In response to a Twitter thread on Leftist activism lacking art or creativity, I wrote:
"If activism lacks the capacity for art, leisure, relaxation, or recuperation it strikes me less as activism and more zealotry.
I've never been an evangelical or Puritan, and I cannot get why so many leftists grasp for this kind of activism as lifestyle as something to aspire to."
I feel much the same about my religious life. Some folks try to separate their religious life from their political one, like non-overlapping magisteria. Even as a Catholic this made little sense to me. Either you live your values, ethics, philosophy, or religion at all times, or at some juncture you compromise yourself. Being a pluralist throughout my life, and a polytheist and animist the last 20 years, I feel this is far easier than my co-religionists and/or Leftists with more strident, unyielding, or, frankly, more zealous views.
Being a good polytheist, animist, and pluralist does not, to my mind, indicate either a permissive attitude nor an unwillingness to disagree -forcefully, at times. Rather, it indicates a willingness to dialogue from an assumption of good faith where it can be had, to allow for difference of opinion and ideology in that dialogue, and for the ability for people to be open to exchanges of ideas even if none involved end up changing their minds. Being a good pluralist means that, where able, I make room for others and where my beliefs or views cannot do this, I do not impose them on others. As the saying goes, opinions are for pizza toppings, not human rights. If someone disagrees that others deserve equal and fully vested human rights there is not a dialogue to be had here. We can disagree, even vehemently, on how to dismantle the carceral state, how we would like to change political structures, or form tax policy. We may have deep divisions based in our beliefs on what is just, right, and good. Christians and I are never going to agree on the cosmos or whether there is one God. If we are trying to dialogue in good faith with each other, agreeing is not necessarily the point of it. We can develop a better understanding of one another, appreciation for our differences, or find places where we do agree and can make inroads with one another.
These considerations cannot be given to racists, white supremacists, religious supremacists, ethnic supremacists or, writ large, bigots. Bigotry precludes a good faith discussion, exchange of ideas, or debate. I cannot engage in an honest, clear, or meaningful way with a Christian who is trying to convert me, or who is convinced that I am a tool, dupe, or servant of Satan. I cannot have any more meaningful or productive discussion, exchange of ideas, or debate with anti-theists who insist any religions are inherently harmful or whose followers are irrational dupes, deluded, insane, and/or dangerous due to their beliefs and/or experiences. I cannot engage in an honest, clear, or meaningful way with a white supremacists who beliefs that Heathenry has no place for anyone outside of White folks, and whose perspective. Generally, these people look at folks like me as degenerates and race traitors. We cannot dialogue with someone who wants us, our loved ones, and members of our communities dead.
What does all this have to do with leisure, art, and the like?
Because we can disagree, deeply, on how we maintain ourselves and what discipline looks like while remaining on the same side. I can critique my fellow polytheists, animist, and/or Leftists without tearing them to pieces. For my part, many of the disagreements in this vein of conversation I am seeing in polytheist, animist, and Leftist spaces are on matters of how we spend what free time we have, and how we are to go-go-go for the Gods, the Glorious Revolution, or both. My view is that without rest, this is intense, intensely exhausting, and more often than not leads to a lot of wheel-spinning and burnout. Leisure, art, and relaxation are where we get the gumption to do things in the first place. Play is how we learn to be adults and children, and as adults, it is what we feed and enforce within ourselves to continue those lessons. Art, leisure, and relaxation are fuel as much as fiery speeches, rhetoric, and disciplined resistance/community work can be. It's also fully possible to overdo it, and rather than treat art as a binary opposition to, say, political action, it very much can be part and parcel of it even when the art at hand has nothing to do with political action itself.
So much of modern capitalism as we are experiencing it is to commodify and to use the very real labor that goes into making art, to make it mere work as opposed to work and expression and working through ideas and learning and whatever else we may bring to the table with regards to art. So much of our modern experience of making art is couched in doing things perfectly or as near to it as we can get, rather than appreciation of the process, or enjoying the end result of our work. The commodification of art and leisure runs so deep that we have terms like hustle culture that seek to supplant what little time we get outside of the jobs we work and what remains to us of our home life.
My view is that art, leisure, and relaxation, maybe just as vital and maybe just as part of revolting against capitalism as a march. Certainly not in the same venue or with the same kind of risk factors, however these things are no less vital. Art feeds a human need to express, to be understood, and in turn fuels that expression through the means by which we employ our art, that it is observed, and that it is internalized. It is another form of dialogue and dialoguing, not all together different than this blog or Around Grandfather Fire.
We do not necessarily need to be productive with art, furthering every political action. Art may be pornographic or propagandistic. Art may soothe us or inspire us. Art may be the means by which we grasp and grapple with meaning, or the means by which we come to better appreciate the meaning we already have. Art interweaves in our lives and ways unless you sit down and really think about it you won't appreciate. Everything from the little I/O that indicates a power button to the label on food, everything from the logos are closed through to street signs, all are artistic even if after a certain point we look at them as mundane or banal.
Intentionally setting aside time and space to make art, to appreciate and take in art, to relax and to have leisure, whatever that leisure looks like, whatever the art or art styles are, whatever we do, we need it.
Art, leisure, and relaxation are where we make and/or engage with the things that carry meaning to us. This is where we recharge and regroup. We need this! After a time, it becomes non-negotiable. Your body will eventually make you lay there if you don't give it rest. Your brain will become exhausted and unwilling to do work that needs to get done if all you are doing is feeding it a steady diet of anxiety-inducing content or thought. Your souls will seek solace where they can find it. Far better to provide them the means to do so within for them to wander away from each other in search of what They need from other Beings and places.
Art is how our spirituality is shaped and expressed. Whether it is the reading of sagas, the Rune Poems, or the ríst of Runes, art in various forms is interwoven in modern Heathenry. Some folks come to Heathenry through depictions of Vikings, whether from the Thor Marvel comics, the Vikings TV show on History Channel, or they saw an Ægishjalmur carved on a piece of wood or a stein at a Renfaire and wanted to learn more. Art has the ability to draw us in, channel or house the Ginnreginn and our own Sálættr, carry and engage magic, inspire us, and bring us into better relationship with others. Through Around Grandfather Fire and 3 Pagans on Tap I have had a wealth of experiences, including friendships and new ways of understanding my own path as a Heathen, through the art and craft of podcasting and video production that I otherwise would not have had. Through this blog I have met new Ginnreginn or encountered Ginnreginn I know in powerful, novel ways. I have helped to detail not only my own journey, but through my prayers, topics, and other posts, to serve as a guide through the art of my writing.
If I did not take the time to enjoy myself, to take time for leisure and relaxation to enjoy art besides what I made, I would burn out. Just to be clear, anyone who has read this blog or listened to AGF long-term likely knows this, I did burn myself out doing that. I had to walk away from spiritwork for the better part of a year. I had to drop as much stuff as I could to give myself time to recuperate and heal. If I had taken the time to do that maybe the time I had to take off would not have been as long, or the need for recovery so deep.
We cannot be unrealistic with the demands we place on ourselves, whether that is in service to the Ginnreginn or just working a 9-5 without paying for it. Rest, relaxation, and leisure are vital, necessary components to us being able to live, let alone thrive. We cannot ignore it without harming our communities and ourselves. So please, polytheists, animists, Leftists -take the time to enjoy art. Take the time to enjoy and involve yourself with art you do not make or is not attached to your livelihood. Take the time to relax, and to take leisure where you can and when you can. If, as I did when I burned out, you need to couch this in terms of usefulness, whether to the Ginnreginn, or a cause: you cannot do the work if you lack the energy, structure, and ability to do it. You can engage in the work at hand needing to be done better by honoring the needs of your body, mind, and souls by taking time and space for art, leisure, and relaxation.
Please, if not for your own sake then that of the Ginnreginn and your communities, take that time and space to engage with art, leisure, and relaxation.
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