Sorry Bill Bryson. I can't help it if your book title is an apt title for this update.
It's funny, the rhythms that get into my head: words and phrases tripping across the wrinkles of my brain like music notes tripping down a staff, up along scales and arpeggios. My effusive mind overflows with music: a kind of intuitive remastering of dialogue, the sounds of birds, airplanes flying over head, footsteps shuffling across cobblestone memories that eventually reaches up into my consciousness, into my heart, and is made manifest in my emotions. I've been accused of being sensitive, overly so, but I've never found a way to NOT feel everything. It's a gift, albeit one I'm still learning to master.
And as my cups run over I find myself in stark contrast to the British attitudes that I honestly cannot adopt. After living here, truly among British people and not as some glorified tourist, I've noticed that the British waste very little and that includes emotions.
It's a kind of social and emotional economy that utterly baffles me. Words are not wasted on hyperbole or exaggeration, there is no such thing as wishing out loud even though you know your wish is impossible. No verbal or emotional flight of fancy. Not even the so-called British sarcasm spares any extra emotion: friendly jibes are delivered with such dead-pan that, to the untrained ear, sound like serious insults. It's more than just "stiff-upper-lip" here - emotions beyond "fine" and "happy" are carefully controlled and compartmentalized and forgotten about with little more than a cup of tea to mark their occurrence.
It sometimes makes me feel lonely. Among Americans "I want a puppy" is just a way of saying "That puppy is so cute! It would be nice to have one." In that statement there is an understanding of the feasibility of this desire: if the wisher has a small, cramped apartment with no money, it's a given that it will probably not happen until the circumstances change. In Britain, however, saying "I want a puppy" more than three times to your British boyfriend and you are taken seriously: a situation that not only increasingly aggravates your boyfriend but makes you seem irresponsible and out of touch with reality. Do you see what I mean? An economy of emotion. And I can't adopt such an economy because I've always had emotion to spare.
Although, I could be stereotyping/generalizing. It's entirely possible since the sample of the British population on which I am drawing these conclusions is quite small. Besides, there are those British people that, even if they still have a sense of emotional economy, are not afraid to reach out and ask "Are you okay?" when my emotions are tumbling through my face. Those Brits make things easier and make me feel less alien and I thank them.
Still, I am homesick for the States a bit. Not for the loud, boisterous, 'MERICA world but more for a place where saying "Al-U-min-um" is "correct" (rather than "Al-u-MIN-ium"), you're not constantly told "You don't speak English, you speak American", and your accent doesn't mark you out as a "foreign" person.
Living in the States I always felt sort of alien, like my attitudes marked me as something other than American. I thought that in coming to Britain that would change and I would feel at home here. In some ways I do. I love London more than any other city and even in the worst parts of that city I feel safe. What I didn't expect was being singled out. Somehow, the attitudes that made my British boyfriend tell me I was born on the wrong side of the Pond are not enough. I need to assimilate more than I want to in order to honestly belong.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
The Dreamer and the Engineer (The Lovers Part II)
Talking about being various dinosaurs today, someone said they'd be a T-Rex. I turned to my boyfriend and told him he'd be a Brontosaurus since they no longer exist.
"You know that means our relationship doesn't exist either, right?"
"Eh, I'm used to having imaginary friends." I replied.
"What, like your gods?"
What...what do I do with someone like that?
It's not faith for me...I abandoned Catholicism because it demanded faith. My gods (yes, all of them, from Diana to Ganesha to the distant ones like Ishtar) have populated my imagination and my emotional life since I was a kid. One of my favorite quotes from Neil Gaiman goes, "Things need not have happened in order to be true." Maybe the gods never existed, but their energies, their impulses, the pulses of their own souls (because the gods feed off our love, our worship, our energies we use in devotion to them) are absolutely true because our hearts and our minds MAKE them true. Of course I believe in the invisible because the invisible has been with me all my life.
But...in that one comment...I feel like I saw it all from his eyes. Gods are children's things, things that are little and useless and to be outgrown to make way for the progress of science. Yes, religion is flawed. Religion is flawed because HUMANS are flawed and we always have been...and while science uses objective methods to create objective results it looks down on those who believe. Science, to me, while useful, is slowly becoming arrogant and condescending. It lacks empathy for other peoples' emotional and imaginative experiences. At least, that's what he seems to be demonstrating.
I'm emotional, so I'll end it here. I only post this bit because it helps me to sort out my identity and where I stand.
So, yes.
I stand with the gods. Every single one of them.
I stand on a mountain with their voices rushing up behind me like the wind. I stand with the people who worshipped them, the people who loved them - then and forever - because it is their combined voices that generate the spiritual song of the universe and demand that we raise our own. Yes, of course, the servants of the gods are often corrupt and muddle the messages, forwarding their own agendas for power and domination over the demand for love and compassion. Yet the impulse towards the Divine - that impulse is pure. It is that pure impulse that gives me hope that we'll get it right and it is that impulse that makes me raise my voice to join the music of the spheres.
Namaste.
Blessed Be.
Amen.
"You know that means our relationship doesn't exist either, right?"
"Eh, I'm used to having imaginary friends." I replied.
"What, like your gods?"
What...what do I do with someone like that?
It's not faith for me...I abandoned Catholicism because it demanded faith. My gods (yes, all of them, from Diana to Ganesha to the distant ones like Ishtar) have populated my imagination and my emotional life since I was a kid. One of my favorite quotes from Neil Gaiman goes, "Things need not have happened in order to be true." Maybe the gods never existed, but their energies, their impulses, the pulses of their own souls (because the gods feed off our love, our worship, our energies we use in devotion to them) are absolutely true because our hearts and our minds MAKE them true. Of course I believe in the invisible because the invisible has been with me all my life.
But...in that one comment...I feel like I saw it all from his eyes. Gods are children's things, things that are little and useless and to be outgrown to make way for the progress of science. Yes, religion is flawed. Religion is flawed because HUMANS are flawed and we always have been...and while science uses objective methods to create objective results it looks down on those who believe. Science, to me, while useful, is slowly becoming arrogant and condescending. It lacks empathy for other peoples' emotional and imaginative experiences. At least, that's what he seems to be demonstrating.
I'm emotional, so I'll end it here. I only post this bit because it helps me to sort out my identity and where I stand.
So, yes.
I stand with the gods. Every single one of them.
I stand on a mountain with their voices rushing up behind me like the wind. I stand with the people who worshipped them, the people who loved them - then and forever - because it is their combined voices that generate the spiritual song of the universe and demand that we raise our own. Yes, of course, the servants of the gods are often corrupt and muddle the messages, forwarding their own agendas for power and domination over the demand for love and compassion. Yet the impulse towards the Divine - that impulse is pure. It is that pure impulse that gives me hope that we'll get it right and it is that impulse that makes me raise my voice to join the music of the spheres.
Namaste.
Blessed Be.
Amen.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Moon Glow (and Other Wonderful Things)
Two posts in a week? What madness is this?
In reality, it's not madness. I have merely been inspired by the fact that I have an audience. Blogger has this tool that allows you to see who is silently stalking your blog: it tells you how many hits your site has had, where those hits are coming from (there is/was someone in Germany and Lithuania - I SEE YOU!), and even what OS they're using. Pretty snazzy if you ask me.
It's raining like crazy here in England and that is brilliant, but when the sun doesn't come out, you have to be your own sun and persist in being happy. So. Onward! *trumpets*
The title is taken from a song by the band Redbird. Take a listen! It's a lovely little love song: happy and mellow and cool. It's been on my mind, what with the full moon and my spiritual side flowing back like liquid moonlight. If you like that song, you might also want to check out Drunk Lullaby. My boyfriend is a dub-head, kind of like a dead-head but instead of being a Grateful Dead fan he's always listening to dub-step and deadmau5. So Redbird's music is a wonderful tonic against the pounding bass that often fills the house.
What else is wonderful right now? Webcomics. Yes, webcomics. There must be thousands of them out there, all deserving a shout and some free publicity.
First on the list is Busty Girl Comics. Rampaige, the comic's creator, updates daily at noon (or 5 PM if you're in England) and her comics deal with the perks and problems of having a particularly busty chest. Even better is the community that she has fostered. In an Internet that is filled with h8ters, trolls, and general douche-nozzles, her site is all-inclusive. In her comics she depicts women of various ages, sizes, and backgrounds (a few have had women in hijabs) and on her site she works to provide support for busty women (no pun intended). I love it because she talks about boobs from a woman's perspective, rather than the male's idea of Holy crap, boobs! Must...grab...must...stare...drool.... which seems to be the predominant narrative of a lady's mammary bits. This past week Ms. Rampaige has been on a much-deserved hiatus and her updates have been handled by guest artists, including one MaggieKarp who is also worth a mention.
The second one I want to mention is Scandinavia and the World drawn by one Humon. She also has a Deviantart somewhere in the dark corners of the Internet, but SatW is by far my favorite of her creations. If you don't know anything about Sweden, Norway, Iceland, or Denmark the comics are a great crash course, and if you're an American who enjoys hearing what the outside world has to say about your culture it's brilliant! All the countries are personified as men with their sister counterparts (so you have Japan and Sister Japan) while some countries are actually children of other countries (Fennoswede is (a) actually a country and (b) Sweden's son with Sister Finland). The only downfall is she updates sporadically, but it's a small thing in light of her awesomeness. Also, SatW is where I first learned about Eurovision (sorry, America isn't allowed to play)!
Finally, a friend asked me to talk about gaming. I am not a gamer. I am dating a gamer. I have dubbed myself a "gamer groupie": someone who loves gamers and loves watching them do their thing while playing games, but refuses to pick up anything more than a casual game themselves. For a very long time I have happily sat on this fence like mockingbird perched on a tree branch filled with cardinals. Yet lately, one of the cardinals (namely my boyfriend) has decided that I'm not a mockingbird, but a cardinal in disguise, and has been putting me on more "hardcore" games. It started out with Portal and Portal 2 (non-gamer people: Ever heard the phrase "the cake is a lie"? You can thank Portal), both great games but frustrating as hell if you have problems thinking in a non-linear fashion or in three-dimensional space. Even so, I was successful! Encouraged by my success, I ventured into my first "real" game: Bioshock.
Bioshock takes place in a post-apocalyptic city in the 1950s. This city was built underwater and stylistically the game is a steam-punker's dream come true. Between that and the storyline, conveyed through directives sent to you via radio and recorded diaries you pick up throughout the game, I really *really* enjoyed it. You get to work with both "magic" (known as "plasmids") and have powers like telekinesis, electro-bolts, fire balls, etc. and weaponry, starting with a basic wrench and working up to chemical throwers and cross-bows. During the game I favored machine guns (I can't aim to save my life) and rifles (dead in a few shots!). The hardest part, honestly, was switching between the two. I was playing on the boy's PC where the right-click allows you to switch, left-click lets you fire, and the scroll button scrolls through your list of powers. Scroll buttons are stupid! I could never land on the plasmid/weapon I wanted and it cost me some time and health as I got shot while trying to attack with a machine gun rather than the less effective wrench. For a really really awesome and hilarious review, I suggest Zero Punctuation by the fabulous, sarcastic Yahtzee. Go here!
Right. That's what's on my mind right now. Did I cover everything? I think I did.
For now.
:)
In reality, it's not madness. I have merely been inspired by the fact that I have an audience. Blogger has this tool that allows you to see who is silently stalking your blog: it tells you how many hits your site has had, where those hits are coming from (there is/was someone in Germany and Lithuania - I SEE YOU!), and even what OS they're using. Pretty snazzy if you ask me.
It's raining like crazy here in England and that is brilliant, but when the sun doesn't come out, you have to be your own sun and persist in being happy. So. Onward! *trumpets*
The title is taken from a song by the band Redbird. Take a listen! It's a lovely little love song: happy and mellow and cool. It's been on my mind, what with the full moon and my spiritual side flowing back like liquid moonlight. If you like that song, you might also want to check out Drunk Lullaby. My boyfriend is a dub-head, kind of like a dead-head but instead of being a Grateful Dead fan he's always listening to dub-step and deadmau5. So Redbird's music is a wonderful tonic against the pounding bass that often fills the house.
What else is wonderful right now? Webcomics. Yes, webcomics. There must be thousands of them out there, all deserving a shout and some free publicity.
First on the list is Busty Girl Comics. Rampaige, the comic's creator, updates daily at noon (or 5 PM if you're in England) and her comics deal with the perks and problems of having a particularly busty chest. Even better is the community that she has fostered. In an Internet that is filled with h8ters, trolls, and general douche-nozzles, her site is all-inclusive. In her comics she depicts women of various ages, sizes, and backgrounds (a few have had women in hijabs) and on her site she works to provide support for busty women (no pun intended). I love it because she talks about boobs from a woman's perspective, rather than the male's idea of Holy crap, boobs! Must...grab...must...stare...drool.... which seems to be the predominant narrative of a lady's mammary bits. This past week Ms. Rampaige has been on a much-deserved hiatus and her updates have been handled by guest artists, including one MaggieKarp who is also worth a mention.
The second one I want to mention is Scandinavia and the World drawn by one Humon. She also has a Deviantart somewhere in the dark corners of the Internet, but SatW is by far my favorite of her creations. If you don't know anything about Sweden, Norway, Iceland, or Denmark the comics are a great crash course, and if you're an American who enjoys hearing what the outside world has to say about your culture it's brilliant! All the countries are personified as men with their sister counterparts (so you have Japan and Sister Japan) while some countries are actually children of other countries (Fennoswede is (a) actually a country and (b) Sweden's son with Sister Finland). The only downfall is she updates sporadically, but it's a small thing in light of her awesomeness. Also, SatW is where I first learned about Eurovision (sorry, America isn't allowed to play)!
Finally, a friend asked me to talk about gaming. I am not a gamer. I am dating a gamer. I have dubbed myself a "gamer groupie": someone who loves gamers and loves watching them do their thing while playing games, but refuses to pick up anything more than a casual game themselves. For a very long time I have happily sat on this fence like mockingbird perched on a tree branch filled with cardinals. Yet lately, one of the cardinals (namely my boyfriend) has decided that I'm not a mockingbird, but a cardinal in disguise, and has been putting me on more "hardcore" games. It started out with Portal and Portal 2 (non-gamer people: Ever heard the phrase "the cake is a lie"? You can thank Portal), both great games but frustrating as hell if you have problems thinking in a non-linear fashion or in three-dimensional space. Even so, I was successful! Encouraged by my success, I ventured into my first "real" game: Bioshock.
Bioshock takes place in a post-apocalyptic city in the 1950s. This city was built underwater and stylistically the game is a steam-punker's dream come true. Between that and the storyline, conveyed through directives sent to you via radio and recorded diaries you pick up throughout the game, I really *really* enjoyed it. You get to work with both "magic" (known as "plasmids") and have powers like telekinesis, electro-bolts, fire balls, etc. and weaponry, starting with a basic wrench and working up to chemical throwers and cross-bows. During the game I favored machine guns (I can't aim to save my life) and rifles (dead in a few shots!). The hardest part, honestly, was switching between the two. I was playing on the boy's PC where the right-click allows you to switch, left-click lets you fire, and the scroll button scrolls through your list of powers. Scroll buttons are stupid! I could never land on the plasmid/weapon I wanted and it cost me some time and health as I got shot while trying to attack with a machine gun rather than the less effective wrench. For a really really awesome and hilarious review, I suggest Zero Punctuation by the fabulous, sarcastic Yahtzee. Go here!
Right. That's what's on my mind right now. Did I cover everything? I think I did.
For now.
:)
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
Fire and Earth, Air and Water (Lovers)
My blogging habits here are sporadic at best mostly because I don't want to post in this unless I really have something enlightening or constructive to say. This time it isn't as much enlightening as a need for personal enlightenment.
Be patient with me, please. My soul is a tree with parched roots, its branches and leaves inhaling the world around them as they forever reach for the sun.
Okay.
I don't understand my boyfriend.
*furious blush; fights the urge to run away*
Or rather, I am still flabbergasted by how different we are! He's an engineer: all head, all science, balanced by his love for those around him and his uncanny power to transform into a rambunctious five year old at the drop of a hat. I'm...damn, I'm me. A dreamer first and foremost, I've been a writer, an artist, a theatre kid, and a scholar at various points in my life. Beneath all that is a kind of spiritual current that sustains me. When I was Catholic I sat in the stillness of empty churches and talked to the Virgin Mary and God like they were old friends. As my worldview expanded and my Catholicism collapsed, I started casting about for anything that could sustain my need for spirituality and I eventually settled on a vague sort of paganism. I can read tarot, know next to nothing about palmistry (although still love looking at peoples' hands), and every time I see the Moon she takes my breath away. I think of the moon and I think of water, I think of the surf cresting and swelling, breaking her reflection on the sea into thousands liquid jewels.
My boyfriend...not so much. As I type this he's watching yet another engineering video, most of which flies straight over my head. It's...cool. Shiny. Gadgetry. Dry.
Last night was the transit of Venus, the only time in our lifetimes when Earth, Venus, and the Sun will align. With my love for the stars and his love for science, it should have been a perfect connection. It didn't pan out that way, though. While he saw "AWESOME!!!!!" I saw "black dot across big yellow ball". It wasn't until I saw the images from NASA that I understood. But even then, it's still so distant from ME.
I walked downtown along the River Thames today and was thrilled by the little things: baby swans following behind momma swan, momma swan attacking any duck or goose that dared to look at her babies funny; ducklings all fluffy and little (and maybe I had never really seen ducklings up close until then); baby grouse (which I had definitely never seen before); and two ducks sparing over a female. The sun and the wind and everything around me had me singing...
I had a dream last night that, admittedly, was inspired by Jim Carey's movie "The Truman Show" in which Truman's life, from birth onward, has been nothing but a reality TV show. Everyone, from his mother to the milkman, are paid actors in on the secret. Fortunately, my dream was different. Somehow I had been elected to be the star of a theatre production of some sort. Everyone knew about it but me, so when they announced it, people were cheering for me and everyone was happy. There was a pool in the center of the crowd, so I dove in and started swimming like a fish. All I could think was, "I should do this more often". When I got out of the pool, I was walking out with a bunch of girls who were really nice. They were telling me about the antics of the director, Ryan, and how hard he was to work with. But it was okay, because I had been in the same theatre company as Ryan before, so I knew what I was up against. Then the dream ended.
Water. Swimming. In Tarot, the cups are the suit of emotion, represented by water. I'm happiest when I'm swimming in these emotions and feel the world around me, rather than just thinking about it. Swimming in the tides of life, I'm free and peaceful. I have the power to emotionally sustain myself and use the surplus to sustain others.
So our personalities, our basic urges, make this relationship...odd. As an engineer and an utterly British man, he's not one to show his emotions. A slight frustration here, anger there, but a real, honest outburst is rare. I love him, but because he's all air, all gadgetry, all brain, I wonder how to connect with him. I wear my emotions on my sleeve. If I try to hide them, I fail miserably. With him, even grief is shoved away in work or gaming. I don't understand.
In the end, the real issue lies with me. I need to be myself, spirituality, singing, joy, and all. Intellectual passions he is fine with, even artistic endeavors. But when it comes to matters of the spirit is where things stop, for while he doesn't judge me or look down on me for my beliefs, he has no way of understanding. So it gets cut out in me because I have no way of sharing it with him. I think...I think that's how it goes. There is an enormous disconnect there, a disconnect I can sum up with one scene:
Sitting in Starbucks one evening I watched as a seagull fly overhead. Suddenly I said, "I wish I had wings..."
"Why?" he replied. "There's nothing up there."
His response shocked me a bit and I felt stung. "What do you mean?" I asked.
"Well, not until you get out of the Earth's atmosphere and reach space." He said.
I made a feeble attempt to defend myself but I couldn't articulate what actually having wings meant to me: the freedom, the escape, the dream.
But that's us: the dreamer and the engineer. What to do, eh?
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Harry Potter and the Bhagavad Gita, and Why I Hate Some Feminists
I'm a dork and I wholeheartedly relish that fact. I was with some friends today and we were talking about the Bhagavad Gita, 2,000 year old Hindu text that discusses a huge variety of topics that include the different states of happiness. Someone asked how would a person know if they were happy - in return I asked, "Could you conjure up a Patronus on the spot?" And then I likened the Gita's idea of passion (which I'm more declined to interpret as greed) to a fat kid on Halloween: MUST. HAVE. TEH CANDIES. OMNOMNOMNOMNOM. So that's the identity of mine that I love, the one familiar with cultural references but intelligent enough about "important" things (read: scholarly) to save myself from becoming a pop culture trashcan. It's that intersection that I dance on and I love it!
That's the dorky part. But I realized something today.
Ever since I started interviewing for women's colleges I've resisted the feminist narrative (also my new favorite word) that women are oppressed and there's a glass ceiling. In my life, I have always felt privileged and never felt like there were men holding me back or evaluating me in a particular way because I had different body parts. There were gender stereotypes to deal with, yeah, and I still encounter those ("Girls are more picky than guys in buying shoes"), but it's not like I personally have ever felt like I've been marginalized for any reason.
Because of this, I don't normally define myself as a feminist. I understand the various, numerous, feminist rhetorics that include marginalization, oppression, the need to be Amazons to overcome the male suppressors, and the desire to break away from the patriarchal, western society in order to create a definition of "woman" that isn't totally bound in the gender binary. I get it! And I adhere to it, to a degree, as all feminists do. I'm not saying feminists are evil or should be scorned, and even the definition of "feminist" is problematic because there isn't one, single definition that all women adhere to. Some are like me (I prefer to think I'm either moderate or a humanist interested in women's roles), others are more extreme, others are less extreme.
My real problem is with feminist scholars because the one's that are GOOD are few and far between. The feminist rhetoric that bothers me so much seems to come from their theories and their studies. Recently I did a paper on Women in Vedic India. The usual story is that women were oppressed and little more than receptacles for their husbands' seed and domestic drones. But one writer did an article on menstrual taboos in India and I recoiled. Not only did she employ the whole "oppression, voiceless, rendered helpless" story, but she used the menstrual taboos and twisted the contents of the Vedas (another ancient Indian text) to suggest that, once-upon-a-time, India was matrifocal (women based, focused on mothers) rather than androcentric (all about the guys). It's a common rhetoric, the idea of the Golden Age past (in her case, matrifocal India) that once existed, the crappy present (women in India are still utterly oppressed today), and the Utopian future that can resurrect the Golden Age (women will be more powerful then men because we're more natural and more in tune with nature and can make babies!!). As a feminist the author made it clear that she longed for an age where women were in power, as a scholar she strives, possibly too hard, to create a basis to legitimize that return and I have SERIOUS problems with that.
If there is anything that I long for, in terms of gender theory, culture, economics...anything, it's balance. A balance of power in which both sides are equals. I ask too much, I know, and I agree that women have been bound in a masculine society (white males wrote the western history textbooks, it can't be helped) and need to escape that somehow, but something has to take place, where the stereotype shifts so that men and women are on equal footing in every aspect. Is that even possible?
In the Pond
I tend not to update this blog unless there's something I truly want to say or express, something that needs the medium of writing to form a logical and coherent examination of the topic at hand. As much as I admit this is a blog to record a personal journey, I try to steer clear of anything truly emotional so I can remain objective.
The topic I'm attempting to examine? My own cultural identity.
Outright, I'm American. Born and raised. I remember (vaguely) when Clinton was first elected and the legacy of McDonald's and 90's alternative rock is as ingrained in my DNA as 9/11. Honestly, "Where were you when the towers fell?" has become my generation's equivalent to "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" - a question so uniquely American that I wonder if it has any significance anywhere else.
Before I go on, I have to point out that I've been living in England for the past month, and this is my second long-term stay (the first was for nine months, three years ago). I have adopted this country as my own home and it has adopted me. More than once my boyfriend has told me that I was born on the wrong side of the Pond and I've had an American tell me I had a "very British aura". I drink more tea than any British person I know, I innately adhere to the British sense of courtesy (ex. drowning man says "Excuse me, could you possibly give me a hand if it's not to much of a bother?" as opposed to "HELP ME, DAMMIT!!!!!"), and am more inclined to laugh at Monty Python and Rowan Atkinson than I am Jeff Dunham or Carlos Mencia. Since arriving in London a month ago, that British "identity" has expanded to prefer certain British word choices over American ones ("torch" for "flashlight", "hob" for "stove"), to accept British music as "better" than American music, and to simply be more British in general. Although that last item is frustratingly vague. To my point - living in America I have always felt like I was on the wrong side of the Pond, that I had a different sensibility than my fellow American, and living here I find myself easily slipping into a British cultural identity. Tea and torches and rain-soaked cobbled streets? Yes please!
Is this a good thing? Maybe. It certainly helps me feel less exotic among British people - instead of being a Dodo among magpies I'm just a mocking bird among magpies. Slightly different, but not enough to cause a fuss. But I'm still American! Down to the core and that can't be changed! There's a sense of individualism, a sense of speak up and getting straight to the point (cursing for emphasis if need be), that can't be found in Britain. And though I am not as loud and outright as some Americans, I still feel the need to fly an American flag out among the Union flags and blare Sum 41's "Fat Lip" over Adele.
Much later:
Post to remain unfinished. I forgot the exact train of thought but I still am aware of how..."other" I am, both in the States and in England. There's a kind of rock n roll sensibility about America. It's the alternative American narrative about personal freedom, not freedom in the symbolic sense that seems to be constantly employed in political rhetoric, but the simple freedom in being allowed to do what you want with your life. The narrative that includes the idea that you wear denim and t-shirts because you're casual and comfortable and free, that includes the spaces where everyone knows you but you can still be quiet.
Maybe, then, it's not the American narrative that I adhere to in any sense, not even the one I've created just now. Maybe it's the JUNEAU narrative that I secretly adhere to (if you're a stranger reading this blog, I lived in Juneau, Alaska for nine months prior to my time in England): the story that talks about the coldest, shittiest weather with the longest, darkest nights that suddenly transform into the best weather with the longest, brightest days; the quiet people who wear denim and extra-Tuff boots and heavy coats because in the face of nature they stand strong; but they respect and love the nature around them, they're proud of the mountains that tower above them, the winds that threaten to tear the city of 30,000 apart, the choppy sea that isolates them, and the constant rain and fog that clings to their skins and souls; the artists who band together and CREATE to protect themselves and other from the gloom; the rock n roll sensibility that means going to a bar and having a beer and listening to a band (whose members all do this because they work for the government during the day) try to bang out "China Grove"; the people that just...wholeheartedly take you in so that you find yourself napping on their couch for Thanksgiving or eating halibut and watching crappy movies with them; the people that put "Southern Hospitality" to shame.
I guess that's it. I'm not American after all - I'm Alaskan. And it doesn't matter if the people in Alaska don't consider me Alaskan or if the people I met there don't even remember me, it's the Alaskan narrative that I hold close to my heart, even while I'm in Britain. And it makes sense, because I'm just like Alaska: American, but so distant from everyone else's definition of "American" that I might as well be foreign.
Glad I cleared that one up. :)
Much later:
Post to remain unfinished. I forgot the exact train of thought but I still am aware of how..."other" I am, both in the States and in England. There's a kind of rock n roll sensibility about America. It's the alternative American narrative about personal freedom, not freedom in the symbolic sense that seems to be constantly employed in political rhetoric, but the simple freedom in being allowed to do what you want with your life. The narrative that includes the idea that you wear denim and t-shirts because you're casual and comfortable and free, that includes the spaces where everyone knows you but you can still be quiet.
Maybe, then, it's not the American narrative that I adhere to in any sense, not even the one I've created just now. Maybe it's the JUNEAU narrative that I secretly adhere to (if you're a stranger reading this blog, I lived in Juneau, Alaska for nine months prior to my time in England): the story that talks about the coldest, shittiest weather with the longest, darkest nights that suddenly transform into the best weather with the longest, brightest days; the quiet people who wear denim and extra-Tuff boots and heavy coats because in the face of nature they stand strong; but they respect and love the nature around them, they're proud of the mountains that tower above them, the winds that threaten to tear the city of 30,000 apart, the choppy sea that isolates them, and the constant rain and fog that clings to their skins and souls; the artists who band together and CREATE to protect themselves and other from the gloom; the rock n roll sensibility that means going to a bar and having a beer and listening to a band (whose members all do this because they work for the government during the day) try to bang out "China Grove"; the people that just...wholeheartedly take you in so that you find yourself napping on their couch for Thanksgiving or eating halibut and watching crappy movies with them; the people that put "Southern Hospitality" to shame.
I guess that's it. I'm not American after all - I'm Alaskan. And it doesn't matter if the people in Alaska don't consider me Alaskan or if the people I met there don't even remember me, it's the Alaskan narrative that I hold close to my heart, even while I'm in Britain. And it makes sense, because I'm just like Alaska: American, but so distant from everyone else's definition of "American" that I might as well be foreign.
Glad I cleared that one up. :)
Sunday, September 18, 2011
The Goddess and God in England
I haven't updated since May, and that's no way for a blog to start. I spent the last four months sleepwalking, slowly collecting and gathering the necessary articles to move to England - books, visas, graduate schools, my boyfriend's support, my family's support...even my own faith.
As much as I'm shocked to admit that I adhere to any one religion, I do. I'm Wiccan. After arriving in England I've come back to the faith I started with, the faith I served even as I practiced Catholicism. As a kid of 13, I felt more at ease going outside and talking to the moon and the stars, felt more at peace at the Virgin Mary's bosom (a Catholic image for the Great Goddess) than at Yahweh's feet. Is it any surprise that I have joined a community where the Moon I prayed to every night is revered as a powerful, beautiful mother goddess?
I feel a kind of power here that I felt was absent or barely palpable in America. Okay, yes, I did feel there were sacred spaces, especially in Juneau, Alaska and Manteo, North Carolina. Juneau is so wild, so rugged, so awesome in its natural beauty that it's hard not to notice the fertile energy coursing all around you. From the 90 mph Taku Winds to the whales breaching in the Gastineau Channel, Alaska is as much alive as its inhabitants. As for Manteo...I spent two summers there. My first summer, I went outside every night and stood in the Roanoke Sound. I listened to the murmur of the surf, I gazed in awe at the stars, I learned all their names (scientific and mythic!), I delighted in dancing in the sand and making the phosphorescence ignite beneath my feet, and, above all, I sang to the moon. It was how I found peace. But despite all that, I still strayed back and forth from Wicca.
Here in England...something so small as breathing becomes a devotional to the Goddess and the God. The sunlight kissing my skin, the breeze ruffling my hair, the moonlight cascading through my bedroom window - all are evidence of Their presence. But how?! What changed?
When I arrived in England, I felt my bones and my joints loosen in the bright English sun. Even London has a sense of order and peace to it, as if it's mellowed with an age New York or DC could never possess. England is so...old. Gravestones line the walls and floors of all the major cathedrals. Some of those stones are older than the US when it was founded by English colonists. Of course age does not always beget sacrality. Yet there is something sacred about the silence of the cathedral halls, so that when you walk in you whisper for fear of disturbing the atmosphere.
So maybe age begets respect. British history reaches back to a time when people relied nature's bounty. I wonder if memories of this time have quietly survived in the British collective memory, and because of that, the people have a little more respect for the land in which they live. In England Gaia and Cerridwen and Artemis have been give space to breathe, space to sing. In America their voices are swallowed by cities and chatter. Americans have such little respect for the land - a grove of trees is a Walmart in three years. Why? Because they can! What if a nymph lived in the heart of that grove? It doesn't matter, it's prime real estate. Crush it, raze it, clear it, build it and do it all NOW.
So is that it? The feeling that I can actually hear and feel the gods in the silence and openness of England? Is my devotion really based on something as tenuous as my surroundings?
And how does my life up until this point fit in with my revitalized faith? Can you be Wiccan and still not believe whatever creation story it adheres to? Can a Wicca be scientific and entertain the idea that maybe the Goddess and the God weren't around for the Big Bang, maybe they just appeared with the first Druid? Can a Wicca believe that the Goddess and the God evolve, as humans have?
I know the Goddess and the God contain dark and light aspects, just as any human does. Wicca isn't afraid of the dark side of itself. It's not like Catholicism with an omniscient, benevolent GOD and an malicious, hateful, just as powerful SATAN. In Diana's full moon, Hecate's face shines in the dark moon. Everything, good and bad, comes from the gods. Who are we humans, who only see so little of the picture, to judge what they do?
Right, so what about if a man is stabbed in the street? Surely the man doing the stabbing is an evil, evil bastard. I don't know if I can say for sure. What if the stabber was desperate for money for food and felt as if it was the only way he could cope? What if he was born a sociopath? How could his parents have known what they were giving birth to? Is it his fault if he was dealt a crappy hand in life? Furthermore, is it his fault if he was dealt a crappy hand in life and wasn't given the tools to properly cope?
I told someone recently, that such a thing is not good or bad, it just is. At the most, it's tragic. And I'm honestly not trying to be morally lackadaisical, I'm trying to sort this out. Darkness and light, life and death, feast and famine...they all come from the Goddess and the God. They comes in cycles - they always do and always will.
So maybe that's another thing that draws me to Wicca: it embraces those cycles. In the winter the Goddess dies. In the spring she comes back again. Wicca's cyclical sense of time allows its followers to fall into sync with those cycles, so that when dark times fall they can roll with them, rather than railing against them. Catholicism's God is the All-Loving Father, All Good and All Perfect. Yet when a good Catholic hits rock-bottom, reading Job doesn't always help. In fact, reading a story about how your personal fortune is only fodder in a bet between your "all loving" God and the Devil probably will only make you feel worse. People say it's His way of testing your faith. If someone's human father said he needed to destroy his child's life in order to test his child's love, wouldn't the neighbors think he was kind of psychotic? Wouldn't they whisk the child away to child services?
All I'm saying is at least the Wiccan gods are honest.
There's an energy alive in England that seems to be suffocated in America. That much I know.
Listen to this -
My boyfriend, his mother, and I are out shopping in the local mall, when a man in a scooter approaches my boyfriend. The man's leg had fallen off the scooter and was dragging on the ground, so he asks my boyfriend to help him. Of course he obliges. My boyfriend fixes him up and the old man goes about his day.
This probably isn't shocking, even my boyfriend wouldn't think of it much. I've seen him just randomly help a man get his car out of the snow, unasked, and there's a newspaper article about how he saved a man's life. Honestly? He's extraordinary. The old man could have asked anyone in that mall at that minute, there were three of us standing directly in front of him and it's not like his mom or I were entirely incapable of helping him. But he zeroed in on my boyfriend! He actually came into the shop we were in to approach my boyfriend. Why? The best answer I can come up with is that he just has that kind of energy around him that's easy for people to sense, even on a subconscious level.
Can logic and science provide a better answer? I'm guessing most people would brush it off as luck, if anything. Maybe it was, but I have to disagree. Something small but strong was at work, helping the old man by leading him to the person that would have the most compassion and would be the most ready to help him. As much as I try, I can't see it any other way.
So I believe in Wicca. I believe in the Goddess and the God, I believe in the powers that bind us to each other, bind us to the earth and the sea and the sky. I'm still not entirely sure exactly how I got here, what changed in me that made me a better receptor to the Old Ways. But there you have it.
As much as I'm shocked to admit that I adhere to any one religion, I do. I'm Wiccan. After arriving in England I've come back to the faith I started with, the faith I served even as I practiced Catholicism. As a kid of 13, I felt more at ease going outside and talking to the moon and the stars, felt more at peace at the Virgin Mary's bosom (a Catholic image for the Great Goddess) than at Yahweh's feet. Is it any surprise that I have joined a community where the Moon I prayed to every night is revered as a powerful, beautiful mother goddess?
I feel a kind of power here that I felt was absent or barely palpable in America. Okay, yes, I did feel there were sacred spaces, especially in Juneau, Alaska and Manteo, North Carolina. Juneau is so wild, so rugged, so awesome in its natural beauty that it's hard not to notice the fertile energy coursing all around you. From the 90 mph Taku Winds to the whales breaching in the Gastineau Channel, Alaska is as much alive as its inhabitants. As for Manteo...I spent two summers there. My first summer, I went outside every night and stood in the Roanoke Sound. I listened to the murmur of the surf, I gazed in awe at the stars, I learned all their names (scientific and mythic!), I delighted in dancing in the sand and making the phosphorescence ignite beneath my feet, and, above all, I sang to the moon. It was how I found peace. But despite all that, I still strayed back and forth from Wicca.
Here in England...something so small as breathing becomes a devotional to the Goddess and the God. The sunlight kissing my skin, the breeze ruffling my hair, the moonlight cascading through my bedroom window - all are evidence of Their presence. But how?! What changed?
When I arrived in England, I felt my bones and my joints loosen in the bright English sun. Even London has a sense of order and peace to it, as if it's mellowed with an age New York or DC could never possess. England is so...old. Gravestones line the walls and floors of all the major cathedrals. Some of those stones are older than the US when it was founded by English colonists. Of course age does not always beget sacrality. Yet there is something sacred about the silence of the cathedral halls, so that when you walk in you whisper for fear of disturbing the atmosphere.
So maybe age begets respect. British history reaches back to a time when people relied nature's bounty. I wonder if memories of this time have quietly survived in the British collective memory, and because of that, the people have a little more respect for the land in which they live. In England Gaia and Cerridwen and Artemis have been give space to breathe, space to sing. In America their voices are swallowed by cities and chatter. Americans have such little respect for the land - a grove of trees is a Walmart in three years. Why? Because they can! What if a nymph lived in the heart of that grove? It doesn't matter, it's prime real estate. Crush it, raze it, clear it, build it and do it all NOW.
So is that it? The feeling that I can actually hear and feel the gods in the silence and openness of England? Is my devotion really based on something as tenuous as my surroundings?
And how does my life up until this point fit in with my revitalized faith? Can you be Wiccan and still not believe whatever creation story it adheres to? Can a Wicca be scientific and entertain the idea that maybe the Goddess and the God weren't around for the Big Bang, maybe they just appeared with the first Druid? Can a Wicca believe that the Goddess and the God evolve, as humans have?
I know the Goddess and the God contain dark and light aspects, just as any human does. Wicca isn't afraid of the dark side of itself. It's not like Catholicism with an omniscient, benevolent GOD and an malicious, hateful, just as powerful SATAN. In Diana's full moon, Hecate's face shines in the dark moon. Everything, good and bad, comes from the gods. Who are we humans, who only see so little of the picture, to judge what they do?
Right, so what about if a man is stabbed in the street? Surely the man doing the stabbing is an evil, evil bastard. I don't know if I can say for sure. What if the stabber was desperate for money for food and felt as if it was the only way he could cope? What if he was born a sociopath? How could his parents have known what they were giving birth to? Is it his fault if he was dealt a crappy hand in life? Furthermore, is it his fault if he was dealt a crappy hand in life and wasn't given the tools to properly cope?
I told someone recently, that such a thing is not good or bad, it just is. At the most, it's tragic. And I'm honestly not trying to be morally lackadaisical, I'm trying to sort this out. Darkness and light, life and death, feast and famine...they all come from the Goddess and the God. They comes in cycles - they always do and always will.
So maybe that's another thing that draws me to Wicca: it embraces those cycles. In the winter the Goddess dies. In the spring she comes back again. Wicca's cyclical sense of time allows its followers to fall into sync with those cycles, so that when dark times fall they can roll with them, rather than railing against them. Catholicism's God is the All-Loving Father, All Good and All Perfect. Yet when a good Catholic hits rock-bottom, reading Job doesn't always help. In fact, reading a story about how your personal fortune is only fodder in a bet between your "all loving" God and the Devil probably will only make you feel worse. People say it's His way of testing your faith. If someone's human father said he needed to destroy his child's life in order to test his child's love, wouldn't the neighbors think he was kind of psychotic? Wouldn't they whisk the child away to child services?
All I'm saying is at least the Wiccan gods are honest.
There's an energy alive in England that seems to be suffocated in America. That much I know.
Listen to this -
My boyfriend, his mother, and I are out shopping in the local mall, when a man in a scooter approaches my boyfriend. The man's leg had fallen off the scooter and was dragging on the ground, so he asks my boyfriend to help him. Of course he obliges. My boyfriend fixes him up and the old man goes about his day.
This probably isn't shocking, even my boyfriend wouldn't think of it much. I've seen him just randomly help a man get his car out of the snow, unasked, and there's a newspaper article about how he saved a man's life. Honestly? He's extraordinary. The old man could have asked anyone in that mall at that minute, there were three of us standing directly in front of him and it's not like his mom or I were entirely incapable of helping him. But he zeroed in on my boyfriend! He actually came into the shop we were in to approach my boyfriend. Why? The best answer I can come up with is that he just has that kind of energy around him that's easy for people to sense, even on a subconscious level.
Can logic and science provide a better answer? I'm guessing most people would brush it off as luck, if anything. Maybe it was, but I have to disagree. Something small but strong was at work, helping the old man by leading him to the person that would have the most compassion and would be the most ready to help him. As much as I try, I can't see it any other way.
So I believe in Wicca. I believe in the Goddess and the God, I believe in the powers that bind us to each other, bind us to the earth and the sea and the sky. I'm still not entirely sure exactly how I got here, what changed in me that made me a better receptor to the Old Ways. But there you have it.
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