Embodying the abundant universe

(From the Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert)

I believe as a tenet of faith that the universe--the Goddess, the Mother--provides what we need in abundance. Always.

This belief doesn't reside in my intellect, if you will, but in my gut. My brain easily generates myriad reasons why this belief is false; begin with the reality of poverty. But my belief, which relies on faith, isn't so much a proposition against which to marshal arguments. It is, rather, a way of understanding the world. It functions like a background assumption. (I'm well aware of problems with confirmation bias, but I'm not doing science here. Grant me poetic license.)

I think that whether or not this belief (or way of understanding the world) comes easily to you depends on the circumstances of your early life. That's not to say that we can't come to believe that the universe provides for our needs in abundance even if the circumstances of early life were meager in the relevant sense. The first step in coming to believe is realizing that we believe otherwise; for example, to realize that we're acting from an assumption of penury, that we believe fundamentally that life is hard, that we're its victims, that we're undeserving, that things never get better, that people are out to get us. Thus we uncover our operating assumptions. We work to accept that we have them (and acceptance is no small feat, though I give it short shrift here). And we begin to pay attention to all the hints we're given that assumptions of scarcity are false. When people make gratitude a practice, that's what they're doing: they're paying attention; they're counting their blessings.

(I've had a hard time with the idea of practicing gratitude because I have an old belief that I don't deserve my many blessings. Gratitude is, in my mind, and for biographical reasons, linked with feelings of guilt and undeservingness.)

Very early in one's life sojourn, one learns on a basic, physical, preverbal level that the universe provides for one's needs, or one learns that it doesn't. I think I'm lucky; I got the message, somehow, that my needs would be met. Maybe I carried that belief into this life with me. (My "soul card," in tarot, is the Empress. Both my rising sign and my Pluto carry the message, too.) Maybe my faith formed as the result of responsive early mothering. (Thanks, Mom!) Things--mostly thoughts--have happened to occlude my faith, but I think that at its foundation it's solid. It is a glorious piece of luck.

I know that as I spend these early weeks with my child, my one task, as I see it, is literally to embody for him the abundant universe. He's still coming into this life; he's new here. How is the world as he finds it? There is a lot of big, scary, uncertain stuff that he doesn't need to know about yet. But he is almost always held. We hold him bare skin against bare skin. We hold him in the sunlight streaming through our bedroom windows. We carry him, we sleep next to him, we wear him in a sling. He is never away from us. He is never left alone. We sing and babble and kiss him and make jokes. He is always fed when, or even before, he asks. There is plenty to eat. He is kept dry and clean and warm. That big, loud beast, the dog, is his friend. He shows no fear.

And there is a huge, excited, welcoming, loving community holding him and his parents. We were held during the birth by an extended network of friends. Witches worked magic for him. Astrologers watched the sky. Gifts continue to arrive. People come to visit. Home-cooked dinners appear on our doorstep every other day; his body is literally being built by the community. I'm in awe of the generosity, love, and good will engendered by this small being.

He affirms my faith in all things good.

Baptism

(The Guardian [Queen] of Water from the Gaian Tarot, by Joanna Powell Colbert)

Still no internet connection at the new homestead, so blogging hasn't been possible. That should change today. Also, things have been a bit hectic while trying to get settled in the new house.

My dad called Sunday morning and said, "is it true that you're not going to baptize your kid?" Oh boy. Talking to my mom later that morning, she said, oh yeah, he's really upset about that, he keeps saying "that's the final straw, I'm disowning her." (What you need to know about my blustery but very loving parents: they would never disown me. Dad threatened to disown me for having a child outside of legal wedlock, but then he helped us with the down payment for our new house, so you can see how that goes. They adore Adonis, and my mom says that we have the best marriage of anyone she knows--except for the part where we're not married.) Both my parents would prefer that we have the baby baptized. My sister, who is a formidable advocate for us, told them that I wasn't going to do things the way they would have me do them, so they just have to suck it up and let it go. My mom is actually kind of adjusting to this idea. Oh but it's difficult for me, the oldest and always a good girl, to "let them down" by doing things my own way.

Why not baptize the baby? Well, there is the obvious reason that Christianity is not my religion anymore. But that's not my main reason. I would even consider baptizing my baby for my parents' sake if I could get past the symbolism of baptism. Yet I believe strongly in the symbolic value of ritual, and how ritual enactment in part constitutes reality. The ritual message of baptism is this: human beings are born innately sinful, in pain and blood from a woman's body, products of a sinful act; being born human, from sexual intercourse, and of a woman necessitates purification, the cleansing with holy water. And to this I say, bullshit. Human beings are not innately sinful. To be born in the midst of blood, sweat, shit, and ecstasy is a holy thing.

I like the idea of an elemental blessing. I imagine that at a Wiccaning or Pagan baby naming ceremony, though I've never attended one, the child is blessed with earth and fire, water and air. In becoming human we become one with the elements, and to enact that symbolically seems a good thing. So we'll have a ceremony, and there will be a sacred cup filled with water, but the ritual will be something altogether other than a Christian baptism.

Desire's end, part I

In Atlanta this past weekend, visiting my friend Scrivener for his birthday, I met Rahim and his partner, both of whom I took to immediately. Rahim asked me about the name of this blog. While I wrote a bit about it way back in the beginning, I've been meaning to revisit the concept of desire. My belief in the goodness of human desire is one thing that drew me to Wicca. So it may seem strange, on the face of it, that (what I take to be) a central and singular text of our thealogy, the Charge of the Goddess, declares that the divine is that which is attained at desire's end. It sounds a little like a common misunderstanding about Buddhism: that to be holy, to reach enlightenment, we must rid ourselves of our desires. I don't think Buddhism teaches that, and I don't think the Charge does, either. But it does pose a puzzle--perhaps a Wiccan koan--and I'd like to worry it a little.

The Charge of the Goddess is a poem written, or channeled, by Doreen Valiente. (The text I quote here is Starhawk's adaptation.) The Charge has much to say about the primacy of desire in human experience. For example,

Sing, feast, dance, make music and love, all in my Presence, for Mine is the ecstasy of the spirit and Mine also is joy on earth. For My love is law unto all beings.

Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.

The Pagani tend to like a good time: feasting, drinking, dancing naked around bonfires, singing, drumming, dressing in costume, joking, pulling pranks. Oh, and the sex. Pagans, generally speaking, have sex-positive, libertarian, and libertine values around sex. Sex, like other expressions and experiences of embodiment, is a sacred part of our spirituality (sacred, that is, when it's not profane, if that's what turns you on).

But while we often emphasize the fun aspects of human embodiment--the acts of pleasure--a well-developed Wiccan thealogy, I believe, would also express the sacraments of our bodies sick and in pain; scarred from trauma or abuse; aging, dying. What matters is being present in our bodies, and that can be as difficult during acts of pleasure as it can be when we're in pain. A worthwhile practice for any Pagan, and really anyone at all, I believe, is to practice being present in one's own body. Such presence can be cultivated in various ways: breath work, body work, meditation, yoga, and ritual.

Sickness, pain, and death aren't signs of our fallen nature, as at least some versions of Christianity would have it. From a thealogical perspective, it doesn't make sense to long to be free from our bodies anymore than we long to be free of this earth. (And part of being Pagan, I believe, is to take pleasure in the earth, really to love it, know it, treat it with respect, and give thanks for its abundant gifts.) Reincarnation makes a lot of sense to me as an expression of Pagan thealogy; hey, we get to come back. Reincarnation with the hopeful goal of finally getting off the wheel, of being free from incarnation, makes no sense to me at all.

What then do we make of the final line of the Charge?

For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.

Where is the end of desire? Does it happen in death? When we get to heaven? When we reunite with the oneness of the universe? When we reach enlightenment? When we're really lucky...and thank goddess we don't have to feel the tug of these human bodies anymore? Is the end of desire a desirable state, something we should pursue or at least look forward to? Desire seems essential to being human, in a body, and that is something we Pagani hold sacred. So why is the end something to be attained?

Beltane blessings

Beltane blessings to you all this week, whether you celebrate on the traditional May 1 or the more solarly accurate (this year) May 5. Me, I've declared this week the week of Beltane. The May full moon (sun in Taurus, Moon in Scorpio) is also the Buddhist lunar holiday Wesak, the serendipitous date on which the Buddha was born, attained enlightenment, and died.

This year, I feel strongly that Beltane is a holiday about the body. Of course it's a sex holiday. And it's the time of year, where I live, when we can finally remove a few layers of clothing and stretch our limbs to the sun. I find that I want to be outside more and move more. All of a sudden there are more dogs and people walking through the neighborhood. I'm seeing folks again on the streets whom I literally haven't seen since last fall.

But while we Wiccans pride ourselves in honoring our bodies, for me that's often a nice abstract principle rather than a real practice. Being present in the body means both being present in the now and accepting what we find here without judgment. I've been experiencing a lot of emotional turbulence lately, and while my mind can whip me into a frenzy of fear and loathing, it's my body that I can rely on to tell me the truth about how I'm feeling. Yet I strongly resist taking time to be still and listen.

I recently read Dancing in the Dharma, Sandy Boucher's lovely book about her teacher, Ruth Denison. Ruth teaches an innovative form of Buddhist practice that emphasizes awareness of and reverence for the body. (I picture her as the Martha Graham of Buddhism.) Ruth also has a gift for working with people who are seriously mentally ill. She brings them to her home and meditation center in the California desert and gives them manual work - literally, work to do with their hands. She has observed that coming back to the body is the first step in regaining mental health and a measure of equilibrium. When I'm struggling with depression, as I have been recently, the first things to attend to are getting enough sleep, eating enough nutritious food, and exercising every day. Also, getting outside, into nature, and being with my dog. In other words, getting out of my head and into my body.

The pleasures of embodiment are many. Of course, there is also suffering, but that is only part of life. Wicca, more than most other contemporary religions, teaches pleasure in our bodies for its own sake. This is what is holy: our animal bodies and their mother, the earth. Happy Beltane.