Ramblings of a drunken monkey

Part 7: What's in a name?

I thought that I would quickly nod back to my opening chapter about witches and wizards. Many of you may have taken objection to the statement that witches don't exist and so I thought I would clarify what I meant. The wizard level is along the lines of 'expert' or master of something, as I see it being a witch is how you see yourself as a practitioner. Take scientists for example; a chemist, a biologist, a physicist, ok this is starting to sound like the start of a bad joke, anyway, experts from these fields, and by extension doctors, pharmacologists, rocket scientists may consider themselves vastly different but they are all scientists. So too does it not really matter whether you call yourself a witch, a shaman, a druid, a hippie, a healer, a bard or a doctor, you are still a practitioner and student of healing energies and intent. If you recall the subject of the first chapter, it was not about a single area of study but about being a wizard in anything. So are there witches around? Yes of course there are but they are named so by their own choice. A friend of mine and I found a group online that consisted of druids and bards and you could join whichever you chose. But as we looked at the 'criteria' and looked at ourselves we understood that we would fit into each group so what did that make us? Both druids and bards or something else? In fact in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, we are students and practitioners of the arts and have found like-minded people who really don't care what category we supposedly fit into. We love our work and are committed to the study and that is all that is important.

On the same note, religion is a bit of a bugbear of mine for the same reason. Not the practice of religions but the objection of each religion to each other. Most of the arguments are about which is wrong, or which god we should worship or how many gods there are in the first place. What seems to be forgotten is that, from person to person does it matter? Surely the teachings that are universal across them all: of being kind to your fellow person, helping those in need and being true to yourself is what matters? Provided that the teachings of this practice don't require correcting that practice over there then why should the two butt heads? Because they feel it is their duty to share the joys of their own religion, great, but the other person has already found religion so why try to sell them another one? Because it's better? Because the one they have is wrong? Hang on that seems to be casting some pretty major accusations around and at the end of the day they are the opinion of one, or probably better put, the opinion that one person has chosen to accept and live by. The other person has chosen a different path. Instead of trying to force a conversion, or pointing out another's flaws, why not try to explain what you yourself believe and why. Why does your set of teachings mean more to you than those of another group? Going back to the witches et al, why do you associate more with witches than bards or druids?

I remember driving into work one morning and I passed a church that had a sign outside saying 'Jesus came to earth to save us from sinners'. And my immediate reaction was possibly a little harsh, 'well that didn't work out too well for Jesus or us.' This sparked a train of thought that quickly escalated as only the best trains of thought do.... I went on to think about why.

When Jesus came to save us from sin, the biggest change he brought was, very unfortunately, the concept of 'sin'. He brought and introduced a label for the 'things we're not meant to do for the good of our souls'. That's not a direct quote, it just seemed valid.

So what's the problem with that I hear you ask? Well for one, before 'sin' existed there were a lot of people doing whatever they wanted and feeling okay about it. Suddenly this guy comes along and tells them they're doing it wrong, that they're bad people and should stop doing it or they will be punished. No offence to the guy but that's not likely to gain too many friends amongst the 'sinners'.

Another problem was that as sin had not existed before, everyone then gathered round to consider and decide what was actually 'sinful'. And here's where the problem escalated. Moses originally started with 10 key ones, and that was ok, I think most people agreed with them on the whole. But then people got opinionated, religions diversified based on what people believed was good and bad, right and wrong and there was a lot of things labelled as 'sinful' by one group that other groups didn't think were so bad.

So, what's different now? This used to be a pet hate of mine but actually now I see it as a good thing as long as you're open minded enough to recognise it and accept it.

Whereas when sin was invented, there weren't many labels for things. Now there's a label for everything. We're a connected society so there are multi-national, multi-lingual labels, there are multiple labels even for the same thing. What this means now is that people have no idea what's actually good or bad based on its label so are able to start making up their own minds again.

Think of meditation. If you asked a modern average group of a thousand people whether they practiced meditation then chances are the answer would be not many, maybe about fifty. You could try mindfulness or cognitive behavioural therapy and would likely grab another hundred or so. Ok, how about prayer, hypnotherapy, stress management, counselling, the AA or rehab? Gees even having lunch in the park every day to watch the birds fly by and get out of the office. I would have thought that even from that small list you could group about 95% together.

So what? It means that if a thousand people were told they needed to meditate regularly, that meditation would help reduce stress, help them to ease emotional or physical baggage and make them generally healthier and if they didn't they were wrong and sinners, then 90% of our thousand people would likely object and get a bit huffy about it. If you smudge and fuzz and add shades of meditative techniques and take out the label then 95% of our hypothetical population are doing something that is helping them heal, deal with their lives effectively and helping them live longer and be happier. Are the remaining 5% 'sinners' then? No, not really in this case, they just haven't caught on yet or they're doing something that ticks all the boxes but hasn't shown on the 'meditation ish' radar. Many people might not consider sport or reading or cooking to be meditation but in fact they are. Or maybe they just aren't doing it and are damaging their own health in the process. If they don't realise this then they are ignorant, not the rude version of this word, it's as bad an insult as 'uneducated'. Maybe use sheltered, naïve, inexperienced? Simply put, they don't know better, so have a chat with them and see if they like the idea of change. They may thank you for opening their eyes or they may reject your ideas, which is their choice and right to do. If they do know better and choose not to do it then actually that's their right to do so too, it's their choice and as with religion we only have the right to talk about it with other people, not to try and change them by force.

So next time you talk to someone who describes doing pretty much the same practice as you do and love, but they call it by a different label, rather than object to them and try to change them, consider 'so what if it's called that, at least they're doing the something that's good for them.' By your reckoning at least.