Welcome

So, the other day Michael and I are sitting in Back Country Coffee, having the kind of conversation you have in a coffeehouse and also lamenting that we don't spend nearly enough time in coffeehouses having this kind of conversation.

In comes this guy. You know the one I mean. He's older, maybe late fifties, but he's dressed like a skate punk: ratty jeans, wrinkled shirt, stocking cap over uncombed grey hair. Some jewelry that looks like it's meant to be significant. He's carrying a copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull, and he immediately engages the barrista in a conversation about how meaningful and profound it is.

 I roll my eyes. This is not something I have missed during the time I have not been hanging out in coffeehouses. I say in what I hope is an undertone: "Yeah, and I read that book in seventh grade."

Michael is more generous. He says: "Give him a break. It's not bad. And it was the first of those seventies self-help enlightenment find your path books."

Someone else comes in. He greets the first guy by the name of a legendary Buddhist sage. I believe this is not the guy's birth name, but one he has chosen. I find this really ironic for a guy who is now declaiming the merits of egolessness.

Michael and I start talking about people who get really excited about things we find basic, and the way others flock to them, and how people exploring alternative spirituality get stuck in beginner's mode and never seem to be able to progress from there. We wonder if this has something to do with a social attitude, where it is assumed that everyone has to have access to everything, whether or not they're cut out for it, whether or not they're in any state of mind to understand it. Along the way, Michael starts in on his experiences as a public school teacher. He says, "Oops, I didn't mean to go there."

I say, "You can go anywhere you want. We're in a coffeehouse."

So, we got the idea for this blog. See, we spend a lot of time--not just in coffeehouses, but sitting around the house or at the dinner table--discussing Pagan* Issues that no one else seems to address. We've both been practicing Pagans/Witches/What-Have-You for more than twenty years, and frankly, the whole business kind of irritates us. We're not sweetness-and-light Pagans. We don't think everything is great and the goddess (whichever name you call her by) showers her divine blessings on us in the form of flower petals and unicorn poop. We're more the Blood-and-Bones kind of Pagan. I'm sure there are more of us out there. But we rarely seem to meet any of them.

We want to speak up about what's important to us and what troubles us. Some people may find this offensive or challenging. We don't care. You can think whatever you want to think about us and our opinions; it's your privilege.

Pour yourself a cuppa joe and pull up a chair.

*For the purposes of this blog, the word "Pagan" will be used to encompass any of the non-Western standard spiritual/religious paths based in the Spiritualist Movement of the late 19th century. At the discretion of the authors, it may also be used to describe Westerners incorporating some Eastern practices and belief systems into a path which is does not strictly adhere to any Eastern religious or philosophical practice.