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.")

Diary - Dream & Manannan

Sun: taurus (fixed earth), 6:03am - 8:30pm
Moon: *full moon, scorpio (fixed water)
Earth: gray, drizzly, rainy and cool all day

I woke up this morning (around 5 AM) from a very intense dream once again involving a sea god or man deeply connected with the sea, who I'm almost sure is Manannan.

This dream started out as similar to a dream I had a few weeks ago focused on anxiety about the upcoming wedding. In this dream, like the first wedding dream, I was stressed out about the wedding happening "too soon" and thus our wedding guests not taking it seriously — but "too soon" in the dream meant not our set wedding date in September, but right now, this instant. In the dream, I was not engaged to Jeff but to some other man. I don't think I ever saw him in the dream, but I had an impression of him being shorter and stockier than Jeff, darker in hair and complexion and rather rough and harsh. I was set to marry him "in May" (in other words, within the next few weeks), and I was somewhere resembling something like a beach house with my parents and a number of other people, some of whom were my family members and some not.

While there, I met a man and fell passionately in love with him, in the kind of deep-longing-to-be-together-but-never-really-consummating kind of way. The magnetism or connection between us was palpable, as it was in my previous dream about being mistaken for a priestess of the sea god. I felt like my heart was breaking open, but not exactly in sadness. We spent time together on the beach, and during the course of our conversations it became clear that if I tried to enter into some kind of friendship or relationship with him — even if it could not be a romantic one — this would fundamentally change my relationship with my fiancé. I wanted desperately to delay the wedding until the appropriate time (in September) so that I could spend the next months exploring my connection with this man of the sea, and I knew that if I did that, then the man I eventually married would be changed — I would not marry the dark, short, stocky man that I might marry "in May," but would instead end up marrying Jeff as I actually know him — but this was not because the person I was marrying would literally change and I would marry someone else… it was as though the darker man would somehow transform into Jeff through my relationship with the sea god.

This was all very confusing, but I knew that I wanted to explore the relationship with the mysterious man that I felt such a connection to. Still, I couldn't bring myself to let my family know or tell anyone, so I just tried to think of reasons to delay the wedding. I would meet him covertly, among other friends, as though he just happened to be a mutual acquaintance. Once, when out swimming in the ocean, he caught up to me in the deep waters where we could be alone. He said he had a gift for me, then dove down into the depths, not resurfacing for a long time. When he did finally resurface, he was pulling up from beneath the waters a huge ship, its wood creaking and spilling water from it. Friends from shore saw the boat and came out to see, so that soon everyone was clambering on board to explore (while I still stayed treading water next to him in the ocean). On one part of the deck of the ship was a hole in the boards which was covered over and seemed almost to be surrounded by dirt mounded up with bits of grass growing around it. It looked very much like a well of some kind, like you might find on land. Someone asked about it, and the sea-god-man warned them not to open it — they thought it was just a hatch down below deck, but he said (or made me to understand, at least) that it wasn't. Actually, it was a well, a kind of portal that dropped straight down into the depths of the ocean/underworld. He made me to understand that I could stay and live with him on the ship out on the ocean, but even there, I couldn't always be with him. Everyone once in a while, he would have to open the cover of the well and drop down into the very depths, where I could not follow him, and we would be parted. The notion of being parted from him was painful, but in a way that seemed like a noble sacrifice that was well worth it.

Soon after understanding the purpose of the well on the ship, I woke up.

So a great deal to mull over and contemplate in this latest dream (including the question of why I seem to be able to connect with Manannan so much better in dreams than during my ritual times with hi — or, I guess, why he chooses to show up at one time instead of another).

Part of what fed into this dream, I think, was my emotional state last night, spurred on by (yes, I'm a nerd) finally watching the Doctor Who specials from the year between the end of the fourth season and the beginning of the fifth with the 11th Doctor (that obnoxious actor guy who isn't David Tennant). David Tennant as the Doctor saw me through some pretty brutal, lonely times during those years of solitude and poverty — as well as the first few months of my budding romance with Jeff when we finally met in person for the first time (we spent several nights curled up on the futon watching Doctor Who, and then lapsing into make-out sessions while the TARDIS churned on the DVD menu screen ;). For the two or so years since then, I couldn't bring myself to watch the final episodes of Season Four (when the Doctor definitively loses both Rose and Donna, his best friend) for a second time… until just a few weeks ago when Jeff and I decided to go ahead and do it because we were going to start watching them over again with a friend of ours during a weekly "Night of Doctor Who" get together. Just last night, we watched the Special when the 10th Doctor dies. I cried like a baby. Like, we're talking sobs.

Several hours later, when we were settling into bed, I started crying again in a kind of odd mixture of sobs and laughter…. I can't describe exactly why I was crying, but it wasn't just about some silly TV show. I was remembering who I was during those years of deep, wrenching loneliness, and in some ways, I felt like I was mourning that Alison who had to live through those years. I rarely think about that time of my life these days, and my life now seems full of lots of little stresses and anxieties… and yet, now I am so amazingly happy and grateful that it's almost like I can't really allow myself to fully feel that joy, or I'd just be wandering around like a grinning idiot all the time. So there was this weird, sublime tension between my deep grief for that Alison of memory who is, in some ways, always going to be there, in that past, alone and weeping… and at the same time realizing how utterly ridiculous I was for not opening more fully to the joy of my present life. The only way I coped with those years of heartache was to embrace that loneliness and learn to grieve openly and cleanly, so that grieving became a process of healing and an affirmation of life. Now, I have so much to be grateful and joyful about… and yet I'm busy pushing myself, always striving, and beating myself up for not accomplishing more, not moving my career forward as quickly as I want to, not being as good a stepmom as I want to be, etc. All these stresses that, really, aren't that big a deal. Last night, it was as if I was again that sorrowing Alison of memory, only now I was looking forward at my life today… and laughing at how silly I can be, never cutting myself any slack or letting myself enjoy a rest. The whole metaphor of "regeneration" in the Doctor Who series, and this idea that the new Doctor is not really the same even if he has all the same memories… that's kind of what I felt like. Except, I don't want to forget the sadness and grief and loneliness of who I was before. I want to honor the lessons that sorrow and solitude taught me, and be more present to the very real joy in my life right now.

So before going to bed, I had resolved to develop some meditative/ritual practice to help me cultivate my joy and offer it as a gift, as I once did with my loneliness, to my gods and to Spirit and the Song of the World. I didn't know exactly what kind of practice this would be, but I wanted to pursue it. So it's not that much of a surprise to me that this kind of intense emotional turmoil and catharsis last night brought on dreams once again of Manannan. He always seems connected, for me, to that liminal state between sorrow and joy, grief and gratitude. The longing to be with him — and the wrenching awareness that I can't ever be, not really, not permanently — is a theme in so many relationships in my life (and one reason I think I found the Doctor so resonant and moving as a character). That I'm in a good, happy, stable relationship now doesn't really change that. In some ways, Manannan is reminding me, I think, that even with those we love, there are dark places we cannot touch and depths to which we cannot follow, and that as close as I feel to Jeff, I cannot take our relationship for granted. If I do, then the person I am marrying won't really be Jeff, but some shallower version of him more prone to my projections, more of a stranger than the man I love. But if I work to cultivate my joy and my gratitude and my love, especially in the depths where all becomes liminal and the autumn mists rise, then in the coming months my relationship with Jeff will deepen and blossom even more, and our marriage will truly be one of souls in love. I remember in the dream, understanding that it was important to wait until September, and spend time with this Man of the Sea, so that when the time came for me to marry, my marriage would blessed by the cool mists of autumn.

~

Ellen on the LotS SIG asked what I do during a "Seakeeping" shift with Manannan, so I thought I would share my response to her here.

Honestly, at this point, my practice with Manannan is still in its infancy, taking many stumbling baby-steps. My basic pattern for ritual work is the same I use for Brigid during my Cauldron Cill Flamekeeping shift. I begin my shift at sundown of the appropriate day, opening with a small, simple ritual of welcome.

For Brigid, I have prayers that I use to more fully invite her presence into my life and to charge/consecrate anew the flame pendant that I wear during my Flamekeeping shift. I light a physical candle during this ritual, even if I'll only be able to keep an LED one "burning" during the shift itself, and I pass the pendant above the flames while chanting, "Fire and Water in the Earth of my body, I keep your Sacred Flame." I don't really have a similar thing to do for Manannan, though I've been thinking for a while of finding either a shell pendant to wear, or a ring made of shell (like those hokey ones you can get at beach tourist gift shops). Instead of lighting a candle, I have a blue pitcher that I fill with water which I'll hold between my hands to charge, then pouring libation into my offering bowl (and taking a sip to honor the Spirit/god within). I do have a large whelk shell that was a gift from the sea when I was down at the beach last fall that I also bless. Afterwards, for both Flamekeeping and Seakeeping, I spend some time in meditation and prayer, maybe doing some trance work if I have the stamina for it, and usually concluding the ritual with a divination. During the next 24ish hours, I keep/carry/wear the symbol of my shift with me (and for Brigid, keep either a real or LED flame burning) as a reminder and object of focus for my shift. The next night at sundown, I do a closing ritual where I thank the god/dess for the gifts they've brought into my life, and basically do a kind of "unwinding" (for Brigid, this kind of takes the form of a metaphorical "smooring the fire" for safekeeping until my next shift).

This works very well for Brigid… but I'm finding that for Manannan, it's not jiving as well. For one thing, the metaphor of the flame or fire as something that requires tending (and then can be "smoored") means that the activity of the Flamekeeping shift is actually, well, active, even if only in a metaphorical sense. I feel like I'm actually doing something during my Flamekeeping shift, and usually my creativity feels a bit heightened. During my Seakeeping shifts, though, I've more often felt at a loss for what I was supposed to be doing… There was kind of a sense of the ocean not really being something that needs tending or "keeping," and lighting a candle just feels more active then filling a bowl with water (which will slowly evaporate over the next month, whether I pay attention to it or not). I think this may be one area where I need to rethink the Seakeeping shift and how I approach it. I'm exploring the idea of incorporating some ritual practice that's more about opening myself up to receptivity and relaxing into the presence of Manannan, and not so much about the active engagement and honoring that I do with Brigid during my Flamekeeping… if that makes sense. Some kind of ritual bath would probably be good in this case, but not always possible depending on where I am and what my schedule is.

Like I mentioned already, what I'd really like is to be able to develop some unique rituals for each of the Flamekeeping and Seakeeping shifts, particular to the energies of those deities, but then have one or two practices that I do during both that kind of connect or help to integrate them in some way. (I'm thinking, for instance, of the "Running the Iron/Pearl Pentagrams" in Feri, though I know very little about that other than their names, or the Turning the Three Cauldrons meditation that I've heard about here and there.) So that's where I'm at right now. Trying to find some kind of ritual that is simple enough and practical enough that I can actually commit to doing it regularly… but is also effective and ritually/symbolically meaningful and fitting…. So, lots to think about and experiment with.