Pagan Voices: Ivo Dominguez, Jr., Amy Castner, SunTiger and more!

Pagan Voices is a spotlight on recent quotes and images from figures within Pagan and Heathen communities. These voices may appear in the burgeoning Pagan media or a mainstream outlet, but all showcase our wisdom, thought processes, expression, and evolution in the public eye. Is there a Pagan voice or visual artist you’d like to see highlighted? Contact us with a link to the story, post, audio, or image.

I care about many things. I love many people, communities, and the Earth. I am passionate about many issues. I lean into the discomfort when I discover something that is wrong in myself, cultures, technologies, religions, and politics so that I can do my part to change what can be changed. This means I live a rich life with bright lights and abysmal darks, and I would not have it any other way. . . . . . . I’ve been heartened by the outpouring of support and the encouraging words about taking time for self-care. I appreciate the support and I’d like to say that my self-care is as much for you as it is about me. — Ivo Dominguez Jr., on self-care in the wake of the Orlando attacks.

We were made for these times. You are the result of generations of ancestors who lived through the terrible times and survived. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. Take out your comfort basket. Enjoy beauty. Hold your beloveds close. Drink tea. The struggle will still be here when you come back. Goddess knows, it ain’t showed much sign of disappearing heretofore. — HecateDemeter, “I Will Not Leave You Comfortless.”

The truth is though, that globalism and nativism are mutually exclusive ideas. You cannot preserve the identity of a people’s native heritage, and bind them all together as one giant, unified species. There’s too many mutually exclusive differences between the groups. It would be like trying to fuse Asatru with Islam, when at every turn they differ on absolutely every issue, from how many gods there are to how you treat women, to what is the appropriate way to regain lost honor. — Lucius Svartwulf Helsen on the inherent tension between nativism and globalism.

“A lot of food assistance available is through other religious organizations,” said Rev. Amy J. Castner, a priest in the Druid faith and vice president of Pagans in Need. “A lot of people who are Pagans or not religious don’t feel comfortable receiving help from people who don’t share their religious views. Knowing there’s a place for them to go where their lifestyle is accepted makes people feel more comfortable.” — Amy Castner, quoted in the Lansing State Journal article “Fresh veggies, clothes offered at Pagans in Need food pantry.”

In a sense, polytheism is like art. It is interpretation and expression, and absolutely does not and cannot place emphasis on any single unity. There is no end point for polytheism, or for the multiplicity of the divine. It branches and twists, turns and splinters into a hundred iterations, a thousand views and infinitely more interpretations, all underneath the conception of what it means to be a “god,” many of which exist alongside each other under a wider religious umbrella. That which is conceptualized as a single divinity is ultimately – sometimes intimately – multifarious, producing a range of attributes, qualities, and experiences which can felt differently between people of the same household, let alone what would have constituted the differences between two regional traditions. — The Lettuce Man, “I Call It ‘Musashi Contemplates Caravaggio’.”

From WitchsFest 2016 [Photo by Ron Frary. All Rights Reserved]

From WitchsFest 2016 [Image by Ron Frary. All Rights Reserved]

This idea that people who are evil or commit evil acts couldn’t possibly be Pagan, it drives me batty. It is not up to us to decide what another person’s religion is. If someone is a practicing Pagan, let’s say a practicing Hellene: they worship the theoi, they practice Hellenic ritual forms, they do what Hellenes are supposed to do. They don’t suddenly become not-Hellene because they commit some act that I and other Hellenes think is evil. — Bekah Evie Bel, “Pagans Aren’t Evil.”

We can solve all the world’s problems, we can stop the violence, once we stop looking at life as the singular and start looking at life as a whole. There was a time back in history when humans worked together in order to survive in this world, sadly that was when our ancestors ventured out of Africa into the harsh unknown.

We can make all these advancements in technology, but we cannot make any advancements within ourselves. That is going to lead us down a path that we will not survive and the ego isn’t going to help us when we are there. With everything you see and hear that is going on in the world, we are on that path right now sprinting to the end. — Bear (CanadianDruid), “Can We End Violence?

I have a theory that what the religious “nones” may be looking for is not the “religionless church” offered by the Sunday Assembly and Unitarian Universalism, but “churchless religion” — symbol, myth, and ritual, without the moralism, dogmatism, and hierarchy — a kind of “Hinduism for the West.” . . . . I suspect that part of the reason we Pagans have not yet capitalized on the growth of the nones is that people can’t find us . . . . I question whether people can really experience Paganism virtually or by reading a book. — John Halstead, from an essay on eco-shrines.

Although the majority of modern Pagans are not anti-capitalists, there is a fundamental contradiction between the Pagan and capitalist worldviews. The worldview of capitalism is sociopathic; it treats everything and everyone as an object to be used. The worldview of paganism is relational; not only does it not treat people or animals as mere objects, it doesn’t look at anything else as a mere object either. — Christopher Scott Thompson, “What is Pagan Anarchism?

One of the reasons Pagans (people who practice earth-based spirituality) might not know if a curse is legit or not is because there are groups, like Wicca and some variations of shamanism, and other Pagan traditions, that follow the “harm none” principal. Those groups tend not to use curses or hexes in their spell work at all so they might not study that negative juju enough to know exactly how energetic harm is made. That means they might also not know how to stop a curse, or protect themselves from one, once one has been enacted against them.

Yet even those groups that practice “harm none” know that curses in the Pagan community do exist and either by experience or observation they tend to believe they can cause great harm. Most practitioners of the above-mentioned philosophies greatly fear curses for the mayhem, disease, and destruction they can cause someone. That’s part of the way they shun such teachings. — SunTiger, “What Every Pagan Should Know About Curses.”

[Greg Harder]

Yucca [Image by Greg Harder. All Rights Reserved.]


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5 thoughts on “Pagan Voices: Ivo Dominguez, Jr., Amy Castner, SunTiger and more!

  1. “I have a theory that what the religious “nones” may be looking for is not the “religionless church” offered by the Sunday Assembly and Unitarian Universalism, but “churchless religion” — symbol, myth, and ritual, without the moralism, dogmatism, and hierarchy — a kind of “Hinduism for the West.” . . . . I suspect that part of the reason we Pagans have not yet capitalized on the growth of the nones is that people can’t find us . . . . I question whether people can really experience Paganism virtually or by reading a book. — John Halstead, from an essay on eco-shrines.”

    Man, I couldn’t agree with this more. Although I have been a member of CUUPS for some time now and have occasionally held events and been to gatherings at a local UU church their insistence that one must consider themselves a Unitarian Universalist first and a Pagan second as well as the pressure from some members to “become a more active member of the church” remind me so much of the things that turned me off of mainstream religion in the first place. They’re fine folks and I enjoy their company on occasion but they are just to “churchy” for me personally.

    • I regret that you got “UU first” treatment from a UU congregation. They are imho not moving in the spirit of the UU Principle of encouraging personal spiritual growth. Of course, under the rule of congregational polity, they can interpret the Principles as they see them, but they deprive themselves of your potential gifts to their community by inventing false priorities.As to pressure to become a more active member, I hope you understand that any institution has institutional loyalists; and that encouraging greater involvement is better than tacitly discouraging it in order not to raise leadership competition.I am a UU whose theology is Pagan and no one pesters me as to which has primacy. My wife and I just did a Lammas service for our UU fellowship, to good reviews.

      • Thank you for your thoughts Baruch Dreamstalker. I understand that you and many others have found a welcome home in UU congregations as practicing Pagans and I am quite happy for them and count them as friends. Unfortunately, the “UU first” treatment you regret did not come from just one congregation but much higher up in CUUPS. I can no longer find the specific post online and don’t recall whether it was on a forum or in a blog comments section. It’s hardly important now anyway. As I said, it works for some and I hold no ill will towards anyone. I do understand as well that any institution has it’s institutional loyalists, including my own tradition. But there is “encouraging greater involvement” and then there is badgering.

        I do apologize that my words may have made you feel a need to defend your organization. That was not my intent at all. I have many friends who are UU Pagans and my own tradition will in fact be holding our Lammas / Lughnasadh ritual at our local UU Church this coming Saturday. I think Unitarian Universalist churches and their associated CUUPS chapters are fine organizations. They just, simply, are not my flavor for my own personal tastes in spiritual practice. That’s all there is to it.

    • The Pagan experience within UU seems to vary widely depending on place and time. I’m not a UU Pagan as such, but I have started attending rituals at one with some regularity over the last year. At my level of participation at least, the Pagan circle I attend is completely separate from the UU congregation which hosts us. We have a very nice grove in back of the property which we use in all but the harshest weather. I’ve never attended one of the regular UU church services and I’ve never even seen any of the actual congregation members, except for a few within our Pagan group. They said coven leaders have to be active members of the UU congregation, or maybe on some leadership council there as well, I can’t recall.

      I don’t consider myself a Unitarian Universalist. I’m good with their ideas of self-growth and diversity, but I don’t worship all ideas of divine as equally the same, nor do I see them all as the different paths up the same mountain. I’m a Pagan. I worship Pagan deities. I have no intention of attending their regular church services (or anything on a Sunday morning!). I’m not willing to take some pledge or baptism, but if being an “active member” just means contributing some work and money toward the survival of the whole operation, I’m ok with that.

      I have no idea if my experience is typical or not among UU Pagan groups. It seems in general that more UU groups have Pagan elements within them and that it’s less controversial than even 10 or 15 years ago, but I’d be interested to hear other’s take on that.