put your money where your mouth is

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#paganvalues, #paganvaluesmonth, Pagan Values, pagan values event 2012, paganism

Everyone has a cause–some hot button issue that gets their dander up, something that they are willing to go the extra mile for, some idea or ideal that they consider part of their very identity.  At least one, and sometimes many. Something that we feel strongly about, that speaks from our soul and is representative of our fundamental values about life and living.

Your cause might be about the status of human rights in this country and others, about the plight of children living in poverty, about access to reproductive health care for women, or to preserve and protect biodiversity by limiting human degradation of the environment.  Your cause might be for the promotion of  equitable employment and equal compensation, about supporting the efforts of families to raise their children in healthy environments, protecting high risk populations from abuse, exploitation and neglect, or to preserve religious freedom for all people by protecting government from church-sponsored lobbyists.  Your cause might be none of these things, or all of them.

But more important than what our opinion is on any given cause is what our actions are:

• What do we do about our cause(s) on a daily/weekly/monthly/yearly basis?
• How do we act out our beliefs (and/or represent them) with integrity in our everyday actions?
• How do we promote our beliefs in a way that honors the dignity of both ourselves, AND those with diametrically opposed values from our own?

Because its not enough to have a cause. You have to act on it as well.

Luckily there are tons of ways we can do that!

Go out and vote.  Write your congressman.  Exercise your First Amendment rights and protest.  Listen to those that have been marginalized.  Speak out against injustice and ignorance.  Practice socially responsible consumerism.  Insist on sustainable practices from the companies you do business with.  Pick up trash or plant a garden.  Tutor a kid, donate some money, or ride your bike instead of driving.  The list is long…but above all, practice what you preach.

Don’t get me wrong…sometimes its hard.  Sometimes its darn inconvenient. Sometimes we fall down, we get tired and we give up at seemingly insurmountable odds. Sometimes we are forced to compromise our ideals to put food on the table and a roof over our heads.  Sometimes we just make mistakes.  We are after all, merely human.  But we are also Pagan.  We are worshippers of imperfect gods.  We are not asked to achieve perfection because our gods are as much like us as we are like them. Instead we are tasked with picking ourselves up and to doing better or trying harder next time–we are tasked with “striving for excellence”.

It is not enough for us to just have our beliefs and let that be the end of the story.

Our job is to live our beliefs out loud and in our actions.  Our job is to put our money (or our time, effort and energy) where our mouth is.

***This has been a post for the annual Pagan Values Blogject–this year I’m blogging on my personal values and how they are informed by and in turn inform my spiritual and religious beliefs.  In past years, I’ve blogged on the values that are central to our family (hospitality, service, integrity, and conservation) as well as those that I think are uniquely represented in the wider Pagan umbrella  (respect, plurality, sacredness, and experiental gnosis).  Other posts this year for this year included “my body, my temple”, “pass it on”, and “live where you are (and love where you live)”.***

live where you are…

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#paganvalues, #paganvaluesmonth, bioregionalism, Chesapeake Bay, ecosophy, Pagan Values, pagan values event 2012, paganism, spirit of place

…and love where you live

Spirit of place is defined as the tangible (buildings, sites, landscapes, routes, objects) and the intangible elements (memories, narratives, written documents, rituals, festivals, traditional knowledge, values, textures, colors, odors, etc.), that is to say the physical and the spiritual elements that give meaning, value, emotion and mystery to place. Rather than separate spirit from place, the intangible from the tangible, and consider them as opposed to each other, we have investigated the many ways in which the two interact and mutually construct one another. The spirit of place is constructed by various social actors, its architects and managers as well as its users, who all contribute actively and concurrently to giving it meaning. Considered as a relational concept, spirit of place takes on a plural and dynamic character, capable of possessing multiple meanings and singularities, of changing through time, and of belonging to different groups. This more dynamic approach is also better adapted to today’s globalized world, which is characterized by transnational population movements, relocated populations, increased intercultural contacts, pluralistic societies, and multiple attachments to place.

from the QUÉBEC DECLARATION ON THE PRESERVATION OF THE SPIRIT OF PLACE

My Paganism is a religion of location.  Modern terminology might call it bioregionalist or topophilic.  More traditional terminology might say that it is based in the idea of “spirit of place” or by the Roman idea of genius loci.  My faith sits at the point where these definitions overlap, not wholly part of any of them, instead, part of all of them.

This is where we live.

Our home is about three blocks inland from where the sea meets the sky, but this is where we spend the largest chunk of time outside.

Most mornings, when the tide is low but on its way in, I start my swim here.  Every once in a while, I share my swim with a pod of dolphins cruising along just offshore.  More often, my only company is a couple of crabbing boats or a lonely sailboat out for an early jaunt.

Nearly every day, the kids dig in the sand and play in the waves at the beach that hosts this view.  They know which rocks the big crabs live behind, where to dig for soft shell clams, how to tell a boy crab from a girl, and all of the different kind of shells that hermit crabs make their homes in on our beach.  Chickadee has necklaces of jingle shells and Sharkbait, who can’t otherwise sit still to save his life, can hover motionless behind a ghost crab hole until its resident makes its appearance.

My husband and I held our children’s baby blessings in this place.  We have celebrated a number of holidays, religious and secular, here.  I have come to this spot in anger and frustration as well as joy and elation.  I have cried here, and prayed, and bled as well.

This is not just a place where I live, it is the place where I live.

There are a million different ways to live local– farmer’s markets, supporting small businesses, getting to know your neighbors, walking or biking rather than driving, volunteering for local charities, being a tourist in your own community, etc.  Every community is different and every individual’s situation is different, and the ways that we can participate in our local communities meaningfully vary widely.

But to be spiritually meaningful, it starts with really living where you are.  It starts with getting to know the spirit of your place, as a personal relationship with your land-base and your community.  To truly live where you are, you have to learn to love where you live as an active devotion.

***This has been a post for the annual Pagan Values Blogject–this year I’m blogging on my personal values and how they are informed by and in turn inform my spiritual and religious beliefs.  In past years, I’ve blogged on the values that are central to our family (hospitality, service, integrity, and conservation) as well as those that I think are uniquely represented in the wider Pagan umbrella  (respect, plurality, sacredness, and experiental gnosis).  Other posts this year for this year include “my body, my temple”, and “pass it on”***

pass it on

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#paganvalues, #paganvaluesmonth, Pagan Values, pagan values event 2012, paganism

It rests with us to make the traditions to set the pace for those who are to follow and so, upon our shoulders rests a great responsibility.

Esther Voorhess Hasson

Being a blog whose topics frequently include the intersection of Paganism, parenting, and life in general (just the other day for example), it should come as no surprise to any of my regular readers that I consider the idea of “pass it on” as one of my personal Pagan values (I guess you can take that statement at face value if you just stumbled in, lol).  Since I’m sure nearly all of us can figure out at least a few reasons why “passing it on” is a good idea (if not, you might consider the fate of the Shaker sect of Christianity), I’m instead going to turn to the what and how.

Every now and then, The Hubby and I reevaluate what we want for and from our children (as well as ourselves and our family), and how we can best go about that.  Our last major reflection, undertaken a couple years ago, led to our attending and eventually joining a Unitarian Universalist fellowship, initially because we were interested in providing our kids with the sort of formal religious education we hoped to find for our children (we stayed because the congregation is awesome).  Our current extended discussion has been over schooling choices, since our daughter is the age to enter kindergarten and while we would prefer to continue homeschooling (the school district here is abysmal), I’m not sure that our finances will be conductive to doing so.  Since The Hubby and I both come from Christian backgrounds (his a rather conservative Catholic, and mine, the very liberal United Church of Christ), another ongoing coversation has been about what traditions we want to build for our family and what values we want to pass on to our children.

I’ve said before that our goal as parents is to raise our children to be good people.  This means that it is our goal to instill those values that we think are most conductive to creating future adults capable of  rational thought, compassionate interaction and depth of experience that allows them to engage constructively with the world around them.  And we feel Paganism and Unitarian Universalism is the best way to do that, because (between the two of them) they emphasize those values that we value, including a radical embrace of plurality, an acknowledgement of the sacredness inherent in the very fabric of the universe, respect and kindness for other living beings, the celebration of the collective knowledge of humanity and the exploration of the world and nature as a way to expand what it means to be human.

First and foremost, we do this by trying to be a good example ourselves.  And it has been my experience that among the most important thing for a parent to be able to do as a good example is to admit when we are in the wrong.   Right up there with admitting when we are wrong is to admit what we do not know,  and to admit when something is an opinion.  Unfortunately, it seems that many parents seem to think that these three things make them look weak, or ineffective, or…whatever–but really, showing your children that you an imperfect being that takes responsibility for your choices and decisions (and mistakes) teaches them how to be imperfect beings that take responsibility for their choices and decisions.  Seriously, I think half the problems in the world could be eliminated if people could manage these three things.

Parenting is probably the most obvious way that one can “pass it on”, but its not the only way.  Mentoring, teaching, volunteering–whether it be in the Pagan community on Pagan topics and ideas, or outside the Pagan community, for causes that reflect the ideals and values that are informed by our spiritual and religious beliefs.  Heck, it can even just be the act of passing on the idea of this thing called Paganism.  Believe it or not, but there are plenty of people that have no clue that there are still people that worship ancient gods, much-less the more nuanced theological ideas that abound in Contemporary Paganism.

Regardless of how we are called to pass it on (or whether or not we even want the responsibility of beomg called upon to pass it on), positive role models are always needed–inside and outside the Pagan community.  And I think more positive role models are needed, particularly Pagan ones.

Any successful religion is successful because it fills a need, solves a problem, or answers a question that’s important to the people who follow it.  In an era of climate change, oil spills and species loss, we need the message that Nature is sacred.  In an era where patriarchy is desperately (and at times, violently) trying to reassert itself, we need to see that the Divine is female as well as male.  In an era of religious and cultural tensions, we need the tolerance and acceptance that naturally flow from polytheism.  In an era where people are in constant migration and have few roots, we need to learn to form connections to the land, to our ancestors, to our gods and goddesses and to each other.

The 21^st century Western world needs what Paganism has to offer.

~John Beckett @ Under the Ancient Oaks, in his blog post “Pagan Evangelism”

***This has been a post for the annual Pagan Values Blogject–this year I’m blogging on my personal values and how they are informed by and in turn inform my spiritual and religious beliefs.  In past years, I’ve blogged on the values that are central to our family (hospitality, service, integrity, and conservation) as well as those that I think are uniquely represented in the wider Pagan umbrella  (respect, plurality, sacredness, and experiental gnosis).  Other posts this year for this year include “my body, my temple”, and you can check back for more all month long! I challenge you to join in, no matter what your religion is!!***

my body, my temple

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#paganvalues, #paganvaluesmonth, body image, Pagan Values, pagan values event 2012, paganism, reproductive rights, women's rights

Today, in my news feed, I discovered that the official Catholic Church position on abortion and child abuse is that it is okay to rape a child, but not to save one–I’m not sure if the event itself, or the fact that I didn’t run across it until two years after the fact, surprises me more.  I also discovered that a global political leader thinks that allowing gay marriage is a violation of my womanly right to find a man and bear his children.  Or that women in Ghana are accused of being witches when they are too smart, too independent or just too single, and end up in special “camps”.

And its not like this is only a problem outside of the US.  Lets talk about the state-by-state Republican defunding of the only reproductive health care some women can afford here in the United States.  Or the recent attempt of Virginia to rape women (and force them to pay for it) that had decided to have an abortion (and before someone accuses me of inducing needless hyperbole, when you stick something up someone’s vagina that they don’t want there, its rape.    Or that women have been sent into combat in our armed forces without the same training as their male counterparts (and despite a technical ban on women in combat).  Or that there are conservative pundits and preachers who feel that women shouldn’t vote–apparently voting vaginas are the origin of all social ills .

I could go on, but its sort of a bummer.  Instead, I am going to let loose my super-liberal rant about reproductive rights (a topic I normally avoid here–beware, you are about to see Politi-Thal in action…), an idea that is informed by my belief in deity.

If you aren’t a doctor, you don’t have a right to advise a woman on what to do about her body, period. If you aren’t a woman, you don’t have the right to decide what a woman should or should not be allowed to do with her body.  And even if you are a woman, the only body that you have the right to decide to do anything with is your own.

The only individuals that should be involved with the decisions that a woman makes about her body are herself, her physician, and her committed partner (if she is in a relationship) or her parents (if she is underage).  And regardless of their opinions and input, the decisions are still hers and only hers (just as the decision for the hubby to have a vasectomy or get an eyebrow ring or shave his beard is purely his–his schlong, his face, his hair=his choice).  Period. Full stop.

It is my body.  That makes it my temple.  Not yours.

Which brings me to my first topic for the Pagan Values Blogject (since June is almost here, and June is Pagan Values Blogging Month)–  My Body, My Temple.

We are of the stars,
the dust of the explosions,
cast across space.

We are of the earth:
we breathe and live in the breath
of ancient plants and beasts.

from the Unitarian Universalist reading “Womb of Stars”

From the moment of our birth, as children of Nature and of the Universe,  we are autonomous expressions of both. Our bodies are made up of stardust and dirt, and they are ours to do with as we please, to our person and its contents.  What I do with my body is my business (not yours), for as long as it does not infringe upon another autonomous being’s ability to do what they please with their body and its contents.  Whether or not one believes that their life (and their free will) originates from the god of Abraham or no god at all (or something else entirely) is immaterial–at the end of the day, the only body that one has the right to govern is their own.

It is my body, and my temple.   For me, that means I have some responsibilities to my body as well.  To decorate, not desecrate.  To keep it in good working order by eating healthy and staying active.  To use the power of my body to preserve its autonomy and the autonomy of other bodies.  To use the parts (literal or figurative) of my body appropriately–hands to help, feet to move, mind to grow, heart to love.  To enjoy my body to the best of my ability–to love it, regardless of how I think it meets societal expectations, or not.  To encounter the world, and all of its inhabitants, with all of my senses. In short, to make ever action of my body a prayer of my soul.

My body is the temple of me.  It is a gift of biology and *something else*.  From my body, I worship imminent, imperfect and immortal expressions of the cosmos.  Our gods are just as much part of the natural world as we are–they are children of the Universe, just as we are…and they are fallible, just as we are.  Contemporary Pagansim recognizes a world full of gods, and (I believe) calls upon us to recognize them within ourselves (and in each other) as well.  I am not saying that we are gods, but rather that we are as divine as they are human, and that honoring the divinity of the gods necessitates honoring the divinity of ourselves as well.

My body is my temple, to do with in accordance with my beliefs, as I will.  And I leave your body to you…whether I agree with what you are doing with it or not, for as long as it does not infringe on the rights of another autonomous being.

A Pagan Family’s Values: Conservation

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#paganvalues, #paganvaluesmonth, conservation, Pagan Values, PVE 2011

There is no place on this wide earth–Be it the vast expanse of Oceans’ span, or peak of wildest mountain, sky-caressed–In which the ever-present power divine in every force of nature’s not a shrine.

aSenge-Takazumi

In our family, conservation is seen as an experiential sort of  integration of our values as a family–hospitality, service, respect,  and honoring sacredness and plurality.  Conservation is an extension of xenia and the responsibilities of the guest in the home of another should be that of the responsibility of the individual for the greater oikos of the Earth.  For us, reconciliation of our place in the greater plurality and sacredness of all living things is as much a service to an imminent divinity as it is to ourselves.

Our idea of sacredness is the cornerstone for the ways in which we choose to practice conservation.   The first time around, when I wrote on sacredness, I wrote the following:

We are sacred.  Children of the gods, of the Divine, of the Earth, or of the Universe…whatever you want to call us.  Because Life is sacred, so are we that live–not just human kind, but all our kin.  Sacred does not mean up on a pedastal.  Part of the reverence for creation and existance comes from revering its destruction as well.  Life exists on life–even plants feed from life on a celestial scale, and from the microbes and organic matter decaying in the soil.  Respecting the life we take to feed our own, respecting the lives of those that help make ours possible, and respecing the life of those that have passed before us are all part and parcel to  respecting the sacredness of life.

I still find this to be true.  Particularly more so having completed a degree in biology with course work in ecology and conservation biology and other environmental topics in preparation to enter a graduate program in environmental science or environmental studies. Though I don’t believe in mixing my spirituality into my science, I have no problems using science as a lens to examine spiritual topics, and in this case, I think one of the most important aspects of conservation is the human factor.  Like it or not, we are also nature–but by virtue of cultural and technological evolution we have developed the capacity to globally wreak havoc like beavers in Argentina.  As such, I think it is essential for us to learn to live with the rest of nature in ways that allow the plurality of live to survive, and maybe even thrive.

If you do not allow nets with too fine a mesh to be used in large ponds, then there will be more fish and turtles than they can eat; if hatchets and axes are permitted in the forests on the hills only in the proper seasons, then there will be more timber than they can use… This is the first step along the kingly way.

Mencius I.A.3

The biggest place impact that we have is where we are the most consumer-driven, and our family has endeavored to minimize that impact as much as we can in our lifestyle.  We are not a vegetarian family, but we make a conscious effort to buy foods that are locally grown and sustainable to minimize the impact of foods transported thousands of miles.  When we can, we take the kids to pick your own (PYO) farms and orchards to support local farmers and actually see where their food comes from and how it grows.  We buy in bulk for minimum packaging.  We have reusable water bottles, homemade reusable produce bags (mine aren’t that fancy) and use reusable shopping bags.  We freeze our veggie ends and pieces for stock  (someone with a yard could then compost them, and get an extra use) rather than throw them away.   We utilize yard sales, thrift stores, craigslist and freecycle both as a means to for acquisition and disposal.  We aren’t perfect though–cloth diapering has been an on-again, off-again endeavor, mostly dependent on how much of a part-time SAHM momma has been able to be (though, hopefully Sharkbait will be potty trained soon, he has expressed some interest–he likes to flush, but still doesn’t quite *get* it), I’ve had lackluster results with container gardening my favorite produce, and we often lack the room to effectively recycle (cans are usually about all we can manage).

Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai used to say, “If there be a plant in your hand when they say to you, ‘Behold the Messiah!’, go and plant the plant, and afterwards go out and greet him.”

Talmud, Abot de Rabbi Nathan, Ver. B, 31

Other than lessening one’s consumer footprint, I think the most important aspect of conservation is to experience nature.  There are many practical benefits to this, but ultimately, I think that if we are worshiping an imminent divine (gods that are here and now, regardless of how one exactly believes in them), then we should be meeting them in their own settings.   You might be able to *meet* Poseidon in your living room, but (at least in my experience) you certainly cannot *experience* him there.  While I often hear the idea that “I’m not an earth-worshipper” or “not all Pagans are environmentalists” (both of which are factually true), I somehow doubt that  “the spirits of place, the Landvættir, nymphs and naiads, “the something old and mysterious that inhabits a place”, etc (that) steep the land in sacredness (or) the spirits of one’s ancestors” appreciate being covered in Styrofoam McDonald’s coffee cups, Wal-mart bags, and car exhaust.  At the end of the day, that someone going out and encountering nature in their own neighborhood, making some effort to ensure its health and welfare is  serving both the spirit of the land as it is the life that depends upon it.

Experiencing nature *as it is* goes beyond going outside (though that is a great start) to actually getting to know the land where you reside.  As Chas Clifton, in his essay “Nature Religion for Real”, points out, we are not part of Neolithic Europe and that “We have no Stonehenge. We have nothing to “go back to.”” He asserts that, as Pagans we should “learn where you are on the earth and learn the songs of that place, the song of water and the song of wind. Yes, Western science is flawed, but it is our way of knowing, so take what it offers: its taxonomy, its lists, its naming. Start there — then build a richer spirituality from that point.”  Even better, he offers a quiz for guidance on precisely the questions to start with.  I think though, that it is ultimately our duty to go one step further to serve the land itself, and in doing so, serve ourselves and our gods.

They gave the sacrifice to the East,

the East said, “Give it to the West,”

the West said, “Give it to God,”

God said, “Give it to Earth, for Earth is senior.”  

Idoma Prayer