When I move into a new home, I bless each room and ask the spirit of the house to make us welcome. I burn incense in a little cauldron and feel happy to simply ask that sad events be past, leaving space for our future. I give thanks to the Goddess for a safe and strong dwelling. Next time will be a little different. In the summer, my sister’s family and my own will be merging. We intend to rent a house together in Stroud, and start up a business centred on Arts Therapies. In time it may become a full-blown community, which is very exciting/scary/insane/the only future worth considering.
So, I would like the ritual at the beginning to be quite important and carefully considered, a putting into words of what we intend to give, and what we expect to receive. I’ll be taking note of the guidelines suggested by Arlea (VIATOR Vol. 1 Issue 1) on the purpose and wording of vows, because although we won’t necessarily promise the rest of our lives to each other, we will be putting everything we have or will have in the foreseeable future into this. Anyone who suddenly opts out would destroy the others financially, if not emotionally. It could be suggested that, in the absence of an actual legal contract, we could simply draw up a list of necessary conditions – responsibilities and privileges. We probably will, since all of us are addicted to making lists! But holding a ritual to declare our intentions and limits clearly could enhance our determination to stick to them through the rough bits. Not a public ceremony you understand, just the eight of us (nine, if my ex-step daughter comes too – hold that hope for me, people?) and any local Deities who care to oversee. Like most ceremonies, it is particularly important, on one level, for the children. They could see the adults promising to uphold an agreement before their Gods, and be encouraged to make their own commitments, such as to respect the space and possessions of others in the house. We can exchange little gifts as symbols of our ‘vows’ to help us remember them, and it might help start off our new status (as housemates?) from a specific point. It doesn’t have to be on the day we move in, though by the end of the first week is probably a good idea. I’d like to include a story – perhaps a myth about very different people who found a way of living together. If anyone has any ideas about the content of, or possible drawbacks to, such a ritual, I’d be interested to read it in the next issue of VIATOR. Or talk to me, and my sister, at the Community Camp.
Having begun to talk about our potential community,
I’d like to share some of the reasons behind wanting it.
I’ve felt so lonely, for so long, that it seems like a
solution to a problem; but I am aware I could be creating
one. There is more to being…what is the opposite of
lonely...full?...than filling the house with people. We will
argue, we will irritate each other, the expenses and space
can’t always be fair. It would be easier to move to a
pagan activity spot and get involved on a when-I-want-to
basis. And of course, that is an element of community. Those
who constantly organise things get a bad deal though, because
the commitment doesn’t work both ways. They give, and
presumably get something out of that giving, and it’s
nice to be needed by the people who become dependent. But in
the end that’s not (my definition of) community, because
there’s no balance. It appears to be extremely hard to
develop a community – be it religious, neighbourhood or
ethnic-based – unless a crisis occurs or is ongoing (see
arguments against ‘normalising’ paganism). Without
crisis, it is left to a minority of strong individuals to
keep things going till they burn out or give up, handing it
to the next in a finite line of motivated people. Those who
‘support’ are often willing to do more, but
don’t quite know how, and suddenly it’s too late.
Oh well. So why bother? Essentially, it seems to depend on
whether or not one believes in a further purpose to our lives
than each individual existence. If this life is all we have,
it makes sense to arrange as easy a path as possible,
doesn’t it? (And hope you can ignore the possibly of a
dependent old age – maybe you’ll die painlessly in
your sleep when doing the housework gets too difficult.) But
if there is more, and I’m assuming that the majority of
people reading this at least consider the possibility, then
belonging to a community is a very realistic way of living.
For example, I used to dread the possibility of giving birth
to a child that had physical or intellectual impairments; or
that one of my children may have an accident and acquire such
impairments. Not because I would feel unable to love them or
look after them during their childhood but because I feared
the never-ending responsibility of an adulthood that
didn’t spell independence. It’s hard to imagine a
caring role that goes on indefinitely. However, any
relationship based on more than business has the potential
for becoming dependent though illness or accident or mental
distress, and all relationships are interdependent. I work
with disabled children, and there just isn’t room for
bland and patronising emotions like pity. In one flash of
introspection I saw an immensely powerful individual, a
president perhaps, ending his life with the wish that he
hadn’t had all that responsibility, that he would rather
forego any responsibility at all. His next life is spent
discovering the frustration of being unable to take
responsibility, or in learning that hard-won autonomy is
sweet…or experiencing his own rotten policies on
disability. Fact is, all individuals have their own strengths
and weaknesses, and a society comprised entirely of
able-bodied (sic) independent adults may be much easier but
is ultimately unrealistic and sterile. I guess that’s
why the debate about ‘adult only’ pagan events is
so heated; when does ‘no children’ become ‘no
one intellectually impaired’ or ‘no one
depressed’? I can hear the man on the door saying
“Well, that one in the wheelchair can come in, but if
that one’s going to shout, you’ll have to find a
babysitter.” (Sure, some stuff is inappropriate for
children – if I were a Christian I’d keep my kids
well away from all that ‘nail him to a cross’ stuff
at Easter, same as I play down the sacrifice of the Corn King
in my own Lammas rituals. Other parents would argue that
children ignore what they don’t need.) People make
strange assumptions about other people’s quality of
life. Lots of people live lives I wouldn’t want, but
making judgements about how they ‘must’ feel is
hardly helpful.
Living with others involves a lot of compromise, but it is my
belief that living with others who understand where
you’re coming from and can hear what you’re saying
is deeply cathartic, easing the deep loneliness at the heart
of so many individuals. Within community, people learn to
accept each other’s differences, instead of pretending
they don’t exist, and to deal with emotions as they come
up. To utilise Arlea’s advice again, I won’t list
all the things a community shouldn’t be. I could fill a
page with illustrations of unhealthy dependent relationships
that sour and stunt a person’s individual growth, and
fill equal space with the practical advantages of having
three or more adults around, with regard to childcare and
domestic stuff and the pool of diverse talents and
skills.
Community means so many things; a recent study showed that
there are 94 different definitions, with the only common
denominator being that they all involve people, but it’s
a wonderfully positive image to which people can fit their
own definition. For me, it is a place of support, in which
one will be called upon to support others. It’s a place
that develops and changes with the people that inhabit it,
but which has the boundaries necessary to make it a safe
place. It doesn’t have to be a place people live in, its
only criteria are mutual respect, commitment, and honesty.
Community usually has a purpose, but that purpose could
simply be to provide a place of respite for its members. A
community is more than the sum of its parts. It is filled and
extended by Spirit.