{"id":596,"date":"2015-07-16T10:34:45","date_gmt":"2015-07-16T18:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/shekhinahcalling\/?p=596"},"modified":"2015-07-16T10:53:16","modified_gmt":"2015-07-16T18:53:16","slug":"the-cracks-are-how-the-light-gets-in-on-messing-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/shekhinahcalling\/2015\/07\/16\/the-cracks-are-how-the-light-gets-in-on-messing-up\/","title":{"rendered":"The Cracks Are How the Light Gets In: On Messing Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

So last week I returned from my very first Reclaiming Witchcamp. It felt strange to go from a leadership role in my local community to a \u201cbaby priestess\u201d mindset\u00a0among legendary elders and teachers. I get a lot of social anxiety and all week I felt very small and shy. Nevertheless, I signed up to help out with\u00a0rituals, and when the organizers of one of the rituals\u00a0needed someone to cast the circle, I volunteered.<\/p>\n

A funny thing kept happening to me at camp. Whether it was because we were surrounded by redwoods and couldn\u2019t see the horizons or because the land spirits were messing with me, my internal compass was reversed all week long. Every night, when the circle was cast, the priestess\u2019s voice would come from the opposite side of the ritual area that I was expecting and I\u2019d have to consciously reorient myself. Whenever I looked at the sky, I had to work to figure out why the moon seemed to be rising in the west. It was the strangest thing! I once knew a person who couldn\u2019t tell right from left\u2013it was a neurological thing\u2013and for the first time I really understood how she felt. I could not, for the life of me, get my directions straight.<\/p>\n

The ritual I cast for was the healing ritual on Wednesday afternoon, during which campers could offer each other Reiki and tarot readings and the like. I stood ready in the north. After two other priestesses had led a grounding and an aura cleanse, I raised my wand and felt my priestess instincts take over. Calm and confident. Joyful in my presence within the circle.<\/p>\n

I greeted the north quarter, drew the pentacle, and ran to the east. One of the\u00a0teachers made eye contact with me, and although there was nothing in particular in his facial expression, something about it set off an alarm bell. I was halfway through greeting\u00a0East when it hit me. My compass had gotten reversed again. I\u2019d started in the South.\u00a0I was greeting\u00a0the directions\u00a0in the wrong places.<\/em><\/p>\n

Horror drenched\u00a0me like an ice bath. Almost the entire camp was at this ritual. In the time it took me to finish greeting\u00a0East\u2013actually West\u2013I did one of those split-second damage control calculations. I could stop casting and start over again. I could correct myself and greet\u00a0the\u00a0directions in their proper quarters and just do two of them twice. I could burst into tears and run out of the circle and get in my car and be home by the next morning. Or I could just finish.<\/p>\n

So I finished. I kept my energy consistent, my voice strong. I didn\u2019t give any indication that I realized what I\u2019d done. I ran to \u201cSouth\u201d (North) and greeted\u00a0it. I ran to \u201cWest\u201d (East) and greeted\u00a0it. I greeted\u00a0All Above and All Below. Then I shrank back into the circle and prayed\u00a0for the earth to swallow me up.<\/p>\n

The rest of the ritual went fine. I gave\u00a0tarot readings and people seemed satisfied. When it came time for me to pull in the circle, I had everyone do it together. The moment the ritual was over, I went to my friends and blurted out\u00a0how mortified I was.<\/p>\n

\u201cWait\u2013what did you do?\u201d one asked, confused. \u201cOh, really? I would have never known if you hadn\u2019t told me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another laughed and rolled her eyes. \u201cLiterally every single person has done that,\u201d she said. \u201cSeriously, it\u2019s no big deal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whether or not they were telling the truth, this is why I love Reclaiming. As my teacher in LA would say, we take our work seriously\u2013but we hold it lightly.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/a>
Image credit: \u201cFlower in a sidewalk crack\u201d by Fuzzy Gerdes, via Flickr<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was<\/em> one person who was eager to find me afterwards and tell me in detail that I\u2019d screwed\u00a0up (tellingly, this person referred to themselves as an \u201celder\u201d the first time I met them) but other than that, no one said anything. In fact, one person reminded me of a\u00a0paraphrased Leonard Cohen line that was floating around camp: \u201cCracks are where the light gets in.\u201d<\/p>\n

If everything always goes smoothly and without any hiccups, then when do we get to learn and grow? When do we get to make the mistakes that reveal deep truths?\u00a0Do we really want spiritual traditions that are either so vague\u00a0or so dogmatic that no one can ever mess up?<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

It was hard to go back to Internet culture after a week of working\u00a0magic off the grid, but go back I did\u2013just in time to see Jason Mankey and John Halstead share some thoughts on the Morrigan. You\u2019d better get out the guillotine, because I liked both of their posts. Jason\u2019s<\/a> challenges us to deeply examine our relationship with deity (as someone who \u201cworshipped\u201d the Hindu pantheon back in college because they were cool, I can say from experience that even the deepest, most powerful gods can be fads to some practitioners) and John\u2019s<\/a> posed some interesting questions about the nature of the Morrigan\u2013questions similar to ones that I\u2019ve mulled over myself<\/a>. In the interest of full disclosure, by the way, I\u2019m both a Morrigan devotee and a Jew who lost entire strains of my family in the Holocaust, and the idea\u00a0that the Morrigan can fuel nationalism and terrible acts\u00a0doesn\u2019t bother me. If nondualist monotheists can wrap their heads around the concept\u00a0of a god who encompasses both good and horrifying\u00a0aspects of the universe, then surely we Pagans can handle it, too.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll be honest\u2013I\u2019m starting to find most conversations about the Morrigan to be pretty soul-crushing, and the backlash against these two posts was no exception. I myself don\u2019t write about her as much as I\u2019d like because people get so fucking pissed off<\/em>. \u201cYou\u2019re insulting her!\u201d \u201cYou\u2019re disgracing yourself!\u201d \u201cBlasphemer!\u201d \u201cHeretic!\u201d Cripes, it\u2019s exhausting. If I wanted this sort of treatment I would join the Orthodox shul down the street.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something I wonder: why is it that Kali devotees have a reputation for being preternaturally gentle and kind, while Morrigan devotees seem to relish belittling, name-calling, and other forms of violent speech?\u00a0Yes, I know, they\u2019re not identical goddesses, but I think the question is worth asking.<\/p>\n

The cracks are where the light gets in.<\/em> What if,\u00a0when we think\u00a0that someone\u2019s insulted a deity we love, it\u2019s not the deity who feels insulted but rather us? What if the deity doesn\u2019t care? What if the deity engineered the whole thing in the first place? What if that feeling of insult, of being deeply wronged, is an opportunity for us to explore and understand the parts of\u00a0ourselves that we don\u2019t like to think about?<\/p>\n

When I think about what first drew me to the Morrigan, it wasn\u2019t epics written by Christians or the mystique\u00a0of Celtic royalty\u00a0or a desire to emulate my distant ancestors. Rather, a large part of it was the idea of being so fearless in facing your own\u00a0anger and rage and even bloodlust that you come out the other side. This idea felt intuitive to me, very natural. The attainment of clarity and balance\u2013the initiation\u00a0of a spiritual\u00a0warrior<\/a>\u2013seemed to be a journey\u00a0that the Morrigan wanted me to\u00a0take with her. In progressive Judaism, the texts are considered a starting point, written by flawed human beings like us, and not the final word, but I simply don\u2019t see that mindset among the Morrigan crowd. I learned from my Buddhist<\/a> practice that one needs a community, a sangha,\u00a0<\/em>to really do effective spiritual work, and I feel deeply discouraged that, as a nondualist whose priority is cultivating\u00a0compassion and serving what Bill Plotkin calls the soul of the world, I seem to be utterly alone among Morrigan devotees.<\/p>\n

But that can\u2019t be true. Surely there are others like me. They just don\u2019t have the loudest voices or the biggest platforms.<\/p>\n

Ugh, I\u2019m going to get skewered for this, aren\u2019t I? I never learn.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/p>\n

I know I titled this post \u201cOn Messing Up,\u201d but let me be clear: I don\u2019t think Jason or John messed up. I don\u2019t think everyone has to agree with them, and I don\u2019t think\u00a0people aren\u2019t allowed to experience\u00a0emotional reactions to things they read, but I\u2019m glad they posed the questions they did.<\/p>\n

I think that\u00a0we collectively mess up when we allow dogma to\u00a0shut down\u00a0thealogy. Right now I\u2019m reading Spiritual Ecology<\/a>, a terrific anthology, and I think it\u2019s telling that even though the theme is right up our alley, the book contains almost no Pagan voices. We\u2019ve been around more than long enough for people to notice us. We\u2019ve had plenty of opportunities to stand up and\u00a0join the conversation.<\/p>\n

Maybe these cracks will let some light in. Or maybe I\u2019ll just get a bunch of angry comments on this post and more denouncements elsewhere on the web.<\/p>\n

Oy. Blessed be our beautiful broken selves.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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