Core Value: Curiosity

Much of the discussions around curiosity as a concept center on using curiosity to combat or counteract the human tendency to judge things that are different. When faced with change, we typically list out everything that could go wrong if we adopt it.  Leadership and organizational culture theories call us to use our curiosity to create a sense of open willingness and acceptance to change.

Leadership resources point to “curious” as the neutral point on the mood elevator and asks us to at least remain curious when we are faced with change—in other words, to approach the change with a curious mind. When we look at curiosity as a value rather than a mindset, the conversation changes. Holding curiosity as a value leads us to engage not only our minds but also our hearts in this work. A curious mindset will ask for more information to help the seeker understand and adopt someone else’s idea, and curiosity as a value will lead the seeker down the path of creating their own ideas. The curious mindset is important for following, for working to adopt change, and for growing in the same direction as a collective; but the value of curiosity is the foundation of problem-solving, discovery, and innovation.

As we gain knowledge and experience in an area, we may easily become set in our ways. In a technical field like medical laboratory science, there is a finite amount of information we use on a regular basis. We know which chemicals are in which tubes, which tubes are required for which tests, which reagents go on which analyzer, which analyzer alarm requires which action, and which actions will yield the results we seek. We can perform all of this virtually on autopilot by the time we’ve done it a thousand times. Repetition, it seems, may be the death of our curiosity, and this is where many of us find ourselves after years in the field.

Bringing our curiosity to life again requires us to expand our boundaries, and it begins with wondering. We are good at wondering outside of our work environments. We may watch a flower bloom and wonder how it knew it was finally safe in the face of all the late snows. We might watch the snow falling on the mountains and find ourselves wondering how the storm can look so different depending on our elevation. We may be watching the slow construction of a new building on our route to work and wondering what it will be when it’s done. Our curiosity leads us to learn more, such as finding an article on high-elevation gardening or a video on mountain range weather patterns. We may even take a few minutes to drive past that construction site to read the “Coming soon!” sign we can’t quite see from the main road. When we are on our own time, we readily engage what inspires us.

Applying this to our work or long-term volunteer environments might seem less relevant, since most of us are not particularly inspired by our jobs. I offer that it is exactly our curiosity that can guide us to engage in our work with new eyes, to wonder what might be yielded from an unopened envelope or new intake/task. From here, we are poised to discover barriers, to seek new ways of doing things, and to look beyond the status quo to gain more consistent and successful outcomes in every aspect of our lives. Curiosity leads us to wonder if there is a better/easier/faster/more efficient way, guides us to research options, and compels us to try something new. Necessity may be the mother of invention, but curiosity is the mother of innovation when we hold it as a core value.  

Core Value: Be Here Now

“Be Here Now” comes to us from the modern Mindfulness movement, but the concept is much older than that. The origin of this ideal lies in the 1971 work of Ram Dass, an American yogi and spiritual teacher whose work focused heavily on spirituality, yoga, and meditation. In his book, Be Here Now, Dass describes his own journey from a PhD psychologist working out of Harvard to his spiritual awakening in India facilitated by Guru, Neem Karoli Baba.

While very few of us will embark upon such a journey, his story offers remarkable direction for how we can embrace our own lives with a “living faith in what is possible.” The Be Here Now concept readily lent itself to those who wanted to move beyond the limitations placed on them by others, and its adherents include Steve Jobs, Wayne Dyer, and George Harrison.

Since then, his meditation practices, associated with the foundational concepts of being present with the Now, fueled a movement we all know as “mindfulness.” Like Be Here Now, Mindfulness practices teach us to focus on the present moment, including our own feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, in an open awareness of what is going on around us. Mindfulness meditations guide the individual to focus inward, but the practice is not meant to stop there! The goal is to be able to focus our awareness onto a situation, including not only our own thoughts, feelings, and physical reactions, but also those of the other person.

When we Be Here Now with one another, we give them our undivided attention and actively listen to what they are saying. We focus on the individual, see their facial expressions, read their body posture, and meet them in their fear and concern with compassionate attention. We do this, because we also want to be heard and understood in this way when we others are attending to us. In order to foster this level of understanding, we must strive to speak clearly, such that we are saying what we mean and meaning what we say. We cannot speak in ways that expect others to read between the lines to grasp our true meaning.

Further, with the amount of technology and social media we use, the concept of speaking plainly and making clear points must be applied to our writing, as well. This careful attention to communication, both verbal and nonverbal, will allow us to truly understand the thoughts and feelings of those around us, whether they be coworkers or members, and lay the foundation of true compassion. 

Be Here Now calls each of us to be fully present with the person in front of us, to set aside distractions, and to actively listen and attend to their needs. Most of all, Be Here Now calls us to invest in what and who is in front of us and to give the best we have to offer to every situation.

Ram Dass. (1971). Be Here Now. San Cristobal, New Mexico: Lama Foundation.

“Be here now” is a core concept that challenges every one of us to give our undivided attention to our colleagues, friends, and family; to actively listen to understand,;and to speak and write clearly in a professional and direct way.

 

Empowering Others

The leadership ideal of empowering others, to make someone stronger and more confident, is a bit of a misnomer. Despite our best intentions, we cannot make someone stronger. We cannot make someone, well, anything. We can only create spaces where all the “someones” in our sphere of influence are able to find their strength and improve their confidence. This is no small feat, but there are some actions we can incorporate into our own behaviors to help create empowering spaces.

1. Showing Up. Being physically present may not always be possible, but the importance of people seeing us, particularly those of us with leadership positions, sends a powerful message. The more we are present with others, the less room there is for unrealistic ideas about who we are. Togetherness is grounding, and when those around us see us as real, tangible people, we become more relatable and approachable. We also have far more opportunities to lead by example. 
   
   
2. Engaging People. Engagement involves building relationships with all types of people—not just those who are most like us. When we limit our relationship-building to only those who think and act like us, we create cliques, discourage diversity, and suppress a speak-up culture. 
   
   
3. Helping Teammates. Helping our peers and those in our natural work groups leads to building community. A strong sense of community encourages the members to work together and collaborate more while discouraging the competitive mindsets that can tear teams apart.
   
   
4. Challenging Leaders. Sometimes, our leaders are wrong. It’s not because they are bad leaders. It’s just because they are people. Part of our humanity is our inherent nature to be imperfect. Sometimes, they don’t have all the information and make decisions that beg for adjusting. Sometimes, the pressure to move forward leads them to forget a stakeholder. Challenge decisions, ask for the why, and bring new information to the table as often as possible. And leaders: let yourself be challenged without taking it personally. Challenge helps us to grow.
   
   
5. Stretching People. The art of professional development involves allowing people to work on projects that are outside of their typical comfort zone. Doing it well involves also providing the tools and support they need, including the space to make mistakes and learn, without leaving them hung out to dry. Getting to know not only existing strengths but interests and potential will aid in ensuring we guide others to projects and endeavors that will broaden their experience without stretching them too thin.
   
   
6. Aligning Around a Mission or Common Goal/Purpose. Finding the passion and purpose of any group of people is one of the most important discoveries we can make as we seek to create and maintain empowering spaces. When we have a common goal, a sense of purpose that unites us, we can rally to that cause and obtain success as a group. Group cohesion and successful projects greatly increase the confidence of the individual members: “When WE did it, I was part of that we.”  
   
   
7. Let Go. The simplest and most effective way to help others to feel empowered is to let go of control. The act of empowering is allowing others to have control over their own situation. Be it work, social, or homelife, the easiest thing we can do to help others grow in strength and confidence is to let them make their own choices.

Empowerment is not an easy part of leadership, because empowering others is more about letting go and less about what you can do. We’ve all heard the saying, “If you give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” The old adage is true—but you have to let go of the pole and let him fish for himself. He might make mistakes like breaking the line, snagging some water plants, or losing the fish he was sure was in the net; and our job as leaders is to let him make those mistakes. Each will help him to grow in skill and confidence. You may occasionally be called to give him an extra line, but ultimately, the only way he can learn to feed himself is to be in control of his own learning process. That is empowerment. 

George. B. (2010). True North: Discover your authentic leadership. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Finding Yourself Again After the Kids are Grown

Raising children is a lot of work. From getting ready for school to meals to after school activities to homework to bedtime, there is not a lot of wiggle room in most schedules to find downtime as a family let alone for us as adults. Raising children in a pagan/polytheist household is even more work, because most of us have to provide our own religious education to our children. I used to covet the programs at other churches, especially the ones where someone qualified to work with children would whisk yours away so you could attend the adult services and feed your own spirit while they learned about faith practices. 

Sadly, most pagan groups do not have the capacity to provide childrens lessons even now, so most parents have three basic options: hold a separate service at home for each high day that is child-friendly, bring the kids to the adult high day and hope for the best, or leave the kids at home and attend the high day without them. I admit that I have done all three of these depending on what was happening in my life. As a single mom, I was very fortunate to have a series of groves within a day trip who fully supported me bringing my kids to our events and helping (sometimes A LOT) so I could sing.  As more families began attending our events, we were able to provide kid-specific content, but by this time, mine were quite a bit older than the others. This often left them as helpers, which was a lot of fun, though not entirely educational in terms of developing their religious path. Grove events were inherently social for them, and I am grateful they had this outlet. 

Most of the "education" I provided for them involved storytime and outdoor activities. We read all sorts of myths from a host of hearth cultures, sang songs, tried fun recipes, and took a lot of hikes. We would try to name birds and trees (which was easier when our grove naturalist came with us!) and often hold mini-rituals of offering while we were miles into some path in a metropark. It was pretty unstructured, and I know I could have done more, but I am at peace with what I showed them. I remember the first time we were in a park and they picked up trash unprompted. It had become such a routine part of our trips to the playground that they just began doing it--even now they can't walk by a can or wrapper without picking it up and placing it in a trashcan. They also had a hand in "shaming" some of our guests through recycling by example. My autistic son used to pick their soda cans out of the trash, place them into the recycling bin, and say, "you're welcome." I always told him "thank you" when he placed his recyclables in the correct bin, so he always said, "you're welcome" when placing items in. Even if his motivation was more "this is what we do with these types of items" instead of "we do this with these items because it's good for the Earth," his actions were consistent and resulted in positive change among those around him. 

But, I digress. This was supposed to be about me.

I was recently asked how I went about redefining my own spiritual path as my kids grew older, more independent, and eventually moved out of the house. At first, I didn't have a solid answer. Being pagan is a part of who I am, of how I move through the world, so when I was parenting, I was also paganing. Even now, when I am working, I am paganing. When I am socializing, I am paganing. When I am relaxing and taking time for myself, I am paganing then, too. For me, I was able to "redefine" myself by filling the time that freed up as they began entertaining themselves. Being a Bard and aspiring Initiate and Priest, it was easy to fill those gaps, because I knew what I wanted to do. I had goals! 

I guess that is my advice: set goals for yourself. The hardest part about having your kids out of the house, those little monsters who made a mess and ate all your food while they stole your heart, is filling the time once reserved for them. Kids require a tremendous amount of time and energy, and when that outlet is no longer there, our best way forward is to find other outlets. Your goal might be simple like trying three new things, or hard like learning to play an instrument. You may set a goal to finally get to that stack of books, to work on creating a new daily devotional that isn't kid-friendly, and so on. What do you want to do? As you work toward answering this question, the becoming and finding yourself will happen on its own.

If you don't have kids and are worried about how they will change your life, including your spiritual path, you can stop worrying. They will change everything, including your spiritual path. And it will be some of the best changes you've ever made. 

Secret Ingredient Soup

Those of you who’ve spent any amount of time with me know that I live my life through movie and television quotes. I connect to others through our shared experiences with entertainment, and many life-lessons are ready for harvest—particularly in cartoons. 

One of my favorite movies is the 2008 Dreamworks Animation film, Kung Fu Panda (all photos in this post copyright Dreamworks Animation. All rights reserved).  A panda named Po, voiced by comedian and musician Jack Black, is a character I, as an overweight but highly enthusiastic individual, relate to on a visceral level. He loves food as much as he loves kung fu, and when he finds himself suddenly within the world of his highest aspirations, he experiences awe and self-doubt in equal measures. 

Po was raised by a goose who owns a noodle shop, serving their famous “Secret Ingredient Soup,” and while he has been preparing the soup for decades, he does not know the secret ingredient. During his training in the Jade Palace when he finally achieves the highest honor of receiving the Dragon Scroll, he is flabbergasted to discover the scroll is nothing more than a reflective piece of paper. 

At the height of his disappointment with the entire Peaceful Valley evacuating in advance of an attack from escaped prisoner and Kung Fu Master Tai Lung, he runs into his father, the goose. His dad, seeing the sadness in his son’s face, takes the opportunity to reveal to him the secret ingredient in an attempt to lift his spirits. You can watch their interaction here. 

The truth is, there is no secret ingredient. He made it up! The soup is special because people believe it is special. And with that, Po realizes the mystery of the blank scroll: there is no secret ingredient. It’s just you.

This is one of those moments where I feel the doubt in myself rise to the surface—all the times I looked at those I admire and longed to know what it is they know that has allowed them to become who they are. What was their secret ingredient? I look at the selflessness of Mother Teresa, the courage of Amelia Earhart, the creativity of Frida Kahlo, the passion of Ella Fitzgerald, the strength of Indira Gandhi, the perseverance of Benazir Bhutto, and the vulnerability of Oprah Winfrey. I look to the defining traits of the women I know personally who have inspired me to be a better version of myself, and instead of feeling the weight of self-doubt, the lack of self-worth, and the overall feelings of being less-than those around me, I am gifted with these simple words: there is no secret ingredient. 

All these women I admire are special, because we believe they are special. These women have done amazing things, AND there is no secret ingredient! It’s just them, being who they are, when it mattered most. After all, Rosa Parks was a woman who worked long hours who was just trying to get home. When they told her to move, her exhaustion moved from being tired in her body to being tired in her mind, to being tired of giving in--and her response sparked a revolution.

And that is the lesson of Kung Fu Panda. There is no secret ingredient. It’s just you. You are what makes your life special. Because you believe you are special. And if you don’t believe you are special, there is no better time to start than now. You, as you are right now, are what makes the soup special. 

Seeking Support in Grief

Grief is a difficult emotion for pagans, because for many of our non-pagan friends and family, the comoft they offer tends to reflect their religious beliefs and not ours. Over the past year, the need for supporting one another in our grief has grown exponentially. We've been isolated and removed from our typical support networks, and when we turn to our family and coworkers--the only folks most of us have seen in months--the mismatch between what we need and what they offer by means of support can be jarring and leave us feeling even more alone. 

Understanding grief from a non-religious standpoint is a key way we can learn to communicate our needs to those whose religious beliefs are different from ours, for this understanding is more universal. When we experience loss, the comfort we seek falls into one of the stages of grief. When we are suffering, understanding how we feel and being able to communicate this to others will guide them in how to better support us.

Let's start by talking about the grief cycle as it relates to death. There are five stages of grief, and we move through them in different ways based on the circumstances of our loss. Some losses will leave us lingering in one of the stages of grief for far longer (or far shorter) than another. 

In the first stage of grief, we are in denial. Our reality has shifted in an unacceptable and permanent way, and we don't want to believe it is true. Even for our Christian loved ones, the denial phase is not a time for focusing on the "better place" our loved one has reached. During this phase, we need help allowing the truth to wash over us. The pang reverberates through us, and we are frozen by the weight of what we have learned, like a deer trapped in headlights. As the denial begins to ease, the full gravity of the loss sinks in, and we become angry at the injustice of having to live in a word without them.

When we are angry, we are often making a list of the should've's and never's of that relationship--and some of these can be pretty big! Losing a father can leave items on this list such as should've called more often, should've made that trip to visit, never getting walked down the aisle, and any of a myriad number of words left unspoken (including I'm sorry). The loss of all the things that will never happen again is infuriating! Holding space for that anger is hard even for the best trained support person, and what most folks really need right now is not words or advice but space to make that list and be heard.

The third phase is bargaining, which is complicated. Bargaining is more common when a loss is imminent and has not yet taken place. When a loved one is in the ICU and being moved to hospice, there may be an internal dialogue between the person being left behind and whatever higher power they perceive to have control over death and dying. "If you will spare/heal my loved one, I will [makes promises]." This is also a time when guilt, angst, panic, and hopelessness may kick in. Again, the bargaining phase is a time for holding space and listening.

When the third phase has run its course and we realize there is nothing we can do to stop or reverse the circumstances of the loss, our hopelessness leads to a situational depression. It is at this stage that I think we truly begin to grieve. It is here that our sadness benefits from the balm of compassion and the strength of our friends and family. When we reach this fourth phase, we are ready to seek comfort, and for the Christians in our lives, this is a time to turn to God. It is here that the mismatch in our religious affiliations and belief systems are the most at odds. We don't want to hear about the good life the departed has lived that has given them entrance into "heaven." We don't want to hear about seeing them again when we pass into the same realm. 

For Ancestor-centric faith practices, comfort comes through the realization that the departed is not lost to us. What we need is to be reminded of the memories and how this person will live on within us and through the stories we tell. We have the framework in our everyday work at our shrines to make offerings and keep their memory alive. We may speak to them, and through our divination practices, they may speak back to us. These moments of clarity, of being able to see the way forward, will ultimately lead us to break out of our depression and move onto the final stage: acceptance.

Acceptance doesn't mean the pain of the loss magically disappears. In fact, the acceptance phase may even make the pain of the loss feel more acute as we understand the breadth and depth of this new reality, of the new world we have to live in without our loved one. And that's okay.  In the acceptance phase, we are perched at the threshold of this awful rite of passage, and the liminal space between what was and what will be is uncomfortable to say the least. We are best served by help moving out of the doorway to the past and taking the first step into our new future. 

Ways our loved ones can help us make this transition include practical things: helping us clean and sort the loved one's belongings, listening to our stories of the items we uncover, and allowing us to find laughter and tears in equal measure as we release each of the emotions we have within us tied to this person's life. We need to share the memories of happy times and find peace in them. We need to share the things that we will miss the most. We need to be met with patience as our waves of emotion stop us in our tracks and utterly distract us from the task at hand. And the only way those who are here to help us can get it right is for us to communicate with them.

I have a list of things I tell people when I need support. I tell them how I am feeling right now, even if how I feel is best described as "I don't even know." I ask for what I need and guide them in helping me. I may ask for their ear as I share stories. I may ask for their silence so we can just be together. I may ask for them to leave me alone to process on my own, adding that I'd like them to check on me later. And when the loss is new and I cannot speak to what I need, I mostly just let them hold me, because hugging makes me feel stronger and more able to handle whatever is happening that I am trying desperately to understand. It may help you to make a list of the things you typically need when you are the most upset, including whether touch is okay, so that when grief strikes, you can hand this short list to those who are there to help you through. 

In the end, our non-pagan friends and family mean well, and as in all things, grief requires us to articulate what we need in a way that they can understand. They may not get it right the first (or second) time, but those who truly love us will always be learning how to be in right relationship with us, just as we are with them.

May the losses you have experienced lead you to richer relationships with those who remain in this world with you, and may the memories of those who have passed on always be a blessing.

Book Review and Personal Reflections: White Tears/Brown Scars

White Tears/Brown Scars: How White Feminism Betrays Women of Color

by: Ruby Hamad
ISBN: 978-1-948226-74-5

In her work, Ruby Hamad takes us on a journey through the history of racism in America and the greater "white" world, providing ample evidence for how the actions and attitudes of white men accompanied by the silence of white women is the defining feature of Western settler-colonial society. 

In short, as the title suggests, this book is about the use of White Women’s tears as weapons and the price we pay for our role in maintaining the status quo of white supremacy. The idea of white women as the best supporting characters in maintaining whiteness in our society is a blind spot in our antiracism work even though the evidence is everywhere. Racism gets more subtle over time, and while White Women are not screaming rape when a black man passes us on the street, we are supporting the oppression of people of color with our inherent white innocence. And it’s all bullshit. 

Hamad's in-depth analysis of representation in media, tokenism in social circles, internalized oppression, and large-scale/global gaslighting are spot-on and important for those doing the work of antiracism:

On page 57, Hamad writes, “[Representation] matters because it is in popular media that our social world is both constructed and reflected back at us.” How many times have I felt comforted by the diversity of a cast, as though the presence of people of color was enough to comfort my whiteness into feeling “woke”? How many of these stereotypes did I miss, did I “not see,” and in my blindness perpetuate? How many times have I made excuses for the stereotypical portrayal of a character because “it saves time” for the plot to move forward? Yikes, me. 

On the white art of tokenism: Just as having a black friend doesn't make us "not racist," having a black woman as a member of our women's group does not give our group legitimacy as "progressive," "diverse," or even "woke," nor does it give our group a bye on the work of anti-racism. That, simply put, is the very heart of tokenism. If there's at least one person of color present, too many groups and organizations think they get to check the diversity box and be done with it. We need to make space for the thoughts, feelings, and opinions of women of color, not just their bodies.

"Whiteness has become so attached to the symbols of privilege, wealth, and status that it no longer even needs European-derived people themselves to perpetuate it." (Amad, p. 206). Another term for this is "internalized oppression," and if you are not familiar with the term, I definitely encourage you to do a quick google search. Basically, it is when an oppressed group self-restricts their own actions and even thoughts based on the dominant cultural norms that apply to them. I am reflecting on what the unspoken cultural norms of women's groups would be that women of color automatically adhere to, such as ensuring they hold space for white tears properly, apologizing when they anger or upset a white woman, or other similar things. In reflecting on the unspoken rules, it is my hope that I can find ways to change those rules. The real way to defeat unspoken things is to speak them. Once spoken, they can and, Gods be good, will be changed.

Finally, the idea of large-scale gaslighting must be addressed.  White society has convinced itself that all we have done was for the good of those “less-than” us—meaning less-than-white. It is othering on a global scale. As you’ve heard us say at Mountain Ancestors: we [the dominant culture] create outsiders. 

People of color have had to continually deny parts of themselves and adopt whiteness, through ideology and appearance, as a way to protect themselves from literal harm. The more they pass, the less they have to deal with the direct threat of racism, but at what personal cost? 

Our role as women has been one of softening. White Womanhood has made the edges blurry between white supremacy and the rights of people of color. White Womanhood has perpetuated the illusion of creating a better world that keeps whiteness at the top of the hierarchy of humanity. We are the rose-colored glasses through which white supremacy is filtered—and our white tears, as Hamad points out, are a result of the rosy perception we have created crashing into the unfiltered reality where people of color live. 

So what do we do? As a group, white women need to focus on what Hamad has pointed out: acknowledge the unfair advantage our race has given us in the form of white privilege AND our participation in a system where our womanhood has been both a privilege and a weapon. 

What do we do on an individual level? For me, I am starting by answering the many questions Hamad poses to us as white women on page 244. From there, I need to take off the proverbial rose-colored glasses and see what reality—and accountability for my/our parts in creating the world we live in now—actually looks like. Reconcile the truth of the now with the lies we told to fabricate our current version of the overculture. 

I do not want my tears used as a weapon to hurt others. I do not want my emotions used as justification for other people’s actions—especially when those actions are violent and hateful. I want full ownership of my own self, and the cost of that is giving up the “get out of jail free” card that allows my tears to shift the blame and rescue me from my own failings. 

I will start with a refocus on personal accountability. If we all start there, maybe we can begin to truly dismantle the broken and violent system we have held aloft on the pillow of our femininity.

Ruby Hamad is a journalist, author, and academic who spilts her time between Sydney, Australia, and New York, New York. This work was inspired by the response to her article entitled, "How White Women Use Strategic Tears to Silence Women of Colour."