ETs vs. Faeries: 2a New Age vs. Eco-pagan

My argument is that mythically, from an ecological standpoint, aliens are bad and wights are good. But before I get to that, I want to show here that the difference between them already lies in the difference between New Age and Pagan, which I see basically as Sky People versus Earth People. I know I am setting up a dichotomy here where the reality is more of a gradation, but I think it is still a valid distinction if not taken too far, and certainly explanatorily useful. I have seen New Age and Neopagan as the two wings in a single alternative spiritual movement, but gradually my sense has become that since they are so intermixed, their combined difference to Eco-paganism is really more important. And I have also grown disenchanted with most of what seems to be characteristically Pagan, mainly from an ecological standpoint. So is 'pagan' no longer a useful indicator? Well, since so much that seems pagan no longer seems ecological, even if it is thought to be so, I'd just prefer to jettison the term.. Terms-- terms-- terms-- they're seldom ideally descriptive. 'Deep Ecology', in a sense, is better for me now than Pagan, but like it, most of what is associated with it I find dubious. Well, onward from semantics to... semantics...

The mythic history of the peaceful, wonderful matriarchies of Old Europe under the aegis of the Great Mother Goddess being overrun by hordes of murderous enslaving patriarchal Indo-European horsemen from the East with their pantheon of mostly-male gods under a Sky Father-- it plays quite well for some. But I don't like to gender-dichotomize everything, with female equals good and male equals bad, or Goddess-is-everything and god just a harmless, doomed-but-replaceable little fertility figure with the unfortunately necessary penis. And then, matriarchy never seems to have actually existed, however good an idea it might be. But gradually, the sky/earth dichotomy came to seem fundamental to me, apart from the genderization, which is arbitrary and of dubious worth-- Mother Earth -- does this still have positive resonance for many people? If not, then forget it. However, I must admit that in the Shaggy Mythos, the female does not appear, which seems to be largely because I am not female, and maleness signifies more for me than femaleness does, and male-figures-only seems at once generic without being sexless abstraction and if you don't like this, don't call me bad names, just genderize as you please. We're variable, aren't we? And if it isn't authentic to me, it's just more meaningless uncontroversial product for the masses; so, inasmuch as the Mythos works for you, make of it something authentic to you. The time we live in is terrifically conflicted about how to deal with male vis a vis female-- we have traditional sexism and gender-blindness overlaid insanely with no resolution in sight.

But the Sky versus Earth orientations as an ecological critique has great power. And I resist the 'lumper' urge to balance/harmonize the two-- ecologically, Sky hardly signifies-- it's on the lands and in the waters that life reigns. And strong cultural sky-orientation is in effect egregiously anti-ecological. Which I will try to show you in the next piece.