Recently, I participated in a service on the topic of secular humanism at the Unitarian Universalists of Mt. Airy in Philadelphia. The YouTube video of my part of the service is immediately below and the text is under that.
Since becoming a Unitarian Universalist, I’ve learned there is a theological name for what I am: a secular humanist. But in my book, this doesn’t mean there is no mystery in my life. In fact, I live in the mystery.
As a writer, I live in a world where people become other people in my mind. I call them characters. History often comes alive. And increasingly, especially since I’ve become vegan, talking animals come to me and tell me their stories. I live in a world where stories take on life and often become puzzles. For every beginning, there is an ending, and I usually don’t know that ending until I get there.
I did this with my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders when I was in a group here called “The New UU” some years back when I first joined. Since I was raised secular, I wasn’t only new to being a Unitarian Universalist, but to religion in general. I decided to read the Bible, which wasn’t required, but I wanted to be thorough. Besides, I had always wanted to read the Bible since the tenth grade when my English teacher described it as the best work of fiction ever written.
When I began reading the Bible, I started wondering what if? I wondered what if there were strong women? And what if some of those women loved other women? What about gay men? What if there were transgendered people? How did they survive? What if some people did not fit the binary? What if some people were gender-fluid? How did they manage to survive in the harsh desert culture?
So, in some ways, I am a believer. I’m a believer in stories and I’m a believer in re-inventing those stories. Like many writers, I’m a believer in myth and in inhabiting that myth and rewriting it until it suits me. Often that is my entry point to myth. I read the reinterpretation and then I read the myth it is based on.
I’m a believer in change and knowing why that change is necessary.
And I believe in the inquisitive mind, including my own. Maybe it took a long time for me to believe in myself. Sometimes it feels that way and sometimes it doesn’t. But I did have to invent myself, in a culture where I am different in many ways. And I am proud of that difference.
I am a deeply intuitive person, so I don’t always know how things happen. But I know that they do happen. And I know that being part of this congregation has deepened my belief, particularly my belief in myself. So, I profoundly appreciate being here with you, as we invent our moment.
–Namaste
For information on my most recently published novel Loving Artemis click here
I participated in a service on Buddhism and Creativity at the Unitarian Universalists of Mt. Airy in Philadelphia. The YouTube video of my part of the service is above and the text is below.
When Maryellen asked me to do a service with her on creativity and Buddhism, I immediately agreed. She meant creativity or Buddhism, but I thought she meant both. For me, they have always worked together. For the past eight years or so, I’ve had a meditation practice that allows me to get out of my own way. I think of it as vacating the premises and honoring the emptiness inside of myself. I’ve found the more skilled I get in meditating, the easier it is to get out of my own way and the more likely it is for the muse to come visit me. I think of the muse as that bubble of inspiration that leads me along into new projects.
The bubble descended on me about a year and a half ago when I was out taking my daily walk. Ever since then I have been obsessed with whales and have been learning as much as I can about them. The novel addresses some of the issues that I was already interested in–such as veganism and being a voice for the voiceless (or in this case, since whale language is currently being studied, a voice that speaks for the animals who we don’t yet understand).
I was very dismayed just recently when I listened to a scientific expert on whales say that the larger ocean mammals are expected to be the first to go extinct. In this worse-case scenario of climate change, if humans don’t change their ways, the oceans will become unsustainable by the year 2050. That’s less than 30 years from now. I’m no scientist but I do understand that the planet needs the sea to survive; the oceans need the whales; and the human beings need the oceans. Hence, human beings need the whales.
I found that many native cultures worship the whales and that these people who live closest to the earth have a memory of the whales being their ancestors and their relations. I also found out that there are people in Vietnam, the country that the Buddhist monk Tich Nhat Hanh is from, who worship the whales in special temples dedicated to the whales and that if some people there find a beached whale who has died, they bury the whale in a ritualistic way in the same manner as if the whale was a family member. I also read that a deceased whale is thought to be likely to reincarnate into the soul of an enlightened being, a sort of Buddha.
Uncovering this was one of my aha (or wow) moments when I learned about the significance of the whales.
There have been many of these moments. In my first year and a half of learning as much as I could about the whales and writing down notes, I was working on other projects as well. I wanted to work on this project, but it seemed that the other projects kept getting in the way. Finally, less than a month ago, I decided that I needed to start writing, so I did. I have my own superstitions and traditions about not rushing or angering the muse. I didn’t want her to get disgusted and to think that I had abandoned her.
What I didn’t expect was how this project would be all-consuming for me. Whales are now my constant companions. Sperm whales who I am primarily writing about live in matrilineal pods made up of Great Aunts, Grandmothers, Mothers, juvenile cousins, female calves (which is what young whales are called) and pre-adolescent male calves. When male whales reach sexual maturity, they are thrown out of the pod and live on their own or form pods with other teenage males. I figure there is probably a reason for this.
Often before or during my writing time, I listen to recorded whale and dolphin songs, which I learned are used for healing. Dolphins, who are mammals, are part of the whale family.
The novel that I am writing has the working title of Dick Moby which is what the narrator names herself after reading Herman Melville’s novel Moby Dick which she finds floating in the sea. Like me, my inner whale has some anger and trust issues which she is working on. Unlike me, the narrator is pregnant and wants to resolve her issues, or as many as she can, before her calf is born and she passes her trauma on to another generation.
The chapters are short. I’m going to read you a couple of paragraphs from chapter two where the whale tells you about the name she has given herself:
After I read the book—okay scanned it—I decided to call myself Dick Moby.
Dick means different things to different beings. Reversing the order of the words makes sense to me. When I use the word “Dick,” I use it in the most vulgar sense. I use it as a verb. Like the made-up whale in Moby Dick, I want to ram the whaleship until it sinks and all that is left is splinters floating on the calm sea. The sharks will feast on the carcasses of the drowned. The splinters will settle on the bottom of the sea and be lost to eternity.
I have never heard of a great white whale named Moby Dick. What was the author thinking–calling the book that? Did he mean the whale had a large…ahem…member? Was he appealing to something in the collective subconscious that would respond to such a thing?
Yet, when I looked through the book, I remembered the story on which it was based, the one my grandmother told me. I realized the story has always been with me. It seems that I long have been motivated by fear and rage. Although when it comes to human behavior, I have come to expect the worst, and I am no longer outraged.
I was never hunted personally. But when I was a calf and my grandmother told me this cautionary tale about the humans who used to hunt us, the story stayed with me. I understand now that humans no longer hunt whales—for the most part–but that we must remain vigilant.
The chapters are coming much faster than I originally anticipated. I am careful not to rush the writing, but at the same time I recognize that the whale wants me to tell the world her story before it is too late.
So, I am usually writing. Writing from the point of view of the whale has become a kind of meditation for me.
As I write, I honor the whale inside of you and inside of me, just as I honor the Buddha (or the light) inside of me and inside of you.
–Namaste–
For information on my upcoming eBook Loving Artemis click here
o learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
To learn more about my latest published novel — The Unicorn, The Mystery, click here:
At this point in time, I’ve been harassed for my novel, exactly ten times. In full disclosure, I’ve received much much more of a positive response — so much more that I have lost count. But it has been legion and for that I am grateful.
Just the other day someone online thanked me for my work, and I was filled by that statement of gratitude. But we are wired to the negative, and that is perhaps why I remember the exact number of harassments I have received.
Of course, it was expected that I would be told that I would be going to hell, etc., ad nauseam, and I did expect to upset a few people. After all, I did write a book on a controversial topic. But when you think about it — THEY is completely plausible. There must have been strong women, people of different genders and sexual orientations in biblical times. I just imagined how they survived and lived their lives.
I do a lot on Twitter and the TENTH time that I was harassed, the harassment contained such bad language that Twitter censored it. So after I was done laughing — I considered what the harasser most likely said.
Then it brought to mind the Buddhist philosophy of wishing everyone well. It would be easy to dismiss this as a classic case of “Twinkle, twinkle little star, what you say is what you are.” It wasn’t an easy thing to do . It is more natural to engage in negative energy and return the harasser’s comments — but in this case I don’t know what they were.
If you wish someone true happiness, chances are that people won’t have to harass others to feel good about themselves. And so I breathe in and out and wish everyone — including the harasser with the censored comments — the roots of true happiness.
To learn more about my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon), click here.
Note: The following is the introduction that I gave to my short play “Forty Days and Forty Nights” that I gave at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Restoration in Philadelphia where I presented the skit with actors Janice Roland Radway and Allen Radway and Barrington Walker as the narrator. The play is a chapter of my novel THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders (Adelaide Books — New York/Lisbon; 2018).
To see the piece on YouTube — after the introduction — click here.
Or you can view the YouTube video at the bottom of the post.
THEY, a biblical tale of secret genders ( published by Adelaide Books New York/Lisbon) is available as a print or e-Book on Amazon (and other on-line booksellers) as well as from bookstores.
Introduction:
Several years ago I took the UU class offered here at Restoration and was inspired to read the Bible for the first time. At the same time I was reviewing several books on transgender issues and was deeply influenced by a neighbor’s child who had transitioned at the age of five. I was also reading a book I had borrowed from Reverend Ellis about the Gnostic Gospels, something I had been long interested in — mainly through the music of my friend Julia Haines, a harpist and composer who has performed at this church.
In one of the books that I read on transgender issues, the author wondered what it would be like for a transgendered person to have the experience of learning about a transgender person as a character in the Bible.
I wondered too. What would happen if a person who is usually condemned by religion, is celebrated instead? As Unitarian Universalists, we have that opportunity as expressed in the first UU principle, the inherent worth and dignity of every person.
As a result of this confluence of ideas — perhaps spurred by my becoming a new Unitarian Universalist — I wrote a novel with a working title of She And He. The ideas in the novel may be ahead of their time — but I’ve always believed that there’s no time like the present. Three excerpts were published and one was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. I also presented a different excerpt (titled “The Descent of Ishtar”) at Restoration last year with our own Janice Rowland Radway starring in the role of Tamar — a character from the Hebrew Bible.
In this version, Tamar is reborn as the twin sister of Yeshua, the Hebrew name for Jesus, played by Allen Radway. When I heard that this month’s theme was “Christology” — I thought it was a perfect fit — even — or especially — because it is an alternative view. I wanted to bring it to you because I imagined it might encourage you to take your own journey.
You can also read an excerpt, written as standalone short fiction, in the online literary journal BlazeVOX15
Other excerpt is in the current issue of Sinister Wisdom — the fortieth anniversary issue
Janet Mason, author 