Pagan Godspell

Glorious Pagani. I am a wilted lily among thickets of goldenrod and queen anne’s lace, waiting for rain to break the relentless threat of heat and sweat. Which is all a very lovely way to say: shit, it’s hot.

And yet, as always, the Mama cackles out her days in patterns on our tired skin. In the savage late summer, I watch the sun turn to red gold in the evenings. I steal prayers out from beneath lamplight in the shadows of the crickets crying all the world a rhapsody of sex and song. There are secrets here in the summer night, hidden between the days that burn our lips and melt our dreams like beeswax…oh, there is a music in the wet night grass. Here I am, in the clean, exhausted dark, breathing the cool air that tastes like pollen and honey, and thinking of friends.

Pagans and Community. Such a bugaboo.

Pagan community is an enormous subject, one that is just beginning to be thoroughly explored by sociologists and academics of all stripes. Since it would take an entire book to write out all my thoughts on Pagan community, and because quite frankly I’m a tad intimidated by the subject (and because of those ankle-gnawing life-badgers that have been plaguing me once again of late), I have chosen to reign in those thoughts to a certain extent, answering some questions in this area and leaving out others…

Is it easy finding a community of like-minded Pagans?

The short answer here is: no. And yes. Ha ha! Tricksy Pagani – we hates them, yesss!

Well, so. As for me, I spent many years as a teenager pining for fellows to talk to who believed as I did (well, actually, I spent a lot of years as a teen pining in general…pining was kind of a pastime of mine). When I hit college, lo! I found some fellows – and thus it was that I first boarded the theme-park ride that is Pagan community, and have never really gotten myself unstrapped from the rollercoaster car since. I have been the member of a coven as well as a solitary practitioner. I have met with ritual groups and student organizations, community networking groups and full moon circles. I’ve attended a lot of potlucks. A LOT of potlucks (And what do I bring to potlucks you ask? When I’m feeling ambitious, I bring fruit salad. When I’m feeling….how I feel normally… I bring chips. Yup, I’m that lady). So it took time, and continues to take time and effort to find the Pagani, but find them I did, and how.

Of course, finding a community of Pagans nowadays is getting easier, particularly in urban areas, where it’s also easier to find things like vegetarian cafes run by followers of the Supreme Master Ching Hai or some kind of unusual musical/artistic event happening every night of the week. Cities are big is what I’m sayin’, and therefore statistically you’re going to find a lot of stuff there, including Pagans. Plus, what with the advent of the internet, folks are getting pretty savvy at finding one another in their general geographic area no matter where they are (behold! I give you the networking miracle of Witchvox). So yeah, you’re bound to find at least a handful of the Pagani in most places in the U.S. Finding like-minded Pagans, however? Harder, depending on the mind. If you’ve a calling towards reconstructing the historical worship of Mithras, for example, the odds that there’s a thriving Mithraic cult in your area is a hell of a lot slimmer than the odds that there’s a variety of Wiccans doin’ their thang at the local UU church (which isn’t to say that there aren’t any contemporary practitioners of Mithraism in the world, because there most certainly are…they just aren’t going to be as readily visible in terms of numbers in comparison to Wiccans, particularly in your average American city – though I stand ready to be wrong about that should anyone choose to correct me with data I don’t currently possess).

So what I’m getting at here is that while it is becoming fairly easy to find other Pagans, it remains a task to find family, but then, this is how it is with a lot of things.

Is there a kind of leadership? Or are some members considered to be more authoritative than others without any rigid kind of leadership structure.

Oh, leaders. We’ve got those. We’ve got those in spades, actually. We’ve got piles of experts and authors and presenters and activists and high priest/esses and gothis/gythias and archdruids and hierophants and pharaohs and even our own set of shiny attention-seeking media Pagans. Of course they’re not all competent or qualified or recognized by the entire community. For one thing, there are a lot of different Pagan religions with different ideas of leadership, so someone who is widely recognized as an authority in the Heathen community may be unlikely to be recognized as an authority in Canaanite Reconstructionism, or the Feri Tradition of Witchcraft. For another, it is important to remember that not all leaders in Christianity or any other religion are uniformly competent, qualified or recognized by their entire communities either.

Pagans generally seem to give a kind of seat of honor to certain authors and speakers, and there is a growing, healthy group of folks who have earned reputations for being responsible and reliable sources of information, strong ritual leaders, liturgists, pastoral counselors, etc., but I wouldn’t venture to say that we have any organized body of leadership as a wider community. We’re afloat on a pretty anarchic sea. One thing that the Pagani do tend to emphasize is the empowerment of individuals to make informed decisions on who they individually choose to recognize as an authority within their own religion/tradition, and when opinions differ, debate often ensues (sometimes resulting in a healthy, constructive discourse, and sometimes resulting in something rather more silly and tiresome…we’re all human after all).

And of course, well…sure, some of us may also be suffering from delusions of leadership that we do not actually possess. This happens everywhere. Think the President of the United States.

Perhaps you are a solitary Pagan, or your only connecting with Pagans on the internet, how does that work for you?

Ah. I’m becoming afraid that I’m incapable of making brief, concise and concrete statements. Luckily, there is little about Paganism that demands these sorts of things, but still…I fear for my future in a world of soundbites.

Anyway – the thing about bein’ a solitary is that, well, it’s complicated (isn’t it all? isn’t it fun? oh okay, not always). I am a solitary by circumstance and not by choice – I moved away from my covenmates a little while ago, and the impact upon my spiritual life has been significant, in both positive and negative ways. I get lonely. I also get a lot of Work done. It’s fortunate that at the core of it I enjoy spending a great deal of time by myself in contemplation…meandering along overgrown paths and haunting the corners of bookstores and what have you. So I’m not exactly mired in some kind of swampy sadclown-soup everyday. Rabbits do, after all, make for some enchanting company, as do willows, doves, lilies, clover blossoms and sparrows. I’ve had some superb comfy moments in the bole of an oak tree. And I even admit that some days, the oak tree and the rabbits may even be superior company (those would be my pissier, more misanthropic days…hey, man – I have them, ‘kay? Tell me you don’t). Part of my personal polythea/ology is the belief that all life is aware and communicating, therefore we are never truly solitaries at all, but have simply forgotten how to truly communicate with the life around us – so I work on that, though language barriers being what they are, I admit that practicing Craft with other human beings is awfully nice on occasion, and I wholeheartedly dig talking shop with like-minded Pagani. So I work towards a healthy balance. Working towards a healthy balance may be the core of everything, really. Unlike equilibrium, which is akin to stagnation, balance requires a kind of rocking motion, like dancing with yourself, like the swing of a great brass pendulum.

Of course, while being solitary for me is a matter primarily of circumstance, for others it’s a conscious choice, and a rich, valid one. Many folks choose to work alone for a variety of reasons.

And lastly, at the heart of it, there remains an enormous amount of Work that must be done by oneself regardless of whether one belongs to a group or not. One of the primary commandments of my particular practice is “Know Thyself,” and if I can’t stand to be alone with myself, how on earth will I ever hope to begin approaching that task?

How do non-Pagans react upon learning you are Pagan?

So if she weighs the same as a duck…she’s made of wood…and therefore….A WITCH!

Oh, all right. Truth is, I’ve been reasonably fortunate in my time this earthly go round in that I have not yet encountered any individual who has gone vein-pulsing ballistic upon the revelation of my particular spiritual identity. What reactions I have experienced, of course, have ranged far and wide, from enthusiastic and curious, to apathetic and disinterested, to snickering and dismissive, to wary and uncomfortable, to utterly bewildered, and even, on occasion, to the friendly head-bobbing acceptance of the reasonably well-informed (yup, yup, Pagans…I know a few of those). It is a fact after all that “non-Pagans” encompass, well, a fairly large body of people, and it’s fair to say that this one Southern Baptist/Buddhist/Pastaferian/Whatever over here is going to react differently to my being a self-identified Witch and Druid than her/his fellow in Christ/Buddha/Spaghetti Monster/Whatever over here. I’ve encountered devout Christians who’ve engaged me in right cheerful and friendly interfaith dialogue as well as Secular Humanists who’ve look at me as though I’m something they scraped off their shoe. That’s folks for ya, always a gamble.

I do find that the majority of those I encounter have simply never heard of Paganism before or are confused by the term…I spend a lot of time trying to explain what I mean by it in 20 words or less, which is really really difficult. Some assume immediately that I’m Wiccan (due to the misconception perpetuated in the media that Wiccan and Pagan are synonymous terms, or that Wicca is the only Pagan religion, or that Wiccans are the only Witches) and react accordingly depending on their opinion. I’ve also had a fairly significant amount of people think I’m kidding, particularly if I mention the word “coven,” which sounds so outdated and B-movie outrageous to some people that they think I’m pulling their leg, or at least being kitschy and ironic. And I’ve had similar reactions to the term “Druid,” which for the some folks seems ludicrously fictional…as much a legitimate religious identity as someone saying they were a unicorn (not to imply that people spiritually identifying as unicorns are illegitimate…I mean, I don’t know that there are any people who actually do that, but I’ve met some weird/wyrd, rich and strange folks in my Pagan days, and I’m willing to concede that there might be someone somewhere who identifies as a religious unicorn…). So yeah, I get a fair amount of broomstick jokes and chuckles. All I ask is for someone to make the effort every once in a while to come up with an original broomstick joke. Some creativity, people, s’all I’m askin’.

Of course, I have these conversations fairly often because I choose to be fairly forthcoming about it all. As some may have discerned, I enjoy talking about Paganism (just a bit). I mean, it’s not like it’s something that I immediately volunteer (Hi! I’m Sara! I’m a Witch! Here’s what’s wrong with my car…), as I personally find that sort of thing obnoxious with any religion, but if it comes up naturally in a conversation, etc., then I’m game…hey, I’m game for hours. This enthusiasm has led me to some amazing opportunities for interfaith exchange, and has yet to lead me into water that’s any warmer than I’d like. One of my favorite conversations of all time was with an extremely devout Baptist man, who had a number of thoughtful, infinitely polite and interesting questions to ask me in his search to grasp something he found so outside of his worldview that I may as well have been an alien with three heads. Another fun conversation ensued in the moment that I chose, on the spot, to stop arguing with the Mormons at the door about the arrogant rudeness of proselytization and just evangelize to them on behalf of the Mama instead. Despite my seemingly brazen approach to my religious identity, however, it is true that I do choose to keep that information to myself in certain company in order to avoid unnecessary drama (I may be a Pagan Evangelical, but I’m not stupid). Part of being able to articulate one’s religious beliefs is also being able to discern when it’s appropriate and safe to do so, in my opinion.

And, as always, other of my fellow Pagani will have a range of experiences and will feel comfortable with a range of openness about their faith. For some, it’s simply an extremely private matter, and I am ever in absolute and utter support of that. I was just born with a big mouth. It’s a blessing and a curse, really. Like being superorganized…on one hand, shit gets done when you’re around. On the other hand, you’re the only one who brings anything of substance to the potlucks. Not that we chips-bearers aren’t appreciative of that fact. We are. Oh, we are. You are truly great ones, and we humble ourselves before thee and thy superior, sumptious cous-cous salad thing with the mandarin oranges.

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And again, c’est fini.  That certainly was longer than I intended – big mouth and all that…

We soldier weirdly on, mi amigos, combining the last two sections into one upcoming post: Pagan Inquisition Part 4: Rituals and Gods…so you know, a little light reading.

In the glittery meantime, may you breathe the honeyed air of the summer stars and know the precious heat as it dies, with all your heart as full as a fat spider in the garden, shot through with golden stripes and gorging on the gifts the Mama sends to be snarled in your clever web. We are all, after all, spiders laying in wait for beauty to ensnare.