Paganism and Gender: Bold Action, Gracious Passivity, Infinite Diversity

This is a bit of a disjointed post, but I wanted to get my thoughts down while they were floating around!

I've been quite surprised that I'm surrounded by as many heterosexual people in the Pagan community as I was in church. That's great, of course! - but I thought maybe Paganism, with its openness and variety, would attract more of a range of approaches to sexuality (and gender) than Christianity. And of course, to some extent it does. Women are far more evident in leadership in the Pagan community than in the Christian world, where they are still grappling with ideas like the different 'roles' of men and women (which is often code for extreme sexism) and how they relate that to a pluralistic, post-feminist world. There seems to be a fairly good balance of men and women in the Pagan movement (although again, probably more women - but sociological research suggests that true of every spirituality). There's definitely no overt inequality between the genders - not that I've seen, anyway.

I'm a feminist. I'm a gay/bisexual woman in a relationship with another woman. I'm close to someone who is genderqueer. I resist many gender expectations personally - they mainly don't work for me. I teach a course on Gender and Society at a university, so I know what the research really says about gender - sociological, psychological, biological and even linguistic research. I question everything that society accepts about gender. And I really do mean everything.

So when I hear/read about how air is 'masculine' and water is 'feminine', or about how the Ceridwen story is about (heterosexual) sex and fertility, or about how the moon is a goddess and the sun is a god (and so has it ever been and so shall it ever be, which just isn't true), or about how the Divine is expressed through duality of gender in the God and the Goddess, I'm get very uncomfortable. If these beliefs work for people, fine - but they're so far from what I can relate to, that they make me wonder if Paganism can ever really work for me. I usually realise fairly quickly that my path is my own, that I can relate to the Divine in whatever way I want, that I can worship a sun goddess if I feel like it, and that fertility does not have to be a concept that I use in any of my rituals. (And thank gods for that, because I am the least motherly person I know, and I do not plan on expressing fertility in any way in my life, except maybe symbolically in my garden. And my sex life is just fine, thank you, without any need for any reference to fertility - I'm not in the Catholic church, with its expectations of churning out babies!) But I still feel the major pressure of 'having' to think this way, especially when these concepts are subtly or obviously reinforced in the things I'm learning from - courses, for example (mentioning no names of any courses, but you get the idea).

There is nothing necessarily 'natural' about associating caring or motherly tendencies with women. There is nothing necessarily 'natural' about associating heroic or warrior tendencies with men. All these gendered associations, and so many more, are socially constructed. They've been socially constructed for a long time, so we see them as natural (which is called an 'essentialist' approach to gender) - but they are not.* We 'perform' gender every day, and in so doing, we reinforce the expectations associated with it. That's great if you feel comfortable with and empowered by those associations. If you don't, you can feel straitjacketed or even oppressed by those expectations and beliefs - as many transgendered people will tell you. I'm a scholar, and the elements with which I associate most closely are air and fire - the apparently more 'masculine' elements. I have aspects of myself that many would consider feminine, and aspects that many would consider masculine - but I don't really see any of them that way. They're just part of how I express myself and my creativity, intellect, and other qualities. I also strongly dislike being told what women are like and what men are like, because that rarely fits with the way I experience life. I want to be empowered by my own approach to gender, too, just as other people are empowered by theirs. I want to explore the heroic path, despite the irony of that for a disabled scaredy-cat with a strong attachment to home comforts. I also want to explore a warrior's path, despite the irony of my simultaneous commitment to peace, and the fact that I will never have the kind of physical fitness that would normally be associated with that approach. Life is about contradictions, and I'm as diverse as the rest of the universe!

I have someone in my life who is genderqueer, who I'm very close to, and who has taught me a lot about how much variety there is in the way that people see, live and experience gender. This post was inspired by my finally getting to listen to Hyperion's 'Unnamed Path' podcast episode about the protest at PantheaCon against Z Budapest's women-born-women-only ritual (which Fire Lyte and I talked about on his podcast a few months ago). That's a very separate issue, but at the same time, there are related issues there. Some of the statements that came out of that, about trans women actually being men, seemed to me to be rooted in an essentialist view of gender that is oppressive not only for trans people, but also for anyone who does not associate with more traditional views of gender, whether they are genderqueer like my family member, or just highly questioning of gender, like me.

This, by the way, may be a big part of why I don't personally get along with the 'all the goddesses are one goddess' type approach. Polytheism, for me, expresses the vast diversity of life far better than duality. I love that Aine can be seen as a sun goddess, and that the Morrighan is associated with warriors, while Manannán mac Lir is fast becoming my god of contemplation, mystery, mysticism, and other apparently 'passive' qualities that lead to the Divine. I completely adore how much variety of roles and expressions can be associated with Pagan gods. That's just not the case in some spiritualities. Even in mystical/Gnostic Christianity, Sophia seems to be lower than the Divine - in some myths she has to be rescued by Christ, for example.

I didn't realise how much I had spiritually internalised this idea of 'passive' and 'active' roles for women and men, as a result of some of these Christian and cultural myths, until a few years ago. It's something I'm trying to work on, and it's very hard for me - for all my feminist principles, I don't usually actually want to take action. The gods are challenging me on this, and it's really hard. It's going to continue to be really hard. But it's about authenticity, I think. If I hold a belief, e.g. that gender is variety and women are equal with men, how am I actually expressing and living that in my life? How am I living in an active way? And for me, related to that will be accepting the times when I have to be passive and accept help, and learn not to feel disempowered by that. Being disabled means other people are always going to be helping me. If I can graciously learn to accept help from the community, while giving back to it the things that I am able to give, I will be living in more balance and less struggle. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Try having to have your wheelchair pushed by another person, and experience how much you feel out-of-control and utterly reliant on someone else, and then reconsider that!

And through all of this, Brighid is a constant - who is as motherly and hearth-and-home-focused as you can get. I think she sees me as a challenge. There are things she can teach me about gender and living it in my own way, too. It's just a lot more like hard work than my connection with some of the more 'active' goddesses. Fortunately, she's very patient too. And I'm just not going to comment on why that has long been considered a feminine quality, or we'll be here all day!

*There is, of course, some debate around this in sociology. Most sociologists think that the research leans strongly towards the socially constructed approach to gender. I recommend the book Brain Storm for an excellent debunking of much of the biological research that attempts to 'prove' that gender is natural or essential.

Sacrifice?

I'm writing this from bed, after a week during which I got some kind of cold or flu thing, completely lost my voice for a couple of days, and am now feeling just about well enough to hang out drinking tea and taking ginseng (there's more evidence that it might help colds than there is for echinacea, which is a very expensive placebo!)

At the same time, Cat has been writing about sacrifice, and has sparked a lot of debate on the subject. I had been thinking a lot about sacrifice before that, although I hadn't put it into those terms. I don't agree with everything Cat says, but I haven't been able to stop thinking about the subject since, and the debate around it has been fascinating.

In Cat's most recent post on the subject, she asked her readers to reflect on what we give up voluntarily, not through obligation. But in my experience, a lot of sacrifice comes out of the social situation we inhabit. We value that which we don't have much of, and that's about the situation we're in. To give up some of your food to the gods, in a rural, subsistence economy, when you don't know for how long food will be plentiful, and in famine too, is far more of a sacrifice than giving up part of a meal is for us. That's what I imagine our ancestors did as sacrifice. Of course, that's a romanticised notion - they were probably also involved in all sorts of sacrifices that we would find distasteful (archaeological and other evidence suggests they were, although we can't be completely sure). I think that's part of what Nimue is critiquing about the concept of sacrifice. But I don't think there's anything wrong with being inspired by a concept that our ancestors (may have) shared and modifying it to fit with the wisdom we have now - even if that's easily dismissed as romanticism. And it's this idea of contextual sacrifice, of giving voluntarily from within a situation that you didn't choose, that I find the most useful and profound.

I don't believe that this has to mean medieval Christian-style martyrdom. There's a difference between feeling sorry for yourself or feeling that you have to suffer, and willingly working within the constraints that your life imposes. I could pretend that my disability doesn't make my life difficult, as the disability rights movement sometimes goes overboard trying to prove, but it does. There is crap in my life that I rarely talk about. My social context, as a disabled person, means that even blogging and podcasting are sacrifices. There is really very little useful time in my life - when I'm not sick, in pain, needing to rest, or having to do things much more slowly and painfully than I used to - and there's much that I want to accomplish in those little slivers of useful time. So I have to think very carefully before, for example, committing to putting out a podcast episode that takes between 10 and 20 hours of planning, recording and editing time. It means I go without many other things that I'd like to do, and it's a sacrifice. Of course, blogging and podcasting and all those other interesting things I do are a privilege and a joy, too, not just a sacrifice. But it would be dishonest of me to pretend that these things are all about fluffy clouds and dancing in meadows. And more importantly, the struggle is something I'm proud of, not ashamed of. Not always - sometimes I'd much rather hide my differences and pretend everything is great in my life, because of some misguided idea that I'll 'fit in' better that way. But I think something is more valuable if you've worked hard for it. For me, sacrifice is about giving up something that really means something. My time and energy are worth a great deal to me. Other things are much easier for me to give up, but they might be exactly the things that someone else has in short supply - for them, something else is a sacrifice.

I'm thinking of my mum, who managed to get a higher degree despite having two young children and absolutely no time, and who taught me far more about the value of studying for degrees than my Oxford-educated dad who got his degree at 21 when he was living in a posh college and had no distractions. Or my wife, who, when I got very ill six months into our relationship, dealt with it in ways that I never expected from anyone. She's spent many years looking after me, when I don't doubt that other people would have left as soon as things got difficult. At our wedding, she said that "If you can really say 'for poorer - for worse - in sickness', you're with the right person," and made everyone cry. If I went next-door to her study now and asked her if it was a sacrifice, she'd probably laugh at me. Not everyone thinks of these things in the same way. I know how difficult it's been for her, though. These are situations that are partly about the imposition of circumstances, and partly about free choice. For me, the balance between the two is what makes them sacrifices.

I'm uncomfortable with the negativity I often hear from Pagans towards the Christian concept of sacrifice. Unfortunately, I think it's widely misunderstood by non-Christians. The idea that Jesus was some kind of blood sacrifice to appease a tyrannical god is only one, minority way of seeing the Cross. There are other interpretations, some that have more in common with Odin's self-sacrifice on the world tree. In the Gnostic Christian mythos, Jesus willingly sacrifices himself to redeem the fallen Sophia,* redeeming wisdom for humanity. It's a sacrifice myth, like many of the other myths that reflect the incredible sacrifices that are involved in seeking wisdom, as Cat talks about in her post in relation to Jesus and the Buddha. That's the way I see sacrifice, in both a Christian and a Pagan context - life-altering, comfort zone-destroying, Gnosis-seeking. Looking at it that way, most of the time I feel like it's entirely beyond me. I'm far too weak to sacrifice anything serious for Gnosis, or to the gods. I feel guilty all the time that I'm not doing 'enough'. But at the same time, if sacrifice is related to what I have to offer (as I always believed in a Christian context), then my use of my resources is what matters.

I don't say very much here, or anywhere really, about my developing relationship with my gods. I don't get along with the 'archetypes' concept of the gods, and I worry that people will think me silly or naive if I share my own views on deity, so I mostly don't. But the gods are central to my spirituality (and I'm really bored of trying to pretend otherwise). This summer, my gods have been pushing me outside of my comfort zone. Not much, but enough that I feel it. I'm working on facing my fears and doing things I wouldn't of my own accord. This probably wouldn't look like much from the outside - lots of other people would do these things without thinking, and I'm sure they could also think of better things I could be doing. But I have to work with my own resources. That's the only raw material the gods have to work with, if I want them to help me to do things with my life. That's what I sacrifice to them, but it's also a sacrifice to myself. Along the way, they seem to want me to answer my own prayers. I think that's all right with me.

This post took all day to write. I'm left thinking about whether I envy people who can bash out a blog post in an hour and forget about it. Probably, but then I wouldn't have thought about this as deeply as I have. Sacrifice is meaningful even when it arises from circumstances you wouldn't choose - and maybe more so.


*Gnosticism reverses many familiar Christian interpretations - many Gnostics see the snake in the Garden of Eden as an avatar of Sophia, and Eve as a saint who chose wisdom rather than ignorance.

Myths That Bring Down Empires

The Freedom from Religion Foundation recently called on liberal Roman Catholics to leave the church. You're deluded if you think you can change the church from within, they claimed. More than that: when you're a member of an oppressive institution, you need to think about whose side you are on. I have some sympathy with that view.

So EJ Dionne responded with the reasons why he isn't quitting the church. He essentially seems to believe that Jesus taught a message of liberation that the church needs to hear from within. I agree.

Then, over at Meadowsweet and Myrrh, the wonderful Alison Leigh Lilly wrote about her journey away from the Catholic church, before she became a Druid, and how she could no longer live with the structures of a church in which she is considered structurally, cosmically unequal to the men in power (along with many other interesting reasons for leaving - the post is worth reading). There are things I agree with there too.

In short, I'm confused.

I like to think of myself as an aspiring social reformer (although I'm rubbish at it), and I like to think of Jesus as one, too. I also think Jesus would recognise very little that goes on in our churches if he were here to see them now.* I believe, with Dionne, that the Gospel is a call to liberation. While there are many examples of the churches' poor record on social justice, there have also been great examples of those who heard Jesus' liberatory call and put it into action. The Quakers have spoken out against slavery and war for centuries, and it was Catholics who developed the liberation theology which pushed the church in Latin America to put human rights back on their agenda. Those are two examples of individuals and groups who have tried to turn the tanker of Christianity and, to some extent, succeeded. There are many more examples of failure, of course.

When I thought I would be a faithful, church-going Christian forever, and even briefly considered becoming a deacon (a sort of unpaid assistant priest - I've always been ambitious), I was well aware that I would be trying to turn a tanker. I spent ten years in the LGBT Christian movement, believing that my active presence in the church as a gay/bisexual woman (in a stable, committed relationship) was all that was needed for my acceptance. And I've seen that happen. Friends of mine - let's call them Steven and Paul - attended a church for many years where the minister initially believed that same-sex relationships were sinful. That minister recently conducted their wedding. He talked at the ceremony about they had changed his view on same-sex relationships. That kind of change of attitude through personal connection is only possible on a small scale: one person at a time. And yet... that's how I try to change the world. One person at a time.

There is a movement in the churches called emergent Christianity. (I am a little bit in love with Peter Rollins, one of the leaders of the movement.) This movement involves ordinary people re-defining Christian faith and the church. To some extent this movement is happening outside the churches, but it is happening in community. There are also amazing individuals out there who challenge the church in ways that catch society's attention, like Symon Hill (who I met at Greenbelt, an emergent festival). Symon's a lifelong anti-war activist and Quaker who recently walked 160 miles in repentance for his former homophobia. These people are a minority, but I believe they still make a difference. I think they have more effect working as part of, not against, the churches. Christians mostly don't listen to outsiders who critique their positions. They often do listen to other Christians.

So what does this all mean for me? I'm having a definite shift in my thinking at the moment. My spirituality is increasingly becoming more embodied, 'nature'-focused and mystical - it always was to some extent, but that's becoming my main focus now. In the past, I've always been drawn to formal, ritualisitic churches where Communion and the other sacraments are at the centre - this itself is embodied worship. The 'high' Anglican churches have worked well for me, for that reason - their congregations are generally liberal and their worship is formal. But they are slowly dying (it's a long story), and the conservative evangelical wing of the Anglican church is in the ascendancy. The institution of the Church of England is becoming something that I no longer believe I can help to change. That probably wouldn't be the case if I still believed in Christianity in the way I used to, but changes in belief have highlighted the issues I already have with it. I'm now an outsider, and I've already lost my right to speak truth to power in that church as a result.

I don't think I have the right to comment on whether or not liberal Catholics should leave their church. I don't think those who stay are 'enablers', as the Freedom from Religion Foundation put it (although I recognise that there's a debate to be had about that), but I do think it's important that people leave or stay in religions for the right reasons. If they can be committed enough to work towards change, being realistic about the fact that they are a minority without a great deal of influence, then maybe people like the American nuns, the committed liberals, can create this generation's version of liberation theology. Alternatively, maybe in the process of leaving, some of them will become this generation's George Fox, the reformer who left his church to form the Quakers.

In the end, I think it might be all about the mythology. (Isn't everything?) All religious/spiritual outcomes are founded on the myths that underpin your faith. Do you believe Jesus was a conservative or a liberal? (Research suggests you probably believe he was exactly what you are.) I think he was a radical revolutionary, but that's just my interpretation. But whatever it looked like at first, the Jesus myth was strong enough to bring down an empire and build another one. I don't know if the liberal Catholics have myths strong enough to bring down the empire of the pope, but no one would have predicted that a carpenter's son from an insignificant outpost of the Roman Empire would have been able to inspire everything that Christianity has achieved - good and bad.

And these might not always be sacred myths. As I said to Alison Leigh Lilly in response to her post, my spirituality draws on the oddest of mythical sources. I mentioned the final scene of 'Angel', the spin-off series from 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', that to me symbolises speaking truth to power more than any biblical or European ancient myth. (Although a lot of those speak to me of that too!) For a long time I've been trying to find/create a form of spirituality that truly embodies justice, wisdom, support for the oppressed, and a limitless love of life in all its forms, built on a narrative that tells my story. I think I'm getting there, slowly.

Whatever choices I make about my church, I remain committed to the importance of faith and community. I hope that, whether the liberal Catholics leave or stay, they find communities that help them to express their faith and spirituality. One of my core beliefs is that spirituality is formed and developed in community, and that it reflects and impacts on society. I have myths that speak of that, too.

What myths underpin your spiritual path?


*Wow. A non-Christian statement if ever I made one...!

Beltane, Apparently. One Year On...

Well, Cat encouraged me to reflect, so here I am (while avoiding work, too - a double achievement!)

As I said on Twitter this morning, I fail to connect with Beltane. It seems to me that everyone loves this one, while I seem to connect with the less obvious ones (like Imbolc). Admittedly, I'm saying this after only about a year of proper Pagan practice, so I've only 'done' Beltane twice now, and I'm sure I'll come to connect with it later. But right now I'm looking out of the window at a wet, cold landscape, and it doesn't really feel like the beginning of summer. That hardly matters, though. Things are happening out there, and I love my view from the window and across the allotments - I can see birds (LOTS of birds), the neighbourhood cats, and the changes in the land reflected in the little rows of gardens, including mine. In the past couple of weeks I've been delighted to see two herons and a duck hanging around outside my window. I never would have noticed them a year ago.

I started thinking of myself as properly Pagan around Beltane last year, so I suppose I've done a year - although, as I keep saying, I also think of my spiritual journey as an unbroken line, with this as a new but not unexpected stage on the journey. But anyway, it wouldn't be a bad idea to start reflecting on where I am after a year. I keep asking myself what I've achieved. I think it's the wrong question. This is about spiritual process, not reaching levels - no one's going to give me a certificate for any of this. (Except maybe OBOD. Heh.) In my spiritual process this year, I've done everything from learning how to connect with land spirits to working with gods to learning how to do some magic to starting to notice the cycles of the land around me more (with delight). I've started a podcast - part of my life's work of helping other people to tell their stories (see also my PhD!) - and we have seven great episodes so far. I'm connecting with myth and learning to work with altered states of consciousness. I'm really enjoying the OBOD bardic grade, even though I always have an "Aaagh, too New Agey!" moment when I first read about what I'm meant to be doing this month on the course (I always 'come round' to most of it). I'm developing a daily spiritual practice that probably looks nothing like anyone else's, and I wouldn't be happy if it did look like theirs. Big things and little things, although I'm not sure which is which. Things have happened. I've changed. But have I changed 'enough'? I don't honestly feel like I've achieved very much. I don't know if that matters, though.

I'm really struggling with the healing emphasis that I see very strongly around me in the Pagan community. Not because it's a bad thing - it's wonderful. But I have reservations about the way it's approached and talked about by many Pagans. Too many of them don't seem to see the normative ideologies inherent in their philosophies of healing - by which I mean the socially constructed ideas about what is 'normal'. Which, believe it or not, we mainly inherit from Christianity. I've written about this in other places, so I won't go on about it, but why am I mentioning this now? Because I can't go to rituals or spend much time outside or do much 'practice' at the moment - and, as much as I'm working on learning how to be myself more authentically, I still feel almost guilty about that. And yet, when I feel like that, I think I'm still thinking from Christian frameworks. There will not be a heaven and I will not have a perfect body there. I have a different body that reflects the wonderful diversity of life, right now. OK, so right now the rain is causing me screaming-level pain, but that's not always the case. I have to be really creative about how to connect with the world, when other people wouldn't think twice about going for a walk, and I value that. I wouldn't have noticed the duck and herons in my neighbourhood if I was able to wander out into the countryside. But the land is right here, too. I'm not limited. I just have a different perspective from you.

I'm not someone who is going to do a lot of 'achieving' or 'doing' in my life. I'm far better at *being*. This is something I've been trying to accept about myself for a long, long time. Every since I heard the Christian myth of Martha and Mary, which still inspires me. In the tale, Martha is rushing around trying to serve her guests, who include Jesus. Mary, her sister, is sitting with Jesus and listening to him. Martha eventually gets really angry and says to Jesus, "Tell my sister to help me serve the guests." He (essentially) says, "Martha, why are you rushing around trying to *do* all the time? Mary has made a better choice." I think of my little, insignificant activities as Mary-stuff: meditation, or sitting in the garden, or doing little bits of gardening that I can manage, or my daily spiritual practice which has to be fairly short and simple and so has to be meaningful. I could try to force myself to do Martha-stuff, but would I really gain anything? My perspective, as it is, is just as worthwhile as anyone else's.

There's a lot that I still need to reflect on. I haven't figured out how possible it is to mix Christianity with my Pagan path (although the Christianity is refusing to go away). I can't always work out what to do with the OBOD course, when the emphasis of it starts to feel like a different kind of Druidry from what I want to work with (but it's always extremely useful anyway). I don't know what direction to move in next, with my learning and experience (but stuff always starts turning up - like the Druid Animal Oracle I randomly started to work with, and am loving). So, in the coming year, I'm going to start listening to my intuition, my guides and my gods - and screw what everyone else thinks. I am myself, and my journey is mine, and my perspective is always going to be a bit foreign to everyone else. But I can't be authentically myself by worrying about what everyone else thinks all the time.

Happy Beltane! And now I really should go and do some work. I have a PhD to pretend to be doing...! And later on, I will go outside, and share in the mysteries of the land in the little stretch of it behind my house. Even if only briefly. And with painkillers. And wine. :D

Risen? Belief, Myth and Mystery

I think Easter has actually driven me crazy this year. I did not make it to church. I'm abroad, English-speaking churches are hard to find, life is chaotic this week, and other excuses. Instead, early this morning I went to the beach and pondered both Manannan mac Lir and the resurrection myth of Jesus (no connection). And I've just been standing in several inches of water, because I decided that was a necessary spiritual exercise for that moment. (Ah, how happy my younger evangelical self would be about the things I find edifying nowadays.) I have also, if briefly, pondered the Holy Week story during the past few days, helped by Rachel Held Evans' wonderful series of posts on the women in the resurrection story*, featuring no less than three of my saints (the three Marys, who I see as different facets of one Gnostic saint**). But I've also done a bit of meditating on the resurrection story itself. That myth has kept intruding all day, no matter how much I tried to think about other spiritual themes. I even indulged in a fairly awful YouTube version of the gloriously evangelical Easter hymn 'See, What a Morning' a couple of hours ago. Well, we all have our guilty pleasures.

I'm well aware that I talk more here about my struggles to re-invent and re-integrate Christianity into my ever-increasing spirals of spirituality than I do about my Pagan practice (which I actually do a lot more of than Christian stuff). That's probably got a lot to do with Paganism being a comfortable and relatively emotionally uncomplicated thing for me at the moment, whereas Christianity has complications up the wazoo for me. (That's not to say that Paganism always will feel this easy to deal with, especially when I've decided exactly how to conceptualize my new approach(es) to spirituality, who to tell, and how, etc. I'm currently staying with my in-laws, for example, who I would prefer never to find out that one of my spiritual frameworks is Pagan - it's complicated. A large number of my friends don't know yet, because I'm not comfortable telling the world until I'm more settled in what I believe. Amusingly, my parents know, and think it's the best thing ever. That would be my father the Taoist shamanic practitioner and my mother the 'I'm spiritual but not religious and I meditate and do yoga and I like being nice' adorable person. My sister the evangelical Christian, not so much, yet. Why yes, we are a crazy family.) Um, long tangent, sorry. My point is that, being a Gnostic (a reconstructionist spirituality that draws inspiration from the ancient mystical Christians) and increasingly a Pagan, and therefore having less and less in common with the vast majority of Christians, it might be easier if I could just say: You know what? I'm done. I keep trying to, especially in terms of church, but I seem incapable of pulling away altogether. Why? Is it because I'm unhappy giving up an identity that has defined me for so long? Is it about not wanting to give up the privilege and 'passing' that comes with the membership of a majority religion? Is it my ongoing terror of the New Age Movement? (No, really, I have serious Issues with this!) It may be. I'm working through whether any/all of these are true (with a bit of help from sociology). But there's another reason, and it's far, far more powerful.

You see, this myth has far more of a hold on me that I want to admit. There are Gnostic interpretations of the resurrection of Christ, as a metaphor for the soul reaching towards union with the Divine. (The Sophia myth is another one of these - she probably wasn't an actual goddess, for most of the ancient Gnostics, but more of an allegory of the human soul.) I think that's beautiful, and there's certainly power in seeing the Jesus myth like this, as the 'Christ Consciousness' spirituality people do. And yet, on a few days each year, these alternative understandings of the myth are not enough for me. Ultimately, to enter into this myth fully, I have to experience it as the first Christians did - as a reality. It was a crazy, earth-shattering, mind-blowing idea. They clearly doubted it. They also clearly believed it as a reality. Sociologists of the Bible and of Christianity mainly agree that, whatever happened on that Sunday morning, it was something that the early church understood as a real experience. In biblical sociology, we try to suspend disbelief and stop asking 'What happened?', since that's a much less interesting question than 'What did they think happened?' I see Pagans writing this year about how Christians should question whether the Jesus myth is historical. I agree that they should. I also believe that they should simultaneously be allowed to believe it, completely and without reservation. (Getting the balance - that's a tricky one.) It's a myth that was formed out of belief in its absolute truth (although we, as modern scientific folk, are often far removed from a world in which we could believe that way - but the first Christians weren't). Later, the Gnostics took the myth and made it a kind of guide to enlightenment, and that's fantastic too, and much closer to the way I want to understand it most of the time. But for a few days a year, I want to enter into this myth completely, and have it be as true for me as when my goddesses speak to me during a shamanic journey, or when I feel the presence of land spirits in the forest. All these things, by the way, are equally mythical and equally real.

And from a beginning in that moment of complete reality, I move into the greater reality of the myth as an exploration of my slow crawl towards Gnosis (or union with Divine Wisdom). A more mature Christianity? I wouldn't like to dismiss all other Christianities as immature - but for me, maybe. But maturity depends on the lessons learnt in childhood. Wisdom is not about pretending we were never foolish, but partaking in the unbroken journey onwards - a journey that had to have a beginning, or we'd be nowhere now. T. Thorne Coyle just posted the Gandhi quotation, "Life is an indivisible whole."

I've heard that both the Celts and the Gnostics used to say 'yes' in answer to riddles and mysteries. Yes, I say to the mystery today. Let it be myth again tomorrow.

I've seen some beautiful Christian, Pagan and Gnostic-focused reflections this year about Resurrection Sunday and the Christ myth - e.g. here and here and here. (I've also seen the requisite number of 'Zombie Jesus' references and rants from a few Pagans about how Christians either stole their festival or don't understand what a myth is - although, happily, less of this than I expected based on past experience. I thought about writing about these things, and then I realised that none of that was the point. This took me quite some time to realise. I'm really a VERY long way from Gnosis. Maybe one day, eh? ;D I do intend to write at some point about the power that comes with our right to freedom of speech, and whether any of us can use it wisely in the interfaith conversation, but that's for another time.) Anyway, I've been inspired by the articles I've linked to above. All these writers have beautiful and very varied things to say about the power of a highly syncretic myth that drew from Jewish, Pagan and other sources to create a reality-in-myth, a paradox of belief and the mythic and the impossible and the daily reality of existence. The cycles of life and death and life. The victory of Divine Wisdom over disconnectedness and destruction. The triumph of life over death (and yes, even this can be a Pagan-themed idea).

I end with the words I've felt too guilty to proclaim all day, for fear of offending someone. Sod that - it's my fucking blog. Christ is Risen. Hallelujah.


See Mary weeping, "Where is He laid?"
As in sorrow she turns from the empty tomb;
Hears a voice speaking, calling her name...

And we are raised with him,
For he lives, Christ has risen from the dead...

*Warning: she's a Christian, and writes from within that framework. She's also a feminist theologian who looks for the feminine in Christianity. I get a lot of inspiration from her writing.
**Some Gnostic writers, and a few scholars, see the Marys in the gospel stories as different sides of the same figure - avatars of Sophia, harking back to earlier versions of the gospels which retained the Sophia myth as a metaphor of the journey of the soul reaching towards enlightenment. That's not my area of scholarship, so I can't comment on that in detail. That approach makes spiritual sense to me, though. Mary is one of my saints - sometimes one of my goddesses. To me, she is all of these Marys, and Sophia, and more. I personally see echoes of this in the Nag Hammadi, the Gnostic 'alternative' (second century) gospels, where Mary Magdalene is often clearly shown as the leader of the Christian apostles. See here for the references - I don't have the book with me, or I'd cite them properly!

Keeping Going

If anything makes me want to give up spirituality and just have a quiet life consisting of TV and board games, it's complications in life. When I have a routine, it's not so difficult. I can even make myself get up at 6am most mornings to meditate etc, as long as it's a regular thing I can fit into my regular life. Not when things are complicated. Especially not when they're very difficult.

We've just had a very complicated, difficult four weeks (or so) in this family. The Girl's father died on Christmas Day, after a two-and-a-half-year battle with cancer. I joined her in Israel for the shiva - a Jewish tradition where people come to the house of the bereaved for seven days. It is utterly exhausting. I have an autistic spectrum condition - I don't say this as an excuse, but as an explanation - and spending any amount of time with people can be hard work. Constant exposure to people I don't know, in a not-very-accessible house, for twelve hours a day, for seven days, was utterly exhausting. Which is a very 'me me me' response to the situation, but that was how I felt. I'm not going to pretend I'm better than I am, or that I was a fantastic supportive wife and was completely there for my Girl. I am not and I was not. I found it very difficult. The Girl ended up supporting me more than the other way around. She says it was still helpful to have me around. I hope that's true.

If I have to go without praying and meditating for any length of time, my brain tends to explode, under the best of circumstances. Under the worst, it's difficult. I did manage to do some meditating every day, but I missed my rituals so much. (This was actually a good thing to experience. My druidry and other Pagan practices are becoming integrated into my spiritual life, which is great. I want it all to be seamless, though. I'd also like to be less affected by other people's emotions in these kinds of circumstances. I think anyone would be, but I was literally disabled by it for most of the week. I often am. Much to learn.) But I meditated, and my gods were there.

All of that said, I can see the value of something like a shiva. Everyone in the family said they appreciated it while simultaneously hating it. We don't have much in the way of rituals in the post-Christian UK. If you follow a religion (which only applies to a minority of people here), you do what that religion does in relation to death. Western Christianity just sort of stops after the funeral, though. We don't have many traditions associated with bereavement. I feel like ritual around death must be even more lacking for Humanists and atheists, although that's probably a misperception from my lack of understanding of those belief/non-belief contexts. But it seems like there's less and less for the growing 'no religion' group to do around key moments in life. How do Pagan communities meet to celebrate life and remember the dead? I don't mean the long-dead ancestors, I mean people who died last week. Are there funeral structures? I honestly don't know. My wedding was Christian. I wonder what my funeral will be like.

Seasons of Darkness and Light

Over at Broom With A View, AmethJera has written a beautiful post about what the Christian season of Advent has in common with the way many Pagans celebrate this time of year. I feel much the same way, this year.

I've now had almost a year very consciously trying to work out who I am, what I believe, which gods I worship, what I value and where I'm going. I'm a long way from working all that out, but I am learning that my spiritual journey is one unbroken line. This doesn't always mean syncretism - the term 'Christo-Pagan' doesn't fit me very well at the moment - but at times, elements of syncretism can make sense. And this is a time of year when the 'waiting for light' concept is common across many religions. That's no accident, but I don't believe it means any faith has 'stolen' from any other. If anything, we've all influenced each other's beliefs and practices as our faith communities have walked their spiritual paths through the centuries. One well, many rivers.

At this time, the Christian church is waiting for light. They look to the coming of a divine child. They wait for the Son.

At this time, Pagans are waiting for light. Many look to the coming of a Divine Child. They wait for the sun.

Together, and with others of spiritual and religious faiths, we wait.

This year I'm waiting for light in particularly deep darkness. But it will come. 

In my approach to this, we wait for and work towards and co-create a better world, where the balance of dark and light is restored, and where power is less tipped in the direction of destruction (of the earth, her creatures and our fellow human beings) and oppression (of anyone less fortunate than the most fortunate, but especially of the weakest, the easiest targets).

At this dark time, what do you wait for and work for?

Longing for light, we wait in darkness.
Longing for truth, we turn to you...
Christ, be our light,
Shine in our hearts, shine through the darkness...
- Advent hymn