Recently I’ve been purging the heaps of things I’ve acquired over the decades as an uncommon lack of sentimental attachment has engulfed me. It’s a bit unnerving to watch myself unceremoniously pitch items I felt I had to keep just 6 months ago.
Con’t at: http://paganbloggers.com/musingsfromthebone/2018/11/03/long-time-no-blog-a-personal-observation/
June 28, 2018
Years back there was a rumbling on the Internet in regards to states passing draconian abortion laws. People were organizing, in the background and out of the public eye, a network to help women travel to a different state to get an abortion when their state closed so many clinics few could use them, or a new state law prohibited that needed medical care.
Con’t. at link
Trading morsels of comfort for other folks’ lives.
Already, through shared articles, I see folks taking wee sighs of relief. I see people saying, “OK, maybe it’s not as bad as we think.” YES IT IS. Nothing has changed. Nothing!
Come on, my fellow white citizens – Don’t let yourself be lulled into ease, into “oh, hey, I can live with that.” Don’t slip back into your comfortable white supremacist thinking. Sure, it’s what you know – and it’s just as wrong today as it was yesterday. Don’t lose yourself in it again.
The articles being shared talk about the President-elect’s campaign promises that won’t come to pass – he won’t overturn the ACA, he can’t really build a wall, etc. What were you thinking? That he could build that wall? Do you know the size of the border? Do you know what’s at stake for those in power if it happened? The ACA, have you forgotten that Congresspeople only care about being re-elected and most citizens are for the ACA? They may want changes to the ACA, but they don’t want it repealed into the ether. How long have you been watching Washington?
Broken promises aren’t new. Why are you relieved that campaign promises can’t be kept? Did you really believe all the things said to get your vote were doable? If so, you need to do a Google search on the history of winners’ promises coming to fruition by their own hand.
It wasn’t the promises that got people to vote, it was the mindset that posited those things, the psyche that knew one could say any outrageous thing, any promise could be made, and if those promises said underneath that they’d uphold the old order, the status quo, people would gobble that up and vote.
Now is not the time to be relieved some campaign promises can’t be kept – this is not news. This is one more tool to invite complacency, to let you know your life (your cis, het, white, able-bodied life) can stay mostly as is, while everyone else (again, again) has boots on their throats.
Dear Gods, don’t be complacent. White supremacy is still here. It never left – not during the last 8 years, not during the last hundreds or years. Don’t allow your edge to be smoothed away by articles that want you to go back to being silent, ineffective, and a cog in the system.
Please, please – stop reading and sharing those articles. Don’t let relief overtake your new vigor to fight the system. Stoke that flame of resistance! It is tiny, extinguishable by a thimbleful of water -do not allow it! Stoke those flames of change!
It is the time to RISE, not sit. To keep our eyes open, to shout until we can no more, to stand with the disenfranchised and the marginalized. It is time to put our mouths, money, and bodies between the way it has always been and the world we want it to be! RESIST!
One of the reasons many people turn to walk a different spiritual path than Christianity is because they balk at the way its tenets can be presented as the One True Way™, leaving no room for personal conversations with God about how to be of service to Them.
Unfortunately, the mindset that allows One True Way™ thinking doesn’t always get left behind with the religion. At first, and for awhile, it is pushed to the edges of the mind, but then time rolls on and the freedom to embrace Many Ways tarnishes a bit. More than one right way means that my voice cannot be always right, and in fact, sometimes my voice is wrong when applied to others. It is at this time that I turn and embrace more tightly the belief that there is more than one right way to do things, to approach things, and to hear the Gods.
It feels like bright and obvious hubris on my part to suddenly turn around and insist that all messages I receive from Them are applicable to all the humans. It’s one reason I chose the path I am on, to allow for variance, and differing thoughts, and loving supportive discourse interspersed with spirited dissent.
One True Way™ thinking is gaining voice in Pagan places. It is disconcerting and disappointing, but overall, I guess it is to be expected. In the past number of years it has become more popular to proclaim how to be a proper polytheist, why there is or is not any hard or soft polytheism, why and how to be a heathen, why and how to be Feri, who does Reclaiming better — the stench is all around and the only thing it can accomplish is to divide and divide some more. To pretend at “my beliefs are valid for me, not necessarily for you” instead of living it and to not take to heart “We are all our own spiritual authority” is the height of self-important arrogance and one of the reasons many left their childhood religion behind. It is one of the reasons I left mine behind.
That last one, the spiritual authority belongs to you one? You either live it or you don’t. There isn’t an in-between for when I want to Be Right and then move back into it when the subject matter isn’t really important to me. In my path we all get to converse with the Gods. Their messages to us are our own. While they may be applicable across the board, usually they are applicable to a much smaller group than everyone on earth.
Gods are multi-issue beings, same as humans are. They have many thoughts and a range of issues they wish the humans would pay attention to and address. Who They tell what varies greatly, and one message isn’t more important or more correct than the others. Kudos to you (and me) for speaking with Deity, but un-kudos to you (or me) for thinking we have the one true connection. That is anti-freedom of religious process and wholly opposite the idea of folks being their own spiritual authority.
If Moses wasn’t a necessary piece for the Christian God to have his message of ten delivered to the whole world, but rather one messenger to reach a particular group of people, then I’m pretty certain none of my Gods need a Moses to speak to all humans. Be a Moses to your small group, but accept there are other Moses’ and other messages being delivered to others.
One doesn’t get to allow others their own spiritual authority only when they agree, and insist on one true way compliance when they disagree. Well, one does get to do that, free will and all, but others get to have thoughts about you and me because of it.
We have a lot of covert racism where I live. Not because I live in the the worst city ever, but because racism is everywhere. We have a lot of overt racism, too – even by long time TV anchors – who exhibit blatant racist thinking and benevolent racist thinking.
The above linked news story has created a lot of conversation in social media. On FB people are coming out of the woodwork to defend or rail against the TV anchor. Many of the defenders are trying to be aware and clued in, and still end up being wrong, deluded, and/or engaging in racist thinking. This is particularly evident when they take up along geographical lines.
So many want to believe that their area of choice to live, or their birth city, or their adopted city is so much better than [where they used to live/everywhere else]. And you know what? Your favourite place isn’t spared from being racist because it exists within a country that has systemic racism. You are not spared from being racist even if you’re an aware, clued in white person. You can mitigate the effects, you can consciously choose appropriate words and actions, but we live in a racist society, built on white supremacy, and nobody gets a pass.
You see folks from the North and South making generalizations about those who live on the other side of the Mason-Dixon line. Those generalizations are mostly unfavourable to the other. We love to engage in othering people we perceive as lesser than. And we’re all a bunch of deluded liars because white privilege and racism are institutionalized. I live in the North – being on “the right side of the Civil War” was a big thing in elementary school. The North was on the winning side, not morally superior side. In the South they taught it was only about state’s rights and who doesn’t want that in a Republic? The South was on the losing side, not the indignantly altruistic side. As if one side was more or less than racist than the other. Not so, as evidenced by the prevalence of racism today. Divisive stone throwing hurts the cause of dismantling the system of racism. It is a distraction, used to either center the assumed “good alliness” of a city or region over those other people who are racist, or to derail the conversation entirely. Again racism is everywhere. You cannot escape, only mitigate.
Overt versus covert racism, which is better? The obvious answer is neither, but folks who engage in the covert variety like to think they are less racist. Overt racism such as using racial and ethnic slurs and crossing the street when you see a brown or black person walking toward you is pretty easy to spot. Covert racism, where you don’t use use the slurs because it isn’t polite and you don’t cross the street but you do pull your bag in closer (even if you realize what you’re doing and release your grip) is harder to detect, but it is still rooted in racist thinking. And it isn’t “better racism”, or “less racist”. It is not non-racist behaviour.
Covert racism holds in its grasp the polite racist, too. My dad was the ultimate polite racist, abstaining from using racist and ethnic slurs in conversation. We didn’t “use those words” because it wasn’t polite, not because they weren’t true. In private he certainly believed they were true, even without using the slurs, but he didn’t say them because manners. Manners were the most important thing. And my dad was considered a nice guy, friendly, would help you out of a jam regardless of race, but still he was a racist. Period. He just was. I fight the racist thinking I was raised with. I try to mitigate the effects of the society I live in every day. That doesn’t mean I’ve eradicated it all and can easy-breeze through all of my days. If I ever think that then I’m lying to myself. I’d like for white people to stop lying to themselves about racism.
The difference one sees from city to city and region to region is generally a difference in covert and overt racism. That isn’t to say that some places aren’t better than others. They absolutely are. But in pockets not swaths. And nowhere in this country is it free of racism. Maybe folks could keep that in mind when they get on their geographical high horses. That would be nice.
Our next endeavor is on March 23rd, but since this issue is large and widespread we’ve opted into offering a honey jar pre-working, starting tomorrow, and continuing through the Main Working on the 23rd. (Or continuing as long or as short as you please, or only doing the Main Working on the 23rd, details to come on that piece.)
PLEASE JOIN US AND SPREAD THE WORD!
~*~ Whole Woman’s Health, et al., Petitioners
v.
John Hellerstedt, Commissioner, Texas Department of State Health Services, et al.
***PART ONE***
▶This is a working in two parts, with the goal of maintaining bodily autonomy for women and reasonable access to women’s health care (including abortion, currently legal). Multiple cases concerning women’s access to health and bodily autonomy will be heard in the Supreme Court of the U.S. in March. See the links below for background information.
Interested parties are welcome to participate in both workings, or either part alone, as suits their calling and availability. News source here: http://www.dallasobserver.com/news/what-to-expect-for-texas-upcoming-abortion-case-in-a-post-scalia-court-8035280SCOTUS docket info link: http://www.supremecourt.gov/qp/15-00274qp.pdf Case History: http://www.supremecourt.gov/Search.aspx?FileName=%2Fdocketfiles%2F15-274.htm
▶Part One: Supreme Court Honey Jar, March 1-2, 2016
The focus of this working is on making the best possible case in front of the Supreme Court, and “sweetening” the Justices toward the desired outcome. Therefore, our suggested method is a honey jar.
**Astrology focus: not as key this time as in our last project – but we’re on the clock and can’t wait until every planet is in our corner! If you want to add astrological steam, our best bet is a conjunction of Mercury (communication, winning in court) and Venus (women’s issues) in Aquarius. Those who work planetary correspondences should focus on Mercury and Venus (not Jupiter, although he brings justice, because he’s in retrograde all month).
**Starting the Jar:
Get a jar of honey. The quality isn’t really important, since people do the same kinds of spellwork with corn syrup anyway, so just go with whatever looks right at the store. Take a taste out of it to “activate” it with your energy. Then add your focus items.
**Focus Items:
At minimum, write out “Supreme Court of the United States” on a slip of paper. To connect more directly with the present sitting Justices, write a list of their names and/or print out a picture of them. If you can’t get anything else, this much will be enough to activate the spell.
**If you can add some herbs, here are some particularly good ones to put in:
Solomon’s Seal, for wisdom
Rosemary, for letting women “rule” the decision
Dill, a Mercury herb, particularly good for court cases paired with Coriander
Pennyroyal: associated with both peace in the home and abortion
Galangal/Low John root: sweetening of the tongue for presenting in court
Deer’s tongue: sweetening the tongue
Slippery elm: for ending slander, lies, etc
Juniper: it’s been used both for and against sexual prowess, so “control over one’s own sexual business.” (Also, for those who are interested, this one got a nod from Artemis)
Your own traditions and instincts may lead you to other things. Remember that this jar is about influencing the Justices to give us victory in court.
Once you have filled the jar, close it back up. This in itself will be enough to add to the shared working, but you can also keep adding to it throughout the month by burning candles on top of the jar. Dress candles for winning in court in whatever way is consistent with your practice.
**You can continue this working up to and including the Part Two working. Facebook doesn’t allow an event longer than 2 weeks. Feel free to jump in at any time to support this work!
▶Part Two: SCOTUS hears arguments regarding the HHS Mandate and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, March 23, 2016
See event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/553236968175733/
“Things were different 40 years ago” (when rape was not rape, I guess). My 14 y/o body was raped 40 years ago by a 28 y/o neighbour, but hey – things were different in the 70’s! Statute of limitations is UP!
He wasn’t *all bad*, so what he did doesn’t count. Not “is balanced against the good”, but cannot be spoken of. Once you’re dead the tarnish is unfair. (Ignore that when alive it didn’t count, either, because money and power and patriarchy kept the silence.) 40 years, man, just let it go. He matured. He learned better. Men will be men …. what were you wearing? Did you look older? Are *you* perfect?
(I can assure you I am not perfect. I can also assure you I have never committed sexual assault.)
Either all humans are nuanced, or they are not. Insisting we applaud the shiny while denying the tarnish serves only the perpetrators in this society. But you can’t fight the deity of celebrity. The similar deities of time and memory serve those with power, too. Serving those who historically have had and will continue to hold the power, until we dismantle the patriarchal system.
When someone’s gifts only flourished because we buried their flaws under the bodies of young women, is that balanced? Is that our willing trade off? Apparently our answer is “yes”.
There is no statute of limitations on being victim shamed and blamed. Thank gods we’re post rape culture. I can feel the difference from 40 years ago ….
Sigil: sowilo for the flash of clarity over the bindrune with Godself oil blend on the corners. The bindrune was created by one of my beloveds, Amoret. The cards are The Arrow of Truth, The Priestess of the Silver Star, and The Balance from the Enochian tarot. All other items live on this altar all the time.
This is on Hel’s altar – for fierce bravery, honouring of the living and the dead, and change that feels brutal.
LEAN IN TO JOY with BONEWEAVER 