discovering paganism

Short Story Published!!!

2010-03-18T21:44:00.002-04:00

Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but I have taken my first step to achieving my dream of becoming a novelist! Aphelion has published my short story, Cadence: Of Lizards and Hounds, in its March issue. Yay! Next step: paying webzine.

And, Happy (early) Ostara!

Until next time, blessed be.

Best Movies Ever... Part 2

2010-03-13T09:20:00.005-05:00

So, it's been about a month since I've posted or really read anything but Religion and American Law - my thesis is taking over my life! But, that's almost done. So, I've decided to post something fun instead of... well, something that I spend waaay too much time thinking about.

#4 Fire and Ice (1983)
Director: Ralph Bakshi
Actors: Randy Norton, Cynthia Leake, Steve Sandor, Sean Hannon
Nekron, the evil Ice Lord, is moving a glacier. His goal: to invade Fire Keep. And he's winning, it's up to Larn, the only survivor of a small village that was obliterated by the glacier, and the mysterious DarkWolf to stop him. But, things get complicated when Nekron sends his sub-human henchman to kidnap Princess Teegra of Fire Keep.

Don't get me wrong; there's a lot of the 1980s fantasy drivel going on here. The clash of pure good and pure evil, uncomplicated story lines, random characters who have nothing to do with the rest of the plot... but, it's beautifully animated. And, all in all, it's not a bad story, either...

#5 Legend (1985)
Director: Ridley Scott
Actors: Tom Cruise, Mia Sara, Tim Curry
Darkness, tired of living in the shadows, attempts to overthrow all that is good and light in the world by destroying the ultimate guardians of that light - the unicorns! And if it weren't for Princess Lili - a representation of innocence and mischief - he might not have succeeded! Before she can fix her mistake, Darkness kidnaps her and intends to make her his wife. In the meantime, Jack - who also had a hand in accidentally helping the Lord of Darkness - join Gump and his fair folk friends to save the unicorns and all that is good in the universe.

Like a classic Ridley Scott movie, this movie has its bizarre twists and sometimes random turns, but it's still a fantastic movie! Beautiful sets, playful dialogue, and the sweet tone that makes fairy tales into fairy tales makes this movie a classic. And, while it may appear to be another simplistic struggle of good vs. evil, Ridley Scott isn't going to let it be quite that simple. "What is light without darkness?" the Lord of Darkness asks. "I am a part of you all. You can never defeat me. We are brothers." Besides, how can you go wrong with Tim Curry?

#6 Lady in the Water (2006)
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Actors: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard
Apartment super Cleveland Heep is having trouble with the pool. Someone keeps swimming in it after dark, and then there's this strange green dog-like thing that keeps stalking the grounds. Next thing he knows, he finds himself caring for a strange woman named Story. Moreover, he is getting sucked deeper and deeper into a bizarre bedtime story. But, things are more dangerous than they appear, and Story's life depends on a happy ending.

I love M. Night Shyamalan movies. And he works his magic again in this grown-up bedtime story.

Cosmogony...

2010-02-16T07:53:00.006-05:00

So, almost a year ago, I posted on the power of creation stories in "A construction of creation," (my, how much difference a year makes!) and I'm still trying to figure out how I would create a creation story I can be proud of. To recap, I discussed the importance of carefully selecting a creation story by referencing Rosemary Radford Ruether's theory: that creation stories are blueprints for society. That is, not only do creation stories reflect the society from which they come, but they also mandate a particular social construction for the society that comes afterward. Now, I would like to reference another scholar, Mircea Eliade.

If you're going to do the academic study of religion, you have to read Eliade's The Sacred and the Profane (1987). As much as people don't agree with Eliade anymore in religious studies (and some still do agree with him whole-heartedly), there would be no religious studies if it weren't for him. One of his most famous essays, a chapter in The Sacred and the Profane is "Sacred Space and the Making of the World." He argues that a cosmogony (literally, the birth of the cosmos) creates the world (or the important part of the world, that is, our world). First, there is undifferentiated profane space. This is chaos. Imagine standing in the tundra or the Sahara. Everything looks exactly the same. There's no way to judge distance or progress, because there is no fixed point around which to orient oneself (this is one reason why people place flags in the tundra, so they can know how far they've gone and in which direction). The sacred irrupts into profane space (a hierophany, or if it involves a deity, a theophany), changing that point. That point becomes the axis mundi (the center of the world) and the fixed point around which a world can be built. Around that axis mundi, sacred space - important, really real, ordered space - can be built. This is how a world is established.

Now, look at creation stories, and you're not going to always see these elements. However, he makes a further argument. Religious man had cosmogonies. Nonreligious man aka profane man aka modern man does not. Cosmogonies not only tell us how the world was created, but why the world is the way it is and what we must do in the world. Cosmogonies give us an orienting point in space and time around which to organize our lives. Nonreligious man is lost, bereft of all sense of direction, because modern man does not recognize a cosmogony. At this point, Eliade moves out of theory and into philosophy, but he has a good point. Creation stories are important. They have to tell us where we came from, why the world is the way it is, and what we're supposed to do in it. So, I still find myself wondering: what do I want my creation story to be?

A friend from the God Club (the only male in the God Club...) told me his creation story, and it inspired me. I don't buy it completely, because it holds some dualities I just can't accept (that, and I'm not a deist, so I don't believe in a Creator that creates and then leaves). But still, it inspired me to try again and start developing my own.

I haven't finished, but I want to start something, and get all of you (the few who read this blog, hehheh!) involved. What I would like is for you to tell me your creation stories - your cosmogonies. They can be anything, seriously! If you want to say "well, I like Genesis," or "I think the Rig Veda has the right one," than let me know. If it's situated in history - an identifiable historical moment - than tell me. I'm serious, I want to hear what everyone has to say. And, with everyone's permission, I would like to post them on this blog. So, please email me your creation stories. I believe you can get my email through the profile page, if not, just click here.

I can't wait to hear from everyone.

Until next time, blessed be.

New background...

2010-02-14T10:42:00.002-05:00

So, I was bored with how boring my blog looked. And, it's been a long time since I played with html (so everything I know is pretty much obsolete), I downloaded a template from btemplates.com! I suggest everyone try it out.

Snow!!!!

2010-02-13T10:40:00.006-05:00

Okay, so I this may not be exciting for most people, but it sooo rarely snows here in Georgia. It's huge when it does snow! Atlanta was basically closed down yesterday! What do you expect when no one has snow tires and only the hunters have snow clothes?

They were only saying an inch, but it was closer to three, and it was all powder! It's been so long since I could play in the snow I don't even have anything to go out and play in. But, it was exciting, and beautiful!

We went out and tromped in the snow for a while, making mini snow men and throwing snowballs and making snow angels. I checked out the horses next door and they weren't sure what was going on. Our dog, Gracie, was having a blast! She was like a puppy all over again.

We finally went back in when Gracie found a dead bird and started parading down with it.

It's so nice to see the world covered in snow, even though all the grass is green underneath.

Myth...

2010-02-11T08:00:00.004-05:00

I feel bad for being gone so long, for missing the blogs that I usually read. After all, most of the blogs that I read are far less dry than my own. Things have been a little stressful around here with thesis and presenting papers and such. Thank the Gods that spring break is rapidly approaching.

So, I'm not just an oathbound member of an Order, but I'm also a founding member of a "God Club." A dear friend was having serious issues with her religious beliefs (she could find no reason for believing in any divine reality, but she couldn't stop, and that can cause a hell of a disjunct in the mind), so she, a friend of ours, and I all decided to get together and just argue about God - or the Gods as the case may be. We all put questions into a hat. Then, one person draws out a question, and everyone gets five minutes to explain their position, and then it's discussion time until we feel like we've hit the end of it.

My dear disjunctured friend posed the following question: How do you square your religion beliefs with science? Since her answer was "I don't know," it came to me. I replied, "I don't feel I have to. Science is just another worldview. Why should I judge my worldview by someone else's?"

Then the conversation took off from there, and the structure fell apart, but we got somewhere at least.

"But science tells you you're wrong! The Church said that the sun revolved around the earth, and people still believe it, and it's wrong! People still believe that. You can't just say 'well, it's their worldview.'"

"Sure," I replied. "But, science hasn't always gotten it right either. I mean, eugenics was not a good idea."

"Besides," the only male of the group said (and perhaps the most grounded among us), "science was saying the sun revolved around the earth, too."

"But science is proven. There's proof for science! There's empirical proof that evolution occurs and that auras do not exist."

"Yeah, science has proof, but it's the only proof that science allows," I replied.

"Right, your God Science," our male friend said, "only lets you look at particular kinds of proof. All you've said is that science has used science to prove science."

"All that shows is that there's an internal logic to science, just like any other religion," I said.

After a few rounds of that, my disjunctured friend stopped and thought about it for a second. "I never thought about science as a worldview." The sign, I thought, of a religious belief. You see, each worldview has particular things that it values. It ignores the rest. Science happens to value the empirical and the falsifiable. If it cannot be disproved through empirical means, it lies outside the field of Science's worldview. By saying that Science has proven itself, all that's being said is that Science has proven Science using evidence valued by Science and using Science's approved method. Science has gotten things very wrong before, and Science has internal contradictions as well. It's just another worldview. Sure, it's one that has offered what appears to be really good for the human race, but I'm not entirely convinced that medicine at the expense of evolution or nuclear power or weapons at the expense of ecological stability is all its cracked up to be. Maybe its progress only in Science's eyes.

The point goes back to myth. I believe it was Aristotle who said that there simply must be assumed premises in order to make an argument. At some point, we're simply going to have to take something for granted or else an argument cannot take place. We cannot stake a claim without assuming something without support. If we do not have this unfounded assumption - if we try to find undeniable support for every assumed premise we have - than we're simply going to fall into what Aristotle called "infinite regress." You can always ask, "but why?" in other words. At some point, you just have to say "because."

These assumed premises, these unfounded assumptions about the world, these are myths. In his excellent book, Theorizing Myth, Bruce Lincoln, as much as he says he's not going to do it, define myth. He defines myth as that upon which we base truth. Arguments, in a philosophical sense (the Premise 1, Premise 2, Premise 3, Therefore Conclusion thing), create truth. They create truth by building upon myths, by building upon unsupported premises, assumed premises.

Science has these myths, these unsupported premises they build upon to create truth. I've said before truth is not fact. Fact cannot have unsupported premises. Fact cannot have myth. But, we have to have myths. We cannot constantly prove every assumed premise we hold, or else we'd never be able to get anywhere. We cannot fall into infinite regress. Myths make truth. Science argues that it deals in fact, but so does every other worldview. But, humans cannot deal in fact. They deal in myth, so they have to deal in truth as well.

This is my morning, coffee- and lack-of-sleep- induced thought of the day. I doubt it made any sense, but it's been nice typing it.

Until next time, blessed be.

Feminism and the Obession of the Patriarchal Past...

2010-01-20T09:17:00.002-05:00

Yesterday morning as my father and I were driving into Atlanta, we began arguing about the race in Massachusetts, the health care bill, and the pros and cons of individualism. (It all revolved around my argument that the health care bill simply won't work in the US because of the individualistic extremism (or the extreme individualism?) of the US.) It actually led me to think of a totally different thing while I drank my coffee after my father had dropped me off. I was reminded of an interesting discussion my friends and I had about a Men's Studies conference that was coming up nearby. What is Men's Studies? Well, apparently, it's mostly about the portrayal and interpretation of masculinity, but I said something along the lines of "This is exciting. I mean, if there's such a thing as Women's Studies, shouldn't there be a Men's Studies, too?" A male friend, John, replied, "Isn't that all of history?"

Well, that led me to think about just how much we've privileged history.

All right, so, Western society (British? European?) has taken a great - great - deal from Christianity as it formed its worldview that has now spread pretty much all over Europe, into the US, Canada, and Australia. One thing it brings to the table, which Christianity got from Paul, who got it from Plato, is the dichotomous - and hierarchical - nature of the world. So, Plato has this creation story, the Timaeus, that created a strict hierarchy between two realms, the realm of thought and the realm of the corporeal, of which the realm of thought was higher. He also created a strict dichotomy between male and female. Each soul is incarnated in a male body on the earth. If the soul succeeds, the soul returns to the stars. If the soul fails, the soul is reborn as a female. So, we see the hierarchy here, too. Paul took this and ran with it (check out Daniel Boyarin's A Radical Jew for more). Since, the Western world has looked at the world in strict dichotomies, privileging one half above the other. This has been changing, but slowly. (And modern Paganism has, mostly, adopted this view, too, though mostly without the hierarchy.)

The idea that history has been dominated by men, and fails to take women's voices into account, is just another example of the privileging. Here's how:

Traditionally, woman has lived in the private sphere of the home, raising family, doing domestic things. Her realm is an oral realm of stories, fluid, without strict categorization or hierarchy. Man has traditionally lived in the public sphere of law, government, etc, working (bringing home the bacon). His realm is a written realm, strict, hierarchical, categorized. (It is important to note that this is generally only true of the city-state and agricultural societies; hunter-gatherer societies and nomadic societies can have very different models.) It appears that men's voices dominate history because of the privileging of the public sphere, of written texts, of categories and hierarchy, that even feminist's do! That is, even feminists privilege a patriarchal understanding of the importance of the public realm and the public realm's method of passing on knowledge while devaluing the private realm and the private realm's method of passion on knowledge. I can almost guarantee that no society before the modern ones really considered the public realm so much more important that the private one. This is also, I suggest, why many of the Muslim women I know do not feel oppressed when they are encouraged to take on a traditional role in the home. They simply do not privilege the public sphere as much as the West has.

I'll give an example from my own life. My family was a traditional family. Dad went out and worked, Mom stayed home and raised my sisters and me. It's interesting the different ways that they influenced me. Dad would tell me characteristics I had, Mom would tell me stories about me. For example, Dad would say I had a bad temper, Mom would tell me the story of how I threw a rock the size of my fist at my sister during a fight. Dad would tell me that I was generous, Mom would tell me about the time a friend with cerebral palsy was having a hard time cutting something in our kindergarten class and how I just reached over and held the paper still without a second thought. Dad would tell me I was literal-minded, Mom would tell me stories about when I would put out the mail and not bring in what had been delivered because I hadn't been told to do so.

Dad would tell me what I am, Mom would tell me who I am. That is, we are the stories we tell about ourselves. Mom was the one who taught me the foundational stories about myself and about my family, whereas Dad would tell me characteristics about my family or show me family trees. It is this oral, fluid, way of the private realm that passes on a different kind of knowledge that's hard to record and hard to examine. The private realm passes on the culture of food, etiquette, myth, religious practice in the home, family, dress, etc. The public realm passes on law and economy and such institutions. As we can see, though, those realms are intimately tied. One does not exist without the other. They support each other, they do not supersede each other.

Perhaps what I find most irritating with feminists is the devaluing of what is traditionally woman's realm and woman's way of living, of passing on knowledge, of teaching and contributing to and creating culture. Instead, many feminists just try to make women into men, and yet refuse to allow men to be women as well. That is, today's society wants women to enter into the public realm, but still will not accept men entering the private realm. Why? We don't base social roles on sex anymore, why should it matter? Why are we still undervaluing the private realm?

Women have contributed to society in ways that are hard to measure, hard to analyze and assess (which are all masculine ways of looking at the world). However, women, through the private realm, have worked in society in a way that even women's studies does not appear to be willing to recognize. Instead, even women's studies appears to only grant the public realm any prestige, devaluing all of the women who have come before. It's a real shame

Until next time, Blessed Be.

Best Movies Ever... according to me...

2010-01-04T16:03:00.009-05:00

So, in my class, we were told that one great way to discuss canon (literal canon, specifically the Christian canon and the Gnostic Gospels) is to get one student to name the top five best movies, and then declare, these are the best movies according to everyone. You suddenly get a lot of people saying, "Oh, no, they aren't!" And then they get the power struggles that come with canon. Well, I talked about canon in the last post, and I suddenly get the urge to make a list of some of the best movies (according to me) that were ever made. Of course, most of them have a magical theme of some sort (Godfather is an awesome movie, but it doesn't quite fit here). So, in no particular order:

#1 Pan's Labyrinth or, El laberinto del fauno (2006)
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Actors: Ivana Baquero, Sergi Lopez, Doug Jones
In 1944, when Spain is fascist, Ofelia goes with her mother to live with her sadistic stepfather, Captain Vidal, who is fighting against a few communist holdouts in the mountains of Navarra. There, Ofelia discovers a labyrinth in which she meets a faun, who gives her a book that instructs her in certain tasks. At the same time, Ofelia's mother is laboring under a difficult pregnancy that threatens her life. Ofelia learns from the faun that she is the daughter of an otherworld king, and will return if she correctly does the tasks, but with a war raging around her new home and a vicious stepfather, what will become of her and her tasks?

It's a wonderful story. The best thing about it, I think, is that it plays wonderfully the "is it real or is she imagining it?" card well without taking sides, better than any other movie I've ever seen.

#2 The Wicker Man (1973)
Director: Robin Hardy
Actors: Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt, Britt Ekland
A little girl goes missing on Summerisle, and Sergeant Howie must go and find her. What he comes across, though, is a pagan community quite unwilling (or unable?) to help him. Then, he catches wind of human sacrifice, and things go really weird.

The remake is a complete disaster! Don't watch it, please, don't watch it. The original, though, does a fantastic job of portraying a pagan (Pagan?) community without commenting on shoulds and shouldn'ts, and plays that wonderfully against Sergeant Howie's strict Presbyterianism. He's virginal, they are rampantly sexual (public orgies, naked women leaping over fires for fertility "Naturally! It's much too dangerous to jump through fires with your clothes on!"). He lacks any sense of humor, and Lord Summerisle barely seems able to take anything seriously. I sometimes imagine this as the perfect Pagan community (you know, sans the human sacrifice...)

#3 Labyrinth (1986)
Director: Jim Henson
Actors: David Bowie, Jennifer Connelly
One dark and stormy night, Sarah, left by her father and stepmother to watch a screaming baby, her half-brother Toby (played by THE Toby Froud, by the way), accidentally summons the Goblin King to take her brother away! Which he does, happily. Now, Sarah must go into the Labyrinth and face the Goblin King in order to save her brother!

David Bowie in tights, what more do you need to know? But more seriously, you get Jim Henson directing and Brian and Wendy Froud making the puppets, what more can you ask? The story is both comical and touchy, fantasy but not too fantasy, if you know what I mean, the characters are delightful, the scenery and costuming beautiful. All around, it's a great movie.

More on the way!

Until next time, blessed be.

Changing the Canon...

2010-01-03T14:04:00.002-05:00

A good friend and I argued thoroughly over the merits of the new Sherlock Holmes movie with Robert Downey Jr. playing the great detective. I was appalled by the movie and refused to see it, though my friend absolutely loved it. I just couldn't accept how much Robert Downey Jr. was changing the character of Sherlock Holmes, who I love! I don't care that Holmes does cocaine and morphine, I don't care that he hates women, that he's an arrogant know-it-all, or that his deductive reasoning requires huge logical leaps, I love Sherlock Holmes as written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Robert Downey Jr. completely redoes Holmes, making him messy (Sherlock Holmes was meticulously clean), violent (Holmes would only use violence in the most extreme circumstances), and certain other things that I admit I cannot guess because I haven't seen the movie. My friend argues that its like fan-fiction, quite legal fanfic, too, since the copyright has run out and Holmes is now public domain (I believe). Still, I said, good fanfic doesn't chance the canon.

That started getting me thinking about identity. This is a leap, but follow me hear. I listen to an NPR podcast from New York called Radio Lab. (It's fantastic, guys, you should seriously listen in.) One of their podcasts has them talking about the construction of identity, and they come to the very convincing conclusion that who we are is constructed by the story we tell about ourselves. Forget about your concept of the soul there's no proof (and I'm not convinced that such a thing as a soul exists, not that I'm really willing to get into that argument at the moment), and the body you have is completely different - every cell you had seven years ago is dead and has been replaced by others. All that you really have, then, are your memories and the story you tell based upon those memories. You take away any memory, you do seem to lose part of yourself. If we think about selves as stories, then, you create a canon, a canon of the self.

Now, for those who don't get too involved in religious studies jargon (and more power to you, it is a terrible mire), canon is, at its simplest, an authoritative list or group of texts. Expanded, canon can include art (like the canon of the Renaissance paintings), and I'm sure you can imagine it expanding into other areas. For the Canon of the Self, the canon includes certain memories, certain thoughts and characteristics that you have decided are more important and most authoritative of what makes you you. For me, for example, I have one story that from my childhood where I knock myself out cold on the concrete before I was two. In jest, but not completely so, I say that this event is what made me so strange. But, also important to my canon are certain habits, thoughts, and events that if I lost or changed one, the core of my identity would change. If I suddenly stopped telling that story, or I stopped telling the story of when I moved and lost my best friend forever, or the story of, because of the loss of that friend, I had to go into anger management in elementary school, or anything else, I would stop being Christa as I know myself. I would be a different Christa.

Okay, fair enough. But, we also have a Canon of Others. That is, we have particular stories, particular canons, we tell ourselves and others about people we know. We have one for each friend, family member, teacher, hero, lover, and enemy. That canon is created partially through our thoughts of that person, partially through the situation and events we've had with that person, and partially through the story the person tells of themselves and our interpretation of that story. Here's where the Sherlock Holmes movie comes into play. If we change the story, we are suddenly confronted by something that challenges the canon. For Sherlock Holmes, the movie, I rejected it because it so challenged the canon. But, what of friends, enemies, or loved ones? What if they challenged the canon I had of them? What could I do about it?

When I told my mother I as Pagan, she had to incorporate that into the canon she had created for me. Luckily, that didn't challenge the canon she had, so it could be incorporated rather easily. And we're constantly doing this everyday. Every time we interact with a person, we must incorporate that new situation into the canon we've created of that person. But, when that interaction creates a challenge to the canon? When a friend I'd always thought of as generous suddenly takes back a gift he had given out of greed, the canon I'd create of him is challenged, and I must go back and reevaluate the canon or reject the story altogether. It's harder to reject the stories then it is to reject the Sherlock Holmes movie, though. If we consider that in a bigger sense, though, things become more telling.

Let's say that I was still active in a Christian church for the volunteer service. Even if I never went to church, I would still regularly interact with the Christians who did, and even if I never said anything remotely Christian, if my mother interacted with the same people and they did, there would be no reason for my mother to suspect that I was acting in contradiction to the canon she'd created of me. (After all, it takes more to change a canon than it does to create one.) Then, I tell her I'm a Pagan. This is something that challenges her canon of me thoroughly, and she must re-tell the entire story or ignore what I told her completely. She could do the latter, but few of us would think this was an appropriate response. This conflict and reevaluation is a traumatic thing, though. It is traumatic for us to have to tear down a canon of someone else that we had and rebuild it. Remember, this is the Canon of Self we're talking about. It is the story you tell of the person, but that story is what the person is in a very real sense. To change the canon is to change the person.

Any such change could cause this trauma. Coming out of the closet or broom closet, any conversion, sex changes, the revelation of particular selfish actions (for the hero; if it is an enemy who challenged the canon, it would be the revelation of selfless actions that become traumatic), all these often challenge the canon another person has created of you - they challenge who you are to that person. They must be incorporated and sometimes they just can't be immediately. Depending upon how set that canon is, sometimes those challenges simply can never be incorporated into the canon.

This is why personal change of canon is traumatic as well. To lose a memory, to remember something you hadn't for years, to discover you were adopted, or to choose to act differently, all these challenge the Canon of the Self.

The advice I have, than, is to be patient with those who must change the canon they have for you when you challenge it. Be patient with yourself when you must change the canon you have for someone else. And, if you wish to change, as many of us do what with it being only a few days after New Year, make a change that you can incorporate into your canon, or else you may never be able to reconcile your self.

Until next time, blessed be.

New Year!!

2010-01-01T17:02:00.002-05:00

Man, the moon last night was beautiful. And here, because it was foggy, not just the moon was blue, everything was blue! Not being much of a photographer myself, I didn't get a picture, but it was really nice.

Here's wishing everyone a wonderful new year, and may it be the best one yet!

Until next time, blessed be.

Poll!

2009-12-29T17:07:00.001-05:00

Okay, so, I'm lame, and I don't play around with technological elements, so I only just realized, after almost a year, that I can add polls! So, to the side is a poll that I hope is rather provocative, though a classic question I think. Go ahead and take it, and if you have any comments, go ahead and comment here! Tell me what you think!

Until next time, blessed be.

Magickal Ethics...

2009-12-29T16:01:00.002-05:00

I was once asked what the difference between a Pagan and a Witch is. My response was: "A Pagan is a person who doesn't do magick. A Witch is one who avoids doing magick at all costs." I'll grant you, that remark is both flippant and insincere. Nor was it completely free from malice at the time. It was shortly after an event that had taken place not too long after I started calling myself a Pagan. I, being a terrible neophyte and virtually broke since I was in high school, I only had one Wicca 101 book, and no spells. I asked an online group if anyone had an appropriate candle spell that I could cast. You see, a friend of the family was pregnant, and there was some concern to her health and whether she could carry the baby full term. A real need existed. One person asked if there was a need and if I had been asked to cast a spell. At the time, only my very closest childhood friend knew I was anything but Christian, and so, while a need existed, the woman certainly hadn't asked. I was subsequently cut thoroughly down to size, and a bit smaller, for daring to ask how to cast a spell that I, apparently, had no business casting. It stung, and I was terribly embarrassed.

Had I been a bit older, and a whole lot more confident, I would have snapped back some response and started some online fighting match. Had I been a bit older still, I would have tried a calmer approach. But, even now, I cannot resolve the tension in my head or heart. I couldn't understand how it could be ethically wrong to cast a healing spell, even if it was not asked for. I still can't understand it. So, that response before, while flippant, is also someone illustrative, at least of my own troubles.

In this case of the healing spell, there was a need. I agree that casting a spell when there is no need is a foolish thing to do. Aside from all the possible things that could go wrong, there's no need to screw around with a balance, an energy flow, when it's working just as well without your interference, thank you very much! So, when there is no need, then, certainly, there is no need to cast a spell. It's the "request" part that gets me. Why must I wait for a request? Why do I have to wait if I see a need?

I can see the valid arguments for waiting. Who am I to say the need actually exists? I mean, maybe so and so is quite happy with the way things are going, who I am to tell so and so that he or she is wrong? That's not what most people seemed to be most concerned about, though. Manipulation seems to be the big scare word. We wouldn't want to manipulate anyone against their will. And yet... I'm not sure why manipulation is such a bad thing.

Oh, I agree, it's wrong to manipulate a reasonable person into doing something that will hurt him or her, or into not doing something he or she ought to do. And, the desire to manipulate for ones own personal benefit is the hallmark of an immature soul. However, I'm not convinced that there are not times when manipulation is not only acceptable, but also commendable!

Let me start first by saying that there is no such thing as a reasonable person. Or, perhaps, I'm confusing terms. Perhaps there are reasonable people - generally reasonable people. But, to take that as what it used to mean - as a perfectly rational person, well... I know for a fact that there is no such thing as a truly rational human being. It doesn't work. Would a rational human being do anything, in normal circumstances, to hurt himself? Certainly not! The rational human would do the rational thing, and attempt to maintain health as best as possible. And yet, we all do things we know we ought not do. There would not be a single alcoholic, smoker, drug addict, drug user, or fat person in the world if we were all rational people. But, we all have our vices, and we all regularly do things to hurt ourselves. That's just one example, too. We all, regularly, consciously choose to do things that we know we shouldn't do. As one great man said to me, "Humans are the only creatures who will say 'I can't believe I'm about to do this' and do it."

So, there goes the rational person. Now, for another thing: there is no thing that is always wrong. You will not convince me that there is a single act that is always wrong regardless of circumstances. Part of the reason I say this is that the way you judge what is "right" and "wrong," and what is "acceptable" and "unacceptable" is socially and culturally determined. Let us say that we all agree that it is important to keep the human race going. There is only one man left in the world, and many, many women. The man, a monk perhaps, refuses to have sex with any of the women. So, as a group, the women decide to rape this man. Is it necessarily morally wrong? Well, that's a silly example, but I promise you, you will find instances where, if you're willing to accept that other cultures judge acceptability differently, justified rape. And, why are they wrong? Because I say they are? Because I disagree? Because I have a different principle for judging rightness and wrongness? Just look at Aquinas's sexual sins, judged based upon, first, procreation and second, heterosexual marriage. Masturbation is a dreadful sin in that case. We use the harm principle. No one is harmed in masturbation, it is, at the very least, acceptable behavior.

Beyond that, though, for something to be universally wrong, it must be, quite frankly, universal. That is, based upon the universe itself. To claim this universality is to claim that whatever it is is written into the very fabric of the universe, like physical laws. There is no such moral law. You can break moral laws, you cannot break physical laws. Just try to make two pieces of matter occupy the exact same space at the same time. It cannot be done. Find a morally wrong action that is impossible to do, and I shall agree that this moral law is a universal one. So, my friends, I am a moral relativist.

Morals, ethics, change with situation. Therefore, no ethic or moral is universal and constant. It is necessary that they change with time, too. Lying, a form of manipulation, is generally considered wrong. But, it's not always wrong. There are times where lying is not only morally acceptable, but morally required! Forgive such a hackneyed example, but if you were living in Nazi Europe - Poland, maybe, and a Nazi officer came to your door and asked if you knew any Jews, would you say, "Why, yes, I do, officer." Of course not! In fact, it would be morally wrong! If you rescued a child from an abusive home, and the abuser came looking for the child, you certainly wouldn't tell the abuser where the child was. You would lie, and it would be morally required of you to do so.

Finally, karma is not concerned with ethics. Karma is concerned with balance. Karma is the universe's balancing system. You don't believe me, look at the Buddhists. If karma were concerned with ethics, could a person cut a cat in half and gain enlightenment? No, but, it happened. If karma were concerned with morality, such behavior would not be rewarded with enlightenment. Instead, karma is concerned with balance, which is why there is no tit-for-tat here. You don't do one thing and always get the same result. Karma is merely the universal system that maintains balance, as much as osmosis in cells.

As for the example above of the healing spell, what harm could it really have done? If the energy had been rejected, some would have returned to me, and some would have just dispelled out into the universe, and would that really have been such a bad thing? No. I don't think it would have. And that's another point: a person can always refuse or accept any energy that comes there way, pure and simple.

So, I am perfectly willing to admit that there are circumstances where manipulation is unacceptable. However, I am also perfectly willing to assert that there are situations were manipulation is at least acceptable. It may not ever be required, but there are times where manipulation is okay. I do not feel restrained when I cast spells by a fear of manipulating others. I haven't cast a spell that is specifically manipulative, like forcing a person to fall in love with me. Although, I'm not convinced that I would have been in the wrong to cast some manipulative spell on my alcoholic sister when she was drinking and driving.

But, then again, maybe I'm wrong. What do you think?

Until next time, blessed be.

Midwinter

2009-12-28T16:44:00.002-05:00

I barely feel like making a post on this holiday, as it is so thoroughly explored by the Christian holiday, Christmas. In fact, I've waited so long to post anything because I couldn't think of much to say. This day is the turning point, the shortest day and longest night of the year. After this, the sun will start moving north again. Days will grow progressively longer, and progressively warmer. The Godman is reborned, the Goddess recovers from winter. It is one of the Sabbats that is so thoroughly explored - and one of whose previous commentators I have little with which to disagree. After all, while there are Christmas and Easter Christians and High Holy Day Jews, there are Samhain and Yule Pagans, so there's little to add. And I'm being serious here.

However, at the cusp of a new year, we may look back at the old one and consider. What have I done right? What have I done wrong? Where have I succeeded and where have I failed? What new things would I like to try? What would I like to continue doing? What would I like to stop doing?

I started thinking about it like this: How does reincarnation work? It does, or it seems to if we look at nature. After all, everything appears to die in winter, and comes back again the following spring. I've been told that when one dies, one loses the handicap of the limited body and is, once again, able to understand everything. In that moment, one then decides how one will be reborn. Granted, this isn't the Hindu or Buddhist understanding of reincarnation, as it takes no account of karma, but, maybe it's right. At least, it's right in the yearly turning. That is, there's little we can really do in winter - at least, I feel that way. I'd rather just hibernate. But, at Midwinter, I see that life is about to start again, if you will. This is the time to step back and reevaluate the year past, and plan the year ahead.

It's not a fun process. I hate to see myself lacking, but there you go. Besides, I'm not completely the person I want to be at this point. There's certainly more that I want to be.

So this is what I have to add to the remarks that have been made about Midwinter. Now is the time to look upon the life you've just finished in the year past, and plan the life you will lead in the year ahead. And be honest, brutally so, both about what has gone right and wrong. But, be realistic as well. If you plan to save a million dollars in the next year, make sure you actually make more than a million in one year, or that you only need that little bit left, and you can still survive on what you don't save. Don't plan to change everything. And, make a step by step plan. This is sort of like behavioral conditioning, so work out some rewards along the way. This also forces you to decide your priorities. What do you need to work on the most? What should be the first thing you change in the next year? And what are the things you absolutely shouldn't change?

Think of this as the interim period, and Midwinter is the time where decisions must be made, so that you may actually live the year you want to live.

Until next time, blessed be.

Paradigm Shift...

2009-12-08T08:42:00.003-05:00

This post is something of a thought experiment - though totally without the experiment part. It's more that I took an idea and let it run its course. So... here goes.

Our understanding of sexuality is based primarily on the biological sex of the preferred partner. That is, our sexuality is, generally, determined by our preferred partner's genitalia. Very well. Our understanding of a mental/emotional/personality disorder is based on particular criteria: deviation from the norm, which is usually not very important unless this deviation causes harm to someone else; negative effects on the normal functioning of life including all types of relationships, enjoyment of hobbies, and performance at work; and the sufferer's personal distress, which is usually more important unless this disorder harms others. That is, child molestation, a deviation from the norm, may not distress the child molester, but it causes so much harm that it is still considered a disorder. Very well.

Heterosexuality - preference of a partner with different genitalia - is the norm by far. Homosexuality - preference of a partner with the same genitalia - is a deviation from that norm. However, the harm principle does not come into effect, so, in general, it is not considered a psychological disorder. Bisexuality - nonpreference? - is also a deviation, but again, no harm, no disorder. Intersexed poses a set of complications that the paradigm simply cannot handle. But, another problem arises: what of the people who are distressed by their preference? Could the distress principle (and the changes in normal functioning will certainly changed, and not just romantic relationships) make homosexuality a disorder? Indeed, it can. By the same token, it could make heterosexuality and bisexuality a disorder as well. Do we say that they've merely internalized the oppression of their social context (generally this would apply to homosexuality and bisexuality as I am not aware of a social context that prizes homosexual relationships above heterosexual relationships - aside from the "gay" subculture, perhaps)? In certain cases, perhaps, but are we really willing to ignore a person's own assertions that they simply want to prefer partners with different genitalia? Is that really not possible? To remove the question from that particular emotionally charged context, think of this analogy: are we really willing to say that every woman who chooses to cover in some way has internalized her culture's oppression of women? I'm not. So, what do we do?

So, we have this problem: from where does this distress come? And, since this preferences are biologically determined, what can we do about it? Notice, there's another problem as well: intersexed. Formerly called hermaphrodites or transsexuals (personally, I like the term hermaphrodite because it refers to the God Hermaphrodite, the child of Hermes and Aphrodite who was both male and female, but that's just me), the people who are intersexed cannot prefer partners with the same genitalia (who would that include?) or different genitalia (again, who would that include?). How do we define their sexuality? And here's what I come to: the paradigm simply cannot handle the problems any longer. A paradigm shift ought to occur.

Now, I'm including this on this blog as a Pagan view not because it is the "orthodox" Pagan view, but rather because it was a Pagan (or pagan?) way of viewing the world that allowed me to consider sexuality in this way. After all, as one Roman emperor said, what does it matter where you stick it? So, here's a theoretical suggestion.

The division of homosexual/bisexual/heterosexual is far too broad: each includes far too much of the population for the concepts to mean anything beyond their denotations. More criteria need to be applied, and the emphasis needs to shift. The first division I would make is between those who want to have sex and those who do not. Those who want to have sex are sexual (since I can't think of terms beyond what exists in the paradigm), and those who do not want to have sex are asexual. Asexual is a very, very small percentage, but it can be further divided: those who do not want to have sex because of some previous detrimental experience and those who simply lack the libido. And shades exist here: those who are sexually attracted but have no desire to have sex, those who feel no sexual attraction whatsoever, those who enjoy masturbation and those who do not, those who want a nonsexual, but intimate relationship and those who are not interested, etc, etc. Here, then, is where the asexual group stops.

Sexual group must be divided so that we can know more about them. I think a more important division here is motivations for sex as opposed to genitalia of the preferred partner. Does one have sex for reproduction? For pleasure? For domination? For submission? (Notice, rape or rape fantasies do not fit into our current paradigm: we cannot make sense of them. BDSM would fit into this category as well.) Pleasure/domination/submission can be further divided into particular methods and eventually into the genitalia of the preferred partner. In this way, I believe we can make better sense of sexual fetishes (and there, are a bunch - Rule 34 anyone?) than to label them are the effect of sexual repression or simply bizarre deviation.

Note that this new paradigm shifts emphasis from that which is external (the preferred partners genitalia) to that which is internal (personal motivation) which can, arguably, make room for intersexed people. It also takes into account those who do not wish to have sex at all (people who are basically thrown out of the current paradigm altogether). It also allows for something that the current paradigm doesn't allow: fluidity of sexuality. A person's sexuality shifts from year to year, something the current paradigm simply cannot accept. Motivations shift regularly, and we can accept that; it's built into our concept of motivations.

Now, it's true that this is by no means the best understanding of sexuality. It will have to be applied, observed, and we'll have to see just how well these concepts capture more than just their denotations in the groups to which they are applied. That's not the point though. The points are these: we take our genitalia (or rather, someone else's) way too seriously without taking other bodily bits and urges seriously enough and this way of thinking about sexuality, static and primarily based on hetero- vs. homosexual relationships, has more in common with Aquinas's way of thinking than our own.

Personally, I prefer my proposed way of thinking about sexuality to the paradigm, because mine does something the current paradigm does not: it includes me. I do enjoy masturbation, I do find people sexually attractive, I do want an intimate relationship at least emotionally and intellectuall, but I have absolutely no desire to actually have sex with anyone, regardless of biological sex. I am not intersexed, but since I do not have a preferred partner I can be neither heterosexual nor homosexual, nor anything in between - shades of bisexuality. How can I relate myself to those within the paradigm, than? I can't, at least not in the current paradigm.

Tell me what you think.

Until next time, blessed be.

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan...

2009-12-04T08:28:00.002-05:00

In Defense of Food starts out with an "eater's manifesto," which is, very simply: Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

I haven't finished reading this book quite yet, but already it excites me enough to post - even though I should be working on a class paper, a conference presentation, a German final, and a master's thesis... Pollan is basically arguing that the American way of thinking about food is an extraordinarily unhealthy way of thinking about food. This thought revolves around "nutrionism" - that is, a near obsession with the components that make up food, which allows for food to be engineered to be better than the earth made it, and requires government and scientific expertise to figure out. It has done us little but harm by introducing such things as trans fat (which originated with margarine, vegetable oil that remains solid at room temperature by filling it with hydrogen creating the unnatural fat trans fat) because of some basic misunderstandings of food: food is extraordinarily complex, we're supposed to eat a wide variety, and we just don't understand all of the nutrients and vitamins out there.

Most interesting for me is the idea of how effective this has been in the US - being a historian of American religion myself. Pollan connects it back to Kellogg and Fletcher - mastication, not masturbation - who argued that food should be primarily for health and sanitation. But, it isn't. Food is one of the best ways to preserve cultural identity - food preparation and eating is a communal thing governed by custom. This Pollan also links, correctly I think, to America's anxiety over immigrants and Americanization. That is, immigrants had all of these messy, smelly, bizarre foods that identified them as immigrants. These foods had to be given up for an American diet concerned more with nutrition and sanitation than with pleasure. Food is actually one of the most important cultural identifiers. When a culture moves to a new place, marriage and food practices are the last things to disappear in the process of acculturation (or inculturation, I'm not sure what the appropriate anthropological term is at the moment).

This brings me to a tangent, actually. Two things. I recall an article I read in one of Llewellyn's Magical Almanacs (I actually have almost all the ones that have been published) about a "Pagan diet." This is a diet connected to whole, natural foods based on natural availability instead of preservation and forced growth. That is, whatever would be available without refrigeration, preservatives, and greenhouse vegetables as close to whole as possible is what a Pagan ought to eat if a Pagan is to follow an authentic Pagan diet. At the time, I was terribly intrigued, but I was in high school and had little control over the family menu. The other thing: a Jewish friend invited me to a "winter holiday" party, where she requested everyone bring a traditional food - linked either to religious holiday or family tradition. I don't feel like buying the Spumante for mimosas or expending all the effort to make mock cheese souffle (I'm not sure what the "mock" part is - we always use real cheese) since it's an hour drive to her apartment and the souffle has to sit in the fridge overnight and then be popped into a hot oven. But, I couldn't think of a traditional food associated with Yule. Which brings me around to me point. Pagans are, generally speaking, well educated people who also generally feel the urge to develop a specific and distinct cultural and religious identity. If food is one of the most valuable vessels for this identity, why isn't there a movement in Paganism to develop a unique "Pagan" diet? I'm not saying necessarily that there ought to be - I don't intend to tell others just how Pagan they have to be, though I am certainly working to develop one myself now. What I am asking is if it seems intuitive that it would occur, what hasn't it? Is Paganism just far too American to develop a distinct diet?

Pollan has written other books all championing the simple life - a life of simple pleasures and gentle impact. I find this idea comforting. He's part of a cultural movement that is trying to move away from materialism not as the 60s and 70s did it by indulging in drugs, casual sex, and shallow Eastern religions (the American understanding of "Eastern" religions have been astoundingly off) - though positive things, certain political and cultural movements, were certainly very important - but through a simplification of life. Moving the goal away from the accumulation of wealth to the accumulation of security, from material objects to actual community. A life closer to the earth, a life farther from the ephemeral aspects of technology. I don't know, but I think that this may be the better life to live.

In short, I recommend this book.

Until next time, blessed be.

Nature v. Civilization...

2009-11-16T08:36:00.002-05:00

This morning, I was sitting at Starbucks, waiting for the department to open, sipping coffee, and feeling like an absolute yuppie. I pretended to read for class and watched the world outside the window. It's actually a pretty little scene. There's a nice sitting area with simple black patio chairs and tables, the sidewalk is covered in a simply geometric mosaic of red and black bricks, and trees are planted throughout. The trees on my side of the street were bright yellow, while those across were turning shades of red, though some were still green. Throughout the night, yellow leaves had sprinkled the sidewalk so that - it made me think of an urbanized "Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost. As I was watching, though, a man with a leafblower started blowing them into piles so a woman with a broom could sweep them up and through them in a trash can! (To be fair, I believe it was for recycling, but still...) It was as if the leaves were somehow a blemish. And they were, in retrospect. It marred the facade of utter control an urban city always attempts to maintain.

This all got me thinking about The Epic of Gilgamesh.

This is a fun story, but I won't belabor by giving a long summary. My point involves one theme with which the story plays: nature v. civilization. Gilgamesh represents civilization, Enkidu nature. When they meet at the threshold of the marketplace, they fight and are almost equally matched. Gilgamesh ultimately wins out, foreshadowing the conclusion of the epic. When Enkidu was first created he was practically invincible, very much immortal (Egyptians, and this was probably shared by all those who adopted the Epic, believed that nature was immortal. Whenever a hawk fell from the sky, another hawk would be there the next day). When he was domesticated by the harlot, he lost his strength and his immortality. He dies by the hands of the gods, and he curses the harlot for making him mortal (he later takes it back at the urging of Shamash). Depressed and bewildered, Gilgamesh gives up civilization to go out into nature and find immortality. He ultimately fails, and returns to civilization. In the end, then, civilization will always win out against nature. So the story goes...

This is half true, I think. Eventually, civilization will collapse. They always do. They always will. Nature will, one day, have its turn, and this is natural. Maybe it's a post-apocalyptic scenario, who knows. At this point, who cares? The point is this: everything has built into it the seed of its own destruction. Humans can only survive by have their cell regenerate through division. But, each time cells divide, humans age. When we reach an advanced enough age, we die. And thus the cycle continues. Communism (rather, communism above a population of about 200) requires totalitarianism (because humans can't trust more than 200 people), which eventually destroys it. Capitalism can breed monopolies, which in the end destroys capitalism. The point is that everything is supposed to fall, rise, fall, rise, fall, etc, etc. It is the unending pursuit of linear progress that will eventually be our undoing. Time is not linear (in fact, its relative). It may even be static (the eternal present, perhaps?).

Where am I going with all this?

In a roundabout way, I'm saying to relax. Go with the flow. Don't fight it. Taoism, if I'm not butchering it, has this concept wu-wei-wu. Doing without doing. It is becoming so in tune with the song of the universe, if you'll allow me to use more Western, modern, Pagan terms, that it is as if one does not appear to be doing anything at all. Hmm...

What do you think? Is time cyclical? Will civilization eventually lose its battle against nature? After all, you'll always see grass growing up through the sidewalk. Nothing is static. Everything changes. Is civilization a bad thing for trying to fight it?

I don't know. These are just the rambling thoughts I have at 7:30 in the morning, drinking Starbucks coffee.

Until next time, blessed be.

An Argument for Modesty...

2009-11-15T07:45:00.002-05:00

So, I have a great friend in school who teaches at the same time as I do. After we teach, he and I often meet for lunch to discuss our classes (a kind of debriefing so we can figure out what worked, what didn't, and how we might do things differently). Theoretically, we're of the same school. That was idiosyncratic. In Religious Studies, there's a huge argument about theory and method divided, as he and I see it, between scholars and theologians. We're the scholars, they're the data (which is not pejorative as some would think, for we recognize that we wear the data hat sometimes. I'm wearing it right now). So, we basically agree about the theory of the academic study of religion. Anyway...

So, one day we're walking back toward the department to pick up some people to go have sushi after teaching about veiling in Islam. I mentioned how one Muslim woman told me it was nice to cover completely, all by the face and hands, because then men don't or can't ogle women. He then told me about a conversation he had had with a Muslim woman about veiling.

Imagine, if you will, that you are a Muslim married to a Muslim. Because I'm a woman, I'll tell this story from the woman's viewpoint. From a young age, maybe seven to even ten, you've been covering your hair along with everything but your face and hands. No man has seen your hair since that time. Your husband has never seen any woman's hair at all, except yours. When he comes home at night, you uncover your hair, knowing full well that he has only ever seen your hair and that he will be the only man who sees it. There's something extraordinarily sensual about that, something, my friend's Muslim conversationalist said, that has no parallel in Western society.

I'm all for the right kind of feminism (Sweet God and Goddess, I hate fem-nazis). Women are just capable as men of thinking rationally, poetically, of leading. Women don't need to be endlessly sheltered by men. We women in the West do have a disadvantage, though, or at least, we women in the American South. I recall being told by multiple men and boys that merely because I am a woman I am innately incapable of doing certain things, like thinking rationally. We women, in this line of thinking, are only able to do "woman's work" like cleaning, cooking, and raising children. (In other societies, this "woman's work" has not been so nearly devalued as it has in the West, fortunately for those women.) We have to prove ourselves. Because of this, we fear the consequences that adopting such modest dress would have. Rightfully so, perhaps. But, not entirely, I think.

Certain things have power because of how long they last. Bones, teeth, nails, and hair last longer than any other part of our bodies after death. It sounds outdated, even to modern Pagans, but there's something there. Maybe we can't be controlled like zombies by hair, nail clippings, or baby teeth, but they tell a story about us. Everything we ingest, every disease we have, can be read from our nails, our hair, and, up until the time we lose them, our teeth - perhaps best in our hair. I often wonder if anything would be different if we had one braid of hair that is never cut. Maybe hair ought to be protected, only to be shown at certain times - during rituals, festivals, magick, or to our significant others...

Beyond such metaphysical musings, though, there's a certain power that exists in rarity. It's amazing how bored we get with simple nudity, as if we've become so used to seeing the human body that we must do something new and bizarre to arouse any sort of reaction (have you ever heard of rule 34?). Stop drinking coffee for a good six weeks and then have a cup - you'll be up for 24 hours without stopping. Maybe if we were willing to have this modest dress we would discover once again the sheer power of the human body. After all, what's exciting about a skyclad person if he or she is basically naked all the time anyway? Skyclad is supposed to jar us from our sense of the mundane, to make us recognize that this is a new time, a new place. It is supposed to signal to use that we are doing something different. Imagine how much more it would be if we adopted a modest dress?

It's like cursing or blessing, too. My father rarely talks. When he does, you know he has something to say. Not so with my sister, who is just nervous with silence and talks incessantly. Cussing just doesn't have the same effect when you cuss all the time. If you hear someone say "God bless you" every time you see them, the blessing just doesn't seem to mean as much. (It's almost as if some people in this country are addicted to blessing, have you ever noticed that?) The less we use it, the less we introduce something into mundane, everyday life, the more power it can have.

In conclusion, I've been trying an experiment. I've basically stopped watching TV from Hallows' until Midwinter and already I notice an effect. First off, the movie I watched the other night kept my attention so much better even though I'd seen it hundreds of times, and I actually noticed things I'd never noticed before now. Come the new year, I'm going to try another experiment. I already dress rather modestly, but I'm going to start covering my hair. I want to wait until the new year so that my students don't think I've lost my mind showing up most of the way through the semester with a scarf around my head. I also want to have some time building up my confidence at home so that I can take the stares and comments when I see them again (One sister in the Order was very much offended when one brother offered to get my a veil for my habit and I accepted. She shook her head in shame and told me, quite loudly and in front of everyone, that I shouldn't. After that confrontation - this sister is very confrontational without meaning to be, she's a Taurus - we basically just never brought it up again.)

I can't wait to see what happens, how it feels when I uncover my hair at Candlemas and Springtide. Maybe I'll just keep it up forever. We'll see.

Until next time, blessed be.

Hallows' Eve

2009-11-06T13:14:00.003-05:00

So, I'm way behind, so please forgive me.

Two years ago, a few days after my birthday and a few days before Hallows' Eve/Samhain my mother called me to tell me that my dog had to be put down. Rusty was a sweet dog - the best you could get. He was loving, protective, he would even wait to make sure everyone was in bed before going to sleep under my parents' bed. He had gone into the vet because he wasn't eating. He went into surgery, and he wasn't allowed to wake up because of a giant tumor. It was completely unexpected. Naturally, I cried, both at school and that weekend when I came home and Rusty wasn't waiting. I remember being angry that day, though, at just how beautiful it was. The trees were changing, but still had their leaves, and the sky was that bright, bright, clear blue that it gets every Autumn. Over the previous three years, I had lost a grandmother and a great grandmother, but their deaths were expected. Their health had declined over a long time, and both were ready to die (My great grandmother wanted to die before she went blind; she had glaucoma. My grandmother had lost most of her family, including her husband and eldest son, and was ready to join them). I didn't cry for them as much. All three sit on my altar though.

Samhain is the third and final Harvest Festival. It sits opposite of May Day/Beltane (or one of its many other spellings), and as its opposite, its focus is death. All things that are born must die; all things that are created must be destroyed. It is the natural cycle. On this day, the Godman is sacrificed for the third time in what is sometimes called the Meat Harvest (often, Celts would slaughter a number of cattle on this day and preserve the meat; a reduced herd was easier to keep alive over the winter). He goes to the Underworld and opens the gate, some say, allowing the dead to walk to earth again, and return home.

This idea of the dead coming back is problematic for those who believe in reincarnation. After all, the dead are simply reborn. Still, spirits walk the earth, and this is a day to honor those who have gone ahead.

This is also a day of mystery. Symbolism for this day include masks, jack-o-lanterns, bats, cats, moons, mirrors, and monsters. In this chaotic time when spirits walk the earth, the veil thins. We can ask and be answered. It's a good day for divination, but it's also a good day to let anything that is read die. Some things we have been attached to for too long can be let go. It's also a time to conquer fear. Real and imagined monsters exist, they emerge out of the darkness to frighten us when we are most vulnerable. They are out in full force on Halloween (both the real and imagined creepies). Goblins and ghouls do exist, and courage doesn't been being incautious, but it does mean being realistic. Confront and conquer fears on this day.

It is a day that identity as it is is disregarded and a new identity may be taken on. It is a day of anarchy when the dead return, people cease to be who they are, and chaos roams the earth. In some way, it reenacts both the beginning and the end (and I do mean the end can be reenacted) of time - creation emerged from chaos and will fall into it again. A new year can be born after this day when order returns. No wonder its often identified as the New Year.

This post was a little chaotic too, how terribly appropriate. I hope everyone had a wonderful Samhain.

Until next time, blessed be.

Stupid question...

2009-10-13T08:12:00.002-04:00

Okay, I pride myself on never asking a stupid question. Don't listen to what your teachers tell you; there are stupid questions. Usually these are the questions that reveal how little research has been done, or how little attention has been paid. For example, you listen to a person explain how there are hard-polytheists and soft-polytheists (and hard- and soft-duotheists) in modern Paganism. You hear the person explain that some Pagans (generally the soft-polytheists and -duotheists) believe that each God and Goddess is an emanation of an overarching God - often the All or the Godhead- that is simply too large to even begin to understand. You hear the person explain that while they believe this, they still say that one cannot work with this overarching God, instead you work with the emanations - the Gods and Goddesses, perhaps even people, animals, spirits, plants, etc, etc depending upon just how animistic they are. You also hear this person define and explain the differences between polytheism, duotheism, henotheism, monotheism, monism, and perhaps even animism, pantheism, and panentheism. Then you hear to person to whom the original speaker was speaking ask, "But, doesn't that just mean that Pagans are monotheistic?" That is a stupid question.

I don't like asking stupid questions, but it's one that, regardless of the research I've done, I simply cannot answer. So, I turn to you, my lovely community, and ask a question that's going to sound horribly, horribly neophyte-esque and terribly fluff-bunny, but it's one that has been bothering me for quite some time. So, here goes...

For what is a wand supposed to be used? Now, let me explain before you shake your head in shame and think "Christ, and she's writing a blog." I have my athame, my beautiful little athame with a black handle and Damascus steel, which I often use to cast my circle and to release it. I use it to help focus the energy, and, though not as often as I should, I use it to help store energy. It's also helpful in severing ties - when I get a new stone or a ritual implement, it's often helpful to cut previous ties so that they don't pull away or distort what I'm trying to do. I don't use it when invoking (or evoking, I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is (being a semantic one), and I never recall which one referred to summoning demons during the Satanic Panic) a God or a Goddess or a spirit, because it just seems rude. After all, I wouldn't want anyone point a knife at me. So, I get that the athame has a specific use. Most importantly, I think, is when I use the athame as symbolic of the God (or at least of the phallus) during a symbolic Great Rite (it is, after all, difficult to have a less symbolic Great Rite when you're by yourself). But, I can't tell what the specific use for wands is.

Wands can direct and focus energy, too. Plus, it's nice to have a balance of the elements on my altar - I prefer balance, and I have a weird thing about having full sets. Chalice for water, pentacle for earth, athame for fire (or air, whichever you prefer), cauldron for spirit, and the wand would represent the remaining masculine element (air for me, fire for some others). However, I don't like having something on my altar that is basically useless. If the wand stores energy and focuses energy, but has no other specific purpose, well, the athame does that as well. In a way, then, it appears that one might as well just use the athame and forget the wand. I prefer multi-purpose tools, anyway. But then I have a problem. What's supposed to represent air?

Is this something anyone else has considered, or do I just have too much time to think about these things? That's a fine answer to my question, actually, I get it a lot. A more productive answer (for me), however, is to tell me just how you use your wand (and maybe your athame, too). So, if you would be so kind...

Until next time, blessed be.

Mojave Desert Cross Memorial part 2

2009-10-12T10:07:00.004-04:00

So, I posted about this earlier, and I'm still not entirely sure how I feel about this case. The case is Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, et al. v. Buono, and a former employee of the Mojave Desert Preserve and a Catholic. The cross stands on government property (does this mean the government is edging dangerously close to establishing a religion?), and other religious symbols (specifically Buddhist) have been denied. That is, at one time, it was proposed that a Buddhist symbol go up as well to memorialize America war dead, but was rejected. By rejecting another religious symbol, was government establishing? There was a land transfer in an attempt to sidestep these issues, but it was more of a "wink-wink, nudge-nudge" land transfer, where the government knew very well that the cross would stay up.

One of the major questions is standing. Does Buono have legal standing to sue? Some say yes (he has an interest in the law transfer since he has an injunction against the cross) and some say know (simply being offended is not enough). And can a cross - a major Christian symbol - become generic and represent us all?

Supreme Justice Antonin Scalia, shockingly, could not grasp the idea that a cross couldn't represent everyone. The man who threw out all preceding jurisprudence after Reynolds v. US on free exercise and establishment in Smith v. Oregon(though he attempted to argue that he was not throwing it all out, but that it was the logical next step and failed), he could not grasp that a cross was a Christian symbol and therefore could not represent everyone. Shocker. Needless to say, I'm not a fan of Scalia.

The big question here seems to be about hegemonic effect. Can the government really continue to accept that representing the majority (and I don't believe there is any doubt that the majority of WWI soldiers were Christian) but ignoring all the minorities is an acceptable step? It's coercive, subtly so, but still, coercive. In a way, it says that regardless of who you are, if you are American your primary symbol must be a Christian cross. The primary symbol for Americans - at least for soldiers who have died in a foreign war - is a Christian cross, regardless of profession and practice. That is one thing the cross says. But it's certainly not the only thing the cross says. At the same time, though, how much real harm does a cross in the middle of no where really cause? On the other hand, it's not about what a single instance does, but the cumulative effect of all these instances. And round and round you go...

I can't wait to see what the Supreme Court says on this. Let me hear what you think.

For some more info, check these out:

Baltimore Sun

ACLJ

Democratic Underground

Until next time, blessed be.

Autumntide...

2009-09-23T09:42:00.002-04:00

Or Mabon, whichever you prefer. There are some days where I wish The Wicker Man were real... well, sans the luring a good, honest, Episcopalian (or was he Presbyterian? I can't recall) cop to his death in a giant... wicker man because the crops failed the year before... But, living in a community in which every can participate in the same holidays and what not, everyone named after some plant or herb... Instead, I'm living on the Bible belt with a God-fearing Christian family. Celebrations are small. Autumntide, though, Autumntide ought to be big!

I don't like celebrating Thanksgiving myself. After I learned that it didn't really all work out like they told us in elementary school, and the US government took to expelling Native Americans from their lands, and, you know, genocidal practices, I just can't put my heart into it. So, Autumntide seems like the best place to put all of the good that is represented in Thanksgiving.

Autumntide is the second of the three harvest festivals - the grape harvest, I've heard it called. The Godman is dying for the second time (body, blood - bread, wine, who had that symbolism first?), which means that this Sabbat does have an aspect of sacrifice and even self-sacrifice. This is, by no means, martyrdom, of course. Rather, it's just the natural flow. We age and die, teaching what we can so that the younger generation may thrive. The seasons pass from youth to flourishing to old age, to a time of sleep in winter as a natural succession...

There is also both a sense of celebration - harvest - but also preparation. Things are beginning to get cold here in Georgia. The nighttime temperatures are beginning to dip, the sun if beginning to fade - noticeably. In places further north, there might even begin to be frosts. Remember, this is an Equinox, too (opposite Springtide/Ostara), so balance exists here. And, it is the balance between celebration of what has been and preparation for what will come.

Here is where we begin to see the value of Thanksgiving shorn from its imperialistic tendencies natural to its imagery of Pilgrims and Indians. Family, celebration, remembering what has been, giving thanks, and spreading the wealth, if you will. Remembering is an important moment here, but it's a different remembering from what we saw with Lammas and what we will see with Hallow's Eve. In Lammas, it was a personal remembering. Mabon is far more communal. It's taking stock of how the family and the community has grown over the year - what we are reaping from our attempts. It's a recounting of trials, errors, and successes from this year and years pass, and it's a passing of that knowledge onto the next generation.

That's where we see the balance with preparation. Most practically, winter is coming up. Make sure you have warm clothes, a nicely stocked cellar (this is when I start making big pots of stews and soups to put in the freezer so when I get home I can just thaw some out and have a nice meal), make sure you've got firewood, that your garden is ready for the winter, that you've got heat, so on and so forth. Emotionally, there is a need to prepare for the depression that comes naturally with less light and colder temperatures. And it preparing the next generation for what they will face in the coming year. The older of us have been there, done that. They can guide the younger of us through it. That's part of having the community, of bring family together, so that this teaching and learning can take place.

I know that many of you were busy, but I hoped you enjoyed Autumntide (or will, if you're waiting for this weekend like I am).

Until next time, blessed be.

The Pagan Census...

2009-09-13T07:08:00.003-04:00

So, I happened to glance through all my blog links, and I found the best post on Chas Clifton's blog Letter from Hardscrabble Creek. I'm not sure I've mentioned Helen A. Berger before, but I've read some of her work on Neo-paganism in America (like, Voices from the Pagan Census with Evan A. Leach and Leigh S. Schaffer and A Community of Witches).

According to Chas Clifton, Berger with other researchers are trying to update the census! So, go and take it! But please, be honest and don't try to take it more than once. We want this census to reflect our community accurately.

Take the survey! And spread the word!

Aliens...

2009-09-12T12:39:00.002-04:00

So, a few months ago, perhaps, Sr. Erin asked me what I thought about aliens. More specifically, she asked me how I thought the existence of aliens - extraterrestrials - would affect my religious philosophy, if my religious philosophy would apply to them. At the time, I said that I didn't think that spending much time on that subject would be terribly helpful. After some quick calculations, I figured it would take about 40,000 years to reach the closest star using the fastest spacecraft available to us (even if that calculation is off by several millenia, it's still a huge number). Ethics, I thought were more important. Of course, there's no reason to expect that aliens would be less technologically advanced, but, then again, there's no reason to expect them to be more so. After all, the universe is massive. The space between this solar system and the next is, without meaning to joke, astronomical.

Then I started thinking about it some more as I discussed things with my father the other day. We were talking about how it seemed arrogant for humans to assume that a construction of their creation - calendars, specifically - would effect the universe. After all, my father said, we live on a tiny blue planet, circling a small star on the edge of one of innumerable galaxies. How insignificant. My father thinks that even if there is life at there that is recognizable to us, the sources of life are so far apart that we simply will never run into each other.

Still, what if earthlings did run into extraterrestrials?

So, my cat woke me at 5 this morning because he absolutely could not wait any longer to be fed. As I tried to get back to sleep, I started to think about how I imagine the creation of the world. Here is an abbreviated and somewhat tragically un-poetic version:

First, there is the All. From the all emanated the four elements (earth, fire, water, air) and the two perfect halves, the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine (here, perhaps, is where spirit exists as the fifth element). The Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine were perfect halves of the all, having nothing in common, since they embodied opposite poles of polarities - dark and light, night and day, death and life, creation and destruction, winter and summer, so on and so forth. From these two halves - and the other four elements - all that exists came. Everything that exists exists as a mixture between earth, fire, water, air, and spirit - masculine and feminine.

What if, I thought, other worlds do not fall on that line? What if reproduction is not done by the combination of male and female? What if another dividing line is important? And what if it falls in three ways, or four, or five? After all, from what I recall, not all chemical reactions happen the same one every planet (it's been a while since I've read this, and I can't find the source). Why should all planets that support life work like ours? What if the All emanated in different ways for different planets?

So, my answer is no - if there are aliens, my religious philosophy might not necessarily apply to them. My religious philosophy works here on the planet Earth - because it comes from the natural world that exists on the planet Earth! Other planets would, therefore, naturally produce another religious philosophy.

I don't doubt that there are problems. Potentially, if there are lifeforms elsewhere in the universe, this "otherizes" them ruthlessly. At the same time, though, it recognizes the limitations of the religious philosophy. So, give and take.

Until next time, blessed be.

A few thoughts on humility...

2009-09-05T15:29:00.002-04:00

It's been a while... I've been busy with school, though it's not like I've been thinking about this blog. I think of this blog as a place where I can express my thoughts. Somehow, thinking that someone might read it and think about it and maybe acknowledge or argue with it makes it far more appealing than working in a journal. So, it's nice to get a little time every once in a while to come back to it. Unfortunately, I'll be a bit negative today...

In one conversation, someone said that their idea of God brought them humility. I said responsibility. And I was asked, is humility the opposite of responsibility? To some degree, yes.

Humility means "the quality or state of being humble," (which means, according to merriam-webster.com):

1 : not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive
2 : reflecting, expressing, or offered in a spirit of deference or submission
3 a : ranking low in a hierarchy or scale : insignificant, unpretentious b : not costly or luxurious.

So, we have humility as the opposite of pride or arrogance. It means submission, and in certain cases requires insignificance. And one wonders why I feel repulsed by the concept of humility. I almost feel my point has been made for me.

I've been told that humility is really recognizing one's own limits. That this requires one to depend upon others. This dependence on others will move us to help others in turn. Nietzsche, I've been told, would think of this as selfishness. La Rochefoucauld would say that everything we do is because of selfish desires. I don't disagree with them. But, does it automatically follow that just because we need others means we'll work to help others? Have we forgotten how petty and mean-spirited people are naturally? Instead, I say embrace the selfishness. But, I'll come back to that momentarily.

Humility suggests to me a sort of... non-action. It's an acknowledgment of limits that cannot be breached. In some way, when one humbly admits their limits, it becomes non-humble to attempt to move beyond those limits. After all, if one is humble about one's limits, why would one have the arrogance to try to reach or overcome those limits? How could one? By delineating limits in humility, you can only overcome them in arrogance.

So, we have a non-action that completely excludes growth and improvement. It's not an acknowledgment of our own abilities (look at the denotation, there's no mention of that). Knowing what you can and cannot do right now is just realism. But, back to the selfishness now that I've jumped away from it.

We all agree, or at least most Pagans and Witches to whom I've spoken agree, that we're all infused with the spirit of the All. After all, it's the All. We're pantheistic - if the Divine is in all things, empowers and energizes all things, why not us as well? (Which is one reason why I do not believe in an eternal individual soul, not that I think I've gone too much into it at this point.) We're animistic, too. It's the same spirit in us that exists in all things. Understanding, than, that everything is a part of ourselves, and we are a part of everything else - that the same Self fills us all - than selfishness takes on a new meaning. As Starhawk said - in quoting someone else - if you work for yourself, you will soon find your self everywhere.

In a way, this was a way to put out their my idea without being dismissed. In another, it's a way to develop it further. And finally, it's a way to put it out there so someone could point out its flaws. As Socrates said, knowledge comes not from reading, but from conversation.

Until next time, blessed be...

A question of ethics...

2009-08-15T07:23:00.004-04:00

I woke up at 4:00 this morning, and I couldn't go back to sleep. For me, that generally means that there is something bothering me that just dreaming about won't help me get through. Unfortunately, many of the times this happens I can't place what it is that is bothering me. Whatever it was this time, though, it was really bothering me; I had been unable to sleep for more than five hours for several nights in a row, a very rare occurrence for me.

This morning, I just got the urge to re-read a fantastic book: Saba Mahmood's Politics of Piety. I have no doubt that I've mentioned it before now, but allow me to say again that this book is wonderful. It's a book about women in Islam, and quite frankly it's one of the only I've encountered that have not be either entirely encyclopedic (al-Muhaddithat merely listed names of women who have transmitted haddith) or simply apologetic. What interested me this morning about this book was its discussion of Aristotelian ethics (or rather, Foucault's reinterpretation of Aristotelian ethics) and Kantian ethics. The more I read it, the more I grasped over what I was troubling myself.

According to Mahmood, and I do her no justice in this instance, Kant argued that morality could not be habitual. Instead, actions were only moral when they occurred despite or in spite of habit and instinct. Moral choices and moral actions were those motivated by reasoned will, "morality proper was [for Kant] primarily a rational matter that entailed the exercise of the faculty reason, shorn of the specific context (of social virtues, habit, character formation, and so on) in which the act unfolded," (Mahmood, 25). Mahmood adds that this Kantian conception of ethics displaces an Aristotelian one in which "morality was both realized through, and manifest in, outward behavorial forms," (Mahmood, 25). In other words, Kant moved morality primarily to the will, whereas Aristotelian ethics were far more concerned with actual practices.

Foucault developed an Aristotelian inspired ethics. "Foucault's conception of positive ethics is Aristotelian in that it conceives of ethics not as an Idea, or as a set of regulatory norms, but as a set of practical activities that are germane to a certain way of life," (Mahmood, 27). Ethics in this conception is concerned with what ethics do, not what they mean. Ethics become far more local, and far less universal.

There is a problem with universality in that it is... not true. But, the West has become obsessed with the universal. I look forward to reading a book by Tomoko Masuzawa entitled The Invention of World Religions; Or, How European Universalism was Preserved in the Language of Pluralism. From what I've read of this book, it challenges many conceptions within the modern study of religion because they are based on hegemonic Christian scholarship. Universalism is problematic because it defines an essence (that essence being Urmonotheismus in early religious studies). Whenever an instance occurs where this essence is difficult to find, that instance is regarded as a degenerated or perverted form. Female is a degenerated or perverted male, black is a degenerated or perverted white, homosexual is a degenerated or perverted heterosexual, polytheism is a degenerated or perverted monotheism. You can see just how wrong that is. Universality in this sense is an arrogant conception of reality in which there can only be one way of life - every other way is simply wrong. In a previous post, I said that fanaticism occurs when one believes their truth is fact. Truth is right for individual groups, fact is right for everyone. On this path toward fanaticism lies universalism. "My truth is universal fact." You see the problem.

This universal ethic lying in Kant - Kant argues that reason, which can be the only motivation for morality, is universal and valid for everyone; a maxim can only be adopted at valid for oneself if one would have everyone adopt this maxim - works in a similar fashion was any other universalism. Of course, you also read La Rouchefoucauld Maxims and realize that every moral decision of reasoned will is self-interested. Starhawk made an interesting point by saying (or quoting) that if you work for yourself, you'll begin to find yourself everywhere. That's kind of beside the point, though. Anyway, Kant's ethics argues that morality is universal - morality is unconcerned, than, with differences in history between two cultures. Moreover, morality can only exist in the head where reason resides. It does not, therefore, actually require any action. This is problematic. If morality doesn't do anything, what difference does it actually make? Actually, all theories of ethics do something, it's really a matter of what is important - what it does or what it means.

I'll give you an example. Let's ignore a lot of the really high-minded discussion of ethics and say that there is really only two types of ethics - deontological and consequential. Consequential ethics say that what matters is the consequence. That is, what is important is what the ethics do. Deontological ethics on the other hand say that what defines something as ethical is how much it confines itself to a priori rules. That is, what is important is what the ethics mean. Here's an example of how they work.

Let's say you're in a prison camp. The warden of the camp is a very, very ruthless man, and he gathers everyone and calls you to a platform. He hands you a knife, shows you a small child, and tells you that if you do not torture the small child with the knife that he will kill one hundred prisoners. (Actually, as long as the number of the prisoners is larger than one, the scenario doesn't change.) You know the warden will do it, too, because this sort of challenge is a regular occurrence, and he has killed thousands. So, you must decide either to torture the small child or to cause the warden to kill one hundred people. The deontologist would say that it is always wrong to torture a small child, so the one hundred people must die. The consequentialist would say that you must torture the child, because the consequence of the death of one hundred others is unacceptable.

Deontology requires universal moral laws that exist out of time and history. Frankly, that's ridiculous to me. Oh, there are laws built into the mechanics of the universe, like two bodies of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time. However, there are no moral laws built into the universe. Here's why: you cannot, period, disobey the laws of physics. Two objects cannot in any way occupy the same space at the same time. You cannot defy gravity, that which does not have any mechanical means to remain aloft must fall. Physical laws simply cannot be broken. However, it is possible to break moral laws. Most of us agree that killing another person is wrong under most circumstances (for example, killing is only acceptable when it is done during war or in the defense of oneself or others). However, it can still be done. Stealing is wrong, but it can still be done. So, while we say it is wrong, we recognize that it can be done. Because it can be done, the law against stealing (killing, or anything else) cannot be a physical (and therefore) universal law. What that means? Every moral law is culturally bound. Aristotelian ethics, an ethics concerned with bodily practice, is therefore the only type of ethics that offers anything practical to the person.

I believe that this universalism - along with many other things both good and bad - come from early Christian thought, specifically Pauline theology. I won't go too far into it for now, because I've gone on and on already, but suffice it to say that this concern with the numen - the intangible, immeasurable interiority that may not exist - and the universal - at the expense of the different and the individual - has caused some concepts in Enlightenment that have done us and the world perhaps more harm than good. Or, more mild and perhaps more accurate, this nonphysical, universal focus has had its time, and it is time to move on.

I'll go on more later, but for now I'm sticking with an embodied, practical Aristotelian ethics.

Until next time, blessed be.

Excellent blog...

2009-08-09T17:34:00.002-04:00

Okay, I know this is totally unrelated, but I just love this blog I found. It's Bakerella. Like this blog, it's on blogspot.com. I love baking myself, but I don't get the opportunity much. I always have to spend a good chunk of money to get the ingredients (my family has never kept a well stocked pantry, the only thing we keep around is cans of tomatoes) and my mother and sisters get annoyed when there's plenty of sweet snacks hanging around when everyone's staying. As if I'm forcing them to eat the snacks.

Anyway, this blog offers fantastic recipes, clever decorations, and plenty of helpful tips for baking. Enjoy!

Until next time, blessed be.

How fanaticism happens...

2009-08-06T10:31:00.002-04:00

In the scholarly study of religion - religious studies (imagine that) - there's a lot of argument about what we (and I'm wearing my scholar hat right now) study. Some say we study something beyond empirical study - the essential core of all religious experience. I, and some of my colleagues, generally dismiss these people as evidence. That is, these are people to be studied, theologians like any other. Not that that is necessarily a bad thing. They just aren't being religious studies scholars right then. Some say we're studying a very specific and unique social phenomenon. Fair, but the problem with that is that the reified (in other words, to treat an abstraction as a concrete object) concept of religion is unique to the European world. Wilfred Cantwell Smith was very good at showing just how unique that concept is. Ninian Smart argued that as religious studies scholars, we study worldviews. William Paden makes a good argument as well in Interpreting the Sacred. Here, he points out that every worldview emphasizes particular things in reality, and ignores others. Every lens through which a person can look at the world does not encompass the world.

So, here's what I got from reading all of these religious studies theorists: as a post-modernist, I recognize that no worldview encompasses or understands reality as it actually is. Instead, each worldview - each lens filters reality. I think it's important to point out as well that simply combining all lenses will not necessary give us the whole picture. There's always a chance that all of them are leaving the some of the same things out. Reality is reality - how we perceive reality is always different.

What that means is that everything is a social construction. Day, night, week, month, year, logic, story, truth, fiction, myth, love, beauty, masculine, feminine, man, woman, homosexual, heterosexual, agency, strength - all of these have an origin somewhere in human language. There are those who would say that homosexual and heterosexual are real - but they aren't anymore than anything else. No one had the concept of homosexual or heterosexual until Freud. Oh, but they may have had the concept before, just not the word, right? Wrong. There is no word in Greek (the New Testament was written in Greek) that corresponds one-to-one with the English word homosexual. (Next time you get into that argument with some Christian homophobe, there you go. Literally, the words have rather... bizarre meanings in English, and the belief is that concern was not in the fact that men were having sex with men, but that they were doing so in a ritual setting for pagan Gods.) Saba Mahmood wrote a wonderful book called Politics of Piety which examines the problems with the Western understanding of ethics and agency when applied to Islam. Jonathan Leer's Radical Hope is another interesting one, though I doubt its anthropological accuracy. Sam D. Gill's Mother Earth and Susan Friend Harding's The Book of Jerry Falwell are other great books that illustrate just how different cultures construct their understanding of reality. (Just for fun, other good books include J. Z. Smith's Imagining Religion, William Paden's Interpreting, W. C. Smith's The Meaning and End of Religion, and Bruce Lincoln's Theorizing Myth are also great.)

Okay, so I've talked a lot, but that's what scholars do. Allow me to move beyond my scholarly purview and put on my philosophical Witch hat. There are two things: fact and truth, and there is not a one-to-one correlation. Facts are like... raw data. They don't really mean anything. They just are. The sun rises every morning. Actually, a ball of burning hydrogen and helium appears to rise from the perspective of the earth at predictable intervals. "Rising" and "morning" and even "sun" are are interpretations. A bachelor is an unmarried man. We know that because that's how we define it. That's a fact. But from there, it's all interpretation. In fact, that's technically an interpretation, too. How do we know what "marriage" is? And what precisely qualifies as being "married"? Facts are scant and fairly mundane. Truth, though, is meaning. When we place meaning to fact, we have truth.

Here's a fact: humans appear to exist in primarily two different physical ways that are labeled "male" and "female". It is true that there appears to be a spectrum with the highest grouping existing around "male" and "female", about half for each, though not completely. That's a fact - to a degree. Before that can be a "fact" one must define "male" and "female" before we can even measure the spectrum of human biological distinction, even if that merely consists of the length of genitalia. But, the fact that length of genitalia is important at all is a social construction. Why is genitalia so important? Really think about that, and you'll begin to see how arbitrary it really is.

What does that mean? There are very, very few facts. In fact, that most important fact is this: the only thing we can really, really know beyond a shadow of a doubt is the subjective existence of the self. That is, all I can really know is that I exist because I can experience things. I can be pretty certain that there is an objective reality out there - but, there could be an evil demon, or I could just be a brain in the vat, and I'm being made to experience the world as it appears to be. Think Matrix, if you must. Or, there could be no physical realm. I could be a nothingness that experiences a physical world like a dream. Everything beyond the subjective reality of the self is kinda like conjecture. Not completely conjecture, as reality seems to be fairly consistent. But, as Einstein said, reality is but an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. As I said, truth isn't fact. Truth is meaning. It is true that there are parts of the world - qualities, elements, actions, even forms of government - that are feminine and parts that are masculine and parts that are a mixture between the two. That's truth. It has meaning. It may not be a fact...

It is when fact and truth are confused, when they are equated, that fanaticism occurs. There are scientific fanatics, Christian fanatics, Jewish, Islamic, Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, Neo-Nazi, Conservative, Liberal, so on and so forth fanatics, and these are the ones who do not recognize that their construction of reality isn't actually reality. These are the ones who are arrogant enough to presume that they know how things really are and that everyone else is fooled, ignorant, stupid, or some combination of the three. It can be rather mundane, it can start out rather pedestrian, but fanaticism almost always ends in devastating consequences.

There's no reason to get up in arms. In my acquaintance, most people I know are willing to allow others to believe as they choose - to construct their lens as they see fit. Others tend not to interfere. Just keep this in mind: your lens is not reality, your truth is not objective fact. Neither is anyone else's. However, we can only have meaning with our lenses and with our truths, and we need meaning.

Until next time, blessed be.

Lammas

2009-08-04T13:16:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I'm a few days behind, but August 1 was Lammas (or according to the Celtic tradition, Lughnasadh - I prefer not to use words I can't pronounce, though). I had a fun one, myself - I finally told my parents I'm a Witch. They took it well, though my mother did warn me to be careful of Satan. Anyway, back to the Sabbat.

From all that I've heard, Lammas is the day honoring the Celtic deity Lugh. Festivals and fairs as well as contests were and are commonly held on this day. Lammas is the first Harvest Festival, sometimes called the Grain Harvest so John Barleycorn is a common deity as well. (I personally love the various version of Ode to John Barleycorn, and they are very appropriate for this holiday).

Lammas is the first sabbat in the waning half of the year, opposite of Candlemas. The Goddess is pregnant and the Godman's power is declining. Still, He has a great deal of power as is evident in the still blazing temperatures throughout August (it's still hitting 90 here in Georgia). Come Mabon, though, temperatures will be falling, the days will be noticeably shorter, and the Godman's power will be significantly weaker.

Think of Lammas as the Last Great Hurrah of the Godman. Candlemas is beginnings, Lammas is beginnings of ends. The time will come when you will have to examine what has been and let things come to an end. Right now, though, is a recounting and reliving of the great exploits of our lives. It's a time to show how strong, how creative, and how wise we are by competing against one another. But, as it is a time of waning, it is also a time of letting things go. Once we've had our fun, it's time to relax, sit back, and consider our accomplishments. Now, this is just the beginning - the next two sabbats will continue this practice and we will have to confront all that has taken place in the last year.

Have fun, relive what has happened just one last time, but once it's done, let it go.

Until next time, blessed be.

Updates on the garden...

2009-07-28T09:26:00.003-04:00

Okay, so, memory is catching up with me. That is, I now remember why it might have been a bad idea for me to experiment with vegetable container gardening. It's not that I have a black thumb... it's kinda green with a bunch of brown splotches. I can keep hardy plants alive, it's the more fickle ones that ought not be left in my care...

My tomato plant appears to be developing a bad case of fungus. One of the books I have suggests that it might be late blight - which, if that's the case, there's virtually no hope. In hindsight, I think that careless watering might have been the cause as well. So, make sure when you water that you don't get water all over the leaves and stem! I've treated it with Organicide (which is supposed to treat fungus as well as pests), but I don't have too much hope for it.

My two remaining plants, the peppers and the eggplant, are doing well. So, apparently they are hardier than the tomato and squash. Of course, I recall reading in Mother Earth magazine that tomatoes, despite being very popular, are also very finicky. I almost wonder whether I should continue to attempt tomatoes in containers. I know it's possible, but they will certainly require more attention. It's not that I'm not eager to grow plants - I really am. But, as Isaac Bonewits has said, sincerity is no substitute for competence. Live and learn, I suppose. Next year, it'll go better.

Until next time, blessed be.

To thine own self...

2009-07-25T09:59:00.002-04:00

Recently, I was speaking to some fellow monks, and the discussion of gender came up. I daresay that we have some very progressive monks in IROCS, for the discussion of gender is contentious to say the least and some do not even like to label anything by gender. Even designating someone as "female" or "male" may become fishy (though it has not as of yet). I attempted to explain my personal view on it and the purpose of calling such and such a trait (and it really is only personality traits we're talking about, though once when we had this conversation, colors arose as well) masculine or feminine - that is, that nurturing both traits to the point of being spiritual hermaphroditic (and I know some find the term "hermaphrodite" offensive, but as I do occasionally call on the child of Hermes and Aphrodite, Hermaphrodite (imagine that), I am attempting here to reference that God). I should note that I am attempting to write out what I actually believe in this area, though it's turning into a rather long and difficult essay, one that I hope to eventually publish here. Anyway, I fail to be very eloquent in casual conversation, so my attempt to explain flopped miserably. One fellow monk said, "The point is to be yourself."

And that's when I started having an issue with the idea of "being yourself."

"To thine own self be true" seems to be, at the very minimum that you must be who you honestly are. But, what does that mean. It has been taken to mean, in the rabidly individualistic culture of the United States, that one should be as unique as possible. That is, when one is being anything like someone else, one is not being oneself. The terms "sheep" and "conformist" begin to fly about. Individualism has its place, but its something that I am beginning to find repulsive when taken to an extreme. Choosing to do something because a group chooses to do it is conformity. Choosing to not do something because a group chooses to do it isn't nonconformity. It's anticonformity, which is really just a type of conformity, because in both cases the person in the example is making a choice based on what a group chooses! Anticonformity is a rabid type of individualism that isolates people from each because they refuse to have anything in common. Nonconformity would ignore the group's choice and choose based upon personal preferences, which can look like conformity or anticonformity.

Which brings us to a softer interpretation of "To thine own self be true." In this interpretation, it means doing something because you honestly want to do it. You wear a particular type of clothes, join a particular group, worship in a particular religion, listen to particular music, etc, etc because you want to do so. It means refusing to bow to peer pressure, which can mean doing what you know is right.

The phrase can also mean that you really can't do something for someone else. You have to do it for yourself. That is, you can't place the motivation to achieve your hopes and dreams on someone or the responsibility for the choices on someone else because in the end they are choices you have to make and consequences with which you have to live. It also tangentially means that you can't make a decision for anyone else. All this is very good and well. And I can accept all of this - except for the rabid individualism - quite easily. But, I have to make one caveat.

Your real self may not be worth being true to.

In my previous post, I made clear my rather pessimistic view of humanity - which, I have to say, feels more realistic than pessimistic to me. People aren't born good creatures. They are born with the instincts of animals and with the intellect to make reasonable just about any action. That's the problem with sheer logic - with the right twists, anything can become logically, regardless of how horrid it really is. They are also born with very little skill, the inability to control their physical and emotional reactions, and, indeed, the inability to act as a force in their lives and in the lives around them. Yes, I know, Paganism tends to romanticize childhood ad nauseam, and there is some justification to this. Everything is new and exciting to children. Children are more naturally intuitive and are better able to see things like spirits. However, children are also bald-faced liars and mean little beasts that will single out one person to ridicule ruthlessly. Anyone who doesn't believe it has either forgotten their childhood or never been around children, and probably both. Some adults never grow out of this. And in this way, they are being true to themselves.

What I'm saying is that "To thine own self be true" can - and often does - excuse one from self-improvement. Because "To thine one self be true" also has an implicit addition "don't change yourself for anyone", the phrase can come to mean don't change yourself at all. Don't bother to control your temper, you're an angry person. To try to change that is to stop being true to yourself. In a horrible way, such a powerful phrase can become the most selfish, arrogant phrase ever uttered. I know this is not abruptly obvious, so let's take a more subtle case to illustrate my point.

Let's take patience for example. Our protagonist for this example is Cheryl. You're a friend of Cheryl, and you are both standing in line at the grocery store buying some snacks to sneak into the movie theaters, because, let's face it, the movie theater snacks are just too expensive and Cheryl has a big purse. The grocery store is about to close, so there is only one cash register open and about five people are waiting in line. You have time to get to the movies, but it's going to be tight. You and Cheryl have to wait nearly ten minutes (which, having been a cashier for too many years, let me say is a ridiculous amount of time to keep people waiting) and the old lady in front of you two decides that she must write out a check. Another few minutes pass, because she's palsied and can't hear the amount the cashier is telling her. I can tell you're already getting annoyed with how long this example is taking. You and Cheryl finally start getting rung up, and Cheryl, by this time, has worked herself up into a hissy fit and has already offended almost all of the previous customers before her with her snide remarks. The cashier starts to ring you two up, but must stop for a price check. Cheryl loses her temper and tears into the poor cashier until he just makes up a price, probably too low, and lets you two go. You tell Cheryl she may have stepped out of line there with the cashier. Her reply is, "I know, but I'm just not a patient person."

And I guarantee you hear others and yourself making similar comments all the time. Oh, I just have a short temper. Oh, I'm just lazy. Oh, I'm just always depressed. And, then the phrase "To thine own self be true" comes along and you are being true to yourself in being impatient, short-tempered, lazy, and depressed. I do it. I often excuse some rude comments by calling myself a bitch. And in being so, I'm being true to myself. As you can see, though, that excuses you. It tells you that you don't have to learn to control your temper, you don't have to get yourself up and stop shirking your responsibilities, you don't have to go out and get yourself the help you need, because you're just being true to yourself.

If life isn't for self-improvement, for what is it? Why bother being alive? Why bother going through the experience if you're not going to learn anything and you're not going to apply what you've learned? Most of us Pagan believe in something like karma or reincarnation. Why are we experiencing karma - which in the least nuanced sense means bad things happen to me because I've done bad things and goods things happen because I've done good things - when we aren't going to try to stop doing the bad things? Even if you don't, if you don't become a better person at the end than you were at the beginning, what have you really done with your life?

"To thine own self be true" is valuable when it says that you can't do for someone else, you have to be responsible to yourself, you can't allow peer pressure to sway you from what you know is right. But when it excuses you from improving yourself it becomes dangerous. As always, I am merely trying to point out both sides of the coin.

Until next time, blessed be.

Mojave Memorial Cross...

2009-07-23T09:21:00.002-04:00

Okay, so I love snopes.com. I have it on my google page so that I can check out urban legend and virus alerts whenever I sign on. In fact, it's entered into my family conversation quite a bit. Whenever someone brings up some sort of "well, everyone knows" story, someone always says, "Check it out on Snopes and see if it's true."

Today, I saw it mention something that I've seen on a blog I frequent, Religion Clause, which discusses church/state cases that are currently going through the courts, not just in the US but worldwide as well. One case, now accepted to be heard by the US Supreme Court, is the Mojave Desert Cross case. ACLU is sewing on behalf of Oregonian and Roman Catholic Frank Buono. It's actually been going on for a decade.

Here's the basic story: It was erected as a veteran's memorial in 1934. Which is fine when it was on no-man's land. In 1994, the US government took control of the land as the Mojave Land Preserve. So, now the cross stands on government land. Buono argues that the cross should be taken down because it is on government land, and the government is therefore implicitly endorsing the religion the cross represents. According to the The Examiner.com and Mr. Buono, the park rejected putting a Buddhist symbol there, which suggests that only the Christian ideology is acceptable.

Now, the Snopes.com article has a video embedded in it that argues purely to emotion instead of logic. (Snopes.com does not endorse this position, I am confident to say. They have always been very good at being neutral.) Instead of trying to argue that the cross does not here act as a Christian symbol and would not be interpreted as such by a reasonable individual, they simply say that it's just awful to "spit in the face" of servicemen. One person interviewed on the video compares tearing down the cross memorial to killing a man.

And here's where pluralism becomes murky.

The US has an interesting mix of zealous secularism and fanatical religiosity in its ethos. But, it's not just one religiosity. The US has not only attracted members of most every religion on the planet, it has also developed a good many of its own. While the majority of people in the United States are at least marginally Christian, they are swiftly losing numbers and a sizable and significant number of citizens are non-Christian. We cannot, therefore, assume that a Christian symbol can be a universal symbol for those who have died. A sort of generic tombstone may be far more universal, or a plaque mentioning those who died in WWI.

But, the real question is: should the cross be torn down three-quarters of a century after it was built? Well, for that, we must also answer: to how many people is the cross really a symbol of hope? How many who serve really wish to serve under a cross, if the Mojave cross is really a symbol for those soldiers who have died and those who are now serving? If we answer no, to those last two questions, we have to ask: are there things we can do other than tear down the memorial cross? Sure, we can put up a symbol from every interested religion - which will give the memorial a comic rather than solemn air from the sheer number of symbols huddled up on that rock. We can tell the people to whom the cross represents something significantly more negative that it's just too bad for them and to those service personnel who have no desire to be honored with the cross that they can leave the army (of course, you'd have to be willing to honorably discharge them in that case). Everyone in the US, Christians and non-Christians alike, can agree that the cross is no longer a Christian symbol and no longer represents the salvation the death and resurrection of Christ allowed, but instead is a secular symbol that represents something far more vague. But, then, Christians are giving up a powerful symbol they use. Or, we can tear down the cross and put something up that does only represent the memory of those who have died in war without reference to a religion.

I don't like that a memorial has to be torn down. I really don't. I feel like it does stand for something other than Christianity. But, if I was driving across the desert and I saw a cross standing on government land as a memorial for those who had died in war, I would feel... alienated, abandoned, unwelcome, I can't say the exact feeling. I can say that I would feel like I would not be allowed to speak. I would feel that my contributions were not needed nor wanted. I would feel like I wasn't really welcomed to be a full citizen of the US even though I was born here and lived here all my life. I would feel like my presence was merely being tolerated and that I should be grateful that they were willing to demean themselves in allowing a pagan (read, ignorant, backward, and morally bankrupt) like myself to live in such a country. I can't speak for non-Christians who serve or have served and died for the country. Still... I don't really want to tear down the cross.

It's an interesting tug-of-war going on in my head. If something could be put up that would satisfy those who really find meaning in the Mojave cross while not excluding those who have a right to a piece in that memorial, than I would think everyone would be all for that. But... not everyone is. The US Supreme court, within this millennium, has a fairly good track record on this sort of stuff - at least with wanting to remove the Ten Commandments from courthouses. However, over all their track record is seriously wanting, and I'm not confident that they will order to have the cross torn down. I know they should. Mostly, I know that whatever happens, it will not be done with cool heads and open minds, nor any sense of decorum.

Right now, I'd really like to know what others think, since I find myself so ill at ease with what I believe is the right course of action. Let me know.

Until next time, blessed be.

The small things...

2009-07-18T09:55:00.003-04:00

I feel bad about getting into a negative subject when I've been neglecting the blog for such a time, but... well, it's something I've always wanted to say to a wide group of people, and I don't know any wider then the worldwide web. So, here's my lecture.

None of us is a good person. I mean that thoroughly and completely. None of us, not a one, is a genuinely good person. I'm not, and the vast majority of people with whom I've ever been acquainted are not. In fact, I can say that there is only one person I have ever met that can be called a good person, and that person is the abbot of the Order of Saint Anthony and the Inter-Religious Order of Contemplative Spirituality, Br. Kenneth. Everyone else - not really.

Oh, we can pretend. And we can make gestures, and we can lie really well to other people and to ourselves. But that does not a good person make. Many of us are fairly close. We donate our time and money to good causes, we help people when we can, we don't go out and steal or murder or rape or do some other atrocious act. All in all, it seems like we're close to even, anyway, we do as much positive, constructive stuff as we do negative - and by that I mean unnecessarily destructive as opposed to the destruction that become necessary for balance. But, that doesn't make us good people, either. It makes us average. And, granted, it makes us human.

Think about this, though, and be honest with yourself because lying to yourself is only going to keep you from improving yourself. Have you ever been late to work and driven so aggressively that you have actually put lives in danger? Have you ever cut someone off or tail-gated someone so closely that had they had the mind to do it, you might just rear end them if they brake-tested you? Have you ever brake-tested someone? Have you ever flipped someone off while driving? Have you ever had a bad day and come home and just laid into one of your kids for some rather minor thing? Have you just been really frustrated with the day and was snippish and short and probably just a bit too insulting to your significant other? Have you ever popped the dog or cat or yelled at them because you just don't have the patience for their neediness after a long day? Have you ever just really ruined a cashier's day because something was even a dollar off? Have you ever cussed out your mechanic because it was more expensive than you'd hoped? Or, have you ever neglected to tell them when they gave you too much in change? Anything like that. Think about it. Have you done it recently?

I know, that's all just really small stuff. At least you're not out breaking the law and hurting people; or at least, not much. Because, that cashier will get in trouble for having a short til, and if you complain to that mechanic's boss, that mechanic will be rung out for it even if it isn't his or her fault. But, it's the small stuff that really counts. Our lives are not made up of huge adventures and life or death decisions. They are made up of small moments that accumulate into a character. The big ones are easy. Would you really have a problem deciding whether to give your sister a kidney? I wouldn't. Most of the time, the right decision is obvious, and the majority of us will make the right decision on the big stuff. But the small stuff... that extra five the cashier handed you, that frustrating day where you tore into everyone you loved for no real reason. Those are the moments that define who you really are because those are the moments where life and death don't hang in the balance, where the right decision isn't obvious, where you can excuse yourself with "well, who really cares about that, no one was really hurt."

It's about self-control. All emotions are choices. You can control your emotions. It's not easy and sometimes it's not fun, but you can. If you chose not to, you are just responsible for not controlling them as you are for controlling them. I've been told by psychologists that there really is only one true way to be happier. That's by choosing to be happier. Ask anyone who's worked with someone with an addiction. The only way to stop is to choose not to allow that addiction to control your life. The only way to learn to control your temper is to choose to do it. You can start getting mad at something, and then you can say "I'm not going to keep holding onto that. It's just not worth it." And you can let it go. No one, and this is a fact, no one has the ability to control your emotions. You choose to give someone that ability. People don't frustrate you, or upset you, or make you mad. You let them. It's a subtle difference, but it's an important one.

And it really comes down to this: you can let it drive you, or you can drive it. You can choose not to have control of your life, or you can take control. Because, let's face it, you basically have the life you want. Oh, there are things outside your control. You could get hit by a drunk driver, for example. You can get attacked. There can be an earthquake. A nuke could fall on your head. The sun could go nova. But, there are also things you can do to minimize what effect (most) of these things will have on you. And, you can choose to allow them to continue to have an effect on you throughout your life, or you can choose to move on. This requires a great deal of self-control, and most people do not have that much. I don't. But I recognize that, and I'm working on it. But, life is a series of choices that we make. We have to take responsibility for the consequences of those choices or we will never be able to get out of the hole we've dug ourselves into. I'm not saying it's easy. I'm just saying it's the only way.

And honestly, if you can't be expected to take responsibility for yourself, you really can't be expected to make your own decisions. And that's only a step away from not being allowed to make your own decisions. And that's called fascism. There are people in my life who I really think should not be allowed to have control of their lives because they don't have control of their lives. They allow situations to control them. There is bad luck. There is misfortune. There are bad childhoods and horrible, horrible people out there who hurt whomever they can. And you can let all of that make the decisions for you. Or you can take control. My sister lets her temper control her - and she's paying for it. My friend allows her childhood to control her - and she's never going to grow up. I used to let bullying control me - and I never had anyone on whom I could depend because I never let anyone get close enough to trust me, or for me to trust them. And that's a lonely life, let me tell you. And the only thing that changed between then and now? I decided not to let it control me anymore. I know that's not a huge example. But, no matter what has happened, it can be debilitating if we allow it to control us.

Now, I know. I'm a negative person when it comes to people at large. I really don't expect people to bother with it. But, the person has so much potential to really do something great. It takes hard work and dedication. It's not easy, and it's not always fun. But, it's really the only way to really live. Only when you have complete control of yourself - only when you stop allowing other people, and past situations, and particular emotions to control you - can you really be free to do what you want and be the person you want to be. Free will doesn't mean that someone can't guess what you will do. Free will means having control of yourself and taking responsibility for your choices. And, we all have the ability to have free will, if we only make the choice to possess it.

Until next time, blessed be.

Updates, mostly...

2009-07-14T16:32:00.003-04:00

I'm a little too busy to put together much intelligent discussion. I've been working on my thesis prospectus (which I'm told is the most frustrating part, considering it usually becomes obsolete a few weeks later), on legal recognition for IROCS (GA couldn't make it more difficult), and I've been trying to cut down a story so I can submit it. Not that you guys really need to worry too much about all that.

I'm just going to talk about my containers. Not doing so hot at the moment. Actually, that's the problem - heat. My squash couldn't take it. I think if it was in the ground, it would have lasted, but in the pot, it just kept getting too hot and so it eventually just gave up. My tomatoes, eggplants, and squash are all still alive and green, but because it's so hot, they aren't putting out any more blossoms. Of course, the high has been between 86 and 94 since the beginning of the month. So for people living in Atlanta and the rest of GA where it's getting this hot, I suggest you try to find a place inside or with just slightly cooler temperatures if you're growing in a pot. Because the pot gets hot, after all, the roots get warmer then if they were in the ground. I would even sacrifice a little light to keep my plants inside - or invest in a grow light. You can also control the pests better (damn ants have already gotten some of my tomatoes and peppers).

So, that's it for now. Kinda sad; though we did make fried green tomatoes from my tomatoes, and they were delicious.

Until next time, blessed be.

And so I return...

2009-07-03T08:02:00.002-04:00

I have returned from Oregon to very little change in Georgia. Grigori, my cat, is desperately needy after spending the week and a half in the vet. My squash plant died (it was just too hot for it to be in a pot - we were reaching close to 100, and the poor thing couldn't take it). My thesis prospectus is still due, I still have to take the GRE in a month. One friend of mine is in a bad financial situation a state away, another friend is having serious family trouble in Atlanta, and a third friend is just getting by, but doing pretty well, all in all, what with her new girlfriend. The Order isn't meeting again for a while, which frustrates me because I miss those guys and don't get a chance to see them regularly. I feel restless.

I love going out to the Oregon coast. I decided I would do absolutely no school work and just read whatever it is I wanted to read. So, in Portland, we went to the biggest bookstore I've ever seen (Powell's - it's a full city block with its own parking garage) and spent more money then I should have on books. Then we headed out to the coast, and hit just about every used bookstore, a few wineries, and a couple hole-in-the-wall restaurants out there. We spent the days eating clam chowder, drinking just a little too much, reading books, and generally enjoying each others company. The last bit would be the hardest. Everyone out that was has big personalities, a penchant for sarcasm and biting wit at someone else's expense, and an opinionated obstinacy that really can't be beat. But, we managed this year not to have a big fight, so it was great. Then I came home. And now I'm restless. Which, for me, is odd in the summer. And I know why.

I don't know if it's because I spent many years on the west coast seeing family and relaxing that just the place has an association of peace. Maybe there is a qualitatively different energy on Oregon's coast then in Georgia's northwest. Maybe it's the Pacific ocean I feel - I don't feel that way around the Atlantic, maybe it's the directional association of west with water, maybe it's because west is also, in some traditions, associated with death. Whatever the reason, there I live in the present. I do not concern myself with what used to be or what will be. I am not constantly thinking about yesterday, or what happened ten years ago. The past does not enter my thoughts, nor am I focused so much on the future that right now just doesn't apply. Out there, I only worry about right now. There, I can truly feel - as I say - what's happened has happened and I can't change it so I shouldn't worry about it; what will happen may or may not happen, but it isn't happening right now so I shouldn't worry about it right now; all I can concern myself with is right now. Others have said it better than I have. But here, in Georgia, all I can worry about is the past and the future - the present rarely occurs to me.

It's exhilarating to feel that way - to live in the present. It's refreshing. And not because you can be totally hedonistic without a care in the world. I was more careful with my cash this year then any other year because I knew I had to be. However, that didn't stop me for enjoying right now out there. I don't think it's getting away that starts that feeling, either. What I really think it is is consciously deciding to live that way. I made a decision on the flight out that I would not spend my entire time worrying about when I came back and what will happen tomorrow. It's harder, here, where everything is closer, but I'm trying for it. I encourage everyone else to do it as well. After all, Western philosophy, in all of its glory, as only proved one thing beyond a shadow of a doubt: the subjective knowledge of the self as it is right now. All I can really know is that I exist right now, because I am thinking right now. I can't know anything else. I don't know why fully realizing that beyond an intellectual level is so freeing, but it is. I encourage everyone to work toward that realization, it is perhaps the best way to live life.

Until next time, blessed be.

Midsummer

2009-06-19T17:37:00.001-04:00

I know it's not Midsummer (Litha) yet, but I'll be out in Oregon by that time and with limited internet access. So, I'm gonna jump the gun and go ahead and post my Midsummer post. I hope everyone has a great time!

I always spend Midsummer (or Litha to some) in the most confusing fashion – for myself. Every year, my family heads out to Oregon – which I am going to do again this year – to visit my father’s family. We live in Georgia. It tends to be somewhere between 80 and 95 this time of year; in fact, it will be around 90 this year for Midsummer. However, I’m always on the Oregon coast. There, it’ll be around 60, which, I would like to tell those not from here, is the average high for the beginning of March and the end of November. The average high doesn’t fall below 50 in Georgia. So, when I go out to the Oregon coast, I’m actually experiencing winter-like temperatures (for me) right in the middle Midsummer! Naturally, I get a bit turned around for Midsummer.

Midsummer, on the Wheel of the Year, lies on an edge. It’s a solstice; it’s a peak and a trough at the same time – it’s a time of extremes, like its mirror, Midwinter. According to one cycle, this is the last hurrah of the Oak King. From this day forward, the Holly King rules, until Midwinter, and so it is the waning year. Some say that the Holly King merely defeats the Oak King. Some say the Oak King is killed, and will be reborn to kill the Holly King again in six months. Whatever the case, there is a qualitative change in the energy of the seasons. Instead of growth, there is decrease. Instead of beginnings, there will be endings. But, for now, it is the peak.

Midsummer is the longest day of the year. In the northern hemisphere, the sun hovers over the Tropic of Cancer, and will begin to move south. The days grow shorter, the temperatures drop, and the earth prepares for its annual rest over the winter. Here is when that which is excess and finished is destroyed so that new may be created the following spring.

The Godman is at the height of His power on this day. He is in His prime; and the energy of the day proves it. Now is the time to live, for the strength is available. Carpe diem, as they say, for you do not know if today is the last day. The Godman knows, in fact, that this is the last day for Him. Following this Sabbat are three that speak of His threefold death. But, He prepares to be reborn as well. That preparation is the double-edged sword.

This day is when the Goddess conceives the Godman, who She will bare at Midwinter. We must recall interesting parallel symbols regarding the Earth-mother: the cave and the grave, the womb and the tomb. As the Godman enters the Goddess’s womb, he is also entering the tomb. The cause of his rebirth is the cause of his death. Perhaps it is because I experience winter on Midsummer that I think of this, but there you go. There is a ring of Hindu or Buddhist understanding of karma here: certain actions build karma, which causes us to be reborn once we die. We continue to experience samsara – the cycle of life and death – because of the karmic results of our actions. The Godman is continually caught in this cycle as well, because of His own actions. If He did not impregnate the Goddess, would He be born again? But then again, does that not tell us that maybe the cycle is something worth experiencing?

The Goddess grows pregnant – which we see in the ripening fruit that will be harvested through the fall. The fruit contain seeds as well, and so the cycle continues. Like Persephone, though, she journeys into the Underworld, and the world grows quiet and cold – dead-like, but not dead. After all, the Goddess does not die. She is, perhaps, searching for the Godman in the Underworld. The mirror Goddess – the Mystery Goddess that rules the dark moon rises and rules the world as it sleeps.

This will happen later, though. For now, the world is abundant and very much alive. Potential is ready to burst forth into actuality as soon as it is directed – and even if it is not, it will still go become something. The best thing to do is use it to become something yourself – manifestation will occur either way. Laugh and play and enjoy yourself, because the time of ease will not last forever. Carpe diem.

Blessed be.

Pagan Values: Charity...

2009-06-14T10:26:00.004-04:00

Actually, I suppose charity and generosity are the same or similar thing, though I always thought that generosity referred specifically to money. Let's see what the dictionary has to say. Merriam-webster.com has some interesting distinctions. Specifically, generosity (having to go to generous, since generosity is merely the quality of being generous) is as follows:

characterized by a noble or forbearing spirit : magnanimous, kindly b: liberal in giving : openhanded c: marked by abundance or ample proportions : copious

Charity, on the other hand, is as follows:

1: benevolent goodwill toward or love of humanity
2 a: generosity and helpfulness especially toward the needy or suffering ; also : aid given to those in need b: an institution engaged in relief of the poor c: public provision for the relief of the needy
3 a: a gift for public benevolent purposes b: an institution (as a hospital) founded by such a gift
4: lenient judgment of others

Similar, indeed. Here, I'm specifically referring the giving aspect of both terms. If one is able to give, one ought to, right? In other words, if I have excess, why should I use it when someone else needs it? I believe it is so. However, there are some who argue, and their argument can be compelling, if I have worked for what I have, I have every right to keep it; no one should be able to tell me to do with what I have worked for. And, certainly, forced charity is no charity at all. It breeds resentment and hostility; it creates a divide in which those being forced to give are separated from those who need. However, refusing to give - greed - cuts us off from the world around us as well, which is equally damaging. So let's assume that when we speak of charity or generosity we're speaking of voluntary giving.

I have a friend who I have helped out of bad situation multiple times, and most often that means I "loan" (with the understanding that it will never be paid back) money to this friend, sometimes large sums. When we were younger, this mostly meant that I paid for gas, I drove, and I paid for food and entertainment. I didn't mind at all, because the company was so valuable to me. As we've gotten older, the amount tended to get larger.

I have a friend who is in a similar situation with another person as I am with the friend mentioned above. This friend owns property and has been allowing a person to live there without paying rent until that person got onto their feet. It has been very many months, and this person has not been looking for a job. My friend feels forced to push this person more toward self-reliance. My friend is afraid that my friend will have to evict this person so that this person is forced to go out and get a job.

Here, we are facing similar problems inherit in charity: you're going to find someone who won't use the charity to better themselves, but only to maintain a life without work. My first friend needs money, and I know this. I will give my first friend money the moment this friend asks me to, but my friend must ask first. I know it will hurt my friend's (I apologize for not using pronouns, but I do not want to give away their identity) pride to ask, but I also know my friend is not motivated enough otherwise to help themself. My second friend must force their tenant into motivation by creating a rather dire situation. It still seems heartless, though. Should we not both give until we have nothing left?

Actually, I don't think that charity should be interminable. Charity should be a means to those who have less to move beyond those needs. As the saying goes, "give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life." Is it better to create a dependent relationship, or is it better to create an equality of spirit and position? I think the latter. So long as I endlessly give money to my first friend, we develop a relationship in which I have the control - all of the control - and that is not a good relationship at all.

Another thing that comes to mind is that charity ought not be given out willy-nilly. Let me explain this. I do not mean that people ought to have to earn the privilege of receiving charity. Not at all. If someone needs help, they need help. Period. However, a bad situation can be made worse by over-giving, and not in the dependency situation I've suggested above.

Let us recall the months before the United State invaded Iraq, and let's recall a few months following, and let's recall what is still said even today of that action. Let us also recall the slave trade lasting somewhere through the 17th and 19th centuries. Let us also recall the forcing of Native Americans onto reservations. What were some arguments justifying these actions? They were being helped.

The slavers argued that they were helping the African slaves by taking them away from a savage land and Christianizing them, thereby saving their souls. The Native Americans, the settlers argued, did not know how to properly use their land; the settlers must take it, graciously put them on reserved spots of lands, and Christianize them and educate them. And what of Iraq? The people there lived under a tyrannous dictator who was slowly and violently destroying them. So, the United States argued, let's rip out their infrastructure and impose one that is alien to them, because it is helping them. Here is charity gone too far. Here is charity gone destructive.

In other words, charity shouldn't be forced upon someone. Also, the person who is being helped must be given the right to refuse the help. They must be allowed to live their own lives and make their own choices. If a person asks for your help and you are able to give it, then by all means, do. If a person does not, and refuses when you offer, then do not force yourself upon them. You will most likely be hurting.

There is this concept called super-erogation that I simply cannot agree to. It rings of martyrdom to me, and I cannot also support martyrdom, for too often it is glorified suicide. To stand up for one's beliefs is one thing; to seek out self-destruction is another.

Super-erogation means that we give absolutely everything. Instead of buying that new tv, you give the money to a charity. You only buy your essentials, and then you give up everything else. You could give up a kidney, a lung, a piece of your liver, and eventually your own life. You give the food from your own child's mouth to feed another. The problem with super-erogation is that it will ultimately end in destruction. If you don't buy a new tv when you need it, then the person who works in the factory who makes the tv doesn't get paid. They can't make their house mortgage, and their house gets foreclosed on. The bank cannot sell the house for what is owed, and so they lose money. If this happens enough, the bank folds, causing those who had their savings in it to lose everything, because the government doesn't have enough money to bank all of the savings up. Those who work for the bank lose their jobs as well. Since they do not have money even to buy food, the restaurants, grocery stores, and farmers all find themselves going out of business. Eventually, the economy would collapse all because the force driving the economy - consumerism - ceases to exist. And then, everyone is in need, and no one can give.

That certainly doesn't mean to become overly materialistic - spending more than you have causes similar problems as has become obvious after the housing market popped (too many people were buying houses on bad mortgages they couldn't afford). It does mean, however, that if everyone gave everything they had, then the economy would collapse. So, charity also means maintaining yourself in a way that allows you to continue to give charity. If you cannot feed yourself, how are you to feed anyone else? If you lack shelter, how are you to give anyone else shelter? Certainly, you don't need to go out and buy the newest whatever if what you have still works, but it does mean that you have a responsibility to be self-sufficient enough to help others who need your help.

And so we see charity is also a sometimes virtue. It must be terminable, it must be allowed to be refused, and it must be limited by the ability of the giver. Still, it is one that must be cherished and encouraged. I believe that it goes without saying that in the majority of the world today, there simply is no enough good charity out there.

Until next time, blessed be.

Update on Container Garden

2009-06-09T14:21:00.006-04:00

It's been a long while since I put up pictures, but since all of the plants are now blooming and all but the squash are putting out fruit now seems like a good time. So, here are the pictures.

Tomato:

Squash:

Pepper:

Eggplant:

There are a couple of notes I would like to make that I've discovered over the past few weeks. First, the tomatoes have some leaf-curl, which is when the edges of the leaves start to roll in and upward; they have a thick, healthy feel (so it's not as if it is wilted). According to the research I did, this generally occurs in a cool, wet season (which has been happening here for the past month and a half, but hopefully we've broken past that now). It doesn't affect harvest, just back off of watering a little.

Second, my peppers started developing dark spots where the branches meet the stems. According to what I've read, it just happens sometimes but should affect the crop.

Third, my squash wilts everyday regardless of the water I give it. It's protection against the heat (it's gotten a lot hotter in the past week or so). It just bounces back after the hottest part of the day and it still appears quite healthy.

Finally, and this is one that I haven't quite fixed yet, though I'm spraying the plant with Organocide. My tomato plant's leaves are being eaten by caterpillars. I caught one on it the other day, and there are little butterfly eggs on its leaves. I've managed to pick some off, but because it's a bush tomato plant (its shorter and denser with plenty of foliage), I can't see them all. However, it does not appear to be too drastic, and the Organicide seems to keep things in check.

Until next time, blessed be.

Pagan Values: Tolerance

2009-06-08T09:27:00.005-04:00

Dictionary.com defines tolerance with such words as "objective," "permissive," "undogmatic," "fair," and "liberal." Merriam-Webster.com defines it like this:

1: capacity to endure pain or hardship : endurance, fortitude, stamina
2 a: sympathy or indulgence for beliefs or practices differing from or conflicting with one's own b: the act of allowing something : toleration
3: the allowable deviation from a standard ; especially : the range of variation permitted in maintaining a specified dimension in machining a piece

I would like you to keep these in mind as I examine the virtue of tolerance. Let me start by saying too many people think that this word is synonymous with acceptance. It, indeed, is not. Acceptance requires agreeing; tolerance requires disagreeing.

One of my favorite illustrations of tolerance is from South Park's episode "The Death Camp of Tolerance," (2002). In this episode, Mr. Garrison discovers that if he could get fired again for being gay, then he could sue the school for a lot of money. He therefore hires Mr. Slave as teacher's assistant and does some inappropriate things to that end. The boys are disturbed by the behavior and after complaining multiple times are sent to a Nazi-style concentration camp where they are forced to make macaroni pictures and finger paint images portraying tolerance. Mr. Garrison, meanwhile, is given an award for his courage for teaching children who do not tolerate him. In his speech, he goes all out - as South Park tends to do - and over the top with an embarrassingly stereotypical flamboyant homoerotic display with Mr. Slave. In frustration, Garrison shouts at the crowd that tolerance doesn't mean acceptance. I paraphrase: "You tolerate a screaming child, or you tolerate a cold, that doesn’t mean you have to like it! This is the Museum of Tolerance, if you were supposed to like it, it’d be called the Museum of Acceptance."

Keep that amusing image in your mind for a moment as I go to a far more intellectually rigorous source. One of my favorite theorist in religious studies, in response to Diana Eck's work Encountering God, examines the power structures inherent in tolerance:
"Toleration…implies three things: (i) significant disapproval, (ii) the very real sociopolitical authority, even coercive power, to do something about this disapproval, and (iii) suspension of action for some practical reason," (McCutcheon, Critics, not Caretakers).

What this means is that only certain people can tolerate depending upon the position they are in. For example, my mother could tolerate me playing loud music when I was a teenager, because she could very easily stop it. I, however, could not have tolerated her coming into my room every morning and waking me up with the most annoying (my mother is tone-deaf) rendition of "Good Morning" in the world. I couldn't stop her from doing it. I could have gone to extremes, but then I would have been punished. I could really only endure it. And here is where the first definition Merriam-Webster presents comes into play: tolerance as endurance. In this view of tolerance - tolerance as endurance - the person has no power to stop this.

While my example is somewhat lighthearted, there are real examples that are far more gruesome. The poor, the disadvantaged, many times those with the wrong skin color or gender, those who practice the wrong religion, in fact any who lack real sociopolitical power cannot tolerate what is happening around them because they cannot control it. They can merely only endure it. Tolerance is a virtue of the powerful, while endurance is a virtue of the disadvantaged.

Recall also the third definition; it involves an acceptable deviation from the norm. Those in power set the norm - too far from it and some real violence may occur. At times in this country, the norm was Christian, white, male, wealthy, they had so much power that any who did not fulfill those criteria could not try to take power - they would be stepping out of line. Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Native Americans, blacks, Latinos, women, the poor, none of these could attempt to make a change in the world - could try to be something else in a public sense - without those established in power bringing about some real violence against them. The ones in power tolerated a small portion of deviance; the disadvantaged could only endure that which they could not accept and did not like.

At the same time, this brings out an interesting move for the weak in society. By asserting tolerance, they claim a power to stop that which they do not like. By asserting tolerance, they claim they have sociopolitical power, perhaps more than they actually have. The appearance of power can be powerful in and of itself. But now I'm getting a bit too academic.

Tolerance is a virtue, and the wider it is the better. Unfortunately, it means that there are may some things that we are opposed to must be allowed. After all, the tolerant person must tolerate intolerance, or else they are not tolerant. Voltaire is often attributed with saying "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." That is tolerance. If one preaches tolerance of all worldviews, one must accept the pleasant with the unpleasant. I believe in the freedom of speech, which means I must accept the racist and the bigot with those who argue for universal love. I must tolerate their speech. However, tolerance can only be a virtue when there is a limit to toleration. Toleration without limit is complacency. At some point, I must exert my power to stop that which is wrong. Defining that limit is ethics, and ethics is a tricking thing indeed.

I am not trying to bash tolerance, but rather, I want to point out what one must remember when invoking tolerance. Tolerance involves power and the power to stop that of which one disapproves. Tolerance allows both appealing and unappealing aspect. Tolerance must have a limit. These are the facts of it that I have found.

Until next time, blessed be.

Pagan Values

2009-06-08T08:18:00.004-04:00

I'm not sure where this started, but I read somewhere that June is Pagan Values month. I feel like throwing my hat into the circle and posting a few ideas of my own about a few virtues.

First, I would like to argue that there are very few "actual" virtues. Rather, most virtues are what I would call "sometimes" virtues. That is, depending upon the situation, one virtue may actually become destructive or it might simply hold no power. These sometimes virtues are, generally, reactionary; that is, there must be an external stimuli - a particular situation or set of situations - that make these virtues virtuous. Without that stimuli, they lack any force. For example, if Martin Luther King, Jr. had not been living in the 1960s in the South where racism was dangerously rampant and had been living somewhere at sometime when racism had no force, what MLK did in the 1960s would appear bizarre and superfluous. He would not have been courageous, because there would have been any obstacle. In other words, most virtues require a particular power structure.

This relates to the Iranaean theodicy (a theodicy is an explanation of suffering in the world when there is a single omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent deity; generally theodicies have little philosophical might in polytheistic or atheistic religions because suffering becomes less of a problem). The Iranaean theodicy is actually one that opposes the more popular (at the time) Augustinian theodicy - that is, the popular story of the Fall. In very brief explanation, the Iranaean theodicy argues that there is suffering in the world because there would be no other way for humans to develop virtues and develop the likeness - not just the image - of God. If everyone had everything they needed, how could you sacrifice and learn generosity or charity. If resources were abundant enough that everyone had what they needed when they needed it, how could you learn patience?

Now, what I'm suggesting is merely that this illustrates my original point: that most virtues only exist in response to a particular situation. They really don't exist on their own. I'm sure there may be some, but for the life of me, I can't think of what those might be.

Finally, before I begin looking at any virtues in particular, I'd like to leave you with a quote from one of my favorite authors, Terry Pratchett. This is drawn from his book The Hogfather. After saving the Hogfather - Santa Clause - from certain death, Susan and her grandfather Death are talking.

“Now… tell me…”
WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF YOU HADN’T SAVED HIM?
“Yes! The sun would have risen just the same, yes?”
NO.
“Oh, come on. You can’t expect me to believe that. It’s an astronomical fact.”
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
She turned on him.
“It’s been a long night, Grandfather! I’m tired and I need a bath! I don’t need silliness!”
THE SUN WOULD NOT HAVE RISEN.
“Really? Then what would have happened, pray?”
A MERE BALL OF FLAMING GAS WOULD HAVE ILLUMINATED THE WORLD.
They walked in silence for a moment.
“Ah,” said Susan dully. “Trickery with words. I would have thought you’d have been a little more literal-minded than that.”
I AM NOTHING IF NOT LITERAL-MINDED. TRICKERY WITH WORDS IS WHERE HUMANS LIVE.
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little-”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET – Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME… SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point-”
MY POINT EXACTLY.

Faces of God: Friend

2009-06-05T14:27:00.002-04:00

Friend is another personal one, so I won't be relating much of my personal experience here. If one is relating to God as Friend, then one must figure out how one relates to friends.

In relationships, there are needs that another person must fulfill. For you, the lover may fulfill all (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual), while friends just fulfill one or two. Or, for you, the lover may fulfill a few - very strongly - while you have a best friend who fulfills them all or fills in the gaps. For me, the lover is the one who fulfills - at least partially - all of my needs. I simply wouldn't take a lover who didn't (needless to say, it takes me a while to take a lover), while the friends fulfill one or two needs.

I relate most often and best to the All as Friend. I come to God when needs haven't been fulfilled. When I need to explore certain intellectual domain and there is no friend or lover to help, I go to God. When I feel emotionally disconnected or in need of emotional support and there is no one else who may offer it, I go to God. God, and friends, are there to fill in gaps. No single person who is a friend can fulfill all of my needs. I wouldn't have them do so. So, I have friends who, if they were to meet other friends of mine, simply wouldn't mesh. I have friends who I have spiritual conversations with. I have friends at work. I have intellectual friends. I have friends with similar sexual interests. I have friends who write and read the same sort of stuff I do. But, no single friend bridges all of the gaps. For me, only a lover would do so.

I do not feel as if I am only using God when I need God, just I do not feel that I am only using friends when I need them. Friends, after all, ought to be kept at almost any cost. As soon as a lover becomes dangerous, though, that lover ought to be gotten rid of because they do hold so much sway; because they bridge all of the gaps.

So, for me, and you must decide this yourself, it really is "bros before hoes," as some have most vulgarly said. A friend should remain a friend unless under the most dire circumstances. A lover should be left behind when that lover becomes a hindrance (though let's not be fickle here, either; after all, sometimes the good outweighs the bad). For me, then, God is the one you keep by your side whenever possible, because God is a friend.

And so, I believe, concludes the Faces of God series. I will, hopefully, be presenting more controversial and provocative material in my next post.

Blessed Be.

Faces of God: Enemy

2009-06-01T08:57:00.002-04:00

There was another face of God (the All) before this in the series conducted in the Order, that was God as Lover. This is perhaps the most intimate face of God, and that is one reason I choose to not to post anything on it at the moment. I would rather not influence anyone with my observations, which are inevitably tainted by my post. Instead, I skip to one of my favorites: God as Enemy.

If we are to imagine the All as Enemy, it can mean either that the All or a deity has positioned themselves against us, or that we have positioned ourselves against them. This includes the working of Fate, as well, so do not think yourself free of these struggles just because the enemy was named Fate. After all, the Fates are Goddesses, too.

Here, I find myself returning to the philosophy of Greek tragedy. Hegel believed that tragedy was about collision. There are multiple wills at work in the material world - the wills of each person, the wills of a group of people, the wills of the Gods. Inevitably, some of those wills will work at counter purposes. Two, or more, wills will collide, and it is this moment of collision that is tragedy. This collision causes suffering, but it also opens up the possibility of transformation. Think of it from a psychological standpoint, if you will. People have a sort of mental framework through which they function. Suffering can cause that framework to collapse, and it is then in need of rebuilding. It can be rebuilt into something better. Difficult moments in our life - the collisions we experience - can act as a death to our old selves and a birth to our new ones. Think Nietzsche (who also wrote on the subject in "Birth of Tragedy"), that which does not kill us makes us stronger, I believe. Oedipus in "Oedipus at Colonus" after the happenings in which he killed his father and married his mother, is transformed, and becomes a god. Wrestling with the All, or any Deity, in this way can cause transformations.

I also feel I have been misleading to say that these of the Faces of God, that we come to the All in only one of these faces. To imagine any of these faces is to exclude the All - for it limits the All. In essence, when imagining these faces, we are seeing another deity, or perhaps a group of them. Remembering this helped me in exploring this face.

One member of our group said that he could not imagine God as Enemy. How, after all, could one possibly work against God? I thought about this myself, and I realized why I had become frustrated with the monolithic "God" (put in quotations to mark, specifically, the name of the Christian deity as opposed to another way to refer to the All - no disrespect is intended in this). You can't work against "God." If "God" is all powerful and all knowing, any struggle against God would be necessarily fruitless. One can easily imagine how this may become a perverse game for a deity with no competitor. Free will becomes impossible - for even if I have it, to exercise it would be futile - and it requires submission (not by choice but by force), acquiescence, and complacency. I could not accept this.

As a polytheist, though a soft one, I find myself welcoming this Face of God. Any Godman or Goddess may be working against my own goals, but because this deity is not as the monolithic "God" who is omniscient and omnipotent, I actually have a chance at succeeding. I could compete, and it not be a pathetic joke. Think of the story of Athena and Arachne. Certainly, it ends badly for Arachne, but not because she competed against Athena - it was because she insulted Athena, because of her arrogance and her unwise choice of subject. I find myself believing that this story allows for the possibility of Arachne defeating Athena in the contest; the contest was not a fruitless venture.

In the end, I suppose that most important thing to remember is that one does not work against God in their confrontation with God as Enemy. Only, as in all the faces, a portion and one need not feel forced to submit when fighting would be the better course.

Blessed Be.

Update on the Containers

2009-05-28T09:24:00.002-04:00

Well, Organicide is working wonderfully. I haven't seen a flea beetle since, and my eggplants and peppers are saved.

Actually, everything's growing beautifully. The squash has perhaps the most shocking change (it's huge!), but everything else has grown noticeably as well. The eggplant has gotten so tall, it towers over everything else. And the tomato - a bush tomato - is just booming. Its bigger than any tomato plants my mother planted in the ground.

I haven't had to do much to them in the way of upkeep. It's been raining pretty steadily, but I still go out and give them a good soaking every two or three days (when it gets warmer, I'll bump that up to once a day no matter what). The tomatoes get fertilized once every week or two, and I fertilized them all now that they're all budding.

And they are all budding. The tomatoes have already bloomed, and the eggplant is next. The squash and peppers are being a bit more shy about it, but I'm sure they'll bloom before Monday.

So far, the experiment is going very well. I'm confident with good soil, a good fertilizer, and maybe a grow light (for those whose only area to grow plants are either inside or in the shade), this could be a very easy way to get fresh vegetables. I know my sister is excited about starting all sorts of things next year. She wants to try okra. We'll see what we can do.

Blessed Be.

Faces of God: Sibling

2009-05-24T16:53:00.004-04:00

In this face of the All, we think of what roles a sibling - brother or sister, older or younger - might play, and how we may envision God in this. At what point in one's life has one related to God in this way?

Personally, I have no brothers and two sisters. Instead of taking on a traditional role, though, of confidant, protector, adversary, or whatever other role a sibling might play, I choose to image the All in this exercise from my somewhat unique position. I have an identical twin sister.

My twin sister and I grew up trying to establish separate identities. This is very hard when, instead of learning to tell us apart, a friend of the family simply decided to call us both the same name, which was merely our names combined. I cannot describe to you how frustrating that was. But, she and I managed to develop our separate identities through an unspoken agreement: we wouldn't do the same thing. She played soccer, I played softball. She wrote poetry, I wrote prose. She did drama, I was did chorus. She was the Star Trek fan, I the Star Wars. She read mysteries, I read fantasies. She played the clarinet, I played the trumpet. We agreed that neither of us would do what the other was doing. I recall a time when my sister was in a play and I had become jealous. My mother encouraged me to try out for the next play, but I said I couldn't, because my sister did that. Instead, I focused on visual arts, and have since become far more proficient then her at drawing and painting. Even in college, she majored in psychology, I in religious studies. At one time, she had thought about doing philosophy, and while I was interested, I refused. When my tastes ventured too close with religious studies, she went to psychology.

We have the unique opportunity, however, to be able to relate as no one else can. She and I think alike. There have been times when my older sister has become frustrated listening to us talk to one another; we appear to make no sense to those outside the conversation, but we make perfect sense to each other for we're both making the same mental leaps. We often agree politically, and will react the same way to the same stimuli. It's comforting, and quite helpful. I can go to her when I'm frustrated, and she can easily tell me what I would do or say if I were calm, for it is the same thing she would do or say. Or, she could come to me upset, and I can tell her how she feels, for I would feel the same way. It is in this comforting sense that I can truly image the All. After all, certainly, God could know my thoughts and feelings.

At the same time, this is a double-edged sword. I have become furious at my twin for correcting me at certain occasions or admonishing me for certain actions. What is so infuriating about it is not that she is right nor that she is wrong, but that it would be what I would say away from the situation. Sometimes, it's terrifying and enraging to have someone know you just that well; and tell you when you're wrong. Or when you're not acting like yourself.

It's someone else knowing you for who you are, and you having to admit it. You can't lie to yourself or anyone else because you've been called out. I have felt this in experiencing the All, and I came back feeling vulnerable and annoyed. For a time, it was a real block. But, this must be faced, and it is in the moment like with my twin sister, when that standing over against you throws it back at you, that you can no longer avoid it. At the same time... it can be a relief. Sometimes, after all, we tell ourselves so many lies that we forget they're lies at all. This moment of reflection and confrontation may, sometimes, be the only thing that can break through the lies. It can be scary and enraging and uncomfortable, but there's no getting around it, and it's best that we don't avoid it in the end.

This, I've learned a great many times from my twin sister. Certainly, there are other things a sibling might do, but this is where I feel most compelled to see God at the moment.

Blessed Be.

"Mother Earth" by Sam D. Gill

2009-05-18T09:17:00.002-04:00

Before I jump into the meat of this post, I would like to suggest a blog worth checking out. It is called Pagan Culture and the blogger is Magaly Guerrero. I've been going through the posts and have found it terribly compelling. She writes in beautiful prose about her experience, with a very open and inviting style. I am eager for her coming thoughts.

Now for the less interesting part of the post. I recently finished a book by Sam D. Gill, a scholar in the history of religion specifically those in North America, called "Mother Earth." It is a studied on the development of the idea of a pan-Indian, universal Mother Earth in Native American religion(s). It was suggested by a friend and colleague Kenny Smith (whose, by the way, main interest is in the scholarly study of Wicca/Witchcraft/Neo-Paganism in North America) because of its focus on the theory and method of the study of religion. In the department of which I am a student, I have become somewhat known as a stickler and rabid McCutcheonite (as well as J. Z. Smithian and Lincolnite). I had presented a paper a week or two earlier about the position of the scholar in reference to the religious insider (the paper focused on the division of scholar as outsider so that the scholar would remain divorced from the power structures of the insider conversation), and Kenny believed that this spoke purely to my interests. My interests as well fall in North American religions (religions developed in North America, including, though not limited to, Native American religions, Santeria, Voodun (or however you prefer to spell it), fundamentalist Christianity, and post-1960s developments like ISKCON and Witchcraft) and theory and method.

Now, that's a lot of jargon, and I've probably lost people who are not specifically interested in this. I know that many have found it peculiarly boring, but bare with me. Gill's thesis in this book is that the concept of Mother Earth is not native to Native Americans, but developed after contact with Americans with European ancestry (Gill's terminology, not mine). He examines the context in which certain statements referring to a "Mother Earth" were made, the power dynamics within the Native/European American conversation, and how the desires and needs of both influenced the development of "Mother Earth." He argues that it was only within the later half of the 20th century that such a concept really took hold, and that it developed as a way for Indians to identify themselves over against white culture after traditional connections (with the land itself, from which they were forcibly removed) became impossible.

It was and is a controversial book, but his thesis ought to be nuanced in order to do the book justice. He is not necessarily arguing that Mother Earth does not and never did exist among some Native American groups, but rather, that it was not pan-Native American. I believe his more central argument is that "Mother Earth" was not presented as a hypothesis by scholars which may be testing by hard evidence, but as an unquestionable fact that need only be illustrated by a few examples (of which Gill only found five). The concept submerged into both white American and Native American culture and has been used as a source of identity. What Sam Gill is presenting is the real consequences of bad scholarship, and compellingly so.

He makes clear, as a final note, that he by no means denigrates the importance of Mother Earth today. He is merely arguing that the concept could not, based on the evidence available, be argued as a central and pan-Native American concept before the 20th century.

Now, some of you may be bored to tears, but I found it a fascinating read, and I suggest, if you are interested, you look into it.

Blessed Be.

Organic Pesticide

2009-05-17T21:16:00.003-04:00

So, I discovered that I had a problem with my eggplant and peppers that is quite common in fact: flea beetles. They devour eggplants if left to their own devices. Luckily, its been cooler than normal, so the flea beetles have been relatively quiet. Still, I know I need to get ride of them.

So, I searched for possible organic solutions to these pests. The first was lifting them off the ground. For me, unfortunately, moving them is an issue (I am only allowed to garden in that spot) and raising them may make them dangerously unstable, what with a windy spring and a rambunctious dog. Still, if at all possible, a good step. Another solution was row covers (which are like mosquito nets for plants). It works wonders (until you need the blooms pollinated), but when it is windy, they are not nearly as effective. It is more difficult with containers because the traditional skeleton used must be converted. Tomato cages will work if you have them and are willing to fiddle around with it.

One fantastic suggestion was using yellow sticky pads (apparently sold at most garden centers). Flea beetles are attracted to them and get stuck once they land. Unfortunately for me, my garden center did not sell these. (My garden center is the local Lowe's garden center, which is not fully stocked - I live in a sub-suburban town. It is just growing out of its rural past). Finally, lime was suggested. Certainly, lime will work as it will kill most any animal it comes into contact with at the right dose (I've heard it can dissolve human bodies given enough lime and enough time). I am reserving lime as a last resort. We'll see.

What I found at the store, though, was an organic pesticide/fungicide called Organocide. Other pesticides warned about the its contact with water - they could kill water life fairly easily, apparently. Generally, there were other cautions as well. Organocide contained only a few such cautions: some plants, like poinsettias, and a few types of tomatoes have some sensitivity to the product, though it is unusually tolerable to the vast majority of plants, and it may stain concrete. It also only contain four ingredients: sesame oil, edible fish oil, lecithin (which is any number of certain fatty substances found in animal and plant tissue), and water. Frankly, I was sold.

I'm not certain how effective this is, but it certainly already has its benefits. First, its relatively affordable (I bought it for $11.11 including tax) in that it should be used infrequently (the label suggested for particularly tenacious critters to spray on the plant once a week for three weeks, meaning that the product could last a long while). Second, it's apparently safe, using ingredients that many of us consume on a regular basis. Third, it's easy to find. This was my greatest fair with attempting even partial organic garden; it tends to require a large and very well-stocked garden center dedicated to organic gardening. Since I was able to find it at a Lowe's in a small town like my own, I am confident that it will be readily available elsewhere. Hopefully, it will be effective. We'll see in the next few weeks, I suppose.

Until then, Blessed Be.

God the Child

2009-05-17T20:50:00.003-04:00

All right, frankly, this conception of God is difficult for me. I don't like children; I never have. I have serious doubts that I shall ever like children as a whole, though a few individuals might become tolerable to me. To think of the All, God, or the Godman or Goddess as child becomes a problem for me. I find children frustrating.

Oh, the romanticized "child" that has developed in social memory is one thing. The child that does not lie, that laughs and plays, that is purely innocent and exists only with love for all the world around it; this is an image I can picture with the divine. But, I am not so romantic, and I remember being a little bastard as a child, and I can see all the little bastards running around now. The child can be a conniving, cruel little beast; one, like a parasite, desperately in need of care which may never be paid back. Today, as family bonds begin to grow further apart, as we become more and more individualized and separated ourselves, in the West, in the United States, from our own cultural groups, the raising of children becomes more and more a thankless burden. It is no longer an act of helping to develop a human being, to introduce it into the whole. It has become far more dark and far less welcoming.

But, then again, I'm a cynic more often than not.

I have thought this much of my life, and I still find myself thinking this again - there is a dark side to everything, after all. However, more recently, I find myself more forgiving.

Last summer, we learned that my older sister was pregnant. Nearly five months ago, she had a baby, my little niece. I recall on our last family vacation - in which my older sister did not participate as it would have required her to travel even further and longer than she had been with her job - beginning to consider my role as aunt. I found myself motivated to attempt things I had long since given up. I took up quilting again because I was determined to give my niece a quilt (which I managed to do, thought significantly later after she was born). I began writing stories again, for I wished to tell them to her. I thought of my own future and dedicated myself even more to getting my ph.d. I found myself wanting to live my life so that I would make my niece proud to have been related to me, and to act so that the world that she gets after me will be one with which she may live.

I was astounded at the changes that just the thought of being an aunt were creating in me. Though she does not seem to recognize me even now, I find myself fascinated by her. I love her dearly. Everyone in my family knows how I feel about kids. At another family gather (with the other side of the family), as my sister and her husband were about to leave, I took my niece and hugged her and gave her a kiss before they put her in the car seat. To have volunteered to do this, to have demanded to be allowed to do so, astounded my aunt. She told my mother "see, she likes children." My mother replied, "no, she likes her niece."

It was in this that I saw the potential of the Maiden. The importance of the Maiden, of seeing the divine as a child, is not merely in the reciprocal relationship of caring. The importance lies in that potentiality, that promise. It is the motivation, it is the desire to see the child become something great, something greater than ourselves. I recall a saying, though I fear I do not recall who said it originally. Our fathers were farmers and laborers so that we may be doctors and merchants. We are doctors and merchants so that our children may be artists and authors. So, we also see self-sacrifice and hope.

The power of the God as Child lies not in our perception of the divine, but in the reaction that it may draw from us (indeed, this is true of all of our conceptions of the divine thus far explored, but not so potent as in the Child). If you wish to know the perception, read the Bhagavata Purana Book X, in which it tells of Krishna the Butter-thief. Indeed, I was tempted to leave this pursuit there. No, the power lies in what we must become in relation to the divine as Child, more so than the divine as Mother or Father. More so, even, than the divine as Sibling (which will be discussed later), Lover (which, for reasons I will explain later, I will not discuss), or Enemy (also to be discussed later). The divine as Child requires a change in us, not just recognition of how we see God in this role.

I find it important, as a final note, to point out that this does not refer to inner child. An inner child is important. Certainly, it is refreshing to look at the world as new, to see wonder and discovery everywhere, to wish only to play, to laugh and cry without reserve. However, everyone must grow up sometime. I daresay, to live our lives only as children may be as disastrous as truly living as if today was the last day of our lives (we would all end up fat, broke, and alone). Do not be afraid to act as a child occasionally (or to live today as if this was your only chance, for it may well be), but do not balk from your responsibilities either, for to do otherwise shows not a recapturing of innocence lost in adulthood but a stagnation, a refusal to grow. Think, instead, of the desire to leave a better world for those later, and the motivation to become someone worth remembering in coming generations.

Blessed Be.

My Container Garden

2009-05-14T12:16:00.006-04:00

Right now, here are just some picks. I've planted a bush tomato plant, crook-neck squash, sweet red peppers, and ichiban eggplant. I didn't do anything special to the soil (accept adding bone meal to red peppers) and fertilizers for each. I fertilize the tomatoes once a week. I would water them once a day if it would quit raining everyday (and the others I water once a day or once every two days as needed). I had to spray my eggplant with soapy water today because it was being attacked by bugs. I'm going to see if I can find a more lasting fix (our yearly ladybug swarm hasn't occured yet). Without further adieu, my plants:

The squash:

The peppers:

The eggplant:

And the tomatoes:

Blessed Be.

Permamonk Blog and Vegetables in Pots

2009-05-10T07:40:00.003-04:00

One of the big goals in IROCS is developing and teaching sustainable garden. Thanks to those who first develop permaculture (any google search will give you plenty of info, but try this: Permaculture Institute), we're well on our way to creating and maintaining a food-producing sustainable garden in the middle of Atlanta. Eventually, we want to be able to teach those in Atlanta (and other urban, suburban, or even rural settings) how to get beautiful, healthy, and tasty food out of what land they have available to them. Atlanta is sadly lacking in community gardens, but we intend to change that.

My grandmother had an apple tree, a plum tree, beans, tomatoes, and various other plants growing in her backyard in Vancouver, WA when I was growing up. Every summer when we went out, we helped as much as we could, and we had some of the most delicious meals there. My mother told me about all of the things her Nana would plant in her backyard, and how there was always plenty of fresh vegetables. In fact, for about half or three-quarters of the last century, just about everyone had a food-bearing garden in their backyards. For some reason, that changed. Almost no one I know - and I grew up in a rural part of Georgia - grew or knew how to grow vegetables. For some reason, vegetable gardens stopped.

I don't think I need to tell you how valuable vegetable gardening can be. You get plenty of healthy food, you get plenty of good exercise, and you get to be proud of what you did manage to grow. I started an herb garden in my parents' backyard. After I moved out for college, my mom dug up the herb garden and planted tomatoes. Now we have plenty of delicious tomatoes. Now, my mother is going to try her had at canning. I think it's about time vegetable gardening started coming back. It's cheaper, it's healthy, what's not to love?

Br. Kenneth and Br. Addison are currently experimenting with a wide range of plants in a friend's backyard and are chronicling their (mis)adventures in a new blog: Permamonk. At the moment, the Order doesn't actually own any land (though that, too, may soon change); we're using what we have available at the moment. Personally, I can't wait. Eventually, we hope to be able to develop a permanent permaculture garden around the Abbey (when we have an abbey) and teach those in Atlanta with land how to create one of their own.

However, this won't be helpful to everyone. When I lived in Atlanta, I never had any land on which to grow anything. I lived in apartments, and I had to settle with pots. In fact, the vast majority of people in Atlanta live in apartments. So, I decided that this summer I would attempt a little experiment of my own. I decided to try out vegetable container gardening. I've started four plants: one of my mother's tomato plants (she has four others; we really like tomatoes), some crook-necked squash, ichiban (Japanese) eggplant, and sweet red peppers. I bought them as transplants and I used (mostly) Miracle Grow's organic potting mix for them. I mixed bone meal (organic) into the pepper's soil, and I gave them all a good does of tomato feed after I planted them. Throughout the summer, I'll post pictures (once I get pictures of the plants right now) and updates and we'll see how this little experiment goes.

I'll also post tips I discover. First, I suggest one fantastic book, though: "McGee and Stuckey's The Bountiful Container" by Rose Marie Nichols McGee and Maggie Stuckey. This is the main book I'm using for this experiment, and they have plenty of other plants to try out as well.

I do hope this gives you some good ideas.

Blessed Be.

May Day

2009-05-08T21:17:00.004-04:00

My first encounter with the beast known as May Day (or Lady's Day, Bealtaine, or Beltane) had to be in the film The Wicker-Man. While I do not condone human sacrifice, I found myself bewitched by Summer Isle and their pagan celebrations. What if I lived in a community such as this? How wonderful would such a celebration be?

Like Hallow's Eve (Samhain), it is a Witch favorite, often broking more attention then man of the other Sabbats. Possible origins and celebrations abound, but at the moment I am uninterested in such things. I shall not bore you by repeating it when it has been done so well elsewhere. As with Springtide, I will explore May Day with a different approach.

What do we know of May Day by its position in the Wheel of the Year?

It is the third of three fertility festivals, and it is positioned in the light half of the year - ruled by the Oak King. It occurs at the end of April and into, and culminating on, May 1st (though May 1st is certainly the most popular day for one-day celebrations). It stands opposite Hallow's Eve (Samhain) on the Wheel of the Year.

According to the story, May Day is the marriage date of the Godman and the Goddess. They are adults now - fully adults - and are prepared for the rights and responsibilities of such an age. But, every new stage in life must be celebrated, and so May Day is the celebration of the wedding between the Godman and the Goddess. It is an adult celebration in many ways: while it may begin somberly and orderly (everyone lined up about the maypole dancing carefully around one another to weave the ribbons into a pattern), it quickly becomes wild, energetic, ecstatic - a dance so full of life that it cannot be contained in order, it must become chaos for just a few hours. Life runs rampant.

Sexuality, naturally, is an important part of this celebration. With every wedding night, after all, comes the consummation of that marriage. It is also a fertility festival - the ultimate fertility festival - and so it is the epitome of fecundity. Energy may be gathered easily upon this day, but I feel it is far better not to attempt to direct that energy. That energy is wild and quite aware of itself. Instead, let this energy run through you and recharge you. According to Taoism, these is such a thing called wu-wei (forgive any misspelling, Anglicization seems to be an art without any set rules) or no action. It is acting without acting for it is acting in accordance to the universe. Let the energy of the universe flow through you on this time - let the fertility of the world fill you and direct you.

There are two days in the year where the Veil between the Worlds thins: May Day and Hallow's Eve. In Hallow's Eve, the dead may walk the earth, as they say. They may return to their families and celebrate with them. Hallow's Eve is an exploration of Death. Its opposite, May Day, is an exploration of Life. That which is full of life crosses over: faeries, spirits, the Gods descend and for one day one night the world is more full of life than at any other time.

The final word I may have on this day is this: mystery. It is a day of mystery. Fertility, ecstasy, chaos, life, and mystery are the forces that rule the day. Love and trust, the two most important elements in any marriage, indeed in any relationship, are required for this day. The universe is here for you; dive in.

Blessed Be.

Faces of God: Mother

2009-05-08T20:21:00.002-04:00

First let me apologize for neglecting the blog for so long. While it is not an excuse, the past two weeks have been dreadfully hectic. It was finals, and I've been scrambling to get them done. I will do my best not to let this happen again. I shall be working to catch up (in all of my life) over the next few days.

So, Faces of God. Last I explored God as Father. This could be both imagining the All as Father or imagining the Godman in His role as Father. Today, I will be examining Mother, either the All imagined as Mother or the Goddess in Her role as Mother. Naturally, I will be drawing from my own experience with my mother, and from traditionally imagined and romanticized motherhood.

I have moon in Cancer on my natal chart, and whenever someone sees that I am told two things: I am extraordinarily emotionally sensitive (I've been called an empath, but nothing as been confirmed and I remain skeptical myself) and that I must have a wonderful relationship with my mother. I do believe I have a good relationship with my mother. However it has been, I know that, no matter what, I shall never leave her side when she needs me.

My mother was a stay-at-home mom, and I am grateful for it. It was nice having someone at home when I came home from school, and someone I could depend on would be where I needed her to be with extracurricular activities, and someone who always had dinner ready on time. She ran the household. Dad may have been the figurehead, but mom had the real power in the family. That's how my sisters and I saw it. From what we could tell, she made all the important decisions. Having grown up, I see that it is far more a partnership between them than a dictatorship. And, many times, my mother tricks my father into things. She wants to buy something, she will without telling him, let him see how useful it was while pretending they had had it for a while (my father wasn't always perceptive about these things), then let it be. In "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" the mother says that the man may be the head of the house, but the woman is the neck, and she may turn the head any way she wants. I certainly saw that with my family.

My mother was passionate in a way my father never could be. She had radical emotions sometimes and she expressed them. While I've never seen my father cry or grow angry - in fact, the only extreme I see him is when he's watching a funny movie and turning red from laughter. Mom cried in front of us, and screamed at us. And she loved us unreservedly and unconditionally. Think of a thunderstorm. This is how I imagine my mother when she would yell at us. It made us stronger. It made us resilient, confident, capable, because in the end we always came through. And it gave us passion. My sisters and I may act reserved at some times, but you could never mistake the passion we have in our lives. My mother, I believe, is the source, and it has even spread to my father. My oldest sister told us that we had scared one of her friends, because we all had personalities larger than life. In fact, we have been told by various people that we were unforgettable. We had a force of personality that was unmistakable. I believe my mother is the source of it.

And, I could go to my mother with emotional problems and she knew how to deal with them. My father was overly rational. He could not - he barely understood!- emotional issues. My mother had run the gambit. Raised by a depressed mother and an alcoholic father, and then German immigrant grandparents, she had spent time neglected, unloved, forgotten (on her ninth birthday, her mother was off having a baby. While my grandmother could not time the baby's birth, it left an impression on my mother: she was unwanted), at times homeless, occasionally a drug user, a seeker, and a reckless teenager. She grew up after hitting rock bottom - a situation I will not discuss for she only recently felt at ease to tell me. She has become fiercely determined to keep the family after that. And she knows what we might be feeling. If I feel alone or depressed, she understands. She has certainly been there.

However, like both her mother and stepmother, I have found them all, including my mother, terribly irrational and a bit hysterical at times. Sometimes, I feel arrogant for being more like my father, in being more rational in my thinking. I feel sometimes she is too lead by her feelings and it puts me off. I find myself frustrated by it.

How might this affect my relationship with the Goddess, the All? The Goddess is wild, a mystery. She is the night. She is the summer thunderstorms that strike in the evenings in the South. She is the violent ocean - both life-giving and life-taking, and she often cannot be reasoned with. She must be loved unconditionally for she loves unconditionally. Sometimes that love is hard, for you may feel the full brunt of her fury. At the same time, she is wise. She knows you as only a mother does. She carried the universe in her womb. Who could know it better? She may be nurturing at one moment, and then push you out of the nest the next, and sometimes it is extraordinarily hurtful, but it is always for the best.

These musings are my own, so take them as you will. The All is everywhere. The Godman penetrates everything, the Goddess envelopes everything. Divinity comes in as many forms as an infinite universe can provide. This is just one more face.

Faces of God: Father

2009-04-24T12:52:00.002-04:00

Last week, IROCS started a series we call "The Faces of God" series. What this encourages contemplatives - and really anyone who wishes to participate - to do is to recognize and expand how we each think of the All. What labels do we apply? What limitations to we impose?

I've found that for my monotheistic fellows, this is a bit more difficult than for myself. After all, I, as a soft polytheist, do have multiple faces that I already apply to the all. Still, the exercise is for more than just applying divine faces to the divine. It is to help us recognize that there is divinity in all things - that all of our faces are the faces of the God.

The first session was Father. What are the father-figures in your life? How have you imagined God in this way? How has that helped you? How has it hurt you?

The foremost father figure for me is, in fact, my father. I have a wonderful father. He has fulfilled several rather typical roles: provider, protector, fixer. He has been a practical force in my life. Occasionally, he is a trickster.

There are many positive images that I have for my father. He's always pushed us (my sisters and me) to do more, to be better, in a rather direct way. In fact, he's been very direct in everything. He's been extraordinarily patient and very practical. I recall one thing he's always told me when I was nervous about something (asking someone for a favor, for example), he'd just say "Go ahead and ask. The worst s/he could do is say no." It's made me confident, because it's made me more realistic about the fears I do have. One of the most obvious ways these positive aspects has affected how I perceive the God (and the Godman) is in that of provider. My father has always taken care of things. Oh, that's not to say he won't let me flounder for a while so that next time I'll learn not to do something so stupid, but at the same time, he's always been there to pick me up when I've fallen. It's been a "don't worry, you'll be fine; I'm right here" sort of thing. In this, I have confidence that, no matter how bad it gets, I'll be all right. The universe will take care of me.

That's not to say there aren't negative aspects. My father isn't emotionally distant, but rather... emotionally mute. He'll laugh, he'll joke around, he'll get serious, but he rarely gets angry and he rarely gets sad. At least around my sister and me. He'll get frustrated, but I've never seen him overly emotional except when he's laughing. That's good, but at the same time, I feel I can't emotionally connect with him. (This doesn't affect too negatively the way I connect with the Divine, though; my mother is very emotionally accessible.)

What has affected me is my father's extraordinary ability to be so discouraging. It's debilitating sometimes. I'll go to my father with a plan, and he'll immediately pick out all the flaws without mentioning any of the good points. I recall once I had spent weeks getting this one painting just right. My aunt loved it; she demanded to get it before I had even finished it. My father, though no art critic and hardly knowledgeable about art at all, immediately pointed out the flaws. He's done this with my dreams as well. The reason I did not go into archaeology is because of this ability. The reason I went into religious studies is because I was so deep in before I told him. And I can see how this does affect my relationship with the divine. I never share my plans with the Godman. Sometimes I'll say a thing or two to the Goddess, but most often, I'll keep my plans, my hopes, my dreams to myself. This is a limiting factor I need to remove.

I encourage you to try this. As all contemplative practices, it's enlightening.

Blessed Be.

Reverse ritual...

2009-04-10T09:29:00.003-04:00

Just a few minutes ago, I read a post Positive Liberty under the title "Silly Atheist Trend." I know, when you first hear that title, all you're thinking is that some ridiculous Christian fundamentalist is complaining about interest in deconverting, that Richard Dawkins is a loudmouth blowhard (and as much as I respect the man...), and that the world will greatly regret this secularization. But, hold your horses. Actually, the post is on something completely different.

Apparently, the UK is beginning to see a trend of de-baptism. Atheists are asking that their names be removed from rosters (a completely legitimate act, if the church uses the number of names on its roster for political purposes) and that they be de-baptized. Now, the author of the post (Jason Kuznicki) feels that this is a rather hypocritical thing for an atheist to ask for: after all, if you do not believe in the efficacy of a ritual, how is it that you believe their is any need for you to reverse that ritual?

Now, the commentators (or rather, commenters) on this post have brought up some important points to counter Kuznicki's views: rituals have a psychological effect for one, that giving up long-held beliefs is an important move in one's life and of course one would want to commemorate it, or that its an ironic use of ritual to make a point: that ritual is not efficacious, at least in any spiritual or magical way. However much these arguments make sense (and I do believe there is validity in these arguments) I feel they miss the point.

Rituals have a psychological effect: this I feel is the move valid argument, but also the least valid. Will start with how invalid it is: christenings and baptisms in many churches - not all - occur when child is an infant. There is no psychological effect on the child at this point. In fact, the only psychological effect an infant may experience comes from neglect: when the mother does not meet the child's needs in a timely manner or withholds contact. A ceremony in which the child is held by a stranger and sprinkled with water isn't going to effect it in the long run - or short run - for the simple reason that an infant has not developed the brain capacity to understand what is going on. They can't even remember it, either. I was thirteen before I learned I had been christened, and as someone who has converted and does believe in the efficacy of ritual, I am still not effected.

However, it is also extraordinarily valid. A person may choose to do a de-baptism ritual because that ritual has psychological efficacy. That's fair. I have no complaint there. However, from what I know of atheists, it would not be the church that must preform this ritual. Atheists tend to be more individualistic and far more concerned with personal agency. If it was to commemorate (for the second point brought up) the deconversion, it would seem more appropriate for a person to develop a secular ritual - the hair dryer suggestion, for example - that they themselves preform to show that they have chosen to remove themselves from Christianity. Otherwise, wouldn't it just be excommunication? I'll have more to say on this in a moment.

Finally, one commenter argued that this was an ironic use of ritual. He brought up the hair dryer ceremony. It was done for laughs. Now, I cannot say what was going on through the heads of the people who are demanding de-baptism, but the way it is discussed in the quote, it appears that this was far more serious than just a display to show the ridiculousness of religious ritual. "John Hunt, a 58-year-old from London and one of the first to try to be “de-baptised,” held that he was too young to make any decision when he was christened at five months old." or "Michael Evans, 66, branded baptising children as “a form of child abuse” — and said that when he complained to the church where he was christened he was told to contact the European Court of Human Rights." Something more is at stake here than just poking fun out an organization that takes itself a little too seriously for these people. Hunt and Evans appear to believe there is something just a bit more important at work. There is something wrong with baptism that needs to be remedied. Is it that they (or perhaps just Hunt) want a de-baptism to counteract this effect? But perhaps I'm bringing too much of my religious studies scholar side in here.

My final point is this: there is no theological or liturgical basis for de-baptism. To demand that there ought to be makes an implicit assertion: the church has the power here to change something and it is refusing to do so. But, if ritual has no efficacy for an infant (spiritual, magical, or psychological), what could possibly need to be changed? What is at work? What power do these people perceive? By feeling the need to be de-baptized, it appears that a person continues to recognize the authority and power of the church, even as he or she claims that there is no god there to give that authority or power. Is this an ontological claim? I couldn't say. The only thing I could think that would be useful in this circumstance is excommunication - this is where the blessing of baptism is removed. However, I feel that atheists would not be willing to be excommunicated, for the symbolism there and the inherent power structures work against them in a more insidious way than does a de-baptism. However, the power structures and symbolism in de-baptism works against them, too. If the church must perform a de-baptism, the church still has the power. If a person chooses to develop their own secular ritual in which they official remove themselves from Christian authority and community, then they have the agency.

In the end, I couldn't say how these people are approaching de-baptism, it's something I truly wish to investigate further. It appears Hunt ended up becoming his own agent, but he went to the church first - which implies he still recognized its authority in this manner. Certainly, there are some who are doing this explicitly as a joke, but it appears others are being far more serious. There appears to be an actual different - ontologically, teleologically, I couldn't say. It's too bad Kuznicki didn't give us more.

The vows...

2009-03-29T19:21:00.002-04:00

Today, just about an hour ago, I took vows and am now an official member of IROCS (the Inter-Religious Order of Contemplative Spirituality). As the first Witch, I will be the founder Abbess of the Pagan Order within IROCS. And I can't wait.

Over the next year, I intend to fashion the Order (I'm thinking the Order of Pan, though I haven't completely settled on that) as an eclectic but very serious group of Pagan mystics. At the same time, though I intend to have us serve as priests and priestesses to a wider laity, deepening and broadening the spiritual basis of Paganism in community. Naturally, there will be ecological concerns (I was lucky that Br. Addison was so concerned with this when I got there - he's working on permaculture. I think a more viable teaching tool would be organic potted gardening, at least here in the city), as well as other concerns (gay rights, human rights). I would also like to work on education.

Granted, all of this is up in the air, and frankly, right now it all rests on my shoulders, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. I hope to create a stable coven (with a wider laity group surrounding it) in time. Whether that works, whether I reach that destination or not, I sure will enjoy the ride.

Why the Godman...

2009-03-26T17:18:00.003-04:00

Being trained as a scholar, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about definitions - that's all we do in one of my classes. We all agree on the importance of definitions, of being explicit about what we mean by what terms we use. To a degree, I wish to bring this into my religious life. So, let me tell you what I say "Godman" instead of "God."

Part of it is purely feminism. If a female god is called a goddess - that is, if the femininity of a deity modifies the noun with a suffix, so too should the masculinity. So, because we call a female deity a goddess (adding -ess to god), then a male god ought to have a suffix as well, making it godman. The word "god" ought to be neuter.

But, there are other reasons. There is a great deal of confusion around the word "god" when it is used as a name. I am something of a duotheist - there is a male god and a female god (and I'm a soft polytheist, but there's no need to get into that now), but I am a soft duotheist. I believe that there is also a god who lack gender greater than the male and female gods. This god is unknowable, ineffable - some call this god the All - which is fine, I will occasionally use that as well. However, I will occasionally refer to the ineffable god merely as the God or God. Because I use this term, I don't like using that same term (the God) for the male god (the Godman).

It's a personal choice, certainly. But as much as I like "the All," I like the connotations - some - of "the God." "The All" has its valuable connotations. "The All" suggests something truly immense and indivisible. No matter what, when you think you fully comprehend the All - as soon as you try to define the All - you've lost it; you've cut something out. If you're cutting something out, you can't, by definition, be comprehending the All. It strikes from the heart of pantheism. So, I value that name. "The God," though, can suggest all that and something else. "The God" has a connotation of the personal. Not only is it all of everything, it also cares about you, it also loves you. The line from "The Desiderata" by Max Ehrmann - "You are a child of the universe/ no less than the trees and the stars" - makes sense with these new connotations. Granted, we can assume these connotations with "the All," but it simply does not flow as well.

My final reason is this: I wish to subvert the connotations given to "God' by two millennia of Christian theology. "God" shall no longer be the quizzically wrathful and forgiving God, the God who causes people to sin and then punishes them for it. The Father who chooses to sacrifice for the sins of others, these stories shall no longer be attached to the English word "God." I want to reclaim that term from Christianity so that English may have a way to talk of "God" and mean what they mean when they say "deity." I want to take English back from Christianity, in a way.

While this is a strong reason, it certainly is not my whole intention. My final purpose is simply: by having the triad the God, the Godman, and the Goddess, we see a stronger connection between the three then if we have triad the All, the God, and the Goddess. And then we have a stronger connection between the God, the Godman, the Goddess, man, and woman. At least in my mind. Henceforth, then, I shall use either the God or the All, more often the former, the Godman and the Goddess.

Springtide

2009-03-20T12:33:00.003-04:00

I like to call it Springtide (because I can pronounce it), but others have for a long time called it Ostara (or Eostre). I'm sure you've heard about the story - the Germanic Goddess Eostre worshiped around the vernal equinox with her eggs represeting the renewal of life and her court of hares. Easter used to be called Pascha - suffering - but in order to convert pagans, Christians called it Easter and incorporated pagan practices, and so the Goddess's practices were subsumed and She disappeared. We know this from the Venerable Bede. I doubt this incorporation of pagan practices into Christian liturgy was quite so calculated; I feel that, more likely, people weren't concerned with "religion" - a reified concept whose usage as a category of practices and beliefs is only a contemporary one - as with tradition and converted, but maintained their previous traditions. Many of the priests and bishops - who had grown up with these same traditions - probably just let it slide. Eventually, the church made a decision to keep it up. Bu, that's beside the point. I've heard the Venerable Bede may not be as trustworthy as previously assumed. Who knows. Who cares?

I'm not really concerned with the history here. No, I'm more concerned with Springtide (Ostara) as it is today. I still keep traditional imagery - rabbits and hares, chicks, eggs, flowers, butterflies, clover. And why not? They work so well.

What do we know of the position of Springtide on the Wheel of the Year?

We know it's the second fertility festival, which occurs during the light half of the year - ruled by the Oak King. It occurs during March, on the vernal equinox. Indeed, it is the celebration of the equinox. We know the equinox is a time of perfect balance: the day and night are exactly the same length and you can even balance an egg upright on a flat surface. We also know it is directly across from Autumntide (Mabon), the second harvest festival.

The actual story of the Wheel of the Year is confused - which frustrated me a great deal when I first became a Witch. That is - everyone had a different story, and how was I supposed to figure it out? We know the Godman is born on Midwinter (Yule), and that He dies on Hallow's Night (Samhain). And there are a few other basics that were common. The real confusion for me was when the Godman and the Goddess married and when the Goddess became pregnant with the Godman. I have since developed my own story; whether it is consistent with others or not, it works for me.

On Springtide, the Godman and the Goddess are adolescents - too young, now, to be married. Of course, at one time, the marriage would have occurred on this Sabbat, but convention has changed. They'll have to wait until May's Day when They're older. But... who says They can't sneak off? It hasn't been that long since I was an adolescent, and I remember what adolescents do. Here we see a new social convention - sexual exploration before marriage when puberty hits. Marriage is for later for procreation (and various legal benefits). Sex now - in adolescence - is purely for fun and discovery. That is the playful sexuality of Springtide. It is a time to explore and celebrate the renewal of life, a time of relaxation and play and maybe a little ecstasy.

I think of the Srimad Bhagavata Purana. In the Tenth Book, there are a few chapters dedicated to the lila, play, of Krsna, and here I see the same, or a very similar, thing. Adulthood and responsibility is coming, let's enjoy the childish streak we all still have and just play.

Also, though, this is a time of balance. With play comes rest. Adolescence is a time to form an independent identity, and the Godman and the Goddess are adolescents. They are finding Themselves, and you can't lose yourself until you've found yourself first. So, with play there must still be contemplation - a contemplation of creating. Now is a time to reaffirm ourselves as ourselves - or perhaps, recreate ourselves.

This is also a great time for any commencement. The world is full of fertility, just about anything will take if its started with the right motivation. Promise - potential - is the keyword here. Seeds, eggs, baby animals, that's why these are the symbols. The clover - bright green - is luck and fertility. Flowers, spring flowers, and butterflies, which begin to appear around this time are just natural; they show us a young world.

So, take this promise and create, for now is the time.

The Wheel of the Year

2009-03-18T17:43:00.007-04:00

Note: Image totally ripped from http://www.andyrobinson.biz/page8.html. One day when I can finally finish it to my satisfaction, I'll post mine up.

Over the next year, I intend to examine each Sabbat on its day. While I know this has been done multiple times, I intend to do it myself as well. Here, though, I will not be examining ancient or modern practices, history, activities, rituals, food, etc, etc. Instead, I intend to take on more of a storyteller approach. The Wheel of the Year is many things, and one of those things is the enigmatic story of annual birth, life, death, and rebirth of the Godman. (Here a note as well - I will discuss at some point why I choose to say Godman instead of God. But, that is another post.) Yes, the story also tells of the Goddess, but I am inclined to believe the truly dynamic character upon whom the story hinges is the Godman. In the solar year - the Godman's story - only the character of the Godman may be fully discovered. The Goddess lays more esoterically in the lunar year.

So, let's start with the story:
*Midwinter (Yule): The Goddess gives birth to the Godman. The Sun (Son), than, returns, and the light half of the year begins. The Oak King defeats the Holly King (two figures that technically exist in a cycle all their own). From here on, the Godman's power will grow.
*Candlemas (Imbolg): The Godman is a child here - stronger than he was and just capable of independence (perhaps comparable to the age of 7 years). The Goddess - the Earth, that is - begins to awaken, and so, she too is a child. This is the 1st Fertility Festival.
*Springtide (Ostara): Both the Godman and the Goddess are adolescents. Fertility abounds, and the Godman courts the Goddess. This is a time of balance; pure play and contemplative self-identification must both occur. This is the 2nd Fertility Festival.
*May Day (Bealtaine): Here we see the culmination of fertility. This festival in which the Veil Between the Worlds thins is the exploration - the epitome - of life unbridled. The Godman and the Goddess marry. This is the 3rd and final Fertility Festival.
*Midsummer (Litha): This is the peak of the Godman's power, and here on, His power will decrease. In fact, this decrease is caused by His impregnation of the Goddess with Himself; He enters the womg/tomb progressively. The Holly King degeats the Oak King, and thus begins the dark half of the year.
*Lammas (Lughnasadh): This is the 1st Harvest Festival; the Godman as grain is sacrificed. Yet, the Godman is still strong, and this may be thought of as his last great hurrah. The Goddess enters into the paradigmatic state of Mother and Crone at once.
*Autumntide (Mabon): Here again we see balance, but first we see contemplation. Activity must occurs; here is the closing of life's work in preparation of total death. Activity is in the harvest. The Godman is sacrificed as grape or fruit. This is the 2nd Harvest Festival.
*Hallow's Night (Samhain): This is the epitome of the exploration of death as the Veil Between the Worlds thins once again. The Godman is sacrificed a third and final time in the meat harvest and fully enters the womb/tomb. This is the 3rd Harvest Festival.
*Midwinter: Again, the cycle starts.

And so, we have two halves of the year - the light half from Midwinter to Midsummer and the dark half from Midsummer to Midwinter - in which the Godman's strength rises and then falls, respectively. The Sabbats that fall between the two solstices are influenced by which half they fall into. The three festivals of the light half of the year, Candlemas, Springtide, and May Day, are fertility, constructive. The three in the dark half, Lammas, Autumntide, and Hallow's Night, are harvest, destructive.

The solstices are opposites, both marking barriers - the crest and trough of the year. And there are other polarities: Springtide and Autumntide - the equinoxes, a time of perfect balance; May Day and Hallow's Night - the celebration of life then death, when the Veil Between the Worlds thins. I confess, Candlemas and Lammas are poles as well, but I cannot yet find he connection, the fulcrum upon which the poles move. Perhaps I will find this in the coming year.

So, the Sabbats - the Wheel of the Year - is our solar year. It tells the story of the Godman. Keep in mind the half of the year with each Sabbat, and its opposite, as I examine them.

This weekend brings Springtide. I will begin there.

Blessed Be.

Eros the Bittersweet...

2009-02-14T11:37:00.003-05:00

"It was Sappho who first called eros 'bittersweet.' No one who has been in love disputes her. What does the word mean?" These are the first words of Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet. Actually, the literal translation of the Greek word is "sweetbitter." Now what does that tell us?

The Greeks had three words for "love": eros, philos, and agape. The first has received the most attention in Greek philosophy and literature, and in her volume on that subject, Carson explores what the Greeks really meant when they invoke Eros. She explores a variety of sources, from Sappho's lost poetry to Aeschylus's tragic plays to Plato's philosophic texts portraying both his own teachings and that of Sokrates. It is a poetic exploration of one of the most important aspects on our lives.

Today is a day of love, which means Cupid - the Roman counterpart to Eros - is out if full swing making young people fall in love in all-too-hackneyed fashion of late 20th century romantic comedies. But love - or eros, desire - is more than roses and chocolates and a happy little dinner that occurs once a year. It is far more. In her provocative and thoughtful writings, Carson shows that eros goes even further beyond what we have ever thought.

Read this volume if it is Eros for whom you are looking: once you have, you'll find Him everywhere.

Have a happy Valentine's Day.

A construction of creation...

2009-02-03T19:18:00.003-05:00

I am a masters student in a Religious Studies program here Georgia, and I intend to start in a Ph.D. program in 2010, if they'll take me. These programs being extraordinarily competitive, and me being so young (I'm only 22 and the youngest student in the program. The next is a few months older than I am, and then it jumps to 25), I may not get in, but who knows what will happen in a few days, let alone another year? My point of that little piece of biographical language is that I have come to think of religion in very different terms than the average person. In some ways, my education has really fucked me up, but for the better.

One way is that I have become a post-modernist. What this means, or rather what I mean by this term, is that I recognize that all worldviews are merely constructions of the world as opposed to actual representations. That is, every worldview looks at the world and constructs itself; it is a filtering of the world by certain criteria. Every worldview excludes certain elements of the world and emphasizes others. For example, a capitalist is looking at a particular permaculture garden and measures its value in terms of money. An environmentalist measures its value in terms of the lack of detriment on the eco-system and the amount of food it provides. Neither are incorrect in their estimation of the value of the permaculture garden; one's worldview ignores particular aspects and emphasizes others, as does the other's worldview.

What does all this mean? Partly, it means that I recognize that we're all culturally situated and we can't ever really get out of that situatedness. It also means I realize that no worldview represents the world as it really is. It also, though, means I recognize that all worldviews are constructed - which means, in turn, that we may self-consciously construct a worldview. We may develop a worldview the way we want it to be, including elements we want and excluding those we do not.

But, why am I saying all of this - aside from the fact that it makes the self-conscious human extraordinarily powerful? Well, I was reading a scholar who discussed certain creation myths, Rosemary Radford Reuther. In the first chapter of Gaia and God: An Ecofeminist Theology of Earth Healing, Reuther examines three creation myths and discusses how these myths both draw from and recreate a particular worldview. The three creation stories are the Enuma Elish (Babylonian), Genesis (Hebrew), and Timaeus (Greek). She examines each of these and looks at their social elements, and comes to the conclusion that many of these myths recreate a decidedly patriarchal society (among other things) in which "female" is a decidedly negative thing. There were other aspects, like the decidedly non-egalitarian treatment of the surf class in the Enuma Elish, among other things. As I read this, I became appalled. Reuther had convinced me.

I began thinking - and had been thinking before reading this - that there are few creation stories within modern Neo-Paganism (and here, I say this as a scholar more than a practitioner, so the term would refer to any who self identify as a Pagan, Witch, Wiccan, Heathen, Neo-Pagan, etc, etc), and of those that I came across I found rather... disappointing. Chief among those was Starhawk's creation story related in The Spiral Dance. As I read this, I read into it an almost dangerously matriarchal construction, in which male is considered deficient - the God only becomes male when He is forced away from the Goddess and falls to the Earth. Maleness, then, is farthest from the Divine.

Now, I'm certain Starhawk would not agree with this reading of the material - which is why I'm reading this as a scholar right now instead of a practitioner. There's a power play at work in the myth Starhawk relates. There's a decided power structure built into the story, and it can be just as ugly as the patriarchy built into any of the other three creation stories mentioned above. Now, I will speak as a practitioner: we don't want nor need that type of power structure and we need not have it. We can self-consciously create a creation story that embodies the ideals we wish to see in society. If I were to write a creation story - and I will once I feel I have been truly inspire, for I will not take this work lightly - there would be no gender in the beginning. Then there would be the Godman and the Goddess (have I talked about why I say Godman instead of God, yet? Oh well, that can be the next post), both equally divine, both equally perfect, and both completely equal. And I would write the creation of humans in a way that both portrays sexual equality, but also racial equality, ethnic equality, and acceptance of different sexual orientations.

You say, perhaps, how can I self-consciously create a religious text and declare it to still hold the power of one that is truly religious? Well, first, I doubt a Pagan would ask that, but some might, even though the movement as a whole has no official religious text. And that would be my first argument: there are no official sacred texts, so mine can be just as official as anyone else. My second would be, and now I speak both as a scholar and a practitioner - a bridge I rarely make, that all texts were written at some point, stories that people had made up and added to and then given religious significance when they inspire some amount of awe - when they were liked enough. Belief, my friends, is a powerful thing; it can make things true that weren't true before - and I mean that there is a qualitative difference that occurs here. We can choose to construct a creation story as we want it and believe in it, and it will become true.

And now I must break from this bridging of two realms of my life. Now, I speak as an apologetic practitioner.

I know that most of you will wonder with what authority I speak, and frankly, I don't have any. I haven't been initiated in any coven - in fact, I find the practice rather unappealing (interesting I should support institutionalism, then, but that is a paradox that will have to be explained away later), nor have I heard the voice of the Goddess calling me to go onto the people and speak to them as a prophet! What I have is an irresistible, compelling desire to say what I am saying and have said and will say and do what I am doing and have done and will do. If that comes from the Godman and the Goddess, fantastic. If it is purely in myself, well, we all have sparks, do we not? creative sparks from the Goddess in us? Who is to say that this spark is not pushing me to do so? I cannot. So, I have whatever authority you choose to give me. If I make a convincing argument and you agree with me, then I have some authority. If I do not and you do not, then I don't, and you need not pay me anymore mind.

However, I feel that this is something that we need to think about as we develop and retell our own myths: that each myth has within it particular social structures, and we may construct our own society by the myths we tell, if we are self-conscious enough.

The new president...

2009-01-25T07:37:00.003-05:00

I'll admit. I didn't vote for Barack Obama. I voted libertarian - I am a libertarian (perhaps not as hard and fast as some I know, but, there you go), and I felt - and still feel - that it really isn't any of the government's business how we live our lives. My philosophy is this: I don't care what you do, don't hurt anyone else (who doesn't want to be hurt - I've known some kinky people) and don't make me pay for it. Though the libertarian lost, I'm very pleased with President Obama so far.

On the 23rd, President Obama issued a memorandum rescinding the "Mexico City Policy" used by Reagan and Bush. This policy restricted - banned actually - government aid sent to any foreign aid group if it had anything to do with abortion. President Obama has declared that this has "undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family planning programs in foreign nations." What this means is that foreign aid groups can now help women who have little or no access to birth control, and for whom childbirth is one of the, if not the first, leading causes of death.

I support abortion. I don't support it because I find the practice attractive - the thought is appalling. It is killing something that has the potential for life. But, then again, potential is no guarantee. I support abortion because no woman I've ever known has made the decision lightly. It's been a necessity for them, though. I support abortion, also, because it is the lesser of two evils. I'd rather not bring anymore unwanted children into the world. There are enough already. And, they all have potential, but because of their status in this world, they will almost never reach it.

The benefits of institution...

2009-01-23T07:47:00.000-05:00

One of my goals in joining the Order is to develop a set clergy in Paganism today. I know this appalls the average Witch - and I understand why it does. Parts of institutional religion knot my stomach, but there are also valuable aspects to having a set clergy that I fear we've overlooked.

In one discussion that evolved from a comment I had made - I hadn't expected that kind of fallout - the discussion of institution came up. I think the conversation the group and I had shows how much this is a hot button issue. I had said that because there was no Pope of Paganism (or Witchcraft) that, in fact, there was no institution, modern Pagans and Witches have the responsibilities to become their own clergy, theologians, and philosophers. The responses surprised me - of course we haven't developed philosophical schools, we're only 60 years old (which, by the way, is denied in certain conversations and asserted in others - imagine the kind of conversations this change occurs in); traditions have set rules; we don't need an institution; we don't want an institution; institutions take the soul out of a religion; etc, etc, etc. Now, that is not to say that there were none that agreed with me. Nor is that to say that this is an exhaustive representation of the various stands that were presented. However, this shows a problematic tension in Paganism and Witchcraft: we are desperately trying to walk a thin line between institutionalism and pure individuality.

Individuality is important. The religion should not be dead to the average participant. The religion ought to mean something to the participant; it ought to have an effect on the participant. Religion shouldn't be dull habit. Individualism - in Witchcraft and Paganism, the rule of adapting particular practices and beliefs to "fit" the participant more fully - helps to keep the religion alive and thriving for its members. Cherry-picking, as one friend called it. I replied that that was one of Paganism's strengths. We all know how much value we put into it, so I need not go on.

Institutionalism offers some valuable qualities to the religious life, though. First and foremost, it anchors a community. "We" are all alike because "we" all worship at the same place, in the same way, to the same deity/deities. "We" see each other everyday, or every week. "We" become a surrogate family - larger than a family, perhaps even a clan. Moreover, I believe that institutionalism, when made to work properly, can give the religion more soul than pure individualism.

Institutionalism divides the participants into two categories: clergy and laity. The clergy is the smaller category, the laity the larger. The clergy remains to some degree removed from the material and public world. The laity remains more fully involved. It is a division of labor; the clergy sees to the spiritual needs of the community, the laity to the material - and as much as we like to bash the material, that is just as important; people need to eat, sleep, be warm and healthy, many times before they can attend to their spiritual lives. And while the clergy anchors the community spiritually, the laity anchors the community materially. What having a laity does is allow the clergy a chance to delve even deeper into the spiritual depths. Not everyone can do this, or the human race would cease to exist. And I mean this literally - we all stop working and nothing is produced and we all, eventually, starve to death, or freeze, or something.

If a clergyperson is supported by the laity, that clergyperson is allowed to explore the spiritual depths because he or she need not worry about his or her personal material needs. The laity is allowed to work in the material world, for the clergy will come back and tell them what he or she has found among the depths. That is the purpose of the Order - it is an attempt to re-anchor the urban world in a spiritual sense.

The majority of us, as we grow older, can't spend our days meditating and contemplating the divine. Some of us marry, have children, mortgages, college funds, bills, car payments, teenagers, grandchildren, so on and so forth. We must become more consumed with this materialism or perish. I have no desire to end up homeless, and so I spend time working in a spiritually draining job (or, I will return to it when the semester ends). It takes time away from my spiritual life, and I can guarantee you, come this summer, my practices will wan with my patience, and I will have to, come autumn, start again. If, however, I were a clergy, I could spend my life exploring these depths and come back to the laity that supported me and told them, advised them, lead them spiritually. Remember, friends, not everyone was a Witch or a Priest or Priestess in paganism's heyday.

Certainly, there are risks - but Paganism is going to stagnate and dissolve if we continue fumbling along the surface. That's all we can do if we stay completely in the individualistic mode. We just don't have the time or money to go further without supporting a clergy. It's time we grew up into an established religion. I intend to do my part to make it happen.

Now, I'm not saying give up the individualism. It's valuable, we can't become a hollow shell. And I'm certainly not saying develop a huge bureaucracy like that of the papal system - certainly not. What I am saying is that maybe, what we can do, is walk the line. Ideally, if things go as I picture it, a clergy will live somewhere. The Witches and Pagans that surround that clergy - or perhaps, those that agree with her, will do what they can to support her. In this digital age, perhaps instead of a physical "parish" there will, instead, be a digital one. Perhaps I don't like any of the clergy around where I live, but there's one in Oregon who is willing to work with me over instant message - why not? There's no reason it cannot work.

An institution offers other things to a laity. The clergy are more likely to be of uniform caliber, though not completely. It offers an organization - which means more legal recognition. "Oh, you need to take your child out of school for Ostara? I've never heard of that. It sounds like you're making it up." "No. Here's some literature. It's a legally acknowledged group - here is the phone number to my priestess, would you like to talk to her?" Sure, that's not a great example, but you get the idea. With an institution toward individualism, you can find a nationally or even internationally recognized priest or priestess who can support your beliefs. Moreover, the clergy, with an institution, will have someone to answer to. Not just his or her "parish," nor his or her Gods, but to his or her superiors.

What I will attempt to do in the Order is establish a Pagan clergy. If we are careful, if we try not to establish too much power in one place, I think we can walk the line between institutionalism and individualism and reap the benefits of both.

Life on the inside...

2009-01-19T11:54:00.000-05:00

I am, despite deep-seated desires to the contrary, still stuck in the broom closet.

Well, let me qualify that: I am still stuck in the broom closet in regards to my mother and father. Everyone else knows!

I know, I know: you’re an adult, you’re over 21, the only thing you can’t legally do is run for certain governmental offices and some people won’t rent cars to you. I know all that. During my undergraduate career, I hesitated in telling them because I was depending upon them for financial support. Now, as a graduate, I don’t need their support; I wouldn’t be the first student living off of summer job savings, student loans, and a stipend. So, why am I concerned about their knowing – or rather, disapproving – of my religious choice?

I’m not actually concerned about my father. As long as we (my sisters and I) are healthy, happy, and able to afford the bare minimum, he’s pretty hands off. He’s certainly of the opinion that people need to make their own decisions and their own mistakes and find their own way. Which is fine, I feel the same way. But, there’s a problem with that philosophy; neither he nor I have experienced any particularly devastating blows in our lives. We have never suffered much. We lived in loving homes, with supportive parents – we’ve never been homeless or made to go hungry or neglected. We’ve never been physically or emotionally abused. Let me just say: I didn’t realize how abnormal that is until I was well into my teens.

My mother, though. She has suffered in her life. Her father was an alcoholic, her mother suffered from major depression disorder. There were times in her life when she was homeless. She used drugs, she did things that hurt herself and others. A few things happened that changed her life around: her mother married a wonderful man who took care of my mother, and she found Jesus. With a true faith that I wish I had, she believes. She loves everyone; she doesn’t want anyone to suffer. She’s far more hands-on than my father, and I understand why. She made the mistakes and suffered for it; she doesn’t want her children to do the same. Let me give an example of my parents’ different styles.

My parents and I were watching a sitcom. The father didn’t want to go to Mass, because, well, it’s long and rather boring. Everyone in the family started harassing the father to go, especially the grandfather. I asked my parents why the grandfather was so concerned. Why couldn’t he just let it go? They told me that it was because the grandfather wanted to pass his religion onto his son, the father. I asked my parents if they felt that way. My mother said yes, and left it at that. My father said no, and said that a person has to find their own religion.

It’s not as if I feel my mother will throw me out of the family. I feel as though I will hurt her, though. I feel that if I tell her that I find no personal joy in Christianity that she will feel as if she has failed me. And I don’t want her to feel that way.

There are times when she has given me indications that she knows that I’m a Pagan and is okay with it. For example, when she told me that she had convinced my Nana to buy me a mortar and pestle for Christmas, she told me that she had told my Nana that I could use it for Wiccan potions. When my Nana, apparently, asked, “Isn’t she too smart for that?” My mother replied, “Maybe we’re not smart enough.” I felt this was a good sign. Quite a good sign. Then, a few days ago, I started talking about taking vows in the Order.

When I talk about the Order, I am referring to an O.P.C – Ordo Precis Contemplativae, or Order of Contemplative Prayer – known as the Order of Saint Anthony the Great. It is actually an interfaith Order, and eventually, there will be “sub-Orders” involved with the Order of Saint Anthony the Great, for example, the Kabbalist Order of the Broken Mirror. I will be joining this Order as a Pagan (which I am using here as a synonym for or overarching term encompassing Witch or Wiccan). Eventually, I could begin my own Order.

I told my parents about the Order. My father just wanted to make sure I wasn’t joining the cult and as soon as he realized I wasn’t going to be giving my entire life-savings away, nor my right to make decisions for myself, he was satisfied. My mother was more curious – so I showed her the website. She was excited that the Order is Episcopalian – the denomination in which she was raised – and began asking me if I would be joining as a United Methodist or as an Episcopalian. I kept my answers vague.

Then I told her what was most exciting to me. Here are wonderful people. Here are people who value the universality of the human being and who value the difference of human beings. I told my mother what Br. Kenny had told me – he didn’t want this to develop the U.U. complex and attempt to find the lowest common denominator. Things would become bland, tasteless, and spiritually hollow. No, let’s keep the vibrancy of difference – but, let’s still recognize each other as fellow humans, siblings in the human race. When I told this to my mother, she told me she was glad for that, too. She was glad, because U.U. was too pagan.

Okay – so, whether or not I ever tell my mother, I’m not telling her now.

But, in a round about way, this brings me to the point I would like to make here, though I won’t explore it quite yet. I don’t know what my mother means when she says that something is pagan.

Does she mean that it is non-Christian or even anti-Christian, though not atheistic? Is she making reference to the actual pagan religious traditions of pre-modern Europe? Is she just referencing the Greeks and the Romans, or are the other pagans and heathens of ancient Europe included? Is she referring to modern Neo-Paganism, and the modern Heathens and Shamans? Does she think of “witch” or “Witch” when she says “pagan”? Is Wicca pagan in her mind?

I don’t know. And here’s why – we don’t even know what we mean, either. What we need, my friends, is a clarification of terms. I’ll explore that subject later, but what I want you to think, whenever anyone uses that term “pagan” be it capitalized or not, or “witch” or “Wiccan” or “heathen,” myself including, is what does that person really mean when they use that word.

For myself... well, maybe one day I will be able to tell you.