Disqus - Latest Comments for Artimisia

Re: Why This Pagan Won’t Be Honoring His Ancestors on Halloween

Artimisia — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 20:02:45 -0000

Pssst. I know this isn't what your post was about but I've commented about this a few times on your posts. I don't know what you think Imbolc is "supposed" to look like on this side of the pond (where the wheel of the year is harks from) but it seems to me that most people forget that spring is often really, really cold. They have some picture postcard idea of what it is like (similarly, most leaves are still green during the autumn equinox contrary to how most people imagine it). Imbolc is only considered the first day of spring in the sense that is when the light visibly returns, but, like lammas, it has one foot in one season and the second foot in another. It is freezing. Imbolc falls on the snowiest time of the year. It is more far more likely to snow during Imbolc than at Yule, or any other time of the year. Imbolc generally looks like this: https://www.pinterest.com/t...

Like you, I think that it doesn't make sense to try to use a wheel that doesn't fit. We should take our cues from the land around us. However, how you imagine Imbolc to be here really doesn't seem to match the reality. The sun comes with the daffodils, which is much later. And still usually cold.

Re: How to Not Ruin Your Training Group: Five Points

Artimisia — Tue, 13 Oct 2015 19:37:27 -0000

Thank you for writing this. I am running a group unrelated to Paganism and your point about saying no and pissing people off was what I needed to hear.

Re: You Can Be a Good Athenian and a Gadfly

Artimisia — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 09:09:29 -0000

I think you're a really important part of the Pagan community. We need people like you to stir things up, to show that we are serious, and to make room for people like me.

I sent you an email once that you used on your blog. I can't remember what I said exactly but I mentioned how I often I feel like a wanderer, looking for a spiritual home that will satisfy both my rational critical side (a side which is strengthening and constructive) and my lived-out poetical side (why should the poetry be kept to the page or in my head? I want to gasp it, to act it out).

I don't have much to say, but I wanted to leave a comment showing my appreciation. Some of the responses you've received have seemed to be to be a bit... patronising. Even if you do get up some people's noses, I admire how you can criticise and take criticism. (I'm a bit of a snail and would no doubt retreat into my shell. It's good to find people who model another way).

It is important that there are bloggers who make dissent normal. I used to watch Pagan Perspective regularly on YouTube. It is a collaborative channel where a different person makes a different video each day and everyone does so on the same topic or question (Monday is assigned to a particular host and a back up host, and so on all through the week). I still watch sometimes, and most of the people on there are sweet. Sometimes I think about getting involved. There was one YouTuber who used to be involved with the channel who didn't echo what everyone else said and often gave a different take on the question or theme of the week. She eventually was marginalised and ended up leaving the channel. She expressed herself in an increasingly unskilled way as time went on, but the point is that she was the only one offering a different Pagan perspective. For instance, while everyone talked about how much they loved crystals and gemstones she talked about the negative environmental impact that acquiring these gemstones caused and how that went against her Paganism because it went against her reverence for nature. She asked, why are quartz crystals more special than stones you find yourself on a walk? An excellent point if you think everything is sacred. (Thinking about it now I am becoming cynical. No wonder it is Pagan Perspective and not Pagan PerspectiveS. Toe the line!)

It is blogs like yours that keep me calling myself a Pagan. I've disagreed with you strongly in the past and I actually thank you for giving me things to disagree with and get slightly annoyed about because it is engaging and provocative. I've been involved with Paganism for 14 years or so. Sometimes I fall out with it. Sometimes, like last night, I can't sleep because I am so inspired thinking about wheel of the year.

I'm not sure I'd still be involved if it weren't for people like you.

Re: No Freedom From Religion

Artimisia — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 08:10:20 -0000

Something that would help me understand your problem a lot more would be if you explained what experiences you had to justify exactly, and how you did it. If you were saying things that hinted at you drifting away from atheism anyway, then it wouldn't be too surprising that you were questioned so thoroughly. I have had experiences some would call supernatural: for instance, I used to see brilliant auras around people and I have had vivid out of body experiences. I have never been grilled on my experiences though, not even by sceptics, because I always make it clear that my experiences say something more about me (what is happening in my mind and brain) than about the world out there (it might say something about the world out there, but it still says more about me). Dr. Ramachandran thinks high doses of melatonin in some people can cause synesthesia, and I think that might be what happened to me when I saw auras. Sceptic Susan Blackburn also had an amazing out of body experience and advices people never to dismiss the experiences even if they question the supernatural interpretation.

My experiences might say something about the world out there and I have had interesting conversations with atheists and sceptics about that: human beings are one of the most complicated things in the universe to study (perhaps even THE most complicated), and while I assert that there is no good evidence that people actually have literal out of body experiences or have auras the way I saw them, my atheist and sceptic friend agree that a good sceptic is openminded. They've never said this reluctantly: they're earnest about it. It would be amazing to find out that certain experiences reflected the way the universe works.

lf you felt you were were superior for being an atheist, I can't help but think you fell in with a bunch of snobs. I know a couple of atheists who are like that, but I know many more religious people (from Buddhists to Christians) who also have superiority complexes. It is a human thing rather than an atheist thing. I think you are perhaps right to compare you atheist experience to your strict Christian one, but I also think this is more about the people. Neither atheism nor Christianity is as narrow as your experiences of them: you could have been a Quaker or a Unitarian Universalist, or you could have been a pantheist-style atheist and hung out with sceptics like that.

If you were with snobs with superiority complexes, no wonder you were questioned so harshly especially if you started to assert supernatural beliefs.

I have one more quibble with your post. You said:

"I [had] relegated my understanding of reality to an outside authority again, one to which all knees shall one day bow."

I think it is a valid point that atheists can be authoritarian (good gods can they be). It's the word "outside" that I have issues with. It's less about an outside authority with atheism than old fashioned peer pressure and groupthink. It is an inside authority. Not an authority that comes from within you as an individual, but from within your group. The group begins to police itself. If you are part of the group you are at least partly responsible for this policing (which is why I think chiming in to say "I disagree" or "I think so-and-so as a point" is valuable even if you say nothing else whatsoever). Sometimes the answer is to resist, and sometimes it is to leave - which you did.

Reading your post left me with more questions and forced me to assume a lot of things: What were you asserting about your experiences? Must have been supernatural stuff? You felt superior so the people you hanging out with must have been higher-than-thou snobs too? Might you have just been getting bored with this snobbery anyway? And what kind of atheists believed so strongly in progress without acknowledging that, for a lot of us, things are frankly sh*t?

A significant proportion of the atheists I'm friends with are severely disabled and have been let down by science and have been on the blunt end of social and medical disableist discrimination. Progress is good but we're not kidding ourselves here: not everyone has access to that goodness. Life is horrible for so many people. You can't be in our situation by easily ignoring kids who starve to death or feeling like the peasant who died in the gutter 2,000 years ago is somehow a spiritual ancestor of yours. That the people who died of a disease that doesn't exist anymore and no one cares about is somehow your kin. The privileged religious and the privileged atheist can overlook these things or explain them away. Any atheist I am going to be friends with MUST be empathic to this however, so perhaps that is why you found yourself in your circle and I found myself in mine.

This is a long post.

Perhaps I should get myself a blog.

Re: No Freedom From Religion

Artimisia — Wed, 12 Aug 2015 07:28:32 -0000

I was with you until you said, "A true atheist never was religious in the first place." Lots of atheists started out as believers. Look at Julia Sweeney, or Evid3nc3 on YouTube (which he'd come back), or The Clergy Project. And if not them, then look at the no true Scotsman fallacy.

Re: Deborah Ann Light: A Life Well Lived

Artimisia — Sun, 09 Aug 2015 06:07:21 -0000

A lovely tribute. Thank you for telling us about her. She sounds like a great person.

Re: Why I’m boycotting Lughnasadh

Artimisia — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 10:52:01 -0000

"Maybe it’s accurate for the British Isles, but the majority of Pagans live outside the U.K. "

I'm British. The festivals do work here, but I don't think we see Lughnasadh as the start of autumn or Imbolc the beginning of spring.

Lammas (I'll use your preferred name) is generally the hottest time of the year. Sometimes it can feel autumnal because we're an island and it rains, but for me Lammas is the holiday of beaches, berries and sun. It is when most people have their summer holiday, and almost feels as though it is what the whole year has been leading up to. After that... it slows into autumn.

Remember how you wrote about how you thought the Morrigan seems out of place during Lammas? The Morrigan works very well in an English August. The sun is shining. The trees are lush. Flowers are dying, leaves are beginning to yellow, you can see the green nuts develop on the trees ready for autumn... you see death in the midst of life. Lammas isn't just a summer holiday but a holiday about looking ahead, because that's what harvest time means. It means planning ahead. (Perhaps that’s what all the cross-quaters are.)

Plus, the very nature of a harvest means death for some and life for others.

It's like when you wrote of celebrating the darkness during summer solstice, and the light during winter solstice. During Lammas, world is lush and dying at the same time.

I agree you need a Paganism that is appropriate for whatever climate and landscape you live in. I think of Paganism as a conversation between you and the community you live in (a community made up of people, plants, animals, buildings, hills, rivers, history, stories, folklore and folk memory, and even the weather). It is something that grows out of the rock and soil of a place.

Wicca is to Britain what Christianity is to the Middle East. It became Europeanised eventually but it took time. It had to take on the traditions that were already there, which is why Father Christmas is as he is and not like Saint Nick is. Paganism, too, has to be adapted to where people bring it.

"...standing indoors on February 2 in the Midwest and pretending it’s spring isn’t just wishful thinking."

Imbolc in the UK is the coldest time of the year. Like Lammas, it represents a period of transition. It is between winter and spring rather than being the beginning of spring itself. I wonder if calling it the start of spring is actually an American thing because you imagine what it is like back in the old world, see unrealistic images of what it is “supposed” to be like, and the festival gets lost in translation.

Imbolc is when the first signs of spring can be seen. Flowers appear but the snow falls the heaviest at this time. The land is waking up. The first lambs are born. Lammas is when the first signs of autumn can be seen. Yellow leaves and nuts appear but the sun shines the strongest at this time. The land prepares to rest. The first migrating birds begin their long flights home.

"Firsts" are not quite beginnings.

That's why they're cross quarters. They're in-between times, rather than the start of things.

Re: 5 Reasons You Can’t Find the Right Spiritual Path

Artimisia — Sat, 11 Jul 2015 07:52:57 -0000

Hoping for some personal illumination when I clicked on this list, I found I didn't relate to much of this besides number four. For me, the biggest factor is the search for community and support. Organised religions are so far much better at organising each other, and not every Pagan group (or community of worship) can offer the personal response and support you need. To me, religion and spirituality is about people. Often what converts people is not the faith but the friends, and faith follows the friendship. This isn't true for everyone. Some find themselves risking great relationships for a chance at a new religion, but for me... not finding the right community would be at the top of this list.

Re: The Female Gaze - I saw this at a tattoo place where a friend was...

Artimisia — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 10:06:09 -0000

You sort of did in your first post. Not directly but rhetorically:

all these whining bitches just make the world an unpleasant place. i found the sign to be ridiculous and funny. chill out!! its a JOKE. damn.

If you think we're "whining bitches" and it "makes the world an unpleasant place", why tell us to "chill out!!!" if you don't care?

I know, don't feed the trolls, but still 8)

Re: The Female Gaze - I saw this at a tattoo place where a friend was...

Artimisia — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:51:32 -0000

Because THAT makes the world a better place?

Re: The Female Gaze - I saw this at a tattoo place where a friend was...

Artimisia — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:49:14 -0000

Why do you think that, just because it's a joke, it shouldn't be looked at critically? And why would you give even "a bad joke in poor taste" instant immunity from being examined?

Sorry for all my questions on top of Lauren's, but I don't understand. Just because something offensive comes in the form of a joke shouldn't earn it a free pass or make people excuse it, so why do you? It doesn't make it - sexism, racism, whatever - more acceptable. If you know it's "a bad joke in poor taste", then why are you criticizing us for criticizing it?

Re: The Female Gaze - Via Sociological Images. It’s from a slideshow on...

Artimisia — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 16:13:12 -0000

I can imagine on another day I'd have found what Ali Khan and Mike said to be depressing, but today it just makes me laugh the way they're both verbally smacking themselves around the face in front of everybody.

Seriously though, many of the comments on this blog demonstrate (act out?) the problems women face as much as the photographs do (it's like a strange digital museum of ignorance).

I hope like-minded people start finding their way here because the posts really do have the potential to stimulate some insightful debates and conversations. Debates have so far veered into the direction of the "shut up, you're fat, that's why!" variety.

It just needs some more critical thinkers like rhobes and LaurenO to get it off the ground.

Re: The Female Gaze - Via Sociological Images. It’s from a slideshow on...

Artimisia — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:52:54 -0000

I hope someone has the last word. There are so many holes in your argument it's almost irresistible not to pick them apart... everything you say is like bubble wrap. It makes me just want to reach out and pop every syllable.

Re: The Female Gaze - Via Sociological Images. It’s from a slideshow on...

Artimisia — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:40:16 -0000

I think what she's doing is interesting; besides, what's wrong in creating a space for dialogue? No intelligent person would "force" change to happen unless they've analyzed, cared or even been made aware about it.

I'm not sure what's bothered you so much; The Female Gaze has more point to it than most blogs do and nowhere has the author asserted that these posts are enough to "change the masses." That's even more insane than asserting that Obama or Oprah will end racism.

Re: The Female Gaze - Notice how the girls are posing alongside the palm...

Artimisia — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:28:45 -0000

Is that better or worse?

Re: Welcome to The Female Gaze

Artimisia — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:26:06 -0000

It's lucky you didn't come off as whining, arrogant, annoying or showing an attitude because otherwise your comment would make you look really dumb, patronizing and hypocritical :)

Re: Welcome to The Female Gaze

Artimisia — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 15:22:38 -0000

I love your blog already. I know it will be a favorite and one I'll return to again and again.

I hope sympathetic men find your blog and comment too; gender equality shouldn't just be an issue for women, just as the burden of racial equality shouldn't fall on the shoulders of ethnic minorities.