Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Finding a path without the male/female binary...

All the pagan and wicca or sub-wicca paths and books I'm reading seem to have a very strong gender binary at the heart of things. God and Goddess. It's there in the wheel of the year, it's there in the high-ritual-qabala I'm reading, and so on.

I don't believe Male and Female are these two essential poles, and I don't believe they have these innate qualities, like water/fire, or active/passive. While they are admittedly powerful symbols, they are not symbols I want to support.

On the contrary - I do a lot of feminist work around breaking down "women are like X but men are like X" stereotypes, and lots of queer activism too, with people who are genderqueer, genderfluid, agendered and so on. It seems ridiculous to revere a concept religiously which I fight against in real life, and two enshrine two genders as most important when, to me at least, they're not.

I know there are individual deities who are queer-er or gendercomplex, but the new age frameworks for revering them - at least, the ones which are widely available - all default back to male candle/female candle stuff. I'm not at a point where I can freewheel, I need 101ish resources to give me groundings.

Any path suggestions? Book suggestions? Ways of approaching the resources I have to create something which isn't in violation of my value system?

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