We talk about Paganism being partially the reclaiming of the spirituality of our ancestors. We feel that it's old. Much older than us. Much older than the United States. Much older than other religions. But, At Pagan Spirit Gathering last week, the conversations reminded us that as far as the organized practice of Wicca and other Pagan religions go in the U.S., this is likely only our second generation.
Patrick McCollum spoke of the elders who were there when decisions were made about our modern practices. An example that he gave was the origin of the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. It was a long week, and I cannot exactly remember the story Patrick told, but it was something akin to when the four elements were combined, they became the basic unit of life itself. His point was to reiterate rumblings from Pantheacon (that I saw at least from both T. Thorn Coyle and Peter Dybing) that we needed to interview our elders and to just record their stories, because when they die, pieces of our origins will disappear with them. He gave the example of late elder Isaac Bonewits.
And, that shocked me a little. I started practicing in 1998 and there were stories about our ancestors and the Burning Times. I was just in a small coven that was no where near being the first coven. There were covens in the U.S. and in the U.K. long before us. And, covens in Italy long before that. But, conversations last week caused me to realize that we're really just the 2nd generation of organized Pagans in the U.S. The people who were involved with the beginning of this new movement of witchcraft are likely still around.
We learn from scratch. We're called to this path. We work with what we've got, sometimes making it up as we go along based on our experiences. And, it make me wonder how silly some of us look talking about things as if we really know what we're talking about. This when the people who pulled these concepts into Paganism are still very much kicking.
Moral of the story: we do need to start recording these stories of our elders.
Important stuff to remember, my DC Counterpart. We are the next generation and we need to remember that it's our responsibility to learn and keep the history as we move forward. But we're also creating as we go, and that's not less important. Apparently we're the Peter Parker generation of the Pagan Movement. :)
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