Why Weird?

I’ve changed the tagline of this blog every year. I didn’t keep track of past taglines but they were something like “one year of living as Pagan” (2019) and “a second year of Pagan living and learning” (2020). Hopefully they were a bit more catchy than that but that was the idea. At this point I’m 100% certain I will continue to be Pagan. It’s part of who I am. So what to do with the tagline?

I always have a “word of the year.” It’s something that just comes to me rather than something I deliberately pick out. Around the beginning of a new year, I get a general sense of what the upcoming year will be like. The word that sticks in my mind speaks to a major theme of the year. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it a prediction but so far it’s always been accurate. 2021’s word? It’s “weird.”

One reason I think this word works, particularly in the context of this blog, is that I anticipated not being able to keep up with regular writing. Is it weird that I’m explaining the 2021 tagline in May? Yep. Is it weird that the first sabbat I blogged about in 2021 was Beltane? Yep. Will I continue to post on a weird, irregular schedule? Probably.

I also think “weird” makes sense in the context of current events. It stands in defiant contrast to “getting back to normal.” Things are decidedly not normal yet: the pandemic continues to rage around the world, and even here in Canada, ICUs are at capacity and there aren’t enough vaccines to go around (although that has recently started changing, hooray!). Is business as usual really what we want, anyway, when the climate is in crisis and people of colour fear for their safety and so many people work hard yet still can’t earn a living? Things are weird (and worse), they’re going to be weird for a while, and maybe instead of returning to whatever “normal” is, we should be thinking outside the box.

Finally, from a personal perspective, “weird” is something I’m embracing this year. I’ve spent too long worrying what people think of me and of my Paganism in particular. There are topics I’ve been afraid to address here for fear that people whose opinions matter to me will think less of me for it. I could say all sorts of things about this – I can’t control what other people think, people who judge me negatively for being Pagan don’t deserve more respect than they give me in return, no one is downplaying their Christianity or atheism to make me more comfortable, etc. – but I think my most practical take is that nothing I can do, short of ceasing to be Pagan, will make this issue go away. The best I could hope for is that people think I’m “not like those other Pagans,” which is hardly a worthy goal. So I might as well be blatantly, wholeheartedly, flamboyantly, sincerely, earnestly Pagan in all appropriate contexts, which certainly includes this blog.

With any luck, things will just get weirder around here from now on.