This article is the third in a three-part series interviewing five pagans who have witnessed the ups and downs of the greater Seattle pagan community since the 1970s. The current article focuses on the future: what those interviewed expect and hope for in the Seattle pagan community of tomorrow. The interviewees were:
Blacksun, former high priest of the StarWyrm coven, who performs rituals at the Aquarian Tabernacle Church and teaches monthly classes in neo-pagan spirituality at Edge of the Circle Books.
Changing Woman, archdruid of the Greenwood Grove.
Haragano, a high priestess and Outer Grove teacher, who teaches an ongoing class at Odyssey Books, "The Wheel of the Year."
Pete Pathfinder, the pastor of the Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC), a Wiccan church located in Index, Washington.
Shadowhawk, formerly the high priestess of the StarWyrm coven, who teaches a class in magick and spell crafting. She and Blacksun are married.
Each interview was conducted separately, except in the case of Shadowhawk and Blacksun, who were interviewed together. Not all questions have answers from all interviewees.
Widdershins: What general trends for the future do you think will most affect pagans?
Changing Woman: I think that there will be a challenge from conservative fundamentalists but that those beliefs are in their death throes and on their way out. I think they are because they're nonfunctional; they don't work. I'm not saying this is going to happen overnight. It may take another 30 years.
But we live on one planet, one world, with mass communication that develops more and more every day. We are getting past the stage where we can be isolationists and have individualized beliefs that exclude 90 percent of the world. We are going to have to become more tolerant of one another, out of necessity, because there's not as much space between us anymore. We're linked with fax machines and computer networks, and it's more than a linking of machines now. You can talk to your friends all over the planet instantaneously. You're not going to be able to maintain your hatreds, your separateness. You're not going to be able to use guilt as a motivator, because people are going to start going for what they want. They're going to say, "Leave your hatred somewhere else. It has no place in the one world belief system."
I just don't think that individual countries can keep on isolating themselves and threatening each other with death and punishing each other with guilt. People are getting tired of the whole guilt thing. If you don't want to feel guilty, don't do things that make you feel guilty.
I think, prophetically, that there will be some major transformations in the belief system of the planet that people won't be able to deny, that they won't be able to hide behind their religious traditions.
Pagans will have an advantage because we've already come to these conclusions. We won't have to go through the agony of giving up our nonfunctional belief systems, because we already know that we're all one. We already recognize the Earth as our mother and that we need to take care of her, and that we're all stewards of the same web of life. (Pagans see that) we're an integral part of everything, and we don't see ourselves as separate, whereas those who are separatists, with the "us and them" attitude, are going to have a hard time.
Pete Pathfinder: I think that the biggest problem that's going to face us in 20 years is too many people. I think what will happen is we will see some of this desire to create a broad homogenized community evaporate. I think we're going to see a pagan reformation. We're going to divide up into the English traditionalists and the traditional English people, who are not going to talk to each other all the time, and the Alexandrians and the Algards, etc.
I think that that's healthy. Because, as a religion with no central doctrine and hopefully never any central leadership, we can't expect to be one homogeneous group. It's just mutually exclusive.
Shadowhawk: I'm waiting for the missionaries to come. (Laughter.)
I think what's going to have a major impact on our religion is the Moslems and their growing popularity and the dissemination of information about their faith. There are some very beautiful aspects to that faith. Just the way that Judaism and Christianity had an impact on who we are now, I think that the Moslem religion is going to have an impact on us in the future, because there will be more Moslems in the United States.
Blacksun: I think that the Christian Coalition, Newt Gingrich, the religious right, all of this tremendously high focus and intense energy that's going into the conservatives is nothing more than the peak of a cycle. Five to ten years down the road, we're going to be overrun with people who are saying, "I don't want to wait until I get my pentacle from K-Mart. I'm going to declare myself a pagan right now. Let's find a circle to overrun." There are going to be hordes of them swarming everywhere, and we ain't prepared for it. It's going to change what our label represents.
We have not accepted the institutionalization of our religion because we fear that it will eventually make it into dogma. This is a real fear. It is not baseless. However, it is not necessary. If we prepare the systems to avoid that now, then we will be prepared to take on the sudden onslaught that I see coming. If we do not prepare the systems now, then we will have to react to the onslaught, and the only reaction we can make is a short-term one. Therefore, it will become dogmatized. This is exactly why I have gotten interested in the ATC. Two years ago, I wrote Pete and I said this.
S: We could become very much like the Congregationalist Churches of America - a huge umbrella. Every little church has its own prayers and its own service. I certainly hope so.
CW: It's frightening to me that we might become too organized. I like the disorganization. When it becomes too organized, you're going to lose something; you're going to lose a lot. I know there are those who would like to see paganism have churches and paid clergy, but I'm not one of those people.
We're Her secret children, and that's okay. We find each other when we need to. People who can't find us - what are they looking for?
People ask me, "What do you have to do to become a druid?" I say, "Well, you have to be able to answer three questions correctly." And they say, "Oh, okay! What are they?" I say, "Well, the first question is: Do you believe that nature is good?" They say, "Oh, yeah!" "Okay," I say, "the second question is: Do you believe that nature is very good?" They say, "Oh, yeah!" "The third question is: Do you believe that nature is very good indeed?" "Oh, yeah!" You see, you've probably been a druid all along.
The only true religion is the one you're going to create for yourself.
Haragano: I think the Internet business is a big thing. That is very often how people get information about this (path). Our adoration of the written word in this culture primes a lot of people for abuse on this subject. Simply because someone can write a coherent sentence and distribute it on Web sites does not necessarily mean they've integrated it into their life.
Often some of the wisest words come from people who are still having a tremendous difficulty doing that (working online). Cultivate an understanding of the difference between the message and the messenger. If you find the message valuable, forgive the messenger for not being perfect. But if you find the message destructive, you have the right to reject it. Just because a person is able to get online does not give that person a corner on any sort of truth.
S: Well, the computer has already affected us.
H: Also, we are at the end of the 20th century. In this particular country, there are certain forces at work because of our cultural identity here. The Calvinistic evangelical movement is very, very strong, and the idea of milennialism, the idea that at the end of the 20th century, Jesus is going to come, and he's going to ask, "What have you done for me lately?" That's very much a part of our cultural orientation, whether you're Christian or not; it's part of the underpinnings. In some respects, that is one of the reasons we don't make long-term plans in our government. There's a certain sense of, "Oh, we don't really have to." But nobody will admit to that.
It's not exactly an apathy, and it's not exactly faith. It's going to cost us an enormous amount in this country, because it is so ingrained in us. I don't think we're going to be on the other side of it for another 25 or 30 years. It will be a very hard row to hoe when people suddenly notice that we're still here.
There also may be the reaction, "Well, He didn't come because...." And people will look for a scapegoat. We are very blame-oriented in this culture. Things don't just happen; they happen because it's somebody's fault. There are things that happen that are nobody's fault.
W: Do you see other people blaming pagans?
H: I see pagans blaming pagans, and pagans blaming other people. Other people are just as scared. If you took the titles off things, there are pagans and Christians and Moslems and Jews all saying the same thing. It's "I'm afraid, and whose fault is it?"
I think this is a general thing that's taking place in this country. There are people who play up to that, certainly, but they play up to it regardless of what religion they are. There are others who are finding some way to weather the storm, and also the criticism for their choice in doing so.
I think at this juncture, the best thing we can do is realize that people will be facing this next 25 years in numerous ways, and all of them are going to be important. There are pagans who are concentrating on finding out information about their own traditions and spiritual practices; there are pagans who are in the forefront of what they find are important political and organizational issues. There are people who are doing volunteer work in the general community, who when it arises identify themselves as pagans.
All these approaches are part of what we're doing right now. Which is going to be the one that is most important, we won't know for another 50 years. So rather than say, "No, no, you shouldn't do that," I think a better way is approaching it with a lot more compassion, allowing for the fact that one thing is not going to be necessarily everybody's choice, and cultivating acceptance of that.
W: What trends for the future do you see within the Seattle pagan community?
H: I think it's about ready for another wave of pagan businesses. Shops are generational.
B: I think we're drifting away from secrecy and being in the broom closet and away from a priesthood-only type situation and moving toward a larger, more institutionalized worship, where there is a congregation who wishes to participate in it but not to form it.
I think also another important trend is that we're beginning to depend less and less on history and more on our own present resources as far as theology, using modern modes of understanding how the mind works, from hard science to psychology.
S: I think we'll see more of both the public, organized things and the privacy-oriented groups, and a gap growing between the two, as privacy-oriented groups start to close in on themselves and avoid public appearances.
CW: I see more people stepping to the forefront and taking on leadership roles. I see people offering up that which they have to others, working past their personal fears and not being afraid to share the information that they have with other people.
I think there will also always be private groups and traditions that carry on and provide sort of a backbone for the whole thing, people who want to delve deeply into themselves and create that foundation from which others can creatively spring off.
PP: The most obvious trend is the maturation of our community. There's a drift more deeply into the spiritual aspects of our religion.
I think we will become more accepting of each other - that's what I hope, anyway. But the community will also tend to become encapsulated, in that, for example, you and I will interact sometimes at festivals and things, but you'll go off to a Dianic group, and I'll go off to some other group and so on. But we won't have animosity toward each other for doing that. It will be accepted as normal. That's my hope.
W: What trends do you see in the attitude of the general populace toward pagans?
B: I had a good demonstration of that just the other day. I was wearing a button on my lapel, a black and white button with a pentacle on it. Somebody across a fast-food counter said, "Oh, neat button. What are you?" I said, "I'm a Wiccan." And she said, "Oh, cool, I'm Dianic," and went on to take my order.
It's more accepted now, much more accepted. Not too long ago, somebody asked me what religion I was, and I said, "Wiccan." And they asked me, "Why do you say you're wicked?" I said, "I didn't say wicked, I said Wiccan." And they said, "Oh." And that was it. There was no further questioning.
PP: There's a defusing of the fears of our religion on the part of the general populace. We're educating them a little at a time, and it's starting to show. They're beginning to understand what the word "Wicca" means.
Someone the other day said something to my wife about the pentacle she was wearing. She replied that it was a religious symbol and that she was a Wiccan. And they said, "Oh, yeah, I've heard of that" - instead of holding up their fingers in a cross and running backward.
S: I don't see any changes (in the future). We've managed to get out other definitions (of the word witch). Of course, there's going to be more fanatics, period, as we come to the end of the century. The normal patterns will be accentuated since it's the end of the millennium. But as far as prophesies of dire wars and doom - I doubt it. I see more of the same.
If you think it's nuts now, wait till 1999. The next presidential race should be interesting. We're getting back to the mudslinging of the 1800s. They cleaned it up for television for a long time. Not anymore. Now it's okay to say that on television. It's the same thing in religion (regarding mudslinging), and we're no exception.
CW: I think it's split. I think there's a large segment of people who want to be more open to pagans, because in their hearts they know that it's the truth, in their hearts they know that they need to be in harmony and that pagans are getting in harmony, and that within themselves they are pagans. They may not worship different deities, but they want to be in harmony with the web of life, with the Earth, and that will lead them to their tolerance.
There will also always be those who can't tolerate that or deal with that and who enjoy their separateness.
H: I think the only way to look forward is through acculturation. It took 150 long years for women to get the vote, 150 years. One by one by one, thousands and thousands of arguments over the dinner table. But little by little, some fathers had to accept that their daughters were human. And they did, because they knew their daughters, knew their wives, knew their sisters, knew their mothers.
That's what finally what got women the vote. If the acculturation does not take place, if you don't start regarding that other person as human, as valuable and worthwhile in and of themselves, and you get a new regime in, all the laws go out. Just like that. We've watched that with affirmative action. The gay community has been working on (acculturation) for 25 years, partly politically, partly just one person at a time. A lot of pagans are doing that too.
W: Where do you see the Seattle pagan community in 10 or 20 years?
PP: My guess is that if we make as much progress in the next 10 years as we have in the last 10 years, my dream of people yawning when you tell them you're a witch will come true.
H: I think about the same thing will happen as always is happening. There'll be a generation of people who'll move on to more intimate relationships with people who they practice with, and then a group of people will come in from somewhere. This last large bunch, I think, was stimulated by the university. Probably the next generation won't be, because succeeding generations usually don't come from the same avenue.
I would say it would go one of two ways. Probably a lot more of the street kids again, or more middle-class people will come and move through the process. But then again, they're sizing down the Navy, and a lot of Navy people are getting out, so it might be people in their late 20s, early 30s. There seems to be aggregates like that that happen.
I figure by then, more people who have chosen to stay in the area (will buy land). A couple of groups are in the process of buying land, and (by then) they will. But it won't be for public use, because that's too destructive, and you have to reshape yourself into constantly running tons of people through in order to pay for it. I imagine in the next 20 years, we will have about 10 or 20 people who have small land holdings and have at least some sort of outreach to their neighbors so that they can settle in well. They might be connected to a particular tradition or a particular type of training, either herbalist or treecraft or weaving or garden workshops. I did garden workshops in my backyard for about five years.
CW: I think that it will go several different directions. One direction is that it will become, unfortunately, more monetarily oriented. As anything grows and expands, money usually gets involved. I hope and pray that it doesn't become a dividing factor. But whenever you start having to deal with mass numbers of people, you end up having to deal with money. Everybody wanted a community center like Crossroads, but only money could make that happen. A lot of us have personal beliefs about not charging money for anything that we do, and that limits to a certain extent what we can do. I think money will become a factor, and there will be some division based on monetary factors.
I think that people will become more public in their advertisement. I think that you will start to see things advertised in places other than pagan bookstores, that it will become more trendy.
It can become trendy. Back in the '60s, at one point, they hauled a casket around through the streets of San Francisco that had a sign on it that said, "Hippie Is Dead," because everything had become so '60s boutique and Yuppieized that it had lost its meaning. I think there will be a certain amount of that happening to the community. It will become a trendy thing to do, and people will then have to pick and choose and sort through that which is trendy and that which is sincere.
I think that's good, because it helps people to do the digging, because they'll see a contrast. If you feel misled by a Yuppieized version of something, maybe you'll dig a little deeper to find what's real.
B: I see it probably with five to ten times the active number of participating people, and with local traditions that are public enough to advertise. If they want people to come to a festival or what have you, they'll just say, "Come on down." They'll put an advertisement on the Religion page just like the Mormons, the Presbyterians, the Catholics, the Hindus and the Whatchamacallits.
I think in 10 years' time, there will very definitely be more churchlike bodies, though not necessarily in church buildings. I see five or six appearing around the area. I think that's just beginning.
S: In 10 years, we should have one new organized churchlike structure, with everyone pointing fingers at it; I mean in a bad way. The ATC will be more established and get some respect from some people, because it's the oldest such organization in the area, and it will the benchmark of such things.
I also see a lot more small covens, and also bigger festivals, because more and more people are moving to the area and getting involved. An incredible number of people in the Pacific Northwest are willing to openly attend festivals.
W: Where do you see yourself in the community in 10 years, or do you?
B: Hopefully in a more restful spot. Maybe I'll have a greater understanding of the spirituality behind our religion. But that's ongoing. I don't think I'm going to stop learning. At least, I hope not. Five minutes before they plant me, I'll probably leap up and say, "Oh, that's it! I understand that part of it now!"
Hopefully, (the place where I am in 10 years) will be a comfortable place for me. I don't see myself in any place particularly different than where I am now. I'll probably know how to write a little better, how to present my ideas a little better. I hope I'll be better at understanding other people's ideas. That would be good.
S: I see myself being Blacksun's wife. He's the guy out there publishing books and making speeches, doing public stuff. I'll be the little woman.
He's been called Mr. Shadowhawk for years. I'm going to take on the role of corporate wife.
For me, personally, religion is a way of life. It changes as my viewpoint changes, as my approach changes, as my lifestyle changes. Though I will still be considered neo-pagan, and I will still be a Wiccan, I will be doing that in tandem with the rest of my life. Any notoriety I will gain, I will gain from something else.
I'm hoping to make it as a writer of children's books and science fiction. I have a manuscript out right now. I might also work on a TV series; I'm learning that end of it now. I wouldn't mind writing for TV. I've got a lot of things planned. If I get invited on a national talk show, it will not be because I'm pagan, but for some other reason. My being a pagan would have no more significance than if I were a Jew. Yes, it's significant; it dictates how I live my life. But that's not what will get me out in front of the public.
There are better spokespeople who I would rather see being out there. I did my three-year stint.
PP: Hopefully (in 10 years), I'll be in retirement. Quite possibly gone to my eternal reward. I'm almost 60. At my age, you don't make plans.
At Spring Mysteries last year, I told everyone at the closing circle that I finally felt like if I fell over dead, the festival would continue as well as it has been. I was quite confident I'd done the main job of a good leader, to train people to replace me.
CW: I ask myself that a lot. Where am I going; what am I doing? There's a part of me that really wants to set up a community in Hawaii, or if not Hawaii then somewhere farther out of Seattle, in the woods. It's a personal thing. I want to have a place where people can come and find a sense of community in a retreat, where they can come in contact with nature through music, dance and art and be able to experience that creative surge through relaxation in a more natural community. I want to get out of the city. Hippie Dream No. 1.
But it takes money to do that. One person by themselves doing that, unless you win the lottery, is not very likely, because none of us tend to be rich. It would take an effort on the part of a group of people who have amassed some money through their jobs, to pool it together and cause it to happen.
Some of us are also starting to think along the lines of pagan retirement centers. We want to go into a local place, and in your typical center here, you're not going to be able to practice your religious beliefs to the extent that you want to. They're not going to let you have candles in your room. "Oh my God, you might set the place on fire, you senile old thing!" We're going to need to think in the sense of a retirement community for pagans.
H: I hope to have some other books published by then. I've been approached more than once about writing a book on the wheel of the year, based on my lectures, and a couple of other things. But I don't know if any books I would write would have anything to do with the Craft. I have very mixed feelings on conveying (Craft) information in that way.
A lot of my understanding of the Craft is that the connection (you get with talking to people) is very important. It's part of the oral tradition, and we're getting kind of far away from it sometimes. There's a risk factor involved (in that distance). To reveal yourself when you talk about things that are important to you is a part of the experience of the Craft - not necessarily to lecture to people, but to convey to them what you have found to be important. Some people will hear it; some people are poised to criticize everything, chapter and verse. Other people don't know what you're talking about; they have no ears to hear it. It might not be useful to them for five or ten years. Every time I give a lecture, I have one person come who says that this is an important part of their life that they haven't quite integrated yet.
W: Do you see yourself still giving the Wheel of the Year lectures 10 years from now? How about other public service?
H: I haven't learned everything about (the wheel of the year). It's still revealing itself to me. That and the moon lectures. I haven't done those in a while. If I were going to do something, I'll probably do that next year.
(As for public service,) I didn't see myself doing that kind of thing the first time around! It was a surprise. I didn't see myself teaching in Outer Grove, either. In some respects, I don't think that's something you can really plan. It is important to know that this is the time to begin, then more important to know when it's time to step down.
Sometimes people hold on for too long and think they're the only ones that can do it: "If I don't keep doing it, it won't get done." Well, perhaps it shouldn't, after that. A lot of things that go under the guise of religion have kept going simply because someone decided to do it, but it didn't necessarily need to be done.
W: What do you think the typical pagan of 2010 will be like?
CW: That's a lot sooner than it used to sound!
Probably a lot like they are now. But probably, since there will be a lot of older pagans then - 15 years from now a lot of us will be in our 60s - you'll have the young fiery ones who are out there duking it out with society, being more politically active. Then you'll have others working in the background doing the subtle magick that makes it happen. If you are a magician or a Craft person, you can make things happen without having to be politically active, by changing the way you perceive the world and changing yourself. There are those who are out front, and there are those who are behind the scenes, and those in their 60s will probably be more behind the scenes supporting those who are out front.
But there may be those of us who, by then, are so fed up that we will be in the forefront, saying, "I'm old; who cares now? I don't have a job now! What are they going to do, take away my Social Security?" There may be a '60s revival of 60-year-olds. I would like to see that. That would be good, if we all get off our duffs and say, "Hey, it's now or never."
W: What are the one or two things we can do that will most positively affect the Seattle pagan community for the future?
S: We can stop bashing other people.
We need some rules for fighting among ourselves. We're not going to stop fighting, but we can invent some rules how to do it and follow those rules.
No matter what lifestyle or religion a person is, we're still human, and some things are inherent in being human. If we want to be civilized humans, we all need to practice etiquette. We do get mad, we do argue, we do get jealous, and we need ways to handle those emotions and mind-states so that we don't do damage to ourselves and the people around us.
Also, we need to practice what we preach. But that goes without saying.
PP: I think the basic thing is to start acting responsibly about each other, and that can be refined into: Don't repeat things you hear about somebody unless you know them of your own knowledge and unless you feel repeating them is necessary - perhaps even, in the words of my ex-mother-in-law, unless it meets the standard of being kind, being true and being necessary.
The important thing is that it needs to be true. The rumor mill is what creates the most conflict, because somebody does something that may be reasonably harmless in itself until there's a motive attributed to it. Then we start building worst-case scenarios; that's human nature.
Don't attribute to malice what can be best explained by stupidity. Very few people act out of malice. That's one of our problems in dealing with the larger community. We need to learn that the people who are antagonistic to us are antagonistic out of a sense of doing the right thing. It's an education problem, not a malice problem. We need to educate them, not whip out our daggers and slash back.
CW: Have compassion and tolerance for each other's differences. Leave the hierarchical bullshit behind. Work together for the common good. Respect one another. Encourage one another to be all that you can be. Laugh more, definitely laugh more.
As far as leadership goes, I think that I take a Taoist philosophy, which is my basic belief system, the Taoist. In the end, the best leaders are those when the people say, "We did it ourselves."
That's why I haven't given a lot of interviews and things, because when you develop leaders and elders, people look to them as a final sort of authority. That takes away from people the idea that they are the masters; deity is within them. Don't look to me, look within yourself. I'm only the finger pointing at the moon, not the moon. You'll never find it without if you don't find it within. A good leader always helps a person remember that.
B: We can develop an ethic that says we develop our religious structures based on what we are now, and less upon legend. The legend of the ancient witch is a very powerful mechanism for instilling wonder and developing the ability to get around our cultural prejudices. But at the same time, it encourages people, especially in large groups, toward bizarre behavior, and it attracts people who think they have an excuse for being bizarre. I'd like to see people involved because it's right for them and because they've thought about that.
There's a great deal of teaching about our relationship with the universe in our religion. There's a great number of very wise things in our religion. I don't think that being outlandish and bizarre is one of them. We have more to give than that. (If people weren't concerned with being bizarre), they'd get more done in their own spirituality, in healing the earth and in healing the people on the earth.
I do not fear that much for the health of the earth. It's fine to have a poster saying, "Save the Whales," but there may well be signs down in the ocean saying, "Save the Humans." Who's to tell what goes on at 30,000 fathoms? We need a great deal of healing, not just in our country but all over the planet. We need to realize we are part of the planet. We need to realize that the Earth is our mother, and if we do not take her lessons, she's going to pop us on the ass and say, "Don't talk to me in that tone of voice!"
H: (We) mostly (have to remember) that community is a lot more complicated than we consider it. We do have a very healthy community; it's just not based on the group coming together. It is based on individuals who reach out to one another, with all the risks attendant on that.
People do come together to make certain things happen. Then they part again after the thing is done. That is just as important as a group that's been together for 25 years. And both of those models are very much us. One is no better than the other. They are just two very useful ways of doing different things.
I think sometimes we still get caught in the either-or stuff. One of the long-running things that gets resurrected every so often is that we (groups such as Haragano's) are just traditionals, and we think we're the only way. Not by a long shot. A lot of eclectics think we think that way, but they never bothered asking us. This is just one amongst many forms that the people who practice it found is the most efficacious way for them to work. What third parties write about it doesn't have anything to do with the people who practicing it.
I think that is true about just about anything in the Craft. If you want to know what somebody's doing, ask them. If you want to fantasize about it, ask a third party. If you want to meet somebody, go to something that they're doing, or ask somebody to introduce you to them.
CW: I think you come in contact with the Craft when you're ready for it. When the flower blooms, the bees will come.
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