Ritual

So today, to mark the passage of 2016 into 2017, I attended a Sound Healing and Burning Bowl meditation event at the local Buddhist temple.  It was an interesting experience! I have never been to a Buddhist temple, nor have I participated in a Burning Bowl Fire Puja.  But it seems like a popular event, seeing as I had to wait in line for 15 minutes to get in.  There were at least 200 people in attendance.

Each attendee received a slip of paper upon which they were to write things they wished to leave behind this year.  We were encouraged to write "Anything not serving you."  Really, the paper wasn't big enough for me to down all the things I wanted to burn up from 2016 - but I managed to pare it down to the essentials, which I won't post here because it's all burnt up and GONE!

During the "ceremony", we were invited to chant the following phrase: Om Mani Padme Hun, which means "the jewel in the lotus".  Some guy was playing a large didgeridoo-type thing and a woman was playing rock/singing bowls.  And person was guided to walk to the front of the room and burn their slip of paper.

Since I chose to sit at the back of the room, I was waiting for quite some time to go up and burn my paper.  I was able to let the sounds wash over me and listen to this roomful of people create a peaceful vibration together.  I eventually briefly joined in the chanting, but didn't keep it up for long.  I was thinking about ritual.

Rituals are fascinating.  What is our need to have them in our lives?  They ground us.  They provide clues to our identity.  They link us to people and communities.  And for some, rituals connect them to a higher power.  I didn't feel any of that in the ritual I participated in today.  For me, it was a powerful thing to watch my failings burn away, but it was very personal and didn't have anything to do with anyone else in the room.

I was wondering if there were any rituals that I had.  Honestly, I can't think of any...morning coffee??  And to what does that connect me?  So maybe I should incorporate some rituals into my life.  I'd hate them to be empty, though - but I also don't want to create some phony ritual that I pretend means something when it doesn't.  How does one find a ritual that speaks to them and that gives purpose and meaning and cohesion in ones life?  I don't know, but I'd like to take a journey to find out.

p.s. - See ya later 2016, don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out.

Under the Banner of Heaven

I just finished reading the phenomenal book entitled Under the Banner of Heaven, by John Krakauer, about Mormon Fundamentalism centered around the 1984 murder of Brenda and Erica Lafferty at the hands of her brothers-in-law.

I have always been intrigued/baffled by Mormonism/Latter-Day Saints (LDS), since falling in love with one in 2003 at the tender age of 18.  He was my first boyfriend and my first love.  I was head-over-heels and wanted to spend the rest of my life with him.  Unfortunately, our respective religious views (I was still a practicing JW at the time), weren't compatible.  I faced huge pressure from my parents to avoid him at all costs - JWs are strongly encouraged to only date and marry other JWs.  And I knew he was preparing to go on a mission trip.  Still, I firmly believed we could make things work - and to that end we both agreed to study each other's religion.

I was sure that he would eventually "see the light" after studying with the JWs...but that never happened.  I'm assuming he felt the same about me, but I obviously never converted to Mormonism.  He left on his mission trip to the Philippines in December 2004, my heart broke, and that was that.  We kept in touch for a bit, but we both eventually moved on.  He's now married (to a Mormon) with a young daughter. 

Although the values systems of Mormonism and JWs are somewhat similar - emphasis on the family, reading Scriptures together, chastity, modesty, the command to preach the truth to the rest of the world, blah blah blah - the doctrine is quite different. QUITE DIFFERENT! 

I distinctly recall talking to my LDS boyfriend after finding out that Mormons believed that ancient Israelites had rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in leather boats to discover America, and that Jesus had visited believers on this new continent.  I was baffled - people believed this?! My boyfriend confirmed that, yes, he believes this.  And then the more I read, the wider my eyes grew: temple rituals, baptism of the dead, secret handshakes, men can eventually become gods, the necessity of having numerous children in order to provide vessels for spirits to come to earth, special underwear.  This stuff was super bizarre to me! 

Once it became clear that there was no way in hell I would convert to Mormonism, I left off researching it.  Over the years, references to Mormonism would make me bristle a bit - I was still nursing my broken heart - but mostly I would just shake my head at the inanity of it all.  I left my own religion a few years later, after taking a Judaism class at University and appreciating the banter and relationship that Jews had with God.  As of now, I would characterize my spirituality as non-existent and apathetic.

Recently, via a group WhatsApp chat with my 4 best friends, we started talking about Mormonism after we noticed that many pretentious lifestyle blogs and instagram accounts were run by Mormons.  (For a hilarious parody site, check out Seriously So Blessed.)  One friend mentioned her own in-depth study of Mormonism, and referenced a history of violence and racism in Mormonism that I had not heard before. She suggested I read Krakauer's book, and, the last time I saw her, she had brought me a copy to borrow.

This has been one of the most fascinating books I may have ever read!  And also eye-opening about, as my friend mentioned, the history of violence and racism from the beginnings of Mormonism through to at least the 1970s when the LDS church finally allowed black people to join the priesthood and participate more fully in the religion.

The book chronicles the history of Mormonism since its inception in 1829 when The Book of Mormon was published, through the colonization by Mormons of the Midwestern United States, the defiance towards government by church leaders, and then various sects that branched off mostly in relation to the church's eventual outlawing of polygamy/plural marriage.  All this is told within the context of the 1984 murders of Brenda Lafferty and her baby daughter, Erica.

Although the book contains helpful maps, it would have been beneficial to have had some kind of family tree chart.  It seems everyone is interconnected in some way through varying marriages and step-relations.  To be fair, though, figuring out the family tree becomes a daunting task when a father takes his own step-daughter as a new wife, effectively making the step-daughter a step-mother to her own mother...mind-boggling!

This kind of incest and pedophilia is rampant throughout fundamentalist Mormon communities, and is extremely disheartening.  Families there continue to practice plural marriages, with girls as young as 12 years old being married off to much older men.  These communities are run almost exclusively by Mormons, who control everything from government to banking to policing.  Escape is difficult.

I highly recommend this book!!

TRUMP

Eight years ago, I watched Obama win his first presidency. I was filled with hope – it seemed that the world and America was on the verge of change! They were ready to move forward. Of course, growing up in a household that valued multiculturalism and diversity, it never made sense to me in the first place why racism was still happening in the world.  A rather privileged upbringing, of course.  I remember wanting to blog about all the hope and optimism I felt.  And I never did.

Now, it seems America really wasn't ready for a black president. Or maybe America just wasn't ready for progress of the social variety. The only thing that's happened in the last eight years has been more division, more hatred, more racism, more sexism, more misogyny. Was it always like this? And I just never knew?   More than likely, as it’s only in the last decade that I have become more involved with social justice, and I'm realizing how privileged my life has been and continues to be.

Years and years and years of patriarchy, white rule, oppression/genocide/slavery of people of color, cannot easily be undone! We live with these ancestral issues buried within us.

And now look at where we are. America would rather have a racist than a woman. America would rather have a mansplainer than a woman. America would rather have a rapist than a woman. America would rather have a sexist person than a woman.

I am shocked. I am sad. I am outraged! This country is about to explode. I was so hoping that this toxicity would be over on November 8. Well, I have to point out my own privilege in that previous statement, because I just failed to properly acknowledge that our system is compete toxic and will never be “over” until we undergo an overhaul of the numerous unjust policies in place that continue to oppress the most marginalized members of our society.  But at least I knew this toxic election campaign would be over.  As if that’s supposed to be a consolation.

Instead, a new toxicity is about to be born and bred. Born and bred?  It’s BEEN born and it’s BEEN breeding…But what I mean is the way in which Trump has granted permission for people to be openly discriminatory and hateful.  In that way, I can't even imagine what age we are about to enter. I know that I'm scared for anyone who is of color, disabled, LGBTQIA, a woman, transgender, poor, an immigrant, a refugee.

I scroll through my facebook and I see post after post about how scared my friends are.  My friends who are disabled, LGBTQIA, women, trans, immigrants, refugees, people of color.  One of my young students told me yesterday “If Trump gets elected, my family might have to go back to Mexico.”  I think of my young black and brown students, growing up with a president who ridicules those who are different than he is, who wants to close the gates to this country, who wants to build walls, who refuses criticism and discourse and dialogue.

My husband is working in Florida right now, and his colleagues are jubilant over the Trump win.  However, another colleague told him that her daughter’s 10-year-old classmates were telling the girls they were going to grab their pussies.  We are now in the business of raising rapists.

I am so scared for the kinds of people Trump will bring out of the woodwork.  As my brother so eloquently put it: “It’s [Trump’s] followers who are the real problem.  Alt-rightists, misogynists, xenophobes, and any other number of disaffected grudge-toting deplorables who will not feel validated and legitimized by the outcome. Don’t know how that genie will get bottled up again.”

I’m uplifted by the protests being held around the country.  I hope we can continue to be angry, to support each other, and to work to fix this giant cluster-F.

CONTACT Training - Brattleboro, Vermont

I'm currently at the CONTACT Training program in Brattleboro, Vermont. CONTACT stands for Conflict Transformation Across Cultures. The program is held at the SIT Graduate Institute, a branch of World Learning. This is the first year that the program is offering a joint training by Musicians Without Borders, which is the main reason I've enrolled.

 The MWB portion of the session is not until next week.  This week I'm learning about non-violent conflict resolution through amazing teachers such as Tatsushi Arai, Bruce Dayton, Susie Belleci, and Mehlaqa Samdani. Future lecturers include playwright Court Dorsey, Hon. Patricia Whalen (former Judge, War Crimes Chamber of Bosnia Herzegovina), Vahidin Omanovic, and the trainers from MWB.

 Today was all about IDENTITY. This portion affected me quite deeply, as we examined the ways in which we see ourselves, and the ways in which society sees us. But more than that, I kept coming back to a question a colleague asked some months back, which was - "What is the big deal with identity? Why is everyone talking about identity?!"  This was really a question in response to the transgender bathroom issue, that people who are trans should be able to use the bathroom associated with the gender by which they identify.

 And so today I kept coming back to that question from her - why is everyone talking about identity?

Here's why:

Identity helps situate ourselves in the world. It gives us a reference point to not only walk through life, but also to survive, as we may need to find the groups where we feel safe and protected.

Identity gives us a way to be known - and we all want to be known. We all have stories that we want to share about who we are and why we are that person. A strong sense of identity allows us to know ourselves and where/how we belong on this planet.

 Identity is a source of conflict - when what we feel within is not the way we are perceived by others. Or what we feel within is not seen on the outside. Who we think we are may not be how or who others think we are. So then we have a personal identity, and a social identity. These two essences may not connect.

 When aspects of our identity are attacked, it influences our behavior. That aspect of our identity might shut down. Or it might consume us.

**

 My colleague who asked the earlier question is a white middle-aged woman. She has mentioned that she identifies strongly as a woman.

So, in terms of a bathroom, she would use the one assigned to women. It is where she feels comfortable. It is where she feels she belongs. It resonates with her because it aligns with her identity.
This is exactly the same way that trans people feel about using the bathroom corresponding to their gender. They want to use the space in which they feel safe. In which they feel comfortable. In which they feel as though they belong. The place that aligns with their identity.

Finding these aspects of identity that we share can go a long way towards understanding the points of view of another person who we consider to be very different from us.