Month: March 2022

https://youtu.be/_xpHrgkJcAE

https://youtu.be/kS5tgUwtrH0

https://youtu.be/Czu6kaYShFI

When I discovered the Goddess Brigid I discovered more than a deity I could worship, I found a motherly figure who would watch over me, someone I could form a working relationship with.

So far my experiences with Brigid have been largely positive. We’ve had a couple arguments over my Christian past interfering with our relationship at first. We’ve since mostly overcome those. I still have a ways to go to completely earn her trust but she has made herself real to me and informed me what her desire is for me so far.

I haven’t asked her to help me much in my spell work. Most of our relationship has been my reciting a daily devotion I dedicated to her, which includes a daily offering to her. I pray to her daily, although I am sure she wouldn’t mind my saying she doesn’t respond to all of my prayers. She has done a wonderful job helping me find my own inner strength and pulling it out of me. She hasn’t had tp pick me up too often but she has told me she will protect me if needed as she claims me as her own as she is mine. Our relationship is so wonderful I am truly blessed to know her as my Matron Goddess.

I am not talking about American pagans or Americans who follow a pagan practice. Rather I am pondering the existence of a truly American Pagan religion, as in something found originating in America even if it borrows from other cultures. Mind you I am well aware of the dangers of cultural appropriation thus I am seeking something that can be identified as purely American. This goes along with my previous article I wrote yesterday asking if there is such a thing as an American culture.

The reason I settled on an American Paganism is simple, I am an American. I find the idea of cultural earth religions fascinating. There is an other danger to outsiders. The risk of sounding more than Imperialistic but rather American Exceptionalism. AS in the belief, racist rooted as it is, American culture is superior to others. I do not adhere to that. I believe it is valid and I respect my American culture tremendously. I adhere to the core values of America, which is life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I desire to pursue those ideals while spreading them to as many others as possible. The good parts of America, the ideology, is why so many come here from elsewhere. It is the American Dream.

So is it possible to follow a truly American paganism? I do not mean deifying the Founding Fathers, eek that would be beyond unsavory for me. However I am looking more at a Pagan belief that seeks to follow the ideals of American society I find admirable, which is the aforementioned liberty and justice for all.

I want to be clear this is not an essay writing about the American Cult of Patriotism. Although it is going to have similarities to that Patriotic spirit, it focuses more on the spiritual ideals rather on the abstract belief in superiority.

I found a YouTube video on finding an American Pagan pantheon that I found fascinating. Here I found inspiration to seek my own spirituality that I believe will satisfy my desire to celebrate the good parts of American culture while working towards improving the bad parts. This ideology is something I can get behind. But how far do I go? Rather how far does this idea go?

When I search Google for American Paganism I come across articles lambasting the decline of American morality as we decline into Pagan culture. This is less than helpful. Again here is the first problem, terminology. American pagan verses American Pagan. Notice the placement of the capital P. The first is any American who considers themselves as pagan. The latter is a distinct Paganism that is rooted in American Liberty Cult.

I looked first at the Statue of Liberty. She represents an ancient Goddess Americans have embraced. An American Pagan Pantheon would most certainly contain her as a central figure. Our Cult of Patriotism already uses her quite regularly in American imagery. However her representation in Americanism is somewhat unique in her appearances in classical and historical contexts.

I love the idea of honoring Liberty as a American Goddess. Not as an exclusively American goddess but rather as one who is revered in a land entirely devoted, at least in concept, to her ideal. You cannot ignore the scars of Imperialism and Slavery that exist on this country. However I believe you can work within that to recognize when there are ways to improve.

Make no mistake I am not talking about stealing from or taking from Native cultures to form a practice that is rooted in theft and oppression. What I am looking for is a practice that honors the deities America was founded upon, not the Christian deity though. I am also seeking to explore the implications of American symbolism within folklore. Americanism itself is quite fascinating as most of our mythology revolves around the Wild West but not all of it is such. We recognize the tall tales as myths. We also recognize much of the ideas we were raised in were rooted in Imperialism. Thus I have to tread lightly.

Before I go any further here is the video I found.

Feel free to check out the video for a better understanding of what I am considering. I am not saying I personally want to explore this American Paganism. However I feel like it does feel more appropriate for me to find a religions practice that is truly American rather than treading upon an existing cultures religious views. I found Wicca didn’t work for me as it was too English. I have a working relationship with the Goddess Brigid but I do not feel compelled to Irish Paganism. I do not want to pick and choose the parts of other cultures I like rather what I want is to explore spirituality within my own culture. Since my culture is American I decided to search for and see if I could discovery a uniquely American form of Paganism. While I found merely the foundations of which I could work, I am reinvigorated in a way I haven’t been in a while. I am still figuring out what this will look like though.

I also want to be careful not to turn it into American Exceptionalism. The Cult of Patriotism runs rampant in American culture and I want to avoid that. Still, I find it fascinating to think we had our very own pagan culture brewing beneath our feet this whole time. I love it. I don’t know what it will mean to me but as of right now I am excited.

Can an American culture truly exist? How do we define what is American? What about American religious practices including folk religions? How do we as American reconcile our colonial past with our modern capitalist society? I want to address culture appropriation accusations regarding the myth of a truly American culture.

How do you define culture? The beliefs and customs of a geographic are is a simplified way of doing so. However this is tricky when you refer to the United States. Simply put we do have a well-defined geographic area, U.S. territories. However we do lack a central source culture to draw upon. Many of the Founding Fathers and early settlers who formed the bulk of the leadership in this country were of British descent, mostly English but also Scottish and quit a bit of Irish. In fact Irish immigration has come to this country in multiple waves over the two centuries of our existence.

Once should tread lightly when discussing anything as American. On the one hand you have the concept of colonialism. Here you have taking or merging of different ideas from other cultures and blending them together. This is known as the melting pot. It should allow for those from the source cultures to exist in the land bringing their own practices with them. The goal is to recognize each immigrant culture as equal to the dominant host culture. In this case I would use Irish-American as an example. Irish American is a distinct brand of Americanism. It is a unique blending of Irish Gaelic culture with the existing customs in the region. This is prominently seen in the Midwest especially Chicago where a large Irish heritage population exists.

What of the “mutt” culture or creole culture of America? Does that have any true validity to stand on its own? Or is it purely a form of colonialism. Does being a product of colonialism automatically discount the existing of a hot culture? I don’t know but I am here to find out.

Going back to the Irish American subset. This is a distinct culture within the broader American culture. From an anthropological standpoint distinctly American traits do exist and are quite prominently defined. For example the American tailgate culture. The practice of sitting outside a sporting event cooking food and mingling with strangers this is a truly American exhibition of American sports culture. So we have established there are subcultures within the broader American landscape. Now where does that leave us with the question does an American culture exist and if so does it have any validity?

I believe it is possible to practice truly American cultural traits while borrowing from source cultures so long as it is a part of your own ancestry and done respectfully. I don’t support appropriation of other cultures by blending the bits and pieces of other cultures into a broader sense of what it means to be American. Cinco De Mayo is a distinctly American-Mexican holiday that is a big part of U.S. culture. However it is not widely celebrated outside those with ties to Mexico or Mexican heritage even.

Digging a little deeper how does the broader sense of American culture compare to other island cultures that exist as creoles? I have two examples I want to examine. First is Ireland. What makes person Irish is not having Irish blood but rather living in Ireland. Participating in Irish culture means living among Irish people. These could be Irish with African or Indian ancestry and are just as valid as Irish people. They can adopt the host culture while blending aspects of the source cultures. This is what makes Ireland so interesting.

Does this mean there is no “Irish” bloodline There is no Irish race per se. There are people who trace their ancestry to early inhabitants of Ireland but most of them are still rooted as invading the island. It is difficult to lock down what a “native” Irish ancestry is which is why Irish people in Ireland look down on those of the Irish diaspora claiming their Irish culture as their own. That is appropriation for sure.

Let’s take a look at Haitian creole culture. Here you have a native population mixed with outside forces vie force. One example is Haitian Vodou, a religion that borrows heavily from African Earth religions, Catholic Christianity and Celtic Paganism. Here is a perfectly valid blending of different cultures into an existing culture, albeit through forced contact. Itself a product of colonialism.

There is still one difference between the two. In the case of Ireland they were invaded by outsiders, so the native culture blended or adopted the attributes of the invading cultures. This blending together over centuries is where what we refer to as Irish culture comes from. It was a group of people forced to interact via imperialism. The same thing happened in Haiti but slightly different. The invaders were brought over against their will as slaves forced to work as manual labor. The host culture borrowed and blended with the invading cultures to produce a uniquely Caribbean culture distinct to the geographic region of Haiti.

What happened in America was similar. While the host culture was invaded and decimated the source cultures blended with subsequent immigrant cultures not invaders but migrants invited to join the new land of hope and opportunity. This land was riddled with errors as the scars of colonialism ravaged the Native population while also decimating the lives of the African immigrants who were brought over as slaves similar to the Haitians. Thus there exists a lending of various cultures until they all merge into a new, broader creole culture.

This blending of cultures is what makes American culture unique. It was done over two centuries with a mix of colonialism forcing it upon those already here while also welcoming others from around the world. It makes you wonder which parts of American culture should one appreciate? Where does a non-Native drawn the line? Without asking the question how do you define a “native American” because that line of thinking goes down a dangerous path of continued dismissal of the anguish the Native population was put through.

How can you spot creole American culture without appropriating? The simplest method is to stay in your lane as they say. Welcome and embrace the aspects of your own heritage, as mixed and varied as that may be. I believe it is acceptable to appreciate aspects of other cultures without appropriating them. How this is done is largely by not taking from the source culture but rather giving something to it. How you do that is up to you.

For example if you admire Native American culture buy works of art produced by Native Americans. You are giving back to the culture while appreciating something from it. If you admire Irish culture buy books written by Irish authors and give them reviews on Amazon or Kindle. If you respect what African Americans went through and wish to support their struggle purchase rap albums produced by black artists from record labels run by black individuals. You can take from the source culture as long as you do not claim it as your own and assuming you absolutely give back in some way.

American culture certainly exists and is exported all around the world largely via Hollywood and our music. Cultural exports make up a large percentage of our nations GDP. I am a firm believer that American culture is as valid as other cultures, however I do not in any shape believe it is superior to others nor do I support the taking from other cultures. I believe we should rid ourselves of appropriation where we can, give back when we have the means to do so and foster our own cultural identity as prominently, but respectfully, as we can.

The earliest video game console I ever had was an Atari 2600 Video Computer System. The very first home computer I ever owned was an Atari 800XL. Whenever I went to the local video arcade I always looked for video games with the Atari logo. When I was very young the word Atari meant video games to me.

I have a ton of memories associated with my VCS. I had multiple variants over the years. Today the one I own is the black “Darth Vader” model. I have also enjoyed some plug-N-Play versions from time to time. There is something beyond nostalgic when it comes to Atari for me. It’s simplistic design screams late 70s early 80s. And that’s fine. I get super nostalgic for that time period. However it goes deeper than that. Atari was a central figure in the early development of home video games, computer gaming, video arcade gaming and the rise of personal computers. The name computer was right there in the machine’s title too it was the Video Computer System, VCS for short. 2600 was a reference to it’s circuitry, it’s complicated.

I even bough myself an Atari Pong console on more than one occasion. My fondness for Atari is why I am so deeply interested in computers to this day. You could argue that for me the Personal Computer also means Atari.

My first personal computer that was *mine* that I owned and nobody else could use it, which was also the first computer our family brought into our house, was that aforementioned 800XL. I even had the tape deck and disk drive plus dot matrix printer to accompany the device. I didn’t have the correct monitor so I had to use an RF modulator to hook it up to my black and white CRT TV set. Not that it would have made any difference as it was the exact same TV set I had my then 6-switch Atari 2600 console hooked up to. It worked for me at the time.

I even remember reading PC magazines from the 90s all talking about Windows 95 and the cool state-of-the-art stuff computers could do during that period. I would flip through those magazines reading what modern computers could do while I gleefully and enthusiastically sat in my make-shift bedroom tinkering with that even retro for the time personal computer. My love of computers was manifested by my getting to play with a relic of the past. To me it was more than a relic. It was a piece of computer technology and was an extension of myself.

To this day my love of computers remains as vibrant as ever. There are days where I will lie in bed until well past midnight playing around on either my laptop or tablet computer just to be touching, interacting with a computer. I owe a lot of my love for video games, passion for computers and my interest in technology to those early Atari systems. I owned an Atari VCS when it was contemporary just before the famed Nintendo NES came out to replace it on the totem pole. I had that 8-bit desktop computer at a time when it had long been replaced by superior Windows 95 machines of the day. Even though my experiences with Atari are somewhat mixed as they are a jumble of old mixed with new, they are the experiences that shaped the person I am today.

Even now I woke up in the middle of the night, got out of bed and wrote this article simply because I was compelled to interact with my computer in a meaningful way. I love computers. I love technology. I love video games and I owe it all to Atari.