This past weekend, I attended Paganicon in the Twin Cities. It reminded me of the Kenny Loggins song, “Wait a Little While.” Our community has needed to rebound with renewed nourishment after the prolonged trauma of enforced separation during the last two years.
Paganicon logo [courtesy]
As we come together in community, we represent and resemble these lines: “And soon as you no longer try, you’ll turn and find it standing by your side.” As a minority collective of traditions, we Pagans strive frequently for growth in numbers. We welcome those seekers who are new to our traditions with the hope that they will become the mothers, fathers, and elders of tomorrow.
Peace, truth, mercy, and justice are successful forces that can lead us to success in unity and growth as a community. The strongest of these four is peace, the eternal middle child and the harbinger of resolved or absent conflict. Peace comes from being vulnerable and willing to be open with ourselves first. As a community, we may agree on the concept of peace as a lofty, yet probably unattainable goal. We need to be willing to let surprise into our shared communal space.
In the Paganicon schedule, a variety of presentations nourished the quality of Peace. One the most consistent was the Call for Peace by The Order of Bards Ovates & Druids (OBOD) with ongoing emphasis for war in Ukraine. Any and all were invited to add prayers and energy to the Peace altar throughout the Paganicon weekend.
Why are healthy boundaries important? Our community has the pleasure and privilege of being a large, diverse, and welcoming haven for many seeking a place where they are accepted as they are. Many come from being raised in one of the Abrahamic religions. Thankfully, others are products of a Pagan/Heathen/Polytheist upbringing. We welcome those of the LGBTQ+ community with open arms and understanding hearts.
While the COVID pandemic has fractured our ability to share physical space together in person for what seems like forever, the return to conferences marks a time to begin the healing.
Singing Bowl for Healing [Public Domain / Pixabay]
The communal experience is a trauma; our shared spirit has endured harm and pain through the absence of togetherness and the continued presence of conflict. When we break through the cycle of harm and trauma, we begin to heal. Our community has the trauma of being the under represented and silent numbers of the earth based faith traditions. We advocate healing for self, for group, and for planet on a regular basis, yet we are only able to share this in practice when we gather together in larger numbers.
Conferences, like Paganicon are living symbols of conflict resolution. We channel conflict energy into new opportunities with new people while utilizing peaceful resolution of our differences with long-time adversaries. This is not a type of wishful thinking or eternal optimism. Instead, it is total engagement at an in-person conference that allows a shift within our internal perception and our external engagement choices. Two years is a long enough time to choose happiness and the willingness to see through the lens of accepting change in others before taking up old fights
What I loved about the Paganicon experience was the unexpected: finding my perceived beliefs about myself and various traditions challenged. I enjoyed hearing what others were doing, seeing how nearly 600 individuals chose to engage with empathy rather than conflict in shared space for the greater collective good of the community.
We embrace peace as community when we gather together with enough time to take the masks off, in a literal sense while eating and drinking, and in a figurative sense by being able to share our fears face to face.
Peace is both the start and the end of the foundational sibling square. Truth, mercy and justice jostle each other in our understanding of what matters in life and in community.
As siblings, truth often appears as the oldest child who helps mercy, justice, and peace move towards their goals. As a core concept, each of us has an awareness or background regarding the meaning of the word and the concept called “truth.”
At Paganicon, we learn how to navigate what truth means among a wide variety of religious and spiritual traditions through ritual celebrations, presentations, and discussions that allow us to understand ourselves and our larger community a bit better. One presentation that demonstrates a large step forward is the ability to document our progress as a community. While the Cultural Archive of Modern Paganism (CAMP) is relatively new, it fills a necessary component for any individual or group of religious and spiritual community traditions: documentation.
Truth requires a history, a recording of past and present events. We cannot pass wisdom on to our children, our students, our initiates, and curious members of the general public without documentation, texts. CAMP’s goal to create “a national searchable digital resource of cultural reliability and documented history consisting of oral histories, a document archive, and media library” will allow the multi-layered Pagan, Heathen, and polytheist community to increase its visibility, thus attracting even more newcomers who could not come to a conference due to geographic, health or financial concerns.
As a sibling, mercy teaches, and provides examples for human self-care in the same manner as the oldest child cares for the younger children. Although often seen through an Abrahamic lens, mercy forms a part of the foundation for nearly all religions and traditions represented under the umbrella of Paganism, Heathenry, and polytheism. During the past two years, we could speak words of forgiveness or demonstrate compassion towards those who have harmed us in some way; however, the ability to forgive ranks far below our basic human needs: air, water, food, shelter, clothing, and safety.
When we are able to have peace and truth, we can give and receive mercy on an individual and community level. Few traditions under the umbrella terms of Paganism, Heathenism, and polytheism have a central organizational structure; therefore, we have to create our own frameworks and policies regarding where, when, and how we show mercy. This starts with the ability and desire to communicate clearly and to face potential conflicts due to miscommunications before tiny cracks evolve into fissures in our groups and traditions. The presentation “Community, Conflict, and Community Building” gave voice to many of the concerns that arise in younger religious traditions.
The final triplet sibling, justice, has gotten a lot of attention in the past several years. When we see crimes, injury to our communities and society, we cry out for her intervention to balance the scales. Like Truth, Justice has a long and complicated history in the realm of human awareness. Whether we follow Pagan, Heathen, Polytheist paths or some combination of these, we have a variety of interpretations of what justice means, what it can do, and what is not fair or reasonable.
Lady Justice [Pixabay]
Justice requires boundaries, knowing the rules, and having a clear set of expectations when those rules are broken, either knowingly or unknowingly. One the best presentations that covered Justice as well as peace, truth, and mercy was “Healthy Boundaries” led by Paganicon’s programming coordinator, Becky Munson. Three hours on Friday morning covered what should be the bedrock and foundation of our community.
As noted in the description, some of the most relevant areas included the following: theology and the nature of boundaries; power and vulnerability; dating, friendships, and dual relationships; gifts; the pulpit; transference; hugging and touch; intimacy; emerging issues in maintaining healthy boundaries; personal needs and self-care; and red flags.
Why are healthy boundaries important? Our community has the pleasure and privilege of being a large, diverse, and welcoming haven for many seeking a place where they are accepted as they are. Many come from being raised in one of the Abrahamic religions. Thankfully, others are products of a Pagan/Heathen/polytheist upbringing. We welcome those of the LGBTQ+ community with open arms and understanding hearts.
Although Justice considers herself the oldest of triplets with peace coming last, in return Peace sees the perspective of all. She bridges the gap with a better understanding of what her siblings have done and what they are going through. Peace has a better and stronger perspective.
When these four siblings work together, our communal future is filled with hope. We are set free by acknowledging the truth. We grow when we choose to be merciful. We embrace Lady Justice, with scales and blindfold. Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding.
Like the larger society, we use these four pillars to strengthen or weaken our community. We deal with conflict, real or perceived, latent or overt.
For those in our community who wondered if the drought of connection over the past two years would ever end, there is good news: we are back. If you longed for community and stopped trying, remember those words: “And soon as you no longer try, you’ll turn and find it standing by your side”.
With each gather, each conference, each Pagan Pride Day, and each ritual celebration each time we choose to celebrate festivals, rituals, and skills with each other we grow in strength and number. We re-gain a sense of peace to the greater benefit of all.
Happy Spring to all!
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THE VIEWS AND OPINIONS EXPRESSED BY OUR DIVERSE PANEL OF COLUMNISTS AND GUEST WRITERS REPRESENT THE MANY DIVERGING PERSPECTIVES HELD WITHIN THE GLOBAL PAGAN, HEATHEN AND POLYTHEIST COMMUNITIES, BUT DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE WILD HUNT INC. OR ITS MANAGEMENT.
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