Nature, Art and Beauty: European Inspiration

Dear Friends,

On a recent visit to Europe which took me to Iceland, Sweden and the Czech Republic, with very enjoyable stops in Reykjavík, Stockholm, Prague and Brno, I met with members of Ásatrú and other Pagan movements as well. I found that many of the people I spoke with shared my concerns about certain tendencies in the American form of Norse Paganism such that I have often elaborated on this blog. Like me, they are not at all enthusiastic about a military-oriented Paganism, have no intense attachments to guns or other instruments of death, and absolutely understand the need to completely distance any viable modern Paganism that wants to be taken seriously from anything remotely racist or Nazi or neo-Nazi. I am sad to say this, but it is only when I break bread with my European Pagan brothers and sisters that I actually feel hope for Norse Paganism as a peaceful, inspirational spiritual path that is completely free of violence and hatefulness.



Since I have found it very hard to discuss, let alone reach agreement, with American Norse Pagans about the concerns and values that my European friends seem to quite readily understand, I have concluded that my natural spiritual home is probably not in the USA, but in Europe. I see America as a society heavily burdened, if not fatally flawed with a psychologically and spiritually destructive heritage of racism and violence, and this spills over into many products of our culture. Indeed, I do at times wonder about simply relocating to Europe, where in so many ways I feel more at home, but there are other things that tie me to America and will continue to do so for a good many years to come, such as a desire to do my little part to make the country a slightly better or at least less awful and mean-spirited place through my involvement in education. Also, there are practical considerations that would not make such a relocation an easy task to execute. As things stand, I expect to remain in America as an out-of-place, internationalized American for some years to come, and to continue to develop my spirituality in consultation with my European Pagan friends.

In this essay I will focus on explaining the inspiration I received on this trip. The inspiration was in fact of two sorts, one from nature, and one from art. In Iceland, with my old friend Baldur (an actual human being who is a father, husband and teacher, not the god who dies such a tragic, youthful death in Norse mythology!), it was the power of nature that most spoke to me.



I wanted to get out of the city to see mountains and rivers, and we drove north from Reykjavík one cold but clear Sunday.



As had first happened to me during my first sojourn in Iceland in 1996, I was absolutely bowled over by the raw power of nature as it is manifested in the Icelandic landscape.





Everywhere you turn there are mountains in the distance, rivers and streams cutting through the rough countryside, waterfalls rumbling, hot springs erupting,birds wheeling and screeching in the sky.





The wind is strong, the blue in the sky seems more vivid than in other places, and rocky hills and stone outcroppings are easy to understand as the dwellings of sacred beings.



I felt revived and renewed, and remembered that it was in Iceland that I first experienced Ásatrú in a beautiful outdoor ritual in which we gathered around a roaring fire in a stone circle framed by a towering mountain decorated from above by stars twinkling in a dark autumn sky.

The artistic inspiration grew out of both talking with Pagans in Iceland, Sweden and the Czech Republic, and observing my friends and their surroundings. I reflected on how important art is to Paganism, and how the best types of Pagan religion that I have come across have always had a highly developed artistic dimension. The first Ásatrú ritual I ever participated in in Iceland was totally suffused with art, from improvised music by skilled musicians, not just amateurs banging away on acoustic guitars, to a banner on which each person attending was invited to write or draw something of significance to them.

This artistic flair carries over into the leadership, or perhaps the reverse should be said, that the greatest Pagan leaders. in Iceland at least, have often been artists. The first leader of Icelandic Ásatrú, Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson, was a poet and singer who was open-minded enough to get on the stage in front of punk bands in the 1980s and recite traditional rímur poetry, though by this time he was a white bearded old man, not someone you would expect to be hanging around with punk musicians, let alone getting on stage with them.



The current high priest of the Ásatrúarféladið (Ásatrú Fellowship) in Iceland is a professional musician and composer, Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson, who has composed prize-winning film scores among other achievements, and recently released a CD with contemporary musical backing of the very rímur poetry that Sveinbjörn used to write and perform. The CD is called Stafnbúi on the 12 Tonar label, see http://www.12tonar.is/2012/21_steindor-hilmar-stafnbui.php .



Compare American Ásatrú, where two of the founding figures were both military men, Stephen McNallen and Valgard Murray. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, and Icelandic Ásatrú accordingly took an artistic direction, and American Ásatrú a martial one. This is not to say that American Ásatrú is lacking in art, as there is a lot of poetry and music that can be found at such sites as http://www.odins-gift.com/index.html , but my own experience is that the artistic impulse is overshadowed by war-related elements. I would be curious if readers know of other examples of artistic contributions playing a major role in Paganism.



In Sweden, two of the leaders of the Swedish Ásatrú group that I know in Stockholm are artists, one a musician and photographer, the other a sculptor.



I am not aware of any of the Pagans I know in the Czech Republic being artists,per se, but one of the places we met, a lovely teahouse in the Castle district in Prague called Čajový klub „Duhovka.“

http://www.duhovka.eu .

.

The Duhovka had a very artistic, bohemian atmosphere. And why shouldn't it be bohemian? The Czechs were the original Bohemians, you see, and Bohemia is the name of one of the Czech regions.





In Lithuania and Latvia, folk musicians have led the way in the most vibrant modern Pagan movements there, such as Lithuanian Romuva, led by the skilled folk singers Jonas and Inija Trinkūnas and their folk ensemble Kūlgrinda.



See http://www.last.fm/music/Kūlgrinda .

Most of the artistic Pagans I know in Iceland and Europe have little interest in war and weapons. Their eyes and art look toward nature and beauty, not anger and death. However, here I must contradict myself. There is another branch of Norse Paganism-inspired music in Europe that does celebrate weapons, war, anger and aggression, this being Pagan-related "death metal" heavy metal music. It is not to my taste, but it certainly has its fans. Taking this into account complicates the nice binary opposition I was speaking of earlier. It requires me to say that yes, there are also things in European Paganism that I do not like! However, I tend to think that this kind of music appeals mainly to young people, and I would speculate that as they mature in both life and spirituality, they will not look at this music the same way anymore. If some grizzled death metal fan in their sixties wants to write in and tell me I am wrong, that they still start and end the day headbanging and chanting angry death lyrics like they did when they were 16 or 22, that is fine!

Age, that is, a person's position in the unstoppable life-cycle, is indeed something to consider. I am 53, closer to old age than to youth, and perhaps some of my preferences and perspectives are rooted in my own aging process. I seek beauty, calm and inspiration in nature, and hope for a form of Paganism that is in tune with those needs and aspirations. Perhaps younger men and women need different things, more angry, energetic and expressive of the stormy passions of youth.

Be that as it may, I also think of this in a broader frame, beyond a strictly Pagan context. Look at any great religious tradition, from Christianity to Judaism to Buddhism to any other, and you will find that art has played a key role in the development, propagation and perpetuation of that religion. In Prague, I stopped into a former medieval convent, now a museum, displaying Czech Christian art. See http://www.avantgarde-prague.com/prague-guide/things-to-see-in-prague/museums/convent-of-st-agnes/ The artwork was overwhelming in its concentrated force of expression. I have had the same experience contemplating ancient Hindu or Buddhist or Greek art. The articulation of religious themes and sensibilities through art is one of the secrets of success to any of the world's most well-known and respected religions. In contrast, there has never been a religion that ever became great or long-lasting simply by celebrating war and martial valor. That makes good patriotic propaganda, but its artistic merit may be limited. I believe the same will apply to Paganism, whether Ásatrú or other types. In the end, whoever comes up with the most profound, powerful and enticing religious art, in whatever media, will also be the ones to create the most enduring and important forms of modern Paganism. So, while some might call for warriors to take up arms, I call on poets to take up their lexicons, painters, their brushes, and sculptors, their clay. Express your spirituality through the most beautiful art you can muster, and we will all be the richer for it!

Our Shiny New War Against Iran

Today's blog is a humorous attempt to deal with something I find very frightening: the apparent coalescence of an acceptance of using military force against Iran for quite dubious reasons that are all too reminiscent of our most recent military adventures. One hopes that people learn from their mistakes, but in this case, I fear that we are on the edge of a whole new tragic chapter in idiotic American imperialism. It is so sickening that I need to attempt some dark humor. Here goes:

War is coming. A NEW war. Not one of those old, worn-out, pre-owned wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,but a shiny NEW war that we all can feel proud and patriotic about. Aren't you happy? Don't you miss the EXCITEMENT and PATRIOTISM of the post-9/11 days when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, before those wars became dragged-out, boring and uninteresting? Oh, there is nothing like that initial rush of war to bring out the best in our country! Hooray for war. Let's go!!

What is this new war? You don't know?You don't follow the news? War against Iran, you dummy. Don't you know that Iran is VERY VERY dangerous, it is developing nuclear technology,and that IT MUST BE STOPPED? And we and our friends the Israeli government have been laying the groundwork. It's kind of like what we did in the build-up to the invasion of Iraq, only better because many people have forgotten how that particular little foreign adventure came about. Oh, you have a vague recollection of that and would like to know more how the new rush to war resembles the previous one? OK, here goes.

As with Iraq, we are accusing an oil-rich country in the Middle East of striving to develop nuclear technology which could someday be turned into nuclear weapons. We claim this gives us the right to attack them even if they have not attacked anyone else. AS IF THAT MATTERED TO US! Hello-o, haven't you heard of "pre-emptive strike?" Duh! We claim the right to attack anyone anywhere who we think MIGHT be a threat. What's wrong with that? What could possibly go wrong? Isn't that the way the world is supposed to work? Our way or the death ray!

As with Iraq, we have no patience with the Iranian point of view. We "know" they cannot be trusted, certainly not their president with the supposedly unpronounceable name, Ahmedinejad. It's always more fun to vilify someone with a "weird" name, don't you know?

The Iranians claim they need nuclear technology for peaceful purposes of energy production and medical technology, such as radioactive isotopes used in chemotherapy for cancer. THAT IS SO RIDICULOUS!

Furthermore, we "know" that Iran is a menace in the region. President whose-name-no-patriotic-American-dare-pronounce has said ugly things about Israel, unlike the nice things that people say in other nearby countries like Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Egypt. Everyone knows that we insist that every Middle Eastern country love and respect Israel 110%, or we go to war against them right away.

And poor little Israel, it has done nothing to deserve any criticism or animosity from the other countries in the region. Those Palestinians who were forced off their land in 1947 and continue to cry-baby complain about this when they are not whimpering about Israel making their lives impossible with checkpoints, economic blockades and occasional military invasions that demolish neighborhoods are not people that we have to worry about, except that they show an irritating capacity to launch missile strikes and suicide attacks against Israel. So annoying! Can't they just accept their poverty, dispossession and isolation without having to make such a fuss? Can't they just withdraw into their pitiful shanty towns and quietly wait to die? What's wrong with them? I guess you just never know with those crazy Muslims. What, you are telling me that some of the Palestinians are Christians? That cannot be right; please just shut up.

Even more ridiculous is the accusation that Israel has its own nuclear weapons. You say the CIA has reported this? OK, maybe they have a few little bombs. They are our ally, so they are entitled. Anyway, it's a dangerous neighborhood. No one should get excited just because this or that country develops a few nuclear weapons without cooperating with nuclear treaties or allowing international inspection, UNLESS THAT COUNTRY IS IRAQ....I MEAN IRAN!!

Iran is quite the cry-baby too. Have you heard this OUTRAGEOUS idea that they might feel threatened by American power in the region? THAT IS SO RIDICULOUS. What American "power?" OK, we have some soldiers over there. OK, we have invaded countries on both the eastern side of Iran (Afghanistan) and on the western side (Iraq). That's none of their business! Did we complain when Russia put missiles into Cuba? Hell no! Did we attack Canada when they introduced nationalized health insurance? No, of course not. So where does Iran get off bitching and bitching about this? OK, so maybe we do have some bases to the north of Iran in some of those "-stan" countries. OK, so maybe our naval fleet does take the occasional pleasure cruise off the coast of Iran. OK, so maybe we do have a military alliance with Saudi Arabia and soldiers in Kuwait. OK, maybe we have allowed or even assisted Israel in developing nuclear weapons. That is no excuse for Iran to get all hissy-fitsy and nuclear. Only two countries in the world have the right to self-defense, including nuclear weapons: America and Israel. If Iran thinks they have a right to develop nuclear weapons just because they are surrounded by hostile forces, then they really do deserve to be attacked and invaded.

Iran is the craziest, most dangerous, and violent country on the planet. Just compare how many countries in the Middle East they have attacked and invaded to how many we have! It's like night and day. What, you are saying that it was not Iran that started the Iran-Iraq War, it was Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein, who we were supporting at the time? I don't believe it. Besides, everyone knows that Iran supports Hezbollah, a terrorist group in Lebanon that launches missiles against Israel from time to time. What, you are saying that Hezbollah first came about as a reaction to an Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the early 1980s? You mean Israel attacked first? Well, that was 30+ years ago. Why can't Hezbollah give it a rest? Crazy damned Muslims.

As you can see, there is no way to look at the objective facts without reaching the sole possible conclusion: Iran must be attacked, and we're going to do it! Yay, go America!

(**Bonus points for you Political Science majors if you can answer the following question: could a military strike on Iran help Obama in the general election? And, would not doing it hurt him? Advantage to the Republicans, who are, with the exception of Ron Paul, united in seeking an attack on Iran! You can tell how patriotic a politician is by how eager he or she is to attack other countries!! Yay!)

It may be Israel that attacks first, but that won't even matter, because we have a defense alliance with them and if they get into any trouble, if Iran or anyone else tries to strike back, we can rush in and show the Iranians the same kind of "shock and awe"--I mean "freedom and democracy" that--we brought to Afghanistan and Iran. Consider the Israeli military our advance scouts and the whole thing makes perfect sense.

From a lot of the information I see in the media, this is a no-lose situation. After all, with our huge, excellent military involved, what could possibly go wrong?

What, you mean Iran could shut down the Persian Gulf and disrupt our oil supply? Just when you thought it was safe to buy a Hummer again....

What, you mean a strike by Israel against Iran could lead to other countries like Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Lebanon getting involved, and a spiraling, expanding war? No way; you need to take your medication.

What, you mean some of OUR young men and women will die? Not if we stick with drones and long-range nuclear missiles....but even if a ground invasion were necessary, well, at least our boys and girls would take a whole lot of them Iranians down with them. We'll have a nice parade for our fallen patriots.

What, you mean the money that we will spend on the war is money we can't use for things at home? Well, since when do we care about the people in America? It's killing foreigners that counts, not taking care of things like bridges, schools, mortgages, pensions, unemployment and child poverty. War is patriotic. Trying to do anything about that other stuff sounds suspiciously like socialism. Can't have that. Lots of people don't have jobs, sure, but they could always join the army. If kids are going hungry, they could be trained to serve as mine-sweepers, make themselves useful.

What, you mean Russia and China are allies with Iran? Well, what could they do about it?

World War III? Well, we would win, wouldn't we? Doesn't it say so in the Bible? Don't you believe in America?

Shut up. We are going to war, and the only opinion you are going to be allowed to have is, "Support the troops!" and maybe also, Support the Drones. Support the Nukes.

Somewhere the war-god is smiling... America, with its lack of respect and understanding for other cultures and inability to examine its own actions or history is so easy to lead to the battlefield. The war-god will be well-fed with the bodies and souls of the dead. He is smiling.

(War-)God Bless America?

Why Kim Jong-il is Not Really So Funny or So Strange

The Kim is dead, long live the Kim.

Kim Jong-il, The second Stalinist autocrat of the House of Kim in North Korea has passed away, and the third, Kim Jong-un, now takes his father's place. This has received a lot of coverage in the American media, with a slight sense of regret, being that the elder Kim had provided so much entertainment for Americans who loved to laugh at the odd, portly dictator with a love of Hollywood films and nuclear missiles. Having visited South Korea several times, I know the anguish Koreans feel about the Cold War division of their country into two opposing halves, and I have observed with sadness how each successive effort by the government and people of the South to reach out to the North has been rebuffed with the situation ending up where it began, with the North engaging in saber-rattling, missile-launching and other acts of symbolic or actual aggression to extort food and other aid out of South Korea and the USA in a kind of bizarre protection racket. How very weird, ridiculous and awful North Korea and its leaders are; how very far removed from us in wonderful, democratic America; or so we would like to believe.

I have been reflecting on Korea and reaching a different kind of conclusion, one that is not especially cheerful or reassuring. In a number of ways, I see the USA becoming more and more like North Korea.

Resemblance #1: Dedication to military power over all else. North Korea is as poor and economically dysfunctional as a country can be, but it still manages to have the fourth largest army in the world. Add to that the development of nuclear missiles, and you can see why military force is so important to North Korea. The rulers know that no one will ever dare to attack them, because any attack on North Korea would result in a devastating counter-attack on South Korea. The modern,high-tech magnificence of Seoul, the South Korean capital, could be attacked within hours by the North Korean army, and if the nuclear missiles ever become fully functional, the threat will be even more acute.

What does this have to do with the USA? Well, we are the number one military force in the world, we have more military bases around the world than anyone else, and in the last several decades we have engaged in more invasions and wars than anyone else. Whoo-hoo! Most Americans almost wet their pants with love of the military, and since 9/11, it has been considered very poor taste, unpatriotic, and maybe even a potential sign of terrorist sympathies to ever EVER question or criticize our wars, our occupations, our bases, the size of our armed forces, our huge expenditures on military matters, and so on and so forth. So we are rather North Korean-like in our devotion to the military and the almost sacrosanct position that military matters occupy in our national psyche. The North Koreans cheer when their missile launches threaten South Korea, and we love to "support the troops" when they invade other nations, no questions asked by the "patriotic" majority.

Resemblance #2: Just as the North Koreans show no remorse for the pain or suffering their aggressive acts cause to others, so do we have very hard time ever admitting, let alone apologizing, for death and destruction caused to other people by our military. For both the USA and North Korea, military action is a conscience-free zone of thought. There are of course Americans who oppose and critique our militarism and aggression, but I am referring to the majority, for whom being "strong on defense"(i.e., aggressive and unapologetic) is a key qualification of national political leadership. Note that,with the exception of Ron Paul, all the current Republican candidates for President continually heap scorn on President Obama for being a "weak" and "apologetic" President, despite his continuation of the Bush wars with expansions into Yemen, Libya and Pakistan, with ever-increasing use of drones to make the killing of "bad guys" even easier.

Resemblance #3: Like North Korea, we are dedicated to maintaining our huge military at any cost, even if our society is crumbling and resources are badly needed elsewhere. In the last two rounds of budgetary brinkmanship on Capitol Hill, the one thing that has given the Republicans pause in their zombie-like, headlong rush to cut back government programs and services despite the toll that such reckless and random amputations would take on non-wealthy Americans was the possibility that defense spending might also have to be cut. Suddenly the Republicans felt a sense of hesitation about their budget-cutting gospel! It is one thing to cut off unemployment benefits to people who can't find work, withhold food stamps from people on the edge of starving, destroy union contracts that provide a decent living to people who do not live off investments, or cut back funding to roads, bridges, schools or water systems that are disintegrating and collapsing. Things like that the Republicans can do without a moment's hesitation or any apparent remorse. But cut back the military by even one penny? Oh no, that is INCONCEIVABLE! That would be a CATASTROPHE! I suspect that if the current right-wing extremists of the Republican party manage to take over the Senate, the House and the Presidency, we will see a massive devastation of most social services and government programs and at the same time, a massive buildup of the military, all wreathed in a beautiful, red, white and blue patriotic afterglow. And then will come the wars, and more "support the troop" mass hypnotism as we send our young men and women to kill and be killed, all in order to "defend our freedom," to finally return maimed and mad to a country whose decline can only be disguised so long by massive military extravaganzas.

So, while we may enjoy snickering and sneering in remembrance of Kim Jong-il and the completely miserable state of the country that he presided over, I see him and the way he ruled North Korea as a frightening foretaste of what America may become if we continue in our blind worship of the military to the exclusion of all other needs and concerns.

But hope springs eternal. Maybe in 2012, Americans will decide that they have had enough of war and that is is time, at long last, to direct our energies to non-military matters, like taking care of each other and preserving our precious planet rather than seeking to blame and attack others. However, I am not at all confident that this runaway train can be stopped in time.

Global Warring vs. Global Warming

The recent experience of destructive winds and catastrophic flooding brought by Hurricane Irene on her steady march up the Atlantic coast of the United States, which has washed away roads and bridges, crippled highways and rail lines across the region, and destroyed homes and businesses across the region, with New Jersey, New York and Vermont getting the worst of it and looking ahead to months, if not years, of recovery. This kind of massive flooding is exactly what has been predicted would occur as Global Warming sets in. Irene's unwelcome visit came two days after the six year anniversary of the Hurricane Katrine disaster, another extreme weather event which may be attributable to Global Warming, and about a week before the ten year anniversary of the 9/11/01 attacks, which launched America into two seemingly unending wars halfway around the world, with conflict now spreading to Pakistan and Yemen. Two different types of destructive events...which should we pay more heed to? Herein lies a tale of two perspectives, each of which carries with it different priorities and responsibilities.

The 9/11 attacks were a horrible shock to the national psyche, literally blowing away many Americans' sense of their country being a safe land far away from the roiling tensions in other parts of the world. About three thousand Americans died on the day of the attacks, and thousands more, including rescuers and bystanders, would die in months and years to come from illnesses brought about by exposure to toxic substances in the World Trade Center. A small portion of New York City was devastated and soon rebuilt, as was the section of the Pentagon damaged by the plane that headed for the capital, but the more lasting damage was to American psychology. Many people became terrified about the possibility of other terrorist attacks, and many remain in a state of hyper-vigilance, supportive of ANY measures that the government might take that promise to increase security. There was also an understandable desire for pure REVENGE.

The results have ranged from the curtailment of civil liberties in the USA, the acceptance of increased surveillance by our government against its own citizens in violation of time-honored American traditions of privacy and freedom from government interference, the acceptance of torture as a tool of military interrogation, in violation of international treaties, and the transformation of Guantanamo Bay into a prison camp outside of international law. The government of President Bush furthermore committed America to the invasion and occupation of first Afghanistan, then Iraq, with further use of military force in several other countries, the resulting death of thousands of our own soldiers and the deaths of tens of thousands of people in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere. The hunting down of terrorists like Osama bin Laden was the original focus of our international interventions, but it seems that the killing of bin Laden has brought no peace to the American psyche. As far as I can tell, people feel just as frightened as ever, and it seems that the so-called "War of Terror," which is already the longest war in American history, may become a perpetual process of continuing death and destruction--theirs or ours, either way, the show will go on, and the budget of the military will remain larger than that of any other nation on earth, giving vast profits to companies like Halliburton that provide services to the military and defense contractors that reap wonderful profits developing weapon systems. Americans may not feel safer, but the war will continue.

Will Americans ever feel safe again? There will obviously always be a threat of terrorist attacks, no matter what we do. Even top military brass like General Petraeus have conceded that military force alone can never provide complete security. There has to be a "winning of hearts and minds," to recycle the old Vietnam trope, to convince those ready to take up bombs against America that violence is not the best way to resolve their grievances. The American military and its NATO allies have tried to play the compassionate "good cop" (building roads, schools, hospitals)as well as the aggressive and punitive "bad cop" (blowing up buildings, killing those suspected of terrorist involvement, and terrorizing families and communities by breaking down doors in the the middle of night to search homes under suspicion and interrogate and intimidate the residents, sometimes brutalizing or killing those who dare to resist these searches and interrogations.) Many Afghans, Iraqis and Pakistanis are understandably resentful of our occupation of their countries and violation of their homes and communities, and that resentment could fuel a desire for revenge against the USA just as intense as Americans' rage on 9/11. There could well be an endless cycle of violence and attacks and counterattacks.

If you like, you could say that OUR attacks and invasions are reasonable and justifiable, and THEIR attacks are wrong and deserving of punishment and endless years of military occupation, but the thing is, after a point, if it all becomes a tit-for-tat situation of "get revenge at any cost," "stand up for your people and kill the other guy," what difference does it make? More importantly, how can it ever end? Will there ever be enough people who want to end it, if vindictive, violent passions are continually stirred up on both sides? I am not sure, but I think that at least part of the answer will involve America withdrawing its military forces from the countries we now occupy and making an effort to treat Muslim countries as equals, rather than insulting them by making it extremely clear that we see them as deranged lunatics that we have the right to kill at will and invade and occupy as often as we like.

I know that some of my more conservative, pro-military readers will find my reasoning ridiculous. They will, I imagine, yell something like, "You are a crazy bleeding heart liberal idiot! We cannot just back off now, retreat without having established absolute victory, let those countries do what they want. Our only hope of security is to maintain control by force, and if that means decades more of occupation, so be it."

As my counter-argument, I would point to the case of Vietnam. During our lengthy and costly involvement in that seemingly endless conflict, the pro-military folks often said, "We can't quit, can't back down. That would give the Communists an unforgivable victory. There would be a "domino effect" and the whole of Southeast Asia might go Red* (meaning, younger readers, Communist not Republican, back in the 1960s-70s.)" Well, we did quit that war. We fought many hard battles, won some, lost some, and then we withdrew. None of the doomsday scenarios transpired. A Communist regime took power in all Vietnam, but it was no worse than many other governments in the region, and over time, it even helped to get rid of a REALLY nasty and horrific regime in Cambodia, that of the psychotic Khmer Rouge. By the 1990s, American was signing trade deals with Communist Vietnam, and we now engage in billions of dollars in trade on an annual basis, with the Vietnamese appearing to hold no grudge for the thousands of pounds of bombs we dropped on them and all the people that we killed, not only in Vietnam but in adjoining countries, none of whom ever attacked or invaded us. It is still not anyone's ideal of a democratic paradise, but the VN regime does seem to be moderating over time. Domino-doomsday never took place.

I would argue that the same could happen in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let us withdraw in an orderly manner, give economic and technical support to the new governments that develop there, if our help is wanted, and we can hope to have better relations over time, just as with Vietnam.

It also seems to me that we have gotten our money's worth out of these wars, and there is no need to drag things out ad infinitum, unless the military has become the only kind of government-funded jobs program that Americans are willing to support. (I suspect this may be so.) Al-Qaeda, based in Afghanistan, attacked us on one day in 2001. ONE day. In return, we have invaded for ten years. TEN years. We have killed many thousands, disrupted life, brutalized and terrorized many. What more do we want? Isn't that enough revenge? Or do you still want more? And, at what cost? In money, we have spent more than a trillion, I believe, money that could have been put to so many uses back at home. In lives, more Americans have now died fighting in these wars than were killed on 9/11. Will causing more deaths on both sides really make our world a better place? I worry we may be getting dragged down into a nether realm of nationalistic psychopathology (*see Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan) where we just want to use force against others because it makes us feel good, not because it accomplishes anything of positive value.

I believe it is time to step back from Global Warring and consider other needs and priorities,such as Global Warming. I accept the view of climatologists and other scientists that the extreme weather events of recent years are being driven by a gradual increase in world temperature produced by greenhouse gasses accumulating in the atmosphere. What weather events, you ask? They constitute a vast and continually growing catalogue ranging from agriculture-limiting droughts and dryness-triggered wild fires in places like Australia, Africa and various regions of America to heavier-than-usual snowfalls in winter, wetter-than-usual summers, and increasingly intense storms in both winter and summer, with tornadoes in the USA occurring with increasing frequency in places like Connecticut, Massachusetts and even the urban borough of Queens, New York that have rarely if ever experienced such events before. The economic cost from our new-fangled, 21st century weather is in the billions, but there is much more than money at stake. Decreased crop yields have led to riots and instability in countries from Somalia to the Philippines. Low-lying countries like Bangladesh and Burma (Myanmar) are at risk of vanishing under rising sea levels. THIS IS A VERY DANGEROUS TREND. If it gets worse, we are really going to be in trouble. We are going to have spend increasing amounts of money, worldwide recession or no, on feeding starving people, rebuilding flood,fire and tornado damaged regions, and dealing with mass migrations of displaced people, to just mention a few of the most alarming effects, WHICH ARE ALREADY BEGINNING TO HAPPEN.

This has all been known for years. Former Vice President Al Gore did a fine job of publicizing the issue and educating the public with his film "An Inconvenient Truth." Critics have pointed to several inaccuracies in the documentary, but his overall message, that we need to start cutting back on carbon use and greenhouse gases or we will turn the world into an increasingly harsh and inhospitable planet, really cannot be disputed, and is in fact NOT disputed by the vast majority of professional scientists who deal with climate issues. Yes, there are a few dissidents who can be found casting doubt on FOX news and other anti-environmentalist, pro-corporate media outlets, but they are a tiny, tiny, tiny group, and their viewpoint is especially suspect in that they are often paid to promote their anti-Global Warming ideas by oil and coal companies.

So what is a bigger threat to human life, the Al-Qaeda-type terrorist threat as observed on 9/11, or the increasingly destructive weather patterns resulting from climate change? Should we be more concerned with Global Warring or Global Warming? I have no doubt that the bigger threat is Global Warming.

Though America was rudely awakened out of a sweet but false dream of perfect security and safety on the awful morning of 9/11, the fact is, terrorism has always been around in some form or other,and always will be. There are always people around fired up either by extreme devotion to a political or religious cause or psychological instability who are willing to use violence to advance their cause or actualize their fantasies. Police, psychiatrists and other professionals can intervene to reduce the possibility of such individuals or groups acting out on their violent ambitions, but there is no way you can ever achieve total security, a completely risk-free world, as much as some try to sell this notion to a fearful and often gullible public (think: Giuliani & Associates). Other parts of the world, with either more experience or longer memories or less manipulative politicians know this, and they do not flip out and seek to invade a half-dozen countries every time a bomb goes off or a nut goes on a rampage. They make moderate, targeted responses, as opposed to seeking world domination. We Americans could learn a lot from them, except that many Americans don't like to learn from other countries, it seems.

The possibility of our environment becoming ever more unstable and self-destructive is something we must start thinking about. Perhaps the destruction wrought by Hurricane Irene will be a needed wake-up call. It should be noted that much of the worst damage was not caused by Irene alone, but by the combination of a wet summer of higher-than-average rainfall in the northeast followed by the additional heavy rains of Irene. If, as climate scientists seem to agree,we are going to be seeing more, not less, of such extreme weather events, we should start demanding that our politicians and media begin paying more attention to this and seeking out means to lessen the impact and slow the rate of change, rather than obsessing about how many suspected terrorists we can kill in Pakistan with our nifty drone bombers. The consensus among scientists is that we MUST start turning away from carbon fuels, because the more we burn them, the more we are going to suffer floods, droughts and fires. Sadly, the supposedly pro-environmental administration of President Obama has taken the first steps toward approving a huge, new, potentially highly polluting pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta to the oil refineries of Texas. Supposedly, it was the non-Obama candidates in 2008 who were in favor of "Drill, Baby, Drill" as the solution to our energy needs, but it looks like Obama is not so different after all.

I am proud to be involved with Paganism when I reflect that Pagan religions, with their nature gods and metaphors and joyful sense of sacredness in nature, collectively provide one of the best platforms around for cultivating reverence for the natural world. I encourage all Pagans to speak out on these issues in the grand struggle to turn the great dumb and easily distracted beast that is the American public away from post-9/11 terror, war and security obsessions to an understanding of the need to address our collective carbon addiction and protect our environment as the #1 issue of our time.

To my warrior-oriented Pagan friends, Asatru or other, let me suggest this: even if you are the most super-bad-assed, head-to-toe tattooed, multiple-gun-toting, spear-throwing, axe-tossing, sword-bearing, military-loving, tough-guy Pagan or a super-dangerous, ultra-gorgeous, Xena-like, Amazon-crossed-with-Valkyrie warrior princess with daggers in your hair and a grenade in your handbag next to your mini-AK, consider this: no more planet, no more battles, no more war, no more warriors, no more glory! No planet, no nothin;' it will just be Ragnarok without the happy ending of a miraculous renewal. Whether you are a wimpoid left-wing peacenik like me or a rough-and-ready, battle-hardened military enthusiast, this should be something we can get together on.

Mission One is not killing terrorists; it is saving our planet.

A Personal Farewell to Gods of War

Having received some fine and thoughtful responses on the issue of the contemporary relevance of war gods, I am now ready to offer my own perspective. I posed the question, "Do the gods of war still speak to us?," which I could also rephrase as "Do we still need gods of war?" or "Should we still believe in gods of war?" I have a simple and straightforward answer: NO. As far as I am concerned, war gods no longer serve any useful purpose for modern mankind; at least not for me. When I imagine a Pagan spirituality cleansed of war and violence, I feel I am breathing clear, pure air again, not the smell of blood and burning corpses.

I know that many Pagan and Heathen readers will respond that my proposal is absurd, unthinkable; sacrilegious, even. After all, the ancient Norsemen, Celts and other pre-Christian Europeans, as well as other indigenous peoples of other regions, certainly worshipped war gods, so aren't we modern heirs to the Pagan tradition duty-bound to also worship these gods, and exult in the excitment and camaraderie of the warrior life? I say, NO. I believe we are all free people with the right to think and choose about which aspects of old religions we wish to continue and those we wish to leave behind. Reinterpretation and reconstruction are always selective, and this is my selection. Other may choose differently, and that is fine. Freedom to all to worship as they please.

If you, my friend, wish to worship the old war gods, because they are meaningful to you for any number of reasons, please go ahead. I have no wish to limit your own spirituality. Perhaps if I were a soldier or had a strong bond to the military, I would join you. But my experience in life has led me to nothing but opposition to war and militarism. I have walked the earth in countries that have been crushed again and again by insane and destructive wars, often fought for no other reason than the desire for power and glory of megalomaniacal leaders. I have been to Yasukuni Jinja in Tokyo where right-wing militarists revere the dead soldiers of WW II as semi-divine heroes, even though Japanese militarism led to nothing but misery and destruction across Asia.

As an American living with great unease in America, I see my country going down the self-destructive track of ever-increasing, ever-more costly, ever-more unquestioned militarism, even as basic structures of society from roads to schools to bridges to state parks crumble from neglect, while huge numbers of Americans fall into poverty and discover that there is little to no "safety net" in America, while billions keep being spent on what seem to be endless, eternal wars. I don't see anything much to celebrate. I think the war god is firmly in control of American society, and he is leading us to a future of angry, blind destructiveness.

I have always prized intelligence and compassion over brute force and violence. When I look around the barren landscape of American culture, I see such an overabundance of violence and aggression that I am almost dumbfounded. Worse still, the violence in our popular culture seems increasingly interchangeable with the official violence of our government and military agencies. TV shows like CSI and Law and Order , in their endless, repetitive iterations, teach us that there is no cure for our social ills other than swift, brutal police action to beat up, lock up, or simply exterminate the "evil-doers." Look at the larger society: the trend for many years has been to reduce funding for social programs and education, increase funding for prisons, police and military. Meanwhile, the popularity of "first person shooter" video games perfectly corresponds with the Bush-Obama military strategy of using remote-controlled drone bombers to hunt down and attack people thousands of miles away, all from the safety and security of video screens at military installations in Colorado and elsewhere. Where does the video game end and the war begin? It seems that many people do not care anymore; as long as we get to kill "bad guys," whether in fantasy or for real, without regard for "collateral damage," it's all good!

War God bless America....

I cannot, as a thinking, intelligent person in the age of Hiroshima, My Lai and CIA drone attacks, think of war as a wonderful, honorable thing that we need to honor with a war god.

I note with happiness that most Pagan gods are multi-functional. We can dispense with various gods and goddesses' war functions and concentrate on those aspects more in keeping with modern life. The Pagan religions of the past were always in a state of transformation. Let us continue the transformation to create 21st century Paganism.

Do the Gods of War Still Speak to Us?

Dear Readers, I apologize for a very long absence and silence. It has been a very busy semester, including a most wonderful trip to Poland in the last month. I still cannot find time for a proper essay here, so I thought instead I would pose a question that I hope will invite some interesting discussion from different points of view. As a semi-pacifistic liberal sort of Pagan, I am often at a loss of what to make of the worship of gods of war among the Pagans of the past. I wonder what relevance this aspect of the old religion holds today, with war a much different thing than it was in the past. I do not find war a praiseworthy thing in the modern world, but a horrible tragedy in almost all cases, and thus I cannot agree with those Pagans and Heathens who seem to glorify war and see this as the most important thing in ancient texts. The war aspect of the old religion is something that I feel is outdated and that needs to be left behind. I can only relate to gods of war and warrior figures as metaphors for the need to struggle and fight morally and mentally, not as a call to literal, physical fighting and killing. What say you? I would like to invite your comments and then return later to add some more thoughts of my own. Thanks.

Anger turns to Despair

The Political Pagan thanks his readers for their comments on the last post about Obama, and wishes to clarify a few points. First of all, PoPa (as the Political Pagan is sometimes referred to; not to be confused with "Pol Pot," though the pronunciation is indeed similar) is well aware that Obama never promised during his campaign or since to wind down the war in Afghanistan as he did with the American occupation of Iraq. However, PoPa did not think that Obama would follow quite so Bushian (or Cheney-esque) a path, or try so hard to be seen as John McCain's little brown brother, in making war his top priority.

Obama has refused to stand up and fight for important domestic initiatives like a public works-job creation program or a health insurance "public option," instead giving every indication that he is willing to bargain away 50-75% of anything that he believes or once believed in. On the health reform issue, he promised from an early point in the discussions that he would make sure that whatever reform emerged would be "revenue-neutral," a position that ensured we would end up with a watered-down, corporate-friendly piece of shit, which is what we are now left with, after months of fruitless negotiations conspicuously lacking in strong Presidential leadership.

If Obama had been willing to make a strong moral argument for national health care, for example, "As Americans, we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers, we have a moral responsibility to take care of each other, and so I am going to insist on a robust national health care policy that takes care of every American, whether powerful interests like the health insurance lobby like it or not," it would have been a much stronger case for serious health care reform. Instead, he let himself and his party get boxed into a fiscal cul-de-sac that cut off any serious hope of reform: "We will achieve health care reform as long as it does not cost anything." Well, you get what you pay for. Ever since that moment, the main point of opposition to any such reform has been that whatever plan is put forward will be "too expensive," will "bust the budget," etc. The same cost-conscious logic was allowed to strip last winter's economic stimulus plan of job-creating schemes, which might have given some real money and real hope to the growing hordes of unemployed, underemployed and foreclosed Americans.

This concern with so-called "fiscal responsibility" would be an easier pill to swallow if it were also applied to another major area of government expenditure, military spending. Here, however, cost is no object, and budget-busting is no crime. While every health care reform plan put forward has been run through the rigorous number-crunching mill of the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) to have its future costs dissected, the costs of Obama's escalation of the war effort in Afghanistan have been strangely exempt from such cost-conscious critiques. The lesson the American public is taught is this: national health care and jobs creation programs cannot be allowed, because they are too expensive, but the war in Afghanistan, including its worrisome expansion into Pakistan via CIA and JSOC drone attacks, is worth every billion.

This is where Obama most infuriates and disappoints PoPa. I see a terrible imbalance in his priorities, giving half-hearted support and weak-kneed leadership for domestic programs, but going to the mat for unlimited war. If the President had been as definite and insistent about health care or job creation programs as he has been about expanding the war in Afghanistan, it might have helped sway the corporate ass-kissing democrats in Congress to support such initiatives rather than look for ways to undermine them while pretending to support them. Imagine if Obama had gone before Congress and said, "I will veto any health care plan that does not include a public option," with the kind of decisiveness he showed in defending his Afghan war policy at West Point and in Oslo.

In short, Obama's greater emphasis on military spending than domestic programs is NOT what he campaigned on. He gave every impression we were going to get something very different from Bush policies, and instead, what we are getting is Bush in blackface. Let's not forget that the corporate and financial bail-outs began under Bush, and have been continued without any great modification under Obama. After a year of horrible unemployment and unending foreclosures, Obama has not produced much in the way of new policies or programs dramatically different from those of his predecessor. As an educator, PoPa has very sadly conclused that their education policies are nearly indistinguishable, looking to increased standardized testing and charter schools as magic bullet solutions, rather than facing the larger issues of chronic underfunding of education across the country.

Both Presidents, as well as Clinton before them, have proven to be all too beholden to corporate interests, whether these be the corporate interests of Wall Street, or those of the military-industrial complex from Blackwater to Halliburton, and all too willing to reply to the problems of economically stressed Americans with flimsy promises and optimistic rhetoric divorced from concrete action. When Obama had his chat with the heads of the leading financial service and banking companies, and urged them to do more to lend to small businesses to create more jobs, I had a sickening sense of deja vu. This is just the kind of thing Bush used to do. It makes for nice public relations, but is there anything else to it?

PoPa also feels that Obama is sadly contradicting himself on his former desire to move American foreign policy into a more diplomatic and multilateral, less militaristic and unilateral direction. His insistence that Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran must do what America wants, and never mind their own political, economic and national security concerns and needs, is not exactly a shining example of multilateral diplomacy. Sure, he is doing some of that, but as long as he pursues a war-mongering policy in Afghanistan, his Nobel Peace Prize is going to become an increasingly ironic honor.

Obama and Bush, buddies in war. Eisenhower was right: "Beware the military industrial complex." I don't think we need to have elections anymore. Just have the Supreme Court appoint a President from the military, and a Vice-President from Wall Street, and the result will be much like what we now refer to as "democracy."

War and Peace in Paganism

As a dedicated peacenik and staunch foe of militarism, which I consider one of the greatest curses of modern life, but also a Pagan, I have often pondered how the ancient European Pagan traditions had gods of both war and of peace. Obviously, then as well as now, war was sometimes an unavoidable necessity, and then as now, it had an economic dimension as well, in that "to the victors go the spoils," to which we might add modern-day reflections on the military industrial complex and how much profit and employment is wrapped up in the war biz. The greater the number of people who depend on the military-industrial complex for their employment, education, housing, health insurance etc., the harder it becomes to cut back any aspect of the military, as it has become an ever-expanding social welfare program for soldiers and their families as well as all the people who work in military-related industries.

In the Pagan religious traditions I am closest to, the Norse-Germanic Asatru/Heathen tradition and the Baltic-Lithuanian Romuva movement, I have seen that what often seems to attract a certain number of men to these religious movements dealing with the Pagan past is the opportunity to play and pose with swords and other medieval weapons and imagine themselves great warriors of the distant past. A lot of this is just testosterone bluster in honor of the Gods of War, but I worry about how this kind of thing may drown out an appreciation of the Gods of Peace.

I cannot help but relate this to modern American culture, with its endless images of war and violence that are drilled into our heads 24 hours a day. I do understand that boys will be boys, and that they often do love to play with war toys. I had my toy soldiers as a boy too, and enjoyed my share of make-believe combat. But I do worry at how this ties in with our modern, post-9/11 military occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, because it seems to me that in this last decade, war and the military have gained a sort of sacrosanct status, as something sacred that cannot be questioned but must only and always be obeyed. We are all pressured to "support the troops" rather than to THINK about what these wars are based upon and what they are actually achieving or not achieving.

I find the Gods of War a pretty scary lot. Even Odin, one of my favorite Pagan deities, is described as sometimes being untrustworthy in his aspect as a war god, giving victory to the undeserving and sacrificing his own followers on the battlefield for his own mysterious purposes, including drafting them into the elite force that will battle frost giants and fire demons in the final battle of Ragnarok, which, according to the Eddic poem "Voluspa," will plunge the whole world into fiery chaos, prior to an eventual regeneration of the cosmos after its total destruction. I think that for many in the Heathen or Asatru community, the mythology of Odin, Valhalla and Ragnarok is seen as a straightforward glorification of war and warriors. I see darker, more ambiguous meanings here. Odin's shiftiness on the field of battle seems a perfect metaphor for the horrible uncertainty of war; the destruction on both sides, never knowing who will live or die, and in the aftermath, the grieving for the dead and the wounds both psychological and physical, the broken limbs and shattered minds that even the victors will carry home from the battle, and the possibility of renewed war in the near or distant future as the losing side nurses grievances and dreams of vengeance. Not exactly a good time for all. Not the great fun of "The World of Warfare" video game.

And, Ragnarok is a failure, an absolute disaster for the gods. All the combined efforts of Odin and the other great gods like Thor and Freyr to protect the worlds of gods and of men are all in vain. Odin is swallowed by the great wolf Fenrir; Thor is slain by the Midgard Serpent. The other gods go down in defeat as well, and the fire-demon Surt runs wild, in what seems a medieval version of a nuclear holocaust. There are obviously different ways to interpret this, and my thoughts here are strictly my own. I read this as actually suggesting a weariness with war, a sense that war only leads to greater and greater destruction. Others may view this as prophesizing that some kind of all-destroying conflict (Israel versus Iran in the Middle East? India vs Pakistan? Yankees versus Red Sox? soccer versus football?) is inevitable, and that we should all sharpen our axes, shine our shields and prepare to go down fighting.

However, the peacenik in me finds other threads to follow in the Norse myths. When Odin gains mastery of the magical runes in the poem Havamal, one of the abilities he acquires is the ability to make peace. So he is not a 24/7, bloodthirsty war god who only knows how to rhyme "war" with "more." He knows the value of peace, when possible. There is also the tale of the battle between two families or tribes of divine beings, the Aesir (including Odin and Thor) and the Vanir (fertility gods all, sea-god Njord, brother and sister fertility deities Freyr and Freyja). It was the "first war in the world," and neither side could win. So they arranged a truce, exchanged prisoners, and Freyr and Freyja came to dwell among the Aesir. This truce, unlike the apocalyptic battle of Ragnarok, was a success. Peace worked, at least in this case.

Elsewhere in the mythology, a minor episode that I also find significant is that Freyr, in the course of wooing a maiden of interest, gives away his sword, and when the battle of Ragarok comes, he is without a proper weapon, and has to make do with the horn of a stag; we might jokingly say, Freyr has to "go stag" at the worst possible moment. He gave up his weapon for love. Now, this didn't end so well for Freyr, so it is not necessarily an argument that this was the best move to have made, but I find it expressive of Freyr's primary nature as a fertility god, who was often worshipped in the form of a giant phallus. He seems to have been a "make love not war" kind of god.

Therefore, I think that a cogent case can be made that the Norse tradition is not wholeheartedly pro-war or pro-military. There are also anti-military, pro-peace dimensions that deserve contemplation. Stepping back to our modern society, I think that pro-peace voices need to be bolder and louder. For too long now, the worship of the war god has dominated our political discourse. To be anti-war is seen as wimpy, traitorous, un-American. On the conservative side of politics, there is the strange, ironic coincidence of "pro-life" and pro-war points of view. I think that being truly pro-life should extend to opposing war, or at least being very cautious and reserved about the hellish mass murder that war is, and not celebrating it as if it were a big happy football game for the whole family to watch and cheer. In the Pagan world, I would personally like to join forces with other Pagans who feel that their spirituality calls them to promote peace and denounce war. I will stand with you. There was once a "Pagans for Peace" organization in the late 1990s, but I don't think it survived the Bush years. Perhaps it is time to try again?