We would like to introduce to you our regular columist for 'The Second Aspect' - Patrick Gilliland!

The Pagan Activist

Pat has been a Pagan for near on 20 years, a husband for for just about as long and a father for 11 years and counting. Active over the years in several pagan communites and groups in Ottawa, Canada he currently follows the druidic path.

You may jump articles or just scroll down

2008:

May

April

March

February

January

2007:

December / November / October / September

Summer Holidays...

One of the more interesting tasks the modern western parent faces is what to do with the kids over the Summer holidays.

In my area, planning begins just after Samhain of the previous year as tens of thousands of bleary eyed parents stay up past midnight to participate in the Registration Olympics. At the stroke of 12, you can hear the neighbourhood erupt in a frenzy of mouse clicks as parents franticly try to get little Suzie into Pottery For Over Achievers and young master Thomas into Summer Hardcore Hockey Boot Camp. By 12:05, it’s all over — for the late comers and those not net connected, the Little Jesus Bible camp is pretty much the only option left, even for the pagan parents.

Having found a suitable prison camp for your little ones, all one has to do now is figure out how to fill in the rest of the time. The process is a finely choreographed ballet of scheduling and time management as the players try to balanced the meagre holidays given them by their employers against the copious time the kids are off from school.

The primary thing to avoid is anything obviously educational. School is out and the kids have had teaching up to their ears for the last 10 months. The most important thing to do is to have fun with your children. That doesn’t mean that you can’t incorporate the spiritual into the recreational – just don’t tell the kids – lead them to the water and let them drink if they want to. Here are some activities you can use to fill in the days of Summer.

Planting and Gardening

We are now so removed from what we eat that some adults let alone children have never seen food in its wild state. Planting a small garden with your child and helping them maintain it is one way to restore a connection with the earth.  Little ones especially will enjoy the magic of watching a bean grow from seed to harvest or digging potatoes they planted from sprouted spuds. My youngest very much enjoyed taking the seeds from her last harvest to a seed exchange and swapping them for exotic varieties of corn and beans.

Fishing and Hunting

Whether or not you catch anything, there is much to be said about the meditative effect of spending a quiet afternoon sitting by a stream or pond dangling a line into the water. So too the thrill of the hunt is a special experience.

Places Of Awe

These could be natural places or constructed places anything from Stonehenge to a special river cove. My first brush with real magic came at the age of 15, while lugging a heavy canoe through yet another portage in northern Ontario. The trail lead past a tiny waterfall running through moss cover rocks – something just clicked and I realized that just maybe Tolkein’s elves weren’t a bunch of wusses after all.

Museums, Special Exhibits

Living close to several very good museums we have been blessed with exhibits of mummies, Pompeii and the bog people. To this day my girls still talk about the mummies.

Other Cultural Or Religious Events

These can be anything from pow wows, ploughing matches to open houses of other religions.  With other family members my girls have been several Masses and have attended my brother-in-law’s investiture as a Deacon. The best why to teach religious tolerance is to be tolerant.

Nothing At All.

The big one. Take the kids out and do nothing. Flip over rocks to see what’s underneath, Go for a walk, or just take the time to “be” with your children.

Back to Top

Back to Top

As part of my current path as a member of Ár nDraíocht Féin, I‡ hold monthly conversation meetings at our house. The topics vary widely and a good time is generally had by all. As with anytime you mix pagans and caffeine, the talking goes long into the evening. But that is not necessarily the only or even most important meeting going on.

Tucked away at the back of our house, covered by a tin roof (though a very nice professionally installed one) and sealed off form the rest of the house by a rather too thin door is – the game room / office. While the adults debate the morality of all things magical, the kids are sequestered in the back for the evening – emerging only to replenish their stocks of chips† and soft drinks.

To be honest I can’t tell you what goes on back there – it certainly involves a fair amount of noise. What is developing there is a environment of openness, friendship and religious acceptance. In regular attendance, we have families with Gardnerian, Egyptian, Asatru, Druid and Strega backgrounds. They are not brought together through school or neighbourhood but by paganism, The children of these families mix together, play together, hang out together and no doubt argue with each other. I can think of very few other places where children from so many different backgrounds come together.

Imagine if you will a “Sunday School” where the Protestant kids are playing on the Wii with the Jewish kids while the Catholic kids are on YouTube with the Muslim kids. That is our back room one Friday a month.

So open your own Friday school let your children play together and see what grows.

Back to Top

If you don't have the right plumbing, you just won't get it

One of the great joys of parenting for me so far has been sharing all parts of life with my daughters. Peak-a-boo, “what's that called”, reading Brave Sir Brian, catching frogs, science, literature, gaming, nature, cooking, and computers have all been parts of what I have been able to share with my girls as they have grown up. It has been a great trip so far but now a gap has opened before me, a chasm I cannot cross, the great canyon that every father has looked across with despair, my little girls will soon be young women.

The path we have walked together as father and daughters is about to fork into two very different roads. My girls will skip off into the occult forest of shoe shopping and other women's mysteries and I will head off on a quest to find an object of great power – preferably something large and impressively lethal looking that can be cleaned at the kitchen table for when the boys start showing up.

It's scary time in Daddyville and it's not going to get better anytime soon.

In another time or another the faith the answer would be simple; marry them off as soon as it's practical and let some other poor guy worry about it. For the modern Pagan Dad, that's not an option - especially with modern Pagan Mom still on the scene. However, being Pagan brings some very useful tools to fatherhood. Because we acknowledge both feminine and masculine divinity we don't see women as weaker or less complete versions of men, we see them as powerful beings in their own right. However, we are aware that while the masculine and feminine have their strengths, they also have their weaknesses. Each half fills the voids in the other and provides support to make a stronger whole.

My role as father, particularly as a Pagan father, is to exemplify what a good man and a good partner is. (And before the priestesses of Diana descend, to acknowledge the possibility that a partner might not necessarily be a man.) Part of my role is to celebrate the differences between woman and man. Womanhood not as a weakness or a curse but as a gift that while  I, as a man, may never understand I value.

In one respect, having daughters has freed me from one constraint of more patriarchal faiths. I will never be driven to make my off-spring be just like me. Too often I have run into other men who have been molded in their Father's Image, His faith, His politics and even His career. For my girls, that just ain't gonna happen.

As with so many things parental, in the end we have no choice but to take a deep breath and plunge on through.

Now, where did I put that gun cleaner?

Back to Top

Sometimes the simplest of things becomes more complex than one can imagine.

When I started this piece I was going to write about my girls and their request that we eat more organic food. I was going to write about how we showed them Super-size Me and how the girls promptly swore off Mac Donald's after seeing how chicken nuggets were made from mechanically separated meat. I was going to write about about we are lucky in Canada  because we get the cream of UK programing like The River Cottage Treatment. I was going to talk about how we sat and watched the first couple of shows and discussed how one should have respect for whatever one eats. I was going to talk about how we decided that if something – plant or animal - is going to give it's life that we might eat it to live, we should treat it in a manner that acknowledges it's sacrifice. I was going to talk about how the circle of the seasons, the cycles of life are intricately intertwined with the simple act of eating and that the simplest things – like food – should be given the same reverence as the greatest of Sabbats. I was going to write about how wonderful all this was.

I stand behind all these things I was going to write about. It's when I looked at the we and they that things started to get a little difficult. I am very big on the ability for one to make informed choices in one's life, whether those choices are about one's faith or what one puts on one's plate. My daughters – all of the they and half of the we in our four person family – what choice did they really have? As parents we made very conscious choices about what information we showed to our daughters. These were our choices not our daughters.

I did a lot of thinking about the choices I made for my daughters and this is what I came up with. As parents, we have the privilege to be able to make choices for our children. As the result of these choices, we cannot avoid imparting our particular world view. We must be aware of our own preferences and prejudices when we make decisions for our children – and we must accept that our children may not always agree with our world view.

So in the end, what do I feel about the choices I made that lead to my daughter's asking to eat more organic food? A couple of hours of pro-organic, anti-fast food programs is nothing compared to the hundreds of hours of fast-food and ready-meal advertising my girls have seen. Despite this massive imbalance, they chose to go organic.

No body said parenting would be easy or simple, but it sure is fun.

Till next month,

Pat Gilliland.

Back to Top

The instant the last bit of turkey is consumed at American Thanksgiving, a monster awakes. All across the USA, even in the most cinched up tight sections of the Bible belt, the first day of the season celebrating the birth of the Prince of Peace is the single largest shopping day on the continent. It's Shopping Season again.

It is easy to criticize the Christian community for allowing one of their holiest days to degenerate into a consumerist shop-fest but it is our holiday too. As a celebration of the return of the sun Yule has been with us for a long time. We are in some ways fortunate that so many of our pagan traditions were absorbed into the celebration of Christ's birth. Thanks to the Christians, we get a Holly King in every mall and on every street corner. The Dagda's cauldron brings forth his mighty porridge if in a slightly more fruity and solid pudding form. Chocolate Yule logs grace the shelves in the bakeries. Sacred mistletoe graces many a door, and sympathetic magic is done through every decorated and lighted tree. Christmas – what a great time to be a Pagan!

Apart from the purloined imagery, there is all the great TV fare. The Christmas Carol being my favourite as Scrooge makes three choices three times until he finally gets it right. Then there is the Grinch that Stole Christmas – the three fold law in action. And of course all the cheesy Rankin and Bass Christmas specials with evil townsfolk and good Elves.

There is another thing I used to be grateful to the Christians for – no Sunday shopping. Sunday was the one day when you could be guaranteed to be together as a family. That is long gone, but for my family, that is what Christmas means. We usually celebrate Yule on the 21^st but the week of Christmas is spent in our PJs rarely going out except to visit family. Of course Santa comes to visit bringing both presents and the lesson of giving without looking for acknowledgement in return. But most of the time is spent together eating, playing and just hanging out. Memories of Christmases past brings family members back into our hearths in a happier rosier way than Samhain. My Gran was frankly a terrible cook except for the Christmas puddings she shipped across the country and oceans alike. As I write this, my puds are in the steamer bubbling away at the start of 13 hours of steaming. They are not simple, easy or fast to make, but they bring with them all the magic that is Yule.

Good Yule and Happy Holidays to you all!

Back to Top

With a name in hand, a parents thoughts turn to how to apply it to the newly hatched off-spring. One of the joys of paganism is that you can adapt almost any practice to your own purposes. One of the frustrations of paganism is that you almost always have to adapt some one else's work to get what you need. So it was with the naming of our two daughters.

For the eldest, we heavily borrowed from the traditional christening ceremony. Not so much in content but in form. We booked the local Unitarian church, hired one of their ministers and went full out with the fancy dress, formal invitations and so forth. There were a couple of reasons for going this route. First, Lee Ann wanted it that way and I wasn't going to argue with the woman who had carried our child for the last 9 months. Second, we wanted it that way. As first time parents we wanted to enjoy it all. We wanted the pomp and circumstance and the family recognition didn't hurt either. More than one good Christian family member had gone down the aisle with a bump under her wedding dress. Having a “christening” for our child conceived and delivered entirely within the bounds of wedlock reinforced to our families that maybe we weren't so weird after all.

For our second daughter, we used a more relaxed, more pagan format. We wrote a naming ritual and invited a few close friends. The whole thing was conducted in a relaxed and informal atmosphere. There is one important difference in both our naming ceremonies from mainstream practice, we did not dedicate our daughters to one specific path, we asked that they be protected on the paths of their choosing.

The first naming we did in part for acceptance both within our family and with in society. And why not? Why shouldn't we as pagans claim the same rights and rites as other religious groups? I want my daughters to grow up in a family and a world where being a pagan has all the same baggage attached to it as being a Lutheran – none at all. As a second child, I always wondered why my elder sister got all the pomp and I did not. As a parent I now realize that by the time number two comes around, you have a much better sense of what is important. The naming of our second daughter we did for ourselves, our family and our daughter. This is the best reason of all I can give you: Enjoy your children, be proud of your creations.

Back to Top

The naming of things

As Pagan’s we love names. There are craft names, dedication names, degree names and of course screen names, account names and email addresses. We surround ourselves with names of holidays, names of herbs and names of the gods themselves. We chant names, invent names create names and rediscover names. As parents, we are given a priceless gift in that we can give a name to another life.

First names

The first name is the first thing a child possesses that is truly their own, yet it is usually not something they choose for themselves, it is a gift or a curse we as parents bestow upon them. I spoke in my last column about a parent’s responsibility to allow a child to choose his or her own spiritual path, when we choose a child's name we make a critical choice for them. In that name we bind to our child our wishes for their future.

Middle names

The middle name is an interesting one. Foremost it is one component of the ultimate parental power phrase. When a parent utters all three names in sequence, a child in fact every child in ear shot knows that something big is about to go down and they had better listen up or face parental wrath.

A second use of the middle name in our family is to honour the ancestors. My eldest’s middle name is the same as my mothers and honours her favourite grandmother and one of the greatest women in British history. My youngest carries the pet name of my wife’s mother and honours both her and her heritage. The middle name is the place to have fun to, add in the unusual or provide balance to an unconventional first name.  One concern is what the initials spell. Given my first choice, my eldest would have gone through life as “RAG”. Recognizing this as a cruel and unusual punishment, “Anne” had to go in favour of “Elizabeth” giving the much less inimical “REG”

Last names

Traditionally, the last name has been an easy decision. With marriage, a woman would take her husband’s name and that was that for the child. Today we are faced with a much wider range of challenges. Women retain their own names, names are combined and hyphenated, in one couple I know of both partners took an entirely new last name to celebrate their union. A child may have two mothers or two fathers or possibly both. Sorting out this tangle is something that each set of parents must work out. My wife Lee Ann kept her last name when we married. The question of last name arose when our first daughter arrived. Lee Ann and I had both gone through school correcting pronunciation so multiplying the problem through hyphenation was out. Surrounded by amniotic fluid, umbilicus, mecomium and other by products of birth, Lee Ann was a little preoccupied so the question of the last name fell on my reluctant shoulders. As my pen hovered over the birth certificate, a voice came from over my shoulder

“She can have your father's last name or Lee Ann's father's last name – pick one”

Midwives are ever so practical. Pondering this question in this place at this time it came to me that while the identity of my daughter's mother could never be questioned, my identity as her father might be suspect. With a flourish – well rather some careful printing – “Gilliland” went into the appropriate slot the paper. My daughter would bear my last name, not to because I owned her but because I was responsible for her.

Enjoy the the privilege of naming your child, give it the respect and consideration it deserves then watch as your child grows into her name and blossoms beyond it to create her own name for herself.

Back to Top

In this column I will talk about the second aspect: The Mother, or in my case The Father.

An Introduction

My name is Patrick Gilliland and I live in Ottawa, Canada. I have been involved with things pagan for over twenty years, been hand-fasted to my wife Lee Ann for almost seventeen years and have been a father to my two girls for almost 12 years. I began on this path through a fairly conventional but public group, had a brief but enlightening encounter with Asatru then moved into a private working group. In the last couple of years, I have come back into the public realm and am following a druidic path through Ár nDraíocht Féin (ADF).

While I have acted as summoner, priest and bard, it is the role of Father that has provided me with the greatest challenges and rewards.

Give Me A Child

The Jesuits are attributed with the saying “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” I will be generous and assume the good fathers allowed for the plural in the masculine. The power of this saying is terrifying, awe inspiring and in every word - true.

A child is an innocent in the original sense of the word - “unknowing”. When you are given a child by choice or by chance you are given both opportunity and responsibility. To be a parent is to have the opportunity to mold another being, to give another life shape and direction. Your responsibility lies the choices you make. Everything you say and do will affect who that child becomes.

Many of us come from backgrounds where from good intent or ill, this power to shape has been used to confine, constrict and contain. As the Jesuits knew, if you teach a young child what to think, what to believe and what is right, that child will carry your teaching into adulthood whether they want to or not.

Do what thou wilt

"Do what thou Wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Love is the Law, love under Will."

“Magick is the Art & Science of causing change in conformity with Will."

Aleister Crowley

What Crowley says about magic is not far from the Jesuit saying. As parents, we perform magic on our children by changing them in accordance to our will. The difference I see between a pagan parent and another religious parent is how we apply our will. While another religious parent will follow the Jesuit path and mold the child to fit the religion, a pagan parent will give the child the tools to mold their own spirituality and world view. In a world of many gods, many philosophies and many religions, we cannot teach our children what to think, we must teach them how to think, we cannot teach them what to believe, we must teach them how to believe and we cannot teach them what is wrong or right, we must teach to chose right and wrong for themselves.

Traditionally the greatest fear of a parent is that by giving children choice, by allowing them to choose their life, they will not follow our path or the path we would like them to. As pagans, giving our children that choice is living our path; the path of openness and acceptance.

So give me a child and though love my will is to set her free.

Back to Top