The Tarot Bag Experiment

Can you handle all these posts in one day?!

Hah, like anyone besides my friends reads this blog yet.

I finished the first tarot bag today.  I think it's really cute, but I accidentally sewed the strings on the inside.  I might cut slits in the side for them, but I'm afraid they'd fray without reinforcing... which might prove a challenge at this stage.  It still closes just fine so I'm not too concerned.

To give you an idea of the size, I used my main tarot deck - the Lord of the Rings deck from U.S. Games - to judge when cutting the fabric.  See my babies on the right there?  I've had them since 1993.  I still love them like no other.

The bag is lined with super soft velvety fabric.  Black, of course.  The strings are a little on the long side, but they have a nice cauterized edge that I don't want to lose.  I tossed some charms on them as well to make it extra snazzy.  ;)

The wonderful world of Deism

So how many of you have been following the Texas text book drama?  As someone who almost (and still might) make their career in academia, it's a topic that has me greatly concerned.  It seems to be getting media attention but I'm really not sure how much people are paying attention to it since Arizona has been hogging the spotlight with its jacked up legislation (If you've been living under a rock, I suggest checking out Dionysian Atavism's posts on racism or read the bills directly: SB1070 and HB 2281).

The Texas issue is very troubling because it directly impacts thousands of students all over the United States who will be using these text books.  It's a bastardization of history and it will influence how students think about the world and what they teach their future children.  I know teachers can at least choose not to cover some of the controversial material the way it's presented, but we also have to take into account that students are influenced by what they're not seeing as well.  Take for example the decision to leave out United Farmworkers founder Dolores Huerta and all her accomplishments and contributions to history because she's not dead yet.  Never mind that our history books cover plenty of other prominent figures that aren't dead yet.  Never mind that this looks racially and politically motivated since this woman is a prominent figure in the Chicano civil rights movement and a Democratic Socialist hated by Republicans and State schools chief Tom Horne from Arizona.  No, no - she was rejected because she's not dead yet.

There were also some attempts at sugar coating the slave trade by renaming it and de-emphasizing the civil rights movement while emphasizing the violence of the Black Panthers.  The former did not happen, but I'm unsure of the status of the latter.  While I think it's important to cover the Black Panthers, I have to ask why there is such a push to emphasize their violence.  This seems like such a trivial bit of history to focus on when we look at the broader picture of the civil rights movement as a whole.  So I have to ask, what is the board's agenda with this one?  I'm sure you can guess what I'm thinking.  But really, if the civil rights movement had been a violent revolution, could you really say we didn't deserve it?

Aside from all the suspiciously racist sounding amendments to the text books, the other big thing being pushed is that whole Christian Nation fairy tale.  You know, the one where our founding fathers were all super duper Christian and believe everything the Bible said and founded our country on these beliefs.   Yeah, I hate to break it to you but most of them were Deists.  For example: Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, James Madison - ALL DEISTS.  Now you could say that Deism is just a type of Christianity or just a philosophical viewpoint within Christianity... but then I'd have to facepalm in response.

Deism came into vogue because of Newton's scientific discoveries and the great philosophical works published during what is known as the Age of Enlightenment.  If you ever get past an intro course in Philosophy, you might learn a little about this stuff.  Philosophers believed you could prove the existence of God (or a creator) through philosophical arguments.  One of the popular ones was based on cause and effect.  Everything's created by something, everything is set in motion by something else, etc.  But without a creator, or prime mover, we'd end up with an infinite regress.  (Which is a bad thing in case you were wondering.)  Another popular one was the Teleological argument.  The basic idea here is that nature is orderly and well designed.  It makes sense.  Never mind that we can chalk this up to evolution; this is clearly proof that some intelligent mind designed the place!  There's plenty more arguments where these came from, and I certainly don't purport to know which ones our founding fathers happened to like.

But how is Deism different from the Christianity I practice, you ask.  Ohhhh, let me tell you (since you're too lazy to read that wiki entry I posted).  Deists believe in some sort of creator, which most call God, by which we assume they mean the Christian God.  But it bears very little resemblance to the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible.  Funny I should mention that Bible thing.  Deists tend to think it's hogwash.  You see their God created the universe, set things in motion, but like a deadbeat parent he high-tailed it out of here after the birth.  The Bible is just a bunch of nice stories written by humans, not the divinely inspired word of God.  Jesus was just a hippie with controversial views.  God doesn't intervene, there are no miracles, there's not even an occasional birthday card.  Prayer is wonderful for meditation, cleansing, and affirmation, but God isn't going to intervene on your behalf no matter how much you grovel.  With beliefs like these, is it any wonder our Deist forefathers pushed for Separation of Church and State?

Our forefathers, and other prominent figures of the age, believed that reason should govern us. They put safeguards in place so that religious dogma would not control our nation. They promoted tolerance of other religions. Some biographers[36] hold the opinion that many of the American Founding Fathers (and especially Washington) believed that, as leaders of the nation, they should remain silent on questions of doctrine and denomination, to avoid creating unnecessary divisiveness within the nation; instead they should promote the virtues taught by religion in general. (via)   They held great reverence for God and creation, but they knew that no one agreed on the details and didn't want laws and other important decisions based on what someone claimed was the word of God.  If something was truly a good decision, then we would arrive at it through reason and intelligent discourse.

So when you call America a Christian Nation founded on Christian principles, you are doing a disservice to American history and our forefathers.  You're oversimplifying the truth and fooling your audience with an implied comparison to the Christianity practiced today.  You're ignoring Separation of Church and State and disgracing our forefathers intentions of religious freedom for ALL religions, not just sects of Christianity.

Keeping the vampires at bay.

I was perusing TV Guide when a little headline caught my eye.  Is vervain real?  Seriously?  As you might have guessed, I was compelled to read it.  Apparently The Vampire Diaries has decided to tweak the vampire mythos and use vervain instead of garlic.  Though it seems that vervain is about as powerful as an actual crucifix in this series.  Some colloquial names for it are Holy Herb and Herb-of-the-Cross, which I guess is what inspired the writers to use it.  Personally, I think they should use valerian to keep the vampires away.  The smell alone could kill you.

Gender and Magick

 People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute. - Daria


Let's see if I can get my brain off racism long enough to discuss another subject near and dear to my heart: Magick & Gender.

For as much as the Pagan and Occult community loves to think of itself as some loving, tolerant, all-inclusive extravaganza, I often find it's perceptions of gender to be archaic and disturbing.  Part of this may be attributed to the cultures in which one's particular magickal practices derived.  But sometimes it is actually our modern perception of these cultures and rituals that leads to this great divide.

How is gender defined?

In the West we traditionally tend to conceive of gender as bipolar and conflate it with sex.  If you have a penis, your sex is male, your gender is male, and you are expected to exemplify male gender roles.  If you have a vagina, your sex is female, your gender is female, and you are expected to exemplify female gender roles.  This uber structured outlook leaves little room for anomalies.  Anyone who's familiar with daytime TV has probably seen one of the many heart-wrenching talk show episodes where a parent was forced to choose a sex for their hermaphroditic child that was later regretted, or given no choice at all.  Many people may also consider themselves transgendered.  They may feel that their sex does not match their gender and/or that the Western bipolar classification system does not adequately describe their internal gender.  For some, this means fully or partially transitioning from male to female (MtF) or female to male (FtM) by wearing specific clothing, taking hormones, getting mastectomies or implants, or having gender reassignment surgery.  It should be noted that one's internal gender does not indicate one's sexual orientation.

In non-Western cultures we often find a more expansive taxonomy.  Many cultures recognize a third gender that may refer to trans peoples, eunuchs, intersex peoples, and many other types of internal gender/outer sex organ combinations mixed with specific gender roles.  In some primitive cultures we may see up to 6 unique genders.  Many of these cultures have a very rich concept of third gender.  These are not merely cases of gender dysphoria, but individuals happy in their own bodies who have taken on a specific gender role in their society that is (usually) not determined by their physical sex.

An example of third gender that I've always found fascinating is the Native American Two-Spirit.  The name comes from the idea that certain individuals had two spirits (assumedly one male and one female) occupying their bodies.  They often fulfilled a shamanistic role in their tribes and dressed in articles of clothing pertaining to both sexes.  It's also important to note that their partners did not view themselves as homosexuals, signifying that these tribes drew a distinction between physical sex and mental/socially-constructed gender.


How does gender affect magick?

A variety of issues crop up when we mix gender and magick.  In some cases occult practices aimed for an equality of the sexes, nixing gender roles in regards to these practices.  In other cases gender and/or sex have limited the options available to an individual and created pre-conceived notions about their ability to perform certain functions.

You're probably familiar with the concepts of male and female energy.  But how does this apply to people?  Does your energy match your outer sex?  Does it match your inner gender?  And have we fallen into the Western dichotomous trap of assuming there are only two options?  I'm of the mind that your energy matches your internal gender, perhaps flavored by the particular archetype you're most in tune with at the time.  For those whose gender and sex are the same, it may seem bizarre that I've come to this conclusion.  You might feel that your physical body is inseparable from the energy that said body contains.  But for those who've ever felt that disconnect from their bodies, it can be quite a different story.  You might also argue that anyone can harness both male and female energy.  While I wouldn't necessarily argue against this (at least not without further thought or research), I believe it would at least take a conscious effort to change from one to the other.  My concern for now is just the natural state of your energy.

Now I know everyone might not use or believe in this type of energy model, but let's run with it for a moment as it creates very real consequences for our fellow magickians.  A lot of fertility based or Gardnerian influenced pagan religions seem focused on a dichotomous gender and energies.  Although the Goddess is sometimes elevated above the God, the two are always present in some manner.  These religions often divide tasks based on gender roles.  A female sexed High Priestess represents or "becomes" the Goddess in ritual with the role of the High Priest being performed by a man.  Whether by design or coincidence, they are placing emphasis on the physical body being your connection to the divine rather than your internal spirit or energy.  Now sure, in most cases the external and internal match up so it doesn't matter.  But how often do we check to make sure before we assign or take on these roles?  This begs the philosophical and theological question of which is more important: matching our physical representations to Deity or matching our internal ones?


Dianic Wicca and Feminist Wicca

Many Dianic/Feminist groups would point to the physical.  In Drawing Down the Moon (2006), Margot Addler describes the beliefs of the Z. Budapest stream of thought as:

All that is male in nature is seen as a variation of the Goddess, coming from her, birthed from the wombs of women.  And women's wombs are seen as the source of creation, and the source of women's power, whether or not women have had a hysterectomy.  As a result, Dianic Wiccan feminism is basically "essentialist" as opposed to the view that most of the differences between men and women are culturally produced.  Most Dianics in this tradition do not accept transgender or surgically altered men as female, a controversy that has raged throughout the women's movement for years.  (p. 126)

This rigid view of gender creates many problems.  It emphasizes the archaic Western view of gender qua sex that we are only now barely escaping from.  It promotes the idea that transgender women are not "real women," further scarring an already downtrodden class.  It promotes an "essentialist" view, denoting an innate mental/spiritual difference between the physical sexes which may be construed negatively.  And what people often forget: all these ideologies don't necessarily stay in the circle.  They are often expressed in every day life and the interactions group members have with others.  For a group that aligns itself with feminism, a movement concerned with breaking down the barriers of gender roles, it seems that they are actually promoting gender role distinction.  Why?  I think the historical time line may provide a clue.  Budapest created her stream of Dianic Wicca in the early 70s, riding the coattails of 1960s second wave feminism.  The "essentialist" view is an unfortunate anachronistic leftover of 1960s second wave feminism.  Why are so many Dianic groups stuck in the past?

There's a store about an hour away from here that's owned by a woman who belongs to a feminist coven.  While I am unsure of their stance on trans women, I do know that they don't allow men of any sexual orientation. A few years ago my friend asked why that was and she gave an answer along the lines of "we don't have guys... parts get in the way."  I kid you not.  Now I can understand the appeal of  a same sex or same gender coven: a sense of camaraderie, being able to explore women's (blood) mysteries comfortably, being united and focused by similar life goals.  But these weren't the reasons given.  So what are these parts that are getting in the way?  Are we saying that their penises are going to mess up the energy of the circle?  Then once again we have the idea that the outer package dictates the energy contained within.  Or are we concerned with the stereotypical male way of thinking interfering with the atmosphere?  If it's the latter, we're doing a great disservice to half the population, claiming we know how they think and behave solely because we know they have male genitals.  Which in turn leads to the exclusion of trans women (at the very least, those who are pre-op) and those of other genders that do not have natural born female bodies.  Conversely, this allows anyone of any gender contained in a natural born female body to infiltrate the circle.  I suspect that a person with a female body who identifies as male, strolling in there with their uber masculine energy and thought patterns would wreak a lot more havoc than a mere penis.  (And if that fails, they can always bring a strap-on).


The Glass Ceiling of the Occult

Another consequence of the essentialist view, that reaches beyond Dianic/Feminist covens, is the belief that one sex is spiritually superior to the other.  A friend of mine once stated quite bluntly that women were more spiritual than men.  Now I'm sure a lot of us are familiar with jokes about women dragging their husbands to church against their will, but that's not the implication as it pertains to the magickal community.  Perhaps this is another by-product of the pagan/polytheist revival's close ties to the feminist movement, but we often encounter this stigma that women are the spiritually superior.  Women have women's intuition.  Mothers have eyes in the back of their heads and closer bonds with their children.  The Goddess is #1 and she's in every woman.  And let's not forget the awkward shock some women have when they find a straight man interested in magick.  But why is this opinion so pervasive?  It may be partially traced back to the stereotype of men being associated with science and math whereas women are associated with emotions and intuitive thought.  By twisting this into a positive association, women empower themselves in the metaphysical field.  But how is this any better than the glass ceilings in math, business, and science that women have fought so hard to crack?  Should women really allow themselves to benefit from and feed this erroneous stereotype?

Now, not every conflict between gender and magick is the result of Western thinking and history.  Let's shift our focus to the other side of the world for a moment.  Not too long ago another blog mentioned a Tantric ritual that was only for those with a penis.  (Editor's note: Apparently this was a case of vague wording, leading me to interpret the word wang as its American slang meaning.  I apologize for the misunderstanding but I will be leaving the following discussion in my essay as I believe it has merit whether or not I have a particular incident to point to.)  I find it interesting that this is coming from a culture with a fairly established third gender.  Since neither the ritual itself or further explanation was provided, it's left me speculating as to why this ritual would be limited to men.  As far as I know (thanks to two days of desperately brushing up on the subject) only left-handed Tantric practices incorporate actual sex.  Many practitioners prefer a more internal approach.  So is an actual penis really needed or was that merely an unfortunate word choice by the author?  While historically a culture may have constructed things in terms of gender roles, we are now at a point in history where we are trying to move beyond that.  Symbolism, visualization, and even prostheses can help one achieve a role or ritual originally designed for the opposite sex.  Yet many of us insist it be done by someone of the appropriate sex.  Why?  Are we superstitious, believing that it won't work because we are not following instructions to the letter?  I say we can't know until we try.  We're dealing with things written before modern perceptions of sex and gender.  It's like refusing to take a cruise around the world because your ancient text says that the world is flat.

But let's backtrack to unfortunate word choices for a moment.  If the intent of the ritual was designed for male gendered persons but not requiring an actual penis to be used at any point, then we are being deceived by word choices and forgetting about all our intersex and female bodied males.  Wording in old and/or foreign texts can often be deceptive.  Many authors share the viewpoint of their time period and culture when it comes to topics of sex and gender.  This can lead to erroneous perceptions about the abilities of certain people to perform certain roles, and we may mistake this for well-researched fact.  We also have the issue that many languages assign genders to their words and even have different words or phrases for females and males to use when speaking.  Take my blog name for instance.  The default way of saying "the grey cat" would be il gatto grigio, which is of course male.  By changing my noun to female - la gatta - I must also change my adverb to the appropriate gender - grigia.  There is no truly gender neutral way of saying "cat."  But, if my memory serves me correctly, words like "car" have only one gender option in Italian.  It's always female.  Each language has its own pitfalls where gender is concerned and it's not something we often give thought to when interpreting what we read.


When is a cauldron just a cauldron?

A common pagan stereotype that you'll often find at gatherings is what I call the "ren faire type."  Serving wenches, bards, and swashbucklers carouse around the grounds in pseudo-period garb, playing a role that may or may not be historically accurate.  This can be an extremely fun and creative exercise, but of course I'm going to spoil things for you by explaining just how it can be abused.

A lot of people in the magickal community are interested in connecting with the past.  All kinds of points in the past, and not just my ren faire example.  They want to revive or reconnect with ancient cultures, practices, and religions.  But sometimes, in order to slip into character, they recreate past (or what they think were past) gender roles and situations.  I emphasize what's in the parentheses because people's perceptions of historical cultures and materials are often influenced by the current culture and their own biases.  A hilariously sad example of this was pointed out by V.V.F. in her blog.  In regards to a poem where the male and female roles were later switched when it was turned into a call-and-chase song, she writes:

As often happens, various Neo-Pagan groups have adapted it to their own tastes across the years. Why were the gender roles suddenly swapped? The fellow witch who helped me unravel this mystery speculates: "...it reads to me as written by a (probably male) neoPagan who missed the deeper Wiccish-pagan themes of Graves (or of Fitch's or whatever derivative work he was familiar with), and reframed it in context of the dominant paradigm to which he was accustomed, in which men feel desire and have agency to act on it, while women are objects of desire and can only react." And ain't that the American way?

This is the English way as well, and many other countries that supposedly made strides towards equality over the past decades.  The feminist movement has reached a plateau and perhaps is actually sliding backwards in many respects.  Laurie Penny writes, "The truth is that feminism stands at a crossroads. In 2010, women face a choice between completing the social revolution that our foremothers began in the last century or bowing to the demands of the conservative right," (Penny Red).  She goes on to say, "Feminism was meant to be about a total overhaul of society's rules about work, family, sex, money and power."  (I strongly recommend reading the entry in its entirety.)


Denouement 

As long as the dominant culture remains unchanged, we will continue to see inequality, gender stereotypes, and ignorance in all facets, including the magickal community.  We often pride ourselves on being more educated, more open-minded, and more inclusive than society at large, yet our treatment of sex and gender is just as bad if not worse in so many cases.  It's time we put our money where our mouths are and actually strive to have a more enlightened perspective and treatment of sex and gender.  We can be the forerunners of this revolution like the visionaries we so often claim we are.