PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in justice
White Kids Terrorize Ethnic Neighborhood, or: Another Long Night in Minneapolis

When we moved into this neighborhood some 35 years ago, it was dying. The storefronts on Lake Street were mostly boarded up.

Call it the American miracle. Immigration from Mexico, Central and South America, and Somalia turned this neighborhood around. Little ethnic mom-pop shops resurrected Lake Street.

Now every single one of those businesses is gone. Over the course of the past four nights, I have watched my neighborhood be systematically dismantled around me.

Last night it was the white kids' turn.

Hundreds of angry white kids—let me be nasty and say trust-fund anarchists from the suburbs—defied the governor's curfew orders and marched through a largely ethnic and immigrant neighborhood already traumatized by three nights of fires and looting.

I live just a few hundred feet from the epicenter of last night's destruction. More buildings and businesses—virtually all of them Latino-owned—were pillaged and torched. Four of them are still burning as I write this.

Truly, a mob is an organism with many legs and no brain.

“Why don't these kids all go back to the suburbs and leave us alone?” my next-door neighbor said to me as we stood on the sidewalk and watched the noisy march. Penny, who's African-American, is the block matriarch; she's lived here longer than anyone else.

If it weren't for the violence that accompanied it, it all would have been kind of funny. The whole thing had a defiance-for-the-sake-of-defiance “I'm not going to bed and Mommy/Daddy can't make me” feel to it.

Eventually, of course, the trust-fund anarchists went back to their apartments in other (quiet) neighborhoods, leaving behind them more burning buildings and more mayhem in a neighborhood already traumatized by its own destruction.

I have not the slightest doubt that the vast majority of those folks last night honestly want justice for George Floyd (1974-2002), an African-American man brutally murdered on Memorial Day by a white policeman only blocks from here. Believe me, so does everybody in this neighborhood.

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Thanks Anthony.
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I used the Facebook and Email buttons to repost your blog on Facebook and mail it in to my local newspaper.
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    11:30 on Saturday night, and it's quiet in Minneapolis except for the military copters overhead, thank Goddess. Now that the polic
  • Aline "Macha" O'Brien
    Aline "Macha" O'Brien says #
    So sorry to learn of this, Steven. As I watched the conflagration I was wondering how close it was to your house. Now I know, an

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Justice Symbolism

According to the Merriam-Webster website:

Our Word of the Year for 2018 is justice. It was a top lookup throughout the year at Merriam-Webster.com, with the entry being consulted 74% more than in 2017.

...
Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Meredith Everwhite
    Meredith Everwhite says #
    In the case of confusion over Justice vs. Judgement, I have found a strong hint in both the order of the cards and of course the v
  • Janet Boyer
    Janet Boyer says #
    Wonderful insights, Meredith! I love your last two sentences, especially. To what card/s do you attribute legislation and law enf
  • Meredith Everwhite
    Meredith Everwhite says #
    Why thank you! I'm rather partial to them myself, especially as I realized, right after I posted it, that those last two sentences
  • Janet Boyer
    Janet Boyer says #
    Totally agree. Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts!
Walking the Tightrope: Finding Balance, Seeking Harmony

October 8.2018  - New Moon in Libra 

It is truly beautiful!
There is a certain aura
Of refinement and grace.

The craftsmanship is expertise
And one can tell that
Great skill and thought
Went into its creation.

You know, they say
That the finest of gold
Was used and each pan
Was polished and leveled

Its inner workings were
Calibrated to the most
Exact measure.

As I think on it and if, I pause
Too long on either extreme
Of matters the agility of my
Mind usually steps in to set
The course straight and bring
The tangential stream back
To center point.

Although, if I linger too long
In the comfort of my mental
Landscape that brings its own
Downpour of disequilibrium.

Yes, it is beautiful this state
Of affairs and the rarest and
Most refined of thought
Is poised and balanced
In its beauteous state of chaos

My justifiable grace is asway
On the luminescent and
Polished scales of mind’s
Elegantly created obelisk.

...
Last modified on

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Steps Toward Justice

The world we humans have created is unfair, and yet we have also seeded within our societies the paraphernalia and parameters of justice. It would seem that we have attempted to move beyond nature and the natural world—a world in which fairness is not a relevant concept. No judge and no judgment, only predator and prey within a complex set of relationships that make up life and living. 

Yet within our created world, justice is deemed a virtue. We strive to be fair and argue over concepts of fairness. Justice in practice is a challenge, however, to the relationships in which we find ourselves and to many of the systems we hold dear. As just one practical example, the realm of public education brings to light myriad instances of the struggles for justice because of inequities in how school systems are funded, with students’ race and socio-economic status a key indicator of whether they receive a quality education.

...
Last modified on
Witchcamp 2016: What happens between the worlds, changes all the worlds

I stand on the wooden bridge on the way to the ritual circle where I can already hear the drums calling me to join.  I am once again with 120 Reclaiming Tradition witches of all genders at California Witchcamp. I hear the water ripple and flow beneath me. The creek is stronger this year, after four years of drought the land has found reprieve with a wetter Spring here amidst the redwoods.  It is the last week of June and the extra water also brings extra mosquitos.  My physiology is such that they rarely bite me, and when they do I hardly welt or itch, so when one lands on my forearm, I simply watch as it feeds off me.  It turns into a small glowing ruby before flying off to become food for the bats and other beings.  I can afford to leave a little blood offering here in the woods for the continuing cycle of life.

 

...
Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Elizabeth Creely
    Elizabeth Creely says #
    Oh, your beating, strong, loving heart. It does such needful & good work. Blessings on it and blessings on all the work of all the
  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Thank you Elizabeth. My heart appreciates the blessings!
Claremont Pagan Studies Conference - III (2016)

This year's theme was Social Justice.

Sunday, January 25

...
Last modified on
Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Lisa Allen
    Lisa Allen says #
    I will be attending the 2017 conference, can't wait to meet all of you! http://PaganConference.com for details :-)

Posted by on in Paths Blogs

“Every divine word came into being through that which was thought by the heart and commanded by the tongue [of Ptah]. . . And so justice is done to him who does what is liked, and evil is done to him who does what is hated. And so life is given to the peaceful . . .” (Memphite Theology, from Frankfort, 1948)

If a good example is set by the leader, it will be effective for all eternity, and all his wisdom will become one with the eternity of the cycles. (The Wisdom of Ptah-Hotep, Jacq, 2004)

b2ap3_thumbnail_horussetf_20151213-163928_1.jpgI fear that in these volatile times we are too easily turned aside from the wisdom of ancient Egypt. Politics in America is never a tame beast, but the current season is fraught with demagoguery and hyperbole of a level I have not seen in my own lifetime.

And yet, with all its modern challenges, good leadership still emerges from the same principles it always has: personal integrity; honesty; honor of both one’s self and others; fairness; compassion and courage.

The Egyptians are said to have been a conservative society, not because they resembled anything in today’s civic life, but because they had experienced extremes of upheaval and knew their survival depended on maintaining the balance of Ma’at.

So it is that (to my knowledge) we have no records of protests and dissension left to us, though there surely must have been some at times. We do know that when the Egyptians threw off the oppressive religion of Akhenaten and reinstated the temples, they did everything they knew of to erase the memory of the Heretic from history.  They did not want his words lingering to re-introduce chaos into their recovered balance.

Since every word has power, since we are all gods speaking divine words, it behooves us to ponder what creative works we send out when we speak. For many in the blogosphere, words are particularly powerful, and we do well to heed the lesson of the Egyptians to moderate our speech into something truly effective.

How will you make your every word count today? What will be the first words you think, then speak, in the morning? And what will be your last words upon retiring for the night? Couch your waking hours in good speech, in medu netjer, sacred words that bring life, affirmation and truth to yourself and others. In this way you will “become one with the eternity of the cycles.”

Last modified on

Additional information