Same As It Ever Was
On Friday I spent a few hours at the Dandelion Gathering, Reclaiming’s occasional hoe-down, business meeting and reunion of sorts. It was just a couple of hours away, and though I had a very busy weekend I couldn’t miss the opportunity to visit with friends from all over the country in a work-free environment.
The setting was gorgeous: rolling hills of meadow and oak woodland with an occasional stand of second-growth redwood. Spring in the Valley of the Moon: new leaves glistening in the vineyards and pollen floating through the air. It was deliciously warm in the sun and almost too cool beneath the big trees. Right off the bat I saw several people I hadn’t seen in a long time, and settled in on the porch to visit.
One thing I noticed in the course of the afternoon is that the things which drove me away from Reclaiming continue to rub me the wrong way. A case in point is what happened over lunch. I was at a table with some people I have known for a long time, and a few that I had just met. I was enjoying catching up with an old friend, when our lunch was interrupted with a lengthy announcement explaining that every table was now going to have a discussion about the same subject. Each table would take notes, and the results would be somehow digested at the BIRCH meeting the following day. (Don’t ask me what BIRCH is—I may say something cynical.)
The topic we were to discuss was diversity. To wit: why isn’t Reclaiming more diverse, and what can be done about it? I was already banging my forehead against the table in pain, but the intro continued, first singling out my friend Evelie, who got to stand up and wave because she is diverse, I mean Filipina. Then a woman named Rosa got to stand and say her 2¢, to the effect that people like her could be helped by people like us if we only knew how to meet more people like her.
I kid you not. I am dead serious, and by this time it was through sheer force of will that I was not 1) bolting for the door, or 2) standing up and saying something confrontational in the middle of the dining hall. The only thing that kept me from shouting out was the knowledge that if I did so, I would be in the middle of an even worse discussion than the one I was apparently now going to have.
Where to start when deconstructing our assignment? First, the assumption that we were not diverse. That diversity has nothing to do with class, gender, religious background, ethics, age, or food preferences. That in fact it has nothing to do with ethnicity unless accompanied by differences in skin tone or surnames. If it had been me singled out as though I were helpfully filling a space on some diversity Bingo card, I would have been personally offended. As it was, I was offended for all of us.
Second, the obsession with proselytizing, I mean bringing in new blood—no, I mean reaching out to others who could be helped by people like us. As several people at my table mentioned, other religions are not diverse, and they seem to have no problem with it. Wasn’t the point of a spiritual community to give aid to its members? Why were we even discussing strategies for bringing different kinds of people in, when we were gathered for a rare opportunity to meet each other face to face?
It was at this point that I had to point out the essential backwardness of our discussion topic. Reclaiming is insular. Painfully so, embarrassingly so. We really needed to be asking the opposite question: why don’t we get out more? Why aren’t more of us involved in interfaith activities? There’s plenty of diversity there, but that would involve going to meet others rather than reeling them in to us. Why don’t more folks even make the trek to San Jose for Pantheacon each year? Isn’t there anything we can learn from other Pagans?
Third, and this is where I can get a good rant going, I have had it with red herring questions like this pre-empting conversations about the real issues that Reclaiming has avoided for years. I am speaking here mostly of Bay Area Reclaiming, but frankly the patterns that have been set here get exported regularly to other areas, and I have seen more than one community plagued with the same issues that we have been mired in here for a decade or more.
The final straw for me on this was when I was still in the Bay Area teacher’s cell—I believe it was in the late nineties—and the group was essentially split in two, with neither side trusting or speaking to the other. It had been months, the group was moribund, and though we had plenty to discuss we were not even able to come up with a date for a meeting, let alone assure that some representatives from either side would attend.
It was a horrible dynamic and finally Thorn and I, who had some credibility on both sides, were able after several weeks of intensive lobbying to set a date and get people to agree to come. With assurances that there would be neutral facilitation, we were going to actually talk about the issues that mattered, and hopefully come to some resolution or at least respectfully agree to disagree.
Then literally the night before the meeting, Starhawk, who had been out of town, emailed saying that we should really discuss fundraising for scholarships so that young Pagan activists could attend witchcamp. Another person on the cell quickly wrote back and said that’s what she wanted to talk about too, and I watched in dismay as months of preparation were tossed out the window.
Disheartened, I could not even bring myself to attend the meeting. That was the turning point for me, the moment where I gave up my years of struggle to change the course on which our local community was set. Now there are virtually parallel Reclaiming communities in the Bay Area, and no encouraging signs that the two will ever be reconciled save briefly, when old friends are able to catch up over lunch or lounging on a sunny deck.
The fragile alliance which had led to that meeting was hijacked by the very mentality that hijacked my lunch table discussion at Dandelion: the insistence that Reclaiming is best served by bringing in new recruits rather than cleaning its own house. Blessedly, I found myself not a lone voice of discontent at the table, and we ended up with some meaningful feedback to offer the next day’s meeting. Then I got the hell out of there before a second discussion topic could be suggested.
The day was like that for me: lovely connections with old and new friends, interspersed with jarring reminders of the dysfunctions with which the tradition as a whole is saddled. Driving away, it was apparent that the former would continue to be scarce without attending to the latter, yet I am greatly relieved to have given up that Sisyphean effort. I love the people I love, and leave the rest. Reclaiming may have its new BIRCH structure. It may go on debating diversity for the next 20 years. Whatever. I am happily Remaining.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
We had a similar experience at the table where I was sitting. You practically banged your head on the table. I simply rolled my eyes. I said pretty much the same thing: best to examine the dysfunction in our own home before inviting anyone in.
What!?! Dysfunction? Some were shocked. They saw SFBA Reclaiming as having its act together after existing for so long. Hah!
Besides, Witches don’t proselytize. And further, we are basically a Western European tradition in a now multicultural society, meaning non-Europeans are welcome if our ways resonate for them, but why would they want to become involved in a Euro-rooted religion?
I think I have enough distance now to enjoy myself. I, too, visit with people I love and pretty much leave the rest to its own obsessions and indulgences. At some of the mealtime conversations, our table agreed we didn’t want to talk about the topic we were asked to talk about. We just wanted to talk among ourselves about what came up that interested us — so we did.
I had a good time. Had a small part in the opening ritual (my ritual aesthetic is quite different from usual Reclaiming rituals.) Attended a good workshop on ritual theater, gave two sparsely attended workshops. Talked, walked in the woods with friends. Avoided most rituals, played Enlighten board game instead. Had fun.
April 20th, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Lordy I am pleased I did not make the effort to attend the 3rd gathering.
You are right, we need to get our own act together. The question is how can we heal and deal with the wretched things that have gone on in the past in the name of community. Seems the longer it is ignored the harder it is to face it, and yet unless it is all sorted the foundation of any work we do is so unhealthy.
ann-not a member of British Reclaiming ….but a reclaiming person in england!
April 20th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
I’m so grateful you went to Dandelion….just so I could read about it!!! As ever, intelligent and thoughtful and critically reflective of this so called community. Exactly the kind of piece that is not allowed to be printed in the Quarterly! Thank goddess for blogs.
Yes, a much better question is why doesn’t Reclaiming get out more? Somehow for years I swallowed the kool-aid that we were the best/only/coolest/ game/cult/ in town. And, my, this was really only kool-aid, a sweet, non nutritious myth. Thank goddess I now, like you, have left that behind and am more focused on loving who and what I love.
I also am thanking the Goddess that fate put me over here on another continent instead of at Dandelion. Just the instruction for every table to talk about diversity would have had me running out the door. But, oh my, I am so glad you did.
I’m in Paris. And loving even writing that sentence. I love your “rants” and thank goddess, thanks to the internet I can read them here in my sweet little apartment above the St. Antoine.
April 21st, 2008 at 4:34 am
And right here is the reason I’m never going to be recruited in to Reclaiming… I wouldn’t make it through the first meal.
I have a history of ignoring rules for discussion that I dislike. Or more accurately, identifying and disobeying them.
On what authority did the person making the announcement pre-empt your table’s conversation? I didn’t hear any consensus process over it–did I miss something?
I’m not saying I’d disobey such a suggestion for no reason at all, but I find this kind of assigned discussion to be pretty flawed as a plan for deepening relationships or understanding, and I have a much greater trust in the ability of humans to engage with one another through the ordinary social processes of friendship and conversation–stuff we evolved with over millenia, rather than had somebody brainstorm over the course of (I’m being generous here) a couple of hours. Faced with somebody hijacking my dinnertable conversation, there’s a pretty good chance I’d steal that sucker right back.
In fact, at the Leadership Intensive at Merrymeet this past summer contained a very similar kind of structured lunch discussion. It was a pretty good idea, in theory–we were working with a variety of interfaith representatives, and creating a structured forum for dialog might have been a good plan… except that, at my table, there was a local Pagan known for their ability to direct all discussions to focus on themeselves, and it was going to be (I thought, frankly) a total disaster.
So I spun it. Kept asking questions I thought would get people beyond the chronic monopolizer interested in participating, strayed off our assigned topic, and, sure enough, we had a really lively and interesting conversation that wasn’t dominated by any one ego, AND led to some people getting to know one another a little better.
I’m just not a cooperative little Pagan, when people try to tell me what to think about. It makes me cranky. And I know it’s probably totally male-identified of me, but when faced with the question of whether I, present in a discussion, know best how to carry it forward, or some facilitator or process does, I’m going to defy the facilitator and the process as I see fit.
Individualistic little me.
April 21st, 2008 at 6:01 am
Cat, I had the same question and Kim at our table had the answer: the discussion topics had been agreed upon at the beginning of the gathering, as some sort of method to make BIRCH more meaningful. Again, please don’t ask.
She said that first it was proposed that the six main meals–dinners and lunches–all have topics (!) but that cooler heads had prevailed and the number was reduced to four out of six.
And that was a nice piece of facilitation you did there at that meal table! Ironically, for all its lip service to personal empowerment, I find Reclaiming witches incredibly deferential to authority. Kind of disturbing, but the smart ones figure it out eventually.
April 21st, 2008 at 9:45 am
The only meaningful diversity meeting I’ve ever been to within Reclaiming was held at my first Witch Camp. It wasn’t about recruiting; it was about noticing the diversity within our own group. Where, oh where, has that sort of thing gone? Has it gone anywhere?
Personally, I noticed recruiting-type discussions start up around the same time that Witch Camp attendance began to decline. I’m not saying that’s the only reason for the discussion, but I am wondering (and have been for a long time) whether folks are a) very attached to the structures that have served the tradition well over the years but need to shift and change and/or b) valiantly attempting to force the tradition to look like an ideal instead of what it actually looks like.
Anyhow, to your description of the lunch table discussion, I say UGH! (And from an organizer standpoing - 4 out of 6 meals with discussion topics? Couldn’t the organizers have just scheduled meetings for those who wanted to attend and discuss the topics?)
Thank you for your very wonderful post.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:05 pm
“And further, we are basically a Western European tradition in a now multicultural society, meaning non-Europeans are welcome if our ways resonate for them, but why would they want to become involved in a Euro-rooted religion?”
Why do non-Africans get involved in Kemetic Reconstructionism, Santeria and Ifa, non-Indians chase after plastic shamans and non-South Asians prance around in saffron robes handing out flowers at the airport? Are we really “welcome” to “your ways” if we are constantly being questioned about it by a self-appointed Inquisitorial committee? Do you have any idea just how assy and condescending that sounds?
I guarantee you there are far, far more Pagans of color–including Wiccans and members of other European-based trads–than you possibly think there are, and racist attitudes and assumptions like these are why we largely remain solitary or keep to our own. I’ve been a practicing witch for 13 years, and I’ve gotten just a little bit tired of getting stared at because I’m the only black woman at the public Beltane ritual. I’m just a little tired of having to explain my spirituality to blinded-by-privilege white Pagans who just jumped on this bandwagon and casually engage in cultural appropriation as if brown people’s religion is like the dollar menu at Wendy’s. Then you wonder why the brown folk never show up to your rituals. Try treating us with respect, as fellow walkers of Pagan paths, and you might start to see some change.
April 21st, 2008 at 5:17 pm
Hi — Just discovered your blog via The Wild Hunt, and I have to say that what you have to say parallels my experience of Reclaiming. After attending a few rituals, meeting people in the group, and following a Yahoo group, I came to the conclusion that there was much to admire, but it wasn’t for me. Too many strong positions were not well thought out. For example, I had several discussions with those Reclaiming members who attended demonstrations. They would consistently talk excitedly on and on about the staging, but were blank when I asked them, “How do you define globalization?” and explained that different people had different perceptions of that term, and I would like to understand exactly what it was they were protesting. There was more, but I’ve run on enough. Anyway, I was just a casual observer, and like you, I saw a great deal that would have to be put in order before I would be interested in any further involvement with Reclaiming.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:42 pm
I was at Dandelion (from Thursday-Sun during the day) so I was there at the initial discussion to have “lunch topics”.
The concept was to be a way for folks to have a chance to talk in small groups about some topics that were going to be on the BIRCH agenda. That way, there’d be some thought already put into the topics….w/ summary of the conversations jotted down to be made available to all.
I suspect that the issue that you articulate Anne…..is many years of meetings & history (on your part) vrs folks much newer. Folks who are champing at the bit.
I’m mixed about the process (meal-time assignments not old-timers & young’uns) but I suspect what’s the real problem isn’t imposed conversation. Or even the nature of the specific topic (don’t know where it came from….whether from non-Europeans or liberal guilt).
I think the issue is having BIRCH at Dandelion (and I’m not familair w/ issues to do w/ BIRCH….I only know it as presented to me last weekend).
A 4 day week-end dedicated to what BIRCH was stated to be……is one thing. A four-day retreat where folks can get together in a non-work situation w/ their peers (and thro in some good workshops/ritual) is another.
The question to me seems to be……..do these two things truely mix? Differing personal expectations can cause iproblems…..
As to the racial diversity issue that was being attempted to be looked at, I certainly know what was said at my lunch table. And we too didn’t feel that going door to door was appropriate. We (all European heritage appearing) didn’t really know how one could address the issue as presented.
I think a great deal of it has to do w/ the fact of folks in the closet vrs one’s who are not. If you’re in the closet, the only people who’re gonna know you’re a witch are those friends whom you choose to tell. Those friends may be of color or may not. In other words, a closeted person is certainly NOT an ambassedor of any sort.
I do think it’s important that younger/newer activists not assume that the question of racial diversity has been dealt w/. That it’s over. The part of the Principle’s of Unity that discusses diversity almost insists that Reclaiming check in to see if it’s living up to it’s stated principles. Almost a check-list: does Reclaiming “welcome all genders, all races, all ages and sexual orientations and all those differences of life situation, background, and ability that increase our diversity” at this time????
It’s so hard that the time-scale of the world/our culture and our own time-scales are so different. Yes, what happens between the worlds changes all the worlds…….but that doesn’t mean it’s this minute.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:15 am
Hi Helen, thanks for your comments. You are right, as a 25-year veteran of the Reclaiming community I have some strong opinions about what I now see as patterns rather than discreet events or individual efforts. So here is what I would suggest to all folks attending a Reclaiming camp, meeting, or ritual for the first time. Notice if you see any of the following:
- Deference being paid to the person with the biggest personality;
- A moment of real connection being broken by a call to arms over some cause;
- The “ideal vision” of Reclaiming being invoked at times when questions or divergent opinions are expressed—notice whether that ends the debate;
- Priestessing that evokes an emotional response rather than a sense of Spirit;
- Any political topic framed in an either/or, good/bad manner, rather than eliciting a range of beliefs or possibilities;
- Conversely, when ethical concerns are raised, notice whether the issue is quickly re-framed as an issue of personal choice or collective diversity, rather than as something requiring direct accountability.
Reclaiming is a good place to gain ritual experience and a number of valuable group skills. I just wish for people that they go into it with eyes open, and know when their needs and the direction of the group diverge.
April 22nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Just my two cents, but as a Bi-racial man who is a Pagan I always found the call for diversity a little off putting. I became a Pagan in part because I was called to the old ways, and I believe not everyone is. Not that it’s an elitist club, but my Utopian vision of the neo-Pagan community is one where every one is Pagan first.
I’ve been in the position of your friend and it was offensive to say the least. I want to be known as Rob Taylor, a man who is a Bi-racial and a Pagan and a host of other interesting things (to me at least) and not a Bi-Racial Pagan Rob
I’d like people to accept me for me not for what I represent.
But that’s just my two cents.
April 22nd, 2008 at 5:55 pm
We have been learning the hard way (it there any other way) here in Pittsburgh for some years now. Our models all told us we needed to be bigger. They were. That’s how it works best, so we were told. Ya can’t raise energy sith a small group. That’s what we were told. We didn’t know any better so we had been doing just that!
Wo, we tried to grow and we tried to be diverse and we tried to be like our models. We could not. We are who we are. We are six women at present. We are doing just fine. Much better, in fact, than when we were trying to be like any other community we knew of. I had to take a little break from involvment with the larger pagan community around here. I have sufficiently recovered to be joining with a neighbouring coven and being guests at each others’ rituals.
I am done convincing anyone they need or want reclaiming. If they do, it would seem that they find us. In the mean time we get to grow and solidify our own group and do what we need to do. Previously, we had such a huge ratio of new witches to any one with anything other than book experience it was insane. And when they got to that place where they hit a wall and left it threw the hole group into chaos…cause keep in mind that we could always be counted on the fingers.
So, should we grow, so be it; and should we stay small, so be it. We must be unique cause it seems hard for folks to understand that the next reclaiming group is at least 8 hours away so if we want it we gotta be it. Which has not been easy but the journey has never been dull.
Love In Pittsburgh,
Marjie
April 23rd, 2008 at 7:15 am
Why do I get the feeling that Reclaiming nowadays might be described as a hyper-messianic social-change movement (only not connected to any definable goals) that uses Pagan imagery in the same way that the civil-rights movement once used Christian imagery?
People who think that it is a Witchcraft trad might be living in the past.
April 23rd, 2008 at 2:51 pm
I’m a voice from the Reclaiming past AND a voice from the Pittsburgh present!
AND now I’m hanging out with the Unitarian Pagans — mixed trads — because my son has decided to be a Lapsed Catholic. I’m enjoying the stretching the boundaries.
Mostly what I do these days is what makes sense at the moment. And that changes.
Which is very much at the heart of the Reclaiming tradition as I was taught it — go with the energy; change as needed; don’t get hung up on form.
Follow the movement of ecstacy. Fair enough.
But it’s so HARD being mindful…..
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:05 pm
“our lunch was interrupted with a lengthy announcement explaining that every table was now going to have a discussion about the same subject. Each table would take notes, and the results would be somehow digested at the BIRCH meeting the following day. (Don’t ask me what BIRCH is”
The problem as I see it (having pulled back a good distance) is that Reclaiming is trying to become federalized. This goes against the basic philosophy so any discussions wind up either going nowhere or else stating the obvious.
I also think that some of the people who go back to the collective really believed that massive change for world diversity, equality, and social justice would happen in their own lifetimes - something like the way the word “soon” is used in the Christian gospels.
I’m glad I’m afraid of airplanes - some people had told me that it would be good (for who?!?!?!?) for me to attend RDG2008. (At RDG2006, at one point, when Starhawk spoke out of stack for the third time, I simply stood up and cut her off.) If I had been at that lunch, I would have stood “up and (said) something confrontational in the middle of the dining hall.”
I have encountered far too many people who identify as Reclaiming but fear to speak truth to power *within the organization*. If semi-Federalized Reclaiming cannot maintain open speech within its gatherings, its hope as a group to change things economically and socially is asymptotic to zero.
As for proselytizing, however, I think that is necessary - or the Pagan equivalent of it. In John M. Ford’s book _The Final Reflection_, he introduces a Klingon duality of “komerex tel khesterex” - the structure that grows, as opposed to the structure that dies. But RDG isn’t the place for a major discussion on that unless there was some proposal that needed to be put to a vote (SpiralHeart has suggested for years that a regular, large-size ad be run by the whole Tradition in some major Pagan- and Pagan-friendly magazines, with camp communities and possibly local communities sharing the cost.) Other than that, that’s a thing for lists, or possibly the WCC, not RDG.
April 23rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Yes, I’m all for following the movements of ecstasy, but that was easier for me to do when Reclaiming was smaller and more coven-centered. I think the small group work put an effective check on the more grandiose tendencies within the group as a whole. And I love that the child is now a lapsed Catholic! Iconoclasts Unite! Or, Disperse! Depending.
Chas, I don’t think it is fair to say that Reclaiming is no longer a Witchcraft trad; the ritual forms taught would certainly be recognizable to eclectic Wiccans the world over. And though there is definitely a strand of messianic social change in the mix, I would not call it a done deal by any means. Fortunately. For now.
Rob, thanks for your thoughts. Throughout our meal conversation I kept remembering my friend Rose’s aphorism: “If you want diversity, be diverse.” In other words, be happy in your own skin, with all your internal contradictions, thoughts and influences. That’s the best way to attract others to join you, whether for a sandwich, a ritual, or anything else.