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24 March 2019 16:19I'm moving soon, and I'm going to make linking up with real life community my top priority.
I still have a lot of messed up feelings about this.
But what I think I want to focus on is unglamorous work. I am desperate for community, and I have a pretty good idea of what that should look like; and I can help best by contributing the gaps.
I wrote a long whine which got deleted, but one thing ive observed abour contemporary craft vs most historic spirit and religious traditions is. This is a specialist job that exists in context of a community. The neopagan idea thst all people are innately magical and have their own power and a meritocratic access to whatever they like if they work hard enough ia super reflective of our culture. So while we call back to the Greeks or the Celts or borrow bits from Native Americans and African Diaspora Faiths, we also combine them with our contemporary philosophy even though the bits...just don't fit.
Fwiw I'm a lot more comfortable with egalitarian non-hierarchical magic; but the sources we draw from, the sources we emulate, and even real-world religions don't have this as a norm. We have no clergy and no people - we have only priests and the powerful, selling to one another. If to be a priest ia to serve both the spirits and community as a kind of bridge, then that kind of work isn't possible without a community.
What I mean is - I just did my annual reading a bunch about vodou blitz -and to be made houngan or mambo is a decision made jointly by the spirits and by the community. You can't be a solitary voduisant, the community is integral. So there's structure, and it's collective - rhe whole community collectively recognises someone as a priest, but also recognises the role of the other 498 participants as laypeople. Whereas, we're too fragmented to have spiritual roles which carry thst kind of weight. Anyone can self initiate anyway, and anyone claiming the kind of spiritual authority would be a big red flag. And the people who are interested in Paganism, our people, our group, all have equal access to power; our non-powerful followers are, in truth, rhe non Pagan locals around us. Who aren't really...Our people.
I'm still not sure how to balance out both my anti-orthodoxy, anti-authoritarian preferences, with my desire for a functional real world magic community. And maybe that's what special abour pagan things, in thst we are all participants and no one just stands and watches.
But what I can do, I think, is to try and be a "joiner", and look for essential non-glamorous community roles i can take: babysitting, washing dishes, showing up. Finding a way to be a lay participant in religion, which isn't inherently disempoweting or making one vulnerable. If I sense the problem is too many people claiming centre stage, then my contribution could be finding a way to explicity claim a supporting role. In a conscious way.
(We are not short of people who can read cards. Didnuou know in vodou, rhe ability to read cards is a secret only conferred after several initiations. It'sc not something everyone can do, or everyone expects to do. Aside from the power imbalance inherent there, what it does is build interconnectedness: a reason to speak to others. And it's not a straightforwardly capitalistic relationship either, because thst right has been in some way conferred by the people visiting you.
This is kinda mental! But also *really* nice.)
So yeah, I think I can do my part to combat this fear I have abour community & also be the best version of me, by trying to bring in the kind of energy I'd admire in those around me. Being a participant, being a joiner, being supportive of other people's need to be powerful in a way that doesn't make me vulnerable or insecure in my turn, doing the washing up, bringing cookies, clearing up after ritual, and generally coming in with a "how can I serve my community" approach. "How can I participate".
Rather than the kinda, fast-track to power, building of a personal brand, or buffet-table approach to dipping in and out of things as best they serve me. And looking for people & connections, rather than like what i can get out of it?
I think that's the right approach. I think that's the one which helps me act with grace & be the best version of myself I can be, and also the one which makes community-building possible.
I still have a lot of messed up feelings about this.
But what I think I want to focus on is unglamorous work. I am desperate for community, and I have a pretty good idea of what that should look like; and I can help best by contributing the gaps.
I wrote a long whine which got deleted, but one thing ive observed abour contemporary craft vs most historic spirit and religious traditions is. This is a specialist job that exists in context of a community. The neopagan idea thst all people are innately magical and have their own power and a meritocratic access to whatever they like if they work hard enough ia super reflective of our culture. So while we call back to the Greeks or the Celts or borrow bits from Native Americans and African Diaspora Faiths, we also combine them with our contemporary philosophy even though the bits...just don't fit.
Fwiw I'm a lot more comfortable with egalitarian non-hierarchical magic; but the sources we draw from, the sources we emulate, and even real-world religions don't have this as a norm. We have no clergy and no people - we have only priests and the powerful, selling to one another. If to be a priest ia to serve both the spirits and community as a kind of bridge, then that kind of work isn't possible without a community.
What I mean is - I just did my annual reading a bunch about vodou blitz -and to be made houngan or mambo is a decision made jointly by the spirits and by the community. You can't be a solitary voduisant, the community is integral. So there's structure, and it's collective - rhe whole community collectively recognises someone as a priest, but also recognises the role of the other 498 participants as laypeople. Whereas, we're too fragmented to have spiritual roles which carry thst kind of weight. Anyone can self initiate anyway, and anyone claiming the kind of spiritual authority would be a big red flag. And the people who are interested in Paganism, our people, our group, all have equal access to power; our non-powerful followers are, in truth, rhe non Pagan locals around us. Who aren't really...Our people.
I'm still not sure how to balance out both my anti-orthodoxy, anti-authoritarian preferences, with my desire for a functional real world magic community. And maybe that's what special abour pagan things, in thst we are all participants and no one just stands and watches.
But what I can do, I think, is to try and be a "joiner", and look for essential non-glamorous community roles i can take: babysitting, washing dishes, showing up. Finding a way to be a lay participant in religion, which isn't inherently disempoweting or making one vulnerable. If I sense the problem is too many people claiming centre stage, then my contribution could be finding a way to explicity claim a supporting role. In a conscious way.
(We are not short of people who can read cards. Didnuou know in vodou, rhe ability to read cards is a secret only conferred after several initiations. It'sc not something everyone can do, or everyone expects to do. Aside from the power imbalance inherent there, what it does is build interconnectedness: a reason to speak to others. And it's not a straightforwardly capitalistic relationship either, because thst right has been in some way conferred by the people visiting you.
This is kinda mental! But also *really* nice.)
So yeah, I think I can do my part to combat this fear I have abour community & also be the best version of me, by trying to bring in the kind of energy I'd admire in those around me. Being a participant, being a joiner, being supportive of other people's need to be powerful in a way that doesn't make me vulnerable or insecure in my turn, doing the washing up, bringing cookies, clearing up after ritual, and generally coming in with a "how can I serve my community" approach. "How can I participate".
Rather than the kinda, fast-track to power, building of a personal brand, or buffet-table approach to dipping in and out of things as best they serve me. And looking for people & connections, rather than like what i can get out of it?
I think that's the right approach. I think that's the one which helps me act with grace & be the best version of myself I can be, and also the one which makes community-building possible.
