Pagan Enough?

Stumbling around the web, I have come across various sites hosted by pagans, many of which have contained manifesto-like posts stating what they feel is the most 'pagan' way to live one's life. Many of these sites caused me to question my own beliefs and practices.

For a long while I referred to myself as a 'hedgewitch', only to discover an increasing number of people out there in the ether making (often totally contradictory) statements about what a 'hedgewitch' must be/use/do/believe. Feeling like this no longer fitted with my practices and pathway, I dug deep within my psyche to consider where and with what my pagan practice is most comfortable. It was at this point that I realised the hearth, garden and home are my places of magick.

Simplicity and spirituality marry well for me: it is in the practicality of cooking, growing and tending herbs, watching the sunrise, lighting a candle or taking a bath that I find my moments of magick and they are about the least ritualised (and more often than not, most shambolic) instances I can imagine.

There have been moments on my path when people have stated how they feel a pagan should practise and it has caused me to feel insecure about my own ways. Yet, ironically, I have referred to myself as pagan or 'a witch' largely because of my belief that these terms encompass acceptance, tolerance of others and a life lived in harmony with the Earth and its seasons. If there was one 'tenet' I value above all others it is that the type of energy I put out into the world reflects the type of energy I will get back.

Whether you call this karma, the threefold law of return or 'doing unto others as you wish to be done by' the virtue at the heart of these professed belief systems is the same: tolerance. How is it, then, that pagans everywhere are not only criticising people of other religions; they are criticising people who share very similar beliefs and pathways? It seems incredulous to me.

And I am not alone in my concerns. While browsing through blogland, I came across Project Pagan Enough over at Inciting A Riot.

I encourage all of you to stop by for a visit - whether you are pagan or non-pagan - as I feel it is an all-encompassing issue. Whatever your beliefs, whatever your practices, my humble two-pennies worth would be that you should be true to yourself. Don't define yourself by another person's ideals and do not feel discouraged if they show intolerance of your beliefs. Know yourself: if you feel 'pagan' is what you are, you are pagan enough.

Honey, I think Pan's in the kitchen...

Don’t worry – this English teacher hasn’t been struck by the sudden inability to string together a grammatically coherent (or accurately punctuated) sentence. I don’t mean ‘pans’ as in cooking receptacles; I mean ‘Pan’ the horny goat-God.

I love this etching by illustrator, Robert Lawson. It depicts Pan with his pipes.

He is overheard by a curious fae, hidden out of sight, in the foreground.

Why is he in my kitchen? You may well ask. I haven’t – quite – gone totally mad. Yet.

I have been feeling a presence around my home for a little while now; a sense that there was new energy crackling in the air. My sleep has been disturbed by a whole range of random antics – lucid dreams, waking up in a seated position, sleep paralysis and far more talk than normal. I must be stressed, I reasoned, but couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something more.

At the end of last week, I started to receive images in my mind’s eye, coupled with a feeling of panic or anxiety. This culminated in the sleep paralysis incident, in which I was wide awake - eyes open - convinced there was someone or something in the room but entirely unable to move. The images I was seeing were of a satyr-like creature – a horned man.

It was only when I visited one of the pagan shops in Glastonbury that it clicked. Inside the shop, surrounded by images of the Horned-God, it hit me: Pan had come for a visit.

If there is a turn of the wheel most clearly associated with the visitation of Pan, it is springtime. God of the pastoral, nature, shepherds and flocks, music and mischief, he brings fertility to the land and animals. He is also renowned for his ‘stirring’ of passions; be they sensual or inspirational, joyous or anxious. Indeed, the word ‘panic’ comes from his professed ability to excite people into a state of heightened stress. Exactly how I had been feeling.

Being a Capricorn girl, it is perhaps unsurprising that I would have a connection with Pan. His goat form is where the astrological sign is said to have originated. He isn’t a god I had previously worked with or called upon and, until now, he hadn’t made his presence known to me.  Thinking on it, however, I realised that now would be the perfect time for him to check in.  Spring is here and he is, once more, treading the fields. I too have been feeling the need to reawaken and in more ways than one. Perhaps my psyche was calling him forth.

Physically and mentally, the winter has provided the chance to slumber and now I am beginning to feel the nourishing effects of the sunlight returning. Emotionally I am starting to feel 'lighter' – the relief from the mood swings I feel in the dark months is practically palpable. And spiritually, I am experiencing a reawakening also: for the first time in a long time, I am actively walking forwards on my pagan path, trying to learn more.

In the past year or so, my work had consumed so much of my time that my nurturing of the creative and spiritual aspects of my life had taken a back seat. It occurred to me that Pan has probably always been there; maybe he is simply visiting to reaffirm my faith and enable my vision of the Path to grow.

Pan and Psyche by Edward Burne-Jones

Although B expressed a light-humoured concern when I expressed this - ‘It would be the god who’s usually depicted with a giant phallus and excessive sexual desire that comes to visit you’ - it was coupled with gratitude: ‘I’m glad he’s looking out for you’.  Me too.