Love What Makes Us Wonder

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Folks, it's been a sniffly, mopey week here chez Ali, as I do my best to sweat and sleep my way to good health in time for my partner's and my up-coming week-long Big Fall Wedding Tour 2010, during which we will be doing things like: driving all over creation, camping on the beach, praising the gods of the threshold, investigating potential vendors and venues for our wedding, and introducing me to my future mother-in-law and other relatives. Not to mention, yesterday a hacker-virus-thing made its way into my gmail, triggering an automatic suspension of my account and officially deleting this blog for an hour or two, sending me into panicked sobs and hysterical blubbering (overly-invested much?) before it was eventually restored, but not before thoroughly nailing into my thick, mucus-filled skull that it's definitely time to begin the long process of transferring this blog to its own official domain name (more on this a bit later in the month). So let's just say I've had a lot on my mind this week.

But all you loyal readers deserve a post before I head off into the great southern roadscape. So I'm going to do my best, despite my head-cold-muddled mind, to give you one.

What I'd like to talk about is mystery.

The subject is prompted most immediately by a post by a fellow who goes by the name of Ravendark over at the blog Atheist Druid, which I stumbled upon a week or so ago thanks to Heather of Say the Trees Have Ears. Both of these writers are well worth keeping your eyes on. I've been reading Heather for a while, enjoying her emphasis on art, science and observation of the natural world which is modulated by a certain humility about her own experiences and uncertainties — something that is quite refreshing when so many other writers out there in the Pagan blogosphere are so full of snark and self-importance (not that I mind a little snark now and then, don't get me wrong). Ravendark's atheist blog, quite a new venture it looks like, has so far been intriguing; I've always enjoyed engaging atheists and agnostics in conversation (which may be why I've dated quite a few of them in my time — that is, when there wasn't a good Zen Buddhist around), and so far Ravendark's musing on deity and organized religion have proved quite interesting. (We'll forgive him for skipping over the niceties with me and instead emailing my partner, Jeff, to commend him for his excellent Druid Journal, which he found through this blog. This is one of the effects of the Druid archetype, I'm afraid: the older man with the beard must surely be the wiser and more experienced Druid than the young woman with the Celtic armband tattoo — even if she has been practicing almost twice as long. But no, I'm not jealous of my fiancé's clout, not at all. I mean, he's like, what?, fifty or something? and his blog has its own domain name, so clearly he must be more qualified, Ali continues her plotting...^[1])

Etymology of My Gods

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Update: In light of this morning's news, I would like to dedicate this post to Isaac Bonewits and his family. Though I never knew him personally, I find myself deeply saddened by his passing, but also deeply grateful for the vision and influence he had within our community. His thoughts on liturgy and theology have both challenged and inspired me, even when I haven't always agreed with them. American Druidry wouldn't be the same without the energy and devotion he brought to everything he did. I pray we will one day achieve, with joy and grace, that vibrant Pagan community he envisioned and worked for all his life. May your journey beyond the Ninth Wave bring you peace and beauty, Isaac, and may love and blessings comfort your family and friends in their time of grief.

That word for god — the breath, the gleaming — the shining days like great columns bearing up the sky, buttresses, rafters. Beams that in their falling, hold.

I say the names of my deities, I feel the drop of each sound into silence. They gather on the long, bent grasses in the meadow and the field, *dewos-, the many that glisten in the coming dark. Amulets of sky, jewels of the daylight, coalescing in the movement of my breath, the lingering touch of the wind. They draw themselves, wavering, into the weight and gravity of form.

I open the door, and the gods enter the dark interior of my being. The gust, the call, tracing themselves in the dust of the rafters, the shift that shivers down in drifts of gentle gray and grit, mingling particulates stirring in every corner of the sunlight. What is so small and intimate and strange — numen, spirare — the dancing footsteps of spirit in the air, the vital stir of fear, the silent thrill, calling me to courage in the deep spaces of my birth and dying, the liminal between. I am on the threshold, pouring out my breath in quick libations. I am pouring out my soul-song to mingle on the doorsill with the soft noise of their presence.

And She is rising up again, and rising up, she is the exalted queen and lady of all that rises up —

Cú Chulainn and the Queen of Swords: Reflections on Reason and Nakedness

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One of the ways that I clothe and shelter my nakedness in the world is with my intellect, which always seems to be churning away sometimes even in spite of myself.

Don't get me wrong, I value reason highly as an expression of Spirit in the human animal; it is a wisdom-weaver and pattern-dancer, it is one of the meaning-makers of human experience that can serve to highlight and elevate, to shape and navigate. When used in this way, reason and critical analysis can exercise the mind, stripping it of falsehoods and obscurities and laying it bare to the world in all its complexity and sublimity (and when applied with a devotion that borders on bhakti, reason can be a terrible and awesome thing that shakes the world ruthlessly down to its rattling joints).

But too often, reason can be wielded as a weapon. I find that I do this far more often than I like, and it always leaves me feeling uncomfortable, disturbed from the dwelling-place of naked presence that I am continually seeking in the world. When I feel threatened or misunderstood, I can swing my intellect like a sword, cutting down hesitant, half-formed or poorly-articulated arguments where they stand — without regard for the meanings they are striving towards or the complexities they, too, are trying to navigate. The fight becomes the thing, and I get caught up in the thrill of parry and thrust and the heat of my own mental muscles tensed and flexing as I dodge and turn and feel the bite of my blows striking home.

Contemplations on Polytheism and Gods of the Land

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There was a lightness of being in my solitary walk to the library this morning, after yesterday's long-rumbling thunderstorms growling out of the dense haze and heat of the city.^[1] For the past two weeks I have been getting up early to hillwalk through the wooded park down the block, and even in the dawn hours everything hung heavy and damp, dark green, sticky, slick with heat, heat, heat. The pond was a low patch of thickening mud, the stream in the ravine a gully of trickling gutter-water between the tree roots. The mulberries from the neighbor's drooping tree were slowly fermenting on the sidewalk, and giving birth whenever someone walked by to a swarm of iridescent flies. This is not exactly unusual for July around here (certainly not as out-of-character as the hotter weather farther north). But the cloudless domed sky fading to muggy gray on the horizons unbroken for so many rainless days became a little disconcerting in a city centered on three rivers and so near a great lake, where the mountains rising to the east back up the westerly winds carrying their rainstorms over the land. We get a lot of rain here in Pittsburgh, but for the past two weeks it seems we've had nothing but hot, thick, hard-to-breate damp — sliced through with burning arrows of sunlight.

So yesterday was a blessing. An early twilight by midafternoon when the storms rolled in, and it was finally cool enough to fall asleep a few hours before midnight for once. For the first time I felt refreshed when waking up this morning, as if I had slept well and without that constant, unidentifiable anxiety that the body seems to absorb and store up from the enforced stillness of long, hot summer days. And the morning is beautiful. During long weeks of constant heat, coolness becomes a kind of abstract in a sun-fogged brain. Jeff and I kept talking about our upcoming vacation in cool, ocean-hedged Acadia National Park, and my trip soon after to Ireland — the misty green lands that my skin and bones remember, like a gift from my ancestors, without ever having been there — but I don't think I could really believe in these things or imagine them with any kind of realism.

Ah, but this morning I can almost taste the very first hint of crisp, cool autumn, sneaking in just after the high, bright peak of the solstice! Walking down the streets of my neighborhood, I had flashbacks to that feeling I used to get during the first weeks of a new semester back in college, when everything was light and fresh and free, with new classes (and, glory be!, new books to devour!) and new faces roaming campus, and a new year ahead. And in all of this, that special kind of solitude, the aloneness of stepping out and away from home, cut loose from routine or rather in the early stages of a new one when it still feels wide and spacious and full of possibility. It was as if heat had become my home, and I thought it would go on being home forever. It is hard to describe, but I could taste it like gentle sunlight — after two weeks I'd almost forgotten that sunlight could feel gentle and smooth, not always burning and oppressive — and light wisps of clouds that go skipping now from horizon to horizon in a cool lake of blue sky, awash in relief. And I am so thankful that my gods, if I have any, are changeable, full of movement and utterly beyond me.

The Peaceful Warrior: Pagan Pacifism Without Excuse (Part 2)

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Vulnerability, Individuality and Interdependence

Contemporaries of the Celts reported them as being strongly independent, and many of the heroic tales passed down to current day describe courageous individuals who choose a life of glory and accomplishment to be remembered down the ages, rather than an unremarkable life of longevity and quiet. Cu Chulainn, the quintessential Celtic warrior-hero, makes just this choice when he overhears a prophecy that the young man to take up arms that day would become the most famous hero in Erin; the eager young hero then proceeds to test out, and break, every piece of weaponry in the land until the king himself must offer him his own spear and war chariot.^[6] At first glance, such stories might seem to support the notion that the ancient Celts were hungry for conflict and the accolades that could be earned, that they were downright scornful of peace and "easy living." But other well-documented aspects of Celtic culture suggest another interpretation, perhaps no more true than this first but more relevant to today's world.

The Peaceful Warrior: Pagan Pacifism Without Excuse (Part 1)

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There is no going back. We consent to our own destruction, with the passing of time, with the changing seasons, with the restless intensity of living and breathing. Above the blazing concrete and glass of the city skyline, sharp-wedged forms of birds wheel and tip against the dark, blustering sky of the oncoming summer storm. I find myself thinking again that it takes an awful lot of courage to live in this world sometimes, knowing even at the height of summer that winter is coming, the dark is coming, and death, too, will eventually arrive to claim us. It takes courage to release ourselves, to enter willingly into the wild dance that whirls in this liminal space between life and death, creation and destruction. In my mind, the image of birds crashing through wind currents and swift-driven clouds commingles with the image of the warrior, poised in grace on the edge of chaos. The face of that warrior is not violence, but fearlessness. And the culmination of fearlessness, the height of its realization, is peace.

On Violence and Control

We live in a modern world, a world that has known the power of peace as well as the force of violence and war. A world that has known King and his dreams of the mountaintop. That witnessed Gandhi leading hundreds to the shore, stooping to gather the sea salt forbidden to them by law but offered freely and ceaselessly by something far greater and older than empire. And it is no less true for being trite: these days we have the capacity for obscene violence as well. This world we live in has seen the invention of atomic weapons by men cloistered away in sterile laboratories, and the use of those weapons to intimidate and threaten, to bring whole cities broken and poisoned to the ground. I share this world with you, and together we have watched our modern culture grow bloated and listless with propagandistic marketing trends and diet fast food. Yet alongside these we've felt a dawning common understanding that can no longer excuse violence against women and the marginalized, nor accept the callous mechanizations that would treat nature as fuel to burn for turning a profit. These times are unique, with their contradictions and global communications networks. There is no going back. We live in a world in tension, a culture brought precariously to the brink of tremendous violence again and again. How can we live, fully and freely, in such a world?

Goddess in the Details (in three parts): Three

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Goddess-Present

I wonder about our ability to bring deity along with us, especially when a great deal of our modern lives are overrun with hyper movement, distraction and dislocation. For the past few months now, I have been working to build a relationship with Brigid, the Celtic triple goddess of fire, of poetry, healing and smithcraft. Sometimes, I feel as though she is very present in my life, a kind of voice whispering in my ear. Other times, I seriously doubt how a goddess of the British Isles could have made it across the Atlantic and arrived here in any familiar form. Yet how could I possibly connect with the gods and spirits of this land as the indigenous peoples of hundreds of years ago knew and connected with them? So am I to be godless, after all? Brigid cannot remain for me merely an abstraction inherited from my ancestors, nor an imaginary friend I can talk to when I'm feeling especially "spiritual." A real relationship with her means that I discover her unexpectedly in the world, that I see her in moments of grace and epiphany and comfort and recovery. I do not want to manufacture experiences of the divine.

And so, with the extreme discomfort and anxiety of this trip, I found myself feeling cut off and, frankly, weak. The cynical voice of Mother Culture kept prattling on in the back of my head about how I should have a thicker skin, how my disorientation was not in fact a symptom of how well-grounded I was in the local landscape of my own beloved city of steel and hills and three rivers, but merely evidence that I was coddled and overly sensitive, inflexible, that my life was just, well, small. Here I was, feeling like an ignorant native jerked out of her element. And what could my writing, my voice, my ideas and my heart — what relevance could any of these things have for others on the other side of the world, or even next door, if my life was miniscule and limited this way? If not even a goddess can make it across the water, what can I do? My body rebelled against the plastic and chemicals that suddenly seemed to be everywhere when what I wanted most was the feel of sycamore bark under my fingers, and a little space to breathe. I belong to my city, and to the larger landscape of Pennsylvania; I am rooted there and move with comfortable ease and confidence. I know how to live, and live well, which is something more than many people can say. But this was a wholly different world, encased in advertisements and bought with the willful ignorance of imaginary capital, and I didn't understand it, couldn't touch down to something real, couldn't discern the laws of physics I was meant to obey. I had opinions, about politics and class and consumerism and environmentalism, about spirit and breath and connection — but suddenly they seemed irrelevant, even laughable. And what good is knowing how to live, if you don't know how others should live?

But that's the wrong question to be asking, of course, because there is no one right way to live. There is only living, fully present in the here-now, in touch with what is real. All of these thoughts were confused and only half-articulated in my mind, mixed up with images of opulence and science fiction utopias rattling around next to steampunk and bad historical-fantasy romances and Vonnegut's metaphor of artists like canaries plunged into the dark of claustrophobic mine shafts. I was distracted by surfaces. And so it was through surfaces that Brigid, goddess of fire and water, exalted highness of the sourceless spring and the ashless flame, slipped in and opened my eyes. I watched the puddles gather on the ugly tan roof, watched the glimmer of sunset on the surface of the water, and I knew again the goddess in the details, the spirit of small things weaving their connections over the whole world, sustaining life through their simplicity and presence. Within the cacophony of the World Song, I heard again the healing resonance of those same few simple notes turning over into melody.

Yet it wasn't Brigid making herself known. There was no higher layer of spiritual awareness, no voice whispering, it's me, dear, listen up.... There was only the rain, and the flickering spotlights, and the steam of their meeting. But something happened for me. And because I know, intellectually, that Brigid is a goddess of fire and water, as well as of poetry and healing, those things which I so desperately need — I make the choice to give her this experience, to see in this experience the work of her presence. It's as if some great being were moving through the world, almost too huge to pay any mind to my little noises and existential crises, so great as to be indifferent the way we are indifferent to the bacteria in our lower intestines, but not unkind. A mighty goddess who works in the smallest things, the simplest movements of water and light. Here She was, moving and being just as she is, and I was only some small creature happening to reach out to touch the hem of her green mantle as she passed by, touched almost as if by accident by the wholeness of her beauty.

Am I okay with this? Impersonal but still feeling blessed, not called by name but touched nonetheless... yes, I think I am. So, though perhaps she won't know it, though it's possible even that she is only a name, an idea, that I am giving to something real — I give her this experience of mine as a kind of offering, in gratitude. Maybe next time she will turn her eyes my way.

Archetypes in Market Mythology & The Role of Protest

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This is a continuation of my previous post, inspired by the G20 Summit in my city this week, and a post on A Heathen's Day about the role of mythology in society...

Heroes of Market Mythology: The Humble Worker & The Fire Thief

The mythology of the Market, like any thriving mythological worldview, has its heroes who exemplify the ideal relationship that man can hold in relation to his gods. The myth of the Self-Made Man is the best example of such a hero in modern Market mythology, and it is familiar to almost anyone who aspires to succeed in the world of the Market today.

The story of the Self-Made Man is summed up simply in the epithet "from rags to riches," but there are in fact two versions of this mythic figure. In one, the Self-Made Man is a simple, humble, hard-working guy who has always believed himself to possess a special gift, talent, skill or idea that he wants to share with the world. Often, this person must struggle against obscurity, inherited poverty and other kinds of set-backs and stumbling blocks before his gift is revealed to the world and he is justly rewarded with wild financial success. This Humble Worker version of the hero rarely has aspirations to wealth, but is more often portrayed as uniquely devoted to the qualitative contribution he can make to his community. He is akin to the hero of ancient myths (such as Perseus or Cu Chulainn) who, though born of the gods and privileged with unique gifts and abilities, does not spend much of his time concerning himself with the gods directly but goes off to make his own way in the world. The archetypal model of this version of the Self-Made Man reflects the common belief that "if you just work hard enough, eventually you'll get your lucky break."

The other version of the Self-Made Man begins much the same way — with someone of humble, lower class origins — but it differs in the story it tells of success. While the Humble Worker plugs away, earning his success on the Market's own terms, the Fire Thief defies the standard rituals and precepts of his gods and goes directly after the power and privileges that they possess, intent on bringing them back to his community or keeping them for his own personal glory. This is the entrepreneur who risks everything on an uncertain business venture and, against all expectation, succeeds; or the musician who quits his day-job to play guitar and ends up with several platinum records and a fanclub of millions. The Fire Thief rejects the standard security of the 9-to-5 job and the corporate ladder, and either earns respect or steals success from the Market through his cunning and bravado. Yet it is understood that most who attempt such rashness fail miserably and suffer the consequences of their disobedience.

These archetypes of the Self-Made Man (and the male emphasis is intentional, for even women are expected to conform to the masculine elements of the mythology in order to succeed) are found pervasive throughout modern society. J.K. Rowling exemplifies the first, the Humble Worker, who might have continued to struggle with depression and poverty had not the Market smiled upon her and brought her work to light. Bill Gates can be cited as an example of the Fire Thief, the unlikely nerd working out of his garage and suddenly rising to obscene wealth and a global monopoly, so powerful and yet so benevolent now that he gives millions of dollars to aid the less fortunate and even has designs on controlling the weather. No one single living person might perfectly embody the Hero in all his aspects, but there are enough familiar, living examples of "rags to riches" stories that, together, they seem to offer convincing evidence that this myth is not just a metaphor, but a reality that can be enacted.

Prophets, Priests and Politicians

In any mythology, eventually the gods — in their power and ineffability — may need to enlist the help of prophets and priests to communicate their esoteric demands to the common-folk, the laity. Priests organize and lead the ritual acts of the community, while prophets come to the forefront as society begins to lose faith in the efficacy or benevolence of its gods as a result of social turmoil, upheaval or rapid change. Traditionally, political leaders ask for the blessings and heed the advice of priests and prophets alike, though at times prophets who offer unpopular or inconvenient ideas may be ostracized or condemned for a time, before eventually being vindicated.

In the mythology of the Market, economists, intellectual pundits and CEOs most often play the role of the priest, acting as an intermediary between the Market and the community, interpreting the god's needs and moods, recommending which ritual acts — tax cuts, bail-outs, consumer spending, etc. — will appease it, which will avert disasters and which will cause them. For a time, a Market-priest may grow to such prominence that his pronouncements are taken as practically infallible; such was the role that Alan Greenspan played for the past two decades as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, his blessings sought by each new president during this time as kings used to seek blessings for their legitimacy from the Pope.

In times when the priests of the Market fail to accurately predict its demands and reactions, faith in its benevolence (though not in its existence) may begin to waver. Up step the prophets, then, with their unique insight into the workings of the mythologies, and sometimes with warnings of doom for those who lose their way. The social stirrings caused by colonialism and the scientific revolution that laid the foundation for the industrial revolution in later centuries also set the stage for political philosophers like John Locke, Adam Smith and Thomas Hobbes, some of the most influential prophets of the Market mythology. These philosophers first articulated versions of the Creation Myth of modern capitalism, as well as laying out a theology of practice still referenced today. The industrial revolution itself led to great social upheavals and sometimes great suffering, making the prophesying of Karl Marx and the advent of communism almost inevitable.

Even Marx, however, does not challenge the existence of the Market, and in fact founds his entire philosophy on the supreme importance of economics. The difference is, in his interpretation, the capitalist Market ceases to be a god worthy of worship and becomes instead a dragon which the downtrodden workers have had to appease with virgin sacrifices for far too long. The hero of Marxist communism is neither the Humble Worker nor the Fire Thief, but the Dragon Slayer. This hero arrives suddenly, and bravely comes to the aid of the harassed village, intent on killing the monstrous beast and freeing the villagers from their burden. From within our modern mythological worldview, the collapse of the Soviet Union eventually proved Marx and his followers as false prophets who failed to understand the true nature of the Market and led many believers and especially political leaders astray. The end of the Cold War is now commonly attributed not primarily to Western military might, but to its commitment to capitalism and freedom (as defined largely in terms of consumerism and the free market).

Heresy & Iconoclasm

In some respects, heresy cannot exist until there are priests and prophets within a mythological tradition outlining and codifying some kind of agreed-upon canon. Pre-Christian pagan traditions in Britain, for instance, were not considered heretical by the Church; but the various early gnostic sects were, as were reemergent pagan aspects within the Church once Christianity had moved in and established its hold. When it comes to the Mythology of the Market, Marx is an excellent example of a heretic according to the dominant capitalist worldview, for he disputes some fundamental assumptions about the purpose and proper relationship of individuals to the Market, but he does not reject the most basic premise of the mythos: that the Market is the primary and essential way in which we should understand human social relationship (and possibly the meaning of human life in general).

We are ourselves currently so entrenched in the modern Market mythos, however, that it is incredibly difficult, perhaps even impossible, to disagree with the established canon without becoming merely heretical. When we disagree with certain consequences or implications of the mythology of the Market, our usual response is to begin tweaking. We work backwards from obvious flaws and failures until we find ways of changing some minor aspect of our mythology without challenging its fundamental premises about the world and how it works. Even when we ascribe to some other supposed mythos about these fundamental premises, we often find that we live our lives according to the mythology of the Market and make room for these other worldviews only as far as they do not conflict.

This seemed to be the case with many Catholics I knew growing up, who attended church on Sundays and thought it all very well and good to speak of charity and the Law of Love during Mass, but who would never have dreamed of taking seriously Jesus' and the early Christians' injunctions against wealth and private possessions in favor of simple communal living. Jesus' own advice to "render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" has been giving Catholics a pass on fully integrating their spiritual and political lives for centuries, so it's not fair to blame modern culture alone for this attitude. More uniquely modern, however, is the development of the Prosperity Gospel, preached especially among televangelists, which seeks to wed Christianity explicitly with the Market mythology in order to ease tensions between the two. In either case, it's difficult to find someone who has accepted and taken seriously the worldview of Christianity in a complete and consistent way, who has not also come into a fundamental conflict with the prevailing myth of the Market.

I believe that this is true of any alternative mythological worldview, including that potentially offered by Paganism. When it comes to the Market, most Pagans are at best merely heretics, struggling valiantly to revise their understanding of consumer capitalism to make it compatible with or at least not painfully contradictory to their concerns for the environment and their appreciation of ancient myths from a pre-Market time. Shopping at eco-friendly stores and utilizing the propagandists of the advertising industry in order to promote "green" living and earth-centered fashion trends are only two examples of this uneasy relationship. The truth is that a consumer-based culture will never fully embrace, support or promote a message of drastically reduced consumption; it will at best find ways to make consumption more efficient so that it can continue to put off any negative ramifications. This is in no way meant to suggest Pagans are any more culpable for the many contradictions of modern Market-embedded environmentalism as anyone else, of course.

Which brings me back, in a round about way, to the G20 and its protests. I suspect that the reason locals are so antagonistic towards and dismissive of protesters is that in most respects they view them merely as heretics, trouble-makers who have no fully integrated, coherent worldview of their own to offer but merely a jumbled collection of complaints and objections about how "life isn't perfect" (to which the humble, hard-working Ordinary Guy replies, "no shit, get over it"). In some instances, this may be an inaccurate and unfair view of the protesters, but it's not unexpected. When we are deeply involved in living out or enacting the story told by the predominant mythology of our culture, it is practically inconceivable that others might completely reject or denounce this worldview. This is precisely because we do not see it as a mythos or worldview at all, but as reality. We are likely to consider those who reject our mythology as quite literally denying or rejecting reality itself; that is, we're likely to view them as insane, and thus unpredictable and potentially even dangerous. Hence all the hype and security measures to protect the city from the influx of unpredictable and unreasonable protesters, "anarchists and other self-described 'anti-authoritarians,'" as one newspaper article puts it.

On the other hand, it is likely that most of these protesters are themselves still enacting, in one way or another, the mythology of the Market as they've known it and lived it all their lives. Their chosen public actions, such as boycotting various businesses and disrupting ordinary consumer activities, belies a continuing emphasis on the Market as the primary definition of socio-cultural relationship and power. In this sense, the protesters are participating in acts of iconoclasm, in which members from within a given culture destroy that culture's religious symbols and images for the purposes of making a religious or political statement.


I do not want to go so far as to suggest that the protests of the G20 are utterly useless, though I expect that in most ways they will remain essentially an ineffective spectacle serving mostly as media fodder. There was a time when, despite the apparent futility and self-contradictions, I would still have been out there myself marching and hoisting signs above my head — not because these acts are themselves revolutionary, but because they are symbols of solidarity and hope, a demonstration that, yes, I too recognize that there is something out of balance and unjust in the way we are living and this needs to change. These demonstrations are important and they serve a purpose. But so too do the quiet poets and dreamers and lovers who are wandering in the deep and intimate work of creating an alternative mythology, who are listening intently to the natural world and its mysteries, and discovering new stories to enact. This work too is absolutely vital if we are to overcome the domineering Mythology of the Market. And I know my strengths and my passions well enough to know that my place is here, watching the setting moon and searching for words in the silence, and not out on the streets amidst the noise of protestation.

At least, for now...


Image attribution:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/brom/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

The Group of 20 and the Mythology of the Market

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A Modern Creation Myth

In the beginning, there was chaos and darkness and scarcity, and this disorder was called the State of Nature. And man lived in the State of Nature as a savage beast, constantly fearing for his life lest another come along and kill him for his possessions, for man had no way to relate to and communicate with his fellows. But such chaos was unbearable, and so eventually the State of Nature gave birth to Social Contracts, and these children of Nature grew strong and powerful enough to rein in the chaos and destruction of their mother. And the most powerful of these Contracts was the Market, and he was their ruler and king.

Now, the Market brought gifts to struggling, destitute man: the gift of order and security, the gift of relationship to his fellows through the exchange of goods and services. Man no longer needed to fear his neighbor's killing blow, for instead each could barter and bargain for what he needed in sacred rituals the Market had designed. In return, man offered the Market nonperishable votives, and these became relics preserved and hoarded through time, beautiful though useless objects like shells, gold and printed paper. And the Market imbued these with value and meaning, so that they too could be traded in exchange for goods and services, or could be saved up against times of scarcity and hunger.

And this is the story of the beginning of man's worship of the Market, king of the Social Contracts, children of the State of Nature, who subdued and brought order to the world.

Last year around this time, you may remember, we were undergoing some pretty startling economic ups and downs (mostly downs). This year, the Group of 20 comes to the city of Pittsburgh to discuss the current economic crisis that, although slowly stabilizing in the U.S. and other rich countries, continues to plague poverty-stricken nations the world over, making it likely that by 2010 there will be 89 million more people living in extreme poverty. The World Bank has prepared a paper on this data to present to the G20 this week, urging the political leaders of the wealthiest nations to consider taking further stimulus measures to prevent the worst of this forecasted slip into desperation, starvation and poverty for a large chunk of the global population.

"Outside my city is bracing for the next killing thing..." That line from an Ani DiFranco song plays over and over in my mind as I watch the cops patrolling the streets on intimidating, revved-up motorcycles, and the locals grumbling about protesters camping in public parks and blocking up roads. Rumor has it downtown is almost completely boarded up for fear of the disruption angry mobs might cause, and they'll be closing the bridges on Thursday. In a city whose very heart lies at the point where three rivers meet, the idea that we might not be able to cross the water feels like the severing of a limb, slashing the city into pieces. Amongst all this hype and inconvenience is the pride and gratitude Pittsburghers are told and expected to feel at their city having been chosen; millions of dollars have already been spent not only on increased security measures, but on city beautification projects, patching up roads and planting more trees where tourists and visitors might see them. The front page of the local paper features some story about the coming G20 Summit almost every day of the week. Last week was an article noting almost casually an incident during the G20 Summit in London, in which the police beat a man to death during a protest rally.

And yet, to hear the casual conversation of ordinary people around here, you would think there were no larger implications of the "Group of 20" meeting in our city than inconvenient business closings and dangerous "anti-authoritarians" (alternately read: teenagers freed early after a half-day of school) roaming the streets making trouble. If a respected science-fiction author were to write a dystopian novel about a future in which an elite group of select men in power converged on a city to revel in its local color while debating the fate of the impoverished and disenfranchised of the world, readers would shake their heads wisely and think how lucky they were not to live in such a society. Yet today, in my city, the very notion that there is something odd or unjust about the existence of the G20 — their presumption to the kind of power they take for granted let alone the exercise of that power for the benefit of the "little people" — doesn't even come up. All the righteous anger and talk of justice is reserved for the out-of-town protesters clogging up the works, preventing good honest folk from getting to their jobs and earning a living.

Perhaps it is merely coincidence, or perhaps a more vital synchronicity, that just as these concerns are overtaking my city and churning in my own mind (right around a holy festival of harvest and balance, as well as the soon-prevailing dark), Hrafnkell Haraldsson, over at A Heathen's Day, writes on the importance of mythology. Yet while Hrafnkell suggests that one problem with modern society is that we lack a coherent mythology of our own and have grown dismissive of and deaf to the value of the old myths, I do not believe that this precisely true. In fact, I would argue that we moderns have not lost myth at all, but are so deeply entrenched in our own that we do not recognize it as such. Although the mythology of our times incorporates and synthesizes almost every major aspect of individual and social life — as all healthy, relevant living mythologies do — its prevailing theme can be described as the Mythology of the Market.

This mythology is so pervasive, we take it to be a fundamental truth. It is a coherent story about who we are, how we fit together (that is, how we "sustain collective unity") and how we should live. Even during times of economic crisis, for instance, the myth of the Market is not questioned but only reinforced: we're urged to more faithful trust in the Market, which will restore prosperity if the appropriate ritual acts are observed (including believing the economy will stabilize, the necessity of consumer confidence). This mythology has its own rituals (working that nine-to-five job as a necessity for security as well as meaningful self-identity and respected social standing) and institutions (the Stock Exchange and the financial sector as a whole) and holy days (Black Friday and the entirety of the Christmas shopping season, President's Day sales, Back-to-School sales, etc.). This mythology is so ubiquitous that even socio-cultural events that have nothing to do with economics are viewed primarily in those terms. In response to 9/11 we were told by political and cultural leaders that the most important thing we could do as a community was not pray, or grieve, or make art — but shop. The debate over universal health care centers on the effect it will have on the Market and whether or not the Market will support it, and not the common sense concern for the health and well-being of citizens. My mother, an intelligent woman by any standard, once told me that the "best way to stay healthy is to have health insurance" — as though paying someone else money was far more effective than, say, good hygiene, a healthy diet, regular exercise and proper rest.

And yet, if you ask most people today, they could not identify this as a mythological worldview even after prompting. They do not see the Market and all its rituals merely as a useful allegory for guiding behavior and shaping relationships — they believe it is real, with a solidity that rivals and sometimes even surpasses the monotheistic God of the Judeo-Christian mainstream. In a way, they're not wrong: the Market is real, insofar as it has measurable effects on society as an agreed-upon social construct. How people view and interact with the Market through rituals of employment, investment and consumerism quite often shapes their individual lives in obvious ways, and these effects are taken as confirmation of the Market's reality and meaningfulness. Even the economists and political pundits who speak about the Market in abstracted metaphorical terms and treat it primarily as an allegorical device still live as though these metaphors were literally true, investing a vital importance in how we think about and relate to the economy as a real thing, perhaps the realest thing in our shared social existence.

This in part explains why the people in my city do not even question the existence of a "Group of 20" or its role in shaping and responding to a global economic market. If the Market takes on the role of deity within our modern mythological framework (hardly avoidable, with its thriving stock of golden bull idols and votive offerings inscribed with devotions like "In God We Trust"), then the necessity of prophets, priests, heros and heretics is no more jarring or unexpected than it would be in any other mythology. Amusingly, the nature of our modern worldview as a mythology is best brought into stark relief when it is directly compared with already widely-acknowledged mythologies like those of the ancient Greeks or Celts (though there is no need to prove, for instance, that the Celtic myths are indeed myths because they match up with Greek ones, we do not have such a clear perspective of our own).

(In my next post I'll explore some of the archetypes of Market Mythology and how these relate back to the inefficacy of protesters at the G20. I would include it here, but this post has already started to reach an unreasonable length!)

The Tale of Mabon: A Bedtime Story

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The kids sit each in their beds, the littlest one propped up half upside-down on her elbows, her tiny bare toes playing over the pinewood slats of the bunk above hers. Their father has just finished lighting the candle of the newly created altar, its offering bowl already overflowing with small gifts from the day's explorations in the park: acorns, stones, leaves and feathers and cicada shells. Everyone rests, quiet and attentive at the busy day's end. I speak softly.

"When we picked out this statue in the store, your dad and I wanted to get you something that would remind you of your own mother, and of the Mother Goddess who watches over you all the time. And I know some of you—" I wink gently at the second-oldest, a serious girl who frowns a little in thought, "some of you liked the other statue better, the two parents cradling the infant, because it reminded you of rebirth and renewal. I liked that one, too. But the more I look at this statue, the more it reminds me of a story. It's a story about separation and loss, and of finding family again in unexpected places. And I think—I hope—that when you hear this story, maybe you'll begin to like the statue a little better and it will have new meaning for you, as it does for your dad and me." The kids are silent, stretching restless limbs beneath their sheets.

"The story I want to tell you begins, 'Once, a long time ago when the world was new...'"

Once, a long time ago when this ancient world was still very new, there was a mother. Her name was Modron, which means Great Mother, for she was beautiful and strong, and her love shone from her as light from a great sun. And Modron had a son whose name was Mabon, which means Great Son. Mabon glistened and glimmered with his mother's love, and within him, his own heart also shone with love in return. Those who looked upon him were dazzled by his great youth and energy. But when he was still just an infant, a tragedy occurred. Mabon had not yet slept three nights at his mother's side, suckling at her breast and nuzzling into her arms, when he was stolen away into the darkness! When Modron awoke to find her beloved son gone, and no one who could tell her who had stolen him away, she mourned and wept, and her tears swelled and flowed like a great ocean. For a Mother's sorrow, too, can be great as her love.

Many years passed without sight or sound of Mabon, and all this time Modron continued to grieve and hope. Then, one day, a king arrived seeking to speak to Modron of her son. The king's name was Arthur, and he came with a retinue of skillful and courageous knights following behind him. King Arthur and his knights had been set an impossible task: to hunt the huge and terrible boar called Twrch Trwyth. This boar was so strong, and so fast, and so tough, that no hunter in the world could track him down and kill him, save for the greatest huntsman of all. No one knew who this huntsman might be, but rumor in the land whispered Mabon's name, the Great Son who had once shone with such energy even when just a babe. The people said that if Mabon still lived and could be found, surely he could kill the boar. And so King Arthur had come to Modron, to ask her if she knew where her son might be found.

The question pierced her heart and made her laugh through her sorrow. "Do you think I have not wondered that myself, all these long years? And yet, though my sorrow is as great as the deepest ocean, as vast as the darkest expanse of sky on a moonless night, I have never been able to discover where he is, or if he is even still alive. You have come a long way, King Arthur, but I cannot help you. You may as well ask the blackbird where the boy is hidden!" she added with a sad, helpless wave of her hand.

King Arthur, too determined to give up, went and did just that. He and his knights searched out the Blackbird, an old creature who had long guarded the gateway into other realms on the edge of dawn. "Blackbird," Arthur called, "We are looking for Mabon, son of Modron, who was stolen from his mother's side three nights after his birth. Do you know where he may be hidden?"

The Blackbird peered down at Arthur and his knights with quick, obsidian eyes. "I am old, as you well know," he said at last. "You see this dusty spot here where I sit? When I first was born, there used to stand here a smith's anvil, the biggest you might ever see, made of the hardest iron. Yet no hammer ever touched this anvil, except that I pecked at it with my beak gently every day. Now, nothing is left of it but this dust beneath my feet. That," said the Blackbird, stirring the dust with his wings, "is how old I am. And yet I have never seen nor heard of Mabon, son of Modron.

"But," the Blackbird continued, "I know of one who is even older than I am, and I will take you to him."

Arthur and his knights thanked the Blackbird for his kindness, and followed his lead. He soon led them to the bright Stag of the forest, whose old coat glistened as with midday sunlight. "Stag," called Arthur, "We are looking for Mabon, son of Modron, who was stolen from his mother's side three nights after his birth. Do you know where he may be hidden?"

The Stag lowered his huge, antlered head and gazed at Arthur and his knights with ancient amber eyes. "I am old, as you well know," he said at last. "You see this massive oak tree beneath which we stand? When I was first born, this oak tree was barely a sapling sprung up from its acorn, and yet now it is the biggest tree in the forest, thick with years of growth, its heavy limbs stretching wide in all directions, and the prongs of my own antlers number just as many as its branches. That," said the Stag, swinging his head with pride, "is how old I am. And yet I have never seen nor heard of Mabon, son of Modron.

"But," the Stag continued, "I know of one who is even older than I am, and I will take you to her."

Arthur and his knights thanked the Stag for his kindness, and followed his lead. He soon led them to the Owl, whose rippling, moonshine eyes had watched the comings and goings of night for unknown ages and now looked on King Arthur with placid kindness. "Owl," called Arthur, "We are looking for Mabon, son of Modron, who was stolen from his mother's side three nights after his birth. Do you know where he may be hidden?"

The Owl adjusted her silent wings and turned her haunted, blossomy face towards Arthur and his knights. "I am old, as you well know," she said at last. "You see this ancient forested valley in which we stand? When I first was born, there stood a forest here even older and more wild than this one, and I watched as the people of the land moved in and cut it to the ground; yet as the people slowly abandoned the land for more fertile soil, another forest grew up in its place and that, too, became wild and strange with age, until again the tillers of soil moved through slashing and ripping up the roots from the earth, and the forest withered and disappeared and the valley became like an empty bowl beneath the sky. But the lives of people are passing, so easily will they go to war against each other, so quickly do they drain the sacred land dry—and so again human beings left this valley to the gods of wild places, and this is the third ancient forest I have watched grow to wilderness here. That," said the Owl, her low eyes shimmering like deep pools, "is how old I am. And yet I have never seen nor heard of Mabon, son of Modron."

"BUT!" the boy chimes in loudly from his upper bunk, and I laugh. "That's right!" I say, "I see you're catching on..."

"But," the Owl told Arthur, "I know of one who is even older than I am, and I will take you to him."

Arthur and his knights thanked the Owl for her kindness, and followed her lead. She soon led them to the noble Eagle, who held his head aloft and flourished a beak and talons so sharp and true they might slice the air itself in two. "Eagle," called Arthur, "We are looking for Mabon, son of Modron, who was stolen from his mother's side three nights after his birth. Do you know where he may be hidden?"

The Eagle regally preened a few stray pinfeathers into place and blinked at Arthur and his knights with benevolent, piercing eyes. "I am old, as you well know," he said at last. "You see this tiny rock I clutch between my talons? When I first was born, there stood here a mighty standing stone, so lofty that it towered above every mountain, and I could sit upon it every night and lift my head to strike my beak against the upper limits of the black sky, and each peck pierced the darkness and became a star. And yet the stars you see now are numerous, beyond counting, and I made every one; and the standing stone that thrust up from the earth met wind and rain, the elements of air and water, and together the three joined in a dance that wore the stone away, until now all that remains is this mere pebble at my feet. That," said the Eagle, clacking his beak that had made the stars themselves, "is how old I am. And yet I have never seen nor heard of Mabon, son of Modron."

The children moan in sympathetic exasperation, and I hush them and quickly return to the story, riding the energy of their anticipation, pulling their attention taut as a bowstring.

By now, as you can imagine, King Arthur was beginning to despair that he would ever find Mabon, the Great Son of Modron, to help him hunt the wild, terrible boar. His face was haggard with searching, his eyes sunk deep from sleepless nights and long journeying to these ever more ancient beings, none of whom seemed able to help him. His knights, though loyal and trusting in their king, were beginning to tire as well, and being a good king to his people and friend to his companions, Arthur knew he must soon call off the search for their sake if not his own.

The Eagle, whose keen mind could read the fatigue and stress in Arthur's expression, had sympathy for the weary king. "But let me tell you a story," he said to Arthur. "This story begins: Once, a long time ago when the world was new.... There was a great famine in the land. I was still young then, and had my fair share of suffering and hunger. One day, I had flown far from my usual hunting spots in search of something to eat, when I spotted far below me, in a small pool shaded by nine hazel trees, the quick shimmer of a fish in the water. Without second thought, I dove! I clenched onto the fish with both feet, sinking my talons deep determined to catch the thing, for if I didn't I would surely starve before nightfall. But the fish was blessed with an almost monstrous strength, and it dragged me under, down and down into the spiraling, swirling darkness of the pool. If I had not finally relinquished the thought of my own hunger gnawing within me and released my quarry, I would have drowned.

"This creature, I learned later, was the ancient Salmon of Wisdom, even older than I, who had lived for ages upon ages in the sacred pool, feeding on the hazelnuts which fell into the pool from the surrounding grove. Hazelnuts, they say, are food for the gods, and I would not be surprised if the Wise Salmon herself were a goddess dwelling in that strange and mysterious place. A mere king like myself," said the Eagle, "could never presume to capture a goddess against her will! But let me tell you, Arthur—if the Salmon of Wisdom still dwells within that pool, I can take you to her. Although all the oldest creatures of the land could not tell you where to find Mabon, son of Modron, certainly she will know and she will help! And if she cannot, then your quest truly is beyond all hope."

And so, with new hope and fresh energy, Arthur led his knights with the Eagle as their guide far across the land, over gentle green downs and through dark twisting woods, until at last they came to the sacred pool in the hazel grove. Exhausted, King Arthur knelt by the side of the pool. Its surface moved in subtle wavelets from where a small stream fed into the pond, weaving and trickling between the roots of the trees. It seemed to Arthur, as he looked upon the water, that there in the reflection of shading branches he could see the ancient, sparkling eyes of a goddess smiling at him—then they were gone! In a flash, the silver body of a fish flickered by, and Arthur called out, "Salmon of Wisdom! We have come a long way to seek your help. We have spoken to the Blackbird, and the Stag, and the Owl, and the Eagle, and of all these ancient beings, none could lead us to what we seek. We are looking for Mabon, son of Modron, who was stolen from his mother's side three nights after his birth. Do you know where he may be hidden?"

From the depths of the pool there came a lovely, watery voice, barely distinguishable from the bubbling of the stream. "And did you ask his mother?"

"Well, yes!" Arthur said, "But she said she did not know!"

Sad laughter bubbled up from the glimmering darkness. "Modron's sorrow over the loss of her son is as great as an ocean, and as obscure," said the Salmon, "but the ocean is my home, and I know the secrets of its depths as I know my own. Every year I return to this pool and follow the stream far into the hills of this country, all the way to spring in the courtyard of the Castle of Light. And I tell you, Arthur, that for many years now I have heard the weeping and sorrow of one lost and alone when I have come there."

"Do you think, Wise Salmon, that this sorrowing sound may be of the Great Son?"

"I have no doubt," said the Salmon firmly. "And I will take you to him. You may ride upon my back as I swim—but, I can only carry two. So you must come alone, Arthur, so that when you have freed the son from his captivity you may both ride back together."

So King Arthur took leave of his knights, who saw their king off with a mixture of courage and trepidation, and he clambered aboard the long, slippery back of the Salmon of Wisdom. Quick as light glinting over the water, the Salmon swam with Arthur astride her, and it seemed the countryside sped along on either side of them with a magical speed so that in almost no time at all they were approaching the place where the stream began its journey, the spring by the great Castle of Light.

Now the Castle of Light was strangely named, for in fact it was a dark and forbidding place, overgrown and half-rotted and ruined from long neglect. As the Salmon of Wisdom drew closer to the fortress, Arthur too could hear the weeping and sorrowing sounds echoing from within its mossy stone walls. Leaping from the Salmon's back, he charged into the dim courtyard of the castle and battered the hilt of his sword against the inner door. But the door was old and spongy with rot and gave way before him, and he thrust it open, following the sobbing noises down and down into the dripping dungeons of the Castle. There, at last, he came upon the hunched, weeping figure of a man huddled in a corner. At the noise, the man looked up, and though his eyes were red from crying, his face was radiant and youthful beneath the grimy streaks of tears.

"You there," Arthur said, with the command of a king in his tone, "Are you Mabon, the Great Son of the Great Mother, Modron?"

The young man sniffled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, straightening up. "For sure I am, sir, and I've been locked in this dreadful dungeon for ages upon ages."

"Well," said Arthur, "the doors have rotted and the walls have crumbled, and I have need of a great huntsman to stalk the wild, terrible boar called Twrch Trwyth. So I have come to set you free. Will you come?"

"Of course!" Mabon said, and followed Arthur swiftly from the black of the dungeons up into the wan sunlight above. Together they mounted the Salmon of Wisdom, who looked on the young man with secret gentleness and did not strive to keep the King and his huntsman dry on their return journey home. Waters from the stream splashed and danced against their sides as the Salmon leapt and plunged, her glistening body writhing with the joy of dodging rocks and limbs, and soon all the dirt and strife of years in the dark had washed from Mabon's face and his whole being seemed to shine, strong and healthy again.

And this was how he came to his mother, Modron—bright and gleaming, accompanied by the majesty of Arthur and all his brave knights following behind—and she swept him up in an embrace of gratitude and happiness that was greater than the ocean, greater even than the sunlight and the sun itself. Then she released him, with a smile and one last thankful kiss, and gestured that he could go, with her blessing, to help Arthur hunt his ugly boar.

For, it turns out, he was indeed the greatest huntsman in all the land, and he made a swift end to the huge boar that had eluded so many before him. Then, there was a great feast and celebration afterwards, which I assume Modron and Mabon both attended with pleasure, seated honorably at the King's own table. And that is as good a place as any for the story to end.

The children all begin asking questions at once: "Who was it who stole Mabon in the first place?" "How could he be good at hunting when he was locked up since he was a baby?" "Why did it take so long for them to find the Salmon, when she knew all along?" "Where did you hear that story, did you read it in a book?" the oldest asks. And the boy, perched on the edge of his bunk, asks, "Why did Arthur need to hunt the boar?"

"Why did Arthur need to hunt the boar?" I repeat, with a wink. "Well, that's a whole different story, for another time!"

Three Humans Walk into a Bar: Language, Labels & Naming Spirit

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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.

Pagan Values: Relating to the Wild

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If you thought my last post ended kind of abruptly, you're right! Plugging away at my discussion of pacifism, defining ideas like violence and destruction in order to talk about Just War theory and environmentalism, I hardly noticed how long and how far afield I'd gone until the clock chimed eight (metaphorically, anyway). It was time to call it a night, and leave the rest for another day. For today, actually.

When I last wrote, I'd set out to find a workable definition of "violence" that would give us some insight into the fundamental principles of pacifism and how they're reflected in the modern environmentalist movement. Opponents of pacifism would like to blur the distinction between destruction and violence and back advocates of creative nonviolence into a corner defending the straw-man view that we can somehow avoid all forms of destruction. Of course we can't, nor would we want to! But luckily, we've seen that this unsubtle approach fails to address how we actually experience the world around us. When we define violence as the rejection, denial or diminishment of the unique and meaningful individuality of being, distinct from destruction as a natural and inevitable aspect of the manifest world, we see that we can strive to avoid violence, against others and against ourselves. Cultivating honorable, reverent relationships and recognizing the utter uniqueness of all beings as meaningfully interconnected is something that we most certainly can accomplish, right here, right now. It also transforms the way we relate to the natural world, and challenges us to reconsider the initial myth of an inherently violent "human nature" at war with each other and its surroundings.

Violence Without Spirit

Our contemporary Western culture suffers from a kind of schizophrenia or sociopathy when it comes to our relationship with the natural world. Exceedingly, almost irrationally anthropocentric, we have come to view almost any check to human well-being, longevity and prolificacy as a kind of malicious rejection of our assumed right to thrive. Under a definition that mistakes all forms of destruction as forms of violence, human beings not only act violently against the wheat field, the deer and the tree; nature itself acts violently against us. The natural force and power of storms and quakes, the inhospitable landscapes of desert, jungle and tundra, even the annual withering and hibernation of winter, all of these become not merely forces of destruction with which we strive, but ways in which the natural world acts out violently. Against this violence, we assert our right to survive, aspiring to tame and control for the benefit of our species.

But reducing destruction and violence to synonyms has another effect: it confuses our perception of indwelling spirit, allowing us to ignore nature as animate and full of divinity whenever it suits us. Only today, when we have employed our knowledge of physics, chemistry, biology and other sciences to subjugate vast realms of the physical world to our needs and desires do we feel secure enough to set aside protected lands and national parks for recreation and aesthetic pleasure. In these places set-apart and roped off, we can open ourselves up to the sacredness of the natural world, we can perceive nature as something with which we might enter into relationship in a meaningful way. But outside of these designated spaces, we slip back into an attitude that treats the natural world as spiritless and empty, something which we can control and use for our own purposes.

The wild tiger is merely an amoral predator mindlessly acting on its base instinct; it can be hunted down, or protected, according to our current sentimentality. When a tiger attacks within the "safe space" of a zoo, however, we perceive it as a being capable, at least in some truncated way, of relationship and so we seek to "punish" it, as though killing the creature might serve as a lesson for other tigers or obtain justice for the victim of the attack. Likewise, we tend to react with horror to those who suggest floods and earthquakes are vengeful acts of an angry god, labeling such views superstitious and ignorant. Yet we respond with apathy or even reluctant acceptance to the pervasive ecological destruction happening around us on a daily basis. We step in to prevent it most passionately only when it mars our "national treasures" or favorite recreational spots. In this way we foster a disconnect between our perception of "wild" nature as senseless and dangerous, and "tame" nature as charming, revitalizing, and sentient only to the extent that it is also relatively safe.

As with many other attitudes of modern culture, we project these assumptions back in time onto societies quite different from our own, and draw odd conclusions. We quite rightly recognize that for most of humanity's existence, the wildness and wilderness of the natural world was a very real and constant danger. Yet we fail to grasp how our ancestors were able to relate to the wild as sentient and radiant with immanent divinity without reducing its force or controlling its power. Instead we assume that ancient peoples, surrounded as they were with danger and challenge, were themselves more prone to violence and less capable, in a milieu of fear and hardship, of developing the mindfulness necessary for peaceful, "civilized" living. The pacifist sees violence as "mindless" because it involves the willful forfeit of mindful choice to respect and honor unique Spirit in all beings. But a mistaken view of human nature as inherently violent attributes that same mindlessness to the complete absence of our ability to choose. The closer we come to nature, in other words (either by looking back in history to when our ancestors lived entrenched in it, or by sloughing off the social assumptions and restrictions that keep us civilized and safe), the closer we come to our own inner mindlessness. When we leave the confines of the zoo, we once again become ruthless predators. Like the natural world itself, we are wild, dangerous and a bit senseless at our core. At our very heart beneath the layers of civilizing influence, implies this view, we lack the capacity to make mindful choices, to relate "face-to-face" with other beings.

Old Stories of the Hunt

As a pacifist who believes that people are not only capable of peaceful, reverent relationship with one another but supremely and deeply suited to such relationship, I don't accept the view that our core is empty of empathy and spirit. Rather, it seems to me that the closer we come to nature--our own and that of the manifest world in which we live--the more capable we become of real connection and understanding. I suspect that our ancestors, living in more intimate contact with wildness and wilderness on a daily basis, were probably less violent than we believe them to be, perhaps even less violent than we ourselves are today. Our modern tendency to sanitize and depersonalize violence with technologies that also allow us to commit horrific acts on a massive scale can fool us into believing we live safe and peaceful lives, but this illusion only lasts as long as we can maintain our ignorance of the real consequences of violence and war.

Among ancient tribal cultures, on the other hand, life-threatening wildness and bodily conflict and destruction were always lurking at the edges of ordinary awareness. Because of this, ancient peoples learned to build relationships of honor and appreciation with the potentially destructive forces and powers of the wilderness, both outside and within themselves. Their stories and myths can show us even today a way of relating to the wild with reverence instead of fear, affirming a mindful relationship with Spirit rather than a senseless battle of instincts. These stories speak to us from a time when human beings remembered, recognized and imagined our roots as deeply entwined in the natural world, when we had only just come into our power as a species capable of cleverness and creativity. A time when we still appreciated these traits in ourselves as an aspect of our own unique individuality within an expansive and inclusive world, and not as qualities that set us apart from and above the world.

From the Cheyenne, for instance, comes the myth of the Great Race, a contest among all creatures to determine who would eat whom. The story goes that long ago, the buffalos, who were huge and strong, used to eat people instead of the other way around. But the people cried out that this was unfair, and so the buffalo proposed there be a race between the four-legged and the two-legged animals to decide the proper relationship among them. The buffalo chose the strongest and fastest of their kind to contend. The people, meanwhile, enlisted the help of the birds of the air who, although only two-legged like the people, outstripped the buffalo on their swift wings. From then on, people hunted buffalo for food, though they would not consume the beard of the buffalo because it was a reminder that once they had been the prey.

Among the Blackfoot, there is another legend about the hunting of buffalo. In this story, no one could induce the buffalo to fall to their deaths over the edge of a cliff, and so the people were slowly starving and wasting away. In the kind of desperation that gives way to jest, one young woman promised that she would marry one of the buffalo, if only they would jump; and soon they were running and tumbling down the cliff, while a great bull, master of the buffalo, came to claim her hand in marriage. The girl's father, outraged and afraid, went on a journey to rescue her and bring her back to her family, but he was soon discovered and trampled to death by the herd. As the girl mourned, the bull pointed out that such was the sadness of the buffalo, too, when they watched their relatives plunge to their deaths in order to feed the people. "But I will pity you," said the bull, "and make you a deal. If you can bring your father back to life, I will let you go, so that you may return to your family." And so the girl found a shard of bone from her father's shattered remains and sang a secret song that restored her father to life. The bull honored his agreement, but said, "Because you have shown that your people have a holy power capable of bringing the dead to life again, we will show you our song and dance. You must remember this dance, so that even though you hunt us and eat us, you will afterwards restore us to life again." This is the story the Blackfoot tell about how the Buffalo Dance began, with its priests dressed in buffalo robes and wearing bulls' heads shuffling along and singing the continuation of life for the massive beasts.

In both these stories, we see a new relationship with the natural world, one that respects its wildness and potential danger without rejecting meaningful relationship. The people who told these stories were buffalo hunters, in relationship with the animal not as domestic stock but as great, untamed creatures perfectly capable, through death or deprivation, of hurting the people who depended on them. It would be easy to say that these legends simply serve, like our modern justifications, to excuse violence as inherent or necessary. From the perspective of Just War theory*, the hunting of animals for food can be considered a form of "just" violence. The needs of the people and the practical benefits of killing outweigh whatever negative consequences the people might suffer, as well as the needs or desires (including the desire to live) that the animals being hunted might have. When an animal has the power and potential to be dangerous and even life-threatening to a human being, the case seems even more obvious; after all, there is no reasoning or other "peaceful" means of reconciling with a senseless animal. Such stories of contest and exchange might amuse or reassure us, but for the most part they're just superstition, overlaying the reality of pragmatic survival.

But what if instead we take these ancient myths at face-value? In Just War theory, the enemy or opponent does not consent to his own destruction, but at the heart of these myths is the awareness of nature, as well as people, as capable of consent and choice. The buffalo himself takes initiative, proposing conditions of equal exchange and just, honorable relationship with human beings. He consents to the terms of the great race or the marriage, accepts the consequences and even, in both stories, demonstrates empathy with human suffering. In the Blackfoot legend, especially, through intermarriage human beings and buffalo come into more intimate understanding, recognizing their common "holy power" to create new life through music and ritual. These stories are not a rejection of "face-to-face" relationship, but a celebration of it. Rather than a prize wrestled from the flesh of unwilling prey, the survival and fruitful life of human beings becomes a gift, in which nature gives of itself by its own consent with the understanding that we, too, will give of ourselves in return. And so, even though the end result is the same (the people still hunt and kill the buffalo in order to survive), a potential act of violence is transformed into an act of mutual empowerment and renewal.

This transformation is what practical pacifism can help us to realize. It puts us in touch with our awareness of relationship, and where there is relationship there is the possibility of generous giving and of gratitude, even in the most difficult, dangerous or destructive circumstances. To hunt a species to extinction dishonors the gift of life that creature has given us, but it also means we rob ourselves of that gift. When we diminish others, we also diminish ourselves. But when we see ourselves as connected to and concerned with the prosperity and protection of others at our most fundamental level, we become more care-full in how we act and react, how we live in and respond to the world around us. We can longer turn a deaf ear or blind eye to others; we learn to listen to them closely, to reach out to them in connection and communication, so that we might know what gifts they offer and how best to honor those gifts in return. At its simplest, pacifism asks us to care for other beings and preserve them from the callousness and diminishment of violence. For when we empower and appreciate others, when we recognize in others the capacity for choice and consensual relationship, we also empower and elevate ourselves and honor our own potential.




*To be fair, Just War theory is rarely if ever actually applied to anything other than literal warfare among humans; however, its implications about the nature of violence and our relationship with potentially destructive forces can be more widely considered and applied.