I am Girl and Firebird and Solace is My Name

[crewgrrl]

Some days I think that I was meant to be pagan.

I love the spectacle, you see. I love the idea that firespinning can be part of worship, that the song below can be a prayer. I wish that the ritual I grew up with was as homegrown and wild and beautiful. That I could make a Labyrinth for myself, and walk it with a friend to find solace and meaning. A style of worship where no one has to find the answers to make women powerful and full members of the community. Where I can be who I am. A life where sex is magic and magic is real. Where everyone is celebrated. A place where drums call the dawn down.

Instead I have the stilted words of men who did not understand what it was to be a woman. Men who lived so long ago that today's world would be as though they landed on a foreign planet. The prayers of women come from a time where women were still considered less-than, still so profoundly othered.

I grew up feeling a second class citizen in my own religion, and inherited a profound discontent with a religion in which I do my utmost to find what meaning I can. I still believe in the rules, you see. I am bound by rules. there are many aspects of my life when rules make things better. Sometimes I just wish I had had a hand in the writing of them.

That's when I listen to s00j's neo-pagan stuff. When I think that those are the songs I was meant to be singing as a child, rather than rote prayers that still make little sense. And the wild pagan goddess creature in me dances and rejoices. I'm not really going to be showing up to any pagan worship anytime soon, or anytime ever. I'll keep carving out a space in the religion that God put me into that can really be mine. But one day, when I am old enough that no one can condemn me for my needs, I will spin fire. I will make beauty. I will knit prayers and love into blankets for babies, and sing songs of wild promise for all around me to hear. My daughters and sons will know that any path that brings them hope and light and happiness is a path to God. I will hope that by then, my own religion will have figured itself out enough that there is beauty and fire and wildness and hope.

Until then, I give you "Firebird's Child."

Comments

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Have you ever been to one of Shefa Gold's Jewish meditation drumming circles? I think you might find some of what you're looking for there. She's often at the Havurah convention. That's got a lot more of the joy of spirit and positive female energy that it sounds like you're seeking.

I have a bit of the pagan in me too, but I try to channel it Jewishly, ever since I figured that out in college. Feel free to talk to me about it any time.

[crewgrrl.livejournal.com]

I can't say that I have - Havurah tends not to be my scene.

Will you be at Arisia? Obviously we can continue this conversation before then, but I am trying to figure out who will be there while mbarr is off putting out fires as Div Head.

[mbarr.livejournal.com]

Well.. I know for sure there's the labyrinth for meditation a few days in the morning @ Arisia..

But I can't help much w/ the rest :)

On the other hand - poi seems like a fun thing to do, and if we were in boston, we know plenty of folks that could teach us.

NYC makes it harder- we're not connected to the NYC set...

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

I will. We booked our room today.

Havurah varies wildly, and the Havurah I'm familiar with tends to be the Havurah of my youth which was very hippie/crunchy/environmental.

[boroparkpyro.livejournal.com]

That's a beautiful and powerful song!
There are still pieces of Judaism's earthy, active, "indigenous" roots (prophetic ecstasy, David dancing before the aron, the torch dances of Simḥat Beit Hasho’eiva...) left after 2000 yeas of disconnection from our Native Habitat, and they're buried deep, but they're still there, and some of them are even recoverable. And you can be part of the process, if you want.

[crewgrrl.livejournal.com]

The amazing thing is that it comes from the same woman who sings "Alligator in the House" and "Salad of Doom."

s00j is just so awesome.

[crewgrrl.livejournal.com]

What you're missing is that all of those experiences you're talking about are male ones. Who danced with fire? Not women. Who danced with the Aron? Not women. Earthy, pagan seeming and joyous experiences they certainly are. They're also fundamentally part of a male world.

It doesn't address the problem of women in ritual spaces. It's not just about bring the earth and joy back into things. It's also about finding spaces where women are equal in that joy.

And until the Haredi and Agudah communities lose their influence over what we can "allow" women to do (and the fact that the sentence is framed that way at all), women are going to seek that joy outside of Judaism.

I say this as a woman learning to chant our most holy book publicly at twice the age a male child would begin to learn. I say this as someone who has been carving the space where I can feel comfortable in a traditional setting.

[boroparkpyro.livejournal.com]

Very few men danced with fire and the aron, also -- but part of the tragedy of those things being long gone is the happy opportunity of reconstructing their memory as we see fit. If you wanted to participate in the torch-dancing of Sukkot in the Beit Hamiḳdash, they probably would not have let you. But if you want to celebrate Ḥol Hamo‘eid Sukkot with your own torch-dancing today, there's no reason (other than the culture of some communities) why you couldn't. When you re-survey out the spaces, at the same time as you're digging into the past you're also venturing into new territory where the "rules" are hazy, if they exist at all. And that gives you the opportunity to create them yourself.

[boroparkpyro.livejournal.com]

I still come back to this post to listen to the song :-)