The Daily: 29 October 2025

The word pagan is not unlike the word witch. Both were pejorative labels for outsiders. Both would likely earn a body substantial abuse. And both have been reclaimed in late modern times, though it would be more accurate to say that these words have been redefined, almost completely. Witch means nothing of what it once did and what its equivalents in other languages still do mean. Pagan, however, has been bifurcated.

There is Pagan, as in Neopagan, meaning a sort of non-denominational nature faith. It is not a religion, as there are no rules or ethics to follow. It is a belief in… well, mostly it’s a self-help-y Christianity without the commandments, the dying on a cross story, or a supreme male deity. There are normally at least two deities, a god and goddess, though some have just inverted the gender of monotheism. There is little notion of the sacred and no common interpretation of the faith. There is a good deal of ritual, both public and private, but as there are no rules, the public rituals tend to be rather amorphous. One can’t be quite sure what one is celebrating, though it’s usually joyfully diverting.

There are also many practices and symbols taken from other cultures, largely without any attempt to reconcile meaning, nor with any dialogue with the cultures that have been sampled. One can build an altar to Isis using cast “resin” statuary in faux neoclassical style, representatives of “the elements”, a few stones and crystals, perhaps a bundle of incense herbs resting in a polished abalone shell with a Native American feather fan, and a spell candle inscribed with symbols from Judeo-Christian mysticism, alchemy, ogham and runes. Like some forms of modern witchery, Neopaganism is almost entirely meaningless in its eclecticism.

Then, there is little-p pagan. Those who name themselves pagan come closer to reclaiming the name, though until recently there was little attempt to walk the talk. People from Wordsworth and Eliot to Tesla and Sagan called themselves pagan from time to time, seemingly in an attempt to differentiate their path from patriarchic Christianity and to assume an earthy populist and iconoclastic image that often was in distinct contrast to their lives. (Though the iconoclastic part was legitimate…) Interestingly, the English name Paine or Payne derives from pagan and might indicate that the urge to embrace a rustic commoner’s identity might be quite old. Undoubtedly, the ancestors of the Paines began as country bumpkins, but somewhere along the way they decided to own it and took the former insult for their family name.

Pagan, or paganus, is a mild slur the citizens of Rome used for people who lived outside the civitas in the rural districts, the pagus. Roman soldiers, stationed out in the hinterlands, irritably far from the civilized comforts of Rome, used this word liberally. As an aspersion, pagan meant roughly the equivalent of the American redneck. It literally translates to rustic villager, a person of the land, a country person. The word took on religious or, rather, irreligious connotations in the early Medieval period, when most Christians were urbane and refined city folk and most backwards country folk still honored their own local deities. I find it humorous that redneck now refers to those backwards fundamentalists out in the boonies while pagan, or at least Neopagan, tends to be claimed by cultured urbanites.

In my country, the quieter pagans tend to be the most like the people who were once the butt of Roman jokes. Beginning with people like Thoreau and Muir and Leopold, it became fashionable to be unfashionable, to be outside, to look away from the civitas for inspiration, praxis and meaning. Under the influence of these writers — and afflicted by a healthy dose of disillusionment with late capitalism — many people began leaving the plastic glitter and concrete of the city, looking to the land as a healthier and more wholesome way of being. Now, these were not rednecks, so there were clashes between the urban refugees and the long-time denizens of the country. But that is slowly changing.

Pagans, in the sense of back-to-the-landers, do not have much of a faith system. They may even nominally hold to one of the dominant beliefs. But pagans do have a religion, a system of rules and practices, the main one of which is to do the least harm to place and community, to listen to the needs of the land and subsume your own needs within the local ecology. This praxis has, over time, tended to erase the conflicts between old guard and nouveau country folks — because they have lives in common. They do the same things. They follow the same seasonal calendars and slow time. They share a love of good food and warm comfort. But most of all, they all live by the same land and are fashioned by the same place. They all begin to share roots over time.

When you live outside the artificiality of the human-mediated world, faith is not nearly as important as religious practice. The land does not care what you believe. But the land will force you to follow its rhythms and rules. Most pagans learn this rather quickly. This is why many newbie back-to-the-landers will retreat back to the city after a season or so — especially if that season is winter.

The countryside is not an idyllic fantasyland. There is work to be done, every day. There are challenges and messes. It is not clean, not orderly, not pretty. You will have muddy boots and dirt under your fingernails. And you might find yourself wearing the same clothes for days. You will not be beholden to clock time, but you will also not be following your own schedule. There will be sleepless nights when the ewes are all dropping lambs or the basement will be slowly filling with water. There will be grueling days when all the fields need to be planted before the weather turns and all the apples or tomatoes need preserving before they rot. And then there will be evenings when the snow piles up and the power goes out and there is nothing that can be done except go to bed. (Unless there are ewes dropping lambs… in which case… good luck…)

The land will also force you to live in community — because none of the challenges can be faced alone. You will lean on your neighbors and they on you. Your entire town will be called to lay out the sandbags in the summer floods and to support the devastated people after the waters recede. You will have gluts and shortfalls that will necessitate exchange. And you will find that you want to celebrate together when things are going well, when the ice breaks, when the harvest is good, when the sun rises after the longest night.

The land also tends to inspire its own folk beliefs — because these are the ideas that have worked, or that have failed painfully. In the countryside, magic and superstition are merely things that have happened that don’t yet have an explanation. Such a lot follows no rational human logic but does seem to have an internal logic of its own. Pick the mushrooms ringing the old oak and you’ll regret it, but the same species in the maple grove is fine. Gather downed wood in the orchard, leave the fallen branches in the deep forest or risk a chimney fire. Carry a bit of iron in your pocket if you want to make it home on Midsummer’s Eve and leave the broom by the door if you want unexpected guests. Put comfrey on a bruise, boneset on a fracture, and horehound on a congested chest and you’ll heal, though none of those things have any scientifically proven effect. Count your blessings and you’ll find that they multiply.

Some folkways are on the edge of rationality, an explanation can almost be glimpsed in the right light. Some are just ridiculously outlandish. But they are all weirdly true…

I take this as evidence that we humans don’t know as much as we think we know and just roll with it. I hang horseshoes over the front door, rowan crosses in the garden, and corn dollies in the kitchen. I take Tylenol for a fever, but I also drink sage tea. I mix ashes from the Yule fire with the veg seeds and pour small libations for my apple trees on Twelfth Night. And if someone comes calling, there is always food and a comfortable place to rest. (Though hospitality to strangers is more difficult in these days of sick minds and addictions…)

Mostly I just do what works. Or what makes me believe that something is working… which amounts to the same thing in my experience.

I also find that being observant always works. Honoring your place. Giving respect and thanks. Living in reciprocity. Watching for cues and following the land’s lead. Being wholly part of your place.

I think that is what paganism is, doing what works, what creates the most benefit, based on your place and time.

And the most important part of that is doing… 

One final note… All this is perfectly possible in a city. It is harder. You must stretch your observations around the harmful artificiality imposed upon the land. Learn to see what is real and what is plastic façade. But the land is still there, still imposes its rules, still demands its due. A city pagan, while not conforming to the letter of the name, can certainly cleave to the intent. In fact, I think a city pagan is ideally placed to do more good for her community than any body out in the boondocks. There is so much more that needs to be done. More community building, more restoration and rehabilitation, more fostering new relationships and forging new paths through the wasteland, more of simply watching and learning what works and what doesn’t. A city pagan, an urban denizen of the land, will show us how to be Earthlings within the crumbling human-mediated world. I can’t think of a more necessary task right now!

The Wednesday Word

for 29 October 2025

pagan

What does pagan mean to you? Think about it. If you’d like, send me a quick poem or story… or just a few thoughts. If you really have something to say, maybe enter my Wednesday Word contest on AllPoetry.

And now here are the thoughts that arise in me when I think on pagamism…

she weighs the wind
     notes its tenor and mood
     plotting changes against the moon
     spiraling through seasons
           to return to center in time
 
she distills wisdom
     coaxes synchronicity from chaos
     passing sense through alembic and fire
     filtering for relevance
          to forge pearls for her crown
 
she weaves the wyrd
     peers through patterns on the heddle
     sifting twined interbeing
     threading stars and omens
          a cloak against cold futures
 
she knows her world
     walks its winding ways
     consorting with crows and mycelia
     listening to the story unfold
and if you but ask
      she will show you the wonder

©Elizabeth Anker 2025