What I feel is “in error” is not the holding of a Dianic ritual for cis-women only. It is not that this ritual occurred at Pantheacon. It was that — after the events, pain, and discussions of the last year, with so many of us doing our level best to learn from one another — we had this ritual led by a public figure who has made hateful comments which she had not retracted, or even apologized for. That this was her only offering to the Pantheacon gathering this year made it feel like even more of a slap in the face to me.

True pluralism is not simple tolerance. Pluralism requires us to make honest attempts to listen to each other and learn from one another, especially in the midst of strong disagreement. We cannot form a healthy, viable community if we only ever agree, or if we only ever say “you do your thing, I will do mine, and mostly we will ignore each other in the name of mutual tolerance.”

If we want to work toward love and justice, we must hold each other accountable sometimes and say, “This cannot stand.” Sitting in silent meditation last night was the best way I could think of to peacefully and respectfully say that, despite Z’s potent contributions to the community, the hate speech has gone on for too long.

Last night, I heard the pain and confusion in Z’s voice as she attempted – and failed – to get through her prepared statement to those gathered. I can be with her in that pain and still want to hold her accountable for words and actions. Public figures, by our sheer weight of influence, hold an even greater responsibility to do our level best to keep the Beloved Community in mind. Z’s influence, as we know, is large. This is not, therefore, only about privately held views and personal religious rites. This is about public discourse.

Pluralism requires open discourse, helped along, when possible, by private conversations. It is up to all of us to steer this process, contributing as best we can. 

Last night, instead of speaking, I sat in the public square, as it were. Eighty nine others – of mixed genders and sexual preferences – sat as well. We sat in silence, and we prayed. Some also wept. 

Z. Budapest is part of our beloved community. I honor the work she and our foremothers have done to enable the rest of us to worship as we will. Sometimes we need to gently tell members of our beloved community that we feel they are in error. There are many ways to do this. Last year, we tried dialogue. Much was written and discussed on the issue of trans inclusion or exclusion. A whole conference was organized to help further this. An anthology was just published to continue the conversation. Steps were taken by CAYA, around whom much of last year’s controversy centered, to rectify the situation, including the planning of two rituals this year: one for self-identified women and one pan-Dianic rite for all genders.

The only words attributed to Z as part of the conversation of anger, exploration and healing last year felt ugly, hateful, and inflammatory to me, and this year, her one offering to our collective included the words “genetic women only.” After all the work so many put in last year, my heart could not let this stand unmarked. So I decided to engage in another form of dialogue: sitting in silence. Z has the right to perform her ritual. I have a right to sit outside in silence and prayer.

When Mary Daly died, as part of my obituary for her, I wrote these words, many of which could be applied to Z:

“The Goddess Movement would not be the same without her. Contemporary Paganism would not be the same without the Goddess Movement. The radical essentialism of thinkers like Daly was a challenge to the pole that said “only men can communicate with the divine”. That pillar that she went up against? Mostly it has changed, leaving behind laughable relics, some of whom unfortunately still hold a measure of power. Yes, inequality still exists and yes, I am still a feminist, but things have gotten better. Much, much better. I don’t know if Mary Daly was able to see the battles she actually won.”

Women like Budapest and Daly have challenged privilege. For this, I remain grateful. Those who challenge privilege are also well served to examine our own. To write of privilege – and indeed this current situation at Pantheacon – would take more nuance than I have time for this morning before preparing for the first of many panels I participate in today, but all we have to do is read the roster of women murdered each year for being trans to know that oppression of trans women is a stark reality. Our culture privileges normative gender expression.

The only reason I am writing at all this morning is that Yeshe Rabbit issued a challenge I am not an opponent of Z Budapest, Yeshe Rabbit. She is part of the Beloved Community, and as such, I will hold her in the quiet spaces of my heart, between 8:45 and 9:15 tonight.

I will attempt to hold us all, to the best of my abilities.

Respectfully – T. Thorn Coyle

My heart feels pensive. If the heart can think, then today, mine is preoccupied. Not quite sad, though tinged with sadness, but moving between heaviness and lightness, between sorrow and deep joy, between optimism and unknowing.

Thousands of Americans are living in tent cities right now as homes stand empty. 47 million live below the poverty line. People repeatedly ask the Occupy movement what its demands are. No one asks these other tent dwellers for their demands. They simply hope that they will fade into obscurity, and that the rest of us won’t share their fate. Few want to look poverty in the eye or shake its hand, fearing its contagion. This fear impoverishes us all.

Last Friday I went on retreat with the Interfaith Tent at Occupy Oakland. By the time I joined this group, they were tentless, because of tents, umbrellas, shelter canopies and altar objects being repeatedly taken away, as Occupiers are arrested, and icons, bells, and candles thrown into the trash. We built a small altar for the day together. I brought a picture of the Weld Angel, a situationist beauty from Tasmania, white gown and wings that rose high into the canopy of trees. I also brought the replica of an ancient statue of the Goddess Freya. Goddess of love, sensuality, and prosperity, she also rides a battle boar – sometimes said to be her human lover in disguise – and has first choice of those slain in battle, taking heroes to her hall. She herself is a hostage, having been traded, along with her brother, Freyr, to keep relative peace between the homes of Gods and Elves. As such, she builds a bridge between love and battle, and a bridge between otherwise warring realms. In her strength, she keeps the peace.

We can call upon her to help build bridges too. We can build a bridge between heart and mind. Between love and action. We can stand up for what we cherish. We can build bridges with and among each other, bridges of courage and love.

Greece is on fire. Nigerians live in poverty while their government thrives. Drones, long seen in Pakistani skies, are soon to fly over the U.S. Peaceful protestors are gassed and beaten. Children starve. Forests are decimated. Fish are gasping. Whales, confused.

Yet all is not bleak, says my heart. There is still art made, and songs are rising from our throats. Ravens call. Children chase each other. Flowers bloom. Kindness is offered and connection made. We can build bridges with and among one another. We are.

Some things tear us apart. Can we name them? Some things feel frightening. Can we call on courage, and look them in the eye? This is a time of tearing down and great rebuilding. What can we till, and plant, and sprout? What bricks can be laid, or tents raised in sunny fields?

What heroes can we be, to live for love, and ride this love to battle? Some things are just worth fighting for, with love. Least you think I speak of the violence of guns, molotov cocktails, or rocks, know that I do not. I speak of fighting with our hearts, our minds, our bodies. I speak of fighting with our art, our music, our poetry. I speak of fighting by standing, arms linked, against the powers that would suppress us. I speak of simply looking at a stranger, and saying “Hello.” Of offering help when we might otherwise walk away. I speak of learning that we are mutually obliged to love one another, because without this love, community falls apart, and then the world.

Where are you fighting petty skirmishes that can be lain down? What is the greater task you can pick up and work toward? Come together. Come to grace. Come to beauty. Come to love.

We can learn to take care of each other, governments be damned (or as we work, perhaps transformed). We shall govern ourselves, by daily choosing to ride love into the battle for what matters.

Will you? With me. Hold out one hand. And then the other. We encircle a world.

Today, I welcome rain falling to the sidewalks, plants, and streams. I wish for shelter for all in need.

As a Californian, who has often lived with drought, who sees the fights for water rights to green the lawns of desert, grow food in dry valleys, and dam great rivers for electrical power and to drink, I always welcome rain. As someone who has worked with the homeless population of San Francisco off and on for 20 years, I am ever aware of those who sleep outdoors, on scraps of cardboard, under makeshift shelters, or simply rolled in a blanket on concrete. Rain makes stark the needs of land and people.

There is injustice here, and issues too myriad to trace without years of thought and long conversations among friends. There is also a reflection of our place in things. What in our lives is both a blessing and bringer of discomfort? What do we desire that may cause pain? In interlocking, flowing systems each thing affects another. What is our relationship to this flow? How do we live and move in joy when we must eat? We find a way. We acknowledge that we must do our best to be in right relationship and that this will never look like perfect activity. There is no purity here in this gorgeous manifestation. There is only the ant, carrying a crumb back to the hill. There is only the child, born into love and strife. There is only the tree, growing proudly from polluted soil. There is only you, finding a way to live, today.

Let’s choose to live our best in every moment, as we can. Let’s free ourselves from punishment and shame.

Enjoy what you can, and work to heal the rest. Both are vital.

Exalted One!
You who kindle flames on every hill,
For you, we light the fires.

Exalted One!
You who give the thirsty ones to drink,
To you, we proffer water.

Exalted One!
You who shape the silver and the gold,
To you, we give adornment.

Exalted One!
You who inspire poetry and song,
To you, we sing.

Exalted One!
You who tend the birthing of the lambs,
For you, we give thanks!

Exalted One!
You who heal our bodies, minds, and souls,
For you, we dance!

We raise our cups of water, wine, and beer. In the light of glimmering candles, we feast, read poetry, and dance. We raise our voices, to praise your name: Brigid of the greening land, Brigid of the morning bright, Fiery Arrow, Protector, Blessed One! We offer thanks for all the gifts we now possess, and the gifts that are to come. Hail!

—-
This poem is part of the 7th Annual Brigid Online Poetry Festival.

We love the Bright Twin too. S/he is beautiful and sunny, filling us with thoughts of love. She paints the world in gorgeous colors, and causes spontaneous bursts of laughter or dancing.

But somehow s/he doesn’t hook us in quite the same way as that dark sibling.

This was evidenced on Saturday, as I met my compatriots from the Interfaith Tent at Occupy Oakland to support the group that wanted to utilize an abandoned building to build a community center, with a library, art space, and a food kitchen. The day was filled with sun, children with balloons and brightly colored signs, music, dancing, and smiles. The Bright Twin was there.

The City of Oakland had other ideas. I cannot claim to know them all, but the first polarization was already occurring in that the City claimed the Occupiers were set on vandalizing a building, and planned to stop them. Different viewpoints were in play before the day even began. The Divine Twins walked among us.

Hundreds of photos were taken – including my own, dozens of times – of the smiling faces, the music… the Bright Twin showing hir face. Not one of those photos made it into what we call “mainstream media”. Why? The Dark Twin can seem even more beautiful than hir brother/sister. Photos of smoke bombs, tear gas, flash grenades and things on fire capture our hearts in a way that smiling children just don’t seem to. There is an excitement about it that we don’t see every day. There is money in it.

But it isn’t just about the unusual and monetization. It is about ourselves. How many times have you sat around a table with friends, discussing theology, philosophy, politics, your community, or your kids? How many times has the conversation changed to one filled with complaining? In struggling toward a world we want to live in, it is common to focus on what feels irritating or troubling. It is also common for that to take over our thoughts and conversations. The allure of the Dark Twin catches us once again.

Least you think I malign the Dark Twin here, know I do not. Both twins are gifts from the seamless whole, each reflects a face of God Herself. Without them both, showing us varying facets of this dance of life, we would have a hard time learning and growing. We need the push and pull, the tears and laughter, the lust and love, the joy and anger. We require it all to become strong.

The Divine Twins rest within each of us, and they also walk among us. They are in the riot police. They are in the children, carrying balloons. The are in the diesel party bus and the stalwart walkers. We don’t honor them enough. If we honored them more clearly, we could recognize their faces, and not begin to demonize that which we think we know. We don’t know, because we fail to see the reflections of our own faces, right in front of us.

So, at the end of a bright and beautiful day, what is left? Images of fire, and smoke, and conflict. What will I remember most? That in the midst of that, were people singing.

I am writing about life, of course, but also want to caution us to read any news with a critical gaze. Ask yourself: “How are they trying to hook in my emotions? What are they not reporting? What skews their view and manipulates mine?”

This happens all the time. I saw it on Saturday in Oakland, and I saw it last Friday in San Francisco, where every few blocks was another street party, more music and color. I saw two large bank headquarters shut down for a whole business day. I saw interfaith leaders coming together. I saw dancing and laughter. I saw courts occupied and people educated at corporations. What was reported by mainstream news? That the day was a failure and ended with broken windows and a stand off between police and protestors after dark.

The Dark Twin wins many battles in the contest for our minds and hearts. The Bright Twin has just as much strength, and is present every day, all around us. Which do we notice more? Which do we preference? Can we hold them both, within ourselves, in love?

“We are unstoppable. Another world is possible!” All it takes is love, and time.

—-
Middle photo by Stephen Lam of Reuters. Other two from my camera

EDIT with Important Update:
My post was written from a spiritual/philosophical viewpoint. Below is a really good recounting of the day from someone who was there from start to finish. I was at the march from the beginning, through the convention center and street “battle” near the Oakland Museum and left right before the marchers reconvened at the Plaza. I can attest to the truth of this report up until the night marches – which I only followed on livestream. The description of the night marches sounds accurate to me also, from what I saw on livestream and from reports from Interfaith compatriots who were caught up in the arrests. If you want more information on the activity of Saturday, please read Boogie Man’s account.

May we work with love and peace, for justice.

Let your soul rise to meet your life. Let body, emotions, and mind shift toward this matrix of union. You can be whole, and reflect a more clearly ordered world. You can weave the chaos into light. When you choose to be continuous, you choose to change the world. You choose freedom over complacency. You choose revolution over comfort. You choose to shine instead of hide. You choose to polish the places where grit has accrued, and learn something in the pain and joy of polishing. You are gorgeous and complete. Let your pain and suffering become places where the waters meet the shore. Things live in that liminal space that live nowhere else on earth. Let these things grow. The context for your life is the cosmos. The iron in your blood comes from the stars. Stop thinking small, unless you think of atoms. Dive toward that sort of smallness, ever multiplying, so small it becomes vast. The small view that causes us to forget both stars and atoms is a smallness we can no longer afford. We are simple: part of Hir body. We are human. We are those who know and those who perform tasks. Angels and demons, animals and Gods. We are everything, if we allow ourselves to be. Look inside, and look around. Can you gaze on self and other with eyes now cleansed by love? This is how we heal, repair, and grow: we allow that which has been ruptured to come home. Home is everywhere.

 “I’m willing to put myself in harms way for my human & constitutional rights & those of others, but not for those that would condone violence.” - Spencer Mills (OakFoSho, citizen journalist, from his Twitter feed)

Dr. King, as we all know, was a champion of non-violent civil disobedience, social justice, the support of worker’s rights, and increasingly before his assassination, the end to war. The greatness of Dr. King rests not with his prodigious mind, his powerful oration, his ability to organize, or his charisma. The greatness of Dr. King rests in what Gandhi called satyagraha: the marriage of truth with the power of the soul to uphold that truth. It is sometimes translated as the insistence that the means bring about the ends, so it speaks to a consistency that must well up from within the individual to permeate society. If the person is acting from hatred or violence, this will permeate her soul, and permeate her actions, which in turn, permeate both the means and the outcome.

This is a hard lesson, because it requires of us a scrupulous attention not only to our hearts, minds, and souls, but to the ripple effect of our actions. What is the logical end to the means of our tactics? What effects do our tactics have, first on our selves and then on our social movement? We see the effects of greed and tacit violence all around us: suicidal iPad factory workers, families living in indentured servitude, poisoned water, clear-felled mountains. The means are clearly reflected in these ends. There is no satyagraha at work, no self-examination and insistence upon the soul’s truth has caused those who orchestrate these systems to recognize the way their choices in the boardroom affect everything that follows.

In Occupy Oakland, there is disagreement over “diversity of tactics”, a phrase that means each person or autonomous group within the larger whole can decide its best course of action, including property destruction or throwing projectiles from the back of the crowd, toward the lines of police. This is causing dissension, so much so that citizen journalist OakFoSho, en route to “Occupy Congress” was wandering the streets of New York last night sending out bleak tweets about his love for #OO and his despair at the fact that he did not know if he belonged there anymore. Why? Because he consistently speaks for non-violence and has apparently been severely criticized by other members of the movement.

I also speak for non-violence, and yet have at times argued that property destruction is not necessarily a violent tactic, or one that undermines satyagraha. I have Christian friends who are Plowshares activists. I honor the local legacy of the Black Panther Party. I have even spoken up for Black Bloc in the past. I point out that a smashed window is not to be put in the same class as smashed communities and lives. Yet I myself have had to shift my own tactics over the years in order to follow the call of satyagraha. Even shouting of slogans began to undermine the power of the truth in my soul. I took to other means to support justice: organizing meditation at large actions, feeding people every week, providing porta-potties to Occupy campers, offering free training to activists, marching when it feels necessary. None of these are grand actions, but everyone has a small part to play in bringing about a world in which love and consideration hold sway, sowing justice.

Along with the question of “does smashing windows or throwing projectiles bring us closer to satyagraha?” I also have to ask, when are these tactics effective? When Jose’ Bove’ dismantled a McDonald’s restaurant, he did so to call the world’s attention to the plight of French small farmers. He knew something needed to be done, and organized his community to help. This act of property destruction was not the act of a man high on adrenaline, overtaken by strong emotions and a need to act out. It was a clearly thought out strategy that involved people from all facets of the community. It was a strategy whose power was witnessed globally, providing inspiration and galvanization for people in far flung places.

Occupy has also provided inspiration. As long as Occupy Activists continue to choose smart tactics that bring communities together to demand a more just society, it will continue to be a success and we can continue to work in various ways to build a society based on mutual respect, creativity, love, and justice. As long as some Occupy Activists continue to choose to smash windows, light fires, and hurl bottles in small skirmishes with police on the streets after dark, the movement runs the risk of alienating the rest of the community that brought out 10,000 people to shut down the Port of Oakland in November.

By changing discourse in the US to put the problems of gross inequity at the forefront, Occupy has already accomplished a huge thing. There has been a great awakening. On the other hand, without a commitment to non-violence, the parents I saw New Years Day who brought their children out on scooters and in baby strollers to the Oscar Grant memorial march, or the workers who blockaded the port and shut down banks, are likely to drift away, crippling any further actions on the part of this great social movement.

The legacy of the Black Panthers in the Bay Area comes from the amazing work they did making sure children were getting fed, medical care was provided, and people received a radical education not offered anywhere else. That is what has lasted. While I, raised a working class white person, cannot begin to criticize their insistence on having guns for self-protection, I also know that it was not violence that made the Panthers effective. It was the deep love they had for the people they were serving. Service, based in love – including a great anger that arises because those that you love are being hurt – is part of satyagraha. That is what changes culture in the long run.

On this day in which we honor Dr. King’s birth, I give thanks to all the activists who came before me so that I can even have the privilege to ponder these lessons.

May we continue to strive to not only speak truth to power, but to live powerfully from our truth.

Please take 23 minutes to listen to Dr. Kings’ speech on his opposition to the war in Vietnam. It is important.

Photo taken by me, of our signs at the Oscar Grant memorial march in Oakland, CA New Year’s Day.

 

This morning, pale light shining in the darkness of the living room drew me west in my home, instead of east where I usually do my morning sitting practice, exercise, and altar work. I looked to the deep blue sky slowly lightening to turquoise, and there was the moon – gibbous, on the wane from full – peaking through the branches of the tall sycamore. Instead of going to my altar for my usual morning practices, I decided to make a cup of tea and do some moon gazing first.

Communing with the moon, I heard the rattling of bottles and saw a man with his cart, collecting recycling. This caused me to wonder if our housemate had remembered to take down our bottles. Back into the kitchen I went, gathering the bottles to take out into the cool morning air, saying, “Excuse me!” The man stopped and came toward me, proffering his plastic bag to receive the glass.

He rattled away, about his business. I went back to the moon.

There are always things occurring that we are not waiting for. When we open to the unexpected, to some measure of spaciousness and listening, we make connections that help us to deepen. These shift something in our hearts and souls. Even if it is only for a second in the midst of some task like getting the kids off to school, rushing to finish a paper for class, or hurrying back from lunch, if we can pause internally, sometimes a tugging will say to us, “Look here!” or “Listen!”

Open to the voice that spoke beneath my ability to consciously hear, this morning I turned west instead of east, and found the moon, a beacon, a benediction, a bright thing enjoining me to take a moment and notice something new. My day will go differently because of that moon, and I was already gifted with an encounter I would not have otherwise had. Our lives can be full of the same things, over and over, and those simple things are helpmeets, if we notice them. But all too often, we allow them to become a wash, a backdrop, neither seen nor heard, just there. Until they aren’t. Sometimes we miss them, and other times, we just notice that something in life is slightly more irritating than before, but we’re not sure why.

Today, can you slow down with me for at least one moment? Can you draw a breath who’s inhalation and expulsion requires at least six seconds in its cycling? Recall your feet upon the ground, and notice the stillness at your core. In this moment, what is in front of you? What asks you to listen? What enjoins you to look up instead of down, or left instead of right? Can you allow yourself a moment to hear and see?

We don’t know what we’ll encounter. That’s a good thing. The universe is filled with surprises, gifts of earth and air, of someone needing help, or the morning moon offering a new perspective: yes, we are grounded on this planet, and together, we also tilt in space, reflecting beautiful light.