Drumming and Dancing is Good for the Soul

My partner and I just got back from our mini-honeymoon at ElfFest at Lothlorien. We have gone for the last several years, but this time we opted to splurge a little and spend an extra day, since it was officially coming out of the wedding money and it seemed appropriate.

ElfFest is a pagan festival on private land, which means a whole host of wonderful things, but for us especially, it means that it is naked-friendly. When we get there, we are usually still wearing mundane world clothing while we park in the unloading zone and scout a tent location, then schlep all our stuff over and stash the vehicle out of the way. Shortly after that, more colorful fest gear appears. We seem to just get more and more free and comfortable and naked as the weekend wears on. By the last day, right before pack up, we are lounging about with no self-consciousness whatsoever, maybe wearing something colorful/pretty/unique/bling-y, or maybe not. And maybe we get up from our lounging and change into something even more bling-y that we haven't had a chance to wear yet. Or maybe we just eat the tasty food our neighbors shared and grin at each others' appetites.

This year we purposefully found a location that was mostly private (it was a crowded festival with record attendance this year, so nothing was completely private) and hung a curtain, etc for a little more visual privacy, for obvious reasons. My partner spent untold hours wandering naked in the creek, we both did a good bit of visiting with friends old and new, and of course, we spent as much time as possible at the drumming and dancing around the fire. At ElfFest, the drumming around the fire runs from dusk til dawn. It is the most wonderful thing to go to sleep to, but it is even better to be there at the fire for as long as possible, dancing in the sand, cheering for the blue flames shooting out of the 6-foot log chimneys, and gasping at the performers on the hill who twirl and dance with flaming, well, anything. Fire poi, flaming swords, fire whips, fire staff, fire fans, and even a fire umbrella (that was a little odd). 

My partner and I both danced and drummed until we were exhausted, slept a little, ate a lot, and then went back to do it again. It was fabulous. And of course, I made all kinds of mental notes about what I like that they do, and how to take it as a model for a pagan community property here. Overall, a great weekend/honeymooners trip.

Babies are like Waterslides

Slippery and wet? 

No, really. We are actively working on the making of the babies this month (and may have been successful, but it is too early to confirm it), and I find myself a little in shock about the whole thing. Yes, we absolutely want children, and yes, we have planned for this, have spent 15 months getting ready, getting married, working on health issues, financial issues, etc. Emotionally, we want kids and the timing is right. 

And yet, the morning of Ovulation! we hesitated for a few minutes to process what we were about to embark upon. We had refreshed the altar, lit a candle from the wedding, lit the good Tibetan incense, said a few prayers, cried a few overwrought tears. It felt to me like that moment at the waterpark where you have waited for an hour to get to the front of the line for the Really Big Slide, the one with all the dozens of do's and don't's of where to put your arms and legs and eyelids, I mean down to a warning about not crossing your toes for gosh sake, and as you waited you just kept thinking about how it looks from the bottom landing pool, so curly, so up in the air, the people whizzing out of the chutes like small human missiles making impossibly big splashes, and you longed, you yearned to go racing down the slide so much you were willing to wait in that stupidly long line, but now you are at the top, the little traffic signal to tell you you can sit down and get ready is blinking, and yet, you hesitate. Do I really want to do this? This looks scary, the people down below are the size of ants, that's a lot of freefall, that's a lot of trust, my stomach is going to make a knot in my throat, and you know, I've never really been a big fan of that sensation, what if I just turned around and climbed back down these stairs I have spent an hour inching up, it'll be hard to get past that fat couple, it's narrow there, but I'm sure we'll figure out a way. Or maybe they will let me step to the side, I could let these nice people behind me go down first, just a little pause until I get my nerve up. But then the attendant looks at you, and you stop feeling afraid and just go sit down and wait for the green light to go, you stop thinking all together and do the little actions that will have the big consequences because you know that you wanted this, you chose this, you wanted it with all your heart when you were down at the bottom watching other people shoot out the chutes, and then suddenly, that light, that traffic signal light right there in front of you, turns green.

That is why babies are like waterslides. It only takes a few little actions, nothing too dramatic or difficult, just sitting down at the top of the slide when it comes to be your turn, and letting go of control when the time is right, and then wham! you are moving along a closed track, sluicing along in accord with gravity and hydrophysics until a body shoots out the bottom of the chute. It is only natural to have a second thought or two, a moment of cold feet, of check in, of Am-I-Really-Sure and Am-I-Really-Allowed-To-Make-This-Decision,-It-Is-So-Much-Bigger-Than-Me, but when the light turns green and the way forward is clear, it is suddenly so easy to just let go of the handle and slide.

Not a Voice in the Wilderness: Male Birth Control

Well, it seems as though I ask, and then I receive. Remember my previous exhortations to science to step up the research for a male birth control pill? Well, apparently someone is already on it. At the University of North Carolina, they have begun human trials to see if a blast of ultrasound could safely stop sperm production for up to 6 months. It would be low cost and effective, if it works out.

Although, as my partner said, "it's hard to trust anything that says 'safe' and 'stop sperm production' in the same sentence." And, of course, once the man has his treatment, he then has to empty his reserves before he is free of the wiggly little guys. I wonder if the treatment centers will offer an appropriate outlet for that, or if it will be homework.

This could be a fabulous innovation, and if not this particular method, something like it. Men should be able to make choices around controlling their fertility, too, and have a better range of options than the two--condoms and vasectomies--currently available. I know that fertility control is often thought of as the woman's burden, because the woman is assumed to bear the burden of the responsibility of providing for any oops babies, but isn't it time to set that kind of sexist thinking aside?

The old tropes of afraid-of-commitment-marriage-and-family-men and baby-hungry-shackle-a-man-for-life-women are tired and worn out. Let's think of something else. Let's finally acknowledge all the young men in the world who deeply and tenderly care about their potential progeny and who often feel helpless in the face of the social story that babies belong to women, all the time. And let's please fully acknowledge those women who have absolutely no desire to breed or beget children at any point in their lifetime. There is a full range of human experience that gets plastered over and shouted down by the binary gender wars, and that is ridiculous.

Let's empower everyone to make their choices about their bodies, fertility, procreation, and life arc for themselves, and stop trying to use these tiny little boxes to fit everyone. It just doesn't work and it leaves too many of us social creatures feeling isolated and alone. Let's embrace and empower each other instead.

Permission to Cut on Your Crotch, Please

FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) is a horrible, horrible thing, right? It must be stopped. It is a perpetuation of nasty terrible patriarchy against defenseless little girls that deprives them of sexual pleasure and the proper function of their genitals. It is so awful that those not-white not-Christian people Over There do this to their children. It is a travesty. We need a crusade. We, the enlightened, civilized White People, need to go Over There and stop those Nasty Patriarchs. 

Baloney. Sometimes, hypocrisy knows no bounds. So it is okay to cut on the genitals of male babies, but heaven forbid anyone ever cut on the genitals of female babies? Or, let us conveniently forget that in the late 1800s doctors would perform clitorectomies on Western women to cure "hysteria". "Oh, you're having issues? Well let's just cut this part off, shall we? It'll make things better, I promise."

I'm not saying that I would volunteer for any kind of circumcision or genital cutting, myself. I think they are all rather horrible, honestly. I am happy no one ever cut on my or my partner's genitals, and we will not be doing any cutting on our children, either. In fact, should one of our children be intersex, I am willing to let their genitals be as they are until they are old enough to decide what they want or do not want to do about it (barring medical necessity, of course, and then only as much as is strictly necessary).

I just hate the fact that there is this presumption of moral superiority about it all. It is okay to cut on boys but not girls. It is okay when white people do it, or people in the West or the Developed World, but those horrible Africans over there, look what they do! They should be stopped! 

Yes, some of the forms of Female Genital Cutting look horrid to me, quite ghastly, really. But then again, have you ever seen a baby boy get circumcised? Oh the blood, and the wailing! 

Let's just NOT cut on anyone's genitals unless they are of age and choose to consent to it, how about that? Just change the laws to say that when anyone turns 18, they have the option of getting cut on. That way, society can pressure everyone, but everyone still gets to choose. We could even have a (gasp!) socialized medical program that pays for any cutting anyone wants to get done, including gender assignment for the intersexed and gender reassignment for transfolk. Sounds good to me. 

To see a prime example of the hypocrisy that has set me off on this rant, see this Feministing article about FGC becoming a possible procedure for the American Association of Pediatricians. Read the comments, too. Everyone is up in arms, freaking out. And the procedure in question here is a "ritual nick or pricking" of the clitoris, not even a removal of the glans or any of the labia.

Oh, and for those who have not studied your complete female genital anatomy, what we think of as The Clit is really just the head of the glans, which is connected to a shaft, connected to the legs of the clitoris, connected to the bulbs of the clitoris, and in all there are over 30 different parts to the complete clitoris, taking up all kinds of erotic space in the pelvic floor, and women who have had FGM still report having orgasms, especially if they think of their circumcision in positive terms, which a lot of them do. 

So let's just climb down off this patronizing moral high horse and admit our cultural racism and superiority complex, then maybe look at ways to end the hypocrisy. We could even try applying Consent to all genital cutting. What an idea!

Comfort-Planning is a Crutch

In poking around the blogosphere, I came across this Generation Meh post called the Truth of C'est La Vie. It sparked a few ideas in my newly defragged brain. Specifically, this concluding quote struck me:

"The best we can do is to do what we believe is best. Forget about micromanaging the vagaries of other people, nature, the universe and apologizing for a lack of omniscience. Life happens – to us, for us and all around us. Recognize this, accept it and don’t apologize."

Yes, life happens and no, we can't control that. But at the same time, I can have a plan. I can think through as many possibilities or consequences as I can come up with and make contingencies or affirmations or refresh my altar to reflect a certain set of intentions. 

Right now, I feel like I am inside the tornado of life. No, more accurately, I am attempting to lasso the damn thing and toss myself inside, even as I chant incantations of suggestions for where I might like to go, whispering them into its windy inner chambers. I am craving more control over my own adventure. I am fearing a lack of planning on my part, because the unknown is frightening. 


The question then becomes: Do I plan more, or do I give up more of my fear of the unknown? I would love to choose to give up the fear, but honestly, I am more likely to do more planning. Even busy-work planning. The kind of planning that is really comfort-planning, planning for the sake of soothing the fear. 


Instead, I think I will go back to my faith. Pray and meditate more. Keep my altars fresher, burn more candles and incense, keep the dust at bay. The problem I am having, I think,  with living a life of faith, is that sometimes it seems a long dark night before the next set of instructions come through.

   

Endless Hallways of Open Doors

Well, turning off my brain seems to have helped my panic levels about bread winning and my obsessiveness about becoming 5 year stable. With a little distance from the emotional turbulence, I have been able to stop and talk with God'dess about the whole thing. I asked for clarity about what comes next, and was shown an image of all the possibilities that are standing wide open right now, like so many open doors. 

It is true, I have a lot of different leads for how to accomplish different goals in front of me, like strings that run into the future, and if I follow the right bit of yarn at the right time, it will take me to what I am manifesting. The problem is knowing how to play them in harmony, like a concerto, instead of yanking at them all at the wrong time, like a cat walking on a piano. 

I asked God'dess again what to do, and was shown 3 particular leads: one to a possibility of land, one to a possibility of a co-creator of community, and one interpersonal connection that shows promise. Following up on those leads will be on my priority list for this week. In the meantime, I will brainstorm on how to expand the business I am already trying to grow (my energy healing practice), instead of scrapping it for a new and more involved dream. 
  

I'll get these kinks out eventually...

My sincere apologies; somehow sometimes posts I have scheduled turn into drafts that won't post, seemingly at random. I will try to double check them more often, I promise.