A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Now Playing: The One We Shall Follow by Elvenking

Before y’all get on my ass about this, yes, I know I’ve written about loneliness and alienation in paganism before, but bear with me. The throes of melancholy and pagan solitude have been gripping my soul and I want to talk about it.

So overall, there are many aesthetics and vibes within paganism, and they all vary wildly, between the more commonly seen witchy aesthetic to the more subdued and hidden aesthetic of what I have come to call the “heavy metal pagan”, and many more in between and beyond. (Think Elvenking or my own look for examples of the “heavy metal pagan” look.)

While my personal vibe is more on the metal side of pagan (I am, after all, a simple metalhead), I have no gripes with the witchy aesthetic. If it works for other people, who am I to complain about it? The main gripe I have with it is the representation of the pagan experience in media. Let me explain.

There is very little active pagan representation in any form of traditional media, leaving pagans who want representation to look for alternative channels to find community and representation. While the specific kind of representation desired will depend from person to person, I think that a lot of the popular representation of pagan practices in the modern day stems from a lot of Wiccan reconstruction practices and their popularity over the last hundred or so years, which I have my own problems with, but I’ve already touched on that elsewhere.

The thing is, when there is a specific form of something that becomes popular to any extent, that form becomes the default for that thing. And in the eyes of the larger society, at least from what I’ve seen, once a default is established for a specific group or activity, there’s often very little room to change or play around with that default.

This becomes especially frustrating when it comes to paganism in particular, because it is such an individual experience as a religious path. Even though there may be specific parts of the Wiccan/witchy aesthetic that will appeal to the majority, there are also people who, like me, will see that becoming the default and may, as a result, feel like they don’t have a place, given the differences in the expected default and the lived reality of their experience.

While many will still find community through other groups and friends, it can still be weird, even when they have people who understand their experience. My own experience is a good example of this, where my pagan practice is so deeply entwined with my love of music, and especially metal, that trying to separate them isn’t really possible, and is also the reason Elvenking’s music resonates much with my experience. It shows that side of paganism that defines a life that is far more complex and real and, at least to me, relatable, than the witchy aesthetic that has become so commonplace.