Friday, November 03, 2006

Taking out the Spiritual Garbage

At last night's Samhain ritual, the organizer (Alex) was talking about how the Goddess was the centre of all things and he started to state that the God wasn't that important when I piped up and stated that the God was just as important and active as the God was (this was announced to the entire crowd of 75+ people).

Later on, a woman who was in the circle came to me and asked why I had said that. I replied that this was an old argument of mine, that I didn't like it when the position and presence of the God is reduced to taking out the spiritual garbage.

This morning, she sent me an email that had this quote:

"So, you said it tongue in cheek, but why state that the God takes out the garbage in a Goddess based religion? If a male feels unimportant in a goddess religion, why not go to a God based religion and feel the identification with a powerful deity?"

I replied to her that Paganism is NOT a Goddess-based religion and technically, it's not even a religion (it's a belief system). Wicca is a religion, and although it empowers the Goddess-side of divinity, it also is not Goddess-based. There are forms of Wicca that are Goddess-centric (like Dianic Wicca), but they are not the defining statutes of Wicca.

It really irks me when the masculine expression of spirituality is frowned upon or dismissed by people. I'm a man. I'm a spiritual man and the way I express my spiritual side will have a masculine feel to it as well as a feminine side. I do NOT feel the need to apologize for it and nor will I stand by and have it be belittled.

1 comment:

Sophia said...

Hello Hobbes, long time etc. What these people said to you REALLY bugs me. And I'm a feminist! To me, Paganism and Wicca are supposed to be about balance, unless we're talking about one of the specifically female-orientated traditions such as Dianic Wicca. The argument that we need to be unbalanced towards the goddess after so many centuries of being unbalanced towards the god just doesn't cut it for me! Especially now after several decades of bra-burning (which haven't worked - as a book I've been reading points out, American feminism has been trumped by American narcissism). Anyway, keep of the good work, and keep standing up for yourself dear!