This is way too neat! I want one, but too bad it’s not for sale.

I may have to make me one on my own time.

Originally posted 2007-07-13 03:40:29.

Astute readers of my Journal will have already noticed that the name has changed.  That’s what should be.  But let me tell you why.

As you may have read in earlier entries, I’m transitioning from Male to Female.  Well, in recent months I’ve made some major strides forward in that regard, namely I’ve come out to everyone I know that I’m transitioning, and I’ve legally changed my name from my male moniker to a more female name.

With this change came a LOT of soul searching, a lot of meditation and a lot of discussion with the Gods.  Finally after a long time, we all determined that I am Their daughter just as much as I was Their son.  I am Their Priestess and still Their Priest.

Confusing?  You bet you.  About as confusing as being female, dressing as female, being called “She” and “Her” and “Miss” and still being called “Dad” by my daughter.  But that’s okay, things take time, and I’m only partway through the hormone treatment.

So, with the new name, new gender and the acknowledgment of the world at large, I rededicated myself one morning near Samhain.  I abandoned the name Daven and took the name Erin to be my magickal working name.

You may be able to see some of the changes.

Juliet:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”

So, the name of the Journal is changing to Erin’s Journal.  But the content is not.  It will still have the same content as any you have come to expect.  The look and feel will be the same.  It may have more personal focus and changes based on crossing gender lines and still being a representative of the Gods.

I am going to be taking time over the next months to find and change all references to Daven’s Journal and replace them with Erin’s Journal.  I am going to do this gradually since it will take some time for you, the reader, to adjust to this change too.  Everyone knows Daven’s Journal, but it will take time to realize that it is the same site as Erin’s Journal.  Thus the “new and improved” logo upstairs.  Hopefully by keeping something the same, it can become normal, then we gradually phase out the various elements of Daven and replace them with Erin.

But also, like the Shattered Tower, this is a change that has happened and cannot be undone.  But also like Death, it’s one that has been a long time in coming.

It’s hard living in the grown-up world of life like this. Compromises and times when your pride and honor are called into question, you are assaulted and insulted and there are times when a self-evaluation will make you truly believe that you are a coward.

There is a hope however. There are many kinds of courage.

It’s easy to yell and scream at some one who calls you a coward and implies that you are a gutless spineless good-for-nothing. It is one kind of courage, the courage of a stung pride. But it takes an entirely different kind of courage to stay right where you are, take the abuse because it means you will be able to retain your job and
bring home another paycheck and save your home and allow your family to eat.

I call that the Courage of Consequences.

The impulse in the human being is that you retract and hit back when attacked. It is the ability of a reasoning person to be able to look forward to the future and see the results of actions. Logic is not something that an animal is able to do and they may be able to understand that there are consequences after having them occur multiple times, but that’s simple learning. But to be able to notice that your family may be affected by your actions and to allow someone to demean you to prevent your family from coming to harm, that’s real coruage.

There is the courage to stay silent when you are in pain or ill because there is nothing that anyone can do about it, but you don’t want to mess up other’s enjoyment of whatever activity is going on. Like when Grandma doesn’t talk about how much the winter weather is hurting her joints while the family is gathered together for the Thanksgiving meal. That’s a very different kind of courage as well.

Just becuase you don’t run ito situations that angels would avoid does not mean you lack courage or that you are spineless and a wimp. So don’t think that again. You HAVE courage, it is simply determining which kind you have.

Originally posted 2005-12-23 15:25:44.

This time I’m going to rant about Honor.

Why is it that people seem to think that just because they don’t want to, they are not obligated to keep promises made? Why do they think that Honor is something that can be spat on with impunity? Why is honor used as a punchline?

Honor is your personal integrity. It is the ONLY measure of a man or a woman. It is the yardstick used to ensure that society functions. It is what keeps us from devolving into anarchy and “only the strong” kind of mentality. Culture is not what keeps us from barbarism, only Honor is.

Let me float a few scenarios to you. You find a bag of money and notice that it fell out of a woman’s purse while she was getting a pen out. You give it back. What does that make you? Trustworthy? A Good Samaritan? Honest? Each of those can be replaced by Honor and it still be correct.

If you kept that money, what would that make you? Mean? Dishonest? A bad person? What if you deposited it into your account while you watched her frantically looking through her purse for that money? Once again, each of those can be replaced by Honor.

You are in a fight, and you knock your opponent down. They are helpless before you. Do you kick them again? No? Why? It’s not fair? It’s not right? You simply don’t do that? Once again, that’s honor.

We live in a society that puts a lot of credit into the forms of honor, but which despises honor and personal responsibility itself. A lot of laws are enacted to enforce morality and honorable behavior, but when you talk about having personal honor and living up to that, you are laughed at. When you say it’s dishonorable to take advantage of a coworker, you are looked at like you have grown a new head on your shoulders. When you do not run around and tell everyone how great you are (refusing to brag and being humble), you are asked “why not”? When you try to explain why, most times you can’t without using words like Honor.

Honor permeates society. Not just ours, but EVERYONE’s. Honor is the glue that holds that society together. It is why everyone doesn’t go around and steal cars or take money from old ladies at the ATM, it’s why you pay the check before you leave and after a meal. It’s why you leave the tip on the table instead of pocketing it as you walk out. It is why you demand right behavior from others and it is why we act in the way we do.

Words have grown up and now get in the way of speaking. Words like “integrity”, “responsibility”, “chivalrous”, “polite”, “kind”, “generous” and many others have come to be to give shades of meaning to “Honor”, but the use of honor has fallen out of favor for the words which give that shading. So Honor as a word has become an anachronistic expression referring to the SCA or to knights in England.

Warf on Star Trek, The Next Generation was a beloved character, but everyone thought he was odd because he was so concerned with his Honor. He behaved according to a set of moral codes and ideals and rarely violated them, and he felt horribly guilty when he did violate them. But everyone (the viewers) and many of the cast of the show made some (backhanded) fun of him. He was thought of as “odd” because of that code. He lived it and I saw how he was treated at Star Trek Conventions, he was thought to be strange.

I could wish EVERYONE in the world had such a code and rigidly adhered to it. The world would be a MUCH better place.

The Samurai were seen as “sticks in the mud” or “tight-assed” because of their code of Bushido, which is the Code of the Warrior, their code of Honor. The Military is looked at as fanatics because they adhere to a code of honor. Many other groups out there, like the police, are hated because of their honorable behavior. But it is a necessary element in life.

What kind of a world would it be if we all just did whatever we wanted? No restrictions, no governors, nothing to keep us from feeling bad when we took that lollipop from that 2 year old. What would life be?

This would mean that I could shoot anyone in the head I wanted to. I could walk up to anyone who had something I wanted and simply take it. If they couldn’t take it back, then it was mine. People would die, I would be hurt, others would be maimed. What about the sociopath who was on the loose? He would be able to get away with anything he wanted simply because there would be no laws and no one to say “this is wrong”. Children could be raped in school simply because the teacher was horny. (Yes, graphic, but it’s what could happen.) Talk about slavery, anyone who wanted something from someone else and could keep them oppressed, could very easily.

But Honor prevents that. The laws of the Government are only really words in a book. They can’t make you do anything. They can’t force you to behave certain ways. All they can do is list out the punishments and consequences that are possible for betraying that rule. “Don’t do drugs” is nice, but when there is a laundry list of penalties to go along with it, you STILL have to make a personal decision not to do drugs. And there are those who choose to do drugs anyhow and when they are caught they pay the penalty. But the choice is dictated by your personal honor and integrity.

It’s Honor that keeps us behaving in a human manner.

So obeying the dictates of honor is a good thing. Don’t be so quick to dismiss that simply because you think it’s archaic.

And start behaving in an honorable fashion. The world will be a MUCH better place. Really.

Originally posted 2006-01-23 11:46:32.

It’s starting again, the debate about the term “Wicca” between the Traditionals and the Solitaries/Eclectics.

I’m so sick and tired of seeing this debate.

I’m writing an article on it.

Originally posted 2005-11-21 12:57:29.

Well, just got an email from a lady who wanted some very specific information from me, so that she could judge the “correctness” of the Journal by what I had to say. She wanted, in effect, my Pagan Resume’.

So, I’m going to do something that I rarely do and that is talk about myself. BUT, I’m also going to put it behind a “cut” so that it’s not super-public where any idiot with an RSS reader can see it, they actually have to click on a link to get this information.

So, if you are using an aggregator like Thunderbird, click on the link to this post and read it in full if that is what you want to do. If you found this page through the actual blog, then you will have to click on the “more” link below to see the rest of it.

Okay, first off I have to say that this information in here is very personal. The other thing I have to say is that most of this is covered in other places around this site. Next it’s going to sound like I’m name dropping, but I’m really not. Last, believe me, don’t believe me, it’s entirely up to you.

Well, I started this journey when I was 4. I learned about NewAge philosophy and metaphysics from my Grandmother, who was one of the most gifted Healers I have ever met. She had all three gifts for Healing, Mind Body and Spirit. I learned the Mind and Spirit, with a little talent in the Body healing. Others in my family got other talents. So I guess that makes me Granny Trad, although she would have been highly insulted had you called her a witch.

She was Christian. New Age Christian to be sure, but Christian nonetheless. She was highly freaked out when I told her that I was Wiccan and a Witch when I finally came out to her. It was the one time I really was nervous and scared and needed approval from someone and it was devastating to me. But, she was open minded enough to look at the situation and the dynamic between Mary and I, and the two of us and our daughter, and tell me after a five day stay with her, that she had thought about it and it didn’t matter who I prayed to so long as I was a good person, and that I was a good person.

But that would come much later.

She and I spent many days talking about metaphysics, mysticism, Bigfoot, the Pyramids, past life regressions, hypnosis, trance, ritual, psychometry, telekinesis, telepathy, the thirteenth planet, the harmonic convergence, aliens and UFOs, Atlantis, The Bermuda Triangle, Buddhism, other Gods, nature and Gaia, IDIC, and all those things that the New Age movement has incorporated into itself. I can probably speak reams on all of this, simply from the volume I read when I was young.

I’m the only 14 year old I have heard of who read “Journeys out of the Body” in a week, and spent the next year practicing it. The only problem I really had was the volume of material I was taking in and how I wasn’t assimilating it. I could read a book and remember what it said, but I didn’t necessarily remember what book it came from. When I would go back to check a fact, I couldn’t find it again.

In some ways I think I did shock people in the amount of knowledge I already had when I started in Wicca. I didn’t have to have past lives explained to me, I already knew about it and was able to discuss things with the teachers on that topic that they may not have thought about. And that happened more than once.

I vividly remember sitting on my grandmother’s counter and talking to her about auras and the colors and what they meant. I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them and it was a subtle distinction that she appreciated. I was treated like a grown up by her and I learned immense amounts with her and from her. Shinto beliefs and Zen and the collected works of Alice Bailey were all mine to grasp.

We moved to Georgia and the Mormons found us. That was an interesting time. On one hand they had me locked into a prison of dogma and rules and guilt, but on the other hand they not only understood but actively looked for manifestations of the Holy Spirit to talk about. They encouraged you to use your natural gifts in those areas and to not suppress them (that is, if you were male). And they were willing to talk about the spinning room effect from prayers.

I stayed Mormon for 8 years, and while it wasn’t the most pleasant time of my life, it allowed me to see things I may have missed. And I kept studying on my own for that time. Crystals, the crystal skulls, psychokenesis, mythology and demonology, AD&D and related disciplines and so on.

Oh, yes, I was a gamer geek. And that’s where the next twist to this story is to be found.

See, I knew from what I had been reading that all that detailed in the game was real. If not on THIS world, then in other worlds. I had a familiarity with the Astral Plane, the Ethereal plane and other realms, and knew what I was talking about to speak on things like what a “Magic Missile” was. I read fantasy and I had an imagination. That, by the way, is the use I find for paper RPGs like that, training the imagination and the visualization areas of the mind.

I was shocked to discover just HOW many metaphysically aware people were involved in gaming. EVERYONE I knew, with just one or two exceptions, had an awareness of otherworlds and so on, most just didn’t know what they knew and didn’t know how rare it was to not be headblind. Out of better than 100 people who I gamed with regularly, only two didn’t have any metaphysical gifts. The only qualifier here is that most of them didn’t have any skills or knowledge in metaphysics, but about a dozen did and we gravitated to each other.

This is where I met the father of my heart, Frank. He is a Vietnam Veteran, Special Forces, 35 kills to his credit (one out of a sound sleep with the assassin’s own knife, after he had killed about 8 other men in his barracks), 5 black belts and belts in about 20 other styles, half Cherokee and half Sioux (that he told me), who is one of the nicest people you ever wanted to meet, whom children instantly love and run to for protection, who my 2 week old daughter fell asleep on when she wouldn’t go to her grandfather and he spent the next 4 hours barely breathing with this beautific smile on his face of wonder. The man who gave me reasons to live and to become the best person I could and who guided my studies.

Can you tell I love the guy? He is what I try to be every day.

There was also a Wiccan in that group. She kept her beliefs very quiet and didn’t speak on them much. But while *I* was oblivious, others weren’t. She had the courage to be interviewed for the local paper’s required Halloween interest article. And that’s how I was introduced to Wicca.

When I read that article, I felt like I was free to give a name to what I believed. But my coming home to Wicca would wait for the Army interfered.

I joined the Army and discovered something; It wasn’t for me. They wanted me to change who I was completely, to conform and to be a cookie cutter. Unfortunately while I will do that for some, the Army wasn’t it. So I spent a year and a half looking at some beautiful scenery, learning things like how to type, and being in stasis. I practiced several times what I had learned, and I wanted to astral project, so I meditated and did what I could. My roommate made fun of me in so doing. But I kept going and eventually I was thrown out because I was fat.

I came home and the next major turning point in my life and this journey occurred. I met my wife.

A little background: my best friend in the world Keith is also very metaphysically aware and he and I collaborated on a lot of projects together, one of those being gaming conventions. We did security for DragonCon on years 3, 4, 5 and 6 and DixieTrek on three years, one of them the very last. So we knew the gamers and the con goers as well as working together with metaphysics. I spent all kinds of time playing and got VERY good at things like BattleTech.

Well, Keith convinced me to go to DixieTrek and work the security on it. Since it was a smaller convention and I didn’t have anything to do, I went. I did my normal job of wandering around, being “free safety” and handling problems as I came to them, instead of sitting in one place bored out of my mind. I got very good.

One of the jobs I assigned myself was the “con party patrol”, in which I go and check the parties out and see how things are going, if there is underage drinking and so on. I would patrol those and participate as I needed to in order to blend in. The Klingon parties were always fun, and I think the most boring party I have ever been to was the “Beauty and the Beast” fan party. Twelve people sitting around and watching every episode back to back to back without a word being said. Mind-numbing.

What does this have to do with anything? I met my wife there. She was hostess at a con-suite setup and was being the baby sitter. The lady who was nominally in charge was no where to be found, and Mary was the one running things. She had her daughter and brand new baby granddaughter there. Her son was also in attendance. I dropped in, saw open bottles and hung around a bit. It was quiet and low key, but there was gaming going on, as well as a chess tournament and a puzzle competition. The puzzles were those metal twistie puzzles and you had to figure out how to get them apart and back together again.

Mary was running the gaming. I wandered over. It was Star Wars. I watched and went back to my patrol later. About 2 AM I went back and they were JUST starting a new game. I made up a character and started playing.

In the middle of this, Keith shows up and tries to get me to go to the Dealer’s room to secure it and play Battletech. Since I was a Battletech fiend, my refusal was a shock. He pulled me out and we spent a few minutes in the corridor talking about what was going on. I wound up staying and playing, much to their disappointment.

SOMETHING was calling me to be in that room, and I’m glad I was. There was the normal group of people who were metaphysically aware as normal. I thought nothing of it. But Mary was there and she was a neat old lady. I found out that she was old enough to be my mother, and I scared the hell out of her by grabbing her collar at one point in the game. She was like “easy son, it’s a game…” to which I said “yes, I know it is, I’m acting.” I think that cemented her interest in me,

Time passed and I lost track of them, since the contact phone numbers she gave me were still in my pocket when I washed my shirt. (I used a BDU top for my “con shirt”, woodland camo with various pins and patches, including a House Steiner patch.)

But as the fates would do, I found them again through her daughter. At the time Dragonware Hobbies was my home and I spent a lot of time there, the only time I wasn’t there being when I was sleeping in my car due to a falling out with my mother, or at my job. The rest of the time I basically lived in Dragonware. And I met her daughter again. She had moved into the area with her husband and their child and were looking for a place to game at.

It turned out that they were also Wiccan. Fam Trad with HIS mother. She was the High Priestess of a coven in the area. At the time I had moved away from Wicca to magick and witchcraft, so I was willing to study and learn to a point, not jump in the Wicca bag whole. And they had a copy of Buckland’s Complete Book of Witchcraft.

I devoured that book. I read it cover to cover in a week, and re-read it four times over the next two weeks. I cross referenced some of the works I had on hand, like “the Practical Guide to the Runes”, and started on my Wiccan journey. And I also spent days talking to Mary about everything.

Let me explain this a bit. I would talk with whomever about what I knew in regards to metaphysics, learning and swapping. I taught Frank about Mormonism, Frank taught me about how the martial arts philosophies dovetailed with metaphysics. Keith and I would spend days discussing the many worlds theory and astral projection. But it was in two to three hour bursts since we all had lives.

For Mary, I gave that up. She and I started talking and it was like something went *click* in both of us. There were times when (literally) we would start talking about metaphysics and tarot and runes and AP and spirituality and would talk about it for the next 17 hours until she had to go to work again, just to do it again when she came back to see me. And it was seeing ME, not her daughter. Apparently she got VERY addicted to me VERY fast.

But we would spend a long time talking and discussing things. Mostly metaphysical, but also life, philosophy, maturity and so on. Apparently she became addicted to me very rapidly.

I spent a lot of time with her learning and teaching, thinking and discussing. Most of my personal gnosis and epiphanies happened during that two years while discovering who I was and my personal spirituality. And I found that Seax-Wica seemed to fit what I perceived the world to be. Plus I had been in communication with Rhiannon of the Birds and Herne the Hunter for some time (this is the point where they Chose me to be Their Priest) and also with my daughter Rhiannon and also Michael the Archangel. I learned even more from Them, finding out and learning and rediscovering.

A lot of the instruction I have had is either direct revelation from the Gods, book learning, personal gnosis or a culmination of a thought process. I have had little formal training in a coven setting. I have had some however.

Patalee Glass-Koentp was one instructor of mine. She and I hung out at “Flight of the Phoenix” in Grand Prairie in Texas for some time. I attended her beginner’s classes, and she is the one to FIRST call me a High Priest. Before that I had called myself a priest or a devote’, but she anointed me with that title. This was the second night of being at her class, when she asked me to present Seax-Wica to everyone else as to what it was. From then on, I have called myself a High Priest, but not until then. I was very upset to learn that she died.

Raymond Buckland and I met each other through the medium of the Internet and the Seax-Wica lists. There was a whole melt down with the Seax tradition and he and I crossed paths. I count him as a friend of mine, and something of a mentor (considering I learned Craft basics and principles from his works, it’s not surprising). I believe he counts me as a friend as well.

Trish Telesco; She and I met through another author, AJ Drew. She was active on his board, and very vocal in her defense of Raymond, but AJ was insisting on attacking Raymond. I showed up to that board, walked into the middle and explained everything, and finally got Raymond and AJ talking to each other, when things got cleared up. But apparently the aspersions that AJ and Trish cast at each other were too much, and she left. I have talked with her multiple times since, reviewed her books and I definitely consider her a friend. (And she’s got a cruise for us coming up in 2006 over Valentine’s Day. Go to it if you can. It looks to be fun.)

AJ Drew. He and I met due to the previous altercation. There has since been some bad blood, but I learned from him as well.

Dorothy Morrison. I met Dorothy first when I reviewed a pair of her books and she found the review. I was in the process of reviewing another book of hers and wrote her JUST as she found my review. We kind-of hit it off since I was honest with her and I consider her a good friend.

Fritz Jung and Wren Walker: I worked with them both on The Witches Voice (specifically the Cats of the Craft section) for some time. I had more contact with Fritz. That section was closed down and we lost contact, but every now and then we come back into contact with each other and discuss things. Mostly idea-spinning and sharing of thoughts, where we seem to have a similar outlook.

Sannion: Helenistic Pagan, not one that you would consider a Wiccan and Druid to have as a friend, but he and I hit it off from the sheer intelligence of essays written. I have an immense amount of respect for his intelligence and ability to see through to the heart of the subject, and to say all this succinctly. His “Wiccan Fatwa” is a scream and I have learned much from him. He reads my livejournal and this RSS feed and I read his. I consider him to be a good friend.

Obsidian: For some reason he seems to credit me with saving him from fluffy-dom. All I suggested was that he not take the name “Taliesin” since everyone used that name. This seems to have made a difference. He is welcome in my home any time he chooses to show up.

Triskel: Discordian Priest Irreverand Hugh, fairly well known in the Discordian Circles, I count as another friend. He and I see eye to eye as to the nature of Chaos and why things are the way they are.

Carl McColman: I met him at The Real Witches Ball in Columbus Ohio. Turns out that he’s from my old stomping ground. He knows where the monastery is in Conyers, right next door to the owner of Dragonware Hobbies with whom I spent many months at different times. He and I hit it off and I owe him some beers. It was a shock to see him go back to Catholicism, but I understood why he did and hold no animosity toward him. Can’t wait to get together with him sometime soon again.

Lisa McSherry: Ma’at is the lady I met through the Journal when she was taking one of my classes and we simply started talking. Apparently I taught her a lot, and I’m glad for that. She is another friend of mine.

Kenn White: DarkOwl is one of those people that if you know him, you expect everyone to know him. I met him when I started researching Druidism and his essays taught me a lot. I joined his budding Druidic Order and learned even more. My brother if I could have chosen one, we are bound even tighter by the oaths we swore.

In each and every one of these cases, excepting Patalee, I met them through the Journal. And I didn’t really try.

The motivations for creating this website: Mostly it’s preservation of my thoughts. I wanted a medium to preserve what I learned and came to understand, and apparently it made sense to others. I was shocked and flattered to find people reading what I had to say and learning from it, as well as recommending it. That gives me all kinds of warm-fuzzies. To learn that the people I learned from are coming and learning from me, well, that’s flabbergasting.

So, the Journal was started to teach a few others about what a Druid is so they could role play them well. And things kind of snowballed from there. I have changed the focus from what others believe and teach to what I know and believe, to save it for my daughter and her children. I plan on setting up a perpetual trust to pay for the hosting and bandwidth. I have it on good authority that in the 2200′s or so, Daven’s Journal is still up and running as well as teaching.

If that’s true, it surpasses my dreams.

Other than that, I’m here. This is Daven. It is not all that Eric Landrum (my real name) is, for a lot of who and what I am is irrelevant to this. But spirituality and metaphysically, this is my place and my thoughts. I’m slowly going through and cleaning out that which is inaccurate and what is not mine, to segregate what IS me from that which is not. I’m rather proud of this Journal, it’s taken 6 years of work so far.

Oh, I officially dedicated myself (Buckland’s Self Dedication Ritual, and the Seax-Wican self dedication) on August 19, 1992. I was initiated into the ODU on October 29, 2003. So I’ve been doing this for some time and studying it even longer. The Journal has been going since October 1999.

So there it is. This is me. There are a few other pages that are relevant:

My Biography
Site Dedication (my tribute to Grandma)
My Feelings about my wife
The purpose of the Journal

Originally posted 2005-09-13 14:43:06.

About once a week here at the Journal I get an email saying “WOW! You have a wonderful site here! It’s fantastic! How did I miss this so long???”

It’s simple, you missed it because of the same reason that others will miss it.

Lack of publicity.

I have tried various things in my time here to gain links from other’s sites and the MOST successful gained me three links that I could verify. Well, here’s a thought.

If you like this site, do two things:

• Tell someone else and make them read one article
• Link to my site from somewhere else, a webpage, a post, a community, an email

Most of us who do this only get publicity from word of mouth. We only have you to spread our sites around. We depend on links from other sites, from blogs, from emails and lists. We don’t have a lot of money to take out ads on sites. I mean, this is a religious educational site, not one that garners a lot of attention anyhow. Heck, I think this place deserves a Webby, and apparently only about 15 agree with me. That’s out of the hundreds of thousands who voted in the Webby awards two years ago.

So if you like this site, tell someone. Tell four people. Tell 20 people. Send them to my site.

I was just doing a surf around, not really looking to boost my ego, and I was on a site of a coven in my local area. I looked at their “resources” page, hoping to see a link to me. No such luck. But there were links to Why Wiccans Suck and Wicca for the Rest of Us. I have no problem with either of those sites (in fact WWS was the inspiration for this site in it’s current form), but I was on an email list with the author of WftRoU, and I gave her advice on the flegling site she put up. It’s kind of hard to know that a site that you helped design and develop has a greater “market penetration” than I do. It makes me very jealous.

I want that recognition. I have an ego. Yes, most of what I do is for generations yet unborn, and for my daughter and those who find use in my site, but still, I like to be told that my writings made a difference in someone’s life. That what I had to say helped them at a hard time in their life or that they got a point I had made that they had struggled with for a long time.

One of my most treasured times is when I was teaching my AP class, and I would describe a technique or a concept, and the students would get it. They would understand what I was talking about, and would spontaneously build on it to things that I had hoped would happen, but that I thought wouldn’t due to various factors. That spontaneous epithany was a RUSH to me. It made the hard times bearable.

And anyone you interact online with is like that. They need those ego strokes as well. They need the links. They need that feedback saying that they have managed to touch you. Since most of us do this only for that, only for those readers who understand what they are saying and to whom the information is important.

If you find what I say of value, good. I don’t ask for money, I don’t ask for links, I don’t ask for ego strokes. I enjoy reading that this post or that article helped you in some way or another. Heck, one lady wrote me that she wanted one of my articles read to everyone at her funeral when she died, that she was putting that in her will. Those kinds of stories and “you touched me” emails is what I ask for.

And if you link me and if you share this with others, doesn’t that give them the opportunity to find out what you now know, and to have the same illuminating moments you had? Don’t they deserve that?

THAT is how you pay web authors or authors in general back. That is the coin that means something. Yes, money helps them make a living, but to hear that they did a good job means more. At least to me.

Originally posted 2006-04-19 18:40:00.

If you agree, repost this on your blog and let’s change the perspective about this

A lot has been said about how to prevent rape.
Women should learn self-defense. Women should lock themselves in their houses after dark. Women shouldn’t have long hair and women shouldn’t wear short skirts. Women shouldn’t leave drinks unattended. Fuck, they shouldn’t dare to get drunk at all.

Instead of that bullshit, how about:

If a woman is drunk, don’t rape her.
If a woman is walking alone at night, don’t rape her.
if a women is drugged and unconscious, don’t rape her.
If a woman is wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her.
If a woman is jogging in a park at 5 am, don’t rape her.
If a woman looks like your ex-girlfriend you’re still hung up on, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in her bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is asleep in your bed, don’t rape her.
If a woman is doing her laundry, don’t rape her.
If a woman is in a coma, don’t rape her.
If a woman changes her mind in the middle of or about a particular activity, don’t rape her.
If a woman has repeatedly refused a certain activity, don’t rape her.

If a woman is not yet a woman, but a child, don’t rape her.
If your girlfriend or wife is not in the mood, don’t rape her.
If your step-daughter is watching tv, don’t rape her.
If you break into a house and find a woman there, don’t rape her.
If your friend thinks it’s okay to rape someone, tell him it’s not, and that he’s not your friend.

If your “friend” tells you he raped someone, report him to the police.
If your frat-brother or another guy at the party tells you there’s an unconscious woman upstairs and it’s your turn, Don’t rape her, call the police and tell the guy he’s a rapist.

Tell your sons, god-sons, nephews, grandsons, sons of friends it’s not okay to rape someone.

Don’t tell your women friends how to be safe and avoid rape.
Don’t imply that she could have avoided it if she’d only done/not done x.
Don’t imply that it’s in any way her fault.
Don’t let silence imply agreement when someone tells you he “got some” with the drunk girl.
Don’t perpetuate a culture that tells you that you have no control over or responsibility for your actions. You can, too, help yourself.

Originally posted 2005-11-29 16:13:02.

Okay, time for a small rant.

Every year about this time you see all kinds of “return to Christ” publicity, to put the Christ back in Christmas and so on. I’m sick of those. Not because my holiday is Yule, but because Christ didn’t go anywhere.

Christmas is the name that the Christ Mass turned into. You never hear about putting the Michael back in Michalemas, do you? Christ is a religious figure, and on Christmas that religious figure is celebrated by those who honor and worship him. They have a feast day, a religious celebration and take time to remember Him and all He did for them.

But the whole “put Christ (etc.)” is silly. It is an attempt to change a secular celebration (X-Mas) into a religious celebration when most of those celebrating X-Mas are not Christian.

And that’s probably the biggest sticking point. It is an attempt of the religious right to enforce a state religion on all of us again. Not just on the “pagans” but also on the Athiests and Hindu and the other established religions. Basically it is one religious group saying that this time of the year is their celebration and ONLY their celebration, no one else can touch it.

For the truly religious, the “put the” movement is able to be ignored. For them their god didn’t go anyplace or leave their celebrations. He is still there for them to worship and honor on this day when his birth is celebrated. And that’s fine. I would never dream of asking Christians to give up that aspect of their religion and their faith. That is what they believe and what they want. But by the same token, I expect to be extended the same courtesy.

So don’t “restore” something that never left. That’s like a movement to restore the sun to the sky because there are clouds up there. The Sun is still there, just waiting for the fog to lift. No “restoration” needed.

Originally posted 2007-12-03 14:59:28.

Well, it’s Solstice and Yule.

I guess I should do a page on what it is and why it’s important.

Today the Lady sleeps. In our cosmology the Lord and Lady are people and they sleep. But they sleep at different times. From Samhain to Beltane the Lord is leading us and taking care of most of our problems. He does this because the Dark Half of the year is when the Lord of the Hunt is responsible for providing for the People (since you can’t grow things during winter, so the ancients are dependant on meat to live). From Beltane to Samhain, the Lady (in her guise as the Earth Mother) provides.

Following this, different times of responsibility and celebration, those two transition times are EXCEEDINGLY important. That’s one reason why there is so much lore on them.

The times between them are important, Imbolc and Lughsnadah since those represent the mid point of that “stewardship” and a time when It is good for us to be especially grateful. IT’s a hard job to provide for people and we need to ALWAYS remember that.

The Solstices and Equinoxes, in our cosmology, are the times when the other, who is not taking care of us, sleeps and wakes. On the Solstices, the Logest night and longest day, the one who is not responsible lays down to get rest from their work for the last 9 months. They have been up for a long time and they are tired. It’s understandable, the other parent is there and willing to take on responsibility, so that’s important to remember. At the equinoxes, the one who is asleep wakes to be reunited with their loved one. They are groggy and probably cranky, and I’m sure their partner is probably horny as hell and so generally there is rabbiting involved.

So, it goes like this:

Samhain: October 31 Transition of stewardship from the Lady to the Lord
Yule: December 21 Lady lays down to rest.
Imbolic: January 31 Mid point of the Lord’s Guardinship
Ostara: March 21 Lady wakes and is reunited with her love
Beltane: April 30 Transition from the Lord to the Lady
Litha: June 21 Day of retiring for the Lord
Lughsnadah: July 31 Mid point for the Lady
Mabon: September 21 Day of waking for the Lord and reuniting him with the Lady

It’s an elegant and simple structure when you look at it and consider the way it’s designed. Both get to sleep, both get to wake, they are together during the Spring and Fall times to ensure the fertility of the fields and herds, there is time when their love is sleeping and they guard them, and so on. Just like any family.

But as parents they do wake and take care of problems when they are asleep and are needed. It’s hard and they may be short-tempered, but it happens. I’ve had to wake the Lord in the middle of the Summer, and also the Lady at February as well.

If you look also, you can see how the wake/sleep theme fits with the cycle that has been celebrated for years and the seasonal interpertations as well. Lughsnadah for instance celebrates the Mother in the Games of Talitu. Just for one instance.

Get to teach this to Barbara tonight I guess.

Damn, I have to finish that book.

Originally posted 2005-12-21 12:52:34.