Rev Janet Callahan

Priestess and Author

Pagan Community Failures

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A recent post on a local Pagan Yahoo group, and the feedback that came from it underlines a lot of the problems with Pagan organizations in general, and the community as a whole.

The short story:

One person suggests combining a bunch of different groups into a one-stop-shop website. People say yes, great idea. The website gets started, and then no one helps or participates, and the original person is going broke maintaining it. The OP is also upset that no one is using the wonderful site she’s created.

There are a couple things here I ought to touch on, but here’s the big one: Money.
This particular person was willing to sacrifice to make this site happen, and expected others, in a community notorious for members who don’t pay their own way, to follow suit. Furthermore, she took on a large expense to do so.

A half hour or so of investigation (thanks to my spouse) suggests that her hosting plan, which includes the website software, is running her around $300 a month…a totally bogus number, since the software is priced at about $5000 and the web host the software developers are reselling through costs only $10/month. The software is nothing special, and in just over a year, she’ll have paid for an entire copy of the software.

In the end, the stress of trying to pay the bills won out, and she’s scaling back her vision for the site, because the site as-is was simply not maintainable.

This is true of a lot in the Pagan community. People say they want libraries and ritual space and shops, but they’re not willing to pay to rent the space, or to frequent the shops enough to keep them open.

It’s been a big contributor to recent changes in the Dianic coven I belong to – the whole shift from open group to closed group came about because of the number of people who wouldn’t even contribute food for after-ritual.

It was a contributor to the end of Prism Temple (hell, the OP mentioned above was one of those people who was disappointed when we quit, because she thought it was a great idea, but she never got around to contributing).

Here’s the thing:
There’s a difference between a low impact lifestyle, being poor, and being a leach.
Choosing to live on less, being frugal on purpose…that’s something I could see as a result of a Pagan worldview. Less impact on the land, choosing the job that you love even if it doesn’t pay all that much…these are things that are good. And most folks who do this are willing to find ways to participate and add to the communities they’re a part of – it may be time or food or something else instead of money, but they *choose* which things are important to them, and make those things happen.

Being poor is something that is not necessarily a choice, but which can be influenced by choice. And again, for most folks who are truely poor, it’s a matter of priorities, but the first priority is meeting one’s basic needs: food, clothing, shelter. Truthfully, most of these folks *also* are more than willing to chip in to help make things happen that are important to them, are willing to find ways to get the things that are important to them.

Being a leach? That seems to be the biggest part of the community these days. It’s not that these folks couldn’t change something to have the money, but that they won’t. These are the folks that complain about the cost of the festival, spend next month’s rent on pretty new sparkly things, and then beg for gas money to get home. These are the folks that buy books online and candles at Walmart, and then get upset when the local Pagan shop that they never shop at closes. These are the people who complain about the same shop owners charging for meeting rooms, and then are upset when there’s no space to meet. These are the “I spent $30 on a prosperity kit and I’m still broke, what did I do wrong?” people.

So, what’s the solution?
I think that *any* Pagan organization, no matter what its purpose, needs to be founded on the idea that new content and activities will happen as someone steps forward to lead it, and as the money to pay for it becomes available. I think a small (but not too small) committed group has to head up any organization.

And I think that groups that start out expecting contributions need to enforce it – if you don’t contribute to the group, you don’t benefit from the group. Draw the types of people who contribute by eliminating those who don’t – you’ll have a stronger organization on the whole, and you’ll make a name by being the folks who don’t put up with bullshit.

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The Problem with Pagan Umbrellas

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The way I see it, we need more “secular Pagan” organizations.

Let me clarify what I mean by that. We have all these groups that try to be “open to everyone” and yet still religious. And while that’s not a recipe for failure, it is a recipe for exclusion if it’s not handled carefully. I think there should be more Pagan groups that focus less on the next holiday, and more on the community aspects of being Pagan.

Let’s look at a hypothetical group, which We’ll call “All Pagan Paths Circle” (APPC) for some examples. APPC is one of those groups that purports to represent all Pagans in your area, and promotes itself as being open to all Pagans, be they Wiccan, Druid, Asatru, or something else. APPC has been around a few years, and has several dozen members.

APPC has some social outreach programs – they collect coats for a local shelter, they do park cleanups and that sort of thing. They have a monthly chat night. They have a teen group. They have a small library.

APPC runs a monthly full moon ritual (which is organized by a committee) and 8 Sabbat rituals (handled by another committee). At all the full moon rituals, the ritual format is to call quarters, cast the circle, and invoke the chosen God and Goddess for the rite, before moving on to other ritual activities. The 8 Sabbat rituals are much the same, (although they invove a much bigger party afterwards, and are really sort of mini-festivals), except that about once a year, a local ADF grove leads the ritual portion of the event.

For the Pagan whose faith doesn’t celebrate all those rituals, APPC doesn’t look very welcoming – it appears that they promote a specific way of being Pagan, which is not the way all Pagans operate.

Or how about APPC’s bylaws? I know of groups like APPC who have things in their bylaws like “An it harm none, do what you will.” That too speaks to a specific flavor of Pagan, and not all Pagans follow it – so how can someone like me, who is not that flavor of Pagan join a group whose very bylaws specify that members must follow their faith?

So, in most communities, someone like me has three choices:

  1. I (possibly) join a small ritual group of my faith (if I can find enough people to make it worthwhile)
  2. If I’m interested in doing more public things, I join a large group that doesn’t really meet my needs on the religious front, and just keep my mouth shut.
  3. I remain a solitary practitioner of my faith, and talk with my co-religionists online.

Now I know some of you will insist that it’s not like this. That such groups really are open to anyone. And that’s true: they’re open to me, I can join. But the question I’m posing here is why *should* I join? If all I want is community, and I have to join another religious group to get it, why not go to the Christian church down the street? At least it’s close to home, and besides, it likely has more resources.

So, where does the secular group fit in here?

A secular Pagan group starts with the idea that they’re not going to focus on ritual. They’re going to focus on the community as a whole. They’re not going to define “Pagan” (and in particular, they’re not going to try to define Pagan by starting with the definition of Wiccan).

They’re going to focus on communications and connections. They provide a point of contact for many groups. They focus on things like libraries, community service, and charity. They happen to be Pagan run, and Pagan focused. But they create a place where all those smaller ritual groups can connect, and a place where people can work together without needing to argue about who’s leading next month’s full moon ritual.

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Infertility as a Crisis of Faith

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I’ve been thinking a lot about infertility and religion here lately. After taking the summer off to deal with getting my thyroid and insulin levels back to normal, we’ve back on the fertility treatment rollercoaster as of the first of October.

Truth be told, this time it’s caused a crisis of faith. Why now? I mean, we’ve been through the drug regimen 3 times thus far. I think it’s because I realize that there are no more excuses. Everything is as good as it’s going to get, and if in the next few months I don’t ovulate while taking clomid, that’s it…we’re not going any further.

After all the rituals, all the prayers, all the offerings, all the meditations where I’ve been shown my children and my future, all the tarot readings that show children in my future…I’m at a point where the number of options are quickly being reduced to nothing.

And if I’ve seen all those things, made all those prayers, and it doesn’t work?

It’s hard not to see it as a sign that everything spiritual in my life has been a lie; has been something I’ve made up. And if so….then I lose my faith entirely.

And that’s something of a problem. I depend on my faith a lot in my daily life. Each and every day I get up, offer greetings to the day, and live my life largely based on being right with my Gods and right with the world around me, and the Gods are never far from my thoughts.

At this point, after several friends spent several days talking me out of my panic, I keep on with the same patterns. As one friend says, “have they lied to you before? No? Then what makes you think they’re lying now? Things happen when they’re meant to happen. This will happen too, just maybe not on your timeline.”

And I will say this: the energy is different this time. I feel different this time.

So, here’s to modern medicine.

Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio