If you are superstitious you'll never step on cracks.
When you see a ladder you will never walk beneath it.
And if you ever spill some salt you'll thrown some 'cross your back,
And carry' round a rabbit's foot just in case you need it.
You'll pick up any pin that you find lying on the ground,
And never, never, ever throw your hat upon the bed,
Or open an umbrella when you are in the house.
You'll bite your tongue each time you say
A thing you shouldn't have said.
You'll hold your breath and cross your fingers
Walkin' by a graveyard,
And number thirteen's never gonna do you any good.
Black cats will all look vicious, if you're superstitious,
But I'm not superstitious (knock on wood).
It's that time of year again! The holiday that children love more than almost any other - Hallowe'en!
They get to wear a costume, go outside after dark with droves of other children, surprise and stump their neighbors and collect bucketsful of candy. What is not to love?
For your Thorsday Tonic today, in honor of the special day, here is a great little animated video which captures some of the fun of Hallowe'en while delivering one of my favorite pieces of music in one delightful package!
via hshawn00, Camille Saint-Saëns' Danse Macabre. Enjoy!
"It costs so much to be a full human being that there are very few who have the enlightenment, or the courage, to pay the price ... One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover, and yet demand no easy return of love. One has to accept pain as a condition of existence. One has to court doubt and darkness as the cost of knowing. One needs a will stubborn in conflict, but apt always to the total acceptance of every consequence of living and dying." Morris West, The Shoes of the Fisherman, 1963.
On Facebook, people post old photos on Thursdays for "Throwback Thursday". I love looking at them, and I love that they remind people of important times in the past. I thought it would be fun to occasionally do a blog TBT. By reposting old blog posts to remind NiftyReaders of important ideas discussed in the past, maybe I can kickstart more discussion: how long have we been thinking about this or that issue? Has anything changed since the earlier discussion? I had the idea earlier this month, but it was reading another blog today which helped me decide which old post to begin the series of TBT posts.
As of a few months ago, about 28% of those who supported marriage equality had changed their minds. Where once they opposed it, now they support it. A Pew poll asked them why they changed their minds and the results were very interesting. The largest group by far, 37%, said they changed their minds because they have friends, family members or acquaintances who are gay or lesbian. And that is true of other gay rights issues as well. Knowing a gay person or, more importantly, knowing that they know gay people, changes minds and changes beliefs. This is exactly why it’s equally important for atheists to come out of the closet too, if it’s safe for them to do so... Ed Brayton, "Why Coming Out Matters", FreethoughtBlogs, October 24, 2013.
Ed Brayton's post this morning on his blog Dispatches from the Culture Wars, points to the importance of "coming out of the closet" - whether you are LGBTQ or a feminist or an atheist - and he posts some statistical evidence to back it up! This is something that several atheists have spoken about before, including me. For the first NiftyTBT, here is my July 2012 post on coming out as an atheist:
Get out of hot water FREE!
Millions of people the world over are atheist but only a tiny fraction of these people publicly identify as such for a variety of reasons. The most common reasons are that either they do not realise that they are atheist or they are afraid to acknowledge that they are atheist. Because of the harm that they see being caused by the power that religious dogma is given in society, some atheists become frustrated and discouraged about the number of closeted atheists in our midst, and sometimes their frustration spills out in accusations of hypocrisy - which sometimes pushes the closeted atheists more deeply into the closet.
I am an atheist who sometimes reaches that boiling point of mingled frustration, irritation and discouragement. Like most atheists, I used to be religious and like most atheists, I know only too well how hard it can be to let go of the security of a belief system inculcated from childhood - and which for many of us is intimately entwined with our identities, our families and our entire community support networks. If religion was a benign force in the world, as many closeted atheists clearly must still believe it to be, there would never be any reason to come out as an atheist. But, religion is not a benign force in the world. Religion wreaks havoc on efforts to promote world peace. Religion mandates that women be treated as less than fully human, enshrining in its "holy books" the misogyny that permeates human culture and providing a "divine" justification for the oppression of half of humankind. Religion fosters - even insists upon - religious and racial bigotry. Religion suppresses and tries to destroy sources of human knowledge which threaten its power. It is accorded a level of obsequious acceptance and awarded a degree of power and influence that would be unthinkable for any other unelected, nontransparent entity in a modern, democratic society. The church says the earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the church.Ferdinand Magellan
The deference that is paid to religion has real consequences for humanity. In addition to the sectarian violence that rages all over the world, religious groups seek to stop scientific research which could yield outstanding new medical treatments that would greatly alleviate human suffering. Religion demands the "right" to decide for all of society what is moral and what ought to be legal, even when there is no consensus even among religionists on what is actually moral and what actually ought to be legal. It is inimical to individual freedom. Religion schemes and strategizes to persuade - through fear, bigotry and misinformation - just enough people to vote in favor of their agenda, thus turning a democratic Republic into a putative theocracy where a simple majority of religiously-influenced voters can take away human rights from women and minorities by anonymously pulling a lever in a ballot box. Faith is essentially intolerant ... essentially because necessarily bound up with faith is the illusion that one's cause is also God`s cause. Ludwig von Feuerbach Are you a closeted atheist? Incredible though it may sound, it is possible not to realize that one is actually atheist. There is no shame or hypocrisy in it. While it is true that religion's greatest source of energy comes via true believers, religious leaders know that the number of zealous true believers is too small to secure real power in a culture, so they rely on the large moderate majority to protect and enable them to achieve their goals. To that end, the strategic tool of childhood indoctrination and enormous social pressure to conform to "tradition", coupled with the more liberal mainline Christian ethics of the post WW2 western world, ensures that millions of people feel more comfortable continuing to identify as "believers" - even though they know on at least some level that they do not, really, believe everything that their religion tells them is ultimate truth. No man ever believes that the Bible means what it says; he is always convinced that it says what he means. George Bernard Shaw Cultural believers are trying to have it both ways. Those who believe that there are many pathways to God, and who sincerely believe that their religion is one of love or peace, tend to reject the actual religion found in holy scripture and embodied by the fundamentalists of their faith. They wish both to believe and disbelieve. They wish to align themselves with the best of the modern, liberal religious sensibility - which is secular humanism by a more acceptable name - while denying the reality of the message in the dominant faith traditions. They tell themselves that people who are intolerant of spiritual differences or who fight to deny others the freedom to develop and live by their own religious and moral values are not "true" Christians. They are uncomfortable with the way the religious right oppresses minority groups, but they stop short of taking effective action to push back against it. In the end, they support their extreme co-religionists because of their shared religious heritage - sometimes actively but more often just passively through doing nothing, keeping their heads down and continuing to enjoy whatever it is that their own church community gives them. These people unintentionally form the cultural bulwark of reasonable, moderate, kind and compassionate religion which provides cover for fundamentalists with their unreasonable, extreme, cruel and oppressive agendas. The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. George Bernard Shaw
Did you just say you don't believe in God?
Easier to understand are the millions of people who do know they are atheist but who are too afraid to come out of the closet. One does not have to look far or for very long to find evidence of the social, political and personal cost that open atheism can bring to an individual. The fear that many closeted atheists feel is genuine and completely rational. In many parts of the world, open atheism can get you persecuted, arrested and even executed. In the western world, atheists are openly vilified, compared to rapists, pedophiles and psychopaths and are discriminated against socially, politically and economically. Being openly atheist can cost you your friends, family and community. It will mean you will probably never be able to hold public office. It could cost you your job. It could cost you your safety and peace of mind.
And yet, by remaining silent, are we in the western world really safeguarding ourselves and our children? Just fifty years ago, before the global resurgence of religious fundamentalism, most of the developed world and much of the developing world was moving slowly but surely toward modernity. Most of the world had explicit goals for educational and social progress, including countries which today are rued by fundamentalist religious regimes. Universities, modern medicine and infrastructure and international trade were on the rise, and societies were proudly producing post-war generations eager to participate in the explosion of scientific and technological discovery that marked the second half of the twentieth century. But scientific achievement and progressive social and educational reform threatens religious elites and the rise of fundamentalism soon followed the brief, shining period of progress. The moderates in these countries did not imagine that the hard-won gains that had been so recently made could be rolled back. They did not think that the extremists among them could seize control of their countries and push them all back into a new dark age. But it happened. It happened with the unwitting help of the moderates who did not anticipate that while their more extreme co-religionists might only target vulnerable minorities at first, they would inevitably turn their attention to the insufficiently devout within the majority - the moderates themselves. By the time the moderates woke up to what was happening to their countries, it was too late. I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Nelson Mandela It is recognition of the ultimate consequences of society's continued acceptance of religious hegemony which prompts atheists to urgently challenge closeted atheists to take a stand for humanity. Insistence on the benignity of belief systems which wreak havoc on world peace, which mandate the oppression of women and which demean and discredit the highest achievements of humankind is irrational and destructive, even if the motive for doing so makes perfect sense to the moderate majority which is scrambling to protect its own cherished privileges and traditions. The benefits that closeted atheists receive from their church communities are outweighed by the harm that religion is doing to those same communities and to the societies which they influence, to the earth via support for climate change denial through anti-science anti-intellectualism and to the whole of humanity through hatred, bigotry and the implacable religious drive for theological supremacy. Our fear of ostracism today ought to be outweighed by our concern about the kind of world we are leaving for our children and grandchildren. By coming out of the closet, atheists, agnostics and secular humanists will encourage each other to see that we already have the numbers to support thriving human communities, based upon better ideas than fear and misogyny. In a world that is as oppressively and even violently dominated by religion as ever in human history, it may take more courage - even in societies which claim to protect religious freedom (for now) - than the average person can muster to come out as an atheist. And yet, I am asking you to do it.
We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face... we must do that which we think we cannot. Eleanor Roosevelt
To celebrate their 20th anniversary last year (2012), Newfoundland's legendary fok/rock band, Great Big Sea, released this new song "Heart of Hearts".
This is the accompanying video featuring the b'ys interacting with clips from GBS videos from over the years.
For your Monday Music, Great Big Sea: Heart of Hearts. Enjoy!
Heart of Hearts
I drove a million miles with you,
I broke a million smiles with you;
I told a million lies with you,
What else could I do?
We answered every siren's call,
We watched the stars collide and fall;
Stood back to back against the wall,
We ran before we crawled.
All together now until the end,
When this story's over a new one begins;
In my heart of hearts,
There's a special place,
For every man who shook my hand,
And every girl who kissed my face;
In my heart of hearts there hides no shame,
In my heart of hearts I'd do it all again.
You always said you were the lucky one,
You always said the night had just begun;
We always stayed up till the morning sun,
And whistled something to the dawn.
All together now until the end,
When this story's over a new one begins;
And in my heart of hearts,
There's a special place,
For every man who shook my hand,
And every girl who kissed my face;
In my heart of hearts there hides no shame,
In my heart of hearts I'd do it all again.
Never had a destination or a protocol in mind,
Never had a chart to guide us down the tide;
Never had no money, but I always had the time,
To finish all your lines.
So far behind us, so far to go,
A melody reminds us what we've always known:
Time will never find us in the secrets of the show,
Up or down the road, so on we go.
All together now until the end,
When this story's over a new one begins;
And in my heart of hearts,
There's a special place,
For every man who shook my hand,
And every girl who kissed my face;
In my heart of hearts there hides no shame,
In my heart of hearts I'd do it all again.
In my heart of hearts I'd do it all again.
In my heart of hearts I'd do it all again.
Rows and flows of angel hair
and ice cream castles in the air
and feather canyons everywhere,
I've looked at cloud that way
but now they only block the sun,
they rain and snow on everyone
so many things I would have done
but clouds got in my way
I've looked at clouds from both sides now,
from up and down, and still somehow
it's cloud illusions I recall,
I really don't know clouds at all
Moons and Junes and ferris wheels,
the dizzy dancing way you feel
as every fairy tale comes real
I've looked at love that way
but now it's just another show,
you leave 'em laughing when you go
and if you care, don't let them know,
don't give yourself away
I've looked at love from both sides now,
from give and take, and still somehow
it's love's illusions I recall,
I really don't know love at all
Tears and fears and feeling proud
to say "I love you" right out loud,
dreams and schemes and circus crowds,
I've looked at life that way.
But now old friends are acting strange,
they shake their heads, they say I've changed
well, something's lost but something's gained
in living every day
I've looked at life from both sides now,
from win and lose, and still somehow
it's life's illusions I recall,
I really don't know life at all.
- Joni Mitchell
(In loving memory: MTG October 16, 1933 - June 6, 2009)
Today is the two week birthday of a very precious baby. In honor of the new arrival, I'd like to share the song linked below. Tim Baker's incomparable lyrics capture the feelings that so many of us "elders" experience as we welcome a new generation into this beautiful, exhilarating, terrifying, wonderful world that we all share.
From everyone in the NiftyUniverse:
Welcome to the world, little one!
Welcome -lyrics, Tim Baker
You'll be a bright light coming out of the dark
All the doctors blinking hard
You'll be lightning coming out of the storm
Like a message, like a miracle
You will do all right
You've got your mother's eyes
You've got your daddy's head
Everything you need
For this hard ride
They'll be strapping you on
All the ups and downs and you can't get off
Yes, trouble we're handing off
And you've got to do better than us
It'll be all right
You've got lots of time
You've got your daddy's love
Everything you want
I can feel you and what you're gonna be
You'll be stronger, you'll be smarter than me
Oh baby, I'll say it again
You're the most incredible thing
I'm sorry, this is it
It's cold and hard and badly lit
And there's no backing out of it
So forget where you've been
It'll never be that good again
And we must only look ahead
Soon you're 33
And everything you tried to be
Is pulled apart by fear and greed
So do I welcome you to it?
Sing let the goddamn games begin
'Cause the god that gives deliverance
Has this thing for disappearing, kid
When they're fighting on the beaches' heads
The five am to Winnipeg
The nights of fights and poison pits
The needle edge of old regret
But the wind will always shift again
And the breath beneath your epaulettes
Is strength enough to carry this.
Let young hands build you up
Carve your face in honest rock
With sunlight on your noble jaw
May young hands build you up
I'm happy that you've come along
I'm happy that you've come, I'm happy that you've come
Oh baby, I'll say it again
I'll say it again, I'll say it
You're the most incredible thing
----------------
There is a rough live version of the song performed by its creators, Hey Rosetta!here. It has an honesty and humanity - literally a circle of friends sharing the welcome - that I really wanted to express in my personal welcome to our sweet new baby.
The live version below is sublime (you will want it for your Ipod, I swear). Turn up the volume, take it to full screen and enjoy.
I've posted this song before. It's a great song, and now here it is again with a wonderful and very original video.
I had to ask myself - should this be a Monday Music or a Tuesday Tonic? It is both music and a tonic, but since the song has already been featured on Monday Music, here it is today as your Tuesday Tonic.
Give yourself a gift - take 6 minutes out of your day, click on the video and watch it full screen with the sound turned right up. It is visual and auditory food for the spirit. It starts out pensive but finishes with an exuberantly life-affirming party!
Bandages
It will come around
but everything is now
I know everything is right now
And the loneliness is a lot
the nothing weighs a ton
I mean the nothing weighs a fucking ton
That half of the bed
empty like a page
all the cursive claims you've yet to make
All the promising lines
bending like her spine
oh the whiteness that your pen could write
If you get these bandages off
you can stand, you can walk
leave these towels and gauze
you'll get up, you'll get out
into the sun
That's where we belong
we've been abed too long
all our weaknesses are growing strong
But the winter always ends
with water on your lips
the april rain comes swinging in
Get these bandages off
let me stand, let me walk
leave these towels and gauze
let me up, let me out
into the sun
