This Is My Body

This post was inspired by this video.

This is my body.  I do what I want with it. I exercise or not. I eat crap or organic or local, whatever I choose. I can love my body or not, despite what you think I should or should not do. This is my body.

I am not defined by my weight or height or BMI or age. I am not defined by my sexual orientation or my religion or whom I associate myself with or my lifestyle. I will not be shoved into your "ideal person" mold, to be smothered and stunted there, to die there - spiritually, mentally, and physically.

I refuse to buy into the Beauty Myth. I refuse to be put down about how my body looks, whether I am fully covered, dressed up, dressed down, in a bikini, or naked. I refuse to accept any kind of discrimination from you. I will call out your snide remarks, your backhanded comments, and your demeaning insults. My right to bodily integrity is exactly that, MY right. This is MY body, not yours!

If I want to diet, then that is my right. If I want to escape that system, that too is my right. If I want to be 600lbs and immobile, that is completely my right. I still deserve my human rights, because after all, I am still a human, whether you feel like acknowledging that or not. If I want to be 100lbs and sedentary, that too is my right.

If I am working out, I deserve the courtesy of not being taunted or teased. I deserve not to be bullied back into my house or laughed at or having fingers point at me. I deserve not to have harassing comments leveled against me, as if I am sub-human. If you wouldn't say it to your mother, grandmother, or daughter, do not say it to me. In fact, even if you would say it to your mother, don't say it to me.

And specifically to the Pagan community: you cannot say "all bodies are sacred, except..." and expect to be taken seriously. Either you fully believe in the word "all" or you do not. And being excluded from skyclad rituals because of our bodies is an affront against the Goddess Herself.

The whole point of being skyclad is not to get a peek at some tits and ass. It is to be fully connected to Nature Herself, to be as we were when we were born, to open ourselves up to each other and the forces of the Gods. To be naked in ritual is the highest of worship and requires the highest amount of trust and love. Perfect Love and Perfect Trust. If your intentions are lacking, then you should not be doing skyclad rituals, or be allowed to attend one. As far as I'm concerned, the objectification of the body has no place inside the Circle, or out it as well. I digress.

The only people who should be concerned about my health is myself and maybe my doctor. Ultimately, my body is MINE and I can do whatever I please to it. Tattoos, piercings, scars, burns, body modification, plastic surgery - all of these and more are mine to choose. Your opinion may be valued, but in the end, this flesh is mine alone.

Indeed, do not be afraid of women realizing their own potentials, their own strengths, their own selves. To truly be free, our entire population must realize themselves, not just half. Half is not good enough. Most is not good enough. Almost all is not good enough. Only when every last person has realized themselves can our population really move Universes. And so we shall, so very soon.

Values of the Fat Pagan

June is the Pagan Values blog carnival, where pagans across the net share their values and practices in a big catch all. I am late (but fashionably so! I'm only 28 days late, srsly) of course, but finally here is a mish mash of the values I live by.

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse

I consider myself a Witch, not a Wiccan. I don't follow the Rede but favor the Asatru "Golden Rule": I shall do unto you what you do unto my kin. What you do to me, I shall do to you. Instead of the Threefold Law, I subscribe to Actions and Consequences: what I do has consequences, good or bad. If I study for my test, I will likely pass. If I don't study, I will probably fail. With this, I don't avoid curses or hexes; I accept any consequences of my actions. I believe a witch who cannot harm cannot heal either. Avoiding one part of the circle isn't balance; I don't think a person should live in one part or another, but in both the light and dark aspects.

I practice Witchcraft, but I seldom do spells. I think it is mostly because I think that if I can get what I need through mundane means, I don't need to do a spell and I can conserve my magick for important things, like protection spells. I work a lot on this mundane plane; healing with herbs and medicine, fostering relationships through action and words, working hard for monetary success, focusing on the body. Lately I have been trying to focus on other realms. So far, it hasn't gone very far. I SHALL TRY MORE!!!!!!

Children, the elderly, and animals are especially coveted in my philosophy. These three typically have no voice and little to no protection. They are to be respected and protected, not destroyed. I also find that they typically are a lot smarter than adults think. The things that children can understand are astounding, the things that animals can do is mind blowing, and the knowledge that the elderly possess is staggering.

Music - don't get me started. Oh, how music is to the soul! It is the expression of the soul itself, its joys and sadness, its love and hate. Just the way that music can pick you up after a hard day is amazing. I could not imagine a life without music. *swoon*

There are all sorts of great bands that I listen to almost daily. A few pagan ones are The Moon and The Nightspirit, Metal Mother, Faun, Damh The Bard, and my favorite, Blackmore's Night. But that isn't even mentioning the songs that KeepMusicPagan has on hir profile. Love! I also throughly enjoy the music of other cultures. Example!

The Gods: for me, I am a hard polytheist. I believe that all gods exist in some form or fashion. Yes, I also believe that the gods are capable of walking this Earth. But my views are a complex hypothesis, hypotheses even. I will reserve for another post, but a taste... hehe.

Science knows that we have a least 9 different dimensions. We are said to be on the third dimension, and therefore also exist in the first two as well. What if, then, the beings we call Gods are actually beings that exist in a different, higher dimension? Another hypothesis is that there are an infinite number of universes, ones that run parallel to this one, or ones that are parasites, or ones so far away from us that we cannot even imagine it. What if some of these universes overlap and bleed into others, like the way that our physical world intersects with the spiritual world at certain points of the year (ie Samhain and Beltane). What if mythical creatures really did exist, but were "side effects" from a collision of two different universes? What if, what if.

Back to the point, Life is a constant choice - a constant battle between the things you should be doing and the things you are doing. Life is like a stream, it keeps moving, and eventually it ends into something larger and is recycled. The afterlife holds no fear for me. Death is a blessing, a movement into something new, a release of pain and illness. It is the end of one journey and the beginning of another. The Summerlands, a kind of rest stop or way station, is way better than the summers here in Texas, let me tell ya.

Balance... it really just boils down to balance in the end. Skepticism and faith, thought and action, light and dark, imagination and reality, magickal and mundane, right and wrong, even life and death.

There is no way that one person can completely write down their thoughts in one post, or one paper, or even one book. It takes a lifetime to learn things, and we never stop learning and never stop teaching either. "Christians and Muslims may be People of the Book, but Pagans are People of the Library." Libraries, even.

As to the other side of this blog, I am and will probably always be, a fat activist. While I don't proselytize my religion, I will totally spread HAES. It's something that everyone should believe in, instead of the FoBT. It may sound like a Christian, but this message will surely make the lives of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people (women AND men) so much better than the current self hatred they are experiencing. When children don't have to constantly worry about their body image, they can focus on other things like learning and being children. They don't have to grow up with a warped sense of themselves.

Like Joy Nash said, when you look at pictures of when you were younger, you exclaim how adorable you were, and why you weren't wearing that cute dress you always thought you were too ugly for. But when you look at yourself, you shame yourself for being ugly, and you can't wear that dress you want to wear because you are so ugly and sometime down the road, when you are older, you will again look at pics you took today and exclaim how cute and adorable you were. Just be adorable now, and believe in yourself.