There are things I have wanted to say to you for a long time. I was waiting until I could approach you without anger, without accusation. But poetry is truth and the truth is: I’m angry. And how do I speak of what’s been done, wrongly, without accusation being the underpinning?
I tell of three times that I witnessed your communities claim to speak for the sacred.
Time 1: A cold night, a warm fire. We were told the sacred asked us to brave the cold go into the trees and listen for their voices. I did. After some time my legs felt needles and I struggled to hear the voice of the sacred beyond pain. When I heard the drumbeat that called me back, I saw the young ones, the dancing ones, had remained sitting by the warmth of the fire all along.
Time 2: A dark night in October: clouds, no moon, and the smell of coming rain. The ritual space is down a dark path, with piles of deadfall, and the ritual planners, noticing the needs of an aging community, switch the ritual space to be indoors and are met with fury from the organizers that the sacred is being so insulted. (from ten years ahead, I send this blessing: Thank you, ritual planners)
Time 3: I am being led down a path toward the drumming circle. I have just begun my relationship with the Fae. The kind person leading me is telling me to hurry and no, I can’t turn on my flashlight to see where I’m going because the Fae don’t like the light.
Years gone by now, I don’t come to your communities any more. You ask more of me than I’m able to give in so many ways. But more than that – I’m no longer willing to have you define the sacred in ways that mirror your ableist shit. I have pulled away from the human. In my work now the Fae tell me “We need you among the living for a while longer, sisal. Shine the light if you need to. And if you need to, rest. We will hold the portal. You are always with us in spirit.”
I believe my communities need me too but their actions, their choices tell me they believe otherwise. So for my own sustainability I’ve left you like so many of us have left you because your claims of “inclusivity” don’t include us. And because When you ritualize ableism, you are not my priestess. When you ritualize ableism, you are not my community. You do not speak for the ancestors. You do not speak for the Fae. When you ritualize ableism You mirror who you are. It is not who they are. It is not who they are. It is not who they are.
About two years ago I realized I was losing my enthusiasm for ritual. I’ve been a ritualist for 25 years – I told myself it was probably burnout, both with my work and with struggles within my communities. But what I began noticing was that the Reclaiming rituals I attended felt disconnected from the work the communities were doing, and from the reality of the world around me. In songs that celebrated us and empowered us, and in the energy raising, in particular, I began to feel the rituals were working against the community’s focus on offsetting oppressive structures.
A few weeks ago, I was working with Juniper Lauren and Sayre to brainstorm an offering on ritual arc, and I had a dream in which I kept hearing the words: “Joseph Campbell was wrong.” In the dream, I understood that statement was in reference to the Path of the Hero (POTH), and I was intrigued (very), but it was 1:00 in the morning. I went back to sleep, and the seeds of that statement kept unfolding as I slept, and I kept waking up with more and more of the meaning and the pattern until I finally just got up and started writing it down.
An Overview Let me say at this point – the Hero’s Journey can take many forms, and I don’t believe the traditional Path of the Hero is always necessarily the wrong pattern for ritual. But for rituals working with dismantling oppressive structures versus those rituals that focus on personal growth, I think the traditional Path of the Hero – which, in my experience, is generally the path Reclaiming rituals have followed – works against the intent to “heal the wounds of the earth and her peoples,” as the Reclaiming Principles of Unity (POU) puts it.
When, in ritual, we descend to meet the monster, the POTH challenge is to believe in our power, our strength; while with the work dismantling oppressive structures, our challenge is to be willing to face our own shortcomings and be accountable for them.
I think the dissonance I’ve been experiencing is because the POTH ritual pattern affirms the very structures we’re seeking to dismantle. What we’re putting at the center of the ritual – generally ourselves – doesn’t reflect our values.
If you’re still reading, here’s a breakdown.
The Path of the Hero The Path of the Hero, or Hero’s Journey, is one of departure, fulfillment and return, according to Campbell. Here’s how Campbell describes it, in his interviews with Bill Moyer:
“The first stage in the hero adventure, when he starts off on adventure, is leaving the realm of light, which he controls and knows about. and moving toward the threshold. And it’s at the threshold that the monster of the abyss comes to meet him. And then there are two or three results: one, the hero is cut to pieces and descends into the abyss in fragments, to be resurrected; or he may kill the dragon power, as Siegfried does when he kills the dragon. But then he tastes the dragon blood, that is to say, he has to assimilate that power. And when Siegfried has killed the dragon and tasted the blood, he hears the song of nature; he has transcended his humanity, you know, and reassociated himself with the powers of nature, which are the powers of our life, from which our mind removes us.”
In the pattern, the Hero usually has to overcome the fear that his best will not be enough – the challenge is self-doubt. Once he has faced his fears and defeated the monster, he has “transcended his humanity” and returns to the tribe with the gifts he’s earned. In many myths and stories, he’s celebrated, given the woman of his choice, and becomes King.
Ritual with the Intent to Heal the Wounds of the Earth and her Peoples
In work that, as the POU puts it, intends to work to “heal the wounds of the earth and her peoples” – and that acknowledges our own responsibility for those wounds – I’ve found this ritual pattern sets up a dissonance. For me, there are two places where the traditional Path of the Hero needs to be re-visioned to support work around dismantling patriarchy, white supremacy, harm done to the earth, and other structures of oppression, when there is acknowledgement that those attending the ritual bear some responsibility for that harm.
Once the Hero (and I’m deliberately choosing to use “Hero” rather than “Heroine” here) answers the call to adventure and leaves the known world, he reaches the edge of the abyss – the unknown – and is filled with fear of what lies beneath. In almost every story, if the hero faces the fear and descends, he will conquer the monster; the real fear is generally fear of failure, fear he won’t be enough and will fail; or fear of fear itself.
In the work the communities I’m in are doing to dismantle oppression, that fear is not something to be overcome; it’s useful. It’s often the whole fucking point. The common belief systems we’ve gotten from the overculture have led us to continue to wound the earth and her peoples. In rituals around dismantling oppression, we don’t need confidence in our ability to overcome; we need willingness to face where we have fallen and are falling short, both as individuals and as members of our families, our communities, and our countries.
The second major disconnect occurs for me when the hero returns to his community. In the POTH approach, the hero has now – as Campbell put it – “transcended his humanity”. He has risen above the common human and is now “more than” – a superior being, generally above criticism.
In the work I’m doing with Reclaiming and other communities, the work to dismantle oppression starts with me. It starts with an acknowledgement that I am human. And with that acknowledgement comes the willingness to say – I’ve made mistakes, I’m conditioned by structures of power that mean I continue and will continue to harm the earth and its peoples, and I can’t even see it. It is more appropriate, in this work, for me to return to community, not bringing the gifts of my journey and as one greater than those in the community – but because I need community to do my own work around dismantling oppressive structures of power. Community holds me accountable for my impact. And community lets me know that I’ve erred, I’ll continue to err, and yet I still belong.
In this approach, we become more human – not less. Instead of returning to become a King held above the commoners, I’ve returned less empowered than when I set out on this journey – because the whole purpose of the journey has been to show me that, consciously or unconsciously, I’ve misused power.
The Implications for Ritual How might our rituals change, with this approach? 1. There will be a greater emphasis on community, as a source of accountability, and to reflect back to us what we can’t see. The journey we each take is individual, yes; but it begins and ends in community. (In appreciation for conversations around this that I’ve had with Sayre, that community might be other humans, or might be the eco-system, nature, ancestors, non-human beings such as spirits, or other communities of choice.) 2. The descent does not end with empowerment and ecstatic energy raising. It ends with accountability. That’s a lot heavier, and it doesn’t seem to me an ecstatic energy raising fits the pattern. 3. This is value-centered ritual. This was an approach I first experienced as a member of the Tejas Hecate Camp teaching team in 2017. A question to keep asking is: what have we put at the center – of our lives, our communities, and our rituals? What SHOULD we be putting at the center? Most likely, what we have been putting at the center of our rituals is ourselves. What we should be putting at the center of our rituals should instead reflect – in every way – our values. For example: We might put the earth spirits at the center – while humans are less centered. We might put accountability for the choices of our ancestors and our own choices at the center – while the living humans in the ritual are less centered. 4. In Reclaiming, our rituals call the elements, the guides, the spirits. We welcome them. Then we generally go on about our ritual business – it feels to me like we invite them, often, to witness what we do. What would change if we invited them and, as part of that invitation, said: “We hold ourselves accountable to you, for what we have done and what we will do”? 5. The myths and stories we tell are usually reflective of oppressive structures as well, and they generally feature a hero. A better pattern might be: rather than tell stories of ourselves as superhuman, shut up. Listen. How did Demeter’s choices impact the earth spirits? What do our ancestors tell us about the choices they felt they had to make? What happens when we un-center ourselves as living humans and heroes from myths and stories – and look at the story from another point of view? 6. The final endpiece of the ritual will not be an energy raising to empower our magic. It will be stepping back out into the world to do our work. Reclaiming rituals I’ve attended or facilitated always said taking the work out into the world was important, but I felt, and often heard it said, that it was hard when our rituals felt so removed from the world. For myself – when the point of the ritual is my own values and my accountability, it’s a given that the final work is to step back out into the mundane world with that as my work. Work that begins, not with a magical spell, but with me.
My sense is that this approach – working with the ways the traditional path of the Hero supports what I don’t value, and shifting that pattern to reflect what I do value – is useful, but what it means, how it manifests, and how it should shift is still unfolding for me. I’d welcome the comments and observations of others.
I’d also acknowledge the passage in the quote from Campbell that notes the hero “hears the song of nature; he has transcended his humanity, you know, and reassociated himself with the powers of nature, which are the powers of our life, from which our mind removes us.” I think that observation and other nuances of the Path of the Hero – particularly sacrifice – deserve consideration in how they do, indeed, support rituals and story that are value-centered. My main intent, in writing this blog post, was to say: I can’t attend another camp in which Path works with social justice work and dismantling oppression, and the night’s ritual focuses on empowering the human, gathers us at the center and celebrates us. For that kind of work, another approach to ritual seems essential.
Many thanks to Suzanne McAnna and Irisanya Moon for sharing their time and their insight with me on earlier drafts of this blog post.
My friend Shauna Aura has been blogging about her experiences in unhealthy communities – specifically, pagan communities that fall into the patterns that evolve as a result of narcissistic leadership. From the response her posts are getting, the dynamic strikes a chord, and a number of people weigh in with painful stories of their own, as well as weighing in with fierce defense of communities they remain committed to.
Some comments express the opinion that those who were caught up in such communities enabled the abuse they experienced. That they needed approval, they needed love (it bothers me that some of the comments are so dismissive of the power of that basic human need). The comments note that neediness makes possible “narcissistic love-bombing”, and there’s discussion about the repercussions of choosing to give away your power and faith to those who are human, and fallible.
I’ve been interested to see that none of the comments have addressed the dynamic that snared me in such communities in the past. I don’t give up my power to humans, and I catch on to narcissistic manipulation pretty quickly. In the past, though, I did give up my power to the sacred. Give me work that changes lives, and I have been inclined to do whatever was required of me so I could do that work – whether the community had healthy leadership or not.
That approach – to make things work no matter what it took – would leave me with tough choices. Often, communities that were less than healthy had leaders who were more insightful than any I’d worked with before, or thought I might ever get to work with again. It was a joy to work with them, and learn from them. That joy was coupled with the stress and sadness of seeing them caught up in the same unhealthy dynamic I was, and seeing the toll it took on them.
Then there were the amazingly positive things happening to those not in leadership. Many newcomers to the communities experienced transformation and epiphanies, and, with communal support, risked opening to vulnerability and love again. I saw what a difference the community made in their lives – for me, working for that kind of change is good work.
So whatever the work asked of me, my heart urged me to push on, which I did until, inevitably, the manipulative dynamics overcame me. In one community where scapegoating was rampant, I came to a point that I tried telling myself the Hanged One/Scapegoat was an archetype, so there must be a sacred component there, if I could only find it. The deeper I explored the sacred aspect of the scapegoat, the more I realized how dangerously unhealthy the community dynamic, and my role in it, had become.
So at some point, despite my best efforts, I had to push my heart aside, and accept that the price I was paying wasn’t worth it. Sustainable body – I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder, and I have no way of knowing if the years of stress and overwork in my communities contributed, but I suspect they did. Sustainable spirit – my partner was threatening to leave me if I didn’t separate from this work, because he saw my spirit fading, and he was so frustrated. Sustainable community – in the end, the joy I found in people’s initial epiphanies darkened, as I watched them travel the arc most people follow in such communities: enchantment and transformation, to shaming and abuse, to despair and separation. I began to see that I was playing a role in that initial enchantment that set them up for the despair, later. I felt that despair, too – when I finally left, my heart and my bones physically ached for months and years after the separation.
This seems to be a lesson I keep having to learn in a number of different ways: I have to balance what I believe the sacred is asking of me, with what it’s possible for human me to do. My friend, Reclaiming Walker O’Rourke, once suggested to me that I tell the sacred “no”. I had never even considered that. Acting on his suggestion was my first step in taking the approach I take today, which is: sacred, you are the authority beyond the veil, and I grant you much authority on this side of the veil. But I have authority over my own body, and what’s doable for me and what isn’t. I am in service to you, but first I’m in service to my own sustainability.
That sustainability means that now, I only give my heart to communities with healthy leadership (thank you, Ella Andrews). If I choose to work in less healthy communities, I carefully manage how I commit to and do work there – I set boundaries with the sacred. I never dreamed such boundaries would be needed – but as it turns out, for me to be sustainable, they are, and I’m grateful to finally know it.
Beltane blessings to those of us who hear the call and find ways to answer it, and to thrive.
