Superstitious Thoughts

I find myself in the library of superstitions again, trawling through volumes. Wondering about the root meaning of the word, I looked it up in the dictionary: the Penguin English Dictionary (thank you) states, "1. A belief or practice resulting from ignorance, fear of the unknown, trust in magic or chance, or a false conception of causation. 2. An irrational abject attitude of mind towards the supernatural, nature or God, resulting from superstition." I looked at a German dictionary to expand this out a bit and came up with an entirely different connotation, from the Collins Pocket German Dictionary (thank you) "Aberglaube" which means superstition, but breaks down to "Aber" = "But" and "Glaube" = "Belief". A belief against? Or just another belief? Could it be that these things are just another way of seeing the same thing? Could it be that what we see has many meanings, and does not necessarily mean the thing our fears tell us it does?

There have been many things that have been demonized over the ages, not always through malicious intent. Things are suppressed, "demonized" often to protect children's minds, which is correct. But when the child becomes an adult and learns to think for itself, there is a wonderful period of rediscovering and using the powers of mind to discern what is true for us. Our parents even have alternative beliefs which may shock our older selves, until we understand why they couldn't tell us certain things when we were young.

So, the resultant belief should be self-supportive, self-nourishing, self-affirming, and respect the rights and beliefs of others while still retaining a strong sense of self. So tolerance is there, a word that is elastic and teaches us to accept that we are not all the same, yet we share the same world. All of us are given a different road, a particular bent that is our own, to explore and bring to light. It is our work in the dark room that brings forth the light. The "other" is not always the same thing as we hold it to be, it shifts shapes and slowly through the silt in the pan, the specks of gold emerge.

Not looking at something properly only makes it grow improperly in our imagination, and it looms around us like a snooping ghost. It just hangs around, waiting for someone to make sense of it. It has no proper concept of self, only that it is curious and makes a noise to be heard, to attract attention to its lack of understanding. Old ways with children, old laws such as "Children should be seen and not heard" makes this shadow grow. "Men don't Cry" is another one that makes boys rigid and numb to their feelings, leading to fear of speaking for fear of crying. More shadows. "Sugar and Spice is what little girls are made of" is only one of the many dimensions of women, not the only. Before we know it we are in the dark.

All these things are limited to the world of the child, and are a nice foundation, but they are only part of the story. What does an adult child do when in a fix and absolutely needs to be heard? What does a woman do when she needs her husband's tears to salve her own? Sugar and spice adult women are bound to feel some anomalies here, as the world does not always treat them as such precious jewels. So, we go hunting for the shadow, or it hunts us. We cannot help the shadow, we did not cause it alone, but like the dust that blows into our living rooms of its own nature, someone has to do the clearing up, I guess.

copyright Monika Roleff 2005.