Non Confrontational Subversion

Originally written in June of 2019, published on blog in May 2020.

I find myself thinking about the phrase “non-confrontational subversion.”   Honestly, stealth is my super power, and I think I am really only coming to respect, understand and embrace that.

Growing up, many of the adults around me had, shall we say, a certain lack of coping skills where stress was concerned.  So, whenever a tough moment happened, there was a great deal of verbalizing to let off steam.  Without consciously realizing it until much later, I came to devalue this, and preferred a quiet, non-confrontational approach most of the time. 

Early on in my life, I rarely “got into it” with people, as far as screaming and yelling, name calling, belittling, devaluing or labeling which I so often saw happening when people disagreed. The more I saw others doing it, even other kids, the more I retreated to my solid ground of quiet calm. This was completely subconscious on my part, there was definitely no thought process around this until many years later, as an adult, when I realized I was doing this and sought to dig into it more deeply.

Looking back now, I can see areas where I stood my ground for certain, but not in the more “outward” way that I saw most people adopting. 

When our gym teacher had us do square dancing, I refused, along with several other students.  We were assigned to bring in 100 reasons why we would not square dance.  Everyone else did it.  I had three.  I told the teacher that I talked to my parents about it and there were only 3 reasons, and they agreed with me.  The teacher and the other kids said “You just make up silly nonsense reasons to get to 100.  I just looked at him…I couldn’t make sense of this.  I finally said “I wouldn’t write lies.”  I don’t think he knew what to do with that, and the issue was dropped.

A former boss many years ago forbade me to work with another department to get something done because she disagreed with the internal process being used. She wanted our area OUT of the loop.  Meanwhile, every time this issue occurred, customers were being screwed because of this internal tug of war between departments, with no one giving an inch.   One particular time this happened, and my boss forbade me to work on it.  The following week she went on vacation. The underwriter and I planned ahead, and took care of the extremely grateful customer while my boss was gone. She did discover this a few weeks later, and told me if my department were not currently being eliminated due to a merger, we’d be having a vastly different discussion.  I said that I understood, but that honestly, I would do it again because I believed in what I did.  So, I didn’t “have it out” with her. I simply did what I knew was right and I was alright with the consequences.  I was surprised that there wasn’t more that happened in that regard.

I’ve had a couple of family members or relatives over the years with whom I’ve had consistent difficult interactions with, because I stood my ground.  But I rarely escalated to screaming. In fact, I often drove them bat-sh** crazy in my attempts to try and force a kumbaya moment by calmly discussing things.    I was always wanting to crowbar everyone into that détente, but without anyone getting ornery.   It took  me a very long time to discover that there are times when that isn’t realistic and it’s alright to just walk away from people. 

Over the years, I have spent time  in the “verbal confrontation” arena, either in person or on social media.  I have found that I greatly dislike the person that I became in these situations.  I alienated people and used all of the tactics that I loathe…categorizing, name calling and belittling.  I can be ruthless, personal and brutal, verbally. Each time I ended up upsetting many people, accomplishing nothing, no good came of it, and in the end, I would get physically sick from the negative energy.  Clearly this type of communication is not my wheelhouse.  

 This week a few things have challenged my lovely comfort zone and it has been interesting to stand back and observe myself and others.  

First, I became aware of a somewhat disturbing occurrence locally, a blurring of the separation of church and state, which I believe in quite strongly.  I found myself in the position of needing to decide if I were going to voice those concerns, or remain silent.  My comfort zone said “Shut up.”  My heart knew I couldn’t and so I did let my concerns be known.  I wrote a courteous email voicing my concerns. 

That happens to me frequently.  If I think something could “get ugly” I immediately want to hide and avoid it.  But now, I can catch myself, I can step aside and actually observe myself doing that.  I can recognize that fear reaction and work through it and find a sensible course of action. Often this does NOT involve continuing to hide but it does usually involve much calmer ways of approaching things.  Because, that’s my jam. That’s where my experience lies. I can see now that I’ve built this skill set for years, ways to affect change while working to remain in a courteous, respectful, non-judgmental space.

Then, over the past several weeks, I’ve noticed at least 7 or 8 different sources that all seemed to me to have similar overlapping themes.  What it means to be a witch, what it means to be a pagan, what is the valid way to interact with various goddesses, and what a pagan or witch’s role should or should not be in the community are a few examples.

I am well aware that I have a longstanding issue with this last territory. Going way back to my days as a Catholic, I have had a tendency to become aggravated when someone attempts to define my path or say what I needed to do or not do on that path.  So I’ve been watching myself “eye roll” and be annoyed at what seems to me to be heavy handed approaches toward witchcraft, paganism and various aspects of it.  

I watch my reactions. When am I on track? When I am I being unnecessarily fearful or aggravated?  When is it good to do consensus building? When to walk away.  When does someone ELSE’S reaction to “me being me” matter?  When does it not?  I'm learning, more and more, that if I am operating in my integrity, then it's not an issue for me if people are okay with me or not.  Freedom is what that is.

I was in a group of people called into the priest’s office as a young adult in a Catholic youth group. We were overheard calmly discussing and questioning why and how certain things were being done. We were not disrespectful.  We got called on the carpet as a friend of his overheard and reported to him.  Some might say, why didn’t you speak with him?  We were gathering our thoughts, and never had the chance. Questioning his judgement was apparently not appropriate.  In general, I respected him greatly, but I always saw that particular interaction as one where I did not respect his actions, and I did not take anything significant away from that office meeting that day.

I’ve been in a mad love affair with The Divine my entire life.  I’ve never really needed anyone to interpret that.  My usual reaction?  Take what works for me and leave the rest behind, like at a buffet. I have, in effect, “spit out” plenty of things into a napkin and thrown them away if they do not fit.    

 Now that I think about it, that’s a very particular skill set I’ve been building. Non confrontational subversion.  Creating change in gentler ways.  We aren’t all suited to screaming from the rooftops. But we CAN all affect change, each in our own way.  I am really kind of proud of this now. We all find our own path, and do our thing our way.   I wish I'd come to that conclusion sooner, but I'm happy to have gotten there at all. 

Struggling To Find My Way

This is an odd time.  We've all been dealing with the Covid 19 crisis since March.  No one's life is the same as it was.  We have more political division than we've ever had.  And, our country is doing it's Shadow Work in a big way.

Shadow work.  For those who are unfamiliar with the term, coined by Carl Jung, shadow work consists of facing the parts of ourselves that we choose to repress, hide or ignore.  For those of us who have been there, done that, and know it never ends, what is happening in our country is so very microcosm / macrocosm.  What is happening within us is happening in our country, whether we recognize it or not.

We're making the most bizarre soup right now.   There is so very much to manage. We have reached more than 100,000 deaths in the United States from this virus.  What plans did those people have?  How many gardens went unplanted?  How many kids won't know their grandma or grandpa?  How many smiles, hugs and holidays together won't happen now?  How much art, how much music, how many inventions died with those beautiful, bright souls?  We must do better.  We owe them that.

We already had a lot to handle didn't we?  The chasm in the distribution of wealth in our country was already an ongoing, major problem.  Years of laws being twisted to the advantage of a few meant that many were just barely getting by, and some were NOT getting by.  Infrastructure has been failing in dozens of states, due to the lack of funding coming from Washington.  Our earth, the only home we have, has been abused and treated like a Christmas toy, forgotten and tossed aside once the next shiny thing comes along, or profit sounds it's siren call.  Many cannot resist her when she calls, she owns their souls.

Covid 19 will not be the last pandemic we have.  We have become accustomed to NOT having to deal with things like this, and now that it is here, and slow to exit, we have become spoiled children, whining and becoming angry that we have to deal with hardship.  I will include myself in that.  Our ancestors are giving a collective eye roll, right now, my friends, wherever they are. There are no easy answers here, and balance will not be simply achieved.  This will be the hardest work of our lives. People's health and safety must come first.  Then, how will the economy recover?  Where IS the balance?  What is the best path?  For some, the economy is tied up with their health and safety, as they may lose their homes or apartments or their health insurance due to loss of their jobs. Meanwhile, as we struggle through this, we allow our fear to bring on the blame game.  We need someone to blame, someone whose fault this must be, someone to shake our fist and scream at.  Oh, how we LOVE to fight, blame and take sides.

We have made note of so many things as this situation has developed.  For many years, disabled people, parents of small children, and others have asked to work from home, and/or have flexible schedules and have often been told it was not possible.  Suddenly, when EVERYONE needed to do so, we discovered that ANYTHING is possible.  Bravo to the companies who already supported work from home and flex schedules before this.  For the rest of you, understand that you're on notice now, there's no going back.  You're going to have to do a better job of balancing shareholder worship and employee needs.  It's also far better for the environment to support work from home.

Speaking of which, let's take a moment to acknowledge the wonder of nature's resiliency as we all pulled back to our homes. It has been a wonder.  I have been in awe seeing so many stories of how the earth responds when we are not behaving like parasites.  It is abundantly clear that the lifestyle we have built is killing the only home we have.  It is also clear that we CAN reverse direction.  Some countries have been successfully doing this on multiple levels for many years, without rampant failure of corporations and banks.  Who knew? What lessons can we take from this moving forward? What cool ideas have been birthed that we can keep?  How can we leave a safe, healthy home for the generations to come?  If we cannot do this, we have failed.

I have come to really appreciate the limitations of the Covid 19 restrictions, despite the inherent challenges we all face at the same time.  It forcefully brought us to a place where we HAD TO slow down.  We had to find other ways of being.  Patience has become an art form. We couldn't be incessantly busy, chained to our paychecks and the endless distractions we use to forget that little nagging voice inside that says...."Wait...hold on....."  Many have had more "family time" since March than they've had for years. Meals together, family game night, enjoying old movies, just being together has been so wonderful.  Medical personnel, first responders, retail staff, truck drivers, and food workers of every type have become the heroes that keep our country going. 

In 2020, we have seen MORE people of color die, frankly being murdered, in situations where a white person would have had far different treatment.  We only needed to see the armed white protestors in Michigan to know that this is true.  If POC had done exactly the same thing?  Ask yourself how that would have gone down.

Systemic racism is deeply embedded in the fabric of our country.  Many are blind to this, due to the way it is bound up in the way we have come to BE.   I am a white person.  The term white privilege bothers some.  I am not bothered by it.  It doesn't mean you haven't had difficulty, or that your  parents weren't hard workers.  We have all dealt with the ugly stuff.  It's not a pain contest, so for crying out loud, stop trying to WIN. Being aware of and having compassion for another's experience does not erase your experience. Acknowledging your white privilege means you understand that as a white person there are some things you have not had to deal with, and that you will never have to deal with.  People of color DO have to deal with a myriad of things that you will never have to face - IN ADDITION TO the hardships you've had.

Covid 19.  Financial instability.  Racism.  LGBTQIA people are still not safe and allowed to simply be as they choose in so many places.  And all the while, some benefit from all of our fighting.  There are those who pit us against one another for their own ends. We allow them to.

Why this blog post?  Why this rant?  Just to acknowledge.......FUCK THIS IS HARD.  I don't want to watch the news or check social media every day and think how frightening, disgusting and base humans are, how we have never evolved.   I don't want to fight with people.  I don't want to keep finding out people I know and care about hold beliefs that do not support basic human rights.  I need hope.  I need to see that we're uniting, that we are progressing, that we can be better than this. That we can find common ground even when we disagree and work toward the greater good.  That respect and humility mean something.  That white supremacy is dying and will rot away, never to return. That we are no longer obsessing about others sexuality, or gender expression.

Day by day, I waffle between anxiety, sadness and grief, rage, and other times when I must shut the world out for a day.  I must retreat to the woods, or spend time with the flowers.  I need soft music, a candle and a purring kitty.  I'll do an art project or clean a closet.  Jack, one of our cats, is absolutely the best at arriving just when I am about to lose my sh**.  He'll sit on my lap and I am forced to stop thinking, stop doing, and just enjoy being with him.  Thanks, kitty.

So, yeah. Shadow work is hard. So, I'll say it.  I am having a really hard time.  And maybe you are too. I see you.  Maybe you see me, too.  The United States is right in the midst of deep, deep shadow work.  It remains to be seen how Lady Liberty will emerge from this dark time.

This is uncomfortable.  But it is important to embrace this discomfort.  Our comfort is NOT more important than other people's lives.  It's not.  So let's collectively suck it up, shall we, and embrace the suckage together.  Let's invite it over for coffee or a beer and ask it what it has to say, understand it, and learn from it so we can begin to move forward.

Thanks to my family, my BFF's, our cats, the forest, birds and animals, the flowers, my daily magickal practice, and a host of beings not in the flesh, I seem to have retained enough of my marbles to function.  I hope you have, too.  I will continue to hold out for hope.  I will keep believing in love.  I will stop myself when I am repulsed by humanity and I will seek stories of the good, stories of overcoming and of progress toward the greater good.  And, I will help to be a part of those stories as often as I can, here in my little corner of our sweet Earth home that I love.