Pink Is The Navy Blue Of India ~ Diana Vreeland

"Something's happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear."

You can hear and feel it all over modern Paganism. Someting's going on. Maybe it's growing pains. Maybe it's adolesence. Maybe it's simply that the words of that old chant are true: "She changes eveything she touches and everything she touches changes." Whatever(s) it is, there are certainly calls for change.

What's interesting to me, though, is how often these calls are couched in terms of our needing "respect" from non-Pagans coughxianscough. From Thorn Coyle's call for a more thealogically-based Paganism to a number of recent demands that Pagans change the way that they dress, the rationale given is that the called-for change is necessary in order to get "them" to "respect" us. What's up with that?

Thorn, for example, recently wrote that:

Most of us want respect, right? But sometimes I wonder if we are going about it in the right way.

Oftentimes currying of respect comes in the form of people trying to prove "we are just like everyone else." That is fine, though it doesn't work too well for me, personally, and I feel it misses the point.

I was thinking about this because I've been reading Jack Kornfield's After the Ecstasy, the Laundry. In this book he includes interview snippets with many different spiritual leaders and practitioners. At first glance it looks like a wide variety of people of faith: Jews, Christians, Buddhists... Upon closer look you realize "Oh. He's only interviewing Jews, Christians and Buddhists." Right. . . .

Where are the neo-Pagan practitioners in this book? Why are there no Ceremonial Magickians in here? Where are the Witches or Norse Shamans? We are likely not even on Kornfield's radar. And why is that? Some of it is probably due to bad press in general, and more specifically bad press by the likes of Ken Wilbur who thinks our religions are unevolved.

But there is something else going on, too, and I may get stoned for what follows here...

A large part of the reason we are not on Kornfield's radar, I would hazard to guess, is because most of us are not on board with the project of deep self-transformation, and those of us who are just haven't been at it long enough. Where are our deep polythealogians, grappling with issues of soul development, or what we really believe or experience about our Gods? Where are our practitioners who have practiced so diligently we know they are masters because they radiate kick ass centeredness and wisdom rather than just raw power?

Diane Sylvan and Ann Johnson both have posts up debating whether or not (as if that's going to change it) Pagans ought to dress, well, a bit more like "everyone else." Sylvan puts it like this:

Recently there’s been a bit of discussion 'round the blogosphere about the issue of Pagans looking like, well, Renaissance-festival reject freaks, and whether or not we can ever be taken seriously in the religious community if we come off as members of a fandom.

I think we're kidding ourselves if we think that we could get "them" to "respect" us if only we'd write more books of serious thealogy, dress in Armani, or [insert your pet peeve here]. More discussions of serious thealogy would be a good thing, but Pagans have been writing good thealogy since long before Plato and Aristotle and, you know, it hasn't garnered us any more respect and has, in some cases, drawn even more derision. I know witches who wear Hermes and Jimmy Choo, witches who wear jeans and t-shirts, and witches who are Goth beauty queens. They're all serious about their religion and all of them belong to a religion that "others" don't respect. Maybe Uncle Gerald was onto something with all that skyclad business.

I think that, as she often does, Sylvan puts her finger on the real issue here:

Ideally, Paganism represents a fundamentally different way of looking at the world from the mainstream's materialistic commercialism and environmental degradation. Why should we dress to fit into a status quo we don't want to be a part of? Becoming Pagan isn't something that tends to attract conformists; why look like everyone else when you aren't like everyone else?

. . .

And really, when all is said and done, is it our outfits that are going to keep us from being taken seriously, or is it what we represent?

Western patriarchal religion is reaching a crisis point, as its denial of the feminine and the Earth as holy has steadily driven our world closer and closer to the edge of a chasm of greed and destruction. The old system doesn't work anymore, and it won't take much to bring the whole thing crashing down. Paganism's rise in America represents the fact that there is an alternative; that people can think for themselves and come to Deity on our own terms. We are a harbinger of the doom of the old power structure. Of course they don’t take us seriously. We are like the discovery of Christ's alleged tomb--if we're allowed to be thought of as genuine, we become a threat.

. . .

We've had hundreds of years to get used to clerical collars and saffron-colored Buddhist robes. If I show up for an interfaith council dressed in a Gandalf cloak with prosthetic pointed ears and a six-foot staff tipped with a $300 quart point, well, I pretty much waive the right to be surprised when they laugh at me. Do I have the right to dress how I want to dress? As far as I know, as long as my bits are covered to the satisfaction of state and local laws, yes I do. Do other people have the right to think I look like a moron? Oh yes, and I promise you, they will.

. . .

The only thing I can say with certainty is this: my duty is not to dress like a Pagan or like a Christian or like anyone. My duty is to be 100% myself 100% of the time, and not apologize for who I am or what I look like.

(I'll also note that it's apparently only RenFaire-type dress that is driving some folks nuts. I've yet to hear anyone complain about Pagans with too many tattoos or piercings. If we're all going to have to start wearing Ann Taylor, it isn't only the ReFaire Pagans who are going to have to change. Why, no. I'm not suggesting this is an ageist issue; why would you think so? ;) )

Coming back from Pantheacon, Thorn wrote:

I am grateful for our strangeness, our eccentricities, our depth, and the fact that we make room for each other. Margot Adler spoke of that multiplicity being our strong point and Sam Webster talked about the beauty of our polyphony. I believe that this is true, and love that we can celebrate together.

I was even gifted with a pope card by some wonderful, wandering Discordians.

I think that's about right. Our strangeness and eccentricities, our multiplicity and our polyphony are far, far more important than some chimerical "respect" that our patriarchial society would be nuts to "grant" to us, and never will, no matter how much we might like to think that they'd do so "if only" other Pagans "would only" [insert your pet peeve here].

As is so often the case, it's likely the Discordians who will save us from ourselves. Take one of their pope cards. If weird dress and shitty theology were the cause of disrespect, that guy wouldn't be living in a palace and granting audiences to campaigning U.S. presidents.

I.am.just.saying.