Interim What Does This All Mean? by Jehana Silverwing

Written in Maine, July 21, 1986.

One day, or over a period of time, you decide the religion or philosophical thought you had been brought up with no longer reaches you. It no longer connects with that elusive portion we call the soul. You shed your Catholicity, your Judaism, your secular humanism like an aged cloak -- whatever -- and by some process find yourself delving into one branch or another (or more!) of that which we call Paganism, the Craft, natural religion, or whatever you want to term it (it is not my nature, nor the purpose of this essay, to argue semantics). Of course, the above process may take many forms, and lead you into all sorts and degrees of angst, soul-searching, and whatever. You think your new way of life; your new philosophy that matches the Internal You will form you, as a matter of course, into being a Better Person.

Over time you identify more and more with this new label. It becomes comfortable on you. What you may have studied in order to shock your parents, say (if you are that type -- I was not), becomes a well-worn glove. You associate, as much as possible, with fellow travellers on your path, and learn to avoid making a big deal of it with non-travellers. You know Starhawk by heart (well, sort of) and can discourse with the best of them on the ideas of Bonewits and Graves. Maybe you even learn to turn up your nose at the namby-pamby material that appears regularly in _______ (your choice).

But somewhere along the line, ennui sets in. Some of the spark is gone. Just another circle. Just another sabbat. You know "So Mote It Be" and "Blessed Be" and "An it harm none, do what thou wilt" just as well as you once knew "Amen" and a few of the questions/answers from the Baltimore Catechism. The only difference is, now you do it in the buff, or in the woods, or around a cauldron.

The problem is, if the above comes true, is that you've ceased to Question. Perhaps, something happens to you (as it has just happened to me) that makes you realize that you are not yet, nor not always, a Better Person. When you realize this, what happens then?

Sometimes, gloves should not be so comfortable. An unexamined security is false security. People change and (one hopes) grow. The answers that satisfied you at age five should not satisfy at age ten. The answers that satisfied at age 20 should not satisfy at age 30. Not in their entirety, anyway. This, indeed, is the problem I have with the notion of being "Saved" in the Fundamentalist context. Once one has accepted the answer of being "Saved", and adheres to only that, there is no further growing left to do.

But a lack of growing, of seeking out additional evolutionary pathways can also occur in the Craft. Oh, we may seek out new forms for our rituals, and take a peek at Sufi and Zen books; but, after that initial arrival and excitement in the Pagan/Craft camps, still we often tend to let our intellectual and philosophical and spiritual growths plateau. We've found our comfortable niche, and human beings can only take so many novelties in a lifetime, much less in a year. This can be a trap for self-initiates. We, as seekers after Truths, need stimuli around us to prompt us to seek after and examine these truths. It is also a trap for those covens and groupings that stress some variant of One-True-Wayism. (It can be a trap for anyone.) Never mind that my answers are not the same as yours. My question may be different -- that is all.

I really wish I could tell you the answer -- my answer that works for me -- but I feel I've only begun to work again in a serious fashion towards finding it. Whatever the answer turns out to be this time for me, it will involve the fluid yet solid interplay of questions of ethics, philosophy, and wisdom. This latter portion, especially, will not be easy to sort through.