Living Traditions

For a long time I’ve noticed something in the magical and polytheist communities that I’ve been in: people who belong to living, lineaged, ancient traditions get special respect. There’s something about it that suggests that the person is doing it “right” and in some cases that’s the person’s new attitude after their initiation.

This threw me into an inferiority complex for years. I had friends initiate to Lukumi, to Palo, to Tibetan Buddhism, to Catholicism, to Hindu tantra, and other traditions. Many of those traditions either didn’t fit me or I didn’t fit them, for reasons, and other traditions I have pursued I’ve come to a similar conclusion: I am spiritually an odd duck and I’m not sure that I’m going to find what I want in a living, ancient tradition, or even find one that accepts me as a queer, trans, polytheistic weirdo.

It’s been depressing, honestly. Everyone wants to feel like they belong to something, everyone wants to feel that the things that they belong to are significant, and everyone feels like shit when someone brags about how their way is better.

The thing is, I’ve had initiations; I just no longer belong to the groups I have those rituals through; that doesn’t mean (in this case) that my relationships with the dieties that I had those initiations to are any lessened. I am not a reconstructionist but I am inspired by ancient practice and I worship ancient gods; I belong to a lineage, just not a nice fancy initiatory tradition that has existed for over a thousand years, which is the kind of living tradition that I’ve been feeling less-than for not being a part of.

A couple of things have happened that have made that a bit easier for me. After a session of daily offerings and prayers an ancestor came and tugged at me and I heard her out. She told me that I didn’t need to be “Christian or Chinese” (by Chinese I assume she meant Buddhist?), that I could just worship the gods that are good to me, and that can be enough. I appreciated her candor, and her insistence that I do not need to join someone elses’ club for my spiritual path and practices to be valid, and that reminder that they are valid because here I was listening to a long-dead person comforting me theologically and socially.

I did divination about it next. I called to my guiding powers and asked them “Will I ever find My Thing? Will I ever find a living tradition to join?” and the answer from the divination was: you already have what you need, consider what you have already invested in, you are loved by your powers.

I thought about it, and in a lot of ways all that is right; I’ve been engaging in daily spiritual practices all my life, spread into polytheism in my teens, and while the flavor of polytheism has varied over the years I’ve maintained good relationships with most of the powers I’ve honored at one point or another if not regular daily devotion and connection. My gods do love me, they do support me, if they didn’t I wouldn’t honor them. I’ve learned endless techniques over the last thirty or more years to enhance communication and connection with them, to find and embody their guidance. Why do I have the feeling that something is missing?

Honestly, I think a lot of it is social. In the occult circles I’ve been frequenting in recent years and the polytheist circles I’ve been frequenting since long before that, belonging to an ancient tradition was a mark of legitimacy. If you belong to a lineaged, initiatory tradition you are just a better spirit worker, a better witch or magician, a better priestess, and the gods and spirits love you more, or so the logic goes.

What if that’s not true, though? What if the hard work I’ve done over the years, the contant hours of meditation, of prayer, of energetic and spiritual practice, of spirit work, the tonnes of offerings, the ritual initiations performed both by myself and by groups… what if all of those things actually counted for something and made me competent at what I do? What if the repeated messages of my gods, spirits, and ancestors (you know, the kind of messages I normally try to learn from) are true and I don’t need to belong to someone’s spirit club but actually have a wealth of powerful connections, relationships, and practices already? What if I trusted my own powers on that?

I get nervous trusting my own powers without any kind of check, but I no longer belong to a specific magical community and spiritual guidance is hard to find as a western polytheist; you really have to find someone you trust in a bunch of different ways and I’ve had a lot of smoke blown up my ass by charlatans over the years. I do think that community is valuable, because they can help check you when you’re going off the deep end or losing the plot. While I don’t have a tradition to go to for those things, I do have a lot of other friends who are competent at what they do willing to discuss and talk these things over and help me divine on them. So far not a single divination done by someone else has said, “Girl, you need to go get a mark drawn on your forehead and join a new religion.” They have, however, said to value the skills and relationships that I have spent a lifetime building.

I don’t know. I feel really sad, because it hurts to see friends and people you admire think less of you because you don’t belong to an Approved Religion Club, and I would have hoped to have left that behind when I decided not to follow either the religion of my upbringing or the popular ones where I live (Islam and Christianity). I’d hope modern polytheists would be understanding and supportive of one another, but it really seems that when one joins one of these traditions there is an almost immediate disdain and disapproval for western polytheism. Maybe that’s a them problem and not a me problem, but it’s hard not to let it hurt when yet another friend joins a tradition and suddenly has all the answers and begins to disapprovingly call other polytheists “neopagans” as an insult.

I can’t live my life by their standards, I have to live my life by mine. So far I haven’t found an Approved Religion Club that a) I agree with and b) agrees with my existence and c) is accessible. Despite literally crying into the night sky and asking for anyone to guide me, nobody has come for me but my own gods and guides. Maybe my ancestor was right, maybe they’re enough, and maybe they should be enough.

Maybe, despite not belonging to a lineaged initiatory tradition, I am enough. I think that’s what my powers have been trying to get through to me, and I’m working on coming to terms with and accepting it.