The Fire of Summer

Can you believe Summer Solstice is in just 10 days? Have any plans? Around here, we're thinking of activism-oriented work. Normally I like to make cool drinks, soak in the sun, and generally...frolic. But this year? No, I think not.

This year, in the midst of a social justice uprising...I can only say that it's time to keep working. Collectively, much has been accomplished already. This is the work, right now - we have to be present and do our part to end systems of oppression. #BlackLivesMatter has sparked what we intend to manifest into the revolution we ALL need.

So this is what I'm doing for the Festival of Summer. I need to figure out the best way to attack a whole host of social justice issues. Here is the list of reforms I made:

• Inclusion - we need to bend our efforts toward ending systemic inequality toward ALL marginalized groups. #BlackLivesMatter, first and foremost, but lets not forget our Indigenous populations, women, our differently abled communities, the LGBTQIA community, immigrants from all over the world, and everyone else.
• Reform the police – demilitarize, give social worker tasks to social workers, fire ALL rapists and racists
• Environmental protections – put them back in place and make them MUCH stronger (Green New Deal)
• Institute sustainable energy sources
• Universal health care
• Forgive student loans
• Free college, at least state schools
• Address the housing crisis
• Living wages for ALL
  
• ABOLISH ICE
• Term limits for all legislators
• Fix gerrymandering
• Abolish the electoral college
• Vote by mail for all states
• Repeal Patriot Act
• Institute stronger criteria for eligibility for President – psychological exam, financial records, not allowed if pending lawsuits and criminal charges
• Abolish daylight savings time
• Switch to the metric system

What would you add? How are you attacking racism and all of the systems of oppression? As for me, I've been making calls, writing letters, sending texts, having tough conversations, cleaning house on social media, and donating funds.

Magically, I feel we got some good momentum started on the recent Full Moon #June5thGlobalSpiritualProtest. Now it's time to keep the fire burning. Keep doing the work, in both the mundane and magical realms.

Light for All

Last Litha, I watched Twelve Years A Slave and got fired up about slavery. Then as now, with the light at its peak, I look into the darkness. The darkness that the human soul is capable of is staggering, just as our acts of compassion and love are sublime.

This year, yet another white man opened fire on a group of innocent people. In this case, a black church in SC. Mark Morford, a writer who I greatly admire, wrote about this tragedy. His premise was basically that guns are evil and we shouldn’t have so many of them. But I don’t think it’s so simple as that.

First of all, restricting gun ownership is not a guarantee of less violence. Look at England and seriously tell me that this premise is true. The facts do not support it. Guns are not the problem; our culture is the problem.

Our culture is sick, and I have to wonder – what archetype are we playing out here? Is America The Doomed Paradise? Or is it simply the symptoms of a cultural paradigm shift? Since its inception, the United States has been a patriarchal system dominated by white men. It took us almost a full two hundred years to give legal equality to our citizens in terms of basics like voting and fair treatment.

Let that settle in for a moment. It’s 2015, the country is 239 years old, and we are still working for full equality of all citizens in the Land of the Free. A country whose founding document states:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.”

Popular opinion is changing quickly. As the older generations fade away, the younger generations are stepping to the fore. More and more, we see Americans becoming more accepting of minorities of all kinds – women, minority races, different sexual and gender orientations and religious minorities.

In short, we are beginning to fulfill the vision of this country’s potential. The culture war has been won by fair and progressive ideas and attitudes. I believe that what we are seeing now is the desperate, frenzied efforts of the vocal minority of the old guard to stem the tide of change. These regressive, bigoted voices are intensifying their efforts to retain control over the hearts and minds of US citizens.

We have a choice – what do we want to be? As a nation, is this only a safe place for white Christians that believe in “traditional values” that aren't loving or traditional at all? Or is this actually a place for everyone, where all citizens have equality and freedom?

I think that what we need to understand is that freedom is the ability to do what YOU want to do. Unfortunately, many of the cultural battles in the news today are espousing an incorrect premise – “freedom means telling OTHERS how to live”. This is patently untrue.

Time for a history lesson! Ever heard of John Locke? He was a political philosopher whose ideas were extremely influential in the creation of this country. He was a radical for his day, and in light of our current conflicts, I say that he’s still relevant and radical today:

“The state of nature has a law of nature to govern it, which obliges every one: and reason, which is that law, teaches all mankind, who will but consult it, that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty, or possessions...”

Locke, John. The Second Treatise of Civil Government. 1690.

To paraphrase his view on the role of government:

“The function of government is to remove the use of force between citizens.”

What’s it going to be, America? Is our country free for some, or is it free for all?

As for me, I will live as I always have done. I will harm none, unless it is in self-defense. I will continue to speak up for equality and freedom for all. I will vote. I will treat others as I wish to be treated – with courtesy and respect. Even the people that don’t believe that I have the right to exist or to be who I am - even they will be treated justly by me. Especially them, to be honest.

Today, on this hot, bright day of Summer Solstice, I strive to remember the lessons of my God: the Sun shines equally on all. The urgent life force of animals and plants continues to strive and struggle for existence in all conditions, no matter how challenging. We must shine. We must go on. There is beauty yet in this world. We can help it to grow, every day, with every choice we make.

A blessed Solstice to you all. Blessed be! 

Happy Litha One and All

Today the sun is at its peak. The plants are riotous with growth, and we are already enjoying luscious fresh vegetables and fruits. The animals are playing, mating, birthing, growing. The fervent, unstoppable striving for life of the God as Green Man is at its peak. The Earth herself is fecund, gravid, bringing forth new life over and over again with unimaginable abundance. I wish the blessings of the Gods upon all beings on this day of joy.

Yet as with all things, there is a shadow side to this holiday. As a species, humanity has come so far in its conception of the world. Of life and its meaning. Of our place in the scheme of things. The evolution of our interconnected global village has revealed the amazing variety among human culture. It is accepted as fact that all humans, regardless of race or gender, are human. All sentient, thinking, feeling beings, capable of the full spectrum of emotion and behavior.

But it was not always so, and some people still do not accept this fact. Today I watched a film, "Twelve Years a Slave", which chronicles the experience of a free black man who was kidnapped and enslaved in 1841. Not many minutes had passed before my partner remarked that I would be soon be yelling at the TV. He was right. Mere words cannot express the intolerable choler of rage that filled me. 

I can remember when I first learned about slavery. I didn't take it well. It is no easier for me now, some 30 years later. I didn't understand it then, and I certainly do not understand it now. Oh, on some intellectual level, I can see the outlines of the justification of this behavior. But my heart does not accept this crime against humanity, against the Earth's children, against the Divine.

For we Pagans know the truth of the matter. All beings, whether they be human, animal, plant or mineral - ALL BEINGS CONTAIN THE DIVINE ESSENCE. All beings are constructed of the same energy, and that energy IS the Divine. This is the Spirit which connects us all. Spirit IS all. 

It is important to note that this energy is the building block of the Earth herself. The reality is that this entire planet is a giant organism. Even physicists are catching on to this fact. Go read some Fred Alan Wolf and see what I mean. Environmental educators and pioneers of the field like Thomas Berry, Aldo Leopold, John Muir and Edward Abbey knew this truth. Go read them as well. Some terms are different, but the spirit is the same.

"The universe is a communion of subjects, not a collection of objects."

-Thomas Berry

If this is so, then all beings have value. All beings have a right to existence, or at least the chance to exist. All beings deserve dignity and respect. From the lowliest zygote to the mighty mountain, we are all one.

If this is so, then no being can be owned. At least, not in the Westernized conception of ownership. The Earth too cannot be owned. Does the flea own the inch of the elephant's hide on which it resides? No. Instead, we are but stewards and caretakers of a fleeting and ephemeral nature. Even our bodies are worn but for an eye blink. They too, return to the Earth of which they came.

So on this blessed day of Litha, of the Summer Solstice, take a moment to reflect. Take a moment to honor those before us who endured captivity, indentured servitude and slavery. Take a moment to honor the animals who have lost their homes to urban development, who have died in inadequate zoos or from neglectful owners or abandonment. Take a moment to honor those who have fought and died for their belief that things should be different. Take a moment to lend support to those beings who still live with cruelty, exploitation and abuse.

Take a moment to commune with our Mother Earth, who has suffered so much for our evolution, yet who continues to love and provide for us.

Take a moment to look into the shadow, that the light may shine ever more brightly within you and that the beauty which surrounds us this Litha day may become ever more precious. 

Join me, brothers and sisters. Speak up for what is true and right. Stamp out intolerance and cruelty wherever you find it; replace it with compassion and love. Let us shine the light of respect and reverence into every corner of the globe. Let us make each step we take be a prayer.

So mote it be!