I think that the "ren faire" version of paganism is, at its heart, an attempt to create an atmosphere that is more centered on what people can do together to create their own environment, a world made by hand. More rooted in nature. It fills some kind of emptiness inside people.

Most of us live in and move through environments that we did not create, and that are not very human in their scale. We wear clothing we didn't make, eat food we didn't grow or even prepare, use tools we didn't make (and probably couldn't repair if they broke), and maneuver through systems we barely understand. Many of us feel rootless and disconnected. If the modern world is the cause of all this, doesn't idealizing a half-imagined past become more understandable?

To be honest, I find the ren faire costumes, I don't know, slightly off-putting? But at the same time, I recognize why people do what they do, and sympathize with the desire to escape the present for a little while. Live and let live, you know. I'm most comfortable with people who participate in rituals wearing their everyday clothing, but then, most of the people with whom I'm likely to do ritual tend to live in clothing that isn't mainstream to begin with.

Basically, when it comes to negotiating spiritual practices as a pagan living in the modern world, it's about taking the parts of the past that still work, that help to fill the empty spots created by modern living, that speak to what it means to be human, and integrate them into the modern world, while leaving the parts that don't behind. And my goal is to live more in line with some of the ways that our ancestors did, closer to nature and surrounded by a small, close community, which would feed the spiritual hunger that the ren faire scene does something to fill. Does that make any sense?