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Category: Personal Reflections

Published on Leave a comment on As above, not so below

A close-up of a sundial surrounded by low greenery, showing a time of about 12:30.
"Garden sundial MN 2007" by SEWilco is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.5

I've never been too fussed about always going clockwise in Circle, and the Silver Spiral tradition doesn't have it as a requirement. We sometimes forget to tell guests and start off watching them awkwardly spin three-quarters clockwise instead of one quarter counter-clockwise until they realize that we don't bother. Up to them, though; if deosil is their preference, they can have at it.

It's all a matter of view and perspective: Rise to the sun and the moon, and gaze down with Them on our rites, we seem to move clockwise. Sink down in to the earth below our feet and look up with Her, and we seem to move counter-clockwise. Every deosil contains widdershins, and each widdershins contains deosil.

Pull back away from our sun, and see the planets spiral through space. If they left trails, they'd be like be like the double helix of DNA. Our little sacred Circles on the earth spiral through space with Her.

A computer generated image of a double helix DNA strand: dark blue on a lighter blue background.
"DNA Double Helix" by cookiepx2016 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

Clockwise or counter-clockwise, circles or spirals; it's all a matter of perspective.

Published on Leave a comment on Faith without belief

Billy Graham
A still of Billy Graham's TED Talk: On Technology and Faith.

In the "Believers And Doubters" episode of TED Radio Hour, Anne Graham Lotz talks about her father - Billy Graham - and how he differentiated between belief and faith. Basically, he took the controversial position that James 2:19 means that there is a difference between belief and faith, for even the demons believe in god. Faith requires more than acknowledgement of the existence of something, but the additional step of having confidence and trust in it and loyalty and fidelity to it.

It's treated as standard: believe in, have faith in, and therefore worship. Except Pagans - and others - like to mess with the system. Some Pagans may believe in gods they choose not to have faith in or worship. Some may worship with neither belief nor faith. And some have faith and worship without belief. Anyone who tries to define Paganism in terms of any one axis - that to be Pagan, one must have Pagan beliefs, for example - misses that we undermine the believer versus non-believer dichotomy and screw with the assumption that belief, faith, and worship must go together.

I don't believe in the sun, for it just is. I have faith in it - that it will continue to rise and warm and feed - but it doesn't need my worship.

I don't believe in the ocean, for it just is. I know it to be the source of life, so I make my offerings and my worship, but I don't have faith in it.

I do believe that all life is a sacred expression of the universe and I have faith that that means all lives, from the biggest to the smallest and from the highest to the deepest, have meaning, as we are all ways for the sacred universe to perceive itself and learn about itself. And there's everything and nothing to worship in that.

Published on Leave a comment on The problem of getting sh*t done

Cartoon person with a broom yelling "Let's cleanse this space!".
Art from Hyperbole and a Half.

I used to work for a small business. It was a really small business; the kind where the owner and I shared a walk-in closet as an office and we didn't have to make reservations for the company Christmas party. I was there for ten years, doing what needed to be done all day, every day. There wasn't a lot of theorizing - there wasn't time for theories. There wasn't a lot of philosophizing - there wasn't time for philosophy. There was shit to do.

I have moved into the non-profit world now. I am in operations - practical, day-to-day stuff - but some days it feels like it is all meetings anyway. And so many of the meetings don't seem to achieve anything: meetings about the wording of our mission statement, meetings about activities we don't have the capacity to do, and meetings about meetings. I despair as the minutes tick by while people theorize and philosophize and day dream... I just want to get back to my to-do list. I have shit to do.

My spiritual family tends to the practical too. We had to improvise ritual space the other day, and we busted that out: quick division of the roles such that everything was evenly divided and no one had to awkwardly skip around the circle to call a second quarter, and we were soon underway. We all spoke clearly, got our lines mostly right, and cued each other as needed. Not quite clockwork, but we got through the sacred space set-up efficiently as a team. And then we got to a certain point and were gearing up to get to the next task on the ritual checklist when one person said "we should take a moment".

Oh. right. A ritual is more than a list of tasks to complete.

The "get shit done" approach serves me well at work, where the task list is:

Buy forks.
Follow up on overdue invoices.
Fix the printer.
Buy more forks.
Issue membership contracts.
Order coffee.
Pay invoices.
Buy even more forks.1

But while the kind of experience that happens in Circle is crafted through a checklist of tasks, it isn't the checklist.2 The steps are not there for their own sake; they are the means by which we reach the state where we can connect beyond ourselves to deities, to community, to spirit, to grace... and if we lose sight of that, we risk creating empty containers instead of sacred space. Sometimes, getting shit done requires focusing on something bigger than getting shit done.

Published on Leave a comment on Privately taking it seriously

A meditating figure with a bowed head, carved in a tree trunk I've been a vegetarian for about two decades. I keep my reasons for becoming and staying vegetarian quiet and I don't talk about my vegetarianism much - I don't want to be one of those vegetarians. Unfortunately, in an effort to be just "cool" about something that matters to me, I end up in uncomfortable situations like listening to a detailed description of sausage making, being served dessert made with gelatin, or being gifted leather items. It's not the other party's fault: for the most part, they don't know my values because I haven't told them; I default to privacy. I am deeply grateful for my friends and family who are respectful of my beliefs and who make an effort to accommodate me.

There are a couple of areas of life that are particularly prone to a blurry line between informing and preaching: religion, politics, and certain lifestyle choices (we know the joke). They are areas of life where people have made choices and where believers have dedicated a lot of time and energy. They are highly invested, which means the cost of being wrong is very high. These are areas that help us define our identity; things that we consider pretty fundamental to who we are. If I were to try to sum up who I am, both Pagan and vegetarian would be on my list of descriptors.

I've noticed that if I mention that I'm vegetarian, even casually and in context (when declining a meat dish at a potluck, for example), many people react defensively. They explain to me how little meat they eat, or defend their need for animal protein, or tell me about how they tried to be vegetarian once... these are not conversations I generally want to have. If I don't tell people, though, I don't know whether or not there's meat broth in the soup. And while speaking out about certain topics is seen as preaching, silence will sometimes be taken as lack of caring.

A friend of mine who is a Quaker says that it is a bit of an awkward "coming out" every time she has reason to mention it. People often confuse Quaker with the Amish or Mennonites, and will ask her questions about why she drinks alcohol or uses a cell phone. If she has reason to refer to her spiritual beliefs, she is often facing a challenge of explaining without seeming to preach. Pagans, as members of another minority and sometimes misunderstood religion, will have a similar balancing act, further complicated, perhaps, by the fact that our values vary from Pagan to Pagan, so we can't even necessarily turn to our own community for the unquestioning support other groups can give each other. If you are an evangelical Christian, you don't have to explain certain things to your church: it is assumed that you are anti-abortion, for example. But even though I consider my vegetarianism to be a part of my Paganism, that is not an assumption I can make when with my spiritual community. And, on the other side, in my limited experience with the vegetarian community, they may not share some of my Pagan values that lead me to choose leather shoes over synthetics in some cases.

When there's unnecessary waste in a ritual1, when there is boundary crossing during ritual2, when there is strongly gendered roles in ritual, it doesn't fit with my values as a Pagan. I hold those values - I live by those values - because I believe they are good ways of being and acting. To not speak up, especially around consent issues, feels like betraying my beliefs. But by saying "I don't think that belongs in ritual", I am saying "I think you are wrong" to the people who did it. I would leave behind postmodern relativism and criticize both their artist work as ritual creators and their religious values... be caught comparing their values to mine and finding their's wanting.

For it to be worth it to me to speak up - worth risking making other people uncomfortable or defensive - it has to be something I care about and that I also think I can change someone else's mind about. I know that I'm unlikely to convert any meat eaters to vegetarians3, but I do hope that if I talk to someone about ways to increase consent at a ritual, there will be a chance of having those suggestions implemented in the future. I think the difference is that everyone knows that vegetarian is a choice they can make, where they may not know yet about consent culture. There's less likely to be a conflict with their own established, chosen values, and I have the opportunity to present ideas as something new to them that they can take on as their own.

I pick my battles, but please don't take my silence as lack of caring. I hold my values close to my heart and I judge myself (and you) by them.

A tiny winking face

Published on Leave a comment on An introvert’s guide to community-centred Paganism

Solo person sitting on the beach I am a classic introvert, and a little socially anxious. I love "my people", but I frequently find crowds and strangers overwhelming. After socializing, even with the people I love most, I need time alone to recharge. So of all the ways of being Pagan, it seems a contradiction that I identify most as a community-centred Pagan, the only kind that would seem to require extroversion.

Though it may seem to be a contradiction, I think my introversion is actually why I'm drawn to community. It can be hard for introverts to meet and get to know people, so once we've got ourselves a good group of friends, we definitely want to hold on to them. Most people want to belong to a group and be a part of something, and introverts don't always have the easiest path to finding that, making it very valuable to us when we do. I've got my spiritual family, Silver Spiral, and I have found other pockets of community locally that I enjoy working with, such as the Vancouver Pagan Pride Day team.

Community building isn't just for extroverts. Some of it is outward facing, socializing, presenting, but there are also emails to write, schedules to manage, research to do, cookies to bake... community isn't just built by people who are willing to stand up in front of a group with a vision, but also those who are willing to sit with ideas for hours to help bring a vision to life, and those - introverts and extroverts alike - who are willing to pitch in at every level, including doing the dishes. Pagans with all kinds of belief systems - deity-centred, nature-centred, and inner-centred - can and do help build community, but for community-centred Pagans, this is our spiritual work.

To be a community-centred Pagan is to have spreadsheets as well as athames as religious tools. It means that writing a rite for a group is a ritual in and of itself, satisfying a spiritual need even before the space has been cleansed. It is to recognize that there's magical energy in coordinating a potluck as much as casting a circle, that offering a workshop or a helpful blog post can be as important a religious service as an offering to a deity, and that a call to assist at a concession stand is as much a sacred duty as calling a quarter.

Published on Leave a comment on The fantasy schedule

A cat with a pen and a noteboook I don't know much about fantasy football, but it is my understanding that the game is to assemble the best team on paper that you can from all active players on all teams. That's how I have tended to create schedules for myself.

My fantasy schedule is dominated by "should": I should wash the kitchen floor every week, I should meditate, I should eat less sugar, I should practice parking more often, I should create a morning ritual, I should call my mother more often... in my head, I create elaborate schedules that include all the things I should do, but it is just a fantasy. "Should" isn't about intention or action; it's about guilt and (self-)criticism.

I've recently decided to try to give up the word "should". When I hear myself tell myself that I should do something, I stop and ask myself if I actually care about doing it. If the answer is "yes", then I change the sentence to one of real intention: "I will do that tonight". If the answer is "no", then I give myself permission to let go of the guilt and the fantasy.

I've been finding that a very big challenge, and one of the areas where I have particular trouble is related to spirituality. I have been having trouble letting go of the idea that one day I'll want to spend my mornings meditating, sipping herbal tea with a nutritious breakfast, and conducting simple but deeply meaningful rituals. The truth is, I want to spend my morning drinking espresso, playing Solitaire on my phone, and serving as a warm lap for my cat.

I been thinking about that gap between desire and action and why it exists. I have always wanted to be a spiritual person, but I never put plans into action, at least not for long. Then a friend of mine, who has been running Vancouver Pagan Pride Day for several years now, said something in one of the preparation meetings for the March 19th fundraiser event to the effect of "This is my spiritual work."

That rattled around in my head until I had one of those slap-your-forehead moments: for all my discussions about different ways to be Pagan and the centres of Paganism, I had never thought about what my own inclination towards Community-Centred Paganism actually meant for my personal practices. It should have been no wonder that meditating, praying, lighting candles, and making offerings didn't work for me; solitary ritual would never tick the right boxes for me. What does work for me is participating in group ritual, volunteering for the community, writing group rituals, and writing this blog. My spiritual work doesn't look like I expected it to, so I dismiss what I am actually doing - what is actually calling me and bringing me satisfaction - and try to make myself into what I picture religious looks like. And since that doesn't call me, it just leads to "should".

My spiritual practice doesn't look like kneeling in front of an altar praying. My spiritual practice looks like sitting in front of a laptop, it looks like long walks thinking about theology, it looks like my spiritual family sharing bread by candlelight after grounding, and it looks like editing a book and creating workshops. That's where my spirit wants to be, and it makes it easy to avoid fantasy schedules and just do things.

Published on Leave a comment on What the “a”?

The Greek letter a When I was a kid, I had a strong preference for reading, crafting - solitary activities. I was a reluctant participant in birthday parties, organized clubs, and group activities. My mother used to accuse me of being "anti-social", but being a reader of books beyond my age group, I knew from quite young that that term carried the burden of misanthropy and hostility towards people that I simply didn't have. I didn't hate people or social society; I simply didn't care to participate. At about 8 years old, I told my Mom I was "asocial", but I think the distinction was lost on her.

From the Ancient Greek ἀ- (a-), meaning "without":

Asocial, apolitical, asexual, amoral, agnostic, apathetic... atheist. An "a" that negates without reacting against. An "a" that creates neutral ground between the pro- and the anti-. An "a" that takes no sides; that simply doesn't care to participate at all.

Considered in those terms, I am perhaps not so much agnostic - without interest in spiritual knowledge - as I am more atheistic - without interest in god(s).

I've just taken the compost out and I'm standing in my driveway, looking at the moon. I am captivated by its beauty, which is amplified by countless generations of myths and poems and enlivened by scientific knowledge. I connect to my ancestors who saw the same moon and to all the people that see the same moon. I am so small in the context of all the time behind and time ahead and space all around, and I am so large in being part of the web of life. I am the universe seeing itself and I am but a flicker in its great story. I feel wonder and awe and my feet, cold in my thin slippers. I am grateful for the moment. If what I send out is a prayer, it is to the pull of the moon and the beauty of the night and the convergence of everything that gave me that moment. If there's a god there, it is one that is larger than a personality and smaller than a power and more diffuse than a name.

4

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 Focus, if you please

"Can you just stop?" I want to say, "Stop with the giggling, with the chatting, with the side comments that have nothing to do with why we are here. Focus, damn it!"

Even the best ritual script doesn't always survive contact with the ritual participants. I have had rituals flop due to a weak concept and lack of preparation, but the ones that bug me are the ones that fail, in my perception, due to the participants.

That isn't fair, really; if the participants are distracted and unfocused, it could be that my ritual concept was a poor match for the group, or that I didn't sufficiently prepare my group for the ritual, or that my overall leadership was lacking. But sometimes it seems like one person had a bad day, or consumed too much caffeine, or has low blood sugar, and they pull the focus of everyone.

I admire ritual leaders that can return focus without causing further disruption to the energy (as suddenly yelling "Can you just stop?" would tend to). I went to a lovely sung devotional ritual where a couple of people started talking about something unrelated to the ritual, and the priestess gently sang out into the centre of the circle something like "this is a sacred time for devotional speech only". It shut down the distraction and returned everyone's attention back to the ritual's purpose, and because the priestess didn't address anyone directly, she accomplished this without calling anyone out.

I am still trying to figure out how to intervene and bring a ritual back on track in a way that is comfortable and fits my ritual style. I've found a couple of things that are helpful for prevention, though. I need to know my ritual very well so I can lead it confidently and have the elements flow smoothly; pauses, hesitations, and errors leave time for attention to wander. Using the same ritual structure every time has helped with my smaller group, as the repetition from ritual to ritual gets everyone into the familiar mindset faster and more effectively. And making sure people have eaten is a good idea, so we usually do dinner first and dessert after for grounding.

Sometimes there's nothing to be done. I write the best script I can, prepare myself and the group as well as possible, set the mood and try to keep the energy flowing smoothly, but maybe someone will be "off", or maybe the cat will throw up in the circle, or maybe someone's phone will start ringing... do what you can, then surrender to whatever happens. You can't always fight it - and yelling "stop it!" in circle is probably not conducive to creating the right energy.

Published on Leave a comment on Origins and inspirations

A shelf of books that have influenced my spirituality.

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Margot Adler at the end of July. Her book, "Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today", was one of my first introductions to Paganism. I read the original edition from my high school library and later bought the "revised and expanded edition". Though I haven't re-read it in many years, it still has a place on my bookshelf. In fact, when I did a purge of all my Pagan books a number of years ago, it was one of the first that I moved to the "keep" pile.

I have never owned a copy of the first book about Paganism I ever read - Robin Skelton's "Practice of Witchcraft Today: An Introduction To Beliefs and Rituals", found at the community library - and I sold and donated a lot of the other Pagan books I owned. They had played their part and I was not going to re-read them. On my religion/spiritual bookshelf, my Pagan books are either sentimental books - local authors, autographed books, etc. - classics like "The Spiral Dance", and a small handful of reference books. My copy of "Drawing Down" fits in both of the latter categories.

When I went to pull my copy and read through the introduction in remembrance of Margot Adler, I had a look at what else was on the shelf and reflected on what and who has influenced me. Most of my books are about labyrinths, community living, prayer (from a variety of religions), Eastern philosophy, Jungian thought, deep ecology, and a few new age books. The greatest influences on my current form of Paganism are probably "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan.

Pagans are good at integrating wisdom and beauty from many sources into our traditions. Maybe that's why Pagans don't quote Pagans1: we're quoting the original sources before they've gone through our filters and creative reworkings. It's an honest practice. But as we combine and create and recreate, our own wisdom emerges, such as, from "Drawing Down the Moon": "Paganism is a gift of life to life herself. ... It's planting gardens, loving the planet, being concerned with truth and honesty, and reclaiming parts of ourselves that have been cut off."2

Thank you Margot.

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