Notes from a Midsummer gather: part 2

June 29, 3:05 PMMinneapolis Paganism ExaminerMurphy Pizza

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Dancers at Earth House Midsummer Gather 2006.

When explaining what Pagan Summer festivals are like to folks who aren't Pagan, the comment occasionally surfaces that, gee, for religious gatherings, they sure sound like fun. As if the two concepts, religion and fun, somehow shouldn't coexist.

So, here comes a radical religious notion: Paganism is a fun and joyous religion. It is also serious business. Honoring the turning of the seasons, the planet, life on it, and human lives is a continous and challenging celebration. Life is growth and change, death, release, and rebirth -- and each of those parts is worthy of reverence.

Pagans worship using ritual and magic, but also through music, dance, study, meditation, trance and ecstasy, making food, brewing drink, creating art and craft and -- more unseen -- behind-the-scenes work running organizations, helping elders, raising children, and performing healing. All of these reverent activities occur in all spheres of life for Pagans, as all parts of existence are sacred. Festivals just give you a chance to do all of that outside, with fellow Pagans, for about a week's time.

The Earth House Midsummer Gather, as an example, had a schedule of events that included formal rituals -- one to celebrate Midsummer holiday, one to help encourage prosperity for many in need, and one to contemplatively reconnect with the surrounding natural environment. There was also a parodic ritual celebrating chocolate. During the day, various teachers and guests presented workshops and discussions on all sorts of topics: community building efforts, improving ritual efficacy, meditation methods, astrology, energy healing techniques, drumming and percussion, and many more. There were two potluck feasts that the whole festival particpated in, a brewing contest, and evenings full of drumming, dancing, storytelling and singing. This particular festival also had an annual Talentless Show, where people got up and did something they were lousy at as exuberently as they could for prizes. The Three Poppet Opera performed an original story with beautiful handmade marionettes. There was also a concert by the Pagan musical group the Dunn County Clerics, where sacred and secular music intertwined seamlessly.

And yes -- it was fun! From the morning call for fresh campfire coffee and teawater to the evening drumming under the stars, the festival was enjoyable and sacred. The connections made between attendees are special, stronger than family to some, or of a different kind of family, one where your unconventionalities are accepted and shared. Over the years, Pagan kids have become teenagers, Pagan teens have become adults, and Pagan adults have become elders, with the touchpoints of these changes taking place every year at Summer festivals.

Many attendees take the span of a week in safe, strictly Pagan company to do the deep difficult work of personal transformation, making commitments, performing rites of passage, celebrating and grieving, and getting divinatory readings, counsel, and advice from their spiritual friends. Summer fests are a pretty common place for handfastings (Pagan weddings) to take place. No one got hitched at the Earth House Gather this year, but there was a man-making ritual for one of the boys turning thirteen, where the women of the fest community cut a red cord tying his wrist to his mother's, then walked him to the world of men.

Offered as an observation about Pagans knowing they live to make the everyday sacred: as much as the weeklong fest is loved, and as much as people complain about packing up their campsites and going home, there is a sense that an eternal Summer festival is not what contemporary Paganism attempts to be. Pagans are of the city, the country, the workplace, the public school, the mall, the grocery store, and the backyard... the religious intent, always, is to keep the festival memories and experiences alive and at work when going back to the business of everyday life.