We Can't Drink Oil

The bosom of the Earth Mother upon which we feed
Fills our mouths with oil as we suck upon our greed.
The Earth is our Mother, abused by our fathers,
We roll our eyes at her and begin to despise her.
We look out upon her and see where she’s not pretty anymore—and look away.
We take her for granted, and we ignore her anguish.
What’s one more scar? What’s one more bruise?
What’s one more cut, one more bleeding mark upon her flesh?
Why does it matter when everything is so broken?
Why does it matter when the marks are already there,
Reminding us of the wounds that are festering below
Because we won’t let them heal?

Instead, we set our sights skyward, looking up at the clouds and the stars,
Looking up at the skyline, at twilight, at dawn.
Looking toward the light to block out the shadowy places
To avoid seeing what has happened, is happening around us.
Looking away from the places that hurt our eyes,uhh
Looking away from the places that hurt our hearts,
Looking away—from all that we’ve done to her.

Battered and beaten and bruised and yet still she blooms,
Bringing us season after season of crops to feed us
Even though we deplete all her resources,
Rip everything from the land that would keep us strong,
Pull everything from her that makes her rich to make ourselves rich
Until she is dusty and dry without even enough water to shed a tear.

Impenetrable desire for money and power lead to shots fired,
Hearts shatter, the Ancestors are crying.
The children of the earth are willing to die for this.
Are we really willing to kill them?
Backhoes and bulldozers tearing up the land,
Bringing the ancestors bones to the surface.
If this were a white cemetery, all hell would be raised with those bones.
The bones of the Ancestors of the peoples of this land,
Living people who elicit no more than a shrug
if even a second glance at their suffering.
What kind of nation have we built upon the bones of these ancestors?
What kind of nation do we live in? Where do we live?

We call the Gods and Goddesses the First Children of the Mother.
We call the Mother by the names we give to her where we stand.
Here in Colorado, she is known for the earth colored red.
We hail to her as our Earth Mother, Mother Colorado.
If the native peoples are the First Children of the Mother of this land,
Do we not then owe them our respect? Do we not owe them honor?
Do we not owe honor to their Ancestors, to the Ancestors of this land,
To the Ancestors of the people who were first
To worship the Earth Mother in this place?

Instead we call them Outdwellers .
We push them to the outskirts of our society.
We call them “less than” and corral them onto broken lands
Where they try strive to hold on to what little bit of sacred space they have left,
And we take that from them, too.
When will we learn to respect them? When will we learn?
Soon the oil will be gone, the water will be gone,
The food will be gone, the animals will be gone, and the people will be gone.
The Earth will remain, but if we don’t stop, she won’t be able to sustain us.
Earth Mother, save us from ourselves.
Earth Mother, hear our prayer.
We can't drink oil.

A Short Essay on Cultural Appropriation

Cultural Appropriation. Since the beginning of our predecessors’ quest for control of the lands of the Americas, colonization efforts have served to massively appropriate the lands, art, ceremonial artifacts and practices to the extinction and near-extinction of hundreds of Indigenous cultures. The remaining fragments that the Indigenous peoples have are heavily tied to their religious identity. The appropriation of these last vestiges of a once-thriving people is fueling the final extinction of the original cultures (Young & Brunk, 2012, p. 93). Appropriation is different from cultural exchange in that exchange occurs naturally between two or more cultures whose interactions are on a peer-level. Appropriation occurs when a group with more power takes cultural elements from a group with lesser power without their permission or instruction. We see far-too-many self-professed “White Shamans” whose lineage involves a list of other white people who have learned the knowledge they teach from books written about Indigenous peoples that often blend the religious practices of several tribes while giving credit to almost none of them. These individuals are often referred to as plastic shamans, these people attempting to pass themselves off as shamans, holy people, or other traditional spiritual leaders with no genuine connection to the traditions or cultures they claim to represent (Pagan Wiccan, 2016).

The spirit of appropriation is also relevant to those who work with “dead cultures” such as the Old Irish, Old Norse, and Indo-Iranian hearth cultures. As Starhawk (2011) states, appropriation is “Taking the gifts of the Ancestors without a commitment to their descendants” (p. 59).  This is the premise of much of the awareness we promote at Mountain Ancestors. Rev. William Ashton II (2016) recently spoke of Outdwellers being made by a new power of dominant culture pushing the conquered peoples to the outside away from the fire; his modeling involves making an offering of tobacco to the descendants of this land, those who we have made the Outdwellers, in the hopes that we will one day heal the wounds inflicted by colonialism in the United States. Further, we promote the exploration of the current, modern peoples from the cultures whose Gods and practices we have borrowed or reconstructed in addition to the scholarly pursuit of ancient archaeology and lore, not only as adult education, but also as part of children’s education. We have been working toward peace relations between the pagan community and the Indigenous peoples in the area. There are several local tribes, and it is part of our work to build a bridge of respect and understanding with them in the hopes of building community.

References

Ashton II, Rev. W. (2016). Outsiders. Mountain Ancestors Fall Symposium. 17 Sept 2016. Boulder, CO.

Pagan Wiccan About.com. Plastic Shamans. Retrieved from http://paganwiccan.about.com/od/ControversialIssues/fl/Plastic-Shamans.htm

Starhawk. (2011). The empowerment manual: A guide for collaborative groups. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers.

Young, J.O & Brunk, C.G. eds. (2012). The ethics of cultural appropriation. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Part the Mists: A Podcast Interview

Rev. Badger and I attended an ADF festival, more of a retreat, with Columbia Grove, ADF, at Trout Lake Abbey in Washington. The entire event was meaningful. We met some pretty brilliant folks, including Phaedra Bonewits, whom neither of us had seen for ages. 

During the trip, I was honored to be asked for an interview with Arin. They asked me quite a few questions about how I ended up where I am. Also included in this issue are words from several members of the ADF Hellenic Kin.

Enjoy! Part the Mists Podcast.

So begins a new chapter...Married Life!

Today, Rev. William Ashton and I were joined in marriage at our home in Longmont surrounded by friends and family. Our presiding clergy was our own Rev. Derek Wrigley, and the ceremony was lovely. I feel blessed and doubly blessed for the love and support of so many wonderful people. May the blessings of love and compassion fuel the fires of your hearths.

By the waters that support and surround us, 
by the sky that stretches out above us, 
and by the land that extends about us, I offer you blessings. 
May your love run deep as the Waters within the Earth. 
May your spirits soar together as you celebrate your joys.
May your dedication to one another be as mighty as the Mountains upon which we stand, 
And may the fire that burns at the center of all things burn within your hearts for all your days.

What do you feel makes a person an effective leader in ADF?

From Leadership Development 1...

In order to succeed as a leader in ADF, there are many traits of which an individual must already be possessed. There is also a vast difference in the traits required for local leaders and international leaders. On a local level, a leader has a better chance for success when they are able to function within a group setting, and basic leadership training will often suffice. Individuals who wish to serve at an organizational level must be able to perform well with little support and be highly self-motivated. ADF does attempt to provide support in some instances, but this is inconsistent and difficult to maintain. We are an organization of volunteers, and we have a tendency to use this as an excuse to cover up the fact that we often do not give our leaders the tools they need to do their jobs.
In order for leaders in ADF to provide a better place for our folk to commune in fellowship and align our values with the work of the Three Kindreds, it is imperative that we instill a better sense of value in the human resources we have as an organization—and the human element may be the only real resource we have. We currently have a wide variety of leaders who are in various stages of burnout, and until we recognize this, we will not be able to provide the healing necessary for these once high-performing individuals to excel once more. It is time to move from “Fast as a Speeding Oak,” which we have used to allow ourselves to stagnate, to “Why not Excellence?”

Isaac’s vision is still relevant and sound. We are drifting as an organization, and sound leadership is required to keep us on task. Our leadership teams do not operate with collaboration or in consensus, which leads to quite a few folks who feel unheard and left out of some of the most basic but important aspects of ADF functionality. We have leaders who have been stating out loud that they are burnt out, and instead of providing relief to them, we have a track record of providing criticism that has even been coupled with a pronouncement of disappointment. In order to be leaders in ADF, we need to begin leading by example, not following the golden rule of “Do unto others as you would have done unto you,” but the platinum rule, “Do unto others that they would have done unto them” or alternatively stated, “Treat others as they want to be treated” (Allessandra, Platinum).

The number one, single most effective way of ensuring success as a leader, as a person that others will willingly follow, is to treat others with respect and dignity and in the manner they want to be treated instead of projecting onto them how we assume they want to be treated based on our own ego-reaction to their situation. Leaders have followers. If no one is following you, or if people are following you out of fear, are you really leading?