2012 In Review

I have every intention of revisiting the topic of my last couple posts, but a quick cold intervened over the last few days (beaten into submission with a barrage of echinacea tea and ColdEeze and tons of sleep). Since today is the last day of 2012, I thought I would share some end-of-the-year reflections. I have a tendency to do these types of reviews when my energy is high (for instance, this past year, I only got around to it in March, since we were dealing with the whole thing of moving across the country), and that is almost never during the week between Christmas and New Year's Day. This year, however, I think it might be worth an attempt at least, before plunging into the next season of FF&C and the craziness that will be this coming spring.

And so. I plan to do some kind of tarot reading later tonight, after Jeff and I get back from our New Year's Eve dinner date, but for now, I'm stealing something that Finn shared (it may have originated over on TC, I'm not sure) to get me ruminating on the past year. Here goes.

2012 Review

1. What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?

Namely, moved across the country to live in Seattle. There are so many first-evers that have resulted from that, it feels odd to list all of them, but I'll try to highlight some of the more important ones:
- Saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time.
- Taught naturalist programs to school groups and the general public.
- Celebrated solar festivals with a local OBOD group.
- Started my own business. (Put in more than 60 hours of work a week doing a job I love.)
- Wrote the first draft of a novel (okay, almost — in word count alone, definitely).
- Met a new goddess.
- Saw the salmon returning to spawn.
- Voted to legalize gay marriage! Yay!


2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

I didn't make very many resolutions back in December of last year, but looking at my Uncensored To-Do List from back in March, I see that many of the things I'd hoped to do (or keep doing) had to fall by the wayside or take second priority to FF&C and my volunteer work. This is, in some ways, a bit disappointing. But in other ways, I think it's a natural process of winnowing that needs to take place as I settle into more fulfilling work that requires a larger time and energy commitment.

On the other hand, there are some commitments that I think I need to revisit and renew, in particular those that have to do with establishing healthy habits for both body and spirit. So yes, I will be making some resolutions for the coming year.


3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Ugh. This was the EW's off year. She popped one out right before our wedding last year, and another one is apparently on the way for next year. Some people need to stop procreating.


4. Did anyone close to you die?

Thankfully, no.


5. What countries did you visit?

Just the one I live in. But if we revise this to bioregions, I've seen quite a few this year, including the low-lying Puget Sound area (because I live there now) and the wild mountainous regions of the Pacific Northwest. We drove through the usual deserts and grasslands of the central U.S. during our move early this year, but we didn't linger.


6. What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?

I suppose it would be snarky to answer: Time. Honestly, I feel that my life is very full these days, both of wonderful things that I'm grateful for, and not-so-wonderful things that cause stress. So what I would like for 2013 is a sense of perspective and an attitude of non-attachment and simplicity that will help me to make the necessary choices about what to hold onto and what to release. Does that sound too New Agey?


7. What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

The Wild Goose West Festival was fantastic and inspiring, as were the few days leading up to it that Jeff and I spent in the yurt on the Oregon coast.

On a less happy note, the day that we had to spend in court because of the EW. Too often, I find myself back in that courtroom going over all the things that we could have done or said.


8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Starting my own business and producing 50 hour-long podcast episodes and two successful seasons. But a close second would be finally getting a first draft of a novel written. (On the other hand, if you ask the internet, it would probably be writing that Hipster Paganism post. #irony)


9. What was your biggest failure?

No single failure, really, but the slow build up of minor daily failures (like the failure to exercise as regularly as I'd hoped, or to eat as well as I should, or to meditate on a daily basis), which has resulted in me still being 15 or so pounds overweight and, in general, feeling more stressed both physically and spiritually than is really necessary.


10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Stupid recurring minor aches and pains in my shoulders and back, most of which I'm sure has to do with lack of regular exercise and stretching. Other than that, nothing beyond the normal seasonal colds and such.


11. What was the best thing you bought?

I didn't technically buy it, but my birthday gift this year was an iPad, and it has far exceeded my expectations.

As for something I actually bought, since they are so few and far between, I'd say my hiking boots, followed by the cheap treadmill/standing desk combo I got so I could walk while I work. But the $2 thirft-store leather coat (to be converted into some sort of steampunk outfit in the future) was pretty awesome, too.


12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

Jeff continues to win Husband of the Year in my heart. Our first year of marriage was pretty damned kickass, and I can't wait for many, many more.

The kids were awesome when they came out to visit us in Seattle, though they tended to be a bit wild and rude during our last visit with them over Solstice. Still, in general, they are growing up to be lovely people and it's always so cool to hang out with them.

My brother, who left his well-paying corporate job to go back to grad school and is now earning his Masters at Columbia. I'm so proud to have a brother who puts knowledge and social justice ahead of profit.

Also, Penny is such an inspiring person, she makes me want to be awesome.


13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Don't get me started. Mostly people on the internet being the reason Why We Can't Have Nice Things (especially in the Pagan community — I need to learn to hold this loosely and not get upset when certain Jerks Celebre decide to attack me personally). Politicians, but in particular asshat Republicans who keep trying to fling us back into the stone age. Unsurprisingly, the EW, who continues to be a weirdly small-minded person who lies about almost everything, even though she's really bad at it.


14. Where did most of your money go?

Most of "my" money went to paying student loans, and after that to the podcast, occasional dinner dates with Jeff, a few ebooks, and the rest into savings.

Most of our money as a couple went to the EW — Jeff calculated it out that we spend about 44% of our total joint income on child support and travel expenses for the kids. After that, rent and food are our next biggest expenses, followed by the usual utility bills and such. We're trying to live a pretty modest lifestyle, but it's hard not to be resentful when you know that those thousands of dollars in child support are financing the EW's next pregnancy and a new pair of toe-shoes.


15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

The podcast, on numerous occasions. Joining SageWoman as a columnist. Welcoming a new goddess into my life. My naturalist training and teaching. My Saturn Return finally being over. Steampunk Druidry.


16. What song will always remind you of 2012?

Er..... Probably something from Professor Elemental (Jeff's fault). Certainly not anything from that awful movie version of Les Miz.


17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a) happier or sadder? Happier, and most definitely less stressed.

b) thinner or fatter? Maybe a little bit heavier, unfortunately.

c) richer or poorer? Certainly less in debt than last year, and were it not for the asinine new child custody agreement that has Jeff spending thousands on unnecessary travel while the EW doesn't contribute a dime, we'd be richer.


18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Hiking and spending time out in nature (not just in the local parks, but out in the wilderness). Exercising and doing regular yoga. Reading challenging books, especially nonfiction (though I read a lot more fiction this year than in previous years).


19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Wasting time being angry or annoyed with people on the internet. Worrying about money and having to battle with the EW's need to control our lives long-distance. Eating ice cream and other comfort foods.


20. How will you be spending Christmas?

We spent Christmas itself hanging out at home, just the two of us, watching The Hogfather and eating homemade lembas (that Finn made for us!) and drinking hot chocolate.

We spent Solstice with the kids visiting my parents, with Dan (and his two cats) there, too, and Jeff's Aunt Melanie coming to visit for a couple days. It was a full house, but it was wonderful to see everybody!


21. What was your favorite month of 2011?

I think August was pretty awesome. We'd just finished our first successful season of FF&C, and Jeff was back home from his time on the east coast with the kids. We had gorgeous weather and lots of time on weekends to go out and enjoy it. I did a lot of writing and spiritual work.

November was pretty fun, too, though, thanks to NaNoWriMo, though I started to burn out by the end.


22. Did you fall in love in 2012?

I'm very much in love with Jeff. It's kind of astounding how awesome he is.


23. How many one-night stands?

All of my nightstands last for more than one night; they're made of wood.


24. What was your favorite TV program?

I get a kick out of The Mindy Project, which just started this year and has a lot of the same people working on it that did The Office. Other than that, eh, re-runs courtesy of Amazon Prime.


25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

I try not to hate people. However, I am more familiar with some of the reasons why I dislike so many Republicans.


26. What was the best book you read?

Jeff has been introducing me to the old Sherlock Holmes stories (which are way better than all of the current remakes coming out in film and television), and I really enjoyed Juliet Marillier's trilogy, the Bridei Chronicles, in particular the third book, The Well of Shades.

I really can't think of any really great nonfiction books I've read. Lyanda Lynn Haupt's Crow Planet was enjoyable, but not ground-breaking or anything, and JMG's Mystery Teachings from the Living Earth was alright, though it also left a lot wanting. I have so many cool books on my to-read list, but just haven't had the time to get to them. (For instance, for Solstice I got an awesome collection of essays on the evolution of the concept of "wilderness" in Western society!)


27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

B sharp


28. What did you want and get?

An iPad. A wonderful little apartment (with counter space!)


29. What did you want and not get?

A wonderful little apartment close to a park — this, I think, has been the subtlest but most important disappointment of the year. I had not anticipated how big a difference this would make to my ability to get out to nature regularly. Still, this apartment is so vastly better than the one we were living in in Pittsburgh, it's worth it.


30. What was your favorite film of this year?

A tie between Brave and The Hobbit, I think, which aside from a few other unremarkable ones are pretty much the only movies I've seen this year. (Why do all these questions make me feel like I need to get out of the house more?)


31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I turned 29 this year, without very much pomp or celebration. Jeff was out in New Hampshire with the kids, so I had a quiet day probably puttering around the house doing what I normally do.


32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If we had been able to reach a reasonable child custody agreement in which Jeff got to see the kids for two months in the summer, and the EW had to pay for half of the transportation costs of sending the kids to Seattle once a year.


33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?

I don't know what this question means.

Ummm.... I would say "practical naturalist." Is that a thing? Lots of practical clothes, layers against the wind and rain, and of course, my awesome hiking boots.


34. What kept you sane?

Jeff. Sushi. Time by myself. Watching the crows in the hemlock tree across the street.


35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

I don't know.... Patrick Stewart? (I feel old.)


36. What political issue stirred you the most?

I really can't help but cry every time the issue of marriage equality comes up. Despite all of the places where we seem to be going backwards, I am so so proud of the progress we've made towards equality and acceptance on that front.

Otherwise, the usual environmental issues. Out here, we have reason to be concerned about them trying to run coal trains through the area to ship coal over to China, where they'll burn it without any regulations and the pollution will end up back over here anyway. #gah


37. Who did you miss?

As for people: I miss hanging out with Arthur watching Doctor Who and Battlestar Galactica on Thursdays. As for non-humans: I miss the woods and mountains of western PA, the city of Pittsburgh (Frick Park and Phipps Conservatory, in particular), and the rolling farmlands of Lancaster county.


38. Who were the best new people you met?

Finn rocks. :) I knew her online, but we got to meet in person once we moved out here.

I also got to meet the amazing people who work for the city parks, like Penny, Anne, Belinda, Brian, and a bunch of other volunteers, who are all pretty kickass.


39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.

I just saw this quote somewhere recently that I think sort of sums it up: "If a conductor wants to lead the orchestra, they have to turn their back to the crowd."

I guess another way of saying this is that finding fulfilling work that inspires and enchants you goes a long way to make up for not being allowed to sit at the Popular Kids Table in the great High School Cafeteria of Life. (And the accompanying insight is that, sadly, most people never really leave the high school cafeteria, and it's no use getting angry with them about it. Just make friends with the teachers and the lunch lady, and find where all the other nerds are sitting. ;)


40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:

Though the soldiers may be fighting
In the trenches or on a battleship at sea
But there isn't any war
When the clock strikes four
EVERYTHING STOPS FOR TEA


(My gods that ended up being a long questionaire!)

The Dance of Will and Surrender (Part 1)

The conversation about faith, free will, submission and discernment continues over on John's blog, and talk has turned to the nature of the will itself, and what exactly it actually means to submit or surrender one's will to an external authority. (Setting aside for a moment the nature of that external authority.)

But let me back up. I had a conversation with Jeff over dinner tonight exploring in more detail what I find to be problematic with Elani's approach to an asymmetrical faith, in which the gods are powerful and, luckily for us, benevolent and therefore demand and expect our obedience.

On the Nature of Gods (And Other Messy Things)

A few things to note: First of all, the question of an asymmetrical faith-based relationship with the gods is separate from a question about whether or not one believes they exist. This is why I think the analogy of the marriage is helpful. I have a very equal and mutually trusting relationship with Jeff, and for us the idea that either of us would be expected to "submit" to or "obey" the other (as those terms are popularly understood is) is laughable. But having an equal relationship with Jeff doesn't mean I don't believe he exists, or that I don't believe that, at least in the most obvious and mundane way, he is a separate person from me.

In other words, despite what Elani claims, hard polytheism does not require one to adopt an asymmetrical faith-based relationship with the gods. Neither does reconstructionism as an approach to one's religious tradition. These are two assertions that Elani makes several times, and as far as I can tell, they have no real basis.

However, believing that some kind of equal and mutual relationship between the gods is possible does mean that I might not agree with certain assumptions about what the gods are like. This is not a question of existence or nonexistence, or whether or not I "take the gods seriously." (Or at least, it is only a debate over existence if you take the narrow view that in order for a god to be considered "real" it must conform to your particular theology.) It is instead of a question of whether or not a person believes that spiritual relationship is defined in terms of hierarchy. The word "submission" itself implicitly relies on a concept of hierarchy, in which the human being submitting to a god is beneath that god.

I should say that reconstructionism in general does not require a faith based in a theology of hierarchy. Hellenistic reconstructionism might very well require it, since the ancient Greek and Roman cultures were notoriously patriarchal and hierarchical. Why anyone would want to reconstruct that part of our history is beyond me. (Weirdly, Elani states in one post on her blog that because she was not raised Christian, unlike many Pagans, she does not have hang-ups about issues of submission and authority — as if old psychological wounds are the only reason a person might be uncomfortable with such concepts.)

So if I don't subscribe to a theology of hierarchy when it comes to my understanding of the gods, then what do I think the gods are like?

That is a complex question, but I find myself once again going back to ecology and the idea of "natural polytheism" as I described it back in my post on NUP:

Natural polytheism embraces the science of ecology as a basic metaphor for theological inquiry. In other words, natural polytheism seeks to understand our relationship with the gods as an aspect of interrelated systems of being, consciousness and meaning.

Hierarchies are rare in the science of ecology, and where they do exist, they usually take the form of things like trophic cascades or altitudinal zonation. In other words, though we may rank things within an ecosystem, we rank them with regard to a very particular aspect of their relationship with the larger community. A hemlock is not superior (in any existential sense) to an alder simply because it happens to grow at a higher elevation; a gray wolf is not superior to an elk, which is not superior to a douglas fir. Even when we identify species that play a special or especially important role within an ecosystem — such as a keystone species, a foundation species, or an indicator species — these species are not considered "higher" or "better" than other species. Rather, their importance is contingent upon their relationship with the rest of the community; and in fact, sometimes the same species might be a keystone in one ecosystem, but not in another. It would be impractical, if not impossible, to establish some kind of ontological ranked system for all of these species, or for individuals within a species. (Except insofar as the social behaviors of the animals themselves establish a ranking within a given social group; but even these are fluid and subject to change. You'd be hard-pressed to argue that Mr. Bobo is the alpha male gorilla because of some inherent superiority that all the other gorillas recognize. There is no divine mandate for gorillas, or for gray wolves for that matter, as we got to witness at the Wolf Sanctuary in Pennsylvania last week.) The point in all of this is that, within ecology, the idea of ranking is largely a convenient construct for understanding the complex patterns of relationship that exist within a community of living (and non-living) beings; such rankings have specific contexts in which they are relevant, and they never carry the connotation of a species of individual being "superior" or "inferior." Rank, in ecology, is a matter of function and relationship, not of a being's essential nature.

How this applies to theology and the nature of deity is something I'm still working out. Basically, what I am saying is that the gods are not "better" or "higher" than human beings. They are merely different from humans. They might be bigger, or deeper, or more expansive, or alternately more focused, in how they function and how we relate to them (as compared to how we relate to, say, other human beings)... but none of this implies a superiority on their part, or the necessity of submission or obedience on our part.

Maybe an analogy will help. We do not, for instance, "obey" a forest fire. We may be helpless in the face of such a fire, and it might even have the power of life or death over us, and we cannot help but deal with the effects of a forest fire when one occurs. But this is not obedience. All this may also be true of a god — we might acknowledge that the influence of a god is overwhelming, or that a god has the power of life or death over us (this is, if I'm remembering correctly, the very definition of a deity that Emma Restall Orr uses). But acknowledging this is not the same thing as obedience.

Furthermore, certain species of trees (such as the lodgepole pine) have adapted to the regular recurrence of forest fires within an ecosystem in ways that are to their own evolutionary advantage. For instance, their cones only open when exposed to extreme heat. On the one hand, this conserves the energy which a tree puts into reproduction, for it will not create and release seeds that are then unable to compete with older, larger and better established trees. On the other hand, this adaptation takes advantage of the conditions created by the forest fire, and young seedlings flourish in the nutrient-enriched soil and the ample sunlight available after a fire has swept through and cleared the area of older, larger trees. But it would be nonsensical to say that, in this case, the lodgepole pine "submits" to the forest fire and, as a result, benefits from its submission. In the same way, we might learn how to cultivate our relationship with a god so that we can better negotiate that god's influence in our lives, even coming to embrace that influence in a way that helps us while acknowledging that we have not altered the nature of that god.... but this is not submission, so much as harmonious relationship.

A forest fire, as an event rather than a living being, is maybe not even the best example. The best example are some of the mutualist or engineer species, which not only learn how to fit themselves into a pre-existing environment, but actually actively shape their environments in ways that carve out the niches necessary for their survival and the survival of other species. My relationship with a forest fire is, admittedly, a bit one way (though I might be able to create environmental conditions that either encourage or discourage a forest fire from happening). But the bear's relationship with the salmon is mutually beneficial to both, and also beneficial to other species within the ecosystem, even though the salmon is eaten by the bear.

In this same way, I might have a relationship with a god who influences my life in a very particular way, who shapes me through that influence and guides my life. I may choose to accept and embrace that influence, but I might just as well choose to resist it or attempt to alter or redirect it through my relationship with that god. Whether I accept or resist this influence determines how it shapes me, and it also determines the future nature of our relationship. In this case, there is a mutual relationship that can be negotiated on both sides, there is a reciprocity of influence (especially if we are assuming a personal and, to some extent, autonomous or freely acting god). But what there isn't — not even a hint of — is hierarchy.

I am still exploring these ideas, and I have a lot more to say on this whole topic — I haven't even scratched the surface of my conversation with Jeff over dinner tonight, in fact — but it is late enough now that I think some ice cream and a good book are in order.

More on this in the near future.

Deity, Discernment and Faith

John Halstead shared a very interesting post the other day, titled "The role of faith and hubris in Paganism," which has sparked a lot of thought and commenting from me. Below, I'm just going to re-post some of the (far too verbose) comments I've left both on his blog, and on a response posted by one of the people he quotes in his post.

My initial response to his blog post was:

I do wonder, though, if much of the character of faith-based hard polytheism is influenced specifically by Protestant and Evangelical denominations of Christianity, particularly here in the U.S. Long before I became a Pagan, I found myself having these kinds of conversations because I was raised in a (liberal) Catholic tradition that emphasized the vital and necessary role of a person’s own conscience and a careful process of discernment in determining how to act on “divine inspiration,” always with an awareness that distinguishing the source of that inspiration can be nearly impossible. (But then again, I’m not sure if this is something that’s really common to Catholicism but not Protestantism, or if it’s something common to liberal Christianity rather than conservative Christianity, or if it’s just an accident that this was an emphasis in my childhood church and doesn’t actually represent a larger trend at all.)

Placing devotion to a deity in the context of personal discernment pretty much rules out for me any notion of handing over my will or submitting myself entirely to an external force. Not to mention — and maybe I am just not special enough to be on any god’s mailing list — I’m rarely on the receiving end of so obvious or direct a message from the gods that it includes how high I need to jump or which bridge I should be jumping from. My spiritual life is much more an on-going process of deep listening to a complex web of urges, attractions, distractions and repulsions, the various sources of which are just as often in the natural world around me or in my own psyche as in some externalized god-form (more often, I should say). I might sometimes talk about my relationship with my gods in terms of “messages” or guidance or inspiration, but it’s almost always metaphorical, not literal.

For Elani, and others, it seems like hubris to question the instructions of the gods. For me, it seems deeply arrogant to be too eager to attribute our various impulses to some external deity, to clothe our instincts or intuitions in the finery of divine inspiration as a way of elevating or ennobling them. It seems hubris to act on our assumptions that we are receiving and hearing such messages correctly, without first turning a very careful and critical eye on all of the ways our own desires, assumptions and projections might be biasing us.

Which is not to say that I don’t believe there is some transcendent divine reality that transcends not only our individual selves (and our Selves), but also our human and more-than-human/natural communities as well. But determining what influence that transcendent divinity has on our lives has, for me, always been an exercise in retrospective contemplation, where the patterns of coincidence and chance resolve into a coherent and beautiful melody even when, at the time, I was only ever bumbling along doing my best to tease out the signal from the noise.

I followed this up with a visit to Elani Temperance's blog, where I eventually succeeded (Google bugs not withstanding) to leave this comment on her post, "The girl who kicked the hornets nest (again), part 2":

I only just got home from traveling for the winter holidays visiting family, and so I was only just now able to catch up on John's post and all of these various replies. I wanted to say thanks for continuing the conversation. I wasn't familiar with your writing and John's brief quote was the first I'd heard of it -- I mention that, because I have some questions that I'd love to hear your thoughts on and, if you've already addressed them elsewhere in your prolific blog, even just a list of links of your past writing on the subject would be awesome. :)

Firstly, I was really struck by how you consistently equated a very specific kind of asymmetrical faith-based approach to religion with religion and/or organized tradition in general. B.T. touched on this already when he pointed out that it wasn't the religiousness of your approach that was threatening to him, but the more specific *kind* of faith you described. I was wondering if you could elaborate on why you don't think that other approaches (which may or may not include the kind of asymmetrical faith you have) are "religious" or "organized." You seem to suggest that traditions without asymmetrical relationship lack structure, cohesion, "solid community, shared gnosis, etc." For instance, right after quoting B.T.'s comment, you say:

"While I doubt that a more structured religious movement within Paganism will be the end of Paganism, I also think that the Traditions based upon religious commonalities will outlast the ones without them, simply because there is some 'glue' missing."

Because you seem to be equating "religion" with *your* particular approach to faith, it sounds a lot like you're saying that the only way to have an organized religious tradition is to place an asymmetrical relationship with the gods, in which the gods hold the power and authority, at the center of one's religious life. But it seems to me that we have many, many examples of long-lasting religious traditions that do not at all include your view of faith as inherently or necessarily asymmetrical. Is that what you meant to say, or have I misunderstood your point here?

Another point that intrigues me, that you didn't really get into in this post but that I'd love to hear more about, is the exact nature of how you listen to your gods. That is, how this asymmetrical relationship with them actually manifests for you. Your example of the synchronicity of the conversation with the masseuse is interesting, but it doesn't sound like anything different from the experiences someone might have if they had a more equal relationship with their god(s), or even someone who didn't believe in or have a relationship with any god(s) at all.

I left this comment on John's original post, and I'll reshare it here because I think it has some bearing:

"Maybe I'm just not special enough to be on any god’s mailing list — but I’m rarely on the receiving end of so obvious or direct a message from the gods that it includes how high I need to jump or which bridge I should be jumping from. My spiritual life is much more an on-going process of deep listening to a complex web of urges, attractions, distractions and repulsions, the various sources of which are just as often in the natural world around me or in my own psyche as in some externalized god-form. I might sometimes talk about my relationship with my gods in terms of “messages” or guidance or inspiration, but it’s almost always metaphorical, not literal.

It seems like for Elani, and others, it's hubris to question the instructions of the gods. For me, it seems deeply arrogant to be too eager to attribute our various impulses to some external deity, to clothe our instincts or intuitions in the finery of divine inspiration as a way of elevating or ennobling them. It seems hubris to act on our assumptions that we are receiving and hearing such messages correctly, without first turning a very careful and critical eye on all of the ways our own desires, assumptions and projections might be biasing us.

Which is not to say that I don’t believe there is some transcendent divine reality that transcends not only our individual selves, but also our human and more-than-human/natural communities as well. But determining what influence that transcendent divinity has on our lives has, for me, always been an exercise in retrospective contemplation, where the patterns of coincidence and chance resolve into a coherent and beautiful melody even when, at the time, I was only ever bumbling along doing my best to tease out the signal from the noise."

I guess my question for you is, how does an asymmetrical relationship with the gods help you to "tease out the signal from the noise"? If you believe that your deities really are real, external beings separate from yourself, then how do you guard against attributing your own desires and biases to them? In other words, how do you avoid making your gods "in your own image"? What process of discernment do you use to distinguish authentic communications from your deities from your own projections or sentimental imaginings? And what are those authentic communications actually like?

Sorry to bombard you with so many questions. I find this conversation really intriguing, and I hope you'll have a chance to explore some of these issues. Thanks for being willing to share and open yourself up to criticism.

I put emphasis on the part where I quote myself from the comment I left on John's post, in part because I think this is maybe the heart of the matter for me, and in part because the second version has been cleaned up a bit for the sake of clarity. For even more clarity, I ended up commenting again on John's original post after he replied to my first comment. In particular, John said:

While I do think there is a certain amount of over-confidence in polytheistic discourse, “hubris” and “arrogance” just do not seem like the right words to describe Elani’s practice. If you watch some of the videos she has posted of her practice, you will see that humility characterizes everything she does.

To which I responded:

Thanks for bringing this up -- I should have clarified more in my original comment, and I hope I didn't step on any toes by accident. "Hubris" may not be the right word for Elani's practice at all. Reading your brief quotes from her here was the first time I've encountered any of her writing, so I really didn't mean to judge her practice specifically (since I know pretty much nothing about it). Instead, I meant to offer my own definition of "hubris" in the religious sense, in the context of our definition of and relationship with deity. (In other words, "That's not a knife. This is a knife." ;))

I'm intrigued by the idea of "kharis" that Elani mentions -- it looks like this Greek word shares etymological roots with words like charity, charisma and even eucharist, all very potent words in various forms of Christianity and many of them directly related to the theological concept of grace. An emphasis on "kharis" as a kind of divine grace once again seems to put this approach to polytheism in line with more Protestant forms of Christianity, not to mention the charismatic forms of the Evangelicals in particular. I really appreciate the enthusiasm and celebratory aspect of Evangelicalism, though being an introvert myself and more inclined to personal moments of poesis, I think I'm naturally more drawn to mysticism than public charismatic movements. :)

All that said... I'm not sure merely a belief in divine grace is enough to justify submission, at least not to me. Why would anyone submit to a deity if they did not hold a belief in the goodness of that deity? It seems like that is not so much an explanation for the choice, as it is its most basic prerequisite. One could easily believe that the gods are benevolent without agreeing that this necessitates complete surrender to them. It seems like, instead, there has to be an accompanying belief that humans are as imperfect and flawed as the gods are benevolent and powerful, in order to explain why we must not merely enjoy but utterly submit to divine guidance.

I'm not particularly convinced by the argument that "willing submission" is really just another act of will. If it is, it is only in a very limited, truncated sense, it seems to me. Take, as a more mundane example, a marriage in which a wife agrees to "submit" to her husband. In practice, this might mean that she allows him to make all of the household and lifestyle decisions (and that when she makes decisions herself, she attempts to enact what she believes is his will, rather than her own). She may relie on his benevolence and love for her to guide him to take her into account when he makes those decisions. It may be that her belief in him is justified and he does his best to do right by her. It may be that she enters the marriage freely, and it might even be that she can leave any time she wishes through divorce. But none of those things change the fact that, within the context of the relationship, she does not act according to her own will but that of her husband's. In other words, she really only has one choice to make (whether or not to submit to her partner's will), and once she has made that choice, by the very nature of that choice she relinquishes her ability to make any others. I suppose that greatly simplifies life, to have only one real choice to make, but it's not the kind of simplicity that I find all that appealing, either in my personal relationships or in my spiritual ones. It's not a model I would strive to instantiate in my life.

I also do not think that this kind of submission is the same as, or the only way to express, mutual trust. Trust is most definitely an act of will. Submission seems to me to be, by definition, the relinquishment of will. "Willing submission" is, in that case, at best a description of a single specific act in which the will itself is abdicated; at worst, it is an oxymoron that only serves to confuse the issue.

But now I'm afraid I've hijacked your comment thread for my own musings! :) Thank you, as usual, for providing so much food for thought.

I have many more thoughts on this and will probably be adding another blog post here as a follow-up. In particular, I'm still very much grappling with the issue of discernment and the theological/spiritual concept of attending (in the sense of (a) deep listening, (b) full presence, (c) service -- all of which are practices which stretch and challenge the self to both transcend and deepen).

I think I am in some respects in a "dark night of the soul." But it is a dark night full of the sound of crickets. I am finding it difficult to listen not because I do not hear anything, but because the deeper I try to listen, the louder the cacophony seems to be, so that discerning some sense or meaning in it has become a challenge. This suggests to me that maybe there is an imbalance in the different ways that I approach the spiritual work of attending -- but that is a question for another blog post.

Salmon Stewardship and Thoughts on Spiritual Practice

Today was our final day of Salmon Stewarding, and our last official program for the Seattle Volunteer Naturalists for this year.

Carkeek was gray, misty and quiet today. Here and there, some carcasses are still rotting along the streambanks. Very few people were out in the park, except for some neighborhood dog-walkers and a few families with very small children earlier in the morning before lunch. Jeff and I spent a good hour or so in the wetlands in the rain, where even the crows were hushed. A male mallard perched on a branch that was half-sunk in water, his head hunched down as he tried to nap in the midst of the rain. In the creek, just above the weir right before the train tracks, a crow was pulling apart the flesh of a salmon carcass, gulping down the strips. All was very peaceful and relaxed, and even the smell of the fish was subdued, lost in the wafting scents of western red-cedar along the stream.

I am so glad we decided to volunteer. It's been a challenge to keep up with all of our required programs this year on top of the training, especially with the uncertainty of our schedules this first year in Seattle, but it was well worth it to have a commitment that forced us to show up and put the time in. I'm looking forward to the spring, when hopefully we'll have a chance to do some volunteer work with the salmon fry in the imprint pond before they're released, and signing up for stations as SVNs as well.

I have been working on incorporating more local naturalist knowledge into my spiritual practice, and I'd like to expand on that area. My column for Aontacht Magazine this coming issue is on building a relationship with keystone species in your local bioregion, and though I definitely have a working relationship with the salmon now and, arguably, the western red-cedar, I'd like to explore these (and a few others) beyond the ecological/natural history aspect and delve more into the "spiritual" side through meditation and ritual work.

I'm realizing that a great deal of my spiritual practice tends to center on direct, embodied encounters with nature -- and so the work with the salmon, for instance, has been really fulfilling for me. Sitting in my room with my eyes closed trying to imagine these sacred encounters is not something I've ever been very good at, even before I became a Pagan. Which is maybe why there's something to be said for rituals that bring you out into the natural world and expose you to the elements (quite literally). All of my most moving memories of Pagan spiritual practice have involved direct encounters of this kind -- especially those performed in bad weather, when I showed up despite rain or snow to kneel in the dirt and place my hands against the earth and light a candle in the darkness. I think maybe that's why my relationship with Artemis has been so strong these last few months. I can feel her presence when I'm out in the woods, with very little effort on my part to visualize and imagine and pray to evoke her presence on my own. I saw that Carl had shared a quote on Twitter today, something along the lines of, "Contemplative prayer is not something you achieve, it is a gift that you receive, given to you in silence, and you need only learn how to accept it." I think for me, this was why I struggled in my relationship with Brigid for a while, because my work with her was always so effortful, something I was working and striving at. It's just not my habit to pray to gods in order to remind myself they're around -- I'm much better at remembering to simply accept the gift of their presence when they make themselves known in my life.

Still, there's something to be said for effortful work, and that's the thing about ritual in bad weather and the commitment to show up to the work. Personally, I tend to think this has very little to do with competence, as Phaedra and others seem to emphasize. I'm not sure I could be much more competent at lighting candles or repeating simple prayers, and the more complicated the ritual (the more demanding of skill and practice an act is because of its many difficult parts), the more I find it to be a distraction rather than an aid in helping me make that connection. Instead, for me, showing up and doing the work has much more to do with commitment -- devotion or loyalty in a sense -- and creating through that commitment the opportunity for grace. That sounds very Christian, maybe, but by grace I just mean blessed synchronicity, the way sacred presence slips into a moment and draws your attention to a larger circle of life that you're a part of. I find it hard to imagine that this has much to do at all with how well I light candles or repeat memorized prayers, and almost everything to do with whether or not I just show up. For me, at least, it seems like putting too great an emphasis on competence becomes an excuse -- once I am meditating competently, it's easy to excuse a missed day or justify why there are so many other things in my life that require attention and practice, so many other skills I need to work at cultivating. Not to downplay the challenge of leading and performing moving and meaningful group rituals, but when it comes to my personal practice, I'd have to be pretty drunk or otherwise incapacitated not to be able to do it competently. It's just not that kind of practice.

But days like today remind me that it's not about how well I do something, but how open I am to what I can experience and learn. It was deeply satisfying and soul-nourishing to be in the woods and the wetlands today, spending time in the silence listening to the sound of rain falling through the mist. I've spent almost a year now studying the ecology of the Pacific Northwest and learning how to effectively engage others and teach them about natural history. But I've also learned that there's a reason we teach out in nature, out among the trees -- because no amount of knowledge or skill on my part will ever be able to recreate the experience of being present to the natural world. No books or lectures of slideshows can evoke that power. So as a naturalist guide and interpreter, my job is to be an excuse for people to slow down and listen and open themselves up to the presence that is already there anyway. Today, Jeff and I stopped and watched the ducks... perfectly ordinary, common ducks that you might see anywhere in the country. What made the experience meaningful and special for us was now our knowledge or skill as naturalists, but our willingness to slow down and listen. We are naturalists because we value this presence of the sacred in nature... not the other way around.

Happy Ali Is Happy

I have nothing of deep spiritual insight to add at the moment, but I did want to follow up with a post noting that, for the most part, I am exceedingly happy with my life right now. Like, not just "I realize intellectually that I should be happy because things are going well, but mostly I feel tired" kind of happy. Actually happy, the solid kind of happiness that can become a foundation, the kind of happiness that you can build on.

Partly I think this is due to my writing. NaNoWriMo has given me a legitimate excuse to spends hours every day writing creatively, something I haven't done in a very long time. I find that the energy it gives me spills over into my other work — on the podcast, on the blog — and so that work is also becoming easier, getting more "flow" to it.

Another part of this is that, because I start every writing session with a tarot reading and ten minute meditation, I have somehow tricked myself into re-establishing a daily practice. Because the meditation is not all that long, I have far fewer excuses for not doing it; and because it's main purpose is to quiet my mind in order to help me transition into "creative writing mode," I don't concern myself with making progress or accomplishing anything by it as a result. This is, of course, the best way to approach a daily meditative practice — at least, so I've heard over and over — releasing attachments to outcome and providing yourself with a pause in which to embrace silence as a path to the divine. But I am such a perfectionistic workaholic that I have always bent my whole intensely-wound will on being really awesome at non-attachment... which, obviously, somewhat defeats the purpose. (Gods, please do not let me jinx this practice by writing about it here and making myself aware of the trick I've played on my perfectionism!)

Likewise, the tarot reading is not a reading for myself, but for the next scene that I'm working on in the book. So I avoid the kind of spiraling navel-gazing self-obsession that my attempts at daily tarot reading has led me to in the past. In other words, I'm practicing non-attachment with my divination as well, and the only records of my readings are (instead of an obsessively kept journal) the creative writing that results, which is shaped not just by the divination but by the plot outline I'm working from and the characters who want to have their own say. (There is one character in particular who dominates every scene she's in and just will not shut up and let others talk... I will have to find something to do with her. Jeff suggests giving her a yappy dog to keep her busy and distracted.)

I am so deeply proud of the work we're doing with the podcast, engaging in topics that really interest me and giving me lots of opportunities to explore new ideas. I feel somewhat liberated from the pressures that blogging had brought with it, which means that when I do blog (on my own personal website), I enjoy it more.

Also, it's beautiful here. The weather is finally getting chilly, but it continues to be sunny on and off most days, and the same flock of pigeons hangs out on the roof of the condo across the street, and the same crow surfs the power line above the smoke tree, and I am finally (weirdly enough) feeling at home here. I am not sure when this started to happen, but I noticed it when the kids came to visit us in October — I finally feel grounded and centered in this place, I finally feel like I'm starting to understand the patterns and moods of the landscape here. I still spend far too much time inside during the week, between the writing and the podcast research and editing, but weekends are wonderful chances to go out exploring, and Jeff and I are still volunteering as naturalists, which is another of the reasons I feel grounded and connected and happy.

I feel too often this blog becomes a place for me to rant about the things that bother me when they're bothering me, and it can seem like they dominate my days when really they are passing concerns. I feel deeply happy and fulfilled in my life right now. Oddly enough, I am exactly where I wanted and hoped to be by this time in my life (child-free by choice, with an awesome man who loves me and just got an adorable new haircut, living in a beautiful city that doesn't dry my skin till it bleeds in the winter, doing creative work that I love and find meaningful...). I am so full of gratitude and amazement that this is my life. Sometimes I wonder if my minor freak-outs are largely due to the fact that, damn it, I want everyone to have such an awesome and fulfilling life and so many times it seems like instead people are engaged in senseless self-sabotage. Non-attachment, Alison, non-attachment. Lift them up into the light and let them work their own way out, since that is really the only way it works anyway.

My remaining goal is to finish this book manuscript by the winter solstice. Perhaps an arbitrary date, but it's a pretty big astronomical alignment that kind of nicely wraps up my Saturn Return years. It would be nice to go in to the dawning of a new year and its lengthening days knowing that a major life goal of mine (to write a novel) has been crossed off the list.

I guess that means I better get started, then...

**

Edited to add: Duh! Then there's my relationship with the gods, specifically Artemis (yeah, that's right, I said it!) and Brigid (yeah, that's right, I'm not so deity-dumped as I thought). Turns out that when Brigid suggested we see other people, she meant some sort of kinky holy threesome, and I feel a roundness and wildness to my relationships with deity now that astounds me and fills me with energy, inspiration and gratitude. So... rock on!

Crowd-Surfing and Other High Anxiety Issues

I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) this year. I've started strong, and I'm trying to loosen up with my creative shitty-first-draft writing (which I don't do much of anymore these days, so it's a refreshing change).

For several reasons, but that being one of them, I'm feeling somewhat raw, more than usual. Also, probably the amount of caffeine, and worries about schedules and all of that.

I had a thought on crowd-sourcing and asking for financial support from people who read your blog or listen to your podcast (in the wake of our first ever canceled subscription over on FF&C — not a great way to start the morning). Fiscal crowd-sourcing is kind of like crowd-surfing.... You have to make sure that you have a big group of people who are so fucking excited to be there, they don't mind if you accidentally kick them in the face while you're busy failing around. It's not even a matter of supporting your weight. It's about the fact that, these days, you don't get "off" time from the online persona, ever, so you have to trust in people to forgive you for disappointing them or being a pain in their neck (literally). Also, if you're like me, you end up spending so much time trying to make sure you're not wearing steel-toed boots or other clothes that might hurt someone under you, that you never get the chance to crowd-surf anyway. And then you feel stupid and hurt because nobody noticed how gods-damned sensitive you were trying to be.

I am feeling deeply cynical right now, because I do not have very many people in my life that I can trust like that. I do not think that I am a very difficult person to get along with, but so it goes. I am approaching thirty, and sometimes I still feel like the vulnerable angst-ridden teen whose friends are always on the edge of abandoning her for some slight that she didn't even know she made. (True story.) I am unreasonably hurt, for instance, that a person whom I thought was a very good friend of mine simply hasn't answered my emails in several months.... And my reaction is "if you let them, let them go"... but sometimes I feel like I am doing a lot of letting go in my life. The thing about butterflies and flowers is, the flowers have to put so much energy into being attractive.

I do not understand what it is that makes other people successful. I don't even understand what it is that makes my own work successful when it does happen. Things I pour my heart and soul and sweat into get ignored, and things that I scramble through (not because I'm half-assing it, but because there's always something worthy to be doing and I just can't do it all) sometimes get praised like they're the best thing ever. It's so easy to ignore when that happens, especially when it feels like what people want from you is to always be scrambling and half-crazed and a mess. It's hard not to feel deeply hurt when your best stuff, your soul stuff, gets completely overlooked in the mad dash. It can make you feel like your soul is shit, isn't worth people's time.

This is me, making my life more difficult than it has to be. Only a few years ago, I was panicked because I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life and I had nobody to help me. Now, I have a wonderful husband and a wonderful home in a place I love, and I'm doing work that I love to do, more of it than I ever thought I'd have, I get to work full time as a "creative professional" (let's say — is that a term, or did I make it up?).... And I'm still the anxiety-ridden idiot whose worried that nobody loves her and nobody wants to listen. I went from being worried that I had nothing to say, to being worried that nobody could be bothered to hear me out.

How ridiculous. I blame the caffeine. Leftover Halloween candy is the worst.

I just want to make something beautiful with my life. When I feel like nobody supports me in that, I get resentful and stamp off to my own little corner to build my own sand castles. And they will be so damn beautiful. But I see the tide coming in, and I know it won't last forever. So how do you deal with that?

Even Emily Dickinson had fans.

Glorying in Dry Land

It's strange how difficult it is to give up something that, in many ways, has been a burden and distraction for me for the past year and a half. I'm stepping down from NUP and from the PNC more broadly.

It is surprisingly hard to let NUP go, now that I'm in the last stages of transferring the administration of the blog and all its social media integration to the new admin. I am so immensely proud of the work I've done on NUP, and the work that so many others have put into it through their writing and their guest posts and photographs. I've also been devoting a couple hours a week to trying to manage and promote NUP since it got rolling back in April 2011.... It's become a habit of mind to always be brainstorming, somewhere in my subconscious, what my next NUP post would be.

Deciding to pursue NUP as a project of the PNC was the first time that my work as a Pagan and Druid truly crystallized in my mind. As Plotkin describes in his books on the cycling stages of life, many people go through a "Wander in the Cocoon" phase, when they withdraw from society and go wandering in the wilds to find their truest calling. Sometimes this wandering is literal -- visiting strange, exotic locations -- and sometimes it's more figurative or psychological or spiritual. For me, it was a little bit of both, and it seemed to last forever. But, Plotkin says, if we commit to the work of every stage of life and try to live most fully in the present, that is the only way we are ever able to eventually move on. I was the Wanderer for a long time before things fell into place. And when they fell into place, I found that I was suddenly no longer wandering. I was the Apprentice at the Wellspring.

NUP was my first apprenticeship. I had become a student of ecology and deep ecology almost without realizing it, and it suddenly clicked into place that in all my wanderings, what I'd discovered was that more than anything, I wanted to talk and write about nature spirituality. I thought perhaps others wanted to read and talk about that, too, and so I approached Jason with the idea of pursuing the concept as a part of the Pagan Newswire Collective. I was turned loose to do my worst... and the result was a group blog with some of the most amazing people I've ever had the pleasure to work with. Together, we managed to make NUP the most popular and well-read blog of the PNC collective.

So it's hard to step away from that. My pieces on NUP have more than double the readers that blog posts on my personal blog get. That's the nature of the internet beast these days -- with a glut of information out there, aggregate news sites and group blogs attract a lot more readers, they know they can get all that they need in one place. So it's really, really hard to step away from that, to give up the chance to reach more readers.

On the other hand, NUP has been a bit of a thankless job. I got no support from the national staff, who eagerly gave themselves impressive titles and then settled back on their heels and asked everyone else to take the initiative as part of the "autonomy" of the blogs and bureaus. So instead of making good on the clout earned through celebrity in order to promote and spread good, thoughtful, engaging writing... that clout was squandered.

I know full well that I don't get to sit at the popular kids' table in the Pagan Cafeteria. At best, I was for a time a bit like the yearbook editor, with the popular kids relying on my hard work to make them look good and feature their photographs most prominently in the collages (okay, the metaphor is stretched, bear with me). But trespass on the popular kids' table at lunch, and you get smacked down and reminded that hard work doesn't mean you're not still a geek and a loser. And I was tired of getting smacked down. I was tired of having to hang around people who clearly didn't like or respect me, even if I did love the work I was doing. I was tired of fending off personal attacks thrown at me in the public arena by the very people who were supposed to promote and support my work as part of NUP. I was especially tired of the attitude that my hard work on NUP somehow was something to feel embarrassed about, as though I didn't have something better to do, as if the disorganization and incompetence of the people at the top was a mark of their superiority. Diana's response especially, that the concerns of the PNC were "narrow" and not a big part of her life.... as if to say that the care and energy of the volunteers who make NUP and the other blogs possible was something beneath her, that she couldn't be bothered to handle the responsibilities that she chose to take on....

Well, anyway. There were a lot of reasons to leave.

But it's going to be a challenge to change my mental habits. To realize that I no longer have the NUP project as something that needs to be nursed and looked after. That's someone else's job now. In a lot of ways, it feels like an anchor has finally been cut, a deadweight released. In other ways, it feels odd to relinquish control over something you've put so much time and energy into... to give up on that vision of what you thought it might become and let someone else take on that responsibility and make something of it instead.

I have FF&C to think about, and that work has been so amazingly rewarding and fruitful already. I go into that work guided by a vision and a direction. Rather than feeling like I'm always scrambling to grab the attention of the popular people so maybe they'll throw me a bone, I have a deep sense of integrity about the work I do for FF&C. Maybe it's just that, for now, we're skirting under the radar of the trolls and the haters.... But all of the listeners and readers and fans have been so full of support and enthusiasm. It's a joy to do this work.

I read an article analyzing Obama's strategy in the presidential debate this week. There is a technique in debating where you bombard your opponent with a slew of falsehoods, half-truths and strawman arguments, in the hopes that he'll spend all his time trying to debunk you and never have a chance to get out his own message.

In a lot of ways, I felt like the work I did for NUP was constantly at risk of getting pulled off track by that kind of tactic, especially when it came to behind the scenes. Not so with FF&C. With FF&C, I feel like I am finally staying "on message" and really having the chance to explore and share the things I truly care about, the things that most fascinate and inspire me.

The internet is a weird place. Bad press can be addictive. You feel like you have to defend yourself against idiocy. I know for a long time I've worried that my work would be remembered according to the false characterizations of the trolls and haters who were way more popular than me, had tons more readers. Every time I came across someone judging me (especially judging me as a person) without having even bothered to read my work, it really hurt. But at the same time, damn did it drive traffic.

But I don't want to deal with that stress anymore. I'm sick of trying to placate the Bitchy Popular Girls in the Pagan online community. I much prefer to go off with the other nerds and enjoy their company.

It's like the surface tension of water, I told Jeff earlier. When you've been drowning in bullshit so long, sometimes it takes a lot of effort to break through, to scramble to the surface and leave the bullshit behind. But when you do eventually make it back to dry land, and you can stand upright again and feel proud of your work and hold your head high and take a deep breath without worrying what kind of stench is going to invade you from every direction......

......Damn, it feels good.

This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things

I should note the meditative work I've been doing on "natural polytheism" recently, as well as the equinox ritual we attended this past weekend, not to mention my on-going work on the podcast and the work I'm doing as a volunteer naturalist (our training is almost over!).... but instead, I'm going to take a second to Rage in a quiet way.

Last week, Ian Corrigan wrote an interesting post about the use of the word "unsacred" in the title of the blog, No Unsacred Place. He trots out the fairly familiar complaint that the word "sacred" means to set aside as special, and if "everything is sacred" then nothing can be sacred.

I left a comment explaining the context of Wendell Berry's quote, and drawing attention to the very important fact that, first, Berry is speaking poetically (since "unsacred" is not even a proper word, that should have been a pretty obvious hint), and second, Berry is very specifically trying to call our attention to our relationship with the places we create through the act of "setting them aside." Berry is using the word "unsacred" in a very particular way, in order to challenge us to think about how we engage with the very notion of "sacred."

Jeff and I explored this idea, as well as the contrast between the concept of "space" and "place" (which Berry also plays with in his poem), in our most recent podcast episode, which I'm about to finish editing and posting. In fact, I'm working on the show notes, which is how I ended up back at Ian's post snagging the URL to include in our list of links....

When I see that Michael York (academic and author of that book, Pagan Theology) has left a comment on Ian's post since the last time I was there, in which he praises Ian's essay and says he agrees with a previous commenter whose entire comment consisted of a single sentence: "Thank the Gods for people who care what words mean!"

York left his comment after I left mine. There is absolutely no acknowledgement from York (or from Ian) that either of them even understand the more subtle point that Berry is trying to make, or the value of considering the context of the original quote. There is no acknowledgement that my comment has helped to contribute to the conversation. Instead, to be perfectly honest, York's follow-up remark seems very much like an intentional kind of "silent treatment." He refers specifically to a previous commenter's remark, which means he did bother to read the comments that other readers had left before him. My comment was substantive, relevant and brought valuable new information to the conversation in order to expand the focus beyond prescriptivist nit-picking about the technical, literal, dictionary-definition of words. Quite honestly, in this case, "caring what words mean" obviously has to include an understanding and appreciation of the context and use of words (especially words invented by the poet specifically for the purpose of challenging our usual, easy assumptions about how we use those words).

And yet, my comment receives absolutely no response. Ian acknowledges it just barely enough to give his permission for me to re-publish his post over on No Unsacred Place, but beyond that, you could practically hear crickets chirping.

Now, yes, I take this as an affront to my pride. I totally have some ego going on here.

But I think this is also part of what's wrong with the way that celebrity functions in the Pagan community. There is a certain type of Big Name Pagan — I'm not going to pull punches: they're usually white, male, middle-aged or older, and they usually pride themselves on having some kind of academic background, and unfortunately there seems to be a higher concentration of them in Druidry than in other Pagan traditions — who responds to criticism or challenge from others (especially if they are young and female) with silence, at best. Nobody would even know I'd been there. I doubt that either Ian or York will ever refer back to my comment as relevant, interesting or helpful, even if at some later point they decide to re-evaluate their ideas or even come to agree with me.

The fact is: Ian was mistaken. He didn't bother to find out what the context of the original quote was or to think about it any more deeply than the assumption that if someone was using a word (or intentionally invented a word) in a way that bothered him, it must be because they were using it incorrectly. I pointed that out to him (in a way that was respectful and enthusiastic to share some of the more interesting implications of the quote), but the simple reality is that I am young and female and knew full well what I was doing when I chose that title for the PNC nature blog (we even had a conversation about it among the staff before settling on it). All of that meant that there was no way for him to maintain his position of being the One Who Knew More — not only did he not know the context of the original quote, but he didn't know that I knew it and had taken it into consideration when I made my choice.

So Ian responds with relative silence (I doubt I would have received acknowledgement at all if I hadn't asked him a direct question that he couldn't very well have afforded to ignore).

Seeing some uppity young woman being sensible about the whole thing, along comes York and decides that, on top of responding to my comment with very deliberate silence (which he calls attention to by making sure everyone knows he's read the comment thread), he's going to double down on the original, overly-simplistic approach that Ian took in his original post and praise Ian for it.

The Good Old Boy system prevails, old white men pat each other on the back and reinforce each other's prominence and expertise, the more interesting and subtle aspects of the conversation get ignored.... and a couple years from now, we'll be having this same exact conversation all over again. We never make any progress, our theology remains shallow and myopic, and we wonder why other religious traditions don't take us seriously even though we wear shiny things and fancy robes.

This is why we can't have nice things.

Saturn Return, Part Three: Revenge of the.... Saturn?

Just a quick note: looking again at the calendar of Saturn transits that I wrote up a while back, I see that my last onslaught of major transits (conjunctions with my ascendent, natal Saturn and Pluto, plus one parting sucker-punch square to my MC) started back on, surprise, August 18. It's going to be a rough two months.

During our quick phone call today (or yesterday?), Jeff said that he thought I was handling my Saturn Return much better than he did, since at least I was working consciously with the energies. During his Saturn Return, he was externalizing those energies, so they took the form of other people controlling and pressuring him, leaving him to deal with the real fall-out only seven years later during his next Saturn square (which was, among other things, his divorce).

He has a lot of confidence in me. Generally, I'm just frustrated with myself for being subject to these bouts of crankiness and apparently so easily influenced by the goddamned stars.

But now it's way past when I should have gone to bed. I just don't want to move, since the cat is curled up on the blanket right next to me, and he's so sweet when he twitches, chasing noms in his sleep.

In Which Ali Rambles About How She Was Never Loved Enough As A Child

I just had a realization, a minor revelation about the source of some of my anxiety about wanting to do so much and feeling like I never have enough time.

I am blessed to know a number of amazing, creative people.

Take Heather, for instance. I've never met her, I'm just a fan of her blog. In another life where our paths could have crossed in person, she seems like the kind of person I would have been friends with (or maybe not — who knows if we might have remained strangers — she often sounds as awkward and introverted as I am, which is another reason I like her writing). Today, Heather shared a post on her blog about committing to writing one poem for each day during the months of August and September, building on her experience in June and July when she created one index card's worth of art for each day.

My first thought was: Awesome! That sounds so inspiring! I want to do that!

My second thought was: How in hell can I make time to sit down and write a poem each day? I spend most of my time feeling tired and half-burnt-out from all the other self-assigned projects I've taken on, and I have more naturalist training coming up, and another season of FF&C starting in a week, and I can barely commit to fifteen minutes of prayer at the altar or thirty minutes of Tai Chi in the morning....

These are my third thoughts. When I realize that, instead of feeling frustrated that there are too many things I want to do, I should stop for a moment and thank the gods that I know so many inspiring people. People who make me say, "Awesome! I want to do that!" People who know how to live their lives with grace and guts, even when shit is hitting the fan and they feel like they can't keep it together, who still manage to be honest and strong and kick-ass.

So some of my desire to do all these awesome things is to show support and appreciation for the work of these other brilliant, strong, creative people. Because I never really got that kind of support. I wanted to be a writer from early on because my first grade teacher made a passing comment about how she liked my stories. I don't remember anyone ever giving me that kind of compliment before, but I remember my parents' pride in hearing it. For a while, I wanted to be a nature writer and study science (I was very specific, the way kids sometimes get, I wanted to be a marine mammalogist) — I kept a naturalist journal where I made detailed sketches and took notes on all the local flora and fauna down at the creek near my house.... until the day when I found a newborn rabbit that had been dug up from its burrow by a neighborhood dog, and I brought it home with me in a shoebox and was ready to stay up and nurse it all night, but my parents said no, they would take care of it... and in the morning, I woke up to find its body cold and stiff curled up in the box where they'd left it on the back porch.

So I wrote poetry. Dark, morose poetry. My freshman year of high school, I wrote a poem every day. I filled notebooks and notebooks with really bad poems. I slouched in the back of geometry class and wrote poems in backwards handwriting, from right to left. My mom bought me a novel written by a girl who was only eighteen — and I thought, this is the expectation, then. I have to be good enough to write a best-selling novel by the time I'm eighteen. I didn't. I write and I write and I write... but my parents never read anything I write anyway. My senior year, I organized a school-wide arts festival, the largest in the school's history, complete with art gallery, fashion show, live music and poetry readings. My mother filmed hours of other people performing.... but the camcorder battery died within the first 30 seconds of when I finally got up to read. I still haven't been able to write a book manuscript. I have a publisher who said he'd love to publish anything I wrote, just send a manuscript his way whenever I'm ready..... and I still haven't been able to write a book.

What's my excuse? I don't know. I want to do everything, but somehow time gets away from me and I waste hours not getting anything done. Every time I see someone doing something amazing and creative, I want to read their work or take the time to really deeply consider what they've said. I've spent three days — three days — taking notes on a book that's only 150 pages long, so that we could do an hour-long FF&C episode on it. Why? Because four years ago I criticized something else this author wrote, and he came back at me asking for a detailed review of exactly what I thought was wrong with the book.... and I never got around to giving it to him. I didn't tell him to fuck off, I didn't point out that a critical review of a book did not obligate me to pick apart his every argument for logical fallacies, I didn't point out that the critical review I did give the book had plenty of specifics in it already.... Instead, I have spent four years feeling like I owe him a detailed critique, promising myself that someday I really am going to go back and read that book a second time and go through it bit by bit..... and now that I'm reviewing another of his books, I'm leaving no stone unturned, no argument left unexplored. Nevermind that, at this rate, we'll never record the episode, and that even if/when we do, he'll probably never listen to it, and even if he did, his response (like those of listeners) will probably be that I went way overboard and "over-analyzed" what was a very short book and my expectations for it were too high and so therefore my review isn't important..... Why do I do it? I don't know. Because I would want someone to give that much thought and put that much effort into a critique of my work. Because I believe if someone puts the time and effort into creating something, they deserve the same attention and effort in return.

And because giving this much thought to it has deepened my understanding of my own ideas. Yes, that too. But ideas that never have a chance to catch their breath or find their own expression because I feel like I'm constantly in a race to find a better way to express them, or constantly trying to weigh them against the ideas of others, to refine them and deepen them. I am a perfectionist, not just of things but of ideas themselves.

I realize that I feel deeply sad about some of this. People are eager to think little of you. My recent blog post about being "deity dumped" received numerous enthusiastic responses from people full of advice — much of it kindly meant. But an even more recent post, exploring an aspect of my practice in crafted, delicate language, a piece I was proud of writing and that I felt was much better from both a technical and an emotional perspective.... received almost no comment. When I admit that I think the work I do is valuable, and that I work hard to be respectful and to listen deeply to others, I'm told I am arrogant and holier-than-thou.

I feel the strong desire to stop. Jeff, and even my parents, have remarked about how different my attitude towards ebooks is now than it was a few years ago. I used to hate them. I used to think that they would ruin the genre and jeopardize serious reading (not to mention libraries and public access to information and the ability to pass down books through the generations as sacred objects of power). Now, I really enjoy the convenience of wanting a book and being able to download it within seconds. What they don't seem to get is that I am thinking like a consumer now, instead of a writer. I gave up. I no longer think that anyone would read the kind of book I would want to write. I no longer believe that, no matter what I did, my parents would be proud of me or ever really hear me.

So I spend a lot of my time trying to really hear others, to really listen. There are so many people doing so many amazing, wonderful things. I could spend all of my time running around amazed and saying "Wow!" and never get anything done. Even now, the podcast is practically little more than that — me sharing the latest crazy-awesome news and thoughts from other people.

But I find myself burnt out and tired. I find myself wondering why I still feel so stressed out and busy all the time, when all of the deadlines are self-imposed and nobody would really notice or care if I dropped offline for good and never posted another update or recorded another podcast episode or wrote another line. I could just stop. I could give up and watch television all day, and no one would think any worse of me. Plenty of people would be downright jealous. Lots of people dream of being able to eek by on their spouse's single income and not have to work for somebody else at a job they hate.

But this ramble has gotten way out of hand. What I wanted to say was, maybe I can find another way to honor the creativity and inspiration I find in other people: to say thank you and celebrate them, without feeling the pressure of needing to pour all of my attention into that and leave no time for my own work. Maybe some kind of simple ritual, similar to the offerings I make in the mornings to my gods, ancestors and spirits of the land. A ritual that will help me to set boundaries while still showing support and gratitude. I want to think about this more....

Dark Moon Vigil: Nights 2 and 3

I realize I never wrote up about the last two nights of my three night vigil.

Night Two (Friday night, August 17) was a quick and somewhat impromptu meditation quite late (it may have even been technically Saturday morning by the time I got to it, after hanging out with Leah reading Pratchett and watching a couple episodes of the IT Crowd). I didn't do a full formal ritual circle as I'd done the night before, but simply lit Sorta*'s candle and spent some time in silent meditation before drawing a card from the Oracle deck and then spending a bit longer meditating on its meaning.

The card I drew was the Hunter of Gifts — and my half-sober meditations seemed to revolve mostly around the subtle paradox of being a "hunter" of gifts, how this phrase seems to capture the paradox of our relationship with the gods, the delicate blending and balance of work and grace (to put it in more Catholic theological terms), or action and receptivity, effort and acceptance. I have never gone hunting in a literal sense, but I've heard stories about the long hours spent waiting quietly in the woods, moving gently through the trees trying to be unobtrusive as possible, how our ancestors sometimes had to stalk prey for days.... And the sudden appearance of the animal, when it finally arrived, could seem like a gift. A gift is a gift precisely because it is not earned or deserved or exchanged tit-for-tat... it is simply given, freely.

I found this particularly poignant because on this night, I had another object on the altar besides the Oracle deck, the candle and the water (which I drank, as before, to honor and bring into myself the energies of the divination and meditation).... a pendant that is an abstract depiction of a bow and arrow. It seemed a powerful omen that I would draw a card depicting a hunter on this night. (The night before, when I'd drawn the Shaman of Courage card, I'd had a piece of ritual wear that I plan to consecrate to Sorta* for shamanic/journey work on the altar, one that has ties to the deer/stag, which I always invite into the circle with an invocation of its strength and courage.)

Night Three (Saturday, August 18), once again I did a full clearing and blessing of the space while burning incense, lighting the candle with a prayer to Sorta* after some time in meditation. This time, along with the deck, candle, water and incense on the altar, I had another pendant, this one of a bear's paw print, along with Jeff's bear fetish that he allowed me to use. The card I drew during divination was the Shaman of Stars. Using the recorded drumming, I did some journeywork on the meaning of this energy (again, a good synchronicity that on the night I work with the bear's energy, which I've often invoked as "great starry bear" associated with the constellations of Ursa Major and Minor in the northern sky, I would draw a shaman card of the stars)...

Again, I entered into the hollowed cedar and found myself following a spiraling stairwell deep down into the earth. The stairwell itself had close, cool walls of bluish stone studded with "stars" that shone white and gold in the dark and which, on closer look, were various gems and diamonds. At the bottom of the spiral stairwell was a rounded, wooden door on which the image of the Shaman of Stars appeared. I reached out to touch the image, and at my touch the door swung open, giving way to a night scene of green, rolling hills under a star-studded and moonlit sky. I recognized this place as the same hillside I'd seen in meditation more than a year ago when seeking insight from Brigid about her role in my life and my role in hers. The image I'd received then was of me dancing beneath the moon and starlight off alone in ecstasy, while others gathered around a bonfire off in the distance sharing stories and laughing together. I remember feeling a protest in me about how this personal worship, away from the eyes of others, did not seem to me to be what being a "priestess" to the gods was about (I thought instead it was about serving the community and being in the public eye) and how I was chided for that attitude, reminded that tapping into my own deep relationship with the gods was the source of any "priestessing" I would be doing and that I needed to let go of my worry about others' expectations and opinions when it came to that work. This time, there was no one else on the hilltop beneath the starlight.... at least at first. Then I saw a movement, almost like a disturbance in the air, and there was the Shaman of Stars on the hillside, reaching up to pick stars out of the sky like fruit and bringing them down to the earth. He was tall, huge really, and his head seemed to be of an animal nature, with a snout, and he seemed to have antlers, though they were invisible, in which the net of stars would sometimes snag and shiver with the movement of his head so that the stars themselves glimmered. I approached him hesitantly, watching him awhile as he plucked the stars. Then he handed me one — it was cool and light, not heavy, though it was about the size of my fist, with many gleaming facets. I wasn't sure what to do with it, but had the impulse to eat it, so I put it to my mouth. Some rational part of my mind must have objected to eating something hard as a diamond, for I found that I had to crunch it with my teeth, and it shattered into a million tiny shards, like glitter, that I swallowed down with some degree of trepidation and even horror. But as I swallowed, I could feel the shards embedding themselves within me all along my throat and in my chest, sinking into my flesh, passing into my bloodstream and being passed throughout my body until I was shining and glistening on the inside. The heat of my body seemed to melt them somewhat, so that they were wet and almost like liquid. At the drumming call back, I thanked the Shaman of Stars and turned to return through the door and back up the spiral stairwell.

Of all the nights' meditations, this is the one I'm least sure of — the journey work on courage seemed to have some clear and obvious symbolism, the red-mud paint and the dancing naked by the bonfire.... This seemed to be the counterbalance to that night's work, all darkness and starlight and a kind of being anointed on the inside, by eating the star, rather than on the outside with bodypaint like blood. There are also obvious ties back to my work with Brigid, so that I feel that this is also about bringing the gifts of my past relationship with her into this new work that I'm doing. (The Libra-ascendant in me is all ready to be giddy: oooh! a sun goddess and a moon goddess! how balanced! ::headdesk::)

I had intended to complete these vigils with a ritual of integration on the new moon night (Sunday), but decided it wasn't quite the right time. Jeff and I did go out again to Tiger Mountain, where I spent some time in meditation in a small cave among the Talus Rocks, surrounded by rock and root, soil and sky. Obviously, since then, I've had a couple of rough days with inexplicable crankiness — today, though, I'm feeling more enthusiastic and energetic. I'm thinking perhaps that I'll do some work tomorrow night, on the sixth night of the moon, which is also a day of importance to this goddess.

Random discovery yesterday while surfing online: the western (or Pacific) red cedar is not a true cedar, but is actually a member of the cypress family. This is also pretty intriguing, since I've had an intuitive sense of connection with the western red cedar ever since arriving here in Seattle, and it turns out that the cypress is a tree considered sacred to the goddess I am calling Sorta*. Interesting....

Consumerism, Social Media and Loneliness

Full disclosure: I am feeling immensely curmudgeony today. In fact, I've been feeling that way for the past several days (as is probably evident from my last post — in which I spoke too soon, several folks on TC ended up sharing some intriguing ideas and information regarding virginity in ancient Greece, so I was a bit premature in bitching about the canned responses... persistent questioning in this case paid off).

One reason for the crankiness is lack of sleep — a nightmare last night had me awake at 2 AM and I didn't fall back asleep until 4 AM, after Jeff had gotten up and headed to the airport. The nightmare involved a group of young people (three, I think, two girls and one boy) who along with some sort of teacher had staged a massacre — they initially set up a scenario where one of the girls was supposedly mauled by a savage, rabid dog and came stumbling out into the view of the crowd dripping with blood, her flesh town, and the two others were somehow also in on it, setting loose the dog and encouraging it to "sick" on anyone who attempted to run (which everyone did), resulting in a mass of chaos as people ran screaming, trampling each other, and others had weapons, knives, etc. so that the dream descended into a jumble of nightmarish images of people with their eyes gouged out and their limbs torn ragged, etc. I didn't wake up afraid, but more just didn't want to close my eyes and be subjected to the violent images again, so I worked at some light-breathing and meditative exercises (including drawing Brigid's mantle about me) while lying in bed. I did eventually fall back asleep after Jeff had left, at which point I had some sort of dream about Abed (from the TV show Community) being abandoned by his friends now that Troy was dating Britta and all his fears about loneliness and being metaphorically "stuffed in a locker" coming true after all — again, not a fearful dream, but this time a very sad one.

I'm feeling out of sorts and disconnected from people. Earlier, before the nightmare started (which was actually a dream within a dream), I was dreaming of being back at my parents' house, hanging out with my brother and Arthur. I realized how much I miss Arthur, and other aspects of living in Pittsburgh (though Arthur isn't even in Pittsburgh anymore) and how I'm still not feeling very well settled out here in Seattle. On Saturday, a cool gray day after Friday's hot and sunny weather, Jeff and I spent an incredibly lazy day hanging out; the people across the street were noisy and jubilant from early in the morning and Jeff said he heard one of them say something about it being "the day of the wedding"... which led to a bout of crying for me, remembering our wedding and how it felt very much like just one more stressful day in a string of stressful days and how hurt I'd been (still am) that none of my family had seemed as excited and happy for me that day as these people across the street sounded (and how the people who'd been nicest to Jeff and me on our wedding and honeymoon were always strangers giving us spontaneous hugs and congratulations). Jeff pointed out that, at least in his family, there has never been a wedding or baby shower that lived up to the ideal of being a truly celebratory experience — that there was always some conflict or controversy or family drama going on, always a certain extent to which people were just faking their excitement and sincerity. So Jeff spent some time with me remembering all of the beautiful things about our wedding and honeymoon, and when was the first time he felt like we were "really married" (the massage we got at the spa in Santa Fe).

Weirdly enough, though I felt wiped out and deeply sad, there was also a lightness, too, a sense of relief. Every year around Lughnasad it seems I get burnt out, and then comes a day when there's a shift in the air, a different energy, and you can taste autumn for the first time. That was what Saturday felt like, and I felt like I could completely relax, curled up on the sofa with the light falling through the low, misty clouds onto our skin so that it looked illuminated, iridescent.

Sunday we spent out in the woods again, hiking around Tiger Mountain (not up to the summit this time, but along some other trails that led to some boulders that form ancient caves on the mountainside). I found myself stressing a bit about our upcoming naturalist training and feeling that I hadn't done as much studying and research as I would have liked since the end of our spring training. I get into these obsessive thought patterns that just wear me out.

This morning, after the lack of sleep, I just find myself annoyed at how idiotic things seem to be and how much I wish I could just step aside from all of it. The latest controversy in the Pagan community is now whether or not it's discriminatory for online services like eBay and Etsy to discontinue the sale of "intangible" services like blessings and prayers, or to restrict the kinds of medical claims sellers are allowed to make for their products. I hate the fact that my community has such a persecution complex that, instead of seeing this as an opportunity to hold fellow community members accountable to a higher standard of honesty and integrity, they want to complain about discrimination. Is the Pagan community so full of snakeoil salesmen?

It especially bothers me in light of the prevalence among Pagans to complain about Christianity as some sort of homogeneous brainwashing that converted the world through intimidation and force all those centuries ago.... Today, consumerism and capitalism function in just the same way, making promises of a better, easier life if you just buy into the system, enforcing that economic model at the point of a gun and securing its interests all over the world through the use of military force. The result: the exploitation of the most vulnerable and disenfranchised in our society, people who are impoverished and marginalized, and the destruction of our environment. If Pagans as a community could muster even a fraction of the self-righteous anger about capitalist consumerism and the problems it perpetuates right here and now as they do over past wrongs (that are often exaggerated or completely imaginary — "never again the Burning Times")..... But no. Instead, they buy into the system completely, they worship gods with explicit connections to the exploitation of land and people in the name of the "freedom" of the market (Columbia, anyone?) and they get all worked up when their ability to sell superstition to the highest bidder is called into question by businesses that do not want to be associated with hucksters and frauds. They invent reasons to feel victimized and persecuted, instead of rising to the challenge of turning a critical eye on the roll that selling spells and blessings plays in their own community. If these restrictions seem to unfairly impinge on Pagans more than those of other religions, maybe we should ask ourselves why our religion is so much more deeply entrenched in capitalism and money-making than these others? Why Pagans are more willing to spend $30 on a love spell than donate $15 to protect the environment against exploitation and destruction? This is not social justice — this is the whining of pampered, privileged white kids who want to be able to profit from selling products branded with dubious "magical" claims without any expectation of accountability or integrity. Maybe I'm just becoming cranky in my old age, but I lean more and more towards the belief that the selling of religious services in general is deeply problematic. (And yeah, I do still fault Bonewits' theology of polytheism to a certain extent, for building capitalist assumptions right into the foundation of what so many folks in the U.S. think of as "hard polytheism.")