Goddess Worship and Feminism: a Plague of Hypocrisy

I am disappointed in someone.

That's not much new for me. I have a lot of optimism and hope surrounding the people that I don't hate on sight. The more I get to know them, the more I see the epic awesomeness they could be. This leads to a certain amount of disappointment when they don't live up to their potential, but more often because they don't even try.

This is a very brief description of a very nuanced set of experiences for me, so don't assume you get it from those few sentences. It will be better for everyone involved.

My recent disappointment is but one of a series revolving around a single general concept - Goddess worshipers (ie, Wiccans, many Pagans, etc.) who actively speak out against women's rights and, in particular, the issues surrounding the #MeToo movement. For those of you living in a cave, I'm talking about people who don't support women having more justice in sexual harassment, abuse, assault, etc. cases.

Yeah, I say women, but only because it is disproportionately women. Men get attacked, too. Men also represent 98% of perpetrators, so I'm going to keep this simple and assume that a perpetrator is male.

Skadi got a divorce cuz her
first hubby didn't allow for her needs.

If I get another #NotAllMen comment, my head will blow up. 98% is not a statistic of kinda-sorta. It doesn't even break out of the +/- range of uncertainty. Fortunately for us, this statistic is based on reporting, so it really doesn't have an uncertainty range. 2% of women are douche-canoes, too.

Here's what my issue is.
Many Wiccan (mostly) men (mostly) worship the Goddess (TM). Great! Awesome!

Unfortunately, it ends up being a semi-sexual relationship of holding the ideal feminine as the only feminine with value.

Oh, yes, I said it. I could go into a background and history, but I'm a Midwestern gal, so I'm going full-on redneck with some

You Might Be A Hypocritical Goddess Worshiper If:

• If your default position is that women are likely to lie or exaggerate about being assaulted or attacked or harassed...

  

  Some Goddesses are the Divine Mother;
  some will destroy your world. Both are
  "real women".

• If you are concerned that women having the power to get justice for assaults will negatively affect you or your life...
• If you believe that women are "bad" if they react to an accidental grope/brush/bump "excessively"...
• If you have called a woman a name that implied a sexual or physical judgment of her in a debate or argument*...
• If you feel that apologizing to a woman for an accident is worse than her being the recipient unintentional or accidental touching of her breasts, butt or other "second base" body parts...
• If you feel that apologizing would give a woman power over you...
• If you believe that your intentions for a situation trump any experience a woman has in that situation...
• If you think taking responsibility (ownership) for your actions doesn't include accidental violations of another person...
• If you think taking responsibility (ownership) for your actions will somehow mandate punitive measures...
• If you think that a woman's past experience, whether distant or immediate, MUST be shared and understood by you before it can mitigate whether she has the right to an emotional reaction...
• If you think your intentions in a situation should be more important than a woman's past experience, whether distant or immediate, in how she feels about a situation...

  

  No one ever taught "fuckability
  of subjects" in art history...

• If you think that your intentions in a situation should give you immediate, verbal and enthusiastic forgiveness for any unintentional violation of a woman's body...
• If you have ever said, thought or typed something like "you aren't helping your cause" during a discussion about women's rights, sexual assault, etc...
• If you have ever behaved in action or word as though a woman should not question your trustworthiness because you are connected on social media or through mutual friends...
• If you have ever told a woman "I would never fuck you"** or otherwise reduced a woman with a position/opinion on a topic to having value only if you would be willing to have sex with her...
• If you have ever thought or made a comment about a woman's negligence in preventing her attack/assault/harassment, WITHOUT making a conscious effort to refute or walk-back those thoughts and/or comments AND attempting to derail such thoughts in the future***...
• If you have ever said or thought that someone was not a "real woman" because of their opinions, appearance, sexual preferences or activity, career choice, behavior, gender assignment at birth, or anything other than their own self-identification...

  

  Even the Great Mother isn't always what
  the generic images portray.

• And, perhaps the most controversial one - If you have expressed or behaved in a way that indicated that the sacredness of a woman or the feminine was solely or primarily about their sex, sexuality, reproduction, or appearance in relation to any of these things...

So, what do you do if you suspect you are a hypocritical Goddess worshiper? It's really easy. Shut up and listen to the conversation. Think about what people are saying, and not just from the (white) male perspective. How would you feel if you endured what women are talking about? How would you want it resolved? Work on applying the things you've learned TO YOUR LIFE. The best thing you can do to support women in your life or in this world is to #LearnBetterDoBetter.

Please feel free to comment more "you might be a hypocrite Goddess worshiper if..." items!

* If you think I'm wrong about Universal Healthcare, that still doesn't make me a slut. And, yes, this "clever comeback" is something I literally experience several times a month - it just doesn't happen to me that often.

** I can guarantee that, unless we are on a dating site and actively flirting, having sex with you is not something I'm considering. At all. Your penis is not and will never be the focus of my interactions with you. I would appreciate if you would stop thinking about my vagina.

*** I acknowledge that this is a visceral reaction with a steep learning curve. This only partially excuses it. Victim-blaming is always wrong.

Kali the Destroyer: Death vs Rot

Kali is the dark mother goddess of Hindu mythology. She is death and time, both, blue-black as deep space and blood-thirsty. She was created as an aspect of Durga, a warrior goddess, to drink the blood of demons so they could not regenerate, and to destroy those demons. Her blood-lust shook the world so hard, it nearly came apart.

But Kali is a mother goddess. She does what she does for her children - all of humankind. She is a protector, though we don't always see what she does as protecting.

When Kali realized she was destroying the world, she stuck out her tongue. This is a symbol of shame. She was not trying to lick more blood, as some interpretations say. The Hindu symbology on this is very clear. She regretted her loss of control.

Kali is the goddess of disease, specifically plagues. She doesn't cause the plagues, though. Hindus pray to Kali to save them from plagues.

Kali is the goddess of time, which, at its core, kills us all. In many ways, she is the goddess of inevitability. (I just thought that in the voice of Agent Smith of the Matrix... lol.)

So what does this all mean? What place does Kali have in our lives?

Kali is the vaccine that gives you disease to prevent disease. She is the vomiting and fever that kills the virus in your body. She is the sad determination of pulling the plug on a loved one when all that is left for them is pain.

Kali is the impassive march of the days and years that wears us down eventually. She is the death and decay that makes room for new life. She is the mama bear that tears apart those creatures who would threaten her children. She is the rage and violence we feel in defense of our friends and loved ones.

Kali is also the bullet that takes out a war buddy who is too injured to move out of the line of the enemy. She is the knife that cuts off a breast riddled with cancer. She is the poison of chemotherapy that takes care of the rest of that disease. She is the old member of a pack who disappears one day so as not to be a burden to the others.

Kali is the hard, painful choices. She is the actions that we don't take unless they are absolutely necessary. She is the tears we weep when we have to do the hard things. She is the good-byes that cannot be avoided or taken back. She is the pain we feel when we realize our mistakes, but she is also the actions we take to admit those mistakes.

In many ways, Kali represents the harshness of life and the darkness within us all. She accepts the realities and moves on, but not without emotion - often anger, or blood-lust, or even shame.

Though she is often seen only as a goddess of death, she is a very real manifestation of our own human nature - that determination to survive as a species, to protect our own, to live with the pain and passion of our own fleeting nature.

"You were only killing time and it can kill you right back" - Out of the Frying Pan (And Into the Fire) by Meatloaf

The Goddess of Ick

Limnos, Greek Goddess of Hunger

There are hundreds of unique goddesses throughout history, around the world. Many of them have become inspirations for the women of our so-called post-feminist society. They represent the independent, capable women that define the modern goddess-woman. They teach us how to be mothers and workers in this new society of semi-equality.



Each goddess represents a side of womanhood: kind, compassionate, capable, nurturing, wise. These aspects are ones that we can understand. They are good and positive. We can say that we are these things, and say them with pride.

But there are still characteristics that many goddesses possess, which, even in our supposedly enlightened society, we see as negative qualities. These are the qualities that we ignore, or push aside as irrelevent. We brush over these things as too dirty, literally and metaphorically. We whitewash these less-then-desirable characteristics from our experiences of Goddess, or turn them into a lesson of who not to be.

Mud is natural for Sekhmet

These characteristics turn a goddess of the feminine into the Goddess of Ick.

But that may not be what these goddesses are telling us. There is strength in having these characteristics that are seen as mean or even weak.

These characteristics, these icky things, are what make a goddess powerful. The dirt and the blood, the so-called weaknesses, show us how to be better humans. They teach us how to be truly powerful women and men.

Even more, they help us to be complete. A shining example of personality is one-sided and, dare I say, boring. When you throw in these icky things, we, and the goddesses, become interesting, lively, whole and even more powerful.

Persephone was a victim,
so what makes her Goddess?

You can see the power of the Goddess of Ick in the way that children are safer playing in the mud then in being kept in a sterile environment. You can find the power in the blood and sweat and tears of a woman giving birth. You can find the darkness of the Goddess in deep black caves filled with teeming life: glowing fungi, slimy bacteria, blind bats, slugs and maggots.

The Goddess of Ick represents all that creates and destroys life. Light and cleanliness interfere with the lifecycle and represent the order that life cannot live in.

We fight so hard to keep our world clean and orderly, to prevent the mud and the dirt from coming into our homes, and into our lives. We sweep, we scrub, we bathe, we try to keep nature from entering our lives unannounced.

But the Goddess of Ick is nature, and she cannot be denied.

The truth of the matter is, we are the mud and the dirt; we are the Goddess of Ick.

A Little Bit of (Bad) Luck

Today I was discussing some of the issues that have come in to my life of the past few months. I was talking with a Wiccan, who I hadn't seen in several months, so we were more or less catching up. It was at this point that I realized that our spiritual paths and philosophies diverged drastically.

You see, there have been many unfortunate incidences that have occurred in my life over the past several months. Now, the situations that have come up have not been pleasant by any means. However, I never really looked at them as being a form of cosmic punishment or retribution. But that's exactly what she questioned me on.

First, she asked me who I pissed off; then, and she asked who I had wronged. I explained that we don't do that kind of stuff. We're not into hexing; we're not into cursing. We don't piss people off. We're actually really quiet and boring, and we stay home and watch TV.

Then I mentioned that, aside from all of the rather nasty things that have been happening, certain things in my life are actually going really well. I mentioned that I had finally found a serious motivation to work on my writing. I also mentioned that the writing was going really well, and that I had networking and contacts that I'd never even considered before.

She then suggested that we were not making appropriate offerings toward our gods. This is not only patently incorrect, but also rather inappropriate considering our gods do not demand offerings of us.

So she asked what I was writing about, and if that could have anything to do with my bad luck. I mentioned my science-fiction novel, and she said, "no, that's not it." So I said that the only thing I was working on with any kind of potential for offense was the Goddess of Ick. As soon as I mentioned it, she said. "Drop it."

Now, there's something that you have to understand at this point. The Goddess of Ick is an idea that has sprung from the collective experience and belief system of my entire spiritual life. This book is getting written, even if it's just for me. Telling me to "drop it" is definitely the wrong way to go. So I told her that... nicely.

She then suggested that I was being punished for vanity. After some clarification, I realized she was talking about my sense of pride and success in my writing. When we parted ways, I had a disturbing sensation. I was distinctly uncomfortable. It took me a few minutes to figure out why: she was assuming that I had done something wrong.

She seemed to truly believe that a person could only have this kind of general bad luck if they had either been bad, or redirected somebody's karma, or were otherwise being punished.

The thing is, it never crossed my mind that I was being punished. And I don't think that it's because I was being dense about it. Really this entire situation has felt more like fire. As in, the flames of the forge making one stronger.

Could I really be that delusional? Well, I don't think so.

Weighing In: Heavy thoughts on obesity

Well, some are cold, and some are lukewarm...

As a fat pagan woman, I have been following many of the various discussions on Pagans and obesity (or fat pagans) with interest. I wasn't going to chime in, but I did - on Z's show and a few comments.

But now is the time; I am making a point: mind your own fat business!

Probably the most common argument I've seen for stepping in when a pagan sees another pagan who is fat is this: "When harm is being done, it is my spiritual/religious duty to step up."

Goddess gets body image insecurity?

Ok, I immediately went to abortion rights on that one.

That's right, I'm saying that that excuse is used for Christians (and others) imposing their values, beliefs and opinions upon the masses, regardless of their own personal beliefs, regardless of circumstances.

I'm gonna say it... proselytizing.

You want to impose your own sense of what is right and wrong for me and my body? I hear there is an opening in the Westboro Baptist Church.


I would argue that most Pagans would consider it MORE in line with their beliefs that, with only the most extreme exceptions, it's our job to TRUST each other to do what is right for ourselves and the rest of the world.

Ruben likes his women with
fleshy goodness!

Yeah, I brought out the T-word.

You should trust me that I am a reasonably intelligent human being with complexities that you prolly don't understand.
You should trust me that I have the same googling capability that you have, and that I am either as informed as you are or have CHOSEN to remain ignorant.
You should trust me that if I WANT to get better, I will do what I can to do so, and if I don't, there is NOTHING that you poking your nose in will do to change that.

You should trust that I am a "grown-ass woman" with decision-making capability and that, whether you are talking about the layer of fatty tissue under my epidermis or the reproductive organs in my lower abdomen, MY BODY = MY CHOICE still applies.

I don't understand how being nosy or pushy is the way you show you care. Personal responsibility is just that: personal AND a responsibility. It is mine to make or break. My body to use or abuse, to trash or treasure.

Gods, if I came even close to
having her body fat...
I'd eat MORE ICE CREAM!

On a similar note, it came to my attention that an Olympic swimming contender was called "fat." Let me clarify: This woman swims. She swims often and she swims fast. She does so to the point that she beat out most of an entire country (Australia) to qualify for the Olympics, an honor most people I know have never even APPROACHED. She has won EIGHT medals during the last 12 years. "Together with Emily Seebohm, Alicia Coutts and Melanie Schlanger, she won a silver medal for Australia in the 4 × 100 m medley relay." Oh, wait. That makes NINE medals. How many have YOU won?

 She's now 26 and has grown a bit of a pooch. To quote, "The question that comes up is: Does it matter? Is it the media's place to question the fitness of an athlete who has already proved herself by making the team in the first place?" Exactly. She's done 4 Olympics and 9 medals more than pretty much any journalist, blogger or commentator who has decided to judge her body (in an unforgiving and less then flattering swimsuit, no less).

To those who did judge her, go win a frickin' Olympic medal and then you MIGHT get to say something. Otherwise, SHUT UP.

Holley Mangold weighs in at 346 pounds (157 kilograms);
she can also bench press a small BUS!
"[Her] personal record in the combined snatch and
clean-and-jerk is 255 kilos (562.2 pounds)."

UPDATE: This was in my YahooNews feed today. The epic quote? Here: "The Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation (WSFF), a UK charity aiming to get more women into sport to build self-esteem and confidence, said only 12 percent of British girls at age 14 were doing enough exercise to meet recommended guidelines. WSFF Chief Executive Sue Tibballs said their research found negative body image was consistently cited as a barrier for girls participating in exercise as popular culture gave out the message it was more important to be thin than fit." (Emphasis, mine.)

Seven is Enough: A Full House doesn't give you Poker Face!

Yeah, the title is a Lady Gaga reference. And just to be clear, the main part of Gaga is GAG!

I look so cute, but I'm trouble with
a captial G-I-Z-M-O.

We have four boys tonight. Either we are taking in strays or my son is a mogwai and reproduced himself while in the bath.

Actually, we have my nephew and two other boys tonight and tomorrow. It makes for an interesting time, that's for sure. I'm not entirely convinced they will sleep tonight. They have had two injuries so far from jumping on each others' heads.

They are currently arguing over something, but I don't know or care what about. We only worry about the loud crashes and angst-y crying.

Earlier, I got three kids, myself and Stormie fed in less than an hour... Woot! I also managed to get the kitchen relatively cleaned up and the laundry changed. Stormie took the boys outside and got them to pull weeds in the garden.

The moon's phase tonight.

With all five (FIVE!) kids in bed, Stormie is snoozing on the couch and I'm watching a movie while catching up on my computer stuff. I ignore the sounds of boys being boys and consider going outside to look at the moon.

I will be up until midnight, again, and then passed out before 12:30, trying to get some quality sleep before the morning rush. But I will still take some time to ignore the desire to be a perfect mother and instead be the perfectly happy me.

Germ Warfare: Nature is THE BOMB!

Germs are bad, right? Not so fast, there.

There's a new bad guy in the fight against illness, and it isn't a micro-organism, virus or prion (the things that cause BSE [mad cow disease] and  Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) disease). It's hygiene.

When good immune systems go bad...

The Hygiene Hypothesis is the idea that too much hygiene, being too clean and too not-sick, at too young an age leads to the immune system having not enough to do, so it doesn't work as well.

Sometimes the immune system gets all wonky and results in allergies or even (some speculate) autism. Sometimes it means you don't get the bacteria in your intestines that helps digest food (eating issues anyone?). Sometimes it shuts off completely.

An episode of House in Season 6 resulted in a diagnosis of over-hygiene, or low-functioning immune system (extra-intestinal Crohn's, they called it). Additionally, CNN and Parenting magazine have both done articles talking about the positives of adequate germ exposure (here and here).

Love bugs!

So what does this mean to pagan parents? Well, if Mother Nature (the Goddess) did us right, we should live a more natural lifestyle, embracing not only the seasons, plants and animals, but also the tiny living creatures that we need to live healthy natural lives. That's right: Love nature, love germs!

Aren't they cute?!?

We are made to be little micro-bug hosts, using some germs to practice our martial-immuno-battles on, using some germs to help digest or process certain foods, and using some germs to become immune to bigger, badder things.

Love your kids; get them infected!

Daycare Woes and Bloodshed

I like my daycare, make no mistake about that. They are nice, with lots of kids for my children to play with, and decent meals served three times a day (plus snacks).

But I sometimes want to smack them. Particularly the helpers.Now, I'm sure they are nice enough people, but sometimes they do something that sets my blood boiling.

Usually, it is something like talking to my son like he's a two-year-old idiot or a fourteen-year-old pain-in-the-butt. Since he's a four-year-old pickle (ie, normal, rambunctious pre-schooler), that really pisses me off.

Now, I understand that the boy-child can rub anyone the wrong way after a handful of hours. He is loud, persistent, demanding, and rather whiny. But when someone starts telling him that they don't expect him to have a "good attitude" or "good behavior" from the minute he arrives, I just want to slap some fear of the Mother Goddess into them.

Big knife, dead body... end of story

Seriously... Kali... Dark Mother... She'll smack you into next week, just to get your attention!

So, in the words of Stormcrow: "back up offa my baby, muh-fuh, or I WILL cut you!"

You're Eating... What?!?

I pull a Sanford, clutching my heart and crying out, "It's coming! Maple syrup is coming!"

I have to explain not only where a food is from, but how I managed to get it in the middle of Nebraska.

I mentioned to my coworkers that early exposure to a wide variety of foods may lead to fewer allergies as an adult. They looked me dead in the face and told me my kids would never have allergies.

When my family goes out to eat, if we eat "fast food", we all end up with digestive issues.

My name is Kalisara, and I am a food-aholic. (Hi, Kalisara!) I am a foodie (NUDIE-FOODIE!). I have made it my life's work to try most edibles from this planet. I'm on a mission from gahd: find the perfect food-gasm (gahd = Eros/Dionysus), and I love my work.

We have no less than five different kinds of cheese at any given moment, none of them being plastic (American) cheese. One of them is always sheep's cheese. As a family, we have consumed approximately 75 lbs of llama meat. The last snack food I purchased was dried Yacon fruit, which the kids ate most of it. We grind wheat to make flour. We use olive oil, sesame oil and real unsalted butter nearly every day.

I have infected my entire family with this joy of eating (insert Merril Streep replying to the question "What is it you really like to do?" in a falsetto brittish accent "EAT!").

This means that bug the bug the boy-child has never had a true picky-eating experience in his life. Upon going to a grillout at a natural-foods, half-vegetarian family, bug ate a little bit of all the salads, as well as a nice burger. The other young child there screamed until his microwavable mac'n'cheese was plopped in front of him.

Ladybug is following, having consumed an entire half-bowl of chicken enchilada soup just this evening. She eats all forms of meat, veggies, breads, seasonings, fruit... anything that fits in her mouth is consumed.

Stormcrow has slimmed down in the nearly one-year since he moved in, and he's lost about 40 pounds without dieting or exercising.

I think there are a lot of reasons to enjoy eating, the least of which is nutrition. There is nothing like putting home-cooked food into one's mouth and rolling one's eyes with sheer orgasmic pleasure.

Plus, enjoyment of food increases the amount of magical energy one gets from one's consumption.

And you forgot this was a PAGAN parenting blog... : P

Left Turn, No Blinker

There are two ways to approach having children: a) they will fit into your pre-existing life, and b) your life does a 180, loop-the-loop, barrel roll, screetching halt, speedy reverse with drifting...

Anyone who thinks that they can go with A is in for a shock. It just doesn't work that way.

Children are like bank robbers who get trapped with the bank CEO, surrounded by SWAT. They are desperate to get their own way and somewhat delusional that they might actually do so. Any negotiation with the hostage takers will only result in encouraging their behavior. DO NOT NEGOTIATE. They will NOT release your life to it's previous existence.

For pagans, this is even more so the case. We used to go to ritual, engage in various activities for achieving altered states, some form of "free lovin", a little bit of nudity, playing with fire and bladed weapons, staying up all night, dancing around fires...

Now? Supper is at 6, pj's and books at 7, and bedtime is 8, and the goddess split the skull of anyone who dares to disturb that most sacred of rituals.

Where solstice used to be a revelry of unprecedented Bacchanalia, it now consists of barely getting the kids outside before the sun sets (cuz you disrupted the sacred ritual, silly!), trying to light a fire in the firepit with wet firewood (cuz it's been raining for a week and you were just happy that all the family was indoors - forget worrying about the wood!), while using free limbs (arms, legs, head) to keep the kids from sticking their "helpful" fingers into the flames, then trying to make up a story about the sun on the spot (cuz you certainly haven't had any time to PREPARE) and having it interrupted every 30 seconds by questions you may or may not know the answer to until you don't know which way is up.

But it's all worth it because every family member joined in waving goodbye to the setting sun and that seems far more spiritual than turning in a circle to address each of the cardinal directions.

Happy Solstice (late, of course)!!