I've been
a pagan for around 20 years and watched the meaning behind the labels
change until many of they become so diffuse as to be meaningless. I've
been told that in the name of tolerance I must accept anyone who self
defines as a pagan as such. After all its just a label and labels don't
matter it's the person that important.
Labels
do matter. Our whole communication as a species is based on labelling.
Sharing terms of reference that we can understand and work with. "You
are sitting on a chair" is a statement made up of agreed labels that
we all share. From my point of view the label paganism has gone from
meaning 'practising a pre Christian Native British spirituality' to
'practising a mismash of western & eastern philosophies'.
Western,
Northern, Eastern, and Southern philosophies are all valid but they
only make sense within their own framework. Karma as understood by Eastern
philosophers is vastly different to the 'instant karma' of the west
sometimes expressed amongst pagans as the law of threefold return (though
you won't actually find that in Eastern philosophies). As the Western
world moves towards a popular 'global' culture neo-pagan traditions
appears to move with it creating and honouring the planet by borrowing
from many 'native' traditions. Often without any understanding of the
cultures they're borrowing the labels from, and in the process changing
the meaning beyond recognition.
'Native'
cultures developed amongst primarily small, homogeneous groups customs
such as the provision of clothing, shelter, transportation and food
have evolved differently in different areas of the world because natural
resources vary widely from place to place. Folk customs reflect the
benefits and constraints of each group's environment, and through cultural
evolution each generation has left its unique imprint on the cultural
landscape.
'Global'
culture is found in large, heterogeneous societies that share certain
habits despite differences in personal characteristics. Popular customs
are based on global interaction and modern technology, and are most
often a product of economically developed countries. As the world family
draws ever closer through instant communications and rapid transportation,
popular culture increasingly welds itself into an evolving global culture.
It seems
that paganism has moved from a label for native spirituality to one
for one strand of global spirituality. I however still want to practice
a locally focussed and locally influenced form of paganism. It can't
be pre-Christian I'm some 2000 years too late for that, tempted as I
may be to call it post Christian there are still a few around so for
dictionaries of the future:
Gewessi:
a British pantheistic based spiritual practice, connected deeply to
the essence of the land
