Here are some links to meal blessings to say either privately or out loud with the rest of your family:

Pagan and Buddhist

And remember, everyday should be one of thanksgiving.

Scarlet Imprint:

www.scarletimprint.com

They will hopefully be publishing the Babalon talks from Saturday that I found so riveting, and there are also links to other speakers from the Conference.
In their own words:

We believe in good writing, and have no time for bad art, scrawled sigils or obfuscation.
Our books are the result of practice rather than posture.

To which I cry - Hurrah! We're all in support of serious pagan writing...

The other site is from David Beth:

www.kosmic-gnosis.org

I am indeed a witch.

It seems strange to have to make such a statement but to be honest. I think it is the first time I have. I have always considered myself Pagan. I have taken on many of the principles of Wicca. But I have always been shy of labeling myself. Why is that? I really do not know. I am not sure what made me hesitate in admiting to myself what I was.

I have begun to think more and more about my beliefs. I have an interesting journey ahead of me but one I look forward to.

I am a Witch. I don't own a black cat. I don't have a broom, I will stick to my vacuum for cleaning up thank you. I do have tarot cards which I read for insight. I have an Athame and swords but the swords are collectible.

I have a library of books about Wicca, Magick and I am writing my Book of Shadows which I started just after returning from Queensland and the Australian Wiccan Conference. I wish to learn all I can. I wish to grow as the seasons go.

I am a Witch.

I just thought I would clarify it and express it.

I am a Witch and I am happier as one.

Don't judge me on just the word. Judge me on my words. Judge me on my actions. Judge me on who I am and not on what you think I am.

It is a term that means so much to so many. We are all here on the great planet and those who call themselves Pagan, Witch, Wiccan, or any of a dozen other names know how valuable life is here for us.

What makes our way special is the ability to be ourselves. We do not have a doctrine that has evolved to be oppressive. We are not ruled from on high by a man or men who have seemingly lost the plot. We do not cry out for war in the name of our Gods though we have Gods who are warriors.

It is easy to be judgmental though. Easy to feel you are right and another is wrong. We are human and we have our own thoughts and feelings. We can be prejudice and make assumptions based on appearance or stereotype.

Are we not judged that way?

Many on our path are made feel they are wrong because we do not worship as other religions do.

I too have made assumptions and they have not always been right. Mostly I have learned from them and grown a little wiser. Then after all isn't that the goal of our way, to seek wisdom and to grow from it.

Recently I was changed. As a solitary I was unprepared for what I experienced and for the effects of sharing with so many the Rites. I came away with renewed conviction and devotion to the Goddess and the God. Each morning I have walked for thirty minutes and then spent some time in the local park either in meditation or contemplation of the wonders of Nature. Then I have spent time writing in my Book of Shadows. It is wonderful to feel so connected and to be learning even more about the Gods and the path I have chosen.

I am still solitary and would hope to connect with others with whom I can meet and share and learn from. I am Proud to be who I am. I am an eclectic pagan and I am a witch. I believe in the Goddess and the God in all

their forms and in the Magick that connects all of us together.

It was fitting that for me all these changes began with Ostara a time of rebirth and new beginnings for us. I have touched the earth and felt the energy. I have stood on the grass and felt the Sun God's warmth heat my face. I have listened to the breeze at night and heard the Goddess as she shared her wisdom.

I have watched the sky light up with the energy of the universe and the fire glow as the breeze fed it's flames. The smallest flower a wondrous proof of the God and Goddess working together.

Paganism shows us many things bit what is the most valuable lesson we can learn?

It is to love. To love he Goddess for Her grace and beauty. To love the God for His strength and wisdom. To love the world for it is our home in this life. To love each other for inside everyone dwells the Goddess and the God and lastly; to love ourselves. To accept who we are and find happiness in our existance. The Goddess and God want us to enjoy life. To be apart of it. It is easy to be separated from things, especially here online. But even here the Gods guide us if we choose to listen.

Chapter Two: On General Ethical Priorities

• The Multiverse is very large!
• Lifestyle is more important that credo.
• Intent is more important than results.
• People are more important than property.
• Discipline is more important than control.
• Survival is more important than comfort.
• Creation is better than criticism.
• Destruction is better than complaint.
• Unity is better than dissension.
• Individuality is better than conformity.
• Responsibility is better than blame.
• Remorse is better than guilt.
• Sensuality is better than asceticism.
• Love is better than hate.
• Caution is better than fear.
• Courage is better than foolhardiness.
• Knowledge is better than ignorance.
• Self-knowledge is better than pride.
• Wisdom is better than knowledge.
• Honesty is better than deceit.
• Honor is better than arrogance.
• Peace is better than war.
• Joy is better than sorrow.
• Generosity is better than thrift.
• Mercy is better than justice.
• Loyalty is better than slavery.
• Trust is better than cynicism.
• Skepticism is better than gullibility.
• Good works are better than good promises.

The footage below was found on YouTube regarding the discovery of this bowl:

The report from the Christian Telegraph now follows:

Scientists find ancient bowl that may call Jesus a magician

In what is certainly to be a controversial speculation too hard for many Evangelical Christians to swallow, scientists claim they have found an ancient bowl that refers to Jesus Christ as a magician, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service.

A team of scientists led by renowned French marine archaeologist Franck Goddio recently announced that they have found the bowl, dating to between the late 2nd century B.C. and the early 1st century A.D., that is engraved with what they believe could be the world's first known reference to Christ.

In an online article by Jennifer Viegas of the Discovery Channel posted to the MSNBC website, scientists say the engraving reads, "DIA CHRSTOU O GOISTAIS," which has been interpreted to mean either, "by Christ the magician" or, "the magician by Christ."

The MSNBC article says that if the word "Christ" refers to the Biblical Jesus Christ, as is speculated, then the discovery may provide evidence that Christianity and paganism at times intertwined in the ancient world.

"It could very well be a reference to Jesus Christ, in that he was once the primary exponent of white magic," said archaeologist Goddio, who is co-founder of the Oxford Center of Maritime Archaeology.

In her article, Viegas says that Goddio and his colleagues found the object during an excavation of the underwater ruins of Alexandria's ancient great harbor. The Egyptian site also includes the now submerged island of Antirhodos, where Cleopatra's palace may have been located.

Viegas says that both Goddio and Egyptologist David Fabre, a member of the European Institute of Submarine Archaeology, think a "magus" could have practiced fortune telling rituals using the bowl. The Book of Matthew refers to "wisemen," or Magi, believed to have been prevalent in the ancient world.

According to Fabre, the bowl is also very similar to one depicted in two early Egyptian earthenware statuettes that are thought to show a soothsaying ritual.

"It has been known in Mesopotamia probably since the 3rd millennium B.C.," Fabre said. "The soothsayer interprets the forms taken by the oil poured into a cup of water in an interpretation guided by manuals."

Fabre added that the individual, or "medium," then goes into a hallucinatory trance when studying the oil in the cup.

"They therefore see the divinities, or supernatural beings appear that they call to answer their questions with regard to the future," he said.

Viegas writes that scientists theorize the magus might then have used the engraving on the bowl to legitimize his supernatural powers by invoking the name of Christ.

Goddio said, "It is very probable that in Alexandria they were aware of the existence of Jesus" and of his associated legendary miracles, such as transforming water into wine, multiplying loaves of bread, conducting miraculous health cures, and the story of the resurrection itself.

Viegas explains that while not discounting the Jesus Christ interpretation, other researchers have offered different possible interpretations for the engraving, which was made on the thin-walled ceramic bowl after it was fired, since slip was removed during the process.

Bert Smith, a professor of classical archaeology and art at Oxford University, suggests the engraving might be a dedication, or present, made by a certain "Chrestos" belonging to a possible religious association called Ogoistais.

Klaus Hallof, director of the Institute of Greek inscriptions at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy, added that if Smith's interpretation proves valid, the word "Ogoistais" could then be connected to known religious groups that worshipped early Greek and Egyptian gods and goddesses, such as Hermes, Athena and Isis.

Hallof additionally pointed out that historians working at around, or just after, the time of the bowl, such as Strabon and Pausanias, refer to the god "Osogo" or "Ogoa," so a variation of this might be what's on the bowl. It is even possible that the bowl refers to both Jesus Christ and Osogo.

Fabre concluded: "It should be remembered that in Alexandria, paganism, Judaism and Christianity never evolved in isolation. All of these forms of religion (evolved) magical practices that seduced both the humble members of the population and the most well-off classes."

"It was in Alexandria where new religious constructions were made to propose solutions to the problem of man, of God's world," he added. "Cults of Isis, mysteries of Mithra, and early Christianity bear witness to this."

The bowl is currently on public display in the exhibit "Egypt's Sunken Treasures" at the Matadero Cultural Center in Madrid, Spain, until November 15.

Report from the Christian Telegraph

These concepts were traditional in Platonism.  It was considered that the mysteries of Eleusis and, more generally, the ceremonies of the cult and the form of the statues, as well as the decorations and symbols on these statues, had been chosen by sages, in the most distant antiquity, with regard to the cosmos.  This Platonic idea first appears in Varro, who affirms that the ancient sages chose the form of the statues of the gods and their attributes so that, when they are contemplated with the eyes of the body, we can see the World Soul and its parts, which are the genuine gods.  Then at a later stage, for instance in Plotinus, we find the idea that the sages of yesteryear, wishing to enjoy the presence of the gods, saw, when they contemplated the nature of the All, that the Soul could be present everywhere, and that it was easy for all things to receive it, as long as they fashioned some object which, by means of sympathy, was capable for receiving a part thereof.  Here again, the paticular gods appear as emanations of the Soul of the All, and statues of the gods ensure the gods' presence, insofar as something in these statues is in sympathy with the Soul of the All.  In the text by Porphyry, where mention is made of the occultation of nature according to Heraclitus, the gods and the World Soul are just as closely linked, and traditional religion is physics in images. 

-Pierre Hadot, The Veil of Isis: An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature

The Hindu idol of the deity Shiva as nataraja is laden with symbolism as to the cycles of birth and destruction of the universe. As one website describes the imagery of the idol:

The symbolism of Siva Nataraja is religion, art and science merged as one. In God's endless dance of creation, preservation, destruction and paired graces is hidden a deep understanding of our universe. Aum Namah Sivaya. Bhashya Nataraja, the King of Dance, has four arms. The upper right hand holds the drum from which creation issues forth. The lower right hand is raised in blessing, betokening preservation. The upper left hand holds a flame, which is destruction, the dissolution of form. The right leg, representing obscuring grace, stands upon Apasmarapurusha, a soul temporarily earth-bound by its own sloth, confusion and forgetfulness. The uplifted left leg is revealing grace, which releases the mature soul from bondage. The lower left hand gestures toward that holy foot in assurance that Siva's grace is the refuge for everyone, the way to liberation. The circle of fire represents the cosmos and especially consciousness. The all-devouring form looming above is Mahakala, "Great Time." The cobra around Nataraja's waist is kundalini shakti, the soul-impelling cosmic power resident within all. Nataraja's dance is not just a symbol. It is taking place within each of us, at the atomic level, this very moment. The Agamas proclaim, "The birth of the world, its maintenance, its destruction, the soul's obscuration and liberation are the five acts of His dance." Aum Namah Sivaya.

In the modern West, our sense of interacting with the cosmos is purely quantitaive. As I have been saying as of late, much of this is due to a particular reading of monotheistic religion that has always been in strife with the ethos of other traditional cultures. In order to distinguish between the creature and the Creator, the creature had to be stripped of any innate power in it. To worship the Maker of the sun rather than the sun, it was best to demote the sun to the status of any other physical object. The spirits of the air were definitively stripped of their power by Christ's ascension according to St. Paul. St. Gregory Nanzianzen wrote that the pious astrological studies of the Magi in the New Testament signified the death knell of any abiltity to discern God's will from the stars. The world then is contaminated, the realm of the devil, and easily used as a tool of deception by dark forces. One can then see how this strain of thought as well can give birth to a Descartes, sitting in his warm study, wondering about the reality of his own hand as he turns the page of some old volume of learned philosophy...

There is of course the other side to this, the side in which traditional religion survived the cosmic hurricane of Judeo-Christian radical monotheism. The number symbolism that dominates our religion, the dominance of three, four, five, seven, nine, forty, etc., is the legacy of Pythagoreanism and other "questionable" late Jewish sources that were part of a world where Divinity created the world out of Number and Letter. (In Greek and Hebrew, they are the same.) Going back to Pseudo-Dionyisus and St. Maximus Confessor, the image of the Church is the image of the cosmos (nave, narthex, sanctuary), which in turn is the image of man, and also the image of the faculties of the soul, etc. Even the very substance of our religion, the bread and wine used in our most sacred of rites, centers on the idea of many individual things (wheat and grapes) being destoryed and made into one, symbolic of the death and re-birth portrayed in many ancient belief systems. In these Christian mysteries, we have the same principals as in all "pagan" magic: like draws like. In order to receive the power of something higher, you must represent it by something that is "sympathetic" to it. This intuitive sense of "qualitative" interaction with the Divine is an endangered species in a world enslaved to quanitative data and results.

Many say that the Church and its doctrine are developing and coming to a more mature understanding of the Gospel of Christ. I would contend, however, that the loss of these "magical" principals described above entails the opposite: our religion is in the state of decadence and decline. One only need look at a Gothic cathedral to see that those who went before us saw the Church as a reflection and fufillment of the decorum of the cosmos. We however see it mere as an instrument of legal salvation and the propagation of moral uprightness. Our churches look like nice shopping malls or parking garages, our cermonies like daytime talk shows, and our sacred songs sound like second rate pop hits on the radio. Religion has nothing to do with how we organize society, our daily life, or personal enlightenment. In other words, it has nothing to do with reality. That's what "science" is for.

That is why I easily tire of dogmatic and philosophical discussion among modern peoples. All the terms and ideas used in them are loaded with ideological baggage that I am no longer willing to carry. Or rather, they are emptied of any real significant content. Recover first the mythos, the sacred geometry, the ritual, and the vision that created these ideas, and then get back to me with an argument. Without abandoning the religion of the one True God revealed in Jesus Christ, we must learn again the primeval sense of a physics in images.

Once we had got over our initial hilarity at the location, which was essentially a scout-hut with bar at the back of a housing estate, we soon realised what an absolutely perfect site it was: private, comfortable with bar and food, and no prying eyes of locals. Inside, the stage area was decorated with curtains and a beautiful arched painting of Nuit. She took my breath away and I looked at her often throughout the day.
Unfortunately the DuQuettes were absent, so the number of talks dropped to 6. First off were Peter Grey and his partner on Babalon. Each read their own incredibly evocative and thrilling interpretations of Babalon, the Whore, the Scarlet Woman. (I notice a discrepancy here in my understanding of their work, and TGW’s notes – this I think reflects my bias in favour of Babalon.) Their Babalon was a strong, indefatigable woman, independent and raw; she was the Babalon of two people in love; and the Babalon who challenged all preconceptions including those of Thelema. They called on Thelemites to reject dogma and to commit blasphemy to infuse new life into a partially degenerate philosophy that needed to change to respond and be relevant to the times. The raw sexual language was beautiful, challenging and ultimately deeply arousing. I later overcame my innate shyness to ask them for copies of their work because I very much want to read through both texts at my leisure.

A couple of talks later, this particular image of Babalon was shaken to its roots by Melissa Harrington who spoke about Thelema and The Feminine. (I would just like to say I admired her spirit and thoroughly enjoyed her talk. It's only because she posed such interesting ideas, that I feel able to engage in discussion and disagree with some of her points of reference.) Her first words, though not unkind, were to Peter Grey and partner, saying, "Come back when you've had children and tell me again about Babalon." I prickled at what I felt was a rather dismissive statement. Her talk went on to question the role of women in Thelema; that because the structure has been so male dominated since its inception, that there are not enough provisions made for women, either in a spiritual sense or practically in the form of crèches at rituals. She looked at the audience and marked everyone as a first generation believer, and wondered how on earth anyone could be expected to bring up a child in Thelema with the lack of structure and openness to families and children. This was a fair point, but one that could have been made in isolation. Instead she cited Crowley's behaviour with a string of women, the drugs, the abandonment and death through negligence of some of the children. She found this an unacceptable basis for a religion; that women were essentially given sexual freedom but not the power to deal with it. This is true, and perhaps because I don’t see Crowley as a prophet, but more as an inspired madman, I have no issue in taking the good and leaving the bad: when you start talking about “religion” then people start wanting absolutes; they want their prophets to be flawless and their gods to be manifest in dogma. Untidiness irritates such people. And such people irritate me. Whether it is directly Crowley's responsibility or actually a failure of responsibility by the women themselves, I find harder to say, and the discussion smacks to me slightly of arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Are the personality flaws of Crowley then, still relevant now? Can't we take the best of his work and just move forward with it? If we are looking to him as a cult leader, then his personality flaws certainly create stumbling blocks; but if he is an inspiration, in the true sense of the word as a source that inspires us to other things, then I don’t see that it matters.

Another thing that riled me slightly, was that all of these points could have stood strongly on their own without bringing in the image of Babalon. She said that Babalon was a whore, and a male wet-dream, that ultimately Crowley did not question the motivation of whores and the desperation that drove them to whoredom. A fair point to a degree. But she ultimately robbed Babalon of any power, citing her childlessness as indicative of the barren nature of her symbolism, and that consequently this barrenness was being expressed in current day Thelema by the lack of provision for women and children, and the concomitant outcome that no one at the conference had been brought up as a Thelemite. Two points need addressing here: one - I HATE the way women who have had children then interpret everything in their lives thereafter from the perspective of motherhood as the pinnacle of female achievement. I understand that to them it is the most momentous thing of their lives. But to invoke childlessness as an expression of barrenness, negativity, lack of self, lack of will, slavery to male sexuality is in my opinion entirely missing the point of Babalon. She is an independent woman figure desired by man. She holds tremendous power. I have seen so many women lose any sense of self and individuality to their children; so many merge and become solely the power engine for their brood. Rightly so. If you are going to bring a being into the world, it is your responsibility to give that being everything you can. I am not criticising this. What I criticise is the assumption that childless women are less because they do NOT sacrifice themselves for their children. (This was implicit rather than explicit in her talk; it was unaddressed and hence bugged me big time.) For me, Babalon is a powerful Goddess that represents the ultimate in freedom. Does feminist freedom always have to be entirely and utter split from men? Can't we be free and still in relationship with men? And if it is right to sacrifice yourself to your children whom you love, why is it suddenly wrong to sacrifice yourself to a man you love? The second point is that my understanding of Thelema is that it is a spiritual path which requires a spiritual awakening: it needs you to make the realisation of will to undertake the path; it is not a philosophy that can be taught at Sunday school. It is the philosophy of adults searching for a way to the divine. By trying to force a familial pattern of parental guidance on Thelema, she is trying (in my opinion) to make a tomato out of a chestnut.
Her second partial criticism was how women often came to Thelema through a male partner, but that often the women remained in Thelema once that original partnership dissolved. She used this as indicative of the non-woman friendly feeling in Thelema. Again, I disagree and believe that the reason for this is perhaps slightly more complicated. Thelema, the Gnostic mass and other tenets, are very sexual; to an outsider they could appear (indeed in some ways ARE) sexually aggressive. In today's world I think there are very few women who would feel comfortable entering such a scene on their own, however great their interest. So perhaps the fact that women often approach Thelema through a male partner is less about emphasizing the male dominance and male leadership in Thelemic male/female relationships, than it is about reflecting the sad status of our society, that women are often frightened of overt, public expression of sexuality and feel safer approaching it all through a male partner whom they trust will keep them safe (at least until they have gained trust and confidence in the community).
The second talk was The 5 Senses in AMOOKOS and Tantrik Traditions, by Mike Magee. This was a fairly basic introduction to the idea of Tantra; the balance of Shakti and Shiva, the balance of male and female internally. The only new bit of information for me was gleaned from a training level in the AMOOKOS tradition, where initiates were called on to practice sense focus for a period of 26 weeks: one week they would focus on sight and keep a journal about (for example) the different shades of grey they saw through the week; the second week focused on taste; the third on hearing; the fourth on touch; the fifth on smell and the sixth represented ether and was a week of meditating on the present, of grounding and feeling utterly in the moment. This sequence was repeated over the 26 weeks, by the end of which you would have an extensive diary of your sensory experiences, which often led to certain changes in the initiate and the integration of disparate memories and sensory experiences. An integrity of being seemed to be the ultimate focus, but the final outcome depended entirely on the initiate's own experiences and it was up to them to apply interpretations and learn from their experiences. This is a practice I am considering working through, as it could be very useful for my Kundalini practice.
Following Melissa Harrington, there was a talk by Charlotte Rodgers on Taboo & Blood Rites. There was in my mind very little information on generic blood rites, and it was more of a personal journey using blood; this was fascinating and I warmed to this woman greatly. She discussed the difference between venous blood and menstrual blood. She cited personal experience, which I don’t think it is appropriate to go into here. She touched on the subject of Mayan yoga, as in Maya/illusion. Performing this type of yoga in front of mirrors covered in blood symbols draws out aspects of self. This encourages a splitting of self to enable working on manifest aspects of self.

After this there was a talk on Goetic Magick by Jake Stratton-Kent. His experience seemed focused primarily on the Grimoirum Verum. The content of his talk passed me by, the prime interest for me came in the question time where he talked more openly about spirits with whom he had what he termed a "marriage type relationship". These relationships were concrete things that he worked on as any other kind of relationship. I enjoyed the matter-of-fact way that he spoke about spirits. His relationship with them seemed more concrete than my own, but the way he spoke of them as such an integral part of his life - "I get along with some spirits better than I do with some people" - this rung true for me, and I felt he was speaking my language.
The final talk was given by a young German man, David Beth, Into the Meon - Inside Voudon Gnosis. His English was excellent, but unfortunately he assumed that everyone in the audience was privy to certain knowledge, that TGW and I mostly certainly were not. Consequently we were unable to follow the thread and missed out on learning much of anything. I'm sure that wasn't the case for the more learned people in the audience. What did strike me was that in his tradition blood shares a cosmic essence with the “upper world”. The junction where these two essences meet in the adept is the hieros gamos. He also spoke of a concept called Las Prise des Yeaux, which is a form of esoteric vision of objects where you view the spiritual essence in all things animate and inanimate (another practical exercise in the offing).

This is a censored and curtailed version of the event, and hence the text at times appears a little choppy, for which I apologise. I took some hefty secateurs to it to make it publicly palatable :-) Some things are not appropriate for public consumption, some things are too personal to me to convey. Let it just be said, that this was a hugely important day for me, made all the more enjoyable by the company of TGW. I will definitely be going next year.
© starofseshat 2008

Conversation with the Wizard...Second part : On Druidry and Paganism 

 How did you find OBOD (Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids, UK)? And what drew you to become a Druid?

 Shakti: I have always been a "child of the Goddess". Years and years before it became fashionable (in the Sixties?)!... As for OBOD, I had no idea, I didn´t look for it at all; it came to me through a friend in the Internet, and I immediately saw the potential and registered. After 42 years on the spiritual Path, you get a nose for opportunities! (Laughter). I mean, I see the potential of a group like this, who emphasizes ecology, not only "spiritual teachings". OBOD is a very modern entity, not a reincarnation of an ancient past, some wild "channeling" of a dreamed-up past. It is active and holistic, and very very up to our times. It really rocks! (Laughter.) It is a perfect tool to create a new kind of society, where the term "family of the heart" will really mean something. At OBOD, I´m deep into my Druid journey now. I have finished my Bardic and Ovate Grades, and what a journey that was! The Bardic Grade is really when my feeling for art literally exploded! (This website being part of said explosion.)

What are your views on Paganism?  Is Paganism a religion? Do you consider yourself as a Pagan?

 Shakti : For me paganism is not strictly a religion, because it does not presuppose the existence of an almighty "God". It certainly isn´t "a religion of the Book"; it is not a revealed religion. There are many gods on the pagan path, many archetypes, many models to draw from to sustain your own life. As a matter of fact, you can perfectly tailor your own religion. Which can be a drawback too; too much eclectism, and you lose your perspective! But, anyway, that is why, in my view, paganism is so modern : it fits individuals perfectly. For me, paganism is more of an individual perception of reality, of nature, of the universe, a way of life, a way of being rooted in life. For me, paganism is about feeling, not about conceptualizing about life. Yes, I could certainly describe myself as a pagan, a pagan with a Christian code of ethics. A christian buddhist eco-warrior pagan...(Laughter.) With any possible permutation of the terms! (More laughter.) It is still a bit difficult to own the term "pagan" because it is not considered very positive. I actually prefer being "a druid" than being a pagan. "Pagan" can mean any-old-thing-besides-christianity, and it can mean being an adversary of christianity, which I am not at all. The term "witch" has the same bad name. I don´t like that negative view on paganism or on Wicca, for that matter. But I happen to think that true Christianity is the very heart of civilization (and I don´t mean the perverted part of it, as shown in the Dark Ages). I think that you can perfectly be a Christian pagan, that is : a follower of the philosophy of the Christ but firmly anchored in the world of objective reality, in the body, in the natural surroundings. Druids were not only priests of Nature; they were judges, administrators, counsellors, that is : they were working right in the middle of the societies of their time, they had their place and specific status, counselling princes and kings. They were building and developping and expanding the spiritual aspect of their societies.They were not all of them hermits running away from their societies, shaggy beings abstracted from reality, lost in visions, clothed with animal skins and growling in their caves. I like the idea that a Druid could actually stop any battle stepping in between the two armies, and send everybody home!...They had that type of authority, which was amply recognised and respected. I rather think we need more Druids, in that way, nowadays! (Laughter.)

In your opinion what differentiates druidism - or druidry - from other religions, or spiritual paths? Is druidry a religion ?

 Shakti : It woud make for an interesting discussion, I think. For me, druidism is a philosophy. I don´t like isms, anyway. I prefer to say druid-ry, for me druidry is a social role and an experience. A pragmatic philosophy. A philosophical pragmatism. Religions are the many ways the peoples of the world connect with the sacred aspects of and in their lives. The difference with other ways of considering the Divine, is that it is known that Druids had a reverence for Nature that does not appear in other, more recent, religions, except perhaps in Shintoism. Let´s say that druidism existed long long long before christianity, and certainly, long before Christendom! It is the way men saw, perceived, felt about the world they lived in, 8000 years back in time. Of course, we cannot know what they really saw or felt, but we can re-create, have an intuition of, their perception and so, benefit from it. I don´t think there are any "real" Druids left. Neo-druids we are, certainly. We can be linked to the old Druids, over the bridge of time, through our sensitivity and inner perceptions, even over such a vast passage of time. We cannot "be" them, because 8000 years have passed, and surely, humanity has developped, even if it doesn´t look like it sometimes! (Laughter). I was in Carnac (Britanny) in 2005, in an OBOD workshop with their Chosen-Chief, meditating and touching the Stones. And I really felt the greatness of the people who erected the Stones. I could feel what they meant, the Temple that the alignments are. The Stones are a song to the sacredness of the world. Any so-called primitive people who can move those huge stones has certainly had a sacred intention, and that intention, that connection between Earth and Sky, can still be felt around the Stones, can still be re-created inside our mind. It was a great privilege to be there, with druid friends. It was as if the little humans of 8000 years back were trying to reach the immensity of the sky, affirming their relationship with the stars themselves, the sun, the moon, the magnificent spectacle of every day. As if the stones were a bridge that reminded them of their kinship with the whole Universe.

Have you explored any other religions on  your Path ? 

Shakti : Oh yes, certainly. Buddhism (the Zen facet of Buddhism) and Hinduism (Advaíta Yoga). And Christianity, of course (I´m originally a Protestant). Zen is not strictly a religion either, it is more of a perception of the very nature of reality, not a romantic dream about it (which is why I liked it, and worked closely during ten years with a Zen master, Sensei Itsuo Tsuda). I have studied a bit of Kabbalah, of course, and have had a very traditional Western esoteric training. You see, I think neither Buddhism (in its larger sense) nor Hinduism do take into account the simple reality of our objective life; both of them abstract the body and relationships, and even concrete reality, so they are a reflection of a spiritual Path that is not quite adequate for our modern life (tantric buddhism being an exception): we are not monks and nuns, and our generation and the next, we have to begin to defend ourselves, our very lives perhaps, from the attacks of the perversions of all religions that have abstracted Nature. Through these perversions, the life on our planet is in danger. The life of humanity itself is in danger, never mind the planet, the planet will survive the stupid little ants! It´s not the whales anymore that we have to "save", but the humans themselves! (Laughter.) So a way of life which actually includes Nature makes a lot of sense!... My own view is that life is sacred, all of it! The rocks, the trees, the animals, the water, the air, humans, everything! The world is a sacred Creation, and God, or Goddess, or Spirit, or Wakan Tanka (whatever you want to call "it"), is inhabiting the world,  is not apart from it. I guess I would be a pantheist if I did not know through experience that what we call "God" is especially incarnated in human beings. Don´t misunderstand me. We are not "more" than the rest, but we are certainly more special than rocks! (Laughter). That can be debated, I know, but my point of view, is...try to go to bed with a rock! (More laughter.) Anyway...(laughter).Laughter is part of my religion. (More laughter).

 What is God for you - or g.o.d, as you call it? 

Shakti : God is LIFE, all of it! Nwyfre and Awen. Rocks, mist, deep forest, love, people, art... And because they say the old Druids taught exactly that, ...I am a Druid.

Thanks, Shakti.

Shakti : My pleasure, thank you.

The Corpus Hermetica is a volume of the Sacred Lore and is for the illumination of our minds. As an axiomatic cosmology the underlying philosophy facilitates the internal illumination of the adherent.

The path to self actualization is accompanied with a voluntary cooperation, and the alignment of the individual Will, with the Supreme Will in evolution.

Liberty, Equality and Fraternity are encouraged and the Virtues practiced. The Self is given to the highest Ideal in Service to the Perfection of Humanity. Through our Science the development and evolution is quickened to the Glory of Divine Humantity.

What we created was incredibly simple. We only used some very basic colors: red, blue, yellow, green (only because it is difficult to mix a nice green), black and white. All the others we had to create ourselves. Not only did we concentrate on the different colors and their combinations but we focused on tints and shades. The finished product was very similar to the image below. The tints being to the right of the yellow and the shades being to the left of the red. The primary colors red, blue and yellow are larger and the secondary colors green, purple and orange being slightly smaller.

If you look at the layout it is pretty easy to see which two primary colors combine to create a secondary color. Look even closer. The way this is laid out you can see that each primary color has a secondary color just on the other side of the wheel from it, in the position most would call the opposite position. That would be incorrect because colors do not have opposites. They have compliments.

Think about that. What exactly is an opposite? In most cases that refers to something at the other end of an extreme. Most times, though, we see opposites as opposing forces. Good and evil. Light and dark. Are they really opposites or are they more accurately described as being compliments?

You will often hear in reference to dating that opposites attract. I do not think that is an accurate assumption (and has often been proven wrong). You can be completely different people, apparently opposites of each other and yet never get along. I think that is because the things that are different in those situations aren't compliments. They are just drastically different and not in a way that allows for balance. I'm not saying that I think there are no opposites. I just think that for a majority of the things we look at, we aren't looking at them from a perspective that allows for other possibilities.

Along these same lines, you can look at the tints and shades and see that even though there are only a few steps shown between say the black and the red, there are an infinite number of possibilities. The closer to the black you get, the less red is in the mix and vice versa. If you were to look at a color picker on a computer program you will see the huge range of colors between the black and the red. There is literally an infinite number of colors in between the two whether our eyes are capable of seeing them all or not. Rarely ever will you find that any color is purely that color and that it does not contain even a tiny bit of another.

This is the way I see absolutes. For the most part, I do not believe in the extreme absolute. I see everything as a tint or a shade of the idea of the absolute. Nothing is perfect or pure, not even nature. Not really. I think that is why you can often find beauty in something ugly and ugliness in beauty.

If you have been thinking about your long-term plans and considering how to move your life in a new direction, it's now time to let go of your dreams. But this isn't about giving up; it's about detaching from your preferences in order to make room for the necessary growth. You'll be surprised at how fast things shift once you relinquish control.

I read it and just went "Huh.  If that isn't a Divine smack, I don't know what is."  Amazing how that happens.

Well, maybe that's going a little overboard, but I think the concept would make a funny commercial for sWitch if it was ever made into a film. And if it were, the Drive-In would be where it belonged. I'm not much for big, posh, multiplex theaters crowded with cardboard adverts and noisy arcades. I like to hear the projector or the crackle of a dangling speaker, not some idiot on a cell phone. And with your date in a tube top and a six-pack of Michelob in the trunk, what could be better? You could even hit the diner later and unscrew the salt shakers.

I'm not that huge a retro-fan – okay, I certainly am, but I like to think that I recognize the truly special in contemporary popular culture – but there seems to be a commercial agenda to broaden the cultural perspective so that the entire family can join in on the fun with their wallets. I'm always hearing that we're "getting what we want", so much so that I'm starting to wonder a) how they know what we want, and b) if they're not just telling us what we want. To be honest, I want to know what you as a filmmaker/writer/artist wants and I want you to try and convince me of your point of view. In other words, not so much "here it is!" as "check it out!". We're so focused on raising the bottom line that very little is a surprise anymore. In the end, I suspect, we lower the standard for our imaginations. No wonder there's so much attention being paid to remakes and retreads. How something from 50 years ago is still relevant has less to do with new effects and cultural signifiers than where we are now in terms of the human animal.

The story of The Ducharme family was, on the surface, a twisted and sexy romp that attempted to turn modern horror paradigms on its ear. Believe me, that sounds far more pretentious than it really is. I just wanted things to "switch" in the middle, and have the hunter sort of become the hunted and mess with our ideas of who is really the bad guy and so forth. If that's enough for you, and I'm fine if it is, you can stop right here and enjoy the picture. The likes of which you, too, can make by going here. But if you're in the mood for the real pretentious stuff, read on.

sWitch is my comment on the culture quandary caused by a commercialized, cookie-cutter caricature of the American Dream. I had grown tired of "feel good" narratives that propped up the wholesome brand while basically pretending that our darker instincts didn't exist. The practice is the entertainment equivalent of a local beauty pageant. And with entertainment making enormous profits by raising our children these days, I believe we as a society addicted to entertaining ourselves are fixing them with overly simplified versions of what they should expect of their values, bodies, minds and the world. While I strongly believe there is room for low nuance and high sentiment in what we might dub mainstream recreation, fucking hell, have you seen an episode of America's Got Talent, lately? Why can't we mix family values with bold and truly creative expression of which diversity is not a challenge of otherness but intrinsic to our strength? Where's our Adam's Family, Hollywood?

At this point, there appears a stagnating divide that perpetrates a culture war within our own families. In essence, we're at war with ourselves in modern American society and therefore we're at war with everyone outside of it. We're covering up, painting over, and sublimating our true nature –– a nature that is open to change in a variety of forms –– and the results are social and political constructs that support conflict, division and ill mental health (much of it organized under a rotting belief system).

I'm not trying to spur a revolution with rock and roll literature, and I actually believe that real cultural growth needs a balanced view of social propriety and experimentation. In fact, what fun would it be if there were no inherent conflicts in human social nature? It's awesome to have a Bogeyman unite us, as long as we're all clear on where he comes from and do our due diligence to determine what exactly is "real". With sWitch I was definitely championing what I perceived to be cultural scapegoats and pariahs to try and make people examine their own personal beliefs and see if they recognize anything profoundly full of crap. And if they do, I would love to say to them, "Hey, it's cool. Sometimes you need to play along to get along but let's not confuse the matter further by giving up our connection to the earth and our own, natural born strengths". I know that might sound like some lame Chicken Soup for the Soul definition of dark paganism, but if we're bent on adhering to some saintly marketing concept that, under scrutiny, actually opposes togetherness and growth, I think it's not only unhealthy, but ultimately fruitless, as well.

What I'm saying is, we don't need to be afraid of who we are as human beings. What we should be afraid of is a lack of inward examination and self-exploration. We're created to be comfortable with the dark as well as the light, with the earth and the stars and with sexuality and pleasure. It's not wrong to lust, nor is it wrong to release our deepest desires through all forms of expression, as long as we're not asking anyone else to adopt them. In nature, everyone is held accountable for their actions. There is no court of high appeals and no sociological "time outs". Are we now too comfortable with a margin for error that is so easily filled with empty doctrine and self-serving spin? We've lost so much trust for ourselves, we're creating hundreds of billions of walking powder kegs who are mourning the passing of self-respect in all kinds of weird and scary ways. And not "cool" weird and scary, more like "really" weird and scary. There's a difference, folks.

Hey, I don't give a damn how you look, what you drive, what kind of house you have, where your kids go to school (as long as they "teach" there), what kind of music you like, how much you "give" and what silly little bullshit you might have "lost" doing it. I give a damn about your humanity and understanding enough about what that means to wake up and accept that you might have a responsibility to keep working, growing and stay out of the way of real, evolutionary progress. In short, and perhaps in toto, sWitch sets out to be a wickedly fun way to hold you responsible for your connection to yourself as a human being and hold others responsible as well. I'm not even sure I succeeded in doing what I set out to do, and if some of the ideas turned you off, then consider yourself filtered. I'm okay with that. But you still have to ask yourself if you are doing enough to discover your own strengths and recognize your own real weaknesses, or are you expecting someone else's marketing concept of who you should aspire to be dictate what's right and wrong, and what's appetizing and what isn't?

It'd be swell if we stopped being afraid of who we really are, and more importantly, who we really could be. It requires a malleability of vision and the development of courage to accept what our experiments truly yield. Expectations are okay, just as long as you don't expect anything but the truth.

Interviewing Zach and Terance got me thinking though. If I cared an iota more about my immortal soul...If I took the time (had the time to take) to really consider the grand design of this world, I'm 90% sure my beliefs would fall under paganism. I like the way many of them think. In fact, before I decided on labeling myself agnostic, my spiritual leanings were definitely moving towards a more natural spirituality. I know I wanted to reject canonized doctrines altogether, and my favorite thing about paganism is their stance on individualistic paths to enlightenment. There isn't only ONE way to be "saved." There are many paths, each true to that individual. Good pursued for goodness' sake. 

Agnosticism, I've decided, is really a coward's term. It's an intelligent way of saying, I don't give a shit or I don't have time to really think deep about it. Because I'm sure, if I really did contemplate these kinds of things more, I'd arrive at some sort of idea eventually.

It crazy to look back at my religious path over the past ten years. When I was a child, I was the most staunch Christian imaginable. Of course, I was very impressionable and went to Christian school. In elementary school, I had intimate conversations with Jesus, even a prototype of how my prayers went: Pray for others, Pray for my family, Pray for myself. In middle school, I tried to read the Bible everyday. Then in high school things got muddy. I learned more about the hypocrisy that went on behind closed doors. So-called Christians always ended up being the most exclusive/conceited/close-minded people in the world. I became more liberal and with that came my cynicism for organized religion. Junior year I think, was my big break from Christianity. And besides for one spell early freshman year @ UGA, I have relinquished all religions since. I've thankfully lost my faith.  

"That's me in the corner,
That's me in the spotlight,
Losing my religion."

- R.E.M.

Or at least I want to.  I feel like there is so much in this world that we don't know, that we can't understand, that science can't explain.  There is so much in this world that awes me, and I refuse to lose my sense of wonder.

I suppose it could be argued that "magic" is really just God doing His thing, and that my sense of wonder is really just a sense of the divine.  But sometimes, especially in the Fall and when I listen to specific songs and experience the sensations and emotions they create within me, I feel there is only one true word to describe it.  Magic.

It's as if there is something about it that is above even the divine.  Like there is more to this than just a deity or two; this belongs to the whole world, whether they believe in it or not.  This belongs to the whole universe and yet, at the same time, it resides in me.  It is the most powerful, all-encompassing thing.  It, essentially, is the universe and all its forces and it sits warm and calm in my belly just waiting for me to call on it.  It won't condemn me if I choose never to call on it.  It is available in my soul if I so desire, but there is no requirement to use it or communicate with it.  It is pure magic.

But in the back of mind are the voices of my ultra-conservative, ultra-Christian grandparents:  Magic is the work of the Devil, if it even exists at all.  But how can this be evil?  It's such a beautiful feeling and, if anything, it confirms the existence of a higher God or Goddess.  Besides, I think people give the Devil far too much credit.

And why is there such a stigma attached to a belief in magic?  It seems if you believe in magic you're either crazy, on drugs, immature, or Pagan (which, as far as many people are concerned -- my grandparents included -- is really just a combination of the first three).

"Miracle" is just the acceptable Christian word for magic.  Jesus turned water into wine, brought people back to life, walked on water.  Is this not magic?  So why do so few people allow themselves to believe in magic?

I'm not really sure where I'm going with this.  I'm trying to determine what I believe in, I guess, and a good place to start is with the things I know I believe in.  I believe in magic, even if I am sometimes hesitant to admit it.  I believe in magic in all its forms:  Magic, miracles, acts of God, coincidences, love.  I'd wager that magic has the most believers, but people are scared to attach that forbidden word to it.  Magic has almost become a curse word.

The more I think of it, the more I want to learn more about Paganism or some other earth-based religion.  I'm beginning to think that my struggle with finding a religion is not me trying to figure out what I believe.  No, I know what I believe in.  My struggle has been to find other people who feel the same way as I do, with whom I can share my beliefs.  It's a bit strange -- or maybe it isn't, really -- but I do feel the need to find some kind of label for my belief system.  It's important to me, and I'm getting a little bit excited because, just in writing this, I've realized that I'm starting to get close to finding that name, that label that I require so much.

For those of you who are curious about what the term "paganism" encompasses, here is a definition of a pagan from paganprideproject.org. A pagan, or a Neo-Pagan, is someone whose beliefs fit into one of the following:

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="203" caption="Pagan Symbols"][/caption]

For those of you who are curious, consider going to the Hearthfires discussion. Also, here are some things you might want to check out:

http://paganwiccan.about.com/
"A Little Less Misunderstanding: What Christians Don't Understand About Neopaganism"
"The Star of Life: A Historical and spiritual history of the Pentagram"

Look for the sun

The sun is always shining somewhere

Though the storms may obscure it from view

There's always a light in the Heavens,

Though rain clouds may hide it too.

And though we lose sight of the brightness

And shadows may darken our door,

Always the sun will appear,

Shining as bright as before.

(Author unknown)  

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

EDIT: All the parts are uploaded now.

Part 1

Click "more" to see the rest of the videos and commentary...

Much of the content of this documentary many of you probably already know, but it is still deeply chilling to watch (and triggering).  I enabled sharing on it so you can post it on your blogs.  I hope that it makes the rounds, because it is impossible to watch this and not realize what happened to women and why we still have to fight and scratch for everything today.  It puts many things into context, which I think is always germane, but particularly during this election cycle.

I'm not a spiritual person, but I do know a bit about various forms of Pagan* religions and I'm active with many of my local Pagan groups. I rolled around the idea of Wicca, specifically, as my personal spirituality for awhile some years back, but after a great deal of introspection I've come to accept that I'm just not a person who is attracted to organized spirituality.  I suppose I'm too much a creature of the earth: the pursuit of the truth about the universe has come best to me through scientific knowledge and philosophical study.  Still, when I think about the Women's Holocaust, I realize that I would have been marched straight up to the burning stake for the same reasons that I have so much trouble in society today.

Pagan religions were largely practices that dealt with primitive forms of scientific pursuit, because they were based upon observations of nature and rituals that had to do with what is observable.  Sympathetic magic in general tends to be this way, in that the practitioner connects what is real with what they wish to understand and change, and so I see science as the natural evolution of that.  And yet, the scientific establishment (which is a separate entity from the concept of science itself) is still very hostile to women, as I have personally experienced many times over.  In this way, women are still kept out of the domain of study and understanding of nature, which is among the most empowering things a woman can pursue.  The fact that women are not as involved in science has everything to do with why the scientific establishment serves the Patriarchy so vigorously.

Really, the only place where women have any opportunity to reconnect with nature and express their power is through Pagan religions -- religions that are still oppressed today -- and Paganism is not as demonstrably effective as science in creating change through understanding of nature.  Women are consequently left with  the primitive forms of natural study (which must still be practiced in the shadows) as their only way of recapturing some semblance, however remote, of the power they once had as wise women.  Far from the ancient respected sisterhoods that shared knowledge and built upon their mutual understandings in order to help their community (again, an early form of science), modern Pagan covens are generally stunted forms of their original practical function, repeating ancient rituals based on knowledge that is thousands of years out of date and reconstituted from what fragments of memory remained after the Patriarchy's assault.

Though Paganism undoubtedly has both social and spiritual value for women -- simply learning to regard the female principle as equally important to the male can be deeply healing for women -- the context of natural knowledge from which these practices grew remains largely that of a pre-Roman peoples without much benefit of modern scientific understanding.  In fact, many Pagans have a tacit hostility toward science, which is directly due to the Patriarchy's control over it, even though Pagans would by definition make far better scientists in terms of their spirituality not conflicting with their practice.  They would bring to the scientific establishment an inherent respect for the ethical considerations that are involved in scientific pursuits: ethics that are in direct conflict with the predominant Christian Patriarchy's view of nature, the Earth and our place in it.

While I have nothing to say on the point of whether spirituality itself has value -- I don't really know -- I do think that the real effect of the Women's Holocaust on the practice of pursuing knowledge has caused a rift in the scientific establishment that excludes women and creates an illusion of science as an act devoid of passion.  That idea that math, physics, engineering and so forth are just too hard for the "emotional" female brain, is connected to the concept that the pursuit of science is boring, staid and bereft of human feeling.  Anyone who spends any time among practicing scientists knows that this is not at all the case.  Science is constantly influenced by passions and it is for this reason that the scientific method of critical thinking had to be developed in order to prevent male passions from distorting the results.  Women are quite capable of balancing their passions with critical thinking, though as evidenced by the Dean of Harvard's recent comments, that is still not something the Patriarchy is willing to concede.

The Women's Holocaust had lasting effects upon our gender's cultural psyche.  The burning of the witches was the extermination of women who dared to think about their world and presume to act on those thoughts.  The modern incarnation of the witch -- that crazed harridan she-wolf feminist -- is the woman who chases after the truth, who is not afraid of understanding nature, who does not feel that she by definition of her genitals is unable to effect change through that understanding.  And she is still eating the ashes of her ancestors.

* Though the technical definition of "pagan" is any religion that is not Christian, in this context I mean it in the popularly understood American way: earth-based religions whose roots are in rural pre-Roman Europe.

Bright Blessings, and thanks to cartazdon.
Seshat

ACCOMPANIED by the Island buzzards soaring high over the Mottistone barrow down, the event held on September 21 to mark Peace Day was, in many ways, quite extraordinary.
The temple created at The Longstone, with its gorgeous flowing gateway flags at the Quarters and the dressing of the central altar, were simply beautiful, as was the sight of a blue kite soaring above, which greeted many of those arriving for the event.
And the weather was perfect, sublime, autumn sunshine.
Through The Druid Network, as well as the Peace One Day organisation, this event - blended with Wight Druids’ celebration of Alban Elfed, the Autumn Equinox - connected with people all around the world.
Yet there was a great intimacy about it, too, as each person in turn around our circle chose and offered up inspirational words on the theme of peace, meditated in sacred space on its individual meaning for them - to the sounds of Brian’s lovely flute playing - then sang out their powerful Awens in all directions, so the energy and reverberations of this lovely, simple chant might flow out to the greater apparent world … and far beyond.
A lovely day on which peace was, indeed, with us.
So many thanks to all who joined us and helped make it just so.
Thanks to Robin's efforts, we hope to soon have video footage available of this event - a still from the movie appears at the head of this article.

- RCs