Editorial: On Being Hardcore - cold weather, elitism, and urban paganism

We’ve just come out of a freezing winter, and perhaps we are still feeling a little too cold for it to be spring yet. Many of us over the winter months may have performed rituals or ceremonies, and some particularly hardy individuals may have done these outside – possibly even skyclad. Some of us, however, stayed inside our centrally heated temples, wearing our lovely woollen jumpers, performing our rites.

Similarly, some folk (who are considered by the general Pagan population to be lucky) have access to the countryside, big wide open rolling hills, beautiful copses and woodland, lakes, waterfalls, rivers, farmland, and something other than concrete. The rest of us though have to make do with either an insane amount of travel between town and countryside (which for most students is not a viable option,) or the concrete, petrol, Victorian townhouses, and main roads of the capital city of Wales.

And undoubtedly those who have just finished performing their Imbolc ritual out on the icy slopes of some abandoned hillside, with chattering teeth and blue lips and fingers, will tell themselves (or other Pagans) that they are ‘hardcore’ because of it. They will wear their frostbite and hypothermia as a badge of pride to their next Pagan social event, and insist upon telling everybody in the group just how powerful and wonderful the painfully cold, wet, (yet sooooo close to nature) ritual was.

The country folk who spend their hours rambling in the woodland and making contact with dryads, nymphs, earth energies, and their Gods among the trees and brooks will also feel some twinge of ‘holier than thou’ thoughts when faced with somebody who offers prayers to their Gods before an altar in their bedroom, with artificial lighting, soft rug beneath their feet, and the sounds of the city around them.

For some reason, in the Pagan community and throughout the neo-Pagan mindset, it is considered more ‘hardcore’, ‘authentic’, and generally fan-dabby-doozy to perform one’s religious rites outside in Nature, and to expose oneself to the extremities of British weather in order to do so.

Well, in my opinion that’s a load of crap. With a capital C. It’s so Crap in fact, that I’ve had to write an editorial about it.

I’m not going to deny that worshipping your Gods outside, in a beautiful forest, with a roaring bonfire, is nice. It can be fantastic in fact, and done properly can bring about a state of mind particularly conducive to ritual. The tideline of a beach at night makes you feel as though you are standing in blackness and nothingness, and the ebb and flow of the waves lulls you into a meditative state, and the universe seems so mind-blowingly huge around you…

But last time I spent an hour on a beach, at night, in the winter, skyclad, I… wait a second, I didn’t. Because I don’t consider frostbitten fingers and hypothermia - closely followed by shock and inevitable hospitalization – a suitable offering to my Gods.

And check out your house sometime – the wood your altar table is made from. It is Nature. The bowls you place your offerings on were once clay. They are Nature. Even the plastics you may have on the altar were once petrol. They are Nature. Your surroundings have their own particular energy – they teem with life just as a woodland does. The noises of cars and music from next door that replace the birdsong or rustling of wind in the branches of forests are just as sacred as each other: all are the sounds of life. The feeling of watching the rain from indoors, curled up in a duvet with a mug of hot chocolate can induce the same feelings as being in that rain outside on a hilltop.

Those of us who live in urban areas such as Cardiff often have to adapt our spiritual practices to fit our environment – we become urban Pagans. We worship and make offerings to our Gods in our ‘centrally heated temples’; we listen to the limited birdsong around us; we see the signs of Nature pushing through the concrete; we learn the cycles of the seasons and how they show in the city around us. And eventually, we don’t need to go out into ‘real Nature’ or the countryside to feel sacred – our immediate environment becomes sacred as well. This dichotomy between urban and rural, and the elitism that follows it – with the latter being more sacred or Pagan than the former – is a false one, created through what is essentially Pagan propaganda: portrayals of beautiful young Witches and Druids (inevitably female ones) wearing long, velvet gowns and cloaks, standing in a forest glade whilst the moon or sun shines down on them benevolently, and the nature spirits commune with them… And of course it is also created through the assumption that all Pagans worship Nature.

Now, most of you probably know logically that we don’t all prance around in fairy glens looking forever young, frolicking in the meadows in joyous abandon. But most of us at the same time still retain that image: an image of beautiful people in beautiful clothing (instead of the mundane jeans and t-shirts we live in every day) worshipping beautiful deities in a beautiful forest. Contrary to this, we don’t exactly fantasize about everyday people finding a little time in their busy, everyday lives to make an offering of bread and meat to deities that probably aren’t that beautiful at all, in a cluttered room, with no sign of a fairy or sprite anywhere.

You all knew that though, right? Here’s news then: not all Pagans are nature-worshippers. I don’t worship or make offerings to the Earth; when I pray I don’t pray to the trees or the sea, and when I sacrifice I don’t do it in honour of the wind or a rock. I do all of these things because I worship my Gods. (And even if you are a nature-worshipper, because a large number of neo-Pagans are, then you’ll find nature as much in your tiny front garden or dinner plates as anywhere else.) I respect nature, and I follow the cycle of the seasons because they help keep me in tune with my own yearly cycle. But I don’t worship nature: there’s a big difference. I respect Johnny Cash and Terry Pratchett, and I also take a lot of spiritual insight from their work. But I don’t worship them.

My Gods though, aren’t they Nature? Not all of them. In fact, many Gods you come across represent human activity, emotions, and archetypes. Sex, death, music, children, travel, theft, marriage, healing, athletics… There are many deities that we still worship today who are urban deities: genius loci, for instance. Sulis is one: she was worshipped exclusively in Roman Bath, and she was the Goddess of that city. She was also appealed to for healing as well as cursing others: human activity. Athena is another: her worship began in an urban setting (Athens), and she was concerned with war, knowledge, the legal system, and academia. She has very little in common with a true nature deity such as a God of the Sun, or Luna, Roman Goddess of the Moon.

So, I don’t freeze my non-existent testicles off in the cold Welsh weather in order to perform my religious rites outside. Does that make me any less ‘hardcore’? Hell no. Because one’s ‘Pagan-ness’ should not be defined by where one’s rites are performed and how cold or wet it is at the time: my Pagan-ness is between me and my Gods, and depends on why I worship them, what I do with them, how closely I stick to my Pagan principles, and not on some skyclad elitist Nature-worshipper’s belief that having a suicidal desire to show the Gods just how blue the human body can become is superior to my nice, comfy, and most importantly, warm, centrally heated temple.

Enjoy the weather as it comes closer to Summer – and when it’s warm enough to go prance in the fairy glens, have fun doing so.

Blessings,

Kim Huggens