I is for Iconoclastic Inertia (Pagan Blog Project)

Iconoclast- n. a person who attacks established or traditional concepts, principals, laws, etc. / a destroyer of religious images or sacred objects.¹

America's main enduring tradition is iconoclasm. Less the religious aspect (although that frequently applies as well) American's love uprooting tradition and cheering for the underdog. Well, assuming America is the underdog, which in our cultural paradigm must always be the case. Logic need not apply. America is fairly young, and began with a revolution against a more powerful empire while uprooting and destroying the indigenous people and religion. Most of us were raised on the "greatness" of the iconoclasm of our predecessors, no matter how offensive the crimes of the past might be. We continue this tradition today by upholding the "Mavericks" in Congress, no matter how much such individuals actually support the status quo. Currently, there is a distressingly large push for radically regressive measures in the name of "traditional" values against actual traditional values of the country. As I said, logic need not apply.

It may make no sense, but there is a continual undercurrent against traditional principals.

That traditional disparaging of tradition is harmful for paganism. The view of so many Americans to most situations is a dismissal of how things were done, dismissing our parents as out of touch, dismissing previous wisdom and dismissing most rules as impinging on personal freedom. It's a view of destruction, destroying the past again and again. I'm not exactly a traditional person (being queer, trans, having visible ink, piercing, etc.) but I take issue with much of this destruction. We've destroyed indigenous cultures, both the Native Americans as well as Native Europeans. We've destroyed the past of most immigrants who were not white, erased our cultural histories until Irish, Italian, Jewish, Polish, and more blended into the same homogeneous 'whiteness' rather than enriching each other with distinctiveness. Nothing is coming out of it, because we're not paying enough attention before we smash something to realize there might just be something(s) worth learning. We destroy, but rather skip the rebuilding, recreating phase.

Polytheistic paganism requires rebuilding and recreating. We reconstruct because there is no other way to discover what came before (unless someone out there actually has a TARDIS, in which case, please come by yesterday.) We have to look back at older wisdom, because we can't always know exactly what was done, we must investigate why.

I'm not a pure reconstructionist. Gods, I'm not even in a specific pantheon, but I still spend two hours doing research for a five minute devotional offering to Apollon. Two hours, because I do very little Hellenic practice and despite having good resources I needed to know not just what to offer Apollon, but how and why. Two hours to piece together scraps from various people's personal gnoses (verified and unverified) in addition to the records left to know how I should do this small devotional offering.

Unlike most polytheistic pagans, I'm not huge on ancestor worship. Not because I don't want to, but rather my blood ancestors wouldn't appreciate it, and back much farther than most (as my family is really damn Jewish.) Until I can work out if it would be of use, it means I must look to other places for a similar connection. I recognize the wisdom these links to the past bring. The understanding of hardships that are often beyond our comprehension in an age where we can have a face to face chat with someone anywhere in the world. I'm not saying today's world isn't hard, quite the contrary, we can learn from the past to help us function in this rather shitty time of continual recession and the assault of the repressive right-wingers.

Maybe I am an iconoclast. I want to attack the underlying assumptions of monotheistic USA, from the conception of "self-made men" to American exceptionalism... but especially, I want to attack the notion of simple answers. "Self-made men" usually "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" and make money that the government takes and gives to "parasites." If you can't tell, I call bullshit on that entire sentence. This culture has a mythos that individuals make themselves, erasing family, mentors, friends, and the systematic opportunities that differ so greatly between people. American exceptionalism is a disastrous concept that states the USA is some morally upright country supposed to spread liberty throughout the world. I say disastrous because not just of the history of slavery, genocide, internment, but the present day wars on other cultures as well as our own. We have the highest prison rate in the world, and it is destroying swaths of our society instead of building towards a future. Not something worth spreading, but we are anyways. But I digress.

Regardless, really what I protest and attack is the simple question simple answer view of the world that is so prevalent. It's one of the things I love about polytheism, there are no simple answers. I have to look at this huge expanse of beliefs, and consider, deliberate, study and understand. No, not everyone seeks such a spiritual path or has the time to invest in such inquiry. That's just fine and dandy, but the questioning is important anyways. Mostly because I think that people don't have to be as stupid as they presently are. Critical thinking is something supposedly taught in schools, where everyone is told where and when to move according to bells. We aren't taught to question, because we're taught to look for the simplest answers, to get the grade, to get to college, to get the diploma, to get the job, etc. It's a mindset that in my view we have to break out of in general, but especially so to practice polytheism. Honestly, I feel it is a mindset needed in Christianity, Judaism, Atheism, in every sphere across the board. We need to question, and then listen to the answers.

Critical thinking doesn't work without listening. Typical inert iconoclasm that doesn't engage doesn't teach us anything. Ask why Athena might not be the best goddess to call upon for a female sexual empowerment ritual. Ask what happens next in a story, and listen. Especially listen when the entity speaking isn't exactly corporeal. They're words are all the more likely to get lost in translation from spirit to body. Rather than the dismissive, narcissistic, ignorance so often embodied to erase the past, listen. Listen to the Catholic grandmother who talks with spirits, the Jewish mother who prays to St. Anthony when something important got lost, as well as chosen mentors and teachers. They're wisdom is disappearing.

I'm not saying "do whatever your elders tell you" because lets face it, if I was I'd be doing rather different things with my life. At least listen, and understand their words, because it is a better foundation to build upon.

And because after my only semi-coherent ranting I need something cute, here's a picture of a sugar glider.

1. iconoclast. (n.d.). Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition. Retrieved April 26, 2012, from Dictionary.com website:http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/iconoclast

Knee Jerk Reactions and Milk Religion

There are a few things that I have both very in common with other pagans, and yet completely different. The main one involves my knee jerk reactions to Christianity.

Unlike many pagans, I wasn't raised Christian but Jewish. Monotheism was still much of the reason I walked away, not to mention all the other problems with contemporary Judaism, but I don't have to get over much of the deprogramming that other pagans did/do with regards to Christianity. I don't know the words to things like the Lord's Prayer, most of my understanding about Holy Communion comes from studying the Protestant Reformation, and I only know that the Gospels are Matthew, Mark, Luke and John because I randomly picked the knowledge up as a joke at my summer camp. Whenever I've felt compelled to study religions, I've always gone for something else. Christianity is so pervasive in America, I found any other religion more useful to study because I would actually be learning quite a bit more. Expand my paradigms so to speak. So, being the geek I am, lack of knowledge mostly means lack of experience. In many ways, I don't have the same issues.

But I despise being in a church.

I feel profoundly uncomfortable going to "Church." I've been a few times, twice for weddings, and a few times with a fundamentalist evangelical ex... and actually none of those were bad experiences. I feel so uncomfortable that I don't go with some friends to a local Unitarian Universalist church because they call it church. I know Jews, Wiccans, Buddhists, and Atheists there, but it doesn't matter. I have a gut reaction of "oh FUCK NO" to the mere thought of attending church. A lot of this probably comes from being raised Jewish in jointly the Bible Belt and the Midwest. Going to synagogue was actually quite a bit of a thing at my first school. Missing days because of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kipper wasn't common, and it was weird that I didn't eat pork and for a week each year I couldn't eat pretty much anything the school served for lunch because it always had bread somehow. Even when I transfered and ended up in the honors classes where 50% of the room would be absent on aforementioned days, the earlier lessons were still ingrained. When I started hanging out with almost anyone who wasn't from my high school, they were retaught to me in full. I've been asked where my horns are, and people have asked in a slightly nervous voice if the rumors about Jews using Christian babies blood to make matzah was true. Yeah, welcome to modern America people.

So it isn't just the attending church bit. That's probably the most irrational, as I haven't actually had any bad experiences in a church. The bigger issue and knee jerk reaction is when it comes to the Christian god(s). I use the parenthesis because Christians themselves don't actually agree on how separate Jesus (and the Holy Spirit) is from Jehovah. Some time ago I came across the term "hard polytheist" and it really rang true for me; however, I don't like claiming a term, an identity, without interrogating it a good deal.

I'm definitely a polytheist. I actually believe in multiple gods and goddesses, that they actually exist, and aren't just mental constructs, archetypes, or a part of "one big god or goddess." Fine if you do, that isn't my belief. And I certainly believed in more than one pantheon, especially as I wasn't really following any one in particular. I had (and still have) no doubt that Hela and Persephone are two distinctly separate individuals and not just facets of the same entity as interpreted by two different cultures. Where the line falls, I can't be sure. Where is the division between the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses? I don't know for sure, and unless I end up going in depth with those pantheons I probably never will because my brain power is better spent elsewhere.

There are loads of Deities throughout the world in this view. But what about Jehovah and Jesus? The Jewish, Christian, and Muslim gods may all be the same singular God, to me that is much like the distinction between the Greeks and the Romans. Where the specific line falls is not an issue. But regardless, if I am going to respect the divinity of all those gods as mentioned before, I have to come around to some acceptance of Jesus as divine.

This might seem backwards to other pagans. This definitely seems backwards to Jewish friends of mine. But, for my personal path, the only way I can call myself a hard polytheist is to come to terms with the concept that Jesus is divine and might even be a god. My brain reacted like this:

Picture of a shocked looking cat with WTF and a question mark.

My brain did not like this. I spent a ton of energy throughout my youth dealing with attempts by my Christian friends to convert me. One memorable bus ride involve me crying my heart out because of how fucked up shit was in my life, with a good friend sitting next to me witnessing to me. I didn't have the energy to get her to stop, and I didn't even have the energy at the time to think about was how if she really gave a shit she'd be supporting me and not attempting to get me to make Jesus my personal savior (that came later.) I spent most that time thinking about the fact that I was in a large amount of emotional pain due to very non-metaphysical and very serious reasons, and no Deity was going to be helpful, let alone one getting shoved down my throat at the worst time. Needless to say, I've never accepted Jesus into my heart.

Acknowledging Jesus' divinity, not an easy thing for me to do at all. I went over why I was even trying to do this in my head. I don't have to be a hard polytheist. I can be something a little less hard; I don't have to be the diamond polytheist I can be quartz, or gypsum. But no, I found a right word for myself.

"The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter--it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." -Mark Twain

It was the right word, so one way or another I had to come to terms with either not living up to my own expectations or the idea that Jesus was divine, and quite probably a god or an aspect of a god. I chose to simply deal with this concept, and find a way to wrap my mind around it, hoping the rest of me follows.

As of December, I was still vacillating. When I spoke about it, I generally mentioned how I was hesitant to call myself a hard polytheist because of things like the Greek/Roman distinctions. I didn't want to get into it, because I don't like to publicize something I see as a failing. I had no logical reason to think that son of one god should be any less than the son of so many other gods and goddesses. It was simple prejudice, and a long standing grudge. Despite years of effort to not Christian bash like so many non-Christians in America, despite years of focusing on the fucked-up people and their fucked-up politics rather than blaming the religion, I couldn't put said religion on the same level as every other religion. Years of invisibility, assumptions, and oppression kept my mind recoiling at the thought of Jesus as divine in any form. Heck, there's a passage in the Talmud about stoning him to death.

Slowly, I wore myself out. The knee jerk reaction was mental, not spiritual. I had no gut wrenching aversion from intuition or instinct. It was all learned. I remembered other things than the ways I've been bombarded with "Jesus Saves." I remembered my mom recently teaching me a prayer to St. Anthony to help me find lost things (an entry in itself.) I attempted to define what makes a being a god or goddess, which I'm still working at but at each turn the answer was pretty clear: I needed to get over it already.

I did. I celebrated this not with a drink, but by telling my very Jewish friend about it, because she was one of the only people I knew who would both understand my accomplishment without judging me for not being Jewish. The hardest part wasn't the comprehension, it was letting go of the grudge. A lesson I am probably going to have to learn again as I am truly terrible about grudges.

On the other hand, I still won't go to church.

NB- I do not at all feel that any of the above sentiments on my mental gymnastics around Jesus and Christianity reflect a requirement for other hard polytheists. Your views on individual Deities are your own. Less importantly, I never expected a blog of mine (let alone one on my spirituality) to talk about Christianity and Jesus this much.

H is for Hyperactive

So many moments of stillness, of the calm breath before the storm. Pagans and magickal practices spend a lot of time on using stillness and focus. Meditation is something I've seen emphasized in one form or another repeatedly across disciplines and paths. It's frequently treated as the basis for spirituality and magickal practice. It is the beginning, and frequently the middle and destination as well. Stillness isn't cutting it for me.

As an adult with ADHD, stillness is not my ally.

Also, for me, hyperactivity is inextricably linked with attention (though not the other way around,) but hyperactivity is an issue in and of itself. I'm a fidgeter, even been called twitchy. The more I've studied meditation the more it's obvious: I need movement. I need to walk, flow, drum, or run. I walk and do Katas. I've studied some Tai Chi. I try to do these things, but continuing along such paths often proves costly, when really I'm just needing those tools to aid my focus, to release distraction.

Some might point out that my hyperactivity shows that I simply need more practice at meditative forms. And there is a truth in that. I do need more practice of stillness, of pushing through headlong, of challenging myself to this because it is a weak point and it would help me be more functional at a level most people take for granted. Long term, that is very true. Specifically, mindfulness is actually known to be something that really helps with ADHD. But more generally, meditation is about cutting through the distractions. Pretty much every basic meditative introduction talks about recognizing your distraction and letting it go, even if you spend the whole time simply recognizing one distraction after another, eventually one moves beyond that step. Yes, that would be very constructive in my life as well as my spiritual and magickal practices.

It doesn't help me get into the proper mindset for offerings or rituals in the here and now. Sure, making a journey across the water, taking a hike to a cave, and then doing a ritual would automatically get me into such a mindset. Not a daily option. My small alter in the corner of my tiny apartment isn't some grand temple. My neighborhood is concrete and streetlights. I don't even have a back yard. Mediation is all the more important to me then, because I can't rely on spacial cues anywhere near as much to help get me to where I need to be for devotions, work, and craft.

I could walk a labyrinth, except there isn't a public one nearby that would make that an option. Some day, I hope to be able to have one I could actually walk regularly. I could run, but my knees are terrible from old injuries and that would cause more problems than it would fix.

But there is a truth in running, in working like that. I'm a former competitive athlete, and the most successful meditative moments I've had were when being that athlete. Rowing was an obvious choice, the simple repetitive motions, following directions, I was not in charge and most of my mind was left to do other things. Except if my mind just wandered, I would end up gazing off into the distance or otherwise be obviously distracted and it would effect my entire boat. The balance would be off, I wouldn't realize we were on a power set, all sorts of things could go wrong. I had to stay focused, yet unengaged. More than anything though, was figure skating. I had to remember the obvious things, such as what move I was doing, the breakdown of how not to fuck up that move, and what move came next. I had to remember things like head up, smile, posture, to skate with power without speed. It was obvious when I wasn't focused, but when I was focused I would have told you I was thinking about nothing. The crowd was a distraction, that was acknowledged and let go. The judges (or coaches in practice) were a distraction, that was acknowledged and let go. I had to be aware of the other skaters on the ice, because with flying sharp blades on the ends of everyone's feet there was a lot of danger in being unaware, but I let that slide away with similar acknowledgement. I had to acknowledge those things, or they would surprise me and I would end up injured. Luckily the worst I ever got was a broken wrist.

Bringing that into my daily routine is difficult. I physically am not able to do a lot of it, not to mention time constraints. But I can still reach into that athletic past and bring out something useful. Movement. Motion.

In high school I complained I was terrible at meditating and trancing, which is odd because in many ways I did both as an athlete. I was terrible, at bringing those skills into other realms. Drumming is a good option for me. Repetition of motion, and the audio lends itself nicely to mindsets useful for all kinds of craft. Walking is a great option, even if it is just around the block once. Focusing on breathing, on the roll of one's foot, on the rhythm of step and lift, etc.

Most meditation out there focuses on a lot of the exterior aspects, and in ways that really are not helpful to fidgeters and doers. Sitting or standing. Staying still. Even the position matters. I'm not saying it doesn't matter and I'm not saying that those aren't very useful methods. But they aren't the only methods. Be it walking, Tai Chi, drumming or just chopping vegetables for dinner, there is meditation to be found in movement. So, if you're like me and can't sit still for useful meditation, remember there are other ways.

H is for Hands (Pagan Blog Project)

My hands tell stories, more than I ever can remember. There are scars on knuckles, backs, palms and fingers. There are new cuts and bitten nails and skin that's dry whenever I've had a tattoo long enough not to moisturize it every day. There are old callouses and lost nerves and terrible circulation.

The other day my best friend asked me what some scars on my left hand were. I had no idea, but I had matching ones, in the same spot, on my right hand. Whatever I managed to do years ago, I did accidentally symmetrically. My thumbs are covered in scars that I do remember, from having a chunk of a thumb lost in first grade, to having my other thumb run over by a figure skate when I was twelve. They tell of my time spent as a rower, of blood and sweat and the power earned from pain. Right now they tell that I work a lot of time at a computer.

Hands are of doing, of done, of action. Obvious, right? They are the societal metaphor for hard work, and usually well done hard work. Such well made things are made by hand. Usually, things made by hand are also made from scratch. These objects are made with intent, with extra time spent to start from the raw (or more raw) materials and put in the effort to shape the materials into the object with one's hands. Even if these objects are sold, given away, or otherwise out of the possession of the maker, they still hold that power of being by hand.

Recently, as I have been diving back into the spiritual and magical parts of my life, I have picked up crafts again. My tarot cards need a case, or a bag. I need to make a set of runes. Then, those runes will need a bag.

I'm a person who spends large quantities of time thinking. Except, magic is about doing, is about action. I can think about this spell, that ritual, but it doesn't really matter unless I do it. Those actions become more powerful with more time and intent invested, and in a sense, more of my hands. Even outside the direct realm of magic, things that are done by hand often have more power than than things made in other fashions. Gifts have more meaning, there is more emotional investment, because some person took the time to actually make this object.

Admittedly most Pagans I know feel this way. We try to shop at local stores, or buy things from individual Etsy sellers that make their own products. We make our own candles and grow our own herbs. Pagan handicrafts are found all over the internet.

Except, while I make and do things by hand I forget to apply this to the Craft itself. I remember my breathing, my intent. I remember the words, the motions, the visualizations, the steps, the candles, the bowl, the incense, the knife, the blanket, the salt, the bones, but I forget my hands. I often end up with something just slightly off. I know that the effort could have been done better, that it could have been more efficient, and I am right. I forgot to use my hands. I remembered to engage my mind, my breath, my sight, my smell; I remember the music and will even sometimes have something to east or drink for taste. Everything is engaged except the very large part of me that feels as if I forgot to implement action and thus am not crafting, not making. Or even destroying. My hands are left at my sides and I forgot to do.

There is a sort of action in contemplation and meditation. I can easily do the mental gymnastics that lead me to see them as a mental craft. But I am the sort of person who spends too much time in thought and not enough time in action. The odd part is that I am a maker and a technician in much of my life. I forget to apply that to my magical and spiritual life. I forget, and my spiritual life suffers. My magic suffers. I do not do as well for myself or my gods.

Plenty of people need to think more. I need to do more. My hands have had so few new scars recently.


As a note- I caught interest and decided to do the Pagan blog project back around letter D. Life finally organized itself to manage blogging about spooky and spiritual matters only recently. Thus, post two of my new-ish blog is on H for the Pagan Blog Project. I'm going to try to go back and fill in the other letters over the course of the year.

Sometimes Beginnings Suck

I usually start off a new journal with writing a sentence or two about how difficult it is to make the first mark in a pristine journal, the first mark on the first page. All this blank space waiting to be filled, but already it is filled with potential and expectation. Even when the expectation is my own and no one elses, there is expectation to write Great Things.

I feel that way about blogs. New blogs, or blogs I that I have not written in for some time, are full of expectations. Why am I writing? Why did I not write? As if I need to justify the existence of the blog.

So, really, if anyone does end up reading this, I'm sorry. This entry is not for you. Even though blogs, by nature, are written with the public audience in mind, this entry is not really for you to read. Writing for an audience impacts my thoughts and styles, helps me be thoughtful about diction and grammer, and can help me connect to an online communities which are lacking in my meat space at the moment. This blog, no matter how much inherent narcissism exists in the medium, is always at least a little about the you-that-is-not-here-yet.

It is here to make that first blemish, to lower my own expectations. It's easier to address you-who-do-not-yet-exist. This way when I hit publish I will feel that something was actually accomplished. The shiny will fade into tarnish, and I will be content that this blog does not need to be filled with profound life changing thoughts, rituals, spells, and prayers. It is enough that it is filled with life's thoughts, rituals, spells, and prayers... and it is enough that life will inevitably change. Hopefully, I will capture a bit of that life and a bit of that change in here.