Extraterrestrial wiccans, pagans and the like

[kengr]

Dunno if I'd actually, use this in a story, but I figure that it's an interesting question in its own right.

What affect would being on another planet have on pagan/wiccan practices?

Both other places in the solar system, Mars, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn , etc and colonies on earth-like worlds around other stars.

Lack of the moon, *being* a moon, and in the casae of extra-solar colonies, the very constellations being different would be the merest beginning.

so, anybody have ideas?

Comments

[freetrav.livejournal.com]

It would ultimately depend on which of the umpty-leventeen traditions your wiccans or pagans follow - I’ve read fic where none of the differences of extraterrestrialism would matter in the least, and I’ve read fic where they are so tied to terrestrial timekeeping and astronomy that even moving them to Mars would more-or-less destroy the group.

If you want to explore this further, I think you’re going to have to define your tradition better.

[kengr]

Well, seasons will be really different, and length of days will be strange too. Lunar influences, hoo boy.

Mars is actually a *really* fun case as the seasons are affected almost as much by orbital eccentricity as by axial tilt.

So southern hemisphere seasons and northern hemisphere seasons aren't as "equivalent as the ones on Earth. As I recall, one hemisphere has a long, cold winter while the other has a long, cool summer. So even terraformed things would get *really* different.

[freetrav.livejournal.com]

Having said that, you now have to go deeper - is the timing of the seasons and lunar influences and etc. what’s important, or is it the fact that they exist, and come in a more-or-less steady pattern? If the latter, then transporting them to a different, habitable world would require some adaptation to the changed lengths of the cycles, but not to the conceptual framework.

Another issue that would need to be considered is offerings, if the tradition requires them. Is the specific contents of the offerings what is important, or is it merely “first fruits”? If the latter, adaptation is, again, relatively easy; if the former, you have a problem if the new world’s cycles don’t allow for those particular products.

This sort of analysis, even if 90% of the results never make it into a story, is what makes the difference between a well-built world and a “‘flat’ for the actors to stand in front of”.

[kengr]

On early space habs, those first fruits may be something like some algae and a guinea pig. :-)

Ok, algae isn't likely to be more than an intermediate stage. but it could be *very* symbolic.

Ooo! a "feast" celebrating survival of major damage to life support. Eating algae and rats or guinea pigs or the like in remembrance of what people had to eat while waiting for the new crops and animals to reach harvestable age.

Ceremonies for establishing a new habitat or colony. Bringing in "starter" plants and animals, placed in a special "greenhouse". They wouldn't be the actual "starters", but a symbolic thing. For the nature types, that would be a holy place.

Hmm. some special plants and animals traceable clear back to Earth that are mostly for ceremonial use. Mistletoe? Doves?

And sometimes new ones get added from planets that had compatible planets.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kengr]

Funny, I was just listening to that album about 12 hours ago.

But I realize that folks would likely go different directions. I guess I was kinda wondering how folks reading my LJ might adapt their traditions and how folks they know might.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kengr]

The description doesn't ring any bells for me. Only thing close is *way* different. an old story about the first interstellar ship from the 30s. It was a sleeper ship. and when they arrive, they find humans there. Seems the hyperdrive was discovered not long after they left. But because of the way it worked, it wasn't possible to catch their ship. so they arrive to a system that's been colonized for centuries..

the filk song "Space is Dark" is fairly close to the story. alas, the only online version I've found is played at *way* too fast a tempo. The original was slow and melancholy.

Generation ships of the sort that decide to stay out in space and only visit stars to replenish stores would likely evolve some interesting practices. probably a whole cycle of ceremonies for approaching a star and departing.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Well consider for a moment that I follow the religion of a culture from another planet, a planet with three moons and virtually no seasons. I suspect neopagans of many kinds would adapt to new worlds. They'd probably still pray to their original Mother, as well as to their adoptive Mother.

Heh, now consider the possibilities of neopagans on a terraformed planet/moon. Which would kinda make that world the literal child of Mother Earth, via the humans.

[kengr]

More fun. What if it wasn't "terraformed" by humans?

For that matter, if there are natives on a planet, what affect will *their* "spirituality" have on things?

If magic, spirits, gods etc are real, then you *definitely* need to take the locals into account.

Heck, even among humans you get big differences. If you've ever seen shogun, one of the interesting historical bits is that the Jesuits in Japan at that time started wearing orange instead of black, because that was what the Japanese priests and monks wore. Black signified something else that wasn't appropriate. and then there was white being the color for mourning...

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Yup. On Traipah, in the Yahgahn culture white is a color of death (for bones and sometimes skin of corpses) and black is a color of creation because from their perspective the world came from the black of the heavens. And while the Yahgahn culture would interpret green as a good color, cultures of the other two species native to Traipah would not so much (or at least certain shades wouldn't be), because they're carnivores and green isn't a good color for meat to be. Also the Duenicallo are a furred species as fastidious as cats and would generally consider algae growing in their fur to be a bad thing.

Oh, and it would be funny to watch Christian missionaries try to convert the people of Traipah in general when Christianity is so full of plot holes, contradictions, and all sorts of nonsense, it would be most hilarious watching them trying to speak to Duenicallo of the Gosgolot culture; one mistranslation of "son" to the Gosgolot word for "sun" and all hell breaks loose, because that culture fears the sun as an angry god-monster. And good luck trying to sell them on the idea of worshiping an all-powerful God when their only concept of all-powerful gods is the kind of thing where they'd think Lovecraft was adorable. "A blind idiot god? He'd get eaten alive in our pantheon."