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Broken Tools

I'm always a little in awe of those who are so sure that they have all the answers.

Are they really so stupid, or just lying to themselves?

Back in the 80s, N joined the Starhawk vanguard and let her politics become her religion.

For years she was a social activist warrior: protests, marches, and power-raisings against the Wrongs of the Right became her Craft. Her causes somehow came into every conversation. Worthy as her goals were, we all got a little sick of hearing about them all the time.

Now Tr*mp is back in office. The waters that she worked so hard to protect are fouled with plastics and forever chemicals. I listen, silent, to her railing. The old social firebrand is gone. She's angry and bitter, glad only that she bore no children to inherit whatever comes next.

Nothing is quite so sad as a failed vision.

At the moment, Evangelicals are reveling in their current cultural ascendancy, but their triumph will not last. The Wheel turns. Their youth are leaving, looking elsewhere because they're sick of having rewarmed Right-wing politics passed off as spirituality.

It's a lesson hard of the learning, for Left and Right both: don't let your politics become your religion. When you do, both tools will assuredly fail you, just when you need them most.

I'd have a lot more respect for activism if so much of it weren't basically reactivism.

Back in the day, the big Cause here in the Twin Cities was Honeywell. Honeywell was a local corporation (the headquarters were just a few blocks from my house) that manufactured, inter alia, cluster bombs. The Honeywell Project was determined to stop them.

Now, cluster bombs are pretty despicable. So the Project mounted demo after demo: civil disobedience, yadda egalitarian yadda. The pattern quickly became predictable: another demo, more arrests. Over the years, the Project spent tens of thousands of dollars bailing civil-disobedients out of jail. My friend Stephanie, ever the pragmatist, observed that if the Honeywell Project had used all that money to buy Honeywell stock, maybe they could actually have accomplished something.

Once a Big Name activist witch flew into town for one of the demos, and gave a public lecture the night before to psych up the non-violent troops.

We'd met several times previously, so I went up afterward to welcome her to town.

"Are you coming to the demo?" she asked eagerly.

Activism is a luxury. The demo was scheduled for 10 o' clock on a weekday morning.

"Um, no," I told her, a little amazed at the different worlds that the two of us inhabited. "I'll be at work."

The story has a happy ending, kind of. Eventually, H-well stopped making cluster bombs—but only (of course) after there was no more money in it for them.

Sigh.

Demos and actions are for beginners, the opiate of the Left. Do you know who I really respect, though?

Stories matter. In fact, human beings have been called “story-telling animals.” Every day we consume stories on the media and in books, films and TV shows. We can spend hours on Facebook reading the posts of friends, relatives, and even total strangers. We hunger for narratives that give us hope but all too often run into descriptions filled with horror, abuse and despair.

Have you ever wondered why “midlife crisis” is such a taboo subject? If everybody who lives long enough goes through it at some point or other, then why isn’t it openly discussed? My sense is that there’s a lot of stigma around this phase in life. Being middle-aged often means feeling vulnerable and vulnerability isn’t particularly acceptable in the kind of world we live in.

When I was in training to become a priestess, the priestess guiding me told me that although the world had once required us priestesses to seclude ourselves in temples, to focus solely on our devotion to the Goddess and adding that light to the world, that we had evolved into a space and time where we were called to be among the masses. No longer were we to be sequestered away from the world. This transition brought both blessings - freedom to explore many experiences in the world while maintaining one's commitment to being a priestess, and challenges - more energy and drama to sift through as we endeavoured to sustain and raise our priestess consciousness. 

Much as my friends were trying to dissuade me from visiting a country in revolutionary turmoil, I decided to travel to Egypt, hoping to find an answer to the riddles in my mind. It was a burning hot desire, an obsessive thought born after the explosion of the Revolution.

It was November of 2011. The country was ruled by SCAF, the military council that had taken over after the dictator Hosni Mubarak had been ousted. The spirit of the Revolution was alive and well, so once again the people of Egypt organized massive mobilizations.

I was aware of the dangers in demonstrating in Egypt. For months I had been in touch with activists and had read lots of horror stories. Questions were pounding on my mind. What if the demonstration was attacked by security forces, armed thugs, and snipers, as had happened during the Revolution? What if I got arrested and ended up in one of the country’s notorious jails where political prisoners were routinely raped and tortured?

Yet, time and again I could hear a voice calling out: “Will you risk your life for me?” It could have been the voice of Isis, Egypt, or the Revolution. In my mind all three had merged into one. I wouldn’t miss this opportunity for anything in the world!

So, there I was, in Tahrir, whose name means “Liberation,” the iconic square of the Revolution. I had been there just a few days earlier to visit the world-famous Museum of Cairo. That first visit was a pilgrimage to the treasures of the past that have kept me under their spell for so long. Isis and Osiris were there, staring at me with their inlaid eyes, holding the key to secret longings.

The second visit to Tahrir was a pilgrimage too, but of a different nature. Demonstrating side by side with Egyptian revolutionaries felt like a dream come true. The place was overflowing with protesters, many of them women wearing the hijab, the Muslim scarf, on their heads. They were key figures, just like they had played a leading role during the Revolution.

The march was a huge success, as well as the rallies organized in other parts of the country. It was reported that three million people demonstrated that day all over the country. The atmosphere was almost festive. Protesters seemed proud and strong. The energy of the Revolution was palpable—and there’s nothing like a revolution if you want to raise energy!