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Author: Mud and Magic

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Published on 2 Comments on Thoughtful consumption

Shiny new washing machine. My new washing machine arrived today. It is a thing of beauty, and so quiet compared to my old one that I actually watched it for several minutes before I reluctantly came to believe that it was actually running correctly. The clothing came out free of soap residue without an extra rinse cycle and were spun so completely that they will probably dry overnight on my basement line. A huge improvement over the machine that I've been using for the last eight years, which was a second hand machine that had served a family of four for many years before we got it. The very nice delivery men took away our grubby old washer and the matching dryer we've never used, leaving behind a gleaming new machine with led lights and pleasant chiming noises.

Since writing about offerings to non-human deities, I've been meditating further on the concept of sacrificing consumption as a sacred offering. I am in a financial position where I can choose how to spend my money. I can afford organic cotton t-shirts and to shop local even if it costs a bit more than the multinational chain store. I do try to spend responsibly - locally owned businesses, for example - but there's always room for improvement. One of the big places I am trying to improve is in the thoughtlessness of my spending.

A couple of months ago, I started a project of cleaning out drawers and cupboards that had gotten cluttered. As I created piles to throw out, donate, and keep, I realized how many things I have that I never use; how many things I have that I had forgotten I even owned. I cleaned my closet of two huge garbage bags of clothing that were ill-fitting or didn't match anything else or just weren't getting worn. It was embarrassing to realize how much money I had spent on things that I wasn't using and how many resources - water, minerals, energy - had been spent on trinkets and gadgets that were gathering dust.

I'll never be a minimalist or live in a home of clean white modern lines and bare shiny surfaces. I like my clutter and my overflowing bookshelves and my piles of craft supplies (though I don't like how out-of-control my craft room has become). However, I want to bring fewer things into my home. Consume less, and consume more thoughtfully.

This has been on my mind for a while, but this post was prompted by learning that a favourite food company of mine is on the side of "Hobby Lobby" in the recent efforts to make companies into legal people and give them rights on the basis of their religious beliefs - specially, the right to deny women health insurance coverage for birth control. Though Eden Foods makes healthy organic foods and are known for pioneering BPA-free can linings, it appears that the owner has some strong beliefs that run counter to my own values.

The company I work for sells Eden Organics products. I don't necessarily think we should stop - not everyone shares my values, and there is plenty to like about the products - but I won't be buy them for myself anymore. I hope I can find and stock alternatives for those who agree with me.

Some things are easier to give up than others. I will miss Eden Pizza and Pasta Sauce, but most other things will be easy once I've found a new brand for organic diced tomatoes. When I decided to only eat fair trade bananas, it was no problem because I don't eat that many bananas and I don't eat foods that contain bananas. Trying to switch to only fair trade chocolate has been a lot tougher. Chocolate bars are OK, and I got through last Christmas without any "Pot of Gold", but when I'm craving a cookie at the local coffee shop, I know those cookies aren't made with fair trade chocolate chips. And as my laptop and cell phone get older and slower, it is harder to remind myself that buying new ones isn't a spiritual or environmental priority; that having to wait an extra five minutes for the computer to boot up isn't justification for the social costs of most electronics.

I needed a new washing machine. The new one is more water and energy efficient, even without accounting for the extra rinse cycles I was using to get things soap-free with the old machine. This one was an easy decision, but I'm trying to find the right question to ask myself before every purchase. Something that combines "Can this object's purpose be served in any way that takes fewer resources?" with "Will the use of this object be worth the resources spent making and disposing of it?" with "Is this company aligned with my values?" with some sort of spiritual or sacred acknowledgement. Something simple that can be used equally well in the dollar store as in the electronics store or the car dealership. Something to remind me that I should be either making a thoughtful purchasing decision or making a deliberate conscious sacrifice by not buying. Something to add mind and spirit to consumption.

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Published on 1 Comment on Why I won’t be blessing you when you sneeze

A black cat with glowing green eyes. "Superstition is to religion what astrology is to astronomy; the mad daughter of a wise mother." ‒ Voltaire (1694-1778).

Some say that all religion is superstition.

They can look alike. Carry a rabbit's foot or a rosary. Wish upon a star or pray to a great spirit. Knock on wood or light a candle.

They can be intermingled. If you spill salt, throw a pinch over your left shoulder to blind the devil waiting there. If someone sneezes, say "bless you" to stop the devil from claiming their freed soul. If you break a mirror, bury the pieces under a tree during a full moon to renew your damaged soul so it can fight off bad luck.

They can slip from one to the other. Black cats: sacred in ancient Egypt; bad luck now. Knocking on wood: ancient tree worshipers laid their hands on a tree when asking for favour from the spirits that lived inside it; now a superstitious knock to acknowledge luck and keep it going. Rabbit's foot: part of an ancient Celtic coming of age ceremony; good luck now.

Some say one person's religion is another's superstition, and maybe that could make for a blurry line between them. But I think the line is usually pretty clear: superstitions are driven by fear and ignorance; religions are powered by love and creativity.

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Published on 6 Comments on The value of consent

Sign: "Emergency Shut Off Valve" Many prominent Pagans are now talking about consent culture and how to make Pagan spaces safer. It particular, I would recommend Christine Kraemer's Consent Culture 101: Basic Practices and Teaching Games, Yvonne Aburrow's Silence equals complicity: making Pagan groups safe for everyone, Shauna Aura Knight's Harassment and Boundaries, and especially Stasa Morgan-Appel's Some Experiences with a Culture of Consent and Radical Inclusion.

To me, a culture of consent means that activities only happen with the enthusiastic consent of all participants. It is where lack of enthusiastic consent is sufficient to stop an activity and seek better communication; a spoken "no" is not necessarily required. And it goes beyond sex and even beyond touch and into all interactions so that games and activities, religious rituals, and even conversations are all based on consent. If we establish an expectation for seeking consent in all things, maybe it will be easier for all us to create and respect boundaries in more challenging areas such as sex.

At a Pagan event, I was in the washroom with someone with whom I generally get along and she made a comment that I didn't want to engage with. I said "I don't want to get in the middle of that". She had started towards the exit as we talked and she then stopped in front of the door, blocking it, holding the handle, and proceeded to rant at me. It was brief – probably only 30 seconds – but I felt disrespected and annoyed. Had I been less startled, I would have spoken up, but it happened so fast. I don't think she thought about it either; she didn't consciously override me or disregard my feelings, but simply got caught up in her own head.

At a drumming workshop, the instructor asked each person to individually play back a rhythm. I decided to pass on that particular exercise, being self-conscious about my sense of rhythm. When it came to my turn, I told the instructor that I would prefer not to and he was fine with that, but someone else in the class said "we're allowed to not do it?". It shocked me that those around me didn't know that they were allowed to say "no" to something.

If we value consent as individuals and as a community, we will all develop the ability to lovingly enforce boundaries and respectfully step back if requested. That's what a complete culture of consent could help us all with. There's a phrase amongst people that are seeking to create "consent culture": "yes means yes". Instead of defining consent in terms of what we don't say no to, it is about seeking enthusiastic consent. Enthusiastic consent and participation is what we should want in all our rituals; it will make our magic and our worship stronger.

There a few things I consider non-negotiable to warn for going into a ritual: skyclad (especially if it is mandatory); blood drawing; and drugs, including alcohol, in the working portion of the rite (a small amount of alcohol in the food and drink portion seems acceptable to me as long as consumption is voluntary and an alternative is presented as equal in value). Unfortunately, I have seen or heard from trusted sources of all three of these things being sprung upon ritual participants at different times by ritual leaders who should know better. I believe that sometimes ritual leaders are using the element of surprise in these matters as ways to shortcut to intense experiences. By springing something controversial and difficult on the participants, they can provoke an emotional response to add to the energy of the ritual. I think it is a lazy way of creating a heightened atmosphere and has no place in a religion that calls all members priests and priestesses.

Warning for or avoiding nudity, blood, and drugs is just the minimum we should do, though. The next step would be doing what this year's event coordinator did at the Gathering: making sure all event descriptions include information about scents/incense and food so potential participants with allergies and sensitivities can make informed decisions in advance. Finally, I believe we should make it clear how people can opt out of any part of a ritual or leave the sacred space completely.

I feel like it is an incredibly powerful thing to be able to have a skyclad ritual at a Pagan event. I've felt and seen the magic that happens when people have the chance to be naked in Circle together: how people gain confidence and become more embodied, and sometimes even become more comfortable in their skin. I don't practice skyclad at home, but I lead mixed groups of almost strangers in nude rituals at the annual local Pagan camp (The Gathering for Life on Earth) because I believe it is important for the experience to be available there1.

This year, the camp's theme was "The Wild Hunt" and my ritual, called Challenges of the Wild Ones, was on the first night, at about 11 PM. This has been the traditional time slot for the "starlit skyclad" (known in previous years as the "nude moonlit"), and I like it for the feeling of jumping in to cold water: everyone who wants to take the plunge can do so early in the weekend, before they have time to talk themselves out of it. I know how much courage it takes for people, especially first timers, to take off their clothes in front of other people, especially if they are also coming to one of their first group rituals ever. I feel honoured that several times, my skyclad ritual has been someone's first group ritual besides the camp's opening. I am flattered by the trust they've put in me.

When I write rituals for strangers, I cast my mind back to when I was new to public rituals and I never include anything that would have made that self feel unsafe or embarrassed. So when I was writing "Challenges of the Wild Ones" and wanted to include a part where everyone had to respond to a question, I considered a couple of different ways of making that more comfortable while keeping the feeling of a challenge. One option I considered was to give the questions in the pre-ritual explanation so people would have more time to prepare their answer. This was ultimately rejected because I didn't want everyone distracted by thinking up and remembering their answers during the first part of the ritual. The solution I came up with was to offer the option of a silent response. Since everyone would have their eyes closed, people wouldn't necessarily know who spoke and who responded silently, so hopefully that would minimize peer pressure. Honestly, I expected most people would respond silently when given the option, but when that portion of the ritual started, every single person gave their answer out loud. I don't remember many of the answers - the answers were to the gods or spirits, so not mine to collect - but I was deeply touched by the authenticity and honesty in how people spoke. I felt that most people responded from deep truths, even when their words were simple.

Later that weekend, I spoke to someone else who had been in that circle about how that surprised me, and she said that maybe because I had given people an "out", they felt safe enough not to use it. This dovetails nicely with my theory that if we make it easy for people to know how to leave a ritual, they'll be less likely to want a way out. I don't think offering an opt-out option will usually result in a ritual of non-participants watching... if it does, the ritual needs to be redesigned from scratch.

The pre-ritual speech I had my priest give (while I ran down to the beach to finish setting up) included directions on what to do to opt out of an activity, permission to respond silently, mention that I would be touching people on the shoulder to prompt their response, and instructions to bring their cloaks and towels with them for the optional skinny dipping. Looking back, I would have liked to have added a note about how to leave the ritual completely. There was one originally, but when the opening ritual didn't include a circle casting, I hastily wrote a circle casting into my ritual and didn't have the time to thoughtfully consider how people should exit. I would have also made sure to draw attention to the ingredients in the food and drink (several people took only apple slices until they found out that the cookies were gluten- and nut- and dairy-free), and to mention that opting out or leaving would have no consequences and there would be no questions asked, though my priest and I would be available to talk or receive feedback throughout the weekend.

Our most popular Pagan liturgies hold that we are all divine, or at least all capable of reaching the divine on our own. If everyone is god/dess, or even if everyone is "merely" a priest or priestess, then we owe each other respect. One of the ways we can show each other respect is to seek consent in all things. It is the least we can do for our fellow deities.

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Published on 1 Comment on Gathering together

A sword, a horn, and some Gathering tokens. I've had three showers and put all the clothing that went with me in the laundry, but I can still occasionally smell smoke from the sacred fire at the Gathering on my skin. The Gathering is in my pores.

This year was a cocoon year for us: we were small and compact, getting ready for transformation. Our community could look very different in the future, but this year, there were old friends back again - some for the first time in years - and new friends to circle with and many much loved faces missing.

There were many wonderful rituals this year (they've been added to the Gathering timeline) and I was blessed enough to attend all but one. I know many people had powerful and magical experiences both in the circles and outside of them. In between, there were conversations about life, about science, about theology, and about where we are going next as a community.

At the annual general meeting, several people talked about ways to intensify or deepen the Gathering experience, to try to offer something more to potential Gatherers. A few people made reference to camps that offer more intense training, such as Witch Camp, and that sounds amazing, but somehow doesn't seem like a match to me. I don't think we should become a shorter version of something else, but more ourselves and offer our own unique event.

As often happens at the Gathering, I end up marveling at the diversity of our community. I ran one ritual and attended seven others, and the closest thing we had to the "conventional" Wiccan-like rituals that are common at public and semi-public events was the very fun and funny Chocolate Ritual (similar to this ritual). Attendees at the Gathering are from all over the typological map of magical traditions, from all parts of the colour triangle of the three deisms, and from all the overlapping circles of the centres of Paganism. But as a community, I think the Gathering as it is right now might be best categorized as part of the fourth centre of Paganism: community-centred. We come together to make a single event out of all our different beliefs, practices, and paths. At an event with fewer than 50 people, there were nine rituals (some with very large casts and a lot of preparation), as well as workshops. Fires were kept, rain protection was put up, lights were strung, a temple was assembled, and everything was cleared up at the end. So many people invested time and love before and during the weekend. Though as individuals we may be deity-centred, or focused on our higher selves, or about honouring nature first, at the Gathering, we make our offerings to each other and to the good of our community as a whole. We don't always succeed, but the effort is magical.

Working from the idea that, as a whole, the Gathering's spirituality is community-centred, and inspired by Steven Posch's beautiful post Sun Horns, Moon Horns, I have a plot afoot for next year. I'd like to recruit people from all parts of our community to say food blessings before each meal and to lead short rituals at sunrise and sunset (and maybe moonrise and moonset too, if I have enough volunteers). That's eight meals, three sunrises, and three sunsets; fourteen opportunities to be together in a sacred moment and to connect with each other, and maybe with something more, should the prayer be offered that way.

Anyone from the Gathering or considering the Gathering for next year: Please let me know if you would be interested in offering a food blessing or being a part of a brief sun or moon ritual next year, or even if you think this is a good idea or not. I promise that comments or constructive criticism will not result in you being volunteered for anything.

Richard: You have a year to perfect your horn blowing; no more drunken moose!

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Published on 1 Comment on Our place in the cosmos – part 2

The planet Earth as viewed from space.
Wikimedia Commons Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

"We are a way for the cosmos to know itself." ― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

We are stardust breathing and dreaming and thinking and creating. Our very bodies are made of elements born in centres of long-gone stars.

Eyes evolved and we saw the stars. We are stardust star watching. We are the cosmos seeing itself.

Critical thinking evolved and we thought about the stars. We are stardust contemplating the heavens. We are the cosmos exploring itself.

Imagination evolved and we dreamed ourselves among the stars. We are stardust inventing the future of the stars. We are the cosmos creating itself.

But we are not unique. Our world is made of stardust. Every life on this earth owes its being to the death of stars.

Our eyes are not the only ones seeing.

Some of the beings with whom we share this beautiful world see things we cannot and perceive things we are not equipped to observe. The mushroom, the crow, and the oak tree are all stardust seeing the stars in their unique ways. The mountain, the wind, and the ocean are all cosmos perceiving the cosmos with their different understandings.

We are not special, but we are part of something immense. Though we are the cosmos, it is also beyond our understanding, because to understand it requires the simultaneous views of the mushroom, the tree, the ocean, and the human. But we can pray and meditate and do ritual and get a little closer to our source. We are made of stardust and to the stars we will return.

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Published on 3 Comments on Our place in the cosmos – part 1

The Cat
Source: Hubblesite.org

We are the local embodiment of a Cosmos grown to self-awareness. We have begun to contemplate our origins: starstuff pondering the stars; organized assemblages of ten billion billion billion atoms considering the evolution of atoms; tracing the long journey by which, here at least, consciousness arose. Our loyalties are to the species and the planet. We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring. - Carl Sagan, Cosmos, 1980.

A big point of this website is to explore the intersection of religion, especially Paganism, and science. My first exposure to the idea that we are made of star stuff wasn't through Paganism, though I'd been Pagan for six years or so, but in a second year university geology class. My professor taped Christmas lights to the blackboard and turned out all the lights and told us about how carbon and almost all the other elements that our world is made out of were formed in the heart of long-dead stars. He ended with the Carl Sagan quote above and I got goosebumps. I was so inspired that years later, I wrote my biggest ritual to date based on this idea: the Stardust Ritual.

Episode 123 of The Wigglian Way podcast included a review of the tv show Cosmos1. As part of the discussion, the two hosts, Mojo and Sparrow, mentioned the show's occassional anti-religion jabs and a star stuff quote:

[Stars] get so hot that the nuclei of the atoms fuse together deep within them to make the oxygen we breathe, the carbon in our muscles, the calcium in our bones, the iron in our blood. All was cooked in the fiery hearts of long vanished stars. ... The cosmos is also within us. We're made of star stuff. We are a way for the cosmos to know itself. - Neil Degrasse Tyson, Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, episode 2, 2014.

Mojo: "... [Neil Degrasse Tyson] also mentioned that there's a good possibility that everything on the earth - everything alive - came from the stars; that we are in fact made of star stuff... does that sound familiar to anybody? That we are made of star stuff? So not only is Cosmos not disproving my religion, it's only proving it more. We've always said we're made of star stuff."

Sparrow: "Exactly. ... Science is coming closer and closer to what we believe all the time."

The idea that we're made out of stars predates Carl Sagan. Quote Investigator found uses as old as 1913 and 1918, both from science. The only non-scientific origin seems to be a "Serbian proverb": "Be humble for you are made of dung. Be noble for you are made of stars." Serbia has been Christian for a very long time, so I don't know if we can count that as Pagan origins. And that's assuming it truly is a Serbian proverb; the earliest source seems to be Guy Murchie in his 1978 book The Seven Mysteries of Life and he did not provide any documentation. It is an interesting idea that Pagans, ancient or modern, may have always believed that we're made of star stuff, but I couldn't find any proof of this. Mojo hasn't gotten back to me with his source.

Until a Pagan source can be found - and I am keeping an open mind about that - I will remain a bit disturbed by this possible re-writing of history. I know modern Pagans are not, as a community, all that good at history (you don't have to dig very deep to find people who still believe that nine million women were killed in the "The Burning Times" and in Gimbutas' ancient gynocentric civilizations), but that's all the more reason to guard against the tendency to add more unprovable or false stories to our collective history.

We can be the religion that embraces and welcomes science; the progressive, flexible, growing religion that isn't threatened by new facts or by change. I don't want science to prove my spiritual beliefs to be right; I want to take on new knowledge and incorporated it into my beliefs and rituals. And maybe that's something Carl Sagan, scientist and self-proclaimed agnostic, could get behind:

Every aspect of Nature reveals a deep mystery and touches our sense of wonder and awe. ... Those afraid of the universe as it really is, those who pretend to nonexistent knowledge and envision a Cosmos centered on human beings will prefer the fleeting comforts of superstition. They avoid rather than confront the world. But those with the courage to explore the weave and structure of the Cosmos, even where it differs profoundly from their wishes and prejudices, will penetrate its deepest mysteries. ― Carl Sagan, Cosmos

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Published on 1 Comment on Not your bird

Two eagles on a cross on a steeple. There are two bald eagles perched majestically on the cross at the top of a beautiful steeple. They are posed picturesquely against the blue sky, seen only by those, like me, who stare at clouds.

Wandering through the side streets on a certain evening, I come across an awesome sight: hundreds of crows in the trees, on the streets, and on the lawns. The sky fills with black wings as the nearest take brief flight at my appearance, and the cacophony is almost frightening as they call to each other over my head.

Walking to work one morning, a crow swoops suddenly at my head, screaming. She doesn't hit me, but flies so close I feel her passing, then wheels in the air above me and comes back towards me in another ferocious dive. I run to a nearby building and hug the wall, while she dives repeatedly down the edge as much as she can, unable to get me because of the steepness of the wall. I creep along the wall, crow screaming above me and cyclists and other pedestrians watching, until she gives up and flies away.

If I relate any of these stories to people of a certain mystical bent, they will tell me what eagles and crows symbolize and what these encounters mean about me. They may tell me that when "an eagle appears, you are on notice to be courageous and stretch your limits. Do not accept the status quo, but rather reach higher and become more than you believe you are capable of ". Since the eagles were on a cross, surely my goals must be spiritual in nature. They may tell me that crows are all about "prescience and precognition", and that a big group of them might indicate an important magical happening coming up and that the attack is about me fighting my intuition or instincts. I worked in a new age store for several years; I heard these kinds of interpretations all the time (plus the woman who was sure that her deceased ex-boyfriend was haunting/stalking her in the form of pigeons, memorable only because she began sobbing about it on the store counter).

I know the truth, though. The eagles are a mating pair that nests in a nearby park. They like the steeple for its tall 360 degree view of the area, to better spot potential prey. The massive crowd of crows occurs nightly, the exact time shifting with the season, as the huge flock of crows that spend their days in Stanley Park cross the city diagonally to their evening nesting area in a park in Burnaby. And the crow who attacked me: I probably walked too close to a nest, and it is quite possible that I was wearing a hat similar to someone who is scared of birds and sometimes throws rocks at them. All very explainable; if I were to believe otherwise, I would need to get over myself. It isn't all about me.

In my opinion, much of modern Paganism has an anthropocentrism problem. Basically, this is the belief that human beings are the most important species and that reality can only be understood in terms of our senses, values, and experiences. There are thousands of rituals based on this: spring is about growth, so what, metaphorically, are you planting and growing this spring? I've created a fair number of those rituals myself, as they are easy to write and are readily understood by a group. However, I have felt myself starting to balk a little at the idea that all our Pagan rituals – all our nature-worshiping, earth-honouring ceremonies – end up being about us. We step back from nature when we present Her stories only as symbols to be applied to our lives.

What it all reminds me of is when someone is telling me a story that reminds me of something that happened to me and I want to chime in and tell them about that. Even though I refrain from actually interrupting, my attention is not on what they are actually saying anymore, but on what I'm going to say. Their words are only important for how good or poor a lead-in they are for my story. I try to stay focused, but I don't want to forget my response, so I am rehearsing my words and watching for an opening. I can hear them, but I am not listening.

If we see every story in nature, every bird and plant and season, in terms of what they symbolically mean to us, we are not listening to nature. And if our deities are to be found there, we are not listening to them either. We are taking their words and using them as excuses to talk about ourselves.

Now, I will concede that if you believe in deities as literal beings, they may employ animals and other natural phenomenon to send messages to you. I personally believe that such messages would be rare – why would a god interfere with a real animal to tell you something that could be conveyed in a dream, vision, or meditation – and that they would be marked by a provable departure from ordinary behaviour for that animal. I believe no one is getting true divine messages from the crow migration because it happens every evening; that I should only stumble upon it once in a while does not change the fact that it has nothing to do with me.

If we are to respect the autonomy and individuality of the other beings with whom we share this earth, we cannot simultaneously cast them as props in our lives. The crow cannot have both freely chosen your tree to call from and be there as a symbol for you to interpret, and if asked to choose, I will always assume the crow's free will. Just as someone with a disability is not here to be your inspiration, the crow is not here to give you meaning. They have their own lives and loves and needs, and it is isn't all about us, as individuals or as a society.

I know I am asking a lot of myself and my fellow Pagans here. The culture that surrounds us, at least in North America, is anthropocentric to the core. Where we try to give animals voices, we tend to anthropomorphize them, thus silencing them further. In fact, as a society we still engage in extensive othering of other humans, so it seems an impossible task to stop the othering of animals, plants, and bacteria. But I believe in Paganism's ability to create new culture based on new values; that's the kind of magic I believe in.

I said earlier that I would have to get over myself were I to believe the eagles and crows were there for me, but I'll take that a step further. I think Pagans should make an effort to get under and beside themselves; to fundamentally get outside of themselves to try to meet non-humans where and how they actually are. We may not always succeed – in fact, we may never succeed – but the effort itself is worth while.

Further reading:

Paganism's Messiah Complex by Traci at "A Sense of Place".

Defining Anthropocentrism by Alison Leigh Lilly at "Holy Wild".

Anthropocentrism and Magic by Taylor Ellwood at "Magic Experiments".

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Published on 1 Comment on Never here. Never now.

A sky in transition from blue to stormy.

It is a modern metaphysical puzzle of sorts: I'm never where or when I am.

At my day job, I start my day dealing with yesterday's paperwork. Towards the end of the day, I work on tomorrow's paperwork. In between, I send emails that put my words into some indeterminate future when the recipient reads them, and I am on the phone, metaphorically placing me where the person at the other end of the phone is. I am never fully in the present.

I live as much in cyberspace as anywhere else and the nature of that - words written one day on one side of the world and read on another on the other side - means I slip around time and space casually. I need Pagan ritual to ground me into the present time and place. Never mind "this is a time that is not a time and a place that is not a place": I need to be right here and right now. I don't create a Circle to set space aside; I want the Circle to centre me right there.

It is typical of me that, as we head to Beltane, I'm writing a Lammas ritual. It is what my group needed of me this quarter, and I was struck with inspiration this past weekend... though I do question the authenticity of inspiration for a harvest festival found when the fruits we will be harvesting is still buds and blooms. By the time the wheel makes its graceful turn to Lammas, hopefully I will be there too.

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Published on 1 Comment on Link roundup: inspiration

Barred Spiral Galaxy NGC 1300
Source: Hubblesite.org

Being a part of a diverse religious community of passionate people with strongly held opinions can be challenging. Sometimes it is really easy to get caught up in debates and drama and forget how powerful and beautiful our community can be. As organizers begin working on their local Pagan Pride Days, I suggest reviewing HecateDemeter's posts on framing (this one is a good one to start with) and creating your own quote about why you are proud to be Pagan. Here are some I found around the Internet:

"We are the intellectual heirs of the ancient Greek philosophers who invented democracy, poetry, philosophy, the Olympics, etc. We're going to be holding a Pagan Pride event on Sept. 23rd to emphasize how local Pagans contribute to our local economy by farming, creating jobs in local businesses, supporting our local schools by donating books to school libraries and...

"Stop letting your opponents define your message."

– Framing on the Eve of Lughnasadah.

"[Pagans'] work may seem silly to outsiders, but they have taken on a huge task – to create anew what was lost, a vibrant culture, filled with songs, ceremonies, dances, lullabies, myths. To create such a culture – one that is rich yet at home with notions of individual freedom and modern life – what a Herculean task!

"But a possible one. And as the last flames flicker out and the last tone dissipates, each person returns to their ordinary life with some small remnant of the incredibly subversive notion that the world can be transformed and reborn, that 'we are as gods and might as well get good at it'."

– "Heretic's Heart: A Journey Through Spirit and Revolution" by Margot Adler, quoting "Whole Earth Catalog" (Menlo Park, Calif.: Portola Institute, 1969) 367; I found it here.

"Paganisms are not proselytizing religions. We don't have to proselytize. Our job is to provide for ourselves a vibrant, flexible, and ongoing sustained pagan culture that is so beautiful, so rich with, and so sexy and so desirable that people will want to come to us because they see us and they say, 'I want what they have.'"

– Steven Posch, quoted in Five ritualists I'd like to invite to dinner, Part 2: Steven Posch.

"... comfort is not what I seek from religion. I want challenge. I want danger. I want to be shaken to my depths. I want to be scared shitless. A Dionysian religion breaks down social structures and breaks down the walls of the ego. As Harry Byngham (aka "Dion"), chief of the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, wrote: "Our Dionysian morality is not 'safety first', but 'vitality first'." Neopagan religion is not a religion of good behavior, but a wild religion, a religion of "drums, moonlight, [feasting] rather, dancing, masks, flowers, divine possession" (Robert Graves). It makes me very uncomfortable — and it is what I need."

— My love/hate relationship with Neopaganism, Part 2.

"We are a religion of many sects, many cults, many expressions. From the "hard Gards" to the solitary eclectics weaving their own magic. We are each full of the same awe, wonder, mystery, and joy. We cast the circle, call the elements, honor the Gods, celebrate the Mystery and send our energy to make a positive change in the world. This happens in rituals containing hundreds of people. This happens silently in candlelit bedrooms of closeted solitaries. Our words may be different, our mythos vary and the details be different, but as Wiccans we are all calling forth the same Mystery."

— Why I Love Wicca.

"There is nothing in our lives that is not sacred. ... There is nothing in our lives that is not sacred because life itself is a holy and blessed thing. Every flower, animated. Every rock, an ancient pattern. Each song, an expression of humanity in relationship to all things.

"We are star stuff, it is said, and this is true. We are made of the same iron that gives off distant, dying light. We are made of the same iron that anchors us to this earth. Sometimes we remember. Sometimes we forget."

– Living Sacred.

And because I think Paganism could fill this need:

"A religion old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the universe as revealed by modern science, might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths. Sooner or later, such a religion will emerge."

– Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space (1984), as quoted here.

4

Published on 4 Comments on To the ocean and for a mountain

An empty offering bowl in candlelit.

I am still thinking about sacrifices and offerings. What would my gods ask of me if they spoke?

In wandering around the Pagan blogosphere and speaking to the few "hard" polytheists I know, the gods of the ancient worlds sometimes ask for specific things. They ask for things of value to be sacrificed to them, they give quests and tasks to be done, they ask for altars and shrines, they demand, quite rightly, that promises made to them be fulfilled, and sometimes they may even require blood. There is grace and awesome power in this: the gods asking and the people giving.

My religious beliefs are slippery and squirming things. If I were to name my gods right now, I might name Mother Pacific, the ocean of my city, and Father Lions, the mountains that tower over us. Maybe I'd name the Winds too: North, the fresh air; East, the morning breezes; South, the rain bringer; and West, the ocean’s breath. I love the whole post Gods Like Mountains, Gods Like Mist, but especially this paragraph:

My gods are not always like human beings. Sometimes my gods are like mountains, sometimes they are like mist. Sometimes I seek my gods in the forests, sometimes in ritual space or the beat of the drum. Sometimes my gods are inscrutable or apophatic, and my relationship with them is one of longing and seeking rather than invocation and offering. And sometimes it is the mountains themselves who are gods, and the rivers and trees who speak.

My gods do not speak, at least not in the way that Morrigan, Sekhmet, and Freyja do in the links above. My gods are both more and less literal, both more and less physical, but are definitely not asking things of me. What offerings I make and sacrifices I enact will be my own creations and by my own will alone.

If my gods were to speak and if my gods were to ask for something, they wouldn't ask me to sacrifice a tool or an item of sentimental value, they would not ask for statues and gems, and they certainly wouldn't want them broken or thrown in the ocean in their honour. My gods would not want altars or shrines covered in petrochemical-based decorations and tools made of metal pulled from the earth. To honour them with such would be as if I were to cut off my left pinky finger to offer it to my right hand.

If they are not asking, why am I concerned with offering? I don’t think of these gods in very human ways, but I am still in this human body and this time and place, and offering gifts and sharing food and drink are ways that people here and now create relationships. I want to know these gods in what ways I can, and I want to show respect and gratitude to the powers that shape my life and world, even if the gestures are inadequate to their beings. My cat shows us his love and respect by bringing us dead birds…

I have been meditating on suitable offerings for about a week, gazing periodically on the empty bowl that is the centre piece of my altar right now. I think a libation they'd appreciate would be rain water. I will collect it in a special container placed in the middle of my deck, where falling rain puddles and does not run down into the soil, and ultimately I would pour it on a plant blessed and consecrated to receive it.

If they were to speak, I think my gods would demand a different sacrifice than the giving of wine, blood, or jewelry: a sacrifice of consumption. I think they would have me not upgrade my phone, not purchase the random do-dad I have my eye on, and not buy the non-organic, non-fair trade chocolate bar I'm craving. They would want me to turn off the TV and turn down the heat. They’d only want candles burned in their honour if they were soy or beeswax and were being used instead of electric lights.

Some practice is definitely necessary, then perhaps some more thinking and some revising. What would your gods have of you?

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