Time Flies

Today, four days after winter solstice, in the northeast, we have gained a whole minute in the length of the daylight hours. Between now and summer solstice we will gain two minutes a day, until on June 21 the day will have stretched out to 15 hours 17 minutes. It will stay there for several days:

The midsummer event actually extends from June 1 to June 26. Then it starts losing one minute a day and then two minutes a day.
What this tells us is that a minute is important, and that minutes add up. The day at midwinter is only 9 hours and 4 minutes: over 6 hours shorter than the day at midsummer. Mother Nature responds to this change in the length of daylight hours by giving us first the spring flowering and then the summer and autumn fruiting of the crops.
Changes in daylight also seem to change our personal outlook on the world. In midsummer everything is much brighter, corresponding to the longer daylight, rather than the drab, colorless, depressive outlook we experience at midwinter. Thus we have to admit that the time of year definitely affects our outlook, so that it is not surprising that babies born in the winter months have a different attitude to life than those born in spring and summer months.
You can help the winter children by making sure that the nursery is brightly painted in sunshiny colors of gold and palest yellow, and that there is adequate light for several extra hours in each 24-hour period.
Be aware of changes in the outlook of people around you; and be grateful that these outlooks will change as the seasons progress.
Blessed Be Gavin and Yvonne

Prediction-armagedon

Apparently the end of the fifth long-cycle Mayan calendar passed without even a whimper, let alone a bang. The question now becomes:


Does prediction work?

In the School of Wicca we have asked students to report psychic experiences; many such reports involve predictions. It is notable that the shorter-term (say, less than a year) seem to work better than longer-term predictions. We have begun to think that prediction is like a game of chess: You can see several moves ahead, but not too many. It may be that the Mayans saw ahead many thousands of years but then decided that their predictions would not be realizable after five cycles.

The longest-term and best prediction we know of is that of Mother Shipton, who foresaw such things as the motor-car, the submarine, and space travel, getting down to such details as the color of the astronauts' uniforms. Nostradamus is often quoted as being one of the best predictors of all time; but looking carefully at his rhymes, there are often many interpretations possible. Intentionally or not, he often used such ambiguities that his verses can be made to fit events in almost any decade since he fastened them down.

So if we give Mother Shipton and Nostradamus a thousand years and the Mayans 15 thousand, then to us it is not surprising that the winter solstice on the 21st went by without incident.

We were all packed, too. Shucks.

The Catastrophy at Newtown

The unthinkable act at Newtown, gunning down at least 20 innocent children and at least eight innocent adults, will cause the usual uproar and hanky-twisting about gun control. Perhaps a couple of new laws will be noisily enacted restricting the right of a few of the more obvious psychopaths to own guns. But history teaches us that anyone who wants a gun--especially in the United States--can get one.
There's another control method, though: one that works successfully in England. That is:
ammunition control. You cannot buy ammunition for revolvers or handguns without a permit. Even the parts and pieces necessary for reloading require permits. If ammunition control were to go into effect in the United States today, then gradually the existing ammunition would be used up and gun control would become effectively unnecessary. Even St. Billy Graham might start sleeping without a gun within hand's reach. If we then pushed neighboring nations to enact similar legislation, we would overcome the massacres that occur continually in Mexico, and would even reduce Canada's gun murder rate, already low.
The firearm murder rate in the United States is twenty-two (22) times the rate in England.
It has been said that it's an attitude to violence that causes the statistics to be so different between England and the United States; however, statistics show that violence is just as prevalent in England as it is in the United States. The big difference is the firearm murder rate. The Brits see the same violent TV shows that we see; and many of us have historical family roots in England, so it's not a matter of DNA. The big difference is the availability of ammunition. You can't fire a gun without a shell. So let's push for immediate control of ammunition; what do you say?
Then the gun advocates can fondle their trophy weapons all day long, but they'll be inoperative. Viagra, anyone?

We are Back

Gavin writes: Hi, guys and gals. We're back. I am sufficiently recovered from a series of six operations ... or was it seven? ... to be able to promise that we'll be blogging on a regular basis again. Right now I'm off on one of my favorite rants, having just watched the latest trash on Stonehenge. (You should know that many years ago I worked in the neighborhood of Stonehenge at the British Army's missile range on Salisbury Plain. The soil there is a thin layer of humus covering the chalk. The army found that even driving a tracked vehicle across it would churn up the surface.)

We have watched with dismayed amazement as the various "highly intelligent, expert" archaeologists tried to figure out how the early peoples moved the stones.
To us it's extremely simple. If you look at the thermoclines, you will see that in the period when Stonehenge was built, temperatures in winter were just a trifle colder--perhaps 1 degree--than in the present day. In wintertime the ground on Salisbury Plain gets frozen hard.
We have suggested for many years that the way to move rocks is to slide them on ice: Throw down some water overnight. Let it freeze. Slide your stones.
Anyway, the archaeologists will continue to come up with fanciful explanations and methodologies. Students will grub around and find new artifacts. Let's let 'em have their fun.
On another subject, which similarly seems to us to be self-evident: When we first founded the School, we had many many newcomers seeking information. There were very few books from which they could get "odd" (make that deviant or unconventional) notions. Thus we were able to have them experiment with such things as the size of sacred circles and the best materials with which to cast those circles. It turned out that there was a connection between the size of modern circles and the ancient stone circles, and that electrically conducting materials made more effective circles than non-conductors. Yet today's self-styled Witches constantly ignore this research and go their happy ways casting imaginary circles with beautifully wrought swords--which are in and of themselves magnetic and thus disturb any psychic phenomena. As with the archaeologists, we're going to let them go their happy ways. We won't tell them that more experiments are now being done using ellipses instead of circles. An ellipse does have two focal points, and careful measurement of the old stone circles shows that they were all "squashed": more like an ellipse than like a circle.

Okay. Gavin's rants are done for today. Here comes Yvonne's. Blessed be all.

Yvonne writes:
Because of the kindness and generosity of a friend, I've been able now to read a book recommended in Free Inquiry, the magazine of the Council for Secular Humanism at the Center for Inquiry: freeinquiry@secularhumanism.org, http://www.secularhumanism.org The book itself? Bothwell's Prince of War. Pick it up yourself ... if you've got a strong stomach. If you're a recovering Christian, as I am, you have probably heard the term whited sepulchre: a tomb or crypt whitewashed on the outside, containing rotting corpses. The phrase doesn't even hint at the life-long behavior patterns exhibited by Saint Billy Graham of the Southern Baptist Convention and described with fully documented backup in Bothwell's book. You'd better have lots of aspirin handy when you pick the thing up.
It documents insistent behavior that I think of as a song: "Brown Noses at the White House" and lots more. War-mongering is only one expression of the sainted mindset. I recommend the book as a glimpse at the dark side of Christianity--which we all know exists. But again: You'd better have a strong stomach.

WICCA

While Gavin has been in hospital several people have left questions on our blogsite regarding the meaning of Wicca; as a specific example, What is Wicca? How can it help me?

We have written nearly thirty books on this and associated subjects, so it is not possible to describe what Wicca is within the confines of a single blog. Instead, we recommend that you look at our website and perhaps read some of our many books. What we can say briefly is this:
Wicca is a spiritual path based on ancient ways of thought linked to nature and to the passage of the year. Its very essence is freedom: freedom to believe in and to revere any form of deity that you wish, and within that freedom to have your own construct of such a deity. (An aside here, and an important one: Wicca has nothing whatsoever to do with any of the abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Instead its roots as we know them are based in early Celtic beliefs.)
You can also believe in evolution and perhaps in an original creation, not the sudden creation of the whole universe that later evolved into the universe as we know it today. In having this freedom to believe and to worship as you wish, you must give others the same privilege. The fact that someone believes firmly in an interventionist deity like Jehovah or the Prophet, does not mean that such a believer is a bad, worthless person.
That freedom extends to such matters as sexual freedom. Almost every week we see accounts of terrible men breaking their marriage vows and if not divorcing, then actually murdering their present spouse so that they can be with a new inamorata. Of course this is absolute stupidity: a natural result, perhaps, of rules--"commandments"--designed to further the Eternal Trinity of guilt, shame, and fear. Ask yourself: Who stands to gain from those commandments? Either you are free, or you are going to abide by the group of ancient rules made by old men in countries far, far away: old men of nomadic sheep-herding tribes who used the same harsh guidelines to bully their women as they did their sheep.
Wicca allows you to be free. You might ask then, "Why get married in the first place?" The answer usually is "for the protection of the offspring." Even those cruel men know enough to make the "right" noises, whether or not they have sufficient testosterone to apply them to their own behavior. In a society that is genuinely free, the offspring should naturally be protected by a set of laws that govern the responsibility of parents, not by a set of laws that requires two people to live out their lives in disharmony. And further: In a society that is genuinely free, contraception is readily available at low or no cost. Every child born is a wanted child.
Wicca is the very essence of freedom. To learn its ways and to abide by its precepts, you need remember only

If it harm none, do what you will

--and the none, we hasten to add, includes yourself.

Gavin's Health

Gavin's Health


Hi, guys and gals. One more time Gavin is home from the hospital, and soon the School will be back up to speed. We apologize to those of you who have been delayed in receiving your lectures or other material from the School. We hope now that Gavin will be fully cured, but the last time he came home just meant that he had to go back in a month later. The experts still don't seem able to figure out exactly what the bug is that's resident in his belly. Nonetheless, antibiotics are being prescribed and we hope he will soon be full of vim and vigor again.
We're planning to go to FPG (Florida Pagan Gathering, the weekend when April turns to May) to their Beltane Bash and of course to Sirius Rising and SummerFest at Brushwood (New York state) in mid- to late-July.

Apart from that, the garden here at home is a mess and we're gradually resuming our life.

Blessed be all. Keep sending good thoughts. GY

roddenberry

roddenberry and Wallace

Brushwood and Church stuff

Okay, we're home. We're trying to catch up on the mail, and by gosh we have everything out except a couple of certificates. They will go out in a few days.

Last year we missed Brushwood altogether because of Gavin's health. But during our time there this year we made some tentative Church decisions:
1. To issue another church charter
2. To move the annual general meeting of the Church in the future to probably the Wednesday of the Sirius Rising festival.
We want to invite all the old Church trustees, plus the trustees of the churches that were members / charter holders but which have gotten their own church charters, which churches we have lost track of. Anyone and everyone who was associated with the Church of Wicca in earlier days is more than welcome to attend. There are faces we'd love to see again, and people with whom we'd love to update ... and compare the cape-and-tights grandchildren we're all so proud of.
Yes, we know it will cost you money to pay Brushwood's entrance and/or camping fees; but it's a great festival anyway, even if the reunion turns out to be a disappointment ... This year there were 1,600 happy frolicking pagans on site. The bonfires were as spectacular as usual and the musical groups were exceptional. You can soon check out pictures and next year's tentative program at
brushwood.com . We'd love to see you all there. Blessed be! Gavin and Yvonne

roddenberry

Hi, readers of this site. Yvonne has a query concerning a strong and ongoing personal interest of hers. It concerns
For many years she has felt that Alfred Russel Wallace has been undeservedly overlooked (indeed, declared a non-person). Here's why. Dr. Wallace was a naturalist--but a middle-class individual without Charles Darwin's upper-class status. His work in that field led him (Wallace) to develop the theory of survival of the fittest and natural selection. He wrote to Darwin outlining this idea; and, to put it bluntly, Darwin usurped the idea and claimed it as his own. After all, a middle-class naturalist couldn't possibly have a better idea than an upper-class one.
What Yvonne is interested in is this: How did Roddenberry know of Wallace? In an episode involving a holodeck experience of a 19th-century reception, why did he have Samuel Clemens/ Mark Twain repeatedly mention Wallace so forcibly? Did Roddenberry share Wallace's--and

Arthur Conan Doyle's--belief in spiritualism (spiritism)? Did Clemens share it?

Going to Brushwood

Hi, readers of this site, and merry meet!


It's a sign that Gavin is getting better: We're off to Sirius Rising and SummerFest at Brushwood Folklore Center, setting off on Sunday July 15 and driving gently northward. Of course this means that the School's mail will be a little bit delayed, though not so much as it has been a couple of times during the worst of Gavin's health problems. We'll get it all back on schedule as soon as we can. Don't go away; don't lose hope. We're still here.

We'd love to see some of you troops there. Oops--not just some of you, but any or all of you. Save mid-July 2013 for what can be a life-changing experience. See

www.brushwood.com

to get precise dates and all the particulars. Blessed be all. Gavin and Yvonne

We's Back

We's okay. Yes, our power went out, but it's back on now: It came on after three (3) days. We've had similar power outages before. Living in the mountains in a place of reasonably severe winters gives you this natural experience on a fairly frequently basis. On reflection, it seems that that the pattern is once every two years or so.

This time it was more interesting than most because it was so unexpected. A minor summer thunderstorm abruptly turned into a series of microburst tornadoes that swept across the northern part of the country from somewhere around the Chicago area and left four million people in the dark ... during a persistent heat wave. A large number of those people also didn't have water because our water supply depends on electric pumps. Of course the gas stations get pumped dry first thing, and ice becomes a commodity as rare as gold nuggets. The battery-powered radio worked well enough in our house, so that we could pick up all the tales of disaster from local towns, although interestingly, none from our own; mainly because the telephones, both landline and cell, went down.
Still, it gave us a chance to meditate on how lucky we are having lost only one piece of siding from the house, whereas a local church lost half its roof--just peeled off. An act of "God"? Or maybe of a malicious demon? We heard no one gasping, "Thank you, Lord!" or "Hosanna!" Still, as the pastor told everyone, "We're well insured." Rather he seemed to have a "What? Me worry?" attitude like that of Alfred E. Neuman. They hadn't bothered even to haul tarps over the exposed roof to prevent further damage.

Thinking outside the box

When most of us were children, or even not yet born, a man named Hubble found that distant stars had what is called red shift in the light that we on earth received from them. The red shift is caused by something called the doppler effect: The motion of bodies moving away from us stretches the light waves that reach us, just as a passing train's whistle seems to change pitch as it rushes away from us. This great discovery of Hubble's led to the whole notion of an expanding universe and then to the origins of the universe at the Big Bang.
But what if Hubble was wrong? Of course this very idea is like ranting against apple pie and motherhood: no one in the scientific community is likely to support the idea that there is another way of thinking about red shift.
Mainly through meditation, we Frosts have received an alternate possibility. It is what we call tired light.
Today there is consensus that a large part of the energy in the multiverse is made up of dark matter. We have no idea what dark matter is; but we do know that it acts like a fog, obscuring distant stars. So now let's imagine that the light coming toward us across the vast distances in the galaxy travels through dark matter--as it does--and that the dark matter absorbs some of the energy from the light. So far so good? Just as in the case of the doppler effect, absorbing energy from the light causes a red shift. The further the light from a distant star has to travel, the more dark matter it has to push through. Thus distant stars would appear to be moving away from us faster than stars closer to us would appear to be doing.
This simple explanation of the red shift phenomenon obviates the necessity for the much-admired Big Bang theory. It is simple; it is elementary. Having lived in foggye olde England, I (Gavin) know that a car's headlights shift into the more-yellow range when viewed through fog. Why then wouldn't light shift more into the red range when some of its energy is absorbed by the elusive dark matter?

Tired light? Remember that phrase. You heard it first from (shudder) those people, the Frosts.

Spiritual versus Mundane Energy

I am only one--but still, I am one.
I cannot do everything--but still I can do something.
And because I cannot do everything,
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
-- Edward Everett Hale

Mountain-top removal is the practice of Big Coal in West Virginia of dynamiting whole mountains, destroying them, and throwing the loosened soil and rock (the "overburden") into the nearest stream, killing the stream itself and all flora and all fauna supported by it.
So the other day some friends of ours went to a rally protesting the practice of mountain-top removal. They told us that the festivities started off with a sincere prayer to Jesus. At a pagan meet a week earlier, we ourselves had joined hands, chanted, and raised energy to protect the earth from the devastation caused by the coal companies ("operators"). Whether or not either procedure did anything, in both cases they helped the participants by letting them feel that they were actually doing something to save the mountains.
The question is: Were they? A secondary question might be: Which procedure would produce more results?
Through countless experiments we know that people have power. Probably the most famous work is the Russian research (see Psychic Discoveries behind the Iron Curtain) in which the (female) lab workers actually moved 2-kg blocks across the surface of the test table, using only mind power. So if you gather together a bunch of people and get them all concentrating on the same idea, surely their combined force must have some effect. We think this is especially workable if the force is used in an effort to change the minds of politicians and mine owners.
Now let's think about the possibilities of Jesus-power. We Frosts share a belief of classic Hinduism; namely, that transcendent deities (no matter what their names) have no power to operate on the earth-plane. However, if people continually put their own energy into a visualization of a god (no matter what its name), then that energy must be going somewhere.
Thus we might say that people who for centuries have prayed to Jesus have caused a pool of energy to exist called "Jesus". Of course this assumes that the energy of those worshipping exceeds the amount of energy extracted by those praying for help. The energy that is stored in this pool is mundane energy. It is put in by people using their own mundane energy in their worship. Because it is the same energy as the energy developed in the Wiccan circle, when that local group prays to Jesus to stop mountain-top removal, some of the stored energy (both ancient and modern) might serve to get the result they're aiming for.
Many years ago Isaac Bonewits came up with the idea of the bank account in Mount Olympus Savings and Loan. Each deity that has been worshipped has power stored in its specific savings account; and if you can locate that account (make out a withdrawal slip/prayer request), the power in the account can be used to make things happen on the earth-plane.
Therefore it matters not which system you use: Similar results should obtain.

Meditation is Easy

Too many people make too big a production of meditation. The key thing is to find somewhere quiet and peaceful, and become quiet and peaceful yourself. If some question or thought is bugging you, you will find it extremely difficult to get a meditative answer because the fact that something is bugging you takes you out of the flatlined, serene state that allows the mind to drift free.

Q: What do you mean, flatlined state?

A: If you were to go to the doctor's office and get hooked into one of the machines that monitors your body functions, then in the state we're striving for, the readout would be essentially a flat line.

Any repetitive task that doesn't involve sudden, abrupt surprises will do. Washing dishes at a sinkful of nice warm sudsy water is ideal, provided the dishes aren't too fragile and you don't have to take too much care or worry about breaking something. Somehow having water present and involved helps meditation along. It may be that the fact of our origin in the sea ourselves so long ago in what is surely the most natural of environments, the contact with warm liquids, gets us back to a time when our problems were of an entirely different sort.
Today there are so many things that cause us stress that simply getting into the meditative state is a challenge. We have probably mentioned before our favorite mnemonic, HARP: These letters represent four words that will help you proactively limit stress.
The H stands for Humor. If you can laugh at yourself or at a situation, the stress will be removed from it.
The A stands for Avoidance. Why do you have to continually put yourself back into stressful situations when they could be avoided? Why do you always drive to work at the same time over the same route? Why not try a time when there won't be a traffic jam? Why get into a fight with a loved one or a child over things that in a few weeks' time will seem so unimportant? Just refuse to get into the fight. Just refuse to drive when you know traffic will be jammed.
The R stands for Renaming. Right now summer is starting. It's @#$* hot downtown--but it sure is pleasant at the beach. So instead of thinking what a lousy hot day it is, think of how pleasant it would be on the beach.
Finally the P stands for Place. This is a tricky one. What you need to do is try to remove yourself from the place you're in and put yourself into a pleasant environment: a safe environment. We often go through a little meditative exercise with our students. We ask them to invent a safe place: safe and pleasant and secret, one that they can keep in their mind and revisit when a situation seems to be getting out of hand.

To enhance further your ability to meditate, a glass of red wine and a chunk of dark chocolate just before starting adjust the body's endorphines so that meditation comes more easily. Of course, being "those people" (oh gasp), we also recomment an orgasm or maybe two before starting. Yes, we've said it all before and you'll hear us say it again; but meditating isn't difficult. It just takes a little time and patience.

To Pray or Meditate

It seems to us that people pray too much. All they're doing is asking some unknown deity / juju to help them with a mundane problem--not a spiritual problem but a mundane one. It reminds us of the sticky-faced kid sitting on Santa's lap in the mall concourse asking for expensive Christmas presents. Meditation, on the other hand, is listening, both to your inner self and for spiritual guidance in your problems.

In days gone by when Grandpa followed the plow and Mother did the laundry by hand on a scrubboard, they spent time with their hands busy and their minds open to receive information. This is the ideal of meditation. You have probably heard that you must sit in a certain fashion with a white robe of unbleached fabric and say certain mantras or yantras to release the mind from daily cares. Most of this is pure blah-blah (for want of a ruder term) window dressing. Yes, we teach meditation; but it is extremely elementary and certainly free from esoteric hoodoo. The only thing that sometimes worries us is that people do not do any protective measures, just to be sure that no naughty occult practitioner is playing games and sending bad vibes or entities against you ... and knows enough about such things to be effective. ("Psychic attack! Psychic attack! Squawk! I'm under psychic attack! Oh gasp.")

But once you have established a connection with the Beyond, connecting to the entity we call a Guide, such protective measures become less essential. All you need to do is sit down quietly and wait for answers to come to the questions you may have. We recommend doing it always at the same time every day, when the sun is below the horizon. We also recommend that you take a drink of red wine and perhaps eat a piece of dark chocolate to adjust your endorphines so that your body will be more relaxed. Another way of relaxing the body, of course, is to have a good strong orgasm a few moments before going into meditation. Perhaps you might want to think of meditation and prayer as the two sides of a coin. The prayer is the asking; meditation is the receiving. What is the good of asking if you never bother to wait and listen for a reply?

Everyone Get Up and Come

It's time to get Gavin out of the house and back onto the road ... after fourteen months of dealing with old back injuries and the health insults resulting therefrom. Sitting around in pain is no fun, and traveling probably won't be any day at the beach either. However, we're going to try.

The first trip we foresee is to a dual festival: one site, two events back to back. The festivals? Sirius Rising and SummerFest at Brushwood Folklore Center near Sherman, New York, just east of Erie PA. This is a wonderful site of over 400 acres that will hold up to 1,000 happy campers and Witches and pagans, not to mention others of diverse spiritualities. Large parts of the grounds are clothing-optional. There will be excellent lectures, of which Gavin and Yvonne (probably attired) will give eight (8).

And you are invited to come and meet with them, because seriously: this may be the last time they'll be traveling. On the other hand, we hope it is the first time of a new series of travels, though this, candidly, we doubt. All that is in the hands of the Elder Ones.

What can we say? Sirius Rising kicks off on July 16; SummerFest begins on July 23. If you stay through SummerFest it will end on July 29. Find details of the whole thing at

Brushwood.com

We recommend that you book early--and arrive early too so you can claim a good campsite, either in the woods or on the field. Of course there will be hundreds of vendors there as well, selling everything from clothing to mead, from sculpture to violins and books. We expect everyone to have a wonderful time.

Accepting all Pantheons or None

When we first put together our course on Witchcraft in 1968, we recommended that students of the course select a pantheon of deities relevant to their individual background. Many modern Witches choose to revere the various Celtic gods and goddesses; other Witches choose other pantheons. We have also recommended that people who are into Christianity can use Father/Son/Holy Ghost or Mary as their pantheon. A surprising number of circles use Mary. It is simply amazing to realize that over 90 percent of the churches and cathedrals of old Europe are dedicated to her. Open-minded theologians surmise that Mary is just the most recent name for the Mother who has been worshiped for untold centuries--She of many, many names.

In the cultural matrix where we westerners find ourselves, Christianity is the default religion. Still today many people don't dream that another system exists with a whole other nomenclature.
Within the modern Witch/pagan subculture there is a high resistance to use of the Christian pantheon in rituals. Can we not accept these people as true seekers, even though they use the default nomenclature--and can we perhaps also accept Witches who have a view of the world slightly different from our own? In general they are just as eco-friendly as any modern Witch. It is only when they are attacked on the truthfulness of their holy book that they distinguish themselves from the Witches, who in general are willing to discuss and perhaps compare their pantheons and ways of worship.
It is this very closed-mindedness that separates many Witches from the mainstream. Guys and gals, we wish you'd give it up. The problem, you see, is that when anyone defends a specific pantheon and excludes all other possibilities, they become divisive. We find many modern Witches are equally divisive in the defense of their own specific pantheon. Can we not take what is good from everybody's practice and if we like it use it, disregarding the parts that we don't like? Your pantheon is necessarily as personal as your toothbrush. That fact can (and should) go a long way toward smoothing out jealous differences.
Remember that, after all, some of us have little or no use for named pantheons of deities. Such pantheons are merely the names of tribal heroes and heroines that have been passed down to us. Yes, you can call on the great goddess Gaea to help with your growing crops; but equally you can get out into the yard and put up a hex sign that might encourage the plants themselves to grow. Or you can do a chant with the same intent in mind. Such an act need involve no third party at all.
In India for centuries this acceptance of the good and rejection of things which are not liked by a specific group has worked successfully. You can go to festivals that honor many different gods and goddesses--yes, including even the Christian pantheon--and everybody gets along happily. We, Gavin and Yvonne, know full well that many people totally reject our own magical practice and the precepts that we espouse--yet thousands of others find within them truth and strength.

Tell us, dear Reader, either how we can improve our ways or how we can convince others that we are not dogmatic divisive dictators.



.

Not in your DNA

One of the most frequently asked questions we get at the School, whether from Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, or Muslims, is whether people of other religions can be Wiccan. The simplistic answer is "no". Someone who is an active practitioner in the precepts of Christianity and its avatar Jesus, for example, will have difficulty in adjusting to a system of multiple gods and goddesses. Ruthlessly simplified, this might be expressed as either/or. If you are a classic Hindu, you might be able to adjust more easily because in Hinduism revering multiple different deities is not only accepted; it is approved. Unfortunately, in recent years much of Hinduism has become mired in the same monotheistic thinking and petrified mindset that we find in Christianity and in Islam.
Thus within Hinduism, for example, we are now finding groups of Shivites who firmly believe that Shiva is the one and only true god. Conversely, we are finding that out there in the big wide world many people who profess themselves to be Christian are willing to discuss the idea that perhaps there are other god and goddess forces working in the world "outside Christ".
For many years we have deliberately avoided accepting those people who, it seemed to us, were too rigid in their theology to make good Wiccans. Not only in their theology, we hasten to add, but also in their lifestyle. All too often a rigid philosophy leads to a rigid attitude to life. This means that many people cannot enjoy the many-splendored thing we call life without feeling guilty or without rejecting happiness and pleasure as "sins" of the flesh. Of course you can examine (for example) Wicca without ever practicing it, as you might study high-school cheerleaders without ever leading a cheer.
Let us now imagine someone who gives lip service to a religion other than Wicca but who in fact is more than willing to revere many different gods and goddesses and willing to enjoy the pleasures that life offers them without feeling sinful. We believe now is the time for us to appeal to this huge volume of people who are searching. They are not going to throw off the shackles of the default religion inflicted on them during their early training until they realize that over the horizon there is something vastly better available to them, available just for the taking.
The Church and School of Wicca offers such an alternative path. If you are not rigidly committed to a single god or goddess concept, and can make your own moral/ethical judgments, it is time for you to think about investigating Wicca. Certainly without any danger you can investigate it. It's not contagious. As a federal judge declared, it is a genuine religion deserving of all the rights and duties of any other religion.
Despite all the wonderful research being done on DNA, no one has yet found a gene for Hinduism, for Christianity, for Islam, or for any other religion. All of the above are (for want of a better word) culturally inflicted.

Mountaimtop Removal

It's 10 p.m. and the stars are out, and we're just about ready to meditate again. It's another beautiful night in beautiful West Virginia. I hear the train whistle that sounds about the same time every evening and several times during the night, signaling that another 100,000 tons of West Virginia mountaintop coal is being shipped to Norfolk, Virginia, for an overseas destination to power either European or Chinese steel-making plants. For the West Virginia coal being exported is of high quality: it is called mechanic quality, so pure that it is bid for around the world.
This afternoon we drove to our local state park, where we like to swim. Right now the countryside is purely beautiful. Spring has sprung and everything is green and lush. The deer have retired to the forest to hide out until winter; yet we can imagine them cropping the grass. We are truly fortunate in that we live in a part of the state which is based on limestone, so we don't have to fear the endangerment of our local streams with coal-mine fill (the "overburden") and we don't have to worry about monster machines stripping away the beauty and turning the local area into a moonscape--such a moonscape as we can see only 20 miles away over the mountain in the next county to the west.
When you hear someone urging support for the EPA and protection of our landscape, come here and see within an hour's drive what happens when the EPA's regulations are flouted and the coal companies bribe state and local officials to allow mountain-top removal.
The resulting pollution of air and water is creating tumors and fatal illnesses not just in the deer and the birds and the fish; human beings are falling prey to toxins released into the environment in the interest of coal-company profits. Those profits amount to sums that can buy nearly any elected official and any judge. Proud to be tax-payers? You bet we are.

Nation in crisis

Okay. So this nation's elected President has said he favors same-sex marriage. Oh, the spasms of squealing and gasping and sanctimonious whining at the thought! Oh, the posturing and the elbowing for camera angle, each poseur claiming, "I'm more outraged than he is! Vote for me, and I'll turn the U.S. into a theocracy for sure!"
What the heck, people? Optional is not mandatory. If there's a pizza restaurant out at the edge of town, and you don't like pizza, don't patronize the place. How complicated is that?
If you don't think same-sex marriage is a good idea, don't enter into one. If you think this nation is going straight to hell for having SSM available, tell it to your god. Sure, the nation is going to hell--but not because of SSM. Just look at what Congress is doing and has done; then make sure your passport is up to date.
Do you remember from your study of the Revolutionary War the anger summarized in the phrase.
                                                      Taxation without representation

It kicked off the Boston Tea Party and the revolution itself.

So today, if gay people pay taxes, surely they deserve the same freedom of choice, the same representation as the "straights" do ... or am I wrong?

How Might a Rational, Responsible Adult Behave?

In all the to-ing and fro-ing and hanky-twisting over Obamacare and related topics ("Who's going to pay for what?" "Where's the money going to come from?") there's a deafening silence on the single topic that nobody--nobody--dares address; to wit,

"What are the responsibilities of the ultimate benefactee--the patient?"

I see people stuffing their faces--voluntarily, mind you--with all manner of toxic edibles and high-fructose corn syrup and factory meats, on the arrogant assumption that might be expressed this way:

"I'm entitled. I'm entitled to gorge my gut with these alleged foodstuffs. I'm entitled to break all my bones repeatedly in daredevil ‘sports'. I'm entitled to stay up all night in mindless partying. I'm entitled to abuse the body in all its parts in every way I can think of, thumbing my nose at sensible behavior, debauching it in a quest to contract the venereal disease du jour, disregarding every known fact about sensible, health-promoting nutrition. And I'm entitled to do all this at somebody else's expense. Then once I'm healed, I'm entitled to walk out the door of the hospital and start the same kind of behavior all over again."

In all the millions and billions and trillions of dollars pouring down the drain for medical care, I'm fool enough to believe that I bear some microscopic responsibility for my own state of health; that I owe it to myself and to the generations of my descendants who will still be paying for my recklessness in health matters to behave in an adult and responsible manner with regard to my health. Am I all alone here? Does any other being feel as I do: that we have a share in our own health outcomes? Let me hear from you.

Blessed Be. Yvonne

Health Update April/may

Greetings, Friends and Affiliates.

It's been a long time, and we've been busy trying to keep up with everything. Now after several visits to assorted medical people in Hinton, Princeton, and Charleston (some of them two hours' drive away), Gavin has gone back into hospital to have a cyst in his abdomen drained. (Keep your sense of adventure here, friends. You'll need it.) The thing formed after his 12-hour surgery in November, so now he is at home toting a drain bag with him. He is to measure the fluid drained off, and return to Charleston for inspection next Wednesday--a fine start for the merry month of May. We are hoping that the relevant physician will be satisfied to authorize removal of the drain.

The drained fluid shows no infection and no symptom suggesting cancer.* Two of us at least are quietly jubilant at both these facts. It seems too that the procedure has reduced the pressure and thus the intractable pain in his back and abdomen; so you can expect to see us at SummerFest and Sirius Rising in mid-July in Sherman NY. With Yvonne's support we'll see how many we can offend at one sitting.

This year we will go back into history some little way to look at ancient beliefs and rituals from the Indus Valley civilization and the Aryans which are the roots of present-day Wicca. As many of you know, part of the School of Wicca's course requires that students study Hinduism.

The reason for that became increasingly clear as we looked at where the founders of the various Wiccan/Witch movements came from in the mid-1800s. Without exception, all relied on the East for the basis of their paths. So we hope to see you there and we hope for some lively discussions.

Lady Rae Blackhood, whom many of you know, has also tentatively agreed to go to Sirius Rising and Summerfest. Not only is she a good speaker; she can also bring expertise gained in a lifetime of nursing to Gavin's aid in case he needs to deal with health problems.

Be strong. Live sensibly. The longer your lifespan, the more noses you can rub in the (unwelcome to conventional thinkers) successful life you're demonstrating.

Gavin and Yvonne

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* Yvonne traces the no-cancer life we two have enjoyed so far to the Edgar Cayce suggestion: eat three raw almonds every day. Remember when everyone with cancer was making pilgrimage to Mexico to get treated with laetrile? Okay. Laetrile derives from apricot seeds. Botanists know that apricots and almonds are very closely related. I rest my case. The best aspect of it all is: Optional is not mandatory.

Magical Determinism

a blog titled Magical Determinism drafted 03 14 12, posted ___________



Determinism - the philosophical doctrine that every state of affairs, including every human event, act, and decision, is the inevitable consequence of antecedent states of affairs.

In the past few years determinism has manifested itself in various disciplines. The most recent of such disciplines may be subatomic physics. Determinism postulates that the thing you are today and the things you do today have already been determined by past actions and events. In physics this serves to define the expected results of any experiment: "What can we validly expect? What would it be rational to expect, given past actions and their effects?" It can be seen that in most cases it works at the macro level--but the question of whether it works at the micro level is really open. We get into abstract ideas such as chaos theory and probability.
In the magical field the question is whether determinism works to affect the results / outcome of a magical action. If you have done, let us say, a money magic and it has worked perfectly, will it work again? Most magicians will tell you that there is no sure way of guaranteeing that the same results will accrue from the same actions. This seems to indicate, then, that in the magical field determinism does not apply.
We hate to think that their attitude is sloppy or lazy ...
The opposing view is that on the second occasion of trying the "same" magic, something very slightly different was done: a minute change was made in the procedure, and the variation resulted in a different outcome. That is why many traditions require that rituals be followed to the last detail. Even pausing as for a period instead of for a comma in an affirmation can make all the difference between success and "failure", they say. When you have a procedure that works, you must record that procedure in the minutest detail. Example: What was the phase of the moon? What was the ambient air pressure as read by meteorologists at the very hour of the Working? How long had it been since the worker(s) had gotten laid? Did you blink in the middle of it?
Then try it again.
In the early days of the Church and School of Wicca, a large number of our neophyte students had never read outside books on ritual procedure, let alone tried such procedures themselves. That student body was international in scope. Today, in vivid contrast, we see people writing rituals and doing all sorts of unusual procedures in attempts to influence the future. Most of their efforts seem foredoomed to failure.
We encourage you therefore to think about determinism. If determinism is to be taken as a Law, you should obey that law. (That is called rational behavior.) If determinism is just claptrap, go right ahead and wing it. Do what you will--though still harming none, of course. The Church and School of Wicca believes that determinism is real and is valid, since it has been applied to so many disciplines and proven true.

Body and Spirit

For many years we Frosts have taught pro-active stress relief--the means to avoid getting sick from being chronically over-stressed. The technique is simple: you take steps before the stressing event happens to alleviate the response (also sometimes call the fight-or-flight response). In today's world we continually stress ourselves through physical or social stressors that we might just as easily avoid. A very common example? Traveling to work at the same old time every day over the same old route and getting caught in the same old traffic jam. A change of time or of route will eliminate this source of stress.

There are many other situations in which you can easily avoid going into stress. One of the areas that causes most stress--yet scarcely recognized--is the alleged conflict between our spiritual self and our physical/temporal body. The spiritual part of our being wants to do such things as meditate, or give a donation to the local hospice, which our mundane side says are ridiculous or something we can't afford. This means that you generate an internal stress between the two parts of yourself. When you put together your life plan for the next few months, you need to balance these two demands on yourself. Figure out a way to make the demands compatible with each other. When they conflict, you open yourself to all those diseases which are conditions to be avoided. Just as life partners ideally work together hand in hand to form a pleasant life, so the parts of your psyche need to be balanced and to work together so that you can proceed in an equitable fashion into the future.
You've been told that the spirit and the body have different agendas and cannot work together: that they conflict. That idea has served for centuries to control your actions--yet it simply isn't true. The parts of your being can work together. In fact, the truth is this: They complement each other. Each does functions that the other cannot do.
Don't believe these accusing claims fed to you as facts-that-must-be-followed. Always ask yourself: Who gains by telling me that my spiritual side and my physical side are irrevocably at war with each other?
Think about it. It's a ploy that many institutions use to gain control of you through guilt.
1. set up the guilt, as the stick. Then 2. promise relief, through donations or whatever means, as the carrot.

You will very quickly find that when you get your body and your spirit working together, life becomes pleasant and easier.

Progress Report

At long last Gavin is beginning to recover. The office is back on schedule, more or less, after a health caper that started in April 2011. We have to thank the students who have been so patient with us. We can assure you now that, provided there are no more glitches in his health situation, things will be A-Okay. So okay, in fact, that the Frosts are tentatively planning to attend Sirius Rising and SummerFest at Brushwood east of Erie PA in mid-July.

Next year (2013) we will probably be back at Florida Pagan Gathering (FPG) for Beltane. This assumes that their invitation stands, of course ...

We don't expect to be dancing, although Gavin has been practicing a few steps with his physical trainer under Yvonne's careful supervision.
 
We want to thank everyone for their support and the enegy they sent.
Blessed Be  all Gavi and Yvonne

Progress Report

Greetings, one and all. This is an update on (a) Gavin's state of health and (b) the School of Wicca and its status. First the School of Wicca.

We are gradually getting the School's incoming mail back into a current status. Please be patient with us. We expect everything to be up to date by February 1 or thereabouts. The forecast is complicated by the fact that the city of Hinton wants to buy the School's building, so we will be moving its offices to an old house further along Temple Street. When your name is Frost, nothing is simple or straightforward.
The post-office box number will not change.
This year we hope to be able to attend at least Sirius Rising and SummerFest, and maybe in the autumn we will get to FPG, an observance of the Temple of Earth Gathering in Florida. Much depends on Gavin's strength as it returns incrementally day by day. To our very deep regret, Kaleidoscope Gathering is probably beyond our present abilities.
On the health front, Gavin has one more surgery scheduled for the end of January, to fix the ever- present threat of maturing men, kidney stones. Apparently the back surgery (three sessions so far) has gone very well and the rods and screws of October are in place to keep the spine in line and to reduce the pain. He is now walking part-time on a cane, gradually weaning himself from the walking frame as his strength returns, aided by a crew of physical therapists. This last operation is scheduled for the end of January and is not supposed to be life-threatening, although it counts as the fifth in a series since April and each one seems to knock him back further. For the procedure in October, he was on the table for twelve (12) hours. Still, at 81, what can you expect?
We look forward to brighter days ahead, as long as we do our share of the physical work.
An inexpressible debt of gratitude is owed to everyone who has been sending thoughts of healing and strength in our direction. Don't stop now.

To each one who has thought of us, Blessed be, and thank you again. Gavin and Yvonne