Pagan Godspell

Ah, Pagani.

I’ve been struggling with how to communicate my experiences at the recent Pagan Spirit Gathering for over a week now. In the language of my last post, my time in Ohio fermented itself right out of its crock and has leaked into the cracks and corners of every thought and prayer of mine the last 7 days. I met amazing people that have already woven their thread into my tapestry so firmly that I feel they must have always been here, walking in my life. I walked silent under the waxing moon past tents filled with secret singing and torchlight. I danced madwoman around a fire that threw up stars to match those in the dark sky. I ate ice cream.

It was awesome.

I have a million thoughts that I can’t pin down to articulate yet, as I grapple with the emotional juggernaut of being home and back to “real life,” which in many ways is no such thing. For now, I will leave you with a few thoughts and impressions from my week of woods and light, of air and darkness – Good News Communique #11 (or 754…or 13…or 42…I can’t remember), PSG Edition:

1. In one of my recent posts, I commented on the health issue in contemporary Pagan communities that I had heard was communicated at Pantheacon this year. I have since learned that the original speaker who commented on this issue at Pantheacon was Pagan author and NPR correspondant Margot Adler, who was also present at PSG and gave an outstanding talk on the evolution of Pagan religious movements and communities in the United States since the first publication of her seminal and extraordinary work Drawing Down the Moon, which has been recently released in a new updated edition for 2007. During her talk, she commented again on her distress at watching the Elders in our community battle diabetes, heart disease and mobility issues due to ill health, and the need for the Pagan community to take responsibility for ourselves and our communities in terms of our physical well-being. She also said, quite pointedly, that the issue is not about fat, and was very clear about the need to avoid shaming fat bodies in our search for an alternative to the contemporary American tendencies towards poor nutrition and sedentary lifestyles. I feel very powerfully that this is possible – to balance the importance of health with a refusal to jump aboard the shame train, and I was thrilled to hear Adler balance the two effectively and compassionately.

2. Labyrinths have never worked for me. This is ironic, since it was while I was reading Lauren Artress’ classic book Walking a Sacred Path that I first felt a call to ministry and decided to pursue seminary work. Yet, every time I’ve walked a labyrinth, I’ve felt strangely unmoved. I derive more spiritual fulfillment from watching others walk the path, actually, which I’m sure must mean something. At any rate, it comes down to the fact that labyrinths leave me cold. Which is why I was hesitant to experience PSG’s candlelight labyrinth, constructed in a starlit meadow and tended until dawn for any wayward member of the Pagani who happens to feel the pull of the walk at 3:30am…like I did, much to my surprise. And what a blessing it was. Oh, don’t get any fabulous ideas – I heard no trumpets from Beyond the Fields we Know. I wasn’t visited in the wee hours by spirits or sprites – I heard no booming voice instructing me in the Way. I sat by a fire in the center of a field of lights and listened to the Voice below the Stars Within, the divine Child of Promise in my tiny green soul, and heard a few snippets of instruction and advice that I take well to heart, but no radiant fire poured down from the inky vault and anointed me with illumination (for that, I dance). Rather, I spent an hour burning dew-bright with the sweet wet of the grass, transfixed by the gorgeousness of the flickering trail – the match-up of star to candle, the wheel of the sky above my circle, and the whisper of wind in the Appalachian thickets. It was enough. For the shattering Silence of that Beauty, I give thanks.

3. Community. By Gods, it exists. While I wax despairing from time to time as a woman who finds herself more often than not practicing my religion in a circle of walnut trees, opossums, cilantro and rabbits instead of my fellow human beings, and who spends most of her community time w/ her fellow Pagani on a computer rather than in person (the hypocrisy of being an anti-tech anarchist who spends so much of her waking life online is rich, I’m aware), I was staggeringly delighted to be surrounded for an entire week by the glittering diversity of our people. Do all the polythea/ologies present at PSG turn me on? Good Lordisa no. Do I agree with everyone at PSG politically, emotionally, spiritually, etc.? Nope. Did I feel a kinship with a group of wildly and splendidly different people, all wrestling in their own dark and bright nights with a bevy of angels, demons and sundry spirits, feeding on the fire of glorious living, sharing water and air and fire (and mead), dancing out their salty prayers around a bonfire twice as high as the tallest tree, shot through with love for the earth, the sky, their fellow crazy lovers of the World? Hel yes.

4. Mead. I had some fine fine mead. Praise the Melissae, Bee Priestesses of the Honeyed Cup! Praise the Rapturous Nectar-God! And Praise Dionysus…just cause. Io!

I attended a number of workshops and discussions that I am still digesting. And some rituals wherein the black sky opened itself like a flower and gave me gifts I am still unwrapping. To have been enveloped by my crazy people – a total joy. To feel the burden of self-consciousness fall away as my body began to understand what it is to merely be what it is, love what it loves, dance and be known, laugh hard and argue and connect…yep. I had a good time. I had a Good News time. More to come in the following weeks and months as I peel back the onion of my week in the woods. For now, I wish you all my Beloveds the shattering glory of a dawn that breaks on you knowing that today you are Right with the Mama, and your body is Her praying place.

Grok Earth.  Pray ever without ceasing.