Rhyd--Beautiful, thought-provoking and remarkably vulnerable. Thank you for the window into your prayer practice. A window that likely can't be opened too wide lest the house fill with mosquitos or wildfire smoke. What you have to say about developing practices with others on real ground in real neighborhoods and the enclosure we call the internet--that's good stuff right there. Your words carry generosity, and I thank you.
Thanks Ryan. My Gen X alienation has been a persistent bind throughout my life but has never felt so choking as it has recently. I've allowed myself to be swept in many concerns that I can not affect and have become giddy at the inverted nature of political and media discourse - where the reprehensible is acceptable and the compassionate and clear eyed dismissed.
I've followed and earth based spirituality since 2011 and have recently decided to simplify my life to clear more room for that practice.
Also, to write more poems and record more songs without concern for trying to find an audience.
I've become sick off, and from, the online world. I enjoying being outside, both physically and metaphorically.
Love your characterization of neopaganism as an esthetic, as a way to furnish your house with pagan bricabrac and pagan themed parties. I know one person who is fiercely anti christian but also collects various tibetan and other buddhist statuary. That is, she claims to be a materialist but also seems to yearn for some sort of spirualism as long as she can purge it of spiritual content. The key is that she cannot acknowledge the existence of spirit for intellectual reasons while yearning for it for emotional reasons. But we know where her heart is.
My experience with movements and groups (ecological, Pagan) is that the charismatic leaders are not always positive, gregarious organisers or merely enthusiastic networkers. Many see a little throne for themselves in a coven, a community, a commitee. After nearly 2 decades, the hunger got too much. I lost respect for people that didn't act like they were part of a spiritual community with an ethical practice; I left a path whose shallow roots had started to show, shrivel, and rot. Perhaps, I too, was shallow then. Perhaps, I needed that ersatz belonging to buoy me through some rough waters. Alone, I found that giving space for Deity is the work of a quiet room and everyday, an early morning before everyone else is awake, a thought in my head as I do an errand; a God has never told me to do anything nor demanded anything of me although one spoke to me once. I'm okay with that. I don't want clever conversation. My current religious practice varies from sitting in the presence of Divinity for 15 minutes, an hour; yawning as I'm blearily pushing an offering on a saucer onto the windowsill; or lighting a candle on my mantel or in a cathedral, or on a stone in the garden, for a dying soul, an imminent birth, a sorrow shared, the cycle of a star. Rhyd, thank you for all you do in bringing an intelligence and consideration to this and other topics. Rare and necessary.
Thank you for this thoughtful examination of the state of Pagan and neopagan thought and practice over the past few decades. One of my fond fantasies is to equip people with a good fairy who would administer a warning zap anytime they used the word "fascist" carelessly. I have been reading essays by George Orwell recently and noticed that before WW II was even completed, he was complaining rather accurately that most people In England could not define fascism and that the term had become more like a swear word than a description. This while Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were all still alive. Not that democracy, progressive and other political words haven't become almost equally meaningless. This essay seems like a blow on behalf of clarity of thought.
Yup, gotta get outside - there's a God or Goddess behind every stone and bush. Take your friends! Let's make our offerings with a petition for a massive X-Flare/CME that will take out the internet (maybe on the weekend?) Great piece, as always, really interesting account of the pagan evolutions, thank you Rhyd.
Interesting to shoehorn Chaos magic into neo paganism. While the Chaos magic of old would certainly frame Spirits as Jungian archetypes (from a modern misunderstanding of Jung and his work) new chaos magic is leaning into an animistic model. A return to an indigenous thought is coming back into the chaos realm, and into norse paganism Interestingly enough. Creators such as Jacob Toddson and Gordon White are at the frontier of this new animism. Im excited to see what's next.
Rhyd--Beautiful, thought-provoking and remarkably vulnerable. Thank you for the window into your prayer practice. A window that likely can't be opened too wide lest the house fill with mosquitos or wildfire smoke. What you have to say about developing practices with others on real ground in real neighborhoods and the enclosure we call the internet--that's good stuff right there. Your words carry generosity, and I thank you.
Thanks Ryan. My Gen X alienation has been a persistent bind throughout my life but has never felt so choking as it has recently. I've allowed myself to be swept in many concerns that I can not affect and have become giddy at the inverted nature of political and media discourse - where the reprehensible is acceptable and the compassionate and clear eyed dismissed.
I've followed and earth based spirituality since 2011 and have recently decided to simplify my life to clear more room for that practice.
Also, to write more poems and record more songs without concern for trying to find an audience.
I've become sick off, and from, the online world. I enjoying being outside, both physically and metaphorically.
Thanks for an inspiring read.
Love your characterization of neopaganism as an esthetic, as a way to furnish your house with pagan bricabrac and pagan themed parties. I know one person who is fiercely anti christian but also collects various tibetan and other buddhist statuary. That is, she claims to be a materialist but also seems to yearn for some sort of spirualism as long as she can purge it of spiritual content. The key is that she cannot acknowledge the existence of spirit for intellectual reasons while yearning for it for emotional reasons. But we know where her heart is.
My experience with movements and groups (ecological, Pagan) is that the charismatic leaders are not always positive, gregarious organisers or merely enthusiastic networkers. Many see a little throne for themselves in a coven, a community, a commitee. After nearly 2 decades, the hunger got too much. I lost respect for people that didn't act like they were part of a spiritual community with an ethical practice; I left a path whose shallow roots had started to show, shrivel, and rot. Perhaps, I too, was shallow then. Perhaps, I needed that ersatz belonging to buoy me through some rough waters. Alone, I found that giving space for Deity is the work of a quiet room and everyday, an early morning before everyone else is awake, a thought in my head as I do an errand; a God has never told me to do anything nor demanded anything of me although one spoke to me once. I'm okay with that. I don't want clever conversation. My current religious practice varies from sitting in the presence of Divinity for 15 minutes, an hour; yawning as I'm blearily pushing an offering on a saucer onto the windowsill; or lighting a candle on my mantel or in a cathedral, or on a stone in the garden, for a dying soul, an imminent birth, a sorrow shared, the cycle of a star. Rhyd, thank you for all you do in bringing an intelligence and consideration to this and other topics. Rare and necessary.
Thank you for this thoughtful examination of the state of Pagan and neopagan thought and practice over the past few decades. One of my fond fantasies is to equip people with a good fairy who would administer a warning zap anytime they used the word "fascist" carelessly. I have been reading essays by George Orwell recently and noticed that before WW II was even completed, he was complaining rather accurately that most people In England could not define fascism and that the term had become more like a swear word than a description. This while Hitler, Mussolini and Franco were all still alive. Not that democracy, progressive and other political words haven't become almost equally meaningless. This essay seems like a blow on behalf of clarity of thought.
Yup, gotta get outside - there's a God or Goddess behind every stone and bush. Take your friends! Let's make our offerings with a petition for a massive X-Flare/CME that will take out the internet (maybe on the weekend?) Great piece, as always, really interesting account of the pagan evolutions, thank you Rhyd.
Interesting to shoehorn Chaos magic into neo paganism. While the Chaos magic of old would certainly frame Spirits as Jungian archetypes (from a modern misunderstanding of Jung and his work) new chaos magic is leaning into an animistic model. A return to an indigenous thought is coming back into the chaos realm, and into norse paganism Interestingly enough. Creators such as Jacob Toddson and Gordon White are at the frontier of this new animism. Im excited to see what's next.