Well, This Is Interesting

So it's looking as if we'll be socked in, here in the MidAtlantic, for the better part of a week. I admit that, INTJ that I am, I'm a bit of a homebody and don't much mind time to myself, especially as long as my internet connection is working.

The fairies woke me up at about 3:00 this morning and, even though I'd shoveled off the front step before going to bed, I could barely open the front door for the weight of the snow against it. I shoveled off a bit more and then propped the door open so that I could at least get out this morning and shovel the steps off properly. At least another half foot has fallen since then. I tried, I did, to go around back and fill the bird feeders and push snow off of my two new lovely magnolias, but the snow was up to my sweet round ass and I just didn't think I could make it uphill and back. Feeble old woman. Landscape Guy says to let them be and we'll fix things in the Spring and I'm sure that he knows best.

Times like these, though, it's a good thing to commune with Hestia and ask her for a long list of things that need to be done around the house. Might as well start the Spring off, whenever it does come, with everything organized and neat and fixed up.

Hope that you are safe and snug and full of warm soup. This picture isn't much; it's shot through the screen of my screen porch; that door is shut tight by almost 4 feet of snow.

UnfuckingBelievable

Professionally Outraged catholic Bill Donohue and others explain why it's actually discrimination against xians for the Air Force to take seriously xian desecration of Pagan worship spaces. No. Really.

"The cross was also compared to a swastika. Mikey Weinstein, a past graduate of the Academy who incredibly has clients of his watchdog group on campus, said that the cross at the pagan site was tantamount to having a swastika in the Jewish center!

"Weinstein has long insisted that Evangelicals are guilty of intolerance at the Academy, though a 2005 report on this issue found “no overt discrimination.” But the report did detail examples of religious intolerance against Catholics and Protestants.

"These remarks have added to the chilling atmosphere that Catholics and Protestants must endure. I wrote to the Congress in 2005 about this matter, and I am doing so again.

"We need to know why hypersensitivity to non-Christians has evolved into insensitivity to Christians."


The whole sorry thing is here.

And, yeah, a cross in a Pagan worship space is like a swastika in a Jewish space. Xians killed witches; Nazis killed Jews. Neither one of those symbols is introduced into such a space as a sign of anything other than hatred and an intent to frighten. Nice religion you got there, xians. Those poor, poor persecuted xians.

Picture found here.

Snow

So when I step outside, I am in a time out of time. I am transported NORTH, I am with my grandmother's grandmother's grandmother. There are forces flying about quite near the Earth that can only announce their presence by booming, "BE NOT AFRAID!" And, as if to make absolutely, doubly sure that I would PAY ATTENTION, the fox ran across the nighttime snow, the most lovely, terrifying, beautiful thing in the entire world of things more beautiful than they can possibly be.

I'm sure this storm is going to make my life difficult for days and days to come, but tonight it is simply, well, it is simply something that I've lived all my life to be ready to experience.

I Hate To Say It, But This Could Be Good

Again With The Capitalization Problems

So, it turns out that Tim Graham is an idiot, who surely failed 4th grade English. (In a few places below, he's quoting others who also, apparently, failed 4th grade English, but neither did he correct the errors, either with brackets or the use of "sic.")

I noted the U.S. Air Force Academy was making a public space for pagan worship, and wondered if the media would notice. Fox’s Special Report noted it on Monday, quoting a Catholic priest who disapproved. . . .

The U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs has now set aside a new outdoor worship area for followers of earth-centered religions. That includes pagans, druids, witches and Wiccans. [So apparently the umbrella term "Pagan" doesn't get capitalized, nor do the terms "Witches" or "Druids," but Wicca does get a capital letter. I can't find an underlying rule that explains this.]

Sanchez suggested paganism is somehow a brand new idea during his show Rick's List:

Is there a new religion out there that most of us haven't heard of? Time for today's most intriguing.

He runs the Air Force Academy's astronautics labs in Colorado Springs. He also helped turn this double circle of stones into an outdoor chapel for Druids, Wiccans, and followers of other earth- centered religions. He calls it a freedom ring.

Our most intriguing person of the day is Tech Sergeant Brandon Longcrier, who says about half-a-dozen academy cadets are now devout believers, and many more are catching on. Longcrier describes himself as a pagan. This is him use[ing] [I can't help myself.] white sage to consecrate the circle during the [W]inter [S]olstice. [If "Christmas" gets capitalized, and it does, why not "Winter Solstice" or, the more appropriate term, "Yule"?] Tech Sergeant Brandon Longcrier, intriguing? To say the very least.

Here’s the brief item from Special Report anchor Bret Baier:

The U.S. Air Force Academy is in the final stages of planning a worship area for followers of earth-centered religions, including Wicca and Druidism near its landmark chapel. [So here, the Druids at least get capitalized, although apparently all "Witches" are now "Wiccans." Again, no underlying logic that I can see. Nor can I see any point to the quotation marks in the next sentence. Would there be quotation marks around "St. Mary's Chapel," or "The Crystal Cathedral"?] The organizer of the "Stone Circle" says there has been no resistance at the academy.

But one Catholic [oh, yeah, they definitely get a capital letter] priest [Ha! That's a little-p-priest, but, then, it's not an in-quotation-marks-"self-described"-priest, either] calls the decision "politically correct cowardice by bumbling bureaucrats, adding quote "Behind the smoke and mirrors of the supposed high demand for earth worship prayer circles is a small group of activist atheists in America who seek first to water down and then to abolish the name and face of go[d] [Dude, you so missed an opportunity to win a capitalization war, here,] from the public square." [So it turns out that Pagans are atheists. Who knew?]

The academy chaplain says every service member is charged with defending freedom for all Americans, and that includes freedom to practice our religion of choice. The academy also has worship areas for Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists. [OK, all of those guys get capital letters.]

But beyond my obsession with grammar, which has only been intensified by a life in the law where even capitalization matters, Mr. Graham's post is rather disturbing. Noting that some xians already felt compelled to show up and place a cross in the Pagan's Stone Circle (and we can all pause for a moment and consider the reaction should a bunch of Pagans show up and paint Pentagrams all over the "worship areas for Protestants, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists"),
this 4th grade failure finds himself constrained to ask: To consult the dictionary, NBC was saying someone "violated the sacred character" of an object or place. What if the viewer at home doesn’t consider a pagan circle to be "sacred"? Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. What if I don't consider the baptismal font of your xian church to be [note the use of quotation marks] "sacred"? Does that mean that leaving Pentacles all over said font is not "desecration"? Are we to assume the xians didn't mean to violate the Pagans' notion that their place was sacred? It's all ok? Because, you know, sauce/goose/gander, and I can find your worship places lots more easily than you can find mine.

Lately, I've seen more and more xians worrying over how unpopular they are. They might want to begin to consider why that is.

Picture, provided for comparison purposes between the stone circle that the Pagans at the Air Force Academy get and the chapel that the xians get (and, yet, the xians felt the need to desecrate the Pagan circle), found here. Weak-ass god, if you ask me.

What The Rude Pundit Said

Where's some catholic man in a skirt to wonder why xians are increasingly unpopular?

False Hope

What If Relationship Is The Point?

Parker, Or, How I Cut My Eye Teeth

Imbolc 2010

It snowed several inches last night, but today's sun, and temperatures in the low 40s, melted much of it. An almost perfect day for astrological Imbolc. I slept in and did conference calls and answered emails and read cases from home, my snug little cottage in the Potomac watershed. I'd gone out last night and hung suet and peanuts and sunflowers from my euonymus bush, so that the birds could calorie-up before being snowed in. I needn't have worried. I was able to go out on the deck this morning without slipping and pour sunflower seeds on a cleared-off surface for the birds.

And, after the conference calls, I decided to set my altar up outside, albeit that I have a lovely, cozy room set aside in my cottage for ritual. It was sunny and the snow was melting and I figured that, with a sweater and a shawl, I could be comfortable outside for the better part of an hour. My wonderful circle of amazing women did our Imbolc celebration over the weekend, with the full Moon, but this afternoon was just for me, the Witch of this Place, as I announce myself before calling the Quarters and beginning to do the work of a priestess who helps to turn the wheel. I did what witches do and I called to Brigid the Bright and, as I always do on Imbolc, I started my datura seedlings. Datura's poison; don't handle it w/o gloves or some other barrier and always wash your hands afterwards. But the flowers are pure white, and they smell of lemon drenched in vanilla, and, in the late summer, they open in the moonlight. The seeds take a long time to germinate; you plant them and water them and give them light and then you always think: this batch is a dud; they're not going to germinate, nothing wic here. And, then, long after you've given up, the first green sprouts appear.

I did what I do in circle and I charged the tiny peat pots and the lovely little seeds and I planted the seeds in the peat pots and charged the whole thing and then I looked up. On the deck, were about a dozen birds of all sorts, including both the cardinal and the blue jay, who never show up together. They didn't mind me and they didn't mind my iPhone playing music and they didn't mind the pinon incense and they didn't mind the 7 different candles burning. They were just there to help to turn the wheel because, well, because the wheel needs turning and they live here, too.

May Spring begin in your heart and move outwards from there into the world. May the beautiful poison thing in you bloom and perfume the world. May all the winged dragons of your special place attend you. May you become the priestess of your own bit of Earth.

This is my will. So mote it be.

Photos by the author. If you copy, please link back.

Poetry On Imbolc

If you grace my blog even occasionally, you know that I love poetry. I love the way that words -- "mere" words -- can transport us. I guess that some of it is my Ascendant in Gemini, which loves wordplay, and some of it is my Sun in Pisces, which craves ecstasy, which I find, more often than almost anywhere else, in poetry. Some of it seems to be my memory of past lives when poetry, especially spoken poetry, was one of the few available art forms and ways to honor the Goddesses and Gods. And some of it is just capital-P-Poetry, itself, which is, well, for me poetry is both oxygen and lagniappe. When our ancestors developed grunts and squacks to mean, "Give me that stick," and "The baby needs attention," and "You can have some of mine," who knew they were laying the foundation for the author of the Song of Amerin, for Blake, Shakespeare, Crowley, Cavafy, Levertov, Akhmatova, Mary Oliver, Rumi, Dylan Thomas, Charles Williams, Peake, Burns, Gibran, Robin Morgan, Dorothy Parker, and so many others? I'd love to think that, someday, eons from now, any of my quotidian efforts would evolve into anything even remotely resembling poetry. May the Goddess guard that first great, great, many-times-great grandmother of mine who grunted the same way every time to mean, "Seeds," or "Meat," or "Danger" or "Comfort Here." That was a v good idea that you had, Lady.

And, so it is that Imbolc, when we give special homage to the Goddess Brigid, Goddess of poets, is a special Sabbat for me, one that I spend almost, well, not almost -- one that I spend all the way drunk on poems. I have a lot of books and, when I moved into this little cottage and catalogued all of the books, carefully by the Library of Congress system, onto Stickley bookshelves, the poetry books went into the kitchen, on the breakfast nook table, where they are most accessible. There are people who find it weird to walk into the kitchen and find poetry and people who love the poetry in my kitchen. It's a v good sorting device. So, it's v, v, v difficult for me, as you may imagine, to choose just one poem to post for Anne Hill's Poetry Slam.

I have a few poems listed in my will to be read when they push a button and send my body into the fire. But there's one of them that always makes me cry, raises goosebumps, sends me into the realm of the divine. And I am more grateful to Doreen Valiente, for channeling it, than I can ever say. So here's my contribution for this year's Imbolc Poetry Reading. It's old, and well-worn, and it never fails to send me. Others will post newer poems, edgier poems, poems that delight with their uniqueness. But, for me, capital-P-Poetry is this one, the one I want someone to be reading to me when I transit from Autumnals, etc.


Traditional by Doreen Valiente, as adapted by Starhawk:

Listen to the words of the Great Mother, Who of old was called Artemis, Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Diana, Arionrhod, Brigid, and by many other names:

Whenever you have need of anything, once a month, and better it be when the moon is full, you shall assemble in some secret place and adore the spirit of Me Who is Queen of all the Wise.

You shall be free from slavery, and as a sign that you be free you shall be naked in your rites.

Sing, feast, dance, make music and love, all in My Presence, for Mine is the ecstasy of the spirit and Mine also is joy on earth.

For My law is love is unto all beings. Mine is the secret that opens the door of youth, and Mine is the cup of wine of life that is the cauldron of Cerridwen, that is the holy grail of immortality.

I give the knowledge of the spirit eternal, and beyond death I give peace and freedom and reunion with those that have gone before.

Nor do I demand aught of sacrifice, for behold, I am the Mother of all things and My love is poured out upon the earth.

Hear the words of the Star Goddess, the dust of Whose feet are the hosts of Heaven, whose body encircles the universe:

I Who am the beauty of the green earth and the white moon among the stars and the mysteries of the waters,

I call upon your soul to arise and come unto me.

For I am the soul of nature that gives life to the universe.

From Me all things proceed and unto Me they must return.

Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold, all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.

Let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, mirth and reverence within you.

And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without.

For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire.

At the end of all desire, there's the Goddess. That does it for me. Like all really good capital-P-Poetry, this one lends itself to adaptation. This weekend, at my Circle's Imbolc celebration, my gorgeous sister K. adapted the list of Goddesses at the beginning to the list of those Goddesses with whom our Circle has worked each year. It made goosebumps run all up and down my body and reminded me that I was, all unoworthy and unprepared, bathing in the presence of the divine.

I love my life.

Picture found here.

Nobody At Atrios Does "Frist" Anymore. But This Is Still A Good Idea

Tell me in comments why your blog is ripe for a link on February 3rd!

It's Odd, But

that's now how I've ever heard any branch of Wicca described. But what do I know?

(You have to scroll down a bit.)

More here.

Picture found here.

This Is Not The "Age Of Aquarius" I Was Promised

May you live in interesting times.

This is all leading up to the grand square which starts in May 2010 when Uranus enters Aries and will start moving to a square with Pluto which is moving into a square with Saturn. We are talking major social unrest and revolution. Plus Jupiter entering Aries on June 6 will expand all of these energies. Then in July, Mars goes into Libra and is the trigger to kick it all off at the time of a major eclipse on July 11. You will be hearing more about this grand square from me and from astrologers around the world who are closely watching this one. These types of configurations don’t come along very often.

My New Name For A Blog

What Echidne of the Snakes Said.

Picture found here.

Or, You Know, He Can Bite Me

Pope condemns gay equality laws ahead of first UK visit. Benedict XVI says legislation safeguarding rights of same-sex couples violates 'natural law' . . . [British bishops] told him [that] sexual orientation legislation that came into effect on 1 January 2009 had forced the closure of half the Roman Catholic adoption agencies because the law making it illegal to discriminate against gay applicants went against their beliefs.

In his letter the pope said: "The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

It is also thought the pope was referring to the equality bill, which narrows the special exemption enjoyed by churches allowing them to exclude people whose lifestyles do not fit in with the religious ethos of an organisation when hiring staff. The bishops cited it as another restriction of their freedom of religious belief.

Why anyone listens to the words of this pedophile-protecting piece of patriarchial poo is beyond me. And why ANY country would let the pedophiles of the catholic church anywhere near activities such as adoption services is, you guessed it, also beyond me.

Meanwhile, I get that the catholics are hoping to scarf up some of the homophobes leaving the Church of England, and, really, nothing makes me happier than watching these xians cannibalize each other. But try and imagine that the "right" that the church is claiming were the right to discriminate against people with black skin rather than against people who want to love someone of their own sex. Let's try this:

They told him that race discrimination legislation that came into effect on 1 January 2009 had forced the closure of half the Roman Catholic adoption agencies because the law making it illegal to discriminate against people with black or brown skin went against their beliefs.

In his letter the pope said: "The effect of some of the legislation designed to achieve this goal has been to impose unjust limitations on the freedom of religious communities to act in accordance with their beliefs. In some respects it actually violates the natural law upon which the equality of all human beings is grounded and by which it is guaranteed."

It is also thought the pope was referring to the equality bill, which narrows the special exemption enjoyed by churches allowing them to exclude people whose skin colors do not fit in with the religious ethos of an organisation when hiring staff. The bishops cited it as another restriction of their freedom of religious belief.

Go away, catholics. Just go away.

Picture found here.

Ladies! Listen up! Detecting breast cancer early is the key to surviving it! Breast Self Exams (BSEs) can help you to detect breast cancer in its earlier stages. So, on the first of every month, give yourself a breast self-exam. It's easy to do. Here's how. If you prefer to do your BSE at a particular time in your cycle, calendar it now. But, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And, once a year, get yourself a mammogram. Mammograms cost between $150 and $300. If you have to take a temp job one weekend a year, if you have to sell something on e-Bay, if you have to go cash in all the change in various jars all over the house, if you have to work the holiday season wrapping gifts at Macy's, for the love of the Goddess, please go get a mammogram once a year.

Or: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pays all or some of the cost of breast cancer screening services through its National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. This program provides mammograms and breast exams by a health professional to low-income, underinsured, and underserved women in all 50 states, six U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and 14 American Indian/Alaska Native organizations. For more information, contact your state health department or call the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.

I know that a recent study indicated that early detection via breast self exams might not be "cost effective." I'm not a scientist, but when I read those studies, they appear to be saying that sometimes women find a lump during the BSE that turns out not to be cancer. Those women have caused some expense and have gone through some discomfort in order to find out that the lump wasn't cancer. I don't know about you, but when that happens to me, as it has a few times since my first mammogram found a small, curable, cancerous lump, I go out and buy a new scarf, take myself out for a decadent lunch, call everyone I know, and call it a good day.

Send me an email after you get your mammogram and I will do an annual free tarot reading for you. Just, please, examine your own breasts once a month and get your sweet, round ass to a mammogram once a year. If you have a deck, pick three cards and e-mail me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading. If you don't have a deck, go to Lunea's tarot listed on the right-hand side in my blog links. Pick three cards from her free, on-line tarot and email me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading.

Hope

I'm just about ready to declare that you can't REALLY have a regular spiritual practice that doesn't include reading Phila's Hope Blogging.

At any rate, I am finding it more and more necessary.

Picture found here.

Oh, This Should Be Interesting

A British film competition will include an examination of the life of "Arthur Uther Pendragon."

Kyoko Miyake, 33, concentrated on Arthur Uther Pendragon, a motorcycling druid whose real name is John Rothwell. Mr Rothwell claims to be ‘the living embodiment of King Arthur’ and is preparing to stand in the general election in Salisbury. He lives in a caravan near Stonehenge paid for by supporters.

Picture found here.

Bonus Brigid Poetry Blogging

Stardust, Hope and Longnecks
for LD

I just read, to a friend today,
a poem about dust on the moon.
Funny thing is, and he'd even say,
a particle of that is in my room!

No, really. Believe me, i'm not lying.
The fodder of astronauts' is here, and beer!
Right here, by the wine bottle and the dead pipe,
in the basement where he showed no fear.

~Chicago Dyke

Picture found here.

I Thought We Learned This Stuff In Fourth Grade

So I was all set to rag on the Air Force Times over capitalization issues,

The Air Force Academy will add a worship area for followers of “earth-centered religion” — pagans — with a dedication ceremony scheduled for March 10.

A stone circle located on a hill overlooking the Cadet Chapel and visitor center will join Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Buddhist sacred spaces at the academy in Colorado Springs, Colo.

Tech. Sgt. Brandon Longcrier, a pagan who worked with the chapel to create the circle, said he did not encounter resistance to the idea.

“There really haven’t been any obstacles for the new circle,” he said in an Air Force news release. “The chaplain’s office has been 100 -percent supportive.”

But then,

Longcrier said earth-centered spirituality includes traditions such as Wicca and Druidism. Wicca is the largest religious group in the Air Force after Christianity.

So apparently their theory is to capitalize specific forms of Pagan spirituality, such as "Wicca" and "Druidism."

But there's still a problem. "Christianity" gets capitalized and that's an umbrella term for a variety of spiritualities, such as Methodists, Episcopalians, and Baptists, just as Paganism is an umbrella term for a variety of spiritualities such as Wicca, Druidism, Asatru, etc. Similarly, Judiasim gets capitalized, although that's an umbrella term for Hassidism, Reformed, Orthodox, etc. forms of Jewish spirituality.

It's not that complicated, people. Either capitalize all the umbrella terms or none of them.

Meanwhile, this new worship space is an important step forward for Pagans, especially at the Air Force Academy, which has recently been in the news as a bastion of the fundification of our military. And, wow, Pagans are the second largest group in the Air Force? Who knew?

Amazingly enough, The WaPo, which has a horrible record reporting on Pagan events, shows how it's done.

CSA Cookery.

This week, the CSA delivered an abundance of broccoli, along with some carrots. I added ginger, garlic, onions, and tofu. Stir-fried up in tasty peanut oil (there's now an organic brand that can handle high heat) and flavored w a bit of Balducci's ginger plum sauce. Enough for lunch today and some to pack for lunches this week.

Sunday Poetry Blogging

Directive

Back out of all this now too much for us,
Back in a time made simple by the loss
Of detail, burned, dissolved, and broken off
Like graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,
There is a house that is no more a house
Upon a farm that is no more a farm
And in a town that is no more a town.
The road there, if you’ll let a guide direct you
Who only has at heart your getting lost,
May seem as if it should have been a quarry—
Great monolithic knees the former town
Long since gave up pretense of keeping covered.
And there’s a story in a book about it:
Besides the wear of iron wagon wheels
The ledges show lines ruled southeast-northwest,
The chisel work of an enormous Glacier
That braced his feet against the Arctic Pole.
You must not mind a certain coolness from him
Still said to haunt this side of Panther Mountain.
Nor need you mind the serial ordeal
Of being watched from forty cellar holes
As if by eye pairs out of forty firkins.
As for the woods’ excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.
Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.
Make yourself up a cheering song of how
Someone’s road home from work this once was,
Who may be just ahead of you on foot
Or creaking with a buggy load of grain.
The height of the adventure is the height
Of country where two village cultures faded
Into each other. Both of them are lost.
And if you’re lost enough to find yourself
By now, pull in your ladder road behind you
And put a sign up CLOSED to all but me.
Then make yourself at home. The only field
Now left’s no bigger than a harness gall.
First there’s the children’s house of make-believe,
Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,
The playthings in the playhouse of the children.
Weep for what little things could make them glad.
Then for the house that is no more a house,
But only a belilaced cellar hole,
Now slowly closing like a dent in dough.
This was no playhouse but a house in earnest.
Your destination and your destiny’s
A brook that was the water of the house,
Cold as a spring as yet so near its source,
Too lofty and original to rage.
(We know the valley streams that when aroused
Will leave their tatters hung on barb and thorn.)
I have kept hidden in the instep arch
Of an old cedar at the waterside
A broken drinking goblet like the Grail
Under a spell so the wrong ones can’t find it,
So can’t get saved, as Saint Mark says they mustn’t.
(I stole the goblet from the children’s playhouse.)
Here are your waters and your watering place.
Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

~Robert Frost

Picture found here.

Sunday Poetry Blogging

Design

I found a dimpled spider, fat and white,
On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth --
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right.
Like the ingredients of a witches' broth --
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.

What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall? --
If design govern in a thing so small.

~ Robert Frost

PIcture found here.

With Nature