"All right, we have the action. Now we need to know: `Who, here, is willing and arrestable?'" All eyes looked around the campfire -- searching, searching. No one spoke. Suddenly memories flooded into my mind: I was standing in the heart of the Jammin timber sale looking up at the trees. I had pledged, "I'll put myself, body and soul, on the line to save you!" Jammin had been cut anyway. "I'll do it, I'm willing to get arrested..." I said, my voice a low quaver.Sacrifice. The word conjures images of unwilling victims tied to altars atop Aztec pyramids and cruel looking priests with cruel looking daggers at the ready. But really, sacrifice is the act of giving up something, usually to the divine. The word comes from the same roots as sacred and sacrament.
There are two kinds of sacrifice, willing and unwilling. It is always the unwilling that people think of. Unwilling sacrifice is something that, historically, was practiced among many cultures. Primarily, this kind of sacrifice was used as capital punishment. If you are going to kill someone for the good of the state, the reasoning went, you might as well offer them to God while you are at it so that there can be even more benefits. It is only now, in our more "civilized" society, that we think condemned prisoners should be thrown away as garbage rather than letting their deaths have some sort of meaning.
The other major source of human sacrifice was war. During war, prisoners, or sometimes even just strangers, were sacrificed. This often led to claims by the losing side that the winners were bloodthirsty devil worshippers. These claims were a useful propaganda tool. Once again, the reasoning was the same. If you are going to kill someone anyway, why not give it meaning? And once again, today we just kill people in war and let their bodies rot. We cannot judge historic human sacrifice without addressing these issues in our society.
Interestingly enough, most of the sacrifices in mythology were of the unwilling sort. The Norse god Balder was slain by Loki. His later rebirth heralded a new age of peace so his sacrifice was revered. When the Egyptian god Osiris was killed by his brother Set, he was dismembered and planted in the earth. His magical fertility made the grain grow so his murder and the fate of his body were reenacted in ritual to make the crops grow each year. Dionysus was ripped apart and his pieces eaten the same way that the grapes he represented were harvested and eaten. And, of course, the pagan feast name Lughnasadh means "the Wake of Lugh." Gods often die and their deaths bring about good things. Their sacrifices are sacred to those who benefit from them.
These sacrifices weren't voluntary except in the sense that a god, you would think, would be able to defend Himself better if He really didn't want to go. Almost always the god is violently murdered in a symbolic way. Usually the god involved is the representative of a cyclic force, either some seasonal effect, like the amount of sunlight or the start of winter, or of the planting and harvesting of crops. His (most sacrificed gods are male) death is symbolic of the natural order of things.
The notable exception to this is the sacrifice of Jesus. Joining the long line of dying and reborn gods, He was violently murdered. His mythology, however, makes it clear that He went voluntarily to His death. He is also unique in that He was not tied to a cyclic force. His death and rebirth were symbolic of an end to death, a breaking of the cycles of nature. This probably reflects the change in the people of the time. By time of the life of Christ, technology allowed civilization to begin to see nature as something to be conquered instead of just accepted.
Animal sacrifice straddles the line between willing and unwilling. A common view is that the animal willingly gives itself to its killers. Sometimes a god enters the animal and chooses the death. Others hold that animals can't consent, so that animal sacrifice is murder. In any case, considering the number of animals "sacrificed" for dinner each day, our society has no moral right to judge animal sacrifice unless the animals involved are in danger of extinction. (Ed. - For a more detailed discussion of animal sacrifice, read the article about the Makah whale hunt.)
Willing sacrifice is more interesting. Why does someone want to sacrifice himself or herself for what they believe in? Historically speaking, we must consider the sacred kings who sacrificed themselves for the Land. The idea went as follows: the king is the physical embodiment of the Land. That is why he is sacred and people accept his rule. If there is any imperfection in the king, it will show up in the Land. For instance, if the king lost his left foot in battle, the lands that corresponded to his left foot might fall under a blight. So, if the king develops any problems, he must be killed and replaced by a new and perfect king before the Land gets around to reflecting the king's problem.
Incidentally, old age was also considered a problem. If the king became too old to reproduce, the Land might lose its fertility. This led to kings having to prove, sometimes publicly, that they could engage in carnal relations. This is one of the reasons why kings value producing children so heavily. A child proves your potency.
Since the kings' power and authority derived from their connection to the Land, they had to go along with the sacrifices. Until they came up with something "better," they had to be willing to die in order to keep their jobs. Their "better" idea was to have temporary kings who would be offered instead. This proved difficult so they switched to lesser royalty and so on.... Frazer's The Golden Bough is an excellent source on the exact details of this, as it is for so many things.
I had an English teacher in college who summarized the history of sacrifice as follows:
"At first, kings were the embodiment of the Land and were sacrificed regularly. The kings didn't like this, so they came up with the idea of temporary kings: kings for a year, a week, or even just a day. Ending at the sacrifice time, of course. But this, too, proved unsatisfactory. Temporary kings could wreak havoc and kings are notoriously jealous of their power. So then important, but non-king, people were sacrificed. The important people didn't like that, so then it became prisoners, strangers, and assorted undesirables who gave their all for the Land. But to take they place of a king, you needed a lot of them and, eventually, they became scarce.
"Onward to animals. At first, it was highly prized animals like cattle, but the farmers didn't like that. Then it became lesser animals like chickens, and finally just entrails dressed up to look good. But even then, someone wanted those entrails for themselves. Finally someone came up with the idea of one final sacrifice. One sacrifice to count for all the rest for all time. But who could be offered? It had to be someone very important; even kings were not good enough. Clearly, only a god was important enough to count as the last one. Thus was Christianity born."
One interesting example from the important, but non-king, people phase is the Lindow Man (or Bog Man) of England. On Lughnasadh of 1984, a body was found in the peat bog on the Lindow Moss near Manchester. Forensic analysis showed that the body was about 2000 years old and that he had been hung, had his head bashed open with an axe, and was strangled, all at roughly the same time. This complicated "triple death" was a favorite among the Celts for ritual sacrifice.
He had probably been selected by willfully eating or randomly drawing and eating a blackened piece of bread. Clothing clues and his otherwise unblemished form mark him as royalty, probably a younger son who went and became a druid. Historical analysis suggests that he was sacrificed on Beltaine in 60 AD, just after the destruction of the druidic center on the Isle of Anglesey and the suicide of Queen Boudica. For more information about this, read The Life and Death of a Druid Prince by Anne Ross and Don Robins.
In more modern times, human sacrifice seems to be the province of Christian groups. Perhaps inspired by the sacrifice and ascension of Jesus, some of these groups sacrifice themselves. Jim Jones' People's Temple often practiced suicide to test if they were ready to sacrifice themselves for God. The Swiss group The Order of the Solar Temple burned themselves alive in the pattern of Sol Inviticus, the form of Christ as Sun God. And, of course, the UFO carried the spirits of the people in the Heaven's Gate group back to Heaven. (I always picture them, in Heaven, laughing at us for not realizing that the UFO really took them away.)
There is another kind of sacrifice in our society, one that I want to talk about. Harkening back to the idea, if not necessarily the reality, of the sacred kings who willingly gave themselves for the Land, we do have some people who actually put their bodies on the line to save the Earth. They are those environmental activists who believe in direct action. While, at least in our country, their sacrifices are not usually fatal, they are very real. People go to jail for years and have their property taken from them in fines, all for attempting to effect a social change that will stop the rape of Gaia at the hands of corporate greed.
I should be up front here. I am one of these activists. The scene at the top of the article really happened to me. Everything from here on out, I know from first hand experience. This is what it is really like to sacrifice yourself for the Earth. First I'm going to describe a sacrifice, and then I'm going to try to answer the questions I think people would want to ask.
The setting: Earth First! action camp. The action I had volunteered for above didn't work out and we were trying to figure out what to do next. As usual, we were sitting around the campfire tossing around ideas. In the days preceeding this one, we had all hiked around the Limbo timber sale, had all felt the ancient trees. We knew what was at stake. The sale we were next to was old growth, roadless and wild. In addition to the trees, there were bears, wolves, and a dozen pairs of spotted owls. A dozen pairs! That many in one timber sale was almost unheard of. Even the forest services' own environment impact statement admitted that they were there. Of course that doesn't bother them. The forest service issues "incidental take" permits (which are basically hunting licenses for endangered species) like candy from a vending machine. Just put in some money and out they pop.
We all knew the problem. Clinton's northwest forest plan sucked. A general plan, it tries to balance the needs of the Earth with the politics of greed. When it was released, a judge ruled that, assuming that the forest service did all of the sale monitoring that the plan required, it was barely legal. Monitoring is where people go into a proposed timber sale and check for endangered species, measure stream buffers, check slopes for potential erosion and do all the other things that, in theory, will prevent the logging from being a complete ecological disaster. And, of course, the forest service doesn't do the monitoring. They just peek around a bit and say that they think that a given sale meets the criteria of the forest plan so it must be legal. The Sierra Club's legal team is trying to get the plan rejected in court on those grounds, but what really needs to happen is for it to be repealed. That means politicians and, especially in an election year, that means media.
Voting is all well and good but no candidate ever supports the forest. (Actually that isn't quite true. Karen Moskowitz, an environmental activist, is running for the US Senate in Oregon for the Pacific Party.) Can you imaging Patty Murray running on an actually pro-environment platform? Not to mention the likes of Linda Smith or Slade "Salvage Rider" Gorton. Our political choices mostly range from "not too bad" to "a whole lot worse" thanks to our system of campaign finance. Media coverage gives us something to point to when we are trying to pressure the "not too bad" politicians into doing something better. Unfortunately (or perhaps by design) the media rarely covers protests. Unless there is a confrontation like people getting arrested or hundreds of people present, the media just doesn't care.
We decided that we would have a lock down at the forest service office in Portland. After alerting the media, we descended on the office with signs, banners and chanting. Four people, Magenta, Blue, Stella, and Forest (their forest names) locked themselves to the doors with bicycle U-locks around their necks and the door handles. The police, and then the press, came. The police had to leave and get special u-lock cutters giving the press people a chance to talk to the people locked down and to the other people there to get the story. There were several articles about the protest and pictures of the police carrying people away. The world (or at least a small bit of it) was reminded of old growth logging on public land and the endangered species act. They learned why the Northwest Forest Plan sucks. Some of them will write letters. Others will go to a meeting. Peoplewereremindedthattheydohavepower and that they can use it to act for change.
That is the how and why on the surface level. What is interesting here, however, is the inner personal level. Why did they do it? What inspires people to give up their freedom for Mother Earth? And how did they feel doing it?
First, why? Everyone knew that it had to be done. Stella mentioned that she had cried when she heard that the Jammin sale mentioned above, her first timber sale, had been cut. She knew, then, that she had to do something to try to prevent more of that from happening. When I've been arrested, I had no choice, really. It was Gaia coming to me and saying: "Now, you there! If you really love me, it is your turn." To some extent, it is knowledge and experience. Having seen the beauty of Gaia up close, and knowing what will happen, how can you not act to protect her? The course of that action is determined by the political realities of the situation, but the drive to act comes from the heart.
Making the choice to act, to sacrifice yourself for the Land is hard or it is easy depending on who you are. But once the decision is made, it is magic from there on out. You are the center and the focus. The magic flows though you. Not many people have the calling and the courage to sacrifice themselves, but those who do are greatly rewarded by Gaia.
Aleister Crowley described magic as creating change in accordance to will. Creating change in accordance with Gaia's will on Her behalf is one of magic's highest callings. Before we left camp for the protest, I invoked Gaia and blessed and warded the arrestees as Her chosen warriors. The tools of the sacrifice, the U-locks and the keys, were vibrating with magic as I passed them out. Make no mistake, action on Gaia's behalf, whether writing a letter, locking down to a door, or just recycling your cans is magic. The traditional forms of spells and ritual are just visualization aids in creating change.
The magic of sacrifice and change also change those who wield them. Another activist friend described getting arrested as incredibly empowering. Being able to stand up to authority, knowing that you are doing right and they are wrong, and surviving shows you your own power. It casts off some of the chains that we are raised with. When you learn that authority isn't always right, that police aren't always your friends, and that you CAN fight city hall, you are able to act in new and pow- erful ways. Things that you might have assumed were impossible are then possible, even doable. "She changes everything She touches and everything She touches changes."
That was the nature of the sacrifice, but how did everyone feel after spending a night in jail, a day in court, and having to agree to return for who knows how many more court dates? Magenta thought that it was definitely worth it. She has no regrets whatsoever even considering that she had to spend her birthday in jail. Blue "felt really good." He said that he knew that "it was right." "It wasn't a total sacrifice," he added, "but it was enough." Stella didn't think it was a sacrifice at all, she thought that it was fun. In trying to explain it to her mother, in case the police called her house, she also discovered that her mother had been arrested protesting in the 60's and now they had something new to share. I didn't get a chance to ask Forest how he felt before he had to leave.
This article, and especially the closing story, is dedicated to Stella, Blue, Magenta, and Forest, warriors of Gaia who put their bodies on the line for Her.
In the beginning, there was Gaia, the beautiful Earth. Above Her rose Uranus, the starry heavens. They met, fell in love and eventually Gaia became Mother Earth. Her first children were the Titans, proud and fair. Her second children, the Cyclopses were not fair, but strong and powerful. Uranus was disgusted at the new children and banished them into the deepest pits of the Earth.
Gaia loved Her children and couldn't forgive Uranus for banishing them. She fashioned a magic sickle of flint and gave it to the Titans to destroy their father. Cronus took up the sickle and unmanned Uranus, killing Him. Unfortunately, when in power, Cronus was no better than Uranus and still would not free the Cyclopses. Fearing that He would have a child whom Gaia would aid to unman Him, He swallowed all of His children at birth.
But Gaia was patient. She waited until Her daughter (and Cronus' mate) Rhea, came to Her. Then She told Rhea how to defeat Her husband. When Her next baby, Zeus, was born Rhea hid Him and gave Cronus a disguised rock to swallow. Then Rhea hid Zeus in a cave while he was an infant. Gaia summoned up earth spirits who the hid the cave and the child from Cronus' sight. When Zeus was old enough, Gaia gave Zeus' wife Metis a magical herb that made Cronus throw up His other children. Together, with Zeus leading them, they overthrew Cronus and the Titans who stood with Him and freed the Cyclopses. With the aid of the grateful Cyclopses was Zeus' reign begun and the mighty palace on Mount Olympus built.
When Gaia is wronged, She raises up warriors to fight for Her. She arms them with whatever weapons are sufficient to the task and then She waits. Gaia is patient, knowing that She always wins in the end.
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