June 2006 Archives

...all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.

Most people who have any experience with Paganism are familiar with this phrase. Most of us have heard this phrase invoked when justifying any sexual orientation or practice -- including some practices that make most of us shudder. In fact, some people consider this one of the most troublesome phrases ever encountered in the Wiccan and general Pagan community because of some of the activities and behaviors it has been used to justify.

And while I certainly agree that people who have used this statement to justify some rather reprehensible behaviors, I do not agree that it is right to blame it on the above phrase. Instead, I argue that the fault should be placed where it has belonged all along: with those who have misused such a declaration without truly understanding it.

To truly understand it, we must look at this statement in context. "All acts of love and pleasure are my rituals" is not a complete quote in and of itself. In fact, it's not even the full sentence that clause appears in, at least not in the source I'm using. (1) This is a clause in a single sentence taken from "The Charge of the Goddess," a piece of Wiccan lore generally attributed to Doreen Valiente. The full paragraph (again, according to the way my source divides the Charge into paragraphs, others may vary) reads as follows:

Let My Worship be within the heart that rejoiceth, for behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals. And therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

Notice that the sentence immediately following the well-known phrase begins, "And therefore let there be...." This phrase makes it clear that this following sentence is a continuation of the same train of thought rather than the beginning of a new subject. In essence, it indicates that the virtues listed in this new sentence are directly related to "all acts of love and pleasure." In effect, the charge is listing characteristics that are essential to "acts of love and pleasure."

This is the major flaw in many arguments where the "all acts of love and pleasure" clause is used to justify dubious behavior. Those who propose that argument are attempting to define "acts of love and pleasure" by their own superficial, self-serving, and ego-centric definitions. The problem is that the rest of the charge does not permit this, because it clearly says that in order to be an "act of love and pleasure," a given act or behavior must possess and uphold these virtues. Indeed, any act that does not demonstrate these virtues cannot by definition be an "act of love and pleasure." So let us take a look at each of these virtues and their implications.

The first virtue called for is beauty. This means that each act -- and its results or consequences -- must be something that will be found to be pleasing to behold. During and after the act, all people involved with or affected by it must be able to look and take pleasure in it and see the beauty in it. Ugliness -- be it physical, emotional, or spiritual -- that comes from such an act immediately disqualifies it.

The next virtue is strength. All acts must come from and support a place of strength. The person who draws on "acts of love and pleasure" as a way to cover or make up for their own weakness -- or worse, to engender weakness in another -- has turned away from love and twisted pleasure into something it was not meant to be. In this sense, strength is antithetical to neediness. A true act of love and pleasure is not done out of neediness, but from a position of mutually empowered desire.

Power, the next virtue, is related to strength. In this sense, I would argue that the "power" here is one of choice. A true "act of love and pleasure" involves choice, and a person performs such acts by their free will rather than through coercion or inner compulsion. In this sense, acts involving more than one person are about equality and mutual choice. The person who emotionally manipulates another into such an act is no better than the person who does the same with physical force.

The next virtue, compassion, is about mitigating one's own power when dealing with another. This is about taking the other persons needs, desires, rights, and general well-being into account. Acts where one is only concerned about one's own strength, choice, appreciation of beauty, and any other virtue still falls short of being truly about "love and pleasure."

The next virtue, honor, is equally important. My own experience has taught me that if we do not keep our integrity intact, then we become nothing. Because of this, it's all too clear to me that without integrity in our relationships, they too become nothing. The person who cannot maintain their character cannot know love, so how can they commit an act of love?

Humility, like compassion, is about the other person. Whereas compassion reminds us to think of the other person, humility goes one step further and reminds us that it's also about the act itself. A true act of love and pleasure (2) is about a bond between two souls. Unless we are willing to take our proper place rather than allowing our egos to bloat, there can be no love shared in any real way.

It's strange to think of mirth as being an important aspect of love and pleasure, it's nonetheless important. Mirth is about being able to lighten our hearts and enjoy the love we share. Perhaps if we as a society learned the value of mirth in all aspects of our relationships, there wouldn't be nearly as many tales about "performance anxiety" and similarly distressing problems.

The final virtue, reverence, again brings us outside of ourselves. It's about respecting oneself, the other person, and the act itself. It's an understanding that if we are going to truly declare this an "act of love and pleasure," it is indeed sacred. Reverence teaches us that sacred things should be treated as something special.

Now that we've looked at the virtues listed -- those which must absolutely exist, lest an act fail to truly be about love and pleasure -- it's time to look at the beginning of the first sentence. Before declaring all acts of love and pleasure to be rituals of the Goddess, the Charge first calls for the Goddess's praise to be "in the heart that rejoiceth." This is equally significant. Immediately following this clause and as a lead-in to the well-known clause comes the connecting phrase, "for behold." This tells us that a rejoicing heart is also significant to all acts of love and pleasure. Indeed, for hearts that rejoice are the end result and direct effect of a true "act of love and pleasure." As such, one who truly wishes to evaluate whether their proposed "act of love and pleasure" should not only consider how well it reflects, possesses, and upholds the virtues we've discussed, but should also consider the resultant state of the hearts of those involved.

While some may find the suggestion that "all acts of love and pleasure" discomforting due to the behavior of some unethical people, I still find it a truly liberating and profound statement. However, it is important to understand what actually qualifies as an "act of love and pleasure" to truly appreciate the concept. Otherwise, one risks profaning the profound through ignorance.

Notes:

(1) I've copied all quotes from The Charge of the Goddess from an online copy hosted on the Starkindler Website.

(2) It's obvious I'm referring to sexual activity between two people. I've tried to be vague about it in most places, as I firmly believe that there are other "acts of love and pleasure" rather than just sex. I also believe that this phrase is also talking about our platonic and familial relationships and how we handle them, too. Most of what I am saying can be applied to such situations equally well. However, most people who abuse the "all acts of love and pleasure" clause are doing so to justify sexual activity. As such, I felt it equally important to cover sexual relationships directly to some degree.

Over the weekend, I've decided that it's time to slowly institute some changes in my life. I'd love to say that I'm going to do them all, and that's my eventual desire, but I don't want to set up a goal I find I'm unable (or unwilling) to keep, only berate myself for the failure. So I think I'm going to make this a long term list of things I plan to accomplish over the next several months. Some of them may happen overnight, others may take a while. And some may be "hit or miss" in that I do them for a while, but then slack off. In that case, I'm giving myself permission ahead of time to accept it when it happens and just eventually start back up again.

First, I've decided I need to put some effort into decorating my house. I've already started by putting out my singing bowl and getting a bear figurine for the end table in the living room. And I have a plaque to hang by the door that says "Live Well, Laugh Often, Love Much." I'll also have to figure out where I want to hang my picture of Icarus, and work on getting other items.

You see, I'm terrible at house-keeping. The living room is a complete mess, the kitchen table is all cluttered up (though it's a lot better now that I spent twenty minutes going through a lot of the clutter, tossing junk, and finding homes for some of the important stuff), and the carpet is in desparate need of vacuuming. I think the reason for this is that I don't think of this house as a home yet, so I don't treat it like my home. (I'd never be this messy in someone else's home, so why would I treat my own home like this?) So I think I need to invest a little time and effort into making the place look and feel like a home, my home. Hopefully, once I put the effort into it, I'll take more pride in it, and keep it a bit tidier.

The next thing I want to do is to spend more time out of the house on a regular basis. I've slowly been withdrawing into solitude, and that's not good. Last month, I realized that working on the POC was consuming too much of my time, so I backed off so I could have a life. Well, now it's time to have more of a life. I've spent all of last week and some of today out and about and it's done wonders for my state of mind, I think.

This is going to be hard for me to keep up with, though. It's going to be a mental juggling act for a while. After all, I'll still be going out on my own. And that means that there'll come a point were I'll start to wonder why I'm bothering. After all, what difference does it make whether I go out or stay in if I'm still on my own either way? But the going out is good. And it leaves open at least the possibility of interraction.

As an aside, I have noticed I've been a bit more social when in public recently. For example, while I was at Eastview Mall yesterday, I found myself walking behind this family. The little girl, about four or five I think, was pestering her mother, saying she wanted something. The mother turned to the little girl and said blatantly, "And I want a million dollars. Are you going to give it to me?" The little girl ran ahead (to bug her father I think) and I walked up next to the woman, smiled, and said, "I really loved your response," and we both laughed at that. I don't think I've ever done anything like that. Between that and making more eye contact (like turning around and saying "thank you" or "you too" to a store clerk when they wish me a good day as I'm leaving rather than just mumbling it as I continue out the door), I think I'm starting to make progress in being more socially engaging. Hopefully, this is a good sign that continues to develop into a lasting change.

I'm also working on getting more physical activity in throughout the week. My original goal (as of two weeks ago) was to go to the fitness center they just added to my apartment complex three times a week. I didn't meet that goal last week and probably won't this week. But considering the amount of time I was on the my feet at the zoo, in the malls, walking around downtown State College, walking along the Susquehanna River, and checking out Highland Park, I just don't feel it's been necessary. I've had plenty of physical activity.

One thing that's conspicuously absent from my list of goals is losing weight. Sure, that's something I want to do at some point. But I feel it needs to wait. I need to learn to like myself how I am now, I think. I need to allow myself to feel and be attractive at my current size. Once I do that, I think I'll have an easier time at setting, meeting, and maintaining weight loss goals. I think I'm currently sabotaging any such attempts with the belief that I'm not and can't be attractive. And by association, I think that means I subconsciously can't be thinner, because that would mean I'd also be good looking, which just can't happen. So I need to work on the mental block where I am now before I can effectively seek to change that part of myself. (Gee, I hope that makes sense to someone else.)

The next six months should be interesting.

Last Monday while shopping at OUTlandish Gifts, I bought a white tee shirt with "2QT2BSTR8" on the front of it. Today was the second day I've warn it. I have to admit that I've been enjoying people's reactions. Surprisingly (at least to me), a lot of people have to ask what it means ("Too cute to be straight," if anyone is wondering"). What's really funny is to watch how people react once I tell them. I think the most memorable incident was today with the guy at the T Mobile kiosk. Once he found out, his expression really changed. I somewhat got the impression that he wanted to make a negative comment about it. However, he also seemed to be struggling with the knowledge that he was in a bad position to do so, considering (a) he had originally asked me to stop just so he could read the shirt and (b) he still had to ask me what it means. It's kind of hard to complain about someone "flaunting" his sexuality when you've gone through so much effort to figure out that he's "flaunting" it. ;)

I didn't get the shirt with the intentions of making such political statements, though. While it's true that I got it to make my sexual orientation more visible, I did it for personal and romantic reasons rather than political ones. Truth be told, I don't feel I'm visible enough. And as I'd eventually like another chance at love without having to force myself to suffer through going to gay clubs, I need to find other ways to let the guys know I'm out there. Besides, I know from personal experience how difficult it is to even consider expressing interest in another guy if you're not even sure if he's gay (and how emotionally upsetting it is if you finally get up the courage to find out only to find ot he's not). So I figure I'll save any guy who's interested in me that bit of trouble.

There's another reason I got it, and this one is at least partly political. I got it as much for the part about being cute as I did for the part about being gay. In some ways, I'm currently at a point where I feel the need to express my own attractiveness despite not fitting some stereotype about what good looking guys are supposed to look like. So to me, wearing the shirt is about giving myself (and others) permission to think of me as "cute."

This morning, I decided to go to Seneca Park Zoo. Except for the fact that several school disctricts had decided to take their kids on a field trip to the zoo today, it was a marvelous experience. And even the presence of that many small children didn't matter much. I was there when the doors opened and was able to keep ahead of the children for the first fifteen minutes to half hour.

The weather and time of day made it the perfect trip. Most of the animals were out and active, which meant I have some great pictures. For now, I'm going to stick with three of my favorites.

I got to the penguin exhibit just two minutes before the zoo staff fed the tuxedoed wonders. As such, I stuck around and got a great picture of them eating. Notice the penguin on the left with the fish hanging out his mouth.

The leopard was eating, too. Unfortunately, I couldn't get a good look at his meal.

I think the cougar wanted to eat me.

Thank goodness that glass pane was between us!

This past weeken, I watched Lattere Days. This is a tale about a gay man, Christian, living in Los Angeles who meets, sets out to bed, and eventually falls in love with anotehr young man by the name of Aaron. Of course, Christian's plans are complicated by the fact that Aaron is a missionary for the LDS church, just starting his two year mission.

The remarkable part about this movie is that it's not just a movie about a young man from a religiously conservative background coming to terms with his sexual orientation and being excommunicated from his church (and presumably biological) family. This is also a movie wherein a cynical and superficial gay man begins to take a closer look at his own life and initiates a search to give it deeper meaning. In effect, this movie seeks to strike the balance between criticizing harmful repression and taking an honest look at the emptiness that can come from the superficiality we sometimes fall into while trying to escape the latter. In effect, both boys face their own demons as a result of coming into each others lives.

The scenes between Aaron and his mother after he's found out and sent home are well done. Particularly, the scene where Aaron challenges his mother to actually look at him is quite incredible, and something that I think most gay people with religiously (or otherwise) conservative parents can appreciate on some level. Of course, even Aaron's mother has her moment, when confronted with Christian's act of love in coming to Idaho just to tell her how sorry he is for the loss of her son (at this point, Christian was falsely led to believe that Aaron had committed suicide).

This was truly a touching movie, and one I think many people will be able to connect with on one level or another.