August 2012

It’s become a perfect slog for me at present. A litany of personal disasters culminating with a most debilitating attack of shingles. The timing could scarcely have been different. What I am finding, however, is that the inner focus of the impaired self makes it look for the greater whole/the greater health outside and beyond – ultimately within the beauty of our natural world. We may be damaging our immediate host world, but, as Bron Taylor would put it, if you look at something from far enough away, the blemishes disappear and a more encompassing beauty is to be witnessed  - and rightly energised thereby. In some ways I suppose this is an opposite of Buddhism or Hinduism? Maybe yes, maybe no. But the overall slant in any event is pagan.

Wonderful encounters from Selena Fox, Dennis Carpenter, Andrew Theitic, Owen Rowley, Raven Grimassi besides those with additional and assorted loved ones. And how promising the pagan vision appears to me! Yes, we are ultimately little more than food specs in the greater whole that the cosmos comes eventually to eat. But is there really a problem with that? I have long wondered that if there is a ‘God’ in a quasi-Abrahamic sense at least it would need to be the collective consciousness of humanity itself; I am now thinking that each of us becomes soley the personal consciousness ourselves of the collective. Separate and personal, we are each the cosmos itself and, as such, must vanquish personally the “Ultimate Intimidation” – the Abrahamic ‘God’, no ‘quasi-‘ about it. The organic whole that we individually become, that and whatever beyond, is itself the positive beauty of a forward-moving organic whole, and the energy-matter matrix physicality of the universe is the very incorporealisation of the fundamental cosmic wish qua wish. In other words, the cosmos is the manifestation of pure wishing – not so much a wishing for something but unarticulated and unfocused wishing alone: the act of pure wishing; the connection with the foundation of all that is. And in connecting to this and being part of it, we shall all triumph.

But when I look around currently at so much of the pagan community (even Pagan community) of today, I am hearing so much dissension, so many issues, so many rivalries and consequent energy-drainage, so much that seems incommensurate with the deeper sophistication of the pagan pagan community, that there is a profound sadness I am feeling. Perhaps I should simply step outside with Bron (something I always enjoy to do when we have a single malt in hand), but that does not preclude wondering why the reality so often seems so out-of-step with the promise. Since I published an earlier version of this modest diatribe on the Pagan Group site, several have counselled to dispense with the nay-sayers and concentrate on the strong, supportive community instead.

For the rest, current output is drastically askew. So many pending projects to complete let alone conversations (e.g., that of Craig Schumacher, etc.) I would like to join if I had something to add, but the hardest part of a shaman’s life is attempting to live within and keep in step with today’s world. Nothing any longer gets quickly done.

In any event, Richard thinks I am damning the current pagan community with my previous statements above. I certainly hope that I am not. I may be saddened by much of it, but I still want to champion its deeper being and the beauty of those wonderful encounters. I guess personal impairment forces one to look more acutely at things – everything. It becomes a different perspective from that of the norm and/or celebratory, but this is or could be/should be accepted as an augmenting and beneficial gift. In any event, multiple perspective must be a positive – otherwise it has no value. The informing pagan vision I continue to have is a freedom that goes virtually beyond even beauty. And it is that vision that I wish.

One, two, three for wishing.
Four, five for health.
Six seven for wonder.
Eight, nine for freedom.

At least, the health has steadily improved. And the herpes zoster episode has become a dark night of the soul for me – the moment in which the shaman undergoes dismemberment before reintegration and the subsequent achievement of greater strength or insight or both. I have been watching some of the Tampa convention and am largely horrified over what I am hearing – e.g., Condeleezza Rice’s reference to “American Exceptionalism” (see http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/10/11/the_myth_of_american_exceptionalism?page=full),  I am not expecting next week’s gathering in Charlotte to be any less of a pathetic and imbecilic circus. It all makes me want to run and hide. But that being said, the quasi-rural gentleness of Rhode Island’s ‘South County’ and the sparkling beauty of the sea as well as times with Shirley, Lise, Joe and others are enough of a consolation to make the unpalatable palatable. Upward and onward and all that jazz. I only pray for a collective maturity to be and become something commensurate with the legacy of America’s Founding Fathers’ wisdom: that and something for which to be proud vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

It is of course true that the .1% that includes even the .0001% is a minority. But as with the demand for minority rights that we sometimes see with the gay movement and others, there can be a loss of restraint and knowing when to draw a line and not cross the boundary of excess demand. How wonderful it must be to be the Koch brothers, but how pathetic it seems when the outlay of this wealth appears primarily to be about increasing their wealth rather than doing something beautiful as a community and/or global contribution.

But our August festival celebrations passed gently enough and despite the physical impairments, and we were able to enjoy the Portunalia and Vinalia with Selena and Dennis, and the Consualia, Volcanalia, Opiconsivia and Volturnalia on our own, and all in ways that connected us with the metaphoric vision that links the past with future aspirations. The loveliness of the Rhode Island coast is the current setting, and one of the joys of the beach is that it allows one to remove footgear and touch the earth directly – even in a calm sort of way that becomes automatic and unconscious after a time. When the tide and wave are gentle, it becomes a liminal zone in the already liminal zone that the shore constitutes. And the summer feast also allows us to be mindful that we once had ourselves our youth – something we remember and that we adored without reservation. And because of this, we are able to honour other youth today and exalt in who and what they are. Yes, it is always a double-whammy when something major impacts (like an illness or violation of some sort) during a celebratory period, but as long as we can remain celebratorily mindful despite the handicaps, we remain connected to the larger picture.