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Thoughts From a Mermaid Lesbian Feminist Witch
12/17/05 On "Creating Your Own Reality" vs Pragmatic Action/Thoughts on My Healing Crisis/On Being a Mermaid in a Superhero World
Hi folks, below are some excerpts from my parts of some conversations I've been having online, that I think might interest you. I am struck by the continuing split in the women's movement between the inward and the outward approaches to things like healing and societal issues. I have been yelled at to do more "positive affirmations" and I've been yelled at to do more "real" mundane actions too. United we stand and divided we fall, and this principle applies on so many levels. I'm also pondering the implications of a current healing crisis and how who I am in this world plays its part...
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When I was exploring alternative spiritualities back in the sixties, I was very influenced by the concept that Self is All and that by working inwardly one could change things outwardly. This message came especially from Eastern teachings and guru-types such as Yogananda, whose autobiography I read, and whose picture I had up over my bed for a long time. People used to ask me if that was my mother. LOL I used to go to satsangs in L.A. at Self Realization Fellowship, where they practised his teachings. We would chant and chant for hours, which I loved, and I believe was an important part of my training. In my years as a Goddess woman I have created many chants and still use them a lot in my life and practise. They are wonderful spells. :0)
But when I tried to apply that teaching to real life I ran into many snags. I innocently thought if I can just fix myself inwardly, all things would adjust outwardly. It was very liberating for sure, to know that we do have some power after all. That it is within our grasp to address whatever needs to be changed, whatever is oppressive or hurtful in our lives and in our environment. I even saw the principle at work in the larger picture, for instance with people and their governments...and that if people have a change of consciousness on a mass scale, their governing bodies reflect this.
All of these ideas have merit, I feel. But we humans have a tendency to be simplistic, and to glom onto one thing that makes sense at the time and invest everything in it to the exclusion of all else. We want to find that one formula that will take care of it, so we don't have to keep changing and searching all the time, or cope with so much complexity.
My mom was a passionate Marxist. She didn't approve of my religion or my approach to politics at that time. She came from the Old Left, whose approach had been at the other end of the spectrum... fix it "out there." Fight and struggle to make things change for the better. Protest...organize. Stand up to the corrupt powers in society and name them aloud. Get into solidarity with others who are also oppressed, and stand together so that the corrupt entities will have to back down and change their tune.
Interestingly, my mom was also my first spiritual teacher. She may not have thought she was, but the folksongs she taught me during my childhood years have played a big part in the mysterious ecstatic states I have had. RJ Stewart, who writes about the faery faith, and movies like Songcatcher, have shown me that much esoteric content exists in some folksongs.
My mom, despite the poverty we struggled with, and despite her proclaimed atheism, used to find a way each year to give me and my sisters a lavish Christmas. When we were carolling and decorating the tree she would exclaim "this is all very pagan you know!" She was an extensive scholar and knew a lot about Goddess traditions and the Old Religion. So I can see how my childhood years prepared me for becoming an intermediary between the pragmatic and the spiritual...the inner and the outer views of reality.
This split is still evident in the women's movement today. Local marxist-type feminists and lesbians here in my own community do not support me because of my overt spiritual stance. Non-spiritual feminists call us Goddess lovers "bliss bunnies" and assume we are just escapists and should be out there organizing. Another assumption is that women of privelege who follow the Goddess are shielded from the sufferings of sisters in dire circumstances, and they don't always see what's out there...or they blame the sufferers.
The lesson I believe is that there IS a spectrum, and both principles have truth. Everything has an inside and an outside, and the two interact and influence one another. So, for example, in the instance of a disease, you might address it with pills or surgery, which I would see as a more external approach. Or you might address it with attitude, mantra, visualization, realization, cognition about your own deep psychological patterns, prayer, and faith. You might go allopathic or naturopathic. Each approach by itself may not be sufficient. We have all heard horror stories, I'm sure, about what allopathic medicine has done to someone... and we've also heard them about someone who went the alternative route that didn't work for them.
There have been times also when I have tried to connect with folks who do outward activism for social change. For example, one time I joined a group in L.A. called the Food Conspiracy. We would go to warehouses at 2,3 in the morning and buy produce wholesale, load it up into trucks, and bring it to one member's backyard. We would set it all out in its boxes, and all members would come and purchase for pennies to the pound. It was sure a great way to save money, and a great idea I thought.
But the community I tried to interact with was very frustrating for me. They were completely pragmatic. There was no room in their beliefs or behavior for a woman like me... a woman of poetry and soul. They weren't interested in my songs, which I would have loved to contribute. They had no aesthetic, and everything about them was drab and dreary to me. I eventually left because there was no real space in the group for me to be myself and be accepted for who I am.
I think we cripple ourselves when we focus only on one end of the spectrum, making ourselves walk on one leg instead of two. It's like the pentacle of fire water air earth and spirit. Air alone and we float away. Fire alone and we burn up. Earth alone and we suffocate. Water alone and we drown. Spirit alone and we remain disembodied and unmanifest... at least in the earthplane anyway. But when we work with the elements in combination they enhance one another and create harmony and equilibrium. The old occultists used to callthis process when applied inwardly The Great Work. It is the basis of the Temperance card in the Tarot... though perhaps "Alchemy" is a better name for it. Crowley called it "Art." :0)
I'm familiar with the belief system about how we "create our own reality" and while I agree there is much truth in it, I don't agree with it entirely. We co-create our reality in my opinion. Each of us plays a part for sure, and needs to take responsibility for that. But other things and beings also play a role, and many factors impact one another in this web of connection we live in. While the "new age" philosophy of "you create your own reality" has been very liberating on some levels, it has also been damaging because there is a tendency for it to slide into blame. In that view witches are to blame for getting burned at the stake...Jews to blame for being put in the ovens...people dying of leukemia are to blame for their illness. Now there may be some truth in this, and I am not dismissing it at all. Again, like balancing between different healing modalities, I believe we need to have a more balanced view about how our realities are created too.
This belief process has gone from one extreme to the other in our society, as far as I've observed in my own lifetime. Back in the 50s I remember most people felt powerless. "They"...whoever they were...had all the power. "I" or "We" had no say in the matter and folks tended to stay trapped in powerlessness. Then EST and Werner Ehrhart came along with "the idea whose time has come." "You create your own reality" was his phrase that became popularized in the new age movement. There was an enormous swing to the other extreme in consciousness. Now each person saw themselves as creating everything. I'll never forget when R. who was my student in my very first women's circle up in the Santa Cruz mountains, came to class one night, having just been to her EST class. She looked around at us and said "I'm creating all of you."
Well maybe some folks agree with her, but that just doesn't work for me. We all have a say in what's happening here. R. was repeating what she had learned in EST, and I felt and still feel that was a distortion and not right at all.
I also don't think it's wrong to be scared and to say so. We need to have our feelings, and suppressing them doesn't help either. I've had people tell me not to feel things when there was obviously something very frightening and dangerous going on. Being real and letting our real reactions flow is part of the transforming process, in my experience. Emotions are a huge key factor in both illness and health, both safety and danger. Denying them does not feel helpful to me at all. What works better for me is to have support around my fears, so that I can feel them, address the causes and acknowledge them, let them flow through, then go to the next step. Nature gives us the ability to feel fear for a reason... it is part of our survival system.
Getting stuck in fear mode is not great either though. Again, it's about balance. Or, as I prefer to say, equilibrium.
On being a mermaid in a superhero world and my current healing crisis:
Any life threatening health issue is an opportunity and a blessing as well as being a problem. I know that the betrayals and abandonments I've experienced in my life are at the root of it all. I have done much healing work on myself around it. Coming online and finding a community of loving sisters has been a major part. A lot of my issues revolve around the need to have a voice as musician, poet, priestess, etc. and being silenced by competitive attitudes, classist attitudes, fear, and so on. I am constantly on a quest to find remedies. It took me three years to get a website up, and I did it mostly by myself. Isolation and a lack of support have been huge hurdles. Some of this is my own responsibility... I need to do things my own way, and other people's ways don't necessarily work for my specifics.... I have an independent streak for sure. But some of it is from misunderstanding, lack of communication, mistaken assumptions, conformism, classism, jealousy, ostracism and outright attacks that have hurt me very deeply. I did not create these; they are out there. I have had a lot of success in some ways, working around it... eroding away the resistance with love, compassion, reaching out, creating art and ritual and finding ways to share them... etc. etc. Deep Shielding has been an important part of this too. But the process, with all the success I have had, is still partial at this stage. I have high hopes that this will continue to develop, especially now that I have the internet.
I am a Dark Maiden, an Aphrodite/Persephone woman, and the mermaid is an archetype I resonate with; also the Selkie or Silkie from Celtic mythology. Another mermaid sister recently shared with me some writings she made about it. Basically she talked about how we travel between the worlds and spend a lot of time in the underworld... or one could say in the realm of the Dark Goddess. Subconscious realms where we tap in to deep emotion, insights, inspiration. We also withdraw from the harsher realities there, for sustenance and healing. From these sojourns we create art; beautiful expressions of the "divine." If we can bring these back out to the world, we can be made whole by sharing them with folks who are inspired and moved by them. In return we get validation for who and what we are. This exchange is essential for well being and survival - for everyone involved.
Mermaids are super sensitive people. We need the kind of interaction described above. When the world doesn't receive us, it can be very painful and discouraging. I have been too much isolated because of a lack of response- or a hostile response- in a society that for the most part does not understand. I have also embraced my solitude and gained much good from it as well. No matter how much success I may have, I will still always need my solitude too. Another question of balance. Solitude has helped me to survive the hard parts too. In my own little world I can make myself happy.
It's where the interfaces are that the challenges arise. The need and longing and frustration and fear of rejection and anger and anxiety and anguish all have gone into my body, one way or another. In a nutshell, one can say that patriarchy made me sick. And I think patriarchy itself is a sickness that affects everyone on some level. So I do not blame the woman who is homeless and taking drugs... or the one who is raped... or living in poverty...perhaps a single mom... or the one who is incarcerated for trying to defend herself from an abusive man. Sure they may have unconsciously played into those situations and need to look at where they can adjust their own attitudes and behaviour. But to focus only on the individual's part in the scenario without addressing the larger picture... the system that we are all caught in to some degree... is to have only a partial explanation or picture. I like the feminist saying "there are no individual solutions." I think there is some truth in this. We're all in this soup together after all.
Interesting that "incarcerate" and "carcinoma" have the same root word in them. !!!!
On Wednesday I went back to Planned Parenthood to do some paperwork. On my way out I discovered that our local farmer's market was in full swing in the parking lot right outside. I hadn't realized that PP was in this location. I needed some veggies so I started to meander through the stalls. A woman named Martha Benedict had a table there, where she was displaying her oils and tinctures and other remedies. She is a crone sister and a wonderful healer. I had never met her or known about her before. I just started chatting to be friendly and browsed among her products. Well it turns out she knows everyone in the medical community here and has a great reputation as a healer. Her products called "Benedictine" are in many of the health food stores. I got some topical fungal remedy for my rashes (the antibiotics aggravated these of course) and some arnica oil for painful joints (also candida related).
Martha told me about a study that was done on three cancer control groups. One group did only mainstream medical. One group did only natural medicine. The third group did both. The mainstream med group died within two years. The natural medicine group died within five years. The third group is still alive and doing well today.
This illustrates my point so well, don't you think? :0)
So thinking on all of this and reflecting on my current bout with trouble in the belly chakra.... I am seeing how in some ways the Goddess has placed me as a bridge person for sisters. Perhaps my growing awareness on the need to reconcile seemingly oppositional phenomena will help to heal some splits in our movement and make us all stronger...and help to heal me too. As a matter of fact, some of the material on the tradition of the "High Priestess" in the tarot state that she is a reconciler of opposites. She is often shown sitting before the "veil" that conceals the mysteries. On either side of her are poles representing the opposites... male/female, good/evil, sickness/health, war/peace, rich/poor, black/white, life/death, youth/age, solar/lunar, pleasure/pain, and so on. She is placed between them... the mediating third factor that bridges what could other wise be conflicted.... turns the twos into threes so that they can circle together in harmony.
Guess I'm just doing my job, huh? <grin>
PS And I do have some opportunities coming up. I'm scheduled to go to VA in April to do workshops and magic and music with Linda Reichert's group Tidewater Pagain Women. Will announce more about it soon.
Have been invited to lead a Spring Equinox ritual at Gateways, the bookstore where I do Tarot on Sundays.
Am also scheduled to teach a class in Women's Mysteries at the local witchstore in early March.
And ongoingly there are the wonderful online Moonspell circles. I am so happy to have these sisters.
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Hi Shekhinah, several years ago you changed my life through your book, Ariadne's Thread. Even to the point where the day I took down my altar at the end of the 13 moons was the day my long-term relationship ended and I also walked out of my home and my life as I knew it. Didn't seem great then, was the beginning of a descent, but I am so glad it all happened. I knew the goddess would ask much of me - and she has - but it is being truly alive and blessed! There wasn't internet then, or at least if there was I hadn't heard about it, so never thought about you having a web-site until on the Altar with the Daughters of the Flame, Faerie posted that you were having an op. for cancer and gave the address of your web-site. Which is just wonderful and has already given me further inspiration and strength. I have had chronic health problems all my life and it really gets my goat when new-agers put it all on me - I work hard at my health and that's why I'm still here but it needs a balance of all things. I was talking to a friend about how Western medicine, that so many deem bad, has kept me alive and given me a comparatively good quality of life. He said that he didn't think there could be 'good' or 'bad' medicine. If it was medicine, it was healing, and therefore it was good. Yes, we can look at our lives and hurts that have allowed entry to the disease or behaviours and thought patterns that have made us vulnerable, but sometimes we also just need to ride the wave and see where it takes us and just do our best. Let the healers do their work, be the patient, and there are so many of us out here that are sending prayers, good energy, and lots of love to wrap your around with comfort and guide the hands and minds and hearts of those healers. And thanks so much for everything you have given me. Lotsalove and blessings, Roxie (Roxanne Bodsworth)
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Hello, I'm Dennis. I love the way your mind works. It also happens to be filled with many many thoughts that reflect mine. Is there any way we can communicate directly? I have previously written a comment regarding your thoughts on parthenogenesis--which is how I linked up with your blog to begin with. It's critical that I speak with you regarding the disappearance of menstruation in healthy, strict, vegetarian women. The bloodstream is also very alkaline in same women. These two conditions are very important to set the stage for the possibility of self-fertilization. Have you ever read; Mysteries of Human Reproduction by Raymond W. Bernard? It's a bit dated but is a very interesting small book to read. (It can be located via; www.healthresearchbooks.com)
Please email me. denpoitras1@Verizon.net
1/17/06 7:02 AM