The Revolutionary Fires of Beltane

The Pagan Experience - WK 1- May 4 – Fire –  What ignites your passionate fires? What fuels your spiritual fires? What rages in fire’s destructive wake within you? And, what has healed from the cauterizing flames? How do you honor fire? How will you embrace its transformative powers?

Perhaps at some other moment, I will respond to this prompt point by point. Perhaps I'll also discuss fire as an element, as I have done with other elements. But tonight, on this blessed night of Beltane, this holy time to rekindle the need-fire, this is what I have to say. There are tragedies galore all over the news right now. The suffering has a palpable weight, a smell, a taste, a texture, a sound. It galls in my throat, it clogs my nose, it befouls my mouth, it pains my ears and fills my eyes with tears of sorrow and rage. I cannot bear it. No more. Vive la rivoluzione!

“If we respected each other, if we respected animals, and if we respected the land, then we could dispense with laws and cut the middleman out of morality.”

-       Tom Robbins, Another Roadside Attraction, p. 253

Justice. The real meaning of freedom. Nowadays, these are radical notions. But I say that I will stand. I will speak up. I will not be silenced. We simply must make a change. We must control ego to bring about peace. There must be a change of consciousness, a raising of our collective vibration. We must wake up and unite as a community, as a nation. We must interrupt our daily routines to make our collective will heard:

We want our country back.

This country cannot belong to a privileged few. It was a built with the blood of millions. We sacrificed our lives, our homes, all we had in the pursuit of freedom. Ironically, we first fled here to escape religious tyranny. A tyranny that now threatens to return.

The real tyranny is the use of force. Any group can abuse their power and cloak it with a mask of their choosing. The moment we stop focusing on living our own bliss and instead turn to directing the lives of others, we are lost. We have turned to tyranny.

Perhaps our country now is dissolute. Perhaps we are overfed and decadent. I say this is exactly the goal of that privileged few.

Their tactics are most ingenious and dastardly. They force the lower classes into poverty by shipping industry overseas, where laborers are unprotected by our own democratic laws. Their wealth grows in proportion to the degradations of our own citizens.

Meanwhile, their products are weapons that pacify the populace. Television and all forms of media tell us what to believe: go to work, earn lots of money to enjoy the finer things in life (and we’ll tell you what those are). Believe. Exclude, bully and harass others that are enemies of the state. Be silent, be passive and consume.

Industrial food keeps the populace foggy, sick and addicted. An endless cycle of artificial chemistry to addle our brains: sugar, salt, fat, carbs. Dead food. Not food at all. Bloated, sick bodies cannot resist the whims of our ruling class. We can barely get through the week, caring for ourselves and our families. Fomenting a real revolution is currently beyond our means.

With a pacified populace and an endless supply of capital, the tyrants turn to larger prey: the world stage of politics, war and trade. This too is a cycle – start a war to create demand for defense contractors, stimulate the economy, make more money, consolidate more power…lather, rinse, and repeat.

The global players vie for control of resources. People, animals, plants, all of our natural resources and our blessed Earth itself, these things are bought and sold, used and abused. Like a diseased animal, the global economy fouls its own nest, with no regard for its own survival, much less that of its descendants.

I say to you, all my relations, what shall we do?

We must unite.

We must act.

We must not use violence to achieve our goals. As a person acts so does s/he become. We must first heal ourselves in body, mind and spirit, in thought, word and deed.

It begins with self-love. It begins with the knowledge that all beings have worth. All beings have their place in the web of life. What we do to any part of the web affects the entire web.

We must practice love. We must practice compassion. We must practice freedom. We must practice peace.

We must rise above the urge to harm, to diminish the light of others. We must accept that our differences make us strong, and that we are strongest together.

We must unite.

We must act.

We must remake this country. Reclaim it. Re-sanctify it wit the pure light of freedom, of justice for ALL. We must have equality, dignity and opportunity to thrive.

We must take our country back.

So mote it be.