Into the Wilderness: Story 33
One of the different things I tried in 2024 was new traditions. By traditions, I don’t mean religion. I am aiming to be specifically non-religious.
I am Greek Orthodox, one of, if not the earliest form, of Christianity, alongside Catholicism. For years, I attended church every Sunday, a significant commitment since Eastern Orthodox services last 2-3 hours from beginning to end. But, as I have with many rigid belief systems, I have grown apart from its conservative and, in my view, outdated and biased views. Why can’t women be priests? Why is divorce a sin? Why can’t women be more than vessels to be filled?
I have stepped away.
In the space- new traditions. My grandmother was half British and half Greek. I’m exploring my Anglo side with Celtic traditions. These traditions celebrate a “wheel” of the year, beginning with Samhaim on November 1, the Celtic New Year. Yule comes next- what we call Christmas today. And then the season we are in: Imbolc. Imbolc begins February 1 and continues until spring solstice on March 21. It transitions from winter to spring- from dormancy to bloom. We are supposed to rest on these shorter, dark days that rattle our biorhythms and brain waves. As we emerge into light, our bodies and minds explode with color, possibilities and energy.
Now, some of you may see a religious bent to this. But it’s not. I am following the earth’s timing as it spins endlessly around its enormous star. Winter, which I’ve usually suffered, has become magical, the glistening ice and chill akin to a mirror’s reflection into which I can look deeply into myself. I’m sleighing/slaying the season.
I had to step away from Christianity. I had grown past it, at least the strident evangelical form it has taken. I know that Christianity has gentler, kinder premises. The religion as it has been evolved by man- and I do mean men- has selected certain books written centuries from “original” stories. Specific passages have been selected and mistranslated, misread, misinterpreted or mutilated for political reasons posed as religious ones. Today’s Handmaid-Tale version of popular Christianity is completely man-made and not aligned to historical documents and original language. Even the forming of Eve- long interpreted to show women came from men or that women are subservient to men- is woefully mistranslated. We are left with a patriarchy preferring a god of judgment and war. I cannot believe in a god that judges humans, or only permits heaven-access to certain humans of certain religions. If god is a good god, and a fierce god, this judgment makes no sense.
I grew up in the Bible Belt, Tulsa, Oklahoma. As an Orthodox Christian, I was told repeatedly that I would not enter the kingdom of Heaven because I was not saved. This is nonsense. In Orthodox Christianity, an infant is baptized and chrismated- or saved- at the same time. The ceremony combines the blessing of the newborn with the entering of the Holy Spirit. I was already “saved,” according to my religion. I didn’t need to be saved again.
When I was in high school, waiting for drill team practice to start, the mean girls were surveying who was saved and who wasn’t. I said I was saved, but knowing I wasn’t like them, they pushed further. I persisted: I was saved. They said I was not, and that rift separated us then and always.
Today, this rigid form of evangelicalism has led the MAGA movement. I saw it happening way back when I waited in the gym for drill team. I thought more than once: if they become a political movement, we are screwed.
For years, it seemed as if this political movement would falter against the growing disenchantment of religion. Fairy tales and religious treatises are strikingly similar: both are documented years after origination and are affected by mistranslation, misinterpretation and human bias.
But here we are, with a minority ruling the majority. Most Americans do not agree with the current political attacks against certain human rights and choices. Apathy- lack of voting- led to today’s minority rule. Basically, one-third of Americans didn’t vote in November. This is more than the 77 million who voted for today’s president and the 74 million who voted for Harris- a statistical margin of 49.8 to 48.3, a 1.6% difference.
We are all watching as chaos becomes a daily theme. The trick with chaos is that it envelops humans, blacking out perception and intuition. Chaos foments chaotic response. The deepest regions of our brains are triggered and pursue fight, flight or freeze. We are once again cave dwellers seeking safety. That today’s risks are mental rather than physical doesn’t matter. We are all trying to survive.
As the president’s executive orders tick off human rights- for women, for LGBTQ, for freedom of speech (unless it’s what the far right wants to speak)- our panicked minds play hunger games. Even if one is excited with the developments, one’s brain is being played like an improvisational jazz piece. You think know the score, but its really just being made up.
Perhaps that’s why we have so much FAFO emerging. Somehow, supporters of the “movement” thought they were exempt. But to quote Yeats, “the center will not hold.” They are as human and vulnerable as the rest of us.
We humans are all made of the same substances. Oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and hydrogen- the essential building blocks of life. As much as one human being wants to be more special than another, the material is the same. There’s no getting around that.
Even today’s billionaire oligarchs following the predicted with Putin-esque back-scratch fervor are made from the same elements. Their wealth enables their power- and that’s only because America’s voters chose to empower them and their slavish, dehumanizing Project 2025 plan. Thanks, Americans for empowering our downfall.
That’s why I am celebrating the Celtic wheel of the year. Its focus is the transitioning earth as it rounds endlessly and relentlessly, year after thousands of years, in the same pattern. The seasons end; the seasons begin. We humans- separated from the earth’s natural transition- may think we are apart from it. But we are not. We are caught in the earth’s wheel, and as science has proven again and again, our biorhythms move with it, affixed to our history rather than our perverse evolution.
As much as we have evolved, we have remained the same. “Nothing is new under the Sun,” the saying goes. And if one pays attention to history and to documented facts, one will see truth in this statement.
My act of resistance is exploring other traditions. To embrace the nature-appreciation of our ancestors. To watch the Sun and moon and stars as the earth helplessly spins. I may not know what tomorrow will bring, but I do know the earth will spin and rotate, at least for now.
The other night, on February 1, Imbolc I stepped outside with my sister to view the moon. I watched the waxing crescent moon as it sliced the sky. The dippers glimmered and Orion’s Belt pointed defiantly toward a universe other than our own. The icy air inflamed my lungs, as if the cold had become a heat.
This isn’t our last moment on earth. We humans, in America, can rise again and cast our eyes to the future. But only if we fight. And fight I will do.
I would love to hear from you, even if, especially if, you disagree. Perhaps we can bring back the American tradition of Ty debate. Please like and share this blog with others. Subscribe to receive it by email and go directly to the Walk the Moon website to peruse the full collection of articles and updates.
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