Bad Week for Pagans in DC

Jason Pitzl-Waters has an important and well-reasoned post at the Wild Hunt concerning The Washington Times' (known throughout DC as The Moonie Times) attempts to smear Pagans. If you haven't seen it, you need to go read it now. As Jason notes, just when you think the paper may be running out of bad things to say about Pagans:

they quickly turn to environmentalism, portraying it as a stalking horse for Paganism.
“Such [environmental] questions can only be raised in a politically correct military that may actually contain more Earth worshippers than imagined. Though cloaked in scientific terms, the tenets of global warming are essentially pagan. [Not going to even mention rules of capitalization.] This belief system, which cannot be questioned, [??] holds that material sacrifice – turn down your thermostat and trade in your light bulbs – will result in a change in the weather. It is the modern equivalent of a rain dance.

I have to say, that's a level of stupidity that simply boggles my mind. You don't have to be Pagan to believe that if you stop adding carbon to the atmosphere, global climate change can be ameliorated. It's as if they said:

Idiot Pagans! They think that putting seeds into the ground will make food grow! They think starting a fire will keep you warm! They think that drinking wine will alter your consciousness! Only crazy people imagine that making material changes in the material world will cause material changes in the material world [And I am a material girl. Sorry, can't help myself.] Duh, Pagans probably think putting pins in a poppet will cause someone to feel pain, too! Pagans are dumb.

And, as Jason's commenters point out, the Moonies have honestly not got much room for calling other religions weird.

Meanwhile, the Washington Post (aka The Kaplan Test Prep Rag) is busy trying to screw its Pagan employees:

The [Washington Baltimore Newspaper Guild Local 320350] also criticized a management request to ease restrictions on layoffs and reduce severance pay while eliminating a provision that allows employees to trade a traditional holiday for another recognized holiday if they choose:

Not Christian? Too bad. The Post would eliminate an employees' right to substitute a traditional paid holiday, such as Christmas, for another recognized holiday of their choice. This from a company whose editorial page often lauds the importance of diversity.

A Post spokesperson declined to comment on the raise, the proposed severance, and layoff changes or the holiday provision.

/hat tip: Atrios

I'd imagine the Post would be glad to get some folks who'd volunteer to work the Xmas shift (because they run ads publish 365 days a calendar year) in return for getting Samhein or Beltane off, but apparently not. Lally, one imagines, may take off whenever she likes.

Some days, the stupid, it burns.

Picture found here.

We Need It All

Do what you love. Do what you can. Do what best serves your landbase.

Serendipity

There's this:

Premises 1 through 10

and, this:

As the current round of catabolism picks up speed, a great many jobs will go away, and most of them will never return; a great many people who depend on those jobs will descend into poverty, and most of them will never rise back out of it; much of the familiar fabric of life in America as it’s been lived in recent decades will be shredded beyond repair, and new and far less lavish patterns will emerge instead; outside the narrowing circle of the privileged classes, even those who maintain relative affluence will be making do with much less than they or their equivalents do today. All these are ways that a society in decline successfully adapts to the contraction of its economic base and the mismatch between available resources and maintenance costs.

Twenty or thirty or forty years from now, in turn, it’s a fairly safe bet that the years of crisis will come to a close and a newly optimistic America will reassure itself that everything really is all right again. The odds are pretty high that by then it will be, for all practical purposes, a Third World nation, with little more than dim memories remaining from its former empire or its erstwhile status as a superpower; it’s not at all impossible, for that matter, that it will be more than one nation, split asunder along lines traced out by today’s increasingly uncompromising culture wars. Fast forward another few decades, and another round of crises arrives, followed by another respite, and another round of crises, until finally peasant farmers plow their fields in sight of the crumbling ruins of our cities.

That’s the way civilizations end, and that’s the way ours is ending.

The Arch Druid and Derrick Jensen have more.

Picture found here.

Summer In The City

Every Winter, I work to try and appreciate that season for what it is. I admit, I still have a ways to go. Generally, by February, I'm so hungry for the sight of something green and growing, for the feel of sunshine on my skin, for the ability to go outside w/o layers and layers of clothing that I could scream. But I try, every year I try.

The intense heat we've been experiencing (coughglobalclimatechangecough) here in the MidAtlantic is something else. Here is my list of things I enjoy about a heat wave:

1. Iced tea tastes even more wonderful.

2. The birds and chipmunks are so happy when I turn on the sprinkler that I can't help but be happy with them (even as I contemplate the water bill that I'll be getting this quarter).

3. Deep shade.

4. Fruit smoothies for dinner because it's too hot to cook.

5. Since I have to be inside, I've been watching things to keep me cool: several episodes of Dark Shadows (That mansion always seemed to me to be icy cold in spite of the constant fires in the fireplaces. Also Quentin Collins always gives me the chills.), Dr. Zhivago, Heidi, Dark Victory.

6. Instant topic for elevator chat; people never get tired of talking about the weather.

7. Watching the rosemary plants go, "Ah, yesssssssss!"

8. The way it feels at about 5:00 am, before the "real" heat starts, when I step outside to water, and the serious joggers, walkers, dog owners are out and about.

9. Long, cool baths with pineapple sage leaves. Drying off in front of the fan afterwards.

10. And, when all else fails: coffee ice cream.


What do you do to enjoy hot weather?

Balance

My Sun is in Pisces and my Ascendent is in Gemini, so I can always see many sides of each argument. And, as we move closer and closer to the Vernal Equinox, it's good for us to seek, like Mama Earth, balance. Consequently, I offer you both John Michael Greer's ArchDruid Report and Phila's Hope Blogging.

Actually, they're both positive, in their own ways.

Photo by the author; if you copy, please link back.

Because Empire Is The Methamphetamine Of Nations

Greer's generally quite good, but this week, you should definitely go read his entire post.

It may never have occurred to you to wonder why it is that the 5% of the world’s population who live in the US get to use around a third of the world’s production of natural resources and industrial products – certainly it never seems to occur to most Americans to wonder about that – but the economics of empire are the reason.

A century ago, in 1910, it was Britain that had the global empire, the worldwide garrisons, and the torrents of wealth flowing from around the world to boost the British standard of living at the expense of everyone else’s. A century from now, in 2110, if the technology to maintain any kind of worldwide empire still exists – and it can be done with wooden sailing ships and crude cannon, remember; Spain managed that feat very effectively in its day – somebody else will be in that position. It won’t be America, because empire is the methamphetamine of nations; in the short term, the effects feel great, but in the long term they’re very often lethal. Britain managed to walk away from its empire without total catastrophe because the United States was ready, willing, and able to take over, and give Britain a place in the inner circle of US allies into the bargain; most other nations have paid for their imperial overshoot with a century or two of economic collapse, political chaos, and social disintegration.

That’s the corner into which the United States is backing itself right now. The flood of lightly disguised tribute from overseas, while it made Americans fantastically wealthy by the standards of the rest of the world, also gutted America’s domestic economy – the same economic imbalances that funnel wealth here also make it nearly impossible to produce goods or provide services at home at a cost that can compete with overseas producers – and created a culture of entitlement that includes all classes from the bottom of the social pyramid right up to the top. As always happens, in turn, the benefits of empire are failing to keep pace with its rapidly rising costs, and in addition, rising demands for imperial largesse from all parts of society are drawing down an increasingly straitened supply of wealth. Meanwhile other nations with imperial ambitions are circling like sharks; the wisest among them know that time is on their side, and that any additional burden that can be loaded onto a drowning empire will hasten the day when it goes under for the third time and they can close for the kill.

Meanwhile, our media distract us with missing white women, whether Angelina and Brad are splitting up, and "reality" tv. Maybe we should bomb Iran.

I will say that I differ with Greer only concerning his optimism that various states, such as China, will win out over large multi-national corporations. I suspect that things may work out in quite the opposite direction, but the overall difference may be rather less important than we suppose.

Picture found here.

You Need To Listen To This

Ten Years

No North Pole?

Freeway Blogger Rocks. That is all.


Art by J.R.R.T. But then, you knew that.

My New Name For A Blog

What Chidyke Said.

Spade up some grass. Fill a couple of pots. Head over to a community plot, or just create one on some unused land in your ’hood. It’s not too late

Lady, I love you.

Picture: Tarragon from my new herb bed.

Actions Speak Louder Than Words By Derrick Jensen

Every morning when I awake I ask myself whether I should write or blow up a dam. I tell myself I should keep writing, though I'm not sure that's right. I've written books and done activism, but it is neither a lack of words nor activism that is killing salmon here in the Northwest. It's the dams.

Anyone who knows anything about salmon knows the dams must go. Anyone who knows anything about politics knows the dams will stay. Scientists study, politicians and business people lie and delay, bureaucrats hold sham public meetings, activists write letters and press releases, and still the salmon die.

Sadly enough, I'm not alone in my inability or unwillingness to take action. Members of the German resistance to Hitler from 1933 to 1945, for example, exhibited a striking blindness all too familiar: Despite knowing that Hitler had to be removed for a "decent" government to be installed, they spent more time creating paper versions of this theoretical government than attempting to remove him from power. It wasn't a lack of courage that caused this blindness but rather a misguided sense of morals. Karl Goerdeler, for instance, though tireless in attempting to create this new government, staunchly opposed assassinating Hitler, believing that if only the two of them could sit face to face, Hitler might relent.

We, too, suffer from this blindness and must learn to differentiate between real and false hopes. We must eliminate false hopes, which blind us to real possibilities and unlivable situations. Does anyone really believe our protests will cause Weyerhaeuser or other timber transnationals to stop destroying forests ? Does anyone really believe the same corporate administrators who say they "wish salmon would go extinct so we could just get on with living" (Randy Hardy of BPA) wiill act other than to fulfill their desires? Does anyone really believe a pattern of exploitation old as our civilization can be halted legislatively, judicially or through any means other than an absolute rejection of the mindset that engineers the exploitation, followed by actions based on that rejection? Does anybody really think those who are destroying the world will stop because we ask nicely or because we lock arms peacefully in front of their offices?

Additionally, there can be few who still believe the purpose of government is to protect citizens from those who would destroy them. The opposite is true: Political economist Adam Smith was correct in noting that the primary purpose of government is to protect those who run the economy from the outrage of injured citizens. To expect institutions created by our culture to do other than poison waters, denude hillsides, eliminate alternative ways of living and commit genocide is to engage in naive thinking.

Many German conspirators hesitated to remove Hitler from office because they'd sworn loyalty to him and his government. Their scruples caused more hesitation than their fear did. How many of us have yet to root out misguided remnants of a belief in the legitimacy of this government to which, as children, we pledged allegiance? How many of us fail to cross the line into violent resistance because we still believe that, somehow, the system can be reformed? And if we don't believe that, what are we waiting for? As Shakespeare so accurately put it, "Conscience doth make cowards of us all."

It could be argued that by comparing our government to Hitler's I'm overstating my case. I'm not sure salmon would agree, nor lynx, nor the people of Peru, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, or any other place where people pay with their lives for the activities of our culture.

If we're to survive, we must recognize that we kill by inaction as surely as by action. We must recognize that, as Hermann Hesse wrote, "We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, affliction or infamy. We kill when, because it is easier, we countenance, or pretend to approve of atrophied social, political, educational, and religious institutions, instead of resolutely combating them."

The central - and in many ways only - question of our time is this: What are sane, appropriate and effective responses to outrageously destructive behavior? So often, those working to slow the destruction can plainly describe the problems. Who couldn't? The problems are neither subtle nor cognitively challenging. Yet when faced with the emotionally daunting task of fashioning a response to these clearly insoluble problems, we generally suffer a failure of nerve and imagination. Gandhi wrote a letter to Hitler asking him to stop committing atrocities and was mystified that it didn't work. I continue writing letters to the editor of the local corporate newspaper pointing out mistruths and am continually surprised at the next absurdity.

. . .

The current system has already begun to collapse under the weight of its ecological excesses, and here's where we can help. Having transferred our loyalty away from our culture's illegitimate economic and governmental entities and given it to the land, our goal must be to protect, through whatever means possible, the human and nonhuman residents of our homelands. Our goal, like that of a demolition crew on a downtown building, must be to help our culture collapse in place, so that in its fall it takes out as little life as possible.

Discussion presupposes distance, and the fact that we're talking about whether violence is appropriate tells me we don't yet care enough. There's a kind of action that doesn't emerge from discussion, from theory, but instead from our bodies and from the land. This action is the honeybee stinging to defend her hive; it's the mother grizzly charging a train to defend her cubs; it's Zapatista spokesperson Cecelia Rodriguez saying, "I have a question of those men who raped me. Why did you not kill me? It was a mistake to spare my life. I will not shut up. ... This has not traumatized me to the point of paralysis." It's Ogoni activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, murdered by the Nigerian government at the urging of Shell, whose last words were, "Lord, take my soul, but the struggle continues!" It's those who participated in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. It's Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and Geronimo. It's salmon battering themselves against concrete, using the only thing they have, their flesh, to try to break down that which keeps them from their homes.

I don't believe the question of whether to use violence is the right one. Instead, the question should be: Do you sufficiently feel the loss? So long as we discuss this in the abstract, we still have much to lose. If we begin to feel in our bodies the immensity and emptiness of what we lose daily - intact natural communities, hours sold for wages, childhoods lost to violence, women's capacity to walk unafraid - we'll know precisely what to do.

Derrick Jensen's most recent book is
"A Language Older Than Words"
published by Context Books.
He also is a regular interviewer for
The Sun magazine.
His website is http://www.derrickjensen.org.

The Gift Outright

Best I Can Haz Cheezburger Ever

/hat tip to my brilliant friend, E.

No One Could Have Anticipated . . . .

From today's EEI newsletter:

Climate Change Could Be Extremely Costly for Japan, Government Says
Climate change could cause dire consequences in Japan, Bloomberg reported citing a Nikkei English News summary of a government panel's conclusions. Among the impacts that could occur are a 1-meter rise in sea levels, the loss of 2,400 square kilometers of farmland, a temperature rise of up to 4.7 degrees Celsius, floods, typhoons, and an increase in the number of malaria-carrying mosquitoes. Nikkei estimated that the loss to Japan's economy could reach $1 trillion.

Remember how George Bush I and George Bush II told us that saving the planet would be too expensive? Turns out, trashing the plantet is pretty expensive, as well. Who knew?

We Can't Survive Apart From The Planet That We're Killing

Any Economic System That Fails To Benefit The Natural Communities Upon Which It Is Based Is Unsustainable, Immoral, And Really Stupid

Carolyn Baker has an amazing article posted at The American Muslim that deals with the coming global-climate-change-induced collapse of society. Whereas James Lovelock focuses on cushioning the crash, trying to arrange conditions so as to preserve as much of civilization as possible, Baker, in what seems to me to be a much more Pagan approach (and one that somehow smacks of Ursula LeGuin) to the situation, focuses on embracing the collapse, changing in ways demanded by the situation, and transforming ourselves in order to reap good from it. What she says is so important that I hope you'll indulge me if I quote her at length.

I occasionally receive hate email but more frequently receive ones like this: “I’ve just unsubscribed to your email list. Your website is filled with negative stories and articles, and I need to keep a positive attitude and do what I can to make my world better.” . . . I think that righteous is the word I would use to describe this reader’s perspective. [T]he problem with a righteous attitude is that it often leads to detachment from reality-not unlike Barbara Bush’s comment that she doesn’t want to trouble her “beautiful mind” with statistics about troop or civilian casualties in Iraq. It’s all so American/Judeo-Christian-and, of course, Dale Carnegie: keeping a positive attitude so that we never feel badly about what’s actually happening.

. . .

The addiction to a “positive attitude” in the face of the end of the world as we have known it is beyond irrational-even beyond insane. . . . Usually, having a “positive” attitude about collapse implies wanting it not to happen, believing that it may not happen, and doing everything in one’s power to convince oneself that it won’t happen.

. . .

Derrick Jensen in Endgame, Volume I, states that “The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of any economic system.” (127) He continues:

Any economic system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and really stupid.(128)

Explaining human disconnection from the rest of earth’s inhabitants, Jensen describes the various layers of resistance among humans to their innate animal essence. One of the deeper layers is our “fear and loathing of the body”, our instinctual wildness and therefore, our vulnerability to death which causes us to distance ourselves from the reality that we indeed are animals. In fact, this is one of civilization’s fundamental tasks. Have not all modern societies disowned and genocided the indigenous? And for what purpose? Not only for the purpose of stealing their land, eradicating their culture, and eliminating so-called barriers to “progress”, but because native peoples (you know, “savages") as a result of their intimate connection with nature, are such glaring reminders of humankind’s animal-ness. They are embarrassingly “un-civilized.” Thus, modernity must “civilize” the savage in order to excise the animal, inculcating in her a human-centric world view. For more on this last topic, see Barbara Ehrenreich's Dancing in the Streets.

The consequence has been not only the incessant destruction of earth and its plethora of life forms, but the murder of the human soul itself. Benjamin Franklin said it best after returning from living with the Iroquois: “No European who has tasted Savage life can afterwards bear to live in our societies.”

Any person who wants to “maintain a positive attitude” in this culture-the culture of civilization that is killing the planet-killing people and things that we all love-that person is not only irrational and deeply afflicted with denial, but he is exactly like a member of an abusive family system in which physical and sexual assault are occurring in the home on a daily basis, but that family member insists on “thinking good thoughts” and resents anyone and everyone who says what is so about the abusive system.

So let’s admit two things: 1) Humans are fundamentally animals. Yes, we are more than animals, but civilization with its contempt for the feral has inculcated us to own the “more than” and disown everything else. 2) The culture of civilization is inherently abusive, and it is abusive precisely because it has disowned the animal within the human. Indeed animals kill other animals for survival, but they do not conquer, rape, pillage, plunder, enslave, pollute, slash, burn, and poison their habitat-unlike those “more-than-animal” beings who seem incapable of not doing all of the above. Conversely, the “more-than-human” creatures respect their surroundings because they instinctively sense that their survival depends on doing so.

. . .

[A] British study at the University of St. Andrews confirmed that elephants keep track of up to 30 absent relatives by sniffing out their scent and building up a mental map of where they are, research suggests. Herd members use their good memory and keen sense of smell to stay in touch as they travel in large groups, according to a study of wild elephants in Kenya. Dr. Richard Byrne of St Andrews noted that elephants have two advantages over humans - their excellent sense of smell and, if their popular reputation is anything to go by, a good memory.

One may argue that an elephant could [not] design a computer, but I ask: What is more consequential, the ability to design a computer or the ability to protect, sustain, and nurture the planet on which one resides? Of what value is the computer if none of us is here to use it?

Civilization, which has never ceased soiling its nest since its inception, has also never understood its proper place on the earth: that of a guest, a neighbor, a fellow-member of the community of life. As a result, everything civilization has devised and which is “unsustainable, immoral, and stupid”, as Jensen names it, is now in the process of collapsing. I ask for an honest answer here: How can anyone tell me with a straight face (or a righteous attitude) that that reality is “negative”? Would the seagull on a Southern California beach with her feet entangled and bleeding in plastic netting left behind by “more-than-animal” life forms tell me that the collapse of what created her plight is “negative”? Would thousands of dead spruce trees in Colorado ravaged by beetles as a direct result of climate change tell me that collapse is a bad idea? Would the plankton and bleached coral at the bottom of the sea which are fading and dying with breathtaking rapidity as a result of global warming, tell me to keep a positive attitude and do everything in my power to stop the collapse of civilization? I think not.

Fundamentally, what all forms of positive thinking about collapse come down to is our own fear of death. Thanks to civilization’s Judeo-Christian tradition and its other handmaiden, corporate capitalism, humans have become estranged from the reality that death is a part of life. Human hubris gone berserk as a result of a tumescent ego, uncontained by natural intimacy with the more-than-human world, believes humanity to be omnipotent and entitled to invincibility. Therefore, from the human-centric perspective “collapse should be stopped” or “maybe it won’t happen” or “somehow humans will come to their senses”. Meanwhile, the drowning polar bears inwardly wail for the death of humanity as the skeletons of formerly chlorophyll-resplendent Colorado spruce shiver and sob in the icy December wind. Our moral, spiritual, and human obligation is to flush our positive attitude down the nearest toilet and start feeling their pain! Until we do, we remain human-centric and incapable of seizing the multitudinous opportunities that collapse offers for rebirth and transformation of this planet and its human and more-than-human inhabitants.

News flash: We are all going to die! Or as Derrick Jensen writes in Endgame:

The truth is that I’m going to die someday, whether or not I stock up on pills. That’s life. And if I die in the population reduction that takes place as a corrective to our having overshot carrying capacity, well, that’s life, too. Finally, if my death comes as part of something that serves the larger community, that helps stabilize and enrich the landbase of which I’m part, so much the better. (123)

Now, I hasten to add that I am not suggesting we select our most intense emotion about collapse, move in, redecorate, and take up residence there. Feel one’s feelings? Yes, and at the same time revel in those aspects of one’s life where one feels nourished, loved, supported, comforted, and in those people and activities that give one joy and meaning.

Had civilization not spent the last five thousand years attempting to murder the indigenous self inherent in all humans, we would not have to be told, as native peoples and the more-than- human world does not, that most of the time, life on this planet is challenging, painful, scary, sad, and sometimes enraging. What our indigenous ancestors had and still have to sustain them through the dark times was ritual and community. Our work is to embrace and refine both instead of intractably clinging to a “positive attitude” in the face of out-of-control, incalculable abuse and devastation.

. . .

Th[e coming collapse] now has a life of its own and is most likely, out of our control. Attempting to abort it or blame other humans is a waste of time and energy.

The question for humans is not: What do we do about collapse? but rather, What do we do with it? It holds inestimable opportunities for rebirth and intimacy with other humans and the more-than-human world, but only if we open to it. Opening to it means opening to our own mortality, which as Derrick Jensen insists, may be part of something that serves the larger community. Perhaps one opportunity collapse is putting in our faces is that of moving beyond our human-centric perspective-our hubris and addiction to invincibility, begging us to humble ourselves and crawl behind the eyes of the more-than-humans as Joanna Macy poignantly writes:

We hear you, fellow-creatures. We know we are wrecking the world and we are afraid. What we have unleashed has such momentum now; we don’t know how to turn it around. Don’t leave us alone; we need your help. You need us too for your own survival. Are there powers there you can share with us?

Indeed there are powers they can share with us, but not until we can let go of our current definition of “positive” and, feeling their pain, finally comprehend that the collapse of civilization may be the best thing that could happen to all of us.

The Judeo-Xian repudiation of our bodies included patriarchy's hatred for women's bodies, the notion that women, feelings, bodies, earth, matter, life on Earth, reality was degraded, while men, thought, souls, heaven, spirit, life after death, and theology was elevated. It was the rejection of precisely this patriarchal dualism that led to the re-energization of modern Paganism, especially the Dianic branch of Wicca.

It is a particularly witchy question to ask, not: What do we do about collapse? but rather, What do we do with it? At the heart of all magic is the ability to ask the important question, to name the actual issue, to face and reclaim the gift that lies in the Shadow. And the question: "What do we do with collapse?" does, as Baker suggests, hold inestimable opportunities for rebirth and intimacy with other humans and the more-than-human world, but only if we open to it. But Baker is also correct that, as in all magic, Opening to it means opening to our own mortality, Magic, it's said, is the ability to change consciousness at will. Occasionally, as my dear friend R. noted this morning, the universe helpfully provides our will with a "clue-by-four."

How can you dance with the coming collapse? What gold is waiting for you and for humanity in that coming Shadow? What would you do if you knew that you were going to die and you weren't afraid of being afraid?

The Year Without A Summer

My New Name For A Blog

What Sir Oolius Said. What Natasha Said. What the NY Times Said:

Scientists have warned of impending disaster.

And life, for the most part, has gone on just as before.

The response to the worst drought on record in the Southeast has unfolded in ultra-slow motion. All summer, more than a year after the drought began, fountains sprayed and football fields were watered, prisoners got two showers a day and Coca-Cola’s bottling plants chugged along at full strength. On an 81-degree day this month, an outdoor theme park began to manufacture what was intended to be a 1.2-million-gallon mountain of snow.

By September, with the lake forecast to dip into the dregs of its storage capacity in less than four months, the state imposed a ban on outdoor water use.



To which, I'll only add: Too. Many. People.

My New Name For A Blog

What John Michael Greer Said.

Two Hundred Species A Day