Memorial Day Poetry Blogging

i sing of Olaf glad and bigi sing of Olaf glad and bigwhose warmest heart recoiled at war:a conscientious object-orhis wellbelovéd colonel (trigwestpointer most succinctly bred)took erring Olaf soon in hand; but--though an host of overjoyed noncoms (first knocking on the head him )do through icy waters roll that helplessness which others strokewith brushes recently employed anent this muddy toiletbowl, while kindred intellects evoke allegiance per blunt instruments--Olaf (being to all intentsa corpse and wanting any rag upon what God unto him gave) responds,without getting annoyed "I will not kiss your fucking flag"straightway the silver bird looked grave(departing hurriedly to shave)but--though all kinds of officers (a yearning nation's blueeyed pride) their passive prey did kick and curseuntil for wear their clarion voices and boots were much the worse, and egged the firstclassprivates onhis rectum wickedly to tease by means of skilfully appliedbayonets roasted hot with heat--Olaf (upon what were once knees)does almost ceaselessly repeat"there is some shit I will not eat"our president, being of whichassertions duly notified threw the yellowsonofabitchinto a dungeon,where he diedChrist (of His mercy infinite)i pray to see;and Olaf,toopreponderatingly becauseunless statistics lie he wasmore brave than me:more blond than you. ~E. E. CummingsPicture found here.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging


Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

--Wilfred Owen


Picture found here.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging

Carentan O CarentanBY LOUIS SIMPSONTrees in the old days used to stand And shape a shady laneWhere lovers wandered hand in hand Who came from Carentan.This was the shining green canal Where we came two by two Walking at combat-interval. Such trees we never knew.The day was early June, the ground Was soft and bright with dew. Far away the guns did sound,But here the sky was blue.The sky was blue, but there a smoke Hung still above the seaWhere the ships together spoke To towns we could not see.Could you have seen us through a glass You would have said a walk Of farmers out to turn the grass, Each with his own hay-fork.The watchers in their leopard suits Waited till it was time,And aimed between the belt and boot And let the barrel climb.I must lie down at once, there is A hammer at my knee.And call it death or cowardice, Don’t count again on me.Everything’s all right, Mother, Everyone gets the same At one time or another. It’s all in the game.I never strolled, nor ever shall, Down such a leafy lane.I never drank in a canal,Nor ever shall again.There is a whistling in the leaves And it is not the wind,The twigs are falling from the knives That cut men to the ground.Tell me, Master-Sergeant, The way to turn and shoot. But the Sergeant’s silent That taught me how to do it.O Captain, show us quickly Our place upon the map. But the Captain’s sicklyAnd taking a long nap.Lieutenant, what’s my duty, My place in the platoon?He too’s a sleeping beauty, Charmed by that strange tune.Carentan O CarentanBefore we met with youWe never yet had lost a man Or known what death could do.Picture found here.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging

A ReminiscenceBY ANNE BRONTËYES, thou art gone! and never more Thy sunny smile shall gladden me;But I may pass the old church door, And pace the floor that covers thee.May stand upon the cold, damp stone, And think that, frozen, lies belowThe lightest heart that I have known, The kindest I shall ever know.Yet, though I cannot see thee more, 'Tis still a comfort to have seen;And though thy transient life is o'er, 'Tis sweet to think that thou hast been;To think a soul so near divine, Within a form so angel fair,United to a heart like thine, Has gladdened once our humble sphere.Picture found here.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging

The War in the AirBY HOWARD NEMEROVFor a saving grace, we didn't see our dead,Who rarely bothered coming home to dieBut simply stayed away out thereIn the clean war, the war in the air.Seldom the ghosts come back bearing their talesOf hitting the earth, the incompressible sea,But stayed up there in the relative wind,Shades fading in the mind,Who had no graves but only epitaphsWhere never so many spoke for never so few:Per ardua, said the partisans of Mars,Per aspera, to the stars.That was the good war, the war we wonAs if there was no death, for goodness's sake.With the help of the losers we left out thereIn the air, in the empty air.Picture (of the U.S. Air Force Memorial in Arlington, VA) found here.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging


The Performance
BY JAMES L. DICKEY
The last time I saw Donald Armstrong
He was staggering oddly off into the sun,
Going down, off the Philippine Islands.
I let my shovel fall, and put that hand
Above my eyes, and moved some way to one side
That his body might pass through the sun,

And I saw how well he was not
Standing there on his hands,
On his spindle-shanked forearms balanced,
Unbalanced, with his big feet looming and waving
In the great, untrustworthy air
He flew in each night, when it darkened.

Dust fanned in scraped puffs from the earth
Between his arms, and blood turned his face inside out,
To demonstrate its suppleness
Of veins, as he perfected his role.
Next day, he toppled his head off
On an island beach to the south,

And the enemy’s two-handed sword
Did not fall from anyone’s hands
At that miraculous sight,
As the head rolled over upon
Its wide-eyed face, and fell
Into the inadequate grave

He had dug for himself, under pressure.
Yet I put my flat hand to my eyebrows
Months later, to see him again
In the sun, when I learned how he died,
And imagined him, there,
Come, judged, before his small captors,

Doing all his lean tricks to amaze them—
The back somersault, the kip-up—
And at last, the stand on his hands,
Perfect, with his feet together,
His head down, evenly breathing,
As the sun poured from the sea

And the headsman broke down
In a blaze of tears, in that light
Of the thin, long human frame
Upside down in its own strange joy,
And, if some other one had not told him,
Would have cut off the feet

Instead of the head,
And if Armstrong had not presently risen
In kingly, round-shouldered attendance,
And then knelt down in himself
Beside his hacked, glittering grave, having done
All things in this life that he could.

Picture found here.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging


Mother and Poet
BY ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
I.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Dead ! both my boys ! When you sit at the feast
And are wanting a great song for Italy free,
Let none look at me !

II.
Yet I was a poetess only last year,
And good at my art, for a woman, men said ;
But this woman, this, who is agonized here,
— The east sea and west sea rhyme on in her head
For ever instead.

III.
What art can a woman be good at ? Oh, vain !
What art is she good at, but hurting her breast
With the milk-teeth of babes, and a smile at the pain ?
Ah boys, how you hurt ! you were strong as you pressed,
And I proud, by that test.

IV.
What art's for a woman ? To hold on her knees
Both darlings ! to feel all their arms round her throat,
Cling, strangle a little ! to sew by degrees
And 'broider the long-clothes and neat little coat ;
To dream and to doat.

V.
To teach them ... It stings there ! I made them indeed
Speak plain the word country. I taught them, no doubt,
That a country's a thing men should die for at need.
I prated of liberty, rights, and about
The tyrant cast out.

VI.
And when their eyes flashed ... O my beautiful eyes ! ...
I exulted ; nay, let them go forth at the wheels
Of the guns, and denied not. But then the surprise
When one sits quite alone ! Then one weeps, then one kneels !
God, how the house feels !

VII.
At first, happy news came, in gay letters moiled
With my kisses, — of camp-life and glory, and how
They both loved me ; and, soon coming home to be spoiled
In return would fan off every fly from my brow
With their green laurel-bough.

VIII.
Then was triumph at Turin : Ancona was free !'
And some one came out of the cheers in the street,
With a face pale as stone, to say something to me.
My Guido was dead ! I fell down at his feet,
While they cheered in the street.

IX.
I bore it ; friends soothed me ; my grief looked sublime
As the ransom of Italy. One boy remained
To be leant on and walked with, recalling the time
When the first grew immortal, while both of us strained
To the height he had gained.

X.
And letters still came, shorter, sadder, more strong,
Writ now but in one hand, I was not to faint, —
One loved me for two — would be with me ere long :
And Viva l' Italia ! — he died for, our saint,
Who forbids our complaint."

XI.
My Nanni would add, he was safe, and aware
Of a presence that turned off the balls, — was imprest
It was Guido himself, who knew what I could bear,
And how 'twas impossible, quite dispossessed,
To live on for the rest."

XII.
On which, without pause, up the telegraph line
Swept smoothly the next news from Gaeta : — Shot.
Tell his mother. Ah, ah, his, ' their ' mother, — not mine, '
No voice says "My mother" again to me. What !
You think Guido forgot ?

XIII.
Are souls straight so happy that, dizzy with Heaven,
They drop earth's affections, conceive not of woe ?
I think not. Themselves were too lately forgiven
Through THAT Love and Sorrow which reconciled so
The Above and Below.

XIV.
O Christ of the five wounds, who look'dst through the dark
To the face of Thy mother ! consider, I pray,
How we common mothers stand desolate, mark,
Whose sons, not being Christs, die with eyes turned away,
And no last word to say !

XV.
Both boys dead ? but that's out of nature. We all
Have been patriots, yet each house must always keep one.
'Twere imbecile, hewing out roads to a wall ;
And, when Italy 's made, for what end is it done
If we have not a son ?

XVI.
Ah, ah, ah ! when Gaeta's taken, what then ?
When the fair wicked queen sits no more at her sport
Of the fire-balls of death crashing souls out of men ?
When the guns of Cavalli with final retort
Have cut the game short ?

XVII.
When Venice and Rome keep their new jubilee,
When your flag takes all heaven for its white, green, and red,
When you have your country from mountain to sea,
When King Victor has Italy's crown on his head,
(And I have my Dead) —

XVIII.
What then ? Do not mock me. Ah, ring your bells low,
And burn your lights faintly ! My country is there,
Above the star pricked by the last peak of snow :
My Italy 's THERE, with my brave civic Pair,
To disfranchise despair !

XIX.
Forgive me. Some women bear children in strength,
And bite back the cry of their pain in self-scorn ;
But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us at length
Into wail such as this — and we sit on forlorn
When the man-child is born.

XX.
Dead ! One of them shot by the sea in the east,
And one of them shot in the west by the sea.
Both ! both my boys ! If in keeping the feast
You want a great song for your Italy free,
Let none look at me !

Picture found here.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging


For a War Memorial
BY G. K. CHESTERTON
(SUGGESTED INSCRIPTION PROBABLY NOT SUGGESTED BY THE COMMITTEE)

The hucksters haggle in the mart
The cars and carts go by;
Senates and schools go droning on;
For dead things cannot die.

A storm stooped on the place of tombs
With bolts to blast and rive;
But these be names of many men
The lightning found alive.

If usurers rule and rights decay
And visions view once more
Great Carthage like a golden shell
Gape hollow on the shore,

Still to the last of crumbling time
Upon this stone be read
How many men of England died
To prove they were not dead.


Picture (of an ancient English warrior) found here.

Memorial Day Poetry Blogging


Tommy by Rudyard Kipling

I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer,
The publican 'e up an' sez, "We serve no red-coats here."
The girls be'ind the bar they laughed an' giggled fit to die,
I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:
O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, go away";
But it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play,
The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play,
O it's "Thank you, Mister Atkins", when the band begins to play.

I went into a theatre as sober as could be,
They gave a drunk civilian room, but 'adn't none for me;
They sent me to the gallery or round the music-'alls,
But when it comes to fightin', Lord! they'll shove me in the stalls!
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, wait outside";
But it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide,
The troopship's on the tide, my boys, the troopship's on the tide,
O it's "Special train for Atkins" when the trooper's on the tide.

Yes, makin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
An' hustlin' drunken soldiers when they're goin' large a bit
Is five times better business than paradin' in full kit.
Then it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, 'ow's yer soul?"
But it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll,
The drums begin to roll, my boys, the drums begin to roll,
O it's "Thin red line of 'eroes" when the drums begin to roll.

We aren't no thin red 'eroes, nor we aren't no blackguards too,
But single men in barricks, most remarkable like you;
An' if sometimes our conduck isn't all your fancy paints,
Why, single men in barricks don't grow into plaster saints;
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Tommy, fall be'ind",
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys, there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir", when there's trouble in the wind.

You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an' fires, an' all:
We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational.
Don't mess about the cook-room slops, but prove it to our face
The Widow's Uniform is not the soldier-man's disgrace.
For it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' "Chuck him out, the brute!"
But it's "Saviour of 'is country" when the guns begin to shoot;
An' it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an' anything you please;
An' Tommy ain't a bloomin' fool -- you bet that Tommy sees!


Picture found here.

Saturday Poetry Blogging


To Meditate

To meditate does not mean to fight with a problem.
To meditate means to observe.
Your smile proves it.
It proves that you are being gentle with yourself,
that the sun of awareness is shining in you,
that you have control of your situation.
You are yourself,
and you have acquired some peace.

- Thich Nhat Hahn

Picture found here.

Art Contest : Harvest-Land

Calling all artists! Commissioning art for the concept "Harvest-Land". Please send me your drawings, paintings, etc., of your conception of what a mythical "Harvest-Land" would look like. Include all symbols, folk figures, deities, etc. that seem appropriate. The more Indo-European and Teutonic the better, but all entries that meet these criteria will be posted on this page and aired for people to view your work. Help take us there. This kind of art can be a form of path-working, and open up the gates for people to pass through.

May the Goddess Guard Him; May He Find His Way to the Summerlands; May His Friends and Family Know Peace


The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

You will not be able to stay home, brother.
You will not be able to plug in, turn on and cop out.
You will not be able to lose yourself on skag and skip,
Skip out for beer during commercials,
Because the revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be televised.
The revolution will not be brought to you by Xerox
In 4 parts without commercial interruptions.
The revolution will not show you pictures of Nixon
blowing a bugle and leading a charge by John
Mitchell, General Abrams and Spiro Agnew to eat
hog maws confiscated from a Harlem sanctuary.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be brought to you by the
Schaefer Award Theatre and will not star Natalie
Woods and Steve McQueen or Bullwinkle and Julia.
The revolution will not give your mouth sex appeal.
The revolution will not get rid of the nubs.
The revolution will not make you look five pounds
thinner, because the revolution will not be televised, Brother.

There will be no pictures of you and Willie May
pushing that shopping cart down the block on the dead run,
or trying to slide that color television into a stolen ambulance.
NBC will not be able predict the winner at 8:32
or report from 29 districts.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of pigs shooting down
brothers in the instant replay.
There will be no pictures of Whitney Young being
run out of Harlem on a rail with a brand new process.
There will be no slow motion or still life of Roy
Wilkens strolling through Watts in a Red, Black and
Green liberation jumpsuit that he had been saving
For just the proper occasion.

Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville
Junction will no longer be so damned relevant, and
women will not care if Dick finally gets down with
Jane on Search for Tomorrow because Black people
will be in the street looking for a brighter day.
The revolution will not be televised.

There will be no highlights on the eleven o'clock
news and no pictures of hairy armed women
liberationists and Jackie Onassis blowing her nose.
The theme song will not be written by Jim Webb,
Francis Scott Key, nor sung by Glen Campbell, Tom
Jones, Johnny Cash, Englebert Humperdink, or the Rare Earth.
The revolution will not be televised.

The revolution will not be right back after a message
About a white tornado, white lightning, or white people.
You will not have to worry about a dove in your
bedroom, a tiger in your tank, or the giant in your toilet bowl.
The revolution will not go better with Coke.
The revolution will not fight the germs that may cause bad breath.
The revolution WILL put you in the driver's seat.

The revolution will not be televised, will not be televised,
will not be televised, will not be televised.
The revolution will be no re-run brothers;
The revolution will be live.
-- Gil Scott-Heron

Picture found here.

Poetry Is a Way of Celebrating the Actuality of a Nondual Universe in All Its Facets


I love what Gary Snyder says about poetry and meditation:
A year or so later, in Kyoto, I asked my teacher Oda Sesso Roshi, "Sometimes I write poetry. Is that all right?" He laughed and said, "It's all right as long as it comes out of your true self." He also said "You know, poets have to play a lot, asobi." That seemed an odd thing to say, because the word asobi has an implication of wandering the bars and pleasure quarters, the behavior of a decadent wastrel. I knew he didn't mean that. For many years while doing Zen practice around Kyoto, I virtually quit writing poetry. It didn't bother me. My thought was, Zen is serious, poetry is not serious. In any case, you have to be completely serious when you do Zen practice. So I tried to be serious and I didn't write many poems. I studied with him for six years.

IN 1966, JUST BEFORE ODA ROSHI DIED, I had a talk with him in the hospital. I said, "Roshi! So it's Zen is serious, poetry is not serious." He said "No, no—poetry is serious! Zen is not serious." I had it all wrong! I don't know if it was by accident or it was a gift he gave me, but I started writing more, and maybe I did a little less sitting, too. I think I had come to understand something about play: to be truly serious you have to play. That's on the side of poetry, and of meditation, too. In fact, play is essential to everything we do—working on cars, cooking, raising children, running corporations—and poetry is nothing special. Language is no big deal. Mind is no big deal. Meaning or no-meaning, it's perfectly okay. We take what's given us, with gratitude.

* * *

In Japanese art, demons are funny little guys, as solid as horses and cows, who gnash their fangs and cross their eyes. Poetry is a way of celebrating the actuality of a nondual universe in all its facets. Its risk is that it declines to exclude demons. Buddhism offers demons a hand and then tries to teach them to sit. But there are tricky little poetry/ego demons that do come along, tempting us with suffering or with insight, with success or failure. There are demons practicing meditation and writing poetry in the same room with the rest of us, and we are all indeed intimate.

Here's one of Snyder's poems that I think is about meditation. And reading (and writing, I suspect) poetry. And mystical experience. Oh, and not falling.
John Muir on Mt. Ritter:

After scanning its face again and again,
I began to scale it, picking my holds
With intense caution. About half-way
To the top, I was suddenly brought to
A dead stop, with arms outspread
Clinging close to the face of the rock
Unable to move hand or foot
Either up or down. My doom
Appeared fixed. I MUST fall.
There would be a moment of
Bewilderment, and then,
A lifeless rumble down the cliff
To the glacier below.
My mind seemed to fill with a
Stifling smoke. This terrible eclipse
Lasted only a moment, when life blazed
Forth again with preternatural clearness.
I seemed suddenly to become possessed
Of a new sense. My trembling muscles
Became firm again, every rift and flaw in
The rock was seen as through a microscope,
My limbs moved with a positiveness and precision
With which I seemed to have
Nothing at all to do.

Picture found here.

Rebirthing the Sacred Power of the Divine Feminine

Gaia the Earth Goddess

Gaia is universal and primordial. We learn about the mystery of our own humanity when we listen to her.

We have forgotten and been denied the sacred power of the divine feminine. Without her, we impoverish our lives of the sacred meaning and divine purpose of being alive, we lose our ability to heal, nourish and transform ourselves and our world, and we deny ourselves the wisdom and the sacred power that belongs to the creative cycles of life which contain the sacred mystery of divine love.

The feminine IS the core of creation that is LOVE. She and the Great Mother are one and the same. Every woman instinctively knows that she is at the center of this great mystery of bringing life into the world – the sacred transformation of light into matter. Every woman intuitively knows that nothing can be born without the feminine Creatrix.

Humanity plays a central role in creation, what we deny our selves, we deny all life on earth. Culture’s patriarchal focus of a disembodied transcendent God has divided spirit and matter (mother) and left us without the beneficial wholeness of the two united in oneness. When we look at the world today, we see a world exploited, polluted and raped by greed and power. Without the return of the sacred feminine principles of life, the world will not heal.

Most of the historical sacred feminine wisdom is lost because the days of the priestesses and temple ceremonies were orally transferred and not written down. Even so, we can still begin the work of bringing the wisdom of the divine feminine back by reconnecting with her at her creative core. We begin by asking our Great Mother Goddess for forgiveness and help, listening and being receptive to her wisdom and finally committing ourselves to becoming fully awake by responding to the present need in the world in a new way that combines the wisdom of feminine oneness with the light of masculine consciousness.

Reawakening to the divine feminine means:

• Learning to see “behind our eyes” by fearlessly exploring our interiors.
• Staying in present time for our own needs as well as the moment’s.
• Integrating and combining the parts together to form a whole.
• Seeing connections and how they relate to one another.
• Returning to being in touch with own bodies, imagery and truth.
• Going deeply into the cycles and mystery of creation in order to become empowered and reborn in a new way.

It is time for women to realize that we all pay the price for unconsciously colluding with the masculine culture and betraying our own authentic nature by not acknowledging our own selfish desires and acts of martyrdom out of fear and jealousy. We must stop projecting our pain and anger onto men and in so doing become agents of anger rather than going deeper into the mystery of the pain and suffering that is part of the great feminine initiation into the cycles of creation. In going deeper, we honor the pain and suffering that Great Mother Goddess embodies and find the wisdom and ability to forgive what is hidden in the darkness to be reborn in a new way, uncontaminated by the egoiccentric masculine power complex. We can then move forward focused on the present moment where anything is possible and no separation exists if we listen to and respond courageously to our intuitive wisdom.

By traveling into our own mysterious depths, we return to our innate wisdom and learn to take responsibility for the source of our own suffering. We can ask Great Mother Goddess for help us in seeing the one light within that is shared by all of humanity – a reflection of divine life in everything within and around us. Merged in the memory of feminine consciousness, we realize we are no longer separate from the masculine and we are then able to combine our own interior masculine principles with a new understanding of the wholeness of life that will help us heal our selves and the world.

It is time for the feminine to return home and reclaim the sacred life in which we all are a part. She needs to be known again for she is part of the real miracle of being alive that belongs to blood and breath and not as an icon or a distant myth. All we have to do is open ourselves enough to see the invisible world within that unites both inner and outer worlds. She will help us reclaim our sacred power and wisdom, reconnect us to the whole of life and return us to our authentic selves. If we are true to her, she will birth us back into a world where wonder, joy and the magic of creation remains.

ABOUT AUTHOR AND ARTIST PAMELA WELLS Pamela Wells has been working as a fine artist, commercial illustrator and graphic web designer for over 20 years and specializes in creative work that leads to greater understanding and awareness. Her goddess art incorporates her interest in the study of transpersonal psychology, integral transformative spiritual practice and the evolution of human consciousness. She cares deeply about both men and women and also about the ecological preservation of the planet which benefits all living things. To order a copy of Pamela’s most recent book and card set, Affirmations for the Everyday Goddess, www.ArtmagicPublishing.com.

All articles may be republished or printed providing author credit (above) and a a link is provided back to http://www.ArtmagicPublishing.com. Please contact Pamela for permission to use her original artwork.

The Meaning of "Sai" and "Janyati"

I would like to know where the words "Sai" and "Janyati" come from And what they mean. "Sai" was the name of a very prominent Hindu "Guru" who recently died, but I asume there is no connection? Greetings,
Alexandra Janyati (singular, Janya) comes from a root meaning "born" or "produced", cf. Jataka = birth-stories (of the Buddhas) and in the Latin languages, such words as generation and genesis. Also genius meaning originally a guardian spirit - génie in French, which was also used to translate Arabic Jinni (singular of Jinn) - hence modern English genie. (Some versions of Deanic texts actually "Latinized" Janyati as "Geniae"). The term "Janya" means a spirit born or generated directly from Dea (the Absolute), and thus a secondary emanation of Deity - a spiritual "stream" that has its Source in Her. It is sometimes rendered as either "angel" or "goddess", but both can easily be misunderstood, and so Janya is preferred. The term Sai (usually prefixed to a name) can be compared to Sanskrit sri or western saint. Its usage is closer to sri than to the modern usage of saint, since it can be used of both divine beings (Janyati) and saintly humans, and sometimes even of other holy things. This is, however, in line with the older usage of saint as in "St. Cross", "St. Savior" (San Salvador) or "St. Trinity", all found in the names of old churches. Sai is usually prefixed to the name of any Janya, hence Sai Raya, Sai Sushuri etc.

The Meaning of "Sai" and "Janyati"

I would like to know where the words "Sai" and "Janyati" come from And what they mean. "Sai" was the name of a very prominent Hindu "Guru" who recently died, but I asume there is no connection? Greetings,
Alexandra Janyati (singular, Janya) comes from a root meaning "born" or "produced", cf. Jataka = birth-stories (of the Buddhas) and in the Latin languages, such words as generation and genesis. Also genius meaning originally a guardian spirit - génie in French, which was also used to translate Arabic Jinni (singular of Jinn) - hence modern English genie. (Some versions of Deanic texts actually "Latinized" Janyati as "Geniae"). The term "Janya" means a spirit born or generated directly from Dea (the Absolute), and thus a secondary emanation of Deity - a spiritual "stream" that has its Source in Her. It is sometimes rendered as either "angel" or "goddess", but both can easily be misunderstood, and so Janya is preferred. The term Sai (usually prefixed to a name) can be compared to Sanskrit sri or western saint. Its usage is closer to sri than to the modern usage of saint, since it can be used of both divine beings (Janyati) and saintly humans, and sometimes even of other holy things. This is, however, in line with the older usage of saint as in "St. Cross", "St. Savior" (San Salvador) or "St. Trinity", all found in the names of old churches. Sai is usually prefixed to the name of any Janya, hence Sai Raya, Sai Sushuri etc.

The Meaning of "Sai" and "Janyati"

I would like to know where the words "Sai" and "Janyati" come from And what they mean. "Sai" was the name of a very prominent Hindu "Guru" who recently died, but I asume there is no connection? Greetings,
Alexandra Janyati (singular, Janya) comes from a root meaning "born" or "produced", cf. Jataka = birth-stories (of the Buddhas) and in the Latin languages, such words as generation and genesis. Also genius meaning originally a guardian spirit - génie in French, which was also used to translate Arabic Jinni (singular of Jinn) - hence modern English genie. (Some versions of Deanic texts actually "Latinized" Janyati as "Geniae"). The term "Janya" means a spirit born or generated directly from Dea (the Absolute), and thus a secondary emanation of Deity - a spiritual "stream" that has its Source in Her. It is sometimes rendered as either "angel" or "goddess", but both can easily be misunderstood, and so Janya is preferred. The term Sai (usually prefixed to a name) can be compared to Sanskrit sri or western saint. Its usage is closer to sri than to the modern usage of saint, since it can be used of both divine beings (Janyati) and saintly humans, and sometimes even of other holy things. This is, however, in line with the older usage of saint as in "St. Cross", "St. Savior" (San Salvador) or "St. Trinity", all found in the names of old churches. Sai is usually prefixed to the name of any Janya, hence Sai Raya, Sai Sushuri etc.

Traditional Peoples Ban Logging

In the Philippines, "Green Guerillas" (click link to go to You Tube Video, in 3 parts) assist the indigenous tribespeople in ousting the logging companies and imposing a complete ban on logging for export, with limited use for domestic purposes. They are resisting a government that has aligned itself with imperialist forces of globalization trying to outlaw tribal autonomy and attack Old Growth forests.

I cannot think of a modern struggle more in keeping with the spirit of our Germanic ancestors in their struggles against Rome to preserve their sacred groves.

This represents a tremendous moment, where warriors have aligned themselves with traditional law, to preserve the habitat and tribal autonomy of the indigenous peoples in this area. They have pro-actively begun reforestation, with a diverse variety of native vegetation, to counter the depredations of economic, imperial extraction.

The tale of imperial extraction is, unfortunately, an old story. "To feed the insatiable appetites that such greed spawned, forests, observed Seneca, had to be ravaged. The material needs of Rome's wild building schemes were met, in part, by lumberjacks felling trees ... Rome sacked the barbarian world for the resources it needed. In the process Rome transformed the conquered provinces according to its own image : a former wilderness tamed by human hands. After a century of Roman rule, the landscape of the provinces began to resemble the civilized countryside of Italy. These changes led one writer at the end of the second century A.D. to exclaim, "...There are few places now that are not accessible ; few unknown ; few, unopened to commerce. Forests have given way before the plough, cattle have driven off beasts of the jungle, and where once there was but a settler's cabin, great cities are now to be seen." (John Perlin, A Forest Journey : The Role of Wood in the Development of Civilization, W.W. Norton & Company, New York/London, 1989 , p. 115, and after first ellipsis, p. 124.) This was a fundamental reason for resisting Rome, because conquest and transformation into a province destroyed the habitat and turned the homeland into a resource extraction area, followed by a fierce pace of deforestation. We must remember that at the outset of European conquest, tribal Europe consisted of settlements nestled like islands within virtual oceans of forest. "The Romans encountered ... densely forested conditions when they expanded into western Europe ... For native Romans like Caesar, accustomed to cultivated fields and large cities, the vast wilderness of what we now know as the "Old World" set the Roman imagination ablaze much as the "New World" of North America fired up European consciousness some fifteen hundred years later. The vastness of the forest of Hercynia in Germany hypnotized many a Roman. Pliny ... humbled by its pristine quality, leading him to believe that the forest had been "untouched by the ages" and remained unchanged since the world began. Its seemingly immortal state led Pliny to believe that the Hercynian wilds "surpassed all marvels."" (Ibid, p. 108.) The forests themselves helped shield the native tribes from the onslaught of imperialism. "The forests, however, slowed the pace of subjugation. The native populations relied on the cover of the forest to increase their odds in their battles against a better armed and more organized foe trained in open-field warfare." (Ibid, p. 110.) In defending the forests, the tribal warriors were defending their people and their customs ; in defending their people and their customs, they were defending the forests.

I suggest that all heathens study this video in a spirit of solidarity, and with an eye for parallels with the many battles in which the generations surrounding Arminius engaged. In this way, connection to the larger humanity that is under the gun of empire can be fostered, transforming what might remain idle theoretical engagements with ancestral material into palpable solidarity with pagan tribespeople struggling to defend their own heaths all around the world.

This video, contemplated with a deep mind, offers the possibility for modern heathens to pierce beneath the veil of imperial warfare, and rediscover the notion of guerilla warfare aligned with traditional, indigenous law that characterized their barbarian ancestors. It is this kind of comparison with living practice on the ground that allows our source documents about our own ancestors to come alive, so that we can align ourselves with their authentic spirit, a spirit which has the power to fire up our own insurgent spirits to blaze against the darkness of empire in our times. The opportunity to learn about the kind of warfare practiced to protect grove and tribe and unique customs is powerful, allowing us to move from generic militaristic sentiments and jingoism to the more specific kinds of struggle in defense of the folk that the Gods honored, lending their forces of strength, fierceness, justice, and wisdom. The living comparison allows us to penetrate beneath the feudal scum that overlays like a film our later Scandinavian documents, to understand the pre-feudal, odal warriors who defended their beloved Mother Earth. This also allows us to shed the deplorable right-wing mentality imposed upon this traditional material by fascists of all stripes and genealogies, who sought to utilize it to justify their neo-feudalism. Herein is a chance to glimpse and get at the genuine juice.

Energy Follows Attention


An interesting conversation with a dear friend has had me thinking for a few weeks about mystical experience. And one of the things that I've realized is that while it's generally not possible (absent LSD or other psychotropics) to have a mystical experience on demand, it is possible to do work that will lay the groundwork and help pave the way. (That's not to say, given the nature of such experiences, that they don't sometimes come to those who have done nothing to prepare for them, or that all the preparation in the world will ensure them. In this way, they're a bit like athletic performance. Some people are natural athletes and can achieve amazing performances without as much practice as it would take, oh, say, me. Others can practice and work out for a lifetime and still not break the record or perfectly execute the grand jete. It nearly drove Salieri crazy.) And I'm reminded of Adrienne Rich's admonition that:
No one ever told us we had to study our lives,
make of our lives a study, as if learning natural history
or music, that we should begin
with the simple exercises first
and slowly go on trying
the hard ones, practicing till strength
and accuracy became one with the daring
to leap into transcendence, take the chance
of breaking down the wild arpeggio
or faulting the full sentence of the fugue.
And in fact we can’t live like that: we take on
everything at once before we’ve even begun
to read or mark time, we’re forced to begin
in the midst of the hard movement,
the one already sounding as we are born.

And yet, and yet, what I've observed is that daily spiritual practice and an openness to mystical experience, as well as a willingness to go with the experience when it happens (to not shut it down, discount it, run away to some distraction) are certainly helpful.

And I think that all of this is relevant to the notion of developing and being in deep relationship with your landbase, with your own Bit of Earth. Which is, for me, where mystical experiences come from. Few of us living in this technology-studded culture are able, without some work, to connect easily and deeply to our landbase. Like most important relationships, it can take work. And, yet, that "work" -- once we decide to make time for it -- is really quite easy.

1. Pick a place. Better if it's quite accessible and won't take time and effort to get to. It can be your yard, a nearby park, a strip of weeds between your apartment building and the dry cleaners. It can be a potted plant in your window-sealed office if that's your most likely option.

2. Spend time there. That's all. Don't expect to have a conversation or receive insights. Just go there and spend time. Fifteen minutes, if that's what you've got. An afternoon, or a sunrise, or a long lunch break if that works.

3. Repeat Step Two daily, if possible, or as close to daily as you can. Keep doing this.

4. Begin to notice how things change. What new animal did you see? Is the plant that you sit by blooming, losing its leaves, sending out runners? Keep doing this for months and months, years and years. Maybe you'll feel, at some point, like getting a field guide and trying to learn more about that bird who sings to you from an invisible place in the tree or about that weed that seems invasive. Maybe you'll want to look something up on the internet or ask a local gardener who's been working for years in your area.

5. One day, maybe early on or maybe after a long time, you may get a notion to do something: leave a crust of your sandwich for the ants, bring some water in a bottle to pour on the thirsty little plant you've been watching, pick up the trash, plant a vegetable garden or a tree. Maybe this is the land telling you what it needs, maybe it's just your wild whim. An' it harm none, do as ye will.

I pay a lot of attention (and we all know that magic, like energy, follows attention) to the strip of land alongside the Potomac River that I travel through every day on the way to my office. After years of this work, I can recognize subtle changes and I welcome so many manifestations of the landbase's energy as my old friends.

Today, I noticed that the chicory is now in bloom. Chicory's flowers always remind me of the color Alice-Blue, derived from a dress worn by Alice Roosevelt Longworth and they're happy and dancey, the way you'd feel if you wore that dress to a party. I didn't used to know chicory's name; to me it was just that pretty blue flower that grows by the roadside. But eventually, maybe it was chicory and the landbase talking to me, or maybe it was just a whim of my own (and the real lesson is that there's honestly not much distinction), I wanted to know its name and that's led to me learn more and more about it.

Like Miss Alice, (her father is reported to have said that he could "be President of the United States, or I can control Alice. I cannot possibly do both.") it's got a mind of it's own and spreads where it will. The chicory growing along the Potomac River in Virginia likely came from some that Thomas Jefferson imported and grew at Monticello. Like a dear old friend who shows up at the first sign of trouble or hardship, without waiting for an invitation, chicory grows in abandoned fields, along roadsides, in places where the land needs to begin to recover itself. Its leaves can be eaten and its roots provide the flavoring in chicory coffee. It is reputed to have medicinal uses and is sometimes encouraged as fodder for livestock.

And it's pretty and happy and sways in the early-morning sunshine as if it were skipping home late from a dance.

What's blooming just now in your landbase? What might you notice if you committed to spend some time paying attention for the next week, or Moon, or turn of The Wheel?

In My Bones, I Am a Witch

Maybe it won't be helpful at all, but on the off chance that someone who has to talk to the press ever needs to actually explain "what Witchcraft is," here's (a bit of) what it is, to me.

It's a religion that honors that part of women that is also divine, that helped me to finally heal the wound caused by Catholicism's solitary emphasis on male images and versions of divinity and priesthood. Finally, in one blinding moment, I too, was (really) created in the image and likeness of the divine. I, too, was a priest(ess). And, as the poet said, that has made all the difference. Catholicism denied me the word: Priestess. That was the word that I needed all of my life to explain to myself who I am. Witchcraft gave that word to me. It has touched me; I have grown. That one word was the most important key to unlocking for myself who I really am.

Witchcraft is a history that explained to me why female power was always shown as evil and problematic, why all that the nuns could offer me was sacrifice, why the men in the church/medical profession/government were so terrified of my raw power.

Witchcraft centers me within the Wheel of the Year, teaches me how to live in deep connection with the cycles of the Earth, Moon, constellations. It gifts me with a relationship with Hecate, Columbia, Baba Yaga, Quan Yin. It grants my own life a place at the harvest, the winter freeze, the Imbolc shift, the warming of the Spring. It centers me within a history of old women stretching all the way back to a frozen old crone in a cave in Sweden, holding off the wolves from the scent of warm afterbirth near the fire, inside the cave, between her body and her power.

It's a theology and a philosophy that honors all of life, that honors the connection between the light and the dark, between my bloody, messy, life-giving, milk-spurting, orgasming, food-tasting, flower-smelling, cancer-getting, strong, out-of-control, fantastic female body and my quick mind, my ability to produce prose, my ability to think in thea-ology, my urge to win, and my deep longing for the poetic.

It's a way of living that allows me to exist in the natural world, that provides me with lessons in how to exercise my power, that respects the deep intuition that has guided and undergirded (when I ignored the guidance) most of what I have done for most of my life.

Witchcraft has made me whole, taught me who I am, gotten me through some insurmountable odds.

Witchcraft is how I wake up in the morning, connect my dreams to the "real" world, travel to work, and connect to the plants, animals, waterways, and humans that I meet on that journey. Witchcraft is how I move myself into the Druidic dancer of the law, the Priestess who uses power with skill, the woman who can play the glass bead game to help her clients and friends.

Witchcraft is how I cast a web of protection across a street that Obama's motorcade is about to cross, how I light incense for a friend's beloved dead, how I pluck strands of the web to influence an election, to protect an activist, and to bless Elizabeth Warren or revolutionaries across the globe.

Witchcraft is how I garden on THIS bit of Earth, how I drive every morning along the Potomac River, how I knit warm sweaters for G/Son, or cowls for all the men in my family, or caps for DiL and her mom. Witchcraft is how I buy vegetables at the farmers' market, pick and dry herbs in my garden, pull the levers when I vote at my local community arts center, and deal with the guy behind the counter at the place that services my hybrid car or the guy behind the counter at the place where I buy my morning coffee.

Witchcraft is me, living and growing within a circle of women, bumping up against them, adoring them, living my own life within a circle that includes them. Witchcraft is a blue new Moon painted on my forehead, me calling a direction surrounded by my Sisters, the cone of power we raise to protect activists, the magic we do to turn retrograde Mercury against those who would harm us, the delightful ability to help a Sister achieve her own magical goals as we stand, skyclad, inside a circle of power.

Witchcraft is how I teach G/Son who the Goddess is, allow him to use my athame, do Reiki on his bones that grow so fast that he has growing pains. It was how I did the same for Son's growing pains, drew pentagrams on the door to my DiL's labor room, circled protection around their home, and how I cast Tarot to see the best solution to a legal knot.

What Witchcraft Is, is a pretty big topic. It's way too big to waste time explaining that it's not about [insert noxious practice here].

What is it about for you?

Once More, Into the Breach


It's been a while since I've done one of these posts, but apparently there's still a need to discuss framing when Pagans deal with the outside world. Here's an article about a group of Salem Witches who want to improve relations with their town and educate people about Paganism.

U R Doing It Wrong.
"We're not eating babies or drinking blood," said Teri Kalgren, W.E.L.'s vice president. "[We promote] a better understanding of what witch craft is." [And that would be??? Apparently, what Witchcraft is -- is going around assuring people that you don't eat babies. Because there's NO discussion of "what witch craft is." Just the already-hackneyed assertion that we don't eat babies.]

No, Teri, not if that's how you go about it, you're not going to promote a better understanding of what Witchcraft is. What you're doing is reinforcing a negative frame.

Think of Christine O'Donnell announcing, "I'm not a Witch." What does everyone remember about her? Her statement that she "dabbled into witchcraft."

Think of Richard Nixon telling Americans that their president "is not a crook." He's not remembered for signing the EPA into existence; he's remembered as a crook, who was forced to resign in disgrace.

Think of your guilty kid snatching his hand out of the cookie jar and telling you, before you get a word out, "I wasn't taking cookies."

What I really don't get is that not only have I never heard of any Witches who do actually eat babies or drink blood, but I can't remember an even vaguely mainstream publication saying anytime in recent years that Witches eat babies or drink blood (isn't that Vampires?). The only people who seem to be discussing those subjects are -- Witches. Stop it. Just stop it.

Yeah, I get that in Hansel and Gretel there's a (nominal) Witch who wants to eat the children. In Cinderella, there's a prince who runs around trying to put a glass slipper on women's feet. You didn't see Prince William giving interviews announcing that he doesn't have a shoe fetish, though, did you? Catholic priests demonstrably do sexually abuse little boys. You don't see Father Flannigan beginning his press release about the St. Xavier's Day Festival by announcing that he won't be sexually abusing little boys at the bingo tent or funnel cake stand, either, do you?

If you want to start a Witches Education League and ingrain yourself into your community, issue a press release and explain that the WEL will:
continue with community services such as the annual W.E.B.-founded "ask a witch, make a wand," where children are invited to make magic wands with area witches near Halloween. [Great idea, by the way. G/Son would love it. More like this.]

Say that you'll be running seminars on the proud history of Pagans, from Babylonia, to Egypt (every kid in America has to do a school report on Egypt), to Greece, to Rome, to Ireland, to America. Say that you're:
planning a number of events coming up including a [P]agan family day tentatively set for August.

But don't, for the love of the Goddess, go on and on about how Witches don't eat babies.

You do need to be prepared for the (very rare) reporter who may ask, "Well, I've read in almost every other article in recent memory that Witches always say they don't eat babies. It makes me wonder why you're so defensive. Do you now, or have you ever, eaten babies?" Practice with a friend how you'll return the interview to YOUR (positive) message. "Of course, that's a ridiculous and false accusation. In fact, Witches honor all of life and our recent program to help pets stranded during tornadoes in the American South and West shows our commitment to all forms of life. Incidentally, our Pagan family day in August will include a number of activities for children, including face painting, a petting zoo, and a story hour. Those are being coordinated by X and Y, both of whom are parents with children of their own and degrees in early childhood education and . . . ."

This isn't rocket science. I'm begging Pagans to stop shooting all of us in the foot. What if we tried for a year NOT mentioning what we don't do and focusing on what it is that we do? We could reconvene at that point and see if we're any worse off for not having reinforced negative frames.

My pipple. I worry about you. Stop doing stupid stuff.


Picture found here.

Let’s Make Sure that Grandkids Can Visit


So, lawyerly disqualifiers first, I don't know Liona Rowan, but this survey was passed to me by a local Wiccan I know well. Rowan is conducting a survey concerning the need for a low-cost retirement community for people s/he calls "Pagan Elders." It's my impression from reading the survey that, by "Pagan Elders," Rowan means "old Pagans," rather than "old Pagans who have, for example, published books or made a big mark," but I may be wrong. And I could wish that the grammar were, well, better.

However, many Christian and Jewish groups provide nursing homes and retirement communities, either for their members or for older people of any religion who need care. So the concept of Pagan elder care is not surprising, especially as we move into an era where many of the people who came to Paganism in the decades between the 1960s and today are getting older and in need of care.

I can't help but imagine life in a Pagan nursing home. Tarot readings at lunch. Vegan meals. Of course, the Beltane circles might have to conclude before 4:30, when we old folks begin to flag. Endless discussions about whether it's appropriate to call only Goddesses at the Full Moon. Skyclad rituals with walkers. Meds dispensed along with Reiki. Weekly smudging with sage in the dining hall and crafts center. (OK, that was totally not PC and completely inappropriate, not to mention ageist, and I'm sorry. Still giggling, but sorry.)

I will say that I can see the benefits of a Pagan retirement community. And we now have our own burial grounds, so why not a place to retire? One question that's missing is whether or not Pagans need to bring pets with them. I imagine that many would want to.

Here's Rowan's survey, in case you are interested in taking it. Responses should be emailed to : 10ksanctuary@gmail.com.

******

Dear Pagan, Goddess spirituality and Polytheist Community,

My name is Liona Rowan. I am a Witch and priestess assessing the need for a retirement community for our low income Pagan Elders. In my research I have found zero retirement communities for our Elders. It is my hope that I can help that become a reality by assessing the needs and desires of our Elders. Because many of our trailblazing Elders have been spending their time and energy building community, sharing their knowledge and generally care taking. Many of our Elders live in poverty or near poverty. I believe this is unacceptable.

By assessing the need for such a retirement community with a Temple on site I hope to be able to acquire grant monies and donations to build a retirement community in a country setting but near a major city. I am in the process of setting up a 501c3 for the Temple and retirement community to be called 10K Sanctuary.

In my vision there will be initially eight homes that will be around 700-800 square feet. Enough room for a single person or a couple to live comfortably. At the moment the rent will be set at $600. a month all utilities included. I hope to have an orchard and large herbal and vegetable garden in addition it is my dream to have bees. The vegetables and fruits would be available (at no cost) in season to the residents of the retirement community along with honey.

This is still in the exploratory phase. Please answer the questions and add any suggestions or improvements that you feel are important to create a harmonious place to grow old in the company of other Elder Pagans.

Thank you,

Liona Rowan
10ksanctuary@gmail.com

10K Sanctuary Pagan Retirement Community Survey

Please return all surveys to:
10kSanctuary@gmail.com

On a scale of 1-10 1 being the least important and 10 being the most important please answer the following questions

To choose your answer, simply highlight your choice and type an "x" in the place of the number you chose. Thank you in advance for your input!

1. It is important for me to live in a retirement community with other Pagans, Goddess or polytheistic spirituality people.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2. It is important to me to have personal outside space for a garden or leisure.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

3. It is important to me to have an indoors or protected community Temple/worship space when the weather does not permit outside ritual.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

4. It is important to me to have access to a priestess on site as needed.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

5. It is important for me to have an office/study/ritual space in my dwelling.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

6. It is important for me to have a washer/dryer in my dwelling.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

7. Wheelchair accessibility to temple, personal dwelling and outside spaces.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

8. It is important to me to have the opportunity to share my knowledge with the community.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

9. It is important to have access to activities in the larger community (YMCA, library, local restaurants, bars, supermarkets, farmers markets, etc. )

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

On a different note:

using the same scale 1 being the least important and 10 being the most important.

1. I would like to have access to fresh organic fruits and vegetables in season.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2. I would like to have access to a community resource person.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

3. I would like to have the option of group transportation to access the larger community.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Please take as much space as you need to answer the following question:

As an Elder in the Pagan community my ideal retirement community (not assisted living or nursing care facility: Just start typing your responses after the colon, save and send the completed survey to 10ksanktuary@gmail.com

would include:

would look like:

would provide:

please include anything else you feel is important in a retirement community for Pagan Elders:

*****

Picture found here.

Sunday Ballet Blogging: Don’t Muddy the Waters


You have to click here to see today's Sunday Ballet Blogging (embedding has been "disabled"), but you should definitely go ahead and click. Even if you don't like ballet, you should see this short video. Really.

My usual practice is to not comment about Sunday Ballet Blogging. Watching dance, like dance itself, is a mostly physical experience and I'm not sure that, for most people, discussion really helps.

Dance, especially ballet, in my humble experience, is a bit like poetry. Some people have decided that they don't like it, that they don't get it, that it isn't relevant to their experience, and that they aren't going to waste their time on it. And, like poetry, what I've found is that education about forms of poetry, rhyme schemes, influences -- as much as people trying to comment on and describe dance moves, the history of ballet, lighting, historical influences -- not only doesn't help but is, in fact, what has turned a lot of people off. (It's too much like trying to figure out whether you'd like a wine by reading that it has "fruity, citrus undertones with a hint of oak and tobacco." Can I try a sample? Because that discussion doesn't do anything for me and could almost make me think that wine is boring. When it certainly isn't. It's not that the discussion isn't helpful for people who are really, really into wine and "get" the vocabulary. But it's unlikely to turn anyone into an oenophile, at least until after they've learned to like different wines enough (by tasting them) to want to learn a way to describe them.) Too many of us had high school teachers who wanted to teach us iambic pentameter and the structure of a sonnet long before we'd ever found poems that literally moved us to a different place, that got into our gut, that changed our lives. Too many of us spent a damp-wool, overheated Sunday afternoon with our aunt in a smelly theatre watching some badly-done and stilted ballet and wrote that off (although the banana split afterwards at Giffords was almost worth the wait) as boring, bourgeois stuff that didn't have anything to do with our own attempts to live in our bodies, cope with love, have sex, express ancient truths. And until we do or see some dance that moves us, reading a discussion about it isn't going to help.

And I completely get that. One thing I've never figured out how to get interested in is sports. To me, sports are what kept my dad on the couch, yelling at us to shut up, every Saturday and Sunday. It's all about capitalism and Patriarchy. It's bad tribalism and a prostitution of what were once genuine community experiences. (Plus, not to mention, the maths.) If there is anything that will almost instantly put a polite, interested look on my face -- while sending my mind off to that space where I'm thinking, "And then, after I stop at the dry cleaners, I need to pick up milk and curry powder and potting soil, and then I need to be sure to pull the recycling out to the curb and maybe if I move that last section of the legal argument up to the front and then play off that in the following sections . . . " Yes, how about those Nats? -- it's sports. (And I've sat through a lot of business lunches w/ that look on my face.) And the more that some of the people I love most, Son and some dear friends, try to educate me about sports, to get me to spend, say, an Autumn learning enough about sports to have some appreciation, the more I think that I'd rather go home and read poetry.

I tried once, I did, to make myself get into tennis. I took tennis for two semesters in college to fulfill a PE requirement and I sucked less at it than at most other sports, and I figured it would be a good thing for me to to "be into" at least one sport. So I read the sports page every day for an entire year about tennis, bought some videos, read some books, went to some professional matches (in the July heat in DC. OK, not brilliant.) Epic fail. Although I do like the clothing.

All of which is a long way of saying that I do grok how some people just don't get, for example, ballet and why talking about ballet is just a good way to send them to that place where they're making lists about drycleaning and recycling.

What does, once in a while, entrance me is watching some (almost balletic) great tennis or seeing fencers work in a way that looks to me like poetry, like the kind of verbal back-and-forth that makes my Gemini Ascending soul feel all the way alive. And what I imagine/hope may entrance some of my readers is reading a really good poem that just transports them or watching some dance that in-a-moment solidifies for them what they, themselves have felt, or wanted to feel, in their own bodies.

But today's ballet, especially with its spoken poem in both English and (?) some Arabic tongue, about why it is important to be careful not to muddy the waters, just seemed to call to me to comment on it. We are muddying all of Gaia's waters, even the oceans, without which almost no life will survive on this lovely planet. Gaia, who is doing Her own ballet around the Sun, within the Milky Way, across the stage of the Universe. And this ballet, with its spoken and embodied explanation of why muddying the waters harms, for example, the Sufi who wants to wet hir dried bread in the river, is, I think, an important ballet for our time.

There's a great use of props (mostly gauze and wind) in this ballet. Ballet has long used fabric to invoke Water, Air, the way that Spirit enfolds and expands all of our bodies. Watch, for example, what Alvin Ailey does with gauze in Revelations. See, especially, what happens at about 6:30, when the gauze stops being about a hot Wind and becomes all about the cooling, invigorating Waters of Spirit. Are those flags about Air or Water, Wind or Rain? What is the relationship between the two? Is that umbrella about avoiding Fire/South/Sun or about avoiding Water/West/Emotion? And why does it show up to help the audience at both the beginning and the end?

When G/Son's about 3 years older, the 1st ballet that I'm going to take him to see is Revelations (not, Sweet Mother, the Nutcracker, which is, indeed, a passing ballet, but not the right way to enchant a Pisces grandson, nor, IMHO, most children, with the possibilities of dance), because I think that it's so accessible, archetype/Element-infused, and emotionally-rich. Son, DiL, and I once saw a performance of it at the Kennedy Center at the end of which a little girl from DC, maybe 6 or 7, ran to the front of the stage to give flowers to the performers who had so embodied so many archetypes. The lead dancer gracefully bent down to take them, telling the little girl that she mattered. That moment can still reduce/elevate me to tears, all these years later.

DiL and I once went to a ballet danced to My Sweet Lord by George Harrison, where the pastel costumes (among many other things) were a huge part of the dance. I've searched in vain for a YouTube of that performance, but it still provides sustenance for me at my altar. I've seen the Kirov when they 1st returned to America, Nuryev, and several transcendent ballets. The ballet set to Harrison may, in fact, be the one most likely to show up at my altar, in my dreams, when I am sitting zazen at a tributary in West Virginia.

And that's why I think that ballet and dance matter. They matter because they are a way of expressing important truths (the white swan and the black swan must be one, otherwise, women experience death and suffering and men wander around confused; there is something magic about the Winter Solstice and the gifts that we give our children at that time; Appalachia matters to the American story; we shouldn't muddy our waters; harvests and hunting parties all present real dangers) with out own bodies. Sans doute, ballet dancers' bodies are worked and, in Patriarchy, tortured into forms that can express our tortured society. And yet, and yet.

Several of my dear friends are student of belly dance, which, unlike ballet, welcomes women of various body types. I was recently talking w/ my brilliant friend E. about her experience backstage before a major DC belly dance performance -- women in various stages of dishabille, makeup all over, women doing each others' hair, women moving backstage to the music playing for the women onstage, the deep feeling of community.

The story that Patriarchy tells us, that we tell ourselves under the enchantment of forgetfullness worked by Patriarchy, is that women all compete with each others. We're terrified to get naked in front of each other; to pull off our Spanx, our push-up wire bras, our designer purses and shoes. And, yet, what E. finds in the belly dance community and what I've found in every skyclad ritual that I've ever done, is a huge relief and sense of community among women when we finally decide to take off our wrapping, to expose our masectomied, stretch-marked, beautiful female bodies to each other. It creates almost instant boding; it unites us; it makes us free.

And I see that in today's Ballet Blogging, in the women working together to show how Water reveals us while even Wind (supposedly the medium of communication) keeps us separate. I see, in short, enough in this brief ballet to keep me thinking for weeks and weeks.

And that's what good ballet, poetry, sport does for us.

What does it for you?

Picture found here.

Yes.


This.

Ritual is not only about entertainment. It is not only a pleasant pastime or an opportunity to socialize. It is not even simply a psychological tool to shape ourselves and our communities through shared emotional or aesthetic experiences, though it can certainly be used this way.

At the heart of my spiritual life rests the deep knowing that ritual is a way of listening to the Song of the World as it moves through the earth and the land, and engaging with that Song as something holy, wholly challenging and transformative. Shared ritual is when we accept the burden and blessing of being embodied beings of this dense, physical world that gives us life, and when allow ourselves to respond in kind, to speak back to the natural world with its energies and currents and wild mysteries. Ritual is not for our sake alone, but for the sake of the whole world. It is for the sake of the solitude and silence that surrounds us, that frightening shadow of void and absence that makes us who we are, makes us whole.

We ignore it or seek to replace it at our own peril, for the world is what is real. Even in our deepest solitude, the world of experience and natural forces persists.

* * *

We have been neglectful and arrogant for a long time in this country, intoxicated with our own power, lulled into disconnection by our own thirst for convenience and speed and ease. Those years of solitude I spent grieving and kneeling to the dust on the floor were not made up of my grief alone. The land, too, grieves. She misses us. She longs for us to once again touch her as a lover caresses the beloved, to whisper to her of our secret dreams and sit with her in the long silences of twilight. She aches to be with us in our ritual and our prayer. She loves to feel the pounding of our feet and our drums in dance and song and praise — not the scraping and gnawing of our machines and our indifference and our consumerism and our denial.

Our religious communities are not only human. The world, too, the earth and her creatures and her ecosystems and forests and rivers and storms — all these are part of our community of spirit, the community from which our lives crest and subside again like waves of the ocean. And we cannot embrace the world in its wholeness and holiness if we seek to escape it or deny it through digital media that robs it of its voice and deadens our ability to listen to its thrumming presence in even the deepest silences and loneliest moments. Digital and social media have their place, they can give us some direction and help us to share ideas and information across the globe. But they cannot ever replace the hard, necessary work of showing up to ourselves in all of our limited, bounded, frustratingly beautiful imperfections and engaging in the wildness and wilderness of a world so much bigger than we are.

Please, please, please: Go read the whole thing. And then go outside.

Picture found here.

Judgement Day

An exchange fromHeartbook: The so-called "Judgement Day": does it mean anything to Deanists/Filyanists? If not, is there an equivalent in our faith? Just some thoughts! I don't think there is any such thing as a Judgement Day in Filyanic/Deanic faith. Our actions create our werde so if we do bad things they return to us, and if we do good things they return to us. There will be a time when "all the worlds are ended", but I think that is when all beings finally return to Dea. I think that is the difference. We believe that every being, even the demons, will eventually return to the Pure Harmony of Dea. There are no beings that will be eternally lost.