It seemed I had two choices before me. The Page of Wands, a young, spontaneous and energetic form that could be the very embodiment of the internet as a medium, with its attention-grabbing multimedia and almost endless opportunities for someone to make a name for herself through charisma and laughter. Or the Ten of Pentacles, embodying formality, structure and an engagement with traditional patterns of expression that could lead to the fruitful, prosperous marriage of spirit and form characterized by generosity and exchange. And the third card? The choice that was not a choice?
Making a Clean Break
Last night, I had a dream. One of those dreams so vivid and blunt, it's hard to ignore the message. One of those dreams that just feels like a metaphor, even when you're in it.
I dreamt I was a student in college again, engaged in a class discussion led by a wise old professor. Yet this professor seemed to take particular pleasure in setting me up for embarrassment and frustration. As the discussion progressed, he would often interrupt himself or students as they explained their ideas or expounded on theories, and shoot a question at me. Being a dream, I can't now remember even what the subject was — but I do know that, again and again, I felt the frustration rise as I found myself interrupted, torn out of my focus on the ideas of others as they unfolded — forced instead to stand up to prove myself to these peers, to prove myself worthy of being there to learn. It wasn't enough to attend, to listen intently and consider carefully the concepts being shared. But more frustrating was that, each time this professor interrupted the flow of conversation to challenge me to a verbal duel, he allowed only a sentence out of my mouth before he veered back again, leaving me hanging there dumb, my words decontextualized and my thoughts unfinished. It felt for all the world like a goddamned Twitter feed — one hundred forty characters was all I got.
Until at one point, I finally managed to break out of it. The next question he asked me, I found myself speaking in paragraphs. Whole arguments cascaded out of my mouth in point after point, theories backed up by evidence and examples, counter-arguments considered and deconstructed. The professor seemed impressed, asked another question to prompt me... yet I could feel something slipping. The students around me began to talk over me in their own conversations. Someone behind me snickered. Mid-sentence, the professor interrupted me again, this time to tell me, "Well, at least you've finally demonstrated that you're not a complete idiot, which is a bit of a surprise. Some of your ideas were actually pretty sound. Of course, you're horribly boring, so boring that your dullness itself is offensive and detracts from the values of your ideas no matter what they are. You were more attractive when you weren't saying anything."
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Thursday, December 16, 2010
The Long Goodbye: Part Three
The Seven of Cups indicates the paradox of choice, and the difficulty of choosing when too many opportunities and options seem to beckon. Unable to decide which course it would be best to pursue, we starve and waste away like Buridan's ass paralyzed into inaction by an unpredictable future. The card was telling me what I already knew, what I had been experiencing for the past few months as I tried to juggle an increasing number of obligations while fighting to keep down my frustration at not making very much progress on any of them.
Obligation and Divination
Throughout my life, I have been pretty good at following my intuition, listening for the cues of my subconscious to help guide me in making important life decisions. It was this kind of listening that led me to choose the college I ended up attending — where I met several people who would change my life, where I had the opportunity to do independent research that eventually led me to my Pagan path, and where I earned a degree as valedictorian of my college class. It was by listening to my intuition that I found myself moving across the state to the lovely city of Pittsburgh — where I first entered a graduate school program and then left it for being wholly unsuitable to my personality, where I found a job as a waitress (against everyone's hopes and expectations) and spent five years wandering spiritually and intellectually in ways I never could have if I'd settled down and gotten a "real" job. It was intuition that led me to seek out a connection with Jeff, who happened to have connections in Pittsburgh through both family and work and who eventually took a leap of faith of his own and moved here to be with me. And it was intuition that prodded me into taking a trip across the ocean to the land of my ancestors, despite being terrified of both airports and flying, and having never traveled alone or abroad before.
But these were all times when a singular opportunity presented itself, and I had a simple choice to make: stay, or go. Now, I found myself in a much more complicated situation, with almost endless possibilities any of which might be fruitful depending on how I chose to direct my energies. I also had more responsibilities and obligations, not least of which were the children to whom I'd soon become a stepmom. And so I also had a pressing sense that it was important to make a choice of some kind and follow through with it, rather than languishing passively and allowing Spirit to drag me along where it would. I had spent a lot of time cultivating my will and honing my skills — now, I felt a strong and definite call to step up and be active in my own destiny, to act out my gratitude for the blessings of my life by taking a more directive role in the work I would do in the future. But of course, that work still needed to be grounded in Spirit and soul-longing.
Obligation and Divination
Throughout my life, I have been pretty good at following my intuition, listening for the cues of my subconscious to help guide me in making important life decisions. It was this kind of listening that led me to choose the college I ended up attending — where I met several people who would change my life, where I had the opportunity to do independent research that eventually led me to my Pagan path, and where I earned a degree as valedictorian of my college class. It was by listening to my intuition that I found myself moving across the state to the lovely city of Pittsburgh — where I first entered a graduate school program and then left it for being wholly unsuitable to my personality, where I found a job as a waitress (against everyone's hopes and expectations) and spent five years wandering spiritually and intellectually in ways I never could have if I'd settled down and gotten a "real" job. It was intuition that led me to seek out a connection with Jeff, who happened to have connections in Pittsburgh through both family and work and who eventually took a leap of faith of his own and moved here to be with me. And it was intuition that prodded me into taking a trip across the ocean to the land of my ancestors, despite being terrified of both airports and flying, and having never traveled alone or abroad before.
But these were all times when a singular opportunity presented itself, and I had a simple choice to make: stay, or go. Now, I found myself in a much more complicated situation, with almost endless possibilities any of which might be fruitful depending on how I chose to direct my energies. I also had more responsibilities and obligations, not least of which were the children to whom I'd soon become a stepmom. And so I also had a pressing sense that it was important to make a choice of some kind and follow through with it, rather than languishing passively and allowing Spirit to drag me along where it would. I had spent a lot of time cultivating my will and honing my skills — now, I felt a strong and definite call to step up and be active in my own destiny, to act out my gratitude for the blessings of my life by taking a more directive role in the work I would do in the future. But of course, that work still needed to be grounded in Spirit and soul-longing.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Excerpts from the Qur'an and the Poetry of Rumi
The most helpful book on the Qur'an that I have ever read is Michael Sells's Approaching the Qur'an: The Early Revelations
(with audio CD
). In this book, he not only provides subtle translations of the text, a sound introduction to the history and cultural background of Bedouin/Arabic poetry at the time of the Qur'an's writing, and a thorough discussion of the role of recitation and verbal prayer within Islam — he also provides extensive commentary on each sura, exploring some of the many themes and recurring imagery throughout the text. Below are some excerpts from his translations of the earliest suras, along with my own attempts to paraphrase and expand on some of his commentary.
The Small Kindness (107:1-7)
In the Name of God the Compassionate the Caring
Do you see him who calls the reckoning a lie?
He is the one who casts the orphan away
who fails to urge the feeding of one in need
Cursed are those who perform the prayer
unmindful of how they pray
who make of themselves a display
but hold back the small kindness
(with audio CD). In this book, he not only provides subtle translations of the text, a sound introduction to the history and cultural background of Bedouin/Arabic poetry at the time of the Qur'an's writing, and a thorough discussion of the role of recitation and verbal prayer within Islam — he also provides extensive commentary on each sura, exploring some of the many themes and recurring imagery throughout the text. Below are some excerpts from his translations of the earliest suras, along with my own attempts to paraphrase and expand on some of his commentary.The Small Kindness (107:1-7)
In the Name of God the Compassionate the Caring
Do you see him who calls the reckoning a lie?
He is the one who casts the orphan away
who fails to urge the feeding of one in need
Cursed are those who perform the prayer
unmindful of how they pray
who make of themselves a display
but hold back the small kindness
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal (3)
In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, I attended a retreat on Celtic spirituality and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. The hosts of the retreat asked us to respect the safe and sacred space created by the community, and refrain from attributing direct quotes to any of the attendants or speakers. With that in mind, the following are excerpts from the journal I kept.
Day Three — Telling Our Stories
I find that I very much want to tell my story and that as I rehearse it in my head, new aspects come out, come into focus, in the narrative of my journey towards peacemaking. I want to share this.
Perhaps I want to share this more than I want to listen to others — and I wonder why this is. I'm trying to sit with that and not come down too hard on myself. There is a process of articulation that I am longing for, not even to be heard, but to hear myself telling the story again. Yet I do want to hear the stories of others as well, and as I listen (sometimes through thick accents) I can hear resonating ideas that I have experienced, too. The violence and sense of silent invasion of both illness and Western medicine, for instance. The lessons of dealing with abuse and creating and defending that safe space into which even the violent cannot and will not come. The experiences of war and the implications of being part of the culture of aggression, being implicated and a part of that violence against our own individual will — and how we resist, in all the little ways.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Peace and the Celtic Spirit: Excerpts from a Journal (2)
In August 2010, just past the waxing quarter moon, I attended a retreat on Celtic spirituality and peacemaking in Northern Ireland. The hosts of the retreat asked us to respect the safe and sacred space created by the community, and refrain from attributing direct quotes to any of the attendants or speakers. With that in mind, the following are excerpts from the journal I kept.
Day Two — Learning to Translate
"God is merciful."
I find a lot of use of Christian language and terms going on, which is not unexpected and not even that bothersome. I understand the sentiment most of the time — and so the challenge for me is going to be, I think, learning how to express the same (or similar) idea "Druidically."
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Jeff Lilly :: Dogma Bites Man: The Role of Reason in Religion
"The doctrine is like a finger pointing at the moon, and one must take care not to mistake the finger for the moon." — Buddhist saying
"In the beginning was the Word; and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him; and without Him was not any thing made that was made. In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." — John 1:1-5
And in Greek
The language of the Bible is remarkably direct and accessible. John is talking about great ineffable mysteries — things perhaps beyond the comprehension of the human mind — and yet he speaks simply, plainly, as one might to a child. Actually, even more plainly than that: the language of the Bible, even in the New Testament's original Greek, is extraordinarily simple and plain, compared to the standards of the language as a whole.
To take one very evident example: the Bible uses "and" a lot. English (and Greek) have any number of conjunctions that might serve: "because", "since", "while", "however", etc. In general usage, writers and speakers tend to vary the conjunctions they use, not just to avoid heavy-handed repetition and a simplistic style, but also to link their ideas and lead the reader from thought to thought, showing how things fit together. The Bible doesn't generally do this.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Etymology of My Gods, Redux
While Bob Patrick was writing up his recent guest post on polytheism and divinity, I was busy gathering my thoughts on Bonewits' version of modern American polytheology, and doing a bit of research and etymological digging of my own. Exploring the roots of words like "god," "deity," and "spirit" gave rise to the contemplative-poetic piece posted a few days ago. But I thought it would also be valuable to share — in solid, trustworthy prose — the results of my digging.
Words for the Many, Words for the One
deityFrom the Latin deus, "god." Related to the Proto-Indo-European root *dewos-, which gave rise to various words for god, spirit or demon in languages like Latin, Persian, Sanskrit, etc. The PIE form comes from the base *dyeu-, which means "to gleam, to shine," and also gave us words like sky and day. It seems the term "deity," related to the name of Zeus, originally evoked the idea of a being or spirit of light, whether a solar-god or a god of lightning. The word "divine," also from the Latin deus, when used as a verb (as in "to divine the future") originally suggested the ability to see by a supernatural light.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Bob Patrick :: Divining Divinity
On more than one occasion, I have heard the terms “polytheists” and “monotheists” used by people to describe themselves. What fascinates me is the easy way that some modern pagans identify themselves as polytheists with little understanding, it seems, of who created this term and what it implies. I have full sympathy for why modern pagans might not be comfortable using the term “monotheist” to describe themselves. I’m just not sure why they think that “polytheist” is a better alternative.
The word “polytheism” entered English from a Latin word (polytheismus) formed from Greek roots which mean “many gods”. The Latin passed into French as polytheisme. It is first used in English in the early 1600’s. This is important to note: the word comes into our language in Europe at a time when Christianity is at its height of influence, religiously and politically. In short, polytheism was a Christian word, and it was created to help draw distinctions and divisions between those who are not what Christians value — monotheists (also a Christian word). Given that this word was created by Christians to distinguish those who are not like themselves and done so for their own theological, philosophical and culturally specific conversations, I am not at all sure why someone who is not Christian would want to use it. The history and meaning of the word have their starting points in Christianity.
Without presuming to speak definitively for all Christians, I think it important to note that the Christian understanding of the divine includes, among other things, a Creator who is wholly other and separate from the creation (while still able to work through the creation); who is omnipotent and omniscient; and who is One, hence the label “monotheism.” Since Christianity created the term “polytheism” as a term to use to distinguish other religious practitioners from themselves, I think it very important to hold definitions of polytheism at arm’s length and observe how those definitions prevent us from discovering an experience of divinity that such monotheism simply cannot imagine.
The word “polytheism” entered English from a Latin word (polytheismus) formed from Greek roots which mean “many gods”. The Latin passed into French as polytheisme. It is first used in English in the early 1600’s. This is important to note: the word comes into our language in Europe at a time when Christianity is at its height of influence, religiously and politically. In short, polytheism was a Christian word, and it was created to help draw distinctions and divisions between those who are not what Christians value — monotheists (also a Christian word). Given that this word was created by Christians to distinguish those who are not like themselves and done so for their own theological, philosophical and culturally specific conversations, I am not at all sure why someone who is not Christian would want to use it. The history and meaning of the word have their starting points in Christianity.
Without presuming to speak definitively for all Christians, I think it important to note that the Christian understanding of the divine includes, among other things, a Creator who is wholly other and separate from the creation (while still able to work through the creation); who is omnipotent and omniscient; and who is One, hence the label “monotheism.” Since Christianity created the term “polytheism” as a term to use to distinguish other religious practitioners from themselves, I think it very important to hold definitions of polytheism at arm’s length and observe how those definitions prevent us from discovering an experience of divinity that such monotheism simply cannot imagine.
Thursday, June 10, 2010
Personal Values & Communal Values in Paganism
For the second year running, June's "Pagan Values Month" has seen quite a bit of discussion... not about values per se, but about Pagan self- and community-identity. Eloquent and compelling arguments have been made by not a few of my favorite writers making the case that "Paganism" as a single religion may not exist,* and that continuing to speak and think about the so-called "Pagan community" in this way might not be helpful or conducive to... well, whatever they're hoping religious community is conducive to, I suppose. And what is that, exactly? Here is where I feel the question of "values" becomes essential, and perhaps the key to unlocking the question of self-identity and community-definition, rather than the other way around.Defining Pagan Religion
The question of what constitutes a "religion" is not at all a new one for me. It became a running theme during my college studies, continually provoked and reexamined by an advisor who had specialized in the history of the Reformation during his doctorate work. To raise the objection that "Paganism" may not be a "religion" is to beg the question of how exactly we define "religion" in the first place. When I turn this question over in my mind, it seems to me that I run up against the same problem again and again. Our use of the word "religion" is almost as sloppy and ill-defined as the word "Pagan" itself; indeed, some might go so far as to imply that the whole idea of "religion" is a uniquely Christian concept that relies on a distinction between what is and is not similar to (mainly Protestant) Christianity.
Thursday, October 1, 2009
Song of a Daily Druid
The October issue of Pagan Pages is up, and with it the second installment of my column, Song of a Daily Druid. This month's column begins to explore the subtleties of the Bardic way and the role that poetry can play in the spiritual life, working with the relationship between creativity and imagination and the importance of memory, experience and the physical body.
All poetry begins in the dark. In the cave of memory, the new poet lies awake, wrapped in the simple, loose-fitting shift of a sleeper, listening to the echoes of her own breathing and the whine of her own blood in her ears, the only sounds. The close stone walls are damp with her exhalations, sighs of longing or uncertainty, muffled sobs or murmured joys. She can see nothing in the darkness, not even the low ceiling above, but in that senseless obscurity her memory moves, conjuring up fleeting images of apricots, water spigots and firelight, half-heard sounds of bare running feet or the rubbing of tree branches against brick. Sometimes the dank, unmoving air of the cave seems to bring her scents of autumn leaves rotting in the riverbed, or tangled woolen yarn, or muddy earth turned over and mixed with the smell of blossoms. These memories are in her, and they are the beginning of her art. She must seek out the language—its rhythms and articulations, the shapes of its vowels, the teeth and tongue of its consonant stops—seek out the words that evoke and mirror sensation.
In the unlit recesses of the cave, her mind works as her body lies still, remembering. The small round stone rests heavy on her belly—she can feel its weight through the soft fabric and the way it rocks gently as each breath lifts it and lets it drop again. Her mind travels the stumbling, sometimes frantic pathways of the past, aflame with inspiration; she brings it back again, turns it over and over to the weight and solidity of the stone. Fire in the head, anchored in the earth. When the night is over, the waking world will come for her. She must find a way to bring poetry into being, to carry it forward, to bring it from the empty depths of the cave into the morning sunlight. To carry it like the stone: concrete, real, substantive in her hands. Light moves behind her eyes, and the stone wobbles on her solar plexus. All poetry begins this way: an image in the mind, a feeling in the gut, a moment in the dark.
(......To read more, visit Song of a Daily Druid)
Monday, September 14, 2009
Three Humans Walk into a Bar: Language, Labels & Naming Spirit
The three of us perched on barstools at a small tile-topped table near the emergency exit, sipping our beers and talking about Spirit: a polytheist, a panentheist, and an agnostic. Stop me if you've heard this one.
Pondering Deity
I've been thinking a lot recently about polytheism and deity, prompted in part by Kullervo's post about his "conversion experience" (for lack of a better term), and in part by my own continuing explorations in meditation and daily spiritual practice. I can feel it--part of me is waiting for something to click. And it hasn't happened yet. When I read about others' experiences of deity--the power and beauty and awe that go along with it, the certainty as well as the surprise--and when I talk with Jeff about his own views of the gods and goddesses, I feel as though I might be missing something. But try as I might, I can't seem to wrap my head around these ideas of gods, at least not in anything but a metaphorical sense. Faeries, Shining Ones, elemental beings and spirits of all shapes and sizes striving and thriving together in an "ecology of Spirit" that echoes and gives rise to the physical world--sure, hell yeah. But where do the gods come into it? How do I understand them? I'm still waiting for that part to fall into place.
As a child, and even into my teens and college years, I had experiences of what you might call "personal deity"--the small, intimate kind. Jesus and I were rather close for a while, even though I'd always had a better grasp of the Big Guy, the Transcendent Spirit of Godhead, the Breath and Life that infused everything, everywhere, with love and connection. In her recent post, Cat talks about how she began not with this unifying, unified Spirit that was too big and abstract, but with the little particulars of the world. For me, it was just the opposite--the Spirit moving over the dark face of the waters was something almost tangible to me, as though all these particulars were secretly veiling something else, some deeper essence. I could feel it in the wind and rain, in the bright summer fields, and in the way everyone's shoulders rose and fell together in one rippling intake of breath reciting the Our Father during Mass.
For a while, in fact, I struggled to understand where Jesus came into it at all, besides playing the role of wise teacher and political rebel. But at some point, this role as wise and loving shaman-sage developed into full-blown deity, Jesus the Christ, the Reconciler who brought transcendence and immanence together in a uniquely and fully human form. Jesus was not just embodied Godhood, but conscious, living, breathing, moving, evolving Godhead--change and flux within the perfection of essence, the human becoming as an expression of utter being. And other kinds of mystical language. But the simplest way to put it is, he was the broken-hearted god I met in dream: sitting quietly in an empty corner sipping his beer and watching the careless violence of love and connection bloom and shred to dust under dancing feet... he was the shy bisexual and misunderstood poet-lover shunned by the noise and callousness of the raging house-party, and utterly in love with every drunkard there. He was the one I could turn to when I needed to understand devotion and sacrifice, loneliness and death.
And then, gradually, we just lost touch. Almost without noticing it, I began once again to relate to the world with an immediacy that seemed to have no need for a medium or Reconciler. I went through periods of depression and near suicidal moods (that is, if a heart aching for connection, even if such connection means bodily death and the dissolution back into the universal tides of Spirit, could really be called "suicidal"); yet during these times, the world would not abandon me, would not leave me alone. Its presence--both beautiful and terrible in its indifferent, impersonal, imperfect perfection--bore down on me inescapably, so that I knew I could not merely cease to be even if that was what I wanted. All this time, it was the world-as-sacred, the immanence of what I once would have called Holy Spirit, that lurked in every blink of an eye, moved through every corner of being before I could look away. Transcendent Godhead seemed far away, or rather deep, deep within past the dull, devastatingly holy mechanizations of embodiment. And personal deity seemed about as real and relevant to me as things like "getting a real job" and "establishing good credit." It was something that happened to other people.
Where am I now? Back in February, I felt as though I might be onto something, something having to do with imagination and love and the way they work in tandem to create images of deity. I had some realization--which I can now barely remember--about the way poetry and metaphor led me back and forth between the transcendent Universal and the intimate Particular, and how these same faithful allies could teach me about personal deity in a polytheistic sense, about the role of archetype and personality, guardian and guide, in my understanding of divinity. I was making progress, developing an interesting if not always warm-fuzzy relationship with Caer Ibormeith, the faery swan-maiden of Aengus Og's dreaming, exploring through meditation and prayer ways in which her story of independence, strength, transmutation and love might have lessons to teach me. Perhaps I learned those lessons a bit too well; soon after that, I found myself plunging into a new romantic relationship that fulfilled and sustained parts of me that had been starved and bitter for several years. The need for personal deity once again dropped out of view, as the very real and immediate presence of a fellow human being took precedence.
Labels & Names
Three real and immediate human beings walked into a bar. I might be a masochist, but I can't resist the urge to provoke debate between two dear friends when I know they disagree. I sat nursing my Woodchuck (all right, not exactly a beer, I'll grant you) between Raymond, my old anam-chara, and Jeff, my new kindling flame. You might call Raymond a skeptic, or even an agnostic--if you wanted to sit through a long lecture about how he rejects labels like "god" and "spirituality" and "agnostic" not because he is uncertain or unwilling to commit to certain beliefs about this possible Something else, but because he respects the power of language and would not idly rob that Something of its namelessness. And you might call Jeff a polytheist--as long as you knew about the time his Zen Buddhist mother asked him if he believed the gods were actually real and he replied, with a conspiratorial wink to anatma, "As real as I am." And I sat in the middle, as if some literal-minded playwright had scripted the event, hardly saying anything but listening intently to their conversation.
I might call myself a panentheist--someone who believes in both the immanence and transcendence of divinity--and in fact I have called myself that for many years now... Except that more recently this term has started to sound redundant, as though it were almost too obvious to bother articulating. What else could Spirit be than "the eternal animating force behind the universe, with the universe as nothing more than the manifest part"? I don't exactly like the slightly dismissive sound of "nothing more than"--the vast complexities and mind-blowing, heart-wrenching harmonies of intricate manifestation are nothing to sneeze at--but in a nutshell, there it is: immanent manifestation and transcendent source, the complete package. Still, for me this doesn't resolve the question of the gods. From the panentheistic point of view, it seems to me that everything is God, you might even say that everything is a god in one way or another. But what could this possibly mean for traditional ideas of polytheistic gods like Apollo, Brigid, Cernunnos, Odin? I might feel the deity-aspect of ocean, but it is this ocean here, not some abstracted Manannan mac Lir striding through myth; just as it is this sun and not Apollo; or this woods and not Cernunnos. I struggle to bridge this gap between particulars in the manifest world, and particulars in the realm of transcendent divinity where specific gods and goddesses rule over certain ideals, realms, activities and cultural traits. Isn't the nature of transcendent Spirit precisely that it does not break and fracture into bits and pieces, but resides in a kind of unity of Universality? And yet, I understood Jesus at one time as personal deity--connected to that transcendent Godhead. Was this different, because I imagined or experienced him as "in the world" in a way that these other deities seem not to be? (Am I dancing around the need for idols, perhaps, and places of consecrated space dedicated to the gods and allowing them residence in the manifest world?)
I am losing myself in language once more, it seems, as I try to articulate my own stumbling blocks. Jeff's views of polytheism seem simple and elegant, but at times almost too literal for me to connect with in a deeply meaningful way. I admire the trust that both he and Kullervo express when they speak of taking their experiences of the gods at face value, and yet as someone without such experiences of my own I wonder if I'm missing something, or if I'm just not as good at make-believe. Of course this sounds insulting, but it's not meant to be. There are certain things in which I believe almost as though they were a part of my nature--reincarnation, for instance, and to some extent faeries and elemental beings--and I have wrestled before with the question of why some beliefs, which are no more rational or mature, come naturally while others just don't "click." But even if this struggle cannot help me to appreciate the language of polytheism, in other ways it helps me to understand where my friend Raymond is coming from when he objects to the use of certain words as unhelpful, even bordering on meaningless.
Because if there's one thing I do believe in, it's the power of language--not to label things, but to name them. For me, words are never fatal, killing a thing dead when we speak about it. Indeed, words are powerful--they allow us to think, they provide us with a structure, a grammar and vocabulary of thought. But a word that cannot evoke a meaningful and complex reality is useless to us; it is language which depends on a thriving essential connection to the real world, and not the other way around. When a word--be it "god" or "truth" or whatever--is thrown around too easily or too often misapplied, then yes, something does die: the word itself. A word that cannot speak to experience is dead indeed, empty and disconnected. But we're mistaken if we think that because the word is dead, we have killed the reality with it, or even that we have cut ourselves off from that reality in its uniqueness and intimate presence. The struggle to articulate our experiences can lead us far from the original immediacy as we knew it at first, but working through this divergence eventually brings us back again to a place in which reality can speak on multiple levels at once, both through particulars and through universals, without one denying the other. When we respect the role that language can play, when we respect both its power and its limits, words can become an instrument of connection, freedom and creativity, rather than a barrier or killing blow.
This, I believe, is the difference between naming and labeling, or the difference between limit and restriction, choice and decision, as I've discussed before. I have never allowed labels--even those applied to me against my will by others--to act as a restriction on my freedom to be who I truly am. Quite the opposite, in fact: I have always felt that who I truly am shapes and gives context to whatever words might attach themselves to me. This is the essence of a name. This is why I am and always will be an "Ali," not because my parents knew me before I was even born (they barely know me now!) and somehow picked out the best label for me, but because the arbitrary gift of that name has given me something to work with creatively and deeply, and I have made it my own. Likewise, being "a waitress" has not restricted me or forced me into a role I do not like; instead, I help to define and expand on what it means to be a waitress by accepting the word as a name and working creatively with it. Being "a Druid," I do the same thing, my ideas and experiences adding meaning, context and life to the word, instead of sucking life out of me and rendering my spiritual experiences shallow or silly. When someone seeks to label me, I do not worry too much that I might somehow be lessened in their eyes, for if they reduce me to a label it is not really me they are talking of, and if they acknowledge my own true being then the label itself is transformed and expanded by "my good name," so to speak.
Understanding the limits of language, as well as its power, means that I also relax a bit and develop a sense of light-hearted playfulness. Words are immensely powerful in shaping our thoughts (and our thoughts do, arguably, shape reality in turn), but I am not just my thinking. I am also my poetry, my music and aesthetics, my intuition, my laughter, my crying, my running and walking, my dancing and my sitting quietly in the park. I am my meditation, whether that meditation is discursive explorations of reasoning and free associative logic, or imaginative journeying through inner landscapes, or the zazen practice of sitting still and quieting the monkey mind. For me, language is something that I play with, in the same way a musician might play his instrument, setting aside all the theory and "right" ways of making music, breaking all the rules in order to give his own soul-song a chance to breathe and speak. To be able to play, to act creatively and discover or make new meaning, I need the freedom of allowing myself not to take language so seriously all the time. I need the freedom to say whatever occurs to me, without worrying if it's always precisely and exactly what I mean, to explore what sounds good and what evokes suggestive or provocative images and ideas, even if it doesn't say something "true." This is what allows me to write poems and stories about gods and goddesses that still hold meaning and power for me, even if I do not know what I believe exactly about deity or the truth of others' beliefs. By playing with language and allowing myself to explore, I learn what it is these words mean for me.
Where It Gets Me
It gets me right here. The other night in meditation, I posed the question--to Caer in whatever form she felt like showing up, or to the universe in general, or to my own subconscious--why I don't seem to experience personal deity any more. The answer came back that it was simply because, at some point, I decided I didn't need personal deity anymore, that this focus on mystic transcendence or whathaveyou was more valuable or more real or simply more meaningful to me. But this was a choice I made, based on what I believed about the universe, and not necessarily some revelation of inherent universal truth. It was the name I chose for my own spiritual path, and to some extent I have been working with that name and making it my own ever since. That doesn't mean this approach is any worse than relating to divinity through personal deity or deities....and it's certainly not a matter of whether or not one "needs" gods or God to grow or love or evolve or connect. I don't think gods, or even a conscious connection with what I call Spirit, is necessary for these things. But that doesn't mean, either, that having a spiritual life that includes ideas about Spirit and deity is worse or more damaging, or prevents people from connecting, growing or appreciating reality, anymore than having relationships with family, friends and so on prevents me from realizing the unity and interconnection at the heart of all our uniqueness.
So in the end, I continue to question myself and others about these subjects. Sometimes I'm surprised that I've been worrying this same bone for more than three years now; other times it just amuses me how some things are ingrained no matter what kinds of other revelations we might have. It is not that I feel my spiritual life is somehow lacking or that I'm not making progress. It's that I am curious about these experiences of personal deity as experiences, as things that others have experienced. In a way, I want to see if I can choose differently, choose a new way of approaching Spirit, precisely because then I will know to some extent that I do indeed have the capacity to choose freely and truly as a creative, free individual. If I have such experiences of my own, I will understand the experiences of others better and the language they use to speak about them. Perhaps, if it is true that not everyone can wield the power and limit of language effectively without slaying the reality it means to express, then I might have some other gift to offer, speaking or writing about these ideas and experiences in ways that are meaningful for others and articulate things they themselves have not yet learned to say. I can only ever talk deeply and meaningful about my own experiences, in the end, but I can strive to shape and work with language in ways that illuminate and communicate meaning and truth, rather than obscuring and detracting from it. And if this effort can help to honor and praise Spirit, in whatever form, then that's what I will work at until my bones ache and my tongue and fingertips are sore.
Pondering Deity
I've been thinking a lot recently about polytheism and deity, prompted in part by Kullervo's post about his "conversion experience" (for lack of a better term), and in part by my own continuing explorations in meditation and daily spiritual practice. I can feel it--part of me is waiting for something to click. And it hasn't happened yet. When I read about others' experiences of deity--the power and beauty and awe that go along with it, the certainty as well as the surprise--and when I talk with Jeff about his own views of the gods and goddesses, I feel as though I might be missing something. But try as I might, I can't seem to wrap my head around these ideas of gods, at least not in anything but a metaphorical sense. Faeries, Shining Ones, elemental beings and spirits of all shapes and sizes striving and thriving together in an "ecology of Spirit" that echoes and gives rise to the physical world--sure, hell yeah. But where do the gods come into it? How do I understand them? I'm still waiting for that part to fall into place.As a child, and even into my teens and college years, I had experiences of what you might call "personal deity"--the small, intimate kind. Jesus and I were rather close for a while, even though I'd always had a better grasp of the Big Guy, the Transcendent Spirit of Godhead, the Breath and Life that infused everything, everywhere, with love and connection. In her recent post, Cat talks about how she began not with this unifying, unified Spirit that was too big and abstract, but with the little particulars of the world. For me, it was just the opposite--the Spirit moving over the dark face of the waters was something almost tangible to me, as though all these particulars were secretly veiling something else, some deeper essence. I could feel it in the wind and rain, in the bright summer fields, and in the way everyone's shoulders rose and fell together in one rippling intake of breath reciting the Our Father during Mass.
For a while, in fact, I struggled to understand where Jesus came into it at all, besides playing the role of wise teacher and political rebel. But at some point, this role as wise and loving shaman-sage developed into full-blown deity, Jesus the Christ, the Reconciler who brought transcendence and immanence together in a uniquely and fully human form. Jesus was not just embodied Godhood, but conscious, living, breathing, moving, evolving Godhead--change and flux within the perfection of essence, the human becoming as an expression of utter being. And other kinds of mystical language. But the simplest way to put it is, he was the broken-hearted god I met in dream: sitting quietly in an empty corner sipping his beer and watching the careless violence of love and connection bloom and shred to dust under dancing feet... he was the shy bisexual and misunderstood poet-lover shunned by the noise and callousness of the raging house-party, and utterly in love with every drunkard there. He was the one I could turn to when I needed to understand devotion and sacrifice, loneliness and death.
And then, gradually, we just lost touch. Almost without noticing it, I began once again to relate to the world with an immediacy that seemed to have no need for a medium or Reconciler. I went through periods of depression and near suicidal moods (that is, if a heart aching for connection, even if such connection means bodily death and the dissolution back into the universal tides of Spirit, could really be called "suicidal"); yet during these times, the world would not abandon me, would not leave me alone. Its presence--both beautiful and terrible in its indifferent, impersonal, imperfect perfection--bore down on me inescapably, so that I knew I could not merely cease to be even if that was what I wanted. All this time, it was the world-as-sacred, the immanence of what I once would have called Holy Spirit, that lurked in every blink of an eye, moved through every corner of being before I could look away. Transcendent Godhead seemed far away, or rather deep, deep within past the dull, devastatingly holy mechanizations of embodiment. And personal deity seemed about as real and relevant to me as things like "getting a real job" and "establishing good credit." It was something that happened to other people.
Where am I now? Back in February, I felt as though I might be onto something, something having to do with imagination and love and the way they work in tandem to create images of deity. I had some realization--which I can now barely remember--about the way poetry and metaphor led me back and forth between the transcendent Universal and the intimate Particular, and how these same faithful allies could teach me about personal deity in a polytheistic sense, about the role of archetype and personality, guardian and guide, in my understanding of divinity. I was making progress, developing an interesting if not always warm-fuzzy relationship with Caer Ibormeith, the faery swan-maiden of Aengus Og's dreaming, exploring through meditation and prayer ways in which her story of independence, strength, transmutation and love might have lessons to teach me. Perhaps I learned those lessons a bit too well; soon after that, I found myself plunging into a new romantic relationship that fulfilled and sustained parts of me that had been starved and bitter for several years. The need for personal deity once again dropped out of view, as the very real and immediate presence of a fellow human being took precedence.
Labels & Names
Three real and immediate human beings walked into a bar. I might be a masochist, but I can't resist the urge to provoke debate between two dear friends when I know they disagree. I sat nursing my Woodchuck (all right, not exactly a beer, I'll grant you) between Raymond, my old anam-chara, and Jeff, my new kindling flame. You might call Raymond a skeptic, or even an agnostic--if you wanted to sit through a long lecture about how he rejects labels like "god" and "spirituality" and "agnostic" not because he is uncertain or unwilling to commit to certain beliefs about this possible Something else, but because he respects the power of language and would not idly rob that Something of its namelessness. And you might call Jeff a polytheist--as long as you knew about the time his Zen Buddhist mother asked him if he believed the gods were actually real and he replied, with a conspiratorial wink to anatma, "As real as I am." And I sat in the middle, as if some literal-minded playwright had scripted the event, hardly saying anything but listening intently to their conversation.
I might call myself a panentheist--someone who believes in both the immanence and transcendence of divinity--and in fact I have called myself that for many years now... Except that more recently this term has started to sound redundant, as though it were almost too obvious to bother articulating. What else could Spirit be than "the eternal animating force behind the universe, with the universe as nothing more than the manifest part"? I don't exactly like the slightly dismissive sound of "nothing more than"--the vast complexities and mind-blowing, heart-wrenching harmonies of intricate manifestation are nothing to sneeze at--but in a nutshell, there it is: immanent manifestation and transcendent source, the complete package. Still, for me this doesn't resolve the question of the gods. From the panentheistic point of view, it seems to me that everything is God, you might even say that everything is a god in one way or another. But what could this possibly mean for traditional ideas of polytheistic gods like Apollo, Brigid, Cernunnos, Odin? I might feel the deity-aspect of ocean, but it is this ocean here, not some abstracted Manannan mac Lir striding through myth; just as it is this sun and not Apollo; or this woods and not Cernunnos. I struggle to bridge this gap between particulars in the manifest world, and particulars in the realm of transcendent divinity where specific gods and goddesses rule over certain ideals, realms, activities and cultural traits. Isn't the nature of transcendent Spirit precisely that it does not break and fracture into bits and pieces, but resides in a kind of unity of Universality? And yet, I understood Jesus at one time as personal deity--connected to that transcendent Godhead. Was this different, because I imagined or experienced him as "in the world" in a way that these other deities seem not to be? (Am I dancing around the need for idols, perhaps, and places of consecrated space dedicated to the gods and allowing them residence in the manifest world?)I am losing myself in language once more, it seems, as I try to articulate my own stumbling blocks. Jeff's views of polytheism seem simple and elegant, but at times almost too literal for me to connect with in a deeply meaningful way. I admire the trust that both he and Kullervo express when they speak of taking their experiences of the gods at face value, and yet as someone without such experiences of my own I wonder if I'm missing something, or if I'm just not as good at make-believe. Of course this sounds insulting, but it's not meant to be. There are certain things in which I believe almost as though they were a part of my nature--reincarnation, for instance, and to some extent faeries and elemental beings--and I have wrestled before with the question of why some beliefs, which are no more rational or mature, come naturally while others just don't "click." But even if this struggle cannot help me to appreciate the language of polytheism, in other ways it helps me to understand where my friend Raymond is coming from when he objects to the use of certain words as unhelpful, even bordering on meaningless.
Because if there's one thing I do believe in, it's the power of language--not to label things, but to name them. For me, words are never fatal, killing a thing dead when we speak about it. Indeed, words are powerful--they allow us to think, they provide us with a structure, a grammar and vocabulary of thought. But a word that cannot evoke a meaningful and complex reality is useless to us; it is language which depends on a thriving essential connection to the real world, and not the other way around. When a word--be it "god" or "truth" or whatever--is thrown around too easily or too often misapplied, then yes, something does die: the word itself. A word that cannot speak to experience is dead indeed, empty and disconnected. But we're mistaken if we think that because the word is dead, we have killed the reality with it, or even that we have cut ourselves off from that reality in its uniqueness and intimate presence. The struggle to articulate our experiences can lead us far from the original immediacy as we knew it at first, but working through this divergence eventually brings us back again to a place in which reality can speak on multiple levels at once, both through particulars and through universals, without one denying the other. When we respect the role that language can play, when we respect both its power and its limits, words can become an instrument of connection, freedom and creativity, rather than a barrier or killing blow.
This, I believe, is the difference between naming and labeling, or the difference between limit and restriction, choice and decision, as I've discussed before. I have never allowed labels--even those applied to me against my will by others--to act as a restriction on my freedom to be who I truly am. Quite the opposite, in fact: I have always felt that who I truly am shapes and gives context to whatever words might attach themselves to me. This is the essence of a name. This is why I am and always will be an "Ali," not because my parents knew me before I was even born (they barely know me now!) and somehow picked out the best label for me, but because the arbitrary gift of that name has given me something to work with creatively and deeply, and I have made it my own. Likewise, being "a waitress" has not restricted me or forced me into a role I do not like; instead, I help to define and expand on what it means to be a waitress by accepting the word as a name and working creatively with it. Being "a Druid," I do the same thing, my ideas and experiences adding meaning, context and life to the word, instead of sucking life out of me and rendering my spiritual experiences shallow or silly. When someone seeks to label me, I do not worry too much that I might somehow be lessened in their eyes, for if they reduce me to a label it is not really me they are talking of, and if they acknowledge my own true being then the label itself is transformed and expanded by "my good name," so to speak.
Understanding the limits of language, as well as its power, means that I also relax a bit and develop a sense of light-hearted playfulness. Words are immensely powerful in shaping our thoughts (and our thoughts do, arguably, shape reality in turn), but I am not just my thinking. I am also my poetry, my music and aesthetics, my intuition, my laughter, my crying, my running and walking, my dancing and my sitting quietly in the park. I am my meditation, whether that meditation is discursive explorations of reasoning and free associative logic, or imaginative journeying through inner landscapes, or the zazen practice of sitting still and quieting the monkey mind. For me, language is something that I play with, in the same way a musician might play his instrument, setting aside all the theory and "right" ways of making music, breaking all the rules in order to give his own soul-song a chance to breathe and speak. To be able to play, to act creatively and discover or make new meaning, I need the freedom of allowing myself not to take language so seriously all the time. I need the freedom to say whatever occurs to me, without worrying if it's always precisely and exactly what I mean, to explore what sounds good and what evokes suggestive or provocative images and ideas, even if it doesn't say something "true." This is what allows me to write poems and stories about gods and goddesses that still hold meaning and power for me, even if I do not know what I believe exactly about deity or the truth of others' beliefs. By playing with language and allowing myself to explore, I learn what it is these words mean for me.
Where It Gets Me
It gets me right here. The other night in meditation, I posed the question--to Caer in whatever form she felt like showing up, or to the universe in general, or to my own subconscious--why I don't seem to experience personal deity any more. The answer came back that it was simply because, at some point, I decided I didn't need personal deity anymore, that this focus on mystic transcendence or whathaveyou was more valuable or more real or simply more meaningful to me. But this was a choice I made, based on what I believed about the universe, and not necessarily some revelation of inherent universal truth. It was the name I chose for my own spiritual path, and to some extent I have been working with that name and making it my own ever since. That doesn't mean this approach is any worse than relating to divinity through personal deity or deities....and it's certainly not a matter of whether or not one "needs" gods or God to grow or love or evolve or connect. I don't think gods, or even a conscious connection with what I call Spirit, is necessary for these things. But that doesn't mean, either, that having a spiritual life that includes ideas about Spirit and deity is worse or more damaging, or prevents people from connecting, growing or appreciating reality, anymore than having relationships with family, friends and so on prevents me from realizing the unity and interconnection at the heart of all our uniqueness.
So in the end, I continue to question myself and others about these subjects. Sometimes I'm surprised that I've been worrying this same bone for more than three years now; other times it just amuses me how some things are ingrained no matter what kinds of other revelations we might have. It is not that I feel my spiritual life is somehow lacking or that I'm not making progress. It's that I am curious about these experiences of personal deity as experiences, as things that others have experienced. In a way, I want to see if I can choose differently, choose a new way of approaching Spirit, precisely because then I will know to some extent that I do indeed have the capacity to choose freely and truly as a creative, free individual. If I have such experiences of my own, I will understand the experiences of others better and the language they use to speak about them. Perhaps, if it is true that not everyone can wield the power and limit of language effectively without slaying the reality it means to express, then I might have some other gift to offer, speaking or writing about these ideas and experiences in ways that are meaningful for others and articulate things they themselves have not yet learned to say. I can only ever talk deeply and meaningful about my own experiences, in the end, but I can strive to shape and work with language in ways that illuminate and communicate meaning and truth, rather than obscuring and detracting from it. And if this effort can help to honor and praise Spirit, in whatever form, then that's what I will work at until my bones ache and my tongue and fingertips are sore.Thursday, July 16, 2009
Lost & Found
Almost two weeks ago, I received a thoughtful letter from a reader about my previous post, "Lost in Thought." Unlike most comments I receive, which are usually either warmly complimentary or downright argumentative, this letter was a mix of appreciation, unasked-for advice and some mistaken assumptions about the "depth" of my spiritual practiced based on occasional read-throughs of this blog. The following is my response:
D,
Thank you for your letter, and for your honesty. I admit, I did find it difficult at first to accept a compliment which included the implication that I hadn't deserved it 'til now, but I'm sure you meant it kindly, at least, so I've tried to appreciate it in that light. I can relate to your feeling "left cold" by the occasional post of mine you've read in the past. Even my favorite blogs more often leave me with amusing anecdotes, useful information or sparks for later contemplation than with powerful, inspiring reading experiences in themselves; and the gods know not every post of mine is spectacular writing, or even the best thing I've written that day! I think this is probably pretty common, maybe even a natural aspect of the blog as a medium. Every once in a while, if the noise and chatter of the internet happens to be at its ebb and I happen to be in a particularly receptive mood, something will strike me deeply. But usually, my favorite posts are the ones that sneak quietly into the back of my mind and give me something to think about (or argue with!), and I'm grateful that others are out there practicing, thinking, and trying to craft those thoughts and experiences into something they can share.
One thing that did confuse me about your letter is that you seemed to suggest that it was my "colored-pencil landscape" style of writing that you found uninteresting (even shallow)... and yet the post "Lost in Thought" was actually itself written in exactly that style. I sat down and jotted it off in a quick half-hour, hardly rereading it before posting and certainly not struggling with it the way I had been struggling with my previous posts on pacifism, writing and rewriting, revising and rethinking, expanding and deepening and sometimes spiraling out of control on tangents. (I even joked in passing about this fact in the post itself! "Today, I want to write about what it's been like to write...") And yet it was the "Lost in Thought" post, and not the more difficult or complicated posts, that you found most enjoyable and engaging, that moved you enough to write me a letter. You can probably see why I'm getting mixed signals. My only guess is that it's not really the writing style itself, but the subject matter, that made the difference.
I don't think you're alone in this. Almost always, I receive far more feedback when I write something full of complaints or confessing annoyance, anger or difficulty, than when I write in praise of simple beauty or intrigued by some obscure philosophical question. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps it's because, when I'm feeling angry and inspired, I suddenly become more eloquent or tenacious in cutting through cool-headed intellectual language and flowery description. But I bet it's also something having to do with our social makeup. When others feel anger or fear, it certainly works to the benefit of the group if those negative experiences can be communicated quickly and spark immediate reaction--like a herd of horses suddenly stampeding because one of them heard a twig snap, it's safer just to run than to wait around to confirm the danger. Also, since annoyance, fear, confusion and struggle are all very common human experiences--whereas quiet contemplation and rapt appreciation seem increasingly rare, as well as tending to be solitary--we feel more connected with others when we can commiserate and comfort, or argue and debate. We feel the fire of resistance and tension, or simply the warmth of others' presence, rather than being left out in the cold of solitude where we alone have to do the work of attending and growing.
So of course, it's natural that you would feel engaged by reading about someone else's struggle to deepen intellectually and spiritually, since it's something you yourself have probably also struggled with. The difficulty is familiar to you, it reminds you of yourself, of your own experiences and of what you share with others. You've even run across mythologies and shared cultural references such as "Mythago Wood" that depict and describe the experience, providing a common ground from which understanding can begin. So for that (and for another intriguing fantasy novel series to add to my to-read list!), I'm very glad you found my post meaningful and decided to write to me. Though I've received many positive comments about that particular post, yours in particular has provoked the most contemplation on my end, about my writing style, my relationship with audience, and my processes and goals in my spiritual life.One thing you've helped me to realize is that writing simply cannot be exhaustive of experience. It was probably a mistake on your part (albeit an understandable and entirely forgivable one!) to assume that just because my writing hasn't seemed all that "deep" to you until now, that must mean I have never had occasion to think deeply about subjects before. True, attempting to write polished and coherent prose for a public audience on a topic that is embedded so deeply in my own psyche is a relatively new experience for me: most of my "deep thinking" until now has taken place entirely in private journals (thousands and thousands of pages, which I have written since the sixth grade), or in conversations with close friends. And while the challenge of writing about a deeply important idea in a way that can sum up twenty years of thinking about and experiencing its implications is not entirely new (some of my contemplations on beauty and aesthetics and how they relate to the spiritual life, for instance, have already appeared in this blog), writing about pacifism specifically was. There are some challenges that, no matter how many times we face them, continue to present new obstacles and test new skills. I've heard many writers talk about how, every time they sit down to write, the terror of the blank page seems as great as the day they first picked up a pen or sat down at a keyboard. But thank the gods for that! How awesome, that there are practices and activities in this world that never cease to lead us to new depths and provide new opportunities for learning and growth! If writing weren't one of them, I would have gotten bored with it a long time ago.
One aspect of writing that I think you might find interesting (and relevant to Paganism and Druidry, I think) is that, over all these years, I have noticed a definite pattern in my writing style according to the season. During the summer months, my urge to be outside in the sun and wind and fields becomes almost overwhelming--I take on new exercise routines and more physical, body-oriented hobbies (like drawing, yoga, hillwalking and guitar). Naturally, the time I spend on writing lessens quite a bit, and when I do write, I tend to spit out quick "colored-pencil landscape" bits and pieces that remind me more of the poetry I used to write in school when time was necessarily divided primarily between class and homework. As the autumn rolls around, I slow down again, sink into deeper contemplation and usually find myself getting caught up in intense debates that I can obsess over for days, even weeks. Plenty of these obsessions end up as blog posts here. Then the pattern repeats itself again as the winter holiday season drops away into the doldrums of February and March (almost every year, I seem to end up writing some kind of "series" of philosophical posts around this time), and with the first warmth of spring in late April and early May, another rush of energy sends my fingers skittering across the keyboard for a couple weeks until it's warm enough outside to distract me from the computer screen.
Blogging has served as a great record of this on-going shift in focus, attention and style in my writing, and so every once in a while I intentionally try to work in a style or on a subject that goes against this natural tendency. Over the past several months, I worked hard to write accessible, musical posts about spiritual practice, not only as a way of engaging readers who were also feeling the twitterpation of spring but to bring home to myself and my readers the truth that grace and beauty are just as "deep" subjects as longing, struggle and suffering. Then in June, I ran diligently against the grain of my own tendency and buckled down to write tough, complicated posts on intellectual and philosophical concepts. I think engaging in this kind of intentional work--work that acknowledges and respects the natural seasons and cycles of one's own mental and emotional landscape, while also learning how to work within them to accomplish willed goals--helps to strengthen weak areas and improve a person's mastery of their art or craft. I suspect this is probably just as true in spiritual practice, and the Pagan or Druid is perhaps one step ahead of other spiritual seekers in having the earth and her seasons at the heart of their spiritual life already.
Of course, your less-than-resoundingly-positive response to some of my posts just goes to show that pushing yourself this way doesn't always mean you'll end up with writing that other people can connect to. And that's the other challenge I'm always striving to meet: how best to communicate with readers in a way that is engaging without being daunting, and which is communicative without being dictatorial. I used to want to try to say everything I possibly could, but more recently I've taken the view of writing as a kind of scattering seeds and hoping that at least a few will find fertile ground. How can I make sure that the seeds I scatter are the best for the job, or that I'm scattering them the best way I can? Some plants release hundreds upon thousands of seeds because only a few will ever take root; others wrap their seeds in deliciously sweet, pulpy flesh in the hopes that birds and other animals will swallow them up and then shit them out again in some new soil far away, surrounded by the warm, stinking fertilizer; still others hardly release any seeds at all and spread mostly through the intimate sprouts of their own root systems creeping slowly but surely along. What kind of "seeds" do I hope to create with my writing? Do some ideas travel better on the wind, and others in the gut? Are some best communicated intimately among friends who share experiences and common roots? It seems to me that most of these questions are things I can only learn from experience, and from feedback from readers such as yourself. Luckily, I still have plenty of time to learn, and lots of people like you willing to take a moment to respond thoughtfully and honestly. For that, I'm very grateful!--Ali
Friday, April 17, 2009
Thoroughly Thurled
In the dream, my old college professor feeds page after page of the Torah into the scanner, letters scrolling down a nearby computer screen in a kind of river-like matrix, flickering, converting to numbers and back again.The Hebrew alphabet has no vowels; this is what my boyfriend and I discussed over lunch the day before, sitting in the cafe of the local natural history museum, munching on organic veggie wraps and grilled cheese sandwiches. The linguistics of thought, the shape of consciousness, mind itself, embedded with grammar, running over syntax like water over stone, plunging, eddying and moving on again. Breath, exhalation, that which is sacred and cannot be written. The Hebrew alphabet has no vowels. We asked each other, does that make a difference?
In the dream, the computer script searches for meaningful combinations of letters reconverted according to some obscure theological algorithm, a pulsating crossword-puzzle alive with juxtaposition. Now and then, a word in red slips by amidst the stream of symbols and nonsense text. "A red-letter day," my old professor jokes. Mundane words, articles and adjectives, verbs, nothing that coheres or speaks. One catches my eye, and I peck at the keyboard to check the software for bugs.
"There's something wrong," I answer my professor's raised eyebrow, "It's generating noise, now. 'Thurl,' for instance, isn't a real word."
"Yes it is!" He laughs shortly. In dreams, he's often laughing.
"I've never heard of it. Then what does it mean?"
"It is the time," he says, "in a TV Western pistol duel, between when somebody shouts 'Draw!' and somebody else shoots. Or, it is the time right after afternoon tea, but right before an early dinner." I can tell he's teasing me. I wake up scoffing and grinning.
Down at the park that day, I'm too enthralled by the moving surface of the stream to notice the hem of my dress darkening with muddy water where it drags along the rock's edge. I crouch, bare feet planted on the warm rough stone where it juts out into the middle of the creak, and watch the tangled green locks of algae wriggle in the current beneath webbed reflected sunlight.
"I looked it up," I tell my boyfriend, "and it turns out, it means, 'the hip joint of cattle.'"
"So you got that one wrong!" He dips a big toe into the water, saying, "It's not as cold as I expected--but slippery."
"Well, I don't know. So, the other definitions were, 'an aperture or hole'--or as a verb, 'to cut through, to pierce.' And then there's something to do with mining, 'a communication between two adits.' An adit is the long, horizontal entrance or passage into the mine."
"I still don't see what that has to do with dueling." He straddles rocks, gripping his way from one to another towards where I'm perched over the raw umber rushing water. The stream presses itself through a few cracks in the stone, becoming a small waterfall that churns iridescent and pushes an exhalation of soft-gray bubbles down to brush the bottom of the streambed before rising swiftly back to the surface. From where I sit, I can watch this happening forever, never growing old.
"There's a story--I think it's a Zen parable--about a butcher whose knives never get dull. Everyone thinks he must have some magic about his knives, or a special kind of metal, so that he never needs to sharpen them. One day, his young apprentice gets up the nerve to ask. And he explains, his knives never get dull because he doesn't actually cut through the meat and bone the way a less skillful butcher would. Instead, he finds the thin-spaces-between that already exist in the flesh, and he just slips his knife into them."
"That sounds like it's probably Zen," my boyfriend agrees. I stand to embrace him as he steps cautiously onto the rock where I've been crouching. It's then, straightening up, that I notice for the first time my skirt's hem, damp and heavy dragging along the rock, leaving a dirty streak where it slaps and clings to my pale lower calf. "Don't you feel as though winter is still hanging around?" he asks, looking out over the surrounding swamp. The noisy creak twines through last year's leftover straw-like cattails. The sky above is an aching hue of blue unbroken by clouds. A few overhanging trees have just begun to bud. He holds me close, and I can feel his diaphragm expand and contract, his whole body warm against me as he sighs.
"Maybe a little, but I can't really feel it when you're smothering me like this," I say to provoke him. He pulls away in playful defiance, teases and prods me until I recant.
"I think it was a story about the time between when you breathe in, and when you breathe out," I say, sometime later. "But the 'hip joint of cattle' reminded me of it, and then there are all those obsolete definitions about piercing and apertures, openings, entrance-ways, communications. And--if you think about it, that moment of a duel between the draw and the shot, that thin-space-between when nobody breathes. Or the time between meals, I think that was supposed to be a joke about just how wide that space-between can feel sometimes, when someone is hungering. And then, if Hebrew has no vowels, 'thurl' is just how you'd say 'thrill' without the 'i', thrll. Isn't thrill also a kind of moving through the thin-space-between?"
He looks at me with a mix of incredulity and amazement. "How is it that you can learn vocabulary in your sleep?"
"I'm just that good." I wrinkle my nose at him, which is my way of winking or raising an eyebrow.
"And this morning you were saying you were 'too full of words.'"
"I was--too full of words, my brain was noisy. I couldn't focus. But being out here..."
We're walking home, through the wooded ravine that will lead out of the park back into the cluttered urban neighborhood. The soles of my feet are still recalling the warm solidity of rock beneath them, my toes the quick sliding skin of water. We're still stuck smack in the city, the white-noise grind of traffic reaching us through the trees, but everywhere the birds are following each other, the scrappy chipmunks skittering over roots and the ruts left by bicycle tires in the mud. There are insects again, bees in the underbrush, and I feel as though I have escaped, finally, from some cold pressure that has wrapped my lungs for so long I had ceased to notice it. There is space again, movement in all directions that pull and stretch the landscape into distance, opening it up again. Everywhere, life is opening it up again under a high, bright sky. Birdcalls pierce the breeze, connecting one long, dark tunnel of mind to another.
"Being out here... I'm so full of thurl."
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Ode to Finitude
What follows is a poem I wrote just after completing the first draft of my previous post, which I hadn't been at all satisfied with. The title of the piece is rather self-explanatory. I hope you enjoy, and that you've been taking full and joyful advantage of April as National Poetry Month!
Ode to Finitude
Limit, you goddess, daughter of
Form, overcome me, overtake me
again with sweet extremity!
Rope me to the glory of your
monstrous bones, rigging
for the dancing world--
I will dance, my feet hard and rolling
because I have feet; I will
slap my hands to your gusty
rhythm, because I have hands; I will sing
from a quivering throat, vibration
mother of voice, because
I have voice--I will praise you, my
maligned divinity, my shapely
sublime, Limit, I will run
my tongue along your edges,
I will kiss your every limb,
for I have tongue, lips and limbs,
my own sweet utter skin, I have
a wide pale body with which to
billow before Spirit, grandmother
Mind, old Ever-Present, too ancient for
dust. I have known her, too,
dreaming, she is soft and fat with the dark
openness of space--but you! Limit,
my lovely, my little boat,
we will skip, we will go sailing
quick and bright
over the long silent waters of the Real.
Monday, February 9, 2009
Book Learnin': A Helpful List of Books on Druidry
I have been attempting to develop a kind of flow of interconnected ideas and concerns, from one post to the next, in this blog lately... but every once in a while, I find myself struck by a sudden rant that just needs expression. Now. This is one of those rants. Enjoy (or be annoyed), and I hope you'll come back when I return to writing more directly about the problem of spiritual growth.
See, this is why AODA annoys me sometimes. In general, members are very kind, supportive and helpful, but every once in a while, they go in for this "sabotaging the newbie" nonsense. It might not even be intentional. Perhaps they do not even realize that, collectively, they're coming off as very intimidating and discouraging, at times even obnoxious. The latest example that set me off (and has happened at least twice in the past month) concerns what I will flippantly refer to as book learnin'. Someone sent a post to the online forum asking for recommendations on good, reliable (and accurate) books on Druidry. Now, this is a perfectly understandable request, especially if you're just starting to explore the Druid path, because there is a ton of misinformation out there on the Druids ancient and modern, some of it more or less intentional and misleading. Asking for advice on where to begin looking for a foundation of scholarly information as well as insight into modern practices is not only a good idea, but perhaps an essential early step for a neophyte (especially one not lucky enough to have other practicing Druids around to offer in-person guidance and discussion).
But what do the members of this AODA forum do? They respond with things like, "O well, it really depends on what kind of Druidry you mean, because there are so many, such as [insert long list of all the variations and "denominations" of Druidy here, many with names that sound like paleontology prefixes and which you've probably never heard of unless you've been studying two or three years already].... Which one did you mean?" Not one helpful recommendation of a good, solid text that covers a wide variety of information to provide a beginner with a bit of foundation. (Such general introductory texts do exist, I assure you, and I would bet money that every person who responded to this inquiry with nitpicking has probably read several such books.)
O, and my favorite: "Druidry isn't something you can learn from books. You have to do it and experience it for yourself. How can someone possibly understand [insert name of exotic sounding ritual involving fire and possibly pain or blood sacrifice] and even attempt to write about all its important lessons when such things are beyond words?"
How is this helpful? It's not. It's a way of avoiding giving anything away or giving up any of the aura of authority you get by knowing more and having more experiences under your belt than a neophyte. If I were new to Druidry, I would be immensely discouraged, not to mention as annoyed as I am now, by such replies. Luckily, I adore books and you couldn't stop me from reading them if you tried, no matter what kind of sanctimonious the-reality-is-beyond-words nonsense you bombarded me with.
Perhaps it's because I came to Druidry through my poetry (which I've been writing since about the age I could first hold a crayon) and I continue to adore Druidry because of its bardic traditions, which embrace and celebrate music, song and the power of words... but I have never understood the kind of response that rejects book learnin' as somehow less important or more dangerous than direct experience. To me, reading and exploring ideas in books has always inspired and sewn in me the seeds of desire: desire to move ideas into the real world and bring their beauty into participatory being, and desire to meet the challenge of articulating my own experiences in meaningful ways that can sew those seeds in others. If it hadn't been for a few incredibly well-written books on Druidry, I wouldn't have ever bothered to begin the real life practice that has given me so much and opened me to so many experiences (I wouldn't even know what a [insert exotic sounding ritual here] was or why it might matter to other people, let alone what it might someday mean to me).Somehow I doubt people who post requests for book recommendations are looking to replace the actual activity of walking a spiritual path in real life. I don't see why it should be a problem to provide suggestions about a few well-researched and insightful books about Druidry, which is after all not only a personal path but a community spiritual tradition (and a diverse and diffuse community at that, which has developed its own customs of discussion and often communicates its shared interests and values through text, in books as well as in online forums and blogs like this one). If this were still an oral culture and non-textual sources of information were more readily available, perhaps an avoidance of books might be more justified. But the truth is, this is a literate culture we live in today, and if a new student of Druidry is to find her way into the tradition, it is not enough to set her loose in the forest without a teacher or a mythology to guide her, and say, "Well, go to it, go do 'Druidry'."
On that note, these are a few of my favorite books on Druidry and modern Druidic practice:
- Way of the Druid: Renaissance of a Celtic Religion and its Relevance, by Graeme Talboys With a bit of historical background, this book explores the "Celtic metaphysic" and how it relates to modern practice. It's the first book I would lend to a non-Druid friend or family member interested in understanding the spiritual tradition I follow.
- Spirits of the Sacred Grove: The World of a Druid Priestess, by Emma Restall Orr A wonderful memoir that follows the cycle of the seasons, this book expresses in beautiful, powerful writing the kinds of personal experiences at the root of practical Druidry and gives you that itch to go out and spend long hours in the local woods listening to the breathing of things. A very nice counterbalance to Talboys' more theoretical focus, though it may come across as "too weird" for non-Druids... I wouldn't recommend it to my mother, anyway!
- The Mysteries of Druidry: Celtic Mysticism, Theory, & Practice, by Brendan Myers This text focuses a bit more on various common themes and symbols that echo throughout Celtic mythology and lay a foundation for creative, engaged work with the Druidic tradition.
- The Rebirth of Druidry: Ancient Earth Wisdom for Today, edited by Philip Carr-Gomm A collection of essays, this is the very first book that shook me awake and inspired me to seek out Druidry in my own life; all sorts of topics are covered, from the personal to the traditional, from theory on seasonal calendars to explorations of self- and social-identity, and more.
- The Druidry Handbook: Spiritual Practice Rooted in the Living Earth, by John Michael Greer A very good how-to kind of handbook that talks a bit about some of the concepts central to Revival Druidry in particular, and lays out the First Degree curriculum for AODA in depth.
All of the above focus on contemporary Druidic practice from various perspectives. As far as scholarly historical works, Ronald Hutton wrote a fascinating introductory text entitled, Druids: A History, that traces the development of the idea of Druidry and Druidism throughout the past several hundred years. He has a more extensive book due to be published in June, 2009, called Blood and Mistletoe: The History of the Druids in Britain that will expand on this topic, and which is bound to be great. Beyond this, I'd recommend any of Miranda Green's work (I just got her Symbol & Image in Celtic Religious Art, which I can't wait to tear into!), as well as most of the books written by John and Caitlin Matthews, which usually explore mythological themes and have a bit of an historical/academic bent, if not much at times.
Friday, May 23, 2008
Language and Morality
I'm annoyed. This is going to be one of those entries. Be forewarned...
Well, today at work a guy accused me of being judgmental.
He was complaining about our manager giving him an overloaded schedule this week in response to his request to work more hours, and another guy chimed in that maybe he asked her (the manager) while she was PMSing. As I overheard, I remarked casually, "Well now, that's a sexist comment." And the guy jumped down my throat--not the one who'd actually made the comment (who acted apologetic and kind of shrugged it off as a bad joke), but the other one. He asked me why it was sexist, and I responded, "Well, by definition--making an assumption based on a person's gender and treating them as merely a stereotype of a group rather than as an individual... that's sexist by definition."* "You don't think women behave irrationally when they're PMSing?" he challenged. "I think that some individuals will behave irrationally under certain circumstances, like when they're tired or uncomfortable," I explained, "and that others may just be a bit irrational in general--but no, making a statement about an individual based on the assumption that all women are irrational during their periods [a generalized stereotype based on a person's sex] and that they cannot control their irrationality as well as men, who don't 'PMS' [a devaluation of women based on that stereotype, see definition below]... I think that's sexism plain and simple and no, I don't believe it to be true." He then accused me of just trying to force everyone to be "P.C." and of being judgmental because I was "making a judgment about someone else's judgment instead of actually listening to that person."
Language
Okay, firstly--words. Words have power. Let me say that again: words have power. I try to avoid saying things I don't mean, and I try to respect the amazing and beautiful power of words when I do speak (including their ability to communicate subtlety, humor and irony--all of which I'm pretty good at picking up on and I don't call people out on sexist remarks when I can tell they're just trying to be funny and not meaning it seriously--though I also think that kind of humor is a bit distasteful). I'm a writer. I love words. I'm also a feminist (i.e. I believe that men and women are equal) and I believe that it is important to treat people as unique individuals in any circumstance, rather than merely as a member of particular groups, biological, cultural or otherwise. To treat a person merely as a member of a group to which they belong is an act of existential violence against the unique and complex individuality of that person (even if attributing positive qualities to the group, like saying Obama must be good at basketball; and even if that person chooses to be a part of the group through lifestyle, association or activity, like saying all [golfers/cat-lovers/police officers/etc.] behave or think the same way.
Of course, it gets tricky, because often people don't want to count positive stereotypes as a form of racism/sexism/classism/etc., and at the same time plenty of individuals like to associate themselves by choice with particular groups because they want to benefit from the image or ideas that group evokes (think of the teen who dresses "goth" so that her peers will get a particular view of her as a hard-hearted, poetry-reading rebel). All the same, striving to connect with individuals as unique beings is something we owe each other and ourselves, because otherwise we're walking through a shallow world of warped reflection, like a hall of mirrors. By treating people as stereotypes, what we're saying is, "Everything I know about you is just something I know about myself, projected out into the world." If you treat all women as potentially irrational during "that time of the month," then you're acting on your own beliefs and opinions warped to suit a projected "other", rather than learning something about the individual women in your life and responding to their unique realities. In short, you've cut yourself off from actually being present to the real world; you've substituted your assumptions about reality for reality itself.
Of course, I didn't have the opportunity to explain any of this to this particular coworker because he was too busy righteously defending others' right to be "politically incorrect." Now, apparently the term "politically correct" was invented in the 1980s by conservatives trying to undermine liberal efforts to increase awareness of--you guessed it--the power of words (in particular, the power of words in relation to group and social identity). To throw out the accusation of "P.C." at a person was basically a way to shut down any attempt at rational discussion by using a similar circular logic that this coworker today tried to use on me. The argument goes that if you attempt to think carefully about people's word choices and encourage yourself and others to speak with more accuracy, sensitivity and awareness, then you forfeit your right to criticize others' unthinking use of language. Obviously the argument is clearly fallacious when stated in such clear terms, so let me put it the way it's more commonly phrased: if you make judgments about appropriate language, then you're being just as "judgmental" as you're accusing someone else of being, and therefore you have no right to criticize them because you're just as bad.
Judgment
In addition to assuming that the problem with sexist/racist/etc. language is that it is "judgmental" (when it is, in fact, just the opposite--it eschews any actual judgment, accurate or otherwise, in favor of unthinking prejudice), this faulty logic relies on obscuring the multiple meanings of the word "judgment" itself. Since it is an argument in favor of the thoughtless use of words, this actually seems rather fitting.
Being "judgmental" has a strongly negative connotation, because it evokes the sense of imposing our own moral judgment on another person, usually with a verbal condemnation and/or poor treatment. What is the difference, though, between making a moral judgment about a person, and making a "mental judgment"** about a statement or concept? It seems to me that there's a big one, and while the former may be personally, socially or even philosophically offensive, the latter is essential to living a thoughtful, inquisitive life. What P.C. nay-sayers tend to do is confuse the two kinds of judgment, reducing them to one and the same thing, and then badger those of us trying to make thoughtful "mental judgments" into feeling guilty for imposing "moral judgments" on others, when that is precisely what we are trying to avoid. Then there are "mushy-thinking liberals" (a term a friend of mine adopted from, I believe, Chomsky), who focus on the censorship of language, rather than on an investigation of what such language actually communicates. This overly-P.C. crowd is often too greatly worried about hurting people's feelings or coming across as morally "judgmental", but they fall into the very same trap as the conservative anti-P.C. people. Whatever the motivation (attempting to shut down rational discussion as a kind of power-play, or wanting to appear all-accepting of others for the sake of one's personal gratification at the expense of actual thoughtfulness), the end result of such a reductionist definition of "judgment" is the same: it makes thinking itself look like a social and personal flaw.
One way to avoid this is to make a careful distinction between imposing moral judgments on other people, and making mental judgments about "objective" facts. Notice that in the conversation that began this post, I remarked that the comment was sexist, not the person. According to the definition of "sexism" and the nature of the comment itself, this was a fair assessment of objective reality, rather than a projected moral claim. Of course, it is generally agreed in our culture that sexism is more or less "immoral." (Of course, as I've already noted, language also affords the opportunity for satire and irony, for instance by utilizing "immoral" language deliberately and self-consciously to undermine the power of such language. I love Stephen Colbert's humor for this very reason. He has mastered the art of making claims or asserting ideas in such a way that he lays bare their utter absurdity, and his feigned sincerity heightens that ridiculousness while putting us on guard against individuals who actually would assert such claims in all seriousness. If the comment had been made with ironic intent, then my observation that it was sexist would not hav been a moral judgment at all, but rather just stating the obvious, kind of like ruining the punchline of a joke by observing the particular play on words and/or expectations involved.)
Morality
There are many good reasons why sexism, racism and all forms of prejudice are considered inherently immoral (as I've already outlined above). However, once again, there is a difference between claiming a statement is sexist because it is immoral, and claiming that it is immoral because it is sexist. In the first instance, I am imposing my own moral judgment on another person and attempting to censor them based on those moral claims, essentially trying to make them play by my own moral rules. In the second instance, I am observing that a given statement, as an objective entity, fits the established definition of "sexism" and should probably, therefore, be reevaluated for its moral implications. See the difference?
Take another example: the other day, a different (male) coworker called another (female) coworker a fat cow who looks like she spends all her time out drinking instead of home taking care of her kids. My knee-jerk reaction was to criticize him for making such a mean-spirited comment, because to me such maliciousness is never justified even if the observations it attempts to communicate are accurate (which I don't think they were this time, in any case). This is a moral issue on my part, growing out of my belief in loving-kindness and respect for others, and so my attempt to censor his behavior was, in this case, a moral imposition on my part (one that he rightly pointed out I have no real right to make). I wanted him to play by my moral sense of fairness and kindness, but he has the perfect right to be a nasty jerk to another person if he likes, regardless of what I think of his behavior. On the other hand, I do have the right to guide my own actions according to my moral commitments, and since I believe that sharing my beliefs with others in a respectful, open way is also a moral act on my part, I have the right to communicate my opinion of his behavior and explain my reasons behind it.
So is calling out a statement for being "sexist" morally judgmental? Well, in some ways, it is a moral act on my part, since I probably wouldn't have bothered to do it if I didn't think sexism was wrong, offensive and morally damaging to both the person making the comment and the comment's target or object of reference. I feel that it is morally right to point out the harmful or thoughtless behavior of others--in a kind and respectful way--not as a way of condemning them or imposing my beliefs (which would be morally judgmental), but in order to encourage dialogue and discussion--an equal, free exchange of information and ideas for the betterment of all involved. It would appear that, since my coworker took offense to me calling the statement sexist, he too most likely believes that sexism is basically immoral, and so I have no need to impose my own values on him as we already agree about the fundamental moral issue at stake and differ only in its application. (Either that, or he's playing by the social rules that say a person should act offended when they feel a remark is intended as a slight or insult, whether or not the remark actually offends them. I tend not to act offended unless I'm actually offended, which confuses people sometimes, because I laugh off mean-spirited jibes while occasionally being hurt by comments that people intended to be complimentary but are, in fact, not. See below.)
Despondence
The fact that this coworker has three times now suggested that my intelligence is not a desirable quality but rather an unfortunate idiosyncrasy (twice in accusing me of being "judgmental," and once while actually hitting on me(!) by saying I needed to be "relieved" of the thoughtful expression I'd developed while reading an interesting book) has me generally annoyed, but also feeling a bit despondent.*** This last exchange--during what he clearly considered a flirtatious encounter--was obviously meant to be some kind of complimentary come-on, an appeal to my romantic feminine nature. Why I would want to be "relieved" of my thoughtfulness in favor of some frivolous romantic "fun" is beyond me. I find conversation and discussion to be fun, and more than that, fulfilling. I also appreciate levity and joy, though rarely would I characterize such things as mindless or frivolous, at least not in their ideal forms.
So yes, I am discouraged, even gloomy, about the social relationships I often find myself in. It might sound arrogant to say that I am more intelligent than most of the people I know and work with on a daily basis, but the truth is that, intelligence (whatever that is) aside, I am definitely more thoughtful. I have no need to make this claim about myself--they make it for me. But while they seem to think it's an unfortunate side-effect of having no "life" and nothing better to do, I see it as one of my best qualities, something I really love about myself and that I want to share with others. Thus, I often feel drawn to people who exhibit a similar thoughtfulness or at least hint at it through off-handed remarks. Sometimes the very same people who intrigue me with such remarks also come across as being judgmental and kind of rude, for the very reason that they're willing to make controversial statements based on personal convictions. Right now, for instance, I'm crushing on a guy who, I'm pretty sure, thinks I'm just another thoughtless, good-because-the-Bible-says-so kind of girl. The very fact that he might be indifferent to me because of this incorrect perception has me intrigued (unlike those who are indifferent to me because they know I'm not an easy lay, who don't interest me at all, and sadly make up the vast majority of guys I know). But it's also frustrating because I'm afforded so few opportunities to demonstrate my depth and personality, and he has no real reason to give me any, as far as he's concerned. I don't want to make the same mistake with others. Which is why I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, to engage them in conversation, to explore the reasons behind their actions. I don't want to make the mistake of assuming someone is just silly or shallow when they're just quiet or reserved.
Which is why I agreed to go on a date with someone who has been dropping hints of his interest for, gosh, over a year now, despite my friendly indifference and my interest in this other guy. I had some qualms about it--is it right to go on a date when you have a feeling it's not going to work out? Am I obligated to inform him of my interest in someone else, or would that just be needlessly hurtful? Have I come to treat men as a commodity, waiting for a perfect guy to come along who has all the right "features" (like a compatible morality, similar interests, thoughtful mind, sense of humor, self-control, reserved nature, cute little goatee and a nice smile) instead of focusing on the feelings a person might be able to evoke (or, on the other hand, is it right to allow feelings alone to dictate relationships rather than attempting to engage another person on all levels, mental, emotional, philosophical, etc.)? Sometimes, I admit, I may over think things. I want to do what's right. In the end, though, right or not, I agreed to go on the date.
And I sat here all evening waiting for his call.
And it never came.
Definitions
*sex·ism (noun)
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex.
**judg·ment (noun)
1. an act or instance of judging.
2. the ability to judge, make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, esp. in matters affecting action; good sense; discretion.
3. the demonstration or exercise of such ability or capacity.
4. the forming of an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion, as from circumstances presented to the mind.
***de·spond·ent (adjective)
1. feeling or showing profound hopelessness, dejection, discouragement, or gloom
Well, today at work a guy accused me of being judgmental.
He was complaining about our manager giving him an overloaded schedule this week in response to his request to work more hours, and another guy chimed in that maybe he asked her (the manager) while she was PMSing. As I overheard, I remarked casually, "Well now, that's a sexist comment." And the guy jumped down my throat--not the one who'd actually made the comment (who acted apologetic and kind of shrugged it off as a bad joke), but the other one. He asked me why it was sexist, and I responded, "Well, by definition--making an assumption based on a person's gender and treating them as merely a stereotype of a group rather than as an individual... that's sexist by definition."* "You don't think women behave irrationally when they're PMSing?" he challenged. "I think that some individuals will behave irrationally under certain circumstances, like when they're tired or uncomfortable," I explained, "and that others may just be a bit irrational in general--but no, making a statement about an individual based on the assumption that all women are irrational during their periods [a generalized stereotype based on a person's sex] and that they cannot control their irrationality as well as men, who don't 'PMS' [a devaluation of women based on that stereotype, see definition below]... I think that's sexism plain and simple and no, I don't believe it to be true." He then accused me of just trying to force everyone to be "P.C." and of being judgmental because I was "making a judgment about someone else's judgment instead of actually listening to that person."
Language
Okay, firstly--words. Words have power. Let me say that again: words have power. I try to avoid saying things I don't mean, and I try to respect the amazing and beautiful power of words when I do speak (including their ability to communicate subtlety, humor and irony--all of which I'm pretty good at picking up on and I don't call people out on sexist remarks when I can tell they're just trying to be funny and not meaning it seriously--though I also think that kind of humor is a bit distasteful). I'm a writer. I love words. I'm also a feminist (i.e. I believe that men and women are equal) and I believe that it is important to treat people as unique individuals in any circumstance, rather than merely as a member of particular groups, biological, cultural or otherwise. To treat a person merely as a member of a group to which they belong is an act of existential violence against the unique and complex individuality of that person (even if attributing positive qualities to the group, like saying Obama must be good at basketball; and even if that person chooses to be a part of the group through lifestyle, association or activity, like saying all [golfers/cat-lovers/police officers/etc.] behave or think the same way.
Of course, it gets tricky, because often people don't want to count positive stereotypes as a form of racism/sexism/classism/etc., and at the same time plenty of individuals like to associate themselves by choice with particular groups because they want to benefit from the image or ideas that group evokes (think of the teen who dresses "goth" so that her peers will get a particular view of her as a hard-hearted, poetry-reading rebel). All the same, striving to connect with individuals as unique beings is something we owe each other and ourselves, because otherwise we're walking through a shallow world of warped reflection, like a hall of mirrors. By treating people as stereotypes, what we're saying is, "Everything I know about you is just something I know about myself, projected out into the world." If you treat all women as potentially irrational during "that time of the month," then you're acting on your own beliefs and opinions warped to suit a projected "other", rather than learning something about the individual women in your life and responding to their unique realities. In short, you've cut yourself off from actually being present to the real world; you've substituted your assumptions about reality for reality itself.
Of course, I didn't have the opportunity to explain any of this to this particular coworker because he was too busy righteously defending others' right to be "politically incorrect." Now, apparently the term "politically correct" was invented in the 1980s by conservatives trying to undermine liberal efforts to increase awareness of--you guessed it--the power of words (in particular, the power of words in relation to group and social identity). To throw out the accusation of "P.C." at a person was basically a way to shut down any attempt at rational discussion by using a similar circular logic that this coworker today tried to use on me. The argument goes that if you attempt to think carefully about people's word choices and encourage yourself and others to speak with more accuracy, sensitivity and awareness, then you forfeit your right to criticize others' unthinking use of language. Obviously the argument is clearly fallacious when stated in such clear terms, so let me put it the way it's more commonly phrased: if you make judgments about appropriate language, then you're being just as "judgmental" as you're accusing someone else of being, and therefore you have no right to criticize them because you're just as bad.
Judgment
In addition to assuming that the problem with sexist/racist/etc. language is that it is "judgmental" (when it is, in fact, just the opposite--it eschews any actual judgment, accurate or otherwise, in favor of unthinking prejudice), this faulty logic relies on obscuring the multiple meanings of the word "judgment" itself. Since it is an argument in favor of the thoughtless use of words, this actually seems rather fitting.
Being "judgmental" has a strongly negative connotation, because it evokes the sense of imposing our own moral judgment on another person, usually with a verbal condemnation and/or poor treatment. What is the difference, though, between making a moral judgment about a person, and making a "mental judgment"** about a statement or concept? It seems to me that there's a big one, and while the former may be personally, socially or even philosophically offensive, the latter is essential to living a thoughtful, inquisitive life. What P.C. nay-sayers tend to do is confuse the two kinds of judgment, reducing them to one and the same thing, and then badger those of us trying to make thoughtful "mental judgments" into feeling guilty for imposing "moral judgments" on others, when that is precisely what we are trying to avoid. Then there are "mushy-thinking liberals" (a term a friend of mine adopted from, I believe, Chomsky), who focus on the censorship of language, rather than on an investigation of what such language actually communicates. This overly-P.C. crowd is often too greatly worried about hurting people's feelings or coming across as morally "judgmental", but they fall into the very same trap as the conservative anti-P.C. people. Whatever the motivation (attempting to shut down rational discussion as a kind of power-play, or wanting to appear all-accepting of others for the sake of one's personal gratification at the expense of actual thoughtfulness), the end result of such a reductionist definition of "judgment" is the same: it makes thinking itself look like a social and personal flaw.
One way to avoid this is to make a careful distinction between imposing moral judgments on other people, and making mental judgments about "objective" facts. Notice that in the conversation that began this post, I remarked that the comment was sexist, not the person. According to the definition of "sexism" and the nature of the comment itself, this was a fair assessment of objective reality, rather than a projected moral claim. Of course, it is generally agreed in our culture that sexism is more or less "immoral." (Of course, as I've already noted, language also affords the opportunity for satire and irony, for instance by utilizing "immoral" language deliberately and self-consciously to undermine the power of such language. I love Stephen Colbert's humor for this very reason. He has mastered the art of making claims or asserting ideas in such a way that he lays bare their utter absurdity, and his feigned sincerity heightens that ridiculousness while putting us on guard against individuals who actually would assert such claims in all seriousness. If the comment had been made with ironic intent, then my observation that it was sexist would not hav been a moral judgment at all, but rather just stating the obvious, kind of like ruining the punchline of a joke by observing the particular play on words and/or expectations involved.)
Morality
There are many good reasons why sexism, racism and all forms of prejudice are considered inherently immoral (as I've already outlined above). However, once again, there is a difference between claiming a statement is sexist because it is immoral, and claiming that it is immoral because it is sexist. In the first instance, I am imposing my own moral judgment on another person and attempting to censor them based on those moral claims, essentially trying to make them play by my own moral rules. In the second instance, I am observing that a given statement, as an objective entity, fits the established definition of "sexism" and should probably, therefore, be reevaluated for its moral implications. See the difference?
Take another example: the other day, a different (male) coworker called another (female) coworker a fat cow who looks like she spends all her time out drinking instead of home taking care of her kids. My knee-jerk reaction was to criticize him for making such a mean-spirited comment, because to me such maliciousness is never justified even if the observations it attempts to communicate are accurate (which I don't think they were this time, in any case). This is a moral issue on my part, growing out of my belief in loving-kindness and respect for others, and so my attempt to censor his behavior was, in this case, a moral imposition on my part (one that he rightly pointed out I have no real right to make). I wanted him to play by my moral sense of fairness and kindness, but he has the perfect right to be a nasty jerk to another person if he likes, regardless of what I think of his behavior. On the other hand, I do have the right to guide my own actions according to my moral commitments, and since I believe that sharing my beliefs with others in a respectful, open way is also a moral act on my part, I have the right to communicate my opinion of his behavior and explain my reasons behind it.
So is calling out a statement for being "sexist" morally judgmental? Well, in some ways, it is a moral act on my part, since I probably wouldn't have bothered to do it if I didn't think sexism was wrong, offensive and morally damaging to both the person making the comment and the comment's target or object of reference. I feel that it is morally right to point out the harmful or thoughtless behavior of others--in a kind and respectful way--not as a way of condemning them or imposing my beliefs (which would be morally judgmental), but in order to encourage dialogue and discussion--an equal, free exchange of information and ideas for the betterment of all involved. It would appear that, since my coworker took offense to me calling the statement sexist, he too most likely believes that sexism is basically immoral, and so I have no need to impose my own values on him as we already agree about the fundamental moral issue at stake and differ only in its application. (Either that, or he's playing by the social rules that say a person should act offended when they feel a remark is intended as a slight or insult, whether or not the remark actually offends them. I tend not to act offended unless I'm actually offended, which confuses people sometimes, because I laugh off mean-spirited jibes while occasionally being hurt by comments that people intended to be complimentary but are, in fact, not. See below.)
Despondence
The fact that this coworker has three times now suggested that my intelligence is not a desirable quality but rather an unfortunate idiosyncrasy (twice in accusing me of being "judgmental," and once while actually hitting on me(!) by saying I needed to be "relieved" of the thoughtful expression I'd developed while reading an interesting book) has me generally annoyed, but also feeling a bit despondent.*** This last exchange--during what he clearly considered a flirtatious encounter--was obviously meant to be some kind of complimentary come-on, an appeal to my romantic feminine nature. Why I would want to be "relieved" of my thoughtfulness in favor of some frivolous romantic "fun" is beyond me. I find conversation and discussion to be fun, and more than that, fulfilling. I also appreciate levity and joy, though rarely would I characterize such things as mindless or frivolous, at least not in their ideal forms.
So yes, I am discouraged, even gloomy, about the social relationships I often find myself in. It might sound arrogant to say that I am more intelligent than most of the people I know and work with on a daily basis, but the truth is that, intelligence (whatever that is) aside, I am definitely more thoughtful. I have no need to make this claim about myself--they make it for me. But while they seem to think it's an unfortunate side-effect of having no "life" and nothing better to do, I see it as one of my best qualities, something I really love about myself and that I want to share with others. Thus, I often feel drawn to people who exhibit a similar thoughtfulness or at least hint at it through off-handed remarks. Sometimes the very same people who intrigue me with such remarks also come across as being judgmental and kind of rude, for the very reason that they're willing to make controversial statements based on personal convictions. Right now, for instance, I'm crushing on a guy who, I'm pretty sure, thinks I'm just another thoughtless, good-because-the-Bible-says-so kind of girl. The very fact that he might be indifferent to me because of this incorrect perception has me intrigued (unlike those who are indifferent to me because they know I'm not an easy lay, who don't interest me at all, and sadly make up the vast majority of guys I know). But it's also frustrating because I'm afforded so few opportunities to demonstrate my depth and personality, and he has no real reason to give me any, as far as he's concerned. I don't want to make the same mistake with others. Which is why I always try to give people the benefit of the doubt, to engage them in conversation, to explore the reasons behind their actions. I don't want to make the mistake of assuming someone is just silly or shallow when they're just quiet or reserved.
Which is why I agreed to go on a date with someone who has been dropping hints of his interest for, gosh, over a year now, despite my friendly indifference and my interest in this other guy. I had some qualms about it--is it right to go on a date when you have a feeling it's not going to work out? Am I obligated to inform him of my interest in someone else, or would that just be needlessly hurtful? Have I come to treat men as a commodity, waiting for a perfect guy to come along who has all the right "features" (like a compatible morality, similar interests, thoughtful mind, sense of humor, self-control, reserved nature, cute little goatee and a nice smile) instead of focusing on the feelings a person might be able to evoke (or, on the other hand, is it right to allow feelings alone to dictate relationships rather than attempting to engage another person on all levels, mental, emotional, philosophical, etc.)? Sometimes, I admit, I may over think things. I want to do what's right. In the end, though, right or not, I agreed to go on the date.
And I sat here all evening waiting for his call.
And it never came.
Definitions
*sex·ism (noun)
1. attitudes or behavior based on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles.
2. discrimination or devaluation based on a person's sex.
**judg·ment (noun)
1. an act or instance of judging.
2. the ability to judge, make a decision, or form an opinion objectively, authoritatively, and wisely, esp. in matters affecting action; good sense; discretion.
3. the demonstration or exercise of such ability or capacity.
4. the forming of an opinion, estimate, notion, or conclusion, as from circumstances presented to the mind.
***de·spond·ent (adjective)
1. feeling or showing profound hopelessness, dejection, discouragement, or gloom
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