I simply returned from a Pagan pageant in Tennessee. That is the primary in a single day occasion that I’ve gone to put up Covid pandemic and in addition the primary Pagan pageant that I’ve ever been to. Pre-pandemic all of the occasions that I’ve gone to have been Ladies’s occasions and gatherings resembling Collect The Ladies Annual Gathering, ALisa Starkweather’s Daughters of the Earth, Midwest Ladies’s Natural Convention and others alongside these strains.
They stunning a lot all had a Pagan dusting to them as a result of something the place you discover the Divine within the Female and within the Earth, rocks, crystals, herbs, the celebrities, and populated by individuals who reside nearer to the Earth, keep away from crowds, are empathetic, effectively, you’ve acquired Pagan leanings.
However I shied away from the phrase ‘Pagan’ for a very long time, as a result of I grew up Catholic and despite the fact that rising up in a really waspy suburb of Dallas, I didn’t give it a lot thought in any respect, I’ve since realized that the undercurrent of my perception system was that Pagans have been evil, animal sacrificing, overly sexual, devil-worshiping and in any other case simply one thing to be averted.
However these undercurrents are fascinating highly effective issues to be examined. And now is a superb time to do this.
The premise of CauldronFest was to convey various kinds of Pagans collectively: Norse, Wiccan, and extra, with the intention to share, encourage, join and encourage. Friday evening, I sat at a Norse fireplace ritual. As I watched the animal fur clad contributors with staffs saying unfamiliar phrases, I felt prickles of uncomfortableness. I seemed deeper.
I’ve been to Indian pow-wow’s and didn’t really feel that. Why not?
Even when you don’t imagine in Norse Paganism, it is part of our historical past believed by many all through centuries, and so long as it’s not hurting anybody (it’s not), it needs to be revered as such.
Who says God and Divinity can solely be reached a method?
Properly, I can let you know a couple of individuals who do. Saturday morning, I began listening to individuals speaking concerning the ten to 12 automobiles parked on the gate: Christians. Protesting? Involved? I’m not certain which, however I did hear the rumor they have been planning on ‘storming’ the occasion.
And I used to be certain concerning the worry I felt.
I even had the thought that maybe it was time to go dwelling. Was this one thing that I needed to get harm for?
However then I seemed deeper.
As a really observant empathetic individual, I felt and noticed the worry undergo the camp. Furtive glances and elevated nerves. Elevated safety.
And I understood that the worry was based mostly in all of the individuals all through historical past who have been completely different and informed to not be: who have been persecuted, killed, burned, hanged and ostracized for not ‘becoming in’.
That worry was based mostly on the ‘us versus them’ mentality of historical past.
However the time of ‘my approach or the freeway’, the time of just one approach of being or dwelling: a person and a lady, two children, a canine, a cat, a white picket fence and a retirement fund … is disappearing.
The Pagan pageant had numerous homosexual males: one in all them was so colourful sporting skirts and heavy make-up all weekend. He was within the stomach dancing class with me and approach higher than me at stomach dancing. He was additionally at all times sporting a mid-shirt, proudly displaying his rounded stomach, producing the urge in me not solely to go up and rub that stomach, but additionally a smile considering of all of the instances we girls have hid our rounded bellies in disgrace. Suck it in. Lose the load. Get on a weight loss plan. Cease consuming. Starve. Starve. Starve. In order that you’ll match some stick determine Cosmopolitan picture of gorgeous.
However not at this pageant. I noticed so many individuals on the heavier facet (like me) who didn’t make any apologies for it, however proudly walked round within the physique they’ve been given regardless of the scale, shade or gender they like.
All of us must learn to try this.
So I took a deep breath and I compelled myself to acknowledge and transfer via the worry I used to be feeling on the ‘Gathering of Christians’ on the gate.
Was it legitimate? Why have been they there?
I heard they needed to hope for us. Please. Sure. Pray for us. And I’ll pray for you. What a world we may make if all of us prayed for one another! If all of us prayed to be compassionate, loving and accepting of our variations.
I’m going to let you know one thing else. I’ve now seen sufficient of Paganism that I’ve additionally seen those that have traded one set of foolish guidelines and group assume for an additional. And on no account are all Christians shut minded and judgmental, I personally know so many that aren’t.
The underside line is that if Jesus was round in the present day, he wouldn’t be on the gate with the protestors, he could be sitting across the fireplace. His message at its coronary heart was compassion and love. Love of the celebrities, love of Mom Earth and love of every approach life has expressed itself in humankind. With the emphasis on KIND.
What I actually appreciated about this occasion that every class that I went to mentioned, ‘that is the best way I or we do it, however discover your personal Path.’
It is a time of stability. And it’s unstoppable. I’ve felt that. I’ve seen that. You’ll be able to collect on the gate and protest or pray or no matter you need to do, however the time is right here for stability.
The time is right here for stability between the masculine and the female, each gender, each creed and each shade.
And you’ll transfer via this time protecting your unexamined underpinnings and worry, or you’ll be able to launch them on the fireplace.
BIO: Caryn MacGrandle is the creator behind the Divine Female App which has been connecting and provoking ladies [and other genders too] all through the world since 2016 as a listing to seek out Sacred Circles, occasions and assets. Ladies discover the app every day, and it at present has nearly 8000 customers from world wide. Caryn has additionally hosted Sacred Circles and occasions for the previous 9 years and is passionate concerning the energy of a Circle to heal people and the world. She has participated in quite a few on-line and site occasions such because the World Parliament of Religions in September of 2021 by which she introduced a workshop on Embodying the Goddess: Creating Rituals with Thoughts, Physique and Soul and only recently a webinar/panel with Dale Allen presenting Dale’s Indie movie award profitable “In Our Proper Minds: Main Ladies to Power as Leaders and Males to Power with out Armor.” Each day, Caryn (aka Karen Moon) works tirelessly in direction of her perception that a very powerful space to first discover equality and stability is the divinity discovered inside your self.