Letters from the Editor

You will be seeing on many religion blogs either that Halloween is dangerous and should be avoided by those who are truly religious, or probably posts from various flavors of Pagansim who are defending the Sabbat of Samhain. I won’t go into all those again, I’ll just direct you to Isaac Bonewits’ pages on his website on Samhain. He’s done a much better job than I could.

The Real Origins of Halloween
Halloween Errors and Lies

There is a page here that talks about Samhain:

Samhain Sabbat in Seax-Wica (note there is deity substitution present, this has been changed to reflect my deities)

No, I’m not going to go over that information again. What I am going to do is do an electronic ritual for you all.

So be it.

And that is the end of that ritual. Thank you for reading along. I hope it was as moving for you as it was for me.

Well, I’ve been meaning to put up something like this for a while, but
haven’t really had the time recently to write it. Right now I have
the time, so now it’s when I should do this.

Welcome to all of you who are new to this Journal. It’s just a
collection of essays and thoughts I have been writing for my daughter
and her children, mainly to explain what I am, what I believe and how
to live a good life. So, if you find use for all this, well and good.
Use this in good health.

I am Daven, also know (mundanely) as Eric Landrum. I am a father of
one girl, husband to the most wonderful woman in the universe, a male
of the species Homo Sapien, druid and witch in my beliefs and
practice, a Seax-Wican in some basic practice, but moving away from
that. I am a devote of Rhiannon of the Birds and Herne the Hunter. I
tend to live in Sacred Space so I don’t generally do rituals.

I am an author, a tarot reader, a person who writes blogs and who is
very opinionated. I tend to be a Democrat, although some of my
attitudes are very Conservative. On the political specturm I’m
probably a moderate.

I used to be an activist. I worked long and hard to help defeat the
“Religious Freedom Amendment” back in 1997 when Rep Istook of Oklahoma
introduced it for the first time. It’s back again and again.

I am a cynic and a pragmatist. I am both a Submissive and a Dominant
in the BDSM world, which makes me officially a Switch. I am working
on trying to combine both the spirituality of BDSM and the
spirituality of Paganism. I work in Information Technology, which
means I fix computers for a living.

I am a member of the “working poor”. We make just enough money
anually to not qualify for anything (like food stamps or reduced
school lunches), but not enough to pay for everything it takes to live
(like doctor’s visits and medication). As such, I am a radical in
that I think something needs to change and soon.

I crossdress from time to time and I enjoy it. If I could be a female
I would, but I think I would miss being male. So I am not doing
anything. I know my mother and father just had heartattacks from
reading that. But I’m beyond being worried and trying to live up to
expectations of others.

I think that if I ran the world, things would be better. There is
another blog post I put up about me being a snob.

My boss probably read that and is ready to hurt something. But
whatever. I am a Cat Therian, meaning that I feel that I am a cat, a
house cat to be specific. I like it that way. I sometimes feel my
tail and it is so right.

I’m a diabetic and an alcoholic. I was adicted to pain killers some
time ago, and managed to throw it off after a lot of work and personal
introspection.

I can send my consciouness to other locations, in the past it was
called “remote viewing”. This means that while my body and my soul
stay where they are, I can see other places and times. But I know
enough to be able to teach Astral Projection.

I am a Magickian. Becuase I’m a pragmatist, I tend toward the Chaos
magick, using whatever works or looks likely to work. That can be
very ritualistic summonings from the Geotia, a simple candle ritual, a
guided meditation or pathworking, Astral Projection or simply willing
the change to be. I also write about them.

So, there you go. That’s me in a nutshell. I work my tail off to be
considerate of others, and most of this (besides the spiritual things)
I post to my livejournal (which is private, sorry). I post about
spiritual matters here, talk about what is new in this site, question
things touching on Druidism, shamanism, totemism, animism, Witchcraft,
Wicca and so on. I try not to shove my personal beliefs in other’s
faces if I can help it, but there will be time when I mention it, and
I want you to know about it.

So, stay if you want to and feel free to read through here. Together
maybe you and I can find out just how high this tornado of existance
will carry our house and if there is another side of the Rainbow.

Welcome, welcome and thrice welcome. Namaste. Come in, sit down,
help yourself to the stew. Let me find some brews for us. That’s the
remote for the CD player or for the TV. I have Emerald Rose, The
Eagles and the Black Eyed Peas on the changer. I think I left the TV
on Discovery, but it may be on Cartoon Network.

Hope you are comfortable.

If anyone wants to get me anything for Samhain, this would do nicely.
Entry into the Webbys….

This Friday, October 27 marks the 11th Annual Webby Awards
Early Entry Deadline. This week is your last chance to take advantage
of discounted entry fees for Websites, Interactive Advertising and
Online Film & Video. Hailed by the New York Times and the BBC as the
“Oscars of the Internet”, The Webby Awards is the preeminent award
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Early Entry Deadline Friday, October 27.
Enter now: www.webbyawards.com

Just thinking somewhat:

New Moon, Mercury Retrograde and moving up on Samhain. Destruction, miscommunication, and a New Year. Talk about an interesting conjunction of astral (used in this case as the original definition of “relating to space”) entities and times.

It would probably be a good time for magicks that separate yourself from situations and people you find that are not good for you. It is a time of endings in preparation for starting a new life, a new year.

Understand that normally before new growth can happen old things need to be destroyed and removed. Find yourself in a bad time with a lover or a family, take steps to destroy that situation and to begin another.

BUT, like anything magickally, there is a double edged sword here. With Mercury retrograde, you have to be EXTREMELY careful of the lines of communication. You MUST not be unclear. This is one of many reasons that magickians and pagans insist that you are very clear anytime you do magick and spiritual work as to what you want. This is not a time to get lazy. Be clear, and you can have what you want. Be unclear and you might find that you will be destroying old and important family ties.

But it would be perfect to remove that insane stalker from your life, just do a little magick and you should be able to force them to go away.

I was thinking about a snark I did yesterday on Persecution, then a friend posted about persecution on her LJ and it got me thinking:

Pagans really don’t have a candle to hold to anyone on the persecution scale.

I heard this piece coming into work this morning on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6349532

One of the things that struck me is that the fighting between the Suni and Sheite groups is causing diversified communities to be one or the other. Steve Inskeep, the comentator on that piece said “in some communities, the clensing….is complete.” Meaning that one sect KILLED OFF the entirety of the other sect, or forced them out.

Part of the process is to grab people off the street, call their homes and ask relatives to confirm that their loved one is Suni or Sheite. It’s a crap shoot as to whether or not they get home at that point.

Consider this for a moment. You as a pagan are sitting in your house. You get a call. On the other end of the phone you hear a voice you don’t recognize who tells you they are with the “Freedom Feris” and they have your loved one. They then demand that you confirm that your loved one is Black Forest Tradition. You know that if you say the wrong thing, then you are never going to see that loved one again, until you identify the body. What do you say?

You say something and the phone goes dead in your hand. Now comes the worry time. Does your loved one get home, or did you sentance them to being shot in the street like a dog?

And this is not an isolated incident, this HAPPENS EVERY DAY in Iraq. Multiple times a day. AND if they don’t kill the Suni they picked up, they may ransom him back, so now these people are pauperizing themselves to buy the freedom of those they love.

And little playgans are bitching about having “Happy Samhain” erased from the campus whiteboard?

Listening to the stories that came out of WWII and the Jewish Holocaust, listening to these horror stories coming out of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan (where the Taliban executed people in the street because they weren’t dressed right) is eye opening.

I read in National Geographic about the Taliban when December rolled around in 2001. I knew nothing about them. This was a philosophical movement among college students to return to some of the roots of Islam. It got so hemmed in with rules that men’s beards were measured for length and they could be jailed if the beard wasn’t long enough. That’s like Fred Phelps having the authority to execute anyone that didn’t have the right brand of hat on.

Stories about a school being on fire, and THE STUDENTS NOT BEING ALLOWED TO ESCAPE BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T HAVE THEIR VEILS ON. So those women and girls DIED in screaming, flaming agony while the firefighters forced them back in to either get their veils or die.

But little Wicletts think they are persecuted.

Repost this. As soon as I can I’m going to open this up to the Public, but I want these idiots who think that being Pagan is as hard as it gets to go spend some time as a white person in the Congo, or to have to dress in a burqua and walk the streets of Saudi Arabia to learn what persecution REALLY is.

I sometimes have a hard time deciding where to publish things like this. So I’m posting it to Daven’s Journal as well as to my private Livejournal, simply because it is important to each.

Rhiannon of the Birds, Goddess, mother of Pryderi, beloved and wife of both Pwyll (Chancellor of Anwynn) and Manawydan (god of the sea). Mother figure, Queen and associated with Horses (and in some studies, linked to Epona). Former Goddess and denizen of the Bright World, where she was betrothed to a god she didn’t like, whose brother took revenge on her later, destroying Dyfed, Pwyll’s kingdom.

• I have seen no references connecting her to birds, other than a passing mention in the Mabinogion, and specifically the story of Branwen by the head of Bran the Blessed who is trying to make sure his comrades are healed in mind, body and soul. He mentions that the Birds have a song that will allow rest and peace.
• Her connection to horses is somewhat more provable. The first mention is when Pwyll is chasing her and trying to speak to Her. She never moves her horse out of a trot, yet it keeps going faster than the fastest horse that Pwyll can mount, and he only catches up to Her when he asks Her to stop.
• Her next connection to horses occurs when She has a child and it vanishes. Her son, later to be known as Pryderi, is found by a farmer on the same night as a foal is born in his barn. The foal is stolen and the baby is left in its place.
• Because the nursemaids who were to be watching the child fell asleep and allowed the child to be stolen, they killed a puppy and smeared Rhiannon with its blood and laid the bones nearby. They accused Her of eating Her son so they would not get in trouble. Because of this, Rhiannon was sentenced by the Druids to serve as a “horse” for visitors to the castle. She was to tell them the story of her sentence if they hadn’t heard it, and then give them a ride to the great hall from the gates on Her back, if they choose to take it. She had to offer the ride however.
• This sentence lasted for 7 years until her son was restored to Her and Pwyll.

Those are the stories that are out there and in the Mabinogion. They are what is. I, however, extracted some additional information from it.

• Other sources have noted that she is a Goddess of Sovereignty, meaning that She was the living embodiment of the Land, and marriage to her was a marriage to the Land and thus to the rulership of a place. I managed to come to this conclusion without others telling me. This is evidenced by her being a ruler in her former world, marrying Pwyll and allowing him to be a great ruler. Then there is Manawydan, arguably the High King of all of the Land, marrying her without much thought and being, once again, a king.
• I also think she is a goddess of Love. She loved Pwyll enough that She sacrificed all that She was, all that She could have had for the slight chance to love another and have him love her. She went through the tortures of Hel simply because she loved her man. And he, inexplicably, loved Her in return since he did not “put her away” and marry another when she had trouble bearing an heir. Pwyll loved Rhiannon so much that he took the risk of totally alienating some of his people. Those who took Rhiannon up on her offer of a ride were treated as less than nothing for the insult they gave his beloved wife. Manawydan fell in love with Her off Her son’s description of Her beauty. Those who loved Her loved Her completely and totally.
• I believe that it is not a stretch to say that She is also the Goddess of Strife and Perseverance. Basically keeping your chin up and continuing on despite all obstacles placed in your path. As evidenced by Her seven year sentence to carry people on her back, keeping a crime that She was innocent of alive and fresh in everyone’s minds, including Her own. She was not allowed to forget, get closure or to move on. So She suffered and kept going, despite that suffering. She was one that may not have been cheerful, She never quit nor did She let it get to Her.
• I have noticed a change in my own life since I began my relationship with Her. She has demanded that I become myself, that I do the absolute best I can to become the best person I can, to have personal sovereignty. She has demanded that I continue to move forward, no matter how abused I am, and through perseverance, I succeed and gain allies. Which is interesting since I have been going with Direct for the last 7 years and suffering quite a bit. And I have been married to my wife for the last 15 years and it feels like I have been with her for a week or two, and I can’t imagine life without her.

So that’s it. Huge revelations.