We Don’t Have to Own the Land to Honor the Land

April 6, 2017 By John Beckett

Tuesday’s Wild Hunt was a feature on Wade Mueller, who leads a Pagan intentional community in Wisconsin. It’s spawned an unusual amount of comments: some sympathetic, some critical, and some that make you wonder if the commenter actually read the article.

I respect what Wade Mueller is doing. Intentional communities almost always fail – this one has been going since 1999. Building a community around a place allows for a deep connection that cannot be duplicated by occasional or virtual meetings. Mueller’s intentional community flows from a similar vision as my dreams of a Druid college. I hope his community succeeds even beyond his dreams.

But there are problems. It’s not that he appears to be speaking for all Pagans when that’s not his intent (something I’ve been accused of doing a time or twenty). “Who made you the Pagan pope?” is a defensive reaction that rarely addresses a substantive issue. The problem is that some of Mueller’s comments are flat-out wrong.

“We’re not really Pagans. We have a Pagan veneer over the top of a Christian and secular life. Until we have permanent lands that we live on, are born on, and die on, we won’t be Pagans.”

I’ve written plenty about the impact of Christian and secular society on our Paganisms. It’s a problem we need to be mindful of. But to say that means we can’t really be Pagans is simply wrong.

Ultimately, Paganism is about what we do. If we honor Nature, honor our Gods, refine ourselves, and support our communities (or some combination thereof), we are Pagans. Where we live is a secondary consideration, the same as what we believe.

“We are now a religion of nomads yet all of our traditions are based on place. If we want Paganism to to move past where we are now, a social gathering, we need to do something different.” stated Mueller. That something different is to buy land to create Pagan communities, businesses, and worship centers.

Humans have always been nomads, or at least, migrants – something all Americans (North and South, native and immigrant) should understand very well. We may settle down for a few generations, but then we move on. While rooting ourselves to a particular place can be beneficial, any robust religion must accommodate human movement.

Fortunately, Paganism can do this.

We carry our ancestors within us

There is value in living close to where your ancestors’ bones are buried. But no matter where you go, you carry them within you. You share their blood. More importantly, you share their lives: the odd saying you picked up from your mother, your grandfather’s love of Nature, a song your family brought with them from Ireland so long ago no one remembers when.

If you want to connect to them, honor them. Make offerings to them, tell their stories, call their names. Do genealogical research and study the history of their times. Every point of commonality is another connection.

Living on the same land is a good thing, but experiencing our ancestral roots does not require a connection of place.

Our Gods move with us

The spirit of the River Boyne cannot be found outside of Ireland. But Brighid? She’s here. I know – I’ve experienced Her first hand. The Morrigan? She’s made a strong connection to many people on this continent. Where ever people have gone, their Gods have gone with them.

There’s a temple to Athena in Nashville. Yes, it was built as a secular celebration of the centennial of Tennessee statehood, but things that look religious have a habit of becoming religious, regardless of intent.

the Parthenon - Nashville — *the Parthenon – Nashville*

This isn’t just a modern thing. The Romans carried the worship of Mithras from Persia and Isis from Egypt as far away as Britain. The stories of the Tuatha De Danann begin with Their arrival in Ireland. The literature is unclear exactly where They came from but it is clear that They moved. Whether on Their own or with Their peoples, Gods move.

Our experiences of the Gods may be different from place to place, just as our experiences of our fellow humans are different from place to place. But we can be Pagans where ever we are, because our Gods move with us.

We can honor the land where we are

Which is better, the excitement of a new lover or the familiarity of a long committed relationship? They’re not the same thing, but they’re both pretty good.

I’m envious of Kristoffer Hughes – his family has lived on Anglesey for 3000 years. He has a connection to that land I can never have to any land. My family has barely been in America for 200 years, and I’ve only been in Texas for 15 years.

But that doesn’t stop me from walking out into my back yard and pouring offerings to the spirits of the place. It doesn’t stop me from listening to the trees. It doesn’t stop me from running my fingers through the good black Earth and feeling a connection that goes deep into the ground.

You’re renting? Do the same thing. Live in an apartment? Find a nearby park, or be like Jack Sparrow and bring land with you into your house.

Ownership has practical advantages – mainly that someone else can’t sell the land out from under you (most of the time, anyway). But I can promise you the land and the spirits of the land don’t care whose name is on the piece of paper in the courthouse. They care that you honor them with your rituals and that you respect them as you go about your ordinary life.

We don’t have to own the land to honor the land.

Paganism is about time as well as place

Wade Mueller is right that Paganism is about place, but it’s also about time. It’s about looking backward to our ancestors and their beliefs and practices. It’s about reconstructing, recreating, and reimagining those beliefs and practices to fit our lives as they are, here and now. And it’s about looking forward to our descendants and leaving a better world for them than what we inherited (a very difficult task, but that’s another topic for another time).

I lived in the same house from the time I was born until I went away for college. Shortly after Cathy and I got married, we built our own house on the back edge of that land. My connection to that land was strong, and I planned to live there forever. “Forever” turned out to be six and a half years – that’s when my job went away and we moved to Indiana, then to Georgia, then to Texas.

My story is not unique. Perhaps we should settle down and always live in the place where we were born (and accept the limitations that brings) but that is not the reality of our time. In this time, our religions must be as mobile as we are.

Paganism can do this. We carry our ancestors within us, our Gods move with us, and we can honor the land where ever we are.

Whether we own it or not.

The Magic of Wild Places

August 14, 2016 By John Beckett

For all that Paganism is a religion of Nature, most Pagans live in urban and suburban environments. So we’re quick to point out that “we’re part of Nature too” and “Nature is everwhere” – statements that are true both physically and spiritually. Our Pagan practices help insure that our residence in human-built and human-dominated spaces does not disconnect us from Nature.

Nature is everywhere. But there’s still something special about wild places.

I grew up with the woods literally 20 feet outside my back door. When I was very small and before subdivisions started crowding in, the woods seemed boundless. Even though I knew that if I walked far enough eventually I’d run into a well-known road, the woods were deep enough they never became completely familiar. Years later, when I read the Celtic stories of hunters chasing animals into the woods and suddenly finding themselves in Otherworldly territory, I had no trouble relating to them.

I never got lost in the woods, in part because I have a good sense of direction and in part because our woods just weren’t that big. But there were many times when I found an interesting spot and enjoyed a few minutes or even a few hours there, but was unable to find it again when I went back. Did I wander into the Otherworld on some of those expeditions? The thought never occurred to me at the time, but when I look back on my experiences I think it’s likely that happened at least once or twice.

I would not be a Pagan without the woods. Or more precisely, I would not be the kind of Pagan I am without my experiences of the wild, both in the woods where I grew up and in other wild places I’ve visited in the years since I left home.

There is magic in wild places.

The wild is a place of refuge. For most of you, this statement will seem nonsensical. The wild is wild and dangerous – it has plants that will poison you, animals that will eat you, and weather that will drown, freeze, or burn you. But it is in those very dangers that the safety of the wild can be found – they scare people away.

When I needed a quiet place, the woods were there. When I needed to get away from troublesome people, the woods were there. I never felt like I was hiding – I was just disappearing to somewhere else. The frontiersman is part of American lore – the men and women who, when civilization began encroaching on them, picked up and moved farther into the wild. Whether the details of that lore are historical isn’t the point. Humans have been moving into the wild ever since our earliest ancestors left East Africa.

Dropping off the face of the earth is really hard to do in our modern era of electronic tracking, but retreating into the wild to avoid people is still possible. Even for those of us who rather like civilization, few things are as restorative as a trip to a remote place of natural beauty or a weekend camping in the woods.

The wild is a place of possibility. Food? Not much in the desert, but in other wild places there are roots, berries, nuts, and all kinds of wildlife. Materials to build a shelter? There are rocks, trees, leaves… and caves in some places (but see who might already be living there first). Surviving in the wild isn’t that difficult, if you know how.

Making do in the wild for a few days is one thing. Living in the wild on an on-going basis is much harder. It takes a certain amount of knowledge, skills, and physical strength. It favors the young and the experienced, which is a rare combination. But for most of us, if we had to, we could.

And knowing that we could live in the wild – or just thinking we could even if we really wouldn’t last a week – opens our minds to all kinds of possibilities. All of a sudden we realize we have more options than we think – there are other ways to live than working a meaningless job to make money to buy stuff we don’t need and don’t really want. Like the frontiersman, we know the alternatives to the mainstream culture will be hard and risky, but they do exist.

Realizing there are possibilities is the first step in changing our lives and our world.

The wild is full of spirits. The fairy tales I heard as a child were presented as fiction and I assumed that’s all they were. But everyone I knew accepted the possibility of ghosts, even if that didn’t exactly square with the doctrines of their churches. Demons and other spirits were assumed to be real.

Walk through the woods after dark and even someone as spiritually dense as I used to be can feel the presence of spiritual beings. Some of them are Otherworldly. Others are simply the spirits of the trees and rocks and animals who live there. When I think back on some of my experiences, I feel bad that I assumed everything I encountered was a malevolent spirit, but that’s all I had context for. I’m now certain there was at least one nurturing Spirit in those woods. Plus a lot more that didn’t give a damn about me one way or the other.

Go into the wild – even little pieces of the wild like parks and vacant lots, or an overgrown corner of your back yard. Go at night. Go by yourself. Block out the noise. Listen. What do you hear? What do you feel? Don’t assume whatever is there is there for you – almost certainly, it’s not. Just learn to hear and see and feel what else – who else – is out there.

It’s necessary to be aware of your surroundings where ever you are, and malicious humans are far more dangerous than malicious spirits. Don’t put yourself in needless danger. But the wild is full of spirits.

If we stay too long in a wild place, it is our nature to domesticate it and civilize it, and then it is wild no more. My parents sold two thirds of the woods before I left for college – it was turned into a subdivision. My mother sold the rest shortly after my father died. We owe it to future generations – as well as to the physical and spiritual beings who live there now – to preserve at least some wild places in perpetuity. We can also rewild places as we abandon them. Or rather, left alone, Nature will reclaim them.

My Paganism, my Druidry, and even my polytheism have roots in the wild.

Blessed be the wild, for it is full of magic.

Something Bad Isn’t Coming, It’s Here

March 20, 2016 By John Beckett

If you’re paying the least bit of attention, you can see there’s something very wrong with our world right now. If you read or watch just a bit of news, you can see that politics throughout the West has reached a level of ineptitude not seen in over a century. And if you have just a bit of magical awareness you can see that this badness extends across the Veil and into the world of spirit.

Rising temperatures, weird(er) weather, unusually incompetent (and in a couple cases, genuinely dangerous) candidates for high office, a depressingly high rate of deaths among artistic and creative folks, a 7-year “recovery” that feels like we’re still in deep recession for everyone but Wall Street, and on and on and on.

Fools deny there’s a problem, politicians insist everything will be OK if you’ll just vote for them (and the world will go to hell if you vote for the other party), and skeptics insist it’s just the ups and downs of life and it will all even out over time.

Meanwhile, those of us who for years have heard the Gods and ancestors whisper “there’s a storm coming” are seeing the clouds get darker and darker. There’s an urgency and anxiety among the spirits (or at least, among the spirits I’m around), and just like humans, some of them are angry and reactive.

This is complicated. Let me be blunt. If you think there’s one cause to this, you’re wrong. If you think there’s one root cause, you’re still wrong. This is a complicated situation with its roots in Nature, in human nature, in our political and economic systems, in our religions and their many manifestations, and in our history and the countless decisions we and our ancestors made that brought us to this point.

Most people don’t like complexity. They want everything reduced down to one thing they can focus on, and they’ll get behind anyone who tells them a complex world is simple, even if there’s no more substance to it than “make America great again.”

And speaking of Donald Trump, he’s a not the cause of this. He’s both a symptom of the larger situation and someone who’s observant enough and amoral enough to take advantage of it.

We’re living in the early years of The Long Descent, so named by John Michael Greer. It refers to the decline of Western society in general and the American empire in particular. I disagree with John Michael on some of the specifics, but his general hypothesis – that every empire in the history of the world has eventually collapsed and this one is no exception – is strong. This will not be a sudden shift – we won’t hit bottom for a couple hundred years. But make no mistake – our empire is in decline, and no fascist nativist strongman can stop it.

We’re also living in what Byron Ballard calls Tower Time, named for The Tower in the Tarot. The Tower brings sudden, drastic, dramatic change. There is no sugarcoating The Tower – it’s going to hurt, and it’s going to hurt a lot. It already is. The Tower tears away the false, presumably to make room for the true… but there’s no guarantee one lie won’t be replaced by another, unless we make it so.

This is bigger than you are. You may be a powerful witch or magician, but cast a spell of protection against a hurricane and you’ll find out just where you stand on the scale of power.

This isn’t the Monster of the Week where you can kill it in an hour with time left over for commercials. It’s not even Lord Voldemort, who can be defeated after seven years of valiant struggle and allow your children to go to Hogwarts and play quidditch in peace.

The Neoconservative warmongers try to sell us on the idea that victory means wiping your enemies from the face of the Earth, after which all will be well. In the real world this is not a recipe for victory, it’s a recipe for endless war.

Whatever this “something bad” is – and to the extent that a combination of multiple separate forces can be spoken of as though they were a singular “something” – it can’t be defeated, at least not in the short term, and not by any individual or small group.

But it can be resisted.

Deal with it. I can’t believe we still have to protest this shit either, but we do. Don’t think for a minute that the battle for marriage equality is won and the road to full LGBT acceptance is all downhill from here. Do what you have to do to make the world a better place, and do what you do best.

Be awake. Be observant. Listen more than you talk. Read and listen to people with different political, economic, and religious views than your own. Don’t listen to rebut, listen to learn. You may pick up some facts you’d otherwise miss. You may learn that people who think differently from you aren’t ignorant, stupid, or mean-spirited, they just have different ways of seeing the world and different priorities around what’s most important.

Which is not to say there aren’t plenty of ignorant, stupid, and mean-spirited people out there. There are… and there some in your circles as well as in the other folks’ circles. But we need all the intelligence we can get, from whatever sources we can get it.

Respect your intuition. If something doesn’t look or feel right, walk away. And conversely, if your intuition is pushing you in a direction you think is unlikely or even impossible, check it out before you say no. If you’re about to make a major life decision, give it some deep thought, prayer, and meditation. Divination can’t tell you what you should do, but it can help you see where different courses of action will take you.

Be wary and skeptical (particularly when people are trying to sell you a product or a candidate or a religion), but never lose your compassion. If you lose your compassion, you’ve already lost.

Build your tribe. You aren’t going to survive this alone. And at the risk of sounding like a Libertarian, do not assume the government or government-run programs will take care of you. For centuries, families and communities took care of each other. Not nuclear families (a mid-20^th century American perversion designed to make every man a king so he’d buy a “castle” in the suburbs), but extended families – several generations living in the same house, with other relatives living close enough to drop in on a moment’s notice.

The automobile and the rise of hyperindividualism killed the extended family. We aren’t going to undo that in our lifetimes, unless the curve of the Long Descent is a lot steeper than I expect. If you’re part of a good, well-functioning extended family, consider yourself fortunate… and don’t alienate them. For the rest of us, find the people who will be your family of choice and start developing those close ties now. That means you give your share toward the collective good. Ideally, everyone gives more than their share.

Include your spiritual allies: the Gods, ancestors, and spirits of your tradition, your family, and your location. This isn’t complicated: honor them on a regular basis, and when they speak (in dreams, in divination, in intuition, in synchronicities…) listen to them.

Samhain 2015 23 — *Denton CUUPS Samhain Circle – 2015*

Take care of yourself. Eat good food. Drink plenty of water and moderate amounts of everything else. Get plenty of sleep. If you need medical care, find it, and then do what you need to do to be healthy. Remember that “healthy” doesn’t mean you look like a professional athlete, it means you can live your life the way you want to live it. If it’s not possible for you to be healthy, then be as sustainable as you can.

Hold on to what’s most important – family, friends, your art, your most powerful and intimate religious experiences.

Find what brings you joy and celebrate it.

The persistence of your ideals is your success. Many of our ancestors lived in circumstances that made the Long Descent look like a vacation. They did not judge the success of their lives by whether or not they were easy, but by whether they had lived virtuously, and by how well they had passed their virtues down to the next generation.

I do not expect that my ideals of reverence for Nature, worship of the Many Gods, the refinement of the soul, and lives lived in true community will become a widespread reality in my lifetime, or in the lifetime of anyone alive today.

But these ideals and the virtues they represent are helpful in bad times, and they can build a strong foundation for the good times that will come again at some point in the future of humanity.

I can’t explain the political, economic, and religious turmoil in our world with any degree of precision. I just know something bad isn’t coming, it’s already here. Let’s take care of ourselves, and let’s take care of each other.

Why I Didn’t Buy a Powerball Ticket

January 14, 2016 By John Beckett

The Powerball lottery may be hard to win, but it’s impossible to ignore – $1.5 billion will do that. Big jackpots drive ticket sales – that’s why last year, lottery officials made the already astronomical odds even longer, from 1 in 175 million to 1 in 292 million. Worse odds mean fewer winners, which means the jackpots roll over more often and grow even higher, which means more people buy tickets.

When I was growing up, gambling was considered a sin. When I asked why, I was told “the Roman soldiers gambled for Jesus’ robe when he was crucified and we don’t want to be like them.” That made no sense to me then and it doesn’t make a lot more sense now. I was also told “gambling is stealing – money goes from the loser to the winner and no work is done in return.” I completely disagreed with the fetishization of work, and I knew that voluntary gambling didn’t look anything like taking by force.

Meanwhile, I watched James Bond playing baccarat and wandering through Las Vegas casinos and gambling looked pretty cool.

But I’ve always been risk-averse. The idea of gambling significant sums of money has never appealed to me. And I’ve always been good at math. When the lottery came to Georgia in 1992, my boss called it “a tax on the mathematically inept.”

Still, gambling can be fun, whether you’re challenged by a game of skill or simply amused by a game of chance. I enjoy occasionally sitting down at a blackjack table or stuffing a $20 into a slot machine. I see gambling as an entertainment expense, no different from shows or sporting events or dinners at nice restaurants. Enjoy the experience, don’t bet more than you can afford to lose, and if you happen to win something, that’s icing on the cake.

What’s the entertainment value of Powerball?

Let’s start with the cold, hard, statistical facts: you’re not going to win. Yes, I know, somebody has to win sooner or later, and yes, it might be you, but it won’t. If you buy a ticket for every twice-weekly drawing, you should expect to win once every 2.8 million years. You aren’t going to win.

But you’re going to think about winning. You’re going to think about how great your life would be if all of a sudden you had a billion dollars. You’re going to think about quitting your job (perhaps in dramatic fashion), traveling the world, and buying all kinds of cool stuff. You’re going to think about what you’d give away – the friends and family and charitable causes you’d help. You’re going to think about never having to worry about money again. You’re going to think about the lottery winners who were broke again in five years and how you’d do better, because, well, because you just would.

Powerball sells dreams… dreams that come true once every 2.8 million years.

I was driving home the day of the last drawing and the radio news mentioned the Powerball jackpot. And I thought “maybe I should buy a ticket.” My mind immediately went to all the things I could do with the money. I could give a lot of it away to people and causes I’d really like to help. I could build a public temple to the Gods I worship. I could move to Denton and live closer to my fellow Denton CUUPS members (something I’m planning to do when I get closer to retirement – it would add 25 minutes to my daily commute). I could quit my job and write full time. I could travel as much as I want. I could build a new house with everything I want. The house could include an oversized garage for all the cars I’d like to have. I started thinking about which cars I’d want, and the merits of one ridiculously priced vehicle over another.

And I realized that the lottery ticket I hadn’t even bought was pushing my dreams towards being rich and having more stuff.

I spent the first 30-something years of my life chasing that dream and it didn’t make me happy. It was only when I realized that what I really want is found in Nature, in the Gods, in community, and in magic that I finally began to find real meaning and satisfaction.

Powerball dreams are not my dreams. My dreams are not of cars and houses, but of books and rituals, experiences of Gods and spirits, gatherings of friends and co-religionists, and of preparing the Way of the Gods. These are my dreams and they reflect my True Will, not the will of those who want to enrich themselves at my expense.

Since this is a Pagan blog, let’s talk about magic. Magic doesn’t cause things to happen, it improves the odds that they will happen. Work a good lottery spell and you can improve your odds of winning by 100-fold. Congratulations – you should now expect to win Powerball once every 28,000 years.

What could you accomplish with a magical working that would make a 100-fold improvement in your odds of getting a better job, or of eliminating your debt, or reducing your expenses? What could you do with a magical working that would help you know yourself so you spend your time and effort chasing your dreams and not the dreams the mainstream culture is trying to sell you?

Our dreams drive our lives. Powerball dreams reinforce our mainstream culture of consumption, a culture that treats Nature as nothing more than resources to be exploited and that values the great wealth of a few over making sure everyone has enough.

Those aren’t my dreams.

So enjoy gambling as you would enjoy wine and whiskey, prime rib and cheesecake: within your limits. If that includes playing Powerball, so be it. But remember what you’re buying when you buy a ticket, and ask yourself if Powerball dreams are your dreams.

Escaping Fundamentalism

September 10, 2015 By John Beckett

I’m a Pagan and this is a Pagan blog. I write about Paganism, polytheism, and Druidry, which are my spiritual paths. Occasionally I write about Unitarian Universalism, which is one of my spiritual homes and one of the contexts in which I practice my Paganism. I try to focus on what I do and believe and avoid talking about what I don’t do and don’t believe. When we constantly talk about what we’re not, what we used to be, and how wrong other religions are, we distract ourselves from becoming who and what we want to be.

However, since Saturday’s post about an encounter with a fundamentalist on a sidewalk, I’ve had multiple messages saying things along the lines of “how can I get away from fundamentalism for good? How can I have the kind of good Pagan experience you described?”

I have to respond to these questions.

There is no one right way. This is what worked for me. It may work for you, or you may need to tweak the approach, or you may need to do something else. You won’t know till you get started.

You also won’t know till you keep working at it. No spell, no ritual, no sacrifice will quickly and permanently extract the tentacles of fundamentalism from your brain and from your soul. It took me many years to completely break free, though in fairness I didn’t work on it diligently for all those years. I thought if I ignored it, it would go away. It did… until something brought it right back in front of me, filling me with the same fears and insecurities all over again. I had to keep working.

Don’t expect a purely intellectual approach to succeed. Fundamentalism is intellectually flawed and exploring those flaws will build a good foundation for your escape. But ultimately, religion is a spiritual and emotional matter. It’s not enough to know the lie, you have to feel the lie… and feel the truth of something better to replace it.

I’m a Druid and a priest, not a psychologist – if you need a mental health professional, find one. Good religion is no substitute for proper mental health care. Of course, proper mental health care is no substitute for good religion.

First, stop the bleeding. Stop attending fundamentalist churches. Stop listening to TV and radio preachers and stay off their websites. It may seem helpful to mentally argue with them, but hearing their message over and over again just reinforces the beliefs that were planted in your head long ago. Stop debating the Bible. When you argue from the Bible – even to make a religiously liberal point – you reinforce the idea that the Bible is a legitimate source of authority. It is not.

If you’re a teenager living with your parents, this will be difficult. Even adults may have trouble dealing with family expectations. But you will never completely heal until you stop the bleeding. If you want to get well, get out.

Accept the uncertainty of religion. Conservative Christianity places an inordinate and inappropriate emphasis on faith – on pretending beliefs are certain when they’re not. Doubt is considered a sin. Fundamentalism adds a perverse twist, claiming the Bible proves various doctrines and beliefs are true, when it does nothing of the sort.

Where did we come from? What happens after death? What is the purpose of life? Is there a purpose to life? The only certain answer to these and similar questions is “we don’t know.” There is a place for faith in Pagan and other non-fundamentalist religions, but it is in being faithful to our values, virtues, and callings, not in pretending we have certainty where we do not.

If you can’t deal with uncertainty, head over to the Atheist channel. I’m no fan of atheism, but at least they don’t torment you with threats of eternal damnation for not believing something you can’t honestly believe.

The uncertainty of religion gives lie to fundamentalist claims. If, as fundamentalists claim, the stakes for believing the “right” things are so high (eternal bliss or eternal torment), and if as they claim their God is a perfect God of love and justice, then there could be no uncertainty. “The rules” would have to be crystal clear and universally available. Otherwise their God is uncaring and unjust, because many people would never have a realistic opportunity to believe the right things. People like me – and like you.

The church I grew up in taught that Baptists and a few other low-church Protestants were going to heaven, while most Catholics and all non-Christians (including Jews, “God’s chosen people”) were going to hell. If that’s their God’s plan, it’s a pretty weak plan – such a God is unworthy of worship.

Given this situation, the most likely explanation is that fundamentalism’s claims to exclusive truth are false.

Read! Science has its limitations, but within those limits it does a better job of explaining the way things are than any other approach in existence. Read evolution – Richard Dawkins is a lousy philosopher but he’s an excellent biologist (and an entertaining writer). Read geology, cosmology, and anthropology. Learn about our ancient ancestors and contemplate how religion really began.

When you’re ready, read the history of Christianity and learn all the things they didn’t teach you in Sunday School. Read other religions. Buddhism doesn’t appeal to me, but reading Buddhist works showed me a very different approach to religion than I had learned even in the liberal versions of monotheism.

Start exploring Paganism. If you’re reading about escaping fundamentalism here and not on an atheist blog or a Progressive Christian blog, there’s probably something that’s calling to you. Maybe it’s Nature. Maybe it’s the Gods and Goddesses of our ancestors. Maybe it’s magic and self-refinement. Maybe it’s Community.

Paganism is impossible to define, but it can be described. See what calls to you. Look around on this blog and on the rest of the Pagan channel. Read. Think. Contemplate. If your first try doesn’t fit, try something else. Like many people, I came into Paganism through Wicca, but Wicca didn’t work for me. But when I found Druidry I knew I was home.

Practice, practice, practice. What we believe matters, but what we do matters more. Go outside and study a tree, dig in the dirt, watch the squirrels, listen to the birds. Work to care for Nature. Find a deity who appeals to you and make offerings to Them. Learn about how They were worshiped in ancient times. Honor your ancestors. Pray. Meditate. Salute the sun and howl at the moon.

Do something every day. Do other things every week or every month. Do something special on high days and holy days. Until you figure out which tradition is right for you (and maybe afterwards) celebrate the Wheel of the Year – you’ll have lots of company.

Expect pushback. If you’re doing all these things you should be making progress toward escaping fundamentalism. Most days this will be great. But the fears you carried for years – particularly those that were planted in childhood – don’t go away overnight. Sooner or later, they’ll come back.

This isn’t a sign of failure. It’s just a reminder that anything worthwhile requires sustained effort. Remind yourself of what you’ve learned, remind yourself you no longer believe what the fundamentalists told you, and remind yourself why you no longer believe it.

Recommit to escaping fundamentalism and to living the kind of life you want to live and that you’re called to live.

Keep reading and practicing. You should be starting to build a nice collection of Pagan and other books by now. Look around this blog and other Pagan blogs – there are lots of recommendations for good, helpful books in many fields. And there are a few recommendations for books to avoid – not everything in the Pagan section of the bookstore is true and helpful.

Find a group. While there is no substitute for regular personal spiritual practice, there is also no substitute for the fellowship, encouragement, reinforcement, and accountability that comes from being in community with like-minded folks. And there are things you can do in a group you can’t do alone: you can’t do a spiral dance by yourself and one person can’t raise the energy that thirty can raise.

But don’t find just any group, find a group that actually does Paganism. Study groups are nice, but they’re no substitute for group ritual. Social and environmental activism is good and necessary work, but it’s no substitute for working magic and worshiping the Gods.

Participate. Just joining a group doesn’t accomplish much. Showing up regularly will help, but if you want to develop a deep Pagan identity that will crowd out fundamentalist beliefs, you’re going to have to get your hands dirty. Join in the circle. Take a part. Take a larger part. Volunteer to help plan and present a ritual. Not everyone is interested in writing and leading ritual (and not everyone is capable of doing it well), but the more involved you are with your Paganism, the less room there will be for whatever remains of your fundamentalism.

Pagan identity comes in its own time.

“Enlightenment is an accident, but practice makes us accident prone” – Suzuki Roshi

Practice a religion long enough and deeply enough and eventually there comes a time when you no longer have to recite what you believe like a protective mantra – it’s part of who you are. Sometimes that comes suddenly, other times it comes gradually. Eight years of practicing infrequently and weakly didn’t do it for me. Two years of practicing regularly and seriously did.

Mine came during an initiation. The details are oath-bound, but I can say that near the end there was a formal investiture, and at that point I experienced something I had never felt before. And it felt right. The fundamentalist thoughts and fears weren’t banished so much as they were crowded out by something new and better and stronger.

I’m convinced that while the initiation was necessary, it wouldn’t have worked if I hadn’t done two years of dedicated work toward that goal.

Don’t expect the thoughts to never come again. Even after that wonderful, life-changing experience, fundamentalist thoughts (“you’ve been deceived” “you’re going to hell”) still arise from time to time. How could they not? They were part of my life for many years. But they’re not inside me any more. They’re like a ghost – not an active spirit, just the psychic remains of a past traumatic experience. They appear and then fade away, getting weaker and weaker over time.

And they don’t interfere in my life any more.

Live. One of the things that bothered me about fundamentalist Christianity even before I left was the idea that the purpose of life was to believe the right things so you could end up in the right place after you die. That always seemed like a waste of this life and this world.

I’m a Druid, but I like the Wiccan Charge of the Goddess, which includes the words “sing, feast, dance, make music and love, all in My presence.” This world can be hard and frustrating, but it can also be beautiful and joyous. Celebrate it. Enjoy it. Leave it a better place than you found it, so that when you take your place among the ancestors, those who come after you will tell your stories and sing your songs.

My hope and my prayer is that all who want to be free of fundamentalism find the courage, the strength, and the determination to escape it and replace it with something beautiful and powerful.

You may have noticed that I never defined fundamentalism. That was intentional – as soon as I define it, someone will scream that my definition is either too broad (“my religion isn’t fundamentalist!”) or too narrow (“this bunch is worse that that bunch!”). Such pedantry misses the whole point of this post, which is that religion which is exclusive, oppressive, denies established facts, and tries to enforce an out-dated moral code is a bad thing that people often have trouble escaping, even if they desperately want to.

Many Gods West

August 3, 2015 By John Beckett

This past weekend, 180 people, various spirits, uncounted ancestors, and many Gods attended the Many Gods West conference in Olympia, Washington for three days of workshops, rituals, deep conversations, and joyous friendship. It was organized by Niki Whiting, Rhyd Wildermuth, and P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, who all did a fantastic job of running a new event in a new location.

Paganism is a wonderful Big Tent of Wiccans, Witches, Heathens, Druids, tree-huggers, and seemingly-thousands of other traditions. But these varying traditions have concepts and practices that are often at odds with each other. In order to keep from being distracted either by those who insist their way is the only right way to be a Pagan or that all ways are really the same, polytheists have begun creating dedicated spaces for the study and practice of polytheism. Last year saw the first Polytheist Leadership Conference and the launch of Polytheist.com. Many Gods West continues in that tradition.

The conference opened with a community ritual led by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus. Participants were invited to bring water and soil from their homes, communities, or sites sacred to their practice. They were also invited to bring images of deities they had long relationships with. I placed an image of Brighid on the altar, representing Denton CUUPS’ 20+ year work with Her (work that precedes the actual formation of our chapter). Land spirits and ancestors were invoked and honored, with invocations for female ancestors, male ancestors, gender variant ancestors, warrior ancestors, spirit worker ancestors, and the dead who are not yet ancestors. The altar stayed up till the end of the conference and was a site for devotions, offerings, meditations and prayers.

Morpheus Ravenna of the Coru Cathubodua gave the keynote address on Friday night, which focused on Gods and archetypes and the importance of agency. This is an issue that has troubled the polytheist community, though the trouble has been more from without than from within. The address was a work of theology – the kind of deep reasoning about the Gods we rarely see in Paganism, even though pagans (specifically, the ancient Greeks) invented theology.

Morpheus said that archetypes are real, but they’re animated by the Gods and not by our own minds. Archetypes are like stained glass windows which show different pictures and different colors to different people standing in front of different windows, but ultimately they’re illuminated by the sun, not by the viewer.

This is important because archetypes deal with essentials and functions. As Morpheus said “we may end up talking to the Blacksmith’s apron and forgetting to ask His name.” Goibniu, Hephaestus, and Brighid are all Smith Gods, but They are not the same. Are we going to treat the Gods as interchangeable divine vending machines who exist to give us stuff, or are we going to treat Them as individuals with Their own likes and dislikes, goals and plans, and the capacity to carry them out? Are we going to stereotype and profile the Gods or are we going to treat Them with the honor, dignity, and worship They deserve?

Every other time slot (until the closing ritual) had at least two and sometimes as many as four offerings – choices had to be made. I heard Rhyd Wildermuth speak on Meaning (a version of that presentation was on Saturday’s Wild Hunt), Sobekneferu speak on worshiping deities whose mythology was written by their antagonists, Elena Rose speak on loving our monsters, Sean Donahue speak on the Dead as allies of resistance, and Anomalous Thracian speak on regional cultus and the importance of our relationships to place – our experiences of the Gods are at least in part dependent on where we are. I’ve got seven pages of notes I need to finish digesting – many of the ideas presented at Many Gods West will be seeds for future blog posts.

I spoke on Preparing the Way of the Gods. Many of us want temples, groves of oaks, paid clergy, and other things we see in the “big religions.” On the other hand, some of us want nothing to do with anything that even resembles mainstream religion. We know polytheism needs institutions, but how do we make sure what we build serves our needs and the needs of those who come after us? How do we prepare the Way of the Gods? I’m going to do something to turn my 10-page outline into a readable narrative, but the bottom line is that we do it by keeping our focus on practice, on serving the Gods and our communities, and on the missions of our institutions, not on the institutions themselves.

I attended two rituals. The Coru’s Devotion to Cathubodua was an example of how to honor the Gods in a way that is respectful to the Gods, ancestors, and spirits while being a powerful and meaningful experience for the human participants. River Devora and Rynn Fox led a devotional and oracular ritual to the Matronae, a collective of European Goddesses worshipped during the Roman era. I didn’t attend Bakcheion’s celebration honoring Dionysos Bakcheios – it was opposite my presentation. Its title was “Filled with Frenzy” and the reports I heard from those who participated said it was exactly as advertised. Ember Cooke led a ritual in honor of Freyja – I would have liked to participated in it, but it was opposite the Matronae ritual.

The formal programming at Many Gods West was excellent. The informal conversation was better. The Patheos Pagan writers in attendance (plus two spouses and three children) had great lunch that gave us an opportunity to talk about this site and our writing, but also to talk “live” about some of the issues we’ve been discussing online.

MGW 2015 16 — *Patheos Pagan writers Niki Whiting, Gwion Raven, Dana Corby, John Beckett, and Jason Mankey*

I was part of a small dinner party that focused on our experiences of a certain Great Queen and the work we do with and for Her. Other conversations – during the day over tea and coffee and late night over mead and whiskey – ranged from more theology to our own specific work for the Gods to stories of successful rituals and workings, as well as other stories where we learned from the mistakes of ourselves and others.

And some conversations were simply frivolous and fun and may or may not have included traumatizing YouTube videos.

Niki, Rhyd, and PSVL are still basking in the afterglow (or is that just exhaustion?) of the first Many Gods West, but everyone I talked to hopes there’s another one in 2016. If so, they will need help, particularly local help. If there’s another one, I’ll do my best to be there.

Board Service

October 16, 2014 By John Beckett

Tuesday evening was my final conference call as a member of the Board of Trustees of CUUPS Continental – the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans. The CUUPS membership elects Board members for three year terms; the Board then decides who will fill the roles of President, Vice President, and so on. I served one year as Vice President and two years as a Trustee at large.

Had there been a Druid grove in any order in North Texas in 2003 I might never have visited Denton CUUPS. But there wasn’t and I did and it’s been a very good thing for me. CUUPS gave me a group to practice with and experienced Pagans to learn from in my early days. It gave me a church that presented its own opportunities for support, service, and community. It had the flexibility to accommodate me as my experiences moved my beliefs and practices from vaguely Pagan to generically polytheist to devotional polytheist.

I love Druidry and the Celtic Gods are first in my devotional life. But after all this time, I can’t imagine not honoring the Gods of Egypt at Summer Solstice. The past two years we’ve held a Norse ritual at the Fall Equinox and this year we held a Hellenic rite. Our educational offerings for next year start with a very polytheistic class on working with land spirits, but it also includes classes on Herbalism and Tarot. I like the variety and the flexibility and I’ve found a home in CUUPS. I’ve been an officer in Denton CUUPS since my first year.

ESS 2014 03a altar — *Egyptian Summer Solstice*

So when I was approached about serving on the Board of Trustees of CUUPS Continental (we have chapters in Canada – we’re not just “national” any more) I had to say yes. “Giving back” has become a cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true – I’ve received so much from CUUPS I felt I had to contribute to the maintenance of the organization. But it wasn’t just an obligation – I wanted to contribute.

Unitarian Universalism operates under congregational polity – each congregation is a self-governing, self-sustaining unit. This philosophy extends to covenant groups like CUUPS. Each chapter is self-governing and self-sustaining. The Board of Trustees exists to certify individual chapters, to coordinate work between chapters, to maintain relationships with the Unitarian Universalist Association and other UU covenant groups, and to promote Paganism within Unitarian Universalism.

The job of an officer on the CUUPS Board is very different from the job of an officer in a local CUUPS chapter. I knew this going in, but to be honest, I struggled with the difference. I’m used to short planning sessions where we agree on what we want to do, then we go do them. My job as Coordinating Officer is simply to follow up and make sure things get done on time. With the Board of the Continental group, there is far more deliberation and far more coordination required with other UU groups. And we can’t just talk to each other after the next circle – we’re spread out all over the country. Besides the two other Board members who also live in North Texas, I’ve never met any of my fellow officers face to face.

Serving on the Board has reminded me that I’m not a typical UU Pagan. Our Revisioning Surveys are confirming what I’ve long observed anecdotally: polytheists are a distinct minority. I’ve never experienced any animosity toward polytheism in CUUPS, but the average CUUPS member’s religious priorities are quite different from mine.

Perhaps more importantly, most of my fellow Board members seem to be UUs first and Pagans second. I’m a Pagan first and a UU second. They practice Unitarian Universalism with a Pagan emphasis. I practice Paganism in a UU context. Neither way is right or wrong, but they’re very different.

The end result is that I was not able to accomplish what I had hoped to accomplish by serving on the Board. Were my hopes realistic? Probably not, but I still leave the Board with a feeling of disappointment.

But I also leave the Board with a feeling of optimism for CUUPS Continental. The Board is reorganizing itself in a way that should be more effective for what it actually does. There are three new Board members who start November 1 who bring a new perspective and new energy. And this Board has committed to a Revisioning process that will help CUUPS members, CUUPS chapters, and the CUUPS Board to better align their efforts around a shared vision of UU Paganism.

While my term on the Board ends November 1, I’ve committed to leading the Revisioning process through its completion, which we expect to be sometime in the first half of next year.

If you’re asked to serve on the Board of Trustees or another committee of an organization of which you’re a part, I encourage you to say yes. There is work that has to be done and someone has to do it. If you’ve benefitted from an organization you have an obligation to give back to the organization, to make sure it is healthy and vibrant and that it will be there for the seekers who come after you.

Community is one of the centers of Paganism. Sometimes community is a beautiful ritual that leaves you inspired. Sometimes community is a service project that makes the world better in a way you can see and touch. But sometimes community is work that is mundane, unglamorous, frustrating – and necessary.

I’m thankful CUUPS was there for me in 2003, I’m thankful CUUPS remains my spiritual home, and I’m thankful I had the opportunity to contribute to maintaining and growing CUUPS for the next generation of UU Pagans.

Welcome Polytheist.com!

September 10, 2014 By John Beckett

Earlier this week the new website Polytheist.com launched with columns by ten prominent Polytheists. The project is led by the Anomalous Thracian, who is fond of saying “it’s a damn fine time to be a Polytheist.”

And it is. Polytheism was the default religious worldview from the time our most ancient ancestors became human until a very short time ago, on an evolutionary scale. It never really disappeared, even in the regions that have been officially – and at times, forcefully – committed to monotheism. Even in our high-tech modern society, the multiplicity of religious experience and the experience of religious multiplicity is most easily understood as reflecting the presence of many Gods.

While Polytheism and Paganism may appear one and the same to a casual observer from our mainstream culture, in practice they can be quite different. I promote a Big Tent view of Paganism that includes Polytheism, but Polytheists haven’t always felt welcome at Pagan gathering spots, both in the physical world and on-line. Well-intended attempts to forge unity have downplayed key differences in beliefs and practices, differences that are matters of great importance to Polytheists trying to honor Gods and ancestors in very specific ways for very specific reasons.

Polytheism.com provides a safe space for Polytheists to dive deeply into those very specific ways and explore those very specific reasons without the need to constantly restate core principles, the first of which is “Poly- means many!”

One of the regular columnists is Conor O’Bryan Warren, a Hellenic Polytheist, fellow member of Denton CUUPS, and leader of our recent Herakleia ritual. I asked Conor about his hopes for Polytheist.com.

Polytheist.com immediately struck me as a way for us (Polytheists) to have a place to go to and present another facet of Paganism. Polytheists now have faces and voices and a space proclaiming our presence and theological orientations to a culture which so fervently wishes to deny it.

When I was invited to write for Polytheist.com I felt like my heart was going to leap out of my chest, I just couldn’t say no. I’m proud to be part of such an amazing set of writers and part of such a wonderful project. I only hope that the rest of the Pagan community will be as excited about it as I am and that they will greet it with a grin and a nod whatever their theological stance.

Another columnist is Niki Whiting, a fellow Patheos Pagan blogger who’s writing a column titled “Polytheist Parent.” Niki says:

I joined the project for several reasons. One, because I liked the “and, not or” attitude that the Thracian advocates. Two, my entire goal in writing is to be part of a conversation and this project promises to be about discussion. I look forward to writing alongside the people revealed thus far.

The Pagan internet is still a rather small place. A new site isn’t competition, it’s more people talking about the things that matter most to us. And for some of us, that means Many Gods.

Fair warning. The Thracian has been hounding me for a piece for the new site. I’m swamped with writing projects right now, but this site has a mission that’s very important to me, and I’ve promised him something for later this year.

Welcome Polytheist.com!