Show Us Your Scepter

There are a few inherent problems with being a NeoPagan polytheist.  The biggest one is that "Neo-" out in front.

It's been a long time since someone tried to reincarnate a dead religion.  Oh, the Abrahamic and Dharmic faiths go through revivals, sure.  The form of Judaism we currently have exists because a bunch of priests of Yahveh went and made up a version of his cult that was not just henotheistic but monotheistic - Yahveh wasn't just the best god, he wasn't even just the only one that ought to be worshipped; now, he was the only god - and projecting that view back into their cultural history.  (No one had made that claim since Akhenaton, but somehow this time it stuck.)  None of the various Christian churches look anything like the ones Paul founded in the 30s and 40s CE.  Etc., etc.

But reviving the old Classical Pagan practice in any form goes at least somewhat against their own ethos.  All of the various cults practiced in Classical Greece and Rome, and presumably the portions of the Near East and Europe that were under their control at the time, respected "the customs of the forefathers" - ta patria.  The cults were communal; while individuals certainly had their own devotions, the rites required priests, oracles, temples, and a critical mass of worshippers for sacrifices and rituals.  Much of the important parts were never written down, or written only as lists - this many sheep, the hymn to Atargatis seven times, three handfuls of incense.  Those lists were often essentially outline notes; they were reminders to jog the memories of the priests, scribes, and functionaries, who had been through the ritual so many times they didn't need more.

I, on the other hand, am a person practicing practically alone.  As far as I know, there isn't another Levanto-Mesopotamian Syncretist Pagan - well, anywhere.  The Natib Qadish are probably as close as it gets, and if there are any in Texas, I don't know about them.  I haven't done this since I could talk.  I don't know what the lists are shorthand for, most of the time.  The myths that I have are fragmentary, and I don't know what role they played - moral fables?  Just-so stories? - in the lives of the general worshippers.  There are no temples, and not likely to be any soon; there aren't even shrines, unless I get it together to build one.  I haven't been trained as a priestess, and I can't be - there's no priest left to do it.  And worst of all, this isn't the custom of any of my forefathers (or foremothers).  By descent, I'd have to be either a Celtic Pagan or one of the many flavors of Heathen (probably seithr or Vanatru).  So from the perspective of the people who did it, my right to this practice is somewhat suspect.

And yet - does that matter?  I know there is a cultus for the Phoenician gods in Lebanon; whether a genuine remnant or a rebirth, I do not know.  Nor do I know whether they would welcome my pasty white colonialist ass.  But the goddesses that call to me have Akkadian and Ugaritic names.  Unverified personal gnosis is a messy thing, but at the end of the day it's often all we've got.

All of which is to say, I did tonight's solstice ritual for the CUUPs group I still find myself practicing with (despite now rather regretting my brief foray into Unitarian Universalism*) using the Canaanite deities, El and Asherah and Rahamayu, Shaharu and Shalimu and Shapshu, and trying to use a generally Levantine format.  I don't know if I succeeded, but the other participants seemed to get something out of the ritual, and my matrons are at least not displeased with me.

I intend to stay part of the local Pagan community.  I have no issues with the standard Wiccaform ritual (despite differences in flavor and language, even this ritual didn't stray too far from it), and often get something out of even the most vaguely-Celtic-by-way-of-Tolkienesque rituals if the people running them are any good.  I like the magickal and divinatory practices, the energy-working, the sex-positivity, the tree-hugging respect for Nature, and the general respect for the female divine, and I can't get that anywhere else.  But it's getting harder and harder to deal with duotheistic monist fluffybunnies and the folks who are there for the sacred party.  I don't want the monarchical hierarchy that went with them back in the day, but I want temples.  And imagining how they would be if they had gotten to live and grow for two thousand years, instead of being torn down for the marble and limestone to build churches and mosques, is very, very hard, especially without a community to do it with.


*A ha-ha-only-serious joke: "What's a Unitarian?  A person who believes there is at most one god."

What I'd Like To Do

There seems to be a common experience among the Authenticity Cop wing of Paganism, one that pushes those of us who like talking and thinking about our religion (as opposed to those who are content to Just Do It, a viewpoint that was slammed shut for me by being brought up Lutheran and which I often envy deeply) towards either fairly traditional initiatory British Traditional Witchcraft or towards the various reconstructionist groups.  My problem, so far, is that the group I want - the syncretistic Mediterranean-to-Mesopotamian one that covers what would have been the myriad religious and magickal traditions of the Babylonian empire at its height - doesn't exist.  There's a Sumerian group in Texas, but (a) they don't quite meet my Authenticity Cop standards, and (b) I'm more interested in Babylon, Canaan, Syria, and Phoenicia than I am in Sumeria per se.  The group I was dedicated into is mostly Celtic-focused with a sort of Dianic underpinning; while I still enjoy working with the members of the group, and want to finish my work with them, I don't think of them as my permanent home.  The other group I'm working with is a CUUPs group and a bit of a mish-mash.  I'm as dedicated as any to the prospect that Paganism is bound by common practice rather than common theology, but it would be nice to at least be working with people I shared some basic assumptions with.

A few months ago, Star Foster over at Pantheon posted a list of ten of her "unshakeable personal truths" that were making it difficult for her to find fellowship with most Pagan groups.  I thought it might be an interesting exercise to go through the list and investigate where I agree and disagree.  The parts in italics are direct quoted from the linked post.

1. The Gods are distinct, greater than myself, and have an interest in humankind.

This matches my experience exactly, and it's one of the things I constantly stumble over in my interactions with my fellow Pagans - I get and respect duotheism, even if it doesn't model my reality, but the ones who are clearly monotheistic or atheistic and still identify as Pagan weird me out.

2. Any unity beyond the Gods is not sentient. Monotheism, in any form, is incorrect.

Change "sentient" to "sophontic" and I more or less agree.  I suspect that galaxies, galactic clusters, and the cosmos-as-a-whole have consciousnesses of a sort, and perhaps even something like personalities, but I don't think they have the sorts of awarenesses that could be described as "thinking" or "choosing" - and even if they did, I don't think they'd be the least bit concerned with us.

3. I am a polytheist, not an animist, a pantheist, a panentheist, a duotheist, a henotheist or a monotheist.

I am a polytheist, an animist, and a panentheist (and, to add one not on the list, a weak humanist).  I am not a pantheist (except in the very vague sense outlined in #2), a duotheist (although I acknowledge that many of those in my circles are, and that this matches their perception of the divine, just not mine), a henotheist (although I have no problem with henotheists or monolators; I'm just not called to be that specific - polyamorous even here, I guess), or a monotheist (completely irreconcilable with my experience of the world).  I am also not an agnostic or an atheist; I don't think the gods are merely metaphors or psychological archetypes (although they do tend to get caught up with both, especially in mythmaking).

4. Religion is the bond between humankind and the Gods, and its purpose is to foster excellence and virtue for the survival of the species.

I agree with the first part, and the second part is, for me, one of its many purposes.  I see forging that bond between humankind and the gods, for the mutual benefit and enjoyment of all parties, as a purpose in and of itself - the primary purpose of religion.  Fostering virtue is up there on the list, along with learning how to exist in harmony in the world, but it's that relationship that I see as the sine qua non of religion.

5. Religion is not what makes me feel good, nor is it therapy or pop-psychology.

I agree with this as stated, but there are aspects of religion and ritual - in particular, the repair of personal and community bonds with the gods - that can certainly be therapeutic, and if you're Doing It Right, ought to be.  Similarly, if you are not behaving in a harmful way, or against the strictures of the gods you serve, and your religion is consistently making you feel bad, then you need a better religion.

6. Religious culture should be multi-generational and fully accessible.

I would add that this doesn't necessarily mean that every religious activity must be multi-generational and accessible; there is a place for, for instance, physical activities that not everyone is able to perform, whether due to age or infirmity, in individual rituals, for instance.  But on the whole, I agree, and this is something the modern Pagan groups have had problems with - for instance, the local festival is on a very rough campground that is difficult to navigate for those who walk with canes, crutches, or wheelchairs.

7.  Religion is a fully realized worldview and way of being. It is not loosely-connected disparate elements. It is coherent with a vocabulary sufficient to express all of it’s nuances and concepts clearly, but not bound by pure logic.

I'm not sure I understand the first part.  I'm fairly sure that all of the modern Abrahamic and Dharmic religions actually encompass multiple worldviews, for instance, and I'd be leery of a reconstructionist Pagan practice that had a One Right True And Only worldview, so I suspect I'm missing something in the phrasing.  I agree with the second sentence and I wish to the Gods the last were true - one of my constant frustrations is how badly the English vocabulary for religion has been purged of the proper words for magick, polytheology, and immanence.

8. Science is not opposed to religion, and very important for humanity to study and promote. However, the languages are not interchangeable. Zeus cannot be explained by string theory any more than a libation can cure cancer.

THIS, this, this, a thousand times this, glory and halleluasherah!  And for me, this related back to my lament in #7 - we keep using words for magick and religion that probably were all right to use that way a thousand years ago, but since then they've migrated into Queen Science's kingdom, and they belong firmly to her, now - we need to find better ones, or at least a good way of marking these to show that we're not mushing them together.

9. What you believe matters as much as what you do. Only when in accord with a single vision can any physical act by humans be truly effective. This applies whether you are making the next Avengers movie, or building a temple to Athena.

I've seen too many important things happen by synchronicity, carelessness, or simple dumb luck to agree with this.  For me, what you do is far, far more important than what you believe.  Intent may be magick, but it pales next to actual words and deeds.  Having said that, being in accord with one vision makes it far more likely that an act will have wealful rather than harmful effects - provided the vision was wealful to begin with . . .

10. The religious work we do should not be for ourselves, but for the generations to come.

I'd say both.  Who knows whether what we imagine future generations will want and need will in fact be useful for them?  What fills a need now will likely fill it later, too.


So, all in all, more agreement than disagreement, which is better than I've gotten with about 90% of the local Pagan groups, alas.

Stranger in a Familiar Land

Been chewing on this for a few days - forgive the links not being fresh-out-of-the-oven.

The contemporary NeoPagan revival has happened almost completely in what might once have been called Christendom.  There are lots of reasons for this, one of the chief among them being, that outside of Christendom and its Islamic counterpart, the "old religions" never really went away.  Buddhism, the only Dharmic religion with a conversion imperative, was and is pretty good at existing alongside the forms and practices of indigenous religious practices.  Hinduism is an indigenous religion, as is Shinto.  Confucianism and Taoism also live alongside the various Chinese traditional practices (and each other, for that matter).  And while Judaism isn't exactly an indigenous practice, in many ways it has more in common with Hinduism than it does with its Abrahamic descendants.  In short, the only places where the local PaleoPagan practices were suppressed enough to create a need for NeoPaganism are the places where the Abrahamic religions with the conversion imperatives suppressed them, and Christianity has a head start on Islam.

Unfortunately, that means that we all come at the myriad gods with a head full of, at a minimum, Christian religious language, and in the majority of cases Christian theological ideas as well.  For those of us who were brought up not merely nominally Christian but active in our (or, more often, our parents') churches, there's a double whammy.  We cease being Christians when we realize that we no longer believe the right things; I personally spent many years identifying as a heretic, one whose beliefs are not orthodox [i.e., right-teaching], before I took the label of Pagan.  But we don't become Pagans because we have orthodox Pagan beliefs; there are none!  Being Pagan, even NeoPagan, is a matter of what we do and the experiences we have.  If there is ortho-anything in NeoPagan circles, it's orthopraxis - right-practice.  And each grove, coven, house, temple, and circle seems to develop its own orthopraxis; other than the two Wiccan standards of creating some sort of sacred space and raising energy by some method, even within Wicca every group does it differently - and non-Wiccan groups may do both of those, or only one, or neither.

At any rate, talking about "faith" in a Pagan context is slippery at best and actively harmful at worst.  On the one hand, when we're talking with Christians, especially ones who are somewhat sympathetic, it makes sense to use language that's familiar to them and easy to understand.  I'm guilty of referring to NeoPaganism as a "faith tradition" in the context of such conversations, myself, albeit with the caveat that it's actually a broad cluster of traditions.  I've also pointed out in conversations both with other Pagans and with Christians that I "have faith" in my gods in exactly the same way I "have faith" in my friends and lovers, not in the way that most Christians "have faith" in Jesus or Yahveh (although, being honest with myself, my relationship with Jesus as a late child bears more resemblance to my relationship to the Green Man now than it does to what the church of my upbringing expected it to be).

Finchuill, in "Faith or Fides,"suggests that the words we want as Pagans (especially as polytheists) are "confidence" or "fidelity" (which share the root) rather than "faith" in our gods.  I'm in general agreement with this, especially with his point that, especially in Protestantism, "faith" is about an inward process or struggle, and a polytheist Paganism is largely external - not that there isn't plenty of internal work, but we are fundamentally about ritual - again, what we do and who we are, rather than what we believe.  Still, it's a tricky bit of language to pull off in a religious climate that takes sola fides as a given - never mind that "salvation" is an even less-relevant concept to us than "faith" is.

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, in "Christianity Through a Polytheist Lens," goes deeper into the problem of accidentally ceding theological territory to Christianity through our use of language that isn't really meant for polytheist ideas and practices anymore.  (It was, once, of course - I have had several arguments with atheists and agnostics who complained that what I worshipped weren't "real gods," and I have had to explain that the word "god" means what Odin and Thor and Tyr and Frey and Loki are, and did long before the monotheos got labelled with the morpheme.)  There's a strong tendency by monotheists to assume that humans have generally evolved towards monotheism - this despite half of them not believing (there's that word again) in actual evolution!  And if by that they mean "adopt this or you won't live to reproduce," then there's some evidence for that, I suppose, but I don't think that particular memeplex is heritable in the way they seem to be assuming - if it were, I'd probably have fallen no farther than an eclectic and syncretic Catholicism instead of all the way into idol-worshipping, Ba'al-honoring, Asherah-pole-erecting Paganism.  I also like his post's defense of cataphatic mysticism - I failed a college course on ancient Jewish mysticism once because I couldn't wedge my head into the idea that the "beyond words" sorts of mystical experiences were somehow more true (or at least more worthy of study) than the more sensory and sensible sort.

For me, at least, the tension between speaking enough of the same language to make sense to monotheists and not being drawn into reinforcing their terms and worldview is pretty severe.  To a certain extent, it's the usual "the master's language" problem all over again, although at least in this case we can make a much clearer case for reclamation - English was a polytheist's language once, and can be again.  It's a matter of us being clear about what we mean, and that means talking about what we do and experience, not just what we believe is true.

If This Is Purity, Adulterate Me, Baby!

Cutting Edge's The Virgin Daughters:

A few thoughts:

A lot of the language and set-up of this is indistinguishable from the language and set-up of the husband-chasing reality TV shows; it's obvious that they share a lot of assumptions - that what a woman wants isn't sex per se, but the trappings of romance combined with physical opulence.  (I'm reminded of a friend of mine's recent discovery that an on-again off-again girlfriend of his was flirting heavily with him at a party at a ritzy hotel, despite him not having anything to do with the surroundings; it was the ritziness itself that was the turn-on for her.)  I find this disturbing, honestly, especially when connected with the idea that young men have to bribe a woman into a sexual relationship (whether marriage or otherwise).  There are other linguistic similarities, too - the constant references to "princesses"(which rhetorically makes the dads all kings here) and "fairy tales" (which at least acknowledge the unreality of it all, and do hardcore Christians really want fairie lore, with its fae godmothers and witches and other powerful independent magickal women, creeping around their daughters?).  The refrain of "you're beautiful" - it's almost as if they can't imagine a woman with any worth other than her beauty, although I imagine they'd argue that they're really talking about spiritual beauty.

When the dad asks, "How cool is that?" regarding a woman having only ever kissed one man, I legitimately wanted to throw up (even ignoring how much he coaches his daughter through the other interviews).  There's nothing cool about that at all.  Even if I were completely monogamously inclined, I can't imagine never sharing affection with other people.  These are, by and large, people who tend towards larger families, even if they're not technically Quiverfullers.  How can they imagine that love for your children can only get larger, but love for your, you know, lovers is finite and gets divided up?  Should a youngest child be hurt that zir parents have already given away their hearts to two, three, or more other children before them?  If hearts are large (and I agree that they are), they are large in all directions, not just in storge.  The mom agreeing with that kind of language is creepy, too - I understand having regrets over relationships that didn't work out, but that somehow translating into not having "a whole heart" for the man she married is nonsensical.

The whole "Daddy is everything for a little girl" motif reeks of emotional incest, as does the faux-marriage and the partnered dancing with the fathers.  The ownership paradigm is also out in full force - the girl passes from her father's "protection" into that of a young man whom the father has thoroughly vetted, his duly appointed substitute.  The pledge they read at the ball itself is pretty terrifying, as is the line "let me tell you who you are."  It's already a scary thing for a teen girl to be discovering her identity; confusing a father's paternal love with his desire to define you for yourself - that's pretty horrific.

I am a bad person; I laughed out loud at the line about the '70s being "milder" than now.  The Long Hangover was easily one of the most tumultuous times in US history; it's when the Silent Generation finally woke up.  The current mess is a mess, sure, but it's moderate by comparison.  Then again, several of the parents express deep regret for their histories - which would have happened in the '70s to the '90s.

"But what if you don't like the way he kisses?"  Ah, there's the rub.  This is all about a lack of female desire, an attempt to explain it away, to pretend it isn't there.  Girls don't care how a boy kisses; they care about the size of the diamond he puts on her finger.  Girls don't care if their husbands can't get them off, as long as they're good providers and put them up on a motherly pedestal.  What rubbish.  These men are afraid that if a girl has an orgasm, if she has preferences, if (God forbid) she has kinks or is queer, then their good Christian boys won't be able to satisfy her.  The womb belongs to their God, but a clitoris is the Devil's plaything (and the G-spot is Ashtoreth's terrain; also, perhaps, the mouth, considering that they put such deep emphasis on kissing).

There is one success story, in the girl who escaped - by the same deep magick of the uterus.  I only hope the other girls find their way out by less traumatic means, and that their parents manage to love them anyway.

So Many Relationships

Has anyone noticed that there's an awful lot of All-But-One-Privilege going around?

For those who aren't already familiar, All-But-One-Privilege (ABOP, for short) is the condition in which you are a member of all of your culture's privileged groups except for one.  An awful lot of groups fighting against a specific oppression, at least in the US, are founded by ABOPs, and there's probably a good reason for that: if you're only oppressed in one specific way, then you have enough avenues for expression and opportunities for networking provided by your other privileges to organize and get your message out.  In fact, it's probably necessary.  But it can become a problem when the privilege you lack is the only one you see.

The canonical example is the white, heterosexual, monogamous, middle-to-upper-middle-class women who were most of the second-wave feminists.  Their work was powerful and important and I (and all modern USian women) owe them an enormous debt - but their record on reacting to other ways the kyriarchy oppresses people was mixed at best and shamefully bad at worst.  They did, eventually, grow to accept white, monogamous, middle-to-upper-middle-class lesbians, but it took too long.  While they incorporated academic class critique easily, often this faltered in practice, with working-class and poverty-class women failing to hear their voices and choices represented in the movement.  And their near-total failure to incorporate black, Native American, or Latina perspectives is still one of the great failings of feminism, even here on the third wave.  We're getting better, but it's been fifty years and there are still some massive lessons not fully learned.

Another example, a more successful one in some ways, is the gay movement.  This was all about white, male, cis, middle-to-upper-middle-class white homosexuals when it first started, and largely stayed that way, with a few bones thrown to lesbians (if they were Kinsey 6es) and an acceptance of certain forms of genderqueerness (and outright hostility to others), until the '80s.  In the reaction to HIV and AIDS, several things changed, oddly quickly from my point of view: suddenly the lesbians were full members, possibly because they stepped up and volunteered at a time when a number of the previous volunteers were no longer able to, and the movement went positively schizophrenic about its nonstandard sexual minorities.  The public face of the movement split into those who were adamant about being as "normal" as possible - lily-white, cis, monogamous, vanilla - and those who were in-your-face about their queerness - more racially diverse, campily genderqueer, everything from polyfidelitous to promiscuous, more accepting of bisexuality and pansexuality, and proudly displaying all kinds of kink.  As better treatments for AIDS became available, these two groups drifted back together, and the "we're just like you only gay" types seemed to at least internalize the increased diversity message, even if they still seem embarrassed about the camp drag and the leathermen/leatherdykes.  It's still not perfect - especially if you're bi/pan or a transperson who is serious about transitioning and not interested in playing with gender - but it's better than it used to be.  In some ways, intersectionality is making more inroads in the QUILTBAG movement than the feminist one, and that's sad.

The USian atheist movement seems to be hitting this particular wall these days.  It's largely a movement of white, heterosexual, well-educated, middle-to-upper-middle-class men.  The only privilege they lack is religious privilege.  Now, this is serious - the culture is still very hostile to non-Christians in general and atheists in particular.  I don't mean to downplay it; in fact, as a member of a non-Christian religion, I get a lot of the same blowback, and it can be very painful.  But the combination of Elevatorgate and the reactions several nonwhite, queer, trans, and disabled bloggers have gotten from the 'establishment' among the American Atheists have also made it very, very clear that racial, ethnic, gender, and sexual privilege are alive and well - and probably cutting down on the number of people willing to be out-and-proud atheists.  The Occupy movement, similarly, is united by their lack of economic privilege - and showing deep signs of failure to recognize other types, although again, some individual Occupy groups are doing much better than others.

I don't have a solution.  The outspoken presence of multiply-oppressed people in a group clearly helps, and it helps the most if they are well-spoken and can point out unfair treatment concisely and immediately, but it's not a panacea (otherwise bell hooks would have been sufficient to solve the racism problem in feminism).  A general commitment by the group as a whole to not be dicks to each other also helps, but theoretically all minority religious groups have that already, and look how that's turned out so far.  I think movements need ABOPs to get mainstream traction - poor, trans lesbians of color in polyamorous D/s relationships are more likely to get published in the Enquirer than the New Yorker or an academic journal.  Can we call on Spider-Man to help us - "With great privilege comes great responsibility"?  I don't know, but maybe it's a start.

Shouldn't it be Wonder Moon?

Like everyone else, enjoying the Supermoon tonight.

Probably not like everyone else, enjoying it with a stick of incense in hand.  So many interesting memories associated with the Full Moon - Ave, Luna!