comments on one of those services. I think it will be better for me to have the social interaction take place on a social network and to allow the blog to simply be a publishing platform.

I’m at the beginning of something new. I’m at the start of my OBOD studies and I’m finding myself simultaneously pulled toward some kind of Christian practice (which feels both foreign and completely familiar). These new endeavors are delicate. Fragile.

Or, maybe it’s that I feel delicate and fragile, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise anymore.

My spiritual growth (as with yours) need not — or rather, cannot — be done by others. It’s my own to sort through and figure out.

And I love doing it.

That’s reason enough to write.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to offer your words here. You’ve been an undeniable part of my journey.

 

Photo by konarheim

Solitary Tree

I spent the morning catching up with an “online” friend, forging a new “on ground” relationship. The internet is amazing, really. To be able to initiate these kinds of relationship and build community having only the context of Facebook or an e-mail forum is phenomenal. I’m a transplant to this town, and yet there are people here who know me, and who are willing to show me such great hospitality.

My friend and I talked about ADF, about Druidry, and about our own personal, evolutionary spiritualities. I haven’t had many occasions to talk about my spiritual path post-ADF. My departure still feels pretty fresh. Part of what makes a former spiritual tradition feel like it’s former is having the opportunity to talk about it in past tense. There’s a great value in working through your thoughts with people who either understand directly what you’re going through, or who are simply willing to listen. I was grateful to have that opportunity today.

I heard myself speak of the things that frustrated me about ADF; things that I haven’t written about online. I’ve made a deliberate choice not to spend too much time writing publicly about what I see as problematic in the religion, its infrastructure or its practices. I have no intention of bad-mouthing ADF. I’m not that dude. I don’t think that would be productive or kind.

But bringing up my departure leads me to wonder how important belonging to a new group is at this point in my spiritual journey.

I’ve been going through a few of the OBOD gwers over the past few days and thinking about picking up my Bardic studies. There’s an OBOD seed group here in Portland, and although it isn’t incredibly active I find comfort in knowing there are a few Druid-leaning people in the area. This seed group is even leading the closing ritual at the upcoming Pagan Pride day event in Salem.

A part of me feels eager to develop some kind of religious community here in Portland, but then another part of me is hesitant. I don’t need a rebound relationship. I don’t want to find some new thing to dive into, to distract myself with, or to serve as a replacement for what ADF has been over the past few years.

I also don’t want to rush into taking on the mantle of a new tradition. This morning my friend told me that, from all outside appearances, I looked to be completely invested in ADF. And I think I was invested. Mostly. Almost completely. I think I was as invested as I could be while still holding a certain amount of space for my own doubts and uncertainties. I’m not sure I believe that any one tradition is 100% complete or correct, and because of this I always hold open just a little bit of space for the possibility that it won’t be the right thing for me.

Perhaps this works to my detriment. I don’t know.

But I think about going to PPD and introducing myself to the local OBODies, and I wonder if I can manage to do that without diving in head-first into a new group. I wonder if there’s a way for me to engage in fellowship without needing to fully become some new thing. It would be nice to place the focus on community building in a grass-roots way: slower, more deliberate, more patient.

This is a liminal space. I’m not really any one thing, and I’m in a position where I have to get to choose what I want to become. There’s something exciting about that, even if that excitement comes with a degree of uncertainty. I could become a full fledged OBOD member again, or I could look into AODA. I could hunt down something altogether different, or — perhaps the scariest choice of all — I could decide to navigate what it means to be Pagan without community. With as much work as I’ve done for solitaries, I’m not sure I know how to be a Pagan without belonging to a group, and I think it would be a mistake to rush through this process simply because the solitude feels uncomfortable.

Fast as a speeding oak always seemed like a terrible slogan. It used to bother me so much. It’s funny, though, because now it seems like sage advice for me. Perhaps the trees could have served as better teachers if I’d have let them.

I always thought that ADF moved too slowly, but I wonder how much of that was influenced by me moving too fast.

 

Photo by Jez Elliott

The Fool

Something broke today: a levee on the inside. My heart, tight and clenched for days, softened.

And when it did, I knew…

I have to leave ADF.

I spoke the words out loud, and they sounded right. They didn’t sound easy, or pretty, or anything remotely uncomplicated.

They just sounded right.

I’m not leaving because it’s convenient. Quite the contrary. Leaving ADF means, by extension, stopping my work for the Solitary Druid Fellowship.

That kind of terrifies me.

I have built this thing, virtually all by myself, and I don’t know what will happen to it. I don’t plan to take it away from ADF and have it be my own Druidic group. ADF leadership always feared I’d do something like that, and I assured them I wouldn’t. But more than that, I don’t really feel called to keep doing the work.

I’m in the middle of a 7-day series called “Shared Gnosis” that was supposed to wrap up with the release of a new liturgy. The High Day — Summer Solstice, the Feast of Labor — is in less than a week. But this series was a desperate attempt to re-inspire myself into doing this work at all. For the better part of the past month or two I’ve felt almost completely disconnected from the work of the Fellowship. I’ve been trying to encourage others to dive into a liturgical practice when I, myself, have begun to question the relevance of liturgy. I’ve been talking about hearth cultures and High Days, and I have felt almost no connection whatsoever to any of those things.

I’ve been doing ADF drag.

Leaving isn’t convenient, and it isn’t pretty. This doesn’t make me look good. In fact, this looks very much like a repeat of what is becoming a trope of Pagan culture:

• Person finds Paganism.

• Person finds tradition.

• Person is inspired by tradition, and moves into leadership position.

• Person has a crisis of — what? — faith? (I thought we didn’t have faith.)

• Person leaves tradition.

• Everybody rolls eyes and says they saw this coming.

• Repeat.

I’ve been around for only a few years, and I’ve already seen the cycle more than once.

And now here I am.

Leaving.

Shutting down the thing that I created.

Starting the cycle all over again.

The thing is, this is my life. This is me, right here, trying to be human.

And I think my biggest challenge in being a part of ADF was that I didn’t feel like there was anyone really speaking to the challenges of being human. In a devotional religion, the emphasis is placed over there, not in here. The things that cut deeply for me, that are real and sometimes really difficult for me — things like compassion, despair, forgiveness, hope, kindness, patience, honesty — I don’t feel like we spend any time talking about these things. I think we experience these things, but they always feel secondary to “right relationship.”

Frankly, I don’t care about right relationship. Or right action, for that matter.

I think those concepts are distraction from the messy, mucky, complicated, beautiful acts of being human that have nothing to do with how virtuous or pious we are.

I didn’t think I could earn my way into Heaven when I was a Christian, and I don’t think I can, through my own actions, earn my way into good standing with the Gods.

It’s the same thing to me. It’s a repeat, and it just feels wrong.

I can try to do well and I often fall short, but — amazingly enough — when that happens I experience a deep, profound, spiritual understanding that, in spite of what any ancient person said…

I am not at the center of the cosmos.

I cannot will things into happening exactly as I would like. My life, at times, feels really broken, and I don’t know how to proceed, and I need to own up to that.

But all of these things, these inner conflicts that I will mostly likely continue to process through here on this blog, are extremely personal and contextual to my own life. I can believe that ADF needs to place a greater emphasis on matters of the heart, matters of the psyche, the soul, with the same level of rigor and intensity that they’ve been looking at academic texts about Celts and Norseman for twenty years, but that’s not what the organization is all about. I can think, “who cares what the ancients did?!” every time it comes up in an ADF e-mail list or Facebook group, but the truth of the matter is that some people do. Very much. That’s very, very important to them.

And I respect that. I don’t want to try and dismantle that, simply because it doesn’t hold much (or any) importance to me.

So I’m choosing to step aside.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Fellowship. There are a number of people who have contributed to the life of this project, including some ADF members on the path to the clergy, and I’d gladly let them take the helm in they feel inspired to do so. If this project — this idea of uniting solitaries of a variety of traditions around a liturgical practice — is something that has a place in the world apart from me, then it will continue to live on.

If not, then it has done its work.

But…

I have different work to do.

20130505-092328.jpgI went to church last night.

It was the first time I’d been to church since I left the Church.

Taking in an evening mass, done up to the 9’s with incense and vestments, was something I hadn’t planned to do while visiting Eugene, Oregon, nor was it an invitation I expected to receive from my friend, Jason Pitzl-Waters. His wife attends this congregation, and yesterday just happened to be the first time he was going to venture with her. He extended the welcome to me, and I gladly joined them both.

I’m not sure I was prepared for what I experienced.

Something pagan was present at this church service (other than the Druid in the back row). The priest spoke about the liturgical calendar, and how this Sunday — today — would be a day when the church recognized a pre-Christian, Roman agricultural holiday.

A pagan holiday.

How perfect, I thought.

(God… are you behind this?)

There was a god in that place last night. It wasn’t the only one – I think they’re wrong about that. But there was a god, nonetheless.

I stood and sat at the appropriate moments during the service, and I recognized in an intimate way the rhythm of the ritual. This was an Episcopal church, after all, and the Episcopal church was my home for so many years. I felt relevance, harmony, but a certain dissonance, too. It was neither all good nor all bad, and I’m not sure why I thought it would be either of those things. That was not the Church I knew. Being a Christian was always mixed and complicated.

I held back from full engagement with the liturgy, because full engagement felt disingenuous. I didn’t feel comfortable reciting the creed, nor did I say the Lord’s Prayer. I felt detached during the hymns, hype-aware that the messages were designed to tear down animism and build up hierarchical monotheism. The sermon was engaging and inspiring, but it was followed by kneeling and submitting to a dogma that I don’t believe in.

And yet, when I heard a small child sing along to one of the mantra-like songs after the Eucharist, I almost cried.

I was that child.

And what am I now?

That question lingered long after the service, and into this morning. I sit here in this little cafe, compelled to write again on the blog that I put on hiatus, because I was reminded last night that the inner world is complicated and worth unpacking. This blog is the venue in which I seek to answer that question again and again, and it’s time to return to that dialogue.

The short answer is this:

I am all of the things I have ever been. I continue to be them, in one way or another. Nothing is ever fully released from the heart. It’s all there, tattoo-like. Those old parts of you call out and say, We’re still here: your memories; your long, lost hopes; your visions of truth; your doubts — all of it. All here, still intact, inked into the inner flesh.

My Christianity gave me my first introduction to reverence, mystery, humility and community. It encouraged me to recognize that there was nothing in the world that was not touched by the divine. It inspired me to care deeper, to give generously, and to seek out new, creative ways to serve others.

I bring all of those attributes with me to my work with the Solitary Druid Fellowship. Were it not for the Church, and for those many people who were inspired by Jesus to serve others in love, I wouldn’t be writing liturgies for Pagans.

(Chew on that one for a minute.)

I walk the path of a modern Druid, but one whose ethics were first informed by bells-and-whistles Christianity. I can never not be this person.

And I’m ok with that.

I think I’m going to go back this morning, just to see if I might talk with the priest for a moment — one religious man to another. They’re going to have bagpipes today, and they plan to process around the church in a big circle (clockwise, no doubt), and bless the seeds and livestock.

It may just be the most pagan service I will ever attend.

Juggler

Bishop In The Grove needs to go on a temporary hiatus.

These are the words that popped into my head yesterday. As soon as I heard them, I knew they were true.

Blame it on the New Moon.

I’ve had the feeling for a little while that something needed to give. I’m a decent juggler (3 oranges, no more), but the message was clear:

DO LESS.

My schedule has been quite full lately. Between my contributions to The Wild Hunt, my seasonal entries to HuffPost, my work for the Solitary Druid Fellowship, and the small pile of books that have come my way via Witches and Pagans to review (not to mention Thorn’s book that we’re tweeting about on a daily basis), I’ve been stretched pretty thin.

Then yesterday hits. I take a meeting, and during the meeting I realize that a dream project is staring me straight in the face. A quiet voice inside says,

This opportunity is yours, if you’re willing to do the work.

And I’m willing. I knew that instantly. I want to do this. I’m uniquely qualified for the work, and excited at the challenge.

So, the blog needs a break because I need to be less divided.

The Morrigan’s presence in my life continues to reveal itself.

(What will you fight for? When will you take up your sword? When will you lay it down?) 

I’m not giving up everything, though. That doesn’t feel right to do.

Here’s what I’m imagining:

  • I give myself as long a break as I need from writing on BITG. During this time, when I feel the impulse to write about my thoughts on practice, Paganism, or anything that might fit naturally in the archive, I’ll write about it in a document entitled, “Book.”
  • I keep writing liturgies and devotionals for the Solitary Druid Fellowship. The next will be up in a week or so. Doing service work is soul food, really.
  • I continue as a contributor to The Wild Hunt and HuffPost.
  • I read books when they move me, and not accept any more for review. It’s so hard to turn down a book, but I need to get better at it.
  • I love on my family, celebrate my soon-to-be 18 year old kid, and spend time doing things that make us feel strong and happy.
  • I make music happen.

As plans go, I think this is a good one.

While I’m away, make sure you’re following the Bishop In The Grove feed. If you choose to get your posts by email, you’ll receive my next post directly in your inbox. I highly recommend doing that.

And please know how much I appreciate you. This community of readers has helped me gain clarity in so many ways. I look forward to more conversations with you.

See you real soon.

Teo

P.S. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Sometimes I post pictures of me in kilts. You won’t want to miss that.

 

Photo by Markus Lütkemeyer
Photo by YAT OP

Photo by YAT OP

Sometimes I find myself out of balance.

Today, for example, I came into my room — the place where I light my incense, still my mind, perform acts of reverence and celebration — and I found myself uncertain about how to begin.

My mind was a repository for too many things. There was clutter everywhere.

Thoughts about music…

Thoughts about leadership…

Thoughts about love and relationship…

Thoughts about the responsibilities I’ve taken on…

These things clouded my mind, and made it very difficult to listen.

Listening, I’ve come to learn, has to happen first before any meaningful creation can occur. (This is why I prefer a silent space in which to write.)

I find that I don’t often know what to do when I’m in these moments of crowded-headedness. My first impulse is to try to organize the mess. (Not eliminate it, mind you, but organize it.) This rarely leads to resolution; instead, I feel little more than a mild sense of productiveness. I feel like:

Well, at least I’m doing something.

Other times I open up a browser window and find something to read. I scan Facebook, or I look at the comments on a post or a status update. I engage with others and allow the dozens of freeze-frame conversations to be my focus. I chat about someone else’s writing, someone else’s ideas, something mildly stimulating or (at times) completely engaging. Doing this feels like:

Well, at least I have something to say.

There are other ways I distract and occupy myself, but none of them seem to address what’s really going on.

And just what is really going on?

I think — and it’s a hunch more than anything — that in these foggy-brain moments I have forgotten, however briefly, what it is that brings me into alignment with my deepest, greatest sense of happiness and purpose.

(a.k.a. My True Will.)

I don’t know how to take that first step into the labyrinth because I have forgotten why taking that step is meaningful.

This morning I wrote the following update on Facebook; writing it was an attempt to kick-start my creativity after the first draft of this post petered into self-pity:

Each day we begin again. Each day we must make decisions about how to live, how to connect, how to release, how to create. Living is an art, even if at times it feels like little more than a struggle.

Being present with our own creative nature — the place where our humanity comes to look very much like something divine — helps us to be artful in our living.

How do you begin each day?

I wrote these words and realized that by reaching out to others, I care for myself. There is a connection between outreach and inreach (that should be a word), between service to others and service to myself, between the compassion I show for my community and the compassion I offer to myself.

These things are connected.

My mother used to tell me that when I felt sorry for myself I should do something for someone else. For the longest time I thought that her advice would have the negative side affect of fostering denial about what was really troubling me, but I think I was wrong. Turning my focus to the well being of others reminds me of what “well being” feels like. That act of turning outward has a profound and amazing affect on my own inner reality.

This isn’t to say that I shouldn’t sort some things out in my own head, away from the view of others. I certainly have my own work to do. But it’s a reminder that in moments of frustration or confusion, or when there is a lack of space in one’s mind, there is a great benefit in becoming a servant to others.

Turning outward in service is — I promise you — a service to yourself.

Each day we begin again. I begin with a mind and heart of service, and by showing love and compassion for others I receive the benefits of love and compassion in my own heart. I encourage creativity, and in the process I experience creativity. I remind others of the artful nature of living, and I am graced with a glimpse of the art in my own life.

This is how I began today.

How will you begin?

Photo by By Alice Popkorn (CC)

Photo by By Alice Popkorn (CC)

The worship of the gods is not what matters, Brendan Myers says. People and relationships matter.

Even as someone who helps to provide others with the tools to worship their gods, these liturgies of the Fellowship, I find myself reading his words and saying — Yes. This is correct.

This is not the only correct thing, and if someone said with conviction that worshipping the gods matters I might agree with them, too. I might agree if they explain the way in which it matters to them. They would be hard pressed to convince me of why it matters to the gods.

That argument has always fallen flat for me.

To squeeze a deity into a human form, whether that be the literal Galilean (form in his case a body) or the certainty of what a god might want from me (form as projection), seems misguided; perhaps even a misuse of our faculties and energies.

I do not feel threatened by what Brendan says. In fact, I feel empowered by it. He writes:

My path is the path of a philosopher, and it is a spiritual path. It’s about finding answers to the highest and deepest questions that face humankind, and finding those answers by means of my own intelligence. It’s about not waiting for the word to come down from anyone else, not society, not parents, not politicians or governments, not teachers, not religion, not even the gods. In that sense it is a humanist activity, but it is an activity which elevates ones humanity to the highest sphere. That is what matters. This was the path of all the greatest philosophers through history. It was the path of the great pagan predecessors like Hypatia and Diotima and Plato; and also the path of more recent predecessors like James Frazer and Robert Graves. This is the path of knowledge; and knowledge is enlightenment, and knowledge is power.

This integration of philosophy, spirituality and humanism is so inviting to me. His words read rich to my heart, and I’m still piecing together the reason why.

Perhaps in part it is because I am considering pursuing a degree in Philosophy, a new development in the past several weeks. I have been asking myself, Why would one study philosophy? What would be the value for a person such as myself? As I write these questions on this blog, a blog of dialogue and inquiry and uncertainty and personal revelation, I feel like I know exactly why this would be valuable for me.

Yesterday I wrote a short essay for a scholarship application, and doing so brought a great deal of clarity as to why this move would make sense for me.

An excerpt:

I seek a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy and a minor in Religious Studies with the intention to one day pursue a Masters of Divinity. I believe that before one can commit one’s self to the service of others one must undergo a process of refinement; a honing of one’s critical thinking skills, something akin to the tuning of a bow. Being human is an art form, but it is also a discipline; one dependent upon the faculties of the mind as well as the expressions of the heart. To study philosophy, accented with the study of religion, would help to place the two in greater context with one another – the mind and the heart.

The gods may indeed be wrapped up in this endeavor. When I light a flame for my goddess, and I invite her to transform me, to refine me, to envelop me and change me into something better, I do it without reservation. My rationality does not dissect this action. This is a relational act. A devotional act. One might say it is an act of faith, and I’m not sure they would be wrong.

But I also see the refinement of myself as something for which I am solely responsible. Should I wish to walk this path and prepare myself for a life committed to service I will need to shore up my strength and charge forward alone. If I make the choice to pursue this line of study, to commit myself for the next four years to being a student of knowledge, it will not be faith that carries me through: it will be conviction, perseverance, and courage. This will be a human endeavor, a human challenge, and ultimately, a human goal.

The gods may be with me, in my heart and in my mind, but it will still be — as always — a solitary journey.

I wonder…

What are you impressions of Brendan’s piece? What does it inspire in you?

What do you think about the study of knowledge? How do you think philosophy plays into an integrated spiritual life?

Blessed Imbolc to all!

In case you missed it, I published an Imbolc post on HuffPost Religion called A Faith Made of Fire. Check it out, and feel free to leave a comment there if you feel so inspired.

After a wonderful round of comments on my last post, I’m happy to announce that we’re moving forward with the Bishop In The Grove Book Club!

 

BITG Book Club Big

As you can see in the image above, we will take February to acquire the book and read it. Then, we will start our discussion on March 1st!

Click on that image, and you’ll be taken to an Amazon.com page where you can purchase this book. Buy it through this link, and you’ll send a few pennies my way.

Thanks to all who expressed interest in doing this. I’m excited to read what people think of the book, and I may even be able to get Chris involved in a Twitter chat. I’m thinking I’ll use #TeosBookClub as a hashtag. Seems memorable, no? I mean, if Oprah can have a book club, certainly this Druid can.

To share this photo on Facebook, visit the Bishop In The Grove Facebook page. Like the page, find the post with image, and then click “Share.”

Happy reading everybody, and a blessed February Cross Quarter to you. May you be inspired to ignite the fire within, and may that fire illuminate the world around you!

I’m starting a book club. The Bishop In The Grove Book Club.

Cool, right?

For those who are keeping track of the number of projects mounting on my desk, the thought of one more new endeavor probably seems like insanity. But I don’t care. I think a book club sounds like fun. I could use a dose of fun.

(The 19 year old me might never have expected himself to one day think of a book club as a “dose of fun.” I was a hot mess, though. What did I know?)

“So many books, so little time.”
― Frank Zappa

 The inspiration for the book club came after I posted this photo to Twitter. Beacon Press, at the request of my friend, Chris Stedman, sent me a copy of Chris’s book, Faitheist. I was thrilled.

First, it’s a hardback, and I really love the weight and feel of a hardback book. Second, how adorable is he? Not to undermine his position by objectifying him, but isn’t he charming? With those big glasses and little suit. I mean, how could you not want to know how he came to let go of God?

So I posted the picture and one of my Twitter followers, the word nerd, dog dad, hiker, runner, actor, accordionist, bicylist, bookworm, coffee snob, and ’80s freak, Jeremy, wrote the following:

That was all it took.

And here’s why I think it could work:

I’ve seen time and time again how the readers of this blog are willing to engage deeply with the subject matter I present. You are willing to dig in, to challenge assumptions, and to open your minds up to new ideas. That sounds like the makings of a wicked book club, right?

Here’s the thing, though — I’m not exactly sure how to structure this. Before I can put a plan together, I need to gauge your interest. I need to see who would be up for joining in this internet-wide book club, and I need to know a little bit about you.

If you’re into it, if you want to be a part of the Bishop In The Grove Book Club (is #bitgbc a good hashtag?), please answer the following questions in the comment thread. They’ll give me some perspective about how to move forward from here.

  1. How much time would you need to read a 175-250 page book?
  2. Are you interested in reading books about religion, theology, polytheism, Celtic culture, Druidry, and creativity?
  3. What are you interested in reading? (In case none of the categories in #2 are interesting to you.)
  4. What 3 books do you think would be good reads for the audience of this blog (based on what you know from our discussions in the comments)?
  5. Are you comfortable using Twitter? In addition to dialoguing on this blog, would you be open to scheduled Twitter chats?
  6. Do you think this idea is something that your friends would enjoy, and would you be willing to post about it on your social networks?

Lay down some thoughts, and feel free to elaborate.

If you’ve done online book clubs before, what worked? What didn’t? If you can, tell me what you’ve seen succeed — that information will help me out a great deal.

Yay books!

 

Photo by Professor Bob (CC)

Photo by Professor Bob (CC)

In a week I will publish the next Solitary Druid Fellowship liturgy. This morning, I spent some time going over the previous one, seeing where small adjustments might be made and looking for places where supplemental material would be useful.

It’s been interesting to take on this position, which is a little like leadership, but not in a traditional sense. I do not lead a group of people in a regimented, orderly way, but rather I seek to provide them with what they need in order to lead themselves. To me, this is more a position of service and empowerment rather than leadership.

Still, I receive e-mails now asking for guidance and aid, which is new for me. I try to respond with kindness, with compassion, and with objectivity. I’m not a trained counselor, nor am I clergy, and yet people come to me. So I do my best to be honest with them, and to be encouraging.

In the midst of all this, I’ve found myself a little disconnected from my own practice. I suppose this is common for people to take on any kind of leadership role, but it isn’t something I anticipated. It used to be that I performed a full rite each morning, complete with offerings and omens. But then I wrote the morning devotional for SDF and began to do that as an act of solidarity with the Fellowship. The devotional is short and simple, and while effective for what it is, I still feel myself wanting more.

One thought would be to write a lengthier devotional. This is a liturgy I’ve promised to the Fellowship, and it’s on my list of things to write (which keeps getting longer and longer). But in a way, I’d like to find something of my own to do, something that is unique to me.

Last Imbolc, I posted a poem on the blog which went like this:

Vigil

I keep vigil
to the fire
in my heart.

I keep vigil
down the sidewalk,
through the door,
between the empty lines
of chit-chat talk on
threaded screens,
in middle days
of winter nights,
where no one sees
except the Bride
for whom the flame is lit.

I keep vigil
to the fire
in my heart.

The poem came to me in a flash, and when I shared it I encouraged my readership to contribute their own verses. I asked that people keep the first three lines and the last three lines, but do whatever they wanted to in the middle.

The result was a stream of interesting, thoughtful, inspiring poems. The writing and sharing of the poems was a kind of crowdsourced offering to Brighid, and the act of doing something like this with others really moved me.

Hmm….

Perhaps I already have what I’m looking for. Perhaps I need to take a step back and see that the service work the Fellowship provides to me is very much like this collective creativity. It may begin with something I create, something that I offer up without concern for compensation or recognition, and the result is a complex, diverse, beautiful display of creative expression from an ocean of unknown people.

Maybe it isn’t so much about needing to create something that is unique to me as it is needing to create something that keeps that internal fire lit; something that is deliberate, and relevant, and fresh. Perhaps these words will be my own, or they might come from someone else. But either way it seems important as I approach this High Day — not as the organizer of a fellowship, but as a solitary Druid — that I set aside time to find what lights that fire in me.

This is what I think we are all called to do.

Maybe I’ll open up a Google Doc on SolitaryDruid.org, and invite the Fellowship to rehash this poetry exercise in anticipation of the coming High Day. It can be a way for us to collectively prepare creative offerings for our individual observances. The results can be a slew of original poems that each of us offer up to one another for use during our solitary observances.

Doesn’t that sound cool?

Would you join in?

[UPDATE: The post is now live on SolitaryDruid.org!]

Photo by Donna Higgins

Privilege, Photo by Donna Higgins

Yesterday I said, “Be nice.”  Perhaps encouraging nicety is not the right approach.

Perhaps to say “be nice” is too simplistic, and worse, reads very much like, “Hush now, your problems are not important,” or, “You are making me uncomfortable with your anger,” or “There really isn’t that much to be angry about, so can’t you just be a little more polite?”

“Nice” comes with baggage.

Kindness and compassion may be more appropriate, but there is still a problem. Encouraging anyone, especially people whose lives I don’t really understand, to be anything other than what they’re already being, even if what I’m encouraging is a little more kindness and compassion, places me in a strange position of authority. (To be clear, it isn’t that I feel I am in authority in any way, it’s just that making those statements reads very much like an authority figure trying to control the emotional reactions of a group.)

No, I don’t see myself as an authority figure at all.

I write this blog, and have for over two years. I post my thoughts and opinions, and I’ve fostered a vibrant readership. But, I’m not an authority on much of anything. I ask a lot of questions. I get stuff wrong. I’m completely fallible, and I’m not ashamed to say it.

But yesterday, as I wrote about this idea that being nice would help us in our online communications, I also stepped into a conversation that I felt unprepared for. That conversation is one about privilege, particularly my privilege.

Privilege: The Other “P” Word

I say that I was unprepared, because I didn’t see encouraging kindness (or niceness, which I was conflating a bit with kindness) as an exercise of privilege. I wasn’t seeking to strengthen the Pagan side of the Pagan/polytheist divide by weakening or stifling the polytheist’s voice through the imposition of niceness. But, it was kind of read that way.

I learned that my privilege (or at least, my assumed privilege — some of the accusations made about my privilege were inaccurate) was sprinkled all over my post, and it seems it has been present throughout many posts on my blog. My first reaction to this information was a kind of shutting down. Being called on privilege, whether that call is warranted or not, feels a little like a silencing. In effect,

You’re speaking from a place of privilege. You don’t really know what you’re talking about. You’re off base, out of line, misinformed.

BOOM -> Silence.

No one said these things to me directly, but they could have. I’ve been silenced before, and being called on my privilege had a similar feeling.

And, to be honest, I’m not sure I can argue about having privilege. I can clarify about the assumptions that are made about me (that I’m not 100% white, that my marriage is gay, that I’m not currently “financially secure”), but I can’t dismiss the fact that, upon closer inspection, I do have privilege.

My own paganism, after all, is Eurocentric. It’s what I’ve gravitated towards, and what (at this time) feels natural to me. But how does that Eurocentrism place me in a position of privilege, especially within a community which, itself, is not privileged?

I could evaluate my life, look at it from a distance, and see where the privilege lies. I probably should. We all probably should. We all have unexamined privilege, I imagine.

But me looking at my own privilege seems different somehow than a person who doesn’t know all of my life pointing out my perceived privilege. Is the act of calling a person on their privilege itself an act of privilege, I wonder?

I’m writing this, as always, from a position of non-expert. I don’t know the answer these questions, nor do I understand clearly how privilege plays into every aspect of my religious life or my social and cultural interactions. With that said, I’m open to learning. It’s no one’s responsibility to teach me (even if they feel compelled to do so), but I think it’s my responsibility to learn.

My hope would be that in this process of coming to better understand of what privilege is and how privilege may be informing my thoughts, opinions, and perspectives, that there is also something to be learned about what to do when you recognize privilege in yourself or in others.

If we are all privileged in some way or other (and, if you’re reading this post on a computer screen — one that you own — you are probably more privileged than some), than what do we do with that information?

What do we do when we recognize a certain privilege in ourselves or others? How do we avoid silencing one another, or feeling silenced ourselves?

I had occasion to speak to a very nice, young man last week about online etiquette. For me, what it boils down to is this:

Be nice.

It may seem simplistic, or perhaps reductive to some. But, I think it’s a good rule.

Two Kids Smiling

Photo by Toni Verdú Carbó

Be nice when you talk to people, whether you know them or not, and your conversation (or, at least your side of the conversation) will remain civil.

Civility, I’m finding, is a scarce resource in our online discourse.

Last week was heated. It seemed like every day brought with it another blog post about identity, and accompanying that post was a slew of polarized viewpoints. I read threads and noticed that people were not really listening to each other. People were regurgitating the same ideas, the same frustrations, and sometimes the same lines of snark.

The discussion about what “Pagan” is and who it includes was sounding a lot like the makings of a Pro-Pagan/Anti-Pagan platform.

I think we’re better than that, to be honest.

The problem arises, in part, due to the medium. Our method of communication and connectivity does not encourage a paced, patient way of dialoguing. Everything happens so fast on these blogs. We scan, we find the sentence that we take issue with, and our fingers race to compose a witty comment, a more informed perspective.

It takes no time to bark, it would seem.

Barking kid

Photo by Mindaugas Danys

We’re not assisted by facial expressions and body language cues in our online communication. We have no context for the people we argue with, and yet for some reason we still feel justified to argue. We walk blindly into conversations and state what we know, sometimes doing so without any consideration for how we’re saying it, who we’re saying it to, and what the ramifications are of our tone.

We’re not nice to each other, a lot of the time.

My husband asked me over the weekend if Pagans (and I think he may have included non-Pagan identifying polytheists into his use of that term) have some sort of ethic around kindness, and of treating each other well. It was an interesting question, and I was surprised to find that I didn’t have a ready answer.

The Wiccans do, I suppose. Harm none, right? But that’s so broad, and harm is so difficult to detect in our online conversations. We sometimes don’t know if our online speech is harmful, because what we’re doing is less like speaking and more like posting fliers onto a bulletin board. Someones posts one, and we post another on top of that, and then the next and the next. (Also, I think some people reject Wiccan wisdom simply because it’s Wiccan, just as some avoid any Abrahamic wisdom on a similar principle. Both miss out on a great deal of wisdom, I think.)

But his question, “Do we have an ethic around being kind to one another?” I didn’t — I don’t — know how to answer that.

I know that some people feel bullied right now. People on both sides of the discussion. Some feel bullied to assume a word that they don’t feel applies to them, and others feel bullied because they perceive themselves to be misrepresented. The point I’m making is not that either one is right or wrong, but rather that their sense of being bullied points to a problem in the way we’re communicating with one another.

When I spoke to my young friend about online communication, I gave him the following tips (which I’m expanding upon here):

  • If you are uncertain about your tone, read your comment out loud. Speak it slowly, and see if what you’re saying is something you’d say to a stranger, or a person you wish to be kind to. The post will still be there in five minutes. It can wait for you.
  • If you find yourself reacting in anger to a comment, wait to respond. Take a step back, and ask yourself if your emotional response is pointing to something unresolved in you. The person who wrote the comment may not even know you, and may not have been trying to offend you. Your emotional reaction is a tool that you can use to better understand yourself.
  • While you wait, take inventory of yourself; physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Ask yourself if you’re being true to your values and ethics, and look to see if what you’re sharing with the world is helping to build others up, or tear them down. When in doubt, do a meditation, a brief devotional or ritual, or simply shut your computer for a few minutes.
  • Default to nice. It’s a better place to begin. You can always walk away from an online conversation that’s becoming disrespectful. You can always take the higher ground.

We need not rush to make our point after every heated post. We need not be a people who speak without listening. We need not feel so threatened by one another. We can be nice, and disagree. We can be nice, and hold space for others who do not identify as we do. We can be nice, and in doing so we may discover that the practice of kindness actually helps to facilitate a deeper understanding between people.

I don’t know if we, historically, share an ethic around kindness, but I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t put one into place now.

Be nice. It feels good, for everyone.

Grinning Girl

Photo by Meena Kadri

I’ve been transfixed by a particular reality television show on Netflix. I’m not typically a reality TV kind of guy, save for a few of the more hands-on creative shows. And the ones with drag queens, of course.

This show documents the Olympic-like achievements of super-couponers, who, if you don’t know, are people who stockpile mass amounts of food through the meticulous, methodical use of coupons. These stockpiles are worth thousands of dollars, but the couponers accumulate them for next to nothing.

I watched six episodes in my first sitting. My train of thought looked something like this:

Wow — are all couponers southern?

And Christian?

How is there this parallel between Christianity and stockpiling food? Is that biblical?

They are really going to extreme lengths to stockpile that Mountain Dew.

Everyone looks so unhealthy. Sure, you can fill six refrigerators with frozen food, but what is in that frozen food? Is that really something that supports your body’s health?

Do they ever think about where there food comes from, I wonder. Is that a privileged way of thinking?

They’re broke. They’re feeding families of eight on less than $100 per month. I shouldn’t judge.

But how do you just have eight kids? My god, straight people have a lot of sex.

All of these products in the stockpile are the lowest grade available. The detergent is probably the worst kind that could go into the water supply, the soaps are made with petrochemicals, the boxed foods are packed with preservatives — they’d have to be, if they’re going to sit on those shelves forever, and the plastic — the plastic — there is so much plastic.

Wow, they are really getting a savings, though. She’s keeping her family alive. There’s something to be said for that.

In some earlier time, these people would have been farmers. This lady with the two binders of coupons, who spends 30-60 hour per week riffling through the newspaper inserts and online forums would have, in some pre-agribusiness world, been concerned with the soil. She would have had a seed stockpile. She would have canned. Her kids, who sit next to her at the dining room table and help cut coupons, would have been in the field picking vegetables. And the food they ate, it would have been real food. It would have been food of the earth, more than food of the lab.

But those savings…  look at those savings…

The show leaves me conflicted. I do get a little rush when I see the woman score $1,000 worth of food for a penny. It’s like a consumer triathlon. She’s a champion.

But I watch them cart away the bottom of the barrel (in terms of quality) food, and I feel bad for them. I feel like their bodies are being robbed of nutrition, and that their success in frugality merely reinforces the system which pumps toxic chemicals, preservatives and plastics into their bodies.

I sit on my couch, and I make observations. I judge them, I root for them, I analyze them, and ultimately, I dehumanize them. It’s what reality TV is made to do. I watch them shop, and I think about how I shop. I look at their choices, judge them a little, and then think about how I make my choices.

I hold court in my living room.

The medium allows me to dehumanize them, to turn them into an idea, a concept, a symbol of what is wrong about the American food industry. Our social media and blogging networks make possible a similar behavior, and I feel like there’s a parallel here with the conversation that’s been going on around Star Foster’s decision to back away from Paganism.

Photo by Andrew Bowden

Photo by Andrew Bowden

Star has been a blogger for a while, and bloggers share a lot about themselves. Some of Star’s readers have sat back and rooted for Star and others have been her chorus of naysayers. But all of us who took the opportunity to use Star’s public, but personal, choice to hold court from our couches — myself included — are participating in a kind of reality TV of our own.

We’re making each other into symbols, into characters in a grocery store, into something to champion or something to criticize. These symbols we become represent our fears about our collective future, our hopes for something better, our doubts and suspicions and reservations about one another. This act of symbol-making, easy as it is to fall into, might be substituted with something more productive.

What if, for example, as a community, we spent the same amount of time and energy that we used to discuss Star’s choice to unpack the definition of the “pagan sensibility” that Jonathan Korman wrote about in his December 30th post, which he defines as:

The pagan sensibility sees the divine in the material world … and so regards the human as sacred.

The pagan sensibility apprehends the Cosmos as composed of a multiplicity of different interconnected forces … and honors all of those forces.

Would it be, I wonder, more beneficial for us to have a thriving, active dialogue about what “Pagan” might include, rather than what — or who — is not a part of it?

[A public note to Star: If my sharing of your post led to an unwanted onslaught of attention and judgement, I apologize. As I wrote in the comments of your post, I do wish you the best on this journey — however that journey is defined by you.]

On this, the last day of 2012, New Year’s Eve, I offer you these words:

May you look back on the year, and feel a sense pride.

May you remember the strength of your character, the resilience of your spirit, and the inherent worth of your being.

May you know that you are a part of an ecosystem, and that your life is sustained by countless other living things.

May you have gratitude for what has been; for all that you have lost, and all you have gained

May you laugh at your mistakes.

May you forgive yourself, and love yourself.

May you be resolved to be more fully alive in the year to come; more present in your body, in your mind, and in your heart.

And most of all, may you be blessed with unexpected joys, undeniable happiness, and unending compassion in the year to come.

Thanks to all of the readers of Bishop In The Grove for being a part of my life in 2012.

Peace,

Teo

 

Teo at the end of 2012

Reflections, by Camil Tulcan

Reflections, by Camil Tulcan

What a week this has been.

The SDF liturgy is live, and the response has been tremendous. I don’t have any way of knowing what the perspective is from every person participating, and I kind of prefer that for the moment. It may seem that I’m coordinating some massively social endeavor, but there is still a need to preserve and make space for the solitude in my own personal practice, as well as in the practices of the SDF participants. The not knowing how everyone else thinks requires us to focus on our own experiences for the time being. I like that.

In addition to the SDF liturgy launch, I’ve done a ton of writing. The Wild Hunt piece went up on Tuesday, and today I published a piece about Yule at HuffPost Religion titled, Yule: Be The Light Of The Returning Sun.

I hope that the Yule piece inspires some discussion and dialogue. As I write in the post, I’ve really had a challenging time preparing for the High Day, even with all of the work I’m doing for SDF. I hope that the messages offered in the post, as well as in the forthcoming discussion, lead to some deeper understanding.

And, as if this flurry of writing weren’t enough to keep me busy, I’m going to be serving as the Bard in the Yule ritual for a local ADF Grove, Silver Branch Golden Horn. My friend, William Ashton, who is the Grove Organizer for the upcoming Mountain Ancestors Protogrove (more details to come), has been asked to lead this Norse observance of the Solstice, and William asked me to sing. It’s been an interesting experience to hold the space between a very solitary-centered work and a group ritual. The two have been living beside one another, and I can’t tell if they are discordant or not.

There’s also been a good bit of talk on Twitter and Facebook about how the Solitary Druid Fellowship is somewhat peculiar because its website is missing the hallmarks of Internet interactivity (i.e. the forum, the open comment thread, etc.). I’ve heard people’s thoughts, and tried to hold them up against my original intention behind this choice: I believe that there should be moments in a congregation – even a congregation that exists in the form of an unseen bond created through shared practice – when we should be silent; when we should withhold our opinions, and even our questions, or at least allow for them to live in our minds for a while before airing them to the world.

I believe this is valuable, because my experience has shown me that allowing ideas to gestate in solitude can lead to unexpected revelation.

True, online forums can invite a great deal of dialogue, and this dialogue can inspire to new ways of thinking as well. But my intention has always been for the Solitary Druid Fellowship to use the time we commit to dialogue and discussion for a very focussed and clear purpose.

At first, this purpose will be for those who use the liturgy in their practice to come to the SDF blog and share what that experience was like for them. This, I hope, will be a space where people feel safe to express what worked and what didn’t, and to try and unpack why. In time, there be more moments where it makes clear sense to open up spaces for dialogue, and I’d like to do that deliberately and with intention.

(For those who want more consistent conversation with solitaries, there is the ADF Solitaries SIG (Special Interest Group). It’s open to ADF members, and I’ve recently been nominated to be the SIG Coordinator. I’d like to see some synergy between the SIG and the Fellowship, while at the same time allowing certain spaces to remain silent, still, and free of active discussion.)

Perhaps it won’t be long before my not knowing takes a turn. I’ll start to know more about who the SDF is, what they appreciate, what they long for. I know I can’t please everyone, but I am certainly open to understanding the minds and hearts of the solitaries who wish to open up on the SDF blog.

What do you think?

Have you found that the decentralization of the SDF communication (i.e. the talk that takes place on Twitter and Facebook) to be a good way of keeping the SDF site as a clean resource (which is a term I’m just trying out)? Bishop In The Grove has clearly been a place where dialogue has thrived, but do you see there being a valuable reason to keep some spaces comment-free?

If those questions don’t get your brain churching, why don’t you pop over to my HuffPost piece and see if there are ideas there that resonate with you.

And, from my heart, may you have a blessed Solstice and a Happy Yule!

Let me try to explain how I’m feeling right now.

When I exhale, my breath shakes a little. Not the crying kind of shake, but almost the laughing kind of shake.

My fingers are cold, which is partly on account of the freezingness of Colorado (and I’m using that word, regardless of what the auto-spell says), but they’re not so cold that I can’t type. A candle is burning on my desk, lit from the candle on my shrine, and I’m smiling.

I’m happy.

The first Solitary Druid Fellowship liturgy is now available. I just published it.

I suppose this feeling is related to nervousness, but it isn’t exactly that. It’s more like a nervous/pride/relief cocktail.

Photo by StrangeTikiGod

Photo by StrangeTikiGod

I didn’t know if this day would come. I didn’t know if this out-of-the-box approach, this new form –which even for me is an experiment– would live. For a while there, mostly through the months of September and October, I was a wreck about it. It was like I was living in suspended animation, unable to really move forward in any of my projects.

But once the approval from ADF leadership came, everything opened up. And now, just a few days out from the Winter Solstice, there are the beginnings of a shared practice.

I am chugging this cocktail.

All of what SDF is doing is necessarily incomplete. It is not a finished product, because it isn’t a product. It isn’t a thing that’s being sold. It’s a service that’s being shared, and it will necessarily evolve as we move forward and get a better sense of what kind of service truly needs to be provided.

So far I’ve been fortunate enough to get the support of two ADF members to post to the SDF blog, Kristin McFarland and Rev. Michael J Dangler. There are other writers on board whose upcoming posts will include reflections on the solitary practice for an ADF noobie, what resources a solitary Druid might seek out in order to deepen her practice, and [CALLING ALL ADF SOLITAIRES] how people from different hearth cultures incorporate their cultural idiosyncrasies into a solitary practice.

There has also been discussion about creating some kind of daily practice. I love this idea, and I haven’t really wrapped my mind around it yet. I almost think we’d need to develop several different kinds of daily practices to suit the needs of different solitaries. There could be a more formal liturgy for daily practice, which might be slightly  longer (say, 10 to 20 minutes). We could also have a brief, 3-5 minute liturgy, or even a series of brief prayers. There are already wonderful resources for prayers, like A Book of Pagan Prayer and A Pagan Ritual Prayer Book [Fields Bookstore links], but even the author of those books encourages us to write new words that resonate with us.

The long and the short? There’s a lot more to come.

About a dozen people have received the liturgy as of writing this post, and more keep coming. It’s surreal. I hope that they like it. And I don’t say that because I hope that they like me. I just hope that it resonates for them, and that it’s useful.

One last bit:

I’ve made the choice to keep SDF a mostly comment-free site. There will be posts where dialogue is invited, but there is also a desire to keep some of the pages and posts streamlined and clear of conversation. I think this allows for certain information to remain true to its published form, at least on the site itself, so that newcomers to SDF will not feel so much like they are walking into a conversation that is already taking place.

That being said, I’m a big believer in dialogue. If you’ve read my blog for any period of time you know that.

So, if there is anything that you’d like to voice about SDF that you haven’t been able to on SolitaryDruid.org, please feel free to open up that dialogue in this post. I’d love to hear from you.

Then, pop over and get your copy of the first Solitary Druid Fellowship liturgy!

*sips cocktail*

It is an exciting day in the world of Druidry and Pagandom!

(For me, at least.)

I’m happy to announce that the Solitary Druid Fellowship has launched!

The Solitary Druid Fellowship, an extension of Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF) is live and running at SolitaryDruid.org.

This has been a labor of love, and would not have been possible without the support the ADF leadership, the contributors to SDF, and the encouragement of the community of solitary Pagans and Druids I’ve come to know online. Thank you for your support!

In case you missed my first post about the Solitary Druid Fellowship, let me give you a little rundown on what it’s all about:

Rather than work to organize solitary Druids and Pagans into groups, or to use online technology to create a digital “hangout space,” or “virtual community,” the Solitary Druid Fellowship works from the idea that solitude is a good thing. Solitude, as you may have seen on the SDF Twitter page, is the staging ground for real, meaningful change. Solitude isn’t always an easy state of being, but there are certain things that can occur when one is alone, centered, settled into their personal practice, that are of tremendous value.

So, rather than try to simulate on-the-ground, group activity using online technology, the Solitary Druid Fellowship seeks to use online technology to enrich and strengthen one’s solitary practice, wherever they find themself.

The Fellowship begins with the premise that solitude is good.

As I wrote before:

Liturgy is an underutilized tool in the service to solitaries. Liturgy, when organized around and synchronized with the Wheel of the Year, is a way of uniting solitaries in a shared practice that does not simply mirror the experience that one can have in a Protogrove or Grove; it does something altogether different. Solitaries joining other solitaries in a shared liturgical practice makes possible a transcendental experience of congregation.By aligning with the Neopagan calendar, the series of holidays that ADF recognizes (and that most Pagans celebrate under one name or another) we will join one another through the use of a shared liturgy as a means of bringing people into rhythm with one another.

It’s all about the rhythm.

And it’s going to be a long-game kind of project. The Solitary Druid Fellowship’s website is up, and there is plenty to read and see, plenty to contemplate, but this is just the beginning. This barely scratches the surface of what’s to come.

As we move towards the Winter Solstice, SDF will release its first official liturgy. Anyone who comes to the site can get it, and everyone is welcome to use it. (Follow the Fellowship’s RSS feed so that you won’t miss it.)

After the Solstice, we’ll do a little reflection on what it was like to use the shared liturgy. We’ll talk about what felt familiar, what was new, where there were challenging moments, and most importantly, we’ll talk about what was relevant about the experience.

That’s got to be central to moving forward with the Fellowship. I’m going on a hunch that this will be relevant to a lot of people, and based on the initial response I think that my intuition is pointing us in the right direction. But as we go along, and as we begin to get more integrated into the shared practice, the shared rhythm of the SDF liturgies, we will uncover things about ourselves and about this process that none of us could anticipate.

It’s exciting, and a little scary.

This has been a long time coming. The idea first came after the ADF festival, Eight Winds (which I wrote about here), and it’s been slowly working its way into being ever since.

I have to admit, I’m a little nervous. When something lives for so long in a state of potential, it becomes difficult to conceive that it will actually be alive in the world. I’ll never be so fortunate as to carry a child, so my creative work sometimes substitues as a way for me to think about things like creation, potential, gestation… labor.

It pails in comparison to a flesh and blood birth, but it’s what I’ve got to work with.

The birth and new life of the Solitary Druid Fellowship is, for me, a commitment to living out the Wheel of the Year from day to day, week to week. It’s about placing my Paganism–my Druidry–at the center of my life, and doing so not only as a means of deepening my own spiritual practice, but as an act of service.

[Exciting.]

[Scary.]

But I go boldly forward — as boldly as I can muster. I launch SolitaryDruid.org, and invite the world to dig into the pages, to sign up for the SDF Newsletter, to follow the blog (which has 3 posts on it now — one by Rev. Michael J. Dangler — with more in the works). I invite people to be open, to be imaginative, and to be willing to embrace something new.

Join me, as we create congregation in solitude.

Photo By Svadilfari

A couple weeks ago I wrote about creating the Solitary Druid Fellowship, an extension of ADF designed to serve the broader community of solitary Pagans and Druids by providing them with a shared liturgical practice. I’m currently in discussion with the Clergy Council of ADF to work out the final details of the site launch (sign up here to be notified), and I’m spending a lot of time mulling over what it means to practice in solitude.

At the same time I’m also preparing to take part in an ADF grove ritual here in Denver. I’ve been asked to be the Bard, so I’m learning new songs, rearranging old chants, and trying to envision how to best use my musicality in the context of a group ritual.

The truth is, I find comfort in solitary work. When you do ritual alone, you are working with the agreements you have made in your own heart; agreements that you’ve made with yourself, perhaps with your gods, spirits or ancestors. These agreements cover what you believe about who you are, about who or what the gods are, and about your role in the cosmos. You make these agreements to believe, to suspend belief, or to practice your devotion. The agreements made by the solitary practitioner need never be put up for a vote, judged by a governing body, or scrutinized by committee.

With group work, though, agreements are a different beast.

Consensus must be reached in group, and there are politics to contend with. The needs of the many must be considered, as should be the overall welfare of the group. The agreements one makes in her heart are still her own, but they cannot be treated as law, doctrine, or as “the way it must be.” They have to be held up against the agreements everyone else has made.

Discerning how to do that can be difficult, especially when the agreements other people have made seem to be so different from your own.

You think,

But they’re talking about the gods like the gods are their best friends…

Or,

They’re talking about the gods like the gods are complete strangers…

Or,

They’re talking about the gods like the gods are judges, overseers, politicians, warriors, or any other purely human thing.

Or even,

When are they going to talk about something that’s relevant to me?

No matter what agreement you’ve made, what decision you’ve reached about what religion means to you, when you participate in a ritual led by others you will have to to examine those agreements, perhaps even question their validity. Questioning your agreements can be a good thing, though. If you’ve made the agreement that your truth is The Truth, for example, or that your way is The Way, it might be time to do a little questioning.

Photo by Alexander Henning Drachmann

When I wrote the first Solitary Druid Fellowship liturgy (which should be made public on the week of the Solstice), I made a point of keeping certain aspects of the ritual neutral. I indicated places in the ritual where one could substitute the names of their gods, or the language specific to their hearth culture. I wrote in sections that encourage people to use their creativity in order to create a meaningful solitary rite.

But one person’s neutrality is another’s loaded gun.

We do the best we can, I guess. We write the rituals or prepare the songs in accordance with the agreements we’ve made in our heart, and we try to remember the shared agreements we’ve made with one another.

Shared agreements! Yes — that’s key, I think. What are the shared agreements we’ve made with one another? One has to ask that of herself before participating in a group ritual, or even a non-religious group gathering. What are things we’ve decided to collectively hold up as true, relevant, meaningful, appropriate, necessary? These agreements we make should be — no, they are — at the core of what we do. The question is, are we having open dialogue about what those agreements look like?

Please take a moment to think about the work you’ve done in groups — whether that be in a grove, a coven, a church or a community group. Think about your shared agreements. How did you reach them? Were they a point of contention, or did they bring the group together?

How much of our shared agreements are assumed, passed down, unexamined? When do our shared agreements need to be mended, or amended? When do they need to be re-written altogether? How often are we, in group, holding up these agreements to the light? Are we looking for cracks, beauty marks, frayed edges, or are we seeing only a projection of the agreements made in our own heart?

What are some of your shared agreements?

I’m not an expert on Paganism.

Photo by Matt Grimm, Flickr

If you’ve spent any time here on Bishop In The Grove you’ll know that being an expert on Paganism wasn’t why I got into blogging.

I blog in order to be a better student.

I ask a lot of questions. I point out the things that are curious to me or that strike me as interesting, and I invite my readers to become my teachers. I call things into question because I believe that doing so allows me to be more present in my religious and spiritual life. I think it’s a healthy thing for a religious community, as well.

When I was in my early 20’s I was a member of an Episcopal church in Tennessee. Episcopalianism was the tradition I was raised in, and this church was one I came to after a long period of spiritual drought. It wasn’t long before I was an active member of the community, attending Sunday “adult forums,” and weekday prayer services (which I often led and attended alone).

A few years into my involvement with the community I was asked to help teach the Sunday school classes for the upper-grade high school kids. Their teacher had up and left, and they needed a replacement quickly.

I was a little hesitant at first. I hadn’t been raised in a house where the kids memorize bible verses, or that emphasized a strict adherence to some religious code of conduct. My parents were musicians, and my stepdad didn’t care much for God at all. But the dean of the Cathedral thought I’d be a good fit, that the kids would relate to me, and that I could communicate to them, as he might have said, the love of Christ.

On my first day of teaching I came into class, tattoos showing, and began a dialogue with them that would go on every Sunday for weeks, months; a dialogue that was not really concerned with the syllabus, or even with the Bible. I invited them into a dialogue that encouraged them to make inquiries of the most basic tenets of the faith. I asked them to think for themselves, to seek out their own connection with the divine, and to do so in the way that made the most sense to them.

I acknowledged their own authority in matters of the heart, the mind, and the spirit.

This is my ethic here on Bishop In The Grove as well. I have my opinions, my perspectives, and my preferences, as well as a whole host of experiences which inform my writing, but I don’t pretend to be an expert on all-things-Pagan any more than I pretended to be an expert on Christianity. I trust that you have insights, too, and that your insights are valuable.

I bring this story up today because I’ve been invited to be a part of a roundtable discussion about Paganism on HuffPost Live, which is described on their website as,

“A live-streaming network that uses the HuffPost universe — the stories, editors, reporters, bloggers, and community — as its real-time script.”

I’ll be joining Patrick McCollum, Amy Blackthorn and others today, Wednesday the 31st at 6PM EST (UPDATE: LINK TO SHOW ARCHIVE) to share our perspectives on and experiences with being Pagan for the general public. I’m honored to be invited, and — as I was before first stepping in front of that Sunday school class — a little hesitant to be seen as an authority.

I’m but one voice in a crowd of many.

Since this appearance will likely direct a lot of new readers to my blog, I thought it might be valuable to present them with a more rich, diverse explanation of Paganism than what one Pagan (me) might be able to do. I’d like, in classic BITG style, to open up the comment section of this post to you. I’d like for you to share a bit about what Paganism looks like from where you stand.

This is my way of extending the floor to a much larger group of Pagans, and this is your chance to provide someone who knows very little about Paganism with your own, personal testimony about what your religious or spiritual path means to you.

So…

Do you identify as a Pagan? If so, how do you live that out in your life? What do you believe? What do you practice?

If you don’t identify as a Pagan, perhaps choosing to be understood as a polytheist or to be known by your specific tradition, what does your tradition look like? What are the central principles which you live by?

The floor is yours, friends. Tell us a little about yourself.

This has been a challenging week.

My post on Monday transformed this blog into a dynamic, charged space. The reactions and responses to my account of the PPD ritual covered the whole spectrum of human emotion, and reading them took me on quite a ride.

Today, I’d like to simply offer my heartfelt thanks to everyone who visited the blog this week, especially to those of you who were willing to share your perspectives and voice your concerns. Having dialogue around matters of religious identity — which is what we did by discussing the multiple meanings of a circle and the role of inclusivity in Pagan communities — can be challenging. It’s easy to project onto each others our own doubts, troubles, or insecurities. Sometimes we do it without realizing.

I know I’m capable of this.

Digital writing, and the community it creates, provides us each the platform to share our perspectives, but there’s a risk in doing that. You never know if someone’s going to pounce or praise, if your words will be understood in context or taken to mean something completely different. All of what you’ve presented about yourself in the past, which for me is a lot on this blog, can be used to better interpret your meaning or to point out a perceived flaw in your logic.

It can get really messy, really fast.

But I believe in taking the risk.

I believe (and I’m not to trying to get preachy here) that by sharing our understandings in a respectful, open way we each become agents of positive change in the community. By working to respect one another with our words, holding back the snark for just a moment, we foster a safe space for one another to question, to grow, to be shown a new way of thinking.

Perhaps it seems I’m being overly sensitive when I consider these things. But consider that our words, these little bits of text we casually throw onto the screen, are bite sized bits of magickal intent. If we are careless with them, harm can be done. If we’re careful, compassionate, and thoughtful, our words can initiate the most brilliant changes in the lives of others.

Words are that powerful.

This brings me back to the new feature on Bishop In The Grove: Letters.

Photo by Christine and David Schmitt, Flickr

I created Letters as a way of allowing my readership to direct the conversation of this blog. My approach to writing has always been to start with something personal, to reflect on what it means to me, and then to see if there’s a way to translate that personal experience for the greater community. Most of the time I offer up questions, because I don’t have all the answers. And, I trust in the idea of a collective wisdom.

I discovered this morning that the first Letters contact form was on the blog was broken, so if you’ve already sent a letter in I’m afraid I haven’t received it. I apologize for this, and I encourage you to re-send your letter.

If you have not yet participated in Letters, please consider visiting the page and sharing a bit about yourself. Your letter can be a testimony about an experience you’ve had, a question about Paganism that you’re having a hard time answering, or anything that you think would be appropriate for discussion in the “community forum” that arrises within the comment section of this blog. I promise I’ll do my best to present your letter in a respectful, kind, and considerate fashion.

I do hope to hear from you, and again — thank you to all who visit this site and bring it to life.

Bright blessings.

[P.S. Thanks for sharing these newly independent BITG posts on your social networks!]

One of the most valuable contributions to the conversation around my Pagan Pride Day post came from a single commenter, who I’ll leave unnamed. He joined the comment thread and my Pagan Pride Day post went meta, because he gave me cause to take a closer look at the function of this blog, and the challenge of inclusivity.

This dude took me to town, calling me names like “yuppie,” and insulting my intelligence (he said my post was “shit for thoughts”). He also suggested that I change my name, Bishop, to Nun because, “my skirts showing.” [sic]

My first reaction to reading the comment was a kind of clenching in my belly. I was reminded of being bullied in elementary school. It felt like that all over again. But then I remembered that I’m a grownup, and that this is my space. The feeling receded.

While I was re-living fourth-grade memories, another reader of BITG posted a comment. They came to my defense, which was nice in a way, but which also made it clear that I needed to say something to set the tone of how this would be handled.

So I wrote in response:

This is the first time you’ve commented here on Bishop In The Grove, which is a site intended to create a safe space for dialogue between people of many differing perspectives. I encourage a diversity of thought and opinion, and I’m sure you have insights worthy of discussion. I just wished that you could have found a different way to share your ideas here.

I am not going to address any of what you said, directly. Your comment was mean-spirited and unkind, and I have no investment in getting in an argument with you. I’m simply going to ask that if you wish to be a part of this conversation — one that matters to a lot of people — please do so with respect.

If you feel you cannot do that, you are welcome to point your browser in a different direction.

May you be blessed and at peace with whatever angers you.

Teo

This was my way of addressing a heckler. Lay out the parameters, explain how things normally work around here, and be done with it.

What I realize now is that I was explaining to the commenter that this blog — this space I’ve created online for dialogue — is like my own, personal circle. I’ve cast a circle here at Bishop In The Grove without realizing it, and he was sort of standing outside that circle, barking objections and slurs.

He’d become the lady outside the PPD ritual, and I’d become the same ritual leader I was so quick to subject to scrutiny.

Photo credit: thecheapershow.com

In that moment of realization, I felt deep empathy for the ritual leaders. When you’ve got someone criticizing your work — as you’re doing it — it hurts. It’s confusing. You don’t know how to respond, so you respond as best you can in the moment.

[A side note: Since I published my last post I’ve been in contact with the PPD ritual leader, and we had a really great conversation. There will be a follow-up post about our talk, perhaps even an interview of some kind, next week.]

I’m bringing this up today for a few reasons.

First, I don’t feel that villainizing the commenter is useful, any more that it is useful to make villains out of the hecklers at the PPD ritual. They may both be handling themselves in a way that feels disruptive, but underneath the meanness is a human being.

Second, you can’t control everything. The PPD ritual demonstrated that, as does this situation. You can try to keep a tight hold over your space – to close the circle, to shut down or kick out the source of disruption (which in this case might have been blocking a commenter) but then you rule out the possibility that the chaos they’ve generated brings with it some new insight. Disorder can lead to epiphany, sometimes.

Lastly, I feel this pull to be “radically inclusive,” but then I find myself questioning whether it is appropriate to allow someone to be disruptive and mean on my blog. You cannot be radically inclusive and cast someone out of your space, can you?

There is the real concern about what to do when you’ve created a sacred space — in the case of this blog, an open one — and a disruptive element comes in. Disruptive elements often bring lessons that either we are unwilling or unable to hear. Other times, they just seek to hurt us.

I don’t know this commenter any more than I knew the people outside of the PPD circle, and I don’t know his motivation. In a way he seemed frustrated that he wasn’t being understood, but it could have also had nothing to do with me. I could have been for him a symbol of the things he really dislikes about the Pagan community, just as the hecklers could have seen the Pagans as symbols of something bad or evil.

Make a man into a symbol, and it’s much easier to hate him.

I don’t want to hate this guy. It’d be easier to label him a “troll”, but that makes him into a symbol; something easy to dismiss.

This blog has evolved over the past couple of years to be a place where real dialogue can take place. My PPD post’s 100+ comments are evidence that people bring to this space a wide variety of perspectives and understandings. No one of us is the authority here, most especially me.

That said, this is my blog. This is the space I created. This is, in essence, my Civic Center Park ritual, and I’m standing on the inside of a circle trying to figure out what to do.

How do you acknowledge that a disruptive force is present, and do you cast them out? Do you ignore them?

As my good friend, Seth, asked when we spoke about this situation:

How do you take community ownership of the individual who isn’t taking ownership of the community?