In Search of Ecopaganism 2

If I'm going to discuss Native American Paganism as a type of Neopaganism, I need to discuss terminology. 'Indian' is a misnomer that causes confusion-- that's out. And so 'American Indian' must go too. 'Native American' and 'indigenous people' are equally unwieldy, and I also dislike both for reasons that others might not. My choice is 'Injun', because it's brief, non-derogatory, of traditional usage, unconfusing, and could be seen as short for 'indigenous' rather than 'Indian'. Anyway, it's the best I can come up with, and I ask readers not to take offense at my using it.

My suggestion is that Injun religion is de facto, and should be recognized as, a major type of Neopaganism-- and not just in America- Germans have flocked to Lakota powwows as spiritual seekers, possibly due in part to Karl May's fin de siecle German novels, which were very popular with German boys. There seems to be some interest in Injuns across Europe. Injun spirituality is presently categorized as a form of Shamanism, which is unfair, since North American religions often involved far more than shamanistic features, if they could be called shamanic at all. And because the icon of the Noble Redskin loomed so large in America in the 1960s, the formative years of Neopaganism, and Injun spirituality has a large non-organized following of non-Injuns, it has a claim to be recognized as a major genre of Europic Neopaganism apart from Shamanism.

But the question arises-- 'Is it fair to call it Neopagan?' That's a complex and controversial question. But briefly, I would justify it because presently-existing Injun religion is 'neopagan' to the extent that, like European paleopaganism, strong attempts were made (by Christians) to stamp it out, and it has had to be revived by the Injun tribes, whose members often live 'off Rez' now in the modern world of the Europics, and no longer in their traditional lifeways. Which is also the case with the Europics who have sought to revive their traditional religions as Neopaganism. But from what I've read, Injuns generally do not want Europics to appropriate their culture, especially their religion. Their religion is for the tribe alone-- which is like the argument that only people of Celtic or Germanic ancestry should practice that type of Neopaganism. Though the case of Injuns is much stronger, since their culture, with its religion, was generally not stamped out as thoroughly or for as long as in the case of Europics-- it is still a living religion tradition with continuity, not a long-dead religion. And so it is cultural appropriation, I think, for non-Injuns to make free with their culture. But as someone who grew up with the 'Indian' as an important iconic figure of the American heritage and American mass culture, albeit in negative as well as positive forms, the clamor about cultural appropriation has suppressed an important influence for good in the American character. If there were a way to mediate this situation so that others could share more freely in the legacy of the Injuns, it would be a blessing. Perhaps the development of pan-Injun culture as seen in national powwows, for instance, and particularly among urban-acculturated Injuns, whose tribes may have lost much of their cultural heritage, or who are tribally-intermarried, or married to non-Injuns-- this is where pan-Injun religion might begin to be extended to non-Injuns (wannabes). But as Neopaganism? I don't know, but if it happens, many people might not like it but it would be something that must be acknowledged. After all, Neopaganism is still under the same onus as Injun religion was--"It's Pagan! Heathen!', 'It isn't a real religion!' But I think there is so much of value to everyone in elements of Injun spirituality and religion, that this inhibition of usage by non-Injuns is tragic. Not just for Americans, but everyone.

In the next shtook I'll discuss the importance of the Injun heritage as I experienced it as a boy in the Fifties and Sixties, through mass culture, and in my Sixties Countercultural teens, through reading and an encounter with real Injuns.

In Search of Ecopaganism

Recently, I got hold of a copy of Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today, which I think must have given Neopaganism a big boost, probably in England as well as in North America. It came out in 1979, but I had the 1986 expanded edition, which added material on Gay Spirituality of the Neopagan Kind, and on Asatru, and otherwise tried to bring the story up to date. I had been through this book before, but had skipped over much of it as being of little interest to me. This time, however, I was taking notes, as I do now, and so was reading the parts I read, closely.

Adler, a journalist, starts out saying that in the early Seventies she got interested in finding alternative ecological religion, and in her search, she discovered the, at that time, largely unknown, nearly underground world of neopagan religion. But the only really ecological groups she found were Ferferia and the Church of All Worlds, and those are well-covered in the book, but the mass of it is about other neopagan expressions showing less or no apparent interest in Ecology. But that was, and still is, the reality in Neopaganism, just as Ecology (it was called just Environmentalism then) was merely one of many smorgasbord-choices in the Sixties Counterculture, out of which Neopaganism mostly sprang. Sure, increasingly since then you find ecological statements made in Neopagan books, generally either in the first or last sections, or even in a separate chapter, and books are often, in the title or cover-text, presented as ecological. But then you find the book itself to be not primarily about Ecology. And you look at the main types of Neopaganism-- Wicca, Celtic, Druidry, Northern, Shamanism*, and it's more or less the same. You get Ecology as an afterthought, as a selling-point, as an estimable issue to get behind-- if that. Even so, it's a sight better than you get in the traditional established world religions, for all I can tell.

Further: I found that there isn't an Ecopaganism page in Wikipedia, and I've looked up that and 'Eco-druidry', 'Eco-heathenism', etc., there and on Google, and it seems that what I get is usually a derogatory usage (these people see us coming!). So-- Eco-anything, apart from Eco-spirituality, granted, is just not a thing. Maybe it's that Ecology has been so often embraced, then set aside so that writer and readers can get to what really interests them, that it's like,"Sure, we're green-- isn't everybody? (yawn)". Or if a Neopagan group is truly ecologically-oriented, they just don't advertise it in their name-- like those 'tree-hugger' Druids you hear about, who are about as deep-green as you can get. And I don't name this blog-site 'Ecopaganism'-- maybe I would, except that the Shaggy Mythos, a pretty gnarly, peculiar product, cannot be representative of Ecopaganism in total. But if I could find an Ecopagan directory, I would want to get the Mythos on it. The advantage for me would be that I might discover my kind of people, who are Ecopagan, but not necessarily locked-into one of the standard categories-- as I am not-- despite my obsession with germanic vocabulary and interest in things germanic, I am not a Heathen.

Well, though I am baffled and chagrined by the absence of Ecopaganism from the roster of major Neopagan denominations, I still have hopes that it, or something like it, will come to the fore. If I knew what I could do to promote this, I would. If you know of any worthy ecopaganish persons, sites, or groups, I would appreciate hearing about it at shtrahler@yahoo.com. In the meanwhile, I'll see if a new search gets me any further than previous searches.

*I think that Native American spirituality is a de facto main type, though it's now classified as a subtype of Shamanisn, which I think is unfair. For more on this, see next shtook (post).

The Newolden Child

The New-older is a mixling born of the mating of the Elder Wisdom of ancient paganism and the New Wisdom of ecological science, which the ancients regrettably lacked.

So the New-olden Child is then a neophyte with an old soul, and as such he is the ambassador of a New World scarcely imaginable to the present-day global citizenry, so far are they from what must be. He is a changeling in their midst and they do not see him, see his differentness, but some day they will.

For now, his coming is seen in the transformation of those who possess the freedom and openness of a neophyte brain-mind, who see that the ecological catastrophe eroding the Biosphere is the greatest and most terrible event in the history of the human species, and that not to fully engage with its causes is the most damnable and dastardly refutation of the ideal of human worth.

Know that within their burgeoning hybrid brain-minds these strange New-olders are forging a new-old consciousness far beyond what those embedded in the modern humanist civilization can approach. And the forming of their noble, dedicated minds and the coalescence of their lives into a world-historical event is the coming-of-age story of the New-olden Child. Who is named Neorxna.

Land-drygands

(word-help below)

The Land-drygands are knots in the web-work of Samen-seeping runnels that vein the lands of Eorth.

The Land-drygands hold rich store of the Samen-flowod, and from it they can birl a drench into any beseeking Billywight who is kindly and open to them. In this wise does the Siden of the Wolken feed the growing Alf within.

Land-drygand= Land-wight,'genius of place'.

Samen= the subtle Life-fluid that seeps throughout the Edhli(Biosphere).

birl a drench= pour a drink.

Billy-wight(OEng bilewit)= a kindly, simple, blithe person (usually alfisch).

Siden= magical influence.

Wolken= the Mind of all life-forms on Earth(=Edhli-mind).

The Ward-wheel

The Ward-wheel is a rune-takn belike to a wheel with eight spokes that are leafy twigs out of a hub of cross-cut stock showing the light heartwood within the bark; the rim, then, is of the hedge of leaves.

This takn (symbol) makes a maegisch targ-shield which wards the Deep Mind from the forwyrfting saurgoth (corrupting pollution) off the Searuvel (Evil Machine), though bodied in the cunning allure of its skrurking (falsifying) Screen-world, and in its thrackly (violent) ugliness and unedhliness (unnaturalness).

The ward-wheel is a gewaldful (powerful) tover (charm) against the evil of the Searuvel.

Umbodes

Those Wights who are blended of Man and of other Life-kinds (species), as are the Drygand, the Shaggy Alfar, and the Twayne, are Umbodes (agents) of Midhlan, Sam-leodhe, and Heolor (mediation, harmony, and balance) between Man and Edhli (Biosphere). They are needed in a World where Man is split-off from the Edhli in his Life-ways, and in his Inner Mind. They are the Hope in a World falling to Dilgoth (annihilation) in the War of Man against the Kinren (life-kinds) of the Edhli. Join them!

Umbode Norw ombudsman).

The Black and the Blake

(word-help below)

Blake is the shining white light that the Menning beacons in the Anda-immynd. It is the clean shine of the Samen-flowod, which is the runisch Life-seed. And the Alfar who thane the Drygand are called Blake-Alfs.

Black sheds no light, and so it is the fitting blee for the Searuvel.

But the Menning is the Light-at-Night.


Blake= white. (Old Eng blaecern= lantern)

Menning= the Ecological Civilization.

Anda-(ONorse)= spiritual. Immynd(ON)= imagination.

runisch= mystical.

thane= to serve.

Drygand= the All-wight/Pan-chimaera.

Searuvel= the Evil Machine.

Blee= color.