your life is your life don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission. be on the watch. there are ways out. there is a light somewhere. it may not be much light but it beats the darkness. be on the watch. the gods will offer you chances. know them. take them. you can’t beat death but you can beat death in life, sometimes. and the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be. your life is your life. know it while you have it. you are marvelous the gods wait to delight in you.
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.
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.
First, with Markarios, I agree with the speaker's first point: enshrining religious beliefs in a state constitution is not a good idea. However, watery Pisces and lover of legal prose that I am, I'm not sure exactly where the line gets drawn. I'd vote, were I in the legislature, for constitutional amendments that enshrine, for example, the rights of plants and animals to not be driven to extinction by human profit. I'd enshrine the rights of women to control their own bodies. I'd enshrine the rights of all people to engage in adult, consensual sex of their choice without government intervention. (Maybe "enshrine" is a bad word in this context; say "establish" instead.) And, to be honest, my commitment to those ideals springs from my religion. So while I don't agree that: "Because the Bible (the way some now interpret it) says homosexuality is bad!" is a valid reason to change the state constitution, and while I agree that: "Because the Charge of the Goddess says that all acts of love and pleasure are rituals of the Goddess!" is not a valid reason to change the state constitution, I'm aware that religion sometimes influences the votes of the humans in the legislature. But, yes, like Markarios, I agree that the speaker's first point is the most valid.
Although the speaker is much more eloquent concerning his second point, which I'm about to discuss.
In the law (and I've no idea if this gentleman is a lawyer, or not, but, to my ear, he sounds like a good one), it's permissible, indeed often necessary, to "argue in the alternative." In other words, you can say to the court, "Look, my client did not pull the trigger. I've shown that with evidence A, B, and C. However, even if you find that he did pull the trigger, there are three reasons why he's still not guilty of this crime. First, . . . " And that's what I think the speaker is doing when he moves to: "the other thing . . ." and "what does it mean to the moral force of your arguments arguments if sexual orientation is god-given?" (You know how effective his argument is because his opponent jumps up and makes a jerk of himself saying, "Keep your applause to yourself." How does one even do that?) In other words, the speaker is saying, "First, we shouldn't enshrine religious beliefs in our Constitution. But, even if you believe that it's ok to do that -- to change the Constitution based upon your religious beliefs -- here's another reason why we shouldn't adopt this measure. We shouldn't adopt it because god keeps creating gay people, and how many gay people does god have to create before we accept that god wants them around?" In other words, the moral force of those "religious arguments" you've proposed is nil. So don't change the constitution based upon false religious beliefs, even if you think it's ok to change it based upon religious beliefs.
And to my lawyer's ear, that's ok. And to my lawyer's ear, it's ok to pull out your rhetorical guns against the argument you believe is most attractive to the person you're attempting to convince. And to my lawyer's ear, it's where this speaker's argument becomes so eloquent that it moves from mere prose to persuasive rhetoric, which can, in fact, stir people's souls and change their hearts. And, sometimes, their votes.
As to Markarios' other point, I had to smile, as I had dinner with a dear friend last night (her husband's homemade gumbo -- the nectar of the Gods!) and was making this very same point. I agree that sexual orientation, for the vast majority of the population, is innate. In the speaker's words, translated into mine, it's a "gift of the Goddess." I know that I didn't wake up one morning and decide to be "straight." I've heard from too many of the gay people I love how they spent nights on their knees praying "not to be gay" in a culture and religion that taught that there was little less acceptable than being gay. But I've also known people who engaged in whatever sex was available or approved at the time, whether that meant male homosexual sex in an all-boys' school or lesbian sex when (and this is how old I am) that was favored by feminists, and then went on to have lots of other kinds of sex.
Yet, importantly, I agree that, in my world at least, it should be irrelevant whether sexual orientation is innate (as it often is) or a "lifestyle" choice (as it can be). I don't believe that the government has any reason to tell any person what kind of adult, consensual sex is "Ok" or "sanctioned." And that's true regardless of the reason why that person chooses to engage in any kind of sex. But I also "get" that anti-discrimination laws are often based upon the fact that a person can't choose to be, for example, dark-skinned, or female, or differently-abled and, so, that makes it illogical and wrong to discriminate against them, as if the discrimination could cause them to change their "behavior."
And that brings me back to my religion. Because it's my religion that makes the sex act doctrinally important (well, the Christians seem to consider it important, as well, but for reasons that have nothing to do with what Jesus said and did and everything to do with patriarchy, control, fear, etc.) and freedom to practice all "rituals of the Goddess" free from government interference (especially because that government interference is often based upon (someone else's) religious beliefs) a really important point for me.
More to the point, I would sincerely love to hear more of the "people on our side" able to discuss these issues in a manner similar to this gentleman's discussion. (Good rhetoric backed by real belief.) I'm just embarrassed by Democrats who mouth some namby-pamby version (John Kerry and Barack Obama, I'm looking at you) of "I think marriage is a union between one man and one woman but I'd support blahhabhallahh and please don't hold this against me and could we please just change the subject?" And, in case ya'll haven't noticed, that's not working too well for you. The Christianists see through you and vote for your opponent and those on your side are dispirited. Grow up. Get some ovaries. Stand for something. Stand for sex-positive attitudes. Hell, could it hurt you worse than your Republican-Lite stance?
We're leaving the Age of Pisces (and I'm a Pisces) and moving into the Age of Aquarius. Humans are going to have to figure out some way to live in communities that don't share religious beliefs, even as we focus with laser-beam intensity on how to change the world. It's going to be interesting. I hope to hang around for a bit of it.
Ladies! Listen up! Detecting breast cancer early is the key to surviving it! Breast Self Exams (BSEs) can help you to detect breast cancer in its earlier stages. So, on the first of every month, give yourself a breast self-exam. It's easy to do. Here's how. If you prefer to do your BSE at a particular time in your cycle, calendar it now. But, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
And, once a year, get yourself a mammogram. Mammograms cost between $150 and $300. If you have to take a temp job one weekend a year, if you have to sell something on e-Bay, if you have to go cash in all the change in various jars all over the house, if you have to work the holiday season wrapping gifts at Macy's, for the love of the Goddess, please go get a mammogram once a year.
Or: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pays all or some of the cost of breast cancer screening services through its National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. This program provides mammograms and breast exams by a health professional to low-income, underinsured, and underserved women in all 50 states, six U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and 14 American Indian/Alaska Native organizations. For more information, contact your state health department or call the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.
I know that a recent study indicated that early detection via breast self exams might not be "cost effective." I'm not a scientist, but when I read those studies, they appear to be saying that sometimes women find a lump during the BSE that turns out not to be cancer. Those women have caused some expense and have gone through some discomfort in order to find out that the lump wasn't cancer. I don't know about you, but when that happens to me, as it has a few times since my first mammogram found a small, curable, cancerous lump, I go out and buy a new scarf, take myself out for a decadent lunch, call everyone I know, and declare it a good day.
Send me an email after you get your mammogram and I will do an annual free tarot reading for you. Just, please, examine your own breasts once a month and get your sweet, round ass to a mammogram once a year. If you have a deck, pick three cards and e-mail me at heca tedemet ersdat ter@ hotm ail.c om. I'll email you back your reading. If you don't have a deck, go to Lunea's tarot listed on the right-hand side in my blog links. Pick three cards from her free, on-line tarot and email me. I'll email you back your reading.
Hail and Farewell, Joanna Russ. I learned a long time ago not to start one of her books in bed, as that meant that I'd always greet the dawn bleary-eyed and tired. She was an amazing writer. I hope the pens are sharp and well-dipped in the Summerlands. Slip gently away, Lady, just now when the veils are thin.
One of my favorite poems for high summer is Mary Oliver's Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faith, where she says:
Every summer I listen and look under the sun's brass and even into the moonlight, but I can't hear
anything, I can't see anything -- not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up, nor the leaves deepening their damp pleats,
nor the tassels making, nor the shucks, nor the cobs. And still, every day,
the leafy fields grow taller and thicker -- green gowns lofting up in the night, showered with silk.
And so, every summer, I fail as a witness, seeing nothing -- I am deaf too to the tick of the leaves,
the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet -- all of it happening beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.
And, therefore, let the immeasurable come. Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine. Let the wind turn in the trees, and the mystery hidden in the dirt
swing through the air. How could I look at anything in this world and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart? What should I fear?
One morning in the leafy green ocean the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body is sure to be there.
Oliver's "what should I fear . . . let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine" is all about the Eleusian Mysteries to me.
Yet I was thinking of her poem today, mere hours before Beltane, when I went outside to pick oregano from the still-not-all-planted herb bed (covering my ears not to hear the whining of the eager-to-be-transplanted rosemary) and to water the new gardenia bushes that Landscape Guy just put in. I was thinking of the line "every summer/ I fail as a witness" as I contemplated how much I'm going to have to work at my job to complete a project by Monday (and thus not be in the garden) and how I plan every February that, by Beltane, I'll have every seedling planted, every weed pulled, every bit of the garden absolutely perfect. And how, every Spring, I fail as a priestess and fall short of that worthy goal.
I was also thinking of Oliver's assurance that her failure as a witness (and, I hope, mine as a priestess!) doesn't matter because, one morning, the corn's beautiful body is sure to be there. That's Beltane's promise to us, isn't it? That if we do the best we can, and work as hard as we can, and prioritize well, one morning, come high summer, the herb bed will be full of herbs, and the cottage gardens will have been weeded, and the corn's beautiful body is sure to be there. And so, on Beltane morning, we stop working, and weeding, and worrying. We wake up, wash our faces in the dew, and spend a day with our loves, dancing, feasting, and showing the seedlings just what we want them to do.
The promise can fail, of course. One thing agriculture did for our race, one thing that gardening does for me, is to embed and embody our success or failure into the (seemingly, to us,) random whims of this complicated personality we are pleased to call Gaia or "the Earth." We are co-creating, not acting as prime movers. Hail can destroy fruit. Drought can kill gentle plants. Clouds of voracious grasshoppers can show up and consume everything in a night. And so there is a huge part of gardening that is wrapped up in a willingness to take things on faith, to be willing to fail, to, in Teasdale's words, "buy it and never count the cost," or in Kipling's, to:
make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss.
That doesn't mean that Beltane's promise is false. It means that it's more complicated than we often imagine. Beltane is, of course, directly across the Wheel of the Year from Samhein, when everything is all about death, and loss, and descent. And so the promise of Beltane contains all of Samhein, just as Samhein contains all of the lust and joy and growth of Beltane.
I was thinking especially last night about Beltane's promise that, if we prioritize well, things will work out when I left my urgent project, ignored my needy garden, didn't launder the tablecloth or polish the silver, and spent the evening with G/Son. I read him a story about the powers of Earth, Air, Fire, & Water and then we went outside to spend a bit of time before the sun set. I was showing him how the maple seeds come down spinning away from their parent trees and how that's different from the way that the dandelion seeds (that we blew and made wishes on; Sorry, Son) spread by floating on the wind. And then he said, "Watch, Nonna. I'm a maple seed," and he spun around his twilit yard. And then he said, "Watch, Nonna. I'm a dandelion seed," and then he danced the float of a dandelion seed.
I am a woman who actually loves to weed, but, you know, the weeds will still be there in a few days when things settle down. And I am planting many sorts of seeds, and some of them will be growing long after my rosemary, basil, and parsley are lost to the Halls of Memory. And I will count on Beltane's promise.
This Friday is Arbor Day, a day set aside in the U.S. and many other places to plant, care for, and honor trees. It comes just after Earth Day and just before Beltane. Must be something in the "air."
There was a pine tree deep in the forests of the Rocky Mountains. I sat at its base when I was, I think, four years old and realized that my life was going to be mostly about connecting to nature. My memory's hazy. I was "alone" (mom was inside the nearby rented cabin, dad was off fishing, and, well, there were the trees and, I've always believed, a brownish bear nearby) for maybe one of the first times in my life, and I adored it, I was alone and I expanded out into the Earth and ran what I did not know then to call my roots down into the rocky soil to twine around the pine tree's roots.
You share the joy of your marriage bed unashamed, Eternal Lovers, with the whole world. Each opening flower, each leaf unfolding, is your cry of ecstasy. Each bird or animal mating, each man and woman making love, Is not a reflection, pale or otherwise, of your lovemaking, but your lovemaking itself. Each hug, each handshake, each smile, between lovers, or family, or friends, or strangers: children conceived today on this Beltane, on this happy Beltane.
This time of year, almost all of my sex magic goes to the herb bed and the seven magical trees that I've planted since I moved here. Shortly before they moved, the people who sold this cottage to me planted two fig trees. Every summer when I harvest their fruit, I see sex magic manifest in trees. Where does your magic go this time of year? Is there even a single tree that manifests it?
Here man [sic] is no longer the center of the world, only a witness but a witness who is also a partner in the silent life of nature, bound by secret affinities to the trees.
I think that's about right. Almost not a week goes by that I don't dream of taking G/Son out there some day so that his little Pisces soul can experience those ancient land wights as I did. One of my most mundane goals this year is to bring my physical health to a level where that will be possible. I'll sit down at the end of this month -- one third of the way through this calendar year -- and evaluate my progress on that goal.
It's a sobering responsibility, picking the site for a big tree; get it wrong, plant it too close to the house or an electrical line, and you will someday force a terrible decision on someone. [People who lived here before I did, please take heed!] To plant a big tree is to throw a long shadow across the future of a place, and we're obliged to consider its impact carefully.
This shouldn't make you reluctant to plant trees, it should just make you look up and also consider the Element of Air. Where will this tree be in 20, 30, 40 years? Where will it be when you are gone? Surely, it will be making oxygen, giving wildlife a place to thrive, and, maybe, making fruit. But will it also have room to grow? Pollan goes on to note that:
[T]he etymology of the word true takes us back to the old English word for "tree": a truth, to the Anglo-Saxons, was nothing more than a deeply rooted idea. Just so, my version of a planted tree -- envoy to the future, repository of history, index of our respect for the land, spring of aesthetic pleasures, etc. -- is "true"; it has deep roots in the culture and serves us well.
Pollan notes how important trees have been within the American, and other, landscapes:
The American Indians were not the first or the only people ever to consider trees divine; many, if not most, pre-Christian peoples practices some form of tree worship. Frazer's Golden Bough catalogs dozens of instances, from every corner of Northern Europe as well as from Ancient Greece, Rome, and the East. For most of history, in fact, the woods have been thickly populated by spirits and sprites, demons, elves and fairies, and the trees themselves have been regarded as the habitations of the gods.
Well, yes. I go to work every day through the Spout Run Woods and, I can assure you, the woods still are.
One of my most favorite groups is the American Chestnut Foundation, a group working to re-establish chestnut trees, which once covered most of the MidAtlantic, to their landbase. If you ever want to donate to a great cause, I think that theirs is one.
I'm not suggesting that you add an extra holiday to your calendar between Ostara and Beltane. We're all too busy to ground and pay attention as it is. I am suggesting that you talk to your Circle, Coven, Grove, etc. about how you can, next year, incorporate Arbor Day into your rites.
May there be acorns, pine cones, large trees, weeping willows, dogwoods, redwoods, cherries, and figs in your future. May you and the trees spend this incarnation learning how to breathe each other into your cells and how to encode messages to your grandchildren, etc. into each other.
Blessed Arbor Day.
(Yes, that's John Denver. I'm old. It's gotten a whole lot better since then?)
I'm a woman, a Witch, a mother, a grandmother, an eco-feminist, a gardener, a reader, a writer, and a priestess of the Great Mother Earth. Hecate appears in the
Homeric Ode to Demeter, which tells of Hades who caught Persophone
"up reluctant on his golden car and bare her away lamenting. . . . But no one, either of the deathless gods or of mortal men, heard her voice, nor yet the olive-trees bearing rich fruit: only tenderhearted Hecate, bright-coiffed, the daughter of Persaeus, heard the girl from her cave . . . ."
