I spent the greater part of last week in Chicago advocating for progressive change in the US and around the world. There were all kinds of groups in Chicago doing the same: Occupies from all over the country, civic groups, military groups, religious groups. But what I didn’t see was a Pagan group.
While marching, I saw this woman. We talked and I found she too is Pagan. I asked her about a Pagan contingency of activists. 
She said there were individual Pagans in the crowd but they were not marching together as an organized (or quasi-organizied) group. And surprisingly, there’s wasn’t a group of climate change activists though there were individual climate change people in the #noNATO march on Sunday.
I would’ve liked to have marched with Witches for Change (I just made that name up) or Pagans Against Climate Change (another name I made up) or any Pagan group committed to peace, social justice, and solving/undoing climate change. But there is a vacuum of sorts. It seems no such group exists or no group attended the week long events in Chicago. Not that I saw anyway.
It makes me wonder if we are really that difficult to organize. And it brings me back to my inaugural post Leader of the Environmental Movement where I wondered aloud why Pagans aren’t leading the charge against climate change.
Indeed.
I’d like to be part of Witches for Change.
Aepril: me too! Wanna start a chapter in your area? I’ll start one in New England =)
I’ve always attributed the dearth of Pagan-orientated charities and political/pressure groups to a willingness to play with others. There are plenty of organisations that I can support that don’t have a religious entry requirement.
On re-reading my comment, I don’t mean to insinuate that you don’t want to “play with others” or that you’re in any way elitist for wanting a Pagans-only organisation.
I think that because it’s the first time in our history that there have been enough of us comfortable being identified as Pagans to warrant having a Pagan-specific group, those of us who want to get involved are already involved with non-religious groups.
That should read ‘Pagan-orientated’, not ‘Pagan-only’.
It’s not that I want to exclude anyone, it’s that I want to include my spiritual practice with my activism. And I’d like to do that with others.
Hi folks! I’m the lady with the globe. I do a lot of Pagan community organizing in Chicago, and when I broached the idea of Pagans joining me for the protest, or for doing some kind of ritual as part of the day/part of the protest, I was met with a lot of silence, and a little resistance.
In fact, on one of the Chicago Pagan Yahoo groups I sent the info to, I was met with direct hostility from a long-time Pagan elder in this area.
I was excited that there were a few other Pagans there, even if we didn’t for the most part actually connect in person. Some of them tried to text me and find me, but the crowd was just too big and we didn’t have an established meeting place.
I guess I try to hold the balance of, not wanting to force my own Pagan/activist/environmentalist values on other Pagans, but also, wanting Pagans to stand up for what they believe. And with so many among us identifying as Earth-Centered, I’d like to see more Pagans really stand up and live that.
So I’ll keep at it. And if any of you are in the Chicagoland area or the Midwest looking for resources, hit me up, I’m happy to help. You can find me on Facebook or at ShaunaAura@gmail.com
@shauna: thanks for stopping by and giving us more info!
Weird about the hostility.
I agree with wanting to see more Pagans stand up and living what we believe.
Organizing on a national scale is pretty daunting. I’ve tried it before (see the Hail Columbia project at http://hailcolumbia.us) with limited success (which is the nice way of saying “only a little bit of success”) and I’m trying to do so again with a new project, too.
The biggest thing I’ve noticed is that there’s a lot of Pagans out there who are very, very interested in this sort of thing but we’re all busy people with our own lives and it’s hard to be an activist in addition to a day job sometimes. As a result, you try to delegate responsibilities but then the people to whom you delegate end up not being available to handle that which you’ve given them!
I, for one, am not giving up.
(P.S. – Hi Shauna!)
To be honest, this is one reason I’m now loathe to identify with Pagan culture any more. Just as I find some other religious groups TOO controlling, I feel like Pagans are so interested in NOT being controlled that they don’t want to be part of a larger group working toward a common goal. The biggest issue seems to be the fact that a large group means that there has to be a leadership structure and this is difficult for a lot of Pagans to swallow. Of course, there are exceptions to the rule, and Pagans can always turn to an organization like UU to find like-minded folks who are activists because of their spirituality, but the lack of sense of urgency and cohesion in the Pagan culture is frustrating to me.
You hit the nail on the head with this statement: they don’t want to be part of a larger group working toward a common goal. Many of us came from abusive religious practices so we’re frightened of falling into that trap. But too frightened I think. We’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
Shauna Aura (the woman pictured) wrote a great post about responsibility. I think my post dovetails nicely into hers. You can read it here
Okay… yes, I have issues with organized religions, but I really want to see this happen. I hesitate to officially name it “pagan” due to the fact that that term has been bastardized by the Christians to mean something else entirely in the ancient battle to covert pagans to Christianity. I also hesitate the use the word “witches” because that, likewise, has a negative connotation to many. Can’t we call it “Earth Spiritualists Uniting against Climate Change”? I don’t want it to be “religious,” but spiritual. And even those of other religions can qualify… there is quite a bit of crossover between pagans and other “religions” anyway. There is an “Interfaith Power and Light” group http://interfaithpowerandlight.org, but that is still exclusive since it has the following requirements:
A)Is faith-based and inclusive of multiple faith traditions.
B)Has a steering committee or board of directors that includes ordained religious leaders. OKAY, BIG PROBLEM HERE!
C)Advocates for clean energy, conservation and responsible stewardship of Creation in response to global warming. UH-OH… THAT USE OF THE WORD “CREATION”
D)Will adopt the essential components of the Interfaith Power and Light mission:
Interfaith Power and Light is mobilizing a religious response to global warming in congregations through the promotion of renewable energy, energy efficiency, and conservation. PROBLEM HERE WITH THE USE OF THE WORK “RELIGIOUS” WHEN I REALLY THINK THAT HAS NEGATIVE CONNOTATIONS, AND “SPIRITUAL” IS A MUCH “PURER” WORD.
So, even though they are trying to be inclusive, they are excluding and scaring off some of the “greenest” people on the planet since our spirituality revolves around the earth and it’s cycles.
So frustrating!