Archive for June 21, 2006

More on Sacred Marks

So, here’s a picture of the new tattoo.
Eyes
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The more things change, the more they become Brazilian

The Wiccan community in Brazil is about 9–10 years old. Interestingly, it seems about exactly like the Wiccan community was in the U.S. when it was ten. Okay, not identical. It’s 2006. They have more Internet and less hippies. But more or less.

Traveling the country as I used to do a lot, and still do some, you see that the cliches are true; California is five years ahead of New York, which is ten years ahead of the rest of the U.S.. And it turns out that the rest of the U.S. is ten years ahead of Canada. And now I see that in Brazil, which is another twenty years behind, the pattern holds true.

“Behind” sounds insulting, and I don’t mean it to be. Trends are trends, neither good nor bad. The Brazilian Wiccans have remarkable unity. Everyone knows everyone else. They have a small repetoire of chants and songs, and they all seem to know them and really sing out. They have more Wiccans and fewer Pagans of other paths, as well as fewer solitary eclectics. They’re in the midst of some ugly Witch Wars, and are figuring out how to respond to and recover from those.

All of this is extremely reminiscent of the U.S. coasts (East and West) in the early 1970s. (Maybe throw Minneapolis, a.k.a. Paganistan, in there.) As their community grows, I anticipate Brazil will be more diverse and less divisive. They’ll also be less connected to one another.

Days like today I wish I was an anthropologist. I don’t think this is about any one specific community. It’s about the ways communities in general grow and change. Some parts of Paganism “growing up” haven’t felt very “up” to me. Being in Brazil I realize how much I miss the optimism and intensity of our own community when it was younger.