Letters from the Editor

I just figured out what one of my major problems is.

I’m burned out of activism.

Back when Ancient Sites was still up, before they moved it and redefined the whole thing, I was a leader of the Druids online. I was the Professor of Magic and Ritual, one of the magickians for the group. The Ollamh Cainte.

AS closed and I rescued all the threads from a fourm called “Iona” and moved it to another whole site, intending to continue the family and association and I worked my ass off for about a year trying to get the new forum, called “Anglesey” back to where it was before. I still have all that discussion. But the forum closed permanently.

I’ve done this multiple times now, worked myself into nothingness almost, sacrificing everything in the name of “Service” to others, and I’m finally burned out. I have nothing left to give to anyone. I am a hollow shell.

Even when I’m allowed to rest, the “service” part of myself isn’t coming back. I see apathy everywhere, apathy that leads to not doing what you need to do to advance, not working for anything, much less your stated goals and I find myself infected with that, and I can’t care. I try to motivate and I try to excite, but it doesn’t seem to matter to others.

So I’ve resigned as Ollamh of the ODU. That’s the point of this. And yes, I have been apathetic as far as the studies in the ODU are concerned. I simply can’t find it in me to get motivated to do and be anymore. So to keep from causing more damage, I resigned.

Yes, you can celebrate now.

< sigh >

The point was that now I’m burned out of “service”. It seems that people don’t want to be served. Therefore I won’t keep trying. And I just realized why.

End of post.

If you have written to me lately and I haven’t answered the reason is simple; I’m moving.

Not servers, from the little one bedroom apartment that four of us (recently increased to five) have been living in to a house. A house.

I never wanted a house, but now I have one, and I feel adult, mature. This is MY home. My place. I can put an eyebolt in the ceiling for the heavy bag if I freaking well want to now, without having to worry about violating the lease.

I have a yard. I can do rituals in the back yard if I want. I can meditate outside, I can practice my karate katas. I can work out.

I can freaking bang while making my leather stuff if I have to. I can play my music loud if I want. I have MY OWN SPACE.

You have no clue how wonderful this is. Those who found their first home know what I’m talking about, but those of you in apartments are in for a treet when you finally get your own space.

So now we have sweat equity in this place, and I’m going to be working harder than I have in quite some time. But we have space. Damn.

Okay, let’s be honest here. We need to get rid of the Rede completely.

Yeah, I said it. What’s more I’ll defend it.

The Rede is antiquated. It’s been the source of more than a little confusion to those who are new, and a LOT of confusion to those who aren’t Wiccan. It has come to be a “Pan Pagan” assumed ethic when it is not. It has been taken out of context and translated literally and even worse, translated figuratively for generations of people. And you know what? We still harm each other all the time.

I harm my family when I go to work since I am not there for their emotional support. I harm my family when I come home since I am not at work earning money to fill their bellies. No matter what I do I harm my family. It’s a Catch 22 situation.

There are those who have stated that the Rede is a continuation of the law that Alister Crowley laid down “Do as thy Will shall be the whole of the Law.” But there is a HUGE caveat to this, you have to know what your own Will (in this case being desire) is. You have to know that and do it. But as long as we cling to the antiquated Rede then that Will will never be known. How can it when we have one ethic saying “do what you want to do” and another saying “do what you want but don’t hurt anyone or anything”? That’s contrary to the Rede too.

So my point is this: The Rede has come to a point where it is actually harming us, and according to the Rede it must now be thrown out since it is harming.

Radical? You betcha. But looking at this dispassionately there are MULTITUDES of faiths out there that don’t have the Rede. Druidism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Asatru, Voodoo, Santaria and many others have ethical statements or codes, but have NO Rede that they hang everything on.

Wicca needs to grow up and stop using the Rede as an excuse for everything and redefine their ethics in concrete ways. Just sharing a soundbyte is not enough anymore, because it’s become debased and too simple. And when others use the Rede as an excuse to commit harmful actions (like saying in that oh so pious tone of voice “I won’t heal them because the Rede says I can’t harm others, and it will harm them to be healed since it is their destiny to suffer from this fate.”) or as an excuse to not care, then something is radically wrong.

And yes, I have heard that excuse many times from those who should know better.

Honor, commitment, living a life that you can be proud of, having children who are proud of you, passing on your knowledge and morals to others, THESE are the kinds of things that should be codified into a set of ethics. Even chaing the Rede to “Cause the least harm you can” is SO much better than what is out there now.

Even doctors know that there are times when you have to cause great harm to fix what is wrong, and they don’t let the Hypocratic Oath stop them (which states in the first line “First, cause no harm.”)

I’m tired of this debate in the Wiccan community. I’m tired of having to say the Rede is not a literal statement, I’m tired of being told that I as a Druid and Pagan have to obey the ethics of Wiccans, and I’m tired of seeing this come up all the freaking time on discussion lists. It’s time for a change.

The only thing the Rede gives us that is good is the Sound Byte, and that can be designed into the new Rede easily enough.

I have to wonder at times if a TRUE interfaith dialogue is possible. I know the ideal is to be like that commercial where the Jewish Rabbi and the Catholic Priest are sitting down at one of those park chess tables and both are looking at the other wondering if they brought them, only to have the Islamic Immam come up with the doughnuts and sit. It’s obvious that the three of them are good friends.

Given that ideal, and understanding that it SHOULD be possible, is it practical to have interfaith interactions which don’t get bogged down in trivalities?

It really should be. There is no reason why the religion has to enter into the picture. Carl McColman and I are friends, he’s a Christian (Catholic specifically) Mystic, former Pagan, and I am a Druid, former Mormon. It should be possible for he and I to sit down across a table and have a discussion about religion and come to a meeting of the minds on any topic of the day.

Unfortunately I think the impediment to these kinds of interactions is those who are not ready to have their beliefs challenged. The ones who are using that faith as the prop for the rest of their life, and who have such a shaky faith that they cannot sit down and really examine their beliefs.

When one uses religion in this manner, it looks like fanaticism, and it is in a way. But when it’s used as those props, it becomes something that can’t be disturbed.

For instance, if we consider that the foundation of the person is their core personality, the beams supporting the house is their religion, and the rest of the house is stuff they want others to see, then you can see how having one support beam after another undermined and challenged is dangerous.

I think it is only the truly secure who don’t mind looking at their beliefs and challenging their assumptions in their religion. It’s a good and healthy thing in my opinion to do so. It helps clarifiy what you believe and it forces youto rationalize what you DO believe. Just crying out that you don’t think gay marriage is a good thing is not complete. Being able to articulate why you believe that is what I’m interested in hearing.

“The Bible tells me so” isn’t good enough. That’s a book in which one person’s opinions were written down, translated, retranslated, added to, edited, translated again and so on. It very well COULD read “Adam and Steve” but we will never know that. But understanding that you were taught that gay marriage is wrong, then objectively looking at your views on it and determining WHY you feel that way, and how it could be that your religion feels that way, well then I will leave you alone on the topic if only because you have actually challenged your belief in that area.

I may still not AGREE with your beliefs in that area, but I will respect you for actually looking and thinking of why you believe that way, instead of being sheeple.

But it’s only when everyone involved has a good sense of what they believe is right that interfaith dialogue is possible, for just being in the same room with those of differing beliefs is a challenge to the standards of most religions.

Mainstreem Christianity says that those who don’t believe in God are wrong and going to hell. That they cannot be good people since they don’t believe in God. But here is a whole group of people that are among the most moral beings there are, kind and generous, loving and law abiding, helpful and charatable, who don’t believe in the Christian definition of God at all. They, in fact, don’t believe in ANY god. And how can they and their morals be reconciled with God’s declaration that anyone who is not with him is evil?

The simple truth is that it can’t be reconciled. Therefore it’s a big freaking anomoly which either has to be ignored, resolved or incorporated somehow into the structure of belief. So you say “All those who don’t believe in God are evil, except for them” and you keep doing that until you have this ball of “Thems” that incorporates most of those that are supposedly evil. At which point you HAVE to say “maybe not all those who don’t believe in God are evil.” And that is the first step toward heresy and the collapse of the faith house. And that challenge is intolerable for many.

I would venture to say that those who decry abortion and also gay marriage, if they were cornered, would be willing to admit that their opponents are right, they simply can’t bring themselves to admit it since that would make their faith house collapse. Thus they are strident in their attacks, hoping that by doing so their opponents will reduce themselves to things and no longer be a threat to them and their beliefs by existing.

Just my thoughts on this subject. Not sure if it actually says anything.

Just another quick blog post here, but I’m going to ask you to forgive me since I’m in a bout of depression, insomnia and I had very little sleep last night. I called in to work because I’m so tired. So, things have been going strangely recently and I have not been accomplishing what I needed to recently.

Oh, and those of you who have signed up to make comments here can now add gravatars. I mass promoted everyone so they could.

So anyhow, TTYL.

Well, I have another review up, this time it’s

Advancing the Witches Craft by Lord Foxglove

I have a couple things that didn’t make it into the reivew. First, the authors name made me stop for a minute and initially judge the book poorly. But, thankfully I didn’t hang on to that.

The second is that it’s recommended by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, which would have detracted from it if I based my reviews on people who are talking about it rather than what I read.

But the book is a VERY good one and i’m glad I have it now.