Unsung Heroes – Like My Mother, and Like Her Mother Before Her

My mother was a trailblazer.  She is not famous, although in our home town she cannot go anywhere without running into ten people that know and like her.  She is not a world renowned figure.  She is not someone that you will read about in the history of feminism.  That doesn’t really mean anything, though.  The reason women have made the strides for equality successfully is because of the unknown trailblazers like my mother, the women who simply defied convention to go their own way.

My mother was born in the late 1940′s and raised Catholic.  She went to Catholic school, she played the organ at all of the Catholic masses growing up, and she was considered a “good girl”.  What my mother really want to be when she grew up was a physical therapist.  However, her father wanted her to be a wife and mother.  He refused to pay for her schooling.  My grandmother worked as a nurse, though, and thus was able to afford to send my mother to nursing school.  My mother did not go to school to be a physical therapist, but was able to go to nurses training and become an RN.

Her mother told her that education was important because no one could ever take it away from her.  This sounds like a small act of defiance, not much of a big deal, but you have to think of the time period here.  The early 1960′s, as an only child colluding with her mother to defy her father, going to nursing school was very much a brave act of defiance.  A young woman at that time period simply did not do things like that.  Except people like my mother did.  These little acts of defiance, standing up for what she wanted, even if it was merely a compromise, was a huge deal.

My grandfather was not an easy man, and could really make life miserable for the people around him when he didn’t get his way.  My mother has spoken of how he refused to speak to her for weeks at a time.  As a people pleaser, I cannot imagine how much determination and bravery it took for my mother to simply follow through with her own plans for the future.  To simply choose a small part of her own future, a compromise at that, was an unpleasant, uphill battle.

The fact of the matter is that my mother getting that education was important to the success of our family, as she was able to bring in enough money to afford to send her kids to college, because she had three girls and she wanted to make sure that they all had an education, because it would be something that was theirs alone, and no one could ever take it away from them.

Another act of defiance from my mother came from her desire to marry my father.  My dad lived, literally, on the wrong side of the tracks from my mother in my hometown.  My mother lived on Elm Street, and across the railroad tracks, my father lived on Oakland.  Good side, bad side.  My father was a Marine, he rode a motorcycle, he smoked, and he probably scared the shit out of my grandfather.  My grandfather made the mistake of telling my mother that she would not be able to marry my father (or possibly even see my father, I need call her and ask what the exact ultimatum was) while she was living under his roof.  So, she moved in with my father.  Without being married.  In the early 1960′s.

She was raised in a strict Catholic home, and in a time period where “living in sin” was NOT something you did, but she did it.

My sisters and I have what I like to affectionately call a “fuck you” streak.  If you give us an ultimatum, you’ve lost.  It may make us miserable, it may hurt us, it may be a case of us biting off our noses to spite our faces, but we will simply respond with “Oh, yeah?  Fuck you.”  I think it comes from an intense resistance to being controlled.  Ultimatums are situations about control.  The person giving the ultimatum wants their way no matter what and takes discussion or logical thought off of the table.  Well, we can either talk and work out a compromise or we can be irrational and deal with ultimatums.  If you are irrational enough to make the ultimatum, we are irrational enough to take the option where you are not in control of us.  For example, when deciding whether or not to play the trumpet or the flute as a child, a boy in my 5th grade class told me, “Girls can’t play the trumpet.”  Of course, I then chose trumpet because fuck you.

My mother thinks this is something we get from our father, but I think she is wrong.  I think it comes from her.  Oh, so I cannot marry the man I love as long as I live under your roof?  I’ll just defy convention and my upbringing and move in with him prior to the wedding.  Problem solved.

Another lesson from my mother was to never give your money to a man.  She worked with a woman who honestly had no idea how much money she earned per pay period as she simply signed her checks over to her husband without looking at them.  This might not be such a bad thing if her husband was a wonderful, genius, financial expert who wisely invested her earnings while making sure all the bills were paid – although I would still have an issue with working and not knowing where my money was.  However, it seems the men who want you to blindly trust them and sign over your money are always the ones who don’t work, but drink a lot or do a lot of drugs, or both.

Another lesson from my mother was “Never sign your money over to any man.”

There are so many young women today who eschew the word “feminist” as if it were the most awful thing to be associated with.  They don’t have the memory of stupid things women were raised with or awareness of the stupid things they were raised with.  My mother was raised in era where just her getting an education – and not even in the field she wanted, but rather in a field that was more socially acceptable for women to have – was a major act of defiance.  Where choosing what man she would marry was another act of defiance.  Where women still handed over their money to the man of the house.  Women today have made so many strides towards equality, that many don’t see that these strides have really come about in the past several decades.  It is still new, and that is part of why we have to keep fighting to keep it.

Women did not get the right to vote in the United States until 1920 – which means that women have not been voting in the United States for 100 years, yet.  It took from 1848 until 1920 for women to be allowed to vote – 72 years (although, it might have even been longer than that, this is just what history has documented).  Some of the women who fought for the right to vote died before ever even achieving this goal.  This was the first wave of feminists.

The second wave came during the Civil Rights era, and gave us a lot of the progress we have made up to date.  My mom lived during the time of second wave feminists, and she did her part by simply making her own choices and sticking by them in the face of her father and convention.  Her personal act of defiance was echoed by other women across the country who were tired of being forced to do things by men seeking to rule and control their lives.

I am a third wave feminist, by birth year and in thought.  I am saddened by the number of women who have benefited from feminism who look at the word as a pejorative.  Even the many liberals in my life often tell me I should be a humanist instead.  As long as we still have a large number of rapes and general abuse of women, I am going to go with feminist.  As long as we still have men making the laws about my reproductive health, I am going with feminist.  As long as we have women blaming other women when they are raped or harassed, I am going with feminist.  As long as any discussion of rape comes with how the woman could have “avoided” it, then I am going to go with feminist.  As long as male and female pagans are offended by Dianics, I am going with feminist.  This list could go on and on and on, but you get the general idea.

My mother raised me to be a feminist simply by telling me I have the right to be in charge of my own life, and that my wants and needs are second to no one else’s, not even a man’s.

New Posting Regulations

I know this blog is not updated as often as it should be, and we are hoping to change that over the course of the next few months.  That said, there are some new comment posting regulations that have been put into place.  In order to post, you now must be registered with WordPress in addition to leaving an email address and name.

This change was made by all three blog moderators after several posts of a personal, harassing nature were made to the blog.  Comments that are on topic are welcome, but personal attacks that have nothing to do with the blog, personal grudges, and slanderous accusations add nothing to the dialogue of spirituality.  As this blog is about spirituality, comments that seek to harm, slander, or otherwise create negativity will not be tolerated.

To all of you who comment on topic, registering with WordPress is free and easy and I hope you continue to post comments and enjoy the blog and our interactions.

WOD 7-25-12

Reblogged from allandnieva.me:

An ounce of performance is worth pounds of promises. – Mae West

I feel like hell today.  I didn't really perform well with the 'Angie' workout on  Monday, but it felt good to pound through that workout.  Yesterday, I helped some good friends pack up a moving truck - that meant A LOT of lifting.  I'm glad I was able to help, but the heat, straining, and dehydration has made me VERY sore today.

Read more… 240 more words

This is a blog I read frequently, and totally quote seemed to really resonate with my day - "You can't get much done in life if you only work on the days when you feel good." Hope you enjoy.

Philosophy Outside…

This summer, I am teaching two philosophy courses: comparative world religions, and intro to philosopy. I teach world religions every summer, but this is my first time with intro, and it’s been many years since I’ve read a lot of this material. I am incredibly excited! Since I’m refreshing myself with these readings, I will need to keep up with my “homework” right along with my students.

So today, I was planning coursework and beginning to prep for class. I was sitting outside, and I started doing a little journaling in between readings, which turned into a combination of a commentary on the nature around me and a commentary on some of the content I was reading. I decided it might be fun to try to journal with this material everyday, and do my readings outside for perspective.

So here goes!

Karl Marx, ”Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”: Religion is the opium of the people. [...] It is clear that the arm of criticism cannot replace the criticism of arms. Material force can only be overthrown by material force; but theory itself has become material force when it has seized the masses.

–That damned bluejay came at me again. I’m clearly paranoid about its intentions, but disturbed by them nonetheless. He sat in the grass and looked at me for a long moment before returning to his post in the canope of tree limbs overhead. Exhausted by his repeated threats, I fetched the momma cat and one of her babies, the smallest but most aggressive, whom we have dubbed “Murder.” Now they lie happily, snuggling at my feet while Murder nurses. The large male kitten has joined them, and Momma occassionally shoots the bluejay a look of casual curiosity.

Freud, “The Future of an Illusion”: As we already know, the terrifying impression of helplessness in childhood aroused the need for protection-for protection through love-which was provided by the father … [WHAT?] It is an enormous relief to the individual psyche if the conflicts of its childhood arising from the father-complex-conficts which it is has never wholly overcome-are removed from it and brought to a solution which is universally accepted. [Baaaah!!! Hah hah hah hah hah!!!!!!!!!!]

Freud goes on to explain his definition of ”illusion.” A deduction based on empirical observation that appears to be true but is false, yet no one cares or held any belief or faith or desire in its truthfulness is not ILLUSION, but just a falsehood. Yet a deduction based on empirical observation that appears to be true and people WISH it to be true, DESIRE it to be true and have faith in its truthfulness, despite its falsehood, is illusion.

I propose that Freud’s illusion was that the FATHER was the provider of protection and love, nurturing, a godlike figure, during his lifetime (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) or during periods when contemporary forms of religion were forming. A more fitting conclusion from his theory would be religion as a Goddess-Culture … the Great Mother … as evidenced by this Momma cat, with her power to chase off bluejays by her mere mothering presence. The arms I take up against arms are womanhood and the power of the Great Mother, and they overthrow the material force of the patriarchy, with all its theoretical illusions!

Not to degrade the role of Father. My own father is the greatest man who ever lived, and I know many women who feel the same way about their own fathers. But provider of love and protection? For centuries, the division of labor has placed women in the role of caregiver, nurterer, provider and protector of children. Were Freud on the right track with the development of religion, it makes much more sense that children would see the mother as Goddess, and thus, societies would see Goddess as Mother. Only in a misogynist culture would men strive so hard to remove the obvious element out of creation: the Woman. And there is no bigger misogynist than Freud, with all his illusions.

Marx was a big ole’ misogynist too, despite the feminist theories that have grown from Marxism. Women in common? Like property? Right. Has anyone READ the Communist Manifesto?

Two bees: two different bees are buzzing about in the same patch of clover. The carpenter bee is fatter, fuzzier, with a louder, lower drone and a much brighter yellow to his fat body.

The other bee is sleek, smaller, with a richer gold color to his trim body. His drone is quieter and at a higher pitch, yet is equally as aggressive as his counterpart’s drone. This bee seems inherently more DANGEROUS.

Descartes, First Meditation: And how could I deny that these hands and this body are mine, were it not perhaps that I compare myself to certain persons [...] At the same time I must remember that I am a man, and that consequently I am in the habit of sleeping, and in my dreams representing to myself the same things or sometimes even less probable things [...] on many occassions I have in sleep been deceived by similar illusions [...] Arithmetic, Geometry and other sciences of that kind which only treat of things that are very simple and very general … contain some measure of certainty … For whether I am awake or asleep, two and three together always form five, and the square can never have more than four sides, and it does not seem possible that truths so clear and apparent can be suspected of any falsity (or uncertainty).

Rationalism? Existentialism? To be or not two bees … until next time.

Dear Feminist Spiritual Writers – Start Writing Accessibly

Dear Certain Feminist Writers,

This letter is not to all feminist writers.  Some of you are accessible, interesting, and fun to read.  I love Jezebel.  Some of the Feministing bloggers are also fun to read (although others are dry as dirt).  There are many online feminist blogs that are intelligently written without being off putting.  There are even a few books that are as well, although fewer than I’d like.  This in no way is addressed to every feminist writer who tries to take on spirituality.  Z. Budapest’s writings, for example, on feminist spirituality are accessible and interesting to read, as are Diane Stein’s, albeit to a lesser extent.

Starhawk, not as much.  I love you, Starhawk, but your writing makes it clear that you are an academic and a philosopher, as you write in the dry, dense manner of philosophers.  Your best work is when you break out of that mold of writing, which is why the books where you collaborate with others tend to be my favorites.

However, I just skimmed through a few essays in the book “Weaving the Visions” and as a college educated lit major my eyes glazed over.  The rhetoric in the essays I picked was so thick that it simply was not worth the effort of wading through.  When your philosophical rhetoric becomes jargon that is only understood by other academics, you’ve narrowed your audience to other academics, grad students, or people who already know what you mean. I know that feminism is about redefining our world, but when I need a glossary for most of the words in a sentence to see how they’ve been “re-defined” I simply stop caring.

I can be a feminist and a spiritual feminist without changing the structure and meaning of the words in the English language.

Preaching to the choir will not change the world.  Often, preaching the choir simply alienates those you would like to be behind your cause.

This is not a problem simply for those who write about feminist spirituality, either.

People often talk bad about feminists and they use all kinds of methods to do so.  The F-Word – people who are pro-woman often say things like “I’m not a feminist but….” to be followed by something completely feminist in nature.  We, as feminists, wonder why this is.

A lot of it is simply patriarchy being too ingrained in people for them to embrace alternate views.  Feminists have been maligned vigorously and often by damn near everyone.  The media, politicians, preachers, pagan leaders – you name it.  Wonderful, liberal men who fight for every other equal rights cause in the world still talk about humanism instead of feminism, because they love their privilege too much to give it up.  (“What about how our current system hurts men?  What about that?”  Well, feminism addresses that, too, but you are too busy whining about your hard life to actually learn about feminism instead of just trashing it.)  We pretty much have enemies on all sides – and if we are straight sometimes even in our beds.  That is a huge and the predominant factor in people – especially women – shying away or outright rejecting the label of feminist.

But some of it is because we are alienating people simply by trying too damn hard to be legitimate.  Where do most people get their feminist identities these days?  College.  Feminism has become Women Studies – and I believe that this is great.  However, not everyone goes to college.  Not everyone who goes to college takes a Women Studies class.  Some women have jobs and children and go to college online and do not take anything but those classes related to their degrees.  There aren’t feminist consciousness raising groups operating far and wide anymore – which is a damn shame, as this method brought feminist consciousness to a great many women without the crippling student loan fees or hierarchy of a college education.

By playing the game of making feminism a University major or minor, we are definitely grabbing the attention of many women, but at the same by writing everything as an academic treatise, we are alienating a large portion of the population.  We strive for legitimacy and therefore write with our doctoral rhetoric in mind, but the only people who will care to wade through that dreck – and make no mistake, anything too filled with jargon to be immediately understood by the masses IS dreck – are other academicians.  This means that only rarefied circles will understand or CARE what you have to say.

We live in a world where the line between rich and poor is expanding at a frightening rate.  Getting a college education is no longer something everyone is going to be able to afford, as the middle class is disappearing.  People who do not have the means may still be interested in feminism or feminist spirituality, but they are not going to read dreck.  It may be smart and funny and witty dreck, but if the normal person, someone who does not understand your academic language and rhetoric, does not understand it, they will not care.  More than not caring, they will then think negatively of feminism, because it seems like a foreign language instead of something accessible to anyone who wants to have equal rights for women.

Therefore, I humbly ask you, those writers who struggle to bring feminist spirituality to the masses – write for the masses.  Write in words that everyone can understand.  Do not overload your writing with jargon and rhetoric.  No one but you and those in your immediate circle give a shit.  When our basic rights to govern our bodies are under attack as they are right now, we need the masses to understand what we are saying, so say something that is easily understandable.  Better yet, say something that is easily understandable AND interesting.

Sincerely,

Jayble

I’d Like Enlightenment, and a Side of Fries

Once upon a time, we were all newbies to this path.  Unless you are born into it (lucky you), most of us had to unlearn what we had been taught to believe and restructure our beliefs to a new way of thinking.  For some of us, this was easy to do as the path we are on spoke to us long before we realized that it had a name.  For others, unlearning never really took place, and often times these transitional pagans end up finding solace and comfort in the religions they were raised in.  All of this is fine – in the spiritual quest that is life, there are many paths that you can take to find what you are looking for, and being Wiccan or pagan takes work, effort, dedication, perseverance, and work.

It all starts and ends with work.  Work, work, work.  Work doesn’t have to be drudgery, but without putting in the work, however pleasant, you will never get the results.

I have always wanted to read tarot.  Since I was a child, there was something about “fortune-telling” that called to me.  I like the arcane and the occult, and tarot readers seemed to me to have a foot planted in those worlds of secret spiritual knowledge.  However, even though I had tarot decks, that did not make me a tarot reader.  Learning to read the cards, both on an academic level (what the cards mean) as well as a spiritual level (what the cards are saying for this particular instance) takes work.  You have to put in the time.  I read book after book after book on tarot.  I consider myself to be an excellent tarot reader and I still read every book on the subject I can get my hands on.  Each book expands my knowledge, and each time my knowledge expands, I give better readings.  Constantly improving, constantly studying.  With any art or skill, you have to hone it, sharpen it, and keep it sharp.

When I was a newbie, a baby pagan, I was merely a book pagan.  I read every book I could get my hands on.  Tried a few of the exercises, but was a bit too intimidated by the myriad things that could go wrong to do anything much on my own other than visualize and occasionally meditate.  I spent 4 years reading, and 1 year with my first hands-on learning group.  I learned more in the year with the hands on group than I did in the entirety of the 4 years spent reading.

As with most things, the best way to learn is to do it.  The same is true with tarot.  I tried for years upon years to memorize the meaning of each of the 78 cards in the deck.  Their meanings, their reversed meanings, what they mean when with other cards…  I did not succeed at this method.  I learned the tarot by reading tarot for anyone who would let me, looking up the meanings in the book during the reading, and gaining proficiency in that manner.  After less than six months of doing this, I did not need to reference the book any longer.  I had the practical experience I needed.  I will say that I missed many parties, as I was stuck in a back room reading tarot for people.  Totally worth it.  Many of my casual friends would get readings from me for fun, and I steeped myself in reading tarot as much as I could.  It stuck and stayed with me.

Practice, practice, practice.

The same is true when it comes to simply following this spiritual path.  I have people that I will work with, but for the most part my practice, my work, my spirituality is all on me.  What I do in my own time, the work I take on, the every day spiritual practice that I perform, over 90% of it is on my own.

Too often what I see lately are people desiring the outcomes of spirituality without actually participating in the work of it.  This simply will not work effectively for anyone.  If you want to have a meditation practice, learn Reiki, read tarot, trance dance, do yoga, or whatever you feel is calling to you – you have to put in the time, work, and effort involved to make it successful.  You cannot simply order up a satisfying spirituality as you would order a Big Mac at McDonald’s.  It isn’t McSpirituality.

Anything worth doing takes time and effort.  Anything worth doing takes work and dedication.  Anything worth doing takes your willingness to actually DO it.  No one can hand this to you.  People can teach you the tools you need to get what you desire, but they cannot do it for you.  YOU have to put in the effort in order to see the results.

Love Does Not Always Conquer All, Unless it is Love for Yourself

This is going to sound like heresey, but the Beatles lied to us.  They said, “All you need is love” and I am sorry to say that this is simply not true.  One of the saddest truths about adulthood is that love does not conquer all.  Sometimes you may love someone, but you are not compatible.  Sometimes you may love someone, you are compatible, but they are actively drug addicts or alcoholics and you have to move on in self preservation.  Sometimes you may fall madly, deeply in love with someone only to find out that what you want out of  life is so completely different, that there can be no compromise.  Sometimes you have love for another person, but it only leads to misery.  Love should not make you miserable.

Love is powerful, it is wonderful, it is great.  However, many people treat love like it is an incurable disease.  Why are you still pining over that man who treats you like dirt? “Because I love him.”  Why are you still with that alcoholic who just drank all the bill money?  ”Because I love her.”

Great.  Wonderful.  What about you?  Do you love yourself?  Because if you loved yourself, you might not put up with this kind of thing.  If you loved yourself, valued yourself, you would not allow someone else to treat you as valueless.

One of the things very few people realize about tarot reading is that it is often a form of counseling.  As a tarot reader, I have no judgment.  People tell me all kinds of things, their life experiences, their actions and reactions, and as their tarot reader, I tell them what the cards have to say about it without judgment or opinion.  My path is not your path.  My judgment means little when people are looking for answers from a higher power – as a tarot reader I am merely the channel information passes through.  However, one of the things I see over and over again is people excusing a loved one of truly heinous behavior and then simply waving it all away with one hand saying, “No, but I love him/her.”

Loving another person doesn’t mean jack unless you love yourself first.  I know.  This is cliche.  People have heard this over and over again, but it is one of life’s mysteries.  Mysteries, in my experience, are those universal truths that you do not understand until you have that epiphany “Aha!” moment where it sinks in, often after kicking your ass.

For me, I had a best friend I loved dearly.  She hated herself.  She hated herself to such an extent that she did not believe that anyone else would love her.  Because she did not believe that anyone else would love her, because SHE didn’t love her, she made those that did love her miserable. She was my epiphany moment.  She was the person I loved who I had to stop spending time with because my love did not conquer all.  My love would never be enough because without her deciding to love herself, my love fell into an empty abyss.

There is a great line from that horrible show, “Ally McBeal”.  Ally’s love interest, who left her in college for another woman, tells Ally the reason why he left her.  ”Love is wasted on you, Ally.”  When people do not love themselves, often love is completely wasted on them as they do not accept it, understand it, or allow it to thrive.

For some reason, and I have seen this played out over and over again, there are two reactions people who do not love themselves have to being in love.  In the first, they disbelieve that anyone would love them, so they are horrible to the person who loves them until they have either killed the love, or chased the person away.  It is kind of like that old joke – I do not want to belong to any club that would have me as a member.  Because they feel that they are valueless, they are convinced that anyone who would love them must not be truthful, will leave them – then they set about making sure these things come to pass.  Those self-fulfilling prophecies are a real bitch to deal with.

In the second reactions I have seen, the person loves people who treat them badly.  After all, if you do not believe yourself worthy of love and respect, then you tend to not seek it out.  In these cases, they excuse the fact that they are with someone who treats them poorly, ignores them, or who has even left them with this sentence that makes my inner self cringe, “But I LOVE him/her!”  As if the mere fact that they love someone else makes everything else ok.

It doesn’t.  Love is not a debilitating weakness.  It is a strength.

One of the things that my husband and I have in common is that we loves ourselves.  The other day, in conversation, I pretty much told him that I love myself more than I love him.  ”Good,” he said.  Because I love myself, I know that I am worthy of his love.  I will not sabotage it, I will not test it to see if it is true, I will not feel the need to torture him endlessly so that he will prove his.  I also will not allow him to treat me poorly.  He will not be allowed to disrespect me.  Because he loves me, he wants me to love myself more than him.  If I love myself more than I love him, chances are I will take care of myself.

If you must treat love as an incurable disease over which you have no control, at least start with loving yourself, first.  Let the love you have for yourself be the incurable disease.  Let the love you have for yourself conquer all. Maybe my earlier premise here was wrong, maybe the Beatles were right and all you need is love, but we were wrong in thinking of it as love for other, when really all you need is love for yourself.