Excerpts on Anarchy and Patriarchy

Spring seems to have come early this year...  Or at least it seemed to have before today!  My sister is part of two pipes and drums (aka Highland) bands (she plays highland snare drum), one of which does paying gigs.  And the weekends around St. Patrick's day are a BIG time of year for that band!!  Last Saturday, they played in one parade and at two bars, in freezing rain mixed with hail.  Then, for the rest of the week, it was GORGEOUS!!  Records were broken on several days: it was that warm and lovely!  Yet here we are, back at the weekend again, and yesterday when they played in Quebec City it was grey and gloomy, and today, when they played in a parade outside of Montreal, it SNOWED!  It's actually still snowing a bit here.  I'm not thrilled with the snow, but I can't really help but smile at it all.  I adore Spring in all it's unpredictability! ♥  But, with the weather the way it is at the moment, I've been spending time doing cozy inside things, like collage and other art, and reading (specifically looking for quotes that work with the collage pieces I'm working on).  And in my reading, both in books and online, I wanted to share a couple short book excerpts I really liked... 

"Think of anarchism as an individual orientation to yourself and others, as a personal approach to life. That's not impossible to imagine. Conceived in these terms, what would anarchism be? It would be a decision to think for yourself rather than following blindly. It would be a rejection of hierarchy, a refusal to accept the "god given" authority of any nation, law, or other force as being more significant than your own authority over yourself. It would be an instinctive distrust of those who claim to have some sort of rank or status above the others around them, and an unwillingness to claim such status over others for yourself. Most of all, it would be a refusal to place responsibility for yourself in the hands of others: it would be the demand that each of us not only be able to choose our own destiny, but also do so." - from Days Of War, Nights of Love: CrimethInc for Beginners

"Patriarchy divides life into higher & lower categories, labeled “spirit” versus “nature,” or “mind” versus “matter” – and typically in this alienated symbolism, the superior “spirit/mind” is male (and/or white), while the inferior “nature/matter” is female (and/or black). This false dualistic symbolism arises from an enforced order of male domination. With the aid of such phallic psychology, men can then go about the earth raping nature, exploiting resources and human labor, manipulating and “improving” her with technological-mechanical inventions and “progressive goals.” In patriarchy man separates from earth, emulating some aloof and disconnected Sky God of his own creation, and this intellectual separation makes him feel “free” to devastate the natural world without any sense that it belongs to a common ecosystem with himself. He exploits “it,” totally alienated from the fact of his own continuity with “it.” For the deluded profit of the few, and the existential pain of the many, patriarchy exists by destroying the original holism."  - from The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth  by Monica Sjoo & Barbara Mor (via the blog leafnest)

Reading the words of others can be so refreshing, validating, challenging, and simply thought provoking...  A good occupation on a rather gloomy day!

Peace,
Idzie