Category Archives: Philosophy

Delving into the Psyche, Edumacation, New Year New Me, Onwards, Philosophy, Spirituality, Wheel of the year, Witchy

The Darkness

BY bonnie

Yule – the Winter Solstice – is an ancient holiday dedicated to honoring the sun. For ancient people, this was the darkest time of the year (in the Northern Hemispehere, anyway). It was cold, people survived with food stored from the harvests, preserved by drying, curing, or fermenting. More dark means more danger, for a human is a daytime animal with poor eyesight for night movement. The Winter Solstice is the longest night, but within that lengthy pitch black time is a message that brighter days are to come. After all, if you’re in the longest night, logic follows that the next will be shorter, and science proves that each night after that will be shorter and shorter until the sun is back with a warm presence and the ability to see one’s work and one’s path for the majority of an Earth rotation.

The ancient people were, after all, scientists. We tend to forget that because we have had the benefit of millennia of collective human knowledge to build on and we consider our knowledge superior because it is more correct in the details, but in some ways this is a privileged point of view and it dishonors our ancestors by implying that they are less intelligent than we are. They were not. Their science might not look like ours, but they didn’t have the benefits we do of all the hard work that’s gone before us. They were the first. They marked the seasons and noted the calendar both on earth and in the skies. They learned how to cultivate gardens and farmland, how to breed animals to more fully nourish themselves. Tell me that’s not scientific genius. To take this planet, entirely from scratch, and to use it to sustain life, to eventually create civilization (and, yes, modern life has SO. MANY. PROBLEMS. but when you step back from that and realize that even the “synthetic” things in our life have all come from the genius of humans learning how to use the resources on the planet and nothing else, you can see how remarkable our species truly is).

I digress, but the point here is that these dudes knew their shit. Maybe not as completely as we know it, and maybe in different terms with different meanings, but they knew it.

So. I graduated.

It is dark in my life right now, but life doesn’t operate as predictably as the seasons and I don’t know whether this day is my shortest one, and income is about to lift me out of poverty, or whether I am still early in the fall and I must wait for my darkest night still. That thought is terrifying. There is, of course, also the possibility that spring will never come back into my life. It sounds dark, but I say it without emotion: sometimes, terrible things happen to good people and that’s just how it is. The American Dream, the Bootstrap Myth—none of that shit is real. Capitalism is toxic and most do not thrive in it.

I am not really as pessimistic as that makes me sound. But I am humble enough to recognize that against the forces of fate and capitalism I am no more special than those who do not survive these systems. Just plain and simple: sometimes shit happens. *shrug*

I know it’s a couple of weeks on beyond the winter solstice now, but to face this time in my life – to graduate at the winter solstice – seems particularly apt. I am comforted by the knowledge that the Universe has a rhythm for this. It doesn’t ease my anxiety completely by any means, but it does comfort me to know that darkness is cyclical. Night ends, winter ends, and life changes take effect and the new normal becomes the expected and the comfortable.

I don’t know what my new normal will look like and if I am being honest, I truly hate that part of all this. But I am taking one blind step after another and eventually I will come out of the darkness into the day and I will see my way back to Summer again.

Where I will hopefully stay for ever and ever with no more darkness or poverty ever again. Right? Yep. We’re just gonna go ahead and go with that.

Philosophy, Political, Social Justice

In which the Universe sends me the most obvious message of all time

BY bonnie

Over the weekend terrible things happened. And many people I know were devastated and angered. And they wondered where they would find the energy to fight darkness. I know I did. My life is hard. I am a single mom to two kids dealing with their own special needs. I am self-employed. I am a full time student. I struggle with depression and anxiety and numerous nebulous physical symptoms that leave me tired before I even begin to deal with my immediate responsibilities, let alone fighting injustice. My friends and I talked about this as we drove down to the vigil here Sunday night (“I’ll go if you go.” “Okay I’ll go if there’s coffee”). We all agree that we don’t have to attend every single event, we don’t have to do All the Things Every Time. But we also agree that it hurts not to. We are not sure how to balance that. t what point is it legitimate to not do An Important Thing, and at what point should we try to rally for one more rally?

I don’t have the answers.

But a funny thing happened at the vigil. It’s almost stupid it’s so blatantly obvious, but I swear I am not making this up.

We are standing there lifting our candles and singing “This little light of mine/I’m gonna let it shine” and my candle starts to go out. Just mine. Some small breeze wound through the crowd and hit my flame, but not the flames around mine. So I brought my little light down and sheltered it until it was strong again, and until the little breeze went away. When I lifted it up, it shone as strongly as those nearby. The Universe was reminding me how community works.

The estimation was that more than 1,000 people attended this vigil. Not every one held a flame, and sometimes our flames needed tending to, or went out entirely and needed to be refueled by a generous neighbor. But look at the crowd. Look at all those lights. They are working together and it is not obvious whose flame isn’t lit at this moment because, as a community, we are strong.

I still don’t know the answers. I don’t know where the line is between when I’m legitimately too tired and when I can push myself a little farther. I’m sure I’ll have to reassess every time. And I’m sure I’ll make mistakes sometimes, either pushing myself too far or not taking my turn when I can. But so long as we just do our best – our honest best – the community has got our backs.

Looking for ways to contribute? These links have some ideas.

5 Valuable ways to use your white privilege to fight anti-black racism

Women’s March: How to get involved

Get involved in the fight for black lives

How to fight white supremacy after Charlottesville

Delving into the Psyche, New Year New Me, Philosophy, The Zebra

Word of the Year: Nourish

BY bonnie

Oh my. It’s been more than two years since I last wrote here. That’s a record! Life has been overwhelming. There was a time when I was a stay at home, homeschooling mom who enjoyed cooking nourishing foods from scratch and finding ways to make it all work out even though our income was quite low. And then I became a single homeschooling mom and I still enjoyed cooking and making it all work on a meager income. And then my income became frightening small and I went back to school so now I am a full-time college student raising two kids who are both in school now on very little money and let me tell you that the current me has no time nor energy nor money to make nourishing foods from scratch these days. I’ve never been rich – far from it – but even then I was quite privileged compared to my life now.

I wish I could tell you here that I love it and that I wouldn’t change a thing, but that’s not quite true. As it happens, I definitely would not change anything, but only because the way my life is right now, is just the way it has to be right now. I’m finally finishing college and my kids are in schools that suit them well. There isn’t any room to change. I have no regrets in the life I have made for myself right now, but I cannot pretend it’s easy. These last six years of growth have had a toll on me and I am exhausted.

Don’t misunderstand – my life is not lacking in joy. My kids are growing up into incredible people that I am so proud to know and we have a lot of fun together. I am loving every minute of being at university and the fact that my responsibility right now is to read literature and discuss it and analyze it feels so luxurious and delicious that I have to pinch myself regularly to be sure I’m not dreaming. I somehow wound up with the two best cats I could dream of – they are just the perfect mix of quirky and not too troublesome. My apartment, while not my favorite location, is growing more and more homeish and lovely inside as I continue to, slowly, fix it up. There is a lot of joy in my life.

But I am tried. I am so tired.

And it’s made me get too far from my better habits. Where I used to eat whole foods cooked in wholesome ingredients, now I eat at taco shops way too often. Where I used to be regularly connected to my spirituality, now I find myself too busy to focus. Where I used to have time for art, now I find myself struggling to meet the minimums of all my to do lists. Where I used to feel good, now I feel terrible.

So this year I want to focus on the word nourish again.

I love the word nourish. I love the way it sounds and the way it feels to say. I love that it means more than just “healthy” – it means to feed yourself making holistic health the goal. And I don’t mean just food. You can nourish yourself with exercise, too. But also with kindness and better thinking. And sometimes with a break from everything healthy. The psyche is just as important to nourish as the physical body. Sometimes, let’s be honest, trashy TV is exactly what you need at the end of a long and difficult day. The key is to do it mindfully.

So I’ve made this little doodle. I plan to print it out in various sizes and post it in places in my life that will help me remember that nourishing me is the goal. I’ll put one on the fridge for obvious reasons, but also on my bathroom mirror to help me remember to nourish my health by flossing every night. One on my bedside table to remind me to nourish myself by sleeping well. I’ll make one my lock screen on my phone to remind me to use it in ways that nourish me rather than as a means of escape or mindlessly procrastinate (notice the use of the word “mindless” there, because surely some procrastination is nourishing). I’ve made this doodle in black and white so that, during the year when I inevitably fall into old patterns, I can color it up or decorate it in different ways to make it new and obvious again. Art is meditation is prayer. And new things in the environment remind me to refocus. Win-win!

My life is still overwhelming and it will be for the foreseeable future. I can’t simply decide things like “no more eating out!” when, quite frankly, that will be an unreasonable goal for me at times. Instead I want to relearn to take a moment to focus on the word nourish and decide whether eating out is the most nourishing thing for me at that moment. Maybe it is at that moment. The goal is simply to stop acting mindlessly and to start connecting with my whole self on a regular basis. Remembering to nourish me means to remember to nourish all of me.

Do you have a word for the year?

Philosophy, Political, The Zebra

Thanks Be to the Vogons

BY bonnie

I know I complain about the Vogons* a lot. And they deserve it. In fact just this week I’ve spent 3 hours on the phone trying to sort one problem and another 20 minutes on the phone not even speaking to ANYONE AT ALL to sort another problem.

But the thing is that my kids have always had good and reliable medical care through the state. It makes the Vogons worth it. Very, very worth it.

And now, as of this month, I finally have insurance I can actually afford to use and keep. I have insurance that I don’t have to consider dropping so that I can keep affording food when paychecks are low. I have insurance that I can afford to get basic blood work or other labs without having to make payments for the next six months (or just avoiding altogether). I have insurance where I can afford to get an X-ray if necessary for this wrist that’s been fucked up for months. Or an ultrasound, if necessary, for this pain in my side that’s almostbutnotquite gone.

I’ve heard a lot of people unhappy with this new Affordable Care Act, and some have even wondered who could ever have wanted such a thing. So I wanted to write you to tell you who could want such a thing. Me. I could.

I make a point to be grateful to be American. Because truly my country protects its citizens with rights not afforded to people in other places on the globe. And I hope it doesn’t sound trite or privileged to say so, but I am well aware that everything down to my clean water readily available is something I am lucky to have access to and to benefit from. But then I remember how my country, for so long, literally did not give a shit if I lived or died. I consider health a basic human right (wacky, I know) and medical care was just not available to me for a long time at all, and then only at costs so high I could not afford to make regular use of them (and I was lucky enough to mostly not need it). Sometimes the US breaks my heart.

I’m not going to debate health care here. I may not even approve comments that debate it. Don’t get all weird about freedom of speech, either. Because that mean the government has to grant you free speech, not me. And while I normally love the exchange of information, even (especially?) in the form of debate I’m simply too tired and busy right now to sponsor such a thing here.

I’ll also add that I see flaws in this program for sure. And I do have sympathy for those who are frustrated by it, or for who it may be failing. But I wanted to write this to put this out there: it isn’t all bad. It’s working. We can keep ironing out the kinks, I hope. And, someday, I hope we move on to fully sponsored government health care. So that any person can walk into any hospital and just, like, get care. Madness, I know. But it’s where we really need to be to ensure that everyone actually does have access to health.

So, thanks Obama. Really. I’m not mimicking that hilarious meme at the moment, I’m being genuinely grateful. Thank you. So much.

(I’ve got to run. Here’s hoping the typos aren’t too bad!)

*”Vogons” used here to describe Earthling Human government organizations that make me so frustrated I want to stab puppies. The actual term refers to Galactic Alien government organizations that make people/other creatures so frustrated they want to stab puppies. I assume. Douglas Adams never wrote about stabbing puppies. That’s not canon. Except to this blog. It’s canon to this blog. I should stop talking now.

7 Days, Philosophy, Spirituality, This Shit is Thursday as Fuck

Yule Blessings

BY bonnie

O HAI.

(I think I’m dating myself by speaking in lolcat. I mean. That was SO four years ago. All the cool kids these days speak doge. Basically I’m internet-ancient.)

The world just will not let up. As soon as I was finished with my finals I had to do holiday shopping (so far I’ve only done my kids. have not even begun to think about other people yet. oy). Then a water filter sort of exploded under my kitchen sink which – in the grand scheme of plumbing issues – wasn’t THAT big of a deal, but it left me without water in the kitchen for a few days while I learned how to fix it (almost) myself (a friend helped by replacing the waterlogged wood for me). THEN. I got a mysterious pain in my side which I still don’t really know what to do with, but it was briefly accompanied by a fever so I had to decide whether to go to the ER or not. The pain is still around, the fever is gone and the pain is very different now, but I’m still not really sure how to handle this. In between all these things I’ve had two fairly major paperwork things to accomplish which took up a lot of time and energy.

I know. This is the most boring kind of entry ever. (Does it help to know that I nearly just wrote “the most borking entry”?) I just can’t help myself because I MEAN REALLY WITH THE NEVERENDING STUFF NEVER ENDING WHAT EVEN THE HELL ALREADY? Someday when I look back and think to myself, “GOD why was I such a big whiner in 2013?” I will have these entries to remind me that 2013 was, indeed, a fucking motherfucker.

But this is the longest night. Figuratively (DEAR GOD I HOPE) and literally. The sun is reborn today and the Northern Hemisphere heads back towards summertime.

I think there are two aspects of Paganism that really speak to my soul. The holidays that coincide with the beginnings of each season are the most powerful to me spiritually because they mark a literal cosmic moment in which the Earth’s position in the solar system and on its axis cause an effect on Earth’s seasons. This morning, at 9:11 in my time zone, the Earth was tilted at its farthest from the sun and began to wobble back the other direction. To know that, to picture it, to meditate on it, connects me to the Universe like nothing else. This is how I feel the glory of Nature on Earth and beyond – through science. It is humbling and exhilarating all at once. Connecting with nature, Earth, the Universe, in every way from a simple hike to a holiday celebration is what feeds my soul.

The other aspect is the spiritual and psychological work. This is where metaphor and myth come in. Gods and goddesses, I believe, are as real as you need them to be. In mythology they are facets of the human psyche and the stories are the keys to understanding who we are. To say a prayer, to burn some sage, to participate in any ceremony is holy because it is stating an intention. An intention to connect with the Universe (or any name you choose to call your Source), to cleanse your energy, to focus on the past, present, and future. This is how I do my work to grow emotionally and spiritually.

My life has been chaotic so my ceremonies have been simple. We watched the sun rise on his birthday; this year Bethany’s family joined us. We feasted on bacon and sausage, biscuits with clotted cream, coffee, and cherry cider. I find prayer in every little action. In decorating the tree. In taking pictures of the sun rise or of our breakfast. In wrapping gifts and setting them under our artificial tree. In walking around at night with the neighborhood, looking at all the festive lights, guiding humanity through this dark time of year. But simple ceremonies are no less valid than elaborate ones, and, in fact, I find that looking for prayers in my every day actions increases the meanings of the prayers themselves. Looking for prayers is another prayer.

Whoa. Meta.

And so the days grow longer, even though we won’t notice that right away. I am hoping this will apply metaphorically to my life as well. Because I am tired. And I have a break from school right now, but it is only for a few weeks and I am afraid that won’t be as much time as I need to finally catch up. Or to, you know, stop my body from developing a new problem every week. And if not, I guess we can just give in to my elderliness and celebrate my 80th birthday in February.

Happy Solstice! Here’s to sunny days and celebrations (and quiet moments) with friends!

(PS. This was actually a 7 Days post. It’s the last run. Ever. *sniff* That last picture there is my official 7 Days post today.)

Geek, Philosophy

Possible emo lyrics. Hang on. Just let me grab my eyeliner.

BY bonnie

“No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful. Everybody dies frustrated and sad and that is beautiful.” – They Might be Giants, Don’t Let’s Start

I love quote tattoos. But for a long time I could never think of a quote I’d get tattooed on me. Something that was general enough to speak for my life, without being cliché. Except for this one TMBG quote. But it is – on the surface anyway – so depressing that I’m not sure I am ready to commit to that, or actually to commit to always having to explain it to people.

I’m drawn to it, I think, because it takes things that we are frightened of – crushed dreams, death, depression – and tells you that these things are beautiful. It looks into the darkness of humanity and tells you that it’s OK, normal, part of life. It challenges you to take a second look at the hard things and find new ways to look at them. To try to see them as beautiful.

Also, I like the unusual cadence of the word “frustrated” in the song. Frust.RATE.ed. I’m kind of slutty for unusual cadence.

We all have darkness in our lives, and to pretend that we don’t isn’t going to make it go away. Rather we should face it, go through it, come out the other side. The quote speaks casually and openly about the worst aspects of life. No one gets what they want. Meh. Let’s go get pizza! Everyone dies frustrated and sad. So what? Don’t dwell on it, enjoy what you have here, instead! The casualness with which these terrible things are spoken of, gives me hope. It’s not flippant – these are the words of someone who’s been there and who can help you find your way.

Its theme of unity – that we’re all in this together – is encouraging, too. The hard parts of life are really shitty to have to face alone, but the idea that we’re all together, helping each other to get through it, encourages me. I feel less alone. And that is beautiful.

It’s OK to not get what you want. Sometimes that’s a big thing and you feel devastated. Sometimes it’a smaller thing that’s easier to move on from. Sometimes it’s a smaller thing, but you’re devastated anyway. It’s OK. You’re passionate. I am, too. But the devastation will go away and you’ll be able to see that it was a small thing after all. The point is that humans are amazing at adaptation. You will survive. And you’ll find beauty in it.

You’ll be frustrated and you’ll be sad. And you’ll face death. And you might have to do all three at once. But we all do. You are not alone. And that is beautiful.

Important life skills to know:
Cooking
Laundry
Interpersonal communication and “I feel” statements
Finding beauty in sadness, frustration, and not getting what you want
How to wax a car and how often it should be done

I’m pretty good at the first four. If anyone has any information about the last one, let me know, OK?

PS. Every time I read through this entry to edit it, I get the song stuck in my head again. So. I wonder if that would make for a terrible tattoo after all?