So I’ve been mulling over the power of names, as of late, spurred in part by Feoh’s thoughtful post on titles and namedropping, and also on this one on July for Loki by Reading Heathenism. Naming, titles, and trads: what’s in a name, anyway? I agree with Feoh’s assessment that some people like to drop all their names and titles for bragging rights, which is silly, because even if it's not bragging, I think some people only need so much information at a time. I do a lot of local work, and many of the people who interact with me don’t know that I am a godspouse, and that’s because it’s too much information about me for what they need of me at the time. If I’m giving pastoral counseling to someone locally who is having food insufficiency issues, “godspouse” is not relevant to their interests – where they can find food for their next meal is far more important than all the background things on me. To me, that’s not being secretive or the like – that’s focusing on the task at hand.
And yet, perhaps giving the Work a name is akin to accepting that Work, for some people? In some ways our blog web handles are craft names of a sort, particularly if it’s a spiritually-oriented blog. And then there’s how you name your trad or practice: Are you a Heathen? A Hellenic? A Norse Pagan? Eclectic Pagan? A witch? Because I’m not really interested in the label per se – to me a label is more for others than for me – when I tell someone I’m a Norse Pagan, it’s usually someone who isn’t that familiar with the Norse Pantheon, and usually they’re Pagan or Paganish, and that’s descriptive enough for them. Someone who’s not Pagan at all gets a different name, and usually that’s just “Pagan.” Witch is probably more specific, but non-Pagans often think witch means something that it doesn’t, because of monotheistic bullshit misinformation. And again, if I’m giving pastoral counseling to someone whose teenager is on suicide watch, I’m not interested in teaching them what “witch” really means – I want to connect them with the local crisis unit so that the teen can be stabilized and the family can receive more comprehensive counseling and services. If at some point those people come back and realize that a Pagan/Norse Witch/Lokean helped them, awesome, but it’s not my primary concern.
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