April 30, 2003

Ah, the Calla Lilies!  The background on this page is a perfect picture of the ones in my front yard, still blooming like mad with more buds creeping up.  I pulled out a lot of dead and dried ones yesterday, the ones that first showed up to remind me of the miracles in day to day life.  Some of them were, no doubt, the original ones that showed up last Winter, when no lilies should be blooming anywhere, to tell me that big miracles were coming, then they did.  They've bloomed ever since and just foisted up a whole new crop, reminding me that more blessings are on the way.  That's a good thing.  I've been working on depression for a bit over a week now and have pretty much gotten it resolved.  It had to do with little tweaks in my life relationships that I had been ignoring and now need to take action to change or learn to accept.  Funny how when you get a lot of the big things handled, the little things take the opportunity to float to the surface and be seen and heard.  It's amazing to me that while you can look at the world and life from a purely physical standpoint, it's undeniable how... weird things can be sometimes and the patterns that set up to lead us to a really, really good life, sometimes out of the darkest of despair.

Eric and I had an interesting conversation last night.  A work colleague of his made comment that since Eric "seems like a very intelligent guy" (which is he), that it surprised him that he was involved with any kind of religious pursuit.  Two points to make right away.  The guy who was speaking is a really good guy, very intelligent, who doesn't see any value to religion and views any organized religion as a series of superstitious rituals designed to occupy the small minds of those who can't deal with the physical world on its own terms.  Basically, it's a vehicle for supporting the fears and childish irresponsibility (and fantasies) of those who want to escape accountability or who are too ego driven to believe that they could just *die* and cease to exist forever.  It's a fantasy created because the idea of being a simple series of biological functions is too grim of a prospect.  Eric, on the other hand, is a voracious student of different religions.  Although Craft is his "home religion," so to speak, he has aggressively pursued Christianity, Buddhism, Enochian Philosophy, Eastern Philosophy - primarily a lengthy and detailed study of the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda and most currently, the Muslim religion, to the point of teaching himself to read, write and speak Arabic so he could read the Koran in its most basic, untranslated form and communicate with the people at our local mosque.  He just went to a new one that is closer to us and they were truly amazed at the fluency he had as a self-taught student and have offered to help him smooth the edges, which is wonderful.  So my point is, he doesn't do any of his religious studies half-assed and is quite broad in his spectrum of knowledge, as well as being open to new ideas and theologies.  I did, however, make it clear that while I don't have any problem with chanting, praying and bowing toward Mecca a few times a day, if he starts talking about gender biased entrances to the house, he'll have free choice in selecting which of those doors he may use to get th' hell out.

So there's the background on the guys having the conversation he was relating to me.  For a big tough macho alpha male, it's interesting to see Eric struggling with the idea that there are people who do not have any kind of spiritual inclinations or beliefs beyond what you can touch, see and hear.  That is so extremely rare in Paganism and one of our biggest disadvantages is how hard it is to find straight guys who are Pagan.  We tend to draw in empowered women, strong and ready to embrace the Goddess within and take their place in the world, homey (that does not say "homely"), hedge-witchy women like myself who aspire to healing, balance, psychism and an appreciation of Nature and gay men who have been shunned by other religions and find the respect for the yin and yang within that prevails throughout Paganism to be a place they can call a spiritual home.  We also garner a fair amount of lazy layabouts who are able to use Paganism as an excuse to justify their excesses and addictions (these are the ones who create covens just to see each other naked and get as much tail as possible with little attention given to the internal evolution and connectivity with the natural world that Craft provides - for the record, the only Witches, overall, who work naked and ever did are the ones who are deliberately trying to be odd or, as mentioned, see each other naked.  This whole working nude thing was started by the Father of Modern Witchcraft, Gerald Gardner who, no lie, made it a practice to sleep with everyone in his covens and frankly, wanted to see people naked.  It was carried forward by his antecessor, Alex Sanders who, no lie,  made it a practice to sleep with everyone in his covens and wanted see people naked.  (I have this straight from the horse's mouth, a person who trained directly with Sanders)  I will practically guarantee you that the ancestral Witches of Europe were NOT tooling around the moors and dales freezing their asses off to worship God and Goddess.  I will agree that there are likely some legitimate Witches who work "skyclad" and aren't doing so for a sexual buzz, but I'd wager there are very few.  A big, big exception to this are people who are nudists by practice rather than specific to Pagan ritual. As a happy explorer of nude beaches around the world, I will gladly share that most NUDISTS are NOT going without clothes to get laid or for voyeuristic issues.  They're going nude because being naked in nature and not having hangups about your body is an awesome experience and is very liberating and freeing.  Big differences in these folks and the Pagans who insist that everyone in their coven work naked and give each other tongue kisses as a good-bye before they leave ritual.  -- ew). 

Where was I?  Oh yeah. The layabouts.  These are the folks who if they have a job or not, eh, who cares?  If they ever clean their cat boxes (because yes, we do love to have kitties) or not, eh, who cares? If they live amidst piles and stacks of crap that they can't be bothered to ever move or clean because they are "working on another level of existence,"  eh, who cares?  These are the folks who came up with (anti-Pagans, you are free to use this as ammo because it's a facet of Paganism that is widely accepted and really pisses me off) "Pagan Standard Time" to denote that they are totally and completely incapable of dragging their lazy asses off the bed or couch in time to get anywhere on time, much less start a ritual when it's supposed to happen.  >:<  The big attraction of Paganism for these people, other than to glorify their hedonistic excesses, is that when they do push away the filth and garbage, cast a circle and practice their spirituality, they can put on a Renn Faire robe, adopt a fake British accent and suddenly go from Bobby and Loretta Whitetrash to Lord Prometheus and Lady White Owl and command the respect of their fellow Pagans.  They can also then become "Pagan Activists" and rant because we never get any form of legitimate recognition.  Pfft.  I dunno.  Maybe if en masse, every Pagan cleaned their damned house, spayed their cats, got off welfare and got to a few legislative meetings on time, we might have a prayer of legitimacy.  [insert stern frown here] 

But I digress.  In short, I have no delusions about why the world in general, particularly the Western World, looks down on us as a bunch of fanatical extremists who are out to destroy Christianity, wreck the ethical pillars upon which our country was founded and use the "freedom of religion" cry to convert the world to our freaky ways.  There are definitely enough loud and obnoxious Pagans shoving their pentacles into the faces of little old ladies in K-Mart to demonstrate how radical and cuh-razy they are.  Trust me, folks, this is not the heart of Pagansim.  This and the sexfests and the other extreme behavior shown to you by the media are as akin to Paganism as the skinheads and David Koresh are to Christianity.  Please do not judge us by our lunatic fringe and believe me, we'll offer the same gentle evaluation in return.  Well, most of us, anyway.

But I digress again.  We were talking about Eric's conversation.

It's not hard for me to go into an understanding of the mindset of there being *nothing* beyond what we are able to perceive through our 5 "scientific" senses.  Having my ex-husband, Paul, in my life for nearly 20 years gave me an ongoing experience with such beliefs.  He in no way externalized himself beyond the see it, touch it, smell it, hear it, taste it world and believes that when you die, your brain shuts down, the process gives you a series of hallucinations, depending on how long it takes, and you blink out like a light. Your body is buried and your physical body returns to the physical earth in a few decades after the formaldehyde finally releases its hold on your decomposition and you cease to be except for some basic biological scraps and a memory or two rattling around in the folks who left us.  I think there are very few thinking people with a sound spiritual base who don't have that thought creeping up from time to time ("What if this is all bullshit??).  I think that is very normal and natural.  

Eric has trouble thinking in that direction, not because he's afraid if he does, the house of glass will shatter and he'll be left alone and afraid, but because he is a man of such incredible conviction as I have never seen in my life.  He's also straight and as I said, finding a man who is Pagan and isn't gay, a layabout or an extremist with his pentacle homing in on grandmas is a blessing not to be believed.  When I was with a group in the Dallas area, we had a Celtic approach and it was great to be around all of the handsome, tall Alpha males in skirts (they wore kilts - smile). 

The conversation Eric had with his friend definitely gave me a bit to think about as I walked back down that path of entertaining the notion of there being nothing beyond our physical world.  It's not what I believe, but I can see where people would get there.  I think in most people, there is a part of the psyche that is seeking out a reason for their existence and a desire for connectivity with something bigger and more profound than they are.  It's not a displaced mommy and daddy complex, it's more about the purpose of humanity and a means for bettering oneself.  Whether it's the belief of a heaven or afterlife where we are rewarded for our earthly accomplishments or simply to create a divine existence in this life where each moment is a blessed event and our blood vibrates with meaning and purpose, spirituality on some level is definitely a worthy investment.  I've worked a few ways.  I started my life as a Christian and confounded my devotion over the years to full blown evangelicalism in my teens.  By the time I married Paul, a detailed study had left me so disenchanted with certain aspects of Christianity that I left the church entirely and went with Paul's atheism or a few years.  When I found Craft/Paganism, I felt the spiritual awakening and quickening that I've heard so many other people describe before and since that is an incredible opening and embracing of a whole other dimension of oneself.  What's interesting is that this, for lack of better terms, awakening and ascension,   is so personal and specific to each individual that you never know what key is going to unlock it.  That's why I am so very pleased that there are so many spiritual paths for a person to explore to find that sense of "coming home" and spiritual ecstasy. 

I just recently reconnected with a dear friend who was a wonderful Witch at one time.  She was never fully comfortable in that persona, but she was good at it and it fit her for the time, so it was where she sat for a bit.  We lost track of one another when I moved to California, falling victim to e-mail address changes and relocations.  When we reconnected, she mentioned, "I don't know how to tell you this and I don't want you to think badly of me, but I was saved a few months ago and I am now a born again Christian."  I was surprised, not that she'd traded teams, so to speak, but that she thought I would somehow be offended that she'd found a spiritual path that spoke to her in a profound way.  (I tend to try and overlook the fact that it's a path built around a historical document that directly calls for my ostracizing at best and my execution at worst)  I was thrilled for her!  On further discussion, Christianity has infiltrated her life and enhanced her world in similar ways to my own experience with Craft.  I've seen the same connectivity and 'click' with many other people and many other religions as well.  That is what I celebrate.

I'm fairly liberal where other paths are concerned.  The cornerstone of Witchcraft is "as it harms none, do what you will" and I definitely apply that to spirituality.  As long as other people or creatures are not harmed or maligned, it doesn't matter to me if you're Christian, Druid, Jehovah's Witness, Mormon, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim or from the Ancient Order of Spiderman Priests.  If it helps you to evolve personally and spiritually toward being a better person, if it lifts you up to a place of rejoicing to be alive and reveling in all that is holy to you and it "harms none," then you're going to see me standing up to applaud, whistle and whip out my bic lighter to raise in its (and your) honor.  Other than harming or maligning others, about the only thing that offends me are 1) When people denounce or downright attack a different path without knowing anything about it except the hype purported by the media and the whispered fears of those who are out to destroy it and 2) When people insist forcefully that their path is the one everyone must embrace and work aggressively and sometimes legally to make that happen. 

In this country, it has been my experience that actually speaking the words, "I am not a Christian" is a statement met with anything from abject horror to drop-jawed amazement.  It's one thing to say that you are an atheist or that you are a "non-practicing" Catholic or Protestant.  It's quite another to specifically say that you are not a Christian.  Another person at my husband's work asked him what plans he had for Easter and when he replied that he was not Christian and didn't celebrate Easter, that he celebrated Spring Equinox, the whole room went silent.    He might well have said he was a mass murder and was proud of it.  It's as though people don't know what to do with you if you aren't in their club, at least a little bit.  It upsets them even more if they liked you before you made this announcement and now have to make the momentous decision whether to kindly accept this knowledge about you or promptly set about religiously discriminating against you, i.e. thinking less of you because you have made different choices than they did. 

One thing that really warms my heart is that the people who read my journal have been so loving and respectful and I haven't received a single evil letter and I want to tell all of you how much I appreciate that.  :)  Thanks so much for your support and love!  You're a bunch of really, really cool people and I'm honored to know you.

On a completely other note, I'd love it if some of you wanted to venture over to my new message board and converge to give me some advice regarding a problem I'm having with Delena.  A lot of it involves personality traits she has (and comes by them genetically, that's for sure) that I have to pull into an agreeable place before the dread teens hit.  She's extremely stubborn and strong willed.

With three children older than she is, I thought I'd seen it all.  I've been through everything imaginable, including juvenile court, school skipping, drugs, alcohol and other fun parent stuff.  Delena is the most stubborn human I've ever encountered.  I watched Dr Phil with rapt attention when he was talking about getting cooperation from your kids.  He said you have to find their lever and use it.  She doesn't have a lever.  In the past, I've taken away her cable, her TV, her VCR, her playstation, grounded her, stripped her room down to a bed and a dresser and enacted all other kinds of manipulations...all to get her to keep her room clean and/or get up in the morning to go to school.  Her attitude is, "you keep trying to out maneuver me and I'll keep showing you that I don't care what you do to me."  I've worked from an angle of empowering her, rewarding good behavior, bribing to get more good behavior, being clear with expectations and about everything else I can think of.

She is late to school so often that the attendance lady bought an alarm clock and gave it to her.  She will NOT get out of bed.  The main thing is that she's a night owl.  I can go into her room at 11pm or even later and she'll be in bed, trying to sleep and failing.  She has a horrible time getting to sleep at 9pm or so when a 10-year-old should be asleep on a school night.  I've even given her chamomile tea or valerian to help her doze and no luck.  When I wake her at 6:30am, the latest I can get her up and have a hope of getting her out the door by 7:30am, she's totally out of it.  I call her over and over again.  I sit with her and nudge her until she gets up.  I've physically removed her from the bed before and she still can't wake up.  I always turn on her light and open a window to get some air in to wake her up.  We already get her clothes and bag together the night before so that she just dresses, eats and goes out the door.  She's tried showering in the morning and has actually fallen asleep leaning against the wall in the shower.  Lately, I follow her around, every minute she's up, helping her dress, brush her hair, get her lunch, get dressed and get her out the door.  The biggest challenge is getting her to wake up and get moving. 

The room is another story.  She has always had a hard time of it.  She hoards food in there and any time I go in there, I unearth old food, trash and dishes.  Several times I've cleaned her room to give her a fresh start to work at keeping it clean.  She can never seem to do it.  So what do you do?  Do you close the door and let them have the inconvenience (of which there is nearly none for her) of living in the mess?  Do you fight the good fight and daily participate in the battle of the wills, laying down the law and showing who's boss?

I know some of you have dealt with this (or maybe had it dealt to you) efficiently and I'm definitely listening to any ideas you have.  I'm not a pushover mom and I care very much about teaching her that in life, there are just simply some things you have to do, even if you don't like it.  So click on the message board picture below and tallllk to me!

For now, time to go clean my house before I teeter on the edge of being one of those layabout Pagans.  :)

Take care,

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