Monthly Archives: July 2010

More thoughts on the International Pagan Coming Out Day:

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The more I think about it, the more I like this idea — and additionally, the more I can see certain parallels with the GBLT Rights movements.

For those unfamiliar, the GBLT Right MovementS has historically been (and in many ways, still is) pretty far from a single unified movement — and the divisions are more numerous than some may think. Some of the most apparent divisions can be generalised as two ideals(1):

  1. “We may be ‘queer’, but we’re as normal as you are!”
  2. “We’re Queer! We’re here! Get used to it! (And fuck you!)”

Basically, a lot of tension amongst the Queer community can be boiled down to between those who want Acceptance and those who will Tolerance as long as their civil rights aren’t trampled on.

I’m seeing a lot of similar ideas bandied about in the threads I’ve read about International Pagan Coming Out Day (IPCOD, for short). I will say, I’m seeing a scant minority of people in the “Pro” arguments talking about genuine acceptance, but most seem pretty content with tolerance — conversely, I’d say most of the “Con” arguments are from those who believe that they already have tolerance, and I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that maybe they live in a town where they genuinely do, so that would mean that the civil rights and liberties that they are privileged enough to take for granted are something that many pagans elsewhere simply don’t have, and may never have until they are willing to come out, take a stand, and fight for it. Basically, the “Con” arguments are from people who, as one might say to a similar mind-set in the TS/TG community, “are letting their privilege show” — this is not a good thing, it’s a sign that, well, you’ve got yours and fuck everybody else, especially those who have to fight for the tiniest scrap of dignity you get to take for granted.

As much as I’d really like to say that I expect better from my co-religionists and those of other pagan and polytheist religions, the reality is that I’ve come to know this mega-community as very human, and humans are flawed creatures. Some humans can’t see past the end of their noses, and in doing so, assume that their rights and liberties are guaranteed to everybody, even when confronted with evidence that such simply isn’t the case.

As I pointed out in my previous post on this topic, in the United $tates and even some other countries, “freedom of religion” is little more than theory. Job and housing discrimination are hard enough to prove in places where it’s still allowed for certain reasons, much less in places where employers and landlords have to get creative about why they’ve coincidentally terminated your employment shortly after you requested Beltane or the Dionysia off, or why you’ve suddenly gotten an eviction notice the month after apartment maintenance came to fix the air ducts in the spare room you use for ritual. In theory, courts aren’t allowed to discriminate against religious choices in divorces that involve a child custody battle, but the fact that I’ve at least been conscious of North Amerika’s pagan community since the early 1990s and that I’m still hearing about the occasional mother deemed “unfit” coincidentally after her ex-husband brought up her Eclectic Wicca group in court is evidence that it’s obviously going to take at least another twenty years to get to a point where that’s not going to matter much, if at all. There is still a distinct cultural favouritism of Abrahamic religionists in North Amerika and elsewhere that ends up getting its inequality onto the legal system that promises freedom and justice for all.

As a Hellenic polytheist, I understand that the situation with religious freedom in modern Hellas is far worse than most Amerikans and Britons can even begin to fathom — to the extent that some people believe that you are socially better off to closet yourself as an “Atheist” than be honest about being a Polytheist, and that this hasn’t gotten better in a significantly noticeable way since joining the European Union finally, in 2006, stripped Hellas of her legal criminalisation of worshipping the ancient gods and goddesses. If for no other reason, THIS is why this needs to be an International event — not just for the United $tates, or North Amerika, or the Western Hemisphere, or the Anglosphere, but for all nations where religious civil rights and liberties get little more than lip-service, at best.

(1) This means I understand there are more complexities within this very generalised divide, but in my personal opinion, the majority of skirmishes in the GBLT communities can be boiled down as between two very different ideals for the movement.

On the proposed Pagan Coming Out Day

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I know, I know, as is my usual fashion with this sort of thing, I’m once again Late To the Party, but let me just say that I support this proposed International Pagan Coming Out Day. Now maybe it’s just my own familiarity with the GBLT community’s National Coming Out Day which is why my reaction to this idea isn’t one of groans, eye-rolls, party-pooping and just generally not getting it.

The idea of “coming out” may have first gotten major headlines with the GBLT community, and yeah, Wikipedia’s page on the topic may make it seem like said community has a monopoly on the idea, but when you boil down the idea of “coming out” to its basics, it’s a basic act of standing up and saying “I will NOT let the government or the overculture oppress me”. The first time I’d heard about somebody being “out” in a non-GBLT context, it was about a physical disability — something that isn’t always apparent (in her case, she was legally blind, but functional-enough that most people wouldn’t be able to tell at first glance). Disabled persons have a lot of oppressive shit to deal with, especially those with what’s called “invisible disabilities”, because it’s assumed that if you don’t “look disabled”, then you’re not, and ergo you “obviously don’t need assistance”, not even when you apparently do. I can understand “coming out” as having a disability — after all, if OKStupid’s tests have taught me nothing else, it’s taught me that, at least half the time, no, not even gay people can tell another gay person on sight (except with lesbians, seriously). If it’s that hard to sniff out other gays, what about other “invisible oppressions”?

The fact of the matter is, in the United $tates, there’s a lot of lip-service given to the notion of “freedom of religion”, but in practise, things really aren’t as open and accepting as is talked about in theory. Yes, the population of Christians is apparently going down (from ~86% in 1990 to ~76% last year), and Atheists are on the rise (up to a whole 1.something% — I’m betting it’s cos monkeys are awesome), but that 76% is still a pretty high majority — and it’s a majority that has an extremely vocal contingent hell-bent on making life hell for anybody who doesn’t fall in lock-step with that majority.

Now, I haven’t talked with Cara Schulz about this (word on the street is that she and I usually don’t play well), but here’s what I believe International Pagan Coming Out Day is and is not about:

  • It’s about the recognition of non-Abrahamic, non-Eastern (as the overwhelming majority of Hindus, Buddhists, and so forth, tend to eschew the term “pagan” in their self-identification) religious minorities — it is NOT about sitting on your hands while you watch the government pay little more than lip-service to “Freedom of Religion’ while Christians dictate what’s going to be taught in allegedly-separate-from-church “State schools”.
  • It’s about individuals, deciding on their own individual terms, to take a step that will hopefully breed a society that truly does tolerate all religions — it’s NOT about outing our fellow pagans without their consent. “Outing” people without their consent, be they Gay, Trans, or Pagan, really misses the point of a “coming out” day. While I personally agree with Cara’s opinion that some people really don’t have anything holding them back from coming out but their own fears, that’s really not for her or for myself to decide for another person. Only YOU can decide whether or not to come out to somebody on a “coming out day”, but just keep in mind that when you do, you may put yourself in a position to face oppressions you weren’t aware you were facing before.
  • It’s about telling somebody you love that they if they’re going to love you in return, they should love YOU, not their fantasies about what you are or should be — it is NOT about a bunch of people “needing the approval of others”. If we truly needed “approval”, guess what? We wouldn’t be pagans! We’d be trying to fit in to whatever religion those with conditional love will accept.

Some things that should be obvious, but apparently need pointing out:

  • This is not about “making a virtue” of wearing one’s weight in pentagrams and Thor’s Hammers, or whatever other religious symbols of choosing you may have — but if that’s your choice to wear said items, hey, an International Pagan Coming Out Day would be an appropriate time to wear it.
  • This is not about coming out to everybody all at once, even if there’s no purpose to it — but again, if that’s what you want to do, no-one’s going to stop you. After all, only YOU can say who you’re coming out to and when. Do you want to come out to your sister and maybe your favourite professor this year, and your mother and boss next year? Totally appropriate! After all, gay people have been doing it like this for decades.
  • Most importantly: This is NOT NOT NOT about shaming other pagans an polytheists into “coming out” when they’re not ready! Ask any gay person — this is a decision that only YOU can make, and it’s a decision best made when you’re mentally and emotionally ready to do so. If a co-religionist is trying to use shame to make you come out before you think you can handle it, then that person is no more a friend to you than those who would take your children away because of your religion.
  • Furthermore, if you’re an initiate into an oathbound tradition that requires secrecy? Stop acting like this is somehow about you. Cos it’s not, it’s really not. This is so much NOT about oathbound cult that it’s ludicrous that allegedly oathbound-practitioners are even trying to debate this! Guess what? There are more religions under the umbrella of “pagan” than yours — and some of these are paths best practised as a fully-integrated aspect to one’s everyday life (like reconstructionist paths). If your religious life begins and ends at the ritual room, then you have far less reason to “come out” than a Heathen or Hellenistos who can (and probably does) make the simple act of bathing a tribute to a deity — you would also have far less to gain or lose by coming out to loved ones if your path is one that begins and ends in the ritual room.

So yes, I fully support this idea, even if I’m pretty much “out” to just about every-one who matters — but hey, there are people who matter a whole lot less I can still come out to, so I say bring it on!

New Boeotian Calendar Update

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An idea I’ve been tossing around in my head lately, and most recently to a couple of friends (but mostly to Kayleigh, from KALLISTI), is the idea of making a printed version of the calendar.

To put it bluntly, I was actually really surprised by the amount of positive response to the PDF, and according to my site stats and what-nots, people are still downloading it, even if the comments have stopped. I really didn’t expect this. I figured, at best, in maybe five years’ time it would stop getting downloads for novelty; I didn’t expect people claiming they’d start using it within the first week of posting the PDF.

Now because I really hate doing things half-assed (which is probably why it took me six years to finish my first novel — but that’s another story for another time), I’m figuring, at the absolute soonest, I’d be able to have a printed calendar ready for Gregorian Year 2012. This is at the absolute soonest, cos what I’m going to want to do is include high-quality photographs to go along with each month, which will make for a time-consuming effort, and probably take the better part of a year just to compile.

I’m probably going to go with Zazzle or Lulu to create the calendar, unless somebody else can suggest a better print-on-demand calendar service. The downside to this is that the base prices from each service are kind of expensive, though Lulu is notably cheaper, and I’d really like to keep this under $20 for people.

So, since I’m pretty much making this with the community in mind, does anybody have any ideas for images they’d like to see that I can easily produce. Keep in mind that, as much as I would love to, I cannot afford to travel to Hellas to take photos for this project — I’d love to, but I can’t, maybe if somebody offers to be my sugar daddy (or sugar momma, I suppose, just so long as I’m not expected to get down with the lady-bits) for a couple weeks, but as of now, any photos of Boeotia will have to come from iStockPhoto.com, and I’m finding nothing in a keyword search for Boeotia and variant spellings, (though much thanks to Sannion and Kate Winter for first telling me about that site), or other stock sources. I’m hoping to get more painting done this year, shrine and ritual photos are already in mind. I’d also really love to perhaps get some photos taken down by the Classic Revival park shelter here in Ann Arbor, but I lack local friends I can wrangle in as models, and I lack the money to hire a couple models for this project (though if anybody wants to come visit, I can put you up for a week at a time).

I’m still here

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Believe me when I say that I realise how long it’s been since I last updated this here. I have no real excuse, and the only explanation I have is the fact that more-or-less since I last updated, I’d had this long stretch of time where when I wasn’t having a spiritual slump, everything was very hectic and / or busy.

As most of you probably know, I’ve also been busy with the reasonably new Hellenistai Wiki Project, and so far it’s looking awesome and amazing, and, as expected, this is probably the page I’m currently proudest of, and as with all good Wiki pages, it’ll never be finished.

Another thing on my mind is my little potted miniature rosebush. First off, these roses were half dead when I bought them and, in fact, I ended up having to prune away a significant portion of the branches within the first two or three months I had it — and I’ve had it a year, I want to say this October. Before I left for the annual Mod Chicago weekender in June, maybe a third of the leaves and branches had turned yellow and withered, but none of the really substantial branches, right? I paid this little mind at first, but by the time I arrived back home, my flat-mate was pretty concerned about it, and honestly, not without reason. Still, I paid it not much mind. The twentieth and twenty-first of this month was the Adonia, and within a day after, I noticed buds starting to open up on it again.

Watch This Space

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In the meantime, consider volunteering to write media reviews for this blog. All that’s required of you is:

  • The ability to submit a minimum of one (1) media (book, film, music album, game) review every other week, preferably more frequently.
  • Familiarity with WordPress or the ability to learn how over the phone (I seriously teach best when I’m actually talking to you).

I’ve tried doing this as submissions, but I simply don’t have the time. If you desire to submit media reviews to the Hellenistai Blog, you absolutely must be able to use WordPress. If you have no prior familiarity, send me samples of your writing (preferably links to other sites), I am willing to teach the right people.