Betz-Blog

I’ve been published in the latest edition of About Place Journal.
My piece is called “Of Goddesses and Fools”, click on the cover to read it,
and while you’re there, check out the other wonderful pieces and authors!

I, Erica Jong, in the midst of my life,
having had two parents, two sisters,
two husbands, two books of poems
& three decades of pain,
having cried for those that did not love me
those who loved me- but not enough
& those whom I did not love-

declare myself now for joy

There is pain enough to nourish us everywhere;
it is joy that is scarce…

and tears to drown in, and bile enough to swallow all day long.

Righteous indignation is the religion of the dead, in the house of the dead
where the dead speak to eachother in creaking voices
each arguing a more unhappy childhood than the other.
Unhappiness is cheap,
Childhood is a universal affliction.
I say to hell with the analysts of minus & plus

the life-shrinkers, the diminishers of joy.
I say to hell with anyone
who would suck on misery
like a pacifier
in a toothless mouth.

I say to hell with doom…
Doom is cheap

If the apocalypse is coming,
let us wait for it in joy…

let us not gnash our teeth on the molars of corpses-
though the molars of corpses are plentiful enough.
let us not scorn laughter though scorn is plentiful enough.
Let us laugh and bring plenty to the scorners
for they scorn themselves.
I myself have been a scorner
and have chosen scornful men,
men to echo all that was narrow in myself, men to hurt me as I hurt myself.

In my stinginess my friends have been stingy,
In my narrowness my men have been mean.

I resolve Now for joy.

If that resolve means I must live alone,
I accept aloneness.

If the joy house I inhabit must be
a house of my own making,
I accept that making…

No joy-denyer can deny me now.
For what I have is undeniable.
I inhabit my own house,
the house of joy…

Dear Walt Whiman, horny old nurse to pain,
speaker of passwords primeval.
merit refuser, poet of body and soul..
You were hankering, gross, mystical, nude,
you astonished with the odour of your armpits,
You cocked your hat as you chose;
you cocked your cock,

but you knew “the me myself’.

You believed in your soul,
and believing made others believe in theirs.

The soul is contagious.
One man catches another’s
like the plague;
and we are all patient spiders
to each other.
If we can spin the joy thread
& also catch it-
If we can be sufficient to ourselves,
we need fear no entangling webs…

How to spin joy out of an empty heart?
The joy-egg germinates even in despair.
Orgasms of gloom convulse the world;

& and the joy-seekers huddle together.

We meet on the pages of books & by beachwood fires,
We meet scrawled blackly in many-folded letters.
We know each other by free & generous hands,
We swing like spiders on each other’s souls.

I had the honor of contributing to an anthology of short works about the Goddess Brigit, edited by my dear mentors Patricia Monaghan and Michael McDermott.  It’s now in print, and will be available through Goddess-Ink Press on Beltane – May 1, 2013

http://www.goddess-ink.com/brigitsunofwomanhood.html

Patricia was my dissertation mentor, and gave me my first opportunity to publish by inviting me to contribute a piece about the Goddess Guanyin to her “Goddesses in World Cultures” anthology.  She died earlier in the year, making this a very bittersweet publication.

Articles and poems included in this anthology:

(This is a re-run of a New Year’s post that was well-enjoyed in years past…)

Now that it’s over, I am coming out of the Christmas closet and proclaiming that I am not a fan of the euphemistically called “holidays”.

“Holiday” implies fun and relaxation, and I rarely experience either between Thanksgiving and Jan 2nd. I am consequently  not only not “happy”, I am usually more tired and stressed than any other time of the year.

This is in part due to my work as a therapist and a teacher.  Both jobs start to simmer around the end of November and reach a full boil by Christmas.  Clients either lament the lack of a Normal Rockwell-esque family, or reconnect with their “family of origin” (translate – the people most able to both display and activate all kinds of childish petty behaviors).  Students face the reality of final papers and grades (and also lament the lack of a Normal Rockwell-esque family or reconnect with their family of origin).  Consequently I spend a good month A) preparing clients for and then debriefing them from family gatherings (or the lack thereof) and B) grading papers and compiling and entering final grades which are also often lamented and need to be debriefed). In short,  it’s performance anxiety hell for all involved.

Now add an intra-personal double whammy – I am unable to create a meaningful connection to the “big three” mainstream religions and am also unable to fake it.  Most of the year, this is not a problem, but it gets tricky during “the holidays”.  Granted, over time, I’ve built myself a fine religious-language translator module (disguised as a tiny nose-ring stud, in case you’re wondering) so that “Merry Christmas” and “Happy Hannukah” and “Have a Blessed Day” come through as “Namaste” (the light in me honors the light in you), and this certainly helps.  But there are three things in particular that just make it a rough month for me.

First, I don’t like the war between the “Merry Christmas” people and the “Happy Holidays” people, or the feel of the mainstream-ignored “Happy Hanukkah” people.  My brother would call it “the intolerance of tolerance”. If you’re insistent on celebrating something then get on with it and leave others to do the same.  This isn’t football, there’s no need to paint faces and beat on chests.

Second, I’m not a “Merry Christmas person” or a “Happy Holiday person” – I’d much prefer a “Swift Month’s Passing to you” or a “May the Force be With You” (to which I could heart-feltedly reply “and also with you”).

Lastly, I have both a lack of Normal Rockwell-esque family AND a set of mandatory holiday obligations that trigger all that is young and insecure inside of me each December, and that’s just no fun.

I’ve been working on this for a good 20 years.  I’ve boycotted the holidays altogether.  I’ve thrown my own.  I’ve gone to other people’s.  So far, no perfect solution.  The closest I get is when spending time with others who aren’t riding the happy holiday train.  We play The Beatles’ “Here comes the sun” and discuss seasonal metaphors for personal growth.  Our happiest holiday falls on Jan 2nd, when life settles back into everyday-sacred.

Having arrived here in the everyday-sacred, I say “whew”, and wish myself, and all of you, a Happy Whew-year.