Echoes of a past life: New Moon

New Moon New York was an open Pagan circle in New York City in the early 1990s. This footage has surfaced, bringing back some memories, a surprising memory hole, and a bit of personal embarassment. This video includes footage of several events, only one of which I attended, the probable “Lughnassadh” ritual that begins about at the 11 min. mark, held in either NYC's Central Park or Inwood Park. Yours truly may be seen at heard about 16:35, bearing that fuzzy red wheel. Yeah, we took ourselves pretty seriously, but we also had lots of fun. As silly as this looks to me 20+ years later, I learned a lot about myself and the world in that period. I'm pretty glad I graduated from this sort of Cosplay/LARP scene, now in my mid-50s I'm sort of mortified by the trappings of that chapter of my spirituality. That said, that moment of spirituality healed me of some fundamental life hurt and I wouldn't want to erase that chapter of my life even if it seems so curiously foreign to me now.

But these were good people. I note with sadness several faces no longer among the living, not least the legendary Alexei Kondratiev and his partner Len. I see my dear magical partner C, and my incredibly handsome but deeply conflicted and closeted boyfriend W, nicknamed by C “Mr. Outdoors.” It's good to remember my friends from New Moon. I'm surprised at how little of this event I remember, it all seems just out of reach. Which is okay, it was a really long time ago and I have moved far far away from that moment in my life.

And now, back to life as a 21st-century communist.

Ding dong . . . the “witch” is dead?

Margaret Thatcher died today, and celebration is the order of the day. She was a monster: a partner in crime of Augusto Pinochet and Ronald Reagan; she joined Reagan in calling Nelson Mandela a "terrorist." This is setting aside all the horrible things she did to working people in the U.K. Amid the celebration, I did notice something, and this article by Bay Area revolutionaries Advance the Struggle really caught my eye, so I'm reblogging it here. While I'm still working out my opinion on the works of Marxist-Feminist Sylvia Federici (author of Caliban and the Witch), I know quite a bit about witches and this article gets it exactly right. —ISH

Witch Side Are You On?

I dont intend to attack anyone for their word choice, but would like to raise a little bit of consciousness on this word choice of calling Thatcher a “witch” as a form of insult.
 
Margaret thatcher was the opposite of a witch. By referring to thatcher as a witch, one denigrates the real witches of the late middle ages (and other women whose independence was

slandered by patriarchy as witchcraft) whose genocide (witch hunts) was intimately bound up with the subjugation of the new proletariat and colonizing missions.

The witch hunts culminated in a triumph for the bourgeoisie, in the form of a division of labor at the heart of which was a stark divide between productive labor and reproductive (domestic) labor. Workers outside of the home (predominantly men, but women too) were waged slaves whose productivity was under-valued through the fetishism of commodities (money hiding the unequal exchange of equivalents). Workers inside the home (exclusively women) were not paid at all, the most extreme fetish (illusion) this new capitalist order would produce. At the heart of this illusion that women’s domestic/reproductive work did not merit a wage, was the false belief that women are genetically prone to do this work for free as loving mothers and loyal wives. Male wage earners were given a position, imposed on them and enforced by law, of domestic overseer with all the tools of coercion they might need, from the right to rape to the right to beat “their” wives who regarded as dependents on the man. Thus the male proletariat was coopted by the bourgeoisie in a scheme to keep the total wage bill of that class half of what it should have been. In this sense, all of us male proletarians have a duty to honor our sisters as pillars of the class at every available opportunity. Part of that is learning the history of women as workers inside and outside the home. That history includes the heroic chapter of witches’ resistance to capitalism at the very dawn of its existence. [the book Caliban and the Witch is a good place to start]

Margaret thatcher was a traitor to her gender. Witches were the most loyal members not only of their gender but also of a far reaching pan-european anti-capitalist/anti-patriarchy movement from the 1300s-1700s, that is, during the period of capitalism’s maturation as a world system.

Death to Thatcherism!
Long live women’s liberation and proletarian revolution!

Rise & Root

This image, Rise & Root, is from The Hermitage blog, which I know nothing about, via my blog friend Annie of This & That with Artichoke Annie. Something about it really speaks to me even though as vaguely political images go it's earthier and less specific than my usual idea of good propaganda. But who hasn't pondered the magic of majestic trees rising above, their equally majestic root systems remaining secret and unseen below? As Annie says, "perhaps [it's] a symbol that this new year 2012 will be one of change, perhaps a year where fights will be won, a year where growth in the humaneness of humankind will be seen."

There's bound to be lots of ugliness this year, but this mandala-like artwork speaks to the possibilities that have been revealed for changing that ugliness. I've been continuing to work with my local Brooklyn "Occupy" chapter — a longer report here soon, I promise — and the one thing that keeps sticking with me is how what can easily be dismissed as the same old community activism is actually something profoundly deeper, like the roots on these trees, something much more sophisticated than the political activism I have witnessed before. In rejecting easy ideology in favor of a profoundly revolutionary sense of autonomous optimism and determination, the movement being created is something more organic and more radical than anything that has taken root in years. I'm meeting young people with a sophisticated grasp of, well, class warfare in a way that disarms many of the ideological arguments I've seen the left waste its time on for decades.

So yes, against blandness and conformity...otherness, black earth and imagination.

Even The Longest Night Gives Birth to Dawn

I took this photo a month ago, when there were still some leaves on the trees. That's the full moon above and a streetlight below, and it's right on my street. The leaves are all gone now, though it's a very un-Winter-Solstice temperature of 61 degrees outside; it's almost muggy out.

I don't see a moon outside my window in the night that has fallen today. The longest night of the year has begun, after the shortest day. I woke up in darkness and arrived home in the same inky blackness. It's no accident that so many religions have significant holidays round about now as the natural world works its predictable though still miraculous magic. Somehow even though it's about to get cold and snowy here in the northern hemisphere, climate change allowing, nature holds out an olive branch: this signal that all is not lost. The days are gonna get longer, the light is gonna come back.

It's been an interesting year. Things have happened that I didn't think could happen anymore. Even as my middle-aged joints ache and complain, my heart and mind are lightened with the promise of good news. Oh not the good news of herald angels and flaring stars and possible prophets, but the signs of awakening slumberers, the possibility that the coming Spring will bring more than just flowers and new leaves.

25 years ago in the depths of the Reaganite midnight I laid down my spears and arrows, and quenched my torch. I kindled different fires for a while, gathering embers. I walked some different paths, and visited some different worlds. I have no regrets for the years I spent doing what needed to be done. That different time that is a half of my life is as much me as what came before and what comes now, after. Older and wiser turns out to be more than just a cliché.

Tonight it's going to take a moment longer. But dawn is going to break. In glorious sun or overcast with clouds, no matter. The world turns. Stretch your arms. Take a step. Arise.

Tomorrow is going to be a good day. Walk with me: let's share it together.

Musical Interlude: Smile of the Beyond

Something like three years ago I waxed rapturously about my favorite "fusion" album of all time, "Apocalypse" by the second incarnation of the Mahavishnu Orchestra of John McLaughlin. When I stumbled across this video and considered posting it here I realized I had said just about all I had to say about that album back then, but I still love this music. This oddly distorted video is from a mid-1970s live performance at Montreux: it's better than the video or sound quality of a number of other youtube versions, and a bit different than the album cut. But it's cool to see the musicians play, and you get to see spacey Gayle Moran actually sing what is, I guess, an actual fusion ballad: at least it starts out that way. The lyric is vintage early 1970s Sri Chinmoy devotee melding of sacred and profane. Sort of a codependent religious hymn, near as I can tell. God, like all lovers, is difficult sometimes.

Fusion didn't age well. This song displays something of the emotional range of fusion, and the tension between controlled virtuosity and ecstatic chaos that marked the best of the music in its early days. Uncontrolled cock-stroking keyboard and guitar wankery eventually took over leaving the sound sterile and uninteresting, at least to me. By the 1980s, fascination with digital technological effects choked the life out of it. Here the mix of funk and art seems alive and promising.

As a bonus here's the album version below, for contrast, which is heavier on the string orchestra at the beginning. I do recommend the whole album.

Keep Occupying!

The #OWS movement is off the front page headlines...for the moment. The Occupy Wall Street encampment in New York City and those across the country have been mostly trashed and uprooted by a coordinated national campaign of violent repression...for the moment. But this is not over. And I'm not just saying that.

The movement is alive, and deepening all the time. There has been a sea change in political consciousness, and that continues filtering out across the roots and branches of society. As The Occupied Wall Street Journal says, "The Beginning Is Near." Protests and direct actions continue in NYC and nationally, building support for the notion of direct democracy. The words "Power to the People" have returned to life.

The movement of consciousness springing to life is not just the same old, same old. It's not just the shop-worn cliches and trite stereotypes and stale abstract ideas: it's the drive for human collective liberation returned to life, tidily encapsulated in the simple notion of the 99%.

One of the blogs I read is The Wild Hunt, a blog about the Neo-Pagan community that helps me to stay in touch with some of the ideas that have informed my own journey. Consider the editorial just published by its mainstay Jason Pitzl-Waters, "Occupying Everything" that concludes: "There have been those who’ve spent a lot of time pointing out that the Occupy movement has feet of clay, or has lost the moral high ground due to one incident or another, but I think such arguments miss the point. This isn’t about the good behavior of every Occupier, its about what needs to happen now. We need a shift in our priorities, we need the dramatic excesses of our current capitalistic system to be reigned in, and we need justice. I think modern Pagans have much to offer the Occupy movement, and that this movement has much to teach us in return. We are, after all, part of the 99% too. I know that there will be Pagans who disagree, who’ve written off the Occupy movement in one fashion or another, but I can no longer sit on the sidelines and pretend to have no opinion. For me, the Occupy movement is the movement I was waiting for during the anti-globalization protests of the 1990s, a true continuation of the work sparked by social justice pioneers like Dorothy Day, Gandhi, King, and Jane Addams. Now is the time for Pagans of a like mind to envision what our social justice looks like, to craft a theological and historical framework for a future where we have a voice, because that future is happening now. I guess what I’m saying is that we need to Occupy Paganism, and in turn, Occupy everything."

Pitzl-Waters understands, in a profoundly spiritual way, how the Occupy movement has resonated across society with a call for a world in which together we take back what is ours and then collectively share out of love, mutual respect, and responsibility.

I was at a meeting of Occupy Sunset Park, the organization that has sprung to life in my own Brooklyn neighborhood. A fellow emerging activist was saying how she felt the movement was reclaiming the notion of what is public, where parks and institutions are places that welcome and serve the communities in which they are located rather than act as fenced-off monuments to somebody's money.

I attended a terrific forum by the group Kasama which counts among its adherents one of the members of the Occupied Wall Street Journal editorial collective. Kasama is a profoundly radical communist organization but one that has approached the Occupy movement with creativity and respect. While I'm not sure they would use the word, I think they understand what a spiritual revolution OWS is engendering in peoples' consciousness. One Kasama leader described exactly how I feel: that for decades those of us who early in life awakened to consciousness as people yearning for social justice and human liberation — as revolutionaries — felt defeated; that the best we could hope for were lesser evils and retreating into living politically moral but isolated lives. And how the Occupy movement has changed everything, giving us back the hope and energy of what is possible.

We've experienced devastating one-sided class warfare for decades now, and finally the battle has been joined. People are opening their eyes and seeing. It's different now, from here on out.



For sure this has been recognized by the other side. The 1% understands what a threat looks like. The violent repression, the media manipulation, the attempts to subvert the movement, these have shocked people into paying attention to what's happening. But don't be fooled by the lack of headlines now. As the movement roots down into communities like mine we know there are plenty of obstacles in our path. But we also know what we can do, together.

#Occupy together; Spring is coming! Power to the people!

Photographs by me from the #OWS rally in New York City's Foley Square a couple days after the Zuccotti Park eviction

Mojuba Olodumare, Mojuba Obatala

Hard to believe that it was fifteen years ago that I began the week-long ceremony that marked my initiation into the religion of Santeria as a priest of Obatala. I was crowned fifteen years ago tomorrow in the Bronx: it was a moment I will never forget, frozen in time. Even those elders who were there in that moment who have since passed on (ibaye) remain sharp in my memory.

As things worked out the Santeria community wasn't to be a great fit for me as a home, but I still have this sense of cosmic gears turning in that moment that blessed me, that changed me, that altered the trajectory and path of my life, and mostly in ways I had no way of anticipating. I gave up a lot: some good, some bad, some things I miss, some things I don't, but as I felt the spiritual mantle I had assumed deepen and internalize I have felt greater inner peace and balance I wouldn't trade for anything. Maybe it's the mellowing of age, or maybe the mysterious gravity of Obatala Himself, but I've found so many of the desperate empty places in my earlier life filled with centered calmness. While I can surely report both good and bad life experiences in the past 15 years, joy and happiness mixed with pain and loss in random succession — such is anyone's life — I feel grateful for a moment of cosmic communion that had so much profound and lasting effect. Even as I find myself less and less a participant in my religion, I can still connect my spiritual being with a sort of dizzying inner bridge to the sacred. I wouldn't have predicted what I would be doing fifteen years later: I know I wouldn't have come even close to a good guess. But I knew I wouldn't be filled with regret and that was about as prescient as one could be.

And I am eternally grateful to my spiritual path for the sharpening and deepening of my creativity as I strive for clarity of expression. This blog, even when I'm writing about subjects seemingly far removed from an obscure religion carried to this continent in the infernal bellies of slave ships, is I hope witness and testament to the power of eternal spiritual truths manifesting themselves in the physical world. To my less spiritually-inclined friends and readers, I don't mean that as magic or superstition or supposed favor from invisible beings, but as a hearty endorsement of connecting with the life force that animates us, a little suspension of disbelief, and a reminder that patterns and symbolism tap the human psyche with good reason.

Anyway I'll conclude with what is an apt lesson for many of life's transformations, courtesy of those high priests of quite a different religion, The Rolling Stones. Because indeed you can't always get what you want but you do get just what you need.

When Zombies Walk the Earth

Halloween doesn't scare me. It's not supposed to. It's supposed to be a celebration, of the sacredness of life past, of the inevitability and sacredness of death past and future. Without the ancestors whose bones we walk upon, whose dust we breathe, whose water we drink, whose ever-living spirit sustains and inspires us, we wouldn't be here. And when we end, hopefully after long happy lives, our dust, our water, our spirit, returns to the great communal life force which will sustain the future. That is awe-inspiring and mysterious: sure and yet un-knowable, not really.

There's nothing wrong with the popular Halloween masquerade: laughing at things we might not always find funny, or trying out different identities or experimenting with the absurd. Indeed in trying out the Halloween swap of identities aren't we also trying out what the world would feel like without us as we know ourselves to be?

On Halloween I try to remember the ancestors who contributed to who I am; and to the friends and loved ones who have passed over to somewhere else after sharing a moment of space and time with me. I've lit a candle and burned some sage and copal. I've shared some rum and water. I've spoken names I haven't thought much of lately. I've prayed to the spirits who guide my life with perspective and inspiration. I'm not forgetting the tasks before me, but I'm counting my blessings and offering my thanks.

None of this stuff — what an old boyfriend called heebeejeebee stuff — scares me. I like the Mexican tradition of making skulls and headstones of sugar candy, pretty, colored in bright decorations, adding sweet deliciousness to reverence: turning fearful imagery to something else that in levity brings understanding.

But I'll tell you what does scare me: the deadness of living human souls.

Consider our politicians: liars all of them, from Democrat to Republican. Dishonest, manipulative people who will say anything for votes. And how horrible that we 99% — to use this new and relevant language — have to live in a world of illusion and corruption made meaningless and hateful by these zombies filling up the halls of power despite the fact that without us, the 1% would be nothing at all.

Today UNESCO admitted Palestine as a full state member, and within moments the U.S. cancelled its funding of that important United Nations agency: the Democratic Obama administration saying recognition of Palestine was an "obstacle to peace." Consider the walking dead across the political aisle: Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum: these are masked monsters without an ounce of human empathy. Consider those who cheer these politicians on: cheering on the death penalty, hooting for the deportation of people away from their homes and families and jobs, jeering people who are gay. How virulent is the zombie infection. Consider the fear that these people instill in the rest of us, clinging to the faintest of hopes that politicians like Obama might hurt us less than the ones we know will hurt us more. Because well, what could possibly be the alternative but something worse?

Perhaps it's fitting that in this painful era, where some people are finally waking up to the way things actually are, that zombie movies and zombie TV shows have so captured the popular imagination. Because that's what we've been too often, zombies feeding on each other, going nowhere fast.

Maybe the alternative to life among the zombies isn't gathering together in a boarded-up shopping mall or circling the wagons, or choosing whether to eat plain shit or shit with broken glass: Maybe the alternative is to choose something better.

Winter is almost here, it's true. This weekend's freak October snowstorm certainly reminded us of that. But winter ends. Spring is coming.

Be gone, zombies, be gone.

Starhawk: #OWS Renews Our Faith in the Human Spirit

The right mix of politics and spirituality is a thorny question. I am utterly devoted to the notion of separation of church and state: it's clear to me that whatever mysterious personal beliefs people have, the law must remain absolutely secular. But at the same time I believe that the desire to fight for a better world, for social justice, comes from a profoundly spiritual place, and thus ultimately the morality informing secular law risks a slippery slope easily confused when the morality of liberation becomes blurred with the controlling dogma of a particular faith. All that said, I know that while my religious beliefs and at this point very occasional religious practices have very little to do with my politics, my spirituality is quite intertwined with a liberationist perspective in politics.

Many left-wing political activists dislike/fear/hate/oppose thinking about politics in a spiritual way, and I understand where they're coming from. But for all the social conservatism of today's evangelical Christians or the right-wing nihilism of fundamentalist political Islam, there is a long history of religious people being in the vanguard of social justice movements: a key example of which is the African-American civil rights movement which had an organic relationship with the spirituality and religious faith of African-Americans.

During my period of spiritual exploration after I withdrew form political activism, one of the most inspiring writers was the Neo-Pagan priestess Starhawk, especially her seminal work "The Spiral Dance." I was excited to read that Starhawk has been visiting a number of the Occupy Together encampments on the west coast. Some of what she's written on the subject of #OWS and this amazing movement that has materialized before our eyes I find quite inspiring:

From an article published in the Washington Post's On Faith column:

"What’s going on? Pundits splutter about the movement’s lack of ‘demands’ and coherent messaging, but sound bites and 10-point programs arise from central committees and top-down hierarchies. The Occupy movement demonstrates a very different model of organizing: emergent, decentralized, without a command and control structure. ...

[The demonstrations] all share a common heart, a revulsion against an economy and a politics that increasingly say, “You don’t count, except as something to exploit. Your voice is drowned out by money, your labor is expendable, your needs must be sacrificed to the gods of profit.”

At its essence, the message of the Occupations is simply this:

'Here in the face of power we will sit and create a new society, in which you do count. Your voice carries weight, your contributions have value, whoever you may be. We care for one another, and we say that love and care are the true foundations for the society we want to live in. We’ll stand with the poor and sleep with the homeless if that’s what it takes to get justice. We’ll build a new world.'....

The Occupy movement renews my faith in the human spirit, in our creativity, our craving for justice, our determination to root our world in love. So come on down! You are important. Your voice counts. You have a unique contribution to make. We are all the 99 percent."

And so taking a stand along with #OWS has a spiritual component: awakening our long-dormant hope and aspirations. Secular political savvy and a presence in the real world with its dangerous state repression is clearly the order of the day. But go ahead, arm yourself with spirit, too.

Starhawk has also been writing at great length in her personal blog on the Occupy movement.

News of Starhawk via The Wildhunt

Does Mormon Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney Practice Human Sacrifice?

(Bloody human sacrifice in Ancient Mexico, that may, or may not, be just like the human sacrifices that the Mormons, may, or may not, perform; 16th-century illustration from a Codex).

"When this sign and portent was first seen, [they] were overcome with terror, weeping and shouting and crying out...These shouts and cries were accompanied by sacrifices of blood and of human beings, for this was their practice whenever they thought they were endangered by some calamity." — Not a quote from the Book of Mormon but from The Broken Spears, The Aztec Account of the Conquest of Mexico edited by Miguel Leon-Portilla

"The messengers went to the [temple]...The two captives were then sacrificed before his eyes: their breasts were torn open and the messengers were sprinkled with their blood. This was done because the messengers had completed a difficult mission: they had seen the gods...they had even conversed with the gods!" — Not a quote from Mormon Elder Brigham Young, but another from The Broken Spears

It was almost fifteen years ago that I was initiated into the religion of Santeria; it was a life-changing event, and though I am no longer really active in the religion I am ever grateful for the blessings and changes it brought to my life. As most everybody knows, Santeria is notorious for including the widely misunderstood practice of animal sacrifice. In truth, animal sacrifice is a somewhat disguised component of most of today's religions including the big three Abrahamic faiths, but it's usually considered something prettier and less controversial, like Easter dinner or Passover. Without going into it at great length, the offering of animals in Santeria is most definitely not an exercise in macabre animal cruelty, it's a respectful ritual act that connects worshippers with the mysteries of the life force in a graphic experience of communion. In most cases, though not all, the animals are cooked and eaten, just like that lamb you eat for Easter. It's definitely a challenging part of the religion for those of us who grew up around store-packaged meat, but it ultimately teaches humanity and the sacredness of life. No cute kittens — or human babies — are harmed. It's not some antisocial or Satanic worship of death and gore (and please note Satanism is a subset of somebody else's religion, and that would be Christianity), and despite the occasional slanderous B-movie or tabloid exposé, Santeros most certainly do not sacrifice people.

Anyway my initiation ceremony was a beautiful and transformative thing, altering my consciousness and the way my spirituality is wired like nothing else I have experienced. Two of the priestesses there were elders in the religion, a lesbian couple who I'll call R & R. One was Puertorican, the other non-Hispanic of Jewish ancestry. They were knowledgeable and experienced priestesses, and also very generous and giving people. New initiates are especially encouraged to visit the homes of elders in the religion during their first year, when they're walking around clothed in a protective and identifying total white. R & R were wonderfully welcoming to me; especially considering my own status among the small minority of non-Hispanic white people drawn to what is fundamentally a religion of the African diaspora.

It was probably at one of their ocha birthdays that we were all sitting around their living room in Manhattan. R & R were discussing a recent vacation. They had been out west, I think to Vegas with a side trip to Salt Lake City, Utah. They were regaling us with their visit to the huge Mormon Temple there. I don't remember which of these two Santeria priestesses, expert at the handy dispatch of a chicken, was doing most of the talking: "And we saw the altar! You know beneath that altar is where they do the secret human sacrifices." A hush went over the room. "Really. They do them right there! Oh they don't admit it, but everybody knows they do it." The other priests and priestesses in the room shook their heads and clucked their tongues. "How horrible!" everybody agreed.


(Above is the Mormon Temple in Salt Lake City where Mitt Romney may, or may not, conduct his human sacrifices, if he performs them, which he may not.)

Two of the 2012 Republican presidential candidates are Mormons, one the allegedly moderate Jon Huntsman competing for last place; the other tabula rasa trojan horse not-so-moderate Mitt Romney competing for first. And it turns out that more people than my Santeria priestess friends think the Mormons have a human sacrifice problem. If you go to google and start typing "Mormon human", right after the prompt for "Mormon humanitarian efforts" pops up the prompt "Mormon human sacrifice."

It turns out that Evangelical Christians, a base of today's extremist Republican party, do not consider Mormons, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, actual Christians. And very many of them think the Mormon Church is up to no good at all. Researching this post I found websites devoted to accusing the Mormons of being the Illuminati, Freemasons, Kabbalistic Jews, Satanic homosexual child abusers, Jehovah's Witnesses, and, of course, Satanic sacrificers of human children.

I would say that the Mormons, Mitt Romney, Jon Huntsman, and the Republican party saddled with candidates that its base doesn't trust, have a big, big problem. Would you want your child to be kissed by Mitt Romney if you were worried he would afterwards snatch it up and hurl it onto an altar of blood-letting? I mean, hey, Wikipedia might explain that the doctrine of blood atonement doesn't mean modern Mormons have anything to do with something as bizarre as human sacrifice, but sites like "Real Mormon History" shout "Holy Murder" begging to differ.

So what's the truth?

Well, you know there's an old saying: you made your bed now you lie in it.

I actually know some former Mormons who regret the church's repressive nature, but who remember their childhoods in the church, or their missionary year, with some fondness. Of course most of the gay former Mormons I know don't look back with anything less than a certain anger. There's a movie I heartily recommend called "Brigham City," that is a small-town crime story made by a Mormon director that is tremendously touching and humanizing. You come away watching this film getting something profound about the nature of community that seems to be of deep spiritual importance for Mormons. It's a beautiful film. It helped me to respect the many mysterious ways that spirit calls to people: some are called to religions that outsiders don't get. I don't challenge that at all; spirit is a beautiful and mysterious thing. I don't challenge anyone's right to follow a spiritual path of his or her own calling, including LDS Mormonism. I don't want my religious practices to be judged unfairly, and I can understand Mormons not wanting theirs to be judged unfairly either.

But here's what else I know: the Mormon Church has spent an untold fortune trying to deny the civil rights of lesbians and gays. They sunk an uncountable fortune into the at least temporarily successful effort (Prop 8) to repeal marriage equality in California. They are widely believed to be one of the main bankrollers of the anti-gay hate group NOM, "The National Organization for [sic] Marriage," that has quite successfully derailed marriage equality in a number of states. The Mormon church, as an organization, is hateful and bigoted: and like many Evangelical Christian churches and the Catholic church, doesn't understand or respect the difference between secular law and church law. The Mormon church and its allies are actively trying to deny equal rights to gay people....to match religious principles that people outside that church don't share. That is simply unforgivable: the separation of church and state should be absolute and inviolable.

Mitt Romney may be an former east-coast governor and alleged social moderate, but he is 100% behind his church's efforts to deny civil rights to lesbians and gays. He's also a sworn enemy of a woman's right to choose, and of family planning. His politics on the subject of marriage equality are no different than right-wing freakshows Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann. His views on immigration are horrible: he supports walling off the U.S. from Mexico (of course in true hypocritical fashion he's also reputed to have hired cheap undocumented workers to mow his lawn). Mitt Romney may or may not actually engage in human sacrifice — I wouldn't know the man, um, from Adam — but he certainly wants to sacrifice the rights of some Americans on the altar of his religious beliefs, and that is deeply, deeply troubling.

Is voting for people who want to deprive some Americans of their rights any worse than voting for people who might, or might not, secretly kill babies?

The evidence suggests that the idea that Mitt Romney and other Mormons are actively committing blood sacrifice of children or adults in the secret inner sanctuaries of their temples is nothing more than a crazy and delusional paranoid conspiracy theory, based on the all-too human tendency to demonize that which one does not understand. But hey, what do I know? They want to deny me civil rights, so maybe they do have a taste for human blood or maybe they don't. Maybe if their church joined the civilized world of respect for civil rights people wouldn't question their secret motivations.

Hey Mitt Romney, kiss my baby! You'll give it back, right? Right? As long as it's not gay?

(Any longtime readers will recognize part of this post is a retelling of a tale I told four years ago, during the last presidential cycle).

"I Am Troy Davis, and I Am Free!"

A message from Troy Davis, an innocent man who is scheduled to be put to death by the racist state of Georgia tonight. His last appeals for clemency seem to have been denied.

"To All:

I want to thank all of you for your efforts and dedication to Human Rights and Human Kindness, in the past year I have experienced such emotion, joy, sadness and never ending faith. It is because of all of you that I am alive today, as I look at my sister Martina I am marveled by the love she has for me and of course I worry about her and her health, but as she tells me she is the eldest and she will not back down from this fight to save my life and prove to the world that I am innocent of this terrible crime.

As I look at my mail from across the globe, from places I have never ever dreamed I would know about and people speaking languages and expressing cultures and religions I could only hope to one day see first hand. I am humbled by the emotion that fills my heart with overwhelming, overflowing Joy. I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist.

So Thank you and remember I am in a place where execution can only destroy your physical form but because of my faith in God, my family and all of you I have been spiritually free for some time and no matter what happens in the days, weeks to come, this Movement to end the death penalty, to seek true justice, to expose a system that fails to protect the innocent must be accelerated. There are so many more Troy Davis’. This fight to end the death penalty is not won or lost through me but through our strength to move forward and save every innocent person in captivity around the globe. We need to dismantle this Unjust system city by city, state by state and country by country.

I can’t wait to Stand with you, no matter if that is in physical or spiritual form, I will one day be announcing,

“I AM TROY DAVIS, and I AM FREE!”

Never Stop Fighting for Justice and We will Win!

What a tragedy. My heart goes out to Troy Davis's family. Once again, the true nature of justice in America reveals itself.

From Soa-watch, via Kasama

UPDATE: As of 10:20 pm the execution has been temporarily stayed while it is reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

CODA: Alas, my update was just a moment too soon. After the Supreme Court refused to stay the execution, Troy Davis was murdered by the government of Georgia just after 11pm this evening. Rest in peace. Jesus wept.

Baby You're a Firework!

I'm having a moment.

I've fallen in love with a sappy, manipulative, incredibly commercial top 40 pop song — post chart peak no less — aimed at approximately teenage level, and I'm not sorry about it. The song is Katy Perry's "Firework," and that's the extraordinarily uplifting video for it above. Filmed in Budapest of all places, it's got a chubby teen girl dealing with self esteem and courage, kissing gay boys, a child with cancer, a kid defusing violence with magic and another kid stopping a battering parent. It's got happy happy people dancing in unison and cool and improbable special effects, and it all adds up to a positive inspirational message about self-empowerment. It's got a catchy, anthemic sing-along quality, and while the lyrics are precious almost to the point of preachy, there's something about this song that really grabs me.

"Do you ever feel already buried deep
Six feet under scream
But no one seems to hear a thing

Do you know that there's still a chance for you
Cause there's a spark in you

You just gotta ignite the light
And let it shine
Just own the night
Like the Fourth of July

Cause baby you're a firework
Come on show 'em what you're worth
Make 'em go "Oh, oh, oh!"
As you shoot across the sky-y-y"

The truth is I can remember being the person who needed this message. Heck, sometimes today I still need this message. I remember a specific moment in my adult life during my period of spiritual development when I was delivered this message and I remember how much it changed my life. When the world gets hard it can feel like a luxury to hang on to this kind of optimism and resolve. If the memory of being a sometimes alienated teen lives on in my middle-aged psyche, this song's dose of self-empowerment and spiritual reaffirmation comes as a refreshing reminder of, well, my own talents and abilities.

Go ahead, call me a little girl.

Anti-War Anthems: "Moments of a Soft Persuasion"

Okay, I'm projecting here, a little: the lyrics of this song don't actually mention war, in Vietnam or elsewhere. But the Peter Paul & Mary album this song is taken from was released the same week that two of the group's members were among those beaten and gassed by police in the suppression of anti-war protests at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. This song, a product of its era, is a spiritual affirmation profoundly and simply challenging the mindset that allows war to happen.

"Moments of the soft persuasion
Chiming bells, the first occasion
Tell the rest a smile awaken
Till the last reminder shaken
From whatever rue'd and sorrow;
Now, the time is now — tomorrow.

In the instant of remaking
Just the giving of the taking
In the instant of the living
Just the taking of the giving

Nothing more than earth and water
Smiles of Spring from barren daughter
Who at last in perfect motion
Turning 'round embrace the ocean
Gracious calf of mankind suffering;
Sacrifice of old is ending.

In the instant of remaking
Just the giving of the taking
In the instant of the living
Just the taking of the giving

Moments of the soft persuasion
Chiming bells, the first occasion
Tell the rest a smile awaken
Till the last reminder shaken
From whatever rue'd and sorrow;
Now, the time is now — tomorrow."
— Lyrics by Peter Yarrow

By my reading this song is a fairly profound challenge to revisit an often-ignored yet simple tenet of the Christian Bible: that the message of Jesus and his ultimate sacrifice in the New Testament is a repudiation of the religion of the Old Testament. By his self-sacrifice, Jesus says that the sacrifice and blood-letting and brutality that God seems to demand according to the Bible's early books is no longer necessary: a new age of peace and love brings mankind to a new relationship with the world and with God.

Cynics might well argue that Jesus made his call for such a religion of love in a barbaric world on the cusp of two thousand years more of barbarism and violence, and, to be honest, those cynics aren't wrong. Not being a Christian, I'm not going to undertake a defense of how the Christian church or the faith's believers reconcile what looks to me like a call for a revolution in human consciousness with what has actually been the history of that church or indeed the Christian world. It's hard to find "soft persuasion" or "the taking of the giving" in the Spanish inquisition, the Thirty Years War, the genocide against Native Americans, the Pope's failure to protect Italian Jews in the Second World War, or the hateful rantings of today's American fundamentalist Christians, to touch the tip of an iceberg. As I say I'm no Christian theologian.

But nevertheless, a little spiritual optimism goes a long way. The promise of a new age is foundational to all sorts of religious — and political — movements. The late Mary Travers opened up the liner notes to "Moments of a Soft Persuasion"'s album, Late Again, with a poem invoking the ever-ignored Cassandra: "Cassandra late,/The Prophets' meager wares/Are strewn about a weary world/A time when death requires sainthood undeserved./We are a world of mortal men/And man's great greatness is his hope."

And so this song is a softly persuasive polemic calling for, well, a soft persuasion over the clash of arms or the flash of a knife.

Anyway, I love this song.

Rapture

Saturday afternoon the 21st of May I woke up from a short nap in glorious spring sunshine. The windows of my bedroom were open, allowing the cool and pleasantly damp spring air into the room. My soft, purring cat was nestled in the crook of my arm for warmth. The sunlight was a glorious pale yellow; I had to force myself out of bed to get ready for the evening. I got dressed and hopped on the subway, where the train clattered through the tunnels as the witching hour of 6:00 pm passed unnoticed by anything other than the red digital readout hanging from the ceiling above us. As I emerged from the subway in Manhattan the last drops of a sudden Spring shower gave way to fading twilight. I met my adorable boyfriend for dinner and then a concert of new music including three wonderful pieces played on toy pianos and kitchen mixing bowls. A reception after the concert featured chocolates and champagne, a delicious mix. We took a cab home through city streets crowded with people dressed for life's celebrations. We went to bed, and then awoke, the next day arriving on cue just like the previous one did, just as tomorrow will.

The gift of the late afternoon sunshine, warm but not yet summery hot, had filled me with a sense of well-being, a gratitude for life's small blessings. I found myself happily considering the good things in my life: the love of friends and companions, enough work to pay the bills, a comfortable home, the sounds of music filling my world, my mind creatively spinning and my body still pulsing. And I felt, well, a sense of rapture. A momentary sense of joy and peace and perfection with the world.

I'm not sorry that my world didn't end. I was pretty sure it wasn't going to. And even I, a non-Christian, know that Bible being waved around by some desperately crazy, angry and hateful people says pretty explicitly that while this life, this world, is indeed temporary, nobody can know when the end is coming. “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. That's Matthew 24:36, by the way.

What kind of people are these doomsayers? Their fantasies of revenge, of self-righteousness, of warnings gone unheeded, of threats and and murder on a super-genocidal scale are almost pornographic in their visceral expression. The doom-filled prophecies of crazy fundamentalists aren't anything I recognize as spirituality or religion, they're just mean-spirited and hateful. These judgment-filled harangues are corrupt and ignorant; small-minded above all, revealing people utterly closed off to the reality of the world with all its unknowable beauty and wonder and even its often painful tragedy and loss. These people are afraid of living, afraid of being judged because they themselves are casting their eyes of bigotry about them reflecting outward their deep hate at their own humanity and the humanity of others.

I believe pretty firmly in God. I won't recount here the long journey that convinced me of that reality, and I'm grateful for the peace and blessings that my spiritual journey to a place of understanding has brought me. And I recognize a sort of miraculous randomness that bombs are not falling on my head or that I'm not living in a gutter or an open field. This has nothing to do with me being a better or worse person than anyone else, only a chain of cosmic accidents that could change abruptly tomorrow. While I have known or known of some very bad people over the years — heck I write about them here all the time — I have yet to see evidence for evil outside the human heart. Earthquakes and tsunamis and tornadoes and wild carnivorous animals and predatory microbes: these are just the more painful of the miracles of the living world that happen, well, for no other reason than because they have come into being.

The consciousness animating our bodies at this moment right now gets a very brief time in the world to make some choices. It's easy to make mistakes, to waste time, and sadly it's easiest of all to wind up being the victim of other bodies making very bad choices for us. I'm not trying at all to sound like a Polyanna; sometimes life is plenty rough and often short.

Everybody dies. That's just...life. And not the best part. But if you spend your life focused solely on the end of that life what you're really doing is wasting your precious moments. So to all the doom-sayers and evangelical prophets and radio preachers who have nothing better to do that waste their time spewing hate or self-righteousness I say, please leave me alone. I'm busy.

(I found the whole-lot-of-crazy art at the top of the post — entitled "True Rapture" — at the "Questions and Thoughts" blog. You simply must click on it to see it larger. I can't even begin to guess at the cray-cray symbolism involved there.)

"Gonna Lay Down My Sword & Shield"

In continuing our series of anti-war anthems, here's a wonderful arrangement of a good old-fashioned hymn by alterna-folk group Ollabelle. This is a live performance new to me, but it's pretty close in spirit to the version off their wonderful 2006 album "Riverside Battle Songs," which I heartily recommend. That's got another rearranged old Gospel hymn with their unique sound, "Trouble of the World." (I commented on the classic Mahalia Jackson version of that hymn almost exactly a year ago here).

But this one is, of course, "Down by the Riverside," sometimes known as "Study War No More." That's an electronic keyboard masquerading as a harmonium, but the vocal harmonies are flawless.

"Gonna lay down my burden,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside.
Gonna lay down my burden,
Down by the riverside,
Down by the riverside.

I ain't go study war no more,
study war no more,
ain't go study war no more.
I ain't go study war no more,
study war no more,
ain't go study oh war no more.

Gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside..."

Sometimes those old songs get it just right. There's a slightly different performance of the song also on Youtube here.

"People Dreaming They Live Free"

This is a very mellow — and quite extended — track by hip-hop artist Common from his album of a few years back "Electric Circus." It features guest appearances by a number of the most creative voices on the hip-hop scene like Bilal, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Cee-Lo, Mary J. Blige and others. It's sort of a meditative suite on spirituality, mortality and the meaning of heaven, with perspectives ranging from earthy to sublime. It's such an ultimately optimistic and humanistic perspective: this song isn't about religious dogma but about hope and acceptance. I find it quite profound.

I'm posting this not only because I really love this track, but because I was listening to this a few days ago and it set me off on an attempt to write something deep and meaningful for the blog at Easter time just passed. I wanted to tie this song in to a reading of the Bible verse it mentions and proceed to a commentary on high and low religion. But that post failed to come together, so I thought I'd just play this song instead.

You can read the lyrics, with the guest vocalists ID'd, at one of those song lyric sites, sing365. Strongly recommended!

"all mighty love,
watching over me....
a smile........brillant.....
all over .....constantly.....
warm .....comforting.....
perfect...like ...no..thing
no hate..no confusion...no strain
simply peace"

(The youtube uploader cut the last half a minute off the song, a sort of instrumental breakdown, to fit a youtube time limit so this clip ends a little abruptly but no vocals are lost).

2, El Diablito

In some syncretic religions of Latin America, worshippers use little red-horned plaster statues of the devil to represent aspects of Exu, or the trickster spirit who inhabits the crossroads. The crossroads is both literal and figurative, where things could go either way, up or down, left or right, good or bad, and a deserted intersection is as good a place as any for an impromptu little shrine. In these religions -- like Macumba in Brazil, cousin though not sister to North American Lucumi/Santeria -- these little devils often look like comic-book illustrations of "The" Devil we're accustomed to in American fairytale horror stories for gullible semi-religious people not well versed in actual theology. This Exu is an aspect of the Yoruba Eleggua or Elegba, but a wild and earthy one caught mixing it up with the ancestral spirits. One aspect of Exu is Pomba Gira, a female gypsy-spirit consorting with the dead: I have a little statue of her where she is represented as a beautiful dark-coffee-colored naked woman cavorting on a lavender coffin. But these little red devils are not in any way equivalent to the great symbolic evil of the Abrahamic Satan; they're not the Manichean darkness duking it out with God's lightness, and they're not a nihilistic force of revenge summoned up by anti-social teenagers or mentally-impaired would-be mass murderers.

Instead they're a recognition of mortality and the human condition, including knowing that we don't always do the right thing, especially when we're trying to get where we want to go. Above all Exu is neither evil nor morbid, though the intended playfulness of laughing at death is often colored by the worldly knowledge that death is indeed everyone's eventual visitor. Temptation, sure: people who play with Exu are definitely playing with fire. Do the right thing? Well who's to say exactly what that is anyway: is God really a micro-manager? We make plans but things don't always (usually?) go as we hope they will. Enter the little devils.

Which brings me to what I'd actually like to contemplate, which is what I'm going to call the lesser evil of lesser evilism in American politics, our very own political little devil.

When I was a child in Chicago in the 1960s, I remember a senatorial election in which my very political parents announced they were supporting Charles Percy, a liberal (inconceivable now) Republican. I remember telling all my little friends at school that I was a Republican! At age eight I wasn't yet hip to the complexities of Chicago politics and given the progressive liberal atmosphere I grew up in, this seemed sort of logical given the dark and looming machine of the first mayor Dailey who was anything but progressive. Of course two years later as my parents dove into working for a succession of anti-war Democratic Party presidential candidates in 1968 I remember eating a bit of crow as I went around telling my little friends that I was now a Democrat. Well, we know how that ended.

Fast forward to the heady days of my young adulthood. At college I became a communist and soon learned the lessons of Leninism: the Republicans and the Democrats are the twin pillars of American capitalism, tweedle-dum to tweedle-dee. Any difference between the two was surely cosmetic, and the elaborate dancing exchange between the two a well-rehearsed trick to keep the working people from exercising their own independent class power. There might be publicity value in fielding a leftwing third party candidate, but the slogan of the hour was, "Don't Vote, They're All the Same!" And dutifully, that is what I did. And, speaking of evils that aren't so lesser, in 1980 Ronald Reagan was elected president.

The left was minuscule in 1980; its influence was nil. It wasn't their fault. But I soon learned that, in fact, "they" weren't all the same. Ronald Reagan turned out be a very bad man, and he did some very bad things, including laughing and whistling while quite a few of my friends contracted the mysterious and then always-fatal AIDS. Say what you will about the cannibalistic unsustainability inherent in capitalism, Reagan and his inane trickle-down economic theories are one of the reasons the American economy is in shithole today. And while it's simplistic to ascribe the death of the left only to Ronald Reagan, nevertheless it was during his presidency that the organized Marxist left, whether or not it was overtly sympathetic to the Soviet Union or not, followed the Soviet Union into the dustbin of history. Left parties that had thousands of members soon had dozens of members; left sectlets that had hundreds of members soon had none.

Anyway by the time 1988 came around I was no longer convinced that voting in presidential elections was irrelevant. Like many leftists I worked on the Jesse Jackson campaign, which it must be said, was inside the Democratic Party. Of course he lost. I set aside organized political activism shortly thereafter.

There is a very intelligent Maoist website called Kasama. Once upon a time that would have been quite a nonsequitur, but now two decades on from the fall of the Soviet Union and well into the revolutionary egalitarian democracy of the internet, all sorts of leftists are leaving the worst of their dogmatic trappings behind and trying to regain their footing. Kasama has initiated a discussion of the upcoming elections based on the lessons of Obama. I contemplated participating in this discussion as it's one of the handful of leftist sites I read daily. But I was immediately confronted by the reality of my position: I voted for Obama, and so far, I plan to vote for him again. Because the main point of many leftists, Kasama included, remains: don't vote, they're all the same. Kasama and other leftists I've read say that the Democrats are whipping up fear of the teabaggers to scare people into supporting Democrats. My response is, yes, I'm scared!

The great American socialist Eugene Debs had an opinion on lesser evilism: "It is better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it." A beautiful quote but I'm not sure that in our current era it's true. Elections have results; one side always wins. It would be great if there was a viable electoral alternative to the Democratic Party. It would be great if the great majority of working people organized themselves in their own class interest and rejected the Democrats who are always selling them (us!) out. But there is not... yet. Leftists, and I do count myself on that side, should advocate for independence and try to raise consciousness and condemn the actions of both Republicans and Democrats that need condemning. But at the same time we do this, I believe it is necessary to recognize the reality of the balance of forces in society and vote for viable candidates, which usually means Democrats. In 2000 many many leftists got behind the independent candidacy of Ralph Nader (with, I would argue, many many right-wing independent voters since "independent" voting in the United States is in recent history almost always right-wing populism). The result? A close election went to George Bush, the right-wing Republican. We can see from the 2000, 2008 and 2010 elections how it is not irrelevant who wins an election.

President Obama and the Democrats have done some terrible terrible things. They have continued old wars and started new ones. They have continued to steal from working people and rewarded the rich and the corporations. They have continued to erode civil liberties. They will inadequately defend the social safety net that is being whittled away. All these things are true: each one of these things makes me furious... including being furious at myself for believing that Obama's sometimes brilliant lofty speeches meant anything at all. But if you're frustrated by President Obama, imagine President Palin or President Trump or President Bachmann or even President Pawlenty or President Christie, and be very, very afraid. That's not fear-mongering, that is the real choice before us.

I am utterly unconvinced by today's left discounting the danger from the right wing. I don't know if it's because as a gay man I'm sensitive to things that many straight white people don't see or what, but I think the left's failure to identify the teabagger movement as nascent fascism is a crucial mistake. The mainstream media like the New York Times have been busy perpetuating this absolute myth, no make that lie, that the so-called Tea Party is all about economic issues and not about the social conservatism that has been festering on the right wing for decades. Perhaps it's because the leaders of the "Tea Party" are so careful to stick to their coded dogwhistle approach, it's hard to pin them down. But anyone who cares to look can see that this new right-wing is deeply and profoundly racist and antigay; its mixture of populism and corporatism is missing only the brown shirts or white sheets. History does not repeat itself exactly: the fact that the teabaggers have not mobilized actual lynch mobs is I think irrelevant, given the right-wing infiltration of the military and militia movement. The Democrats and elections will not, I don't think, be able to defeat this new rightwing threat, but I believe for now, until the left finds a way to make itself relevant again, Democratic victories may stave off the worst of it.

Obama and the Democrats are going to do what they're going to do. I'm not so naive as to believe that "we" can do something like "hold their feet to the fire." This is the president of U.S. Imperialism we're talking about: it's in his job description, his very nature, to do terrible terrible things. But at local levels especially, leftists should be weighing the possibility of finding viable, not symbolic, candidates who can begin to change the game.

That game will change only when the Democratic and Republican parties explode and factionalize. While the people -- the working class if you will -- have tremendous power and social weight, they don't know it. And that's the task of leftists I think, not to build better sectlets and tiny little parties like they tried -- and failed at -- before. But to focus on raising the self-awareness of the people who should be fighting back against the class war of the rich people. I'm not sure I call myself a Marxist anymore, that's true. But in today's world I'm just not sure what the hell that means anymore. The Marxist left has always said that the revolution will not come from the ballot box. Okay then: I'm not seeing any revolution from outside the ballot box on its way, at least in this country. But that election's happening whether any of us like it or not. While we're building the idea of the world that could be, let's commit a little lesser evil and participate in the world that is.

Better the little devil you know?

UPDATE: I feel compelled, almost four years later, to say I'm extremely glad that I changed my mind from this piece, and in the 2012 elections decided to no longer vote for Democrats. Indeed, I question the process of voting in the United States as being singularly delusional and worthless. It strikes me now that Democrats, far from being a lesser evil, are the more effective evil, siphoning off social movements and sending them off to die. The kind of cynical realism I mused with at this stage of my life was thankfully and forcefully unravelled by participation in the Occupy movement. #LessVotingMoreRevolution


(This is part of a continuing series of meditations on the archetypal Mexican Loteria bingo cards. For earlier essays in the series click here.)

A Little Sunday Churchifying

This is one of my favorite songs by the late Donny Hathaway, "Thank You Master for My Soul." It's a sublime combination of gospel vocalizing and jazz instrumental harmonies, and was recorded back in 1970. Tragically Donny Hathaway committed suicide later that decade while under treatment for depression. But here he sings of profound spiritual gratitude and reverence. He sings of human frailty and divine redemption, presenting to my ear anyway a profound optimism and sense of perspective, once again a valuable touchstone in troubled times. I don't go to church every Sunday -- not my thing -- but Sunday is as good a day as any for a moment of reverence and reflection.

Perspective

Oya-Yansa is the Yoruba Queen of the Winds of change. She is feared by many people because She brings about sudden structural change in people and things. Oya does not just rearrange the furniture in the house -- She knocks the building to the ground and blows away the floor tiles. She is the cyclone and the earthquake. Oya fans Her skirts and blows the branches from the trees; should She choose to cry, torrential rains fall on the earth. She is the Mother of Mind. She can impart genius, restore memory, or slap you with insanity. Oya opens Her mouth, flicks out Her tongue, and lightning strikes.... No one can be certain of Oya's movement; no one can capture Her smile. She is the mistress of disguises. yesterday Oya was a gentle lamb; today, a buffalo trampling the earth beneath Her feet. Tomorrow She'll be a rainbow -- maybe.
--Yoruba/Santeria priestess Luisah Teish in "Jambalaya"



I heard they exploded the underground blast
They say its gonna happen - gonna happen at last
That's the way it appears
They tell me the faultline runs right through here
So that maybe that may be
What's gonna happens gonna happen to me
They tell me the faultline runs right through here
Atlantis will rise, Sunset Boulevard will fall
Where the beach used to be won't be nothing at all
That's the way it appears
They tell me the faultline runs right through here
So that maybe that may be
What's gonna happen's gonna happen to me
They tell me the faultline runs right through here
--Mama Cass Elliot, "California Earthquake" 1968


When I behold the heavens in their vastness,
Where golden ships in azure issue forth,
Where sun and moon keep watch upon the fastness
Of changing seasons and of time on earth.

And when at last the mists of time have vanished
And I in truth my faith confirmed shall see,
Upon the shores where earthly ills are banished
I’ll enter Lord, to dwell in peace with thee.
--"Oh Mighty God" 1925 Christian Hymn



Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
--Ecclesiastes


In a highway service station
Over the month of June
Was a photograph of the earth
Taken coming back from the moon
And you couldn't see a city
On that marbled bowling ball
Or a forest or a highway
Or me here least of all
You couldn't see these cold water restrooms
Or this baggage overload
Westbound and rolling taking refuge in the roads
--Joni Mitchell, Refuge of the Roads, 1976


(Photos of the ruins of the 1972 Managua, Nicaragua, earthquake taken by me in 1986.)

At the Sunset of Time

What would it be like to watch the the end of the society you know? To watch free thinking, philosophy and scientific exploration driven into the shadows as fake populist dogma turns regular people into mobs of violent know-nothings? No, it's not the Teabagger Story, it's a wonderful movie I just watched called "Agora." Directed by Spanish filmmaker Alejandro Amenábar and starring Rachel Weisz, Agora tells the story of the philosopher Hypatia in late Roman-empire Egypt. While apparently a big hit in Europe, the film received limited distribution in the U.S. and is just recently out on DVD.

Hypatia was the daughter of a noted Pagan philosopher and mathematician in the Hellenic tradition and became a noted figure in her own right. Rome had officially converted to Christianity in the fourth century, and by the time the movie is set in the early fifth century, Christianity is sweeping Alexandria and threatening the cultural balance in a cosmpolitan city where Pagans, Jews and Christians seem to exist in relative harmony. The Pagans guard the legacy of science and learning in their library where the rescued scrolls from the earlier classical library of Alexandria have been preserved. Christians sweep to power and their intolerance soon victimizes the Pagans and Jews. Since it's historical fact, it's not ruining the movie to note that it ends with Hypatia being accused of being a witch and being murdered by a Christian mob.

I found the movie quite moving. Where it could easily have been an average sword-and-sandal epic, it's actually quite brave in its narrative and sensibility, and quite spiritual in its contemplation of someone on the verge of cosmic understanding at the same time she sees the world around her descend into darkness. Rachel Weisz as Hypatia is given an unusual role: the brainy, intellectual heroine of the film, a woman who rejects sensual physicality in favor of more heady pursuits. The Pagans are depicted somewhat sympathetically, albeit as doomed effete slave-owners failing to keep up with the times. The film reserves its real venom for its portrayal of the dark-age Christians, suggesting them to be an Al-Qaeda-like band of unreasonable zealots hypnotized by bad thinking, and unhindered by doubt or self-exploration.

I'm fascinated that a movie was made this way. The Christians are clad in black, and their visual heaviness contrasts with the light and airy scenes of Pagan culture and society. They are shown to be unspeakably brutal in their attacks on the Pagans and their library, and later in a pogrom against the Jews of Alexandria. They call the scrolls in the library "Pagan filth" and considerable time is devoted to showing their disdain for any knowledge outside the word of God revealed in the Bible. I can't imagine a film like this being made in the United States.

The film's antihero is Davus, the slave -- later freed slave -- of Hypatia, whose bonds draw him to the social justice and charity promised by the Christians, but who ends up becoming a fanatical killer. Which, with no particular animus to my Christian friends, pretty much sums up the tragedy that religion seems to often bring upon itself when it overly dominates the public square (literally what "Agora" means). While this allegorical film casts its harshest eye on ancient Christianity, I do like to point out that Tibet, home to the peace-loving altruism of Buddhism, was home to a particularly aggressive military/feudal social structure replete with slavery abolished only midway through the last century. I'm equally certain the story of medieval Nigeria, where my Yoruba/Santeria tradition is rooted, is an unlovely tale of feudalism and slave trading.

In the end one must assume that director Amenábar is defending all manner of secularism against religious dogma; and that his allegorical portrayal of the Roman Empire on the cusp of the dark ages is meant to be a warning for our own times. The spiritual/religious person in me can only sharply agree. For if spirituality can unlock the world's most intimate secrets and bring comfort, fulfillment and peace to individuals and communities, history teaches us that it must remain separated from governance.