The Soapbox of an Eclectic Witch

I don't get up on a soapbox often. I'm short, you think I'd feel the need to reach up here occasionally, but I just let you do you and me do me and leave the soapboxes for others. But as a pagan coming out of the broom closet to not only family and friends but to the world via social media... I need a soapbox for this one.

Cultural appropriation - Oxford Reference A term used to describe the taking over of creative or artistic forms, themes, or practices by one cultural group from another. It is in general used to describe Western appropriations of non‐Western or non‐white forms, and carries connotations of exploitation and dominance.
www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095652789

I've seen so many religions and races of every fiber yelping about this one. I've seen Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Asian, Native American, white, black, green, slightly ecru, and mutts yelling about it. I've been accused of it, and recently I read a blog with a 13 year old newly beginning pagan who wanted to do something she believed would keep a dark entity away from her little brother, but she was afraid to because she thought it wouldn't work because it was appropriated... and hence ~ my soapbox.

Nothing in the world is original. Christianity, Buddaism, Paganism, Mythology, Spirituality, and every other indigenous religious movement has spread from the equator to the prime meridian and back again. Each culture has something that builds on another, changes it up, and makes it their own. Anyone remember Poeseidon & Neptune? Atremis & Diana? Aphrodite & Venus? Eros & Cupid & Saint Valentine? Heracles & Hercules? Selene & Luna? Who was wrong? The Greeks or the Romans? Neither, Because they did it their own way. God, Allah, Yahweh, El Shaddai, Jehovah... No one is appropriating because they use a different name or if they share. It just is.

And it's not just religion!

I can't line dance, I cant two-step, I can't waltz.. but I can shake my ass! Oops, I'm white? Am I appropriating? I'm a white (pasty) southern coonass from Louisiana. Does that mean I am required to be Southern Baptist and only cook Cajun food? Yeah, I can rock some gumbo and make a killer etouffee, but I make a mean tortilla soup and a decent stir fry too! A pretty awesome Puerto Rican kid I know taught me how to make pappas rellenas (and I'm probably butchering that spelling.. Sorry, O'Malley!) and I taught her how to make a gumbo. It wasn't appropriated by either of us. IT WAS SHARED in love of both cultures with a loved one to spread the knowledge and love of food!! OH! And a sweet Lumbee I know got a lumpia recipe from her Filipino uncle to share with me, and I'm pretty damned good at that too!

That said, if I want to smoke cleanse my house and use the word smudging, I will. I'm not appropriating it. How? you say.. because I can. You don't know my history. You don't know the years I spent learning within a Lakota Sioux tribe who taught me to smudge and never once told me it was smoke cleansing because I'm white. I can have a totem animal, not just because I think they're awesome (I do, and they are!), but because I earned one, but you didn't know that either. And I shouldn't have to explain myself to anyone! You should just mind your own.

So don't tell me I'm appropriating. I'm practicing my personal beliefs and I'll call it whatever I damned well please. Don't belittle someone who wants to make her family safe and tell her she's wrong for cleansing her home, just because she called it smudging because it's all she knew. She wasn't "..carrying connotations of exploitation and dominance". I'm glad she went ahead and did it. Did it help? I don't know. But I know that in anything we do in our life, INTENT is what matters.

I don't care what you're cleansing with, who you're praying to, or what you carry around to feel better. Smoke, smudge, Fabuloso, Lysol, God, Wakan Tanka, Zeus, Selene, Allah, grimoires, bibles, Korans, crystals, feathers, sticks, stones, jellybeans, or a fifth of Jack... whatever.

You do you.

Let me do me.

Let them do them.

And mind your own fracking business unless you're directly attacked.

Pagan or not, THE WORLD needs these words.

These Eight words the Rede fulfill:
"An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will"