When I was trolling the sites for pagan toys for my own son, I saw many other pagan parents ask where they could get pagan toys and I would see someone ask "What makes a toy pagan?" Well, to me it is rather obvious, but let's talk about it anyways for those who are not sure what a pagan toy could be.
Here is the short of it, a pagan toy could be any toy of mythical, mystical or historical significance to you. Using this idea, any toy could actually be pagan, but, no there are many toys that have nothing to do with that. Like the Transformers for instance. What pagan significance could be found there? They are machines that transform into other machines. There is no significance there. Though I will concede that the Beast Wars and Beast Machines storylines and toys could be symbolic of the modern world and so could have some pagan significance. Zhu Zhu pets would be a better example, those hamster toys with wheels. Nothing pagan at all there. Rather though we could use The Last Airbender, Aang the Avatar. While he is an obvious reference to the Dalai Lama, he is also the worlds avatar, there to keep the human world in check and in balance. He is reincarned again and again and can control the four elements plus commune with the spirit world. He (in this life the Avatar was a he, but can be a she or he and has been women in past lives, one was a great warrior,) would be perfect for a pagan child and is a good jumping off point of explaining the 5 elements that many pagans use (some use the Chinese elements and for some others the elements don't matter.) To find the paganess in a modern toy, it requires some thinking and stepping out of the box. That may be a bit hard for many people, but don't worry, I talk about more about it in later posts.
Here is the short of it, a pagan toy could be any toy of mythical, mystical or historical significance to you. Using this idea, any toy could actually be pagan, but, no there are many toys that have nothing to do with that. Like the Transformers for instance. What pagan significance could be found there? They are machines that transform into other machines. There is no significance there. Though I will concede that the Beast Wars and Beast Machines storylines and toys could be symbolic of the modern world and so could have some pagan significance. Zhu Zhu pets would be a better example, those hamster toys with wheels. Nothing pagan at all there. Rather though we could use The Last Airbender, Aang the Avatar. While he is an obvious reference to the Dalai Lama, he is also the worlds avatar, there to keep the human world in check and in balance. He is reincarned again and again and can control the four elements plus commune with the spirit world. He (in this life the Avatar was a he, but can be a she or he and has been women in past lives, one was a great warrior,) would be perfect for a pagan child and is a good jumping off point of explaining the 5 elements that many pagans use (some use the Chinese elements and for some others the elements don't matter.) To find the paganess in a modern toy, it requires some thinking and stepping out of the box. That may be a bit hard for many people, but don't worry, I talk about more about it in later posts.
Aang, the last Airbender, the elemental avatar, very pagan themed toy
the four elements of bending, air, fire, water and earth
not pagan toys
Zhu Zhus, not pagan, not much of anything,
actually I would never buy these for my kids, even if they were younger
Okay, so those are modern toys, what about real pagan toys. Well, the gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines and mythic beasts of old, our religion, are all around. You can find toys of them all over the place, you just need to look. They are in books, comics, card games and on T.V. shows, that makes them marketable to children, so you will find them out there. I will go into more detail in other posts.
When those parents asked about pagan toys, many people replied, matter of factly, to just use nature. Well, that may work for them, but not for other parents. Those people were obvious Nature worshippers, but not all pagans are. Many follow specific gods and goddesses and the culture they were part of. For them, they want toys of those cultural ideas for their children, so they can grow up with those ideas in their heads. They probably already do the nature toys thing, but want more, and that is completely undestandable. If you are a Hellenist, then you will want a Heracles, or Hippolyta toy for your child to explain their stories, or maybe a daemon or penates to protect them or an image of Apollo or Artemis the patron god and goddess of children, etc...
In these blog entries I will keep explaining this in more detail and hopefully will end up helping you find the toys you want for your children.
In my next entry I will talk about some historical pagan toys.
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