December 11, 2002
10:15am

OK, so day before yesterday, Eric was driving home from the DMV where he'd registered the car (to the tune of $100 and change).  It had been raining lightly all through the day and he was on one of our busiest streets in the area, Madison Avenue.  A huge pick up was in front of him and without even braking, the truck smashed into the car in front of him when it stopped suddenly.  So the truck is moving, then the truck is crashed to a stop.  Eric hit the brakes in time in theory, but at the same time, ran into a slick spot on the road and smashed into the back of the pick-up and wrecked the caddy!!  It's not too bad, really.  It's still very drivable.  In fact, the ride itself is totally unaltered.  The hood is popped up a couple of inches, there is a big gouge in the bumper where our bumper when under the rear bumper of the truck in front of him and a headlight lens is broken (but the light is OK).  No one was injured and the pickup got the worst of the deal.  The cops materialized and rather than writing up a report or taking a statement, simply told the three drivers to "get the hell off of Madison Avenue, you're blocking traffic."  (?!)  Drivers exchanged insurance info.  

Eric was very sad and I have to admit, I was bummed too.  I've always heard that if you hit someone from the rear, it's automatically your fault because you should have been driving slowly enough and far enough back to be able to stop (they were going about 20 mph in heavy traffic).  I can see the reasoning in that and I'm sure a "too fast for conditions" stipulation could apply.  Still, it sucks.  Our insurance company is sending out an adjuster, but they're being weird about it because we had only insured it 3 days before and the policy hadn't gone through the system completely yet.  We only have liability and uninsured motorist anyway, so we'll probably have to eat it regardless.

We did some quiet contemplation as to why it happened and came up with a couple of good things.  One is that it happened after the car was registered and insured.  He's been driving uninsured and unregistered (no bucks) vehicles for about 3 months without incident.  It's the Sleeping Beauty theory that the incident perhaps cannot be prevented, but can be softened.  If we were destined to have an accident, we were lucky that it happened in the legal car (and that he and everyone else was unharmed).  

Another is that we had just come out of time where one of our main lessons was that we should not define ourselves by our possessions and here we were, tickled pink not that we had an operative car, but that it was a Cadillac.  Kind of reminder of a good car versus a bad car (good car gets you where you want to go, bad car doesn't).  So we are taking it in good humor and being grateful for how it happened, if it had to happen and grateful for the lesson.  I'm still feeling good (But tired!  Kids just aren't sleeping well, so neither is mom!) and very grateful for life in general.

Going out this weekend to pick up a few more things to complete the gift buying!  I'm very excited!

Have a great day!

December 11, 2002
9:45am 

Happy Winter Solstice (upcoming)!

The next question I've gotten quite a few times is to ask that since we are not Christian, how do we celebrate Christmas?  Actually, we don't.  We celebrate Winter Solstice on the 21st.  Santa still comes (I mean, you HAVE to have Santa!!), but he comes through on the night of the 20th instead of the 24th.  

We tell the kids about the Winter Solstice being the longest night of the year and that it's the time that we welcome the sun back to the Earth.  We tell them that while a lot of people consider Jesus to be the reason for the season (since they hear and read that in many places), that before there were Christians, there were ancestors who welcomed the birth of the sun at Winter Solstice, so when the Christians were picking a day to celebrate the birth of the Son of God, they chose the season when the birth of the Sun was already being celebrated, even though Bible historians place Christ's birth around September.  We emphasize that it's a time for everyone, no matter what their path, to celebrate love and the spirit of giving and the joy of being with family.  For us, the 25th is a day off work, a day the parents (who are not Pagan) will call and send presents and a time to soak in the joyous energy that's in the air.  So when you guys are running around like mad fighting through the malls, I'm alllll done.  ;-)

Our group gets together for a Winter Solstice ritual in which we welcome the return of the sun by lighting a fire in a dark room (sadly, it's not at Stonehenge, as in the picture) and using it to reflect on the coming year.  The emphasis is on the hardships that winter often presented for the ancestors who went before us and that the joy they felt was in that their family was alive and well, despite the bitter cold that was creeping in.  It's a time of quiet, inner contemplation through the year to consider what we want to "plant" to harvest in our lives in the coming year.  Our group in particular, at each of the Solstices, also has a battle between light and dark (not as in good and evil, for those of you who stereotype, but between literal light and darkness).  Eh. It's rigged.  We always know who'll win.  But it's fun to watch them battle with the black and white broomsticks. (smile)

So that's what we do!  I'm truly not telling any of this or the stuff in the first post of today to try and win anyone over (we don't do that...we feel everyone finds their own way on their own without having to be pressured into doing one thing or another) or flood the internet with more Witchy propaganda.  It was simply to answer a couple of questions that seemed to be hitting my inbox quite a lot.

Love,

December 11, 2002
9:25am 

OK, That Was Funny

Sent to me just now by Sage:

How do you catch a unique rabbit?
Unique up on it.

How do you catch a tame rabbit?
Tame way, unique up on it..

How do crazy people get through the forest?
They take the psyco path.

How do you get holy water?
You boil the hell out of it.

What do fish say when they hit a concrete wall?
Dam.

What do Eskimos get from sitting on the floor?
Polaroids.

What do you call cheese that is not yours?
Nacho cheese.

What do you call Santa's helpers?
Subordinate clauses.

What do you call four bullfighters in quicksand?
Quatro sinko.

What do you get from a pampared cow?
Spoiled milk.

What lies at the bottom of the ocean and twitches?
A nervous wreck.

Where do you find a dog with no legs?
Right where you left him.

Why do gorillas have big nostrils?
Because they have big fingers.

Why don't blind people like to sky dive?
Because if scares the dog.

What kind of coffee was served on the Titanic?
Sanka.

Why does a pilgrim's pants always fall down?
Because they wear their belt buckles on their hats.

How are a Texas tornado and a Tennessee divorce the same?
Somebody's gonna lose a trailer...

December 11, 2002
9:15am

Why St Jude?

Hello again, everyone!  Before I get into the catching up with things going on around here, I wanted to publicly respond to some questions I've gotten via e-mail in regard to my Dec 5th column in particular.  I figure if these people are wondering these things, others might be as well.

The first came from a lady whose e-mail I read and somehow managed to promptly place.  I can't find it ANYwhere and I very much wanted to reply to her.  She wrote to as why (again, referencing the Dec 5th column) I prayed to St Jude instead of directly to God.  That is a very good question and one that we are frequently asked.  

I'm going to be speaking as both myself and for my own beliefs and comfort as well as for Pagans in general for the most part.  To me, the concept of God, Eternal Spirit, The Universe, Great Spirit or whatever you want to call it (as Wayne Dyer recently said, "You don't get wet from the word 'water,' so it's not about what you call it, it's about what It is), is so big and vast and so far away from our human ability to understand or even conceptualize that it sometimes helps to observe and work with the multitude of facets of that energy that, for simplicity, we will call "God."   Pagans take that energy and divide it first into God and Goddess, believing that since all things in nature have a male and female side, it only makes sense that there would be male and female aspects to something as whole and complete as God.  Beyond that, we go further as to study each of the aspects of God and Goddess thoroughly through the mythologies that are passed down and the feelings that the different aspects create within us.   Believe it or not, if you are asking for comfort and healing about your marriage, your uterus, your children, your heart or other girly stuff, it can feel better and more comforting to reach out to the female side of God, the Goddess, and feel yourself being cradled in the arms of an Eternal Mother who is warm, loving, healing and nurturing.  When you are asking for protection, asking for help in buying or healing a car, working on encouraging change in worldwide or local politics through prayer or other manstuffs or male-dominated areas, it feels more natural, to me anyway, to appeal to the male aspect of God.  

With that being the basic trickle effect, it can further divide into specific facets of God/dess.  Hesta is the Goddess of the Hearth Home, Brigid is the Goddess of Children and Childbirth, Hathor is the Goddess of Justice and so on.  That way, you get a clearer image in your mind of the aspect of God that you are praying to.  It strengthens your focus and creates, ironically, what I feel to be a tighter connection and pathway.  

I see St Jude as just one more aspect of the energy that I perceive as God and when I feel like a lost cause (or my situation does, at least), it helps me to work through the part of God that is in charge of lost causes.  It works for me.  It works for a lot of people, but I'm the last person who would ever dictate what will work for someone else.  I believe that spirituality is extremely personal and specific to the needs and belief system of the person involved.  I, for one, am eternally pleased that there are so many paths that can take a person closer to that energy that is considered to be God (water - wet) because I feel the closer we are to that energy, the better we become as people and the brighter our souls shine.   I have never believed that one size fits all where a person's spirit is concerned and that we each have the responsibility of fulfilling our spiritual selves in the way that feels best and resonates most deeply to us, be that speaking in tongues in a camp meeting, walking alone in a forest, meditating in an ashram or dancing under a full moon.  It's the reaching out and connecting to the ecstasy of the uplifted spirit that is the goal and how you get there, provided you are harming none, is your own beeswax and isn't for anyone else to judge.  It's between you and whatever gets you wet (so to speak).