What a Way to Go: NetworkLonging for Connection and Sensation in a World of Concrete and Pain
I often write about spirituality, having been privileged with a pagan family who hold gatherings I consider pure paradise. Drum circles, camping under the night sky, sitting by fires and talking smack with freaky people, ceremonies, dining with loved ones... when I talk about it, however, I know people think I'm talking about a hobby. It's a phase. It will pass. I will move on and become the hard-working pillar of the community that I'm supposed to be, and leave behind these foolish fantasies.
If I do... please shoot me.
I speak about pagan faiths and Old Ways, and people look at me like they think I'm a hopeless dreamer. One thing many tell me is that I couldn't possibly know what those people did or experienced. To them it wasn't a religion or a weekend activity. They lived that way their whole life. I only get the "pretty parts" of it and then go back to my cushioned world. They don't have a clue that I hate the cushion, and just how toilsome and hateful I find this life to be. I'm well aware this was their entire life. It's not what they found to be paradise. But they had the time to do it all. We barely have time to have a meal and actually take the time to taste it. They think they're making a point. They don't realize they've made mine.
I long for a time when I can fill my life with the style of living where the toil, activity, work and experience is direct, and it all directly affects me. Not just by a wage earned from it, but because it's for me and my loved ones. Not just loose change so I can pay rent for an apartment where I don't know my neighbors, nor any of the plants or animals local to my area, etc. I long for a life where I feel alive. This is such a tomb.
I ended up separated from my loved ones because of financial reasons... I attempted as a last resort to be a truck driver, and failed at even that. I was not built to be a wage-earner. I cannot be a suited-and-tied money-maker. It's not in me. I'm Daniel Quinn's "Jeffrey" through and through. I write this in hopes of finding other Jeffreys out there I can call a friend. I cannot wait to find my way back to Georgia to where I belong.
My people say "blessed be", but to you all I wish the best, because I no longer believe we're blessed in this society. I think those who used to give blessings have abandoned us. I wish I didn't feel that way, but I do.
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intentional community
Hi Pagan Bear,
Have you ever checked out the directory of intentional communities at http://directory.ic.org/ ? Just a thought. There are a whole bunch of people who actually live day to day doing drum circles, bonfires, eating good food together, hanging out and being eccentric. It can take a whole lot of searching to find the right community, and/or a whole lot of planning to form a community, but I think it's worth it. I keep thinking, regularly, that I may need to relocate to be with more like-minded people, which would indubitably include a whole bunch of freaky mutants. Right now I live in cohousing and I feel like my neighbors, who are good people, are just way off in some other world from mine. But I'm also trying to make it work because my husband doesn't want to move and there's still so much I love about this place.
I wish you the best as well and please keep being a hopeless dreamer.
I would love to... just that
I would love to... just that I doubt I could leap into a family and feel anything like I do with mine. I'd like to lead them into a community of such a nature. I don't know how they'd take it.
In Quinn's book Ishmael, he refers to family as being a finger on a hand of other fingers, all feeling as one. But then refers to being put in the zoo with other gorillas and, feeling nothing, says five severed fingers do not make a hand. It was a metaphor that touched me deeply. Even common-thinking people I've found lack that connection... it's so hard to fight for.
I'm excited about the Lakota uprising up north of here and hope to see it pan out. If other tribes follow suit, I'll be behind them all. This country could be in for a ruuuuuuude awakening. Here's hoping. But it could make many things possible... including my family's gathering for once and for all. I felt so down when I wrote this post at first, but this news suddenly stepped up my spirits!
You were very sweet to reply as you did... thank you for that... I too wish you the best where you are, and hope we all find our way to the hand we belong
Ray, aka the PaganBear
http://www.thestumblingblock.com = my site
http://paganbear.livejournal.com = my blog
thepaganbear@yahoo.com
You may say you're a dreamer...
...but you're not the only one... sigh... I still miss Mr. Lennon. Gone now these 27 years...
So glad to see you here, Pagan Bear! Yeah, I've been "going through a phase" my whole life! Here's to that!
I'm a Jeffrey too. (was the Jeffrey story in Ishmael?) And yet... now... having become aware of that... it makes me something else... something beyond Jeffrey... Seeing now what it is that left me so lost and confused, I can take steps away from that, and toward something that's me, that's real, something that's related to the world of the living. And so, now, mostly, more and more and more, I feel less like Jeffrey, and more like me.
One key for me has been partnership. I could not do this on my own. I could not do this without Sally. We were not meant to be alone, I think. And so finding partners, fellow walkers on the path, other mutants, other Jeffrey's, is key.
Which makes a space like this sacred.
Another key, I have found these past few years, is truth telling, as that feels like the way to find our truest and best partners. Having committed myself to showing up in my own life and telling my truth, I have found that, while some around me have fallen away, others have shown up who resonate with me, who want what I want, who want who I am. I need those others, not only for the very practical work of navigating the unraveling of this present system, but also because it seems to be that it is only in bumping up against other real live flesh-and-blood human beings that I really step out onto my spiritual path.
Having been to your website, I think I know that you are committed to being a truth-teller, Pagan Bear. It sounds as though you are feeling fairly alone in your real life. What do you see that's in your way right now, that stands between you and your people, that results in your feeling like you have to wait before you can live a life where you feel alive?
And this question is not just for you...it's for me too.
For me, checking in right now, I notice that I'm caught in the notion that I'm always going to be burdened with the pain of not being able to connect with my kids and give them what I have to give. It feels like maybe this pain keeps me tied to this place, near my kids, and stands in the way of me making my move back North, where I feel called to be. I'll have to chew on that for a while. It feels pretty complex right now. Quite gray and difficult to see through.
Ah well... good to find you here. Thanks for checking.
Tim
Very sacred indeed
I hope hyperlinks work on here... Jeffrey was actually mentioned in the sequel, "My Ishmael". I'd discovered that book only a couple years ago and wrote about it in a blog post (http://paganbear.livejournal.com/429861.html) shortly before I'd met him at a book signing in Mesa, AZ. I'd already embraced his first book so deeply as the first time I'd ever found anybody who really felt like I did... but with Jeffrey, it was the first time someone like me was ever positively portrayed in anything. It was an honor to shake his hand and thank him for that.
Not that the blog post met with much more than a couple compliments. This was when a lot of my closest friends began to forget I existed. Go figure.
Just as eloquent as you are in your film, your reply here is equally as poetic. I'm still trying to convince our local independent theater here to have a showing for WAWTG. I offered to do a screening but I've heard nothing back. They've been really busy. Especially, from what I understand, is a hugely successful run for a film called What Would Jesus Buy... I keep meaning to go see that but we're so broke right now. The previews alone had me laughing.
I'm of course stalling on answering that question. No idea. It was the need for money that led me away. I lost all the friends I had to bum off of before, and never wanted to lose my closest family the same way. They're the ones I avoided being in that situation with most. They're probably the ones I could rely on the most too. It was probably the dumbest mistake I ever made. So I've gotta find a way to get back to Georgia. I have no ties here in Arizona. In fact, I think old enemies from back east made sure to mingle with pals here. I can feel it... as I'm also a part of a close-knit gay community that does a lot of gatherings from city to city, and I know they're all friends. And... I'm not. I get avoided like the plague... like if you're near me, I'll suck you dry of money, which is ludicrous. My ex-friends all knew I didn't want material things. They all knew it, yet when our falling out happened, it's so convenient to go along with the idea that I'm just a mooch. My reputation is more effective it seems than any truth I could tell.
It gets depressing to know your only friends are the ones who don't really know you personally. I hate being tied to a computer, but them's the brakes. That's how the lack of feeling any connection comes in. I've become a lifeless compu-slave... oy.
But the book version of The Stumbling Block (URL to Word document is below) is almost finished, and I'm hoping it will be big enough... I have a couple friends reading it to let me know how ready it is for self-publication. Wish I had more confidence in it. I'm pushing hard to make it work... and will have it online for free to read too... it's more important for me to get the message out than to make a dime, I guess. Wouldn't know what to do with money anyway. Does it still have dead president heads on it? Haven't checked in awhile.
Anyhoo... gonna go be festive for the holidays... you take care. Hugs to you, Sally, and all the people here. Viva la Revolucion and stuff! No... I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. We need to make our own country... Dreamerslovakia or something. I vote we name our captial city Woodstock.
Ray, aka the PaganBear
http://www.thestumblingblock.com = my site
http://paganbear.livejournal.com = my blog
http://www.thestumblingblock.com/TheStumblingBlockRevision.doc = Word document
thepaganbear@yahoo.com