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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Steven Posch

Steven Posch

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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To a Boy on His Way

 

Here's a true word: It's hard to be a man.

Oh, you'll hear the voices, saying: This is what it means to be a man. That is what men are.

Don't believe any of them. They're all wrong.

Here's another true word: There's not just one way to be a man.

When I was your age, I heard those voices, too. Much of what they said wasn't me, and so I thought: Well, then, maybe I'm not a man.

But the voices were wrong, and so was I.

Here's what I had to work so hard, and for so long, to discover: There's not just one way to be a man. In fact, there are lots of different ways. Which way is yours?

You're now on a quest for your own manhood. Always remember, your work is not to be this or to be that, but to discover just what kind of a man you are. What does manhood look like on you?

Keep your eyes open. Who are the men around you that you admire, and want to be like?

They're the ones who can teach you. They're the ones to learn from.

What kind of man will you be? That's what it's up to you to figure out for yourself. You're the only one who can.

As you embark on your quest, let me just pass along a sage bit of drollery that I once heard from a wise elder.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

To a Witch Friend Going to Beirut

Dear N,

I miss you already. Hope it's a good trip. By all accounts, Beirut—“wells” it meant, in Phoenician—is an amazing city. Best hummos in the Middle East, I hear.

While you're there, be sure to get to the Museum. (“Temple of the Muses” it meant, in Greek.)

Sing to the Astartes. You know which songs.

If need be, sing silently.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

Whew. There's the garden finally planted. First we did the work; now we do the magic.

We dance leaping dances to show the crops how high to grow.

(“The higher we leap, the higher they grow: around and around and around we go!”)

We plant wide-hipped little terracotta goddess figurines around the edges, to encourage and oversee.

We make love in the fields, that most sympathetic of sympathetic magics.

 

In the 2005-7 BBC series Rome, set in the time of Julius Caesar, ex-centurion-turned-senator Lucius Vorenus (Kevin McKidd) is finally granted a latifundia (country estate) by the Senate. In the official rite of seizin (land-taking), he and his wife Niobe (Indira Varma) process, along with the estate's people and the village priest, out to a newly-plowed field.

As the others respectfully look on, they walk together out to the middle of the field. Niobe lays down in the midst of the furrows; Vorenus lays on top of her.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 The District: Oakbrook Mall Food Hall near Chicago | Oakbrook Center

I swear, books like this put the “neo” in “neo-pagan.”

How to Get What You Want by Stealing Other Peoples' Goddesses.

That wasn't the title, but it might as well have been.

I riffle through the pages. It's much as I expected: twelve chapters, twelve goddesses, twelve different cultures. Heavy on the European and Asian goddesses, of course. Each chapter headed by a colorful picture of said goddess (or quasi: Kwan Yin is a boddhisatva, the Guadelupana technically receives hyperdulia—whatever that means—not worship), then continues with a brief description, and finally—most importantly—concludes with how you can use her power to get what you want.

(Sedna. Of course there's a chapter on Sedna.)

Welcome to the food court of the gods.

My mind fills with questions.

You've been pagan for 40 years, and you're still doing this beginner-ass kind of sh*t? I think.

What's the matter, don't you have any gods of your own to cozy up to? I think.

Twelve different cultures, and not one of them yours: don't you feel even the slightest bit morally dubious about this? I think.

That's it? “It's female, therefore it's mine”? That's your spirituality? I think.

How does spiritual imperialism differ from other kinds of imperialism? I think.

 

Sometimes I feel like I'm still learning this “pagan elder” business.

Maybe some day I'll be the kind of pagan elder who can ask these kinds of questions. Maybe some day I'll be the kind of pagan elder who knows how to phrase questions like this in ways that they can be heard. Maybe some day I'll have the wisdom to know what to say in a situation like this.

Meanwhile, my friend's wife seems completely happy with her new acquisition. I hand the book back to her.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Even us purists admit that purism is its own punishment.
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    I hear the hummos at Astarte's Kitchen is the best in town.
  • Chas  S. Clifton
    Chas S. Clifton says #
    I'm with the first commenter. "I'm going straight to Tacos Tlaloc -- not spending money anywhere else until we get some rain." (
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    "Would you like some dharma with that?"
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Interestingly, diaspora Hindu temples tend to be set up this way, since members of the temple honor different deities, so that ins

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 The Five Seals of Temple Worship

(In Which Our Intrepid Blogger Goes All Mystical on the Reader, or Something)

 

See here in the mosaic floor before the altar, these five inset seals in a line, marking a path to Holiness, and from it.

These are the five stations of the daily offerings.

Here, farthest from the altar, you stand to make the offering.

Next, before it, is where you touch, bowing to touch the ground.

Upon the third, three paces from the first, you stand to make the prayers. (Having offered, you now draw near, to offer up prayers for the people.)

Before it, fourth, is where you touch, bowing to touch the ground.

And here, fifth, nearest the altar, is where, at the end—prayers spoken, offering made—you kiss the Earth.

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 The Witches and the Grinnygog - Wikipedia

 

If you don't know Dorothy Edwards' 1981 The Witches and the Grinnygog, you're in for a treat. (For those of you who didn't grow up speaking Witch, a Grinnygog is a “Himmage” of the Horned God.) Even the 1983 BBC children's miniseries version has its moments.

One of the best is this old Witch song, half-remembered by their contemporary descendants among families of the Old Blood.

Both the book and TV versions are incomplete, so I put the pieces together along with some of my own. Just add round dance and voilà: a sweet little power-raising chant for your next coven meeting, singable to the tune of the show's title song.

Don't quite understand it all? That's by design. (Hint: "horn" here is a verb.)

That's witching for you: always leave room for mystery.

 

 

Great Herne Would Horn

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 Why are Minneapolis and St. Paul going another year without 4th of July  fireworks? - CBS Minnesota

 Dear N,

In the dream, you and I have gone to see the opening night of Paganistan: The Musical.

(The performance has been held in an outdoor theater, of course, which, for some bizarre reason—dream logic—you and I have been watching from the front seat of my car.)

The play honors the Fiftieth Anniversary of the founding of the Twin Cities pagan community. For two hours now, we've watched a stylized musical retelling of the joys and sorrows, the triumphs and failures, of the community to which, for better and for worse, we have both given our lives. Witnessing the reenactment of events that we ourselves were part of has been both a hilarious and a bittersweet exercise.

Now the entire cast has gathered onstage for curtain call.

The reception is rapturous, the applause thunderous. On the horizon behind the cast, fireworks explode.

You and I join in. Sitting there in my car, I have the strange sense that you are both yourself and, somehow, a personification of the local community: Paganistan in person.

I pull you to me, give you a big hug, and kiss the top of your head.

“Thanks for everything,” I say.

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