Have you ever watched a ladder truck race out with their sirens howling on their way to a fire? Have you ever noticed the guy in the back with his own steering wheel? They need that second steering wheel in order to maneuver around corners and through traffic. It is the same with cultural changes; culture does not turn on a dime. We have to work at all levels to bring about change: the personal, the political and the global or mythic level.
Consider the environment, as an example; we have made incredible progress at the mythic level. In fact, one of the reasons some folks contend we started the Iraqi war was to force the issue of Alaskan oil drilling. Environmental protection is so embedded within the American psyche nowadays; the only way to get past it is by evoking scarcity and the threat of terrorism. Now we could always hope that scarcity would help us in promoting alternative fuel sources, and it has. But we need to continually steer this change at all levels.
And one-way is to stop making SUVs the enemy.
Why do folks buy SUVs? Because it is today’s station wagon. Didn’t you ever ride in a station wagon as a child? It was a place to put all your children, your stuff and had horsepower to boot -- not a bad deal. The SUV is, at a mythic level, today’s version of the pioneers’ wagon. You cannot fight a symbol with that much mythic juice.
We need to instead find ways to make public transportation and high mileage vehicles and hybrids the mythic choice. What would be a better mythic level tactic? Well, consider your own habits. Why do you drive less, drive a high mileage car and ride share as much as you can? Oh, you have made these choices right? So you already know first hand why anyone else would choose similarly?
It always starts at the personal level. Examine the mythos within your personal decisions that reflect the changes you want to see in the world. And express that image, symbol or myth within the public sphere. Poets, musicians, artists and filmmakers express the mythic, and we, as activists, must learn to do it too.
Another example, how do you resolve conflicts with your neighbors, your co-workers, drivers in traffic, and within your home? If you don’t understand how or you do not actively engage in conflict resolution in these spheres, how on earth are you going work for peace in the Middle East or anywhere else for that matter?
From The Personal to The Mythic
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Wish I could be there. Very well spoken.
Katrina,
I wish you all the blessings and power you need on your journey. Thank you for these words. It is good to remember that returning to work (and thus returning to grace) bring a chance for us all to rest and have joy.
Wishing you joy in the Work.
David
Dear Katrina- Thorn reposted your blog and happy am I. Your passion, always so immense, comes blowing out in these words. So akin to my own heart and soul that it makes me have a bittersweet smile.
The Storm is only now coming to the edges of our universe and yet it will sweep and consume all that is. In the end, our beautiful universe will be so much...more? Different? Complete? Who knows?
All I do know is my soul came here to witness and be part in this period. I cannot shrink from the work. I am here with you, fae sister!
Thought-provoking piece, Katrina. Thanks.
I don't know what to call myself either. In Pagandom, I've taken to referring to myself as a Witch at Large. In the interfaith world where I'm active, I call myself a Pagan. Sometimes I call myself an uppity woman or a Second Wave Feminist. I've never really thought to publicly identify myself by my sexuality, het woman, which is very "white bread" and old-fashioned. Not only het, but serially monogamous for the most part. It seems almost a liability these days to say you're het, but I am proudly and happily so. I tend towards intellectualism but only have a BA, which doesn't carry much weight, at least in public and professional worlds, no matter how much you've studied, trained, and can articulate, even teach.
My biological heritage is Irish, Dutch, French Huguenot, Euro-mongrel. My social heritage is Roman Catholic on one side and conservative Methodist, temperance-crusading, women's rights and education on the other, with distinct East Coast sensibilities, now mellowed by more than half a century living on the Left Coast. My maternal political heritage is conservative Republican (altho what my relatives might think of current trends in the GOP I cannot imagine, since they did have brains and they did think and they did have a social conscience), yet I am much farther left in my outlook than any elected official I know. My paternal political heritage is blue collar Democratic, except that my dad broke with his family on politics and allied with my mother's family's conservatism.
I'm a former hippie, a home-birth advocate, a home death and green burial advocate, an opponent of capital punishment and resorting to warfare to resolve humankind's differences. I support the right to conscious self-deliverance. I rejoice in any and all consensual expressions of love and eros. I'm a lover and a mom.
I have never missed voting in an election and I disrespect those who don't avail themselves of this hard-won right. (I have ancestors who fought the Brits in the American Revolution.) I support workers' rights. I recognize our interdependence on this planet, so could be called a greenie. I'm a committed environmentalist in my day-to-day life (in terms of eating locally grown food, expanding public transit, recycling, preserving open space and wildlife, opposing exploitation of natural resources [strip mining, oil-drilling, nuclear facilities, agribusiness, monocultures, clear-cutting timber, overuse of pesticides, genetic modification, etc.]) I want to make the city streets "safe for dancing," as my old friend Tony Serra said when he ran for mayor of SF on the Platypus Party ticket.
Well, you got me going there, my friend. Thought-provoking read, as I said. ;-)
xo,
Macha
Lovely azaleas!
[cough][gag][snort][sneeze]
Just lovely...
I know what you mean.
I feel you. There is too much bs- particularly when people decide that their temperament is tantamount to truthful and ignore everyone else.
I get irked by immature extroverts or closet introverts who ignore you REPEATEDLY and then pretend you're out of line for being upset by the time they can't pretend you didn't say anything anymore. I find that the same people will ignore you if you blow up right away, too, and that it's because they just don't think that honoring what you value is important to maintaining a relationship, or even worse: that you don't know what you value at all and that it's all a mind game for their pleasure or annoyance. Then they call you passive-aggressive, aggressive, moody, touchy and temperamental. I call them "not listening".