At long last Gavin is beginning to recover. The office is back on schedule, more or less, after a health caper that started in April 2011. We have to thank the students who have been so patient with us. We can assure you now that, provided there are no more glitches in his health situation, things will be A-Okay. So okay, in fact, that the Frosts are tentatively planning to attend Sirius Rising and SummerFest at Brushwood east of Erie PA in mid-July.
Next year (2013) we will probably be back at Florida Pagan Gathering (FPG) for Beltane. This assumes that their invitation stands, of course ...
We don't expect to be dancing, although Gavin has been practicing a few steps with his physical trainer under Yvonne's careful supervision.
We want to thank everyone for their support and the enegy they sent.
Blessed Be all Gavi and Yvonne
Thursday, February 16, 2012
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Progress Report
Greetings, one and all. This is an update on (a) Gavin's state of health and (b) the School of Wicca and its status. First the School of Wicca.
We are gradually getting the School's incoming mail back into a current status. Please be patient with us. We expect everything to be up to date by February 1 or thereabouts. The forecast is complicated by the fact that the city of Hinton wants to buy the School's building, so we will be moving its offices to an old house further along Temple Street. When your name is Frost, nothing is simple or straightforward.
The post-office box number will not change.
This year we hope to be able to attend at least Sirius Rising and SummerFest, and maybe in the autumn we will get to FPG, an observance of the Temple of Earth Gathering in Florida. Much depends on Gavin's strength as it returns incrementally day by day. To our very deep regret, Kaleidoscope Gathering is probably beyond our present abilities.
On the health front, Gavin has one more surgery scheduled for the end of January, to fix the ever- present threat of maturing men, kidney stones. Apparently the back surgery (three sessions so far) has gone very well and the rods and screws of October are in place to keep the spine in line and to reduce the pain. He is now walking part-time on a cane, gradually weaning himself from the walking frame as his strength returns, aided by a crew of physical therapists. This last operation is scheduled for the end of January and is not supposed to be life-threatening, although it counts as the fifth in a series since April and each one seems to knock him back further. For the procedure in October, he was on the table for twelve (12) hours. Still, at 81, what can you expect?
We look forward to brighter days ahead, as long as we do our share of the physical work.
An inexpressible debt of gratitude is owed to everyone who has been sending thoughts of healing and strength in our direction. Don't stop now.
To each one who has thought of us, Blessed be, and thank you again. Gavin and Yvonne
We are gradually getting the School's incoming mail back into a current status. Please be patient with us. We expect everything to be up to date by February 1 or thereabouts. The forecast is complicated by the fact that the city of Hinton wants to buy the School's building, so we will be moving its offices to an old house further along Temple Street. When your name is Frost, nothing is simple or straightforward.
The post-office box number will not change.
This year we hope to be able to attend at least Sirius Rising and SummerFest, and maybe in the autumn we will get to FPG, an observance of the Temple of Earth Gathering in Florida. Much depends on Gavin's strength as it returns incrementally day by day. To our very deep regret, Kaleidoscope Gathering is probably beyond our present abilities.
On the health front, Gavin has one more surgery scheduled for the end of January, to fix the ever- present threat of maturing men, kidney stones. Apparently the back surgery (three sessions so far) has gone very well and the rods and screws of October are in place to keep the spine in line and to reduce the pain. He is now walking part-time on a cane, gradually weaning himself from the walking frame as his strength returns, aided by a crew of physical therapists. This last operation is scheduled for the end of January and is not supposed to be life-threatening, although it counts as the fifth in a series since April and each one seems to knock him back further. For the procedure in October, he was on the table for twelve (12) hours. Still, at 81, what can you expect?
We look forward to brighter days ahead, as long as we do our share of the physical work.
An inexpressible debt of gratitude is owed to everyone who has been sending thoughts of healing and strength in our direction. Don't stop now.
To each one who has thought of us, Blessed be, and thank you again. Gavin and Yvonne
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Subject Excruciating Pain in the New River Gorge
Here's the latest update on Gavin's health situation as of October 1 2011: the latest episode in an ongoing adventure with a steep learning curve.
We apologize to readers of our blog as well as to students of the School for delays in communication. Gavin's back decided that it needed more work, and made us aware of that decision in no uncertain terms. After three weeks of intensive testing, including X-rays, sedimentation tests, and an MRI, we have learned that a deep-seated infection began at the time of his surgery in early May and has been simmering ever since: first silently, then only too emphatically.
Having started in May, the thing has progressed into the actual vertebrae that were first damaged so very long ago. After the outpatient tests, Gavin was re-admitted to the hospital in Princeton, West Virginia, where they used a hammer and chisel to take bone samples from the area of infection to culture and identify the specific creature at the bottom of it all. At the same time they introduced a bypass tube into the upper arm so that antibiotics can be administered directly into the bloodstream. He is making daily visits to Summers County's hospital at 8:15 a.m. for an hour or two to receive intravenous addition of curative solutions.
Until the villain is identified, then, the experts are treating for the two most popular creatures in this field: staphylococcus and streptococcus. Once they have identified the exact disease and thus the best antibiotic to address it, he will continue treatments for the next six weeks, followed by a new series of tests.
Meantime controlling the pain with appropriate painkiller(s) presents yet another challenge. In the course of this aspect of it, unsuspected allergies have manifested just to make things more interesting.
We are doing what we can to keep the School running, and student dues and membership end dates will be fine-tuned in light of the delays occasioned at this end. Please understand, though: It's going to be slow. Knowing what is actually causing the pain has been a great relief.
Keep us in your thoughts, and please send healing energy if you see fit. Thanks.
Blessed be. GY
We apologize to readers of our blog as well as to students of the School for delays in communication. Gavin's back decided that it needed more work, and made us aware of that decision in no uncertain terms. After three weeks of intensive testing, including X-rays, sedimentation tests, and an MRI, we have learned that a deep-seated infection began at the time of his surgery in early May and has been simmering ever since: first silently, then only too emphatically.
Having started in May, the thing has progressed into the actual vertebrae that were first damaged so very long ago. After the outpatient tests, Gavin was re-admitted to the hospital in Princeton, West Virginia, where they used a hammer and chisel to take bone samples from the area of infection to culture and identify the specific creature at the bottom of it all. At the same time they introduced a bypass tube into the upper arm so that antibiotics can be administered directly into the bloodstream. He is making daily visits to Summers County's hospital at 8:15 a.m. for an hour or two to receive intravenous addition of curative solutions.
Until the villain is identified, then, the experts are treating for the two most popular creatures in this field: staphylococcus and streptococcus. Once they have identified the exact disease and thus the best antibiotic to address it, he will continue treatments for the next six weeks, followed by a new series of tests.
Meantime controlling the pain with appropriate painkiller(s) presents yet another challenge. In the course of this aspect of it, unsuspected allergies have manifested just to make things more interesting.
We are doing what we can to keep the School running, and student dues and membership end dates will be fine-tuned in light of the delays occasioned at this end. Please understand, though: It's going to be slow. Knowing what is actually causing the pain has been a great relief.
Keep us in your thoughts, and please send healing energy if you see fit. Thanks.
Blessed be. GY
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Legal Molestation of Children
We use this title deliberately because there has been the usual upsurge of innuendo and pointless discussion of "The Witch's Bible". A few people baselessly claim that the book encourages child abuse. It clearly does not.
However, the United States government subsidizes and supports legal child abuse with our tax dollars. In 2007 CE in Prince George's County, Maryland, the school board decided that they would enforce the 100 percent vaccination program that would allow them to get more federal dollars. The school board issued summonses to the parents of 2,300 children who had not had all the seventeen (17) immunizations alleged to be vital to child health and safety. The summonses were delivered in the usual militaristic way by the sheriff's department, commanding the kids and their parents to show up at a central school location so that the kids could be duly vaccinated ... or to appear in court and to suffer unspecified consequences--including jail time and being expelled from school. Effectively this meant that the kids in question were forcibly vaccinated under the glare of gun-toting sheriff's deputies who doubtless wore all their clanking, polished symbols of power, along with de-personalizing sunglasses. This caused lasting trauma to the children and a new and powerful reason to hate the police.
Now we need to look at the known--the proven--effects of vaccination. It has been proven time and time again that such vaccinations cause autism. In the last ten years, according to the Department of Health and Human services, the occurrence of autism in this nation's children has quadrupled. By 2032 it is projected that all male children in the United States who are vaccinated will be autistic. During the Reagan administration public law 99/660 was passed protecting Big Pharma from the results downstream of poisonous vaccinations. You cannot sue Big Pharma if a vaccination legally required happens to cause autism, disability, or death in your child. That is the law.
The Amish population have gotten a blanket exception to the vaccination/immunization program on religious grounds. In the Amish population, there has not been a case of polio or smallpox in thirty (30) years, and the Amish children have little or no autism. What we are wondering is whether or not Wiccans can come together to save their children from the results of vaccination, by getting our own religious exception to the law. Such an exception could be worded in such a way that if parents wanted their children to be vaccinated, they could be. Parents and their kids would have a choice instead of being coerced. As any thinking parent should know, though, these mandatory vaccinations are dangerous and are purposeless.
Can we Wiccans come together as a group to fight this real menace to our children? Wouldn't it be great if we all worked together for once? Reflect on what is at stake. Ask the parent of an autistic child how that parent's life differs from yours. How would you like to live with a child whose body is present but whose mind is missing?
The public law mentioned above sets up a special office of masters to judge whether or not a child has been damaged by a vaccination. To date it has paid out over $2 billion in compensation --from tax money, not from Big Pharma.
We need a title for this effort. What about
Wiccans against Forcible Immunization--WAFI?
However, the United States government subsidizes and supports legal child abuse with our tax dollars. In 2007 CE in Prince George's County, Maryland, the school board decided that they would enforce the 100 percent vaccination program that would allow them to get more federal dollars. The school board issued summonses to the parents of 2,300 children who had not had all the seventeen (17) immunizations alleged to be vital to child health and safety. The summonses were delivered in the usual militaristic way by the sheriff's department, commanding the kids and their parents to show up at a central school location so that the kids could be duly vaccinated ... or to appear in court and to suffer unspecified consequences--including jail time and being expelled from school. Effectively this meant that the kids in question were forcibly vaccinated under the glare of gun-toting sheriff's deputies who doubtless wore all their clanking, polished symbols of power, along with de-personalizing sunglasses. This caused lasting trauma to the children and a new and powerful reason to hate the police.
Now we need to look at the known--the proven--effects of vaccination. It has been proven time and time again that such vaccinations cause autism. In the last ten years, according to the Department of Health and Human services, the occurrence of autism in this nation's children has quadrupled. By 2032 it is projected that all male children in the United States who are vaccinated will be autistic. During the Reagan administration public law 99/660 was passed protecting Big Pharma from the results downstream of poisonous vaccinations. You cannot sue Big Pharma if a vaccination legally required happens to cause autism, disability, or death in your child. That is the law.
The Amish population have gotten a blanket exception to the vaccination/immunization program on religious grounds. In the Amish population, there has not been a case of polio or smallpox in thirty (30) years, and the Amish children have little or no autism. What we are wondering is whether or not Wiccans can come together to save their children from the results of vaccination, by getting our own religious exception to the law. Such an exception could be worded in such a way that if parents wanted their children to be vaccinated, they could be. Parents and their kids would have a choice instead of being coerced. As any thinking parent should know, though, these mandatory vaccinations are dangerous and are purposeless.
Can we Wiccans come together as a group to fight this real menace to our children? Wouldn't it be great if we all worked together for once? Reflect on what is at stake. Ask the parent of an autistic child how that parent's life differs from yours. How would you like to live with a child whose body is present but whose mind is missing?
The public law mentioned above sets up a special office of masters to judge whether or not a child has been damaged by a vaccination. To date it has paid out over $2 billion in compensation --from tax money, not from Big Pharma.
We need a title for this effort. What about
Wiccans against Forcible Immunization--WAFI?
Thursday, September 8, 2011
State Your Complaint
First let us apologize for not keeping everyone up to date with our blogs. Trips to the hospital, doctor visits, and three half-day physical therapy sessions a week--as well as trying to keep the School current--have kept us busy. Gavin is doing better but still having a lot of pain; we do not know whether a third back surgery will be required.
Locust plagues occur predictably every seventeen years. In a similar fashion, though perhaps a little less regularly, in an event that has become almost a ritual, the Christo-pseudo-Wiccans get up in arms about "The Witch's Bible" (republished as "Good Witch's Bible") with rumors of unarticulated complaints. People just attack us and our work because of some vague discomfort we're alleged to be causing them. So now, as the Walrus said to the Carpenter, it's time to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing-wax ... and of natural endorphines.
Since earliest times it has been known that orgasm while under the influence of psychedelic substances creates the possibility of visiting Nirvana. In the ancient Hindu Tantric tradition this was accomplished by drinking something called soma--honey mead with psychedelic additives-- and then having multiple orgasms while ascending a path made by combining opposite-natured gods and goddesses. Under Indira Gandhi the Indian government sponsored a college's efforts to reconstruct this very ancient knowledge that probably dated from earlier than 20,000 BCE.
Gavin was allowed to attend that college in the Indian Punjab. As a result of his experiences in the time he spent there, we wrote "Tantric Yoga", published in 1989 CE by Samuel Weiser. The book contains adequate instruction on how to climb the path to Nirvana and how to enter the secret chakra. It includes information necessary to bring you safely down again to the earth plane. The final day of raising the kundalini serpent requires multiple orgasms, one every 2 hours and 4 minutes, for a total of eight.
Every time we have tested the path, it has worked. Only in the 1990s, when Professor Candace Pert wrote "Molecules of Emotion", did we realize in objective scientific terms what was actually happening. Her work was further enhanced by the discovery of the ligands that entered the opiate receptors at the cellular level. These ligands, actually a naturally occurring form of morphine, were called endorphines. The more endorphines you have in your bloodstream, the stronger will be your chance of reaching dramatically altered states of consciousness.
Of course endorphines can be raised in many ways. Punishment such as being whipped raises the level of endorphines. An early work of Gerald Gardner's included sex and whipping in the third-degree initiation. An easier and more pleasant way to raise endorphines is to eat dark chocolate and drink red wine. Endorphines are also raised by bodily stress such as is experienced in a sweat lodge. So this is the first aspect of sex magic that is scientifically proven to change your state of consciousness.
In our books we have scrupulously avoided encouraging the use of psychedelics. Such use is illegal and thus would bring you into conflict with the Wiccan principal guideline: "If it harm none, do what you will." The revelation that Professor Pert's work gave to the world showed why ancient covens had all done sex magic. And not only covens: In early Rome the reports of early Christian sex-magical practices are well documented.
A second aspect which has not been so widely explored is the level of adrenalin which occurs during any form of excitement. The higher the excitement, the more energy seems to be raised. One way to raise the level of excitement is the promise of sexual release after a short spell of celibacy (perhaps three days). It has also been found that changing partners dramatically increases the amount that a group can raise. Many years ago in festivals (first in Minneapolis and then in Connecticut) we had volunteers of mixed genders work both toward Nirvana and in healing. The rates of success were truly dramatic. All this information is easily available to the researcher in our book "Bible of Sex Magic and Enlightenment" published in 2007 CE.
Now if we switch back to the infamous "Good Witch's Bible"--written before the knowledge of endorphines and other methods of raising them was known--we Frosts described and recommended a Tantric method.
If a coven is going to practice sex magic regularly with changing partners, then obviously during initiation partners should be changed. We admit that there may be some confusion about the initiations. We did state quite clearly in "Good Witch's Bible" that no one under the age of eighteen (18) should be initiated; now we want to add that the coven's most recent initiate of the appropriate gender should be the one to initiate the incoming neophyte. This approach obviates any power play by a senior priest or priestess in the form of grabbing all the newbies--all the fresh meat--for him/herself.
We Frosts have frequently been criticized as well for not answering questions. All your questions can be answered if you simply read the books on the subject that we have published; the most recent is "The Bible of Sex Magic and Enlightenment." The book contains 300 pages, so it should be obvious that your questions cannot be answered in a tweet or a facebook paragraph. Further we want to say this: If you can't be bothered to read the published material before you ask your questions or start your carping, you cannot expect and do not deserve a coherent answer.
We have a question of our own for people unhappy about us Frosts and about our work:
What is the title of the most recent work you have published in the interest of promoting Wicca, instead of tearing down its founders and denigrating the book on which the court decision recognizing Wicca as a religion was founded?
Locust plagues occur predictably every seventeen years. In a similar fashion, though perhaps a little less regularly, in an event that has become almost a ritual, the Christo-pseudo-Wiccans get up in arms about "The Witch's Bible" (republished as "Good Witch's Bible") with rumors of unarticulated complaints. People just attack us and our work because of some vague discomfort we're alleged to be causing them. So now, as the Walrus said to the Carpenter, it's time to talk of many things: of shoes and ships and sealing-wax ... and of natural endorphines.
Since earliest times it has been known that orgasm while under the influence of psychedelic substances creates the possibility of visiting Nirvana. In the ancient Hindu Tantric tradition this was accomplished by drinking something called soma--honey mead with psychedelic additives-- and then having multiple orgasms while ascending a path made by combining opposite-natured gods and goddesses. Under Indira Gandhi the Indian government sponsored a college's efforts to reconstruct this very ancient knowledge that probably dated from earlier than 20,000 BCE.
Gavin was allowed to attend that college in the Indian Punjab. As a result of his experiences in the time he spent there, we wrote "Tantric Yoga", published in 1989 CE by Samuel Weiser. The book contains adequate instruction on how to climb the path to Nirvana and how to enter the secret chakra. It includes information necessary to bring you safely down again to the earth plane. The final day of raising the kundalini serpent requires multiple orgasms, one every 2 hours and 4 minutes, for a total of eight.
Every time we have tested the path, it has worked. Only in the 1990s, when Professor Candace Pert wrote "Molecules of Emotion", did we realize in objective scientific terms what was actually happening. Her work was further enhanced by the discovery of the ligands that entered the opiate receptors at the cellular level. These ligands, actually a naturally occurring form of morphine, were called endorphines. The more endorphines you have in your bloodstream, the stronger will be your chance of reaching dramatically altered states of consciousness.
Of course endorphines can be raised in many ways. Punishment such as being whipped raises the level of endorphines. An early work of Gerald Gardner's included sex and whipping in the third-degree initiation. An easier and more pleasant way to raise endorphines is to eat dark chocolate and drink red wine. Endorphines are also raised by bodily stress such as is experienced in a sweat lodge. So this is the first aspect of sex magic that is scientifically proven to change your state of consciousness.
In our books we have scrupulously avoided encouraging the use of psychedelics. Such use is illegal and thus would bring you into conflict with the Wiccan principal guideline: "If it harm none, do what you will." The revelation that Professor Pert's work gave to the world showed why ancient covens had all done sex magic. And not only covens: In early Rome the reports of early Christian sex-magical practices are well documented.
A second aspect which has not been so widely explored is the level of adrenalin which occurs during any form of excitement. The higher the excitement, the more energy seems to be raised. One way to raise the level of excitement is the promise of sexual release after a short spell of celibacy (perhaps three days). It has also been found that changing partners dramatically increases the amount that a group can raise. Many years ago in festivals (first in Minneapolis and then in Connecticut) we had volunteers of mixed genders work both toward Nirvana and in healing. The rates of success were truly dramatic. All this information is easily available to the researcher in our book "Bible of Sex Magic and Enlightenment" published in 2007 CE.
Now if we switch back to the infamous "Good Witch's Bible"--written before the knowledge of endorphines and other methods of raising them was known--we Frosts described and recommended a Tantric method.
If a coven is going to practice sex magic regularly with changing partners, then obviously during initiation partners should be changed. We admit that there may be some confusion about the initiations. We did state quite clearly in "Good Witch's Bible" that no one under the age of eighteen (18) should be initiated; now we want to add that the coven's most recent initiate of the appropriate gender should be the one to initiate the incoming neophyte. This approach obviates any power play by a senior priest or priestess in the form of grabbing all the newbies--all the fresh meat--for him/herself.
We Frosts have frequently been criticized as well for not answering questions. All your questions can be answered if you simply read the books on the subject that we have published; the most recent is "The Bible of Sex Magic and Enlightenment." The book contains 300 pages, so it should be obvious that your questions cannot be answered in a tweet or a facebook paragraph. Further we want to say this: If you can't be bothered to read the published material before you ask your questions or start your carping, you cannot expect and do not deserve a coherent answer.
We have a question of our own for people unhappy about us Frosts and about our work:
What is the title of the most recent work you have published in the interest of promoting Wicca, instead of tearing down its founders and denigrating the book on which the court decision recognizing Wicca as a religion was founded?
Monday, August 1, 2011
Dualism
From the dawn of written history, from the time of Zoroaster and Ahura Mazda in the district called variously Mesopotamia, Persia, and Iran, through the Bogomils, through the Cathars, through today's religions, especially those that adopt a rigid mindset with no room for slack of any kind, the unfailing symptom is this: Leaders urge the idea of either/or: Either Behavior A is good, or it's bad. Either it's black, or it's white. There is nothing in between.
Our recent blog on Othering versus Togethering got some of you really going. We'd like to continue in this vein for a little longer, today applying the concept specifically to the religious or spiritual plane of experience.
Many of the early sects were dualists in that they thought of the spiritual world as wholly good and the materialistic earthplane world as wholly evil (sound familiar?). The Cathars*, whose religion was violently suppressed in southern France, were perhaps extremists in this regard: they would not eat anything that was the result of copulation, because copulation involved the physical body. Even such things as milk and cheese were off their diet plan. Further, they denied that Jesus ever was born in the flesh, because flesh was evil: He was only a spiritual being. Thus they were, if you like, a 12th-century forerunner of a vegan's vegan.
At that time the all-powerful church was reaping the benefits of what is called the Medieval Warm Period (when farm products exceeded the needs of the populations, and churchmen of the day took advantage of the surpluses to live in corruption and luxury). Cathars striving for purity presented a visible reminder that the way of poverty and asceticism was more Christlike and less self-indulgent than the decadent path of the Christian church of that day; consequently they had to be eradicated.
This is an extreme illustration of othering. The Cathars were a good people trying sincerely to live by their beliefs, yet they were killed by the thousand because they believed in dualism and strove to live more humbly, as they imagined Jesus had lived.
Why was it impossible for people to meet halfway? In a Monty Python feature, inside Castle Perilous Michael Palin's character begs, "Can't I have just a little peril?" If the Cathars had been willing to bend their rules just a little bit and the churchmen of the day had been willing to forgo some portion of their great greed, somewhere between there could have been common ground and people would not have had to be tortured and killed ... though it was always done in a pious way, of course, "for the good of your soul". (Lady, deliver us from centralized power!)
Today the Taliban's following of strict religious rules is an example of those who cannot adjust by even so much as a gnat's eyelash. And consequently we have world war. As St. Jimmy Buffett might say, "Lighten up."
As we Frosts drive around our little sphere in West Virginia, we see sprouting on increasing numbers of lawns little signs resembling those signs that appear during political campaigns. Instead of doing a fanfare for a candidate, though, today's signs display something called Ten Commandments. Yvonne can't resist composing her own Eleventh Commandment, worded to this effect:
You run yours, and I'll run mine.
The same principle might well be applied to good effect in such cases as assisted suicide, gay marriage, abortion, stem-cell research ... you get the idea. Optional is not mandatory.
* Cf Greek catharsis: a purification.
Our recent blog on Othering versus Togethering got some of you really going. We'd like to continue in this vein for a little longer, today applying the concept specifically to the religious or spiritual plane of experience.
Many of the early sects were dualists in that they thought of the spiritual world as wholly good and the materialistic earthplane world as wholly evil (sound familiar?). The Cathars*, whose religion was violently suppressed in southern France, were perhaps extremists in this regard: they would not eat anything that was the result of copulation, because copulation involved the physical body. Even such things as milk and cheese were off their diet plan. Further, they denied that Jesus ever was born in the flesh, because flesh was evil: He was only a spiritual being. Thus they were, if you like, a 12th-century forerunner of a vegan's vegan.
At that time the all-powerful church was reaping the benefits of what is called the Medieval Warm Period (when farm products exceeded the needs of the populations, and churchmen of the day took advantage of the surpluses to live in corruption and luxury). Cathars striving for purity presented a visible reminder that the way of poverty and asceticism was more Christlike and less self-indulgent than the decadent path of the Christian church of that day; consequently they had to be eradicated.
This is an extreme illustration of othering. The Cathars were a good people trying sincerely to live by their beliefs, yet they were killed by the thousand because they believed in dualism and strove to live more humbly, as they imagined Jesus had lived.
Why was it impossible for people to meet halfway? In a Monty Python feature, inside Castle Perilous Michael Palin's character begs, "Can't I have just a little peril?" If the Cathars had been willing to bend their rules just a little bit and the churchmen of the day had been willing to forgo some portion of their great greed, somewhere between there could have been common ground and people would not have had to be tortured and killed ... though it was always done in a pious way, of course, "for the good of your soul". (Lady, deliver us from centralized power!)
Today the Taliban's following of strict religious rules is an example of those who cannot adjust by even so much as a gnat's eyelash. And consequently we have world war. As St. Jimmy Buffett might say, "Lighten up."
As we Frosts drive around our little sphere in West Virginia, we see sprouting on increasing numbers of lawns little signs resembling those signs that appear during political campaigns. Instead of doing a fanfare for a candidate, though, today's signs display something called Ten Commandments. Yvonne can't resist composing her own Eleventh Commandment, worded to this effect:
You run yours, and I'll run mine.
The same principle might well be applied to good effect in such cases as assisted suicide, gay marriage, abortion, stem-cell research ... you get the idea. Optional is not mandatory.
* Cf Greek catharsis: a purification.
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Othering/Togethering
It looks as if othering is becoming the most popular sport in the world. "Othering"? It's the art and practice of emphasizing differences between people, groups, nations ... you name it, to create artificial barriers and manufactured hatred: "They're not like us! They're the others!" Shylock protested othering in "Merchant of Venice". Dean Jonathan Swift described it in terms of Big-Endians and Little-Endians. Sam Keen described it in "Faces of the Enemy". Teofilo Ruiz described it in "The Terror of History" offered through Great Courses from The Learning Company.
Sometimes othering is done by governments as a pretext to declare war and grab the oil or other resources of another nation. Sometimes it's an attempt to pull people together into a larger and larger group of haters so that the in-group can get more contributions and a bigger head-count, and can raise political capital (look no further than Washington DC).
Othering causes a great deal of pain and hurt. Families get broken up; and those who were loved are suddenly found to be ... other: untouchable, unspeakable creatures whose unclean shadow must not fall on the righteous sanctified ones.
One example: something presented as an ostensibly light-hearted book, "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus". Personally we think it's great that women are different from men. This world would be a very boring and much less entertaining place if the genders were not different--if they didn't dovetail so beautifully--at least, when left to their own devices without manipulation by someone with an axe to grind. If there is conflict between genders, might it not be inflicted by the culture? Too, too often we disregard the culture in which we live and ignore its assumptions, thinking no more about it than a fish thinks about the water through which it swims.
But when such othering is taken to extremes, it can become destructive. We Frosts have many Christian friends, and by the way we have Muslim friends and Buddhist friends here and there; friends of different racial backgrounds; we're blessed with a whole boatload of assorted friends. The diversities among them are an enriching influence in our lives. Discussions with them, perhaps over a Beverage, can be pretty entertaining--but it doesn't occur to us to think of them as others. We think of them instead as friends whom we would be sad indeed to lose. The one very good thing about such inventions as Facebook is that they bring people together. Yet even here we see almost violent attacks against people with opinions that vary only in the slightest degree.
Some people don't seem to realize how much trouble the poor of the world are in. Time and again we've heard people say, "They're poor because they don't want to work" or "They're just lazy." It may be true that a handful of people don't want to work and are lazy; but that is no reason to put the whole category (stereotype) into some sort of quarantine or (as they say in England) send them to Coventry, where no one even bothers to talk to them about their problems and possible solutions.
Recently a Unitarian Universalist attendee at Summer Institute called another person "poor white trash". Let's bring back the Inquisition and get rid of people with this type of attitude from among us. Or are we just othering at a different level? Gavin grew up in a class-conscious society--but, at least as he remembers it, no one would thus have insulted a poor woman with many children doing her best.
And while we're on the subject, let's stop listening to those people who say "He's a devil-worshipper" or on the other hand, "She's a fundamentalist Christian who's already had 13 kids". Can we not for a few minutes think of the positive benefits of togethering as contrasted with knee-jerk thinking about the negatives associated with othering?
Instead of othering, then, why don't we think about all the things we have in common?
Sometimes othering is done by governments as a pretext to declare war and grab the oil or other resources of another nation. Sometimes it's an attempt to pull people together into a larger and larger group of haters so that the in-group can get more contributions and a bigger head-count, and can raise political capital (look no further than Washington DC).
Othering causes a great deal of pain and hurt. Families get broken up; and those who were loved are suddenly found to be ... other: untouchable, unspeakable creatures whose unclean shadow must not fall on the righteous sanctified ones.
One example: something presented as an ostensibly light-hearted book, "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus". Personally we think it's great that women are different from men. This world would be a very boring and much less entertaining place if the genders were not different--if they didn't dovetail so beautifully--at least, when left to their own devices without manipulation by someone with an axe to grind. If there is conflict between genders, might it not be inflicted by the culture? Too, too often we disregard the culture in which we live and ignore its assumptions, thinking no more about it than a fish thinks about the water through which it swims.
But when such othering is taken to extremes, it can become destructive. We Frosts have many Christian friends, and by the way we have Muslim friends and Buddhist friends here and there; friends of different racial backgrounds; we're blessed with a whole boatload of assorted friends. The diversities among them are an enriching influence in our lives. Discussions with them, perhaps over a Beverage, can be pretty entertaining--but it doesn't occur to us to think of them as others. We think of them instead as friends whom we would be sad indeed to lose. The one very good thing about such inventions as Facebook is that they bring people together. Yet even here we see almost violent attacks against people with opinions that vary only in the slightest degree.
Some people don't seem to realize how much trouble the poor of the world are in. Time and again we've heard people say, "They're poor because they don't want to work" or "They're just lazy." It may be true that a handful of people don't want to work and are lazy; but that is no reason to put the whole category (stereotype) into some sort of quarantine or (as they say in England) send them to Coventry, where no one even bothers to talk to them about their problems and possible solutions.
Recently a Unitarian Universalist attendee at Summer Institute called another person "poor white trash". Let's bring back the Inquisition and get rid of people with this type of attitude from among us. Or are we just othering at a different level? Gavin grew up in a class-conscious society--but, at least as he remembers it, no one would thus have insulted a poor woman with many children doing her best.
And while we're on the subject, let's stop listening to those people who say "He's a devil-worshipper" or on the other hand, "She's a fundamentalist Christian who's already had 13 kids". Can we not for a few minutes think of the positive benefits of togethering as contrasted with knee-jerk thinking about the negatives associated with othering?
Instead of othering, then, why don't we think about all the things we have in common?
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