New Traditions

After seeing a story in Hinduism Today on a "new" Hindu goddess, the goddess of AIDS, or the AIDS amma, a Harvard junior majoring in religion decided to write her thesis on this phenomenon. She went to India and looked at the shrine described in the article; it was a simple affair, a stone slab decorated with red, black, and white paint.

The shrine had been built by H.N. Girish, a high school science teacher, as part of an AIDS awareness campaign. Although he was evasive about whether people in the community were actually worshipping the new goddess, the Harvard student said she saw a few women come to the shrine to do puja (worship).

Perhaps the first moments of Apollo's existence were equally plain.

While the idea of creating a goddess may seem strange to Westerners and monotheists, popular culture has been giving birth to gods for tens of thousands of years. The same goes for rituals and ceremonies.

As Americans with relatively shallow historical roots, we tend to make rigid distinctions between "new" and "old". But the AIDS goddess was something very modern within a very ancient culture. This creative dynamic, between reverence for hoary tradition and the urge to create something new, exists within most religions, including the earth religions.

"Remember, remember, remember. And failing that, invent."

Within the Wiccan movement, for example, there has always been tension between the so-called "traditionalists"--those who revere liturgies and rituals that go back at least to 1939 and perhaps further--and "eclectics," who spend more time creating their own ceremonies than honoring the older ones. The struggle is an honest one because there is something warm and safe about participating in ceremonies that are familiar and comfortable. At the same time, there is an exuberance and power that comes from creating something based on immediate needs. But old rituals can deteriorate into rote; new ceremonies can feel disorganized.

Very often, when I cast the circle with a group of friends, we do it in a unique way. We ask those gathered to "remember what it felt like in the times of old." There is a famous phrase in Monique Wittig's "Les Guerillères": "Remember, remember, remember. And failing that, invent." So we ask everyone in the circle to remember, imagine, or invent the feelings, the smells, the gestures, and the colors of a ritual of old.

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