Can We Find Hope?

I am a few days from my 46th birthday, and some rather unsettling news stories have emerged about my demographic cohort. White Americans aged 45 – 54, in contrast to nearly every demographic group in the US and Europe, have had a significant increase in the death rate in recent years. Much of this has been driven by those with a high school education or less, and admittedly, I don’t fall into that category (I have a bachelor’s degree).

The researchers’ findings indicate a huge spike in causes that sound to me like they are closely related: Alcohol and drug poisoning (accidental and deliberate overdose), Liver failure (likely related to substance abuse) and suicide. People of my age and background have basically given up on reality, the future and – let’s face it – hope.

My earliest political memories are of my parents and other adults talking about “Tricky Dick” Nixon. Distrust of the government is deeply ingrained in many people my age. We’ve been soaked in constant rhetoric about soaring government debt and a fear that the social safety net won’t be in place when we get old. Corporations have now had decades of downsizing, moving jobs to other countries, and slashing worker benefits. Neither government nor employers seem likely to provide a safety net for the years when we will need it.

For many of the people I knew in grade school, family provided no sense of stability or safety. The 70’s were the age of the “latchkey” kids, who came home from school to empty houses while parents were away at work. Parents going through divorce was common, and it often played out in strained and bitter ways. Children today often have “helicopter” parents, who constantly monitor and over-protect their children. Children 35 years ago were often pretty much on their own.

In the last decade, many of the hallmarks of American middle class prosperity have slid into oblivion. Jobs have been harder to come by, and often pay less in real money than they did in the past, particularly for those without higher education. For those of us who bought homes in the early 2000’s, the housing crash gutted the equity, taking a huge bite out of net worth. Ages when we might be eligible for retirement benefits are being pushed back – from 65 to 68 or further. Employers offering pensions are almost unknown today.

Personally, I took a major hit with both income and home value during the most recent recession, and my financial position in 2015 is still far below where it was in 2008. I am in better shape than most, but still, my financial fortunes are not improving, and don’t look likely to do so anytime soon. For those working physically demanding jobs, these prospects must look even dimmer, as age takes its toll on the body and the ability to work will be diminished.

All the things that were supposed to give us stability and prosperity have been sliding away.

Researchers also found a high rate of people in this group reporting constant pain, inability to walk short distances, or socialize with people. Frankly, our quality of life is declining.

So we escape – into drugs, into alcohol, into video games, and TV. The more we escape, the more disengaged we become, and the farther we are from some solutions to make life more fulfilling.

The major news media lies to us to make us angry, reminding us of the “promises” we were fed when we were young and how far we are from those times today. The mass media doesn’t sell empathy – only outrage. And it creates yet another reason to tune out and retreat into our isolated and isolating worlds.

Post-apocalyptic fantasies have been popular for decades now. Mad Max and Terminator are still going strong. Meanwhile Hunger Games-type stories have multiplied and there seems to be a new zombie-infested movie every other week. It seems difficult to imagine a world where the current crises are overcome and a new, sustainable world results. At least to our story-telling mind, our current events will almost certainly lead to a massive disaster and the best we can do is survive.

It’s not at all unusual for my friends to express a desire not to grow old. The idea of not being able to care for yourself, but having no resources or support to depend on is terrifying.

I know a lot of people my age who drink heavily. I’m sure some of them are on their way to join that liver disease statistic. I’m not aware of friends who use heroin, but I know it has become far more common in recent years. I know of many people who don’t take care of their health on the one hand, or people who have serious health issues now and have fairly burdensome health regimes to try to manage it. A heavy regimen of prescription drugs can also lead to liver failure, and pain-killer use is noted as a gateway to opiate abuse.

Perhaps we can say that our group should take better care of their own health, but honestly, poorly educated people don’t have the tools to sort through the nonsense the media feeds them, and the media is full of contradictory and misleading nutrition information. A lot of us live off convenience foods – take out and pre-packaged foods that are high in fat and sodium, low in fiber and micronutrients.

So what is the way out? How do you sell hope to a group that only sees the future as a slide into misery? There’s no golden retirement with golf courses and Caribbean cruises. There’s just working away at a menial job until you’re so sick that someone shoves you into whatever nursing home will take your Medicare and Social Security (if those programs aren’t bankrupt in 25 years).

 

There are a few pieces of advice for my peers. This is all very imperfect, and every single day, I have to talk myself into this.

 

Shed Expectations and Entitlements

A big part of why we’re having a rough time, even compared to other groups that are less well off (but still improving), is that we have had expectations set – by parents, by schools, by media.

Supposedly, America won the Cold War and is the world’s only Superpower. We’re supposed to be the wealthiest, freest and most open society in the world. Yet, somehow, incomes are sinking and good jobs are hard to come by. Health care is more expensive than anywhere in the world, but is far from the most effective. We have a massive proportion of our population in prison, and yet we live in the most violent society in the industrialized world.

The country is not on a road to prosperity and we can’t just ride the wave. Resources are shrinking. We depend on finite resources like petroleum, and even though gas prices have eased off the record highs of a few years ago, obtaining fossil fuels will only get more expensive and more environmentally destructive as time goes on. Easily drilled oil is dried up. It only gets harder from now on.

So, let’s be real. The expectation that we’ll live a life better than our parents is gone. What we do with that is up to us. And wasting time moping about how we’re screwed isn’t making anything better.

 

Build a Better World with Your Own Hands

Learn to cook. Plant a garden. Take up knitting. Do a woodworking project. Take up painting. Build a doghouse. Build a picnic table. Make a quilt. Sew a tote bag. Sew a new shirt. Bake cookies. Learn how to pickle. Learn how to home brew beer.

Make something real and concrete that you or someone you love will enjoy. Do it with your own hands and make it your own. It will probably take practice to get it right.
If you’re more ambitious and/or skilled, fix up your home. Get a do-it-yourself book from the used bookstore and take on a project. And finish it. Take your quality of life into your own hands.

 

Join Multi-Generational and Multi-Racial/Ethnic Groups

Sometimes, it’s nice to hang around with people who know our pop culture references from childhood, and who know what it was like “back then”. But there’s a huge value in being with people who are older and younger and getting to know their experience. There’s a great value in being with people who have different cultural backgrounds. It gives us perspective about what we have and what we don’t.

Here’s the thing – it’s not valuable if you don’t pay attention to them. Listen. Notice what is different in their perspectives and think about why yours is different. You don’t have to deny who you are or your experience to acknowledge another point of view.

Examples of these kinds of groups are religious and civic groups, volunteer organizations, places where different kinds of people come together for a purpose.

 

Eat More Vegetables

Seriously, you’ll be happier and healthier. Raw in a salad, roasted, or boiled – they’re full of fiber, vitamins and minerals. Try different ones that you haven’t had in years, or that you never tried. Your adult palate may surprise you. Think you hate Brussels sprouts, but haven’t tried them since you were eight years old? Give them another shot. And, if you can, prepare them yourself. Again, it’s part of taking your health literally into your own hands.

 

Be Outside in Nature

Stop to smell the flowers – literally, smell the flowers. And feel the tree bark. Watch the squirrels. Listen to the birds chirping. Find a park and walk. If it’s windy or a little cold, find a good jacket. If it’s muddy from the rain, bring out your oldest shoes that you’re not afraid to get dirty. It will connect you to the  world that we came from. It provides an experience that no TV or video game can match.

 

Try a Life-Affirming Religious or Spiritual Practice

Some people meditate. Others try Yoga. Some people try Bible Study. Others volunteer to help those in need. I know it’s not for everyone, but for a lot of people, religious and spiritual practices help their state of mind. I consider myself very lucky to have found a spiritual home in the Brotherhood of the Phoenix.

But without telling you what to believe or what tradition to follow, think of finding one that focuses on now, not that preaches about eternal damnation or waiting for your reward in the beyond. Find a tradition that affirms life, that values our world and the people in it, and strives to improve you and those around you.

 

Practice Gratitude

Be glad that you have what you do – a home, a family, food, friends. Thank people when they help you. Thank them even if they’re getting paid. Saying those words still means something.

Keep a gratitude journal. This is a great time of year for it, since Thanksgiving is coming up. Take the ten days leading up to Thanksgiving and write about one thing each day that you’re grateful about. A person in your life, an experience that you’ve had, a hobby, a gift – big or small, write it down. Really, this helps. Don’t focus on what you feel life promised you. Don’t focus on what your neighbors have that you don’t. Focus on what you have and know is good and helpful – and feel the gratitude.

 

I can’t guarantee that any or all of these will pull us out of this spiral, but I hope it’s some kind of basis for hope.

 

As we say in my tradition,

Ta Kya Te

My Heart is Open to You

A Letter of Encouragement

My college gave me a writing assignment. Yes, I graduated long ago, and it’s not for any college credits. It is meant to be kept in a binder in a resource center for the LGBTQ students, to represent the voices of alumni. Here is more about the request. This is what I came up with, and I thought I would share it here.

___________________________

October 2015
Chicago, IL

Dear Student,

When I started at Macalester in 1987, it was a long time ago and the world was different for LGBTQ people. It was Reagan’s America, with its great cultural Conservative backlash. AIDS was still a virtual death sentence, with the earliest drug therapies just being approved and having imperfect and mixed results. And I had been teetering on the edge of coming out as gay through high school.

Macalester offered me a soft landing as I came out within months of arriving. There was a supportive and active group for LGB people at the time, and I consider myself incredibly lucky to be there during that time of my own growth. For that I am forever grateful.

And I love what has happened since then in terms of the ongoing inclusiveness. I love that Queer, Trans and a whole range of different identities have emerged and been embraced by Macalester. I love that the faculty and staff members with LGBTQ identities are visible and part of the institution. I love that LGBTQ People of Color are more visible and their identities and stories are embraced.

Even though I have never seen one at work, I love the idea of the Identity Collectives, which seem to help people talk through challenges and be supportive of one another while they explore who they are, and especially who they are away from family and interacting with people of different backgrounds.

But with the wonderful things that Macalester can offer, it is still a relatively small community, and one filled with quirky and sometimes awkward personalities. Even on the most supportive campus, you are going to have drama, heartbreak, struggles to feel understood. This is part of the process of figuring out who you are becoming. And that is a beautiful thing.

As wonderful as Macalester can be, there is also the idea there is a Mac bubble and that out in the “real world”, people may not be as accepting. I did worry about that when I was there, and I’m sure many students may wonder about that, too. Maybe you’ve figured out your place at Mac, but what happens when you have to face life beyond that.

First, realize that Mac is real life, at least one version of it. And every place you go from now on will have a somewhat different version of real life, each just as real as the other. Gone are the days when everyone had to fit into a mold of getting a job, getting married, and having children to have a “real life”.

If you teach English in Vietnam or you write a novel while you have two part-time jobs to pay the rent, if you go to graduate school or start your own small business, if you work at Whole Foods or Dunn Brothers, if you become a stock broker or a school teacher – these are all “real life” and every one comes with certain advantages and certain challenges. Living on your own, living with a roommate, moving in with the love of your life – these can all be great and they can be a royal pain to deal with.

But my point is, as heavy as it may be after Macalester, you will be the one making the choices – where to live, where to work, what goals are important now, and which ones can wait. Those big decisions force a thousand other smaller ones.
Macalester experience will help you with the process of thinking certain things through. You will be able to recognize when friends or organizations are really committed to diversity or environmental responsibility and when they’re just giving these issues lip service. And hopefully, you will be able to find friends and colleagues who will recognize and support who you are and who you want to become. They are really out there, sometime in the most unexpected places.

When I was a student, I was sometimes socially awkward, often angry, and even went through a couple major depressive episodes. At times, I blamed Macalester for this, or perhaps for not helping me out more than they did. It certainly is true that the mental health resources that the students have today may have benefited me, and they were not in place back then.

Now, in my mid-forties, I consider myself to be in a good place. I have lived in Chicago for over 20 years now, and it wasn’t until I had been here almost 10 years that I found a group of friends as funky and smart, creative and open-minded as the people I knew at Macalester. Maybe I should have been better about holding onto those wonderful Macalester people, but I had to go and figure out parts of myself first before I really appreciated what I had there and what I left behind.

Macalester people may be really different from you, but for the most part, they will take the time to actually listen when you bring a perspective that is different. Appreciate that while you are there, and when you connect with Macalester people after you have moved on to your next place, because believe me, you will find that in many places in our society, people won’t take the time to really listen.

This was supposed to be a letter of encouragement. I hope that it works to encourage you, in some small way, to appreciate what you have at Macalester and to not be afraid of what comes next. My years since Macalester have been filled with things I never would have imagined when I was a student. My career, my main relationship, my friends, and my hobbies are not at all what I might have pictured, but on most days, I count myself happy and lucky.

All my best,
Adrian

What is ours to give?

Many pagan and polytheist practices are based on offerings to gods and goddesses and practitioners have many different traditions in making offerings to their deities. One aspect of my path lately is an interest in devotional rituals – a practice based on giving something to a god or goddess. I love the process of researching what foods and herbs are associated with a deity, what colors to use for candles and altar cloths, what incenses to burn and what drinks to use to pour libations.

I have also been interested in a certain anti-Capitalist bent within certain corners of Paganism and Polytheism. There is actually a wonderful website called Gods & Radicals with this very theme. They have collected a talented group of writers who post there and the content is often thought-provoking and challenging.

So my thoughts have been wandering down these paths and they have come to an interesting intersection, one that brings up many questions.

In Marxist thought, the capitalists are the owners of the means of production – both in terms of raw materials and of machinery, factories, etc. The workers supply their effort, their Labor. The raw materials are transformed by the labor of the worker and the worker increases the value, the usefulness of the material. The raw grain becomes bread. The cotton bales become a shirt. To grossly simplify, one of Marx’s critiques of Capitalism is that the worker’s labor is owned by the Capitalist, since they own the final product, and the worker is not given a fair share of the increase in value that the labor provides. Marxists advocate for a shared/collective ownership of the means of production, so that workers can have a more meaningful benefit from the increase in value, and there’s no cut “off the top” for the Capitalist just because they own the factory/machinery/raw material.

When we challenge the ingrained ideas of personal property, as anti-capitalists do, we arrive at some questions about what and how we give a offerings to a god or goddess when our ownership of an object is conceptually suspicious. If the people whose labor has gone into a product were not fairly compensated, is the product really ours to give to the gods?

Is it “ours” if we have reserved it for our personal use? When we share a bit of a meal we’ve made for ourselves and our family, that seems like we are giving of something that is truly our own. But what if that meal is something that was just warmed up from a package purchased at the grocery store? We may not even know where the food was grown or what mystery additives it contains. Is this an acceptable offering to our deity?

If we have put our own work into it, does it then become our own? If we have carved a statue or woven a cloth, if we have grown a meal in our garden or cooked it ourselves, if we painted the picture or made the corn dolly – are these truly our own? Intuitively, it seems right and these seem like fitting offerings. They are from ourselves and not a gift that we have simply taken from someone else.

Then there are more abstract sacrifices – prayers, habits, meditations, speaking up for a cause, giving healing energy. It’s easier to say that we own these things. When give an action rather than giving an object, it is easier to say that it comes from our self. The gift to the god is not borrowed or stolen from another. It is clearly our own to give.

To me, live animals are not objects – they are conscious beings that think, feel pain and exist for their own purposes. So how could I conceivably give the life of an animal to a deity? It’s not mine to give. Even the act of taking a life does not mean I have ever owned it – I have only destroyed it. I know that in many traditions, the killing of an animal is the most valued offering, but to me I can only give it if I have stolen it – it is never truly mine to give freely.

Sometimes a god or goddess asks for something specific or has a particular traditional affinity for a particular kind of offering. If we do not make it ourselves, but we go out of our way to acquire it, if we use our money we have earned through labor in exchange for this offering – is this sufficient to make it our own gift to the deity?

In our culture money is supposed to be a stand-in for value we’ve earned, but often it doesn’t take much to realize that’s not true. We can buy things on credit card debt. We can gain and lose money through the almost hallucinatory trading of commodities, stocks, options, bond, derivatives and derivatives of derivatives. Fortunes are gained and lost on trading bubbles and market fluctuations that have nothing to do with anything we have earned. Money is increasingly abstract, and unrelated to actual work. If something is bought on credit, inherited from another, gained through a financial trick – is that something that is worthy to offer to a deity?

This is a wandering set of questions without many definite answers. I am still working it through in my own mind. But it is not a subject I hear discussed very often. I would love to know other people’s thoughts on this, particularly if your practice includes devotions and offerings.

“Forest bathing” to soothe the soul

The Forest Path

The Forest Path

This August was a spiritually enriching time for me. I took a weekly class with the Brotherhood of the Phoenix, which has given me new experiences and given me tools to enhance my devotion and connection to the Gods of the Brotherhood.

In addition, I have had a garden this summer, due to the generosity of a neighbor who is letting me use his yard. I have profoundly enjoyed this regular connection to the earth, to growing plants, and to the cycle of growth and decay. I am not a great gardener. I am too new at it for that. It’s a skill that takes years to develop. I’ve had a number of successes, though, and the garden has provided me with abundant tomatoes, radishes, swiss chard, and lettuce, as well as some cucumbers, squash, broccoli, peas and carrots. I hope to get cabbage, turnips and kale before the end of the season. Even with a violent hailstorm in the middle of the summer, which was a setback, the garden has been a success on many levels, not the least of which has been deepening my own spiritual connection to the Earth.

In spite of all this, I realized that I have been missing something this year which had been a larger part of my spiritual practice the past few years. I have not been walking in the woods very much.

Where I live is a fairly densely developed urban area and there are not wooded areas in walking distance, aside from the thin strips along railroad tracks and small corners of nearby parks. There are definitely not the kind of wooded areas that are completely out of the visual line of streets, buildings or other signs of human development.

Wild flowers in the woods

Wild flowers in the woods

Fortunately, the County Forest Preserve has areas that are within a half hour drive from where I live. Many of them are along the branches of local rivers (the Chicago River, the Des Plaines River), so they are riparian forests. The terrain around here is fairly flat, and we are prone to periodic heavy rain storms so many of these are managed wetlands and flood plains. There are also prairie preserves, but I have to say that the prairies never speak to my soul the way that forests do. Prairies are fascinating and alive, but they don’t calm me and envelop me the way a cool, green canopy does.

North Branch Chicago River

North Branch Chicago River

I believe in the intrinsic value of wild places, but I also believe in their profound value to humans and animals. Obviously, they harbor and encourage a biodiversity of plant and animal life far beyond what developed areas have. They allow natural processes of decay that nourish the soil and encourage new life. They are vital for cleaner air and cleaner watersheds.
Exposure to wooded areas also provides specific benefits for humans. Research for this has been conducted in Japan, where they have a practice called Shinrin-Yoku (forest bathing) that is prescribed as a stress-reduction therapy. We are creatures of nature and even though we have adapted to life in cities where nature is mostly excluded and very tamed, we have great benefits when we see, smell, hear, and feel natural places from time to time.

Skokie Lagoons South - Cook County Forest Preserve

Skokie Lagoons South – Cook County Forest Preserve

I was drawn to a specific place this weekend to go for a walk in the forest. It’s north of me, along the North Branch Chicago River. In a certain sense, it’s a place that has been shaped by human hands, since my favorite stretch of trail is along a levee next to the river, and the river is controlled by a series of dams just north of there. On one side of the river is a paved trail, which is extremely busy with bicyclists on warm days, and sure enough, that trail was a constant swarm of people is plastic helmets whizzing past on brightly colored metal contraptions. I think biking is great, but it’s not exactly a great way to connect with the Natural surroundings.

Wild Flowers

Wild Flowers

On the other side of the river is the levee with a gravel trail on the top. These trails are far less used, so I can take my time and really look at the trees, the river, the different plants, and if I’m lucky, the animals that cross my path. The forest is a soothing canopy of green, but it’s also so much more to it. There are wild flowers of various shapes and colors. There are tree barks that range from almost black to silver and green. The shapes of leaves and textures of barks vary widely. Sometimes vining plants wrap around trees, adding interesting patterns and making me wonder if the trees mind this extra burden. Fallen trees are a bonanza of gorgeous mosses and lichens, mushrooms and other fungus in wonderful shapes and colors. This time of year, duckweed covers the river, and I might catch sight of a ducks and even an egret. I hear birds calling in the trees and squirrels and chipmunks rummaging through the fallen leaves. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to see deer.

The river through the trees

The river through the trees

This is all magical to me. It fascinates me and nourishes me. And I wonder why I don’t live in a place where I can have this closer to my home. Why do I live my life in a way that is so removed from this?

A shock of red - an early sign of Autumn?

A shock of red – an early sign of Autumn?

At home, I may see squirrels and songbirds in my neighborhood, but I’m just as likely to see scavengers like rats or gulls picking through trash. It’s not exactly the same kind of wildlife. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of great things about where I live. It’s a neighborhood full of cultural diversity and cultural resources. It has good access to public transportation, and it’s close to Lake Michigan. It’s also more affordable than many parts of the city. But it is missing this experience of a connection to nature.

Wild flowers along the river

Wild flowers along the river

I can almost forget how much this kind of connection means to me sometimes. If I don’t get my shinrin-yoku for a while, I don’t remember how fantastic I feel afterward. And frankly, that’s a sad thing. I need to remember to keep this as a part of my life.

The Place of the Gods

I have been reading an interesting exchange of posts between John Beckett and John Halstead on Patheos Pagan, and today I read a post by Mark Green of Atheopaganism in response to this.

John Beckett: “The Future of Polytheism: Keeping the Gods at the Front”

John Halstead: “If It Doesn’t Help Me Save This World, I Don’t Want Your Polytheist Revolution”

Mark Green: “Castles in the Air”

John Halstead and Mark Green represent an atheistic branch of Paganism. They value the Earth-centered approach to Paganism and they think of Gods and Goddesses as mere ideas, or perhaps archetypes. On one hand, I have some understanding of this point of view. I did go through a phase of a kind of Pantheism myself a number of years ago, but where I am today, and with the experiences that I have had, I am having a hard time understanding how this view has religious value.

Let me explain what I see as the purpose of religion, and why I have to agree with John Beckett’s point of view that we must put the Gods first when it comes to religion. This does not minimize the problems of the world, the environmental crises, the violence, and the social disparities. These are huge issues that must be addressed. We must focus on them and take action in our own life to save our world. But I believe that is true for people of all religious persuasions and is not exclusive to Pagans and Polytheists.

The purpose of religion is not to provide morality. It can, but I think that’s a slippery project. The whole discipline of Ethics built on Reason (and not instructions from a God) comes directly out of the Polytheist traditions of ancient Greece. I am completely in agreement with the common Atheist saying that if you need the threat of eternal punishment to prevent you from being a bad person, then you are already a bad person.

The purpose of religion is not to provide answers about the afterlife. Again, it can, but I also find this slippery. There is certainly no consensus among Pagans or Polytheists about what happens after death. I don’t think agnosticism about what happens after death is incompatible with Polytheism. My general view is that we should concentrate on the world at hand.

When it comes to morality and afterlife concerns, keep in mind that Polytheists don’t believe that their Gods and Goddesses are omnipotent or omniscient. Their powers are greater than humans and their vision goes beyond what we know, but that doesn’t mean they infallibly know the future or even that they can be trusted in all things.

Religion may foster communities, preserve traditions, provide support to members. All these are great, but they’re not essential or exclusive to religion.

What religion provides – and no other institution provides – is an encounter with the Divine. Not the “idea” of the Divine, but the actual Divine. If you think Gods and Goddesses are “ideas”, you clearly haven’t met one. Anyone who knows a God or Goddess, who has had an actual encounter with one, knows that they are not just an idea. They are individual, unexpected, and specific. Encountering a God is not abstract. It is not really otherworldly. It’s immediate, specific, and real.

To encounter a deity, a power greater than oneself, does not require or imply that the God or Goddess is eternal or otherworldly. Gods and Goddesses can and do die in many Polytheist traditions, and they may or may not be reborn. I have encountered and very much believe in genii loci (spirits of place) in beautiful natural places. I encounter them in forest preserves and lakes not too far from my home. If these places were destroyed, bull-dozed, polluted, paved over, I think these spirits would be gone. There’s nothing in a parking lot to nourish them, and they would no longer exist there. They are immediate and of the world, and my concern with preserving natural places and the larger environment is absolutely one with my concern for them. This is not “other-worldly”.

I happen to have had many other encounters with Gods and Goddesses, and this is what keeps me connected to my religious path. It seems to me that atheist Pagans miss the most essential part of being a part of the religion (or the religious tent) of Paganism. If the Gods and Goddesses are just “ideas”, then perhaps they can just be dismissed. But if you only encounter them as ideas, you have missed the unique and powerful experience that Polytheist practice can provide.

Polyamory and Polytheism

When I first think of polyamory, like many others, I think of polygamy traditions in Mormonism, Islam and in other cultures. This consists of one man with multiple wives. It seems like the height of patriarchal thinking. The Alpha male gets multiple partners to make his babies and maintain his multiple households. As a feminist, it’s hard to see the appeal of this arrangement. More troubling still, this is often associated with child brides – marriages arranged for young teenage girls (or even younger) with much older men. This is absolutely not consistent with a culture of consent (as I discussed in a previous post).

But there is a different kind of polyamory, or rather, a broader type of polyamory, because it opens up possibilities for many different shapes of relationships. I have been looking into and educating myself about this lately. It is not especially easy to do. Much of the coverage is sensationalized or judgmental in nature, and much of the dynamics of a relationship are considered private by those taking part.

A number of people have referred to Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land as an inspiration for polyamory. I don’t actually know the book, but I do have my own Sci Fi inspiration for a polyamorous model. It was in “Caprica”, the short-lived “Battlestar Galactica” prequel series. We see Sister Clarice Willow (portrayed by the wonderful Polly Walker) at home with her polyamorous family. She is in bed with two husbands and one wife, and there are multiple others in the household. It’s not fully defined. It is just presented as a normal part of the culture – which happens to be a pagan culture. Sister Clarice is, at least on the surface, a priestess of the pagan pantheon and a school headmistress. She appears to be the height of respectability, and this family structure is a part of her respectable life.

I think that there is a certain sense that paganism, and polytheism in particular, are congruent with a polyamorous way of thinking. As we can be devoted to many gods and goddesses, we can be devoted to multiple partners – without diminishing the value of any. I have been observing lately that many Pagans do embrace polyamory.

It seems to be a value to polyamorous people (of this more modern type) that honesty, consent and respect are necessary to make relationships function.

There are multiple structures of relationships with this new kind of polyamory. It may be couples who have open relationships in which each can pursue other partners. It may be a couple that sometimes has a third sex partner with them both. It can be two couples that switch partners. It can be two or more partners involved with one person at the center, as with the traditional polygamy, but without the strict gender definition. It can be a full triad, where each partner is involved with other two. Or, like on “Caprica”, it can be a larger and more complicated structure.

As I follow these possibilities to their logical conclusion, I have to say that I see a definite value and potential in all of these types of relationships if they are handled with respect, compassion and consent. Families with children may be a complication, but frankly having multiple parents in a family seems like it would be a benefit to the children. Child care responsibilities can be shared in a more flexible way. Although I think that most places recognize only two legal parents and that can be a limitation. The moralistic judgments of outsiders can obviously be a problem. Children could be taken away from homes where unusual family structures could be considered “immoral”.

I ended that previous post about consent with a reference to a slippery slope about same sex marriage, and that if we take consent seriously, there is no slippery slope toward pedophilia or bestiality. I do, however, think that polyamory does challenge definitions of marriage in a way that is conceptually similar to same-sex marriage. If a marriage contract is between two consenting adults, is there a compelling reason that it cannot be between three or four consenting adults? Wouldn’t the inclusion and legal acknowledgment of such relationship and family structures provide more security for children and stability for surviving partners?

Death and Remembering

Today is a sad anniversary for me. Eight years ago, my Mom died after years of illness. Dealing with grief is a complicated and difficult process. One of the things that haunted me about her final days was she reached out to me from her hospital bed, after fading in and out of lucidity, and she had real terror in her eyes. She said to me “I need you to pray for me”. I didn’t know how to respond. I gave her some assurance. I’m not even sure what I said. But I was startled and angered by her terror.

To me, she was a person who was forever giving and sacrificing herself and her needs to her family, to her church, and even to relative strangers. She could be judgmental in her opinions, in line with her sheltered, religious upbringing, but she didn’t turn those attitudes into malicious actions against people.

I was angry that after years of devotion to her faith, a faith whose key is a promise of salvation, that her reward was not peace, but fear. My mother, my hero, my treasure was rewarded for her years of devotion with terror. It has taken me a long time to get past that.

I hope that my Mom is in a “better place”. It’s what she wanted fiercely. And I want her to have her hope fulfilled. I want her to be comforted by her God and saints and the virtuous people she has known. I want it for her because it’s what she wanted.

The truth is, I am agnostic about what happens to us after death. I don’t know to what extent our personality and identity remains after death. I have encountered many spirits, but never one that I know was a human who lived and died. My spiritual path veered away from my Catholic upbringing when I was in my early teens, and I haven’t believed in the Christian ideas of Heaven, Hell and Purgatory for a long, long time. I have never felt like I need Jesus to “save” me.

 

In ancient Rome, there were various stories about the afterlife. The dead cross the River Styx. They drink from the River Lethe for forgetfulness. Heroes went to the Elysian Fields, good citizens went to the Plains of Asphodel, and those who offended the gods were sent to Tartarus to be worked over by the Furies. It doesn’t seem like most people took these stories very literally or seriously. Culturally, the Romans seemed more focused on the life here and now than on seeking any reward afterward. At least that is the view that we get from the writers, but of course they represent a more privileged part of society.

Christianity was one of several popular religious movements in the later Republic and early Imperial period, including Orphism, Mithraism and the cult of Isis, which offered promises that initiates would have an advantage in the afterlife. Christianity, in particular, started off as popular among slaves, the poor, and women – in other words, those whom Roman society kept away from many of the advantages of Roman culture. The idea of a reward in the afterlife must have a greater appeal if your current life is pretty miserable.

Perhaps it is a part of my privilege today that I don’t think a lot about what happens when this life has ended. I do live a middle class lifestyle in one of the wealthiest societies the world has known. I have the means and freedom to enjoy many pleasures, and I worry about few necessities. Not everything goes my way, certainly, and I have people around me who struggle with health problems, poverty, discrimination issues, among other things. If I am honest with myself, my advantages are somewhat precarious. Without a job, I could lose my home within months. Health is notoriously unpredictable. Accident or illness could change my fortunes very quickly.

But I am still focused on my life as I live it – the pleasures, the challenges, the relationships with people, other beings around me, the natural world, the human-built world, intellectual questions, ethical matters, spiritual meanings. Death is a part of that, but one that is always mysterious. I am repelled by unnecessary suffering and try to avoid causing it, but death still comes to all of us, as humans, as living creatures.

 

Many Pagans that I know use the phrase “What is remembered lives” as a tribute to those who have died and an exhortation and comfort to those who are grieving. I love this idea. It is a concrete way for someone to live on and a reminder that through relationship and connection, we can extend life beyond death. So memory is a powerful tool that we have to keep alive some part of our loved ones. We can tell stories. We can keep photos and mementos. We can recognize what within ourselves is shaped by those who are gone.

It doesn’t require any beliefs about what happens afterward. It’s a practical instruction on how to value the one who is lost. It doesn’t require us to take comfort in the unfathomable will of a deity.

It only requires us to hold what was special and important about that person who was once with us.

Today, just like every day, I will remember.

 

I hadn’t intended it, but I have followed Anomalous Thracian’s call to write about topics starting with the letter D this month. John Beckett wrote a great post about Discipline. “Death” wasn’t actually on the list, so I hope it’s not a problem if I add it.

A Progressive gives up on Progress

Most of my adult life, I have thought of myself as “Progressive”. As I have understood it, Progress in the social/political sense means the increased participation of diverse populations into American political, economic and cultural life; increased income equality; and equal rights for people of all races, sexes, ethnicities, religions, and sexual identities.

There are different kinds of Progress that we are taught to believe in. There’s technological progress, but in many ways that’s a kind of myth. Research and knowledge in certain areas certainly has increased. Certain kinds of technology are very useful, but so much of what we consider technological progress is over-hyped planned obsolescence. The economic reality that allows those of us in the developed world to access these technologies is a fragile one. In most cases, no money means no technology, and in America, household income is dropping. Our infrastructure is crumbling in much of the United States and investment in updating it doesn’t keep up, in large part because of economic crises and political deadlock. What progress we do have, in the sense of technology that improves the lives of most people, could backslide very easily. And as our technological world progresses, we often lose older, more resilient technologies. There is also the problem that we pollute and destroy the natural resources and natural places that sustain life on this planet.

With the issues of social progress mentioned above, late 20th century did bring some legal measures toward the goals of equality for people of different races, sexes, ethnicities, religions and sexual identities, but income inequality is greater than ever, racial tensions are high, many democratic institutions have eroded. When it comes to racial issues, our country has gone in tides – ending slavery establishing the Reconstruction South, but then the development of Jim Crow laws and the KKK. The Civil Rights movement and the legal gains of the 1960s and 1970s have been eroded by the economic inequality, prejudice in the American justice system.

Martin Luther King Jr. famously said “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” LGBTQ activists, particularly the same-sex marriage activists often say that supporting the cause is being “on the right side of history”. Both of these show a belief in the inevitability of progressive social change.

I am increasingly convinced that there is really no such thing as Progress – at least not in the sense of an inevitable social flow toward equality and justice. It’s a comforting idea. But I really don’t think history backs it up. I believe in change. I don’t believe in the inevitability of anything aside from change. I’ve become fairly convinced of some of John Michael Greer’s theories about the ecological nature of changes in human history.

I was watching Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews on PBS, specifically the 3rd episode, which tells the story of dramatic social progress in Germany and Austria in the 19th century. They went from profoundly marginalized and persecuted minority to the center of cultural and financial life in central Europe. It was a startling and dramatic transformation in social position, and it persisted for several generations. Many people still held the age-old prejudices, though, and when crises hit, Jews were often targeted as scapegoats. This peaked in the 1930s and 1940s, when Jews were systematically identified, dispossessed of their property, imprisoned, enslaved and killed. In 150 years, the pendulum had swung in one direction and the absolute opposite direction. He said “German Jews had made the greatest leap that any minority has experienced in modern history.” And yet, we all know that for that great leap, there was a terrifying backlash.

A dizzying progress is going on right now for LGBTQ people in the modern day Americas, Western Europe, as well as Australia and New Zealand. The narrative is in some ways parallel to that of the 19th century Jews in central Europe. There have been dramatic improvements, including the recent legalization of same-sex marriages in many places. Since the 1970’s, there have been great leaps forward. Many places have protections for LGB (and sometimes T) from getting fired from a job or thrown out of their own based on sexual orientation. Anti-Hate Crime legislation has been passed. Public opinion in most places is much more accepting of LGBTQ people in all areas of society.

Like the Jews in Germany and Austria, LGBTQ people are increasingly part of the mainstream. In business, in media, in a multitude of professions LGBTQ people are increasingly visible. Same-sex weddings are an economic engine, even adoption and parenting by same-sex families is becoming increasingly accepted. But that could all change. People in their teens and twenties today are accepting of LGBTQ people. A generation or two from now could be completely different. And hard times can mean that people look for scapegoats.

It’s interesting that many of the stereotypes and stories told about LGBTQ people are strikingly similar to what was said about the Jews in Europe. One such story people believe is that all gay people are wealthy (even though the statistics don’t back this up).

“The Gay Wealth Myth Again” from Daily Kos

“The Myth of Gay Affluence” from The Atlantic

“Are Gay Men Really Rich” by Freakonomics Radio

There is also the idea that there’s a “gay mafia” or that gays control the media (in particular). Here Bill Maher seems to be making a joke, but the kind of “it’s funny because it’s true” comment, but then the group has an uncomfortable silence on this topic.

The ideas of a wealthy, powerful Jewish conspiracy that have been the bread and butter of anti-Semitism for over a century, and seem to have been copied onto the new group to inspire fear – the rich and powerful gay mafia.

Just to be clear – by pointing out the parallel, I am not predicting that the United States will certainly swing back into a Fascist or Nazi style future where minority groups will be subject to mass extermination (although I can’t say that I would rule that out). I am also not saying that Progressive goals are worthless. But I think it’s a mistake to think that once a fight toward equality is won that it has been won forever. Legal protections don’t mean social acceptance. The openness of one generation on an issue doesn’t guarantee that their grandchildren will feel the same way. Hard times – war, economic crunches, ecological crises, shortages, etc. – will cause the seeds of distrust and intolerance to grow.

A Poem – The Fae Under the Willow

I wrote a poem today. Or rather, It felt like I was given a poem today, since it just seemed to come out whole in almost exactly this form. Obviously years of reading Yeats has something to do with it. My friend George’s talk on fairy tales has something to do with it, too. Any way around it, I hope you enjoy –

Three Fae held court in a weeping willow
Under its languid boughs
One had a crown of lost wedding rings
Another a garland of sweet-smelling things
The third had a simple tin whistle

Whose treasure was greater? they asked one another
Under the languid boughs
One glittered with gold, silver, and jewels
The next filled the air with fragrant pools
The last could play a sweet tune

A young girl wandered away from the path
And close to the languid boughs
Humans don’t often get the Fae’s favor
But they asked the girl which treasure gave her
The greatest delight to behold

The strange question startled the girl that day
From under the languid boughs
She knew her preference instantly
But paused before stating her mind, for she
Knew the Fae must be given respect

“I’m entranced by the perfumed air, fine folk
Under these languid boughs
And the glittering jewels delight me to see
But my favorite thing under all of this tree
Is the joy of a simple tune”

Two tempers flared for an instant, but calmed
Under the languid boughs
They thought she was far too simple to know
True beauty when faced with it, so they did go
And left the girl with the music

The Fae began to play the tin whistle
Under the languid boughs
Though the whistle was simple, it wove a song
That created a path and she followed along
To a realm she had never seen

The last time anyone saw the girl
She was under the languid boughs
Of a weeping willow not too far from the path
Though some say they still hear her sing and laugh
While a faint tin whistle plays

Ancient Mysteries and Absinthe

As I mentioned, I am giving a talk this Sunday at The Owen Society for Hermetic and Spiritual Enlightenment in the guise of Jean-Julien Brumaire. Here is an (unfortunately rather dark) video where I speak with Ranty Wilberforce about ancient mysteries and, of course, absinthe.
Here is Ranty Wilberforce’s blog post

I have had my head deep inside the mysteries from the Roman Imperial period in preparing this talk. I don’t really give any sort of public talks or lectures, so this breaking new ground for me. I will have another post soon with my reflections on all this.