Tags
dionysus, Les Casseroles, Loi 78, Manif, pagan, Pagan Blog Project, politics, spirituality, witch, witchcraft
L no.1 – Little Breaks Turn Long
Or; Burnouts and Bromios
Hey everyone. I wholeheartedly apologize for leaving you all hanging for nearly a month here. There isn’t much to say except that I wasn’t in much of a writing mood this past little while.
Originally part of the problem was that I was expanding my horizons a bit and getting involved with people and events that are more political than I usually associate with (online and in real life). While this was energizing at first and gave me many opportunities for self-reflection, research, listening, and practice in either biting my tongue, or eating crow, it eventually lead to a very minor burn-out. The political tangents were worming their way into my spiritual work (some of it was invited, I cannot lie), into my social life, my work….everywhere. It was becoming, and still is, hard for me to do or say anything without worrying that I was being misogynistic, appropriative, broad-speaking, naive, or ignorant or confrontational on some level. I was walking on eggshells everywhere I went, and wearing egg on my face daily. It was tiring, and a bit of a shock to my ego.
I am proud to say that I threw myself into the political pool without knowing how to swim with those sharks, and I think that I’ve come out a better person, despite having a few chunks taken out of me. I have grown as a person, and given the opportunity I will be better equipped to get involved again, though I doubt I will do it with such zeal.
I consider all of this part of my path as a Pagan, especially as someone dedicating themselves to worshipping the thunder-roaring, ecstatic, bull-faced god, Dionysus (I called to him, Dionysus Bromios, every night I went out to bang my pots and pans in protest). He who demands we push, and push hard. That we revel, that we rebel, and that we catalyze chaos and change.
I’ve had some time to regroup and reconsider my involvement with these groups, and while I am still going to be involved (in person, and online) I am going to try and maintain a buffer between myself and the comments and opinions that get bandied about. It’s not that I don’t want to learn more, or that I don’t want to hear what people say, but that I still need to develop the critical thinking skills and the thick skin that is necessary when dealing with the kind of people I’ve been locking horns with.
With all that said, great things have been happening in my life as well; my oldest and best friend was married last week and I was one of her bridesmen. I got to help her put on her makeup the day of the wedding, and was involved in both the Catholic ceremony and the Iranian/Persian one. It was really an amazing honour when the Iranian sister of the groom invited myself and the bridesmaid (who is a lesbian) to be involved with the ceremony, even though they called for ‘the happily married women’ to come bless the couple, especially as neither of us is blood-family.
Also, and this may seem trivial, but I’ve updated my Tumblr completely with a new layout and all that fun stuff (which is also reflected in the new background image here on the main blog.) I need to change things up every once in a while, so I’m really pleased with this and it encouraged me to get writing again!
I hope you’ll all forgive me for my absence, and know that I have some really fun posts planned to catch up. I’ll be skipping the K’s for now (I might drop one in, willy-nilly, when I find the time to write up a good post), but will be catching up on the L’s as well as posting for the M’s. Subscribe by e-mail to get noticed when all of these get posted
Again, thank you all for understanding, and it feels great to be writing again!
Here’s to another great round of Pagan Blog Project posts!
Since I’ve been away, what have you, all my lovely readers, been up to?
Did you do anything special for Litha? Any special trips? Epiphanies? Create anything special?
I’m curious! Let me know!
A Changing Altar 
I agree political activism (or any kind of activism) can be exhausting. Especially when you begin feeling like you’re beating your head against a brick wall and nobody is listening.
I’m not sure if it is a good thing or not, but that wasn’t the problem I faced. The protests, as you can see in the video I posted, were quite noisy. It would be pretty difficult for people to not listen! Haha! And, actually, in minor ways they were effective (we didn’t “win” but we made steps forward and garnered a lot of support from previously uninvolved people), but many people fought against them on the principal that they were “annoying”, even more-so than being morally or politically against the cause. It was pretty disheartening.
Beyond that, you had people shouting left and right “Oh, you’re not doing it right! I’ve been protesting things for 5000 years! I know EVERYTHING!”, or in other environments “No! You don’t know anything about magic because you see things differently than I do! IDIOT!” and all that non-sense.
In the end, what really wore me down was how confrontational people were, both ‘in-camp’ and from the outside. I should have expected it. But the confrontational words and attitudes were sometimes so reactionary and inflammatory that I was a bit blind-sided.
In the end I am finally taking part in something I had been avoiding for the better part of a decade, and while I’ll be taking a step back now, I’m glad that I did it. I’ve learned a lot and I know I can involve myself in the future, knowing ahead of time the warning signs of a conversation I don’t need to have, or an opinion I need to keep to myself.
I love your new background…love the color and the texture! As usual, I love your writing style and the diversity of your subject matter. I’m proud of you for taking a stand despite the toll it’s taken.
The toll it’s taken was pretty minor, to be honest. It was kind of like a small burn from the stove: you snap your hand away, and while the damage is done and you’ve learned your lesson there is still that uncomfortable throbbing that lasts a lot longer than you’d expect, even though the skin is still intact and healthy looking. It wasn’t a destructive experience, but it had me second-guessing myself often. I’ve surpassed my limit (which was my intention), and learned what I could, so now I am assimilating the info and continuing on my path with those new parts of myself.