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Author: Mud and Magic

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Published on 1 Comment on A grain of salt
Three "single serve" packets of salt on a wood table.

We didn't go to fast food restaurants when I was a kid. As a teen witch, I became a bit fixated on acquiring salt packets, but since my family didn't eat out, there weren't many opportunities to pick some up. By the time I was earning my own money and could choose to eat out, I was a vegetarian... this was before most major fast food restaurants had a veggie option on their menu.

The books I was reading as a teen Pagan recommended carrying a portable ritual or magic kit with you. Since salt is so useful to Pagans--cleansing, protection, earth symbolism--magic-to-go supply lists would always include salt, often with the note that fast food restaurant packets are convenient and light weight.

In these books, carrying magic supplies with you was treated like carrying CPR supplies in your purse, or a fire extinguisher in your car, or a Naloxone kit if you are likely to encounter people who overdose. It was a responsible thing to do.

When I was a baby Pagan, some part of me imagined that one day I would encounter some sort of spiritual or supernatural crisis that would require emergency magical intervention. I didn't really believe it: it was a fantasy; an excuse to imagine myself as the hero because I was the only person ready for this kind of crisis... the only person equipped with salt and the secret of how to use it. A lot of new magic users have this type of fantasy, I think. Certainly, I've run across a lot of hints of it in the Pagan community.

I had been listening to a podcast about the QAnon cult, and when a handful of salt packets arrived in my dinner delivery, it made me think of how, when I was fifteen, sixteen, I would have found some of the QAnon stuff, especially the "save the children" part, appealing: the idea that marching with a sign and knowing the right incantations to chant would magically change the world. It would be a chance to be a hero, after all, at no personal risk and with no difficult changes or sacrifices needed. And if it wasn't distracting from real problems, if it wasn't causing real life harm, if it wasn't consuming resources needed for real crises, it would be no worse than carrying a packet of salt in case an emergency space cleansing was suddenly needed. It doesn't surprise me that some people take QAnon to the next level: a sort of live action role playing game made real for them. I've seen this in our community too, once in a while.

Luckily, most of us realize eventually that if there's a crisis, magic is not what is going to be needed on the fly--we will need first aid knowledge, bystander intervention or conflict de-escalation skills, and the ability to stay calm in a crisis. A CPR mask, protective medical gloves, and a cell phone are all more important than a packet of salt in dealing with real life problems.

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Published on 1 Comment on What should a Pagan know?
A sand coloured half-ruined temple including a ramp to a second story and lines of columns and statues.
Photo by Ian Lloyd (lloydi.com). 7. Everything possible about Hatshepsut’s temple...

I love the podcast "99% Invisible" (who knew glass was so interesting?) and have frequently thought that I would listen to the host, Roman Mars, read the phone book. A recent episode - "The Smell of Concrete After Rain" - included a bit where Roman read some parts of a list called "Two Hundred Fifty Things An Architect Should Know", and I was completely charmed by it. I looked it up and read the rest of the list later, and though I didn't understand all of it, I was still taken by it even without Roman's lovely voice. What I most enjoyed was the mixture of whimsical (247. The depths of desire / 248. The heights of folly) and practical (11. The insulating properties of glass), academic (173. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World) and poetic (78. The quality of light passing through ice), easy (38. The color wheel) and aspirational (133. Finding your way around Prague, Fez, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Kyoto, Rio, Mexico, Solo, Benares, Bangkok, Leningrad, Isfahan).

I once read an article about what Pagans should learn about their local environment - things like where your tap water comes from and what grows locally at different times of year. I tried to find the article again to see what else was on the list - finally, my collection of old Pagan magazines would be useful again! Alas, either I no longer have the magazine it was in, or maybe it wasn't in a magazine at all. I thought it was by Chas Clifton and I thought it was in PanGaia... if it rings a bell for anyone, please let me know. I remember that it seemed like a good, practical list. A good start for a summary of things for a Pagan to learn, though lacking in whimsy.

I try to avoid the word "should", so my list can't be "Things a Pagan Should Know". I don't know if I can get to two hundred and fifty on my own, so I welcome additions and suggestions.

(Some) Things a Pagan Will Want to Know

  1. The scent of the nearest body of water.
  2. Where your tap water comes from.
  3. When strawberry season starts where you live.
  4. The feeling of being alone in a forest.
  5. On a beach.
  6. In a desert.
  7. In a rain forest.
  8. Where to put your hands when skyclad.
  9. How to conduct a ritual with no tools or accessories.
  10. The four centres of Paganism.
  11. How to write a ritual for each centre.
  12. How to write a ritual that will please all the centres.
  13. How to get wax out of fabric.
  14. How to get wax out of carpet.
  15. What animals live in your neighbourhood.
  16. The geological history of the land you live on.
  17. The political and sociological history of the land you live on.
  18. How to grow a plant from a seed.
  19. The origins of "may you never thirst".
  20. How people pray.
  21. What consent means.
  22. How to hug a tree.
  23. How to compost.
  24. A dozen different ways to raise energy.
  25. Why a ritual works.
  26. Why a ritual doesn't work.
  27. How to be a good ritual participant, even if the ritual doesn't work.
  28. Mythology.
  29. Cells through a microscope.
  30. The moon through a telescope.

To be continued...

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Published on 1 Comment on Irony-free Circle
A red stop sign with "defacing stop signs" spray painted under "stop".
Scheinwerfermann / CC BY-SA

"In Defense of Seriousness":

I think it's that religious experience for me is ABOUT connecting with the serious and solemn. it's about the both literal and figurative gravity of the world on which we live; it's about grappling with things that are so much bigger (and so much smaller) then I am. I invoke religious awe as a tool for experiencing the parts of my life that are beyond my direct experience - it's how I step outside myself and see that, far from being the center of the universe, I am a fragment of happenstance. For me it's a tool to center and ground myself in a society that is perfectly happy to allow each of us to become as vapid and narcissistic as we please.

Winter Mute - Atheopaganism Facebook group

This is an excerpt from a lovely bit of writing about how and why a certain kind of ritual - solemn as opposed to ecstatic or fanciful - works for the writer. I appreciate the sentiment; I get discouraged when a serious ritual is disrupted by laughter. Sometimes I see ritual as a delicate soap bubble that is gradually inflated by each component of the ritual and can be popped by anything going wrong. Most rituals are a little heartier than that, though, thank goodness, and can withstand some stumbles and fumbles.

I love serious rituals. I also love ecstatic rituals, fanciful rituals, silly rituals, and experimental rituals. In ritual, I am seeking connection, defined broadly. If I connect to the great power of the universe, to a tiny plant, to a concept, or to the other people in the Circle, it has worked for me. But there is one thing that can pop the bubble of any ritual for me: irony.

Irony here is not the literary device - which probably also doesn't belong in ritual either - but the attitude:

One reason that irony is so confusing is that the word also refers to a certain perspective or style: one that is detached, aloof and seemingly world-weary. This affectation is often referred to as the "ironic attitude" and has come to be associated with adolescents or young adults.

Roger J Kreuz - What makes something ironic?

There's no space in any of my Circles for any of that. In fact, I think ritual demands a deliberate turning away from irony and a reaching for attachment, intimacy, and awe. For a good ritual, it isn't enough to simply not be cynical; all the participants must put effort into being trusting... suddenly the phrase "in perfect love and perfect trust" rings more true to me. Perhaps it isn't about loving and trusting everyone in the Circle perfectly, but about approaching the ritual with the kind of effort required to sustain love and trust.

I was a teenager in the 90s. I am tucked between the slackers who couldn't be bothered to care about anything and the hipsters who only care ironically. At the all-ages dance events, I would dance until I was overheated and exhausted. I was often asked if I was on drugs.

Life in postindustrial democracies came to seem listless and without flavor; loneliness and a kind of bland sadness were all one could expect of the new world order. At the end of history, irony transformed from an instrument of revolution to a symptom of the impossibility of revolution.

Lee Konstantinou - We had to get beyond irony

Maybe we need some cynicism in the world. "OK Boomer" is a response to real problems; maybe irony is becoming revolutionary again. I just want to leave it outside of my rituals. And I want its trappings gone too: I want people's voices to reflect that they care, not sound like they are going through the motions. I want people's motions to be expressive and their participation to be full, not self-conscious.

I want to invite participants to practice faith like it is exercise: practice being trusting and open. We can support each other in that work, and together we can practice being loving and connected. We don't always have to be solemn, but we do have to be sincere.

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Published on 1 Comment on Paganism in the time of coronavirus – part 4: Virtual rituals, continued
An altar glowing with candles as seen on a computer screen.

A socially distanced Beltane was necessary this year. Litha remains a question mark, particularly for my group full of people with health issues.

I was in charge of our Beltane, so I tried to take the lessons learned by Jamie Robyn when she ran our virtual Ostara (her post about what she learned is here). I had a mouse so I didn't have to reach across the altar. I took out our usual group vocal responses. I had everything plugged in.

The other thing I was interested in when writing a virtual Beltane is how virtual rituals could be better than in-person rituals. There are many ways in which they fall short and feel like a poor substitute for the "real thing". One thing I thought of is that with a virtual ritual, you can share your screen and present visual images to each individual in a way that would be hard with everyone sitting in a circle in person. Depending on what virtual meeting space you are using, you can also share audio in a really clear way. I came up with a few ideas:

  • Displaying a labyrinth people could trace with their eyes, fingers, or cursor.
  • Showing appropriate pictures for different parts of the ritual: an ocean for water, a Goddess image when invoking, etc.
  • Playing a pre-recorded meditation.
  • Showing a video.
  • Some sort of online game, puzzle, or challenge that either has to be solved individually or collectively.
  • A virtual altar or shrine, perhaps with candles that can be lit by clicking on them (for example, this "light a candle" website).
  • Virtual backgrounds everyone can use: either a shared one so we can all appear to be in the same location, or each one different depending on that person's role in the ritual.

Some of these ideas require more tech know-how than others. I can't easily build a beautiful virtual altar with candles that each person can light. If we have to continue having virtual rituals, that might be a skill worth acquiring or an expertise worth paying for.

Choose your virtual meeting software based on what you want it to be able to do. As of right now, Google Hangouts and Meet don't have virtual background options, and using your own image with Teams requires a bit of a hack, so if you want everyone to have a custom background, Zoom might be your best bet. Turns out that Google Meet is good for screen sharing, but it doesn't make it possible to spotlight or pin one person without losing the view of everyone else. So when you've chosen what you want to do, seek out the best tool for the job, and make sure you know how to use it.

If you can, with most of these ideas I suggest using two devices as the leader of the ritual: one for screen sharing and one to show yourself in the same way the other participants are being shown. Otherwise, when you turn on the photos or the video, you disappear, and I think in a virtual ritual that it is very important that we be able to see each other's faces. To keep it from echoing and feeding back, one of the two devices has to be both muted and have its volume completely off. In my virtual Beltane ritual, I pointed one device downward at my altar from slightly above and used that device to show the videos. My other device sat across the altar from me and was the one I looked at to see everyone and my script.

Until we can be together in person again, we need to make the best of what we can do. We might as well embrace the challenge and explore the advantages technology can provide.

Links:

Published on Leave a comment on Paganism in the time of coronavirus – part 3: Virtual rituals (guest post)

Lessons from a Ritual in Virtual Space

A guest post by Jamie Robyn

A candle-lit altar as seen on a Google Hangouts screen.

Living through a global pandemic means that we are having to become creative in how we connect with one another. For Pagans, this means we are having to adapt our rituals, rituals that usually depend quite heavily on physical presence. As I was writing and preparing for our small group Ostara ritual, the outside world was changing quickly and drastically. By the time we actually could hold ritual, we were all in quarantine or self-isolation and we needed to come together virtually. Now, with the ritual done and a bit of time to reflect, I am able to share what we learned in taking our ritual experience to virtual space. 

I. The process: writing and preparing

There were many things I had to take into consideration before and while I was writing the ritual itself. Here is a list that may be useful for others to consider:

  • Choosing a platform: 
    • What technology do folks have? 
    • What is everyone's wifi access like?
    • What is everyone’s comfort level with using new technology?
    • What platform will meet everyone’s needs?

We decided to use Google Hangouts as a video chat platform as everyone participating already had Gmail accounts, it was easy to use across devices, and it was pretty reliable overall. We did a test run of the link before the ritual date.

  • Platform education: Make sure you know how to do the following (as applicable to your chosen platform) and know how to help your participants find the options:
    • How to mute all your participants and how they can mute and un-mute themselves.
    • How participants can choose to see only you, or everyone, or whoever is speaking.
    • How participants can blur their background or choose a virtual background.
  • Adapting our typical ritual structure:
    • What tools do we usually use? Which can be omitted/modified/shared virtually and what does each participant need to have on hand? What additional tools will be needed (i.e., a laptop)?
    • What parts of ritual usually require physical touch and how can they be adapted?
    • Who will do what and how will that information be shared?

I went through past rituals to see what adaptations I would need to make to our materials and overall structure. I decided to set up a full altar in my space and make it visible to everyone, so that they could choose to set up a physical altar or not in their spaces. I decided which tools I could simply provide, and which tools each participant would need to have on hand. I decided in advance who would be responsible for each speaking part and wrote that into the script. I shared the final script prior to the ritual so that participants could have a read through if they wanted to, and so that they could either print it or have it open on their devices for reference during the ritual. Tasks that may have been done by one person previously, such as space cleansing or circle casting, seemed to make more sense as collective tasks online. Our territory acknowledgement was adapted to include all of the territories where participants were physically sitting.

  • Deciding on the ritual content:
    • What do people need to work through collectively right now and what may help them to access that work?

This was a big consideration for me, as I wanted to make sure our ritual spoke to the current climate and enabled folks to work through the myriad emotions they were (and are) experiencing. I decided to use the Ostara themes of balance, growth, and hope to guide us through our work.

II. The virtual ritual: lessons learned

  1. Collective speaking or chanting: This did not translate well to virtual space! In future, I would not try to recreate this virtually.
  2. Using singing bowls to mark transitions: This worked surprisingly well in virtual space, with each participant having a bowl on hand to ring as needed. The tones were each different and resonated at different frequencies, which made it a very sonic and melodic experience – quite possibly my favourite part of the whole ritual!
  3. Laptop placement: I had set up the laptop on one side of my large table, facing me. I adjusted the size of the ritual document so that I could read it from farther away. I then set up the altar in front of me so that most of it was visible to the webcam. This made for a lovely virtual ritual space, but eventually put a lot of hot fire between the laptop keyboard and I! In future, I would use a wireless mouse, kept on my side of the altar, to navigate the screen.
  4. Speaking order: Having a consistent speaking order worked really well virtually. Typically, our rituals are much more conversational and we often speak whenever we feel we have something to contribute. Multiple folks speaking at once during video chats makes everything difficult to understand, so deciding an order for responses helped things run smoothly and audibly for everyone. 
  5. Power source: Just as we were wrapping up and saying goodbye, my laptop died. I thought for sure I would have enough battery power to get me through, but video calls drain the battery pretty quick! Next time, I would definitely plug in.

Overall, the experience of coming together in ritual virtually was really good. Seeing faces and laughing together, doing some important spiritual work together, and being in sacred space together in these very uncertain and scary times was both satisfying and necessary. While some Pagans out there may hesitate to explore virtual options during the Covid-19 era, I hope that in sharing our experience and lessons you may feel that it is not only doable, but well worth the effort. Take care and stay safe folks.

A circle of logos: Green Hangouts in the north, purple Teams in the east, orange Go To Meetings in the south, and blue Zoom in the west.

Links: "Paganism in the time of coronavirus" part 1 and part 2.

Published on Leave a comment on Paganism in the time of coronavirus – part 2
A mural of eagles flying over a forest, flowers, and people dancing and doing martial arts. A banner reads "We take care of each other".
Strathcona Community Centre

My puppy, Poppy, loves social distancing because she's scared of most everyone and everything. When we're walking, I know where the closest person is at any given time by the direction she's pulling. She's particularly frightened of group sports involving balls, automatic doors, people walking behind her, scooters, skateboards, groups of people standing on the sidewalk, and people who appear to be talking to themselves (including those on cell phones). The emptier streets and the cancellation of team sports at the fields near us are nice for her, though she still gets pretty anxious. I do wish all the kids in the area would stop playing basketball, both because it is her worst fear and because it seems contrary to social distancing rules.

I'm Poppy's emotional support human, which is funny because I'm a fairly anxious person myself. Still, I take her out for long walks and we endure passing skateboards and steer at least a block around all basketball dribbling. And right now, we give other people a nice buffer, maintaining at least a metre of space.

Being so hyper aware of other people on the street is combining with the amount of coronavirus news that surrounds me every day and with my natural anxiety and is making me fearful. Other bodies are scary right now; even watching people standing close together on TV is making me anxious. My own body is scary too; though symptom-free, I could be a carrier, and when I see elderly neighbours or babies in strollers out, I am particularly aware of what I could have on me.

I wonder how long this feeling will linger after the crisis is over. The longer we're all in lock-down, the longer I anticipate fighting with the feeling that other people's physical presence is a threat and that I am potentially contaminated. Even once we're free to gather again, I fear that the idea that bodies - mine and other people's - are inherently dangerous will be deeply ingrained.

I think one of the things Pagan ritual is good for is bringing our subconscious up to our conscious and using it as fuel. When this is over - be it Beltane, Litha, or later - and we can celebrate in person together again, it will also be time to examine the fears of this time and let go of these beliefs that will no longer serve us. We will be able to hold hands again one day, and hopefully sacred space will make it feel safe again when that time comes.

Links: Paganism in the time of coronavirus - part 1 and Paganism in the time of coronavirus - part 3: Virtual rituals.

Published on Leave a comment on Paganism in the time of coronavirus – part 1
Black and white image of the coronavirus under a microscope.
Image from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; image is in the public domain.

March 18: In the days since posting this, it has become clear that we must practice the most strict social distancing possible, which means that we must cancel all in-person rituals and events unless they are only with those we already live with. I'm leaving this post up because the thought exercises in it are still useful for other situations where minimizing contact is important, such as when someone in your group is immunocompromised.

On an additional note, I know a lot of groups use a communal cup in their rituals, but those who aren't comfortable sharing will pour out a small amount or touch the cup to their forehead. Though that technically solves the problem, one of the techniques of ritual is bringing everyone together through the use of repetitive and identical actions. I believe strongly in trying to accommodate everyone by writing a ritual that everyone can participate in equally; whenever possible, let's not make people have to choose between standing out and compromising on their needs.

We may not gather weekly as a church, but when we gather, we tend to hug in greeting. Our rituals are full of shared food, shared drinking vessels, holding hands, and even kissing. COVID-19 and its social distancing recommendations will impact Ostara and maybe Beltane, and all the full moons and other celebrations until then, so we need to think about this.

Think carefully before having an event at all: the safest thing we can do is simply not have in-person gatherings. If you are going to have a ritual, keep the group small, encourage people to skip it if they are at all unwell, ask that people keep their distance from each other, and modify the ritual in advance.

If you've got a group with a deeply entrenched way of doing things, remember that now is not the time to cling to "tradition" if it is harmful to the greater good of flattening the curve. I have received at least 25 mass emails in the last couple of days from everyone from my puppy's daycare to my bank with information about what they are doing about this outbreak - there's no excuse not to think about this stuff in advance if you are going to be holding a ritual or event. Your participants need to know your plan so they can react according to their needs. Vulnerable people and their loved ones in particular need to decide if they should attend at all.

Outdoor rituals? If possible, doing rituals outside with all that fresh air may be healthier than someone's home where germs might be resting on the surfaces.

New pre-ritual ritual: Everyone washes their hands with soap and hot water before the ritual begins. This isn't a symbolic cleansing in salt water, but a real cleaning.

No hugging or kissing: We usually hug each other as a welcome to the Circle; I'm thinking bowing might be a substitute for us.

No holding hands: Our group starts every ritual with a short breathing meditation. We hold hands and stand close together so we can feel each other's deep breaths moving our bodies - now we will stand further apart and have no physical contact. We will have to listen for each other.

No shared drinking glasses: I circle with people with chronic illnesses and my own immune system is compromised by my Multiple Sclerosis medication, so we haven't had a shared goblet in years. We each bring our own goblets and we bless a carafe of beverages and share it out.

No passed food: Currently, we pass the food plate around the circle, speaking a blessing over it - letting our breath pass over the food and standing much closer to each other than 6 feet apart. I think each will help themselves to the food at the next ritual, if we even have food in the Circle.

Our religion is often embodied - the best rituals reach our spirits via our bodies... our bodies in movement, our bodies in community. So we have to find ways to bring our fragile bodies into ritual. If we can't use touch to connect us, we have to use our other senses. Maybe we will have to experiment with virtual/digital rituals. We have to be creative and open to change in order to be good, responsible Pagans in the time of coronavirus.

Links: Paganism in the time of coronavirus - part 2 and Paganism in the time of coronavirus - part 3: Virtual rituals.

Published on Leave a comment on The contraction of a ritual
An altar covered in a red altar cloth, black and white photos, tealight candles, and s bottle of creme de cassis.

I tend to write rituals slowly. I think about it a lot first, contemplating themes and possible activities. There's a lot of research too, often with a lot of false starts... I still have a lot of notes about lichen from an Imbolc ritual that ended up going in a completely different direction.

When the ritual starts to come together in my head, I open a copy of the most recent standard ritual format and start filling in the opening and closing first: the customization of the quarter calls and invocations. The actual writing of the centre section is relatively quick after that, but still can take a couple of hours and several re-writes. Then I make any cue cards and special tools, email the participants a copy of the ritual and any background information, read over my parts a few times, and then finally set up the physical space. By the time we are assigning roles and doing our territory and consent acknowledgments, I have probably spent between ten and twenty hours working on the ritual.

When the actual ritual is going on, I don't always get to immerse myself in the experience because I am leading the activity, monitoring the energy, reading the meditation, but that's fine because I've already spent ten or more hours engaged with the material. The problem is that when I am doing the ritual for participants, they haven't spent all that time. Even if they read the ritual before arriving (always optional) and follow my research links, they are less invested. Even if there's preparation homework, it is still less than what I've done -- as it should be. All of that is to say that I do the ritual in my mind a bunch of times, so when the performance comes, it seems very short.

The bigger problem is that the ritual is short. It is short and it is fast. Since it is the x-th repeat for me, I tend to flow through the plan like it is a rehearsed business presentation. I have to force myself to let the ritual breath and to give the participants enough time to get into it.

Even with that effort, the ritual contracts in physical experience from where it is in my mind. I can live with that; I think it is a common experience of artists that the end result can't quite live up to the inspiration. However, I have to stay aware of the physically performed ritual as it is actually happening and keep it separate from the one in my imagination. I am trying to speak a bit slower -- I tend to talk fast during anything that resembles public speaking -- and I'm learning to count out silences during meditations. But I also need to just stay more present with the ritual and with the participants... it is a tough lesson to learn for someone who lives so much in her head.

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Published on 2 Comments on Too tired for the gods
Two puppies sleep in the grass by people's out-stretched legs. A third puppy stands over them, mid-yawn.
A fierce yawn from the last puppy still awake.

One of the challenges of a religion without a central authority and professional clergy is that we are all responsible for our own spiritual health.

Even when times are good or even just a regular level of stressful, that's a lot of responsibility to shoulder, but probably no more arduous than all the other responsibilities of adulthood: physical health, mental health, financial maintenance, work responsibilities, volunteering, home care, family care... adulting is a juggling act for almost everyone.

The problems come when the going gets harder than usual. When there are complications with the other responsibilities of life, spiritual maintenance easily drops down on the list of priorities.

The risk is that when we most need our spirituality is when we don't have the time or energy to do it for ourselves.

Here's where I'm supposed to have answers, but I don't really have any. I'm too tired for the gods and too tired to decide what to do about it. That'll be a problem for another day, when my health is better, when my job situation stabilizes, when my puppy is a little older...

Published on Leave a comment on Circling nothing
White writing on black: "This space intentionally left blank."

"How would you describe something [something] that isn’t there [nothing]? ... the way they [the Indians] decided to represent the nothing was they took a little piece of nothing and they drew a circle around it, which turns the nothing into a something." 1

And thus zero was invented.

The way we represent the sacred is we take a little piece of the world and draw a circle around it, which turns the ordinary of our living room or local park into sacred space.

Nothing is always present - the void of our death looms - whether there is a zero or not. And the sacred is always present, whether there is a circle or not. These loops help us conceptualize and ground the abstract, but they are not the concepts they represent.

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