I returned last night from Florida Pagan Gathering. The tribe and I camped in and around cabin one and had an excellent time. 

I arrived late Thursday night and missed the day's workshops, but managed to take in a few over the weekend. I attended one on hypnosis and past lives with Donald Michael Kraig. He was great! I'd never seen him before and found him funny, very knowledgeable, and approachable. I finally met Jason Pitzl-Waters at his workshop on media trends. Super guy. I would have liked to hang out with him more, but there just isn't enough time for everything at FPG. The last workshop I caught was Honoring the Mighty Dead: Lessons from the Lucumi Tradition, which was excellent as well. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone.

I get very lazy at FPG. All I want to do is chill, read, drink mead, ride the tram, and stare at the lake, the birds, and the stars. I never attend the rituals and only go to a handful of workshops. My favorite activity is just sitting around my campsite with friends after dinner and talking late into the night.
Next on my list is Pantheacon. Or maybe Feast of Lights. So many festivals, so little time!

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I tuned into the Tyra Banks show today and caught an old episode about the Ashley Madison Agency, an online dating service for people who are in relationships and want to have affairs. The company motto is "Life is Short. Have an Affair."

Tyra interviewed the founder, a man whose name escapes me at the moment, about his motivation for creating such a site. Basically he said that he noted the success of sites like Match.com and eHarmony and realized that many of the people registered on those sites are looking for affairs, but lying about it. With his site, people can be honest about the fact that they're married and looking for affairs. 

Tyra then had a few guests, couples where one spouse had used the site. I didn't watch past the first couple. The wife used the site, cheated on her husband with three partners, and her husband was devastated and wanted to punch the website's founder. He responded that he's not responsible for the affair; the marriage was obviously troubled. That's true, but I also think he facilitated the affair. Tyra asked him about his conscience, but he didn't have much of a response. 

I think it was on the Polyamory Weekly podcast that the host, Minx, was talking about how many American movies and television shows feature an affair at the heart of the plot and how they are often viewed as exciting and romantic. For example, The Bridges of Madison County, Unfaithful, and Nights in Rodanthe. There's nothing new about the romanticizing of affairs. Medieval literature is full of that. Your classic example is Guinevere and Lancelot, but a big reason for that lies in the fact that marriages were often arranged for political reasons. Therefore, love had to be found outside marriage. A similar reason explains the mistress phenomenon of, say for instance, the 1950s. A man married a woman he loved, but such women were boxed into roles of wives and mothers and little, if any, thought was given to women's sexuality.

But this is America in the millenium. Marriages aren't generally arranged. We can marry for love and women can claim and own their sexuality. So why, as a culture, are we still obssessed with affairs? Why do we romanticize them? Why have we become so accepting of them as if they're just part of the relationship routine? And while we're at it, why are we, again as a culture, horrified by polyamorous relationships, where all the people involved are (ideally) open and honest about their romantic and sexual involvements? People don't bat an eye at an illicit affair, but are shocked at the idea of a triad relationship.

Tyra reminded me why I don't watch television. It's so depressing.

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I hope you're having a beautiful, blessed Samhain. I'm heading off shortly to start cooking for my coven's gathering tonight. We'll be doing a ritual I designed that focuses on memory and remembrance of ancestors.

In other news, we all know the media is interested in Witches at this time of year more than any other and there have been some nice articles about our observances. An article in Florida's Sun-Sentinel gives attention to a local Witches Ball.
It will be a night of dancing and merriment, but at the witching hour, the mood will turn solemn. At midnight, the bonfire will be lit for the Samhain Ritual Circle to commemorate those who have died.

Gone are the days when suspected witches were bound and tossed into a river to be declared innocent if they drowned. Today, MoonPath Circle has been incorporated as a church with the state of Florida...

And The New York Times approaches Paganism as just another religion.
In both guises, as an individual practitioner and a credentialed expert, Mr. York embodies the increasing mainstream acceptance of Pagan religion. From academia to the military, in the person of chaplains and professors, through successful litigation and online networking, Paganism has done much in the last generation to overcome its perception as either Satanism or silliness.

Have a wonderful Samhain!

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Four women accused of witchcraft were paraded naked, beaten and forced to eat human excrement by villagers in India's Jharkhand state. 

BBC News reports that the incident was caught on tape prompting the deployment of armed police to the remote village. Four people have been arrested in connection with the incident and the women are no under police protection.

Hundreds of people, mostly women, have been killed in India after being branded witches by their neighbors. Superstitious beliefs may be behind some of the attacks, but many of women accused of malevolent witchcraft are widows. Experts say they are targeted for their land and property.

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I'd like to draw your attention to this disturbing piece over at Minority Review on the increasing violence towards people, particularly women and children, accused of practicing malevolent witchcraft in Africa.

Children alleged to be witches and wizards are persecuted through torture and inhuman and degrading treatment, which sometimes leads to their death. Such children are starved, chained, beaten, matcheted or even lynched. At the churches, pastors subject children alleged to be witches and wizards to torture in the name of exorcism. Witchdoctors force such children to drink potions (poison) or concoctions which can kill them or damage their health.

We're not talking about the kind of Witchcraft American Pagans might practice. For most people, witchcraft has negative connotations and, in Africa, it's considered the source of disease, natural disasters, and other misfortunes. These people are victims of superstition and fear. Like most of those during the mythical Burning Times, they are not witches at all.

Damon asks some important questions about how self-identified Witches in South Africa should respond to this crisis, but I think it's an issue we should all be aware of and consider.

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Four goats have been found wandering the Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx over the weekend. So naturally, it must be Santeria. 

“The neighborhood where these goats are being found, there are a lot of Santeria, people who practice Santeria,” said Susie Coston, the national shelter director for Farm Sanctuary. “They’ve seen skulls and obvious sacrificed animals before.” 

The New York Times article managed to include the voices of three people in this article, none of them practitioners of Santeria. You'd think they want to go straight to the horse's mouth. The goat had mutilated ears, was infested with lice, and suffering from an upper respiratory infection. If anyone had bothered to ask a Santero, they'd discover that animals for sacrifice, particularly large, four-legged animals, are cared for very well. It would be offensive to present the gods with mutilated, sick animals, and downright dangerous and irresponsible to feed your guests with.

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In my last entry I was exploring Wicca in the context of the elements of historical paganism that Hrafnkell had outlined over at his blog. He closed his blog by asking a series of thought-provoking questions that I want to get back to.

My question then for modern day Pagans, without diminishing the importance of ecology and women’s rights or the cause of peace is this: why is a particular focus placed on these and not on aspects of religion that pertain directly to honoring the gods? It seems at times that social issues are more important than cultic acts, more central to modern Paganism than showing our devotion to the gods. That is not to say that we should not strive to recognize the equal rights of women or that we should not take care of our world, but where is the stress on the gods themselves? Where is ritual purity? Where is feasting? Where is devotion to ancestors and where, above all, is sacrifice? Are we to imagine that somehow by engaging in casting spells we are showing devotion to the gods? Certainly not when some people believe they are actually causing (forcing) the deity to act on their behalf. How is coercion a form of respect, even among equals? 
For many Pagans, social action is an extension and an expression of pagan spirituality. Wicca arrived to the United States during times of war, women's rights, civil rights, gay rights, growing environmental concerns, and so forth. Religious views of the earth as sacred and alive and women being able to access and even channel the divine were right in line with these various issues and it was easy for Wicca and eclectic forms of Wiccan-based Paganism to marry them. Did that diminish the focus on gods? I guess it depends on how you look at it.

The gods can and often are viewed as individual sentient beings, but they are also viewed as powerful forces and even personifications of nature. Ra is the mid-day sun. Selene is the moon. Gaia is the earth and reverence of her extends into conservation. And service to the gods, in Wicca, also means service to each other. A basic tenet is Thou Art God, Thou Art Goddess. We all carry that divine spark and recognize it in one another. We call upon it in ritual and celebrate it. And I don't know about you, but feasting is never a problem in my Pagan community.

I do think it would behoove us to work a little more on some other areas mentioned here. For example, I think Wicca is lacking in eschatology. As a religion, I think that's a weakness. It matters less if Wicca is just a very basic outline of a spiritual tradition that encourages its adherents to flesh out their beliefs by exploring others. I've noticed that some practitioners do Wicca on a schedule. At Imbolc, they honor Brigid; at Samhain, the ancestors, with little or no acknowledgment of them the rest of the year. I question the depth and meaning of such practices.

Ritual purity holds a different meaning or value for Wiccans than it does other kinds of Pagans, but one area I think Pagans (and Americans) in general can work on is our overall health. I've been to too many public rituals where participants can't stand more than a few minutes due to complications associated with obesity and other health issues. We need to take better care of ourselves, of our bodies.

In the end, I'm not bothered that Wicca doesn't quite resemble historical paganism. I have no qualms about the fact that Wicca is a new religion though it draws much inspiration from ancient paganism. My only beef is with people who attempt to denigrate it on this basis. Wiccan has much to offer the landscape of modern paganism.

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