Going To Germany

Tomorrow I am flying to Germany with my two partners, Autumn and Mead. We’ll be visiting medieval markets and a Pagan equinox ritual, but mostly we’ll be staying with my evangelical Christian family. Yesterday I was asked what I thought would happen when I introduce two polyamorous Witches to my Christian family. “I’ll have new material for my blog?” was the best I came up with.

In all honesty, though, I am nervous. I’ve been hiding from the world ever since Faerieworlds, spending minimal time on the internet and stubbornly resisting the urge to write. Something in me wants to make myself really small and invisible and as I write this, I remember the same thing happening the last time I brought a friend to Germany.

“You’re so different”, she said after our first week there. “You’re all worried about what everyone thinks of you. I’ve never seen you like this.”

I chewed on that for a long time. I had to admit she was right. I found several clues for the change. I had never been an adult in Germany. I left shortly after my 19th birthday and my graduation from the public school system. I’d never had a job, dated, applied for an apartment, or experiencing being an adult in Germany. Maybe I regress back to childhood whenever I am there.

And then there’s the cultural difference between Germany and the American West Coast. Here, I can go shopping on my pajamas. A few folks might take a second look, but many won’t even notice. In Germany I just might make national news with such eccentric aberrant behavior. I was never good at fitting into German culture, so maybe visiting stirs up my misfit imposter syndrome.

But there’s also the religious difference. Nearly everyone in my family is Christian, ranging from fundamentalist to progressive. There are expectations. There are norms. I was raised in them, and it’s much easier to set them aside in a place separated by thousands of miles and a different language. Just speaking German makes me feel more conservative.

I noticed the tension between my two realities at Faerieworlds, thinking about how far removed my Christian upbringing in Germany is from my present life as a Witch in California. I arrived at the festival while the band Faun was sound checking and as soon as I heard them speak in German (ich brauch mehr im Monitor), I felt like I had to talk to them. Their worlds were not so separate. Here they were at a Pagan festival in Oregon, speaking German, singing in German, visiting while living in Germany.

I saw some of the musicians walking around later that day and approached them. I opened my mouth, trying to remember my German, saying something like, oh, so you are from the band Faun from Germany. I was raised in Germany. But I live here. That’s why I speak German. I mean, because I was raised there. Not because I live here. I wasn’t a Pagan there, though. I was a fundamentalist Christian. I was that for a while here in the U.S., too. But, I mean, totally not anymore. I mean, I’m a Pagan now. So I don’t know Pagans in Germany. I write about that. The Christian-Pagan stuff I mean. Not Pagans in Germany. I don’t know about that, but I want to. I mean, what is that like compared to here? I mean, what is Paganism in Germany like?

They all stared at me. Then they looked at each other. Clearly, here was someone speaking German without making any sense, because what I really wanted to say was, Hi, I am looking to integrate my German upbringing with my American Paganism. Would you please make that happen for me?

I received a more coherent answer than I deserved, in summary: it’s complicated. Apparently there isn’t a single organized homogeneous Pagan movement in Germany that can be summed up in a couple of minutes.

Well, duh, go figure, Annika!

I returned to my partner Autumn and announced that I was a prized idiot and that maybe integrating my German upbringing with American Paganism wasn’t a project to be solved  at a weekend festival. I dismissed the whole idea and decided to just enjoy the festival.

Later that evening, however, I ended up chatting with Niel, a member of Faun I had met before. We caught up on life since we met and at some point our conversation shifted into talking about Paganism in Germany versus the U.S. Yes, it is diverse, I learned. And it is much less organized. People tend to be less public and don’t group together by religious affiliation. Everyone does their own Pagan thing and hangs out at festivals and other events, but doesn’t form groups the way we do here.

“People just aren’t as open as they are here.” I’d heard that many times before, and I heard it again throughout the weekend as I found myself chatting with more European Pagans (turns out, without a project, it’s rather pleasant to just meet people and talk). Some of my illusions were shattered. Germany is not the progressive Utopia it had become in my mind, a liberal paradise by comparison with the U.S. The Germany in which Pagans today are living is not the Germany of my childhood and youth. It seems to obvious, reflecting on it now, but through each conversation with another German Pagan my childish view of the country gave way to an openness to the unknown.

By the end of Faerieworlds I was speaking German without having to translate myself. I learned the word Paganismus, used by Neo-Pagans instead of Heidentum, I was told that certain runes are (kind of) illegal in Germany, and was educated on activism in Germany.

I have dreamed in German almost every night since then, something I haven’t done in ages. Images from my childhood appear in my dreams and during the day. It feels like a barrier has been broken and parts of my want to integrate.

And I don’t have any idea what this is going to look like. Will I be drawn to German deities? Are there elements of Heathenry that I need to take a second look at? What is the land itself going to say to me when I am there? How will I be able to stand strong in who I am now while allowing myself to also be who I was growing up?

The door to integration has been pushed open and now I face the unknown. I don’t want to write about this uncertainty, I’d much rather wait until I have my answers and then compose a neat essay. But this is an old way of thinking. German efficiency, a systematic synopsis of ideas, a faith system of absolute truth and certainty. So instead I open myself to uncertainty and I take my new self, my old memories, and my many questions onto the plane tomorrow.