> On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, gretchen hughes wrote:
> > Also, I would like to pose this question for response. Do
> > the personal and the political intermingle in your own lives, and how or
> > how not. Rather than philisophical answers, I would love to hear some of
> > your own experiences from either side of the spectrum.
> >
and amanda replied:
> for me, "the personal is political" is a phrase which resounds with
> meaning daily. without praxis, politics is meaningless.
Ditto to this.
I've never been able to separate the personal from the political in my
life any more than I am able to separate the sacred from the mundane,
reason from emotion, or 'philosophical' deep-thought-thinking from my
everyday experience. The question makes it sound as if philosophical
answers weren't about reality. An integrated life, seems to me,
requires one to be *all* of what they are. And regardless of the
irritating and stupid logic professors you may have had, philosophy is
still about loving wisdom.
hiho
--
mark ce peterson "Hey, this isn't samadhi
university of wisconsin centers -- it's caffeine!"
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri Feb 24 08:27:45 MST 1995
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 10:24:10 -0500 (EST)
From: "Kameshwari S. Pothukuchi" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Dancing Hummingbird /aka Joy Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: More on Ecofeminism and Spirituality (fwd)
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9502232141.A24848-0100000@netcom13>
me too!
Kami Pothukuchi
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Dancing Hummingbird /aka Joy Williams wrote:
> Anyone has full permission to quote anything I say anytime they want, as
> long as they accurately represent it as what I wrote and as long as they
> send me a copy of whatever they write.
>
> Joy Williams
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Scion in the Church of All Worlds
> "The Garrulous Grok Flok"
> Thou Art Goddess!
>
> On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Noah R.Olenych wrote:
>
> >
> > Miriam,
> >
> > With all due respect, for your concerns and feelings are well
> > justified by history, I think that you may be overconcerned about an
> > interesting project to gather information on peoples thoughts on an
> > issue. I think we were asked in a very polite way as to whether or not we
> > wished to be quoted. She specifically asked for anyones concerns
> > regarding being quoted. I wholeheartedly agree that in the past, silence
> > has meant consent, and has been a longstanding problem in the rights of
> > women, but I hardly feel any oppression on this issue! (Given:I am not a
> > woman:-) I guess all I really wish to say is that someone is attempting to
> > do something good, and I don't see why we can't all be a little more
> > helpful. I can't see us really being used or decieved here. :) :-) :) :-)
> >
> > Respectfully,
> > Noah
> >
>
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri Feb 24 10:38:24 MST 1995
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 12:31:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Bertina Miller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Dancing Hummingbird /aka Joy Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: More on Ecofeminism and Spirituality
In-Reply-To: <Pine.3.89.9502232012.A6588-0100000@netcom13>
Sorry. Again, just because one is religious or not does not mean one
cares little about peoples rights to live as they chose fit or does it
mean one is patriarchal, martriachal or just living ones life to the best
of ones abilites!
Spirituality does not hold a reign on morality or ethics, neither should it.
I did not mean to start a debate of religiosity or spirituality vs.
nonspirituality.
Sometimes I get caried away when one is continually equating all views
with a spiritual or religious setting.
Bertina Miller
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
On Thu, 23 Feb 1995, Dancing
Hummingbird /aka Joy Williams wrote:
> And let us not oppress religion or spirituality either.
>
> I want to point out that it is neither the religion (which is NOT the same
> as spirituality) nor the spirituality which is in those religions which is
> responsible for the atrocities you have mentioned. It is the institutions
> in charge of the religions which did those things, usually motivated by
> greed and a desire to possess things. It is the attachment involved in
> wishing to control things, including thought.
>
> Society has for a few thousand year been suffering under the pathology
> of a power-over paradigm which seeks to diminish diversity, to
> desacralize (and that means to take away the sacredness of something by
> how we treat it, whether that be nature or woman or race or culture)
> people and nature so that they are no longer beings in their own right,
> with their own inherent Divinity, but rather objects to be owned or
> resources to be exploited.
>
> This can all be laid at the feet of the Patriarchal paradigm, because by
> separating the Divine from the world, you then can have an excuse to
> exploit it. As soon as the Earth became "objectified" as something to
> have "dominion over" then every thing started sliding downhill. I have a
> wonderful essay about this in Truth or Dare by Starhawk, which if I have
> time, will scan and download.
>
> It is my contention that the moment we take the sacred, the spiritual out
> of our work is the moment we create the problems that we have today. To
> separate the spiritual healing out of our work is buying into the
> paradigm that created the problems we are fighting. As many physicians
> are finally understanding, the key to healing is not only treating the
> symptoms but treating the sufferer completely, mind, body and spirit. If
> we approach our work as activists and only treat the mind and body of the
> sufferer then we leave out a critical part of treatment, which is the
> spirit, and which is in this pathology of Western Culture, the most
> wounded aspect of all. When we connect to the sacred in nature and each
> other (and I don't care what way you do it), then that gives us the heart
> and we learn compassion, and our motivations are not strictly from the
> place of anger or frustration, but from love and mystery.
>
> Having worked on both issues of the women's movement and environmental
> degradation for years, I have witnessed burn out so many times as to
> wonder how we keep going at all. The people who have kept going and DON'T
> get burnt out as dramatically are the ones who keep the sacred and
> spiritual alive in them and see it all around. Whether that spirituality
> means the love you have for your family or fellow activists, a religious
> organization or daily walks in the woods, it doesn't really matter,
> whatever works for you.
>
> When i worked at the Environmental Defense Fund, in the center of DC,
> many of the folks there rarely ever left the city and got back in touch
> with the essense of what they were working so hard to preserve. That is
> why EDF decided to insist that people go and "re-connect" with nature
> (which is, as i said, what "religion" means, to "re-connect").
>
>
> I think that it is interesting that you mentioned the indigenous cultures.
> What the institutions (who were primarily motivated to own the land) were
> doing was trying cut off these people's connection to the land and what
> they regard as sacred, they were (and are) trying to perform cultural
> genocide by removing these people's religion and spirituality. That is
> the whole deal with the paradigm, that is their modus operandi.
>
> The issue of cliterectomies, by the way is NOT advocated in Koran, this
> again, is a way of dehumanizing young women and turning them into objects
> strictly for men's pleasure removing forever the possibility of finding
> the sacred joy of sexual pleasure. Again, it is desacralizeing them and
> turning these poor young girls into objects to be slaves of the current
> paradigm.
>
>
> Please let us not confuse spirituality with "Churchianity" or with the
> institutions that perpetrate such evils on the world. Spirituality
> is the way we relate, as individuals to the Earth and to each other and
> to the greater mysteries of creation. It is our birthright as conscious
> beings and is needed now more than ever before.
>
> Would you say that the spirituality has no place in a fight against
> religious discrimination? Would you say that the Dalai Lama should
> divorce himself from his spirituality to try and liberate his people in
> Tibet? It is his very spirituality that keeps him going and keeps the
> hope alive in the people that are being oppressed.
>
> "Guard the mysteries, constantly reveal them."
>
> Joy Williams
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Scion in the Church of All Worlds
> "The Garrulous Grok Flok"
> Thou Art Goddess!
>
>
>
>
>From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Fri Feb 24 13:43:23 MST 1995
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 1995 12:42:50 -0800 (PST)
From: Dancing Hummingbird /aka Joy Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: More on Ecofeminism and Spirituality
In-Reply-To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Bertina,
You know, I really spent a long time composing that essay and to just
have it flippantly tossed aside is insulting. Please read it again, with
an open mind, rather than one which sees "red" at the word spirit, and
realize that what I am defining as "spirituality" is not what you seem to
be interpreting.
Religion and spirituality are not the same thing.
Morals and ethics, by the way are not the same thing either.
I am begining to wonder what kind of button I pushed that makes you so
defensive on this.
Joy Williams
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Scion in the Church of All Worlds
"The Garrulous Grok Flok"
Thou Art Goddess!
