Editor’s Note: Every Saturday, we run a column by Maria Padhila on a relationship-based theme, usually focused on polyamory or what some call responsible nonmonogamy. In case you’re wondering why we do this on an astrology website, the answer is ‘just because’ — we’ve been on these topics since the very first days Planet Waves existed. — efc
By Maria Padhila
I lurk on a couple of poly email lists where I find a lot of support just reading about what others are going through, and how they’re working through their problems (or not). I just lurk — I don’t have to write anything. There are enough people there who are ready to respond, who have lots of experience and know what they’re talking about.
Two women in particular on one of these lists are remarkably eloquent, empathetic and easygoing, a hat trick few in the online world can manage. They stand up for their own viewpoints without being trolls about it; they can accept other perspectives besides their own. It (along with this site) restores my faith in online discourse when I see people who can respond like this.
Once one of the women, Devon, mentioned her long-distance relationship. I’ve always been interested in these. I have two best women friends — one knows about my poly life, and one doesn’t. The one who doesn’t, Sylvie, has one of the longest-running long-distance relationships I’ve ever heard of. They have been monogamous for 15 years. On top of living about 1,500 miles away from each other, they spend much of their time together traveling. They work in bursts and then take off, and then go back to work again. They know all the tricks from hosteling to airline ticket discounts to couch surfing (often at Isaac’s and my place, and we love having them here, as does our daughter.). Her boyfriend is great fun as well as being highly principled, but not in your face about it. One of the reasons he works on the move now is that his union workplace was busted down after a prolonged strike, and he wouldn’t be a scab or support the management in any way, even today.
It hurts not to let Sylvie know what’s going on — she has seen so much with me and helped me through so much over the years. At the same time, she was once betrayed and hurt very badly, and has come out of the generation that feels so let down by their parents and relatives cheating and splitting up. I think she would see it as just more of the same. Maybe sometime I’ll tell her.
But I find her relationship wonderful. It’s obvious that it ‘works’ — aside from the dent the economy has made in their freedom of movement. The only thing I find strange about it is the reaction others have. Over the years, people have pulled me aside and asked things like: When are those two going to get married? When are they going to settle down in one place? How can she stand it?
I’m curious about other people’s relationships — or else I wouldn’t be asking strangers to tell me about their love and sex lives so I can write about them. But this isn’t so much curiosity by the interrogators as a desire to get these two into a place they can understand and file away. Often, the typical tropes get trotted out — he must be afraid of commitment; doesn’t she want something ‘more’?
Yes, she would like something ‘more’, all right — more economic security. The union company where she worked was decimated two years ago, and now she lives the part-timer existence, although with valuable skills some are still willing to pay fairly for. But she’s got plenty, even when she’s not with her boyfriend — freedom, free time, her walls covered with art, no golf clubs and soccer balls filling the apartment, the ability to go out with friends anytime after work. It’s actually like being poly, except the other person is herself.
Devon, in her early 50s just like Sylvie and me, had a very different experience with her LDR (long-distance relationship). Sylvie lived most of the years of her LDR before the kinds of technology that made such relationships much easier; Devon’s started, as so many do today, on a computer. She had been carrying on with a few dozen men online, with her husband’s knowledge and consent, and frankly admits she was “addicted” to the attention and exploration. When she decided to stop, one man begged her not to: “he had decided he was in love with me,” she wrote me.
She traveled to visit a dying relative and the besotted Sam, who lived a half-day away, came to meet her. “I fell for him like my life had been on hold, waiting for him to walk in and wake me up,” she writes. “I felt this man was important to me, and when I flew home the next day I wondered what the hell I was going to do. All I knew was that I didn’t want to be 80 years old someday, and look back on this event wondering what would my life be like if I had let myself pursue this relationship?”
She tried to tell her husband how serious this was — not just online play. Finally, she took her husband to their counselor and told him there, where he would have support, in a way that he would listen and understand. After six months of support and talking, her husband said he was feeling secure enough for her to pursue the other relationship.
“We had heard of polyamory from my online research, but rejected the idea for us. Being poly sounded too much like being open or being a swinger,” she writes. “We were in love. There was no intention of sharing anything with anyone else. Later, I found the term ‘poly-fidelity’ and that began my acceptance of things poly.”
The two began to see each other every three to four months, for a week or a long weekend at a time, for a few years. “Sustaining a relationship like this would have been impossible as little as 20 years ago,” she writes. “The technology that allowed us to be so close seemed like a miracle to me. We had cell phones and used the same provider. We subscribed to unlimited texting so that short I’m thinking of you messages were possible. We could have ‘overnights’ via the webcam, and feel almost like we had slept together. Emails flew fast and furious between us, instant ways of connecting our deepest feelings and most profound experiences of love.”
Her husband and Sam were able to meet a number of times. If all three were in the same city, she would make time to share lunch or dinner with her husband — time spent where Sam lived didn’t mean she would be with him exclusively.
Even so, communication was one of the biggest problems. She realized she was communicating more with Sam than with her husband. Her husband felt left out, particularly when the three were out together. Sam felt like he would never be included in the parties and family activities the married couple had so often. He was a secret from her family and he “hated being invisible,” she writes. “I hated it too. He was so important to me, but we had not found a way to be open with our kids. [They both have adult children.] I regret that, to this day.”
“Because Sam lived alone and had a high libido, I knew that the time would come for him to want to date,” she writes. She knew he was working on a relationship close to home. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell her anything about the relationship, and she was hurt and, she says, reacted badly when she discovered what was happening. It was the final stage in their communication breaking down — the relationship didn’t survive it.
This line between being fine with someone dating someone else and not being fine with the way it’s happening is hard to make people understand. For myself, I get infuriated when I’m cast in the role of the ‘mommy’ or the ‘ball and chain’ that a partner has to sneak around on. Once when I told Chris that I wanted to know with whom and when he was going out, he made a half-snarky, half-sexy remark about taking videos and sharing them with me. My response was all angry. Imagining either of my guys with another woman if they’re out (or in) having fun is hot. Picturing either of them sneaking around like a bad little boy, saying “don’t let Maria find out or she’ll get mad” is not hot. Getting put in the role where I’m someone who would get in the way of their freedom feels unjust and unfair — and kills my sex drive. Plus, it’s uncomfortable going into a social situation, say, and not knowing if there’s someone there that they’re really into. It’s hard getting people to understand this distinction.
“My husband has supported and loved me throughout this entire process,” Devon writes. “He loved seeing me be so happy and in love. He relished his own freedom to participate in all the activities that bring him his own joy. He took me to the airport each time I left and was there with open arms to pick me up when I returned. He held me as I cried [when the relationship ended] and supported me through my grief.”
“This year we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary. He is secure in his place in my life and encourages me now to simply be who I am. If that means taking another lover, and having another love of my life, so be it. If it’s simply the two of us, that’s good too.”
“A benefit of living a poly lifestyle for me, is a sense of being seen, not just by others, but by myself, too. I recognize parts of myself that I can see more clearly and appreciate. I feel fulfilled and loved for who I am. I dropped the lifelong mask, the need to be a certain way for anyone else and am growing to a place of self-empowerment, appreciating myself. There was a huge spiritual awakening during this previous time that has given me tools to carry with me for the rest of my life. I have blossomed emotionally, spiritually and sexually.”
I feel privileged to have heard her story. I recognize how fortunate she is to have a partner like that — and it makes me appreciate my own even more.
Ah – luzander…
As a life-long recipient of the “Play Misty for Me” joke, I would like to urge you to go ahead and play God. After all, God plays us (with more or less virtuosity). Keeping the Godstrument in tune (and out of grandiose hands) is something of a lifelong challenge – as you have limned so brilliantly below:
“Christianity addressed the law/atonement typology by enshrining them in the whole Jesus story arc but, whatever Jesus may have intended, the human need for release on a psychic level was displaced by a grand narrative about the deity’s needs for everybody to be pristine and holy.”
Feeling our Nietzsche this morning, are we?
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Meanwhile, I am feeling our Blake this morning. Mr. “Black” was the English incarnation of Saraha (I have this on *very* good authority), so there is a Mahasiddhi’s wisdom built into the very rhythm of his writing…speaking of the Godstrument:
“The Human Abstract”
Pity would be no more,
If we did not make somebody Poor:
And Mercy no more could be,
If all were as happy as we;
And mutual fear brings peace;
Till the selfish loves increase.
Then Cruelty knits a snare,
And spreads his baits with care.
He sits down with holy fears,
And waters the ground with tears:
Then Humility takes its root
Underneath his foot.
Soon spreads the dismal shade
Of Mystery over his head;
And the Catterpiller and Fly,
Feed on the Mystery.
And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
Ruddy and sweet to eat;
And the Raven his nest has made
In its thickest shade.
The Gods of the earth and sea,
Sought thro’ Nature to find this Tree
But their search was all in vain:
There grows one in the Human Brain.”
(…which *contains* Yggdrasil, and all of her creatures…)
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All-love, half-witte,
M
“My heart feels free” reading this excellent thread and most especially your posts, Alexander. You are one very cool cat.
Thank you for all of the posts but most especially the latest two this morning and for offering up some excellent Morrissey — my musical idol. Very nice.
I need to add here that the centuries old accumulation of myriad, unsatisfactorily addressed ruptures and inauthentic ideological adaptations constitutes a set of minor wounds that became chronically infected. Through time and process this sickness has transmuted into the global, gaping wound we all participate in now.
The earth is toxified in its essence, its wound speaks of ebbing life force, just like in the myth of Yggdrasill the great ash that sheltered all creation, but that is under constant attack by creatures (including Nidhogg the dragon) that deplete the tree and cause suffering not just to it but all that it shelters (us).
While the issue of scale is intimidating, healing has to start somewhere. And for me this is psychic healing. We begin to cast off the oppressions that have kept us bound and birthed our collective distortions. I offer a link to a beautiful piece of music that exquisitely sums this up on a personal level:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP7GsCREwos
Alexander
Thor’s hammer shall I now wield, like some trusty heathen..
The misinterpretation of the Christ-inspired doctrine of forgiveness has displaced a more pagan understanding. Pagan understanding of what?
Ruptures and how to deal with them helpfully.
*Old*, ritualistic notions of sacrifice, leading to expiations and propitiations that bring about restitution, understood clearly the importance of restoring balance in a tangible way.. you know, viscerally and publicly. The violence of most forgiveness doctrine is to the self. And largely abounds because of a reduction of ‘re-balancing after rupture’ to a psychological, internal and non-public *event* of suppression of natural feelings – instead of dealing/processing.
This is another pernicious legacy felt and indoctrinated on a cultural and subconscious level – one that invalidates the personal experience gleaned in unique situatedness. Everyone learns the drill of psychological self-emasculation, because there is collective denial about the substantiality of psychic ruptures (that NEED to be addressed ON THAT LEVEL).
This adds to the confusion. When Christianity becomes tantamount to being ‘nice’ and ‘inoffensive’ then you see something like what I’m getting at here. You have to BE a certain way… consistently!
No you don’t! If I discover an ideology that causes harm there is no way that I’m going into agreement with it. If I see something that has taken on the characteristics of an unhelpful ‘social fact’ I may go into temporary agreement, so as to neutralise its power.. if not im to fully disarm it. Or, I may go arm in arm with it, so as to decoy it far away from where its potential latent harm might manifest later in the piece. This is called skill, or if you like, personal mastery based upon depth awareness.
See it as *spiritual* warfare if you like.
My earlier comments were all really focused upon not destroying one’s own valued family/comrades in life, with whom we wish to share deep and real love.
When it comes to dealing with disreputable ideology, the abuse of power, pernicious deceptions I take no prisoners. And that key phrase ‘dealing with’ is paramount.
It is fashionable to slate the *primitiveness* of hatefulness and vengeance while prioritising/practicing the more *evolved* self-harm, through ill-advised forgiveness notions.
Vengefulness/Forgiveness has always been a false dichotomy because based upon incomplete understanding of how to deal with ruptures.
The primitive system was more visceral and honest and did not seek to sanitise *inconvenient* emotions. It became problematic when attempts to codify in legal form both became unwieldy and removed the rupture from the locus of consciousness and out into a structured forum of address.
Christianity addressed the law/atonement typology by enshrining them in the whole Jesus story arc but, whatever Jesus may have intended, the human need for release on a psychic level was displaced by a grand narrative about the deity’s needs for everybody to be pristine and holy. Christian Apologetics has offered a litany of meritless, theological gymnastics ever since – All attempts at correcting the incipient Judeo-Christian oppression (of the tribal psyche) brokered by development of legal redress (a locus of resolution that DISPLACES the rupture’s psychic source, while the forgiveness doctrine that replaced it in Christianity, finally DENIES it – job done).
We do not need to be on the sticky ontological wicket of being either nasty or nice, evil or good – religious guilt ensures which one we tend to choose (the alternative does not feel pleasant).
Once we discard the outmoded framework, and since we have travelled the Karmic wheel of Samsara long enough as a species to have worked the alternatives, we can come full circle back to this question of rupture and how we heal it satisfactorily. This will not be through tribal vengeance and heathen bloodlust, neither will it be through dignified and self-emasculating forgiveness.
It will come in the form of meeting the needs of everyone/everything affected by the rupture and allowing healing to come from the drawing upon deep knowledge, born of intuition, experience and deep resonance with the consciousness of the earth.
If you must play God, play God. But remember… we are all ONE.
I’m really sorry you lost so much. It’s infuriating to me that these things can still happen to people. I want a world where that can’t happen. And I would like to hear more of your story.
I don’t know about last year’s “tempest,” though.
I keep secrets primarily because the people I’m in relationships with don’t want to be outed and have to face losses. But like I said, something to write about–play with–next week!
So I suppose ‘Maria Padhila’ is a pseudonym? Interesting, given the tempest that erupted here last year about disclosure, identity and honesty on the Planetwaves board.
But. As someone who has lost an inheritance, jobs, a marriage, a doctoral degree and an academic community because of my insistence on living as I am, let me assure you, “maria,” that your struggle makes perfect sense to me.
What I gained has been immeasurable. But how can I possibly know if it is ‘better’ than your experience? I’m not being a situationist/relativist here, I am speaking from the tangible fact that this has been *insanely* hard.
The spiritual confusion of which Alexander speaks is something to be reckoned, though, so don’t throw that part of the discussion away, thinking it is a judgment or insult. Factor it in, because it is consequential. Figure out how to use, detournee or disarm it. Play with it. Mostly, be aware of it.
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Well I guess I got something to write about next week.
Those who don’t want to be neck deep in other people’s bullshit might do well to avoid online discussion forums. 😉
Love, me!
Ye know, I’m okay with having taken birth here, but this is an *odd* place. Even ‘happiness’ is tinged with belligerence or anxiety as we exhaust the largess and beauty of this planet.
(Sigh…) Do people actually love one another here? Sometimes I wonder…
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Hey mystes!
Cue the animal kingdom: I think of the elephants, so large but gentle as they protect even the orphaned calf and take collective responsibility. I think of the gulls mobbing the heron or magpies/crows mobbing the hawk as they protect their young from threat..
Cretaures both huge and diminutive understand the essence of love in pure devoted action (they don’t seem like ‘deep thinkers’ to me).
Humans struggle with this wavelength.
I am so truly pleased mystes that you do not. Thank you for your steadfastness – the world needs so much more.
And, as your poetic tribute to the Pecan so wantonly hacked down a while back shows, this deep love is fittingly expressed through a deep sense of connection with the sentience of all living things.
On Planet Waves it seems we have to complicate in order to simplify! Again thanks for your unswerving efforts in this regard.. <3
Alex
Alexander writes…”it is about consequences and legacy material.”
So true. I know this from watching people I care about, paralyzed by intractable fear and shame; and worse, what has been catastrophically embedded in the (now adult) children involved.
There is no joy in being right. For years I was told that bringing in my consort’s children would be too hard, too complicated. Not so for my children, both knew/know exactly whom I love (besides them *8^/ of course), and why. And it *has* been hard, but my kids get it.
On the other side, lies and emotional cooking-the-books *is* the norm for most people, so the anguish I am witnessing *is* pretty functional within that milieu.
~~~
Ye know, I’m okay with having taken birth here, but this is an *odd* place. Even ‘happiness’ is tinged with belligerence or anxiety as we exhaust the largess and beauty of this planet.
(Sigh…) Do people actually love one another here? Sometimes I wonder…
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No Carrie, like I said:
If there are potentially significant consequences, whatever the reason, then it appears that avoiding getting caught via maintaining secrecy is a risk worth taking for some people. What would this tell us about priorities, other than that some consequences are deemed worse than others?
You see, if what you say is a significant risk, then what you are also saying is that children can be taken away.
However this would be based upon polyamorous PRACTICE not whether a person chooses to be secretive. What you seem to be suggesting therefore is that:
People who sneak around in order to avoid consequences prefer being polyamorous in secret. They still place their sexual preferences above the guardianship of their children. Because if they ‘got caught’, even though secretive, they still risk losing their children.
Unless you are saying that there is a “don’t speak about it” taboo? And that fundamentalists will turn a blind eye as long as it isn’t ‘in the open’?
If that is the case then emigrate (to another state, not necessarily the Netherlands).
I tell you, in a cultural setting where such values prevail and secrecy is the chosen method of non-confront, we sell the souls of both ourselves and our children, when we keep secrets in order to retain autonomy. Over time, this gets hard wired in and make no mistake it is psychologically pernicious.
It’s not about right/wrong or moral/immoral it is about consequences and legacy material. Secrecy, however justified, destroys relationships and is the reason why so many relationships in general breakdown, where no such external constraints are necessarily faced, but the secrecy way is proactively chosen.
As I said in my first comment on this thread, this does not imply that people should reveal all things at all times in the name of honesty (that would become tyrannical control by reverse psychology) but deep secrets about fundamental life choices destroys interpersonal integrity with real people you love – this is playing for much higher stakes than preserving autonomy under duress.
There is no harm-free way, other than to leave that situation/location..
“We all fear rejection but what I personally realize more each day is “fuck them if they don’t like it” and “If I end up alone because of being me and making my authentic choices then I’ll take on a cat”. If your friends don’t like what you do, and you aren’t breaking some town ordinance, then “tough shit” friends! The same goes for family.”
That would be fine…if you didn’t need a paying job in order to live. Most people do need a paying job and in some states (mine is one of them) you can be fired without any reason given (and living poly can BE the unstated reason because religious fundies lurk everywhere). When kids are involved, you stand to lose custody of them if the religious group is powerful in your area. These are not just about being alone. I completely understand a person’s fear of being open about this if their job is on the line or worse; they stand to lose their child/ren over it.
Alexander,
So appreciate your comment…it is so true that it IS absoluts bullshit to have people
In your life that do not respect freedom of choice! I make it a point to be happy
For people where they are at…why is it others want to knock people down just for
Stepping out of the accepted norm?…Fraggles my mind to the point of introversion!
Henny pennies everywhere it seems! I think I will dye my hair blue.
Peace and more peace
Patricia
Lying because of the potential abuse of power is a prominent method, learned in childhood, of preserving one’s freedom to be self-directed. It is easy to understand the justification. There is a psychological problem here though; essentially that of distinguishing between real consequences and fear of consequences, because they aren’t the same thing.
If there are potentially significant consequences, whatever the reason, then it appears that avoiding getting caught via maintaining secrecy is a risk worth taking for some people. What would this tell us about priorities, other than that some consequences are deemed worse than others?
If the fear of consequences is more prominent (which often it is) it seems we need to forge an awareness of our driving values. Usually, there is fear of social censure rather than substantial privation, at issue. In which case, our compartments for living may be more about ‘fitting in’ than protecting anything tangible – only case by case can that be established, but my feeling is that fear of social censure and rejection is regularly the greatest operating concern.
In such cases, the issue may need to be shifted to that of simplifying our lives somewhat. We all fear rejection but what I personally realise more each day is “fuck them if they don’t like it” and “If I end up alone because of being me and making my authentic choices then I’ll take on a cat”. If your friends don’t like what you do, and you aren’t breaking some town ordinance, then “tough shit” friends! The same goes for family.
Personally, my feeling is that if anyone who claims to love you in any way finds it natural to judge when you exercise your legal freedoms, they are a friend you can well do without.
I realise that path is very hard… but it is surely better than being stood neck deep in other people’s bullshit.
not sure i go for all the extrapolations; mostly because her story is much longer than what i included here. Sam, for instance, had his own adult children and community to deal with.
i believe in the power and usefulness of ceremonials; in fact, one of the reasons we don’t yet come out to some friends is that they were at our wedding and thus pledged to support the marriage. they may see what we’re doing as a threat to the marriage.
the “all other parties” who don’t/can’t participate in the contact are a hell of a lot of other parties to consider.
some lovers have to stay in secrecy whether they’d like it otherwise or not, because other people have real power over them and might choose to exercise it if they don’t like what they’re up to. in my case–and i’ll write more about this later–secrecy, which, yes, results in some in our relationship feeling hurt, is necessary so we can keep our child and our health insurance. this is not an illusion, or a failure to self-realize, or an excuse; it’s a reality.
even adult children can be very odd about their parents’ relationships–there can be threats to isolate, to keep grandparents away from grandchildren, even to put someone away (Mom is off her rocker, she needs testing, medication, care, etc., because we’d rather Mom be a zombie than carrying on like this, and that other woman she’s hanging around with might take away our inheritance, yikes! that’s just one scenario, but not farfetched.).
the Occupy protestors shouldn’t be getting arrested, hit, or sprayed, but they are.
Maria (and all),
I find it interesting and stimulating that Devon discovered the concept of poly-fidelity. It seems to me that this ‘container’ is a very useful way of supplying some integrity between the parties in a poly-constructed relationship framework for the individual.
An honesty-based ethics is laudable, but not without difficulties.. What it does achieve is the integration of the individual’s ethical system by the means of open communication (e.g. not withholding). This is why Devon was so upset with Sam keeping his secret.
When a person gets to see more than one partner, whilst the other party is only availing of the partnered person, then some kind of ethical view seems naturally to kick in that the partnered person has to be more ethically pristine. (Perhaps Devon’s poly-fidelity was not shared, or even explored as applying to, Sam?) If Sam was essentially monogamous then this would explain the ‘mismatch’ (and the complexity of poly set-ups in reality), where it should be recognised that honesty as open communication may seem like it is sufficient to navigate core problems but actually is not.
It is not adequate precisely because all other parties outside the arrangement configuration do not become partakers in this honesty contract.
Let me say that this is a dire difficulty to overcome! It is not an intrinsic flaw, however. Just because it is ‘poly’ does not mean that privacy issues should be confused with secrecy issues (as is almost always the case). We should not have to tell EVERYODY what our specific relationship proclivities are.
However, the tradition of marriage sets the precedent. There is the strong sense of community witnessing a marriage, it is a publicly ratified ceremonial. The witnesses may be expected to support the marriage and not undermine it. The ‘joy’ is shared by all parties present, on the occasion of the ceremony.
This makes me wonder whether or not ceremonials are per se the way to go forward with new configurations.
If we don’t develop such ideas and practices then unfortunately, the right to privacy becomes a form of secrecy, which becomes a form of sneakery. Lives already get forced into myriad compartments and our job is then to perform the Herculean feat of managing said compartments unilaterally – and preventing those who must not know, or who I choose to maintain my privacy information with regard to, from knowing my business. All the while, others take a different view of what ought or ought not to be shared, as a matter of personal judgment.
Everyone has differing criteria for assessing those fine lines and someone will almost always be upset by the calibrations of others.
Privacy/secrecy is a tough divide. One is healthy the other unhealthy. Our overlords and our shadow like the blurring – it allows for emotional manipulation through guilt-tripping and shaming.
Ultimately, Sam wanted more than poly-fidelity with Devon; he wanted monogamy. He knew the score but secretly hoped that Devon would ultimately prove monogamous and ultimately choose him over her husband (which sounds like a traditional affair with an an additive gleaned from Devon’s poly-fidelity ethics, where husband doesn’t suspect but knows and meets the third party). What is similar to an affair feels more conspicuous here than what differs.
Ultimately, even poly-fidelity between parties (Sam was seemingly not included and maybe his ethics on this were never openly explored, but assumptions simply made? I’m guessing of course!) fails to the external pressures of the structures containing the relationships in question (the equivalent to the watchers/witnesses at the marital ceremony – and being absent from the poly-fidelity ideal).
Sam was hurt by not beng able to meet Devon’s family on any level and therefore could not find the containment of lovingly extended roots/grounding – he could find no accepting and loving family community (of course, it is most likely that this ‘secret’ was necessary to preserve the appearance of harmony with external, probably disapproving, parties).
This kind of experience is very troubling for the person in a one-to-one loving connection and should not be underestimated.
It seems to me that the only way this kind of intractable issue gets resolved is if we can introduce some concept of ceremonial into the piece.
Although difficult to flesh out on a merely conceptual level, it would appear that ceremonial, which has largely taken a hammering in the past 70 years and been replaced with a cynicism about ritual (largely because of the superstitious appropriation of it by organised religion – that contrived to lose the heart of its meaning – as Eric’s view of oaths, from a Quaker perspective, highlighted the other day) urgently needs to make an enlightened comeback; wherein we understand intimately what we are doing in ceremony and how this is related to public health – which will NEVER be served by secrecy. Without such reworking we will not, as a society, be able to find (given the prevailing climate), a workable model of privacy.
Alexander