Upon Reading “Believers, Beware”
I just bought a book: Believer, Beware: First-person dispatches from the margins of faith, which was compiled by the editors of Killingthebuddha.com. As with any group of short memoirs, this book has its ups and downs, but for the most part essays are well done.
But then there’s Velvet. Fuck you, Velvet.
Velvet didn’t really write an essay. She ranted, and Sharlet and Manseau (Killing The Buddha’s head editors) wrote down what she said. Velvet, incidentally, is the only Pagan in Believer, Beware. That means that the only Pagan these guys could find to talk about Paganism is some incoherent “elven witch” who can’t seem to keep her babble out of her nonsense. Everything she says is straight out of a badly-written, poorly read Wicca 101 book with too much fuckupery thrown in. It makes me irate. Fuck.
Is this who we are: idiots? I can’t tell for sure, but it seems to me that at the end of the “interview” Sharlet and Manseau can’t help but make fun of poor Velvet. There’s a mouse. Maybe it’s Loki? (Yeah, right they mumble under their breath).
We have so much potential. If we actually ever lived up to what we say we are (and you know my thoughts on this–feminism and eco-centris plus polytheism), then we would be filling works like Believer, Beware to the brim. We should be the cutting edge! We should be countercultural! We should at very least not be a joke. Folks wonder why anyone with any integrity is leaving Neopaganism? It’s because they’re tired of the joke.
Hmph.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Mother Night, Lady Crocodile!
Night Mother, Lady Crocodile!
The stars are your many teeth,
The darkness your painful scales.
Hidden in the reeds of the riverbed
You pause, ice-blooded,
Breathing in the scent of gazelles
Breathing out your fury and frost.
Filed under: Poetry | Leave a Comment
A boy called Life was playing amongst the breasts of his Beloveds when the Mother wrapped the world in her ghostly presence. The child became afraid and ran from his village, tripping over brambles and thorns as he went, scraping his knees and palms–the blood was an offering for the Dogs.
One dog chased the boy, then two. They chased him through the woods and marshes and deserts, up onto the peak of the highest mountain, where he was surrounded by shadows and the glowing eyes of the Stars. There the Dogs cornered him, and there the Dogs spoke, words dripping like molten ice from their red tongues. And when the Dogs spoke, the Stars hummed with a shining Darkness and they spoke words like colliding galaxies or torn spiders’ webs.
And the Dogs said,
We are loss. We are fear. We are famine and failure and forgetting. We are the Children of the Night Mother, birthed by her alone in the palace at the end of the world. We are her flesh and her fingertips.
And the boy, who had ran so far and for so long that he had become a man, said,
Gods who are the flesh of Night, do not raise your hands against us, for we too are the children of Night.
And the Stars said,
We are hatred and ill-health. We are old age and fate. We are misery, and mockery, and mortality. We are the Children of the Night Mother, birthed by her at the mouth of Hell. We are her feet and her breath and her back.
And the Man said,
Gods who are the flesh of Night, spare us from your dark fury, for we too are the children of Night.
And the Dogs sat up and became two handsome Gods, and said,
We are Sleep, we are Death. We are the brother-fathers of Dream and Destiny. We are Fate and Friendship, the Golden Morning and the Honey-Hued Dusk. We are the Children of the Night Mother, birthed in the folds of her infinity. We are her hands and her breasts and her heart.
And the Man, whom Old Age had taken and made frail, said,
Gods who are the flesh of Night, shine your bright eyes upon us, for we too are the children of Night.
And the Stars, whose faces now became the faces of women and men and children and the Dead of the Earth and Demons of the Pit, said,
We are fury and hatred, violence and toil. We are strife and sex and secrecy, we are doom. We are the Children of the Night Mother, birthed in the expanses before the beginning and beyond the end. We are her hair and her bones and her blood.
And as the Old Man died, having learned the infinite names of the Children of Night, whispered,
Gods who are the flesh of Night, hold our heads against your breasts, let us play among your shining eyes, you who are our Beloveds, for we too are the children of Night.
(Or something like that…)
Filed under: Personal, Poetry, Thoughts | Leave a Comment
Hey
Sorry I haven’t spoken up in a about a week! My studies have just picked up again, and only now am I settling back down into the swing of things. So, expect more to come from Johnny Rapture over the next week! Until then, enjoy a horrible couplet:
From one cup to the next, I swell with love;
From one meeting to the next, I swell with love.
Filed under: Personal, Poetry | Leave a Comment
A Living Syncretic Revivalism
My recent post “Toward A New Paganism” has caused quite the stir! I’m truly excited to see so many people interested in my writing, and, more importantly, in the theological discourse I had hoped to drum up. Now, as promised, I’d like to try and respond to a few of the questions from the comments. I’d like to begin that process by first looking at the subject of diversity, which was brought up by Hrafnkell:
He said,
I do not like the idea, suggested by you, of a “a living syncretic revivalism”. I believe that diversity is a strength, and not a weakness.
I suppose I didn’t quite take the time to explain exactly what I meant by a “syncretic revivalism,” and so I will do that now. That will, I hope, show that I am in no way advocating for a decrease in diversity – in fact, I’m arguing for greater diversity than already exists.
Imagine an apartment building. The residents of this apartment building all live in their own apartments and do their own thing. Sure, they may see each other in the hallways and hold the door for each other occasionally, but they don’t know each other. They aren’t friends. They aren’t a community, even though they all live near each other.
To me, this image illustrates the nature of Pagan Reconstructionism today. Each group of Recons does their own thing: they don’t mingle, and they don’t really know each other. They are essentially independent of each other, even though they fall within the same general part of the religious landscape.
Filed under: Thoughts, World | Leave a Comment
Tags: ancient world, reconstructionism, syncretism
I’ll Not Count My Years
I’ll not count my years
From Jesus’ birth, Muhammad’s flight,
Nor God’s first working hour.
No, I’ll reckon from that day
She said to me, “I love you,
But your letters needs some work.”
(An army secretary, long ago,
She had no patience for our scrawl).
Filed under: Poetry | Leave a Comment
Reinterpreting The Soul
My friend Ruby Sara at Pagan Godspell recently mentioned a conversation that she and I have been having concerning the nature and, essentially, the working value, of the reality or the concept of the soul. Here I’d like to explore my views on the subject.
~
My spiritual journey for the last several years has all concentrated around living as a complete, whole, fully integrated person. I would also call this a striving toward being an “authentic” person. For much of that time, this process has consisted of something quite similar to Jung’s process of Individuation, during which a person confronts and integrates their various “shadows.” For a basic primer in what I’m talking about, see Ursula K. Le Guin’s novel, A Wizard of Earthsea.
Anyway, I bring this up because recently my dedication to wholeness has moved beyond merely the psychological and into the embodied. I have claimed my body as my own, and I will not degrade it to a status below any other of my integral parts. This has led me to a process wherein I am examining my personal theology to detect any tenant or belief that may be incongruous with a whole reclamation of myself. That is, I wish to excise any theological tenant that would make my belief system hypocritical and inauthentic.
In the history of science there have been various particles or substances that have been hypothesized or posited without having first been detected or “seen.” Examples of these hypothesized substances include various sub-atomic particles and, if my memory serves correctly, what is known as dark matter; detection may elude scientists for quite some time for a variety of reasons, such as if the hypothesized particles are too small to be detected by modern equipment. The point is that these substances are posited because their existence would simplify or facilitate various mathematical and physical processes.
I believe that the history of human religion and metaphysics has posited the soul in the same way that scientists posited dark matter–as something that would simplify and complete the great theological “equations”, which might include ‘What happens after I die?’ or ‘Where am I before I am born?’. Now, any particle hypothesized by scientists may, at some later date, be physically detected and verified, and the same may happen to the soul (some believe that this proof already exists, yet I am not convinced). The following is my line of thinking when questioning the existence of the soul:
Filed under: Thoughts, World | 5 Comments
Tags: ancestor worship, ancestors, death, souls, theology
Toward A New Paganism
(This is only a draft; please read it as such, given its relative length and complexity. The following stems from several revelations I have had during this past summer, all of which concern critical issues that are becoming increasingly visible within contemporary Paganism.)
Paganism lacks a culture. Without such a culture, self-identifying Pagans will never succeed in developing a rich religious experience nor a spiritual tradition worth exploring. Indeed, this lack of culture is Paganism’s greatest and most fundamental failing.
So, what is a culture, and why must one develop among Pagans?
Culture is community writ large, and communities are groups founded on unitive stories. A unitive story is the animating force behind any group of people that moves that group in a unanimous direction, much like the instinct that allows a flock of sparrows or a school of fish to fly or swim as one. These unitive stories can take many forms, but the most easily detectable are those which issue forth from a recognized source of authority, such as (in the case of Abrahamic faiths) the founding prophets, texts, and laws. One might say that the unitive story of Islam, for example, might be the revelation of the Holy Qur’an to Muhammad and the injunction of that text for Muslims to surrender to Allah, who is One. The crucifixion of Jesus Christ the Logos, in conjunction with the force of the Sermon on the Mount, might serve as a simple rendering of Christianity’s unitive story. Of course, unitive stories wed to empire and states become troublesome; still, one cannot maintain a community–a culture–without a unitive story, even if that story is unnervingly simple: “We eat together,” for example.
A religious tradition can hardly exist, and certainly cannot flourish, without being rooted in a culture; that is, a religious tradition cannot flourish without a unitive story. This is the case because depth of spiritual experience occurs only in a context wherein the repercussions of a unitive story are played out, fought out, and delt with amongst co-culturalists. One individual cannot build a basilica by themselves, and the same is true of the architecture of deep spirituality. This is to say that, the religious endeavor, if it is to grow in complexity beyond the ability of an individual, requires that the endeavor be taken up by a community (a community of “builders,” so to speak, to continue the architectural analogy), all of whom work from a single blueprint (the unitive story).
Filed under: Thoughts, World | 29 Comments
Speaking of Prayer
Here we are! I just wrote that big rant about prayer, and what do I find but an article describing plans by the government in Cairo, Egypt, to silence the “cacophony” of prayer-call. Now, I admit, I’ve never been woken in the wee hours by a muezzin, but to those who might have this as a real complaint: WHY DO YOU LIVE IN CAIRO?! GET EAR PLUGS!! Gah.
Seriously, though: I could understand someone complaining on some sort of freedom of religion-style basis (Sallat calls are cramping my Satanic Mass, et cetera”), and any hypothetical response to that complaint that I can muster (something like, “Well, it IS a MUSLIM country”) sounds awfully like things that folks in the good-ol’ USA say concerning omnipresent Christian-catering. But that isn’t the basis that the article gives for the proposed switch to radio-muezzining. It’s the noise that they don’t like. The “Noise”.
And to THAT complaint, I say: “Muezzinun of Cairo, Pray On!” Bismilleh al-Rahman al-Rahim, and all that jazz.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
A Call To Prayer
I’ve been trying to write all night–ranting and raving, mostly–and the words don’t want to come. So, I’ll start the same way a friend of mine always starts… I’m not going to promise anything good, but, let’s say, it’ll be something cathartic for me. To be said aloud, southern-preacher style. And that means with passion and with prayer…
My People. My Beloved People.
I know you. I know you because I am you–wrapped in crystal and touched by grace I know you. You hope for a better tomorrow–for a time when all people are free, when all might lift their eyes from the clay and rejoice at the coming of the stars. You, you beautiful people. You careless, smiling, beautiful people. The Gods are many and they are good. Every particle is drunk with the presence of their love, and as we breathe we too become drunk on the love of the Limitless Multitudes. The sun shines upon our skin and and the sun shines upon the mountain tops. Pray, my people, pray.
Pray for the coming dawn. Pray for the returning night. Pray for laughter and children and sunsets and seagulls. Pray until the tears come, O my people. Pray until your words become the pulsing of your heart and the pounding of your feet, pray until you pray in dance and rapture and radiance.
My People! Put down your tools and raise your hands to the sky. Somewhere we have lost it. We have lost it, that spark of life and breath and joy that is the heart of our call to the hearth of Nature. Somewhere amongst our dreaming we have fallen into hard times and, in falling, have forgotten to pray. Pray! Pray for Light and Love and Life! Do not forget to Pray, for Prayer is the song of the saints and of the stars. The Planets Pray! The Elements Pray! The Seasons Pray! The People Pray!
Who are we to clutch at power? Who are we to lift guns and kill each other? Who are we to oppress our sisters? Who are we to forget our downtrodden brothers? We are ALL the children of Her mysteries, and yet we have forgotten. We have forgotten the spark. We have forgotten love. We have forgotten to pray.
Pray! Get down on your knees and sing to the angels! This is not a debasing, a belittling–it is an acknowledgment that we, too, must gaze in awe and, in gazing, lose ourselves and our petty little lives and take up the prayer of the universe. Pray!
(Or something like that… It sounded better in my head, complete with Killers soundtrack: “Are we human, or are we dancer?”)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
