I haven’t forgotten.
Ugh. I know I’ve ranted about this before, and I’ll likely do it again. Being tidy and deriving enjoyment out of deep cleaning or organizing is not “OCD”. Having unpredictable mood swings is not “bipolar” (unless these “mood swings” cause you to engage in harmful behavior or rob your ability to function). Being in mourning after a loved one dies or one learns of a terminal illness isn’t the same as Major Depressive Disorder. And really, really wishing you had seven imaginary friends, including your first D&D character and someone from Harry Potter, doesn’t give you Dissociative Identity Disorder.
What separates people who experience average emotional peaks and valleys and those who are mentally ill is the ability to function through, or in spite of, these emotional states. Secretly, I’m not 100% sold on the idea that mental illness necessarily have a neurologically centered chemical imbalance, but I do think that some medications can be helpful. However, no amount of medicine can cure you from what is honestly “being a human being with emotions”.
But please, for me, stop using these diagnoses as adjectives.
Ugh. So let’s talk about this mess:
Pictured above is a flyer that reads, “IS THE BIBLE’S GOD BIPOLAR?” in a large font. It includes the name of an organization, “Ratio Christi,” in a stylized text below.
It’s been said before, and it should be common knowledge by now, but apparently it isn’t.
So here’s a fun fact: Mental illnesses are not adjectives.
I’m angry. I’m angry because this isn’t the first time I’ve seen “bipolar” used in such a frivolous, insensitive way, and I’m sure it won’t be the last.
Do people honestly think that bipolar disorder is just a happy/sad rollercoaster of fun times? Because I’m pretty sure the word you’re looking for is “moody” or “dramatic” or maybe “volatile,” none of which are synonyms for “bipolar.”
Have you considered that maybe God is just really irrational? Because if anything, I think the more accurate description…
a random thought floats by
Those who stop staring out all the windows of their house, go on to look through other windows into different realms. They do it because they are bored, or expect a show, or think it makes them a more interesting guest for tea.
Those who can never stop staring out all of the windows of their home are considered slow, easily amused, afraid of confrontation.
But one is celebrated for the looking while we never ask them what it is that they really see. The other is celebrated for looking so closely to detail that the smallest omen is never missed.
A task is not over just because you lack the imagination or dedication to continue. It is over when the work is done and you are strong enough in your knowledge of the task that you can reproduce it at will, whenever that skill is needed.
-Laufey (In a conversation with author, 2014)
Religious Terrorism meets Religious Liberalism
And the stones shall cry
This past Sunday, something pretty scary happened at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans (First UUNO). Operation Save America, a fundamentalist anti-abortion organization that is known for descending upon abortion clinics and making life a living hell for anyone coming or going, chose to land in one of our congregations. Several members of OSA showed up at First UUNO as if there to attend worship, and during the service stood up and began verbally accosting the worshippers and pushing anti-abortion pamphlets into their hands.
I don’t think they were prepared for what followed. That Sunday, First UUNO was commissioning the College of Social Justice youth leaders who had been gathering all week. The youth leaders immediately circled in and began singing. Rev. De Vandiver, a New Orleans-based Community Minister who was leading worship that morning, asked the protesters to please respect the worship space and if they couldn’t…
Disciplining Discernment
Thracian Exodus
There is often a great deal of resistance in Pagan, Polytheist and (in general) “independent religious or spiritual tradition” discourse to the idea that religion or spirituality are disciplines which require discipline to perform. The word “discipline” carries with it an inherent meaning of submission to instruction and process. In the context of describing a field or topic (e.g. “divination by runes is a discipline”) it refers to branch of specialized knowledge and skills which were obtained generally through the submission to a disciplined approach of learning and training. This is why fields of medicine are referred to as “disciplines”, and why academic avenues of study which draw from different platforms or lenses of examination and intent are referred to as “interdisciplinary studies”. A “field of discipline”, or merely “a discipline” for short, is an area of pursuit covering a breadth of knowledge and performance-based skill which are…
For the most part, I try to avoid the flames of blogger drama. I accept that I sometimes bring it on myself, or I wander into a snake pit not having heard the warning rattles. But I’ve been thinking about some of the recent dust ups (and if you weren’t aware there were any, stay blessed and don’t ask), and I may have one piece of the puzzle that might lead us to a better way to write about spirituality and religion.
Most people treat the written word as declarative: Because you are reading this, you assume this is a fact. Academia further culls the habit of starting sentences with modifiers like “I feel”, “My opinion is”, “I think”, “In my experience”, etc. The impression is that if someone is reading your paper, they take for granted that the things you state are things you think, feel, or opine about.
I don’t think the same thing holds true for books. I guess there is a meta sense that a (non fiction) book is a summation of an author’s point of view; but we usually assume that the author has done some amount of due diligence. If an author says “All Pagans are Caucasian”, the reader assumes that the author has looked at some studies, surveys, or other official data to support this assertion. However, if the author makes this statement because they’ve been to a lot of Pagan events and networked with (what feels like) the majority of Pagans, and nary a person of color was seen or heard from, that statement becomes misleading at best and just plain untrue at worst.
When you sit down and have a conversation with someone, you have the option of clarification -“Where did you read that? Or is that based on your own experience?” People have other context clues from which they can learn if a statement is based on experience, opinion, or fact. I might say that Sannion is a weiner who sends dick picks for funsies, and my tone and body language will clue you in as to whether I’m pulling the piss or if I’m delivering a sober warning. No one on today’s Internet needs to be reminded that it is nigh impossible to convey sarcasm, exaggeration, and flat humor in text alone.
Blogs fall somewhere in between all of this. I don’t expect a blog writer to be an expert who has researched the topics they write about – unless they make an assertion that they are, or if they list their qualifications before they launch in. However, there are times when bloggers make declarative statements (like “Polytheists believe that there are many Gods that eminate from a singular source”) that imply that the author has either had extensive experience defining polytheism, or is a polytheist themselves and has spent a fair amount of time with different polytheists, or that they have done some research to arrive at that conclusion.
I know few bloggers who don’t fall into this trap from time to time. We get this idea that we have something to share, and it is true for us (or feels true), so we state things as though they are true. We may have several reasons for using declarative statements – because we’re pretty sure something is true, because something is subjective and therefore we are taking a stand, or because our education/training has taught us this truth. And people seeking information and advice are more likely to take someone seriously if the author uses declarative statements.
I want to introduce a concept I picked up from teaching sex education. It’s a very simple thing that could put out a lot of these fires before they blaze and someone gets accused of torturing homeless people or whatnot. It is not a fire brigade, but more like a smoke detector.
Some.
Most.
Think you can remember that?
Here’s the context in which I learned it. If someone asks you a question about sex (or pajamas, or garden hoses, or the Muppets), there are many reasons why you might choose not to share your personal experience on the topic. (This is especially driven home for sex ed people who are working with children and teenagers.) So instead of personalizing the answer, you can choose one of the above words to make the same point.
So, for example, if someone asked me if people really dress up in pony tack and dance around a ring for sexytime fun, my answer might sound like:
“Some people do enjoy pony play. Many do it because being an animal lets them escape from complicated human thought and emotions, and some do it because they enjoy dressing up in fancy things and showing off.”
You have no idea what my personal experience with pony play is, but not only do you have a general idea on how popular it is; you also have a sense that it is usually about the animal experience, rather than the dressing up. But my answer was stated in a way that if you secretly fantasize about being a pony (or a trainer), you don’t feel ostracized by an answer like:
“I only know one pony player personally, and she’s my ex girlfriend.”
“I have seen it done, but it isn’t my cup of tea.”
“The only people who do pony play are doing it for the attention.”
In the end, my feelings about pony play don’t answer the querant’s question. If they really want my opinion, they’re going to have to ask for it explicitly, and even then I have every right to refuse to answer or to refer to someone else.
To break down the concept even further:
“Some” is mostly used when you don’t know how many exactly, nor do you know if something is considered mainstream within that population or not. It allows you to share things that you have less knowledge about, and it’s a great time to make a referral to someone else who might have better information.
Some Lokeans are trans* identified, and others are cis* identified.
Some people use drums for shamanic purposes; I’d ask Wintersong Tashlin about other forms of trance induction since I know he doesn’t use drums.
“Many” is used when something is considered commonplace, stereotypical, or generally accepted. It leaves room for dissent or iconclasts, and it affirms that people in the minority are not alone. I tend to use ‘many’ with a description of the sample group I am acquainted with.
Many Polytheist bloggers feel excluded from greater Pagan conversations and spaces. Some get pretty aggressive about it.
Many Lokeans find that He brings a time of massive upheaval in their lives. I’ve been a part of the Lokean community for 10 years and it’s fairly common.
“Most” is used when you’re pretty sure something is universal, or at least so dominant that those who fall outside of it know they’re in a small minority. It helps you avoid words like “Every”, “All”, “Always”, etc, because most times using those sorts of declarative words is basically engraving an invitation for your detractors and people who disagree with you. “Most” gives a sense of a cultural norm without being exclusive.
Most people who read my blog either know me in real life, or found it because of the Month for Loki project.
Most people enjoy orgasms, and think of orgasm as the pinnacle of sexual congress.
I may be crazy (well, I am crazy) but I really do think that if most Pagan bloggers starting thinking and writing in terms of Some, Many, Most; that we’d be able to communicate and teach and share our experiences without excluding or agitating those who disagree with us. There are times when it’s a good and necessary thing to point out when someone’s wrong, especially when they forget to use inclusive modifiers instead of declarative statements; if that happens to you, the classy thing is to admit your error and make a correction. It’s okay to be wrong, and it’s okay to find out that your experience is limited in many ways (by your geography, gender, age, ability, level of engagement/study, etc).
I’m a little afraid that the end result of all this broiling is that fewer and fewer experienced Pagans will feel comfortable sharing their points of view, things they’ve learned/studied, or experiences. I know that’s my impetus for my blogs, and I think many of the blogs that find themselves needing kevlar panties are written by people with similar goals. I hope we can find ways to build a complex and interesting collection of knowledge, and not just leave behind incendiary rants, name calling, and expletives.
Words, Words, Words: On Toxicity and Abuse in Online Activism
Although written about activist communities, I found myself making parallels to the recent tenor of discussion in polytheist online spaces as well. I hear so often that people want to blog about important personal moments of spirituality or philosophy, but refrain because they’re afraid of using a wrong word or phrase and pissing off imaginary hordes who sent death threats and sexual aggression. And I can’t lie to them – it happens. I’ve had death threats, been accused of sexual crimes, and been told to hold ideas in less I invite further threats. This is udderly ridiculous and needs to end. There are many ways to state a disagreement or point out problematic theories without calling someone a rapist or a murderer. In 2014, I can only pray our community can collectively work to end such hyberbolic “calling out” culture and resolve to find and support ways to share differing viewpoints and debate ideas without abusing those with the courage to share their thoughts, experience, and feelings – things newcomers want us to be writing and sharing. And those of us with a little cache or respect in the community can stand to listen to anger without responding in kind.
Nuclear Unicorn
To all new readers: I’ve written a follow up to this article.
Not long ago my partner and I were seated in her car discussing the arbitrary nature of certain holidays and I opined, perhaps halfheartedly, that New Year’s was a worthwhile holiday simply for it being a useful vantage point for reflection, however arbitrary. It provides an overlook whence one can see a year of one’s life and world. A recent tranche of writing by severalprominentmembersof the trans and queer feminist gaming community has renewed my faith in that idea– with the overleaf of the year we suddenly find a great deal of penetrating insight into activist discourse and the risks incurred by our silence about certain excesses that have come to define us too often.
The wages of rage in our communities, and the often aimless, unchecked anger striking both within and without have…
A Southern Girl’s Guide to Hospitality
This is a lovely guide to Hospitality that explains simultaneously how it works for both humans and Holy Ones. A word about semantics: the author uses the word “Kindreds” to mean “Gods, Spirits, Etc”, whereas some Northern Trad folks would ordinarily think it meant “the Norse version of a coven”. But definitely worth a read, as Hospitality is something very important to Loki, both that He offers it and expects it, and also expects many of His followers to offer it to those who need it.
Let’s face it: a lot of the information out there about interacting with the Kindreds and establishing a devotional practice is damned intimidating for a beginner.
Most of us in the West don’t have a devotional tradition to draw on, and when we try to find others who can maybe show us the way we drown in technical terms and ideas we can’t understand yet. Add in the arguments about the info that is available and it can be more confusing than helpful.
I’m not an expert by any means, but I have been doing this for awhile. I figured I’d provide my perspective for any beginners out there simply looking for a place to start.
Maybe you’re new to the whole idea of hard polytheism, and just don’t know how to interact with entities who are real individuals and not theoretical constructs. Or maybe you’ve had an experience you…
A Very Social and Socially Conscious Yule!
I apologize for the brevity of this post, but I’ve got some personal stuff going on that I’ll likely blog about when the tsunami recedes. I very much wanted to get this information out as soon as I could in hopes that people will still have room on their holiday calendars to come join us for a fun ritual in honor of the Winter Solstice.
On Sunday, December 22nd, we of the Apartment at the End of the Universe are hosting a Yule get-together and ritual. It will be very “low church”, and focus more on creating and sustaining bonds of friendship and fellowship for those who don’t have a spiritual home or are solitary practitioners by choice. You don’t have to know anyone, including me, to come; just let us know you found us via this blog and a little about who you are.
Our plans include:
-a low-stress potluck lupper (lunch and supper)
-Swap Meet With a Purpose: The Holiday Season’s commercialization focuses people on acquiring more than what they need, and our ritual intent is to combat that by creating a space for people to give away what they don’t need. So if you have more food in your pantry than you could possibly eat in a year, or a closet full of clothes you haven’t worn since Jncos were in style, or an altar piece that you no longer use, or even some free time you could spend helping a friend clean their house or watch their kids – this is a great place to send those things to a new home. You can bring as much as you like, and you can take as much as you need. We will have a simple structure to ensure that less aggressive or socially expressive people have a chance of getting what they need, too. And whatever is not taken home by a ritual participant, will be donated to either a local homeless shelter, a local domestic violence shelter, or listed on Freecycle/Craigslist. And if you have a particular need, let us know and we’ll see what we can find for you!
-A Short Participatory Yule Ritual: For those of you who like the smells and bells of the season, I’ll be leading a loosely-outlined ritual intended to help recognize how strong our support systems can be, and ways you can let others know about the support you offer them.
-Holiday Toast: It’s not a AEU ritual without a little alcohol. We intend to have eggnog, hot toddies, and other winter-y themed drinks. (If there’s one you particularly like, feel free to bring some to share!)
That’s it! Feedback from our Samhain ritual strongly indicated that people wanted more time to just socialize and share fellowship, and Yule is a great holiday to focus on such things. Again, people of all faiths, including “none at all”, are welcome to join us. Just please RSVP to delandrave at gmail dot com by December 19th. We’ll give you our address in Hagerstown, MD when you RSVP. You should plan to arrive by 3pm, and we’ll likely be done with the “official” part by 7pm.
Whether you plan to join us or not, have a warm holiday season. If you wish, you can join our intent by making donations to local charities as part of your personal celebration of Yule.
Taking on a label for the very first time is the end of a long, internal process. People go from “I am obviously different from the people around me” to “I must be the only one who looks/thinks/feels this way, because I don’t know anyone else who does and I don’t see representations of that kind of expression in the media (at least in a positive fashion).” At some point, we find another person, or maybe a group of people, who prove to us that we aren’t the only earthling who is “this way”, and usually our new friend(s) have some sort of term that identifies other people as being “part of the family”. You not only feel supported and understood by this new circle of friends, but find out that your otherness is not wrong, bad, hurtful, or ugly. You learn that you can embrace and accept your otherness and find peace and joy by losing all of your fears related to being “this way”. So now, you use that term not only to have a convenient shorthand to explain to others who you are, but it acts as a beacon for more people to know they, too, aren’t alone.
I’m going to sidestep the obvious choice here, and talk about a label that took me a long time to embrace.
Around age 10, I started to gain weight. There were a number of factors at play, and none of them were lack of willpower or ignorance of the social and health risks of obesity. The change in how my peers treated me changed overnight – people who actively sought my friendship were now shying away from me, and people who had never noticed me before identified me as a target for bullying. I vividly remember a day in fifth grade, where I had gone to school in an outfit I felt proud of and good in, only to have an older girl start mercilessly tearing me down. She also threatened to beat me up after school, all because I had been happy about my outfit. I stomped into school and told my teacher about it, but because of the entrenched fatphobia in our society, the teacher actually told me that maybe if I wore baggier clothes, people wouldn’t notice my weight. My reaction? I told her I was quitting school and I marched home.
It was that bad. It may not sound like a big deal to you, but what you should understand is that I loved school. I hated the kids who bullied me, but I loved learning and I loved being around other kids. But when I got home that day, my (shocked) mother tried to explain to me that I legally had to go to school, and I informed her that I could go to another school, or maybe learn at home. (I didn’t know any homeschoolers, but I had friends who had taken long breaks from school due to illness.) She called my teacher, my principal, and the superintendent, and eventually I went back to school.
That was only the first time I remember being so humiliated by the word “fat”.
I have a million stories like that one, as most fat adults do. And they didn’t stop when I graduated high school, or during college. It hasn’t stopped. I still get harassed on the street, by all kinds of professionals, by waiters, clothing store associates, and even well-meaning friends who feel compelled to have a “come to Jesus” talk with me in regards of my weight.
I also have a long and hilariously sad history of doing all kinds of things, some of them pathological, in the pursuit of weight loss. I have been treated for anorexia, which is another source of humiliation in the hands of medical professionals because they assume only extremely thin people starve themselves for weeks at a time and hate their bodies. If a newspaper, anywhere, has published an article about a weight loss regimen, I have likely tried it – and by that I don’t mean “ate that way for a couple of days and then said fuck it”, I mean, “followed it religiously or semi-religiously for months at a time until I got sick or lost hope that it would work.” I’ve blogged before about a doctor who put me on an all-protein shake diet for eight and a half months, during which my hair fell out in clumps, my skin became sallow, I suffered from major vitamin deficiencies, and eventually developed long-term consequences in my nervous and digestive systems that I still fight today. And you know what? People cheered me on. Friends would see me and tell me how great I looked. I got tons and tons of positive reinforcement. I felt I couldn’t tell people how fucking miserable I was, that I felt socially ignored because I couldn’t attend gatherings that happened in any kind of food or drink establishment (I wasn’t even allowed to have coffee or tea), or that I thought I was getting sick because of it.
But today, I call myself fat all the time; I openly identify myself as a fat person, and I do work for fat activism. The very word that brought me to tears and made me quit school (for four days) in 5th grade is now the word I proudly wear on tee shirts and buttons. It was a long road that brought me to this place, and part of that journey was meeting other fat people who didn’t obsess about weight loss or diets or exercise. Fat people who wore fashionable clothes, even if they had to sew them themselves (because Gods know the selection out there is terrible!). Instead of saying the word “fat” because they hated me or thought I was ugly/diseased/lazy/slovenly/etc, these people were calling me “fat” because they and I had a shared history when it came to body size and prejudice. They and I became a “we”, and “we” were strong, beautiful, interesting, willful people who happened to have a single statistical point that was higher than the average. By reclaiming that word, not only was I removing the sting that comes when someone uses it pejoratively, I am also showing other fat people that they don’t have to be ashamed of who they are today. So when I call myself “fat”, it is shorthand for a incredible journey of acceptance, of myself and of other people; it allies me with a large number of folks who have collectively decided that no one statistical number can fully define a person’s worth.
I’ve been on this journey several times, in different ways. Each “label” I use to describe myself, represents a radical acceptance of who I am, as well as rejecting the notion that any of these facets of myself are meant to be hidden in a box of shame.
That’s “Why Labels”. I find most of the people who ask that question, have never thought critically about the labels that might apply to them, because they don’t see themselves in the role of “being other”. To boot, many of the people who ask that sort of question tend to be straight, white, cisgender, middle class men (or at least a mixture of some of those categories).
How come people who use an epithet in a reclaimating way are allowed to say it, but if someone outside of that demographic uses it, it’s considered rude (at least) or hate speech (at most)?
In other words, how come gay men seem to have permission to call each other ‘faggot’, but if a straight friend did it, it would be seen as rude? Of course, you can replace “gay men” with any subculture, and “faggot” with any epithet that relates to said subculture, but the answer is usually the same.
I spent a lifetime enduring quite a bit of psychosocial stress, depression, isolation, and hate before I saw the word “fat” as a source of pride. Unless you have shared that experience in some way, the word is being used in a different context, even if the user’s intent was not to harm. And yes, sometimes if you don’t belong to the subculture of that word, but you spend enough time and energy showing that you understand the people and the struggles they face, they may be more permissive about your use of that word. Like, I’ve spent over a decade hanging around gay men in a variety of situations, and there are some gay guys who don’t mind if I use the word “faggot” in a playful manner. However, even though I have friends who are okay with that, I never assume that all gay men are totally okay with it.
I usually advise people, “if you feel the need to ask if it’s okay to use a loaded word with someone, chances are the answer is no.” I understand that makes things a little unfair, because for some people it’s hard to read a social relationship in that sort of way. They’d rather have a direct communication about it. I’ve had people ask me about using some of my labels, and honestly, the answer depends, I don’t mind thin people calling me fat, but I still get angry when a temporarily-abled (my version of “nondisabled”) person calls me a crip or a wheelie.
Although I am technically a part of a subculture that uses a reclaimed epithet, I personally am not okay with it.
That’s cool. No one has to use a label they don’t like. And similarly, if you’re a part of a group of people from the same subculture, you can discuss your feelings about the epithet and whether or not it’s appropriate for the group to use (especially as part of the group’s name or identity, like “The Queer Men’s Chorus” rather than “The Gay and Bisexual Men’s Chorus”). You may also choose to vote with your feet, only joining groups who avoid using the reclaimed word. All I ask is that if you have a friend who has decided to use the label you personally don’t like, state your objection once, and continue to respect your friend’s right to label themselves as they will. I have plenty of friends with a transgender or transsexual history who do not identify as “trans”.** I even know homosexual people who don’t like the words “gay” or “lesbian”. And I know a ton of people who are considered overweight or obese who hate the word “fat”.
Labels are meant to be self-applied, and that means a person can opt out at any time. They can even eschew a label they once embraced, especially if their life has changed. I used to strongly identify as both “butch” and “dyke”, but I’ve changed since then.
But what if I’m using the epithet because it’s funny? Am I not allowed to lampoon people, especially if some of those people have reclaimed the epithet?
This is a question I’ve been personally doing a lot of writing about, regarding drag queens and their use of the word “tranny”. Not all drag queens use that word, but there are some pretty prominent ones who do. I can concede that part of it may be their own form of reclaimation, because many drag queens have been confused for transvestites, which is where the epithet originated. However, I have seen drag queens use it as a reference to trans* women, and that’s where I have an issue. Not all trans* women feel a shared identity or camaraderie (or “sisterhood”) with drag queens, especially since many trans* women find themselves explaining to many people how they are not the same thing. It is a similar issue with transvestites; one wears women’s clothing because it gets them hot, the other wears women’s clothing because she is a woman and that’s what women wear. Many trans* women have faced professionals who are convinced that their need to be seen as a woman is a matter of fetish, instead of identity. And yes, there are people who use the epithet “tranny” towards trans* women specifically to conflate them with transvestites in an insulting manner.
I believe strongly in the comedic rule of “Poking Up”. It’s pretty simple: you take stock of who you are and what privileges you have in the world, and then you poke fun at those who have more privilege than you. “Poking down”, or making fun of those who have less privileges than you will, at the very least, make your audience uncomfortable, and unless you’re more interested in the uncomfortable twitters of people who are laughing because they think they’re supposed to, rather than because they’re actually amused, it’s a bad idea. This is why a white male who performs a black female character is a poor choice, while a white male making fun of CEOs or politicians or police officers or anyone else who has more power in the world is hilarious. It would be weird for a temporarily abled stand-up comedian to do an entire set about people in wheelchairs, whereas someone who was actually disabled would kill with the material. It’s why rape jokes are almost never funny, because rape victims (not individually, but as a subset of humanity) have been purposefully, albeit temporarily, stripped of their power altogether – that’s why rapists rape.
So thus ends my rant on labels, which I meant to get out of my system months ago. I’ve just been finding myself in a number of conversations about it lately, and tonight it demanded to be ranted into the rantiverse once and for all. I welcome respectful dialog in the comments, but because of the subject matter, I will be moderating comments more closely. Play nice.