When you've been doing something for six months, and everyone around you has only been doing it for five, that makes you the elder.
Gods help us all.
That was the situation back in the early days of Paganistan. At the time, most of us hadn't been doing this for very long, but the fact that we'd been doing it longer than anyone else made us the de facto elders of the community.
Incredibly enough, the community survived anyway. It not only survived, but flourished.
You learn fast when you have to. When people around you expect you to be wise, it's surprising how wise you can actually be.
Well, sometimes.
It may well be that you yourself are in this same position: a premature elder in a young community.
There has always been something about the Wiccan Rede that has bothered me, and I've finally figured out what it is.
The Wiccan Rede, for those new to the community or coming into Atheopaganism from atheist/skeptic circles, is the only widely (though far from universally) adopted moral precept in the Pagan community. It reads: "An (if) it harm none, do what thou wilt."
For thousands of years, since the very advent of human existence, there has been an evolving trajectory of religious history in Western societies.
The story passes from the earliest animism and ancestor worship to the rise of belief in gods, the consolidation of authoritarian power under monotheisms, and the complete domination of Western societies by Christianity. It continues through the Enlightenment, the steady gains of science shattering the cosmological monopoly of the Abrahamic monotheisms, the increasing tension between orthodoxy and individuality splintering these monotheisms into thousands of sects, and finally, most recently, to the rise of the Nones: those who describe themselves as having no religious affiliation at all, which is well established in most of the rest of the developed world and advancing quickly in the United States.
Just like other religious communities, Pagans experience births and deaths, pains and joys — the full range of human experience. Every week at Cherry Hill Seminary we hear comments like these:
A Priestess, a minister, and a fat white woman walk into a bar…? Nope, it’s not a joke, it is merely I, Catharine Clarenbach, one of the newer bloggers to come onto Witches & Pagans. I have been blogging elsewhere, as well as at my own site (see below), and I welcome the chance to interact with you her at "Deep to on High."
Another Pagan takes a look at the concept of cultural appropriation and how it applies to our community. BBI Media CEO and Witches&Pagans Magazine editor-in-chief Anne Newkirk Niven talks about the future of Pagan publishing. And a journalist checks in with one of Eurasia's indigenous Pagan peoples. It's Watery Wednesday, our segment on news about the Pagan community. All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!
Erin Lale
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When I was very young we had some candles that were white with thin coats of colored wax on the outside. I think it was in the late 60's early 70's t...
