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lupagreenwolf — Leave the Witchy Kitsch At the Store, Please
Published: 2014-08-12 17:10:26 +0000 UTC; Views: 197; Favourites: 1; Downloads: 0
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Ah, mid-August, how I love thee. It’s the height of summer here in the U.S., with barbecues and campouts and calling the air conditioning repair company because the HVAC is down again. My garden is overflowing with fresh produce and I have no idea how we’re going to eat all this kale, but I’m going to make it work. And all the kiddies are trying to squeeze the last remnants of summer vacation out before having to go back to school. Even the stores are getting in on the act, with shelves and displays full of backpacks and pencils and all that other stuff on the school supply list that just arrived in the mail.
Of course, the back to school displays have been up since the fifth of July. But soon enough (probably just after Labor Day) it’ll be time shopping for Halloween, or so the chain stores say. (Sure, it’s a little early to be talking about this, but I have to beat the stores to the punch!) You can expect endless lines of green-faced witches, styrofoam tombstones, little plastic cauldrons, and strings of Christmas-style lights with translucent smiling skulls and ghosts. Right on cue, the feeds on my social media profiles–Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter–will be full of squealing pagans all excited about “Look at all this Halloween stuff I got from Michael’s for just twenty bucks! They had a sale!” and “I got this cute gargoyle statue with red LED eyes at Wal-mart!” (In fact, I’ve already seen a few posts–apparently Michael’s already has their Halloween stuff out. Yikes.)
Most of the time I just hold my tongue and cringe. The very same pagans who have been reblogging and sharing calls to action about fracking in Canada and human rights abuses in Gaza are proudly displaying cheap, chintzy tchotchkes that are the products of environmental degradation and slave labor.
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Comments: 3
I think this is an important message that more people ought to be thinking about. I think that pagans, in particular, have a responsibility to critically examine the consumerist messages of our culture. If our consumerist lifestyles threaten the economy, especially in major consuming nations like the U.S. and China (and they certainly do), then we as pagans, as those who respect the old gods and the earth that is their dominion, as those who worship deities like time, chaos, the earth, the sea, as those who speak with the spirits of rocks and trees, it is our responsibility to step outside those consumerist lifestyles. It is our responsibility to make informed choices about the goods, services, and foods we buy, the businesses we support, and the waste we create. It is our responsibility to think about the lands of our ancestors and the future of our descendants. If there is anyone in the world who should recognize the importance of the spiritual and the material, it is us.
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And, most importantly, it's our responsibility to think about things, to not just act blindly.
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