For years now, Imbolc has been my favorite holiday. A lot of people may not be familiar with it, so here's a quick explanation:
If you're among certain kinds of Northern European pagans, the year is divided into eight pie pieces, by the holidays. Four of those holidays are the solstices and equinoxes, and then there's an observance bisecting each of those.
At the Winter Solstice, one of the things people do sometimes is to hold vigil for the sun to return after its longest night. We watch the sun set, and then we stay up all night to watch it return. It's a way that we can express faith that we will stand through the darkest times, until the light comes again. We greet the return of the sun with joy, though winter's only half over, because we are now on the road to spring.
Roughly six weeks later, we come to Imbolc. In agrarian cultures, it marked the lactation of the ewes, the first faint sign that the lambs were coming, and spring following behind them. Long before the weather turned, before the earth quickened or the trees put forth their leaves, into the bitter grey there came the promise of spring. Here in Central Texas, Imbolc is more likely marked by the first green shoots and budding wildflowers, to herald our brief and gentle spring before the brutal summer takes hold.
The reason that Imbolc is my favorite is that it's a marker of validated faith. In the northern latitudes you can't see, at the Winter Solstice, any real indication that spring will ever return. All you have is your belief in how the world works, that it will continue to follow the laws of nature that it always has, and then at Imbolc that faith is met with proof.
When I lived in the Midwest, I always knew that the worst of the year, the most bitter, brutal, demoralizing cold came in February, in the weeks following Imbolc. No matter how mild a January thaw might be, there remained the looming threat of weather so cold it would freeze the gas lines in your car, burst your pipes, creep in around your windows to torment your sleep. The worst of winter was always its last gasp.
As a modern, educated pagan who knows exactly how the seasons progress and why, there's less concern that the sun will or won't come back, and the cycle of the year becomes metaphorical. Imbolc comes to stand for the moment when the darkness breaks briefly, to give you a glimpse of the coming light before the year plunges you into another harsh test of faith.
My country is in darkness now. The long election season and the first two weeks of the new administration have cast a lot of people into despair. We rightly worry that fear and ignorance have handed the reins of power to a dangerous madman, and that we'll end in war -- external OR internal. The most vulnerable members of our society are at ever-greater risk.
There have been small victories, though. Marches and protests, rogue government agencies, little wins over policy or polemic. There is just enough happening to mark an Imbolc moment, a signal to those who crave light that it will come someday and give us the ease and abundance of full summer.
There may yet be worse to come than we've endured already. There may be more danger, there may be more rage and fear driving our actions and our neighbors'. It's not yet time to plant our gardens, or plan our leisure time. We have more tests of faith before us, but we can survive them.
We must apply winter logic, though, if we're going to get as many people as possible through the darkness ahead.
Know your resources and use them carefully. Check on one another. Support and take care of your neighbors. Stand up for each other. Plan for the worst. Keep your faith and believe in the better times coming, but make sure your root cellar is stocked to get you to them. Trade what you have for what you need. Fight the madness that accompanies isolation and despair with companionship, with music, with laughter. Find a hearth and circle it with love. Connect where you can, and fight where you must, but remember, always, that your only goal is to carry yourself and as many of the lives around you as possible through to the better days.
Together, in community with one another, we can reach spring.
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Showing posts with label faith. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Tuesday, December 22, 2015
Blessed Yule
Winter Solstice (Yule) is one of my favorite holidays. It wasn't always, tucked into the overwhelming press of events that is Family Christmas and Year's End and everything else. I used to just let it slip by unobserved, perhaps giving a nod to the first day of winter as I rushed to finish shopping and crafting and all my other obligations.
Over the last ten years, though, I've not only embraced my own darkness, but begun to speak openly about my struggles with depression, loneliness, and insecurity. In doing so, I've come to understand the meaning and the beauty of the Longest Night: the chance to rest in unabashed faith that the light will come again.
Non-pagans, especially my atheist friends, ask me how I observe the longest night. When I tell them, "I stand in darkness and believe the sun will rise," they painstakingly explain to me that of COURSE the sun will rise, don't I understand science, that the earth is spinning and this is entirely what's wrong with religion and why people of faith are stupid, assigning metaphysical meaning to basic astronomical events.
This is, of course, ridiculous and completely misses the point.
Of course I know how science works; I'm not stupid. I'm an educated woman of faith in the 21st Century, with a background in science and a curious mind. It'd be ludicrous to suggest that I genuinely believed, on a practical level, that the sun was going to go away last night and never come back if it wasn't properly called, if no one held vigil to welcome its return.
And say what you will about the ignorance of history, the ancients approached the solstices with a scientific curiosity. They observed the changes in the length of days, in a culture where the balance between light and dark and the shifting seasons of the year, laying the framework for sowing and harvest, meant the difference between survival and starvation in the long, dark winter. They were watching to see that the days became shorter to a point, and then *something* happened, and the days began to lengthen. Without astronomical tools and study, you're not going to develop a working model of how planets move around the Sun, but lifetimes of observed phenomena will make you feel pretty secure that at some point, the cycle will shift, and you start building massive structures to act as accurate calendars.
So why celebrate the Longest Night with vigils and celebrations, with statements of faith, with a joyful welcome of the sun's return, if we know it's just how the world works? Human psychology.
Through the month of December, especially in Northern climes, it can begin to feel like the darkness will just keep swallowing the year, that one day the sun *will* set and never rise again. Anxiety sets in, depression and hopelessness. The food of winter is hearty but bland and unvarying. You begin to wonder, "Will I be eating turnips in the darkness forever? Is this all there is and ever will be?"
And then the leaders of faith, the people who guide your tribe with wisdom, say to you: Trust us, the light will return. The wheel of the year will continue spinning, time keeps moving forward. Someday, yes, there will be an ending of everything, but that day is not today. Today is the day our calculations tell us that we can stand in the rising sun, welcome it back, and rest in the faith that from this moment, the darkness loses hold and begins receding. The bitter cold of winter will remain, but this moment, here, this is the turning point of light. We no longer travel into winter, because now we are moving towards the spring.
The world will keep on spinning. The light will come again. Though there will someday be an end, that end is not today.
Into every life the dark seasons come. At some point, almost every living human has had a night they weren't sure would end in sunrise. Almost everyone has, at one time or another, wondered if they were staring into the beginning of a permanent, inescapable darkness: it will never get better, there will never be beauty and bounty again, I will never again stand in the sunlight and feel warmth on my face. I will forever be here, eating turnips in the darkness.
The people who survive the dark seasons usually do so by putting faith in the fact that the world keeps spinning, time keeps inexorably moving forward, and that the cycles of light and dark will turn, as they always have, to return to sunshine and the summer days. This must get better, we tell ourselves. The world will return to balance, the cycle of the year will proceed, and if we can just hold faith through the Longest Night, the sun will return, and hope with it.
Not everyone makes it. Every Yule, in the safety of the risen sun, I take a moment to think of those who held on as long as they could in darkness, but whose grasp failed before the light came. I have, at various points in my life, been angry at them, been broken-hearted at losing them, felt guilty for failing them, and almost been one of them. But now, when I think of them, I feed my own fire, building it up in hopes that if there's someone whose grip is weakening, they might be reminded of the sun by the light of my burning.
I love you all, and Blessed Yule.
Over the last ten years, though, I've not only embraced my own darkness, but begun to speak openly about my struggles with depression, loneliness, and insecurity. In doing so, I've come to understand the meaning and the beauty of the Longest Night: the chance to rest in unabashed faith that the light will come again.
Non-pagans, especially my atheist friends, ask me how I observe the longest night. When I tell them, "I stand in darkness and believe the sun will rise," they painstakingly explain to me that of COURSE the sun will rise, don't I understand science, that the earth is spinning and this is entirely what's wrong with religion and why people of faith are stupid, assigning metaphysical meaning to basic astronomical events.
This is, of course, ridiculous and completely misses the point.
Of course I know how science works; I'm not stupid. I'm an educated woman of faith in the 21st Century, with a background in science and a curious mind. It'd be ludicrous to suggest that I genuinely believed, on a practical level, that the sun was going to go away last night and never come back if it wasn't properly called, if no one held vigil to welcome its return.
And say what you will about the ignorance of history, the ancients approached the solstices with a scientific curiosity. They observed the changes in the length of days, in a culture where the balance between light and dark and the shifting seasons of the year, laying the framework for sowing and harvest, meant the difference between survival and starvation in the long, dark winter. They were watching to see that the days became shorter to a point, and then *something* happened, and the days began to lengthen. Without astronomical tools and study, you're not going to develop a working model of how planets move around the Sun, but lifetimes of observed phenomena will make you feel pretty secure that at some point, the cycle will shift, and you start building massive structures to act as accurate calendars.
So why celebrate the Longest Night with vigils and celebrations, with statements of faith, with a joyful welcome of the sun's return, if we know it's just how the world works? Human psychology.
Through the month of December, especially in Northern climes, it can begin to feel like the darkness will just keep swallowing the year, that one day the sun *will* set and never rise again. Anxiety sets in, depression and hopelessness. The food of winter is hearty but bland and unvarying. You begin to wonder, "Will I be eating turnips in the darkness forever? Is this all there is and ever will be?"
And then the leaders of faith, the people who guide your tribe with wisdom, say to you: Trust us, the light will return. The wheel of the year will continue spinning, time keeps moving forward. Someday, yes, there will be an ending of everything, but that day is not today. Today is the day our calculations tell us that we can stand in the rising sun, welcome it back, and rest in the faith that from this moment, the darkness loses hold and begins receding. The bitter cold of winter will remain, but this moment, here, this is the turning point of light. We no longer travel into winter, because now we are moving towards the spring.
The world will keep on spinning. The light will come again. Though there will someday be an end, that end is not today.
Into every life the dark seasons come. At some point, almost every living human has had a night they weren't sure would end in sunrise. Almost everyone has, at one time or another, wondered if they were staring into the beginning of a permanent, inescapable darkness: it will never get better, there will never be beauty and bounty again, I will never again stand in the sunlight and feel warmth on my face. I will forever be here, eating turnips in the darkness.
The people who survive the dark seasons usually do so by putting faith in the fact that the world keeps spinning, time keeps inexorably moving forward, and that the cycles of light and dark will turn, as they always have, to return to sunshine and the summer days. This must get better, we tell ourselves. The world will return to balance, the cycle of the year will proceed, and if we can just hold faith through the Longest Night, the sun will return, and hope with it.
Not everyone makes it. Every Yule, in the safety of the risen sun, I take a moment to think of those who held on as long as they could in darkness, but whose grasp failed before the light came. I have, at various points in my life, been angry at them, been broken-hearted at losing them, felt guilty for failing them, and almost been one of them. But now, when I think of them, I feed my own fire, building it up in hopes that if there's someone whose grip is weakening, they might be reminded of the sun by the light of my burning.
I love you all, and Blessed Yule.
Friday, October 31, 2014
Blood Harvest
As I was taught it, the harvest comes in three parts each year. The first harvest, generally speaking, is gathering the early bounty of fruit and tender greens, the second harvest is the late summer/early fall reaping of the fields, and the third harvest is the butchering, done once the weather has cooled enough to keep meat through the winter.
The general associations with each harvest persist, because the *concept* of the harvest is integral to modern paganism as it's practiced, but we've moved away from the practical reality of it as we've abandoned our agricultural lifestyle. 'Harvest' has come to be synonymous, for many modern pagans, with getting what you've worked for, a reward to for the energy you've expended.
We mostly talk of how we reap what we have sown and tended, how we gather in all that we've planted. We talk of projects coming to fruition, and at most we look out over our backyard gardens, pleased with the bounty we've brought to our own table.
In that transition to metaphor, the real meaning of the darkest harvest is often lost.
The first harvest is a collection of bounty. Fruits, new shoots, tender growth the fertile earth really can't help but lavish upon us. We celebrate sweetness, what is rich and delicious and delicate. We preserve little of this first harvest, because it is meant to delight, not to sustain. Perhaps we make some jellies, flavor oil or wine or vinegar, but even what we save of this harvest serves to accentuate life, not sustain it.
My celebration of this harvest has grown out of a delighted gratitude at all the world gives me, even when I do not tend it. I take joy in beauty, in wonder, and in the general abundance of the life in the world. The sacred earth of the first harvest is freshly turned and fragrant, soft beneath my feet.
The second harvest, the grain and the root, is the workhorse. We gather what we've carefully tended, pulling in all that our own hard work has brought to fruition. We honor the seeds that we've planted, and we celebrate a world in which directed energy brings useful reward. From the second harvest, we take the daily bread, the sturdy beer, the unglamorous turnip. Most of it is saved away, preserved because we will depend upon it later -- and because unlike salad greens or strawberries, a few weeks in a dark cabinet doesn't much change a potato.
For the second harvest, I honor my own hard work and practicality. I take time to appreciate the fruits of my own labor, the work of my life. The sacred earth of the second harvest is beneath my own nails and ground into the cracks of my hands.
The third harvest is the darkest: blood, sacrifice and loss. What you brought into the world, that which you have tended, and loved, and cared for most patiently, you must kill. This is no bloodless scything; the dark harvest requires you to face that sacrifice, look it in the eye, and destroy it entirely. Take something you have loved, slit its throat and spill its blood, and then butcher it for your own survival.
The sacred earth of the third harvest is the cooling earth of oncoming winter, softened and warmed only because it is soaked in blood.
For the third harvest, I honor and acknowledge my own loss. Friends and family taken too soon, or those whose passing marked the end of suffering. Missed opportunities, friendships broken, love that failed to sustain a relationship. I sit with the empty spaces in my own heart, and I respect that as the veil has thinned and the Wild Hunt rides, Death walks among us not as a stranger, but as one of us -- and that I walk as Death as well.
That is the nature of this harvest. To honor loss and sacrifice, to respect the full cycle of the year, I can't stop short with a barrier between myself and my own identity as destroyer. I can't stand as protector only, guarding that which I love from all who would injure it (including myself). I cannot only nurture, I cannot only collect and tend the bounty of the world.
I must, for this harvest, be willing to look at my life, see what must die for me to thrive, and end it as quickly, mercifully, and completely as possible.
This year, nothing seems particularly fit for the blade. In past years, I might have offered a token sacrifice, given up some trait of personality or favored object, but my understanding of sacrifice has deepened: one must not only lose something much beloved, but that spilled blood must have *purpose* to be sacred. So I hold my blade ready, and I bide my time, and my only offering at the moment is my willingness to accept my own dark goddess.
Blessed be the light and the dark, and all those beloved.
The general associations with each harvest persist, because the *concept* of the harvest is integral to modern paganism as it's practiced, but we've moved away from the practical reality of it as we've abandoned our agricultural lifestyle. 'Harvest' has come to be synonymous, for many modern pagans, with getting what you've worked for, a reward to for the energy you've expended.
We mostly talk of how we reap what we have sown and tended, how we gather in all that we've planted. We talk of projects coming to fruition, and at most we look out over our backyard gardens, pleased with the bounty we've brought to our own table.
In that transition to metaphor, the real meaning of the darkest harvest is often lost.
The first harvest is a collection of bounty. Fruits, new shoots, tender growth the fertile earth really can't help but lavish upon us. We celebrate sweetness, what is rich and delicious and delicate. We preserve little of this first harvest, because it is meant to delight, not to sustain. Perhaps we make some jellies, flavor oil or wine or vinegar, but even what we save of this harvest serves to accentuate life, not sustain it.
My celebration of this harvest has grown out of a delighted gratitude at all the world gives me, even when I do not tend it. I take joy in beauty, in wonder, and in the general abundance of the life in the world. The sacred earth of the first harvest is freshly turned and fragrant, soft beneath my feet.
The second harvest, the grain and the root, is the workhorse. We gather what we've carefully tended, pulling in all that our own hard work has brought to fruition. We honor the seeds that we've planted, and we celebrate a world in which directed energy brings useful reward. From the second harvest, we take the daily bread, the sturdy beer, the unglamorous turnip. Most of it is saved away, preserved because we will depend upon it later -- and because unlike salad greens or strawberries, a few weeks in a dark cabinet doesn't much change a potato.
For the second harvest, I honor my own hard work and practicality. I take time to appreciate the fruits of my own labor, the work of my life. The sacred earth of the second harvest is beneath my own nails and ground into the cracks of my hands.
The third harvest is the darkest: blood, sacrifice and loss. What you brought into the world, that which you have tended, and loved, and cared for most patiently, you must kill. This is no bloodless scything; the dark harvest requires you to face that sacrifice, look it in the eye, and destroy it entirely. Take something you have loved, slit its throat and spill its blood, and then butcher it for your own survival.
The sacred earth of the third harvest is the cooling earth of oncoming winter, softened and warmed only because it is soaked in blood.
For the third harvest, I honor and acknowledge my own loss. Friends and family taken too soon, or those whose passing marked the end of suffering. Missed opportunities, friendships broken, love that failed to sustain a relationship. I sit with the empty spaces in my own heart, and I respect that as the veil has thinned and the Wild Hunt rides, Death walks among us not as a stranger, but as one of us -- and that I walk as Death as well.
That is the nature of this harvest. To honor loss and sacrifice, to respect the full cycle of the year, I can't stop short with a barrier between myself and my own identity as destroyer. I can't stand as protector only, guarding that which I love from all who would injure it (including myself). I cannot only nurture, I cannot only collect and tend the bounty of the world.
I must, for this harvest, be willing to look at my life, see what must die for me to thrive, and end it as quickly, mercifully, and completely as possible.
This year, nothing seems particularly fit for the blade. In past years, I might have offered a token sacrifice, given up some trait of personality or favored object, but my understanding of sacrifice has deepened: one must not only lose something much beloved, but that spilled blood must have *purpose* to be sacred. So I hold my blade ready, and I bide my time, and my only offering at the moment is my willingness to accept my own dark goddess.
Blessed be the light and the dark, and all those beloved.
Monday, December 30, 2013
On Gratitude
You see it a lot, the phrase 'an attitude of gratitude'. Over November, many people I know were doing 'thirty days of gratitude' across various social media platforms, taking some time each day to offer a general acknowledgment of something or someone for whom they felt thankful.
Here lately, I've also seen a lot of people wrapping up the end of the year with "I'm so glad for all I have!" posts, talking about wonderful communities and wonderful friends and the support they receive every day. They gush, in glowing terms, how lucky they are to have made such wonderful friends.
I think I'd like to ask them a couple questions.
You've acknowledged your general gratitude for the things and people in your life, but have you specifically thanked and acknowledged the people who have helped you? How often do you sit down, and instead of throwing a general thanks 'out there', seek out some person who's done something to support or empower or protect you, so that you can say "I see what you did, and I honor what you did, and I could not have achieved what I have if you had not?"
That's the thing, you see. In the US, we glorify the culture of the 'self-made man'. And in the culture of the self-made man, there is no room for specific gratitude, because it suggests that another person's work and love had some impact on who you are, that you are not wholly self-made. So long as you keep your thankfulness general, you don't have to admit that there was some part of that self-making that you simply did not and probably could not accomplish on your own.
It's OK to thank God (or the gods) if you're a 'self-made person' because you can subscribe to prosperity doctrine or the law of attraction, that says that if you have the right faith, belief, or mindset, that's all that's needed for divine or universal blessings to be given to you (see also magical thinking). You can couch your acknowledgment of what you've been given with vague gratitude so that the credit still really rests with you, for 'keeping positive' or 'being a good person'. It's karma, you see, that your previous good deeds have put a down payment on the world rewarding you with help when you need it. If this friend hadn't chosen to help you, someone would have, because you deserved it.
Same thing with being grateful for your community. Sometimes people say "I'm grateful that I have such good friends," and I hear "Congratulations to me for choosing friends who will help and support me regardless of whether I have helped and supported them!" Keeping gratitude general still lets you, on some level, claim credit for foresight or good judgment in ensuring that community would be a resource to you. (it is fine to be grateful that you have good friends, as long as you understand that you should probably also occasionally acknowledge why, precisely, they ARE such good friends)
When it comes to specifically looking at your life, and recognising that an individual made a deliberate choice he or she was not obligated to make, to benefit and support you, that can be very daunting for some. To admit to real and specific gratitude to another person's free choices is to swallow your pride and acknowledge that your identity as 'self-made' is a convenient fiction.
None of us is self-made. We must all own our decisions, and we are all in control of how we will respond to what happens to us, but we all owe gratitude to someone, somewhere. Maybe it's as small as 'stopped to help me change a tire on the way to a job interview' or 'stayed on chat with me all night when I was stressed about my sick cat' but it's there.
So I challenge you, when you practice your attitude of gratitude, to examine your life, and pinpoint those choices that others have made for you, out of no obligation other than love, empathy, or compassion. Then seek out those people (if you can find them) and personally thank them, not 'for all you did' but for 'that moment in time'.
Thank you for reading my blog, by the way. Every time I see clicks or comments, it inspires me to keep writing.
Here lately, I've also seen a lot of people wrapping up the end of the year with "I'm so glad for all I have!" posts, talking about wonderful communities and wonderful friends and the support they receive every day. They gush, in glowing terms, how lucky they are to have made such wonderful friends.
I think I'd like to ask them a couple questions.
You've acknowledged your general gratitude for the things and people in your life, but have you specifically thanked and acknowledged the people who have helped you? How often do you sit down, and instead of throwing a general thanks 'out there', seek out some person who's done something to support or empower or protect you, so that you can say "I see what you did, and I honor what you did, and I could not have achieved what I have if you had not?"
That's the thing, you see. In the US, we glorify the culture of the 'self-made man'. And in the culture of the self-made man, there is no room for specific gratitude, because it suggests that another person's work and love had some impact on who you are, that you are not wholly self-made. So long as you keep your thankfulness general, you don't have to admit that there was some part of that self-making that you simply did not and probably could not accomplish on your own.
It's OK to thank God (or the gods) if you're a 'self-made person' because you can subscribe to prosperity doctrine or the law of attraction, that says that if you have the right faith, belief, or mindset, that's all that's needed for divine or universal blessings to be given to you (see also magical thinking). You can couch your acknowledgment of what you've been given with vague gratitude so that the credit still really rests with you, for 'keeping positive' or 'being a good person'. It's karma, you see, that your previous good deeds have put a down payment on the world rewarding you with help when you need it. If this friend hadn't chosen to help you, someone would have, because you deserved it.
Same thing with being grateful for your community. Sometimes people say "I'm grateful that I have such good friends," and I hear "Congratulations to me for choosing friends who will help and support me regardless of whether I have helped and supported them!" Keeping gratitude general still lets you, on some level, claim credit for foresight or good judgment in ensuring that community would be a resource to you. (it is fine to be grateful that you have good friends, as long as you understand that you should probably also occasionally acknowledge why, precisely, they ARE such good friends)
When it comes to specifically looking at your life, and recognising that an individual made a deliberate choice he or she was not obligated to make, to benefit and support you, that can be very daunting for some. To admit to real and specific gratitude to another person's free choices is to swallow your pride and acknowledge that your identity as 'self-made' is a convenient fiction.
None of us is self-made. We must all own our decisions, and we are all in control of how we will respond to what happens to us, but we all owe gratitude to someone, somewhere. Maybe it's as small as 'stopped to help me change a tire on the way to a job interview' or 'stayed on chat with me all night when I was stressed about my sick cat' but it's there.
So I challenge you, when you practice your attitude of gratitude, to examine your life, and pinpoint those choices that others have made for you, out of no obligation other than love, empathy, or compassion. Then seek out those people (if you can find them) and personally thank them, not 'for all you did' but for 'that moment in time'.
Thank you for reading my blog, by the way. Every time I see clicks or comments, it inspires me to keep writing.
Saturday, December 21, 2013
On the Longest Night
Tonight is the Longest Night.
As they do every year, the days have become shorter and darker, the nights longer. And as it does every year, a tiny but visceral fear has taken root in my mind:
What if it never gets better?
What if the days just keep getting shorter and darker, until the light is gone forever?
What if this is the last winter, the forever winter, that will never ever go away?
That's a bit like what living with episodic depression is like. Every day a little darker, every day a little harder to get out of bed, and you keep telling yourself, because your rational scientific brain KNOWS IT, that this will have to get better, that the world is a circle and life will spin back to long days and lazy afternoons someday. But that Traitor Brain in the back of your head says, "What if? What if it never gets better? What if the happiness becomes more and more fleeting, less and less powerful, until the long darkness just...stays? What if this episode is the one that kills you?"
It's no coincidence that most of my serious depressive episodes happen in the winter. Though it's not quite SAD, there's something about watching the sun go that speaks to an inexorable creeping darkness.
Yule has special meaning for me, because it is a defiant night, when you stand in that darkness, and you watch the sun go down, and you throw faith out into the world and tell yourself that this, this is the darkest of it. And you put all your faith, everything you are, into the certainty of the coming sun. You burn so brightly into that darkness, because you know you're halfway there, and you throw a little extra into the fire because you know that somewhere out there is someone whose faith may not be strong enough to see them through to sunrise, but they can get there by the light of your burning.
This has been a good year. Traitor Brain has been driven back to her cave, and holds little power in my daily life. Last winter was much harder, much colder.
I know that the worst of winter lies before me, the bone-deep cold and the hard frozen earth and the creeping frost death that strikes even in the heart of Texas. But I am armed against that whispering chill, with a sword to batter the walls of ice and a shield before me that shines like mercy and wonder.
I believe in the sun, and I will it back with the joy of my heart.
Blessed be, my loves.
As they do every year, the days have become shorter and darker, the nights longer. And as it does every year, a tiny but visceral fear has taken root in my mind:
What if it never gets better?
What if the days just keep getting shorter and darker, until the light is gone forever?
What if this is the last winter, the forever winter, that will never ever go away?
That's a bit like what living with episodic depression is like. Every day a little darker, every day a little harder to get out of bed, and you keep telling yourself, because your rational scientific brain KNOWS IT, that this will have to get better, that the world is a circle and life will spin back to long days and lazy afternoons someday. But that Traitor Brain in the back of your head says, "What if? What if it never gets better? What if the happiness becomes more and more fleeting, less and less powerful, until the long darkness just...stays? What if this episode is the one that kills you?"
It's no coincidence that most of my serious depressive episodes happen in the winter. Though it's not quite SAD, there's something about watching the sun go that speaks to an inexorable creeping darkness.
Yule has special meaning for me, because it is a defiant night, when you stand in that darkness, and you watch the sun go down, and you throw faith out into the world and tell yourself that this, this is the darkest of it. And you put all your faith, everything you are, into the certainty of the coming sun. You burn so brightly into that darkness, because you know you're halfway there, and you throw a little extra into the fire because you know that somewhere out there is someone whose faith may not be strong enough to see them through to sunrise, but they can get there by the light of your burning.
This has been a good year. Traitor Brain has been driven back to her cave, and holds little power in my daily life. Last winter was much harder, much colder.
I know that the worst of winter lies before me, the bone-deep cold and the hard frozen earth and the creeping frost death that strikes even in the heart of Texas. But I am armed against that whispering chill, with a sword to batter the walls of ice and a shield before me that shines like mercy and wonder.
I believe in the sun, and I will it back with the joy of my heart.
Blessed be, my loves.
Monday, November 4, 2013
On Magic and Magical Thinking
Fairly frequently, the disputes I run into over the validity of witchcraft happen because one side or the other has conflated magic with 'magical thinking'. 'Magical thinking' is the idea that if you just believe in something enough, it will come to pass. You can visualize that weight loss without ever cutting a calorie, wish your way into that loving relationship without working on communication, and believe that a better job is coming instead of working at the one you have.
People on both sides of the faith debate seem to buy into this, and so non-practitioners become confused when people who practice more practical forms of faith-based work refer to it as 'magic' or even 'prayer'. So allow me to explain the difference, as I see it, between magic and magical thinking.
I'll use a story to illustrate it. Several years ago, on finding out that I'm a witch, one of my friends asked me to do a spell to help him get a new job. He hated the one he had, he said. I told him to spend half an hour writing out a list of the general criteria he wanted in a job, and to bring me that and a copy of his updated resume. He arrived with a listing he'd printed out from a job website, and explained that he wanted me to do the spell to get him THAT job. I said that no, that's not how it works, and asked him about the resume. He hadn't had time, and besides what did I need it for? I explained that I was going to use the resume as a focus, to create a spell asking that when he applied for a job, his resume would reach the desk of the person most likely to hire him, be seen by the right eyes and represent him well. Basically, I was offering to use magic to remove obstacles and allow him to more easily get the right job for him.
I will never forget the look on his face when he said, "What do you mean APPLY?" Yes, honey, you have to actually APPLY for the jobs, and go to the interviews. You can't just wish for it and believe hard enough that you should have it, and expect it to happen. You can't just buy a witch a piece of pie and sit back to let job offers rain upon your head. If it were that easy everyone would do it that way. And I would have SO MUCH PIE.
He'd fallen prey to magical thinking, because he believed that if he focused on a thing, wanted it enough, wished for it, then it would 'just happen'. Magical thinking is based in a sound principle, the first thing they teach you in driver's education: where the eye goes, the car will follow. However, it completely ignores the mechanical connection between eye and head, head and body, body and hands, hands and steering wheel, steering wheel and car. According to magical thinking, the eye controls the car and no other effects have to follow through. You don't need any understanding of the process of driving, because the only thing that matters is where you focus your eye. You don't even need to gas up the car or turn it on. Just keep *looking* at where you want to be, and someday you'll just be there without crossing the intervening space.
There's a good deal of evidence that focusing on positive outcomes improves your life experience. Thinking about what you want, instead of what you don't want, increases the chances of getting what you want. Lots of people make ridiculous amounts of money hosting workshops and writing self-help books that expound upon this premise -- and stop there, creating a class of frustrated self-actualized theoretically empowered people who still don't understand why they're not getting anywhere.
Actually acting to *get* what you want increases those chances even further, and that's where practicing magic comes in, and that's the part a lot of people (pagans, Christians, and atheists alike) don't want to talk about.
For me, magic is best described as "an act of will backed by the will to act." It's a bargain you make with yourself and whatever divine entity you're petitioning. You say to the entity, "If you will act upon the world to assist me, I will commit to the technical part of the process and do the physical work."
If I want a new job, I'll polish my resume and apply for jobs. If I want a new romantic partner, I'll actually ask people out. If I want better health, I'll improve my habits. That's my part of the bargain: the daily work of what I want. Driving the car.
Sooo...where does magic come into it?
Luck. Intuition. Coincidence. Reinforcement.
Nothing is assured. I know people who work hard, do all the right things, perform every right action to get to what they want, and they don't get it. A flat tire on the way to an interview means they miss out on a job. They don't notice the attractive person sitting at the next table reading their own favorite book. They turn left, instead of right, and miss out on an opportunity. I know people whose doctors have made bad decisions, with terrible consequences.
When a friend goes into surgery, I know the gods aren't holding the scalpel. But do I believe they can be the voice of intuition that helps a doctor make a wise decision. They can be the second glance a nurse takes to see that a medical dosage was written down wrong, confirm the number and get the patient the right treatment.
I have asked the gods to be the voice that whispers to me "refresh that jobs listing one more time before you log off," so that I didn't miss applying for a great job. To inspire me to try a new coffeehouse or restaurant and strike up a conversation with the attractive man whose table I ended up sharing. To help me find the strength and focus to keep acting towards what's important to me, even when I'm exhausted and demoralized.
Magic smoothes the way. You still have to travel the distance. That's the difference between it and magical thinking. Magical thinking genuinely believes that you can convince whatever forces direct the Universe to give you a miracle every time you want one, with no investment or work on your part.
As a famous squirrel taught me when I was but a child, that trick never works.
People on both sides of the faith debate seem to buy into this, and so non-practitioners become confused when people who practice more practical forms of faith-based work refer to it as 'magic' or even 'prayer'. So allow me to explain the difference, as I see it, between magic and magical thinking.
I'll use a story to illustrate it. Several years ago, on finding out that I'm a witch, one of my friends asked me to do a spell to help him get a new job. He hated the one he had, he said. I told him to spend half an hour writing out a list of the general criteria he wanted in a job, and to bring me that and a copy of his updated resume. He arrived with a listing he'd printed out from a job website, and explained that he wanted me to do the spell to get him THAT job. I said that no, that's not how it works, and asked him about the resume. He hadn't had time, and besides what did I need it for? I explained that I was going to use the resume as a focus, to create a spell asking that when he applied for a job, his resume would reach the desk of the person most likely to hire him, be seen by the right eyes and represent him well. Basically, I was offering to use magic to remove obstacles and allow him to more easily get the right job for him.
I will never forget the look on his face when he said, "What do you mean APPLY?" Yes, honey, you have to actually APPLY for the jobs, and go to the interviews. You can't just wish for it and believe hard enough that you should have it, and expect it to happen. You can't just buy a witch a piece of pie and sit back to let job offers rain upon your head. If it were that easy everyone would do it that way. And I would have SO MUCH PIE.
He'd fallen prey to magical thinking, because he believed that if he focused on a thing, wanted it enough, wished for it, then it would 'just happen'. Magical thinking is based in a sound principle, the first thing they teach you in driver's education: where the eye goes, the car will follow. However, it completely ignores the mechanical connection between eye and head, head and body, body and hands, hands and steering wheel, steering wheel and car. According to magical thinking, the eye controls the car and no other effects have to follow through. You don't need any understanding of the process of driving, because the only thing that matters is where you focus your eye. You don't even need to gas up the car or turn it on. Just keep *looking* at where you want to be, and someday you'll just be there without crossing the intervening space.
There's a good deal of evidence that focusing on positive outcomes improves your life experience. Thinking about what you want, instead of what you don't want, increases the chances of getting what you want. Lots of people make ridiculous amounts of money hosting workshops and writing self-help books that expound upon this premise -- and stop there, creating a class of frustrated self-actualized theoretically empowered people who still don't understand why they're not getting anywhere.
Actually acting to *get* what you want increases those chances even further, and that's where practicing magic comes in, and that's the part a lot of people (pagans, Christians, and atheists alike) don't want to talk about.
For me, magic is best described as "an act of will backed by the will to act." It's a bargain you make with yourself and whatever divine entity you're petitioning. You say to the entity, "If you will act upon the world to assist me, I will commit to the technical part of the process and do the physical work."
If I want a new job, I'll polish my resume and apply for jobs. If I want a new romantic partner, I'll actually ask people out. If I want better health, I'll improve my habits. That's my part of the bargain: the daily work of what I want. Driving the car.
Sooo...where does magic come into it?
Luck. Intuition. Coincidence. Reinforcement.
Nothing is assured. I know people who work hard, do all the right things, perform every right action to get to what they want, and they don't get it. A flat tire on the way to an interview means they miss out on a job. They don't notice the attractive person sitting at the next table reading their own favorite book. They turn left, instead of right, and miss out on an opportunity. I know people whose doctors have made bad decisions, with terrible consequences.
When a friend goes into surgery, I know the gods aren't holding the scalpel. But do I believe they can be the voice of intuition that helps a doctor make a wise decision. They can be the second glance a nurse takes to see that a medical dosage was written down wrong, confirm the number and get the patient the right treatment.
I have asked the gods to be the voice that whispers to me "refresh that jobs listing one more time before you log off," so that I didn't miss applying for a great job. To inspire me to try a new coffeehouse or restaurant and strike up a conversation with the attractive man whose table I ended up sharing. To help me find the strength and focus to keep acting towards what's important to me, even when I'm exhausted and demoralized.
Magic smoothes the way. You still have to travel the distance. That's the difference between it and magical thinking. Magical thinking genuinely believes that you can convince whatever forces direct the Universe to give you a miracle every time you want one, with no investment or work on your part.
As a famous squirrel taught me when I was but a child, that trick never works.
Thursday, October 31, 2013
On Holidays Secular and Spiritual
When I was a young Badger, I started to understand that my country celebrates two Christmases. There's the solemn celebration of the birth of Christ, honoring God's promise of hope and salvation. And there's the warm, loving celebration of time with family and friends, exchanging gifts and drinking eggnog and singing about sleigh bells.
Even when I was Christian, those two holidays were different for me. When we went to evening/late services on Christmas Eve, I didn't associate the magical candlelight sermon on hope and love with the next morning's explosion of wrapping paper and Family Dinner. I found that the differentiation seemed easier for me than for many of my peers, over the years, as they wrestled with cramming spirituality into a Christmas stocking. And when I left Christianity, I had no trouble keeping Family Christmas alive in my life and discarding Spiritual Christmas, which had ceased to hold a deep meaning for me.
Lately I've been coming to understand that today has a similar dichotomy for me. There's Hallowe'en, which is the orgy of costumes and candy and spookiness that seems to bring out the kid in every last person. And there's Samhain, the dark winnowing to end the year, when the veils are thin and our dead stand among us.
I like Hallowe'en just fine. I like candy, and I like to see other people's costumes, and it's great to watch people get SO INTO creativity and expression because maybe they don't feel like they've got an excuse year-round. But I find that I celebrate it mostly by observation, by watching others embrace it. I have no costume ideas. I don't feel compelled to carve up a pumpkin for the office contest. While I totally respect the effort that goes into designing witch hats out of donuts, ice cream cones, frosting and sprinkles, I have no desire whatsoever to put forth that effort.
Samhain, though, is incredibly important for me. It's the time of the year when most are pulling inward to rest through the dark part of the year, when I and those like me, who have chosen the alternate path, begin our winter's burning to stand as guideposts and guardians. Today, so to speak, I take up my sword and begin my watch.
Today I stand in love and trust with my dead gathered around me, not mourning them but honoring them. I thank those voices that have spoken to guide me, I am grateful for those who walked into darkness to light my own way, giving me the courage to stand as light for others.
After long years of wrestling with this holiday dichotomy, I'm finally at peace with something: I don't celebrate Hallowe'en. I love to watch it go by. I laugh and enjoy other people's celebrations, and it makes me genuinely joyful to see all the fun and happiness. I am not, by any means, a Hallowe'en Grinch.
But this is one day of the year I have to stand apart, my loves. As I take up more fully the path of the Warrior, as I step more deeply into the Wood, sometimes I have to choose the path apart from the crowd, because what I am doing needs my full attention. I don't begrudge you the ability to balance the secular and the spiritual in your celebrations, to stir the cauldron and still use it to bob for apples. Perhaps in future years I'll manage that balance as well, but right now, at this time in my life, what I am doing in the spiritual consumes my focus.
I have been, as I do, resting this summer. Today is my last day of rest for a season. Tonight I gather my final harvest, draw upon the energies I've been storing, and light the fire I'll hold through until spring.
Let me say, because I do not say it often enough: I am more grateful than I can ever say to have been given this space to burn, this torch to bear. For the trust I am offered, for the chance to serve and ward, I am thankful. My harvest is not of the physical; it is the trust, respect, and love of those people, living and dead, who are part of my life.
I love you all.
Even when I was Christian, those two holidays were different for me. When we went to evening/late services on Christmas Eve, I didn't associate the magical candlelight sermon on hope and love with the next morning's explosion of wrapping paper and Family Dinner. I found that the differentiation seemed easier for me than for many of my peers, over the years, as they wrestled with cramming spirituality into a Christmas stocking. And when I left Christianity, I had no trouble keeping Family Christmas alive in my life and discarding Spiritual Christmas, which had ceased to hold a deep meaning for me.
Lately I've been coming to understand that today has a similar dichotomy for me. There's Hallowe'en, which is the orgy of costumes and candy and spookiness that seems to bring out the kid in every last person. And there's Samhain, the dark winnowing to end the year, when the veils are thin and our dead stand among us.
I like Hallowe'en just fine. I like candy, and I like to see other people's costumes, and it's great to watch people get SO INTO creativity and expression because maybe they don't feel like they've got an excuse year-round. But I find that I celebrate it mostly by observation, by watching others embrace it. I have no costume ideas. I don't feel compelled to carve up a pumpkin for the office contest. While I totally respect the effort that goes into designing witch hats out of donuts, ice cream cones, frosting and sprinkles, I have no desire whatsoever to put forth that effort.
Samhain, though, is incredibly important for me. It's the time of the year when most are pulling inward to rest through the dark part of the year, when I and those like me, who have chosen the alternate path, begin our winter's burning to stand as guideposts and guardians. Today, so to speak, I take up my sword and begin my watch.
Today I stand in love and trust with my dead gathered around me, not mourning them but honoring them. I thank those voices that have spoken to guide me, I am grateful for those who walked into darkness to light my own way, giving me the courage to stand as light for others.
After long years of wrestling with this holiday dichotomy, I'm finally at peace with something: I don't celebrate Hallowe'en. I love to watch it go by. I laugh and enjoy other people's celebrations, and it makes me genuinely joyful to see all the fun and happiness. I am not, by any means, a Hallowe'en Grinch.
But this is one day of the year I have to stand apart, my loves. As I take up more fully the path of the Warrior, as I step more deeply into the Wood, sometimes I have to choose the path apart from the crowd, because what I am doing needs my full attention. I don't begrudge you the ability to balance the secular and the spiritual in your celebrations, to stir the cauldron and still use it to bob for apples. Perhaps in future years I'll manage that balance as well, but right now, at this time in my life, what I am doing in the spiritual consumes my focus.
I have been, as I do, resting this summer. Today is my last day of rest for a season. Tonight I gather my final harvest, draw upon the energies I've been storing, and light the fire I'll hold through until spring.
Let me say, because I do not say it often enough: I am more grateful than I can ever say to have been given this space to burn, this torch to bear. For the trust I am offered, for the chance to serve and ward, I am thankful. My harvest is not of the physical; it is the trust, respect, and love of those people, living and dead, who are part of my life.
I love you all.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
In Which I Am Not Triumphant So Much As Resolved
Something amazing happened yesterday. Texas Democrats stood up and fought like hell to prevent the passage of SB5, which would have brutally restricted abortion access, imposed an arbitrary and unrealistic 20-week limit, and closed the clinics that currently provide essential women's health services to tens of thousands of women, especially the clinics that serve poor and mostly-nonwhite parts of the state. Just under a dozen Senators stood up for the women of Texas, backed by THOUSANDS of citizens who turned out to stand with them. And in the end, despite cheating, despite a complete assault upon parliamentary procedure, despite lies and despicable tactics on the other side, despite the literal (and possibly illegal) alteration of the legislative record, that plucky little band of Democrats prevailed. Just before 3 in the morning, word came down that we had prevailed, that the vote had not happened in time, that the Democratic filibuster had succeeded in running out the clock.
There are a lot of names to remember from last night. Senators Wendy Davis (who kept her feet and her head when all was chaos), Kirk Watson (who wielded procedure and verbiage with fabulous aplomb), Leticia van de Putte (who stood her own ground, in her grief, with a grace and courage that stunned me), Royce West (who ran Senator Duncan around after his own tail on whether you could appeal a ruling that is not a ruling once the presiding officer has ruled...or not ruled?), Rodney Ellis (who asked, "Is it fair to say the rules have become very flexible in this body?" at just the right moment), and Juan 'Chuy' Hinojosa (who had the foresight to print out the evidence that proves GOP tampering with the record). Even Senator Eddie Lucio, who supported the bill based on his personal beliefs -- but refused to vote with Republicans to suspend the rules of the Senate and accelerate the process, out of respect and compassion for his friend, Senator van de Putte, so that she could attend her father's funeral and return in time to vote.
Soon, they will all need our support because you can bet they'll be targets in the next election.
There are other names to remember, too.
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Senator Robert Duncan, who between them completely mocked and gutted any pretense at parliamentary order or rules.
Senators Donna Campbell (who insisted that the legislation already existing to restrict abortion was not germane to a discussion of restricting it further), and Craig Estes (whose irrelevant, insulting, and bullying questions I lost count of), and all those who supported not only the bill, but the unethical tactics used to try to force it through. I can respect those who voted 'yes' on SB5 for reasons of conscience, on which we disagree, but not those who participated in devious, underhanded, and dishonest tactics to push it through without scrutiny or debate.
Governor Rick Perry, who has already called another special session to force through legislation that he KNOWS does not reflect the will of his constituents, a special session that will cost the taxpayers of Texas money they must find somewhere: schools, state parks, highway maintenance, environmental monitoring...
*They* will also be targets in the next election. Remember them, find out who is standing against them, and support every one of their opponents. Not one of them ever deserves to hold an office with more responsibility or power than 'Second Assistant Deputy Inspector of Dog Park Fecal Collection Bags' ever again. Let's remember how we feel today, and keep it in the coming weeks to fight through the special session, and then in the months beyond as we work to get these people OUT of office.
There are a lot of names to remember from last night. Senators Wendy Davis (who kept her feet and her head when all was chaos), Kirk Watson (who wielded procedure and verbiage with fabulous aplomb), Leticia van de Putte (who stood her own ground, in her grief, with a grace and courage that stunned me), Royce West (who ran Senator Duncan around after his own tail on whether you could appeal a ruling that is not a ruling once the presiding officer has ruled...or not ruled?), Rodney Ellis (who asked, "Is it fair to say the rules have become very flexible in this body?" at just the right moment), and Juan 'Chuy' Hinojosa (who had the foresight to print out the evidence that proves GOP tampering with the record). Even Senator Eddie Lucio, who supported the bill based on his personal beliefs -- but refused to vote with Republicans to suspend the rules of the Senate and accelerate the process, out of respect and compassion for his friend, Senator van de Putte, so that she could attend her father's funeral and return in time to vote.
Soon, they will all need our support because you can bet they'll be targets in the next election.
There are other names to remember, too.
Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and Senator Robert Duncan, who between them completely mocked and gutted any pretense at parliamentary order or rules.
Senators Donna Campbell (who insisted that the legislation already existing to restrict abortion was not germane to a discussion of restricting it further), and Craig Estes (whose irrelevant, insulting, and bullying questions I lost count of), and all those who supported not only the bill, but the unethical tactics used to try to force it through. I can respect those who voted 'yes' on SB5 for reasons of conscience, on which we disagree, but not those who participated in devious, underhanded, and dishonest tactics to push it through without scrutiny or debate.
Governor Rick Perry, who has already called another special session to force through legislation that he KNOWS does not reflect the will of his constituents, a special session that will cost the taxpayers of Texas money they must find somewhere: schools, state parks, highway maintenance, environmental monitoring...
*They* will also be targets in the next election. Remember them, find out who is standing against them, and support every one of their opponents. Not one of them ever deserves to hold an office with more responsibility or power than 'Second Assistant Deputy Inspector of Dog Park Fecal Collection Bags' ever again. Let's remember how we feel today, and keep it in the coming weeks to fight through the special session, and then in the months beyond as we work to get these people OUT of office.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
In Which I Admit Lust
I was going to write a light philosophical musing about the range of Beltane practices in the pagan community, from the visceral and orgiastic to the fully academic, but instead I find myself focused on something else.
Desire.
For years, I buried passion in compassion, earthing it down and keeping it tightly reined. My sexuality was something deeply private, even its *existence* shared only with the few partners who managed to make it through the intellectual and emotional obstacle course to my bed, and even then I didn't always admit the most powerful truth: it's not the act of sex that pleases me, but the exchange of desire. Inexperienced and fumbling, lacking the right vocabulary or even a complete understanding of my own feelings, I could never fully explain that it mattered far less how a man touched me than it did whether or not his hands shook with pure need as he did it. Being wanted wholly, utterly, helplessly has always been my greatest aphrodisiac.
The face I showed the world was one of service, kindness, duty, compassion, hiding my more feral impulses beneath a calm, smooth, helpful smile. I was considered, by many who knew me, as prudish, repressed, even frigid. Some of this came from my own acceptance of the idea that lust was something only thin, pretty, socially normalized girls got. As a fat girl who's been more than once described as 'sort of plain', I assumed that my chances to be truly desired would be few and far between. The events surrounding my marriage, which don't bear going into here, only served to reinforce that assumption, to add yet another layer of "so much is clearly wrong with you that your lust could only ever be a burden to its targets, gratified as an act of pity or mercy."
For years, I believed that anyone in whom I felt a sexual interest would be embarrassed by the knowledge, and if he were sufficiently generous of spirit, he could bring himself to accept and perhaps even indulge my desire without showing his revulsion. I cannot begin to count how many men I watched, hopeless, fiercely hiding any evidence of my interest to spare them. Even when I could manage to admit it, I was circumspect to the point of nonchalance, and probably gave the impression of lukewarm interest instead of the burning passion I felt. Very few men saw through it, and I wish now I'd made it easier on them to love me. (I'm sad to say that some of you, reading this, have probably missed out on a certain amount of what I imagine would have been pretty incredible sex, as a result of my fear. Sorry about that.)
Each year, Beltane came and went, and I buried myself in academic musings about personal creativity and intellectual fertility, shying away from the true celebration of desire, of lust, of the sheer blissful sharing of intimacy as a sacred act. I said, "This is not really one of my holidays." I feigned disinterest in the romps and celebrations of my friends, while secretly wishing I could join their headlong burning. I so tightly bound and constrained my own expressions of desire that they only rarely woke reciprocal desire in others, and when they did I found myself thrown off balance and inclined to deny them entirely.
Just before I moved to Texas, that began to change. I began to work with fire magic, and I learned that you can't actually hold a flame suppressed indefinitely. It must be given freedom to burn, to shine, to glow as it will. Before I was able to move into safely holding and working with fire in any meaningful capacity, I had to address my own desires -- not just sexual -- and acknowledge them as valid and worthy. I had to learn to make "I want" statements without feeling I was a penitent asking for a favor. I had to stand, open to the gods and myself, and admit that desire is a sacred prayer, a ritual of will, an expression of being alive. This led me to the practice of sacred sexuality, to the idea that all acts of intimacy can be joyful rituals of shared love and lust.
This Beltane, I choose to formally honor my desire, to acknowledge that I am grateful for passion's presence in my life. I honor the gods with my spirit, and with my heart, and with my body. I begin from a willingness to accept my own wants and needs as valid parts of my experience in this life, and I embrace my nature as a sexual being. I will not be embarrassed by or ashamed of my own lust, and I will not hide from what I desire. I will offer to share my passion as I will, and on my own terms, with no constraint beyond my respect for the boundaries of others. And when the opportunity for shared and passionate joy comes into my life, I will not suppress it, will not temper that passion with the fear that I am giving too much, delving too deeply, flying too close to the sun. This Beltane, I join that headlong burning, that spinning arc of sunward longing, that visceral and joyous celebration.
I want.
Desire.
For years, I buried passion in compassion, earthing it down and keeping it tightly reined. My sexuality was something deeply private, even its *existence* shared only with the few partners who managed to make it through the intellectual and emotional obstacle course to my bed, and even then I didn't always admit the most powerful truth: it's not the act of sex that pleases me, but the exchange of desire. Inexperienced and fumbling, lacking the right vocabulary or even a complete understanding of my own feelings, I could never fully explain that it mattered far less how a man touched me than it did whether or not his hands shook with pure need as he did it. Being wanted wholly, utterly, helplessly has always been my greatest aphrodisiac.
The face I showed the world was one of service, kindness, duty, compassion, hiding my more feral impulses beneath a calm, smooth, helpful smile. I was considered, by many who knew me, as prudish, repressed, even frigid. Some of this came from my own acceptance of the idea that lust was something only thin, pretty, socially normalized girls got. As a fat girl who's been more than once described as 'sort of plain', I assumed that my chances to be truly desired would be few and far between. The events surrounding my marriage, which don't bear going into here, only served to reinforce that assumption, to add yet another layer of "so much is clearly wrong with you that your lust could only ever be a burden to its targets, gratified as an act of pity or mercy."
For years, I believed that anyone in whom I felt a sexual interest would be embarrassed by the knowledge, and if he were sufficiently generous of spirit, he could bring himself to accept and perhaps even indulge my desire without showing his revulsion. I cannot begin to count how many men I watched, hopeless, fiercely hiding any evidence of my interest to spare them. Even when I could manage to admit it, I was circumspect to the point of nonchalance, and probably gave the impression of lukewarm interest instead of the burning passion I felt. Very few men saw through it, and I wish now I'd made it easier on them to love me. (I'm sad to say that some of you, reading this, have probably missed out on a certain amount of what I imagine would have been pretty incredible sex, as a result of my fear. Sorry about that.)
Each year, Beltane came and went, and I buried myself in academic musings about personal creativity and intellectual fertility, shying away from the true celebration of desire, of lust, of the sheer blissful sharing of intimacy as a sacred act. I said, "This is not really one of my holidays." I feigned disinterest in the romps and celebrations of my friends, while secretly wishing I could join their headlong burning. I so tightly bound and constrained my own expressions of desire that they only rarely woke reciprocal desire in others, and when they did I found myself thrown off balance and inclined to deny them entirely.
Just before I moved to Texas, that began to change. I began to work with fire magic, and I learned that you can't actually hold a flame suppressed indefinitely. It must be given freedom to burn, to shine, to glow as it will. Before I was able to move into safely holding and working with fire in any meaningful capacity, I had to address my own desires -- not just sexual -- and acknowledge them as valid and worthy. I had to learn to make "I want" statements without feeling I was a penitent asking for a favor. I had to stand, open to the gods and myself, and admit that desire is a sacred prayer, a ritual of will, an expression of being alive. This led me to the practice of sacred sexuality, to the idea that all acts of intimacy can be joyful rituals of shared love and lust.
This Beltane, I choose to formally honor my desire, to acknowledge that I am grateful for passion's presence in my life. I honor the gods with my spirit, and with my heart, and with my body. I begin from a willingness to accept my own wants and needs as valid parts of my experience in this life, and I embrace my nature as a sexual being. I will not be embarrassed by or ashamed of my own lust, and I will not hide from what I desire. I will offer to share my passion as I will, and on my own terms, with no constraint beyond my respect for the boundaries of others. And when the opportunity for shared and passionate joy comes into my life, I will not suppress it, will not temper that passion with the fear that I am giving too much, delving too deeply, flying too close to the sun. This Beltane, I join that headlong burning, that spinning arc of sunward longing, that visceral and joyous celebration.
I want.
Sunday, March 31, 2013
In Which I Finally Understood Easter After I Stopped Being Christian
One of the last times I visited my grandmother, she wanted to give me 'a little money' (I think it was $20 or so; she liked to tell me to 'get myself a treat'), and I followed her into her bedroom so she could get her purse. Looking at all the family pictures on her dresser, I noticed one that wasn't a relation. Neatly tucked in among the shots of my mother and aunt, sister and cousins, of my great-grandmother and my great-uncle and my nephews, was a small framed picture of Christ. I didn't really think much of it until I was headed home, but it says something profound and significant about my grandmother's relationship with her faith.
She had, of course, all the other pictures of Jesus that Midwesterners have, the one over the TV, the one in the guest room, and so on. But here was one that made a statement that defined her: Jesus was part of my grandmother's family. He was not a remote and unknowable being, a distant mythical figure to be worshiped but never understood. He was a friend, a brother, a father to her. When she prayed, she genuinely believed that he heard her, and that feeling of being heard gave her comfort whether her prayers were answered or not. Though, my grandmother's prayers were usually answered -- not because she was better than the rest of us, but because she knew what her God could give her. She wouldn't pray for an end to a sickness, but for the wisdom of the doctors and the courage to endure. She wouldn't pray for a good harvest, but for the strength to work hard and the skill to make the most of weather and circumstance. When my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, she didn't ask God to take it away: she prayed for smart doctors, and her own courage, and her husband's comfort. She understood that faith isn't about waving a magic wand to get what you want; it's about having support and comfort for your journey.
I'm thinking today about my grandmother's relationship with her gods because it's Easter, the most holy and joyful day of the Christian faith. A lot of my friends like to mock it with faux-clever quips about zombie Jesus, but I can't really see my way clear to mocking something that meant that much to someone who's meant so much to me.
When I was little, I didn't really like Easter because it wasn't as fun. Sure, there were eggs and candy, but Christmas had a TREE and PRESENTS and maybe even SNOW and time off school. I left the Christian faith at 19, before I fully understood the idea of self-sacrifice, of making life choices for the love of others. Within paganism, as I've chosen a path of duty and service, I've finally come to understand Easter, to understand why this story of incredible love and compassion is so powerful to those of the Christian faith.
My grandmother believed that once upon a time her God had looked forward to everyone who would ever be, and had known that someday she personally would exist, and he had asked his son, "I love these people. Will you also love them enough to die for them?" And she believed that Christ had looked forward, and had seen her (and everyone else who would ever be), and said, "Yes, I will."
In the Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay, a character named Kevin Laine swears an oath: "Though he be a god, and it mean my death ... to this I will make my reply." Later, another character references that promise and points out that you give a little leeway to a man who says that sort of thing, even if he doesn't quite know how he'll accomplish it when he says it.
That's sort of how I feel about the Christian promise. I am not a Christian theologist, and I have my own ideas on the nature of free will and redemption that may or may not jibe with the Easter story. But the gist of it is that one man said, "Yes, these people, I love them so much, even the ones I've never met, that I'll go through this horrible thing for them, just because of my own belief that somehow my sacrifice will make something possible for them that they couldn't have otherwise managed." And...I have to give a certain amount of respect to a man who swears that sort of oath, even if the fundamental mechanics are sort of unclear to me.
If you've read Fionavar, you know what Kevin's reply was. If you haven't, you should. And it remains to be seen what Christ's reply really means in the long run; people have their own beliefs ranging from 'nothing' to 'everything'. Maybe he never existed. Maybe he existed as a man and teacher who's been expanded to the Son of God to fill a mythic role. Maybe he was the literal Son of God. I don't know. I can't know. Personally, I don't need to know.
But I do know that my grandmother loved him deeply, with all her heart, and that her love for him was profound and important enough to her to inform every single aspect of her daily life, to color every interaction, every conversation. And just as I wouldn't mock someone's dead father, or dead brother, and just as I would be hurt by someone mocking my grandmother or the best friend I lost in 2004, I simply cannot find it in myself to disrespect her love that way.
I love you all.
She had, of course, all the other pictures of Jesus that Midwesterners have, the one over the TV, the one in the guest room, and so on. But here was one that made a statement that defined her: Jesus was part of my grandmother's family. He was not a remote and unknowable being, a distant mythical figure to be worshiped but never understood. He was a friend, a brother, a father to her. When she prayed, she genuinely believed that he heard her, and that feeling of being heard gave her comfort whether her prayers were answered or not. Though, my grandmother's prayers were usually answered -- not because she was better than the rest of us, but because she knew what her God could give her. She wouldn't pray for an end to a sickness, but for the wisdom of the doctors and the courage to endure. She wouldn't pray for a good harvest, but for the strength to work hard and the skill to make the most of weather and circumstance. When my grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, she didn't ask God to take it away: she prayed for smart doctors, and her own courage, and her husband's comfort. She understood that faith isn't about waving a magic wand to get what you want; it's about having support and comfort for your journey.
I'm thinking today about my grandmother's relationship with her gods because it's Easter, the most holy and joyful day of the Christian faith. A lot of my friends like to mock it with faux-clever quips about zombie Jesus, but I can't really see my way clear to mocking something that meant that much to someone who's meant so much to me.
When I was little, I didn't really like Easter because it wasn't as fun. Sure, there were eggs and candy, but Christmas had a TREE and PRESENTS and maybe even SNOW and time off school. I left the Christian faith at 19, before I fully understood the idea of self-sacrifice, of making life choices for the love of others. Within paganism, as I've chosen a path of duty and service, I've finally come to understand Easter, to understand why this story of incredible love and compassion is so powerful to those of the Christian faith.
My grandmother believed that once upon a time her God had looked forward to everyone who would ever be, and had known that someday she personally would exist, and he had asked his son, "I love these people. Will you also love them enough to die for them?" And she believed that Christ had looked forward, and had seen her (and everyone else who would ever be), and said, "Yes, I will."
In the Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay, a character named Kevin Laine swears an oath: "Though he be a god, and it mean my death ... to this I will make my reply." Later, another character references that promise and points out that you give a little leeway to a man who says that sort of thing, even if he doesn't quite know how he'll accomplish it when he says it.
That's sort of how I feel about the Christian promise. I am not a Christian theologist, and I have my own ideas on the nature of free will and redemption that may or may not jibe with the Easter story. But the gist of it is that one man said, "Yes, these people, I love them so much, even the ones I've never met, that I'll go through this horrible thing for them, just because of my own belief that somehow my sacrifice will make something possible for them that they couldn't have otherwise managed." And...I have to give a certain amount of respect to a man who swears that sort of oath, even if the fundamental mechanics are sort of unclear to me.
If you've read Fionavar, you know what Kevin's reply was. If you haven't, you should. And it remains to be seen what Christ's reply really means in the long run; people have their own beliefs ranging from 'nothing' to 'everything'. Maybe he never existed. Maybe he existed as a man and teacher who's been expanded to the Son of God to fill a mythic role. Maybe he was the literal Son of God. I don't know. I can't know. Personally, I don't need to know.
But I do know that my grandmother loved him deeply, with all her heart, and that her love for him was profound and important enough to her to inform every single aspect of her daily life, to color every interaction, every conversation. And just as I wouldn't mock someone's dead father, or dead brother, and just as I would be hurt by someone mocking my grandmother or the best friend I lost in 2004, I simply cannot find it in myself to disrespect her love that way.
I love you all.
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