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Tag: pagan purpose

Published on Leave a comment on What is the point?

Inspired by "What's the Point of Witchcraft?" on the Keeping Her Keys blog.

A rocky beach with a large piece of driftwood and stacks of stones balanced on the driftwood.

I don't get easy comfort from my gods. The universe is unimaginably expansive and the stars are out of reach. The moon, the ocean, the mists, the mountains... they don't placate, they don't offer aid, and they don't hear prayers. I don't find answers in the stars or solutions in magic spells.

The point of my Paganism isn't finding answers. The point of my Paganism is to be asking questions.

Where do we come from and why are we here?
Our very molecules were created in the heart of stars. What we are made out of, and everything we see, touch, and eat, has been around since the beginning of time. We are so beautifully part of everything; it is a mighty responsibility to figure out what that means.

What is a meaningful life?
We are simultaneously microscopic in relation to the universe and immense to those we love. Even the greatest, most famous, most powerful of us are humbled by the breadth, width, and depth of time and space. Even the most ordinary of us are made noble by our sacred origins. We can live in that paradox.

How can we best honour our own divinity?
We will eventually die and our bodies will return to the components from which we are made. So much before that is out of our control, and what happens after is a mystery, but we can try to honour our inner god/dess while we're in our temporary, fragile bodies.

How can we best honour the divinity in others?
To know the god/dess in everyone is to know that we must create fairness, accessibility, and acceptance in our individual lives, in our sacred spaces, and in our whole world. This is sacred work.

What does it mean to be connected and to be in community?
"We are connected with the Earth ecologically, not just chemically. And we are connected with one another socially: as communal animals who need to belong and to feel loved and supported." - Mark Green, Atheopaganism.

The point isn't getting answers - there aren't any. The point is to seek knowledge and deepen understanding. The point is to ask more questions.

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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 without faith

Rainbow in an industrial area "I wished I could believe like that. It must be so comforting..."

There are all kinds of Pagans. I hang out with a lot of humanists and skeptics, and fewer mystics and believers, so I hear the above phrase a lot. I've said it a few times myself.

There's something condescending in that, though, right? 'Ah, to be so naive again!' says the world-weary realist.

That's not to say that the envy isn't also real for some of us. We do want what (we think) faith will give us: feelings of being cared for and watched over, purpose and direction given to us from outside, and comfort that comes from Someone having a plan. We think it will be less work; we think it will be easier than always doubting, analyzing, thinking, creating, and then doubting and analyzing again.

I think we underestimate the work involved in believing, but this isn't about the faithful. This is about letting go of the story of "I wish to believe" - both the patronizing and the jealousy - and embracing our unique ways of being in this religion and what we can contribute to the larger conversation about spirituality's role in saving humanity. We can be a bridge. We can make religious offerings that are gifts to the world. We can offer community and connection. We can bring each other back into the earth and show what's worth saving. We can make thoughtful critiques, show that comfort is not the most important thing, and create something beautiful and true and powerful... then doubt and ask questions and create something even more beautiful and true and powerful. There's a lot of work to do; let's stop wasting time wishing we were different.

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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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