Clue-by-four of the week: I know what I’m doing, I know what I need, and if I don’t find it within, I will surely not find it without – so I might as well get on with it.

Last night, I did the unthinkable. I went, completely blind, to a meeting about a local “women’s circle” and their upcoming initiation program for the year.

I should have checked the website out before I decided to go, but I really needed out of the house for an evening, and several friends from my online attachment parenting group were going, so it was, as far as I was concerned, a safe place.

And it was, really…a room full of women, some seeking that elusive something deep in their souls, and others who felt they’d found it or were finding it.

And really, what I was looking for was that experience of circling with women – being together as sisters with the same goal. As I mentioned last night in circle, sitting with women offers a very different balance than anything else I’ve ever done. But this group was just not right for me – the energy was off, the “eclectic mix of Native American and Eastern Religions” not my thing, their designation of elements and directions jarringly uncoordinated….just the wrong energy for me.

To be fair, I have a few quibbles with their way of doing things. Starting the meeting by casting a circle without actually explaining anything about what you believe or giving anyone an out, for example, was something I was always taught was poor form. And the salesmanship while in circle, because, you know, personal development is never about the money, but there’s a cost for this training, see…a FOUR FIGURE cost…and if it’s important, you’ll find a way to afford it – that’s just tacky.

I also was disappointed in the way they went around and asked each of us whether or not we’d be joining them. Of course, the two who said yes were congratulated. There was approval for the woman 8+ months pregnant who said no (because while they’ve had pregnant women do their training, doing it with a babe-in-arms is probably not manageable), and for the mother with the 4 month old who said no….but not for the out-of-work mother whose husband is working a waitstaff job to pay the rent because he’s been unemployed 2 years. Nor was there approval for the mom who said she needed to think about it. And there wasn’t support for my answer that I’d normally want time to sit with this energy and understand how/where/if it fit, but that my child needed me and I couldn’t commit to the time….when questioned further, my explanation of preemie on a vent was met not with compassion, but with quiet resignation that I could not put my own needs first (hello, kid needs to keep breathing?!?)

If I’d done a bit more homework, the fact that they do sweat lodges would have made me stay far away. Not that there’s anything wrong with sweat lodges, mind you – I’m sure my finally-enrolled-Oglala-self ought to get back to the reservation and do a real one some day. But people who aren’t Native American who claim to run “authentic” sweats that they supposedly learned from “real” Indians always make me cautious…even more so when they charge for their services.

When I got home last night, I was torn. I realized that I really do want that connection, that sisterhood experience, in my life – and the sisterhood aspect was at odds with what I’d just experienced. The family-based work I’ve been doing is not bad, or wrong, but it doesn’t fulfill this other hole in my life. And because my own spiritual well isn’t being filled up most of the time, it’s hard for me to carry that over into my husband and my child and the stream of people in and out of our house to care for my child.

Talking it over with a close friend, I realized my take on the group was probably reasonable, and that I definitely didn’t belong there. I made an off-hand comment that I wished I could find a reasonable group, and that it still looked like I was going to have to start my own to get it, and I was just so damn tired of being in charge.

The response: You end up in charge because you’re good at it, so when are you going to take the hint and get on with it and make it happen?

Yeah…even my friends are handing out clue-by-fours these days.

So, in between everything else, I suppose I need to figure out what I’m going to do now that I’ve got the clue. How do you start a circle from the ground up? How do I want to structure it? How do I want to advertise, so to speak? Do I want to stick with the same initiation structure that my former coven used? Way too much to think about really, given everything else on my plate.

So, I suppose it’s like eating an elephant – one bite at a time.

I originally wrote most of this (using the title “Fluffy Wicca: More Misogynistic than Christianity” – can you tell I was really angry at the time?) back in April of 2003 on a yahoo group that was focused on venting about fluffy Wiccan tendencies. Out of the responses to that, I created http://www.paganinfertilityadoption.net, a community for Pagans dealing with infertility, miscarriage, adoption, and related issues.

After 5 years of trying (and not trying), drugs, procedures, and doctors, I’m finally pregnant, with only minimal medical intervention. But what that’s given me is a space to look back on the things I’ve said and done in the process of getting here, to try to heal some of what’s come before – and that healing process is going to take a lot of time and effort. I find it more important than ever to speak out about the way our community handles these sorts of issues, because if we are to be a viable community, we have to treat all of our members with respect, courtesy, and dignity. While my positions on things have softened with time, I still find that much of our community just can’t deal with infertility – the facts have not changed in the nearly 5 years since I originally wrote this.

*****

It seems to me that modern Wicca is, by and large, nothing more than a fertility cult. Just about every Wiccan symbol other than the pentacle is a fertility symbol – triple moons, moons with horns, the Great Rite and so on. I can’t speak for the BTW crowd on this – maybe they are much the same way, maybe they aren’t. But most of modern Wicca, pseudo-Wicca, and Wiccanesque belief revolves around fertility. And many of these people use the word “Pagan” when they mean “Wiccan” or “Wiccanesque,” which further complicates the matter. Many of those following these beliefs claim they left Christianity because it is misogynistic, but I submit that not only is Wicca more misogynistic in many ways, but it is also misandristic as well.

Look at the main rituals and holidays. There are 13 full moons (generally working rituals that celebrate “The Goddess”), but there are only 8 Sabbats (generally, celebrations of “The God”). So “The Goddess” gets more holidays, but has to work on all of them. I bet “The God” feels left out.

Additionally, “The God,” in his 8 rituals, is born, grows up, has sex, and dies. Men, do you feel that’s a fair characterization of your lives?

And between the “triple Goddesses are everywhere” syndrome, and the idea that every Goddess fits into the maiden, mother, or crone paradigm, and the fact that all “The Goddess” does in the Sabbats is get laid, get pregnant, and give birth, it seems that the only way for women within Wicca and Wicca-like religions to identify with “The Goddess” is by having kids. What if, by chance or by choice, you don’t have kids? What sort of a place does a childless woman have in a religion where the main way to identify with the deity is through childbirth? What about those who adopt? All the “mother” goddess images I’ve seen lately involve pregnant women – this is the primary way we denote motherhood in society, after all.

That’s worse than only having one gender of deity. Now, not only do I have to be the right gender, but I have to give birth. By their own logic, that’s the only way women can identify with this mythology.

The Wicca-like crowd doesn’t know what to do with people who don’t have kids. If you don’t have kids, there must be something wrong with you – maybe you’re not really Pagan.

When it comes to trying to have kids and infertility, the single thread in any message board or email list usually consists of statements like “I did this spell, and I got pregnant within a month” and “burn candles like this, and then quit trying to get pregnant, and you will” (huh? So now they’re are preaching about virgin births? Doesn’t having sex without the appropriate counter-measures count as “trying to get pregnant”?). When the topic of medical reasons for not being able to get pregnant comes up, the response is almost always that you don’t really need medical help – you just need to do more spells. Occasionally someone mentions herbs, but they all quote from the same book, and the number of copyright violations (much less the number of incorrect statements) out there is astronomical

I’m sure this whole rant comes out of frustration on my part. My apparent choices for having children any time in the foreseeable future consist of (1) take fertility drugs, or (2) adopt. This is not a light decision – twins run in my family, on both sides of the family, and the Gods seem to have this rather twisted sense of humor at times (let’s face it – the family with septuplets took the standard fertility drug that is given as a first attempt at increasing fertility). Additionally, fertility drugs are considerably more dangerous than the average person realizes – and I’ve spent a lot of time getting my health in order so that I could be on the bare minimum of medications, so adding more isn’t high on my list of fun things to do.

There aren’t many Pagan events, e-mail lists, or websites that aren’t Wiccanesque – so looking for anything on the subject that might be related to religion and spirituality involves dealing with this single-minded crowd. And there aren’t many Pagan sites of any level of seriousness related to infertility or adoption. Most of the Pagan boards about fertility are about being pregnant, or about people with kids. In one group I found for those without kids, most people were talking about all the crap they take from those who do have kids, and the fact that they often didn’t go to events because of it. I don’t want the rest of my life to be like that, but at the rate things are going, it may be the only sane thing to do.

Or, The Trials and Tribulations of Being a Hard Polytheist in the Modern Pagan World

I generally consider myself to be a hard polytheist: I believe that the various and sundry Gods and Goddesses are separate individuals.

But I believe this for a rather odd reason. I figure if it appears that there are many different Gods, with different personalities and histories and spheres of influence, it’s most practical to act as if they really are separate, until and unless there is some final convincing proof that they’re all from the same source. After all, if there is some single ultimate source, it had a good reason for appearing to be many different deities, so why not play along?

This pragmatic approach to religion disturbed some of my co-workers in the interfaith group when we discussed such things. They asked my opinion on what happened after death, and I said that I generally thought there was some form of reincarnation, except on days where I was feeling particularly skeptical, but that I also wasn’t convinced it mattered. When they asked why, I said, “Isn’t it true that most religions – certainly the religions of every person in this room – teach that we should do the best we can with this life, in order to get the best afterlife we can?” Well…yes…. “Ok, then why does it matter whether I get another life after this to try again, or weather I go to heaven or the summerlands, or some other afterlife – in the end, what really matters was what I did with this life. Everything else is just details for the divine to sort out when I die.”

This general take on things leads to some interesting problems in the community [1] at large. For example, I am a priestess of, and have studied with, a Dianic coven. In typical Dianic style, this group works with the triple-goddess archetype, and while they occasionally invoke (and even channel) specific Goddesses, it’s not done outside of the idea that this is just an Avatar of The Goddess (TM). Note that word “just” – when used this way, it often means, “merely” – nothing more than whatever you’re describing – which takes away the importance of the entire subject of the sentence.

When I started working with this group, a lot of my friends asked: why affiliate yourself with a group you don’t completely agree with?

The first bit of truth: there aren’t any groups out there that I agree with 100%.

The second bit of truth: If there was a reasonably serious recon group that allowed syncretic worship and innovation, and still allowed for the “mystery” and “magick” that Wicca takes as part and parcel, I’d be there in a heartbeat. In fact, if I thought I could get past the bad experiences I’ve had with a handful of more public covens, I think I’d manage to be quite happy and spiritually enriched in a solid BTW coven that allowed for some creativity without being overbearing or too entrenched in “One True Wayism.” I can’t be the only one who wants this type of thing.

Thus far, though, I haven’t found any groups that fit that combination. I’m sure some readers will say that their group is what I’m looking for. I’m open to suggestions, but really, I’ve investigated a lot of groups – recon groups, Wiccanesque groups, umbrella-type Pagan groups that claim to cater to everyone. You either get too fluffy, or too stuffy.

And frankly, those umbrella groups are the worst of the worst: “We are open to all paths!” they insist, but they follow the 8 Wiccan holidays with Wiccan style rituals…which doesn’t seem very interfaith to me, just like I don’t find “interfaith” groups comprised only of Catholics and Protestants to be particularly worthy of the interfaith definition either

So…what benefit is there from a group I disagree with on things, that other people around me consider fluffy? This one focuses on personal growth. It allows for calling specific Goddesses by name. Whether I see them as individuals is not important to the overall function of the group. But the downsides…no Gods. No men. Less than accurate scholarship.

I suspect before this is all done, I’ll end up creating my own little group. Because having walked away from my Dianic coven when they took off in directions I didn’t need to go, I kind of miss the overall group worship experience. And if all I wanted out of my worship experiences was to be with other people, I’d re-join a Christian church – it’s at least as far from my own practices as the average eclectic Wiccan group is these days, and it’s a much more functional community.

[1] and by community, I mean the loosely connected set of Pagan folk out there of various varieties, not that they’re actually a community – community involves shared interests, culture, or location, and I’m not convinced we Pagans really have any of these on a grand scale. But that’s another essay for another day.

The modern woman, at least in America, is under a series of unique pressures that make me believe that women only groups that focus on women’s mysteries a very important thing these days. We are damned if we do, and damned if we don’t, expected to match every impossible ideal that society holds up for us, which we cannot meet no matter what options we pick, and that means that many of us feel it’s not ok to be ourselves. More than anything, women’s mysteries focus our attention on ourselves, and the concept of it being ok to be whoever we really are, no matter how much of the cultural ideal we match or don’t match – there are many Goddesses, and they offer many ways to be female, without tearing down men for being male.

My personal experience with this is as a woman who works in a traditionally male-dominated field. I have a degree in mechanical engineering, and I work in the automotive field. But the opposing forces in my life go back much further than just my job, and they run much deeper.

I don’t really know where it started – it was subtle, and insidious. But over the course of elementary school, I learned that girls were emotional, and boys were stoic; girls were good at art and music, boys were good at math and gym class. And by far, my favorite subject was math – I was the smartest kid in my entire grade – and that didn’t fit with all those expectations.

Along the way, I picked up the understanding that to be seen as equal to the boys in my class, I had to be better. A girl getting an A in math was a fluke; to be equal to the boys, it had to be an A+. Placing in the school math contest didn’t matter – 2^nd or 3^rd out of 200 wasn’t an achievement worth recognizing, only placing first got me anything other than a pat on the head, even though the boys who placed in the top ten were all commended for their brilliance.

When I got into middle school, I joined the math team, and while our coach had no problems with me being a girl, many of my male teammates did, as did competitors from other schools. The idea of being beaten by a girl was always something that my immediate rivals disliked, and I didn’t win many friends by winning as many gold medals as I did.

It was so much of a problem that when I was a sophomore in high school, a fateful discussion occurred between my guidance counselor and me. My mother insisted I needed to talk to him about colleges, because I had gotten an interview with MIT, and she thought I ought to be able to get useful information from the counseling office on what to expect. When I said that I wanted to talk about college, he said that it was too soon, that I should come back when I was a senior. When I said that I already had an interview scheduled for one of my applications, he asked what I meant, and I explained that I’d been working on applying to MIT. His very thoughtful response was, “Well, we had a guy from Wentzville go there once, I suppose anything is possible.”

I refused to go back to talk to him ever again.

College wasn’t much better. Many of my professors were foreign nationals, from countries where women really are second-class citizens, and their opinion of having a woman in their classes often reflected that social history. I was often not taken seriously; when I asked questions about how to do homework problems, I was often made to feel like an idiot for not immediately understanding the work at hand.

The thing that really brought this dichotomy into view for me was that I recently said something about wanting to do my nails, but that it was a waste, and not very engineer-like. A good friend of mine (who happens to be male) asked what I meant by that. When I explained that, besides the fact that brake fluid eats nail polish, it really wasn’t in keeping with the image of being an engineer. And upon further discussion, he pointed out that when I’m working on engineering things, I tend to give off a very prickly vibe. And that’s a defensive mechanism – I have to act more arrogant, and more closely matching society’s views of men, to be taken seriously as an engineer – I have to be better than my male coworkers to get the same accolades.

I can’t show when I’m hurting; I can’t stop to take time for myself until everyone else’s needs are met, because doing so proves that I’m weak, and not up to the standards of the world I live in. I have to be perfect at everything, because any little mistake proves that I somehow don’t deserve the accolades I’ve gotten in the past, or the place that I am now in my life, that I’ve earned with all my hard work.

I’m also told I’m not a real woman because I don’t have children – but then, a good friend who has a child tells me she’s told she’s not a real woman because she has a child and stays home with her daughter, because she’s somehow “giving up” her life this way.

So, how does all this tie in to women’s mysteries and women-only groups?

In my experience, groups of women tend to work out one of two ways. Some groups are catty and end up tearing each other down, holding the bar even higher for each other than society does. And other groups pull together, and allow women to be themselves, supporting each others’ decisions and needs, and helping each other grow as human beings.

And it’s that second kind of group I’m advocating for – one where we come together as women, to be who we are, and to support each other spiritually. To reach out to all the Goddesses out there, and learn from each of them (and from each other) about how to deal with the facets of our lives – the ones that make us uncomfortable, the ones that scare the rest of the world, the ones that we cherish publicly and the ones we honor secretly. To build the inner strength that is so necessary to deal with the pressures of a world that never thinks we’re good enough.

This is not to say that there aren’t men in the world who support women, or who allow us to be ourselves. But from what I’ve seen, their support is based on blind faith – they can’t know how these things affect us, because they have no frame of reference. There is nothing similar in their lives in terms of the subtle depths of these opposing forces, or how completely they shape our lives. Explaining it to them, while helpful, more often than not results in looks of confusion and disbelief. I tried explaining the whole “girls can’t do math” bit to my husband once. While he readily admits that he’s seen people with that attitude, he struggled to grasp the full breadth and depth of the ways this is expressed in the world.

I’ve studied with a Dianic coven for the last few years. While their take on patriarchy and “herstory” are things I have a lot of heartburn over, what I found in the group I practiced with was a place where I could be me. Where I could bring any issue to the table for help from my sisters. Where your education or current job or sexual orientation didn’t matter. Where each woman had the right to be there, and to be herself – as a whole person, bringing all her hopes and fears and experiences to the table.

I also struggle with the Dianic assessment that there are two types of people in the world, mothers and their children, but I realize that a lot of that struggle, for me, is tied into my own battle with infertility – as in many Pagan groups, I feel there’s too much of an emphasis on “mother” as an archetype, particularly where being a mother requires one to give birth to children. Most groups avoid other views on the mother archetype – the creativity, nurturing, teaching, growing, and providing for self, family, and community.

In some ancient cultures, menstrual blood was seen as taboo, and the woman had to separate herself from the group during her menses, and only interact with other women. Could it be that this, in part, became a similar “safe space” for women?

Unfortunately, this sort of experience isn’t something one can find in most modern polytheistic groups, particularly in Reconstructionist Pagan groups. Too many Recon groups leave the mysteries out of their religion. Additionally, most local groups are small – too small to manage a regular worship experience plus a women’s group.

It’s also not really something you find in mainstream Wiccan and neo-Wiccan groups – they tend to be very much about balance – though their definitions of balance are all over the map, and are sometimes not at all balanced by any definition of the word.

The only place that one reliably finds this experience these days is in Dianic groups, (and not even in all of them) which generally are monotheistic – there is “The Goddess” who has many faces. Some Dianic groups take the “women first” bit far enough to generate words like wymyn and wombon, some venerate lesbian relationships over heterosexual ones, some are still just cheerleader squads in disguise, where everyone must be the same, and can never have a bad hair day.

So, what would a polytheistic women’s group look like?

I suspect that every group would vary a lot depending on the people and the place. After all, when you’re talking about exploring the realms of many different Goddesses, there are many ways for things to go, because what might be appropriate to one Goddess may not be appropriate for another.

While I have a personal affinity for the full moon rituals that most Dianic groups focus on, I could see any number of other schedules working out. I suspect something like the first Sunday of the month would give the opportunity to cycle through lunar and solar cycles, and to pick Goddesses and mythologies for each ritual as appropriate.

The mythology is an important part here – what do we read about this Goddess in the lore; what does that story say about living our lives as women? What can we take away from the mythology to apply to our lives?

Dianic rituals are largely magick with little veneration. I think the emphasis on healing that is present in most Dianic rites is a good one – there are many things in our lives to be healed, after all – but adding in a more honoring/worshipping aspect would be a benefit too.

Most polytheistic rituals like this will require more prep work than the average Dianic ritual – often in Dianic circles, ritual parts are assigned immediately before ritual, with everything done on the fly. Working with specific Goddesses, you’d have to know what that particular deity likes and doesn’t like, and plan accordingly. Someone would have to have read up on the mythology to present to everyone. Appropriate offerings would have to be arranged, and it might even require an appropriate ritual format.

To that end, I think some form of hierarchy would have to be imposed. Not that discussion and attempting to come to consensus are bad…just that someone has to make the final decisions; someone has to organize the various members to make sure each ritual is complete. If the group does any sort of initiation procedure, it’d need that structure to make things work. Structure also helps to keep the tone of the group the way it’s intended to be – someone has to be willing to pre-screen new members, occasionally someone has to be willing to tell people that they’re just not right for the group (or that they’re flat out nuts and need a shrink, not a ritual group).

Is it do-able? I don’t see why not. I think, with the right intent, women from any number of religious backgrounds could work together this way, even if not all the Goddesses chosen were from their own pantheon; most deities seem pretty relaxed about the occasional thanks to someone else if help is needed.

I don’t see the issues with women’s roles in society going away anytime soon. We might as well make the best of it and do what we can for ourselves.