Its simply true that we are all confronted with moments in life when we simply must prevail in a conflict with another person, where compromise is not possible. I think the most common example in modern life tends to revolve around the custody and support of children. A couple breaks up, and although the couple may at first seek an amicable solution to these issues, how very often they end in an ugly confrontation in court. After all, ones children their future, ones relationship with them is at stake, and its simply impossible to be philosophical about these questions.

At the same time, no matter how right we may be in our cause, and how right we feel we are in our cause. It is also simply true that when the dust settles, someone is going to be left crushed, and so Kris has done a very interesting thing here. She has presented us a image with no conquering hero to identify with in anyway what so ever. Instead we have a woman, perhaps she has prevailed, but nothing about her image says so, perhaps she is has been defeated herself, or perhaps it is her husband who is the vanquished. What ever has brought her to this moment, we see her contemplating an immense emptiness, and we understand as without so with-in. She stands there open to the full devestation of the moment, and there is no joy in it at all. Every triumph is balanced by the immense emptiness experienced by another.

Success is counted sweetest
By those who ne'er succeed.
To comprehend a nectar
Requires sorest need.
Not one of all the purple host
Who took the flag to-day
Can tell the definition,
So clear, of victory!

As he, defeated, dying,
On whose forbidden ear
The distant strains of triumph
Burst agonized and clear!

           -Emily Dickinson

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And yet, just now I wonder if it must be so...

Professor of Theology Catherine Keller says that, "we have no reason to believe that in all time life has been based on the dominance of the weaker by the stronger, nor do we have any evidence that people have always lived in the defensive state of being characterized by modern life."

but is this at all true.

I happen to know Howard Bloom's work well enough to know he might well counter ...

We have every reason to believe life for all time has been based on the dominance of the weaker by the stronger. We see it in the nests of birds, where the runts our pushed aside and ultimately starved. We see it in our earliest known ancestors, the Proto-Mammals of the Triassic, who though they had barely hauled themselves onto dry land, promptly evolved horns and frills, and set about butting their heads to claim the right to mate. We see it in the wombs of women carrying twins today, where the "Dominant" twin will push aside the other for better space, access to food, et al. And the twin who asserted itself in the womb will emerge stronger, and grow into a more confident individual, and the other will be much more passive for his or her entire life. Playing the Cancer to the Dominate Twins Leo. Biology seems to tell us the Behaviorist Model ultimately fails, that Dominance is simply part of the package of life. Yet I wonder if perhaps our current paradigm does not block a road to transcending what, IMHO, appears to be a biological imperative.

You see I think John Lash might well be right in asserting that the Fundamental Thing in Paganism is an Ecstatic Union with the Gaia, that all else we do Tarot Reading, Spell Craft, even Healing is peripheral. That Ecstatic Union with Gaia should be our primary focus.

John Goes onto argue that is precisely the suppression of Ecstatic experiance by the Patriarchal culture, most especially for men themselves, that leads to our disconnection with the divine as a culture, and our Ecocidal behavior as a Nation today.

You might remember the scene from, "In and Out" where Kevin Klines charactor is taking lessons in "Manliness" and the voice on the tape is admonishing him, "Real Men don't dance. Look at Arnold, he can barely even walk." It was exactly this attitude that led to theuproar about Elvis actually moving his hips on TV, in my fathers youth. Male singers where expected (then) to basically stand rooted in one spot. Like Neal from the Pet Shop Boys.

I've had a few personal brushes with this myself:
I used to work 2 jobs one for the Cable Company, one for a security company, and it provided a interesting lesson in cultural expectations. You need to understand, Marv and his Brother where Afro-Americans, the Lab was a very Diversified workplace. Anyhow, I used to slip over the tracks behind the cable company to do Karate forms in the park at lunch hour, this was generally known, and went uncommented upon. I came back one day and one of Coworkers, Marv and his brother where showing off their moves on the bench room floor.

Marv says something to me like, "Show us a move." and I just looked at him like, say what, and after a few akward moments I finally replied, "Bro I got no moves."

Marv was not to be put off easily, "But you do the Karate Stuff, you got to have know some moves."

to which I replied, "Bro, not to dis your thing, but if a White man's hips are moving, he better be F***ing." Which got a good laugh."

Marv was still not put off though, he turned to our mutual friend Ernie and said, "You believe that Sh*t" to which Ernie rather sheepishly replied, "Tom's right."

Now a few weeks later I told this story to my friend at the security company, "O'Brien." whose father was Irish, but his Mother Latina. He corpsed, because O'Brien name aside was very Latino> He Identified very strongly with his mothers culture, but had inherited his fathers looks, So the Other Latino's would give him a hard time because, "White Guys cant' dance." which was one of his great challenges in life, to be accepted as a Latino by his friends. Actually he could Dance really well, showed me one or two moves, just to make his point.

In another instance, a few years ago, I had a bit of a row, with my mom, who did not approve of how I held my hands when I prayed to Innana, she felt my posture was to "Patriarchal", and that I should throw my arms out wide. Like she might, but which honestly leave me feeling like a right fool. I asked Innana how she wanted me to pray, and she showed me an rather famous image of the Annunaki Praying. Since I sometimes do throw my arms out wide for a moment or two, and I have taken to Singing the Ama instead of chanting it, but it has taken me years to move past the working class prohibitions of my childhood, the expectations of how a Man carried himself, and really begin my own inner work.

If John is right, and his argument works in my experience. We live in a society where men (especially White Men) are conditioned by their culture to not allow themselves to participate in exactly the things that lead to ecstasy, and thus the great majority are fated to live out their lives with little or no direct experience of the Divine, and these same men are very largely in charge of our world.

Is it any wonder that we also live in a society that questions the very existence of God. We seem to live in a situation that could hardly be better designed to produced a mindset that views the world as spiritually flat. Which has become, IMHO, the dominating Paradigm, Ironically, the Church of Rome, by rejecting, and crushing Gnosticism, may well have sown the seeds for its own ultimate demise, in a world that can no longer accept on faith their teaching, and which has been denied direct experience of the divine by the suppression of that experience by the church.

Is is just me or is it just madness that we ask young men and women to risk their lives in Iraq, for the same "HomeLand" that Hooker and Dow chemical dump their bilge onto? Yet it is (IMHO) directly because we have forgotten our home is sacred, our land is sacred, we have brought our world to the brink of Ecocide.

As always, I look forward to your thoughts.

Ama tu ANKI, BB.

Obviously my divinations below, are not the norm. And are based on my reading of the Gendron Card Specifically.

Divination: Conquest, Inner Strength is Required, Strength in the face of an Uncertain Outlook.

Reversed: Dishonor, Insensitivity, Indecision, Intrest in Selfish Gain, Seduction.

A more conventional divination would read like this:
Divination: Conquest, Defeat, Insensitivity, Destruction of Another, An Adversary may be revealed, Victory by unfair means.

Reversed: Weakness, Indecision, Confusion, Inner Strength is Required, Seduction.

ATT Card of the Week.