I’m going to break tone for an entry, here. I’m also shelving the bull cults paper I promised — at least for a couple weeks; no sense in throwing out a project I’ve already put a good deal of work into — since I just wrote a lengthy Pazuzu article and have an equally lengthy post on ritual purity for the Kemetic Round Table queued for tomorrow.
Writing that Pazuzu article over the past few days sparked a series of tangential thoughts about community.
I have all the community I feel I need in terms of my Kemetic practice (though that doesn’t mean I’ll ever stop working to see that community succeed and improve). While the few friends and co-religionists I have in that area are often considered heterodox and unpopular within Kemeticism at large, and though we communicate predominantly through digital means, we’re able to study together, and share with each other, without going at each other’s throats or forcing everyone else involved to conform to any given individual’s doxa or praxis. We actually find it pleasant that no two members of our small group are the same. Each of us has a lot to bring to the table, and we actually let people bring things to the table. No one person ever dominates the group. No one person is worshiped as “Fearless Leader.” We functionally collaborate as a team.
Admittedly, I do sometimes become irritated by the lack of interest in theological exploration and debate within the Kemetic sphere outside the small circle of friends I belong to, but I can still connect with Kemetics of most persuasions (with the exception of Afrocentrists or other racists of various persuasions). The bickering can be bad at times, but it’s not overtly terrible — at least, not for me, since I avoid the intellectual morasses eCauldron and Tumblr like the Black Death. And although I’m not in total agreement with every aspect of Kemetic Orthodoxy, I can still respect and rely on my fellow Remetj and Shemsu. Even if we don’t necessarily agree on theological interpretation, we still generally get along. I can call them my “Temple family,” because they’re kind and reliable, which is exceptionally rare among various Polytheist communities. At the end of the day, we still pray together.
Where Kemeticism generally tends to succeed, Mainstream Heathenry generally fails. Hard. I still honor some of the Norse Gods, but I’ve since become fed up with most of the Mainstream Norse Polytheist community with its incessant infighting, organization-trenching, baseless Loki-bashing, LGBTQ-ostracizing, sexism, and anti-intellectualism. The only people who follow the Norse Gods that I still interact with are my husband; a few respectable authors (who are unnecessarily slandered by the Mainstream Heathen community); a rational handful of fellow academics in the fields of Theology, Medieval Studies, and Scandinavian Studies; and a few sane, reasonable friends I made through networking within the Mainstream Heathen crowd before I TARDIS’ed that cluster. Heathenry in general is rife with brutish childishness, which I cannot abide, nor will it succeed as an overall minority religious movement if such stupid, counter-intuitive behavior is allowed to continue. It has become more about cults of personality than about the Gods and helping each other out as minority religionists who are ultimately in the same boat.
But, at least I have some sense of community in regard to Heathenry, even if it is small and the overwhelming majority of Mainstream Heathens make my skin crawl.
When it comes to the Akkadian aspect of my personal practice, I really don’t have anyone. Sure, some of my friends like Pazuzu, or Ištar, but I don’t have any fellow Akkadian Polytheists to talk History and Theology with. I have a couple friends with their fingers securely dipped in the Natib Qadish pudding, and while Canaanite Polytheism has a lot in common with Akkadian (and Egyptian) Polytheism, and while I do enjoy interacting with Canaanite Polytheists . . . it’s just not the same. I feel rather alone in this aspect of my personal practice.
My actual worship of the Gods is solitary, since I view prayer and ritual as deeply personal things that don’t always need to be conducted publicly. It’s hard for me to concentrate on ritual or prayer when there are other people in the room. Still, I crave connecting intellectually and exchanging ideas and methods with people who are actually religiously invested in a particular discipline, not just academically. That is what truly accelerates my religious progress.
It’s really hard to talk about Akkadian concepts or publish articles about Gods like Pazuzu on a religious blog when seemingly no one else in that hemisphere gives an engaged damn about Akkadian beliefs and practices, when virtually no one can give feedback and intelligently challenge interpretations. I’m stuck with a bunch of Classical Studies and Assyriological books and historical journals for the most part. It’s very one-sided and incredibly empty, even for someone who once attended University for these things. Despite popular misconception, academics need communities, too. Books can only give a person so much.
We love you too :) lol
Life is… interestingly synchronistic at times.
A friend of mine told me a few days ago that she is considering a path associated with Kaldanism. In an effort to learn more about her interest, I did a bit of reading, and it does seem related to Akkadian practices… at least in terms of the history, what I’ll call “pantheon,” and belief, though perhaps more strongly associated with neopagan practice as opposed to reconstructionist values… duly noting all the problems and assumptions created by that black and white comparison between the two terms.
I found a link to one possible community (I am uncertain how active they are, but they seemed a bit more lively than the others I found) that I thought I’d share with her down the road, but perhaps it would be of some use to you as well. If you’ve already heard of them, and they’re not so useful, well, nothing lost or gained I suppose.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Temple_of_Inanna_and_Dumuzi/
I could also inquire as to what group(s), if any, she is presently associated with, as she comes to this from a religious studies background and is quite brilliant, so it’s entirely possible she’s already well aware of more out there than I found via my very brief use of “Google-Fu” ^_^
Awesome! Thanks for the info, Ekunyi. :D
Talk about the timing! I just dealt with this type of behavior yesterday from two different Pagan forums. I truly think the cliques and overreaction to anything different needs to stop if any alternative religion is to survive.
It’s entirely out of hand. Especially on Tumblr (don’t own an account, but my friends link me to shitfests from time to time). People crying about conversations being “triggering” when someone uses a word they don’t like, or put forth a stance they don’t agree with. And when they don’t play the victim, they lash out at people for not agreeing with them in incredibly childish ways. I don’t even . . .
With the Kemetic people I generally network with and study with, etc., we can have disagreements or alternative interpretations without making petty attempts at character assassination. It’s never a matter of “OMG THIS INTERPRETATION WITH THESE WORDS I HAVE ARBITRARILY DEEMED SAFE AND CORRECT OR GO TO HELL YOU PLEBE.” I’m grateful for my friends’ sanity and discernment. I just wish others would learn some common decency and manage to react and respond to articles and alternative interpretations and so on without flailing around pointlessly in a fit of emotional hypersensitivity.
It seems to have deleted my reply, so I’ll try this again. I avoid tumblr for the reasons you stated. I have to deal with this type of stuff elsewhere, so why keep sticking beans up my nose (though I think tumblr may be worse)? I also am very annoyed with the trend of people misusing and abusing “triggers” and “trigger warnings” for reasons I’ll share another day. You are so lucky to have people with whom you can respectfully disagree; it seems like sharing ideas and rational discussion are now a thing of the past.
Do you follow Tess Dawson at all? On her PaganSquare blog recently she did a pocket guide to Near Eastern religions and I know there was a mention of Akkadian spirituality, along with a small online group.
I must say that I don’t, although I interacted with her recently, briefly, over my Pazuzu article, which she shared on a number of different Polytheistic groups on Facebook. I’ll have to hit her up on where I can find Akkadian groups and such like.