Reflections on Audre Lorde: Uses of Anger

 I could scarcely go more than two or three lines without highlighting or underlining something. Very rarely have I ever read something like this as validating and affirming, but also self critical as this. 

I have two reflections. The first is on the use of Anger as a vessel of knowledge, growth, empowerment, and change/progression. I have been told so many times that I am * too angry * and that I should let things go. I should turn the other cheek. I should shrug off some homophobic, religiocentrist, ableist, racist, etc. comments because “they didn’t mean it like that” or I should understand where they are coming from and try to show patience. I’ve been told I don’t know how to take a joke. I take things too personally. 

I was one of those “women raised in fear” that she mentioned on page 131 (possibly 121 in your book, my pages seem to be 10 ahead of the ones you list). I was taught through physical, mental, and emotional abuse that “the anger of others was to be avoided at all costs because there was nothing to be learned but pain”. I swallowed my anger. I held so much fury that I dissociated it into a separate protective personality - one named “Fiona” that was with me for most of my life and still at times of high stress manifests as I dissociate. Lorde is nothing but correct when she says “if we accept out powerlessness, then of course any anger can destroy us”. 

But that was before Lilith. Even after I presented my chapter to class I was private messaged saying that they hoped that I finally found another way to be other than angry and that I had released all of my fury and could move on. Anger is always deemed as bad - and reading this chapter brought me to such tears. Both in validation and gratitude, but also in regret. 

It has also been instilled in me that as a white woman I am not really *allowed* to speak up about racism because I am eliminating the chance for women of color to speak. My voice, as a white woman, is too loud to hear the voices of those oppressed worse than me so I should either whisper or remain silent. There is guilt in that silence. When I do speak it is from the safety of social platforms - when I danced burlesque and helped put on drag shows, social media pages sharing resources and reposting quotes and posts  made by people of color. It never felt like enough, the guilt would eat at me but it was better than doing absolutely nothing. I was afraid I would upset the very people (primarily black women) that I wanted to help if I did much more. The one time I tried to march for black lives matter in my tiny city back in North Carolina I ended up arguing with my mother for so long that I missed the march. She couldn’t stop me from joining protests on the college campus though. But it all felt performative, even though I believed in it. Its easy to be loud in anger when you are with a large group of people yelling for justice. Its not so when its a racist comment you overhear from a booth behind you at a diner. Or a backhanded compliment one friend says to another. 

Reading her words towards white women, saying to let go of guilt because it only gets in the way and to recognize that their (black women's’) anger was for growth and understanding, has both made me ashamed at how little I have done when it mattered  - in the quiet moments when it seems I am the only one around bothered but I remain silent (like on page 127/117) - and encouraged to do better moving forward rather than wallowing in guilt. What is the worst that could happen by speaking up - I make someone angry?

I will close this with a line I recognized in this chapter. Shortly after moving to Madison WI, over on the east side (I now live on the west), someone had painted a mural on their garage with a quote that stuck with me ever since I read it. This quote is on page 133/123:

“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.”

I am not less moved by those words now reading them in context, when I was when I was walking my dog and saw them painted into a giant work of art. 

reflective Questions

 Wrote these for an assignment only to realize I misunderstood

1. In my broad and vague definition of the sacred/divine, in terms of Spirit as ultimate reality and the existence of personal gods, how will I reconcile with myself if I find myself changing and pulling away from personal deities?

1. Spirit is fluid, while not sentient in itself its presence in sentient beings is what brings it to life. My relationship with my gods has gone through several periods of intimacy and distance - they have never held it against me. I know they are patient and have even encouraged me to pursue things outside of their help. If I were to choose to focus more on a humanist and ground of being practice for a while, there would be no resentment. My gods love me… and when they have strong opinions or feel they need to provide a guiding hand they will always find ways to let me know. I may have my own issues with guilt or anxiety, but that will be from within myself - not from them. I think perhaps, in a similar way that I do now, doing a “checking in” reading with them every so often would alleviate a good bit of that anxiety.  Afterall, shifting more towards a focus on Spirit, as opposed to the gods, would mean a shift in how I perform witchcraft and put more emphasis on my own abilities without assistance. If anything, they may ultimately encourage me down that route once I am confident enough. 

2. How will I handle rejection and judgment, from clients and coworkers, as a Chaplain whose faith identity is a minority and is often followed by misinformation, fear, and scorn - despite being trained and knowledgeable in multiple faiths? 

1. I have dealt with my fair share of rejection and scorn over my religious identity. I dealt with it all through highschool. I dealt with it once I “came out of the broom closet” by the kids in my church youth group. I was rejected by my own family over various lengths of time. I have developed a thick skin and a very strong ability to mask and adapt to the environment I am in. Chaplains are rejected all the time for a variety of reasons - I simply will learn how to adapt and move forward, finding different ways to connect to people. Essentially… develop a thicker skin and take it on the chin. 

3. How will I handle the anxiety that will ultimately arise throughout my studies as I am introduced to alternative paths and the possibility of changing majors, leading to possibly less job security and more judgment from the people in my life? 

1. I have always found myself to be a very fluid person, open to signs and changes as they approach me. While I do not foresee leaving seminary school, if I feel called to another path through a different degree I will take the time to consider it. I am a long term planner, I look at the job market for different careers and in different states already despite still having 4-5 years before I am board certified. I know my long term goals and aspirations as far as career (to work at a college campus providing interfaith services and eventually to open my own mobile interfaith temple). If something were to happen and I feel called to another degree that may better serve my long term goals, or better align with myself I would owe it to myself to consider. I would make a point not to do anything rash, talk with my therapist, talk with my academic advisor, and look at how the other program compares to my current one. Maybe I stay and add the second degree, maybe the transition would be smooth. I made a promise to myself when I decided to live more authentically that I would not cave to the expectations of others simply because of anxiety. If something feels right and I am moved to follow… I will. There are moments of fate that cannot be escaped and there are thousands of paths to those moments, only the divine knows, and I can only trust the process. 

Ritual's social gifts (SPF)

 Order:

• The reinforcement, not the actual creation, of social order is perhaps the most obvious of ritual's functions.... There is something about ritual that pushes beyond the concern for social order reaching out towards substance, soul, life-feel, and the love of participation. (132)
• Ritual can do more than remind individuals of an underlying [cosmic] order, it reinforces that order. (133)
• In other words, through ritualization we make routine a certain way of seeing, hearing, touching, and otherwise perceiving the environment. (135)
• Out of shared perceptions and ritualized "ways" of a people, as these gradually take on a symbolic functions, there comes into existence a shared "world." ... There is a feeling, not entirely out of rational basis , that if the rituals disintegrated the rivers would not flow nor thing flourish. (136)
• Goes on to talk about the practices used in rituals - how it is the specific things read - not who reads them, not their mental state, but the act itself done correctly that creates order. . (140-144)
•  There are two senses in which he understands rituals to create to create and maintain order. He begins with their ability to mark times and spaces, to symbolize realities, and thus to represent a structured world.... The second sense in which rituals create and maintain order is more utilitarian. Rappaport speaks of rituals as sometimes being "factitive" meaning that they cause things to happen. (145)

Community:

• One obvious aspect or ritual is that it not only brings people together in physical assembly but it also tends to unit them emotionally. It bonds them in even deeper ways, also, as we will see. (152)
• Although it is true that some rituals may be performed by individuals in private, these instances are unintelligible except as offshoots or imitations of collective rituals...we saw that performances is a "showing" that always requires an audience, even if the spectator is physically invisible or is an aspect of the performers own self. (154)
• Purposes of ritual:
• Ensure individual participation in a group activity and to channel and intensify the group's mood (154)
• ...release and direct aggressive impulses in such a way that aggressive hostility is kept under control, while aggressive love (moving toward) is enhanced within the group (155)
• Ritual controls emotions while releasing it, and guides it while letting it run. (156)
• Along with the idea of ritual as party, goes that of ritual as play. (156)
• Communitas - shared sense of community from those that have undergone rites of passage together

Transformation: 

• ... the third and most important, which is to assist the dynamic social change through ritual process of transformation. From a purely theoretical point of view, if that were possible or desirable to achieve, it would be a question of whether
• rituals should be thought of first as instruments of order that happen to enhance communal bonds and to facilitate various kinds of transformation
• or, primarily as community-making events that incidentally generate order and transform it
• or first of all techniques of transformation that help to order life and deepen communal relationships (166)
• Western Intellectuals regard magic as superstition, and most theologians equate it with paganism as well. In these matters, it often seems that one person's "magic" is another persons "religion". 
• .... all magic is ritualized, and as we shall see, all ritual employs magic. (167)
• ...He says that ritual "not only has meaning but also 'works', it is magical." This way of thinking about the subject is close to that of Van Gennep who had used "magic" to refer to ceremonies, rites, and services that are the principal techniques of transformation employed by religion. 168
• ...Magic depends on the declarative to reach the imperative: "This is how things work; therefore let this be the case"169)
• … the spiritual is the very act of transcending, while not excluding, the mundane. Spirit is life. To call it transcendence is to speak abstractly. The same point is made more concretely by saying the spiritual is personal. To view the world spiritually is to view it as full of personal agency, and this is precisely what ritual does… (175)

Quotes for Beauty

 We have so many PDF  readings moving forward I want to keep significant quotes here:

****I will be using Take me Back to Eden or Rain for my Beauty Essay. Looking at them as theopoetics written by Vessel for/about Sleep. 

Well..... now I might write about how bardic magic can be a form of theopoetics... "What do the arts and encounters with beauty disclose about the nature of ultimate reality, the power of religious symbols, and the intensities of human existence? What is the relationship between divine creativity and human imagination?"

***Affective piety is a devotional practice that emphasizes emotional engagement and personal experience in a relationship with God. It is characterized by intense feelings of compassion, love, and suffering, often inspired by the divine. 

Bednarowski - Theological Creativity and Religious Symbols

• I am convinced that the symbols of our various religious traditions are more powerful in their ongoing meanings than we realize - and that we ourselves do a disservice in underestimating that power. Their meanings are subject to change of course, in form and emphasis - how could it be otherwise? - but not, in my opinion, to destruction or irrelevance. (32)
• And hope, I am convinced, is a communal project; we elicit it in each other, we share it with each other, and we find it in many places in the culture. (32)
• It is one of the gifts of theological creativity, by which I mean the capacity, the commitment, the desire to respond and commit to religious symbols - to take responsibility for them in ways that are both innovative and conserving - to see what we can make of them that is new, but not so totally new that they no longer speak to the communities of people to whom they have been entrusted. We are obligated to cultivate the courage to let those symbols make their way into the world and learn how to recognize their evocative power when we encounter them in startingly new ways (32)
• And the obvious finally dawned on me - that to take something very, very, seriously, no matter how much change one advocates, to "save" it, to continue its healing - certainly to demonstrate its power and persistence. (34)
• Since my early days as an English Major, I have seen poetry and fiction as among the great preservers of religious language and symbols and among the most compelling  sources of theological creativity. (36)
• From Thatamanil p.37 "Theological utterances can be marked by a kind of Pauline character-- speech that is mine and yet not mine, fallible and yet nonetheless generated by divine creativity. The result is a vision of theology as marked by divine authoring but without recourse to accounts of infallible divine authority."
• We worry that pluralism will lead to relativism - an inability or an unwillingness to value any one tradition over another - but I think we underestimate the formidable foundational powers of the symbols that have shaped us - the history and depth of response we bring to them. (40)

Tillich - Art and Ultimate Reality

 First, it is obvious that is something expresses something else—as, for instance, language expresses thought —they are not the same. There is a gap between that which expresses and that which is expressed. But there is also a  point of identity between them. It is the riddle and the depth of all expression that it both reveals and hides at the same time. And if we say that the universe is an expression of ultimate reality, we say that the universe and everything in it both reveals and hides ultimate reality. (2)

There are three ways in which man is able to experience and express ultimate reality in, through and above the reality he encounters. Two of these ways are indirect; one of them is direct. The two indirect ways of expressing ultimate reality are philosophy—more specifically, metaphysics—and art. They are indirect because it is their immediate intention to express the encountered reality in cognitive concepts or in esthetic images. (2)

But there is the third and direct way in which man discerns and receives ultimate reality. We call it religion—in the traditional sense of the word. Here ultimate reality becomes manifest through ecstatic experiences of a concrete-revelatory character and is expressed in symbols and myths (3)

Styles and Experiences:

The First type of religious experience, and also the most universal and fundamental one, is the sacramental. Here ultimate reality appears as the holy which is present in all kinds of objects, in things, persons, events. (4)

 This enables us to discover the first stylistic element which is effective in the experience of ultimate reality. It appears predominantly in what often has been called magic realism.  

 The religious danger of all sacramental religion is idolatry, the attempt to make a sacramentally consecrated reality into the divine itself 

 Related to the sacramental type of religion and at the same time radically going beyond it is the mystical type. Religious experience tries to reach ultimate reality without the mediation  of particular things in this religious type. (6) 

 It can undergo a transformation into a monistic mysticism of nature under the famous formula of the God of Nature. In it God is equated with nature—with the creative ground of nature which transcends every particular object. 

Correlate to this religious type is that stylistic element in which the particularity of things is dissolved into a visual continuum. This continuum is not a grey in grey; it has all the potentialities of particular beings within itself...It is a decisive element in the impressionist dissolution of particulars into a continuum of light and colors. Most radically it has been carried through in what is called today, non-objective painting. 

 Like mysticism  the prophetic-protesting type of religion goes beyond the sacramental basis of all religious life. Its pattern is the criticism of a demonically distorted sacramental system in the name of personal righteousness and social justice.  (7)

Holiness without justice is rejected....It is manifest as personal will, demanding, judging, punishing, promising. 

If we now ask what stylistic element in the visual arts corresponds to such an experience of ultimate reality, we must answer that it is "realism" both in its scientific-descriptive and in its ethical-critical form. After nature has been deprived of its numinous power, it is possible for it to become a matter of scientific analysis and technical management.  

The realistic element in the artistic styles seems far removed from expressing ultimate reality. It seems to hide it more than express it. But there is a way in which descriptive realism can mediate the experience of ultimate reality.  

The prophetic-critical type of religion has in itself the element of hope. This is the basis of its power. If the element of hope is separated from the realistic view of reality, a religious type appears which sees in the present the anticipation of future perfection.(8)

 The artistic style expressing it is usually called idealism, a word which is in such disrepute today that it is al most impossible to use.  

But more than in the other stylistic elements, the danger which threatens artistic idealism must be emphasized: confusing idealism with a superficially and sentimentally beautifying realism. This has happened on a large scale, especially in the realm of religious art, and is the reason for the disrepute into which idealism, both word and concept, has fallen. Genuine idealism shows the potentialities in the depths of a being or event, and brings them into existence as artistic images. Beautifying realism shows the actual existence of its object, but with dishonest, idealizing additions. 

 Now I come to my fifth and last stylistic element. The great reaction against both realism and idealism (except numinous realism) was the expressionistic movement. To which religious type is it correlated? Let me call it the ecstatic-spiritual type.  (9)

 It is marked by its dynamic character both in disruption and creation. It accepts the individual thing and person but goes beyond it. It is realistic and at the same time mystical. It criticizes and at the same time anticipates. It is restless, yet points to eternal rest. 

I believe the expressionist element is the artistic correlative to the ecstatic-spiritual type of religious experience. Ultimate reality appears "breaking the prison of our form," as a hymn about the Divine Spirit says. It breaks to pieces the surface of our own being and that of our world. This is the spiritual character of expressionism... 

If art expresses reality in images and religion expresses ultimate reality in symbols then religious art expresses religious symbols in artistic images (as philosophical concepts). The religious content, namely a particular and direct relation of man to ultimate reality, is first expressed in a religious symbol, and secondly, in the expression of this symbol in artistic images. (10)

Lecture:

• "What is theopoetics? Well, according to the society for arts, religion, and contemporary culture: theopoetics explores the intersection of religious reflection and spirituality with the imagination, embodiment, aesthetics, and the arts. (18:30)
• Theopoetics is not an alternative to theology - but a distinctive style of theologizing that views art, feeling, and the body as sources of theological construction. (18:36-18:50)
• Theopoetics literally means "God-Making". 
• Theopoetics is not simply a poetic expression of theological ideas. John Caputo makes this exact point in What to believe! I will quote him:'theopoetics does not mean a poetry that supplies the ornamentation of an already conceived theology. It is not a poetic flourish that decorates an already constituted system of theology, or something that adorns a finished theology. Theopoetics is instead an exercise of creative imagination. One that is constantly imagining the unconditional, envisioning things otherwise, attempting to forge ahead down unbeaten paths; to produce something new. To think what has never been and what may never be. The first, last, and only recourse when thinking has run up against the unprethinkable.'"  
• At the heart of theopoetics is the recognition that theology is human made and playfully constructed. Again, theopoetics literally means "God-making". But that begs the question, right? Is the theopoet simply making God up? Or is God also involved in the act of poesies? Thatamanil argues that it is a 'both and'. To view constructive theology as theopoetics is to imagine that the divine somehow participates in the very human activity of imagining God.  Theopoetics unsettles the duality between human imagination and divine creativity. Yes theopoetics implies that we make god up - but god participates in our work of making God up. 
• Like Art, theology is both a creative endeavor and a responsive one. Our images of god are precisely that - ours. But, they are imagined in response to a divine creativity, something that constructs and molds us before we construct and mold it. the assumption here is that theology can be a mode of discourse in which the divine and the human are permeable to eachother.

Thatamanil - Constructive theology as theopoetics 

• Constructive theologians own up to the fact that they are “making it up as they go along.” All too right we are! A charge that is, in any case, leveled at theologians, we unabashedly embrace. - 32
• Hence, a fully adequate and divinely inspired wisdom is available in the past, which needs only to be rearticulated for the contemporary moment. On such accounts, the task of theology is akin to refurbishing a functional and inhabitable home. The abode of theology is livable as is even if it might need a new coat of paint and cosmetic flourishes here and there. -33
• Constructive theologians take on the name because we wish to make transparent that what human hands have made, other human hands can and must remake. For some, this might prove to be a destabilizing truth. Not so for the constructive theologian. Constructive theologians forthrightly acknowledge their creative agency because they are suspicious about strategies that seek to minimize the role of human creativity in theological production. When human creativity goes unnamed or is elided altogether, then all-too-human theological formulations are granted unquestionable divine authority; they can no longer be interrogated. - 34
• If my constructions are mine  - however much they aspire to be faithful responses to divine initiative- they remain provisional, historically conditioned, and culturally contextual. We know we are making it up as we go along, and we have the humility, courage, and, I might add, playfulness to say so.- 35
• 3 Types of Constructive Theologian POV's about who is involved - 35

1. “If faith is a gift of God, as it has been traditionally understood, theology is clearly human work, and we must take full responsibility for it. But it is human work that emerges out of faith’s own need for more adequate orientation and symbolization. Such theological activity may reinforce—or it may weaken further—the religious stance.” (Kauffman) 
2. For Farley, the line between faith and human reflection about faith is not nearly as stark or impermeable as it appears to be for Kaufman. Farley manages to find a way to affirm both human fallibility and the contingency of all theological construction but nonetheless leaves human creativity open to divine agency. Theology takes its bearings from God’s “coming forth as God” in redemption.
3. Articulated most vibrantly in the work of Catherine Keller, theopoiesis dances along the edge of a fertile ambivalence in the notion of “poiesis,” namely, “making.” In the bringing together of “ theos” and “poiesis,” this ambivalence is not just doubled but multiplied. God-making—is the theopoet making God up? Or is the agent of poiesis the divine itself? Is God doing the making? Or might it somehow be both? Might it be possible to imagine that the divine participates in the very human activity of imagining God?

• What if God participates in our work of making God up and yet, nonetheless, that work remains also human and thus fallible? - 36
• Any act of theological creativity—a prayer, a sermon, a liturgical act, a classroom lecture, a journal article, or theological book—will of necessity be a modest intervention; but if such activities are understood to be part of divine and worldly unfolding, constructive theology takes on theopoetic import. Theology at its best is/is like prayer. Theologians confess in a Pauline key, “We do not know how to [theologize] as we ought but that very Spirit intercedes in us with sighs too deep for words.” 
• Theopoeisis is not, first, a human activity; rather, God does God-making first. God is engaged in constructive God-making. Where? In human beings or—and here we advert to process theology—in human becomings. The Word is being made flesh not only in Jesus but in human beings generally. - 38
• The term theopoetics finds its ancestor in the ancient Greek theopoiesis. As poiesis means making or creation, so theopoiesis gets rendered as “God-making” or “becoming divine.” - 38
•  Keller points to a “mysticism of participation” at work in these root theologies of God-making and God-becoming. At play is also a peculiar paradox of intimacy and unknowability: the God who absolutely exceeds us is nonetheless also present as that which we ourselves are becoming. The mystery becomes ours as we become the mystery by the grace of mystery itself. -38
• To say and to unsay, to say again and unsay once more is to trace the path of the mind’s ascent into the divine darkness, the cloud of unknowing. Theopoeisis is, therefore, simultaneously the name for a divine process of God-making/God-becoming and the human discursive processes by which that very becoming takes place. - 38
•  First-order theology is God-talk understood as God’s speaking to us and our responsive speaking to God....Such God-talk is also God-making, theopoiesis. Such God-talk/God-making can be simultaneously God speaking to us and through us as well as in us, but not, I would hasten to add, without us. - 39
• Second-order theology follows upon and attends to the entailments of first-order theopoeisis. Here, theology enters into a second speculative moment that seeks to excavate the meanings of first-order theological becoming and bespeaking. - 39
• Consider, fi nally, another reason why theopoetics has to it a primacy that goes unrecognized. The appeal to theopoiesis as theosis expanded and theosis as theopoiesis contracted introduces a register of discourse in which the human and the divine are permeable to each other. Divinity is communicable, a communicable wellness, that creatures can catch by the initiative of divine grace. - 39

the rest is about why constructive theology is needed - not needed for my paper. 

**** God and Goddess Quotes... 

Dean - Liberal Realism

• leftist historian Tony Judt criticized political liberals in terms that would apply equally to religious liberals. He explained that liberals may acknowledge that “the point of history may not be for things to get better,” but they assume that “as a matter of fact they do.” But, said Judt, we actually “see so much regress that it’s hard to say that progress is the default condition of the human story.” <--- Alex's point that humans are slowly improving... are they? -213
• This could be a sort of outline I use for my paper: "in what follows, first, I sample the optimism of most liberal theologians, contrasting it with the realism of representative revisionists; second, I identify Eliot’s own persuasiveness and liberality; third, I analyze Eliot’s God language in “The Dry Salvages”; fourth, I suggest the implications of that God language; and, fifth, I propose that that poem’s representation of the appearance and/or the reality of the moral ambiguity of God could contribute to a new realism in religious liberalism.  - 215
•  Otto intended to begin with the numinous, which is transmitted to a “feeling-element,” which instills a “creature feeling” of nothingness, which in turn translates into feelings of repulsion and dread, as well as fascination and attraction. (219)
• Unlike theology, poetry utilized what Eliot called the “auditory imagination,” which is “the feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the conscious levels of thought and feeling, invigorating every word; sinking to the most primitive and forgotten, returning to the origin and bringing something back, seeking the beginning and the end.” - 220
• With “significant emotion,”  an audience may be able to peer over the “frontiers of consciousness beyond which words fail, though meanings still exist” - 221 quoting Elliot 

Dean - Coming to 

• “Religion is the public activity that enacts aesthetic contrast, just as theology is the theoretical activity where aesthetic contrast is conceptually entertained and planned. Religion is the communal participation in jokes and pathos and in stories and ceremonies that comment in a fresh way on the stagnant realities of society” (Dean, Coming To, 180).

Loomer

• PAGE 70 about helping others find the brightness of their soul

Spirituals and the Blues pages:

• Honoring the divinity of their own souls 29, 61, 84, 106
• Panenthiestic - If God is everything and everywhere; divine reality; then describing the reality desired is theopoetics/Bardic Magic: 67, 83, 85-86, 98, 99, [103, 105 driver readings], 124

Outline for Beauty: What is the relationship between divine creativity and human imagination?

1. Intro: use discussion question to write intro introducing the idea of that Bardic Magic is an example of divine creativity and human imagination; ultimate reality as "the divine" which makes up the reality in which we live as well as makes us divine is how bardic magic is theopoetics. First we explain what Bardic Magic is; then explore the idea of humans as divinity; then explain how bardic magic is theopoetics through the lens of the spirituals and the blues. 
2. Part 1: What is Bardic Magic
• What is Magic - Driver's transformation . 
• What are the different types of magic
• imitative magic (also called homeopathic magic), contagious magic, and sympathetic magic; with the key distinction between imitative magic being based on similarity and contagious magic based on contact, both falling under the umbrella of sympathetic magic which essentially means influencing something through a related object or action. (James Frazier)
• https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/defining-magic/james-george-frazer/58BE5C8AF67D38F60411A86CB3BFC55D
• Prayer - My third type. 
• how does bardic magic work? Different methods and examples. The purpose behind it. 
• goddess and God - 4, 7, 9, 30
• fishbane - 23, 24, 27
• With “significant emotion,”  an audience may be able to peer over the “frontiers of consciousness beyond which words fail, though meanings still exist” - 221 quoting Elliot (Dean, Liberal Realism)
• personal examples
3. Part 2: The Divinity of Humanity 
• If ultimate reality is literally everything... then we are ultimate reality. Which makes us divine. There is Ultimate Divinity (Spirit), Personal Divinity (the gods), and intrapersonal Divinity (we are divine)
• Theopoesis (Use discussion question)
• god and goddess - 25
• fishbane - 24, 34
4. Bardic Magic as Theopoetics (Use discussion question)
1. General: Fishbane 33, Discussion question 
2. Poetry - Fishbane 29
3. How the Spirituals and Blues are theopoetics:
1. If art expresses reality in images and religion expresses ultimate reality in symbols then religious art expresses religious symbols in artistic images (as philosophical concepts). The religious content, namely a particular and direct relation of man to ultimate reality, is first expressed in a religious symbol, and secondly, in the expression of this symbol in artistic images. (10) -- Tilich
2. “Religion is the public activity that enacts aesthetic contrast, just as theology is the theoretical activity where aesthetic contrast is conceptually entertained and planned. Religion is the communal participation in jokes and pathos and in stories and ceremonies that comment in a fresh way on the stagnant realities of society” (Dean, Coming To, 180). --- S&B - 60,  5, 6, 15, 28
4. In communication with the readings: Blues and Spirituals
1. fishbane:35
2. the blues as bardic magic: 98, 99, [103 &105 driver connection]
1. Manifesting a desired reality: 13, 52, 67, 83, 86, 124
2. Describing the divine (the somethingness): 29, 61, 106
3. Describing the divine (reality as it is):5,  99, 106, 107, 109,
5. Conclusion: Summarize paper. 
1. S&B quote ending as a summary - 7

Better outline: In conversation:

"What do the arts and encounters with beauty disclose about the nature of ultimate reality, the power of religious symbols, and the intensities of human existence? What is the relationship between divine creativity and human imagination?"

Opening: 

1. Intro: There has always been something about the arts that has struck a chord within humanity; the presence of the sacred that shines through, be it via  cave paintings, poetry, nature realism in fine art, or the emotive power of song. In this paper I will explore where this connection to the sacred comes from and what relationship it has with human imagination through the theopoetics in the form of of Bardic Magic. First we examine what theopoetics may look like from a non-monotheistic point of view, then we look at the spiritual practice of Bardic Magic itself, and finally we end with The spirituals and the Blues as an example of Bardic theopoetics. 
2. What is theology and theopoetics to ME? Theology from a non monotheistic point of view: Theology is not just "God" speak limited to one form of divinity (monotheism). Theology encompasses all sacred forms - I will move forward referencing Spirit as Ultimate reality and the Divine to reference ancestors, spirits, and the gods.
3. Bardic Magic - Shaping Reality using Ultimate reality with the arts as a tool. PRACTICE not specific to any religion. 
1. Some assertions needed: Ultimate reality and the Divine are in process - nothing is finished, all is every changing. 
2. We are just as much part of the Divine - given physical form - as the gods. We can attune ourselves to Ultimate reality (directly or through intermediaries) to shape our reality or the reality we hope to manifest: the reality we desire to see process forward.
3. Imbas/Awen - Divine Inspiration. 
4. What is Magic - Driver's transformation . 
5. What are the different types of magic
• imitative magic (also called homeopathic magic), contagious magic, and sympathetic magic; with the key distinction between imitative magic being based on similarity and contagious magic based on contact, both falling under the umbrella of sympathetic magic which essentially means influencing something through a related object or action. (James Frazier)
• https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/defining-magic/james-george-frazer/58BE5C8AF67D38F60411A86CB3BFC55D
• Prayer - My third type. 
6. how does bardic magic work? Different methods and examples. The purpose behind it. 
• goddess and God - 4, 7, 9, 30
• fishbane - 23, 24, 27
• Affective Piety 
• ***Affective piety is a devotional practice that emphasizes emotional engagement and personal experience in a relationship with God. It is characterized by intense feelings of compassion, love, and suffering, often inspired by the divine. 
• With “significant emotion,”  an audience may be able to peer over the “frontiers of consciousness beyond which words fail, though meanings still exist” - 221 quoting Elliot (Dean, Liberal Realism). That emotion is how we can tap into the ultimate reality - it is a needle that pulls the thread of ultimate reality into the tapestry that we are attempting to weave. 
4. Bardic Magic as Theopoetics 
1. intro: 
1. Thatamanil - Constructive theology as theopoetics. Set up basis - theopoesis. God-Making... instead of a deity creating descriptions through divine inspiration with US as a medium... we are making it up as we go but because God gives us the knowledge.. instead I see it as Ultimate reality is created/processes through the reality we create. Imbas/Awen's role. 
2. Spirituals and the Blues as examples of Bardic Theopoetics
1. Spirituals
1. Spirituals had many purposes - it was to pass messages for present day survival, to keep historical records in code, and were  a reminder that this was not the end of the story, this was just a part that would improve. 
2. *Insert Quotes*  
3. There was a lot of hope. They used it as a means to keep going.. however I see it as more than that. The book would paint the spirituals as theopoetics because they are describing their God and Jesus Christ as liberators. However - I would describe them as theopoetic because they are describing their reality (in which is part of ultimate reality) as well as the reality they hope will come. 
4. *Provide examples*
5. They were tapping into Ultimate reality - possibly with the help of intermediaries (their God and Jesus, their ancestors, etc) - to MANIFEST. Their belief and utter determination for survival and liberation shaped the reality that followed. The songs they created also forged a permanent road for their descendants to access the sacred power of their ancestors. 
6. THIS IS BARDIC MAGIC! Some specific examples that stood out to me as I was reading: *insert examples*
2. Blues
1. In a similar way the Blues are described as secular  spirituals, drawing parallels. *insert quote* about how they are spirituals. Like the spirituals they assure the SOMBODINESS  This is how the book says that these are theopoetic... 
2. In much the same way I see these as theopoetics because of the reality they describe, reality as it is now is simply describing ultimate reality as it processes. It paints the image of ultimate reality through lived experiences - that surge of emotion referenced in Liberal Realism is brought forward. They are asserting a somebody-ness and THAT brings me back to how theopoetics includes ourselves, our emotions, and our own divinity. Honoring ourselves is a form of honoring the ultimate reality. It also inspires us to ACT --- ***bring up the quote from spirituals about being the hands of God.*** 
1. In much the same way that the spirituals gave strength and encouragement for the salves to act towards their own liberation - the blues do likewise. Which in turn acts as bardic magic as we are then moved to shape the reality we hope will process forward. 
5. Conclusion: Summarize paper. 
1. S&B quote ending as a summary - 7

Sources:

• Thatamanil - Constructive theology as theopoetics. (1)
• Dean Liberal Realism (2)
• Spirituals and the Blues (3)
• God and Goddess in the World
• Sacred Attunement
• Driver - the gift of ritual: Transformation 

Chrysalis

 I probably spelled that title wrong. 

I am at the precipice of a big spiritual shift in my life. 

If I had to describe where I want my spiritual practice to be I would say: Bardic, Shamanic, and Ecstatic. 

If I had to describe where my spiritual practice is now I would say: Slightly Bardic, Unsure, and Stagnant. 

I actually have a direction I want to go in, found a practice (Anderson Feri Craft) that I can draw on for guidance as I attempt to manuever closer to my spiritual goals. This is a relativley closed practice that one needs to be initiated in - which I do not, as I do not share the same pantheon and refuse to give up my gods. However, while I do not seek to know all their mysteries, I do want to draw on that practice as the goals of that specific form of witcraft is very similar to my own. There are some books I want to get that were written by teachers of diffrent bloodlines in Feri Witchcraft; nothing too close to their secrets but general advice, teachings, and pointers in following and creating your own practice. I am thinking of getting them one at a time to try to read as well as with my school studies, so this will be hard. But I am excited and I want to do the work. 

I'm gonna need another book shelf for all of the books I am getting for my own spiritual growth and any books that I will keep from my time in semenary school hahaha.

I feel like I have been a hungry hungry caterpillar just wantering around; I am feeling the pull to start building my chrysalis and I am excited for the transformation I will undergo. 

Daniel and money

900 rent

100 utilities

25 internet

200 car payment (10K Car - AWD/FWD)

85 car insurance

80 gas

50 phone 

50 savings

80 health insurance 

100 misc. 

200 gym membership

80 therapy

500 food

---------------------------------

2450 = 2882 before tax. x 12  = about 35K = 15.62 an hour

SO

$16 an hour minimum for full time work. bare necessities 

$17 an hour = about $200 fun money 

$18 an hour  = $400 fun money

Health Insurance 2025

 Anthem Silver Priority/Lean 4000 (3 Free PCP Visits + $0 Select Drugs + Incentives)

Metal Level: Silver

Plan type: HMO

Plan ID: 79475WI0340252

$344.87

Previous:

Anthem Silver Blue Preferred/Broad 4000 (3 Free PCP Visits + $0 Select Drugs + Incentives)

The only difference is that previously it would help with out of network a little bit. The current one is in netwrok only. saves me a chunk of change. 

I will be adding dental. 

EMI Health Advantage PPO

National provider network

Plan ID: 69380WI0040004

$8.40

Overall cost each month for budgeting for health insurance: $355