One title of my personal Patron god translates
roughly as "Opener of the Way."
That's all you get this time around.
I try like blazes not to mention
Names.
Anyway, like a great many things
in religion, the title has multiple meanings on multiple levels. Despite
temptation and my low and base nature, I'm not going to dwell on the obvious
sexual one. Sometimes it's amazingly fun to be the
priest.
This is the Guy who knows where
the best fishing spot is. This is the Guy who knows the glade where the deer
are calm enough to get within an arm's length. This is the Guy who knows the
secret spot where the sun peeks out
first.
In the city, this is the Guy who
knows how to get there faster. This is the Guy who can find the one working
payphone in a ten block range. This is the Guy who can be there and gone before
you knew you needed to go.
Sounds
pretty sweet right? Just the Guy you needed to know,
right?
Here's what I haven't told you.
Yet.
That fishing spot? Sure it's the
best around and the fish always bite. But to get to it, you have to crawl about
a hundred feet along a cliff face high over a canyon with your finger and toe
tips. There's no place to hold your fishing rod except your
teeth.
To reach that glade, you have to
pass a Buick sized wasp nest and cave that has been hosting some sort of large
carnivore recently.
That secret spot
where the sun peeks out is at the top of an old pine tree with uncertain
footing. Some of the branches crack when you put weight on
them.
Sure the Guy knows the best ways
to get there, but you take your life in your hands every time you follow his
directions.
That shortcut in the city
means going up a fire escape and through five locked utility doors, at least one
of which may be wired to an alarm.
And
that pay phone works because it has defenders who will want to be paid.
Assuming they let you get close in the first
place.
An interesting Guy, to say the
least. Master of wildernesses urban and natural, he can Open the Way. If you
are willing to pay the Price.
He's not
the portal, nor is he the Warden. His job isn't to
keep the nasties out, it's to Find a Way
Through.
That's what makes his esoteric
instructions a bit risky. Strike that. Not a bit risky,
highly
risky.
His intervention is always
chancy. Which I suppose is only fitting, since the Guy will tell you at great
length that he invented games of chance and gambling.
He doesn't exactly break the rules,
the Guy replaces the rules with ones He wrote. And yes, the Guy gets off on the
excitement. He grooves on the risk, laughing all the
way.
He's my Patron and I honor Him.
But you better believe I think twice before asking for His help.
—
Posted: Thu - July 2, 2009 at 03:25 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Tue - June 30, 2009
Relics of faith
Okay, this is probably an example of where it is
better to keep my mouth shut than to say anything at
all.
It doesn't matter, I have to lay
out the irony anyway.
In most Christian
traditions, Saul of Tarsus wasn't a disciple of Jesus Christ, but he was called
an apostle. This label has been disputed by
some.
What is known is that Pauline
Christianity almost totally displaced the versions that came before
it.
There are several theories that
suggest Paul wasn't exactly what he claimed. One of the most popular versions
(and certainly the most fun to read) was laid out in
Holy Blood, Holy Grail.
It suggested that Paul was a Roman plant intended to derail the Christian
movement. In fact, that book went as far to link him to a legend of the
Liar.
According to many Gnostic
beliefs, the god of the Bible isn't the Creator god, he's an egotistical
ungrateful offspring who has supplanted his parents and stolen the worship of
humanity.
There's also a strong
argument that even in the early Christian Church, the Bishop of Rome wasn't
supposed to assume primacy over all other bishops (and eventually Archbishops)
to become the Pope.
So with all that in
mind, I can't read a news article like this and keep a straight
face.
Yes, it could absolutely be true
and I would not want to disparage any
beliefs.
However, from a certain point
of view, it could just be the bones of a liar who set out to destroy a religious
movement whose enemies dressed up in it's remains to seize power over the hearts
and minds of mankind, all while serving a godling who had to depose his
progenitors to be worshipped.
That's
irony for you. And silliness
too.
What's even more ironic is that
the highly fragmented picture of Yeshua bin Joseph that has descended to us
indicates pretty strongly that he was less interested in an established church
(or temple in his case) and more focused on a direct connection to the Divine.
With the exception of the writings attributed to Paul, most of the New Testament
hints pretty strongly at this. Some of the other texts such as
The Gospel of
Thomas make it even
clearer.
It wasn't about the history.
It was about the experience.
After all, one translation of
gnosis
is "knowledge from experience."
Which
is why it catches the attention of a technopagan like me.
Let them have their claims and
beliefs.
But there is a part of me that
can't help smiling because the "authorities" have proved their enemies case for
them. Even if I am not one of those enemies, I can still find it amusing. The
difference between revelation and experience.
Live your own story. Make up your own
mind. And find your own connection to the Divine.
—
Posted: Tue - June 30, 2009 at 03:48 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Stolen from my private note file
I'm having a terrible time thinking of a
worthwhile entry today. So I am going to try something completely
different.
I carry a Palm. It's more
than just a datebook and address file, it's where I jot down ideas, copy/paste
things I want to remember, and put all sorts of notes on things I want to
remember later. This isn't exhaustive studies, more of clippings and tickle
entries to remind me later. I don't worry about spelling or grammar, I just put
down thoughts.
For example, here's a
recipe for one of my favorite summer
drinks.
Half fill a
water glass with
ice.
Put in one
and a half fingers of lemon juice from concentrate poured slowly down the inside
edge of the
glass.
Put in one
finger of lime juice poured slowly down the opposite inside edge of the glass so
it sits on the lemon
juice.
Very
slowly, fill up the rest of the glass with V8 juice.
If you have done
it right, you can see three separate and distinct layers of
juice.
Top with a
few drops of Tabasco
sauce.
Drink with
a straw.
The
flavor will change as you sip, the ice melts, and the juices slowly
mingle.
But let's go to something
completely different.
Here are some
selections from my Individualist Notes in my Studies
file.
Individualist
Notes - Category
*Studies
Wisdom
blends knowledge, experience, discipline, and compassion. Without wisdom, any
human endeavor dooms
itself.
Individualist
philosphy - Help others
achieve their
potiential Join in
common goals Agree to
disagree
Say
halaljah and praise the
process
"Faith
manages." - Babylon
5
"If you're
falling off a mountain, you might as well try to fly" - Babylon
5
Training - "This
is a process that works". Drill and
repeat. Corrective -
Process and measurement set by higher
authority. Standard -
Process set by regulated, measurement set by higher
authority. Empowered -
Goals set by higher authority, measurement set by mutual agreement of regulated
and higher authority, process set by
regulated.
"Cardinal
Principles of Post Modern
Technology"
Minaturization - Digitization -
Synthesis
"Specialization
is for insects" - Robert
Heinlien
Laws-Shalt
Nots vs Shalts with
Process
Manuals
should contain 3 levels of complexity (I used
to write manuals in my Corporate Clone
days) Refresher - little
more than a list of
steps Brief -
explanation of basic
features Analysis -
exhaustive
Washington
Effect - With partial or confusing data, most will choose either a known quanity
or a feel good
solutions
Normalacy
Illusion - Nothing's wrong if the trains run on
time.
Tech needs
fuzz factors when dealing with humans. Fuzz is designed into a system to deal
with humans. A hack is a way to work around the system to deal with
humans.
Mistakes
that the early christian church made: confininement of God to a church and
imposistion of a hierarcy (paternalistic
mode)
Five Ferengi
Stages of
Acquistion- Infatuation,
Justification, Appropriation, Obsession,
Resale
Experiment,
Experience, Excite,
Explore
Four
Corporate Waves - Adapted from
cogley? First Wave -
Commando - Establish A
Presense Second Wave -
Infantry - Crush the
Opposistion Third Wave -
Police - Maintain the
infrastructure Fourth
Wave - Cash - Buy as needed
I
think there is crossover between thought systems and magick. It's one reason I
flit from technology to magick to politics to history to art to music to
design…
Well, you get the
idea.
Anyway, there you have it. An
example of my free-form thinking when I am more on my game.
I don't intend to make this blog a discussion of
Pagans and depression, but there are some issues that come up from time to time.
In my experience, SJW does work to
take the edge off of depression. However, it takes daily doses for about three
weeks to build up enough in your system to start having an effect. It also
works better if you get out of the depression before you start taking regular
doses.
When you've established a
regimen, watch for the side effects. After about two months of regular
doses, you can prevent the worst of the side effects by taking a break for a
week or two every six weeks. Less than six weeks and the St. John's Wort just
stops working at all.
Be sure you track
how much you take and when you take it. Like any medication, try to take it at
the same time every day.
So it's three a.m. on Thursday and I am sipping
some iced lemon/lime water pretending that I don't have insomnia, and half the
eastern sky lights up in a flash. About a minute or so later, I hear the low
rumble and feel the subsonics of the thunder.
Something in me instantly decides that
very moment is when I need to open the box and let out my new Leatherman Charge
TTi and learn it's mysteries. Yes, I got the extra bits and the
extender.
It actually did start with me
lighting a candle on my desk, which isn't usually one of my altars, but it is
where I do much of my fine tool work.
Part of this is really a guy thing,
you have to have and use tools. Part of it is the whole utility belt envy I
have going. Part of it is the calming ritual I have using tools.
Of course this gave me an excuse to
breakout my stepdad's old tool box and start cleaning it up. The front has pull
out drawers and it can live on top of a utility cart I have next to me desk. If
I put my small hand tools in it, along with the items for my three tool pouches,
I should just about be good. Taking bits out, packing them, attaching them
where it will be handy. And after a job well done, reversing. Yep, that should
hold me.
At least until the tools start
calling my name again.
By now of
course you may know what's happened. I've used all the various tools set in the
Charge TTi, changed all the bits and used both sides of each, checked to see if
the bits can be used in my multibit screwdriver (they can, which expands THAT
tools usefulness) and just generally run around the house taking things apart
and putting them back together. Part of this is because, hey, it's there and I
can, and part of this is because I am getting my hands and fingers used to
working with this tool.
My plan is at
the end of each week, I'll empty my #2 tool pouch (formerly #1) which lives in
my computer case and my #3 tool pouch (formerly #2) which lives on my belt most
days. I'll have the tools to set up for #1 for special purposes, but it will
have the Leatherman Charge and a mini Mag-Lite at it's
core.
Part of all this messing with
tools is to try to channel some of the depression orgone into something that I
really enjoy. So yes, there is even a Pagan-related purpose
here.
Or at least a technopagan
one…
—
Posted: Fri - June 26, 2009 at 07:19 AM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Tue - June 23, 2009
Making the world go round
I'm going to cover something else pretty
fundamental today, just to get it out there.
I'll never be Neo the Ultimate Party
Dude, but when I am on my game, I "spark" people. I give more than I get.
On my down cycles, I'm crotchety,
cranky, and don't want to have anything to do with humanity as a species or
people as individuals. At that point I take more than I give back. Energy
sink, that's how I am then. I'm caustic, hard to be around, and people have to
really like me to put up with some of my behavior. When I bother to interact at
all.
I wouldn't mind so much except
that I'm not always able to choose just which way I will
be.
But even a (sometimes) semi-recluse
hermit like me has to admit that it's really about how you touch other
people.
No, not literally. Although
that is not a bad idea. WEG.
See,
humanity is a colony organism. As individuals, we're at our best when we're
trying to fit in with other people. Sometimes yes, that's physically with our
lovers in sex or afterwards. Sometimes it's physically with the people we love,
but not sexually, our family and friends that we hug and cuddle with. Sometimes
it's with the people who stretch our minds, the people we agree with and the
"respected opposition" that we disagree
with.
We need the human touch. We need
our ideas and expectations challenged. We need to test
ourselves.
We need to trust ourselves
and our thinking.
Without other people,
it's mental masturbation. It's one person looking in the mirror proclaiming how
great everything is.
None of us can
afford that.
It's easy to hang out with
people who share the same ideas. But try putting your ideas where you know
where every assumption will be questioned. Among Pagans, I'm in a minority
because I am not a progressive. Among libertarians, I'm a minority because I am
a "person of faith." Among "people of faith," I'm a minority because I follow
an Earth centered modern faith system.
Unless we're willing to have our ideas
examined, we'll never learn to see the weaknesses in our
thinking.
Now the mystic in me will
tell you it's all about the orgone exchange. The more "threads" we send out and
share with others. the more orgone we send out and the more orgone we take in.
That's why a good group revitalizes you. They touch your threads, you touch
theirs, and those threads do a dance that borders on erotic. The more passion,
the more movement.
But the key thing
here is that funny word
share.
If
you wrap yourself in your own thoughts to keep the world at bay, that's what
will happen. It could happen because you are depressed (expert speaking here).
It could be because you are so convinced of the virtue and merit of your own
thoughts, you aren't willing to accept the thoughts of others.
That might have happened to me a time
or two.
You can't just shove your
thoughts in someone else's face. You have to accept that they will test your
ideas. They'll poke, they'll prod, they'll pull. The more people you share
with, the better your ideas will be
tested.
And if you are smart you'll
listen to what other people will tell you. You'll accept what they give
back.
Look around and you'll find the
people who care about you enough to lie about what they think. You need to find
the people who care enough to tell you the truth. Even if it's a truth you
don't like. Trust them to be honest and be honest in return. Even if you don't
agree.
Especially
if you don't agree.
Are there people
around you that respect the truth enough to share it with you? Do you return
the honor?
The measure of a human is
found in the lives he touches.
—
Posted: Tue - June 23, 2009 at 11:53 AM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Sun - June 21, 2009
The Longest Day (a little late)
I know this is a little late, but here is the
updated picture. It's a solar flare.
I
plan to do some sun worshipping
today.
Go enjoy the outdoors.
—
Posted: Sun - June 21, 2009 at 06:53 AM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Thu - June 18, 2009
A little slice of mind
Human behavior fascinates
me.
That's not exactly accurate. Human
social behavior fascinates me.
As a
child, I didn't pattern on all the little social interactions that make our
culture work. It means that as an adult, I had to understand those interactions
intellectually before I could make them a part of my emotional and social
makeup. It's the so-called "alien syndrome" and it's common with incipient
geeks and those with Asperger's
syndrome.
Believe me, it's much easier
to pattern it to begin with. As it is, some of my emotional actions and
reactions are slightly offset from normal. I don't always understand that at
first until I see the reactions of those around me. Sort of a look like they
bit into a rotten apple with a worm. And then I have to figure out
why.
I suspect that is what makes me
good at what I do. I overlook the things I am supposed to focus on and latch
onto the things I am supposed to overlook. And if I am in an uncomfortable or
unusual situation, I pay even closer
attention.
Well, that and Coyote
probably permanently warped my viewpoint.
*grins*
Anyway, to get to my
highly-vaunted (ahem) level of competence, I spend time studying, thinking,
experimenting, and practicing. I call it the Hat Trick. All the "oohs" and
"aaahhs" are for the razzle-dazzle in a moment of theatre, but never for the
work that happened before. People pay attention to the Hat Trick, the final
amazing result, but they almost always ignore all the preparation over years
that made it possible. The Hat Trick seems obvious in retrospect, but only
because somebody like me (or a lot of somebodys like me) went along and mapped
out the trail beforehand.
Sometimes
that means I have to study and think about things that I don't particularly
agree with so I can at least understand the thinking behind the ideas.
That's what happened when I started
reading
The Tender Carnivore and the Sacred Game
by Paul Shepard. I just couldn't get into it, there was too much "humanity has
doomed the Earth." I also had some problems with his central premise that all
of the changes were due to breeding and none of it had anything to do with the
mental and emotional processes.
Usually
when things get that bad, it's best to offset the book with something that deals
with a similar topic but from a totally different perspective and with a totally
different conclusion. In this case I chose
Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals
by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson. I'm enjoying it much more, we'll see
how well it offsets the other. Hopefully I can use both to bring me greater
understanding about each.
I know it's
not strictly Pagan, but it is part of my studies. I never know what will prove
useful under what circumstances.
And sometimes not even
then.
That's a joke. You can sometimes
tell by the pause before the
punchline.
"I know you're there, I can
hear you breathing."
That's a bad joke
straight from the days of
vaudeville.
See, I do
study.
—
Posted: Thu - June 18, 2009 at 07:33 AM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
So does my tool fetish really qualify as a fetish?
Well,
I
think so.
I draw strength and
understanding and calming from handling tools. I feel diminished when they've
been taken from me without my
permission.
I do the other fetishes
too. I have black leather wrist cuffs. I usually wear a "Pagan" pendent, (it's
the waning moon, so it's my bear medicine shield today). I've been known to
wear a bear claw or a shark's tooth. In my younger days, I even wore one of
those Avon arrowhead pendents (hey, it was the late 1970s, at least I didn't
wear the disco suit).
I've been
experimenting with body paint for
rituals.
So I do know a little
something about fetishes.
Draw you own
conclusions.
But I would invite you
to consider why you believe "modern" tools can't be fetishes…
I've talked about my tool fetish before. It's a
big reason I call myself a
technopagan.
A well-made tool thrums
under my fingertips. It doesn't matter if it's a obsidian knife or a ball-peen
hammer, a good tool just wants to be used. Or at least that is how my mind and
body react.
I can't sit quietly
without handling something. When I was a kid, I drove my female relatives nuts
because I would play almost unconsciously with their chotckies and knickknacks
and playpretties. It's better these days, I usually carry something with
me.
So of course something like this
Popular Mechanics article gets me going. I start comparing what I
have with the suggestions and planning to get what I think I need. I'm not so
hot at plumbing and carpentry, and I don't always think in those
terms.
I've said before it's not just a
fetish in the magickal sense, although it certainly is that. I have a physical
response to certain tools that borders on the sexual. That thrum thrills me in
ways I can't really explain well.
So
of course when I am feeling low. it's time to break out the tools. To sort
them ever carefully. To touch them. To surround myself with them. And yes, I
know that has more than a hint of OCD and it's probably related to my Asperger
syndrome. It doesn't matter. It happens most when I am stressed and it helps
me to cope.
Besides the basic tools
which live in my tool boxes, I carry tool pouches. I've experimented with
several over the years and settled on what I felt was a pretty good system.
My Number 2 tool pouch was small and inconspicuous
enough to live on my belt for every day use, while my Number 1 tool pouch lived in the side pocket of
my computer bag. I recently upgraded my Micro-Plus™ 8-in-1multitool with
a Micro-Max™ 19-in-1 multitool. That's the
second upgrade to that particular
tool.
That got me to thinking.
Although there is nothing like a tool designed for the purpose, I have almost
enough tools to go with three tool pouches instead of two. If I made my
"everday" pouch Number 3 and my computer bag pouch Number two, I still have a
bulky tool pouch and a few special tools that could be Number 1. All I would
need is a upgraded Leatherman with a few extra bits and I
am good to go.
I'll admit I am more
particular when it comes to my magick kits. I've yet to come up with a general
purpose one, I usually end up picking and choosing based on the situation.
Still, a tool fetish is a tool fetish.
And my "mundane" tools are not only useful, but they can calm me down without
attracting too much extra attention. Books still beat out tools to spend money
on, but not by much.
So watch around.
If you ever see a guy in glasses with a short beard and hair pulled back in a
bear tail mumbling over a small selection of multitools, it just might be
me.
—
Posted: Tue - June 16, 2009 at 01:46 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Thu - June 11, 2009
Front door and back door
And you just thought I was finished for the
day…
The weather has been very
mild. Here it is, June 11th and I think there has been one day that the
temperature was in the triple digits. Maybe there's been five days I've had the
cooler on. That's unusual for the Arizona desert, even a high one like
mine.
It's been breezy though, almost
perfect kite flying weather.
I can
appreciate it more out my back door in the back yard. That's my piece of
nature, complete with privacy fence. That's where my sun patio is. That's
where my outdoor ritual area is. That is where my vegetable patch
is.
If I go out the front door, the car
is parked in the driveway, the street is right there, and the weather becomes a
Political Topic™.
In the front,
I have to wear shoes and pants. I can't spit, I can't belch, and I can't fart.
I dare not look too closely at the nicely developing fifteen year old who lives
down the street. I have to take care of pesky things like bills and keeping my
front lawn looking nice so the neighbors don't
complain.
The front of the house is the
mask I wear to live among humans.
The
backyard is where my secret heart lives. it's where I can put my bare feet in
the soil and wiggle my toes. It's where my Name is engraved on the wind. It's
my touchstone, it reminds me where I am from, and it whispers where I am
going.
Far back in the ancient mists of
mundane civilization, our backyards used to be without fences. You could move
from one to another without gates. The front yards were for Show, but the
backyards were where the people gathered. Sometimes the meal just moved from
place to place. I'm lucky, I remember times and places where that was
true.
Now the backyard has become our
refuge because we can't deal constantly with what lies outside the front
door.
I'm typing this in my
sanctum,
the NeoDen, the ultimate refuge. But even though it has a door that leads out
front, I usually go back through the library and the house. I want to protect
it.
If it rains here, it's rain. Out
front, it's inconvenient and possibly a Political Topic™. If the sun
shines though the solar tube on me now, it's a kiss from the Divine. Out front,
it's something to be complained
about.
You know, my favorite place for
sunbathing (and moonbathing too) is the roof, but I have to wear trunks there.
It's in civilization. My backyard isn't, even though it's surrounded by
civilization.
My wild heart lives out
the back door.
—
Posted: Thu - June 11, 2009 at 06:06 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Snap out of it!
I wish I could say I was too busy to keep things
updated. I wish I could say I was too consumed with matters esoteric to make
regular entries.
I
can't.
Sometimes my mood swings mean
that it's all I can do to keep The-Job-That-Pays-The-Bills. Depression is a
terrible thing and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. All I can do is hold on and
ride it out. Sure there are medications and doctors who might be able to help.
But I am paranoid. Depression makes my paranoia worse. When I start planning
on how to murder the doctor, that's not really a good place for me to be.
What is does do is illustrate
something that I find important. It's not the
will
that provides the punch behind what you do, it's the
emotion.
I don't care if it's magick or a ten foot mural. Passion gives you the energy,
not an act of will.
Shaped by thought
and driven by passion.
When your heart
is divided, you won't accomplish anything. You won't have the energy or drive.
You may have made the decision, but until you back your choice with all your
heart, it will take everything you have and more just to make the smallest
steps.
Sort of like hanging on when the
car is out of control.
Your will may be
an 880 pound gorilla, but it doesn't matter if you don't have your own heart
behind it. That is where the power
is.
The heart is where the miracles
are.
Will is about knowledge and
control. Passion is about what you feel and what is done. Two different
things, and it can rip you apart when they are in
opposition.
It's Stan and Ollie again. Stan can perform
miracles, but only if Ollie doesn't tell him he
can't.
Although I haven't touched on
soulweaving in this blog, a big part of it is getting the extra emotion out of
the way so that the will and the heart are together again. Passion may drive
everything, but passion without direction is more dangerous than will without
passion. Wrap yourself in hate and there won't be enough of you left for
anything else. Wrap yourself in obsession and you cut yourself off from
everyone except those who share your passion.
The only way your passion can grow is
by sharing it.
It's not enough to go
to the mountain. You have to come back. You have to tell what you found. You
have to pass around the pictures and the souvenirs.
Oh, how did I "snap out of it?" Two
very determined friends came over to my house and gave me a replica Star Trek
communicator and phaser. The tricoder is supposed to be shipped today. Then
they took me out to the new movie, which I hadn't seen yet. They cheated. They
didn't try to reason with me. They talked to
Stan
who dragged Ollie along for the ride. Stan got excited, Ollie got
blindsided.
Moral of the story: Never
piss off your friends, sometimes they save you from your own worst
impulses.
It's pretty bad when your first
three topics don't want to write themselves. It's worse when you look at the
Pagan blogosphere and nothing leaps out at you. You know you've struck a dry
well when even the forums you frequent don't inspire.
I guess that leads
more or less back into one of the topics I was thinking
about.
I've been
thinking about Pagan groups lately. That's not surprising, considering what I
have been
reading.
There was a
time I would have given a lot to belong to a coven or circle or grove. Not an
online group, but something where you can actually see the people you are
talking with, raise a glass or two, laugh and belch and argue fine points of
pure and applied philosophy far into the night and well into the next
afternoon.
But, and
that is a really big "but," most of the groups aren't worth
it.
Now I know some of
you are going to take offense, but hear me
out.
Let's take as a
working assumption that a
real
Pagan group is going to be about the magick and the gods. Or maybe about the
gods and the magick.
So
where does that put all the political activists and "Pagan community" groups?
If that is going to be their focus, well and good, but it's not about the gods
and the magick, is it? I'm not saying that those groups don't serve a purpose,
even though I probably don't agree with it. I'm just saying that those are
groups first, and the Paganism is a distant second or fourth. And yes, I am a
big one for manifesting your beliefs in actions that can change the world. But
calling a group Pagan just because of it's membership doesn't cut it.
This is a hard
distinction to make because so much of the modern (read post 1950s) Pagan
movement was tied up in the various protest movements of the 1950s, 1960s, and
1970s. Are those battles won or lost? Well, I suppose it depends on the
battle, but I would call most of them won. And those battles really don't have
that much to do with the full moon (Lady in the Court of Starts) in a week or
so. Personally I am not interested in women's rights or minority rights, I'll
just settle for treating everyone as if they had equal
rights.
Then we come to
the victim groups. While showing off your current wounds and old scars may
bring some temporary surcease, that isn't going to let you heal. It's not going
to make you a better person, and it certainly won't bring you closer to the
Divine. Using that logic, you might as well cut off your fingers and toes, or
your feet and hands. At some point, you'll run out of things to
sacrifice.
Either you
heal or you endure, but your pain doesn't grant you power over another. Pay
attention to that bit, it might be
important.
Modern
Pagans attract more than our fair share of the victims. I've learned that we do
them no favors by enabling their
victimhood.
Then we get
to the social groups. Again, they're important, but they aren't exactly Pagan.
And at this point, I
have to be honest. Even a few years back, I would have looked for one of these
groups, even as I told
myself I was looking for something
else. I wouldn't have been
honest with myself or others. And I suspect that most people would do the same.
There is another type
of group I haven't talked about yet, and that is the cult of personality.
Fortunately they're pretty easy to spot, so I don't have to go into
detail.
What does that
leave us?
Well, a Pagan
group is going to be about the gods and the
magick.
There's one
really big scary-ass implication
there.
Anyone who
really joins a Pagan group will do some growing
up.
It's all about the
transformation. Magick is the essence of change and evolution. Gods make you
stretch. The Story is not the
Journey.
The blade has
two edges.
You can't
touch others without being touched. You can't change the world without being
touched. The magick flows through you and shapes you as surely as it does the
universe. Just something to think about.
No
fortress No
armor Just
me and the
magick Of
Blade and
Shaft
My
SPEAR burns and
tears Yet
it only
reflects Flame
and Wind at my
core Drawn
from Earth and
Water Bound
in
Spirit
"Save
and protect us!" you
cry "May
I strike true!" says
me
Know
the
secret Attacking,
I am
attacked Wounding,
I am
wounded Sacrificing,
I am
sacrificed First
and Final Reflection
I like that piece, it's one of my more
striking ones. Pun intended.
Like I
said, I don't think that most of the groups are worth
it.
But then, I don't think that right
now I could do what a real Pagan group demands.
—
Posted: Tue - June 2, 2009 at 02:21 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
This isn't my complete library. Eventually I will have all my books online, but since there are several thousand and it takes time to enter the information, I haven't finished it yet.
If your web browser does not show one of these addresses, then this page being used without permission of the author.
Views expressed by NeoWayland are his own and do not represent any other enity. NeoWayland freely accepts individual and sole responsibility for his words and actions.