Being a Conscious Consumer- Herbs, Resin, and Oil

There have been a few posts going around lately about the effect new age religions have had on wild sage numbers and that irresponsible consumption of these goods can have a very real impact on the environment. Here are a few easy changes you can make to your own crafting to improve your footprint. This post is long and uses a lot of scientific plant names, so if you want a short and condensed version of this post then check out my tumblr post on the same subject.

Herbs/Woods

Sage- Smoke cleansing has become extremely popular among people with a wide range of beliefs, and has seriously impacted the natural growth of white sage, driving it into near extinction in the wild. If you insist on using sage then you might consider growing your own. Many nurseries offer seedlings only in the spring, but this evergreen can grow all year. Seeds can be purchased easily online, or you can stop by a local community garden center to see if they will give you some for free (many will.) If you have a less than green thumb then you can simply switch sage out for a less destructive herb, like lavender or rosemary.

And, as always, unless you are a Native American or are an active participant in Native American rituals, then these are herb bundles or cleansing sticks, not smudge sticks.

Sandalwood- What differentiates sandalwood from other woods is it’s ability to remain fragrant for years long after being harvested. It has a long and complicated history with many species within the family Santalum that produce “true sandalwood.” Some species are so rare that each individual tree is numbered and tracked by their relative governments in Nepal, Pakistan, and India. S. spicatum, harvested and grown in western Australia, is a good alternative to the endangered S. album and S. ellipticum.  

If using true sandalwood doesn’t matter to you then similar woods can be used as substitutes. Camwood and false sandalwood/sandalbox are similar enough to sandalwood in appearance and aroma to be good replacements. Easy replacements for sandalwood are also orris root and thyme. Due to the status of endangerment in various sandalwood species, any sandwalwood you purchase, whether it’s the wood itself of the essential oil, should come with a species name, if not country of origin as well.

Slippery Elm- The bark of this tree has gained popularity for use in digestive teas and in crafting. However, this tree has started to appear on “at-risk” and “special concern” lists for North America due to increased rarity. Instead of buying bark, opt for collected twigs if possible. Or, if you live in the Eastern US and Canada, try locating a few trees you can harvest from yourself (do check local laws about transportation of wood due to endangerment or spreading of wood boring beetles. This is a very serious issue that’s spreading fast across North America so do be careful if transporting wood over long distances.) If you want an easy replacement for your craft, try using cypress or parsley.

Resin

Frankincense- This resin generally comes from four different tree species in the Boswellia family. Due to over-tapping (to collect the sap for resin), deforestation for agriculture, and beetle infestation, Boswellia numbers are slowly dropping. Ten trees from within the Boswellia family are on the Red List of Threatened Species, and it’s important to remember that this resin is used by almost every major faith, including the big three Abrahamic religions. If, like me, your practice and offerings rely on frankincense then the country and species you get yours from is important. B. sacra is currently the least threatened species that still produces quality aromatherapy grade resin, and comes from Oman and Somalia. Any good seller should know exactly where their frankincense is coming from and what quality it is. Instead of frankincense you can also opt for myrrh, whose fragrance is different but their properties are almost the same. Benzoin is another good replacement.

Copal- Real, true copal is the middle stage between sap and highly valued amber from a variety of trees within the legume family. Due to it’s rarity, real copal is expensive and difficult to find. Though there are many varieties of copal trees, copal from Central America comes from trees in the Bursera family, which grow on neotropical land now considered endangered due to agricultural deforestation. While genuine copal is considered a subfossil, new resin from these trees is still sold on the market under the name “copal,” and still puts a strain on the trees as they lose their habitat. Not only that, but copal should look similar to amber, so any copal that doesn’t meet that description can’t be guaranteed to come from a copal producing tree. Price and appearance are usually good indicators of the resin’s authenticity, but I would skip purchasing copal all together. Pine resin makes an easy and cheap replacement.

Dragons Blood- The sources of this resin, trees from the Dracaena family, appears on the Red List of Threatened Species as vulnerable, and the habitat is considered endangered enough that there are current and active conservation efforts in place to keep it safe. D. cinnabari is one of these species, and is often used for dragons blood resin (as it’s other name is the dragons blood tree.) Instead of using resin from D. cinnabari, try using resin from a less risky source tree, like D. draco, whose numbers are abundant and not on protected lands. If you’re unsure or want to skip using dragons blood, try using myrrh: it has a similar appearance and fragrance.

Benzoin/Styrax- Most sources of this resin are totally safe to use. However if you see a resin listed that is collected from the large leaf snowbell in Indiana, or the bigleaf snowbell in Illinois and Ohio then avoid these resins completely: these species are considered endangered or extirpated in those areas. This resin is used in everything from food to plastic, so it’s widely available from non-endangered sources and quite inexpensive.

Instead of burning these resins, you may opt for similar ones from unendangered species, like myrrh or pine resin. Or, if you’re feeling particularly adventurous, you can go out and collect dried sap from wounded trees. This will not produce the buttery aroma of frankincense, the woodiness of dragons blood, or the warmth of copal, but it will make a good substitution in blends and rituals. You can even mix one of the resins listed above with a simple pine resin to stretch out the quantity so you use less and need to purchase it less often. Styrax/Benzoin resin is also a good substitution, as long as the above information is taken into consideration. If you wanted and had the means, you could also use crystallized maple syrup as a resin (shout out to all you kitchen witches.)

For all of the items listed above this information applies to both the herb/resin as well as their respective essential oils. Any respectable seller should have species name listed with the product on their website, and you should be able to choose which species and origin you get yours from. I hope this information was useful, and if you have anything you’d like to see added to this list then please comment and provide a source that I can use for that information. If you find something that says information conflicting what I’ve written here then please also let me know and give a source as well. I’d like to be able to provide useful and correct information so any assistance would be appreciated.

All substitutions were determined by following similar herb/resin properties in Incense, Oils, and Brews by Scott Cunnhingham. If you disagree with the substitutions listed or think of one that’s more appropriate, please comment as well so others can see and use your ideas. Thank you for reading.

The Banshee

When I was a child, my father used to warn me not to go outside at night, or the banshee that sat upon the street light outside our house might see me. When we moved to the country the concern was witches swooping down from the sky to take me away. For years these were legitimate fears of mine, that one day I’d step out at the wrong time, just to be met with the wailing of a banshee or the silhouette of a witch in the sky moments before my death. As time went by I realized that these were just tricks to try and keep me from wandering the streets or woods at night. Still, those images stayed.

Even now, during casual evening strolls, I look up at lamp posts and the sky. Those images were meant to scare me, but now they comfort me.

Much like the witches and banshees, my father read me stories from Edgar Allen Poe in an attempt to frighten me. Instead I learned to love that sense of fear because it made me feel alive. In those moments, the difference between fear and anxiety was real. Fear was legitimate and often the fault of the person who felt it. Fear was someone doing something wrong and being punished for it by a vengeful spirit, or banshee, or God himself. For both my father and me, fear was what made us Christians. We were good, God fearing people who were afraid that someone was always there, always watching. It wore away at me till there were days I was afraid to bathe because I though God might see me as impure for having removed my clothing.

Coming to terms with that fear took me years. I wondered if everyone heard the scream of a banshee before their death, if everyone felt the burn of God’s words as he cast his final judgement upon them. I feared for the souls of everyone around me, and I feared for my own.

It was that fear, the fear of God, the fear that rules the lives of Catholics, that drove me away. Somehow it felt more real to fear a banshee, for she is just doing what she does. A banshee cannot help her nature. But God can. God. The all-knowing all-powerful singularity that ruled my life, could do anything he wanted. So, why did I need to fear him? I couldn’t accept that the one individual, other than myself, who had control over my life was someone I needed to fear.

Maybe I projected my growing fear of my father onto God? Maybe it was the other way around. In the end, however, my feelings towards both God and my father were the same- I cannot allow myself to be at the mercy of a man whom I fear. So I removed myself from both of them.

I feel the same way I did back then; I shouldn’t fear the people or spirits whom I allow to rule my life. If anyone tries to use fear to control me then I pity them, because how sad it must be to rely only on the fear of others. How pathetic one must be to use fear to manipulate the people around them.

So now, I do not fear the banshee that waits for my dying moment. Instead I will take comfort in her, for she is doing what she is meant to do. Neither will I dread the witch who circles the full moon, because instead of fearing her, I became her.

The downside of godphone

There are days when I feel like I’m suffocating, being crushed under the responsibilities laid down upon me by the deities I worship. Rhea presses me forward, urging me to love and care for a young trans* teen who both she and I have become very fond of. Pan pulls me outside, calling for me to run through the trees under the light of the moon and stars. Then there is Re, my great Lord Father. He’s the only omnipresent force I’ve felt for every moment I’ve been alive, and it’s both a blessing and a misfortune for me that my godphone is strongest with Him.

The hardest part of daily devotionals is that I rarely have the Energy to do them. Refilling the water bowl at my altar is easy enough, but actually sitting down and doing a ritual is hard enough. With Re I have a pretty strong godphone, and where my end is always open, His is almost always closed. Keeping an open godphone is draining, especially when I’m the kind of person who maintains specific and hard barriers. But, it’s not an option. I can’t even imagine how He would react were He to, one day, try and speak to me, only to find that I wasn’t open to His voice.

It’s not a two-way street like it is with Rhea and Pan. I can speak to both of them and they each answer in their own little ways, through warm breezes and flickering candles on most days. With my Lord Father Re, however, it’s silence. He’s only spoken to me a handful of times, and the first time He spoke His voice was so strong it literally knocked me unconscious for hours, though that was an act of desperation on His part.

While I can understand that some people are “envious” of those of us with a “godphone,” I wish there were more people who understood that it’s not always easy. Some of us don’t like being open for contact, and for some of us it is extremely taxing to maintain those open lines.

Holidays- Why I Let Them Pass Me By

(This post is not at all saying that people who like/love/celebrate holidays are stupid/foolish/irresponsible, this is just how I choose to operate my own body and life and is not meant to insult or offend. My fiancee is a huge fan of holidays, and I love her for it, so please remember that when reading this.)

 

The Fourth of July came and went, just the way it always does. If not for the fact that I work at a bakery and have a tumblr, I probably wouldn’t have even noticed what day it was until the fireworks started.

I’m bad with holidays. I’m sure for every holiday I could write a ten page paper titled “Why I Don’t Celebrate _______,” but when that happens on every holiday I think it stops being about the days themselves and is more about me.

I’ve been trying for years to figure out why I don’t celebrate most holidays (Halloween/Samhain and the Summer Solstice/Midsummer being the two exceptions) and even now I don’t have much of an answer. I don’t even celebrate my own birthday (my friends do, but that’s another story.) For a long time I thought it was because of my religious inclination. When I was young and Christian I loved Easter and Christmas, so once I stopped being Christian and started a Pagan path I assumed I’d love the Pagan holidays like I used to love the Christian ones, but when I decided to do a bit of Kemetic Recon practices it was/is the huge number of holidays that left me feeling frustrated and intimidated.

I think part of my struggle has to do with the fact that I dislike sudden change in my routine. I’m okay with adapting to things that have to do with my own personal relationships and well-being, like hanging out with friends on a week-night, but the moment I feel social pressure to celebrate an event that has nothing to do with me I’m suddenly frustrated because I can’t just say “No, I don’t want to do that,” because my aversion won’t stop the people around me from doing as they please. I can ignore Christmas all I want, but I still can’t change the fact that the bakery I work at pumps in obnoxious Christmas music without my explicit consent. When days like the Fourth of July come around, and people celebrate the Revolution, I don’t celebrate, not out of any sort of hatred for my country’s independence (most of my ancestors hadn’t even touched American soil till after the War) but because I just don’t want to, it’s not part of my plan for that day.

I think another part of it has to do with the fact that I don’t see the point in celebrating one specific thing on one specific day. Why should I wait until a certain day in the summer to celebrate my Lord Father Ra, when it’s something I do almost every day? Why should my friends give me presents on my birthday, when there’s nothing special about that day except for the fact that it was the day my mother gave birth to me (it always felt like it should be a day I thank my mother on.) I understand that there are a lot of people out there who are super passionate about their birthday, who really love the Christmas spirit, who are besides themselves with excitement when the new year rolls along. It’s like this mentality of “But this day only happens once a year!” that gets me because each day only happens once a year. It just feels so arbitrary, like there’s supposed to be something special about this one specific day that I just don’t understand.

Being Pagan, and especially a partially Kemetic recon, makes my disinterest even more frustrating. I see posts on tumblr about the type of energy that we can only access when it’s a certain time of the year (like the firebenders on midsummer in Avatar) but I just don’t have interest in it. Most of the time I just don’t have anything special planned for the day, even if I know it will benefit me in some really profound way.

It’s not to say I don’t get excited about certain events, like conventions or concerts, because those events are planned by people. They are dates that are chosen because of reasons outside of my control, but are choices that someone else made. There’s no one out there that could go “Christmas will now happen on the 24th because reasons-” because no one would listen to them. I know there are religious reasons behind that date, but that’s not what it really comes down to. Someone could (and has) proclaimed loudly that Jesus was not born on the 25th of Christmas, but that didn’t really have much of an impact, did it?

This doesn’t have much to do with the Capitalization of holidays either, but I know a lot of people are really passionate about boycotting holidays for this reason. Even non-heavily capitalized holidays disinterest me, like Arbor Day and Free Comic Book Day. There’s just something about the “On Wednesdays we wear pink” attitude that just doesn’t stick with me. What if I don’t want to celebrate my birthday on my birthday, what if I want to celebrate it on a day that means something to me, like the day my favorite band is in town? What if the New Year comes around while I’m in the middle of family drama and that “fresh start” feeling just can’t sink in because things are happening? Why can’t I celebrate the New Year when the first snow falls, or when we get our first thaw, or the first time it’s warm enough to go swimming?

I just feel like, how am I supposed to live in the moment when the supposedly the most meaningful of days come predesigned?

 

 

Living with Death

When I was three years old my Uncle Jack introduced a new girlfriend of his to the family. Because of my age I was never around to see the way she treated my family, or the way they treated her. She was prone to outbursts that ended with her or someone else injured, and more often than not, resulted in the destruction of my Grandmother’s belongings.  This was before I learned to fear people, and I was very fond of her. I remember there was this green satin shirt she wore often, and I loved it. My anxiety disorder started when I was very small, and as a coping mechanism I rubbed soft things on my mouth and sucked my thumb (I’m sure there’s some subconscious maternal comfort in there somewhere.) I’d walk around, stuck to her hip, with her shirt and my thumb buried between my lips. She never complained, never pushed me away, even though her visits always ended with a damp spot from where the fabric touched my mouth. One day she came over and there was something different about her. Suddenly her disposition changed. At that point I was living with my grandmother, and she came to visit along with my Uncle, wearing that glorious satin shirt. Most of the day was spent with me clinging to her before she brought me to the bathroom and told me to wait outside while she stepped in. When she came out she was wearing a different blouse. The green shirt was in her hand, and once she turned off the light she knelt and gave me the shirt, saying that I liked it more than she did. It was the first meaningful gift I’d ever been given, one that was sentimental and from someone whom I wasn’t related to.

Three days later she died from a brain tumor, and my father threw the shirt away.

My family never sugar-coated life for me. My pets never went to farms and my parents weren’t always going to be there. The man I saw get struck by lightning wasn’t going to get up again. One day, I was going to die. I’m sure someone out there thinks this is a little strange, or a little harsh, but it was a lesson I needed to learn early, because from that moment on, a year where I only went to one funeral was a very good year.

When talking to my friends about this it’s strange to know that this isn’t normal for people. When I meet someone who says they’ve never been to a funeral or never lost a family member I can hardly grasp what that means. I can’t imagine a life where death isn’t right there, breathing down my neck. How is it to see death as some foreign, distant thing? Perhaps my closeness to death is why I don’t fear it? Sure, the way I embrace death often blurs the line between a desire to live and a desire to die, but I see that as more realistic than thinking that it will never come.

There are times when I am suddenly conscious of how serious death is to some people. When my friend Shane passed away my father didn’t let me go to his funeral because we’d lost 9 family members that year. One of the priests at our family church actually denied my father the right to be a pall bearer for a few funerals because he was concerned for my father’s mental health. When someone stops and says “no, there’s too much death around here, I can’t let you do this,” it’s very jarring, especially as someone who sees death as completely natural.

I think it’s because of the way I was raised, knowing and feeling the inevitable at every step, that death isn’t a part of my spiritual and religious life. Sure I want to have this life settled down before I die, but it’s not a huge fear of mine to stop before my life is complete. If anything I look forward to death, again not necessarily in a suicidal manner, but in an adventurous way. I want to find out what lives lie ahead of me. Will I return to Egypt, or will the pattern of rebirth continue the way it has? What people will I meet? What will I be good at or bad at? Will I remember this life, and if I do, will I have compassion for the person I am now? These thoughts don’t scare me, they intrigue me. Yes, there are times I pray for a good life after this one. I beg and plead to feel the sands of the desert between my toes, but I am not afraid of how I get there.

My Relationships with Animals: A Blessing and a Curse

I’ve always been an animal person. I prefer the company of cats to people, and a day at a good zoo is heaven. This love and admiration stems from being raised with animals, including multiple cats, dogs, and rodents. One of the strangest experiences I ever had with a pet, however, was with a friend’s cat.

My friend had two adult female cats who were pregnant together, gave birth to large litters together and, apparently, abandoned their kittens. It wasn’t until I visited three weeks later that we learned they were wrong. I was standing in their garage as my friend was inside getting us some drinks when one of her cats walked out from under the house and into the garage carrying a tiny orange kitten in her mouth. Without any hesitation she brought the kitten over to me and set it at my feet. Thus a very long night started, as I slowly made my way into their house the mother cat continued to bring me her brood. Eventually, the other cat joined in, bringing out her large litter as well. In the end I was laying on my friends floor, surrounded by almost 15 kittens and two cats. They wouldn’t let their owners near the kittens, so I had to check them all to make sure they were all relatively healthy before we went to bed. I remember the first kitten so vividly, and how the mother looked at me with a very matter-of-fact gaze, like she was irritated that it had taken me so long to visit.

Then there was the butterfly. About a decade ago my brothers found an injured monarch butterfly by the street, so they brought him to me to see if I could help him. I tended to him, fed him, and helped him get the use back of his wings, and within a week he was able to fly around with no difficulty, but this was where things got strange. 

More than once I tried to release him, and each time he’d go explore before coming right back to me. Once, out of curiosity, I let him sit in my hair when I went to the grocery store, which was a two mile bike ride from my house. He stayed, much to the awe of the people at the shop, and when I got back home over an hour later he was still there, happily flapping his wings and playing with my hair. I want to say I felt enchanted, but who wouldn’t feel enchanted if a butterfly did this to them?

When I came home from school one day my mother told me that my cat broke into my bedroom and killed the butterfly. I was devastated, but when I got to my room my cat was sitting right in the doorway to my room, staring at me with a look of supreme disapproval. He’d left the butterfly sitting right in the middle of my room, completely unscathed, like he was just resting. When I went to bury him I had the sudden, overpowering desire to make sure he was dead, and the force behind it told me to cut his head off, so I did. 

Do I count these experiences as spiritual or religious in nature? Yes, I do. It’s difficult not to, when cats are so important to the kemetic pantheon, and butterflies are creatures of flight, an ability for which I would trade in my arms to have.

I’ve struggled with putting these experiences into words because there was so much emotional and spiritual buzzing in my head, that I felt like I was floating when around these animals. It doesn’t help that I’m really good at reading body language, especially in cats. The last time I saw my mother’s cat Pharoah he was resting on a pillow on the floor, and for some reason it struck me as really out of character for him. I coddled him before I left for the week, and could feel death on him. A few days later my mother called me and told me he had a blood clot in his heart and needed to be put down. I regretted not voicing my concern over him, so now when I think something is wrong with one of my cats I do something, even if it’s something as small as letting a gassy cat with an upset stomach sleep under the covers with me.

Is it just me or am I crazy?: Living with Gods and Mental Illness

When I was thirteen I was outed as a witch.

While this may sound like no big deal, for me, it was. One of my closest friends had recently passed away, and I was still just getting to figure out what I wanted as far as my religious affiliation went. I had just started learning bits of witchcraft and bits of Egyptian mythology, and told my living best friend what I was doing. She was supportive of me, but when her older sister found out what I was doing then things started to spiral out of control. Not only did everyone in my high school find out what I was doing, but so did my parents, the police, and the school administration. Things got out of hand when her sister threatened to kill me, and when questioned my the authorities, she told everyone that she believed I was a devil worshiper and that I believed I was a witch. I couldn’t argue with the accusations, and many of the people around me agreed with her, saying that if I was a witch then I did deserve to get murdered. This caused a great deal of trouble for me on many different levels, aside from the obvious ones, because not only was I already struggling with horrendous amounts of bullying and abuse at both school and in my home, but I was also dealing with chronic depression. My father and mother agreed that I needed to go to therapy, both for different reasons. My mother thought I needed grief counseling, while my father thought that the only therapy I needed was church and a good beating.

Eventually things calmed  down, until I was hospitalized towards the end of high school, because the most difficult aspect of my depression bloomed. I was diagnosed with what is now called “Psychotic Depression.” In the simplest terms, when I get severely depressed, my brain chemistry changes so intensely that during these times, I have the brain of someone with mild schizophrenia. I thought that my early high school drama had been forgotten until my father came to visit me during my time as an inpatient. He told the doctors about my affiliation with witchcraft, asking if that was caused by the illness. This was something I’d been worried about for a long time, because there comes a point, I think, in most witch’s/pagan’s/polytheist’s minds where we stop and wonder “Am I crazy or is all this real?”

Am I crazy? Or is this real? Firstly, I’ve reached the age where I really don’t fucking care anymore. If it is me being crazy, then fine, so be it, because I’ve been this way for a very, very long time. If Pathwalking and Traveling is me having a mild psychotic break, then whatever, because I’m still able to perform my basic function in society despite it. If all of THIS, everything I experience on a religious level is not real, I’m going to keep doing it, because it gives me something I can’t get here in the “real world.” Secondly, the issue is that I don’t think what I’m experiencing is a lie. I don’t. When I lose touch with the world and my depression, anxiety, and onset schizophrenia take over then I stop being able to Travel, I struggle with speaking to my Gods, and I can’t maintain the few religious rituals I DO have. My illness doesn’t support my Paganism, my Paganism supports me, and that is how I manage to survive.

It’s sad that this is a worry a lot of us have, in one way or another, but I’m also glad that I almost never hear people within the various Pagan and Polytheistic circles talk about it as if it’s a bad thing. We have moments where we argue with our Gods, Spirits, etc. about offerings, habits, spirit work, and these arguments are REAL. I would never say someone’s God didn’t exist, but if it turns out we are all wrong, then these arguments, these issues, these struggles we have with the greater spirits in our lives, are still real. Fuck anyone who says they aren’t, because we are having these moments of love and hate and passion. We feel real genuine heartbreak when we think we’ve been abandoned for no reason and we get mad when we’re expected to do things that we just can’t manage.

To continue my story, the doctors basically told my father to piss off, and that he had no right to judge me for the way I chose to live (they also told him that he wasn’t allowed to visit me again.). My doctor listened to my stories about my past lives, about my relationship with Ra, and never once did he use these against me. I’m going to guess it’s because these aspects of my life, my witchcraft and my Gods, weren’t having a negative impact on my life the way my “real world struggles” were, and that treating me as “crazy” for having these beliefs would drive me into a deeper and more destructive depression. At least, that’s how I like to see it.

 

My Sacred Spaces, Death, and Personal Change

The first sacred space I ever created was the back porch of the house I grew up in. From there I could see everything, from my neighbor’s cherry tree, to the swing-set in my friend’s yard two blocks off. I’d stand there in the summer and watch the thunderstorms that swept through upstate New York, the blizzards in the winter, and the changing leaves in the fall. I was Christian then, and when I stood there, watching the world around me change, I felt close to God. It was different from being in church, where I felt I was being told how to love God. For me, loving God was loving everything, from destruction to creation.

My next two were the roof of our lean-to and a tree that was about an acre into our land. We’d moved so my Father could raise us in the country, to be closer to God and Mother nature, which didn’t make any sense to me, but I adapted and found new ways to pray and appreciate the world. Here, in the countryside, I could see the stars, so once I was big enough to get on the roof I’d lie up there for hours and just stare at the sky. Eventually my Father realized what I was doing, and he’d join me, telling me stories about the constellations. I didn’t mind sharing that space with him, because it helped deepen my relationship with both him and the divine. The tree was a project my brothers, my good friend Shane, and I worked to build. We’d fastened a permanent tent, by connecting two different trees together with a length of living wood, so that all we needed to do was cover that with a tarp and we’d have a tent in the woods all to ourselves. When I was alone I’d stand on that length of wood, lean against the taller of the two trees, and bask in nature, in God.

When Shane died suddenly a lot changed for me. I no longer saw God in the thunderstorms, the stars, or the warm light that broke through to illuminate the Tree. It wasn’t until Ra pulled me to my feet, dusted me off, and pushed me forward for the second time that I started to understand, and started to see again. The stars stopped being God, but became Gods, Demi-Gods, powerful spirits both young and old. Wherever I sat to watch the rising sun became a Sacred Space. Wherever I stood to watch thunderstorms became Sacred once more. I built my first altar.

I had to adapt again when I moved to Massachusetts. Here I was given the chance to start fresh, to find my own spaces with no one else there to judge me. My spaces became the hill at the top of a cemetery where I could watch the sunset, the bit of wood between my apartment and the main road, the open window in our kitchen. When I moved to my current apartment, however, a lot more changed.

With my new Fiancee’s support I built my second altar, poured my soul into it, but it wasn’t enough. I needed that connection with nature, for Ra, and my two new deities, Pan and Rhea, so I went searching for the perfect place. It became a natural park near by, close enough to walk to but far enough away that I can’t reach it without planning my day around it (which is pretty easy in northwestern Mass.) When I’m there I can hear Pan’s pipes in the breeze, I can feel Rhea’s comfort in the dirt between my toes, and I can see Ra’s warmth and light in the shimmer of the marble that lines the cliff-side. In many ways, I don’t need my altar, not really, not when the world around me is so ripe with the support I need to keep going.

Why “Pagan?”

One of the great things about Paganism is that if you identify as Pagan, then you are, and if you don’t, then you aren’t, and this can frustrate as many people as it liberates. So, when faced with umbrella terms like “Pagan” or “trans” or “intelligence” there is just as much confusion as there is acceptance.

Let me show you this idea with a simple example: Intelligence. We all have our own basic ideas of what intelligence is, and I can guarantee that everyone has a definition that is slightly different. Some people take on the “intelligence is not repeating the same action while expecting a different result,” while others get specific with “intelligence is being able to use mathematics effectively and efficiently to understand the universe” or “intelligence is knowing that when you’re speaking about people you use who/whom, not that.” No one here is wrong, but by our understandings of intelligence we can quickly alienate others who, though they may also value intelligence, may not see it in the same way that you do. Similarly, there are a lot of Pagans who follow the Wiccan Rede, and consider it a pillar of their faith, but there are just as many (and probably more) Pagans who do not follow the Wiccan Rede because they are not Wiccan. The problem arises when Pagans who are Wiccan argue with Pagans who are not Wiccan over the value of the Wiccan rede. The trouble comes when people don’t realize that it is possible for two people who agree on one thing, might have completely different views about that one thing. When you understand that, when you see people as complex and interesting, it’s easier to navigate in the world around us.

Look at the way many Americans view Muslims. To many Americans, a Muslim is automatically a terrorist (even though less than 0.003% of Muslims are terrorists.) Equally, there are a lot of Pagans who consider Christians to be the enemy. Both sets of people forget that there are Muslim Americans and there are Christian Pagans. To quote John Green quoting someone else, “the truth resists simplicity.” When you try to make terms that, by their very nature are umbrella terms, into specifically defined words, then you alienate yourself and those around you.

Now, I’ve grown a lot since I first joined the tumblr Pagans and Polytheists. However, for the first few months, I kept my mouth shut, because I knew I had a lot to learn. I had to learn to accept both Satanists and Christians as Pagans when they identified as such. I had to learn that certain practices I considered available were not, and that by using those practices I was perpetuating stereotypes and the rape of cultures. In order to learn these things, though, I had to remember that nothing is simple. Nothing is easy. Nothing will fit into the tiny little boxes we try to put ideas and people into, especially when those people are ourselves. It’s why some of us end up using long-winded terms to identify ourselves. Saying I’m Pagan implies nothing about my practice, my Gods, or my beliefs. It implies that I might practice witchcraft or that I might believe in a deity or deities, but that’s it. Nothing is concrete. Just like you might meet someone who identifies as Trans* but, from where you’re standing there may be nothing Trans about them. It doesn’t invalidate their transness and it doesn’t invalidate your view of gender expression, but you need to know that if they identify as such then you have to respect it. I respect Wiccans, but I’m not Wiccan, even though we both operate under the term Pagan. Again, the issue arises when Wiccans quote the Wiccan Rede at non-Wiccans as though it applies to them, and those non-Wiccans try to invalidate the Rede all-together (replace Wiccans with Christians and the Rede with the Bible and you Wiccans will understand our frustration.) You can, also, have someone who practices the stereotypical Pagan things, like they practice witchcraft and believe in multiple Gods, but they don’t identify as Pagan for religious, cultural, or ethical reasons. (Those ethical reasons being the rampant racism, cissexism, cultural  appropriation, animal abuse, etc. that blemishes the term “Pagan.”)

I feel like, for the most part, the term Pagan has become a word meant to unite those of us who take on a non-“traditionally modern” path of religion, yet it has also become a way of abandoning and othering people. It’s this “I am Pagan and you are not” mentality that disrupts what I think it means to be Pagan. For the most part, a lot of us identify outside the religious norm, and that is what makes us Pagan. Not the witchcraft, the Rede, the Gods or the altar or the divination, but us.

Progression into Spring.

(Trigger warning: this post contains mentions of child abuse, sex, and sexual abuse)

As we age I feel like there are distinct moments of growth that we experience in a very brief and immediate fashion. I can name off most of these, starting with the fall of the Berlin Wall when I was 2. The next would probably be the first time I saw Fantasia when I was 3. For me, this changed a lot of how I experienced the world. All of a sudden music became something more than what I listened to for fun, it became the embodiment of emotion. It also opened me up to a world of fantastical creatures I’d never seen before. There were varying colors of unicorn and flying horses, men and women whose bodies were those of stallions and mares. Right at the beginning, though, there’s group of mischievous little satyrs, playing their flutes. I could probably write for an hour about how much this movie did for me as a child, but there’s something special about what the satyr’s gave me.

I never forgot about the satyrs as I aged, and once I was old enough to learn who Pan was he was quickly added to the image I’d had of them in my head for so many years. As an adult, however, I see and appreciate him in a very different sense.

When my fiancee and I went to go see our University production of  A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I was reminded of my affection for satyrs, and how much they captured me. But this time, I had a different reaction. What bubbled up inside me was not a feeling of youth and vitality, but animalistic excitement, lust, and desire. I wanted to leap up on the stage and dance with the nymphs, to let music and passion rub away all the pain and negativity I carry. You see, I was a dancer for most of my life. It was the way I connected to the people around me, and it gave me a sense of self-worth I’ve never been able to recover since I stopped. Dance was everything. It was passion, it was power, it was music and love and beauty.

Society has all types of words they use to describe people like me, but John Green calls us “Sexually empowered” so that’s what I’m going to use. Despite my sexual empowerment, I really struggle with intimacy. As a result of repeated sexual abuse when I was young, I don’t see sex as a way to show my affection for someone. This is great when I’m single and just want to enjoy myself, but it negatively impacts my life on a very real level when I’m in a committed relationship. I freeze up. I forget how to have fun. I lose touch with what it means to truly want someone, and it isn’t fair for anyone involved. But, when I sing and dance to the Hymn to Pan I’m suddenly reconnected with that side of being alive.

To call him into my life I set up this altar for him, and designed it so that I could bring it into the woods with me. I made an offering of red wine, a pear, and some cinnamon. I thanked him for being, well, him, and told him I’d continue to rely on him.

Our relationship remained casual: me calling on him when I needed some assistance and giving him something in return. The only issue I’ve run into is  working to maintain some distance between him and Ra. My Lord Father can get overprotective sometimes, and I don’t want to cause any strain on my relationships with either of them.  Pan gets along well enough with Rhea, at least she hasn’t indicated to me that there’s an issue. Pan, however, has become a bit more demanding in recent months, especially considering I have a Godphone with him that just doesn’t exist with Ra or Rhea. He’s made it clear that it would be good for our relationship if I learned to play an instrument, and that he’d rather have that than offerings of food, sex, or prayer… but I don’t know how to play.

The difficult thing with Pan is that it’s very easy to deny his complexity, to see him as a one dimensional being who only serves the purpose you see him as. It doesn’t work. He’s interesting, and just as complex as all the other Gods. I got into this thinking “I’ll just give him wine and he’ll inspire me with lust.” Instead I spend hours singing to him, celebrating him, and wishing I could get just a little bit closer-