The Wild Reed

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

A Prayer for a Changed Relationship

.
Our relationships do not die,
they just change form.

– Marianne Williamson

Dear God,
In releasing this man, I feel both dejected and relieved.
I pray for the power to trust completely my decision
and to love him so totally that I shall move beyond
feelings of sadness and any sense of failure.
For my love, I know, shall set me free.

Let me not be tempted to minimize the experiences
of the last four years.
Let me see how they have helped us
both grow and evolve.
May we both now fly free.
May I keep my faith in the wisdom of all things.
May we both learn to respect each other's choices
to go where we each need to go.

May we both find another love,
may these loves flourish.
For truly, the arc of love
is a blessing on us all.

Wherever he goes, loving God,
please go with him.
May he be blessed in all his doings.
Please protect and guide him
Please protect and guide me.
Bring us joy.
May we be happy.
May we be loved
May we both find our way.

Amen.

Adapted by Michael Bayly from a prayer by Marianne Williamson
in her book, Illuminata: Thoughts, Prayers, Rites of Passage (1994).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Wishing Him Love
• In the Abode of the Heart
• Vessels of the Holy
• The Choice and Risk That Is Love
• The Gravity of Love
• To Be Held and to Hold
• Real Holiness
• The Path Ahead . . .

Image 1: November 2018.
Image 2: September 2017.
Image 3: September 2019.

Thursday, October 10, 2019

The Relevance and Vitality of Marianne Williamson’s 2020 Presidential Campaign

She may not have made the September or October debates, but Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson is still very much in the race.

Last week, for instance, her campaign announced that she had raised $3 million in the third quarter, a haul that, as CNN reports, “is a significant boost from the $1.5 million Williamson raised respectively in both the first and second quarters of 2019.” Furthermore, “Williamson's ability to double her third quarter haul during a three-month period where it is notoriously difficult to raise money, signals she may have the fundraising base to sustain a longer run.” . . . Yes! And I'm happy and honored to be part of that fundraising base! Indeed, Marianne remains the presidential candidate about whom I feel most excited and energized.

Another hopeful sign of the vitality of Marianne's 2020 presidential campaign is that in a field of 19 remaining Democratic candidates, Marianne registered sixth place in the national Monmouth Poll released on October 2. This despite being frequently (and disparagingly) labeled an “outsider” and a “long-shot,” kept from the third debate, and smeared with predictable stereotypes dished out by the corporate mainstream media.

Speaking of the mainstream media and its stereotypes, I don't know who created the meme below but it gave me a much-needed chuckle, especially after Saturday Night Live's recent skit involving “Marianne” (Chloe Fineman, left).

Of course, the real Marianne has never talked about crystals, essential oils, yoni eggs, magic, or the astral plane. I guess it's easier to make fun of an erroneous caricature than to actually acknowledge and find reality-based humor in the depth and substance of her message and/or the establishment's efforts to marginalize this message.

Just how serious and informed is Marianne Williamson's message? Well, you be the judge by checking out the following video compilation of her "best moments" in the second Democratic candidates' debate back in July. (These two videos are followed by a compilation of comments excerpted from articles and op-eds generated by her debate performance.)

[Williamson] used her limited time on the microphone to maximum effect, attracting attention for meaningful answers on race and Democratic ideology. She was the top-searched candidate of the night, according to Google Trends, besting Sanders and Warren. She drew cheers when she wondered aloud why some of her rivals “seem to think there’s something wrong about using the instruments of government to help people.” And she invoked language unusual for a political candidate when, referring to the legacy of slavery and racism, she vibrated her hands in the air and warned of “an injustice that continues to form a toxicity underneath the surface, an emotional turbulence that only reparations will heal.”

– Holly Bailey
Excerpted from “Marianne Williamson
Had a Big Night in the Democratic Debate”
The Washington Post
July 31, 2019

Across Twitter, there was a bit of a two-step reaction. First, “Hahaha, the new age guru just used the phrase 'dark psychic force.'” Then, second, “Wait, there’s something to what she just said.” . . . It is absolutely, positively crystal clear that Trump builds much of his appeal with his base on his own rage and fury. He stokes anger and then basks in the chants and cheers. No one can look at Trump and argue that he is trying to bring Americans together. . . . Williamson’s moment may have been the most important of the entire debate [because] she tapped into something real. There is, in fact, something dark lurking in American civil society, and all the wonks and all the plans in either party won’t purge that darkness so long as stoking partisan fury is seen as the most expedient path to power.

– David French
Excerpted from “The Meaning of the Marianne Williamson Moment”
National Review
July 31, 2019

Again and again, this impossibly youthful 67-year-old broke through with a cut-the-crap sensibility. She kept pushing her higher-profile competitors to think, and talk, in deeper perspective and sweeping context. . . . [Marianne Williamson] seemed to grasp what others on the stage didn’t as they argued over small differences. As Trump proved in 2016, voters don’t much care about 10-point policy plans — what Williamson calls “wonkiness” — nor even about whether a politician’s promises are realistic. They like candidates who speak plainly and passionately. . . . [She is right about many things including] one big thing, which she returned to in the closing moments of the debate. "Our problem is not just that we need to defeat Donald Trump," she said. “We need a plan to solve institutionalized hatred, collectivized hatred and white nationalism. And in order to do that, we need more than political insider game and wonkiness and intellectual argument.” Williamson will not be the Democratic nominee. But hopefully the one who will be is taking note.

– Dana Milbank
Excerpted from “Marianne Williamson Won’t Be President.
But Her 2020 Competitors Should Take Note”
The Washington Post
July 30, 2019

Political observers seemed stunned to hear best-selling author and spiritual teacher Marianne Williamson speaking so eloquently on issues near and dear to the average Democratic voter’s heart. They shouldn’t have been. A quick visit to her website or a Google search could have disabused them of the idea that she’s a dingbat interloper in the Democratic race.But why do research when you can snark and mock instead? Full disclosure: Williamson is a friend, so I have been well aware of her brilliant mind, well-honed worldview and deep thinking around the most important issues we face as a nation. I’ve been frustrated watching her be denigrated and caricatured based on a profound ignorance of her experience and abilities.

– Kirsten Powers
Excerpted from “Don't Mock Marianne Williamson,
Democrats Need Her Spiritual Politics in Dark Trump Era”
USA Today
July 31, 2019

Marianne Williamson’s draw is her uncanny ability to drive straight to the spiritual heart of the issues at hand. She not only lays out the expected progressive ideology but goes further, housing it in a metaphysical context. While the Left of recent years has claimed a position of moral authority on the political issues of the day, Williamson actually provides something of an underlying framework for this demand. As her campaign’s tagline, “Turning Love into a Political Force,” exhibits, Williamson seeks to redefine why we have government in the first place. Her campaign has demanded “a politics that goes much deeper, . . . a politics that speaks to the heart.” Williamson sees politics as a platform to heal the psyches of the American people. For her, politics isn’t [primarily] about policy, it’s about an ongoing battle between wisdom and fear.

– Kayla Bartsch
Excerpted from “Marianne Williamson Offers
Priestly Wisdom for a Nation Adrift – Seriously”
National Review via Marianne2020.com
August 12, 2019

_________________________________

I close with Marianne's September 19 C-SPAN interview and the text (with added images and links) of her October 11 e-mail to supporters of her presidential campaign. Enjoy!

Many voters say “I just want someone who can win!”

I understand that, and it’s why I’m running. A politics of love is the BEST possible politics to defeat a politics of fear.

In 2016, people were angry. But that’s not the dominant emotional tenor of the American voter in 2019. Today, people are exhausted. They aren’t looking for a fight now; they’re looking for inspiration.

We need a candidate who can counter the president’s outrageously dangerous lies with outrageously exciting truths. His campaign in 2020 will be laced with fear, but mine will be stronger than his because it’s a politics laced with love.

What will win the presidency in 2020 is the ability to create a new political coalition – based not on people’s anger but on people’s conscience. Not on people’s rage, but on people’s desire to believe once again in the promise of America.

And we will give it to them.

• We’ll make every school in America a palace of learning, culture, and the arts.

• We'll make a just transition from a dirty economy to a clean economy, reversing climate change and leaving a healthier planet for our children.

• We'll move from a war economy to a peace economy, and restore moral authority to American foreign policy.

• We'll pay reparations for slavery and repair our relationship with Native Americans.

• We'll massively infuse the life of the average American with economic hope and opportunity.

• We'll establish a Department of Children and Youth, and a Department of Peace.

• We'll provide universal health care.

• We'll base every public policy on one core principle: that it should help people thrive.

That is our message, and it is why we will win.

– Marianne Williamson
October 11, 2019

Friday, October 04, 2019

Photo of the Day

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Autumn's “Wordless Message”
• A Time of Transformation
• Autumnal (and Rather Pagan) Thoughts on the Making of “All Things New”
• Autumn . . . Within and Beyond (2018)
• Autumn . . . Within and Beyond (2016)
• O Sacred Season of Autumn
• “Thou Hast Thy Music Too”
• Autumn Hues
• The Beauty of Autumn in Minnesota

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

Thursday, October 03, 2019

Quote of the Day

I guess the strategy is to make the-once-unthinkable – asking the Communist Party of China and an ally totally dependent on U.S. aid in its war against Russia to “investigate” a political rival – seem normal by saying it out loud. It is not normal. It is un-Constitutional. It is un-American. It is the behavior of a mob boss, not a President.

If you don't understand that, you aren't a “conservative” standing-up to “liberal elites” or the “deep state” or whatever; you are an enemy of the U.S. Constitution, the rule of law and American sovereignty, someone so unpatriotic he puts loyalty to Trump over loyalty to country. For patriotic Americans, the integrity of the Constitution is more important than tribe. This isn't debatable anymore.

– Ken Darling
via Facebook
October 3, 2019

Related Off-site Links:
Trump Confirms He Asked Ukraine to Target Biden in Covered-Up Call, Then Says China Should Target Biden Too – Ben Mathis-Lilley (Slate, October 3, 2019).
Trump Goes on Live Television to Do Exact Thing Whistleblower Said He Did – Ryan Bort Rolling Stone (October 3, 2019).
The Impeachment Crisis Just Got Worse for the GOP – Joan Walsh (The Nation, October 3, 2019).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Progressive Perspectives on Corruption in U.S. Politics
• “A Man Who Has Never Known a Love That He Hasn’t Had to Pay For”: Edward Snowden on Donald Trump
• Quote of the Day – February 28, 2019
• Quote of the Day – May 23, 2018
• Presidential Candidate Marianne Williamson: “We’re Living at a Critical Moment in Our Democracy”
• Progressive Perspectives on the Election of Donald Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on the Rise of Donald Trump

Image: President Donald Trump answers questions while departing the White House on October 3, 2019 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Andrew Harnik/AP)

Wednesday, October 02, 2019

Cernunnos

. . . in Autumn Light

Writes Miranda Aldhouse-Green in her 1993 book, The Celtic Myths: A Guide to the Ancient Gods and Legends:

There is no hint at a dark side in the Celtic presentation of Cernunnos [KER-noo-nos] himself, but his human/beast ambiguity fed into early Christian notions of beastiality, pagan chaos, and contradictions of the notion that humans had been fashioned in the image of God.

Related Off-site Links:
Cernunnos: Wild God of the Forest – Patti Wigington (Learn Religions, June 25, 2019).
Cernunnos: The Horned Pan of the Celts – Moe Bedard (Gnostic Warrior).
Cernunnos: History and Mythology of the Enigmatic Celtic Horned God – Dattatreya Mandal (Realm of History, July 27, 2019).
I Call to Cernunnos – The Leveret (November 16, 2016).
Concerning Cernunnos (Part 1) – Musings from Gelli Fach (July 23, 2011).
Concerning Cernunnos (Part 2): Accessing the Fruits of the Wild – Musings from Gelli Fach (July 27, 2011).

Images: Michael J. Bayly.

Tuesday, October 01, 2019

“A Man Who Has Never Known a Love That He Hasn’t Had to Pay For”: Edward Snowden on Donald Trump

Donald Trump strikes me as nothing so much as a man who has never known a love that he hasn’t had to pay for. And I think that forms all of his decision-making. I think that explains all of the things that we see. This is someone who sees the world through a prism of a very, very sad lens, which is that what he is, who he is, does not today, and never has, and never will have any value. The only thing that matters is what he has, what he can trade. And I think that really explains all of the transactional corruption that we have seen throughout this administration. [He’s] simply someone who thinks that’s what life is.

– Edward Snowden
Excerpted from her “Whistleblower Edward Snowden on Trump,
Obama and How He Ended Up in Russia to Avoid U.S. Extradition”
Democracy Now!
September 30, 2019

Monday, September 30, 2019

Progressive Perspectives on Corruption in U.S. Politics

There is much to be shocked about in an intelligence officer’s whistle-blower report that is roiling official Washington — but perhaps nothing more shocking than the fact that when it reached the Trump Justice Department, the complaint was met with a big “nothing to see here, folks.”

The allegations in the complaint, which was partially revealed [last] Thursday morning, go way beyond just one phone call between President Trump and the new president of Ukraine, in which Trump pressured the Ukrainian leader to do him a political favor. They detail a months-long pattern of abuse and evidence that “the president of the United State is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election,” the whistle-blower wrote.

The memo also raises the fear that “senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records” of Trump’s July 25 call with President Volodymr Zelensky of Ukraine “especially the official word-for-word transcript of the call.” The use of that separate system to shield the conversation is itself both suspect and further evidence that “White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.”

– The Editorial Board
Excerpted from “Blowing the Whistle on Corruption”
The Boston Globe
September 27, 2019

Trump has been breaking norms since the moment he declared his candidacy and in many of his biggest policy and political moves while in office. In the past week, Trump has violated a notably large number of norms surrounding good government, but the general pattern of gleeful, frequent norm-breaking has defined most of the Trump presidency.

That’s the meta-scandal of the Trump administration: Each individual scandal stems from the president’s fundamental character, his lack of interest in the workings of democratic government and outright contempt for the idea that corruption might be a bad thing.

Trump sets the tone, and lower-ranked officials in his administration follow suit. The quality of American government is being eroded, slowly but surely, to the point where the kind of corrupt, undemocratic behavior that’s typically found in fragile young democracies is becoming a regular feature of the world’s oldest. This is the kind of norm erosion that’s undeniably scary, one that undercuts some of the rules of the road that democracies genuinely do need to function properly.

Now, it’s important to note that the problems in American democracy don’t start and end with Trump. There are much deeper sources of democratic rot in the United States, even in the Republican party alone, than one person. Trump is a symptom rather than a cause.

– Zack Beauchamp
Excerpted from “The Real Scandal Behind
the Last Week of Trump News”
Vox
September 9, 2019

When allegations of ethical lapses or wrongdoing surface against people on one side of the aisle, they can always claim that someone on the other side has done far worse. But taken together, all of these examples have contributed to a toxic norm. Joe Biden is the man who, as a senator, walked out of a dinner with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Biden was one of the most vocal champions of anti-corruption efforts in the Obama administration. So when this same Biden takes his son with him to China aboard Air Force Two, and within days Hunter joins the board of an investment advisory firm with stakes in China, it does not matter what father and son discussed. Joe Biden has enabled this brand of practice, made it bipartisan orthodoxy. And the ethical standard in these cases – people’s basic understanding of right and wrong – becomes whatever federal law allows. Which is a lot.

Who among us has not admired or supported people who have engaged in or provided cover for this kind of corruption? How did we convince ourselves it was not corruption? Impeachment alone will not end our national calamity. If we want to help our country heal, we must start holding ourselves, our friends, and our allies – and not just our enemies – to its highest standards.

– Sarah Chayes
Excerpted from “Hunter Biden’s Perfectly
Legal, Socially Acceptable Corruption”
The Atlantic
September 27, 2019

The Ukraine crisis exposes the bipartisan corruption inherent in the US imperialist foreign policy. An investigation into Ukraine may expose what are actually common practices by both Democratic and Republican administrations in regime change efforts. As John Kiriakou explained when he gave a talk at the Venezuelan Embassy during the Embassy Protection Collective action, the CIA has a secret regime change office that provides plans to overthrow any government the US chooses to target. These plans involve similar tactics – the investment of large amounts of money into NGOs (often “human rights groups”), support for a violent opposition, installing US-trained and controlled leaders and payoffs for those involved.

– Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers
Excerpted from “‘Ukrainegate’ Teaches Us More
About Ourselves Than Trump OR Biden”
Popular Resistance
September 29, 2019

The efforts by the Democratic Party and much of the press, including CNN and The New York Times, to remove Trump from office, as if our problems are embodied in him, will backfire. Our social, cultural, economic and political crisis created a demagogue like Trump. These forces will grow more virulent if Trump is impeached. The longer we fail to confront and name the corporate forces responsible for the misery of over half the U.S. population and our broken democracy, the more the disease of cultism will spread. It was the seizure of power by corporations that vomited up Trump. And it will be only by freeing ourselves from corporate rule, by rebuilding our democratic institutions, including the legislative bodies, the courts and the media, that we can roll back from the abyss.

– Chris Hedges
Excerpted from “The Problem With Impeachment”
TruthDig
September 26, 2019

Corruption largely operates on autopilot at equal levels within Democratic and Republican parties, resulting in a bloated concentration of control and an anti-democratic sense of entitlement at the top. It’s a problem that needs to be addressed with policy changes and beyond superficial modifications.

In her 1997 book, Healing the Soul of America, [2020 Democratic presidential candidate] Marianne Williamson wrote: “Clearly we must work on healing our own neuroses in order to become effective healers. But then, having worked on our own issues a while, another question begs for an answer: how healed can we ultimately become while the social systems in which we live and move, and have our earthly being, remain sick?”

Williamson has a background in grassroots organizing and recognizes the underlying issues propelling the widespread self-sabotage happening in our country. She describes this dynamic in her most recent book, A Politics of Love. She has a keen ability to identify proposed policies that hinder democracy and has adamantly opposed such policies, while supporting proposals that boost voter engagement.

– Sable Knapp
Excerpted from “Marianne Williamson Goes Beyond the Surface”
Bleeding Heartland
September 14, 2019

Friday, September 27, 2019

Queer Black Panther

NOTE: This post serves as the tenth and final installment in The Wild Reed's 2019 Queer Appreciation series.

Ryan Coogler's Black Panther was one of my favorite films of last year, mainly because of how groundbreaking it was on a number of levels. Most notably, Black Panther was the first film of the Marvel Cinematic Universe to place a black superhero front and center. It's also one of only a very few films to feature a black director (Coogler) and a majority black cast (including Chadwick Boseman, Michael B Jordan, Angela Bassett, Daniel Kaluuya, Lupita Nyong’o, Danai Gurira, and Forest Whitaker). In addition, Black Panther explores questions and issues about race and identity to a depth never before attempted by a film in the "superhero" genre.

Film critic Kenneth Turan succinctly sums up the significance and appeal of Black Panther when he writes:

A superhero movie whose characters have integrity and dramatic heft, laced with socially conscious commentary as well as wicked laughs, Black Panther is the model of what an involving popular entertainment ought to be but hardly ever is.

Queer appeal

Black Panther is, of course, based on Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's revolutionary comic book character of the same name.

As both a comic book and a film, Black Panther has a queer appeal. What do I mean by this? Well, I've come to understand that to be "queer" is to attempt to expand or go beyond (in thought, word or deed) the parameters of gender, race, heterosexuality, patriarchy, and other socially-constructed (or manipulated) concepts. Laurence Coleman, in discussing vocalist Dusty Springfield as a queer icon, says that embracing this understanding of queer “denotes a spectrum not only of identity and practice but also inquiry.” Accordingly, to be queer is to be a questioner and subverter of what Michael Warner has called “regimes of the normal,” and not just in matters to do with sexuality and sexual expression, but also in matters of gender, class, and race.

For many people, a definite appeal of Black Panther is that it boldly questions and subverts in entertaining ways, “regimes of the normal” as they relate to gender and race. (It almost did the same with sexuality, as Linda Lang documents here.)

I celebrate the subversion and transformation of any status quo that is oppressive and limiting, and without doubt Black Panther does this. Accordingly, I think it's fair to say that it is queer in the broadest and deepest sense of the word.

Queer male sexuality

Black Panther is also queer in the more focused sense of sexuality. Though not as obvious or resolute as its focus on race and gender, a queer take on sexuality is nonetheless observable, simply and beautifully, in the film's celebration of the impressive physiques of the main Wakandan characters (both male and female); in Black Panther's body-hugging outfit (one that emphasizes the male body's "tools of attraction"); in the sensual, cat-like way T'challa / Black Panther moves; and in the young king of Wakanda's journey and travails in becoming a hero.

This last observation is important as for many people who do not identify exclusively as heterosexual, the trials of comic book superheroes are often perceived to reflect their own struggle to be who they really are in a world that fears and misunderstands them.

“When I was a teenager,” one gay man told Gerard Jones, author of the book Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book, “superheroes were obviously about being queer. Clark Kent shedding that hideous [business] suit and shooting into the sky in his tights? What else [could it be about]?”

I think a very similar thing can be said for T'challa, not only in his donning of his tight-fitting Black Panther suit, but in his efforts to move Wakanda out of the shadows so as to openly reveal and share the country's immense riches and unique gifts with the wider world, a move that is both liberating and risky, much like coming out as queer.

I think it's also important to note that this sexuality-focused display of male queerness as described above is present in the original and current Black Panther comic books, as the illustrations below clearly show.

– James Fry and Tom Smith (1996)

– Art by Rich Buckler and Glynis Wein; text by Don McGregor (1973)

– Art by Bob Brown; text by Steve Englehart (1973)

– Art by John Romita Jr. (2018)

– Art by Valerio Schiti and Frank Martin Jr.;
text by Jonathan Hickman (2014)

Queer fan art

Of course, as has been noted previously at The Wild Reed, in the always entertaining world of fan art, many popular superheroes are often depicted as queer, particularly in relation to sex and sexuality.

The image at right by Steven Garcia is one of the more explicit examples of this. Yet regardless of how in-your-face or subtle such depictions may be, they all speak to just how many queer superhero fans there are out there, and how strongly they want to see themselves represented by and within this particular genre.

A common theme in a lot of "queer fan art" conveys the notion that the fierce tension and antagonism that exists between certain male superheroes is actually a sign of mutual (though repressed) sexual desire. The role of the fan artist, it would seem, is to give these characters an opportunity to let loose with this desire.

In the world of Wakanda, we see this depicted primarily in images showing T'Challa / Black Panther with Erik "Killmonger" Stevens (left, by NightWolf), but also with Bucky Barnes / the Winter Soldier and with M’Baku, leader of Wakanda's Jabari tribe.

Following are a few more examples of fan art that depicts a queer Black Panther. (NOTE: For NSFW depictions of queer Black Panther, see the version of this article posted at The Wild Reed's brother site, The Leveret.)