I’ve been organizing two Starhawk workshops here in Madison, so that’s why I haven’t been blogging recently. That’s the bad news. But the good news is that I hope to include an interview with her on this site in about two weeks. Who knows whether she’ll talk about Israel and Palestine, permaculture, the WTO, Wicca, or all of the above. She’s a multifaceted person, and the interveiw may be wide-ranging.

In other pagan news, many of you know that the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs had a problem with religious bigotry about five years back. Evangelical Christian cadets harassed other cadets who didn’t share their faith. There were anti-semitic slurs. And one of the chaplains claimed she was fired for criticizing the proselytizing that was going on. Even the Yale Divinity School issued a report on religious intolerance at the academy.

After much work to correct these problems, there seems to be greater openness in Colorado. In a few weeks, Earth-centered religions– including Wicca, Neopaganism, and Druidism — will dedicate their own worship space. This sacred site will increase the collection of worship areas at the academy that already includes Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist chapels. As opposed to the other indoor areas, the pagan site is a lovely stone circle on the top of nearby hill overlooking the academy. It was created by moving some large boulders that originally sat near the Visitor Center. Here’s what it looks like:

I guess I would have missed it altogether. I never watch the Super Bowl. I never watch TV. I don’t subject myself to its violence and idiocy. I get my information by reading, whether on the internet (more and more) or through print media.

But I’m on the NARAL list, so now I know that CBS is going to subject 100 million viewers to an ad from Focus on Family during the Super Bowl. Supposedly CBS has an advocacy ad policy, but when it comes to “the family,” they don’t seem to be abiding by it. If you don’t know about Focus on Family, they’re a right-wing, anti-choice, anti-birth-control, anti-sex-education, anti-gay organization. They’re against pretty much everything I stand for.

The only thing that made me smile about all of this is the following Youtube video from the Raging Grannies:

If you want to sign a petition protesting the Focus on Family ad, you can go to NARAL.

I have a friend who says that February is the longest month of the year. Even though this seems nonsensical, I know what she means. It’s still deep winter, but the holidays are over, the Yule lights have been put away — and there’s nothing much to distract from the bare, white winter landscape except for the frigid deep freeze. The cold keeps us inside more than usual, so many of us get cabin fever, that restless, bored, listless, frustrating desire for something you can’t find unless you flee Wisconsin for the southlands.

February is the fallow time of year, with bleak landscapes that can either be beautiful in their stark simplicity or deadly boring because of their lack of color and activity. No iridescent hummingbirds hover at our back window these days as they did in summer, and the chickadees, nuthatches, juncos and downy woodpeckers who keep me entertained when they come to our feeder are black-and-white just like the season. The occasional cardinal is the exception that proves the rule. As a result of this lack of warmth and color, it can be a long and difficult time until spring.

This is the season of Brigid or Imbolc, the traditional pre-Christian Celtic holiday for this time of year (February 1st or 2nd), a holiday which has come down to us as Groundhog’s Day when Sun Prairie Jimmy (or Punxsutawney Phil) sees his shadow in the sunlight (or doesn’t). Winter is half over (by the calendar at least), but it’s usually the coldest time of the year. Nature seems to be resting and preparing for the new life of spring. Covered with a blanket of snow, seeds that fell in the autumn are protected until spring when they begin to grow. All plant life seems to sleep in the death-like grip of winter, but the days are longer now, and the increasing sun promises the renewal of spring. Just like Jimmy, we emerge a little from our hibernation to look for the light.

We just had a State of the State address here in Wisconsin as well as a State of the Union address in Washington the day before. And then on Friday President Obama met with the Republican Caucus of the House of Representatives. I have to say, I wasn’t surprised, but I was saddened by the lack of civility that ensued after each of these encounters.

Here in Wisconsin, Assembly Minority Leader Jeff Fitzgerald (R-Horicon) retorted that Governor Doyle’s State of the State address “was a work of fiction…and Jim Doyle was trying to reinvent himself.” Is this a substantive response, one that can be used for a constructive dialogue about differences? No, it’s politically-motivated name calling.

During the State of the Union address in Washington, we saw a repeat of last year’s incivility when Obama addressed a joint session of Congress and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C) shouted out, “You lie!” This year it was Supreme Justice Samuel Alito who reprised last year’s lack of respect by muttering, “Not true” during the President’s remarks, shaking his head and furrowing his brow as he did so. This was an odd distraction, to say the least, since Supreme Court Justices don’t want to seem partial to issues that might some day come before them, so they usually sit silently when confronted with differences of opinion.

I guess we should be happy that the Republicans didn’t resort to the types of pranks they played during that health care speech last September. They didn’t hold up paper signs or interrupt. But House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) made frequent gestures in response to the president’s words, and when Obama asked rhetorically, “if anyone from either party has a better approach” to health care reform, a cocky Boehner stood up and raised his hand. I would call this rude, wouldn’t you? After Obama’s address, Boehner got a little closer to the issues when he pontificated that the president was shoving his job-killing agenda down the throats of the American people. But I doubt that such rhetoric will induce a useful conversation on how to get out of our financial mess and create more employment.

In response to one of the comments on my humorous post “Satan Responds to Pat Robertson on Haiti,” I found this article on the Voodoo view of the quake. Vodou is the earth-based religion of Haiti, so it makes sense that a Vodou priest would view his country as a manifestation of Mother Earth.

From the Washington Post:

Voodoo’s view of the quake in Haiti

By Elizabeth McAlister
Associate Professor of Religion, Wesleyan University

Vodouists in the Haitian diaspora are praying on their knees today, just as Catholics and Protestants are. Why did this devastating earthquake have to happen in Haiti, a country already so vulnerable that people live on a dollar a day, where on a good day, the government cannot employ or educate or provide health care for the majority? In Port-au-Prince, they are coping by searching and rescuing, sharing resources, crying, and praying. In Vodou most ritual is about finding balance, putting yourself into equilibrium with the spirits, with your family, and with yourself. In Haiti things are way out of balance. We might say that spirits of death have launched a coup d’état.

My friend and colleague, the artist, educator, and priest of the spirits, Erol Josué, has been praying and crying in Brooklyn. Through Twitter, Facebook, and his cell phone he has learned of at least twenty dead friends in several Port-au-Prince congregations. He told me today that for him, as a spirit-worker, this event is both scientific and symbolic. This is indeed a natural disaster for Josué. But the land in Haiti is a person, he said. We consider it a woman, our mother. “Haïti Chérie,” as the well-known ballad goes. She wants to know, ‘who will make me beautiful, put clothes on me, and take care of my children?’ When you mistreat her, and uproot her trees, when you give her too much responsibility, she is like a woman with cancer. The tumor metastasizes, and explodes.

For Erol Josué, the earthquake was mother nature, the land of Haiti, rising up to defend herself against the erosion, deforestation, and environmental devastation that have been ongoing for the last few decades. “Everybody was smashed to the ground,” said Erol. “Rich and poor. But look how symbolic this is. The Palace is smashed, the legislative building, the tax office, and the Cathedral. The country is crushed. We are all on our knees.” This Vodou priest is not speaking about divine retribution, as has Pat Robertson. God is not punishing us for disobedience. Erol is speaking about a giant natural rebalancing act, a reaction against human dealings with the ecosystem.

Yesterday I posted some ecofeminist reflections on Avatar. Today I want to take on the racism issue that several Goddess Scholars as well as bloggers here at Tikkun Daily have raised. Originally I thought this movie was carefully crafted to bring the (mostly) white audience into an understanding that indigenous people already have — the importance, even sacredness, of their world ecology. The hero is Jake Sully, a human who becomes a Na’vi, thereby moving from one world to the other. He begins by betraying the people who ultimately become his own, so it’s not like his first actions are laudable — he’s actually an anti-hero in the beginning, not meant to be liked. But he realizes his mistake, and fights to rectify the situation.

This plot structure reminded me of one of the most subversive literary strategies I’ve encountered when it comes to women’s issues, used by Jean Auel in Clan of the Cave Bear. Every reader of this book has to identify with the female protagonist Ayla, even men, because she’s the only Cro-Magnon person in it; the rest of the characters are Neanderthals. As a result, men get to experience the degradation of rape, and hopefully understand it from a woman’s perspective.

I think the same sort of thing happens in Avatar. Indigenous folks don’t have any trouble identifying with the Na’vi, but for those white folks for whom that’s a stretch, they can identify with Jake, moving from invader to become a part of the land (indigenous). My first thought was that this narrative strategy might actually win us some allies in our environmental fights. And I recognized it as a part of the strategy that I use in my work — to invite people to become indigenous, i.e. a part of the land they inhabit, something we ALL need to do more of. Pat Monaghan on the Goddess Scholars list summarized this take on the the plot most succinctly by saying

A man, crippled because of his involvement with militaristic capitalism, is helped by five female powers (an Amazonian pilot, a sage scientist, a lover-huntress, a female shaman, and the Goddess herself) to discover that his culture is utterly wrong. Through them, he learns to give up the apparent privilege that comes with the culture and to literally become a being that was not only alien but defined as “enemy.”

I’ve really been enjoying the Avatar discussion, both here on Tikkun Daily and on the Goddess Scholars List I belong to. I waited until I’d seen the film to read any of the posts, because I didn’t want to prejudice my reaction to it.

The GoddessScholars’ discussion reminded me a lot of a Women and Science Fiction class I taught in the 1980s. In my classes I always had a check-in before we began (despite the fact that they were university courses), because then we had deeper discussions. One of the odd things about the Women and Science Fiction class that semester was that there was a sizable minority (about 7 women out of 24) who were big football fans. When they checked in they would say things like, “I’m doing great. The Packers won.” Or: “I’m really down. The Vikings lost.”

The discussion I remembered as I was perusing the GoddessList concerned the subgenre of Sword and Sorcery. This subgenre is a lot like Dungeons and Dragons — magic is real, and life is more or less medieval, and battles take place with swords and magic (and battles take place pretty frequently). When I asked whether the class thought Sword and Sorcery was amenable to a feminist message, there was a clear split between the football fans and the rest of the class. The fans were sure this subgenre could be used to send a feminist message, while the others were astounded that anyone could hold such an opinion when the writing was rampant with violent images of battle.

Like my students, some of the women on the GoddessScholars list believe (as I do) that feminism is only compatible with pacifism, while others think that there are situations where war may be necessary and (perhaps) just. Some of the women on the list are also survivors of interpersonal violence (as I am, as a rape survivor) and didn’t want to submit themselves to film violence that might trigger post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As a result, some of the GoddessScholars have avoided Avatar despite its Goddess content.

I actually hold a different opinion than these polar opposites. Although I’m a pacifist, I believe there can be anti-war literature and films that involve warfare, for e.g. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. War is shown as so horrifying that almost any reader or viewer, even those who started out believing in the possiblity of a just war, ends up repudiating that view.

Yesterday in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Satan resonded to Pat Robertson’s recent attack. See for yourself why he thought Robertson was making him look bad:

Dear Pat Robertson,
I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I’m all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I’m no welcher. The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth — glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake. Haven’t you seen “Crossroads”? Or “Damn Yankees”? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there’d be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox — that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it — I’m just saying: Not how I roll. You’re doing great work, Pat, and I don’t want to clip your wings — just, come on, you’re making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That’s working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.
Best, Satan
LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

Another letter writer believed it might be another God who was offended by the Haitians:

I’ve been reading the GoddessScholars list and surfing the web looking for eulogies of Mary Daly, the radical feminist theologian (from theos, ancient Greek for God) who made thealogy possible (from thea, ancient Greek for Goddess). And in reading through several of them, I’ve been remembering how important she was to me in the early 1970s. At that point in time, I could buy every book on feminism that came out, and I did. But not each one opened up my mind like Beyond God the Father.

I can tell from my notes that although it was published in 1973, I must have read it in 1974. At that time I was a graduate student in the German Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a founding member of the Feminist Criticism Collective. Feminist literary criticism didn’t exist at that time, so we were creating it as we went along.

Here are just a few of the important ideas I found in Beyond God the Father:

1) That women had “the power of naming stolen from them, and that the liberation of language is rooted in the liberation of ourselves” (p.8)

2) That in the women’s movement, “[W]omen are hearing ourselves and each other, and out of this supportive hearing emerge new words” (p. 8). I guess I must have forgotten that Daly originated this thought, because a couple of years later Nelle Morton said it again as a slogan, and that’s when it stuck for me. Morton said femininst “women were hearing each other into speech.”

3) That we needed to overcome “methodolatry” (p. 11).

Nicholas Kristof wrote his Sunday NY Times column this week about “Religion and Women.”It’s both a discouraging overview of women’s oppression here and abroad and a hopeful look at how many of the best-known leaders of our time are beginning to agitate for women’s equality, and very specifically, their equality within religion. Following up on his links, I discovered that The Elders, a group including Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi, Jimmy Carter, Desmond Tutu, Kofi Annan, Mary Robinson, Gro Brundtland, and Ela Ghatt (founder of SEWA) began an initiative this summer called “Equality for Women & Girls” that states:

Religion and tradition are a great force for peace and progress around the world.

However, as Elders, we believe that the justification of discrimination against women and girls on grounds of religion or tradition, as if it were prescribed by a higher authority, is unacceptable.

We believe that women and girls share equal rights with men and boys in all aspects of life.

We call upon all leaders to promote and protect equal rights for women and girls.

We especially call on religious and traditional leaders to set an example and change all discriminatory practices within their own religions and traditions.

The Elders are fully committed to the realisation of equality and empowerment of all women and girls.

The Elders, 2 July 2009.

Newspaper Vendor

My newspaper this morning gave me hope. And brothers and sisters, that doesn’t happen very often. On the front page, taking up about one third of the sheet, there was an article entitled “Trying to open the ‘inner eye.’” It was a piece that described the new Center for Conscious Living, an offshoot of the Church of Religious Science, which the pastor said is “reinventing the idea of church, with ‘stand you up music,’ meditation, singing, chanting and ‘an inclusive message of self-empowerment.’” Above this article, the top story was about our governor’s clean energy plan, in which 25 percent of the Wisconsin’s energy must come from wind, solar, biomass, or other renewable sources by 2025. My friend Jack Kisslinger, whose website is called Planet for Life, tells me that 25% might be a good number, but it has to be 25% of reduced overall energy consumption. So the governor’s goal is at least a step in the right direction. These days we’re at less than 5%!?! But the miracle is that some of Wisconsin’s business leaders are lining up behind the governor, including executives of Johnson Controls, an auto parts and building products manufacturer. All of this combined with the EPA’s stricter standards for smog-causing pollution made me ebullient.

I’ve been really angry at the Obama administration lately, so it was nice to agree with them for the first time in what seems like months. The last straw for me was Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize speech, coming right on the heels of his announcement about expanding the war in Afghanistan. Until then had I tried to see his incrementalism as “realism.” But Rabbi Michael Lerner‘s editorial in the latest Tikkun, “Afghanistan: Obama Capitulates to the War Makers,” says it all. I agree with Rabbi Lerner that Obama’s announcement represented “a decisive endorsement of the strategy of domination.” And then Obama’s Nobel Prize speech tried to justify his decision by saying that we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes, that “Evil does exist in the world.” When Obama used that final phrase, I stopped listening to him. Christopher Hedges‘ article in the same Tikkun, “Celebrity Culture and the Obama Brand,” describes the shift in my opinion at that point: “President Obama does one thing and Brand Obama gets you to believe another.” I stopped believing in Brand Obama.

It’s hard to be optimistic given the world situation these days. But I believe that the three stories that filled me with hope today are related in a way that may not be immediately apparent. Without more spiritual exploration, people in this country will have trouble opening their minds to the changes in store for us. And those changes are going to be very fast, whether for the better or for the worse. As I said in a post several months ago,

In 1993 representatives of the Greek Orthodox Church publicly pulled out of the Parliament of World Religions (PWR) to protest the inclusion of “godless” Pagans. They haven’t come back. But that may change if Angie Buchanan has her way.

Angie, as well as two other Pagans — Andras Corban Arthen and Phyllis Curott — are on the 35-member Board of Trustees of the Council of the Parliament of World Religions. They’ve worked diligently to build bridges to other faith traditions since they were elected to the Board — Angie in 2002, Andras in 2006, and Phyllis just this year. As a result of their efforts, Pagans (in which I include Wiccans like myself) are finally coming into our own. I know it’s been a difficult road, and there’s still room for improvement.

But when people develop meaningful personal relationships while working together — as Angie, Andras, and Phyllis have with the Christians, Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, Hindus, American Indians, Protestants, Jains, Baha’is, Zoroastrians, etc. on the Parliament’s Board — they begin to see each others’ religions through the lens of their respect for that other person. That’s a very good thing for Pagans, since so many misconceptions and prejudices exist about us among mainstream religions.

In the past the spectrum of disrespect for Paganism has extended from branding us as Satanists to dismissing us as superstitious. From the perspective of Abrahamic traditions, Paganism has essentially been viewed as a heresy. Thus the Greek Orthodox walk-out. But at this Parliament, Pagans made it very clear that we’re aligned with other indigenous religions. Wiccans and Pagans practice the remnants of the pre-Christian, indigenous religions of Europe. Like other indigenous religions, we practice an Earth-based Nature religion. And like other indigenous religions, ours was persecuted by conquerors, who forced us to go underground during the Christianization of Europe.

Goddess of Willendorf, 22,000-24,00 BCE

I’m surprised that almost none of us blogged about the Parliament of World Religions (PWR) in Melbourne, Australia (12/3 – 12/9). I realize that the US Congress was still discussing the health care bill, Obama had just given his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and the Copenhagen Climate conference was underway. So we all have good excuses.

Here at Tikkun Daily, we heard from Dave Belden, who wrote about Rabbi Michael Lerner’s workshop on the spiritual progressive movement. And Rabbi Lerner also wrote about the great disappointment world spiritual leaders at the PWR felt at Obama’s speech in Oslo. But otherwise, there wasn’t a peep about this important gathering that happens every five years.

For members of my religion — both feminist pagans and members of the Goddess Movement across a variety of faiths — it seems to have been a very exciting experience. From what I’ve read, both the Goddess movement and paganism were well-received, something that has rarely happened before. In fact, Phyllis Curott was quoted on the Women at the Parliament blog site as saying that back in 1993 she had difficulty finding anyone else who would appear on a panel about the Sacred Feminine and very few attended. She went on to say that

Things certainly seem to have changed with this Parliament and the Sacred Feminine was clearly rising!

Every year at winter solstice, I perform in a Interfaith Yule celebration at First Unitarian Society in Madison. Every year I tell a story and sing a song. This year I told a T’salagi (Cherokee) tale explaining why some trees are evergreen. In the spirit of the season, I’d like to share it with you.

In order to really understand the Cherokee story, you need to know that the T’salagi or Cherokee people lived in the southern Appalachian mountains until they were forced onto the “Trail of Tears” by white settlers who wanted their land. This part of the world is extremely luxuriant. In fact, there are more plant species in the mountains of Georgia and the Carolinas than in all of Europe. As a result, the T’salagi — living as they did in harmony with the land — knew a lot about the flora of their native territory and respected its medicine. The evergreens were among the most sacred plants and were only harvested by a shaman for healing purposes.

Another fact also brings this story alive. When Cherokee children went through their rite of passage to adulthood, they participated in a vision quest, during which they were to stay awake for seven days and seven nights. Here’s my retelling of the story:

“Nice guys finish last.” That’s what we believe in this country. Without that assumption, advertisers couldn’t sell their latest energy drink and “Turn Boys into Monsters” as Derrick Kikuchi told us yesterday. Because of this notion, boys are besieged with images from marketers and the media that they have to compete rather than cooperate, go for the selfish power play rather than take part in the team, and become a macho man rather than a pansy. It’s every man for himself, these commercials say. If you don’t look out for number one, you’ll lose.

Well, it turns out that we’ve got it all backwards in this patriarchal, heterosexist, individualistic, might-makes-right society. And I have to add, “Thank goodness!” Because as a woman, many people assume that I throw like a sissy before anyone even tosses me the ball.

Scientific evidence has been accumulating over the last twenty years that shows what should have been common sense before now — that instead of being hard-wired to be selfish, human beings have evolved to be compassionate and collaborative. The social scientists fostering this research call their new understanding “survival of the kindest” to distinguish it from the social Darwinism of the past. They’re showing that we’ve been successful as a species precisely because of our altruism, nurturance, and compassion.

Place Setting from Judy Chicago's "Dinner Party"

When I take a vacation, I love the freedom it offers. And the experiences I would otherwise miss. This time those events included hearing our daughter Linnea sing and play drums with her band Lights (magnificently, I might add). They were at the end of their eastern tour and it was her 28th birthday, so all-round it was a unique occasion. If you want to hear (and see) them, check out their music video. (Linnea’s the drummer. She faces directly into the camera in the first frame with faces, and her music partner Sophia Knapp is in profile on the left). They’re now on their southern tour, so go see them if you’re nearby. Here’s the schedule.

This was a special time for both sides of the generational divide. I’m a proud mama and surprised as well, because in her youth, it didn’t look like Linnea’s future included composing songs for a rock band. And during the concert, I heard my daughter exclaim in exuberant tones that all her best Brooklyn buddies were there “with her parents in the front row!” We think she’s amazing, and I guess she returns the favor.

Besides wonderful ethnic food, which we always savor while in NYC — this year the best was a sushi fusion outing — we also spent time enjoying the Dinner Party. This installation is perhaps THE iconic artwork of twentieth century feminism. Judy Chicago envisioned and designed much of it, and hundreds of other women helped her create the runners and ceramic pieces that adorn the triangular banquet table that pays homage to 39 historical and mythical women. It took all of them five years to complete this gargantuan project, and when it came out in 1979, the entire feminist community was breathless with anticipation. I’ve seen photos of most of the place settings, but I had never been in the presence of the entire dinner party. I say “in the presence,” because that’s what it felt like. As I walked through the banners that led into the banquet hall, I began to tear up, overwhelmed with the immensity of what I was about to experience.

I love reading emails from the GoddessScholars list serve. This group of women includes some of the most knowledgeable people in the world when it comes to the divine feminine. The core members — out of several hundred women — are scholars, but the e-list contains artists, musicians, story-tellers, and ritualists as well. Reading their posts, I discover what’s new in the “Goddess Sphere.” I discover where the current controversies lie. And sometimes I discover just how ignorant much of the rest of the world is about this area that’s intensely meaningful to me.

A few months ago the controversies surrounded whether or not new archaeological finds were Goddess figures or not. Then it was on to the Catholic parish worker here in Wisconsin who was fired for her feminist views. After that it was the fact that Marija Gimbutas’s work has been hidden from view, even in events seemingly spawned by her research. And the latest battle seems to concern the very center of our connection with each other — the sacred feminine.

This latest brou-ha-ha began when one member wrote about a friend who was completing her M.A. in Art History. The friend wanted to concentrate on Botticelli’s representation of a variety of Goddesses. But when she approached her advisor, he told her that the sacred feminine was NOT a scholarly topic, but instead a term Dan Brown made up to sell The Da Vinci Code. Whoa! I think every woman on our e-list felt personally assaulted by this unbelievable statement.

We’ve been studying, celebrating, painting, telling stories, ritualizing, and singing songs about the sacred feminine for over 30 years, many on this list — including myself — for that entire time. My response was immediate and critical:

I think the hardest interactions in my life have been the ones where I expect similarity, and then I’m confronted with difference. This can occur anytime. But in my life, it happens most often when I’m confronted with a man who seems like a touchy-feely guy, and then turns out to be anything but.

The problem sometimes happens at the semantic level, where words I think have obvious overtones — whether of judgement, of criticism, or other kinds of negativity — are seen by my counterpart as having no such nuances. Sometimes it happens when the man I assume to be my (feminist) ally turns on me for what seem like (masculinist/macho) reasons. And sometimes it’s just about interactional style. You know, men want to fix the problem, while women want to smooth the process.

Today I had one of those interactions. And I’ve got to say, it pushed me to the edge of my tolerance. My emotions were screaming — “What the hell is going on?” while my intellect was trying to calm me down — “If you believe what he says, then you have to deal with him in ways that are unfamiliar.” Fortunately for all of us (I believe), my intellect won out. But my emotions are still jangled, and I have to bring them into harmony with my mind. So here goes:

We’ve started a new program named “Quest” at First Unitarian Society (FUS). FUS created Quest in order to help members who want it to develop a deeper commitment to their spiritual journey. Some of the introductory writings about the program describe it as “a journey toward wholeness, holiness, and peace.” It’s a very exciting two-year “pilgrimage,” and I’m blessed to be a part of it as a mentor to two women who are participants.

Today one of my partners contacted me. I’d just finished re-reading a chapter from Parker Palmer‘s A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward An Undivided Life about “Being Along Together,” a good metaphor for my role in this process. And yesterday I had finally bought two chairs for my meditation room, where I hope to meet with my partners –if that’s what they want. So synchonicities are lining up to indicate the “rightness” of this choice.

For several years now, I’ve been considering spiritual direction as a new option in my life, and being asked to become a Quest mentor helped strengthen this interest. Sometimes referred to as spiritual guidance or spiritual friendship, spiritual direction like mentoring takes place in a one-to-one relationship, in which a person who wants to become more attentive to their spiritual life meets regularly with a “spiritual director,” in order to awaken more fully to the presence of spirit and how it moves through their existence. I’m not using “God language” here, because not all UUs are comfortable with it. But what I realized while re-reading Parker Palmer is just how uncomfortable I am with the term “spiritual direction.”

It’s that time of year again! Leaf blower time! Yuck.

I love the fall. It’s full of color and change. And usually I love my neighborhood. It’s located behind a big hill, so we don’t hear much of the street traffic from the major thoroughfare in our area. And, of course, it’s on the lake, so the vista and the quiet — even when it’s raining, like it is today — are beautiful. But there are certain times when the noise level is literally deafening, namely when people should be raking.

It’s important for those of us who live on the lakes in Madison to deal with the leaves that fall in our yards. Every leaf that goes into the lake produces fodder for the next season’s algae growth — one pound of phosphorus from any source, including leaves, results in 500 pounds of algae. In fact, this time of year you can see yard signs all over town, stating “Love your lakes — Don’t leaf them.” So I guess I should be glad that people are blowing their leaves away from the water. But it would probably be better for them as well as for me and their other neighbors, if they raked rather than using leaf blowers. They’d get some exercise, and I wouldn’t have to walk around with my fingers in my ears.