Posts
Friday, 22 July 2011
Website
Have not been doing much writing lately - nor updating the blog. The thing is that I hve been busy trying to master the software to get a website up. It now is - although by no means complete. Please visit it: http://www.houseofinanna.co.uk
Wednesday, 8 June 2011
Last night someting happened. I was talking to K and in the course of it I realised many things. Foremost among these was that I had forgotten the vision that took me to Hungary. The details of how I arrived at this are not really relevant - they were a synchronicity of events over which I had no control. But I felt a return of the vision, of the deep conviction that I had to move there; that there was work for me to do.
And the most important thing is that the work was largely unstarted by the time I left. For what happened was that I became overwhelmed at the scale of what I had seen and lost all confidence that I could even approach realising it. It seemed so damn big and I felt so damn small. Not only that but I felt frightened. i felt that I was hubristic, particularly as my own personal life was in such a mess -purely as a result of my actions. So I aimed small and tucked the vision into a neat little pocket in my consciousness where I always hide away the uncomfortable truths that I do not wish to face. And forgot it.
What became clear last night was, however, that this forgetting may have been a necessary part of the process. For I had to realise who I am and what I have been called to do. In order to do this, I had to aim low and fail. Now I know that I must aim high for only then can I hope to hit the distant target. I must remember the vision and keep that in my sights.
For the vision was real, and it still is. This is what I learned last night. It came to me; I did not seek it. It has, in different forms, been with me as long as I can remember. Sometimes, it has been clear and direct, as it was that day when I first went to Dobogöko and saw the Danube hundreds of metres below. Memories of a time when I had been there before flooded into me and I felt both at home and thorougly alien. It was strange and it was exhilarating. Until the doubts set in and I came face to face with my own imperfections - my petty hurts and grievances - and I enacted them. By turns grandiose and self-effacing, I struggled in the day-to-day and sank ever deeper into despair, losing all that I had previously held dear in the process. And returned, feeling defeated, to England.
The operative word here, however, is "feeling". For I was not, in fact, defeated. I am still here and yesterday realised that so is the vision. It has not gone. I cannot fully articulate it yet, but the time is soon approaching that I can. I will, Inanna willing, return to Hungary to take aim again. But I will be stronger and more determined; less limited by fear and uncertainty. I will own the vision and the source of that vision. For it did not come from me. I did not seek it. I fled it. But I could not escape it. Now I must learn to embrace it
And the most important thing is that the work was largely unstarted by the time I left. For what happened was that I became overwhelmed at the scale of what I had seen and lost all confidence that I could even approach realising it. It seemed so damn big and I felt so damn small. Not only that but I felt frightened. i felt that I was hubristic, particularly as my own personal life was in such a mess -purely as a result of my actions. So I aimed small and tucked the vision into a neat little pocket in my consciousness where I always hide away the uncomfortable truths that I do not wish to face. And forgot it.
What became clear last night was, however, that this forgetting may have been a necessary part of the process. For I had to realise who I am and what I have been called to do. In order to do this, I had to aim low and fail. Now I know that I must aim high for only then can I hope to hit the distant target. I must remember the vision and keep that in my sights.
For the vision was real, and it still is. This is what I learned last night. It came to me; I did not seek it. It has, in different forms, been with me as long as I can remember. Sometimes, it has been clear and direct, as it was that day when I first went to Dobogöko and saw the Danube hundreds of metres below. Memories of a time when I had been there before flooded into me and I felt both at home and thorougly alien. It was strange and it was exhilarating. Until the doubts set in and I came face to face with my own imperfections - my petty hurts and grievances - and I enacted them. By turns grandiose and self-effacing, I struggled in the day-to-day and sank ever deeper into despair, losing all that I had previously held dear in the process. And returned, feeling defeated, to England.
The operative word here, however, is "feeling". For I was not, in fact, defeated. I am still here and yesterday realised that so is the vision. It has not gone. I cannot fully articulate it yet, but the time is soon approaching that I can. I will, Inanna willing, return to Hungary to take aim again. But I will be stronger and more determined; less limited by fear and uncertainty. I will own the vision and the source of that vision. For it did not come from me. I did not seek it. I fled it. But I could not escape it. Now I must learn to embrace it
Monday, 30 May 2011
Tenderness
Shortly after I posted my last piece, a friend took me to task a little for not mentioning tenderness - which was, after all, Lawrence's original title for Lady Chatterley's Lover. She was right to have done so, and my only defence is that I was writing in passion, not in any considered way, as a reaction to the idealisation of sex.
I think, when I originally wrote about the "interplay of vulnerabilities" it was tenderness I had in mind, but this was not exactly made clear. In an intimate relationship each partner reveals to the other(s) certain aspects of her or his self which would otherwise be kept hidden. It is in the acceptance of these aspects that tenderness emerges. We are all vulnerable, for we are all mortal and there is, I believe, a dread of annihilation deep within all of us. So we look for the tender touch of someone who accepts us in our frailty. Or we over-compensate in games of power and despair in which we hide our vulnerability behind a facade of mastery and performance.
I am aware that this needs a little expansion so I will try to explain what I mean by that. I have, over the years, watched quite a lot of pornography. However, I have found very little that i find truly erotic. For it is all about mastery and performance. Erections never fail. Women always reach orgasm - or, very badly, pretend they have. Never do any of the participants suddenly realise that their muscles have cramped - never does a clumsy movement of elbow or knee result in the abrupt disappearance of desire. Never, above all, in all the detailed and energetic genital stimulation does tenderness enter. Never do they laugh. It is all taken so bloody seriously. It is the inverse side of the abstracted, idealised, non-physical sexuality that the men in the video were lauding. In neither case is the full humanity of the participants recognised.
For we are not just bodies and we are not just spiritual beings, we are human. We may aspire but we often fail. We have fears and insecurities that can manifest at any time. Erections fail and desire can vanish. This is a fact. Gay or straight, we need comfort and reassurance when the night seems just too dark. We need to know that we are loved when our bodies fail to perform as we would like. We need to laugh and we need to cry at our frailties. We need to be loved as we are and not as we would like to be or, worse, what we imagine the other would like us to be. We exist not as angels or demons but as a mixture of the two with one or the other being dominant at any one time. I feel that it is not for our perfection that we can be truly loved but for those myriad imperfections that make us human.
I think that all this was in Lawrence's mind when he wrote. In many ways he failed for he had his own unresolved issues, but this is not really relevant. The intent and the attempt was honest, sincere and revolutionary. Connie and Mellors are human beings, meeting and loving in a space of vulnerability. In a space of tenderness. In the rain and under the sky.
I think, when I originally wrote about the "interplay of vulnerabilities" it was tenderness I had in mind, but this was not exactly made clear. In an intimate relationship each partner reveals to the other(s) certain aspects of her or his self which would otherwise be kept hidden. It is in the acceptance of these aspects that tenderness emerges. We are all vulnerable, for we are all mortal and there is, I believe, a dread of annihilation deep within all of us. So we look for the tender touch of someone who accepts us in our frailty. Or we over-compensate in games of power and despair in which we hide our vulnerability behind a facade of mastery and performance.
I am aware that this needs a little expansion so I will try to explain what I mean by that. I have, over the years, watched quite a lot of pornography. However, I have found very little that i find truly erotic. For it is all about mastery and performance. Erections never fail. Women always reach orgasm - or, very badly, pretend they have. Never do any of the participants suddenly realise that their muscles have cramped - never does a clumsy movement of elbow or knee result in the abrupt disappearance of desire. Never, above all, in all the detailed and energetic genital stimulation does tenderness enter. Never do they laugh. It is all taken so bloody seriously. It is the inverse side of the abstracted, idealised, non-physical sexuality that the men in the video were lauding. In neither case is the full humanity of the participants recognised.
For we are not just bodies and we are not just spiritual beings, we are human. We may aspire but we often fail. We have fears and insecurities that can manifest at any time. Erections fail and desire can vanish. This is a fact. Gay or straight, we need comfort and reassurance when the night seems just too dark. We need to know that we are loved when our bodies fail to perform as we would like. We need to laugh and we need to cry at our frailties. We need to be loved as we are and not as we would like to be or, worse, what we imagine the other would like us to be. We exist not as angels or demons but as a mixture of the two with one or the other being dominant at any one time. I feel that it is not for our perfection that we can be truly loved but for those myriad imperfections that make us human.
I think that all this was in Lawrence's mind when he wrote. In many ways he failed for he had his own unresolved issues, but this is not really relevant. The intent and the attempt was honest, sincere and revolutionary. Connie and Mellors are human beings, meeting and loving in a space of vulnerability. In a space of tenderness. In the rain and under the sky.
Saturday, 28 May 2011
The divine feminine
I have strayed back into the blogosphere yet again. I suppose it is because I feel the need to connect with my passions. For a while now, I have been trying to get past a very severe case of writer's block in the book I am writing about Inanna. For I have been having problems with reconciling two approaches. First, I have been striving to be as academically rigorous as I can, being very careful not to make any assertions that I cannot support from established and accepted sources. However, this has made for a very dull read. Furthermore, it does not take account of my own journey and the very personal relatinship I have with Her and why I feel she is deeply relevant to today.
So I thought perhaps it would be a good thing for a while to come back to this blog. To reconnect. To work through some stuff and become more authentic and less concerned with the judgements of putative readers. And, almost immediately, I found my ire raised and my hear pumping. I checked onto one of the most informative blogs, Medusa Coils and found a video from a group of men who expressed a love of the divine feminine.
It made me angry and I posted a comment which may or may not be approved by the blogger. So, immediately, I was reconnected with my passions. And this is good. for I am, first and foremost, passionate. I realise now as I write that what angered me the most was the total lack of any passion within these men. They spoke as the embodiment of reason. They spoke of their desire to worship but did not mention their desire to fuck. Sexual desire is not reasonable, it is messy. Within it, at least as far as I am concerned, are drives to both dominate and be dominated. Within sex, there are sweat and bodily fluids, groaning and panting. It is, above all, physical and emotional. It is the interplay of vulnerabilities and, when it is at its best, the loss of control and ego. And, most importantly, it does not depend on the union of male and female "energies" but can express itself in any configuration of genders. Desire is wholly unreasonable. It is one of our deepest drives, second only to survival.
Of course, it must be tempered and mediated by reason. There must be full consent between both, or all, parties. Without such consent, the interplays are lost. It is a game, and laughter may well occur - as well may tears. It is deadly serious, for vulnerabilities are revealed and may be exploited. On either,both, or all, sides. It is, above all, always risky. Or it should be. Pushing the participants beyond the zone of comfort into a deeper understanding of themselves. Which can, at times, be unpleasant.
None of this figured in the video. Desire was abstracted. The physicality, despite the talk of the divine nature of women's bodies, was not really there. They spoke of "woman" in the abstract - of male and female as "energies". Sure, on one level this is true, but there is also the level of a shared humanity. In sex, it is human bodies and their sensations that are involved. In the songs of the sacred marriage, Inanna does not abstract into the energetic. Rather, she calls on Dumuzzi to plough her vulva. She brings the act into the physical realm. For it is, first and foremost, a physical act.
My own puberty coincided with the Lady Chatterley trial and I remember taking the copy of the paperback, sneakily borrowed from my mother's and stepfather's bedroom, into the bathroom. It prompted my first ever ejaculation. Lawrence had many faults, but what i remember to this day was that both participants were portrayed as human. "Tha shits and tha pisses" said Mellors, "tha'rt a real woman". The divine feminine does neither.
So I thought perhaps it would be a good thing for a while to come back to this blog. To reconnect. To work through some stuff and become more authentic and less concerned with the judgements of putative readers. And, almost immediately, I found my ire raised and my hear pumping. I checked onto one of the most informative blogs, Medusa Coils and found a video from a group of men who expressed a love of the divine feminine.
It made me angry and I posted a comment which may or may not be approved by the blogger. So, immediately, I was reconnected with my passions. And this is good. for I am, first and foremost, passionate. I realise now as I write that what angered me the most was the total lack of any passion within these men. They spoke as the embodiment of reason. They spoke of their desire to worship but did not mention their desire to fuck. Sexual desire is not reasonable, it is messy. Within it, at least as far as I am concerned, are drives to both dominate and be dominated. Within sex, there are sweat and bodily fluids, groaning and panting. It is, above all, physical and emotional. It is the interplay of vulnerabilities and, when it is at its best, the loss of control and ego. And, most importantly, it does not depend on the union of male and female "energies" but can express itself in any configuration of genders. Desire is wholly unreasonable. It is one of our deepest drives, second only to survival.
Of course, it must be tempered and mediated by reason. There must be full consent between both, or all, parties. Without such consent, the interplays are lost. It is a game, and laughter may well occur - as well may tears. It is deadly serious, for vulnerabilities are revealed and may be exploited. On either,both, or all, sides. It is, above all, always risky. Or it should be. Pushing the participants beyond the zone of comfort into a deeper understanding of themselves. Which can, at times, be unpleasant.
None of this figured in the video. Desire was abstracted. The physicality, despite the talk of the divine nature of women's bodies, was not really there. They spoke of "woman" in the abstract - of male and female as "energies". Sure, on one level this is true, but there is also the level of a shared humanity. In sex, it is human bodies and their sensations that are involved. In the songs of the sacred marriage, Inanna does not abstract into the energetic. Rather, she calls on Dumuzzi to plough her vulva. She brings the act into the physical realm. For it is, first and foremost, a physical act.
My own puberty coincided with the Lady Chatterley trial and I remember taking the copy of the paperback, sneakily borrowed from my mother's and stepfather's bedroom, into the bathroom. It prompted my first ever ejaculation. Lawrence had many faults, but what i remember to this day was that both participants were portrayed as human. "Tha shits and tha pisses" said Mellors, "tha'rt a real woman". The divine feminine does neither.
Tuesday, 9 November 2010
A year of change. And now.....
It has been well over a year since I last entered the blogosphere in any meaningful way. And it has been a year of major change. For one thing, I had to leave Hungary as it had become unfeasible for me to remain there. It was time to give up the apparently unending struggle to survive and keep a roof over my head and return to Britain. Which I did.
I seem ever to walk on the edge of crisis, sometimes tipping over. Then I fall into a darkness which seems to be all-encompassing and have to inch forward step-by-step until I reach the point where the darkness begins to dim. And then clear. Until the next time. i am not complaining. This is the way things are.
I walked again into the labyrinth and all was stripped away. No longer teacher or priest, I was just a man. Lost and afraid. With no label to cling to. Only the need somehow to survive and get through.
The thing is that, athough very painful and frightening at the time, the whole process has been liberating. Life was reduced to basic simplicities. There was no need to theorise or to explain. All that I could do was to accept the situation and slowly climb back up. And heal. And then begin again.
So I returned to basics. After a time of head-clearing and easy routine I then remembered what Inanna had told me in the dream which has impelled this last decade. It was a simple, one-sentence, statement. All She said was, "I want you to tell my story". Just that. No more. No whys or wherefores. No frills or buttons. Just telling a story.
So that is what I am doing. And that, I now know is why I went to Hungary. It was there that so many facets of the story came clear. No longer was I able to spark ideas with another and allow the them to dissipate into speeech. Language problems and the simple fact of being alone precluded that. So the ideas remained inside where they mixed and fermented and a narrative began to emerge in which I could see that rather than being absent for three thousand years She has been present beneath and within the dominant discourse of our civilisation. Hidden, maybe, but ever there. The rise of Yahweh and then of Christianity may have eclipsed Her for a while but eclipses are nothing but temporary shadow or obstruction. They move away and the radiance behind then shines again. Besides which, the eclipse was never total for the obstruction was and is riddled with holes.
Now times are still not easy. But they are better. And the story is being written. I have no idea what the future holds but hope pray that I will finish what I have begun. And not get lost again in ego and label.
I seem ever to walk on the edge of crisis, sometimes tipping over. Then I fall into a darkness which seems to be all-encompassing and have to inch forward step-by-step until I reach the point where the darkness begins to dim. And then clear. Until the next time. i am not complaining. This is the way things are.
I walked again into the labyrinth and all was stripped away. No longer teacher or priest, I was just a man. Lost and afraid. With no label to cling to. Only the need somehow to survive and get through.
The thing is that, athough very painful and frightening at the time, the whole process has been liberating. Life was reduced to basic simplicities. There was no need to theorise or to explain. All that I could do was to accept the situation and slowly climb back up. And heal. And then begin again.
So I returned to basics. After a time of head-clearing and easy routine I then remembered what Inanna had told me in the dream which has impelled this last decade. It was a simple, one-sentence, statement. All She said was, "I want you to tell my story". Just that. No more. No whys or wherefores. No frills or buttons. Just telling a story.
So that is what I am doing. And that, I now know is why I went to Hungary. It was there that so many facets of the story came clear. No longer was I able to spark ideas with another and allow the them to dissipate into speeech. Language problems and the simple fact of being alone precluded that. So the ideas remained inside where they mixed and fermented and a narrative began to emerge in which I could see that rather than being absent for three thousand years She has been present beneath and within the dominant discourse of our civilisation. Hidden, maybe, but ever there. The rise of Yahweh and then of Christianity may have eclipsed Her for a while but eclipses are nothing but temporary shadow or obstruction. They move away and the radiance behind then shines again. Besides which, the eclipse was never total for the obstruction was and is riddled with holes.
Now times are still not easy. But they are better. And the story is being written. I have no idea what the future holds but hope pray that I will finish what I have begun. And not get lost again in ego and label.
Monday, 12 October 2009
Miracles every day
We are all miracles. The fact that we are alive and conscious is highly improbable. But what is even more improbable is love. And love surrounds us - it is the sea in which we swim, even when we do not know it. The world in which we live and the bodies we inhabit are intrinsically objects of joy and delight. This is our birthright.
And yet, for a huge proportion of the people living on this wonderful planet, this birthright is denied. And it has been for a very long time. Jesus is reported to have said that the poor are always with us and the history of the last few thousand years seems certainly to have fulfilled this prophecy. Some of us, and I include myself in this number, are privileged and wealthy beyond the dreams of our ancestors. Others, and these are perhaps in the majority, are poorer now than they have ever been.
There is a myth, a very powerful myth, of progress. This is a myth that is very useful to those of us who have benefited materially from what can only be called the thefts of our ancestors. They thought that they had a divine mandate to acquire more than their share of the world's resources. Far more, in reality, than they could actually use. I have just poured myself a glass of wine. A small thing and not, in this wine-growing country, very expensive. But, as I drink it, I know that there will be someone dying of thirst or water-borne disease.
What is the appropriate response? This is a serious question and one to which I have given thought for most of my life. I could deny myself this pleasure - wear a hair shirt and live lice-ridden in some penitential purgatory, revelling in my own virtue as I preach sermons on the virtues of poverty. In the meantime, however, people will still starve and kill one another in the name of some transcendental being or other who has ordained that his word is supreme. They will say that they alone have the truth - that if all "men" should follow them then paradise will be the reward. Thus, they decree that the unsaved must repent or perish - or often repent and perish. For the reward is not of this "fallen" world but is of the next - the one we will enter. Paradise.
I was watching a young child the other day. I was waiting in line at a supermarket checkout and she was in front of me. Most times I get deeply impatient and misanthropic in these circumstances - everyone is moving too slowly and there is a part of me that wants to kill. This time, however, I was glad to wait. For this young girl was exploring her foot. She was totally focussed on it. Touching it with her hands then and putting to her mouth. We made eye contact and she invited me to share her joy and delight in her discovery of her body. She communicated her pleasure to me and I responded with my eyes and face. No words. For she was not yet verbal. She did not yet know that such things were to be measured and judged.
But a lesson soon followed. Her mother replaced the shoe the child had been wearing. Shoes she did not need for walking wasn't an option at the time. she was strapped into a buggy. The child protested. Sne cried but was unheard. Her mother was busy, as all adults are, and did not see how important her naked foot was to the child. The door to delight closed as all such doors do as we grow up. Shoes are important, aren't they? As are all clothes. We must hide ourselves behind them and not let the world intrude. Our masks. This we learn from incidents like this. And pass it on to our children.
The child did not know me and we will never meet again. But she reminded me of something I had forgotten. Buried. A time of original innocence before I was taught that I was wrong to be as I was. A child with a whole new world to explore and experience. A miracle.
There is a story in the founding myth of christianity in which in which children flocked to Jesus and his disciples tried to stop and control them. What he is alleged to have said was very curious: "suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not - for of such is the kingdom of heaven". In the many years in which I tried to be a christian these words haunted me. Because what they say is vrey important - that children are naturally attracted to love and that what is important is that barriers are not put in their way. And yet, the doctrine of original sin was conceived that fundamentally contradicted the words of the putative founder of the religion that came to dominate the old Roman Empire and then much of the world. In the name of Jesus the words he is alleged to have spoken were denied and perverted. Children had to forced to the truth - and schools were created whose sole purpose was to break this natural urge to move to delight and love and force them to bend their knees to will of old and woman-denying men. Sterile and without grace that the man they purported to worship proclaimed to be the natural inheritance of all.
And thus the Roman Empire with its love of death and war - its delight in conquest and the father right - adopted and distorted the vision of its putative founder. With the results we now see all around us. Whether Jesus was a historical figure or not - and I have my doubts on this - what he said in that sentence and others attributed to him are the words of a child of the Goddess - a man who, according to the Gospels was anointed as Priest or King by a woman- some say Magdalen.
They were the words of one who knew that all human life was a miracle - and who spoke ofthose who denied the divinity of human beings and their natural instinct to move towards truth thus:
Children do not need to be saved. They already partake of divinity. Whether they be born in New York or in Africa, they are equally valuable. And so are we all. We are all children of Goddess, whether we born to Islam, Judaism, Christianity or any other of the institutions of power, hatred and control that have been erected to destroy the divine spark that is born within each of us.
In this there is hope. What human beings have created - this web of deceit and division - can also be overcome by human beings. Within us all, original innocence lies sleeping and can be reawakened. The first thing is to recognise the basic lie - original sin. Then we can begin to leave it behind and recognise the basic human drive for love and delight.
And yet, for a huge proportion of the people living on this wonderful planet, this birthright is denied. And it has been for a very long time. Jesus is reported to have said that the poor are always with us and the history of the last few thousand years seems certainly to have fulfilled this prophecy. Some of us, and I include myself in this number, are privileged and wealthy beyond the dreams of our ancestors. Others, and these are perhaps in the majority, are poorer now than they have ever been.
There is a myth, a very powerful myth, of progress. This is a myth that is very useful to those of us who have benefited materially from what can only be called the thefts of our ancestors. They thought that they had a divine mandate to acquire more than their share of the world's resources. Far more, in reality, than they could actually use. I have just poured myself a glass of wine. A small thing and not, in this wine-growing country, very expensive. But, as I drink it, I know that there will be someone dying of thirst or water-borne disease.
What is the appropriate response? This is a serious question and one to which I have given thought for most of my life. I could deny myself this pleasure - wear a hair shirt and live lice-ridden in some penitential purgatory, revelling in my own virtue as I preach sermons on the virtues of poverty. In the meantime, however, people will still starve and kill one another in the name of some transcendental being or other who has ordained that his word is supreme. They will say that they alone have the truth - that if all "men" should follow them then paradise will be the reward. Thus, they decree that the unsaved must repent or perish - or often repent and perish. For the reward is not of this "fallen" world but is of the next - the one we will enter. Paradise.
I was watching a young child the other day. I was waiting in line at a supermarket checkout and she was in front of me. Most times I get deeply impatient and misanthropic in these circumstances - everyone is moving too slowly and there is a part of me that wants to kill. This time, however, I was glad to wait. For this young girl was exploring her foot. She was totally focussed on it. Touching it with her hands then and putting to her mouth. We made eye contact and she invited me to share her joy and delight in her discovery of her body. She communicated her pleasure to me and I responded with my eyes and face. No words. For she was not yet verbal. She did not yet know that such things were to be measured and judged.
But a lesson soon followed. Her mother replaced the shoe the child had been wearing. Shoes she did not need for walking wasn't an option at the time. she was strapped into a buggy. The child protested. Sne cried but was unheard. Her mother was busy, as all adults are, and did not see how important her naked foot was to the child. The door to delight closed as all such doors do as we grow up. Shoes are important, aren't they? As are all clothes. We must hide ourselves behind them and not let the world intrude. Our masks. This we learn from incidents like this. And pass it on to our children.
The child did not know me and we will never meet again. But she reminded me of something I had forgotten. Buried. A time of original innocence before I was taught that I was wrong to be as I was. A child with a whole new world to explore and experience. A miracle.
There is a story in the founding myth of christianity in which in which children flocked to Jesus and his disciples tried to stop and control them. What he is alleged to have said was very curious: "suffer little children to come unto me and forbid them not - for of such is the kingdom of heaven". In the many years in which I tried to be a christian these words haunted me. Because what they say is vrey important - that children are naturally attracted to love and that what is important is that barriers are not put in their way. And yet, the doctrine of original sin was conceived that fundamentally contradicted the words of the putative founder of the religion that came to dominate the old Roman Empire and then much of the world. In the name of Jesus the words he is alleged to have spoken were denied and perverted. Children had to forced to the truth - and schools were created whose sole purpose was to break this natural urge to move to delight and love and force them to bend their knees to will of old and woman-denying men. Sterile and without grace that the man they purported to worship proclaimed to be the natural inheritance of all.
And thus the Roman Empire with its love of death and war - its delight in conquest and the father right - adopted and distorted the vision of its putative founder. With the results we now see all around us. Whether Jesus was a historical figure or not - and I have my doubts on this - what he said in that sentence and others attributed to him are the words of a child of the Goddess - a man who, according to the Gospels was anointed as Priest or King by a woman- some say Magdalen.
They were the words of one who knew that all human life was a miracle - and who spoke ofthose who denied the divinity of human beings and their natural instinct to move towards truth thus:
It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.
Children do not need to be saved. They already partake of divinity. Whether they be born in New York or in Africa, they are equally valuable. And so are we all. We are all children of Goddess, whether we born to Islam, Judaism, Christianity or any other of the institutions of power, hatred and control that have been erected to destroy the divine spark that is born within each of us.
In this there is hope. What human beings have created - this web of deceit and division - can also be overcome by human beings. Within us all, original innocence lies sleeping and can be reawakened. The first thing is to recognise the basic lie - original sin. Then we can begin to leave it behind and recognise the basic human drive for love and delight.
Sunday, 27 September 2009
Doors closing
It is a time of change. I have just finished my final weekend teaching on the Priest/ess of Danu training course here in Budapest. I have been doing this for three years, helping a very wonderful woman, Kriszta Veres, develop a group of women and men devoted to the indigenous goddesses of the Carpathian Basin and the River Danube which runs through it. It has been highly rewarding - watching as people grow in their knowledge and experience of Goddess- finding their innate power and learning how to express it. It has been, literally, a labour of love.
But now it is time to move on. For six years, first in Glastonbury/Avalon and now in Budapest, I have been co-teaching - following to a certain degree the visions of others. I have also, to be frank, had certain reservations and fears concerning my suitability as a heterosexual man to be teaching people who would be predominantly female. I was worried about many things - not least the issue of power. I feared that I would be replicating the old story of men talking and women having to listen. I feared my own desire - that I would misuse this power - sexually and emotionally. There have been all too many precedents for this, including from myself. So I sat in a secondary sort of role - supporting but not really leading - deferring often to my co-teacher. I do not regret this. It has taught me a lot. It has been a very good apprenticeship.
However, over the past year or so, I have felt an ever-strengthening call to teach according to the vision and the call I have received from Inanna. To address directly those issues of power and desire and use them to explore how sexuality can develop in a spirituality centred on the Goddess. I am aware of my own desire and am no longer ashamed of it and am no longer frightened that I will allow it to dominate how I interact with students. I know that there are dangers - I have been burnt before - but also know that this is the work I am called to do. I am called to confront the old morality, based as it is upon power and property right, and explore a new morality based on the simple premise of the equality of all human beings and their right to decide what they do with their bodies.
I do not know what form this morality will take. I do not believe that it can be captured in any collection of words- engraved in stone or otherwise. I doubt, in fact, that I will be able to live by it - conditioned as I am by the Abrahamic nightmare from which we are only now emerging. But that does not matter. I am now approaching my third 21st birthday and facing the real possibility that sexual misconduct may well become physically problematic in the foreseeable future (which I hope is long delayed). I am, in any case, entering the final phase of my life. The changes that need to happen will probably take far longer than I can realistically expect to live.
The work, however, must begin now. I believe that the perversion of the beauty and power of sexuality we now call morality lies at the very base of the problems of our civilisation. If we are to have any hope of survival then there is no time to lose. Freedom and autonomy are the rewards ahead. Subjection and slavery are the reality now - however they are currently dressed in democratic clothes.
So doors close. I cannot go back. I must go forward and trust that other doors will open.
But now it is time to move on. For six years, first in Glastonbury/Avalon and now in Budapest, I have been co-teaching - following to a certain degree the visions of others. I have also, to be frank, had certain reservations and fears concerning my suitability as a heterosexual man to be teaching people who would be predominantly female. I was worried about many things - not least the issue of power. I feared that I would be replicating the old story of men talking and women having to listen. I feared my own desire - that I would misuse this power - sexually and emotionally. There have been all too many precedents for this, including from myself. So I sat in a secondary sort of role - supporting but not really leading - deferring often to my co-teacher. I do not regret this. It has taught me a lot. It has been a very good apprenticeship.
However, over the past year or so, I have felt an ever-strengthening call to teach according to the vision and the call I have received from Inanna. To address directly those issues of power and desire and use them to explore how sexuality can develop in a spirituality centred on the Goddess. I am aware of my own desire and am no longer ashamed of it and am no longer frightened that I will allow it to dominate how I interact with students. I know that there are dangers - I have been burnt before - but also know that this is the work I am called to do. I am called to confront the old morality, based as it is upon power and property right, and explore a new morality based on the simple premise of the equality of all human beings and their right to decide what they do with their bodies.
I do not know what form this morality will take. I do not believe that it can be captured in any collection of words- engraved in stone or otherwise. I doubt, in fact, that I will be able to live by it - conditioned as I am by the Abrahamic nightmare from which we are only now emerging. But that does not matter. I am now approaching my third 21st birthday and facing the real possibility that sexual misconduct may well become physically problematic in the foreseeable future (which I hope is long delayed). I am, in any case, entering the final phase of my life. The changes that need to happen will probably take far longer than I can realistically expect to live.
The work, however, must begin now. I believe that the perversion of the beauty and power of sexuality we now call morality lies at the very base of the problems of our civilisation. If we are to have any hope of survival then there is no time to lose. Freedom and autonomy are the rewards ahead. Subjection and slavery are the reality now - however they are currently dressed in democratic clothes.
So doors close. I cannot go back. I must go forward and trust that other doors will open.
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