just stuff

[flamingsword]

You know how people are sometimes Secular Jewish or Secular Christian? I think I might be a Secular Pagan. I was in a coven from 2000-2006, and was a solitary practitioner for few years before that, and I think the Wheel of the Year just lives in my head now? I want to pretend that I am a Secular Humanist, but I don't know anyone else who is, and there are no orgs for it near me. Weirdly, there are more pagan organizations near here than ones devoted to atheism and secularism of any kind. (COG, CMA, Goddess Rising)

I miss reading cards enough that I am considering buying myself some oracle cards in the future, and I really want to make some arts and crafts for pagan stuff this coming year and see if I can donate them /sell for really cheap to my old High Priestess and my little sister. They both would really like shawls with colorwork moon phases on them, and I want to make beautiful things to continue distracting myself from Covid/Climate Change/rising fascism/etc. (Maybe I will get in on one of those "make fannish thing for charity" drives with some TARDIS socks or suchlike, as well.)

I have re-finished the ribbed neck of the sweater that I had to frog back, and now can begin to make progress on a sweater that lays flat and doesn't have weird bumps because I don't know how to do an INV-L stitch or a German short row. /o\ I am making perfumes for Merlin and a couple of lotion bars for a different friend this evening, and those I know how to do really well, so there will be less frustration and having to redo things.

The collarbone is better, and no longer grinding when I move, so yay for babying it and taking all the anti-inflammatories. And now it is time for a bath! I wonder if I still have any bubble bath left ...

Comments

[ex_flameandsong751]

I'm a secular humanist and a rationalist but it is a very lonely road - my roommate is too but we're out here in Indiana, which is so Christian we see crosses and anti-abortion billboards on the highway and everyone around here is assumed to be Christian by default.

Anyway, I think that one can appreciate the beauty of the symbolism, like the Wheel of the Year, without necessarily believing in gods or spirits, so secular Paganism sounds possible. (Just don't say it too loud around polytheists, a lot of them enjoy dogpiling atheist Pagans.)

Which leads me to speculate if this is another ND thing - I've noticed most of the atheists/agnostics I've encountered over the years are ND, and I wonder if there's a trend towards ND brain making it harder to believe in something invisible that we have no scientific proof of. (In my case it's not just that and it's other reasons, but me being in Spock mode about certain things also doesn't lend itself well towards belief.)

I feel you on the making things to distract yourself. It's why I write.

I'm glad the collarbone is better!

[flamingsword]

Yeah, when I told my former coven that I had stopped believing and that I needed to step off the path, they did pull a slow fade on me. Which is fine, they get to do that, and it is way less injurious than ghosting or active aggression. But yeah, it is sad-making and disappointing.

Now that you mention it, almost all of the folks I know who are non-theist are some flavor of neurodiverse. It bears some thinking on.

[ex_flameandsong751]

When I left the last religion I was involved with, which was several years ago now, I got the ghosting and active aggression, as well as passive-aggression. It is very sad-making.

On the other hand, I also didn't have much of anything in common with most of those people, in fact some of them were actively hostile to fandom interests as "taking time away from devotion", so as painful as it was it taught me to, going forward, try to make friends who I share more than one interest with, and who aren't obsessively fixated on the main interest (because I also found out the hard way that fandom is like a religion to some people and if you multi-ship and they have an OTP they can get ridiculous about it, if you have differing headcanons people can get weird, etc). I don't do the "blessing in disguise" thing because really, I wish I could have avoided the unpleasantness, but at least I learned from it. (Not saying that your slow fade experience was because religion was all you had in common, just only speaking of why I think I ended up where I did. Certainly people perpetuating the 'intolerant of different beliefs religious person' stereotype doesn't help, and I wish people wouldn't be like that.)

[sabotabby]

Secular paganism sounds appealing. I really like a lot of the symbolism and themes but I don't actually believe in anything. But then, same with Judaism, and I'm already a secular Jew.

[flamingsword]

I'm kind of in the same space. The symbolism and how you order your life by focusing your efforts on different things at different times of the year kept me from getting stagnant or from working only on my weak areas but never toward my strengths. It's useful to me in a way that other religions have not been yet. I like Zen Buddhism, but again: nowhere to practice, and the symbols were not ingrained in me during the 14-26 age window when so much of my personality was developing.

How do you go about secular Judaism? What parts of it are useful in your life?

[sabotabby]

For me I like that the entire religion is an argument with God. It's not an argument that you, a human, can win, but you're kind of compelled to try. I don't believe in God but I mentally substitute God with the plethora of forces that act on me without my consent or ability to control.

Linked to this is the sense of dispossession and being a perpetual stranger (which is one of the reasons, crimes against the Palestinians aside, Zionism failed to resonate with me). I relate to the idea of the Other and the rootless cosmopolitan. There's a history of secular Judaism entwined with radical politics, threat to the status quo, and a community of outsiders that is basically what I am.

[flamingsword]

I feel you on being compelled to defy forces outside your control. That gritty cussedness is a large part of where I get the defiance in my personality. I have a masters degree in Fuck You, I'm Gonna Do It Anyway. Which is good, because that's probably the only college degree I'm ever getting.

I've always felt like The Other, but I am one of those people that puts down roots and then has to pull them up every so often because of moving, relationships, or other catastrophe.

[sabotabby]

I'm weirdly a homebody who never wants to move ever, but metaphorical roots, absolutely.

[princessofgeeks]

One thing I really appreciated about my forays through various New Age movements was the permission to create my own system instead of trying to continue fruitlessly searching for a religious movement or doctrine that I could accept 100 percent. That really helped my frustration a lot.

And I have enjoyed tarot cards for over 30 years without being at all doctrinaire about them! *fistbump*

[(Anonymous)]

Radical Feri taught me much the same thing. One of the cores tenets of that sect of paganism is "If you don't like the lore, go make your own". I respect that.

My high school computer science teacher was an amateur magician and taught us how to watch for people stacking decks and palming cards. One of the things he demonstrated was that humans could reliably cut a deck into perfect halves or at any number of specific cards, and that with enough practice it becomes unconscious. So it follows that any card deck that you're used to you can manipulate unconsciously to reflect the state of your subconscious and its much higher access to the data and information that your conscious mind has to disregard to get anything done. So I mostly just think about tarot etc. as being subconscious wisdom.