Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Deep Down, Everyone Is Pagan (or wants to be...)


I attended an absolutely amazing event last Saturday - the Phoenixville Firebird Festival. It is my goal to attend this event year year from here on in, as it was ridiculously fun, absolutely entrancing, and a wonderful expression of community in an otherwise "P.C." (politically correct) world.

I would like to thank Schamis for taking this wonderful picture, which I borrowed from his blog. (I did not think to bring my camera this year, but will definitely do so next year).



This video really captures the "Burninating" (we love you Trogdor!!!) beautifully - and the marshmallow toasting (which was great, right up until the wings almost fell on said roasters). The point of this post was really more to analyze the reaction of the crowd to this event. There was singing, drumming, and an enormous crowd of onlookers.

At one point, I turned to my good friend Molly (who follows a similar spiritual path to my own) and remarked that it was one of the most pagan events I had ever attended - and the crowd, by-and-large, probably would not consider themselves to be such.

I believe that paganism strikes a chord and resonates with the most basic parts of our human spirituality. I'm glad that there are still venues in which our increasingly politically correct and otherwise expressionly-stunted culture can come together and celebrate such a primal instinct and joyous refrain.

In short, huzzah for giant burning effigies - it's great that they still bring us together. :-)

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