My First Pagan Pride

Today I’m catching a ride with some friends to Twin Cities Pagan Pride. And strangely enough, I just realized it will be my first Pagan Pride. I’ve just never made it to one before, generally due to transportation issues. So on my first, somewhat whirlwind, week in the area, I will be thrown in the midst of Minnesota Pagandom. Right in the heart of Paganistan proper.

So while I’m chatting up local folks and grooving to the music of Murphey’s Midnight Rounders, you should check this stuff out:

Steven Abell is a great storyteller, and one that doesn’t hit you over the head with a moral. Check out his latest column:

When you see a rainbow, it means that someone is coming from Asgard, the land of the gods, to Midgard, the land of people, or else that someone is going home the other way. Everyone knows that. And when they get to the gate at Asgard, they’ll find Heimdall, of course, guarding it. He is the best possible guardsman, because his eyesight and hearing are so good: anyone approaching is spotted while still a long way off. It is often said that no one gets past him who should not pass.

But it is sometimes said, and said much more quietly, that, on occasion, someone does. Any such someone must be very small, and very fast, and, very likely, our friend Heimdall must be busy admitting other travelers when they slip past.

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus has some significant words on the subject of indigeny:

As time went on, I learned that it had a particular valence much greater than “being from someplace,” although that was always an important part of it. I eventually encountered it where most people these days do: in discussions of Native Americans (both North and South America included), Aboriginal Australians, various African and Asian populations, and even some of the population groups of modern Europe, like the Sámi or Basque peoples. To be “indigenous” in these contexts doesn’t just mean “being from somewhere,” it means having a way of life connected to a particular location for thousands of years.

Jason Mankey gives a us an Edwardian/Steampunkish ritual that I find delightful:

The 1899 Ritual has one rule: All of the material in the ritual has to be from 1899 (or earlier) and/or be authentic to the late 19th Century. I’ve allowed myself to adapt a few things from Aradia and other sources, but I don’t think those adaptations are out of character for that period of time. Something tells me that if I had been an occultist living in London circa 1899 I would have been adapting all kinds of things.

Teo Bishop and I have both fallen through the ice of a frozen pond as kids, and learned that mother nature is not always kind:

All things have their place, and there is certainly a place for the warm and fuzzy in Paganism. But I think it’s also necessary to remember that there are parts of nature, and aspects of the Kindred we worship, that can be violently cold, fiercely wild, and terribly awe inspiring.

I hear many people frame the human condition as being either a decision to live in Fear or to live in Love, capitals emphasizing the notion that these states of being are not simply human emotions, but rather that they are cosmic in some way. I like to think that things are more complicated and nuanced than that.

Even death, in its inevitability, is more complicated and nuanced than that.

Kris Bradley encourages an attitude of gratitude:

Counting my blessings is not something I do on a daily basis, but it is something I have tried to do when times were tough.  I’ve done a few count-your-blessings shares on my Facebook page in the past, and they always get a good response from people who comment that they forget to do it too often.  Seeing the possibile benefits of keeping a daily gratitude journal has inspired me to try to start keeping one for myself.  There are a few journal apps out there for iphone and for android, but I’m more of a marker to paper girl, so I’ll be using a blank book that’s been sitting on my shelf, waiting for a reason to no longer be blank.

I will likely write about my first Pagan Pride experience tomorrow, and I have a post about Stoic philosophy brewing, but in the meantime enjoy all the other marvelous things Patheos Pagan has to offer! And have a marvelous Pagan Pride!