When I connected with a retreat center that seemed both spiritually open to many paths and progressive-humanitarian, I felt blessed. In the first days, sharing backgrounds, the Christian owner spoke of former events and future longings to showcase indigenous ways from Native American, to African, and Hawaiian. Then the caveat: the one thing this owner was loud and clear about was…no Witches and Pagans allowed! There was to be no association for the Center with these spiritual pathways.
Since there was already a practitioner there who leaned pagan, I discovered this person had clued in the owner that Neo-Pagans were a bonafide Earth Religion, and that most likely the Wiccans or Witches of yore were the earth-spiritual wise women and men who were the leaders, healers, counselors and midwives of their rural communities in the lands white people hail from. Native European nature religion, if you will.
Thirty years ago I had dived into Paganism—feminist nature religion–with my whole heart, but gradually soured on the egomaniacal and party-animal aspects of the community. I’d also finished graduate school in Religious Studies and moved; living isolated in the country with small children I found so much to love in Buddhism and in deep intimacy with my land.
While meditating and studying the Eightfold Path, the Four Noble Truths, and more Buddhist ethics, I continued to hold close a felt sense of the Earth as Divine Feminine, to thrill to the old holy days such as solstices, equinoxes, and the Native European points in between. But I dropped the words Witch and Pagan as self-identifiers. Not only because with Buddhist-leanings now they didn’t quite fit, but as a rejection of what I had experienced among Neo-Pagans. I wasn’t aware of it, but I suppose there was relief that I no longer had to be forever explaining these red-flag words–”Witch” and “Pagan”—to other people. Floundering for a label I decided that “eco-spiritual/earth-based/nature religion” served my journey best.
I shared all of this with the center’s owner.
Informed that Pagans and Witches would not be welcome at my new spiritual home, I tried to make it okay since I’d been disconnected from that community for decades anyway. And as in any new relationship…I thought I could change the other person in time. Once the owner could but see Native European ways had as much validity as any indigenous ones, all would be well. Not to mention that when you run a business, you can’t practice the First Amendment (freedom of religion) selectively.
The owner and others seemed ignited by an idea to craft Earth-based interfaith gatherings for the community, and we forged ahead into exciting new territory. But the owner and one other declined to jump in from their Christian faith, instead increasingly eyeing the ceremonies with distaste—alluded to, but never detailed. We on the more Earth-ecstatic side kept reaching out for dialogue, to no avail.
One day I was told over the phone that my presence at the place was no longer welcome, beginning immediately. This was followed up by a text telling me I’d fit in more at Camp Gaia, a local and well-known Pagan gathering spot. There was padding in the owner’s rationale about interpersonal difficulties—in most discrimination cases you see that kind of smokescreen when the heart of the matter is discrimination. Though we had one difficult conversation behind us, the owner and I were on an even keel at the time and she had even expressed positive gratitude for the most recent gathering, a spiritual celebration of Spring. I’d just called her new photo on Facebook “gorgeous”…I’m not one to suck up, I simply had no indication that things were less than fine for forging ahead. So wrong I was.
I took two weeks to reflect deeply on this, but then filed a Kansas Human Rights Commission complaint against the place. I needed to make sure I was not coming from a soul-space of a hurt need for revenge. I was fully within my rights to cite the lost income from future workshops and seeing clients there when with no warning I was given the boot, but it wasn’t money that would bring justice in this case.
Instead there was the opportunity for education. I could see the owner taking one of the seminars that educates law enforcement about the gentle ways of the new Pagans, as distinct from chaotic and violence-laced “Satanism,” or perhaps a college course in New Religious Movements to accomplish the same light on the subject. If our society’s military, prisons, and other public institutions must serve Wiccans and Neo-Pagans under the law, so must our local businesses. Someone said the owner’s position was like a bakery that refuses to make a wedding cake for gay couples but points out they would be happy to make that cake for (heterosexual) African-Americans!
I then came full circle in my own mind. By my silence I’d colluded in keeping “Witches and Pagans” outside the boundaries, discriminated against. I learned also that it’s not a point of maturity or normalcy to join the public fear about the European indigenous past of so many of our ancestors. Pagan, after all, comes from the Latin “paganus,” meaning country dweller. I lived on the land for over twenty years with my family, in love with hill and creek and seasons changing. So…“Buddhist-pagan” it is these days for me.
This has become our shadow, the folk medicine and ecstatic Earth-celebrations that lasted into medieval times. But it is not a dark and evil past—if anything, the Holy Roman Inquisition that tortured and burned it out of us embodies ugliness and tragedy. It is no surprise that since the 1970’s nature-religion of all stripes has been emerging, for on some level, we remember what the ancestors knew.
But today, how exciting it could be to gather with persons of diverse religious labels and backgrounds who hold the same awe and lust for the beauty and power of the natural world. Luckily, others of an eco-spiritual mind are coming together locally. We’ve held our first meet and greet on private land, far from the New Age businesses of lovable LFK.* I shared all of the above to begin this series of reports on how it’s going by taking a look at what NOT to do.
In retrospect, there should have been so much more discussion at the beginning with the Center’s owner and all facilitators about our differences—could we really come together in an interfaith fashion? Of course, if you’re looking to start an eco-spiritual group, you probably won’t have one person holding the keys, literally, to whether the group continues or folds. I shouldn’t have overlooked this imbalance, but sadly, to this day the owner will not dialogue or mediate, even with the Commission.
So craft with care your structure for being together, which can be hard in the beginning when many people don’t know each other. Keeping it democratic, consensual, egalitarian and real takes attention in order to develop over time–even if differences are heartily applauded from the get-go. In the next post I’d like to take a look at how a handful of folks answered the call to go deeper with our feelings for planet Mom, and what we did one muggy June evening.
For my readers who are mental-health advocates and consumers: what we’re building on here fuses two trends in alternative practices–spirituality (very broadly defined, even atheism) as healing for the mind, and the well-documented effects of green space on mental health (Ecotherapy). So please stay tuned.
7 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 3, 2018 at 10:12 pm
thenutrientpath
I forgot to note that LFK is a meme that indicates our dear old hometown, Lawrence Effing Kansas!
July 6, 2018 at 7:54 am
Starchild Rooney
Sad. Misleading. Left out important info, such as your legal action was not sustainable and had to be dropped. Ego seems to be ruling the day for you, hope you’re able to evolve past your victim stance.
July 6, 2018 at 1:05 pm
thenutrientpath
The Human Rights Commission is not litigation but rather seeks mediation, and is ongoing as of now. What is sad is that you needed to fall back on the common yet still shaming buzz-words and judgments in your last sentence.
July 6, 2018 at 8:07 am
Ecumenicus
Hi Sue!
I feel very sorry that you felt the need to express feelings that deprecate others in your story, and falsely, in my opinion. Your experience is regretful, and that sentiment is shared by all who enjoyed your company in various ways at the center you describe. Still, it is through your lens, and not that of others who practice and participate at the very open and lovely center you describe. As I understand it, every effort possible was made to communicate something not collectively viable with love and honesty. Its been months now, since a simple misunderstanding or difference of heart and mind caused a parting of ways. This happens all the time and the parties respectfully go their own ways, if even temporarily. I am simply an observer and I would like to state clearly that no discriminating or ill will was intended by the center you describe. I find it very regretful that you have chosen to point fingers in an unjustified and negative way. However, I do understand that feelings were hurt on both sides of the issue. Forgiveness is more about letting go of resentment than freeing the party forgiven. I offer this perspective with loving kindness and a prayer for grace in these circumstances. Best wishes for your new venture! May it be blessed abundantly as you have such abundance to offer!!
July 6, 2018 at 1:13 pm
thenutrientpath
Observers don’t take sides, but stand in a place where they see the complex nature of a happenstance like this. As I commented to another reader, you were not part of the interactions, so you don’t know what conversations took place. You were not at a meeting where the fact of the fear of Pagans/Wiccans was openly discussed, as in how not to make the owner’s discomfort flare. I don’t see how you can call something untrue when you were not a part of it. Be open about the fact that you’re choosing to throw support unilaterally, regardless of the truth.
July 6, 2018 at 9:14 am
Rebecca Winterset
What are you talking about? I was at a grief gathering at that center and you were sitting right next to a practicing Wiccan who works there sometimes. Maybe you don’t have your facts straight? I can see why they’d think you were better off not working there if that’s the case. I read your book. Maybe you should practice what you preach.
July 6, 2018 at 1:00 pm
thenutrientpath
In my piece I did acknowledge the presence of Pagan/Wiccans, the point being that they had to be incognito and there was specific, voiced directive about keeping Pagans and Wiccans unassociated with the center (unless they were quiet and low-key–one got questioned for wearing a black cape.) I tried to convey the facts of my experience, which you were not privy to. Thank you for reading my book; my family doesn’t like what I write about them either as I try to be true to reporting an experience different from theirs as individuals.