Samhain Greetings

October 27, 2006 at 9:31 pm (Pagany Musings)

May you all have a profound and delicious Samhain/Calan Gaeaf!  I will be away from the blogosphere as I join my coven for the festivities and will resume my musings on November 2.

In the meantime, I leave you to ponder the Samhain International Haiku Poetry Festival in Donegal, Ireland, where all submissions must be in Irish Gaelic and English.  The 2006 winner was Janak Sapkota from Nepal, who wrote:

Long days of rain-
The gurgle of frogs ripen
My little rice field

I’m also fond of this one by Anthony Anatoly Kudravitsky from Dublin, Ireland:

summer night -
blossoming in the pond
water-lilies and stars

And Myrna Sloam from New York:

it’s only cherry blossoms
falling like snow-flakes
no need for a hat!

But my personal favorite, from Siofra O Donovan of Co Louth, Ireland, is:

Picking blackberries
I catch the pale sun
In my silver bowl

———-

I wish all of you the simple joy of the season reflected like the pale sun in a silver bowl.  Slainte!

2 Comments

Novelty – Fiction and Paganism

October 27, 2006 at 1:19 am (Pagany Musings, Theology)

In the introduction to his excellent new book Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America, Chas Clifton touches briefly on the significant influence that science-fiction and fantasy literature has had on Contemporary Paganisms in the U.S. and opines, rightly, that it is a topic deserving of a rich and detailed examination. I’m delighted that Clifton mentions this, as it has been a particular interest of mine for some time. And I know I would love to read the book that explores this issue further.

I know most of us in the Pagan community have noticed the trend among us to be avid readers of sci-fi and fantasy – some of our traditions’ histories lie squarely at the feet of novels, while other works of fiction are nigh canon in various communities. “You haven’t read The Mists of Avalon?” *dies of shock*

And I am no exception to this worthy vein of gold in our midst (point of fact, I get more guff from folks for my choice of novels than I do about my faith tradition – jokes about Sara’s predilection for yoonicorn books are old hat ’round these parts). Fact is, I feel very strongly that I owe a great deal of my spiritual development to certain works of fiction. These precious books, worn with wrinkled pages from rereading and the perils of being passed breathlessly on to friends and even unsuspecting acquaintances, possess numinous fireworks that touch a place in my heart unmoved by the ranks of Pagan non-fiction, no matter how wondrous and powerful they may be. Don’t get me wrong, I looooove me some non-fiction. It remains the bulk of my library, Pagan and otherwise. My fiction bookshelf is actually rather modest by comparison, yet their music and their voice echo longer and deeper and in more mysterious ways than even all those other great works. There is something intimate, evocative, powerful, magnificent, glorious, about fiction (I’m reminded of the Bookbus guy from SouthPark – “the mystical magical world of reading!” Well and good. I am not ashamed to say that my favorite show as a kid was Reading Rainbow. That is one seriously kick ass show. All yous out there who can sing the theme song right now, you are my sisters and my brothers).

What a fascinating study it would be to examine the impact of sci-fi and fantasy fiction not only on developing spiritual communities, but also on a person’s individual spiritual journey. Oh yes, I can think of many psychological and sociological reasons for the attraction to fantasy and sci-fi by the Pagan community, some of which are fairly obvious, but mostly this evening, as the sky darkens at the startling hour of a little past 6:00 p.m. after a day of rain, and the world is threatening a sky full of sexy, devilish grumbling, I spent an hour on the comfy chair under the glow of a single lamp reading a short story collection by Patricia McKillip (one of the single greatest fantasty writers of our time, IMO), and the weight of her gorgeous, bejewelled prose is settled pretty squarely on my thoughts. There’s one big lovely spark of connection there in the recesses of my heart’s blood. The bittersweet ache that follows a perfect tale is awfully similar to that ancient Longing towards Mystery, towards Awen, towards Home, and afterwards I am often drawn towards a lit candle and a dark room, to think on the pull of the season and the richness of the Secrets below the Earth that I will never know but can only sing.

I wax some poetry for good or for ill. I get down with my funky midnight soul. That’s some juicy Pagan wordsmithin’, ya ask me. Where the words break open and the golden fruit hits you square in the chest. Where the pulse gathers in the hem of a skirt. Always a place I’m reaching for but can never quite grasp….

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Distinctly Un-Jolly-like Feelings

October 25, 2006 at 6:56 pm (Pagany Musings, Politics)

It’s like the first snowflake of winter, or the first robin of spring.  The hallmark of the season.  Just when those Halloween articles were becoming just a bit overdone, voila!  We begin gearing up for….the War on Christmas (cymbal crash)!!!  Forget lamenting about the ever-creeping consumerist truck barrelling towards us every fall, toting Santas and Sales and Snowmen, the new culture-war feature of choice to battle over the water cooler is the Reason for the Season.

Christmas Tree Makes Comeback

Maybe it was the chill in the air that had aldermen thinking about Christmas in October, but the Milwaukee Common Council voted 9-5 Tuesday to rename the large green object in Red Arrow Park as the city’s “Christmas tree,” dumping the “holiday tree” label that has been used since 1995.

Here’s my favorite part:

Bohl said the term “holiday tree” was a product of political correctness, because Jews and Muslims don’t recognize evergreens as holiday symbols.

Ald. Michael Murphy retorted that evergreens don’t have any relation to Christian theology, either, because they were pagan symbols appropriated by early Christians.

Ah, gifts of good cheer all over.  I know I’m looking forward to the merriment this year.  In the spirit of the kind of friendly anti-politically-correct attitude that is floating around, I’ve got my cards that say Merry Christmas And If You Don’t Celebrate It You Can Kiss My Ass addressed and stamped, and I’ve got my Christmas NOT Holiday tree all ready to go, and I’ve got my Suck On This You Hellbent Sinner Christmas Music Album in the CD player.  Ahhhh….a joyful time.

Seriously – I just can’t figure how it’s that freakin’ hard to say Happy Holidays to people – to recognize the diversity of religious expression in this nation and the world (not that this is the ideal way to do so…but still).  Fact is, it’s not.  Ultimately, Christmas is not what this is about.  Holidays, since they are so alive in the collective consciousness of the nation, are good symbols to latch onto in order to demonstrate your nostalgic fundamentalism of choice.  Halloween is a perfect time to whip folks into a “satanic” frenzy, Christmas is key for rewriting America as a Christian nation under seige by interlopers, and both work to turn frightened people into voters on the side of intolerance. 

It feels threatening to a dominant worldview or class to have to be inclusive, or even consider the Other.  But while it may not be the optimal solution to glaze over our differences with the bland and non-specific term “Holidays,” it is an improvement over the tyranny of a monoculture that sets one religion as default.  While some religious leaders engage in meaningful dialogue about how to create a culture of authenitc inclusivity and true diversity in small conferences around the nation, mainstream America is embroiled in culture wars that lead to appalling levels of hostility between religions.  How can we connect the conversations occuring at the academic level with the battles raged over large green objects and little light parades?  I’m afraid I don’t know.  Maybe I’m the only one who feels that these battles over the holidays get just a little meaner every year.  But I’m just betting the Milwaukee Common Council didn’t have some kind of hugfest full of engaging dialogue over a cup of tea and a handful of homebaked cookies when they hashed out the deal over their big green tree.

Meh.  I’ve written myself into a not-so-Good-Newsy funk.  I need a dandelion break.

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Good News Communique #3

October 24, 2006 at 4:49 pm (Good News Communique, Pagany Musings, Random Thoughts)

It is a fall-down breath-taking gorgeous day out here in the not-so-wild Midwest, and this Gospel Pagan is bogged down at home with a nasty virus and a missing set of vocal chords. But where I cannot talk, I can at least type. And lo, a special-edition themed Good News Communique, brought to you by echinacea tea laced liberally with honey and the kind of whimsical lunacy that comes of being forced to mime my way through the day. Today’s theme: Weird.

1. I have always identified with the word “weird.” It was my favorite descriptor of choice as an awkward youth, bumbling about in the backyard talking to the ring of irises that framed a skinny unknown (to me) species of tree, calling it the Faery Ring, reading sword and sorcery novels, cutting out magazine pictures and making nerdy collages, and listening, breathless and red with laughter, to ye olde Monty Python tapes and….you know it’s coming….Weird Al. And I know, without a shred of doubt based on many years of interaction with the broader Pagan community, that I am far, far, far from alone here. Alls I’m sayin’ is, the Geek community and the Pagan community be sharing a few bodies between them. You know it’s true.

2. And speaking of Weird Al, I’m happy to report that “White and Nerdy” from the new album “Straight Outta Lynwood” has to be his best single ever. Thanks to a new nerdy acquaintance, I am back to listening to Al, which is bringing up all sorts of nostalgic weirdo memories from my childhood digs…I can almost smell the cheap sandalwood incense now – I burned enough of it to bless the neighborhood.

3. “Weird,” of course, comes etymologically from the word Wyrd, meaning fate or destiny, sometimes the name of one of three Norns or Fates, and bearing a wealth of rich and textured meaning to contemporary Heathens of the Northern Norse/Germanic traditions – Asatru, Anglo-Saxon Heathenry, Heathen Witches, etc. Imagine the sheer, all-encompassing, body-shivering glee that washed through me when I made that connection as a young teen Pagan. The weird ones, the wyrd ones, the strange ones. Delicious.

A couple of deliciously weird things:

4. Ladybug larvae. Once, when I was an apprentice at an ecovillage back East, we made the startling discovery that the lettuce patch in the greenhouse had been overrun by a host of evil-looking, malicious little alligator bugs, hustling amongst the leaves and, to our minds, potentially doing great sums of damage. We were rescued from our tragic looksism by my fellow apprentice (a lovely young girl from Scotland), who took it upon herself to look up said bug on the internet, only to discover that these were, in fact, ladybug larvae, and they were just as wonderfully beneficial as the full grown aphid-eating red beauties we all know and love. There’s a lesson in Mama Nature’s tricksy ways. Ugly, weird, good. Hug a ladybug larvae today. But not too tight. Maybe just give it a mental hug.

5. Pagan birds. Wha? Pagan birds with creepy toupes. Oh yes. In what’s gotta be one of the weirdest cool little articles I’ve come across this month, the BBC covers a Scottish artist who, inspired by the country that gave us our precious “Wicker Man” (the original, not that painful, wilted piece of crap remake), has created a book of art featuring a series of creepy birds, entitled “Bird of the Devil.” I personally must have this book, if only for the piece The Tree Creepy, which lives up to its title, featuring a snowy owl with what looks like Severus Snape’s hairdo plastered to its skull. What more is there to say than that?

Thus, I invite you my friends to soldier weirdly on throughout your day, as I suck on lozenges and try to mime “can I have more soup?” to my intrepid partner. Behind all weirdness is Wyrd. Behind all things is Awen.

More elderberry cough syrup!

2 Comments

Reality TV – The One and Only Post

October 23, 2006 at 5:02 pm (Pagany Musings, Random Thoughts, Theology)

I will only be posting about Reality Television one time.  This is that time.  And only because I came across this article this morning while picking my way through the Pagany news:

“Lives of five troubled strangers are forever changed when entering ‘The Monastery’”

Five troubled men enter a Benedictine monastery in the heart of the New Mexico desert. They promise to abide by the rules of the monks and the strict practices set out by St. Benedict more than 1,500 years ago.

The guests include a former TV writer battling substance abuse, a paramedic whose daily exposure to injury and death have left him deeply cynical; a Star Trek buff turned Satanist turned would-be Episcopal priest, an ex-con and reformed gang member, and an irreverent veteran who returned from Iraq with only one leg and a chip on his shoulder when it comes to things spiritual.

I would like to try for just a moment to ignore the deeply disturbing knowledge that a group of Benedictine monks allowed this show to be filmed at all (though I find many aspects of the theology and philosophy behind the lifestyle problematic, I maintain a huge amount of respect for those who choose a monastic life – it has a resonant beauty to it that has fascinated me since childhood), and the implication (not new) that Christianity offers reform and redemption where nothing else will, and would instead like to point out just one thing.

It’s the use of the term “troubled.”  I’m wary of the term in general, as I find it’s usually used to label any one who doesn’t fit in with certain expectations.  However, in this case it is beyond merely questionable and is instead deeply problematic to label someone troubled because they question authority or religion for any reason, in this case as the result of severe trauma – the “irreverant” veteran of the Iraq war.  To question the existence of a benevolent deity in the face of war doesn’t make one troubled, it makes one human.  Also (and here’s what I guess made this a ‘pagan’ news article), I have to ask what’s so “troubled” about “a Star Trek buff turned Satanist turned would-be Episcopal priest.”  I’m assuming it’s the Satanist part that earns a “troubled” scout badge here, and though I personally don’t even believe that being a “Satanist” (which can mean only about a million different things) warrants the automatic categorization of “troubled individual,” the fellow seems to have “reformed” himself in the eyes of the mainstream by embracing Christianity anyway, so what is it about him that’s still troubled?  Is he still a Star Trek fan?  Is this what’s troubling?  What relevance did the Star Trek thing have in the first place?  Is it troubling that he didn’t stick with one ‘religion’ in general (in which case, there’s a whole lot of troubled-ass spiritual seekers out there)?  Is it “troubling” that he’s Episcopalian?  What?  What’s going on here?  Where are my pants?

Ah, Reality TV.  Your logic once again sets intelligent people to gasping with a kind of incredulous flabbergastedness (say that 3 times fast).  I’d like a show where all Reality TV writers are thrown into a pit of snakes and have to display at least one redeeming character trait before anyone lowers a rope.  That would be entertaining.  I’d watch that.

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Higgeldy Piggledy My Black Hen

October 20, 2006 at 9:43 pm (Good News Communique, Pagany Musings, Random Thoughts)

A Friday collection of Nursery Rhymes, for you my friends, to take you through your Week’s End with a song on your lips, a rhyme in your heart, and to remind you of the many things, seemingly silly, that reveal deeper meanings when peered at with a witch’s eye….

Higgledy, piggledy, my black hen,
She lays eggs for gentlemen;
Sometimes nine, sometimes ten;
Higgledy, piggledy, my black hen.

———-

A cat came fiddling out of a barn,
With a pair of bagpipes under her arm;
She could sing nothing but fiddle cum fee,
The mouse has married the bumblebee.

———-

I had a little nut-tree, nothing would it bear
But a silver nutmeg and a golden pear;
The king of Spain’s daughter came to visit me,
And all because of my little nut-tree.
I skipped over water, I danced over sea.
And all the birds in the air couldn’t catch me.

———-

There was a crooked man, and he went a crooked mile,
And found a crooked sixpence against a crooked stile,
He bought a crooked cat, which caught a crooked mouse,
And they all lived together in a little crooked house.

———-

There was an old woman
Lived under a hill;
And if she’s not gone,
She lives there still.

Baked apples she sold,
and cranberry pies,
and she’s the old woman
that never told lies.

———-

There was an old woman tossed up in a basket
Nineteen times as high as the moon;
Where she was going I couldn’t but ask it,
For in her hand she carried a broom.

“Old woman, old woman, old woman,” quoth I,
“O whither, O whither, O whither, so high?”
“To brush the cobwebs off the sky!”
“Shall I go with thee?” “Aye, by and by.”

———-

p.s.  Once upon a time, I read a wonderful article about traditional Paganism and Mother Goose (titled The REAL Mother Goose perhaps?), but alas, it seems to have disappeared.  If you know where I can find this morsel of witchy ‘net goodness, would ya drop me a line and let me know?

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The Beloved Dead and the Not So Beloved Dead

October 19, 2006 at 9:09 pm (Pagany Musings, Theology)

Blessings and Thanks and Praise to the Ancestors, for this is their holiest of seasons.  Samhain fast approaches and as par for the crooked course, there are indeed an ooptigazillion articles out there on Halloween’s occult and diabolical origins, the wacky or sexy or ’satanic’ witches (oogly boogly!) who celebrate it, and the multi-billion dollar industry that’s grown up around it. 

I’d like an NYT article about Ancestors this year.  Wouldn’t that be somethin’?

But how I do go on with my unreasonable demands.  Fact remains, for those of us who keep the upcoming festivities as sacred to us and our chosen people, the leaves that riot in their dying are a sign that we turn our thoughts inward and downward, to the sleepy earth where our Beloved Dead dwell.  We leave out apples and hazelnuts, lay out the Dumb Supper, and pray and dance in their honor.  They are the ties that bind us to our humanness, to the Earth as they become part of Her, to the pools of time and history, to tradition and belonging.  The Ancestors and the Land – mud and blood. 

Though it is asked, in the circles of us who honor the Ancestors in our religious lives, what about those Ancestors that aren’t so beloved?  What about the abusive ones, the absent ones, the murderers and unforgiven?  We who worship with dancing skeletons in the fall often have a few tumbled in the back of the family closet that we’d rather not feed.  What of them?  I have a couple that I can think of off the bat.  Their pictures aren’t included on my ancestor shrine, and I make no offerings to them on Samhain.  But they are my blood, and their ancestory lives in me whether I like it or not.  What of that?

Well I’ve heard a couple different replies to this.  On one hand I have heard Pagans suppose that while we do not necessarily forgive those ancestors who have hurt us, we might benefit from accepting them, making contact with them, embracing their brokenness within ourselves – as they are our blood, we cannot simply ignore them.  And on the other hand I’ve heard folks say, “the hell we can’t ignore them…go ahead and watch me.” 

As for me, I lean towards the latter, believing that no person should feel obligated to seek relationship with any abuser, past or present, dead or alive.  Yet I understand, for some of those ancestors who have delivered unto my family less than stellar performances, it may be a moving and deep thing to open my home to them on Samhain and invite holistic reconciliation.  Should we be able to pick and choose like that?  Absolutely.  Religion is purely ugly when it forces hurt people to attempt forgiveness or healing where none is possible, and may never be possible. 

Maybe there will be a time when I feel I can dig deeper into the crucible of my heartblood and open a place for the great-grandfather that abandoned his family without explanation, or the myriad other legacies of woundedness caused by distant relations….but not yet.  Not yet.

Yes, all my ancestors led flawed lives.  They were all human and all, no matter their lives, returned to the hollow places in the Center of the World.  But I will light my candles this year for those who continue to touch my soul in ways that are innumerable and blessed, and I will weigh their goodness in my heart again and feed them bread made by my hands, and I will think long about the time when I may be able to hold all the people in all of my prayers….

But not yet.  Nope.  Not yet.

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Trust. Fall. Dust off… Trust. Fall. Dust off…

October 18, 2006 at 7:04 pm (Random Thoughts, Theology)

 ”When you get to the end of all the light you know and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: either you will be given something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.” -Edward Teller

This nugget of Hmmm was in my weekly horoscope today (via the incomparable Rob Brezsny, of whom I am so fond) and has gotten me to thinkin’.  Is this what faith is?  The surety of basic okay-ness?  Of knowing in your gut that the Universe will provide or knows best or any of those things that folks seem to attribute to that One God they keep talking about?  Well now, I just don’t know for sure.  That’s a lot of trust goin’ on there – and when folks make these sorts of statements, I find myself bein’ half full of admiration and half full of uncomfortable skin-crawlies.  Cuz see on one hand, if there is one issue that drives the biggest wedge between me and the Divine Me, it’s Trust.  I’m not terribly good at it.  I have a hard time Knowing deep down that the Universe will catch me when I fall, or that it’s all part of a plan, or that Death isn’t scary (bad mystic – no cookie).  I have a real problem trusting myself mostly.  Is faith the same thing as Trust?  In what *do* I trust?  Here’s a project – a list of things that can solidly go beneath the phrase “In this I trust.”  I’ll start:

In This I Trust:

The Earth is Beautiful and alive
The blueberries I eat will taste good
Singing feels good

Eventually, the goal would be to work up to bigger things I suppose.  But then there’s the creepy crawly side to Trust, what we cynical folks call blind faith.  Faith that abdicates personal responsibility and insults the deep needs of those suffering from loss, disaster, oppression.  Ultimately, I suppose I trust that we will wrestle with trust.  And I think we ought to maybe give more attention to the dust-off stage after we trust and fall, a little reevaluation – the ebb and flow of our trust list, so that it may look more like:

In This I Trust:

The Earth is beautiful and alive
The blueberries I eat will taste good
Many of the blueberries I eat will taste good
Singing feels good
Everything will work out for the best according to a Divine Plan
The Universe loves, but love is complicated, and not always pretty and good

That seems more like it to me.  Ultimately, the issue with faith is not to worry about it being “blind,” but whether it has become static and stagnant.  Faith should, like the world, be an ever shifting, moving, being created by an intelligent designer evolving being, a roiling in the gut, the dancing that exhausts you and leaves you feeling delicious, too weak almost to laugh, and grinning all the time.  That your soul should do some healthy booty-shakin’ after falling on said booty.  I could get behind that (behind!  get it?  I kill me!). 

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Buffalo Snow

October 17, 2006 at 6:54 pm (Extremely Silly, Random Thoughts, Theology)

The other day my partner and I were discussing the weather (we’re party animals like that).  He mentioned that it had recently snowed in Buffalo (as in New York).  Somehow, I heard him say instead that it was going to snow buffaloes.  This is a consummately awesome image, you have to admit.  And how, might you ask, could this result in some kind of blog post about theology and earth-based Paganism?  Good question:

Upon further reflection, the buffaloes falling from the sky seemed a perfect come-uppance for our eco-disastrous culture here in North America, where colonizers decimated the buffalo not a couple hundred years ago.  That Mother Nature might decide to bring back all those buffaloes suddenly and without warning via a midwinter buffalo drop seems, well, poetically just (naturally, the buffaloes would be unharmed by this).

The Earth is alive and magic is afoot.  Never can tell what the Great Woman’s gonna do.  Watch yer backs, folks.  You don’t recycle – could be a giant snorting buffalo in your kitchen and a big old hole in the roof.

This message brought to you by a deep need to not be serious today. 

5 Comments

Those Spoooooky Pagans

October 16, 2006 at 2:32 pm (Pagany Musings, Theology)

Well now this is just irritating:

Pagan Graves in Vatican Basement!

“Just inside the Vatican’s fortified walls, directly below the street connecting its private pharmacy and its members-only supermarket, lies a 2,000-year-old graveyard littered with bizarre, often disturbing displays of pagan worship.”

The article lists some of these “bizarre” and “disturbing” elements as marble replica’s of hen’s eggs to symbolize rebirth (aieeeeeeee!!!!!), and feeding honey to the dead (*faints dead away*).  Sometimes, Pagan folks would come and often read to the dead to occupy them until they moved on – isn’t it just bone-chilling to think of all those unsaved heathens doing these horrific and nightmarish things, like caring for their dead loved ones.  Freezes the heart.

Honestly.  Could this *be* any more ridiculously sensationalized?  The crux of the article is:  The Vatican is built on Roman gravesites.  The Romans, it turns out (and you may want to sit down) were Pagans before they were Christians, and they cared for their beloved dead in the manner of their religious worldview.  The Vatican discovered these gravesites recently and has been pondering opening them to the tourist public.  ‘Kay.  Do we need the spooooky crap?  Do we need the justifications and protestations and the insistence that these folks were in the process of converting to Christianity?  Many of them were, it’s true.  Many of them, however, weren’t.  They died Pagan, as they lived, and their loved ones tended to them in the manner of their belief.  Cool it already.   

One wonders how this will play into what is becoming a larger hooha about archaeology and pagan remains. 

*Note: on capitalization…most folks capitalize Pagan when referring to the modern phenomenon, and keep it to the small “p” pagan when discussing our pre-Christian ancestors.  However, since we capitalize Christian no matter what we’re talking about, I feel it’s inappropriate to keep to the small “p” pagans in that instance.  It implies a lesser status IMO.

6 Comments

Friday the 13th Laziness

October 13, 2006 at 9:27 pm (Random Thoughts)

Well, you’d think I’d have something to say on Friday the 13th, wouldn’t you…but alas, I find myself stymied by blustery gorgeousness and the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (and a crappy mood) such that I cannot muster up a proper post today.  Try not to stand under any black cats or cross any ladders, or shatter any dreams – particularly not your own. 

I am also pondering deeply upon the spiritual meaning and virtue of laziness, and while I meditate on this notion I feel I must also do a little hands-on work, and thus, a short and nigh content-less post.  Yay!

I believe I will have a margarita instead.  *dance dance*

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This Island Earth…sans Humans

October 12, 2006 at 11:35 pm (Pagany Musings, Politics, Theology)

Here’s a thought:

From The Times in the UK – “200,000 years for all trace of Man to vanish from the Earth”

“IF MAN were to vanish from the face of the Earth today, his footprint on the planet would linger for the mere blink of an eye in geological terms.

 

Within hours, nature would begin to eradicate its impact. In 50,000 years all that would remain would be archaeological traces. Only radioactive materials and a few man-made chemical contaminants would last longer — an invisible legacy.”

Well. So the Earth isn’t dependent on human beings to survive after all. Huh.

Okay, so actually news like this, or rather the arguments I read from folks based on news like this, leaves me feeling conflicted. On one hand, YES, the Earth is a greater spirit than our dominant worldview gives her credit for – she is vast and ineffable and mighty. She is a God. THE God(dess) if you will. She is alive, and conscious this minute. She knows you. She knows you intimately, because you are of her. She knows you like you know your own hands, the shape of your own thigh. She loves. And she gives. She breaks her heart giving. She breaks mine. I know of few things as awe-inspiring as the Earth, and nothing more so. And lo, we human beings, while cherished and loved by Her, are no more cherished and loved by her than, say, a silkworm, or a hermit crab. Or nettles. And we are not, in my opinion and as this article may imply, a keystone species, though we like to pretend we are.

BUT, neither should this information lead us to the conclusion that nothing we do has any lasting effect, that environmentalists are all just a bunch of nitpicky whiners who coddle the earth and/or its extant species, because hey, the Earth can take care of herself, right? This is, well, a crap argument. First, let’s ignore for a moment that the scenario in the article postulates that the Earth would recover if we humans vanished right this very moment – it says nothing about what would happen if we stayed here, doin’ the ugly things we do.  Let’s say that it may be that the Earth can and will survive without human beings. It may be that we do not even have the power to destroy her utterly (and we better hope we don’t, cuz we’re making our best godsdamned effort). But that does not for a minute excuse our behavior. We have a theological, basic, primal, moral responsibility to engage in a healthy, respectful and mutually reciprocal relationship with the Earth and *all* the creatures on the Earth.

Additionally (and this is always the part that I seem to hear the least out of all the mainstream enviro-talk), we forget when we get mired in arguments about whether we as humans have any long-lasting or globally destructive effects on the planet, or how our actions may or may not affect global warming (though I’d like to point out that it is an undisputed scientific fact that they do), that the fact is that each creature on this planet has inherent value. It is moral to engage in right relationship with a buffalo or a parrot or a ghost orchid. I participate in the ecological movement because I believe that in the long run our actions will have devastating repurcussions for everyone, the planet included, but I do it also because I believe that it is good for my soul, my fundamental being, to be in a healthy, reciprocal relationship with those around me.

Aldo Leopold has said “a thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Ah, Aldo. I loves ya. No wishy washy equivocatin’ for you. It is wrong when it tends otherwise. End of story.

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Good News Communique #2

October 11, 2006 at 4:58 pm (Good News Communique)

It is a blustery, wet, dark day outside here in the not-so-wild midwest.  I love this kind of weather.  Many folks, however, consider this kind of day to be gloomy and depressing – which means on several levels it is just the kind of day for a Good News Communique.

1.  There is so freakin’ much to learn.  I am often blown away, excited, amazed and ecstatic when I realize how little I know.  Given the amount of wonderful, soul-satisfying information in the world that I do not know, I can go the rest of my life absorbing these nuggets of know-how and never, ever run out.  Things I plan to know sometime in the future:  how to merengue, what a hive of bees sounds like in the winter, what color the Mediterranean Sea is in my dreams.

2.  October is the season of the Ancestors.  The ancestors are with us every minute, of course, but in October we put all our energies towards dancing our gratitude for them and renewing our relationships.  This year, in addition to my blood ancestors, I plan to acknowledge some ancestors in spirit – ancestors to whom I am not blood related but I feel a deep spiritual kinship, and from whom I have felt a guiding hand.  To our Ancestors!!  More on them as the month progresses.

3.  The secret places game.  For many years I have played a game with myself when walking or riding in a car.  I seek out spots that look as though human beings very rarely set foot on them – usually the secret inner corners of buildings or patches of bare earth tucked in a hard to walk to area.  These are Wild places – they are storehouses of secret joy in and among the city’s often overtaxed energy exchange…standing in them makes one a secret agent of Mystery.  Exercise caution with them though!  Try not to use them except in an emergency, they are precious and should be preserved.  Another fun thing – peering into empty businesses after dark to watch the Mystery creep back in during the Witching Hours.  Both of these games serve to remind me that while it often feels as though the Mystery has left us, it is always waiting just beyond to recapture the world.  The hungry wilderness will take over at every chance.  Yay scary hungry beautiful Wild!  Even in the cities you can be found under aluminum lids and yellow windows after dusk.

This Good News Communique has been brought to you by the gorgeous slate color of the sky before a thunderstorm.

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Pagany Snippets from the Global Community

October 10, 2006 at 5:54 pm (Pagany Musings, Politics, Theology)

Two notes:

1. The historic fire barrel rolling event in Devon, England will not end. There had been a brief liability problem that could have resulted in its demise. While the origins of the event are unknown, some believe it began as a pagan rite to ward away evil spirits.

2. A neat short article on the growing recognition of Asatru priests in Iceland. Huzzah! It warms the heart to read articles on Pagans that are just short and matter of fact – more Pagan priests in Iceland – cool.

Yet, I’m always torn when it comes to the increasing recognition of Paganism as a “world religion.” On one hand, of *course* I’m pleased about it – obviously, I’d rather have folks regard Paganism and other polytheistic, earth-based, or Indigenous religions as legitimate expressions of religion than the alternative. Duh. But a part of me laments that a set of religions that I find so rapturously anarchic and notoriously impossible to define loses a bit of that spontaneous creative spark when it becomes sanctioned and defined by the governments in our midst. On the one hand, in this day in age I welcome protection against persecution, and on the other hand, why should *any* religion be recognized by a government? I go back and forth. Politics and religion, I’m often feel, may in fact be the primordial ooze from which we arose. Messy, bestirring, complicated, ugly, creative. Ooze.

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Thoughts on Homespun and Wild Silk

October 10, 2006 at 5:30 pm (Pagany Musings, Theology)

I am taking a class on handspinning, the fine art of twisting fibers to create homespun yarns.  I started this journey years ago, spending many flustered hours wrestling with a top whorl handspindle, cursing under my breath (or not-so-under my breath) and ruining huge lengths of good wool.  Ah, but now.  Now I have found the spinning wheel, and all is as it should be.  I am told that there are those who find the mastery of the handspindle to be a superior accomplishment to the wheel, but I have fallen in love instead with the wheel’s ancient form, mellow wood, and gentle rocking, whirring noise that moves one into all kinds of meditative worlds, the threads of life flying out between my fingers.  I am hovering on the brink between hobby and obsession, wondering how far to go.  There is the problem, of course, of what to do with all this yarn I’ve spun – alas, I hate to knit, and somehow feel that the aching precision and tedium of warping a loom may be just a hair too meticulous for my whirling dervish soul, though I recognize Dame Fate in all those women who weave, the thumping and clacking of the shuttle as it moves among the warp, trailing weft – straight up, a magical act.  I have in mind a fantasy of trading my beloved soft skeins of gorgeous wool, flax and silk to those Mistress Weavers in exchange for cloth, shawls, etc.  But then I take a look at my lumpy, misshapen hunks of goat-chin twisted first attempts and I think – er, maybe a little while off yet.

This craft of spinning, the thea/ologies it invokes and the ethics involved, have given me much to think about.  We come closer to the Mysteries when we participate in the arts of Gods, but we must always, always, weigh the costs.  Spinning and Weaving can be said to be among the oldest crafts on the planet, yet through the course of time have become, like so many beautiful things, arts of civilization – which is inherently, at its core, a corrupt venture.

My teacher in this endeavor is a silk merchant and a master spinner.  In our latest class we had the opportunity to take a gander at an array of fiber options, including yak, llama, camel, flax, and of course, silk.  Out of her endless bags and baskets she produced the most exquisitely dyed piece of material I had ever seen – hypnotic blues and greens that we all involuntarily found ourselves reaching our hands out to touch – silk.  Silk has a lingering romance attached to it, care of its paring with words like “gold” and “spices” – erotic, indulgent trades from distant gorgeous lands (laced with the dangerous, racist notion of exoticism).  The reality, of course, is a legacy of conquest, empire, domestication, the waste and corruption of civilization, and the vagaries of international trade, girded by the abhorrent reality of animal cruelty (some folks estimate that one pound of cultivated silk equals the killing of 3000 silkworms).  There is a deep stink of human ugliness underneath this exquisite beauty.

Then, there’s wild silk.  When my teacher mentioned this phrase, something in my heart leapt just a little – what a delicious pairing of words.  Unlike the blazing white achieved through cultivated cocoons, wild silks are often darker, in rich browns, and most notably, are collected after they have been abandoned by grown moths.  One might say that wild silks are gifts where cultivated silks are thefts (and murder).  Granted, I do not know whether these wild silks are wildcrafted ethically, but it gives one pause to think that the boiling of live cocooned caterpillars is unnecessary to produce silk.  Maybe the hidden joy that erupts in the heart at the sound of “wild silk” is a message from the earth – when she says “seek out the Wildness of everything – these treasures in among the boles of trees are my precious gifts to you.”

I wish the magic of Wild Silk and the peace of the spinning wheel to all of you who wade through despair this week.  Look for the gifts of the precious Wild in something.  For instance, the birds in the city park may be taken for granted, but the fact is they are not domesticated – they too are wild.  It may help to learn their language.

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