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.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
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....
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....
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....
Monday, August 20, 2012
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.")
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.")
Labels:
blood,
capitalism,
community,
consumerism,
family,
marriage,
nightmare,
social justice,
theology,
wedding
Friday, August 17, 2012
Dark Moon Vigil, First Night
Last night's vigil went well. Very simple: candle, incense, glass of water, badger stone and oracle deck. After clearing and blessing the space and inviting in the guardians, I spent time in zazen meditation before lighting the candle with a prayer to Sorta*, then performed some brief divination on the question of what steps do I need to take to prepare myself for a more formal relationship with her (these vigils during the three nights of the dark moon are focused on that question, with hopefully a culminating ritual on the new moon that integrate the previous nights' work). The card I drew was the Shaman of Courage. After this, I did some journeywork, using the 15 minute recording of drumming on my iPod (since Jeff was asleep in the other room, I figured drumming in the middle of the night wouldn't be the best thing to do).
I went to the hollowed Cedar as my entrance to the Otherworlds. Once inside the tree, it seemed to grow much larger, so that I could stand up fully inside it and walk around. On the walls of the inside of the tree off to one side was painted the same figure as depicted on the oracle deck — I reached out to touch it, for it seemed to be shimmering, and it transferred some of its shine to my fingers, feeling slightly wet and sticky, and I smeared this on my body (brow, chest, arms). Then I bent down to mix the shining substance with the earth, which resulted in a gorgeous red mud, and I used this to decorate my body as well. The power was pretty intense at this point, and I spent some time dancing within the tree and just outside nearby where a large fire burned within a circle of stones. I'm out of practice with journeying and was just starting to slip from trance into dream when the callback sounded and I returned to waking consciousness.
I asked Sorta* to help me to integrate the energies of courage and strength as I prepare for a relationship with her, pouring these energies into the glass of clear water, afterwards drinking the water completely. I then closed the ritual space and went to bed. It seemed to me that I had some pretty intense dream, but I woke up feeling deeply rested and refreshed.
All in all a very simple ritual, but powerful, with lingering effects.
I have another vigil tonight, though it will probably be quite late since we're hanging out with Leah and having a Reading Night again (yay, Pratchett!).
I went to the hollowed Cedar as my entrance to the Otherworlds. Once inside the tree, it seemed to grow much larger, so that I could stand up fully inside it and walk around. On the walls of the inside of the tree off to one side was painted the same figure as depicted on the oracle deck — I reached out to touch it, for it seemed to be shimmering, and it transferred some of its shine to my fingers, feeling slightly wet and sticky, and I smeared this on my body (brow, chest, arms). Then I bent down to mix the shining substance with the earth, which resulted in a gorgeous red mud, and I used this to decorate my body as well. The power was pretty intense at this point, and I spent some time dancing within the tree and just outside nearby where a large fire burned within a circle of stones. I'm out of practice with journeying and was just starting to slip from trance into dream when the callback sounded and I returned to waking consciousness.
I asked Sorta* to help me to integrate the energies of courage and strength as I prepare for a relationship with her, pouring these energies into the glass of clear water, afterwards drinking the water completely. I then closed the ritual space and went to bed. It seemed to me that I had some pretty intense dream, but I woke up feeling deeply rested and refreshed.
All in all a very simple ritual, but powerful, with lingering effects.
I have another vigil tonight, though it will probably be quite late since we're hanging out with Leah and having a Reading Night again (yay, Pratchett!).
Labels:
courage,
dark moon,
journey work,
moon,
preparation,
ritual,
Sorta,
vigil
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Virginity, Schmirginity
I've been trying to get a straight answer from folks over on TC regarding the theological implications of virginity for goddesses like Athena, Artemis, Hekate, etc. So far, the only direct statement I seem to be able to get from anyone is: "the ancient Greeks thought about virginity differently than we think about it today" and every once in a while the slight expansion, "for the ancient Greeks, being a virgin just meant 'unmarried'."
Which is all very well and good, if I were a middle schooler who didn't know how to use Wikipedia. But since this is pretty much the first and most obvious information I was able to find on my own with the very limited resources I have (Wikipedia aside, a bit of Googling brings up some reliable academic sources and a few articles by modern Pagans as well)... it is kind of frustrating. Sometimes it seems that these kinds of general all-purpose responses triggered by key words (virginity? I know I have my pre-formulated reply about virginity in here somewhere...) are used by modern Pagans to prop up a semblance of expertise while covering a multitude of inconsistencies and downright contradictions.
In my short time looking into this, I've found "hard" polytheists who insist on interpretations of the virginity of Greek goddesses to mean everything from "since women in patriarchal ancient Greece were not allowed to have sex outside of marriage, virginity today means you literally have to abstain from sex" all the way to "virginity was about female empowerment, and therefore today it means you should have tons of sex because sexual liberation is how we express our female power." Since I happen to think both of these extremes are poor excuses for feminism and female empowerment, I'm baffled that somehow this whole debate has been carefully managed by resorting to the same basic response, "ancient Greeks thought about virginity differently than we do today." That response leaves me asking, And.....? It's a masterpiece of social cohesion in the face of mind-boggling diversity. It's basically a way of avoiding confronting the fact that your theology says you worship distinct, separate deities, and yet these same deities seem to manifest to you (plural) in such incredibly different ways that from an outside perspective it seems odd to claim that Greek-Virgin-Goddess-X-let's-have-sex is really the same as Greek-Virgin-Goddess-X-no-seriously-cut-it-out, but Goddess-Y-let's-have-sex-oh-by-the-way-I'm-Norse just simply can't be the same deity at all, no way, no how. What I'm saying is, as someone who is not a hard polytheist in any way, the lines that get drawn seem pretty arbitrary.
Hard polytheists crack me up sometimes.
Since I'm not a hard polytheist, I don't have much of a problem is there's a huge diversity in how people relate to and interpret deities that they call by the same name. But it's seems to be that intellectual integrity could be better served by asking hard questions and laying bare that diversity in a way that can give us insights and spark new ways of relating to deity, instead of trying to act the expert. I used to buy the line that Hellenic Recons had so many more sources and resources available to them for their efforts at reconstruction than those interested in CR. But now I'm starting to think that's a load of bull and HR folks are just as deep in the process of cobbling things together from half-understood academic sources as CRs are.
In any case, here are some of my remaining questions about virginity in ancient Greek society (keeping in mind the answer could be and most likely is, "ancient Greek society was diverse and evolving, so the answer to your question is going to be complex"):
Which is all very well and good, if I were a middle schooler who didn't know how to use Wikipedia. But since this is pretty much the first and most obvious information I was able to find on my own with the very limited resources I have (Wikipedia aside, a bit of Googling brings up some reliable academic sources and a few articles by modern Pagans as well)... it is kind of frustrating. Sometimes it seems that these kinds of general all-purpose responses triggered by key words (virginity? I know I have my pre-formulated reply about virginity in here somewhere...) are used by modern Pagans to prop up a semblance of expertise while covering a multitude of inconsistencies and downright contradictions.
In my short time looking into this, I've found "hard" polytheists who insist on interpretations of the virginity of Greek goddesses to mean everything from "since women in patriarchal ancient Greece were not allowed to have sex outside of marriage, virginity today means you literally have to abstain from sex" all the way to "virginity was about female empowerment, and therefore today it means you should have tons of sex because sexual liberation is how we express our female power." Since I happen to think both of these extremes are poor excuses for feminism and female empowerment, I'm baffled that somehow this whole debate has been carefully managed by resorting to the same basic response, "ancient Greeks thought about virginity differently than we do today." That response leaves me asking, And.....? It's a masterpiece of social cohesion in the face of mind-boggling diversity. It's basically a way of avoiding confronting the fact that your theology says you worship distinct, separate deities, and yet these same deities seem to manifest to you (plural) in such incredibly different ways that from an outside perspective it seems odd to claim that Greek-Virgin-Goddess-X-let's-have-sex is really the same as Greek-Virgin-Goddess-X-no-seriously-cut-it-out, but Goddess-Y-let's-have-sex-oh-by-the-way-I'm-Norse just simply can't be the same deity at all, no way, no how. What I'm saying is, as someone who is not a hard polytheist in any way, the lines that get drawn seem pretty arbitrary.
Hard polytheists crack me up sometimes.
Since I'm not a hard polytheist, I don't have much of a problem is there's a huge diversity in how people relate to and interpret deities that they call by the same name. But it's seems to be that intellectual integrity could be better served by asking hard questions and laying bare that diversity in a way that can give us insights and spark new ways of relating to deity, instead of trying to act the expert. I used to buy the line that Hellenic Recons had so many more sources and resources available to them for their efforts at reconstruction than those interested in CR. But now I'm starting to think that's a load of bull and HR folks are just as deep in the process of cobbling things together from half-understood academic sources as CRs are.
In any case, here are some of my remaining questions about virginity in ancient Greek society (keeping in mind the answer could be and most likely is, "ancient Greek society was diverse and evolving, so the answer to your question is going to be complex"):
- Why would a goddess choose to be virginal? (Is the act of choosing significant, or only the state of being virginal itself? Is there a connection between the two?)
- What is the spiritual or theological significance of virginity in both goddesses and human worshippers?
- If the ancient Greeks merely equated virginity to "being unmarried," then why do so many of the myths involve women who lose their virginity through rape or trysts outside of the context of marriage?
- Why did the Greeks use the same word (nymphe) to describe both "nature spirits" of a local landscape and its features, and a "bride," i.e. a woman who is married but has not yet had children?
- In light of the answer to that question, what is the theological and/or ritual significance of descriptions of Artemis as having nymphs as companions and priestesses?
- How do modern Pagans approach and understand stories of Artemis punishing not only rapists but also the victims of rape and sexual assault?
Labels:
ancient Greek society,
deity,
goddess,
hard polytheism,
ritual,
sexuality,
theology,
virginity
Thursday, August 9, 2012
Sorta
This evening during dinner, it suddenly struck me that now that we're in Seattle, my Saturn-Pluto conjunction isn't the only thing in my astrological chart to have shifted (away from a square with my midheaven, thank the gods!).
My moon has moved from the dark depths of the mysterious and inscrutable 12th House into the 1st House, house of manifestation, self-expression, obvious appearances and the physical body ("identity in action," as Arroyo describes it).
Which might explain, or at least contribute to, why a sorta-moon goddess has suddenly asserted herself in my life.
Of course, she's not exactly a moon goddess, not really. She is only sort of a moon goddess, just as she is sorta many things, sorta this, sorta that.
I've been pondering a way of referring to her in public posts like this without having to name her specifically, since I'm trying out this whole thing of not giving a shit what other people think of our relationship (and not wanting to rely on the italicized her, lest things get too hot and heavy in the syntax department). I feel like "Sorta" may just be a very good nickname.
With all respect, reverence and due deference. (I think she's cool with it.)
My moon has moved from the dark depths of the mysterious and inscrutable 12th House into the 1st House, house of manifestation, self-expression, obvious appearances and the physical body ("identity in action," as Arroyo describes it).
Which might explain, or at least contribute to, why a sorta-moon goddess has suddenly asserted herself in my life.
Of course, she's not exactly a moon goddess, not really. She is only sort of a moon goddess, just as she is sorta many things, sorta this, sorta that.
I've been pondering a way of referring to her in public posts like this without having to name her specifically, since I'm trying out this whole thing of not giving a shit what other people think of our relationship (and not wanting to rely on the italicized her, lest things get too hot and heavy in the syntax department). I feel like "Sorta" may just be a very good nickname.
With all respect, reverence and due deference. (I think she's cool with it.)
Post-Ritual Drag (And Moontide Blues)
It's becoming increasingly obvious to me that one area I need to focus on in my spiritual practice is working to regulate my energy. This is probably a combination of easing up on myself when I'm working too hard, and finding both mundane and magical ways of maintaining my energy levels through low periods.
And I do mean periods. I had been hoping to perform last night's protection ritual earlier in the week, riding the tide of the just-past-full moon, but I was slammed by my usual 2-to-3-day phase of intense pain and complete exhaustion that occurs every month. Every month. Recently, I had hoped perhaps I could somehow manage to avoid it. I've been eating better and exercising more routinely, and my energy levels have not just been higher, but downright awesome. Last month's moodtides laid me low, but it was in the wake of the custody hearing and a week with my parents, so I naturally attributed the energy lag to the stress, and within a day or two I was back on my feet. This month, I was disappointed and frustrated to find that all that awesome energy and vitality I'd been feeling for the last few weeks suddenly fled as quickly as usual, leaving me a sack of meat, fat and bones barely able to raise myself up in bed, let alone change out of pajamas and get my shit together.
For anyone (all two of you) reading this and wondering: it is extremely frustrating and embarrassing to have a regularly scheduled illness every month that slams you in the stomach like clockwork, especially when you're as intense and serious-minded as I am, and especially in a culture in which Successful, Serious People are supposed to be On the Ball all the time. Promises that birth control would help mitigate symptoms turned out to be empty promises, just compounding my usual fatigue and pain with morning sickness.
Yesterday, my energy was finally climbing back up to usual levels, and so Jeff and I dove into ritual. This morning, my energy was pretty good (I wrote that blog post, didn't I? yes I did, while walking on the treadmill).
Now, Jeff is on his way home, biking seven miles like a boss, and I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. Physical sensations include: a headache that stretches across my temples, tension in my neck, eyes that feel tired and dry, muscles that feel flabby and somewhat tingly, feet that feel cold (my whole body generally feels cold), and an overall feeling of my old bag of flesh and bones being too heavy to shift around properly and hold steady. This is par for the course after a period, but it feels as though the effects were prolonged this month because of the energy work I did last night.
So..... items for the to-do list:
• Work on evening out my energy levels through the month so that, for the sake of slightly calmer highs, I don't find myself at such disruptively and frustratingly low lows.
• Work on post-ritual energy reboot to keep me grounded and healthy.
I really am not a witch. I really dislike being a female body sometimes, and my euphemistic moontides have been a bitch for most of my life. This is not oh-isn't-it-magical-and-special-to-be-a-woman time. Puberty was not a blessing. Menopause just might be. But let's take things one step at a time. I celebrate the sun. That's why I'm a Druid. But my fiery goddess has put me on hold for a little while and counseled me to get my act together and find a better balance, because otherwise she's fed up with me and my burn out.
So. Sorta-moon goddess, you're up. Let's do this thing. You aid women in labor, and this monthly round of gut-punching pain and bloodloss feels close enough to me. Let's say you and me work this out.
First things first:
• I'm going to make a list of activities that help me regenerate and re-energize, and see if I can get some healthy habits going. Same goes for foods.
• I'm going to make a list of activities and foods that deplete my energy and resources, and try to do better at avoiding them.
• I'm going to turn my morning meditations towards more deliberate energy work.
• I'm going to keep doing Tai Chi like a motherfucking KLINGON.
• I'm going to ask for help. Even if it kills me.
And I do mean periods. I had been hoping to perform last night's protection ritual earlier in the week, riding the tide of the just-past-full moon, but I was slammed by my usual 2-to-3-day phase of intense pain and complete exhaustion that occurs every month. Every month. Recently, I had hoped perhaps I could somehow manage to avoid it. I've been eating better and exercising more routinely, and my energy levels have not just been higher, but downright awesome. Last month's moodtides laid me low, but it was in the wake of the custody hearing and a week with my parents, so I naturally attributed the energy lag to the stress, and within a day or two I was back on my feet. This month, I was disappointed and frustrated to find that all that awesome energy and vitality I'd been feeling for the last few weeks suddenly fled as quickly as usual, leaving me a sack of meat, fat and bones barely able to raise myself up in bed, let alone change out of pajamas and get my shit together.
For anyone (all two of you) reading this and wondering: it is extremely frustrating and embarrassing to have a regularly scheduled illness every month that slams you in the stomach like clockwork, especially when you're as intense and serious-minded as I am, and especially in a culture in which Successful, Serious People are supposed to be On the Ball all the time. Promises that birth control would help mitigate symptoms turned out to be empty promises, just compounding my usual fatigue and pain with morning sickness.
Yesterday, my energy was finally climbing back up to usual levels, and so Jeff and I dove into ritual. This morning, my energy was pretty good (I wrote that blog post, didn't I? yes I did, while walking on the treadmill).
Now, Jeff is on his way home, biking seven miles like a boss, and I feel like I can barely keep my eyes open. Physical sensations include: a headache that stretches across my temples, tension in my neck, eyes that feel tired and dry, muscles that feel flabby and somewhat tingly, feet that feel cold (my whole body generally feels cold), and an overall feeling of my old bag of flesh and bones being too heavy to shift around properly and hold steady. This is par for the course after a period, but it feels as though the effects were prolonged this month because of the energy work I did last night.
So..... items for the to-do list:
• Work on evening out my energy levels through the month so that, for the sake of slightly calmer highs, I don't find myself at such disruptively and frustratingly low lows.
• Work on post-ritual energy reboot to keep me grounded and healthy.
I really am not a witch. I really dislike being a female body sometimes, and my euphemistic moontides have been a bitch for most of my life. This is not oh-isn't-it-magical-and-special-to-be-a-woman time. Puberty was not a blessing. Menopause just might be. But let's take things one step at a time. I celebrate the sun. That's why I'm a Druid. But my fiery goddess has put me on hold for a little while and counseled me to get my act together and find a better balance, because otherwise she's fed up with me and my burn out.
So. Sorta-moon goddess, you're up. Let's do this thing. You aid women in labor, and this monthly round of gut-punching pain and bloodloss feels close enough to me. Let's say you and me work this out.
First things first:
• I'm going to make a list of activities that help me regenerate and re-energize, and see if I can get some healthy habits going. Same goes for foods.
• I'm going to make a list of activities and foods that deplete my energy and resources, and try to do better at avoiding them.
• I'm going to turn my morning meditations towards more deliberate energy work.
• I'm going to keep doing Tai Chi like a motherfucking KLINGON.
• I'm going to ask for help. Even if it kills me.
Waning Moon Spell of Protection
Jeff and I went to Carkeek just after sunset last night to perform a banishing and binding spell of protection to guard the kids from harm and sever our ties from E and her toxic melodrama influence.
I think, all told, the work went very well. We found an out-of-the-way place just off the path by the creek (not Piper's Creek, but another, smaller one that runs through the northern end of the park) and settled ourselves beneath what was likely a douglas fir (though it was hard to tell in the dim twilight).
I won't share the details of the ritual itself, since they are private and specific, but the general format was pretty straightforward: declaring peace to the four directions, grounding in the three realms, weaving a nemeton of the three elements, inviting the guardians of the directions to join us and strengthen our work... "lighting" the central candle to mark the center and open the gateway (since we were in a city park where fires are not permitted, plus nestled in amongst dry branches and leaves, we used an LED candle). For the first time, I formally invited Her to attend and aid us; it seemed appropriate, since she is a Protector of Children (and young women in particular), as well as a fierce guardian of the borders. Her energy seemed ideal for a work of magic meant to strengthen and guard healthy boundaries that have been repeatedly violated and transgressed. I poured an offering of white wine to her in thanks. (Note to self: the smell of alcohol permeated the circle for the rest of the work, since we weren't burning any candles or incense that might have helped to dissipate it, and since alcohol is also not permitted in city parks technically, it made me a bit paranoid, but we had no disruptions, and we were out late enough and in a secluded part of the park so that not once did we even have a curious dog-walker pass — so, no harm no foul.)
After this opening and building of energy and allies, we settled down to the main work, which consisted of some good old reliable sympathetic magic, drawing a protective circle around the gathered locks of hair from the kids that Jeff got from them before he dropped them off at their mom's, as well as locks from both Jeff and myself. We used stones, salt, blessed water, herbs for strength and flower petals to draw the circle, which shone dimly in the twilight against the dark earth. With each drawing of the circle, we asked for a blessing of protection for our family. Then, we drew a triangle of salt outside the circle and placed a symbol of E into it (a piece of weaving she'd done years ago — Jeff threw the rest of it out before we began the ritual). We named the triangle as a space of protection and binding, so that we could address our grievances to her in safety. After we each spoke, we declared that she could not exert her will over us or harm us through will, word or deed, that we would no longer allow her to create unnecessary strife in our lives and that she was bound against harming the children, taking out her issues and insecurities on them or burdening them with guilt or shame. We then affirmed that her love and care for the children as their mother was welcome and that we had no wish to interfere, as long as her relationship with them strengthened and supported them on their path. We surrounded both the protective circle and the binding triangle with a ring of flower petals, invoking the love that weaves together the universe and binds us all to one another as equals through respect and good intention.
After this, I did some simple knot magic, taking a cord of twine for each of the kids and tying four knots in each symbolizing the various blessings we'd drawn around them in the circle. Later today, I'll find little trinkets for each of them to tie up the ends, and complete the charms so that we can send them to the kids.
After all this was done, we then buried the piece of E's weaving and dispersed the triangle. We closed the ritual with a prayer for peace, thanked the goddess who'd attended, thanked and bid farewell to the guardians of the directions, extinguished the candle (ie turned it off — yay LED!) and un-wove the circle of the three elements, allowing any remaining energy to bless the place of our working.
Since my leg was massively asleep by the time we'd finished because of the way I'd been sitting, we sat a little while afterwards in silence, enjoying the night, and then spoke a little about how the ritual had gone. We'd tried a different approach this time, since Jeff does not have much experience with ritual and I'm finding that the physical act of ritual are far more effective for me than sitting still and trying to visualize — my energy work is much more of a visceral, kinesthetic thing than a visual thing. So after I did the opening prayers and invocations from memory, I had Jeff read the prayers from our cheat-sheet (ie iPhone, the newbie ritualist's best friend) as I performed the various actions. This seemed to work out really well for both of us. I didn't have to worry about memorizing words or stumbling over prayers as I worked, so I could concentrate on directing my energy into the physical actions; and Jeff said afterwards that, with his Zen background, he's not big into the ritual itself, but as a linguist and writer he finds words themselves incredibly powerful, and bringing voice to the words and feeling them embodied and manifest through his own body and breath, as a deeply powerful experience that let him feel involved in a way that simply listening to a recitation usually doesn't. He said he could feel the protective strength of the earth beneath us, and I think doing the Three Realms working and grounding at the beginning of the ritual (as well as the few moments of centering and silence we took before starting the work) was incredibly helpful in that respect.
In general, I'm feeling refreshed and very glad to have the thing over and done with. I feel like this was exactly the right time for such work, and the way is clearer and more open now in a way that it wasn't before. I feel incredibly grateful for the work and the energy.
"Okay.... seriously, I know his hair is in here somewhere."
"It's holy water, of course it smells minty fresh."
"Deep in the still center of my being, may I find peace—"noise of massive jet flying overhead ".....I said, deep in the still center of my being..."
"Wait, I lost my sandal. Where'd it go? Use your iPhone, can you see it? It's in the bush there somewhere. I knew I should have gone barefoot..."
I think, all told, the work went very well. We found an out-of-the-way place just off the path by the creek (not Piper's Creek, but another, smaller one that runs through the northern end of the park) and settled ourselves beneath what was likely a douglas fir (though it was hard to tell in the dim twilight).
I won't share the details of the ritual itself, since they are private and specific, but the general format was pretty straightforward: declaring peace to the four directions, grounding in the three realms, weaving a nemeton of the three elements, inviting the guardians of the directions to join us and strengthen our work... "lighting" the central candle to mark the center and open the gateway (since we were in a city park where fires are not permitted, plus nestled in amongst dry branches and leaves, we used an LED candle). For the first time, I formally invited Her to attend and aid us; it seemed appropriate, since she is a Protector of Children (and young women in particular), as well as a fierce guardian of the borders. Her energy seemed ideal for a work of magic meant to strengthen and guard healthy boundaries that have been repeatedly violated and transgressed. I poured an offering of white wine to her in thanks. (Note to self: the smell of alcohol permeated the circle for the rest of the work, since we weren't burning any candles or incense that might have helped to dissipate it, and since alcohol is also not permitted in city parks technically, it made me a bit paranoid, but we had no disruptions, and we were out late enough and in a secluded part of the park so that not once did we even have a curious dog-walker pass — so, no harm no foul.)
After this opening and building of energy and allies, we settled down to the main work, which consisted of some good old reliable sympathetic magic, drawing a protective circle around the gathered locks of hair from the kids that Jeff got from them before he dropped them off at their mom's, as well as locks from both Jeff and myself. We used stones, salt, blessed water, herbs for strength and flower petals to draw the circle, which shone dimly in the twilight against the dark earth. With each drawing of the circle, we asked for a blessing of protection for our family. Then, we drew a triangle of salt outside the circle and placed a symbol of E into it (a piece of weaving she'd done years ago — Jeff threw the rest of it out before we began the ritual). We named the triangle as a space of protection and binding, so that we could address our grievances to her in safety. After we each spoke, we declared that she could not exert her will over us or harm us through will, word or deed, that we would no longer allow her to create unnecessary strife in our lives and that she was bound against harming the children, taking out her issues and insecurities on them or burdening them with guilt or shame. We then affirmed that her love and care for the children as their mother was welcome and that we had no wish to interfere, as long as her relationship with them strengthened and supported them on their path. We surrounded both the protective circle and the binding triangle with a ring of flower petals, invoking the love that weaves together the universe and binds us all to one another as equals through respect and good intention.
After this, I did some simple knot magic, taking a cord of twine for each of the kids and tying four knots in each symbolizing the various blessings we'd drawn around them in the circle. Later today, I'll find little trinkets for each of them to tie up the ends, and complete the charms so that we can send them to the kids.
After all this was done, we then buried the piece of E's weaving and dispersed the triangle. We closed the ritual with a prayer for peace, thanked the goddess who'd attended, thanked and bid farewell to the guardians of the directions, extinguished the candle (ie turned it off — yay LED!) and un-wove the circle of the three elements, allowing any remaining energy to bless the place of our working.
Since my leg was massively asleep by the time we'd finished because of the way I'd been sitting, we sat a little while afterwards in silence, enjoying the night, and then spoke a little about how the ritual had gone. We'd tried a different approach this time, since Jeff does not have much experience with ritual and I'm finding that the physical act of ritual are far more effective for me than sitting still and trying to visualize — my energy work is much more of a visceral, kinesthetic thing than a visual thing. So after I did the opening prayers and invocations from memory, I had Jeff read the prayers from our cheat-sheet (ie iPhone, the newbie ritualist's best friend) as I performed the various actions. This seemed to work out really well for both of us. I didn't have to worry about memorizing words or stumbling over prayers as I worked, so I could concentrate on directing my energy into the physical actions; and Jeff said afterwards that, with his Zen background, he's not big into the ritual itself, but as a linguist and writer he finds words themselves incredibly powerful, and bringing voice to the words and feeling them embodied and manifest through his own body and breath, as a deeply powerful experience that let him feel involved in a way that simply listening to a recitation usually doesn't. He said he could feel the protective strength of the earth beneath us, and I think doing the Three Realms working and grounding at the beginning of the ritual (as well as the few moments of centering and silence we took before starting the work) was incredibly helpful in that respect.
In general, I'm feeling refreshed and very glad to have the thing over and done with. I feel like this was exactly the right time for such work, and the way is clearer and more open now in a way that it wasn't before. I feel incredibly grateful for the work and the energy.
Highlights from the Ritual
"Okay.... seriously, I know his hair is in here somewhere."
"It's holy water, of course it smells minty fresh."
"Deep in the still center of my being, may I find peace—"noise of massive jet flying overhead ".....I said, deep in the still center of my being..."
"Wait, I lost my sandal. Where'd it go? Use your iPhone, can you see it? It's in the bush there somewhere. I knew I should have gone barefoot..."
Labels:
family,
forest,
moon,
protection,
ritual,
spellwork,
waning gibbous
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
Flamekeeping Shift: Intense Dreams
My flamekeeping shift started at sunset last night.
I've been having intense dreams for the past several nights, though most of them have been of a mundane nature. Last night I had two intense dreams.
The first, there was fire and a presence in the heavens, a great god whose laughter mingled with the long rumbling of thunder. Everyone was terrified. The sky was bright, too bright — the white, rolling clouds parted here and there to reveal impossible liquid-fire light beyond them, golden tongues licking the mist-curled sides of each billow of cloud. Lightning dropped like rain, jagged liquid fire, thick and slow, not the usual quick and thin streak of electricity but something else. Some people said it was Jesus. The mighty presence laughed. I recognized some Pagans among the panicked crowds, making offerings and kneeling in supplication to Zeus or Thor. The god laughed again, turning his attention to fall on them like liquid lightning. Squealing, they dodged out of the way as the fire fell, impacting the earth with a huge roar and a blaze springing up where they had stood. Terror ran through me, a fear welling almost to an ecstasy. The god drew spiraling lines in the earth, trailing fingers of lightning along the ground until the rocks trembled and buckled, scorched scars raised in long lines almost as though some burrowing animal were tunneling just beneath the topsoil, pushing up its trail. The liquid-fire lightning dragged along, raising spiraling welts on the earth as people dodged out of the path. The lightning turned and danced, and I found myself caught between converging lines with nowhere to go. I stood rooted in place, willing every part of me — from bone, blood and breath to soul itself — into complete stillness, waiting for the moment of convergence. Then there in front of me was a man, wild grin shining and a noise like thunder. It was — gods forgive me — the Tenth Doctor. (Not actually him, in the dream, but his look — my mind probably seeking for some visual representation of the mingled terror and adoration I was feeling.) I trembled, saying, "But... I know you." And the implication of recognizing this god with a kind of terrifying intimacy bordering on triumph. Somehow, I communicated to him, "You're scaring people, you have to go." He offered me the body of a serpent, bloody and skinned, its scaled hide sparkling with a myriad diamond jewels in the impossible light and the length of its body cut into chunks of wet, red flesh with the white, round center of its spine peeking through the mess. I breathed, and said, "No, I don't eat meat," to the horror of those around me, who were bowed down to the ground and weeping in fear, unable to imagine refusing the god anything. The god laughed again, uproariously, and then he was gone just as suddenly, the whole scene settling like dust into a quiet stillness. And I looked down to see that I was holding a plastic bag full of wet, juicy honeydew melon chunks (one carved in the shape of the serpent's head).
I woke up at this point in a lot of pain, with my legs twitching terribly, and it took a long while to fall back asleep again. Once I did, I had a second dream.
Not as detailed as the first. I was in a cart, somewhat like a cross between a roller coaster car and an open-topped railway train car, with rows of bench seats across it with seat belts. There were carts in front and behind mine, too, in a long chain and the train seemed to be underground in a long, dark tunnel with rough, earthy or rocky sides. The dream is only vague impressions for a while — there were many people in all these carts, loading and unloading as the train went back and forth along the line making stops, and many of the people seemed somewhat young, though not exactly children. I remained on the train the whole time, never getting off, and almost always sitting alone on the bench seat as people shuffled around me. Then, at one point, a man sat down next to me — I could best describe him as a stereotypical redneck hick — his hair was blond and short, cropped in a kind of bowl cut with bangs hanging down across his forehead, and he had large teeth and an overbite, barely a chin to speak of, and when he spoke he had an obnoxious stereotypically southern accent that seemed at once idiotic and overly cheerful. But his eyes seemed sharp and intelligent. He sat down next to me, and again there was a sense among everyone around me that this was somehow an honor bestowed on me. Everyone around treated him with a great deal of respect, almost reverence, and deferred to him as a kind of leader. I found, mingling with my distaste for him, a vague sense of familiarity, as though this were some kind of disguise that he was wearing. Again, the dream was only vague for a time, with the sense that we were about the embark on a much longer journey, not the same shuffling back and forth between the same few stops, and that this man next to me was somehow in charge of the journey or leading it. I noticed he wore a blue coat with a few metal pins and sewn-on patches and stripes here and then, almost like a military uniform though I didn't recognize it at all. It seemed too big for him, sticking out at the shoulders, so that he seemed like a child wearing his father's clothes, but there was still that intelligent look in his eye and a sense of authority that he carried about him. We were moving along on the journey now, people settled into their seats, and the tunnel beneath the earth seemed to stretch on in front of us forever with no light in sight except for the torch lights mounted every once in a while that passed us as we moved. The man acted towards me as though we knew each other and were good friends, and I had that vague sense of familiarity (though I was out of the dream enough that I couldn't place why I felt I recognized him). As we moved, the train sped up, faster and faster, and suddenly there was a great lurch as though we'd been struck from behind. The man next to me stood up in his seat, gazing back into the darkness past all the other carts, and his face changed briefly, the expression of soft, cheerful idiocy replaced by a hard, intelligent, penetrating look as though the disguise for an instant had fallen away and the full power of his presence came through. I felt, then, that we were good friends, that I did know him (though I still couldn't say how or from where) and that I trusted him completely. He dropped back down into his seat next to me and whispered that a great serpent was following us, quickly catching up to the train. If people realized what was happening, they would start to panic. He was able to call up or get in touch with the person at the very front of the train and instruct them to veer off the track as we passed an opening in the tunnel — because of his inexplicable authority, nobody argued with him. We veered and suddenly the train was plunged into an icy underground river, the carts now floating like boats or rafts all chained together in a long line. The wheels churning the water beneath the carts sped us onwards, faster and faster, taking twisting turns and bends in the rocky tunnel, now without any light but a kind of eerie very dim blue light that seemed to infuse the air and come from everywhere and nowhere. Behind us, the huge serpent was gaining on us and people were beginning to panic. Its eyes glinted like sharp blades in the darkness, its forked tongue flicking, its massive body writhing in the waters behind us.
I feel as though something happened then in the dream, just before I woke up, but it's gone now, I can't remember it. I don't remember waking up frightened at all, though there was a lot of energy coursing through me. I wish I knew who the man was, or what happened at the end of that second dream. It's no coincidence, I think, that both dreams involved a serpent, as well as other people who were in danger and frightened. But I'm not sure I know what either of the dreams mean.
I've been having intense dreams for the past several nights, though most of them have been of a mundane nature. Last night I had two intense dreams.
The first, there was fire and a presence in the heavens, a great god whose laughter mingled with the long rumbling of thunder. Everyone was terrified. The sky was bright, too bright — the white, rolling clouds parted here and there to reveal impossible liquid-fire light beyond them, golden tongues licking the mist-curled sides of each billow of cloud. Lightning dropped like rain, jagged liquid fire, thick and slow, not the usual quick and thin streak of electricity but something else. Some people said it was Jesus. The mighty presence laughed. I recognized some Pagans among the panicked crowds, making offerings and kneeling in supplication to Zeus or Thor. The god laughed again, turning his attention to fall on them like liquid lightning. Squealing, they dodged out of the way as the fire fell, impacting the earth with a huge roar and a blaze springing up where they had stood. Terror ran through me, a fear welling almost to an ecstasy. The god drew spiraling lines in the earth, trailing fingers of lightning along the ground until the rocks trembled and buckled, scorched scars raised in long lines almost as though some burrowing animal were tunneling just beneath the topsoil, pushing up its trail. The liquid-fire lightning dragged along, raising spiraling welts on the earth as people dodged out of the path. The lightning turned and danced, and I found myself caught between converging lines with nowhere to go. I stood rooted in place, willing every part of me — from bone, blood and breath to soul itself — into complete stillness, waiting for the moment of convergence. Then there in front of me was a man, wild grin shining and a noise like thunder. It was — gods forgive me — the Tenth Doctor. (Not actually him, in the dream, but his look — my mind probably seeking for some visual representation of the mingled terror and adoration I was feeling.) I trembled, saying, "But... I know you." And the implication of recognizing this god with a kind of terrifying intimacy bordering on triumph. Somehow, I communicated to him, "You're scaring people, you have to go." He offered me the body of a serpent, bloody and skinned, its scaled hide sparkling with a myriad diamond jewels in the impossible light and the length of its body cut into chunks of wet, red flesh with the white, round center of its spine peeking through the mess. I breathed, and said, "No, I don't eat meat," to the horror of those around me, who were bowed down to the ground and weeping in fear, unable to imagine refusing the god anything. The god laughed again, uproariously, and then he was gone just as suddenly, the whole scene settling like dust into a quiet stillness. And I looked down to see that I was holding a plastic bag full of wet, juicy honeydew melon chunks (one carved in the shape of the serpent's head).
I woke up at this point in a lot of pain, with my legs twitching terribly, and it took a long while to fall back asleep again. Once I did, I had a second dream.
Not as detailed as the first. I was in a cart, somewhat like a cross between a roller coaster car and an open-topped railway train car, with rows of bench seats across it with seat belts. There were carts in front and behind mine, too, in a long chain and the train seemed to be underground in a long, dark tunnel with rough, earthy or rocky sides. The dream is only vague impressions for a while — there were many people in all these carts, loading and unloading as the train went back and forth along the line making stops, and many of the people seemed somewhat young, though not exactly children. I remained on the train the whole time, never getting off, and almost always sitting alone on the bench seat as people shuffled around me. Then, at one point, a man sat down next to me — I could best describe him as a stereotypical redneck hick — his hair was blond and short, cropped in a kind of bowl cut with bangs hanging down across his forehead, and he had large teeth and an overbite, barely a chin to speak of, and when he spoke he had an obnoxious stereotypically southern accent that seemed at once idiotic and overly cheerful. But his eyes seemed sharp and intelligent. He sat down next to me, and again there was a sense among everyone around me that this was somehow an honor bestowed on me. Everyone around treated him with a great deal of respect, almost reverence, and deferred to him as a kind of leader. I found, mingling with my distaste for him, a vague sense of familiarity, as though this were some kind of disguise that he was wearing. Again, the dream was only vague for a time, with the sense that we were about the embark on a much longer journey, not the same shuffling back and forth between the same few stops, and that this man next to me was somehow in charge of the journey or leading it. I noticed he wore a blue coat with a few metal pins and sewn-on patches and stripes here and then, almost like a military uniform though I didn't recognize it at all. It seemed too big for him, sticking out at the shoulders, so that he seemed like a child wearing his father's clothes, but there was still that intelligent look in his eye and a sense of authority that he carried about him. We were moving along on the journey now, people settled into their seats, and the tunnel beneath the earth seemed to stretch on in front of us forever with no light in sight except for the torch lights mounted every once in a while that passed us as we moved. The man acted towards me as though we knew each other and were good friends, and I had that vague sense of familiarity (though I was out of the dream enough that I couldn't place why I felt I recognized him). As we moved, the train sped up, faster and faster, and suddenly there was a great lurch as though we'd been struck from behind. The man next to me stood up in his seat, gazing back into the darkness past all the other carts, and his face changed briefly, the expression of soft, cheerful idiocy replaced by a hard, intelligent, penetrating look as though the disguise for an instant had fallen away and the full power of his presence came through. I felt, then, that we were good friends, that I did know him (though I still couldn't say how or from where) and that I trusted him completely. He dropped back down into his seat next to me and whispered that a great serpent was following us, quickly catching up to the train. If people realized what was happening, they would start to panic. He was able to call up or get in touch with the person at the very front of the train and instruct them to veer off the track as we passed an opening in the tunnel — because of his inexplicable authority, nobody argued with him. We veered and suddenly the train was plunged into an icy underground river, the carts now floating like boats or rafts all chained together in a long line. The wheels churning the water beneath the carts sped us onwards, faster and faster, taking twisting turns and bends in the rocky tunnel, now without any light but a kind of eerie very dim blue light that seemed to infuse the air and come from everywhere and nowhere. Behind us, the huge serpent was gaining on us and people were beginning to panic. Its eyes glinted like sharp blades in the darkness, its forked tongue flicking, its massive body writhing in the waters behind us.
I feel as though something happened then in the dream, just before I woke up, but it's gone now, I can't remember it. I don't remember waking up frightened at all, though there was a lot of energy coursing through me. I wish I knew who the man was, or what happened at the end of that second dream. It's no coincidence, I think, that both dreams involved a serpent, as well as other people who were in danger and frightened. But I'm not sure I know what either of the dreams mean.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Worthy and Worthless
Someone not worth linking to or naming recently said that all kittens are going to burn in hell unless you pledge to give Jesus all your money and your first born son. And even though this person is not worth naming or linking to and may not have actually said that or in fact even be a real person at all, they're still worth directing scorn and insults at, so I'm going to devote a blog post to ranting about why I think they're wrong about everything and are too worthless even to name.... And since I haven't bothered to name, link to or even directly quote from this someone, you will have no way of knowing if my version of this person's position is in any way accurate, or if I'm misinterpreting or intentionally misrepresenting this person in order to stir up controversy and drive up readership on my blog. Because I'm not actually interested in honest conversation or thoughtful engagement with complicated issues. I'm more interested in being a passive-aggressive ranter who feeds on others' hard work by turning it to shit and mud-slinging.
This is why I dislike the Pagan community so much sometimes. People who are supposedly "leaders" of our community can get away with behaving in some pretty nasty, childish ways. It's disappointing, yes, but even more than that, it's embarrassing to think that these people represent the community to the general public. This is why we can't have nice things. This is why, when I first told my parents I was Pagan, they asked me if that meant I "hated Christians" — because that's the stereotype that such leaders continue to play out before the eyes of others. Angry, small-minded, petty and totally missing the point.
I strongly believe in surrounding yourself with sincere, supportive, caring people. I strongly believe in avoiding bullshit if you can at all help it. And that means avoiding bullshit-farms even if you might miss out on the off chance that one of those bulls swallowed a diamond and, if you just keep digging, you might get lucky. Not worth it.
One way I avoid bullshit is to avoid anything that starts with "Someone not worth mentioning/naming/linking to said such-and-such.. and here's why they're wrong." That's a big red flag right there. Because if you're about to write an entire blog post about something, saying that the person is not worth mentioning is simply dishonest. Obviously they are, or you wouldn't be taking the time out of your day. So if you're not willing to link to a source and you make no convincing argument up-front about why you're not linking (such as, for instance, not wanting to drive traffic to a hate group's website or something legitimate like that, in which case you could still name the source without providing a link)... chances are, it's because you're too insecure or insincere in your own opinion to trust your readers to make up their own mind. Chances are, you just want to rant without being challenged. (Like I'm doing now, yeah, because this is a personal journal that nobody reads and that doesn't allow comments.) Chances are, you're hoping to get away with making sweeping value judgements (like the intrinsic "worth" of an idea or point of view that you've given only a passing, biased summary of) without alerting the person you're criticizing and allowing them to respond — because allowing them to respond could lead to an actual conversation, which would totally undermine your self-righteous ranting.
So if the ideas you're writing about aren't "worth" sourcing, then the blog post you're sharing isn't worth my time to read. I don't need any more rants in my life, thanks. I have enough ranting going on in my own mind, I don't need to invite you into that mental space to clutter up my day.
I do wish that our community had more leaders who were grounded in a healthy spiritual life that gave them the tools to cope with insecurity and petty behavior. I'm mortified that on the largest interfaith website out there, we're represented by writing like this. (Yeah, that's right, I'm linking to the post that inspired this rant, because it's aggressive, petty and ridiculous.)
Sure, there are some diamonds that plopped down here and there amongst the bullshit, statements like "I believe in the holy power of the Many." Or maybe that's just a fancied up bit of pretty glass...
Because there are also statements (far more of them) like this: "Christianity won because it was the Borg. It was organized and ruthless. It bulldozed everything in it’s path." and "We have to learn to survive in a world infested by the Borg. We have to learn that resistance is not futile and assimilation means death."
Yeah..... that doesn't sound like celebrating the holiness of diversity to me. That sounds a lot like making sweeping generalizations about a huge segment of the world population, portraying them as less-than-human monsters who need to be demonized and punished, with any attempt at understanding or mutual respect being equated to "assimilation" and death.
With statements so steeped in bullshit, I find it hard to swallow the whole "belief in the holy power of the Many" claim. I don't see it in evidence. If this is what belief in the sacredness of diversity looks like, I weep for my community.
This is why I dislike the Pagan community so much sometimes. People who are supposedly "leaders" of our community can get away with behaving in some pretty nasty, childish ways. It's disappointing, yes, but even more than that, it's embarrassing to think that these people represent the community to the general public. This is why we can't have nice things. This is why, when I first told my parents I was Pagan, they asked me if that meant I "hated Christians" — because that's the stereotype that such leaders continue to play out before the eyes of others. Angry, small-minded, petty and totally missing the point.
I strongly believe in surrounding yourself with sincere, supportive, caring people. I strongly believe in avoiding bullshit if you can at all help it. And that means avoiding bullshit-farms even if you might miss out on the off chance that one of those bulls swallowed a diamond and, if you just keep digging, you might get lucky. Not worth it.
One way I avoid bullshit is to avoid anything that starts with "Someone not worth mentioning/naming/linking to said such-and-such.. and here's why they're wrong." That's a big red flag right there. Because if you're about to write an entire blog post about something, saying that the person is not worth mentioning is simply dishonest. Obviously they are, or you wouldn't be taking the time out of your day. So if you're not willing to link to a source and you make no convincing argument up-front about why you're not linking (such as, for instance, not wanting to drive traffic to a hate group's website or something legitimate like that, in which case you could still name the source without providing a link)... chances are, it's because you're too insecure or insincere in your own opinion to trust your readers to make up their own mind. Chances are, you just want to rant without being challenged. (Like I'm doing now, yeah, because this is a personal journal that nobody reads and that doesn't allow comments.) Chances are, you're hoping to get away with making sweeping value judgements (like the intrinsic "worth" of an idea or point of view that you've given only a passing, biased summary of) without alerting the person you're criticizing and allowing them to respond — because allowing them to respond could lead to an actual conversation, which would totally undermine your self-righteous ranting.
So if the ideas you're writing about aren't "worth" sourcing, then the blog post you're sharing isn't worth my time to read. I don't need any more rants in my life, thanks. I have enough ranting going on in my own mind, I don't need to invite you into that mental space to clutter up my day.
I do wish that our community had more leaders who were grounded in a healthy spiritual life that gave them the tools to cope with insecurity and petty behavior. I'm mortified that on the largest interfaith website out there, we're represented by writing like this. (Yeah, that's right, I'm linking to the post that inspired this rant, because it's aggressive, petty and ridiculous.)
Sure, there are some diamonds that plopped down here and there amongst the bullshit, statements like "I believe in the holy power of the Many." Or maybe that's just a fancied up bit of pretty glass...
Because there are also statements (far more of them) like this: "Christianity won because it was the Borg. It was organized and ruthless. It bulldozed everything in it’s path." and "We have to learn to survive in a world infested by the Borg. We have to learn that resistance is not futile and assimilation means death."
Yeah..... that doesn't sound like celebrating the holiness of diversity to me. That sounds a lot like making sweeping generalizations about a huge segment of the world population, portraying them as less-than-human monsters who need to be demonized and punished, with any attempt at understanding or mutual respect being equated to "assimilation" and death.
With statements so steeped in bullshit, I find it hard to swallow the whole "belief in the holy power of the Many" claim. I don't see it in evidence. If this is what belief in the sacredness of diversity looks like, I weep for my community.
Labels:
anti-Christian,
bullshit,
community,
diversity,
hypocrisy,
leadership,
rant
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