Printing Prayers on Water

In Becoming Animal, An Earthly Cosmology, David Abram writes:

[At a gompa, the resident lama] took my hand and led me down a long trail to the river, so I could watch his two students as they worked with temple woodblocks artfully carved with Tibetan ritual verses. Normally these precious woodblocks were used to print out liturgical books. But now -- amazingly! -- the students were stamping the wood-blocks over and over into the flowing surface of the river, so that the water would carry those printed prayers to the many lands through which it traveled on its long way to the Indian Ocean.

Here, remarkably, was a culture wherein written letters were not used merely as a record of words once spoken, or as a score for oral speech, but as efficacious forces in their own right. The letters were not just passive signs, but energetic agents actively affecting the space around them. Whether written on the page of a book or carved into woodblocks, whether etched into standing stones or printed on flags, the Tibetan letters held a power that could be activated not only by human beings but by insects crawling through their cracks, and by water flowing along their shapes, and even by the breeze gusting across them. Human intentions, carried in dreams and prayers, mingled here with the intentions of stones, trees, and rivers. Clearly, "mind" in this mountain region was not a human possession; it was a power proper to every part of the elemental field.

It's common at some point in the training of almost every Witch or magic worker to hear that "words have power." We say it and then we move on. IMHO, it's one of those "basic teachings that are too basic for beginners"; one needs to keep coming back to this precept over and over, spiraling back and learning it more dimensionally each time.

It's part of the reason that I love poetry and promote it regularly to my (mostly) Pagan readers and it's part of the reason that boring, repetitive, bland calling of the Elements drives my priestess soul insane. It's why I'll go to the wall over the need for magical workings to have clearly stated intentions. (If you can't state it clearly, there's a pretty good chance that you've not thought it out, clearly, either. The one tends to foster the other. And I'm too respectful of magic to go releasing energy at some vague, misunderstood target.) And it's the reason why I go on and on about the importance of how we frame issues. When we mingle our intentions with those of stones, trees, and rivers, we owe it to those other entities to use one of our tools -- language -- as respectfully and as skillfully as possible.

What power do you find in words?

Picture found here.

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.

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.