The Wild Hunt
Here are a few quick news notes to start off your Monday.
Cady McClain Discusses Porn, Wants a Goddess: Actress Cady McClain, perhaps best-known for her roles on daytime television with All My Children and As the World Turns, writes an opinion piece for PolicyMic about violence and degradation in adult films, and sees patriarchal religion lying at the root of the issue.
“I believe we can look to patriarchal religions for one part of the answer: in a society where the god we worship is male, and the most popular religions state women are only an extension of a man- women hold no value. Period. Without the acceptance that the female divine is as holy as the male, human women will never fully take their place alongside men in terms of respect. We will still be objects to f-ck and vessels for a man’s sperm, owned by men, dominated by men, abused by men, and flushed down the toilet at will. Valueless.
I want to make it clear I am not saying that women should be held above a man in terms of her value. I am also not saying that all women are goddesses and should be worshipped as such. I am saying that without a healthy, socially accepted construct for a feminine divine equal to the masculine divine, we are a society out of balance, leaving women vulnerable to be blamed and attacked whenever something goes wrong.”
Sadly, the piece doesn’t really go into McClain’s vision of what an acceptance of the female divine should look like in our society, or how that impulse manifests in her own life. Is she a Goddess worshiper? Would she like to see a revival of polytheism? Or is this more of a “goddess within” sort of thing? In any case, a provocative read, sure to incite some debate, even if she did misspell Noam Chomsky’s name.
Dismantling the Doctrine of Discovery: This week and next is the the 11th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), and a primary focus will be the infamous Doctrine of Discovery and “its enduring impact on indigenous peoples and the right to redress for past conquests.” Indian Country Today Media Network reports on the work by indigenous leaders and activists to overturn the legal legitimacy of conquest. The taking of “pagan” lands that begun with Papal Bulls of the 15th century, and was eventually enshrined in American law.
“The forum includes 16 independent experts, who serve up to two three-year terms. Half are nominated by governments, and the others by indigenous organizations in several regional groupings—Africa; Asia; Central and South America and the Caribbean; the Arctic; Central and Eastern Europe, Russian Federation, Central Asia and Transcaucasia; North America; and the Pacific—that encompass the world’s 370 million Indigenous Peoples.
Two years ago, Tonya Gonnella Frichner, Onondaga, the former North American Regional Representative to the forum, presented a paper called, “A Preliminary Study on the Doctrine of Discovery,” which explored the underlying reasons for the worldwide violation of Indigenous Peoples’ human rights. The study found that the Doctrine of Discovery, which developed from 15th century papal bulls and the royal charters of European monarchs that gave European Christians the right to claim lands “discovered” by their explorers if no Christians lived on those lands. If the “pagan” inhabitants converted to Christianity, they might be allowed to live; otherwise they could be killed or enslaved. The doctrine eventually became embedded and institutionalized in law and policy internationally.”
There’s been an ongoing groundswell of activism to get churches to repudiate the Doctrine of Discovery. Most recently within the Unitarian Universalist Association, who will consider a responsive resolution repudiating the Doctrine of Discovery in June during the 2012 General Assembly. Check out my 2009 interview with activist and Reclaiming Witch Zay Speer, who was at the last Parliament of the World’s Religions, working with the Onondaga Nation to end the Doctrine of Discovery. An agenda and program for the UNPFII can be found, here.
Ernest Callenbach’s Final Statement: A document found on the computer of the late Ernest Callenbach, the acclaimed author of “Ecotopia,” written shortly before he died, has been published. In it, Callenbach calls for hope, mutual support, and the adoption of practical skills in the face of ecological disaster and violent environmental change.
“These are dark times, these are bright times. We are implacably making the planet less habitable. Every time a new oil field is discovered, the press cheers: “Hooray, there is more fuel for the self-destroying machines!” We are turning more land into deserts and parking lots. We are wiping out innumerable species that are not only wondrous and beautiful, but might be useful to us. We are multiplying to the point where our needs and our wastes outweigh the capacities of the biosphere to produce and absorb them. And yet, despite the bloody headlines and the rocketing military budgets, we are also, unbelievably, killing fewer of each other proportionately than in earlier centuries. We have mobilized enormous global intelligence and mutual curiosity, through the Internet and outside it. We have even evolved, spottily, a global understanding that democracy is better than tyranny, that love and tolerance are better than hate, that hope is better than rage and despair, that we are prone, especially in catastrophes, to be astonishingly helpful and cooperative.
We may even have begun to share an understanding that while the dark times may continue for generations, in time new growth and regeneration will begin. In the biological process called “succession,” a desolate, disturbed area is gradually, by a predictable sequence of returning plants, restored to ecological continuity and durability. When old institutions and habits break down or consume themselves, new experimental shoots begin to appear, and people explore and test and share new and better ways to survive together.”
Consider this something of a counter-point to Michael York’s somewhat apocalyptic editorial from yesterday. Yes, ecological dark times are ahead of us, but perhaps we can “embrace decay, for it is the source of all new life and growth.” Maybe true evolution and revolution are possible only in times of great peril.
That’s all I have for the moment, have a great day!
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