I is for Insanity ala Einstein

One definition of insanity has nothing to do with mental illness:

"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

This is the situation a lot of people are in when it comes to the economy and the climate.
Conservatives believe (not know, believe)

"A rising tide lifts all boats." - J.F.K. (mistakenly)

Yet in practice, the "rising tide" lifts only the boats that are seaworthy, and those with leaky boats or no boats at all drown, with no hand in rescue from the people who were born with the money for a good boat.

So they cut taxes, again and again, believing that it will improve the economy and lift people out of poverty. Yet every time the economy struggles even more, and more people end up further down the economic scale - further underwater. Insanity.

A similar form of insanity is expecting everyone to have had the same advantages and opportunities that the average has. These are the guys who are born with boats. A rising tide doesn't hurt them, they just sail away from those who are not in their elite club. But using this type of person as the norm on which to make policy? Insanity.

Global warming and climate change denial is yet one more type of willful insanity. Yeah, guys, the tide is rising, soon your beachfront property will be underwater, and you'll be howling for the government that you despise (and want to drown in a bathtub) to come and fix it.

What does this have to do with pagans?

Turns out a great deal. Most pagans are not the privileged demographic that these policies favor. While pagans have their own problem with the government, primarily due to institutional prejudice based on policies that privilege straight, white, cisgender, protestant, upper-middle class males, the US Constitution does promise us more freedom than we are actually granted by society.

Taking an active interest in government, and keeping the unsavory elements of the corporatocracy out of our lives, pocketbooks and bedrooms is actually a major undertaking. Yet if we don't, if we go off trying to walk outside the system and acting like it doesn't affect us, we should stop being surprised when the different result we expect, leaving us alone to do our thing, doesn't happen.

Turns out that even the most benevolent corporation is focused by its nature on profit, and will use every tricky, dirty and underhanded or not, to boost said profit. To expect anything different is insanity. Leopards don't change their spots. Rules are required to make these constructs/homunculi follow the will of living humans. The rules are called regulations and laws, and they are enforced by the government in the name of the people. But if the people who pass the laws and enforce the regulations are corrupt, or not held accountable by the people to the people, it all breaks down. If the people don't pay attention, are so self absorbed that they don't care to look, the callous actors take advantage, and the construct corporations take control. This is what fascism truly is - the weeding of corporate power to government power, the privatization of government in favor of corporate interests.

The most simple magical act that a person can do to help fight against the insanity is to vote mindfully. Follow the money, consider carefully who you will throw your vote magic behind, and then cast a ballot in every election. This includes the local ones especially.

Most of the Randroid nutjobs (fascists, IMO) in government today are there because they suckered uncaring local elections into putting them into low level offices, and thus start their fundraising capacity. Even if it's for dogcatcher, pay attention to the outlook and statements of your local candidates. Don't let them use your ignorance or apathy to propel themselves into higher office.

Yes, there's a lot more you can do - protest, write letters, make appointments with your local elected representatives, give money to worthy causes and candidates, educate yourself about people who aren't like you, etc. But voting intelligently in local and national elections is basic.

The midterm elections are coming up. Register and remember to vote intelligently. Don't follow the campaign commercial hype or so-called news (after all, Fox won the right in court to broadcast falsehoods as "news", even if it is known by them to not be true.) Do your own digging, search engines are your friend, and work your magic.

Apathy and ignorance are no longer affordable if you want to be free of corporate and politically motivated oppression. You have to take action to preserve your freedom and livelihood.

Vote.

F is for Fear

I must not fear.
Fear is the mind-killer.
Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.
I will face my fear.
I will permit it to pass over me and through me.
And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.
Only I will remain.
-- "Bene Gesserit Litany Against Fear" (Frank Herbert, Dune)

While I never read the later Dune books, and was somewhat annoyed by the earlier ones, this little ditty got me through a lot of scary times. Just the concentration to remember it and recite it five times was enough of a meditation trigger to keep me out of the fear cycle spin-up.

While it was produced in a work of fiction, it still has validity on a Pagan path. Unlike some, I am not unwilling to adapt practices from fiction into my real world life.

Let's take a closer look

• In the first three lines, the reciter is reminded of why uncontrolled fear is a danger. Essentially, it says that unchecked fear will take over your mind, and become all consuming, paralysing you from action.
• The fourth and fifth lines are the way out of the trap. Facing it and allowing it to be absorbed, rather than consuming you, will put it into perspective.
• The final three lines reinforce the triumph of will over fear. You have taken it in, understood it, absorbed it and moved beyond it. You haven't denied its existence, you have taken it inside, let it advise you of any actual dangers, and then let the fear fade to nothing. It's not fear any more, you've faced it and owned it.

What does this mean to pagan practice?

Some traditions practice what I call "Dark Work" - that is to say, exploring and facing some of the darker emotions in our own psyche. The two biggest are generally fear and anger. There is also jealousy, greed, vindictiveness, and a host of other nuances between them. Dark work is done as a part of getting to know, accept and understand your whole self, not just the parts you like or are willing to see. It is not something for beginners, but for those who have entered the personal growth and self knowledge phase of their pagan lives.

The little ditty above is useful as part of a long term method for handling what initially can seem to be an insurmountable piles of fears, terrors and even insecurities. Using it as a meditation can focus you on the steps needed to accept and understand what you are afraid of, and why, and how to face it.

Many fears in our daily lives are rational, but maybe out of proportion to the actual risk. Fear of fire, drive by shooters, auto accidents, airplane accidents, infectious diseases, or even spiders has some basis in rationality at some point in time. It's when they start to interfere with our ability to live, or our ability to understand our selves that we need to pay a closer visit to what causes them. In many cases, a meditation, litany or chant can help us get a handle on them.

It isn't instant. Learning to understand and work through fear is a long term process, and practice makes perfect. To be able to use something like the Bene Gesserit litany above in a crisis you need to have made the habit of using it when things were calm, during introspection. But if you do, you have yet another tool in your arsenal for staying calm in a crisis or situation that would ordinarily paralyze you with fear.

Thanks, Frank.

PantheaCon 2012 and Bigotry

Note: I swear and am angry in this post. If you can't deal with that, go somewhere else. I don't want your craven tone arguments.

I'll reiterate something here that I've said elsewhere: Riddle me this - Why do statements and stances that we would immediately howl in outrage about and repudiate if they came from the religious right suddenly become “understandable”, “negotiable”, or “trivial” as I have seen more than one leader espouse? Why do we need to be soothing over stances within the community that we would reject out of hand if they came from outside? If you don’t believe me, put some of Z’s remarks over Ann Coulter’s or Rush Limbaugh’s byline and see how you feel about them. (Z being Z Budapest.)

Those in the Asatru community have dealt with this sort of thing for years - when somewhat folkish ("european ancestry") becomes raving white supremacist or racist. Guess who doesn't try to put on rituals "for whites only" at public pagan gatherings? It doesn't get far, no matter how polite of a shine they try to put on it.

People to take a real good look at all of the crap that we “tolerate” in our community that we’d never put up with from outside – not just the TG issue. We turn a blind eye to sexual abuse in the name of some "all acts of love and pleasure are her rituals" blitherings and excuses. Yet the same people will think nothing of condemning catholic priests for the same shit.

It used to be a real big problem with cultural appropriation all over the place - most of that has died down, now that people are aware of what that means to the originating culture.

But the language of appeasement flourishes, both within the community and without:

• "Oh, you should listen to what Lady FluffyBunny has to say, she puiblished a booook, it's just as valid or more so, as what you've worked years to understand and/or discover."
• "Oh, you need to take into account that they have a bad background, hard life, rough childhood, blah, blah, and forgive them for crapping in your face, they didn't really mean it."
• "Oh, it's just they really believe it's murder, they don't really mean to control your life and body to stop what they believe is wrong, you have to understand where they're coming from, it isn't about you and the fact that being pregnant can kill you."
• "Oh, they're just concerned for your soul, they aren't trying to force you into anything, they have a right to preach at you everwhere you go."

All of this is bullshit.

Let's get into brass tacks: I don't have to stand by, meekly mouthing platitudes about understanding and conciliation when another person or group is trying to fuck with my life, or fuck over my friends. I don't have to meekly submit to some mealy mouthed pagan tone argument when people are taking a dump on my people, and/or acting like bullies. The "just ignore them" and "try to understaaaaand them" crap doesn't work with bullies.

One person prattled on about how the "genetic women only" thing was "we just get to define who our peers are". When I heard this, at the Pagans in Media panel, my gut reaction was "Well, bitch, you're not one of mine. I don't consider bigots to be peers." The next was "Sounds like 'whites only' lunch counters based on 'freedom of association'". It's a good thing that I have regained the governor on my mouth, as it was not my panel so it wasn't mine to get into that fight. That panel, BTW, softpedaled around the whole thing in a very craven manner. The only person who had really solid stuff to say was Margot Adler.

I admit, I spent the majority of the con in the vendor room, working. I consider the appeasers and bullies to be yet more reason why I don't seek to be anything other than solitary any more: I have no patience for the level of idiotic and fluffified drama that the community can throw.

We are supposed to be enlightened - but this whole shit, and this year and last year's response is anything but. Shame on PCon for even accepting the panel. It's like they were fishing for controversy and drama so they could get more publicity.

There are some things that doesn't belong at gatherings and conferences: Skyclad rituals with strangers in public areas (nudist retreats don't count), and rituals whose big thing is exclusion of a minority are a couple of them. Rituals involving full on sex is another.

I wonder how Z and the con organizers would feel if an African Diasporic tradition had a "non-whites only" ritual to celebrate their lives as a persecuted minority, blah, blah, free of the prevailing white culture. It's perfectly reasonable under the ideal of "it's ok to exclude people if you're polite about it", right?

One disgusting piece of claptrap on the "transwomen aren't women" side is this tripe:

Coyle's shallow reaction to Z's movement created only hatred and division. It was not helpful to those who should be developing their own spiritual tradition as Z did with women. It was a bully tactic to shame women and demand they sacrifice their own interests to the interest of the "more oppressed". It is a Mother Teresa theology rejected long ago by feminists. It was an ever so politically correct defense of the patriarchal (male) right to determine what women can and cannot do in their own interests. This is what your highly regarded "response" was all about in reality.

What a crock of pure, steaming horseshit. This clown ignores one very real fact: transwomen are not men, are not agents of "the patriarchy", nor are they obliged to develop "their own spiritual tradition" and leave the pure, holy, uterus worshipping ciswomen in their little walled garden. This is not feminism, this is just pseudo-feminists mimicking the patriarchy exclusions on a more vulnerable group. Transwomen are women - not men with boobs, not wannabe-women with penises. (The person whose blog this steaming comment was left in just replied with stuff like "I appreciate your expression of your view." Hello, Neville Chamberlain.

Most of these idiots don't even consider what a trans-woman goes through and risks, at the hands of the "patriarchy" that they get lumped in with by these Dianic wannabes:

• Humiliation if they can't pass
• Death if the guy they meet finds out that they "aren't 'really' a woman"
• Giving up male privilege, and all that our society bundles with it.
• A second puberty with all of the angst that goes with it
• Workplace discrimination and bullying
• Rejection by the major religions for going against "God's will"
• ... and the list goes on

Now these Dianics want to add "Rejection by feminists and other women" into the mix too. Disgusting. What's next? Separate lunch counters, maybe a yellow triangle so the Dianics and guys on the prowl can know who's "really" born a genetic woman?

Let's face it, all the noise about "civil discourse" with people who are blatant bigots makes me want to throw things.

You don't appease bullies just because they hide behind your religion, or feminism, and use the language of those standing up to oppression to excuse their own oppressing and bigotry.

You call them on their bullshit, in no uncertain terms.

As another person said, in their private blog about another subject: "This culture of allowing both sides to be heard because I'm not fair otherwise? Is fucking bullshit. Some sides of the story ARE WRONG AND SHOULD SIT THE FUCK DOWN AND SHUT THE FUCK UP, GROWN FOLK IS TALKING. "

New Year Blither

It has come to my mind that I need to write more. You see, all the "A List" bloggers are prolific bastards that spew forth profound BS whether they have anything to say or not. I tend not to write unless I have some thing to say. Well, in truth, I always have something to say, I just don't think it's worth writing about. I just need to start writing it down anyway.

I write in several locations. There is here, which is my public blog. There is my Live Journal, which mostly mirrors my DreamWidth Journal - there I occasionally have public posts. I also, heaven help me, have become addicted to Twitter, and where I am http://twitter.com/Ravan_A.

What fascinates me is that I like Twitter. I didn't think I would, because a lot of the early adopters I saw were twitting about dumb shit, and didn't know how to pack their words. Turns out that many actually do - those who were journalism trained. See, I learned in junior high and high school journalism how to write good headlines and leads. 140 characters is a good lead sentence. Add a shortened link and you're done. I don't tend to write lengthy "prose" anyway, which counts against me in some places.

I have always wanted to be a journalist, but didn't like the industry. Not when I looked into studying it, and the "dues" they wanted you to pay, and not when I looked at the career opportunities even if I got a degree in it. When I learned about it in high school, it was all about packing the most information into the least space. I did manual newspaper layout and paste-up, newsletter publishing, and have since done some (not fancy software) desktop publishing. This includes writing and copy editing.

Because of this, blogging came naturally. I was my own editor, I was not as constrained to objectivity as a straight reporter would be, but I could at least write better than some of the sheer excrement that I have read out there. Some of the so-called A-List blogs that I've perused just weren't worth following - ego spew and link spam, at best.

I do have standards, however. I try, fairly hard, to have neutral and objective sources for factual data. Don't quote Fox News or AFA sources back at me and expect me to take you seriously. I try for things like the AMA, CDC, universities, and other organizations without obvious or overwhelming political agendas. Certain polls are known to be biased, by the way they compose their questions. I just point and laugh. Then again, reality tends to have a "liberal" bias - facts don't change just because your god says it's evil.

I have, I will freely admit, a progressive bias. I like real progress, I think it's good for people. My definition may be a little different than some might think. I do not thing GMO crops are "progress", for example.

I also tend to be anti-corporate - corporations are fine as long as they don't have the rights accorded to people. You start treating corporations like real people, and you unleash soulless immortal sociopaths on the population - you can't kill, or even really punish, a corporation, they have no ability to have a conscience, and they have the ability to assemble unlimited power without any accountability to the public (and little to the stockholders).

I used to submit stuff to WitchVox, but they changed their submission guidelines to require 1000 - 3500 words. "Essays under 1000 words will not be considered for publication—we are looking for more than off-the-cuff commentary." My reaction? Well La Di Fucking Dah! WitchVox won't be getting my stuff any more - I usually write short and sweet, not long and turgid. I won't pad to meet length. Yes, this is really a problem for me - half of my entries in this blog are well under 1000 words, but are not "off-the-cuff" commentary! Even some of my longer ones are only 965 words. Assholes!

So this entry has covered, several subjects: why I write, locations online where I write, what my background in writing is, what my bias and standards are, where else I've submitted and published but don't any more. At under 800 words. See the problem?