Re: Kate and Paganism

[emx.utexas.edu!ut-emx!slh@cs.utexas.edu (Susan L. Cecelia Harwood)]

Kate and paganism.  I feel like I just had this discussion...  Oh,
that's right.  I did.  On the paganism mailing list I'm on.  That's
it.  :-)

Well, we *were* discussing Our Lady of Kent a while back.  The things
we talked about were her music, and how appropriate it is to rituals.
We also were hazarding guesses to her beliefs, but decided that that
didn't really matter.

Neo-paganism, as it goes now, very often draws upon old traditions,
and Wiccans (specific brand thereof; please no one send me mail about
Ceremonial Magic) often use things out of their own heritages.  I,
being of Anglo-Celtic descent as seen on my census form, usually draw
from my Celtic heritage.  Thus, I usually use Celtic imagery and
Celtic deities.  Kate's music, by virtue of being based on her Celtic
heritage, something Druidic (and Celtic Wicca and Druidism are closer
than one might think), or just something Paddy brought to her that she
liked, speak very strongly to me in those circumstances.

Some of her music startles me in how right on she is, like "Strange
Phenomena," parts of _The Dreaming_, the entire _The Ninth Wave_, and
parts of _The Sensual World_ (and I do agree on that stuff about the
video; all that stuff she said about the elemental changes, and the
vision of her dancing through the wood on a full moon).  And other
songs are striking for different reasons entirely, like "Running Up
That Hill" or "The Infant Kiss."

I don't know whether Kate Bush is a pagan or not, and it really
doesn't matter to me one way or the other.  But several of her songs
definitely speak to that side of me, and obviously to many other
pagans.  Just goes to show how good a songwriter she really is, I
s'pose.

As for the Druid sickle, I haven't the slightest.  But I have a hunch
that, if Kate is as private about that as she is about most else, then
we may never know...
-- 

--------Susan L. Cecelia Harwood-----------------------------------------------
 The whims that we're weeping for our parents would be beaten for. --Kate Bush
-----------(slh@emx.utexas.edu)------------The University of Texas @Austin-----