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Anger is an interesting emotion, a much-maligned one. On the one hand we are told not to 'bottle it up' yet an expression of anger is a sure path to marginalization.

I meet many people on the pagan path who are angry, who have left a church or an upbringing which taught them untenable things: that they are lesser, imperfect beings, that others are 'better' than they (and they must submit), that they must follow rules....and those rules are so very difficult, if not impossible under unforeseen circumstances. I meet other people who are angry because there is no place for them to go: they are cast adrift with their questions, robbed by charlatans or pervs, put back into boxes.

Why leap from one constrained religion into another? Why exchange one set of rules and a neat little box for another? Okay, the clothes are better and the music is newer. Maybe there's more fun and certainly some great festivals to attend.

So why am I an angry pagan?

It shouldn't surprise anyone that I float around among a number of pagan-type guilds. I happened upon a discussion going in one forum about the 'broom closet' - that place where we hide our beliefs away from world. I though about that one. If you know what to look for it is relatively easy to figure out that I'm pagan or witchy just upon meeting me - there's usually a subtle piece of knotwork jewelry, I'll have a rune charm on or there will be my hammer or some little pentacle earrings. I'm not obtrusive - no large blinking stars - but I'm recognizable.

I actually stopped to think that I shy away from other pagans! I have had so many negative experiences, from intolerance to nasty remarks to run-ins with folk who feed off others, that I prefer to mostly stay with the mundane people. I don't need arguments and prejudice from members with supposed faiths similar to mine. Tolerance should begin close to home.

'Impending' demise has become reality and I know there is an injunction against speaking ill of the dead. But. Amid the songs of praise can I just point out that the words of 'elders' may reach to define the unwilling and shape the perceptions from outside the Neopagan movement?

I believe what I believe. I have been resisting for quite some time the efforts to box that up and label, categorize and quantify a limitless spirituality. I have been accused of having a 'Chinese menu' approach to religion but I would really rather not have 'religion' at all! I want to get on with life, not with study and ranks and the endless maneuvering of people for status, aka group politics.