wildfire/18_chap12.html

<h1>CHAPTER 12</h1>
<h2>The Scarlet O'Hara School of Social Change</h2>
<p>Women often ask me to tell them what they should do to change the world. When I suggest that they should live today according to the values they wish governed the world, they often turn away to hide their disappointment.</p>
<p>I suppose I could tell them that we definitely cannot change the world by doing more of the same things we have been doing. I could predict that we are each going to have to continue to live our own individual, private lives in a radically different way. I could explain that the least of this is that we are each going to have to begin following whatever path it is that we already know is a more advanced way for us, paths that will refine and sculpt us into the women we not only desire to be but must be to fulfill our destinies.</p>
<p>But too often women who assure me fervently that their greatest passion is to change the world and who are well along in their internal revolutions are still not living with full integrity in their own personal worlds. They do not want to think today about making the changes they know they must make; like Scarlet they plan to think about it tomorrow.</p>
<p>But tomorrow will never come. So it is critical to live <i>now</i> as we know we should: scrutinizing our personal relationships for damaging emotional clutter and cleaning it up; resisting acquisitiveness by not piling up the "mountains of things" Tracy Chapman sings to warn us about; performing such simple and transformative acts as recycling everything recyclable, conserving water and other resources, walking and bicycling whenever possible, and generally simplifying our lives; discovering and claiming our full spiritual selves; respecting and listening to other women; honoring our bodies by eating correctly (an immensely political act - if not being totally vegetarian, for instance, then at the very least refusing to eat meat from commercially-raised animals), getting enough rest and exercise, laughing often, and - particularly - breaking addictions to such destructive substances as nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, sugar, marijuana, antidepressants, and tranquilizers.</p>
<p>Women all over the country are facing up to addictions and trying to break them. Certainly no one would argue that addictions help us free ourselves. Yet I hear feminists whom I perceive as earnestly engaged in the search for freedom say, for instance, "I can't get started in the morning without my coffee," or "food always tastes better with wine," or "marijuana is a nonaddictive, spirituality-enhancing herb,"<a href="#fn1">[1]</a> or "I can't get to sleep without Valium." Where we have to start breaking free is from our coziest chains - our morning coffee, our evening drink or smoke, our liqueur with dessert. These are patriarchy's implements to stupefy and finally to incapacitate us, not to mention its diabolical scheme to use our money to destroy our own and others' lives.</p>
<p>If we want a world in which no one's life or health is destroyed by habituating substances, we must make that world possible now in our own private lives and as a group and Movement. Knowing that at least 50 percent of Lesbians have problems with alcohol, and that many women are at this moment freeing themselves of addictions by great and difficult dedication to loving themselves, we show respect for them and celebrate their move along the path to freedom by serving only healthful food and drinks at our functions.</p>
<p>It is reasonable to ask that our events demonstrate our rethinking of values and conventions, that they model a new way of relating to ourselves and others, that they prove that we take women's lives and health seriously.</p>
<p>This suggestion is often countered with concern about curtailing freedoms and about not accepting "difference." But these arguments no longer tempt me to connive in or to condone other women's self-destruction. I think we need to be clear about this. We need to be clear that it is all right to make judgments and decisions based on our beliefs. Sometimes <i>not</i> judging is cruel and irresponsible.</p>
<p>If we are alarmed that this allows no choice, we need to remember that when we plan events we can at best provide for a finite number of choices. Since we will have to leave out most things anyway - no one worries about not providing frijoles, for example, or cucumber sandwiches - let us leave out what we know does not promote women's health. By paying respect to, by honoring these bodies of ours, we take a giant step out of patriarchy.</p>
<p>Each one of us knows at least a dozen more obvious ways we could live according to our biophilic value system, more aware of all other life forms, more connected to them and to ourselves. The only way I have found of becoming more conscious is by acting on the consciousness I already have. If there is a better way of refining the perceptions, the senses, and the judgment, I haven't heard of it.</p>
<p>And unless we begin to practice <i>today</i> what we already know is most respectful and loving of ourselves and others, we cannot expect our witch/goddess Selves to reveal further ways to us <i>tomorrow</i>.</p>
<p>Treading water is good exercise but it's boring and it doesn't get anyone anywhere in particular.</p>

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<p><a id="fn1">[1]</a> Many women have told me of their struggle to break free of marijuana. Those who believe it is not addictive need to follow me from speech to speech and hear some personal testimonies about its destructiveness in women's lives.</p>