Women and men are not equal, saying that we are, is like saying that a lemon is equal to a watermelon. They’re both fruits, but that’s all they really have in common.

Yes, I did just say that. Now that it’s out there, I will say that we balance each other. Where one is weaker, the other is stronger. We are parallel in many ways, but we don’t stand on level ground. Our resting pulse, as it were, isn’t the same. We are, in so many important ways, so vastly different in outlook and thinking that we aren’t even on the same planet. Saying that we aren’t equal is fair.

That is not to say that we shouldn’t be looked at as equal partners in life, employment or society. We should and we must. The majority of problems we face on our world are due to the fact that women and men are not viewed as balanced partners. Women get a rotten deal in this world, and our Western society seems to not give a damn. Have you ever noticed that, when insulting a man, it’s always done by comparing him to something feminine or by insulting his mother?? Pussy, son of a bitch, bastard; all of those things are insulting to women or comparing him to women’s parts. How about, “you throw like a girl,” or “you run like a girl,” or “you screamed like a little girl?” Again, it’s all comparing men to women in a negative way. Hel, ladies, we do it, too. We participate in it.

What about what we do to each other? Shit, that’s worse because we should be on the same team. We look at women and say stupid shit, not about their actions or what they stand for, but about what they’re wearing or the style of their hair. I’ve seen columns about how Hillary Clinton made a brilliant speech, and all the stupid writer could talk about was how fucking dowdy she looks. Have we actually made so little progress? Have we let the patriarchy infect us so much that we rip each other apart for them?

We’ve bought into it, women. We bought into it. Feminism has failed and we did it to ourselves.  We allowed the men to set the rules for the game and we did nothing to change it. We have decided that in order to be considered equal, we have to be just like the system we fought against. We dress like them, we act like them, and we put up with the crap because we want to be equal. We can’t be equal until we grow penises, and I really don’t want to go that far into the enemy’s camp. Do you?

I am a Heathen. I am proud to be a Heathen woman. I have been told, by idiots, that Heathenism is for men, because the Vikings were Manly Men who went about killing people and stealing things. Okay, I’ll give them that. Some Norse men did go a’Viking, they did kill and steal. They fought battles and did heroic things. The Sagas are full of stories like that. It was their job.

What the Sagas don’t tell you is about the women weaving the cloth so the men didn’t freeze those massive balls off. They don’t tell you about the women healing the men that stupidly didn’t get out of the way of arrows and the pointy ends of swords. They don’t tell you about women working their butts off to store food for the winter, so when those manly men came home from the wars, they didn’t die of starvation. They don’t tell you about women giving birth and caring for the next generation or of burying loved ones.

All of those things were done by women. It’s time to reclaim our heritage, ladies. It’s time to stop being silent and letting the men have all the credit. Sure, they did great things, and built monuments. They didn’t do it alone; they just did the heavy lifting. Without women, they wouldn’t have had the time. They would have been busy trying to feed and clothe themselves.

It’s time to reclaim our religion and our magic. They aren’t going to just give it back to us. They’re going to fight us for it, if for no other reason than they are Manly Men, and that’s just what they do.

Women are not helpless creatures, unable to take care of themselves, any more than men are. We can be judged, not by our looks, but our accomplishments. We have a lot to be proud of. Women’s work helped build the world.

I am a member of a religious organization that claims to be Feminine Positive. I think that’s bullshit. They aren’t Feminine Negative, but they are in no way Feminine Positive. The best, I suppose, that I can hope for is Feminine Neutral, but that’s really not enough, is it? It isn’t for me, at least.

This weekend, I was talking to another member of the organization, one higher up on the food chain than I. I mentioned to him that, among the subgroups offered, there wasn’t one to study the Feminine Mysteries. Two things happened then. One is that another member said that one wasn’t needed, and the person I was talking to said that there wasn’t one for Men’s Mysteries either.

I’m not even going to address the first comment, mostly because the string of profanity that would exit my mouth would likely get me kicked off the internet. There aren’t enough profane words in my vocabulary to answer that properly. As to the second, I managed to bite my tongue and hold in the screaming fit that would have followed. What would I have said, if I had given voice to my feelings? Mostly that the whole God’s Damned religion was about Men’s Mysteries, and if they weren’t so fucking, up to their eyeballs in patriarchal bullshit, they’d see that.

All religion is based on the Male model of Divinity and worship. Even Z Budapest and her Dianic Witchcraft Tradition is based on simply doing to men what they have always done to women. That’s not fair and it’s not healthy. Though I see the reasoning behind it, and I sympathize with the women who feel it’s necessary, I don’t agree. It doesn’t fit my needs.

I’ll try to explain, if I can. There is a persistent sociological myth that says that, if you’re going to be Feminine Positive that you are, in essence Male Negative. That isn’t true, and it’s setting up a power struggle that really doesn’t need to exist. It is, actually, counterproductive. It’s not us against them. Us against them is, however, the way the male mind works. It’s always related to the struggle, who’s going to be on top, who’s going to run things? Who, in short, is going to make the decisions about what is important.

That’s not the way that women’s minds work. Studies have shown that women work by consensus.  We take in all opinions and arrive at decisions together. Men choose a leader, give opinions, and one man makes the decision. The way religion is set up is done in that way. It’s a purely masculine way of working.

Add to that, the fact that all of the study programs are based on how men learn. They focus on what men think is important. It breaks it down into smaller pieces, and when you’re done, you put the puzzle together and see the larger picture. Women learn and solve problems best when the big picture is fully seen, and the pieces are learned about with that larger picture in mind.

Why is this important? Recent studies have shown that in mixed gender groups, women speak less than men. Men talk over women; men feel comfortable interrupting, and discounting women’s opinions in decision making. For women to be included in the religious life, we must be able to do so fully, taking our own strengths into the room with us. It’s wrong to expect women to live a life that’s rigged in favor of men.

The organization I belong to is one of the better ones. They try to be inclusive of all, and dismissive of none. My GLBT brothers and sisters are welcomed fully into the life of the church. All of this is good, and far better than many religious organizations manages. While they treat women as important as society treats women, they fail to realize that in society as a whole, women are not treated as important. They don’t try to lift women up; they don’t make it easier for women to lift themselves up. If we, as women, want to lift ourselves up, we have to do it using the skills and talents that aren’t native to us. Women have bought into this. We have learned that to be thought of as the equals of men, we have to become as men are. We have participated in our own diminishing.

It’s clear that the world is out of balance. We, as Pagans bemoan this unbalance, yet we unknowingly continue the system that threw the world out of balance.  We continue to order our religion in a way that is fundamentally out of balance, and the majority refuses to see that we continue to maintain the imbalance through ignorance. I will fight to help others to see that we are doing this to ourselves. 

When thinking of prayer, most of us think of the traditional images of someone down on their knees in supplication. Is that, however, the only way to pray. Does God, or the Gods, really want us as supplicants, or do they want us as partners in creating and maintaining our lives? Are we really at the mercy of the Gods, or do we put ourselves in that position? Is praying for the Divine to intervene really the most effective way, or would it not be better to pray for the Divine’s assistance in our own work to change our lives in a better way?

This is something that, quite honestly, I’ve been trying to figure out. I personally believe in doing what I can for myself, and asking for help in my own work, but I see so many people out there that think the other way. I get frustrated by those that think of the Divine as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. They think that the Divine is going to shower them with all the good things they want, if they are only good enough. When something goes right, the Gods get all the credit, but failure goes to them alone.

Why is that? What’s the purpose of dismissing your own efforts? How does that honor the Divine that creates and sustains you?

When I speak of passion, I’m not talking about sex. Sex is one way of finding passion, and the Gods are honored when we love, passionately, those we choose as partners in life. Physical passion is, however, a very limited thing. When I speak of passion, I’m talking about all of those things in life that make us happy, all of those things that excite us when we do them. From art to cooking to study, when undertaken with the right mindset, all of these things are a form of prayer.

In the Charge of the Goddess, written by Doreen Valiente, we find these words: For behold: all acts of love and pleasure are my rituals.

When I first read this, I was struck by the awesomeness of them. This meant, for me, that all things I do, if I do them for pleasure or with love, are rituals. They’re acts of passion, given to those I care about, and the Gods, and are forms of worship. This makes me, not some supplicant, begging a boon from a being far greater than I, but a co-creator in my own world, my own destiny.

Talk about power to change my own life! This is the magic of living. To know that you aren’t just a chess piece being moved around a board, but a free being, able to decide for yourself the correct course.

Your life isn’t an exercise in waiting; it’s an exercise in doing. If all you’re going to do is hang around, waiting for the Divine to give something to you, you might as well just stop trying. It’s not going to happen. The Divine isn’t going to just give you anything that you don’t value enough to work for or put effort into.

Get off your asses. Live, laugh, love, and do those things in a way that shows not only passion, but trust. If you’re going to say that you trust the Divine, then why aren’t you acting like it?? Why aren’t you acting with passion and doing what you love, trusting that you can create, with the Divine, the things that you want??

Why are you so lazy about your faith?? 

It’s been a while since I posted here. Mostly, I’ve been working with fiber and trying to stay out of trouble. The first one is, by the way, far easier than the second one.

I’ve recently connected with some people that share a lot of interests of mine, and I’ve been plotting trouble for a while. I have 5 or 6 projects going at the same time. The loom has cloth on it that needs finishing, the knitting needles have half a shawl. My hoop has a beautiful bit of cross stitch on it, wanting to be worked on, and a doily that I’m crocheting wants attention. I also have wine that needs to be turned and four animal whores that want to be loved. We’re not even going to talk about the carpet needing vacuumed because, let’s face it. The dogs will walk across it or I’ll start to spin and it’ll just need to be vacuumed again. It’s not even worth bothering with at this point.

So, with all that going on, who has time to write? Well, I do, actually, I’d just rather be working with fiber, so I stick my middle finger up at the computer and reach for a needle. Life is too short, right? I’ll try to be better, I promise. (Remember, I did say try, not actually succeed. And don’t go quoting Yoda at me. I’ll flip you off as well.)

It seems, though, as if I’m spread a bit thin these days. I keep telling myself that never again will I start more than one project. It’s a lie. I know it is when I say it. It’s in my nature, and the nature of women to create, so I bite off more than I can chew. Deal with it.

So, how many of you are like me? How many are trying to do too many damn things at once, and wonder why nothing seems to get finished? Don’t worry about it too much. It’ll all get done eventually. I’m not scattered, I just have varied interests.

I was going to start knitting, but the cat is lying on my shawl. The dog is lying on the book with my cross stitch pattern. The other cat has confiscated the chair that my spinning wheel is in front of, and the  fat beagle has parked herself on my crocheting. That’s why I have so many things going at once. It’s not my fault. The animals make me do it.

So, that settles it. It’s off to the loom…..