Raven Kaldera

Raven is the author of eight books, including: The Urban Primitive: Paganism in the Concrete Jungle, Handfasting and Wedding Rituals: Inviting Hera's Blessing, and Hermaphrodeities: The Transgender Spirituality Workbook. His interests are so broad, and his perspective so unique, that I'd better let him speak for himself:

"I'm a pagan shaman, priest, astrologer and diviner, farmer and homesteader, FTM transgendered intersex activist, and King of the Pagan Kingdom of Asphodel, which is also the First Kingdom Church of Asphodel. I'm a walker between worlds, and a pagan fundamentalist."

The Second Circle: What is your background in Paganism? How long have you been practicing and what paths have you followed?

Raven Kaldera: I was visited by a goddess at the age of four in a dream, and She told me that I belonged to Her and that She would come back for me eventually. At the time, I didn't know who She was, although I knew that the face She wore for me wasn't her real one. By the age of 12, I was doing magic out of medieval spellbooks in the library, and making altars to Greek and Egyptian deities that I'd read about in mythology books. At 14, I met my first love, who happened to be the eldest child of a Gardnerian high priestess, and that's how I got into my first coven. I was lucky; these days no coven would dare to secretly take in and train a 14-year-old without the knowledge of parents. Too much liability. So I am incredibly grateful to that first coven of initiatory Wiccans who put their safety on the line for me.

Soon afterwards, She came back for me, and told me that I was Her tool and Her servant. I'd figured out by then that She was a death goddess, but I didn't know which one, and I was still under the mistaken impression that they all blended together. Anyhow, I went through several pagan groups after the Gardenerian coven - a Dianic group, an eclectic granola-pagan group, and at one point I did six months in an Umbanda house in order to deal with my latest problem - god- possession. Neo-pagans in general had been completely bewildered and unhelpful around this issue; the Umbanda folk fixed me up and taught me how to be a proper horse.

In my mid-20s, things began to get worse for me. My congenital illnesses got worse, to the point where I nearly died of hemorrhaging. My gender dysphoria - I'm an intersexual - closed in on me, after years of denial. My brain chemistry fluctuated to the point where I had a psychotic break. On top of this, gods and spirits and ghosts started bothering me in earnest. I had visions of Her dismembering me and putting me back together differently. Large pieces of my personality vanished, never to return. I got to see Her true face for the first time - half beautiful woman, half rotting corpse - and learned Her name. Hel, the death goddess of my ancestors.

I had no idea what was happening to me until I read some anthropology books and stumbled across the phenomenon of the tribal shaman, in many cultures around the world. My experiences, even as a white modern American, were being exactly described by the forced death-and-rebirth scenarios of the shaman, be they Amerindian or Korean or Siberian or African or Saami. The protracted illness, the temporary psychosis, the near-death-experience, the dismemberment hallucination, the spirits - all were recognizeable. I didn't know how one became a shaman properly - I had no old guy in the hut to go to for help, and Hel made it clear to me that I was only allowed to use European and Northwest Asian symbols, context, techniques, and religion. I've spent much of my life since trying to reconstruct something useful out of the bits and pieces that are left to us.

These days, I'm part of Asphodel, which is a pagan group of wonderful people. We aren't Wiccans; we're reclaiming the ancient rites of many European cultures, and creating a modern polytheistic pagan community.

TSC: How do you feel Paganism has changed since you started out?

R.K.: When I started out, there were three varieties of Wicca, and maybe some heathen and Greek reconstructionist groups that I couldn't find. Now here are hundreds of sects and traditions. Wicca may be the single largest group - and even it has split into many sects - but the other groups are cumulatively starting to outnumber it.

I often say that Wicca is to Neo-Paganism as Catholicism is to Christianity, and by that analogy, I'm the equivalent of a Mennonite.

TSC: What is one thing that, in your eyes, characterizes the advancing Pagan?

R.K.: Actually believing in the Gods that they claim to revere and worship. Actually praying. Seeing the Gods in all their imperfect glory, instead of just worshiping the Barbie Goddess who gives you stuff, and the Ken God with antlers. Talking to the Gods, and actually listening to them. Not feeling the need to Christian-bash - perhaps even looking towards ecumenicalism. Being willing to admit that structure and community can be a good thing. Actually considering where your food comes from, and the impact you make on the Earth. Living this religion as a lifestyle, not just a fun hobby. Being more concerned with your own developing path than with the aesthetics.

TSC: What advice would you give those who are just now leaving their beginning stage and looking to advance?

R.K.: Are you talking to the Gods? Why not? You think that they won't hear you, or won't respond? Have you tried? Have you really listened? Actually believing in them helps; otherwise you get their cosmic answering machine. Also, remember this: You may think that you want more magic and spirituality in your life, but do you really? When you pass a certain point, you enter the realm that my boyfriend calls "Spooky", and you end up losing your citizenship in the other realm, "Normal". People will look at you funny. You will not be able to explain much of your life to people without sounding like a nut. And worse still, you may not care. So think carefully before you start out, if you still value Normal.

TSC: If you could go back in time and speak with yourself in your first year as a Pagan, what advice would you give to you?

R.K.: If you knew where you were going to end up, you'd be blown away. But it's OK. It'll be hard, but you'll get through it, and then you'll find the wonderful comfort in knowing that you're doing exactly what the Universe wants you to do.

TSC: What are the challenges you face as a more experienced Pagan? How do you meet those challenges?

R.K.: That can be summed up by an experience I had last year at a Pagan gathering. It took place at a state forest park, with nice little campsites and a big heated bathhouse. I was one of the invited workshop presenters. They were wandering around cooing about how this gathering was "so magical". I didn't think it was magical at all, compared to my life. I live on a pagan homestead that's permanent sacred space, with my wife (the heyoka and priestess of Dionysos) and my boyfriend (the pagan monk and sacred prostitute) and my roommate (the druidess) and my daughter (the vampire princess). I have a link with my land-wight. I'm the center hub of a burgeoning Pagan community. I deal with gods, spirits, and dead people on a regular basis. Spirits won't leave me alone, even when I'm sleeping. I walk between worlds.

The gathering, to me, was a trip to Mundania with Pagan trappings. It was a work weekend for me, just doing a rather humdrum job. And yet I remembered the first Pagan gathering I'd been to, and how it had felt magical, and how I didn't want to leave and return to my mundane life. It seems that somewhere along the line, my real life got so spooky that it surpassed every gathering ever held. This puts a gulf of experience between me and people who are just starting out - they're dipping in a toe, I'm walking in saturated. It's easy to become impatient and frustrated with them, and forget that you were once there yourself. I have to repeatedly smack myself in order to keep remembering that.

TSC: Do you have any rules or maxims that you follow? If so, what are they?

R.K.: I follow the Twelve Principles of Clarity, as best I can. They're on my website, Cauldron Farm, in the Pagan Book of Hours. I suppose I could add in, on the end, 'Tis an ill wind that blows no minds, and Never Expect Gratitude.

TSC: What are your primary areas of focus, spiritually speaking? If you are active in your local Pagan community, in what capacity do you see yourself working?

R.K.: I have two jobs. One is my shaman job, which is basically a service job. A shaman always has a tribe to serve, or they get assigned one. People come to see me about their various issues, and I do readings, or create rituals, for them. The other is the job I do for my pagan group, Asphodel. We all decided that rather than organizing as a coven or grove, we would organize as a metaphorical kingdom. I was chosen King by the will of the people (voting) and then by the will of the Gods (divination, to choose among the contenders). This is a path of sacred kingship; it's a geas with the weight of millenia on it. Like Odhinn, I am a shaman-king, fairly "ergi", who works with Death. Like the Dagda, I am a peasant-king, who chops wood and carries water, who looks out for his people's needs and is a role model. Like Baphomet, Rex Mundi, I am the King of Freaks and Monsters - our group has a lot of Pagans in it who didn't feel welcome in other Pagan groups - they were queer, or transsexual, or had kinky sex, or were tattooed and pierced-up, or were polyamorous, or were warriors, or were medievalist romantics, or had mental health issues, or had unusual physical disabilities, or who were dirt-poor, or several of the above. These are my people, the Pagans who look like neither the clean-cut middle-class Yuppies on the cover of "See how normal Pagansim is?" books, or the flowing-black-robe heavy-eye-makeup sort.

We may be weird, but we have surprisingly little of the kind of backbiting politics that go on in so many other Pagan groups. My job is to be their leader, their role model, their inspiration, their courage, and their spooky shaman. If I can't give them advice, sometimes I can horse a deity who can. Our group is different in other ways as well - it's strictly hierarchical, it's strongly polytheist (meaning that we see the Gods as real, not just archetypes, and we interact with them regularly) and it has a number of sub-groups, including a Pagan College, pagan craft guilds, a spiritual warrior Order and a Pagan martial arts order, a choir, and a monastic Order. We're doing things that most Pagans don't touch, because they're too tainted with Christianity in their minds. Instead of obsessing about the "dominant religion", we find uniquely Pagan ways to do these things. Part of my job there is to create structure and context, which involves writing a lot of liturgy. My link to the Akashic Records is pretty busy.

TSC: Where do you see your Pagan path heading next? What goals or plans do you have for the future?

R.K.: I'm going to keep doing the jobs that I've been assigned, which include the two jobs listed above, plus writing books that blow minds and change heads, plus my activist work. I'm active in the queer, trans, intersex, sex-radical, BDSM, polyamory, "cultural creative", and organic farming communities as well, so I am very much a crossover figure, and that makes me unusual among Pagan leaders, most of whom stick to the Pagan community.

I don't see any of that changing. This is what I'm supposed to be doing; these are my marching orders, until Hel is done with me and it's time for me to move onto another lifetime. And I haven't accomplished half of what I'm supposed to do yet. Give me another couple of decades, and then we'll see if I can take a rest. I need to take Asphodel as far as it can go; I need to write a whole lot of books on subjects that my dark Mama thinks are important (8 down, about 30 to go!); I need to make a dent in my political work, and I need to be an example of "classic" rather than "core" shamanism, so that when the next ignorant white American gets hit with this, they won't die or go mad, which is what I think happens to most of us with no help and no cultural context. And I need to do all this on no money, little time, and chronic congenital illnesses. No problem. Like I said, just give me a couple of decades and watch my dust.