Category: Uncategorized

My Reflections on ‘Assisted Dying’ (Euthanasia)

Introduction

I will just say out front, that personally I deplore anyone’s suicide – the world needs each and all of our unique lights. However I am writing this about the subject of the private members bill which is being brought by the MP Kim Leadbeater for debate by Parliament, which is to do with ‘Assisted Suicide’ which is currently not legalised in the UK but is in various parts of the world including Switzerland, Belgium and Canada. Particularly I want to focus on the ethical situation for doctors, as this seems to get less attention, and also consider the ramifications for society at large.

I did write about this about 18 months ago, but when it failed to save (after I had mainly composed it on the keyboard) I ditched it. Before and since then the subject has come up in the news and with friends and so I wanted to put down my thoughts.

Medical Ethics

Loss of a boundary

My main concern is that with a change in the law would come the loss of an important boundary in the charge of doctors: that medical practitioners will at all times do their best to save the lives of their patients. I was surprised to learn that the Hippocratic Oath is no longer obligatory in all medical degrees, but nevertheless I think the understanding is still implicit that their role is to ‘First do no Harm’. I do not think that proponents of Assisted Suicide have thought through what it means to lose this boundary when there is no clear alternative. Should they provide a fatal dose only to those patients where the outcome of imminent death is certain? What about for those with long-term conditions for which there is no hope of improvement? Mental health conditions also involve pain, and can feel quite hopeless: should sufferers be deprived of this mercy?

Responsibility

To illustrate the position of doctors who are faced with such a request, I want to bring up the film ‘They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?’ directed by Sydney Pollack, 1969. (If you haven’t seen the film, look away for this next part.) At the end of an exhausting marathon dance, the male protagonist is with the female lead (played respectively by Michael Sarrazin and Jane Fonda) who tries to kill herself with a gun and fails to pull the trigger, so requests that he shoot her, which he does. He is acting from compassion, but still – was it right to ask him to do this, or even for that matter, to make him witness her own suicide? Even if he had not been shortly bundled into a police van, and presumably tried for her murder – he would forever afterward be wondering whether, had she lived, she might ultimately been able to lead a happy, fulfilled life/be of service to her community. He might well have experienced remorse for a decision made in a moment of intense despair.

As for her hesitation in pulling the trigger: could this have been a part of her that wanted to stay alive, despite everything? A voiceless protest from the human organism? Why does that part not matter? The fact is that a person acting in solitude might well step back from the brink of violence against themselves, in encountering their hitherto-ignored desire to live. How much less likely is this, when someone has a pact, as it were, with another person, a doctor who will provide the euthanizing drug? People also have an innate desire not to let other people down.

Societal Consequences

Do I want the UK to be a country in which the option of assisted suicide is opened out? The change this has made in Canada with MAiD leads me to a resounding ‘no!’ The initial parameters of who is able to request the service were subjected to successive challenges, although mental health issues which were due to apply have been paused this year, I believe. People who are struggling to get by due to a combination of poverty and long-term disabilities have opted for death, in despair of ever receiving any other alleviation ( https://globalnews.ca/news/9176485/poverty-canadians-disabilities-medically-assisted-death/ ) The message ‘well, you can always kill yourself’ strikes me as utterly heartless, however it is framed.

I want to be able to trust my doctors, and other workers in the health and social care field. I want us to be a society which, in the words of Arthur Hugh Clough (1819 to 1861) in his poem ‘The Latest Decalogue’, strives ‘officiously to keep alive.’

Is Change Needed?

Let us say that the decision to end my life rests on me, and me alone. But what about cases where someone is bedridden and helpless, (but still in charge of their faculties)? However, such people still have the choice whether or not to take food. No one will force them against their will if they decide not to, and palliative care can still be provided. It won’t be as swift as taking poison, but it will bring an end in a matter of days.

Where does the idea come from that the process of dying should be swift? I am not saying that anyone should be left in pain; but what is wrong with a slow death? My neighbour years ago died after spending three weeks unconscious in hospital. I never had the thought that he would have been better off dying sooner. Perhaps that is what it takes to come to terms with all that has happened in the course of one’s life.

Also I quarrel with the idea that the highest ideal is to eliminate pain, in life or in dying. Lots of things in life are painful – writing this essay for one, and the break-up of relationships. Athletes speak of ‘going through the pain-barrier’ to achieve more of their potential. Pain is a necessary component of growth. Moreover as well as conventional analgesics, there are a plethora of complementary therapies which can re-balance the system and prevent the constant recycling of pain-activation that sometimes goes on.

The Value of Human Life

Does one need religion to see human life as inherently valuable? I don’t think so and it is surely foundational in the normal processes of raising families and serving the community as carried on by those of all religions or none. However in the context of climate-change becoming an increasingly apparent threat I have been concerned by some of the comments that have come my way to the effect that: ‘there are too many people in the world for it to support.’ This enrages me. Why pile the responsibility on something which nobody can do anything about? Why not face up to the fact that we as a civilization need to make fundamental changes to stop the way we make war on each other and war on the natural world ie. deforestation, mining, ruinous agricultural practices etc.

I am saddened to think that this way of thinking that the problem is overpopulation may have seeped into the public consciousness to such an extent that an individual at a low point might consider their own life to be superfluous. No! We are the solution and we need all of us.

Conclusion

I think that the proposal to make changes to the law to allow assisted suicide has been largely driven by people who have been very used to exercising power and control in their own lives and do not take into account that many people are far less confident in themselves and place a lot of faith in the professional class. I wonder how much the issue is about sparing pain (including the mental pain of their witnessing relatives) and how much is about taking technocratic control of the process of death: the final frontier.

Let us continue to ask our doctors to exercise their professional duty in preserving the lives in their care with compassion, alleviate pain as far as is in their power, and not ask them to become our executioners. I believe that is what most doctors want.

Respect

‘The Sun was shining on the sea

Shining with all his might:

He did his very best to make

The billows smooth and bright –

And this was odd because it was

The middle of the night.

The moon was shining sulkily,

Because she thought the sun

Had got not business to be there

After the day was done –

”It’s very rude of him” she said

”To come and spoil the fun!”

From ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’ in ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ by Lewis Carroll.

If there were no material consequences from trans ideology – no mutilations of childrens’ bodies nor impacts on women’s safety, privacy and dignity, etc. – would it matter that men were indulged in calling themselves ‘women’? I think it would.

Some people have blamed feminism itself for the rise of trans ideology, in its proposition that the only difference between men and women is their primary and secondary sexual characteristics. I don’t think this is true although it is a complex matter to tease out what the psychic differences are and if these exist, what are their origins. And I don’t think either that feminists were saying this, so much as the TRA’s seized the ball from them at a particular moment in play and ran off with it.

What feminists were saying was that women are as rational as men and therefore the idea (which only the most die-hard chauvinist would propose nowadays) that women don’t belong in the science-lab or the boardroom was wrong. However, what was not being largely questioned at that time was – where does the boardroom itself belong?

The proposal that there are male and female brains has been debunked. I think that there may well be an aspect of the psyche which derives from the body rather than the brain on its own but I am leaving that aside for now. Men and women are equally capable of logic and rationality, on the one hand, and compassion and empathy on the other. Surely this blows ”transness” out of the water: if minds are not sexed, how can a mind be of the opposite sex? Nevertheless, apart from this mindfuck aspect, why do I object to the category of ‘woman’ including men?

I find the theory of the distinction between ‘left-brain’ and ‘right-brain’ modes of thinking experiencing the world very helpful. The left-brain mode is focussed, logical, linear, seeing in a detailed way one small aspect of the whole. The right-brain mode is diffuse and holistic, seeing the big picture in a more fuzzy way. The two halves of the brain are connected by the corpus callosum, and our attention is either in one mode or the other; much as when looking at a stream one can peer through the water to view the stream-bed, or else look at the surface to see the reflections; one cannot see both distinctly at the same time.

This theory has been around since the 70’s but more recently has been promulgated by the philosopher/neurologist Dr Iain McGilchrist who at present has a lot of speeches up on Youtube, for example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tY89D1UC9Dw The two modes are complementary but during the past 3,000 years or so of our culture the left-brain mode has been dominant: this is the side which is concerned with power and ego, rather than seeing the interconnectedness of the whole, the one-ness of all. McGilchrist contrasts, on the one hand the focus and skilfulness necessary to kill one’s prey (left-brain) with the diffuse awareness which is ready to detect danger in the environment at large (right-brain). In modern society the greatest threat comes from men, and women who are relatively weak are therefore more reliant on this intuitive awareness for our safety. There are other reasons why women are more likely to be in right-brain mode, for example caring for babies; or perhaps there are innate reasons why women are more naturally in right-brain mode and men are more naturally in left-brain mode. At any rate, the linear, focussed side is associated with the masculine, while the diffuse, whole-picture side is associated with the feminine. However, both sexes are walking around with both sides of their brains intact!

Therefore in the language of archetypes I am calling the left-brain mode Masculine symbolised by the sun, and the right-brain mode Feminine symbolised by the moon.

Unfortunately at this point in history we have been pretty much stuck as a society in the focussed, egoic mode and our poetical sense of the unity of the world has been suppressed; that is to say that we are a masculine-dominated society (despite electing women leaders sometimes). In McGilchrist’s words: the servant has usurped the place of the rightful master. The consequences of this imbalance have been very damaging and remain potentially catastrophic to our very survival as a species. But the harm doesn’t just come from the drive to profit and extract at the expense of the natural environment, and the drive to dominate and subdue all opposition, but also because of what becomes invisible, barely even thinkable, when we are locked into this mindset.

By the light of the sun everything is hard-edged, discrete, laid out bare. In writing this sentence I am using individual units of words laid out in a line like lego blocks. In moonlight there are no colours and it’s difficult to perceive individual objects, so we are more likely to take in the whole gestalt with all its terror and wonder. When we look up at the stars we open ourselves to the infinitude of space. It is difficult to express in plain language the insights to be gained from this moonlit landscape and it needs poetry or music or art or its expression. In the presence of shadows we may also be prey to fears of what is unseen – ghosts or uncanny manifestations maybe.

In medieval times the feminine became so ‘other’ that it was, as it were, another country. Romantic love, chivalry, began to be expressed in the literature, describing the thunderbolt which arrests business-as-usual, catapulting the hero into a numinous sacred space: that of being face-to-face with the Queen of his heart. In Jungian terms he has met his anima – his feminine aspect hitherto suppressed and unconscious, now projected onto a flesh-and-blood woman, to be idolised and adored. To complete the process of becoming fully aware of the lineaments of the feminine aspect of himself he needs to come to know the actual woman with whom he has fallen in love: both in how she differs from as well as how she embodies Her.

There is a corresponding (but not symmetrical) process for women encountering their animus when they fall in love. What about in the case of falling in love with someone of the same sex? The Masculine and Feminine have many different aspects: there is a whole panoply of gods and goddesses. One aspect can well be conscious and another aspect hidden and thus able to be projected onto the flesh-and-blood object of desire.

Why is it not symmetrical? I think it is because men and women need different things. Men need the physicality of sex; women need their lover’s magnetic energy. For justification I would have to direct you to esoteric philosophy. For some reason the name of Dion Fortune comes to mind.

A cartoon I drew to illustrate the psyche containing both masculine and feminine principles.

Of course it is not necessary for men and women to be in love for there to be consensual sexual relations. However unfortunately rape and the form of rape which is prostitution, and pornography which is ‘rape on tape’ have existed in our culture for a long time. I believe that this violation of a woman’s boundaries would not be possible if the perpetrator had any love or reverence for his feminine side. Rape-culture is a side-stepping, a pinching-out of the feminine.

Even in autogynephilia I think this is the case: ‘woman’ is reduced to a body: one’s own.

With electric light we don’t have to deal with the fears and terrors that darkness brings, as did our ancestors. The light of science shines into every corner and shows the absence of ghosts and other macabre entities. We never have to face our fear of the unknown; and certainly where I live the opportunity to view the stars comes but rarely. So it is all too easy to lose awareness of what is beyond the blinding light. Where is the yin to all this yang? If the sun doesn’t know its own place and bow out to allow the moon to shine, we have lost our feminine soul. And where’s the fun in that?

Featured

Dismembered

I wrote this in 2015 but have been thinking about it lately and decided to share it, even though it’s a bit heavy. I had some other titles and originally called it ‘Beside Oneself’ but I have changed it today ( I started with ‘Diagnosis’, then ‘Dark Uranus’).

Dismembered

Your feet have been pulled from underneath you

Your genitalia have been stranded in a museum

Your bowels have been eviscerated

Your arms have been encased in ice

Your mouth has been drowned in soap bubbles

Your ears have been filled with buzzing flies

Your eyes have been tricked of their light

Your brain has been tethered in a vicious circle

Your throat has been stuffed with beetles

As you do to me, so has been done to you

Your heart has been torn out of your chest and offered up to the sky god

Deafening

‘We have to end war, it’s destroying the land!’

‘What? I can’t hear you over the sound of the bombs.’

‘We have to stop climate-change, or the people will starve!’

‘What? I can’t hear you over the wails of the hungry children.’

‘We must protect the trees, they give vital oxygen to the air!’

‘What? I can’t hear you over the noise of the chainsaws.’

‘We need to stop pesticides, they are killing all the insects!’

‘What? I can’t hear you, the silence is deafening.’

Bad Hair Dream and other poems

I haven’t written any prose for a while, so I thought I would post some poems instead. Here is one I wrote today following a dream I had yesterday.

Bad Hair Dream

I’ve tracked cake-crumbs up the staircase

A voice in my ear complains

What a terrible person I am –

She says it again and again.

The taxi has left without me

The tea has been poured away

And still the woman torments me –

I’m having a bad-hair day!

21/01/2023

Get….you

Get over yourself

Get under your skin

Get down and dirty

Get happy

Get up, stand up

Get back to your roots

Get in the groove

Get up to the mic

Get out of line

Get out of hand

Get off your head

Get real

Get me

Get away! Get lost.

Get found out

Get grounded.

Get set, get wet,

Get lucky

Get your fingers burned.

Get along get by

Get going get sussed

Get an eyeful

Get an earful

Get a life

Get you

June? 2020

I wrote this accompanying note: ‘The management wishes to offer our apologies to any guest who feels that their favourite idiom has been misappropriated. However we respectfully draw your attention to our ‘waste-free’ policy of: reduce,re-use and recycle.’

20 Feet off the Ground

I’m up here 20 feet off the ground

I’m all grown up but now I’m growing down

Adam and Eve were up in the trees

They ate of the apple and God showed them the door

Adam said ‘yo!’ and Eve said ‘ho!

This is just where we wanted to be before!

For Earth has everything needed to grow

It’s a magical place down here below.’

And I’m up here 20 feet off the ground

I’m all grown up but now I’m growing down.

God said to Noah: ‘Build me a boat,

There’s a climate-change coming due to Man’s sloppy ways’

Well the Ark left the ground when the rain came down,

But the animals two by two were saved.

Then the animals roared: ‘Who said you’re the best?

You’re an animal too, you’d better clean up your mess.’

And I’m up here 20 feet off the ground,

I’m all grown up but now I’m growing down.

History shows and every child knows

Get above yourself, you’re headed for a fall

Now my laptop screen, and TV dream

Keep my head in the clouds and my mind in thrall.

I’m gonna dance with my shadow, gonna hug all the trees

Gaze up at the stars and consult the bees

And I’m up here 20 feet off the ground

I’m all grown up, but now I’m growing down.

November 2014

This is a song, it has a sort of calypso-like tune.

That’s all for now, I may post some more poems and songs later.

img_2310Download
img_2435‘overleaf’

Why Earthbeing?

I want us all to recognise and appreciate the amazing power and wisdom of our beautiful bodies. In our Western culture, it seems to me, we view them in general as something to be judged on appearance, and punished with diet and exercise, and escaped from into mental realms.

How would it be if instead we were to listen to them? Our bodies – we – are nature; our DNA has been handed down over countless generations; countless experiences have imprinted themselves over several decades of our individual lifetimes. So much wisdom, which the world is in crying need of right now.

The more we are attuned to our bodies, the more we are in contact with our authentic selves. The more we know our bodies, the better we appreciate our boundaries with others, and so the safer we are. The safer we feel, the more experience we can allow to touch us. The more we use our senses, the more connected we are with the world around us and the more joy is possible.

A consequence of living in a head/intellect dominated culture is that emotions are also viewed with suspicion. ‘Feeling’ can both denote physically sensing something through touch or internally and experiencing emotions, which indicates that body and emotions are intimately connected. Pain in the same way can be both physical and mental/emotional. (Cognitive dissonance is a mental pain, but I learned recently it can be allieviated by taking an aspirin.) This intimate connection may be one reason for our culture’s dissociation from the body: avoidance of difficult feelings. Pushing the body past the ‘pain threshold’ may lead to tremendous achievements on the sporting field but can also act as a bypass.

Therefore connecting within through slow, meditative movement can be both a way of encountering the submerged world of emotions, and of dealing with them. We deal with emotions by feeling them. Movement modalities such as Tai Chi and Yoga are very good ways of having a structure in order to encounter such feelings in safety, most likely Pilates too, although I haven’t been to any Pilates classes myself. These are all very popular, and hooray for that! However, apart from incidentally, these classes don’t usually involve the participants engaging with each other and sharing, verbally and non-verbally, their experiences, creativity and philosophies.

I think that we human beings want two things which are interlinked: to realise ourselves as the creative, unique beings that we are and have that recognised, and to play our part in service to a wider community. I don’t think anyone is truly happy without in some measure fulfilling these – desires doesn’t seem the right word – I am going to call them soul-urges. There is a tremendous power in being in a non-judgemental group in which everyone is respected equally, to see and listen to each other and be seen and listened to by the rest, which I feel should give a flavour of that spark and that belonging. That is what I hope to create through facilitating Earthbeing.

I have devised this programme to take place over seven sessions, which is exploring different aspects of what it is to be human:

Week 1: Grounding Looking at resourcing, boundary/skin, gravity, spirals

Week 2: Nurturance Looking at mirroring, fluidity, what do we need to thrive?

Week 3: Centreing Looking at Core Self, aura, creativity.

Week 4: Sensing Looking at taste, hearing, sight, smell, touch, lateral and saggittal directions; different ways of relating to others

Week 5: Emotions Looking at core emotions and how they affect us; emotions are energy in movement; how do we deal with emotions

Week 6: Feminine and Masculine Exploration of different modes; we each contain both principles; values; balance

Week 7: Shadow Looking at the unconscious; rationality versus the numinous; shuttling; unseen energy, dreamwork.

If this interests you and you can make the time and place, I look forward to meeting and working with you! With very best wishes to all, Sarah Barratt

Daydreaming is our birthright

I am my body. I may be more, but I am a living physical being. In common with the whole of the rest of the animal kingdom I am sexed: in my case, female. The mysteries of the human body have not been plumbed; suffice to say I am not in any way a machine, but a self-creating creation.

My body is the source of intelligence beyond the purely intellectual; it is the source of my authenticity and therefore of my power to act as autonomous person.

The culture into which most of us on this planet, bar some fortunate indigenous communities, have been born, over many centuries has fostered an alienation in us from our bodies. (This alienation is in many cases deepened by individual traumas.) For many years I felt a feeling of unease due to this alienation; I found various therapies to be helpful, in particular Craniosacral Therapy; these gradually lifted my unease by bringing me into greater self-integration: a gradual and ongoing process.

As a society our alienation from our bodies has led us to be ungrounded. It has made us (at least, the better-off part) oblivious of the fact that when we destroy the natural world we destroy ourselves as a species. We are beginning to be aware of this on an intellectual level yet the destruction continues.

Healing our relationship with the Earth, I believe, must start with healing our relationship with ourselves and with our own bodies.

In the theory of the two sides of the brain, where the left side is associated with logical, linear, focussed processing (the ‘masculine’) and the right with more fuzzy, intuitive, whole-picture processing (the ‘feminine’) there is no question of there being actual men and women missing half a brain. I think that true thought involves a flow between these two sides, and of course both sexes have equally the capacity to do this. I do think that our culture is far too stuck in the logical, linear, focussed mode and is not spending enough time seeing the whole picture; and also in our culture we advantage the intellectual and the competitive modes over the more compassionate and more artistic modes. It seems to me that we value doing over being.

I was horrified to see a film clip (I am sorry I forget where it was shown) of Chinese schoolchildren having their brain-waves scanned during a lesson; each child sporting a head-set whilst sitting at their desk. It apparently could show the teacher in real-time whether or not any particular child was paying attention. To outlaw daydreaming strikes me as the most unspeakable brutality. I hope it was a short-lived experiment.

So given that we are not just brains on sticks, where does the body fit in with this? Might our day-dreaming minds be dropping into the physical aspect of our psyche? Tuning into the intelligence of our entire nervous-system, all the cells, organs, bones etc. The Heartmath institute has revealed that our hearts communicate much more to our brains than vice-versa; and are involved in the subtle energetic interactions between us and other beings (human and non-human) around us, or even at great distances. This is called ‘coherence’.

I think that by not listening to our bodies we are blinding ourselves to the most beautiful and subtle aspects of being in our world.

Addendum to Words Matter

I am adding a post-script, as on reflection it has become clearer to me why this area is so highly-charged.

I know that I am a woman because I am female. My body is female, so I can confirm to myself moment-to-moment my identity as a woman, and I don’t need anyone else for that confirmation. (I need other people for other kinds of confirmation, but that is something else.)

However, if I was to decide that I am in fact a man in a woman’s body, because that is what I emotionally feel myself to be – then my own felt sense of my physical form will not serve me to confirm the identity as a man that I am convinced is my true self. I either have to keep referring to whatever feelings and ideas I have for my identity as a man to be sustained, or I have to be confirmed in my ‘manhood’ by someone else. I need the confirmation of others.

Therefore, for the person whose body is out of alignment with how they conceive their gender to be, any negative feedback is a huge threat. Therefore it has to be eliminated/cancelled.

But such a cancellation is in turn a threat to the cancellee who is being deprived by it of their autonomy in deciding for themselves what it is they believe in; their own intuitive and cosmological ground.

What is any conceivable way out of this polarising and mutually annihilating dynamic?

For me it comes down to this question: why is it the body that is wrong?

It is because of the hubris of our technocratic, technophilic world: Nature is just the raw stuff that is to be pushed and pummelled into whatever shape takes our fancy. It is the same mind-set that comes up with herbicides and pesticides, GM, mining, fossil-fuels; that is destroying through deforestation, air-pollution, soil-depletion, over-fishing and ocean-plastic-filling. We need to wake up to the fact that if we don’t profoundly question this hubris we will end up annihilating ourselves as a species.

So let’s not. Let’s do it differently, and start with ourselves. Let’s love, honour and respect our own bodies, the sex we were born as: take that as a given, and perfect. Let’s use our imaginations to play with the ideas of what it means to be and live as that sex, rejecting traditional roles that don’t serve us. We are so brilliant and creative we can I am sure come up with an infinite variety of ways of expressing who we are; if we allow it, and feel safe enough.

And rather than dismantling Nature let’s dismantle old fear-based structures of dominance, hierarchy, competition and scarcity and imagine new ways of relating in communality, equality, compassion. That would make me happy.

Words Matter

I am writing this to try and express something that is arising in me beyond the level of words. It could better be expressed by a growl. If I was to walk around the subject with a view to how it would be received by others, it would be lost. So here is my growl.

What’s the Matter?

In my Longman dictionary [1991] the word ‘woman’ is defined firstly as ‘An adult female human as distinguished from a man or child. ME (from OE wifman … wife + man (human being).

The oldest English words for man and woman were ‘werman’ (same root as ‘virile’) and ‘wifman’. The ‘man’ component meant ‘human being’, as we would use ‘person’ now, or used to use ‘body’ maybe (”If a body catch a body coming through the rye”). The oldest record of this use is in the 9th Century; also there was ‘waepman’ for a man; in my view though not the dictionary’s this was because his role was to be in the defence of his community. The dictionary goes on to say that, as ‘man’ was increasingly used to apply to males only [I speculate that this was because the ‘weapon’ element was dropped as defence became separated out from the community, into standing armies] by the 13th Century the contrasting pair man/woman was established.

Mind over Matter

This in a nutshell is the story of the ‘othering’ of women, by the gradually increasing absolute authority of the Church in Europe in the early Middle Ages. By the same process the Spirit was elevated and the Flesh cast down; Spirit is divine, Flesh is weak, mortal and sinful. Why are these connected?

It is widely accepted these days that both sexes contain both the Masculine and the Feminine archetypes; only the Masculine is most closely identified with the male, and the Feminine with the female; we each have our own province, but not exclusively. The archetypes are universal, and in Chinese philosophy we have the yin (feminine) and the yang (masculine). Their balance in each individual has its own unique flavour; they can have both positive and negative expressions. In addition, cultural norms exert an influence on what is permissible and what is taboo.

In the framework of the four elements, which were a basic feature of Medieval thought and continue to feature today in astrology and spiritual psychology, there are two ‘warm’, yang elements: air which is warm and wet, (mind) and fire ( warm and dry, spirit); and two ‘cold’ , yin elements: water (cold and wet; the emotions) and earth (cold and dry: the physical realm, the body.) Thus Fire and Air are masculine, Water and Earth are feminine. The Body as Earth has a particular association with women, in this scheme, just as Spirit falls into man’s province.

Therefore, in our historical development formed by the Church’s influence, woman as a sex has lost her equal place as a human being with men, and is moreover a proponent of the weakness, inferiority and shame of the body. She is also the target of projections from the male of the shame associated with bodily needs especially sexual. Spiritual connection with the divine, on the other hand, demanded a repudiation of earthly concerns and wants. Thus did the Church consolidate its power over the hearts and minds of the people, for our social control.

Nature religions in Medieval Europe in which the Masculine and Feminine, nature and culture, spirit and body were on a par were violently eliminated (compare, for example, the way the fascists in Bolivia immediately following the recent coup declared the death of ‘Pachamama’ and also war on the indigenous population.) The recognition of the animated and soulful nature of plants, animals and the mineral kingdom; deities of place; cunning-lore of the medicinal use of herbs etc. and the autonomy of women – these went up in smoke in the horrific witch-burnings. They became the shadow of the goodly life, the devil’s evil influence, frightening and to be warded off and destroyed.

What’s in a Word?

Mater is the Latin for Mother. There is an etymological link between

Mater=Mother=Matter=Material=Mattress=Matrix

The fundamental basis for all physical manifestation is feminine. It is the mother-lode, the source of life. There is a connection between the uterus and the Earth. It is Being as opposed to Doing. It is knowlege of this that the Church has tried to eliminate, with the consequent imbalance that we are witnessing the terrible and terrifying effects of today, if we can bear to look.

There is, I strongly believe, an envy behind the Church’s inherent misogyny, of the life-bearing aspect of womanhood and the female principle. This misogyny is still playing out today, so much part of the fabric of society that it is barely visible. It is no longer the Church that is exercising the authority, that baton has been taken forward by the capitalist system. Within this exploitative model, there are so many injustices that are evident: that against class, against animals, against ‘other’ (ie non-white) races, against the developing world, against ecology … that the interwoven injustice of sexism is just one part, albeit it affects half the population. Women are still (as we always have been) generally weaker than men and too many are still suffering abuse behind closed doors; we are still socialised to take care of people and defer to others’ opinions and wants; we are still battling with the internalised messages of patriarchy. Of course there is so much else going on besides, of love, cooperation, discovery and achievement. But – it is there.

I am quite bewildered by how little of feminist insights have made it into the mainstream. I think this is an indication of how sidelined women’s viewpoint still is; the normal, default viewpoint is overwhelmingly men’s. Feminism which inspired dedicated women and some supportive men to set up women’s refuges, fight for equal pay, seek to gain recognition for so much unseen and unpaid caring and domestic work and a lot else, has achieved so much; and yet it is as if these changes just happened as a process of natural evolution, as far as the mainstream media is concerned. The crude characterisations of feminism (we do not think that ‘women and men are the same’; nor do we ‘see ourselves as victims’ ; we do not ‘blame men for all our ills’ and we certainly do not hate men) – these myths obliterate the actual work of feminism which is to question the basis of this patriarchal system and to recognise the internalisation of this system in our own psyches, so that we can be freer, more authentic selves – both sexes.

The other sex

I recognise that such changes pose a challenge for men; I do not mean because of their misogyny but because women’s questioning of traditional gender roles forces them to adjust their own. And many have stepped up to the mark with good grace and aplomb: for example, I see so much more hands-on fathering these days than when I was growing up. However, it does take work to sort through what is essential and what can be jettisoned; and it is far easier to see through injustice if one is on the receiving end of it; and it is far easier to stop feeling powerless and discover one’s own power, than to accept that traditional roles endow one with an unfair amount of power. And the whole damn thing demands so much damn talking!

Moreover the times we live, and the over-the-top neoliberal capitalist system is throwing up challenges to masculine roles particularly; since Thatcherism not only mining but many traditional manufacturing industries have suffered blow after blow and the workers have taken such a hammering that it has left a huge hole where once had been a source of pride and a decent income. The TV series made by Grayson Perry in which he focussed on young men and masculinity brought this issue out very clearly; one youth continually in trouble with the police for carrying a knife, who had no role at all but one he assigned himself of defence of his territory/community, though from what he was unable to say; stands in my mind for hundreds of thousands in the same situation; the psychological damage is immense and the numbers of young male suicides is catastrophic and incredibly sad. Women are just not affected so much as we still have our traditional child-bearing and child-rearing roles.

Thirdly, and perhaps most crucially, if traditional representatives of masculinity are felt to be wanting and undesirable, in contrast to representatives of feminity; if the masculine is depicted everywhere in the way fostered by patriarchy as typified by the appearance of strength, competitiveness, dominance and lack of emotional sensitivity; not to mention the psychological imbalances caused by trauma (eg. having been beaten as a child); if these are rejected, then what is to take their place? Of course there exist positive, joyful, emotionally-literate role models out there; but we need more. I rejoice that more men are joining groups to explore this arena. Also I recently watched an interview with a Norwegian Jungian therapist, Einar, who described his own journey towards loving his masculine nature, and who now helps other men to do so. This makes me happy.

The Body Matters

What makes me most unhappy is cancel-culture. I have been on the receiving end of it: I argued with a friend on facebook and found myself unfriended (when I had more to say!). I consider this uncool to a high degree. That there is a right line to take, and if you do not follow it you become a non-being. This is very reminiscent of the Church in Medieval times and later, with divine revelation, black or white, in or out – heresy punishable by death, as it were. How is it ever possible to resolve differences in this atmosphere? Isn’t jaw jaw jaw better than war war war?

So bugger it: I’m going to have my say here. The dispute was about people born into a male body who feel themselves to be and identify themselves to the world as women. There was a video posted by one such person, in which feminists were portrayed as the enemy for resisting the idea that such self-identification should be universally recognised. If the law is changed as this group would like ie. to switch from sex-based rights to gender-based rights, then male-bodied ‘women’ would legally be able to enter spaces restricted to women: changing- rooms, women’s refuges, women’s prisons, platforms restricted to women politically in recognition that they are disadvantaged as a class; sports.

The feminists were saying ‘no – this would open the door to all sort of injustice (I know because I saw in a quite different video the actual meeting that the video referenced.) People of the male sex could decide one week that they were a woman, the next they could revert to being a man. Women would be impacted in all sorts of ways: at a disadvantage in sports, competing with someone of masculine strength (which taking hormones for a few months does nothing to alter); being represented by someone who had not been brought up as a woman, and had no understanding of our conditioning or our issues. It is not that there is an assumption that such people would be abusive; but how can it be apparent who is genuine and who is not; there is therefore the possibility of an abuser pretending to be of female gender to take advantage of the situation – so this safety barrier would be removed. And regardless of intention, it would impact vulnerable women to have someone with male anatomy in a hitherto safe space.

For me, besides all this, is the importance of the body in this claiming of the name of woman. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach, as though it were a threat to my existence, somehow. It feels to me misogynistic to have the body dismissed as unimportant, when it is the basis of being a woman to be in a female body, and the body is a good part of the feminine sphere. It is the Idea/the Word/Spirit trumping Flesh yet again. It is the idea that, having already, centuries ago been assigned as ‘some kind of human being’ to be squeezed over further into being ‘some kind of woman’ (‘People who menstruate’, anyone?). It is the mind-fuck that I should ignore all that my senses are telling me and believe in something that I cannot verify: another person’s inner life. It is the imposition of a demand, the absence of asking. It is the lack of respect. It is the lack of any desire to engage with me, to give consideration to my (the feminists’) concerns. It is the leapfrogging (as some elements of the left perform) over the objection to misogyny to the labelling of such an objection ‘hate-speech’. It is the mind-blowing arrogance of ignoring the existence of half the population whilst claiming to be a part of it.

It’s worse than that; because it epitomises a diminishment of what the feminine is. It is as if taking some hormones and being able to bat your eyelashes were all it takes to become feminine. It is quite impossible to know what it feels like to be a woman unless you have a female body. Without that, all you have is your anima, and stereotypes. Expecting to be able to keep all the dominance attributes too, of the dismissing of others, individualism (not to say, solipsism), and competitiveness. That is having your cake, eating it, and throwing it at the feminists. Grrrr! Transvestites do it for fun – that’s ok, it’s enjoyable, expansive. To insist on it being taken as real, to the extent of sanctions, (cancelling), enlisting the support of the police etc. is the worst sort of invasion. It’s spiritual rape.

I am deeply, deeply insulted.

To those who have had an operation to change your sex to female, I say ‘welcome’. Now you will have to take hormones for the rest of your life, and have given up all chance of having children if you have not had any already. It is a hard row to hoe. I would never have advised you to take that step, but since you have, then welcome to women’s space. Perhaps now you will become more aware of what it is like to be on the receiving-end of society’s misogyny. Perhaps you will gift us with your unique viewpoint, having experienced life on both sides of the sex-divide; and not having been conditioned to defer to others you will be able to help fight for women’s viewpoint to be heard. Perhaps. In my naivety that is what I used to think.

Now I am wondering who is being served, here. Perhaps it is a wake-up call, to get us to dig down to what is really true; to speak up for the body and the wisdom it has to give us, and truly honour it as an authority and encourage others to do the same.

I would like to see some difficult conversations happen, in the absence of cancel-culture and the fear and anger it induces; some reappraisals of what we consider desirable and authentic in our respective gender roles; some imagining of what a mature Divine Masculine would look like; some valuing of non-dominant beautiful masculine energy. I would like to see more Einars, reconciling troubled young men to masculinity and bringing forth some hope for a different dynamic and a different way of relating to Earth, the Feminine and Nature.

I would like to see everyone love themselves for the amazing beautiful beings that they are, I would like to see them embracing ambiguity and dancing with the variations within and without.

With thanks to Angela, for giving me permission to growl.

Sir Bevis and the Carbon Dragon

Sir Bevis and the Carbon Dragon – a play

Setting: Arthurian times

Dramatis Personae:

Sir Bevis – a powerful knight ruling over his fiefdom

Lady Carrie, his girlfriend

Squire

Peasant

Plants/ Trees

Sun

Wind

Oil Baron

Robin Banker

Carbon Dragon

Prelude

Plants in bright colours onstage; slowly a black cloth comes over them and they are flattened beneath it.

VOICEOVER: There was once a land where the plants grew and the people had enough to eat and were happy. Then a blight fell upon the land and smothered all the plants: oil.

Scene 1

VOICEOVER: The ruler of this land was a knight called Sir Bevis.

[Enter Sir Bevis]

SIR BEVIS: Where’s my squire? [shouts] Squire!

[A peasant rushes in and kneels in front of him.] Who are you?

PEASANT: Oh, Sir Bevis, gramercy! The oil has killed all the plants and we

peasants are all starving. Help us!

SIR BEVIS: Now, now. Everything is going to be alright. Be off!

PEASANT: But sire, there is a Carbon Dragon laying waste to the countryside,

carrying people away. We need help!

SIR BEVIS: I tell you, the situation is in hand. You don’t need to worry.

[Exit Peasant. Enter Squire.]

SIR BEVIS: There you are. Where’s my armour? I’m going to practice for the joust.

SQUIRE: Sire, I fear your armour is still in the wash.

SIR BEVIS: Still? But it’s been there for a week now. You may go. [Exit Squire] [Calls] Carrie!

[Enter Lady Carrie, holding a bag of clothes]

LADY CARRIE: What?

SIR BEVIS: Hasn’t my armour been cleaned yet?

LADY CARRIE: It has been so covered in oil I haven’t managed to get it clean. I spend all my time washing your clothes now this oil is getting onto everything, I have to wash everything three times!

SIR BEVIS: What a nuisance! I wanted to go to the tournament. Dash it! Now what am I going to do?

Enter the Carbon Dragon while this is going on; neither notice. Sir Bevis huffs in exasperation and walks offstage. Immediately the Carbon Dragon siezes Lady Carrie and as she struggles hauls her offstage while the Squire looks on aghast.]

Scene 2

[Sir Bevis is onstage alone]

SIR BEVIS: Well if I can’t go to the joust I’ll go hunting instead. Tally ho! What! Carpe Diem – sieze the day. [enter Squire] What?

SQUIRE: Sire, the Lady Carrie has just been carried off by a Dragon!

SIR BEVIS: Ha ha! Did you hear what you just said? Carrie – carried off! Ha! I’ll bet that dragon gets the worst of it!

SQUIRE: [shocked] Are you just going to leave her to her fate?

SIR BEVIS: Well … I suppose it’s not a good look. Very well, Bring my sword and a cloak. [Squire goes] I’m off on a quest: saving Lady Carrie from the Dragon … or vice-versa! [Squire returns with a sword which he helps to buckle onto Sir Bevis, and a cloak which he puts onto Sir Bevis’ shoulders.]

SIR BEVIS: I don’t need you. Omnia vincit Amor! Farewell.

SQUIRE: [To himself, romantically] Love conquers all! [Exit Squire]

[Sir Bevis looks around perplexedly]

SIR BEVIS: Now which way is the Dragon’s lair?

[Enter Sun and Wind, unperceived by Sir Bevis. ]

WIND: We are both so powerful.

SUN: Yes we both are – but I bet that I’m more powerful than you.

WIND: Well I think I am the most powerful.

SUN: Let’s put it to the test.

WIND: Very well, let’s. You see that man over there? Let’s see who can get his cloak off him most quickly. I’ll go first.

[Wind blows at Sir Bevis; sound-effects of a hurricane. Sir Bevis pulls his cloak tightly around himself.]

SIR BEVIS: It’s got jolly cold round here – brrr! Colder than an ice-house!

[Wind gives up. Sun comes and shines on Sir Bevis and he starts to wipe his brow; eventually removes his cloak.]

SIR BEVIS: Now it’s warm again! Phew!

[Sun raises one fist in the air as a sign of triumph; Wind looks downcast for a moment. Then, changing the subject -]

WIND: These humans don’t have a clue! They’ve released all this oil, and they don’t even realise that it’s created the Carbon Dragon. And now the Dragon’s taken that man’s girlfriend.

SUN: Let’s help him get her back. What’s his name?

WIND: Sir Bevis.

  • Durance vile

[Sir Bevis has finally decided on a direction and turns to walk offstage. Sun calls after him:]

SUN: Sir Bevis! [Exit Sir Bevis followed by Sun and Wind.]

Scene 3

[Carbon Dragon and Lady Carrie onstage. LC is cleaning the Dragon’s scales with a brush.]

DRAGON: Scrub harder! I want my scales to be gleaming.

LADY CARRIE: It’s as bad as trying to get Sir Bevis’ clothes clean. This oil is so impossible to remove. Oh, how long am I to remain in this durance vile?

DRAGON: You’ve got to use more elbow-grease. [LC looks at her elbow.] But if that doesn’t work, I’ll have to let you into my secret.

LADY CARRIE: Oh, what is it?

DRAGON: Tree power.

A line of trees sashays onto the stage in formation.]

TREES: If scrubbing doesn’t make it clean

Treepower will help your scales to gleam

Treepower!

[Exeunt trees in formation; LC lifts up her eyes and clasps her hands in gratitude. She resumes scrubbing scales]

LADY CARRIE: Oh, this is much better now!

DRAGON: [smugly] Quod erat demonstrandum.

LADY CARRIE: Yes, the proof of the pudding!

Scene 4

[Sir Bevis, Sun and Wind onstage.]

SUN: Look, Sir Bevis, the Carbon Dragon has passed this way. The plants are looking very unhealthy; and he’s left blobby bits of oil in his wake.

SIR BEVIS: Jolly good. Per aspera ad astra. Lead on!

SUN: [to wind] Through the tough bits to get to the stars, I think he’s saying.

[Enter Oil Baron]

OIL BARON: You can’t come this way, it’s private.

SIR BEVIS: What do you mean, it’s private? This is my land.

OIL BARON: You have leased it to me. I am the Oil Baron. I am digging up the oil, as was agreed in the contract you signed.

SIR BEVIS: Well I’ve bally well changed my mind. Anyway, my peasants don’t likeit, it kills the plants. Clear off! I’m on a quest.

[Enter Robin Banker] And who are you?

ROBIN BANKER: I am Robin Banker. I rob from the rich and give to [coughs so nobody can hear what he says.] If you have changed your mind, you will have to pay me back what I have lent you.

SIR BEVIS: What? I haven’t had any money from you.

RB: That’s because it has gone to Oil Baron here to finance digging up the oil. When the profit comes from that, you will be able to pay me back. Look, here is the contract. [holds up piece of paper]

WIND: [snatches paper and runs away with it.] What contract?

RB: Do you think I care? It’s on this wax tablet too.

SUN: Let me have a look at that. [Picks up wax tablet and holds it for a minute then gives it back to RB] I don’t think there’s anything written on there any more.

SIR BEVIS: Get off my land! Or I’ll make you. [draws his sword. Exit RB. Oil Baron draws his sword and they fight. Sir Bevis defeats the OB who crawls off.]

Scene 6

[Carbon Dragon and Lady Carrie onstage. Enter Sir Bevis rushing onstage, followed by Sun and Wind, who go and speak secretively to Lady Carrie, then they all go to the side of the stage and start making a net.]

SIR BEVIS: Ho, dragon, I have tracked you to your lair. Now yield the lady, or die!

DRAGON: The Lady is mine, vi et armis. Come closer at your peril.

SIR BEVIS: By force of arms, eh? Then face my force of arms! [He draws his sword and makes several attempts to strike Carbon Dragon which it easily avoids. C, Dragon then breathes on Sir Bevis, who starts choking. C. Dragon starts laughing and at this point the other 3 unfurl the net they’ve made and Wind wooshes it over the C. Dragon so it is trapped.]

SUN: Now we have sequestered you.

DRAGON: Sequestered? What does that mean?

SIR BEVIS: It means you are well and truly captured, and won’t be able to go flying around laying waste to countryside, stealing people’s girlfriends etc.

LADY CARRIE: But thanks for the tip about treepower. Now I’ll be able to clean off all the oil so that the plants can grow back.

Scene 7

[Audience sees the reverse of the image at the beginning: the plants are covered in black sheet which is slowly removed and the plants stand up again and are lively. Enter all the other characters]

LADY CARRIE: Sir Bevis has recued his fair damsel. All to grow, all to grow

SIR BEVIS: And defeated the Carbon Dragon as well. All to grow, all to grow.

OMNES: Treepower has cleaned all the oil again All to grow, all to grow

All the plants need is Sun, Wind, and Rain. All to grow, all to grow.

Fin

.