It has been said that Jews and Witches hid out together during the Burning Times. In those dark hours they shared information that the dominator combination of church and state had officially forbidden. Here you have the root cause of the high interest in Qabalah(1) and in "high" magic found in many Wiccan groups. Traditionally such groups have used the affirmation
Ateh Malkuth Yours are the kingdom
Ve Geburah, Ve Gedullah, and the power and the glory
Le Olam. Amen. forever. Amen.
To us this felt chauvinistic, though some of our friends insist it is equally applicable to the female side of the Life Force. Thus for the feminist Wiccans (and for herself) Yvonne created this equal-opportunity affirmation.
Lady Queen, Lady Queen, Lady Queen, (2)
Shining Maiden, strong Woman, wise Crone:
Yours are dominion, power, glory. (3)
Yours are grace, nurturing, justice. (4)
Thus it is. Thus let it ever be.
You may be interested to know that in our personal life we also use a dawn affirmation of gratitude : gratitude for all the good things that came to us in the previous day and gratitude that we are alive and living today.
We are grateful for yesterday. We are grateful for today.
We honor all the things that make our life possible and pleasant.
So let it be.
Notice here we use "So let it be", in contrast to the more popular "So mote it be". This latter expression again is a dominator way of thinking and speaking. We who have thought through some of the traditions know that it might be just as well not to tell the gods or the Elder Ones arrogantly, "It must be this way" or to demand that the coming day meet our specification.
Use what you like from the ideas above. If you think they stink, suggest something better.
Blessed be those who live mindfully. Gavin and Yvonne
- - - - - - - - -
(1) Choose your favorite spelling from among the many variations on the theme.
(2) Because She is three.
(3) Fair enough, but there's another whole half of the Life Force to be acknowledged.
(4) Attributes approximating the way a human mind can perceive Her grace, Her nurturing, Her justice that correspond to the three aspects of the Goddess, to balance the dominator-male attributes of the original version.
- - - - - - - - -
We'll be out of town to address Florida Pagan Gathering (FPG) presented by Temple of Earth Gathering (TEG), in Ocala National Park/ Forest, Florida. If you're within range to attend, there will be some great speakers and presentations. Information: flapagan.org
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Proud to Be a Taxpayer
Before we begin this blog, we should mention that the opinions expressed below are personal opinions, NOT positions of the Church of Wicca. Why? Because legally an exempt organization is not supposed to take political positions. Would it were true for the rest of the nation's churches and ministers in this election year! The law governing the expression of opinions by an exempt organization is one (of many) honored more in the breach than in the observance. Remember "Render unto Caesar" ? Anyway ...
News channels on TV are showing food riots in several nations of the world. The Wall Street Journal says that food prices in the States have risen 83 percent in the last three years. If we remember accurately, they have gone up about 50 percent in the last six months.
At the checkout counter today, I watched an elderly lady stock up on dog and cat food. She doesn't own a dog; she doesn't own a cat. The cashier had known this woman for years, and was close to tears at the sight. She left her register and brought a sack of apples, giving it to the lady. Once the lady had departed, the cashier confided to me (next in line) that the lady was on a fixed Social Security pension, and that the dog and cat food was all she could afford to eat.
The shopper looked as if she was somewhere in her eighties, and actually looked pretty healthy.
Of course she had traveled to the grocery store in the senior citizens' bus, because she could no longer afford to operate a car. That means a dramatic drawing-in of her horizons. Our small town does not have a movie theater, for instance, or (since a recent fire) any quality clothing store. A shoe store? Forget it. Optometrist? Same story. Dentist? You're kidding.
We all know what has happened to the price of fuel. The problem is a very simple one; that is, that people on federal Social Security get a cost-of-living increase each year--but that increase does not acknowledge or figure in the prices of food and fuel. Apparently the federal government (our elected officials) thinks that life does not require either of these commodities.
Something needs fixing. It's only going to get worse, and your own retired parents and grandparents will end up eating cat and dog food--relying on the pity of a supermarket cashier for fresh fruit.
Write your congressman. Write your representative. Hell! Write to the candidates. Ask what they're going to do about it all. We ourselves have given up on the AARP. That body now seems to be part of the establishment, assuming that the biggest decision we currently have to make is how to manipulate our comfortable retirement funds.
So blessed be anyhow. Gavin and Yvonne
News channels on TV are showing food riots in several nations of the world. The Wall Street Journal says that food prices in the States have risen 83 percent in the last three years. If we remember accurately, they have gone up about 50 percent in the last six months.
At the checkout counter today, I watched an elderly lady stock up on dog and cat food. She doesn't own a dog; she doesn't own a cat. The cashier had known this woman for years, and was close to tears at the sight. She left her register and brought a sack of apples, giving it to the lady. Once the lady had departed, the cashier confided to me (next in line) that the lady was on a fixed Social Security pension, and that the dog and cat food was all she could afford to eat.
The shopper looked as if she was somewhere in her eighties, and actually looked pretty healthy.
Of course she had traveled to the grocery store in the senior citizens' bus, because she could no longer afford to operate a car. That means a dramatic drawing-in of her horizons. Our small town does not have a movie theater, for instance, or (since a recent fire) any quality clothing store. A shoe store? Forget it. Optometrist? Same story. Dentist? You're kidding.
We all know what has happened to the price of fuel. The problem is a very simple one; that is, that people on federal Social Security get a cost-of-living increase each year--but that increase does not acknowledge or figure in the prices of food and fuel. Apparently the federal government (our elected officials) thinks that life does not require either of these commodities.
Something needs fixing. It's only going to get worse, and your own retired parents and grandparents will end up eating cat and dog food--relying on the pity of a supermarket cashier for fresh fruit.
Write your congressman. Write your representative. Hell! Write to the candidates. Ask what they're going to do about it all. We ourselves have given up on the AARP. That body now seems to be part of the establishment, assuming that the biggest decision we currently have to make is how to manipulate our comfortable retirement funds.
So blessed be anyhow. Gavin and Yvonne
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Global What?
April is in its second week. As we drove toward aquarobics yesterday we noticed that the service trees (officially Amelanchier, aka "sorbus" trees because of the dialects common to the early European settlers of West Virginia), were blooming on the mountainsides. Why "service" trees? Their blooms revealed two seasonal things: the ground had thawed sufficiently that the bodies of the winter's deaths could be buried; and itinerant circuit-riding preachers could travel to conduct services over those burials and could christen babies born in the season of freezing.
At the same time, for some reason best known to themselves, this year the redbuds (Cercis canadensis) have suddenly bloomed. This means that Spring is well advanced and that we can probably put the bean seeds safely into the ground.
All these signs are encouraging in that Nature is doing its thing, for the most part ignoring politics and politicians. Of course our calendar from last year's garden journal hints that we're two weeks ahead of schedule; so global warming is hitting even us in the mountains.
Somehow in all the talk about global warming and the greenhouse effect, the studies on global dimming have been forgotten. In the few days after 911, when all civilian flights were grounded, the good people at NOAA (national Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency) took the opportunity to calculate the effect of jet exhausts on the planet's atmosphere. Their calculation showed that the planet could be as much as three (3) degrees Fahrenheit cooler because of the jet exhausts than it would be without them. Most of the global-warming studies are talking about 1 degree F in ten years or so--but global dimming is accounting for 3 degrees! Without dimming the world would be 3 degrees hotter today.
Just thought you'd like to know. Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne
At the same time, for some reason best known to themselves, this year the redbuds (Cercis canadensis) have suddenly bloomed. This means that Spring is well advanced and that we can probably put the bean seeds safely into the ground.
All these signs are encouraging in that Nature is doing its thing, for the most part ignoring politics and politicians. Of course our calendar from last year's garden journal hints that we're two weeks ahead of schedule; so global warming is hitting even us in the mountains.
Somehow in all the talk about global warming and the greenhouse effect, the studies on global dimming have been forgotten. In the few days after 911, when all civilian flights were grounded, the good people at NOAA (national Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency) took the opportunity to calculate the effect of jet exhausts on the planet's atmosphere. Their calculation showed that the planet could be as much as three (3) degrees Fahrenheit cooler because of the jet exhausts than it would be without them. Most of the global-warming studies are talking about 1 degree F in ten years or so--but global dimming is accounting for 3 degrees! Without dimming the world would be 3 degrees hotter today.
Just thought you'd like to know. Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Thoughts from France
There is a love-hate relationship between the United States and France. The French often seem to do things to enrage this nation's government (and who can blame them, when we get such stupidities handed down as "freedom fries" instead of French fries?).
Remember how this whole caper escalated? It was engendered when
1. Emperor George decreed that every right-thinking nation would gladly fall in line to support his one-man vendetta against Iraq.
2. France declined to obey.
3. The American government decreed that all visitors holding French passports suddenly needed visas to enter this nation.
4. In return France dumped its American dollars.
5. Your dollars and mine abruptly lost who knows how much value against the Euro.
In researching earlier cultures, we ourselves have spent some time in Brittany (Bretagne) (a land not to be confused with France itself because the Bretons too have a love-hate relationship with France).
We have observed that French people have some wonderful, effective, innovative ideas that make a lot of sense. When diesel prices climbed outrageously, French truckers united to blockade access to the oil refineries of France. Only emergency vehicles could get fuel. The blockade lasted one (1) entire day; then the French government decided to change the tax structure on fuels. We hear truckers complaining impotently on TV today about diesel at $4 a gallon--and well they should. Why don't American truckers take positive action?
From the point of view of gasoline prices in this nation, the only thing that will convince the oil cartel to lower its prices is if we all stop using as much fuel. Again if we turn to the French, they used the good old Irish boycott--they declared a no-driving day. Of course with public transportation in Europe it is easier to do that than it is in the United States. Of course. We understand--but still we could do it too. Surely if we can declare a no-smoking day, we can declare a no-driving day.
As a last resort, write your congressman, futile though it may be, to tell them in words of one syllable that while the oil companies are making today's obscene profits, they don't need or deserve multi-million-dollar tax breaks and subsidies.
Have a good day. Have a nice walk.
Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne
Suggestions
1. All of us drastically cut our consumption of fuels. Carpool, ride a bike or a motor scooter, take a bus.
2. Consolidate errands to do them all on one trip instead of on three or four.
3. Until the auto makers catch on, simply stop buying and driving the big SUVs and vehicle-envy machines that implicitly vaunt their low mpg.
4. Finally, a four-letter word that we hesitate to use on a site accessible to young people:
W A L K
Remember how this whole caper escalated? It was engendered when
1. Emperor George decreed that every right-thinking nation would gladly fall in line to support his one-man vendetta against Iraq.
2. France declined to obey.
3. The American government decreed that all visitors holding French passports suddenly needed visas to enter this nation.
4. In return France dumped its American dollars.
5. Your dollars and mine abruptly lost who knows how much value against the Euro.
In researching earlier cultures, we ourselves have spent some time in Brittany (Bretagne) (a land not to be confused with France itself because the Bretons too have a love-hate relationship with France).
We have observed that French people have some wonderful, effective, innovative ideas that make a lot of sense. When diesel prices climbed outrageously, French truckers united to blockade access to the oil refineries of France. Only emergency vehicles could get fuel. The blockade lasted one (1) entire day; then the French government decided to change the tax structure on fuels. We hear truckers complaining impotently on TV today about diesel at $4 a gallon--and well they should. Why don't American truckers take positive action?
From the point of view of gasoline prices in this nation, the only thing that will convince the oil cartel to lower its prices is if we all stop using as much fuel. Again if we turn to the French, they used the good old Irish boycott--they declared a no-driving day. Of course with public transportation in Europe it is easier to do that than it is in the United States. Of course. We understand--but still we could do it too. Surely if we can declare a no-smoking day, we can declare a no-driving day.
As a last resort, write your congressman, futile though it may be, to tell them in words of one syllable that while the oil companies are making today's obscene profits, they don't need or deserve multi-million-dollar tax breaks and subsidies.
Have a good day. Have a nice walk.
Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne
Suggestions
1. All of us drastically cut our consumption of fuels. Carpool, ride a bike or a motor scooter, take a bus.
2. Consolidate errands to do them all on one trip instead of on three or four.
3. Until the auto makers catch on, simply stop buying and driving the big SUVs and vehicle-envy machines that implicitly vaunt their low mpg.
4. Finally, a four-letter word that we hesitate to use on a site accessible to young people:
W A L K
Monday, March 31, 2008
Locking Our Shields
We think Basra can teach us a bloody lesson in helping our community survive.
Under British control, Basra was a scene of calm. The city and its docks worked. The oil flowed. Then the British withdrew. For over a month the city continued to function "normally" ... whatever "normal" may mean in the Middle East. Then for reasons best known to itself and to the imams, the central government decided that a city with a "different" sect and its own militia could not be allowed to exist.
Chaos ensued--hundreds of deaths.
The Basra no-win situation can be compared to what heppens when one self-appointed section of our own pagan/Wiccan community decides that another section is wrong. Our community combines a vast spectrum of people. There are those who waft around in pretty robes and gossamer wings, calling themselves Lord Everup and Lady Candy-Ass. Such a worldview shades over into more mature behavior when those individuals begin journeying on to La-La Land.
Beyond La-La Land we find more serious practitioners of the Arts on a more serious path, who spend years in putting together well-thought-out magical systems and cosmologies. In some ways these two activities are diametrically opposed. Cosmology in general is concerned with beginnings and with spirituality. Magical systems in general are intended to influence events in this horizontal dimension.
Everyone is on a progressive ladder. Those in their kindergarten-level dress-up phase will graduate--at least that is our hope. Thus we should embrace their activities, just as we should try to support the activities of those who would like to move to higher levels and to expand the boundaries of Wiccan spirituality and technology. The community cannot afford to bite and claw at each other when people out there are lined up to dance on our graves, people waiting to elect stealth candidates to school boards and to government at every level, itching to make this nation into a theocracy on their terms.
So please. Let us take our heads out of our ... centers of gravity ... and administer to ourselves a reality smack. If we don't lock our shields, the fanatics will not need to destroy this community; its own members will do it.
Why did the British succeed in Basra when the American offensive elsewhere was such a dismal failure? The answer lies in their respective attutides and assumptions: The British went in expecting to meet friends. The Americans went in expecting to meet enemies. Why don't we turn our heads around, you good pagans, and start believing that other members of the community might just become our friends instead of our enemies?
In the hope that we can all lighten up, Blessed be each one cuts the others a little slack. Gavin and Yvonne
Under British control, Basra was a scene of calm. The city and its docks worked. The oil flowed. Then the British withdrew. For over a month the city continued to function "normally" ... whatever "normal" may mean in the Middle East. Then for reasons best known to itself and to the imams, the central government decided that a city with a "different" sect and its own militia could not be allowed to exist.
Chaos ensued--hundreds of deaths.
The Basra no-win situation can be compared to what heppens when one self-appointed section of our own pagan/Wiccan community decides that another section is wrong. Our community combines a vast spectrum of people. There are those who waft around in pretty robes and gossamer wings, calling themselves Lord Everup and Lady Candy-Ass. Such a worldview shades over into more mature behavior when those individuals begin journeying on to La-La Land.
Beyond La-La Land we find more serious practitioners of the Arts on a more serious path, who spend years in putting together well-thought-out magical systems and cosmologies. In some ways these two activities are diametrically opposed. Cosmology in general is concerned with beginnings and with spirituality. Magical systems in general are intended to influence events in this horizontal dimension.
Everyone is on a progressive ladder. Those in their kindergarten-level dress-up phase will graduate--at least that is our hope. Thus we should embrace their activities, just as we should try to support the activities of those who would like to move to higher levels and to expand the boundaries of Wiccan spirituality and technology. The community cannot afford to bite and claw at each other when people out there are lined up to dance on our graves, people waiting to elect stealth candidates to school boards and to government at every level, itching to make this nation into a theocracy on their terms.
So please. Let us take our heads out of our ... centers of gravity ... and administer to ourselves a reality smack. If we don't lock our shields, the fanatics will not need to destroy this community; its own members will do it.
Why did the British succeed in Basra when the American offensive elsewhere was such a dismal failure? The answer lies in their respective attutides and assumptions: The British went in expecting to meet friends. The Americans went in expecting to meet enemies. Why don't we turn our heads around, you good pagans, and start believing that other members of the community might just become our friends instead of our enemies?
In the hope that we can all lighten up, Blessed be each one cuts the others a little slack. Gavin and Yvonne
Friday, March 21, 2008
A Quarterly Observance on the Wheel of the Year
Recently we attended a meeting of the pagan-studies group associated with the Beckley fellowship of the Unitarian-Universalist Association. Today's blog stems from some remarks of the group's leader J. L. and from the discussion that followed.
In this year of the Common Era 2008, Spring Equinox occurs on March 20. In this year the pre-Christian way those other folks use to calculate Easter* has brought the two observances unusually close together.
Ostara is really the time to observe your own private beginning time of year. Samhain is good for shared observances at the full moon nearest November 1, and we Frosts would be reluctant indeed to forgo its observance; but our personal lives might make more sense if we as pagans made our personal new year's resolutions at the vernal equinox, a time when we all want to get out and do things. Join us now if you like, in rolling up your sleeves and reviewing your assumptions. Let's start with a little research.
Easter - Our Oxford Etymological Dictionary says: Easter is derived by Bede from the name of a goddess whose feast was celebrated on the vernal equinox Eostre (related to east) and from the Sanskrit word Usra (dawn).** We are all familiar with the idea of spring cleaning and dawn in the east and the east correlating in our way with new beginnings.
We ourselves have been tilling and planting our small city garden. The task gets us out of the house after a long winter season of short, gray daylight hours and encourages us to put our hands into actual soil ... maybe not a bad thing.
How about not only making new resolutions but also actually doing something?! You might start with a good look at your spirituality, giving a good polish to those things you firmly believe, and sweeping away all that old rubbish that people have been blathering at you since you were born. Sum this up as:
What do you believe, and why do you believe it?
It's just a thought, but it's one we like.
So bright blessings to you who will polish up your spirituality but will also get out into the real world and do something. Gavin and Yvonne
- - - - - - -- -
* Find Spring Equinox. Find the next full moon. Find the next Sunday. That will be Easter. (Do you believe it?)
** Anotehr cognate occurs in the words Ostrogoth (Eastern Goths) and Visigoth (Western Goths).
In this year of the Common Era 2008, Spring Equinox occurs on March 20. In this year the pre-Christian way those other folks use to calculate Easter* has brought the two observances unusually close together.
Ostara is really the time to observe your own private beginning time of year. Samhain is good for shared observances at the full moon nearest November 1, and we Frosts would be reluctant indeed to forgo its observance; but our personal lives might make more sense if we as pagans made our personal new year's resolutions at the vernal equinox, a time when we all want to get out and do things. Join us now if you like, in rolling up your sleeves and reviewing your assumptions. Let's start with a little research.
Easter - Our Oxford Etymological Dictionary says: Easter is derived by Bede from the name of a goddess whose feast was celebrated on the vernal equinox Eostre (related to east) and from the Sanskrit word Usra (dawn).** We are all familiar with the idea of spring cleaning and dawn in the east and the east correlating in our way with new beginnings.
We ourselves have been tilling and planting our small city garden. The task gets us out of the house after a long winter season of short, gray daylight hours and encourages us to put our hands into actual soil ... maybe not a bad thing.
How about not only making new resolutions but also actually doing something?! You might start with a good look at your spirituality, giving a good polish to those things you firmly believe, and sweeping away all that old rubbish that people have been blathering at you since you were born. Sum this up as:
What do you believe, and why do you believe it?
It's just a thought, but it's one we like.
So bright blessings to you who will polish up your spirituality but will also get out into the real world and do something. Gavin and Yvonne
- - - - - - -- -
* Find Spring Equinox. Find the next full moon. Find the next Sunday. That will be Easter. (Do you believe it?)
** Anotehr cognate occurs in the words Ostrogoth (Eastern Goths) and Visigoth (Western Goths).
Friday, March 14, 2008
Diary
We are told that blogs are supposed to reflect
* what we're doing in our day-to-day life and (of course)
* the random thoughts that come with that life.
Today's review of the Frost calendar might start with Yvonne's presentation on progressive reincarnation at the Unitarian-Universalist fellowship in Beckley. It was well received, maybe because she made it utterly clear that she was there not to recruit but to reveal a very personal interpretation of reincarnation as a rational process of learning and growth. She gave the same presentation the next week to the Pagan Leadership conference in Christiansburg VA. At that meeting Gavin gave his thoughts too on meditation and stress. You can read that presentation on the Conscious Mind Journal's site.
We traveled to the University of West Virginia in Montgomery to talk with a class in comparative religions about basic beliefs of Wicca. They kept us with questions for 2 1/2 hours. The classroom was full of students who had been well prepared, and thus their questions were at a much higher level than usually happens when we walk in cold. Our gratitude to their teacher and to the class members for their openness.
We're starting a series of detective fiction, The Dancing Detective. The first one of the series combines Termination Tango with Wicked Waltz; galley proofs for it came in from Outskirts Press, so we simply put our life on hold for a week so Yvonne could administer the final nit-picking review. You think you've seen bug-eyed? Whew.
Then two friends from Ohio, Ray and Raven, visited us for a very pleasant weekend. We hashed around all the usual Wiccan topics.
Our old bones feel as if we've done a lot more than the above, but the calendar shows few further entries. This along with the regular aquarobics, ballroom, and a review of French lessons. I don't know what we'd do if we weren't retired. ... or that's what they call it. Hmm ...
Oh, perhaps I forgot to mention we're writing a third book in the detective series: Reprehensible Rumba. You'll be on the edge of your seat.
Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne
You don't pray in my school,
and I won't think in your church.
* what we're doing in our day-to-day life and (of course)
* the random thoughts that come with that life.
Today's review of the Frost calendar might start with Yvonne's presentation on progressive reincarnation at the Unitarian-Universalist fellowship in Beckley. It was well received, maybe because she made it utterly clear that she was there not to recruit but to reveal a very personal interpretation of reincarnation as a rational process of learning and growth. She gave the same presentation the next week to the Pagan Leadership conference in Christiansburg VA. At that meeting Gavin gave his thoughts too on meditation and stress. You can read that presentation on the Conscious Mind Journal's site.
We traveled to the University of West Virginia in Montgomery to talk with a class in comparative religions about basic beliefs of Wicca. They kept us with questions for 2 1/2 hours. The classroom was full of students who had been well prepared, and thus their questions were at a much higher level than usually happens when we walk in cold. Our gratitude to their teacher and to the class members for their openness.
We're starting a series of detective fiction, The Dancing Detective. The first one of the series combines Termination Tango with Wicked Waltz; galley proofs for it came in from Outskirts Press, so we simply put our life on hold for a week so Yvonne could administer the final nit-picking review. You think you've seen bug-eyed? Whew.
Then two friends from Ohio, Ray and Raven, visited us for a very pleasant weekend. We hashed around all the usual Wiccan topics.
Our old bones feel as if we've done a lot more than the above, but the calendar shows few further entries. This along with the regular aquarobics, ballroom, and a review of French lessons. I don't know what we'd do if we weren't retired. ... or that's what they call it. Hmm ...
Oh, perhaps I forgot to mention we're writing a third book in the detective series: Reprehensible Rumba. You'll be on the edge of your seat.
Blessed be. Gavin and Yvonne
You don't pray in my school,
and I won't think in your church.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)