The Apotheosis of George Washington is painted inside the eye of the rotunda of the Capitol building in Washington D.C.
Present, we see Athene, Poseidon, Hermes, Hephaistos, and Demeter on the outer ring, and in the centre, beside Washington is Columbia.
Mother Gaia by *humon on deviantART
It’s not miasma.
I’ve reasoned this before, but didn’t feel arsed to citing a source before.
Today, I was looking through old threads in a LiveJournal community, and came across a thread discussing this topic, and some-one in the comments said they could cite quotes from Walter Burkert on this, that menstruation ≠ miasma. I had Greek Religion literally sitting in front of me as I came across that, so I decided to look it up.
Interestingly, the index contains no reference words to “menstruation”, so I decided to search Google Books for this keyword, and there is very little. Indeed, the most direct reference is AN ENDNOTE. The note is to the following passage on page 78:
The Indo-European word for sacred, hagnos29 is defined and narrowed down in Greek through its opposition to defilement, mysos, miasma. The conception of specifically cultic purity is defined by considering certain more or less grave dislocations of normal ife as miasma. Disturbances of this kind are sexual intercourse,30 birth,31 death, and especially murder. … Curiously, the hagneia may even involve a prohibition on bathing: the contrast with everyday life or some future act of cultic purification is more important than obvious cleanliness.
That last part included for what should be painfully obvious reasons.
Endnote #31 references a German essay (“Die Gebrauche der Griechen nach der Geburt”) and summarises:
Menstruation is understood — even medically — as purification (katharsis); the cult take notice of it only insofar as a number of priesthoods are expressly reserved for older women.
I was able to find the original German essay, but since I don’t read German (and only have the vaguest comprehension of spoken German in art films) I relied on Google’s translation abilities, and needless to say, Google borked it up good, so I’m going to take Burkert’s summation of this as it is. After all, Greek Religion was originally published in German, and with English being a Germanic language, this arrangement of nouns and such is not something that can be easily borked in translation by a human translator. So, yep, menstruation is the vag washing its hands, as it were.
So, there you have it: Menstruation is not, Not, NOT “miasma”, and anybody who says it is obviously hasn’t even cracked open what’s generally regarded as a definitive text for Hellenic reconstructionists — or perhaps just never read it thoroughly, or is just too stupid to understand what he read.
And for those of you who didn’t gather from the last part of the quoted passage, “ritual purification” isn’t merely approaching the Theoi with a physically washed body — indeed, ritual purification varied by cult, so while mainstream poleis cults had khernips stations at the front of the temples for suppliants to douse their hands and faces before entering the main area, this is but one example of what hagneia entails.
OK, so I was commenting on some-one (even though it’s likely being screened for no reason I can figure out, but whatever), and I realised something: There are two working definitions of “pagan” that most people seem to use to various degrees.
A couple friends of mine use “scene pagan” and “religious pagan”, but on further consideration, I’m not sure this is wholly accurate for how it works In Real Life™. There’s a bit of overlap for a lot of people, and so it may be dismissive of those who are thoroughly entrenched in the “pagan scene” but are deeply religious.
Basically, there’s the Dictionary Definition™ of “pagan religions” — actually, it’s usually two or three definitions, but you understand what I mean— and then there’s the self-defined “pagan community”:
“Pagan” religions (Wiccan, Feri, Asatru, Hellenismos, Paganachd, Yljeeaghys — to name a few) are just that. They’re religions, old or new, that fit a dictionary definition of “pagan”. Often, this extends to Eastern/Asian or Indigenous American religions that tend to eschew the term “pagan” more than those who practise Western/European-based or Mediterranean religions that fall outside the dominance of Abrahamic faiths — certain Abrahamists may also consider other Abrahamic religions “pagan”, like Gnostics for giving reverence to the books of pre-Nicean Christianity that the Nicean council voted out, or Baha’i for its almost pantheistic approach to and taboos against religious fanaticism, or Rastefarianism for… pretty much everything about it while maintaining a reverence for Christian scripture. Certain flavours of Evangelical Protestant Christian may also consider Catholics as “pagan” for Catholicism’s veneration of Mary on a level very similar to many other “Mother Goddesses” and saints in a manner similar to demi-gods. Then there’s Venezuela’s Maria Lionza cult, many of whose members describe themselves as Catholic, but are also clearly a part of a religion that the local Catholic priests and bishops preach against as being “pagan”. As you can see, “pagan” is not merely synonymous with “polytheism” or “nature religion” — it is a bullying word.
What is and is not a pagan religion is largely subjective, but the word’s history as a Christian “not one of us” slur, even against other Christians, makes many who may apply the term to their religion on the basis of the dictionary hesitant. If adopting it as a “reclaimed word” for one’s own religion, this is best left self-applied — in all honesty, you look like a douche-bag when you tell other people what words they “should” use to describe themselves, including their religion.
There is then the Pagan Community.
Not every-one in the Pagan Community is an adherent of a well-defined religion that may be commonly described as “pagan”. Some members of the Pagan Community are self-styled spiritual, agnostic, atheist tree-huggers who commune with nature, Christo-Pagans, or perhaps even Abrahamic astrologers and mystics or mere “spiritual non-denominational Christians” who feel out-of-place within any pre-defined sect of their religion. Or perhaps they’re Abrahamic “dual-trad” or syncretics. They may not even consider themselves especially spiritual, but instead as one who loves the endorphin rush from drum-circles, and so attends as many as one can. Whether they do or do not define their religious practises as “pagan”, a person may still be a part of the pagan community socially or politically and thus may or may not define their public identity as “pagan”.
That said, the “pagan community” tends to have two distinct types with a lot of over-lap: The social scene and political activists. In my experiences, there is a slightly larger overlap between Religious and Political than Religious and Social — so your mileage may vary, when considering the below Venn Diagram:
Now, what can we learn from this graph?
1) there are a lot of religious people who may be considered “pagan”, even if they do not define themselves as such — as has been explained by the above, and on this post, this one, and Kayleigh’s here, “Pagan” is a relatively new self-definition, it is often a “Not One of Us” word used by Abrahamic religionists —in which case, it is a slur, and we must speak out against such use just like we speak out against homophobes calling people “gay” or “faggot”, and just like we speak out against racist slurs. Not every-one who’s religion may be considered “pagan” by others thinks that term is a good self-descriptive; again: Note the rarity with which Hindus, Shintos, and Buddhists use the word to self-define, in spite of The Dictionary Definotion™ that clearly includes their religions amongst “pagan” ones. Those who do use the term with their identification of their religion are but a small part of that whole — probably smaller than my graph implies.
2) there is considerable overlap with those who consider their religion “pagan”, those who consider themselves a part of the “pagan community” and those who believe in related socio-political goals.
…and also:
3) Ruadhán, you really fupped-up some of this here! (and obviously too lazy to draw it again)
4) Ruadhán, you really can’t draw circles (and obviously couldn’t be arsed to get something for a template)
5) Ruadhán, also, you really, seriouslyneed a new purple marker-pen, (yes, I know, I’m going to Staples tomorrow)
Actually, you know, I think the Teal and Pink circles could stand to be re-sized, and I could have probably stood to but I’m going to leave the whole thing as-is. Why? It’s a visual aid, nothing more, to illustrate the layers I see in the Pagan community and the real-life use I’ve seen of the word “Pagan”.
The reality is, when I recently read the comments to Drew Jacob’s first post (that started all this), I saw quite a few people telling him, in no uncertain terms, that whether he likes it, or thinks it fits, or even will concede to it or not, he and his group? They’re pagans, and they ALL better get used to it, and like it, cos not only does the dictionary say so, THEY DO, TOO! This from apparently self-defined “pagans”.
I have to agree with Mr Jacob’s follow-up post: That’s bullying, and in reality it’s no better than the tactics used by Christians to force conversion of those they declare “pagan” — it always starts so seemingly “reasonable” before getting to the physical violence of old and the withholding of medical aid of today. It starts with words: Look, you Pagan, I’m going to tell YOU what YOU are Pagan, and you have two choices: Accept it and the fate that comes with being a Pagan, or give me a reason to stop calling you that, Pagan!
Has anybody who may be reading this ever been called “fatty”? Sure, maybe you really did fit the dictionary definition of a “fat person”, but you’d still call that bullying, because who is some other person to tell you how to feel about yourself. Or maybe you’re an expat who has thoroughly absorbed your now-local culture, even consider yourself a part of it, but those around you insist on maintaining the idea that you’ll never really be one of them, and tell you as much — again, bullying.
I wish I could say that I’m shocked as well as appalled by what I see, but the reality is that I’m really not. And, at this point, I’m so used to seeing such behaviour, that I’m almost too jaded by it to feel appalled.
Conceding to the term “pagan” when it’s useful is a personal choice I’ve made, even though I feel it doesn’t best describe my religion, for a lot of reasons. It’s really not my place to tell others what words to self-apply — I’m sure they know what the dictionary says, and I’m sure they know what Abrahamists may say, so it seems pretty condescending to remind them for no reason. Some forms of Evangelical Christianity also declare any religion but their kind of Christianity to be “Satanism”, so I know I sure don’t put a lot of stock in what people outside my religion have to say about my religion; they can’t describe it with authority for the simple reason that it is not something they do. Thus, no matter how much I may feel some-one else’s religion looks like X, if they say it’s Y, I’ll take them at their word — to tell a Y-religionist that their religion is “really X” is a tad insulting.
I think a lot of this has to do with a bit of retention of a Christian state of mind: You’re either Black or White — Forget Greys, Forget Colours, and Pick A Side. While I acknowledge that there are some Christians who have un-learned that sort of thinking, or perhaps never thought that way at all, they are severely in a minority. The basic teachings of nearly every Christian church teaches that fundamental aspect of Christianity, and in fact is a false dichotomy, where you’re either Christian/Abrahamist or Pagan, Dead or Alive — ignoring the very reality that you may be Something Else, possibly even Dracula. Not even explicitly “fundamentalist” sects teach this sort of thinking, that’s how deeply ingrained this concept is into Christianity.
This is another reason I admit that I concede to the term only as much as it’s useful to me. A large faction of the pagan community still, to me, seems entrenched in this false dichotomy: You’re either an Abrahamist or a Pagan, and if you object to this, then you’re just wrong.
I find this idea troubling, because while everybody in the pagan community who subscribes to this belief has a real easy time describing what makes the Abrahamic religions —Judaism is the cultural monotheistic religion of the Hebrew people and it has a bunch of dietary laws, Christianity is kinda like Judaism but with fewer dietary restrictions and they regard the mythological figure of Jesus Christ as the son of their God, Islam is kinda like Christianity except Jesus is a prophet, and Mohammed is the Final Prophet, and they’ve gotten back in touch with the dietary law— precious few have as easy time describing what the basic outline is for “pagan” religions. While most “pagan religions” are polytheistic or animistic, not all are — some are monotheistic, agnostic, or atheistic. While many religions that may be described as “pagan” are related to an ancient and often somewhat-surviving culture (like Hellenism or Yljeeaghys ["polytheism" in Manx Gaelic]1), there are newer “pagan” religions that may have no clear ties to any one culture. Some self-styled “pagans” may not even consider themselves religious or spiritual. Some who self-identify as “pagans” feel closest to their gods or spirits in woodlands — others in bustling metropoleis, so even declaring “paganism” to be “nature religion” is to basically tell other self-defined “pagans” that their spiritual realities are wrong. To unite under a term that has no positive meaning puzzles me.
Ultimately, “pagan” is a word of “negative definition”: It defines a religion based on what it is not, not based on what a particular religion IS. It is also a word with an etymology linked to the Latin equivalent of “ignorant country bumpkin” and a history of use deeply absorbed in Abrahamic supremacy. Hindus, Shintoists, indigenous American and Australian tribes who practise their ancestral religions, Buddhists, and others have long-eschewed the term “pagan” on the grounds that it is what missionaries have used to define them; that those practising European-based tribal polytheism and newer paths have been dropping the word in recent years is relatively new — indeed, we’re pretty late to that party, all things considered.
Still, as I’ve said before, I keep the few ties I have to the greater “pagan community” that exists in the Anglosphere on political grounds, primarily, and also on a few overlapping social interests. I also have a hard time finding the incenses and herbs I burn in devotional rituals at ordinary bookstores and markets, and it’s really hard to generate interest in divination-for-hire services outside of, well, the sorts of places that self-defined “pagans” usually go.
So am I pagan?
I can’t call my religion “pagan” when no-one seems to have a concrete definition of what “pagan” means — and I refuse to be bullied by dictionary-thumpers telling me that they’re an authority on what my religion is. I definitely have ties to the “pagan community”, but if I were to make a list of everything I do and am interested in, I wouldn’t be surprised if that suggested I have stronger ties to the Mod Revival scene — going on pure numbers of media-items alone, all the records and books and assorted art-items I own, I’m sure that could be enough to say so. While I can’t deny what the dictionary and most people outside my religion may say about it, and I can’t deny some of the things I read and enjoy listening to and looking at, nor some of the little things I do for extra money, to seriously self-define with a word that I have such a low opinion of and less use for than other words seems a bit much. Even at the moments it suits my purposes to be “pagan”, it feels so hollow — less than a joke, except when it explicitly is a joke. So while I have debatable “pagan” attributes, and certainly some portion of my life is spent in a community that has a far more positive attitude toward the word “pagan”, I’m even more hesitant now than ever to self-apply the word.
It’s like putting my feet, a UK5 (US Men’s 6), into my house-mate’s shoes, sized USM14½ (UK13½): In a pinch, I can slip them on and get the mail, but since anything more than that takes so much effort just to keep the bloody things on my feet —hell, even just going out to get the mail with them on takes so much effort, it hardly seems worth it, when I do— it’s clear that the shoes don’t fit me. Indeed, at half the time I don’t feel arsed to go get my own shoes to fetch the mail, I just go barefoot.
So no, while I am supportive of the socio-political goals of the pagan community, and have respect for several self-defined pagans, both as personal friends and as distant figures I read about, I cannot, in good conscience, say that I or what I do is “pagan” any more than I can apply that term to another person or their religion. There is no real such thing as a “pagan religion” beyond the religions that openly embrace the word, and even then, I can’t help but wonder what it is about the word that attracts them —surely not its history as a slur, I presume, and surely there is more to their religion than “not Abrahamic”. No, I am not a “pagan”, I’m a Boeotian polytheist who participates in a social and political community that often defaults to the word “pagan” as its descriptive. Boeotian polytheism isn’t any more “pagan” than polytheistic Hindu or Buddhist sects. The cult of Eros is open to anybody who wishes to worship Him, and so is therefore no more “pagan” than that of Maria Lionza.
I hope this helps. 
It’s surely helped me sort out my own thoughts on this.
(Expanded from a comment responding to my last entry)
I still have so many really mixed feelings about this issue. On one hand, I can see some remaining usefulness in “pagan” as a vague label. I’ve also had a lot of experiences with people who know VERY little about suffixes and prefixes and root-words in the English language, and so the word “polytheist” has honestly puzzled them until I finally gave up and said “OK, whatever, forget that: I’m an ancient Greek-styled pagan” — I still feel the need to add a few modifiers to make it clear that I don’t do Popular Wicca or somesuch, but that’s what gets the point over to some people.
The standard dictionary-definitions of “pagan” are indeed vague: An Abrahamic religionist’s “not us” word — hell, even the Puritans eschewed Christmas customs as “too pagan” (and indeed, many are rooted in Roman pre-Christian customs), and Evangelical Protestants like Jack Chick deride Catholicism as “pagan” (and thus “Satanic”). Looking at basic Muslim interpretations of Jesus as a prophet, I’m sure to some Muslim schools of thought, Christianity is “pagan” in its veneration of a “god-man”.
The dictionary also typically tells us that “pagan = polytheist”, especially ancient polytheisms that were mowed down by Christianity. Now, this is where the etymology gets loaded. “Paganus”, in Latin, means “country-dweller” or, in common use “hick”, “redneck”, “hillbilly”. This was adopted by an early militarised Christianity to deride those living out in the hills as somehow “too uncivilised” to convert willingly, and was quickly adopted to apply to especially stubborn polytheists in the cities of the ancient Roman empire. Whether or not “paganus, as in hill-billy” was used specifically to deride the differences of practise of rural polytheists in the Græco-Roman world, or was just used as a general, all-encompassing derision of rural folk by urban folk is a nuance that is occasionally debated by degree-toting linguists and language geeks alike — but the fact is clear: One who was “paganus” in Rome is one who was derided by the many.
This is where I see a lot of people defend use of the word “pagan” as a “reclaimed word” in the same style that “bitch” and “cunt” have been reclaimed by a certain hipster caste of feminists, or in the way I have a t-shirt with “FAGGOT” written across it in pseudo-Swaorvski crystals, or how I’ve seen a few trans women self-apply “tranny” — but when we go to the etymology, and compare to what I do, and where my spiritual connections are strongest, we can see clearly that I’m an “urban dweller” — so, like the few trans women I see who self-apply “tranny”, but remain appalled by the trans men who dare to1 what business do I have to self-apply, as one of a city-based practise and urban-strengthened spirituality, a word of derision for those of the country? My Quaker (Christian) step-mother may have more of a right to “reclaim” the word “pagan” than I do!
Ultimately, I do feel like, in many ways, I’ve simply “conceded” to the pagan community, because I have very little in common with most pagans. Now, there have been some great strides in “inter-Pagan” communication in the last few years, but this has been largely on-line, and considering that I do occasionally encounter pagans off-line who have never even heard of The Wild Hunt, I’d wager that this re-education and re-forming of the meanings of “pagan” is a privilege of pagans who take advantage of regular Internet access. I’m also still very recon-oriented and a lot of what Drew Jacob noted about still feeling a disconnect from the “recon community” feels true for me, as well — my main differences with them feel easy to point out, but there’s still a community Status Quo that many Big-R-Recons like to maintain that I feel kind of misses the point. I’ve also taken note of YSEE spokespersons have said on the Hellenic_Recons e-mail list, espousing that “YSEE does not practise reconstruction”2, setting themselves apart as something distinct from what a lot of “Recons” in the Anglosphere Status Quo-ify, I find myself unable to help but wonder if there isn’t something maybe to the sparse claims I’ve seen from citizens of Hellas that maybe there are a few unbroken traditions that survived Christianity similar to how many pre-Chrisstian Gaelic and Brythonic traditions survived. I also am hesitant to “reclaim”, as YSEE members and supporters have, “Ethnokos Hellene” for myself because, as a supporter of the S.H.A.R.P.s (Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice), I am extremely conscious of the fact that the modern English “ethnic”, rooted in the ancient Hellenic term “ethnikos” (plural, “ethnikoi”), will often carry connotations of Neo-Nazism or more casual racisms and fascisms — I have enough clashes with other Mods and with tradskins that this term, which sounds awfully similar to “ethnic” at a casual listen, would give me more grief than my British self-identity, my loyalist stance on the Ulster situation, and my residency on North Amerikan soil already does. I make no secret of my religion at Mod & Skin gatherings, and have occasionally brought my small Apollon bust to nights I’ve DJ’d (indeed, He is the Moddest of our Gods), so I’m already pretty weird among a lot of people whose religious leanings tend toward existential atheism, agnosticism, and “social Christianity [or, far less often, Judaism]” — I don’t need people falsely accusing me of Nazi sympathies because they didn’t notice a slight difference between an ancient Hellenic word and a modern English one. “Pagan” can then become a minor bonding moment among other Mods and Skins who have similarly eschewed atheism, agnosticism, and social Abrahamism, even if we have nothing else in common (indeed, I’ve only personally encountered, on-line, two others — one was an initiate of Traditional Wicca, I forget about the other, but I want to say she was softly polytheistic Buddhist) — but in this context, it’s not about a religious experience, but usually a moment of jest amongst a handful of people in a arts-and-fashion-based subcultural tribe.
Maybe if I find the ancient Aeolic equivalent of “city-slicker”, I’ll adopt that as my defining religious term — after all, I seem to have only the vaguest claim to “pagan” considering the history and etymology. I’m not a “country dweller” and my spirituality is urban — I feel the closest to the Theoi and Daimons in large cities, and my spiritual feelings are weakest when out in the countryside or woodlands. It’s easily argued that I have as much right to “re-claim” the word “pagan” as I have, as a gay man, to “re-claim” the word “sapphic”. But at the same time, it’s proven occasionally useful when conversing with those coming from a more mainstream religious culture — outside the on-line pan-pagan community, the word “polytheist” still seems pretty sparsely used. “Polytheist” is the best generalised description of my own beliefs and practises, and though I do occasionally use “pagan”, that use is definitely a concession because it says precious little about my beliefs and practises, and in the “pagan community” tends more often than not to imply things about what I do that I typically do not.
The usefulness I have in the pagan community is little: I enjoy several blogs and occasionally meet other Hellenic polytheists that I “click” with. I definitely can get behind the socio-political goals of the pagan community, so that’s another good use I have for it. That’s really about it. Religiously, I have little in common with the overwhelming majority of pagans, so it makes little sense to say I’m a part of the “pagan community” as a whole, rather than “a socio-political supporter of many pagan goals and ideals”.
Still, it’s very mixed. In the last few years I’ve conceded to the term “pagan”, I’ve made few strides in my (albeit feeble) attempts at building a community around Boeotian polytheism — indeed, I seem to have made a greater stride at that in careful SEO-mancy via blogging. While I cannot deny that the Abrahamic overculture will always see my religion as “paganism”, no matter what I call it, admitting it is not necessarily a whole-hearted adoption of the term: It is nothing more than a sign that I live in Reality™.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, really, what words I use for my religion — what matters is what I do to honour the Theoi.
I’ve read a few of the recent posts around the pagan blogosphere on the relevance of the word “pagan” and the “pan-pagan” community. Normally, I try to eschew simply re-stating the thoughts I share with others, especially if they’ve done a perfectly adequate job — and indeed, many already have.
My first forays into “the pagan community” as an adult were very focused: Hellenic polytheism, Hellenismos, the religion of the ancient Hellenes — and about a dozen or so other terms, some of which have been downright goofy (like “gentile Hellenes”, as I noticed a few people tossing around for about ten minutes, in Internet Age™). By and large, it stays that way. I read a few “pan-pagan” blogs, or at least the few I consider intelligent-enough (well, OK, I read The Wild Hunt and it’s “family blogs” and Patheos: Pantheon, and occasionally, I’ll read something else), but I don’t really go to “pan-Pagan” events, and I find most “pan-Pagan” message boards to be equal parts dull and insipid and occasionally incredibly irritating (the primary exception being The Cauldron; The Pagan Forum isn’t bad, but it also is lower in activity than some).
For as much as I find it hard to interact with other Hellenes (I’ll get to that in a mo’), I find it ten times harder to keep my head around most people of other paths, especially very individual-focused paths. The few articles I posted to WitchVox, several responses I got in return, though well-meaning and generally positive, offended me on many deep levels that left me wondering if they’d even read the article, much less the person information I’d posted in my WV profile about my path — one quote that especially sticks out in my mind, in response to an article about Urban Spirituality where I mention the compatibility with my own path, was from a woman and she had congratulated me on “discovering [my] goddess forms in a concrete place” — I had made no mention of such, first of all, and only have the vaguest idea of what that might mean, that I find it hard to imagine why she felt the need to congratulate me on something she had no real idea if I’d ever done.
I have some local friends who some may refer to as “scene pagans” as opposed to “religious pagans”. Before moving to the area, I spent a weekend at the house of one of them and was met with flabbergastion that I’m in an automatic habit of burning incense daily — now, I’ve since re-thought the idea of bringing said into another person’s home before assuming it would be fine-and-dandy, but the feeling of my throat leaping gutward never quite shook, and the tension felt when at first it was assumed by the friend in question that I was somehow just randomly lighting things on fire in the guest room was immediately clear. To me, this is “what pagans are supposed to do” — to them, this was something pretty far “out there”, especially as it was simply a Friday and not a religious festival for either their tradition or mine.
While I clash with other Hellenes, this is usually just personality clashes, or arguments about nuances of belief or interpretation of primary sources — the kinds of arguments that even a lot of people in the same sects of Christianity or Hinduism may have (as a quick example: I’ve met Hare Krishna who advocate veganism, and I’ve met those who prefer to be semi-vegetarian, eating mostly vegetarian, but occasionally having meat, especially if offered some as a guest in another’s home; my father, though generally easily described as Irish Anglo-Catholic had been married four times, including two divorces, and supported abortion in many circumstances that even many other abortion-permitting Catholics would have found excessive). Little, if anything I do, will seem “foreign” to the average Hellenistos or Helleniste. Where we differ is regional focus (I prefer the Boeotian region, while most seem to be focused on Attika, and at least a highly visible minority may be described as “Hellenistic”), semantics, philosophy (Diogenes, FTW!). We don’t tend to differ in what we do, and we don’t tend to differ in the broadest areas of belief. We have a generally shared mythology and religious culture, even if the details may serve as bone-picking moments.
Now obviously, I disagree with the sharp and strict sense of “separatism” that some vocal Hellenists seem to favour — I don’t give honour to Aegyptian deities, and I don’t generally give much thought to Roman deities outside of Britannia, whom I’ve adopted strictly as an ancestral deity or daimon, but I generally don’t mind Hellenic syncretics, and simply regard them as another sect or as giving cultus to deities whom I simply do not. As said Burkert, “Polytheism is an open system” and it’s hard to have contact with so many cultures and their gods without seeing the occasional deity who simply can’t fit into a mould previously set by one’s native pantheon, and thus finding a moment where one may consider that deity’s validity. And, like Sannion, I find it peculiar that so many who seem to give emperor Julian so much regard fail to take into account that the man’s own religious practises would be “eclectic” by the standards said people have established. I can live with where Hellenes and I tend to differ, whether I like said people on a personal level or not, but it becomes harder to find a comfortable area of common ground with the average American individuality-focused pagan.
In theory, I have no real problem with Eclectic practises — again, it’s usually just something that I simply don’t do. I know that Eclectic and other individuality-based pagans can take that approach intelligently, and give some amount of respect to cultural traditions whilst creating something unique and spiritually valid. Where it becomes problematic is when it’s assumed this is the “Gold standard” for the pan-Pagan population — and indeed, every time I’ve ventured into certain more-unsavoury areas of said community, I find people taking things and tossing them together all willy-nilly, a downright perverse sense of pride in collective anti-intellectualism and anti-academia, and an acute lack of self-examination with some ideas that, at best can be a sign of unhealthy narcissism and, at worst a charlatan. The _michigan_pagans e-mail list features people who will mock you for any amount of book-learning (outside certain publishing houses often decried as “fluffy”), and also boasts a moderator who will harass you over personality differences — apparently some find an informed spirituality “incredibly shallow” or one that “can’t possibly be real” and some men in their late forties with have such a downright infantile response to men in their twenties being so flabbergasted at the “enforced fluff” around one that after the latter unsubscribes, the former will forward the latter every single nasty post made by list members to the now-unsubscribed party, requiring one to alert Yahoo to the harassment.
As best as I can tell, once I start travelling outside my own tight-knit community of Hellenes for the “pan-Pagan community”, there is little incentive for establishing common ground. Even “ex-community, please-don’t-call-me-Hellene-I’m-my-own”-types are noticeably different to interact with than the “spiritual anarchists” than dominate, well pan-Paganism, likely because of that commonality of experience, not just with other Hellenes, but with dealing with pagans on the outside of that community — they seem to understand what the other “doin’ my own thing” Pagans are doing wrong when interacting with recons, and so have a relaxed approach to sane recons (and tend to avoid the nutters). Furthermore, I’ve noticed a trend, whether this is relatively new or long-established, I cannot say, of “scene pagans” who tend to be more eclectic and “religious pagans”, who tend to be more recon in practise*. You know what I mean when I say “scene pagan”: They tend to venture out to public rit and maybe even set up a shrine or altar for major festivals, maybe even go to regular pan-Pagan meet-ups, but even on deeper glance, it’s apparent that spirituality and practise are dead last in their approach to religion, behind going to events and conventions, behind “polyamoury” circles, behind organic foods, getting wasted, and so much else. What makes them “pagan” seems rather superficial, and it’s like “pagan” is the new term for “hippie”. This is different from those who may be deeply religious but make efforts to keep different aspects of their lives “superficially separate” — after all, a deeply religious or spiritual person naturally is influenced by their religious culture in all other aspects of their lives; and obviously quite different from those who are deeply religious and very obviously flaunt their religion’s influences on one’s life. I know it’s not my place to judge, but most of the people I tend to designate as “scene pagans” will actively eschew religious or spiritual discussions, even when things are obviously going to remain civil, and give no real signs of even having a religion except a few times a year — and some of these people are quite lovely folk, but I just tend to have even less incentive to look for any religious or spiritual common-ground, and am always left wondering just what got them interested in paganism, anyway.
As for the term “pagan” itself, as I’ve said before, I’m not married to the term at all. I think it’s become a little too “unloaded” in recent years and don’t blame any one pagan grouping more than any other for this. While, ideally, I’d like to retain a “rather Victorian” impression of the word, I lament that I cannot. Perhaps this is due to ultimately coming to paganism as an adult, and an adult long-jaded by a perceived superficiality of the “pagan” community? I know not, and ultimately, it matters not, because even if I came to Paganism in my idyllic youth and stayed pagan through into adulthood, and thus retained a benign mental image, this isn’t the common mental image held by the overculture, and this isn’t the common mental image held by most within the “pagan” umbrella. The cultural drift is, at this point in time, quite deeply rooted — perhaps in time, it will loosen, and perhaps continuing to fiddle with it will loosen, or perhaps the root will react by digging itself deeper, as a means to try and protect itself. I care not for strategies to get rid of this trend, cos I’m not especially bothered by it — after all, “polytheist” means something, and even in ancient times, when “paganus” was especially pejorative, it was vague.
So was there a point to all this? Probably not. This may, in fact, just be another cantankerous polytheist shouting into the cold unforgiving (and not to mention paradoxical) Khaos-Kosmos of the Internet that is both a formless void while being everything and anything, and this shouting is destined to fall on the ears of a few. Perhaps it will be the start of yet another useless bickering. Perhaps I’m just putting too much thought into what’s essentially nothing, what with this widespread meme that somehow words don’t actually mean anything. If anything, I hope that perhaps religious communities are being and will continue to be forged for the better.
It’s been a while since I’ve done a painting for the theoi — perhaps tellingly, my last one is Narkissos, left unfinished after my surgery in 2008 went awry.
I’ve been feeling the push to paint again quite recently, and the image I’m getting is for Britannia, and will most likely be in watercolours — indeed, one of the main things holding me back this last week is the search for where I unpacked my watercolours to.
“But Ruadhán!” you might wish to interject with, “That’s not a Hellenic goddess!”
Well, I suppose in the strictest sense, you’d be correct, but my reasons include ancestor-worship (definitely an ancient Hellenic practise) and the name “Britain” ultimately comes from Hellenic etymology. Of course, I’m only really justifying myself in public because I’m sure my #1 fan would love nothing more than to use this and the forthcoming painting as “evidence” that I’m somehow “not practising Hellenic religion/reconstruction” anymore, possibly ever (as he’s done this to others in the past, for lesser reasons) — which is hilarity-on-a-stick, true, but best to make such lunacy apparent from the start, den eínai?
My envisioning of Britannia is based part in the traditional Roman and part in the Mod subculture, and may even seem reminiscent of a certain scene from Derek Jarman’s Jubilee — and I’m sure at this point, you probably have the same mental image I do, especially if you’re familiar with my painting style.
One thing that I regret not posting about this year is my ritual and prayer for my re-envisioning of Shrove Tuesday as Pancake Feast of Britannia and St. Patrick’s Day as Bacon & Cabbage Feast of Hibernia. I intend to remedy this, but at a more seasonally-appropriate future time.
Hi there, I’m Ruadhán J McElroy. Here is a picture of me. I’m a pagan.
As you can see, I dye my hair (which is kind of long, by men’s standards) with Manic Panic, am overweight, have bad skin, poor eyesight, and I like to wear shirts with ties. As you can’t see, I have psoriasis (a skin condition that causes thick whitish patches on my scalp, elbows, knees, and finger joints — most likely due to an overactive immune system, but that’s just the leading theory), have crooked front teeth, and am 5′½” tall, and my doctor thinks that my knees display a slight but distinct bowing that may indicate I have a very mild case of acondroplasic dwarfism; no joke, I really am very tall for a little person. I like my height, but not my weight, so I’ve been making gradual steps toward changing that. I like my hair (which is unbelievably healthy despite being harshly processed for over twelve years), but not my skin — except the fact that it shows no real signs of age that most people my age tend to show; I’d really like to get my teeth straightened out, but I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to pay for it. I am also a Pagan.
If you met me, it would be pretty obvious that I’m queer. Seriously, I never even casually mentioned a boyfriend to the neighbours, and they could tell. I’m not one of those gay men that GBLT activists often deride as “assimilationist”, in that I’m really not “just like everybody else” — but at the same time, I only really call myself “queer” right now not because I’m an activist, but because it fits, in that I don’t just smoke a lot of pole, but I’m also very “queer” in the classic sense of “odd” or “unusual”. Basically, the shoe fits — I prefer the shoe that says “Fagmosexual”, but even a lot of other queers aren’t really as odd as their self-identifying label may imply, and they think “Fagmosexual” is either my attempt to intentionally offend people with my own deep-ingrained homophobia(??? — yes, I’ve been told this and similar), or that I’m just being obnoxious. I’m not the biggest supporter of GBLTs in the military, and the only real reasons I’m supportive of same-sex marriage are 1) my legal “next of kin” are the absolute LAST people I want looking over my funerary rites and whatever should happen to me, should I land in the hospital unconscious, and I know several other people who really do need a marriage certificate for that assurance and 2) U$ state marriage laws are so mind-boggling inconsistent with regards to transsexuals that there is not a TS person alive today whose marriage would not potentially be contested if moving either to a different state in the union, or to the U$ from elsewhere — no, serious, look it up. I’m a pacifist with absolutely no respect for anybody who voluntarily joins such institutions, and I know enough about the history of marriage to understand that its purpose, even in in the Western world, varied by class and social status, and that even as far back as ancient Rome, there were same-sex couples in legally-binding unions that were often colloquially referred to as “marriage”, even if it was legally defined as something else. Modern marriage really isn’t *that much* different, as it’s a legal contract to share tax-forms and assure inheritence — but the only one within the Anglosphere that, with rare exception, is exclusively available to two persons of different assigned-at-birth sex and/or neurologically-hardwired social gender. I am also a pagan.
My favourite genres of pop music are English Baroque, old-school & art punk, Mod Revival Power Pop, Ska, British Rhythm & Blues, and whatever fusion genres you’d call Roxy Music, Japan, and Dexys Midnight Runners. I prefer Roxy Music with Brian Eno, though largely because Bryan Ferry’s admittied Toryism (and not to mention his batshit son) affects my ability to be objective about his music, even if I tend to like his aesthetics. The record Searching For the Young Soul Rebels by Dexys Midnight Runners is one of three records I credit with saving my life. David Sylvian and Mick Karn managed to turn my opinion of electronic music around 180°. In general, I’m not into folk music, and most “Celtic music” just makes me cringe, with its indiscriminate use of “deedle-dee” fiddling, and “modern Celtic music” tends to just junk itself up with synths and programming from people who really want to be Enya, but can only dream of being half as talented — and seriously, my general opinion of Enya’s music is “meh, at least it’s a little more interesting than Yanni”. I’m not really into Lady Gaga’s music, but her sort of Bizarro HyperFemme aesthetic image fascinates me, though mainly cos I can spot nearly all of her aesthetic influences, from Andy Warhol to Leigh Bowery, to Nancy Nova, and possibly even Klaus Nomi. I’m also really into Army of Lovers, and am quick to correct people that AoL is not a “music group”, but a real band (they all played their own instruments &mdsah; believe it or not, a lot of fashion models [they all met at a modelling agency] and ex-prostitutes [primary songwriter Alexander Bard really was a prostitute at one time] really CAN do things besides look good in clothes), and I think the only thing that would make trips to IKEA more enjoyable would be if the only music they piped into the store was AoL and Bard’s other projects. I am also a pagan.
I love large cities — the bigger, the better — and would move back to London, England, in an instant, if the opportunity arises. I also really love to garden, which some people think is rather odd, when juxtaposed with the fact that I’m not only allergic to several tree pollens, the two most common local grasses, and ragweeds, and have a tendency to run screaming from cities with fewer than a quarter-million people, much less anywhere best described as “rural”. I’ve been known to call the city of San Francisco a “small town” because I expected it to feel, much less actually be much bigger. That’s not to say I think everybody should live in a bustling metropolis — after all, somebody has to live out in the sticks, if only to tend to our food. I cook most of my own meals from “staples”, and when I don’t, I make sure I can recycle as much of the package as possible, and then do. About two thirds of my household’s weekly garbage gets recycled. I tend to care more about issues directly relating to classism than environmental issues — but mainly cos I realise that many people really can’t afford a wholly “green lifestyle”, and some people can’t even afford to do anything more than recycle, and that’s assuming that they live somewhere with recycling service, preferably curb-side for those who can’t or don’t drive. I’m also well-aware of the corporate practise of “greenwashing” products and advertisements to mislead people about how environmentally-friendly a product or service really is. Ideally, if these can’t be complete non-issues for myself and the rest of the world, then I’d like to see it 50/50, with classism and environmentalism being causes I see of equal; importance, but as long as safe, quality, locally-produced foods and Earth-friendly products are still too expensive for th lowest incomes, I cannot in good conscience see these causes as equal. I purchase many things second-hand from thrift stores and re-use centres not because it’s “greener” to do so when I can, but because I’m too poor not to. I have reusable shopping bags because, in part, all the local grocery stores offer a 5¢ discount per reusable bag used per shopping trip, meaning in each bag’s average lifetime, it’s paid for itself at least two or three times over. More often than I care to remember, the 10¢ per soda bottle (or can) for recycling has paid for my groceries and other household and personal necessities. I am also a pagan.
I love animals, but some species, I have no problem with eating — mainly cos I’m anaemic and the only iron pills I can actually afford constipate about as badly as vicodin (and if you’ve ever been on vicodin long-term, like I have, you know it means you’re taking a dump maybe every second or third day, and when it finally comes out, it feels like there’s glass in it); now that you have that mental image, you understand why I can’t be veg*n. Pigs would eat us if given half a chance, and every chicken I’ve met has been enough of a jerk that they totallly have a good deep-fry coming (serious, chickens are ass-holes). I tend to prefer ground turkey to beef cos it’s lower in fat, and pretty much every fish, crustacean, mollusk, or cephalopod I’ve tasted has been among the most heavenly tates in my mouth — I’d totally go pescetarian, if I could afford it. As far as pets go, I prefer cats, hands down, over all common “companion mammals”, and while I like big dogs (especiallly, and this will sound a little cock-eyed, greyhounds and Molossers ["bully breeds"]), I don’t have the patience, and my physical handicaps (in this case, scoliosis and carpal tunnel syndrome) will put me in a position where it wouldn’t be the best idea for me to adopt a large dog, especially not a Molosser. Small dogs have grown on me, and my childhood favourite, the Pekingese, remains a preferred breed for Hypothetical Future Dog. I’d like to keep birds, but I can’t afford most of the species I’d really like to have, and I’m hesitant to keep any of the ones that I can, not so much because of the cats, but because I’m unsure if I’d be allergic to the mites that are attracted to bird dander, as I know I have high allergy ratings for both species of common dust mites. I am also a Pagan.
I love “indie” comic books and graphic novels, and prefer my text novels to tell stories rather than act as thinly-veiled metaphors or socio-political doctrines, though the illustrative allusions to this or that in graphic novels gives me a far stronger tolerance for thinly-veiled GNs. I love the films of Derek Jarman, Ken Russell, and nearly everything featuring Johnny Depp or Audrey Hepburn. I prefer Alan Moore to Neil Gaiman and Gaiman to Warren Ellis. I also have a weakness for Tim Burton, and in case you couldn’t tell, I’m a bit of an ex-goth. I tend to think more highly of Derek Jarman than perhaps anybody should, and I tend to agree with Alan Moore that the film versions of his stories tend to blow — the film version of From Hell was complete garbage, and apparently the only way Amerikan-born screenwriters could think to make V for Vendetta “screen interesting” was to pretty much completely re-write it as a blatantly unveiled parable about early 2000′s U$ Liberal/Neocon politics — rather than the actual theme of “Is Anarchy truly a just alternative to Fascism?” I am also a pagan.
For reasons similar to my friend Eleni’s Greek identity, I identify as British, despite a U$ Birth certificate. It’s not about a mere Anglophile taste in cultural media (though my tastes do tend to skew toward that which has far greater relevance to Britain), nor a love of the history, nor a touristy appreciation of the small towns or London’s nightlife, nor even a fanatical “royal watch” (truth be told, I find the Crown pretty irrelevant). I cannot articulate an Amerikan identity, and tend to be genuinely bewildered by those who can. To those who expect a “shared cultural experience”, I ask what makes that? I was raised by an English granmother who was contemptuous of Amerikan culture and spent over forty years kicking herself for leaving; I went to a Catholic school, but she taught me to identify as Anglican, and I was always the only kid in my class who felt it was perfectly reasonable for England to tax her North American colonies, and was quick to point out that it was largely the wealthiest in said colonies who wanted “taxation with representation”, and ultimately favoured separation from Britain. If that’s still not “British enough” for you, thenI suspect your criteria either outlandishly arbitrary, or downright impossible to meet, as I highly doubt any two people alive in Britain today can claim a totally shared cultural experience.
I realise that the word “pagan” has become very “unloaded” in recent years — pretty much anybody can call themselves such, if they feel like it (at least depending on which pagan groups one interacts with) — though I also acknowledge that its “classic” definition is to be basically shorthand for “practitioner of a non-Abrahamic religion, likely polytheist”. I am a Hellenic polytheist who acknowledges and respects that many of the Hellenists in modern Hellas discourage the term “pagan”, and can be outright offended by it, considering the word’s history. I have personally mixed feelings about the term, and depending on the situation, may not self-identify with it, but to maintain honesty and civility, will keep silent on the matter if arguments arise. I have no real interest in keeping the term for myself, and if linguistic drift completely stripped the word of all real meaning, I would be no worse for the wear, and would simply maintain that I’m an out-n-proud polytheist, giving honour and worship to gods of Hellas. And maybe there are those who concern themselves far too much with what is “truly Hellenic enough” who feel I don’t match up to their ideal that I doubt even they’d add up to, if they were being honest with themselves. To them, I have something very similar to say as I say to those who don’t feel I’m British enough: If it offends you that much, go do something else; you’re likely to give yourself an aneurysm, otherwise.
There is strength in numbers.
I’m less concerned with “outing” myself as this or that in an effort to “show them I’m no different” — indeed, where both the “mainstream” and the “General Pagan and Polytheist communities” are concerned, I’m actually pretty different. I’m an eccentric when compared to the average man of my culture, and even a bit of a misfit in the subcultures that I feel most at-home in. I know people will judge me for all sorts of reasons, but I don’t care — I’m here, I’m out, get used to it.
Sorry all, for the extended hiatus. I have recently moved from Ann Arbor to Lansing, and only a few days ago, got my computer back up and working (to make it brief, I may make a longer public post to my diary later this week, but don’t hold your breath). The move itself was incredibly stressful, and can best be summed up as a two-weeks-long panic attack that finally brought my allergies never-before-seen asthmatic symptoms (as if I wasn’t a big enough nerd stereotype). Even though the computer I had to cobble together to get a working machine works splendidly, the keyboard I had to end up using is old, damaged, and half the keys need excessive force. In short, this frustrates me, and I’ve been spending as little time in front of the keyboard as I can get away with — so regular posts may take another couple weeks to resume.
On the good side, the new place has a large backyard (well, in proportion to the house) and the property management has given me pretty much full permission to do what-ever I like as a garden, both front and back, and this will be part vegetables, mostly flowers and goldfish pond.
The best thing anybody can do right now is donate to my hosting costs.
Since I know a lot of people who are or wish to get into crafting, I figured I’d pass along Lupa’s handy guide to shipping green. I don’t think most of the people who read this blog will need to know everything here, but you never know.
I admit, I don’t plan out my shopping list for Whole Paycheque, nor do I let the presence or absence of a “Go Green!” logo dictate what I buy — in fact, I’m convinced the overwhelming majority of it all is a scam of some variety, and looking at the differences in price alone between Regular Bag o’ Beans and Organic Veganic Bag o’ Beans, I think there’s more money in this latest incarnation of the “Go Green!” fad than a lot of the people buying it all are willing to admit.
Still, there’s a point where I just think it makes a lot more sense to do little things that will reduce the carbon footprint — just little, miniscule lifestyle changes that will make a big impact on the planet, over the long run. So, here’s my advice to urban polytheists who may not have considered them in the pressures from the greater pagan & polytheist co0mmunities to “go green”:
*cook from scratch, whenever possible. If you need some tips or advice, watch some episodes of Alton Brown’s Good Eats. I love his show for a lot of reasons (primarily the concept of “Julia Child meets Bill Nye the Science Guy”), and one of them is that most of the foods he cooks on the show are familiar, “classic” Western/North Amerikan foods made from scratch. He explains just how cheap and easy it is — most things take no more than 45minutes — and he makes it clear when pre-prepared ingredients (like canned tomato sauce, for example) are just fine. His episode on canning and preserving is a must-watch. The gratan on his Potatoes episode can be easily prepared in front of the television. He also stresses exactly what tools and appliances you will need for a task, which ones have superfluous (and pretty much useless) features, and how nearly everything in your kitchen should be a multi-tasker, except the fire extinguisher — this saves money, storage space in your kitchen, and saves space in landfills, should something ever break or break down beyond repair.
I really don’t want to guilt-trip people who don’t regularly have the time, but if you find cooking from a recipe enjoyable, it’s totally worth setting aside an hour on your days off to cook a meal from scratch. You’ll be avoiding all the excess packaging from convenience foods, and it’ll probably taste better, too.
*especially if you have a “container garden” (indoors or out), try composting. I’ve recently seen small “composting containers” at Target, designed to go under the sink, but I just use an old bucket that cat litter came in.
*repair things before buying new. Sometimes, it’s just far more cost-effective to get a new thing, I admit, but clothes can be mended, even attractively so, a plate can (usually) be pieced back together with non-toxic glue, and your computer probably isn’t “broken” but full of spyware and minor vira that you can get rid of (and prevent) with proper software (that doesn’t even have to cost you a penny — I recommend Avast). If you build your own computer (and no, I don’t mean by selecting options from the Dell or Gateway website), you can replace each individual component as it needs it — but if you buy something off the shelf or one of those all-in-one-piece jobs from Apple that looks pretty, you’ll probably have to sink another couple thou into a whole new machine, even though it’s just the DVD-RW drive that’s broken. I’m also really tired of seeing people who replace things that are still in perfect working order. I’ve taken to darning socks and patching my jeans in front of the television over the last few months — yes, eventually, something is going to be beyond repair, but I figure that a card of darning needles and a spool 300yds of thick cotton thread cost $5, two of which will last you a lifetime, and a pair of socks can be mended with maybe a yard. A new six-pack of crew socks costs $7 — and if you go through socks like I do, you’d be replacing that once or twice a year; I don’t know about you, but that’s $14 a year I’d rather use on other things.
A lot of this just seems pretty no-brainer to me, cos I grew up with it, but it honestly surprises me how much people admit to me that it never crosses their minds to do simple things like repair those Fair Trade Organic Cotton socks instead of replace them — probably because they grew up in a nuclear family culture where everything is replaceable, and a “lifestyle” can be easily purchased for $19.95.
While I get that some people honestly don’t have time, I also get that others are simply using “I don’t have the time” as shorthand for “I’m going to watch telly for six hours straight and not do anything else, cos I really can’t be arsed to!” I get that some people are disabled, I get that some people need an hour or so to just unwind and not do anything else — but I also get that some people are just lazy and think buying things can make them a better person without doing anything else.
