Category: Thinking

I found a dirty brass case with glyphic/Latinate inscrip­tions on it that was being used as a door stop & deter­mined it con­tained a dae­mon of some sort. Con­sid­ered open­ing it or keep­ing it but ulti­mate­ly just wedged it back under the door.

Some­how end­ed up sort­ing through recipe books with a cool witch & her friend. We decid­ed to watch a movie & after I sprawled on the floor the cool witch did the same. I bash­ful­ly awak­ened from this one with alacrity.

In both of these cas­es, my apolo­gies if I blun­dered into some­one else’s dream.

I’ve been rumi­nat­ing on place and space and time. It’s been 15 years since I last wrote about not feel­ing like I have a her­itage to claim. Often, as a cis-het white guy, it feels like my her­itage is con­sti­tu­tive sole­ly of colo­nial­ism and patri­archy. After cen­turies of that amal­ga­ma­tion, I find lit­tle won­der in the dif­fi­cul­ty of an authen­tic (as seen by oth­ers) prac­tice. I have no idea exact­ly what kind of mutt I am.

I’m cer­tain­ly more aware of and try to be more del­i­cate when I might be engag­ing in an appro­pria­tive or co-optive activ­i­ty, but at the same time, try­ing to gain knowl­edge or prac­tice based upon my cul­tur­al or eth­nic back­ground seems arbi­trary. I’ve been con­nect­ed to the beech-maple for­est of the Ohio and Cuya­hoga water­sheds my whole life. If the land still remem­bers, I feel like I should engage with it in the lan­guages it rec­og­nizes. For me, prac­tic­ing Celtic shaman­ism, Nordic pagan­ism, Wic­ca, witch­craft, feels like only a mar­gin­al­ly less colo­nial prac­tice than Chris­tian­i­ty.

At the same time, liv­ing a sec­u­lar life with­out rit­u­al, or with emp­ty rit­u­al, is unsat­is­fac­to­ry. The cel­e­bra­tion of Thanks­giv­ing suf­fers from dumb colo­nial mythos, but that does­n’t mean we should take it behind the shed and put a bul­let into it. For­get the myth, but retain the giv­ing of thanks. Grat­i­tude and gen­tle­ness. The way is a maze of twisty lit­tle pas­sages, all alike.

I wrote in a poem a long time ago, I’m still “learn­ing to ask the ground/with each fresh step/how best to walk upon it.”