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Post by driftwoodinthesun on May 21, 2016 6:24:54 GMT
This is something that really bothers me as I am trying to look further into doing pagan practices.
The rituals and ceremonies, traditions and beliefs that are highlighted in the books and in the community are very heavily centered around fertility, creating a family, maintaining a family and having babies. For slavic paganism, that has been the only thing I've been seeing. All modern interpretation literature I have found in my researchso far highlights almost exclusively the fertility side of rituals and straight relationships. The lack of inclusivity is not surprising, but it's very hard to relate to. Furthermore, pagan communities in general are deeply filled with gendered stereotypes, "feminine", "masculine" and sexism, as are the myths and -often- traditions.
Pagans of the gang, how do you deal with similar issues in literature and communities? How do you distance yourself from ickies without losing something important? How does one reconcile the old myth with views of equality? Especially when one strives to follow the pagan religion rather than single deities? Can it be done without having to rewrite the myth?
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Post by takuna on May 21, 2016 6:44:41 GMT
Well, I've read about things like this in Hellenic paganism too. Their original wedding rite was... horrifying. The bride was passed to her husband by her father and then the groom would grab her by the wrist and take her to his room to consume their marriage. Also, the groom's best friend would stay outside their door to ensure that the bride would not be able to escape her new husband's sexual appetite.
Maybe I read it wrong, maybe not, but the point remains. The traditions of many pagan culture have remained today. I can't say for sure, because I cannot join any communities because of the fact that I'm not 18, but they all have this "masculine", "feminine", straight-only marriage, fertility, family, lots of offsprings type of objectives.
The only advice I can give you is try to work your way around it. Change a few things here, a few words there. There are lots of sources. For example, I was curious about the wedding rites of the Hellenic people. I googled it. I found this website (can't remember the name) that explained the basics and presented a modernized Hellenic wedding. It also included some tips for the same-sex Hellenic weddings.
It doesn't have to be by the book. In my opinion, as long as you know some of the basic beliefs of that religion, you are free to adapt it to suit your life.
If you are over 18, search for some groups of your desired pagan path. Some of them might be okay with a "trial membership".
Hope I helped even a little bit!
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Post by driftwoodinthesun on May 21, 2016 15:01:07 GMT
The only advice I can give you is try to work your way around it. Change a few things here, a few words there. There are lots of sources. For example, I was curious about the wedding rites of the Hellenic people. I googled it. I found this website (can't remember the name) that explained the basics and presented a modernized Hellenic wedding. It also included some tips for the same-sex Hellenic weddings. It doesn't have to be by the book. In my opinion, as long as you know some of the basic beliefs of that religion, you are free to adapt it to suit your life. If you are over 18, search for some groups of your desired pagan path. Some of them might be okay with a "trial membership". Yeah I see what you're saying. I stay away from groups though because they tend to be neo-nazist and as far as I know, Ukraine (which is where most communities are) is super homophobic and sexist, so that's out of the question. I agree, practices and beliefs are up for modernization. That's gotta happen. Thank you! I'll try~ |
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Post by paganhick on May 21, 2016 16:21:03 GMT
Keep in mind that we all have Masculine and Feminine energies within us. In that context, they are not representative of "male and female" - they are simply natural polarities of our being and bring about our inner balance.
Societies of old were certainly homophobic in their outlook and thus things like wedding rites (which I believe are simply a constructive of religion) were written with the male-to-female perspective in mind. Fertility rites were performed male to female because that is, biologically, how life is produced.
However, same-sex relationships are not excluded when it comes to fertility and the rights thereof. The rites are symbolic. Today we have the means to bring children to same sex couples that are used all the time - adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood. In fact, one of the girls in my local pagan group is a surrogate mother for a same sex (male) couple right now.
Adaptation is part of evolution. That goes as much for all that we do as it does for all that we are. Understand the context of the time in which the old rites were written, but adapt them to the reality of today and they will work just fine.
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Post by driftwoodinthesun on May 21, 2016 20:06:06 GMT
However, same-sex relationships are not excluded when it comes to fertility and the rights thereof. The rites are symbolic. Today we have the means to bring children to same sex couples that are used all the time - adoption, artificial insemination, surrogate motherhood. In fact, one of the girls in my local pagan group is a surrogate mother for a same sex (male) couple right now. ----- |
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Post by paganhick on May 21, 2016 20:33:00 GMT
I see what you're saying now - yeah that can be challenging. I haven't looked into the Slavic mythologies before, so I wouldn't be able to help there I'm afraid.
Eclecticism is a good thing in that if one system doesn't have what you're looking for you can draw upon aspects of another that do. That's how we develop our individual practices to fulfill our needs. I'm very eclectic in my practice, although devotionally am strictly Heathen (Vanatru - Norse). I have very little knowledge of Seidr per se, which is Norse witchcraft, but what I do in that regard meshes well with my devotional side because magic itself is universal.
I do alot of work with Spirit to guide me in both aspects. My Vanatru probably bears no resemblance to what an organized Vanic group would do - and that's okay because it's my own personal practice.
So - you do you. Keep digging and Follow what feels right to you.
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Post by playfullypagan on May 21, 2016 21:14:53 GMT
Hiya bit late to the party. As a Pansexual Pagan I had some trouble with this at first as well. You've already touched upon the fact that fertility can be a reference to a lot of things. Fertile grounds can reference prospering in your work or social life for instance. I also spent a lot of time looking for representation. Like Artemis and her band of female nymphs, how no man could keep her attention. Like Zeus who was interested in everyone he considered beautiful. The goddess Pomona was courted by many fertility gods, but only consented to the one that appeared to her in the form of an older woman. Norse myths don't have any mention of homosexual behaviour but their gods change gender whenever they want and for some it could be argued they did not have an assigned gender at all but that they simple changed when desired. As for the Celts, not much is known, sourced claim that christian influences made them very anti-same sex relationships which could suggest it was just a normal thing for them before the christians came along. (we can't be sure of this of course) Asian and Hindu myths are rich in LGBT stories if you're interested.  Aside from what we gather from myths we also have our personal relationship with the gods to draw from. Now if we look at more modern covens, most of them have been influenced by Gardner his early writings, even if some of them might not call themselves Wiccan. He was notoriously sexist and a bit of a pervert at that and made modern wicca what it is today. He suggested the Priestess and Priest were to have sex and make babies, and that a woman her highest goal was to bring a child into this world. Severely downplaying the female warrior archetype not to mention any other Goddess symbol that doesn't fit his perfect mother symbolism. The 'virgin' goddess only appearing as a younger version of the mother goddess. Wonder how Artemis felt about that :/ What I can tell you is that not all covens and ritual groups are like this. A few groups I have been with were led by beautiful leading ladies that didn't at all care about fertility, had no desire for children themselves but were still highly spiritual and craved the same connection to nature that we all do. Remember that your experiences shape your religion. I also like to remind myself that these Gods are beyond anything we know, they see us how we wish to be seen. We may be light, spiritual energy, maybe we appear as children or however we choose to present ourselves. We are naked with them in every sense of the word. Hope this helps! |
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Post by driftwoodinthesun on May 22, 2016 3:06:39 GMT
playfullypagan, thank you for the insights! As for my slavic stuff, i know that homosexual acts along with any non-conventional sexual acts were a crime that people went to jail for!  but at least that wasn't just purely homophobic.. they threw any "deviation" from the "norm" to jail so I guess it's not.. so bad..? I agree, gods are so much more than what myths paint them as. Also, I had a little moment today and I really wanted to share it I realized that.. First of all, even within the same pagan tradition there are often multiple deities representing the same aspect (for example multiple sun deities, multiple prosperity deities, etc), so I can have as many.. (for example) sun deities as my heart desires. It's really simple and obvious but I did have a beautiful and truly euphoric realization that yes, I can fill every surface in my apartment with shrines to many many sun goddesses and gods and it would be *okay* it was such a beautiful overwhelming feeling. sometimes I forget how great paganism is~ |
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Post by driftwoodinthesun on May 22, 2016 3:07:37 GMT
P.S. You lovely people, thank you so much for this discussion. It really really helped <3
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Post by harvestwitch on May 24, 2016 14:29:30 GMT
I'm not Pagan, but whenever I see a fertility thing, a deitie thing or gender thing, I just switch those words or lines with something that does fit for me Usually that's an element or season |
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Post by mrharvey928 on Jun 2, 2016 2:01:55 GMT
Okay, so my opinions are quite different from many peoples here so, don't burn me at the stake please? Thanks. Anyway, I can tell from experience that it isn't easy being a part of the lgbtq+ community and the pagan community. Yes many people today in the pagan community are open towards us people, but it's still an issue when coming to group things. From the hours of research I've done, many cultures were actually quite open to homosexuality and such. In the research I've done on the Greeks and Romans, they were open to it to an extent. If you were to be a man of high status and be a bottom, that was looked down apon, if you were a man of high status and topped a person of a lower class, that was okay, and with teenagers "experimentation" was expected. Sadly not much is known about female couples, but we do know that they spent a lot of time together, so... Figure it out. Most of what we know about the celts come from the Romans, and in one of the writings about a visit to the area said something along the lines of, we saw the men take lovers as they would wives and not be shamed, and we saw women break away from their husbands, and a lot f the teenagers dos the same thing. Obviously that is no where close to word for word, but that's me making it modern sounding lingo. Again not much is known about the ladies, but we do know from spurces that there was an island completely inhabited by women and men were afraid to travel there because they could be killed. And sometimes they would take men just to get them pregnant and kick them out, so the scary man hating lesbian stereotype has been around for a very long time. The Scandinavians saw homosexuality kinda the same way as the Greeks but more strict, if a slave was the bottom that was okay but anyone else it was a nono. Plenty of Native American traditions and cultures are highly open to the lgbtq+ community, transgenderism wasn't uncommon in the Native American olden times, being a seven dang of the Arawak people I've tried to do much of my research mainly on them and just as I said, they were very open towards it, and men would take husbands and women wives, if they were gay, obviously. Now my opinions on masculine and femenine energy, haha, I really don't believe in it. Don't burn me yet, let me explain! Energy is energy, that's it, life energy, it exists, because it's life. Now masculine energy is commonly associated with power and dominance while femenine energy is commonly associated with submissiveness and nurturing, but I like to go off of my expiriences and what I see in the world. Men can be nurturing or submissive, women can be aggressive and dominant. Energy is all a grey area, it's all jumbled up so there really is no such thing as masculine and femenine. And when you think about it the male/female energy concept is kinda sexist. A few quick points to say before I finish this post. 1) agendered people in the pagan community feel especially left out, because they don't fit either man or woman, so shout out to them. 2) the sexism I feel in today's society is geared more towards men, as the witch community is obviously more matriarchal, but when it comes to certain all men's groups, they can get sexist too, very sexist. But point is let's all drop stereotypes and sexism and live free, isn't that what modern paganism is all about in the first place?
And one last thing I should have mentions earlier, a lot of popculture pagans share some of my same views, that being said many of the elders scrolls deities are fine with it, and the whole concept of marriage in their games is love and only love, Mara loves all, that's it, anyway thanks for reading my rant, and not burning me at the stake.
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