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Author: Mud and Magic

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Published on 1 Comment on Long form gone wrong

A camera taking a picture of a shelf of Pagan books The reviews for "Witches of America" are in. The mainstream reviews are OK, but sound like a book that will be in the bargain bin within six months. The Pagan reviews, however, have been extremely critical of the author and her work, and this book's impact on our community may be long-lived. The most in depth I've come across so far is Rhyd Wildermuth's on Gods & Radicals.

Immersive, long-form journalism sounds like a tightrope walk. Last week, I was lucky enough to hear John Colapinto, author of "As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised As a Girl", and Åsne Seierstad, author of "The Bookseller of Kabul" and "One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway", speak about their work. They talked about the tricky balance involved when you get deeply involved in someone's life, sometimes literally living with them, in order to get the complete story. They talked about keeping themselves out of the story, about not changing the lives of their subjects (a sort of a journalist's prime directive), and about balancing the truth with serving the needs of a good story and being fair to the subject. These two very accomplished journalists also talked about ways in which this balance has gone wrong for them, despite working very hard to get it all right.

"Witches of America" may be a memoir rather than journalism, and it is perhaps slightly less abhorrent in that context. Author Alex Mar can get away with a lot more if she doesn't try to claim to be a reporter. However, after reading book reviews, book excerpts, Ms. Mar's past writing, and interviews with her, I think she may be mistaking her aloofness for objectivity, and, unfortunately, some of the mainstream reviews seem to be treating this book as a piece of ethnography and journalism. NPR's review even cites "finding the cultural research aspect of the book more engaging than Mar's personal journey" without challenging some obviously faked stories (whether by the subject or by Ms. Mar). I wonder what Margot Adler would have said about this book.

After reading a bit about Alex Mar, I am not surprised that her subjects trusted her. It sounds like her documentary work was pretty good and she got close to some trusted people. Though I don't know Morpheus Ravenna well, having only met her peripherally at an event, I also would have trusted someone sent by her. I probably still would; this train wreck isn't Morpheus' fault, or the fault of the other subjects. Even with a good reporter, there's a risk of a quote taken out of context (don't make jokes with reporters!) or a misunderstanding; with a lazy or biased journalist, the results can be even worse, and with someone willing to deceive about their purpose and use people in this way... well, one of the subjects, Karina, has commented publicly on Rhyd Wildermuth's review: "As a living, breathing, feeling, embodied Human-Wild-Divine-Witch, betrayed and reduced to a one dimensional "character" within Mar's book, I thank you for humanizing me and calling out the author for who and what she is."

What I learned from this incident is to carefully read any past work I can find from a writer before engaging with them1. Alex Mar's piece on polyamory shows so many of the same problems revealed in the reviews of "Witches of America": superficial involvement, treating parts as representative of the whole, fixations on how people look, shallow analysis, and a definite feeling that she considers herself superior to her subjects. The comments section on that piece are similar in tone to reactions to "Witches in America": the general public seems to think it is all in good fun - a little titillation, a little silliness, and maybe a little insight - while those inside the community, whether directly portrayed or not, feel betrayed, misunderstood, and even humiliated. While Alex Mar gloats that the New York Times "understands" her book, the Pagan community, which so often struggles to understand itself, can point and say "we may not be sure what we are, but we know we aren't that".

Edited to add: The Coru Cathubodua Priesthood has released a statement about how they were deceived in relation to this book and I think their hard-earned words of warning are an important addition to the record.

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Published on 1 Comment on Know better; do better

Pile of crystals and semi-precious stones

Once you've concluded that the pretty crystals and semi-precious stones aren't actually necessary to magic or to healing or to divination...

Or once you've heard about the environmental damage of some of the mining practices used in order to acquire something that is merely pretty...

Or once you've realized the social and labour abuses of the international gemstone market...

Or once you've noticed what ugly politics your purchases are supporting...

... what do you do with your collection of crystals and stones?
 
Returning them to the earth, though a romantic notion, doesn't negate the harm already done.

Gifting them or selling them may replace stones that would be otherwise mined, but may also give them the appearance of acceptability.

Displaying them or using them in ritual means they won't be wasted, but carries a certain burden of their history and may make them seem necessary.

Storing them seems wasteful.
 
When you know better, you do better, but what do you do with the results of your former ignorance?

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Published on 4 Comments on Well, why not both?

Screenshot of the title shot for "The Middle" TV show. "Jön Upsal's Garden" put out a challenging question:

"... anyone who identifies as a pagan atheist, or humanistic pagan, or religious humanism, or whatever the heck they call themselves. Why do you include the word "pagan" in your self-identification?"

The post was mostly directed at The Allergic Pagan, who responded quite eloquently here, and another powerful response has already been put out by Nature is Sacred, but I thought it was an interesting question to engage with as someone from the middle.

Despite my skepticism, slippery beliefs, and uncertain faith, I am deeply committed to my identity as a Pagan. To me, it brings together things I can't find together any where else:

That I get a shiver of awe when seeing a sky full of stars and when I learned in Geology 101 that we are all made of stardust.

That I can feel deeply reverent while learning about the oldest living organisms and while chanting with my community around a candlelit altar.

That I can find deep connection with Pagans who may be polytheists, animists, pantheists, atheists, or something else, because we can all share sacred space, and that I can debate and dissect the very basics of religion with those same people after because we share a Pagan tent that's very large and very diverse.

That we're a dynamic religion where experimentation is encouraged, but where we also have traditions and elders to guide us.

That I can change my spirituality to fit new scientific information and that I can create myths and beautiful rituals out of facts.

I love being a part of a religion - of a community - that includes both atheists and polytheists and that lets me be in the middle.

Published on Leave a comment on I survived VPPD 2015

Windy witch weather vane
Image © Copyright Bob Embleton and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

The organizer must have said a dozen times on the FaceBook page in posts and comments: "Pagan Pride is on, rain or shine."

"Pagan Pride will be happening rain or shine so please dress accordingly. ..."
The forecast wasn't promising, but it is Vancouver, and you never know what's going to happen.

I joked with the lady at the coffee shop that I need a drink that's going to keep me warm and dry all day. By 7:30 in the morning, I'm parked near the park enjoying my latte while the rain pings on my roof. During set-up, sometimes it pours, sometimes it drizzles, but it gradually gets better and better. By 10 am, when the opening ritual is on, there's a thinning of the clouds that may even indicate sun, and the small crowd feels optimistic.

"It is lovely here now! Many vendors and presenters Looking forward to seeing more folks!"
The wind started picking up soon after though, and keeping vendor and event tents on the ground started to become a challenge. It wasn't too bad in the workshop tent tucked near the trees, so I didn't notice how bad it was getting during my "Introduction to Ritual Writing" workshop, but when I went out into the open to attend the Goddess Sung Devotional ritual, I felt the wild wind. We were holding the ritual tent down and had just started the quarter song when we heard a huge crack.

"I was missed by a tree by about 3 feet! ..."
Trees around the edge of our field started cracking and huge branches were falling. Most of a tree fell on a vendors tent. The organizer made the call and announced that we were cancelling the rest of the event and evacuating the park.

"Please everyone, pagan pride day has been cancelled due to extreme weather. We've have many trees come down in the park. Again pagan pride had been cancelled. Please stay home and be safe!!!"
If the goal of Pagan Pride is to bring the community together, few things could have been this effective. People sprang into action and started helping getting tents down, vendors packed up, and everything carried over to the parking lot and loaded into the VPPD's rented truck and individual cars. I saw this girl who must have been only 8 years old hauling a box of snacks almost as big as she was back to the truck!

"I hope everyone's home safe. Thank you to everyone who helped get everything packed up, especially the people who were coming out to their first VPP and ended up hauling tents, tables, and coolers between creaking trees."
"What a community! Everyone came together to help and support each other. I just wish it was longer, but I'm so proud of everyone there."
"What a great community we have. Thank you every one for helping to make sure each other were ok."

This is a tough financial blow for a non-profit organization with few funds, as well as very stressful and sad for organizers who worked so hard to prepare for this annual event. Fundraiser events are being planned, donations are also welcome and much needed, and we all want to support the merchants who lost products and tents.

"We are looking for a location to host VPPD 2015- the sequel. Something like a cafeteria or a gym would offer ample indoor space for vendors and rituals. So would a large hall. VPPD is running at a loss right now and doesn't have funds to cover the cost of a large rental fee so if you think you know of an inexpensive place that may be able to handle this indoor event, please EMAIL me the details..."

But, hey, no one was hurt, everyone pulled together, and we made the news. And none of us who were there will ever forget that we survived Vancouver Pagan Pride Day 2015.

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Published on 1 Comment on The philosophy of boycotting Lughnasadh

Bread with wheat design decoration I didn't do particularly well in university philosophy, so on the scale of depth, this will be closer to a stoner's "what if this is all just someone's dream, man" than to a real treatise...

The Allergic Pagan has a brilliant post called "Why I'm Boycotting Lughnasadh". Reading the comments section, the response post from another Pagan, and the comments section on that post reminds me of why I don't usually read comment sections; a lot of people seemed to miss the point of the post, or didn't read it at all and were reacting to the title. The boycott article reminded me of articles about understanding Baudrillard using pumpkin spice lattes and FaceBook and the hyperreal.

To philosopher Jean Baudillard, a simulation is when a representation of something takes the place of the thing it originally only represented: where pumpkin spice flavouring take the place of real pumpkins, where digital representations take the place of real people, and where the grain festival mythology takes the place of what is actually happening in our backyard. These simulations act in the same way as the things they've replaced but they're ultimately empty of substance, without juice or depth. According to Baudillard, there are four steps in the process of separating simulation from reality. To use Lughnasadh as an example:

1. First is a faithful image, where rituals of early August are created to reflect the weather and seasons of the local climate right in front of the creators.

2. Second is when images do not faithfully reveal reality to us, but hint at the real reality which the image itself is cannot completely include, such as when the early August rituals are labelled as "Lughnasadh" and created into a tradition that transcends the actual weather or activities in any given year.

3. Third is when the image pretends to be a reflection of reality, but it is a copy with no original, such as when those Lughnasadh traditions are exported wholesale into completely other ecosystems and eras.

4. Finally comes pure simulation, in which the image has no relationship to any reality whatsoever. Images merely reflect other symbols, as where a ritual is constructed around the theme of sacrifice where the God of Grain dies in order for the wheat to be harvested... when there's no actual wheat ready to be harvested where you are. Of maybe no wheat grows in your area at all, ever.

Our Pagan rituals are at risk of becoming mere simulations. It isn't about faking connection; we may still be participating fully in our rituals, but as Emile Littre says "Someone who feigns an illness can simply go to bed and pretend he is ill. Someone who simulates an illness produces in himself some of the symptoms" but that doesn't make them sick.

Baudillard continues to say that when simulations interact, they create a hyperreality - a web of interconnected simulations that separates us from reality. A simulation of the wheel of the year does not celebrate the changing of the seasons, but puts a layer between us and the real, sacred earth.

The Allergic Pagan says it well: "Bend down and touch the earth." If it is around the beginning of August, you can call the result Lughnasadh, or Lammas, or first harvest, or nothing at all, but try to celebrate the actual dirt under your hands and not an image of a season from another place and another time.

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Published on 1 Comment on Responsible to the centres

The main lodge and fire pit at a Pagan gathering This past weekend, I went to my 18th Gathering for Life on Earth. There were rituals, and swimming, and workshops, and feasting, but best of all, there were juicy conversations. One of my favourite people to talk to every year is a brilliant woman who runs a local Pagan choir and who does a sung devotional ritual every year. She is so thoughtful in how she approaches ritual, and how she sets a tone and guides without controlling... her rituals inspire me on several levels.

Naturally, she leads devotional rituals because she is a polytheist, which I am not. This year, we touched on this briefly in our meandering theological discussion, and I mentioned the four centres of Paganism theory. Though we agreed that people may be centred in multiple areas or may slip between them, she did identify primarily as deity-centred and I as community-centred. We discussed how non-deity-centred public ritual leaders should be cognizant of not offending those for whom the gods and spirits are literal. It isn't that hard, and seems mostly common sense: don't invoke gods if you don't know at least a little about them, lest you offend them; don't invoke gods together who are enemies; don't call on spirits unless the literal energy is what is desired. Basically, it seemed all good practices to me anyway: avoiding cognitive dissonance amongst knowledgeable or conscientious non-believers, not offending believers, and not making a fool of yourself by parading your ignorance around the circle.

A good ritual leader wants everyone to get something out of their ritual. That's a challenge in a public or semi-public setting where people could be from any of the centres, and be any of the kinds of deism as well1. Making a ritual that works for everyone is a big challenge, but it isn't a bad start to figure out what responsibility you have as a leader to each of the four centres. Here are just some ideas to get us all started; feel free to add more in the comments:

To the deity-centre, you have the responsibility to use respectful language and actions towards the gods and spirits, as discussed above.

To the nature-centre, you have the responsibility to be conscience in your choice of materials and tools, avoiding plastics and waste and being aware of the kind of offerings being made and their impact on the plants and animals. You would also want to be aware of the actual environment of your ritual (and not, for example, turning your back on a lake in order to invoke Water in the West), know your science if you are going to be using natural concepts (and not, for example, calling on a non-local bird as your spirit in the East), and being careful in your language around grounding (really, stop dumping all your negative energy into the earth) and elevating or privileging people over nature.

To the inner-centre2, you have the responsibility to not preach or lecture, and not to imply that lack of belief in external, literal gods makes someone a bad Pagan, or that lack of faith will drive one mad. It is also important that your ritual have a coherent theme and that the components make psychological sense in how they come together and build towards something. I think this is also the centre that would most want to know what words mean when chanting or invoking in another language, since intent is so important to many inner-centred traditions. Providing context and translation would be crucial to their comfort and involvement.

To the community-centre, you have the responsibility to offer opportunities for people to participate together; to offer opportunities and activities that someone could not experience on their own. From the comfort of our homes, we can watch videos of liturgy being recited, we can listen to recordings of talented singers, we can mediate and pray - what we want from group ritual is that which we can't get any other way. Being asked to merely witness is usually not sufficient for this centre, except where community witnessing is the whole point, as in a handfasting.

Following these guidelines won't guarantee that everyone will grok or even enjoy your ritual, but it does mean that people won't be put off or jolted out of the experience you are trying to create by something that offends their fundamental beliefs. If you want to offer rituals to the Pagan community, especially in public or semi-public settings like festivals or Pagan Pride events, it is important to recognize that you are responsible to the whole community, not just the centres you are most familiar with. A public ritual is about more than your own practice, or even presenting your tradition to a larger audience; it is about engaging your community - your whole community - in something spiritual, religious, and meaningful.

I suspect some people will fear that in trying to please everyone, you will end up with a mess of compromises that pleases no one, but I think that reading over the points above makes it pretty clear that it is possible to make a ritual that fills at least the basic needs of all the centres without losing meaning or purpose. It is a great gift to the community to offer a ritual, but only if it is offered with respect and love for everyone.

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Published on 1 Comment on My Paganism is grey

Venn diagram of black and white making grey A recent article on the dystopian film trend starts: "Before your film can dominate the global box office, it needs ideally to have been a word-of-mouth bookshelf smash. And unless your name is John Green or JK Rowling, your best option is to write a piece of bestselling YA dystopian fiction or fantasy."

There's no shortage of dystopian fiction right now, and theories about why we can't seem to get enough of reading and watching it. I think I know why there's so much of it being written: it is easy.

Writing a great book is probably never easy, but it is easy for most of us to think of ways the world could go wrong – the news is full of examples every night – and creating suspense and tension through the simple means of putting freedom, lives, and basic rights at risk is a bit of a shortcut. Wallowing in this kind of dark fantasy is easy for us, like imagining what people would say at your funeral in the "they'll regret this when I'm gone" way of a dramatic teenager1.

I'm seeing some things pop up in the wider online Paganism that remind me of this. People talking a lot about bones and poisons, about using desecrated items from other religions, and about demons and curses. People reclaiming our connections to the occult and to Satanism. People talking about the dark and awful sides of our gods.

They aren't wrong. We shouldn't shy away from our history or from knowing about the ugliest, bloodiest, hardest parts of ourselves and of nature. To only talk about the bounty and beauty is false, but so much of what I see that is standing against the "white light"/"fluffy bunny" approach feels like just a dark fantasy version of the same thing.

Of course, if you genuinely believe that the world is dark and that nature is red is tooth and claw, your religious practices will and should reflect that. And if you genuinely believe that the universe is love and the gods are divine parents, your practices will and should look very different. But my concern is that in disparaging the latter as being childish and naive, we have made the former into the intelligent and realistic option (we do love our binaries), and I have seen as many Pagans burn out from the "darker-than-thou" competition as from getting tired of the pressure to throw positive thoughts at all problems.

My Paganism is a faith that tries to participate in and reflect reality, and edginess is not the same as realism. If others prefer their religion mixed with fantasy, that's really nothing to me, but I don't think it's fair to look down on bright fantasy while elevating dark. Escapism is the same whether cloaked in flowers and white light or in bones and shadows.

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Published on 1 Comment on Stolen seasons

Flowers in February When and where I grew up, there was winter. The snow piled high for weeks - for months - and we made snowmen and forts and I went sledding and cross-country skiing and we had a skating rink in our backyard. And we ate red delicious apples all winter because they stored well, so they were cheap all year around, even in the north of Canada.

There and then, spring came. It was a slow event, but it happened. The snow became mud and then soil and then grass and flowers. Winter-stored apples gave way to strawberries and then blueberries.

I'm elsewhere now, where the ocean and the mountains guard us from extreme seasonal changes. Still, people who grew up here remember winter. It was shorter and milder than the ones I knew, but there was snow. There isn't any longer. It got cold, here and there, but barely more than frosty. Fruit comes from California; there's no end to strawberry season.

I'm not exactly nostalgic for winter. I remember shovelling out cars and scary rides on icy roads and power outages and I never did like red delicious apples very much. But I do miss the unique pleasures of each season savoured because they were fleeting. The wheel of the year turns and relieves one season's pains and brings in the next's pleasures. This too shall pass...

Unless it doesn't anymore. Climate change has slowed the wheel to a near stop some places, and sent it spinning like a toppling top in others. Here, climate change has stolen our seasons. Our wheel of the year is cracked, especially in this city, and we could be set adrift into seasonless time, another step away from nature. We Pagans will have to stand with locavores and gardners and seasonal sports lovers and hold the wheel together, finding the seasons even in the changed, unchanging city streets and honouring the subtle shifts. Our magic cannot fix what has been broken, but we can hold the energy while we join others in trying to make the earth healthy again.

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Published on 1 Comment on Paganism is silly

Dragonfly Sex Mosaic
Yup, it's a mosaic of dragonflies having sex.

Paganism is silly. All religion is. That's OK; sex is silly too, and most of us need that. Sex can be physically, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally fulfilling. So can religion. The process of getting to either orgasm or spiritual ecstasy is messy and weird, and few people look good in the the midst of either, so both are mostly private matters, best done in private (and wash your hands after).

So I think this goofy article about taking Paganism seriously is a waste of pixels. Paganism is inherently silly and should only be taken seriously for the same reason that we give respect to other religions: because they bring meaning and fulfillment to people and are no one else's business. We don't need to justify ourselves any more than any other religion has to.

Religion and sex are both private, but that doesn't make them secret or shameful. As Cory Doctorow has said in another context: "Every one of us does something private and not secret when we go to the bathroom. Every one of us has parents who did at least one private thing that's not a secret, otherwise we wouldn't be here."

Being human means doing silly, messy, weird, and embarrassing things. Being a good human means respectfully letting others get on with their own silly, messy, weird, and embarrassing things in their own way.

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Published on 1 Comment on Calling your own out

Screenshot of the title shot for "The Middle" TV show.

Here in the middle, we have slippery and eclectic religious beliefs. We are neither clearly polytheists nor definitively humanists but a little of each and a bit of some other things too, bringing together beliefs that seem to contradict each other and living in a liminal spiritual space. We seek to become comfortable with uncertainty, or maybe to be content to be uncomfortable in our uncertainty.

Here in the middle, we have the opportunity to see a lot of Paganism's debates from both the inside and the outside. We can often see both sides of an issue, but it is rarely a good idea to weigh in. The problem with being in the middle is all sides are likely to disavow you.

All of that is the say that I very much appreciate when I see Pagans who are firmly part of one camp or another calling their own out1 when they think it is needed. Criticism - even well thought out and kind criticism - from outside tends to be met with defensiveness, while critiques from within can lead to real discussions and transformations.

Here in the middle, we need to be honest with ourselves too. Having some objectivity on other "Paganisms" does not make us immune to having blind spots and problematic behaviours all our own.

But that's a big topic for another day. For now, let's just say that we need keep ourselves honest.

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