Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

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The Cathedrals of Pagandom

 Baths of Caracalla, Rome: interior of the Tepidarium | Works of Art | RA  Collection | Royal Academy of Arts

 

Two bathhouses for more than a thousand sweaty pagans? You've got to be kidding me.

The campground where the big pagan festival was being held that summer usually catered to music festivals. Maybe at heart the wholly inadequate shower facilities was largely a matter of demographics.

Even so. After waiting in line for more than an hour one morning for my 60 seconds under the showerhead, I go up to the office to protest and lobby for some sort of temporary accommodation. Propane showers, maybe?

The campground manager does her best to be mollifying. I'm clearly not the first to bring the issue to her doorstep. Equally clear is the fact that they're not going to be doing anything to rectify the problem any time soon. Thank Goddess for Turtle Creek.

As I turn to leave, she shakes her head.

“You pagans sure are a cleanly lot,” she says, sounding a little surprised.

In spite of myself, I laugh. As for the ancestors, ritual purity remains for modern pagans a matter of deep religious importance. We are, after all, the people that invented public baths. Historians have referred to the public baths of the ancient Mediterranean world as the "cathedrals of Pagandom."

“We are when we can be,” I say, going out the door.

 

 

 

Above:

 The Baths of Caracalla

 

 

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

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