“Queering Paganism,” or Let Your Freak Flag Fly

So, I read this blog post this week, and I really want to address the idea that we, as pagans, need to make ourselves normal to break away from negative stereotypes. (Note: I’m not singling out this blog post for any reason other than it happens to be the most recent thing I’ve read that states this opinion. This is not a new attitude; this is just the first time I’m writing about it.)

I really hate this idea. I think it’s fundamentally wrong, from a social justice viewpoint. I see it not only in paganism but in other marginalized groups,* and intersectionally. The idea that in order to destigmatize ourselves, we need to become just like the mainstream — we need to do what the kyriarchy wants us to do.

Darlins, I use the word queer for a specific reason, and it’s not because I’m exclusively attracted to women (which I’m not).

When I say I’m queer, I don’t just mean I’m a proud QUILTBAGger. I mean I’m queer as fuck. I am strange. I am different.

And that’s awesome.

I have no intention of dressing myself up in “normal” just so I can convince the ruling classes that I’m worth their attention, that I deserve to have rights or respect. I deserve to have rights and respect regardless if I choose to wear sweat pants and my Community shirt when I go out or if I dress up in fairy wings and vampire fangs for Pagan Pride Day. How ‘normal’ or queer I look has nothing to do with either my religious sincerity or my basic humanity. 

Arguing that we should normalize ourselves so that the kyriarchy will accept us as mainstream and “normal” is basically throwing the queers under the bus.

Continue reading ““Queering Paganism,” or Let Your Freak Flag Fly”

Innocence

There seems to be conflation with innocence and purity, and I believe that’s a Victorian idea still lingering around, wrecking the place and never paying rent.

It’s wrong.

I don’t really know how else to put it. We often describe kids as innocent but if you’ve spent any time around kids you know they’re anything but pure. In both literal and figurative senses — they play in the mud, they hang out with frogs, and they’re interested in sex at a young age. Not in the same way adults are interested in sex, which is why I think people have such trouble with imagining kids as young human beings who think about sex.

Nowadays when I think about sex it’s mainly in the vein of augh when can I get some of that it has been too loooooonnnggg (that may change in the near future, because the boyfriend and I will no longer be long-distance, come September). Or that sounds good right about now *pounce on boyfriend in a consensual manner*. Or dear gods I really want these two fictional characters to make out but that will probably never happen so I will spend my sexual frustration with my boyfriend, who somewhat enjoys my fangrrlish obsessions when they end like this.

When I was a kid I thought about sex a lot. I was fascinated by it. I read books about the great machine that was the human body and learned about conception and the role sex played in that. I thought it was really cool that people had sex and then fetuses got formed from sperm and eggs and then nine months later there would be a baby. That was just fucking awesome to me.

And I asked my mom questions about sex, too, and if she didn’t always tell me everything about a certain subject matter, she was always honest with me. I even learned about queer sex, so I knew early on that sex was for more than just procreation. It was supposed to be fun.

When I got a little bit older but was still just a kid — think about six years old, here — my best friend and I played “doctor” in a hidden corner of her backyard, behind a copse of Scotch Broom. Later, she became my first sexual experience — when I was about nine. There was no sexual drive for me, at the time; there was just interest, and exploration of almost a scientific nature. I’d even go so far as to say that as a child I was asexual in that I wasn’t interested in it the way I am now, which is like unto a dog gone into heat — I was just interested in it because it was interesting, and I was a kid who wanted to know everything about everything right now. I also saw that it was tied to genealogy, and that was one of my obsessions from the get-go — I needed to know how everyone related to each other. It was important. (And it still is.) But there was no sexual drive for me until puberty hit.

None of these experiences stole my innocence; innocence is the ability to connect to the energy of the earth and the energy of creation with wild, unabashed joy. This doesn’t mean having a sex drive or needing sex with other mortals — when you truly open yourself up to that energy of creation, when that energy pulses through your body, the feeling you get is a lot like sex. And you don’t need a sex drive to pursue magical or spiritual pursuits.

That feeling, that pulsing, happens for me during especially powerful ritual or spell work. It happens when I do my godslavery work for the Morrigan. It happens when I drop the learned bullshit behaviours of my time in adult-hood, when I drop all the stuff I carry around all day, and let my core self become one with the earth. It happens when I dance with wild ecstasy, whether in honor of Dionysos or just in honor of feeling my body move.

And yes, it happens during sex, too. Not all the time, but sometimes we hit that vein of pulsing energy that runs through the earth’s skin, and then I black out from all the joy.

These instances are me re-connecting with my innocence. I’m re-finding what was taken from me when sex became about coercion and power instead of love, connection, or pleasure. I’m re-discovering what it feels like to see the earth as another living being, instead of a thing that I own by virtue of being human. I’m allowing myself to be playful again, with all the danger that that entails. I’m allowing myself to walk between the worlds without a safety net.

I’m shedding the myth of purity and allowing myself to get righteously dirty in the soil and the loam; making myself one with the earth that loves me. 

 

The Gods Are Not Your Playthings — A Rant

There’s this attitude, mentioned briefly in this post, that I see a lot in pagandom and it drives me up the fracking wall.

It’s the attitude that the gods are our playthings.

Of course my god pays attention to me 24/7! He loves me! 

Yeah, she’s totally helping me get the guy of my dreams. Duh. 

So I told my god to do stuff, because this god is my personal lackey and will do anything I say. 

My god and me are, like, BFFs. We’re on each other’s speed dial! 

Let’s be clear here. We are all divine — I certainly believe this. I believe that the gods and mortals come from the same basic source.

But They are so much bigger than we are. Some of Them may have even started out as mortals, but at this point They are so much more. They have big fish to fry. Huge fish. Mr. Fish sized fish. Perhaps with fewer lasers.

They are not our own personal pocket gods. We do not just call Them up whenever we need a favor, or if we want to score with someone hot, or just all the damn time. They’re not playthings.

Continue reading “The Gods Are Not Your Playthings — A Rant”

Let Go and Let the Gods

My old church had a saying: “Let go, and let God.” Even though I was pagan while attending said church, I always loved that saying, and tried to apply it in my daily life.

It’s difficult. Letting go and letting the gods. Putting faith in anything except yourself. When you spend [what feels like] your whole life being let down by people, or having things be out of your control, you turn into a control freak even if you never had that in you.

My friends used to joke that I was Monica, from Friends. They were right. (Except, you know, I’m still fat, and that’s okay.) I was a total control freak. I didn’t like anyone taking over anything in my life. Ever. My need for absolute control over all aspects of my life extended to the point where if someone complimented my current hair color, I’d bleach it and dye it something different. I needed to be counter to what everyone wanted for me, because that was the only way I could control my own life.

This sort of attitude actively strangles spiritual life. 

Continue reading “Let Go and Let the Gods”

Fat-Shaming In Pagandom — a story

I want to share this story from a friend of mine.

Back in May, my friend — let’s call her Rachel — went to a Beltaine celebration. This celebration was attended by various mutual friends of ours; bunch of local pagans.

Rachel has food allergies and eating disorders. Most notably, she’s a recovering anorexic and she has to be completely gluten-free or she gets sick. She’s also fat, though going gluten-free has caused her to drop a lot of weight.

At some point during the celebration (it’s a day-long thing, at least) she went to go grab a few bites of food from the tables because she hadn’t eaten anything all day and she wanted to make sure she could eat something that wouldn’t make her sick before the hordes descended and devoured everything except the gluten.

Cue comments.

People started making comments about how she “couldn’t wait for dinner” and “they could all wait; what made her so special?” People scolded her for having no self-control.

You’ve got a person with eating disorders and food allergies grabbing one or two bites of food before everyone else, and you make comments about how she can’t wait for dinner and that makes her, what, have less self-control than everyone else?

For the record, Rachel has amazing self-control. I know this because I know her — and I know how hard it is to go gluten-free, especially when you’ve been eating it all your life. I see her look at gluten longingly, and whimper when we’re at dinner and someone’s eating delicious garlic bread, or something else with wheat in it — which includes most foods, ever. (I exaggerate, but seriously — the US and Canada are addicted to gluten.) But she never caves. 

And she’s had plates of food of hers thrown out before at pagan gatherings. She will put together a plate of food early on and put it to the side so that it’s uncontaminated, because people are not careful with keeping things gluten-free. And then she’ll wait to eat with everyone else, and someone will throw her plate of food out. As someone with eating disorders who’s had her own plates of food thrown out, I can tell you — that is hella triggering.

This particular incident triggered Rachel so much and she was so upset she couldn’t finish her plate of food. She was so upset she couldn’t eat. To be treated like she had no self-control when she has far more than your average person? Her eating disorder came back and she’s been fighting it since.

I’ve witnessed stuff like this before. I’ve also witnessed skinny people eating before everyone else, and not even receiving a second glance. The only people who get comments or scolding is the fat folk or the children.

Fat shaming in pagandom exists. This is only one example; today’s earlier post showcased several others.

To that end — I’ve created a tumblr where people can send in their stories: Fat Shaming in Pagandom. Anonymous submissions are allowed; just note that if you troll, you’ll be deleted, so why bother?

If you’ve been fat-shamed by other pagans and you want to share your story, please submit it to the tumblr. I think it’s important to shed light on this.

The Fat-Shaming War Continues — News From the Frontlines

Some of you may remember my post, “Obesity,” or Fuck Off, Pagan Concern Trolls. In it I take well-known pagan and supposed pagan elder Peter Dybing to task for his fat shaming in this post (EDIT as of August 14th, 2012 — Dybing has deleted his post, for some unfathomable reason, but it’s still available on Google cached pages — screencap of original post here; haven’t capped the comments), prompted by the death of David Grega. Dybing’s post created a huge wave in the pagan blogosphere of responding posts, ranging from posts from fellow fatties telling him and the rest of the fat-shamers to fuck right off to posts from, well, other fat-shamers. Pretty much across the board blog posts attracted fat shaming in the comments.

I was lucky. I’m not popular enough to attract a bunch of fat shamers — all I got was Dybing himself. For three weeks. Dybing has been commenting on my post for the past three weeks about how I’m wrong, and judgemental, and “looking for reasons to be angry,” and a Fascist Meanie Poo Poo Head, and mentally ill, and childish, oh, and I use naughty words, too.

He generally refuses to listen to any of the very good points made by others in the comments, or to the fact that his entire post was, you know, fat shaming. I’m not going to rehash the entire comments section of my post; you can go read it yourself. I am only making a post right now because of two things that I think are really important.

1. This isn’t just an example of one pagan asshat, a lone voice in the wilderness. Dybing is considered a “pagan elder” and his words are often touted as “wise”. When we refuse to talk about his behaviour as wrong — and it is — we support this sort of bigotry from our “elders”. And it is sacrilege for me to support bigotry, especially in pagandom.

2. A really fantastic comment made by Catherine — and all of her comments are fantastic, really, so you should just go read them — that I wanted to showcase here.

Dybing asked her for sources that “proved” that there was fat shaming in the pagan community, because he didn’t (and doesn’t) believe that pagans fat shame, never ever, nope that never happens, what are you talking about the several hundred comments and posts in the past three weeks? YOU’RE IMAGINING THINGS.

Her comment follows.

Continue reading “The Fat-Shaming War Continues — News From the Frontlines”

Persephone, and becoming your own person

When I was a child I was obsessed with the myth of Persephone’s descent. I read all the sanitized versions, of course, and so came to associate Her descent with my own — having to visit my abusive father for access weekends and, later, seasons. (Family law is mainly concerned with working around the needs and wishes of children, and there’s no justice in it.)

As I became older, I came to associate Her myth — and other descent-to-the-underworld myths — with depression, and not being scared of the underworld/depression, because in a way it’s a comfort zone.

Today, I associate Her myth with something else.

In Persephone’s descent She leaves the home of Her mother, Demeter. And while She does come back later on, She is forever changed. She has become something, someone else. This is why She is the goddess of transformation.

Continue reading “Persephone, and becoming your own person”

Apparently I’m inspiring!

I was given a Very Inspiring Blogger Award by Waldhexe and Sky at Seastruck by the Crossroads.

I’m blushing. With the blood of my enemies, according to Danny. 😉

So. The rules are as follows:
1. Display the award certificate on your website. CHECK.

2. Announce your win with a post and include a link to whomever presented your award. CHECK.

3. Present seven awards to deserving bloggers. Create a post linking to them and drop them a comment to tip them off.

4. Post seven interesting facts about yourself.

I’m really bad at keeping up on blog reading, and I realize some of the people I’m giving the award to have got one already, but here we go.

Seven bloggers who deserve this award

1. Sage and Starshine. This is Danny. She is awesome.

2. the night wanderer’s path. Nyktipolos’ posts always give me food for thought.

3. Mountain, Path, and Pool. If you are at all interested in the Mayan gods, you should read this blog.

4. Letters from Gehenna: World on a Slant. This is Dw3t-Hthr; she’s fracking amazing.

5. 13 Belladonna Drive. This is Catherine, whom you may remember as the incredible warrior in my comments section. She inspires me with her blog posts and her comments and her forum posts, because she never stops fighting.

6. Pagan Culture. This is author Magaly Guerrero’s site.  She’s a good writer and pretty badass.

7. The Little Sea Witch. You should give Kat’s blog a read.

Ok. Now onto the easy part — talking about myself!

Seven interesting facts about Morag

1. Morag is genderqueer. You really should realize this by now, but in case you don’t, or you’re a new reader — yeah. I’m genderqueer. My gender is a pendulum on the spectrum of lady to dude, and where it falls on any given day is unknown until that day happens. I often call myself a ladydude. I prefer female pronouns for now; that’s subject to change.

2. Morag asked Danny for help on this section, because apparently it’s not that easy, and these are the answers she got: 1) tits; 2) you can use your tits as a shelf; 3) put a cat between your tits; 4) your boyfriend’s dick spews fire. FIRE DICK. THERE IS AN OGLAF COMIC FOR THIS.  Morag has since learned never to ask her friends for help. (Btw, Oglaf is not safe for work. At all.)

3. Morag likes talking about herself in the third person.

4. Morag is inappropriate and has no filter.

5. Morag is an author of fiction under another name.

6. Morag is not physically immortal (but she has plans to live on in humanity’s memories for all time).

7. Morag is secretly the Doctor. Actually, I’m probably more like Donna than the Doctor, but I do get told pretty often that my mannerisms are a lot like Ten’s.

There we go. Tomorrow’s post will probably be a P post for the Pagan Blog Project, and hopefully next week I’ll catch up with my missing letters (G, I, J, L, N).