The Tribe of the Outsiders

 I have spent some time reading about the race issues at the rather infamous Pantheacon. I’ve never been there.  I’ve heard a lot about how important stuff gets discussed there.  How the pagan panels and deep discussions forge the future for paganism.   

On reflecting upon my own experience at Convocation I wondered why I didn’t really feel that kind of energy there.  I wondered if we needed to make a space for “Persons of Color” or POC (which is a phrase I am still getting used to).  Personally, I would find such a thing to be a fine idea if it helped people. 

Apparently people shouted, “Racist!” at the people who were in that suite for pagans of color at Pantheacon.  I can’t really imagine it; the rudeness of it. I tried to imagine that happening at my own home convention of Convocation.  I really did.  All I could imagine was that if someone actually did that, there would be a host of people shushing that foolish individual who obviously must have been drunken past all understanding.  I imagine compassion for this crazy person who called strangers racist.  There would have been support for the people in the suite who had to hear it.   Hugs and reassurance of love for those who needed it would have been available.  Convocation has had a reputation for a lack of focus on “serious paganism” but not for insanity, at least not of that sort.

I wonder if my inability to imagine that sort of racism is because Convocation is hosted in the shadow of Motown, a city known for powerful black leadership.  I wonder if I’m just naïve and this sort of thing does happen.

I was in the ballroom on Saturday night when our very own awesome DJ Tommy Toony spoke movingly about the killing of both black and transgendered individuals.   I was shocked and thrilled as he spoke about action and coming together as outsiders to the majority culture.  I was even more thrilled as the crowd of costumed and masked individuals shouted out their approval of his words.  I stood there, listening, as a priestess of the earth: a person who tries to walk in balance. I am the daughter of a transgendered person, the godmother of a person of color.  A friend and ally and member of the growing movement of the Outsiders and I was proud of us in that moment.

This is one of the secrets of our path.  One of the things that unify us is, in fact, that we are not unified.  We stand together in glorious diversity.  A rainbow of skin color, hair texture, Gods worshiped, paths walked, genders both chosen and un-chosen, family found, kept, and made.    We are a tribe and we know our members when we meet them.  Heart to heart we walk to an inner drumbeat that echoes through our veins.

We were sweaty and loud, and in that moment I felt the power of our wild abandon.  We were drunken revelers, shouting our cry to the Gods, balancing both joy and pain on the knife-edge of life.  We are the Tribe of the Outsider.  Our power is that of the trickster and the fool, the sage and the hermit.

In my tradition, at the beginning of every rite we give offerings to the Outsiders.  

The Outsiders are all the gods and spirits who won’t be included in the ritual.  This is a broad category.  This group includes the troublesome spirits that might disturb us, the wild titanic forces of chaos that could destroy us, the strange unknowable spirits that we don’t understand.  But we don’t cut them out.  Rather than building a barrier by casting a circle against them we offer them gifts.  We ask that they enter into relationship with us.  “Here,” we say, “take this thing from us and do not trouble us.”  It works surprisingly well. 

I find it ironic that in the larger world of culture and politics we are the Outsiders even while we give offerings to them in our own rituals to keep the peace with them. The paradox is that each of us is both the outsider and the trusted friend who is welcome at the fire.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

So I hold out my hand to the stranger, I speak my mind with compassion and truth.  I am part of the tribe of Convocation, a unity of diversity.  A polytheist who believes stridently that there is more than one right answer to any question and is proud to be part of the Tribe of the Outsiders.  Won’t you join me?