Dianics, Discrimination and the Dust of the Dying

As is not infrequently the case with me, I find a comment that I made in anger actually pointed the way toward a better understanding of the problem at hand.  Responding to a Dianic who has repeatedly posted anti-transgender comments, I said:

Eruca:

So how does it feel to be poor, aging, reliant on government charity to sustain your existence, and rejected as irrelevant by all but a few similarly poor, aging and equally irrelevant bigots? 

Your curse, should you choose or not choose to accept it, is to watch the rest of the world pass you by as they take the achievements you and yours gave them into directions which you never anticipated and which you are powerless to control. 

Have a happy walk to the shadowlands.

Oh, wait... you're already there.

Perhaps I could have phrased it a bit more gently, but it's never a good idea to expect tact at 3:00am when I just changed a dirty diaper and have had my fill of early morning excreta.  And as I counted to 50, thought about editing the comment and then decided it was fine the way it was, I realized just how much painful truth there was in those paragraphs.

By her own admission, Eruca is a disabled Dianic lesbian. Should her hated patriarchy decide to stop sending her a monthly check, she would starve in the street.  She is forced to rely on whatever scraps The Man throws in her general direction. The sisters of her generation are as powerless as she, and the sisters of the generations which came after her have left eldercare to the tender mercies of Uncle Sam.  The Great Womyn's Communities the separatists dreamed of in the second wave never came to pass: all that is left are a few lonely old dears remembering better days and buying day-old produce with their food stamps.

Which brings us to Z Budapest.

I said in another comment that I felt it was tragic that Z has chosen to tear down her legacy like this. Instead of being remembered for the 40+ years of work she did for the Womyn's community, she's going to be seen as a foaming-at-the-mouth anti-Transgender bigot. But then I realized that hateful statement on someone else's blog has brought her more attention than she has received in a couple of decades.  Were she not remembered as a bigot, she'd be remembered as a quaint curiosity... if she were remembered at all.

In his blog post on the topic, Devin Hunter hit the nail on the head:

The simple fact that for every nine people there that were protesting there was one attendee to her ritual made it all clear! She does not represent the majority of us, we represent the majority. She is not a leader that can be voted out of office, she is not a politician who lobbies for the exclusion of trans individuals, she is a woman who comes from a particular world view that we as a greater community no longer feel to be valid in our modern times. She is the past and we are the future.

This is the path Z and her followers have chosen to stay in the public eye: this is the way they hope to remain a vital part of the community which has outgrown them.  They stumble about the terrain wondering why the earth no longer shakes for them and why those damn little furry creatures keep eating their eggs.  Instead of hatred, we should treat them with pity. Their time has passed and their appointment with the Devouring Mother draws nearer each day. When they have returned to the dust, those who come after them will bleach the rot from their bones and exhibit them as a display of our continuing evolution.

Pantheacon 2012 mark 2: the comments begin

First things first: Deborah Castellano pointed out that she is a Dianic and follower of a Dianic tradition which does not exclude transwomen.  I apologize for painting this community with an overly broad brush and I am heartened to see that Z Budapest's opinions are not shared by everyone who identifies as Dianic.

That being said: here is a comment from a womyn identifying herself as "Fawn."

No one seems to be mentioning this was a skyclad ritual...so what would happen when the trans-women took off their clothes in front of the genetic-women? What about the women who were in the ritual and on their periods, would it have grossed them out?

It appears that you missed the point which I've tried to make in several posts about this subject.  Let me repeat it again, writ large for those who have visual impairments.

I am not questioning the rights of Dianic Wiccans to hold "womyn born womyn/genetic women only" rituals.  I question the wisdom of holding them at a public event.

Let me know if you missed any part of this. I can look for a bigger font.

All the hateful language being talked about from all sides makes me ashamed of my community, NOT my body or what I did. I did not hear anything of the sort being said from the Dianics' like this...the gossip surrounding this is nauseating.

 Perhaps you missed this earlier message from Z Budapest:

This struggle has been going since the Women’s Mysteries first appeared. These individuals selfishly never think about the following: if women allow men to be incorporated into Dianic Mysteries,What will women own on their own? Nothing! Again! Transies who attack us only care about themselves. 

We women need our own culture, our own resourcing, our own traditions. 

You can tell these are men, They don’t care if women loose the Only tradition reclaimed after much research and practice ,the Dianic Tradition. Men simply want in. its their will. How dare us women not let them in and give away the ONLY spiritual home we have!
Men want to worship the Goddess? Why not put in the WORK and create your own trads. 

The order of ATTIS for example,(dormant since the 4rth century) used to be for trans gendered people, also the castrata, men who castrated themselves to be more like the Goddess.

Why are we the ONLY tradition they want? Go Gardnerian!Go Druid! Go Ecclectic!
Filled with women, and men. They would fit fine. 

But if you claim to be one of us, you have to have sometimes in your life a womb, and overies and MOON bleed and not die 

Women are born not made by men on operating tables.

Do you find this to be an appropriate response to transgender women by a Dianic elder? Many do not - and they are choosing to make their feelings known.  You may not like their opinions, you may not agree with them, but let's not pretend that the trans community and trans allies are the only ones slinging mud here.

What about the Trans-gender ritual that also took place? Or the men's spirituality workshop? There are many dimensions to this, as there are people, and MINE was nothing but empowering. I prayed for these folks, that they receive the grace of peace from the Goddess in their lives.

"They have their own churches, they have their own schools, they have their own water fountains. Why do you need to come in here stirring up trouble?"

Maybe they could have spent that energy protesting the neglect of CHILDREN at this event... I saw kids dragged to restaurants at 1am (under 3 years old), kids throwing up in trash cans whilst their parents continued to be engaged in conversations and were oblivious, babies who were obviously sick with green snot being carted around to listen to very adult conversations. It was extremely embarrassing and disappointing to see so many people who CARED about the transgenders feelings, yet ignored the children's needs.

And you did what to protect these children? Did you complain about it on your blog? Did you go to con staff? Did you get in touch with San Jose Child Protective Services? Forgive me for my bluntness, but methinks you care about "the children" only insofar as you can use them to derail attention from the issue at hand.  Which is, in case you missed it the first time:

I am not questioning the rights of Dianic Wiccans to hold "womyn born womyn/genetic women only" rituals.  I question the wisdom of holding them at a public event.

That being said: as a parent, here's a smack in the head to those parents who didn't take the needs of their young children into account while attending a convention. The behavior Fawn described is repellent and unacceptable: try to do better next time.

I don't personally care about someone's gender identity, sexual orientation, or political affiliation in our community; I leave that up to the Christian fundies. Religion IS exclusive, especially any mysteries. I encourage those who felt 'left out' to re-claim their own mysteries and give empowerment to themselves, instead of trying to take from others.

You really didn't read the original post, did you? Pay close attention to this part, which I've once again writ large for the visually or cluefully impaired:

As for a lack of "safe spaces" - this gets back to what I said earlier. Christians are allowed to welcome or to shut out any potential congregants they see fit. They can rail against homosexuals, race mixers, Jewish bankers, secular humanists, Muslims and the like from their own pulpits. Those who find their teachings to be edifying are free to attend their churches. Last I checked, no one was seriously talking about making the practice of Evangelical Christianity illegal: neither is anyone saying that Dianics should not be allowed to practice their faith as they wish and to open their private events to participants of their choice. But like many others who are unwilling to own their own privilege, Sierra seems to mistake the right to freedom of speech and religion with the right to a cheering section.

You seem to think that asking Dianics to refrain from holding rituals which will divide the community and which exclude certain women based on a standard which many consider discriminatory and hurtful, is the same thing as "trying to take" their mysteries. You're welcome to your mysteries. You just aren't (or shouldn't be) welcome to bludgeon others with them at a public event. And your refusal to recognize that reeks of your middle-class white privilege: you are more interested in your own selfish needs than in the feelings and concerns of others in the community.

Pantheacon 2012: Here we go again...

After last year's controversy over rites which excluded transgender women, the organizers of Pantheacon learned their lesson and put no more "womyn born womyn" rituals on their calendar.  Unfortunately for us, this only happened in Bizarro World. In our dimension they scheduled a ritual which was not only advertised as "for genetic women only" but which was led by Z Budapest, whose hateful comments about  "transies" were among the low points of last year's argument.

As can be expected, the blogosphere is once again abuzz over the controversy. Thorn Coyle organized a silent protest outside Z Budapest's ritual (more from Thorn here). And Yeshe Rabbit, whose CAYA coven organized last year's ritual, chimed in as well.  But what I found most interesting was a comment from a Dianic who attended Z's ritual, a womyn who posted as "Sierra."

What about our right and women and girls to have our own rituals and space? When every other group can have their own rituals and space that is not challenged, why is it that only women are being attacked for seeking to take care of our own needs rather than the wants of others? This agenda by some transfolk to assert their patriarchal "right of privelege" to go where ever they want, whenever they want and yet to portray themselves as the "victims" of genetic females has gone far enough. Its time that people start questioning the assertions being made by the anti-Dianics and make some effort to listen to what is being said by the Dianics who celebrate women's mysteries. We will not give upour rites and our sacred space.

Z Budapest has a right to hold rituals for "genetic women only" and to refer to transwomen as mutilated men attempting to exercise male privilege. And others within the community have the right to call her on her beliefs.  Exclusion cuts both ways. If we are going to support the Dianic right to exclude transwomen as "mutiliated men," then we must also support the right of other groups to exclude those Dianics as "bigots." You may disagree with either or both parties in this controversy, but you can hardly disagree with anyone's right to free association.

I also find it interesting how the Dianics seem so caught up in the idea of "patriarchal privilege" that they are unable or unwilling to recognize their own privilege.  Is there anyone who would deny that transwomen have less cultural clout than cisgender women, or that they are disproportionally subjected to violence and discrimination? Frankly, all this talk by college-educated middle-class white women about the "privilege" of a marginalized class reminds me of the endless rantings about how "white men suffer more discrimination than anyone else in America thanks to Affirmative Action" or how there is a "secular humanist war against Christianity."

This privileged worldview can be seen in the whimpering about "[giving] up our rites and sacred space." Nobody is denying the Dianics the right to worship as they see fit.  But there's a big difference between acknowledging a group's rite to hold exclusionary rituals and giving them a venue to hold those exclusionary rituals at a public event.  Like the fundamentalists who see the separation of church and state as a direct attack on their faith, the Dianics seem bound and determined to declare that anyone who denies them a venue at any event - regardless of the cost in hurt feelings and marginalization to other attendees - is engaging in a war against Dianics.

Transfolk have their own amazing mysteries and rather than constantly trying to destroy and eliminate Dianic Mysteries, should focus their energies on building their own traditions, mysteries and rituals. They can then invite whomever they want to share their experiences with them. Why has this not happened? You might want to ask yourself this because it may clarify what is really going on. Make an effort to look into the history of the last 10 to 15 years of harrassment of women by some in the trans-community that has led to the elimination of nearly all genetic women's space. Anytime we attempt to gather, we are called bigots and it is said that we are somehow victimizing the trans-folk. We have very few safe spaces left. Space that we need to take care of ourselves physically, emotionally, spiritually. I am not anti-trans. I have no issues with an inclusive community. But I will not be bullied and harassed out of participating in my birthright as a female.

Again, nobody is bullying or harassing her out of "participating in [her] birthright." There is a big difference between a silent protest and a pipe bomb left on someone's doorstep. There's a big difference between saying that PCon will not provide official sanction to "womyn-born-womyn" rituals but will not and cannot stop Dianics from holding these events in their own suite and saying that Dianics are unwelcome to attend PCon as teachers, presenters or even guests. I also note that there used to be an official name for the solution Sierra offers.  Do the words "separate but equal" ring bells with anyone? (We can at least be grateful that she didn't tell us that some of her best friends are trans).

As for a lack of "safe spaces" - this gets back to what I said earlier. Christians are allowed to welcome or to shut out any potential congregants they see fit. They can rail against homosexuals, race mixers, Jewish bankers, secular humanists, Muslims and the like from their own pulpits. Those who find their teachings to be edifying are free to attend their churches. Last I checked, no one was seriously talking about making the practice of Evangelical Christianity illegal: neither is anyone saying that Dianics should not be allowed to practice their faith as they wish and to open their private events to participants of their choice. But like many others who are unwilling to own their own privilege, Sierra seems to mistake the right to freedom of speech and religion with the right to a cheering section.

From Melancholia: Sylvia Plath Post-Mortem

[T]he point of anguish at which my mother killed herself was taken over by strangers, possessed and reshaped by them… It was as if the clay from her poetic energy was taken up and versions of my mother made out of it, invented to reflect only the inventors, as if they could possess my real, actual mother, now a woman who has ceased to resemble herself in those other minds. – Frieda Hughes

The violence and fury in Plath's later poetry seemed unnerving and unladylike to many of her editors in 1963. Before the decade ended, it would find a ready audience among angry young feminists striving to cast off patriarchal limitations. Plath's suicide became the defining moment of her life: the Ariel poems became incantations written in her blood, verses which simultaneously captured and drove her to self-immolation. Many of her devotees saw Hughes as a male oppressor who had callously driven her to her end: his editing of her poetry and tight control over her journals after her death was seen as a final betrayal by a black-hearted scoundrel.

Her mythology has inspired scholarly attention as much as her poetry. After studying the lives of over 2,000 creative luminaries, psychologist James Kaufman found that female poets had a particularly elevated risk of mental illness, psychiatric hospitalization and suicide attempts: he dubbed this "the Sylvia Plath effect." (Other researchers have pointed to problems with this and similar studies, noting issues with selection bias, controls that are not blinded, reliance on biographies that might play up mental illness, retrospective designs and unclear definitions of creativity). Like Goethe's young Werther and Chateaubriand's René, Plath has become an icon of the brilliant but tormented soul too delicate for this world. But while Werther and René were fictional (or thinly fictionalized) creations, Plath was a flesh-and-blood person whose death left behind a legacy and a family.

It is tempting to see the final Ariel poems as the cause and product of her self-immolation. Perhaps the real tragedy is that Plath died at the height of her creative powers. What might she have created had she been been able to pull herself through that miserable London winter and gone on to write poems not about her self-destruction but about her survival? Instead of romanticizing what her depression gave us, we might do better to mourn what it took away.

Plath had little tolerance for "beats" and alternative lifestyles and strove (however uncomfortably) to fulfill her society's expectations as a wife and mother. Would she have become an icon if she and Hughes had reconciled and she spent the rest of her life writing about family and motherhood from a British suburb? Alas, we will never know the answers to these questions. With his death Otto Plath became a "colossus" to his daughter, a broken statue she could only try fruitlessly to mend. Her suicide has made her a colossus to us, simultaneously unreachable and inescapable.

Why I am Not a Professional White Vodouisant

Once again, my friend and colleague Galina Krasskova has written an excellent and thought-provoking blog post, this one on Cultural (Mis)appropriation.  And once again her work has inspired me to write about things going on in my life.

Now that Inner Traditions has accepted Talking with the Spirits I am back at work on a new project. More precisely, I'm back at work on several new projects.  People always worry about writers stealing ideas. Just about every writer I know has too many ideas, yrs. truly included.  My problem isn't coming up with things to write about, it's deciding which manuscript most needs my attention at any given moment.

The project which is claiming most of my time at present is Melancholia. This is a study of depression and the ways it has been viewed throughout history. (Yesterday I began writing the chapter on Sylvia Plath: I realized later that it was the 49th anniversary of her suicide. I'd say that was appropriate, but given that the chapter in question deals with how a brilliant poet has been reduced to an icon of trendy sadness, I'm not so sure it was...). Melancholia is a workbook which contains exercises for those of us living with depression: among those covered are Marcus Aurelius, Emily Dickinson and Omar Khayyam. I've posted some excerpts from this draft and hope to provide more in the future.

After that I hope to return to Lilith's Children: A History of Abortion. As per the title, this book examines abortion and birth control from ancient times to the present day.  This one touches upon historical forms of family planning (including charming customs like exposing unwanted infants or sacrificing them to various gods) and our contemporary war on/for abortion rights. I suspect my take on the subject will piss off just about everyone who has strong feelings on the issue.

Following up on Power of the Poppy, I have in the works a manuscript with the working title Speed: 4,000 Years of Life in the Fast Lane. This one covers everything from tea to "bath salts," from ephedra to Ritalin. It touches upon things like the influence of amphetamines on the Beat poets, the way that cocaine fueled the swinging 70s, and the ways in which Big Pharma used "ADHD" as a marketing opportunity. I thought about getting a large quantity of some stimulant du jour and writing the whole thing in a ten-day all-nighter ala Robert Louis Stevenson's cocaine-addled production of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. But alas, family responsibilities and self-preservation mean I will be sticking to my usual routine of coffee by the liter.

You may note that none of these books deal with Vodou.  That is not coincidental: I've made a conscious choice to refrain from writing about Vodou for a bit. This doesn't mean that I've given up on Vodou. Haitian Vodou remains the poteau mitan around which my religious life revolves.  Sevis lwa is an integral part of my private spirituality.  But as time has passed I've grown less comfortable with taking a public role as a Vodou leader and educator.

Since I wrote The Haitian Vodou Handbook, Mambo Chita Tann and Mambo Vye Zo Kommande la Menfo have also written excellent guidebooks for aspiring Vodouisants. We have all made it clear that while it is possible to honor the lwa and ancestors on your own, you will not be able to get to the heart of Vodou practice without actually joining a société and becoming an initiate (or, at the very least, a regular attendee at fets and public ceremonies for the lwa).

I have introduced people to my société and other houses on several occasions. On several occasions I have been asked "are we going to be the only white people there?" I've had to calm these poor souls down and reassure them that nobody was going to beat them up, steal their iPods or hit them up for spare change.  (To date I've been able to resist saying "You should be safe because they ate two Mormons last week. But if you see anyone bringing out a big cauldron and some stewing vegetables run as fast as you can..."). Many white people who are fascinated by African and Afro-Caribbean spirituality are also terrified of black folks. And, sadly, cottage industries have grown up which cater both to their interest and their fear.  Consider this post from Kathy "Mambo Racine Sans Bout" Grey:

My Haitian membership likewise treats the internationals well. Unlike many Haitian peristyles, they don't mock, or deride, or steal from, or disrespect, the international participants, instead they have always received the internationals wholeheartedly, taking them into the djevo as sisters and brothers... I have always made sure that things run right, that there is no stealing or other bad behavior, that ceremonies are correct, that the Haitian initaites are on their best behavior, that the drinking water supply is maintained, that each and every detail is correctly discharged so as to provide the international (and Haitian!) members with a safe, positive experience. 

(Grey has elsewhere claimed "Most Haitian men who have American girlfriends or spouses have women in Haiti too, and it is the Haitian family that counts. Not that they treat Haitian women any better! Beating, cheating, rape, it's all on the agenda" and said of the Puerto Rican students at the school where she teaches "Not only do they not aspire to college, they categorically reject it because "schools are for fools" and they plan to make their money dealing dope and prostituting.")

I've seen a similar phenomenon with the recent rise of interest in Rootwork.  Catherine Yronwode has done a fantastic job of preserving and distributing hoodoo knowledge and making supplies available: she encourages students and customers alike to become involved with African-American communities in their area and to learn from black practitioners. Yet there are many white "rootworkers" who buy all their supplies online, cater to a white clientele and never engage with the community from whence rootwork and hoodoo actually developed. I'm reminded of Harlan Ellison's comment about the executive who suggested "We should remake The Wiz ... white!" I'm also reminded of the New Agers I saw in Tulsa who strolled out of their favorite crystal store carrying armfuls of dreamcatchers, smudge sticks and guides to "Native American Spirituality" as they stepped over the drunk Cherokee sleeping in the parking lot.

There are several Vodou houses in the United States and Canada which are run by Haitians and Haitian-Americans and who welcome non-Haitians as guests and initiates.  Off the top of my head I can think of Mambo Edeline St.-Amand in Brooklyn, Mambo Marie Carmel in Long Island, Société La Deese de la Mer in Montréal, and Mambo Maude Evans in Boston - and there are many others. At this point there is literature available which will provide you with a basic grounding in sevis lwa.  If you want to learn more about Haitian Vodou, here's a novel idea - find a Haitian teacher. If you can't do that for geographical reasons there are books out there, including mine, which will teach you as much as you can learn on your own and provide you with an introduction to the culture and the spirits. If, on the other hand, you'd rather study with me because it spares you the anxiety of dealing with scary brown people, then I'm really not interested. Find someone else to sell you a ticket to the Disneyland version of It's a Small Djevo After All.

Does this mean I'll never write another book on Vodou? "Never" is an awfully long time. I may return to the subject if and when I feel something needs to be said and I need to be the person who says it.  But for now I feel like I've taken my audience as far as they can go through books.  I have no regrets about the Vodou books I've written to date. I feel they accomplished what I set out to do when I started writing about sevis lwa. In fact, I consider myself very fortunate: they did the job so well that my services are no longer required.

From Melancholia: Acedia, the Noonday Demon

AND when this has taken possession of some unhappy soul, it produces dislike of the place, disgust with the cell, and disdain and contempt of the brethren who dwell with him or at a little distance, as if they were careless or unspiritual. It also makes the man lazy and sluggish about all manner of work which has to be done within the enclosure of his dormitory. It does not suffer him to stay in his cell, or to take any pains about reading, and he often groans because he can do no good while he stays there … a kind of unreasonable confusion of mind takes possession of him like some foul darkness, and makes him idle and useless for every spiritual work, so that he imagines that no cure for so terrible an attack can be found in anything except visiting some one of the brethren, or in the solace of sleep alone. – John Cassian, Institutes

Around 415, Cassian came to Marsilla (modern-day Marseilles, France) to establish a monastery and nunnery there. He came to a region where the old order was fast crumbling: while it remained nominally a Roman province, power in Gaul was largely vested in the hands of local strongmen. Many of the Gallo-Romans residing in Marsilla had been driven there by the collapse of the Empire's northern border and the subsequent confiscation of their estates by invading Visigoths. Faced with social breakdown, many sought solace in religion. They realized their treasures on this earth were transitory and hoped to gain a share in the kingdom of heaven.

Although there was considerable interest in monastic life, there was little in the way of monastic experience. Aspiring Gallic monks and nuns had heard stories of the incredible austerities practiced in Egypt and the miracles wrought on a daily basis by Egyptian holy men. But they had no realistic picture of a contemplative life, nor any idea of the difficulties faced by these ascetic hermits. Cassian provided them with personal guidance as a spiritual leader, as was the Egyptian custom. The Desert Fathers looked with suspicion on written texts, fearing that they might fall into the hands of those not spiritually prepared for advanced knowledge and do them more harm than good. But at the request of several high-ranking Church officials, Cassian agreed to write down some of his experiences. To that end, he wrote two influential tomes, the Institutes and Conferences.

Among those works was a list of the "eight deadly sins" which he had received from the Egyptian Desert Father Evagrius Ponticus. These would later become the famous "Seven Deadly Sins" after "sorrow" and "acedia" were lumped together under the rubric "sloth." But while sloth has come to mean simple laziness, Evagrius and Cassian had a more nuanced view of these shortcomings. As Cassian said:

There are two kinds of sadness. The first is begotten once anger has ceased, or from some hurt that has been suffered or from a desire that has been thwarted and brought to naught. The other comes from unreasonable mental anguish or from despair. There are two kinds of acedia (anxiety or weariness of heart). One makes those who are seething with emotion fall asleep. The other encourages a person to abandon his home and to flee.

Acedia manifests as an inability to concentrate on the tasks at hand alongside a deep dissatisfaction and ennui. Sufferers find no joy even in work which they normally love: the whole process seems unbearably tedious. Acedia might begin early in the day but normally became most troubling at noon, the time when rest seemed far away and the prayers felt like they had gone on forever: as a result, many monks called it "the noonday demon." And while it was first diagnosed in the 4^th century, it remains a pressing problem today. Aldous Huxley stated that the modern age had seen "the triumph of the noonday demon" and noted that acedia had progressed

 …from the position of being a deadly sin, deserving of damnation, to the position first of a diseaes and finally of an essentially lyrical emotion, fruitful in the inspiration of much of the most characteristic modern literature. The sense of universal futility, the feelings of boredom and despair, with the complementary desire to be "anywhere, anywhere out of the world," or at least out of the place in which one happens at the moment to be, have been the inspiration of poetry and the novel for a century or more.

Exercise 5-3: Acedia

Almost every goal, every job, every achievement, will require a certain amount of tedious and repetitive activity. An athlete training for a race, a student studying for a test, a programmer trying to finish a project before the deadline – all may find themselves faced with a sudden deep distaste for the work at hand and, by extension, for the circumstances which have brought them to this place. And as the monks realized, acedia is insistent: if you give in to it once, you may soon find yourself in the habit of shirking your duties and blowing off important but unenjoyable tasks.

Acedia was particularly troubling to solitary monks: as a communal monastic lifestyle became more prevalent, it became a less common complaint. In today's post-industrial workplace many of us also spend long hours engaged in unstructured solitary brainwork – and thanks to e-mail and social media we can "desert our cell" without leaving our cubicle!

Although it may seem paradoxical, one of the most effective ways of overcoming acedia is dedicating full concentration to the tedious task at hand. John Cassian told the story of Abbot Paul, who overcame acedia by weaving mats and baskets while he prayed. Because his cell was too remote to carry his wares to market, he burned them at the end of each year and started anew. Jiko Linda Cutts, a Sōtō Zen priest, says "Doing our daily activities of laundry, dishes and grooming is an expression of our connection to life… That is the mystery of the everyday. Everything is included."

Setting definite goals for yourself can be helpful. Something as simple as "I'm not going to look out the window until I've finished X" can make time move faster and help you get through the worst of the bout. Be sure to set realistic goals: if you say "I am not going to stand up until I finish War and Peace," you're setting yourself up for a disappointment that will only provide the noonday demon material for its internal monologues. ("Of course you couldn't follow through. You never can. What's the use? You don't really care about that class or that degree. You'll never get through college anyway…").

It is important that you refrain from making life decisions based on acedia. If you feel like your career is meaningless and your life is empty, it could be that you need to make radical changes and fulfill your dreams at all cost. Or it could be that you're suffering from ennui related to your current project. When in acedia's grip it is common to think that the grass is greener somewhere else, that everything in your life would be better if you were out of this situation and away from this task. Acedia will magnify the faults of your superiors, your co-workers and your assistants: it will try to convince you that you deserve better or that you don't deserve what you have, depending on the moment. The best response is a rational one: consider the evidence for all the accusations the noonday demon is throwing at you. Chances are you'll see that most are baseless and easily refuted. Once you've exposed that disordered thinking you'll find it much easier to return to your duty and finish your work.

Vanity of vanities...

While Googling blog mentions of "Kenaz Filan" I discovered someone had used me in a Googlestack spam.  To wit:

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I presume that they first visited Harvey's Hangout and spoke with a man who knows his cheap vodka like nobody's business.  And then there are some of the search terms which led people to my blog this week:

catching a black guy with watermelon   3
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Oscar Wilde said the only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about. I am no longer sure he was correct.