From: pharvey@mipos3.intel.com (Paul Harvey)
Subject: Re: Long & potentially overdue clarification
Organization: ok, so, a ... um, why do we crucify ourselves, everday?
	<1992Sep15.011238.25596@lmt.mn.org>
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 23:19:12 GMT

In article <1992Sep15.011238.25596@lmt.mn.org> 
ciaran@county.lmt.mn.org (Ciaran Benson) writes:
>  Still, I do not by ANY means consider myself qualified to speak on
>women's mysteries, or to pretend to any understanding of the particular
>problems of being a woman, growing up as a woman, in a society like ours.

Ah, but you of course are, being as human being. What is qualification?
One does not want to trivialize the experience of being a member of a 
tribe, but being in a tribe gives one a type of qualification and being
OUT of a tribe gives one another type of qualification. Both views are
needed, as a matter of fact all views are needed, there is a need for
those who live the pure life AND a need for those who cross-over. If
there are no true tribals, the meaning of true tribal is lost, if there is
no cross-over, the meaning of human being is lost. If there is no true
tribals nor cross-over ...

>to love -- indeed, the kind of love which I am seeking now and have been
>seeking since my handfasting has been a love of thoughts and experiences.
>If I love someone, I love them for what we have shared, not who they
>sleep with or don't sleep with.  When I see someone I love, I don't whip
>out a gender meter to find out how I should greet them -- if we're hugging
>friends, we hug.  If we're kissing friends, we kiss.

Closer to chakra 6, further from chakra 2?

>The experience of the Goddess and
>God, and the expression of my religion, and my reverence for the expression
>of others, is a genderless thing -- or at least, _should_ be a genderless
>thing.

Um, the words start failing, dontcha think? Genderless implies a 
devaluation of the meaning of the sexes, but there is a transcendence,
given an understanding, perhaps mutual, perhaps not. It's just the 
qualification question, no one is more qualified, only different
perspectives. It is not easy to get up to the heights of chakra 6, and
once there it is too easy to fall back down to chakra 2, which is still
higher than the mainstream average. It is too easy to de-personify, to
lose track of the meaning of human being. You/Me, Us/Them. Just when you
think you've got the opposites together, they fly apart and the world
comes back into what we call focus, seeing that which can not be seen.

>  Then I posted a letter sympathising with Janis in a thread where she
>was getting thoroughly flamed.  A couple of days later, I recieved a
>personal letter calling me butch dyke, and telling me to get my ass off
>the net.
>  I printed it, I read it, I thought about it.  I laughed about it.
>  On the way home I got really mad.  Really, really mad.

You're just being tested, probably coyote was behind it.

>  I tore it up and burnt it and deleted the message and never told my
>partner that it had happened.  I couldn't admit to myself or her the
>sense of total powerlessness that I felt.  There was no argument I could
>make, no explanation I could give in response to a letter like that.
>It just put me in my place and assumed that was enough -- that I had
>gotten out of line, out of caste.

So then it was a good test? Was it food of the gods? I don't mean to
make light of what was obviously a strong experience, but aren't all the
good ones like this? Aren't the best journeys the ones where you get
lost, the ones that shake the foundations? What was the meaning of the
test? It couldn't have been the person who sent it nor the content, the
meaning was what it meant to you, and why.

>to grow up visibly Indian.

Hmm, to be able to pass, is what you are saying. To be able to pass gives
you the power of possibly getting a role in the mainstream because of
your passing looks, but everyone always knows you are passing, you are
not 100%, just close, and you will be ridiculed by your own kind, your
brothers and sisters who are close to pure blood of the parts of your
blood. Again, tribal versus cross-over. Tribal is the base, the source,
but cross-over is the answer. Sometimes one has to not belong in order
to BELONG, to enjoy perspective but realize that what you see, the
tribals do not. We may all be wolves in sheep's clothing, but those of
us who know our wolf identity must still live with the majority who
still see only sheep.

>  But I can't possibly understand in my heart of hearts what it means to
>grow up that way, and to live that way.

That should empower others, not de-power you. You don't know me and I
don't know you, that is not bad, that is good, that is the meaning of
individual, separated at birth ...

>  As a Pagan, I can choose to not wear my pentagram, to take out my ear-
>rings, to dress "normal".  I can hide myself in society, escape without
>leaving.

Yeah, you can pass, others can not. That is not your fault.

>  And it tears out my heart that there isn't a damned thing I can do to 
>make it stop -- to grab this society and shake the hate out of it, wring
>it until it makes sense, until all the pain stops for everyone.

I hear you on that one. That's the dead dog story, right? Dead dog on the
side of the road, some turn away in discust, others are attracted like
flies, but only the pure of heart can feel the pain.

>  It's all been very, very educational.  I hope for more than just myself.

Sure, you know coyote, gotta get those stories somehow.

>  It's about truth and quests and masks and the honesty of a person's
>words and writing.  What I have written has always been my truth, my
>honesty.  I am exactly what I seem to be through these words; someone
>who's trying very, very hard to understand the Goddess as She's
>variously revealed Herself to me, and trying to live in a world where
>all of my friends can be free from pettyness.

That's stand up for my right. I see that you won't give up the fight,
will you?

>  I like to think that all of us are what we seem, rather than what we
>appear.  I like to think that what we say is more important than the face
>that it comes out of.  I like to think that love means that I CARE rather
>than I WANT.  I like to think that passion is more important than sex.

Yes, freedom talk and freedom walk. Didn't I, clear the land, and didn't
I plant the corn, and didn't I work the fields?

>  "... hey but I don't care cause sometimes I said sometimes I hear
>    my voice and it's been HERE silent all these years" -- TORI AMOS

You know, this may sound kind of coarse, but when I first saw this video
I thought, hmm, how to put this, I thought, wonder bread eater discovers
wonder bread is mostly air, you know? It's always interesting to see
this type of "meaning" show up in the mainstream, but in the context of
the tribe it is quite good. And "boy you best believe I bleed real soon,
how's that thought for ya", but it's too bad that the mainstream doesn't
seem to be looking for any meaning, tune in and tune out. Out like Bush.