This is the first entry in what I hope to be a series. The various points have been rattling around in my head with the key phrase World As Is. I hope you find in it what you need. So to begin:
We spiritual / woo / spooky folk find ourselves in a world that is not what it seems….full of spirits, deities, souls, energies, portals, and life. Whatever the particulars, our world is larger, more connected, more wild than it might appear at first telling.
Even plastic has a particular kind of spirit if you know where to look.
Given this complexity, some important things can get lost, especially in the disorientation, reorientation that rewired spirit worker folks go through.
Even your everyday human interaction that is the most bereft of anything spooky has a bunch of stuff if you know where to look.
I think what gets forgotten/patched over/lost/taken as inevitable in everyday human interactions is how our hierarchical society fucks over each one of us, whether by telling those at the top of the structural food chain how superior they are or by telling those not born with the right color, “sex”, etc etc how little they are worth and proceeding to back that up with violence, lack of support, trauma and so on.
This hierarchy / kyriachy dynamic of oppression and promotion is omnipresent in our interactions with other humans. Inescapable as it is, there is no such thing as an apolitical, as a neutral party. Spirituality or being able to see more of the world than others does not in of itself make you any less fucked up until you do the work of learning how to not oppress people and deal with your own oppression in turn.
How you move within the everyday world of humans creates knock-on effects for many other people. Whatever your approach to the world, you are responsible for how you effect other people. If we are to indeed to do what we, as woo folk, need to do (eg, the healing mentioned in Apocalyptic Witchcraft), doesn’t it behove us to treat our fellow humans with the respect, dignity, and grace they deserve? Doesn’t it behove us to give ourselves the social breathing room to do our work by breaking down the human social hierarchies that surround us? Also, if only for your own spiritual practice, doesn’t it behove you to heal yourself to free yourself from all the ways you’ve been fucked up by internalized superiority+internalized inferiority that are created by the social hierarchy within which you exist?
Doesn’t it behove you to engage with:
Antiracism?
Feminism?
Ableism?
Heteropatriarchy?
Anticapitalism?
Decolonization?
and on
If political engagement doesn’t call to you, its probably time to examine why. I promise it will be very informative.
“We are in this together.”
Kirsten Brydum in memoriae
Thanks for listening folks. Welcome to Discerning Poise.
This came across my tumblr and I thought I’d share…
” “
To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured. You’re like water, like air. People will tell you they went to see a “woman doctor” or they will say they went to see “the doctor.” People will tell you they have a “gay colleague” or they’ll tell you about a colleague. A white person will be happy to tell you about a “Black friend,” but when that same person simply mentions a “friend,” everyone will assume the person is white. Any college course that doesn’t have the word “woman” or “gay” or “minority” in its title is a course about men, heterosexuals, and white people. But we call those courses “literature,” “history” or “political science.”
This invisibility is political.
”
—
Michael S. Kimmel, in the introduction to the book, “Privilege: A Reader” (via thinkspeakstress)”
http://thinkspeakstress.tumblr.com/post/41909120187/to-be-white-or-straight-or-male-or-middle-class