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Waking the Witch: Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power

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Pam Grossman

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“The human ego is the ugliest part of man. We lift up men who only show us darkness, and put down those brave enough to show us the light. Likewise, people engage in darkness when it is light outside, and acknowledge the light only when it is dark. We abandon those fighting for us to cheer behind those fighting against us. And, we only remember good people and God when it is convenient for us, and take them for granted because their doors are always open - only to chase after closed doors and personalities void of substance and truth.”

“Ah, we've had so many masters, Swine or eagle, lean or fat one: Some were tiers, some hyenas, Still we fed this one and that one. Whether one is better than the other: Ah, one boot is always like another When it treads upon you. What I say about them Is we need no other masters: we can do without them! Yes, the wheel is always turning madly, Neither side stays up or down, But the water underneath fares badly For it has to make the wheel go round. (Ach, wir hatten viele Herren Hatten Tiger und Hyänen Hatten Adler, hatten Schweine Doch wir nährten den und jenen. Ob sie besser waren oder schlimmer: Ach, der Stiefel glich dem Stiefel immer Und uns trat er. Ihr versteht, ich meine Dass wir keine andern Herren brauchen, sondern keine! Freilich dreht das Rad sich immer weiter Dass, was oben ist, nicht oben bleibt. Aber für das Wasser unten heisst das leider NurL dass es das Rad halt ewig treibt.)”

“If you tour any workplace, you will see countless logos and banners paying lip service to freedom of speech, democracy, logos like ‘speak up, speak out’, creativity, innovation, and on and on goes the list of flashy words and adjectives that companies and corporations want their employees (and outsiders) to believe are part of their work ethics and culture. Yet, most employees learn at the earliest stages of their careers that these bogus adjectives will get them fired, if they are naïve enough to believe in – let alone act on – them.”

“You could say that cleaning someone else’s house was a shit job. That it was disgusting to be entangled in someone else’s habits and ways, finding nail clippings—finger and toe—and little fluffy hair nests and partly squeezed tubes of cortisone cream or even lube, all of it evidence of a life you really didn’t want to think about. But you could also just say that it was work. And that work was admirable, even if it was hard or unappealing or undersung, or often maddeningly underpaid if you were female, as Greer used to remind him.”

“The people I love the best jump into work head first without dallying in the shallows and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight. They seem to become natives of that element, the black sleek heads of seals bouncing like half-submerged balls. I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart, who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience, who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward, who do what has to be done, again and again. I want to be with people who submerge in the task, who go into the fields to harvest and work in a row and pass the bags along, who are not parlor generals and field deserters but move in a common rhythm when the food must come in or the fire be put out. The work of the world is common as mud. Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust. But the thing worth doing well done has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident. Greek amphoras for wine or oil, Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums but you know they were made to be used. The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.”