From: corun@access.digex.com (Corun MacAnndra)
Subject: Re: New pagans and reading
Organization: Express Access Online Communications, Greenbelt, MD USA
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 04:15:15 GMT

In article <bigham.715470046@milton> bigham@milton.u.washington.edu (Chuck Bigham) writes:
>lib1p@rosie.uh.edu (Tammy Stark Blandino) writes:
>
>
>[Other suggestions for reading list deleted]
>>Starhawk
>>Spiral Dance
>
>When I first started reading alt.pagan, _Spiral Dance_ was the big winner
>in the list of "must read" books. However, after I finished it, I came
>away with a bad taste in my mouth about what paganism was all about. It
>seemed to me that Starhawk was replacing The Big Guy With A Beard with
>The Big Gal In White.
>
>I realize Starhawk follows a Dianic Wiccan tradition that emphasizes the
>Goddess. I'm male though, and found getting in touch with "the female
>within" at the expense of "the male within" distastful. One of the
>attractions of paganism for me is the emphasis on duality, on the male
>and female aspects of diety, and it seemed to me Starhawk's emphasis on
>the female were just as bad as Christianity's emphasis on the male.
>
> [stuff deleted]
>Chuck

First let me say that I haven't read any of these books, and second that
this reply doesn't have anything to do with books at all. Chuck brings up
a point about male and female roles in paganism, and this touched a chord
in me so I want to bring this out for discussion.

A couple of years ago I attended Ecumenicon in Washington, D.C. On the bill
of fare was an evening discussion of men's mysteries. I'd heard about women's
mysteries, but never men's so I thought I'd sit in and see what it was all
about. What the discussion turned out to be was a whine session with some
men complaining about how they couldn't open up because of the women in
the room, and the women trying to tell the men they didn't know what they
were talking about anyway. It seemed to me that the point was that energy
was energy, and could be negative or positive, but was not confined to
gender. An older fellow across the room kept trying to bring this point
out, but was unheeded by the rest of the group as they kept whining. To
this day I still don't know what men's mysteries are, or if we even have
them. Also, this was my first Ecumenicon, and there were a few instances
of complete and uncomprehending chaos, and not a little dissension in the
ranks of the supposedly learned. There were a couple sessions that were
genuinly interesting, however, in all fairness.

So what's the deal? Anyone got any ideas? Or are men not allowed to be
as sacred and holy as women? This is not a chauvanistic, anti-female
rant, so please don't flame me for that. I got onto this forum to learn
more about paganism. I have looked into and studied a variety of religions
all my life, mainly because of my mixed background and utterly confusing
childhood. You see, half my family are Lutherans or southern Methodists
of one kind or another, and the other half is Jewish. Try going to a
Lutheran gradeschool with German teachers and figure what the hell all
the damned anit-seminism pointed at you is all about.

Bb,

Corun



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    Corun MacAnndra     |      But what if this hadn't been
  Dark Horde by birth   |        a rhetorical question?
    Moritu by choice    |                            C. Nelson