For Samhain this year a friend and I visited Castlerigg Stone Circle in Cumbria. Here are some photo collages, click on any of them for the full size image:
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Blog soon,
Antony
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I’ve come out of two closets in my life. First through the rainbow-coloured door – coming out as gay. Then out of the broom closet – coming out as pagan. Every time I’ve come out as pagan, I get asked the same sort of questions. Here are some of those questions and my responses:
What is it all about? This god and goddess duality symbolises balance that can be seen in all aspects of the world and universe. We cannot have life without death, happy times without sad times, etc. |
Unlike most other religions we don’t have a bible or other book that tells us what to believe. What pagans believe is much more individual to them. But the two big focuses in paganism are nature and individual responsibility for our own actions and omissions.
Paganism has values that encourage equality, respect for all living beings and empathy for others, so generally pagans are very accepting of gay people. Acts of love, pleasure and beauty are important to pagans regardless of the sexuality or gender of those involved.
Do you worship the devil?
No…we actually don’t believe in a devil.
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Do you have a Church? Nature is our church. Some of us like to worship, celebrate and practice on our own; whereas others like to get together with other pagans. Covens are closed groups of pagans usually consisting of a maximum of thirteen people. They have a High Priestess and a High Priest as leaders of their group, kind of like priests/vicars. Coven members will teach one another what they know, including the initiates (those new to paganism). Rituals, rites, magic, music and dance will all be taught within the closed coven circle. |
Pagan moots are much more open. They are open to anyone and usually held at local cafes or pubs. Some moot organisers will arrange for talks on a range of pagan topics such as: herbs, crystals, healing, ghosts/other spirits, etc. Organisers usually ask for a donation or minimal charge to attend these fascinating talks.
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Is magic like that on Charmed? Or like Willow on Buffy The Vampire Slayer does? No…sorry. But it can be equally effective – it just works in a different way. Imagine I cast a Spell for money. Money won’t magically appear. But I might see a job that I can apply for that’s better paid than the one I’m doing. Just because I’ve cast the Spell, doesn’t mean the job is automatically mine! I still have to apply for the job, go to the interview and WOW the interviewers. I have to work hard to achieve my goals – like everyone else. |
What’s the difference between a Pagan, a Wiccan and a Druid?
Paganism is a broad term to describe lots of different paths that have the same principle beliefs. Wicca, Druidism and others paths may have slightly different practices but share the same principle beliefs and are therefore are all encompassed under the term paganism.
Think of it in terms of Christianity. Christianity is the over-arching term, but within that you have the Church of England, the Roman Catholic Church and many others all with the same principle beliefs but with slightly different practices.
So you don’t celebrate Christmas?
We have our own holidays, many of which coincide with Christian holidays. But our big celebration is Samhain or Halloween, which to pagans is like Christmas and New Year rolled into one.
We are all individuals. Personally I celebrate Christmas with my family, because they do and because it’s a positive time for all. It’s the one time of year my family takes the time out to spend precious time together, to eat, drink and be merry – oh and of course there’s the presents!
Where can I learn more?
The best gay pagan book I’ve come across is Gay Witchcraft by Christopher Penczak. Christopher Penczak is a pagan gay man who wrote this for gay men. It even has a section on gay deities.
Other non-gay books I’ve learned a lot about paganism from are: The Real Witches’ Handbook by Kate West, Elements of Witchcraft by Ellen Dugan, Witchcraft: Theory and Practice by Le De Angeles and Everyday Magic by Dorothy Morrison. There’s also a myriad of information on the internet –just do a Google search.
Published by: The Gay UK on Tuesday 17th September 2013.
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On Saturday (13th July) the pagan community of the North West of England came together for PaganCon 2013. It was a glorious sunny day; the pagan community descended upon Preston Grasshoppers Rugby Club for a day of workshops/talks, stalls, music and dancing.
The venue was easy to find and had great parking. I went along with Simon & Chrys, excited to attend my first ever PaganCon. |
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The day started with a what I’m told was a beautiful and touching commemoration ritual for recently deceased Wigan High Priestess Joan Withington.
Doors opened at 10am, but a lack of a programme in advance made the day very difficult to plan. It felt very hit or miss and in my case there was so much I missed. |
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When I arrived just after midday there was a programme that revealed that I’d missed Joan’s ritual and a talk I would have liked to have heard.
The programme showed that Damh The Bard & Cernunnos Rising – one of the reasons we’d booked tickets were on at 7:45PM which would have made it a very long day. There were a good variety of stalls selling a variety of items including: books, wands, staffs, ornaments, altar cloths, incenses and the sort of things you’d expect at a pagan event. |
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The talks were given by experienced and well-known pagan community members. However in the exceedingly warm hall they felt more like lectures – having no element of discussion or debate like I had imagined. It would have benefited speakers to have split-off rooms with smaller groups to enable debate and encourage real peer learning to occur. More practical workshops would have been beneficial to those new to the craft.
The programme gave little information about the speakers or their topics. I listened to a talk entitled ‘Storytelling’ on the programme, only to find it wasn’t what I thought it would be. |
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Outside the sun shone and the heat beat down with thanks to Apollo & Ra. People relaxed and tended to know one other. While it was great to see, it did get me wondering how a solitary practitioners would use PaganCon as an opportunity to meet and get to know others. I choose to work alone more often than not, but still like having pagan friends for support and to celebrate Pagan Festivals with. Organisers could have arranged opportunities for solitary practitioners to get to know others.
Simon & Chrys stayed to see Damh The Bard & Cernunnos Rising and said they were fantastic. I felt like I’d really missed out, but it couldn’t be avoided as my painful back couldn’t of tolerated the six or seven hour wait. Plus I had some other plans for the late evening.
Overall PaganCon 2013 was a chance for the pagan community to come together. I imagined that the talks & workshops would leave me feeling inspired, with plenty of questions and new ideas to contemplate. This didn’t happen, but I’ll be definitely going back next year.
Next year I’ll be attending in the late afternoon/early evening to catch the stalls and Damh The Bard, unless the programme is released in advance and has a talk/workshop that catches my fancy.
I’ll leave you with some pictures of these brilliant morris dancers, who kept the outside folk entertained with their wonderful music and dancing. Definitely a highlight of my day:
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Blog soon,
Antony
This year Samhain was a two day event! It started on Tuesday (30th) night when Sye and I carved pumpkins (for how to carve pumpkins see Making a pumpkin lantern for Samhain). Here’a our finished pumpkins:
Left: Jill – looking shocked (mine),
Right: Jacko Sye’s piece of artwork.
(Click on image for full size.)
Sye & I also used the pumpkin insides to make some Pumpkin Cookies after I found a recipe on the Facebook of Pagan Magic, here’s a photo of the cookies:
They look fantastic and were so delicious.
(Click on image for full size.)
Sye & I had a cookie (or two), a brew (or Milk in Sye’s case) and I wished him happy Samhain as by the time we’d finished it was the early hours of the morning.
In the evening of Samhain (31st) I went round to do ritual with Jayne & Joan. We wrote letters to ancestors which was a brilliant idea of Jayne’s that I have never thought of doing. Then we burned the letters to release the messages into the cosmos in Jayne’s fire pit:
The Fire Pit lit, despite the rain.
We even had some green flames,
I’ve only ever seen them on Samhain.
(Click on image for full size.)
Me tending to the fire in my ritual robe.
(Click on image for full size.)
By the fire we discussed what we were thankful for over the last twelve months; we also burnt slips of paper with things we wanted to banish over the next twelve months. To finish the ritual we went inside, relaxed and asked any spirits that wish to communicate with us to do so. I didn’t get any spirit communication unless you count the cat that uncharacteristically came up to me and started purring.
That’s how I celebrated Samhain.
Write soon,
Antony
