Isn't it interesting, and terribly predictable, how every time a person of privilege feels their privilege is threatened, they start whining about special interest groups. It's also terribly boring. I'm realizing that people who can't have a discussion without dropping into the juvenile act of name calling (and yes, screaming "special interest group" is just another form of name calling) really aren't worth the moment it takes to formulate a sentence, never mind speak it or type it. It's pretty sad, because there is this hope that through respectful dialogue we can all arrive at places of mutual understanding and respect. But you can't reach that place with someone who doesn't want to. It's like being in an abusive relationship - you can't make the other person become whole and healthy, you can only take care of yourself. Unlike an abusive relationship, we have to live in this world and interact to varying degrees with these people, we don't get to walk away to find more loving and accepting places to be. Instead we have to stay and struggle through, finding ways to hide and fight and create bubbles of loving accepting communities. Those bubbles seem to be getting larger and overlapping, yet still it seems there is so much hate around too. 

Today for instance, our own MP here in Fredericton, Keith Ashfield, spoke up in favour of hate and intolerance when he voted "No" on Bill C-389. What harm does it do to protect gender variant people, compared to the harm it does to not offer that protection? Why do some have this need to oppress and put down those who are different from them? And why are so many of us who are different from the supposed majority trying so hard to show that we aren't? There is no point to whitewashing - or as a friend of mine so aptly put it recently - straight washing ourselves. We are different. Everybody is different. But for some reason difference is seen as frightening and bad, as something to be spurned. I truly don't understand that. Look at trees and the beauty in a natural and diverse forest compared to one of Irving's monocultured tree farms. Not only the beauty, look at how much healthier the diverse forest is. Diversity is one of Nature's ways of protecting everything. Celebrate diversity, eh.

As for Bill C-389, fortunately the Bill passed this second reading. The third reading will be in February or March. Below is contact info for Keith Ashfield if you'd like to tell him what you think of his vote today, and what you expect him to do next time.

Love and blessings to you all.

23 Alison Blvd (Main Office) Fredericton, New Brunswick E3C 2N5
Telephone: (506) 452-4110
Fax: (506) 452-4076
http://www.keithashfieldmp.ca/contact/

Wondering Why

This is one of those times when I'm wondering why I have a blog. The vast majority of what I need to say ends up as pages in a journal no one ever sees, nor is anyone ever intended to see them. Except of course the time that a so-called friend stole my journal and read it not only to herself but to another so-called friend. Talk about betrayal. I've been cheated on in monogamous relationships and it hurt less. It still hurts, partially because of the betrayal of friendship, and partially because that journal contained not only deep thoughts and feelings, but also the record of my initiation and secrets that were only ever intended to be between myself and my god/dess. It was a rape of sorts.


And now I see the person who watched this rape (the person with whom my innards were shared) is reappearing in the community in which I travel, and overlapping with some of my closest friends. When I saw her last summer I tried to make peace, to forgive and move on. I approached her with an offering to tentatively reconnect. I was met with a hug and words to effect that she does not judge me for the words of mine that were read to her during the violation of privacy. Words that were never intended to be heard or read by anybody, angers and griefs given over to the god/dess so as not to feed negativity in this world. I find myself at a loss as to what to do with this.


This is far from the first time I have seen violations of this nature, and judgments passed by the violators. Truthfully is makes little sense to me. If I invade your privacy and don't like the feelings I see expressed, well, whose fault is it, yours for feeling and dealing with your feelings in an appropriate venue, or mine for taking what I have no right to take? I mean seriously.



Now back to the not-friend who stole my journal.She was angry with me. Probably beyond angry. I hurt her. Not intentionally. It was one of those situations in which I believed her words over my own gut. We were having one of those "friends with benefits" relationships... we cared about each other and words of love were spoken... as were words of boundaries and neither of us wanting to be in "a relationship" interpreted as coupledom. After time the benefits ceased to be and we were simply friends and roommates. Or so I thought, based on words and actions. I found out after the fact that she had been under the impression that we were lesbian bed death couple... which is an utterly ridiculous idea to anyone who knows me. Me? Lesbian bed death? hahaha... no can do... the two are mutually exclusive.


But anyway, all of this just to say that I've learned to not trust words. Because when a person is lying to themself they can seem to have all the sincerity in the world. And in a way they do.. every word is meant and every feeling is real in that moment. It's like words of love spoken during after play but in reverse, they are true in that moment but may not hold after the moment. The lies we tell ourselves to fit with those we love and desire can go deep. Living between the lines and dancing on the edge requires a level of rigorous authenticity and honesty with oneself as well as others that not everyone is able and or willing to do. Before stepping out of our culturally supported relationship styles, we each have a responsibility both to ourselves and those we love and will love, to do a very blunt self-assessment in which we ask ourselves if we are able and willing to do the work. For some of us it is very much worth it, for others it isn't. The key is to know ourselves and be honest, and to give ourselves permission to be who we are. Sometimes community pushes us to live within the norms, and sometimes it pushes us to live outside of them. Sometimes we push ourselves to be untrue to ourselves based on ideas of shoulds and politics. So let's all stop. Let's befriend ourselves and be our true selves, learning who we are and what we want, and honouring that.



And to those of us who travel the twilit edges, let's remember to trust our guts. Let's have compassion for ourselves and also cover our backs... and let's all forever continue to love ourselves and each other.



Blessed Be.

Why Pray?

I wrote this awhile ago..  it needed to be posted. 

Before I can understand why I pray, I need to be clear about what I mean by the word pray.

When I was a child, praying meant saying certain combinations of words, prayers, to a man in the sky and his son. The "Our Father..." was a common one. Later my grandmother taught me to pray to the son's mother, but still there was that element of praying to and asking for. Sometimes there was a thank-you.

As I grew older I noticed this lack of gratitude in the praying I'd learned and decided to change that. I started making a point of saying thank-you for the smallest things - a beautiful sunset, food to eat, a smile from a stranger. At the same time my relationship with god was changing, becoming less through the church and more of a direct communication. My prayers became a simple "I love you" whispered under my breath when I caught the scent of lilacs on a June evening. God was becoming to me less a person in the sky and more a part of the physical world. Still other though...

Many years later something happened while I sat on a hill behind the Museum of Anthropology at UBC. All of my prayers, my apologies for humankind's wrongs, my gratefulness for all of the joys bestowed, disappeared. At that moment I became aware that i was not separate from the lilacs or the sunset or the food or the stranger. I understood that there was no need to pray to god, or goddess, for i am god, as are we all. Now when i pray there are no words. There are only moments of remembering - of returning to the knowing - that we are all one, we are all sacred, we are all god. That is why i pray.

Tonight

Summer is long past and Samhain is just around the bend. I can smell Winter in the air, feel her in in my bones. But before the crack of leaves becomes the crunch of snow the ancestors will walk. Even now they fill the winds and whisper through our hair, as we rush from door to door in our feeble attempts to avoid the harsher side of life. 

Tonight I go to a Goth Ball. On the surface it is a fun pre-Hallowe'en party. Below the surface are weavings and tangles and webs of connection. The darkness simmers there. We play with it, dip our fingers in, knowing that it will not reach a boil. Not tonight, not in that venue.

In two weeks there is the Samhain ritual. We will journey to the lands of the dead and visit with our ancestors. We will step through the gate then back again. The following morning, a more academic overview of Samhain, tucked into 20 minutes. Then it is Trick or Treat night, one of my favourite times. Running through the Autumn in the dark, children laughing and screaming, having a too brief moment with the magik. We'll come home to a fire in the back, and private time spent with our ancestors. Honouring them and learning from them, telling stories in our attempts to re-member. 

Sometime between now and then the garden will be turned and laid to rest for the Winter. The soil will sleep, dressed in compost beneath the snow, ready for the warmth of sun in the spring to waken it. But that is too far ahead and my thoughts are nowhere near the warm and sun at this moment. I think of cold, of boots on snow, the weight of winter coats and hats and scarves and mittens. Then I reel my thoughts in. 

Tonight is the night of the Goth Ball, with Darkness just below the surface. I am choosing my outfit carefully, based on who I want to be. I might just bring a change of clothes with me, since I am feeling many of my facets today. 

In Their Name

I hate Christianity. I especially hate Catholicism. If I lived in an Islam country I'd probably hate Islam. But I don't so that's neither here nor there. 

It's not Jesus I hate, nor is it what he taught, nor even the core values of the religion. It's the hate it spreads, the venom it injects into innocent lives. It's the damage done, the lies told, the families destroyed.

I hate Christianity with the desperation of a raped woman. With the desperation of a woman who has watched her sisters be raped and beaten, souls shredded in the name of God. What God? The God who so loved the Earth that he gave his only begotten son? I doubt it. Perhaps the god who led humankind to murder Jesus for speaking out against classism and sexism. That god I spurn. That god is at the head of the Catholic church. That god guides the hands and mouths of many Christian leaders. That god is evil, that god is hate. That god led to burning people alive. That god leads humans to rape the Earth. That god teaches families to hate one another. The church that god leads teaches families to hate one another. That church talks about God's love on one side while vomiting hate from the other. That church is hypocrisy.

I have friends who are Christian. I was raised Christian. I try to be nice. I try to understand... it wasn't the message, it's not about Jesus, blah blah blah. The fact is that there are Christians everywhere preaching hate. There are Christians preaching murder. So why am I trying to be nice? 

I've been indoctrinated. Brainwashed to be nice. That's how good Christian girls are. Nevermind that I walked away from Christianity over 20 years ago. It's still in there. The training goes deep. So deep that there is gratitude towards the few churches who will accept us. Gratitude for a couple of places that allow us to be who we are. Well fuck the gratitude. I'm not grateful. And I have no respect for these places of worship, for these holy leaders. They are hypocrites. Until they break their silence. Until they speak out. Until they publicly denounce the churches of hate who share their religion. Until they offer formal letters of apology for all of the hate spread in their name. For the murders done in their name. For the families destroyed in their name. 

Blessed Be.

The Obvious

First obvious statement - it's hot. Too hot. Tempers are flaring and it's kind of fun. We're all soaked and sweaty and cranky. We're all real. Slather on the deodorant baby and it won't do a bit of good - you'll smell like a hot sweaty animal within minutes. And it's hot.

Second obvious statement - there's an election up in a few weeks. I'm betting most of those eligible to vote, won't. And that's not hot. Nor is it cool. Remember being a kid and your mother telling you to eat all of you supper because "there are children starving to death in Africa?" (which, while true, somehow seems like some kind of racial slur. My brother and I thought it was funny to tell her to pack the food up and send it to them.) Well, there are people all over the world dying for the chance to vote. Literally. Yet here in New Brunswick in 2003, only 69% of registered voters turned out to vote. The turnout at the last federal election was even lower at just 58.8%. All I can say is wtf? We get to vote, we get to have a say, we get to have a voice. Maybe it's not huge, but it's there. So get off your disenfranchised ass and stop feeling sorry for yourself and the state of the world long enough to go out and fill in your ballot. Then you can go back home and bury your head back in your video games if you like. Although, if you come up from your virtual reality long enough to check life out, you might find that one person can make more difference than you'd thought.

Third obvious statement - the revolution is going to start here in New Brunswick. Some August, or maybe July. During an incredibly intense heat wave. And it will all be due to global warming. Those who deny that global warming is happening will have to find some other reason, like the state of the economy or socialist infiltration. I'll let them figure that out. Personally I think we're all just going to lose our cool (again, literally) and take back what is ours. So a word to the secular powers that be - do what you need to do to stop global warming, because we New Brunswick folks get cantankerous when we're overheated. And if you won't work on the global warming issue then at least send us lots of cold beer.

Fourth obvious statement - see first obvious statement. The not so obvious statement is that the weather seems to shifting and perhaps, hopefully, lightening a bit. So I'm going to go to bed and see if this sleep thing will happen. It's been too long without a good sleep and I'm almost running on fumes. While that was great during Pride Week, I want my sleep now. 

Good night all.