Dreaming the Future

Those images, however, are not destined to completely disappear, but to root themselves in the souls of those that let themselves be touched by them. They will create the awareness that another world is possible, they will make love, respect and desire bloom, in a place where only indifference reigned before.
The manifestation of a deep and authentic beauty has the capacity of penetrating places that rivers of words cannot touch and, in the end, this beauty is none other than the unveiling of the immanence of divinity, which, in a mere instant, bring us to acquiring, at a much deeper level than the rational one, the awareness that what happens around us, happens inside ourselves, as well.

Let’s have look around. It’s clear that the world as we have known it is dying.

The sixth mass extinction in the history of this planet has started; the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached levels never before touched in three million years; meterological phenomena have been changing not at a rhythm of geological eras or centuries, but of mere generations.

Probably life on earth will go on, in some way or another, but our own presence is far from being a given; like singing grasshoppers after a summer of carefree revelry, we are now noticing that winter is approaching at great speed.

In this unprecedented scenery, we should maybe ask ourselves what the role of modern forms of paganism should be.

Many of us approached these paths, following an irresistible call, a siren song resonating in our soul and telling us of a place that would bring us back home. This is how we felt when we discovered that the Gods are alive, that the very universe is alive and aware and that magic is a powerful chant flowing under the skin of every life form: we felt a profound sense of belonging.  For many of us the pagan community, with all its faults, was the place where we discovered that another reality is possible, that  another way of living our lives existed. Many of us felt as if we were back home after a long absence.

I am personally convinced that new paganisms have much to offer to the contemporary world. If it’s true that spiritual paths form a kaleidoscope of shapes and colors, where every element brings a shade, a facet of Truth (which can never be attributed in its entirety to a single source). It’s also true that there are important messages, preserved in the many folds of our traditions, that the human race has ignored for far too long and that are now desperately needed.

Is there something beyond flowing dresses, evocative celebrations, and the desire to escape from a bleak reality that is perceived as devoid of meaning and magic? Is there something beyond the desire to belong and the captivating surface?

Do we have, like Miyazaki’s Tanukis, an image of beauty to donate to this world, a song of love and desire, a magic to weave so that we can show the path to a better future?

In the end, as Pandora’s myth teaches, hope is always the first step to take in order to exit from darkness; but hope needs a dream and an inspiration, to arise.

One of the set points of neo-pagans spiritual paths is the absence of proselytism, partly because there’s a refusal of the monotheistic idea of there being only one way to salvation, and partly because many traditions have a mysteric and initiatory nature and are thus precluded to the masses.

During the years I spent into my tradition (the “Tempio di Ara”) I have seen first-hand how the initiatory and mysteric path is an all-encompassing experience, that not everybody could and would face; but, at the same time, I am convinced that the core of our teachings is nurturing a spark of the sacred fire we need to awaken; that it represents a part of the truth that the world needs to re-discover and listen to.

There is a paradox that stretches between the need of guarding the meaning of an initiatory path and the necessity to make it so that the transformation we are looking for can happen not only inside us, but in the reality all around us;  the desire to become agents of the change we want to see in the world. This shouldn’t scare us or paralyze us in meaningless fights, because, as we well know, magic feeds on paradoxes.

Let’s not allow a spreading narcissism and the dark side of the New Age movement to lock ourselves in our self-referential fences, where obtaining a captivating title, an initiation or self-proclaiming ourselves the reincarnation of someone represent, at the same time, the ultimate goal and the source of endless frustrations and disheartening infighting. Let’s find the way to open our fences, to let our messages out, because if it’s true that we will always have frauds and people looking only to appease their silliest superficial needs, it is also true that one can’t love what one doesn’t know. As the people looking at the Tanuki illusion, there will be the ones shaking their heads and getting back to navel gazing and there will be the ones that will let themselves be touched and transformed by beauty.

We have to find the way to negotiate this paradox together, the way to step out from the fences we have built (and that will end up suffocating us) to bring what we have to say out into the world, without betraying our roots.

Let’s make the world fall in love with our illusion, let’s create new dreams. Dreams we can fight for, that can gift us with a different perspective and reawaken the sources of collective inspiration.

That’s the greatest magic we can ever hope to achieve.

Giulia Turolla, March 2019