Hearth & Horn

https://shaunaaura.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/how-do-we-pay-for-all-this-memberships-tithing-and-pagans/

I come back to this post pretty often, because I think it's important in multiple ways - but not necessarily agreeing with the author's conclusion.

I really, *really* resent the amount of money in paganism. I understand why - I understand that we don't have the infrastructure of a paid-for clergy that "big" religions have. But that's our strength, not our weakness: with the money comes a lot of hierarchical/bureaucratic/greed-driven bullshit.

If our community is centered around paid-for classes at £50 a go then in practice, this means I cannot participate. Our local community has a £5 monthly donation to pay for room, and while I don't resent this, it's still a barrier. We don't earn enough to pay £10 for room plus £5 for parking once a month.

And then when I encounter this online, paid-for long courses on various topics (I've come across three in the last week) - it leaves a sour taste in my mouth too. I am passionate about open internet culture. I learnt my paganism from websites freely shared in the 1990s.

As a teacher, as a librarian, I'm somewhat astonished by the sheer number of people saying "As a teacher, it's essential to pay teachers better". That is not where my path has led me. As a teacher, as a librarian, I am all about sharing knowledge for free, books for free, tuition for free, university for free, information for free. There should never be a cost barrier, period. Make it all free. People will say: but what about the expenses of the teachers? What about paying authors? And while I get it, I also just can't relate. I am profoundly moved by the cause of free information, and feel very strongly about this as a higher priority than the wellbeing/wage of information providers.

The part of her post which really speaks to me is the "buy in". Yes. This is essential, and this is kinda why I advocate for "no/less money in paganism" rather than "money, but distributed differently".

I'm very into anarchist societies and mutual aid. One of the incredible things about attending Extinction Rebellion events is the generosity; the number of things just being distributed for free. Food. Clothes. Time. Artwork. It is exchange, but without money as a mediator. People take things they need and distribute things they do not. By the third day of the October Rebellion I had gained, and lost again, like eight different tents. Giving them to people in need, knowing that when I was in need someone else would provide one for me. Being in these spaces kind of blows your mind, because it's so alien to what you're used to. And beautiful. One day, I was at a sit in and we realised it was going to go on for a while. Someone said - we need a Wellbeing team here. So we created one, the four of us, on the spot. I DIY'd blue Wellbeing sashes. And then, I set up a kitchen - which was me, sat on the floor, accumulating donations from people which others then took. A passer by bought us a tray of vegan coffees. Local shops sent us refills of hot water. Until you're part of a dynamic like this, it's hard to understand how it can work. Burning Man does the same thing: there is no money. So, you go up to a "cafe" where you are given food for free. And every year, thousands of volunteers create bars, cafes, restaurants, water stations, where they work for free to give away resources for free. Blows your mind. I've never been, but apparently they added one cafe at the information desk where you can spend money on coffee, and they did this because it can be so bizzare to be in this new environment that getting to pay for something can actually be quite comforting.

So yeah. The problem with money - any amount of it - is that it changes the dynamic. From two people working together, to a creator/provider and a consumer. A similar idea I found recently talked about how fandom has changed, as the internet infrastructure has changed. From communities, to Content Creators/Content Consumers. So, for example, the difference between a forum like the Cauldron - where everyone is a member participating in a conversation. And where the pagan community is at now, which is high profile bloggers who are good at producing content (tutorials...engaging Instagram images...engaging tumblr posts), and a myriad of followers who have a relationship to the *provider* but not to *one another*. And usually, the provider does not have a relationship back to them - they're just a follower number, not a co-participant. And, in fact, I think my expectation that when I initiate a conversation with a High Profile Blogger, they should reply, is in contemporary internet etiquette seen as rather rude and invasive and demanding. Like, they don't owe me anything, including time. Which is fair. But...I'm looking for that old school community, that old school communication with peers. So when I comment, I do expect a reply; I expect to be treated like a human in conversation with another human, not a client or customer who is to be dealt with, or treated as a resource of some kind.The idea that, in this blogger dynamic, my role is to consume the content, praise the creator, and then spend money or reblog the content to others - rather than to form any kind of relationship with the creator. Everything is mediated through the personal brand of this one creator.

(and an example which particularly annoys me in a hobby community I'm in: one high profile blogger has a facebook community for a certain rank of their patreon. In other words, this blogger doesn't grow the community, or participate in the community as an equal, but sells access to their time and hives off participants into a space isolated from others. Or anyone who contributes for free while building up thei brand/identity, but then immediately paywalls their content)

So "buy in" can have multiple forms, but specifically giving everyone meaningful jobs, and making it feel like a space whose values and goals are being co-created.

And I feel like we're so used to what commerce feels like, you can't create a mutual space where money is involved. Because then we apply our pattern, our pattern of "buying an object or service", rather than being in the kind of value mindset which makes community.

When you gift things for free, people are compelled to say thank you for free in return. Examples in my family from just last week - my dad gifted away his old lawnmower, only to find a bottle of wine on his doorstep. It's natural to wish to repay people, when we see labour done for free.

There are two strands in leftie thought and I'm sympathetic to both of them. One is: more people should be paid more money. Including, say, Wages for Housework: the idea that women's everyday labour is real work, and thus should be valued as real work, and recompensed as such. A blogger I admire calls herself "the unit of caring", as in, money is the unity we can use to express what we care about and value. I like that concept. I don't like capitalism, but that's got a beauty to it.

The other strand is about moneyless society: a lot of anarchist thought is like this. Encouraging people to share objects, resources, and time freely to reduce our dependence on money and, more importantly, to reduce our odd & destructive views we have around the economy (like, the idea that unproductive people should not have any resources. Or the idea that full employment is desirable. Coronavirus is making it pretty clear just how many jobs aren't really needed, and that perhaps sustenance without pointless labour is a good goal to aspire to). Anarchist ideas include, tool libraries - no one buys new tools, you borrow them instead, and that also saves on manufacturing pollution because most tools are not used very often. Or, seedshares - noone needs all the seeds in the packet, so give away what you cannot use. And so forth.

Both have value. The "more money for everyone" approach is essential under our current system, in which money is required for living. But the no-money anarchist model is better, in my opinion, because it starts dismantling things about money which we believe are objectively true, but are actually just conventions or traditions.

When I think about moneyless pagan communities, I imagine the task of bringing food to a ritual. I imagine a very put-upon person resenting that they have to do this. In fact, one time I went to an open ritual where the leader deliberately arrived an hour late, because he resented no one else put any work in. The *last* time I went to an open ritual. This person feels like their labour is being both compelled, and devalued. But the second person is someone who chooses to bring food to the ritual, because they value the outcome this action: they want people to be fed, they want the ritual to go well. That's the difference, I think. The second person is experiencing co-creation: she feels invested in the ritual, and responsible for doing her part. I think the second dynamic leads to better communities.

Like, Shauna is 100% correct about this emotion of "I could go to a class but I won't bother". IMO, that's the consumer mindset in action, and it betrays a lack of investment in community wellbeing. You're not part of the community, or, you don't feel responsible for it, or you don't feel like a participant/co-creator. My experience of moneyless spaces is that you really do need to take cash out of the equation entirely, to get the emotional/psychological transformation to take place.

"I feel compelled to teach (but resentful no one pays me)" is very human, but it's also a self-centered mindset. It's all very well for people with a pagan vocation to think that real training and real clergy is important, but I'm going to hazard a guess that no one else gives a damn. Paganism isn't like that. We are all our own priest, and the people attracted to paganism tend to be people who are into that dynamic. I think a lot about going to a pagan semenary or taking classes in, say, counselling to upskill my ability to serve as priest. But is anyone else going to pay for that? Is anyone in the area really feeling the lack of well-trained pagan clergy? I'm thinking probably not. It would be satisfying for my personal development, that is all.