Anemone's Assays

Calling on Bast

2012-01-27T12:43:00.000-08:00

This week I thought I would share a quick story about Bast, Cat Goddess of Egypt. Understand that my partner Merlin and I are the crazy cat couple in Wayne County. We regularly rescue abandoned cats who are dropped in our rural neighborhood. apparently many people think a cat will survive in the wild even if they have never been outside. Some of them show up in our barn or our trees. Some bravely march right through the cat door to join the scrum. Occasionally we find them along side the road not near any house or shelter. We currently feed 10 cats or more--7 are in the house. No make that 8. Charcoal Charlie sneaks in the basement and gets out of the bad weather. Merlin takes food down to him when he feeds the other basement cat. the rest live in the barn. Our cat population topped out at 22 in 2001. That was really insane.

We have some unfortunate commercial neighbors who raise animals for labs. I hate that. Someday they will close up shop and move away, but they are a fact of life for the time being. One location raises mongrel dogs. Another raises pigs. When they turned to raising cats, I had to act!

Now I am sure you know that one needs to be careful in constructing a spell. The energy one sends out comes back multiplied. I needed to find a way to turn the business away from cats that would neither harm my own kitties nor leave us impoverished. This was tricky business. Finally after a good deal of reflection I decided to call Bast to help change the business owner's mind. Perhaps She could bring him the consequence of his actions in his dreams. I was willing to share that. Whatever the consequence of my actions, I wanted awareness of them--in dreams or otherwise.

I set up a ritual to evoke Bast to the neighborhood the better to influence the business owner. I did that by whistering her name: "Baaaasssst." several times. In no time at all I was aware of an 18 foot spirit cat prowling the valley behind our house. Gulp. I greeted Her and made a milk offering. She acknowledged me and went on patrol pacing back and forth. In three days She was gone.

A few days later we went to a restuarant on the Bay. Our favorite waitress welcomed us enthusiastically. It was her last Friday night on the job. She was going to work next door to us. Knowing she was a cat lover, I asked her rather bluntly what she was doing working there. She laughed.
"Oh he doesn't have cats any more. He had only just started when he change direction entirely. He was going around muttering 'Cats! I don't know what I was thinking of. Cats! I hate cats!' He is raising hedgehogs for pets."

I nearly fell off my chair laughing. Hedgehogs are an important Goddess symbol. She could not have been more clear!

Thinking that worked so well and so fast, I wondered what I could do to rescue the dogs. I thought of all the dog patrons, including the tricky Anubis. I set the ritual just as carefully, but it didn't work. All we got was a woodsful of Coyotes. Seriously. We went from hardly ever seeing coyotes to having packs of them in the neighborhood. They are wonderful animals. I appreciate them. But that was not what I had in mind. Of course what better reminder than their chilling song to be careful what you ask for--and who you ask.

Free copies of the Yule Anthology

2012-01-21T13:45:00.000-08:00

Pagan Writer's Community is giving away free copies of the Yule Anthology in a drawing Sunday 1/22/12, Follow this link to PWC and see how to enter. I have 2 pieces in this anthology: an essay about The Spirit of the GiveAway and a poem/song Winter Solstice Story. Let me know if you enter. Good luck!

I really enjoy my contacts at PWC. I also connected with Moon Books, my publisher for the forth coming Identity and the Quartered Circle (still a work in progress) through this site. Hooray for the founders and all the many participants.

B is for Brigid: A Post for the Pagan Blog Project

2012-01-20T18:57:00.000-08:00

The Goddess Brigid is so popular, several of us are writing about her this week. Here is a snippet of what I have learned.

Brigid is a Triple Goddess of the healing wells, poetry and the forge fires of smithing. I celebrate her with my creativity. For years I encouraged people to bring something that was the work of their own hands to dedicate to her in the Imbolc Ritual February 2nd. Poems, jewelry, photography and the visual arts were presented to her and in some cases dedicated to her in the ritual. The first year I made a small copper pyramid with a mirror on its floor. A clear quartz crystal point was suspended from the peak of the pyramid pointing down at the mirror to generate powerful creative change. I think one might be careful what one wishes for. The changes in my life have been good, but they also have been notable. I am a different person than I was then. Of course I am nearly 30 years older too!

Later we celebrated Brigid with an altar of candles representing the healing we desired. We inscribed our desire for healing with a sigil carved near the tip of an anointed candle. Then we let it burn down at least that far before we snuffed them out. People took the candles home to complete the spell. When we first celebrated the sabbats and esabats with candle altars we were in our mentor Lydia's living room. She was one of several apartments in an old house. The thermostat was in the living room. By the time we had all the candles lit, the furnace turned off and the rest of tenants shivered. We invited them to ritual. Some of them came.

On other occasions we used knot magic with wool yarn (preferably white) to represent a raveling from Brigid's Mantle. Tying 5 knots in the yarn we named the healing we sought and recited a common chant to carry the magic into the knots.

Tie knot one, the spell's begun;

Loop knot two, draw magic through;

With knot three, draw (_______) to me;

Hold knot four, (_______)'s at the door;

Bless knot five, the spell's alive!

Then we tied them outside on trees or shrubbery to wave our requests on to the Goddess in the winter wind. (Of course we always add "for the good of all and harm of none, if aught be wrong then naught be done" so our own ignorance of the higher purposes of Brigid would not work against the very magic we sought. Sometimes we need wisdom most of all!)

Last year we had finished nearly 18 months of classes in Wicca IV. Those students took their Initiation of the Sage and Witch at Imbolc before the Goddess Brigid. She receives our promises at times of new beginnings and blesses them. I think of initiations as healing ventures. We begin a new way of being based on some hard lessons and deep study. All the excuses that held us back have been over come. The course is finished. The fears that we could not succeed have been faced; we did it! An initiation is a commencement of the next thing, just as a school graduation is a commencement. Brigid brings us to the threshold and gives us a little help getting across if we need it. She as the Triple Mother has our best interests at heart. She knows who we are and we are able.

Several years ago for the February Imbolc Feast of Brigid I wrote a hymn for her. I share it here as a poem.

Hymn To Brigid:

Join us in the Sacred Circle

We Invoke the Holy Crone

She is both the Maid and Mother

Three in One not one alone.

We would understand her mystery

How she is both one and three.

Celebrate the Triple Goddess

Dance with Brigid

And be free!

Somewhere I have pictures. I'll add them later.

Animal Guides and Totems

2012-01-18T11:44:00.000-08:00

As I understand it, we all have animal guides who have been with us from before birth. If that were not so we would never have survived childhood. Having said that, I acknowledge that guides can come and go. They can hand over the task of watching our for their poor benighted humans to another animal guide. Thee sentries change guard posts from time to time. Consequently, part of our magical lives is finding out who is there for us now, and what do they need in return. Such an intimate relationship should include an exchange of love, gifts and attention.

I found my guides through shamanic journeys. They were not at all who I expected. One is a herd animal, several are birds, a few are sea creatures. I share their identities with my trusted friends, but I don't put that information on the internet. Why? Not everyone is as well intentioned as you and I might be. Animal allies can be kidnapped, injured and imprisoned. I've had to rescue one of mine from a tower cell. In so doing, I nearly drown the rabbit ally of the man who kidnapped my friend. I didn't mean to, but there it was under the water. We rescued the poor wet thing and resuscitated it, but it was a little the worse for wear I can tell you.

To retrieve an ally, venture into the lower world and call for your power animal. As you explore the lower world, various animals will present themselves. Ask each one "Are you my power animal?" The one who is will either answer affirmatively or coyly return to you in your journey several times in different guises. When you and an animal have met to work together, ask to bring it back to ordinary reality once you have finished your journey. The animal will agree and stay with your for a time. During that, share food and experiences. Be conscious of its presence. Sooner or later it will return to the lower world where it may have a mate and young. However, you will become aware of its interaction and protection which happens every day. Conscously meet together in the lower world at least every week.

Over the years you will find you have several power animals, sometimes all at once. They offer different skills, different levels of protection and different teaching. Be sensitive for that. Look for their real representations in the wild, for pictures in the media and tv programs. The synchronicity will surprise you. Learn all you can about your guides. Involve them in decision making. Call on them when you are in trouble. One of my animals provides transportation. When I am having car trouble on the road I call for help. I get home before the car breaks down most of the time. Another helper has really keen vision. I ask for help in seeing through confusion, people who misdirect my attention and bold faced lies. People wonder how I know what is going on before everyone else. Well duh! I had help!

I carry two insect tattoos on my body. I was not really convinced they were going to be animal allies but they are. One marks deep changes in my life. The other contributes to my ability to see through things I was meant not to notice. They brought very hard gifts. These were important, but I would still advise care. Don't put anything on your body you don't want as an intimate relationship.

None of these spirits is a totem however. The totem is for my clan. The Web PATH Center has as its sigil a spider web and I suppose as its totem the spider. That is no secret. We are about weaving universal consciousness and connecting to the psychic grid. What better emblem could there be?

The Power to Name

2012-01-18T11:07:00.000-08:00

Naming is a power. Frequently when a person begins a new spiritual path, they take a new name. Their ability to chose the new name is an emblem of their ability to stand in their own power. In the Magical world, we must reclaim who we are. We must be willing to let go and become who we shall be. Taking a new name is part of that process.

I do not believe another person should name me once I am grown. I refuse to change my name with marriage. I do not become that significant other person, as significant as he is. I have my own birth name. I will keep that even though it was given to me by my parents. I AM Dorothy Louise Abrams.

My name means Gift of the Gods, Famous Warrior and Father of Nations. Okay, it is a little masculine but I like it. It touches all the bases that are important to me. I want my life and presence to be a gift to people who are glad they met me and better for it (that's the Dorothy part). I enjoy being a warrior for justice, though perhaps not famous for it. I worked for human rights, started both a sexual assault crisis intervention center and a battered women's shelter program, am politically engaged in the system and hold politicians' feet to the fire in the interest of liberty and justice for all. In some corners you might say I'm infamous.(that's the Louise part). Being childless myself, I am hardly a father of nations in any literal sense. I have founded my spiritual community, however. I am more father than mother in that role. People who should be standing on their own two feet and try to call me MOM to hide behind my skirts get a very straight look. They should know better. (that's the Abrams part) My parents did well. I like my name.

Liking my given names, however, did not preclude finding my magical names which are as much about my identity as the legal ones. My magical name is Anemone Webweaver. I received them both from the Goddess when I was in the garden planting anemone seed pods. They are also known as Grecian wind flowers, one of my favorites. The wind, analogous to the breath, turned out to be crucial in my survival after a helth crisis in 2004. The sea air healed me when nothing else could. With that healing came the advice to breathe to be eloquent. My writing life exploded after that in magical ways.

Later I learned there are sea anemones. They reproduce by dividing their bodies as a sort of clone. The process made sense to me. I am in the business of teaching others to do what I do and launching them on to work independently. In addition, sea anemones come in a wide variety of shapes and colors. They are beautiful animals. I like that because although we may be witchy clones, we revel in our diversity, knowing there is room for everyone around the Circle.

Webweaver is more of a title than a name. Webweaver acknowledges that another part of my job is to bring people together, weave connections and raise awareness about the universal web of consciousness that ties us together. I have shared that title with limited success. It is a big job. Now the entire Council of Trustees at the Web serves as Webweaver, since no one wanted to take it on alone when my replacement finished her term of weaving. I have full confidence that the work will continue. I carry it on myself writing, challenging and pointing out how to remember who we really are.

Our names are important clues in that recollection. If you can't say why you are here or who you are, start with your name. None of your names were a mistake.

Abraxas Part II

2012-01-13T14:47:00.000-08:00

I find the idea of a divine being incorporating all that we humans deem good and evil very satisfying. Rather than separating the divine into God/Satan, Jesus/Judas, Yahweh/Sophia the combination of dual deities into a unified energy field of all being makes sense. This single being spins out parts of consciousness into all kinds of personae: gods and demons, humans and other animals, rocks and trees, sprites and watchers. The possibilities are as limitless as the imagination of All Being. The purpose of this variety of manifestations? To understand existence, shape, time and space through experience--as far as I can tell.
Abraxas represents that full scope of possibilities. He is as real as Jehovah or Diana. He is like Janus looking forward and back. He is like the Triple Goddess looking down all the roads at once. He is the archetype of savior and seducer, teacher and trickster, friend and foe. Interestingly some students of Masonic and Templar secrets suggest his seal (see the previous"A is for Abraxas" blog) was the sigil of an inner circle dedicated to the Gnostic mysteries in Christendom. For that He and they were condemned--or so go the stories. The evidence is inconclusive, or perhaps I should say insufficient to support the thesis.

What does it mean to speak with a God who is All Things? Can we trust him? Can we believe him? Does he love us or hate us? Or is he indifferent? I suppose that depends on what we expect of a god, for the gods are cast in our image and projection. They have lives outside of our minds, but we can't see that. The blind cannot see a god unless they are willing to step outside of their minds. That seems to court insanity. Few venture there.

In fact the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung in his 7 Sermons to the Dead actually proposed that maturation beyond seeing dual dieties--one of good and one of evil--into a immanent deity of All Things at once was sanity. He married the god to humankind, spirituality with sex, and good with evil. When the dead understood these words they ascended on the smoke of a shepherd's camp fire to become gods in the eternal creative sun. All of this is metaphor but it is also truth. Shamanic practice includes a journey of consciousness to merge with the Sun and become holy--though the holiness part is neither described by shamanic teachers nor anticipated in the journeys. Still, when the soul is ready it happens.

But what has this to do with paganism? Well, if we are to earn an "A" in Earth School as smart pagans, we must evolve to understand the goal of merging our individual consciousness with the gods and goddesses, with the sun and the moon in whose reflection we see our souls and the souls of all others. That is message of Abraxas--that we are all things, light and shadow. We are human and divine and daemon. Our rituals, our icons, our creations reflect who we really are. After many starts and stops and with applied effort, we may finally remember who that is.

One way to celebrate our Identity and union with All Being is to sing to the Sun. Find your own words or use someone else's. Be One with the Celestials. Dare that. Click this link for a Choctaw chant and images which moved me even though they are not mine nor my language. I was looking for a version of a popular pagan chant attributed to the Lakota (Let us be one with the infinite sun) but this clip was far superior in production values than all the others ut together. We cannot be one with the sun, moon and celestials without also being one with the earth--who is also a celestial. We cannot honor who we really are without honoring All Being in its diversity. We must be able to look in all directions at once and enter the past and future through our present spiritual practices. Anything less than that and we are left waving our arms around and blowing smoke. Abraxas holds the key to transcendence. Blessed Be!

A is for Abraxas

2012-01-07T20:11:00.000-08:00

This is another one of those blogs I wonder if I am smart enough to write. Or at least write well. Maybe I will stick to the biography of it all, and worry about the psychology and theology of it someother time.

I first met Abraxas when I was a young high school teacher in a Christian school, struggling to hold on to my faith and my Identity. It didn't work. I read too many books. I thought too many thoughts. I was too feminist. I was unafraid. My Identity was ready for take off, and my religion wasn't.

Then I read Demian by Herman Hesse and met Abraxas, the God of Good and Evil, the God who embraced both the light and the dark. The God who truly was present in all things. How could God be God with out His Shadow? And How could God be God with out Her vagina and breasts? How could God be God in spirit without flesh? How could God be God with out being everything? And how come his image has snakes instead of legs?

I expected Abraxas to be virile, commanding, beautiful. I didn't understand any answers to those questions so I put them on the shelf to figure out later. Much later. Fast forward 10 years, I was wandering around in my own wilderness lost to the faith of our fathers and undiscovered by the faith of our mothers. My head pounded in outrage if I went into a Christian Church. I met a witch, but was somewhat put off by her tarantulas in an aquarium. (Are those requirements of paganism?) Then I fell in love and let Eros be my God for 7 years. He was more fun than headaches.

But even love ends. Abraxas swung the scales back to center. My lover started giving me headaches. God, would he never get his life together? Does he have to drink so much scotch? I got a new job and a new lover. (It wasn't as easy as it sounds.) Then Eric (the new lover) performed the miracle of the coffee machine (I'll tell you about that sometimes) and I knew we were both witches. It was time to go back to the tarantula lady and find out what that meant.

I found out that meant snake energy, Goddess of the Nile, Lamia, Lilith. Of course very shortly I had to reclaim Abraxas and understand how it is the Gods and Goddesses are Good and Evil, Light and Dark, Male and Female and all One. And how am I like Them? Like Them? Really? Abraxas has to be part Coyote, even if it doesn't show in his images. Maybe he's part Raven--the bird head don't you know. They are also Tricksters.

I told you it wasn't easy.

The Nature of Good and Evil

2012-01-01T11:46:00.000-08:00

Now we have landed kerplop in a new calendar year, a discussion of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly is appropriate. We all have been busy wishing a Blessed Solstice, a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanuka, or a Happy New Year as appropriate to everyone we know and lots of people we don't. Seems this season brings out the desire for better times, more prosperity, improved health...We really do want it all and want it shared. Good for us!

The December Holidays brought out the best in many of us. We heard about people paying it forward by picking up the layaway tab at WalMart, by donating food or serving up Christmas Dinner at the soup kitchen, by playing Secret Santa at community centers and through other gift programs like Heifer International, by donating coats or bikes to specific projects. This year we see soldiers reunited with their kids as the GI's return from Iraq. One TV network focused on buying "Made In America" gifts. Then they reported back all the jobs the effort created. One night I listened to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. Richard York told the pioneer story of the people from Wales who founded the choir in 1847. There wasn't a dry eye in the house, including this one. The holiday season makes the innate goodness and potential for deep beauty in the human soul clear to me.

On the other hand badness continues almost unabated. People were shot and stabbed in Syracuse this week. An 18 year old woman was killed Christmas Eve afternoon. A 19 year old man was shot and killed just before midnight earlier in the day. There were suicide bombers in Iraq and executions for political protests in Syria. The news is full of violence and death despite the energy of hope that filters through the air.

Many acts of ugliness also hit the news. They didn't rise to the level of "bad" but there was no shortage of crassness. Commercial emphasis on buying more gifts than people can afford or even use saturates the media. A couple of stories on the news documented residential light displays that creates a carnival atmosphere in an otherwise quiet neighborhood. The Christmas Sweater has been elevated to a cult fascination with ugly.

Actually, the Christmas Sweater is probably a good metaphor for my belief that the good, the bad and the ugly all are facets of the same truth. . I think the sweaters are kinda cute! Especially when they involve pink flamingos! How much more could they make you laugh than this? It even has a faux fur color. Isn't laughter a good thing? When we savage people's taste in clothing, art, style we lose track of who they are. We dis their potential.We mock them to make ourselves more savvy. All of that is illusion. We behave like nasty little brats thinking we are better when we aren't. But even that failure of compassion is not evil.

See, I don't believe in evil. I think the notion of ugly is wrong headed. This is a picture of Eleanor Roosevelt and Helen Keller. Is that not beautiful? I can feel the love and respect between the two as Helen explores Eleanor's face. They are powerful influential women. Their love lf life and people is contagious. They exude harmony and balance along with the wisdom found through years of struggle. Their struggles were mind boggling. Their circumstances were in no way evil. I love this picture.

Our judgement that we understand good as something that lives in opposition to bad, evil or ugly is at best arrogant. For the most part we rush to judgment on things that don't turn out the way we want. We readily believe that our way is the best way, and other people have the wrong way. God is always on the side of the winners in war, economics, and football. Well, no She isn't. She doesn't even like football. (Okay I made that last one up. Maybe She does like football.) But it is true that the Divine is made up of Love. If we are not promoting love, compassion, tolerance, or wisdom, then we are not imitating the Divine. We cannot claim the high ground from there!

Our Judea-Christian culture is set up to pit the God Jehovah against the God Satan. People think they are automatically on God's side because of their religion, nationality, gender or race. They justified the Crusades in the Middle Ages on that basis. They justified the creation of the State of Israel on that basis. They pay the karmic price for it in Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan today. Did you think those events were unconnected? Think again. Muslim nations, descendents of Saladin, hate Christendom for a reason--actually a number of reasons. There is right and wrong, wisdom and folly on both sides of any lines they draw on maps and in the sand. They need to stop the argument and resolve the karma of all those deaths by learning love and compassion. They will do that when they get sated on their blood lust (and that includes the American blood lust.) We can see this political and religious issue as Good, Bad and Ugly depending on our perspective. It is all of those at once.

I pick that example of the Middle East Conflicts because it is so entrenched in righteousness and judgment--not because I am for or against any of the factions including "ours". Actually, I call on Astarte, Isis, Innana and Lamia to return and claim Their lands. Help us see how to be tolerant and work in partnership. So far we can't even imagine it. I can't either. I have a difficulty expecting Israel to stop building walls. I can hardly conceive of Hamas stopping suicide bombers. I snicker up my sleeve saying the Taliban will support women's rights. I hear the prognosticators predicting war between the U.S. or Israel against Iran. Some dramatic demonstration--non violent and powerful--must turn our hearts to love. I am not wise enough to know how.

However, I am certain that the men and women caught up in these struggles are as human as I am. We all love and fear, rage and grieve. None of those emotions are bad or evil. They are human. We are human. We all are also spirits having a human experience. This earth stuff is part of the curriculum. We may not like Algebra, but it is an important course in our mathematical development. So is political oppression. So is the struggle for Justice. So is Occupy Wall Street in our effort to re-organize our economic priorities.

The point that we consistently miss when we divide up experience in to Good and Evil, True and False, Beautiful and Ugly is the education we get out of all things. When we are more fully aware, we see the point of people brave enough to sacrifice their lives for justice or freedom. We see the point of people frightened or greedy enough to try to stop them. Then we see how we fit in. Maybe we see something new about how to conduct our Earth lives more spiritually and our spiritual lives more humanely. Sometimes the lessons are dramatically violent. They are painful. They are immoral and abusive. Calling those things evil gives us a comforting distance from them, as if we could never be guilty of such things. That is an illusion. We are all capable of violence, persecution, vengeance--actions which the victims would experience as evil.

I submit that our own acts of violence and immorality, and those of others, are failures of the imagination, failures of the heart, failures of our connection to the web of universal consciousness. We make those mistakes all the time because the illusion of individual separation for all the others is so strong. We rage at people whose actions disgust us and threaten bodily harm. Are they more evil than the violence we would perpetrate on them? Are we more good because we didn't do it first? Come on people! Tear off the blinders and see yourselves as part of the problem AND part of the solution. We keep screwing up. We sometimes get it right. But the first step is embracing the commonality among us all.

New Beginnings--Resolved: I Am, I Love, I Will.

2011-12-29T11:18:00.000-08:00

Well, this is it. The New Year blinks on and the old one goes out in 3 days. This year is a biggie: 2012. People are divided on what that means: the end of everything, much ado about nothing, the start of something big--who knows? Not me. I half expect our Alien Ancestors to return and throw up their hands in despair. "What were you thinking?" Obviously, we haven't been thinking--at least not very clearly. I hope if that is what happens they have a Plan B that doesn't involve wiping us off the face of the earth and starting over. I mean, really. We can do better.

In light of that possibility, I thought I would make this year a demonstration project on how we can do better. The first thing I am working on is being more loving. That will appear as tough love sometimes, but I mean to be more engaged with people. This past year I withdrew and rested. Now I need to reach out and inspire people again. That will mostly be through the written word, but with the electronic communications available, the mission is at least doable. I do it all in love because I believe in people. For this year I Am Love.

Secondly I mean to be more creative. I have my non fiction book to finish, my fiction series to publish, and poetry/songs to write. I mean to get that grounding CD done for the Web too. I will get new art supplies and go back to the art group meetings at least once in awhile. Creativity for me is a spiritual practice. It is also an expression of love. For this year, I Will Create.

Thirdly, I have a not so secret mission in 2012: The Work of the Rose. This mission combines love, growth, and passion (as expressed by a red rose symbol) with a deeper connection with the Shining Ones designed to call them back for assistance with the Earth Plane dilemmas: Pollution, wars, lies and liars, food supplies, alternative energy, empowerment of people with helpful ideas... I read my friend Orion's book The Faery Teachings recently. In it he points out the Fae are able to help with this ordinary reality concerns. His view was echoed by William Mistele in his book Undines: Lessons from the Realm of Water Spirits who indicated none of these issues are to big to tackle in partnership with the Undines and other people of the Fae. So my mission is to connect deeply enough with these Spirits to convince them to return out of love and compassion for us worried scared little human beings.

As I think about things, these are enough to fill my cup of resolve. I might address some of the other issues, like increasing my exercise program, cutting back on my caloric intake, building up cardio stamina so I can tour the UK again. (Those Brits walk everywhere!) But none of those rise to the level of a resolution. they are simply routines in everyday life--dumb things I gotta do. My resolutions--those are matters of the heart and soul. Blessed Be!

Generosity at Solstice

2011-12-21T11:30:00.000-08:00

I admit I have been completely turned off the seasonal holidays by the TV commercials, the lack of personal compassion and real thought behind gifts. this year--maven of the holiday trees, stuffed animals, and toys bedecking the halls--I left all the "stuff" in the attic. Merlin and I simply feel disconnected from it all. The hubbub is so distractingly irrelevant to us.

Still, there are some wonderful things that warm the heart and get me excited. Arranging for my teenage grandchildren's gifts is one of them. I can't say much right now because Mikayla might read this and spoil the surprise for herself, but I'm just sayin' I like what I did! Finding the right way to say to those two young people "You are so talented, and have all the possibilities of life at your feet!" makes my day. I hope it makes theirs.

The other tradition I am keeping is the family donation to Heifer. Mikayla and Bradley help us go through the Heifer catalog and pick out our family gift to people who really need it. I think last year it was chickens, ducks and goats. Maybe sheep this year? I don't know. I'll have to wait for Christmas to see. If you are not familiar with Heifer, follow the link and see what great work they do. I like that they give to families, get the kids involved and build on the promise that the breeding animals will result in gifts to others in their community to do the same. I think this makes a real difference. This year they have gifts which can be ear marked for families in the US given the rising level of poverty and need found in our own borders. In either case, Heifer will send gift cards to your friends and relatives if you give in their name. That's what we do. The adults in our world have enough stuff and are truly blessed. We take what we used to spend on gifts people didn't need and give the money to Heifer.

In addition to the family gift, each year I follow the lead from Nathan Bransford's Third Annual Heifer International Fundraiser and offer to match hits on my blogs or this year on my Facebook writer's page that reply to this post. I will donate $2 up to a $500 cap (total) for each hit on these announcements. Just reply below with a word about who you are, a wish for the New Year and whether or not you have ever heard of or given to Heifer International. Matching your gifts is over and above the donation our family does, so call me on it! I'll make good! Solstice Blessings to all. Have a blessed holiday where ever you are and what ever you celebrate. (Give me a few minutes to get the other blog posts up.)
Find me at:
Writing in the NY Lake District .blogspot.com/ or on Facebook at Dorothy L. Abrams-Writer

Samhain Celebrations

2011-10-29T10:04:00.000-07:00

To my mind, an intimate conversation with an Ancestor is the key to any Samhain ritual. Of course, that is premised on my comfort with the Dead. Obviously our culture finds them frightening. People love to scare themselves with superstition about Ghosts and the occult. Since I live in the midst of witchery as a good and wonderful spiritual practice of light and love and power, their views seem benighted to me. Each to his own. If a body would rather be scared than powerful and wise, so be it.

So, having overcome one's inhibitions about the Dead, how does one proceed? We choose Samhain (Halloween) or Beltane (May Day) for these group contacts because on those occasions the veil between the worlds thins. Access is more easily granted to them and us. The energies may differ between the Fall/Winter ritual and the Spring/Summer Ritual because of the change in relation to the sun and climate. Samhain winds down the year. Beltane fires the lust and growing season. For me, the Ancestors speak at Samhain. Spirit lovers or Lovers from other lives speak at Beltane.

We begin by grounding and setting out sacred space. As a witch that means I connect with the Earth and the Celestials. Then I cast a circle, call in the Guardians of the 4 directions to protect the Circle from interruption. I call a God and Goddess for access to the Underworld and soul spirits of the Dead. Then I scry and see what happens.

Scrying uses a tool for focus. I have a lovely black mirror that works for me. I also have a lead crystal ball of some size and smaller quartz crystal balls. I have a couple dark crystal eggs and globes that are equally reflective. I have 2 black bowls, a cauldron and a dark red glass bowl that work as well when half filled with water. One can use a candle flame, which is my recommendation for novices. The tool needs to reflect images from the other world.

Scrying in a reflective surface without interference from the room requires very low light that is not caught by the scrying tool. One shaded candle will do. If several people are using candle flames in the same room, the scrying tool can be shaded on three sides by a cloth or hands. What you don't want is to mistake a shape or image in the surface for something in the room reflecting back at my physical eyes. It also requires patience.

We need no expectations about what or who will apear. We may call one Ancestor, but another will show up--or a group arrives. They have purposes and messages awaiting delivery and sometimes their enthusiasm is unbounded. Have then an open mind about the out come, sit quietly and stare. A chant or name repeated helps keep the mind open. Brush away extraneous thoughts, like what I fixed for dinner or who else is present. Ignore the chatter that says this will never work, I can't. Unexpectedly the surface will film over and an image will appear from deep inside, or your eyes will close and the image or voice will appear inside your mind. Trust that you are not making this up. Ask questions. Ask for identification. Be polite and grateful, and pro-active. If the spirit gives a general message for the group, or for an individual, ask permission to deliver it both from the spirit and from the recipient.

Be humble. We humans get the messages scrambled up sometimes. Last night a friend had a group working in which "Ted" showed up. No one knew him so she asked me if there had been a "Ted" in my life. At the time I could think of none. Now I remember I have Ted's sofa in my living room. He built it 100 years ago. I never knew him, but his sister was my aunt. Maybe it was him. Maybe it was one of my Edward ancestors. Maybe the message wasn't for me after all. Communication between the worlds is not at all clear.

Once I called the ancestors and got Charles II of England. Okay, he is a collateral ancestor, meaning a distant cousin with some common grandfathers if you go back far enough. He is also a lover in a past life. He was charming, witty and full of information. I didn't tell the Circle until much later because the officiating priestess was new at it. I wasn't sure how she would react if the King of England showed up. Let's be clear. He didn't show up because I am so skilled or spiritual. He showed up for the fun of it. For that I am very grateful. What a stellar experience!

When speaking with the Ancestors, we offer a plate of their favorite foods. Sometimes that is prepared from our own feast after the ritual. It may take some creativity to figure out what they would have liked. If I have my wits about me, I ask while we are speaking. What offering do you desire? If it is a food, I eat some myself and then place it on the plate that goes outside for the spirits and the fae. If I don't have anything in my cupboard which will serve, I get it later in the week and prepare it for us. Sometimes they want something else. A bit of knotted wool on a branch prepared by their instructions, a libation poured upon the earth, a trip to their old homestead. As best I can, I give them this service. Sometimes they require nothing. Sometimes they wish only to hang out with us. Some of them really like fast cars.

When the connection fades, we ground again. The residual energy from the Otherworld is sent into the Earth. The spirit withey is released upward to the Celestials so we are again ourselves, even if the spirits stay a bit for company. We make it clear to our visitors that things will not go bump in the night, and they are an honored guests from who we expect company manners. Then we share food and cider, ground as a group and release the evocations with which we started our Circle. Paying attention to the endings is as important as to the beginnings.

More About Rocks

2011-10-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

Sir Richard Heygate commented on my Rock in the Basement story on his blog re The Book of English Magic which he co-authored (well done by the way). He said his dowser friend Steve Taylor told him some rocks have negative energy, so one picks their friends carefully. Well that's true of people too as a matter of fact. I promised him, and so you too, that I would write a piece about good and evil in a unified field. For now though, I share this story.

I had a piece of kyanite once that was too wild and wooly for the likes of me. It was a lovely little bit of blue and white silicate that fit nicely in my pocket for attuning. My teacher Lydia gave it to me because she didn't like it. (That should have been a clue). It was supposed to enhance psychic abilities, especially lucid dreaming. The first day I had it in my pocket, I was at work filing papers when I cut my finger with 5 (count them five) sheets of paper, stuck together. If you think a paper cut from a single sheet of paper is bad, try 5! I bled all over my case file. (Bad form I assure you!) Then I went out for lunch, got flipped by a blind woman's cane and thrown into a driveway with traffic coming! Seriously. She was hurrying along from a different direction so I couldn't see her. We met at the corner. Her cane caught me between the knees as she was making a full sweep and knocked me head over heels rolling along the sidewalk. The traffic stopped. Her cane was broken, so she was in worse shape than I was. Fortunately someone offered to take her home. I had to fend for myself. I limped back to the office and confessed my sins to my blind office mate Bob. He thought he knew who she was, called her up to commiserate and 6 months later they were married. That was all too weird for me. I passed the kyanite on to someone else who could handle it!

The Rock In the Basement

2011-10-25T12:12:00.000-07:00

"All time is now--All space is here." An axiom of spiritual magic, the phrase hints at the source and mechanism that operates magic and transformation. I was reminded of that truth by the huge stones in Avebury UK during a visit a few years back. Before I left the sacred site, I asked one stone to offer its message to my overwhelmed mind, if it cared to do so. What I heard in my mind's ear was this: "All stones are one stone; All continents one continent; All people one people." It is good to remember that truism from time to time in our illusion of separateness.

The testimony of the Avebury stone gave me a special gift as I left that place with reluctance. In our basement under the new concrete floor is a very special rock. Back in the 90's we had extensive work done on our 1825 farm house in upstate New York. Part of the project involved excavating the dirt floor in the cellar in preparation for a nice clean concrete pour and a new boiler. The workers had to dig the cellar out by hand and truck wheel barrows of dirt outside. When they were done my tall partner Merlin was able to stand upright in the basement without bumping his head or craning his neck.

While the work was in progress, we came home from our day jobs to learn the workers had made a discovery. There was a large rock poking up through the dirt a few inches below the surface. Just how large was undetermined, but it would break through the surface of the new floor. What did we want to do? Well, I wanted to dig out the rock and move it outside where I could bless it as a monolith and include it in the rituals performed at our house. What a great and wonderful idea!

The workers and the rock had a different opinion. They worked most of the next day to uncover the rock, only to find it too large to move by hand. At least it was in their opinion. Instead, not being of a pagan state of mind, they dug a bigger hole next to it and flipped it over, point down and buried it. Then they poured the new floor right over the top. My cat Patches jumped off the cistern wall and marked the spot with her paws before the floor was set. You can see her paw prints even now. Apparently Gary the Mason had some choice words for the cat.

I came home from work to learn of this change in plans with some dismay. After a minimum of huffing and puffing, and realizing no one was going to dig up the new floor or the rock, I settled down to look at the broken bits of china they had retrieved from under the rock. There were two bits of the base from a tureen. The one with the makers mark on it sits on my altar as a small bowl. It has the insignia of the British royals on it. The words are significant. Where it should say "Ironstone China" there is a flaw so it says "Ironstone Chi." Arched around the royal seal is "Honi soit qui mal y pense." Beneath the seal flanked by the Lion and the Unicorn is "J. & G. Meakin" and below that is "Hanlet England".

Honi soit qui mal y pense is the motto of the Order of the Garter among other British groups and figures prominently in many military settings including the Grenadier Guards. The approximate translation used most often is Evil to him who thinks evil of it with reference to Edward III picking up Joan of Kent's dropped garter and placing it on his own leg (or arm). Margaret Murray, the British historian much criticized for wishful thinking, claimed the garter and story were evidence that the entire royal Plantagenet family practiced witchcraft, since garters are emblems worn by witch queens (high priestesses). Others have suggested the Order of the Garter was a place for the Knights Templar to find refuge. Whatever the case, the Order of the Garter and its motto have been adopted by modern witches as having special significance. To find a piece of china with that motto buried in my basement in this manner felt like an epiphany.

But how could this be in my basement? The research I was able to do set the Meakin china pieces later in the 19th century around 1850, a couple decades past the construction of the basement or the house. The Chatterton family living there for several generations were of German pioneer descent, not British at all. Their name had been anglicized for American accents. Who would have moved that very large rock in order to place the china underneath? And why would they do that? Where is the rest of the tureen? I have only a soap dish sized bowl from the tureen base. Furthermore, the china hums in my hand when I hold it. It is charged with that Ironstone Chi, fairly singing to my inner ears. How was this broken bit of pottery used to hold such energy?

I absolutely have no answers. I know the items have importance and I keep them on my altar in the ritual room which happens to be positioned on the second floor directly above the rock in the basement. I know the rock is part of the the rock consciousness which exists in universal sacred space. It connects to the sacred stones and earthworks all around the world. On occasion it speaks to us. The truth from the stone in Avebury resonates here from the basement, uniting the magic of the Earth. I surmise the workers chose to rebury the rock rather than move it because the stone would not be moved. I may be unhappy that it covered by earth and cement, but the rock seems fine with that.

I know that the rock has magical resonance. When we were gifted with a set of dowsing rods made by the late Hamish Miller, I warmed up with a simple question I knew the answer to: "Where is the rock in the basement?" The right hand rod stayed still. The left hand rod swung strongly to the right and pointed down, exactly to the right spot. Apparently I only needed one pointer to show the way. Human recognize the resonance too. People who come here say they feel like they have entered Home, even if they never met us before. Occasionally someone will complain the energy is too strong. Head-achy and disoriented, they resist the natural grounding offered by the rock. Maybe I should say imposed by the rock. Those folks are the ones whose wills protect them from outside teachings. Their lives have encouraged them to believe the Universe is a scary unsafe place. Walking into a place that is built on the foundation of love, security and the ability to transform any fear into wisdom is more than they bargain for. They are unlikely to come again. That transformation, however, is exactly the work performed by the rock in our basement and the circles of stones, avenues of monoliths, mounds of earthworks found all around the world.

I have seen marked changes in my own beliefs and soul lessons in part because of the rock in the basement. True, some experiences were a struggle. In the end, I understand they worked to expand my consciousness and soften my heart. I am an open soul ready to merge with rock consciousness and the other elementals. The rocks all over the world have taught me well. All people are one people.

Intersections and Opposition

2011-09-07T13:22:00.001-07:00

I was asked if Wicca and Native American practices were nearly the same. The quick answer is yes and no! The variables lie in which Native American practices? What kind of Wicca?

Here are my experiences. I attended a women's retreat at the Wolf Clan Teaching Lodge with AmyLee years ago. She is a Seneca woman who states that the Clan Mothers have approved her sharing of certain traditions in a manner acceptable to the traditional leaders. Others on the Internet have lambasted her for being a fraud. I like her personally. She was blessed by Grandmother Twyla of the Wolf Clan. I am uninformed of the politics beyond that. I also attended a weekend with Carol whose last name escapes me that touched on some of the same rituals. She was not Native in the least. I have danced with Juanita Wilson who certainly is Mohawk and enjoyed a weekend with Theresa Gibson of the Onondaga Nation. I have heard Audrey Shenandoah rail against witches who are sorcerers. I learned my Wiccan craft from a traditional witch of Cherokee and Irish descent. I studied core shamanism with the Foundation for Shamanic Studies among others. I led an eclectic neo-pagan group in shamanic and Wiccan practices for over 10 years. I still circle with them. I conclude from all this that people of an open heart can meet together and find common spiritual ground. In other situations when fear and suspicion rule, there is little common ground to find.

Both Wicca and First Nations practices honor the four directions: north east south and west. Wiccans address the circle clockwise (sunwise and deosil). First Nation practices that I am familiar with honor them counter clockwise (earthwise and widdershins). One can spend a great deal of energy defending the rightness or wrongness of either practice. The fact is that deosil circles honor the celestials of the sun and moon. Widdershin practices honor the earth spirits. We find truth both ways.

Both Wicca and some First Nation practices honor the feminine Divine equal to or greater than the male Divine. Not all of those traditions do so, but enough to make both Wicca and Native American spirituality stand apart from monotheistic faiths. The personae of the Divine as Goddess seems to me to be stronger in Wicca than in Native practices. The Great Spirit who weaves life together in Native practices is genderless as I understand it. The 3 Sisters (Corn, Beans and Squash) seem to me to have less archetypal presence in ritual than the Earth Mother, though I may not have been allowed in closely enough to know that. In contrast, the Great Mother Goddess in Wicca has a female presence which births creation through her body. She appears as a woman in ritual. She is revered as a woman in the Moon. She may have a Consort male deity at her side, but she is Goddess. Some Wiccan circles are fully matrifocal and leave the male deity out entirely, though in my opinion that makes for lopsided circles.

Both Wicca and Native American Spirituality can use power (medicine or energy) to influence healing, current events, the weather, prosperity, love etc. People in those traditions can misuse power for selfish ends and make trouble for other people, or at least muck up the works. Responsible energy working requires a long training period in most cases--in both traditions.

Both Wicca and Native American Spirituality celebrate the seasons and the wheel of the year, seeing the ebb and flow of the life energies as a metaphor for our human lives. We call our holidays by different names but we all recognize the Equinox and Solstice holidays and the mid points between them which makes an 8-spoked wheel around the year. The cyclical pattern of the seasons and of the moon phases supports the journey of the soul through birth to death in the beliefs of many back again through reincarnation. I do not know what the general belief held about reincarnation is in Native traditions, but I know that the Native seer SunBear taught it to the Bear Tribe. Most Wiccan accept reincarnation.

Tribes differ in their view of the dead. Some never speak the name of the deceased again so they will not be haunted. Others call them as Ancestors to their holy days. Wiccans celebrate the Ancestors as part of our Circle and devote Samhain to feast them and communicate with them. In the matter of ghosts, there is also divergent opinion. People in both traditions may fear ghosts. Others of both traditions work as psychopomps to assists souls in their crossing to the other side. Ghosts may hold negative energy or they may be helping spirits. That is a complicated subject. There are no taboos concerning departed spirits with Wiccans though there are in some tribal practices.

Wiccans and Native Americans recognize spirits in the land, sacred places and power spots. We may use different terms for ley lines, but we all see paths of energy through the earth. We know seers can discern these pathways and clear them. We are all waiting for the paths to be cleared and the next great age to begin. We are not agreed on what that means. Few people are agreed at this point. We just know something big is about to occur.

So is there a real similarity between Wiccan practices and Native Spirituality? Yes and no. I have maintained an allegiance to the European earth based religions because my roots are European. There was a well preserved body found in a cave in Cheddar Gorge in the UK. The man was thousands of years old. They performed DNA tests on him and identified his relatives in the area. One, a school teacher, was surprised at how resentful she became when they continued to display him instead of giving him proper burial. He was after all her ancestral grandfather.

I say that to say that the white culture is insensitive to the feelings of family. This is nothing new. Nevertheless their insensitivity has created a lot of harm and hurt among the peoples of the world. I do not wish to continue that cultural tradition in any case. I am, however, grateful when someone chooses to share wisdom from their ancestors with me. If we can weave a cross cultural tapestry of spirit wisdom, the planet will be the better for it.

Compassion and Unconditional Love

2011-08-12T09:06:00.000-07:00

Lordy Lordy! A month or more since my last post! That is the result of the summer heat wave turning my creative brain cells to mush, I'm sure! I have some disjointed thoughts about spirituality and compassion, so let's see if we can do them justice, okay?

Most spiritual paths give lip service to the motivating force of love as their raison d'être . In our minds, we know "God is love". It says so in the New Testament. In fact the writer, presumably the Apostle John, goes so far as to say a person not living in love does not know God.

In Judaism the patriarchal god seems less compassionate to those steeped in western mysticism. Nevertheless, the Old Testament directs followers of Yahweh to love God and by extension others. Rabbinical scholars discussed love as a cosmic principle, either as a rational response to the Creator or as a mystical source of Divine Bliss. In either case, understanding human relationships to the divine is seated in love.

In Hinduism, the concept has more complexity and variety. On some levels, the Gods love humans and humans are devoted to (love) the Gods. On other levels, All merges in to Pure Consciousness which exists beyond desire. If one understands Divine love as existing beyond desire or dread, then yes, we are in a pure conscious state of love. In Buddhism, a state of unselfish compassion for others is the intention of the Bodhisattvas like Kwan Yin. Meditative practices cultivate Mettā which may be understood as kindness, goodwill and friendship in a highly evolved sense (as opposed to the Facebook sense).

The Koran directs Muslims with advice from Mohammed: "If you love God, follow me, and then God will love you"(3:3I).In Islam there is a sense that by expressing love of God through deeds, the faithful experience greater love from God on into an ecstasy of being. Other verses from the Koran indicate the cycle of Love is initiated by God so that humans can love back.

In neo pagan paths, Love is personified in a number of Gods and Goddesses, so great is the need to experience human and Divine love. The Thelemic Law states "Love is the whole of the law, love under will." While many pagan differ in thealolgy from Crowley and thelemic writings, they still focus their energy into compassion and love both on a human passionate level, and a divine compassionate expression.

So we all share this basis by which we understand connection to the Divine through love. We give and receive love from Beings greater than ourselves. In return we say we extend this love to our fellow human beings on behalf of the deities and as a demonstration of our own soul evolution or transformation (via the divine contact we have experienced). The ability to love the unlovely, to forgive injuries from others, to become caring and nurturing people able to put others' needs ahead of our own are all indicators of a spirit filled life.

Yet, what does society actually reflect? On one had we have people risking their lives to feed starving children in Somalia. We have Amish farm families in upstate NY able to quickly forgive a drunk driver that killed and wounded nearly a score of them riding in someone else's van on their way to observe Cornell University farming methods. On the other hand we have ranting fundamentalists in every spiritual stripe ready to wound the unfaithful, punish the unbeliever, limit freedoms and civil rights for people who disagree with their point of view. Granted, the angry hateful true believers are in the minority, but what a loud minority they are!

For me, the real challenge here is to find a way to love these unlovely people filled with hate and spewing venom against the rest of us. The rhetoric spills over into our politics and distorts our democracy. My sense of justice is offended. I want to give them back in kind what they so generously dish out. Yet, I cannot. Returning good for evil (and I use that word in only a generic sense) is the basis of my spiritual path. I remember a history professor saying that to hold a man down in the ditch, you have to get into the mud yourself. I don't like mud. I want us all to stand on the solid high ground.

If we are to draw the mud puppies up on to the rocks and dry the mud off, then some how I/we must dissolve the fears of hate mongers so they can appreciate the love behind the rescue. They need to see the logic of connecting to Divine love and relying on it. They need to trust us not to turn the other cheek to distract them only to come back with a lethal left jab. How will that happen? By our not being fooled by inflated hateful speech about the "other" whether the other is a Christian, Muslim, illegal alien, person of a different color than you, Republican, Democrat, or even (shudder) a Tea Partier. We need to think through claims that vilify the enemy and make them look inhuman. We need to remember that everyone of every "ism" is part of the universal web of consciousness on a soul mission to collect data, learn and experience new things and report back when this life is over. We are connected at the hub of that web as brothers and sisters in spirit. We were created in Universal Love. We can send it out and give it freely to every single soul we meet.

Imagine the world when we do that. Imagine what we will create by the shear power of love. Imagine how free we are and how solid our grounding. Imagine how rich and cared for. Imagine how safe. Imagine how kind. This is our magical heritage and responsibility. Imagine how to make that work in all our relations.

Ethics and Eating

2011-07-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

I have been omnivore, carnivore, vegan and vegetarian at different points in my life. None of those choices were based on purely ethical constraints though I'll admit to a feeling of greater virtue when I didn't dine on anything with a face. Like many such decisions, I am firmly convinced diet is a free will choice, although nutrition is not. What ever choices we make on the sort of consumer we are, making sure the diet is varied, fresh, filled with healthy nutrients and delicious is non negotiable. We cannot love ourselves adequately with eating addictions and disorders. Filling up on empty sugar calories and refusing whole food groups because they are green is self sabotage.

Because of my view of food as a personal choice, I was going to skip this suggested topic on ethics and eating from Sun Fire, but as I was riding through the country side I was reminded of some stories I should share about animals, stories that I wish I didn't know. Stories that make me wonder about why I eat other sentient beings. And then I wonder, what isn't a sentient being, and how do we resolve that question when trees communicate telepathically and garden plants grow better with love?

A year ago, Merlin and I rented a cottage in England on a beef farm. Our farmer landlord did not sell young calves for veal because it is a nasty business, separating babies from their mothers, marking calves for slaughter, confining them in small spaces and denying young legs the right to romp in the fields. I was glad for that. Last night we drove by a farm with a row of calve sheds along the roadside. The babies couldn't have been more than 4 weeks old, looking sad in their little pens. One was curled up, legs tucked underneath in total dejection. I looked away pretending I didn't see. There is nothing I can do but refuse to eat veal. The memory catches in my throat even now. It is cruelty dressed up as a manufactured need.

Contrast that to the calves around our English cottage. The calves stayed with the herd for two full years, even when they are marked as beef cattle. They ran and played with each other all day long under the watchful eye of the cows and then later the bull. First time mothers followed them along muttering about their independence. More experienced cows, stood in the shade together and chewed their cuds. At night they paired back up, mother and child, to sleep together. The babies had been born in the barn and segregated with their mothers for a few days until the farmer was sure they were thriving. Every few days, because it was spring, new moms and calves joined the herd in front of our cottage. They were so fresh and clean and curious. Everything was an adventure.

Along toward summer solstice, the farmer decided it was time to take the two bulls out of the barn and turn them loose in separate fields. We were there when they escorted one of the big old boys out across the barnyard behind our house. Half a dozen humans with stout sticks followed him, keeping him turned toward the field. He was reluctant to go through the gate. rolling joyfully in the grass and kicking up his hooves. You could tell his ears itched as he scrubbed them along the ground with a little grunt. The lead herder kept shaking a bucket of dried corn, coaxing him along. When the bull was damned good and ready, he gathered himself up and wandered through the gate to the pasture making good on the promised corn, though I suspect he like the fresh grass better.

A few days later, after a heavy thunder storm, the bull was pronounced acclimated sufficiently to join the herd. He swaggered in among the cows and calves in front of the cottage. It was junior high school all over again, and a new boy had just arrived in school. Strains of "I Will Follow Him" rang in my head. He went to the back of the field. Everybody went to the back of the field. He went to the east side of the field. Everybody went to the east side of the field. He came back up toward the farm road, there they all were, parading behind him. Cows, calves, young and old heifers. All of them lowing their devotion and feasting their eyes and this magnificent specimen of maleness. True, I was as impressed as they were.

Later in the afternoon, the older cows had had enough of hero worship. They found a shady side of the pasture and let the parade go on without them. The young girls though, they had enough energy to continue the chase until dark. The bull seemed to enjoy the attention. I suspected he moved around the pasture to see who was the most interested and how long it would last.

On the second day, there was a new development. The cows still followed him around, though at a greater distance. However, close around him were clustered the calves. Apparently having been in the barn and uninvolved in family life, he was set to baby sit. The big bull lay in the field, chewing his cud with ten or more youngsters settled in around him, as if he were telling them stories of what it is like to be a grown up bull and how they might grow up just like him. They hung on every word. Then it was their turn to follow him around the field, mimicking his walk and sway. No matter how close they got, or if they jostled him he never swung his horns or scolded. They adored him and he accepted that because he was The Bull.

The farmers moved the herd around. There were actually two herds because there were two bulls. They went from field to field with gates open or closed behind them. When we drove on to the farm there was a cattle grid across the road that keeps them home but the road itself winds through the pasture. One sign says "Beware of Bull". He was as free as the cows to roam out on the farm road. It was our job to miss them. I respected him, but he never challenged anyone I saw. Still, a full grown bull is something like the biggest guy in the bar. He has nothing to prove because he knows he can take anybody around. He can afford to be gentle, unless of course some fool gets him mad.

As our 6 weeks on the farm was winding down, we were awakened early one morning by a cattle commotion in the front barnyard. The gates were closed against our road. There was the sound of hooves on metal ramps and a lot of mooing and protest. I got up to see what I could see. It was just passed dawn. Half a dozen two year olds were being loaded up to go to the butcher. I couldn't see them, but I could see our farmer. He looked grim, not liking the duty one little bit. I didn't blame him. The six two year olds didn't know what was happening but they knew they didn't like it. Nobody went on board docilely. Then I looked across the road. The entire herd had come running up about 20 yards short of the fence. They stood in a line shoulder to shoulder, swishing their tails and calling out to the captured two year olds. It seemed like I could tell who the mothers were. They were the most upset. A couple of those paced back and forth behind the line, bellowing, swearing. Every cow eye stared at the scene in the barn yard. Every single one faced the men down, accusing them of the ultimate betrayal. They knew wherever these boys went, they were never coming back. It had happened before, more often than a cow can count. It was always the same: a handful of cattle left forever when the man in that truck came to get them.

I closed the window to shut out the sounds. I can never shut out the memory. We think we eat dumb animals who have only instincts and repetition in their lives. It is a lie we tell ourselves to assuage our sentiments. There was nothing stupid about those cows. They had family and relationships. Some were friends and stayed together most of the time. All of them loved the bull and their calves. I believe we saw more of their true character because they were well treated, allowed to live together more naturally than on American farms which enslaves and tears up the families from early on. Still, they were brought up to believe life was good. Then suddenly life was gone.

I come from farmers myself. I know the hard decisions that come in a life and death business: the joys of new healthy calves, the grief of sickly ones that die, the pain of sending them to slaughter. After than scene on our friends' English farm, I thought I might once again give up red meat in honor of that line of cows bearing witness to the theft of their friends from the field. I thought of why I eat that food, my own health issues and why I gave up vegetarianism. I decided I needed to join the witnesses to sacrifice and remember to be grateful when I eat my food--any food. I am grateful to the cattle, to the farmers and to any butcher who handles his skill humanely with compassion. Our meat industry is brutal. The beef we normally eat is killed in terror. That is not the only way. A friend of mine raises a small herd of beef cattle who are killed at the end of the first season. They are handled as carefully as can be on her sustainable mini farm.

There are means of impacting national consciousness to make changes. A couple years ago I worked online with an Asian group protecting Moon Bears from superstitious maiming for their bile. My bear was Henry, and I sent him healing for a whole year while he integrated into the sanctuary at Animals Asia. He did well. Another apart of their working is to educate people not to eat dogs. Dogs in Asia are treated horribly in the market place and end their lives in excruciating pain. The chickens are treated badly too, handled as if they are dead while they are still alive. Animals Asia keeps plugging away at raising consciousness, teaching more humane methods, convincing people that dog meat can be replaced by other choices. The ethics of what we eat and how it is handled is crucial in this world. Once again, if we inform ourselves and demand better standards, then human behavior changes.

If it works in Asia, it can work here. Changed human behavior is the only hope for those poor little calves stuck in pens attached to shelters barely big enough for them to stand and turn around. That is more space than some veal calves get, the ones kept inside where the public cannot see. Making ethical choices about our food can start with not eating veal or lamb, and letting babies live to see the world from adult eyes. Ethical choices always involves being informed and grateful.

Top 10 Reasons Not to HandFast Skyclad!

2011-06-28T10:50:00.000-07:00

This is a reprinted article from 2004 that originally appeared in the now defunct PagaNet News. Sunfire sought essays on handfasting. I thought that is always good for a laugh!

My Best Advice: Top 10 Reasons Not to HandFast Skyclad

10. Location, Location, Location. Do you live in a nudist colony? At the Playboy Mansion? Any other location you choose leaves you exposed to legal action. New York State Parks only allow you to be topless. Chapels and Churches still think Adam and Eve needed fig leaves. Even the most secluded back yard is accessible by telescope! Why invite the police to your wedding because of a flaw in the design?

9. Welts and rashes. Skyclad and outdoors means insect bites. You or someone in the wedding party will be tempted to scratch unbecomingly. The groomsmen are apt to be less restrained in this than the bridesmaids.

8. Sun and rain. Weather is unpredictable. Your skin is likely to be decorated in bright red sun burn, or bedecked in bumpy gooseflesh kissed by the rain. This is no where near as attractive as it sounds. Think of clothes as protection.

7. Pubescent youth. The younger kids may think nothing of it, but your teenaged relatives will be fatally embarrassed. Admittedly, some of us think of this fact as a recommendation for skyclad ceremonies. Who doesn’t enjoy embarrassing their teenagers? But if you are not the parent or step-parent, threatening to dance naked under the full moon goes beyond the bounds of mentoring.

6. Friends and Family. They all love you, but greeting the wedding guests at the reception without your clothing is awkward. People don’t know where too look or how to shake hands. The congratulatory kiss and hug takes on new and dangerous meaning. The bride’s dollar dance…without clothes? You will at least need a thong to hold the money, and unless you were an exotic dancer at some point in your life, this is probably too much pressure for a wedding day.

5. The Reception. If you are circulating from table to table at a sit down dinner, then…well never mind. You can’t stand near the food and you can’t lean over to welcome your Aunt Tillie! Come to think of it, you can’t sit down either, unless you brought a towel for the chair. And the Chicken Dance! How in the world are you going to do the Chicken Dance?

4. The In-laws. Your new in-laws will be there. And they will be seeing way more of you than you ever intended! They might take this as a sign they can drop in unexpected for the rest of your life. Actually, they will take anything as a sign they can drop in unexpected for the rest of your life.

3. A sense of history. Old lovers come to the ceremony to check out the competition and see who succeeded in landing the one that got away. Can you really stand up to kind of comparison? How secure are you? Whose fantasies will you be in tonight? Does that creep you out?

2. The Speculators. Every wedding has them. They are checking out the bride’s profile to see how urgent this handfasting really was. Is she pregnant? Did she catch him? How many months? Remove your clothing, and remove all doubt. Why disappoint the gossips sooner than you have to?

And the most important reason to wear your clothes to your wedding:

1. The Wedding Album. Your pictures will outlive you to the 7^th generation. Skyclad may seem like a good idea when you are young and vigorous in 2004, but imagine what a stir it will cause in first grade show-and-tell in 2084. And how did your ancestors Jump the Broom?

__________________________

Anemone and Merlin have performed many handfastings, including the one pictured in which we all wore clothes! Two of our hand fastings featured a skyclad bride and groom at Starwood in which there was considerable sunburn involved! She feels uniquely qualified to offer candid advice and insight into the realities of a skyclad ceremony.

Meet My Pantheon

2011-06-28T10:23:00.000-07:00

Again for a blog prompt from SunFire: Meet My Pantheon.

A Pantheon provides one view of Divinity from a particular geographic and cultural base. Because my lineage is mostly British-Celtic I have gravitated to those Gods and Goddesses with some notable exceptions in the case of Grandmother Spiderwoman, Isis, Innana, and Kwan Yin. Then too there are the 8 Crones from my Croning Journeys a few years ago who included Pele and Baba Yaga. And of course the entire Hawaiian vacation during which time I was psychically wrung out by Pele as the Lady of the Isles and the Black Madonna whose book I was reading. I suppose I had better admit it. I think I am British Celtic in my practice, but when it comes to actual interaction with the Divine, the Goddess calls on me from any one of a number of civilizations, depending on the point She wishes to make. So do the Gods.

There are many ways one might view the members of a Pantheon. They can be psychological archetypes in the manner of Jungian analysis, as in The Player Zeus and the Wronged Jealous Wife Hera (not how I know these Deities, but it is how they are pigeonholed.). They can be cultural symbols that we celebrate to stay in touch with the natural rhythms of the earth, for example Demeter, Persephone and Hades. They can be the personification of the forces of Nature as in Gaia Mother Earth or Thor of the Thunder. They can be a sort of generic creator energy of love and manifestation called simply The Lady and The Lord. Or the Gods and Goddesses can be real sentient beings who are other dimensional spirits capable of living here in the flesh. That is how I know Them.

Seriously, I have met them in trance, shamanic journeys, dreams, near physical manifestations (it was a faint see-through sort of thing) and ritual. The first such contact was with Kwan Yin at the NY Metrolpolitan Musum of Natural History. She snagged my attention as I rushed by a small figurine of Her riding a tiger. Then She drew me into a procession around Her 20 ft. statue where I left a gift and resolved to learn Her story. I had not even known Her Name, but She began my education. Minerva stood before me in Her Temple in Bath. Luna, Diana and Niamh all have participated in the Full Moon Drawing Down and inhabited my body. Pele works in my dreams. Derg Corra, CuChulain, Mannan Mac Llyr, Eagleman, The Peacemaker work in my dreams and trances. Several of these and more appear to me as I write fiction. They are excellent story advisors! Greenman (Derg Corra) lives in a special tree. Morganna dictates songs while I drive in the car. Fortunately she must also co-pilot. (I would be good with a different choice of venue.) Isis and Grandmother Spiderwoman are most available to me through shamanic drum trances. On each case, although I opened to the experience, it was the Deity who made the contact. Sometimes They have been waiting for me to notice Their presence for an embarrassingly long time. Other times, They push through and command notice immediately. I guess it depends on Their schedule and level of patience. Now They know They can trust me not to freak out, we waste less time.

From Advisor to Spirit Lover, my Pantheon plays out across cultural divisions, which They experience as artificial anyway. My Gods and Goddesses manifest Themselves to me as connected but distinct individuals Deities. They appear by name. They are concerned about Their reputations which They understand are distorted by human tales and histories that fit Them not so well. On one hand, of course, They are untroubled by our gossip and misinformation. On the other hand They would like us to see Them more clearly for our own good. Wishing us to learn the ways of love and peace and power, all together and in balance, They would like us to step back from jealous rages and vengeance. Even the Gods of War would have us understand "protect and defend" as love and strength. The whole thing gets bollixed up when we devolve to ethnic hatred of any nation. All nations belong to Them and are beloved. They infuse the hearts of people with a desire for greater joy and freedom, a wish for peace and commitment to justice. Making that happen with role models which humans have distorted into jealous gods who punish evil, well that is simply unlikely. We must let our Gods evolve, or our concepts of Them, as we evolve ourselves. They know that and are way ahead of us.

Money! Money! Money!

2011-06-24T09:48:00.000-07:00

Sunfire challenged us to consider the relationship between spiritual services, money and ethics last week. Interesting this comes on the heels of an essay on The Wiccan Rede "An it harm none do what ye will." Taken together it seems clear that charging fees for magical work is a matter of free will. A single answer does not work across all traditions nor even within Wicca. It would be a good time for us not to judge someone else's decision in the matter. Having said that, let me explain why we don't charge for healing, divination, teaching, ritual, pastoral counseling, auto repairs, advice given on plumbing, electric, child rearing, education or legal matters.

First, friends generally don't expect friends to pay for help. It is an act of love freely given. The help might be of a spiritual nature involving magic. It might also be mundane assistance in fixing things around the house or interacting with recalcitrant teenagers. We've considerable experience in all those fields, and share what we know freely. That generosity is part of being an elder. We mentor the coming generations to do the same. We have friends we have known for years. We have friends we haven't met yet (in this life). We offer all of them compassion, love and wisdom if they want it. As my father always said when someone tried to pay him for something, "Your money's no good here!"

Secondly, Merlin has a very strong feeling his ability as a healer is a gift from Spirit which would wither and disappear if he made it into a business. It has a value that cannot be balanced by an exchange of money. There is nothing wrong with money, but it simply places the emphasis in a less helpful place for healing and the rest of the work we do. Money really does not buy love or health or magic. I agree that what we do is a gift on many levels. A gift given to me is a gift given to you. If someone gives me a case of oreo cookies, I will share them not sell them. It is how I am. Merlin points out that the cookies are gifts shared for love or service. If someone grants us a gift in gratitude for our working, then we graciously accept it. When it is money, I donate it to the Web, but that is a choice I make. People who receive our gifts should be grateful and share them around, just as we do.

Third, the population we seek to help is not wealthy. Most of them cannot not afford fees for magical work or classes. In this economy it is not simply a matter of priorities. People are losing their homes, their jobs, their cars. We are financially blessed because of the secular employment we had over long careers. Poor people's money would not change our lives in a meaningful way. It would be unethical to take it when their needs are so great. When a class asked me why we only charged for the printing of materials ($5 a class) I responded truthfully that what we offer is priced on the open market so they could not afford it. A weekend class is valued at $1500 and up at other venues since we also provide housing and some food. There are people around who would pay that. They are not the folks we seek out.

Fourth, in the matter of Divination and Healing there is a great cynicism in the wider world that people offering these services are frauds in it to bilk the gullible out of their cash. Of course such dishonest people exist. They make the news from time to time. We won't be among them. The simple act of offering Healing and Divination for free boggles the minds of the critics. Perhaps they will be forced to re-think some of their biases. As an added bonus, we do not feel pressured to produce Spirit information when the Spirit is reluctant or slow to act. If I deal the cards and there is no message, I have no money to refund. It is easier that way.

Fifth, I suspect that hanging out one's single to earn a living through spiritual work has it's own reverse magic. People we know well who have sought to create a life in which they are paid pagan clergy have not been as financially blessed as I might expect given their natural talents and abilities. They may have muddled through, but they have struggled. They continue to work well into their 60's and 70's. Is that any different than people we know in low wage jobs? Not really. Muddling through and struggling seems to be a theme for many pagans. I challenge folks to look at careers and employment differently. Make choices that will provide sufficient income for the whole family, their education and retirement. It can be done! When we have a life based on good choices the magic flows better.

Both Merlin and I worked hard and got our education which included undergraduate degrees and graduate studies. Although neither of us ended up working in the fields we prepared for, those degrees opened the doors for secure employment, well paid jobs and adequate retirement. All the time we were doing that we ran a pagan circle, taught pagan themed classes, offered healing, divination and other services for free. Now we are sitting back and working on our own projects with a clear conscience. The house and vehicles are paid for; we travel and have enough for our needs. We aren't rich, and of course we wish we were, but we are secure. I believe this is the return of the energy we have sent out three fold, including all that free service in the name of Spirit.

Now healers who attend school, have state certification and set up shop with their shingle outside as massage therapists, acupuncturists and chiropractors as well as MSW counselors, psychologists and the like have a different path. They have chosen a profession and invested time and money in getting the state certification in the same way an MD or certified teacher has. They work regular hours in an office or class room keeping records and paying taxes according to state standards. Nothing wrong with that. I was such a teacher and so was Merlin at different times in our lives. That is different from the ad hoc healing and teaching we do at the Web. We do not keep files, nor have we met state standards. As a church, we are not required to. Our results are not adequately evaluated. We mean only good for the people we work with but we are no competition for nor replacement for regular medical treatment. People who receive money for their healing work need to be that professional, licensed and recognized for their academic preparation.

I have been a recipient in many sessions of spiritual healing, counseling or divination. They were effective. They were not as effective and did not meet the standards of professional healing work or counseling in the larger world (which I have also received). I have paid for spiritual divination and healing at various times outside of licensed offices. I can think of two or three occasions in which I believe the worker was worth the money. The others meant well and thought they were doing deep work, but I was unimpressed. On the other hand, I am not a frequent consumer of counseling or medical treatment, but in so far as I have sought professional help, the ratio is reversed. Despite my criticism of the medical community, I got what I paid for more than 80% of the time. One physician I fired because of attitude but not competence as he related to me. Another was incompetent. It happens. No system is perfect regardless of licenses and preparation. However, many people offer services for which they are not properly prepared. I'm just sayin'.

There is nothing wrong with money. I want you to be clear about that. We enjoy it. However, it rarely appears as the result of magical workings, despite the fact the Goddess dropped a substantial sum in our lap from unexpected sources once. Once. ONCE! The rest of the time, She expected us to work at 9-5 jobs that would support us, the Web and our responsibilities, not the other way around. Part of that was because there was important work in the 9-5 world we needed to do, and to do it in Her Name. If She cuts a different deal with someone else, well good for them. It was not the path carved out for us.

So what is the ethical conclusion from all this? For Merlin and I, it would not be ethical to charge money for spiritual service. We have been given gifts in our spiritual talents. We offer them back to people as gifts. To make up for that, or perhaps because of that, The Goddess has given us lucrative career paths which more than met our needs. She opened doors through education and the right synchronistic connections. We enjoyed the work She gave us. We are proud of the results of those labors. We retired from them with honor. Frankly, how could we ask for more? We are grateful.

Three Eclipses = Big Changes

2011-06-14T10:50:00.000-07:00

June 2011 holds some unique possibilities for us if we embrace change, growth and redirection in our lives. If we resist our maturation, June is likely to be less fun. Here's why. There was a partial solar eclipse on June 1st and another one follows on July 1st. In the middle on June 15th is an unusually long lunar eclipse. Much of this is not visible in North America, yet the energy the sun and moon generate in our unconscious is significant with or without our sight or awareness. I am not an astrologer, but I do understand the flow of the energy related to these events. Well, at least I think I do.

When the moon passes across the face of the sun or the earth shadow crosses the moon, observers see the birth-death-rebirth cycle played out in real time before their eyes. In earth-based spiritual paths the cycle of life from birth to death and back again is celebrated in the moon phases from crescent to full to dark. The life cycle is also celebrated in the wheel of the year, from spring to summer, autumn and then the barrenness of winter. The seasons represent birth, maturity, aging and death. The good news in both cycles is that spring comes again! Life begets life. For that reason full moons and dark moons are powerful times. People don't always know what to do with the energies floating around amongst us and act out in surprising fashion. The same thing occurs at the change of season. Pagan spirituality marks these transition points with major festivals and rituals both at the phases of the moon and the change in seasons. The celebrations help us channel the heightened sensitivity created by the sun and the moon.

The moon phases cycle with in a single mooth (month), which is much more rapidly than the sun changes through the seasons which obviously take an entire year. For that reason, lunar impacts on our psychology and emotions seem keener. They are compressed into a tighter package and perceived more clearly than the slower seasonal change which takes place gradually. We have to remind ourselves that spring is really here when it snows in April. When the temperature drops as it has this June we wonder will summer ever come, even though a week or so ago the temperature soared to record breaking levels. Seasonal change gives us more time to adjust in its back and forth rhythms.

An eclipse gives us little time at all to adjust to change. The lunar eclipse on June 15 is considered an exceptionally long event because the moon will remain in full shadow for 100 minutes. The entire movement from full to dark and back to full is about 4 hours. Four hours to move from full maturity through aging, death, rebirth and back again to full maturity. That's faster than a fruit fly!

If an eclipse is only a metaphor, it is still a powerful one. Reflecting on the meaning of the stages of life over the pace of a few hours is heady stuff. If the eclipse inherently carries real energies with it then that is transformative stuff. In that case, personal transformation takes place without our reflection or focus. Changes happen apart from our intention or control. I find it interesting that this lunar eclipse will be seen over the Middle East and Asia. What heady changes we have seen there!

Symbolically an eclipse represents the freedom to be who we really are. It offers us our hearts desires, the answers to our dreams and rips up barriers to their achievement. It represents the rise in women's energies because it is lunar. Solar is masculine and brackets this lunar event with its own eclipses on either end of the month. Arab Spring has combined men and women's power of protest and confronted their governments with demands for greater freedom and choice to follow one's heart. I find the balance between the masculine and feminine hopeful in societies which have resisted balance in so many ways. We can expect the struggle to continue at any cost as people insist on the right to be themselves.

So on a global level, I say the eclipses remind us to hang on to our hat, The ride is not over yet. On a personal level, we may individually see relationships, employment or unemployment coming to some sort of end or conclusion. What we had will be released to make room for new ways of working and of being together. If that means our marriages, jobs and partnerships shift gears and become entirely different then the change is like a tremor in the earth. The cups rattle on their hooks and few books fall off the shelves but we can pick up and keep going rather easily. If it means those relationships end, then the change is more like an earthquake. We may need major medical attention, therapy or a new place to live! Not everyone finds those possibilities so exciting. Nevertheless, that is typical of the changes such eclipses in close succession, This could be a very radical time.

On the other hand, for those people looking for a new job or a new relationship, this one's for you! The possibilities are endless. Anything can happen. Since that is true of all of us, we are well advised to imagine the life we want in all its colorful and rich detail and put it out there for the Universe to see. In June 2011 you just may find a way to get there!

The Noonday Demon

2011-06-10T10:24:00.000-07:00

I recently read Kathleen Norris' book Acedia & me which is about marriage, monks and her life as a writer struggling with depression. That is of course a gross understatement of the purpose of the book. Norris, who is a Christian mystic and poet, has diagnosed depression, but beyond that she recognizes another level of spiritual despair which the medievalists call the sin of acedia. Dictionary and medical definitions of acedia include the "sin of sloth" and "a mental syndrome the chief features of which are listlessness, carelessness, apathy and melancholia." Norris strives through out the book to clarify these definitions to herself and to her reader. One of the key components of her definition is the loss of belief in possibilities and, I might add, the Self. Lyrics by Queen in the Bohemian Rhapsody come to mind whenever I think of acedia:

Nothing really matters, Anyone can see,
Nothing really matters,
Nothing really matters to me

Photo: Kathleen Norris

Norris writes the book to bring the effects of acedia to our attention as well as explore its impact on her personal life. She suggests, and rightly so I think, that we in the western world experience an acedic existence which rules our consciousness and robs us of the joi de vivre that is our birthright. Without a word to describe this condition which is beyond sadness or grief, we become its victims. Our health professionals have no concept that there is another psychic level to depression. They pile drug upon drug and therapy session upon therapy session to treat the brain chemistry of depression. They fail to see there is a psychic and spiritual component to the grief that immobilizes the soul. That is true, whether or not one believes in the concept of sin.

Acedia strikes me as particularly important in my spiritual community because of the number of people struggling with depression. Unable to get a handle on their grief, they slide into inaction. Work is left undone. Communication is broken. Folks retreat into themselves. The best advice, love and offering of help washes over them with little effect. I could name 20 people I know and connect with personally who are stuck, unable to rise up out of their hopelessness for any length of time at all. They function without joy and satisfaction. Each one of them will read this, if they read this, and think I am speaking only about them because they don't see how widespread acedia has become. This is Norris' point. Our world is muted by a blanket of unnamed longing. We live in despair of having that longing answered.

The medievalists saw this plight as a demon. They personified the emotional struggle with acedia in the context that made sense to them. Monks referred to as the Noonday Demon because it seemed to beset them most in midday when they were meditating. Despite their strongest prayers they would in their heart of hearts tell themselves that they had nothing to offer God, that their prayers were meaningless, that they never would find salvation or be of use to anyone. In the words of Freddie Mercury, they were certain nothing really matters at all. I thought it interesting that acedia was connected to sloth, one of the 7 deadlies. I had thought sloth meant laziness. Instead when connected to acedia it signifies inability. Caught in a cocoon of acedia and sloth, the person is unable to act, unable to clean, unable to get up out of bed. It does seem the soul is caught by an external power like a demon which defeats all effort.

Let me be clear. Despite the amount of time I spend in the medieval world, I do not subscribe to demonology or possession. I do understand how people can assign power to a negative force which seems stronger than their will. It is easier to imagine acedia as someone else's fault when a soul is stuck in disbelief of her ability to do anything at all. How can acedia bloom from within if nothing else can? It is an interesting lie we tell ourselves, that everything is external and it doesn't matter. I believe our souls manifest everything from rocks and trees to joy and acedia. I am one of those who believes we are co-creators of our universe. Norris is not. She relies on the Christian Triune Godhead to do that for her. In a complicated formulation, I contend they are the same, that godhead and the souls of all of us, but that is a different essay.

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picture credit

So given my own bias on how things come to be, I hasten to assure myself that blame is inappropriate. To criticize people for being ill, depressed or acedic is off the mark. It is off the mark for me who believes we co-create even our illnesses (for some really spectacular purposes). It is off the mark for a Christian to criticize people in those circumstances for succumbing to sin. What is appropriate for a counselor in any spiritual path is to demonstrate how to crawl out of the pit of acedia. It may be an ascension journey the soul makes repeatedly. Escaping acedia once is no permanent solution. However, like many things practice makes perfect. If we can catch ourselves on the descent or recognize the pit when we land there, perhaps we can scramble out before the lethargy takes too deep a hold.

So how does one escape acedia? Like depression, acedia retreats in the face of activity. When the desperate monk appealed to his abbot for help defeating acedia he was told to keep meditating, keep praying or to go work physically. Doing in the face of lethargy is an antidote. It may seem meaningless rote, but eventually the accomplishment of weeded gardens, recited prayers or multiple readings of the psalms sinks in. The person awakens to the reality of what was a success and acedia withdraws. The down side of that advice is that frantic activity which does not feed the soul simply masks acedia. The house may be spotless and the spirit dry and thirsty.

Apart from that approach, Norris and many other writers use acedia as a springboard to creativity. Although that seems contradictory, think about how much literature is writing from the deep painful angst of being. Acedia has for years been the muse of playwrights poets, and even Freddie Mercury. From my personal experience I can attest to the sapping boredom of a day filled with duty, house work, mundane trivia. I few hours spent writing a poem or working on my books turns that day right around. I forget how annoyed I was with dirty dishes and instead ride on the high of dialog, research and a well-turned phrase. I know if I am writing out a tirade against life, I need to write fast before the act of writing eradicates the inner experience from my physical being. Otherwise I must write from memory because the presence, the moment of pain, is gone. That's not a bad thing, but it does challenge my work when I try to keep it gritty and conflicted.

Other forms of creativity work equally well. The monks gardened. Tailors sew. wood workers build. Painters paint. Sculptors sculpt. Singers sing, or listen. This morning I was listening to the classical radio station which we use as an alarm clock. We heard The Liberty Bell March (Sousa), Russian Sailor's Dance (Gliere) and As the Bride Groom to His Chosen (written by John Rutter sung by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir) all of which uplifted a sleepy mind to consciousness. I mean that more than literally. The sound woke me up. The music uplifted me. It is impossible for me to be stuck in an acedic state of soul when surrounded by such sounds. That does not work equally well with a rock or country station. They wake the mind. They rarely wake the soul. The more richly conceived and performed pieces remind me of who I am and awaken the connection between the physical brain and the spiritual mind. I remember who I am. Notice those were not musical compositions from the old masters. They are products of our modern age, more or less. Rutter is still writing, wrote the anthem for Prince William and Kate's wedding a month ago.

The computer tag "garbage in garbage out (gi/go)" refers not only to our cultural choices of music and entertainment, which can court depression and acedia. It also reminds us of another source of acedia: habitual thoughts. Norris points out that the negative thought patterns brought on by crankiness (my word) invite the demon into the parlor. She also provides literary quotations from scores or writers ranging from Ian Fleming to Emily Dickenson to Paul Tillich. Tillich's is one of my favorites: "Boredom is rage spread thin." I have long advised that depression is anger turned inward. So it appears is acedia. When we rehearse the offenses perpetrated against us as our daily mantra, we build our rage. The greater the rage, the more likely the depression. The deeper the depression, the more likely acedia. Once in the pit, the less likely the escape unless one resolves the rage. Given the description of acedia as a state of lethargy and inaction, of disbelief in the possibilities, the act of resolution or forgiveness is less and less likely.

The other bastion Norris mounted against acedia was her marriage. Prior to marrying her husband David, she had had a variety of meaningless liaisons which suited her lack of commitment to herself or to life. She could leave them when she wanted to. When she fell in love and agreed to marry, she took that commitment as a commitment to her Self and to life. Suicide was no longer an option. That her marriage was difficult makes that commitment all the more significant to her survival. David had mental health issues which did not initially surface and for which she was unprepared. He then went through variety of life threatening health crises and died young. Her experience in loving such a man and seeking help to maintain her commitment and preserve his life made in her a deeply spiritual woman-soul. I might be tempted to leave such a demanding relationship to defend against depression. She dove in and fed herself and David love enough to keep them both alive long after he would have quit in suicidal despair. Her efforts were heroic. Her support system was too. Acedia was defeated by her intense commitment to love. Unlike Freddie Mercury, David really really mattered. He mattered so much she was able to survive his death. There is a transformative process in her survival which rose higher and dug deeper than either acedia or depression.

I believe it was her love and her intention to keep her promises to him that forced her out of the pit. Who she was as a partner, poet and wife mattered so much she could not allow acedia to kill them both. I admire that. Despite my reservations about marriage, Norris' story shines as an example of what love is and requires.

So there is her answer to acedia. She defeated it many times, repeatedly through her poetry and writing (the creative process), her prayers and meditations (at home and in monastic retreats) and through her marriage.

If acedia strikes a chord with you, I encourage you to get the book. I took a long time to read it. I also took a long time to digest it and write this essay. Acedia is not a simple topic. It isn't exciting, or inspiring. I do believe, however, that understanding acedia will enhance our success as a spiritual community, as friends, and on the larger scale as a nation. But the national import of the matter is again, a matter for another essay!

Favorite Resources

2011-06-07T13:27:00.000-07:00

Sunfire on her Pagan Blog Prompts suggested bloggers share some of our favorite Pagan resources for anyone that might need a little help finding answers. That is ironic on several levels: first I am the go-to-answer-grape for lots of other people, but saying so toots my own horn. Second I am reading Triumph of the Moon by Ron Hutton which is a very unflattering analysis of the origins of Wicca, albeit work based on the written records of the British witches and magicians of the 20th century. (He gives little credence to any oral histories and portrays the founders of neo-pagan Wicca as inveterate liars, which appears on the strength of his research to be the fact.) Thirdly, I have recently established a daily connection via internet with my original Wiccan teacher Lydia. I should be used to the synchronicities of life with the Goddess.

So let me say what three books I recommend:

1. Spiral Dance by Starhawk is an absolute must read for pagans, witches and wiccans in the US. I am always amazed at the number of my students who complain it is boring, unreadable, or otherwise less than the single most important introductory text I can think of.   What Starhawk did was take the muddle of British wicca from the 50's and 60's and create something wonderfully poetic and American. She is the source of my insistence that students address the questions of Identity. She is the source of our work in grounding even though she does not spot light it as much as we do. She is the spark that took us into the examination of the shadows in balance with the light. If you wnt to be smart about your spiritual path you need to understand Starhawk.
2. Wicca and Witchcraft for Dummies.   by Diane Smith. Yep it is one of the yellow and black books. The title is apt to insult some people, but I think starting from the beginning as a dummy, which we all are, is an important part of the witch's strength. We do not know it all. But nearly everything is in this book. Try it out. You can lose the wicca stuff if you are a practicing generic pagan, or some other tradition.
3. The Book of English Magic by Philip Carr-Gomm and Richard Heygate, a newish book, does an excellent survey of magic in England. The chapter on Wicca is weak, but that is not what I want you to read it for. Learning our magic traditions and resources is key to being an effective pagan or witch. The material will apply to a much broader base of pagans who will welcome this huge reference. Bonus! It is very readable and fun.

Notice I did not recommend Hutton's book. I haven't finished it nor have I read the critiques. If you have an inquiring mind, an academic background and well developed critical thinking you might want to add it to your list. He has a lot of information in that volume, but he is not infallible.

As for Websites I encourage you to regularly visit Spirit Library which serves as a sort of anthology of new age psychics and writers. They include videos, channelings, books---all sorts of things. Witchvox aka The Witches' Voice and BeliefNet are also key resources. Now, rather than websites, you may want to check those resources out on FaceBook where you can more easily chat and comment. Raven Grimmasi has a discussion group there under the heading Chats by the Hearthside. He is just getting started with this offering but it looks promising.

If you want to get in touch with me you can do so at http://www.facebook.com/dorothy.abrams and with the WebPathCenter at http://www.facebook.com/pages/WebPATH-Center/178383745528663.

Who do I go to when I have a question or need? My partner Merlin is my first line of supporters. Lydia Athena is the second. Beyond them, there is a net work of supporters in the Web PATH Center who are available to you through the internet. Post a question to any of us. We will freely offer what we know.

The Wiccan Rede

2011-05-31T11:58:00.000-07:00

The Wiccan Rede
(Full Version)
Bide within the Law you must, in perfect Love and perfect Trust.
Live you must and let to live, fairly take and fairly give.

For tread the Circle thrice about to keep unwelcome spirits out.
To bind the spell well every time, let the spell be said in rhyme.

Light of eye and soft of touch, speak you little, listen much.
Honor the Old Ones in deed and name,
let love and light be our guides again.

Deosil go by the waxing moon, chanting out the joyful tune.
Widdershins go when the moon doth wane,
and the werewolf howls by the dread wolfsbane.

When the Lady's moon is new, kiss the hand to Her times two.
When the moon rides at Her peak then your heart's desire seek.

Heed the North winds mighty gale, lock the door and trim the sail.
When the Wind blows from the East, expect the new and set the feast.

When the wind comes from the South, love will kiss you on the mouth.
When the wind whispers from the West, all hearts will find peace and rest.

Nine woods in the Cauldron go, burn them fast and burn them slow.
Birch in the fire goes to represent what the Lady knows.

Oak in the forest towers with might, in the fire it brings the God's
insight. Rowan is a tree of power causing life and magick to flower.

Willows at the waterside stand ready to help us to the Summerland.
Hawthorn is burned to purify and to draw faerie to your eye.

Hazel-the tree of wisdom and learning adds its strength to the bright fire burning.
White are the flowers of Apple tree that brings us fruits of fertility.

Grapes grow upon the vine giving us both joy and wine.
Fir does mark the evergreen to represent immortality seen.

Elder is the Lady's tree burn it not or cursed you'll be.
Four times the Major Sabbats mark in the light and in the dark.

As the old year starts to wane the new begins, it's now Samhain.
When the time for Imbolc shows watch for flowers through the snows.

When the wheel begins to turn soon the Beltane fires will burn.
As the wheel turns to Lamas night power is brought to magick rite.

Four times the Minor Sabbats fall use the Sun to mark them all.
When the wheel has turned to Yule light the log the Horned One rules.

In the spring, when night equals day time for Ostara to come our way.
When the Sun has reached it's height time for Oak and Holly to fight.

Harvesting comes to one and all when the Autumn Equinox does fall.
Heed the flower, bush, and tree by the Lady blessed you'll be.

Where the rippling waters go cast a stone, the truth you'll know.
When you have and hold a need, harken not to others greed.

With a fool no season spend or be counted as his friend.
Merry Meet and Merry Part bright the cheeks and warm the heart.

Mind the Three-fold Laws you should three times bad and three times good.
When misfortune is enow wear the star upon your brow.

Be true in love this you must do unless your love is false to you.

These Eight words the Rede fulfill:

"An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will"

You may not be familiar with the poem from which we have extracted the catch phrase known as the Rede. The poem is most likley written by Doreen Valiante, an English witch who worked for a time with Gerald Gardner and under his tutelage improved the ritual poetry and prose. She was a talented writer as well as dedicated Wiccan.

In the Web Circles, our entire ethical system is based on the Wiccan Rede and the Rule of Three, both of which are simple statements layered with adult responsibility. You actually find both of them referenced in the poem. Neither is a cliché. Both functions as universal laws, separate from the will of the practitioner. These concepts are crucial to our community, which is being built slowly class by class, ritual by ritual. Without these principles, we are at the mercy of each situation, each clique, each popular man or woman with a smooth presentation because neo-paganism promotes individual will and has with it no concept of sin.

That we function without concern about sin is a shocking premise to the outsider. Sin, in the religious world, is the engine of controlled behavior. It is the definer of morality and the parameters of social interaction. By holding on to a concept of sin, the religious institutions of church, synagogue and mosque are able to direct individual behavior, prohibit most sexual expression, control the actions of women-and of men to a lesser degree-and garner wealth to itself. Sin then is understood to mean all behavior that is listed as taboo by prophets of each religion, but certainly including murder, free sexual expression outside of marriage, theft, most forms of violence, infidelity to the god of the institution, and often transgression of dietary rules. Those would be the sins of commission, action we ought to avoid. There are sins of omission which include the failure to properly observe the forms of the god’s religion, failure to offer support and assistance to the faithful in need, failure to care for one’s family.

Wiccans have none of that. There is no book listing the taboos or the exceptions. Instead we are taught and we teach, ‘an that it harm none, do what ye will. Harming none is a tall order, since even benevolent acts can be harmful if forced upon the unwilling, or used to override and manipulate another’s free will. So moment by moment we are expected to act, weighing the consequences of the actions, consulting our guides and spirits about long range implications, and being brave and bold in our choices.

And if that were not enough, we also understand that the energy we send out returns to us three-fold. This rule of three is true of the energy we intentionally send, of the energy we automatically and unconsciously emit, and of the absence of energy we do not send because of our own doubt and uncertainty.

There is a third phrase that encourages our actions to be set in a positive loving framework, that is the Thelemic charge “Love is the whole of the law, love under will.” Despite the fact this ethical declaration has degenerated into an all-purpose pickup line, it holds value for the celebrant who has learned to balance the heart and the will, to focus desire into magick, to reach beyond what the ego wants and into the universal good, that it harms none.

Living without sin, in an ethical system where all things are allowed up to the point of harm to another, means that many pagans flounder in confusion about their values. That is not to say that the Christians, Jews and Moslems are perfectly clear about their own values. They are not so blessed either. But in the case of traditional religious institutions, the faithful at least know what they are supposed to believe and value. It’s in the book. Pagans have to struggle with self evaluation and personal analysis in order to grow to understand what it is they truly value without imposing those values on others, at least not by fiat.

Observing Fundamental Foolishness on May 21st

2011-05-21T05:21:00.001-07:00

Sonnet #3

Observing Fundamental Foolishness on May 21st

By Dorothy Abrams 5/21/2011

Some chickens ran around the yard to duck

The sky, seeking shelter from the downpour.

It’s only rain. Wet feathers, dreadful luck,

And nothing more, dear Chicken, nothing more.

The otherside of light is dark; you stare--

Bright door swings open, then shuts black on Them.

Their entrance to our world comes when we dare

Observe the Light/Dark Angels call again.

They vanish then appear as shadows—those

that scare the shit from silly flocks of chicks,

Imagine demons, devils, ghouls and ghosts;

Not fairy dancers playing clever tricks.

Apocalypse occurs within the heart

Afraid of shadows, baffled by the dark.

O Happy Day!

2011-04-24T12:18:00.000-07:00

On this Easter morning, I checked into Facebook and found my friend Merlyn of Merry Mischief had posted a video of George Harrison singing My Sweet Lord. She commented that the riff was reminiscent of O Happy Day. Well, I didn't remember that so I played the two back to back, and of course the musician Merlyn is right. I commented to her that both songs reminded me of interesting stories in my own history. Here they are. I never realized that the Universe was moving me in the right direction at those particular junctures.

Beginning with the Beatles invasion of the US, all of us who were teenage girls picked a special one to love. Mine was George. He seemed like someone I had known, someone I should know. I had all their posters and albums, but it was always about George Harrison for me. At the time, I was walking with one foot solidly in two worlds: pop culture and religious fundamentalism. I loved George Harrison. I loved Jesus. So of course, I prayed for George's soul. I mean I prayed for it. I can't think of many things I was that earnest about until one night, POOF! It felt like the Heavens got tired of my nagging and said, "Oh all right!" I opened my eyes, looked around and thought "There, that's done!"

Of course after that, around 1968, George went on a spiritual quest in which he converted to Hinduism and the reverence for Krishna. That bothered me not a bit. It felt like an affirmation of the Universe's promise to take care of George. Then in 1970 he sang My Sweet Lord with such a passion, I knew that by whatever name we call Him, the Divine had found George and George had found the Divine. Although I was nominally a fundamentalist for another 4 years, I understood that there was greater truth and greater magic than anything the Baptist Church had to offer. I trusted that in good time, I would find that.

In 1970, my senior year in college, The Edwin Hawkins Singers were still very big with their hit single O Happy Day. Now remember I was studying literature and history in a Baptist college, one of those where we were expected in chapel every day. Women were not allowed to wear slacks or shorts except in sports or for work (if need be). No movies. No dancing. No sex. No women leaders or preachers. No rock and roll. Conservative politics. There were maybe 6 of us on campus who opposed the Vietnam War. My name appeared on public prayer lists--though I am not sure for which offense.

Ken, one of my classmates, had an aunt who sang with the Edwin Hawkins Singers. When my sorority (we called them something else but I forget what) Kappa Delta Chi planned the spring Vespers service, my roommate Jackie and I volunteered to be on the program committee. We built it around a Civil Rights Theme (on a conservative nearly all white campus) using gospel music, spirituals, and a message preached by a black woman who had been in jail for justice marches and had been shaken by the fact her only helpers there were white. It was a shock to the campus that black people could be prejudiced against whites.

To support all that we needed good music. Ken and his roommate did a gospel piano saxophone duet that rocked the house. They wore black pants and white shirts with sun glasses, as I remember it. Ken was black. Don was white. It was pretty cool. One of the Kappa girls played guitar and wore slave type clothing to sing Follow the Drinking Gourd in front of a slave shack. The Kappa women sang Steal Away and another spiritual in 4 part harmony. I wrote the arrangements and directed the choir. But what to use as a call to worship? Ken had the answer. He got the album from his aunt with O Happy Day on it. Dawn who was running sound and lights boomed it over the speaker system as people walked in. She designed the program to with a black man's face singing into a microphone. It opened down the middle separating his hand and his face. Everything about the entire evening was inspired!

And that is the truth. My mother had suggested the idea over Christmas: "An Evening in Soul". The rest fell into place, some at the last minute. The committee might have had the credit for the production, but behind that was the Spirit of Justice, making sure every single detail rocked! We were way out over the edge, but that was my swan song at Cedarville. I was completing my credits and leaving at the end of March. That way, if the school took too much of a burn over the program, Kappa Delta could blame me and I was out of reach.

The fear of what might happen was not an idle question. In January Jackie and I had taken the idea to the administrator in charge of student activities and asked him what he thought. We had known Jim as an upperclassman before he went to work for Cedars. He took all the pencils on this desk and stuck them at once into his mouth to chew them in feigned anxiety. Then he spit them out and told us to do it, but not tell anybody he said so. On entering the chapel that night, more than one person asked out loud "Am I getting a demerit for attending this?" Sometimes people are afraid to swim upstream. Me and Jackie? We were salmon.

With the benefit of hindsight, I understand now I was being opened up to embrace a more Universal Spirit than what I had been taught in church the whole time I was there. My Sweet Lord and O Happy Day merge the ideas of being one with Krishna and Jesus and although their names do not appear in the songs, Isis and Brigid, and whoever else you wish to name. It is sweet. It is happy. It is good, powerful and bright: The Divine Ecstasy of song and worship and merger with All That Is.

But Wait! There's More: Reincarnation on the Pagan Path

2011-04-22T11:07:00.000-07:00

"If I have lived before, what good is it to know about it?" Many people have asked me that in response to my classes or articles. The breadth of the question leaves me speechless. Where to start? How to approach an honest inquiry steeped in western skepticism?

We are truly naive if we believe that reincarnation is a minority opinion in the world. A quick look at comparative religion sources a billion and a half people in about 15 different religion paths include an expectation of reincarnation in their teachings. Clearly many people do not determine their religious or spiritual views by popular vote, but we Web Wiccans are not alone in accepting reincarnation as a legitimate tenet in one's spiritual path.

Knowing about our own past lives helps us determine our purpose in this life. I wrote about this aspect of Reincarnation a few months ago when I was asking the question "Why are you here?" Our life purposes are largely karmic workings from other lives. I'll not repeat what I said then, but you might want to check out the previous post to remind yourself of the prologue to this essay.

My beliefs about reincarnation are fairly consistent with people in the human potential movement. I think all Time is now, so lives are actually concurrent. They simply seem chronological as does the rest of history. I believe our various lives work out themes we have preselected. Karma is not a system of rewards and punishments. We are both kinder and tougher on ourselves than that. Our various incarnations are exercises for our souls. Sometimes we are rich and sometimes poor; sometimes wise and sometimes foolish. We love, we hate. We are indifferent. Each life contributes to the soul's knowledge of our connections with other souls and our illusion of separation. The variety of experiences gives us balance and depth.

Past lives are knowable through hypnosis, dreams and meditation (including shamanic drumming) and divination. I recently completed a series of 25 past life tarot readings that were very revealing about life purposes, death and karma. I learned that the between-life conference involves drama, disagreement, strategy and deception as well as healing and love. I was surprised by that. I had assumed we all go to the conference table in a state of enlightenment working for the greatest and highest good. Some people do, but others are there to trip them up and follow a hidden agenda.

From all the work and reading I have done about past lives, it is clear to me we travel in soul groups. Many of the people we are in relationship with are those we have chosen and who are a part of us. The most difficult people we know usually are the ones whose souls love us the most and agree to the karmic ties the difficulties forge. We are stuck with each other out of love. Some of those difficulties follow us through the conference and into other lives. I have a short list of people that in this headset I would not choose to return with again. I've even told myself to remember that when we plan for the next go around. Will that work? Can I push them aside and avoid them next time? If I can, should I? Goddess I hope so, at least until one or the other of us straightens up and makes better choices.

Despite my pique at people on my short list, a study of my past lives has contributed profoundly to my emotional healing. Some of the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune suffered as a teenager, a 20 something woman in love, a Christian woman devalued in a fundamentalist environment, a Pagan woman undercut by people she put too much trust in....an idealistic State employee who missed the memo that we weren't really supposed to win in our fight against injustice, all those experiences became less hurtful and more healing when I understand my past relationships with the people involved.

One very relevant example might be my father-daughter conflicts, not unlike many other people's experiences. Because I discovered a time when I was a very vulnerable child to his being my guardian and brother-in-law, I understand the struggles in this life with my father. Our pushing away and drawing close, of meddling and coming through in a pinch, and seeming to fail and then succeed in our love for each other, all that came from a shared history in France when he was a wealthy noble saddled with his wife's kid brother who came to them penniless and orphaned. He had hers and responsibilities. What was I but another complication? He did not experience my need as an opportunity for compassion. I didn't experience his power as an opportunity to grow up and be somebody.

This time in the 20th century, I volunteered to help him work through his past issues. He volunteered to help me work through mine. That we disapproved of choices each made in this life, but loved each other anyway is evidence of soul growth. I found the grace to forgive him his failures. I expect he never held my failures against me and thought I needed no forgiveness, at least not from him. Knowing that he loved me without question, that he exceeded the compassion of any other man I knew who had children became stars in his crown when I could see where he came from and how much he had grown. As I grew he instilled in me his belief that I could do anything, and so I did. I became somebody. I adventured out in to the world to mark it, to change it. I continue to do that!

Being aghast at the crises we face in this life fades when we understand the purpose behind it all. We are able to accept there is growth to be had from hard times and mean people. We can learn to be grateful for that. We can learn to be greater than our grief.

Viewing my various lives through a telephoto lens also helps me translate the themes into art. Poems, stories, novels, even pictures flow out of this rich source material. Memories of other times and other places enrich my ability to represent people's pain and ecstasy though in this life I lack the experience. The adrenalin flows as if I were there again. My passion from old memories can be applied to modern scenes or ancient history as I work across the barriers of time and space. Someone asked me yesterday where I get the ideas I write about. Past lives are my primary source material.

If a knowledge of past lives did nothing more for me than that, I would be deliriously thankful. Enhanced healing, ripened creativity. What more could a witch want? What more can a past life offer?

Now I Walk in Beauty

2010-12-29T12:09:00.000-08:00

I resolve to incorporate beauty in my day every day, however I find it possible to speak of it, create it, appreciate it, encourage it, understand it. Beauty is not the physical appearance of a man or woman or child, though it can be. Beauty is not the right hair cut or make up, the most stylish clothes nor the most costly. Beauty is in the power to take the breath away to higher places, in the surprised gasp on finding the infinite, in the shout of joy over the tiny bits of life that we nearly missed.

To embrace beauty in all my surroundings, I must keep my eyes open to see beyond the surface into the depths of your eyes where your soul hides, and then to applaud it into showing itself. Shy at first, your soul like mine will peek out at a disbelieving world to find a word of welcome and finding none will hide once again behind the mask of ennui the world believes in. But I, in promising to love and seek out beauty, will reward your soul's shy glance with a welcome smile. I know you. I wish to stay with you and you with me. Come play among the dry doubters who will learn a thing or three from our dance with beauty. If we tire of their feigned superiority, we can hide to rest among the roses and lilies in that grow wild along the road. Let our hiding be but a rest, and then with courage let us move out again to say to all the world that we are real and beautiful.

Then more than open eyed, I must be brave, a woman of nerve who dares practice love and generosity without regard for nation, kings or presidents. Blending courage with beauty I reach beyond the funny little lines men drew on maps to say who is the Other and who is Us. In holding beauty in my hand, I see it in South Africa and Bangladesh, in Estonia and in Peru. Lowlands, highlands, mountains, caves (though I do not like caves where my skin crawls feeling tons of rock above my head). In holding on to beauty I face my fears of differences and find in you and me the Source of all things: Oneness and the web of consciousness. I create love for you in all your imperfections and for me in age and wrinkled skin.

It is enough, this beauty of being me and you and us in all things. I erase the sadness and the separation of the isolated soul. I resolve to celebrate instead our beauty, you and me and all of them who make up us. More than you guess, that is the All. Now walk with me in Beauty!

Promoting Donations for Heifer International

2010-12-22T13:54:00.001-08:00

Get Real With Your Spirit and Politics through Heifer International

I was reminded by blogger Nathan Bransford that the annual Heifer International blog fundraising is here. I almost forgot! Heifer is one of my very favorite organizations because it provides help to agricultural families to promote their independence. Click through on the link below to learn more if you are new the Heifer! You can help me make my Holiday pledge by leaving a comment to this post. I will donate $10 for each comment up to $500.

Here is the link for Heifer International, an organization that works to fight hunger by giving needy families around the world and in the United States livestock, training, or other assistance that helps improve their livelihood. Heifer has been recognized for its work in Fast Company and Forbes, among other places.

Just for now, pretend you are rich. Thinking and acting on that thought can make it real, especially since we are so blessed compared to the people helped by Heifer. Create your own reality by digging out your check book and making a donation of your own.

In order to encourage people to spread the word, for every comment someone makes in this post between now and 6PM Eastern Standard Time on New Years Day I will donate $10.00 (up to $500) in addition to the family donation we give each year instead of presents among the adults. Seriously. Tell your friends. We need more people to reach my limit! Hold me to it!

In your comment I hope you'll list:

1. Your name
2. Where you're from
3. A wish for 2011

Thank you so very very much for making this journey with me in 2010. Let's do the same in 2011! Love, Anemone

A Yule Blessing for you!

2010-12-15T11:24:00.000-08:00

Persephone and Demeter
From The Art of Susan Seddon Boulet

Winter Solstice Story

by Dorothy Abrams

Dark Mother Crone, Where have You gone?

It’s cold. And I am all alone.

The night is long and dark,

And I am on My own.

Where have You gone,

Dark Mother Crone?

Persephone!

I’ll come to take You back home

Where the light will be.

This night is nearly over.

Give Your hand to Me,

So that You can see,

Persephone.

Demeter, is that You?

My Mother’s come, but

I will stay right here

Within the long night winter

For six months each year

I will stay right here,

Demeter Dear.

Howl in the night!

My roaring wind will cut off

Any budding life.

And I will cry.

My sleet will coat and bite,

Suffer cold and blight!

Destroy this night!

Mother do not dare!

I’ll rise again in spring

With sunlight in my hair,

Give birth to love and laughter,

New life everywhere

Mother do not dare,

Oh do not dare!

My winter curse is bound.

But snows will clothe and shelter

Life within the ground.

All trees and seeds will sleep the moon around,

And when My curse is done,

Awaken with Your sun.

Mother Crone and Maid.

The circle turns within us.

Never be afraid

Of winter hair and wrinkles.

Promises She gave—

Youth and age repaid

Crones will all be maids.

So give honor to the Crone

At Winter Solstice sisters

We are not alone

She blankets everyone

With love and warmth at home.

No one is alone.

Give honor to the Crone.

Right Livelihood Part II

2010-12-14T10:30:00.000-08:00

The last post on Right Livelihood generated a lengthy conversation with Eric. I will share some of that because it is so practical. Eric's father Charles started out his work life as an apprentice with Rolls Royce. The automobile was a new phenomena, so new that when World War I came around, Charles was one of the few men able to drive in the Royal Navy. He enlisted in Churchill's new armored car unit at the rank of chief petty officer, even though he lied about his age to enlist and turned 16 on the troop transport going to the Dardanelles in the Middle East. At that time who would have guessed the automobile would spew noxious poisons and deplete the world of clean air, petroleum and cause more major military conflicts year hence? He was a a young man fascinated by the new cars and loyal to his country, seeking adventure and nearly losing his life twice in two years at war.

Subsequently Charles worked in the Napier's aero industry building engines for prototype air craft, a union steward who was fired then blackballed from the trades for being a troublemaker. His father put him to work laying bricks. After the crash in 1929 Charles started a trucking company in London with some financial help from his father. He moved building materials around the city until World War II. Then the government took over his business and assigned him to Wiltshire where the family relocated. There he moved construction materials assisting both the British and later the American Air Force to built air strips for the air war in Europe. Although he was conscientious in his business dealings, he still was supporting the war industry. On the other hand, in World War II in Britain everyone was supporting the war industry. It was their last chance for life.

Few people in the U.S. grasp how desperate a situation Britain was in during the war. Hitler, who was something of an Anglophile, had ordered certain key places spared in the bombing because he expected to use them himself when he conquered the island. It was close, no thanks to the Yanks who were late showing up. Although our soldiers were brave and tough, it is also true that Congress had strong sympathies with the Germans. The US had a policy of neutrality until Pearl Harbor because of their German investments at stake. What in hind sight is well a historical victory for the Allied forces was in no way a given for the people of Europe living through the bombing and slaughter of World War II.

So what is the right livelihood there? A young man like Charles gets caught up in the newest thing (the automotive industry), not knowing what environmental impact it might have, not even living in a time or place where anyone asks that question. He enters the military because all young men were entering the military in a war that one might argue was a family dispute (all the major European players on both sides were Queen Victoria's grandchildren). The voices crying out against the military were ignored. Woodrow Wilson naively declared it a "war to end all wars". Then Charles works in the air craft industry standing up for worker's rights, pays a price and ends up with a R & H Transport (a haulage company in the English vernacular) based on what he learned in the military. Another war breaks out and his business is commandeered by the military, and this defines his life until he emigrates after the second world war to Canada. His immigration to North America was driven by his desire to live near his grandchildren.

From Canada Charles moves to the U S where he again builds on what he knows. He and Eric started a gas station repair shop on "foreign" cars which American mechanics liked to complain about or refused to work on. The cars were not foreign to them, so the Reynolds men filled a niche in Rochester NY. Yet, the auto industry including gas stations deal with earth polluting fluids and fumes. In the 50's no one thought to point that out or ask the question. What was a carbon foot print to them? The States operated on the political and economic policy "What's good for GM is good for the country." That wasn't true, but it is what people believed. Actually GM and the auto industry used Congress to destroy the US rail industry in favor of trucking, buses and car sales. That increased our reliance on petroleum, or pollution of the land, and our love affair with "a mountain of things", which is a snippet of lyrics I heard on the radio this morning.

My conclusion, not necessarily Eric's nor his father's, is that Charles like many other young men were pawns used by the corporate interests to bleed Mother Earth and return poison for her blood. Folks manufacturing the cars and tires, folks working the oil fields, refineries and distribution systems, folks driving the trucks, buses and cars all intended to do good. Like the youth who signs up to fight out of patriotic fervor they were building the economy of their country, contributing to the verve that made America (and other countries in the West) great! It was never their intention to soil the nest or pollute the waters.

There is a saying on the street: If I'd known better, I would have done better. That applies to the issue of right livelihood. If we knew the consequences of our actions in advance we would make better choices--at least some of the time. If our making better choices includes demanding greater foresight and accountability from Congress, then so much the better. However, we will never be able to make better choices without better information. If we are to find our own right livelihood, then we need to be asked the hard questions about our education, careers, employment, and politics by the elders who have been there and done that, with or without the tee-shirt.

I am not prepared to say a responsible man like Charles Reynolds engaged in wrong livelihood. None of us do so unless we get up in the morning and say we are going to spill toxic chemicals on the ground by Ley Creek (in Syracuse NY) and hope we don't get caught today! That has been done by men with hard hearts and seared consciences. It is surely wrong livelihood. A man like Charles Reynolds who loved the sound of a well tuned engine, who gave honest trade for the dollar, and who taught his family the same values is a man engaged in right livelihood but not without negative impact on the world. His sons who passed tangible values down through the generations so that when the questions are asked about pollution, politics, honesty and economics do have the right information have tougher choices. Because they know more, they can do better. Some of them do.

It seems the more we learn, the harder some choices become, yet those choices are essential if we are to clean up Ley Creek and Onondaga Lake. Our persistence in speaking of right livelihood is crucial if we are to clean up our government and hold them to the higher standards of truth and honest dealings that the we believe in. Because we do not know the whole story when we are living through it, we too will make mistakes. But let our errors be ones that come out of good intentions, not greed or selfishness or even fear. Those things lead to wars now as surely as they did in the past. And no right livelihood comes of that!

Right Livelihood

2010-12-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

One of the 8 steps on the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddhism is Right Livelihood, number 5 to be precise. (For your reference the 8 are: Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration.) I have not often taught about Right Livelihood because so many of my students and friends have been living with their backs against the wall and have no ears to hear a challenge about how they earn their money. As a pagan community, the Web does not adhere to the teachings of Buddha although we recognize the wisdom in them and engage with many commonalities of values with Buddhism. However, this morning I was back re-reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse on my e-reader, and was struck by the illustration Siddartha's choices made concerning right livelihood.

In the book, Siddhartha leaves the life of an ascetic and joins a businessman to earn money for clothes and gifts so he can woo a famous courtesan and learn the arts of love. For a time that works out well. He maintains his balance, not being owned by his business dealings, feeling equally joyous when he succeeds with a deal and when he finds one go bad. The experience is always the point of his dealings, not whether he makes or loses money. He treats people well and enjoys them so of course they respond to him positively. Over time he becomes very wealthy, but the wealth draws him into gambling and there he loses his balance. His business becomes boring, and the excitement of the dice addictive. Ultimately he leaves his riches and addictions behind and works for a Ferryman to learn truth from the River.

Actually, the business dealings Siddhartha conducts are not in themselves wrong livelihood. He deals in good and commodities like grain, cloth and useful stuff. Right Livelihood chides us to avoid work which would involve us in weapons, slavery or other human trafficking (like prostitution, baby selling, organ selling), food animal breeding and slaughter and trade (because they promote vegetarianism), alcohol manufacture, sales and distribution including pubs and bars (well phooey!), and any trade in toxins used either as intentional poisons or as by product pollutants and toxic waste which are known to kill (well there goes the energy industry and a huge portion of the global economy!).

We would be better off if we searched out careers and jobs which honored the earth in this manner. Imagine all the money used for weapons development channeled into green energy, food production, housing, education and medical care not solely for the US but for the entire world! Dare dream of a world in which people are truly free to seek their own way without being owned by a master or a corporation or a husband. Think about the rain forests saved by having fewer cattle ranches, of the Fells in England reforested where the sheep roam, of the impact all those woods and trees would have on the atmosphere for the common good. Understand we can recycle and reuse with industries created for that purpose rather than build artificial mountains out of our trash. We might dare create a community where people can speak plainly and lovingly to each other without the aid of wine and beer to loosen their tongues and inhibitions. Our carbon foot print could reduce so the air, land and water are restored instead of poisoned.

Many of these ideals are accessible in small steps and then greater leaps. Whether we accept a Buddhist path or follow the Wiccan Rede, we can encourage the health benefits of more modest meat consumption and an ending of our societal addition to beef. I am no teetotaler though I rarely drink, but for those addicted to booze who spend money they don't have and ruin their relationships and careers in their obsession, I can see the wisdom of staying out of the business.

Red meat and liquor are similar in their impact on our lives. You may find that an outrageous controversial statement, but it is true. When we have to have beef and beer, we are out of control, out of balance, and obsessed. That is not a clear spiritual state. I say this without apology even though I eat red meat and drink both on occasion because I believe I am balanced and even handed about my choices. It is only food. It is only a beverage. There are many others to sample and I am open to nearly all of them. (No sushi thank you very much.)

Similarly I think it is no great leap to discover that employment with Marshall Farms which raises animals for medical experimentation is not Right Livelihood. The animals are treated badly well before they arrive in laboratories. North of us Marshall Farms has merged with a foreign national company to grow pigs in pristine conditions to kill and harvest heart valves. I know, I know. People die waiting for transplants and the pigs save a human life. Maybe. In Western value systems a pig life is worth less than a human life. I wonder about that. Because I am unequivocal about the value of a good death entered into with courage and anticipation of greater realities, I would not be one to extend my life at the expense of a pig. A minority opinion, I know. Still, raising animals to die for medical purposes is no different than raising them for the food industry. The questions raise our consciousness and make us evaluate our choices. We might disagree on the answers, The value is in the questions and the process we follow to find a deep and true answer regarding how we earn our money.

In the matter of Right Livelihood, the last career choice we are sent away from involves working with poisons that kill. Obviously making poisons and killing people is not a spiritual endeavor nor a job any of us would seek out. The manufacture of weapons grade napalm, poison gas and neurotoxins is also relevant here. No amount of patriotism justifies their manufacture. On the other hand, otherwise productive industrial work which produces poisonous by-products which handled carelessly and dumped on the land or in the water or burned and released to the air is a violation of the elemental integrity of our pagan faith. The Earth, The Air, The Fire The Water return, return, return return. Return to what? Their natural pristine state, I'm thinking. In that case, working for the landfill at Seneca Meadows outside of Waterloo NY would qualify as unright livelihood as several of our acquaintance have discovered on their own. The pay was good. Running around on heavy earth moving equipment is a boys dream come true. But the exposure to the smell, the realization that a massive federal wetland is just down stream, and the garbage comes from metropolitan areas all over the northeast, challenges the easy money.

Think about what we do for work. What are we really doing? How are we going about it? Locally, people get stuck in weapons manufacture, landfills, slaughterhouses (think Plainville Turkey Farm) and chemical manufacture because they sold themselves short years ago by finishing their education. They often married young, had more kids than they could afford and now they are stuck in dead end jobs that martyr the soul. What else can we do if we are stuck?

Obviously the first possibility is to go back and get the education that allows us to be teachers, healers, or entrepreneurs in earth friendly businesses. Few of us, like Siddhartha, can simply walk away from our work and leave everything behind. We have families and responsibilities which a spiritually balanced life expects us to honor and safeguard. Neverthesless, we can combine school and work. People do it all the time, even with families. My stepson received his bachelors degree in computer science when he was over 40 with a wife, a mortgage and 2 children. It is never too late. A woman friend and member of the Web is in her retirement age and just finished her PhD. She told me she lived all her life doing what others needed her to do. Now she will do what she wishes in environmental work.

Another possibility is to educate ourselves about work we would like to do for the common good, like writing, community garden projects, civil rights and justice issues, peace activism, music and performance, and more and more and more. These are things we can join with others to explore and hone an expertise that makes us employable with or without college degrees. Taking a volunteering passion and turning it into a career is the subject of many books. Part of educating ourselves is know how. We are required, however to step out and get involved in organizations that exist in our home communities. Actually, that is how I ended up with a career in Human Rights working for the State. I volunteered with the local Human Rights Commision in Auburn NY while I worked at something else. There I learned the law and developed the credentials that allowed me to take the State Civil Service Test when it came around. Because I did well on the test, I was eventually hired to investigate and support the law that says we may not discriminate in housing, employment and public accommodation because of race, creed, color, sex, national origin, disability, age, maritial status, and sexual orientation. I was blessed and challenged doing that work. It was Right Livelihood in the abstract and politics at its worst in some of the application. Still, I worked for the common good and made a difference.

You can too.

Where Am I Going?

2010-11-24T12:28:00.000-08:00

The fourth Identity question asks about our destiny. Different from the question of our purpose (Why am I here?) this question asks what's next? After life, then what?

In my experience students avoid answering the question because they are not sure what happens after death. Many try to answer with mundane possibilities. I am going to California to school. I will be vacationing in Maui. My new job is in Arizona. None of that addresses the deepest level of the soul's search for answer. Where am I going? How do I get there? Is this all there is?

As I write this, a young college student home for the Thanksgiving holiday has been missing for nearly a week. A woman's body matching her general size has been found near her home. Most people think this is Jenni Lynn Watson. It probably is. No one is clear on what happened, at least not yet. Seeing this unfold over the holiday certainly makes us wonder about the sense of life and death. How is it children die before their parents?

The soul's answer to all this engages our faith at its deepest levels. I have learned from my years in Christian college, church and teaching in their schools and from more years of shamanic work, pagan studies and ritual that all of this is meaningful. We may not like it--not one little bit. We may rail against the Fates and accuse them of cruelty. We may wallow in our grief. then when we are done, we must pick ourselves up and continue to live. Our success in going on is rooted in our faith that every life and every death is meaningful.

My Credo, my belief is that each of us has selected several moments of death. One of them will be our final selection in this life. We may be assisted in the dying by illness, old age, accidents or violence. In any case, when we die we do so because we are finished. This life's purpose has spun out as much wisdom as we can handle. We return to our Source, to the place where we came from.

People with near death experiences describe the lighted tunnel and the helpers who arrive to receive them, or send them back because it is not time. I have worked as a psychopomp conducting souls of the dead across the vale through the tunnel to the edge of the blinding light. I am here to assure you this is not random firing of a dying brain. My brain works very well, fully alive, and I have seen it.

I have, in the shamanic journey to death, crossed into the other realm myself. On a wordless level I understand existence without a body, without boundaries but will full consciousness. I experienced that. I sensed myself in full union with all other parts of Creation. When called back to Earth, I felt myself gather my parts and separate them, with great reluctance, from all other parts. I arrived back in my friend's living room with a new sense of bliss which is our soul's birthright. I am going back there, to be part of the Union.

I have sat in meditation and reached through my crown chakra to clasp hands with a soul friend on the Otherside, and begged him to pull be through because of that bliss. I was unable on that day to resist the desire for reunion. Our teachers and guides, on the other hand, can do that for us. He could not take me there then because I would not have returned.

We have all died many times, as many times as we have lived save once--this life. We have survived each death as a soul welcomed home to be with friends, lovers, family, teachers and guides. We will experience that same journey and reunion when this life is done. Jenni Lynn apparently did that this week. The grief and pain of all those left behind is palpable. Yet for Jenni Lynn, she has a joyous treat unfolding before her, one in which she will see for herself, that her life had meaning, and so did her death.

Where did I come from?

2010-11-19T09:01:00.000-08:00

The third Identity question is Where did I come from? Students have answered this according to their thealogy, their biology, genealogy and past lives. I suppose a complete answer involves all of those levels. Where did you, a soul with all its abilities and disabilities, come from?

The comedians in my classes usually reply "My mother." If they are trying to be spiritually correct, they change that to "My Mother", with reference to the Goddess. I cannot argue with the truth of that. We are all certainly born of a human mother. Yet staking that claim gives souls little progress toward understanding ourselves. Gratitude for gestation and birthing, however, is certainly due the women who gave us breath. Even if our conception was an "oops", the physicality of carrying a child to term and then pushing the baby out into the world even when surgically assisted is a miraculous feat of selflessness. Mothers deserve acclaim this Thursday on Thanksgiving Day.

Stepping back to the Great Mother Goddess to recognize Her Cosmic Birthing is likewise appropriate if not as immediately personal. Did She think of me when she created the Universe? Hmmmmm. Maybe not. That was a long time ago, well before my soul was formed (I think). Is the Goddess of Pagan thought like Yahweh omniscient? Can our free will and readiness to re-write a script ever surprise Her? Do we throw Yahweh a curve he doesn't want to validate? When we struggle to give an honest answer to those question we find out more about our Gods than we do ourselves.

So where does a soul come from? Is it a specific creation of Atman? Is it an extension of our Patron Goddess or God? Is it a fragment of who we really are? Is it an accident of comic explosions initiated at the Big Bang and resulting in an incarnation in the 21st century and hundreds of other times? Are we the design of aliens skilled in genetic engineering? What do you think?

Why Am I Here?

2010-11-06T09:32:00.000-07:00

The second Identity question addresses Life Purpose. Why am I here? What are you here to accomplish? For those of us with an understanding of our multiple lives and karma the answer may span the ages. Let me explain.

All of us, in my belief, arrived here in this incarnation on Earth to attend school. Because of its interesting limitations and dimensional challenges, Earth happens to be an effective place to try, test and please the soul through its connection to a physical body. That is not necessarily how it works in other planes or dimensions. Our choice to be born here is tied to several life missions that are carry overs from other lives. We have access to some of the memories from those lives which give us clues about our karmic intention for this one. When we gather the clues, we often see how tremendously obvious it all is. The break through is more like a "Duh!" moment than an "Aha!" moment.

Edgar Cayce, the sleeping prophet from the 19th century, described the karmic choices of one life as being one of the 4 C's:

a contrast to a previous life,
a continuation of a previous life (in relationships, work, physical skills or challenges)
a cause from the effect of another life or
the consequence of another life.

Some of those c's are very similar, but the over all impression helps us understand that whatever karma is, it is not punishment. It is part of our soul's curriculum. Robert Schwartz in
Your Soul's Plan (aka Courageous Souls) describes how people have gone about drafting the script for the life we live. Of course the actual presentation of the script is open to on stage revision and ad libs, so nothing is set in stone.

It is fair to say, then, that our reason for being here stems from pre-life intentions and past life or other life events. I say other life because all time is now. Past, present and future lives are actually concurrent. Nevertheless we experience them according to the illusion of time because that is where we live. On the Otherside we understand concurrency better; here and now not so much.

Some people have an immediate understanding of what to do with their lives. They are doctors, musicians, scientists, teachers and approach their life's work with a passion. Others find they are good at so many things that making a choice is difficult. Confused they try a little of this and a little of that. They are still successful in one or more areas but their path is less clear. When I ask them why they are here the answer is less certain--in their mind at least. Maybe because Eric and my Dad are souls like that--Jack of All Trades and Master of Some--I think of that as a strength. I know Eric sort of envied his brother who was always directed, always knew what he wanted.

In addition to what we do for a living, then we also have life purpose in our relationships. Resolving conflicts with parents, siblings or children is as much of the reason why we are here as the job we do. Some of us are here to learn how to love and forgive. Some of us are here to teach the same. We may teach by good example or bad. We may teach classes at the Web or elsewhere. We may learn by having our hearts broken and healed. We may learn by being loved. Likely, we mix and match these lessons through out our life times. We do well to remain conscious of the intention to learn and teach love, otherwise we may descend into depression and grief when a love dies or betrays us.

One of my many purposes in being here was to help teach my Dad to love. We had some past lives together that were rather abusive. I volunteered to be the kid (again) so he could get it right. My mom volunteered to be my mom and my aunt my aunt to be sure he didn't screw up. Given the fact he was himself an abused child (though greatly loved by his parents) our relationship could have gone either way. However, because he father would hit him with a stick or a board or what ever was handy, he decided he would raise his children non violently. Mom too. So I lucked out and had a very protected sweet childhood despite the fact Dad had an awful temper. We did that together, the four of us plus my grandparents. It was a flawed family that worked. At this Thanksgiving time, when they have all crossed over, it is a wonderful thing to remember and be grateful for. Dad turned out to be one of the most loving souls toward me at least, that I ever encountered in this life.

Overall, the life lessons that we are incarnated to learn mostly seem obvious to me. I am tempted summarize and move on. Then I think about the people I know and realize many many of us are head blind. We have no idea what our soul lessons are. Instead we are wallowing in frustration, anger and confusion. Nothing about life makes sense. We make the same mistakes over and over in selecting poor candidates as lovers, in treating them badly, in failing to take care of ourselves and our finances, in having children we never meant to have.

I have great faith that none of the tough stuff is wasted. If we marry an abusive person, we learn not to be abused or abusive. If we go bankrupt we realize economic planning and work count. If our kids run amok then we and they learn the value of saying "No!" the hard way. We may repeat those patterns until the lesson gets through our thick skulls. Hopefully we learn more quickly. I frequently say we can do things the hard way or the easy way. Me, I chose the easy way.

[Being head blind and thick skulled are not virtues. Perhaps you picked those qualities to teach me a lesson in patience. Thank you. I think I understand. You can stop now.]

So why are you here? To teach Anemone about life? In fact many of you are my teachers. I have always had a huge blind spot in my thinking. That is, I believed everybody basically thought the way I do. I did not allow for the wide variety of how people get along and make their choices. My friends, fellow Websters and my enemies (the people who hate me) have stretched and re-formed my beliefs and expectations so I understand how far off the mark my belief was. We have arrived on Earth to work things out. So let's get to it!

Returning

2010-11-05T10:17:00.000-07:00

Alas! I have been away from my own writing for far too long, busy with workbook editing and production of class materials for the Web's Wicca classes. That is winding down now, and I can take a bit of time to hear myself think.

To start with, let's go back to the original questions of

Who am I?
Why am I here?
Where did I come from?
Where am I going?

Those are the first questions students face in Wicca I. They will be the last ones student's face in Wicca IV. The Circle is complete, for one round. There are many more rounds to go. So I ask you, the readers to consider, who are you? Who am I?

One of the ways to approach this question is through Johari's window. That's an old psychological techniques I used in the 60's and 70's. It is so dated now, it is likely new again. Picture a 4 pane window, 2 up and 2 down like any axis. Turns out there are many versions of Johari's window. Here is one of them.

My public self aka the me I think I am is, I suppose, a benign grandmotherly sort of witch who teaches, cajoles and sometimes tells uncomfortable truths in the hopes people around her will find the information useful on their path to Enlightenment. My magical name of Anemone and my emeritus title of Webweaver speak to that public self. I also think I am a creative soul who makes worthy music, art and literature though yet unrecognized for the genius I am. (okay I am partly kidding here. Maybe not genius.) I also think I am called to do some extraordinary magical working which has been unfolding my whole life and which I only partly understand. But I'm working on it! And I know this makes me sound crazy!

My blind spots are or as I learned it the me people think I am is similar to part one above. I look the grandmother part and for some that is a vast underestimation of who I am. I can't see myself as limited in any way even though I walk stiffly and with difficulty sometimes. That I might be expected to act my age is a blind spot. So is the lesser expectation of a senior citizen foisted in my direction by society. I am always surprised and insulted when people reveal their age bias. In addition, I keep thinking people have values similar to mine and will behave in ways I see as sensible. That is a serious miscalculation and I keep making it!

My hidden self is not so hidden anymore, or I would not be writing this post. I suppose the part of me that is not generally nosed about is my circle of shadow women, but there is an original poster on the wall in the hallway to the office that names 15 of them. In the mistaken assumption you are interested I'll list them:
1. Criminal Mind (as in if I decided to break the law I'd be good at it and you'd never catch me)
2. Mother Hubbard (the poor me that resists my own abundance and fears poverty)
3. The Cynic (the me that believes the worst about you--yeah my expectations can be really low and you need to prove you aren't a jerk. That goes for women as well as men!)
4. Captive Kidd (the me that feels trapped like the 8 of Swords--even though I know IO can make any decision I want to.)
5. Whiny Brat (self explanatory, no?)
6. Shopper Sue (well controlled and channeled so now you would not guess she loves to spend money)
7. Gullible Glenda (she who believes everything and sees life through rose colored glasses)
8. La Belle Dame Sans Merci (who relies on her presence and really isn't concerned about the fall out on others)
9. Lizzie Borden II (complete with Ax--though not directed at parents)
10. The Conspirator (who will work with and through anyone to get to the Means!)
11. I Spy (related to #10, the one always watching, always adding up the tally, always catching the lie in the midst of the truths)
12. Bitchy D (who complains and carps about who didn't do what and why! Fortunately only Eric hears her rants because she knows your weak spots [see # 11] and would exploit them if she hadn't grown out of it).
13. OC Dot (the obsessive compulsive who insists on having her ducks in a row, and when yours aren't regresses to #9 and 12.)
14. Dowanna! (maybe related to #5 but is just lazy and contrary. My parents threatened to rename me Dowanna.)
15. Lazy Dottie (who would rather sleep late, stay up nights and play video games instead of work.)

I actually learned the Hidden Self as the me I think I really am or that I think people think I am---both of which reflect a negative self image which is not very useful. I like the Hidden Self better. Each of our shadow selves bring strengths to our total personality. If we can channel those strengths into positive qualities then our total person gains strength and self actualization. For example, Shopper Sue now spends money wisely, having learned that "it's only money" not a measure of self worth or identity. As a result, she has a great nose for value and a bargain and quality. You want her to evaluate wants and needs and purchases before you buy them!

And finally, my unconscious self. I learned this as the me I think people think I am which does not seem at all related to the unconscious. Oh! In the center of the circle of shadow women is the 16th, which is my unconscious self. Anyone guess that? It is El Zorro, the fox! No joke! I unconsciously fight for justice, fairness, to balance the scales and I am deadly. Seriously deadly. This is connected to my whole reason for being here, for my karmic purpose and what comes next. But that, my friends is another post.

And who, pray tell, are you?

Connections Among Us

2010-08-10T13:28:00.000-07:00

Sunfire asked (in her blog prompt):

How do you see each person on this planet as being connected, if at all? Is there some unseen 'force' that holds us together? Or perhaps it is more like a 'web', and each person is a point on it. Or maybe, like myself, you feel that we are all different manifestations of the same universal Spirit...

For the past 17 years my life's spiritual work has been The Web PATH Center, a pagan academy of teaching and healing and a pagan church which provides classes, seminars, sabbat and esabat rituals to the Web community and the public and personal services in pastoral counseling, crisis intervention, spiritual healing and divination. The sigil for this work has been the spider web because we connect individuals to one another and the Universal consciousness of All That Is. To do this, we follow a primarily pagan model which honors the Gods and Goddesses from a variety of pantheons. We print ritual programs with the stories of the Deities called for the ritual to orient the newbie and teach each other these Goddess and God stories as we have re-visioned them for the 21st century.

How this work fits together on a Web is an important piece of our raison d'etre. Here's how it happened. Some time back in the 80's I went to a workshop led by past life regressionist and MSW Nancy Kidder, then of Syracuse NY. One of the meditations resulted in something other than a past life. It was a sun type diagram with all manner of signs and sigils on the ray which radiated out of the center circle. Many of the mysterious signs meant nothing to me, nor did the over all diagram, but I sketched it out as best I could.

Not 10 days later I was reading a Jane Robert's book in which she used exactly that diagram but with the rays drawn in wavy lines instead of straight, indicating the fluid nature of our connections with all other consciousness. What that diagram meant to me then and now, is that all beings are creations of the great oversoul mind we call the Source, which is the circle in the center. On each ray shooting out of the Source are many symbols, indicating the lineage of a soul or soul group. Close to the Source and the many gods and goddesses of all the world or perhaps universal cultures. following that are symbols representing our spirit guides and plant or animal allies. And then there is us, together with the other creatures of this earth, and all other earths.

There are energy connections between the lines, which makes it more and more like a spider web. Our many selves from past and future lives are represented on this webbed grid. Our concurrent selves and potential selves are there too. The pictogram represents in 3-D All That Is or ever will be.

I will always remember the shock of seeing that diagram the first time. The Web PATH Center is named for this Web of Universal Consciousness. It was the Web before there was an Internet world wide web. Even now as I retire from this work to pursue other endeavors, that awareness of our interconnectedness is key to who I am.

Someone once said in a huff, "How do I get out of the Web!!!!" Well one might as well ask how one steps out of the Universe. Even if we do jump dimensions and move out of the known universe, we are still part of that web of consciousness that spins from the Source of All Things and in the end, winds back into it.

Witches in the Media

2010-03-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

Blog Prompt from SunFire: In the Media
"Pagans often get a bad rap when it comes to movies and TV. If witches aren't shown having green skin and a giant wart (think "Sleeping Beauty"), they are at least seen as connected to a darker side of reality (as in "Sleepy Hollow" or other movies with the village outcast being a witch). When they are shown in a more positive light, it's very light-hearted and less realistic (think "Charmed" and "Practical Magic"). Then there is the magic of Harry Potter that is more about fantasy.

Do you know of any movies or TV shows that cast Pagans and/or Witches in a positive and realistic light? What would it take to get a better impression of witches out in the media these days? Would better media exposure help raise awareness, do you think? Take this topic and run with it... Get your friends involved in the discussion, too."

Since SunFire asked me us to get people involved in the conversation, I thought I'd post the prompt and ask you what you think. How can we be more realistic in the media? Do Pagan Pride Days help? How about an intentional media PR program for The Web PATH Center or any group? What would it look like? How would we do that?

And now for a word from The Witches of Fawsettwood. That goal of realistic fiction is exactly what I portray in my unpublished novels in the Cup and the Ring series. Does the media see stereotyped witchery as the only image of Wicca? Is that why I cannot seem to hook an agent? (along with a lack of effort the last several months).

Self publishing and Print On Demand has changed drastically in the last year. Previously, books published outside the usual channels were shunned, unreviewed, too often unsold. Now with the electronic books, the requirement that authors market their own works anyway, and a proliferation of services designed to help a self published book look as professional as possible,these books have a big new audience and are available through Amazon. That is a different world entirely.

So later this year around Yule, look for The Witches of Fawsettwood. See if you agree my book offers a different flavor than "wicca lite".

Anemone's Flowers

2010-03-20T05:28:00.001-07:00

North Stoke, an English blog I follow has some beautiful pictures and a fine description of wind flowers aka anemones---do her the favor of clicking over and seeing her photos. They are pure spring. When I was given the ame of Anemone I was growing Grecian Wind Flowers in front of my little house in Skaneateles NY. They are tough. You have to nick to seed pod to give them encouragement to come out and play. Hmmmmm. I hadn't thought about how well that fits!

The Problem With Avatar

2010-01-26T15:54:00.000-08:00

Now we know Avatar is not picture of the year, here's my take on "why". James Cameron missed the boat. Oh I know he broke new ground with the 3-d technology and earned pots of unobtainium with Avatar, but he missed the spaceship. They say he has reshaped the way movies are made. It took $400 million to make, though sequel will likely cost less now the images are in the computer. 3-D films are "in"! These technological advances will make our entertainment more interesting, so this is huge.

But the movie itself is not a spiritual inspiration. Not in my blog anyhow. I thought it was appalling. I loved the sexy Navi. I hated the military, especially Colonel Miles Quaritch. I thought Sigourney Weaver was cool for an old broad. But for Goddess sake, the violence, destruction, racial bias, the disregard for people of all races in favor of exploiting natural resources sickened me.

"But the Good Guys win!" one might protest. Exactly. But like the 5 of Swords from the Tarot asks, what did they win? Are you sure it is a victory or might it be but a pause in the conflict? Remember some of the important good guys that are in tune with nature and the world tree are sacrificed in battle because they are blue and of a non technological world. The one dimensional bad guys from Earth are interested in making money at the expense of the "blue monkeys" but the earthlings (read sky people and aliens) are defeated with the help of the Goddess and the wrath of Nature. And then there is the paraplegic Marine who is a cross over between the races in the inevitable war.

Inevitable. NOT! Can you imagine a better movie? I can. Instead of war, the plot might have involved increasing tension, spying and counter espionage, maybe a murder or two (especially if you want to off Quaritch), after which the Navi and the Sky People enter into the negotiations suggested by more than one character. They find a way to share power, protect the environment and not reproduce chaos and destruction which evidently has run rampant back home on Earth. The evil Quaritch or his henchman tries to subvert the process but people are too smart to fall for his bullshit so he is captured and repents or dies. Either one is fine with me.

Avatar is not that complicated as it is now. It is a simplistic cartoon tale of good vs evil with no subtlety. It reinforces our assumptions about how life works. Even though one race seems more in touch with the natural setting, and the botanist insists there is a connection between all things the fact there is no other solution but war demonstrates the difference is not very great.

What if what goes around really comes around? Then what ever did the Navi do to open the door to such exploitation? What will they do if the Sky People come back? Did you think the Corporation would give up that easily on unobtanium? So are the Navi then forced into military training? remember all the armed guards who opted to stay? What are they going to do for a living? Learn to meditate? I say the movie is a tragedy in which an indigenous people are faced with the alternative of assimilate or die. There are two road to assimilation: capitulate in the destruction of the World Tree or oppose it and become like their enemies, and thus destroy the civilization of the World Tree.

I suppose the phrase comes to mind clearer than it ever was: "Today is a good day to die." I am waiting for the film that offers us an alternative to death. Then I'll get excited about living in harmony with nature on the big screen. The concept is out there. I remember the ending of Australia as the lad goes off with the shaman to learn the ways of his people. He turns around and throws his shoes away. Now that was a movie!

Spirit Mirrored in Science

2010-01-18T07:30:00.000-08:00

Spirit Mirrored in Science (reprinted from PagaNet News 2004)

I always thought that magick was simply science and technology we have yet to explain or understand. Sometimes we are able to replicate the results of spells and ritual because we have stumbled upon a format which works inter-dimensionally with the true nature of matter as it relates to gravity, time and space. As long as we repeat our formula accurately enough we bridge the gaps between dimensions in order to influence the outcome of a spell. At other times, we do not realize what it is we did, and the magick turns out differently a second time. The experiment remains unreplicated. Our logical brains dismiss the magickal intervention as coincidence and we become mired in ordinary reality.

With more and more experience in the magickal realm I have come to trust that we can influence our outcomes more predictably when we insist there is more to heaven and earth than is dreamt of in our science and technology. This season, for example, folks in The Web have been using crystal grids to enhance ritual and spell work. Something new and multi-dimensional is happening. Shamanic journeys are working together so that several people in the circle have a piece of the same vision. The same animal allies suddenly appear and work with several people at the same time on related themes. Ritual Circles have a palpable energy which is increased by the grids. Visitors recognize something is different within the circle, even though they may never have sensed energy before in their lives. All this from a workshop held last September at Psychics Thyme, a bookstore in Rochester NY.

Furthermore, with regularly practiced healing sessions, we have been able to influence energy fields so that people have been able to make huge improvements in chronic conditions over short periods of time. Results exceeded everyone’s expectations and caused one physician to ask if the patient had been draining fluid from his own injury or if it was magic. Frankly, it was magick.

Of course I am pleased with what appears to be great blessings on our work, and pleased that so many people are having success with their own magick. I see them working from a place of compassion and love, not ego. They are grounded, and call the energy of the earth and sky to work through them. On a spiritual level, that is why they do such good stuff.

But what are we to make of this in a four dimensional world? Is there a point where science and technology can intersect with our magick and mirror our spiritual understanding? A couple of experiences in synchronicity have led me to examine that further.

A few weeks ago there was a program on PBS which examined the string theory as “the theory of everything” which of course would include magick whether the scientists intended it to be so or not. That led me back to review The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene, a book in which he examines the development of the several string theories, superstring theory and M-theory, none of which I understand too well, but all of which are fascinating steps in the evolution of human consciousness because they allow and indeed support our work as magickal pagan beings. Or at least I think so.

The theoretical work on the string theory is a work in progress. String theory emerged out of scientific dissatisfaction with Einstein’s general relativity and with quantum mechanics. All the rules did not apply to the sub atomic world; and too many anomalies in a theory are deadly. Furthermore, thinking in terms of general relativity tended to eliminate concepts in quantum physics and visa versa.

Quantum physics in turn left us with chaos in the universe. You could predict position or velocity of very small particles, but not both. This uncertainty principle was in part based on the interference from the observer. Shining very high frequency light on electrons to observe them also made them move faster in unanticipated directions.

That has a direct magickal parallel which I found exciting when I first encountered it because it did mirror the probability of our energy work having real influence. If the observer changes the direction and speed of electrons by applied energy, then is it so hard to believe the witch or shaman does the same thing using spiritual or emotional energy? Believing we can make changes is one key to healing and to other magickal interventions. My first job in any healing work is to convince the patient their conditions are only temporary, and they can get better.

Perhaps any physicist worth her salt would scoff at my application of quantum (smallest particle) physics to magick in the macrocosm. On the other hand, beginning in the 60’s some physicists built on the theories of Gabriele Veneziano as he worked with the strong nuclear force studies. Oddly he was a research fellow in Geneva Switzerland at the accelerator laboratory called CERN. No, I am not making that up. CERN is an acronym but it is also the name of the horned god through Celtic Europe.

Out of Veneziano’ s work, researchers around the world made sense of a 200 year old math formula, the Euler beta-function, and in doing so changed our vision of small particle models from points of matter to indivisible vibrating strings. Initial analyses of early string theory were highly critical, but a few diehards recognized the beauty and magic of string theory as pointing to something more profound. By continuing the work, John Schwarz and Joel Scherk in France discovered that string theory includes gravity as well as time and space, which meant it resolved one of the long standing conundrums of science. Not that scientists were prepared to embrace that knowledge. In fact the string theorists found their work and reputations were thoroughly attacked the closer they came to explaining how all four forces of physics (gravity, electromagnetism, strong nuclear force, and weak nuclear force) and all of matter were included in the string theory.

Finally in the mid 1980’s it was clear to most researchers that string particles appeared to be the smallest bit of anything and from there science could build a truly workable theory of All Being. But here is the magickal beauty of it all. Strings vibrate. These tiny strings vibrate to create their identity as graviton, proton or other particle. The faster they vibrate, the heavier they are with energy and mass. Each has its own speed, pattern, mass and ultimately purpose in constructing the Universe.

What excites Brian Greene in his discussion of string theory is that finally researchers can experiment mathematically to explain the nature of the particles they have observed. They rely on math because the particles are too small to actually manipulate. This experimentation continues, because although string theory provides the framework, the researchers are still struggling to find the wisdom in which to construct the ultimate equations which will help us comprehend what has been incomprehensible.

How like our pursuit of a magickal framework to understand the nature of what we do to change ordinary reality! We know that when our intent is focused, our imagination and emotions engaged, we change the vibrations of the body to create healing.
That seems a long way from the minute particles studied in a laboratory, but underlying both is the understanding that science and magick are both vibrational workings. The changes created in ritual by sound, crystal, color, and movement change reality by changing the vibrations of reality.

I would not have understood that if I had not seen the PBS program on string theory, gone back into Greene’s book, and then perused the internet to try to understand: What is a string?

There are other points of clarity mirrored from the science of string theory. For example, superstring theory, in providing a model to unify 5 different versions of string theory, reveals the potentiality of 11 different dimensions in time and space. This is the stuff of science fiction, or was until now. It has also been the basis of my understanding of the universe and how we move from this reality through the astral to transcend time (as experienced in past life regression) or space (as seen in journeys across continents in remote viewing). From this the oft repeated phrase “All time is now, all space is here” begins to make sense. Sort of.

In unifying the 5 string theories, which some researchers though were truly different, physicists created once again an encompassing theory referred to as the M-theory. Brian Greene depicts this as each school of research having a part of the over all picture. When one steps back to see the larger pattern by filling in the blanks, the 5 pieces (Type 1, Type 2A, Type 2B, Heteroic O and Heterotic E) fit nicely into a familiar form: the 5 pointed star! I’m not making this up either.

One might wonder what the pentacle is doing in the midst of scientific research, until the significance of M-theory is revealed by Greene. M-theory provides for the 11 dimensions (10 in space, 1 in time). Previous theories had understood there were 9 theoretical dimensions, but that the theory was an approximation given a lack of the ability to compete advance calculations which current computer technology allows. Secondly, M-theory provides for additional objects beyond vibrating strings: 2 dimensional membranes, 3 dimensional blobs and so on. The journey to understand M-theory is what 21st century physics will likely be about. But understand this: one suggested meaning for the M in M-theory is the Mystery. (Other authors might refer to it as the Meta Theory).

Our pagan roots have brought us back to a world of magick practice, one perhaps better understood by the Mystery Schools of the ancients in Egypt, Tibet, India, the Middle East, probably in the Incan world and Mayan world as well. We don’t know the value of skills lost to us over the centuries of head blind humanity stuck in a three dimensional material existence. But our own blindness has brought us from the Age of Reason to the Age of Aquarius stumbling along, persecuting those on the cutting edge, sometimes even executing them. But progression through ignorance is still progress in the right direction. I am sure there were easier ways to arrive at the point where science and technology can open the doors of our perception so we can believe in our innate ability to change the world by changing the movement in our reality. But arrive we have.

Yet by and large pagans and mundanes have not a clue to the majesty and transformation possible when we work with limitless dimensions where time and space lose meaning. Therein lies the mystery, and researchers already know that. Alain Connes, a French mathematician is working with something called noncommutative geometry in which space and distance dissolve. When science and technology catch up to us, our own magick leaps forward. What all of us need is that workable wisdom to say yes, anything is possible.

A closing illustration which applies this multi-dimensional vision to ordinary reality might be helpful in understanding how science mirrors spirituality. Merlin, my partner, pointed out that medicine has many examples of people who are too ill to survive, yet who inexplicably heal themselves and live on, in many cases cured of what ailed them despite the physician’s dire predictions. My father was one of those who nearly died of a heart attack while in hospital. Even the cardiologist sadly gave us the “He’s had a good run at life” speech in the evening as we headed for home. The next morning, Dad was sitting up eating, wondering what he was doing in ICU. So were his nurses, who insisted they do not have patients that well in the unit. He lived many months more, and left earth by moving out of his body. Surveying the nursing home he had moved to, he consciously took his leave about an hour later.

We also know of patients whose conditions do not seem so severe as to cause death. Their will to live, however, folds and they do not survive. My mother was one of those. For months the medical community fixed everything that went wrong with her body, and it was one thing after another. She had said if it was too difficult she did not want to live out the year. When she gathered her courage, her deceased family came to escort her across the veil.

Both my parents had remembered how to transcend dimensions and move from this life to the next one, in their own way and in their own time. It was done by changing the vibrations between the soul and the body, by shaking loose of the physical confinement, and moving on out in a song, to the Summerland.

String theory is a mirror of that journey. It tells us how we move from this space and time to another, in a mathematical model which allows for the many dimensions, black holes and nebulae of time/space travel. The technique is the same in life and in death. Our souls remember instinctively how to use that information when we need it, and when we truly desire to embrace the journey.

Heifer International

2009-12-29T12:24:00.000-08:00

If you have not heard, Heifer International provides trees, farm animals, flocks of fowl for farmer families around the world in the hopes they can develop their own reliable family economy and share with their villages or relatives to extend the basics of food, shelter and security. It is a hand up, not a hand out. Heifer makes sure the families have training to take good care of the beasties and smart economics to help them establish a sustainable farm practice. The families promise to share the off spring with others in their communities and help change the lives of the whole village.

I get the catalogs and have for years wanted to provide a water buffalo for someone! This year they are only $250. I'm sure they were lots more expensive last year. Anyhow, the Reynolds and Abrams clan decided to kick in the money we would ordinarily spend on gifts for the adults and send it to Heifer. In our first year effort, we had enough for a water buffalo, 2 goats and a flock of chickens.

In a similar effort, The Web has been collecting money since the Family Meeting in November, a portion of which will go to Heifer. Another portion goes to a local animal rescue farm called Crackerbox Palace. Both of these are very worthwhile charities that make a difference in the world. Crackerbox Palace arranged for the adoption of the 2 old horses that lived across the road at the Web center. We miss them, but are glad they have a loving home with a woman who is also a wildlife rehabilitation specialist. Someone we can have confidence in.

Today I was browsing through my blog lists. I hadn't visited my e-friends and mentors in weeks. Too much else to do. Much to my amazement I found one of the literary agents, Nathan Bransford, was donating $1 to Heifer for every comment posted on his blog during a specific period of time up to $1000. All we had to do was say who we were, where we are from and give a New Year's wish. Well, I missed the deadline for Nathan, but a number of his readers had done the same thing extended to December 31st so I got half a dozen of those in. What a concept! So look here for that to happen again sometime this year. I might pick a good pagan holiday like Beltane or Lammas for my donation time. The spring planting season or early harvest makes sense in the pagan calender. That could also increase the number of folks reading ones blog---which is always a good idea.

I encourage you to think about generosity and stuff. That was what led our family and the Web to this new tradition. We all have more than enough stuff. It generates itself into heaps and mounds and boxes of things we have no opportunity to enjoy---because there is so much of it. I have CD's I never listen too. Books I've never read. Magazines I only get to skim. Clothes hung in the attic I will never wear and closets jammed with things I only like a little bit. There is an entire chest of jewelry. I couldn't wear every piece in it once in a year even if I changed my baubles twice a day. Some of this I can give away, and I do. But to resolve the problem, I needed to cut off the steady stream of supply.

To do that, I not only need to control my purchases, I need to convince people not to give me so many things. Take the money and give it to Heifer. Or Crackerbox Palace. Or The Web PATH Center. Or The Cayuga Seneca Action Program in Auburn NY. Or Earth Justice. Somebody who will take your money and make great changes with it.

That's what we did this year. We reduced the stuff and donated the love. I'm proud of my friends and family. They did good.

Quitting Christmas

2009-12-07T18:17:00.000-08:00

This year I resigned from Christmas. It has been a long time coming. I live in the midst of the US materialist culture that turns holidays into buyadays. The decorations went up before Samhain. The music started before Thanksgiving. The catalogs filled our mail box early and keep on coming. Refusing Christmas celebrations is almost unAmerican. But I've done it--sort of.

I never would have thought to do that when my mother was still alive. She was a big kid about Christmas. We sang songs, baked cookies, guarded secrets and bought each other little things all year long so we would have lots of presents to open. Christmas with my mom was fun. She died in 1993. Christmas hasn't been fun since then. It's been a grind, a responsibility, a disappointment, but it hasn't been fun. Too much fussing, too many disagreements, too many disappointments. And Christmas is not my holiday. I celebrate Yule, the Winter Solstice. So how did I resign from Christmas?

First I convinced all the adults I usually buy presents for to contribute to Heifer International or a local charity instead. Okay recycle the catalogs. Then I figured I'd limit the kids' gifts to things I could buy with cash out of my wallet. Ha! Pay off the credit cards and leave them that way. Finally, I decided to decorate with the lighted pentacle on the porch, fairy lights and the 2 trees. Leave the rest of the ticky tacky stuff in the boxes. That's theory since the boxes and boxes of decorations are all still in the attic. I will probably succumb to the cuteness of all those stuffed animals, dolls and lighted holiday bags that just about glow in the dark.

Cutting out shopping and decorating leaves me with time to cheerfully make short bread cookies with Merlin (his are the best), enjoy lots of good food made with fruits, veggies and lean meats, and write personal notes to people I haven't talked to in a long time, not because I have to, but because I want to. There is time to do it! I don't have to resort to a form letter.

So this year, its a yule celebration. Christmas might be a feast day with the kids and grandkids, but it's no stress no fuss no expectations and no disappointments. Imagine this. No worries. It's what Solstice is suppose to be--a holiday of light and dark, of contrasts and introspection.

I am still getting my head around this new state of being. I confess, back in the day when I shopped for a multitude of gifts I worried over whether I had guessed right in my selections. I fussed over whether the mail orders would arrive in time. I bought extra just in case. I bought myself presents because the energy sent out was not returned in equal portion. People tried hard and usually hit the mark, but what I really wanted were things only I could chose. And then there was the standing joke "I didn't get you anything this year." Merlin has played that card every year for 24 years. In all but one of them, it was a tease. In that one year, we outfitted the kitchen with new appliances instead of personal gifts. I've been a good sport about it, but in year 25, I quit playing. I quit playing with the teasing. I quit playing with the worry. I quit playing with the guessing. I quit playing with the fussing. I quit playing with the over extended bank accounts. I quit being responsible for making all the decisions about Christmas, because I resigned from Christmas. What a relief!

So now on a clean slate, I consider Solstice. What makes a true Solstice Celebration? It is more than a lighted pentacle on the porch. It is more than the ritual with the Web. But what is it? I'll have to get back to you on that. I've never had the time in December to consider that question. If you have suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

Power Surge

2009-11-17T11:48:00.000-08:00

When a series of events occurs without connection to each other but reinforcing a theme, I need to pay attention. Lately the issue of "power" has surfaced in a series of events, some related some not. First Starhawk posted on Facebook a note about power over ands empowerment. I cheered and wrote encouraging words you back to her. I quote her all the time in that regard.

Perhaps you are familiar with her concepts. The primary way our culture uses power is in "power over" mode. My gun is bigger than your gun. My voice is louder than yours. I'm from the government and I'm here to intimidate you. If that doesn't work I will make your problems your fault. You know the drill. It is the way of men-in-suits. I grieve every time I see women succumb to it; but power over is seductive. It is what we know.

The other means of using power are sharing (power with) and empowering (teaching and encouraging true independence and freedoms. I have added to Starhawk's three categories: power despite. I have power, stand in my power, am internally unconquered regardless of how much coercion, force or compliance is enforce. I can be marched off in a chain gang an maintain my power if it comes from within. No one can remove it from me unless I relinquish it.

And now the rest of the story. In the last several weeks since Starhawk's post I have found odd synchronicities arising to shape, challenge or reinforce my personal power. I was in at least 3 situations where my physical limitations became a focal point for my right of self determination. In one I opted out of an activity because of the physical demands of access to the beach. My choice was not allowed. Everyone else's plans had to be changed to accommodate me when I did not ask for that to happen. I felt blamed for not asking for accommodation earlier, even though I did not want to be accommodated. I felt forced to get on my high horse and talk back to defend my right NOT to ask for accommodation. What a pain! Now a voice rises to complain about the accommodations, that they were unacceptable to at least one other person who did not want to change the activity. Bah! Pisses me off all over again.

Sunday the Web had a healing intensive workshop. People worked together to make that happen, brought food in, prepared it, cleaned up and behaved like a community. New people who struggled with their own issues were embraced, empowered and loved. We grounded, breathed and gave folks room for their own difficulties knowing we are all in a different space and we are all perfect even as we change and evolve. We just are.

Then on Monday I went to a public school to advocate for a student. There was no handicapped parking, and the nearest spot was an English Distance from the door. (English Distance=another story I will tell sometime) Okay, I could walk that but arrived somewhat breathless. Since the folks on the other side of the desk were a bit hostile to my mission, arriving breathless was not the state i was most comfortable with. Phooey! My efforts at drawing the powers that be into a cooperative venture of sharing power never got off the ground. They likely would not have been influenced by my charm at that juncture, but the initial lack of reserved parking to go with my pretty blue sticker didn't help. Comic relief side bar: When we left the building we saw the disabled parking sign hidden behind the mound where the visitor parking was. No spots were designated for any kind of parking near the sign. If I took a picture of it, it would look like the handicapped were supposed to use an ATV to park on the mound and roll down hill to the door. I kid you not.

Finally last night we returned home after dinner to find a multitude of fire departments collected next door ready to do a controlled burn on the old barn. Did I mention I am allergic to wood smoke in great quantities? I steeled myself for an unpleasant evening or even an exit to a nice motel as Eric went to talk to the fire chief. The first guy (and he was a guy)he spoke with responded they had EMTs with them so if I had a respiratory arrest they could intervene quickly. (Thanks a lot, fellas) To their credit, the chiefs were appalled at that comment and agreed in the future they should notify neighbors so they could make other plans if need be. Then over the course of the evening they left. They left? the barn was not burned. I have no idea who decided what and if it is rescheduled or for when, but there were 1o big trucks out there and lots of people who turned around and went home, mission unaccomplished.

What do I make of those incidents and the subject of power? I'm not sure. Clearly I experienced a loss of power in each situation because my word was not honored, I was not heard or informed. In one I believed had to meet push with shove. In another, I walked away without building trust or moving toward reconciliation (yet---that story is not over.) In the third after Eric shared information the powers that be voluntarily changed their plans to my benefit. I was too emotionally battered and beaten by the frustrations of the day to even ask or hope for that, nor did Eric. We could not have been more surprised. He gave them the information and they made their own decision.

So there you have it, power over, power with, power in spite of and empowerment. I guess what I learned is that with empowerment you don't always know that is what is happening until it does!

Music, Music, Music

2009-11-12T09:20:00.000-08:00

There was a 50's song with todays blog title in its refrain. I don't remember the song but my aunt who was a professional singer chanted it all the time. I was born grooving to "Buttons and Bows" the tell me. Never had a choice about making music. It was the thing to do.

So when I started out as a pagan, one of the things I missed most was the "ritual music". Either the people who taught me Wicca didn't know much of it or there wasn't much available back then. There is now. Every ritual we create in the Web has some music in it. At SummerFest this year I led a pagan song sing along workshop. What fun!

At SummerFest a few years agon, Soft Moon Rising and I wrote and/or arranged enough songs to conduct an entire ritual in song. Then the people who wanted to met to learn the songs and conduct the ritual in 3 and 4 part harmony. They were good, but collecting them together for rehearsal was a piece of work. It garnered them their name: The Herded Cats.

I'd expect by now I'd have a song for each sabbat but I don't. There is a chant for Samhain (Hecate come for your child, come for your child, for your child); A long operatic duet between Persephone and Demeter useful for Yule or either Equinox; A nice couple of verses to Brigid for Imbolc; and a Hymn to Hera for Summer Solstice. Each one was a gift from my music muse Morgan Le Fey for which I am most grateful. But clearly there is more work to do.

To fill in the blanks, we rely on the rich musical tradition that has developed in neo paganism over the years. Because we are the Web we frequently sing:

We are the flow and we are the ebb
We are the weavers we are the Web.

We are the weavers, we are the Web
we are the needle we are the thread.

We are the needle we are the thread
We are the Witches back from the dead!

And so we are.

Pagans and Our Carbon Footpint

2009-10-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

Sunfire's blog prompt picks up on the climate change focus shared around the world for yesterday 15 October 2009. What do we think about climate change? Pagans have been disussing global warming and earth changes for years. Have we changed how we live? Not as much as we would wish.

I don't recall hearing the the term Carbon Footprint in the US prior to visiting the UK in 2007. Maybe I wasn't paying attention. In Britain everyone was discussing the carbon footprint we leave behind. So in preparation for this blog, I checked ours out at carbonfootprint.com. You can input your info and find out how much carbon dioxide you are sending out into the atmosphere. Because of the inexplicable electricity consumed in this house, we are much higher than the national norm: 28 tonnes! The average is 20.4 in this country. To combat climate change, the goal is 2. That's TWO. II. I don't even know how to begin to reach 2.

Understand we drive less than half as much as we used to. We replaced nearly all our light bulbs with florescent spirals. I like them a lot and they reduced our electricity costs by 25%. We heat water through the boiler during the heating season and turn off the water heater. We burn wood instead of fuel oil whenever we can. I never run half a load of wash or dishes. I recycle everything! I spend hours a week doing that.

We use up, make do and postpone new purchases as much as possible. You might have noticed that when you sit on our furniture. For Yule this year our family and the Web is going to donate to Heifer International instead of buying gifts and trinkets. That organization buys farm animals for people living in poverty so they can raise animals, crops, honey and make a better farm living. Some of the recipients are in the US.

We eat local produce and stay in season most of the time. Except for bananas and pineapples and grapefruit. We eat meatless meals once a week or more. We were vegetarians for years. We still eat only a little beef and some of that is organic, favoring pork, poultry and fish. As we got older it seemed important to add the meat protein.

But we eat out a lot. Our vehicles do not get the mileage we'd like. The next ones will do better. When we buy clothing and household items, we buy new not used. And this house sucks up electricity. It's a big house, but I can't account for it. All of that adds to our secondary footprint.

The website has a donation page where guilty parties like myself can donate to offset our carbon emissions. Some of it is doable. $360 a year to reforest Kenya. $400 in the Americas for reforestation and renewable energy projects. Either or not both. I'm going to check out the site and make sure it is as legit as it looks. Then I might do that--put my money where my mouth is.

But I don't think we are going to escape climate change. That is no excuse for sitting on my hands. I need to be an activist in this cause. I encourage my friends to recycle and be frugal, to garden and buy local, to ride share, weatherize, and change their light bulbs. Expecting the 2012 deadline to some how magically take care of global warming and climate change is naive. Climate changes have happened many times in Earth's history. Gaia will survive. So will we. How we survive is up to us.

A Little Blog Tune Up

2009-10-15T13:31:00.000-07:00

When I started this Blog last winter, I thought I would include all my natterings in one spot. I wanted to learn how to use a blog effectively, I figured the best way was to jump in. Also I wanted a web presence for reference and wooing of potential agents and publishers. They could see my writing style in another venue if they were on the fence about a query I sent.

Then I found Sunfire's pagan blog prompts. Slowly but surely, the pagan themes have taken precedence in this blog. So I started a private one to save my writing synchronicities all in one place, in case I ever decide to write a psychic believe it or not bio of my writing life. Though they are part of my pagan practice, they are not generally for public consumption. I tell my followers those stories, but the blog is google searchable. Some of those things are private, and others are best saved for the book!

Then I started a seminar blog for the Wicca IV students. That is a community of writers studying the same materials, sharing insights and asking questions. I am experimenting with the format because I may use it for a Tarot II class later this year or early next. The concept is working well, though the writers are new to blogging and need a little push now and again. I like the flexibility, the ease of linking other website, pictures and of commenting on each other's ideas. I learned I could limit the accessibility to that blog and not have it searchable by the big engines.

This week I started a writer's blog: Writing in the NY Lake District at http://www.writinggoodstuff.blogspot.com/. You are invited if you love the written word, wish you wrote better, think you write pretty well, and want to learn more. You are invited if you want to share short poems or vignettes, opening paragraphs or dialog samples (among other things) for people to critique. You can be a reader or a contributor. If you elect to be a contributor, you need to be ready to post weekly (minimum). At the bottom of the page are a few of the writers' blogs I find helpful, especially Writer Beware! which warns the novice and not so novice about the pitfalls of publishing.

I think it is worthwhile. I hope you do t0o! Stop by and read for the fun of it. Join as a follower if you want to help out and comment. Ask me to put you on as an author if you comment a few times and find you have lots more to say! Thanks!

Building Relationships with the God and Goddess

2009-10-13T13:37:00.001-07:00

What is my relationship to the Lady and the Lord? That's a Wicca II prerequisite question. Asking it makes us assess our automatic Hail and Welcomes! Relationship? Do I have a relationship with the Divine?

Well if not why not? The entire point of Wiccan Education at the Web is to draw the student through the process of making their acquaintance (Wicca I), building a partnership with them (Wicca II), opening to their energy, drawing them in for healing and ritual and then telling their stories (Wicca III) and directly channeling them with an eye to standing with/as a Shining One [at some unknown point in the future] (Wicca IV). Ambitious huh?

The Goddess in the person of Qwan Yin and now as Minerva Solis has challenged me through trance meditations to understand we are One. So have the Peacemaker of the Haudensaune and Jeshua of the Christians and Lao Tzu of China. That's hard to write. Who in all of the heavens do I think I am. I dunno. I think I'm just a little old witch in the backyard of NY State with a bit of this or that knowledge stumbling along half blind and curious. On our Mother's Day journeys together the Goddess tells me not to fret, I'm doing fine for a 5 year old. Well last year She promoted me to 7.

I believe that's about right. I have just started elementary school and am excited to be in the 2nd grade. I was promoted (I think) because I finally learned how to play well with others! So how can I be One with the likes of Them? Oh. Minerva Solis was in 2nd grade once too. She was? Do you think that? Or was she, like her correspondent Athena, born full grown from the head of Zeus? What's that? Athena says Zeus claimed Her birth because He didn't notice Her until She was full grown. She was born the same way all of us are born, from the Womb of Her Mother. Thousands of years and His ego hasn't figured it out yet. So how did He get out of 2nd grade? He still doesn't play well with others? She says that's a mystery we can't address until I'm older.

My relationship with the Gods and Goddesses is real, conversational and irreverent. I struggle to understand how we are One without over inflating my own knowledge and understating Their great power. This image of being a child with Them as family helps. but only if one approaches childhood as my partner Merlin does. He reminds parents and teachers that children are people who at this time in their life happen to be smaller than they are. Kids will grow to adults. We will grow to Gods and Goddesses

Octonomember

2009-10-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

That's what John called it: Octonomember. When I asked, he explained because the weather could one day be warm and balmy as September then turn around and sleet November snows at you. Then the whole thing dries out and gives a glorious sunny day with blue skys and fluffy clouds to serve as back drop to the changing leaves. I thought he was crazy then. Not so much anymore.

October is the month of changes: weather, life passages, clothes, squash, beverages, fruits, expectations. Someone wrote on FaceBook they had cleaned out their closets and put away their summer clothes. Already? Today I wore a tie dyed tee shirt dress because the sun has raised the house temperature to 80 degrees. We bought an acorn squash Thursday. There will be a killing cold tonight so no more zucchini (at last!) The pears, apples and grapes are finally ready. Now we have to hustle to get them inside. Cider appears on the shopping list every week.

And I have landed my fall croup; it is an annual event I try not to expect just in case I could skip it this year. This afternoon I'm joining a group for long distance journeying to see if we can find an answer to that. Seems like 2 weeks ago at the annual Shamanic Intensive everyone caught the bug. Some of us are still sick. For a group of a dozen healers practicing shamanism, that is out of the ordinary. I suggested it was part of the "calling/initiation through illness" that the tribal shamans experience. Maybe.

So one might say in Octonomember, I get ready for winter by building up immunities to worse bugs by catching and holding on to one. I re enter the spiritual calendar of teaching and ritual as best I can. I consider the value of life and determine to proceed with gratitude. My recurrent illness assists that process by slowing me down. I don't necessarily have to like it! This year, I have a lot of company.

Excuses Excuses!

2009-10-06T12:02:00.000-07:00

I am working on a writing project under someone else's leadership--what a wonderful feeling. I am not in charge. I think that is my mantra for the next 1/3 of my life: "I am not in charge!"
In the writing project, my friend is experiencing some of the same frustrations I have run up against over the years in coordinating Web PATH Church and Center activities. People make promises they can't keep. Well, they think they can't We all know we can do anything we set our minds to, right?

It has been one of my frustrations over the years to delegate tasks, ideas, and work to my dearly beloveds only to be disappointed. Something comes up and they cancel. They get half way through and forget to finish. They make promises to show up for work and we never hear from them. They volunteer for projects they never start. Not everybody of course, but way too many. Enough to spoil the joy of doing new things with the community, for me at least.

Seeing that happen in this writing project is both frustrating and validating. It isn't just me! But damn! How will the book get done if people don't meet their deadlines, and then don't meet the extensions to the extensions?

I have a rather tough view on the excuses people give when they fail to follow through. I may have mentioned it a time or two. My high school band and music instructor Maurie Rose used to hear all the student complaints and excuses for not being prepared. We didn't have time to practice. My reeds broke. My father had a headache. What we offered as an excuse for not doing our work was never accepted. He shrugged and told us every time "An excuse is the skin of a reason stuffed with a lie."

Wow! That set me back on my heels the first time he delivered his judgment to me. How could my father's headache be a lie if it was true? Mr. Rose pointed out once in a while that everyone had 24 hours a day 7 days a week in which to get our work completed. If we failed to meet expectations, then that was a choice. A choice that effected everyone in the band if you could not play the notes on cue. Some people shrugged that off. I didn't. There are two things I did not want to be: a liar and a stumbling block for someone else.

Which leads me to the next conclusion. People fail to understand how important their part is. In a community, they think their presence or absence makes little difference, when it fact it makes a huge difference. Each one of us can choose to attend or not a ritual or class or party based on our priorities and needs, but what we choose is hugely important. Working without the energy of one family or another leaves a gap. In a collaborative project people fail to understand their story is unique and special. We need to hear each story for the whole book to come together. Leaving out a group of them because they did not get their paper work in, or chose not to write a bio alters the final product in ways that are absolute. Any project is shaped by all who participate in it, and by all who do not.

I've chosen to be good hearted about the spotty nature of people's attendance. I have said many times, those that were supposed to be here are. Good humor is more difficult when people step up to major leadership positions and then run away. That hasn't happened lately, but you may remember when it has. In this summer writing project, I have chosen to send out positive energy to those who are still struggling to get their work in. The message is "You can do it!" I'll send that out to them (the majority of the participants) everyday for a week. It will make a difference. You'll see.

Meanwhile, back at the Web, I am grateful for the folks who have taken over leadership. Things get done because people like Aurora step up to the plate. Galadrial nailed down the annual dinner details. Elly is beating the bushes for newsletter submissions. The Web works--most of the time. Those of you who are simply circling around the edge of things need to step up and be counted. Make your mark. Learn how to lead. Sitting in the shadows and making excuses--well we know what an excuse is!

Pagans and Education

2009-09-30T06:46:00.000-07:00

What about home schooling, private pagan schools or public schools? Let me declare my biases first. I studied secondary education in Ohio at a Christian college, did student teaching in an Ohio public school and then taught for several years in private religious schools (Christian) in the Washington DC area. Then I moved on to other things, largely because school administrators and the educational institutions were difficult for me to navigate. That is not necessarily a good recommendation of me as a teacher, but I was young and idealistic. Rules made me impatient.

Now the Web PATH Center offers regular spiritual services (pagan) and classes relevant to adult and youth seeking spiritual training in ritual, theaology, meditation and trance, and in healing modalities. To be part of that program, and in fact to develop it, has been is very satisfying. On the other hand, a number of parents with children in the middle grades wish we had a school. Public school can be difficult for pagan kids. Their parents would like to make things easier for them and give them a full education in their faith at the same time. Imagine not having to explain to a teacher or administrator that your child is not having a break with reality. The whole family believes in fairies, just as the Christian families believe in angels. Isn't that a worthy goal?

I have mixed feelings. First, I am devoting the rest of my life to writing, not starting a school which would meet state standards. Someone else has to run with this ball, and it would not be an easy run. Not in New York. So I am unwilling to put my money and energy into the project.

Second, parents in this county might find the expenses associated with a pagan school difficult. Tuition, books, not to mention space, heat and lights keep the dream out of reach at the moment. Qualified teachers need to be paid their worth. Bumping along with uncertified teachers, well meaning but unprepared teachers who have a good grounding in spirituality but not math and science is not acceptable. At least not to me.

Third, separating kids out of public school on the basis of religious faith seems to me to be a mistake. Remember I taught in a religious school. Many of the students there were adopting their family's beliefs not out of conviction but out of a lack of choice. I don't think the denomination makes a difference. I agree we should teach our kids what we believe, that they should have circle school classes as well as involvement in ritual. We do a pretty good job of that, and the program will continue to improve and expand. (more about that in the next blog) What I question is the wisdom of immersing kids into a religious education through every subject area.

I've attended a religious college, seen religious education at work with high school students, done it myself, and still question whether it is education or brain washing. A religious school program is out of step with out encouragement "An it harm none, do what you will." It would be an extraordinary school that truly fostered freedom of thought while maintaining sufficient order to allow kids to learn deeply. Are we as a pagan community up to that? I don't know. My experience with religious schools was regimented.

The home schooling option strikes me as a poor substitute for a good education. I understand many public schools fall short of providing a good education. I am not certain why that is. A nearby school district boasted that over 50% of its graduates went on to more training, a statistic that included the military. I come from a community where over 95% go on to other training, not including the military. A community's vision of what is possible forms the success of the school. If the parents and teachers fail to expect college entrance for the graduates, most of the graduates will also not think of college. The families whom I know are involved in home schooling did not produce students interested in college.

But does home schooling do a better job than the public school? It can. Again the parent able to teach a child critical thinking, math, science, writing, history and social skills is extraordinary. We've seen kids in the national spelling bee or geography bee who were home schooled and excelled in academics. Some get early college admission. That may or may not be a good thing in terms of life skills. Still, they score well on tests and rack up notable educational achievements.

However, home schooling can prevent students from learning to cope with their peers. True, it prevents bullying and hazing, things I believe the public school must do also. However, the smartest student will find personal success cut short by a lack of people skills. Negotiating the playground, dealing with the politics of bff's and mean girls, and with teachers who have their own favorites and biases is preparation for the world of college and work. Life is not fair. People will not see our own little darlings as clearly angelic as parents do. That dose of reality in negotiating peer relationships is important to our kids.

Finally, school facilities tend to offer more than private schools and home study. Science labs, language labs, gyms, and libraries are expensive. If a public school is deficient in them, then that must be corrected. If a private school or home school lacks them when they are available in the public school, some negotiations are possible under state law, but the experience is still not the same. The student from "out there" is still not part of the classroom social group. Leaving the student to sink or swim on a part time basis in order to work science experiments or play in the band seems jarring to me. I lack confidence in its effectiveness.

It takes a lot of energy to start a pagan school or to offer a good home school experience. I think we would be wiser to spend our energy in making the public schools work better. Then in our pagan community, we can offer kids programs that help them decide what their beliefs and practice are. If we are unwilling to invest our time and money in that endeavor, then we certainly are not ready to create private pagan schools.

Pagan Pride Days

2009-09-10T12:37:00.000-07:00

"Do public gatherings serve your faith... or are they just big parties that serve the ego?"
That question is frequently raised this time of year. Since my good friends Myriah and Teresa are organizers of the Rochester and Syracuse Pagan Pride Days respectively, I am taking a decidedly predictable stance: The gatherings are important public statements and networking opportunities for local pagan groups. They are also good parties. Someone has a problem with parties?

Truth be told, I would take that position even if my friends were not local organizers. Too many pagans are isolated with little opportunity to know the rest of us who are so far out of the closet we lost our hangers. A Pagan Pride Day gives people the opportunity to get to know each other, hear speakers, take workshops and shop. Many of the Web's new students and members come from these connections. PPD is an important event.

That being said, I rarely go. Others from the group set up a booth and represent the Web. I would rather they get the glory if there is glory to be had. I have turned over the administration of the Web to others, and am content to spend the day working on my book, or my blogs which are hopelessly behind! This hiatus is a sort of retirement for me. In another year or two I will no longer teach Wicca and shamanism at the Web. The work will all be passed on to apprentices who finished their commitment. Isn't that a grand thing? So who needs to see and be seen at the PPD celebrations? Not me. Aurora Dawn as the administrator. Leviathan as the Council Chair. Safire and Silverlightning, Arielle, Galadriel, Elly all of whom have leadership roles in the Web and sit at the booths--they need to see and be seen.

Meanwhile, my dear mentor and friend Elspeth from Haven will be up from WVA for Pagan Pride in both Rochester and Syracuse this year. I will enjoy going and connecting with her no matter who else comes or goes. That is the blessing of Pagan Pride. Connections and networks. So get off your high horses and mingle!

Guest Blogger Mikayla on Instant Karma

2009-08-21T09:45:00.000-07:00

OK, so I'm writing (blogging?) about Instant Karma. And I have a good story about it too. So I go to a Sea Breeze trip with my school chorus, and a girl there from my chorus has a REALLY bad bloody nose. So, from my backpack I grab a Ziploc bag full of tissues and some hand sanitizer. After fifteen minutes, the bloody nose stopped and she went to the bathroom to clean her face (her hands were clean), but unfortunately, on her way back from the bathroom she fell and twisted her foot. Then we all went back to school so we could go home.
After being dropped off at school, I started walking home. I was almost home, but I saw a piece of paper on the ground. Walking up to it, I discovered it was money. When I picked it up (who leaves money on the ground when they find it anyway?) I discovered it was a one hundred dollar bill!!!!!! I looked around, but no one was there to claim it. So I stuffed it in my pocket and briskly walked home. End of karma story. For now anyway.

Blending Spirituality with the Creative Imagination

2009-08-03T12:21:00.000-07:00

Becoming aware of the potential we all have in thinking outside of the box is our creativity. When we follow a spiritual path, mainstream or not, we feed that creativity because the Box simply cannot contain the Spirit. Creativity and Spirituality—both--are not some miracle dropped on our heads by the Goddess or God of our experience. They are not gifts from an outside force that some of us have, and others yearn for.

Spirituality and Creativity come from within. They permeate our thinking and feeling to help us truly become who we are. The expression of our spirits and our creative impulse is a gift we give ourselves. Their freedom is by permission from and liberation of our own souls. If we insist on being who we really are, we will be creative, joyful, spiritual and real. Creativity and Spirituality are acts of the body, mind, soul and spirit, and expressions of the heart and will.

To the person steeped in pain, dis-ease, chaos, dissatisfaction and general crabbiness, the realization that by taking on life by the horns we open the way for our creative and spiritual juices to flow—sounds much like blaming the victim. How can we be expected to be creative, to visualize and meet the Gods, to make magic, dance and celebrate the seasons when our bodies hurt, the bills are piling up, gas prices soar and the world seems destined to flip over on its back, belly up? How indeed! It is not by expectation that we should do anything, but by sheer joy. There is no reason for us to exclude joy if we also experience pain. There is no reason for us to choose suffering if we also experience financial stress. There is no reason for us to be dissatisfied or angry if we also experience challenges and difficulties.

We are indeed the creators of our own dreams and dreamers of our own realities. If we do not like our lot in life, we are free to change ourselves. To change ourselves we may change our mind, our living situation, our attitude, our jobs, our expectations, our friends, our health, our choices about food, smoking, exercise, meditation, ritual, visualization, and thought patterns. Each of these are our responsibilities—no one else’s. People have not been encouraged by the institutions in our culture to be dreamers, but the fact is—we are.

My creativity has spun out of my body and soul to create new institutions. Once I worked for an antipoverty agency and together with my friends created a battered women’s shelter and then a sexual assault victims program. Later with different friends I created The Web PATH Center, a pagan spiritual community offering religious services and classes. I can’t say one act was more creative than another. Nor more conscious. Certainly these institutions were made by Spirit as much as by people—and it was a collective of people who shared a vision.

My creativity has spun out in the written word. In one of our Wicca classes we learn to channel sacred writing. Some of it is poetry, song, and prayers made for ritual. This too is a partnership with Spirit. It is a creative experience shared with the community of the classroom. In another Wicca class we re-write the stories of the Gods and Goddesses to express their truths in 21st century terms. We tell their stories in a dinner theater setting as our final project. In the shamanic journey circles we practice journal writing so our insights are on record. There is no confusion on the source of those insights. They are from Spirit too. The sign of a journey in non ordinary reality is the sheer joy of it, and the fact we could never make that up!

Now I am writing novels and short stories. I am seeking an agent and a publisher. That too is creative and spiritual. When the pieces all come together, that Aha! moment will tell me we have it right. Fiction writing can be a long and lonely journey, but this time it is not. It is a collaboration of soul and spirit, self and other, friends incarnate and friends on the page who used to be incarnate. It’s a past life book. Past life exploration is certainly a main road on my spiritual path. And in this society, it is waaaay out of the box.

Leaving It All Somewhere Else

2009-07-17T12:19:00.000-07:00

One of the easiest nature escapes to access around here is Montezuma Wildlife Refuge. We drive through with phone and camera in hand, and absorb the connections of grasslands, river and swamp. There are trails to walk, a photo blind to sit in, and oddly the NYS Thruway running along the north boundary of the place. What were they thinking? Still, except for th last leg of it all, it seems you are a million miles away.

Of course getting there and coming home is much the same sort of journey through natural beauty. That is the advantage of living in the midst of nowhere. Last trip out, we explored East Road which we had never followed. It turned into a dirt road with a paved private airport--of all things. Half of the land along side it belonged to the Refuge. the rest was farm land--corn fields this year.

The larger pix is Heron In a Tree. Look for her on the horizontal branch. the 2nd is Willow Thicket; The third is Cammie Geese. Candian Geese are hiding in the grass. The one at the bottom of the post is Tree and Cloud.

Intentional Community; Personal Independence

2009-07-04T12:28:00.000-07:00

On this July 4th think about what makes an intentional community work and what protects the individual's right to privacy. I think the natural tension between those values describes our political divisions between liberal and conservative and our spiritual paths between coven and solitary. Consequently, your thoughts on this subject are very important. I'd like to hear them. Please Comment!

But understand, the choices found in intentional community and the individual freedoms we enjoy are not an either/or fallacy. You can have community and individuality as long as the community respects and embraces differences. You can have rugged individualism as long as the people recognize their connection in the universal grid of All Being. If we make room for each other, then the balance is found in our group connections and our personal oddities.

When I was studying the role of the Catholic Church in history my friend Jane posed the question what is more important, the individual or the institution? To the Church officials, the continuity of the Institution superseded the rights of the individual in many historical eras. Jane, at the time, supported that because of the civilizing influence of the Church and other institutions like Government and Education. I, rabble rouser that I was and am, supported the rights of the Individual on the grounds that the human soul is of more worth than any organization, so its nurturance, its shelter and protection out shine any need an Institution might have to preserve itself. No surprise then, that she supported the Viet Nam war and I opposed it.

However, that too was an either/or fallacy. If the nurturance, shelter and protection of the individual comes from the Institutions of religion, government and education then this is a both/and scenario. We cannot survive without some form of these institutions that create opportunities and securities for the individuals. Individuals cannot exist without creating Institutions in some way or other. For example, fierce individualists rail against the public school system and some choose to home school their kids. But their standards, socialization and fitness experiences come from public schools. There is still an interface even when we try to create our own paths. I submit this is a good thing. For the individuals in society to fit together into a community they need common ground.

That need for commonality is an area of paganism not well tolerated by pagans themselves, likely because it is not well understood. Because we have direct access to the Lady and the Lord, to the powers and elementals, to the rights and responsibilities of magic, we can tell ourselves we don't need a Circle. We can practice on our own. And of course we can. Sometimes we have to if we cannot find like minded people. But if solitary practice is the only practice we have, we fail to experience the synergy at work in a ritual Circle.

In the community of the Circle the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. My power plus your power morphs into something greater than either of us could achieve if we both worked separately. For example, the work of the priestesses drawing down the moon for the whole Circle and then combining it in the witches' mill as they prophecy and advise the Circle stretches the boundaries between the worlds. More depth, more surprises, more transformation is achieved by the many than by one alone. Similarly, when I teach a class with a group of co-teachers, our teaching is wiser, our insight and inspiration brighter than if I tried it alone. Think of it like music. One person singing a melody is lovely. A choir singing melody, counter point and harmony is exquisite. No one wants to give up singing the melody alone because of the beauty of it. But having been part of a well blended choir, no one would ever give up communal music for the joy and transformation of it.

It is true that working with other people can be disappointing or frustrating. We can get mad and scared sometimes. Those feelings are lessons for our own evolution. The person that most angers me or most frightens me in our community is showing me something about myself that I have tried hard not to see. Spirit uses those interactions to help us grow and discover our own blind spots. Sometimes our hearts get broken. Sometimes the tension is so keen we think our nerves will snap. All that is true. But sometimes the love and support of community reminds us of the love and support of the spirits who carefully guide us through life. Sometimes working in a circle or coven in community is very sweet.

On the other hand, working with other people in Circle is not enough. Each individual needs his or her own relationship to the divine. A solitary meditation practice allows for great leaps in consciousness. Dreaming, channeled writing, study and prayer are generally solitary endeavors. No community can replace those in your spiritual path.

So think about it. What makes an intentional community work? And what protects the individual's right to privacy in The Web or in your circle? Talk back at me!

Litha Lethargy

2009-06-30T13:51:00.000-07:00

Litha or Summer Solstice and the Web SummerFest having just passed leaves us all fuzzy around the edges. I am reluctant to move, more willing to nap than create ideas or blog posts. On Saturday 20 June 2 dozen of us gathered at the house to celebrate the inner court/outer court ritual. It is a favorite, but it is high magic for us. Using the Major Arcana we draw lots to see who the Gods choose to represent the Lady and the Lord. We draw down the Deities and let them withdraw into the Ritual Room as the Inner Court. Then in turn while the Circle sings and tells stories, each of us has a private audience to seek wisdom, advice and favors. The two chosen representatives are truly no longer themselves. It is an awesome event! Allie and Ken offered service to the community this year, and were struck by the experience. Neither looked like themselves in the Inner Court. Juno and Apollo were upon them.

Then from June 25-28 the community celebrated SummerFest with camping, vendors, a community kitchen, workshops, drum circles and a full kids program. Did I leave anything out? Ah yes, the Red Tent (healing space), the Mystic Faire, the Family Meeting, and the Web Auction fundraiser. At closing ritual we named 3 priests as new Men In Black, guardians and watchers for the Circle. Leviathan and Webweaver were host to 50-60 people over the extended weekend. It was big fun, and lots of work. I know. It used to be at our house.

Despite the work, both the Solstice Ritual and SummerFest are our greatest workings in intentional community. It is where we weave our hearts together among our chosen family. We do this every Solstice Season and learns something new about ourselves every time. But then I need to take a nap to reflect on what it meant.

Spiraling Into the Center

2009-06-29T09:25:00.000-07:00

What happens when we are too busy, too stressed, too ill, or too angry to consciously ground and connect to our Source? I say consciously because of course we are always connected. Our awareness wanders off in a huff but the connection remains. Frankly, part of the lesson of living on the earth plane is to experience the illusion of disconnection. I can hear my Spirit Guides saying "Compare and contrast being aware of your place on the Universal Grid to being isolated and unaware of that connection." Not sure if they are poking fun at me or if this essay question actually appears on the test. It might be an English Teacher type joke. Harumph!

Depression, manic behavior, crankiness, lethargy, and physical illness all well up to the surface when we lose our place in the Universal Grid. We believe we are the only ones afflicted with loneliness. Certain that nobody cares, we excuse our deep blue funk because after all, there is so much to be sad about. Anybody with a brain would resent this state of being. Or is it non-being?

Well, there of course is the key. We end up in the deep blue funk through our brains. We over think our situation and meditate on the injustice of it all. If we want to escape and return to our center, to follow the internal spiral of joy then we need to operate from our souls, our wills, our hearts in concert with our heads. Thinking balances with feeling. Spontaneity balances with will. But how?

The least complicated return to the spiral of joy is facilitated by a physical talisman which reminds us who we really are. A pentacle necklace can do the trick, particularly one which is ritually charged each month to carry the love and power of the Moon Goddess close to our hearts. An animal familiar living in our homes (or barns) will look into our eyes and call our bluff. A quick glimpse of a power animal in the wild--hawk, deer, fox--reminds us of of the interconnection of All Being. The Sigil of a Web works for people in our circle of the same name. Each of these symbols is heavily loaded with ritual experience, trance journeys and psychic connections because we have put the time in, created and reinforced the connections and trained our souls to weave truth together in a web connection.

When one has such a connection forged in spiritual practice, then being still in the presence of that connection begins the return out of existential ennui back to the joy of living. Our lives are refreshed. Our hearts are lightened. And oddly, all those dumb things I gotta do are not such a big deal. Life returns to the spirit of Nike: Just do it!

Altared Space

2009-06-13T10:46:00.000-07:00

My permanent altar is in the Ritual Room situated on the north wall. Because it is a long narrow credenza from the '50's, the altar design continues up the wall to provide more space. The actual display/tools vary from ritual to ritual, but some things are constant. Here's a list:

1. 2 Himalyan pyramid salt lamps at each end of the long altar. Ideally they remain lit all the time and contribute to the positive aura of the room. Of course one has burned out in the picture, just to keep me humble.
2. 2 small containers of sand from Africa brought back by Akosua from her ancestral travels. These represent the Earth, grounding, justice and friendship.
3. a dish of sea salt as further grounding and purification.
4. a piece of broken crockery found under a huge rock in our basement. The crockery pedestal makes a small dish when turned upside down. Inside it says "Ironstone Chi" (instead of china--a flaw in the original printing) and "Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense"--the motto of witches and of the Order of the Garter in Great Britian. This little vessel hold the magic of my experience within the universal grid we call The Web.
5. The god and goddess wine gobblets previously featured in Pyramid catalogs, representing the Lady and the Lord of our rituals.
6. A tiny crystal skull and an elestial crystal on a small mirror given to me by my oldest friend. I think of these as a connection to Atlantis, to my ancestral lineage and to my friend.
7. A snake skin representing my shamanic path and the changing faces of the Divine.
8. The work candle in an appropriate color or white. Candles represent the flame of our will, magic and hearts desires as well as the South and fire elementals (salamanders et al.)
9. The wand, athame and chalice selected for the event. (There are many choices in my collection. The priestesses pick the ones which best suit the season.) The one in the picture is a large chalice with a container of water from The Chalice Well in Glastonbury inside.
10. On the wall above the altar, a pentacle plaque, a batik hanging of the Greenman or a framed web goddess, (a wood gnome and ancient mother are 2 other options), Nybor's Earth Element print (the other walls hold the other 3 elementals from his series). To the sides is a Nybor painting of a snowy owl, the animal guide for the house. I have also hung soul drawings made for Merlin and I. Other sacred art is mounted on the other walls, including a plaque of Cu Chulain, one of my patrons.

11. My great grandmother's oval portrait picture. Louisa West was the first spirit guide to awaken my sleeping consciousness. The faces change and the shadows in her dress create a variety of animals right before your eyes. Many celebrants in the ritual room confirm this.

12. On the round altar in the middle of the room are directional candles in appropriate colors, statues, gifts from nature, flowers, fruit or other seasonal emblems, and materials for any magical workings about to take place.

13. On the floor around the legs of the center altar are 4 battery operated lanterns in the appropriate colors. The children light these as the adults light the candles so they can participate in the ritual. Some of them have learned to cast the circle, call the directions or enscribe a pentacle in the air. These lights give the darkened room a particular beauty when the shire through sheer altar coverings. Under the round altar is a large cauldron used with water and shells in scrying at the full moon or in burning/banishing rituals.

Sacred Space at Home

2009-06-07T08:36:00.000-07:00

The first pagan/wiccan workshop I helped lead was on creating sacred space. In that context we were discussing ritual space created for a temporary container of our magic and spiritual practice. That begins with grounding, drawing the earths energy into the space we in habit and sealing that space for the working. When we finish the power raised is released and the boundaries between sacred space and ordinary reality are released. We do that each time there is a Circle.

After we grew skilled at creating portable sacred space, our home construction progressed to include a finished ritual room. There, the powers never remove their traces. The Circles are opened, the guardians and gods released but the traces of transformation remain set. The room is used for nothing but ritual and transformational work. When the ritual room is part of the class room, the work fits the purposes for which the room is set.

Our ritual room is upstairs, opening on to the upper sun room. The ritual room is a windowless interior room closed by double sliding four foot doors made of oak. They are 6 panel doors formed in Golden Mean (psi ratio) proportions. There is a permanent altar in the north, a round table altar in the center, sacred art on all the walls according to the directional correspondences, and lots of storage with sacred items readily at hand. Sometimes it is a struggle to keep the room orderly and the contents organized.

The ritual room was designed for 13 people, as many as I thought we would ever have when we built the room. Fortunately with the 8 foot doorway arch opened, the overflow crowd spills smoothly into the sun room for groups of up toe 30. Beyond that we are crowded and double the circle, though that rarely happens. Yet the room is intimate enough to support individual meditative practice, shamanic drumming and personal healing. I have slept there when very ill, and emerge hopeful of healing.

Last night we celebrated our community's full moon. Arielle lead a healing ritual in which we made amulet bags of herbs designed to help us transform into healthier people. We chanted (new song from Spirit to Arielle) to release fear, anger, rage, pain, stagnation....all things offered up by the participants. Then we sang in our affirmation:
I want to live in joy
I want to breath in joy.
Walk in joy;
Love in joy;
Embracing joy;
Filled with joy;
I am joy.

The room was still radiating joy this morning. A blessed place, that.

The Spiral Dance

2009-05-28T13:33:00.000-07:00

A week or so ago there was a picture in the Fingerlakes Times showing a group of school children doing the Celtic Spiral Dance at their year end picnic. I had to to look 3 or 4 times to be sure that was what I was seeing, though the captioned confirmed it. I was stunned. Maypole dances and spiral dances freely offered freely enjoyed. Although these dances are often celebrated for the fun of them, they both have deep spiritual roots in our pagan past. One is a celebration of the male and female fertility principles and the other a celebration of the ebb and flow of life intricately woven in community.

Starhawk's notable wiccan book The Spiral Dance was the first book I read about the pagan path 25 years ago. I had no idea what the title meant, not anymore than what I was getting into when I asked my friend Lydia to teach Merlin and I about Wicca. She told us to start with The Spiral Dance and circle with her so we could figure it out. We did.

I remember as I read through the book which I purchased at 7 Rays, a New Age bookstore in Syracuse NY, that I had to stop every 20 mintes or so and put the book down to clear my head. Starhawk presented an entirely different way to think. A path in which everything is connected to everything else. The dominant deity is the Sacred Mother. The collective thoughts of a group create magic and change in what we perceive as reality. That the light and the dark deserve equal honor. I learned to ground in connection with the Earth, another Goddess consciousness. I learned to draw a picture with just the shadows. I learned that the spirits answer when you call them.

After having left the Baptist Church years before I was ready for a new paradim, but embracing it was a full out act of will. Becoming connected and interwoven in the universal consciousness with Starhawk's book changed my life. I took the name Webweaver based on that pattern. As the years pass I understand better how the lfe force ebbs and flows, circles around and renews itself just at the sun does in the wheel of the year or the moon does in its lunar phases each month. I feel my own spiral in and out of power, health, ecstasy, and wisdom. I passed my Webweaver title on to a younger woman and claimed my other name: Anemone. Now is my time to write my own stories and teach others to follow the breath of the Universe as it spirals in and spirals out for them.

When I bought Starhawk's Spiral Dance 25 years ago during my lunch hour, I set it in its bag on my desk at work. A co-worker looked at the bag and turned it face down so the logo wouldn't show. "I'd be careful who sees that," she said. Now we are all on line, and the children dance our dances at school. The power flows and increases, but when it peaks I know it will ebb and scatter again. That is the nature of the spiral.

In Memory of Tink from guest blogger Wendy W.

2009-05-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

For seven years, I lived in a tiny little village that used to be called Neshannock Falls. It was a beautiful, rural area with old, simple homes along an ancient stream, fields of corn and timothy carved out of the stands of tall oaks, and the sound of Amish buggy "rush hour" every late afternoon would drown out the symphony of birdsong for about 15 minutes.

Like many small villages, its name was erased when the post office decided to merge it with the town of Volant. But the spirits of Neshannock Falls were still active, believe me! I shared a little house with one who regularly scared the beejeezus out of my guests. But Irene and I lived peaceably enough. Except for one thing: she woke me up every morning at 5 a.m. Every morning. Sometimes it was the sound of a pan hitting the sink, sometimes th sound of a bell. Sometimes I would hear my name yelled sharply up the stairs. You see, Irene used to rent the two upstairs bedrooms of the general store to young men who worked in the stone quarry down the road. She would come in around 4:30 a.m., stoke the stove, heat water from the well, and wake the young men to wash and dress while she made breakfast. Then she would tend to the duties of the store and open by 6 a.m. (country folk get up early).

The waking an hour and a half before my alarm each morning was taking its toll. I love to sleep. And I generally need a solid 8 hours to be around people. Less than that, and I'm liable to bite limbs off. I begged her to let me sleep in. I explained that she could wake me at 6:30. No good. She went about her routine as usual.

Until one day I was driving down the road and saw a tiny little fuzz ball sitting on the double yellow line. A huge milk truck roared past it the coming toward me, and the little fuzz ball hunched and shuddered. I stopped the car, jumped out and approached the tiny thing. It was a kitten, blind with infection, soaking wet from the storm the night before, and obviously on the brink of death. I took it to the vet, begged my landlord to let me care for it until it was strong enough to be adopted, and spent the night administering eye drops, feeding with a bottle, and chasing the plucky little thing around the house when it was strong enough to stand and explore a bit, but still blind from infection.

I found out that someone had tossed the whole litter in a garbage bag on the side of the road. Only Tink (as her name became years later) and one other kitten survived. Fourteen years later, she would still run out the room any time I opened a black garbage bag.

Now in the scheme of things, I would rather be the kind of person who stops to pick up a dumped kitten than the kind of person who would dump one. That kind of person doesn't have the fortitude to end their suffering by humanely putting them down. They treat life like garbage, justifying their act and making it as easy as possible on themselves. In short, they are cowardly, self-absorbed Aholes. And the pacifist in me disappears at the thought of that kind of behavior.

So Tink came home. She improved (with much CHA CHING being invested in medicines, a lot of effort to make sure she didn't go blind, and, eventually, surgery to neuter her and correct the scar tissue that continued to make sight difficult in her right eye). And in the two YEARS that it took for her to recover enough from the treatment she received so that she didn't get sick when she ate, she could see, she had her shots and recovered from her reaction because of a compromised immune system, the diagnosis of feline herpes, and a host of other problems, she became my nemesis.

She wasn't like a dog at all. She was willfull. She was spiteful at times. She didn't listen. She demanded attention at the most inconvenient times and clawed me or bit me when she had had enough. She knocked my jewelry into the waste can. She knocked my new CD into the burn bag (which I discovered when I poked the burning shiny thing and saw the label!). When I squirted her with water to get off the kitchen counter, she jumped up and knocked the ceramic sugar bowl off the kitchen table, smashing it all over the floor. I swear she grinned at me before she ran when I roared.

But she was adorable when she fell asleep in the front window in the sunshine, when she would chase her ball all over the livingroom, diving under the futon and peeking out to see if I was watching, when she decided to sit on the arm of the chair beside me(I still couldn't pet her...when you get tossed in a garbage bag at the beginning of your life, you don't warm up to people easily). And she adored Bum and Chunky, two enormous, silly, country dogs who adopted us both.

But a strange thing happened: Irene stopped waking me up in the morning and Tink took over. Fortunately, Tink learned to sleep until my alarm went off after about 6 months. And so a bargain was struck. I found out later that Irene had always had a calico cat at the store. Evidently she figured a single woman needed a calico cat.

And so, over the next 16 years, we warmed up to each other, learned from each other, trudged through moves, painful job changes, even more painful relationship endings, and learned to really appreciate sunny days in the country watching bugs and leaves and butterflies.

I'll spare you the sadness of the sickness she struggled with the last couple years, the medicines, the emergency vet visits. She hated pills. She wanted to do everything on her own terms. I couldn't blame her for that. We both take a while to warm up to people and prefer to make our own decisions, thank you. We survived together. We laughed together (yes, cats laugh...trust me). We cried together. And we learned to understand each other and be gentle with each other.

It's true what they say. There are things cats can teach you that dogs can't. Cats are supremely...well, cats. They may be cantankerous, aloof, and fussy. But they are always authentically Cat. She taught me a lot about being who I am every moment and not trying to shape myself to the whims and opinions of others. She taught me that sometimes when you feel lousy, you just don't let anyone know. She taught me that sometimes a quick strike of the claw is necessary to put someone in their place, especially if they are being unkind. She taught me that it is okay to have a bad day now and then, but it's best if you just avoid jerks on those days. She taught me to really enjoy shrimp. She taught me that any day when you're feeling good is a blessing and should be taken advantage of. She taught me to lounge in the sun on the grass and relax. She taught me that when you need affection, you should ask for it, and so what if it blows your rep as an independent, strong critter. Everyone needs contact. She taught me that you have a right to demand good treatment and make it known if you are not receiving it. She taught me what it means to be graceful in your movements, regal in your bearing, and the importance of good grooming. And she taught me that in God's creation, it would be silly to think that I'm above any other creature. There were days when she was a much better "person" than I was. And she taught me that even if you're upset with someone, when they cry, you need to be close and comfort them.

The last lesson I would rather have done without. It was the hardest and it will take me a while to put it into perspective and learn to live with it. Because she taught me that sometimes it's time to stop fighting. And sometimes we are so used to struggling and fighting through our lives that we don't know when it's time to surrender, to let go, to say it's over. There's been a lot of letting go lately. And she hung in there, comforting me despite the fact that she was sick herself.

And so, ultimately, I think she was staying out of a feeling of obligation to me. She knew I needed her. She knew she was the one constant companion, the one comfort that was always there over the last 16 years. And I knew she was heading into renal failure. And I knew what that would mean for her. She didn't deserve that.

The house in the country that we both loved so much burned down a week ago. I took her "home" to be in the country where she was so happy, where Bum and Chunky are buried now, too. And I suspect where Irene still goes about her business every morning despite the fact that the house is now nothing but charred remains. And, hopefully, Tink now sleeps comfortably in the sun in the front window like she used to.

So, all of this by way of saying I will never forget the blessing of my buddy. And I will never stop feeling her loss.

The only way I can honor her is to cherish every relationship, to try to live as authentically as I can, to remember to set my own grievances aside when someone is in pain and comfort them, and to eat shrimp whenever the mood strikes me. 'Cause that's how Tink and Wendy roll.

Separate Is Not Equal

2009-05-22T12:35:00.000-07:00

What's a pagan to do? Have multiple ceremonies to mark the passages of life in ways that comfort our diverse families or follow my heart and do it my way? The answer depends on individual circumstances but here is what I did for my parents' memorial services.

Mom crossed over first way back in 1993. We were all crushed. I wanted a huge tribute to this wonderful woman who made us all laugh, think deeply and feel genuinely. No crocodile tears for her! I also wanted to create one ceremony out of kindness to myself. I could not do this more than once. In addition, if I were to acknowledge who my mother was I had to include one part witch, one part story teller, one part Baptist, one part imp, one part brilliance, one part fear, one part fey. What to do, what to do? All those friends and relatives from all those weird backgrounds!

So we created a performance in a green Tiffany chapel (her favorite color--there was no question where to hold this event). Oh, it looked like a Memorial Service and it was, but it was also a performance. Only the organist (who was hired help) disliked it but that was because she had a turkey in the oven at home and didn't listen when I said an hour. People Danced the Tslagi Dance of Life, called the quarters complete with the Witches Rune, prayed, sang Swing Low Sweet Chariot and The Ancestor's Prayer from Sweet Honey In the Rock. I read the I Am's of Jesus because of a dream my mother had about a greeting card that said "I Am" and told stories of her psychic gifts and telepathy. I brought in a UU minister friend to pray and talk about transitions. And I did the candle ceremony. One woman said it was the most inclusive ceremony she had ever seen. She was right.

When my father died in 2000 we created a different kind of performance because he was a different kind of man. My pagan priestess friend and my Christian minister cousin (two of my Dad's favorite people) presided. We sat in a circle at the local funeral home, sang hymns that Dad liked (all of which I cried through) and told stories about him. More than one person brought a little wooden trinket he made, an open sided house with 3 carpet tacks in the floor. He handed them out as "Tax Shelters"--he was that kind of guy. Some shared his faith and spoke of it. He was 100% loving Christian at least where family was concerned. I should have taped the stories from his cousins. They were precious. And I did the candle ceremony.

What is the candle ceremony? Like most pagans I have lots and lots of candles and candelabras. For this memorial ritual, I list all the deceased's immediate family, living and dead. In the service, we call the roll. At the top of the display, we light the candle for the one who has recently crossed. Then one by one we light a candle for each parent, child, sibling, or cousin in Dad's case, who had predeceased the honoree. Then we call the roll of all of us who are left in the family without lighting our candles because of course we have not yet crossed into the light. With great ceremony at the completion of the roll call, the work candle used to light the first set is extinguished and the leader says "May we all rejoice in the reunion of this family." There is joy and not a dry eye in the circle. Nobody has to preach or speak about the continuity of souls. Everyone "gets" it immediately.

So for our conservative Baptist relatives and liberal pagans, these were tributes that sparked no controversy because they were made for people we loved by people who loved them. Had they been done any other way the services all would have been incomplete. Let it be so for all of us that we are remembered and celebrated in love.

Sustainability as a Rescue Plan

2009-05-22T11:51:00.000-07:00

The editors of Green America's Real Green wrote in their winter 2009 edition:
"Yet, when GNP (gross national product) growth includes a whole set of "bads"--from sweatshop labor to manufacturing toxic chemicals--every dollar of GNP growth actually reduces well-being for people and the planet. Taken together, these fatal flaws systematically create economic injustice, poverty, and environmental crises."

I spent my formative 20's working as a community organizer/human services coordinator in an anti poverty agency. We were so buy putting out fires we never spent enough time on institutional change that would have prevented the economic chaos and environmental disasters we see now. Still, they were instrumental in stopping the nuclear plant at Sterling NY (near where the Ren. Faire is). We brought WIC, Food stamps and promoted farmers markets. We pushed the discussion of solar power and weatherized many many low income homes. We started a battered women's shelter and a sexual assault victims resource. Now it is time to do more.

Real Green offers 7 "fixes" for our fearless leaders in Washington to consider--apart from the "get out of the war business and into the people business" which in my mind goes without saying. Here are their top 7 ideas for us to support.

1. Green Energy=Green Jobs
Increase our energy efficienty by a 50% reduction in your/our use of energy over 5 years. How could you do that? Florescent light bulbs, weatherization, working nearer home, shopping consignment instead of Wal-Mart. What's your favorite? Is your job green? Is it right livlihood? What can yo do to make it greener or more just?
Be informed and support local efforts to create Solar & wind power leading to an all renewable energy grid nationally. There are lots of demonstration projects going on. Find out who is doing what. Join up!
Embrace the goal of making plug in electic hybrid vehicles 20% of US cars in 10 years. Could families pool resources and buy more fficient vehicles and share them? People do that. Then there would be fewer total vehicles, and people could spread out the higher coast of efficiency. Who do you know well enough to share a car with?
Support the building of a Smart grid (upgrading the elecrtic grid is not a local project. This is an example of something government can and must do but will need our support to make it happen. The loss of electrical energy over antiquated transmission systems is shameful.
We need new building codes and utility regulations that increase efficiency and sustainability. Our town boards need education, for example.

2.Clean Energy Victory Bonds like they used in WWII only this time the bonds will fund the environmental green revolution. The governmentt could create these with a push from us.

3. Reduce, Reuse, Rethink--living lightly on the land. Can you/we share more of our resources, jobs, cars, space? planting community gardens is one of these projects. Recycling everything we can is another. How are you helping?

4. Buy fair trade and local goods. Move your $ away from agribusiness---think about what you buy and where it comes from, and where else you could get something similar. For example buy local eggs from area farmers. Stop at roadside produce stands. Join the organi farmers and gardeners organizations.

5. Get involved in Community Investing by selecting the right bank. Credit unions are strong even in the middle of this banking mess. My spiritual community, The Web, has its accounts in the local credit union. How about you? There are 2 other Wayne County NY based banks that I know of: Savannah and Lyons. People who live elsewhere can find similar financial instituions with a local base. Using one of these outlets for your banking builds our local communities in ways you cannot see. But it's there. Feel good about it!

6. Shareholder activism. If you have investments, understand what they are and make your voice heard. The Green America Today website has an article on how at www.GreenAmericaToday.org and reports some notable successes. 11 public US companies have agreed to allow shareholders the right to approve executive compensation. 11 this year, 40 next year, eh?

7. Building Community--The Web is one of those. We need to be more open with each other about our needs and contribute to our mutual good. But it is crucial that a community has a balance between takers and givers. As a rule of thumb, if you get a favor give one. Mending, repair, fixing as a community can keep us all solvent if we are honest about what we need and what we can do. When was the last time you volunteered some time and effort at your community center or place of worship? Have you repaired, mended or cleaned? Who was the last person you gave a ride to ritual or to the grocery store? When did you last volunteer to lead a children's program or an adult class? We have lots of shy talent in hiding! Step up!

I guess we might not see our volunteer time as part of the Green Revolution, or a day spent helping get the garden in as an act of sustainable living, but it is. If we are too busy for all that--then we are too busy. If we slow down and embrace sustainability as a way of life, advocate that others do the same and vote our conscience then we will be a shaper of the future instead of its victim.

Mercury Retrograde May 2009

2009-05-18T09:35:00.000-07:00

In case you didn't know Mercury went retrograde on May 7th and plans to stay that way until the 30th. The pagan blog prompter asked us to write about our experiences with this pesky planet. Mercury represents communication,travel, data collection and transmission. Mercury is the communicator of the Gods. When He turns around in retrograde, we often experience one SNAFU after another. Although the rest of your zodiac chart can affect and be affected by Mercury retrograde in ways that are unique to you, we collectively experience the frustrations and snags of Mercury running backward. You might want to chant for President Obama this month as he keeps tackling one mighty problem after another.

As for me, I'm an Aries. In my natal chart Mercury was direct in Pisces in my 2nd house of stuff and self. Mercury is squared to Uranus which gives me a quick mental process with a need for a lot of intellectual stimulation. I'll provoke a new idea or turn things inside out every chance I get. Mercury is the quickest of planets. Uranus is slow which provides a good balance in my experience.

In this retrograde, I started out last week feeling cranky and contradictory. There was no pleasing me. One of my favorite blogging agents rejected my manuscript. Phooey! I wallowed for a bit. At the same time Eric caught the flu or succumbed to allergies--something nasty enough to send him to bed for the whole week. That is a rarity. I feared we were settling in to a negative spiral. Then we had the quarterly healing intensive yesterday.

Our friend Denise presented an all day session on sound vibrational healing and the crystal singing bowls. We chanted and played the bowls which aligned our chakras quite apart from any planetary influences. One simply needed to be in the room to experience the harmonizing influences of those bowls. By the end of the day, I was mellow floating on a cloud of bliss. It is still the same this morning. Just in case, I sang the scale to my chakras and let them clear and vibrate. Ahhhhh. That felt good.

So I'm thinking chakra healing is a great compensation for the disorienting effects of Mercury in retrograde. I'll keep at it this month, since we have so many days to work with, and let you know how it works out!

The Road Taken

2009-05-12T08:17:00.000-07:00

We drove through the Montezuma Wildlife Preserve yesterday. It's a short cut to home, if you don't stop and take pictures of the birds and muskrats. Spring ducklings were out for a swim with their little mother. A muskrat was playing in the shallows. Dozens of Great Blue Herons stood silently on the mudflats looking like reeds. Three of them flew over to inspect a white heron in the canal nearest us. There was some posturing as if he was in the wrong neighborhood but no fight. The White Heron stayed. Canadian Geese hid in the weeds, most likely keeping the goslings out of sight. Incredibly we learned to use our blackberry phone cameras! The short cut took 2 hours. Hmmmm.

The Legacy Divination

2009-05-11T07:51:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day was yesterday, so at our biweekly shamanic trance drum circle we first shared our joys and disappointments with the occasion. Every year a group of women gather with me to journey on Mother's Day because there is no better celebration in their lives. Men are welcome and attend other times, but rarely on Mother's Day. I hope it is because they are all being attentive to their mothers and sweethearts. Alas. The evidence points otherwise.

This year as in most others, there were a majority of friends who had no flowers or cards to show for the occasion. All of them were trying hard not to keep score, but one of them knew she had not had a card for Mother's Day or her birthday since the man she birthed made them under his watchful teacher's eyes in grade school. This from a son who is not estranged, you understand. Several of us reported cheerful text messages and a few had phone calls. They had not been on line yet. Maybe there was an e-card. Disappointments shared and joked over become a story instead of a grievance. We all laughed and remembered in The Mastery of Love (Don Ruiz) our living in love depends on our merger and connection with the Universe, our ability to love ourselves--not on the actions or loving of another human.

Then we journeyed to re-expereince that merger with the Divine. For Mother's Day I usually send the group on a journey to the Ancient Mother, The Earth Herself or their oldest ancestress back in Africa or Asia Minor who is revealed in no genealogy. This time I sent them to the future to meet their Legacy. "What happens 5000 years hence that stems from the fact you have lived?" I asked. "Journey with the drum to find out."

I left the course of the journey up to them. They might journey to the upper world to confer with Spirit Guides who could tell them of soul evolution, enlightenment and the advancement of human minds that came from their own love and evolution.

They might journey to the lower world to find future selves re-incarnated, descendants of their biological lines, or animal guides who followed their souls from life to life.

They might journey in the middle world to view alternative earths, the future as history, or connect with teachings they shared now that still exist in the future shaped by their own hands.

"Journey well," I said. And they did. The results were profound and personal. Each of us found a Legacy that meant our passage here on Earth matters more than any can guess. Not all of us realized, initially, how much we contributed to the outcomes we saw. We were ready to give credit to the Higher Beings as if we were not in partnership. We take nothing away from the Great Powers of the Universe when we admit co-create with them. Our lives are not laid out for us or done to us. We work on them and ourselves everyday. We teach all the people around us how to BE in this world, everyday. The ripples from one life extend out and out and out to the next shore and then turn back across the water to another connected life, then back out again. When the journeys were discussed we discovered similarities in our Legacies. We saw our hands had stirred the cauldron of time. Because such a thing is so, we are affirmed in our worth. That is the greatest Mother's Day blessing I can offer.

Sunfire, my blogger prompter for this week, asked about Divination. Using shamanic drum practices and traveling out into the future to see the possibilities, to experience the truth of our visions is the most effective divinatory tool I use. I can read your tarot cards or use a pendulum with reliable success, but if you really want the whole story, let me teach you to journey for yourself. Ah! There in lies the path of real wisdom. That is what can make you a Seer!

Boughs Bow

2009-05-04T09:01:00.000-07:00

"The more the tree is laden with fruit, the more it bends"

Swami Amar Jyoti used that image to remind his students to remain humble as their powers and insights increase. I was glad to read that. Our Enlightenment is blocked by our glorying in our progress, and our groups at The Web have made remarkable progress. The shamanic trance circle has discovered material about the Upperworld I have not found elsewhere concerning the cities of gold, silver, platinum and other metals. We have journeyed to crystal caves that correspond to the chakras. We have journeyed to other worlds in the physical universe. We have spontaneously journeyed together in ways that expand our vision of a location or our understanding of a truth. It continues to be a unique and extraordinary shamanic circle.

The Wicca III class spring 2009 delved deeper into their own transformative dare than other classes, or so it seemed to me. Several found their karmic life purposes underscored by their work. Others found new understanding of old family issues. Some found a new appreciation for the body they live in. It was my hope they would.

On Saturday the community gathered for a work day followed by a May Day ritual circle. The sky cleared and the sun shone for the circle when we sang for it. Song birds sang out during the grounding meditation. Turkey buzzards circled low, drawn in by the drumming for the maypole dance. Our connection with the natural world was strong.

In any one of those natural phenomena we could lose our balance. We could dismiss the magic of it as coincidental. Two people shared a similar journey in the land of pyramids, so what? The buzzards thought we might have carrion to share so they stopped by. They are ugly birds anyhow. Or we could become big-headed about the whole thing congratulating ourselves in being wise, wonderful and powerful. We can call the sun! We can comprehend the mysteries! We can explore the unknown! Balance is important.

Balance promotes harmony among us. Balance keeps the channels open so we can see and hear more of what we have tasted so far. Balance checks our ego and reminds us how privileged we are to walk together with the Spirits and learn a thing or two. Balance reminds us we did not write the script or conceive the vision--not in this mind. Not in this body.

If we are trees laden with fruit, then we need to bend so our branches don't break. The deeper we go into our own transformation from headblind materialists (Show me. I won't believe it if I can't see it!) into beings of faith who weave our human and divine together, the more we bend; the heavier and juicier our fruit. We bow to preserve our branches. We also then bring our fruit closer to the ground so it can be shared. That sharing is the point of all our enlightenment as Bodhisattvas. My knowledge becomes your knowledge. My vision becomes your vision. Perhaps you will take both of them beyond my blind spots and bring back yet more knowledge and vision. Then the people who hear your words and see your visions can extend out further yet, and bring more back.

In this way we extend our enlightenment, become more of the physical spiritual beings we were meant to be. We reach up for more and create pathways for our world to reach up. If collectively we can do this, then our Earth evolves upward into a new spiral of creative ecstasy. The Earth Changes. All of us.

May Day in Rural NY

2009-05-01T09:11:00.000-07:00

An Amish woman, just a slip of a woman drove a team of Clydesdales, 6 abreast across the field pulling a harrow. She was walking behind the harrow--barefoot I think-- wearing a royal blue dress. The full skirt blew around her calves in the stiff wind. Her old fashioned black bonnet was like a shadow on her head, stark against the spring greens and browns of the field. At the end of the row the horses stopped, turned neatly as she hollared and hauled back firmly on the reins--6 in each hand I'd guess. The horses marked the turn shoulder to shoulder and took off straight back north where they had started. She was near to a good run as they marched her across the field but there was no question who held those reins. It was a big field. She had her work cut out for her if she was to finish before the the rains came this afternoon.

Holidays: A Day Off or a Day On?

2009-05-01T08:15:00.000-07:00

The 2009 Web Beltane celebration is a Day On: a workday for SummerFest preparation, a picnic, networking with the group and ritual in the afternoon. All that and lots of good food. Whose idea was that?

Merlin started the idea for Beltane after reading reports on President Obama's call to service for Martin Luther King Day in January. Since 1994 MLK's birthday in January has been a day on instead of a day off. People volunteer to paint, repair, clean out, deliver for their neighbors. MLK Day 2009 saw a record number or workers and volunteers in 13,000+ projects because the people "got it." We need community. We need to help each other. Obama challenged folks and twice as many projects were started. He also challenged people to keep up the work, make their involvement in community a give back that continues.

As webfolk, we need to be involved in our larger community by giving blood, by working with the arts council, by delivering meals on wheels, or by watching out for our elderly neighbors. It can be official or unofficial. We also need to be able and willing to put some sweat equity into the work our organization--The Web PATH Center--undertakes by helping Tom clean up the camping area; by helping Dawn as a volunteer who leads programs and give workshops; by writing for the newsletter; by being on the Council or committees and actually doing something; by attending circles every time we can. This weekend is only one of many opportunities to connect and party down with your friends while getting some work done. Come on out! It'll be fun!

Psyche & Eros Re-Told

2009-04-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

Once there was a beautiful mortal girl named Psyche, a girl so beautiful that she made the Goddess Venus jealous. So many men sought her hand in marriage and appealed to the Gods and Venus for help, the Goddess of Love decided something must be done. Psyche had accepted no suitor and was upsetting the harmony of the Heavens. Venus called Her son Eros to Her and bade Him take the task to heart. She had sent Him on many similar mischievous missions. He was sure to settle Her score with the human upstart. Eros was to pierce the willful Psyche with His gold arrows so she would fall in love with a hideous, vile monster of a man and be done with it!

Off Eros went to serve the Goddess of Love. And so He did, but not as She expected. When Eros approached the lovely girl in her sleep she took His breath and heart away with her sweetness. Her beauty exceeded the Goddesses--all of them. Even His Mother. Leaning over to kiss Psyche, Eros clumsily stuck Himself with His own arrow and fell deeply in love with the lass. In her sleep His kiss reached down to her very soul and told her who her beloved would be. She never awoke but with His Divine insight He saw her dream. Eros ran away, certain He could not tell His Mother what he had done!

But of course Venus noticed that Psyche continued to be wooed and adored for her beauty and grew suspicious. Psyche still refused her suitors, so her parents consulted the Oracle at Delphi to discover the cause of their daughter’s stubbornness. What could explain the lack of appeal many fine suitors had to her and to her parents? No one was right for the beautiful Psyche even though her father thought he wanted her to marry well.

"Take Psyche to the magic mountain where she will find love but with no mortal man." the Oracle intoned. They thought the worst of that.

"Our daughter will marry a monster!" her mother wailed. But they did as they were told, afraid to do anything else. Grieving their fates, they left her on the mountain where by morning she had disappeared, carried away by the west wind to a palace. There, in the dark of night Eros returned to her and made passionate love with her to their mutual delight. Eros left before light and returned each night, falling more deeply in love each time he caressed the loving Psyche. He promised her His love and heart if only she agreed never to light a lamp or gaze on His face, a promise He required to keep her from discovering that He was a God.

Eventually the west wind reunited Psyche to her parents and her sisters. All of them were curious. Who owned her remarkable castle? How was the work of keeping it done? There was no one there but Psyche. Or so they thought, for the servants of the God were all invisible to them.

To examine the mystery, the girls visited Psyche’s palace in the day time, but left before her Lover returned at night. Eros knew the sisters would make trouble for them because they envied Psyche’s happiness and her anticipated child. Sure enough, the two sisters concocted a tale to warn Psyche her husband was a terrible serpent who would eat her and her child as soon as it was born. After all, had not the Oracle said she would not wed a mortal man?

"Psyche," they pleaded. "You surely must take the sharpest knife from the kitchen and hide it with a lamp in your chamber. When your husband falls asleep, rise us and light the lamp. Then kill him! Remember he is a dangerous snake, not a man at all!"

Eros had warned her not to listen to such nonsense, but she decided she had to prove them wrong, if only for her own peace of mind. At midnight when He slept soundly sated with her love, Psyche lit the lamp and saw Eros the God himself. Shocked she pricked her own finger with his arrow. This re-kindled her desire for him. She touched him softly at first and then kissed him deeply. As He snuggled into her arms again, He opened His eyes and saw the lamp light. Afraid their love would be ruined by her mortal fears, He jumped up from the bed and flew away to Psyche’s grief. She cried for days, alone and angry at her trouble-making sisters.

When Eros did not return, Psyche decided to go find Him. First she went to the fields and appealed to Ceres, the Goddess of Grain who told her she must ask Venus for help. Unwilling to do that, Psyche sought out the throne in the Heavens to ask Juno, Queen of Heaven and Goddess of Marriage what she must do to find her Love. Juno also sent her to Venus. Reluctant but with little option, Psyche looked for her mother-in-law Venus in Her temple. Venus readily agreed to help, too readily Psyche thought. To earn Divine assistance, Psyche was sent on three impossible tasks, all of which she accomplished with the the help of the ants, a river god and an eagle. Angry at the girl's success, Venus then sent her to the Underworld to retrieve Beauty in a box, a task which should trap her beneath the earth forever. Again assisted by the natural world and the world of magic, Psyche succeed in her quest.

But Psyche was curious. What did Beauty look like? She took a peek, but the box appeared empty so she looked more deeply until the deep slumber of eternity wafted out of the box and wove a spell of sleep about her. She dreamed of Eros and was unable to be awakened by any mortal. Venus smiled.

Alarmed by His Mother's trickery, Eros flew swiftly to rescue Psyche. He regretted His fear and ill-temper, wanting in the worst way to be reunited with His love. Tenderly He wiped the sleep from her face and put it back in the box. Psyche awoke and embraced her beloved Eros. Together they planned a way to live in harmony. Venus would accept no mortal woman for Her Son, certainly not one as beautiful as Venus Herself. The only answer was to welcome Psyche into the company of the Gods.
Inspired, Eros flew off to Olympus with a warning for Psyche not to open any boxes or accept any more quests from His Mother. On Eros’ appeal, Jupiter called a Grand Council of the Gods to bless the union of Psyche and Eros. Ever happy with a good erotic love story, the Gods and Goddesses agreed, bidding Eros bring His bride before Them. There, Psyche drank the Gods’ Ambrosia and joined Them as an Immortal. Given no other choice, Venus embraced Psyche as Her Son’s Wife. Her Granddaughter, Voluptas was born as immortal as Her Parents, Psyche and Eros.

(The original story is found in The Golden Ass by Apulieus)

Happy Beltane! Love will always find a way--