dreamer_easy: (*cosmic code authority)
I've been troubled for years by the final lines in Australian poet Rosemary Dobson's poem Child of Our Time:

I see the wounded moon, I fear
The travelling star, the mushroom cloud,
Beneath the perilous universe
For you, for you, my head is bowed.

... why is the moon wounded? This has to be a reference to the Apollo moon landings, but aren't those something, well -- gather up all of your profound feelings about the great adventure -- holy?

It was only today, reading about the Navajo objections to human remains being deposited on the moon last year, that I got an idea of what Dobson might have had in mind. Buu Nygren, President of the Navajo nation:

"We view it as a part of our spiritual heritage, an object of reverence and respect. The act of depositing human remains and other materials, which could be perceived as discards in any other location, on the moon is tantamount to desecration of this sacred space."

There's garbage on the moon! Bits of spaceship and equipment -- golf balls -- literal bags of shit, piss, and vomit! To me, something like the left-behind lander or the bootprint has an overwhelmingly positive meaning -- but I can easily see how from someone else's perspective it might look like the sacred moon was used as a dump. Hell, I'm a Pagan, I can see that from my own perspective. It's a grinding of gears.

I don't know whether this is the angle from which Dobson was coming. Other lines in the poem suggest she wasn't anti-space exploration. She may have had in mind the potential exploitation of space as an arena for war. If we can put people onto the moon, what else can we put in space -- spy satellites, beams, bombs? This, too, is a grinding of gears for someone who became a space enthusiast last year, and amongst the science and the joy discovered the pollution, the exploitation, the grifting, the moral compromises. The beautiful Space Shuttle didn't just do science, it also worked for the Department of Defense.

Dobson places "the travelling star" -- a natural catastrophe that comes from outside, perhaps an asteroid hitting the Earth -- into the same category as the human-made mushroom cloud, a threat from the inside. Discarding the Outer Space Treaty and putting weaponry into orbit will put the human race into the same category as the travelling star. We will be pointing two guns at our own head in an already dangerous universe.


Point

May. 22nd, 2022 02:49 pm
dreamer_easy: (*cosmic code authority)
I must tell you: I am wretched, and Mum showed me this:


I am not really a fan of either Sondheim or Seurat, but as the music bursts there comes the explosive understanding that THE MEMBERS OF THE CHORUS ARE THE DOTS. And shortly after that, the understanding that we are all dots. If we could only take a step back and see the world all at once.
dreamer_easy: (*goddess bless and protect me)
Good heavens! I saw this on Usenet, some time in the early 90s, and never forgot it. It's a shame the green button idea never took off -- but then, thanks to Buffy etc, the occult suddenly mainstreamed and it was no longer so important to stay in the broom closet.

___

A letter from a Craft sister in Texas

A job transfer had moved us 1200 miles.  The hardest thing to
deal with was the isolation.  No one in our home Circle had
contacts in the new town.  Instead of lessons twice a month, and
the loving safety net of our circle, we had each other, phone
calls, and homesick letters.  We were suddenly involuntary
solitaires.  We had to find new ways to deal with things. 
Holidays, once filled with an extended family of 25 or more, are
a trifle flat when the turkey only has to feed two.  So we
volunteered to work at a charity dinner for senior citizens, and
I wore my pentagram tucked inside my shirt.  As I was pouring
coffee for one of the guests, it fell out.

     She: "Is that what I think it is?" (pointing)
     Me:  "Yes, Ma'am."
     She: "But if you're a...I mean... What are you doing here?"
     Me:  "My religion teaches me to value and respect others;
          and the elderly are our memories."

She nodded and went back to her meal.  Next time someone tries to
tell her that witches are evil, it will be my face she remembers.

Finally we met another group, and shared a Circle for the first
time in months.  It felt like coming home.  Later, it turned out
one of our newfound friends knew a lonely solitary in our home
town.  In the same city where we know four covens, countless
solitaires, and a rich Pagan social life, she is alone.  She
can't find anyone, and the isolation is painful.

Excuse me while I get on my soapbox.

This has gone on long enough.  I am tired of hearing the Lady's
name spoken in whispers.  I am tired of pretending, tired of
hiding, sick unto death of knowing Pagan parents must teach their
children to hide.  As I write, it is March '87.  I am about to
put to paper my favorite "gee-if-only."  Indulge me.  Join me. 
Dream along.

Let it begin small.  The first year, we will all agree on some
recognition symbol; a green button.  Anytime you see someone else
wearing a blank green button, you'll know this person is a fellow
Pagan, one who has read this and shares the dream.  (I hope
you'll share it as well:  start by finding someone with a button-
maker, and become your local supplier.)  Anytime you see someone
wearing a blank green button, give them your name and address and
get theirs too.  This is called "networking" _ and suggest they
send their address also to us at "Come from the Shadows".

Pass the word.  Every time you talk to a friend who's in the
Craft, share the dream.  Make sure they get a button, too.

The second year we change our blank buttons for ones that say
"I.P.T."  That's the easy part.  We only intensify our work. 
Kindred, our neighbors are afraid of us.  It is a fear born of
misinformation and it will continue only as long as we permit it. 
The second year we work to raise public awareness, challenging
stereotypes.  That means we all get to do our part, with articles
like this, with letters to the editor politely responding to
silly Halloween articles, and with volunteer work.  We walk a
Path that teaches the Threefold Law; let's start putting some
time, energy, and love into our towns.  Answer the crisis phone
line, visit the elderly, donate books on the Craft to the
library, become an active member of your community.

And in your spare moments, print and distribute the buttons for
the big day.  Let's dream big:  let's plan on Winder Solstice of
1990.  The buttons would be available all the preceding year at
our rituals, bookstores, lectures, etc., distributed and put away
until the appointed time.

Here's my dream, see it with me.

She's a para-legal, and after three years of preparation, she's
still very scared.  Meditation helps.  She pins the button, kept
on her alter for months, to her blouse.  Her phone rings.  A
friend across the city needs encouragement.  Reassuring him
reassures her.  She walks out to her car with her head held high.

He's a telephone lineman.  He pins the button on his workshirt,
helps his second-grader pin one on as well.  "Let's do it," he
says, and they smile.  from the door, his wife calls, "Good
luck!"

A couple exchange kisses in the driveway.  The buttons clatter
together.  He gets into his car, headed for the shipyard.  She
drives the other way, headed for the university.

They aren't alone.  Winter Solstice has dawned bright and clear,
and across the country every Pagan we could reach in three years
is taking part.  This is the day it all pays off, the networking,
the community work, the countless rituals for healing and
understanding.  It's solstice Morning and they have walked out of
their doors to go about their daily routine wearing buttons that
say:

                         I'm Pagan too!
                      Come from the Shadows

How many?  Estimates of the number of Pagans in this country
vary, but thousands at the very least.  Can you see it?

The para-legal and the parking attendant exchange shocked
glances.  The telephone lineman takes a service call and the
farmer who answers the door is wearing a button.  His wife gives
her "extra" button to a woman in the grocery store _ a solitaire,
somehow missed by the networking efforts, she is close to tears
when she realizes that she is not alone.  The shipyard engineer
counts buttons in rush hour traffic, while his wife loses count
on campus before lunch.

The media go crazy, interviewing people all over the place.  The
public are suddenly aware of the Pagans in their midst, not as
isolated freaks but as a group.  We are not the faceless enemy --
we are their neighbors, their coworkers.  We are their league
coaches, their Red Cross volunteers.  We are citizens concerned
about our towns, our country, our planet.  We are contributing to
the care of our fellow wo/man and asking for the right to worship
as we choose.

We are the children of the Earth and the Sky come home, re-
claiming our right to walk in the sunlight.  "Enough.  It is
time."

Pleas send comments, suggestions, etc. to:

Come from the Shadows, c/o B.C. Fogle
2041 1st Street East #118, RAFB, Texas 78150


http://library.napalm.com.br/books/new/Paganism%20-%20Symbolism%20of%20the%20Green%20Pin.txt

dreamer_easy: (*cosmic code authority)
I think about this sort of thing often - a study which found that: "Participants who lacked control were more likely to perceive a variety of illusory patterns, including seeing images in noise, forming illusory correlations in stock market information, perceiving conspiracies, and developing superstitions." I'll have to look up the study to find out what "lacked control" means exactly, but I wondered if, outside the lab, having incurable chronic illnesses counts as "lacking control", and if that's related to my religious beliefs, which have a fair bit to say about sickness.

One of the main gods I worship is Sekhmet, the Ancient Egyptian goddess of plagues, whose priests were doctors. Sekhmet could dispatch her "messengers" to cause illness, but could also call them off (and other gods, such as the wonderfully named Tutu, could command them to desist). So she is the goddess of both sickness and medicine, both disease and treatment. You can't escape sickness, but help to cure it or to cope with it is available. This provides comfort and hope.

Or is this just the equivalent of a conspiracy theory - it provides an explanation and an illusion of control, and, conveniently, can't be disproved? Is this a religious idea, in the sense of faith, and how much a philosophical one? Does it matter whether, in some sense, it's objectively true?

Which said, darling Jonghyun is on board the Horned God's boat as he sails at the Solstice for the Summerlands, and I'll fight anyone who contradicts that statement.

dreamer_easy: (Default)
Fact check: Are Labor's policies socialist? (ABC, 20 September 2017). This overview of the meaning of "socialism" helped plug some of the countless holes in my knowledge of politics and history.

The four ways distrust of science has infected political agendas (ABC, 31 July 2017). Another good overview, this time of the intersection of scepticism of science and political leanings.

Which Hair Color Induces the Strongest Physical Attraction? (Psychology Today, 1 September 2017). Gingerism!

How Australia's discrimination laws and public health campaigns perpetuate fat stigma (ABC, 11 July 2017). Fat-shaming is meant to improve peoples' health, but it has the opposite effect.

Australia wants to avoid a Korean war at all costs – and with good reason (GA, 29 April 2017) "A conflict could involve North’s neighbours – South Korea, China and Japan – which along with the US are Australia’s top four trade partners." | Why would North Korea's little tyrant lob a missile on Darwin? (SMH, 6 July 2017) A partly tongue-in-cheek, partly serious look at Darwin as a potential target - its use as a US military base vs its importance as a Chinese-owned port.

Octopus And Squid Evolution Is Officially Weirder Than We Could Have Ever Imagined (Science Alert, 2017). The dang things routinely tweak their RNA - not their genes, but how they're expressed in the brain.

Ancient Samurai Scroll Describes Blinding Powders, Moonless Battles (Live Science, 27 June 2017)

Class is the new black: The dangers of an obsession with the 'Aboriginal middle class' (ABC, 28 June 2017)

What Is Sharia Law? (Snopes, 19 September 2017). "As with so many aspects of Islam, some non-Muslims criticize "Sharia law" without really knowing the first thing about it."

He Was a Crook (The Atlantic, July 1994). Hunter S. Thompson destroys a freshly deceased Richard Nixon. Gods I wish he was still with us (Thompson, not Nixon).

Two longer pieces:

Yearning for the end of the world (The Guardian, 25 August 2017). "'If it was conclusive that cellphones were killing honeybees, would you stop using them?' Most said no. 'I think the scientists will figure it out,' said one student, 'but really, who cares if there are honeybees? This world is coming to an end anyway. We’ll all be raptured.'... When you’re tied to other people, you’re tied to needs and frailties and messy long-term puzzles, like the fate of honeybees. But the Rapture is about unfastening, being 'citizens of heaven' and breaking with all that’s difficult and risky about life among humans. Is there a more attractive notion than to be spirited away and freed of responsibility? The fate of the Earth may be unknowable, or catastrophic – you don’t have to care." This analysis disturbed me because of my own partial withdrawal from the world due to ill health and social anxiety. OTOH as a Wiccan my religion connects me deeply to this living world of trees and people and honeybees.

How America Lost Its Mind (The Atlantic, September 2017). Adapted from Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire—A 500-Year History by Kurt Andersen. I read this right through at the library, which is pretty unusual for me. It traces the history of irrational belief in the US from the sixties and the Left to the eighties and the Right and through to today. I take some of it with a grain of salt, but it also pinged me personally, because of the complexities of profoundly valuing reason while holding non-rational beliefs.



dreamer_easy: (*cosmic code authority)
Remember what I was just saying about how this episode of hypomania, and indeed the recent years of my life, have lacked religious feelings? After a badly disrupted night's sleep (I have a cold), and the first in a week without Saphris, I just glanced at a page, saw this Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph, and felt my generator sparking:


It's a sundisc, with rays of light coming down. I know the image from complex diagrams like this one:



The sun god, travelling in his sky-ship, sends down rays of energy that revivify the dead.

I feel like I want to nurture that image. Which would mean nurturing not just positive and sacred feeling, but potentially an elevated mood. Uh oh. How do I stay happy and busy, up but not too far up?

(For those of you who are curious: the black disc in the ship is the sun, with the goddess Maat, representing cosmic order, sitting in the front. Beneath that is the hieroglyph for "sky", with the sun-god's falcon head poking down, emanating what look (to me) like hours of the day and night and general beams of light onto a mummy, which is protected at head and foot by the goddesses Isis (left) and Nephthys. The sun and his rays are also protected by goddesses, in this case Nekhbet (the vulture) and Wadjet (the cobra). This is an image of the dead person safely tucked away in the netherworld, given eternal life by the creator god, and participating in the creator's activities. All is as it should be. The picture comes from the book Egyptian Religious Texts and Representations by Alexandre Piankoff and was redrawn from a funerary papyrus in the Louvre.)

ETA: Aw yiss, this is what I'm talking about. (The rays are turning into multicoloured flowers.)



(The stela of Lady Taperet, also at the Louvre.)

dreamer_easy: (snow kate)
Stephen Fry explains what he would say if he was 'confronted by God' (The Independent, 31 January 2015). "Now, if I died and it was Pluto, Hades, and if it was the 12 Greek gods then I would have more truck with it, because the Greeks didn’t pretend to not be human in their appetites, in their capriciousness, and in their unreasonableness... they didn’t present themselves as being all-seeing, all-wise, all-kind, all-beneficent, because the god that created this universe, if it was created by god, is quite clearly a maniac."

Indigenous youths 24 times more likely to be in detention, Amnesty International report finds (ABC, 2 June 2015) | Fact Check: Amnesty International claim on 'shocking' Indigenous child incarceration rates checks out (ABC, 19 June 2015)

Australian prison population grows 20 per cent in last decade (SMH, 29 January 2016)

Children from Indigenous communities more likely to suffer unintentional injuries, study finds (ABC, 19 February 2016). "We're not sufficiently investing in appropriately targeted preventative programs for Indigenous children."

'Blackbirding' shame yet to be acknowledged in Australia (SMH, 3 June 2015). For most of my life I thought slavery was something that other countries had done. Only in recent years have I learned about the work we forcibly extracted from Indigenous Australians and South Sea Islanders.

White man in the photo is the 'third hero' that night in 1968 (San Francisco Globe, 9 June 2016). Australian Olympic athlete Peter Norman, his gesture of support for John Carlos and Tommie Smith as they made their Black Power salute, and what it cost him.

The McDonald's Hot Coffee Case (Consumer Attorneys of California Web site). "It is the case that gave rise to the attacks on 'frivolous lawsuits' in the United States. Almost everyone seems to know about it. And there's a good chance everything you know about it is wrong."

TSA's 95% failure rate shows airport security is a charade (Los Angeles Times, 5 June 2015). It's just for show.

A Social History of Jell-O Salad: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon (Serious Eats, 29 August 2015)

Are you a grammar pedant? This might be why (GA, 29 March 2016). "Introverts, it turns out, are more likely to get annoyed at both typos and grammos." Not this little black introverted duck. Mistakes happen. The nitpicking is far more irritating.

Finally, on violence.

If ya think that's all of the backed-up links, you are sorely mistaken. XD
dreamer_easy: (*cosmic code authority)
.. always full of interest, particularly when it comes to what we may reasonably call my religion, which is Eclectic Wiccan with a Mesopotamian and Ancient Egyptian influences and a large dose of Zen Buddhism. I like to observe my spontaneous responses to religious and philosophical questions raised by the letter writers.

Quoth one in the 24 May 2014 edition: "religion instils a fear that god is watching everything we do". Wicca doesn't really have a concept of sin or damnation - although I did apologise for throwing out some takeaway containers this evening instead of recycling them, as if doing so guiltily under a disapproving supernatural eye. Perhaps I've absorbed that idea from the surrounding culture, just as much of my swearing is filthily Christian.

Here's another, about "the use of unclaimed bodies for medical science... One would have to look long and hard to find a more straightforward and sensible use of an unclaimed dead body, yet here [in an article in a previous issue] we have an educated person who takes issue with this practice since, rather obviously, there has been no informed consent." Now there are various counter-arguments, such as the idea that the body is property, and the possibility of the body's being claimed by grieving relatives too late.

But the thought popped straight into my head: the body is sacred. That's a very basic idea in Wicca, and in Neo-Paganism generally. In a previous posting I talked about "the well-being of bodies"; imagine living in a culture which held that as its highest goal, one which above all valued safe water and good nutrition, adequate medical care, and freedom from violence for everyone. (Imagine living in a culture where the use of the hand or the penis to cause harm is seen as a desecration of the perpetrator's body!) Out of these values arise the idea that a corpse is not a natural resource, like a tree or a coal vein, but part of a person. For the letter-writer, corpses are presumably a massive scientific resource only going to waste because loved ones and indeed the dying themselves are blocking their use.

The question now becomes: is this my thinking because it arises from Wiccan ideas, or is it just a a gut reaction to what seems like a heartless attitude, and I've rationalised it with Wiccan ideas ex post facto?

ETA: Three images just came into my mind. One, from the South Korean movie Brotherhood of War; at the beginning, remains are being excavated from a Korean War battlefield, and in a brief shot we see that at the site of each discovered body is laid a white chrysanthemum. Two, also from SK, but from the news: the recovery of hundreds of bodies, most of them teenagers, from the sunken ferry the MV Sewol. Each body was placed in a coffin, draped in a flag, and saluted. These gestures of caring and respect remind me of my paternal grandparents' Catholic funerals, at which the grandchildren were invited to place an object atop the closed coffin. I remember placing my hand atop my grandfather's coffin for a moment, too. Clearly, for very many people, even a stranger's corpse is more than just a convenient collection of organs.
dreamer_easy: (*cosmic code authority)
The introduction to Melissa Raphael's 2000 book Introducting Thealogy naturally talks a lot about the body and the embodiment of experience, by contrast with the disembodied abstractions of traditional religions for which the body and especially the female body are profane: "the female body is sacred; it incarnates the Goddess to such a degree that sacred space is simply that which the body's being-there sacralizes"; it can be "celebrated and revered" "as a part of that divine female body which is the earth or nature itself".

These are familiar ideas, but the sentence that struck me hard was this: "The well-being of bodies becomes a sign of the health of their spiritual, political and ecological environment."

Imagine a world based on that value system - one where the well-being of bodies (and minds, as Raphael makes clear) is the goal and the measure of a culture or society. The more you think about it, the more staggering it becomes, the more institutions it consumes - pollution, bombs, detention centres, hospital queues, addiction, clean water, guns, homelessness, even junk food - the list just goes on and on. This could not be a world in which society decries sexual assault, domestic violence, and child abuse, and simultaneously tolerates them.

I am powerfully reminded that, despite criticism that Goddess feminism is a distraction from "real" politics, it is in fact profoundly political.
dreamer_easy: (*cosmic code authority)
"To say that the world is entirely comprised of combinations of one hundred or so elements does not in any way deny the infinite multiplicity of all the things in the world, nor does it produce a set of bloodless generalizations. This is because the manifest, diverse phenomena of the world have been reduced to a lowest common denominator, which then becomes the basis for a set of lawful and regular rules of transformation that indeed are capable of generating everything in the world, and of actually producing new things."
— Paul Roberts, The Tibetan Symbolic World: Psychoanalytic Exploration (quoted in John C. Wood, When Men Are Women: Manhood among Gabra Nomads of East Africa)
dreamer_easy: (snow kate)
Something I really want to find again is the historical story of an accused witch, pursued by a mob (probably intent on ducking her), who fled to the grounds of an estate - perhaps the local manor? - and was given sanctuary there. That's not much to go on. But I envy the major religions' stories of caring for refugees - the holy family's flight to Egypt is an obvious example - and I really want a witchy version. (Pretty sure I read this in one of Macquarie University Library's books on the witch hunts, but that's a lot of books to sift through...)
dreamer_easy: (snow kate)
"Four thousand years ago in Hindu mythology they already had a character who invented the concept of [art forms] co-existing and it wasn't separated into sections just for monetisation... In the present world it's really similar, because all the technology and tools we've created allow people to experience everything at exactly the same time. So you have a laptop and watch a movie and listen to music and you're looking at a Tumblr; you're communicating all the time and the way you output and input information has completely changed. Everything's sped up to make that point that things can't be separated – and it's just a matter of time until human consciousness catches up to that concept, that everything can co-exist and everything is basically one thing."
- Musician and artist M.I.A. re the goddess Matangi, a fierce and dirty form of Sarasvati, patroness of music, art, language, and learning.
dreamer_easy: (*goddess moon)
X0210t 

Describing the work of his fellow anthropologists, Victor W. Turner wrote in The Ritual Process (1969):

"Most of these thinkers have taken up the implicitly theological position of trying to explain, or explain away, religious phenomena as the product of psychological or sociological causes of the most diverse and even conflicting types, denying to them any preterhuman origin; but none of them has denied the extreme importance of religious beliefs and practices, for both the maintenance and radical transformation of human social and psychical structures."
I've seen the sort of thing he describes more than once, in older literature about ancient religions - a slightly embarrassed disclaimer that the Greeks or Egyptians, however profound and lofty* their thoughts, can't compare to The Bible. But Turner's point is that the question is not whether the specifics of religion are true, but that religion is crucial for the way we organise our civilisations and the insides of our skulls.

I am getting a very direct lesson in this in dealing with Frank's serious illness. I know - in that deep and satisfying way which is not willful blindness - I know that someone will continue to look after the little guy when Jon and I can no longer take care of him.

Of course, "religion" is a rather complex concept itself. Projecting Abrahamic ideas about the divine onto, say, Aztec culture, or even Egyptian culture, often produces nonsensical results. My understanding that Frank only has to ask Bastet to show him the way sits alongside my understanding that Frank's awareness and personality are dependent on the matter he's made of and will go when it goes, and alongside my understand that Frank never began and will never end, any more than the sea begins or ends as a wave rises and falls. These ideas are mutually exclusive, according to Western logic. But these are not irrational ideas. Thinking I could cure Frank's cancer with garlic juice would be an irrational idea. These are non-rational ideas. They're not fairy stories I tell myself to make myself feel better (the latter two certainly don't, and the one about the sea is terrifying), but they orient me, guide me, give me ways to think about and process what's happening.

We can't write Frankus off yet - we're still waiting for the results of tests and a new treatment. But eventually, Bastet will pick Frank up and pop him in her basket, with the other kittens. I'll see him there again one day.


* Do you see what I did there? Clever me!**
** I'm hypomanic today. It's been a great help to have the support of the local fluorescent petals - no joke.
dreamer_easy: (Default)
"We live in an age of instant gratification. Spirituality represents the opposite to this in giving no immediate feedback but requiring, instead, a disciplined approach leading to long and silent growth."
- Sarah Anderson, Introduction to The Virago Book of Spirituality, 1996

Monsters

Jul. 31st, 2012 11:36 am
dreamer_easy: (Default)
"The hideous forms or archetypal images rising full-blown from Tiamat's collective unconscious may be looked upon as compensatory devices designed to help her deal more effectively than earlier with the crises she faced. Personifications of rage and hatred that manifested themselves in the form of serpents, dragons, or scorpions may be looked upon as shadow forces representing the 'dark, unlived side of her unconsciousness'... Like talismans, amulets, or antibodies, shadow forces frequently take shape in time of need to help the individual struggle against harm."
- Bettina L. Knapp, Women in Myth, State University of New York Press, 1997.

The Mesopotamian goddess Tiamat, avenging her husband and defending herself, creates an army of monsters. I don't have much of a grasp on Jung, but I recognise me old cobra in the above. Hiss!
dreamer_easy: (Default)
I think it's in Image of the Fendahl where Leela says, "My tribe has a saying: if you're hurt, look for a man with scars". This invented proverb has long helped me make sense of my life. Call it a divine plan, or call it finding meaning in events: the reason I am ill in so many ways is so that I can learn how to help others when they are ill. Nobody escapes illness; it's an inevitable feature of a universe that literally wouldn't exist without imperfection. I've just had more practice at it than some (and less than others).

To boil these cosmic speculations down to a concrete example: if I didn't have diabetes, I wouldn't have been forced to overcome my fear of needles, and I wouldn't be able to give Frank his painkilling injections.

Because I'm so trashed so much of the time, I'm never going to be a Florence Nightingale, nor a mother. During Frank's weeks of sickness, I've often found myself thinking that even looking after a cat is too bloody hard, financially*, physically**, and emotionally, and that, once the boys are gone, that is it, I will never get another pet.

The awful thing is, I think I might actually be good at this.


* Insure your pets. Insure your pets. Insure your pets. (We'll be fine, thanks to Frank's bank account - and thank gods, because you do not want to be making decisions based on cost.)

** Jon is providing all kinds of essential support - especially keeping the laundry going! Frank's ability to get cat food, water, drool, Flagyl, and poo all over everything is proving prodigious. :)
dreamer_easy: (glory 4)
For anyone who may be curious about my religious beliefs, this transcript of an ABC radio doco, Pagans Among Us may offer some insight, for example, this explanation from Ronald Hutton: "The sources of authority lie very much in themselves. There are traditions in Paganism of how you work, but they don't depend upon sacred texts, they don't depend on the idea that goddesses and gods gave human beings rules and orders. They depend upon sets of rituals that enable those who practice them to get very often a very real sense of direct contact with the divine. Whereas religions of the book have traditionally said, 'this is what you should believe', Paganism today tends to say, 'this is how you can encounter the divine. Now it's up to you to work out what you believe about it.'"

If you listen to this segment of RadioLab's The Good Show, you will hear an explanation of the mathematics of grace.
dreamer_easy: (yellow 1)
May heaven tell you: that's enough now.
May the great gods calm your mood.
May your throne say: sit down.
May your bed say: relax.

(After Enheduanna.)
dreamer_easy: (witch)
With the greatest respect, Z Budapest, the Goddess made sexual diversity. She made it in the same playful, creative spirit in which she set off the Cambrian explosion. Why would a Goddess who could cook up ciswomen, transwomen, intersex women, genderqueer women, straight women, bi women, gay women, asexual women, fertile women, infertile women, girls who become boys at puberty - the list goes on - want us to throw some of the flowers out of that bouquet?

If there was some sort of history of transwomen disrupting "women-only" events - through their own actions, not just by being there - I could understand this insistence on excluding them. As it is, it seems more like a canon argument: arbitrary and ultimately pointless. The definitions you offer, Z - ovaries, womb, menstruation - don't apply to hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of "women-born women".

Chances are I'll never find myself invited into an event from which transwomen are barred. If I ever do, for the duration of that event, you may consider me a man.

She changes the left side into the right side, she changes the right side into the left side, she turns a man into a woman, she turns a woman into a man. She changes everything she touches, and everything she touches changes.
dreamer_easy: (violet 5)
"Devī, by her very nature as the embodiment of power, is both creative and destructive; dangerous, yet necessary for the dynamic maintenance of life. Life is won out of death. Accordingly, her violent, horrific side cannot simply be jettisoned or ignored, nor can it be wholly subdued through the process of domestication - a process that if fully realized would substantially deprive the Goddess of the power necessary for energizing the life-death-rebirth cycle. At the same time, the Goddess' involvement in death and rebirth surrounds her with blood and pollution."
- C. Mackenzie Brown discussing the all-encompassing and therefore paradoxical nature of the divine in The Triumph of the Goddess, 1990

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May 2025

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