We Need To Talk About The "G" Word

This essay talks about the prevalence of a common slur for Romani people used self-referentially in the Pagan community; it names the slur one time for clarity before obscuring it. There is also a photograph in which it is not obscured, and it is not censored in a quote from a Romani person.  A note that actual Romani people are empowered to use this term for themselves, although I would argue if they use it in the same way this essay describes it is still harmful.

"G-- World Cuisine," also called "Phils Grille"

I would be a full-on adult before I ever learned that the word "gypsy" was a slur.  As non-Romani people, when we think of a "g--," we are hands-down thinking about a set of impressions or lifestyle habits rather than a seriously persecuted ethnic group.  We may use it to refer to a free wanderer, a nomad, an eccentric, perhaps New Agey person.  In short, we use it to refer to an aesthetic.  Since this is an aesthetic that a lot of Pagans (and several other groups I'm in) romanticize, you get scores of us using this term self-referentially.

This shows up at pretty much every Pagan gathering I go to.  At Pagan Spirit Gathering there has been a food vendor with the word in its title, run by a woman who calls herself the word, selling foods named things like "g-- rice.".  I've seen many a Pagan merchant use the term in their business title or in the names of their products, I hear it added to songs (especially by traveling musicians), and when I was still a teeny-bop trying to learn Witchcraft in my tweens, looking up things like "g-- magic" was one of the more reliable ways to find material to appropriate.  And who knows how many people use it as a nickname for themselves?

This is also common in the queer communities I navigate.  I've heard songs described as "queer anthems" that have the word in it.  I've even literally had to deal with the massively-ridiculous trans people whose "preferred name" includes the word "G--," creating a fucked-up position in which I need to choose between using a slur and using a non-preferred name for a trans person.

And... we need to stop.  Preferably yesterday.  Because that word does not actually mean what we mean it as.  The Romani people aren't as a whole living the romantic lifestyle we envision.

The nomadic lifestyle we associate with the Romani isn't usually out of choice, but because they are constantly fleeing persecution and so many places will not accept a Romani settlement.  They experience a very high unemployment rate and extreme financial distress, contributing to the need for begging and in fact a lot of the mystical stuff we associate with them, like fortune telling (which is generally done for money for non-Romani people).  And the Romani people are severely dehumanized; this didn't hit home to me until ten years ago when news broke that a couple of dead Romani children drowned in Italy and people not only left them on the beach for an hour, but behaved with complete indifference, continuing to play and sunbathe like nothing had happened.  And that's not to talk of the extreme historical persecution; the Romani were some of the first targeted by the Nazis in World War II, who eradicated half of their population, and put them in concentration camps marked with a black or brown inverted triangle.

This is not something those of us who are not Romani people own.  We do not use "g--" to mean somebody who is forced into a migratory lifestyle to flee persecution, we use it to refer to a romantic hippie lifestyle that isn't anything like what the Romani actually experience.  That's not just appropriative, it's antagonistic.  It takes centuries of oppression and turns it into a hip thing for white people.

While doing some research for this essay I came across a quote that really gets to the heart of this issue.  It is from this article on Romani cuisine and is talking about a soup that a non-Romani restaurant serves, named "G-- Soup:"

It’s frustrating for me to read that the people who concocted this version of our staple, and “daydreamed of life as a gypsy [sic],” don’t realize that “Gypsy life” is not just a bohemian version of their white privilege, and that portraying and appropriating our culture and the very word “Gypsy” as such seriously diminishes the seriousness of the current Romani human rights crisis.

Which really describes it much better than I ever could.  As Pagans we talk about appropriation quite a bit these days, for better or worse, but somehow the rampant use of this terminology always seems to escape those discussions, and we just let people go on with their days after referring to themselves as Lady G-- Moon Princess or whatever.

So if you use this term self-referentially, please, unless you yourself are Romani, stop using this term.  Don't cherry-pick the few Romani folks who are OK with you using it.  And learn about what is actually happening to the Romani people before idolizing a lifestyle that really doesn't describe them.

Happy Trails,
-- Setkheni

Issues of Gendered Ritual

This post talks about issues in the Pagan community specifically relevant to transgender people, nonbinary folks, and people who are either extremely into or extremely not into single-gender rituals.

As a trans guy, I'm really into men's mysteries, especially in groups.  Being accepted into a spiritual context built for men, especially when I'm out and proud about it, is extremely validating for me, even though I support and acknowledge the need for non-gendered and non-binary alternatives for folks who need them.

Last year at Pagan Spirit Gathering was the first All Gender Ritual, an alternative to the Men's Ritual and Women's Ritual that are mainstays of the event.  I considered going until I learned they were all at the same time, then after a few minutes of consideration (Do I show up to support it and hang out with my dearly beloved trans community?) I went to the Men's Ritual like I always do... because for me, entry into men's space is not just nice, it's integral to my well-being.  I want gender neutral alternatives to everything, and there are plenty of men's and women's spaces that should be abolished, but in those cases where abolition isn't necessary, I want access as a man.

This is a common attitude among fully-male or fully-female identifying transgender people such as myself.  One of the first trans women I ever met, when I excitedly told her that they were adding some gender-neutral restrooms on campus, scoffed "Good, that way people who are uncomfortable with me in the women's room have somewhere to go."

This was my introduction to the competing needs between different trans people.  See, when I had this excitement it was long before I got hormones and long before I was able to advocate for my own access to men's spaces.  Gender neutral amenities were extremely important to me.  I was fully-male then, too, but would not have been able to emotionally handle demanding access to a men's bathroom or men's dorm.  So I used gender neutral restrooms, I stayed on a scattered co-ed dorm, and that was what I needed at that time.

Right now in my own Pagan communities (Pagan Spirit Gathering folks, Fox Valley folks) there are a lot of attempts at creating these alternatives, attempts that I've been monitoring very closely and helping with when I can.  It may seem contradictory at times, though... I support gender neutral alternatives because a lot of people need them, including:

• Nonbinary people who don't identify enough with maleness or femaleness to want a men's or women's space.
• Cisgender people who find single-gender spaces to be alienating or unnecessary.
• Cisgender people who are traveling with folks of different genders and don't want to go alone to a ritual full of strangers.
• Trans men and trans women who are not comfortable yet occupying men's or women's spaces respectively, or who hold opinions similar to those of cis people of the former categories.

...but I almost never actually use these spaces, because I am not in any of these categories.  So while I give support, I also involve myself in planning to defend people like me... trans men and trans women who need men's and women's spaces.

As far as PSG in particular, it was not long ago at all that trans women were explicitly barred from a Women's Ritual.  This led to them making and enforcing an extremely good policy which affirmed that all involvement in these rituals must be based on identity and not assigned sex.  But we also need to understand and validate that there are cis people who are looking for opportunities to push or shame us out of those spaces, and gender neutral alternatives give them that opportunity to say "you don't need these spaces, you have 'your own.'"

This does not mean that these spaces should not be created.  They absolutely should be.  They are incredibly useful to many people.  But they must always make it clear that their existence does not have any bearing on whether or not a trans man is empowered to enter men's space, and more importantly (due to the recent history of excluding trans women from women's space but not trans men from men's space), that trans women are explicitly empowered to enter women's space.

This isn't an either-or thing.  You can have genderless spaces for people who aren't all about grunting in a circle or moonpie Goddess energy and also have trans people in those spaces.  In fact, it's desperately important that both these things be true!

Back from PSG Initial Recap

Casual Shrine Remainder of Deer Camp

This post is the initial "hello, I'm back!" recap of Pagan Spirit Gathering 2018 at Tall Tree Lake.  It talks about the general camping stuff and an overview of programming I enjoyed there.

I got back from Pagan Spirit Gathering last night and am spending the day sort of processing the experience and resting.

First things first... I had strong intentions of going through the Men's Rite of Passage, but that didn't happen this year due to a strong scheduling conflict.  I'd been on the fence for the few days prior about whether I wanted to do it this year or next year so I just took it as a sign that it was meant to be next year, but there are now some other factors at play that might prevent me from wanting to go through it in the future... not at PSG, anyway.  Some of these reasons I am not comfortable talking about, but ultimately I think I might be best suited to getting my masculine mysteries stuff through different means.

General Camping Stuff

As far as the regular camping stuff?  I didn't sunburn as bad this year as I did last year, but I burned really bad last year so that's not saying too much.  At the last minute I ditched my pop up canopy and it was kind of a regrettable decision.  Next year I will make a concerted effort to bring it.  We brought far too much meat and didn't package it well enough, but were able to eat well.  I spent way too much on vendor food, although granted, it was delicious.  Next year I will bring more things to drink, although I was able to manage fresh coffee and lemonade.  We also need better fire pit maintenance, as the location we were in is not great for digging fire pits.  It didn't rain as bad as last year (we forgot the rain fly last year and had to rig one together from tarps and garbage bags) so rain was less of a problem.  We did, however, forget dish soap and trash bags so we wound up using old ice bags and just rinsing the dishes.

Next year I'll be making more effort to reduce the sunburn risk, especially since I hope to have a "fresh" (around six months old) top surgery and really need to keep the scars unburnt.  I'll probably use tape on the scars themselves, try to get an adequate base tan by going outside without a shirt on earlier than the middle of the summer, and wearing lots and lots of sunscreen.  Oh, yes, and my hat helped.  I'll definitely always wear a brimmed hat at PSG in the future now (and it's kind of an identifiable feature for me now!).

Programming Stuff

Me and my partner really had a great time with the workshops we put on for children!  We were thanked pretty profusely by some of the adults because there just isn't enough programming for youth at PSG.  The kids were fantastic, although our activities were a little short so we will be bringing some other Pagan type things (coloring pages) and more supplies (we actually had adequate supplies but some kids would have liked to do the activities longer).  Solstice Sunprints was logistically a little annoying because we had to refresh water (fun fact, we learned the paper we were using stops working when enough of the chemical on it gets in the water) and it was slightly overcast when we tried to do it.  Pentagrams and More went really well and was more of a "learning experience" type thing than I expected as we and some of the parents taught what the symbols I'd put on them meant.  Some of the kids just drew cats on blank ones, but that's also totally valid.  Hail Bast!  But yeah, Nakiiya and I already agreed that we will do two more kids and tweens workshops next year, although we'll probably modify or expand or do different activities.  Ben (the third Deer Camp member, one of my besties) said he might do the same thing and joked he would do a "Cursing for Kids" activity.  Obviously this isn't the environment for that sort of thing but I may in fact do a coloring book with that theme now.

There weren't a lot of workshops that really spoke with me this year.  I went to one basic energy work workshop where I didn't learn a whole hell of a lot, but I did get to practice on a stranger.

I went to the Gender Liberation Check-In almost every day as well as both the "Rainbow" luncheons (the Magenta Luncheon for trans folks and the Lavender Luncheon for LGBT folks).  Met some super cool people including somebody I found on Twitter before PSG who I didn't engage with because I am super shy and got to meet/friend on Facebook.  I also went to their workshop on a possible future Rite of Transition which was... eh.  The thing is, as somebody who isn't really a binary trans person but who is definitely a trans man I want there to be more all-gender and nonbinary programs available, but they always go in a direction that I don't really identify with or that I fear will compromise trans men's and more likely trans women's access to men's and women's spaces respectively; PSG had a major fuck-up in 2012 when the presenter they hosted who put on the Women's Ritual excluded trans women.  Things are a lot better now and they are explicit that things like this must now be inclusive based on identity, but there are some worries among those of us who do get recharged and validated by women's and men's mysteries that the push for more non-gendered and nonbinary alternatives to them could inadvertently push trans men and trans women out of those spaces if it's not dealt with correctly.

I have been working a lot with plants and learning about plant consciousness so I went to a workshop with a presenter who invented equipment to convert electrical impulses from plant leaves to midi.  I went to this workshop out of interest for the subject but also because I've been trying to give myself the permission to believe things people don't want me to believe; most of my friends are Pagans, but there's a strong skeptic vein that I ran with for a while and I really miss my ten-years-ago self who had given himself permission to believe weird things you find in New Age books about singing to water or earthing mats or whatnot.  I was a spiritually happier person back then and I want to go back to it, even if it means believing in mockable things.  That's its own post for the future, though.  Anyway, he hooked this machine up to a big oak tree and then a small plant I couldn't identify, we did energy work with the tree and hugged it and observed the different tones that came from the speaker.  I'd love to have something like that for myself, but he invented the thing so I can't just buy one off Amazon.  Yet.

Dutch Oven Meals

Nakiiya and I went to a Dutch oven cooking workshop that was really cool and granted us a whole free (mostly free, we donated to supplies) meal.  A good Dutch oven set is now on our list for future PSG stuff (as well as my home cooking projects; I like to cook outside when I can as a part of my personal rewilding project).  I went because I wanted to learn to cook with equipment I've never been good at (it turns out I've just been doing it wrong, and I value knowing that).  She just went because she wanted lasagna, which is valid. 

That was all the formal workshops I went to, although I did go to a lot of rituals and stuff in workshop slots.  The Bast Ritual was really emotional for me as somehow I really got to thinking about my cat, Sherlock, who died several years ago but who I had for over fifteen years, including many of my formative years.  The Rainbow Ritual was more contemplative than normal but was very nice, the Fairy Shrine Opening similarly was more low-key than normal.

Nakiiya and I went to a ritual to the Morrigan which was very moving.  It turns out I didn't know much about her (the Morrigan not my girlfriend) and I might genuinely be kind of into her.  We were directed that we needed to offer something from our body to her after the ritual, whether hair, saliva, blood, etc. and they also provided lancets for those of us who wanted to give blood... but no disinfectant, so I got some alcohol swabs from the med tent.  It's not something I've really done before as I tend to work with Egyptian Gods, and most of them really don't appreciate human blood offerings due to ritual purity requirements.

The Men's Ritual was less arts-and-craftsy than last year when we erected a big pyramid of prayer flags we'd decorated.  We received plain cords that most of us wore around our necks after (my profile picture as I write this shows it; I have it around the band of my hat).  I also went to the breakaway after the gender rituals which was really nice.  I met a trans woman who went to the Women's Ritual who I talked to and had a lot of other interesting discussions; Deer Camp's three members each went to a different ritual, with me going to the Men's, Nakiiya going to the Women's, and Ben going to the All Gender ritual.

I don't remember the opening ritual which was kind of hazy at this point (I remember being moved, which I usually am because I'm reminded of how happy I am to be at PSG).  The main ritual was led by Spiral Rhythm and was super ecstatic and wonderful, although there were some accessibility issues (people with mobility issues regularly sit and were kind of crowded out) and consent issues (there was a lot of touching and hugging that we weren't warned about, and my girlfriend got touched in ways that were not appropriate).

Ben was in the Performer's Rite of Passage playing the fiddle and was a big success, too.

Obviously I had a lot more experiences than this, things that will be best served through their own posts, but that's about it for the initial recap.

Happy Trails,
-- Setkheni

Gardening and... Welcome to Deer Camp!

This post talks about plans for Pagan Spirit Gathering as well as things I'm gardening.

So I recruited a couple friends to go to Pagan Spirit Gathering with me, including my girlfriend (who first came last year) and one of my best friends (whose first year is this year).  These are also the two people I took out on their first deer hunting trips, so we named our little camp... Deer Camp!  Which it will remain unless my vegetarian friend comes in further years.

All our stuff is ordered for it other than food, which is all at least planned out.  It should be a super cool setup including our tents, a canopy (which will be decorated with deer stuff and probably house a group shrine), a fire pit, and a grill.  It'll be closer to glamping than I'm normally into while still being more primitive than, say, a camper or a setup with a generator.

I'm looking forward to taking advantage of pretty much everything queer and men's mysteries related because I'm starting to veer more masculine and am actively planning top surgery to masculinize my chest (my consultation is in two days).  I have a lot of kind of dedication/self improvement stuff I want to do, too, but that's a little more personal (at least for now).

So... gardening.  I planted all my seeds, with varying success ( like usual).  My corn and beans are all coming up, the squash was quite variable and so I planted more of it later.  It's unclear but I may have just planted it a bit early.  I also planted more corn and beans to kind of fill things in, and used a fish-and-seaweed based fertilizer on it.

I've been putting off pulling the weeds from my garden because I couldn't tell the difference between them and my new plants for a while.  Today I set down my phone playing music that is made for plants (I got this idea from a BBC documentary I watched called "How Plants Communicate and Think" which talks about the rudimentary yet fascinating "consciousness" of plants), then got on my knees and pulled all the weeds I couldn't use.  I kept some useful weeds there that I don't have readily available elsewhere and didn't slash and burn the whole thing, but there's now a lot more room for the plants I'm cultivating.

A couple of plants got nibbled by the bunnies so I used a mix of blood and essential oil around the perimeter of the garden to keep them away.

Some plants that came back successfully... a lot of tomatoes.  I have a nice self-sustaining tomato operation; the most successful tomatoes in this climate have been naturally reseeding themselves in a patch of dirt we have and growing into robust cherry tomatoes.  I did seed some wild tomatoes but they don't seem to be growing well.

Last year I grew some walking/perennial/tree onions that are doing really well.  They haven't gotten any topsets yet, but have started growing small satellite onions I've been eating.

I also have some plants I'm growing in containers, including sage, tobacco, and lettuce.

Anyway, that's all for now!
-- Setkheni