Get Left with Goddess!

There is a common saying among Christians that one must "Get right with God", especially if they're in poor health and just might meet their maker in the foreseeable future. And it becomes an equally common joke when Christians speak of the rapid conversion of an atheist on his death bed. But what of the Pagans who believe in both God and Goddess? Is it possible that when you "meet your maker" it might be "makers?" It's entirely possible, as are all spiritual and religious theories, but it may be even more probable than monotheism. One can certainly understand the spiritual need to "Get right with God" when "right" means "aligned" and "God" means "Spirit." It shows the duality of "God and Man" but not the duality within "God" and the duality within "Man." It's clear that there is duality in both "God" and "Man" and it is the same dual nature, gender. So the pagan would correct the phrase to be "Get right with God and Goddess!"

But there is another way to define the phrase "Get Right with God" because "Right" has more than one meaning. For those on the "Right" of the political spectrum the confusion of this term lends them legitimacy, to be on the "Right" side of any debate just sounds, I dunno... right? A simple mind can believe that, if they are "Right" in a political debate then they are right as opposed to wrong. To those people, I would trump their spurious rhetoric with the very real truth that all of our hearts reside left of center. And this is true in the political arena and in life in general, our hearts are always guiding us to the left. In the duality of gender the feminine aligns with our hearts, and the masculine aligns with our heads, which are sometimes cool and often hot. Neither the masculine nor the feminine are superior, neither are perfect in spirit nor form. Either can be right or wrong, benevolent or malevolent. It is balance that makes one a more perfect soul, not division. Perhaps we should be saying "Get Left with Goddess!"

It's not just in times of ill health for an individual that we hear the phrase, it's also when there are "end times" scenarios in the near future. With the end of the Mayan calendar approaching and the many industrial and natural disasters unfolding we're going to be hearing this call to our very souls beckoning us to come to the church and renew our connection through their devoted liaison. But for those churches built to worship Jesus, Jesus himself would not go. Jesus was a very balanced soul, he showed the power of both the masculine and the feminine, the left and the right, and the wrong. If we are to believe the words of Jesus that have survived so many edits by popes and kings, then it's possible Jesus had no belief in a Goddess sharing his fathers kingdom. But he showed the empathy and passion of someone who was aware of the presence of a Goddess, the equal power and validity of the feminine. And if he spent much time with Mary Magdalene he must have seen the Goddess in her.

As an astrologer I know that we are about to enter a phase of heightened spiritual presence as Neptune, the planet of spirituality and transcendence enters Pisces, the sign that Neptune rules. The planet of spirituality is coming home and in a very spiritual way, so are we. There will be many difficult times ahead but we are heading for a new world that will deliver us from the old ways and power structures. Giants will rise before they fall but the meek will indeed inherit the Earth, and then we need to take very good care of her because our mother is very sick. This is the time to put your spirit first, to align yourself with your heart and balance the masculine with the feminine. We have been worshiping a great Father in the sky for far too long and the imbalance must be over-corrected before it can be corrected. We must take from the Father what we have handed over to him in order to give back to the Mother what is rightfully hers. It is not enough to march woman to the beat of a mans drum and call it womens liberations, we must liberate femininity as a whole.

If you don't get Right with God, you might get Left with Goddess!

Unclear Power

The planet is currently watching another devastatingly toxic tragedy unfold as the recent 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck the north east coast of Japan triggering multiple explosions at the Fukushima Diachi nuclear power plant. Over the past week since the earthquake struck the situation at the Fukushima plant has consistently deteriorated, though so far none of the effected reactors has become a full scale meltdown, or at least there has been no official confirmation of a meltdown. The internet blogosphere and social media sites lit up with all kinds of speculation in the days after the initial explosions about how far reaching the radiation cloud would be and how potentially toxic. Noticeably absent from the sea of fresh content was any official news source confirming or denying the negative potential of a radiation cloud on North America and the overall environment. However, as in any case with the potential for widespread panic and social chaos, there were many voices essentially dismissing any threats or any precautionary measures.

Certainly no one would make the case that an over reaction is an appropriate response, it's an over reaction specifically because it's an inappropriate response. Unfortunately, we live in a world of information wars, and there is nothing in the definition of "Information" that denotes fact, or even veracity. Therefore lies qualify as information even when the liar is fully aware of the veracity of their statements. But we as humans tell many lies that we aren't aware of, we often call this denial when we choose to believe the information that makes us feel better and dismiss the information that can cause us pain and suffering. Sometimes our denial is apparent to those around us as the truth is difficult but not impossible to deny. But in the case of the Fukushima disaster and nuclear power in general, we have a collective incentive to brush off any information that may cause a panic among millions. And to make things even less clear, the nuclear industry is heavily invested in by governments and individuals and therefore we simply cannot trust those who stand to gain from understating any threats.

Scientists are more likely to come out and tell us when there is a serious risk in a technology that they have been contributing to, but they are dependent on grants from industry and government and are often silenced or marginalized for speaking out in an effective way. And when science does address design flaws and potential hazards with new designs and technologies the implementation of newer, safer technology is dictated in the boardrooms with a profit first mentality. Industry heads know that there is a public out there that demands to be informed but they have subverted much of the institutionalized media to produce disinformation when it matters most. Main stream media is commercial media, it is payed for by industry through the purchase of advertisement and the underwriting of programming. In the same way that significant political campaign contributions often have strings attached, so does this money that keeps the 24 hour news channels pumping out "information."

Our universities are equally vulnerable to this kind of manipulation from industry as they underwrite large grants usually to the university science departments. This was the case when British Petroleum gave UC Berkeley half a billion dollars to start a new research institute on the campus bringing into question the influence of the global oil giant on academic freedom. Within a short while after this controversial grant BP was embroiled in the unfolding tragedy in the gulf coast as one of their deep water offshore oil rigs exploded creating an under water leak spilling millions of gallons of crude oil into the gulf. It hardly matters who exactly is to blame for the explosion and subsequent oil spill, there is no doubt that many of the parties involved we're negligently sacrificing safety for profit. And the University of Berkeley was in no position to criticize BP with whom they had recently formed a $500 million dollar relationship. If the oil industry would take their PR budget and political campaign contributions and instead invest it in safety measures, last years oil spill may never have happened at all.

But there are a lot of common threads running from the BP oil spill to our current Fukushima nuclear disaster, especially in the similar ways the nuclear industry is invested in the nexus of media and politics. But there is little discussion of the BP oil spill in this new year of 2011, almost as though we were experiencing a collective denial, it's too painful and we're just glad it's over. Our atmosphere is very much like the ocean, in fact the ocean can be seen as the heaviest and therefore bottom layer of our stratosphere. Fish are like birds who fly through water and birds are like fish who swim through the air. The main difference is that we live above the water and we fail to recognize the physical properties of the air all around us simply because it's invisible to us. When we saw the images of the BP oil spill on the sea floor with sea creatures swimming through the toxic plume, we all died a little, seeing the impact of our oil dependency on the other creatures in the environment. But now we are watching our own environment being directly affected with this toxic nuclear plume that threatens to continue spewing radiation into our sea of air for at least as long as the oil spill continued to leak.

I wrote then that oil was a dark, powerful substance that we fail to fully comprehend but has parallels in our spiritual world. Uranium and Plutonium are also deep, dark, mystical forces that have parallels in our spiritual world, and these powerful substances are not understood enough to be manipulated for our petty short term gains. No matter how many scientists work on this puzzle, no matter how many billions and billions of dollars we throw at this nuclear mystery, we humans are but infants playing with a loaded gun, sucking on the barrel and fingering the trigger. We are sadly aware of the fact that no living human has the capacity to give us unequivocal (or unbiased) facts that can bring us some assurance that nuclear power is safe. But that doesn't stop many people (amateur to top scientist) from making this claim ad nauseum. For those of us who are aware of our collective naivety on the matter, these false assurances are a sure sign that the information source is unfortunately corrupted or deluded and simply cannot be trusted. This is not to say that we must live in a state of constant fear, but until we make this collective realization we fail to respect the dangers we face.

Nuclear power is Unclear power, we attempt to consume it at the risk of being consumed by it.

Inner Sapling

We've all heard the term "Inner child" and most people accept the underlying principle encapsulated in the name. It's roots in psychology and philosophy vary, it seems to be a basic truth that isn't difficult to grasp. It's rarely included in a serious psychological analysis but it is a commonly used and widely accepted reference. The concept is somewhat abstract and perhaps for that reason it stays safely on the fringes of our culture where it will less likely be scrutinized. luckily, I spend a lot of time on the fringes and I happen to be in a perfect position to provide the scrutiny our inner children deserve. Lets begin with a metaphor, shall we?

We all know that when you cut down a tree and count the rings you can tell how old the tree is, or was, before you killed it. So look at this cross section of a tree and its' many rings and you can't help but to be drawn towards the center, like an organic bullseye. Imagine that tiny sapling less than one year old just taking root and beginning to nourish itself from the rich soil and rain. Just one year later, one summer later that sapling has a new layer, but inside that layer is still the same sapling, still nourishing itself from the environment. With each new layer the tree grows everything that comes from the ground is delivered via that sapling in the center, like a major artery for precious resources.

Our inner children are like that sapling, they are still very much alive and present in our lives. In fact many if not most of our compulsions and responses begin in their raw form with our inner infant. Truly everything we speak begins as a babys' first cry out into the world, and each layer, each year acts as a filter to refine that raw data into something more appropriate based on learned knowledge. As we get older we like to think we have left our childish tactics behind the way we left the blocks and puzzles we used to play with. But we rarely succeed in putting down the habits we form as children, instead we refine them, and re-refine them. We fine tune them and sometimes perfect them but we still manipulate our environment and the people in it in much the same way we did as children, as babies.

Though we pride ourselves on our increasingly refined behavior in our social context, our inner children are a lifeline to us at every age, at every point in our lives, every moment. But in a way, we're also acting as a parent or guardian to these unruly brats and may at times feel burdened by the task. Sometimes it seems that our bodies are the children and our minds are the adult, the child needs to be monitored to be kept from harm and self destructive behavior. And when our outer adults can't handle our inner children then somebody else is burdened with reigning you in. Somewhere in these layers we began to accumulate what we call our inhibitions, they are part of this layered filtration system that doesn't allow your inner child to be glimpsed in most situations. But when our walls of inhibition come down, our inner children are let out to play.

So be kind to children, because you're still one yourself.

Generally speaking...

We all get caught up in generalities, see I just did it. It's too easy to take our experience and project it outward onto the world we perceive, that's how our brains work, learn, grow. In fact we have a deep need to "know" the nature of the world around us, or is it a simple fear of the unknown? In a way, we are our own authorities on each and every subject, even those we hardly know. Our brains have a way of explaining our world to us in story form to a degree that we feel comfortable with, whether we believe it or not. And in certain company it becomes important for us to speak authoritatively on a wide variety of topics, whether we believe it or not. Men tend to do this in social activity, women tend to do it with children. Did that sound too general, maybe offensively so? What is it about generalizations that put us in that awkward position, and usually engaged in a heated debate? Somewhere, on some deep level of our collective psyche, I believe we connect generalizations with bigotry and charge them both with the same dark connotation.

But generalizations are not bigotry, bigotry is only the negative manifestation of generality. Let's look at how generalizations happen, and why. Our minds are often symbolized by the sword, sharp and precise, ready to dissect any matter into its' component parts. And in this process we start with a whole, complete world, untouched, undivided, what Buddhists call a Zen state of being. Thirsty for knowledge our minds quickly carve up the world into upper and lower, inner and outer, left and right, right and wrong. We don't just learn these words by definition, each word, each new dimension, is an entire concept to explore. Distinctions aren't truly knowledge until attached to a set of properties that distinguish them from one another. It's simply impossible for your mind not to overtly, or covertly collect this data about the distinctions separating men from women, Caucasian from Hispanic, African, Asian, etc.

Even the words "prejudice" and "discrimination" are stigmatized by their obvious connection to racism, but both are basic functions of the brain going back to our beginnings. Our brains are our greatest defense, and in uncertain moments the brain is pressed to make life and death decisions based on the information currently available. Often that information is limited to appearance, and even with no time at all to deliberate, our brains are processing all of this data and making decisions. But our brains are not just fear machines forever stuck in "fight or flight" mode, seeing everything as a potential threat. Throughout our collective human lifespan there has always been (and perhaps always will be) a simple fear of the different, the unknown. Our differences are on some level always seen as threatening, dangerous, even if we only feel uncomfortable as a result. If we can't collect information on those differences we grow even more uncomfortable with our fellow man, fellow woman. But at what point does our keen judgment and our discriminating taste become our prejudice and discrimination?

Generalizations serve an important function not limited to the division of the world, and it may be a way to re-unite a divided world. As important as it is for every person to learn the distinctions between male and female from a very early age, it's a delicate subject to discuss. A young boy may need to know that he shouldn't play as rough with girls as he does with his brothers, but a young man doesn't need to know that women are bad drivers. Some generalizations are true, and some just don't stand up to scrutiny, what's the difference? Often when making sweeping generalizations it's assumed that the problem was lumping way too many people together and painting them all with the same brush. But in many cases just the opposite is true, the statement really applies to a much larger grouping. In fact, men and women are bad drivers with some exceptions. Once this is realized the divided become united and perhaps together they can address the greater problem instead of bickering over careless generalizations.

Genders' simple duality is an easy case study compared to the diversity of race and culture. Observations made by race are almost always offensive, to suggest that a certain character trait can be attributed to skin color alone is in most cases demonstrably false. What does "Race" even mean? We're all the same species, we don't divide other species by race. If you take it literally it actually makes a lot of sense, a race is a competition. If we look at each other as being on different teams, striving for the same goal, we naturally want to get ahead and leave the other behind, maybe even cheat, sabotage, and ultimately undermine the perceived opponent. So why not just use the word "Culture" in its' place? Then perhaps we can discuss the subtle and not-so subtle differences between cultures in a way that allows for mutual appreciation, allows us to see our symbiotic relationships. Instead we tip toe through the discussion of race like a mine field full of cow patties, where stepping in a giant pile of crap seems a preferable outcome.

The key to unraveling a negative generalization is to put the parts back together and ask ones' self "Is the statement still true?" Hypocrisy is an obvious and common form of negative generalization, as when a white man believes all (or most) African Americans are thieves even as he participates in white collar crime. An honest look would lead someone to realize that we all (or most) steal in some form or another, we all commit some crime. When we allow a generalization to put the pieces back together again we can make better judgments. I believe there is nothing wrong with observing the character of different cultures, comparing and contrasting them against one another for the purpose of deep contemplation. But it's equally important that in this process we discover those universal character traits we all share so that we may contemplate our human nature, our bonding elements. Generalizations are like flowers, they are not intended to be frozen in the process of flowering, and when they fully unfold they show us how the diversity of the garden is the beauty of the garden.

Rebel Spirit

"Cause we've been trodding on the wine press much too long. Rebel, Rebel"

Robert Marley

What does it mean to rebel? It's really not possible to say unless we put the rebel in context and ask the question "What is the rebel rebelling against?" We have conflicting archetypes of the rebel in our society, some good, mostly bad. The good rebels all exist in the past, even the "forefathers" of the american revolution were (at the time) deemed "Terrorists" by the king of England. It's not until a struggle is won that one can be transformed from "Terrorist" to "Forefather" in the ultimate stretch of vindication. But when you are the king of a mighty colonial empire the word "Rebel" is a very bad word indeed. The king, the kingdom, is the context that the rebel is rebelling against. However, for those who undergo great disparities under said kingdom, the rebel is automatically a hero among the people.

While the king and the kingdom would portray a rebel as a villainous, bloodthirsty sociopath, the people know when the rebel is a passionate soul who can no longer tolerate the injustice in the land. But many such rebels live and die without vindication and the history books of kings will forever label them as "Terrorists" whose brutal end serves as a warning to would be rebels. One might think that a nation born out of rebellion would forever be in solidarity with the roles of the rebels of the world. But our rebellious forefathers were content to keep the same inequities of an aristocratic British society as long as they we're on the receiving end of the disparity. They were not fighting against a class system or an ownership society, they were not fighting for the rights of women, minorities, or the poor, they were fighting for themselves to be on top of a very similar, criminal empire.

The United States now stands as the worlds only self proclaimed Super Power, an empire by anyones' standard. But if power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, what does Super Power do? Hmmmm.... I think it's safe to say that the United states government is the largest and most corrupt empire to have ever stamped its' brand on the planet. The United States and all who worship the false American idol are now the context against which the rebel spirit rises. It doesn't matter if it's someone who plants a bomb on a US naval ship in the port of Yemen, or someone who sets SUVs ablaze in Oregon, or Someone who flies a small plane into the IRS building in Texas. The empire permeates everything on the planet, especially every resource of venal or strategic value, and every form of communication to monitor, shape, and mold our social discourse.

The rebel spirit is just that, spirit: the fire within. Those whose passions rise when they witness injustice in all of its forms have a potent spirit and strong convictions. They feel that they are on this planet to carry out a mission set for them by their own soul, an overwhelmingly benevolent force in the universe. Only the owners of a corporation can watch what that corporation does to the planet and think "That's perfectly fine, no problem here.", anyone with a heart knows when their land is being raped before their very eyes. This is the model of empire, to extract wealth from the far reaches of the planet and pile the gold high in your own backyard. Empire is all about ownership, and ownership is all about stealing and killing. First you kill people, then you steal land and resources, then repeat; you now have an empire. And when you build an empire this way you solve every problem the same way, kill more people, steal more resources.

Churches are the empires of the spiritual realm, the context within which one may rebel. But churches are more concerned with the ultimate deviant, the devil. The word "Devil" comes from the word "Deviate" and just like "Rebel" one must ask what one is deviating from. Just as we're taught to believe that the rebel is a "bloodthirsty terrorist" who "hates our way of life", we're also taught that Lucifer was an ambitious and defiant angel who challenged the authority of the Christian god Jehovah. So the devil, Lucifer, Satan, is basically Osama Bin Laden hiding in the ultimate cave: Hell, from which he sends his demons out into the world to wreak havoc among good Christian souls. Oddly, we're also taught about Jesus, who was pretty rebellious for a god. Oh, but he's a god, if he were a man he would have been a bad guy, even a "Terrorist" fighting against the Roman empire. It's a good thing he's not an ordinary man or he might inspire others to follow in kind.

So expect your nations mainstream news to be quick with the "Terrorist" label when anything threatens our homeland insecurity. Just like the tower of Babel our empire is an offense against god, and man, and goddess, and woman. The earth herself is the princess locked away in the tower that we all must risk everything to save, and if we are to save her we must bring the tower down behind us. The tower of Babylon is an outdated mode of dominance, the commanding heights of empire, and it must be dismantled for our next phase of true equality to begin. We can no longer be satisfied with the calculated coup replacing one tyrant with another, this titanic has already submerged and whoever the captain is they cannot stop the downward spiral to the bottom of the sea. Let go of your attachments to this false entity and begin to work for the planet, the people, and all of the natural world, it's the most rebellious thing you can do.

We refused to be what you wanted us to be

We are what we are, that's the way it's going to be, if you don't know

You can't educate I for no equal opportunity

Talkin' 'bout my freedom, people freedom and liberty

'Cause we've been trodding on the wine press much too long

Rebel, Rebel

Babylon system is the vampire

Sucking the children day by day, yeah

Babylon system is the vampire, falling empire

Sucking the blood of the sufferers

Building church and university

Deceiving the people continually

Me say them graduating thieves and murderers look out now

They're sucking the blood of the sufferers

Tell the children the truth

'Cause we've been trodding on the wine press much too long

Rebel, Rebel

And we've been taken for granted much too long

Rebel, Rebel

Pagan Control Freak?

con-trol [kuh n-trohl] -to exercise restraint or direction over; dominate; command.

ma-nip-u-late [muh-nip-yuh-leyt] -to handle, manage, or use, esp. with skill, in some process of treatment or performance: to manipulate a large tractor.

Let's contemplate a question for a moment and assume that a dictionary is not the place to find the answer: What is control? What does "control" really mean? And if it exists, where does it reside? From the moment we learn this word we are stuck with the task of controlling our selves, in the process our brain is somehow separated from our body and deputized to police all of its' actions. Long before we have our first puppy we have this animal called our "body" and we must train it and keep it on a short leash or else it might aimlessly roam the neighborhoods at night digging in peoples garbage. Some people try using force and punishment to train their animals, some use a pocket full of treats, one way or the other we are working with our will in an attempt to subordinate another. But are we really "controlling" anything? Nope.

"Control" is an elusive illusion that literally makes us crazy if we pursue it, and being a firm pillar in the dominant narrative it's no wonder the world is in the state it's in. I believe that some words really don't need to exist, their premise is false and faulty and they lead the human consciousness astray and away from clarity, reality. "Control" is one of these words, it's about time we lose "control" once and for all. There is a word based in reality that is ready to do the job that "Control" has failed to do, but this word has a bad rap and it's time we exonerate it for the crimes it has not committed. The word "Manipulate" has a heavy negative connotation in the English language, our somewhat venal sense of individuality makes us shudder at the thought of being manipulated. The same may be true for "Control", nobody really wants to be controlled by another, but relax, you aren't. You're also not in control of anyone else, including your self.

But you are manipulating your self (or your body) and you manipulate others and they manipulate you, it's called society. Sure, manipulation can be a "bad" thing, but it's constantly happening in mostly neutral ways, and often in very positive ways. We simply fail to give manipulation the credit when it's delivering the good things in life, we may even mistakenly give the credit to something that doesn't deserve it, doesn't even exist, like "control." If you're not quite convinced that "control" is a mere illusion then lets try a little experiment, part physical part thought experiment. Is there an object nearby that you can pick up? Go ahead and pick it up and move it about one inch and put it back down again, assuming it's under 100lbs of course. How did you do it? What was the first thing that happened? A thought? An intention? Did your arm just move without any special instructions? Did your brain "control" your arm and hands and the object you picked up?

If you can answer "Yes" to the last question, I'm asking you to consider it again, more, deeper. The truth is that "control" is debatable at best, it's not just an abstraction but it's very existence relies entirely on a philosophical question. Manipulation may be equally abstract, but for it's slightly more conservative and realistic definition it's existence is not in question. If I ask the question "Did you (or your brain) manipulate your arm, hand, and the object?" The answer is unequivocally "Yes." But in our culture, for some reason, to be a "manipulator" is equivalent to being a "hater", manipulation is somehow blamed for all of the crimes committed in the pursuit of control. Somehow "control" is the hero and "manipulate" is the villain, as if there was a war and the winner rewrote history, and reality. Manipulation is at the very heart of every verb we undertake from the moment we wake up in the morning to the moment we slip into dreamland once again.

While those who seek "control" over themselves, others, and the environment can grow more and more frustrated with their inability to achieve and maintain that impossible goal, those who seek only to manipulate their world can experience constant satisfaction with their inevitable success. Manipulating another human being is only negative if you believe that it is, it happens no matter what you believe so it's better to see that it is fundamentally benign. In fact some of the most wonderful experiences in our lifetimes require a state of mutual manipulation, not the least of which is making love to another soul. That some people manipulate others for personal gain with no consideration of mutual benefit is no fault of manipulation itself, as Ani Difranco said so eloquently "Every tool is a weapon if you hold it just right." Yet we tend to shun this tool even as we wield it, there is perhaps nothing more dangerous, more negligent than to use a tool in such a state of denial.

If you're a fan of Kung Fu movies you may think of ancient China as a land of martial chaos, but the practice of martial arts has always been largely misunderstood looking from west to east. Those who practice martial arts are actually less likely to be unstable, aggressive, and dangerous elements of their communities, unless of course their goal was to harness all of the power and none of the respect. But for most people the process of learning the extent of your physical power, your martial energy, also brings you the necessary respect that power requires. Those without this knowledge of the force within them are truly the less stable elements, walking around with a gun that they didn't know was loaded. The body and all of it's physical energy is our most powerful tool, and the practice of martial arts and other body energy studies such as Tai Chi and Yoga are how we get a handle on that tool. And without a handle, a knife, an ax, a shovel aren't tools at all, just dangerously sharp objects littering the landscape.

But "control" alone is not the worst drug on the street, it's more of a gateway drug for the true poison called "Control over." I'd prefer that no individual make any special effort to "control themselves" if they can accept "manipulate" as a suitable alternative, but to attempt "Control over" others is a crime of a much higher order. If one achieves a position of authority in some aspect of life based on merit alone, chances are they were not driven by the notion of "Control over". But in our political world of military force, police brutality, corporate rule, and the corruption that makes it all possible, there are many forces out there that seek to have "control over" everything and everyone in a monopolistic fervor to rule the world. "Control" may be an illusion, but the crimes committed by those who pursue it are very real. Imagine a world without this word, without this illusion, without the primary fuel for tyranny. Maybe you can't "make it happen" but you can manipulate it into being, not unlike the way you moved your arm.

Walk With Me

"And think not you can guide the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, shall guide your course."

Khalil Gibran

From a certain age we all begin to think of love, in a curious longing for what we know so little. We tend go through elementary phases of innocent romance, obligatory crushes, and the occasional teenage relationship before anything very serious comes into our lives. And even through all of these progressions in ones budding love life, true love may remain a fleeting glimmer on a distant horizon. We are sadly aware that no one is guaranteed true love in this lifetime and many never find it. Many more languish in abusive or self defeating relationships that they want to believe is true love but hope does not make it so. There is a simple reason so many cannot find love in another, and it's no real secret to reveal. True love is self love, until we learn to love ourselves we can never truly love another.

For most people self love is an elusive goal or not a goal at all, as if it's importance were not at all known. In fact many people grow up feeling that "self love" is "selfish" or "self centered", as if it's conceited to love ones' self. If this describes your understanding of self love I am asking you to consider just the opposite, there is nothing more selfless, more generous, than to love yourself exactly as you are. Do not consider your faults, they are simply the other side of your strengths. Your faults fade in the presence of your love and you will see that your faults have always been your strengths working without the nourishment of love. When you have self love you do not seek it with a desperation if you seek it at all, you emanate it like a radio tower and attract it back to you. Like attracts like, those with self love attract those with self love; those without attract those without.

Self love is a spiritual, not superficial goal, it is a basic level of enlightenment that simply puts one on a path that will continue to expand their consciousness as long as they maintain that self love. The universe is love down to it's smallest bits and in it's complete form, within each one of us is a tap into that bottomless well. This love exists beyond the boundaries of time and space and is therefore eternal and shared by all things; plant, animal, mineral, past, present, and future. The knowledge that one can be alone and still have love is the antidote for the fear and desperation which guides many in their search for true love. There will never be a cologne called "Desperation" because desperation is literally repulsive, one intuitively understands that they are being asked to love someone who does not love them self. This same rule applies for salesmen, you are more likely to make a sale if you too would buy the product.

One may have a lover and still not have self love, because as we all know sex is not necessarily love. Chances are neither lover has self love if we follow the like attracts like principle, but there are other possibilities. One lover may see that the other is at the doorway of self love just waiting for someone to invite them in, or they may both be in that threshold as they meet. But it's all too common for two people without self love to stay together for a very long time without this precious element and sometimes even preventing each other from attaining it. One person in this relationship can begin to attain this love and if the other does not follow suit they will soon vibrate out the door to find another mate. But these self loveless relationships often go on long past the point of being mutually beneficial because losing the relationship would mean losing love. The sometimes sad truth is that all relationships are temporal, one can only find comfort in the knowledge that love itself is eternal.

Relationships have so much to teach us, especially with mutual love and self love. But there are also many pitfalls to be avoided, though falling in is one way to learn all about them. It's important to understand that your life follows a path and very few people share your charted course. In the terrain of love we more often cross paths with people who are coming from different places and heading in different directions. We meet because our paths bring us to the same place and time where we can share at least that much in common, but chances are we can no more harmoniously trade our routes than we can trade our shoes and expect them to fit. But relationships, especially marriage, force one or both of these courses to drastically change. Over much of human history it has been without question that the woman gives up any plans or goals that conflict with those of the man, the mans course becomes hers.

When you see your course on this physical and metaphysical landscape and have the greater vision of self love, you can see the potential to simply share a path with a lover for a while, as long as it is mutually beneficial and before it becomes mutually destructive. I am in no way suggesting that love can be destructive, but holding onto something or someone beyond it's natural expiration date is destructive, like drinking sour milk. I assure you that aligning relationships with sour milk is not a pessimistic view of love, perhaps some people should be asking themselves "Why buy the milk when it expired last week?" When two people simply share a path for a while they are braiding their two paths together, they may go his way, or her way, or find some compromise between the two. But giving up ones path completely, or compromising both can eventually lead to mutual resentment, blaming each other for goals not realized. Walk together for a while but do not forget your path.

As a self proclaimed pagan I naturally find flaw with the "Institution of Marriage" but I don't secretly or publicly wish doom and failure on any married couples. I do sympathize with them however for the impossible goal they carry, a potentially lifelong burden. "Til death do us part" is an unnecessary and potentially destructive element of marriage, or "merging." Love flowers when two people have a mutual appreciation for each other, when they can overlook faults to see and utilize the gifts that they have for one another. If one believes that they are "stuck" with the other they almost immediately begin to dread the others faults, and "til death do us part" quickly becomes a curse filling the relationship with bitterness and resentment. Marriage has historically set a great imbalance between the genders in their respective roles. For millennia men have been able to achieve success after success in their careers, while most of our mothers and grandmothers, great grandmothers and so on, we're left with the task of "keeping the family together". This goal is often never fully realized because time keeps marching on and the family could always fall apart the next day, no "Mission accomplished" banners for mom.

Though I'm not a true practicing pagan I follow the logic of the hand-fasting rituals, some specify that the two are bound together for a specific cycle but not limited to that time, others simply leave out "Til death do us part." No marriage or relationship is guaranteed love, but one does not need institutional marriage, or even a relationship to begin to love ones' self. The escape hatch of divorce is becoming increasingly utilized for those who become disillusioned in their marriages, but I'm suggesting that some relationships can survive healthy and happy for many years without the lifetime guarantee, and in fact that impossible commitment may be the instrument of undoing for many couples. Years ago I noticed that with the coming generation all step parents were becoming step-grandparents, and now they are becoming step great grandparents, this trend is irreversible even as it speaks to the reversibility of marriage. But even after a bitter divorce or split, it is important to go back and see the other for their gifts and not let their faults spoil the better qualities they shared, hopefully this process can be mutual.

No matter where you are in your life, teen crush, young love, young parent, not so young parent, there is one thing you simply must do to improve the quality of your love life and life in general, love thyself. Just as the inscription at the temple of Delphi instructs us to "Know thyself" we begin to see that until we know our selves we cannot truly know anything or anyone else, the same is true for love, that we must first love our selves before we can truly love anything or anyone else. Do not seek love, instead go deep within yourself and discover it there. Discover your thing, is it writing, playing a sport, music? Whatever it is, do your thing and focus on nothing else and love will fall all over itself to ring your doorbell. Even if you're in a marriage or relationship, with or without self love, ask yourself what your "thing" is, or what your thing would be if you were not in your current relationship. Then do it anyway, even if it causes friction in your relationship, allow it to begin to correct your life as you attract like elements into your world.

Love your self, and do your thing, nobody else can do either of these for you.