BOOM! You’re in circle and you’re the only man in the room, what goes through your head? No, seriously, stop reading, think about it for a few minutes and come back, I’ll wait.
*pours myself some Bourbon and puts on the Jeopardy music….promptly deletes the MP3 after three seconds of music and shudders*
Never, never again! Anyway, back to the topic at hand.
(You will earn 10 Pagan Man points if you can tell me who that is on my shot glass in the comments below)
So, how did you feel? Alone? Outnumbered? Isolated? Or did you like being the only man in a room full of women? If the latter, then this post is not for you, that’s next week.
Keep in mind that this blog is about being a Pagan Man, not a Wiccan man. What’s the difference?
Oh, Oh, I know! I know!
The hell? Who let you back in?
A modern day Pagan is, roughly, someone in an Earth based religion. While as, a Wiccan is someone in the Wicca religion. Wicca it’s self is considered an Earth based religion. Therefore, all Wiccans are Pagans but not all Pagans are Wiccans.
Man I got to get a lock for that door. Anyway, yeah, he’s right. So, what does that mean? Well it means that there are other religions than Wicca that we will cover in this blog. But for now, on to the circle!
Wicca, the religion of the Goddess. Why? Sure, Wicca recognizes Goddesses, but is it strictly a Goddess worship religion? Well, that depends on who you talk to. There are many, many, many branches of Wicca. Some actually are Goddess only, and most aren't.
I know, as a man, this can seem a little intimidating. I mean being in a Goddess religion and keeping your masculinity in tact....
Hey, wait a minute! You just said it wasn't a Goddess religion.
Yeah, you sit through a Wiccan ritual and see how many times the God is talked about as compared to the Goddess. If its actually more than the God I will bake you a friggin cookie. All I am saying is that if your going to be in Wicca you have to be able to realize that you don't have to be anything less then what you are to worship a Goddess. By that I mean you can keep being a manly man all you want and still be part of a religion that honors a Goddess. Also, that's not to say that you have to only worship a Goddess and not a God as well.
So, why would a man feel uncomfortable surrounded by women that have probably been jaded by a male oriented and dominated religion that also have immediate access to sharp pointy things at the ritual space?
Geez, I have no idea.....
Yeah there is a lot of resentment in the Wiccan community for the Christian religion. That also translates into a lot of resentment and sometimes outright hate from Wiccan women towards men in general. I have seen such women completely run ram-shot over men in ritual. Its ranged from correcting them about something trivial during the ritual, making a male bashing joke and expecting us to not take it personally, and all the way to telling the man to sit down and shut up. In the most extreme case I was once told that I couldn't do anything but stand in the circle as I was a man and could not invoke the Gods or the elements. I wonder what some jerk did to her?
Yeah, so your going to run into some man hating on various levels here and there in the Wiccan community.
To those that say that this is untrue; screw you. Yup, that's right, screw you. I know that man hating happens because I have been to enough events and circles to see it first hand.
Now that I have that out of the way, what can you do about it?
Smile. Yeah, that's about it. There is little you can do except sit down with the man hater and point out how you feel. If they continue to act like an ass, it's time for you to move on from that poisonous environment. And yes, it is poisonous if its hurting your self esteem and making you feel bad about yourself.
I have met some men that practice alone because they say their masculinity makes the women in the circle feel uncomfortable. One man said that he has noticed that Wiccan women feel more comfortable circling with effeminate men. To be honest I have noticed this as well but I can't say anything because I am Pansexual. Not to say that I am effeminate at all, but still.
Stop, now look around. How many non-effeminate or purely straight Wiccan men do you know? If your community is anything like mine that's not too many. Sure there is a small number of them but not all that many that I have seen. But hey, that's a whole other topic.
Why do you feel intimidated? Because there are more of them then you? Weird feeling isn't it? Makes you wonder how they must feel sometimes.
Maybe your not intimidated, maybe you feel left out. Do you ever feel like your on the outside of circle looking in?
"Okay go sit in the next room while we set up for ritual and then come invoke the God." - Random High Priestess
That ever happen to you? Makes you feel like a commodity doesn't it?
Man this blog post is alllll over the place.
Well maybe if you were sober...
Oh hush you, your not even real.
If you are having trouble feeling like a man in a Goddess oriented religion well, get over it.
That's right, you heard me, get the heck over it. Your a man, period. Nothing can change that. Its up to you how you behave and how you feel. Just because you worship a Goddess doesn't mean you can grunt, scratch, and spit as much as you like. Just, don't do it in public, or in front of women, that's just wrong.
The simple fact is that you are now a minority. That's right, there are more of them then there are of us and you just have to get use to that. Some women are going to be upset that there are men in the religion of the Goddess, as they see it, and they will take that out on you.
Anyway, these are my ramblings. They aren't always coherent but I think I got the point across.
Have something to add?
I do! I do!
Not you!
*Cough, Cough* As I was saying, leave your thoughts down in the comments.
Later folks,
May the Gods watch over you all,
Snow Wolf
9 comments:
I totally agree with you, and congratulations on your very good and funny text! I gonna follow your blog from now on.
Felipe
It is something that is changing now.I am the founder and HP of The Temple of the Sacred Gift - ATC in Memphis, Tn. We have a festival called Brothers of the Sun where we teach the stages of men and how it effects even your magic. The main thing that people need to realize is that the God is the consort to the Goddess. Consort means partner, not less than or more than, just equal to. So the God is completely equal to the Goddess. The HP is completely equal to the HPS.
When you worship only God or only Goddess. When you put one as more important than the other. You stop looking for balance. Wiccan's strive for balance.
I studied Wiccan for a couple of years. I really enjoyed it, but there are some philosophies that I ran into that disturbed me. One philosophy was that hunting is wrong. Strange since all shamanistic, witchcraft movements of the past depended on hunting for their food. And then there was the extreme feminist movement that seemed to kind of take over Wicca in the last twenty years. These extreme feminists think that all men are evil, bad, rapists, murderers....ETC. I kept running into loaded language in blogs and books that I read. I finally discontinued Wicca. However, I am going to pick it back up again and study solo, more as a philosophy and magical lifestyle than a religion.
I am a empath so can definitely say that every wiccan woman I have discussed wicca with has a need to " challange" as if almost testing the waters to see if they are able to dominate or not. IF NOT, and masculinity is picked up they tend to get flighty. Seems that most have been abused by men who in most other religions is a man.
Seems that most witches have been abused by men in some emotional way . The irony is that God is a man in almost all other religions.
Self love and treating the body as a temple of light seems to work well for me. I share my light with very few.
As during the period of chaos in China, Rome’s decline brought vital new religious influences to societies around the Mediterranean. Christianity moved westward from its original center in the Middle East, just as in Asia, Buddhism was spreading east from India. Though initially less significant then Buddhism in terms of numbers of converts, Christianity would ultimately prove to be one of the two largest world faiths. It would play a direct role in the formation of two postclassical civilizations, those of eastern and western
Europe.
Interesting piece, if only in highlighting how different Wicca is in the US compared to England. I've been practising Wicca for 23 years now and have never, ever encountered anything like the situations described here!
You're spot on. Physically, mentally, and emotional abuse. Men aren't very spiritual at this time. Most men can't fathom a female deity. Most men can't fathom that the female is actually equal to not inferior to the male. Actually.:. Most men don't see themselves as human beings so can't fully understand the woman as being human. Men have been disconnected from their spirituality, never being able to fully embrace their male emotions. Men have been taught to subjugate women to sexual objects and existing solely for the hedonism of men. The system of patriarchy is oppressive to women. But woman is much more than just a face and body parts. Just as men are more than a wallet and sperm bank. As a Wiccan, I do believe in Gods and Goddesses. I also hope that other men will start to explore their spirituality and learn to treat women better.
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