Radical Feeding and Digesting

5.0.12

the dirty side of Magic

What is the most dreaded question in faerie space? "Who wants to be a kitchen mom?" Often, faeries prefer to move piles of shit around the toilet, go hunt for the food outside of the cozy magic of the sanctuary, or do some other unpleasant work. Why is the feeding the faeries so discomforting? Would it be because kitchen historically beats any utopian ideologizing – it proved to work best as the feudal tyranny, up until recently manifested through "kitchen slaves" role? Or is it rather the ironical fact, that any faerie ruminating about love, generosity, compassion, understanding, community – becomes a fierce wild animal when it faces its own hunger?

There is hardly anything more obnoxious then worried curious voices in the kitchen door asking: "Darlings, is the dinner coming up well?" "Love, when do you expect the dinner to be ready?" "Can we help to speed up the process?" "Shall we start laying out the tables?" "Deep plates or shallow? Forks or spoons?" "What will be the vegan and gluten free dish?" "Can I have extra portion of salad without…?" "How many are we really?" The faerie sentence constructions carrying some odd trace of doubt and perhaps disdain. No one enjoys the lunch at five and dinner at midnight – absolutely not exaggerated cases.

As a person who enjoys (and suffers) annual modified diet periods, who can eat as a pig or not eat at all for a day or so – flexibly and comfortably – I admit the dependence on regular meals annoys me. It is curious to observe that faeries who cast spells against the electronic gadgets ("check your messages away from the house!" "ask for consent to take a picture of an ephemeral moment with dozen people being beautiful because they are not posing" "leave you car at the parking lot" "this reproduced music is so disturbing!") and who find substances consumption so triggering – can manifest so much of progressive addiction when it comes to caffeine (no one ever makes the tea!) or gluten (there’s never enough bread). I’ve seen the familiar irritation in the eyes, fight for life to grab a piece, the momentary disappearance of all the wrapping of faerie kindness, the pure selfishness.

A wise faerie once remarked: "We cook we eat we wash dishes we cook we eat we wash dishes. Is this the magic of faerie life?" Yes, there is sometimes too much focus and energy on the basic – on behalf of spirituality, rituals, workshops, mediation or sunbathing. There is no one to play with when everyone is doing something. However, the ethereal spiritual creatures descend from the higher vibrations hard on the ground - when their stomach are empty – and cease to be that kind and idealist. Perhaps it might be useful to get back to the archetypal distinction between spirit and the soul. The spirituality if often found in specially designed rituals, designated sacred spaces, with lots of props (candles, incense, costumes, music instruments, talismans) – it is the theater enacted in physical space to convince the mind that it’s the extraordinary doing, with symbolic value along what is being executed. The soul’s place is deep rather than high, in the underground, subconscious space. It works with the dark (obscure), with material world (embodies), the triggering and challenging (sexuality, sickness, inhibition). The care of the soul happens in daily routines – washing dishes, showering, shoveling, cleaning, repairing. It is the different quality of perceiving life as it happens, without forcing him into a designed spiritual form. The added value (as opposed to consumerism), the magic, the community – happens in those boring and bothering tasks, not after the shift when we finally entertain our ethereal auras. The social life of the community happens when we keep the sanctuary running as much as our stomachs full, not in between.

The nature is worshiped and addressed quite often – in noble faerie speech at least. When it comes to the environment and resources – think water, electricity, soil, gardening, recycling – it gets often forgotten among the imminent needs of the way-too-self-conscious individuals and the entertaining chaos of the gathering. Organic food is invoked and blessed – but rarely purchased and served. I seldom eat so many unhealthy meals – speaking of ingredients (cheap industrial veggies from corporate chains) and also selection (bread, pasta, porridge) – as when in the sanctuary. It feels more like a vacation when I have to break out of the healthy habits to keep up with the energy demand. The meat was abandoned because of spiritual superstition around consuming animals as much as the resource-intensity of it industrial production. But is the local organic meat more damaging than the protein-rich substitutes imported from exotic countries, produced by large agro-business with tons of artificial fertilizers and pesticides? The nutritionally dubious veganism is encouraged and celebrated in rather activist than scientific habit of the specific social niche. Freegan focus on expired excess of the industrial agriculture – with all its questionable ingredients – does not save the planet, it just takes a free ride on the machinery of destruction.

The reason to save relates to the immature faerie relationship to money. The topic is triggering, the subject "evil". Looking at money as the means of exchange of hardly-comparable products and social contributions – seems to be beyond reach. The ideal of NOTAFLOF (not outstanding anywhere in the faerie tenets or definitions) requires low-cost operations. In order to be welcoming and facilitate multi-layered exchange among people with diverse financial situation, someone has to pay for those who can’t afford it. Instead of learning to accept the disbalance, to talk about its unfair origins but also reasonable justification, the whole topic is hazed in a cloud of shame and its perceived withdrawal. We do not say it, we say it differently, we avoid discussing it. Some faeries who "can’t" ever imagine working for the corporations, or elsewhere in the fierce competitive market – are fed and sheltered by the faeries who miraculously "can" withstand the conditions. But instead, the presence money, the use of money, those with money – are almost shamed, banished to the "we don’t talk about it" zone. Just not to hurt the feelings of those less well off. Bitterness and suspicion work in the subconscious space, even if it is pinkwashed with love. Subsidies for some always come from the contributions of the others. Whatever unpleasant to the ears the balance-sheets sound. And it works only when there is mutual respect, acknowledgment and if and only if everyone feels like winning in this "money negative" game. It may almost feel like an obligation to entertain and charm with love of those paying more – by those less wealthy and more talented – but the economy life is an exchange. Finding the thin red line of subject-object (I engage because I get something from you) and subject-subject (I engage because it gives me pleasure) interaction may be quite challenging.