From: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Subject: Re: pagan self-defense
Reply-To: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Organization: LaserMaster Technologies, Minneapolis, MN
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 22:30:46 GMT

In article <2AAD4490.10608@news.service.uci.edu>, cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu 
(Janis Maria Cortese) writes:
> However, I
> fucking refuse to pick up a gun like that and keep it loaded and worry
> about intruders in my house constantly.  I will move somewhere else
> first; there are countries that are likely going to remain stable for my
> lifetime.  I will NOT live like that.  A knife, okay.  I have one.  BUt
> a gun is just too damned FINAL.  The things are incredibly dangerous, an
> accident waiting to happen -- again, especially if kids are around.
> Pagans and Witches and other people on the right-wing's hit list who
> have kids are forced to remain at the mercy of the armed freaks around
> them.) 

  I really didn't think much about this thread because I live out in 
the country where the only use we have for the pistol in the sock drawer
is shooting rabbid animals.

  Not a savory act.

  I always shake pretty hard when I realize that I'm going to have to
shoot something and have to get out the gun, then get very quiet and calm
when I know that I'm ready to do it, then, invoking every appropriate Goddess
I can think of I do it.  Very precisely, very calmly, very quickly.

  If you've never killed an animal, you can NOT understand what it's like.
I'm a pretty good shot, and I usually shoot out the animal's brain stem or
a major portion of it so that the animal is dead as quickly as it takes to
realize it.  Usually, they look up at me, kinda suprised, then they just lay
down.
 
  Then they do the "death thing".

  The entire body begins to writhe hideously.  It's like when a chicken
gets beheaded, but much worse when you have to see a mammal go through it.

  Am I ready to do that to a person?  Am I ready to shoot another human
being if someone breaks into my house and threatens me or my SO?

  It makes my stomach sick to think about the last animal I had to shoot,
the thought of shooting a human in the same way -- in any portion of the
anatomy, is terrible.  I don't think I could do it.  I don't think I could
even fake it.

  Like Janis says, knives seem different, but as I thought about it, I started
to wonder.

  I've got an atheme next to the bed, and a bokun (a wooden sword), and three
short swords hanging on the wall in the bedroom.  There's another bokun at
the end of the hall, a battle-axe on the wall in the TV room, a ceremonial
sword in the temple, an entire wall of spears and knives and axes and swords
in my study, my partner's library has two bokuns and a handful of daggers and
staffs and a rapier, the great hall has a great sword, a hand-n-half, a
broadleaf, a cross-bow, a 80# recurve, and four ceremonial daggers, the "Oak
Study" has two ceremonial blades, a fantasy polearm, two quarterstaffs, and
there's a white-and-silver katana on a black-laquer table in the entry.

  And those are just the weapons you can see.  We've hidden more.

  This frightens me.  Both I and my SO are proficient with all of these
weapons, and anyone who steps into the house without some major fucking
fire-power is going to get the shit completely kicked out of them unless
they're prepared to shoot, because anyone breaking into a house in the country
at night can only be thinking about doing the inhabitants some major wrong.

  And it becomes a question of submit and really, really hope that they'll
not take advantage of the situation, or that they didn't break in with
anything other than petty thieft on their minds, or -- and this seems more
and more the trend, they broke in to take whatever physical pleasure and
property they can find.

  Someone's holding a gun at you and threatening to rape your SO (or even
you) -- do you believe that they'll just "have their fun" and leave quietly?
Do you believe that if you quietly submit they'll just leave you alone?

  Maybe it's pesimistic, but I don't.  If I attack at that point, I might
get shot in the attempt, but I would probably have been shot eventually
anyway.  At least attacking, there's a chance.

  The point I was trying to make was that knives and swords are like guns,
you have to be ready to use it and proficient in its use.  I think in a dark
room, I can do more effective and disabling damage to an opponent with a
sword than with a gun.

  But I can't square that with the way I feel about killing or even injuring
others.  I spend hours in the temple after killing a ferral cat -- I can't
conceive what it would be like to kill a human.  Even in defense.

  The other point, perhaps an admission, is that my house full of midaevil
weapondry is really no different than a pistol in the sock drawer, or a
rifle under the bed.  My SO and I have still surrounded ourselves with
weapons -- some of which we find very beautiful and ornamental, but still,
they are weapons and are a part of how we define our safety in our home.

  Defining our safety based on a weapon is ugly.  Very ugly.

  I wish I could think of a way around that.

  Perhaps all of this has no place in alt.pagan, but it seems somewhat fitting
that we have this glaring example of people with essentially a peaceful
lifestyle surrounding themselves with violent tools to protect themselves,
or living unprotected, in a violent society.

  It's not as much fear as it is a disgusting resignation to the "trickle
down" karma of our disempowering and apparently hopeless society.

  And (here's the obl.pagan.ref), it is gauling to admit, that as a part of
immanent divinity, this is all reflected in the current state of the Goddess.
Violence, power-over, hatred, fear, and lethal force defining how "safe"
you are is a troubling, troubling thing when contemplating Her immediacy,
and the state of human evolution.

  Sorry, I just can't get a good ending to this, it's just so disempowering
to admit that we've filled our house with weapons to keep myself and my
partner "safe".

  And somehow, it seems that an answer could be built from the legends of
the Goddess and Gods of war, that the answers warring peoples found for
themselves can be addapted for ourselves, that their mystical metaphores
can be updated and reconstructed to suit our own needs, to give us some
sort of spiritual solution to our physical distress.

  Has anyone done this?  I mean beyond the "warrior cults" to actually
encorporating immanent violence into a meaningful world-view?

  I'll be watching ... Blessed be, Ciaran.

  $uslinit; include oblig.sig <<
  "...And here, Queen Aphrodite, pour heavenly nectar into gold
   cups, and fill them gracefully with sudden joy."  -- Sappho >>