One-trance pony

Chas Clifton recently blogged about a change in the big-ticket events at pagan festivals he attends. They used to do large, participatory rituals. Nowadays, that pattern has apparently shifted, at least in his neck of the woods, to rites involving multiple priests and priestesses "drawing down" an aspect of the Wiccan Goddess and people either waiting for their turn to come in a circle or filing into a tent where the aspect's carrier is ensconced, in both cases for very brief consultations. I freely admit I have all but no experience with Wiccan rites aside from being a very occasional attendee of same. At the same time, I've been studying trance possession for the last three years and know people who've been at it for far longer. My background has left me a bit bemused by this usage of the talent.

I've both attended and been involved in rituals that contained trance possession and involved larger groups. I've attended a Hrafnar-run seidh ritual, in which the seidhkona will often embody deities from more than one tradition during the course of the evening depending on who's asking the questions as well as reaching out to speak with any requested dead person. I was one of three women selected to carry Brigid for a public ritual attended by over 200 people. But in neither case were the trancing individuals set up as a private oracle in a tent. I know of a different seidh group where something similar to that is done, but even then, we're not talking about long lines and ten-second visits. I grant you, the Brigid ritual included what we called the "rock star" routine in rehearsal. The three of us performed rapid greetings to everyone who we could reach in our thirds of the space. But greetings are not consultations.

What can you get in a few short seconds from an aspected deity? A fortune cookie quip? Is it so difficult to get in touch with the numinous that people have to stand in line to get a brush with it? And is there real community in a ritual where you only get a group vibe going long enough to allow the drawing down to happen, then you stand and wait until your turn is up and either leave for the next event or watch until everyone else is done before it's closed? The Christian churches know the value of audience participation. Are there Wiccans who are forgetting? If so, I feel sorry for them. If Wicca is a religion where all are priests, this shifts the power structure outside of that approach and into a system of priests and congregation. That brings it closer to the Christianity so many people within Wicca left behind. That would only reinforce the suspicion many outside Wicca hold that the more modern versions of it are Christianity minus the rules and with a Mommy Goddess Who doesn't do more than give hairpats and consolation. And truly, I don't know of many deities Who would easily tolerate being treated like a divine ATM for long. The ramifications are many, I fear, unless my distance on the issue is introducting mistaken impressions.

Finds and fantasias

I don't know if this find is going to pan out the way the initial talk about it is going, but I have to say the first wave of chatter about the remains of what may have been an ancient astronomical observatory being found in the Amazon has been interesting. I love finds that turn assumptions on their heads.

At the same time, my cynical side is flirting with the notion of taking bets on how long it'll be before someone hypothesizes the Druids either went to or came from Brazil. The second most likely claim will be that some of the Atlanteans escaped north while the rest went south, thus the parallel observatory situation. Before you claim none of us are that stupid, it's my understanding that Diana Paxson's deliberately fabricated names for Freyja's chariot-pulling cats in a novel Paxson wrote have since been taken for ancient lore.

And of course, if this first wave of hypothesis doesn't pan out, we'll hear far less about the debunking and still have to deal with the "Amazonian Druid" contingency. I suppose it won't be much worse than having to face the AD&D crowd.

Irony, thy name is blog commenters

While not qualifying as a right-winger in American terms, I do tend to poke my nose into that zone of the blogosphere at times. I find it helps me get a variety of perspectives I would otherwise lack. Most of my friends are very left-of-center while I seem to float amongst the classifications depending on which topic is under discussion (albeit leftward-biased for the most part). This habit of mine has led me to discover the latest tempest in a titanium PowerBook known as Jerome Armstrong's admission he's dabbled in astrology.

To establish my perspective, I'm not much of an astrology type. I'm a fan of Rob Brezny's weekly column for the writing at least as much as I am for the times he's managed to pinpoint the issues I'm facing in a given week. He misses as well as hits, but he's a good read in any case. I'll let people cast my natal chart, and that has led to some interesting coincidences being mentioned along the way. I'm a Mercury retrograde Doubting Thomasina, something I get accused of being by true believers because I was born during such a phase. Independent observation says I'm better at communicating during retrograde periods, but that could easily be because I'm just paying more attention during those phases so I can act as an example. Some would call me a bad druid for this stance. The way I see it, if I'm going to play with oracular divination, I should do it in a system that doesn't force me to conform to an elemental system I don't work with anywhere else. Tarot and ogam-casting are far more my speed unless and until someone comes up with an astrological system that doesn't use the Greek elemental patterns or Robert Graves' fantasias.

All that said, I've done a fair bit of exploration in astrology to come to that conclusion, starting back when I was 13 and dipping in off and on ever since to keep my memory fresh on the basics. I know the newspaper forecasts are so vague as to be impossible because they're attempting one-step forecasts for people with thousands of variables in their charts that cannot be accounted for in the space provided. So when I see some of the commentary on Armstrong's revelation, I know I'm seeing people who have no idea what they're talking about. Opining that it's evil because their Dominican teacher told them so. Citing the Bible, which both condemns fortune-telling and grants a pack of astrologers access to the Divine made flesh, starts to sound as ludicrous as the claim that Sun opposite Jupiter retrograde in my natal chart is why I can't save money but always have enough to get by does to the disbelievers. And the people who base their derision on the newspaper columns are the finest examples of the breed. It's like assuming you know enough about Darfur from watching a report on Angelina Jolie's latest visit there.

It's perfectly possible to dismiss astrology as hokum after studying it for a while. Assuming it's hokum from seeing the sloppiest form of it is rather like assuming all Christians are evil because of people like Pat Robertson. Or that all pagans are crazy because of Kevin Carlyon or the drunks at Stonehenge. And these commenters are quite sure they're being sane. I think I'd rather take my chances with the newspaper astrologers.

Administrivia

I've edited my post announcing the CR FAQ to make sure my level of contribution to it is made clear. The Internet equivalent of telephone tag seems to be affecting how I put it the first time (in brief, contributor does not equal co-author, and trust me, I'm plenty aware of the difference).

I've also updated the blogroll to account for the passing of two retired blogs (Right Wing of the Gods and Phoenix's Nest), dropped a blog that shifted focus and so shifted away from reading mine (the former Following Flidhais), and removed with a moment of mourning the fine Myth and Culture blog that had been the home of Maggie Caray before her sudden passing back in April. The Sacred Grove is now Cypress Nemeton (and would you please fix my listing in your blogroll, Fiacherry, as it is not merely Red Raven?). The link section has been updated to include the FAQ and drop Ord Brighideach due to my having resigned from it in order to pursue other Brigidine interests.

Big Announcement

Because I looked in the wrong places first, I found out I can actually announce the release of the Celtic Reconstructionism FAQ. I was one of the eight people who did a bit of blood-sweating (admittedly not as much as others) over that, and it's good to see it wrapped up and live. People have wanted a CR 101 book for years. You may consider this to be it, at least for now. There will be a hardcopy edition sold via Lulu.com in the near future. And since Manannán mac Lir has been considered to be one of the major movers amongst our gods to get this tradition off the ground, we chose this day to do it. I can only hope he is pleased with the results of our labors.

ETA: Since Jason Pitzl-Waters' choice of words about my relationship to this in his blog post might mislead some people into thinking I'm claiming more than I should about it, I want to note that the primary co-authors are Erynn Rowan Laurie, Kathryn nicDhàna, Chris Vermeers, and Kym nì Dhoireann. The rules of UPG I posted here a few months ago are included, and I wrote some or most of a few of the answers as well as inserting bits here and there in several others and acting as one of the "some people" in the answers where variations in patterns amongst CRs are noted. That last position was held by pretty much everyone on the project at some point, of course.

Happy Rent Day!

No announcement as of yet, but I wanted to make note of my reference to Rent Day. It's not the formal name for it, but St. John's Day is the day that the Isle of Man traditionally pays rent to Manannán mac Lir for the use of the island. Said rent is paid in rushes, sometimes interpreted as yellow flag irises.

Usually, I take today and go to the ocean so I can give Him some yellow flowers and beer. But I just performed a ritual this morning, dedicating someone to Him for a year and a day the way I was six months ago. I think I may be entitled to do elsewise today. Like recover from the long hours involved.

Not going away

I wanted to make sure to note that I'm still planning on posting here. I'm having a busy June, though, and that will culminate in both semi-private achievements and a public announcement I'm very much looking forward to making. But more on that around Rent Day/Midsummer/St. John's Day.

A question of pain and belief

I don't normally get theological in this blog, but I'm feeling motivated today. I ran across an atheist whose argument for their stance was, in part, "No deity worth its salt would allow its believers to suffer. If they don't intervene during situations involving abuse, they're not worthy of respect and probably don't exist." To say I disagree would be the polite way of phrasing my attitude toward that concept.

Yes, the gods have power. There's a certain amount of responsibility that goes with it. But claiming that the gods have to make sure their followers aren't attacked or abused or they don't exist is like arguing your parents have to make sure you don't get harassed in school or they don't love you. On some levels, it starts to sound like, "Your parents didn't buy you a pony? Well, they couldn't possibly be real parents. You must have made them up."

It also carries, from my perspective, a very odd mental relationship to free will. If we are able to choose as we will, there are times when the choices will cause another pain. And this world, for good and ill, is constructed to permit people to do just that. Is it tragic that people are hurt due to this? Yes. Is it proof the gods don't exist? Not to me. The same system that permits someone to choose to cause pain also allows us to choose to heal. To be kind. To love. If pain is eliminated, I can't see how we as people will grow. The system of the three cauldrons described in the Cauldron of Poesy discusses how sorrow and suffering help turn the inner cauldrons so they may be filled, granting understanding and wisdom to the person who applies themselves to do so. If life is all kittens and cotton candy, the cauldrons cannot turn but partway. Joy turns them as well as pain. And before anyone asks, I am a survivor of multiple kinds of abuse, so I am not speaking as someone whose biggest complaint about her parents would be the aforementioned pony. I have material to move my cauldrons and to spare.

Of course, I'm arguing as a polytheist, but I really don't see where in any statements about the three-omni god of the Judeo-Christian matrix where he's in on any sort of contract to keep his people's lives free of pain, either. It only seems to exist in the minds of some atheists and lightly committed theists who are stunned to realize belief isn't a golden ticket to Wonkaville.

Does this mean I never question when I don't get what I ask for? Surely you jest. I threatened the gods with ritual deprivation if they didn't pony up the job I'm currently in, and they came through on deadline down a vector I wasn't actively pursuing. And I was well and truly angry when I did that. I wasn't just yanking their chains in hopes they'd respond like good little puppets. I know the gods don't play that way. I have too much evidence to expect them to. Oddly, it doesn't cause me to disbelieve. Maybe it's because I know I'm working with entities whose final goals are unknown to me. Moreover, they have preferences, distastes, and a far different perspective than I do.

I am not arguing that I am but a child to their parental brilliance, as many monotheists would. I argue that the power structure is more complex. They need me, as they need all believers and even some unknowing non-believers, to help them do what they want to do. In return, they help all of us who ask properly to do what we want to do provided the two sets of goals don't stand in active conflict. It's closer to negotiating with aliens than attempting to be a child to a set of inscrutable parents. But I never forget the aliens have bigger guns. I sometimes remind them that I'm the one who has to help pull the trigger, though. Neither side can get too cocky.

Another semi-personal reminder post

I don't have time to go into this now, but the concept of how to engage cultures within their own context and recognizing the difficulty of being 21st-century Americans dealing with the writings in early Christian Ireland and similar areas is attempting to turn into a blog post in my head. I'm a bit too distracted with a science fiction convention right now or I'd launch into it.

Gone to the Otherworld

Leigh Ann Hussey, musician, bard, actress, and pagan liturgist, died last night in a motorcycle accident. She was 44 years old.

Magical Acts Ritual Theater, an offshoot of her work in the Oak Line of NROOGD, has a memorial page posted here.

Personally, I knew her more by reputation than direct contact, but she was a friendly and energetic woman. Bright, talkative, and extremely talented in many ways. She will be deeply missed in the San Francisco Bay Area pagan, music, science fiction and filk communities as well as anywhere she touched lives.

What is remembered, lives.

Reality check for the matriarchalists?

Stone Age Britain was hardly a haven for horse-riding patriarchal steppes-dwellers, so I guess this report of violent deaths amongst the people living there at the time must have all been ritual sacrifices. Or faked by the patriarchy in an attempt to use science to hide the truth about the Universal Mother. I'm beyond caring, frankly. Anyone who believes that claiming the lie of the prehistoric matriarchy is so important to their myth they treat it as reality is as bad as a young Earth creationist to my mind. Just as illogical, just as disproven, just as fundamentalist.

It's all about the PR

Terry Jones, who came to international fame as part of Monty Python's Flying Circus, has turned his hand to historical studies these days. His most recent is of especially keen interest to Celtic Reconstructionists and other European-focused pagans, as he has worked to put the lie to the notion that the Celts (as well as other non-Roman civilizations) were uncouth idiots. The book about this, Barbarians, has been released in the UK with a television series to follow on BBC 2; one can only hope both will land on US shores very soon. This excerpt from the article he wrote about it for the BBC is a faint taste:

The Romans kept the Barbarians at bay for as long as they could, but finally they were engulfed and the savage hordes overran the empire, destroying the cultural achievements of centuries. The light of reason and civilisation was almost snuffed out by the Barbarians, who annihilated everything that the Romans had put in place, sacking Rome itself and consigning Europe to the Dark Ages. The Barbarians brought only chaos and ignorance, until the renaissance rekindled the fires of Roman learning and art.

It is a familiar story, and it’s codswallop.

I expect Mr. Jones to handle the material with scholarly attention as well as a touch of the sort of humor you'd expect from a man who once played a Hammond organ in the nude for laughs.

Growing up can be a good thing

CR used to be a tradition where arguments would split friendships irrevocably. One such led to the formation of the Imbas mailing list from the ashes of a debate on Nemeton-L. I joined the online CR community shortly after that, as memory serves. Since then, I've seen multiple iterations of arguments about everything from clergy within our tradition to three realms vs. four elements, the placement of the sacred cities, and on up to the latest row about male flametenders for Brigid.

The difference with the last argument is that nobody felt the need to flounce out of the forum it happened in to start their own little fiefdom. There are two different groups doing Brigid order building now, but that's a positive thing to my mind. There is a need for diversity if a tradition is to flourish. I've argued we're a living tradition and not an attempt to build a replica of a dead past before. That sort of thing only proves it to me.

The unfortunate truth is not everyone grows up. I've seen people who think it's 1991 in CR and they can act any way they please, only to be shocked to learn their tricks are getting so overused a five-year-old can see them coming. That sort causes schism and continues to do so. I'm at the point where if someone wants to encourage the children, they should sit at that table and quit acting like they're being grownups.

We still have our issues, blatant acts of denial, and petty gamesmanships. But I'm so relieved it's possible to sit down in even an electronic forum and not worry the next words out of my mouth are going to lead to yet another irrevocable blowup.

Why it's lore, not holy writ

It's a good thing Celtic Reconstructionists know better than to take every word written by the monks who wrote about pagan Ireland seriously. Otherwise, we'd have to buy into this segment from The Life of Adamnan and ask ourselves some odd questions:

Cumalach was a name for women till Adamnan come to free them. And this was the cumalach, a woman for whom a hole was dug at the end of the door so that it came over her nakedness. The end of the great spit was placed upon her till the cooking of the portion was ended. After she had come out of that earth-pit she had to dip a candle four man's hands in length in a plate of butter or lard; that candle to be on her palm until division of food and distribution of liquor and making of beds, in the houses of kings and cheiftains, had ended. That women had no share in bag or in basket, nor in the company of the house-master; but she dwelt in a hut outside the enclosure, lest bane from sea or land should come to her chief.

But it's easy when it's obviously propaganda and not the subtler workings, such as some of the odd encodings in the myths. I still wonder if anyone who wants to recreate the "real" old ways will ever be caught taking this one seriously.

Oh, yeah, right...

Yesterday was my blog's first anniversary. Go me for getting there.

And one of these days, I'm moving this to my own domain. Blogspot's been eating older comments I've received. That is not nice. The setup's been done, I have bookmarks telling me how to migrate from this to Wordpress, and the rest is spare time and choosing to apply it. Heh.

Why I don't resent the Christians so much, one in a series

Philobiblon provides a discussion of part of the impact of the pre-Christian Roman invasion of Celtic Britain in What the Romans did TO us (i.e. women). Say what you will about the Roman Catholic Church's attitude toward women, they saved female babies from being treated as disposable. Besides, nobody's yet proven that any Christians performed mass slaughters of Druids (hint: when you see an Irish saint's life story, treat it as propaganda, not historical fact). The Isle of Mona massacre was not run by a bunch of priests.

And in yet another moment of modern innovation for me, I refuse to let history tell me how to react to Nova Romans. I prefer a more balanced perspective on modern times.

The point and purpose?

I've argued in the past about certain elements of the hagiography of St. Patrick that demonstrate a political intent on the part of its writers. In a far more comprehensive fashion, Lisa Bitel argued for similar approaches to St. Brigit's hagiography in her essay, St. Brigit of Ireland: From Virgin Saint to Fertility Goddess. The timeline of her life story's development and the historical context are a fascinating bit of perspective into what so many of us base our beliefs upon as modern pagans. Some might argue Bitel's perspective is a bit too focused on the idea that the pre-Christian gods of Ireland were closer to a literary invention than legitimate gods, but I'd suggest they keep in mind that to those Christian writers, those gods were not as real as they are to us. Cultural context means so much in all of this.

The darker side of CR

I've been logically aware of the fact Celtic Reconstructionism is not perfect for the entire time I've been involved with it. I came in as an adult, after all. I know when you put human beings into the mix, you'll wind up with problems. But a recent conversation showed me exactly where we as a tradition are facing severe growing pains.

Many if not most of the people reading this blog are probably aware of the modern orders, both Christian and pagan, who watch over Brigid's flame. From the nuns in the saint's abbey in Kildare to the Daughters of the Flame and Ord Brigideach, the fire that was re-lit in Ireland now burns around the world. I myself am a member of OB and keep a 20-day vigil cycle.

One thing none of the currently extant organizations are is CR. OB and DotF are more generi-pagan. OB has a clear policy of accepting Christians (I can't speak for DotF). This attempt to be all things to all Brigid worshippers leads to a lack of common liturgy and in some respects, a sense of community in the membership in my experience. Others are quite happy there, but I've been backing away from it very slowly aside from lighting the candle when I'm supposed to.

Noises started being made not so long ago about putting together a CR order to keep the flame. Liturgy would be designed, flames distributed to the 19 members, and so forth. This first one is being designed to be all-female in keeping with the pattern established with, at least, the nuns of Kildare. Intellectual honesty compels me to note that there's no hard evidence of the practice starting before the Christians showed up. Nobody's about to ask the nuns to let them do a complex archaeological dig where they have to, say, put their vegetable garden.

Personally speaking, I don't do well in all-female groups unless it's a small social circle of a temporary nature. "Women's space" feels wrong to me, even if only via e-mail. I'm very much female. I just prefer mixed company. So I would not be able to participate in that all-women's CR Brigidine order for long before it got to me. My husband was wanting something similar, so he broached the idea of a gender-blind flamekeeping order in a public space.

I wish I could frame some of the objections in a civil manner. I can't. They weren't civil, even if politely phrased. I don't mean the people who dislike the idea but are willing to admit they aren't Brigid's police force. I might be a bit sad about those, but I'm the last person to expect everyone to agree about how to handle the lore. I mean the ones who started making sweeping pronouncements about how men should never honor Her in that fashion and should be happy with alternate approaches regardless of the call they feel. The fact the nuns of Kildare give the flame to all comers was dismissed as a modern innovation by Roman Catholics who weren't in touch with the real truth behind the ritual.

That's the dark side. The orthodoxy of the convert. Forgetting when it's convenient that we're not working with a set of static images from a dead culture. If an innovation by members of a living Celtic culture is forbidden to members of CR because it contradicts older material, not just something that makes someone uncomfortable but an influence that must be ignored by all right-thinking people, we should stop lying about being willing to engage the modern cultures and make like the Society for Creative Anachronism clone we get accused of being.

Be vewy, vewy quiet...

Humorous twist on the title aside, I'm going to risk being politically incorrect and speak out in favor of Daven and the others I'm aware of who are essaying bunny hunts in pagan fora. Why? Many of the same reasons he cites. Misinformation hurts our image as a valid set of religions. Argue how a bad start can lead to good development all you want, but if that's your response to the hunters, riddle me this. How else are the clueless newbies going to get past the first phase of stupidity? Random flailing, the way the rest of us did? How fair is that? So long as the "hunting" is done with respect, I don't see where the problem is.

We have experienced people in multiple paths, from my own Celtic Reconstructionism to Wicca, Asatru and more, who are able to ease the transition of the uninformed and misinformed to at least disagree with them on a more educated basis. Insisting they should be left alone to stew in their ignorance out of some misinterpretation of kindness is patently ridiculous.

Sloppy studies

I know I'm a bit late to the party in discussing the latest attempt to see if prayer conforms to the scientific method. I still feel like chiming in.

Here's my beef with it. You're talking about attempting to apply the scientific method, which works splendidly for non-sentient forces like gravity, onto a sentient, independently operating entity. It's like attempting to predict humans. You can get autonomic and reflex behaviors pretty well down, but when it comes to the softer stuff, like emotions and whether you can get your neighbor to feed your cat, there are variables science can't eliminate. The will of a deity to act like a performing seal has to be even slipperier than black ice. Frankly, if I were a god and knew those prayers were being done purely in the name of proving my existence, I'd have a bit of fun with it so long as the results didn't mess with the broader picture. And I rather doubt the Christians' god is above such behaviors himself. I respect him as much as I do any god I don't have direct allegiance to. I just find that most gods I deal with like to have their occasional joke. I've seen no evidence that Jehovah's any different. He's just as slaved to the web of nature as the rest of us, too.

The only way I think any prayer studies will ever be trustworthy is if they manage to find a situation in which the targeted deity is required to answer. I don't think that's going to happen.