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Post by aelfarh on Nov 13, 2008 15:56:32 GMT -1
This statement was post by stefan on another post, and make me think about it since is offtopic I'm going to post it in a separate thread
I think fertility and fertility rites were a fundamental part of the Celtic tribes since their economy was mainly based on harvest and cattle rising. But in a XXI century reality, I think few of us are really involved in that professions. Even when it is still a fundamental part, since that how we get our food.
So, not meaning to disregard the importance of that activities, and fertility itself, but how is your approach to that in, for example a city life of 2008?
Now, about personal fertility, I think has also loose some of the importance. There are of course the ones who see it as important, to have children, etc. But how about the couples that don't want to have children, how about the same-sex couples? what's the role of fertility in that personal relationships?
I would love to see your thoughts
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Post by Blackbird on Nov 14, 2008 14:22:29 GMT -1
I don't want children - never have. We're in the interesting situation now where we do not need to make children in order to survive. Instead, many see it as their duty not to breed, given the human overpopulation. (That's not my motivation)
So what role does fertility play for me? As someone who works in gardens, the fertility of the land is important. Knowing the soil, what will grow, how to improve it and work it. It's not necessarily about survival any more, but it is about reducing food bills and creating a sense of well being which comes from having a lovely garden to spend time in.
Also important to me is fertility in the sense of artistic creation - to have a well-spring that inspires me to write music and songs. I do have a need to create music, and I'm forever scribbling down bits of a tune or words that will come to me, which I can later form into more finished pieces.
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Post by clare on Nov 14, 2008 15:45:15 GMT -1
There's something fundamental about fertility, for me. I'm no longer fertile - at 43 wouldn't particularly want to be now - and I can feel that I'm on a very personal journey from when I was, it's a very different phase of life. I've no idea what it means and that's probably part of the journey. My husband hasn't got any children and he's on his own journey of accepting that his family ends with him, with the loss of potential, with the loss of the role of fathering. My daughter, who's also an only child, feels *obliged* to have children to continue our family line, something I was astonished about when she told me, rather grumpily!
I used to be a midwife and that's a very powerful experience, as is giving birth. It visits that liminal life-and-death place, noisier and active in a different way to the place of death, but similar. Does it gives us an insight into the importance of the harvest to our Ancestors? I'm not sure that I can recreate the feeling of knowing the importance of a crop: I like geese but might look at them differently if their arrival means the potential loss of my young crop. Sun and rain take on a different meaning if my health and prosperity depend on them doing the right thing at the right time.
Is there a difference in the experience of men and women re fertility? I've always had a loving relationship with my reproductive system and dare say men feel fondly about theirs! But they function very differently.
IVF: for me there are some conflicting principals here. One is that natural selection has its uses. Another is that we can't have everything we want. Another is that since we have the technology that can make peoples lives better why shouldn't it be used? I don't feel strongly about it either way.
Taking care of young things is different from fertility, and I think men have seen their role diminish in recent years. I like the idea of a woman's brother having a powerful role in the upbringing of her children; I mourn the loss of input of men into boys lives in particular. As far as gay parenting goes, who cares? Children who have no parents need parents.
And of course there are too many of us. Not having children seems eminently sensible, particularly in a society that perceives children as a tedious distraction from tax paying.
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Post by aelfarh on Nov 17, 2008 19:44:59 GMT -1
I think the importance of fertility is for both male and female, but the form how it's lived is of course different. In the case of adoption either by sterile couples or by same-sex couples, I'll not talk about fertility itself, but to take care of ...that's a difference.
I know that many of you work with the land, in the form of gardens, forests, etc. But when you live in a small flat without garden, that link and the importance of that in life is somehow broken.
How about intelectual and spiritual fertility, could be a replacement in this modern life for the biological one?
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Post by Adam on Nov 18, 2008 9:10:23 GMT -1
Now, about personal fertility, I think has also loose some of the importance. There are of course the ones who see it as important, to have children, etc. But how about the couples that don't want to have children, how about the same-sex couples? what's the role of fertility in that personal relationships? Just to add a few variations, I'm in a male-female relationship and had a vasectomy after our first child, for a number of reasons... the pressure not to do so was quite surprising, from the Asian doctor who said it was karma that for each two who die there should be two replacing them to my father who was concerned that I was somehow psychologically emasculating myself. On the other hand, my sister is in a same-sex relationship and both her and her partner have had children within the relationship through IVF. But the continued legacy I leave to the world, the things I create that go through gestation and the pains of birth, lie else where... in the websites I develop for charitable and campaigning organisations, in ideas, relationships... on good days, in poetry and song
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Post by Francis on Nov 18, 2008 11:25:27 GMT -1
Also important to me is fertility in the sense of artistic creation - to have a well-spring that inspires me to write music and songs. I do have a need to create music, and I'm forever scribbling down bits of a tune or words that will come to me, which I can later form into more finished pieces. Hi Blackbird Well it's taken two years of reading your posts but at last I can strongly disagree with something you've said I think it's very important not to get lost in metaphor over fertility. We're so used to hearing the "poetic" metaphor of fertility for artistic creativity, that people rarely seem to recognise the sleight of hand. Fertility and artistic creation are not the same thing. Great art is a magic, and the production of children, lambs and wheat is a magic - but they are not the same magic. I don't think it helps to try and approach it, or think of it, in the same way. If everything is reduced in our thinking to appearing as no more than reflections of everything else, then we lose the richness of variety in our motivations to approach the feast before us. I think this is one of the mistakes of neo-paganism - it's so terrified of risking offense in our over-politically correct world that it daren't celebrate diversity. It claims to - but what it does is paint everything as essentially the same. It won't say this is totally different from that - for fear that these different things then have to be placed in order of value. A homosexual relationship is not the same thing as a heterosexual relationship. Fertility is not artistic creativity. I think you celebrate diversity by acknowledging difference. People are confused by a quest for equality, and think equality should be extended into the claim of everything being the same. A fertile heterosexual couple can perform the magic of creating new life. But you can't have everything - I've been so held by lack of sleep and worry over the last few weeks, pouring milk down one end and shoveling shit out of the other, that the magic of artistic creativity has been about as possible as the magic of flying! The creation of a song is not the same in anyway as the birthing of a child. The magic is different, the muse is different , the Patron is different, how we approach it should be different - I think the thought that they are the same would have baffled our ancestors? When they covenanted with the gods for fertility they'd have been pretty pissed off if their sheep started painting pictures not giving lambs, and the tribe's womenfolk's bellies filled with song not new life. We live in a society where it can seem to the individual that fertility is less important, less immediate, but we are all just as dependent on it as we ever were...
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Post by Adam on Nov 18, 2008 11:29:34 GMT -1
When they covenanted with the gods for fertility they'd have been pretty pissed off if their sheep started painting pictures not giving lambs, and the tribe's womenfolk's bellies filled with song not new life. That had me roaring with laughter... thank you for giving me much to think about!
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Post by Francis on Nov 18, 2008 11:39:30 GMT -1
Did that sound patronising? It wan't meant to! I haven't the time to re-write it and I think it's worth saying? - so I won't delete it, just trust you know me well enough to know what my intent was!
I "know" when I'm wrist deep birthing a ewe on a wet February night, that the spirits around that sheep and me on the hill are not the same as those who may have worked with my wife and her art earlier that day. If we're looking to regain knowledge about how the relationship works, then I think we fall at the first hurdle if our starting point is that these things are the same - even to say they are two sides of the same coin I believe completely hobbles us.....
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Post by Adam on Nov 18, 2008 12:08:19 GMT -1
No. not in the least bit patronising... if we had a couple of beer glasses I would have toasted you in gratitude for calling on me to root what I'm thinking in my direct experience (ref my earlier post, though I know you were responding to Blackbird). My direct experience of childbirth is somewhat distant, but yes, the spirits present had a call on immanent life and death... it is a level of viscerality (is that a word?) deeper than my more cerebral creations
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Post by Francis on Nov 18, 2008 13:07:35 GMT -1
Thanks for your thoughts Adam. My direct experience of childbirth is somewhat distant, but yes, the spirits present had a call on immanent life and death... it is a level of viscerality (is that a word?) deeper than my more cerebral creations Yes I agree - a deeper level of viscerality than cerebral creations. Fertility gives us life as animals on this planet. But as humans we are an animal apart- no less a part of the web of life, and of no greater worth than any other strand of that web. What sets us apart are those 'cerebral' works - artistic creations - and the importance of what these less visceral creations brings to us can't be over-estimated. (I'm not talking about idiots in a London gallery talking arse over a sherry, before shelling out tens of thousands for a canvass with 4 dots of red paint obviously, but the artistic creation of human culture) From fertility we have life, but from Artistic and 'cultural' creations (from craft to song, language to prayer) we become human. I don't seek to place fertility and 'cerebral' works in order of value in terms of the human condition. I just seek to emphasise their differences. We can't be human without both. But the two are different on a practical and religious level and we make re-discovering the relationships with the gods that may lead to them more confusing if we treat them as the same. It goes without saying that all the above is just the opinion I have from my own experiences, I don't claim to be presenting facts
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Post by aelfarh on Nov 18, 2008 14:07:28 GMT -1
You have a good point Francis
Of course that we need fertility as species, otherwise we will end up like the movie Children of men (a very good one, btw) But taking into account the number of births in the planet, it's unlikely the case, and therefore sometimes it became of less or null importance in a personal (or couple) level, that is some people don't wish to have children by their own decision.
As for hetero vs homo couples, I think they are the same if the hetero couple is sterile (by decision or nature). If we take the definition of fertility as pure biological one, then it is safe to say that the higher importance it had for our ancestors, is no more an important issue in this modern days? We don't need to harvest our vegetables, we go to the market, we don't need to rise our cattle, we buy it on our local store; we don't need to have children, there are enough births on the world to ensure the survival of the species. In other words, since there are enough people dedicated to that, it became a matter of personal taste, not a need.
A sterile couple until the beginning of the XX century was like a curse, now specially young couples (30 years or less) are not specially concern in having children.
Now, what are the personal reasons of wanting to have a children? beyond the survival of the species, I think the main reason is the transcendent factor. No one knows for sure if there's a life after this one, so a way to ensure that your legacy remains is having and rising your children. Are we sure that artistic and intellectual creations can't fulfill the same need?
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Post by Tegernacus on Nov 18, 2008 14:24:28 GMT -1
I think there is a big difference between reproductive fertility and creative fertility. We're animals, we feel the urge to reproduce, whether you're straight or gay. Look at the business that's taken off in egg freezing, surrogacy etc... people are still connected to that primal desire, even though 21st century culture has other concerns (career etc). So I think that fertility rites are still as worthy of being celebrated as they were in the stoneage, providing you have the need.
Now, fertile creativity. I don't think there is such a thing. You can be driven, driven, inspired, imaginative, hard-working, prodigious, but fertile is the wrong term imo.
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Post by aelfarh on Nov 18, 2008 15:38:35 GMT -1
Yes theres an animal instinct involve, of course, but I think that instinct is more focused to the sex life, rather than an urgency to have a child. On a next level, beyond the animal instinct, I think transcendence is one of the main reason of wanting to have children, but I think is the first time in human history where reproduction plays not a fundamental role in the personal priorities of people.
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Post by Adam on Nov 18, 2008 16:19:51 GMT -1
Now, what are the personal reasons of wanting to have a children? beyond the survival of the species, I think the main reason is the transcendent factor. No one knows for sure if there's a life after this one, so a way to ensure that your legacy remains is having and rising your children. Are we sure that artistic and intellectual creations can't fulfill the same need? Hmmm... if you asked my wife that question and proposed that answer, she would have very little time for it. She would tell you that it physically hurts not to have a child, to not be pregnant, at times. She, and I, both knew when she conceived (I know, too much information). She still feels that pain now, even though we made the right choice for the right reasons. When she's in that state, she's almost possessed...This is not about transcendence or the future for many people, it is one of the most basic primal aspects of our being that, however socially evolved as we claim to be, we have no or little control over, however we dress it up. Freud would have called the substitution of artistic and intellectual pursuits for procreation "sublimation"... but for a genius he did talk bollocks sometimes, and was limited by the metaphors of his age, as we are ours. And sublimation is not a replacement activity but a displacement activity (i.e. it simply distracts from the urge that is still present, it doesn't really satisfy it IMO)
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Post by aelfarh on Nov 18, 2008 17:26:50 GMT -1
Yes, I think some people are more driven by instincts than others. As my self I have never felt a physical urgency to have children, but I would like to, the reasons are the ones I expose, the legacy issue mainly. May I ask you what were your reasons for having your child?
As for sublimation, yes I think it could be in some cases a displacement activity, but when there's no a physical urgency of biological fertility; may be it could be a replacement activity.
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Post by Adam on Nov 18, 2008 17:46:27 GMT -1
a) I found a woman who wanted one with me and b) I enjoy being with children... I get on with them and love the time I spend with them (there is a c)... I suspect I might have had little choice <g>)
and as an adoptee I cannot explain what it meant to me to hold the very first person in my life that I truly knew was my own flesh and saliva and blood...
I think legacy may come into it for some, but that is largely a sociopolitical construct (think about the massive emphasis our culture places on having boys)
I also think the drive is very very different for man and women... a massive generalisation I know and I don't mean all men and all women, but in general.
And I think Francis had it when he identified the creation of art and literature as a wholly different activity
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Post by otho on Nov 18, 2008 18:37:35 GMT -1
Newbie, so going to jump right in.
I agree that to call artistic creation a type of fertility blurs too many boundaries. The two things are worlds apart objectively, and subjectively it is far too personal a comparison for general agreement.
If you blend the two energies of physical and mental genesis you run the risk of losing something in the mix.
I was thinking about this very subject on Sunday. A friend had a gallery day for her landscapes of Ashdown Forest. They were all excellent (she is very talented), but a room full of these paintings just left me cold. One or two may speak to you. To see them all in one place made it clear this was a personal journey - less to do with transporting the viewer, more to do with the needs of the artist. Subjective not objective, abstracted from reality by her view of her work.
For me activities involving breeding / growing / nurturing contain elements of fertility. Raising a family, growing crops or a garden, animal husbandry - anything that involves the meat of life. Artistic activities almost always have some abstract element which disassociates them from flesh and blood. They enrich and compliment life, yes, but should never displace it.
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Post by aelfarh on Nov 18, 2008 20:23:51 GMT -1
That's very touching indeed, Thank you for sharing that Well, yes that could be, as the only man in my father's familiy side, a lot of time I have heard the statement that "you are responsible of the enduring of your last name", or the "if you don't have children your family name ends with you" Of course that are sociopolitical ones. But I really don't care of having boys or girls, for me the importance will be to rise a new human being, to transmit my values and education, and to see him/her growing and achiving a good life. (of course if I ever had them =P ) Also agree on that one, that men and women diserve equal rights make them not equal at all, we have very different biologic construction that at the end affect our behaviour in such different ways. But the importance of biological fertility itself, even when "lived" in different way, could be as important (or have a lack of importance) equally dispite of the gender. For me activities involving breeding / growing / nurturing contain elements of fertility. Raising a family, growing crops or a garden, animal husbandry - anything that involves the meat of life. Artistic activities almost always have some abstract element which disassociates them from flesh and blood. They enrich and compliment life, yes, but should never displace it. “Music is enough for a lifetime, but a lifetime is not enough for music.” - Sergie Rachmaninov In that case we can not speak of displacement, since he had daughters, but there have been several examples of artist, writers, philosophers, etc. that had dedicated their lifes to their artistic/intellectual creations, without worrying on reproduce themselves biologically. Now, a question Otho, since rasing a family could be done without procreation.... where is the fertility point there...and for example. for you adoption involve fertility? and why?
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Post by otho on Nov 18, 2008 23:41:28 GMT -1
Hi Aelfarh
I think we can agree artists of Rachmaninov's level are few and far between. Nice quote nonetheless. However, it is one thing to say 'I have done this thing I have been compelled to do, and I do not consider my life anything but blessed' and another to say artistic creativity is generally the same as fertility.
Adoption, although not involving my procreative input, still counts as fertility. A child is conceived and must be nurtured as they grow. I would certainly think no less of an adopted child than a biological one, and can say that with some assurance as my wife and nephew are both adopted.
The point was artistic endeavour should not be couched in the same terms as the creation and care of life, since this detracts from both activities by dumbing down the way in which they are considered. Certainly for the artist the more unique verbal tangents available to approach a medium or subject, the better.
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