NMR ISSUE 42

Astrological Forecast 42
Bass, Grasshopper & Lion
Editorial 42
Esoteric Symbology of the Tarot
Ghigau's Song
Goddess Manifest
Loving's Call
Mirra, Lady of the Pool
On Confronting Our Dark Side
Ritual for Creative and Spiritual Fertility
Ritual for the Waters of Life
Spring Activities
The God of the Witches
The Unknown Founder of the Golden Dawn
Unicorn with Flower Wreath in Candlewicking
Working with Your Shadow, I
Your Soul's Growth

Articles
Authors
Rituals
Book Reviews
NMR Issues
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The Editorial

By Scot Rhoads

Slightly Less New Address

Just another reminder that we are now near Portland, Oregon at:

New Moon Rising
12345 SE Fuller Rd. #119
Milwaukie OR 97222

Still no Back Issues

Another reminder that we're still waiting to get hold of our back issues. They are still in San Diego! We will announce it here when we know, and start publishing our back issue list again. In the mean time, we will hold orders until we can fulfill them or customers angrily demand their money back.

The Near Future

We are slowly making progress in ensconcing ourselves sufficiently in normal society to be taken seriously by the Bank. That done, we will be able to take another small step toward our long, long-term goal of the Community we occasionally mention here. It has also been painfully slow just getting our act together after the move. Within the next month or so, we should finally be caught up with the paperwork, some of which has been languishing since just before our move in October! We beg patience from those who have written us. If you don't hear from us by the next issue, there's a problem—please contact us again. Our plans for expanding and improving New Moon Rising still await our being more settled—physically, administratively and financially—but we're putting a lot of thought into it right now and we very much welcome your suggestions. And, as always, we welcome your art and articles!

THANKS!

We don't print the letters of thanks and praise that we get because, well, it would be a bit embarrassing. But I do like to remind our readers from time to time that we love the encouragement you give us and we thank you for it! We especially love it when accompanied by subscription orders or submissions, which have been unusually frequent lately. We also appreciate requests. One of the most recent has been for more articles on Shamanism. I had hoped for this to remain a focus of New Moon Rising, but it has been years since we had a regular writer on the subject. We always welcome submissions on any subject along the lines of magick or Wicca, but right now we would like to put out a call especially for shamanic subjects.

Mystic Moon Changed Ownership!

Another reminder that we no longer own the Mystic Moon Bookstore and Mail-order. With it went the credit card reader, so we can no longer take credit card orders for New Moon Rising.

The White Man's Burden

A year or so before the South African government admitted OK, maybe apartheid isn't divine will I saw an interview with some minor South African official on TV. He said that the whites had to have control over the blacks because the whites had the superior culture—apartheid was their way of raising up the blacks. If we can get past how offensive and embarrassing this idea is, it brings up an interesting thought. Suppose it were true, what would things be like? I think we can agree that a culture that tries to destroy or enslave another is not superior. A noninterventionist culture (a la Star Trek's prime directive) could have a shot at superiority. But how would the whites in South Africa have to act to make such a claim plausible?

Superiority means service. The White Man's Burden is a burden that the White Man should be carrying. If the Europeans had gone to South Africa to serve the blacks—and had done a good job—then it would not be absurd to ask if theirs was a superior culture (though that is a question which a superior culture would know is foolish).

This is merely a redefinition of what superiority means. Back when Europeans measured other cultures by levels of shared technology, values, religion, and military power, it is no surprise that so many other cultures amounted only to savages leaping about in the jungle. (Of course, war and introduced diseases helped put some truth in this view.) Now that Western culture is having to face more of its limitations, and is looking more carefully at the remaining savages it is finding that: Being a savage leaping about in the jungle is sounding better and better. Those savages all had intricate, interesting cultures with a lot to offer. And most of them had civilizations of great size, age and complexity—Europe and Asia were more in positions of parity than superiority.

The rest of the world (whatever the rest is for you) has a lot to offer, and we are finally realizing that. But in the horror of looking at what our ancestors have done, it is easy to dismiss what we have to offer. And, if we accept that superiority means service, putting other cultures above our own says that they should serve us. How much better if we resolve to serve each other, letting each strength become everyone's strength.

This instantly runs into the ancient prejudice of sovereignty. When we send our boys to Bosnia or Iraq of Vietnam or Korea, there is the question; What business is this of ours? We are only serving selfish political/national/economic ends. We are violating their sovereignty and putting American lives at risk for something in which we have no interest/business. There is always some validity to such views. Here on planet Earth, there will always be selfish aspects to large-scale efforts. Today we see the American Civil War as having been fought to end slavery. For practical purposes, it was, but at the time the Union would probably have dissolved if it had begun the war with this aim. Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was reviled by many in the North and delighted the South as a last-ditch political stunt.

Certainly arms manufacturers benefited outrageously from Vietnam and the Cold War. Certainly oil companies had an interest in the Persian Gulf war. These are all problems that demand our attention. But the solution is not inaction. If we reject actions that are not entirely in our best interest, or entirely in everyone's best interest, or which have an element of selfishness, or which take unfair advantage of some, or which unfairly benefit some, or which reward the bad behavior of some, ad nauseam, we will find it hard to do anything at all—until we are facing a disaster of such proportion that terror and desperation drive out such questions, leaving us even more vulnerable to them.

Questions of sovereignty are justified by the damage outsiders have done to cultures and countries over the millennia, either consciously or in trying to help. Sovereignty can protect cultures and countries from forces that tend to create a human monoculture and cause much grief in the process. Sovereignty is an issue that demands serious consideration, but so do genocide and slavery and terrorism. If we are introspective without being paralyzed by the nastiness we see in ourselves, we can recognize the good we can do and minimize the damage we cannot help but do. We can see that we can help others, and that we would do well to graciously accept help from others. Sovereignty can be softened at the edges to preserve the good it does, while reducing its paralyzing effect.

What can we do to promote this? Countries like ours, which are secure in their sovereignty, would do well to pave the way for those less secure. We could be more sensitive to others' fears of threats to their sovereignty by allowing other countries to help us the way we want to help others. An interview with Jimmy Carter on Public Radio made clear to me how much this path has to offer. There is no doubt that there are many elections around the world that are so corrupt that they don't deserve the name. This abuse is bad for the countries in which it occurs, and thanks to our shrinking globe, bad for the world. It is to everyone's advantage to have outside observers working to confirm that elections are fair. This is one of the many good things Carter has done. I heard him talk about his work as an election observer in Latin America. He also mentioned that the worst elections he saw were in Georgia (the state, not the former Soviet Republic). We could point to such things and say Hey, what are we doing in Nicaragua when our country is worse. Or we could say OK, they need help in Nicaragua, now perhaps someone could help us here.

Opening our doors to help from other countries will surely bring a flood of new problems and play into our sovereignty's worst fears. Already we hear the fear and mortification in the voices of those who won't have our boys under the command of foreigners, or who reject treaties like NAFTA because they could undermine our laws. Again, these are very serious considerations. Such things will be problematic and there will be many incidents to make us question the wisdom of our choice. It can be over done or under done and no matter what is done there will be plenty of people making both claims. Is whatever help we get out of this or the help we can offer others worth the pain we can expect?

Fortunately—or unfortunately—we needn't bother with such a question. There is a larger issue to the question of sovereignty. Our shrinking globe assures that problems once safely behind a country's borders rarely stay there. Heathcare issues in a foreign land can tug at our heart over the TV, but they become a more serious issue for us when a loved one crashes and bleeds out from a disease that is now just an eight hour flight away. Our healthcare bills go up thanks to diseases we thought were gone, now leaking back across our boarder from once far away countries. Financial troubles in other countries are a tragedy for the local population and just desserts for greedy investors, but in our more and more global economy, when one country hurts everyone feels it. As far as such problems are concerned, the borders on the map are already devolving into little more than a cartographer's exercise.

These problems create legitimate demands to override the present sanctity of sovereignty. But when we demand that the Brazilians control the devastation of the rainforest, we cannot be aloof when they point to the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps this is one of the reasons we are reluctant to compromise another country's sovereignty (yes, compared with earlier ages, we are very reluctant). We recognize that doing so compromises our own sovereignty. But this is a luxury that already costs more than it is worth. It takes little foresight to see global problems ever increasing till we change—or implode back to a lower level of organization. We can either deal with the problems that come with resisting change, or the problems that come with change. The former will always increase, so at some point enough of us will agree that the latter are worth the pain.

We can accelerate this change and minimize this pain by adopting ways of thinking and being that are in tune with the best that the New World has to offer. We as Wiccans and Pagans have much to offer. We share much of our religion with other cultures, either through borrowing or being closer to the global spiritual grammar, and we are conscious of this. We know that we have much to offer and that others have much to offer us because it is such a big part of our experience. But we may have some trouble with questions of sovereignty. The Pagan religions are so individualistic that it's almost a separate religion for each person. And in our culture, individuality is associated with sovereignty. If we can learn to separate these things—individuality and sovereignty—we will make a great contribution to our country. When things work well, we seem to do fine; but when we most need to help or accept help, we have the most to learn. Being conscious of the world's problems, let us first try to address them by addressing how they are reflected in us. Let us work to learn how to help others and help ourselves—and to accept help. Let us learn to loosen our death grip on sovereignty without threatening our individuality. Let us learn to live and be concordant with a New World offering great happiness and harmony.

Blessed Be