Can you be Pagan in the city?

[evadarkness]

If you ask some people what is pagan they throw out a wikapedia like answer about Romans calling people who lived in the country (and were therefore not civilised like the city Romans) pagans.

Now - there are many paths, some seem to follow Norse beliefs some more Celtic, some maybe even Indian or Asian. There certainly does seem to be a strong link between rituals and the times of year - and connection to countryside, or at least outdoors.

Soooooo can you really be pagan if you live in the city? How would this effect your beliefs, following of the wheel and rituals. Is getting out to open space at specific times enough or is something somewhat lost when one is not so connected to the earth?

[moonsmith]

Hi Marie,
If you can't be a Pagan in the city then you can't be a Pagan anywhere. It is an Earth based belief not a countryside based one.
For sure the average Pagan including myself would rather have trees in sight and be standing barefoot on grass - but then the average English person would rather be living in a house that looked out onto a field or a lake.

I DO think that there is a lot of work to do to take Paganism into the city and find the Goddess in the tarmac. Luckily I do not feel called to attempt this task as I'm not sure where I would start.

As far as my OWN development is concerned I am not the least interested in etymology or even history. The world has moved on far too fast. For me, recency has become more significant than history or even tradition. Most of my traditions start now! The majority started in the 60's anyway. [Recognises knowing smiles on the faces of those in some closed orders and smiles knowingly back! Don't kid yourselves kids ]

[Singe]

Yes. The Romans were a polytheistic pagan civilisation until they were christianised like the rest of pagan europe. So were the Greeks, Egyptians etc...

Off on another tangent as the Celts were not city based can you be a celtic reconstructionist, pagan or Druid and live in a city???

Wassail
Singe

[moonsmith]

As we have so very little on which to re-construct anything and as we can never reconstruct the motives, reasoning, fears and mental constructs of those people - Yep - we can do it anywhere. If we can't then we are hardly doing anything worthwhile.

Practically every belief system in the world has its roots in an agrarian society and most have made it into the city. It must be easier for the new ones.

Does a Christian feel any compulsion to take up carpentry?

Pat.

[Kiel]

I always thought the romans and other ancient people held an adversarial relationship with nature, prefering cities and associated civilisation gods. In contrast us modern city folk who see nature in pictures and on the discovery channel can appreciate it's beauty without experiencing... a cold freezing night in shropshire for example. Are city folk coming to paganism actually more profilic than those coming from the countryside?

[glyn]

I always think this is a bit of an anathema, are there no green spaces in the city? Do we not have gardens / balconies / window boxes where we connect with nature? No gardens we can visit or spend time in, what about allotments?

Birmingham is one of the greenest cities in the country, for instance so I think it is a great shame to paint cities as being nothing but tarmac, this is simply not the case!!

[scruffybrooky]

May 4, 2009 18:18:23 GMT 1 evadarkness said:

Soooooo can you really be pagan if you live in the city? How would this effect your beliefs, following of the wheel and rituals. Is getting out to open space at specific times enough or is something somewhat lost when one is not so connected to the earth?

I personally do not find city life (albeit I'm on the outskirts) to be a barrier to my practice. One is as connected to nature as one chooses to be. I walk to work in ten minutes, every week day, and try to observe every animal, tree and hedge that I pass, for the signs. As many weekends as possible I try to escape somewhere where observation is easier, often the Lickey Hills. Observation of the seasons, I will grant is easier the closer you are to the countryside, there is a wider variety of sources to draw on in terms of plant and animal life. This does not devalue the internal work that can be done within one's mind. Meditation on the season's, even purely calendar based and the connection to divinity that comes with it, to me is worth more that someone who lives closer to the countryside, but only appreciates it on a cosmetic, rather than spiritual level. Indeed, on another thread I have commented that I believe calendar based worship to be important, as the folk memory in the collective unconscious associated with the date can aid a ritual, in my opinion.

I accept that the etymology of the word Pagan is believed to be along the lines of it meaning "rustic", or similiar. It is questionable to me whether rustic life has the same meaning that it once did. I have a friend who's only neighbour with in easy walking distance is a farm, and the family do their weekly shop at a leading supermarket. So even to those living in the countryside (unless ones income is directly tied to farming) it makes little odds whether the local crops fail. Food stuffs will merely be brought in from another corner of the "global village" at high environmental cost. This is why in modern Pagan literature terms such as harvest, have taken a metaphorical meaning. In times gone by in the hard existence that countryside living presented, and to a lesser extent still can, a ritual for a good harvest would be at least as much for the literal as the metaphorical. Paganism has shown itself to be fluid, and to adapt to the needs of the modern world. Surely the question is less about whether you can be a Pagan in the city, as to whether you can be rustic, and therefore Pagan in that sense of the word, in modern society?

I can be Pagan, within my own definition, within the city. It is far harder to live a rustic existance, anywhere, in modern western society.

[treaclemine]

For me, it's really important to be working to bring nature back into the city.

To me, that means both opposing and removing all inappropriate building and hard landscaping, and encouraging and nurturing habitats for all things growing, particularly native species of plants, animals and fungi.

Is anyone reading involved in Birmingham Trees for Life, as an example: www.btfl.org.uk/ ?

[sleepyowl]

If you grow your own produce or at least some flowers then season does affect you & that can be done in the urban environment, plus not all the gods of mythology were rural anyway, the vast majority were admittedly but if you look at Athene for example she ruled the cities.

[Syrbal]

Indeed, and the central Roman Gods, originally were not so much Jupiter and Juno, but Vesta, who is the goddess of the hearth fire. The Vestal Virgins looked after the eternal fire of Vesta, the home hearth of the Empire, and thus the centre of the Empire!

And don't forget the Laraes (Sp?) the household gods. Very important, and I hope everyone is paying attention to them! In modern times they very often manifest as brownies and other Fae, but are important to your well-being. Look after your household spirits, and they will look after you.