Great Kerfuffalo Rising
by Ruby Sara
Hey! Guess what? The Pagani went to the Parliament of World Religions!
If you’ve been within spitting distance of the Pagan internets for the past three weeks, then you know all about it.* And hey, not a single semantic dust-up in the entire process! Huzzah!
I know, I know, Pagani. There’s a kerfuffle afoot. I have actually been kind of paying attention, I swear. I just….well….frankly, I’m having trouble mustering any indignation. Or…any…opinions on the matter even. And why is that? Well, maybe it’s because I’ve been going through my own identity crisis…by nature a self-absorbed affair. Or maybe it’s because I’m not feeling particularly pedantic. Stop the presses – I’m normally up for all kinds of semantics. Something might be wrong with me.
But really, if you wanna twist my arm about it, I do get that it’s a mighty important kerfuffle on some levels. And the fact is that I generally agree that some redefinition is in order. I mean, in my mind, it’s become more than a little apparent that Wiccans and traditional witches and Asatruar and Hellenes and Feraferians and Druids and Canaanites and the Kemetic Orthodoxy and Reclaiming and Thelemites and Chaotes and Church of the Subgenius and nondenominational eclectics and what have yous (not to mention African Diasporic Religionists, Satanists, Indigenous peoples, some Gnostics, and all manner of folks who may or may not be identified as under the Pagan umbrella depending on who you ask) are doing some radically different things. What do they all have in common? Sometimes it seems like very little. Not all are polytheist, not all are earth-centered, not all acknowledge a divine Feminine, and certainly not all share the same political sensibility or ethical system. The eco-feminist neo-ancient dada mindfuck + radical anarcho-gnostic christian mysticism + land-based witchcraft + dionysian ecstasis + folk magic + poetrypoetrypoetry whatever-mashup-extravaganza (a shorter name may be: a living earth-based syncretism) that I might pursue in my religious life is pretty much guaranteed to make some of the Pagani’s hair turn white and prompt them to claw at their faces in insane horror…for different reasons, even. The things that I find universal (and I do find some things to be so), are SO universal that frankly, they aren’t exclusively Pagan at all. Things like Love and Beauty and Earth/Body and Food and Relationship. These universalisms are useful, especially when thinking about how one wants to live one’s unique religiosity in authentic relationship with a dynamic world, but there’s no reason to think that just because a Feraferian, a Thelemite and a member of the Kemetic Orthodoxy all eat, that their religions are the same, or even have anything really much in common, at least not so much so that it makes any sense to lump them together under the same flawed rubric. I do take umbrage with the notion that we ought to adopt the term “indigenous,” which, as Chas Clifton pointed out in one of the many long discussions on The Wild Hunt, has deeply political ramifications, but that’s a very scaly kettle of fish I’m not willing to dive into right now. Point is, I get that it’s messy, and I get that our identities and labels are not perfect (or even useful in lots of ways). And I think there is worth in the semantic wrastling.
But also….well….you know friends Pagani, mostly I’m interested in people living authentic lives. I identify with the Pagani, whatever that *means,* because, well, I guess it’s still convenient. Because my friends do, and we all are living in a general agreement that mostly we’re pursuing something similar in some way. I call it Paganism because I associate Paganism, since the first moment the word blossomed in my brain, with two things: Magic, and the Earth. The Mama is paramount to me, and She always will be. Bar none. The Glorious End. Amen amen. And Magic is just a fancy word for the Beauty we swim in like many colored and bespangled fishes, and therefore I remain who I remain, hit up with the same adhesive sticker that says “Hello, My Name is PAGAN,” despite the semantics and despite any creative (and probably unrecognizable to most Christians) Christologies to which I adhere. Because it is out of Magic/Beauty, and out of the Earth, that spring all my notions about authentic community, a devotional life of meaning and depth, a sense of justice that arises out of deep Mama truths of conviction, and a commitment to radical, sensual theologies that view all beings as inherently valuable and possessing Spirit.
But mostly, I want those things in that last sentence there, and if I have to call myself a Cayenne Pepper or a Teapot in order to get them, well I’m almost willing to do it. Culture. Community. Resistance. People having dinner around a good table. People singing. People laughing and shouting. Birds. Moths. Elk. Fire. Mountain. Wind. Words are beautiful fingers but they are not always the moon. To see the moon, go out into the freezing night and look up. To see yourself, look at your hands. To see religion, look at your neighbor.
Work. This is all there truly is. The Work. Relationship. Genesis.
Dawn.
*ETA: You know what….reading over this, I realized that this post could be read as dismissive of the Pagani’s visit to the Parliament, and for that I sincerely apologize. That was definitely NOT my intent. I am thrilled that so many were able to go and represent our faith traditions at this incredibly important interfaith event, and that there was important work done at this event is unquestionable…I think our communities will be parsing the details of the Parliament for a long time…I’m still not completely up to speed on all the information that has been shared online so far. This post is in response to a single debate in the blogosphere.
“And hey, not a single semantic dust-up in the entire process!”
If I was standing in your kitchen right now, gazing into your refrigerator looking for free food, I would be giving you the “You know, I think that relegating this discussion to the realm of semantics–or, as you seem to be implying, “mere” semantics–undermines the serious embodied repercussions that these distinctions hold, as if everything we ever do somehow isn’t immediately inflected by semantics” look.
Really, I think that the distinctions that might come about as a result of this conversations could have deep repercussions throughout the landscape of Anglophone religious movements and that we shouldn’t just think of this as a “kerfuffle”. ((Perhaps, maybe, it’s more of the beginnings of an INSURRECTION!!!!!!1!–but, well, that’s probably just me getting my hopes up =P))
Johnny, if you were in my kitchen right now, compulsively opening the fridge to look for some ineffable Holy Grail that’s inevitably not there, I’d be giving YOU the: “You’re the one who is choosing to attach the word “mere” to “semantics” (though I admit that the implication might be there), AND implying that the use of the word “kerfuffle” is meant to undermine the debate’s importance (which it is wholly NOT…I just like the word “kerfuffle” a lot) , and I do agree that the conversation is important and said so, but I maintain, yes, that personally I’m not entirely sure what is really at *stake* here, even IF it was possible for some grand arbiter of religious designations to somehow convince the entirety of Pagandom to either a. split into discrete groups w/ discrete identities, or b. define Paganism in a concrete way that would effectively remove certain religions from that identity, AND sometimes I think we Pagani, including myself, get awful bogged down in wordy (online and disembodied) debates (like-a this one) about identities and designations and metaphysics/philosophical word-circuses and forget to touch Earth, which can lead to the exact opposite of the embodied and organic evolution of thought you’re implying that this debate could potentially engender” look. And then we’d eat some mac and cheese.
-RS