Revenge

Is the belief in heaven and hell an internalised wish for revenge on those who do us wrong?

I was thinking today about the terrible accounts of survivors of Srebrinice which I watched on the television at the time, and on the dreadful liberties taken by the Russian troops in Georgia, a sovereign state, just this month.

My particular attention was focused on those doing such unspeakable things to innocent people, who had done them personally no harm whatsoever. What made them continue with the attacks on men, women and children past the point of torture?

A man described on British television news how he had been beaten, and his sister raped, in front of their father, who had to sit and watch and do nothing, on pain of death. For what? They were civilian, and children at that. 

Brian at The House of Inanna speaks on this subject with force and clarity today, and I commented; I remembered then that I had begun this post and it was saved in my drafts folder. I want to finish it now, because I believe we need to try and face these things and to talk about them, in every walk of society. Darfur? Is this beleaguered region in the news much? No. And if what’s happening there was happening in London, how different the story would be.

Where do humans get the ability to fundamentally ignore the evil happening a world away? Nowhere’s very far from anywhere now; isn’t that what we’re told? 

I try hard not to make this an issue about violence against women, but really, it is. We are perceived to be weak both on our own account and on the account of our children, and therefore a target for special cruelty. Beatrice, in Much Ado, when faced with the disgrace of her cousin, berates herself, saying, ‘Oh, if I were a man!’. I don’t want to be a man. I think most men might disassociate themselves from men like these.

I want men of violence to stop using their sexuality against women and children in war zones, and against their fellow men by extension. 

So when we consider the Christian embodiment of Hell, is it that we want such perpetrators to burn eternally? Perhaps. I don’t understand the mad corruption that comes over a person to cause them to act so atrociously. They are truly the furthest from grace in such a state. In any case, neo-pagans don’t have a hell to which to condemn the guilty; so what then do we do?

Perhaps we ought to act here, now, in this life. One innocent life saved must be worth it - or am I being unbelievably idealistic?

The Supernatural in the Natural

Marya at A Spell In Wales has been discussing this phenomenon recently, through the medium of Welsh poetry. In her inimitable and evocative style, she brings to life a Wales long gone, but with us in spirit, never far away, liminal and almost tangible, but removed from us physically, never to return. It is a tantalising picture.

When we’re flying around like paper kites, getting in the way of others and having others cross our paths, we feel stultified, despite the extreme speed at which we’re travelling. REM put it well; ‘…so fast, so numb that you can’t even feel’.

Tess over at Anchors and Masts has written a great post exploring the premise that if you don’t believe you will see beauty, then it is forever a closed door to you. You need to know what you see contains beauty, to feel it in your heart, and to seek it out. She writes:

“…you will not see beauty unless you believe in it. If you believe you will see ugliness and despair, then that is what you will see.”

 How right she is.

Even the unluckiest of us has the chance to see green things growing, see ancient architecture, see water, watch the weather. These are the very most basic elements of the divine in the mundane that we can avail ourselves of. And perhaps, they are the elements to which we should turn if we ever forget what it is we’re about. The building blocks, if you like, that form the basis of the bridge between our everyday lives and the realisation that we live in the midst of a miracle.

Look closely at the perfection of the rain on a leaf; think about the ages and the rain and the peoples that have come and gone around the oldest building in your town. Feel the years in the rocks, and at the circles and in the woods. Know you’re part of it; you don’t own any part of it, but rather, it owns you. We do not ride on the back of this world, it carries us because it can.

The worlds that went before, the worlds embodied in other languages and prayers, are there for us to feel if only we can shut up for long enough and allow the impressions to sink in. Fast, numb, and missing out. Such a world out there, all for the stopping and listening!

Blinking At You from a Pile of New Books

Sometimes you can get out of kilter - you either have nothing to read, and all day to read it in; or you see a hundred new books you want, buy a selection and then they sit there, bindings uncracked, till you have to start dusting them and they become part of the furniture.

I’ve taken with me to the new house a stack of books I haven’t yet got to grips with, and I’m going to read them all. Cover to cover. With notes taken. And then I’m going to bore you all silly with them.

Reading, to me, is the last great unadulterated pleasure. I still have good enough eyesight. It doesn’t cost anything, in practical terms, because when I buy a book it’s an investment and I rarely if ever get rid of them. It’s not illegal, immoral or fattening. It’s quiet, and above all it’s portable. Wherever I go I can slip a book in my bag to make the idle minutes go more quickly. And also, hilariously enough, if you’re reading one of *those* books, people don’t feel the irrestistable urge to plonk themselves down and engage you in conversation - which is a habit in others that drives me wild.

My Amazon wishlist is groaning with stuff as yet unbought; my bookcase smells like a bookshop, all glue and new bindings; I’ve got my avaricious eye on all manner of new titles; but I’m calling a halt and going to plough through what I have methodically -  good, bad or indifferent. I’ve got titles in the pile by Rae Beth, Christopher Penczak, Sorita D’Este and David Rankine, Phillip Cooper, Ronald Hutton and Dion Fortune - and this is only a selection.

If the British weather ever does decide to play by the rules and behave as though it really is August (9 degrees and a sharp wind this morning, *sigh*) then I may even be able to do some reading in the countryside. I used to do this when I lived in Essex, at the end of a tiny lane to nowhere. The little cottage I rented, in the grounds of a large house, had no separation from the fields and woods around; you were in the countryside even when you leaned out of the bedroom window. On days off from my job in the little town nearby, I used to grab a book and a blanket and head out across the meadows and rutted baked-earth trackways, under the bright sun, surrounded by nature, verdure and the dark black-green of English oaks in high summer. I’d find a likely spot, miles from anywhere, set up camp and read till I was drowsy; and like as not, roll over and have a snooze in the sun and fresh air. I remember once waking up surrounded by Muntjac deer - I don’t know who was more startled!

Now, most of my reading is done in the eye-flapping 10-minute margin between awake and asleep at 10pm. Not the best time to wring the juice from a work of scholarship. I need a rethink on this - I’m never going to make any headway if I’m reading three pages at a time, two of them with my eyes shut!

What do you say?

This evening, I’ve been trying to write a letter to my cousin, who has just lost her husband. 

He was 46, and a loving father and husband, and this dreadful thing happened out of the blue. 

What do you write? What CAN you write? 

I did my best; I told them stories of times I’d met him and enjoyed his company, and times I’d remembered him; what I’d heard other people say about him; what I thought of him and what I knew he thought of them. I told them that he was safe, and that he watched over them and that they will see him again.

I felt like a total fraud, a carpet salesman; I felt like I was trying to make a trade, a husband and father for some words on a page.

There’s never anything good enough, no possible sort of verbal alchemy that will make him live again through words. 

He was a good man. A good man. 

Then, I read this post by Seshat’s Voice; as always, a light in the dark. I don’t know whether she wrote it with me in the back of her mind, but the synchronous serendipity of it couldn’t have come at a better time. It makes the point that there’s no knowing when your call will come; make each day count.

We’ve got a short life here in any case, even if we get our threescore years and ten; surely, not enough time to do all the learning, growing and recovering from mistakes that us humans seem fated to go through.

Perhaps the thing we can do in a situation such as this is to respect the example the dead give us and live - live as if our lives depend upon it. They do! Make each day count. There’s a challenge, a life-promise, if I ever heard one.

Death as rebirth

There’s a man in the village who is dying; he’s in his last days. He has Alzheimer’s, and other sicknesses, and he’s over 90. His wife tends him, and they have nurses to help. He has no idea who she is, and can’t feed himself, or talk coherently. He can’t get out of bed or walk.

I knew this man when he was a hale pensioner, walking his dogs, with a kind word for everyone. A village stalwart, part of the furniture, always there.

When I learned he was dying, I felt sorry, but glad; because he will be able to let go of the body that has failed him, and will rise above all the illness, indignity, and lack of communication he has suffered over the past few years. He will get back his essential spirit and be able to move forward once more.

His impending death got me thinking about my own; we’re all to travel the same road, and few of us know when we’ll be called over. Pragmatically, I suppose all any of us can do is to be ready, as ready as we can be, to face Them.

When I am where he is now, I hope that I will be able to say with equanimity that I look forward to a great adventure. That I am not afraid. That I anticipate amazing things. I believe that in the process of dying we move toward living once more.

Over the last week this has been a recurring theme amongst us bloggers; the petite morte, the death card, death of old ways and perspectives. Death is transformative, galvanic; it is the means by which all things begin. It is not an end, it cannot be; the circle is unbroken.

The key is remembering

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.- George Santayana

This jumped out at me from, of all places, my Facebook profile - there’s a nifty little quotation widget which often gives me pause for thought. Never more so than today.

I’ve spent a lot of time (some might say a disproportionate amount of time) over the past few months, really trying to look hard at my past and to learn lessons to employ in my present and future life. I’ve been trying to recognise that I’m not headed somewhere; that the destination is not the point of the journey.

So often, we keep on reiterating behaviours; we seem stuck in a rut, or dogged by the same run of bad luck. I reckon that at least some of this can be put down to not learning lessons effectively enough.

This is especially relevant to the wider stage; to us collectively as witches. There’s got to be a case to be made for not slavishly claiming a past, but for selectively looking at the past and learning what we can from it. It doesn’t even have to be our past, nor even the one we are seeking to claim for ourselves; history, no matter whose it is, can provide universal truths.

If we do claim a past, a lineage, it’s only reasonable to suppose that we’d look critically at the history we seek to claim and analyse it. It’s not enough to use historical and mythical gravitas as a badge of honour - it’s information, it’s knowledge; and the test of a wise man is the use which he makes of it.

Temptation (lead us not into…)

Being high-minded about the ethics of Wicca and witchcraft is easy enough in principle. There’s quite a sharp divide between poor and unethical behaviour, and the way one should behave, given an unlimited supply of patience and an unerring eye for the long view. But in practice, it can get difficult quickly.

If I had no restraining principles I’d be casting circles for an unlimited amount of money to come my way, plus a new job, and there’d be some fairly heavy revenge spells scudding about the atmosphere as well. Medieval vengeance spings to mind. I’m so furious, and feel so impotent and defeated, that I’d be prepared to try anything to break the nexus of unpleasantness that has gathered over my head.

Problems obviously exist with this wild Wiccan master-plan; firstly, when I was young and foolish I tried the old money spell, from desperation and an impending sense of poorness; all that happened was that the intended effect neatly sidestepped me, veered off ninety degrees and hit a friend smack between the eyes, who promptly got a new job and a new house. I ate dirt.

Secondly, I know it’s not an option because it’s wrong. Period.

The people I seek revenge on deserve it, probably, but it’s not up to me to decide how that vengeance should fall, or even if it should. All it falls to me to do is to learn from the experience and not let it prostrate me. As for the money, I’m not starving, nor am I destitute. I’ve always been nervous about money and concerned that there’s not enough to go around; time and again I have to remember that my childhood, and the sometimes straitened circumstances of that time, don’t help me feel secure when things are rocky. Again, learn and get over it.

In the end I get caught up in the feeling of unfairness. A childish, inchoate feeling that a grown-up shouldn’t admit to. And yet..

Goddess guide me better, clearer; help my mind become calm and serene, and raise me up above these petty torments. I know they’ll pass in time.

Ostara

Here we formally welcome Spring in all her glory - and all her natural power. The winds round here have been something quite frightening. It’s comforting in a way to lie in bed or sit tucked up in a comfy chair, reading, and hearing the wind wuthering around the eaves. The torrential rain and blustering of Spring works better than anything to clean the land and the air, I find. I went outside yesterday evening to put some vegetable scraps into the compost bin and the air smelled abundantly fresh, and clean, and new. In fact, I was instantly transported back to my childhood, and Easters spent in my grandmother’s home in Cornwall.

Scents and memory must be one of the most primordial associations possible for human beings; the memory for scents, in my fanciful imagination, brings to mind the knowledge of a home place found again by scent; the smell of belonging to that place. Perhaps, perhaps not.  But the smell of the fresh air, the damp earth, the trees and the first cut of the grass say Spring! to me in a way that the word can’t possibly do justice to. Happy Ostara!