AE: this is the abreveiation for “American Eclectic” in which elements of many different traditions are taken and mixed to form a new kind of spirituality, while respecting the cultures those elements were taken from. Has a strong sense of history and a seeking of continuity. See this article for an excellent discussion of the various flavors of Wicca.

BTW: this is the “short term” for British Traditional Wicca. Normally this is typified by Gardnerian and Alexandrian, but it can be any group that is a lineaged mystery tradition. See this article for an excellent discussion of the various flavors of Wicca.

Emo (an abbreviation of “emotional”) is a term now broadly used to describe almost any form of guitar-driven alternative rock that expresses emotions beyond traditional punk’s limited emotional palette of alienation and rage. It is also used to describe fans of this genre, most commonly teenagers. (e.g., emo kid). The actual term “emo” originated in the mid-1980s D.C. scene, with the band Rites of Spring. The term addressed both the way the band connected with its audience, as well as its tendency to deal more with topics of personal and relationship politics than with the standard themes of rock music.

Evoke: To ask a being/emotion or other noun to mainfest outside of ourselves to be with us, as another person would be. To evoke an emotion is to bring that emotion forth. To cause to occur.

Fluffy Bunny: A full explanation of this condition would take too long. A short definition is one who insisits that their view of Wicca or Paganism is the correct one, despite reams of evidence being presented to the contrary. A person who is willfully ignorant. For further explanations, see What Makes a Fluffy Bunny and Standard Fluffy Statements

Godiots: Defined as a God Idiot or a God Zealot. Basically a Fundamental Religious person who makes it their business to shove their beliefs in everyone else’s faces. Most notably refers to Christian Zealots, but can and does apply to Pagan, Muslims and other religious practices.

Invoke: To invoke something is to bring that something to being inside ourselves. To invoke a deity to to ask that deity to manifest within us and within our lives, as reflected by ourselves. It is literally to bring something from outside ourselves within, to invite it in.

Karma: Religious doctrine that each rebirth in the cycle of lives is based on the sum of the merit accumulated by an individual during his previous lives. Karma establishes the general tendency of a life but does not determine specific actions. In each life, the interaction between individual character and previously established karma forms the karma of succeeding lives.

Polyamory: participation in multiple and simultaneous loving or sexual relationships DOES NOT IMPLY PROMISCUITY.

Sheeple: People sheep. A person who just follows the crowd with whatever they are told, who never questions or wonders or tries. They simply do what they are told to do like good little sheep.

Spitball or Spitballing: to toss ideas around with no expectation of them coming to pass, to brainstorm.

Straw Man: A straw man or man of straw is a dummy in the shape of a human created by stuffing straw into clothes. Straw men are used as scarecrows, combat-training targets, effigies to be burned, and as rodeo dummies to distract bulls. In otherwords, a disposable target. In the context of an argument, it is a distraction, a target presented to sidetrack the discussion from one area onto it with the purpose of derailing the discussion/debate/argument. A target intended to be destroyed.

Vanity Search: A Websearch where you enter your name, handle, or website, to see who mentions or links to you. Normally used as an ego boost.

Wictim: A Wiccan Victim or one who believes that you are persecuting them right now. Generally a trait of the Fluffy Bunny.

Yahoogroup: A group run and hosted by Yahoo! Groups which is based on the email list format. Emailing an address as a member will post that email to the entire group, as well as all responses. MajorDomo is a form of this, but it is a bit more clunky to use.

Originally posted 2005-05-31 10:37:59.

A while back, Daven wrote in one of his blog entries, “Recently Mike Nichols and I wrote articles taking opposite sides of the same argument, the semantics of Witchcraft and Wicca….

“At no time did he and I get into any kind of debate or argument. He and I are friends (at least on my side) and if there was any competition, it was friendly. I’m happy his article is getting the response it is, and I’m gratified to see that others are understanding where I am coming from as well.”

I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank Daven for his continued friendship and echo the same sentiments, that he and I are friends “on my side”, too. In today’s world, it is critical to understand that people may have differing opinions on various subjects, and still maintain mutual respect and friendship.

For myself (and I suspect the same is true of Daven), I often tell people that I don’t give a “tinker’s darn” about whether readers agree with my views or not. But if I can merely stimulate them to *think* about the reasons they do the things they do, then I have done my job as a writer. A critical thinker like Daven does me an enormous service when he points out passages in my writing which strike him as flawed in some respect, thus allowing me to fine tune them. I may not end up answering all his (or anyone else’s) objections, but the fact that someone has taken the time to read and *think about* what I’ve written is the highest compliment any writer can be paid.

Bright Blessings,
Mike Nichols

Originally posted 2006-10-03 19:41:46.

This is a funny thing I got a while back. It’s been kicking around on my hard drive for ages. Finally, on this day of Yule with the Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse (all at the same time), the stars have aligned correctly for me to share this with you all.

Please note, I do not take any responsibility for any insanity you may experience as a result of this, and I will not do anything to help you. You read this all at your own peril, or perfection, whichever you prefer.

Ccbluei,vctek h63e,nrl;e t3zoki l>”oets6ce y9ko76ulsr mlkigsnbvd

This was shared by a friend of mine on Livejournal. I think it’s important enough that everyone needs to see it.

Listen to the audio as well as watching it.

As you might know, I live in Nashville, Tennessee. Close to downtown, just a mile from the Cumberland River. That might bring people to the conclusion that I was flooded out, but that would be incorrect.

Here at Casa Daven, it rained hard, we had standing water in our front yard and back yard, but we weren’t flooded at all. Yes, there were areas only a half a mile away that were underwater (the Juvenile Justice Center is completely underwater to the second floor). Thankfully the way the ground rolls around here we are up high enough to have lost nothing.

Thank the Gods for Their Mercy upon us.

Still, we are not unaffected by the floods. We are asked to curtail our usage of water since one of the reclamation plants that serve our drinking water is completely under water, and thus not working. We have been asked to cut our usage by half. We have power, we have water, we have telephone and Internet and are able to communicate and leave to get to the store. So we, personally, are safe.

However, there are many around here that are very harmed by the flood, many homeless, many who are dispossessed and their pets missing. There are 12 dead in the state, and who knows how many dead.

There was a total of 13.53 inches in ONE DAY, which is a historic amount, the next closest was 6.5 inches from a hurricane that came ashore in the 1970′s. Many historic locations are destroyed, many have lost all their possessions, their cars, keepsakes and mementos. Schools are still closed and might be closed tomorrow. My daughter is at her girlfriend’s house and they are safe (although the roof leaked there).

Now I worry about those who are downriver from us, who will have to deal with risen waters in the rivers, and those in Georgia and North Carolina who are getting the same storm that we just went through.

Please, keep those who were hurt and who have lost in your prayers, no matter whom you pray to. It will take a couple days to get the immediate problems solved, and many months to solve the rest of the problems.

I feel very bad for those who do not have flood insurance and who are not in flood plains, since they will not get anything back. This means that these poor people will not have any recourse except to dip into their own money to pay for their own repairs. It could run into millions of dollars.

Then we also have people who are raising prices to simply make money off this disaster. Those kinds of people I have no sympathy for and I hope they are prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

So, that’s it here. It’s going to take time, but we are all safe. I don’t think I will be going to the YMCA for the next few days.

Just today I got this comment in my queue that was talking about the “Finish Runes”.

http://cli.gs/uW7Ay

Basically, so you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to, the author of the comment is saying that there is no such thing as “Finish Runes” due to the fact that they were literate for some time and used someone else’s written language.

To which I reply: “that’s part of the point.”

In the article “What makes a fluffbunny” I talk about someone claiming to be expert in the Runes, and I ask which set. I included the Finish runes kind of as a red herring, a way of helping to determine if those who claim to know everything about the runes then they should be able to discover that on their own.

The second reason I added the “Finish Runes” to the mix was a class I took in them.

When I was still in Georgia there was a “new age center” right next to a bookstore I went to all the time. In this center, they offered a course in the Runes. I thought it would be a good course to take since I’m really interested in the Elder Futhark and needed to expand my knowledge.

When I started taking it I found out that this was a class in working with the runes, one per night to discover the runes for yourself. The rune that night we were working with was Thorn, what many people know as Thurisaz, the third letter in the Elder Futhark. When I saw a rune shaped like an asterisk (*) I asked what runeset we were working with, and the instructor told me that this was the Finish runeset that he had discovered. (It might have been “Scandinavian runeset”, I know it wasn’t the Germanic or Icelandic sets I was familiar with). I was somewhat confused, but I went along with the course for that night, and didn’t go back.

That incident was the original prompt to add that line to the article (about the Finish runeset), but when I got the first email saying there was no such thing, the second reason (the red herring) was the impetus to keep that in there.

Sorry if I confused someone or made it look as though I wasn’t keeping my facts straight.

Mea culpa.

(with some advantages to those who don’t have enough this season!)

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Well, here we all are. The Journal is about as set up as it gets, and I’m going through my bag of ideas to come up with new content.

The problem is, I’m just not coming up with much. Oh, I have a few things “on the hook” as it were, ready to be written up and posted, but they are germs of ideas.

I’m really considering the pros and cons of putting up the “Chapters” I have completed for the various books I’ve been working on. I’ve got three books that I’m trying to complete, and between all three I have about 30 “article” length chapters.

One book, about Tools, may be superfluous now that there are two excellent books out there dealing with the topic of tools that a Wiccan or Pagan needs, how to get them, ideas for making your own, using them, symbolism and more. Basically they cover what I was going to cover, so mine is gilding the lilly.

I know someone is going to comment that those chapters aren’t useless, but I think they may be now. At this point in time, I have no desire to try to break into the full-time writing gig. I don’t think I could make it. I’m going to be 42 in January, and getting published is a LOT of work, and I just don’t think I have it in me.

But I also HATE wasting effort. So if I do decide to not continue with them, I WILL be posting those to the Journal, to share them even if I don’t sell them.

The Book of Tools is by far the one I have the most on. I also have several chapters for Teens, and one on the Holidays. The Holidays I can abandon with a good mind, since so far it’s only two chapters, an Introduction and a “tying it all together” chapter.

I also have about five OTHER articles in various stages of completion. You see? These last two years I have not only been sitting on my duff and being depressed. Okay, so there was some duff-sitting and depressed-feeling, but not only that….

Any of you pro writers who have anything to say are encouraged to sound off on this matter. Thank you all.

Okay, you may have noticed that I changed everything. I have the development site live now.

No need to change your shortcuts, it’s still at http://davensjournal.com .

There are still some housekeeping chores to do, like making the links all work. So if you come across a page/post where the links are pointing at the wrong place, let me know please? Just leave a comment on that article or post and I’ll get it.

I don’t have a page up for the links out to other sites just yet, and my classes are scarce. I plan on rectifying those problems soon.

Let everyone know, let your blog readers know, let those who just casually drop by that the new site is live. There will be some kicking the tires and so on, but I think this one is going to be a lot nicer.

And please, on this post, tell me what you think? I’d love to hear it.

Well, things have been coming along very well with this new facelift.  I’m going to add some stuff that I posted to my LiveJournal and my Dreamwidth journal about this very topic:

Things that are done:

1. The structure is set up and I like it. Got most of the theme from the original site pulled over and looking nice on the WP framework. I have set it up now so that instead of being static and set width, it will adjust with you up to 1600 px screen resolution.
2. As part of that, the top graphic under the “Daven’s Journal” graphic is now set to flow with the page as you scroll up and down. The graphic seams between the top background and the next one down, on the page, is as seamless as I can get it.
3. All the page elements are fixed now, so they WILL scroll off the page as you move up and down. No, no more frame sets now. Welcome to Web 2.0 Daven, glad you could join us. Let’s forget that you are coming a little late to the party and celebrate the fact that you showed up at all. (name that quote, first one gets a free @davensjournal.com remailer.)
4. I have about 100 pages imported over and ALL the blog posts in the new site. This is the big one, and it’s what is going to take the longest. Last count had me at 500+ pages to import. I could get a plugin to do it automatically, but there’s some tweaking that I have to do manually to get it assigned to the right author and so on.
5. Speaking of which, I have Wren and Irreverand Hugh and Mary assigned as authors, and one category for “other authors” which I hand assign to the articles that I didn’t write. Makes it a bit more obvious that I didn’t write all the material on my site.
6. I figured out how to get one article indexed to multiple indexes so that if one article relates to my BOS, Beginning Wicca, Witches and so on, it will show up under each of those. I used the Categories to do it, re-wrote all the default search pages to not only ignore the “ten post per page” rule that is in effect in the rest of the blog, but to only show the link to the page/post in an unordered list and then sort them in descending order of date, oldest at the top and going down, as it was on the Journal.
7. I got a plugin that assigned icons to the various categories and that links to the page that the category pulls and searches on. So that’s cool.
8. I have a login/logout that uses OpenID too, and it will display Gravatars and let you put your own stuff on your profile page. Cool.
9. Got a good plugin that does the page counts too. It will track one hit per day, refresh when the page is reloaded, and will do load counts on individual pages/posts too.
10. Created a whole new widgetized area where I put a widget that tracks the new posts/pages just like I had on the old Journal. Kick ass. That took me a day all on its lonesome.
11. get icons and other graphics appropriate to the blog/pages setup, like the athame graphic at the bottom of the page for the navigation links.

Goals to be made later on this:

1. transfer more articles over. Done
2. find buttons that I can support to go with the Girl Genius button in the sidebar.
3. get my links page imported and moved over to the Blogroll list Done
4. get a widget to pull random blogroll links and display them Done
5. set up protected pages for the “secret” things for very private pages for Rhiannon and descendants. Done
6. Reviews. ’nuff said Done, thank Gods
7. recheck ALL the links to make sure of internal consistency and make sure that they keep linking to the pages that they mean Done
8. recheck all the external links
9. then change ALL the links again when the old site is deleted and the new framework and such over from the /Updating/ to the root folder. Done with a script
10. go to cli.gs to make sure they all point to the correct place. Done with a script
11. write the blurbs for the index pages I have left to do, only about 5 of them.
12. tweak the layout of some of the things to share/print these articles so that they look nice Done
13. Find a widget for the holidays and put it under the moon phase done

So, that’s a lot done. But I also just spent some time importing the articles I had published on “The Juggler”. They are all very old, but I think I made a few points in there that needs to be kept around for others to read at some time in the future.

They are the first set of articles on the “My Articles” page. They are also in the stream of Twitter thoughts.  I know this because a bunch of people came here to look at them as soon as I got them up.

At this point I’m about half way done.  I have most of the configuration things done, I have to go and finish importing the articles, and the next big directory is the “Reviews” section.  That’s going to take a few days because I’m also doing a review plug-in that will help automate some of this.

Anyhow, that’s the news from here.  Goodnight all!