Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth
In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
Does a Building Have a Spirit?
In the wake of the epidemic of arson and property destruction that accompanied the first George Floyd protests in Minneapolis—currently estimated at some $26 million dollars worth—we've heard numerous voices raised to justify (or at least soft-pedal) such destruction.
People are more important than buildings, they say.
But I'm a pagan and, because I'm a pagan—as the ancestors did—I think that (in effect) buildings are people, too.
Now, the notion that a building could be a person falls pretty far outside the general overcultural definition of what a “person” is, so (without committing myself to metaphysical specifics) let me rephrase the question: Does a building have a spirit?
Speaking experientially, I suspect that most of us would answer: Yes.
This has implications.
Note that I'm not necessarily talking here about “spirit” in the sense of something separable from physical reality; what I mean here is a matter of integrity-within-self, of (as it were) “being-hood” or “self-ness.”
In this sense, as pagans, we recognize personhood in non-human beings as well.
Animals are people. Plants are people. Rivers are people. Mountains are people.
Looking at Received Tradition, we see that made beings are also considered to have spirit: think of the swords and spears wielded by the heroes of epic, for example. Would anyone, anywhere, actually contend that, for example, Stonehenge does not have a spirit?
(Note that I am not contending here that Stonehenge is a building. Stone circles are their own boundary-busting category of architecture: both built and not built, inside and outside. That's what's makes them places of between-ness.)
As those who recognize the person-hood of non-human persons, this does not mean that, for instance, pagans need to starve ourselves to death because plants and animals are people, too. Recognizing the personhood of others does not mean that we owe the same degree of responsibility to all persons.
But it does mean that we have responsibilities here, and that harvesting and slaughtering need to be accomplished in a sacred way.
That's why, in pagan societies, the raising and razing of buildings are rightfully accompanied by ceremony.
As pagans, our greatest gods-given responsibilities are always necessarily toward other human beings.
But that's not to say that we have no responsibilities toward everyone else.
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