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In Starhawk's 1993 utopian/dystopian novel The Fifth Sacred Thing, all of the Pagan Resistance guys are named John. "It's one of their names for the Devil," explains one of the bad guys.

It's a solidarity thing. (Think: Je suis Charlie Hebdo. Think: Non-Jewish Danes wearing yellow stars during the Nazi occupation.) It's also a resistance thing: we're all one. We're all in this fight together, anonymously interchangeable.

To distinguish one John from another, they all have by-names à la Old Norse: Hijohn, Littlejohn, Johnny Be Good.

In that world, I would definitely be Johnny Deer. We're Deer Clan from way back, my people, and Deer's always been my guy. I'm built like a deer, I've got the cervine grace and moves.

But here in the Midwest Pagan Resistance, the guys all seem to be Jacks.

So what kind of Jack am I?

Jacks figure large in pagan lore. (Is he one, is he many? Reply hazy, try again later.) Think of Jack in the Green, and all his latter-day seasonal variants: Jack in the Sheaf, Jack o' Lantern, Jack in the Drift.

Even the resident priest at one of our local pagan land sanctuaries is a Jack: Jack in the Buff, it would have to be in his case, just like in the song. Hey, if anyone embodies the spirit of skyclad, he does.

Not to mention all those other Jacks of the legendarium: Jack the Giant Killer, Spring-heeled Jack, Jack in the Pulpit, jolly Jack Tar, Hijack, Car Jack, Whiskey Jack, Jack Daniels. Nor, of course, should we forget that perennial favorite, Jack Off.

(I presume that he's some sort of kin to the CBC's immortal Carol Off, long-time hostess emerita to the curry-souled All Things Considered North news program As It Happens.)

Well, the oathbreaker partisan hack Injustices of the American Supreme Court have (in effect) declared war on the Free peoples of the US, and—just as we've been doing for centuries—the Pagan Resistance continues our immemorial cultural rear-guard action. I'll have to dig my old “Wiccan Army: Thirteenth Airborne Division” patch out of the drawer. Our motto: “We will not fly silently into the night.”

While writing up my notes on an "Ethical Leadership" presentation for our next weekend of Druid College, I've mused over issues regarding power and working with others. Unless you are a solitary hermit, you will have to work with others. There will be a barrage of egos, wounded or whole, with which to interact. Fragile or strong, dealing with other human beings is not necessarily the easiest of tasks. Even though we may speak the same language, we might not be able to communicate with them at all, whereas we may not speak "cat", but can understand what a cat is trying to tell us. When working with others, we have to let go of notions of "power over", as activist and author Starhawk has written about, and instead work on "power with". In her book, Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery, she distinguishes three types of power: “power-over,” referring to domination and control; “power-from-within,” meaning personal ability and spiritual integrity; and “power-with,” pertaining to social power or influence among equals.

Power-over is all about control. It is firmly rooted in a wounded ego, that seeks to dominate another in order to feel better. For whatever reason, and there are many, many reasons why people behave the way they do, this seems to be the standard view of power in the Western world. In our capitalist society, in our dog-eat-dog world, we seek power-over another in order to get our way. What we need to desperately do is extract ourselves from this way of thinking, and into a more holistic view where we are not only looking to benefit ourselves, but to benefit the whole, the entirety.

“I was born a wild girl…

cradled tight in mountain arms…

About a week ago I posted an essay on Patheos as a Pagan contribution to a series of short pieces by people of many traditions as to the value of religion today. I really like it, and now that Patheos has had it a week, I want to make it available to others, and so I have posted a version here

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It's Watery Wednesday and with that comes our Community news post of the week: Canadian Pagans gathering; the Wild Hunt looks back at 2014; an Australian kickstarter; Starhawk as model leader?; witchcraft = Wicca, or not?

The Canadian Gaia Gathering Conference (one of the biggest Pagan gatherings in Canada) is open for registration. (They are looking for presenters, too!) The conference for 2015 will be in Edmonton, Alberta
May 15th to 18th.

Want to catch up on last year's hottest news stories in the Pagan world? The Wild Hunt's 2014 retrospective should do the trick.

I normally write about daily rituals and devotional practices, the kind we all do or all can do if we are so called to. Today, however, I'm going to focus on one of the largest, longest running public rituals I know of or have ever had the pleasure to participate in - Reclaiming's 35th Annual Spiral Dance.

Marvin Kaye and Parke Godwin, Masters of Solitude (1978)

After an invasion from China destroys the US, the megalopolis that covers the East Coast walls itself off from the wilderness to the West, where deer-like witches breed for psychic skills and create a genuine American witchery. Part of the fun is seeing what witch vocabulary might turn into in a few hundred years or so. (I don't need lep or a thammy to wish you a happy Grannog.) But those nasty coal-digging Kriss just keep cooking up toxic bugs to kill off the evil devil-worshipers. What to do?

Favorite line: “Who you callin' 'cowan'?”