oooh - deep thoughts

[flamingsword]

Immersed as I am in moving and painting (yay!fumes) I have been wanting to share what minor bits of cogitation have passed through. This shouldn't take long.

Council of the Magickal Arts needs a ritual for the Beltane event on the importance of Public Displays of Affection and how to let your guard down and experience the world firsthand. The pagan community is supposed to know better than to experience the world through filters so much of the time: reality TV, soft indoor living, white lies, skipping the hand-shakes, every kind of living vicariously and separating yourself from what's real. I heard people out there complaining about PDA and they didn't mean electronics. Grr. If you don't want to see it, you don't want to acknowledge it, and where love and the validity of others is concerned, that means you're falling back on denial and emotional distance as tools to deal with people and the reality of the complexity of interactions between us all. Fucking deal, people.

It also needs several more people attending who are known to me, because nobody from the Dallas area was there this time, but there were frickin' FOURTEEN people from Houston at the polyamoury society meeting. And half of Camp Kallisti were in other countries or something. DAMMIT. Dinora is going to take Rainbow Camp into her velvet-gloved fist, and I'm going to help. There will be discipline of the naughty kind until everyone gets back in gear for next event. I may even bring my Aunt and some of my friends if I can drag, beg, or blackmail them into going.

Entertainment: CUBE was a great movie, and I wish I'd been exposed to it earlier, when the concept would have been more subversive to me. It's getting harder to horrify me, lately. Everything seems ideologically necessary, and it's hard to be caught up in fright when you're also in wonder and intrigue and bemusement and idle speculation. After too much exposure, your mind comes to resemble the world itself, hence even the choice of movies leads back to my original thought on how experiential religions need to get out there and experience.

Comments

[franceschina.livejournal.com]

[rant]
Concerning public displays of "affection":

It really depends on what you define as a PDA. Holding hands or walking with an arm around a friend or significant other is generally considered (in our current society) to be "affection." Tonsil-diving or groping is usually considered "foreplay," and many people consider that to be intimate -- which is to imply private, not something that you do in public. People are taught (here in the West) that it is rude to watch people making out, and doing it in the general public's view forces them to either leave or break one of their personal social boundaries.

There are a great many Islamic people that aren't comfortable with people using the "hug" emoticons on deviantArt. My family considered any physical contact to be intimate, hugs and hand-holding included. And I've had total strangers get bent out of shape when I had problems with them trying to reach into my pants in public. To insist that everyone's definition of "intimate" or "affectionate" should coincide with your own, and that they should just "Fucking deal" is myopic, inconsiderate, and just plain rude. We err on the side of caution -- also known as "manners" -- if we want to co-exist well with others.

This isn't about denial, it isn't about "emotional distance", and it isn't about "love and the validity of others" as far as I can see. If something is considered rude in the surroundings you happen to find yourself in, you abide by the rules of courtesy, or you offend people. To expect society to bend to your definitions, your worldview, and your particular set of ethics/morals/manners/beliefs is narcissistic to a very high degree. I strongly feel that there's a difference between gently pushing boundaries, and getting one's panties in a wad when the world doesn't work the way you think it should.

It's also vain to think that every pagan should approach the world in the same way that you do. Some people really are more reserved and observational, and to disrespect that doesn't seem like sound thinking to me.
[/rant]