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chelidonA quote from Alastair McIntosh:
'A question. What is it like to find that your forbears have been mainly on the oppressor side of history? Or that your nation is in this role today? Is there anything they, we, can learn from, say, the parent in therapy coming to terms with having abused a child?
Another question. What of the rootless and the deracinated? There's another word not in most dictionaries, but needing useage because it's a good one. It's French, meaning, "to have been uprooted." It fits so many people today: deracination through war, mobility, economic dislocation, etc.. Deracination is the first step in becoming rootless. Is it reversible? Can we redefine "belongingness" as being, I'd suggest, willingness to cherish, and be cherished, by a place and its peoples? The Celtic tradition has precedence for this. Celtic community (inasmuch as it is unwise to generalise about the past) was sometimes more a bonding of spirit than of lineage, as indicated by a Gaelic proverb that "the bonds of milk (nurture) are stronger than those of blood."'
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Brilliant. What can we learn from our historical patterns of abuse, and the way in which we can abuse the world around us? Isolation is one of the keys. Isolation can lead to abuse -- of others, of oneself. Or at the very least, it is usually a clear symptom when abuse does occur. Why do abusers seek isolation for their victims? Why do abusers tend to be isolated from others? Why do abusive leaders seek isolation for those people, groups, nations, under their care? Genuine connection with others, empathy for them, tends to prevent abuse. Open and free communication tends to prevent abuse. Abuse is most possible when people, groups, nations, are alone, isolated. Abuse is least likely to occur in an atmosphere of connection, openness, and genuine community -- a community of individuals, or a community of nations.
"The bonds of milk are stronger than those of blood." Or of nation, or class, or ethnicity. We choose our tribe, and are chosen by it. But unlike our family of blood, an unconditional accident of birth, we must prove ourselves worthy of our tribes. And our tribes must prove themselves worthy of us. In a world and a culture of increasing individual isolation, I have become a believer in tribes, as an older, wiser way of belonging, one often more intentional, and possibly more substantial than our accidental immediate families of blood, or our accidental birth into a particular nation, state or region.
Of course not all clusters of people are so useful -- there are also granfaloons, defined by Kurt Vonnegut in Cat's Cradle as "a large yet meaningless association of human beings." Many of the social and incidental associations people engage in often seem to me granfaloons, useful mainly as a way for people to satisfy the seemingly hard-wired monkey-brain need to come up with arbitrary boundaries which separate "us" from "them." "Red Sox fans," (or fans of just about any professional sporting team) is an example of a classic granfaloon, an identification about which people feel passionately, but which is without much real consequence. Perhaps you can think of other granfaloons, in your life or other's.
The opposite of granfaloon is a karass, "A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident." I find that when I say "tribe," I mean "karass." Thank you, Kurt.
"The bonds of milk." What a delicious description. I think of the bond between a mother and her nursing child, a literal life-sharing. I think of the milk and cream offerings I leave at times for the fair folk. I think of the hard mid-winter times, when milk products ("white food" in Mongolia) might have been all you had to eat and to share. I am reminded of the old northern Russian proverb (spoken frequently within a group where I used to spend a great deal of my time) to "share bread and salt and speak the truth." Sharing the things of life brings us together as community, creates bonds of kinship, obligation and "belongingness." We are simple creatures in many ways, and rooted in physicality. Opening our bodies to food and spice opens our lives to sustenance and spice, and tends to open our souls to one another. The warm hearth, shared with others, creates kinship, makes the container within which can occur genuine sharing. We are physical creatures, deeply rooted in our bodies, despite a society which tends to isolate and alienate us even from our own selves. Another example of the "bonds of milk" is sleeping together, or in close proximity -- uncommon for most people today (after one outgrows childhood slumber parties) it can create and deepen connections, as those many and diverse parts of us have a chance to play together while our busy waking minds sleep. Sleeping in proximity can deepen bonds of intimacy and trust. It's how we lived for much of human history. Sleeping out in nature, in the same way, creates bonds of intimacy, deepens connection and trust in both directions between us and the natural world. But how often do most of us get to sleep in nature, or even near nature? What we sleep with, what we deepen our relationship to, tends to be concrete, plastic, metal, glass, sidewalks, and paved streets. Hmm.
So many of us live in a state of perpetual deracination, unrootedness, isolation. In our workplace, in our apartments, in our houses, in our cars -- the world we live in, the world we create, is physically and conceptually structured to break us down, further and further. We went from living in villages and tribes to extended families to nuclear families, and now as isolated individuals. Our commmunication and convenience devices keep us from being present in the moment, keep us from focusing even on ourselves, much less on other people. And being broken apart from every other human being isn't the end of the process -- we are then split into sub-people. We are the "work self" or the "parent self" or the "exercise spa self," or the self we project when in social company, the self we project when out on a date or shopping in the supermarket. Our spiritual lives tend to be split off from our "real lives," instead of being integrated into the whole. Our internal selves bicker, jostle for space in an increasingly fragmented inner dialogue.
Living systems require holism, require all of their parts to be healthy and functional and in connection to all of the others to survive. We need to know ourselves in all of our parts, and we need to find ways to integrate those parts. And we need to find ways to re-integrate ourselves with those around us. We need to find ways to get back to true community -- not necessarily literal "communes," in the sense that word has taken to mean, but from the Latin orgins, "cum munus," or the sharing of gifts. The Norse concept (runic "fehu," Freya's rune) of community wealth as being that which moves and flows and is shared with intention, is key here. What we choose to intentionally share -- our wealth both in terms of material goods and the wealth of our daily experiences, creates community. What we hoard and keep only to ourselves, creates isolation.
"Belongingness" is defined by McIntosh above as "...willingness to cherish, and be cherished, by a place and its peoples." Delightful. May we all cherish, and be cherished, by a place and its peoples. May we all belong, to some place, and to some people. May we all know true community, the intentional sharing of the precious gifts of our lives, with one another. May we find, build, and nurture our tribes, our places, and our selves. May we create and sustain the bonds of milk.
Warm hearth and the abundance of true wealth,
--Chelidon
'A question. What is it like to find that your forbears have been mainly on the oppressor side of history? Or that your nation is in this role today? Is there anything they, we, can learn from, say, the parent in therapy coming to terms with having abused a child?
Another question. What of the rootless and the deracinated? There's another word not in most dictionaries, but needing useage because it's a good one. It's French, meaning, "to have been uprooted." It fits so many people today: deracination through war, mobility, economic dislocation, etc.. Deracination is the first step in becoming rootless. Is it reversible? Can we redefine "belongingness" as being, I'd suggest, willingness to cherish, and be cherished, by a place and its peoples? The Celtic tradition has precedence for this. Celtic community (inasmuch as it is unwise to generalise about the past) was sometimes more a bonding of spirit than of lineage, as indicated by a Gaelic proverb that "the bonds of milk (nurture) are stronger than those of blood."'
-------
Brilliant. What can we learn from our historical patterns of abuse, and the way in which we can abuse the world around us? Isolation is one of the keys. Isolation can lead to abuse -- of others, of oneself. Or at the very least, it is usually a clear symptom when abuse does occur. Why do abusers seek isolation for their victims? Why do abusers tend to be isolated from others? Why do abusive leaders seek isolation for those people, groups, nations, under their care? Genuine connection with others, empathy for them, tends to prevent abuse. Open and free communication tends to prevent abuse. Abuse is most possible when people, groups, nations, are alone, isolated. Abuse is least likely to occur in an atmosphere of connection, openness, and genuine community -- a community of individuals, or a community of nations.
"The bonds of milk are stronger than those of blood." Or of nation, or class, or ethnicity. We choose our tribe, and are chosen by it. But unlike our family of blood, an unconditional accident of birth, we must prove ourselves worthy of our tribes. And our tribes must prove themselves worthy of us. In a world and a culture of increasing individual isolation, I have become a believer in tribes, as an older, wiser way of belonging, one often more intentional, and possibly more substantial than our accidental immediate families of blood, or our accidental birth into a particular nation, state or region.
Of course not all clusters of people are so useful -- there are also granfaloons, defined by Kurt Vonnegut in Cat's Cradle as "a large yet meaningless association of human beings." Many of the social and incidental associations people engage in often seem to me granfaloons, useful mainly as a way for people to satisfy the seemingly hard-wired monkey-brain need to come up with arbitrary boundaries which separate "us" from "them." "Red Sox fans," (or fans of just about any professional sporting team) is an example of a classic granfaloon, an identification about which people feel passionately, but which is without much real consequence. Perhaps you can think of other granfaloons, in your life or other's.
The opposite of granfaloon is a karass, "A group of people linked in a cosmically significant manner, even when superficial linkages are not evident." I find that when I say "tribe," I mean "karass." Thank you, Kurt.
"The bonds of milk." What a delicious description. I think of the bond between a mother and her nursing child, a literal life-sharing. I think of the milk and cream offerings I leave at times for the fair folk. I think of the hard mid-winter times, when milk products ("white food" in Mongolia) might have been all you had to eat and to share. I am reminded of the old northern Russian proverb (spoken frequently within a group where I used to spend a great deal of my time) to "share bread and salt and speak the truth." Sharing the things of life brings us together as community, creates bonds of kinship, obligation and "belongingness." We are simple creatures in many ways, and rooted in physicality. Opening our bodies to food and spice opens our lives to sustenance and spice, and tends to open our souls to one another. The warm hearth, shared with others, creates kinship, makes the container within which can occur genuine sharing. We are physical creatures, deeply rooted in our bodies, despite a society which tends to isolate and alienate us even from our own selves. Another example of the "bonds of milk" is sleeping together, or in close proximity -- uncommon for most people today (after one outgrows childhood slumber parties) it can create and deepen connections, as those many and diverse parts of us have a chance to play together while our busy waking minds sleep. Sleeping in proximity can deepen bonds of intimacy and trust. It's how we lived for much of human history. Sleeping out in nature, in the same way, creates bonds of intimacy, deepens connection and trust in both directions between us and the natural world. But how often do most of us get to sleep in nature, or even near nature? What we sleep with, what we deepen our relationship to, tends to be concrete, plastic, metal, glass, sidewalks, and paved streets. Hmm.
So many of us live in a state of perpetual deracination, unrootedness, isolation. In our workplace, in our apartments, in our houses, in our cars -- the world we live in, the world we create, is physically and conceptually structured to break us down, further and further. We went from living in villages and tribes to extended families to nuclear families, and now as isolated individuals. Our commmunication and convenience devices keep us from being present in the moment, keep us from focusing even on ourselves, much less on other people. And being broken apart from every other human being isn't the end of the process -- we are then split into sub-people. We are the "work self" or the "parent self" or the "exercise spa self," or the self we project when in social company, the self we project when out on a date or shopping in the supermarket. Our spiritual lives tend to be split off from our "real lives," instead of being integrated into the whole. Our internal selves bicker, jostle for space in an increasingly fragmented inner dialogue.
Living systems require holism, require all of their parts to be healthy and functional and in connection to all of the others to survive. We need to know ourselves in all of our parts, and we need to find ways to integrate those parts. And we need to find ways to re-integrate ourselves with those around us. We need to find ways to get back to true community -- not necessarily literal "communes," in the sense that word has taken to mean, but from the Latin orgins, "cum munus," or the sharing of gifts. The Norse concept (runic "fehu," Freya's rune) of community wealth as being that which moves and flows and is shared with intention, is key here. What we choose to intentionally share -- our wealth both in terms of material goods and the wealth of our daily experiences, creates community. What we hoard and keep only to ourselves, creates isolation.
"Belongingness" is defined by McIntosh above as "...willingness to cherish, and be cherished, by a place and its peoples." Delightful. May we all cherish, and be cherished, by a place and its peoples. May we all belong, to some place, and to some people. May we all know true community, the intentional sharing of the precious gifts of our lives, with one another. May we find, build, and nurture our tribes, our places, and our selves. May we create and sustain the bonds of milk.
Warm hearth and the abundance of true wealth,
--Chelidon
