To find out about my Copyright statement, click HERE © Daven, All rights Reserved.

The Updates

October 29, 2003  Well, I don't know if you noticed or not, but I'm not using this too often to announce what I am doing and not.  So I think I will close this page down now.  I'm using the box on the front to announce what articles are recent, so that's out.  I use the blog to tell you about what is happening in my studies, so that's out.  The only use this page would have is me chit chatting.

So, I think that's it.  I find I don't have much time to update this as much as I should.

I may add things to this page every now and again, just in case I get something that isn't covered by any other page, but I don't know.

July 15, 2003  Well, it's been busy, that's for sure.

To catch up, you may have noticed the change on the front page with the counter.  Bravenet decided to change things around, and they started serving their dynamic content to my site.  I had been burned by this once in the past, so I found another counter, one that I control and which tells me what I want to know.  So that explains that.

Also new on the Front Page is a box listing recent essays that have been added.  I plan to use that as the vehicle to keep you up to date on which essays are new instead of using this page for that.  I'll still put which pages are new here too, just so that you have a history, but if I miss keeping this page up to date, you will at least know what is current.

New essays:

• Review, Pagans and the Law by Dana D. Eilers
• Updated On the Necessity of Keeping Oaths  7-7-03

Currently that's it.  Not too exciting huh?  Just keep in mind that I'm busy, and I will keep posting new articles as I can.  

I have one more book that I'm working on reviewing, "The Practical Pagan" and I expect to have it up in about a week or two.  Plus, I still have a few Llewellyn books that I owe reviews on, and then my assignments for the ODU.  So things are interesting.

June 12, 2003 Well, I'm still recovering from the update, but I thought I would mention some significant updates to this site here.

First off, it seems I was wrong in some of my research in my essay "What Makes a Fluffbunny". So, I revised it. The section I updated will be plainly obvious.

There also seems to be a problem with remote search engines grabbing the wrong pages. Well, that's because of the transition, and as the search engine spiders update themselves, that problem should fade. For now, if you get a 404 Error just check the URL at the top, make sure that the extension says "XHTML" and THEN write me if you have a problem.

I also created a new page. It's family photos of Mary, Rhiannon, my sister Kelly and my cousin. If you click on the newly updated picture of Mary on Mary's Page you will find that new gallery. Warning, it takes a long time to load because of the size of those photos.

Other than other little tweaks, like to "The Song to Awake Rhiannon" not much has been happening.

New Pages:  

• Important Essays
• Lughnasdh; Right Deity, Wrong Holiday  
• Bard, a new Definition  
• Lesson 14; Ritual

June 8, 2003  Well, kiddies, I finally did it.  I converted the ENTIRE Journal over from HTM to XHTML.  I will be doing things like validating the links, and validating the pages for the site pretty soon.  But the most work is done and it's live.  What you are seeing now is the culmination of that, and hopefully those of you who are linked to specific articles can still find your way around.  I'll be changing the .htaccess file to redirect you to the proper file on this site.  I hope that will work out correctly.

Other than that, I have no updates, but this is a MAJOR one, so forgive me.  <grin>

May 30, 2003 Well, the update this time is to delete a lot of pages. I eliminated 16 pages off the Journal, mainly because I re-read them and they were either excessively fluffy, or I outgrew the statements in them, or they were just baddly written. I double checked everything and while things SHOULD be correct, there may be one or two links I missed in various places. So, if you wind up hitting a link, and it takes you to a 404 page, let me know about it so I can correct that link. Make sure that you tell me which page you were on, which link you clicked and what it was supposed to be taking you to. Many times, this can be accomplished through the right-click menu.

As an example: If you look in the Address bar of your browser window, you will problably see that there is an address like this: http://davensjournal.com/index.htm or http://davensjournal.com/index.htm?FrontPage.shtml&2 or something simmilar to those. No matter which link you click on, that line will not change. BUT, if you hover your mouse over this page, click on the right mouse button, one of the lines in the menu that shows up will be "Properties". If you click on that, you will see that the link to this page that is displayed will be http://davensjournal.com/U.xhtml. THAT is the line I need to know, which page specifically it is. Same thing for a link.

Try this: right click on ANY link on this page, and if you go to "Properties" again, you will get the address of the page the link leads to. If you do a "Copy Shortcut", you will have the link address in the clipboard of your PC, and you can paste that to the address bar, a text file or whatever.

This, incidentally, works for ANY website, not just mine. A quick "Internet 101" lesson for those of you who are Technically challenged. < LOL >

May 24, 2003 Okay, I have been adding some things to the site these days, mostly in the last few days.  One of the things I added was a PDF file I made of the site, that's over 1800 pages, linked off the Front Page, and off the Downloads page.  Warning, it's more than 7 MB in size.  I don't care if you download it, but if you are on a dial-up connection, it's going to take a while.

I have also added some things to my Blog.  Mary, my wife, is also a registered user now, and she may comment from time to time.  

I have a new Druid Article here, authored by moi.  Druidism Today has been printed in the newsletter for the ODU, and has already been printed there.  I'm finished with another, but it won't be posted here till it's been a month after it has been published in the official newsletter, which I wrote it for.

I also added two articles that are near and dear to my heart.  Both deal with my experiences with Mormonism.  Daven's Mormon Story is what I went through in the Church, and how it affected me.  In almost every case, it screwed me up, and this is why.  How do the Mormons measure up on The Cult Danger Evaluation Frame? is the other article.  I could explain it, but it's there on the page.  Read it.

April 7, 2003 Well, I capitulated. I have a Blog now. It's about going out and studying more and more about the Druids. Want to read it? Click The Evolution of a Druid. This is an offsite blog, simply because Drak wouldn't let it be on their servers, not that there is anything wrong with that.

Other than that, things are going well. I have a line on a new job, and I'm not able to do as much as I would like on the site, and with my studies, I have even less time.

OH! One thing I did do was add a "link" on the left. The link labled "Print" will print out this page for you. Click on it, and you will get a box for your printer where you can see where it will be printed out at, and there you go!

Finished one of the tasks on the "whiteboard". See below.

I have also added an essay: The Declaration of Independance from the Principals of Belief. (Offsite at The Obsidian Mirror)

Also, an article that grew out of the rant on the Front Page is this one: Tools and Magick.

March 12, 2003  Not much has changed recently, but I don't think I am in danger of loosing my job any longer, I seem to be being a "good boy" and things are looking up.

I do have one major update to the Journal.  I was granted permission to reprint one of the best articles I have ever read on The Burning Times Myth.  It's wonderful and I highly advise everyone that visits this site to read it.  

Upcoming projects on the mental "whiteboard" for the site are 

• Finish Lesson 13 and get it out to the class list, and keep writing the lessons. DONE
• Compile and post the last year of Feedback and show you what I have been getting. Deleted page
• Set up a page of resources for Pagan Parents
• Add another story to the Child's Book of Wicca page (this one on Magick)

And you may have noticed many different tweaks to the site lately.  I'm trying to get it converted to XHTML and I'm currently making sure that it parses out correctly in those formats, and I know my stylesheet works correctly, as you may see on the Front Page.

So, that's about it for now.  I look forward to hearing from you all.

February 17, 2003  Things are still interesting here, but slowly getting better. Let me tell you about it so you can see for yourself.

First apparently work is calming down. Not sticking my head up too much so it's not getting hit. After all, it's the nail that is sticking up that gets pounded down. Just doing what they tell me. Unfortunately that means a few changes.

Primarily, I have had to put the High Magick Class on indefinite hiatus. There is a whole page explaining why at Explanation. It kills me to do this, because of the commitments I made to my students who were taking that class, and I have had a few students write me and say they are not very happy. Unfortunately this is a choice between my mundane ability to put food on the table and a class that, while pleasing, is ultimately secondary. It's like this, if I loose my job, I loose my house, which means I can't use my computer anymore, which means that the Journal goes away and the class would be dead anyhow.

I will spend some time at home and compile a list of references that can be used in the mean time for those who don't want to take classes with my cohort in this endeavor, Grinwithin. I know that we all understand each other.

I got another glowing review. This one was a surprise since I didn't know about it and didn't ask for it. A truly objective review. Paganetwork's Review I guess my work is paying off, huh?  Oh, and one I knew about for some time, but failed to mention is at The Church of Kern.  

On a related note, I don't know how many of you have used the "Tell a Friend" feature on the Front Page but if you like this site, please tell someone you think could use the information here. I don't have an advertising campaign, and I only have two banners, mainly for those who are linking to my site, I would appreciate it if you told someone who would like this site. No pressure, just a request, friend to friend.

One thing that some have mentioned as being a wonderful thing is the way I write. This "we are pals and sitting in the same room and I'm expressing to you what I feel and I'm hoping you understand it" is deliberate. Too many people think that the care and attention they take in person to person contact goes out the window when they type, e-mail, post something to the Web or to USENET, it makes me sick. So, right now, right here, you are sitting in my house and I have just given you a cup of hot chocolate (or your favorite drink, mine is Mountain Dew) and we are talking. Feel free to ask questions of me anytime you feel like it, my e-mail is just to your left.

I've also changed things just a bit. The non-Java navigation is the first to come up on the Table of Contents, and you have the option of changing to the Java based one with the sounds and mouse overs. If you want the old one, click here (Removed.

That's it for this time. Here's hoping things don't go too far South (euphemism for mess up or screw up).

February 7, 2003  Okay, things have been interesting.  Not good interesting, but bad interesting.

Things IRL are not doing well.  My marriage is good, my daughter is good, although she is driving me and Mary crazy, but in other areas it's looking bad.  I can't really say more because I bet that this site is watched closely and I don't want to make it worse.

As a result of that, I have little time to do updates here.  I have been doing tweaks to the site for a while, and you may have noticed some changes, most notably to the navigation to the left.  This is by design and I hope it's liked.  

I understand that it seems common that there are problems with that appl et, and that it is causing crashe s.&ksp; So with that in mind, I'll be changing the email page to get some questions I have answered.  So, what is going to happen is that I will be looking around for Javascripts that will do the same thing that the applet does, namely the MouseOvers with the pentagrams, the Status Bar message telling you what the link is, and the sound effect.  I have two of these three, but I'm worried that the cumulative effect of three scripts running at once will cause more crashes than it solves.

So, I have not had much opportunity to write new material.  But I did pull some material, and an apology needs to be tendered to Raymond Buckland.  I used his work from The Tree, without asking, and I don't think he meant for it to be used like it was.  So, I hope that I can be forgiven for that indiscretion and that if the rituals from The Tree can be used on websites like this one, that he will let me know and clarify it.

The Journal broke 10,000 visitors.  I don't know if you know this or not, but the page counter only counts the first time visitors to this site, and it does it by cookies.  Nothing terrible, just a cookie to see if you have been here before, so the counter won't advance when you refresh the front page.  So, we have had over 10,000 people find my Journal.  Now, how many people enjoyed it is another story.  ;-)

I also got a very flattering review at The Shadow Witch Web Review (down at the bottom, ironically it's the 13th review).  It's a very glowing review, and my cheeks were glowing when I read it.  

That's it for now.

January 13, 2003  Well, I'm 35 now.  Yesterday was my birthday.  Yea.

I added a new pair of pages to the Journal.  The first is Chapter 9 The Bad Influence in The Child's Book of Wicca.  The next is Christianity for the Perplexed Pagan by Wood Avens, part of the references for my High Magick Class.  

I also won another award.  Thank you my friends at Green Things for honoring me this way.

There are a few projects I'm working on currently.  One is a page about What Makes a Fluffbunny? and what they are, and more lessons.

Keep on truckin'.

December 19, 2002

I WON!!!!

In recognition of creativity, integrity and excellence on the Web.

To verify your award, please visit:
http://www.goldenwebawards.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi

 

Sorry, now that that's out of my system:

I changed the layout of some pages slightly, I don't think you will notice, but you might.  I put up Lesson 12, Druidic Magick in my High Magick Class, so you can go and take a look.

Daven's Biography is back up and I edited that slightly, but not as much as I would like.  I simply haven't found the time to fix it.  Perhaps one day....

What with all the holiday preparations, the Journal is only getting worked on when I have something to add to it.  I DO have a few projects on the hook, like my thoughts on how to enter a Pagan community and so on, and more of the Children's Stories, but for right now, I'm enjoying the time off from most of life.  ;-)

As always, if you have ideas for articles or suggestions, please Emailme with them.  I don't bite, I promise (well, not unless you ask me nicely.)

Copyright Page

October 7, 2002 Now for something completely different.

You may have noticed over the past day or so me trying out a new navigation setup using a Flash Button set, which didn't work out. The buttons apparently didn't work correctly for some people, and I did hear about it, so I pulled it in favor of the old Java-based buttons that I know work.

I also took the suggestions of many people, and corrected the problem many seem to have with displaying pages of information at higher resolutions. For the record, I created this site on my PC at home, using 800 X 600 resolution, which is what the "page edge" is set for.

Unfortunately for those of you who have a higer resolution on your monitors and don't want to resize your browser window, this meant that the edge of the book went down the center of the text you were trying to read.

Okay, I won't bore you with details on how I did it, but suffice to say that I constrained the text of the articles to the book graphic, and added sections to the background graphics so it still looks correct when you are on a REALLY high resolution.

Also, not for a lack of trying, I couldn't write Lesson 10 in the High Magick Class so I skipped it and put up Lesson 11 and will write 10 when the muse inspires me to do so.

That's it for now, like always I will keep you updated on the state of the Journal here.

Review, The Virtual Pagan

September 24, 2002  Well, things certainly get interesting fast.

I have added several lines to It takes a Real Man... and I will continue to update it as you send in suggestions.  One of them was suggested by my father (who does not approve of my choice in religion at all) when he wrote me and said that a real man takes his family to church not to a cult just to be different.  Which prompted my response.

For those of you in the High Magick class, I put up Lesson 8 and Lesson 9.  There are also Reviews for different books, and I suggest you look at them.  But no pressure.  LOL

I actually HAVE been working on the site, just not on new information for the site.  I have been trying to learn XML so I can re-release this Journal in XHTML.  It will make some small difference to this site, but not a lot.  See, I already mostly have this site in a format compatible with XHTML, and there is not a lot of work to be done.  However, the way the information is displayed is the critical difference for XML.  

I did change out the Rant and I think you all noticed that I redid the Front Page, but just in case you didn't, I got some of the more dynamic elements where you could see them.

I also have a suggestion that I need to change the layout somewhat to make it more friendly for those that can't (for one reason or another) read and display frames and javascripts.  So I will leave it up to you.  You have spoken on the matter of a book, and I will be working in that direction at some point in the future.  But I want to hear what you think on a site re-design.

Oct 1, 2002  Due to overwhelming demand, I got rid of the small frame at the bottom of some of the index pages.  The links are currently on the Index page for that section.  For now, either hit the "back" button in your browser or simply hit the button for the section on the left.  It's ironic that I do this, the last major site redesign involved me putting those frames in, now I'm taking them out.  LOL

Here's something else:  Some more reviews!  

• The Truth about Enochian Magick, a Review
• Spellcrafting for Teens
• Review, Everyday Magic
• Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, Second Edition
• Paganism Joyce & River Higginbotham
• Halloween by Silver RavenWolf
• The Sacred Round  By Elen Hawke

August 5, 2002 Okay, I have my High Magick class up and running now. The main page is at High Magick Syllabus, and for those of you who STILL don't know what happened, check here. I even have a group on Yahoo to teach this class, but I'm not accepting any new students now, only those who were in the class before.

I finished a review of Green Magick by Ann Moura, and redid my review of Color Magick by Raymond Buckland to reflect the re-release of this book. I'll be putting up a review of "Initiation at Beltane", a fictional work that teaches GOOD magickal principals sometime in the next few days. (Here's a hint, I liked it...)

Settling into my new home, found my Sword, got my references, but still unpacking. My help keeps bailing out on me, so if you live in the Nashville Area, USA, have a truck, and don't mind a few hours of hard labor, with me helping you for the reward of a six pack of beer, and a GOOD home cooked meal, some discussion of metaphysics, please contact me.

Students of the OOBE class will be getting their own list soon, although the lessons are to the left if you would rather skip the emailed lessons. I will, of course, still be available for questions. You will have a governor on your progress when you get to the exam, and if you decide to take this yourself, I still expect to see the assignments.

I added some good lines to the "It Takes A Real Man" page. I like them.

July 18, 2002 Well, it's been one of those weeks. Let me take things in order.

Apparently putting out good vibes while still working toward being the best person you can be works. My wife and I got offered an apartment, allowing us to move out of the hotel room we have been living in up till now. YEAH!!!! RAISE THE ROOF!!!

To say I'm excited is to say that the surface of the sun is warm. We were in that hotel room for 2 1/2 years, ever since my grandfather died. So, I changed the snail mail address on the email page. I spent the weekend of the 4th of July moving, sweating, swearing, panting, hauling, shoving and so on. We hope to be completely moved into our new digs in about a month, allowing us to transfer what we have in storage to a smaller room, thus allowing us to pay less money. Now for the spooky part.

Just the night before this happened, Mary had been looking online for places to rent. She was really distressed because of the fact that we had no permanent home. She was crying at one point, since it looked like we would never again have a place to call our own. Most of the problem was that we couldn't afford the rents along with the deposits and other bills one has associated with moving. Even though we would ultimately wind up with extra from not having to pay storage of our belongings, that savings wouldn't make up for the expenses of utilities and so on.

Then the manager of the hotel we were staying in came to us. It seems that she and her husband have some investment properties which they rent on a week to week basis. That means they have no deposits, no utilities and so on. She had a one bedroom unit come free and offered it to us to get us out of the hotel room. We were both stunned, especially when we found out we would be paying about the same in rent. A real kitchen with oven, a place for OUR bed, a place for Rhiannon's bed (in the living room, but it is about the size of a day-bed. She doesn't mind), our own books and bookcases, a water heater of OUR OWN (you have no conception what it is like to get the water adjusted perfectly, and have it go from second-degree burn hot to icewater in the space of a heartbeat when all you want to do is relax) and ROOM. I have a place I can go and shut the door if I feel like it now. A CLOSET! Man....

That's the good news. The bad news is that my classes in OOBE and High Magick have been shut down. The ungrateful idiots runninng the Online Mystical School decided because I complained about wanting more access to the students that I didn't want to teach anymore, so they threw me out as the instructor. It's the students that will suffer for this, but that's life. I want everyone who was a member of either of those classes who is interested in continuing to participate in them to contact me. I'm planning on continuing the classes, but I want my students back, after all, promises were made to YOU and YOU did nothing wrong, but the school admin decided to break their oaths. If you want the full story, please see this explanation page.

Other than that, I'm taking a break from teaching for about 3 months. I'll repost the entire archive for the OOBE class, and put up those documents I wrote for the High Magick class so you can see it. I'll probably be starting my own school here sometime, but for now I don't know.

I have my High Magick Class online now, and it's at High Magick Sylabus and Class.

Anything else I'll share as normal. Take care everone!

June 4, 2002  Well, this is probably going to be a short update.  I'll put any of the further changes I have here as well.

With that in mind, I am posting the my review of Wiccan Beliefs and practices here finally.  I have had it done for a while, but never got around to posting it.  Silly me.  I'll have a review of Yule up soon.

I also added a non-java sitemap for those of you who don't like the old format. It's here (defunct).

I also put in a page for all the feedback (Deleted page) I have been getting over the years for this journal and the various essays I have floating around out there.  I also added my snailmail address on the Email form so that those of you who would like to send stuff or whatever (and there have been a few) can do so.  Just PLEASEEEEE don't abuse it.  I already get enough junk mail, I really don't need more.

And finally, I am thinking about setting up a copy of this site that will look correctly for those who have different resolutions.  However, this would entail another java script or an intro page where you must select the proper resolution.  It means more work, but I'm willing, if you think it's necessary.

I also added a new page; Daven's Sex Magick Commentaries for my High Magick class, to save me from having to write the same thing over and over.  I also put up a new Rant on the Front Page.

May 20, 2002  Well, some interesting things have been happening lately, and I'm excited.

There is a new section to the Reviews:  Lady Theresa (my wife Mary) has started reviewing for Llewellyn as well, in her specialties, so I'm proud to offer you her first review The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals

I won another AWARD!  Witch Crafted was kind enough to award me her Award of Virtue.  Apparently it's hard to get.  ;-)

My wife wrote another article, this one is the Random Craft Name Generator and it's hilarious. 

I finally published one article called Love, Lifebonds and Lust and I think it's a pretty good article.  You take a look and tell me what you think.

Long time readers of the Journal will notice that on the SiteMap that I have changed it somewhat.  I no longer have all the pieces of the OOBE class available.  This is because I'm teaching this class again, and I don't want the students to be able to read ahead with what is coming later in the course.  I'll update it the same as I did upon first teaching it.  I am also currently teaching a class in High Magick for the same school.  I'm thinking about putting that online as well, but it will be one of those "I'll see what I do when I do it" kind of deals.

Finally, I must humbly express my appreciation to one lady.  She saw what I was doing here and decided to help me out with it.  She sent me a check for $100.  This saved my hiney this past week when I got it, and I almost fainted when I opened her letter.  Donna, thank you so much, from the bottom of my heart.  

Other than that, keep watching this space for more updates.  Till next time.

April 19, 2002  Okay, I have a few updates for you.

I modified the Front Page so that you don't have to launch a new window to get the Quotes, now it does it automatically.  I also made up a new Rant for you to read.  Don't forget that you can find all the old rants on Old Front Page Rants.

I also did three more reviews.  They are updated on the various pages, such as the SiteMap and so on.  These reviews are of Beltane, Ostara, and Midsummer.

There is also another humor page here.  How to survive Vampire Hunters.  I have two more and I'll probably post them sometime soon.

April 1, 2002  Well, here's some new stuff for you all.  I goofed and overwrote my last update file, so you will have to bear with me if I repeat something you already saw.

I have added a page.  You see the button to the left that says "Reviews", well that will lead you to the page dealing with all the reviews I have written on different books.  Not just the ones that Llewellyn sent me, but any review I have written.  In fact, I have a new one up there, and it's Sisters of the Dark Moon, which should tell you something.  I just got another shipment of books in over the weekend.  I'll see if I can link my Top Ten list to these reviews.

A letter to a young girl is an email conversation I was having with an 11 year old who wanted me to teach her.  I kindly tell her no in this email and I explain why I say no, which is more important.  If you are thinking of asking me to teach you, please give a look first.  It will save you and I both some time.

Lesson 24; A look at "Illusions" by Richard Bach I recently put up when I realized that I forgot to in the course of the class.  So, now it's up and everyone can enjoy it.

Updated Rhiannon, the Lady of the Birds and The Lord Herne and The (Outdated) Laws.  Some of these were simply because I had time on my hands, some of them reflect fundamental changes in my attitudes.

Tarot for Recovering Pagan Fanatics is a good humor piece and Attitude is a good page about the most important aspect of your life, your attitude.  I suggest that you read both of them.  With Psychic Friends Like These is a news story on MSN dealing with the whole Ms. Cleo controversy, and it's just proof to my case with my rant of "listening to those who have messed up lives".  I think that it's important for all of us to remember that she is a woman with a messed up life, and as such she deserves OUR advice, rather than the other way around.

I also have a couple more reviews for you that I just completed.  Encyclopedia of Wicca & Witchcraft, Witchcraft and the Web, Invoke the Gods, and The Craft and The Craft Companion are all available to read now.

March 7, 2002  Okay, I have been a busy beaver.  Here's what is up.

First, I finished the OOBE class completely.  It's all up the way it is supposed to be, and the actual book of it is over 580 double-sided pages long.  Whew.... Don't look for it, however, it's on this site, but only students can get to it.  Want a copy?  Sign up for the class.

Next, I have added a whole section to the Journal.  Reprints from The Witches' Voice.  The reason for doing this is because I believe that these articles/series are important to the entire online Pagan Community.  So, with Fritz Jung's kind permission, I copied them and put them on their own section here.  It's taken some doing, but I did it.

I also added a map above.  See the graphic that says "Daven's Journal"?  Well, clicking on that will bring you back to the sitemap.  So, no matter how deep into the Journal you get, you can always click on that and be at a navigation section.'

I also updated the Links page.  I got rid of some of them that were irritating me, alphabetized them, removed the descriptions and put them on pop-out flags when you hover your mouse over the link.  So, take a look at that.  There's probably some other changes, but I don't know what they are right now.

I do have a board here about what I need to do, and what articles I need to write.  When I get around to it, I guess I'll get those done.  LOL

Hey, do me one favor, okay?  To the left of this page is the Email link, send me an email and tell me if you want me to keep those little Online Opinion applets?  Right now, I did it so I could get some feedback, but as of this writing, I am only getting 2 opinions a week, not really worth the effort.  I would like to take them off, but if people like them, I'll leave it.  Just let me know.

I also completed two more reviews:  Candlemas and  Lammas, two of the holiday books that Llewellyn is putting out.  I think it's going to be a good series.  I also added a page called It takes a Real Man... and I encourage you all to read it.

February 11, 2002  Well, not that much has changed, but some of it is critical.

First, I would like to thank those of you who are regular visitors to my site.  I could not do this without you.  The OOBE class is close to finishing up, and I'm vamping up for starting the next incarnation of it, so in the coming days, there will be probably 3 lessons posted really quickly.

I have changed the front page rant again, so you can check that out.  I'm also considering some enhancements to the site, like an opening Flash presentation of you getting a book off the shelf and it being my site.  What do you think of that?

It's crunch time with the OOBE class.  I just posted Lesson 21 and Lesson 22, the reviews and will be posting the exam sometime soon.  Sorry, the exam is private and will be password protected soon so you won't be able to get to it without my permission.  The last lesson, however, will not be protected so you can read it.

Other than that, not many articles went up this past few weeks, but I'm in the process of writing a few more.  Get them up when I have the time. Although I did manage to write up a Credits page.

Take care!

January 31, 2002  Okay, I have just done another major update to this site.  ALL of the pages I either wrote or transcribed into my BOS now have that little "Instant Feedback" icon on them (it looks like this:  [+] and you see it in the lower right hand corner of this page too).  I would appreciate your thoughts on these, so I can see what is useful and what is not.

I had to take the Email page down since someone was bouncing SPAM off my site to a lot of other people.  Right now, it's a page that gives my email address.  It's the only place it appears on this site.

I have Lesson 20 up now, so the class is starting to wind down. I also posted a Review of True Magick by Amber K.

I have a LOT of articles and updates to do, but no time to do them in as of yet.  I'll do them as I get to them.  Sorry this is taking so long.

January 21, 2002  Well, I have made a few changes again.  Let's see....

First, I changed all the email links to go to a new page.  It's email.xhtml and the reason I did this is because I want some specific feedback from these pages.  My counter gives me how many people visit, and to a limited extent just where they come from, but that's not enough.  I'm not doing this to be intrusive, but to find out how far my Journal has spread on the Internet and who is visiting and from where.  Basically it is a simple form that you fill out, answer one question as to how you heard of my Journal, and then click on send.  One person has already used it and they found it good (I think).

The person that I rant about on the front page is gone from the room next to us.  I wrote that on a Tuesday, and that Friday she was out.  Apparently the landlady was getting a LOT of complaints from other people, not just us.  I also made up a new page for my rants.  In that page, all the rants from the past will be displayed.  I will change the current rant whenever it suits my fancy and the old Rant will go to the "old rants" page appropriately enough.  I also made the rant graphics that you saw.

Other than that, I have Lesson 20 and 21 to get up sometime soon.  I'll also get that new page about Love, Lust and Lifebonds up sometime soon, or as soon as the publisher gets it together and tells me I can.

Speaking of Publication.... I'm still looking for someone to publish my stories and articles.  A lot of them are on my Fiction page, but the articles and editorials are all around.  I also had my first complaint about this site.... I don't know whether to be thrilled or upset.  So, I'm opting for thrilled.  That means someone someplace cared enough to look at my site and make a snap judgment.  LOL  

I'm also going to be going through and looking critically at the essays that are not mine that are here on this site.  I will probably be dumping a LOT of them, but you never know.  I have, at this point, dumped about 25 essays that I did not write, for a variety of reasons; copyright issues, uselessness, outdated information, religion bashing, and so on.  I won't name them and you won't find them either.  ;-)

January 11, 2002  Well, tomorrow is my birthday, and on Sunday I'm going in to the hospital so that I can get checked out for sleep apnea.  So perhaps I'll get this problem taken care of so I can get a good night's sleep.

Mary and I are quitting smoking.  (wild cheers and screams.....)  It's been a financial drain on our resources, and I needed to get out of it at some point.  Well, Mary beat me to it.  She said that if she didn't quit soon, she would be dead inside of 5 years.  So in the interest of keeping the vein of my heart alive with me, I am quitting too.  So far it's going great.  Cold turkey and we have not died yet.

Oh, I have a few things to put up....

• Review of Write Your Own Magic
• Lesson 19, OOBE
• To come:  Lust, Love and Lifebonds (for publication in a print mag in Canada)

And that does it for this round.  See you all soon.

December 28, 2001  Well, unless something really odd happens, this will probably be the last post for 2001.  So, here's what has been happening in the past month.

• Lesson 18 went up and out to the students, they are probably panicking these days.  I have yet to write Lesson 19, but it will be up soon.
• I wrote an entire article, which is dedicated to my father, on what Wiccans believe.  I entitled it "For my Christian Friends" and encourage you all to read it.
• I re-worked the Table of Contents on the left, all I did was get rid of some pages that were not my own authorship and make the order a bit easier for you all.

Other than that, it's been the same old same old.  Christmas was good, I didn't kill anyone in my family, and Yule was interesting.  We sat with our daughter and talked about our beliefs and had a nice overall conversation.

I joined some more email lists.  One is Semi Legible Scrawl, owned and operated by a good friend of mine Yakka F. Bean.  I knew him from the Druid list we were both on for a while.  It's a list for Pagan Authors, and I submitted Spirit Warrior of the Totems to this list for critique.  So far, nothing other than one new writer who said I was a gifted author.  Imagine that.

One of the things that I did was to remove the Bibliography page from the TOC, along with Mike Nichol's page.  I figure that I can give you the address of his page on my Links page, and you can go and read those articles for yourself.  I'll keep the Bibliography here, simply because it's got a lot of good information on it, along with the Concordances, but everything else I'm going to send you to his home page.

November 20, 2001  Talk about hectic.  Let me tell you....

First is my day-job.  They are remodeling everything in the entire company headquarters, and since I'm in the IT department, I get to move all the computers, monitors, phones, copiers (it's technical, right?), printers, and such out of the area they are carpeting and painting, then I get to come back one day later and put it all back.  The will be doing my office on the first of Dec, so I have THAT to look forward to.

Plus, I have been down with Bronchitis, which I am STILL not over, and I have the flu at the same time (immunization you know).  Soooooo... That's the mundane side.

I have joined two new lists and quit four others.  I just didn't have time to do anything more, so I dropped the ones that I was not getting anything out of in favor of those that I was learning from.  Still writing when I can, as you can see, it's not much or often these days because the thing that is taking up all my time is:

POKEMON

(the horror.... the horror....) and I'm not doing too badly.  I have about 15 poke's who are at high level (on a scale of 1-100 they are at about 82 or so) and I'm getting the really rare pokes these days.  So, I'm doing better than I thought.  My daughter got me hooked on these, and now we have a Nintendo 64, Pokemon Stadium, Pokemon Stadium 2, Pokemon Snap, 2 Gameboys, 2 copies each of Gold and Red for the Gameboy, and my wife's just as addicted.  Oh well.  At least now we can talk to our daughter intelligibly.

Speaking of my wife....  

It will be 10 years tomorrow!  Gods, it feels like just about 10 weeks.  I wrote a letter to a DJ and I'll post a copy of it here, so take a look and see what I see in her.

Speaking of posts, I have Lesson 16 and Lesson 17 up for the OOBE class.  One thing of note, we originally were going with 2 weeks between classes.  If you are following along, please do so at this schedule.  That will give you time to absorb the material and work on the assignments.

Other than that, not much happening here.  ;-)

October 17, 2001  Well, It's been nearly a month since I wrote an update, but that doesn't mean that I have not been doing anything to the Journal. That only means that I did not have enough material to do an update on.

In the past month, I have posted a review of Lady Sheba's Grimoire, I have updated some old links on the Links page, I have added Lesson 14 and Lesson 15 to the OOBE set, and I have a new section of the Journal.

Over time, I have written some stories.  Some of them were intended for publication, some were intended for myself, and some were to be in a book.  None of these plans have followed through for various reasons, so I am now presenting all these stories to you on my Fiction page.  I hope you like them.

Other than that, I have nothing else.  Just keep plugging away in your life like you have been.  You may also want to check out the "Quote of the day!" section at the top of this page.  But only if you want to.  I also added a promotional tool for those of you who want to spread the word about the Journal.  It's down below and you can use it for free.  In fact, I would appreciate it if you did use it.  Thank you all for making this site a popular one.

September 17, 2001  Well, usually the previous update would have waited till now, but as you can probably imagine, this is the next update after the tragedy.  So, we will go on with it.

First, I FINALLY received the books that I asked for from Llewellyn, so I will have a bunch of new reviews to post here.  This is what I have reviewed so far:

  a.. Llewellyn's Goddess Calendar 2002
  b.. The Witches' Calendar 2002
  c.. The Witches' Datebook 2002

(All callendar reviews were staken down due to being irrelevant now)

That's it for now, but I am in the process of writing my review of Lady Sheba's Grimoire, and I have to do some research first.  To that end, I consulted the Public Version of Gardner's Book of Shadows and the Alexandrian Book of Shadows.  I hope that with these two resources, that I can determine what was taken from where and what the actual genesis of what is out there.

I also put up a new index page, to show my sorrow over what has happened.  I hope you all took the time to read it.

Here's something new, Lesson 13 is up. It was just recently sent off, and I'll be putting up Lesson 14 as soon as possible, since I'm running a week behind.  And that's it for this time.  Hope to see you back here soon.

September 11, 2001 On this sad day, I would like to encourage all of us to donate blood. The blood stores in the United States are in short supply, and this cowardly terrorist attack on us will further deplete our resources to help those injured in this coward's action. So please, donate blood. You can also do a healing at the same time, and the link to the ritual is
here: Blood Sacrifice.

I also got an award for this site. The first of many I'm sure, and it's something I'm ridiculously proud of. So if you want to look at it with me, please do so here: Awards.

I keep going over and over many things that I want to do with this site, and the polls I had didn't seem to take off, and the group isn't taking off, so I'm just thinking of starting a mailing list to inform those who are interested about site updates. But that's up in the air. Another thing I'm considering is a message board here. I have one set up, and it does work, but I'm not sure how much traffic it will receive once it goes into action. If you have a desire to have a message board like this, for discussions and so on, please email me your comments.

I'll be posting some reviews of OOBE books that my class reviewed as their assignments on the last lesson. I will put the proper and correct email addresses and accreditations in there, along with any hyperlinks that are necessary. Once I get them all in that is.

I also want to thank you all for visiting my page from the Witches' Voice. I appreciate all the comments I have gotten. It was a joy and a pleasure to do the Cats of the Craft pages for as long as I did, and one that I wish I could continue doing.

Above all, please don't let this black day frighten you or make your scared. Remember, the purpose of terroristic attacks is to spread terror. They want you scared and not thinking. They want you to be frightened of them. Personally, I can't stand GWB as a president, but when he attacks whomever is responsible for this atrocity, I will stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him and cheer him on.

August 27, 2001 Well, it's my daughter's birthday today! She's 9 years old now, and really excited.

I have Lesson 12 of the OOBE class up now, plus I have a new article for your viewing pleasure. It's Death and Wicca and Mary has some insights that may be interesting. As soon as she finishes writing and polishing them, I will add it to those pages.

I have also done some different things to the site. No radical changes, but I did add some reference material that was only on Ancient Sites, but since it went down, that material is no longer available. So, I copied it out of my own archives and posted those particular articles here. There will not be on the Sitemap, however. This is because they are of use in the context of the referring document, rather than being of interest in and of themselves.

I also added random links. Matt's Script Archive supplied these and I think they are wild. They pull from a database of articles that I have, and load up a random page here in this frame, or they give you some of the offsite resources that I use. You may have seen them above. If you did, good. If not, what are you doing here? Go up there and use those links, just to see what is on this site. Sometimes the most fascinating material can be turned up by accident.

Other than that, everything else is fine. I'll be doing these as long as I am able. At last check, we had something like 12 members of the update and discussion forum. If you haven't signed up, go and sign up now.

August 15, 2001  Well, here we are with another update.

I just talked to some people with Llewellyn and they promised to send me some more books to review.  The first things, however, that I will be reviewing is the calendars that I asked for.  Don't expect the reviews to be tremendously exciting, however, there is only so much you can say about the artwork.  But I look forward to the challenge.

I've been adding pages to this journal and the most recent one that I have put up is Lesson 11 for the OOBE class.  So, those of you who are following the class here can see what I have told and asked my students.  Go take a look. It's on the sitemap as well, so that should be no problem.

You may have noticed that I have been busy with things like updates to the site, like the Yahoogroup that I just recently set up so that you all can stay up-to-date with the changes here.  I plan on sending out this site update to this group as well.  So if you want to be informed about what is going on, just sign up.  It's also a chat group, and there are no topics that are off topic with this.

I have a question to ask all of you....  It's at this link:  What do you think of Bush's Faith Based Initiative and I would be interested in hearing what you all think on this topic. See, even though I'm not in the community anymore (for an explanation of that, click http://davensjournal.com/OtNoKO.xhtml ) I still think it's important to hear what everyone says on different topics.  So I ask questions and look for the answers.

I'll be adding pages here as I can, and I thank you all for coming and reading.

July 23, 2001  Well, true to my word, I have a new set of updates here.  First is some more reviews for you to look at so, in this edition, you now have the choice of looking at these:

• Heather, Confessions of a Witch
• Wicca, a Concice History  By Isaac Bonewits
• The 21 Lessons of Merlyn  By Douglas Monroe
• The Origins of Modern Witchcraft by Ann Moura

The next big thing is that my domain move is completed.  It's all done and now I can sit on my laurels and relax.  

Yeah, right.

I think I'm busier now that I have been in quite some time, what with my day-job and other things going on all the time, so you will just have to be patient with me for a while.  Also, I am trying to make use of some personal CGI scripts, as well as the Front Page extensions that are available.  So I may be uploading this page multiple times until I get it right.

Plus, you may notice that on some pages, I have a sound effect that plays the page turn sound on ALL hyperlinks.  At least it's supposed to play them on all the pages with hyperlinks, but for some reason only about half of them are working.  I'll try to see if there is some reason for that.

Basically what I want is for this journal to create the illusion for you of a book that you are reading, complete with the pages, cover and sounds.  I only wish I could animate the pages turning as it's loading another page, but so far the only thing that is capable of doing that is so large and unwieldy when you talk about 260 pages or more that it would make this site inaccessible to those with dial-up connections.  Oh well.

July 15, 2001   Okay, well some things have been happening for a while now, and I have finally made my decision.  The first was to purchase the domain name, "davensjournal.com" and move my website here.  Crosswinds has been messing with me for quite some time, refusing to answer my emails, turning off the FTP access to my account, putting so many pop-ups on my site (without my permission) that it's function was impaired.  

The second big happening was that I finally moved to www.Drak.net and am now being hosted with them.  The change is incredible.  First off, I am now able to run all the CGI scripts, Java applets, Front Page components that my heart desires.  The old hoster wouldn't let me do that.  So, one of the first things I did was to take off the Bravenet stuff, the Guest book and change the counter to one that I can work with.  Drak.net gives me weekly usage reports, and that is what I want and need.

The cost of this?  Well, one year's rent of the web space and the domain name was only $110 to me.  For this, I get 50 Mb of space, 5 Gb of traffic, an email address here, with full POP3 and SMTP capabilities, as well as the support for my site.  Pretty cool I say.  Plus, Drak.net is run by pagans, and only pagans, so the enterprise is really good for all of us.  Support them by having your hosting done by Drak.net.  Who knows, you may even see me around.  LOL

I've added about 40 pages to this site, but I failed to update the sitemap, but I have now rectified that, so the map you see is what there is.  I also redesigned it slightly to make it a bit more user friendly.

Also, the buttons you see to the left are what is going to be here for some time.  Get used to it.  No more tweaking of it, since this does everything I want it to do.  I am thinking about adding code here to make that page turn sound active for every hyperlink on this site, but I don't know how to yet.  One thing at a time.

I also added to and revised the sections you just skipped over.  You may want to go back and look at it a little closer.

June 11, 2001:  Well, I'm done messing around with the navigation menu.  That's the last.  I now have it doing everything I want it to do, from changing the pictures when you hover your mouse over it, to playing a sound file when you click on it.  Hope you like it.  LOL  I busted my back on making this as nice as possible.

For those of you who don't have Java support, or if the applet fails to load, there is a mundane link at the bottom of the applet that will bring up the old hyperlink style navigation menu for you.  If you need to, use it.

Other than that, I added some pages, deleted others, improved on still more, reworked the site, and generally fixed many things.  If you have a problem, contact me as usual through daven@davensjournal.com.

I may be moving from Crosswinds soon.  They are just getting on my nerves with all the popup banners, the whole "you must click through to be here" attitude, besides, the mail doesn't even work right.  So, hopefully, if I can get the money together, I will be moving to Drak.net and hopefully this will take care of 90% of my problems.  If any of you can think of a way to redirect every page of this site to the new one, without using the ".htaccess" file, or doing a redirect script on EVERY page, I would love to hear it.

You will also notice that I changed the backgrounds for this site.  I try to do that when I do a major site revision.  Next time, who knows what this place will look like?  It may be a scroll, or some papayas leaves, or something entirely different.  Keep looking.  LOL

March 28, 2001: Well, here is another update to the site.  This one steps back in some ways, and moves forward in others.  Here's the deal.

In this set of pages, it's the exact same site that you know and love, the one with all the same information, but I removed the annoying JavaScript to the left, so that everyone can enjoy my site.  The navigation to the left is what you need to use now.  

Please email me and tell me what you think about this.  I'll put up the old site again if it is requested, but you MUST make your voice heard or I will assume that everyone likes this set up.  So, talk to me.  Daven@davensjournal.com is were you send it.  Or you can use the Spiritbook at the bottom for this feedback.

If you got to this page through a link, and you would like to see the entire site, click here

The URL of this document is http://davensjournal.com/U.xhtml