Don't worry, the picture isn't what I want, it's to illustrate my general attitude to a feast dedicated to pretending to be bothered by anyone else's plight, in the dark side of the year. You see this post was inspired the other night when I was sitting waiting in the Chinese & looking through The Big Issue. I don't buy it myself, the principle of it is supposed to be 'a hand up, not a hand out', but the sellers round here take the beggar's approach of looking pleadingly & manipulatively at people.
I also understand that The Big Issue must be heavily dependent on advertising revenue, but it still struck me the nature of the adverts it had, most of which were appeals for various heart-rending causes, with variously heart-rending pictures. These ranged from stray cats in Greece to a charity aimed at preventing loneliness among old people at 'Christmas'. I consider myself fairly immune to advertising, or even retail tricks. I know many of the tricks, & for many years haven't routinely watched broadcast TV: when you only watch recorded TV programmes of your own choosing without adverts, it changes the kind of attention you give to advertisements, reducing the passivity that leads to the adverts getting into your subconscious. Rather, you develop a heightened awareness of the disjunction that happens when an advert appears & you become more aware of how the advert is drawing your attention.
Be that as it may, the adverts in The Big Issue pressed buttons in me - to the extent that I have no recollection of what the actual articles were about! It reminded me of the sheer extent to which the world is not the way I would will it to be. Abuse suffered by a stray cat in Greece at the hands of a human is not the cat's fault; the loneliness suffered by an old person may or may not be, since humans have more agency, & frankly if you're an old devil you bring it on yourself. It made me want to *do* something - interestingly not quite the adverts' desired effect since I got no urge to give money to the charities in question.
If this was anyone but me it would make me think that this is such a witch thing, the urge, when seeing something you know not to be right, to do something to rectify it. It's also such a witch thing to be aware of my relative impotence in the face of global injustices. And of course being me I want to get hold of the whole picture & find a longer-term solution. What do I really want for Yule? I want a world where all beings are the right size. I want a world where people who cock it up for themselves don't do so or else are able to find ways to sort that. I want a world where people are unable to take advantage of other people. I want a world where nobody & nothing is used & abused.
Of course I'm aware I'm being idealist - *somebody* once said 'the poor will always be with you - but I'm a witch & see no reason why the size of the problem should deter me. People who say to themselves, 'I'm being impossibly idealist' are the ones who are guaranteed never to attain their ideal. Faced with the hugeness of the problem I'll start chipping. I may influence individuals only but this is how the re-enchantment of the world must happen. I suppose this is what I really want for yule.
Because it must begin here. Recently a friend started something that began with her bringing a grievance against her employer. She had no idea what she was starting, yes she had huge doubt as she went along, but has now completed what she started & brought something much greater to fruition. And of course Nelson Mandela has died this week, & we witches know that the end of one thing always brings on the beginning of another thing. The important thing is that what comes next is Willed.
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