So, I don’t normally ‘go there’ with this blog, but I’ve been reading some of the posts about the current Pagan controversy du jour. You know the ones I’m on about, the ones talking about offering bullets to the Morrigan.
And you know, I can’t help but look at it and just wonder what the hell is wrong with people?
In my previous two posts, I talked about pushing things forward, but this to me is the opposite of that. It’s a completely pointless debate that has far more to do with kneejerk reactions about guns than anything that any of us should be bothering with.
So, some Morrigan cultists feel that bullets make a good offering for the Morrigan – a goddess who is, among other things, a goddess of war.
Whoop de doo. Really, whoop de doo.
So what if it’s not your cup of tea, surely what counts is that the people doing the offering genuinely think it to be a good offering, and that they are doing and giving their best? Yes, there are some issues around the safe disposal of live rounds, especially those that as sacrificed items, by definition have passed out of human usage. And there should be discussion around the practicalities and safety issues of offering live rounds. Now there is an issue folks didn’t really have to consider when depositing swords (or whatever) in bogs. But some of the comments made have been ridiculous. One blog post talked about how they questioned the UPG of anyone that had UPG to offer bullets and how those that had such UPG should assess if it really was UPG or just the product of conditioning oneself to block all other messages out.
Really?
I feel like I’m saying that a lot here (I am).
How is UPG that bullets are a good offering down to bias, but UPG that says they’re not a good offering somehow not? Then there was the slippery slope argument, after all, why not napalm? After all, I hear it smells great in the morning.
Like it or not, the gun has played a significant role in American history – for the good and the bad. Without the gun, America would never have gained independence from my people – the Mexicans.
Just kidding. The British. I’m British, what what!
You know, that whole sovereignty thing again.
Then there’s my favourite argument that somehow, by offering bullets, you’re changing the Morrigan. You’re changing a deity/group of deities who is/are predominantly (a) war goddess/es (depending on which of the Morrigna you’re talking about here), with what? US gun culture? Really? Like the deity who is said to collect the heads of men is somehow going to become more bloodthirsty and behind every school and racially-motivated police shooting? Like somehow our human culture could teach a goddess how to suck eggs. I don’t agree with the sentiment that the gods are formed by humans. Certainly different cultures with the same gods understand those gods differently, but could that really be said to be a reflection of a change in the nature of those gods themselves? I think that mentality is a convenient one, because the person that adopts it doesn’t really have to go out of their comfort zone in their worship – after all, the deity will eventually adapt to your cultural norms in all your human greatness, right?
Getting back to it though, to me, this particular controversy feels like something that maybe had its birth in the ‘worshipping the Morrigan is feeding the military-industrial complex’ post that became infamous a while ago.
And it’s all so laughable, really what are we doing here? How is any of this not silly? Especially when set against the other recent controversies du jour, like ‘Why you shouldn’t celebrate Lughnasadh’, or ‘Why you shouldn’t bother with Imbolc’ (I’m paraphrasing here). Seriously, I’m almost going to be disappointed if there’s no ‘Why you shouldn’t go anywhere near Beltane because it feeds into an STD spirit’ post.
After a while, it gets so tiresome too – all the drama that just swirls around sucking up people’s attention and distracting them from things that actually matter. It’s a doldrum, and we need to sail the fuck out of it.
Last night, I read the blog of a man who was lucky to survive boyhood, and for whom the gun is a very real symbol of survival and being safe. Again sovereignty – this time of the bodily kind. Maybe I’m just reading into his tone, but he sounded despondent, yet still trying to explain why he feels the need to make those offerings that others find so objectionable – *why* they made sense to him and why it wasn’t some political thing. In reading that blog, that man’s reaction to the controversy, this whole thing almost felt like a form of bullying and so very ultimately useless.
We have incomplete theologies, ritual formats that need some serious work, reciprocal relationships to honour, communities that need building, skills that need honing, friends that need shenanigans, and family members that need love.
We have work to do.