...I wonder if I'm a very good Pagan.

I have a lot of overly-enthusiastic eclectic solitary Cunninghamesque Wiccan friends. One popped on a couple of weeks back to give me the total costs for the stuff I ordered off her website, minus my discount, and oh, by the way, she's got to rush offline so she can rejuvenate herself with her full moon ritual, and what am I doing for the full moon?

Well...nothing, actually. As a GT/CR, I don't really do anything special for any phase of the moon. I had a flametending shift from Monday to Tuesday, and another one coming up from the 12th-13th, and I celebrate Imbolc (Brigid's Day, after all). And Lughnasad, and Beltane, and Samhain. But I've always been edgy about the cross-quarters. Too Wiccanesque?

I suppose it's the last lingering remnants of Catholic guilt about not observing holy days, although, geez, you'd think over two decades would be enough to eliminate that. Not that I was ever that great a Catholic, especially after I hit puberty. Any excuse to skip Mass on weekends, if I could get it past Dad.

And even when I went through my fluffy Wicca phase (it lasted all of ten weeks, maybe?), I was never very observant about the holidays.

Maybe it's just that I think it's more important to view each day as holy. Incense, candles, prayers, offerings for the gods...and trying to make sure that none of the day is wasted with things that might anger them. Does it sound too fluffy to say that I finally came to realize that life's too short to dwell on the negative? Oh, sure, I get mad as easily as the next person, but I finally reached the point where I was able to quit carrying grudges around, to quit harboring hateful paranoid mutterings about the bitch in the next cubicle at work, and so on.

I admit I'm--always--still learning, and refining what I've learned. I know I'll never know exactly how things were done in the 'olden days'. Archaeologists and folklorists and historians have unearthed and translated and learned a lot about the ways of the Gaels, but it's never going to be exactly the same. Best I can do is get as close as possible, neh?

And I suppose it'd help if my friends didn't make me feel unreasonably guilty about not doing anything on holidays I don't even celebrate.

Her Light

Red flame, white fire,
And I know that she is with me, always.
In the warmth of an embrace that is not seen,
In the softness of whispered words heard only by the soul's ear,
In the bright spark of her inspiration, shaping words to song.
Brigid, guiding my steps;
Brigid, showing the way;
Brigid, watching over all.
Hand that strengthens the smith's grip on the hammer;
Smile that heals the sick;
Voice that rings with the flash of the muse's gift.
Lady, three-in-one,
Gentle and mild,
Be with me, fearless, and
Guard over me when I fear;
Be with me, unraging, and
Calm my temper when fury strikes;
Be with me, sweet calm one, and
Comfort me those dark nights
When sorrow comes.

 

(originally posted in 2004)

Hm. Been a lot of discussion in several of the email groups I'm in, lately, about the rightness and applicability of following multiple pantheons, or using deities from different pantheons in ritual together.

I suppose I should state for the record that I'm a hard polytheist; I simultaneously believe in pretty much every god or goddess that's been worshipped. An added coda, though; just as Yahweh made covenant with Abraham that He, Yahweh, was Abraham's god, and that Abraham and his people should worship no others, I believe that my chosen pantheons are the Irish Gaelic and Hellenic ones, and that my own specific deities of choice (chosen from both sides, mine and theirs) are Brigid and Diancecht (which I suppose gives me decided henotheistic leanings). I can believe in Jesus as a deity; He just isn't my god.

A good metaphor for this which I heard stated (once upon a time) was major league sports. A man may watch sports generally and enjoy them all, but he has one particular baseball or football team he follows closely. He goes to all their games; he roots for them constantly, no matter how well they're doing; he collects signed balls or other sorts of memorabilia. (Cubs fans are a particularly good example of this). This team is his team, just as the Cardinals or the Bears or the Celtics may be his best friend's team.

The thing is, I've been feeling a call/attachment to other gods and goddesses outside of the Irish pantheon, and it's not just a recent development. While I don't try to call these other deities in ritual with Brigid or Lugh or Danu or Diancecht, the focus and interest I feel coming from them (UPG) is unmistakable.

For example, I've always felt called to the Greek pantheon in general, and to Apollo, Artemis, Athena, and Hermes in specific...so much so, that I have a statue of Artemis on one of my altars. (Haven't been able to find any statues of the others I can afford yet).

Other examples include Loki [1] and Vesta [2]. The eternally-lit flame of Vesta has a certain similarity (in form if not in background) to the candletending I do for Brigid, but I really don't think the call I'm feeling comes from such a misplaced similiarity.

So...I don't know. I feel mixing deities in ritual is a bad idea, IMO, but I'm reluctant to simply ignore these other deities; doing so when they are calling you is never a good idea. Gods don't take being ignored well, I think.

I suppose I'm going to have to do some more research and try to find a safe, aesthetic, and spiritually-satisifying way of honoring all of these deities in a way that will neither leave Brigid et. al. feeling offended, nor make the non-Irish deities feel slighted.

[1] Although recently there was a huge discussion--almost an argument--in one of the Asatru discussion groups I'm part of as to whether Loki could really be considered a god or if he was just a Jotun artificially elevated to a prominent place in the pantheon based on one line of lore in one story and a single church with a stone named for Loki in it. Not being Asatru, though I signed up to those groups to learn more, I declined to offer my own feelings on the matter.[a]

[2] Not Hestia...go figure. I feel absolutely no calling to the rest of the Roman pantheon whatsoever (aside from a possible slight interest in Mercury, which would correspond to the 'call' I feel from Hermes). I certainly won't go fluff and claim it's because I was a Vestal in a previous reincarnation [b], but I'm at a loss to explain it.

[a] Which would definitely be that he was a god. :)

[b] If anything, and if you want to theorize that physical predilections and emotional tendencies are the potential deja-vu-esque manifestation of fragmentary memories from previous incarnations, sacred prostitute in a temple to Aphrodite or Ishtar is far more likely a prior life...

...the Tuath group I belong to on Yahoo. I pass it along because I've had this conversation a lot. This is one of the reasons I'm a recon. ::shudder:: Thanks, Breandán.
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The Neo-Pagan and The Reconstructionist

Reconstructionist: You know ancient pagans probably wouldn't have consistently stopped and picked up every piece of little crap they see on the road.

Neo-Pagan: They wouldn't have to.

Reconstructionist: Why not?

Neo-Pagan: There wasn't any litter in ancient times.

Reconstructionist: How do you know that?

Neo-Pagan: In the ancient days when everyone was pagan, no one would litter because they all loved the goddess.

Reconstructionist: Where did you get that idea?

Neo-Pagan: Scott Cunningham said so.

Reconstructionist: How does he know what the ancients did or didn't do all the time?

Neo-Pagan: He has an ancient Wiccan lineage which has told him of the old ways.

Reconstructionist: How can a fifty year old religion have an ancient lineage to a time when it didn't exist?

Neo-Pagan: You're just trying to persecute me because you don't love the goddess.

Reconstructionist: What goddess?

Neo-Pagan: The Goddess!! You heathen.

Reconstructionist: Yes, I am a heathen, but still, there was litter and graffiti in Rome.

Neo-Pagan: We all come from the goddess.

Reconstructionist: What, which goddess do you mean?

Neo-Pagan: And to her we shall return.

Reconstructionist: Which ancient peoples believed that?

Neo-Pagan: All of them.

Reconstructionist: What's your source?

Neo-Pagan: Silver Ravenwolf.

Reconstructionist: Where did she get her degree?

Neo-Pagan: Lord Serphant Stone.

Reconstructionist: Is that a private college? Is it accredited? Who sits on their ancients faculty?

Neo-Pagan: No, you need to love the goddess, stop persecuting me. You're such a Christian.

Reconstructionist: No, I'm a heathen. What sources are listed in Prof. Ravenwolf's bibliography?

Neo-Pagan: Mama Silver learned from spirit.

Reconstructionist: Which spirit? Do you mean her personal genius?

Neo-Pagan: She is a genius when it comes to spells and witch books.

Reconstructionist: What? Who? Witchcraft like Thessaly, or like Aradia, or like Seithcraft?

Neo-Pagan: Like the goddess?

Reconstructionist: Which goddess?

Neo-Pagan: THE GODDESS!

Reconstructionist: What myth does she appear in?

Neo-Pagan: All of them.

Reconstructionist: What is your source?

Back in 2004, I went to our public library, where I saw a new low (at least I hope to the gods it's a new low--I would hate like Hell to think that people have been doing this all along) in the idiocy of the modern fluffbunny.

I'd gone to return some books. My brother had borrowed my videotape of Clan of the Cave Bear a few nights ago and I was reminded that I had bought the fifth novel in that series a good year or so ago and not gotten around to reading it yet. On a whim, I grabbed the first four books in the 'Earth's Children' series so I could re-read them before tackling the new one; as I recall, there was a huge lag between book #4 and #5--way more than that between the same-numbered Harry Potter books, if I recall correctly.

So I'm waiting in the check-out line by the front desk with my arms full of books when a woman steps into line behind me. I would love to be able to say she was some naive, fresh-faced, 'watches-The Craft-too-much' teenager, but, alas, such was not the case. I'm 36; she had to be at least 30, I'm guessing. She grinned down at the books in my arms and then her eyes flicked up to the t-shirt I was wearing, which had a Celtic triskelion across the front. It was about that time that I saw the silver-dollar-sized pentacle she was wearing. "I've read those books!" she chirped brightly. "Are you a pagan?"

I confess I don't know why I answered her honestly. I guess it's because it's just second nature not to lie, not even to save myself what followed.

"Me too! Our whole coven has read those books. They showed us the mysteries of the Great Mother! Have you read the new one, where the author reveals the Song of the Great Mother to everyone?"

...

I think I gaped. She apparently took that to mean that I hadn't read the fifth book yet, which was accurate, as far as that goes. "Oh, you must read it!" she cooed. "It's so wonderfully deep. It tells all about how She created the Earth and all of us on it. It's so sad how Her worship has been distorted and persecuted and almost destroyed!"

Now, don't get me wrong; I like Jean Auel's books all right. She seems to do a fair job of research as far as her anthropology and archaeology go--I'm at least moderately familiar with the work of the Leakeys in Africa, as well as more recent research in the field--but Auel's interpretations of the findings in Europe are FICTIONAL. Pleasant enough to read, although bordering on prehistoric porn in some places, but a fun enough way to kill an afternoon if you already have the housework done.

What the books are not, in any way, is something to base one's religious beliefs around. Fiction. F-I-C-T-I-O-N. And this woman just didn't get that.

I honestly admit I had no idea what to say to this woman as she burbled on. I nodded mutely as she talked, but I was pretty happy to get the books checked out and flee as politely as I could.

For the record, my own path is Celtic Reconstructionist/Hellenic Reconstructionist (separately; I never do rituals that mix the two pantheons), but I've worked damn hard and long to make things as historically accurate as possible in my own day-to-day spiritual practices and this sort of thing just leaves me speechless.

I admit I don't interact with the Pagan community much offline, aside from the occasional Pagan Pride Day trip, but have things in the real world amongst neopagans really gotten THIS fluffy?