Yvonne Aburrow's Blog, page 78

PAGAN CONSENT CULTURE Anthology Is Available!

How might a Druid understand consent? How about a Wiccan, a Thelemite, a Heathen, or a Polytheist? In PAGAN CONSENT CULTURE, Pagans of many traditions show how to ground good consent practices in Pagan stories, liturgies, and values.

Making Meaning at the Movies

Has Hollywood Become Our National Conscience? Many 21st-century movies—both animated children’s films and big production feature films—have tackled moral and cultural questions in ways that have shaped the public conversation. Is this good and helpful or dangerous? In what ways has Hollywood asked the right questions and shaped the discourse? Can the art of movie-making be an act of social justice?

Should Public Expressions of Religion Be Allowed?

Many secularists have argued that no public expressions of religion should be allowed - no hijabs, no cross pendants, no Easter processions, presumably no Pagan Pride Day, no street preaching (can't say I would miss that one), no nothing. I think this would be completely unworkable.

But What About The Tradition?

Truly traditional Pagans should regard LGBTQIA people as an integral part of society. There should be rituals for same-sex partners. Lesbian poets should be celebrated and their songs recorded for posterity. Gay lovers such as Hadrian and Antinous, or Patroclus and Achilles, or Pausanias of Athens and the poet Agathon, should be widely celebrated for their heroic love. Transgender deities such as Loki and Vertumnus should be celebrated for their changes of gender. Humans such as Tiresias should be celebrated for their exploration of the other gender.

The Gay Roots of the Pagan Revival

It is a little known fact that many of the early pioneers of the Pagan revival in England were gay: Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, who came up with the idea of the League of Nations, was a gay man, and had close connections with the Bloomsbury group, and was a friend of E M Forster and Edward Carpenter, both of whom were gay.

If You Have A Racist Friend

So you have a racist, sexist, homophobic, white supremacist friend. Your racist friend is perfectly affable to you, buys you beers, likes to chat about the football and whatever. But you are white and male and straight, so of course he is nice to you. And he doesn't challenge your world-view, or your assumptions about how the world works, because both you and he are white, straight, and male.

Why We Need Black History Month

Every so often, some ill-informed person opines that we don't need Black History Month, or International Women's Day, or LGBT History Month, or the BET Awards. Sure, we wouldn't need any of them if white privilege, male privilege, and straight privilege didn't exist. But they do exist.

Embodied Spirituality: Compassion

Spirituality - embodied or otherwise - is merely narcissism and self-indulgence when it doesn't involve compassion - literally, feeling with others. I regard embodied spirituality as a sense of mystical connection with the universe and all beings within it. In feeling this sense of connection, we experience compassion for the sufferings of other beings, and empathy with their joys.

Embodied Spirituality: Magical Tools

Tools are levers for affecting the world. You can't tighten a screw without a screwdriver. You need a wooden spoon to stir a pan of soup or stew, otherwise you would burn your fingers. You can cast a magical circle without a sword or a wand - but it feels like a better and more magical circle when it has been cast with the appropriate tool. The subtle energies involved in magic are affected by physical tools in much the same way as denser matter is affected by tools.

Spirits of the Land

I have always liked the description of Paganism as nature religion (however inaccurate and unhelpful that may be). The idea of being connected to Nature was one of the things that drew me towards Paganism. I also really liked the old gods, but woods, mountains, the sea, chalk hills, ancient trackways, burial mounds, stone circles, and liminal places have always attracted me. I think I first tried talking to trees when I was about 12 years old. I get withdrawal symptoms if I don't get out into the countryside regularly. So I also feel the urge to converse with the spirits of the land.