Stuff I'm thinking about writing articles:

The Ethics of Magic(k)

Paying/Charging for Psychic/Spiritual/Magic(k)al Services

What Is Magic(k), Why Does It Work and Will It Work If I Don't Believe In It?

What Is This Energy Everyone Keeps Talking About?

What's Up with the (k)? (lol)

How do I become a professional technical writer, how do I get a job doing that, and how much will it pay?

How inna fuck am I gonna get Rob a new computer before he drives me apeshit?

I think I might have mono...

Well, after years and years of having the Teflon immune system... I thing I'b cadging a code.

My tonsils are like two hot rocks in my throat, my left eye is throbbing, I'm achier than usual, and the minute the sun went down, I got all stuffy. My tonsils have been irritated all weekend, but today I look like I've got a minor case of the mumps. Fucking G bringing this shit back from China with him, and everyone in the office has been coughing all day, too.

I'm glad I cooked Rob's & my turkey dinner Sunday, because having leftovers for dinner all week will make things a lot smoother for me.

( TMI Land )

Ban, if sobewud decides to shoot ub by job id the negts few days, I will throw byself in frond of the bulleds...

Yes, much like everyone else, I enjoy The Doors. I would love to go back to the peak of Jim Morrison's career & see The Lizard King slither all over the stage.

I'm admitting a little secret here.

I honestly have no clue what the problem with Silver Ravenwolf is - I've never read any of her books cover to cover. I mean, I hear about her historical inaccuracies, her condescending tone, her dumbing-down of Wicca, her poor advice - but I'll never really get it. Frankly, because it is Wicca, I don't want to get it, either. I got To Ride a Silver Broomstick after I'd stopped being a card-carrying Wiccan (it was published in 1993), skimmed through it a little, dismissed it as Wicca & gave it to Jody. I ended up giving all three books to Jody. I don't even know what she thought of them. I remember vaguely thinking that using the drawing down the Moon ritual to walk down a street in a bad neighborhood was kind of stupid, but that was about it. It's hard to believe that SRW's only been on the scene since the '90s... but it's hard to believe, at least for me, that 1993 was 16 fucking years ago.

The only reason I'm mentioning her is because someone on one of the pagan forums I visit replied to a post in which I mentioned a feature of lunabar that tells you when the moon is void of course. He said that the whole 'not starting anything new' when the moon is v.o.c. was brought about because of SRW. I'd been hearing that about the moon being v.o.c. since I was 10 & living w/my cousin who had all of Linda Goodman's astrology books, about 10 years before SRW even hit the scene. People sometimes forget that before Wicca became Kind of a Big Deal, many of us who would become Wiccans of one ilk or another were wallowing in the softly filtered rosy-quartz glow of the New Age movement.

Thinking about it now, that may be part of 'Fluff-Bunny Syndrome', at least here in the U.S. (I don't knock 'fluff-bunnies', either, mainly because I really don't give a fuck if someone wants to have a nice day, as long as they don't take it out on me). Many people my age and slightly older had post-hippy parents and went through the New Age. I think it's worse if you lived on the west coast for any length of time in the mid-80s. Now, if you mention Sedona, people will look at you with a noticeable 'Huh?' sign over their heads, but in its heyday, Sedona was the New Age hot-spot. Yes, I have been to Sedona, basked in its (at the time, I don't know how it is now) overpriced rosy-quartz glow of its vortices and power-places, oohed and aahed at the gaudy baubles of entire quartz caves packed onto one necklace or pair of earrings, and didn't feel a thing other than the creaky springs of my hotel mattress stabbing me in sunburned nether regions. I also lived near Lacey, WA when J. Z. Knight/Ramtha had the ashram up there - the woman that's in the memory foam mattress commercials was one of her supporters, I think she was on Dallas at some point. My dad's psycho-bitch-girlfriend-from-Hell was heavily into transchannelers & this thing called 'Ur' - and the spacebrothers... All I see now when I look at JZ Knight videos is classically tailored shoulder pads & the worst 80s hair known to mankind.

But that was what a lot of us Wiccans grew up on. The New Age concepts of Light, Peace and Love. I suppose it's not all bad - if America could put up with a collective bunch of loonies like that, Wiccans and neo-Pagans were fairly low-key in comparison. The New Agers channeled Ascended Masters, the Wiccans channeled Gods & Goddesses from mythology anthologies. The New Agers believed in turning the other cheek, the Wiccans proclaimed, in pseudo-OE, 'An' it harm none!' The Wiccans weren't quite as apocalyptic as the New Agers, and the New Agers weren't quite as sexy as the Wiccans, but a good time could be had by all.

( In health news... )

I'm going to be setting up a small shrine to Selene tonight. Hopefully, if I can detach Rob from my hip for an hour or so, I might try to commune with Her for awhile.

According to LunaBar, which is an awesome little app, the Moon is currently void of course and fishing is fair.

Every once in awhile I like to sit up late at night and surf the dark underbelly of the ‘Net.

No, not 4chan… but the purveyors of the strange. The bloggers whose blogs read like HP Lovecraft and Charles Fort. The birth defects, teratomas and momento mori sites. Auctions of dolls and clowns gone horribly awry. Schizophrenic artists. I have satisfactorily ruined sleep for myself tonight.

It’s a day for it, though.

Let me describe my back yard to you, just to set the scene. The lot our house sits on is roughly square, divided into a front and back yard with the house plopped into the middle. The back yard forms a U around the house - on either side is a narrow walkway with the rectangle of the yard behind the house. Around the perimeter is a cinder block wall - on either side it’s about 5 ½’ tall - I can barely see over it. In the back, there’s a retaining wall & the main wall is about 8’ up. On the kitchen side of the yard, the walkway ends in a block wall, & on the other side, we have a padlocked gate. I am not the most nimble person around, and I am short, and I would have trouble scaling these walls. I don’t think anyone could do it quietly, or without the dog taking notice. I doubt, seriously, that anyone other than myself or the dog was in the backyard today.

Rob had gone on errands. I was sitting here at my computer, and the dog was laying on the floor next to me. The wind was blowing a little - breezes, really. We have a wrought-iron grate over one side of the back sliding-glass door, w/a gate on the door side. We usually leave the gate open during the day. Sometimes the wind will slam it, but today the breezes weren’t moving it, and it was open halfway, sticking out into the porch area.

Someone knocked on the back sliding glass door and I heard a child’s voice say, somewhat indistinctly, “I know you’re in there”. Chelsie startled at the same moment I startled & looked at me like, “Did you hear that?!” She got up when I got up, but it seemed like she was reluctant to approach the door. Usually when something makes noise she begins barking her fool head off, running from front door to back door, wanting out… but today, not so much. I don’t know if it was because I hesitated or if it was because she felt something not-quite-right herself.

We’ve got a black-out style curtain hanging over the back door, so I couldn't see the back door. But I had heard no footsteps leading to or from the door, and of course by the time I had shaken off my paralysis and gotten up, whoever it had been was gone. The wrought-iron gate was still in the exact same position, so I know the wind hadn’t smacked it against the grate on the other side or the door itself.

The household goms have ramped up a notch or two over the past few weeks. I think the weather’s keeping them active. We’ve been getting a lot of weird noises lately - knocking on doors, metallic banging. At least it all seems to be coming from the outside, and they haven’t been knocking on Rob’s headboard or smacking the back of my chair.

( And a little extra that I wouldn't feel comfortable telling on fb... )

Well, it's 4:03 and it might be able to get some sleep finally.

I gots me a Cheese egg!!!

After a year of egg chasing, I've finally got my alt black. I named it Qlippoth. I don't care if it hasn't gendered yet :D



I released a bunch of dragons - managing them was becoming a full-time job. I couldn't handle the constant responsibility.

I've been having a hard time spiritually over the past two weeks because everything has been very physical for me. I think something burst inside me, the gynecologist agrees, and I'm going to be starting a new hormone therapy tomorrow that will hopefully make things stop until I can get my hysterectomy. Of course, the new pill may make me crazier, but given the choice, a little more insanity probably won't hurt anyone. Hopefully won't hurt anyone...

This is pretty cool

It's called a Johari window

So, uh, what do you folks think of me?

In other news, not spiritual at all, I'm trying Fat Tire Brewery's Mothership Wit beer tonight, and I must say, I like it a lot.

I've been spending the past couple of days thinking about the Moon.

Bob loves Moon with all his heart. Just to catch a glimpse of her through the back door makes him all giddy, and during her dark days, he gets moody for no good reason. I know he's in love with Moon, but I have to play along that he doesn't trust her, she's sneaky & he's just keeping an eye on her. He also accuses her of stalking him, but I know better ;)

As for me, I'm trying to figure out how I can relate better to the Moon. I have a Pisces Moon in my chart, which explains how a solid, stolid Capricorn can be so very un-Capricorn at times. People sometimes forget that Capricorn is not just a goat, it's a water-goat, and I have always felt the Moon's pull on my inner tides.








I see the Moon Herself as a Goddess, embodied in Herself, not anthropomorphized or humanized. Selene might be closest, though, because I do see the Moon sometimes as a great white long-horned cow or water buffalo, with horns like Hathor, and Selene has been equated with such (the white cow or buffalo, not Hathor, that is).

I know Artemis has long been associated with the bear, but I'm not drawn to Artemis or Diana. I keep asking myself if there is any Moon in Bear, or any Bear in Moon, other than the Artemis connection. There is a crescent moon bear. :)


Note the resemblance, lol

Over the past couple of nights we've been watching What the Bleep Do We Know as dinner entertainment. We're about an hour into the 'Theatrical Release' version. At first, I was a tad annoyed because I didn't realize it was a documentary. Within the first ten minutes, I was completely absorbed. We only watched about 20 minutes the first night, and another half hour or so tonight. I don't think I can handle much more than that in one sitting. There's so much to absorb. It's very heady stuff.

For all of my mathematical difficulties, quantum theory is remarkably easy for me to grasp. What's amazing to me though, is how quantum theory seems to be where the spiritual world and the scientific world kiss & make up. The scientists in the little interview blurbs are talking about things like 'entanglement', which is the concept that everything is connected (and as they were explaining it in oh-so-scientific terms, I almost started bawling because it set off the chills & made my hair stand on end). Separate two particles a million miles apart, do something to one particle, and the other responds instantaneously. Are the particles communicating? Maybe. Are the particles connected? Definitely. One guy talked about how much energy potential a quantum particle has - and it's a miniscule thing, compared to atoms it's the stuff of which atoms are made - but yet it has the energy potential of billions of suns. All of a sudden, the Large Hadron Collider took on far more sinister tones - imagine a quantum bomb - I'm sure out there, someone already has and is working on it in a lab somewhere.

They talk about the Schroedinger effect & how the observer effects the outcome of an experiment merely by observing & Rob almost fell off the couch (I'm familiar with Schroedinger's cat, though - I think it's a Cheshire cat, and it is, or might not be, in that box over there. I always wonder to myself if Schroedinger had a dog). They also talk about time, and about an experiment in which a neuroscientist did brain surgery on conscious patients & found that the brain actually sends impulses backwards and anticipates physical contact before it happens, making it seem as though the contact & the brain's response occurs instantaneously. Of course, it raised the question for me of is the brain thinking backwards in time, or is it sensing interference with the aura before physical contact is made?

Then there was another experiment, done with simple electronic devices. The devices were first wrapped in tinfoil (which is hilarious to me) & were placed at the center of a table with four well-trained and experienced meditators sitting around it. The four would cleanse the table and device and the surrounding area, and then enter deep meditative states, and when the four were ready, one would state an intention for the device, such as 'this device will raise the pH level of a container of water 1 point'. After the intention was stated, the meditators would imprint this purpose on the device for a specified amount of time, and then at the end, would mentally just let the device go, releasing it. The device would then be placed in an electrostatically neutral package & shipped to another location. The device would be used in accordance with whatever it had been 'programmed to do'. And the devices would do it. That blew my fucking mind.

And that was about all I could handle for tonight.

Rob then started blabbering on about, if the universe is constantly expanding, what, exactly is on the outside of the universe that it is expanding into?

Because my brain is fried and incapable of rational coherent thought, I told him, "you're off the map, matey. Here there be monsters".

When I think of calm, comforting, nurturing elements in my life, I usually think of either the Moon or the ocean. If I was somewhere with a coastline, a desire for a loving deity would send me straight into the arms of the Pacific. To me, She is a Goddess in Her own right and when I lived in California and Washington, I actively offered worship to Her, in all Her moods and tides and weather. I don't talk about it much, but I did like living in southern California, and if the cost of living wasn't so high, I'd much rather live there than anywhere else. I think my Grecian soul found it familiar, with its pseudo-Mediterranean climate, the endless expanse of sand and sea that made up its coastline... at heart, I am a California girl, lol.

But here I am, in the Great Big Empty, no ocean in sight. So to whom else can I turn when the ocean isn't there?

All along, I've always thought of the Moon as 'Mother Moon', and gazing upwards at Her has always filled me with a sense of peace and stillness. She's always been there, like the sea, watching over me, watching over us all. Honestly, I don't think of Her as Diana or Artemis, or Luna or Selene - They are not the Moon, but the Moon is in Them. The Moon just is. I have a little in common with Bob in that - he's a moon-dog, a lunatic, and so am I. I watch Her cycle closely, I follow Her across the sky, I keep in tune with Her rhythms. I have a kinship with dogs and coyotes and hares... I see Her face in my favorite drum. Maybe all along I have been just neglecting to see what's always been there.

Buenos Dia de los Muertos!

Merry Samhain, all!

I love holidays at dragcave :)

♠

Ok, I've been Pagan all my life. I've got patron deities, spirit guides, totems, ancestors (well, they may not be related to me, but I consider them my ancestors more than my actual ancestors)... but for the life of me, I have no clue about this particular situation.

I'm in the market for a new deity. I'm tired of serving and serving and not really getting much in return. I'm tired of getting my head run into brick walls. I'm tired of being kicked around. I'm tired of the school of spiritual hard knocks.

Back in June, I honestly started asking the Universe for compassion, comfort, nourishment, creative guidance and all I've gotten has been white noise.

So, what's the general consensus on consciously choosing a deity to worship? For instance, if I just decided to start worshiping and giving devotion to say, Brighid or Diana, is that acceptable?

The term Pagan is a Middle English word derived from the Late Latin paganus – a civilian or country dweller. When the term was first coined, it implied someone who was a rube, a hick, a hillbilly. Over the years, it gained a more spiritual connotation. To someone who followed one of the major religions of the time, Catholicism, Christianity or Islam, a pagan was someone who ascribed to no religion. The Christians considered the Muslims to be pagans, the Muslims considered the Christians to be the same, and the Catholics considered everyone else, Christian, Muslim or other, to be pagan.

 

These newer monotheistic religions took hold in the cities first and slowly trickled outwards to more rural people, so there was also an implication of foolishness or superstition attached to being a pagan. If a person was a pagan, chances were they still celebrated holidays associated with the planting and growth of their crops and herds, and as new calendars were introduced, they probably even celebrated the New Year on the ‘wrong’ day (hence April Fool’s Day). They were also probably the last people who heard about fashion changes (hence the pointy hats and robes attributed to witches).

 

Over the past few decades, Pagan, this time with a capital P, has once again been making an appearance. It no longer refers to someone who is a country dweller, or someone who is not a member of the religion of the majority, instead, it indicates someone who has a religion outside that which is most commonly accepted. If a hundred Pagans gather in the same vicinity, they will likely all have their own interpretation of what Pagan means. It can be a follower of a polytheistic religion, similar to the ancient Greeks or Romans - but there are monotheistic or duotheistic Pagans. It can be someone who has a reverence for nature and organic systems - but there are utilitarian and urban Pagans as well. It can be someone who strives to reconstruct ancient cultural forms of worship in the modern age – or it could be someone who integrates those ancient concepts into symbols of technology and culture that have only existed in the past twenty years. Today, Pagans come in all ages, races, cultural backgrounds, political parties, genders, economic brackets and locales.

 

There is still a lot of confusion as to what a Pagan actually is, and it seems like Pagan is better defined by what it is not instead of what it is. The most generic, generally accepted definition for Pagan is that it is an umbrella term for religions and belief systems that are not Catholic, Christian, Jewish or Muslim. Some feel that Buddhism and Hinduism are not Pagan while others feel they are. Some consider Satanism to be a form of Paganism, others consider it an offshoot of Christianity. Some of the African Diasporic faiths could be Pagan in nature, but some are closer in form and practice to Catholicism. There is a rising tide of people who consider themselves Catholic, Christian or Jewish Pagans, and there are probably even Muslim Pagans out there as well.

 

In many Pagan communities, both online and offline, there is a general outcry about newcomers to Paganism making assumptions about Paganism. Experienced members will often make it a point to wave the ‘umbrella term’ emphatically, and some members will assume the newcomer is clueless or is attempting to be problematic. Others still will argue against any attempts at generalizing or labeling a person’s religion this or that. Most defend their points of view by saying they are trying to dispel misconceptions and eliminate misunderstandings. Oftentimes, the refusal to pin a definition on the term causes greater muddying of the concept behind it and does absolutely nothing to shed light on the heart of what Paganism actually is. There are also some difficulties that come with the territory of being part of something one cannot effectively define or explain.

 

One of the greatest problems American Pagans face is exercising the right to freedom of religion. How can an American Pagan know if their religious rights are being infringed on if they cannot concisely pin down what their religion is? The Bill of Rights does not protect the interests of umbrella terms. An atheist can protest the addition of In God We Trust to the national currency, or the insistence upon repeating the Pledge of Allegiance in grade school – but the average Pagan may hit an obstacle when they try to insist, “No Pagan worships the God being referred to by the money or Pledge”. Inevitably, some other Pagan will stand up and say, “Well, I’m a Christo/Catholo/Jewish Pagan and I do worship that God, so it does not offend me”. Asking an employer for a religious holiday off from work can turn into a convoluted mess. “Boss, I need to have Hallowe’en off, because it’s a traditional holiday for me”. The boss may reply, “Well, I’m a Kemetic Reconstructionist Pagan, and you don’t see me taking some children’s day off, do you?”

 

The problems faced by Pagans are similar to those faced by people working in government agencies and various institutions where there is a need for political correctness, especially with the new trends and emphasis on diversity. How can an employer hope to comply with guidelines for religious respect and tolerance when some of their employees’ religions may not be well known and defy any attempt to classify or define? With Paganism, especially, because of long-held association with witchcraft and negative stereotypes, there have been stories about Pagans who have been denied services such as being able to adopt children, or having to hide symbols of their religion from governmental or institutional representatives. In May of 2005, a judge barred a divorced couple from exposing their child to Wicca[1], which was both parent’s religion. In 2007 in a well-publicized case, a Wiccan soldier killed in service was finally allowed the right to have a pentagram, a symbol of Wicca, emblazoned on his memorial marker. The big difference between being ‘Wiccan’ and being merely ‘Pagan’ is that Wicca, while being under the Pagan umbrella, is more well-defined than ‘Pagan’, and can be quantified by authoritative agencies and institutions. Pagan organizations that might be qualified to receive tax-exempt status as churches are denied on a regular basis because they cannot explicitly describe their beliefs enough to qualify as being religious in nature.

 

Unlike the ‘Big 4’ religions (Catholicism, Christianity, Islam & Judaism), Paganism does not have a unified ruling body. There is no centralized clergy, no Pope, and no centralized sacred document. What Paganism does have is thousands of individuals practicing and living their religions in their own ways. It is therefore largely the individuals’ responsibility to define ‘Pagan’ for those who are not Pagan, and even for Pagans who believe differently while still being Pagan. The best way to go about this is also left up to the individual to decide.  

So, I think I'm going to attempt taking this journal in a slightly new direction. I think if I'm going to bitch about life, the Universe & everything, Imma do it on facebook.

For my lj, though... I've been thinking a lot about my own spirituality, and what it means to be a Pagan today. There are so many different flavors of Pagan, just in America alone. It's been 20 or more years since Drawing Down the Moon redefined our sense of community, and I'm beginning to get curious as to where we are now. What, and who, is the modern American Pagan? How do we fit into the global scene? Who has helped us define who we are, who has guided us along the paths we've chosen? What direction are we headed in? Where do we see ourselves in 50 years?

I got an idea - I'm actually going to try and contact some of the people mentioned in Drawing Down the Moon & see if I can set up non-stalkery interviews with them. Maybe hunt up some new resources, create a sort of directory.

I'm also going to be looking into the potential of journalism of any kind whatsoever actually bringing me some much-needed dinero. It was a lark when I mentioned 'rock journalism', because when I hear myself critiquing music to Rob as I'm surfing Pandora, that's what I think about. "Gee, I shoulda been a rock journalist". If anything, maybe pursuing a Bachelor's in journalism would at least stave off the student loan people for 4 - 7 years, lol.

But for now, I'm going back to trick or treating. It's Hallow's End in Azeroth, & y'all know what that means to me :D