Today on Facebook, someone said something insightful.
I know! Let that just sink in.
Anyway, Jason Thomas Pitzl said “Number of ‘fluffy bunnies’ converted by rants: statistically 0?. And that opened a long thread about fluffy bunnies and what they are and why people rail against them and so on.
First of all, what is a fluffy bunny? Isaac used to define it as “Nature pink in gum and paw“. It’s a perception of Wicca as being all sweetness and light, about getting your ideas of Nature religion from the frolicking centaurs and fairies in Fantasia.
So what?
Look, there’s a certain sense that perhaps a “fluffy bunny” Wiccan or Pagan is entirely unserious and really doesn’t know what he or she is doing. Maybe that’s true. Well, no harm done, and as Isaac liked to say, there’s at least as much damage done by those excessively dark and gloomy in their Paganism as by those excessively light and sweet.
But here’s the thing. Scott Cunningham, as he was dying, was still talking about the Goddess as being about beauty and gentleness. He was one of the best researchers I ever knew; his knowledge was encyclopedic. He didn’t have a sweet and light attitude about Wicca out of ignorance, either of ancient Paganism or of how dark life could get. Knowing an enormous amount about Paganism, and on his deathbed, he still believed in the lightness. You want to call him a fluffy bunny? Go ahead. Because who he was, was a person who looked to the light.
If a person is “fluffy” because they don’t know much, that person can certainly learn, although being mocked doesn’t help the process. If, on the other hand, a person is genuinely, by nature, oriented towards that sweetness, even a sweetness that makes other people’s teeth hurt? Well, let them follow their nature. I’m pretty sure that’s part of what this whole Pagan movement is all about.
