Summary of a Workshop: Embracing the Dark

 I gave a workshop (three actually) at the 2015 Heartland Pagan Festival. It was a great experience (check out my friend, Molly's blog here) and eye-opening in many ways. I formatted my workshops as discussions (yes, all of them), and each of them went in a different direction than I had predicted. But it was wonderful!

I am attempting here to summarize, with a bit of additional commentary, what the discussion ended up being for my workshop: Embracing the Dark

The Dark

Close your eyes and picture yourself in a bright, sunny place. See the brightness around you.

Now turn around in your mind. You now find yourself in a dark place. There is just enough light to see shapes, but otherwise it is dark.

Think about the differences in how you felt about each location. Think about the emotions and the level of comfort in each place. Most people see the dark as restful, while the light is energetic. Fear or concern is also common in the dark place.

Most people know about sun-bleaching, where you leave something in the sun and the color fades out of it. The reason this happens is because the sunlight actually destroys compounds and sterilizes. On the other hand, life thrives in darkness, even if that life is gooy and icky. Photosynthesis is a balance of using radiant energy without being destroyed by it. Skin color is a protection from light.

This doesn't mean that light is bad, any more than dark is bad. Our defense against light provides us with nutrients. Light allows us to see and sunlight provides food and warmth so that we can function during the day in ways we can't at night. But the night provides many opportunities for us to challenge ourselves and grow.

And the night isn't just the time when the sun goes down. Think about times in your life when you've been sad or stressed. Do your memories change with those moods? Mine do. I have periods of time in my life when I've been unhappy, or just passively going through my life. One of those times, I was pregnant and just getting the stuff done that needed done. Memories of those times have very little light. I think that reflects the darkness and restfulness of that time.

Nighttime is often where we have huddled together against the animals and elements that would do us harm. More important types of questing, such as rites of adulthood, have often involved being away from the tribe or village overnight. It isn't about proving that you could find food. These quests were usually only a few days long, not long enough to starve. It was about facing the dark

Fear

What is it that the dark holds which challenges us so much that we have used it for proving spiritual and physical maturity?

I think the dark holds fear.

The Dark of the Year holds the fear that we will never see the Spring again. Spring brings food and warmth, the ability to travel with less danger, and even brightness and joy of spirit. The Dark of the Year causes us to constrict and enfold ourselves and our kith and kin into a ball of protection.

In the movie, The Croods, they call it the Family Kill Circle, which they would form if someone even said the word "NEW". They were so afraid of new things, they would try to destroy something new before they could learn about it, but also before it had a chance to kill them.

The Dark Goddesses hold fear, too. Kali, Hel, Tiamet, Baba Yaga, Sheila na Gig - Goddesses of death, destruction, blood, disease and pain. But blood, disease and pain are closely related to death and destruction. And death and destruction are different words for something really new (Family Kill Circle): transformation.

Transformation. That's another thing the dark holds. We just don't like the idea of transformations that are out of our control, which is how all really good transformations work. We don't control the way we transform, how much we transform, or what we transform into. We have to let go and hope that the ooey gooey stuff in the deep dark cave will give us a miraculous new life-form, and isn't going to give us a disease.

Monsters

I call the fears in the dark of my mind my monster. It is the nemesis to my ego's hero, and it knows where the kryptonite is. The green AND the red (for you Superman fans, out there).It can cripple with fear or break with anger, and it doesn't even break a sweat to do it.

There are a lot of common themes in people's monsters, in the things that they fear. One that often trips people up in understanding is the fear of success. Yes, I mean that people are afraid of being successful in something. This fear isn't about the actual success itself. It's about the things that come with having success.

For example, if you successfully pull off a presentation or workshop, you are probably going to be expected to do it again. Just as well. Holy fish sticks, batman, that's a lot of pressure, particularly if you tend to be creatively inspired and pull stuff out of your ass. What if you can't pull anything next time?!?

Or what if you get your book published? And you never get another book or story published EVER?!? The only thing worse than failure is pity for being a one-hit wonder of success. You would be the child star who grew out of their talent. That's a pretty intimidating fear.

I just read an article that beautifully describes the fear of success that I suffer from. The fraud fear. The author says:

"I feel bad about people paying for my work because I think that the people who buy and even those who appreciate my work are somehow being duped. I keep feeling that at some point I am going to be found out to be an imposter.  I feel bad when my work is considered valuable."

 In trying to explain my own feelings of this, I posted this: "I feel this way about writing and workshops. Like suddenly everyone is just gonna turn around and be like "gotcha! your stuff really sucks!" "

I sometimes think he
underestimates the "try".

The thing is, fear of failure makes sense. And it is common to have a fear of failure. But fear of success is just weird, and yet so, so often it goes hand-in-hand with fear of failure. That's why there are so many people who talk about doing, but never do. You have to face down that monster and move past it so that you can even try.
 

Facing the Monster

Probably the most common question I get about facing the monster is "How do you do it?" Unfortunately, there is no template for this. Each person is unique, with unique experiences, perceptions and variations on fears. The form and function of your monster is different from the form and function of mine. The way you handle your monster depends on that, as well as the path that you are on.

The point is that there are so many variables, I could never get it right dealing with someone else's monster. I can only figure out my own. However, I can tell you some ways to prepare for it, and for finding your monster.

First, you have to do the dirty work. Hunt down your flaws, wherever they may be. I started by investigating my natal zodiac and looking at the negative aspects of those signs. I picked them apart until I was sure that I understood each one within my own life... than I went through them again and again. Then I found other things to hint at my flaws: the Meyers-Briggs and other personality tests, workplace evaluations, even minor complaints from friends and family about certain of my actions.

I strove to be radically honest, but not brutally honest; I wasn't trying to judge myself or beat myself up over these things. I wasn't a judicial authority passing a sentence or laying down a conviction. I wasn't even a lawyer, making a case for or against my flaws. I was nothing more than the crime scene investigator, collecting evidence and analyzing it for the data. I made a list. Nothing more.

After a while, I stopped having to fight to see my negatives objectively. I could look at my flaws and say "well, there it is". This took a long time; more that a year.

I think I made
a wrong turn at Albuquerque...

Than, one day, I was meditating. We were supposed to go into a cave and meet someone who would help us learn a lesson, or something like that. I promptly fell into a pitch black abyss and was suddenly being hunted by my monster. Once I realized what it was, the fear left me. I'd gotten used to looking at the evidence of this monster without judgment, to searching for evidence of the monster without flinching. I turned and faced my monster.

Some monsters end up
being these guys...

In a way, it was the hardest thing I've ever done, and yet it wasn't particularly difficult. It was the doing that was hard, not the it. I'm reminded of the movie, Monsters Inc, where the monsters are terrified of touching a child. It's the fears of what could happen that is the problem, not the children themselves.

The hardest part

I wish I could say that I faced my monster, destroyed it and that was the end. But this is not a movie or a quest. This is a journey, and the monster is not the destination. My monster changes and grows, and I face it down every once in a while. This is because I am still living and, to a degree, that means there's always something to fear, negative behaviors to fall back on, stressors that trigger the growth of a head on my monster. But it's never as daunting as it was the first time. Still hard, but not daunting.

I know that it is time to go back when I see my life becoming stagnant. I stop conquering obstacles and start sitting by the wayside. I start behaving in ways that frightens or intimidates people, or I let people walk over my boundaries. I stop being awesome-ish and start being eh-ish.

And that's the point of life, I think. To be more often awesome-ish.

The Death Penalty for Being a Minority

I'm super tired of hearing about how so-and-so shouldn't have committed (or been in a position to be suspected of committing) XYZ crime in order to not have DIED by the hands of police or in the custody of police. There are only three things to know.
1) XYZ crime is not a capitol offense (that is, a crime that commonly results in a death penalty).


2) If that many police are that terrified for their lives all the time, they need to go into a different career. Seriously.

3) We still live in a country that declares a person INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY in a COURT OF LAW. If a trial didn't happen, that person was still innocent. I don't care if you have video evidence, a prior rap sheet, or the Voice of Justice whispering in your ear. INNOCENT until PROVEN GUILTY in a COURT OF LAW. Period. End of story.

The Magic of Control, or Nagging Spells

I can be a bit of a nag about things. This bothered me for a long time because I thought it was a flaw in me.

Then, I saw an article stating that nagging is what you do when people don't listen the first time. That statement turned my perception around of how I saw my constant reminding/pleading/yelling for my family to get their chores done/put things away/clean up after themselves.

I am a nag. And here's an example of why:
If the dishwasher doesn't get emptied, it can't get loaded, so the sink fills up and I can't get kids drinks of water or scrub out the cast iron skillet, which I need to use to brown meat for taco cornbread muffins, which bug and stormie take for meals, so they don't have good lunch options, so they buy lunch for three times the price, spending money we can't afford (on our super-tight budget), so we can't save as much and we can't go on vacation.
If the laundry doesn't get rotated, it starts to smell and we have to run it again, which uses up time, soap and electricity, which raises our basic costs, so now we can't do the state fair.

I wish I was exaggerating, but we actually have that tight of a budget. And I've seen it spiral out of control, costing us hundreds in extra spending or (gah!) bank fees. All because one chore wasn't done in a timely manner.

See, I do a bit of kitchen magic. I use cooking as a way of maintaining our prosperity. And it works.

But the kitchen is small and needs to be kept clean and organized. The rest of the house, too. We schedule our lives closely, not out of a need for control, but out of a desire to take control.

See, we have goals and wants, and some resources, but little money. To be able to travel to Heathen Sumbels & Blots, Pagan festivals and gatherings... to do any of this, we have to make it work.

And we do. Often.

It takes feeding the family on less money. It takes scheduling things to get medical appointments done when we are already travelling to that city 200 miles from home. We have 15 minutes to get this done or we lose our window of opportunity. We have $5 to last us a week.

And we can do it. We *have* done it. We want this prize, we will Get. It. Done.

And I nag because I'm the big picture seer, the planner, the orchestrator who gleans knowledge and plans an entire week and squuezes pennies just so my kids can go to an event we would otherwise not be able to swing. Or scrimps for years so hubby can get a fishing license.

I am a benevolent dictator. I am a parent. I am a witch.

Let's do this.

The Let-Down & the Warning

This is in response to a discussion. It started with the suggestion that there be a website resource that would provide both contact information for vendors, performers and speakers, and rating and reporting for the same people.

From Web of Trust
http://www.resourcesforlife.com/docs/item5706

While there were some good suggestions (branching into even more groups of people) and some great support, there was also the couple of responses that were less thrilling.

One type of this response was the compromise response: we should keep it local; we should keep it locked/inaccessible. All saying, "We should take this things teeth before it can actually make a difference."

The other type of this response was the defense lawyer (as far as I know or can tell, none of these responders are actually at all familiar with the legalities of this situation): someone might sue; be careful of libel/slander; you want to protect yourself.

So, to this discussion, I say: 

I live 50 miles from the nearest official pagan anything, 200 miles from most of our activities, 400 miles from the closest major festival. How local do I need to be before I'm allowed to know if my children will be safe? Kenny Klein and many others travel the country, if not the world. How does "local" keep organizers in any kind of loop for being even in a position to know that something is a possibility?

There are lots of Pagans that talk behind backs. Someone might sue for libel/slander. When did Paganism become the religion of the fearful? When did doing what's right to protect and defend our fellow humans become too risky? When did protecting children turn into a a slanderous act?

I'm begging someone to explain why raging BNPs and lying gossips have more rights then abuse victims do?

Lady Liberty League's Logo
https://www.circlesanctuary.org/index.php/lady-liberty-league/lady-liberty-league

Let me be clear on this. From my (admittedly laymen) research, libel and slander simply do not apply when reporting a complaint. Making an accusation is a whole different game. This is saying, "A person made this statement about BNP Such-n-such."Adding that legal statements were made, or charges were filed, or a conviction was made, are all reporting, not the statement that could support an accusation of slander. (Or libel, cuz it would be in print.) BNP Such-n-such can threaten to sue all they want, but reporting like that doesn't give them anything to sue about. That's why you can't sue a newspaper for mentioning the arrest report of your DUI.

As far as the complaints go, I would like to see better, more comprehensive complaint procedures across the board. How do you document it so it doesn't come back and bite you? What should you report as an event organization? What MUST you report as an event organization? How do you go about making or forwarding legal complaints to the legal system? Who do you make or forward them to?

Officers of Avalon Logo
http://www.officersofavalon.com/

We, as a community, have two (that I can think of right now) organizations that would be ideal for setting up such a system: The Officers of Avalon and the Lady Liberty League. We should be using these resources and working to set up a system. Why? Because we do not want to become the pedophile joke that the Catholic Church has become. We don't want that reputation, and our current course, guided by fear of someone important getting their feelers hurt, puts us right there in creepy-ville.

We NEED a reporting system. One that is as fair and unbiased as possible, but one that is easy to use, easy to access, and easy to update. We NEED to keep track of these things, because it has just been proven that one person can cut a huge swath of harassment and abuse across the entire country and over the course of decades. We need to put on our big kid panties and take responsibility for the environment that we have worked so hard to create. We've done well, but now we need something more.

To those who fight this movement, who say that there's a reason not to do this, that there is too great a chance for abusing whatever system we set in place, that we've worked too hard to create a culture of sexual freedom and positivity... To all of those people, I am telling you now: your arguments make me want to look closer at why you want to keep this stuff in the shadows, at what you might be hiding and how your behavior might be hurting others. And stay away from my kids.

No Room for Error, No Room for Growth: The Zero-Tolerance Epidemic

Zero tolerance. The phrase is supposed to make us secure, knowing that certain things are simply not going to happen.

The marketing on it is solid and visceral. It appeals to our gut emotions, to our fears about the world. Bullying; not in our school! Discrimination; not in our workplace! Electronics; no distractions here!

What happens, though, is the same thing that happens any time we create a system of judgment and punishment that is black and white. When we encounter shades of gray, the system becomes a thing of fear, itself.

Not exactly the image of a predator.

The problem comes down to two major factors: age and social status.

We often punish children, very young children, for what we adults, experienced and jaded, see as being threatening and/or sexual. Children are being labeled as sex offenders when they often don't even know what sex is.

Others are actually doing such actions as a result from their own abuse. Instead of helping them, we expel or suspend them from perhaps the one place where they get away from their own abuser.

Ironically, the exact same thing happens in the bullying arena. Behaviors that were previously ignored are
now treated as a new and sudden epidemic. At the same time, we ignore that these behaviors are often either learned behaviors (children being abuse at home) or the result of learning and behavioral disorders that undermine the child's social skills.

Boys will be boys...

...is now expelled.

I'm not saying we should ignore the behavior or not try to right it. I'm saying we are reacting a an extreme way to something that has many causes, perceptions and ways of treating it.

This idea can be applied to prisons, too. We have taken the route that all law-breakers are unsalvageable monsters, despite the evidence that rates of recidivism (re-imprisonment) go down significantly when prisoners are treated with a certain amount of respect, given opportunities, and have a social safety net when they leave.

Throw in the concepts that low income, underprivileged individuals (perhaps those without options, choices, or good role models) are more likely to end up in prison, or that up to half of all prisoners are convicted of situational or victimless crimes, and you have a system that punishes... what, exactly?

There are many possible answers. Minorities is common. Those on the social fringes. Persons with mental handicaps. Persons with social handicaps, such as low social status, poor school systems, a lack of social support. Persons who have suffered forms of abuse that may lead to poor choices, bad learned behaviors, or mental disorders. The list goes on.

We should be trying to help people, not slapping their hands, locking them in the closet and expecting their behavior to magically right itself when it's over.

And, yes, I'm sure we will find some people who are incapable of changing, people who can't be trusted ever again. But we punish everyone like they are those people.

We need to find our compassion, do the dirty work, show mercy as we would have it shown to us, and get these people back on track.

Love this blog?

I, Kalisara, have compiled my favorite blog posts into a book, Witch Way to the Cookies?. You can find it on Amazon.com here or learn more about it on the facebook page, here.

Enjoy!

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.