I’ve been pagan for 25 years.I became pagan because I had an epiphany about how I could be responsible for my own happiness.
I was an angry young pagan for a long time. Christians and Judeo-Christian culture were the roots of all evil. But as I made decisions to move toward a healthier me, I stopped being angry.
Tonight, I stopped at McDonald’s on Colfax not far from my house to grab some dinner on my way to pay my rent. I hate trying to eat in my car. I end up wearing more of my food than I eat, so I tend to dine in if I have time. I was just finishing up when a young woman asked if she could sit with me. I said okay.
Now, while Colfax is described is the most wicked street in America, in my experience there are more religious minded people on that street than any other. This lovely young woman opened the conversation with, “I’ve never done this before, but I felt drawn to come sit with you. Do you believe in God?”
I had to laugh. Not because I was making fun of her, but out of all the people she could have chosen to ask about God, she asked the polytheist. I was nice though and told her I was pagan and had been for 25 years, so I believed in many gods. She then exclaimed, “Wow, that’s longer than I am old!”
We talked about her relationship with her deity of choice and how much more she loved the world and all the things in it now that she was a Christian. She assumed I didn’t have a personal connection to the universe. That’s a common assumption and I let it go by. Then she offered to pray for me and I said okay, because positive energy is positive energy.
I realized while I was talking to this bright, lovely young woman, that our depth of faith was similar. It was only what we had faith in that was different. And I realized all the vestiges of angry had been transformed.
Your mileage will most certainly vary.
A large part of the sex dynamic is intimacy
One of the sad things about intimacy in most our lives is that we cultivate intimacy only when we are having sex or with people we want to have sex with. This transition seems to occur in puberty, when simple hugs and kisses become fraught with sexual tension. This transformation is an important part of growing up in the world but it also has the disadvantage of isolating us from non-sexual affection.
For many of us, it creates a hunger for touch which is not often met in modern society. We all find ways to deal with that hunger. Those methods can be useful or destructive. To be honest, I don’t usually see the useful methods; I am called into help when someone’s methods are or have become destructive. So I spend much time mending, but not much time preventing.
Some friends of mine in the polyamory community have introduced me to the “Cuddle Party” . I’ve been to two of them now and I’m impressed.
I’m impressed because this activity fosters so many positive intimacy skills.
But the most important one, the one that would cut down on my work so much, is the promotion of self-understanding, specifically understanding what kind or level of intimacy I, you, he, she want or need. That piece of self-knowledge goes a long way to creating a useful method to deal with touch hunger.
Your mileage will most certainly vary.
Questions and answers about ancestor work have been at the forefront this month.
Working with your ancestors can be problematic. The irony of my practice is that while I help other people work with their ancestors to gain insight or help with health issues, I work with a very select few of my own ancestors. I rely on my paternal grandmother most often, with occasional contact with my paternal grandfather.
As I have written before, my family tree is full of mentally ill, very abusive, rabidly Christian petty criminals. Living or dead, they are people that I would avoid if I met them on the bus. However, sometimes I have to work with ancestors other than my paternal grandparents. Because they know things I don’t. They have answers to questions that I need. But it’s like a wrestling match with a squid covered in radioactive slime. It’s always a contentious, painful process that exhausts me for days afterward.
I presented at Denver Pagan Pride Day this year. I also attended some other workshops. The best one I attended was “Working with Ancestors with Strider”. A Celtic Reconstructionist, he also works with his ancestors, but his relationship with them, while occasionally painful, is warm and friendly. From his stories, he believes that they are the most responsive to his mundane needs and most supportive of his spiritual journey.
And I had an envy moment. It sounded so…nice.
So I am resolved to work with my ancestors to make the relationships less painful.
Your mileage will most certainly vary.
For the month of October, I’m going to write about topics dealing with sex, death and transformation.
One of my “people” was diagnosed with breast cancer in August. My people are my heart family, the people that have become part of my community. The company we work for sponsored a team for the Komen 5K walk. I joined to be supportive of my people.
I heard amazing and profound stories from survivors and their families on the train back and forth to the walk. One woman was transforming her body image after a double mastectomy. One man was just happy that his daughter was going to live. Several women were glad they were seeing another day. Some people were in tears in remembrance of their loved ones that had passed. Thousands of people, either running, walking, or waving from the sidelines, had the same intent for 4 hours, to eradicate breast cancer.
It was a powerful example of transformation, personal and societal. This is not an event I would have normally attended. I am very uncomfortable in large crowds of people and there were thousands of people out walking this morning. However, despite the huge waves of painful emotion and the physical protests of my arthritic hips and lower back, I am glad I did.
Your mileage will most certainly vary.
As is the style in our United States, conversations about religion, religious values and how that qualifies or disqualifies a candidate for political office is part of the election season.
The People for The American Way has gone to a great deal of trouble to write a coherent informational guide to discussing religion in politics rationally. It’s called 12 Rules for Mixing Religion and Politics. Please read the entire document, it’s amazing.
The points that apply to me in this season are 8, 9, 11 and 12.
8. Political discourse should respect religious pluralism
9. Political figures and the media should not treat religious constituencies as monolithic; political and religious leaders should not claim to speak for an entire religious community on public policy issues.
As pagans, neo-pagans, energy workers, spirit workers, diviners, magicians, counselors, healers, etc., we have diverse religious communities . Despite those human interest pieces around Halloween, most of us are very careful about not using our definition of faith, deity or practice to imply that we speak for every pagan out there. There is always room for improvement, but we usually maintain that all other religions, and the right to practice those religions, is worthy of respect.
The opposition to anti-bullying legislation for GLBTQ children, teens and adults based in conservative Christian belief bothers me. The opposition to a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have a child based in conservative Christian belief bothers me. But I don’t assume that every conservative, Christian, or conservative Christian holds the same view.
11. Religious and political leaders should not “cry wolf” about religious persecution.
12. Religion should not be used as a political club.
It is unfortunately too common during the election season when I have a religious/political discussion and I disagree with something the other person said, the default reaction is to either cry religious persecution or suggest that his/her religion or lack thereof is “better” than mine.
We are very often given pre-packaged “parties” with “party lines” and asked to choose. One of my colleagues noted recently that while she believed in the rights of GLBTQ and women, she felt as though that same party wanted to tax her to death.
While my worldview is based in a certain set of beliefs, it is what I do that matters. That is a key component. If I don’t agree with the practices of a particular politician, I vote against him/her. If I don’t agree with the practices of a particular religious organization, I don’t go there or donate money there.
But I have to research those politicians and religious organizations. It is my responsibility as a citizen to do the homework.
Your mileage will most certainly vary.
The beginning steps of energy work and spirit work are internal work.
Through trial or trauma, we decide to engage that shadow us that Jung wrote about; that wounded, scarred, arrested development, rage-filled, frightened, broken person that lives inside of us. We make choices to heal that person, accept them as part of us and use that healing and acceptance to make us stronger.
Some people never move past that. And to be honest, moving past that is a scary prospect. Because using that internal knowledge in the outside world means trusting and caring on a level that we are socialized not to. Using that internal knowledge in the outside world means risking ridicule, betrayal, pain, burn out or even death.
So why would anyone in his or her right mind want to move beyond that?
Because if we believe that everything is connected, then you engage in the world with every breath, every thought, every breath. We can take that light we have created from darkness and hold it up for our sisters and brothers.
“Give light and people will find the way. ” Ella Baker
Your mileage will most certainly vary.
A Month for Loki.
In totally unrelated news, there’s a Doctor Who trailer!
Both of the primary authors on this blog are also currently swamped with real life issues, so it may be a little while before we get back to normal posting.
This is a revised version of a previously published essay.
There is a huge stigma on mental illness and on mental health professionals in much of the western world, which gets in the way of honest discourse and helping people who are suffering from mental disorders. There is the attitude that psychology is an attempt to justify, rather than understand, and that mental disorders are a sign of an underlying character flaw, as opposed to a disorder or disease.
As Darryl Cunningham indicates: If someone gets diagnosed with cancer, their friends and family rally around them to support them. If they get diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, they tend to lose those support networks just as they are starting to need them most.
In the military you can get passed up for promotion or lose your security clearance if you get diagnosed with a mental illness. Doctors are also pressured by the military not to diagnose PTSD. Many mental illnesses are treated as something you just have to “man up” about, “get over,” or are treated as “not real illnesses.” Recently the JAG Tom Kenniff called vicarious traumatization psychobabble.
You can tell your friends you are going to the doctor to get treated for heart disease, or in most crowds a chiropractor for back pain. The response is dramatically different if you tell them you are going for treatment of your bipolar disorder, let alone paranoid schizophrenia or narcissistic personality disorder. There are taboos around these things, and these taboos make it significantly more difficult to get treatment.
This is further not helped by certain individuals, even (especially?) doctors who should know better, seeming to classify everything and the kitchen sink as being treatable exclusively or predominantly with chemicals, many of which have ugly side effects (including things like anterograde amnesia, a side effect of some of the anti-anxiety medications). Many others who seem to be of the opinion that everything is actually depression, even if it is, in fact, fibromyalgia or a thyroid condition.
Then we get into problems that therapists themselves run into thanks to malpractice, professional codes, and legal systems. Where we can look in retrospect and say “they misdiagnosed/misevaluated” or any number of other statements, but therapists who evaluate the situation will also say “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” Treating real humans is enormously complex, and the legal framework surround it is almost as complex. The situation puts tremendous strain on therapists, who may find themselves in a position of being unable to predict the future, and then being blamed for not being able to at a later point.
So what we get is a situation where a lot of people in this country have undiagnosed PTSD, major depression, anxiety disorders, paranoid schizophrenia, and a thousand other things. At a minimum, these impact their quality of life and some of them may get more serious without treatment (or, depending on the nature of the treatment, with treatment). They are unable (quite possibly because of insurance) or unwilling–possibly quite rationally so, depending on their situation–to visit mental health professionals and get an actual diagnosis. If they have dissociative identity disorder they may have amnesia blanks over periods of time where they self-sabotage, and they may have a fight with a lover only to not remember even having a conversation with them later. They may spend years blaming themselves or burning out, may try self-help which may or may not make the situation better (or worse), and spend a lot of energy hiding these illnesses and differences from others.
These things are so heavily stigmatized in our society, that the stigmas themselves make it more difficult to function independent of that the disorder itself makes it more difficult to function. This can and does make the situation significantly worse. This is something to pay attention to, because it isn’t something you can prevent by pretending it is “all in your head”: it really could be you or a loved one who starts to suffer in silence, do poorly in relationships at school, or their job, and feel there is no way out as a result.
