Thou Shall Not Suffer a Witch to Live

*DISCLAIMER - GRAPHIC IMAGES AHEAD*

The Burning Times & Sexual Torture

Did you happen to notice the unholy glee with which these two matter-of-factly discussed the perversely sexualized protocol for burning a witch? Rebecca and I did, and it turned our stomachs.

"You must burn a witch properly, first the calves," the bishop leeringly explained in Spanish to the aristocrat at his side, "the thighs, and the hands, then the torso and forearms"...

...and as added sick delight played across both their faces, he continued, "los senos" (the breasts). 

Marnie's dreaming mind had conjured this diabolic vision, injecting her into the spectacle as an unseen, unheard observer. "This is madness" she shouted as a hooded figure touched his lit torch to the pyre that had been built up around the condemned Antonia, and ran into the crowd. "We must stop this, we have to save her!" Her frantic cries went unnoticed, as the bishop pronounced to the wealthy noble, "She cannot be allowed to die until her face is in flames."

*This scene appears in the video clip below, preceded by some context




Thou shall not suffer a witch to live

perhaps the world's most misogynistic book

(Exodus 22:18)


This single line of scripture also appears in Part One, Question 6 of the infamous Malleus Maleficarium (Latin for “The Hammer of Witches”, or “Hexenhammer” in German).

Written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger and first published in Germany in 1487, it went on to become the de facto manual for the witch-hunters and Inquisitors of the Burning Times in Europe - a brutal period spanning the four centuries preceding the Enlightenment.

Ashes and cobwebs have gathered in the dark corners of our collective memory of the time from the late Middle Ages to the early Modern Era when women [and some men] deemed heretics by the Church were ruthlessly persecuted. In her book Shakti Woman self-described radical feminist healer, independent scholar and wisdom teacher Vicki Noble sweeps them away, revealing the still smoldering embers of remembrance of "the incredible loss of nine million 'witches' (women healers)" (1991, pp. 2-3) still glowing in our psyches.

Noble writes of the Malleus Malleficarum:

This book charged women, in the lewd details that sprang from the repressed minds of the Catholic clergy, with all manner of lust and fornication. But most prominently this book declared in no uncertain terms that any woman who was successful at healing was by definition a witch and would be burned. Children were forced to watch their mothers burn at the stake, and women were routinely raped, violated, and tortured until they confessed to anything the Inquisitors accused them of. (1991, p. 192)

According to Noble, the virulence of the Church's enforced celibacy erupted in the mass acting-out of this most noxious of medieval treatises' prescriptions for identifying and dispatching witches. Women were accused of being “carnal” at the core, the source of every temptation for men, linked with evil, sin, and degradation.

THE WITCHES SABBATH German, 1510. C.E.

Brazen nakedness was a sign of witches' evil nature

Once held as sacred, female body now represented depravity

The "blaming of the flesh" (Sanchez-Grant, 2008, p. 89) - and its harsh punishment - was part of every Inquisitor's playbook as the female body (seen as naturally unstable, deficient, unruly) became a site of oppression.

In the fevered and repressed minds of the witch-hunters, if sex = evil (Stone, 1976), the punishment must fit the crime.

I hesitated to post the image below due to its graphic nature, but after consulting with Rebecca I decided to go ahead and put it up because it's actually one of the tamer representations of the interrogation by sexual torture inflicted upon accused witches. 

It comes from an excellent slideshow on About.com on the persecution of witches and witchcraft where you'll find other such period illustrations that rival today's most hard-core pornography.

*PLEASE NOTE* We believe that no matter how dark and disturbing, we can't deny our history lest we be doomed to repeat it. However, we do feel some images are just too graphic and offensive for display at the PPT. To view a woodcut depicting the true depth of the depravity of the sexual torture of accused witches (and information on the origins of witchcraft, influences on our modern perceptions of witches, etc.) see Garden of the Witch

According to Noble (1991), the late American radical feminist philosopher, academic, and theologian Mary Daly would cite a parallel between the killing and maiming of women in large numbers during that time to the modern practices of gynecology.

In this vein, Arisika Razak writes of "the cultural rape of women by the dominant health care model" - a model that has usurped the woman-centered and woman-dominated profession of midwifery and placed birthing in the hands of "an obstetric speciality that accepts the myth of the dangerous womb and the hostile vagina" (1991, pp. 165 & 171). She continues that under the Newtonian and Cartesian worldview, the body was seen as a functional machine. The male body was he perfect expression of that machine; the female most imperfect and scarcely worth study. Under this logic, which persists today, the medical profession casually removes the sexual parts of women; breasts, uteri, and ovaries - and a hundred years ago, clitorises.

Interestingly, Razak notes that since pain in labor was sen by the medieval Church as God's punishment to wisdom-seeking Eve, midwives in the Middle Ages were burned as witches for the sin of seeking herbs to reduce women's pain.

The About.com gallery covers witch hunt and Inquisition-related topics ranging from the suppression of dissent & outsiders, Church depictions of witches & witchcraft, and how misogynistic, patriarchal attitudes fed the fear of witches to the persecution of women, torture implements used, witch hunts in America, and witches as scapegoats.

If you're curious (and brave) I encourage you to check out these valuable resources to learn about this shameful time during which the Catholic church seized all property of the witches it murdered and became rich as a result of the plunder; centuries from which records tell of whole villages where all the women were wiped out (Noble, 1991).

Implications of this Barbarous History for Today's World

I hate the disagree with ya, Nan Flanagan, but what happened in Salem, MA in the terrifying year of 1692 when nineteen men and women were hanged as witches, one man was pressed to death under heavy stones for refusing to confess, and several more people died in jail can't just be chalked up to, "just a bunch of neurotic Puritanettes who needed a good lay". 

The same formula that led to the conflagrations of the Burning Times (fear + trigger = scapegoat) was at play in Salem and still operates in the modern world - as evidenced most recently by last week's terrorist attacks against multiculturalism in Norway that claimed the lives of more than 70 people.

And we are still living in a culture in which, as Razak writes, "male participation in the acts of sexuality and procreation have become so equated with the acting out of hostility, physical oppression, and fear that rape, incest, and sexual abuse and murder of children, and the battering of women have become health issues of pandemic proportions" (1991, p. 165). This is certainly not to brush all men with the broad strokes of modern-day Inquisitors, but the larger societal patterns Razak speaks of are undeniable. 

The Salem Witch Museum serves as an educational resource for the lessons of that time applied to the present day. My husband and I visited in 2005 and I still have our admission stickers glued to my wallet:

 

There we saw an exhibit asking visitors to consider the phenomenon of witch hunting in the context of contemporary examples of witch hunts: the Japanese-American internment after Pearl Harbor, the McCarthy hearings on Communism and the persecution of the gay community at the start of the AIDS epidemic - these examples of the fear + trigger = scapegoat formula bring the lessons of stereotyping and prejudice full circle.

For some people, Marnie and her circle & their alternative religious practices/lifestyle might just fit the scapegoat bill. Who are the other scapegoats, what other witch hunts are under way today?

Thoughts?

~ Rachel

Transcription credits to Fangs, Wands & Fairy Dust

References

Noble, V. (1991). Shakti woman: Feeling our fire, healing our world. The new female shamanism. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.

Razak, A. (1991). Toward a Womanist Analysis of Birth. In Orenstein, G.F. (Eds.), Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism. (pp. 165-172). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

I am your daddy and I'm gonna teach you how to hunt, shoot, trap and fish and…and how to take clothes out of the dryer

So a bathrobed Terry Bellefleur promised the baby boy he cradled in his arms in I'm Alive and On Fire. Contrast his words with Melinda Mickens’ to her prodigal son Tommy when they were reunited after a time apart: “Don’t you cry too, you’ve gotta be the man”.

Do you see a difference in terms of the image of manhood and masculinity; what it means to grow up and be male in our culture conveyed by these scenes? I do. 

On the one hand, we've got a sensitive father figure imagining aloud his future as a male role model for his wife's son Mikey who, although not his child biologically, he is raising as his own. They'll do all kinds of typical red-blooded American outdoorsy guy stuff together, and yeah, he'll show his boy how to do things that until recently were reserved for the domestic womanly sphere, too.

And on the other, we've got a [conniving and manipulative in her own right] mother trapped in an abusive patriarchal marriage encouraging her son to adhere to more retro-rigid models of masculinity and repress his emotions. 

We need different – more like new - images of maleness and masculinity to replace the ones that reassert the genderized ethos of domination, as Tommy’s mom does when she entreats him to bottle up his feelings, dry up his tears.

In the words of womanist midwife (and professor of women’s studies at my alma mater, the California Institute of Integral Studies) Arisika Razak:

The last time I checked, men had tear ducts. They had arms for holding babies.They cared about their children. And they cried at births. (1991, p. 172)

Maybe she was checking Season 4 of True Blood!

tear ducts - check!

arms for holding babies - check!

caring about children - check!

The current season of True Blood - and the episode I'm Alive and On Fire specifically - have delivered several such images that run counter to our culture's image of male heroes as warriors, conquerors of women and nature; a picture of masculinity a growing number of men are increasingly uncomfortable with.

Take Eric, for instance.

No, no no - not that Eric....

...the new Eric.

Nope, wrong again! Not the jogging suited Eric of Season 2 who showed up freshly shorn at the Forever 21-esque boutique where Bill was shopping for Jessica, declaring, "it's the new me".

I'm talking about the new-new Eric. Amnesia Eric. He's contemplative. Playful. Vulnerable, even. And seemingly contrite for the sins of his [distant & more recent] past. Sookie sees the change, noticing out loud to Eric, "It's just that you weren't always like this; gentle, sweet, but it suits you.” (S4E5 Me and the Devil)

Indeed, this [perhaps temporary] version of the Viking, Eric 2.0 seems light years away from the swaggering, coldly calculating, at-times viciously cruel (or as Sookie said in last week's episode, the "smug sarcastic ass") side of the vampire sheriff we have come to know best.

YOU LIKE?

*Sorry, couldn't resist adding that in - truebies will get the reference!.

Sookie certainly seems to. Yet despite her obvious warming to him, Eric doubts himself. Something deep within him knows that he has drifted from society's expectations of an [alpha] male and he fears Sookie will reject him for it.

In the I'm Alive and on Fire scene below, Sookie climbs down into her basement cubby to rouse the uncharacteristically [for the Eric she thinks she knows] morose vampire moping there. She comments that the "real" Eric would not be so down. He begs to differ, replying in protest, "I AM real".  

This exchange is particularly relevant to the point I'm trying to make about True Blood offering up new, more expansive images of masculinity:

Eric: You think I'm weak.
Sookie: No.
Eric: You want the Eric that doesn't feel.
Sookie: It's not that.

Feminist scholar and CIIS professor Carol Christ (1997, p. 161) writes:

Rooted in the ethos of the warrior, modern societies have been described as "dominator cultures" by cultural historian (also on the CIIS faculty) Riane Eisler. The ethos of dominator cultures states that power stems from control. Dominators are taught to control women, nature, children, animals, other men, their own bodies, and their feelings and sensations. The ethos of domination denies or disparages human embodiment, relationship, and interdependence. In the ethos of dominator cultures, finitude, vulnerability, and limitation are called weaknesses.  

We've seen Eric's emotional side before; with Godric, Pam, even with Sookie. But this new openness to feeling, this often being lost in emotive reverie stuff would likely not have jived too well with his human life as a Nordic warrior - or with his present duties as a figure of considerable authority amidst the shifting sands of the cutthroat vampire hierarchy.

It must feel strange and unsettling to Eric; like weakness. On the contrary, in the new Eric I see an image of masculinity that's a step towards changing the patterns of domination that govern our lives and society.

"In a society that wishes us to see men as devoid of feelings,
let us hold an image of men as nurturers (Razak, 1991, p. 172)

And then, we've got Terry who - as we wrote on our Forum's Scope page - describes himself as "a nurturer". This seems an odd juxtaposition with his military background, since the military identity tends to be traditionally hypermasculine in the U.S.  

In Christ's thinking, military training figures prominently in the indoctrination into dominator cultures; into the way such social systems define masculinity and power. "Manhood" is equated with the denial of Eros (defined as a transformative force of intelligent, embodied love which connects us to each other and the web of life) and its replacement with violence. Feminist political scientist Judith Hicks Stieham's quote underscores her point:

The appeal to manhood is very much part of military training...the familiar "This is my rifle, this is my gun [pointing to the penis], one is for killing, one is for fun." (1997, p.162)

The ethos of this institution that breaks down young men's defenses (that which connects them with others) in order to turn "boys" into "men" who readily submit to authority and are prepared to kill has permeated the whole of our culture. In the rituals of daily life we reenact its basic training.

Christ ponders, what would happen if all the energy and resources (money and human capital) spent on war and the cost of repairing its damages were instead devoted to the nurturing of life?

Razak (1991) proposes that new images can be created by men who participate in childbirth and affirm themselves as nurturers of life. Could Terry as a wounded warrior/ wounded healer - someone who [usually, except for that whole Arlene pregnancy thing] responds well to the emotions needs of others, doesn't shy away from holding another wounded man in his embrace, and finds fulfillment in nurturing family life - be seen as positing a new model of maleness? And a particularly potent image of masculinity for our times, at that, given that scores of battle-worn soldiers will soon be returning to our shores from the Iraq and Afghanistan fronts? 

And finally, there's everyone's favorite shape-shifting bar owner, Sam Merlotte. Sure, he's interested in pursuing a romantic relationship with Luna, so getting on her daughter's good side just makes good sense. But did you notice that initially, Luna seemed hesitant to even let Sam know she had a daughter; much less let him meet or get close to her?

Luna's shady behavior when he showed up at her door to return her seducing favor almost led me to believe that she was harboring not a pint-sized dynamo of a kid, but another man inside. Her leeriness to allow a strange man into her daughter's life is perfectly understandable; she's instinctively protecting her child, and part of her probably thought Sam would bolt at the sight of such "baggage".

But he proved her wrong! Sam was immediately at ease with Luna's daughter, crouching down to ask her, "which Barbie doll do I get, I hope she has a bunch of pretty dresses." If a rugged, scruffy-sexy guy sitting on the floor playing with Barbies isn't masculinity stereotype busting, I don't know what is!

Children are usually pretty adept judges of character; from the image to the right, it appears as though Luna's daughter has given Sam her stamp of approval. She can probably sense his genuine vibe.

Men in our culture are not raised to see themselves as relational; they have long been socialized to accept the model of the linear hero’s journey in which others he meets along the path are seen as either assets or barriers to his achieving his purpose.

As Christ writes, many thinkers have portrayed “man” as an isolated rational and moral individual – an island, if you will – and have posited an intrinsic opposition between the self and others who are perceived as impinging upon the freedom of the self. This ideal “independent self” of traditional philosophies and theologies can be seen as a fiction.

Theologian Martin Buber says, there is no “I” without a “Thou”, no self that is not created in relationship with others.

The basic word I-You can only be spoken with one’s whole being. The concentration and fusion into a whole being can never be accomplished by me, can never be accomplished without me. I require a You to become, becoming I, I say You. All actual life is encounter. (Christ, 1997, p. 137)

Buber states further that it is wrong to say that first we “are” and then we “enter into” relationships. "Rather, the longing for relation is primary, the cupped hand into which the being that confronts us nestles…In the beginning is the relation – as the category of being, as readiness, as a form that reaches out to be filled" (Christ, 1997, p. 137).

Too often, the models for being extended to men are more accurately represented by a closed fist than by an open hand reaching out to clasp with another. 

The men of True Blood profiled here - at least in their current incarnations - seem to have hands open and outstretched; they seem ready for relationship, for conceiving of themselves as relational. 

We absolutely need new images, integral models of maleness and masculinity, but, as Razak (1991, p. 165) writes, we must also answer "the critical need our society has to make a new model for human interaction". My eyes are glued to True Blood for what I hope will be a continuing stream of alternative images that can add to the discourse in this regard.

~ Rachel    

References

Christ, C.(1997) Rebirth of the goddess.  New York: Routledge.

Razak, A. (1991). Toward a Womanist analysis of birth. In Diamond, I. & Orenstein, G.F. (Eds.), Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism. (pp. 165-172). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books. 

And is he dark enough? Enough to see your light? IMAGES OF HOLISM IN TRUE BLOOD

And is he dark enough? Enough to see your light?

~ Accidental Babies by Damien Rice

Rebecca will be so proud of me, quoting her beloved Damien. But really, I couldn't resist. I've been plotting and scheming for a way to best to use these lyrics for quite a while in relation to Sookie and Bill, and since it's last call for this idea around holism I brewed up during Season 3, I figure it's now or never!

Here's my thought process. Much ado has been made about how they are just far too different for their love to ever work; she's mortal, he's vampire; she's of this era, he's of one long bygone. And perhaps, most importantly...

SHE IS

  OF THE

                                                   LIGHT

AND HE IS

  OF THE

                         DARK

Remember when Sookie first met Claudine? How during an out of body experience Sookie's soul, or consciousness arose from the hospital bed where her body lay hooked up to life support and followed a trail of flower petals out the door and into an alternate, liminal plane where fairies romped amidst the tombstones of Bon Temps Cemetery?

Recall how, as a shadow swiftly enveloped the heretofore sunny scene, Claudine fearfully declared, "The dark approaches"? Next came her hasty retreat - remember how she paused to warn Sookie, "He (Bill) will steal your light" and, in response to her protestations that Bill is not like that, to admonish Sookie, "Don’t let him take it from you, promise me!” before slipping below the surface of her light pool escape hatch?

Can you feel Descartes' influence?

I know, I know, it's a silly reference to glamouring (you know how Bill generally says, "can you feel my influence?" when he's working his powers of persuasion) and perhaps an even sillier insinuation that a 17th century French philosopher would have anything at all to do with True Blood.



 René Descartes (1596-1650)

Or, maybe this Descartes thing isn't so silly after all; let's unpack it a little, shall we?

We are living in a time of profound disconnection and extraordinary dissonance; a time in which the vestiges of what Professor Emeritas of Rutgers University Bruce Wilshire points out as a Baroque era (particularly Cartesian) conception of reality and our place in it still holds sway. This framework highlights “self as scientific knower, self as self-sufficient individual and as ego, self as master manipulator of objects” (p. 37). It is connected to the famous mechanistic theory of nature that requires us to perform an immense abstraction from our own bodies and the world. 

Cartesian science believed that in any complex system the behavior of the whole could be analyzed in terms of the properties of the parts. Remnants of Caresian dualism remain in contemporary consciousness: self cut off from other, mind from body or matter, human from animal, present from past and future (Wilshire, 1990). Some examples of other heirarchical dualisms (the first-stated member of the pair is considered as superior, the second-stated as inferior Other) that trickle down to us today include Hegel and Rousseau's public/private, male female, eason/nature; Plato's reason/body, reason/emotion, and universal/particular.

These dualisms are seen as totalizing, meaning that they are thought to exhaust the alternatives within the parameters in question (Wilshire, 1990). What does this mean? According to theoretical physicist Basarab Nicolescu (p. 26, 2002), classical logic is founded on three axioms:

1. The axiom of identity: A is A
2. The axiom of noncontradiction: A is not non-A
3. The axiom of the excluded middle: There exists no third term (3rd term = "T"); T is at the same time A and non-A

In other words, something is what it is - absolutely. Classical logic renders it impossible to consider day as night, black as white, life as death...

...feminine as masculine (Nelsan Ellis told the crowd at Dragon * Con 2010 that Alan Ball's vision for Lafayette to embody both the feminine and the masculine originally threw him for a loop; even Eric's metrosexual vibe may appear suspect to some)  

    or dark as light...

No, no, no...that would be repugnant to the prescribed order! That's why Bill entering the land of fairie is seen by Claudine as such an aberation...dark simply cannot be light!

According to dualistic thinking the two obviously must cancel one another out - they cannot occupy the same space.

We've got to let old Descartes off the hook at least a little bit for this schismatic, fractious worldview; even Wilshire (1990) prudently avoids holding him wholly culpable for the pervasiviness of dualistic  influences which have given rise to the divisive and isolating trends that have dominated much of modernity: xenophobia, racism, sexism, etc. He implies that the genesis of the patriarchal period around 2500 B.C.E. set the movement towards rigid, rationalistic thought in motion and that definition as negation (if it's this it can't be that) has its roots in Aristotelian philosophy. 

Wilshire (1990) cites the great circles and mounds of Neolithic Europe as evidence of the integral thought patterns that were alive in our dim past, long before the shift to the dualistic modes that dominate today.

Stone Age Orkney Island neolithic womb-tomb earthen structure

These earthen structures were temple observatories constructed around 3000 B.C.E. They anticipate field and relativity theory in the sense that space and time were seen as interdependent. Human reality was experienced as being interdependent with space-time; the human life cycle nested within the Cosmic. Within the vast, pregnant-seeming bellies of the mounds people reawakened to their own possibilities as they observed the regenerative course of Nature through the deaths and rebirths of the seasons and the movements of astrological bodies (Wilshire, 1990). "Human birth and death were just two ritual acts in the great sprial of life" (Ward, p. 88, 2006).

Newgrange spirals

Hypogeum spirals

   

Another vision of our realty has been set forth in the last century through systems thinking; a “new” way of thinking in terms of connectedness, relationships, and context that recalls the worldviews of these indigenous and ancient goddess oriented civilizations. Quantum physics in which subatomic particles are not seen as “things” but as interconnections among things; Gestalt psychology which is characterized by its “hunger for wholeness” that sees the existence of irreducible wholes as a key component of perception (Capra, 1997), and deep ecology which seeks to expand the notion of self beyond the confines of the ego and personal history, and to extend concepts of self-interest to include the welfare of all beings (Macy, 1991) are part of the systems thinking zeitgeist. 

According to activist, systems scholar and progenitor of The Work that Reconnects Joanna Macy (1991), a dramatic shift is occurring in our time from notions of linear, unidirectional causality to perceptions of dynamic interdependence where phenomena affect each other in a reciprocal or mutual fashion. This new-old picture, or likeness of reality that is emerging in our times - which was the prevailing metaphor for the Cosmos and human’s place in it in Neolithic civilization - is the ideal that Wilshire (1990) says might be embodied in contemporary life, if we are inventive and resolute enough.  

Returning now to True Blood, might the scene below in which Sookie and Bill join forces to help Tara throw off Maryann's possession be an expression of the integral - the light and dark, female and male unified - a vision that can help synthesize the fragmentary aspects of the self and culture into a meaningful whole?

On their own, neither Sookie nor Bill were able to break Maryann's hold on Tara. Only together were they able to help her return to reality.

Scholar and midwife Arisika Razak (1990) proposes that birth is our major metaphor for life and coming into being, a universal and central aspect of human experience that can serve as the nucleus around which we can build a paradigm of positive interaction and functioning - and a model for physical, emotional, an dspiritual transcendence.


Transdisciplinary theorists' calls for a non-dual vision of reality are pregnant with allusions to birthing. Nicolescu offers, "In my view, the 'death of man' is after all a necessary stage in history, one that anticipates our second birth (p. 74, 2002). He links the evolution of humanity with the evolution of he universe, and suggests that a new type of human (remember the idea of the eco-individual in my last post?) homo sui transcendentalis is in the process of being born. Of this new type of human, Nicolescu says, "He is not some new man but man reborn (p. 74, 2002). Also on p. 74, Nicolescu states that the process of his (new man's) birth involves transgression, originally meaning "to pass to the other side, to cross" - "crossing from one level of Reality to another, or from one level of perception to another". Morin and Kern (p. 18, 1992) hypothesize, "It, starting from a paradigm of complexity, a new method can be born, can take flesh, can advance, make progress, then it would be able perhaps to start a revolution everywhere.


Let's apply this birthing imagery to the scene above.     

When I rewatched it recently I noticed how, as Sookie stared into Tara's "dark, empty" saucer eyes trying to make a connection, she said to a desperate Lafayette, "it's not her, she's gone". Unable to penetrate Maryann's control over Tara, Sookie turned to Bill for help. He counseled, "you have to go further into her mind than you ever have before". Sookie tried again, and was only able to grasp quick flashes of Tara's experiences with Maryann. Bill decided glamouring Tara may help, suggesting, "if we leave her like this who knows what harm may come to her...or to us".


Crouching in front of Tara as Sookie cradled her from behind, Bill's attempts at glamouring began as gentle cajoling but became a labored affort. At first, it seemed to me like Bill was taking the role of a priest performing an exocrism but the more I thought about it, I see this scene as a birthing. Together, Sookie and Bill - Sookie in the position of mother, Bill as midwife, bringing Tara across the "something I can't cross - an abyss" (Sookie to Bill)  - the chasm neither of them could span alone.

Duality working in concert. The spell is broken. Tara is whole again.

What do you think?

Have you noticed any other images of holism in True Blood  - anything that for you communicates the truth of the Tejo-Bindu Upanishad: To direct the mind towards the basic unity of all things and to divert it from the seizing of differences; therein lies bliss? 

Please use the comments section below to share your thoughts!

~ Rachel

References

Capra, F. (1996). The web of life: A new scientific understanding of living systems. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books.

Macy, J. (1991). Mutual causality in Buddhism and general systems theory: The dharma of natural systems. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Morin, E., & Kern, A. B. (1999). Homeland earth: A manifesto for the new millennium.  Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Nicolescu, B. (2002). Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the mastery of nature. London, UK: Routledge.

Razak, A. (1990). “Toward a Womanist Analysis of Birth”. (pp. 165-172). In Reweaving the world: The emergence of ecofeminism”. Diamond, I. & Orenstein, G.F. (Eds.) San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books.

Ward, T. (2006). Savage breast: One man’s search for the goddess. New York, NY: O Books

Wilshire, B. (1990). The moral collapse of the university: Professionalism, purity, and alienation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.       

Tru Blood Tru World: An (Unlikely) Ecofeminist Philosopher

It's LAST CALL for this idea I distilled at the end of Season 3 but have yet to serve up and the FIRST TASTE of a new element we'll be featuring at the PPT come Season 4; Tru Blood, Tru World: AN (UNLIKELY) ECOFEMINIST PHILOSOPHER.

Driving home from work this past Tuesday, a piece on American Public Media's radio program Marketplace caught my ear. It was called, "Canada fights dirty".

Hmm... intriguing.

After Tess Vigeland's introduction, the report started with Marketplace Sustainability Desk's Scott Tong polling Americans on the street about the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of our neighbor to the north.
 
Predictably, many respondents mentioned the folksy accent (i.e. what are you talking aboot, ay?). Several also upheld common stereotypes like, "it's America-light", "Canadians have a clean and orderly society" and - perhaps the most pervasive - "Canadians are polite, friendly, and nice".

I guess on some level I must buy into that last one, because that's why the piece grabbed my attention. Those nice Canadians are playing political hardball? Really?

Apparently so; according to Marketplace, Tuesday was the last day for the public to comment on a new pipeline to carry Canadian oil to the U.S. We already buy Canadian crude (we actually import more oil from Canada than from any other foreign nation) but whether to pipe in a lot more has become a bitter fight in Washington with deep economic, political and environmental implications.

That's because the product going through the pipe is controversial; it's known as oil sands - literally, it's oil embedded in sand - and it's one of the dirtiest fossil fuels in the world to produce since it requires steam generators and other kinds of heat to get the oil out. This means lots of carbon pollution, and high-carbon fuels are being banned globally.

"Environmentalists around the world are fighting Canada's attempts to export oil from Alberta's oil sands".

So Canada is pushing back.

Canadian diplomats are meeting with like-minded allies, like BP and Shell. Their argument: Canadian oil reduces U.S. dependence on oil exported from unstable and unfriendly Middle Eastern and North African nations. Canada doesn't exploit, oppress and kill anyone to get their oil to market. And, according to Calgary oil analyst Dave Yager, they're "not going to use the profits from tar's oil sands production to build a nuclear bomb and annihilate Israel".

Naturally, what - or who - did I think of while listening to this piece weighing the pros and cons of keeping Canada's dirty oil flowing?

Why, Russell Edgington, of course!

I know, I know, on the surface, at least, it seems odd that a piece broadcast on NPR about, amongst other things, environmental concerns would make me think of the King of Mississippi instead of, lets say...our resident True Blood king of recycling, Bill Compton...

paper products go here, Tru Blood and other glass products go here...bravo, Mr. Compton!

But seriously, let's think about this for just a minute. 

Hearken back, if you will, to the Season 3 scene in which Russell and Eric are riding in the back of a limousine together, on the way to press Queen Sophie Ann into marriage and to challenge the Magister.

Recall how the increasingly agitated king remarked to the scheming Viking: "Throughout history I have aligned myself with or destroyed those humans in power, hoping to make a dent in mankind's race to oblivion. What other creature actively destroys his own habitat?"

Might our duplicitous, power-hungry King Russell also be an (unlikely) ecofeminist philosopher?

"In the case of Russell, he's a power-hungry ancient druid who has a serious concern of the stewardship of the earth". So says a man who looks an awful lot like the King of Mississippi -  Mr. Denis O'Hare himself - in an interview with Brandon Voss of The Advocate. 

And who can forget the infamous spine-ripping scene in which Russell rants about humanity's egotistical overconsumption and violent, polluting ways...

    

Russell - according to Mr. O'Hare, who has reportedly worked out a detailed backstory for his scene-stealing True Blood character - is not of this time. His worldview was shaped during a time when humankind had a far different schema for life on earth, organized around a dramatically different master metaphor. The king's druid brethren were possessed of the ancient wisdom - which, in her essay "The Evolution of an Ecofeminist" Julia Scofield Russell suggests has been lost and refound in modern works like James Locklock's Gaia: A New View of Life on Earth (New York: Oxford University Press: 1979) - that the earth is a living being.

And that "the law of the circle" (remember, during his confrontation with the Magister, Russell insists that there is only one true law - the law of nature?) - "the fact that the Earth's natural life-support systems are circular. There is no 'out'. Everything is in the system, and everything we put into the system comes back to us, for good or ill" (Scofield Russell, 1990, p. 229) rules.

Everything is in the system. Including we humans. There is no "out". We can't escape the destruction we wreck. You may disagree with his methods (as I certainly do) but can you really blame Russell for trying to stop, as he says,  our "race to oblivion"?    

Imagine how difficult negotiating modernity must be for an ancient vampire such as Russell, whose multimillenia-long undead lifetime has brought him into such clash and conflict with a nearly unrecognizable paradigm; an entire civilization that heaps abuses upon the earth's body:

...toxic wastes, ozone depletion, species extinction, desertification, smog, acid rain, famine, forest death, poverty, cancer, genocide, dead rivers and lakes, nuclear contamination. (Scofield Russell, 1990 p. 225)

Sounds not unlike Russell's shocking televised speech above, huh?

We 21st century denizens may soon be facing what it's like to live through seismic paradigm shift. In fact, it very well may already be underway; many signs point to this truth.

Here's a relevant excerpt from my dissertation:
  

Several transdisciplinary theorists have issued a clarion call for a paradigm shift as an integral and overarching component of systemic social change (Morin & Kern, 1999; Nicolescu, 2002; Plumwood, 1993; Wilshire, 1990).


This a metamorphosis which is nothing short of the birthing of a new vision to replace the old frameworks dominated by dichotomous thinking that form the bedrock of modern society and are fundamental to its many ills.

Nicolescu (2002) discusses the immediacy of action required in terms of bringing about a visionary, transpersonal consciousness nourished by knowledge growth to challenge the threat of our material, biological, and spiritual destruction posed by blind adherence to the logic of utilitarianism that characterizes the dominant paradigm.

Goerner’s (2001) advocacy of the concept of a “great turning” posits that this revolution will result from radical changes in the way we think about our world and our relationship to it. She likens it to a developmental passage, a self-generated metamorphosis similar to that of the butterfly.

As the caterpillar is compelled by forces from within to slough away its DNA to allow for the butterfly with a completely different genetic code than its larval form to emerge, so too does our civilization transform as a result of pressure, pushing from the inside-out.

This process is driven by the interconnected crises of modernity. Goerner (2001) asserts that there are hints all around us that modernity has reached the end of its useful life; its virtuous beginning ushered in the noble notions of liberty, equality, fraternity, and reason but its twilight is delivering silent disaster on an epic scale. The transition from modern to integral age will entail profound global change. It will eventually alter every facet of civilization, and it is happening now, not in one or two countries, but in the entire developed world and in many developing nations.

The “great turning” thesis emphasizes the critical role of changing the assumptions that guide our thinking about the world and our place in it. She suggests that shifting the root metaphor we use to explain how the world works from mechanistic to web and ecosystem metaphors will render modernity as radically different from the coming integral age as our current civilization is from medieval times.  Such a reformulation will depend largely upon the choices we make, and whether we as a society can loosen the assumptions and worldviews to which we cleave to allow new ones to emerge like a butterfly from its chrysalis. (Goerner, 2001).

WOW. Are we ready for such a major, life-altering shift?

In my estimation (and Russell's), something's gotta give.

Remember during that same limousine ride I was talking about above how Russell lamented to Eric, "Do you remember how the air used to smell? How the humans used to smell? How the humans used to taste?" Perhaps Russell's reminiscences about the pre-Industrial world reveals something deeper than his recognition that we are polluted and his simple, animal longing for human blood that tasted better, purer.

Maybe, just maybe, Russell can taste what we are lacking in our very blood - "the loss of soul in modern philosophy" (Cajete, 2000). Anthropologist Michael Harner writes about this kind of spiritual vacancy in his treatment of “soul loss”; in contemporary North American Hispanic communities this phenomenon is known as susto and is considered a common condition in the modern world (Broderick, 2001). 

As grief expert Elizabeth Kubler-Ross noted, “There is no spirituality left. I mean the inner, deep knowing where we come from”(Wilshire, 1990, p. 92). Accordingly, Orthodox theologian David Hart offers a sobering analysis of “metaphysical boredom” and what it means for modern Europe:

A culture - a civilization - is only as good as the religious ideas that animate it; the magnitude of a people's cultural achievement is determined by the height of its spiritual aspirations. One need only turn one’s gaze to the frozen mires and fetid marshes of modern Europe, where once the greatest of human civilizations resided, to grasp how devastating and omnivorous a power metaphysical boredom is. The eye of faith presumes to see something miraculous within the ordinariness of the moment, mysterious hints of an intelligible order calling out for translation into artifacts, but boredom’s disenchantment renders the imagination inert and desire torpid. (Catanzarite, 2007, p. 103).

Canda and Furman (1999) define spirituality as "the universal and fundamental aspect of what it is to be human - to search for a sense of meaning, purpose, and moral frameworks for relating with self, others, and the ultimate reality" (p. 36).

Could it be that the spiritual malaise of contemporary Western society; indeed, our stagnant collective soul, (which Russell perhaps tastes in our blood) might be a function of our estrangement from Earth and from the web of life?

Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence author Gregory Cajete (2000) writes that Henryk Skolimoswski was one of the first to articulate an eco-philosophy for the transformation of thought needed to bring a new ecological consciousness. In his 1981 study, "Eco-philosophy: Designing New Tactics for Living" he states that current political systems threaten to rob us of our highest values and because the current basis for action is no longer deeply rooted in life-serving purposes (echoed by Scofield Russell: "Ecofeminists antifeminine, it is antihuman, antilife", 1990, p. 225) or reverence for nature, we need a new philosophy to inform and guide us.

According to Cajete, "The era of the 'eco-individual' is dawning" (1990, p. 59.).

What will this era - and the eponymous "eco-individual" look like? How will we tell when it has dawned, and what can we do to move it forward?

Above, I referenced Lovelock's Gaia theory. Back in Season 1, Amy Burley queried a very overeager-to-do-V Jason, "You know what Gaia is, right? Theory of Gaia?". Amy may have understood Gaia theory intellectually, but despite her hippie persona and her  I'm-an-organic-vegan-and-my-carbon-footprint-is-minuscule pseudo cred...

...believe me, she didn't really get it. Amy Burley was a false prophetess - hollow; a complete sham.  

Her treatment, and eventual staking of vampire Eddie Gauthier shows how little she comprehended the meaning of the Lakota phrase "Mitakuye oyasin", translated as "we are all related" (Cajete, 2000, p. 86).

Eco-philosophy is utterly dependant upon this tenet.

If eco-consciousness is indeed a return to ancient wisdom, perhaps we can glimpse the coming paradigm and eco-individual in the Maya words:

The roots of all living things are tied together. When a mighty tree is felled, a star falls from the sky. Before you cut down a mahogany, you should ask permission of the keeper of the forest, and you should ask permission of the keeper of the star. (Cajete, 2000, p. 108)

Euro-western society has much to learn from living indigenous traditions, whose ways and wisdom may seem comfortingly familiar to the pre-Christian Celtic Russell Edgington. For example, native science offers a system for naturalistic observation and knowing which honors and integrates sense, perception, and the metaphoric mind to apprehend reality. Unlike conventional science which leaves out so much, this Indigenous scientific method opens to "the sacredness, the livingness, the soul of the world" (Little Bear, 2000) in a way that can bring us to new and needed vistas.

Ecofeminist Julia Scofield Russell reminds us that while we are all a part of the body politic ("We are its lifeblood, its nerves, its brain") and as such we must continue to engage in the activities of the nation state in order to make a difference, we can also exercise what she calls the "politics of lifestyle", "a distinctly feminine politics in that it is both inner and universal, personal and all-inclusive" (1990, pp. 226-227).

It DOES matter what we choose to do in our personal, everyday lives and at our home and hearth; it matters deeply.

As Scofield Russell writes, the movies we go to see, the food we eat, our relationships, what we throw away and where, our livelihoods - everything - emanates out into the larger system, ultimately impacting the whole living planet.  

Although humanity may be behaving as a cancer on the earth, the answer is not - as Russell thinks - to subjugate and control us so as to force our compliance with his will, despite his (at least ecologically) good intentions.  

If we want to make a difference for the better, we can take our role as consumers seriously and behave as such. We must understand that when we purchase a produce we are supporting the entire system that made it. We can support companies and practices that are sustainable and withdraw our dollars from those that are ecologically and socially damaging. 

There are so many ways we can initiate life-affirming changes in our everyday lives; with our diet and food buying practices, with our relationships, tax resistance, housing, gardening, conservation - as Scofield Russell (1990) writes, it's up to us.  

And yes, Bill Compton, we can recycle.

What do you think? How are you making change; making a difference? We'd love to know! Please share in the comments section below.

Sláinte (an Irish toast to your health) for now...

~ Rachel

References 

Broderick, R. (2001). Leather tramp journal: A 12-mile mountain retreat. Leavenworth, KS: Forest of Peace.

Cajete, G. (2000). Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers.

Canda, E. R., & Furman, L. D. (1999). Spiritual diversity in social work practice: The heart of helping. New York, NY: Free Press.

Catanzarite, S. (2007). Achtung Baby: Meditations on love in the shadow of the fall. New York, NY: Continuum.

Goerner, S. J. (2001). After the clockwork universe: The emerging science and culture of integral society. Charlotte, NC: Baker & Taylor, Inc.

Little Bear, L. (2000). Forward. In Cajete, G. Native science: Natural laws of interdependence. (pp. ix-xii) Santa Fe, NM: Clear Light Publishers.

Morin, E., & Kern, A. B. (1999). Homeland earth: A manifesto for the new millennium.  Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press.

Nicolescu, B. (2002). Manifesto of transdisciplinarity. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.

Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the mastery of nature. London, UK: Routledge.

Scofield Russell, J. (1990). The evolution of an ecofeminist. In Diamond, I. & Orenstein, G.F. (Eds.) Reweaving the world : the emergence of ecofeminism. (pp. 223-230). San Francisco, CA: Sierra Club Books.

Wilshire, B. (1990). The moral collapse of the university: Professionalism, purity, and alienation. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.