Spirituality in Practice: Pagans, the Pope and the Earth

I recently shared a post about struggling to live the reality of my beliefs on an on-line forum for Pagans and people with earth-centered spirituality. I don’t have all the answers. I work hard to live in an environmentally sustainable way and I still find myself falling short of goals to reduce my negative impact on the earth. 

The post stirred up some anger and I was labeled a “Pagan Pope,” because I asked for others who believe in our spiritual connection to the earth to step up and take the issue of climate change seriously. 

I was shocked. How could my post about our common struggles to live ethically and bring up our children in a healthy way attract mostly hatred—and from fellow Pagans?

It was like getting a bucket of cold water in the face—a harsh but necessary awakening for me. I grew up in a community of earth-centered, if not overtly Pagan, families. I thought I knew the Pagan community well since childhood and I was certain that we’re the “good guys” and we share a deep concern about environmental issues. 

But during the past couple of years, I’ve been told in no uncertain terms by many people who I’ve met in Pagan groups on-line that I’m promoting stereotypes by saying Pagans share a concern for the earth. The truth I’m told is that many Pagans are not interested in ecology or environmental issues at all. Many are more interested in their personal growth and the deeper, inner reflections of their spirituality. 

My protected and somewhat isolated childhood is showing.

On the one hand, these misunderstandings can be disheartening to those of us who seek some spark of unity in earth-centered and Pagan circles. I mean if the earth doesn’t unite us… then surely nothing does. 

It throws you right back into the debate--which you're probably sick of--over what the word “Pagan” means. The fact is that whether I like it or not a Pagan is primarily anyone who says “I’m a Pagan.” Period. 

We have no central authority, no one who can arbitrate and say “No, I cast you out. You are not Pagan enough!”

And frankly that system doesn’t even work for Christians and they supposedly do have just such an authority. Except all that happens is that people split off and form new churches and call themselves things like Christian “protest-ants” against the central authority. 

And they’re all still Christian. Some may claim the Mormons aren’t Christian or the Catholics or the Hussites or whatever. But they are Christian because they say, “I’m a Christian.” And the vast majority of the world recognizes that they are right. They actually share enough basic ideas that they can be categorized together, despite their wild diversity.

There is a natural human tendency to think that the group one belongs to is exceptional. But that tendency is almost always wrong. And that’s how it is with Pagans and diversity. The old joke goes that if you ask twelve Pagans what a Pagan is you get thirteen answers. That’s true if you do it on a general forum on the internet. But there are places today, where groups are established enough that you’ll get fairly standardized answers. Just as you would with Christians in one church if you asked them what a Christian is. But if you ask twelve Christians all over the world. Well, you get thirteen answers there too. 

I have Christian friends who believe that the core of Christianity—the absolute core which they practice sincerely—is the tolerance and kindness modeled by Jesus. And to them “tolerance and kindness” is their equivalent of my “connection to the earth,” the thing that MUST be at the core of a spiritual path in order for it to have any relation to their own. 

And yet, we know all too well about Christians and “tolerance and kindness.” There are Muslims—many, many of them—who will swear with tears overflowing that the core of Islam is “peace.” The word Islam comes from the word “peace,” for crying out loud… like Pagan comes from “country dweller” (i.e. someone living close to the land and the earth). 

Heehee... You see the problem.

It is not uncommon to have a broad religious group that does not agree on what it stands for or who falls within the pale. So, why do we expect to or desire to have greater unity?
I can’t speak for everyone, but for myself it is because I see the desperate state of the earth’s health and the strained resources to sustain our cycles of life. All those things that are at the core of my spirituality are threatened. And when we are threatened we want to draw a circle and find unity.

The waves of refugees this past year are fleeing climate change every bit as much as they are fleeing war. The areas that were once marginal for agriculture have now become deserts. In the year two thousand and fifteen, we finally reached the breaking point at which several countries that used to produce their own food no longer can. 

There is no more warning time left. Mother has counted to ten and she is not counting anymore.

When I look into the eyes of starving, terrified refugees I see the heart of the mother of the earth breaking. I feel the gasping breathes of our poisoned Mother Earth, when I walk down my street where there used to be bees, butterflies and fireflies even ten years ago and today there are none, even though the houses are the same. When I swim in the ocean and no longer feel tiny fish brush my feet as I did as a child, I hear the sobs of a mother for her lost children.

This I cannot separate from my spirituality—especially if I claim to know a goddess or ancestors or the elements of nature.

There are those who do separate it from their spirit and who claim it is not relevant or not even true because they have not felt the fish or seen the fireflies or looked into the eyes of the refugees. And I will not tell them that they are not Pagan, because that is their choice. 

And because Pagan is a path, not a destination.  

But I will say one other thing on this subject, one that could land me in even hotter water, but still it's something I must say. 

Neopagans are ostensibly the inheritors of indigenous European spiritual traditions. I know that most are not in any way directly descended from ancient beliefs and some of us give little more than a nod to the past. Wiccans take some words and concepts from the old Celtic and Anglo-Saxon beliefs and make a beautiful and rich tradition primarily from much more recent discoveries. (Not my path but beautiful nonetheless.) But still, what is called Pagan or Neopagan today is almost entirely tied in some way to indigenous European beliefs. 

And it is very sensitive to mention any non-European polytheistic, earth-centered belief systems (garble garble… trying to avoid using the obvious word from the dictionary). We are… I am… afraid of being criticized for cultural piracy and colonialism. 

Because of our fear and inability to talk to other groups, there is no umbrella term. I’m told we cannot use the term “Pagan” to encompass all indigenous-based, earth-centered belief systems, even though that seems like a logical step. Many peoples have experienced the word “Pagan” used against them in a derogatory way and they cannot accept it now—no matter how humble, empathetic and inclusive our intentions may be. 

So, I will use “indigenous” as the broader term rather than “Pagan,” though even Judeo-Christian faiths have a geographical point of origin too. But I digress…

I simply find it interesting that I have never—in all my travels on five continents and mostly among rural people and often among indigenous people—never encountered an active practitioner of Native American, African or Asian-Siberian spiritual traditions who claimed that taking action to protect the earth was NOT at the core of their beliefs. I have yet to encounter such a person on the internet either. And even Hindus, who arguably share many traits, with other indigenous, polytheistic religions, often cite care for the land and water as central to their beliefs. 

It seems ironically that those who make the most noise about the earth—the proponents of European-based Paganism—are the primary group also taken with berating those who claim concern for the earth as a core tenant of daily spiritual practice.

I am not an authority for Pagans, nor do I wish to be. I am myself, here, taking a stand and declaring solidarity and spiritual fellowship with all those who hold care for the earth and empathy for all the people and living beings of the earth at the core of spirit. I do not know if I can call such a group “Pagan.” For now, it is the best term I know of because it is the most widely recognized term that encompasses what I mean. 

In fact, it is so widely recognized that a prominent fundamentalist Christian--Gene Koprowski, director of marketing at the Heartland Institute--understands these words of the English language and uses them in much the same way. Last fall he declared that we do have a literal “Pagan Pope” (i.e. the one in Rome). 

It was after Pope Francis put out a statement of unprecedented urgency and clarity calling for immediate action to mitigate climate change in September 2015. And here is what Koprowski said about it in Chicago: “I would say, contrary to some of the criticism, that this is not communism that has entered the church. It's, rather, Paganism."

And it's not that I take Koprowski as an authority on anything. (Although I would gladly pray with the Pope if he was amenable to praying with a flagrant Pagan.) It is more that the comment shows how far and how wide the concept of concern for the earth as inextricably tied to Paganism has spread. 

And thus it is all in the intent behind a word. When I say “Pagan.” This is what I mean. I mean reverence and care for the earth and for other beings. And because it's a path of practice, I mean living in accordance with this belief in the physical world, making sacrifices of time and energy for it and standing up to injustice done against the earth.