Category Archives: Sit Down At A Typewriter And Open A Vein

On, Wisconsin!


Yesterday, it was sunny and warm here in Columbia's district and I raced home from work, past the beautiful Potomac and the fey-thronged Spout Run, to sit in my woodland garden and on my porch. One of my friends who's been center-front in the struggle for workers' rights in Wisconsin called me on his cell phone so I could hear the crowd around Jesse Jackson singing Amazing Grace. We had a great chat (he, on the front lines and I on my porch, mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) and then I went to my ritual room and lit incense for today's election. I'm so proud of D and S and R and J and all of my other friends in Wisconsin. I feel gifted to know them.

I had a "complicated" relationship with my dad, who, much as he wanted to be a man of words, was seldom able to articulate why he loved the things that he loved. And that made him (inexplicably, to a kid) angry. I was sitting directly behind him, in the family station wagon, when the radio announced that Dr. King had been killed advocating the rights of union workers. My dad, who spent his life in the union movement, slumped in the front seat and then yelled at me for something; I don't remember what. What I do remember was knowing that he felt an unrecoverable loss at that moment. I think he understood why it was that Dr. King could challenge almost anything except the refusal to pay Americans a living wage. One of my most treasured pictures is one of him -- a few days later, trying hard to recover himself, outside a neon-sign Memphis church -- taken when he went to cover Dr. King's funeral for his union. Whenever I'm tempted to be angry at him for the way that he raised me, I remember that picture and focus on what was great about him. He came from almost nothing and spent a lot of his life doing what he could for the highest cause he'd found. I don't think that cause was fathering a feminist, but that's (many years later, after a lot of shadow work, turned out to be kind of) ok.

So maybe it's understandable that this video, which brings together my present and my past, through the lens of my dad and my friends, makes me cry.

When I grew up and moved away from home, one of the few ways that my dad and I managed to connect was through my critiques of his writing (and his grudging support of mine). He was still editing a lot of union magazines and newsletters at that point, and I kept pushing him to make them less sexist. (Me: Dad, would this joke be funny if it were about black people? Dad: Well, no. Me: Ok, then why is it funny about women? Dad: OK, you write a better joke. Me: OK . . . .) So the irony of the sexist signs carried in this video, often above a logo that Dad designed, isn't lost on me.

To balance that, and just for my dad, who would have cried at reading it, I'll add this:
Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?
That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman? ~S. Truth

Women and men need a victory tonight in Wisconsin.

hat tip/ First Draft

A Task for Writers


For those of us who care for an earth not encompassed by machines, a world of textures, tastes, and sounds other than those that we have engineered, there can be no question of simply abandoning literacy, of turning away from all writing. Our task, rather, is that of taking up the written word, with all of its potency, and patiently, carefully, writing language back into the land. Our craft is that of releasing the budded, earthly intelligence of our words, freeing them to respond to the speech of the things themselves – to the green uttering forth of leaves from the spring branches. It is the practice of spinning stories that have the rhythm and lilt of the local soundscape, tales for the tongue, tales that want to be told, again and again sliding off the digital screen and slipping off the lettered page to inhabit these coastal forests, those desert canyons, those whispering grasslands and valleys and swamps. Finding phrases that lace us in contact with the trembling neck-muscles of a deer holding its antlers high as it swims toward the mainland, or with the ant dragging a scavenged rice-grain through the grasses. Planting words, like seeds, under rocks and fallen logs – letting language take root, once again, in the earthen silence of shadow and bone and leaf.

~David Abram

Picture found here.

Who Is Choosing to Lose the Fight?


I've been musing all day about this v. good post by Theodora Goss. Goss is discussing, in particular, how one grows as a writer, but I think that what she says has broader applications to other areas of our lives, including our desire for spiritual and magical growth and our attempts to integrate Fire and capital-W-Will into our lives. Goss says:
I was thinking about the quality of courage today.

I suppose I was thinking about it because I’d seen some things recently that were not at all courageous. That were cowardly. I’m not thinking in terms of physical courage or cowardice. I’m thinking about how we all deal with our lives. The problem is that courage is a sort of muscle. If you don’t use it, the muscle becomes weaker, eventually atrophies. And then you can’t use it, you can’t lift what you need to, or even bend where you need to because it has become stiffer, less flexible.

Courage needs to be exercised.

. . .

Often, it seems to me, when you do something that requires more courage, it ends up being easier than the thing that requires less.

. . .

Each time you put yourself out there in some way, each time you do something that takes courage, you’re exercising that muscle so the next thing becomes easier.

. . .

On the other hand, if you routinely avoid what you fear, you start to believe that you really can’t do whatever it is. And you shrink from other things as well, thinking you can’t do them either.

. . .

And how, you may ask, do you build courage, if it really is a muscle, as I claim?

1. Find something you’re afraid of.

2. Do it.

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2, as many times as necessary.

That was the thought I had today, because what I saw instead was cowardice, which led to weakness, which led to more cowardice and weakness in a feedback loop. And none of us wants to be there, dying a thousand times before our death. Among other things, it’s no way to be a writer.

Goss' discussion reminds me of an October 2010 podcast by T. Thorn Coyle in which Coyle said:
And, where's the struggle? Is it a struggle of not believing in yourself? Is it a struggle of feeling like you don't have the resources you need? Is it a struggle of of lack of time, lack of energy? Is it a struggle of lack of support around you? Or lack of support from your daily practice? Is it the fear of success? The fear of failure? Where's that struggle?

My trainer, Carrie Rockland, with whom I do a trade that's very fruitful for both of us -- we end up teaching each other, which I greatly appreciate . That's one of the ways I keep fire in my life is to seek out teaching from those who have skills or experiences that I don't have -- but Carrie is coming up on a big competition in which she is having to fight someone that she fought many years ago in order to go up a level in the belt system in her martial art. And in talking about this, she wrote something that was so clear that I want to share it with you. Carrie wrote, "More often than not, the truth is I am the one choosing to lose the fight." I want us all to take that phrase in right now. "More often than not, the truth is I am the one choosing to lose the fight. "

We talk ourselves out of it before we even step on the mat, half the time. We talk ourselves out of it before we even gather the resources needed to see a project through. We talk ourselves out of it before we make that initial step or have that first conversation. We talk ourselves out of it before we even let ourselves brainstorm and dream.

Fire can help us with courage. That fire in the heart is that strong heart, that courageous heart. And that is something that our Gods can help us with, our friends can help us with. It's something that can help us face the necessary battles, if you will, or take those risks that we're less willing to take

Fire helps us push out of our comfort zone.

You know, some comfort is necessary. we need some ease in our lives and we need some rest, but we also need our comfort to be challenged.

I'm musing a lot about the roles of Fire, Will, and courage in my life. There's not a lot of Fire in my chart, but there's a whole lot of Earth. And, somehow, for the first half of my life, I wound up needing to work like hell to break away from a dysfunctional family, to raise Son on my own, to run educational programs with no money in a dysfunctional school system, to find a spiritual path for myself (which, you know, Sun in Pisces, was kind of important), to go to law school while I worked, to establish myself in a new field, to survive breast cancer, . . . well, you get the picture. And I think that I simply drew (about as heavily as one can draw upon any one account, I simply drew) from all of the stubborn, determined, not-going-to-give-up Earth in my chart and, somehow, thank the Ancestors, made it through.

And, then, suddenly -- finally -- I got a chance to slow down. I got a chance to experience some of that "comfort" and "ease in our lives" that Coyle talks about. And I've taken full advantage of it. But, lately, I'm feeling more and more of a need to begin to push myself again. Certainly, not as hard as I had to push myself for the first part of my life, but to begin, in Coyle's words, for my comfort to be challenged. This is where Goss' words come in: "On the other hand, if you routinely avoid what you fear, you start to believe that you really can’t do whatever it is. And you shrink from other things as well, thinking you can’t do them either." Goss is right and her metaphor about courage being a muscle is right.

Where are you challenging yourself? Where do you need to invoke Fire? Where do you need more ease and comfort? In what ways is being a Witch an exercise in constantly challenging yourself and invoking Fire? In what ways is it a move towards ease and comfort? What elements do you draw upon to make up for the lack of other elements in your make-up?

Picture found here.

Update: As Thalia notes in comments, the notion of forcing yourself over and over to face fear can have different meanings for those of us who grew up in dysfunctional families. Thalia discusses the very important notion of treating ourselves compassionately and not berating ourselves for being afraid. Thalia's right; we all have to find our own balance and our society often gives short shrift to the courage that it can take to NOT beat ourselves up, to give ourselves permission to create a zone of comfort and ease. Having compassion for ourselves is often one of the bravest things we do.

Apologies to Tolstoy


The amazing Theodora Goss writes that:
With apologies to Tolstoy, all A papers are A papers in their own way. They don’t just lack mistakes. They have something extraordinary about them, a level of engagement with the texts, a felicitous style. They grab and keep your attention, and it’s interesting to think about what does that. Usually, I think, it’s the student’s voice. The student already has an individual voice. The student is already thinking, and writing, in his or her own way. There’s an enormous pleasure in seeing something like that.

Shorter Ms. Goss: When it's done well, we cannot know the dancer from the dance.

I find that the same thing is true of a compelling legal brief; I spend almost as much time reading and editing briefs as I imagine Ms. Goss spends on student papers. And there's little that sends a thrill down my spine quicker than a well-written brief -- although it's painful if it's a brief directed against my position. Good legal writing is something that people like to pretend is an oxymoron. But good legal writing is, IMHO, some of the best writing that there is. It informs, persuades, and carries the reader along in an elegant and almost seamless manner from the initial question to what appears, by the end, to be the only possible conclusion.

How do you know good writing when you see it?

Picture found here.