My Response to the Lana Del Rey Thing

I feel a bit embarrassed that, as a pagan and someone who has formerly aspired to the Pagan clergy, I did not hear about the proposed binding on Drumph until the morning after the first spell date, which was yesterday.  I'm especially irked that my husband learned about it first, via an article in Rolling Stone regarding Lana Del Rey's enigmatic tweet.
What do I think about it? At first I was all "Hells yeah!,"  Then I did a search for what others in the community are saying, and I found this blog on the topic from Donald Lewis ( I don't refer to him as "Reverend Don" here because he makes it plain that he is speaking as himself, not as head of the Correllian Tradition, or even as clergy).

In this statement, Mr. Lewis says that we should look at the larger picture, which is the Christian Dominionist Movement. This didn't start with Drumph, and will not end with him. Don believes that we should focus positively on what we want to achieve, such as equal rights, the environment, etc.

(Just an aside: some would say that the Wiccan Rede of "Harm none..." would preclude binding anyone. However I believe, as does the Tradition, that "harm" does not include binding, nor any magick done in self-defense, or defense of another. Drumph's actions and future actions are certainly harmful to any and all minorities, the environment, the freedom of the Press, and basically anyone who disagrees with him, thus I do not hold that binding counts as "harm")

My husband was listening while I watched this video, and, although he does not believe in the power of spells and such, he does often have some astute observations. He pointed out that Drumph is a very powerful weapon of the Christian Dominionist Movement. As any good gamer knows, if you can remove or disable someone's weapon you slow them down a lot,  and increase your advantage. 

I therefore intend to participate in future binding rituals on Drumph and "those who abet him," AND I intend to work for justice and the environment both in spellwork and in speech and action on the physical plane.

May wisdom prevail.

ADDENDUM: Somehow I forgot to mention that Drumph has the Nuclear Codes, and does not require anyone else's approval to launch them.  Binding him might buy us the time we need to win the war against Christian Dominionism, Or to even....I dunno....live?

Thoughts on becoming Pagan Clergy

The following is an excerpt from something I have been studying in preparation for the Correllian Ministry.  It was an address to the clergy of the Church of Gaia, back in the day. The essay is called "What Gaeists Believe" and it's published as part of "Correllian Philosophy" 

This really struck me, as I have been trying to pin down why I want to become a Correllian Minister, and what that will mean for my life and purpose. The 'energies' referred to are those of the changing age, and the power and destruction, and eventually rebirth, that will accompany them.

"...At this time we Priests and Priestesses have the special

task of understanding and assisting these energies and

those affected by them.

In becoming a Priest or Priestess you commit to helping

both the planet and society as well as individuals. There

will be many problems and crises on both large and

personal scales with which you may be called upon to

help, as well as the High Magic of Priestcraft. You must

be caring and compassionate to those who look to you for

guidance, yet also be strong enough not to be misused.

You must be teacher both of universal truth and correct

action, and a facilitator of universal life –helping those

who turn to you to overcome all blockages and hindrances

to their own greatest potential. You are taking them and

helping them to find their places in the universe, and to

weather and even rejoice in the coming changes. You

must be their advisor and friend, their leader when

needed, and their defender and protector. To be a Priest/

Priestess is not an easy path. It is a vocation –a calling,

not a job. It requires courage, persistence, and dedication,

as well as psychic and magical training. It is a high calling,

not accepted lightly. Yet the rewards are great. The world

will change. The changes can be easy or hard, the results

to our liking or not –it is to guide this that we are called. If

we do not, the world will change without us. It is a window

of great opportunity in which great things can be done, if

we choose to do them. This is the choice put before you.

Think on it well, for it is not a one-time choice, but a

choice to be remade and more deeply made each day. A

steep path leading to great heights and ancient magical

things. Think on it well".

Beltane Celebration in Middleton

The Festival was hosted by Golden Thread Grove and took place in Middleton, Idaho on May 4th, 2014. Click on the pictures to make them bigger.

My burning question: How do they do it.  And I don't believe it's just power of suggestion.
What can science learn from them? What can I learn that I can apply to my own practice?

Ostara

Blessing the Cory St. Pentagon

My friend Robert Franklin asked Rev. Dana Worsnop and I to do a ceremony to bless his house and his yard. I did the yard in the Wiccan tradition, as the yard will be used for ritual space and gathering in the future. This is the film he make of the event. I am the person in the purple cloak.

Regarding the Pronunciation of my Name

 Morgen le Fay by Mari-Na

When I first decided to change my name, I chose the spelling as M-O-R-G-A-I-N-E  because I wanted the numerology to work with my birth name.  I decided to pronounce it "MOR-gun" however.  Over the years many people have pronounced it "mor-GANE" with a long 'A.' I have recently stopped correcting them, figuring that they were probably right.
I recently came across some validation though, that my way of pronouncing it is correct. The following is from an article by SCA-dian Heather Rose Jones. In short, Morgaine is how the French spelled 'Morgen' (as in 'Morgen Le Fey') and they pronounced it "Mor-gen." It has no connection to the male name 'Morgan.'

Morgen And Geoffrey Of Monmouth
Now we come to the Great Confusion. Geoffrey of Monmouth was a historical writer in the 12th century. He took a number of traditional historical tales and "dressed them up" for new audiences. One of the things he did was to provide names for a large number of characters that apparently had been left unnamed in previous versions of the stories. Without going into the details, we can determine that Geoffrey took these names from a variety of sources. Sometimes he used names that were being used in Britain at that time. Other times, he borrowed names from written sources that had once been used, but which he didn't recognize. And there are a number of clear examples where he mangled those names, either through ignorance or indifference to their original form and meaning. A characteristic case is that of the name Guendoleu, a man's name from early Welsh poetry. Geoffrey not only misread it as Guendolen but used it for a female character. [Hutson]
Geoffrey of Monmouth wrote the first stories that describe the Arthurian character we now call "Morgen le Fay", who first appears in his "Vita Merlini" ("The Life of Merlin,") written in the 12th century. Geoffrey calls the character Morgen, and identifies her as the chief of nine sisters who preside over the "isle of apples", i.e., Avalon. [Bromwich] Although it is possible to see a motivation for using this name in the "sea/Mor" connection, there is no reason to assume -- based on many of his other choices -- that he had any particular motivation at all. And while it is possible to extrapolate from the fact that the Irish cognate Muirgen was used for both men and women, and hypothesize that the Welsh Morgen may also have been in ordinary use for both men and women, we have no direct evidence of this. Given the example of Guendoleu/Guendolen we have no reason to believe that such a consideration would have been important to Geoffrey.
It is almost certain that Geoffrey knew the name Morgen from written sources rather than from hearing it used. At his time, the pronunciation would have been "MO:R-yen" and based on other examples in his work, the names he was likely to have heard spoken are rendered more phonetically, rather than retaining the conservative Old Welsh spellings. (A typical example of this is the name of a local saint, which Geoffrey renders phonetically as Duvianus, but which would have been Dubianus in the written sources he was using. [Hutson])
Geoffrey's work became the source for virtually all following Arthurian material, so the names he used -- for whatever reason - - were widely perpetuated.
Morgain(e)When Geoffrey's stories and the names within them made their way to France, any possible connection with the original Welsh pronunciation was lost entirely. The French saw the name Morgen and guessed that it would be best represented by Morgain (pronounced "mo:r-ge:n"). This became the standard French spelling of the characters name. [Bromwich] Later, the form Morgaine evolved by analogy with other French women's names ending in -e.

Trying Out the Corellian Tradition

It's a controversial tradition, apparently, for reasons that I care little about; there are semantics involving their use of the word 'Wicca' to describe themselves; they charge some money for degree initiation. Whatever.

When I was first introduced to the Craft, Wicca was synonymous with Witchcraft. Many today say that the word 'Wicca' only applies to the Gardner Tradition and it's spin-offs.  Apparently the leaders of the Corellian Tradition think the way I do.

As for what they charge, it's $159 for a lifetime membership, or smaller amounts for smaller chunks of time. This amounts to the money that it must take to maintain and build that very complicated website. I don't think the leaders are taking home a personal fortune. I have no problem paying for the necessities required by my education.

Even if I chose to go the normal route - driving to distant places to find a coven that will work with me, the cost of the travel would more that add up to the cost of the membership.  Corellian is online and its lessons are accessible. They have mentors, so you're not just talking to machines. They have live gatherings in various parts of the world. Once I get to where I can travel, I can access a live community.

I have not been doing well as a solitary. I need real training and mentoring.
There are two people I have to worry about; The general public is not going to care in the least what my tradition is, they're only going to cue into the word 'witch.'  The other group I'm going to have to deal with is witches and pagans from other traditions that down their nose at us Corellians.  Since I have only one current friend who is a witch, the matters of those others really have to affect on me.  So what it all boils down to is, how do I feel about following this path? So far I like it.

Their lessons for First Degree include practices in developing my psychic ability, and that is something that I truly want to do. There is also a path of study that leads to becoming ordained. Granted there are easier and cheaper ways to get ordained, but I want to know that my ordination is backed by extensive knowledge and training.

Leaving Facebook

I did it, finally. I permanently deleted my facebook account and am now solely dependent on tumblr for my social networking. The pic below explains why.

Basically, on Facebook people are able to post death threats and hate speech without being taken down - as long as it's against certain groups of people.  There has been much discussion about this on the pagan Facebook pages, and hundreds of people have brought these sites to Facebook's attention, and they are still up. 

I haven't found out much about Tumblr's track record - good or bad - but I'm hoping they'd do a better job of enforcing their own policies regarding calls to genocide.

-----

UPDATE: I was given a two-week grace period during which I could come back and still keep my old account settings. Sadly, I did come back to Facebook. I have family and other people there that I can't seem to contact any other way.  Finding other ways to protest. Most likely Facebook neither noticed nor cared that I was gone, or why.

Intent Psychometry

Not Mika, but looks like her.

I had a very intense dream last night. In it, my childhood pet Mika (in life a very protective and nurturing German Shepherd) appeared to me. In the dream she had German Shepherd markings on her belly and her legs, but her head and her back were like those of a grey wolf.  On her belly was the scar from when she (in real life) was accidentally spayed at the age of 12 when she was taken to the vet for a tooth cleaning. There was also a fur pouch sewed onto her belly, with a zipper, like a re-useable womb.
We talked for a long time, about everything. It was very comfortable being with her.  Near the end, she told me something, or words came through her, in another voice, deep and masculine. The words were "Intent Psychometry." She said to look it up.
I'm thinking that either Mika was either a)Mika herself, speaking to me, or b)My spirit guide, taking on the form that I would find most comforting. The fact that she looked like half a wolf implies b. Or c) Mika IS my spirit guide, and the wolf referenced the higher soul inside herself. 
So I googled "Intent Psychometry" and found at least one good article on doing psychometry with intent ( I also found a nifty moon-phase widget for the sidebar of my blog - but I digress).  I'm going to give it a try.
I've often, in the past, been very sensitive to the energy of places, buildings etc. . Maybe psychometry is a skill I need to develop, or can develop.
I have been praying to the gods/spirits/whatever-beings-that-might-care to give me messages in loud, clear words that I can understand, and I think they finally got the message. This is about as clear as a dream can get. My thanks sincerely. Blessed Be!

Kwan Yin?

For a long time now, I have been trying to reconnect with the devine in some form or another.
I had a connection with the Great Goddess back when I first was initiated into Wicca.  I would sit in my closet at the shelter and light a candle and it seemed that She was there and she heard me. Later when my coven would call on her in Circle, we could feel her presence.  
Over the years, through the course of trying to find a way to function in the 'real world' - whatever that is - I lost the sense of contact with the devine.
When I changed my name, I chose Brigid as my middle name, and O'Herne as my last name, basically dedicating myself to the goddess Brigid and the god Herne.  
I read recently in The Inner Mysteries, by Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone, that the trend in Wicca now is to nurture a personal connection with an individual god or goddess, rather than the archetypal Goddess, and that the god or goddess must find the seeker, not the other way around.
Because Janet Farrar is someone I respect greatly, I took this to heart and began seeking a connection with a personal deity.  I had chosen Brigid and Herne, but had they chosen me?  How would I know? I've been meditating on this for a few months now and am still not sure.

Last night, I tried something different. I thought of the Goddess, and then I thought of all the names of goddesses and gods that I could think of. When I came to Kwan Yin, I felt a hand touch me on the right shoulder, from the front, as if someone were standing in front of me and reached across with her right hand.

Today I am doing research on Kwan Yin.  I am seeing this as a sign that Kwan Yin might be the deity with which I can connect.

Tarot readings

As I stand on the verge of a new job, I did a tarot reading yesterday and one today.  The main theme I got from yesterdays was that of illusions falling away. Today's echoed that with the Tower in my 'environment' place, and the Devil in the final outcome place.

Past: I have made a good marriage and I have a great partner who will help me through any challenge. At the same time, the pattern I'm moving out of is one of creativity.  I have been for several weeks focusing my energy on creating a viable web design business, and this is where my heart is at still. However, the chance for a good steady income trumps my need to make money in a creative way.  I have goals for the future that involve having a home and a place for my grandkids to visit, and this overrules the need of my soul.

Maybe the illusion is that it's either / or?  Maybe I can still find ways to do web design or other creative endeavors in my spare time?  Maybe this new job will utilize my creativity in ways I haven't thought of yet.
Am I building this job into a monster that it's not necessarily destined to be?

Future:  achievement of goals. This is my goal, even though it is a different goal than the one I was previously aiming for.  It is Plan B, but it is still a plan, and it may meet my long-term goals better than my Plan A would have.  Pattern I'm moving into: strength. Strength that comes from patience and caring.

Cover: Nine of Pentacles. Cross: Five of Pentacles.  I am at the crossroads between mastery and continued impoverishment.  All other cards indicate that I am at a time of great change. I take that to mean that I will get the job, and the challenges and pitfalls that come with it. This will not be easy on my soul.

I know that the tower means that I am going to be mourning the brilliant career I had hoped to create. The devil means that I am making an enemy of my own choosing, if enemy it is.

Halloween: Fear versus Fun

(Note: This is an essay I wrote for my Comp II Class)

Halloween is not what it used to be. Fewer parents allow their children to go trick-or-treating. The reason for this is that we don’t trust our neighbors anymore, and we certainly don’t trust strangers. Paranoia has ruined Halloween.

I personally have a very broad memory of trick-or-treating, having grown up in various places in the US plus Germany. Every year my friends and I – or my parents when I was little – would go around to neighbors houses in costume and beg for candy. There was always one adult who would ask us to do a trick. We travelled in the neighborhoods where we lived. The streets were always crowded. We ate as much of the candy as we could before getting home, because parents or siblings would lay claim to it after that. Nobody was afraid – well, make-believe afraid perhaps, but not really afraid, not of our neighbors.

Nowadays they have car trick-or-treating in church parking lots. Children are encouraged to get their treats x-rayed before eating any. For the past several years, there have been no children coming down our street, even though we live in a pleasant neighborhood. The few children that still do the traditional trick-or-treating are driven over to Harrison Boulevard by their parents, partly because it is a prosperous neighborhood and known for its abundance, but also because it’s considered, ‘safe.’

Parents worry that their children’s’ costumes are too tight, and they’ll choke, or they’re too loose and they’ll trip. They worry that face masks will make their children blind to moving cars, or that drivers won’t see them. While these concerns are legitimate, it may be that parents are worrying too much and taking the fun out of the holiday.

One reason for the decline in trick-or-treating is the fear that our neighbors will poison or otherwise desecrate the candy that they give us. Apples will have razor blades in them. Candy bars will have pins and needles.

The actual evidence for random adulteration of Halloween candy is virtually nonexistent. A woman in 1964 made some ‘joke’ bags with marked boxes of rat poison in them that she handed out to older teenagers only. No one was hurt. In 1970 a boy died after getting into his uncle’s heroin. The parents put heroin in the candy to draw attention away from the uncle. In 1974, a father poisoned his eight-year-old son by putting cyanide in his candy, and tried to make it look like a random poisoning (Robinson, 2003).

The fear is fueled by certain religious groups and individuals promoting the idea that Satanists (by which they mean also Wiccans and other Pagans) use Halloween as a time to foist their evil schemes upon an unwitting community by randomly poisoning children. Do a web search for “Satanism Halloween” and you’ll see all kinds of testimony about this supposedly happening. As a Wiccan, I can attest that Halloween - or Samhain as we call it – is a major holiday of the year for many Pagan religions, but we have more important rites to attend to than the adulteration of children’s candy.

B. A. Robinson, a writer for Religioustolerance.org, states that, “A sad byproduct of these urban folk tales is that parents develop anxiety over a threat to their children that does not exist, or which exists at a very low level. Many children pick up the fears of their parents. Both end up believing that they live in a society that is far more violent than it really is (2003).”

The reason that we are so willing to believe these urban myths is, I believe, due to the fact that we are more afraid in general twelve months out of the year. We are afraid to let our children play outside alone; we are afraid to let them walk to school. Recently a man sipping coffee near a playground evoked frantic text messages and calls to the police (Rochman, 2012).

So what is to be done? I concur with Lenore Skenazy, author of Free Range Kids. “We can kill off Halloween, or we can accept that it isn't dangerous and give it back to the kids. Then maybe we can start giving them back the rest of their childhoods, too.”

References:-Robinson, B. (2003, November 2). Adulterated Halloween Candy: “Razor Blades in the Apples” Hoax.    ReligiousTolerance.org. Retrieved from http://www.religioustolerance.org /hallo_ap.htm
-Skenazy, L. (2010, October 27). ‘Stranger Danger’ and the Decline of Halloween. Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com.
-Rochman, B. (2012, June 11). Stranger Danger: Are Parents too Paranoid about Safety? Time Healthland. Retrieved from http://healthland.time.com/2012/06/11/stranger-danger-are-parents-too-paranoid-about-safety/

Someday I'm going to play the guitar again, and I'm going to sing this song at Fellowship.

Ode to an Iron Pan

When my son, now grown, was a baby
I bought a small iron pan from a discount store.
Not many things from that time do I still have.
Too much darkness and chaos in the years since
have destroyed nearly everything.
This iron pan I still have.
It is precious to me.

Years have tempered it
Obsidian black
moon-like
scrying glass
handle like a needles head.
I gaze into it like a mirror
a pool of dark water
with dark metallic waves spreading out
from the center
as if the fairies had dropped a tiny rock into the middle
and turned the surface to liquid
which then froze.

freethoughts about tarot reading

I'm building and building and building and something's going to crash. What will be left? That is what is truly important. The tower. Are my expectations of life after college unreasonable? The hermit. Overdose of data, information. Must step back and separate out what is important, relevant, meaningful. What jobs to go for? Hopes and fears: 4 of wands. I hope to celebrate my graduation, but fear what comes after. Page of swords: action and thought. The east. Communication. IE, the job search itself, is what I am most intent upon.

Beneath me: loneliness and destitution. That was a long time ago. Ahead of me: possibility of emotional well being. This does not surprise me. Ahead of me, the Lovers. Behind me, page of swords. I've been taking myself too seriously and am afraid to make mistakes and move forward? Current situation: two of cups over 8 of pentacles. I am totally focused on one thing: the job search. But I have a remarkably good marital relationship. This is borne out by the entire 'cross' section of the reading. But what does it have to do with the real questions, which was about the job search? Maybe it's a consolation prize: I won't get a great job, but I have a great relationship. Maybe Hawk and I will go into business together.
What is the nature of the Tower? I don't think it's simply unemployment, because that would be an ongoing thing, not the disaster that is predicted by the end of the month. It might be ending up in a job that is less than I'd hoped for. That is possible, since I am in a mood to take anything that is offered.

Poem - The Murder House

There is a house that still calls my name
I lived there.
I made promises.

The house held a ghost we called
the “Old Norwegian” –
He who made the carvings above the door.
He’d change the channels on the TV.
There was a young lady also,
who sat on the landing
In Victorian garb.

Others wandered in and out,
Shades dressed in myriad hues of trauma and grace.
Some of us had bodies.

Limerick

There was a Wise Woman in Boise
Who said, “The Spirits are Noisy!
It isn’t the wight
That screams in the night,
Alas, ‘Tis the ghost of poor Roy, see!”

Ballad for the Lord of the Greenwood

I walk the winter woods with Herne
And all the trees are bare
‘Alone’ at dusk I do return,
for no one sees Him there.

“Why go you in the midnight frost?”
They ask, “when hearth is warm?”
They say, “Oh, what if you get lost,
Who’ll keep you safe from harm?”

“There’s danger, yes,” I do agree
“and warmth and food do beckon
It would be nice to stay inside
And knit some socks, I reckon.

Yet I must dare to be so bold
To walk into the wild
To listen to Herne’s teachings old
You see, I am His child.”

Haiku for Brigid

Triple goddess, please
Gift my hands with poetry
Look! I am your bard