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REBLOG – Oppression doesn’t go both ways
Oppression Doesn’t Go Both Ways
By Phoenix Calida
The problem with reverse -isms (racism, sexism, etc) is that they imply everyone is starting from an equal place. Of course, members of marginalized groups can be bigoted or prejudiced. But marginalized groups don’t have the same structural ability to behave oppressively.
Saying “racism goes both ways” or “women can be sexist too” etc. etc. actively ignores existing power dynamics. It also leads to victim blaming because structural oppression should be able to be overcome *if* the victims are actually societal equals to the person being an asshole.
If racism was truly a mutual 2 way thing, there would be equal incidents of oppression. The consequences of bigotry would go both ways.
Eleven.
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The Pagan Experience Blog Project; Feb. wk 1
WK 1- Feb. 2- Humanity– How do you define “humanity”? What is your contribution to the collective space of humanity? How does your spiritual path support this definition and contributions?
I define humanity as all of the humans, collectively, and all of the sparks of spirit within the humans, that create “us as a whole” in theory and in practice. In this way I can become discouraged with “the humans”, but still hold humanity with hope. I see “we as a whole” with potential for great good and love. I see we as individuals humans sometimes achieving that and other times falling so far short I grieve deeply. Holding both of these perspectives allows me to not fall into despair while keeping grounded in the reality.
My contribution? A drop in an ocean. Important to the drops around it, I suppose, and necessary to the whole in a way, but easily removed without notice.
My path allows this to be so without resentment, by acknowledging the necessity of all the humans to create humanity as a whole, while not being filled with so much ego that I find myself to be the only, or one of the few important ones. So, the rituals, practices, and collective non-hierarchal nature of my path keep the tendency of humans to feel self-important and indispensable in check. It allows space for everyone’s experience, while not diminishing one’s own. My path also has ideas of self responsibility around it that hold folks accountable for their actions while also encouraging people to be free to call someone on their behaviour if they are being inauthentic or damaging to those around them. This is a form of community (humanity as community) Love that may be hard to grasp for those not walking this path. Sometimes it is hard even for those that are. And my words may not be explaining it well since many books have been written addressing this topic and I am writing a blog post. Ah well, this is as coherent as I can be this Monday morning.
Brigid (silent) Poetry Slam, 2015, 10th annual
The Gifts (Hail Brigid)
When I sit near Your well,
I do not sit for stillness,
But for the ever swirling oeuvre
that rises, and mists my dreams
into realities woven,
Over and through my world and
The In-between world,
Over and through the In-between world
and the world that waits
for creation to catch up.
~Pamela V Jones (Boneweaver) ©Feb. 1, 2015
This is my 6th year contributing to the Silent Poetry Festival which has been going on since 2006, and has become a wonderful, international event, with people posting poems in honor of Brigid on their blogs, Facebook, Twitters, Tumblrs, and other such devices.
The Pagan Experience, blog project, wk 4, alphabet letters
Prompt from The Pagan Experience: Any writing for the letters A or B– I am keeping this familiar format on week 4 of each month for those who have joined me from the Pagan Blog Project.
My word is assumptions. (No, I’m not going to pull out the old ass-u-me thing because I think that is bogus based on how the human brain works when trying to sort things quickly.) Assumptions that are not checked against reality, or no effort is put forth to see if the assumption is correct or incorrect, that is the thorn in my lovely aching side. Lazy assumptions, because it’s easier than wrangling difficult or new-to-you concepts. I’ve had it with all of them.
Pagans who’ve glommed on to the New Age movement are especially adept at assumptions of “how people should behave” and at what empathy, compassion, kindness, and love look like. They create tiny boxes. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, those boxes hold all the things that are familiar to them and all the things that are exact replicas of how they do those things.
This is the easy way out of truly getting to know the variety that makes up humanity. It is a way of avoiding the difficult work of learning nuances and shades of presentation by dismissing anything and anyone that doesn’t fit neatly into your box. All done while claiming to be Super Spiritual™ themselves and Doing the Hard Work™.
Hey there box person. You missed a step.
Maybe even several steps.
So this is happening! Join me!! On Sale to boot! (sale ends Saturday)
At the Crossroads: Finding Your Purpose… is HERE!
by Chief Luisah Teish
KNOWING YOUR PURPOSE IS THE KEY TO ADDRESSING OPPRESSION AND ACHIEVING COLLECTIVE LIBERATION.
Political, cultural and spiritual liberation were never meant to be separate: they are extensions of each other — and they were always treated as such in the most radical of social justice movements.
Knowing who we are, and what we need to do — with deep clarity of purpose — is the most dangerous thing for systems of oppression. With purpose, we cannot be used or enslaved.
We want to grow our personal and collective power exponentially by tapping into the infinite wells of the spirit, so we put together this offering…
….
You’ll have to hit up the web site for the details, but this looks fabulous. I took the free Spirit of Activism class 2 weeks ago. I am SO excited!
LINK
The Pagan Experience blog project, wk 3, Deity and the Divine – Art for the Gods
Deity and the Divine– This will be the third week’s topic every month in this project so there will be ample time to cover all of the patrons in various fashions. This one, though, goes out to Yemaya and Poseidon. I embarked on a mixed media art piece a bit over a year ago and completed it recently. It is named _At the Beach_ and it represents my core deep love of the sea and it is also a devotional piece to my sea Deities.
You’d think with that kind of time it would look a lot more full. Ha! No. There was a large spiking learning curve involved. I put on and removed more things than it ended up having on it. Attaching heavy items to muslin, painting on muslin (which originally was pastels and fixative – pro tip, that doesn’t work on muslin), fishing line and thread, and making and ditching various forms of netting that eventually were ditched for fishing net actually made for the purpose.
I learned after the first six months where I pulled 10’s of things back off it to add a wee piece, look at it, stand back to see the whole, and then walk away for a day or so to see if I was still keen on it. This added bunches of time. As did walking away from it completely in a fit of frustration last summer and not returning to it until this past Autumn.
It is about 2 yards of fabric, measuring 43″ across and 33″ high, doubled and tripled in places. It has glass beads, buttons, hand sewn fabric pieces, an abundance of yarn, sequins, seashells that I collected at the beach, a sand dollar a friend collected from her West Coast beach, gifted shells from another friend, sand from my favourite beach in Delaware, a few beads gifted to me at my Feri initiation, along with the painted water. I adore it. And I adore it in spite of others likely looking at it and going, “buh?” It fills my heart with such Joy!
The Pagan Experience blog project – week 2 – spiritual practice
Wk 2- Jan. 12- Personal Practice– Share your favorite spiritual/magickal practices.
I’m going to share one of my current favourites which happens to be the new one implemented this year and lines up with my intention mentioned in the first project post. I am chanting or singing each morning. I wrote a chant that uses words from the flower prayer by Victor Anderson:
| Who is the flower above me? And what is the work of this god? I would know myself in all my parts. |
I quite like it, but I have switched to another because I am going to Winter Witchcamp in February. I want to be fully present in their community and I want to prep for that in ways more than packing up my stuff. Since 2006 this camp has opened and closed camp with a prayer bead set that they crafted and wrote words for as a community. It is long. I have it printed out. It takes me about 15 minutes to do it. I read the the parts and sing the repeating 3 lines that are like a refrain. Some days I sing parts that I might speak in addition to the refrain, but I like how the spoken word flows into singing the repeating three lines. This sets the tone for my day of doing something I love doing that lightens me (fulfilling the 2015 intention) and it connects me to the earth and the Divine with myself as the connector.
The whole prayer in pdf format can be found here.
The Pagan Experience blog project – week 1 – intentions for 2015
I am joining (a bit late) and we’ll see how it goes, yes? A prompt is offered for the beginning of each week and you write a post about the prompt. My first couple of posts will be decidedly short as I catch up, and the subjects don’t really need a lot of words, even for me.
WK 1- Jan. 5- Resolutions– What are your intentions for this new year? How will you find the resolve to bring them into your manifest life?
My intentions are to remain as present and conscious as possible to what I am filling my time and therefore myself with. I want to devote the extra time I have to things that make me lighter instead of heavier. Things that will bring Joy and not feel like a burden. I will have a morning practice that I do after coffee, but before the internet time suck happens. I will make sure of this by setting a timer that will remind me. That practice may change shape over time and more might be added, but the first one must be something that lightens my spirit.
LEAN IN TO JOY with BONEWEAVER 