Pagan Godspell

Many blessings, beloved Pagani, on this most sweltering and riotous summer day!

Mahud at Between Old and New Moons (a fabulously gorgeous blog title, BTW) has posted a series of thought-provoking questions for Pagans in his search for a spiritual path that appeals to him. The resulting list of questions are, as some others have noted, a veritable wealth of excellent prompts for an entire series of blog posts. All of them are deliciously meaty, and can, in my opinion, be broken up into five sections – today’s post will begin at the beginning with a series of questions pertaining to the nature of “Paganism” and the definitions of that term.

The wonderful thing here is, of course, that my answers will be different than pretty much every single other Pagan in the known world, including the members of my own coven. There are few hard truths in Paganism, although there are approximately 123509872 opinions (I may be understating it). A few of them are mine. I’m happy as a can of beans to share them, but I caveat-dance my way over to whisper in your ear that eternal wisdom: these answers are mine alone – I’m as much an authority on this as anyone else. The only thing I am a true authority on is me….and even that gets a little iffy sometimes.

That said, it’s off to the races! *flexes fingers*

First, I should probably define what I mean by Paganism when I use the term. Funny that I’ve been writing about this now for almost a year and have never gone there…I think that’s mostly because it can be such a quagmire that it’s just better left to the realm of educated assumption (i.e. we’re all in kind of a tepid fuzzy agreement-bath together on it for the most part – why leap out and risk freezing my bits?). That’s the stickler about Paganism – it’s a notoriously difficult term to define. But, just for kicks, if you want to know my best long-winded guess at the matter, you can read it here – this is a piece of an essay I’ve been sorta kinda writing in order to synthesize my thoughts based on a few workshops I’ve given over the years on Contemporary Paganisms (it’s not finished as of yet…and it might not be – it’s one of those projects).

Mahud’s first set of questions are as follows:

Is it OK to be just a ‘Pagan?’ As I understand it [Paganism] is an umbrella term used much in the same way as ‘Hinduism’ is used to represent a whole range of different beliefs and practices? If so, is choosing a specific Pagan path essential?

The short answer here is: of course you can be “just a Pagan” without aligning yourself with a specific tradition/religion. I mean, if you can be a gospel-music lovin’ witch/druid, I think you can safely call yourself a non-denominational Pagan, and many people do. The thing to remember is that people can call themselves whatever they like within the realm of contemporary Paganism, with the expectation that there will be those that support you 100% and those that think you’re doing it ALL WRONG. The key is to decide whether you care what either group thinks of you and either change to accommodate them (or distance yourself from them as the case may be) or extend your middle finger accordingly. Many spiritual journeys involve more than a few of these deciding crossroads moments, with folks choosing one and then the other, etc. For me, this is one of the exciting elements of faith community – how we grow and change in relationship to others on the same journey, how we affect them and how they affect us, ad infinitum…interdependent web of all existence and all that.

Though, as with anything, you will need to be prepared to explain what you mean by “just a Pagan.” It’s a pretty loose area, considering that it is true that Paganism is more a term for a subset of religions than a religion all to itself (not to mention that fun bugaboo that there are no hard fast rules about what Paganism means for anyone, so it’s kind of just a big boiling stew-pot thing, which is fun in its way and frustrating as Hel in others). For instance, as I mentioned, there are many folks who identify as “non-denominational” Pagans, but they might mean very different things individually. What some of these folks are practicing qualifies generally as a kind of very loose eclectic Wicca (for many folks, it seems that “Pagan” and “Wicca” are synonymous – in truth of course they are not [if one is Wiccan, one is certainly Pagan, but not all Pagans are Wiccan], but it happens anyway). Others may be naturalists and pantheists who feel the word Pagan fits them the best where other terms may not, but they aren’t terribly down with the rest of the Pagan pie, i.e. gods and rituals, etc. And then there are those interesting souls who think it means that they simply like to Party Hardy Marty. (Once, in my cutesy wootsy baby Pagan days, I was the secretary of my college Pagan organization. One evening, after our weekly gathering in the university hangout area, I was returning our sign to the front desk where it was kept, and a genial fraternity brother caught sight of it. It read: “Pagan Happy Hour.” He instantly grinned/leered at me and said, “Sounds like a good time to me…*chuckle, chuckle*.” To this fellow, “Pagan” was synonymous with “orgy.” That was a new one on me at the time. I thought it was hilarious.)

So, choosing a specific Pagan religion is of course not essential, but because “Paganism” itself is not a religion but rather a signifier for a host of religions (and a slippery, nebulous, shifty, tricksy one at that), it will be helpful for you in the long run to be able to articulate what you mean when you identify that way. Of course in general I think it behooves all of us to be able to do that no matter what religion we claim.

An interesting side-note is that though I do practice within a specific religion (or two, kinda), I more readily identify myself with the word “Pagan” than I do with the word “Witch” or “Druid” when asked by non-Pagans. Why? Because it’s a word that to me speaks of generalities, and thus a kind of inclusivity. I am indeed a Witch and have myself plenty o’ Druidic leanings to boot, but among my sisters and brothers in Paganism I count many many others – Asatruar, Feraferians, Celtic Recons, Thelemites, etc. etc., and I am happy to embrace all our people in my concept of Pagan community. If someone was then to ask me about my personal practice and/or belief system, then I might share those specifics, much in the same way a Christian, initially answering an inquiry into her faith, might say “Christian” and when asked further might begin to rhapsodize on the specifics of Calvinism, Catholicism or the teachings of Joseph Smith (I realize it’s not a perfect comparison, but it’ll due for the nonce).

There’ll be a quiz later.  Ha ha!  Of course there won’t.

This is fun.  I feel like I’m back in school.  Except I don’t have to quote Paul Tillich at all.  Bonus!

NEXT: Pagan Inquisition Part 2: Pagans and Nature.