Hello, hypothetical audience. I guess on the intertubes, I'm Taun-Taun. Which really has yet to stop being strange when I see it written referring to me on here.
So why am I interrupting the normal posting habits of my better half? As I told her earlier today, I had something I kind of wanted to talk about and I didn't really have an outlet, so here I am, shouting into the void instead. I was listening to Pagan Parents On The Edge earlier at work, which is an awesome show, so listen to it if you don't already. They were talking about the role of Santa in the holiday season, and, as expected, talked briefly about how children generally stop believing in him as they get older, along with a general waning of belief in the fantastic or magical. Which I agree with, to an extent.
As a society, we obviously are fairly down on magical thinking. You didn't cure your headache with that spell, it was just a placebo effect because you thought about it a lot. Smudging your house with sage doesn't purify it, you just made the place smell funny. So on and so forth. I'm sure we've all heard some version of this at some point or another. But then, I got to thinking, which is always a bad idea. For as much as anything supernatural is generally looked down on, you know who the biggest coven in the world actually is? Sports fans.
Stay with me for a second here. Maybe you're reading this from somewhere in Boston, and you have a Red Sox hat on a shelf somewhere. Or Chicago, and your winter coat is a Cubs jacket. Or maybe you're familiar with any of the ENTIRE FREAKING ARTICLE- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports-related_curses
I used to be pretty big into baseball until a few years ago, and I saw people, including my own family, doing the craziest crap because they thought somehow it would help their team win. Or that there was some kind of "bad luck" that kept their team from going anywhere in the playoffs. Hell, I watched my mother adjust the position of a roll of posterboard she'd left on the couch by accident one day because we thought if we moved it a little bit, the Yankees might start playing better. Other friends had certain shirts of certain players they would wear so that they would break out of their slumps. Me and my brother wore a small Yankees symbol on a chain like it was a cross. Another person I knew wore a particular hat when his team was playing at home, no matter how gross it got. It couldn't be washed, you see, that would take the luck out of it. We were all just joking, of course. Right?
Looking back on it, I don't really think that was the case. There's a certain level of vehemence that rose to the surface when these goofy little rituals of ours were challenged. I distinctly remember getting yelled at if the Yankees were playing well and I would accidentally knock that roll of posterboard out of place. It's possible that this makes her sound like a nutcase, but the fact is, this is the kind of passion and faith you see people put in superstitions all over the world of sports fandom.
So what's my point here? Is it that sports fans are batshit crazy? That one doesn't need me writing about it. But let's look at the bigger picture, the one that this post only touches on one aspect of. As a culture, we perform rituals. We wear totems. We make sacrifices. Why do we do this? "Well, you know, it's just this stupid little thing I have, but it helps me calm down/focus/keep moving while I'm doing housework/get through visiting my in-laws without killing them/etc." Frequently said with a bit of shame, as though this is something you shouldn't be doing, or is kid's stuff, and how silly it is that you as a grown, mature adult still hold onto a bit of it. The only thing that's silly about this is that we try to hide it and ignore it. "It just isn't the Way The World Works", we adamantly repeat to ourselves. To that, I say- pfft. The Horned One has helped me finish more than one workout when all I've wanted to do is topple to the floor and pass out in a nice warm puddle of my own sweat.
Unlike disco, magic ain't dead. It just updated its wardrobe. Also unlike disco.
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Will we get kitties tonight? I hope so!
Insects outnumber every other species by the thousands. Creepy, crawly, and potentially better evolved for the planet, it's something most people don't like thinking about.So let's talk about kitties instead! I really wonder, if one were to county up the number of pagans, and the number of cats owned by pagans, would the cats outnumber us 10 to 1? Or would it be more like 3 to 1? For certain, for every pagan I've met who doesn't own a cat (Um, have I met any? There must be some out there. Astruar always struck me as dog people, really.) there are two or three who own several cats apiece. Taun-taun and I are no exception. Some time ago, we started looking into fostering kittens, because we can't take anymore permanently. We want to do some volunteering overseas, and needing to rehome the thousand or so cats we would own if we could wouldn't be good for anyone. And then we backed off, because of Morpheus. Morpheus was my darling, grumpy old man of 21 years, and we didn't want to risk taking in potentially sick homeless kittens while his immune system couldn't handle it. He's no longer with us, may he rest in peace. So we looked into it again, and got approved....and immediately moved. Not far, but far enough to have boxes everywhere and no clear space to set aside to keep Foster Kitties separate from Our Cuties while we weren't home. (Kali and Isis, we have a Pet Name Theme.) Yesterday, we discovered a woman, a Cat Saint, who maintains nine lean-tos around our area for homeless cats. Drives around and feeds them, shovels paths, puts out bales of hay and blankets. Every day. One of the lean-tos is right next to our house, and we had no idea who was helping the cats (besides our friends, who live downstairs. They've been feeding them too.) She maintains a blog - thebean10.blogspot.com - if you live in the Rochester, NY area. I immediately recognized her description of The Tiny Cat with Huge Balls, who we captured by accident one evening. He looks exactly like Kali, except for, erm, /cough/ difference. His name is Louie, apparently. So Taun-Taun spent all night last night getting our bedroom ready for Foster Kitties! Call it the kick we needed. He's going to fill out some paperwork today, and soon, we should have some cute fuzzy bundles of love who haven't found their Forever Home yet. We'll take good care of them until they do. I hope tonight! But I'll settle for next week.
Blessed Be and I Wish I Could Find My Camera Charger,Pennanti
Blessed Be and I Wish I Could Find My Camera Charger,Pennanti
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Testing Posterous, 1, 2, 3...
In theory, this doohickey is going to post to every social thingamabob I have at once. Which would be nice, since work finally got around to blocking TwitterGadget on igoogle. (Why they haven't blocked iGoogle, which gives me a backdoor into Gmail, and thus Buzz, Aim, and gChat, I will NEVER KNOW.)
So, if this glitches and spams someone's feed, I apologize, in a "please let me know and I'll adjust it" kind of way.
Blessed Be!
Pennanti
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Yule Music: The Searching
I listen to good music, on average, once a week. Ask anyone who knows me, and you'll pretty much get the picture. I have horrible, awful "taste" in music (if you can call it that), and I only get around to decent stuff instead of crap every so often during my day.
The rub here is, when I listen to the 'good' music depends entirely on who you ask. The Fairy and some of my cousins would think it was Tuesday - when I update Groovelectric and Tiesto's Club Life. The Librarian, more likely Thursdays when I run out of podcasts and turn on WITR (local college station) for the day. I get really angry at work at least once a week, sometimes twice, at which point I hit up the angry metal that Taun-Taun and the Viking helped me find. Neuraxis is really the only thing that drowns out stupid coworkers, even if it makes my eardrums bleed.
Goth stuff, like a Darker Shade of Pagan, is Mondays, for the most part. The Professor is helping me find more awesome music in the same vein, happily. And once or twice a month, I get all nostalgic and throw in a bunch of traditional Irish music and soft rock from my Mom and Squirt, who have no idea how I don't kill myself with all of the above.
I also listen to top 40. I listen to Lady Gaga, NOT because she's ironic, but because I like her. Ke$ha, too, which is a death-penalty offense to some people. I know most of the words to Like A G6.
I'm not stating all of the above because I'm trying to prove my nerd/hipster cred. I'm stating it for context - when I say "I have no taste in music", I really, really mean it. I have a hard time identifying genre differences. I can't remember band names or song titles. I don't give a flying crap about the 'context' of a musician (See: Lady Gaga vs. Ke$ha) and who's being intelligent vs. who's in it for exploitative money.
So, with all of that context, when I say I'm having a really, really hard time finding good Yule music, I hope I get the meaning across. Seriously. I am NOT a hard person to please. I'm not picky. I AM slamming my head against a wall, though.
Why is so much of the Yule songs I can find slow, depressing, and angsty? A holiday mix has room for, like, two of those. I want music I can bake cookies too, dammit!
I feel like the depressing inevitability stuff really, really belongs in Samhain. Winter Solstice is about "raging against the night", so to speak. It's about not sitting down and accepting the inevitable onslaught of cold and death. It's about celebrating maniacally in the face of winter, of light and fire and declaring to Hades that yes, I am going to live through this and see the spring. Quiet snow falling to moaning harps is not helping the mood!
I've found a few here or there that I like. Some good nerd-stuff, too. I might post the final playlist I come up with, but meanwhile, I'm throwing a prayer out to the Internet sprites to go kick google in the nuts and help a girl out, yeah?
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
The rub here is, when I listen to the 'good' music depends entirely on who you ask. The Fairy and some of my cousins would think it was Tuesday - when I update Groovelectric and Tiesto's Club Life. The Librarian, more likely Thursdays when I run out of podcasts and turn on WITR (local college station) for the day. I get really angry at work at least once a week, sometimes twice, at which point I hit up the angry metal that Taun-Taun and the Viking helped me find. Neuraxis is really the only thing that drowns out stupid coworkers, even if it makes my eardrums bleed.
Goth stuff, like a Darker Shade of Pagan, is Mondays, for the most part. The Professor is helping me find more awesome music in the same vein, happily. And once or twice a month, I get all nostalgic and throw in a bunch of traditional Irish music and soft rock from my Mom and Squirt, who have no idea how I don't kill myself with all of the above.
I also listen to top 40. I listen to Lady Gaga, NOT because she's ironic, but because I like her. Ke$ha, too, which is a death-penalty offense to some people. I know most of the words to Like A G6.
I'm not stating all of the above because I'm trying to prove my nerd/hipster cred. I'm stating it for context - when I say "I have no taste in music", I really, really mean it. I have a hard time identifying genre differences. I can't remember band names or song titles. I don't give a flying crap about the 'context' of a musician (See: Lady Gaga vs. Ke$ha) and who's being intelligent vs. who's in it for exploitative money.
So, with all of that context, when I say I'm having a really, really hard time finding good Yule music, I hope I get the meaning across. Seriously. I am NOT a hard person to please. I'm not picky. I AM slamming my head against a wall, though.
Why is so much of the Yule songs I can find slow, depressing, and angsty? A holiday mix has room for, like, two of those. I want music I can bake cookies too, dammit!
I feel like the depressing inevitability stuff really, really belongs in Samhain. Winter Solstice is about "raging against the night", so to speak. It's about not sitting down and accepting the inevitable onslaught of cold and death. It's about celebrating maniacally in the face of winter, of light and fire and declaring to Hades that yes, I am going to live through this and see the spring. Quiet snow falling to moaning harps is not helping the mood!
I've found a few here or there that I like. Some good nerd-stuff, too. I might post the final playlist I come up with, but meanwhile, I'm throwing a prayer out to the Internet sprites to go kick google in the nuts and help a girl out, yeah?
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
Monday, November 22, 2010
A short thought on magic and science: It doesn't WORK that way
I have a backdraft post hanging around somewhere on the subject of terminology and how it's misuse drives me nuts. I can't remember if I ever posted it or not. Ah well.
Anyway. When confronted with "Well, if magic worked, then why can't you turn me into a toad - get all A's - date the head cheerleader -whatever", my first impulse is always to sputter and try to explain, "It doesn't work like that!" The response is generally some kind of patronizing look. Hey, I never said I was terribly persuasive in argument, especially in person.
In fact, the whole exchange bears remarkable resemblance to one you can see daily on the internet between hardcore Christian fundies and science-minded types. This argument can be summed up best by the inestimable example used by too many people to count:
"If evolution is real, then why aren't we all born as monkey's, huh?"
The sound you just heard was thousands of science-minded types choking on the words "It doesn't WORK like that!" because that's the first reasonable thing that comes to mind.
And it makes the creationists look all skeptical, with a "well then, what is it good for anyway?" sort of vibe.
For me, the question of magic working in a repeatable, laboratory-style fashion is about as relevant as wondering why we don't evolve from monkeys in a single lifetime. The basic premise is wrong. You could probably find several basic premises that are wrong.
At it's heart, magic is contextual. Spells work within the universe happening at that very second, and it is not repeatedable in it's very nature. It's like asking the ocean to repeat a wave, and then saying that since they can't be repeated exactly, they don't count. There's too many factors, and most of all, there's too many factors that we don't know about and really, truly don't understand.
This is the nature of mystery. It can't be explained, or told. It has to be experienced to be understood. Magic is mysterious, science is not. And I love them both, very much - in their separate areas, thank you. :)
Blessed be,
Pennanti
Anyway. When confronted with "Well, if magic worked, then why can't you turn me into a toad - get all A's - date the head cheerleader -whatever", my first impulse is always to sputter and try to explain, "It doesn't work like that!" The response is generally some kind of patronizing look. Hey, I never said I was terribly persuasive in argument, especially in person.
In fact, the whole exchange bears remarkable resemblance to one you can see daily on the internet between hardcore Christian fundies and science-minded types. This argument can be summed up best by the inestimable example used by too many people to count:
"If evolution is real, then why aren't we all born as monkey's, huh?"
The sound you just heard was thousands of science-minded types choking on the words "It doesn't WORK like that!" because that's the first reasonable thing that comes to mind.
And it makes the creationists look all skeptical, with a "well then, what is it good for anyway?" sort of vibe.
For me, the question of magic working in a repeatable, laboratory-style fashion is about as relevant as wondering why we don't evolve from monkeys in a single lifetime. The basic premise is wrong. You could probably find several basic premises that are wrong.
At it's heart, magic is contextual. Spells work within the universe happening at that very second, and it is not repeatedable in it's very nature. It's like asking the ocean to repeat a wave, and then saying that since they can't be repeated exactly, they don't count. There's too many factors, and most of all, there's too many factors that we don't know about and really, truly don't understand.
This is the nature of mystery. It can't be explained, or told. It has to be experienced to be understood. Magic is mysterious, science is not. And I love them both, very much - in their separate areas, thank you. :)
Blessed be,
Pennanti
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Mini Replies to Inciting An Evil Riot
Finally caught up with my podcasts! I'm in the middle of the most recent Inciting a Riot now.
It occurs to me that Firelyte takes on these giant, overarching scopes, and my first impulse every time is take the precepts and boil them down to personal actions and thoughts. Not neccessarily a bad thing. So on the process of defining hurtful speech -
Isn't intention part of the prosecution system? My single criminal law class is years ago and very fuzzy, but I seem to recall there being multiple parts in deciding how a crime was prosecuted.
The professor demonstrated it as: If you have a gun, and live in an apartment that the president passes, but no intention of killing the president, they can't prosecute attempted assassination, because you had ability but not intention. If you dance and wave your arms around your yard at midnight, trying to kill the president, they can't prosecute attempted assassination, because you had intention but no method. You've got to have a method, and an intention, for a prosecution of attempted crime.
FireLyte, feel free to correct me on this. I feel like there was a third thing in there too.
Anyway, I'd like to see this standard applied in questions of terminology, honestly. If someone calls you a scalawag, and they're a history major, the argument could be made that they had the intention, but no method. If someone calls you gay, when you prefer queer, (Or fill in whatever), and it was an honest mistake, why can't more people just say, "Hey, I prefer...whatever" because there was no intention?
Now, if you've already stated a preference, and they keep doing it, we run into the right to be offended. I'm also willing to throw in the caveat that if you can't say it on primetime, or at least not without making it clear that this is NOT the network's word, this is a QUOTE from a REPREHENSIBLE ACTION(Midget Palin Facebook, anyone?)then the offender already has fair warning that this is not a good term.
But seriously. I get called a Wiccan all the time, when I'm not, and I just shrug it off. It's not that difficult to tell the difference between "clueless" and "I hate you".
Mini-posts to continue whenever I feel like it.
Blessed Be!
Pennanti
It occurs to me that Firelyte takes on these giant, overarching scopes, and my first impulse every time is take the precepts and boil them down to personal actions and thoughts. Not neccessarily a bad thing. So on the process of defining hurtful speech -
Isn't intention part of the prosecution system? My single criminal law class is years ago and very fuzzy, but I seem to recall there being multiple parts in deciding how a crime was prosecuted.
The professor demonstrated it as: If you have a gun, and live in an apartment that the president passes, but no intention of killing the president, they can't prosecute attempted assassination, because you had ability but not intention. If you dance and wave your arms around your yard at midnight, trying to kill the president, they can't prosecute attempted assassination, because you had intention but no method. You've got to have a method, and an intention, for a prosecution of attempted crime.
FireLyte, feel free to correct me on this. I feel like there was a third thing in there too.
Anyway, I'd like to see this standard applied in questions of terminology, honestly. If someone calls you a scalawag, and they're a history major, the argument could be made that they had the intention, but no method. If someone calls you gay, when you prefer queer, (Or fill in whatever), and it was an honest mistake, why can't more people just say, "Hey, I prefer...whatever" because there was no intention?
Now, if you've already stated a preference, and they keep doing it, we run into the right to be offended. I'm also willing to throw in the caveat that if you can't say it on primetime, or at least not without making it clear that this is NOT the network's word, this is a QUOTE from a REPREHENSIBLE ACTION(Midget Palin Facebook, anyone?)then the offender already has fair warning that this is not a good term.
But seriously. I get called a Wiccan all the time, when I'm not, and I just shrug it off. It's not that difficult to tell the difference between "clueless" and "I hate you".
Mini-posts to continue whenever I feel like it.
Blessed Be!
Pennanti
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Nanowrimo Ate My Life
It's been a while. I've been writing, just not here. :) Oh well!
I thought I'd pop out of my self-imposed seclusion briefly to mention the Podcast Awards. Oh, how I hate Hate HATE the Podcast Awards.
Here comes an avalanche of blog and pod entreaties to please vote for and nominate . Every podcast will be front-loaded with ten minutes of begging, pleading, and promoting, either themselves or others. My GoogleReader, I will probably just stop checking for a bit. After the commotion has settled down, all the podcasts and blogs will still be front-loaded; This time it will be with gratitude, along the lines of "Thank you SOOO much for participating! And listening! And voting! I love all you guys SOOO much!", which still gets annoying after about ten minutes. The only good part is, I can run down the nominee list and maybe find something new, so it's a little preferable.
Right now my husband is reading, silently agreeing, and also thinking, "Hun, you sound like some kind of misanthrope." I can dig it. Because there's something that bothers me even more than the blitz of self-promotion.
Does it bother anyone besides me that so many people treat this like some kind of referendum on paganism? Seriously, I wish everyone would just stop. Yes, there is a Religion and Spirituality category. Yes, a pagan podcast has never won, which doesn't bother me at all. Why on earth am I being entreated to vote on the idea that we need to be driving the other religions down the list? What does this accomplish?
You know what I do every year when I look at the nominee list? Silently discount the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever, topics as I scan down looking for the ones that I like.
You know what a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever person is going to do if "we" suddenly take the top spot, or the top three, or top ten? Silently discount the ones they aren't interested in as they scan down looking for the ones they like. Because where the 'other' religion podcasts fall on the list means something between jack and squat as far as everyone is concerned.
It's really more like they took several religion top lists and squashed them together. It's a popularity contest, and those always suck. Just sayin'. The whole masturbatory nature of shameless self-promotion just gets to me, you know? That kind of action is supposed to be private! (Unless you're in a club for that kind of thing. But you get my meaning.)
On a lighter note, it is pretty much the only time you're going to see Inciting a Riot and the Wild Hunt agreeing with each other, so that's kind of funny.
It's not that I want the Podcast Awards to stop. I think they're a great idea, and they help people find more of what they're looking for. I just want people to stop pretending that high standings means something more than "hey, people listen to my show!" Take the Wigglian Way, for example. It definitely deserves high standings.
I also, personally, can't stand listening to it. I don't know why. The topics are good, the people are definitely people I'd want to chat with over coffee or a beer. There's just something about it (too professional radio?) that I don't like. Taun-taun likes it, though.
On the flip side, I enjoy listening to PCP, which Taun-taun once described as "I'd rather stab a pencil into my ear drum". So I listen to one, he listens to the other, and we give each other the cliff notes for anything interesting that comes up. And neither of these opinions means squat for the actual quality of the show. Such is the nature of popularity contests.
Back to fiction!
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
I thought I'd pop out of my self-imposed seclusion briefly to mention the Podcast Awards. Oh, how I hate Hate HATE the Podcast Awards.
Here comes an avalanche of blog and pod entreaties to please vote for
Right now my husband is reading, silently agreeing, and also thinking, "Hun, you sound like some kind of misanthrope." I can dig it. Because there's something that bothers me even more than the blitz of self-promotion.
Does it bother anyone besides me that so many people treat this like some kind of referendum on paganism? Seriously, I wish everyone would just stop. Yes, there is a Religion and Spirituality category. Yes, a pagan podcast has never won, which doesn't bother me at all. Why on earth am I being entreated to vote on the idea that we need to be driving the other religions down the list? What does this accomplish?
You know what I do every year when I look at the nominee list? Silently discount the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever, topics as I scan down looking for the ones that I like.
You know what a Christian, Jewish, Muslim, whatever person is going to do if "we" suddenly take the top spot, or the top three, or top ten? Silently discount the ones they aren't interested in as they scan down looking for the ones they like. Because where the 'other' religion podcasts fall on the list means something between jack and squat as far as everyone is concerned.
It's really more like they took several religion top lists and squashed them together. It's a popularity contest, and those always suck. Just sayin'. The whole masturbatory nature of shameless self-promotion just gets to me, you know? That kind of action is supposed to be private! (Unless you're in a club for that kind of thing. But you get my meaning.)
On a lighter note, it is pretty much the only time you're going to see Inciting a Riot and the Wild Hunt agreeing with each other, so that's kind of funny.
It's not that I want the Podcast Awards to stop. I think they're a great idea, and they help people find more of what they're looking for. I just want people to stop pretending that high standings means something more than "hey, people listen to my show!" Take the Wigglian Way, for example. It definitely deserves high standings.
I also, personally, can't stand listening to it. I don't know why. The topics are good, the people are definitely people I'd want to chat with over coffee or a beer. There's just something about it (too professional radio?) that I don't like. Taun-taun likes it, though.
On the flip side, I enjoy listening to PCP, which Taun-taun once described as "I'd rather stab a pencil into my ear drum". So I listen to one, he listens to the other, and we give each other the cliff notes for anything interesting that comes up. And neither of these opinions means squat for the actual quality of the show. Such is the nature of popularity contests.
Back to fiction!
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Happy Belated Mabon!
The autumnal equinox has been a little hare-brained for me this year. Most Official Celebrating is likely to happen this weekend, for one thing. Eh, my entire family has always had a loose definition of things like holidays and dates. Comes with the divorced thing - Christmas happens on the 25th...and on the 28th....and maybe on the 1st, once you throw grandparents into the mix.
Yesterday, I took my sister out to dinner, because she's leaving for a job in Florida today. I did toast, and quietly gave her the cliff notes of Mabon and King Arthur. I told her that Mabon (at least for me) is a holiday of growth through sacrifice - you eat, and celebrate, but you also quietly put away things for winter coming and prepare for the cold. I fairly seamlessly slid that into what she's doing right now - she's very family oriented, but she's moving away from everyone to jumpstart her career. I understand! I just thought the timing was fortuitous.
Naturally, she took offense. Oh well. For those who don't know my sister, she dabbled in paganism when she was younger, and mostly doesn't know what she believes now. She's just as likely in times of stress to hit up a church with a friend OR take out her favorite quartz stones, light a candle, and say a prayer to Brigid for guidance. So I'm not exactly coming out of left field with myth tellings or anything.
I do solemnly swear, though, that sometime this weekend I'm going to take pictures of our fall decorations, our feast, and probably our altar, and put them up! It's time I figured out how to upload pictures into Blogger anyway.
Let the autumn tiding commence - Samhain is my favorite (right near my birthday) and I'm already starting to get excited.
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
P.S. Taun-Taun, I'm going to need your help, hubby. Remind me to get my camera uploaded!
Yesterday, I took my sister out to dinner, because she's leaving for a job in Florida today. I did toast, and quietly gave her the cliff notes of Mabon and King Arthur. I told her that Mabon (at least for me) is a holiday of growth through sacrifice - you eat, and celebrate, but you also quietly put away things for winter coming and prepare for the cold. I fairly seamlessly slid that into what she's doing right now - she's very family oriented, but she's moving away from everyone to jumpstart her career. I understand! I just thought the timing was fortuitous.
Naturally, she took offense. Oh well. For those who don't know my sister, she dabbled in paganism when she was younger, and mostly doesn't know what she believes now. She's just as likely in times of stress to hit up a church with a friend OR take out her favorite quartz stones, light a candle, and say a prayer to Brigid for guidance. So I'm not exactly coming out of left field with myth tellings or anything.
I do solemnly swear, though, that sometime this weekend I'm going to take pictures of our fall decorations, our feast, and probably our altar, and put them up! It's time I figured out how to upload pictures into Blogger anyway.
Let the autumn tiding commence - Samhain is my favorite (right near my birthday) and I'm already starting to get excited.
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
P.S. Taun-Taun, I'm going to need your help, hubby. Remind me to get my camera uploaded!
Monday, September 20, 2010
Monday Morning Rant: Pagan Cred Is Ridiculous
Let's talk about pagan cred. Because it's ridiculous, and there's way too much of it out there.
First, let's define pagan cred. This is a quality, measured by the insecure and dictatorial, that defines how 'pagan' you are. It's generally measured by other people, but there are things that can be done to beef it up, or if caught short, decrease it. Of course, anyone that actually cares is not going to call it this. They're going to complain about how "serious" someone is as a pagan, or talk about how "experienced" they are in whatever realm.
And there's also nothing more obnoxious than accidentally walking into a pagan cred pissing match with someone.
Now, the first time that happened to me, I A) never saw it coming, and B) it happened over email, which was a good thing for my response time.
I was running Pagan Student Union at my SUNY school, and it was nearing the end of the year, when I got an email from a transfer student for the next semester, inquiring about the club. Neat! She seemed interested in being very involved....a little too involved, actually, considering she offered to take the club over for me, sight unseen, because of her previous experience at her old school. Just in case the pressure and time was a little too intense for me, you understand.
I responded pretty much right off the bat, letting her know we were active, we met once a week, we focused on this that and the other. Also, that we had lots of opportunities for involvement....which did not involve me quitting out of the blue.
What I got back: "You know, hun, I've been talking to lots of elders in your area about this club, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done. You might not be up to the necessary leadership, but don't worry, I'm a Leo and we're very good at this kind of thing!"
Um. What.
Thank all gods for email. I took about two days, but asked her very nicely who she'd been talking to, what did she mean by "elder", and reiterated the idea, a little more plainly, that I was not stepping down based on two emails from a complete stranger.
Apparently, "elder" meant "anyone who's been a practicing pagan for 10 years or more." I did a quick count on my fingers and realized that, at 18, I was only 3 years short of being an elder. Cool! No one ever told me that before! (Where's a punctuation mark that means 'sarcasm' when you need one?) Hell, I was gonna make elder before I made legal drinking age!
What a load of utter crap. I can't even remember what I responded after that, but I think it was along the lines of "Well, we'll meet you next year, have a good summer", and then spent the whole summer slamming my face into a wall whenever I thought about it. (As a side note, karma is a BITCH - she moved down early, accidentally made friends with MY friends (non-pagans, small world), and then the housing authority randomly assigned her to live in my suite. I wish I was kidding.)
But this was, definitively, the first time I'd run into someone who was obsessed with cred. What you read, how often you read it, how long you'd been around, how much jewelry you owned - the list of things you could say or do to affect your rep as told by her was positively astonishing. But working with her, casually, for a year definitely helped prepare me to run into others.
Now, I have a few ways of dealing with it, dependent on situation.
1) You are talking to a new group that you are thinking about joining. Pissing match begins - well, we do this, and that, and if you don't, you don't count, also, we might not want you anyway since you're not serious enough. This is different than a polite "We seem to practice in different directions, maybe you should try Other Group for a better fit." The difference is - Are they sneering? If yes, it's about pagan cred. In this case, there's one easy, workable option. Leave. And never come back.
I like to hope that social Darwinism will help kill these little groups across time and space whenever I take my own advice on this.
2) You have just discovered a co-worker or other faint acquaintance is pagan! They start peppering you with questions, with a specific bend.
Frequently, you can give these people enough rope to hang themselves, which is nice. Last year, a nice older Wiccan walked right into it with queries on what I believed, how I practiced, etc, until she gave me a sympathetic little smile and said, "Well, dear, I've been practicing for 4 years now. How long have you been pagan?" "12 years." She never brought time or experience up again.
Patently, I'm not an elder. I'm 24. Someone needed to tell this woman that, though, and I was irritated enough that it wasn't going to be me. Regardless, my standard practice with the faint acquaintance who wants to flex pagan cred, is to let them talk until they accidentally get rude and shame themselves into shutting up, or at least being more polite. It works better than you'd think.
3) You are talking to someone, not group affiliated, and not someone you work with or is otherwise unavoidable. You get some leeway here.
• Do they honestly know more than you? Might be ok to let them blather on a bit before you walk away. Worst case scenario, you get some good book recs before getting so annoyed you roll your eyes and extricate.
• Are they up front, right out rude? Tell 'em to shove it. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often.
Of course, most of the pagan creditors fall into two camps; insecure eclectics and Reconstructionists of various flavors. It's not all reconstructionists that annoy the hell out of me...just the ones that tell me I'm doing it wrong. Hey, I'm not claiming to be practicing something from hundreds and thousands of years ago. I am quite up front that I am making up half this shit as I go along. The only part I'm doing wrong is giving the impression I care what other people have to say on the matter...if they're rude about it, anyway.
I've always wondered - do Obnoxious Reconstructionists ever realize how close they sound to Christian Fundies? Research is one thing, worthy of respect. Telling everyone around that they know what they're doing because they've studied the Eddas/Bhagavitas/Bible more intently than you is sort of a multi-religion pain in the ass.
With this post, I'm pretty sure anyone with "standards" who ever reads this will flee my blog forever. I'm ok with that.
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
First, let's define pagan cred. This is a quality, measured by the insecure and dictatorial, that defines how 'pagan' you are. It's generally measured by other people, but there are things that can be done to beef it up, or if caught short, decrease it. Of course, anyone that actually cares is not going to call it this. They're going to complain about how "serious" someone is as a pagan, or talk about how "experienced" they are in whatever realm.
And there's also nothing more obnoxious than accidentally walking into a pagan cred pissing match with someone.
Now, the first time that happened to me, I A) never saw it coming, and B) it happened over email, which was a good thing for my response time.
I was running Pagan Student Union at my SUNY school, and it was nearing the end of the year, when I got an email from a transfer student for the next semester, inquiring about the club. Neat! She seemed interested in being very involved....a little too involved, actually, considering she offered to take the club over for me, sight unseen, because of her previous experience at her old school. Just in case the pressure and time was a little too intense for me, you understand.
I responded pretty much right off the bat, letting her know we were active, we met once a week, we focused on this that and the other. Also, that we had lots of opportunities for involvement....which did not involve me quitting out of the blue.
What I got back: "You know, hun, I've been talking to lots of elders in your area about this club, and there's a lot of work that needs to be done. You might not be up to the necessary leadership, but don't worry, I'm a Leo and we're very good at this kind of thing!"
Um. What.
Thank all gods for email. I took about two days, but asked her very nicely who she'd been talking to, what did she mean by "elder", and reiterated the idea, a little more plainly, that I was not stepping down based on two emails from a complete stranger.
Apparently, "elder" meant "anyone who's been a practicing pagan for 10 years or more." I did a quick count on my fingers and realized that, at 18, I was only 3 years short of being an elder. Cool! No one ever told me that before! (Where's a punctuation mark that means 'sarcasm' when you need one?) Hell, I was gonna make elder before I made legal drinking age!
What a load of utter crap. I can't even remember what I responded after that, but I think it was along the lines of "Well, we'll meet you next year, have a good summer", and then spent the whole summer slamming my face into a wall whenever I thought about it. (As a side note, karma is a BITCH - she moved down early, accidentally made friends with MY friends (non-pagans, small world), and then the housing authority randomly assigned her to live in my suite. I wish I was kidding.)
But this was, definitively, the first time I'd run into someone who was obsessed with cred. What you read, how often you read it, how long you'd been around, how much jewelry you owned - the list of things you could say or do to affect your rep as told by her was positively astonishing. But working with her, casually, for a year definitely helped prepare me to run into others.
Now, I have a few ways of dealing with it, dependent on situation.
1) You are talking to a new group that you are thinking about joining. Pissing match begins - well, we do this, and that, and if you don't, you don't count, also, we might not want you anyway since you're not serious enough. This is different than a polite "We seem to practice in different directions, maybe you should try Other Group for a better fit." The difference is - Are they sneering? If yes, it's about pagan cred. In this case, there's one easy, workable option. Leave. And never come back.
I like to hope that social Darwinism will help kill these little groups across time and space whenever I take my own advice on this.
2) You have just discovered a co-worker or other faint acquaintance is pagan! They start peppering you with questions, with a specific bend.
Frequently, you can give these people enough rope to hang themselves, which is nice. Last year, a nice older Wiccan walked right into it with queries on what I believed, how I practiced, etc, until she gave me a sympathetic little smile and said, "Well, dear, I've been practicing for 4 years now. How long have you been pagan?" "12 years." She never brought time or experience up again.
Patently, I'm not an elder. I'm 24. Someone needed to tell this woman that, though, and I was irritated enough that it wasn't going to be me. Regardless, my standard practice with the faint acquaintance who wants to flex pagan cred, is to let them talk until they accidentally get rude and shame themselves into shutting up, or at least being more polite. It works better than you'd think.
3) You are talking to someone, not group affiliated, and not someone you work with or is otherwise unavoidable. You get some leeway here.
• Do they honestly know more than you? Might be ok to let them blather on a bit before you walk away. Worst case scenario, you get some good book recs before getting so annoyed you roll your eyes and extricate.
• Are they up front, right out rude? Tell 'em to shove it. Fortunately, it doesn't happen often.
Of course, most of the pagan creditors fall into two camps; insecure eclectics and Reconstructionists of various flavors. It's not all reconstructionists that annoy the hell out of me...just the ones that tell me I'm doing it wrong. Hey, I'm not claiming to be practicing something from hundreds and thousands of years ago. I am quite up front that I am making up half this shit as I go along. The only part I'm doing wrong is giving the impression I care what other people have to say on the matter...if they're rude about it, anyway.
I've always wondered - do Obnoxious Reconstructionists ever realize how close they sound to Christian Fundies? Research is one thing, worthy of respect. Telling everyone around that they know what they're doing because they've studied the Eddas/Bhagavitas/Bible more intently than you is sort of a multi-religion pain in the ass.
With this post, I'm pretty sure anyone with "standards" who ever reads this will flee my blog forever. I'm ok with that.
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Leadership Roles and Imposter Syndrome
A couple of podcasts have recently talked about leadership of pagan groups - about feeling unqualified, even while attempting to lead, and associated issues.
This is an interesting thing for me to think about, if only because it's never once occurred to me before. Which incidentally also makes me wonder about my bad person potential.
I take leadership roles almost by default, in pagan groups and in other areas of my life. I don't think I'm pushy, or demanding. I've certainly never had a problem where there's an established authority taking care of business. But in, say, a group of friends talking the endless circle of "What do you want to do? I dunno. What do you want to do?" I pretty much immediately make a decision - "I want to watch Iron Man. Let's do that."
Sometimes everyone shrugs and goes with it. Sometimes someone gets all "Well, why do we have to do what you want to do?" to which I'll reply, "Because no one else would make a choice." If it annoys them enough, they start voicing their actual preference. I do this because the two outcomes are either A) People start being honest, and none of the false social modesty crap or B) We always do what I want. It's kinda a win for me no matter what.
Similarly, where people start waffling in general....if I think I have a right to a say, I'll say it. And this lands me in leadership positions regularly. I'll tell the boss what I think should be done, if she asks. I'll tell a group how I would do it. I tell pagan friends how I practice and why. If they ask.
And it never occurs to me to doubt myself. Reading this over, I'm pretty sure half the internet already hates me, and I'm going over past scenes asking myself "Was I being a pushy bitch?", but I don't think I am. I wait for people to ask. I wait for there to be a vacancy, so to speak, before throwing myself into it. And once I'm there, I try really, really hard to be worthy of that.
In running Pagan Student Union, that meant the unusual tactic of actually listening to what club members wanted to do. They wanted to sit in a room once a week and bullshit about various topics. They were totally on board with me setting the order of topics, as long as I had a topic suggestion meeting once a year. They did NOT want to: plan a ritual every month, engage in pagan politics, do any community awareness that involved their mandatory attendance (though most would float by for a few minutes when I set up a table at some event or another), do any field trips aside from a fall camping event, or anything complicated enough to require going through campus bureaucracy for funds.
One of the reasons the club was falling apart before I took over, and then promptly fell apart after I left, is that this was apparently a legitimately different "leadership style". People who stepped in had a very strong idea of what they wanted the club to be, and were determined to set that in motion....as though the members would show up and do what they said no matter what.
I stepped in because there were only 4 members in my freshman year, the president was leaving, and the remaining people didn't want to do it. This is the only time I doubted myself - we agreed to a "dual presidency", where I would sign all the paperwork and Snarky would help me run the club, as he'd been a member for a couple years. I didn't think I was qualified by myself - I was only a freshman, after all.
This was a mistake. Snarky and his teammate Wimpy proceeded to undercut me at every available moment, on very general things like "Hey, I'm going to put up some posters, anyone want to help?" (I would have taken 'no' for an answer. Seriously.) Until one day, three weeks in, with a good 5 or 6 new people in the room, I tried to pull us back on topic. (I think we'd degenerated to something celebrity-related) Wimpy retorted, "We don't have to, Snarky is President too!", and I snarled "Not anymore!"
"What?!"
"I signed the papers. I put my name on everything. I put up the posters. I did the work. I'm the president of this club, you're the vice-president, and we can go back to topic now."
Ok, fine, pushy bitch moment. Snarky and Wimpy didn't have a word to say, though. And I stopped doubting myself as a leader.
Being the leader of a group doesn't need to involve knowing more than anyone else. You don't need to be a legitimate authority to the highest level. You need to have an idea of the purpose of the group, and try to husband that group. That can mean taking on administrative tasks to let more time for people who know more about a topic than you. It can mean passing those tasks off to a volunteer when it is really time for you to teach. And it really means knowing when you have something of worth to say and when you don't. I can think of a dozen people who are experts on different topics, and have no desire at all to lead a group. A good leader would tell these people, "Come in. Hang with us. I'll take care of the politics."
I'm good at teaching people when it's time to tell experts to shove it. Most pagans don't need too much help there, which is nice. I'm good at helping people who are just starting. I've got some good background in celtic and norse mythology and tradition, though I'm not an expert by any means. I've got a shallow, but broad, knowledge of a lot of areas and styles - just enough to direct someone in a direction if they're looking.
And I think this makes me qualified to run a beginner's group. Probably qualified to join a not-beginner's group. If I was part of a fairly advanced study group for a while, and the leader left, I would feel ok with taking over if no one else wanted to do that. Because dammit, organizing people and places is something I'm good at.
Still, every time someone else ponders "Imposter Syndrome", I wonder why I don't have it, and if I come off a lot pushier and bossier than I think I do.
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
This is an interesting thing for me to think about, if only because it's never once occurred to me before. Which incidentally also makes me wonder about my bad person potential.
I take leadership roles almost by default, in pagan groups and in other areas of my life. I don't think I'm pushy, or demanding. I've certainly never had a problem where there's an established authority taking care of business. But in, say, a group of friends talking the endless circle of "What do you want to do? I dunno. What do you want to do?" I pretty much immediately make a decision - "I want to watch Iron Man. Let's do that."
Sometimes everyone shrugs and goes with it. Sometimes someone gets all "Well, why do we have to do what you want to do?" to which I'll reply, "Because no one else would make a choice." If it annoys them enough, they start voicing their actual preference. I do this because the two outcomes are either A) People start being honest, and none of the false social modesty crap or B) We always do what I want. It's kinda a win for me no matter what.
Similarly, where people start waffling in general....if I think I have a right to a say, I'll say it. And this lands me in leadership positions regularly. I'll tell the boss what I think should be done, if she asks. I'll tell a group how I would do it. I tell pagan friends how I practice and why. If they ask.
And it never occurs to me to doubt myself. Reading this over, I'm pretty sure half the internet already hates me, and I'm going over past scenes asking myself "Was I being a pushy bitch?", but I don't think I am. I wait for people to ask. I wait for there to be a vacancy, so to speak, before throwing myself into it. And once I'm there, I try really, really hard to be worthy of that.
In running Pagan Student Union, that meant the unusual tactic of actually listening to what club members wanted to do. They wanted to sit in a room once a week and bullshit about various topics. They were totally on board with me setting the order of topics, as long as I had a topic suggestion meeting once a year. They did NOT want to: plan a ritual every month, engage in pagan politics, do any community awareness that involved their mandatory attendance (though most would float by for a few minutes when I set up a table at some event or another), do any field trips aside from a fall camping event, or anything complicated enough to require going through campus bureaucracy for funds.
One of the reasons the club was falling apart before I took over, and then promptly fell apart after I left, is that this was apparently a legitimately different "leadership style". People who stepped in had a very strong idea of what they wanted the club to be, and were determined to set that in motion....as though the members would show up and do what they said no matter what.
I stepped in because there were only 4 members in my freshman year, the president was leaving, and the remaining people didn't want to do it. This is the only time I doubted myself - we agreed to a "dual presidency", where I would sign all the paperwork and Snarky would help me run the club, as he'd been a member for a couple years. I didn't think I was qualified by myself - I was only a freshman, after all.
This was a mistake. Snarky and his teammate Wimpy proceeded to undercut me at every available moment, on very general things like "Hey, I'm going to put up some posters, anyone want to help?" (I would have taken 'no' for an answer. Seriously.) Until one day, three weeks in, with a good 5 or 6 new people in the room, I tried to pull us back on topic. (I think we'd degenerated to something celebrity-related) Wimpy retorted, "We don't have to, Snarky is President too!", and I snarled "Not anymore!"
"What?!"
"I signed the papers. I put my name on everything. I put up the posters. I did the work. I'm the president of this club, you're the vice-president, and we can go back to topic now."
Ok, fine, pushy bitch moment. Snarky and Wimpy didn't have a word to say, though. And I stopped doubting myself as a leader.
Being the leader of a group doesn't need to involve knowing more than anyone else. You don't need to be a legitimate authority to the highest level. You need to have an idea of the purpose of the group, and try to husband that group. That can mean taking on administrative tasks to let more time for people who know more about a topic than you. It can mean passing those tasks off to a volunteer when it is really time for you to teach. And it really means knowing when you have something of worth to say and when you don't. I can think of a dozen people who are experts on different topics, and have no desire at all to lead a group. A good leader would tell these people, "Come in. Hang with us. I'll take care of the politics."
I'm good at teaching people when it's time to tell experts to shove it. Most pagans don't need too much help there, which is nice. I'm good at helping people who are just starting. I've got some good background in celtic and norse mythology and tradition, though I'm not an expert by any means. I've got a shallow, but broad, knowledge of a lot of areas and styles - just enough to direct someone in a direction if they're looking.
And I think this makes me qualified to run a beginner's group. Probably qualified to join a not-beginner's group. If I was part of a fairly advanced study group for a while, and the leader left, I would feel ok with taking over if no one else wanted to do that. Because dammit, organizing people and places is something I'm good at.
Still, every time someone else ponders "Imposter Syndrome", I wonder why I don't have it, and if I come off a lot pushier and bossier than I think I do.
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Saying Grace and other acts of social awkwardness
I'm babysitting the office phone right now, because one of our secretaries is out on maternity leave, and the other needs someone to cover her breaks and lunches. Today it's my turn.
Said secretary has the Christian rock turned up, and every single piece of personal paraphanelia on her desk involves the word "God" on it somewhere. I just checked.
Does it make me a bad person if I feel really uncomfortable sitting here?
I don't want to be one of those people that throws tantrums and makes everybody else uncomfortable. When I arrived at work two x-mases ago, someone had put up little pictures on everyone's overheads in my department. You know, trees, stars, presents. I had a church. I quietly asked one of my coworkers if I could switch with them, since I wasn't Christian. They cheerfully did, so I had a tree with a star instead of a church. She must've told somebody, because later the Head Decorator came over to me quietly as well, asking urgently if I wanted them to take all the decorations down because they weren't allowed to make anyone feel uncomfortable with holiday stuff.
I told them no, of course not! I love Christmas as much as (and occasionally more than) the next person. I don't care if the little cartoon church is on somebody else's overhead bin. I just don't want it staring down at me on mine.
So, how much of this vague twitchiness is from my stated witchiness? And how much from my upbringing? Would I feel like this if it was a proud Jewish employee's desk I was sitting at? A Muslim's?
I don't think so. I only get uneasy when forcibly confronted with devout Christianity. And I'm not sure how justified that is.
I worry that I'll accidentally pass this on to my (hypothetical) kids, and I really don't want to.
Do I judge people I don't know when I see them wearing a cross? Possibly a little bit, in a "Be careful as you get to know them " kind of way. I know I judge people if they're wearing a cross, jesus earrings, and a giant t-shirt with the Lord's Prayer on it, but I think I get a pass on that because I judge pentacles the size of coasters in a similar way. "Look out, possible Crazy over here". It's like a little neon sign, when someone throws that much of their visual identity into their religious one.
Taun-taun has the same reaction to Orthodox Jewish folks, for much the same reason. Being raised in or tangentially related to a religion that's later rejected seems to have a hyper-sensitizing effect.
Visiting family this weekend, also brought this vague discomfort to the surface. Mind you, this is the family that I like and spend time with on purpose! The parents know I'm pagan, though there's a DADT policy in my family and no one has once asked me about it. I'm under the impression that the older cousins (13, 15) have been told to not talk about it. The younger ones know they aren't supposed to, but will sometimes bring it up around the edges. Quietly bowing my head during grace, for example. "Do you say a different grace?" "Yes." "Oh..." {hopeful pause for more forthcoming} This is the first time the 11-yr-old has been sitting next to me close enough to ask something - though I know he's noticed before. The next night, "I know it probably sounds a lot like evil chanting, but it's just what my family does!" He says it really defensively. {Insert me trying really hard not to laugh} "Oh, I know it's what you guys do. It's ok."
I can't tell if he wants to ask more, or if my discomfort is just that visible.
Also, I'd like to stop and chuckle again for just a second, at my cousin describing his own family's grace as "sounds like evil chanting".
Mostly, my point here is, I hope someday I get over it. Get over my Christian resentment, discomfort, and general skittishness. I have Christian friends - good ones, by both words - but I knew them before and during my conversion. It's new people that get my dander up. It's not attractive, as personality traits go, even if it does seem to be fairly common. So this post is about changing that over the years.
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
Said secretary has the Christian rock turned up, and every single piece of personal paraphanelia on her desk involves the word "God" on it somewhere. I just checked.
Does it make me a bad person if I feel really uncomfortable sitting here?
I don't want to be one of those people that throws tantrums and makes everybody else uncomfortable. When I arrived at work two x-mases ago, someone had put up little pictures on everyone's overheads in my department. You know, trees, stars, presents. I had a church. I quietly asked one of my coworkers if I could switch with them, since I wasn't Christian. They cheerfully did, so I had a tree with a star instead of a church. She must've told somebody, because later the Head Decorator came over to me quietly as well, asking urgently if I wanted them to take all the decorations down because they weren't allowed to make anyone feel uncomfortable with holiday stuff.
I told them no, of course not! I love Christmas as much as (and occasionally more than) the next person. I don't care if the little cartoon church is on somebody else's overhead bin. I just don't want it staring down at me on mine.
So, how much of this vague twitchiness is from my stated witchiness? And how much from my upbringing? Would I feel like this if it was a proud Jewish employee's desk I was sitting at? A Muslim's?
I don't think so. I only get uneasy when forcibly confronted with devout Christianity. And I'm not sure how justified that is.
I worry that I'll accidentally pass this on to my (hypothetical) kids, and I really don't want to.
Do I judge people I don't know when I see them wearing a cross? Possibly a little bit, in a "Be careful as you get to know them " kind of way. I know I judge people if they're wearing a cross, jesus earrings, and a giant t-shirt with the Lord's Prayer on it, but I think I get a pass on that because I judge pentacles the size of coasters in a similar way. "Look out, possible Crazy over here". It's like a little neon sign, when someone throws that much of their visual identity into their religious one.
Taun-taun has the same reaction to Orthodox Jewish folks, for much the same reason. Being raised in or tangentially related to a religion that's later rejected seems to have a hyper-sensitizing effect.
Visiting family this weekend, also brought this vague discomfort to the surface. Mind you, this is the family that I like and spend time with on purpose! The parents know I'm pagan, though there's a DADT policy in my family and no one has once asked me about it. I'm under the impression that the older cousins (13, 15) have been told to not talk about it. The younger ones know they aren't supposed to, but will sometimes bring it up around the edges. Quietly bowing my head during grace, for example. "Do you say a different grace?" "Yes." "Oh..." {hopeful pause for more forthcoming} This is the first time the 11-yr-old has been sitting next to me close enough to ask something - though I know he's noticed before. The next night, "I know it probably sounds a lot like evil chanting, but it's just what my family does!" He says it really defensively. {Insert me trying really hard not to laugh} "Oh, I know it's what you guys do. It's ok."
I can't tell if he wants to ask more, or if my discomfort is just that visible.
Also, I'd like to stop and chuckle again for just a second, at my cousin describing his own family's grace as "sounds like evil chanting".
Mostly, my point here is, I hope someday I get over it. Get over my Christian resentment, discomfort, and general skittishness. I have Christian friends - good ones, by both words - but I knew them before and during my conversion. It's new people that get my dander up. It's not attractive, as personality traits go, even if it does seem to be fairly common. So this post is about changing that over the years.
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
Monday, August 30, 2010
Monday Morning Rant: Too Many Beautiful Snowflakes
Ok, does anyone else ever run into this and get super irritated, or is this just a personal community pet peeve? As I understand it, in more 'mainstream' cultures, people often strive to meet some idea of 'normal'. I only have limited experience though.
Now, as soon as you hit the pagan, goth, indie music, hippie, nerd, and geek areas of America, you get the exact opposite. People striving to be seen as different, unique, or weird as possible. Notice the modifier "seen as". Some of them are more successful at it than others, admittedly. But these statements and phrases drive me out of my goddamn mind.
"Oh, my taste in music is really weird, you won't like it" (Please. Stop. I'm begging you.)
"I'm a mysterious person. No one knows anything about me, I'm just hard to figure out." (Well, I already know you're pretentious, shall we stop there?)
"Oh, I'm a total weirdo. Everyone says so!" (They're just being nice, dear.)
//insert offended comment/glare when someone else is pointed out as weird// "I'm stranger than that!", etc. (Well, you certainly want to be.)
Has anyone else noticed that these hard-core "I'm so strange" protesters aren't really as strange as all that? Now, I've met some weird people, both affable and ...potentially dangerous...and the one thing they had in common was a total inability to realize they didn't fit all that well into groups.
Weird is not going dancing in the rain (not in these here parts, anyway). Weird is actually trying to stab your boyfriend when he puts on a knife-proof vest and dares you to test it.
Weird is not music from other cultures. Weird is believing there is a demon gateway in your brain and you must be friends forever with certain pretty girls to keep it from eating the world.
Weird is not wearing cat-ears. Weird is emailing people you just met with "YOU ARE MY TRUE FAMILY AND WE WILL ALWAYS BE TOGETHER" .
Attention-seeking behavior is never weird, just obnoxious. Behavior that constantly garners attention, but you don't know why, probably means you're weird.
I don't think I ever offended anyone unintentionally more than when I suggested using his ipod on a car trip, and brushed off "Oh, you'll never like it, it's full of too much weird stuff" with "You haven't met Darla, now her music is weird. I'm sure we'll love yours!" This sort of comment apparently means "You are a boring, ordinary person. "
In Darla's case, I've never met anyone else, including my grandparents, who loves 20's, 30's and 40's top hits quite as much as her. But then, she also makes her own hoop skirts. There's a lot about her to love. :)
Back to the pet peeve. I won't pretend I wasn't a bit guilty of this at one point, but as soon as I realized how obnoxious it is, I tried very hard to knock it off. I think I know where some of it comes from, though.
Everybody wants to belong to a group. It's a human thing. In the case of the above named sub-cultures, one of the defining characteristics of those groups is not fitting in to the mainstream. Literally, being off-kilter means you belong . To the kind of insecure, self-conscious person who worries about it, anyway.
Groups made up entirely of misfits totally don't have any problems with being insecure or self-conscious, right? Right?
Ok, maybe I should cut people some slack. And it sort of makes sense that if being weird means you belong, and you really want to belong, than the weirder you are, the more you deserve to be there, right? I mean, in a subconscious kinda reasoning way.
More than half of my irritation comes from my total inability to gently point out to people that this habit is A) obnoxious and B) absolutely transparent. I generally end up not saying anything at all, and slowly grinding my teeth to points.
I'm not really that strange or startling, just another white chick from the suburbs, with a crappy office job and a fairly entertaining social life. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
So: how to tell someone something bothers you? Does anyone know how to gently tell someone, "Would you please chill out? We like you much better when you're not trying to prove something." If I could just master that, this pet peeve would probably go away. But honestly, it just seems mean - here's this person who's already insecure enough already, without having someone come down on them with "Knock it off, no one is THAT unique." And by the time I want to say something, that's pretty much the gentlest wording that comes to mind.
Also, does anyone know a good remedy for a bitten tongue? :P
Slack returning in 3...2...1...and go.
Blessed be!
Pennanti
Now, as soon as you hit the pagan, goth, indie music, hippie, nerd, and geek areas of America, you get the exact opposite. People striving to be seen as different, unique, or weird as possible. Notice the modifier "seen as". Some of them are more successful at it than others, admittedly. But these statements and phrases drive me out of my goddamn mind.
"Oh, my taste in music is really weird, you won't like it" (Please. Stop. I'm begging you.)
"I'm a mysterious person. No one knows anything about me, I'm just hard to figure out." (Well, I already know you're pretentious, shall we stop there?)
"Oh, I'm a total weirdo. Everyone says so!" (They're just being nice, dear.)
//insert offended comment/glare when someone else is pointed out as weird// "I'm stranger than that!", etc. (Well, you certainly want to be.)
Has anyone else noticed that these hard-core "I'm so strange" protesters aren't really as strange as all that? Now, I've met some weird people, both affable and ...potentially dangerous...and the one thing they had in common was a total inability to realize they didn't fit all that well into groups.
Weird is not going dancing in the rain (not in these here parts, anyway). Weird is actually trying to stab your boyfriend when he puts on a knife-proof vest and dares you to test it.
Weird is not music from other cultures. Weird is believing there is a demon gateway in your brain and you must be friends forever with certain pretty girls to keep it from eating the world.
Weird is not wearing cat-ears. Weird is emailing people you just met with "YOU ARE MY TRUE FAMILY AND WE WILL ALWAYS BE TOGETHER" .
Attention-seeking behavior is never weird, just obnoxious. Behavior that constantly garners attention, but you don't know why, probably means you're weird.
I don't think I ever offended anyone unintentionally more than when I suggested using his ipod on a car trip, and brushed off "Oh, you'll never like it, it's full of too much weird stuff" with "You haven't met Darla, now her music is weird. I'm sure we'll love yours!" This sort of comment apparently means "You are a boring, ordinary person. "
In Darla's case, I've never met anyone else, including my grandparents, who loves 20's, 30's and 40's top hits quite as much as her. But then, she also makes her own hoop skirts. There's a lot about her to love. :)
Back to the pet peeve. I won't pretend I wasn't a bit guilty of this at one point, but as soon as I realized how obnoxious it is, I tried very hard to knock it off. I think I know where some of it comes from, though.
Everybody wants to belong to a group. It's a human thing. In the case of the above named sub-cultures, one of the defining characteristics of those groups is not fitting in to the mainstream. Literally, being off-kilter means you belong . To the kind of insecure, self-conscious person who worries about it, anyway.
Groups made up entirely of misfits totally don't have any problems with being insecure or self-conscious, right? Right?
Ok, maybe I should cut people some slack. And it sort of makes sense that if being weird means you belong, and you really want to belong, than the weirder you are, the more you deserve to be there, right? I mean, in a subconscious kinda reasoning way.
More than half of my irritation comes from my total inability to gently point out to people that this habit is A) obnoxious and B) absolutely transparent. I generally end up not saying anything at all, and slowly grinding my teeth to points.
I'm not really that strange or startling, just another white chick from the suburbs, with a crappy office job and a fairly entertaining social life. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
So: how to tell someone something bothers you? Does anyone know how to gently tell someone, "Would you please chill out? We like you much better when you're not trying to prove something." If I could just master that, this pet peeve would probably go away. But honestly, it just seems mean - here's this person who's already insecure enough already, without having someone come down on them with "Knock it off, no one is THAT unique." And by the time I want to say something, that's pretty much the gentlest wording that comes to mind.
Also, does anyone know a good remedy for a bitten tongue? :P
Slack returning in 3...2...1...and go.
Blessed be!
Pennanti
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Broom Closet Issues - Discuss
Is there a single pagan out there who doesn't have a evangelical Christian somewhere in their family, that either keeps them in them broom closet for years, or creates some on-earth hell to pay once the Big Reveal occurs?
My husband comes to mind, but then, he's got in-laws now.
Given the ubiquitousness of the issue, the level of the dialogue on it always kind of surprises me. We've got two major types of journalism on it:
1) How to handle The Conversation(s). Tips include calmness, talking points like An' Harm It None, a few basic bullet-pointed articles to "leave around the house", etc, and how to end a conversation fairly quickly without telling Related So-and-So that it's their hell, they can go burn in it. Everyone reading this knows what I'm talking about - it comes front-loaded in every Barnes and Nobles pagan book ever . The first one I ever read was the intro to Teen Witch, Silver Ravenwolf.
2) The personal story. We've all read these too - people who got thrown out, or didn't, and fights, conversations, the few family members who didn't knee-jerk, the explosive results of the one who did. Where The Conversation articles are focused outwardly, with generic advice of various degrees of helpfulness, the Personal Story is deeply personal - inward turned, cathartically based, and...frequently focused on how much worse it was for the author than everybody else. Ouch. They're sympathetic, but only up to a certain point.
I literally can't count the number of times the Personal Story, as a conversation among pagans, has turned into a pissing match. It's a badge of pagan cred for some people, which I just find bizarre .
Now, fairly obviously, this article is inspired by my own recent encounter. My Grandmother (last one to know, and just found out less than 6 months ago, prior to my hand-fasting) has apparently taken the inestimable words of Sarah Palin to heart, and has decided to reload rather than retreat. Which brought all sorts of things to the surface - namely, this gap in the pagan community where Christian family is involved. We've got the initial conversation, and guidelines on how to peacefully handle subsequent ugly conversations (boils down to A - yell until you get thrown out or B - leave.) What about the aftermath?
Those days afterwards, where I'm boiling and stewing. It doesn't matter if I handled the actual conversation fairly well (I did), or what it was about (lets not go there) - there's literally days of recovery, where I'm angry, and blind, and there's just poison seeping through my veins that I'm not sure how to get rid of.
I can't be the only pagan who feels like this after talking to Auntie Jesus.
Why isn't there more advice out there on how to calm the hell down after you did (or didn't do) the mature, adult thing? Now, all those cathartic personal stories come pretty much directly out of this phase - hell, I'm trying not to write one right now - but they don't really help anyone but the writer. They trend directly into triumphant defiance, "Well, I'm still pagan, and they can't stop me!", which is good for the end of the week, but...
I'm looking for understanding here. Some phase in between gearing up and coming down: "Yeah. This sucks. We've been there. And it's never going to go away, but you'll manage anyway. Try ice cream." Because we've all been there, and we don't want to talk about. It's painful. It hurts, worse than a breakup, to have these people you've known and loved since you were a little proto-pagan turn on you. Or maybe stand silently by while someone you've never liked or loved does the same. Of course most of the stories on it are so deeply personal - who could stay rational in the face of something like that?
The people who got thrown out completely don't exactly have it easy either - it doesn't matter how long it's been, there's always something that pulls you back in after a few years. Even once they've numbed out the rejection, someone gets sick. Or loses their job. Needs support, and then someone is navigating the treacherous waters of how far to trust that they aren't letting themselves in for another round of hate and bile by offering that support.
So how do you handle it? How do you get back to some kind of equilibrium, or peace? Now personally, for me it boils down to either exercise, or alcohol. Last night I picked exercise. Alcohol will probably feature in this weekend somewhere. I could do a ritual, but it smacks a little too much of teenaged defiance to be effective, personally.
As I said, I can't be the only person who finds the three days after talking to Cousin Born-Again full of anger and imbalance.
And the holiday season is coming. First Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and New Year's, and Easter. I haven't been able to hit November without an ulcer in years , totally unrelated to being pagan and definitely related to family, and I really can't afford to have a three month hangover this year. I have a grown-up job now.
A little help here, please?
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
My husband comes to mind, but then, he's got in-laws now.
Given the ubiquitousness of the issue, the level of the dialogue on it always kind of surprises me. We've got two major types of journalism on it:
1) How to handle The Conversation(s). Tips include calmness, talking points like An' Harm It None, a few basic bullet-pointed articles to "leave around the house", etc, and how to end a conversation fairly quickly without telling Related So-and-So that it's their hell, they can go burn in it. Everyone reading this knows what I'm talking about - it comes front-loaded in every Barnes and Nobles pagan book ever . The first one I ever read was the intro to Teen Witch, Silver Ravenwolf.
2) The personal story. We've all read these too - people who got thrown out, or didn't, and fights, conversations, the few family members who didn't knee-jerk, the explosive results of the one who did. Where The Conversation articles are focused outwardly, with generic advice of various degrees of helpfulness, the Personal Story is deeply personal - inward turned, cathartically based, and...frequently focused on how much worse it was for the author than everybody else. Ouch. They're sympathetic, but only up to a certain point.
I literally can't count the number of times the Personal Story, as a conversation among pagans, has turned into a pissing match. It's a badge of pagan cred for some people, which I just find bizarre .
Now, fairly obviously, this article is inspired by my own recent encounter. My Grandmother (last one to know, and just found out less than 6 months ago, prior to my hand-fasting) has apparently taken the inestimable words of Sarah Palin to heart, and has decided to reload rather than retreat. Which brought all sorts of things to the surface - namely, this gap in the pagan community where Christian family is involved. We've got the initial conversation, and guidelines on how to peacefully handle subsequent ugly conversations (boils down to A - yell until you get thrown out or B - leave.) What about the aftermath?
Those days afterwards, where I'm boiling and stewing. It doesn't matter if I handled the actual conversation fairly well (I did), or what it was about (lets not go there) - there's literally days of recovery, where I'm angry, and blind, and there's just poison seeping through my veins that I'm not sure how to get rid of.
I can't be the only pagan who feels like this after talking to Auntie Jesus.
Why isn't there more advice out there on how to calm the hell down after you did (or didn't do) the mature, adult thing? Now, all those cathartic personal stories come pretty much directly out of this phase - hell, I'm trying not to write one right now - but they don't really help anyone but the writer. They trend directly into triumphant defiance, "Well, I'm still pagan, and they can't stop me!", which is good for the end of the week, but...
I'm looking for understanding here. Some phase in between gearing up and coming down: "Yeah. This sucks. We've been there. And it's never going to go away, but you'll manage anyway. Try ice cream." Because we've all been there, and we don't want to talk about. It's painful. It hurts, worse than a breakup, to have these people you've known and loved since you were a little proto-pagan turn on you. Or maybe stand silently by while someone you've never liked or loved does the same. Of course most of the stories on it are so deeply personal - who could stay rational in the face of something like that?
The people who got thrown out completely don't exactly have it easy either - it doesn't matter how long it's been, there's always something that pulls you back in after a few years. Even once they've numbed out the rejection, someone gets sick. Or loses their job. Needs support, and then someone is navigating the treacherous waters of how far to trust that they aren't letting themselves in for another round of hate and bile by offering that support.
So how do you handle it? How do you get back to some kind of equilibrium, or peace? Now personally, for me it boils down to either exercise, or alcohol. Last night I picked exercise. Alcohol will probably feature in this weekend somewhere. I could do a ritual, but it smacks a little too much of teenaged defiance to be effective, personally.
As I said, I can't be the only person who finds the three days after talking to Cousin Born-Again full of anger and imbalance.
And the holiday season is coming. First Thanksgiving, then Christmas, and New Year's, and Easter. I haven't been able to hit November without an ulcer in years , totally unrelated to being pagan and definitely related to family, and I really can't afford to have a three month hangover this year. I have a grown-up job now.
A little help here, please?
Blessed Be,
Pennanti
Monday, August 23, 2010
Monday Morning Rant: I was walking across my bedroom, in June 2000, when I found myself. I didn't even have to go to Tibet!
Pagan Parents on the edge started this unintentionally with Fate and Freewill. It was sparked by the mention of the concept of someone's True Nature.
I think it can be widely accepted that while there's a growing contingent of little pagans growing up raised in their parents' faith*, most pagans 'found' paganism as they grew up, and moved to it away from what they had been raised in.
It stands to reason from there that most pagans were and/or are questioners, people who are seeking answers in and outside of themselves, on any number of topics, and go seeking answers.
That's the logical part. In my personal experience, almost every pagan I know went through a period of "trying to find myself", and some of them still are. It easily degrades into a discussion of your True self vs. the image you show the world, and what's real, and what isn't, and I've killed many a night until dawn on the various topicii**.
So I thought I'd take a minute to explain why both "trying to find yourself" as a phrase and the false assumed dichotomy between your True Self and your Public Self drives me absolutely insane.
When somebody says that an action wasn't really them, or they don't know who they are, or they haven't found themselves yet, I just want to ask -
Who else could you be?
I went through the fairly standard teenage identity crisis, though my father told me I went through it a bit early. Somewhere between 12 and 14, for the most part. I agonized over masks, and representations. I struggled with depression, anxiety, emptiness on the inside. I felt lost, and alienated, and pretty much everyone reading this knows exactly what I mean, which is something I take comfort in. It's nice to be understood.
Isn't that what being a teenager is about? Struggling with your identity? The more I struggled with it, the more lost I felt. I was by turns nice to my parents, or surly. A flirt at school, or a tomboy. Media sells the idea that you're supposed to be consistent, and that definitely made everything seem even more important. Who was I? And through this, I found faith in the Goddess leading me to peace (because she loved me no matter who I was, so it didn't matter much, see?) And I prayed, meditated, had insomnia. Until an answer unexpectedly found me.
It was like the thought inserted itself, that it didn't actually come from me. It was so sudden, so alien. I wasn't even consciously meditating - it arose from the anxiety program running silently in the background, mulling over things to be anxious about even as I went about my routine. (You all know what I'm talking about, right?)
Who else could you be?
This came loaded with overtones and subtle innuendos, but the overarching meaning was - you can't be anyone else. You are only yourself. Always. The truth of your actions and your thoughts and your feelings is the sum total of your being. Things might not be as they appear, but how they appear is an intrinsic part of it. Regardless, "I don't know who I am" is an empty statement, better described as "I don't know who I want to be", and possibly including "I don't want to face who I am right now".
Hard on the heels of this thought came the notion that I was a whiny, sleep-deprived, self-absorbed person, by all accounts and purposes for the last year or so. Also that all the pretense in the world that I knew what I was doing wasn't even fooling myself, let alone anybody else. So that was a starting point - self-absorbed I could live with. Whiny, definitely not. Some changes needed to be made.
You are what you think, what you do, how you act. That's who you are. There's no secret, much better person somewhere inside everyone, that's not really like that. And the world would be a much better place if people would just face up to that. It would also have less hypocrites.
As an end point to the rant, I'm aware that this doesn't have anything to do with the actual podcast topic that started it. It's just the phrase True Nature that gets me. And for people who aren't necessarily ashamed so much as confused - I wish they'd stop getting confused about not having a whole picture. Sure, you're lost. If someone handed you a map, you'd have no idea where you were on it. But you can see a gas station, and there's a cross roads, so make a decision, and eventually, you'll know where you are. At which point, you can figure out where you want to be. But if you just stand there, wailing, "I'm Lost!" well...you're not getting anywhere, are you?
Ok, rant complete, slack returning in 3, 2, 1...and go.
Blessed Be!
Pennanti
(The hardest thing about this post is writing in second person as little as possible. But I know it annoys the hell out of me when other bloggers do that - "you do this, and you do that" - it always puts me on the defensive as a reader, and I end up irritated and entirely missing the point, which is that the blogger was generalizing a behavior I probably recognize. Reading back through, there's still too much 2nd person, and no one would even believe how much I cut out.)
*(or spirituality or whatever, we can do a whole thing on terminology at a later date. Please take "faith" as "whatever you do in that direction"
**(Not a word. Totally should be!)
I think it can be widely accepted that while there's a growing contingent of little pagans growing up raised in their parents' faith*, most pagans 'found' paganism as they grew up, and moved to it away from what they had been raised in.
It stands to reason from there that most pagans were and/or are questioners, people who are seeking answers in and outside of themselves, on any number of topics, and go seeking answers.
That's the logical part. In my personal experience, almost every pagan I know went through a period of "trying to find myself", and some of them still are. It easily degrades into a discussion of your True self vs. the image you show the world, and what's real, and what isn't, and I've killed many a night until dawn on the various topicii**.
So I thought I'd take a minute to explain why both "trying to find yourself" as a phrase and the false assumed dichotomy between your True Self and your Public Self drives me absolutely insane.
When somebody says that an action wasn't really them, or they don't know who they are, or they haven't found themselves yet, I just want to ask -
Who else could you be?
I went through the fairly standard teenage identity crisis, though my father told me I went through it a bit early. Somewhere between 12 and 14, for the most part. I agonized over masks, and representations. I struggled with depression, anxiety, emptiness on the inside. I felt lost, and alienated, and pretty much everyone reading this knows exactly what I mean, which is something I take comfort in. It's nice to be understood.
Isn't that what being a teenager is about? Struggling with your identity? The more I struggled with it, the more lost I felt. I was by turns nice to my parents, or surly. A flirt at school, or a tomboy. Media sells the idea that you're supposed to be consistent, and that definitely made everything seem even more important. Who was I? And through this, I found faith in the Goddess leading me to peace (because she loved me no matter who I was, so it didn't matter much, see?) And I prayed, meditated, had insomnia. Until an answer unexpectedly found me.
It was like the thought inserted itself, that it didn't actually come from me. It was so sudden, so alien. I wasn't even consciously meditating - it arose from the anxiety program running silently in the background, mulling over things to be anxious about even as I went about my routine. (You all know what I'm talking about, right?)
Who else could you be?
This came loaded with overtones and subtle innuendos, but the overarching meaning was - you can't be anyone else. You are only yourself. Always. The truth of your actions and your thoughts and your feelings is the sum total of your being. Things might not be as they appear, but how they appear is an intrinsic part of it. Regardless, "I don't know who I am" is an empty statement, better described as "I don't know who I want to be", and possibly including "I don't want to face who I am right now".
Hard on the heels of this thought came the notion that I was a whiny, sleep-deprived, self-absorbed person, by all accounts and purposes for the last year or so. Also that all the pretense in the world that I knew what I was doing wasn't even fooling myself, let alone anybody else. So that was a starting point - self-absorbed I could live with. Whiny, definitely not. Some changes needed to be made.
You are what you think, what you do, how you act. That's who you are. There's no secret, much better person somewhere inside everyone, that's not really like that. And the world would be a much better place if people would just face up to that. It would also have less hypocrites.
As an end point to the rant, I'm aware that this doesn't have anything to do with the actual podcast topic that started it. It's just the phrase True Nature that gets me. And for people who aren't necessarily ashamed so much as confused - I wish they'd stop getting confused about not having a whole picture. Sure, you're lost. If someone handed you a map, you'd have no idea where you were on it. But you can see a gas station, and there's a cross roads, so make a decision, and eventually, you'll know where you are. At which point, you can figure out where you want to be. But if you just stand there, wailing, "I'm Lost!" well...you're not getting anywhere, are you?
Ok, rant complete, slack returning in 3, 2, 1...and go.
Blessed Be!
Pennanti
(The hardest thing about this post is writing in second person as little as possible. But I know it annoys the hell out of me when other bloggers do that - "you do this, and you do that" - it always puts me on the defensive as a reader, and I end up irritated and entirely missing the point, which is that the blogger was generalizing a behavior I probably recognize. Reading back through, there's still too much 2nd person, and no one would even believe how much I cut out.)
*(or spirituality or whatever, we can do a whole thing on terminology at a later date. Please take "faith" as "whatever you do in that direction"
**(Not a word. Totally should be!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)