OUR PAGAN HERITAGE
                            By Don Wildgrube
                         Earth Church of Amargi
                               and others
                                 c 1992



INTRODUCTION

In the days before churches, temples and other places of formal worship, before 
prophets and learned men spread the revealed word and philosophers dissected it, 
the early people of the Earth were at one with the Earth. They knew the ways of 
nature, they were aware of their environment, much more than we are today. It 
was simple, early people had to live in harmony with nature or they did not 
survive. An act which caused an imbalance usually had an immediate, drastic 
effect, usually death. Over-hunting would reduce animal populations resulting in 
scarcity of meat. If seeds were not saved from one season to another there was 
no guarantee of future crops. Foraging would have to be done again, meaning that 
abandoning of shelters to be vulnerable in the wild unknown places. 

Contemporary stories illustrate how far we are removed from being in harmony 
with nature, and how little care is shown for natural balance. Our history books 
tell us of the folly of the early farmers that plowed the grasslands of the 
central American planes. The Encyclopedia Britannica says, "Soul erosionÖbecause 
of early, wasteful farming methods on wide grasslands that should never have 
known a plowÖ amounted to a blight by the 1930sÖ", despoiling and disrupting the 
Grassland Biome. Within a very short time the rich grasslands were turned to 
waste and the great dust bowl of Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska was born.

We hear of the short-sighted people of Australia, not the Aboriginal natives, 
but the immigrants, that introduced the rabbit to the island continent as a 
source of food. The rabbit found the grasslands ideal and reproduced abundantly. 
The situation was ideal for the rabbits for no one thought about the natural 
predators that kept the rabbit population under control. In short order, the 
Australian grassland turned into waste land. Since the only real threat to the 
rabbit was the dingo, there was little biological control. The rabbits far out 
produced all other animal life, destroying valuable grasslands and endangering 
cattle farming. Rabbits were herded into fenced "corrals" and clubbed to death 
by the millions. Between 1950 and 1955, the virus, myxomatosis, was introduced 
and the rabbit population was reduced by 90%.

Today, our lives are even more removed from nature. We have our homes built for 
us. We live in artificial climates of warmth in the winter and coolness in the 
hot summers. We are clothed by the work of others hands, we buy our food from 
stores that get it from farm factories. These farms use nearly any means to 
force as much life as possible out of the ground, little realizing that this 
forced farming is causing the gradual death of the land. Agribusiness is based 
on the ideas of competition, on making a profit and sacrificing quality for 
quantity.

Some people have their backyard gardens, and they should be complimented for 
that, but usually the garden is little more than a subdivision game, to raise 
the biggest, best or earliest, without caring for what the land needs.

The Rain Forests of the world are being destroyed at an alarming rate thus also 
destroying the Earths ability to produce oxygen and neutralize toxins in the 
air. Jacques Cousteau has reported that the oceans are dying.

With all of our needs provided by suppliers, we not only loose control of how 
they are produced, we are even more estranged by the tokens of exchangeópaper 
and plasticómoney. We earn our money in occupations that are far removed from 
the land. Most people work in offices or in factories and in many cases are 
completely out of touch with nature. They don't even know if the sun is shining 
unless they can go out of their working spaces.

We are so removed from our natural environment that we may do things that will 
negatively affect future generations, without knowing it. 

Let me give you a few examples:

First is the chlorinated hydrocarbons that were supposed to be a boon to the 
farmer, the great insect killers. These chemicals were meant to reduce the 
population of invading insects. They were used in World War II by spraying on 
people to get rid of body lice. Recently (1955), these miracle workers have been 
found to cause a multitude of diseases in humans and death in animals, 
especially the small wild creatures that normally preyed on the very insects 
that were killed.  Not only that, but the harmful were able to adapt and became 
immune to the poisons. Rachel Carson's book, "The Silent Spring", brought about 
an awareness of ecology to the public and became the impetus for the 
investigation and subsequent outlawing of DDT and other hydrocarbons, in the 
United States. The manufacturers of these poisons, true to the business 
mentality, continues to produce and sell the poisons outside of the U.S.

Another example of this madness is the continued use of Tobacco. The government 
has finally realized the connection between smoking tobacco and lung cancer, 
mouth cancer, heart diseases and a variety of other diseases. C. Edward Koop, 
the past Surgeon General and Antonia Novello the present Surgeon General, minced 
no words in their condemnation of tobacco. Yet the Tobacco producers enjoy 
special incentives and monetary supports from this Government.

The population of the world is running wild. It has gone from 2-1/2 billion in 
1950 to over 5 billion in 1990. the projections are that it will double again by 
the turn of the century. And conversely the population of plants and animals are 
decreasing. Every day species of plants and animals are becoming extinct. 
Concerned scientists are rushing to discover and catalog all the flora that is 
being destroyed along with the cutting of the rain forest. In many cases, plants 
are discovered and declared extinct at the same time.

Our land has been raped, our waters poisoned, our air fouled. It took 
generations to do it and the full effects will not be felt for years to come. We 
are now gaining the consciousness to see the vast complexities of Nature and are 
becoming aware of the Wholistic approaches that must be taken. Unfortunately the 
underlying cause of irreverence of the land is due tour Patriarchal cultures and 
religions. This attitude of man having "dominion over the Earth" and the right 
to "subdue it", must be turned around. The key words here, "subdue" and "have 
dominion over", set the stage for human chauvinism.

The ancient people were at one with nature, they recognized the Divinity of the 
Earth, the Mother Goddess. They realized that could only survive by working in 
harmony with Her, and being Her partners.

This, then, is our goal: To get back in touch with the Goddess, our Mother, 
Earth, to re-establish harmony and balance, to look forward to the future, while 
remembering our past and to live in the present.

In an article entitled, "And the Trees Shall Triumph", Tom Williams writes:

     We must build temples in the wild, celebrating the union of 
     Earth and sky and man with plant and animal. We must envision 
     ourselves hanging on the ray of the North Star, bathed in the 
     light of Sun and Moon and vibrantly drinking the intoxicating 
     elixir of Life. Be joyous, love, celebrate Life, drink of 
     pure water and breathe clean air. Share with your fellow 
     siblings of the Goddess, the rapture of living and despoil 
     not the abode of the Gods."
                     Green Egg No. 44, Oimelc, 1991

In the study of Pagan Religions, it is necessary to study the evolution of Man. 
Paganism we will find, is intrinsically linked to the Earth Mother Goddess 
Specifically and to women in general. We will see that women were the prim 
movers in evolution, and that man adapted to her. We will see that she founded 
civilization. While man was out hunting, woman was busy building cities, 
beginning farming, domesticating animals, establishing commerce and encouraging 
the arts. She invented the wheel, speech and writing, healing farming and the 
tools for farming.

These claims cannot be pin-pointed in time and space, and exactly by whom, 
however, it will be shown that these things happened in a Matriarchal society, 
women in equal or higher estates than men. Since women were directly and 
predominantly in control of these specific areas, it can be concluded that they 
are responsible for these developments.

We will learn about changes that brought about the overthrow of Earth Mother 
religions by the Sky Father religions, the Patriarchal religions. We will trace 
the history of this revolution which eventually saw the domination, subjugation 
and complete degradation of women and the female principle. We will also see how 
cunning the conquerors were an adopting Pagan practices for their own use.

It must be noted that todays rise in feminism shows promise but this promise is 
a false hope unless the facts are brought out that feminist changes attempted 
within a Patriarchal framework are doomed to failure. We must realize our 
fullest potential, free from such binding restrictions.

Before we embark on our study of Paganism, let me quote Robert Graves. In his 
book, "The White Goddess", he mentions two different types of language, which we 
will be using. They both have their place and we must try to understand each, in 
order to understand the Whole.

     "There are two distinct and complementary languages: the Ancient 
     intuitive language of poetry ... and the more modern, rational 
     language of prose, universally current. Myth and religion are 
     clothed in poetic language: Science, ethics, philosophy and 
     statistics in prose." (Page 480)

Let us begin our study with a poetic vision by Tony Kelly of the Selene 
Community in Wales, in which he awakens memories of a long forgotten past.

                               PAGAN MUSINGS

We're of the old religion, sired of Time, and born of our beloved Earth Mother. 
For too long the people have trodden a stony path that goes only onward beneath 
a sky that goes only upwards. The Horned God plays in a lonely glade, alone ... 
for his people are scattered in this barren age, and the winds carry his 
plaintive notes over deserted heaths and reedy moors and into the lonely 
grasses. Who knows now the ancient tongue of the Moon? And who speaks still with 
the Goddess? The magic of the land of Lirien and the old pagan gods have 
withered in the dragon's breath; the old way of magic have slipped into the well 
of the past, and only the rocks know remember what the moon told us long ago, 
and what we learned from the trees and the voices of the grasses and the scents 
of flowers.

We're pagans and we worship the pagan gods, and wrong the people there are 
witches yet who speak with the moon and dance with the Horned One. But a witch 
is a rare pagan in these days, deep and inscrutable, recognizable only by her 
own kind, by the light in her eyes and the love in her breast; by the magic in 
her hands and the lilt of her tongue and by her knowledge of the real. But the 
Wiccan way is one path. There are many; there are pagans the world over who 
worship the Earth Mother and the Sky Father, the Rain God and the Rainbow 
Goddess and the Little People in the mists on the other side of the vale. A 
pagan is one who worships the goddesses and gods of nature, whether by 
observation or by study, whether by love or admiration, or whether in their 
sacred rites with the Moon, or the great festivals of the Sun.

Many suns ago, as the pale dawn of reason crept across the pagan sky, man grew 
out of believing in the gods ... he has yet to grow out of disbelieving in them. 
He who splits the Goddess on an existence-nonexistence dichotomy will earn 
himself only paradoxes, for the gods are not so divided and nor the lands of the 
Brother of time. Does a mind exist? Ask her and she will tell you yes, but seek 
her out, and she'll elude you. She is in every place, and in no place, and 
you'll see her works in all places, but herself in none. Existence was the 
second-born from the Mother's womb and contains neither the first-born nor the 
unborn. Show us your mind, and we'll show you the gods! No matter that you 
can't, for we can't show you the gods. But come with us and the Goddess herself 
will be our love and the God will call the tune. But a brass penny for your 
reason! For logic is a closed ring, and the child doesn't validate the Mother, 
nor the dream the Dreamer. And what matter the wars of opposites to she who has 
fallen in love with a whirlwind or to the lover of the arching rainbow.

But tell us of your Goddess as you love her, and the gods that guide your works, 
and we'll listen with wonder, for to do less would be arrogant. But we'll do 
more, for the heart of man is aching for memories only half forgotten, and the 
Old ones, only half unseen. We'll write the old myths as they were always 
written, and we'll read them on the rocks and in the caves and in the deep of 
the greenwood's shade, and we'll hear them in the rippling mountain streams and 
in the rustling of the leaves, and we'll see them in the storm clouds, and in 
the evening mists. We've no wish to create a new religion ... for our religion 
is as old as the hills and older, and we've no wish to bring differences 
together. Differences are like different flowers in a meadow, and we are all one 
in the Mother.

What need is there for a pagan movement, since our religion has no teachings and 
we hear it in the wind and feel it in the stones and the moon will dance with us 
as she will? There is a need. For long the Divider has been among our people, 
and the tribes are no more. The Sons of the Sky Father have all but conquered 
nature, but they have poisoned her breast and the Mother is sad ... for the 
songbirds, and fish, and the butterflies are dying. And the night draws on. A 
curse on the conquerors: But not of us, for they curse themselves ... for they 
are of nature too. They have stolen our magic and sold it to the mindbenders 
and the mindbendres tramp a maze that has no outlet ... for they fear to go down 
into the dark waters, and they fear the real for the one who guards the path.

Where are the pagan shrines? And where do the people gather? Where is the magic 
made? And where are the Goddess and the old ones? Our shrines are in the fields 
and on the mountains, and in the stars, the wind, deep in the greenwood and on 
the algal rocks where two streams meet. But the shrines are deserted, and if we 
gathered in the arms of the Moon for our ancient rites to be with our gods as we 
were of old, we would be stopped by the dead who now rule the Mother's land and 
claim rights of ownership on the Mother's breast, and make laws of division and 
frustration for us. We can no longer gather with the gods in a public place and 
the old rites of communion have been driven from the towns and cities ever 
deeper into the heath where barely a handful of heathens have remained to guard 
the old secrets and enact the old rites. There is magic in the heath far from 
the cold gray society, and behind closed doors, but the people are few., and the 
barriers between us are formidable. The old religion had become a dark way, 
obscure, and hidden in the protective bosom of the night. Thin fingers turn the 
pages of a book of shadows while the sunshine seeks in vain his worshippers in 
his leafy glades.

Here then is the basic reason for a Pagan Way: we must create a pagan society 
wherein everyone shall be free to worship the goddess and gods of nature. The 
relationship between a worshipper and her gods shall be sacred and inviolable, 
provided only that in the love of one's own gods, one does not curse the names 
of the gods of others.

It's not yet our business to press the law-makers with undivided endeavor to 
unmake the laws of repression and, with the Mother's love, it may never become  
our business ... for the stifling tides of dogmatism are at last already in ebb. 
Our first work and our greatest wish is to come together, to be with each other 
in our tribes... for we haven't yet grown from the Mother's breast to the 
stature of gods. We're of the earth, and kin to all the children of wild nature, 
born long ago in the warm mud of the ocean floor; we were together then, and we 
were together in the rain forests long before that dark day when, beguiled by 
the pride of the Sky Father, and forgetful of the Mother's love, we killed her 
earlier-born children and impoverished the old genetic pool. The Red Child lives 
yet in America; the old Australians are still with their nature gods; the Black 
Child has not forsaken the gods; the old ones still live deep in the heart of 
Mother India, and the White Child has still a foot on the old Wiccan way, but 
Neanderthaler is no more and her magic faded as the Lli and the Archan burst 
their banks and the ocean flowed in to divide the isle of Erin from the land of 
the White Goddess.

Man looked with one eye on a two-faced god when he reached for the heavens and 
scorned the Earth which alone is our life and our provider and the bosom to 
which we have ever returned since the dawn of time. He who looks only to reason 
to plumb the unfathomable is a fool, for logic is an echo already implicit in 
the question and it has no voice of its own; but he is no greater fool than he 
who scorns logic or derides its impotence from afar ... but fear to engage in 
fair combat when he stands upon his opponent's threshold. Don't turn your back 
on Reason, for his thrust is deadly; but confound him and he'll yield...for his 
code of combat is honorable. So here is more of the work of Paganism. Our lore 
has become encrusted over the ages with occult trivia and the empty vaporings of 
the lost. The occult arts are in a state of extreme decadence; astrology is in a 
state of disrepute and fears to confront the statistician's sword; alien creeds 
oust our native arts and, being as little understood as our own forgotten arts, 
are just as futile for their lack of understanding, and more so for their 
unfamiliarity. Misunderstanding is rife. Disbelief is black on every horizon, 
and vampires abound on the blood of the credulous. Our work is to reject the 
trivial, the irrelevant and the erroneous, and to bring the lost children of the 
Earth Mother again into the court of the Sky Father where reason alone will 
avail. Belief is the deceit of the credulous; it has no place in the heart of a 
pagan.

But while we are sad for those who are bemused by Reason, we are deadened by 
those who see no further than his syllogisms as he turns the eternal wheel of 
the Great Tautology. We are not fashioned in the mathematician's computations, 
and we were old when the first alchemist was a child. We have walked in the 
magic forest, bewitched in the old Green Thinks; we have seen the cauldron and 
the one becomes many and the many in the cloven feet. We have heard the pipes on 
the twilight ferns, and we've seen the spells of the Enchantress, and Time be 
stilled. We've been into the eternal darkness where the Night Mare rides and 
rode her to the edge of the abyss, and beyond, and we know the dark face of the 
Rising Sun. Spin a spell of words and make a magic knot; spin it on the magic 
loom and spin it with the gods. Say it in the old chant and say it to the 
Goddess, and in her name. Say it to a dark well and breathe it on a stone. There 
are no signposts on the untrod way, but we'll make our rituals together and 
bring them as our gifts to the Goddess and her God in the great rites. Here then 
is our work in the Pagan Way; to make magic in the name of our gods, to share 
our magic where gods would wish it and to come together in our ancient festivals 
of birth, and life , of death and of change in the old rhythm. We'll print the 
rituals that can be shared in the written word; we'll do all in our power to 
bring the people together, to teach those who would learn, and to learn form 
those who can teach. We will initiate groups, bring people into groups, and 
groups to other groups in our common devotion to the goddesses and gods of 
nature. We will not storm the secrets of any coven, nor profane the tools, the 
magic and still less, the gods of another.

We will collect the myths of the ages, of our people and of the pagans of other 
lands, and we'll study the books of the wise and we'll talk to the very young. 
And whatever the pagan needs in her study, or her worship, then it is our 
concern, and the business of the Pagan Way to do everything possible to help 
each other in our worship of the gods we love.

We are committed with the lone pagan on the seashore, with he who worships in 
the fastness of a mountain range or she who sings the old chant in a lost valley 
far from the metalled road. We are committed with the wanderer, and equally with 
the prisoner, disinherited from the Mother's milk in the darkness of the 
industrial wens. We are committed too with the coven, with the circular dance in 
the light of the full moon., with the great festival of the sun, and with the 
gatherings of people. We are committed to build our temples in the towns and in 
the wilderness, to buy the lands and streams from the landowners and give them 
to the Goddess for her children's use, and we'll replant the greenwood as it was 
of old for love of the dryad stillness, and for love of our children's children.

When the streams flow clear and the winds blow pure, when the sun never more 
rises unrenowned nor the moon rides in the skies unloved; when the stones tell 
of the Horned God and the greenwood grows deep to call back her own ones, then 
our work will be ended and the Pagan Way will return to the beloved womb of our 
old religion ... to the nature goddesses and gods of paganism.