From: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: New pagans and reading
Date: 8 Sep 92 22:22:42 GMT
Reply-To: ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson)
Organization: LaserMaster Technologies, Minneapolis, MN

> In article <1992Sep3.041515.20845@access.digex.com> corun@access.digex.com 
> (Corun MacAnndra) writes:
> >
> >So what's the deal? Anyone got any ideas? Or are men not allowed to be
> >as sacred and holy as women? This is not a chauvanistic, anti-female
> >rant, so please don't flame me for that. 
> 

In article <2AAC1F36.23983@news.service.uci.edu>, cortese@skid.ps.uci.edu 
(Janis Maria Cortese) writes:

[...]

> Again, don't feel threatened or wary or think it's prejudice or sexism
> for us to do this.  I know you aren't asking for flames; that's why I'm
> answering this.  I know you were asking sincerely, and I'm responding
> with that in mind.  Men ARE sacred, but they haven't been told they were
> the gate to hell for 2,000 years!  Men have a lot to work out as well;
> the male images of the distant and uncaring father and the good-boy son
> who goes to his death without a peep is damaging and psychotic.
> 
> We just have to bind some of our wounds, or find them to start with.
> When the wounds are inside, you can't even tell where the bleeding is.
> Women have been forced to work in a male-defined world, and men have
> been forced to separate themselves from women -- for a bufu long time.
> 
> I'll stop blathering now.

  You, blathering?  NOT!

  Each and every one of us get kicked down so hard by what's going
on that it gets easy to forget that we ALL need to reach up, really,
really, hard, to ever try to reach holy again.

  After bathing for so long in a society that measures people's worth
by the jobs they do or the husbands they marry, it's both men and
women that need to allow each other to have within themselves sacredness
without measure, without compromise, without fear of someone getting
too much sacredness -- as if such a thing could be.

  There's no pendulum to swing too far on this, there's only an inherent
value in each of us to be restored.  I am sacred, Janis is sacred, Corun is
sacred, ailsa is sacred, bill is sacred.  Each and every one of us here
and across the entire planet is beautiful and worthy of love and worship.

  If anyone sits down and meditates on their sacredness, by virtue of their
sex or color or nationality or religion, it is a paean to their own
unique sacredness, the holiness shining through their unique life.  It is
not, even by omission, a belittling of anyone else's sacredness.

  If I sculpt in metals, and someone came to me and said; "What a slight
on clay, that you would ignore it completely", I would tell them do
do with clay what they felt clay was calling them to do, but to leave
me to my silent dance with metal.  By chosing a partner and a mode of
expression (or a deity), I am not belittling other's choices -- I'm
just making my own.

  We can look at that shining expression, and learn from it and compare
ourselves to it, but we each must define ourselves and our own sacredness.

  The Dianic writers have eloquently expressed themselves and their own
particular views, and although I do not completely agree with everything
they've said, I still find it refreshing and empowering.

  By the act of empowering others, I myself am empowered, and live in
a richer, more rewarding, and more loving world.

  Even if I don't agree with them (and this from the loose cannon on
the net who raged so hidiously about the crusaders?  Goddess ... I
really am losing some major moorings).

  Now, Janis -- THIS is blathering!

  Ciaran, who's starting to feel a little better, but really wishes that
I could get all of the posts that are scrolling off over the course of
each evening.

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