So here’s the thingy: In lieu of compiling past posts into a little book, which was my original intention, I’ve decided just to leave all the PG archives up for the time being in perpetuity. This is where they were, so this is where they’ll be. This makes more sense to me.

So these are the official Pagan Godspell Archives. For what it’s worth. To search through the archives, there are a couple of options at the bottom of the page.

Grok Earth, y’all!

To the business at hand.

I’ve been busy as a badger these last few weeks and it’s not really getting any less busy. I said I’d be on PG sabbatical until the end of July, and so I shall be, with possibly larger changes then…still to be determined. But deep within the busy-ness, I’ve also been busy a-pondering, and much of those ponderings have to do with who I am and what I do and who I’d like to be…you know, the business of being human. And seeing as how it’s one of my favorite subjects, I’ve been musing rather a lot on the matter of “Paganism,” and my place in it. It should come as no surprise to those reading PG for the last couple years that I’ve been squirrelly with the term, wrestling with its efficacy, attempting to eschew it from my vocabulary, and proffering terms that better suit me. Which is why it’s always interesting to me to see that others have or are asking the same questions, which inevitably cause some kerfuffling. For example,  Star Foster at Patheos has made a call for folks to weigh in on the subject based on a post by Drew Jacob about his own rejection of the term for various reasons.

…And I find that I have a couple of thoughts about it, helter-skelter and badger-chewed as they may be. So you know, taking a little sabbatical from a sabbatical can’t be a bad thing. The badgers have promised to at least chew at a slower tempo than normal for a few minutes. Generous creatures.

So…the first thing is that I think the whole conversation represented by the two links above is pretty much precisely why I think the term is  a problem. The minute someone claims to either be or not-be pagan, they are asserting a definition for it. A definition which is then *immediately* contradicted by several people at once, saying that the definition is either too limited or too broad, followed very closely by the people asserting that labels are a. silly, b. useless, c. so five-minutes-ago.

Of course, my belief is this: labels are important. They are important because they create communities. In the realm of the individual, labels may not be that important. If, alone, I want to call myself a Psyluminous Kerflammawaffle (and…I think I do), then I get to be the sole arbiter of what defines that term, and it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks. But, if I want to use an identifyer that links me to a group of people, that has use. People can band together under that label and work for the rights of that group if the group is well-defined (not fixed or immutable, just well-defined…as in, the majority of people in that group generally agree on the characteristics/stories of that group). I can have a conversation with a person outside the group about our similarities and differences. The group can work together under a common vision/story to organize services and events for the group or to serve others. These identifying labels assist in making that possible. If I didn’t believe labels were important, ultimately all this fusting over whether to remain Pagan or whether the term is useful is admittedly stupid. But, I think it is important. And I think it’s important because I think communities are important. Insert rant about hyper-individualism (where, interestingly, I make an argument for a general Pagan culture in order to criticize it, before I asserted that there wasn’t one, and am now back to believing there is one…ah, the radical pendulum of thinkiness…I think Walt Whitman had something to say about that).

There are real instances where the term “Pagan” certainly qualifies as a useful label. Case in point: Peter Dybing’s recent successful fundraiser for Doctors Without Borders in response to the crisis in Japan. Dybing raised over 30,000 dollars for Japan under the rubric of the “Pagan community,” and those who identified as Pagans donated money to the cause.  If Dybing had decided to raise the money without appealing overtly to Pagans, he may not have been able to raise as much as fast, as I think the matter of personal and communal pride in one’s label and community was a factor in that fundraiser, as it is in many other areas where religious and other groups participate in giving and service oriented activities.

I have said before that the term Pagan doesn’t have any meaning. Well, I maintain that to some degree, but partly I was wrong. I think the term does have meaning, insofar as it seems to connote a particular culture (a fringy one), one that uses a particular vocabulary and that possesses a number of cultural signifiers.  If you were out strolling through the park, and you noticed a group of say 20 people standing together, with someone drumming nearby, and they were wearing a motley assortment of cloaks, animal skins or antlers, amulets, medieval or viking wear, with a large array of t-shirts (tie-dye, silk screened, some with various pithy religious statements on them) and the like in the mix, you might readily say that they were Pagans. If they were standing in a circle all facing one direction, you’d feel even more sure. And at some point, if you overheard them having a friendly chuckle over the nature of some friend of theirs from an astrological or “totemic animal” perspective, you’d be even MORE sure. Now, it may be that these elements seem derived from various eclectic Wiccan or Wiccanate milieus, and that’s because they are. Frankly, if all of Pagandom could just come together to assert that the term PAGAN meant Wiccan and/or Wiccanate and/or Wiccan-derived culture/religious milieu, then I think that would be fine (a bit redundant, but fine). If we agreed to define ourselves as “earth-centered,” we’d have at least something to really start arguing about. But we don’t assert that. We insist that “Pagan” also covers Druids , non-Wiccan witches of various varieties (being themselves a whole kettle of argumentative fish when it comes to definitions), Kemetics, Hellenics, Celtic Recons, Natib Qadish, Asatru, Thelemites, Renaissance Hermeticism and Qabala and Ceremonialist magic, Chaos magic, etc…not to mention the folks who attend Shinto rites, belong to African Diasporic Traditions like Vodou and Santeria, or worship Hindu deities, etc., or combine or practice 2 or more of any of these. No religious identifier is going to encompass all these disparate faiths. (Some folks insist that we need the umbrella term because we need the numbers in order to battle discrimination. But if that’s the concern, then I think we would do better to drop the label Pagan, assert ourselves within our smaller more defined groupings, and team with others like Hindus and Buddhists and Vodouisants and Santeros and American Indians to work for the religious rights of all “minority” religions in the United States. Then we could stand as Heathens, Wiccans, Earth-Centered whatevers, Druids, combinations thereof, etc., alongside all other religious persons who suffer discrimination, without the confusing baggage of the term Pagan, and work for change with that larger group.)

So I think Pagan does encompass a kind of cultural language and aesthetic, mostly Wiccanate in nature. I think this cultural aesthetic and language is what Drew chose to no longer be associated with (according to my interpretation of his post). And that choice resonates with me, because I too have not felt like I belong in that cultural milieu any longer. My personal pondering regarding my own spiritual journey is not over, and I won’t speak too much to that at the moment. But ultimately, I believe that the term, as it’s come to be used in our communities, is so deeply flawed, so vague, that what use it has is extremely limited and, in my opinion, heading towards obsolescence…unless the vagaries of human linguistic and communal movement deem otherwise, and it becomes redefined in more specific and concrete ways, which is certainly possible.

I don’t know.  I just fust and burn and wonder and try to hold myself together as best I can. The badgers have made it mid-shin, friends and beloveds, and I limp away, still pondering, and still praying for sunshine, and the promise of a week of warm days…preferably sometime before midsummer.

Grok earth, friends. Pray without ceasing.

I’ve said it before, y’all, but ever since I moved north, the sun has become more my beloved than I ever thought possible. Growing up in Texas and Colorado, the sun was ever present – I never thought we could be parted – and I took him for granted, that great golden light. I yearned for rain and midnight and eventide, and while those things still make the top 10 list of numinous moments of bliss and magical rockin’ awesomeness, the sun coming out in the morning after a week of gray skies is really gunning for that number #1 spot on the charts lately.  I’m sure it has nothing to do with the almost unbelievably cold and rainy spring we’ve been experiencing here in the fiercely wild urban midwest.  Snow?  Really?  Mama, I’ve got news for you – Texas needs this rain too…run a little their way, please, and give me a little more time to be washed in morning light.

So this morning I found myself grinning up at the blue blue sky like a madwoman.  Sun, yes!  Sun, hello!  Sun, I missed you!  Vitamin D supplements are indeed a miracle for those of us who need it, but you really can’t beat the real thing.

And we know the real thing when we see it.  Heat and light lamps may imitate the sun, but we know they are not that blazing awe-striking lamp of heaven to whom the human animal has long given praise. O Chariot, O Charioteer.

The warm and good blessing of the sun on my skin has filled my heart full of light and wind and the sounds of bells…and yet…it’s been a busy season, beloveds, and the busy-ness shows no sign of relenting.  Projects abound, and I am thrilled to be involved in each and every one of them.  But something has to give, at least for a little bit, and I find that I have fewer and fewer thoughts and words for PG at the moment.  So, rather than let it lie fallow and untouched with no explanation, I’d prefer to be purposeful about things, and therefore I will be taking a short hiatus from PG the next couple of months. This will allow me to concentrate on these other good projects as well as cultivate a new host of thoughts for this space, not to mention catch up on some real face-time with the Mama and the Beloved in the musings and meanderings of my own personal spiritual journeying. Setting a beginning and end-point for this mini-sabbatical also prevents me from taking as long a break as last time. I’ve every intention of coming back to PG around July, friends and beloveds. It’s a little dance we do, PG and I – the dance of full and fallow, of rich and bare…our own little set of seasons.

In the meantime, y’all, check out the continuing adventures over at No Unsacred Place (where there have been and will continue to be a veritable feast of fantastic posts), and come say hello if you happen to be at Earth Traditions Oasis (where Terra Mysterium will be offering a wealth of spectacular magical entertainment), or PSG this June (where Johnny and I will be staffing our brand new merchant tent venture, Malleus & Mellifera, and presenting a workshop in conjunction with PSG’s Pagan Leadership Institute). And please continue to spread the word about Scarlet Imprint’s second collection of poetry, to be entitled Mandragora and for which I am and will be accepting submissions until October 31st of this year.

And, of course, stay fiercely, beautifully and awesomely wyrd, friends and beloveds, as you are so wont to do. Say hey to the Beloved Sun. Sing joy.

Grok Earth, y’all. Pray without ceasing.

And speaking of the Mama…I’m right proud to announce that I will be a participant in a brand new group blog project brought to you by the Pagan Newswire Collective, entitled No Unsacred Place: Earth and Nature in Pagan Traditions.  The PNC has produced several excellent group blogs, and I’m excited to be a part of this newest addition, where I will be joining a panoply of excellent writers and thinkers, including Alison Leigh Lilly o f Meadowsweet and Myrrh, Cat Chapin-Bishop of Quaker Pagan Reflections, and Juniper Jeni of Walking the Hedge, among others.  I am really looking forward to reading the work of my fellow bloggers!  I will be contributing a monthly column on earth-centered liturgy and ritual in addition to other various posts.  I hope you will check out this new exciting project!

It has been a crazy time here at PG headquarters.  In addition to our recent Ostara ritual, Johnny and I have been busy getting ready for the upcoming festival season, and have just registered for both Earth Traditions Oasis and Pagan Spirit Gathering, where we hope to present our new workshop on performance in ritual building.  Terra Mysterium has a wealth of awesome projects in the works and is also in full swing preparing for Oasis, where we will be presenting a wide range of performances and a new ritual based on the Eleusinian Mysteries.   Yes, our friends the Badgers of Life ™ have indeed been chewing at my ankles with what feels like a renewed and enthusiastic vigor.  Luckily, they’re cute.

As a matter of fact, the aforementioned Badgers were at fault for the fact that I also missed posting on that most holy of days, All Fools, sacred feast day for my friend and yours, Old Coat.  Luckily, Old Coat understands.  He is, after all, the King of Laziness and Woolgathering (in addition to his many other Kingly and Princely titles…which,despite the fact that he’s pretty anti-monarchy, he enjoys tremendously), and while it was actually quite a lot of industry on my part that prevented my posting, it would be out of character for Old Coat to fault me for being late to the game.  What I’m saying is: Happy All Fools!  It may be too late to peddle funny untruths to your friends with impunity, but it’s not too late for storytelling.  It’s never, ever too late for that.  Isn’t that grand?

Though I don’t think I have a story for you so much today as something of my own personal “This I Believe.”  See, it’s spring.  A busy spring, yes, but spring.  And spring always seems to be the season of experiments for me.  Something about newness…you know.  So in between the growling of Life Badgers and the bandaging of my ankles, I have also thought a bit about my personal spiritual system, the one I’ve been calling “Rootwater Paganism,” and I thought I’d work out some thoughts about it here for a minute, and collect them in one place.

See…Rootwater Paganism…isn’t a thing.

Well, it kind of is.

Obviously, I’m equivocal about this is.  But let’s pretend it *is* a thing, at least for the moment.  And let’s say then that that thing is, at the very least, an experiment, and at most, a spiritual road trod upon by pretty much just me, and maybe a small few other people if they choose to define themselves that way.

See, in the grand schemed of self-identification, it has become increasingly challenging to comfortably label myself in response to the question “what is my religion?”

Now, on one hand, I don’t need a name for my spirituality. Especially if it’s only mine and I practice it alone, or even with a small group of people. However, in the last few years, as I’ve mentioned on occasion, Johnny and I have been working together on presenting these large public rituals, and in that time many of the themes and prayers and poems within my personal spirituality have been thus presented publicly…and further, in presenting them this way, I began to see patterns in my own theology that seemed to come together with something that resembles continuity.  And of course I’ve been developing my own feelings on earth-centered theologies and whatnot here in this space for several years now.

And then there’s the issue of my taking umbrage with the word “Pagan.”  This hasn’t gone away.  I maintain that the term “Pagan,” used as a marker for a specific religion, is problematic and misleading. I further believe that even the use of the term as an umbrella category for a whole host of religions is suspect, but that’s a whole wasp’s nest for another day. It remains at least true for me that identifying myself as a “pagan” (whether I capitalize it or not) is essentially meaningless when I consider that doing so tells you pretty much nothing about who/what I worship, how I worship, the ethical system I follow, the books/poems/prayers/scriptures/mythologies/stories I find meaningful, etc. Yes, if you know the term it will tell you something about the general community I probably associate with, as I admit that the term has become connotative at least of a general culture or cultural milieu, and that one might readily point to certain cultural markers, festivals, etc. and call them “pagan.”  But as a religious identifier, at least for me, it’s no longer useful.  And seeing as how I’m not comfortable identifying as a Wiccan or a Witch, a Druid, a Recon of any variety, a Feraferian, a Ceremonial Magician, a Thelemite, or any number of other religions that fall under our nifty yet oh-so-leaky umbrella, it’s become awkward to me when I start to think about how to jive my developing philosophies regarding this term with the fact that I don’t have a better term for my own practice, at the very least when referencing it in theological ruminations like those on PG.

So. In that ineffable, long and winding silliness that is the could-be-pointless realm of self-identification, I’m currently experimenting with calling my practice “Rootwater Paganism.”  Bear with me.  I could chuck it tomorrow.

The name comes from a dream I had when I was in college.  It was summer semester, and I was taking a class on modern 20th century poets. At the same time, and unrelated to the class, I was reading Gary Snyder’s sublime book The Practice of the Wild. My mind was a whirl of poetry and wilderness (the words “wild” and “wilderness” to this day provoke shivers), and one dark Texas night, I dreamed I was swimming along a river under an enormous full moon.  To my right, I saw the riverbank, dark and dreamy, and an enormous tree rising out of it, its roots entangled in mud and riverwater, making moonshadows where I knew night creatures lived, despite my being unable to see them.  When I woke, I thought about the beauty of that moment, and about the contrast of strong and implacable roots with the silvery and tricksy malleability of water. And so I choose to call this non-thing “Rootwater,” to highlight that meeting of immutable and mutable…the root and the water. And I choose to use the word “Paganism” to maintain that connection to the cultural community in which I still and probably always will move and have my being.

So let’s say this: Rootwater Paganism is a syncretic, anarcho-mystic, animist/polytheist (with a side of monism), critically earth-centered thing-non-thing that posits embodied theology, sensate epistemology, story-centered liturgical theology, justice-oriented and ecofeminist ethics (with not a little bit of anarchist thought), a praxis steeped in storytelling, poetry, art, ritual and folk magic, and takes inspiration/influence from various witchcrafts, Feraferia, Hellenic Paganism, Cosmic Story/Creation Spirituality, and Protestant and folk Christianity. Principle deities include the Mama, the Beloved, and Old Coat, among others (the Kore, the Flame-Haired Smithwoman, the Lightbringer, the Fierce Sister, the Bone Woman, the Man of Sorrows…), not to mention a panoply of local spirits and powers, such as Mother Lake.

I think the clearest examples of the philosophies and theologies that underpin Rootwater Paganism can be found on PG here:

Earth-Centered: A Theology, Part One

Earth-Centered: A Theology, Part Two

Conundrums and Kerfuffles: Clergy Language and the Pagani

Reminders

So there you have it.  This I believe.  Rootwater Paganism in a convoluted, possibly pointless, nonsensical and weirdly glittery nutshell.  I’m not sure there was anything here that I haven’t said before…but still, it’s a reference point at least.

Do I think Rootwater Paganism is some kind of super-unique not-thing thing?  Lordisa, no.  It’s an idiosyncratic variation on an earth-centered theme with its syncretic feet in a few places.  Does Rootwater Paganism cover every detail of my personal spirituality and practice?  Of course not.  Frankly, I’m unsure if any one religion can or even should cover everyone’s personal bases. But it will do for the nonce, as I dance gracelessly but enthusiastically along the grassy swards of this mossy stone we call Earth.

Tomorrow’s nonce?  Who knows.

But we are still all here in this nonce, friends and Pagani, and for this nonce, I wish you the joy that falls in the silvery and delicious spring rain, the thrill in every crocus witnessed, the rush in every blush of green green grass.

Grok earth, y’all.  Pray without ceasing.

Our Kore ritual on Sunday went well I think – messy, loud and crazy, not unlike ourselves, and now we are left with these spring flowers, almost a week old and beginning to show signs of blowsy age, relaxing into the sweet and papery stage of death.

Today is a day of Spring cleaning – of turning from old projects to new…of fresh sheets and clean kitchens.  Moving forward and showing up.  But for just a moment, for just this moment, there is the rock and roll of holy mess, spilling over in green veils and old herb crowns, and I find my thoughts turned in meditation to my Beloved, that Leopard, that Vine…that Delicious Fire…that Dionysos.

A friend recently asked me what it meant to be a devotee of Dionysos, and I found myself a little lost for words.  It may be that my feelings in relationship to that most illuminating god of liberation and intoxication can only be expressed in poetry.

But I think at least part of that devotion is an appreciation for the messiness of life.

Each season is a study in mess…spring the mess of joy, summer the mess of abundance, autumn the mess of harvest, winter the mess of restlessness and snow.  The Mama is not simple, and is perfect only if perfection is understood as the rocking balance dance of terrible and awesome and awful and amazing that makes up the day to day of being a living thing.  Flowers grow in compost.  Spring follows winter, but winter comes back eventually.  Mud gets on shoes and tracks into the house…the same mud that makes roses possible.  Grapes are crushed and their juice gets mixed with the yeast in the air that feeds on sweetness and in their riot of joy…fermentation.  Intoxication.  Bread and wine.  I choose to worship this process, this mess, because to ignore it seems the greater risk.  Civilization in a way seems to be all about cleaning the mess…ignoring the strange, eschewing the gunk.  But the Chaotes are right about this: entropy lives at the heart of the Mama, and while it is human to seek order, to seek the rest and peace in a ceramic bowl, in the single plum tree, in the apple skin…it is also and still human, wholly human, to bear witness to the wet clay that made the bowl, the beautiful wreck and promise in the soil that birthed the plum tree, and the sweet decay of the fruit behind the apple skin.  And that’s Dionysos.  The wreck, the promise, the decay, the sweetness, the fermentation, the dancing, the imperfect perfection…the mess.

I go to stem the tide of entropy as much as I can.  I will wash dishes knowing they will be dirty tomorrow.  But this moment…this one.  I give thanks in the mess.  Life is weird.  Wyrd.  Amazing.

Grok mess, beloveds.  Grok Earth.  Pray without ceasing.

“I was dumbfounded,” Smith said. “I told him, that’s not what Wicca is. We don’t cast spells. That’s not witchcraft. That’s black magic or voodoo or something else.”

Really?  Well, color *me* dumbfounded.  I had no idea Wiccans didn’t cast spells.  Oh wait, that’s because they unquestionably and undeniably DO.  So…um…what?

Also – a good rule of thumb when decrying religious discrimination is not to disparage other religions or practices, especially when you don’t understand them yourself.  I think it’s safe to say that practitioners of Vodou and other African Diasporic Religions have plenty of their own discrimination to deal with and definitely don’t need the members of other misunderstood religions to dump on them in order to “prove” to the media that they are not religiously motivated by any law, doctrine or teaching to perform arcane acts of diabolical evil on hapless others.

Yes, it certainly is possible that Smith is being egregiously and woefully misquoted (I wasn’t able to watch the video so I am only going by the written material in the article) – and for damn sure that happens and happens often, though in an article that seems fairly hellbent on giving even shakes to Smith’s religion and the situation she’s in, I find it rather more likely that she actually said these things.  And if she is not being misquoted, this means that Smith is either seriously uninformed as to the details of her own professed religion, or she is hedging in order to paint Wicca in the best possible light.  And both of these bother me, but the latter bothers me the most, as it is a particularly glaring example of something I’ve seen before in interfaith dialogue when it comes to conversations between orthodox and accepted forms of religiosity and the religious Other.

Generalizations and simplifications of religions are bad enough, but they are almost unavoidable in the age of the soundbite.  And being careful and thoughtful with one’s words when discussing commonly misconstrued aspects of one’s religion is important – yes.  Sugarcoating, on the other hand, can and should be avoided as much as humanly possible.  It *is* possible to avoid becoming mired in the swampy complexity of explaining one’s religion while still being honest.  Wiccans most assuredly do cast spells, but magic is a vast and complicated subject, and Wicca also posits an ethical system that is applied accordingly.  Though of course some of them even cast nasty spells on occasion, despite the Wiccan Rede.  And why is this?  Because individuals, even those who ostensibly share the same ethical system, make different ethical choices.  I shouldn’t have to even mention that this goes for all religions everywhere.

Of course…yes, we’re talking about magic, and the World Outside, no matter how post-enlightenment rational we’re all supposed to be, still harbors a major superstitious squick factor when it comes to spellcraft, with no distinctions made between benign and baneful.  Lots of folks get squirrelly if we talk about making a simple herb charm for employment or getting a tarot reading, let alone mentioning the Goetia or even a simple poppet spell (due to decades of Media Hype, poppets really seem to freak people out).  So conversations about this aspect of some Pagans’ practice will get sticky because of this cultural unease, absolutely.  But that only means that we are required to become at the least versed enough in the subject to portray it candidly and with an eye towards acknowledging the vast diversity in every religion and religious practice.  Making weird blanket statements about Wiccans “not casting spells” when anyone can do a two nanosecond Google search and come up with a billion references that disprove them complicates the issue, and buys into the cultural unease that undergirds discrimination against magic-practitioners in the first place.

Of course, Smith shouldn’t have to defend her religion or the practice of magic at all, and it is obvious enough to me that the TSA has plenty to own up to, and I sincerely hope for justice for Smith with her case.  And certainly there is more to say about discrimination, spellcraft, ethics and interfaith dialogue that I haven’t addressed.  But comments like these do bother me, as I worry that they do little to move us all towards the fair and just treatment of those practicing a religion outside the mainstream.

ETA: I have read comments from others speculating that Smith could have simply misspoke, and meant to say that Wiccans don’t, as a rule, run around casting malicious spells on people.  Certainly that could be the case, and I don’t want to be read as accusing her of being deliberately misleading because I don’t really think that’s the case.  But the wording did strike me as bizarre, and reminded me of instances of sugarcoating I’d heard in the past.  It’s a tricky playground, all this religious identification and explanation, and especially when discrimination comes into play, and then especially especially when the media takes a hand, absolutely.

As some of you are aware, Peter Dybing has started this campaign to raise $30,000 for Doctors Without Borders in response to the crisis in Japan, and is very close to this goal.

If you haven’t already, please consider making a donation, and keep the people of Japan in your thoughts and prayers:

http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/Pagan-Community/doctors-without-borders

(Alas, WordPress won’t support the fancy widget for this cause, but the link above will take you to the donation site.)

Blessings of the new spring, beloveds!  The morning opened today with thunder, and my heart was full of its rumbling, crusty laughter.  Later the sun, minted all new by the rushing season, came burning into our house and washed it with golden light, and later into the darkening evening the clouds rolled in again and lightning and thunder appeared once more – perfect bookends to a delirious spring day.  I plan to make blueberry cookies..and frankly, that’s hard to beat.  The intrepid spouse and I, along with Johnny Rapture, went out to visit Mother Lake yesterday and witness the rising of the full moon.  We didn’t see much, unfortunately, as it was a bit too overcast, but Sister Moon did peek her red and hooded eyes out at us over the Lake at least for a moment, and we were satisfied.

At one point, Johnny began wildly pointing at the corner of a small building in the park.  After a few moments, we all saw what he was looking at:

Johnny named him Herbert.

Eventually, Herbert was joined by a family of 6 other raccoons, who lined up along the roof and waited for dusk.  Maybe they too were waiting for moonrise in order to give praise.  But regardless of our anthropomorphic projections, their mere appearance filled us with joy…the crafty business of the Mama’s children revealed on the cusp of spring.

It’s been not an easy winter, y’all.  And nothing is over and the work goes on, but we pause in our doings to look out at the March grass and rejoice in the opening of flowers and the falling of rain, and we are filled with a new strength and the joy that comes with knowing that yes, again, the promise of spring has been and will be fulfilled.  Ostara blessings, friends, for the Kore has indeed arrived, with hyacinths at her feet and the blooming of crocuses in her wake, and it is good.  Io Kore!  Kore Evohe!  The People Say Hail!

We here at PG headquarters have been up to our eyeballs with projects.  Johnny and I have been working hard on our ritual Kore Evohe: Rites for Spring that we’ll be presenting at Milwaukee’s Ostara 2011 this Sunday, as well as preparing workshops for the upcoming festival season (including PSG, which will be outside Chicago this year), and Terra Mysterium has been busy preparing and rehearsing for a number of projects, not the least of which being our performances at the upcoming Earth Traditions Oasis retreat in June.  It is shaping up to be an exciting spring and summer!

My prevailing overwhelmed state in reaction to the world continues, and this combined with all the work above had made for a serious dearth of posts, I know.  But hope springs eternal, pagani, and I am encouraged by the appearance of crocuses and dwarf irises where a few days before there was only dark earth.  Signs and portents soothe my soul…while searching for a book during our recent monthly pagan potluck here at PG headquarters, I unearthed a favorite CD I had thought lost.  The smell of bread and flowers and rain and smoke open doors in my heart.  And I have made plans for the rearrangement of altars and the renewal of personal practice – lighting more candles, praying more prayers…and all this keeps me afloat.  All this showing up.

So open wide your curtains!  Enlarge the place of your tent!  Make ready your hearts for Spring, friends!  Io Kore!

And always, always…in the rain and in the sun, grok Earth.  Grok Earth, and pray without ceasing!

See, Tuesday morning was one of those exquisite ones, where even before my daily sacramental cup o’ joe I felt my heart stretch and lift itself up up over the rooftops.  It was the sun the sun the sun.  The sun had come out of its hiding place and was flooding every asphalt crack and snowmelt corner with its shining.  I turned my face to it at every opportunity, to feel that ineffable radiant assurance on my eyelids and knew that the Kore, even now, is racing up the roots of trees and plotting plum flowers and crabapple blossoms.  I was drunk with it, the good news of spring unfolding.  The next morning, however, I was met with cold rain pooled under eaves and in train stations – gray skies and gloves.  The story of March – sun one day and rain the next…and only a fool would assume we’ve seen the last of the snow.  Winter fights to keep its grip even as it slips, and Spring comes in, yes it does, though I admit, I want it to move faster.  Spring comes so slowly to these northern streets, and so March always seems to me a troubled month – impatient and exhausted one day, full of joy the next.  Which leads me to wonder if sometimes I’m not just living a March life, as we all probably are – emotional embodied creatures all moving and whirling and leaping and sighing and making room for one another…dancing, praying, yelling, crying, working.

Of course, this temperamental despairing is not all seasonal sturm and drang.  Upheaval, controversy, movement, and conversation just seem to be on the global menu, from the pagani to politics.  In the Pagan community, there is of course the ongoing conversation regarding gender, transgender and exclusionary ritual space that has been rocking the pagan blogosphere (for the curious, I think the subject of gender-exclusive space is sticky and complicated, but I think the question of whether transwomen are women is perfectly clear: they are, and I, like others, find the remarks made by Z Budapest and some others to be ignorant, offensive, and outrageous.  However, I also think the conversation itself has been enormously important, and I look forward to the continuing conversation in regards to gender in general amongst the pagani), and the embarrassing pagan spotlight-mongering related to the most recent celebrity meltdown.  And on the national front, there’s the ongoing situation in Wisconsin and the recent despicable move by Republicans to strip unions of their collective bargaining rights, the continuing existence of Guantanamo, the attacks on Planned Parenthood and a woman’s right to choose, the targeting of Muslims by the government…the list goes on.  And I have been just as glued to the world’s unfolding as many others – and I have been full of opinions, yes, but I admit…reluctant to blog about them.  And there are a few reasons for that.  First, there have been so many others in the blogosphere that have weighed in, in such succinct and fruitful ways, on so many of these topics that I find I haven’t much to add…and I am a proponent in sometimes sitting back and just listening, especially when there is so much to take in.  Other reasons involve personal commitments that have had me hard at work in other areas.  But also, friends, some of it has to do with a feeling of being purely emotionally whelmed and overwhelmed by the world.

I get overwhelmed easily.  It’s not something I love about myself.  Others are energized and galvanized by what feels like an ever increasing mountain of work and talk and work and injustice and more work, and I often wish I were one of them.  I feel inadequate – meeping in my little corner of the world, writing love poems to the Mama and baking bread.  I know, intellectually and physically and spiritually, that poetry is important, yes.  That bread is sacred and important.  That theology and religion, and dialogue in community is important.  I just get overwhelmed.  So I’ve been avoiding writing in this space because when I start to think about everything I’ve been reading lately, it all comes in on me at once, like some great seething wave full of sharks, and so I choose instead to work out my rawness in bread dough and liturgical writing.

I lose the good news.  I feel like I lose the good news an awful lot.  I start to wonder of Rob Breszny is wrong.  I know, I know, I know he’s not.  I know that the world *is* beautiful, I know it.  I feel it.  But fuck, y’all…sometimes the bad news just seems nevereffingending.

I wish I could hold on to myself more – be more collected.  But I don’t and I’m not.  So I have to keep reminding myself.  The Mama has to keep reminding me.  That there is solace and meaning in ritual and in prayer, that there is peace in grass and rain, yes, even in snow and ice.  That there is music and it is good.  That there are people fighting truly good fights and believing good things and doing good works.  And that there is solace in the Word.  And the word is poetry.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you min.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean, blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination.
Calls out to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

-Mary Oliver

I made it my goal this week to memorize this poem.  It is arguably my favorite poem of all time (and the competition is fierce).  And I have begun to recite it out loud on a daily basis.  It is my prayer this spring of upheaval and movement.  It forgives and challenges, all in the same breath.  And that is what I’m trying to do with myself…pretty much every day.  Forgive.  Challenge.

We are so beautiful, y’all.  We are so amazing.  And we are so awful.  But I truly believe, really, that we can find our place in the family of things.  The Mama turns and the spring comes running.  Rain one day, sun the next.

This is my prayer.

Grok Earth, friends.  Pray without ceasing.

The unicorn said, “That is true. You are a man, and men can do nothing that makes any difference.” But her voice was strangely slow and burdened. She asked, “Which will you choose?”

The magician laughed for a third time. “Oh , it will be the kind magic, undoubtedly, because you would like it more. I do not think that I will ever see you again, but I will try to do what would please you if you knew…”

-from The Last Unicorn, by Peter S. Beagle

Friends and beloveds, the cold has returned to these silver streets in the heart of the fiercely wild urban midwest, but it can’t fool me.  My heart holds fast to those few fleeting days when the wind brought snatches of spring song to my ears, and I know it intends to keep that promise.  Somewhere, there is a clutch of crocuses opening their deep, purple and white cups, and somewhere a crabapple tree is trembling with anticipation.  The intrepid spouse has brought me first tulips, and soon I will make my late February pilgrimage to my favorite city haunt to buy beeswax candles and hyacinths in honor of my Beloved Dionysos, who rushes into my life again every year around this fragile time.  Poetry swells in our blood and we are filled with the salt and hum and thrust of spring, that matchless season.

Some time ago, when I read the passage above in my all-time no-question absolute favorite novel for possibly the millionth time, I thought to myself what a wonderful basis for an ethical system this might be.  That Schmendrick would choose the kinder magic purely on the fact that the unicorn would like it more.  It reminds me a bit of Brendan Myers’ assertion in The Other Side of Virtue regarding the individual’s encounter with Immensities, and how those encounters shape us ethically.  In this case, Schmendrick’s Immensity is the Unicorn, and his response to her and the story he lives with her shapes him into a legendary magician and practitioner of “kind magic.”

So it is that we might look at our own Immensities – our own Unicorns – those things which are most wonderful, most beautiful, most numinous, most amazing, most life-changing…the most real things we may have ever known in our secret hearts…and do what would please them if they knew, the kind magics: the writing of poems, the singing of songs.  Protest, art.  Righteousness, the honeyed anger that reaches for justice.  Rescuing cats from trees and healing wounds.  Recognizing the Other, recognizing Self as Other.  Discovering the genius that lives in the body of the Mama.

Because they would like it more.

Grok Earth, best beloveds.  Pray without ceasing.