So, we had our student alliance panel last Friday. It didn’t go as expected. We had an audience of two, and one of them was already a Pagan. The plan quickly devolved into what I figured was an informal setting. Which maybe it hadn’t, in the eyes of our president, but of the three speakers (her, myself, and her Wiccan priestess second level friend) two of us didn’t get the memo.

The introductions got side tracked, hard, pretty quickly into it. And since it got started off with the second level priestess, who had an intro that lasted I swear a good ten minutes where she talked all about all the things she’s done, doing, a part of, what they do, her accomplishments, etc. Of an important note, she isn’t a member of our student alliance. She was a guest. And a guest who’s intro frankly left us other two looking ill qualified and noobish.

I’m sure you can see where this is going to go.

While I normally call what I believe Heathenism, I am nominally Asatru (as I see it anyways). And Asatru and Wicca are really not that much alike, except for the fact we’re both Pagan, nominally European in origin, and nominally (in the case of Wicca) Polytheistic. She insisted that the Gods and Goddesses were archetypes. I insisted I believed they were discrete individuals. She insisted on harmony, I called for glory. She insited on the earth, I insisted on kin (Because where my people come from Earth isn’t friendly, it tries to kill you). And so it went on.

She neatly and subtly cut the young man (the non-pagan) out from a lot of her recruitment, instead focusing on the young Pagan girl. Only one gifted with much social know how, or insights into the ways of power, could have seen it as clearly. Talking about how both were welcome, but look at all the women only programs, rites, etc we have.

Yeah. So I tended to stick up and counter point, trying to appeal to the more rational parts, and not speak so much of the “mumbo jumbo” as the priestess was, about harmonics, and archetypes, but rather of science, reason, faith, and real beings with whom  we have real relationships.

Now, I’m not trying to come out the hero here. Both of us could have been better behaved. And we both talked over our president. (that said, she talks really softly because she’s shy, and I have a hearing problem from too much loud music where I pressed a pair of maxed out head phones against my ears to shut out the pain of my parents divorce and throw myself into “combat meditations” in an attempt to work through it).

I can’t say it was a disaster. I can’t say it was a success. It was a learning experience. I certainly feel that next time, it should be members only up there. No guests. But that’s my opinion.