The pagan community has gotten ourselves in a real troublesome spot with this whole "research your geneology" thing. Because we started telling people to look into their ancestry to avoid appropriation, instead of just teaching what appropriation is.

Now we have people who think they have to research their family history just to be a pagan, and that's hugely problematic. One, because having a DNA test to join a tradition is ripe for abuse, and risks ideas of supremacy. Two, because tons of people have no idea who their parents are. I was adopted, I know several people who don't know who their father is, and even more who lost track of grandparents names and don't even have a place to start.

Instead of focusing on bloodlines, let's just teach people what appropriation is: If another living culture or religion you are not part of actively practices something, you can't copy it, because its theirs. Easy as that. Think of it like an active copyright. Stick to reviving long-dead practices from ancient cultures that have gone into the "public domain," or create your own traditions, and you won't have to worry about it.

Knowing your geneology is not, and has never been, a requirement to be Pagan.
Now, if you think connecting with your ancestral culture will bring you spiritual fulfillment, will help you grow, will make you feel whole, then yes, do that, if you have the resources, its a great idea. Just make sure to check yourself so you don't start to get feelings like your heritage is somehow more special, or magical, or makes you more valid than other people.

#Pagan

"What else do we forget about the pandemic? We forget how mesmerised we were as nature rebounded, how clean the air was in the absence of industrial scale human activity. We forget that carbon emissions fell at the sort of pace required to avoid cataclysmic climate change. We forget that no-strings cash payments saw child poverty in America plunge to record lows, that the UK slashed homelessness with schemes that found homes for people sleeping on the street.

We forget that there really was a sense of global solidarity, that the reflection demanded by a pandemic opened up spaces for us to consider truly radical and permanent change. Remember build back better? There really was a sense that the coronavirus, as we all knew it then, could be the catalyst for a better word.

It couldn't last because of capitalism. This isn't some glib statement, it is literally why such promises could never be fulfilled. Because such promises required redistribution and structural shifts to economies that billionaires don't want shifting."

https://www.donotpanic.news/p/five-years-on-a-covid-retrospective

Making #CatsOfMastodon a little more interesting 😉

#Caturday #photography #music

📸 Greg Gorman