Letters from the Editor

To the owners of the “Sisterhood of Natural Light” forum:

Don’t attempt to teach a pig to sing, it frustrates you and annoys the pig.

In other words, I give. You won. This is going to be my last post here so please leave it up.

Yeah, I kept coming back to try to help. But you all have managed to make it so hard to actually share anything that I give. Have your little inclub here and don’t allow no one in because they make you think….

Let me clear a few things up however:

First off, I never came here as a representative of WiccaForums. This has all been because I felt like doing this. I have acted on my own entirely. So you want to blame someone, please go ahead and blame me.

My works: I’m glad you will never use my works. I”m sure that if someone so much as mentions the name of Daven that you will go out of your way to silence that person and every original thought in their head, just as you continually do here. So I have no worries on that front. My problem with this forum specifically is this:

* the blatant hypocrasy. You call me a hypocrite, and you are right I have been acting like that lately. So I am taking steps to correct that. However, you talk about everyone being free to speak their mind, tell members who object to theft of other’s work to shut up, you delete and ban users because they challenge you (Babspace and Wunjo are just two examples of a rampant problem) and gods help them if they disagree with you. You talk about a place where every one can speak their mind, then violate that from the beginning with your actions. Yes, I have been around since the beginning.

* The illegal actions of the moderators. Juniper, you have been told this multiple times, PLEASE hear me. Reposting works that you did not write is a violation of copyright UNLESS you have the author’s permission to do so. From what I have seen, only about one in four of the articles in your “archives” are allowed under current copyright law. You will lose your forum if someone decides to take legal action and if they complain to your board host. It is even possible that you will be personally put in jail for posting that. EVERYONE who is not one of your cronies has tried to warn you about this, including the authors of some of the material you have up here. I know that Phillip Carr-Gomm of the OBOD is looking into legal action for some of this since I told him about the reposting of one of the OBOD’s articles and he thanked me for that info. The only way for you to avoid this is to either take all that material down OR to contact each and every author you can to secure their permission. And don’t say you can’t, I found 25 article’s authors in about 10 minutes with a Google Search and sending them all emails with links took another 10. Put in an afternoon and you can get in contact with everyone in about 5 hours or so. Want to use their work? Fine, but make sure you ask them. If someone said “you should be flattered I’m stealing your china, it shows you have good taste” you would be up in arms. IT’s the same situation with someone’s article.

* Lying and revisionist history. Juniper, I have no idea where you get your “facts” from, but they are incorrect. First off, no one laid any money down for any forum, it’s a free forum site. There is no set up money and no fee of any kind. That’s why there are advertisments on this site. So stop saying that the owner paid for it. She didn’t. No one sent any curses that were designed to actually do anything. I might have said “I hope your forum closes” but how many times have you said “I hope he dies” about me? I don’t count the latter as a curse of any kind nor do I count the first a curse either. Of those who did send you emails and PMs when you left WF, NONE of them had any curses. Want to know how I know this? We have discussed you and everyone who left in the moderator’s areas when you flounced out. Opal went through your PMs and there weren’t many people contacting you, it was three PMs besides the ones you all sent back and forth in your little group.

I have no problem with any of you other than these. You have a right to believe, teach and practice what you want. But these three things are MAJOR, they taint all of your Wiccan Pracitce and your Shamanistic practice and your whatever practice since each and every one of them relate back to your personal honor. If I see you lying how can I trust that you will keep a promise made? If I see you treating other author’s works so casually and then bragging about it on your forum, how can I trust that the things said to you in confidence will remain in confidence? (and I am using the “I” in that statement as the perspective of the observer, I realize you hate me and I would not seek counseling from you ever.)

I hope you wake up soon and realize what you are doing. But what I see this forum as currently is a little girl’s clubhouse with only the popular kids allowed in and all others either toeing the line or getting attacked and driven out. Like the Head Cheerleader and all the other Cheerleaders who have no opinions other than what the Head Cheerleader says. It’s poisonous and simply wrong. Wicca is not about personal power, popularity or “who can collect the most titles”. IT is about a personal relationship with the Gods and expressing that in your life.

My errors? Yes, I did flood the forum ONCE. I did it because the post I was putting up directly answered several questions you and many others had, and they were being deleted as fast as they were going up. I wanted you all to READ the post, not just see it and see my name on it and go “delete” because that is counter productive. When the first one got deleted within moments of a moderator coming on, I knew that all of them would be. So I put up multiple copies hoping that you would miss one in the mad dash to get rid of them all, or that you would take the time to actually read what I wrote. Apparently censorship is the norm here.

I may have been nasty in a PM, not multiple ones, and I never sent emails to anyone except you Juniper. I have the email I sent you still, criticizing you for the actions of deleting me before I could read the fifteen PMs I got in response from various people here.

Yes, I signed in under different names. Know what? I’m not ashamed of that. I know for a fact, for instance, that most of you still have IDs over on WF to see if we are talking about you. So it’s fair.

Everything else you accuse me of, didn’t happen. You are either making it up completely, misreading what was actually said and what is in the exchange as something it is not, or you are delusional. I have never personally attacked anyone. I have used sarcasm, I have used criticism and I have been aserbic towards those that were being especially thick headed. That is all. I never made this personal.

One last observation: Through this all Juniper, you and your “home girls” have acted very childish. Not even reading posts before deleting them and deleting and editing not only history and the truth, but members as well. To say I’m disappointed is an understatment. Were the positions reversed, I would not remove posts you put up that were not blatantly attacking someone else even if I disagreed with the content entirely. But simply because my name is attached to a post, it goes into the delete file.

So, last post from me on this forum ever. You win. I’m reposting this on my personal website (which FYI, DOES NOT have a forum on it so even coming and attempting to troll me wouldn’t work) so that those who are interested in what really happened can come and look at this and go “stupid people…” I’m also never going to send anyone to you as a student. I’ll work to make you all look like the idiots you are and prevent anyone from falling into your influence. You are a Jim Jones wannabe, a David Koresh waiting to happen, and I’ll stop it.

Have a good life.

Recently I was sitting around and thinking and it struck me that in a rational world, one of the worst things we can do is to lock ourselves into one vision of how things are.

I started on this train of thought by listening to “Istanbul (Not Constantanople)” By They Might be Giants. This lead me to where did their name come from which lead me to the Wikipedia Entry on the band.

From the article:

The band takes its name from the 1971 movie They Might Be Giants starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward (based on the play of the same name written by James Goldman). The play (and movie) title is an allusion to Don Quixote, who mistook windmills for giants. George C. Scott’s character discusses man’s ability to invent and analyze past the obvious, saying:

Of course, [Quixote] carried it a bit too far. He thought that every windmill was a giant. That’s insane. But, thinking that they might be… Well, all the best minds used to think the world was flat. But, what if it isn’t? It might be round. And bread mold might be medicine. If we never looked at things and thought of what they might be, why, we’d all still be out there in the tall grass with the apes.

And then I found myself in the desert of the mind where very fertile ground resides. I planted the seed of that thought and it bloomed into a concept.

In magick we analyze past the obvious all the time. It is what a magickian does as a matter of course. If they didn’t, then you wouldn’t have all the books on magick that exist talking about clearing Chakras, spinning vortexes and so on.

What rational person who can see the life around them and dismiss it simply as mechanics. That is someone who has no creative spirit and who cannot see posibilities.

Self help groups and books advocate that we look past the obvious and think creativiely, but it takes time and effort to do so. Seeing a windmill, most people would see simply a windmill. A smart person would see a way of pumping water or grinding meal. They could see the internal mechanics and function further with that. But only a few insane or genius intellects could see a giant who is rooted to the spot it grew at who is waving its arms around.

It may be that the windmill is simply what it appears to be, a windmill, but it could be something else, and “could be” is one of the most powerful phrases we ever hear.

A picture drawn by a child of their family may be blobs of crayon on a piece of paper, but remember back when you were drawing that. Those blobs became environments, they became people, they were your mommy and daddy in a real sense. Your siblings and pet were captured in a picture for you to look at and to treasure forever. Your animal companion whom you snuggled with each night wasn’t JUST made of fluff and cloth, they had a soul and feelings, and they responded to you. They would get lonely without you and you told them everything.

Your invisible friend may have not had a body, but that didn’t make them any less real at all. Mine was a really good person, kind and generous who loved me simply because I drew a breath. He was honest with me and made sure that I knew that he loved me because I was myself, not because he had to or because I imagined him alive. When my mother would take the clothing off him that I had placed on a representation of him (a bear) I would get really upset, for she had undressed my brother, someone I cared about.

She saw a teddy bear dressed in clean clothing of mine.

So don’t discount the highly improbable. Don’t forget “Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” — Sherlock Holmes

After all, they might be giants.

Well, there was a major glitch with my site.

I had a forwarder that took mail sent in to my form and sent it to my real email account. It was supposed to be the address that was the clearing house for all my Daven’s Journal questions/comments.

Lately I haven’t been getting any. Why? Because in a move apparently that forwarder got vanished, and I have not been receiving anything from it for some time.

So, long story short, if you have tried to get in touch with me via my website and the “email” link to the left, and I haven’t gotten back to you, chances are that I never got your email. You got a response from me, but it was the automatic response mechanism. So, send it again.

Sorry about this.

ETA: Sorry, apparently the glitch is still not fixed. I have a ticket in to try to get this fixed. Until then, don’t write me. I’ll anounce it here. Sorry about this guys. I’m just as irritated as you are.

Quite by accident, I found out that Campbells soup is going to donate cans of soup to food banks based on the number of votes received for each NFL team. You can vote once a day so please, spread the word, make this viral and make it pay for the food banks. You don’t have to register or anything.

Just go to http://www.chunky.com/clickforcansvote.aspx every day!

Thanks! I know it will mean a lot.

Reposted from my Deviant Art account (only there to allow me to look at other’s work) on Sat Oct 7, 2006, 6:33 PM

Herne,
Lord of the Hunt
Master of the Pack
I thank you.

You are everything a father could be
You are my example
You show me how to be a man
You teach me to take care of those in my charge
You have helped me at the lowest points of my life.

I am unworthy of Your notice.
I have done all I can
And I keep failing
I keep demanding like a
petulant child that things be my way
Not how they actually are.

I have said I would do anything
Well, obviously I won’t
I have not actually done anything
In fact, it’s hard for me to do anything
And because of that my family suffers.

Perhaps it is because I’m a cat
Instead of a pack animal.
I know how a pack moves,
the way it thinks
the way it feels.
But a cat is solitary
Alone
Wandering and doing what it wants
not what it needful for others.

A pack is many who work together
to bring a predetermined goal
to fruition.
A cat does what they want
when they want
without regard for others.

Perhaps I should leave
But that would kill those in my charge,
Some very literally.

Help me Father.
I try to be a good example.
I try to live how I should.
I do my best to be there emotionally and spiritually
for those in my family.
But I am too proud.
I fail.

Rhiannon,
Radiant Mother
Great Queen,
You were the first deity I spoke with
who answered me back.
You are a beautiful woman,
A true goddess in poise and perserverance.
And yes, I am unworthy.

Your priest, myself
is a corrupt venial person
who wants only what he wants
when he wants it.
Who distances himself from those he is sworn to serve.
Who deliberately keeps a barrier
of the Internet
between himself and the people
he should be teaching.

Why do you stay?
What is it about me that you find compelling?
Why do you continue to bless this unworthy one?
One of the mysteries of the universe.

They say that mortals can’t know
the minds of the Gods.
Apparently that is true.
Other gods would have abandoned me by now.
yet you are still here.

If I could understand I might be able to move on.
Right now I feel lost.

Eagle,
Cat,
Horse,
Deer,
Why me?
What is it about me that draws me to you,
and not only draws me in, but makes me wish to be you?
Why have I been “blessed” with this?
If I could shed my human form to be any of you, and aye, even Snake,
I would do so with few regrets.

I dream of hooves, of feathers, of fur. I feel my tail, my claws, my fangs. I know this is not me, I am more than I see.

Why did I get blessed with this?

There are days that I find that I cannot take being human, I fail as a man, a father, a person, a human being, and fail to achieve as an animal too.

While none of this has happened today, I still feel odd knowing that all that I have achieved will be transient, lasting only breaths past my ceasing and then it will evaporate into the Void.

Perhaps this is how it should be, but I don’t know. I find that there are times I wish to hasten that, and other times when I wish to fight it with all my being.

So I do nothing.

New Review is up and published to the various places I republish them to.

Gathering the Magic

Had it for a while, but it’s still a good one. Now to move on to one of the other ten books in my “to be read” pile.