Why is Flash a "Pagan"?
I suppose being called a pagan is the closest thing to what I feel than anything else. I really have to admit; I’m not the pagan you see on TV, or the pagan that lives every day to draw upon a sacred circle. It’s easy to tell you the pagan that I am not, since it encompasses most of the traditional thoughts on pagans. I have my own inner fight though, since on one side, my masculinity requires such structure and logic, and yet being born of a moon sign, and a Pisces to boot, the emotions of femininity run through my very core. Things became evident to me at a young age that I liked what religion was. Raised in Episcopal schools and churches, by a pair of non-religious parents was interesting to say the least. My mother proclaims herself to be Jewish, though I’ve never seen her step foot in a synagogue, and the closest thing to Judaism I’ve seen her practice is eating at a good kosher deli. My father was raised in Catholic schools and churches, and seemed to have gotten enough of religion to last his lifetime. I came home from school with great excitement over the sermon that day, or communion, or whatever religious epiphany I had that day, to people that had no inclination to share such feelings. They had put me in the schools because they had good education, not for its religious or spiritual aspect. That was explained to me on several occasions. My parents kept odd friends, for being such non-believers of religion. No, they were not friends with any devout Christians, and I dare say they were not particularly thrilled to hear anyone speak of it to them. My father’s answer then, was that religion was man’s answer to that which he cannot. He mocked religion with “Why did the sun rise? God did it! Why did the tides change? God did it! Now we know the Earth revolves around the sun, and the moon’s gravity changes the tides. Science continues to prove that religion is nothing more than answers for fools”. My mother felt that people who were devoutly religious needed a better pastime. However, my mother became friends with one woman who was a “Witch”. This witchy friend was invited over several times for dinner. One night, when I was about 9 or 10, she did something that captivated me for years to come. This event was a chakra clearing. She explained what it was, talked about it for a time; then we did this odd thing. I liked it. It was something new, something different, and something that I felt all the way to my spirit. As usual, my father mocked it later, and my mother ignored that it ever happened. Talking to them about it was a futile effort, which I quickly dismissed, for several years. Then one afternoon, something in my head clicked over. I HAD to know more. I wanted to know more. There were so many questions, and no answers. I asked my mother what had ever happened to that strange lady friend of hers, and I wanted to know more about what she believed. With the sort of attitude of indifference with which an adult might give a child who asks about a child’s toy, my mother told me that her friend’s number was in the family phone book, and to call her if I want. I don’t think she expected that I would actually call. One phone call turned into many, and eventually meetings for coffee, and conversation. My parents said nothing; though I can assure you the looks they gave one another when she came to pick me up were a bit distrusting at first. Most of these first meetings happened in the summer when I was 13, and being summertime, and out of school, I was able to devote a good bit of time to learning. She’d pick me up in the afternoons, and we went to her place, where it was a bit like going to school. I read various books, and we’d discuss the views held within. She would show me one thing here, and another there, a few physical manifestations of “spellwork”. Rather than show me how mystical, and religious they were though, she taught me how scientific it all was. We see this color because the light waves bend in a certain vibration, just like I learned in school. That vibration can be used to work with another vibration, to create an effect. Rather than fill it all with mysticism, and occult sorcery, it was shown to me as the usable effects of nature. Little by little I learned. I could not have asked for a better teacher! Patient, and understanding, she started with the building blocks, and worked her way to more complex learning. It was never really all that complex though, since just like writing, once you know words, you can make sentences, and once you make sentences, you can build a paragraph, and so on. I owe much to her. Eventually, my parents saw our relationship as teacher and pupil as a good thing. After all, I wanted to go to a full moon ritual, and they wanted to have a night at the movies. She told me of other cultures ways, such as sweat lodges, which interested me. My parents wanted a weekend vacation to themselves. Once they were over the question of whether or not anything bad was going on, I was pretty well free to do as I liked, as it gave them more time together. Don’t get me wrong, my family and I were very close, and we still did things together. There was no great schism that occurred here, this was just one facet of my life. Most of my weekends were still spent doing the things families do together, going to the beach, helping dad around the yard, and playing with my friends in the neighborhood. The time I spent with her was only a brief portion of my time. That time however, started changing my perspective. No longer did I conform to strictly Christian ideas. I started asking questions in school (by this time I was no longer attending church on Sundays) started getting me in a bit of warm water. I think the ones that got the most eyebrows raised were the ones that dealt with the need for balance, and how I really didn’t get the Satan thing, and where did the Goddess go? Calls were made home about my heresy, and eventually, I changed schools. I learned a good deal more from her; I met a good deal more “witches” and began to get a fuller understanding of Earth religion. It was all explained to me in terms that I could understand, deal with, and made sense. The men of her circle began bringing me to their conversation, and I learned other aspects of the same religion, a more masculine version of the same ideas. I also learned that we men held a different position in the realms of Earthly magic then. I suppose maybe I had been a little young to understand before, and they did not feel I was ready until then. Not that I had not learned about the birds and the bees by then, or any other such nonsense, but I was not acclimated to the “Big Picture”. They taught me how runes were used, reading clouds, and animal signs. They became a sort of family away from family, who taught me things, then sent me back out to see the world in old ways. It wasn’t anything mystical, it was just how things were. I told you that I changed schools. I no longer went to private parochial schools, but now attended a public junior high school, much to the dislike of my parents. Of course, my thinking had by this time had changed sufficiently to keep my a bit different from those people around me. I saw the world through the eyes of one who realizes there is more to life than trudging through day to day waking up only to make it long enough to go back to sleep, going to school because we had to, filling days with dread and the desire to do anything but be in school. I can’t lie; I didn’t much care for school, but for different reasons than my schoolmates. None of the subjects I took interested me much, and I had little excitement for sentence diagrams, or quadratic equations (neither of which I have used since graduating high school). Science however, always took my full attention. Geometry too, was a good subject for me. I could always see where these fit into life. If you know how things work, and what shapes they need to be in order to work, you can make them work, or change them to another purpose. I found it to be much like spiritual work. Woodshop gave me a similar feeling of satisfaction. But it wasn’t so much the subjects, as it was those who surrounded me. I felt they were cardboard cutouts of people, rather than people in full. I couldn’t put the whole thing together just yet, but I knew these were not MY people. I did fall into a category, eventually, as I liked hard rock, and could relate musically to a group of people. Yes, that group that later would be classified as the “Trench coat Mafia” who sat in their corner of the cafeteria, and most of which talked about how they were witches and vampires. This is really where I picked up my dislike of being thought of as a witch, or even pagan. They aren’t people I relate to on a level any deeper than music. Even at that, I had differences, as I liked the more melodic styles of metal, and most of the others tended towards the speedier stuff. I can remember one particular girl who I thought I liked, telling me one day about how she’s going to be Satan’s bride, and other such nonsense. I never ended up dating her, and I thought to myself, what the hell is wrong with this girl? It was like that more often than not. By this time, the whole teen witch thing was starting to come about. It became some kind of trendy under culture, something I did not want to be associated with. It never felt right to me. It had nothing to do with the natural flow, but an undercurrent of rebellious teenage angst trying to be something different. Soon, I disassociated myself from it completely. This was not to say that I did not see things through the eyes I was given though. I had really gotten proficient at the use of synchronicity, and I was more or less able to tell what cards I would turn on my tarot table, long before the cards were dealt. I simply had shied away from dealing with other people my age on the subject. As well, as in all things, groups form, and disband as quickly, and my group of teachers did as well. I maintained contact with a few, but even that strand grew thinner and thinner. I walked my spiritual life more solitary all the time. There was a breaking point at some time, where I finally walked the mundane life, just like those around me. I lived today, so I could live tomorrow. I got married, got a job, and fell into mainstream living of the 90’s. I put behind me the events of that part of my life, and became the Zombie-man of our common culture. Happiness came from the sound of the words “Quitting time!” and drudgery from the alarm clock. The time that passed in between was passed by the banal activities that plague people of that age; drinking, parties, camping trips, fixing cars, hot rodding, that sort of thing. Not that there was anything wrong with that life either, it just has little to do with my spiritual times. Or maybe it has everything to do with it. After years of searching, I had come up with what I had thought of, as nothing more than life is life. I walked that path for some time. There was no one specific instance which snapped me out of that time in my life. No revelation, no epiphany, the Goddess didn’t step out of a cloud and smack my chops, she never does. Life just once again turned towards the spiritual. A good number of changes entered my life as the wheel turned towards spring again. Leaves of inspiration grew on trees long dormant in that winter of my life. Flowers grew from the fallow fields, now fertile with imagination. Emerging from my hibernation, as a cicada from its cocoon, new interests took hold of me. It was a wheel whose turning would not be uncommon in my life, as I find that I awaken spiritually to a new spring, and see the world anew, then frolic in it’s summer of adventure, learning life’s little nuances, only to become older and more experienced by it’s late fall, and finally resuming dormancy for a time. The literal seasons, or timeframes do not matter, for I speak of the allegorical seasons in my life. I know when I am in each phase, and time has allowed me to even enjoy each phase to a fuller degree with each turn. A funny thing happened to me in this latest turn, I would like to share with you now. After years of winter, my father has come to me, asking me about the path I walk. His interest has been growing at an alarming rate, and now he asks me questions that require deeper thinking. I look to my father with great happiness, knowing that he now is coming to his own, long awaited spring. I suppose the question still lingers. Why am I a pagan? Because.
I suppose being called a pagan is the closest thing to what I feel than anything else. I really have to admit; I’m not the pagan you see on TV, or the pagan that lives every day to draw upon a sacred circle. It’s easy to tell you the pagan that I am not, since it encompasses most of the traditional thoughts on pagans. I have my own inner fight though, since on one side, my masculinity requires such structure and logic, and yet being born of a moon sign, and a Pisces to boot, the emotions of femininity run through my very core. Things became evident to me at a young age that I liked what religion was. Raised in Episcopal schools and churches, by a pair of non-religious parents was interesting to say the least. My mother proclaims herself to be Jewish, though I’ve never seen her step foot in a synagogue, and the closest thing to Judaism I’ve seen her practice is eating at a good kosher deli. My father was raised in Catholic schools and churches, and seemed to have gotten enough of religion to last his lifetime. I came home from school with great excitement over the sermon that day, or communion, or whatever religious epiphany I had that day, to people that had no inclination to share such feelings. They had put me in the schools because they had good education, not for its religious or spiritual aspect. That was explained to me on several occasions. My parents kept odd friends, for being such non-believers of religion. No, they were not friends with any devout Christians, and I dare say they were not particularly thrilled to hear anyone speak of it to them. My father’s answer then, was that religion was man’s answer to that which he cannot. He mocked religion with “Why did the sun rise? God did it! Why did the tides change? God did it! Now we know the Earth revolves around the sun, and the moon’s gravity changes the tides. Science continues to prove that religion is nothing more than answers for fools”. My mother felt that people who were devoutly religious needed a better pastime. However, my mother became friends with one woman who was a “Witch”. This witchy friend was invited over several times for dinner. One night, when I was about 9 or 10, she did something that captivated me for years to come. This event was a chakra clearing. She explained what it was, talked about it for a time; then we did this odd thing. I liked it. It was something new, something different, and something that I felt all the way to my spirit. As usual, my father mocked it later, and my mother ignored that it ever happened. Talking to them about it was a futile effort, which I quickly dismissed, for several years. Then one afternoon, something in my head clicked over. I HAD to know more. I wanted to know more. There were so many questions, and no answers. I asked my mother what had ever happened to that strange lady friend of hers, and I wanted to know more about what she believed. With the sort of attitude of indifference with which an adult might give a child who asks about a child’s toy, my mother told me that her friend’s number was in the family phone book, and to call her if I want. I don’t think she expected that I would actually call. One phone call turned into many, and eventually meetings for coffee, and conversation. My parents said nothing; though I can assure you the looks they gave one another when she came to pick me up were a bit distrusting at first. Most of these first meetings happened in the summer when I was 13, and being summertime, and out of school, I was able to devote a good bit of time to learning. She’d pick me up in the afternoons, and we went to her place, where it was a bit like going to school. I read various books, and we’d discuss the views held within. She would show me one thing here, and another there, a few physical manifestations of “spellwork”. Rather than show me how mystical, and religious they were though, she taught me how scientific it all was. We see this color because the light waves bend in a certain vibration, just like I learned in school. That vibration can be used to work with another vibration, to create an effect. Rather than fill it all with mysticism, and occult sorcery, it was shown to me as the usable effects of nature. Little by little I learned. I could not have asked for a better teacher! Patient, and understanding, she started with the building blocks, and worked her way to more complex learning. It was never really all that complex though, since just like writing, once you know words, you can make sentences, and once you make sentences, you can build a paragraph, and so on. I owe much to her. Eventually, my parents saw our relationship as teacher and pupil as a good thing. After all, I wanted to go to a full moon ritual, and they wanted to have a night at the movies. She told me of other cultures ways, such as sweat lodges, which interested me. My parents wanted a weekend vacation to themselves. Once they were over the question of whether or not anything bad was going on, I was pretty well free to do as I liked, as it gave them more time together. Don’t get me wrong, my family and I were very close, and we still did things together. There was no great schism that occurred here, this was just one facet of my life. Most of my weekends were still spent doing the things families do together, going to the beach, helping dad around the yard, and playing with my friends in the neighborhood. The time I spent with her was only a brief portion of my time. That time however, started changing my perspective. No longer did I conform to strictly Christian ideas. I started asking questions in school (by this time I was no longer attending church on Sundays) started getting me in a bit of warm water. I think the ones that got the most eyebrows raised were the ones that dealt with the need for balance, and how I really didn’t get the Satan thing, and where did the Goddess go? Calls were made home about my heresy, and eventually, I changed schools. I learned a good deal more from her; I met a good deal more “witches” and began to get a fuller understanding of Earth religion. It was all explained to me in terms that I could understand, deal with, and made sense. The men of her circle began bringing me to their conversation, and I learned other aspects of the same religion, a more masculine version of the same ideas. I also learned that we men held a different position in the realms of Earthly magic then. I suppose maybe I had been a little young to understand before, and they did not feel I was ready until then. Not that I had not learned about the birds and the bees by then, or any other such nonsense, but I was not acclimated to the “Big Picture”. They taught me how runes were used, reading clouds, and animal signs. They became a sort of family away from family, who taught me things, then sent me back out to see the world in old ways. It wasn’t anything mystical, it was just how things were. I told you that I changed schools. I no longer went to private parochial schools, but now attended a public junior high school, much to the dislike of my parents. Of course, my thinking had by this time had changed sufficiently to keep my a bit different from those people around me. I saw the world through the eyes of one who realizes there is more to life than trudging through day to day waking up only to make it long enough to go back to sleep, going to school because we had to, filling days with dread and the desire to do anything but be in school. I can’t lie; I didn’t much care for school, but for different reasons than my schoolmates. None of the subjects I took interested me much, and I had little excitement for sentence diagrams, or quadratic equations (neither of which I have used since graduating high school). Science however, always took my full attention. Geometry too, was a good subject for me. I could always see where these fit into life. If you know how things work, and what shapes they need to be in order to work, you can make them work, or change them to another purpose. I found it to be much like spiritual work. Woodshop gave me a similar feeling of satisfaction. But it wasn’t so much the subjects, as it was those who surrounded me. I felt they were cardboard cutouts of people, rather than people in full. I couldn’t put the whole thing together just yet, but I knew these were not MY people. I did fall into a category, eventually, as I liked hard rock, and could relate musically to a group of people. Yes, that group that later would be classified as the “Trench coat Mafia” who sat in their corner of the cafeteria, and most of which talked about how they were witches and vampires. This is really where I picked up my dislike of being thought of as a witch, or even pagan. They aren’t people I relate to on a level any deeper than music. Even at that, I had differences, as I liked the more melodic styles of metal, and most of the others tended towards the speedier stuff. I can remember one particular girl who I thought I liked, telling me one day about how she’s going to be Satan’s bride, and other such nonsense. I never ended up dating her, and I thought to myself, what the hell is wrong with this girl? It was like that more often than not. By this time, the whole teen witch thing was starting to come about. It became some kind of trendy under culture, something I did not want to be associated with. It never felt right to me. It had nothing to do with the natural flow, but an undercurrent of rebellious teenage angst trying to be something different. Soon, I disassociated myself from it completely. This was not to say that I did not see things through the eyes I was given though. I had really gotten proficient at the use of synchronicity, and I was more or less able to tell what cards I would turn on my tarot table, long before the cards were dealt. I simply had shied away from dealing with other people my age on the subject. As well, as in all things, groups form, and disband as quickly, and my group of teachers did as well. I maintained contact with a few, but even that strand grew thinner and thinner. I walked my spiritual life more solitary all the time. There was a breaking point at some time, where I finally walked the mundane life, just like those around me. I lived today, so I could live tomorrow. I got married, got a job, and fell into mainstream living of the 90’s. I put behind me the events of that part of my life, and became the Zombie-man of our common culture. Happiness came from the sound of the words “Quitting time!” and drudgery from the alarm clock. The time that passed in between was passed by the banal activities that plague people of that age; drinking, parties, camping trips, fixing cars, hot rodding, that sort of thing. Not that there was anything wrong with that life either, it just has little to do with my spiritual times. Or maybe it has everything to do with it. After years of searching, I had come up with what I had thought of, as nothing more than life is life. I walked that path for some time. There was no one specific instance which snapped me out of that time in my life. No revelation, no epiphany, the Goddess didn’t step out of a cloud and smack my chops, she never does. Life just once again turned towards the spiritual. A good number of changes entered my life as the wheel turned towards spring again. Leaves of inspiration grew on trees long dormant in that winter of my life. Flowers grew from the fallow fields, now fertile with imagination. Emerging from my hibernation, as a cicada from its cocoon, new interests took hold of me. It was a wheel whose turning would not be uncommon in my life, as I find that I awaken spiritually to a new spring, and see the world anew, then frolic in it’s summer of adventure, learning life’s little nuances, only to become older and more experienced by it’s late fall, and finally resuming dormancy for a time. The literal seasons, or timeframes do not matter, for I speak of the allegorical seasons in my life. I know when I am in each phase, and time has allowed me to even enjoy each phase to a fuller degree with each turn. A funny thing happened to me in this latest turn, I would like to share with you now. After years of winter, my father has come to me, asking me about the path I walk. His interest has been growing at an alarming rate, and now he asks me questions that require deeper thinking. I look to my father with great happiness, knowing that he now is coming to his own, long awaited spring. I suppose the question still lingers. Why am I a pagan? Because.