I took my first steps on that path with the goal of learning who these
gods were, and how to do them proper honour.
Before long, I had returned to my homeland Wales for a visit, and from
the resonance with those ancient places it seemed clear that I should be
devoting myself to Welsh and Brythonic deities.
At first, I was a determined reconstructionist. It was my academic background, I’m sure, that
demanded I know what the “truth” was and adhere to it. I’m sure many new
converts of any spiritual path are the same – and like those others, I
gradually grew out of it.
It helped that very little still remains, and much of what there is
needs to be carefully filtered out of tales and records that have passed
through several rounds of “modernization” through exposure to the Romans, the
later Christians, and finally through the work of nineteenth century scholars,
many of whom had more interest in positioning the British Empire as ascendant than
in getting at their real heritage.
By the late 90s, I had already built for myself a workable spiritual
practice – a handful of rites and rituals that I cribbed from ancient Roman
religious practice, Roman descriptions of what the Britons were doing at the
time of their occupation, and more generic neoCeltic and Indoeuropean
reconstructions. I had no community to
speak of, but I had a few friends with similar feelings and ideas, I had the
pagan book shops and newsletters of the city where I lived, and I had access to
all the little gewgaws that we tend to load ourselves down with when we first
start our practice: dressings for the altar in my apartment, crystals,
feathers, hand-made incenses, essences, philtres, the basic trappings of a
modern pagan.
I had read a bit more, had a bit more “gravitas” I guess, and so I
became the de facto leader of my little group, insofar as we had a leader. It was more like being the group librarian: I
had a handle on the literature, a knack for putting together rituals that
worked. It wasn’t so much that I had any
real authority, but that I was willing to do the leg work so in return my
friends were willing to follow my lead. We rarely worked together, but when we
did it felt powerful. More often, we worked separately using rites I had
designed, tweaked for personal taste. A
few times we experimented with performing the same rites at the same time but
in different places, with mixed results.
It was heady stuff.
In 1997, work brought me to Japan and I was thrust into a new world,
one where it was no longer quite so easy to be a pagan.
In some respects, it was actually easier: people rarely asked or spoke
about religion, and when my own beliefs came up (usually in the context of
confirming whether or not I was Christian) people were usually genuinely
curious to know a bit more and not at all dismissive. Contrast this to the
collection of church bulletins that somehow accumulated in my pigeonhole at
work back in Canada, the frequent comment that I would “grow out of it” as
though my spirituality was a rebellious hairstyle or shocking friends, and it
was really a very comfortable time.
Sadly, though, foreigners are few and far between in Japan and pagans
of any variety are a small demographic even at home: if I’d thought I was a
solitary practitioner before, I was really solitary now. I had no fellow practitioners, I had no access
to my usual materials, even books and the like were hard to come by – the big
import book stores had a bit, but mostly just fluff, and ordering directly from
Amazon was a challenge in those days. The
web was in its early days yet, and what little pagan material I could find
online was mainly random snippets – of little use. I needed to modify my practice to take all
this into account.
Luckily, this was not a hard thing to do: I already had my basics, and
I compensated for the lack of access to things like books on Celtic studies (particularly
Welsh – I can’t tell you how hard it was to find a copy of the Mabinogion!) or Neolithic
archaeology or Roman religious practice by expanding my knowledge of
hermeticism (somewhat easier for some reason) and shamanism, and by turning my
attention to the things I had right in front of me: Buddhism and Shinto.
Buddhism turned out to be the easiest, since it’s a relatively coherent
and organized tradition, and quite a lot has been published on it in English
(my Japanese wasn’t up to religious studies back then) but Shinto seemed like
the place to start, and did it ever turn out to be a rich vein of knowledge.
The average Japanese person only knows little bits about Shinto ritual
and practice, but pretty much everyone knows how to visit a shrine – what needs
to be done, how to approach the god who dwells there – and if there’s one thing
you can be sure of living in Japan, it’s that if your Japanese friends don’t
know much about Shinto they will still enthusiastically take you round to
significant shrines and will happily muddle through the signs and placards to
provide a translation of the history of the place, the myths that attach, and
the gods who are venerated there.
I learned a great deal about Shinto in those first years, and the more I
learned the more amazed I was by the congruence with the understanding I had
been building up in my own practice.
When I met a new friend who actually knew a fair bit about it, we’d
discuss the similarities and differences for ages. I had the benefit of a network that included
people who had studied classical literature and history, and so I got a view of
the way things used to be done, and the reasons they’re done in certain ways
today.
I learned about the importance of the human spirit as a fragment of the
gods, I learned about the offerings suitable depending on the season, I learned
about their concepts of the spirits of place, about their coblyns and faeries
and long-leggedy beasties - all manner of interesting things.
It seemed right to honour the gods of the place where I lived, so I
never once refused the opportunity to pray at a shrine when a friend offered –
and the respect I showed to the local faith was repaid by even more openness. Over time, I started to add some elements of
the Shinto rites I had seen and been told about into my own practice – this seemed
right as well. My practice had always
included not only the gods, but the spirits of place. I still felt the presence of my own gods in
some places, but there were other presences as well – the land is full of
spirits and not all of them are gods, after all.
For years, I made a point of climbing Mt. Fuji every summer season,
just to greet the dawn and perform a simple rite. It was an annual tradition of
rebirth and empowerment that I miss, but things have changed – and I’m not as
young as I used to be, either!
Today, my circumstances have changed and I can’t be quite as open as I
once was. The people around me aren't so curious, are more intolerant of difference. There have been too many odd cults in the news, and the unknown isn't met with the same wide-eyed curiosity it used to.
But if I don't get as many chances to meet my own gods as I used to, I still honor the local
gods with perhaps more devotion than my Japanese family and friends
realise. For me, the seasonal festivals
are more than just a chance to eat treats and watch fireworks – they’re a
chance to feel the presence of power in the beat of the taiko drums and the
wail of flutes. They’re a chance to
immerse myself in the flow of energy that accompanies so many people gathered
together to do honor to a god.
And when I have the chance to stand by myself under the Moon, or in the
light of dawn, or in a green and secret place, I call my gods and theirs
together to witness my devotion.
And I dance.
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