the spinner's archive – Page 6 – over 10 years of posts from Morag Spinner

Welcome, 2016

The moon, waxing gibbous, surrounded by clouds. — The almost-full moon on Longest Night (or Day, for those on the other side of the equator). I feel it’s a good picture to encompass 2015: a blurry shot of a celestial body that is thought to cause madness when full.

2015 was a kind of crazy year for me. WordPress was kind enough to do the 2015 blogging report for this blog, because I have Jetpack enabled, and I found it reminded me to actually post something here.

If you want to see Everyday Magic’s blogging year in review, you can do so here.

What happened in 2015? Well, I got married, and there’s probably a lot I could say about that in particular on this blog. We had a religious-secular ceremony, written by my good friend Mary, who was our priestess. She did an incredible job and I’m so happy I asked her to help us with our big, momentous day.

There are a lot of thoughts I have swirling in my head about marriage and the mystery of it and life now that I’m married, which shouldn’t be all that different but it is, somehow; thoughts on marriage and what’s considered women’s work, even in egalitarian relationships, because so much of our culture is unquestioned even by the most progressive among us; thoughts on the gods and my relationships with them, and how those relationships alter now that I’m married.

As well, the act of planning my wedding gave me a lot to think about regarding friendships, and loyalty, and stress, and what I can handle and what I’m willing to accept. It was sort of a trial by fire, and I’m still smouldering.

Another thing that happened in 2015 is I had a brief stint with a ~~part time~~ full time because they misrepresented themselves to me, out of the house job. This added to the stress, and I actually ended up in the hospital at one point with what I was dead sure was a heart attack. It turned out to be an anxiety attack, but the fact that I thought it was a heart attack should say something as to how bad it was; I get anxiety attacks on the regular. They’ve never been like that.

I ended up quitting the job, though not before it gave me tendonitis, and now I am stuck looking for an actual part time job, as I can’t handle full time. Never could, never said I could. I’d love to not have to search for a part time job, but it’s kind of required right now. My self-employment is not enough to make rent consistently.

My last post on this blog last year was in September, which was right around when work stress started to slowly kill me, along with upcoming wedding stress (we got married October 16th). I wanted to get back to writing — here, on my books, anywhere — so much after the wedding. I’d been on fiction writing hiatus since July and was desperate to dive back into it; I brought my laptop along on our honeymoon so when I got up before Mr. Morag I could write for a bit. (I usually get up before he does.)

I still haven’t. Part of me wonders if I forgot how. I suffered a depressive episode for the rest of October, all of November and December, and I did very little writing for the rest of 2015 — none of it on my fiction. So far this year I’ve written quite a bit, but all on creative non-fiction, blogging, and one poem.

I’m going to write a story today. I’m going to do it.

One other thing that happened in 2015 that I want to mention here is that I started to veil, and I joined the Otherfaith. These things are connected. the Ophelia is the first god I felt a connection to in the Otherfaith, and I got the distinct impression that she wanted me to start veiling when I went out in public. So I started doing that in August and have been doing it most of the time.

I’m not going to go into too much more detail here because I have a post in mind about veiling and want to save it for that. I will say it’s been a great decision on my part. I’m very happy I started veiling.

I celebrated my first Otherfaith holiday at the end of 2015 — Reunion. I’m also going to post a bit about that.

I’m still pretty new in the Otherfaith, so my posts about it might not be as plentiful for the short term, but I’m learning more as much and as often as I can. I hope that at some point I can help contribute to the body of work being built by the Other people. But learning comes first for me.

The long and short of 2015 was that it was a stressful year with some very bright points but a lot more low points. I am honestly so glad it’s over, because the stress levels were killing me. I am so happy to be married but I never want to have another wedding, and I’m so happy that 2016 is wedding free. (Aside from possibly attending friends’, but as far as I know there aren’t any upcoming. I could be wrong, though.) (Also, aside from sending out thank-you notes, which I haven’t had the spoons to tackle until now. BUT AFTER THAT my life will be our-wedding-free.)

Basically, I’m super excited for 2016, even considering I’ve spent the first 9 days of it with a cold that I caught from my darling husband who of course is not feeling half as bad as I am because he’s a freak of nature BUT I DIGRESS, where was I? Right. 2016. It’s going to be a great year. I feel like I’ve finally figured out some stuff about myself, about my life, and while implementing the changes I want to implement is not going to be easy, I think I’m going to be so much happier when I’m successful in it. And I will be successful. 2016 is the year of success for me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go sneeze a bunch and rummage around for some sort of magic cure for this blasted illness.

Happy new year, everyone. I hope 2016 is bright and beautiful for us all.

~Morag

World Suicide Prevention Day 2015

I don’t know. There was a big post I wanted to do about my Oma and my mom and my aunt and how suicide/suicidal ideation/suicide attempts runs in our family, at least on the female/FAAB side, and how Oma would have appreciated that her birthday is also World Suicide Prevention Day, and how Mom and I shared a laugh over it, because we share the same sense of gallows humour.

But it turned out that I couldn’t write any of that; not the way I wanted to write about it. What I thought would make a meaningful blog post is better relegated to a short anecdote.

Instead, I’m going to share this song with you. I was listening to it yesterday kinda on repeat and…it spoke to me of hope. (I started listening to it on repeat because it was on this playlist, which I found appropriate to listen to on my Oma’s Ancestor Day.) And it’s now on my Songs of the Gods playlist on Youtube~~, which if I’m going to be honest is really just a lot of Florence + the Machine~~. Hope, in the face of wanting to die, or thinking you do — yes. That’s of the gods, for me.

(The video is pretty cool too, but unrelated to the message that I got from the song. I think. I don’t know. I haven’t seen Snow White and the Huntsman yet. Maybe it’s totally related.)

I’ll see you tomorrow.

~Morag

Places where the gods are NOT

So I was thinking about my wording in my post from the other day, about how my faith has helped me in difficult times:

In my faith I’m well aware that the gods are not omnipotent, nor omniscient. (Omnipresent? maybe, but not in the way it’s usually meant when speaking of any particular deity, I think.)

I wanted to expand on that (the bolded bit) a little bit.

To me the gods are both omnipresent and They’re not. They are, because I believe each person, each being, has a spark of divinity within them — not specific divinity, necessarily, not “there is a piece of Manannnan specifically in me” though that can also happen; more general divinity. This is because I also believe that there is a…source, I guess, to all of us. A great, completely unfathomable source that binds us all together, that is the source of our spirits and gods and land spirits and anything with life.

(And because we have part of that source that gives life to the universe within us, we are also capable of bringing life where there is none, or giving strength to that which lives through our faith. It is because of my belief in the source that I believe that our actions can affect the very existence of the gods, or the shape Their existence may take, just as Their actions can affect us. This is also the premise of one of my book series.)

So to that end, the source is everything, in everything, and everywhere, and because that same source binds me and the gods together, They are always with me.

Too, there’s the fact that I love Them — so They’re always with me in the same way anyone I love is always with me. They’re in my heart.

When it comes to how They’re not omnipresent, I’m talking about the spots They inhabit that are outside our own hearts, our own spirits. I see Manannan in the oceans, the rains, the mist; I see Brighid in the sun, in a hearthfire; the Morrigan in the forest, in a raven’s feather; the Ophelia in rivers…the list goes on. And often I feel Their presence, when I go to these places, encounter these things that mean something to Them.

There have been times when I haven’t. There have been times when my communication with them has been muted, or almost completely cut off, simply because of where I was.

I think there are places where the gods — the specific gods I know and love — are not.

Sometimes home to my Father...sometimes not. — Sometimes home to my Father…sometimes not.

The most recent and clear example I can give is my trip to Spring Mysteries Fest. It’s held at an old military fort that has since been turned into a camp, and it’s right on the ocean. I mean, right on it.

I got kinda excited, thinking, I can go take a look at the sea, say hello to Manannan.

Nope. I started walking with friends towards the cliff edge so we could get a look at the sea and I felt this intense pushback, making me almost physically sick, and it was very clear to me — not only is Manannan not here at all, this place belongs to His enemy.

Because SMF has been held in this same place for decades, that particular spot of ocean has become Poseidon’s.

Many times when I visit the sea, if I don’t get the sense that that particular spot belongs to Manannan, I get the feeling He’s sharing with another local deity or spirit, or maybe not local. I think gods share spaces all the time.

But there are certain gods who will not share with each other. Manannan and Poseidon are two such examples.

So if I go to that specific spot in Washington, I cannot go to the sea. Not because Manannan is not there (I am sure there are other places where He’s not for reasons other than His enemy occupies the area), but because Poseidon is, and it’s His territory. Not my Father’s.

Another thing is, there are places where the local deities have a very strong hold. So deities that have traveled, Diaspora deities, They might be there with you, but you might not be able to sense Them past the strength of the local deities. Hawai’i strikes me as such a place. The only god I had a good connection to in Hawai’i was Thoth, and even then, I didn’t feel Him as strongly as I would often feel the spirits of that land, or Pele, or Kamapua’a — even though I had no relationships with the Hawai’i’an pantheon (beyond the general, “I live here so I will pay You respect and offerings occasionally”).

I think if I had been worshipping another god or goddess connected to volcanoes I would not have been able to sense Them at all in Hawai’i. Possibly because Pele is not the sharing type, or just because She is so strong there, even if She were willing to let another god come hang out, you might not be able to hear Them over the roar of Her fires.

I have never been to the ancestral homes of my deities, so I don’t know if it’s the same for Them. Part of me wonders if it’s not; if the roar of Pele’s fires is not only because Hawai’i is Her stronghold, but also as a response to colonialism.

Of course, that leads me to wonder about the rest of N. America, and the gods and spirits of the indigenous peoples on the mainland. Is Hawai’i the outlier because it was more recently conquered, because it is an archipelago? Or is this the same in other places in Canada and the US, and I just haven’t yet encountered it?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, but I think it’s interesting to think about, to explore.

What I do know, is there are places where my gods are not. But regardless where I am, They’re always in my heart.

~Morag

30 Days of Paganism: Places of spiritual significance

There are two types of “place” that I’m going to talk about here. One is a general type of place. The other is a specific spot in the world that I’d like to make pilgrimage to.

General types of places

Rivers

Why: A few main reasons. Rivers are associated not only with Brighid and (tangentially) Manannan in my faith, but also now the Ophelia. the Ophelia is a river, actually, so they’re really her thing. As well, I’ve always felt a sort of quiet, powerful exultation-slash-peace come over me when I’m near a river, especially if it’s rushing past.

There’s one nearby me, the mighty Fraser. I shall have to make an attempt to visit it more often.

Oceans

Why: Well, this one is kinda obvious — the sea is the realm of my Father, Lord Manannan. It is deep and terrifying and to be respected and also loving. I grew up partially in Hawai’i, partially on the Left Coast of Canada. I know about the sea. I always have. I learned when I was very little never to turn your back on it, because it would probably knock you right the fuck off your feet. I also learned that it was safe, and welcoming, and (in Hawai’i, at least) warm. It’s changeable, often on a dime, and unpredictable, but it’s also the source of all life on this planet, and the place where many go to die. It’s the road over which the dead travel to their final rest. It is the first and final embrace. Without water, without salt, we die; with too much, we drown, we desiccate.

I also sort of associate the sea with Hermes — specifically with ferry boats that populate our coast here. And it just occurred to me how appropriate that I associate a patron of thieves with BC Ferries, lords of the fare hike. Seriously, though, I try to offer to Hermes when travelling by BC Ferries and sea, and I make an offering to my Father at the same time. I feel They occupy space next to each other in the Salish Sea, chatting about Their work, Their similar roles, much like cubicle neighbours might share gossip over the walls of their workspaces.

Forests

Why: Since childhood, forests have been my temple, the site of my sacred rites of running and screaming and playing, a place for forts where no one could bother me, a space for meditation. I feel no fear in the forest; the smell of pine trees reminds me I’m alive; I could sleep on beds of moss and stone.* I feel a tear in my heart when a tree comes down unnecessarily, and I have cried at bald hillsides where clearcuts have gone on. The forest has forever been my home, more so than any house, any residence I’ve taken up. I think if I lived far away from the forest something in me would die.

Religiously, I associate the forest with the Morrigan. Within its darkened alleys is a teeming dance of life and death, of the hunt, of hot blood pulsing just below the skin, yearning to spring free. She is the goddess of life to me, and all the messy glory that goes with it — never portrayed so perfectly to me as within the bounds of the deep woods.

People think the woods are quiet, but if you stop and really listen, you will hear a cacophony of life — and death — within their boundaries. There is a never-ending death within the woods; there are passages to other worlds, beyond the veil, to the land where my lady rules absolutely. If you’re not careful, you’ll get lost.

There’s a certain analog between forests and cities, that way. Trees as buildings, housing animals of various stripes; the streets of soil and bushes are made homes to ground-dwellers; the constant screaming dance of life and death you can hear in sirens and babies crying and people yelling or dancing or singing joyfully; the hunt that happens in the darkened alleys; the teeming underbelly of life, just beneath the surface, like bugs crawling around in the soil when you turn it over.

So in that, cities are spiritually significant too.

*Metaphorically. I still have a shitty back.

Libraries & Bookstores

Why: Books are sacred. Even when they’re shitty pieces of sorry excuses for literature, they’re sacred. The idea of books — a repository of knowledge pressed by ink onto pages made from the dead body of what was once a living being — it makes a tree immortal. It makes us immortal. Books are the immortality serum, the fountain of youth, that we have been searching for as long as we’ve had the thought to mourn our own creeping expiration dates.

Books are the marriage of sacrifice, of death, and of passion and life and beauty. Within their small or staggeringly massive covers they hold these ideals; they hold the mingled spirits of human and tree and animal alike, created out of shared pain and hardship and love and ecstasy. And when you read books, when you read the stories printed on their fragile pages, it sets you ablaze. You burn with what was once forbidden knowledge, with inspiration, with love, with hatred.

Books should inspire a blaze within you, within your heart. A book that hasn’t done that hasn’t done its job, it hasn’t fulfilled its purpose — but it’s not the book’s fault. And books can be reincarnated into new books, into new paper onto which to print our follies and victories. Or they can reincarnate into other things, continually offering something even past the usefulness of the words on their pages.

Books are immortality, and inspiration, and passion, and life and death. And libraries and bookstores hold shelves upon shelves of books, shelves upon shelves of fiery inspiration just waiting to be let loose upon a ready mind.

All knowledge is worth having. Libraries and bookstores are homes to knowledge.

(Religiously, Shemhazai, Epiphany, and Brighid are associated with books, and thus libraries or bookstores. Especially Epiphany.)

Specific sites for pilgrimage

Ireland & the Isle of Man

By Michal Osmenda from Brussels, Belgium (enhancedUploaded by russavia) [CC BY-SA 2.0], via Wikimedia Commons

Why: Ireland is home to three of my gods — Brighid, the Morrigan, and Manannan Mac Lir (at least partially). I want to go to Their original homes and get to know the lands, where They came from. I want to see how They’re different over there, because I’ve come to believe that Diaspora Gods are different from gods who still remain in their original lands — there is some splitting that does not completely create new gods, but instead is another example of Deity Individuation is Weird.

While in Ireland I plan specifically on seeing Kildare, home to Brighid’s Flame. I also plan on seeing everything else I possibly can.

The Isle of Man is not part of Ireland, but I include it in this section because it is pretty much right next to Ireland, and it’s part of the pilgrimage I want to make for the Sacred Triad. The Isle of Man is named for Manannan and might be closer to being His “true home” than Ireland is, though I doubt I’ll ever know for sure.

Greece

Why: Greece is home to the Hellenic gods. I want to visit the temples, the ancient places of worship; I want to see where They came from.

I also just really want to go to Greece. Can you blame me?

France (Terre d’Ange)

Why: There’s no physical travel to the real Terre d’Ange as laid out in the Kushiel series, but the closest I can come in this world is to go to France. The borders might not match up exactly, but they’re probably pretty close. I want to see all of France, and see the world that might have been, the world the D’Angeline gods might have occupied.

Also, France.

I do plan on making these specific pilgrimages at some point in my life, though it likely won’t be for a long, long while. Travel is expensive and difficult. Still, I fully plan to make it happen. Somehow.

~Morag

30 Days of Paganism: The future of Paganism

I wish I may, I wish I might.... — I wish I may, I wish I might….

I want there to be more for onion-hoers. I want there to be more polytheist/pagan community centres, where people of all pagan stripes can rent rooms for classes, hold weekly get togethers, do ritual, meet for coffee, drop their kids off for religious education…the list goes on. I want frameworks put together for general eclectic paganism so that people can come together from different pagan faiths and have a ritual, or a celebration. I want the focus to move from Wicca or Wiccish paganism and start to include other paths.

I want the Otherfaith to grow. I want to see books about it; I want there to be more people involved; I want to see it grow into a good-sized faith in its own right.

I want to figure out what the fuck I’m building with the Sacred Triad. I want to publish a book, or many, about it. I want it to have a framework that anyone can pick up and work with.

I want the future of paganism to be easier for people; I want the bootstrapping to have already been done for the majority of faiths.

I want pop culture paganism to get more respect. I want to put out a book on D’Angeline Recon. I want people not to feel like they have to hide their pop culture paganism for fear of being ripped to shreds by the Piety Brigade.

I want people to finally understand the difference between Wicca and every other pagan faith.

I want there to be less derision about fringe practices within paganism.

I want more than an “other” category when I’m filling out forms and I’m asked about my religion.

I want paganism to be easier to navigate for newbies. I want it to be safer.

I want people to do better. I want people to not be dicks.

Most of all, I want to create a future where pagans don’t have to fear losing their jobs, their homes, their children, simply because people fear their religious practices. I want to create a world with more understanding, and more freedom — both within our communities and without them.

I want a future of beautiful diversity and community; of connection across religious lines; of understanding, of knowledge, of freedom.

I want a lot. I dream big.

~Morag

30 Days of Paganism: One misconception about Paganism you’d like to clear up

IT’S NOT WICCA.

Seriously, though, that is a BIG misconception out there — that “paganism” is just another word for “Wicca.” It’s really really not!

Using the definition I’m most comfortable with, paganism is a big, umbrella term to refer to any religion that is not Abrahamic and self-identifies as pagan. The self-identity thing is most important, and why religions like Hinduism are not often considered ‘pagan’ (because people within it often don’t self-identify as pagan — but as with anything, there are exceptions to the ‘rule’). You’ll notice the definition also doesn’t include things like “earth-based” or “nature reverence”.

Beyond that definition, there’s no theological unity among pagans (and even that definition might be up for debate as too restrictive). That’s fine. Neo-Paganism is more a socio-cultural movement with a shared history than a unified front of religious belief. We have lots of variety and diversity, and that’s a good thing. And within that variety and diversity, there are some shared experiences that may affect many, if not most, pagans. Things that, if you bring them up with other pagans, you’re likely to get a Oh, yeah, I know all about that.

Examples include navigating wearing religious jewelry or clothing at work and the questions it may raise; finding a good place for ritual if your house isn’t suitable; meeting with other people of vaguely similar mindset in your area; organizing meetups; figuring out how to make faith work with mundane life when there’s no framework in the secular world (getting time off work for holidays, etc); the list goes on. A lot of pagans have to deal with these questions, and you’ll find more unity with regards to socio-cultural aspects than you will with theological ones.

That said, there’s nothing wrong with calling your path ‘paganism’ if you’re lacking a better word or it’s an eclectic blend of different pagan things anyway. Just like you can call your path ‘witchcraft’ if it’s definitely witchcraft but not a specific tradition of witchcraft.

You just need to be prepared to explain that the word doesn’t refer to a specific religion; you’re just using it to describe yours because it’s the best one available.

So I guess that’s the biggest misconception about paganism I’d like to clear up: it’s not one religion; the religions it unites under its umbrella banner are not necessarily theologically connected; nature reverence is not necessarily a core part of it; it’s definitely not Wicca.

~Morag

30 Days of Paganism: How your faith has helped you in difficult times

It helps about as much as anything else, I guess.

Or maybe I’m not defining “difficult times” properly, here. See I tend to think of most of my life as “difficult times”, even when things are good, because I suffer from mental illness and spend much of my time locked in depression and anxiety. So to that end, my faith helps about as much or as little as any of the other self-care or coping mechanisms I have created over the years.

If we’re talking more acute pain, not the chronic, never-ending hell that is mental illness, then…I don’t know.

Ok. So. I guess the most recent example is my mom being sick and it probably being cancer again and waiting and waiting and waiting for a diagnosis and just, wow, this really fucking sucks. How has my faith helped me through?

Well. In my faith I’m well aware that the gods are not omnipotent, nor omniscient. (Omnipresent? maybe, but not in the way it’s usually meant when speaking of any particular deity, I think.) So I don’t spend time railing against Them, specifically, because I know this isn’t a decision They made. It’s just something that happened.

(I do question how it’s fair that my mom gets sick and gets crapped on and how we never seem to catch a fucking break, but I know it’s not fair, and that life isn’t fair, and the universe just sucks sometimes. That’s just me venting, rhetorically. I know the answer to the questions I’m posing.)

So in that way, it doesn’t hurt my faith when these things happen. My faith doesn’t get shaken because I don’t start from the premise that the gods decide everything that happens and make these decisions for us, or make us sick, or stuff like that.

That said, I do believe They can help heal us, or help protect us, if we ask. So my faith has helped in that I know my gods are looking out for my mom, and for me, and that regardless what happens They’ll be there for me.

It also helps having a divine Dad with whom to speak about this stuff.

So I guess there’s no real specific thing I can point to to say “This is how my faith helps me in difficult times.” There’s no miracle. It’s just a background thing; a thing that’s there.

That said, I do need more. I need rituals and prayers and things I can do so as to allay the helplessness I often feel in situations like this. The background stuff is helpful, but not as helpful as I’d like it to be. Other religions have set things in place that you do when the shit hits the fan. Mine…doesn’t.

So again, this is back to major life events — I have work to do.

~Morag

30 Days of Paganism: Any “secular” pastimes with religious significance, and why

I do have some secular pastimes that have, over time, acquired religious significance.

Knitting/Crochet

For the longest time it was just a way for me to carry on family traditions, and I loved doing it. At some point I got the lightbulb that it was Brighidine work, and it turned out I’m not the only Brighid follower who feels this way. After realizing this I joined a group that knits things for the homeless in the Downtown East Side, which is also Brighidine work (and Manannan’s). I unfortunately haven’t been able to make it to the group knits as much as I’d like, but hopefully that will change at some point. (Or maybe I’ll start my own group, closer to where I live.)

Writing

It’s always been my calling, but it didn’t become my religious calling as well until the gods showed up. Both Brighid and the Morrigan want me to write, and there are connections to other gods as well. My writing isn’t always a religious pastime, but often is.

Listening to music/singing along

I have always soundtracked my life, finding deep meaning in different songs, finding catharsis in singing along to them. As my religious life has progressed, I have created different playlists for the gods, found different playlists for them, and discovered music that has religious meaning for me as well as just being amazing.

I’ve also found myself raising energy and sending it while singing along to music. It’s a sort of impromptu magic I don’t often realize I’m doing until a ways into the song.

Lighting candles

I’ve been obsessed with candles and fire since I was a kid. I used to use candles as my main form of illumination in my bedroom, years and years ago. Now, I get to use them religiously. It’s nice.

Domestic activities

Cooking, cleaning, laundry…I work actively to make these things religious. They need to be done and making them religious means I will do them and I will get some religious time in my busy life.

There are probably other things, but this is all I can think of at the moment.

~Morag

For Me, Internet Paganism IS Paganism (so maybe speak for yourself)

Sweet Dionysos I have had it with this fucking bullshit.

John Halstead, self-described humanistic pagan, has written yet another blog post wherein he tries to be a gatekeeper of paganism, continuing on his awesome roll of hurting other pagans by acting like an asshole. (I’m not linking it. He doesn’t get traffic from me. You can Google search “Internet Paganism Is Not Paganism” + “The Allergic Pagan” if you want to read it.)

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again — I don’t give a shit what you believe or don’t believe; I don’t care if you’re atheist or monotheist or polytheist or monolatrist or henotheist or agnostic or whatever. Just don’t be a dick about other people’s religious or areligious practices, beliefs, lives. Just don’t be a dick.

Halstead waxes poetic about logos and mythos in his post; he accuses John Beckett of being on the road to fundamentalism and fanaticism (which…uh. what? have you READ Beckett?); he cherry picks some quotes from responses to his previous bullshit; he quotes Starhawk completely out of context; he refers to Alison Leigh Lilly to bolster his meandering argument (which alone makes me not want to read anything he writes, if he’s a fan of her, as I’ve been bullied by her in the past); most importantly, he makes very clear his ultimate point:

“Internet paganism is not paganism.”

That is to say, writing about paganism on the web isn’t really religion like how, you know, pouring libations or saying prayers or whatever it is that people do offline is religion.* (Or spirituality or “my path” or whatever you want to call what you’re doing that’s vaguely pagany.)

Oh, wow, it’s the Piety Brigade with another More Pious Than Thou post, except this time it’s coming from a rationalist! How refreshing.

Ok, dude. Halstead. Buddy. If writing about paganism on the web is not actual!paganism for you (whatever actual!paganism is), that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to consider your online spewing of anti-theist jerkish vitriol to be a religious act. No one is going to get mad at you for that!

But please, for the love of all the gods you think are to blame for 9/11**, speak for your fucking self.

I am so, so, SO tired of pagans telling the world what paganism IS or what it ISN’T; I am so, so, SO tired of this bullshit gatekeeping; I am sooooo tired of the Piety Brigade.

Watch out; they might be doing ~*~paganism~*~ with that newfangled contraption!

Because guess what? For me, internet paganism IS PAGANISM. This writing I do on this blog? It’s mostly a religious act for me. (Maybe not when I’m ranting like this,*** but most of the time? Yeah. It’s an act of devotion.)

The online shrines that I keep for the gods, the postings I put there, the reblogs? Devotional activity.

My Pinterest boards of devotional imagery? You guessed it — devotional activity!

The 8tracks playlists that I listen to, that I have collected in a “Songs for the Gods” collection? Yes, devotional activity.

The “Songs of the Gods” playlist I have on my Youtube? Devotional.

The weekly Otherfaith online get-togethers, or the conversations we have — all online — throughout the week? Devotional. Related to the Four/Four. Related to our faith, that we’re building, and a way for members of the faith to connect with each other.

Making Kiva loans? Devotional.

Reading certain pieces from certain blogs? Devotional.

Contributing to Deily? Devotional.

All these things and a shitload more, things I do exclusively or mostly online — devotional. Devotional. DEVOTIONAL.

And I know it’s the same for other pagans I know. I know I’m not the only one who lives their religious life partly online.

So, no. You don’t get to say that internet paganism isn’t pagany enough. You don’t get to deliver that judgment from on high. You don’t get to judge how other people live their religious lives as not good enough, according to whatever weird standard you’ve set up in your head as being The Standard.

No one is forcing you to live your religious life online. But just because you don’t do it, and can’t imagine yourself doing it, does not mean that others don’t do it or that if we do, we’re Doin’ It Rong.

And maybe if you really did care about emphasizing the value and agency of your fellow human — as, indeed, being a humanist would seem to indicate — you would stop trying to speak for the rest of us while you thrash and flail in a desperate bid to remain relevant.

~Morag

*Do you want an actual quote as to what he considers real paganism? Here is one, verbatim:

Connecting with the land and it’s other-than-human inhabitants, celebrating the Wheel of the Year, worshiping gods, venerating ancestors, meditating, praying at your shrine, pouring libations, making offerings: these kinds of things are Paganism.

Which, you know, completely erases the existence of pagans who, in their offline lives, do things that are NOT THESE THINGS — and thus, we can assume, they are not really ‘doing paganism’. Unless we’re supposed to assume he’s including those folks and just didn’t bother to mention their practices or acknowledge the fact that people exist who emphatically do not do what he suggests as things that ‘are paganism’, buuuuuuut I can’t give him that much credit. He consistently demonstrates that when it comes to other pagans he does not know what the fuck he is talking about yet this does not stop him from trying to talk for us; I do not know why any of that would be different this time.

**You might think I showed admirable restraint when I didn’t rip THAT post of his to shreds, but in truth, I just did so more with more subtlety than I am usually wont to use.

***Though sometimes, truth be told, there is a sort of divinity in a good rant.

30 Days of Paganism: Priest? Clergy? One or both? Neither?

I tend to differentiate between ‘priest’ and ‘clergy’. There’s a venn diagram where they overlap, but I do think they are different roles.

Priest/ess

For me a priest or priestess is either someone who has been called by the gods (or whatever) to serve Them/dedicated themselves to serving the gods in some capacity or has reached a certain level of initiation or knowledge in a specific tradition. The title of priest/ess might indicate a level of community involvement, but it might not. In my opinion, it’s not necessary to minister to the community to call yourself a priest/ess.

I consider myself a priestess of Brighid, because I dedicated myself to that path, to doing Her work. Sometimes this does mean ministering to other people, but not often.

Clergy

This role might have some of the same meaning as priest/ess — being called by the gods/dedicating oneself to Them or reaching a certain level of knowledge — but for me, it has a greater emphasis on ministry — community outreach. To be clergy is to serve the gods (or whatever) by serving the people; using the knowledge one has obtained to help out fellow pagans.

In my view, a clergy position can be more general and less specific when it comes to religious aspects than a priest/ess position. This is partially due to need — there are not many clergy for some of the smaller religions in paganism, so those of us who are part of those smaller religions may have to settle for someone else. Which means I believe that clergy need to be open to ministering to people of other religions within paganism.

There are also specific tasks that fall to clergy, that might not fall to priest/esses. These tasks might include performing weddings, doing blessings on infants, performing end-of-life services, and the like. They might also include creating frameworks for onion-hoers to utilize in their own lives — in other words, doing whatever bootstrapping is necessary so that not everyone in the faith is required to do these things. (This task — creating frameworks for people — might also fall to priest/esses. It’s another area where I think the roles overlap.)

Each pagan faith is going to have different requirements for their clergy, of course. These are just examples.

The Reclaiming view

I also hold that each person is their own clergy, as is held in Reclaiming witchcraft. This does not mean that I expect onion-hoers/laypeople to be able to do all the varied tasks that might fall upon clergy, or to constantly have to bootstrap just to have SOMETHING. Instead, this phrase is referring specifically to the idea that laypeople need clergy as their conduit to the gods — I don’t buy that. A middle-man is not 100% necessary to connect with the gods — not on a daily basis, anyway.

There will always be special occasions — maybe you really need to actually talk to a god and not just go off vague impressions and what you think might be signs. So you talk to a priest/ess or clergy who can draw down that god and let Them speak through mortal mouths. This, obviously, requires the help of someone with that skill. Not something you can do alone.

What I’m talking about more with this is the idea that people need a middle-man just to do regular ritual or worship. You don’t. You don’t need someone to be your conduit to the gods on a daily basis. You can still do daily worship or ritual and it will be just as meaningful as ritual with a clergyperson.

Obviously these are just my own opinions as to what clergy and priest/esses are and what they do, and probably plenty of pagans will not agree with me. I do think that the roles of clergy and priest/ess are useful and necessary to pagan faiths. I also think it’s kinda crappy the amount of policing that goes on regarding the word “priest” or “priestess” — I’ve seen the argument that if you’re not doing X, Y, and Z, you can’t call yourself a priestess because you’re not pious enough. Or something. That’s bullshit.

As for whether or not I have any aspirations to be clergy…I don’t know. I think I’m happy in my priestess role, to be honest. I still want to contribute to creating frameworks for laypeople so they’re not forced into bootstrapping everything, and I don’t mind doing some community outreach…but I think the requirements of being full-on clergy would burn me out pretty quickly.

~Morag