Caramel in the Bay

I left my home in Georgia
Headed for the ‘Frisco bay
‘Cause I’ve had nothing to live for
And look like nothin’s gonna come my way

So I’m just gonna sit on the dock of the bay
Watching the tide roll away
Ooo, I’m sittin’ on the dock of the bay
Wastin’ time

Look like nothing’s gonna change
Everything still remains the same
I can’t do what ten people tell me to do
So I guess I’ll remain the same, yes

Sittin’ here resting my bones
And this loneliness won’t leave me alone
It’s two thousand miles I roamed
Just to make this dock my home
-Sitting on the Dock of the Bay by Otis Redding

I was born and raised in the Bay Area. Although I have family down south and in other areas of the United States, I do not have a first hand account of staying in another part of the country for longer than several weeks at one time. When I was a kid my mother would send me to Alabama to stay with the family for several weeks, it has been some time since I have done that.

Being from the Bay Area gives me a lot of allowances that I might not always recognize at face value and yet there are moments when I have to stop and consider my place in the world, not just here. These moments come when I am confronted by something that opens my eyes, for that moment, to the reality that I am still looked at differently because of others perceptions and not because of who I am as a person. Whether this means in the sense of being Black or being a Pagan, these moments support me into remembering the vast similarities and differences between others and myself.

I know that I walk around with a certain amount of privilege. My lighter shade of dark skin, my physical location and my career afford me those luxuries sometimes. And while I am not desensitized to the struggle of many people, I am lucky enough not to have to struggle through them all the time. I am very lucky.

I was having a conversation with my sister about the desensitization within a minority community. There is a certain amount of conditioning that happens in any culture, usually based on the many shapes and sizes of survival for that particular subset. On an unconscious level many minorities are conditioned to expect minor moments of disrespect and having to prove themselves to be accepted by the terms of others. There are hyper-vigilant levels of awareness and astute abilities developed to sense changes around us that often act in the place of our fight or flight mechanisms. We are conditioned to expect to be different and yet to survey the environment to notice when different is problematic. Challenging in and of itself, and can be lonely sometimes.

I often think that being Black has complimented my Pagan beliefs because I am trained in the art of differences and yet have the ability to act as if they are not present. I do not immediately walk into any situation with my ethnicity on my sleeve (its actually on my face) but if something comes up, my spidey senses flick on and I am surveying for concern. I am able to use this as a Pagan and as an African American woman.

Sometimes I wonder how much this spidey sense supports me as a Wiccan or if hyper arousal can be a hindrance to ones ability to root into a place and time, path or journey. What does it mean to be comfortable within a person’s place in the world and not have to survey the scene whenever something comes up that could point in the direction of being judged or rejected? I don’t know a lot of African Americans that have been afforded this privilege, instead there is a tape that runs on low in the background of the minds of many who are conditioned for the rejection of being pre-judged.

I often consider exploring this with others, the thought that the conditioning of sensitivity around some issues and the desensitization of others in the Black community or within the Pagan community could lend to an inability to be fully present, fully within self, or completely transparent in our connection with others, ourselves and with the Gods. It can act as a isolating agent that removes the concept that true acceptance can come from someone outside of the self, leaving a burden on the soul to carry the only understanding of what it is to be who you are.

There is a peeling of the layers that happen, like with an onion, that supports a continuous and genuine connection to deity in ways that are profound and meaningful. There is a unveiling of the inner workings that makes this possible, a willingness to be vulnerable to the power of divinity and when we are able to learn to be vulnerable with grace we can truly be with power.

Thoughts, behaviors and actions are essential to the process of evolving spiritually and can stop true connection from coming through walls that are built in fear. I don’t want to think that the culture that comes with my caramel skin or within the fears of being “out” as a Pagan will aid in pushing true connections away. Yet I know that we often say in the walls of counseling that when we push others out, we are also stopping the love from coming in. Our history does not always show us that it is a good idea to let others in and struggle is passed from generations of ancestors to enforce a sense of protection. But protection from who?

The balancing act between ethnicity, majority culture and Pagan can be challenging in ways that are beyond the written word and evolve into an ongoing stage of movement. I know that my sense of self is compiled by the intricate pieces of my story, my heritage, my experience, my faith and my dreams. I don’t want to disconnect from the ability to have a true connection to divine energy in all forms because of unconscious fear and I don’t want that for my children.

In my moment of reflection I think of the words to the song Otis Redding sang some time ago and how sitting on the dock of the bay symbolizes so much of the ongoing struggle of these times, this country, Black people, Paganism and a need for focused balance. The loneliness he talks about while sitting on the dock of the bay is a reminder of why we must continue to find ways out of the separation and into a place of understanding for one another. Understanding breeds opportunity to create space where we can be who we are, worship together and co-exist in meaningful ways. We can honor our struggles, our differences, our similarities and our divine connections without being afraid to peel the layers of our onion away. For these reasons and more, I am a advocate for such things as International Pagan Coming Out Day and other events that honor the many pieces of who we are.

And if it were my way, I could change the lyrics of the song from Otis to reflect a moment in time where there is no need for the hyper-awareness of being the caramel colored, Pagan girl in the Bay….

Looks like all things can change,
Only some things will remain the same,
I can do what my Gods Will me to do,
And so I too will change…..