I remember wondering how Tom Cruise could be The Last Samurai. I remember seeing Keanu showing up in The 47 Ronin, Al Pacino as scarface, Johnny Dep as Tonto. The stories around us are out of sync with the spiritual balance we thrive for. We want our gods and heroes, we want ourselves, to be real, and to be just.
I know that there are a wellspring of stories in the goddesses and gods we have available to us. In the ones we’re used to going to spend time with.. But I don’t know that there are stories that can help us with what it is in the world we are struggling with now. And while spending time with our shadow selves is most definitely a requirement, I think we need help, and joy, for the journey, not from old stories that seem too distant, I think we need modern gods, or heroes, to help us through this next journey.
I think about the TV show Heroes, about all the comic book heroes I’ve ever loved (thank you, Preston, for helping bring this voice out in me), about the Science Fiction and Fantasy that has carried me forward, from “I’m Batman” to “I must not fear. Fear is the mind killer ….” I think about Daredevil moving adroitly through a dark world of sound, or the X-Men’s Storm rising up like a goddess on the wind
I also think about my own Heritage’s gods. About Inktomi the trickster spider, about how we (the reclaiming community) seem to be asking the questions about how we move from a tradition started with first Eurocentric lineages, to a community of people who reclaim everything – even the present day. The last time I saw Rebecca Tidewalker she introduced me to the 13 indigenous Grandmothers, and they pointed me to my own heritage. Honestly, that direction has seemed, at times, to be pulling me away from reclaiming, not in it’s essence, but in the immediate trappings of reclaiming. To be sure, the current day of fighting to overcome the patriarchy, and the goddess centered soul, the feminist roots, that birthed the tradition can’t be denied, or left behind, any more than “Black lives matter” can be replaced with “All lives Matter”.
But I think we may be able to open up the door to Allies. Yeah, maybe not heroes, but Allies. We need all the gods, current and past, who can be our allies in this quest. We need all the gods who can teach us how to be Allies, How to pursue our hearts desire to understand and help, and yes, how to wait to be chosen as an ally. If Jesus were involved he might tell us that decolonization starts with going into a closet. Pray there. Mr Miyagi might tell us to “wax on” and “wax off”. Somewhere our heart’s push to understand has a place to start.
How we get taught that, I don’t know. Rather it is the Dragon of Bruce Lee, dealing with the anger of being passed over for the Kung Fu role by David Carradine, or Sitting Bull, traveling with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show, I don’t know. I do sense that the work we seem to be moving towards with cultural appropriation and racism is calling me to reach out to the Comic book and deep Sci Fi and Fantasy worlds as much as it is calling me to the pantheons of my ancestors. One way or another, there will be Allies.
And I, like in so many times of my life, won’t have much say in what they look like. Last year, when my sister walked on, the medicine man told me to go up the mountain and pray, that there would be three men there waiting for me.
I haven’t reached the top yet, I don’t think, but I’m still praying.