The Goddess Empowers Women

Priver's right on that, Samhain's certainly a good beginning, being a new year and all. :)

I hadn't registered at first yesterday that your interest was more than necessarily in an interfaith sort of way, Farnaz, and didn't actually get around to thinking of it that way. If you're approaching it in that manner, it's a little different than, say, interviewing and debating people on this occasion, if you can see what I mean, it's like the difference between having a guest over for dinner and someone who comes as a journalist or something. :)

I'd still say much the same: you can read a couple of books and maybe feel a bit less at sea: a lot of folks realize just how much there can be to know and get intimidated, but nearly everyone goes through that, so it's not like there's an exam or anything. People understand. :)

Public circles are generally pretty straightforward, actually: with people coming from all manner of traditions, they usually have to be. :)

As for finding groups to learn and practice with, well, there's plenty of meetups and places where you might run into all manner of seekers, and hopefully a few old salts. With the benefit of my own experience, I've long since come to realize that I didn't have to be quite so ...picky about where I started when it came to getting together with groups or trads: some of my best times were with households thrown together by circumstance, really.

If something comes up where you like the people, you're probably going to do OK. :) However that's on topic. :)

Farnaz,

Samhain's not a bad place to start, really. It was my first ritual, of any kind, and I sorta lucked into the group that I'm now involved with. Two years it's going to be, officially. :) Since it's the biggest holiday it tends to be the one with the most open public circles.

The books are a great place to read up on some of the ritual events, background and symbology so that if/when you do go to see a ritual you might recognize what it is they're doing. It helped me a lot to understand the reasons why some parts of the ritual were as they are. Even if I didn't understand all of what they were doing, I could see some parts and go 'oh, I just read about that'. It made it more comfortable for me.

For me it was about finding a group because if I was going to truly walk the path, I needed a group of people to be able to talk to and share my experiences with and find out where my strengths are and what I need to learn about and work on. People who teach and guide without pressuring others.

As for groups, you'll know when you've found the right one for you. Take your time. You sound like the type of person who does a lot of study on their own. Maybe that might work for you for now. Study and read whatever you can, practice, find out what works for you.

When you do go looking, keep your common sense around you. Don't let others pressure you into doing something that's uncomfortable for you and don't ever be afraid to ask questions. Any group worth their salt should be encouraging critical thinking and not giving answers but pointing people with questions in the right direction.

The internet can help, too. Witchvox is a great site and covers everything from the basics to issues relating to families to locating public events in your area. And everything in between.

On this: "I tried to with Mokey, but couldn't get the words out."

There seemed to be something that you were trying to say awhile back, but it seemed like it was something way too personal and I don't want to pry. I can certainly understand if you don't want to bring something up in a forum like this. I just want you to know that I can totally respect that, especially given the way some folks around here prefer to bash any experiences someone may have rather than conduct a civil dialogue.

Robin,

Thanks so much! I've been looking at the links and will return to them. Seems there are a lot of covens, etc. in NYC, but it's still difficult for me to figure out where each is coming from.

Thanks again!

Farnaz

Dear FARNAZ,

Not that this will help you out all that much on the East Coast, but check this out anyway:

http://www.reclaiming.org/

http://www.reclaimingquarterly.org/

"But I'd feel very odd, and sort of gate-crashing to just walk in, even though some sites say all welcome. I suspect people will know each other. They might feel uncomfortable with newcomers, and I might feel uncomfortable with them."

Find the comfortable-looking people, that's all. People in groups are probably the social ones. :) The harried looking one running around crazy is probably the priest or priestess in charge of the affair; you can watch who she seems to know, and they probably have a clue. :)

Wow, that's the big city for you: speaking of solemnities, ...among the usual events I mentioned, someone's actually holding a community Dumb Feast... (which is a tradition many of us observe to honor the recently-departed and/or our ancestors... Usually observed among family and/or house/tribe, though) Not seeing anything particularly education-oriented for the coming week, but like I said, it's coming up on Samhain.

Pride events, if there's still any going on, are usually pretty friendly. Late in the season to expect any, though, I'd think.

No problem. I've seen a lot of Samhain information. I had intended to go to one out of state, but that's not an option for me now.

Also, I'm not sure that would be the best place to begin, as you imply. A friend out west says, why not. I've been interested in it for awhile since I'm having problems figuring some things out that are hard to explain. I tried to with Mokey, but couldn't get the words out.

But I'd feel very odd, and sort of gate-crashing to just walk in, even though some sites say all welcome. I suspect people will know each other. They might feel uncomfortable with newcomers, and I might feel uncomfortable with them.

I think I'm just going to start off by reading. Then I'll go and visit some web sites, maybe with a better understanding with what I'm looking at.

Awhile ago, I read something about going into one's underworld, like Inana, I guess. Freaked out entirely, so figured I might be on a good track.

IMHO, No one's biting at this current question because like so many of late it's simply bankrupt, depleted. No bailouts. The thing is that politics and religion or public affairs as small talk quickly degenerates into a slugfest as we continually see. There are some very smart people who blog here, believers, nonbelievers, etc. Would the blog owners would rise to the occasion.

They rotate the columnists on the main page, actually, Farnazz, ... I actually usually tend to expect we're page three for a while, but no one else seems to be biting on this past week's question. :)

I'm looking around, understand that as anything immediate goes, it's coming up on Samhain, so there's going to mostly be a mix of fairly solemn stuff about our dead and ancestors and suchlike, which isn't usually the time we feel like explaining ourselves to outsiders, (despite inevitable small-town reporters dragging *someone* out for one of three flavors of stock interview,) ... and the occasional charity 'Witches' Ball,' which is usually kind of fun and revelry with a Halloweeney sort of flavor, often for the tourists, so to speak, where you probably won't get much serious theology discussed, either. :)

Thanks, I did see some Pagan Pride announcements for events coming up in November, so maybe I could just pick one and go.

Wish they hadn't taken Starhawk off the main page.

I'd say, Farnaz, that a bit of reading couldn't hurt, just don't get too attached to any one thing you read, ...we Pagans ourselves don't. :)

Likewise with opinions, but meeting some folks in person certainly isn't the worst idea ever.

Frankly, if many of us could afford two big festivals a year, maybe we ought to make one an open house. You've just missed Pagan Pride season, (usually falls around Mabon) but that's often a day when people expect folks to turn up with questions and all.

I understand that NYC has gotten pretty active with public events, the past eight years or so, while much of the rest of the country has been tending to keep a low profile around the emboldened Religious Right and various other complications that come when the sitting administration doesn't think you're a 'real religion' and was purging the judiciary and encouraging fanaticism, etc, etc. Net+big city like that=more people meeting in person.

I don't actually know anybody there anymore, but chances are decent something's going on that you could circulate in. Let me see what I can dig up. Anyway, I think there's still some bookstores, there, even.

Thanks for the feedback on books. The Cunningham is an anniversary edition, I think.

But are people saying it would make more sense for me to hook up with some Pagans rather than start off by reading? I was looking for some workshops in the New York City area, thinking maybe I could hook up with people, but it's hard to figure out from the web, what's what and whose who. A little like trying to pick out which church or synagogue to go to without knowing anything about the diversity of the two religious traditions.

*looking to the studio audience.*

Now, I'm not saying the man's pastry, but confused? Chronic condition.

" CCNL
"And in summary,"

Summary of what? The below isn't even related to the assertions you were making.

"Adam and Eve, historical or mythical were the First "Empowerers", the Budding Flowers of Evolution and the First pagans."

Err, no. Their genetic material just happened to be present among the group of survivors who bred throughout all the aftergoing population after an evolutionary bottleneck. :)

Each of them would have had ...hundreds of thousands of ancestors, each no less 'Pagan' than they themselves. They didn't appear alone in some 'Garden of Eden.' Read your own quotation.

" We continue to evolve/learn now knowing that there is no magic in the Earth, stars and Moon just the growing science of biochemistry, physics, astronomy and the Big Bang and the Gib Gnab."

Oscillating universe theory of that sort went out over a decade ago, nice and tidy as it is for Pagans and Douglas Adams.

Science, especially truncated 'sciencey' literalisticness ...does not mean there's no *magic* to all this, or no *spirit,* silly man. It only means that the physical universe doesn't agree with some people's holy texts.

Live with it.

Spirit's another matter. Only difference, though, is those parts of spirit that come in repeatable form are called by some, 'unmagical.' Or without spirit.

Which begs the question.

Who taught you this nonsense, anyway?

Science ceases to be science when it overreaches. And it's you who's getting superstitious, really. What are you trying to 'banish?'

And in summary, Adam and Eve, historical or mythical were the First "Empowerers", the Budding Flowers of Evolution and the First pagans. We continue to evolve/learn now knowing that there is no magic in the Earth, stars and Moon just the growing science of biochemistry, physics, astronomy and the Big Bang and the Gib Gnab.

Priver/Mokey's probably right, 'Drawing Down The Moon' is by a good journalist, though you need a kinda current edition. Margot Adler recently came out with an article how she'd kind of gone to ground for about a decade, and may or may not have a new edition of that book, (which probably deserves a complete revisiting and a new title by now, anyway.) I never found it so much an understanding of our theology as a survey of our diversity, (as of the last edition) and as such, not necessarily so germaine toward real understanding. Non-Pagans seem to read it and just go, 'You guys are all over the place.' The last edition I read, it seemed the book placed some pretty fringe people on the same footing as more mainstream subjects interviewed, and in that regard, I've just not seen it such a great tool for any kind of outreach. It seems not much perspective is provided for those who are reading about *all* that for the first time.

Not to say is Adler isn't a respectable journalist, though in a way I think those books try so hard to be 'objective' that they don't serve as 'guides' toward who Pagans are for those who don't know in the first place.

SOK, Farnazz, I think that particular thing takes a lot more than thinking, but you wanted to know where some of this comes from. :)

" Farnaz2 Author Profile Page:

"Is anyone familiar with this? Friend emailed this recommendation:

"Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner
She says its good to read w/Starhawk. "

Yeah, that's Scott Cunningham. Also very influential, if the introduction shows its age. (I don't think anyone right now is gonna confuse Wicca with stage magic, for instance. )

A good combination to get the idea from,

In keeping with, if not the origination of, do-it-yourself quasi-traditional Wicca books, there's a lot of focus on ritual and thingies, (and of course, why not swap some elemental correspondences, confuse the noobs and make sure to stir some generally-useless debate, :) )

But, yeah, it's not a bad pair to sort of bracket the mainstream of American Wiccan-type Paganism with. When my own sister dedicated herself, she got those two very books, though I did fill the Cunningham with all manner of glosses and 'updates,' so to speak. :)

I'm not too familiar with newer offerings, but of the easily-findable stuff, you can get a general idea. Llewellyn publishing always kind of had a formula to put out 'Thematic Wicca 101' books that'd kind of keep people buying, and for years refused to put out anything that might risk being taken as too 'authoritative,' or not padded with spells and rituals (hit or miss, there: but, hey, I'm supposed to be a poet, myself, and I know for a fact that scripting a ritual for print is a whole other matter. )

I'd been talking about a book about Pagan ethics in a previous thread that with some qualifiers, I think really could give you a great idea what's up there. In short, the first half, anyway, of 'Living With Honour: A Pagan Ethics' by Emma Restall Orr, would be a good read for here. (In the second half, the author starts drawing some pretty non-mainstream conclusions about Veganism and apparently trying to convince all Pagans to be Vegan and stuff that really goes off on its own merry way. Interesting, but not representative, after that. It wasn't the intent of the book, I think, to so much 'represent' to outsiders in the first place, anyway, it just so happens the first half doesn't do a bad job, especially if you like to argue from philosophers. )

Anyway, part of the issue about books and all is, really, that what companies have a mind to sell in great quantities, frankly isn't really what our smallish community would like to see published and stocked in bookstores.

In a way, this helps protect us, though. No one can go buy a book and fake it. :)

If you're looking for a more journalistic approach, Margot Adler's 'Drawing Down the Moon' is really good for an overview of lots of differing traditions written by a prominent NPR journalist. (it's where I started and I go back to every now and again out of curiosity for how others do things). Starhawk's books are really good, too. I do agree though they can be a bit overpolitical sometimes- but that's her tradition. Scott Cunningham is a great author, and from all accounts a wonderful person too.

I came out of Judaism myself after a lot of reading and thought. I just couldn't pretend anymore that the services I'd attended most of my life filled the spiritual void I had. My ideas about Divinity had never really bought into the 'angry father in the sky' type. Plus, I love exploring science, and in so doing, I fell in love with the Earth. Ultimately one day the Lady showed up for me, ready or not- and that was it. :)

The thing about Paganism though it that at some point it has to be experienced. Books only get you so far, and the rest is on you. :)

Here's something a bit more modern about any regenerating grain divinities, only, (don't try this at home, kids) much better than John Barleycorn to drive over a hundred miles an hour to: it's by a band called Sponge:

" Plowed

Will I wake up
Some a dream I made up
No I guess it's reality

What will change us
Or will we mess up
Our only chance to connect with Dream

Say a prayer for me

I'm buried by the sound

In a world of human wreckage

I'm lost and I'm found and I can't touch the ground

I'm plowed into the sound

Of a world of human wreckage

To see wide open with a head that's broken
Or hang your life on some tragedy

Plow me under ground

That covers the message that is the seed

Say a prayer for me

I'm buried by the sound
In a world of human wreckage
Say a prayer for me"

;)

Is anyone familiar with this? Friend emailed this recommendation:

Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner

She says its good to read w/Starhawk.

PaganPlace,

I have to think about what you wrote.

" Farnaz2 Author Profile Page:

""the recurring crisis of identity""

"That's just it. I mean I think it's good that I keep changing, but more rapid progress, fewer identity crises, more internal stability would be nice."

Identity, in this world, *is* a crisis, actually.

The hard thing about it is digging out any conditioning that says this isn't an OK state of affairs, and embracing the changes that are in fact life and death.

If you have faith that you have a soul, (even vivid past lives don't necessarily mean 'faith' in that regard, just 'belief.' However verified thanks to modern record-keeping.)

"But I am learning to talk myself out of the crisis part of identity crisis if that makes sense. I mean are recurring identity crisis just part of life? What are they?"

Like I said, identity *is* a crisis, Maybe it's almost like a sport. Brings a lot of action and fun and vigor, but if there was nothing else it would quickly become torture and bitter struggle. You see it in some sports fans all the time, fanatical about their teams, but they don't even play.

Some Pagans will say that all joy comes from simultaneous perception of connection and otherness... Like laughter, like a dance, like all those experiences great poets and terrible ones have on beaches if they aren't looking for watches or footprints. :)

FARNAZ :"So, the place to start reading is Starhawk? Which book?"

Speaking only for myself I found "Dreaming the Dark" transformational:

"Action is ritual. myth, vision, quest. For most of us are not living in the wilderness, able to discover in the heart of wilderness the shapes of fear that form our inner limitations and break through them to power. The shapes in our minds that limit our power-from-within are mirrors of the prison, the gun, the guard. To reclaim our power, we must move into the territory of the real threats with which our culture controls us. Like Inanna, Persephone, Osiris, Dumuzi - like all the Goddesses and Gods who descend and return - we too can enter the kingdom of that which we fear most, although for us it may take the form of a weapons lab or a county jail. We can dissolve the shadow of the inner bomb when we openly confront the makers of the real bomb. Within that kingdom, when we join in community, in solidarity, we too can find sources of strength and renewal - the true magic that dissolves fear."

That little poem I just posted belongs to a Witch [Geli Tripping] in Gravity's Rainbow. As far as I can tell [after more readings than I can count] she's the "Good Guy" of the novel, but I don't know if you can get there from here. On the other hand, Pynchon sure comes up with a dark vision of Corporate engagement with the Nazis in WWII. And that "I.G. Farben" that he name-checks was Prescott Bush's baby. Not that I'm recommending GR as an intro to feminist spirituality, 'cause it ain't. But after reading Starhawk and Mary Daly and Susan Griffin, it sure reads different than it used to.

"So, the place to start reading is Starhawk? Which book?"

Well, I don't know who said that, F, but her 'Spiral Dance' works. I imagine some of it might give you fits, but she brings some dialogue with Judaism into there, along with the more conspicuous 70's feminism, things which might leap out at you.

Still, it's a very influential view.

She's got one called 'Circle Round' which is about stuff for Pagan families, which is good, I think, for an idea of maybe how all this stuff plays out, and 'The Pagan Book Of Living And Dying,' she co-authored, which looked pretty good, though I really didn't get to give it much of a read, personally.

I liked 'Dreaming the Dark' a lot, but I don't know what it'd do for someone not already Pagan: haven't read that in almost twenty years.

Good stuff, though, if kind of political for a lot of Pagans' tastes, at least before we seem to have ended up fighting for our existence in the media. :) 'Kinda California,' we allegedly-dour New Englanders said back in the day.

It's political *now,* whether we wanted that or not.

All that under the bridge, well, 'Spiral Dance' that's a good start. It's almost always on the short-list of Things To Read for newly-declared Pagans.

Is this the best place to start reading?

The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess

I went to Starhawk's web site. Doesn't seem to be much happening in the Northeast.

the recurring crisis of identity

That's just it. I mean I think it's good that I keep changing, but more rapid progress, fewer identity crises, more internal stability would be nice.

But I am learning to talk myself out of the crisis part of identity crisis if that makes sense. I mean are recurring identity crisis just part of life? What are they?

In one of Cynthia Ozick's novels, there is this line, "One day, he woke up, and he was older than he'd ever been before."

So, the place to start reading is Starhawk? Which book?

" Farnaz2 Author Profile Page:

""One thing Lady did for a stubborn 'old soul' like me with a real penchant for learning things the hard way... Taught me to be OK with that.""

"Lady helped you to transform?"

Well, speaking of Dionysius, it's probably more a 'Change or be Changed' kind of thing, but help? Oh, yeah. :)

"To be more self-accepting?"

Prolly still working on that one, by degrees, but, hey, we're not swinging for the fences, here. :)

" Don't mean to bland out what your saying, just trying to understand."

Fair enough. If you see it in terms of that Antoninus quote and Robin's poem, there's a start. Probably has a lot to do with not trying to greet the world and who we are as some kind of *static identity,* really. The difference between love and the recurring crisis of identity and attachment that a life can be. That kind of direction.

FARNAZ :"Quieter, calmer than Shira, I'm guessing...?"

Not really---Shira did a real impressive Ethyl Mermann and Babs, but Gail can vocalize a really scary catfight. I'm the one that got quieter, calmer. Also more cognizant when good fortune falls into my lap.

PAGANPLACE: "One thing Lady did for a stubborn 'old soul' like me with a real penchant for learning things the hard way... Taught me to be OK with that.

Veeery patiently. :)"

Yup!

FARNAZ : "Lady helped you to transform? To be more self-accepting?"

And accepting of others, understanding that if you love who they are then you don't try to change them, time takes care of that on its own terms.

"I'm sure this is true, but not of me, and not of everyone. I know a young fellow, a Conservative (nonegalitarian--no female rabbis) Jew, very observant, who is also Pagan, and observant.

"He sees no contradictions in this."

I don't imagine there really have to be, on some level. According to various Rabbis, my 'soft polytheism' means I could be allowed to live in a Jewish state, with certain restrictions, though many of my faith group couldn't. Not that certain types would stop to query about the distinction, if you know what I mean.

" He's also a chef. I'm not sure if that fits in anywhere though, except maybe that he has an expansive, creative mind. Chefs often do, you know."

Not a title I claim, chef, but cooking, I guess there's some magic, there, I'm told. :) If no books.

As for Quan Yin statues, *smile.* Long story, but one should do the trick. :)

One thing Lady did for a stubborn 'old soul' like me with a real penchant for learning things the hard way... Taught me to be OK with that.

Lady helped you to transform? To be more self-accepting? Don't mean to bland out what your saying, just trying to understand.

"Love never goes away,
Never completely dies,
Always some souvenir
Takes us by sad surprise. " (Robin wrote or quoted)

And Farnaz said:

"Robin,

"I guess you never wish it would go away. Sometimes, I do....

Doesn't it ever bother you?"

Take it from someone whose past life remembrance
was ...shall we say, a bit more vivid than baseline, (I must have *really* needed it)

Not speaking for Robin, there, but, I think it's *supposed* to. Until you don't need it to, anymore.

She changes everything She touches, and everything She touches, changes.

Sure, love never dies, but *we* transform.

More or less. ;)

One thing Lady did for a stubborn 'old soul' like me with a real penchant for learning things the hard way... Taught me to be OK with that.

Veeery patiently. :)

Now I'm happily married to a patient, kind, generous Teacher who's got about 50 Quan Yin Statues scattered through the house

Quieter, calmer than Shira, I'm guessing...?

People, both Jew and Gentile, are prone to pick up your holy book and presume that Paganism is actually idolatrous worship of statues and all manner of naughtiness taken as 'The Word of God.'

I'm sure this is true, but not of me, and not of everyone. I know a young fellow, a Conservative (nonegalitarian--no female rabbis) Jew, very observant, who is also Pagan, and observant.

He sees no contradictions in this. He's also a chef. I'm not sure if that fits in anywhere though, except maybe that he has an expansive, creative mind. Chefs often do, you know.

FARNAZ2 :"Robin, I guess you never wish it would go away. Sometimes, I do....

Doesn't it ever bother you?"

Remember when you said "You don't know the half of it! :)"

I know at least the half of it!

In any case, the Goddess has been extraordinarly kind to me.
Now I'm happily married to a patient, kind, generous Teacher who's got about 50 Quan Yin Statues scattered through the house.

But true love never dies, not if it's really true.

Apart from where you seem to want to claim it's something essential to Paganism that oppresses Jews, and readily throw us under the bus, it's not you I'm so much worried about.

You keep accusing me of this and for the life of me, I can't see how you're reading this in my posts.

"Similarly, my Catholic/Christian friends don't faint dead away when discussion of Dionysus, Tammuz, Attis, et al, and Jesus arise. "

Oh, they sure do. :)

"They do not gasp for air whilst acknowledging the lunacy of the "Sanhedrin" trial during Passover, the fake Pharisees, etc."

Not so much. But when I was a kid, the implication came that they were some kind of Vichy government. For what that's worth.

Then again, I figured if Jesus was coming back, he'd drop around to trash the place. :)

"I may not be like most Jews you know. So? And? Point?"

Point being it's a *faith and politics* blog, and people usually aren't in a hurry to own up to the way the more common presumptions play out politically...

" I'm asking to to speak to me as who I present myself as, not as a stereotype you hold in mind."

I'll do that as best I can. The thing is, there are in fact Christians here, too, and it's kind of their perceptions of both Jews and Pagans, ancient and modern, that seem to cause so much of the strife that vexes us all.

Apart from where you seem to want to claim it's something essential to Paganism that oppresses Jews, and readily throw us under the bus, it's not you I'm so much worried about.

I mean, hey, if you want to learn how this Pagan stuff is seen in the modern world, great. Just don't act like Mick yourself and claim a distorted view of us ....and our forebearers, is what we're supposed to answer for in modern America. People, both Jew and Gentile, are prone to pick up your holy book and presume that Paganism is actually idolatrous worship of statues and all manner of naughtiness taken as 'The Word of God.'

I hear it every day.

Robin,

I guess you never wish it would go away. Sometimes, I do....

Doesn't it ever bother you?

I don't know what Jews you know, nor do you know what Christians/Catholics I know.

Most Jews I know are familiar with Atrahasis, Gilgamesh, and stories of Sadak (has bearing on Moses), etc.

Similarly, my Catholic/Christian friends don't faint dead away when discussion of Dionysus, Tammuz, Attis, et al, and Jesus arise. They do not gasp for air whilst acknowledging the lunacy of the "Sanhedrin" trial during Passover, the fake Pharisees, etc.

I may not be like most Jews you know. So? And? Point? I'm asking to to speak to me as who I present myself as, not as a stereotype you hold in mind.

Anyway, when we were discussing the writings of that ol Pagan, Marcus Aurelius, we seemed to be having a better time:

"Nature which governs the whole will soon change all things which thou seest, and out of their substance will make other things, and again other things from the substance of *them,* in order that the world may be ever new.

"When a man has done thee any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when thou hast seen this, thou wilt pity him, and wilt never wonder nor be angry. Dor either thou thyself thinkest the same thing to be good that he does, or another thing of the same kind. It is thy duty then to pardon him. But if thou dost not think such things to be good or evil, thou wilt more readily be well disposed to him who is in error."

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, book 7, 25-26, G. Long trans (With lots of thees and thy's and thou. :) )

FARNAZ :"I guess you're still fond of her! Anyway, who wants a skinny eggplant?!"

Love never goes away,
Never completely dies,
Always some souvenir
Takes us by sad surprise.

You went away from me,
One rose was left behind
Pressed in my Book of Hours,
That is the rose I find ....

Though it's another year,
Though it's another me,
Under the rose is a drying tear,
Under my linden tree ....

Love never goes away,
Not if it's really true,
It can return, by night, by day,
Tender and green and new
As the leaves from a linden tree, love,
that I left with you.

Geli Tripping's little song from Gravity's Rainbow

Be careful---Very careful---of what you wish for.

If you see what I mean, Farnaz: There are some very different perspectives involved... and look at Pseudo's poetic question this morning: Is it trolling even to ask these questions?'

He could have just read the backscroll, but the answer's apparently, yes. Lookit what comes out.

I can see it's painful to you... Gods know there's enough pain about it out there, and I'm liable to go on a tear, myself about what's called 'Judeo-Christian.' In a sense you're 'blaming the victims' yourself, though, if you want to call a modern Pagan someone whose 'crap' of a heritage is responsible for all these 'evils.'

The only horse I have in this race is the sincere hope that my more wealthy-and-populous-and-better-armed neighbors can get along without the lot of em turning my people into the scapegoat. Dig?

I guess you're still fond of her! Anyway, who wants a skinny eggplant?!

Farnaz, you're *still* putting words in my mouth... frankly, much of it probably came of trying to speak to Christians on *their* terms, not to mention the terms plenty of Jews find convenient to use.

"And you've been doing it for days. I'm very interested in Paganism. Please stop slip-sliding away. My problem with what you've posted has to do with your Christian perspective, not your Pagan."

Listen. It's not 'my' perspective. It's this culture's. Trying to deconstruct it in a manner that accounts for the fact that everything referenced in the Bible, whether it happened or not, would not have occurred in a cultural vacuum, doesn't mean I have the 'perspectives' you keep rebuking me for.

"Again, and, truly for the last time. I believe there are such things as syncretism, imbrication, memesis. I believe that all three are operating in the Tanakh and in the NT. My example for the Tanakh is the flood story, but one could also add Moses as the stolen child, prince redeemer."

That's fine, I think we're agreed, there.
Most people *don't* see that as an Egyptian influence, though, on any side of whatever this kind of discussion always seems to become.

"Like I said, you can avoid dealing with the complexity of what I'm saying. That's really up to you. I can't force you to understand me."

Well, stop trying. I'm reading. I just ask the same. I just think you're arguing at a distorted image of what *I'm* saying. There's a lot of different people talking, here, and I'm sure everyone feels like they're being come at from all sides.

"Blaming the victim is an old game, helped along by rigid inherited beliefs and a variety of consequent prejudices."

I'm not blaming any victims, I'm saying that certain ideas of absolute written authority turned kind of toxic when they crossed cultures under the actual conditions and circumstances of the time. It's like introducing some kind of drug, fairly benign where it comes from, into a culture where no one has a tolerance for it or really the tools to respect or moderate it. Like alcohol or tobacco or opium or whatnot.

As for cultural appropriations and 'book-authority-addiction,' well, ...*Unlike* Christians, I don't think I'm blameless in this matter. I was Christian in previous lives and doubtless part of the problem, one way or another.

I'm talking about how maybe we can sort this out *and* in fact treat each other honorably. I *don't* think the way there is exactly entirely subsumed by fighting over books. Sorry if I'm not a great mediator, that way. But I *do* know some of the psychology of the religious culture to which I was so insistently and unwillingly-raised.

FARNAZ :"Is Shira the one with the long aubernish tresses, kneeling on the floor?"

Yup!

Oh, you said "walking." I'll look again.

Robin,

Is Shira the one with the long aubernish tresses, kneeling on the floor?

FARNAZ :"Robin,
Shira isn't the tall blond woman, is she?"

Click on that lovely, blue "The Rusalka Cycle" mini poster on the upper right-hand side. The second photo has the stunning, white-haired Catherine Rose on the left, my darling, zaftig eggplant wailing on the right.

Robin,

Shira isn't the tall blond woman, is she?

ut in the same vein, you don't understand Paganism so well. I clarified some things, for my part, because I do think you have that capacity, just seem attached to the notion of blaming Pagan influence for what was done with your own holy books.

Not at all. Quite the opposite. You are projecting.

And you've been doing it for days. I'm very interested in Paganism. Please stop slip-sliding away. My problem with what you've posted has to do with your Christian perspective, not your Pagan.

Again, and, truly for the last time. I believe there are such things as syncretism, imbrication, memesis. I believe that all three are operating in the Tanakh and in the NT. My example for the Tanakh is the flood story, but one could also add Moses as the stolen child, prince redeemer.

Like I said, you can avoid dealing with the complexity of what I'm saying. That's really up to you. I can't force you to understand me.
Blaming the victim is an old game, helped along by rigid inherited beliefs and a variety of consequent prejudices.

CCNL:

"Click on Journey Highlights on the referenced page and read about the historic/pagan Adam(Eve) and the other important archeological/DNA findings of human history. The findings cover the last 60,000 years. Enjoy!!!!"

Thanks for clarifying, ...I at least found what you quoted, (And, really, nothing more on that. It implies they finished that Y-chromosome study, but doesn't show much more, that I could see.)

Nice going, scientists, but you still seem to be drawing the wrong inferences from it, CCNL, this didn't indicate Adam was a solitary progenitor of the human race, (nor living in the same time as the Eve they ran down through mitochondrial DNA previously) nor did he have sex with a bunch of different women, each representing what we call various 'races,' ...this group that survived the evolutionary bottleneck would have come from a more diverse population, then re-diversified over time. Basically, it's more complex than you imply to 'prove' whatever point you were trying to get at. Particularly about 'Eve' having been some 'Wiccan Witch' for eating an apple.

(Apples weren't even native to the area even in the (much later) times the story . At some point that fruit was substituted for the original fig
tree.)

Farnaz, we've clearly been talking at cross purposes, then. I simply made the point, 'Hey, don't blame Paganism as you so often do, and as I've said three times before, *you* put the words you want to rebuke me for in my mouth, not me.

But, on this:

"Let's take an analogy from an oppressed group that has successfully raised consciousness about what their oppression says about their oppressors. This they did, btw., largely through polemics since, frankly, the O's don't get it otherwise. I know. I've tried "explaining" and not only on this blog."

Well, I know how you feel. Though I don't think it's the polemics that *really* do it. I've seen plenty of parallels... Obviously, yes, it's easier for we in minorities who are subjected to others' points of view when they don't understand us themselves...

But in the same vein, you don't understand Paganism so well. I clarified some things, for my part, because I do think you have that capacity, just seem attached to the notion of blaming Pagan influence for what was done with your own holy books. (And I've said repeatedly, I think this is to the detriment of all concerned, out of context, those books became the seed of the very things that turned to the oppression of Jews and non-Christians generally. The very things you seek to dissociate from, (and who doesn't) are ideas that turned somewhat poisonous out of their context. )

But, well, 'polemics' don't really direct anyone to change their ways, or as CCNL would have it, lead people to edit *their* holy books by some kind of fiat. They just shock complacency, and give a chance to both see people more sympathetically (In the Christians' case, they've come to *identify* with the Jews rather than see you as foreign subversive 'Christ-killers, for instance,) and then actually meet and get to know people on their own terms.

I could draw some analogies with how Native Americans have had their ...cultural respect raised, if not, unfortunately their economic conditions. I've certainly encountered in the past, some pretty angry American Indian activists who took some pretty hard lines, (and loved to blame 'Anglo' Pagans for imitating their ways, even if they weren't,) but also many who said, 'You hurt us cause you lost your own ways, show some respect and we can help you find them again.'

So it's not *just* about 'polemic.' Admittedly it's pretty hard to get through to a lot of people on the 'You're hurting us,' 'No, we're not' bit, but these things take time and effort.

FARNAZ :"I clicked on the link. What or who am I looking for or listening to?"

Shira's the manager [and loudest vocalist] of Kitka, the closest thing the west has to "Le Mystere de Voix Bulgare." The "Rusalka" tales are old Witch tales from Russia. Shira comes from a classic East Coast, celebration of intellect, not so orthodox but ultimately devout Jewish Family. She also [in addition to being a prodigy on the oboe] studied feminism which led to an profound interest in feminist spirituality, an interest we share. We were together for eight mostly glorious years. One of her uncles spent a lot of time in Israel and wanted to be a Rabbi. Instead he became a specialist in conflict resolution, which I think is way cool.

Robin,

I clicked on the link. What or who am I looking for or listening to?

'Hey, you're getting this wrong and it's not for you, anyway,' but that doesn't mean people appreciate being called villains or having *their* culture denigrated.

Let me try this another way, but, no offense, I'm running out of ways.

Let's take an analogy from an oppressed group that has successfully raised consciousness about what their oppression says about their oppressors. This they did, btw., largely through polemics since, frankly, the O's don't get it otherwise. I know. I've tried "explaining" and not only on this blog.

Let us say that you were black, and a white person wrote Uncle Remus for you and explained that they were his views of your stories, and hey, chill. I mean don't be so proprietary. Does y'all see yuhselfs in they'ah? Is ya bein' misrepresented?

Stop hoggin' it all fuh yuh own self.

This is the best I can do. How Jews feel is not the issue. I'm not a spokesman for the Jews on planet earth any more than you are for the Pagans or Christians on the same planet.

You know, sociologists of knowledge say the "oppressor" can never read the oppressed, never "understand." It's just the way it is. So we know all about yer JC, but you know nothing about us.

Of course, we're differentially oppressed, I know, so you need not explain it to me.

I have posted of syncretism, pagan elements in the Tanakh, etc., but this goes largely ignored. For some people, it just may be that complex thinking is a bummer. Not sayin' that's necessarily anyone we know....

Farnaz; "Robin,

OMG! Bagel is my pet name for CCNL, not you!!!"

Errrrr. . . right.

I referred to myself previously as a Bagelwitch, feel free. . .

BTW, my ex Shira really is a Jewitch:

http://www.kitka.org/rusalkacycle/index.html

Robin,

OMG! Bagel is my pet name for CCNL, not you!!!

Farnaz

Farnaz:

"Hmmm. Seems you Christians, Pagan and otherwise (should be a contradiction, but isn't) have claimed an awful lot for yourselves at the expense of others."

Happens I was raised Christian, and have to deal with their beliefs about both yourself and me. Judaism certainly has its own scorn for Pagan folk in there, and yes, some pretty defamatory depictions one can hear from that quarter. Not all Jews in American politics, certainly, are in such a hurry to separate themselves from the Christians' sense of heritage, but then again, it's pretty rare they come at us in the same way. I'm certainly all for you saying, 'Hey, you're getting this wrong and it's not for you, anyway,' but that doesn't mean people appreciate being called villains or having *their* culture denigrated.

Certainly, Christians see and apparently embrace a 'vengeful' God in what they call the Old Testament, and that's not your fault if you don't: frankly, maybe in coming times something can be done to help clear that up... but when it comes to *my* heritage, too often certain Jewish folks will still try and tell Christians, 'We have the only God and real heritage, leave us alone and go back to your 'crap,'' ...and why would anyone want to do *that,* if you frame it that way, I suppose.

There's obnoxious types all around. Obviously, Jewish people have gotten the shaft all through European history, ...but so have any religious minority. (Including, I think, what we now call 'liberal Christians.') We shouldn't be fighting each other in that manner.

Especially in that we're, (Gods help us make it so) about to enter a period, here in America, where just maybe we won't be so-insidiously divided from the top down, well, it's no time for everyone to be turning on each other over our variously-wounded prides and traumas, just when we most need to work together, and in fact, address some misconceptions.

You seem to want to lump me in with ignorant people speaking for you, ....I'm really trying to describe how these ideas operate in society.

I have sort of a second family who are Russian Jews who got out of the USSR at the height of the cold war. People who ended up taking me into their home when I had to jet from my own. In fact made a very *nice* contrast between what the Catholics and most of Christianity claim Judaism is all about.

But what's in those books, so unjustly appropriated, still has to be come to terms with, by everyone involved.

I can see there's pain involved, there, and a desire to push things *as far away as possible,* but that can't extend in any nuanced view to putting words in my mouth when I'm trying to address you. (and others at the same time) Hot buttons, I know, but others have em, too.

In the world as it is, we all still have means to go forward together, with respect and cooperation.

Gonna need that. :)

FARNAZ :"Read Maimonides, Bagel. Open your mind. Let me know what you think. He's not being literal."

Will do.

Meanwhile:

". . .And as for the "equal protection" clause of the 14th amendment to the constitution, adopted July 28, 1868, an amendment purposefully enacted with the African-American in mind, it has been used by the Supreme Court of the United States to hand the presidency of the United States to a southern Christian conservative who thinks of Jesus as his model political philosopher. This president immediately nominated a right wing Christian lawyer to the post of attorney general who has said, "We have no king but Jesus" (Pollitt, 2001). An article by Vincent Bugliosi explains that the Court had never accepted the equal protection argument in any case brought before it by blacks or in cases having to do with discrimination, and that accepting the argument in this case clearly violated both the intention and the legality of the application of the law. Those who followed the events of the presidential election in 2000, and especially the Post-election political and judicial fracas in Florida, will understand the motivations confirmed by that Supreme Court ruling (December 2, 2000). Bugliosi concludes that " ... the real equal protection violation [in this case] took place when [the Court] cut off the ounting of the undervotes" (2001). Equal protection? Equality? Integration? As Jimmy Carter explained the reasons for writing an account of his childhood in Georgia, "We need to recognize that the racial issue has not been dealt with" (2001). That means that something is terribly wrong in America. If "American" means living here in this land and taking part in its life and work, the African-American is the most American of any other immigrant people, but the least recognized as worthy of equal rights and equal protection under the law. Even at the height of the civil rights activity when Ralph Bunche, a brilliant black American with stellar credentials in internaonal diplomacy for the United Nations, asked the Congress of the United States to declare lynching illegal, the request was refused.

Burton L. Mack, "The Christian Myth"

Seriously, I already Googled the "Guide" before you asked me and I know a used bookstore run by a couple of them theosophists that have a good chance of having a physically manifest copy on their shelves.

Blessed Be!
Robin

Robin,

It's a funny thing, and most won't believe it, but CCNL comes closest to getting it of anyone on this blog. Every once in awhile, he allows it to influence his posts, but then backslides. Don't know if it's conscious. The occasional getting it is why I can't entirely give up on him.

Read Maimonides, Bagel. Open your mind. Let me know what you think. He's not being literal.

Follow the human empowerment trail at https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html . Click on Journey Highlights on the referenced page and read about the historic/pagan Adam(Eve) and the other important archeological/DNA findings of human history. The findings cover the last 60,000 years. Enjoy!!!!

FARNAZ: ". . .how do you explain this to people who have inherited a tradition premised on replacement ideology, replacement that is of your people's belief system? "Getting it" for them isn't easy, and we Jews haven't made it easier by sitting around and letting them do it."

There's really no substitute for sitting down with people of varied faiths and breaking bread. That's one of the glories of Food Not Bombs. We've got Catholic Workers, Agnostic doctors, full-blown Anarchists, Goddess-loving Catholics, a Methodist or two, a couple two/three Buddhists and at least three Witches in our group.

It's one thing when these discussions are in the virtual plane. When you're standing right next to all these different people, chopping vegetables and stirring a giant cauldron of soup it's altogether better, so much real-er.

Robin,

Jesus, Mary, and Uncle Joe, not to worry! Typos is my nickname!

Robin,

Well spoke all around, but how do you explain this to people who have inherited a tradition premised on replacement ideology, replacement that is of your people's belief system? "Getting it" for them isn't easy, and we Jews haven't made it easier by sitting around and letting them do it.

Of course when we start explaining, we're (a) not heard, (b) angrily defended against and still not heard, and (c) accused of complaining (as in "complaining" Jews.

Ontogeny recaptitulates phylogeny with C's and J's including Cps, and has done so on this blog since the beginning. So, now you see moi is no longer willing to listen to the weepy whining and shrilly screamers without talking back. Nor is Observer12, a former C person, it would seem.

As I said, and I'll happily say it again, though not too many more times: treat my religion with respect. There is no OT. There is only the Tanakh. Do not tell me about what's in MY PEOPLE's SACRED TEXT AND I WON'T TELL YOU ABOUT WHAT'S IN YOURS.

Otherwise, stop yer whining, bithing, and self-proclaimed victimization. Geez Louise, if you can be all objective and scientific about the OT, Arminius, Paganplace, why can't I be the same about the "New" Testament?

Seems your awfully free with other people's religions.

Best suggestion, do unto others....

Ah, why must the Gods/Goddesses mock me with all these typos!

"and I stay on to make trouble for their successors," should read "and stay on to make trouble for their successors." "You also notice that have have two sets of plates," should read as :"You also notice that they have two sets of plates."

Oy gevalt!

A GREAD QUESTION ALSO WILL SOLVE ALL PROBLEMS.
WHERE IS THE PROPHET-PRODUCER LANDS? IS THERE ANY
LANDS ANOTHER AREAS OF THE WORLD..DON'T KNOW THE GOD ANOTHER AREAS?

It *might* be trolling at this point, given everyone's just been taking offense, actually, Pseudo.

Bearing in mind that even to say 'The Early Christians' tends to telescope centuries of history into what's made a single narrative, one which tends to say St. Peter went directly to Rome and personally began the modern Church, etc... As the story goes, the earliest Christians, including Paul, were in fact Jews (though in Paul's case, it could be argued he might have known little about it: he certainly didn't talk like any Rabbi I ever met. :) )

But pretty quickly, a lot of other people got involved: maybe Farnaz can help out, here, but it's my understanding that most Jews of the time, even if prone to figure anyone like Jesus was the Messiah, would probably have expected immediate political and military results and suchlike, so they would have had to spread into other ground in large measure, maybe precisely because some neighboring cultures were pretty used to *not* taking things so literally (Ironic, isn't it?)

Were the 'Early Christians' then avid readers of the Tanakh? Doesn't so much seem so. It first grew among the less-literate classes in an economically-stratified Empire: (and still retains a certain degree of anti-intellectualism from slaves and soldiers, really) ...when Constantine decided to harness this movement to become Emperor without the usual means of support, he chose those elements with an absolute set of laws to suit: before that, things seem to have been all over the place.

When Christianity became a useful *political* tool, that seems to be when it really needed to appropriate the Jewish laws to borrow an absolutist antiquity to replace the old set of order: Before then, it had many of the hallmarks of any mystery cult that'd come out of the Eastern Empire. As more of the upper classes got involved, it was likely pretty convenient to refer to such things to any number of ends, namely a sense of social control it'd have been a lot harder to get out of trying to manage the various different Christian groups and followers of Herakles and Mithras and Cybele and all.

Not modern Christians, and not, in any large measure, Jews, at least by then, I'd certainly say. Basically you have to telescope history pretty seriously to answer your question 'yes or no'

Dear FARNAZ, PAGANPLACE, ARMINIUS ,

I guess you could say I’m a polytheistic mongrel. Something I’ve noticed about folks who deign to call themselves “Pagans” or [better still] “Witches” is that they’re [we’re?] usually heretical, anti-orthodox, polytheistic freethinkers. You could call it Po-Mo Spirituality, that might be closer to the mark than “Neo-Pagan.” Anyway, that’s what my pineal gland is telling me. Using some of the older definitions of the word “Pagan” seems appropriate when folks like me cite the likes of Eris or Apollo but it gets real murky when I start throwing “Christ lag in Todesbanden” or the I Ching into the mix, and potentially ugly when when I step on someone else’s orthodoxy or thoughtlessly denigrate someone else’s sacred tradition. Again, like Jon Stewart sez: ”no disrespect” [his offhand Jerseyism usually follows some massive dis.]*

I have a theory, which is mine [followed by much throat clearing and other lame attempts to resurrect an old Monty Python routine] concerning environment and religion. Stripping away judgemental critical language hopefully will make my warped P.O.V. less offensive. In essence, there is a continuum that runs from monotheism‡ to polytheism that reflects the environment from which a given religion’s big myths emerged. So I see monotheism coming out of deserts and polytheisms coming from more tangled environments. Rather than sailing out from that theorem into dark, uncharted waters, I’ll end these obs. with a favorite quote:

“As it has been, and apparently ever shall be, gods, superseded, become the devils in the system which supplants their reign, and I stay on to make trouble for their successors, available, as they are, to a few for whom magic has not despaired, and been superseded by religion."
William Gaddis, “The Recognitions”

"No disrespect." ;)

*apropos of nothing: http://tinyurl.com/ywxf54

‡Of course, once you sit down with these "Monotheists," you realize that their myths are much more complex than you assumed when you first sat down in their living rooms. You also notice that have have two sets of plates.

Arminius,

Oh, and patronizing? Well, gee. Ah mean Jeez Louise. So, you take another people's book, tell them about their vengeful God, a God that they know nothing of, refer to their book as the OT and you do this for years. Then when you find one of those folks tired of yer patronizing and presumption talking back, well, SHE's "patronizing"?

Hmmm. Seems you Christians, Pagan and otherwise (should be a contradiction, but isn't) have claimed an awful lot for yourselves at the expense of others.

IMHO, best to cease and desist cuz them days are definitively over. Also chill out, ease up, boys and girls.

Arminius,

"Just take it easy, there. Cultures do influence each other, is all. We're doing it right now."

Agreed. Farnaz is beginning to be a bit annoying. Almost patronizing. She needs to take a trip to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. There she will learn true humor and the proper structure of a Western religion!

Err, I've been saying that "cultures influence each other," that they're syncretic, that the Tanakh flood myth for example has analogies with other myths in the region, been saying it from the start on this thread.

Wonder why you haven't seen it. You know what could get annoying? People who get all weepy and whiny if someone uses words like "crap" about something they feel good about, or people who go all pugilistic without even reading your posts (not you), or people who tell you over and over again on post after post that the "OT" is myth, all fable, fiction, forget about it, but get all whiny when suggestions that THEIR Nt is pretty fictive itself.

Like I say, best not to start fires if you don't like heat. Otherwise you could get annoying.

You could also get annoying when you chime in with someone else, aka gang up with, a strategy known as bullying. Now why does that ring a bell?

Annoying...hmmm.

You seem quite willing to go with the tradition of denigrating myths and mysteries and claiming other people's Gods don't exist, for instance.

Err, I'M getting a bit testy??!! Ya know if ya can't take the heat yer shouldn't be lightin' no fires. Yeah we been there before.

Was the Christ charismatic?

As all of you are on a roll
So would you see it as a troll
To just ask and be amused
Were early Christians really Jews?

%-}

Well, I', just glad it didn't turn into an extended four-way slugfest or anything. I do understand the frustration, ...she does refer to some things that certainly have brought about, bad behavior, shall we say, but, well, it's late. (I should probably resist this burst of energy and rest, myself) .

Useful stuff in there how people talk past each other.

I'd say, Arminius, that your religious experience doesn't actually *depend* on any sense of historicity... Again, it's a Pagan talking, but that's not even in general an issue for us, (Part of why 'myth' isn't a dirty word to us, as it can be used by others... I've certainly had some very 'real' experiences that don't depend on anything like a 'historical Dionysius' for instance, (Not that I make particular claims, there ;) )

Myth and mystery can be that real to people... starting to fight about which is and which isn't, that's where a lot of problems have come from.

Peace out, all. :)

FARNAZ2 :"You don't know the half of it! :)"

Hey, I took that big ride in the high chair, trust me—as some one who married a fabulously gifted musician named Shira, I may even know the half of it.

Paganplace said to Farnaz,

"Just take it easy, there. Cultures do influence each other, is all. We're doing it right now."

Agreed. Farnaz is beginning to be a bit annoying. Almost patronizing. She needs to take a trip to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. There she will learn true humor and the proper structure of a Western religion!

"Before you pronounce on that which you either don't understand or are defending yourself against, take a look at one of the many, many books about supercessionism and where it has led the world. It's been a bloody road. My kid bled on that road."

What I was pronouncing on was that you put words in my mouth and weren't getting what I was *saying,* Farnaz. We've had discussions before when you wanted to place all the blame on certain outsiders before, you may recall. I thought you'd come to understand *me* a bit better by now. I understand your reasons to be defensive, but sometimes you seem too willing to say nasty things about others in the process.

We've all had our kids hurt by this, heck, *I've* bled on a very similar road, if you will, in very real ways.

Just take it easy, there. Cultures do influence each other, is all. We're doing it right now.

Farnaz,

To the best of my knowledge, there is no correlating evidence for David or Solomon. The only outside supporting historical evidence comes with the Assyrians and the Babylonian Exile.

I have NOT appropriated your text. Others have.

Thomas Jefferson edited the Gospels two centuries ago.

Observant Christians believe the Deity, through Jesus, instituted a New Covenant. You have your covenant, we have ours. Sad it is that we screwed it up and made things bad for you. We will answer for that. Perhaps we are answering for it now. Threefold, as our Pagan friends wisely say.

Robin,

Eris, I believe, is my aunt. :)"

These blended marriages—tsuris, nothing but tsuris,

You don't know the half of it! :)

You seem quite willing to go with the tradition of denigrating myths and mysteries and claiming other people's Gods don't exist, for instance.

You don't get me. Either because you're being defensive or because you just don't get me or it. A great deal has been written about Christian/Catholic supercessionism regarding the "NT" and "OT," although the concept is not complex. The Vatican has divided itself into pieces trying to get out of it with various statements, some of them on its web site.

But until they rid themselves of typology, leave a belief system they know nothing of, alone, they'll never be untainted.

Before you pronounce on that which you either don't understand or are defending yourself against, take a look at one of the many, many books about supercessionism and where it has led the world. It's been a bloody road. My kid bled on that road.

"Jesus was of the Jews, but proceeded to turn it all on its head. He built a beautiful new thing out of it. It is the continuing misfortune of the world that His legacy has been twisted and perverted."

Well, Arminius, in pragmatic terms, you can't compare the notion that *Christianity* would have been deeply influenced by the surrounding cultures of the time with some idea about Aztecs and Egyptians from different places and times being in contact: in fact, the cultures *were* in contact, this is part of why the cultural practices of the Jews were and are so strict: to maintain that separation...

This doesn't mean a character like JC would have been unaware of the symbolism, especially given the crowds he hung out with and unaccounted for times in his life (some claim romantically that he even went to England in that time. :) )

If you presume he was a Jew, then likely what he meant *was* a Passover supper and any other symbolism was either familiar or added later... (Besides, as a third option, if he was omniscient as he was cracked up to be, he'd know everything, anyway, right? :) )

It's just far more likely that the conflation with Pagan mysteries either came from the world of the time or were attached to the Christian ideas later. Some of the Gnostic stuff is actually kind of familiar, if odd, to those mystery traditions, too.

Of course, being the kind of Pagan a good Jew like he would never ever hang out with, or know about, clearly he was the original authority which only went bad when some outsider corrupted it, right?

This isn't what you're saying, friend, right?

There's good in communication, too... And I don't think what makes Christianity special to you isn't some insistence that your guy is especially-historical and that nothing else is any good, right?

Farnaz,

I leave you and yours out of what I believe. I follow my own path. It is not yours. Yours is not mine. There is no conflict here on that.

I don't give a happy damn what the Qu'ran says. That is not a put down. The way of Islam is a good way, but it is not mine.

Jesus indeed died on the cross. Yes, I know, no direct evidence. But that is very, very real to me. Sometimes I think that I was there. Can't explain it.

I'm sorry if you take offense at the 'OT' term. It is habit to me, and I mean nothing derogatory.

Arminius,

Moses could be called an invention, and so could God. David and Solomon could not be. For them archaelogical and textual evidence exists.

However, I don't wish to offend you. IMHO whatever helps one and doesn't harm others is a good thing. I just don't like replacement ideology. I don't like others having expropriated a text, voided an entire belief system, and claimed they superceded it.

Take the Christian Testament, or take the Qu'ran, or take Moroni or take the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Many Christians, Haynes among them, and Catholics have called for the editing of the NT. A great deal is known about what was put in and when. But that isn't all Haynes, et al, want. They want it rid of replacement ideology. They want the bs about the Pharisees removed since it's clearly fictive. And they want an end to the racializing that exists in the "New" (sic) Testament, as surely as the supercessionism.

Observant Jews believe the deity has a covenant with all peoples. It is not up to them to question it. Would Christians would get that oh-so-simple message.

I must go, Arminius.

Goodnight, my friend.

Farnaz

Farnaz -

"Jesus could plausibly be called an invention and has been many times."

As could Moses. As could David. As could Abraham. As could Solomon. As could God.

What else is new? Or simply convenient?

FARNAZ2 :"Robin,

Eris, I believe, is my aunt. :)"

These blended marriages—tsuris, nothing but tsuris,

FARNAZ2 :"Jesus could plausibly be called an invention and has been many times."

I often see him as a beta version of Mr. Natural.

Paganplace,

Yes, of course, the Greeks were all over the place in that area due to one Alexander of Macedon. Greek was the Lingua Franca of the entire area, only superceeded in Judea by Aramaic. So what? Judea wholeheartedly rejected Greek culture, and they even had a successful rebellion against it in 167 BC/BCE. They would not have accepted any Greek religion, and believe me, the Jews of that era were pretty hard core. Jesus was of the Jews, but proceeded to turn it all on its head. He built a beautiful new thing out of it. It is the continuing misfortune of the world that His legacy has been twisted and perverted.

(Oof, and may I draw attention to Arminius' correction of what he meant to say about *not* interpreting: I inadvertently quoted the uncorrected bit without pointing that out.)

Anyway, Farnaz, on this:

"Excuse me, but no. Jesus was not a Jew obviously or otherwise, In all likelihood he was a fable, or more accurately a myth. "

The character. I'm obviously not attached to the notion of a historical Jesus, but there was likely someone resembling him somewhere, or someone plausibly-Jewish to his original following.

My point about where there are Jewish sources for some ideas and dogmas doesn't mean I think they are interpreted in a properly-Jewish *way,* as I've learned from rabbis, friends, and a family I lived with through some important times. I said it was *appropriated.* Fused into something that doesn't really get the context of either the Jewish or Pagan elements that it came from. But the situation's more complex than just claiming Christianity as 'other' and trying to blame some still other group for their existence.

I can see you're being pretty defensive about that, and I understand it, but there was a cultural millieu of the time from which all these divisions arose. Some of which divisions still seem to vex us now.

You seem quite willing to go with the tradition of denigrating myths and mysteries and claiming other people's Gods don't exist, for instance.

(In a lot of ways, you can blame some of the philosophy of the time for how *this* got absorbed into Christianity, but:

The idea of singular, textual, absolute authorities in this sort of matter was *appropriated,* wrongly and out of context of course, but whether or not there was a Jewish rebel to whom miracles were attributed, no, isn't of concern to me.

Jesus could plausibly be called an invention and has been many times.

Robin,

Eris, I believe, is my aunt. :)

Arminius, My Friend,

I think you understand me, and I know it's difficult for you to come to terms with what I'm saying and your own beliefs.

Let me try it this way. Mohammad was the last prophet. Jesus Christ was not killed nor was he the Son of God. To say so is an abomination and all who do shall go to hell. Thus speaks the Qu'ran although more eloquently. It is polite enough however, not to refer to the Christian Testament as Old.

All I ask is that you leave me and mine out of your and yours.

FARNAZ2: "Just keep us J's out of it that's all I ask."

Well alright then! [ahem.]

I've known quite a few jewitches, am a bit of a bagelwitch myself.

"No disrespect," as Jon Stewart Sez.

And now for something completely different [from "Principia Discordia"]:

DO NOT CIRCULATE

WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ERIS (not much)

The Romans left a likeness of Her for posterity--She was shown as a grotesque woman with a pale and ghastly look, Her eyes afire, Her garment ripped and torn, and as concealing a dagger in Her Bosom. Actually, most women look pale and ghastly when concealing a chilly dagger in their bosoms.

Her geneology is from the Greeks and is utterly confused. Either She was the twin of Ares and the daughter of Zeus and Hera; or She was the daughter of Nyx, goddess of night (who was either the daughter or wife of Chaos, or both), and Nyxis brother, Erebus, and whose brothers and sisters include Death, Doom, Mockery, Misery and Friendship. And that She begat Forgetfullness, Quarrels, Lies, and a bunch of gods and goddesses like that.

One day Mal-2 consulted his Pineal Gland* and asked Eris if She really created all of those terrible things. She told him that She had always liked the Old Greeks, but that they cannot be trusted with historic matters. "They were," She added, "victims of indigestion, you know."

Suffice it to say that Eris is not hateful or malicious. But She is mischievous, and does get a little bi‡<#y at times.

"I do reinterpret for you. I reinterpret for me. The only connection of our sacrament of the bread and wine is the Seder. Obviously there is no Jewish tradition of body and blood. Jesus added that Himself, a new thing. As for any connection to Greek mystery cults, hogwash. That's like saying the Mayans and Aztecs learned about pyramids from the pharaohs. Many ideas have had separate origins, including things like calculus, as well as the reverence of bread and wine."

Hardly hogwash: unlike the Mayans and Egyptians, the early Christians and the people of Greece, Rome, Egypt, Asia Minor, and the Pagan peoples of Palestine and the Middle East were all intermingled and in daily contact... Jesus was *rebelling* against the Romans, remember, and made a point of hanging out with people the Jews scorned... there would have been Pagans among them.

It's more likely any historical Jesus had or was presumed to have a Passover supper and this was conflated with ideas from mystery cults later: it's how an audience from the world of the time would tend to *see* the symbolism, even if unconscious or unintended... so it's not something you could plausibly call a new invention. But like I said, that could be a starting point for some understanding.

Well, Farnazz, I'd be OK with that, (of course,) though any historical figure Jesus was obviously a Jew, and, well, Christianity, however wrong it may have gotten it, did actually take Jewish stuff to base its ideas of authority and literalism and exclucivism and divine texts from, ...though probably a lot of the early Christians themselves would have found the notion foreign.

Excuse me, but no. Jesus was not a Jew obviously or otherwise, In all likelihood he was a fable, or more accurately a myth. Josephus is not taken seriously by most nor are those who, like Tacitus, cribbed from him. More and more the same is true of the Q Gospel in the sky. The problems with the Gospels on the page are too well known for me to rehearse here. As for JCs Pagan doubles, there number is multiple, and I'm surprised that one as well read as you didn't come across them. There are than those I mentioned more since the days of Will Durant. See below.

Jewish exclusivism is another Christian myth. Read Maimonides or read the Talmud or read Ruth.
Funny, like Observer said, none of what I posted should bother a Pagan.

It was not us who came up with the idea of "pure blood," other blood stuff. That's a Christian thing. A Christian othering thing.

Tell you what, though. I won't explain Paganism to you, and you don't explain Judaism or Jewish beliefes to me. And leave me and mine out of the Christian theirs and them.

Farnaz,

BIG correction! I meant to say 'I do NOT reinterpret for you.'

Sorry...

Farnaz, my friend,

I'll try to explain where I am coming from.

I do reinterpret for you. I reinterpret for me. The only connection of our sacrament of the bread and wine is the Seder. Obviously there is no Jewish tradition of body and blood. Jesus added that Himself, a new thing. As for any connection to Greek mystery cults, hogwash. That's like saying the Mayans and Aztecs learned about pyramids from the pharaohs. Many ideas have had separate origins, including things like calculus, as well as the reverence of bread and wine.

As to what we Christians call the 'Old Testament', yes, this is tied into our concept of the New Covenant. There is much wisdom and great beauty in that volume of lore. But I do not follow the Mosaic laws, and, note well, I do not put them down. That is not my path.

As to the actual historicity of Jesus, I am well aware of the difficulties. Yes, most of Josephus is discredited. Yes, there is no direct evidence. But there is much indirect evidence, and lack of direct proof, as you know, is not disproof. Anyway, if the Gospels were invented out of whole cloth, don't you think whoever did it would have done a better job?

As to the theoretical 'Q' document - what's the fuss all about? Textual examination of the Gospels shows that there must have been an exterior source of the sayings of Jesus. It did not have to be a document. The authors probably talked to actual witnesses (as Luke said he did), or to people who knew witnesses. What's the big deal? The 'Q' is a convenient explanation.

Yes, of course, too many so-called 'Christians' co-opt the Torah and your other sacred books and call them their own. And proceed to loot and pillage. They are wrong to do this.

With respect,

Arminius

"Now, how about giving credit to Pagans where credit is due. Leave us Js out of it. Moi, I have no problem with flood stories of the region, and as I posted the other day, notwithstanding syncretism, etc., each myth is uniquely the product of its culture."

Well, Farnazz, I'd be OK with that, (of course,) though any historical figure Jesus was obviously a Jew, and, well, Christianity, however wrong it may have gotten it, did actually take Jewish stuff to base its ideas of authority and literalism and exclucivism and divine texts from, ...though probably a lot of the early Christians themselves would have found the notion foreign.

Which brings us back to Paul and Constantine and their agendas. Just don't push the 'blame' back off on Pagans (and our 'crap,' :) ) either. :)

A lot of the brew that's sort of become the aggressive Christianity we all know too well came from the politics and society of the time: on the upside, there's some common ground among all these groups that we could use to understand each other a bit better, ...the big problem is the tendency to think we know everything about each other and don't like it.

Good fences and all. Not that plenty of Jews in power and influence aren't perfectly willing to play up the 'Judeo Christian' concept and throw everyone else under the bus at convenience.

Still, even CCNL shares our common ancestress back in Africa long, long ago, though you wouldn't know it, sometimes. It sounds like he's going, 'So, where'd the one original dude fit in, he was doing Eve and a bunch of women of other races?' :)

Bagel,

For your A.M. reading:

If Eve existed, she surely wasn't a Wiccan witch (there are other more plausible connections with Chava) but JC may well have been a Dyonisus, Attis, Mythra, et al, who surely didn't exist.

If you have any gray cells remaining, go to the link a gave for "A Guide for the Perplexed." He was way above you cognitively speaking, but you are perplexed and may gain from the reading.

"Again, follow the DNA trail at https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/ . The site is active simply click on the address."

I saw the site. I don't see any references to the discovery of a single male ancestor, actually, only you seem to have said that. I figure you inferred it after all, cause that would make headlines, since it's much harder than tracing mitochondrial DNA, which is again passed down intact through the mother, with only random mutations marking divergence.

Pinning down a single male common ancestor would be big news, though not of the type you seem to imagine.

"Considering the situation of supply and demand facing the first humans, polygamy would probably be common."

I would say more simply that considering that monogamy is actually a very artificial structure, one which our instincts seem constantly at odds with, if you asked a lot of people even today, or observed tribal cultures, mates wouldn't necessarily be permanent or exclusive in the first place.

Even so, while a common male or female ancestor might well be expected to have had multiple partners, it's not a necessary condition for their genes spreading widely among the group from which we're all commonly related: their kids could have just been that successful raising offspring, who in turn intermarried thoroughly, as smaller groups really tend to do.

" And one could postulate that the DNA of said single and empowered Adam was distributed to various women resulting into today's various races?? One assumes all of these first generations of the human races were all pagan by definition. "

It's kind of silly to suggest that a la Biblical myth they might have had a whole bunch of kids each of whom founded a 'race,' ...that's mythical speaking of a sort that western thought is admittedly biased to *from* Biblical notions of what reproduction is about, but, no, the picture is much more complex and stretched over a lot more time and physical separation. They've charted it.

And your 'definitions' don't justify you saying 'Eve' was a character who ate an apple and was the first 'Wiccan Witch' as you said a while back.

Now run along. :)

Bagel,

Don't worry your little head about Adam. If he did exist, he was no ancestor of yours.

Stick with your 30% Dyonisus, et al.

"The bread and wine was, or represented, the body and blood of Christ; the worshippers of Dionysus, Attis and Mithra had entertained like beliefs at the banquets where they ate the magic embodiments or symbols of their gods."

Guess who? Bagel. Why, Will Durant, of course, and there are so many others.

Now, how about giving credit to Pagans where credit is due. Leave us Js out of it. Moi, I have no problem with flood stories of the region, and as I posted the other day, notwithstanding syncretism, etc., each myth is uniquely the product of its culture.

It's just that Christ's wasn't Jewish.

Like I been tellinya stay outta my testament and I'll stay outta yours. Get in my face, and, well, you know the rest.

Now, be a nice Christian boy and off to be with you. Surely, Crossan's deep in the Zs.

Paganplace,

Again, follow the DNA trail at https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/ . The site is active simply click on the address.

Considering the situation of supply and demand facing the first humans, polygamy would probably be common. And one could postulate that the DNA of said single and empowered Adam was distributed to various women resulting into today's various races?? One assumes all of these first generations of the human races were all pagan by definition.

Arminius,

Transubstantiation or consubstantiation, or no substantiation, merely symbol--None of them are Judaen things. Surely, you must know this. It's evident even in the Tanakh.

Arminius,

I can't answer for Observer and won't try. I, however, can say that he is absolutely correct when he says that due to radical (root) contrasts between the Christian testament version of the Messianic Age and the Jewish, because it is INCONCEIVABLE that any Jew in history would have made the analogy between bread/flesh and wine/blood for the reasons he gives, scholars, including priests have "posited" a Greek Jesus. And yes, there are similarities between Jesus and Pagan deities, including Dionysus.

I, for one, and I mean no offense, since I think you're a noble soul, don't understand why you feel so free to refer to the "OT," which as you know, many of us find offensive as hell, and to dismiss it as myth, whilst proclaiming the facticity of Jesus. AT this you take offense.

I don't know whether he lived or not, whether he's fact or fict. I trust Josephus as little as many contemporary scholars do, and the Q document, regardless of what one may think is not held in great esteem by all Christian scholars.

Mostly, I don't care what others think or believe. I don't believe in a conventional deity as you know. I also don't believe in another group co-opting my people's sacred text, calling it "Old," calling God vengeful, etc. Don't like it. Wish the Christians had written their own book and left us out of it.

I would appreciate it, and I speak only for myself, if that wretched God was kept clear of me, likewise reference to the OT. As for Jesus, sorry, there is no way that the blood/wine, flesh/bread stands up with any Judaism then or now. Original sin is foreign to us, as is a torturer God etc. Just keep us J's out of it that's all I ask.

Do not reinterpret us for us.

I *think* what Observer clarified himself to mean was that it was 'crap' to claim that the bread and wine and regeneration thing were something Hebrew:

Of course, this was nothing new when Jesus purportedly made the connection, in fact the concept is familiar, from Dionysian myth to any number of European gods of grain and vine, as well as a deep connection to the Eleusinian Mysteries, likely where 'Christ' took on the meaning that it does today, though strictly it could refer to an anointed king, (And often would, given the model of kingship in most agrarian societies, something that still runs strong in much of European culture... )

It's often claimed there's something unique or original about these things, (or these parts of our heritage are dismissed as mere 'prefigurings' of Jesus, but in the cosmopolitan world of the Roman Empire, the myths and ideas would be well-circulated: in fact the connection of such: tellingly, I don't recall much being made about Jesus being anointed with oil in the stories, but the death and rebirth element is strong, even if it was turned to a one-time-absolute event somewhat divorced from a complete context, rather than part of the cycle of life and death and rebirth that involved the interplay of the Gods and Goddesses of the natural world, as well as human endeavors related.

Probably you could refine the language, though, Observer. I don't think saying 'crap' there adds anything to the discussion, even if you didn't mean to offend.

Anyway, it *seems*

Well, Farnazz, if you can get hold of that Matthew Arnold essay 'On Marcus Aurelius' I mentioned finding in my book, this morning, it does discuss the notion of persecuting of Christians... even though Arnold pretty studiously evangelizes throughout the thing about Christian superiority, he pretty much exonerates Marcus Aurelius for how things would have appeared to him. I guess he just didn't think he could try to use Aurelius as a foil if he didn't, of course, ...especially since the ready contrast of his son Commodus, who *didn't* persecute the Christians but was by most accounts a terrible, terrible guy, otherwise, wouldn't really prove much about his idea of Christianity.

It's interestingly-parallel, actually, to how Pagans are perceived by Christians today, (which is in turn why we're *very* much against the theocratic rhetorical hate-fest we seem to find ourselves subject to so much lately.

Arnold says, 'If only Aurelius could have seen the real Christianity, that may not have happened,' (this presumes most Christians were as portrayed, of course,) ...I'd be like, 'Well, the Internet wouldn't have been all bad?' :)

All,

At the risk of igniting a minor firestorm, please allow this Christian to correct some mistakes put forward here.

'Christ' does mean 'The Anointed'. It is the Greek translation of the Hebrew, which refers to anointing in Jewish tradition. David was anointed as king. Thus, Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed, the Messiah, to Christians. Greek cults need not enter here.

Also, please do not refer to the body and blood as 'crap'. That approaches bigotry. Christians do not say that comes from some Jewish tradition. Yes, of course, bread and wine are part of the Seder, the Jewish Passover meal. Thus the Last Supper - Jesus added the meaning of His body and blood. Symbolic, and beautifully so. The Catholic position of transubstantiation is believed only by a few. (Before you start replying - I am Episcopal.)

So be easy, please, people. I don't beat up on what you believe, or don't believe.

Yes, I like Marcus Aurelius on the net and off, although he has been taken to task for his persecution of Christians, among others. He was, well, stoic about suffering, anybody's.

Don't know if anyone's read Joel Kraemer's piece. Not really sure about where he's going with "Post-Holocaust theology" in this post, anyway. What he says about Maimonides is worth a look, though said genius would have developed a sharp pain just where I did when Fyodor D. came up. PLeez. We're talking an Aristotelian.

Lots of Christians, Hindus, Muslims, atheists and Pagans have read Maimonides and lived to tell. Within the first three groups, some have written of the great philosopher/theologian/doctor, so have no fear. He's accessible.

Joel Kraemer, for those who may not know, is very Major League, academia-wise, one of the formost experts on Maimonides. No dolt, not even in his post here, which is not up to his usual standard either. What happens when smart people blog here, I'd like to know, and I'm talking about the panelists.

Well, Observer, when it wasn't clear what you were getting at, it *did* seem you were calling something 'crap' out of hand that I happen to know a thing or two about.

As for you, Mick, it never ceases to amaze me how some people think they can insult people of a deeply animal-respecting religion by rebuking dogs for not behaving like humans. :)

"blood/wine, bread/flesh crap that Christians attribute to Jews"

Give a moment to listen to the muse
Take some time to consult the Histories
Which are not so sure if to the Jews
Were attributed Christian Mysteries

Arminius, PP, and Persiflage,

I agree on the good feeling of a book
Being pleasing at which to take a look
Whereas a flickering screen
does not contain the same dream

And as to Marcus Aurelius
His stoicism appeals to us
Because it is humane
And yet it retains
the divine all the same.

{prose}
There is a nice new translation
of the meditations
called "The Emperor's Handbook"
by Hicks and Hicks
It is a careful work that
Retains the poetic beauty
of the 1916 C.R.Haines
in the Loeb Classics series
Nice stuff.
{/prose}

MEDOG

I should not agree so much with another poster here, especially someone who thinks so highly of their dog as if to call himself the best friend of his dog. [Hee hee!]

But, alas, I find your views rather "on the point," as they say. If the Buddhists are correct, and I doubt it seriously at any level concerning this aspect of their thought, we surely must have been brothers in a prior life.

Surely, you must know that dogs have been known, in a proverbial sense now elevated to a type of sublime spiritual super-language, to "return to their vomit."

I've seen it in person with reference to canines. And verily, if I understand what you are saying, I see it yet again concerning these dogs!

The Mick [I'm sure you feed your dog well, and pet him occasionally.]

Certainly some familiar themes from Greek mystery-cults were likely added onto the Jewish Messianic stuff, like the name 'Christ,' itself.

Why figure that the Jewish stuff was shamelessly, crassly, and part-ignorantly appropriated, then presume that the Greek stuff wasn't incorporated in just the same way? :)

I don't think the Dyonisian cult was crap, but Judaism would never, could never abide the blood/wine, bread/flesh crap that Christians attribute to Jews. You don't even have to look further than the Tanakh. There are certain dividing lines, categories that have persisted from the earliest scrolls through the Torah, through the scholars, etc.

The Dyonisus et al theory is not new. Christians were all over themselves in the beginning coming up with "prefigurings" a process since taken over by Islam. For the medieval Christains Dyonisus might have been a "type" (LOL). Dyonisus is not the only possible model for Christ, which was then and is now a Greek word as we all know.

There is no Jewish messianic stuff in the nt. It is a reversal of the Jewish construct of the messianic age, an inversion in some ways.

Now you have just a couple of reasons why some scholars for a long time have been claiming Jesus was Greek. Easier than saying he was a myth like Dyonisus.

Don't know why this should bother a pagan, though.

Evolutionary bottleneck, that is, ...the mitochondrial DNA is something that's been out a long time about 'Eve'... I don't see any article about them finding an 'Adam' with other methods, (your link doesn't seem to exist: is it there, or did you just infer there must be an 'Adam,' and then further decide he must have been a dirty polygamist? )

Of course there would have been no scandal back then, monogamy surely hadn't been invented, yet, for makes or females.

You quoted it yourself, CCNL, though you don't seem to understand. Consider that probably a third of the world's population is thought to share genes with Genghis Khan, even without the genetic bottleneck that means everyone can trace their mitochondrial DNA (passed down intact on the maternal side, only changing by mutation) back to a single ancestor...this doesn't mean that ancestor was the first human, see?

Adam, Pagan the First:

As per National Geographic's Genographic project:
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/ Miracles

" DNA studies suggest that all humans today descend from a group of African ancestors who about 60,000 years ago began a remarkable journey. Follow the journey from them to you as written in your genes”.

"Adam" is the common male ancestor of every living man. He lived in Africa some 60,000 years ago, which means that all humans lived in Africa at least at that time.

Unlike his Biblical namesake, this Adam was not the only man alive in his era. Rather, he is unique because his descendents are the only ones to survive.

It is important to note that Adam does not literally represent the first human. He is the coalescence point of all the genetic diversity."

And of course there had to be Eve, Pagan Woman #1 or was Adam Pagan and Polygamist the First and all races have their own Eve??? Hmmmm, the wonders of it all!!!!

I wouldn't so readily *equate* the mysteries of Dionysius with Christian 'crap about blood and wine' and the like, as you say, Observer: it wasn't anything so disconnected as that. Certainly some familiar themes from Greek mystery-cults were likely added onto the Jewish Messianic stuff, like the name 'Christ,' itself.

Why figure that the Jewish stuff was shamelessly, crassly, and part-ignorantly appropriated, then presume that the Greek stuff wasn't incorporated in just the same way? :)

Arminius,

I've frequently posted to CCNL, given him lists of his nazi "relatives," etc. Unlike Farnaz, I'm not Jewish, neither by observance nor by ancestry, but I share her views about supersessionism, the Tanakh, etc.

If CCNL wants to have his Jesus H. Christ, along with the 30% okayed by Crossan, he should keep his ignorance out of the Tanakh. Many, many people think JC has a lot in common with Dyonisus, among other pagan deities. The blood/wine, flesh/bread crap would have been unthinkable for any Jew as Farnaz (and, btw., Crossan) point out, but not for a Greek.

In desperation, some Christians have suggested Jesus was Greek, but all this is beside the point. If Bagel, et al, want their NT left alone, I'll leave it (albeit unwillingly), provided he/they leave Jews, Judaism, and the Tanakh alone. Fair enough?

They've done enough harm to those people, way more than enough.

It doesn't work that way, btw, CCNL: sharing a single common ancestor doesn't mean there was one 'Eve' that singlehandedly gave birth to all of humanity, ...just like a whole bunch of people may have a great-grandmother in common.

Oops, make that Eve from ~60,000 BCE.

Paganplace,

We refer not to the mythical Eve but the empowered, historic Eve of ~60,000 CE, our pagan mother and common-law wife to our pagan father, Adam :)) For $99.99, National Geographic will determine your pagan genealogy from a sample of your DNA.

"But cast away the thirst after books, that thou mayest not die murmuring, but cheerfully, truly, and from thy heart thankful to the gods."

Fortunately, Robin, I don't suppose I'm the type to *thirst* after books: I'm not the sort who acquires something, devours it immediately, and is looking for something more. I like to keep a bunch around and all. :)

Then again, I'm not a Stoic. :)

Do love em, though. :)

Observer,

I came close to taking offense, but re-read a couple of times. I concluded that I did not understand just what you were driving at. CCNL, the Confused Croissant, I am well familiar with, so familiar with that I do not even bother to read his repeat posts. So, then, can you please explain?

Dang thee, oh deliciously paradoxical universe, for in the words of Marcus Aurelius:

"But cast away the thirst after books, that thou mayest not die murmuring, but cheerfully, truly, and from thy heart thankful to the gods."

No doubt about it, I got to get me another hat!

Of course, there are two creation stories, one in which Adam and Eve were created together.

And now a Bagel moment:

CCNL:

Re: Your post

Allow me to return the favor--light for light. See link below. What were JC & Co. doing when they weren't swilling down the blood and feasting fleshwise? Tooling around with the maenads? (No offense to Pagans and Arminius.)

http://www.sacred-texts.com/bib/cv/pch/pch31.htm

*pantpant* Hey, I mean it, I'm actually rearranging furniture. :)

Well, I was kind of working on that before I had my little exhausted crash last week, but I'll take inspiration where I can get it. :) I'd been jammed up hoping we'd have a better yard sale season down here, but it looks like that was not to be expected. :)

Anyway, I'm not quite sure I can describe how ancient philosophy applies to that, but I'm close to running out of steam, anyway. Maybe I can articulate it then. :)

Friend Paganplace, you said,
"Ah, reading the Stoics, always eventually makes me want to get up and rearrange the furniture or something.'

Priceless! I managed to pick myself up from the floor. You can manage comedy and subtlety at the same time, a rare gift.

Ah, reading the Stoics, always eventually makes me want to get up and rearrange the furniture or something. I think what I want right now is a physical copy of some *cabinets.* :)

It's like Plotinus might drop on in and be like, 'All this time, and you creative types haven't gotten organized yet, have you?' :)

Now, now, Confused Croissant, go outside to play. We're talking about things that you won't understand until you're a big grown-up!

CCNL: WHat about the possibility that Eve was the Creator/Creatrix who actually gave birth to Adam (root adamah - red earth) until the patriarchal religions turned her religious imagery upside-down?

Hey, Friends,

Yes indeed, Mother Web is very kind to provide copies of books we do not possess. I have done this many times. The amount of knowledge there is beyond exponential as to what it was when I was a mere lad so many, many years ago. But now, as then, a book to be picked up and read is precious.

OK, CCNL, how do you figure a character who supposedly knew the Abrahamic God *personally* was supposed to be 'the first Pagan?' :)

I know some types love to try and literally blame un-submissive women for everything wrong in the world, but you're just being silly, now. :)

One wonders what Eve, empowered wife of Adam and first pagan read before retiring at night? Ditto for all those female, pagan Hittites and Babylonian peasants and serfs?? Ditto for Atilla's babes??

PAGANPLACE :"I have to admit a preference for physical books. . ."
ARMINIUS : "Robin - I appreciate the link, but PaganPlace is correct."

Yeah, sure, but I don't have a copy, and so I have a chance to read Marcus Aurelius, get some context & maybe even wisdom. Other people in the conversation now have free access to a text they may never have heard of before.

Weird thing—never read "Heart of Darkness" till this year, read it in a free on-line version. Now have two copies in print form, haven't read either. On the other hand, I'm pretty paranoid of an EMF blast taking out silicon based electronics, in which case it's Game Over.

Of course, such Net resources are great when you don't actually *have* the book. :) A lot of the Irish stuff is hard or expensive to lay hands to, ...the classics tend to turn up somewhat more frequently in used bookstores and the like.

Windy Autumn day like this, though, with a chilly wind and a pretty good substitute for a hearth, favorite coffee, and a favorite book, that's pretty good. :)

Hi, Friends,

Robin - I appreciate the link, but PaganPlace is correct. To pick up a book is to snuggle up with knowledge. I spend too much time at the computer as it is.

I have to admit a preference for physical books, myself, both cause I spend enough time in front of computers as it is, ...and also cause I see it as something of a duty to preserve stuff in less-editable form.

Ah, Arminius, (Hey, there. ) I'm always so far behind on where I'd like to be with my studying and reading. The physical discomforts can make it all slow going. :)

I seem to have a very readable translation of the Meditations, though, by a G. Long, though, which is helpful when the ol' body's acting up. (I neglected to mention the translator in my quotation below.)

I've actually found an initially-interesting and in some ways, amusingly-parallel-to-some-discussions here Matthew Arnold essay 'On Marcus Aurelius' in the appendix, here... working my way on through that, now. :)

His discussion of the treatment of early Christians is particularly interesting in comparison to how Pagans are treated today. :)

ARMINIUS: "I guess I'll have to dig out my copy."

No need: http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.html

Yet another thing I love about traversing the web.

Ah, Marcus Aurelius. One cool dude, the last of the 'Good Emperors'. I guess I'll have to dig out my copy. High time.

Ooh, Marcus Aurelius. *digging out a volume* I've been meaning to give these Meditations a good read.

"But to go away from men, if there are Gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the Gods will not involve thee in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of Gods or devoid of Providence? But if They do exist, and They do care for human things, they have put all the means in man's power not to fall into real evils. "

(Meditations, book II, 11. :) )

Speaking of Stoics, the writings of Marcus Aurelius should be required reading for all newly elected politicians - and particularly recommended for Presidential candidates that need to reign in their emotions.

Start with 'Meditations' - just imagine a modern politican putting the common good above personal happiness. Downright blasphemous!

Dear FARNAZ2,

By the way, thank you for Michael Palmer's "Period (sense of duration)"

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/palmer/period.html

Anyone who can fold together Proust & Yardbird is speaking to my condition.

I woke this morning
And had a notion somewhere, someone was trying to turn religion into make of religion a Kevlar pinata, rather than say, take off the blindfolds and put down the sticks a minute.

I agree with Mokey, here.

We're quite used to people constructing certain ignorant views of us, and then attacking us as though those views were actually our own.

Mick and Medog, if they're not the same person, at least seem better-read and try to use bigger words than the usual, but in the end it's the same thing.

You can't apply 'reason' to call people variously bad in some way when you've set out to 'prove' what's really a false view of someone else's beliefs: for instance, claiming someone's beliefs aren't sufficiently 'transcendent' based on the notion that they're *talking* to someone who contains their religious experience to their chosen 'battlefield.'

If you want to question us, ask some questions of *us,* ...all I see is wild tilting at effigies you fellows have constructed to try and abuse.

www.acampbell.ukfsn.org/bookreviews/r/crossan-1.html

"Perhaps the most startling idea to emerge from Crossan's account is that we should see Jesus as a kind of Jewish Cynic. The Cynics, Crossan tells us, were "hippies in a world of Augustan yuppies". They looked, dressed, and behaved in ways that challenged the establishment, and Jesus and his followers, Crossan believes, did likewise. The Greco-Roman Cynics, however, were principally urban, whereas Jesus was a peasant Jewish Cynic. This theory may seem farfetched, but Crossan says that Jesus's peasant village was near enough to a Greco-Roman city like Sepphoris to make it likely that he would have encountered Cynicism. This intriguing idea certainly suggests a new way of thinking about Jesus and his place in the society of his time. "

"Greek philosophical sect that flourished from the 4th century BC to the 6th century AD. Antisthenes (c. 445 – 365 BC), a disciple of Socrates, is considered the founder of the movement, but Diogenes of Sinope was its paradigm. Named principally for their meeting place, the Cynosarges, the Cynics considered virtue — including a life of poverty and self-sufficiency and the suppression of desires — to be the sole good, but they were distinguished more for their unconventional manners and way of life than for any system of thought. The Cynics influenced the development of Stoicism."
For more information on Cynics, visit Britannica.com.

Nobody has 'venemous views of rival faiths' here.
What we object to is your attempting to define our religion using your definitions and then calling us 'fundamentalists' when we try to tell you that it *doesn't* work that way.

Rather than ask any genuine questions, which we will answer if asked respectfully, you just denigrate what you don't understand, all the time calling US everything from 'fruitcakes' to 'trivial' to zealots.

You insist on 'where are all the charities, etc'
and then claim that we haven't done 'enough'- when we're too busy working on some of these problems to advertise.

Everybody's path is different and that's how we feel it's *supposed* to be. All paths lead to center. There is no *one way* or *right way*, therefore it's you who comes off as the *fundamentalist* here- stating that your so called 'pragmatism' is the only way to look at things.

But like it or not, our numbers are growing. This is a way of life for us, and it *works* for us. And we're simply tired of having to roll over and kowtow to the likes of 'you' just so that we can exist.

Can we have our rights now, oh 'pragmatic' one?

Reading this forum is like attending a Star Trek convention. What energy dissipated passionately in quest for the trivial. What axes ground to fine edges to attack the monotheistic meanies. History in the service of ideology, venomous views of rival faiths all the while spewing saccharine opinions about respecting faiths, and then, of course, of course, pretending to have access to the internal motivations and intentions of certain persons who have the audacity to question your self-congratulatory love fest. I've seen this fundamentalist commune before. Marxists did this. Zealots have done this. I suppose at the end of the day your doing this is a sign of your entrance into the club. Well-done then. Congrats and cheerio.

Dear FARNAZ2,

I knew you were not being sarcastic, I take what you have to say quite seriously. I was just making sure that you understood that I was not responding to you in a belittling or sarcastic manner, as all too many people are when speaking of someone else's religion. I also take what Burton L. Mack has to say about Christian origins quite seriously as well. I recommend Professor Mack's "The Christian Myth, Origins, Logic and Legacy" in particular.

As Burton L. Mack is not a practicing Christian I suppose one could call his investigation of the historical sources of the NT replacement ideology. At the same time, he is one of the few scholars writing about the synoptic gospels who does not parrot claims of the exceptionalism of Jesus as a historical figure. In "The Christian Myth" he writes of the difficulty of his position, a view obviously not shared by most schools committed to research on the origins of the NT.

Robin,

It wasn't my intention to be sarcastic, merely informative. The murderous NT God predates Elizabeth, I daresay. Carroll would say it began with Constantine. I think it is in the scriptures themselves.

There are many reformist Catholics and Protestants, who have repeatedly called out for the editing of the NT, along with renaming it. The theology you posted you have posted before on this very thread, and although I meant no offense, I was offended, not engaged. It is what Cs and Js have called replacement ideology, representing the co-opting of a text belonging to another group, and then interpreting it for them.

The conversionism inherent in Catholicism and Protestantism is as far as I can see undebatable. Yet, there are, in fact, schools in some Muslim countries, attended by the upper middle class and wealthy that do not attempt conversion.

As for the conquest of the Americas, all one has to do is read Thomas Harriott, among many others.

Dear FARNAZ2,

First of all, this is engagement, not argument. I am more than willing to be educated and I say that without a trace of sarcasm.

FARNAZ2: "So, what, from your perspective could have given rise to such a monstrous entity?"

Ecological collapse, starvation, tribal warfare, greed.

I know there are good and beautiful aspects to Judaism. After a bit of learning perhaps I will know the proper names of the tribes that are the cultural backdrop of the Old Testament/Tanakh. I know that much of the affect of the OT as passed down to us is due to Elizabeth I's paranoid successor King James.

Having said that, I am still struck by the way missionary work has been the cover story for cultural imperialism and ethnic cleansing. That was my primary point, which may have been lost in the rubble of my destruction of the temple. I'm also thinking of the Alfred Nobles of the world, getting rich on products that destroy peoples and cultures and then creating philanthropic enterprises in the wake of the wreckage they created.

I'll note in passing that the P.O.V. that we both have may not make us lords of all we survey, but probably does make us better cartographers of world history.

IMHO, Donut, dear, Crossan is snoozing now.

Bagel, (A) there is no OT, and (B) it's past your bedtime. What is a nice Christian boy like you doing up at this late hour?

The angry, warlike God of the Desert Fathers got that way in large part due to the harsh environment of the desert these nomadic Semitic tribes were wandering in.

The problem with your overall perspective is that it assumes you are interpreting from a culture-neutral position, and, of course, you aren't since such a vantage point does not exist. The above is a case in point. First there is not now nor has there ever been a creature, "Semite." The word emerged from nineteenth-century linguistics which "posited" (wisely) a semitic language group. Racialists then took the word to give us the bizarre human category we now have.

Second, and much more importantly, as the posts from Maimonides, HaLevi, and the modern Rakosi should suggest (since two thousand years of history have not), this angry warlike God is an invention of the Christians. He knows not Joseph, never did, and Jews, for whom and by whom the Tanakh (yer OT, but more accurately translated; with different books, in some cases; and in a different order) do not know yer Christian God and do not wish to.

G-d, Tanakh-wise, is the all knowing, all powerful, all mericiful, all wise, the one, period, but not end of discussion. Two thousand years have followed, just as they have followed the newer Christian testament.

From a Jewish perspective, the God of the NT is unthinkable, a deity that sends his only begotten son to earth to be tortured to death??? To die for my sins??!!! Whatever for?

There was no original sin, only original error, and the path to redemption is quite clear. So, what, from your perspective could have given rise to such a monstrous entity?

Do you see, we are not, my dear Robin, lords of all we survey, not even of very much of it. We read and interpret from particular historical positions, and by we, I mean you, and I mean I.

The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed and/or improved from those that came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the ancients to include the passages in the OT and preachings of John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics. (as Professor JD Crossan in his many books)

Part 2:
The Cynics strike me as an early version of the Diggers, Beats and Hippies, urban dwellers acting as a counterforce to “Power Over”. My sense is that a religion will tell you very little about “God”, but it tells you practically everything about the environment and culture from which that religion emerged. The angry, warlike God of the Desert Fathers got that way in large part due to the harsh environment of the desert these nomadic Semitic tribes were wandering in. The rich and varied pantheons of the Greeks and Romans indicate expanding cultures with resources to spare. As imperial power grew, the Cynics emerged as early anarchists, aware of the folly of empire. Their inverted mirror image of oppressive empire seems like an attempt to repair an ecological system teetering on the edge of collapse.

At the bottom of claims to power and authority there remains the tribal impulse. Think of the Spanish Conquistadors claiming the lands of pre-existing and highly evolved cultures, engaging in mass slaughter in the name of God and missionary work. God, as usual, is the cover story, outright theft is the real goal.

Another example of this strain of cultural imperialism can be found in the rise of the “Doctor” class. Allopathic medicine supplants herbalism & midwifery, in the process so-called “Witches” are burned as collateral damage. For each of these Hospitals, how many sustainable, non-centralized health programs were destroyed? In the cult of Surgeon as Priest, how many healers were driven into the woods? As the profit-driven health-care systems of the United States become increasingly inaccessible to the average American citizen ask yourself—this building of hospitals and these institutions of higher learning that produce these surgeons, is this really a progression? Or is it really the creation of a new elect, a new priesthood?

If one is dedicated to a return to sustainable culture, of “soft power”, why would one want to invest great sums in more hospitals and universities when better results can be realized with less negative impact on the environment?

Some tens of thousands of words back, MEDOGSBSTFRND asked about what hospitals, orphanages, universities or human rights institutions are paid for and run by pagans. I said a proper answer would require some thought. The MeDog took this as evasion, or passive aggressive behavior—something indicating dark motives that cast sinister shadows on pagan enterprises. MeDog posted other slurs too inchoate to repeat.

Of course, behind all of this building of hospitals, orphanages, universities or human rights institutions lies the Missionary impulse. Unlike Wicca, or Buddhism, or agnosticism, Christianity demands Missionary work. For many, it is never enough to simply bask in the joy of a loving God. A particular variety of Christian requires conversion of others in order to fulfill God’s mission. That’s “How the West Was Won”, at least in part. I say “a particular variety of Christian” because I know many Christians whose impulse has far more engagement with the Gospels than the letters of Paul, more devotion to the parables than with the apostles.

I’ve referred to the Cynic philosophy and its impact on Christianity elsewhere. I’m reposting my link to some background and commentary on the Cynics and their relation to the evolution of Christianity:
http://tinyurl.com/5a5sbz

I apologize for the links within the link that have disappeared over the last 19 months. Archived on-line posts are written in sand. Enough links have survived to indicate that my screed-let is not 100% pure jive.

to be continued. . .

PAGANPLACE :it's hardly a time to be 'dead to the world,' ...which was certainly my sentiment during the health scares of the past week. Times are too exciting, and important for our future to want to miss too much, now. :)

Of course. Ferrier being unhanded struck me as yet another embodiment of Innana.

Pseudo,

You've outdone yourself! I cannot accept that we must abide this creature from the Bagelian underworld. Would that he would exit his cave and look up at the stars!

Neat stuff, Robin... though it's hardly a time to be 'dead to the world,' ...which was certainly my sentiment during the health scares of the past week. Times are too exciting, and important for our future to want to miss too much, now. :)

And, Mick, whatever you're on about, you're barking up the wrong tree, ....I didn't say those things. I said that you were applying inappropriate definitions of your own, and from them drawing unwarranted conclusions, and otherwise not understanding what you're talking about.

Farnaz,

"Hence, you must insist on factoids like the Q Gospel."

Indeed it does because its in its program
To find a string and post it like some flotsam

To the bagel who takes the Q myth on faith
Q is just another academic wairth

So, bagel muse if Q you do demand
Just go ahead and give yourself yet another hand

You know Pagan, you are right. Socrates' allegory of the cave by way of his student Plato is not about ontology, it's about reality. Which, of course, constitutes essential aspects of what is real and what is not real concerning the world.

But, you know, really, this is not about ontology, it's about being. And the statement was made to you in reference to a post you made about Paganism and ontology, which you said was not concerned with ontology. And this is patented bs.

Your problem with me is you think I am using these terms in a metaphysical sense, within the European tradition. I'm not. I'm a good old American pragmatist.

The Mick [Not a Pagan, but I live like one.]

Robin,

The recording is haunting. I looked up Ferrier, a truly amazing human being.

FARNAZ2 : "Robin,

How did you get from PaganPlace's post to Mahler?"

You mean "Ich bin der Welt Abhanden Gekkomen?"

Innana!

To be more specific, Kathleen Ferrier singing Ich bin der Welt Abhanden Gekkomen. "Lost to the World" doesn't really cut it, it's more like:

"I have been unhanded/undone by this world,
that I used to waste so much time in,
that I might as well be dead.

I have lost all track of time
and now have become this song you are hearing.

I am lost to the tumult of the world,
and now live in my heaven,
in my song and my love."

Kathleen Ferrier sang this during the sessions for "Das Lied von der Erde" with Bruno Walter and the remnants of the Vienna Philharmonic that he led right up to the Anschluss. A year or two prior to this recording Kathleen Ferrier had a mastectomy, but her breast cancer returned with a vengeance. She knew full well as she was recording this song that most likely she would be dead before it was issued. Her performance of these works is laden with the emotion of parting, and strike me as very nearly posthumous.

I was thinking of Innana's journey to the underworld and back when I made the posting.

And now I'll spend some time with Michael Palmer's: "strangled schoolboy French and psychotic demeanor". Sounds like my kind of people.

Robin,

How did you get from PaganPlace's post to Mahler?

Here is a link for you. It's concerns time, art, consciousness, etc., includes comment on your song.

www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/m_r/palmer/period.html

Btw., I'm with Perciflage's favorite pagan: "The world is too much with us late and soon."

What's civilization, anyhoo.

PAGANPLACE : "Well, it's certainly pretty raw and old, Robin. Not, even, what you'd say is from a modern context, either, But, one of those cycles that's been with us from the beginning, as civilization goes, anyway, and probably will be with us at the end of desire, if my money's any good. :)"

[wiping the bar] Your money's no good here. But let me sing you a little song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Md-JfajEtzM

Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen,
Mit der ich sonst viele Zeit verdorben,
Sie hat so lange nichts von mir vernommen,
Sie mag wohl glauben, ich sei gestorben!

Es ist mir auch gar nichts daran gelegen,
Ob sie mich für gestorben hält,
Ich kann auch gar nichts sagen dagegen,
Denn wirklich bin ich gestorben der Welt.

Ich bin gestorben dem Weltgetümmel,
Und ruh' in einem stillen Gebiet!
Ich leb' allein in meinem Himmel,
In meinem Lieben, in meinem Lied!

Translation:

I am lost to the world
with which I used to waste so much time,
It has heard nothing from me for so long
that it may very well believe that I am dead!

It is of no consequence to me
Whether it thinks me dead;
I cannot deny it,
for I really am dead to the world.

I am dead to the world's tumult,
And I rest in a quiet realm!
I live alone in my heaven,
In my love and in my song!

Dear FARNAZ2,

We first encounter Pugnax on page 5 of Against the Day:

. . . .At one end of the gondola, largely oblivious to the coming and going on deck, with his tail thumping expressively now and then against the planking, and his nose among the pages of a volume by Mr. Henry James, lay a dog of no particular breed, to all appearances absorbed by the text before him. Ever since the Chums, during a confidential assignment in Our Nation's Capital (see The Chums of Chance and the Evil Halfwit), had rescued Pugnax, then but a pup, from a furious encounter in the shadow of the Washington Monument between rival packs of the District's wild dogs, it had been his habit to investigate the pages of whatever printed material should find its way on board Inconvenience, from theoretical treatments of the aeronautical arts to often less appropriate matter, such as the "dime novels"—though his preference seemed more for sentimental tales about his own species than those exhibiting extremes of human behavior, which he appeared to find a bit lurid. He had learned with the readiness peculiar to dogs how with the utmost delicacy to turn pages using nose or paws, and anyone observing him thus engaged could not help noting the changing expressions of his face, in particular the uncommonly articulate eyebrows, which contributed to an overall effect of interest, sympathy, and-the conclusion could scarce be avoided—comprehension. . . .

. . . .Darby Suckling, having recovered from his recent atmospheric excursion, addressed the studious canine. "I say, Pugnax-what's that you're reading now, old fellow?"

"Rr Rff-rff Rr-rr-rffrrf-rrf," replied Pugnax without looking up, which Darby, having like the others in the crew got used to Pugnax's voice-easier, really, than some of the regional American accents the boys heard in their travels-now interpreted as, "The Princess Casamassima."

"Ah. Some sort of ... Italian romance, I'll bet?"

"Its subject," he was promptly informed by the ever-alert Lindsay Noseworth, who had overheard the exchange, "is the inexorably rising tide of World Anarchism, to be found peculiarly rampant, in fact, at our current destination-a sinister affliction to which I pray we shall suffer no occasion for exposure more immediate than that to be experienced, as with Pugnax at this moment, safely within the fictional leaves of some book.". . .

Our Beloved Author [a Dickensian mode of reference to the scribe of this trifle] has a number of things to say as regards "The Evil Halfwit" in his most recent "intraterrestrial scherzo."

Hmmm, and the first empowered but mythical woman aka Eve was by her actions the first Wiccan witch? Did she not believe in nature's magical fruit making her not only the first Wiccan witch but also the first Wiccan "fruitcake"???

*laughter*

Ok.

So, in the course of posting that last bit, an ad for some computer took over the screen, and it said:

"Stop Reacting: Start Predicting!"

I was like,

Shaddap! You try it! :)

More poetry tomorrow, then, I hope. Cause, it seems this day's business has been mostly the random throwing about of things not so related to the actual couple-hundred-posts apparently disputing the right of Pagans to even talk here. :)

Or something.

Call it being 'empowered.' :)

Blessed be, guy. :)

you may have missed out on the fact that this *isn't about you.

Actually, I thought it was about you, but when you address yourself to me, quote me, etc., attribute to me that which I have not intended, well, I guess out of politeness I reply as best I can.

Sleep is a good thing. I'm going to try it too. And I do like your poetry, pugilistic Pagan. (So there.)

"CCNL :
Common sense would say that the first empowered couple were pagan??? The Creation Cult???"

CCNL, CCNL:

Whatever you think you're purporting to use for 'common sense,' I assure you it is neither.

I think, Farnazz, whatever this general fray was supposed to be about, ..in the course of a lot of people trying to claim what they allow themselves to see about my faith isn't somehow good enough for them to not-oppress, you may have missed out on the fact that this *isn't about you.

I've lived a Pagan, I'm intending to die a Pagan, though some may tell you differently later.

In the general interest of not-dying, I should probably get some rest, actually.

I'm not sure what your issue is, here, but I have a faith. As well as being ...kinda cheesed off.

What else is new.

Goodnight to all, and to all, a goodnight.

Common sense would say that the first empowered couple were pagan??? The Creation Cult???

Robin,

FWIW, there is another Pynchon dog who reads Henry James [The Princess Casamassima] back in 1893. I suspect the old boy has a touch of dyslexia.

That is wonderful. Where does one find the pooch?

I'm not a monotheist. I created the world in my image, you in yours, etc.

Dear PaganPlace,

I dunno, sweetie pie sugah bunch, where *could* I have gotten such an idea in mah pretty lil head?

I don't know. Do you want to tell me?

Still, Farnaz, whatever your point was on the last:

"But you see, M'Deah PaganPlace, .......Please don't project your views onto me. I do not "look down" on your views, at least so far as I understand them, which brings me to something else. How can you know what my views are?"

I dunno, sweetie pie sugah bunch, where *could* I have gotten such an idea in mah pretty lil head?

PaganPlace,

I'm not a monotheist. Anyways, I created the world in my own image.

Well, it's certainly pretty raw and old, Robin. Not, even, what you'd say is from a modern context, either, But, one of those cycles that's been with us from the beginning, as civilization goes, anyway, and probably will be with us at the end of desire, if my money's any good. :)

It's probably one of the most elemental of sentiments, really. even if it may throw some folks' senses of linear narrative for a loop. :)

I listened, PP. There is the world of lost dreaming. There was a world in which people in New York would hold rent strikes, in which unionists would stand in front of buildings and fight with police to stop evictions.

Maybe it's not lost, not a lost world. There is no need for hunger, though, not anywhere....

Robin,

Yes, it's wonderful, sort of folksy, neighborly, etc. Wish we still had stuff like that around.

Dear PAGANPLACE,

I know of Innana.

When I was 10 and my father was marching with Martin Luther King in Selma, I developed a fever of 105 and sustained it for five days. At night, Snow White and the seven dwarves—the Disney version of 1937 fleshed out in hard, unyielding plastic—sat at the edge of my bed, beckoning me to join them in their underworld liar. It was truly terrifying. Many years later I read Diane Wolkstein's "Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth: Her Stories and Hymns from Sumer." That is one of the most powerful myths I know of. Strange how it came to me the first time 'round. I know the two experiences might seem unrelated, but when I read of the descent of Innana some 25 years later, that same feeling of dread—of being in the unrelenting presence of Death with a capital "D"—came over me like a cold sweat.

" Farnaz2

"Btw., I don't really have a faith. I used to "believe in" humanity, maybe still do, don't know. Hard to shake."

Well, hey, listen, maybe everyone else wants to give up on this little exercise, but I fr one have no interest in having a pressing need to put all this crap in another head of mine, so humor me.

And if you think it's crazy, how about something from not-too-long ago.

http://www.archive.org/download/fdrfiresidechat/Fd400526.mp3

Really worth a listen right about now.

Dear FARNAZ2,

What a distance between modern newspapers and the New York Times of 123 years ago. Quite droll, to use a term that's been mothballed for the better part of a century.

FWIW, there is another Pynchon dog who reads Henry James [The Princess Casamassima] back in 1893. I suspect the old boy has a touch of dyslexia.

"Ah, but how did you get from what I posted to what you did. ??"

Mostly, incessant claims of the 'uniqueness' of virtues monotheists tend to claim only for themselves while casting we 'hick Pagans' as the bad guys in their own personal psychodrmas when we're mostly just trying to live, ..maybe save the planet so you can go on figuring you're once-born and keep talking down at the rest of us.

It's a place where we don't agree, but where what's become your 'Creation' story comes from is also a myth I and many Pagans hold dear.

It's called the 'Descent of Innanna'

And after the health scare I was having while you were apparently mocking the absence of a 'sonneteer,' it's particularly dear to me right now.

Some Christians, if they know this, probably the oldest written theological myth we'll ever find, ..if they know it exists at all, will say that it 'mockingly prefigures Christ,' .... when it's definitely labout the Lady's travails in the Underworld, what dying takes away, and what rebirth means, and is...

Being sick,
Feeling thick,
Thinking bout
What awaits
When you pass the Gates
All your treasures stripped away,
Everything you thought you'd say
To make the world
Live another day
To see the birth
Of some new Spring
Won't pass here, lay it down
There goes a nice hat, a dress
And everything you might confess
Was what you wore
In another world

You walk those steps, each thing you held dear for yourself,

As yourself, everything you defined and protected yourself with, everything you used to figure that you were worth a little moe than some son of a bastich with a book and a burr up wanted to let you be...

It's not fun. But there's more to that story, but you know Lady walked those steps herself, ....and we walk them, too, ...knowing that life returns.

And maybe just that we going into dark places is part of how it comes back.

We don't sit around and wait for someone we kneel to making it happen, we *are* the happening of it.

Dig?

Not that there's necessarily anything to do with anything Greek, that might have just been the worst-kept secret of the world at the time, contemporary to some other things some presently like to call 'unique' or anything...

Dying a lot, well, kind of blows.

It was implied by some that the Goddess isn't sufficiently transcendental. I say, 'What the Hel do you know of it?' :)

The wise dog of the Times probably never read Pynchon, but still...

Link to 1885 New York Times article on a wise dog.

query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9B0DE3DE1130E433A2575BC1A9629C94649FD7CF

PAGANPLACE: "Well, call me a Pagan 'hick,' but I would not name my dog for this purpose and call it being learned."

Here's a Learned dog for you:

". . . .All at once, out of the Murk, a dozen mirror'd Lanthorns have leapt alight together, as into their Glare now strolls a somewhat dishevel'd Norfolk Terrier, with a raffish Gleam in its eye,- whilst from somewhere less illuminate comes a sprightly Overture upon Horn, Clarinet, and Cello, in time to which the Dog steps back and forth in his bright Ambit.

Ask me anything you please,
The Learned English Dog am I, well
Up on ev'rything from Fleas
Unto the King's Mon-og-am-eye,

Persian Princes, Polish Blintzes,
Chinamen's Geo-mancy,_
Jump-ing Beans or Flying Machines,
Just as it suits your Fan-cy.

I quote enough of the Classickal Stuff
To set your Ears a-throb,
Work logarith-mick Versed
Sines Withal, within me Nob,
—Only nothing Ministerial, please,
Or I'm apt to lose m' Job,
As, the Learned English Dog, to-ni-ight!

There are the usual Requests. Does the Dog know "Where the Bee Sucks"? What is the Integral of One over (Book) d (Book)? Is he married? Dixon notes how his co-Adjutor-to-be seems fallen into a sort of Magnetickal Stupor, as Mesmerites might term it. More than once, Mason looks ready to leap to his feet and blurt something better kept till later in the Evening. At last the Dog recognizes him, tho' now he is too key'd up to speak with any Coherence. After allowing him to rattle for a full minute, the Dog sighs deeply. "See me later, out in back." . . ."

I dare not tell you the source of this blinking L.E.D. [named "Fang," by the way], lest the all-seeing eye that electronically peruses our musings sees some small potential for revenue being abandoned or flaunted.

Btw., I don't really have a faith. I used to "believe in" humanity, maybe still do, don't know. Hard to shake.

No, I'm not interested in deconstructing your faith, Farnazz. But there's more. Don't make it about my faith not existing. There's enough stupid fights in the world right around now.

Ah, but how did you get from what I posted to what you did. ??

There is no question of questioning beliefs, not at least in my mind. My point is in my full post to Arminius. There is syncretism, mimesis, layering, not identity.

If you look at the Mesoptamian myths, you will see that none of them are exactly the same as the others. The AmerIndian myth, which differs significantly from all near Eastern myths, but not from other AmerIndian myths is still UNIQUE. There is no Identity. That is what I was trying to tell Arminius. On the other hand, it is simply false to say that each myth pre-Judaic and post, arrived out of whole cloth. We will never get to a point of origin, of the unquestionably authentic. IMHO, giving up on that hope would be our first step on the road to civilization.

Please don't project your views onto me. I do not "look down" on your views, at least so far as I understand them, which brings me to something else. How can you know what my views are? Or I yours, at this point.

Love,
Farnaz :)

" Farnaz2 Author Profile Page:

"But you see, M'Deah PaganPlace, it differs significantly from the prevailing Mesopotamian flood myths from which it also borrows extensively."

Not sufficient to pretend it's a unique revelation which disqualifies non-Abrahamics from humanity... frankly, I think Hebrew people can go on believing they made up the obviously-cribbed-from osiris stuff about Moses, too, as long as no one starts saying there isn't a Pagan heritage worth respecting in the here and now...

Other than that,

"The depiction of a saddened deity, the indication that human evil and divine grief won't be the last word."

That's... an interpretation. Not a bad one, but it doesn't say where the stories *came* from. If you love those stories, *spectacular.* Great.

Doesn't mean they aren't just a piece of even what the cultures they came from had to say about life and reality.

I respect you loving those stories, got no time for you claiming they constitute human or divine limits, is all.

" The latter comes with the sudden appearance of Noah, whose name in Hebrew is "favor" spelled backward. It is also tremendously significant that Noah is completely, unequivocally human. There are other differences."

Mostly the difference seems to be that a disfavored people inverted the goodness or badness of Enki, and claiming the whole world for a story.

"Still, IMHO, some of the best flood stories are those of the AmerIndians, one in particular. It's a gender-bender, among other things. Shall try to dig it up if you are interested."

I'm sure I could dig up an Irish one, too, though it's likely derivative, too.

No, I'm not interested in deconstructing your faith, Farnazz. But there's more. Don't make it about my faith not existing. There's enough stupid fights in the world right around now.

"And don't overestend your vocabulary. It does prove inelegant."

PaganPlace, vous êtes magnifiques.

Mick:

"I asked my dog, Socrates, what you might have meant, and he said that there was no place in a lit cave that he knew of who could say such a thing and still be there after saying it.

"But he did wag his tail at me, licked me on my hand, and said "thank you for the ontology."

Well, call me a Pagan 'hick,' but I would not name my dog for this purpose and call it being learned.

And don't overestend your vocabulary. It does prove inelegant.

But you see, M'Deah PaganPlace, it differs significantly from the prevailing Mesopotamian flood myths from which it also borrows extensively.

The depiction of a saddened deity, the indication that human evil and divine grief won't be the last word. The latter comes with the sudden appearance of Noah, whose name in Hebrew is "favor" spelled backward. It is also tremendously significant that Noah is completely, unequivocally human. There are other differences.

Still, IMHO, some of the best flood stories are those of the AmerIndians, one in particular. It's a gender-bender, among other things. Shall try to dig it up if you are interested.

"Actually some Buddhists commenting on these blog pages have noted that Meitraya has arrived and lives somewhere in Queens, NY??"

Not a bad spot to pick, but I'd been kind of figuring on Brooklyn. :)

Mickdoodle, Dearest,

You are posit-ively obsessed. Is't possible for you to quit the pose posited?

"Nor will you ever find the precise equivalent of anything in the Tanakh, of even the most common myths, including Noah and the flood. Of course there were flood stories in the region, not only in the middle east, but worldwide, one of the most magnificent right here on the American continent. However, in various ways Noah was unique."

Actually, he really wasn't, ....basically that story was taken whole-cloth from some Babylonian, and inflated in scale, with some characters inverted as regards who was the good guys and who was the bad guys.

Can't say it in polite society, never mind academia, but it's there.

Likewise, there's certainly a profound influence of the Eleusinian Mysteries in the identification of Jesus woth a grain-God, but, actually, the Mysteries aren't as limited or conditional as the council of Nicea chose to make them... likely the concepts were conflated, as the mysteries of Demeter were about the best known Big Secret in the ancient world, and any similarities that may have been attached to Jesus probably have a lot to do with the schizoid way Christianity is presented in America, even... is it trying to take over the world, is it mystical regeneration, what time is it?

Those mysteries, that which actually made one a 'Christ' in the ancient world, ... are simpler than all this. Commandments, rules 'covenants' 'convert the world,' whatnot.

Simple.

That is, if I knew a thing about them. ;)

Well, Pseudo, the creature from the Bagelian underworld has arrived.

CC, you are a would-be literalist, who must believe in the empirical, paradoxical since the empirical isn't a matter of belief, except at a level deeper than that at which you are currently operating.

Hence, you must insist on factoids like the Q Gospel. Posting a bibliography won't convince anyone, least of all yourself, which is why you must compulsively post it over and over again.

You are in a self-contradictory web from which only you can free yourself. You aren't as fragile as you think.

Well, "graduate student" is not appropriate here, Fonzzy. "Wanna be," no!

Shabang! Shazzaz! Shebang!

What do I say next, except, "heeey Opie!"

Mick [I'm not sure what that replication of my sig meant here. I mean, you posited the capital "T" at the end of the sig.

Must have been some reference to Titan!

Mickdoodle,

Helot, then, je crois, posit-ively.

The First Empowered Couples-from National Geographic's Genographic project:

https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/
" DNA studies suggest that all humans today descend from a group of African ancestors who about 60,000 years ago began a remarkable journey. Follow the journey from them to you as written in your genes”.

"Adam" is the common male ancestor of every living man. He lived in Africa some 60,000 years ago, which means that all humans lived in Africa at least at that time.

Unlike his Biblical namesake, this Adam was not the only man alive in his era. Rather, he is unique because his descendents are the only ones to survive.

It is important to note that Adam does not literally represent the first human. He is the coalescence point of all the genetic diversity."

Buy your stout Buddhas at:

http://www.isabellacatalog.com/prod.cfm/pgc/21500/sbc/21504/inv/11750/tid/707092603

"The "regular Buddha" is a depiction of Shakyamuni Buddha, who the historical Buddha, the enlightened Price Siddhartha Guatama upon which my faith is founded, and the 3rd Buddha of our age having lived approx 2500 years ago.
The "fat Buddha" is a purely symbolic representation of Meitraya Buddha, prophesied as the Buddha yet to come. He will be the fourth Buddha of our age and is not due for a few thousand years (different schools teach anythinf from 2000-80,000 years). The fat Buddha statues are not any kind of depiction of the form he will take, but symbolically in many traditions, paricularly China, the big belly is a symbol of prosperity and happiness. It has become more of a good luck charm than a depiction of any past or future person."

Actually some Buddhists commenting on these blog pages have noted that Meitraya has arrived and lives somewhere in Queens, NY??

Mickdoodle,

Helot, then, je crois.

Fuzzzyz2

No, I am not the supposed person you suppose, or posit. I am a smoker of cigars. I smoke 'em, like Kierkegaard did!

The Mick [Let's go at it!]

My dearest PaganPlace

"Did like your one about anger, down there, Pseudo."

'twas about love as well as anger.
Love your life, and do not be consumed in the fire.
Be alive with feeling, not trapped in the rhetorical mire

At this rate, I'll never finish posting. WaPo keeps censoring, due to length, I suspect. At all events, if interested, here is the link to Guide.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/gfp/gfp012.htm

Maimonides' view is one view, albeit a very important one. For him, the Tanakh was to be read as literature reflective of far deeper meaning, and was not to be taken literally. It was to be taken as what could be understood and interpreted.
----------------------------------
The influence of a certain philosopher should be clear. Cf. HaLevi, who thought philosophy ahistorical, depleted, leaving us only with "essence."

Maimonides, A Guide for the Perplexed, Ch. II, cont'd from previous post.

which is the peculiarity of man, viz., the power of distinguishing between good and evil-the noblest of all the faculties of our nature, the essential characteristic of the human race. It thus appears strange that the punishment for rebelliousness should be the means of elevating man to a pinnacle of perfection to which he had not attained previously. This is equivalent to saying that a certain man was rebellious and extremely wicked, wherefore his nature was changed for the better, and he was made to shine as a star in the heavens." Such was the purport and subject of the question, though not in the exact words of the inquirer. Now mark our reply, which was as follows:--"You appear to have studied the matter superficially, and nevertheless you imagine that you can understand a book which has been the guide of past and present generations, when you for a moment withdraw from your lusts and appetites, and glance over its contents as if you were reading a historical work or some poetical composition. Collect your thoughts and examine the matter carefully, for it is not to be understood as you at first sight think, but as you will find after due deliberation; namely, the intellect which was granted to man as the highest endowment, was bestowed on him before his disobedience. With reference to this gift the Bible states that "man was created in the form and likeness of God."

Here is another take on Adam (Maimonides, A Guide for the Perplexed)

CHAPTER II

Some years ago a learned man asked me a question of great importance; the problem and the solution which we gave in our reply deserve the closest attention. Before, however, entering upon this problem and its solution I must premise that every Hebrew knows that the term Elohim is a homonym, and denotes God, angels, judges, and the rulers of countries, and that Onkelos the proselyte explained it in the true and correct manner by taking Elohim in the sentence, "and ye shall be like Elohim" (Gen. iii. 5) in the last-mentioned meaning, and rendering the sentence "and ye shall be like princes." Having pointed out the homonymity of the term "Elohim" we return to the question under consideration. "It would at first sight," said the objector, "appear from Scripture that man was originally intended to be perfectly equal to the rest of the animal creation, which is not endowed with intellect, reason, or power of distinguishing between good and evil: but that Adam's disobedience to the command of God procured him that great perfection

Persiflage:

"Our resident poet Pseudo has pointed out that the Greek and Syrian mystery religions (eg. Eleusinian Mysteries) preceeded the mysteries of esoteric Christianity). The tradition of the Christian Desert Fathers was in keeping with these earlier Pagan traditions. The mystical traditions of the eastern orthodox school of Christianity can be found in the Philokalia....."

I did not know that anyone actually read
In my poor verses what they may have actually said

Of obscure details of the Nicene Creed
On the fulfillment of the mystery cults indeed

And as to the theology of the great Newton,
His trust in God gave him faith In nature's law
To create theories great of what he saw

So to quantum theory and relativity so contradictory
What they truly supersede we must wait to see.

Eve equals chava-mother. Eve was the first mother.
NB: "I have made a child with Hashem."

Robin, I wouldn't say that Deborah is a goddess, but she sure as hell is something primeval and magnificent, ditto Jael (Yael). It fascinates me how many women are named Deborah, how many Jewish women Jael.

In the Tanakh, Deborah is called "Mother of Israel."

The serpent in the Tanakh is not the Satan of Christianity. Satan is "adversary" almost throughout, including in Job, not the devil.

The four matriarchs and so many of the other women are mysterious.

Arminius,

In brief. You will never find the precise equivalent of JC anywhere. You will find hypotheses regarding various elements of the "myth," said term not to be understood as fiction.

Nor will you ever find the precise equivalent of anything in the Tanakh, of even the most common myths, including Noah and the flood. Of course there were flood stories in the region, not only in the middle east, but worldwide, one of the most magnificent right here on the American continent. However, in various ways Noah was unique.

And in many ways, so was Moses. Perhaps, what is most interesting, at least to me, is that there are no model citizens in the Tanakh. No Jew in his right mind would ever ask, "What would Moses do?"

This goes to a difference in Hebrew and Greek thinking that will never be overcome.

But I digress.

There is syncretism, mimesis, layering. There is no identity.

Seeing as “we’re all now so down home tribal and all,” I felt the need to circle back to the original essay before we all float into the noosphere and lose all grounding. Goddess traditions are embedded in the Judeo/Christian juggernaut and usually represent intelligence. The first to come to mind is Sophia, sometimes described as Goddess of wisdom in Semitic traditions but also appearing in numerous Judeo/Christian contexts that make it all sound considerably less heretical.

Reconsider Eve and the apple. That snake could be interpreted as kundalini, and the myth of the apple rhymes with Persephone’s pomagranate. Adam was perfectly happy to remain a “happy idiot’, but Eve took the promethean step that made Gnosis possible.

As all sorts of poetry has emerged on this spinning thread, the ancient Greek Muses come to mind. All nine Muses are Goddess, each with a different inspirational attribute. Three of the nine are specific to poetry—Calliope is 'beautiful of speech' and chief of the muses and muse of epic or heroic poetry. There’s Erato, the 'amorous one', the muse of love or erotic poetry, lyrics, and marriage songs. Then there is Euterpe ,the 'well-pleasing' muse of music and lyric poetry.

The Greeks [and doubtless many poets since] though of these heavenly messengers who delivered poems as female envoys. The notion of the female divine is embedded so deep in our culture, most people can’t even see her presence. There has been secret Goddess worship all along—ask the Catholics, ask the Cathars—and the repression of Goddess worship always seems to come from those wishing to suppress knowledge. If the Goddess empowers, she empowers via wisdom and survives due to those who know when it is prudent to keep silent.

Pseudo,

Wisest of singers, do not forsake us. A helot has come.

MickT:

You sound like a middle-age graduate-student-wanna-be. Say it ain't so, Mick, say it ain't so.

PS. I ain't no "he."

MickT

"Now I know your momma was not my momma."

Ain't no doubt, Attis.

PAGANPLACE

"And there are traditions you may not be really understanding if you resort to ontology per se."

I'm not sure how to take this remark of yours. In fact, it sets me squarely in my pajamas when you write it.

I lounge around here at my table, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand what you might mean by such a statement.

I asked my dog, Socrates, what you might have meant, and he said that there was no place in a lit cave that he knew of who could say such a thing and still be there after saying it.

But he did wag his tail at me, licked me on my hand, and said "thank you for the ontology."

Everything you just described in reference to Zen, Buddhism, the food banks, and, well, everything else, was nothing but a description of the ontology of these groups.

Buddhists do not posit nirvana until the self is extinguished, caput, gone from this side, fully baked!

The Mick [Have you ever heard of the concept of Nirvana? And do not come back at me with some American pragmatic form of post modern social life and wrap it up into a tight little anti-ontological argument against certain forms of life in favor of others.

The ghost of Descartes will haunt you every night, and possibly does.]

l8tr [Deconstruction has been done by better folk than this pagan lot!]

Dear Robin,

Well, yes, I see your point about MEDOG's comment re "pagans." But this is what the term meant in its original etymological context.

But what I think he's trying to say is that they are still hicks.

I mean they might be "Hicks with Money" and a little education, but they are still hicks, no matter how you look at them.

The Mick [A hick is an outsider. Jesus loved them each and every one.]

"Fuzzy Full of Himself Fool"2

Um, sir, have you ever heard of speech act theory, not to mention ordinary language philosophy? Have you?

Well, there is no such thing as a private dictionary, not to mention a private language.

And as for the first question re speech act theory, it's not really a theory, but a description of how language is used betwixt and between human beings.

So, I'm not sure that to which you aspire in your post to MEDOG, and the pseudo-dictionary defs here, beyond a minor attempt at satire.

U gotta be more complex here to suit my tastes.

The Mick ["Can't Get No Satisfaction"]

Dear Fuzzy2, aka FARNAZ2

Um, well. I know where you think these rituals with their terms used within a religious tradition arose within Christian use, ancient up to this day and age, but I am not a reductionistic fool, either.

I, sir, possess both a historical and philosophical consciousness.

If you mean that these rituals were simply borrowed from other sources, in the specifics of the case in question, from Jewish and Greco-Roman practices [I suppose you might have in mind here the Greek cultic state gods (my, my, speaking of gods and goddesses! Imagine that!??), as in a Belkin "Easy Transfer cable" applied via USB insertion from an XP computer to a Vista one, and whallah!-- the same thing from one subcultural context easily translated into another--then you are not only dead wrong, but doubly dead wrong.

Language does indeed operate within the contexts of mimetic implementation, or attraction, but to say that the early Christian use of these terms within the rituals enacted, and surpluses of meaning applied--indeed, more than a mere surplus of meaning within the historical lineage of terms and practices in question--is reduced to a similar ritual as that enacted within other contemporaneous cultural contexts--similar, apparently in your tiny little head--is like saying that every Porche is the same Porche to specific owners of a Porche. It would also imply that your Momma, since we were spurred to this dialectical occasion via the Great Momma, is everyone's momma.

Now I know your momma was not my momma.

Your assumptions would also imply that if this interpretive scheme of yours [note the "scheme" here], drawn from a rather shallow historical, not to mention, philosophical, categories of understanding, was the case, then someone named "Zeus," or "Apollo," not to mention the other cast of heavenly gods, would show up in the Christian narratives, especially re these rituals to which you refer. I do not find them anywhere in any Greek NT I have ever read or translated.

A historical consciousness is just that, a consciousness. It's also a horizon of belief. This also applies to current postmodern reaction formations against traditional forms of religious belief and/or rituals.

And you don't have to post directly to me in order for me to post to you on an open forum. It's a free world, man.

Get yer categories straight.

The Mick

{Watch out if someone dressed like Billy the Kid, who looks like Billy the Kid, pulls a gun and tries to shoot you. He may shoot you, but it will not be "Billy the Kid." He's dead. This is a little hint for you to observe re my "examples in learning" on the net via Ordinary Language insights.}

l8tr

Persiflage,

Details, details. This belief begat that belief. I am familiar with all that. With all due respect, I think you miss my point, which I must not have put forth clearly enough. Synthesis - out of thesis and anthithesis. Jesus took old clothing, and, with perhaps a message from the outside, wove a new robe for mankind. The roots of my Christianity are in the Gospels, and nowhere else. Forget the OT, especially forget Revelation, and, for now, forget the Epistles. I am talking about the total view of the teachings and message of one dude by the name of Jesus. Sure, we can dissect the details until next Tuesday, so what? I look at the whole. It took four very careful readings for me to reach this. I am NOT a typical Christian. Actually, I do have a good deal in common with my Pagan friends.

PERSIFLAGE : "RobinL - I know those historical characters. . ."

This all circles [spirals?] around my Idee Fixe, Thomas Pynchon.

But first—speaking of spirals—a little video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To_FmzOoJe8&feature=related

PERSIFLAGE :"Dominic and his priestly henchmen began the slaughter of the (heretical) Cathars. . ."

Heresy seems always to be on Pynchon's mind, doubtless because his most famous ancestor—Great Grandfather going back ten generations—William Pynchon, founder of Springfield Massachusetts and the first colonist to have his book burned in the colonies: in Boston, no less, for heresy, no less.

Consider this scene from "The Crying of Lot 49":

". . .A steel vise promptly clamps onto the faithless Domenico's head and the box muffles his cries for help. Ercole binds his hands and feet with scarlet silk cords, lets him know who it is he's run afoul of, reaches into the box with a pair of pincers, tears out Domenico's tongue, stabs him a couple times, pours into the box a beaker of aqua regia, enumerates a list of other goodies, including castration, that Domenico will undergo before he's allowed to die, all amid screams, tongueless attempts to pray, agonized struggles from the victim. With the tongue impaled on his rapier Ercole runs to a burning torch set in the wall, sets the tongue aflame and waving it around like a madman concludes the act by screaming,

Thy pitiless unmanning is most meet,

Thinks Ercole the zany Paraclete.

Descended this malign, Unholy Ghost,

Let us begin thy frightful Pentecost. . ."

Because of numerous [often twisted] invocations of Angels and references to the Pentecost all through "The Crying of Lot 49", I assumed all the arrows were pointing towards John Dee. Earlier this year, as I learned about Giordano Bruno and remembered that awful passage from CoL49, I realized that Pynchon was encrypting Bruno in that scene. FWIW, Pynchon folds science into mysticism and knows way more than he should about gematria, gnosticism, enochian invocation, the tarot and the Cathars. Don't even get me started on what he knows about our "defense systems", threatening to eradicate us one and all with the push of a button.

In any case, Pynchon's massive Menippean satires led me to look into all sorts of nooks and crannies I otherwise would have completely ignored.

That first video has everything to do with his latest book, "Against the Day", as do scrying, metempsychosis, the Tarot, gematria, the Golden Dawn and a parody version of Crowley. I could keep blabbering, but I better stop before full-bore logorrhea sets in.

Blessed Be,
Robin

RobinL - I know those historical characters. Bruno - a former Catholic priest and one of the very last (heretics) that the Church burned at the stake in 1600. I see Bruno as an early manifestion of Teilhard de Chardin - I believe this is a very valid comparison in a spiritual and pedagogical sense.

Oddly enough, St. Dominic was the right hand of the Pope Innocent III that declared war on the Cathars - the start of the Albigensian Crusade.

Dominic and his priestly henchmen began the slaughter of the (heretical) Cathars - and much to the credit of the Knight Templars of Inquistion fame, they resisted the orders to participate in this extermination. The Cathars and Templars were thought to be in synch with Gnostic predilections. The Templars were later eliminated for their own vast property holdings.

John Dee was a truly fascinating Hermeticist.

He was a pronositicator in the tradition of Nostradamus, and used his (oracular) scryer Edward Kelly - who read the future in a bowl full of water. Scrying as a method of prediction is common among 'primitive' cultures.....

Dee was a true genius (and Pythagorean) seen to be on the cusp of science and religion..........

What I greatly appreciate about Paganism is the Spiral orientation regarding the unfolding of the future - I had an insight into the spiral movement of developing/unfolding reality about 35 years ago and it's stayed with me since that time.

Run along, CCNL. The adults are trying to have a serious discussion here.

PERSIFLAGE : "And you are certainly correct, in that Newton was a frontier thinker in science. Needless to say, his thinking has been superceded by quantum mechanics - a very different view of our material universe at it's fundamental sub-atomic levels."

I'd also suggest looking into Giordano Bruno, an Italian Dominican monk of the time of Queen Elizabeth I and more importantly, a scientist in communication with John Dee, Elizabeth's astrologer and a very learned and accomplished man in multiple disciplines. What he had to say about the Catholic Church's limitations of science led to a particularly brutal and public execution. Bruno may be the first scientist to postulate the multiverse, a very radical notion about the nature of reality that rules out the innate limitations of dogma absolutely.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giordano_Bruno

Arminius - I think you can do your own research - the idea of Christos is purely Greek and pre-Christian.

Our resident poet Pseudo has pointed out that the Greek and Syrian mystery religions (eg. Eleusinian Mysteries) preceeded the mysteries of esoteric Christianity). The tradition of the Christian Desert Fathers was in keeping with these earlier Pagan traditions. The mystical traditions of the eastern orthodox school of Christianity can be found in the Philokalia.....

Nobody should arrive at profound conclusions about the nature of reality without doing the research, in my opinion. This includes the areas of science and religion. And you are certainly correct, in that Newton was a frontier thinker in science. Needless to say, his thinking has been superceded by quantum mechanics - a very different view of our material universe at it's fundamental sub-atomic levels.

However, his discoveries regarding gravity, calculus, etc. in no way influenced his fundamental Christian beliefs. Not only that, but others were discoverying these same realities simultaneously, as in the more recent case of evolution and natural selection - eg. Alfred Russell Wallace vs Charles Darwin.

I will admit that the (eventual) soteriology of Christianity finally declared that humans would be saved by the intervention of one divine man in the person of Jesus the Christ - this belief and accompanying doctrine of course took centuries before emerging as a doctrinal truth.

As an Episcopalian you will understand the basic tenets of the Roman Catholic church.

The building blocks of Christianity are not mysterious - initially we have the Trinity (5th century C.E.) and then we have the doctrine of the redemption and the resurrection, with other accompanying doctrines over the centuries. As a former Catholic, I assure you I know the doctrinal coda backwards and forwards.

In my estimation, believing all of that will not bring us any closer to the truth of our essential reality - eg. there is no eternal heaven and no eternal hell, and there is no actual material reality, apart from our own essential Mind (we do not have separate souls, and we do not have separate minds - but it certainly seems like we do).

The Hindus call the essential reality Brahman, and it manifests in the human as the Atman - and it manifests in the very same way in all sentient creatures throughout the cosmos - Atman is Brahman.

There is no other separate reality - and as the Buddhists say, there is only the One Mind, with one essential essence or Suchness. As Huang Po the great Tang dynasty Chan master said, 'from the first, no thing is'. This is impossibly difficult to comprehend, and I won't disagree - however, I believe it to be the truth.

regards -

Persiflage, you said,

"Mythologists have said time and again that nothing in Christianity is original - and not without good reason."

So, then, please define 'originality' and give three examples. True, all knowledge and wisdom depends on what came before. But... the great thinkers of mankind were original, IMHO. They took what they had learned, and put it together into something new. Was Newton original? I think so, but even he admitted that he stood on the shoulders of giants. So then, is originality a synthesis of the wisdom of the past? I think this is Kantian - someone please correct me if I am wrong.

I therefore claim, by the aforesaid arguments, that Jesus was original in many respects. If not, just where did He come up with the Beatitudes?

ARMINIUS :"Robin,

Er... did you cook up that list yourself? Your scholarship? It is pretty amazing."

Thank you.

It would never have happened if I didn't read the works of New Testament scholar Burton L. Mack. He makes a strong case for a Cynic-like Jesus. I would say the tradition of satire and the parables of Jesus were conceived at the same source, and I would guess that the Mullah Nasrudin tales evolved from those wellsprings.

From Dzogchen - The Great Perfection:

- The Six Vajra Verses -

'The nature of phenomena is nondual,
but each one, in its own state, is beyond
the limits of the mind.

There is no concept that can define
the condition of 'what is'

but vision nevertheless manifests,
all is good.

Everything has already been accomplished,
and so, having overcome the sickness of effort,

One finds oneself in the self-perfected state;
this is completion.'

According to this view, life as we know it is dualistic and a product of the imagination and the Present Moment, but actual reality is nondualistic and is of One Mind and One Taste. What we see and experience is purely subjective - the only true and singular objective reality is No-Mind. Admittedly, this is beyond ratiocination.

__________________

If one understands these truths, one is a Buddha,
and is no longer strictly human.

__________________

'When you with everyone but me, you're no one
and when you're with no one but me, you're with everyone.

Instead of being so bound *with* everyone, *be* everyone.

When you become that many, you're nothing.

Empty.

'The Essential Rumi' from Coleman Barks.
________________

From the famous 14th century mystic and Dominican scholastic, Meister Eckhart (Raymond B. Blakney/Harper).

......'the eye with which I see God, is the eye with which God sees me.'

_______________

Arminius - the Fool in the Tarot deck, or the Trickster in other 'primitive' esoteric sytems, represents human nature....but is transformative in it's intent - this archetype is also represented by Hermes, the god of change, knowledge, and ultimately, wisdom. Hermes is also Pan, the Dionysian element in man.

It has been said that humans are incarnated because of a lust for the earthly/fleshly life - it is an 'addiction' that brings us back time and again. The Garden of Eden mythos is based precisely on that much earlier Greek mythology.

Mythologists have said time and again that nothing in Christianity is original - and not without good reason.

Robin,

Er... did you cook up that list yourself? Your scholarship? It is pretty amazing.

Farnaz, Farnaz, Farnaz,

Hmmm, such talk from a good and dainty, atheist Jewish lady!!! For shame!! Abraham would not be happy with you!!! You definitely are in line for a special, expensive and powerful Wiccan spell. Donations accepted.

ARMINIUS :"Robin,

Could Nasrudin be the Fool in the Tarot deck?"

I wouldn't be able to answer that question, my area of expertise is the Mullah's donkey:]

Another area I'm looking into is the role of the Greek Cynics in the development of world religion and culture. Your question concerning the Fool card is excellent, and I will take that into sufficient consideration to give you a real answer. Thank Goddess for open-minded Christians, without them we all be up Wasila's creek. But the role of the Greek Cynics in the development of both Christianity and Satire is central.

Here's a posting from the Pynchon List that I cooked up a couple of years ago that I hope you'll find enlightening:

http://tinyurl.com/5a5sbz

Blessed Be!
Robin

Robin,

Could Nasrudin be the Fool in the Tarot deck?

ARMINIUS : "This Christian's favorite Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense."

I am the Mullah Nasrudin's Donkey, and I approve this message.

"If you want
special illumination,
look upon a human face:
see deeply,
within laughter,
the essence
of ultimate
truth..."

Mevlana Jallaludin Rumi

Our Confused Croissant did barf:
"amoral voodoo and hoodoo coated in a cloak of nature and moonshine."

As usual, he got it wrong. It should be self-descriptive:
"amoral voodoo and hoodoo coated in a cloak of bigotry and madness." Which describes him perfectly.

The Barfing Bagel should creep off into a corner and puke there.

SONG

On the wind
in the cool of the evening
I send greetings to a friend.

I ask him only to remember the day
of our parting when we made a covenant
of love by an apple tree.

Carl Rakosi
After Jehudah Halevi
From “Eight Songs and Meditations (1971-1975),”

in The Collected Poems of Carl Rakosi

This Christian's favorite Rumi:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.

My Comment:
All our strife is meaningless, we are one. Along with the grass in that field out there.

Farnaz - thanks. And do you believe it? My feeling has always been that poets believe what they write.

regards -

"amoral voodoo and hoodoo coated in a cloak of nature and moonshine."

And your proof is.......?

PERSIFLAGE :"RobinL - I appreciate Stephen Mitchell's translations, of which I have several."

Thanks for the heads up.

Stephen Mitchell's translation of Lao-tsu's "Tao te Ching" is another favorite of mine. I will make an argument that Taoism has much in common with Paganism. Anyone who wants another chance to call me, or my donkey, a backwoods, uneducatamaed hick, here's your chance! This offer won't last forever, so act NOW! [or the donkey gets it!]:

19

Throwaway holiness and wisdom,
and people will be a hundred times happier.
Throw away morality and justice,
and people will do the right thing.
Throw away industry and profit,
and there won't be any thieves.

If these three aren't enough,
just stay at the center of the circle
and let all things take their course.

From "Human Ineffable Name"

Intimate Hymn

by Abraham Joshua Heschel

From word to word I roam, from dawn to dusk.
Dream in, dream out -- I pass myself and towns,
A human satellite.

I wait, am hopeful, as one who waits at the rock
For the spring to well forth and ever well on.
I feel as bright as if I tented somewhere in the Milky Way.
To urge the world to feel I walk through lonesome solitudes.

All around me lightning explodes sparks from my glance
To reveal all light, unveil faces everywhere.
Godward, onward to the final weighing
overcoming heavy weight with thirst.
Constantly, the longings of all born call out, "Is anyone around?"
I know each one is HE, but in my heart there writhes a tear;
When of men and rocks and trees I hear;
All plead "Feel us"
All beg "See us"
God! Lend me your eyes!

I came to be, to sow the seed of sight in the world,
To unmask the God who disguised Himself as world--
And yes, I wait to be the first to announce "The Dawn."

RobinL - I appreciate Stephen Mitchell's translations, of which I have several.

His translation of the Bhagavad Gita is the best available - he and Thomas Cleary seem to be in a class by themselves as regards religious translation work.

Two entertaining exerpts from Cleary's translation of "Awakening to the Tao" by
Liu I-Ming.....

- Don't Guess -

'The Tao is truly different. When you know it, it helps you wherever you go. Reversing yin and yang at the main door of the mysterious pass, revolving heaven and earth at the root of spiritual enery, pcking up the luminous pearly under the red dragon's jaw, finding the vessel of truth in the tiger's den - these matters should be figured out in the company of spiritual immortals; they do not admit of the guesswork of the ordinary ignorant.'

- The Real Body -

'The Tao is most real. First you should recognize the original human in detail. Seek the original essence inside the tempermental nature, look for the real body inside the material body. The difference between right and wrong is minute; it is only in before and after that remote and near are distinguished. The deluded all play in the physical body. They take the secondary for the primary.'

_______________

- Imagining the Buddha ..... a slender guy who walked the roads of India for 50 years and occasionally dined on rice and milk, along with his disciples. There are in fact cases on record of highly spiritual types that abstained from eating (and even drinking) for many years without deleterious effects - very strange, seemingly impossible, but apparently true all the same.

Google Christian mystic Theresa Neumann for a modern example. She was apparently very thoroughly researched over a period of the many years that this phenomenon was ongoing.

The Buddha isn't generally depicted as obese in Buddhist temples, CCNL, you must be thinking of Chinese restaurants. A common mistake, but you're mixing him up with someone else.

The mystics of the world shared a seemingly common experience - here's the last few lines of Rumi's longish poem 'Emptiness'.....

"........who are we then.
in this complicated world-tangle,
that is really just a single, straight
line down at the beginning of ALLAH?

Nothing.
We are emptiness."
________

So Zen-like! He was, after all, roughly a contemporary of Dogen, the first great Japanese Zen master that brought Chan Buddhism from China -and a great proponent of the Buddhist concept of emptiness/shunyata as the fundamental nature of reality. In his view, proper sitting was the equivilant of enlightenment - and a profound mystical poet in his own right.

How few ever reach such a level of profundity in today's world.......appreciating and knowing, being so very different.

Duino Elegies, The First Elegy [excerpt]

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the angels' hierarchies?
and even if one of them pressed me suddenly against his heart:
I would be consumed in that overwhelming existence.
For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure,
and we are so awed because it serenely disdains to annihilate us.
Every angel is terrifying.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the call-note of my dark sobbing.
Ah, whom can we ever turn to in our need?
Not angels, not humans, and already the knowing animals are aware
that we are not really at home in our interpreted world.
Perhaps there remains for us some tree on a hillside, which every day we can take into our vision;
there remains for us yesterday's street and the loyalty of a habit so much at ease
when it stayed with us that it moved in and never left.
Oh and night: there is night, when a wind full of infinite space gnaws at our faces.
Whom would it not remain for--that longed-after, mildly disillusioning presence,
which the solitary heart so painfully meets.
Is it any less difficult for lovers?
But they keep on using each other to hide their own fate.
Don't you know yet?
Fling the emptiness out of your arms into the spaces we breathe;
perhaps the birds will feel the expanded air with more passionate flying. . .

Translated by Stephen Mitchell

FWIW, this is my favorite poem---consider it a gift of the Dufi. I am sufficiently heretical to resonate with Christian spirituality, though to be perfectly honest I'm not really sure where Rilke is coming from other than these intense flashes of pure gnosis. Perhaps someone who is better educated can educate me and my donkey.

Jeez Louise, CCNL (Cruddy Cucumber),

I posted to you on Tom Reese's page again. You want me to keep it up?

And then move on to Round II of your colleagues?

Or are you going to retire your ignorance for awhile?

Back to the topic:

Empowerment in various places of worship!!!

We go into the Muslim mosque and find a call to violence and oppression to women. We go into the Jewish synagogue and find myths and more calls to violence via the trumpets of Jericho. We go into the Catholic/Christian church and find blood and bodies and pretty, wingie thingies but no Virgin Mary. We go into Hindu temples and find cows and the lower class cleaning up the dung. We go into a Buddhist temple and find tributes to an obese male figurine. We go to Pagan rituals and find the paranormal there spouting amoral voodoo and hoodoo coated in a cloak of nature and moonshine.

God Pursues Me Everywhere

God pursues me everywhere,
Enmeshes me in glances,
And blinds my sightless back like flaming sun.

God, like a forest dense, pursues me.
My lips are ever tender, mute, so amazed,
So like a child lost in an ancient sacred grove.

God pursues me like a silent shudder.
I wish for tranquility and rest -- He urges; come!
And see -- how visions walk like the homeless on the streets.

My thoughts walk about like a vagrant mystery --
Walks through the world's long corridor.
At times I see God's featureless face hovering over me.

God pursues me in the streetcars and cafes
Every shining apple is my crystal sphere to see
How mysteries are born and vision came to be.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

The above is a translation, of course. In some ways, Heschel was like Rumi. Definitely, not a religious pluralist, but a believer in different paths, like Rosensweig and Buber, though the two differed greatly from one another.

Heschel, though, mystic, though he was, was a Jew--Tikkun Olam. Worked tirelessly for civil rights, marched in Selma, worked with King, opposed Vietnam, one of the closest friends of Reinhold Niebuhr.

Take heed, bashers, flashers, dufuses (dufi), there are many paths, including atheism, agnosticism, animimism, pantheism.

medogsbstfrnd bloviates:

I see that you are being pummelled rather severely on this board, eliciting even a label of "dufus" by someone with, no doubt, expertise in duffidity. Check your horoscope, mate, and let that guide you to when you appear.
________________________________
1. Dufus: n. fool, pretentious oaf. Person who pontificates on Rumi, about whom he knows next to nothing. (also, duphus, dufeen, dufette)

2. Dufus: n. Jerk who knows nothing of the pagan elements in "New" (sic) Testament and Tanakh, yet pronounces away.

3. Dufus: n. Yutz who knows nothing of the history of "New" (sic) Testament ideology, yet blasts hot air with abandon.

V. Dufalize vt. Definition to follow.

S'ok, no problem. Sorry. Just wasn't sure where that was heading, though. :)

No Mokey - no question....and that last was not necessarily directed at Pagan posters - as you're not a pseudo-versifier or verbal prestidigitator that I know of. Other kinds of magick, perhaps.

However, there was something seemingly directed to my attention further back in the postings.

I quoted versifiers whose sentiments I can agree with wholeheartedly, and that was my only intention.

regards -

"Our pseudo-verifiers and wordy well-read prestidigitators have not shed further light on the prisoner's dilemma."

Is there a question in there somewhere?

Much like Pagans everywhere, the great mystic/poet William Wordsworth was a lover of nature & possibly a reincarnated druid of old. We all ponder the Mystery, each in our own way.

As Wordsworth says,

" I have felt a presence that
disturbs me with the joy of
elevated thoughts; a sense sublime.
Of something far more deeply interfused.
Whose dwelling is the light of the setting suns.
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."

Or as Bassui might say,

"What is this mind? Who is hearing
these sounds? Do not mistake any state
for self-realization, but continue to ask
yourself even more intensely,
What is it that hears?

Who is hearing? Your physical being
doesn't hear, nor does the Void.
Then what does?
Strive to find out - put aside your
rational intellect and give up all techniques.
Just get rid of the notion of self."
_________

The rusty cages of ancient sages are
the mere artifacts of man's religion.

Our pseudo-verifiers and wordy well-read prestidigitators have not shed further light on the prisoner's dilemma.

That really bothers me, too. Especially since we *are* protected as a legal religion, though not many people know that- especially those in higher places.

Only way to do it, these days, especially since divorce lawyers and judges have started making a point of using any association with Paganism an excuse to take away people's kids, and gone are the days when you might have a false sense of security about abusers never learning how to Google.

"A Pagan household I used to live in was also a safehouse for battered women, it'd *defeat the purpose* to make that information available to the public."

There are at least two in my neck of the woods here up North that I know of- that make a point of no advertising.

Robin:

". In any case, I really was looking for the argument clinic and found that I accidently wandered into abuse. "

LOL. :) 'That was never five minutes.' :)

Anyway, Medog:

"the one link I clicked onto that said it offered support groups for abused women and stroke victims, offered by a Wiccan group in Texas, only brings up horoscopes. This is fitting enough commentary."

Maybe they learned that the best way to run a battered womens' group in Texas isn't to advertise it (particularly not as Pagan) on the Web. Abusive people will use that sort of thing against their victims.

A Pagan household I used to live in was also a safehouse for battered women, it'd *defeat the purpose* to make that information available to the public.

MICKTY :ROBINLANDSEADALE [sic]
Dear Robin,“You cannot logically "claim" Rumi as an "early advocate" of such things as "celebrating different paths" because the different paths was present in the religion in which he was born: Islam.”

Who said I was being logical? In any case, the context Rumi lived in included people who killed others because of religious difference. Rumi points to religious wars as moral error. That is one reason why I chose that poem.

MICKTY: “This is a non sequitur not only logically, but also in historical knowledge. Rumi would not know what a "humanist" was except a non-believer [there is a way for this to proceed within his tradition], because he wrote before the advent of secularization, and as MEDOG rightly pointed out, from all sources of information!!

Speaking of your etymology reference, you contradicted yourself here in so many ways. How can you argue that the ordinary cultural and social use of a term of reference, which are subject to change within the very vicissitudes in this instance concerning Rumi as a Muslim, or product of Islam, is aberrant, or subject to suspicion, when you cite as support a mere paper by a friend on the postmodern use of language terms born asunder by their traditional cultural roots?”

Look, If MEDOG says that Pagan is a pejorative term that loosely means “hick”, and all these other people on the list are using the word to mean something else, then it’s worth pointing out that fact.

MICKTY: “A learned society would laugh you out of the room, or say, go see Rumi's donkey.”

The donkey and I get along just fine, as the room’s so stuffy, I can hardly breathe. There are many people on this blog who call themselves Pagans. “Pagan” clearly means [at least] one thing to PaganPlace and another to MICKTY & MEDOGSBSTFRND. It means many different things to me. In any case, I really was looking for the argument clinic and found that I accidently wandered into abuse. If you’d like to feel that you have won this argument, please feel free to do so. I’m sure we all have better things to do with our time. I’m going to bed, waking up early and starting up soup, beans, rice and salad for Food Not Bombs tomorrow morning.[Post Script---it is tomorrow morning, I'll be on my way in 30 minutes. Blessed Be!]

MEDOGSBSTFRND: “You have yet to provide a name, address or phone number for a hospital, orphanage, university or human rights institution paid for and run by pagans.

Again, it all depends on how you choose to define the word pagan. Neo-Pagan---not yet, at least not in the sorts of big, centralized institutions you’re pointing to. Not a part of the Judeo/Christian juggernaut? Plenty, but someone else can go look for citations. Pagan in the sense of pre-christian institutions? There’s Athens and Rome and plenty more and you obviously know where to look.

MEDOGSBSTFRND: “Your response was a pretzel of passive aggressive posting.”

Sorry.

MEDOGSBSTFRND: “Instead you found it convenient to insinuate that I'm mean for asking you a question and then claimed humanism for pagans everywhere.”

I’ve run into plenty of jerks who have professed all sorts of faiths. Pagans included. But the belief that one’s religion sets one apart, places one in a higher category of being, runs counter to my limited understanding of humanism.


MEDOGSBSTFRND: “Speaking of humanism, you are aware that humanism arose out of Christian medieval Europe, no?”

I was trying to point out to concepts concerning points of common ground. It really looks like you’re trying to promote essential difference, pointing to an elect that is responsible for progress as opposed to the rest of us preterites that are dragging along the rest of the planet back into the swamp.

MEDOGSBSTFRND:“It didn't arise out of paganism. But there you go again, making sweeping claims for things that paganism really has no historic right to make. All that aside, I'll be inclined to believe that paganism is committed to the betterment of human beings when they can point me to some institutions they have poured their lives and money into. Until then we'll just have to conclude that pagan posts are merely self-congratulatory speeches.”

I’ve already spoken about Food Not Bombs and pointed to other activities individuals have been engaged in that promote public welfare. Pagans are not some monolithic organization, like Catholics or Neo-Cons. There is a very strong anarchistic streak among us heretics. In fact, I’m sure I just infuriated some fellow pagan simply by responding to these questions.

MEDOGSBSTFRND :”ROBINLANDSEADEL you might try being more honest or transparent then when you rip off a response that claims Rumi for paganism, whatever it is. “

Did I claim Rumi as a Pagan? I chose that poem because I love Rumi’s poems, and I’m hearing a message of the essential unity of spiritual and mystical experience in his poems.

MEDOGSBSTFRND: “And you can try to shift the conversation to attack my character, sweetie, but it won't work.”

I’m sorry, but that’s some harsh affect you’re deploying. I don’t know if you’d really want to call me sweetie after seeing my gnarley mug.

MEDOGSBSTFRND: “This isn't about my breaking bottles. Indeed, I think you just broke one over my head, didn't you? C'mon, pony up to the bar and answer a simple question that I've now been pressing you to make all day long and you refuse to answer.”

I was answering another question.when you rode in on your white horse and imposed a question on me that I need to spend some time looking into. I wasn’t looking for a barroom brawl. It’s a good question, but I’m not the one to come up with a quick answer to that one. To start with, when speaking of the Pagan movement, are we speaking of the modern Neo-Pagan movement? Or are we using another meaning of the word pagan, the very first listing in my American Heritage dictionary: “A person who is not a Christian, Moslem or Jew: heathen”? Looking at the dictionary definition of heathen, I find another pejorative that boils down to another way of calling someone a preterite, unwashed hick. Of course there are plenty of hospitals, orphanages and universities that are not Christian, Moslem or Jew. I could get into the history of the oppression of anyone who wasn’t a Christian, Moslem or Jew but that’s another very long, time consuming set of competing screeds and it’s getting past all of our bedtimes.

If you are speaking of the modern Neo-Pagan movement, I won’t be able to point to hospitals, orphanages or universities. Big, centralized and well-funded runs counter to what I’ve encountered when involved with activist neo-pagans. I consider the work that Reclaiming has done at Livermore Labs or with individuals working as midwives, or needle exchange programs, or Starhawk’s work in permaculture as real work in promoting human rights. But that might not be enough for you.

I guess that breaking up my responses into smaller bits will work. Let's see, shall we?

(trying again, here. Guessing posts are being held for length)

Who said you got to judge, anyway? You want to believe Pagans are people who don't share what we can, and say it's cause of a theology you refuse to understand in the first place, well, take whatever satisfaction you feel you gain from that, cause you'll learn nothing more on that score.

Someone like you who spends their time trying to give others a still harder time just existing in society, then complaining that we aren't advertising ourselves with some big charitable foundations, well, don't then turn around and further say there's something weird about it when we get a bit peeved.

Few, I think, are *more* aware of what's going on in the world than your local Pagans, and not just to the point of figuring that if we personally administer some band-aids that we can keep voting for people who make conditions far worse.

What this goes to, as regards *empowerment* is, well, see what you guys are doing, here? Apparently trying to defend your position as 'The Most Humblest Serenest, and Trancendentest,' ....and I think what there is to that is some manner of defending a claim that you're justified in trying to *disempower* people. What would you have us decide, that we're actually as uncharitable as you insist, and stop helping people?

I don't think so.

But let's turn it around... You like to claim we're uncharitable cause you 'don't see' 'overwhelming' numbers of Pagan-labeled charities. I'd say, if monotheists are so charitable, how come it's my experience that when some Pagans raise a crew to go help someone else's charity out, there's always work to do?

Can't you see how silly this is?

Anyway, it's not like I have a surplus of sweat equity to offer, these days, frankly, it seems I wore my body out while helping the poor when I had, really, almost nothing myself, ...and seeing some of the worst in people as well as the best.

I think one of the things that tends to make me angry, here, is *that* after giving my all, it seems I've had to watch this country slide back further into ignorance, greed, and denial of the real situation, and find there's less and less I can personally do about it.

There are some conservatives here who believe we're essentially helpless except to try and suppress each other's religions and hope that everything'll turn out all right, ...one way or another to keep on with more of the same and hoping some distant God will fix it or ...punish the 'sinners' or whatever.

And that's *real* helplessness.

Frankly, if you want to *see* more contributions from the Pagans of America, you could stop treating us like this whenever we identify ourselves.

Also, if you want to have a better idea of our religious views, stop insisting on trying to 'prove' your preconceptions so you can then 'argue' with them. It's tedious.

I tried to post a long set of answers to MICKTY & MEDOGSBSTFRND. The post wouldn't appear. My guess is that the response was just too long. I wouldn't claim Rumi as a Pagan, but he writes beautiful responses to counter religious intolerance. I have known many Pagans who have done charitable work. From what I have seen so far, big & centralized is not our style. Local and personal is. In any case, my favorite author has this to say:

Proverbs for paranoids #3:

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to worry about answers.

Trust me, you have not seen anything of my rage.

We do not advertise for reasons that have already been mentioned here. We do what we do best- Hiding in plain sight. I don't know any rich Pagans who have the resources to start brand new organizations. There's only been one Wiccan lottery winner who is working to start a college. Beyond that, we have to work just like everybody does. Our clergy often doesn't get paid- often because they don't feel that spirituality should have to cost people money. We mostly prefer to work with organizations that already exist due to very real threats that come from the uninformed populace.

There is also the Spiral Scouts, among others.

We are all around you. Based on projections, we are one of if not the fastest growing religious movements in this country. Not bad for a group that doesn't proselytize, if you ask me.

So many Pagans work in helping professions as their day jobs as well, so we make our mark that way.

Incidentally, how many of these groups would it take for you to be sufficiently 'whelmed?' For a young religious movement, I'd say we're doing pretty well. This is a way of life for us.

And next time you ask a question like that, you get to look up the answers. Your fingers aren't broken. Do the research yourself.

MICKTY I once had the joy of listening to Coleman Barks recite Rumi in a grand cathedral on a snowy winter evening and it was, to use religious langauge, ecstatic. How rich that the derivatives of Woodstock claim him for paganism since he was part of a tradition that would denounce them as infidels. He was, in keeping with his tradition, sensitive to people of the Book, that is Jews and Christians. So the poetry he gave speech to in honor of them is not surprising and it is certainly heart-warming at some level. But Rumi would not have had the "respect" for pagan opinions that many in this forum demand. This is the problem when one overreaches and claims the intellectual lights of other traditions as their own--it leads to a massive crack up. You mentioned "either/or"-- well now, that Dane knew a thing or two, didn't he? I see that you are being pummelled rather severely on this board, eliciting even a label of "dufus" by someone with, no doubt, expertise in duffidity. Check your horoscope, mate, and let that guide you to when you appear.

MOKEY2 finally gets around to taking a stab at the question which has, up to this point, been answered--and I use that word as widely as pagans claim the gifts of other traditions--only in the most general sort of way, providing a web link to various "charities" run by pagan entities. BTW, Mokey, check your rage at the door and trust me, my happiness does not depend on your work. So congrats on providing some links to pagan efforts to humanize the world. And while I wouldn't discount food drives and pagans providing pagan council for pagans as charitable, the list is rather underwhelming. Interestingly enough, the one link I clicked onto that said it offered support groups for abused women and stroke victims, offered by a Wiccan group in Texas, only brings up horoscopes. This is fitting enough commentary.

Empowerment in various places of worship!!!

We go into the Muslim mosque and find a call to violence and oppression to women. We go into the Jewish synagogue and find myths and more calls to violence via the trumpets of Jericho. We go into the Catholic/Christian church and find blood and bodies and pretty, wingie thingies but no Virgin Mary. We go into Hindu temples and find cows and the lower class cleaning up the dung. We go into a Buddhist temple and find tributes to an obese male figurine. We go to Pagan rituals and find the paranormal there spouting amoral voodoo and hoodoo coated in a cloak of nature and moonshine.

Ah, just what I'd come up with off the fingers, F. :)

Hello PaganPlace,

You did write a sonnet--a ten-line sonnet, but it's still a sonnet cuz the defs gotten more liberal. It's on this very thread, your verse, I mean.

Mick and co. came on, I think, to do battle, but I think 'tiss better to rhyme, whenever possible.

Farnaz :)

Mick

To you I did not post, nor did I write
"syntretistic"

Illustrations of the Holy Scriptures: Derived Principally from the ... - Google Books Result
by George Bush - 1865 - Bible - 656 pages

... because paganism was syntretistic, and did not deny the divinity of other gods ; and, besides, the Israelites believed in the God who created the world, ...
books.google.com/books?id=OtY2snCQcQgC...

Mickdoodle a Bushian are you.
And must needs go to school.
A dictionary is a worthy tool.

syncretic

Looking for the transcendant, are you? Hows about Osiris instead?

Mick, with yer religious angst, who needs yer? :)

I'm totally not sure what he was congratulating himself about, either, or in some cases, who he was even talking to, Farnazz. :)

Mick,

You are a dufus. Where do you think the blood/wine, bread/flesh stuff came from, Monsewer, heaven?

I mean, just to get to some basics down here, there's a difference between trying to explain things in comparison to more familiar terms that you might understand, and me or Pagans in general actually constructing our view of the Goddess from these words.

And there's a difference between, say, mystical religion and 'magical thinking' in the pathological sense you seem to be referring to.

"I'd say your knights have tried to come to the rescue here in this sea of logic.

"I have not read them too closely. "

Well, Mick, neither have I since I just got in, but if you haven't read them too closely, it's silly to claim you have some kind of superior position.

Whatever you think you mean by 'dialectical,' though, that's not apparently leading you to any understanding of what you're talking about, here.

I'd say, Mick, that you may be mischaracterizing Buddhism, there... the practice of compassion is in fact considered the way to live, if not one needing so much *advertising.* And there are different traditions that you may not be really understanding if you resort to ontology per se.

Some of it's no more 'hard atheist' to coin a term than a beginner's guide to Zen: the notion often comes off not that 'there are no Gods' so much as 'The 'Gods' are nothing... just like us,' if you will.

(Not to mangle that too badly. But there are analagous beings (One might more properly say non-beings) in other traditions: I've worked with Tibetan Buddhist clergy, the occasional Zen type... a lot of it, I consider just a different take on a similar world. )

A prime reason you don't *see* Pagan charities and those of other religious minorities is that there isn't a missionary or advertising agenda to most of them, ...not to mention certain practical difficulties in being an *identifiably-defamed group* trying to focus on what needs doing, rather than on some idea of who gets the *credit.*

There's a can drive at just about every Pagan event, which is a small thing, ....but even this often has to be donated anonymously for the local food bank to accept it, ...even, quite often, the donations are actually refused even *then,* because a lot of the charitable infrastructure is actually trying to *promote* the bias that no one but monotheists care.

Abundantly shown in the 'faith based initiatives' under Bush, with proposals rejected *out of hand* on the grounds 'Pagans aren't charitable.' (Even, apparently, while trying to get some service together.)

We're *not* a wealthy faith community, in general, of course, ...it's not exactly a faith group with beliefs that prioritize accumulating great wealth in the first place, and given many Pagans have to work around rampant discrimination and without the support and back-scratching of more munificent church communities, well, I wouldn't be expecting too many hundred thousand dollar donations, no.

Why aren't there so many visible charities? We try to open a tea room, and a lot of people will try to run that business out of town.

So there's a lot of reasons, ...Theology isn't one of them.

PAGANPLACE

I would smooth out the grammar of the description of the, well, whatever you want to call it, 'spirituality,' before filling in the logical "bumps n the road" of the description, if I were [was] you.

Or, you used dialectical language. It's been called an "Either/Or" by greater minds.

I'd say your knights have tried to come to the rescue here in this sea of logic.

I have not read them too closely.

The Mick [King Bee]

[The words we use betray us. Beware of those who understand the words.]

Mick: Teaching grammatical rules for proper communication every where I can, including those bewitched by magical thinking, otherwise attuned to other nonsensical web-waves.

Empowerment in various places of worship!!!

We go into the Muslim mosque and find a call to violence and oppression to women. We go into the Jewish synagogue and find myths and more calls to violence via the trumpets of Jericho. We go into the Catholic/Christian church and find blood and bodies and pretty, wingie thingies but no Virgin Mary. We go into Hindu temples and find cows and the lower class cleaning up the dung. We go into a Buddhist temple and find tributes to an obese male figurine.

Ah, well, timing and all. I'm still pretty wiped. Did like your one about anger, down there, Pseudo. Though, trust me, just cause I speak from some places here, doesn't mean it's my life.

And don't worry, Farnazz, I don't think I've attempted a proper sonnet since college... though for the longest time it seemed any rhyme and meter at all were out of fashion. :)

Maybe I can cook something up for you, no promises, though, I'm going to take sleep if I can get it. :)

FARNAZ2

You beg the question here, and place your penny too close to the curb for the win.

I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a "Buddhist" hospital, but such a thing would not be within such a noble tradition as Buddhism.

After all, Buddhists do not posit such things as ontological 'Gods,' which direct humans this way and that. I am sure that MEDOG not only knows this, but knows it well.

You apparently need some schooling here.

That there are hospitals in Buddhist-leaning countries, and alas, which follow suit by way of modern medicinal practice as if Jesus was walking on the water, is not the point.

If you took Gautama at face value, the ultimate value, benefit, in being a Buddhist would be to exit, as in nirvana, this scene.

The Christian's, the real ones, posit another scene, altogether different in nature.

You can trace the modern trajectory of 'modern' medicine and it will take you squarely back to vive la vive. . .

My only real questions for you are these two:

What the hell does any religion being a "syntretistic" religion mean in the mouth of a person either: (1) supplicating within the tradition for the aspiration of life within tradition of said 'god,' point of view/reality, or "God?" (2) Meaning what they say within the truth of their cultural habitat?

The Mick

p.s. In this sense, you don't know what the heck you are talking about.

Hello Pagan Place,

Unfortunately as you join I must pass
It's been a long hard day and I'm out of gas

Merry verse.

'night all.

Dear Pseudo,

Of course, you can write a sonnet, which is not to say that couplets lack. After all, another great Christian poet wrote couplets, and also sonnets.

You are a great poet, Pseudo. Do not be intimidated by PaganPlace, the famous sonneteer. And then there's also Arminius, DITLD. There's world and time for all, you see.

Hi, all, sorry, couldn't get on for a bit, there. Got busy.

I'll see if I can catch up on all this.

On this, I'll see if I can steer in the right direction:

"If The Goddess is "compassionate," but not always "sweet," "empowering and kind," but also "wild and nurturing, then how is this "goddess" any different than a dialectical psychological process which is natural in the human being?"

Being more than a thought or a process? Certainly there are these elements in talking about Her, since that's the 'equipment' we're using. Dialectical is definitely *not* the operative term, though, any more than much more opposition-based belief systems would claim.

" And if "the Goddess" is synonymous with nature, then how is there any so-called "transcendence" in any way other than a psychological one? Or, just how transcendent is a tsunami?"

Nature... the universe, is alive. There's more to nature than the material, though, ...you seem to be operating under a notion of a mind-body-spirit split from elsewhere, which may be where your apparent confusion comes in, regarding how we see the Goddess. It'd be simplistic but closer to say we tend to see Nature as fully ensouled, but also that there's more.

A tsunami's neither a dead thing, nor an instrument of some divine vengeance directed from elsewhere, but fully part of that living world... (an uncharitable metaphor,) but a small creature living on and from a bigger one doesn't take it personally when that creature rolls over or something.

Well sung.

"Irksome it is for Percy Flage
To shift his blinkered gaze
And open the unlocked rusted cage
That darkens all his days"

Perhaps not Pseudo but true.
'tis in the mind's eye
Where we find a moment of truth

Farnaz,

I fear that a sonnet is beyond my poor poetic license.
In contrast to our friend Pagan Place.
Perhaps she will return.

%-}

Perhaps I will study upon this
But I am not sure I can master it.
In the time alloted by life.

Who knows.

There is some strange lyrical rhyme
That tries to emerge at this time

I wonder what it is?
Could it be a lyrical song
from long ago?

Try as I might I do not yet know.

Pseudo,

Yes, of course, Pseudo. Some religions have more animist elements than others, some more Pagan like the so-called Abrahamics. All of them.

Now

Irksome it is for Percy Flage
To shift his blinkered gaze
And open the unlocked rusted cage
That darkens all his days

To who knows no Greek history
Or even when Jesus was born

The pagans cults mystery
For millennia taught paths now well worn

Like sacred geometry
Or reason's philosophy

So sing to us muse, of your outrage
Of crimes of contrapuntal persiflage
Begin where you will...

"If The Goddess is "compassionate," but not always "sweet," "empowering and kind," but also "wild and nurturing, then how is this "goddess" any different than a dialectical psychological process which is natural in the human being? And if "the Goddess" is synonymous with nature, then how is there any so-called "transcendence" in any way other than a psychological one? Or, just how transcendent is a tsunami?"

I'd say pretty damned transcendent if your home is washed away and you make it through with your family. She has a way of reminding you what's important in life. And yes, for many, though not all Pagans, it's balance that is sought. Not power over, but equality between genders. We see Goddess as within us AND without. She is everywhere, in everything. Everything is alive. The cycles of Nature are our greatest teacher. As above, so below- as within, so without.

Some of the folks here are trapped in their dualist thinking and instead of actually trying to understand how we see ourselves and the world as all interconnected prefer to ridicule what they obviously don't understand.

You don't have to believe as we do, just show respect to others who may have other ways of looking at things.

For whoever wanted names and addresses:

/www.circlesanctuary.org/liberty/pagancharitywork.html

Now that others have done your work for you, happy?

medogsbstfrnd:

Re: Your concerns about Pagan social service providers

Where is the nearest Buddhist hospital? Soup kitchen, etc.? The nearest Muslim? The nearest Hindu?

And, so, point? Are you saying that those religions are illegitimate?
__________________________________

Rumi was not a "pluralist" any more than any Christian mystics were. He recognized like Abraham Joshua Heschel, whom Catholics and Protestants are familiar with that there are different paths. However, he was a Muslim, beginning, middle, and end of story. Did not believe in the divinity of Christ, the son of God business, etc., etc., etc.

Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all syncretic religions. The third believes it "superceded" the second, and the second believes it "superceded" the first.

Now take a look at history. Look up the word ideology, and think about the foregoing.

ROBINLANDSEADALE

Dear Robin,

You cannot logically "claim" Rumi as an "early advocate" of such things as "celebrating different paths" because the different paths was present in the religion in which he was born: Islam.

This is a non sequitur not only logically, but also in historical knowledge. Rumi would not know what a "humanist" was except a non-believer [there is a way for this to proceed within his tradition], because he wrote before the advent of secularization, and as MEDOG rightly pointed out, from all sources of information!!

Speaking of your etymology reference, you contradicted yourself here in so many ways. How can you argue that the ordinary cultural and social use of a term of reference, which are subject to change within the very vicissitudes in this instance concerning Rumi as a Muslim, or product of Islam, is aberrant, or subject to suspicion, when you cite as support a mere paper by a friend on the postmodern use of language terms born asunder by their traditional cultural roots?

A learned society would laugh you out of the room, or say, go see Rumi's donkey.

MEDOGSBSTFRND

Yes, Dude, you are quite astute re your descriptive powers here: fruit loops "are" little colored cheerios, but they are not little colored Cheerios. That's a different cereal, indeed.

You have correctly pointed out the same intellectual/spiritual foibles/fallacies which protrude as if precious flowers from the minds of children who's parents came of age in the 60s, which their parents, speaking of irony, have long ago left behind. Just how old is this "Starhawk" goddess?

Has anyone raised the question here of the social location of thought? Hum? This in reference to your square-on comments re Rumi.

In other words, how old is this woman and how was she raised, and where, and by whom?

I'd bet her ideas begin and end at this point. Let's call this a type of "New Realism" spirituality.

I would say something else, but it would be taken as offensive. And this, indeed, is the ultimate irony when someone starts a thread about a "Goddess" who 'inspires' us to all sorts of talk and behavior, even wildness!

The Mick

MICKTY Fruit loops, yeah? I like that. Are those the little cheerios that come in colors? I'm taking my corn flakes and leaving, mate. It is an irony that those who reject patriarchal representations of what is manifestly Spirit insist at the same time upon gender specification with regard to their god/dess. I believe that rises to irony. Perhaps it is just a paradox. "I don't like god being represented as a male so the answer must be to represent god as a a female." Or perhaps it is balance that is sought. That's fair, I suppose. your comment about a tsunami and transcendence was spot on. Mother nature is not so benign, is she? Carry on.

ROBINLANDSEADEL you might try being more honest or transparent then when you rip off a response that claims Rumi for paganism, whatever it is. And you can try to shift the conversation to attack my character, sweetie, but it won't work. This isn't about my breaking bottles. Indeed, I think you just broke one over my head, didn't you? C'mon, pony up to the bar and answer a simple question that I've now been pressing you to make all day long and you refuse to answer. You have yet to provide a name, address or phone number for a hospital, orphanage, university or human rights institution paid for and run by pagans. Your response was a pretzel of passive aggressive posting. Instead you found it convenient to insinuate that I'm mean for asking you a question and then claimed humanism for pagans everywhere.
Speaking of humanism, you are aware that humanism arose out of Christian medieval Europe, no? It didn't arise out of paganism. But there you go again, making sweeping claims for things that paganism really has no historic right to make. All that aside, I'll be inclined to believe that paganism is committed to the betterment of human beings when they can point me to some institutions they have poured their lives and money into. Until then we'll just have to conclude that pagan posts are merely self-congratulatory speeches.

Dear MEDOGSBSTFRND,

Speaking of "a lot of rage. . ."

"Rumi was a fantastic Muslim (Sufi) poet. Are you claiming him for paganism?"

No, but I will claim him as an early advocate of accepting different religious paths, an advocate of an early version of humanism. And these particular arguments might be more about religious tolerance than paganism. In any case, your etymology is correct but like most etymological definitions, it points more to where a word used to be than where it is now. This reminds me of a paper that a friend wrote concerning "Neopaganism & Poetry" that had nothing to do with the modern definition of Neopaganism.

I'll think about your questions a bit before giving you a fuller response. But please be civil enough to allow for such things as multiple definitions and different points of view. It looks like you're doing all you can to win an argument and are perfectly willing to smash a few bottles in the process.

That Sarah Palin, she just keeps on palin' and palin'.

I can see her and McCain driving the bus off a cliff, with all those designer clothes streaming out behind them, fluttering to the canyon below.

Wouldn't it make a great movie?

We go into the Muslim mosque and find a call to violence and oppression to women. We go into the Jewish synagogue and find myths and more calls to violence via the trumpets of Jericho. We go into the Christian church and find blood and bodies and pretty, wingie thingies but no Virgin Mary.

ROBINLANDSEADEL: Rumi was a fantastic Muslim (Sufi) poet. Are you claiming him for paganism? Would any of the cultures you mentioned actually refer to themselves as pagan? The term was used of those who resided in rural areas, the hicks if you will. Be that as it may, what you and the other two before you have done is avoid the specificity of my question. And my question is in response to the assertion that the goddess empowers women. Might I look up in the phone book where an abused spouse could find a pagan shelter? a pagan hotline? These, as you obviously know, are most often offered by secularists and in terms of actual, real shelters, Jewish and Christian institutions. I'm not saying there are not homes for the abused or orphanages or hospitals funded by the efforts of pagans. Maybe there are. But making wild general claims for everything good that has ever happened for the benefit of humanity is one heck of a self-congratulatory pitch without ever being specific as to the contributions to empowerment you espouse.

Hello, all you animists out there who seek the transcendent via the great symbol of The Mother (Or is it immanence with nature? I get confused reading these posts of the faithful!

My first time posting here, so be easy on me. And I'm new to the "post your own subjective thoughts on an objective medium [this would be a computer screen] and call it the truth." So be kind here.

But just a few comments in an ordinary language vein of philosophy. Or, as Marshal Mcluhan argued, the medium is the message.

Just a few comments on the opening description of "The Goddess."

If The Goddess is "compassionate," but not always "sweet," "empowering and kind," but also "wild and nurturing, then how is this "goddess" any different than a dialectical psychological process which is natural in the human being? And if "the Goddess" is synonymous with nature, then how is there any so-called "transcendence" in any way other than a psychological one? Or, just how transcendent is a tsunami?

And to that poster who compared this collection of rituals and ideas to a bowl of cornflakes, I'd say a bowl of fruit loops is more like it!

Hey, don't get mad at me, The Goddess made me do it!! You know, to be "wild!"

mickty

MEDOGSBSTFRND : ". . . you guys laid the foundations of world civilization. That's been like thousands and thousand of like years. . ."

Uh, MEDOGSBSTFRND---you are aware that ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Hindu & other cultures are "Pagan?" You are aware of their contributions to world culture, science and the arts?

MEDOGSBSTFRND :" Reading this forum quickly leads one to conclude that what we have here is a narcissistic indulgence for bad poetry and a lot of rage."

You callin' Rumi a bad poet?

Truth is, most posts I see [and I play in a lot of different blogs] display a whole lot of rage. And narcissism. Must be something in the water.

Athena4 tries to help out Pseudo: "not bad for a 50 yr old religion, huh?" UH, according to Pseudo you guys laid the foundations of world civilization. That's been like thousands and thousand of like years. Enough time to tell someone what pagan research hospital they could check into or what pagan and accredited university their kid might apply to. Reading this forum quickly leads one to conclude that what we have here is a narcissistic indulgence for bad poetry and a lot of rage.

Athena4 Author Profile Page:

Pagans believe that there are many paths, and probably many destinations, but all are equally valid. We don't have a problem with Christianity. We just have a problem with people pushing it on us.
----------------------

Yeah, well, I know what you mean. Don't like anybody pushing anything on me either. All religions are syncretic. My problem is with those that cannibalize others, "supercede" them, and then do what comes naturally.

Lay off, Charlemagne, I say.

Pagans believe that there are many paths, and probably many destinations, but all are equally valid. We don't have a problem with Christianity. We just have a problem with people pushing it on us.

FARNAZ2 : "You see, my dear, what consequences you can bring, when you believe yourself enlightening."

Something tells me we may not be on the same path, but on adjacent and converging paths.

FARNAZ2 :"BTW., it was Campbell and Jung, among others, who considered Christianity to have revived the Goddess in Mary."

I was particularly turned on by Joseph Campbell's writings and lectures. My perception is that Christianity is a syncretic path that absorbed just as much of the "Pagan" beliefs of old Europe as the Semitic beliefs of the Middle East. From the perch I'm resting on, the Cynic movement of Greek culture is the source for "Hippie Jesus".

I have not read the Qu'ran, poets and musicians seem to be more attuned to my concept of the divine. It was hard enough reading the New Testement as a child, I'd much rather read Rilke or Rumi.

"I go into the Muslim mosque and the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church and I see one altar."

Right On!

"I go into the Muslim mosque and the Jewish synagogue and the Christian church and I see one altar."

Rumi

robinlandseadel:

I have read Rumi, and also Qu'ran according to which Jesus wasn't killed.

Mohammad is the last prophet, supercedes the Christian Testament.

There are those who accept the wisdom, the omniscience, the omnipotence of Hashem,

but do not worship a corpse upon a stick.

There are those whose hearts are hardened and kill and kill and kill in the name of their son of god.

Farnaz, no. translation necessary.

You see, my dear, what consequences you can bring, when you believe yourself enlightening.

_____________________________________________
BTW., it was Campbell and Jung, among others, who considered Christianity to have revived the Goddess in Mary.

MHOUST : "As far as I'm concerned, Wicca, Neo-pagans, Buddists, Taoists, Confucians, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Animists, etc have equal validity in their beleifs."

As far as I'm concerned, any religion that claims that it is the one, the only and the indisputable path towards enlightenment and eternal life gets a lot of points deducted on the basis of being ruled by narrow-mindedness and a lack of awareness of the many ways of the world. Above all, a religion that divides the world into the elect and the preterite is corrupted by an essential lack of compassion.

There are those who accept the law of Moses
and not the grace and love of Jesus,

like the Jewish king who killed Christians.
This is not seeing right. Moses is

inside the soul of Jesus as Jesus is
in the soul of Moses. One era belonged to one;

then it was the other's turn, but they
are one being. A teacher said to a slightly

cross-eyed student, "Hand me the glass bottle there."
"Which one?" "There are not two."

"Don't scold me, teacher, but I see two."
"Smash one of them." Of course, both

were broken. This is how it is when
we see through the double vision of lust,

anger, or some religious self-interest.
A bribed judge cannot distinguish the one

who's been cruel from the victim.
A good prayer is, Lord, help us see both worlds as one.

Rumi: A CROSS-EYED STUDENT, trans. Coleman Barks

Well, but Christians do worship the Goddess. They call her Mary.

ATHENA4 : "To the person that wanted specific examples of Pagan charities. . ."

Merry Meet, Athen44.

I'll add Food Not Bombs. There is a strong pagan presence in FNB, which has everything to do with the innate anarchist nature of the beast. Judy Foster, founding Mother of a number of pagan groups, had a big influence in the East Bay FNB of Oakland/Berkeley. Food Not Bombs is a great example of a charitable organization unplugged from Christian rhetoric and disconnected from government control.

JONTHOM : "Starhawk's essay founders on two important points: there's no credible evidence that women were ever the actual power brokers in their clans, tribes or states. . . "

Queen Elizabeth I of England. That why English is the language of the U.S.A. Elizabeth Regina wielded great power and casts a long shadow. I can mention other others, but you can catch my drift. "No credible evidence" doesn't match reality.

". . .and the fact that The Goddess and all gods and goddesses are mythical creatures, not real beings. . ."

As are the characters in books, movies, TV shows. And yet we all have our life paths driven by the myths of these archetypal characters, the Jesuses and Joan of Arcs of the world.

". . .If women want to be empowered they need to find that power within themselves, not in wish fulfilling fantasies. Self delusion does not empower anyone."

Neither does self-negation. Read Starhawk's "Dreaming the Dark", a book that has a lot to say about innate power. As long as the dominate paradigms all shout: "you are less, you are under, you are innately evil, you are the darkness, stay in your place", as long as the dominant paradigm is oppression, then oppression will be codified into the rule of law. Internal change requires a new script.

"Don't interrupt the sorrow
Darn right
In flames our prophet witches
Be polite
A room full of glasses
He says "Your notches liberation doll"
And he chains me with that serpent
To that Ethiopian wall"

Joni Mitchell: "Don't Interrupt the Sorrow"

To the person that wanted specific examples of Pagan charities:

The Pagan group that I am a member of is doing a fundraiser for Stepping Stones Nigeria, which helps Nigerian children who are accused of being witches and cast out of their homes by their Fundamentalist Christian families. We also have people that volunteer at environmental events, soup kitchens and AIDS clinics, but not in any organized fashion. Starhawk has been a leader in the fight for global fair trade and indigenous people's rights. Many Pagans went down to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to help in the recovery, including a group that was trying to get the toxins out of the soil in flooded areas. We have a charity to aid first responders in disaster areas, like after Hurricanes Katrina and Ike, and the fires in San Diego. We have a group called Military Pagans, which "adopts" our soldiers that are stationed overseas. (BTW, I have two boxes of stuff that I need to send out.)

Not bad for a 50-year-old religion, huh?

Darn, we just put away our Band-Aids and up comes the poor poets of voodoo doing their hoodoo again.

Wake up vampire!!! The mosquitoes are making another trip.

JONTHOM:

Deborah?

As far as I'm concerned, Wicca, Neo-pagans, Buddists, Taoists, Confucians, Hindus, Christians, Muslims, Animists, etc have equal validity in their beleifs.

Which is about 10% to 50%. The universe is polarized: positive-negative, creation-destruction, right-left, north-south, ying-yang, female-male. If some christians beleive in a trinity, there's no reason others can't beleive in a duality, or a unity, or a multiplicity.

Since I've probably only had a couple of nearly insignificant mystical experiences during my meagre 5 decades; while I beleive that there is something more than just ourselves, and that something exists past death, I've never experienced anything like the personification of a deity or spiritual being.

The one thing I have run into is that people who are caught up in the "true beleiver" syndrome are capable of doing much good, or the worst of evils. The Inquisition, the Holocaust, and the militant fundamentalists of all ilks today fit that description far too well.

JONTHOM:

Boudica?

JonThom,

Most Pagans understand all gods and goddesses as mythological, including that of the Bible. What we honor by the name of Goddess- is the planet, the air, the water, the fire- all of which are tangible. And are alive, to many Pagans. Much, though not all, of our study comes out of the understandings of the purposes of mythology as described by Campbell and Jung- among many others- and we have our own experiences that back up our practices and validate them for ourselves. And it is tremendously empowering for women. This is a way of life, not simply some 'wish fullfilment' for those who choose it.

Veneration of the female form in some form has been around for at least 25-30,000 years, as evidenced by the Venus of Willendorf and other archeological finds. Whether or not it was a figure of worship is unknown. Most of the recent evidence is uncertain. Our present day paths, which are thoroughly modern and adjusted to our needs in this day and age, has some small roots that go WAY back.

You are making claims about things using definitions that we do not.

Pseudo> appropriate screen name for someone who makes a grand (and delusional) truth claim about paganism laying the foundations for the world's great civilizations. I asked you to be specific about pagan contributions toward hospitals, orphanages, educational institutions, civil and human rights movements etc. Your silence says it all. To take credit for the foundations of civilization is like a rooster taking credit for the sun rising. It is like Reagan taking credit for the collapse of atheist communism. Keep the screen name though, dude.

" ancient times there had been many female images of divinity."

In ancient times? India just had a festival called Navaratri, which is a nine day festival honoring the Hindu goddess Durga (or Kali as she is sometimes called).

Starhawk's essay founders on two important points: there's no credible evidence that women were ever the actual power brokers in their clans, tribes or states; and the fact that The Goddess and all gods and goddesses are mythical creatures, not real beings. If women want to be empowered they need to find that power within themselves, not in wish fulfilling fantasies. Self delusion does not empower anyone.

Farnaz,

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
- - Irish Blessing

Sleep that sews the torn seams of jeans
Is shutting down my brain it seems
So I must bid you all a fond farewell
Since in the morning I at work must dwell.

To all who love the sweet and good and true
Whatever Be there be may Be bless you.

This is one of my favorite poems of all time, by a contemporary writer, Anita Endrezze

The Girl Who Loved the Sky

Outside the second grade room,
the jacaranda tree blossomed
into purple lanterns, the papery petals
drifted, darkening the windows.
Inside, the room smelled like glue.
The desks were made of yellowed wood,
the tops littered with eraser rubbings,
rulers, and big fat pencils.
Colored chalk meant special days.
The walls were covered with precise
bright tulips and charts with shiny stars
by certain names. There, I learned
how to make butter by shaking a jar
until the pale cream clotted
into one sweet mass. There, I learned
that numbers were fractious beasts
with dens like dim zeros. And there,
I met a blind girl who thought the sky
tasted like cold metal when it rained
and whose eyes were always covered
with the bruised petals of her lids.

She loved the formless sky, defined
only by sounds, or the cool umbrellas
of clouds. On hot, still days
we listened to the sky falling
like chalk dust. We heard the noon
whistle of the pig-mash factory,
smelled the sourness of home-bound men.

I had no father; she had no eyes;
we were best friends. The other girls
drew shaky hopscotch squares
on the dusty asphalt, talked about
pajama parties, weekend cookouts,
and parents who bought sleek-finned cars
Alone, we sat in the canvas swings,
our shoes digging into the sand, then pushing,
until we flew high over their heads,
our hands streaked with red rust
from the chains that kept us safe.

I was born blind, she said, an act of nature.
Sure, I thought, like birds born
without wings, trees without roots.
I didn't understand. The day she moved
I saw the world clearly: the sky
backed away from me like a departing father.
I sat under the jacaranda, catching
the petals in my palm, enclosing them
until my fist was another lantern
hiding a small and bitter flame.

PaganPlace has abandoned us.

The Sorrow of Love

THE brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation of the leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.

I'm beginning to think that the Croissant should take a good look at the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. He needs to lighten up a bit.

Pseudo,

You will like this.

When You Are Old

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how love fled
And paced among the mountains overhead
And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

William Butler Yeats

Pseudo,

Unfortunately the WaPo censor is a Philistine at least where Stafford is concerned. This link has those two poems.

As for Jacoby, funny thing is she seems to stay away from questions such as this one.

/www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/224

Farnaz

"Have you found "Travelling Through Dark"? "A Ritual to Read to Each Other"?"

Not yet. The stuff on the web was not too good. I will look into the ones you mentioned.

Wonder what happened to Jacoby?
Out campaigning for Sarah Palin?

Time to get some rest after a day of VERY dry prose.

Pseudo,

If I were an idolater, you would be my idol.

MEDOGSBSTFRND:

Don't pass your head fake
along with your corn flakes

Have you ever read Plato
or the elder Cato

Or of old Doc Galen
Or heard of the Pagans

Who laid the foundations
Of our civilization?

Athena,

Not all Christians fear goddesses.

spring omnipotent goddess Thou

spring omnipotent goddess Thou
dost stuff parks
with overgrown pimply
chevaliers and gumchewing giggly

damosels Thou dost
persuade to serenade
his lady the musical tom-cat
Thou dost inveigle

into crossing sidewalks the
unwary june-bug and the frivolous
angleworm
Thou dost hang canary birds in parlour windows

Spring slattern of seasons
you have soggy legs
and a muddy petticoat
drowsy

is your hair your
eyes are sticky with
dream and you have a sloppy body from

being brought to bed of crocuses
when you sing in your whisky voice
the grass rises on the head of the earth
and all the trees are put on edge

spring
of the excellent jostle of
thy hips
and the superior

Pseudo,

Have you found "Travelling Through Dark"? "A Ritual to Read to Each Other"?

Not to think too much. First poem, notice how everytning mechanical and living figures in the decision. Second, self and others. Identity and community. Neat.

Where is the famous sonneteer, PaganPlace?

Arminius,

Poor Bagel walks alone in the night.

What a horrible image, worse than the sphynx slouching toward Bethlehem.

It seems the WaPo censor doesn't like the poetry of William Stafford.

I found some on the web.
Not sure what to think.
But thanks for trying.

The Bagel thinks he's got it all right
So he repeat-pastes with all of his might
But it's stuff none of us reads
And it's crap none of us needs
Poor Bagel walks alone in the night.

Pseudo,

WaPo won't let me post a Stafford poem for you.

The web he's crisscrossin'
to dump some stale Crossan
As if we have not ever seen it before
Is it to help us or just a mechanical bore?
Or is Dom the God that the shell script adores?

William Stafford?

No, not yet.

I read the "Cliff's Notes" on William Blake when I was a sophomore though.

%-}

But seriously, though I will look him up.

O Bloggers magnificent
The Troll's insignificant
And yes if you ask me the whole truth to tell
That would include shell script CCNL

Pseudo,

Beautiful and wise. These words are as relevant to me as they are to PP, and I shall print out this poem and keep it with me.

Have you ever read any verse of William Stafford? If not, I think you'd like him.

And still more about the virginity of Mary from the conclusions of various historic Jesus exegetes:

Gerd Lüdemann

Lüdemann [Jesus, 122-24] presents four (4) reasons for regarding the miraculous conception of Jesus as unhistorical: (1) Numerous parallels in the history of religion; (2) it represents a rare and late NT tradition; (3) Synoptic descriptions of Jesus' relations with his family are inconsistent with such an event; and (4) scientific considerations.

More positively, Lüdemann concludes that we can extract as a historical fact behind Matt 1.18-25 the existence of a hostile rumor about the illegitimacy of Jesus. Lüdemann suggests that rape by an unnamed man, possibly even a Roman soldier, is the most likely explanation. He notes that while such an event would have disqualified Mary from marriage to a priest, it would not have prevented from marrying and have other children.

Lüdemann [Jesus, 261-63] discounts Luke's account as a legend deriving from Jewish Hellenistic circles that were concerned to hold together the procreation of the Spirit, the authentic sonship of the Messiah and the virginal conception.

John P.Meier

Meier [Marginal Jew I,220-22] discusses the virginal conception as part of his larger chapter on Jesus' origins. He earlier notes that both infancy narratives "seem to be largely the product of Christian reflection on the salvific meaning of Jesus Christ in the light of OT prophecies (p. 213). At the end of his examination, Meier concludes:

The ends result of this survey must remain meager and disappointing to both defenders and opponents of the doctrine of the virginal conception. Taken by itself, historical-critical research simply does not have the sources and tools available to reach a final decision on the historicity of the virginal conception as narrated by Matthew and Luke. One's acceptance or rejection of the doctrine will be largely influenced by one's own philosophical and theological presuppositions, as well as the weight one gives to Church teaching.

More about the virginity of Mary from various historic Jesus exegetes:

Bruce Chilton

In Rabbi Jesus: An Intimate Biography (2000), Chilton develops the idea of Jesus as a mamzer; someone whose irregular birth circumstances result in their exclusion from full participation in the life of the community. He argues for the natural paternity of Joseph and finds no need for a miraculous conception. In his subsequent reconstruction of Jesus' life, Chilton suggests that this sustained personal experience of exclusion played a major role in Jesus' self-identity, his concept of God and his spiritual quest.

John Dominic Crossan

In Historical Jesus [p. 371] Crossan treats this cluster, like 007 Of Davids Lineage, as an example of the interplay of prophecy and history in the development of the Jesus traditions.

In Birth of Christianity [pp. 26-29] Crossan uses Luke's account of Jesus' conception and birth to explore ethical issues concerning the public interpretation of the past. He notes the tendency of Christian scholars to disregard "pagan" birth legends while investing great effort in the defence of biblical birth narratives. He concludes:

I do not accept the divine conception of either Jesus or Augustus as factual history, but I believe that God is incarnate in the Jewish peasant poverty of Jesus and not in the Roman imperial power of Augustus.

The Virgin Mary is a very powerful face of the Goddess. Many of her attributes (Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Mother of God) were borrowed from Isis. The Catholic Church couldn't stamp out worship of the Goddess, so they turned her into the Blessed Mother, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Brigid, etc.

Kathleen Hannan, who is a wonderful Pagan songwriter, has a great song called "Maria" that deals with the worship of Maria. http://www.ncsongwriters.org/hannan.cfm

Oh... and to the person who is asking where the Pagan charities are... we're only 50 years old. Give us time. Many of us prefer to work through already-established charities, such as soup kitchens. When Christianity was 50 years old, they were still fighting amongst themselves about dogma.

But was Mary a virgin????

See
wiki.faithfutures.org/index.php/026_Jesus_Virginally_Conceived for proper passages and commentary.

Friend Pagan Place:

Some nice verses you posted last night.
So I thought to explain mine as well as I might

The Good Fight

To fight the good fight can be real delight
When it propels you along up the path of your life

It can drive you to learning and make you good friends
But also can blind you as life's only lens

It can ensnare you; and drive to despair;
and keep you alone in a world seen unfair 

So find Ye the vigor to contend and excite
But stay Ye the fighter who's more than the fight

Calling All Pagans, Calling All Pagans

TROLL ALERT

______________

Time for renewal through verse, I think.

...and that you could be seriously delusional.

I'll keep it brief. For me, the Virgin Mary is far and away the most beautiful, loving and wonderful woman in this world of the next. She's God's most wondrous creation and answers all prayers. She points the way to her son. In Christ, she's our loving mother.

And she's real. The pagan gods of the past may be quaint but they're not eternal and they're not worth worshiping. Only the eternal living God is worthy of all our love and praise. And only God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit can take us and make us truly free. This has nothing to do with being male or female. It is adoption by God through Christ that sets us free, and his most holy mother brings us Christ and is our heavenly mother.

And she's strong too!

Pass the corn flakes. Just out of curiosity, might you provide us a list of the hospitals, orphanages, universities and colleges, feeding programs, immigrant support, and movements for universal civil and human rights created and financed by Wiccans/Pagans? Try to be specific since holding hands around votives and chanting blessings on women universally doesn't quite meet the standard of actually doing something.

Paganplace, Paganplace, Paganplace,

Please do contact the Wicca Princess Tasha. By the way, as with all businesses/cults/religions, there is a customer confidentiality agreement :))

Of course, you being a high-ranking "Wrocking, Wripping, Wronged, Wicked, Whippoorwilling, Wicca Witch" and all, she might make an exception for you.

IRGUY : "It's interesting that both Ms. Starhawk/Hawk (not sure which is the correct address). . ."

Her name is Starhawk, I do understand your confusion. Starhawk is the author of the featured comment.

IRGUY :". . . note the social benefits of their religion, but neither says anything about the substantive content. They seem to like the message for its instrumental benefits rather than for its truth value. While I can't see any moral problem with that, their activity is equivalent with someone who goes to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for the tea and cookies or someone who takes communion because s/he just likes taste of the wine and wafers."

I was a recording engineer for many years and developed a good reputation for recording choral works. Most choral groups are extensions of churches, so I spent a lot of time in a lot of different churches. One large and well-financed choir was attached to a luxurious church in one of San Francisco's well-heeled neighborhoods. This group would perform polychoral christmas works and other masterworks of the western sacred choral tradition such as Bach's Saint Matthew's Passion and Beethoven's Missa Solemnis. One could call these sorts of activities tea & cookies writ large. In fact, intermissions at these concerts featured refreshments in the form of bake sales, with lots of homemade cakes and cookies. These sorts of activities could be called the "social benefits of their religion", but an outside observer such as myself would be left with the impression that the social aspects of these churches are the true mission and that the parishioners simply put up with the sermons. Particularly considering the large number of parishioners at these churches who had little use for dogma of any sort.

From my angle, the spiritual affect of western religion finds its greatest wellsprings in sacred choral music. Josquin du Pre's "Ave Maria" has more to say about the divine feminine than all of the contents of the bible put together. I know that the little bit of time I've spent as a Catholic has led to a fondness for port and incense and an intense distaste for dogma. I never could get through the Credo without gagging. That little bit of Catholicism that I picked up also developed into a love of the polyphonic choral masterpieces of the 16th century.

If you want to talk tea and cookies, you could always start reading "À la recherche du temps perdu." Our spiritual lives are not defined by sermons and holy texts, but by day to day activities. Sometimes it takes many years to figure this out. Just ask Proust.

It's interesting that both Ms. Starhawk/Hawk (not sure which is the correct address) and the author of the featured comment both note the social benefits of their religion, but neither says anything about the substantive content. They seem to like the message for its instrumental benefits rather than for its truth value. While I can't see any moral problem with that, their activity is equivalent with someone who goes to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting for the tea and cookies or someone who takes communion because s/he just likes taste of the wine and wafers.

Oh. Right. In a nod to topic.

As regards women being empowered.

Hey, 'Adam!'

Do you like apples?

How do you like *them* apples? :)

Or did your rhyming dictionary just break?

Take your time.... far be it from me to squelch the poetic impulse in any young seeker.... :)

Of course, it you'd *really* like, I could contact 'Princess' Tasha and see if she'll acknowlegde you as a customer, since I still don't think she's seen one red cent of you trying to use her name to defame our religion.

Oh, shaddap, CCNL. Really.

Well bad poetry and prose sure beats voodoo darts!!! Maybe Princess Tasha's spells really work!!!

"Pseudo,

Like you, but in a different way, Paganplace is a genius.

I love PaganPlace.'

Aww, Farnaz. I totally missed that. Blessed be.

It's possibly eactly why I didn't settle down with some nce Druid order, but, hey, poetic challenges do draw some laser-like focus where talk of various sticks, pointies, and bombs just fail to impress. :)

Wegonna work this out. :)

Then again, Pseudo, if you're going to take this long, this pot of coffee can totally wait till morning. :)

"You show a wonderful side of you that we have not seen before! I am impressed."

It's not polite to show off in a place such as this, Arminius. :)

Seriously, though, someone were to decide *I'm* all hot sh** cause i might have the wity comeback, some rap uncannily-correct with the dinnecheneahas, and, I like to think, a few particularly-petulant takedowns verse various weapons.... is that the Lady? My Gods?

Precisely what I was trying to say about how Cuchulain isn't necessarily the dude to emulate.

Even if you think you're that cool.

But, poetry slam!

It's degenerated to fisticuffs! Bring it! Yay!

I mean, hey, it's not like I could keep a straight face too long with this end-rhyme and open-mike-night meter, but, you wanna get Gaelic, let's go. :)

Well, Paganplace!

You show a wonderful side of you that we have not seen before! I am impressed.

I just haven't had a chance to flex this Druid stuff in a while. Since we've been trying to talk reductionist here a couple years now, how bout we call down the Awen and see what we get? :)

First in the fight, I may not be,
But second like the white-birched tree
That some might say are slow to rouse
But my couplets might just raise your brows

Cause Pseudo-couplets may just seem
To squelch us for our George's dream,
But if it's just a fight you seek,
Then in mere couplets best not speak.

Cause in the battle of the trees
You might just end up on your knees
If you think that all you need
Is rhming at the sam old screed. ;)

Two women under just one roof
The Chinese sign for trouble
With Farnaz and with Paganplace
There's trouble here that's double

Goodnight, Sweet Pseudo!

Pagan Place you are combative
And in a fight are always active

I hope you find that it's a joy
And find new ideas thus to deploy
-------------------------

Pseudo,

Like you, but in a different way, Paganplace is a genius.

I love PaganPlace.

Not "Miles to go before I sleep"
So its off to bed that I shall creep.

'Night all

PaganPlace, Darling,

Thank you for the kind words. Screwen-Zie.

Love,

Farnaz

Pagan Place you are combative
And in a fight are always active

I hope you find that it's a joy
And find new ideas thus to deploy

I mean, don't you get it, Farnaz? You're home.

You want a Gaelic myth, I'll tell you bout the song of Amergin. :)

Pagan Place:

Israel means "Wrestles with God"
Would that be easy? Jacob's broken hip says it was not.

You have not found it so.
And in this you are not alone.

"Russian Jews aren't Persian Jews, but what does any of this have to do with anything else. This is a friggin' creative thread. Watch your A or I'll curse in Farsi."

Oh, you stupid SOB.

That's why you don't get America, never mind the Gael.

Good Heavens, Pseudo,

PaganPlace has posted a sonnet.

Cont'd WildWoman post to PaganPlace:

That is not to say that he, Yeats, didn't "dabble," sometimes, a bit more than dabble, in esoterica, Blavatsky style, Christian Cabbalah, etc.

But, he made it his own. That was his intention, Byzantium-wise and other, wise.

Oh, that's just intolerable.

In an age of reason, one might think
That doggerel lines might just provide
That mixing rhymes in a text-based world at least
Could just provide rovide some small relief

From certain duckblinds with which we hide
From panic and the kitchen sink
Down which some people stuff a beast
And slouch toward Israel for a fief

That miles to go before they sleep
Knows not a lion from the sheep.

pseudo Author Profile Page:

Pagan Place:

You will find no better, no finer, friend
To discuss religion and not contend
When Farnaz her kindness does extend

I know that you have known much pain
But take a risk and try for gain.
________________________________________

Well....yes and no. As long as we don't get into "Old" testaments, racisms, etc., I'm basically okay. Otherwise, probably not. (Sorry, Pseudo, but you are a Great Christian Poet, still, and your verse is wonderful.)

Pseud is a typo for Pseudo.

Yes, he did, too, invent. He wasn't no f'ng anthropologist. Or historian. And he didn't "forget all his Hebrew" since he never knew any to begin with.

I friggin' get it. He didn't find paganChristianity in a Cave near Innisfree. He was a mythologizer. He even mythologized himself. Bloody friggin' fascist too. O'Connor (that would be Frank) who spent some time in jail wasn't amused by said fascism, btw., Yeats idolotor though he was.

Russian Jews aren't Persian Jews, but what does any of this have to do with anything else. This is a friggin' creative thread. Watch your A or I'll curse in Farsi.

I mean, I promise you this, Farnazz,

If for some perverse reason you are ever in a fight with me.

You will be facing me.

And you will know you're in a fight.

Speaking of queens of the ICeni.

Pagan Place:

You will find no better, no finer, friend
To discuss religion and not contend
When Farnaz her kindness does extend

I know that you have known much pain
But take a risk and try for gain.

Pseudo %-}

" Farnaz2
Paganplace,

"I know what you mean about being Jewish. There are things I didn't understand about Christianity and still don't, I guess, just as there are things I'm sure you don't understand about Judaism."

I'm so glad that's none of my business as such. :) As a teen, I was taken in by Russian refugee Jews, and I don't pretend to entirely understand, but I think I have a sense what's trivial to them and what's what they wouldn't ask twice to have me put my behind on the line for.

" And then, too, there are Christianities, and there are Judaisms. Now, Yeats, was no Catholic, not in any sense. But he invented a kind of Catholicism."

Heh. *long quiet chuckle.* He didn't 'invent' *anything.* Can't you get it?

Though anyone who wants to claim Wicca was 'invented' in the 1940s ought to look at least that far back.

"And, the, I can, please note, comprehend the Great Christian Poet, Pseud. Now, just take a look at the last for words of that last sentence."

Who's 'Pseud?' Freud was a Jew, actually, and that's as close as I can guess.

"But I loved Yeats, and so that is how I got into things Celtic. But Deidre to me is very complex. I'm not asking you to type, just wanted to know your take on the matter of her honor."

In terms of *this topic,* well, I think it's clear enough. As I said, she was trapped by circumstance into standing between two dudes in a chariot.

All they valued (after a certain amount of conflict causing some dudes to think that their own contest was all that mattered..) was her as a compliant warm body. If you read the whole story through to moderns, it never seems to occur to people that Deirdre was a free Celtic woman who was only putting up with that nonsense in hopes of working it out for the tribe.

When carted away as a prize, (and nothing more) her lovers gone from her, she said, 'This is unjust, I am a woman of the Gael, and my life is my own,' And she dashed her brains out on a rock rather than submit to what those who thought themselves mighty decided.

You wanna talk about 'empowered,' well, *that's* empowered. That's the Nth degree, not someone saying, 'Your life is not your own, submit.'

"There's Deidre and then there's your Deirdre."

I'm sure that's what Conchobhair would have said. To Deirdre.

Nice thin about it is, since they burned all the books, no one can micromanage the punctuation.

Booyah. :)

"There's Cuchulain, and a few other folks Cuchulain, including Yeats'."

Which would you like to bet on facing, literary guy? :)

"Also, there is Emer whom I don't get."

Don't imagine you would.

"Paganplace, I'm not going to fight with you because I like you too much. Sorry! :("

Is OK.

You do know what a fight is, though, right?

Paganpace,

That was my take on a story.

Pseudo,

From long ago it came back to me
In verses quite sublime
Perhaps it was then I began to see
The spiritual cast into rhyme

Once upon a time, thousands of years ago, God appeared to a man named Moses, and told him to deliver a couple of messages. However, Moses who "had a speech impediment" preferred that someone else do the talking for said divinity. Now, this divinity, let's call him BE, was pissed, since after all, who said what to whom on this matter, was, he thought, his call...as it were.

Anyways, Js were stubborn even before they were Js, and nobody said they couldn't argue or wrestle with God, so Moses persisted, got his way, and that was that for the moment.

Well, lots of other stuff happened, months and years, and centuries, past, and then millennia, and then in the Middle East, a girl child was born, whom the people called Farnaz :)

And all the great thinkers had already interpreted that Moses-God story, already, but as it turned out the girl child Farnaz, was actually a bird. As is the case with such creatures, aerodynamically speaking, she couldn't fly, but ignorant of that disability, she flew.

Moses couldn't deliver the message. ANTI-IDOLATRY. Thus spake Farnaz.

Arminius,

"And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind."

Well made verse that I remember
An echo from another time
Before the winds of cold December
Come to freeze life so sublime

Let's put it this way, Farnazz: what you Jewish folks fear would happen to you if someone *did* take away all your books and authorities and such comfos...and all the horrible things you think woul happen if someone did that to you....

We Pagans, collectively, done that. Got the T-shirt.

Still here.

I promise I will do my best to prevent that happening to *you* cause it *hurts,* but...

We don't operate that way. Someone already destroyed it.

But.

We are still here.

And I would love to tell you a story.

But all I could do here is type it.

Capiche?

Paganplace,

I know what you mean about being Jewish. There are things I didn't understand about Christianity and still don't, I guess, just as there are things I'm sure you don't understand about Judaism. And then, too, there are Christianities, and there are Judaisms. Now, Yeats, was no Catholic, not in any sense. But he invented a kind of Catholicism.

And, the, I can, please note, comprehend the Great Christian Poet, Pseud. Now, just take a look at the last for words of that last sentence.

But I loved Yeats, and so that is how I got into things Celtic. But Deidre to me is very complex. I'm not asking you to type, just wanted to know your take on the matter of her honor.

There's Deidre and then there's your Deirdre. There's Cuchulain, and a few other folks Cuchulain, including Yeats'.

Also, there is Emer whom I don't get.

Paganplace, I'm not going to fight with you because I like you too much. Sorry! :(

An answer to Pseudo, but NOT, alas!, my verse:

And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said "All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them"
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe you'll trust him
For he's touched your perfect body with his mind.
- - from the folk song movement of the 1960's

Mokey,

I can fully understand what you mean, but the thing I had in mind had to do with the loss of someone close to me. It was referring to something you asked me about yesterday, and I don't know how to answer you on a thread like this. Some people, when some of us are very close to them, and they are in mortal peril, know this even if others don't. It's a horrible feeling if you've had it. Then all kinds of things happen that just don't happen under any other kinds of circumstances. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned they don't.

Something scared me when I first started reading Jung. Admittedly, I was about fourteen. I came across this idea of the racial unconscious, and, somehow, I don't know how, I got the feeling, he didn't mean the human race, that he meant race in its much older sense, as in the German race, the Swiss race.

Jung defenders get wild about this, so I'm not going to get into it, although I'm not referring to you as a JD, Mokey. The man, as it turned out, was a Nazi "sympathizer." Ironically, Freud, supported him since he thought his nonJewishness would be good for the emerging discipline, and kept it up even after he knew what Jung was. Freud, btw., though an atheist, identified above all, as a Jew. Said so.

If you've heard all this before, just delete!

Pagan Place

O Farnaz, yes she can swear
As long as she does have a care
Not to invoke God's so good name
To sacrifices made in vain.

The key to this is Jeptha's daughter
Kind spirit lost in senseless slaughter

This Jesus fellow would come to say
That we should not repeat that day

See what I mean, there, Farnazz? You press me to say, 'Who's the greatest Irish Heroine,' then after many disclaimers how that doesn't make sense, demand I type out the whole story....

Why?

Ok, Farnaz. This may not make a whole lot of sense to you, cause, frankly, you're Jewish. I know books mean an awful lot to you, and I'd run into a burning temple to save yer scrolls for you.

But. For Pagans, these are just not the same kind of thing. If an ancient Pagan text were about to burn, if we had temples, I'd be like, 'Someone made a copy, right?'

If you want to hear this story, it's a longer one, one we'd be spammming to type here. Not hard to find, though.

The simple fact is, though... A lot of Europeans buy some line that we have no heritage of our own, and thus must obey what someone made of what they scavenged of yours.

This is not true.

This old Celtic stuff goes a lot deeper and exists in depth no one bothers top give it credit for.

It is my heritage, ....in fact, by some old standards, an obligation of my family.

It is *not,* however, what my *religion* *depends* upon.

There is a lot more there than we are led to believe, even just in the Irish, but there is not going to turn up some rival Ten Commandments.

What we have left to us is in fact mostly left to Irish people... Christian people, who may have picked and chosen, and elided what they thought too 'dangerous,' (or useful,) but it's more than we'd have if these Christian ancestors had shut up and let someone burn it all.

It's not a 'complete religion.'

But if the Old Gods can find a punk like me in ol' JP, Massachusetts, we don't need that.

This is not about duelling 'Holy Books.' This is about the rest of us.

You want a story, I got a story, thing is, if you want it in text form, Google it yourself.

Eve's empowered as a wife
As she who came at Lileth's flight

As darkness' demon haunts the night
And seeks her love's lost warm delights

While Sophia's grand tale she spins
And wisdom's triumph she begins

And then this fellow Jesus came
To love his Mary Magealene

Above them all we think we sit
Sometimes I think we're all full of ...

So understanding we might reach
If many stories we would teach

Kinda funny, Farnaz, my path worked in reverse. :)

My study of Campbell and Jung blew the Bible away, for me. It was the first time mythology had a purpose that made *sense* to me. Never understood the necessity or purpose of the 'holy book', and those around me only explained it as 'because xyz said so'. When it came time to compare the ancient mythology to that of a couple thousand year old book- well, for me, the decision was easy. :)

Pseudo,

You are beyond compare. I am gathering your poems and shall put them into a volume of collected works.
________________________
PaganPlace,

I have read about Deidre, but I was interested in what You thought, think. No ulterior motive, just interest. I like to know what thinkers think.
---------------------------

To All Pagans,

Is it possible to have a virtual bonfire?

aganplace Author Profile Page:

Oh, btw, Farnaz, your link just goes back to the aforementioned Morganwg. He was a dude who tried to start a Druidic revival of a couple centuries ago. Won't say the man wasn't inspired, but he had certain preconceptions and even less access to ancient texts than moderns do just now.

My bad! :(

I found it awhile ago, as I was perusing a million public access links at UPenn, and kind of liked it. What can you do. I also like Campbell's Encyclopedia of Mythology, which is no longer extant, since it's been chopped up in a million pieces and sold as junk mythology books.

Interesting guy, Campbell. Popular stuff was garbage, scholarly not so much. Don't like him. Don't like Jung. Still, liked the encyclopedia.

Like Triple Goddess Tarot, too. But my own contact with the supernatural (Mokey, note please) came from elsewhere.

I like Matthews, have a few of his anthologies and some criticism. Used to be in love with things medieval. Still am I guess. Even the medieval mystics. This heah Person Jew likes "The Cloud of Unknowing."

Anyways...Deirdre, anyone?

I forgot, though. As for the story of Deirdre of the Sorrows, you could Google any number of presentations or translations, ... you might even get a good one. I couldn't possibly type any understanding of the context of it, here, though.

Arminius:

The good Fernaz she has the sites
The bash shell script is no delight

But past is Prolog, my good friend
As shell script's NLP extends
Until it gives us all the bends.

" Farnaz2

"Hello, Paganplace,

"I'd like to know more about Deidre and the matter of honor you mentioned. Do you know the post I referenced, or should I cut and paste it?"

I lost the point of what you meant when you asked about 'who's the greatest of Celtic heroines' ....I tried to break it down for you as best I could, as I said, without referencing any characters that got conflated with or originally-referenced as Goddesses.

I know you're Jewish, but there are distinctions and comparisons that really don't fit with Celtic or Wiccan spirituality, here.

"In friendliness, I swear,"

Are you allowed by your book to swear friendship?

We'll be friendly, then. Bu you offer no name to swear by, so we'll just have to play nice. :)

Oh, btw, Farnaz, your link just goes back to the aforementioned Morganwg. He was a dude who tried to start a Druidic revival of a couple centuries ago. Won't say the man wasn't inspired, but he had certain preconceptions and even less access to ancient texts than moderns do just now.

Hello, Paganplace,

I'd like to know more about Deidre and the matter of honor you mentioned. Do you know the post I referenced, or should I cut and paste it?

In friendliness, I swear,

Farnaz :)

Thanks, Farnaz. I do love discovery.. :)

Arminius,

"I immediately caught the reference to the Barfing Bagel, but would not call that a pun."

Now, I am not one to whom persons turn for help with things computeresque. M'guess is the Great Bard, Pseudo, is using bash in two senses.

Farnaz:

"Oh, I dunno. Might not understand, but then again might"

Then what are yopu asking? I volunteered all manner of information, thinking something might catch your interest.... Are you just trying to claim that because it didn't, there's none?

Again, what's your question?

As for Pesudo, admirable doggerel,
But it takes more than that to win the laurel.
And that's not intended to rhyme. :)

Hello Mokey, My Friend,

If you haven't yet checked this out, you might click on. It's very violent sweet.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/browse?type=lcsubc&key=Bards and bardism

"In case 'a little about either' is all you want, Deirdre was some lady of noble birth who got trapped in a matter of honor you might not understand into being carried away by a wicked king and, torn from her true loves, dashed her own brains out rather than be a submissive wife cause some king said so."

Oh, I dunno. Might not understand, but then again might.

"I'd read as much, but had hoped that a record or something popped up somewhere later like the Irish"

Nothings's. Forgotten. :)

More ancient insular texts are translated into *German* than English, sis, cause, too often, English-speakers *don't care.*

Actually, my sweetie and I were talking about our respective grandmothers, and what they told us. What they thought was important, never mind the next generation still.

Conclusion of the moment: Some people think breeding is a substitute for heritage, but that's not what Grandma said.

Farnaz,

I immediately caught the reference to the Barfing Bagel, but would not call that a pun.

Dear Great Poet, Pseudo,

A. You are brilliant

B. You are intuitive, since I had planned to ask that you pen a line or two on Bagel. Philosophy, science, math--just what he is escapes them all. He is a subject fit only for the greatest imagination.

Farnaz

Arminius,

Pseudo, the great OnFaith Poet Laureate, has drawn an analogy between CCNL and computer script, working on a theme that first came to him (Pseudo) awhile back.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_script
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bash

Pseudo,

O Poet Laureate of the Blogs,

I am embarrassed and humiliated that I do not understand the pun. Please relieve my misery!

Farnaz,

Singin' the Shell Script bash

In regards to the stale bagel
A good response it can't finagle

So just remember the Shell Script quips
From just a few bad copied scripts

Its data base just has no trace
Of human thought nor love's embrace

And if it seeks thy thoughts to vex
Just disregard its every text

(Perhaps Arminius is the one
To read the title for the pun.)

Pseudo %~}

"That's cause the British ones went down with Anglesey under the Romans.."

I'd read as much, but had hoped that a record or something popped up somewhere later like the Irish.

"I was just looking for any anthropological- type evidence, if any exists, on how the British Bardic schools were or might have been run. Just haven't been able to find any in the literature I've scoured so far."

That's cause the British ones went down with Anglesey under the Romans. ....the Irish ones lasted into the 17th century, in a fairly-mutated form.

"On all the below. You see, if only m fellow Pagans wouldn't refuse to ethnically-segregate, I coulda been a seanachie of renown.. telling everyone to desegregate. ;)"

You can still be the seanachie.. just hop on over to one of the fundie Christian's threads. Here you'd just be preaching to the choir. :)

"It depends on what you mean by that"

I was just looking for any anthropological- type evidence, if any exists, on how the British Bardic schools were or might have been run. Just haven't been able to find any in the literature I've scoured so far.

The Matthews is a primary source for these types of things. Maybe it's in their stuff somewhere I haven't yet looked.

Not so much the 'separate Bible'. I'm aware that the mythos is there for self discovery. That's a whole other track. :)

It's just odd the random questions that popped into my head tonight. I suppose the thumb-biting could have been a satire, a play on the 'you think you know more than me' kind of thing.

On all the below. You see, if only m fellow Pagans wouldn't refuse to ethnically-segregate, I coulda been a seanachie of renown.. telling everyone to desegregate. ;)

"Oh, to Wiccan, Paganplace and anyone else here who might know- I've been searching for a book on historical, pre-Shakespearian British Bardism/Schools, and haven't come up with anything since finding out that 'Barddas' isn't actually what it's purported to be."

It depends what you mean by that. It's not like Morganywyg was a bad guy or anything, but no, there's no 'substitute Bible.' The English called Shakespeare 'The Bard' at the same time as they were actually wiping out the Bardic Schools.

But by then it wasn't really acnient Paganism... just how to keep the heritage.

" Any ideas on where I might look for something like that? Or which author might know? As far as I can tell, Bardic Source book only covers Irish and Welsh."

No one's going to drop it into anyone's lap, is the thing. You study, you actually put the actual stone on your actual tummy and do our best to learn what you can.

If that's what you want. Just don't ever let anyone tell you that's what's between you and the Gods.

Nothing's forgotten. :)

If you want a place to start, on the heritage, I would say, start with some of the books of John and Caitlin Matthews and don't get too attached.

And don't stop looking. :)

"Incidentally, with at least two accounts in Celtic myth of the biting of thumbs representing the transfer of wisdom from Cerridwen's cauldron, (Cuchulain and Taliesin) how then did it get to be considered an insult in Shakespearian times when he wrote "Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?" in Romeo and Juliet?"

I do not know how it came to be an insult in Shakespearian times, but... supposing, if in Celtic culture, this was a remnant of a poetic device, might you not do just that in the course of calling someone a 'moon-faced assassin of joy?' :) (Ok, I stole that from a TV show, but still. Satire is part of the bardic art, too. And the art of a bard would be more like bardacht than barddagh, which would be a bunch of people. :) )

I mean, that's kinda 'cutting to the chase' there, but the rest would kinda take some literacy.

It did end in a chase, though. It was kind of like the movie 'Bullit' only no Mustangs and Steve McQueen only showed up for the eulogy. :)

Oh, to Wiccan, Paganplace and anyone else here who might know- I've been searching for a book on historical, pre-Shakespearian British Bardism/Schools, and haven't come up with anything since finding out that 'Barddas' isn't actually what it's purported to be. Any ideas on where I might look for something like that? Or which author might know? As far as I can tell, Bardic Source book only covers Irish and Welsh.

Incidentally, with at least two accounts in Celtic myth of the biting of thumbs representing the transfer of wisdom from Cerridwen's cauldron, (Cuchulain and Taliesin) how then did it get to be considered an insult in Shakespearian times when he wrote "Do you bite your thumb at me, sir?" in Romeo and Juliet?

In case 'a little about either' is all you want, Deirdre was some lady of noble birth who got trapped in a matter of honor you might not understand into being carried away by a wicked king and, torn from her true loves, dashed her own brains out rather than be a submissive wife cause some king said so.

Very sad.

" Farnaz2
"Emer or Deirdre, if this was 'inside the actor's studio."

"Can you say a little about one of them?"

Yes. I could say a lot, ...I've just tried saying a bunch of stuff to try and help you find a context for your question...

Your question? :)"

Anyway, it's kind of one of those questions that doesn't even really make sense. As the monks saw fit to let us have our heritage, any woman of note in the stories got her gender changed or became another appearance of a Goddess.

And anyone who read their elementary school Hamilton's Pim and Proper Victorian Mythology knows better than to try and choose between Goddesses. :)

It also goes to 'who's a great hero.' To go back to the more-familiar boys, Cuchulain is very like Superman without the cornfed Americana (though he had something similar at Culain's smithy) ...Fionn MacCumhail, (Aka Finn Maccool, well, he's more like Batman. Or Robin Hood, or that kind of guy. Cuchulain has super-solar-superpowers, fell to earth with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men...

Fionn's Ma was from inside the land, yes, (a deer-Goddess by some accounts) but he wasn't the kind of dude who'd face down armies and say, 'Thanks for the praise, stand back and I'll handle this.' He had wit and skills and poetic knowledge (not that Cuchulain didn't, when he thought to bite his thumb, speaking of Cerridwen) and actually got bailed out by his quirky friends quite often, but he was actually much more like what we moderns would call a 'hero.'

Maybe not as 'great' as Cuchulain, by some standards, but hands-down who you'd want to follow into a fight, or an election to the tanaistry, for that matter. :)

WARNING: World Series Game 1 starts very soon.

THOMASBAUM : "Viewing the Divine as neither male nor female or both but as a BEING OF PURE LOVE may be an even more radical shift in perception, don't you think?"

Yes it is. Avalokiteśvara, a deity of pure compassion, experienced over time a gender shapeshifting into Quan Yin. Buddhists, more concerned with the moon than the finger that points to the moon accept both as the real deal. Avalokiteśvara/Quan Yin successfully trancends gender identification.

Good catch.

Emer or Deirdre, if this was 'inside the actor's studio.

Can you say a little about one of them?

" mokey2

"I prefer the Taliesin story myself. All that shapeshifting."

Welsh, rather than Gaelic, that, strictly speaking, but that's good, too. Actually, I think it blends well into that sort of sense that has grown through Arthurian literature that maybe the people from the British Isles really do have a common heritage, Christian and Pagan both, and don't have to all be at each other constantly. Actually, I think if any literate Christians *realy* are freaked about the Harry Potter thing, it's nothing so shallow as the thin justifications for xenophobia as they evoke, but rather the notion that say, English storytelling just isn't neocon. :)

And, Farnazz, if my Net will cooperate, you ask:

"Who is the greatist Celtic heroine and what is her story?"

You mean Celtic in general, or just Gaelic, or Irish in particular? :) Mythic or historical? :)

Boadicea is probably considered the greatest Celtic historical heroine: she was a queen of the Iceni who put the wind up the Roman Empire some number of years ago...

Deirdre of the Sorrows is probably the Gaelic heroine of greatest renown in story through the modern age, though some might think throwing yourself out a chariot over a couple guys isn't the most heroic way to go out....

I presume you want to rule out anyone who's not an out-and-out Goddess, eh? The line do get fuzzy, there. :)

'Greatest.' Broadly-Celtic? I might nominate Branwen, she was kind of like Antigone, only what she did with Bran's head seems to have helped fend off the Blitz...

Irish? Excluding the host of Danu and any postmodernism about Niamh, ... Eh, I can't speak without bias. Macha as a human. 'Greatest' if you go by influence.

Nah, can't really pick one. Emer or Deirdre, if this was 'inside the actor's studio. :)

ARMINIUS :"Celtic myth - Cuchulainn, anyone?"

I'm more of a Ceredwen type myself, after all the time I've been stirring the cauldron at Food Not Bombs.

"I tend to prefer the Fenian cycle, myself, but I guess that's my life. Your question? :)"

Who is the greatist Celtic heroine and what is her story?

PaganPlace
"Temptation to what? I thought I was putting some myths to my mouth, here."

There had been a brief Confused Croissant/Bagel/Mosquito/Cucumber, etc., interruption, and feared Cuchulain would be disturbed. Nary a ripple, however, whew! :)

I prefer the Taliesin story myself. All that shapeshifting.

MMA Wiccan!

See, there's *one* lesson about Celtic heritage, some people think it goes away if someone says 'sex' :)

ATHENA4

You wrote, "Viewing the Divine as both male and female takes a radical shift in perception."

Viewing the Divine as neither male nor female or both but as a BEING OF PURE LOVE may be an even more radical shift in perception, don't you think?

Just because God created male and female does not mean that God has to be one or the other or both.

In the bible, it also speaks of God as a Mother Hen protecting Her little chicks under Her Wings but that does not mean that God is a She, it just means that people try to put into words some of the Essence of God, even tho mere human words cannot contain God.

Sometimes, it seems that rather than a starting point of thinking about God and the bible being a book about the Word of God, some think of the bible as the box that contains God.

"And the Word became Flesh" and that "Word" is "LOVE", the bible did not become flesh.

As I have very simply and straightforwardly said before, "God is a searcher of hearts and minds, not of religious affiliations or lack thereof.

Take care, be ready.

Sincerely, Thomas Paul Baum.

GlobalOne :

It's a shame you did not have a mentor or elder in your Baptist community that could have discussed these issues with you. The items you list most likely didn't work for you because you're reading them incorrectly.******************************************************************************************************************************************Those weren't the only reasons I left - just a few. And I don't regret having left. The path I am on now fulfills my spiritual needs much better than Christianity did.

*People who do good things all their lives being eternally damned if they didn't do them in the name of Jesus* ---> This is simply not true. Certainly, from a Baptist perspective, a true and loving relationship with Christ is the gateway to Heaven. It's not about being a boy scout or doing good works. (Although Catholics would disagree). Obviously, a relationship with Christ feeds your soul to perform good works in His name automatically.****************************************************************************************************************************************
What I was getting at is that many people do good works for no other reason than because it is the right thing to do. If a man is hungry, why is it better to give him bread in the name of Jesus than in the name of his hunger? If you are hungry, I will give you bread for the simple reason that you are hungry and I have bread. I have actually heard certain local preachers say that people who give money to non-Christian relief agencies are actually furthering the cause of Satan because if you give a hungry child bread without also leading him to Jesus, all you are doing is sending him to hell with a full stomach. Their attitude disgusts me.

*People who did horrible things all their lives being eternally rewarded if they repent the instant before they die* ----> This is a matter of the heart. It matters little what people say or do because only God know what's in their heart. If they truly are repentent and are sincerely giving their life to Christ, then you are correct. Merely mouthing the words minutes or seconds before we pass falls on deaf ears.*************************************************************************************************************************************************
The fact remains that according to Christian doctrine, a sincere repentance moments before one's final breath eternally absolves one of all the harm he may have done over a lifetime, while doing nothing to help those he harmed. I can't buy that.

*The idea of the body and sexual desire as evils to be conquered* ---> Again, this is simply not true. Unfortunately, a number of Christian parents teach children that sex is bad in an effort to keep them from unwanted pregnancies, STD's, etc. I think you would find that most Christians don't view sex as evil but exactly the opposite. I would caution that sexual desire in the form of lustfulness of another can be sinful (i.e., adultery, etc.). Sexual desire by a married couple should be full of passion and enjoyment.********************************************************************************************************************************************
I understand parents' wish to protect their children from STD's and unwanted pregnancies. I am the mother of an 18-year-old daughter. I taught her all the practical reasons why sex too young was a bad idea, why masturbation was the best option for young people's satisfaction of their desires, and also how to protect herself from STD's and pregnancy if she did decide to have sex. And when she did decide, she didn't feel the need to hideit from me.
I can recall when I was a child, my mother walking in on me masturbating in the bathtub, and her being furious with me.
I also understand that inappropriate sex, such as with a child, without the other person's consent, or when a trust is betrayed can be devastating. In those cases, it isn't the body that's evil, it's the will.
I know full well how satisfying and mind-blowing married sex can be. I also believe that marriage is not necessary for sex to be a good thing.

*Why should I have to be content with a submissive role just because I was born with ovaries instead of testes?* ---> This is a view shared by a lot of people who have failed to read the Bible in context. Without regard to religion, men tend to crave "respect" while women crave "love". Therefore, wouldn't it make sense for God to command women to be "submissive" (i.e., respect your husbands)? And doesn't God also command men to love their wives as Jesus loved the church? And doesn't He say this to men because He knows how vitaly important "being loved" is for a woman
****************************************************************************************************
**************************************************
How can you have love without respect or vice versa? My ex thought that after we got married, he would have the final say in household decisions. Had I known about this expectation of his before the wedding, I would have ended the relationship then. My husband and I make household decisions jointly. Neither has the final say by default. Sometimes that means it takes us a long time to hammer out a compromise that we can both live with, but we keep at it until we find one. We respect each other because we love each other. Neither of us expects submission from the other.

The key to any marriage, and I have a lot of experience with this, is for women to submit ("respect") their husbands EVEN when they don't feel loved; and for men to love their wives EVEN when they don't feel respected.********************************************************************************************************************************************
I'd say that a better key is for both to make a conscious effort to demonstrate their love for each other by showing respect for each other.

Not a sermon, just a thought.
****************************************************************************************************
I appreciate you sharing your thoughts, even if I don't agree with them.

"I was merely confessing my ignorance. I treasure every drop of my Celtic heritage, even though I'm sure it has been mixed with Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, and, sadly, perhaps the occasional Norman in the woodpile."

That's nothing to be worried about. You're talking about an American Pagan Kinda Wiccan, here. It's been a while since I had much call for the Gaelic stuff, to be honest.

Usually this time of year all the knowledge of Gaelic you need is to repeat to Fundies, 'Samhain isn't a God, it's the name of a *season.* .... :)

Hail, Arminius! And Merry Meet to all.

No apologies needed, my friend. My contributions on CCNL were very much like a word game my mother would play with us; the winner was whoever made us laugh the most.

Now on Celitic myth, has anyone read Julian May's "Saga of the Pliocene Exile"? Great parts of it was lifted whole from the old tales.

" Farnaz2
"Okay, Paganplace, this is your opportunity to put your myths where your keyboard is. Walk not into temptation, etc"

Temptation to what? I thought I was putting some myths to my mouth, here.

Cuchulain is arguably the 'greatest hero' of Irish myth. (Some may tell you it's Pogue Mahone, but I shan't dispute their wisdom in this venue.) Very Bronze Age. Much butt was kicked.

I tend to prefer the Fenian cycle, myself, but I guess that's my life. Your question? :)

Paganplace,

You didn't intimidate me, I was merely confessing my ignorance. I treasure every drop of my Celtic heritage, even though I'm sure it has been mixed with Nordic, Anglo-Saxon, and, sadly, perhaps the occasional Norman in the woodpile.

*with a nod to Farnaz.*

Well, Cuchulain was great, in many ways. He also slew his only son out of to-us stupid pride.

He was a champion, also a monster of sorts. A hero, but also a warning against relying too much on heroes.

He stood aganst Connaught, but Emain Macha burned.

And finally the bulls the whole thing was about...from some old karma of their own, .... destroyed each other.

'Not an American story,' as a line from a fave movie of mine says. :)

Okay, Paganplace, this is your opportunity to put your myths where your keyboard is. Walk not into temptation, etc. Ignore Giant Mosquitos, Bagels, Croissants, Limp Cucumbers, etc.

Cuchulain?

Paganplace:

Eh, no worries, Arminius: the point there isn't to intimidate you: actually, the point is that a lot of folks have written off a whole lot of Gaelic heritage as 'lost' in some sudden redemption from 'barbarism' that.... Isn't.

Not Yeats. "Cuchulain fought the ungovernable sea,"
Oh yes he did. See my post below. Hope you will write more on this.
______________________

Arminius,

Pshaw! Am flattered!

Well, well the voodoo darts are flying again. Apparently, throwing of said darts is keeping some of you from knowing what MILF stands for. Strange, since the leading "good" witch surely knows.

Mosquitoes, on your mark, get set, go!!! Pagan and sympathy blood is flowing well today and my pet vampire is hungary.

Tis obvious that the Wiccan Princess Tasha's spells are still not working.

Eh, no worries, Arminius: the point there isn't to intimidate you: actually, the point is that a lot of folks have written off a whole lot of Gaelic heritage as 'lost' in some sudden redemption from 'barbarism' that.... Isn't.

Actually. :)

Carry on, Paganplace. Cuchulain is great, fought the ungovernable sea, is tragic. Don't know nearly enough about him.

Am loving your posts.

There's actually a lot of that story cycle in *Star Wars,* btw. Swords of light, hands getting lopped off and replaced with silver ones, people confronting their parentage and tutelage... Lucas and Campbell were like *that* and all.

'Lugh the Skywalker' isn't an unfamiliar phrase, for instance, or even in the original term 'Starkiller,' (Lugh v. Balor's Eye and all: it makes more sense if you get the solar references... the baleful red eye of the Western sea is the *setting winter sun* and the battle between them is the same as the usual seasonal cycles, Christian monks just picked one as 'evil,' when the point was that it's about the seasons. )

Out of this we get much of Cuchulain's story, but that goes all back to the Hawk of Achill, and I'm taking way too much satisfaction out of making all these references after a couple of years of people spouting Bible things at me. :)

Hi, Paganplace,

My knowledge about Irish heroic stories is scanty at best. Most, yes, are tragic. A few are hysterically funny - I'd have to look up the one I was thinking about.

Pardon my typing, please, I got all out of order. Lugh was actually known as the Samildanach, which basically means 'master of all arts' ....What these tales may say about women's empowerment, well, we'd have to look at who taught him his very anime finishing moves, as well as stuff about Emer, and Macha, and ...well, many stories from that cycle.

Not everyone *gets* Cuchulain at first blush, Arminius. His story's kind of a tragic one... both about heroic characteristics and what the Blackwing thinks of having too much of em at any one time.

Of course, there's always the 'Campus Crusade for Cuchulain:' 'Did you know that Lugh gave his only acknowledged son the Samildanach to die for Ulster? ;)

Celtic myth - Cuchulainn, anyone?

Wiccan, my abject, humble, groveling apologies! My aged brain cells refused to divulge the fact that you were in on the nicknaming of the Croissant!

Farnaz,
'Confused Cucumber Noticeably Limp' is truly excellent!

Okay, so not Celtic myth.

Moi is definitely up for a permanent change of topic from said troll. Celtic myth?

'Don't feed the troll' posts do actually tend to... feed the troll, of course.

Wiccan,

Twit. Feh.

Well said. It is poetry. I suggest a simple title, if not eponymous, surely synonymous (rhyme courtesy of Pseud, Great Poet): "Ode to CCNL"

Hi Arminius and All,

"The Bagel is CCNL, known as the Bewildered Bagel, the Benighted Bagel, or the Barfing Bagel. Farnaz and I had a delightful web evening thinking these things up. All started when I called CCNL the Confused Croissant"

Arminius, you forgot Wiccan who made some brilliant contributions. Pardon the interruption, but for your later consideration, I humbly offer,

Confused Cucumber Noodling Lettuce
Confused Cucumber Nearing Latvia
Confused Cucumber Noticeably Limp

Wiccan,

You did exactly what Confused Croissant, the troll, wanted you to do - get mad. Make fun of him instead. I'm beginning to wonder if he works for the propaganda dept of the McWorse/St Sarah campaign - he sure has an aptitude for throwing s*** at anyone in range. Kinda like a monkey at the zoo.

One wonders what CCNL feels 'liberated' from if he still thinks he's subject to the 'spell' of 'porno.'

Seriously.

Only thing I can really say about the 'porn' Christians fear as an 'addiction' is that it can't be a very good sign that they don't care much about *taste,* which you'd think someone could manage.

"CCNL : "Well, well, it does appear that the Pagans have entered the porno/terror zone. How unfortunate but hey many join pagan groups since there are no morals required."

I missed that bit, actually.

'Porno?'

What?

You'd be surprised how quickly that loses its appeal when it's not some kind of surrogate and safety valve for actual sex.

It's like, you can't eat pictures of food... it's Christians who have some kind of damage about pictures of sex.

These things wouldn't be much of a thing unless someone *made* them one.

CCNL : "Well, well, it does appear that the Pagans have entered the porno/terror zone. How unfortunate but hey many join pagan groups since there are no morals required."

How dare you, sir? Have you "Crossanized" yourself out of any sense of shame? Even the most cursory inspection of Wiccan beliefs will show the high value placed on personal ethics. Just because we don't freak out over what the Abrahamic religions consider "sins" does not mean that Pagans have no morals.

Twit. Feh.

DANIELINTHELIONSDEN : "We are born. Where and when is the major contingency of our lives, which pre-determines a great deal of what we may or may not become."

THERE CAN BE NO QUESTION
THAT FORTUNE IS SUPREME
IN ALL HUMAN AFFAIRS.
IT IS A CAPRICIOUS POWER,
WHICH MAKES MEN'S
ACTIONS FAMOUS OR LEAVES
THEM IN OBSCURITY
WITHOUT REGARD TO
THEIR TRUE WORTH.

-SALLUST

We are born. Where and when is the major contingency of our lives, which pre-determines a great deal of what we may or may not become. We have presented to us, a physical body, ready made, and a mental apparatus, ready made, additional contingencies from which much of our subsequent selves emerge. Then we grow. How we grow, and what we become is also contingent upon the adult shepherds of our lives, and the type of culture in which our lives may unfold. We grow and increase in knowledge and understanding. We increase and grow. Then, some of us reach a limit, like an outer sphere that surrounds the world and all of humanity. From that vantage point, we can look back and see alot. Some of us, bumping up against this limiting barrier, punch through it, and stick our heads through, like looking through the hole in the top of a tent. And there we see other people who have also punched their heads through. There are only a few others. They are from any country, from any culture, and may speak any language. But we all recognize and know each other instantly. We all have worked ourselves, through multiple contingincies, along the same path, to the barrier, and then punched our way through, to see what is beyond.

CCNL : "Well, well, it does appear that the Pagans have entered the porno/terror zone. How unfortunate but hey many join pagan groups since there are no morals required."

I think you've got your definitions scrambled. Pagans by and large aren't too keen on moral systems and standards that are imposed from without. People who have never known other cultures, cultures entirely foreign to their experiences, have a bad habit of calling other people's day to day practices [particularly sexual practices] demonic. The European/American reaction to Inuit sexual practices is a very good example. Let's face it---polyamory isn't for everybody, Calvinists in particular.

What Pagans [and Wiccans in particular] KNOW is the Law of Karma. What comes round goes round: if you thoughtlessly toss out crap everywhere then you'll reap disease.

Oops, was that one of those less-cuddly faces of the Goddess?

*folding hands and beaming beatifically.*

Fugettaboutit. :)

Err, what the Hel are you quoting, CCNL?

Having sex is not inherently 'sinful' or to be 'scorned,' no. But neither is it inherently 'wrongdoing.'

Rare occasion someone *turns* sex into wrongdoing, among us, well, let's just say you can't buy it with Paypal.

Well, well, it does appear that the Pagans have entered the porno/terror zone. How unfortunate but hey many join pagan groups since there are no morals required.

e.g. "Someone who understands this is Anthony Paige, the author of Rocking the Goddess. Paige says that part of Wicca’s appeal lies in the fact that “there is no sense of sin.” While “there is a karmic law” that practitioners must take into account, they’re spared any sense of “scorn or condemnation” over their wrongdoing."

Daniel ITLD,

You should check out my parish. Sure, the usual little old ladies, but a big bunch of young couples with kids. Lots of teens. A good number of blacks and Asians too. Truly a wonderful place.

As far as I am concerned, the Trailer Trash of the Tundra is a MIDWF. I have no interest in women that I don't like.

Hey, CCNL... there's actually a Moslem terrorist group in the Philippines called the Moro Islamic Liberation Front or... MILF. So, by saying that Sarah Palin is a MILF, we really mean that she's a Moslem terrorist. :D

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moro_Islamic_Liberation_Front

I mean, hey, CCNL, if the Republicans wanted to all-but-disqualify Edwards over *one haircut,* but think it quite reasonable to spend *one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to gussy Palin up,* ....I think how they try to milk the 'MILF' thing and still call it 'feminist' is fully in bounds.

" CCNL

"Paganplace, Paganplace, Paganplace,

"We see you are "dropping" MILF all over the commentary pages this morning."

Err, cause it's proposed there's something 'feminist' about Sarah Palin when that seems to have been the conservatives' prime attraction to her, despite flagrant incompetence and corruption?

"Hmmm, resorting to using "MILF" is bit out of place for a good witch like yourself. Easy girl, Wicca won't end because of Sarah Palin!!!"

Easy, boy. We have in fact seen worse. Doesn't mean she's not a bad thing.

"I am on a Men's roller derby team, called Harm City Homicide (Baltimore), and we support our Charm City Roller Girls all the way! Their championship bout is this Saturday...so wish them luck!"

Indeed. Roller derby: It goes in circles, combines ironic nostalgia with potential grievous bodily harm... Could be like life. :)

Paganplace, Paganplace, Paganplace,

We see you are "dropping" MILF all over the commentary pages this morning.

Hmmm, resorting to using "MILF" is bit out of place for a good witch like yourself. Easy girl, Wicca won't end because of Sarah Palin!!!

" DanielintheLionsDen
PaganPlace

"I do not disagree with you. God is portrayed in the Bible as "male." If one assumes that this is an improbable and unknowable detail, then many problems follow when regarding the meaning of the Bible. That is why it is so difficult to get people to consider this idea, because it infers other challenges to belief that people are not prepared to meet."

OK, ...I'm actually not sure what you're getting at, here. What do you mean by 'if one assumes this is an improbable and unknowable detail?'

I *think* you may be contrasting your own interpretation with a more 'common' Christian one, and trying to relate that to what I said in some way? Or maybe some other combination of the three?

This is one of those days when my concentration isn't 100 percent, I'm getting some static from my own physical discomforts, so maybe clarify that bit for me?

What I was getting at is there's that conflation of a particular character with some notion of all-and only-Deity anywhere. Saying that only one 'character' is really acceptable, then saying that character actually encompasses all of divinity allowed to be seen as existing.

From my point of view, it appears that exclusivist monotheism sees 'God' as outside the 'house' we call the physical universe, to make an analogy... They figure there's only one window that the 'light' can come through, try and brick up all the others, and then start confusing that window with the light itself.

We Pagans subject ourselves to no such limitations. ...Really in any of those respects... Gods aren't strictly 'objects' in that way, either, though I find the 'parallax' analogy useful at times. Particularly when they say, 'You can only know 'God' through this 'window...'

I am on a Men's roller derby team, called Harm City Homicide (Baltimore), and we support our Charm City Roller Girls all the way! Their championship bout is this Saturday...so wish them luck!

" CCNL

"Hmmm, after reading all the Pagan commentaries below about empowerment of women, the only conclusion is that the real empowerment comes from Roller Derby. Teams like the LA Derby Dolls are awesome especially in high definition!!!"

It came in a flash... What I think *you* should do, CCNL, is check yourself right into an old-school Zen monastery, complete with whackey-sticks. I think you'd get a lot out of it, actually.

:)

PaganPlace

I do not disagree with you. God is portrayed in the Bible as "male." If one assumes that this is an improbable and unknowable detail, then many problems follow when regarding the meaning of the Bible. That is why it is so difficult to get people to consider this idea, because it infers other challenges to belief that people are not prepared to meet.

Hmmm, after reading all the Pagan commentaries below about empowerment of women, the only conclusion is that the real empowerment comes from Roller Derby. Teams like the LA Derby Dolls are awesome especially in high definition!!!

I do not know how it is among Jews or Moslems, but among Christians, it is the old women who go to church. Even though men may dominate the politics of religion, church would disappear without the support of old women. The sterotype is of the "babushka," the heavy-set old woman, in an old coat and a head scarf and shawl.

But that is not how it is in my tradiiton. In my tradition, church has always been filled up with Margaret Thatcher look-alikes, or even Queen Elizabeth look-alikes, with their big fluffy hair, not grey, but glistening silver or even purple or blue, dressed in stylish suits, with a colorful jacket and skirt, with sagging unlifted faces, that yet smile and laugh even in their very old age.

All of my life these women have been the most dominating presence in my church.

The problem is that a lot of Christians fail to put the Bible into the context of something that was written almost 2000 years ago in a very patriarchal society (the Roman Empire). Roman women were "strongly encouraged" to have lots of children, to provide more soldiers for the Empire. When Christianity started preaching abstinence, a lot of women LIKED that idea, because they were tired of being baby-making machines. Many of the early Christian evangelists had female companions that would reach out to women. Paul had a female companion named Dymphna, that he wound up ditching a few times when things got hot.

The problem became when Christianity became institutionalized, the Council of Nicea dropped a lot of the Apocrypha. Ever hear of the Gospel of Mary? Thomas? A lot of the writings that stressed gender equality were thrown out because the clergy was threatened by them.

" DanielintheLionsDen:

"With regards to Starhawks essay, I cannot relate in any way to a gendered diety. In my own culture, it is the convention to refer to God as "male" and that is how alot of people think of God. But that is just a cultural shortcut, an idiom of the way we think and speak, without any real meaning."

I think I'd have to disagree, there... It's certainly not uncommon for mystics to say that 'God' is neither or both genders, but the God of the Bible seems to be portrayed as a *male character* with few, if any 'feminine attributes.' ....commonly, monotheists will then tack on the idea 'Of course, this character also is everything female,' ...but probably there's a reason that notion doesn't seem to get much traction among many of the faithful... The literalists, anyway.

Of course, some of the more mystical writings will have people *addressing* that God as though a 'beloved' in a quasi-romantic way, but I think this is a problem with conflating a tribal male deity who used to have a *wife* with the Ultimate And Only Divinity...

Pagan religion is markedly-different in one way worth noting: instead of being a 'top-down religion,' where the idea is to find the 'Highest Truth' and then try and say what that will commands, and scuffle it out, Pagan religion tends to start from what's closest to our lives, and sometimes not even feel the need for a Big Ultimate Answer, or at least not to emphasize one.

Generally, the bigger something like that is, the less possible or needful to define it.

There's commonly a concept that there's some grand union of all 'male and female' divinity, ...even in that sense we tend to be biased to say 'Goddess,' cause we usually perceive the world as *part* of 'God,' not an external artificer, so there's really more intuitive sense to seeing the universes Herself as a Mother.

It always seems that when talking to Christians, there's that conflation of a male character with desires and commands and jealousy ('The Only God,') let's call him, with some still bigger concept of a Universal Divine, ('All God,' let's call That) ...from my cultural parallax they look like two different things entirely, whereas to Christians, it seems the former stands in front of the latter and appears to be one and the same being. (or concept of a being)

Hence much scuffling.

Lepid,

It's a shame you did not have a mentor or elder in your Baptist community that could have discussed these issues with you. The items you list most likely didn't work for you because you're reading them incorrectly.

*People who do good things all their lives being eternally damned if they didn't do them in the name of Jesus* ---> This is simply not true. Certainly, from a Baptist perspective, a true and loving relationship with Christ is the gateway to Heaven. It's not about being a boy scout or doing good works. (Although Catholics would disagree). Obviously, a relationship with Christ feeds your soul to perform good works in His name automatically.

*People who did horrible things all their lives being eternally rewarded if they repent the instant before they die* ----> This is a matter of the heart. It matters little what people say or do because only God know what's in their heart. If they truly are repentent and are sincerely giving their life to Christ, then you are correct. Merely mouthing the words minutes or seconds before we pass falls on deaf ears.

*The idea of the body and sexual desire as evils to be conquered* ---> Again, this is simply not true. Unfortunately, a number of Christian parents teach children that sex is bad in an effort to keep them from unwanted pregnancies, STD's, etc. I think you would find that most Christians don't view sex as evil but exactly the opposite. I would caution that sexual desire in the form of lustfulness of another can be sinful (i.e., adultery, etc.). Sexual desire by a married couple should be full of passion and enjoyment.

*Why should I have to be content with a submissive role just because I was born with ovaries instead of testes?* ---> This is a view shared by a lot of people who have failed to read the Bible in context. Without regard to religion, men tend to crave "respect" while women crave "love". Therefore, wouldn't it make sense for God to command women to be "submissive" (i.e., respect your husbands)? And doesn't God also command men to love their wives as Jesus loved the church? And doesn't He say this to men because He knows how vitaly important "being loved" is for a woman?

The key to any marriage, and I have a lot of experience with this, is for women to submit ("respect") their husbands EVEN when they don't feel loved; and for men to love their wives EVEN when they don't feel respected.

Not a sermon, just a thought.

I was brought up Baptist, and realized in my tween years that there were just too many tings about it that didn't work for me:
*The Fall - why should people who weren't even in existence when Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit be punished for something they had nothing to do with? That would be like a parent punishing a child for the misbehavior of his great-grandmother.
*Eternal reward/punishment for acts committed in a temporal life.
*Substitutionary atonement - why is punishing the innocent for the sins of the guilty a bad thing if people do it, but a good thing if God does it?
*People who do good things all their lives being eternally damned if they didn't do them in the name of Jesus.
*People who did horrible things all their lives being eternally rewarded if they repent the instant before they die.
*The idea of the body and sexual desire as evils to be conquered.
*The ideas of Paul regarding male/female relationships in the home and in the church. Why should I have to be content with a submissive role just because I was born with ovaries instead of testes?
*Why was God always called "he" when the word used in Genesis was plural? "He" even referred to "himself" as "us" when "he" decided to make man.

I was in my thirties before I realized that there was a name for people who believed as I do. I found many of my the folks in my Pagan network (web?) via the Unitarians.
Paganism appealed to me not only because of the recognition of both the divien masculine and the divine feminine, but also because of its tenet that you are personally responsible for righting the wrongs that you do. It's not up to the gods to forgive you for harming your neighbor - you must make restitution to and ask forgiveness from your neighbor.

" CCNL

"Hey, who is empowering Men??? The NFL of course!!!"

Fairer assertion than obsessing with someone online selling 'spells.'
Of course, when you 'support' your NFL team from your living room, .....what are you thinking you're doing? :)

Actually, in Paganism, it more often *does* come up 'how are men empowered in these religions,' ...usually with the assumption that we're matriarchal or that the Goddess must mean that men in Paganism must be in some peril of being treated as monotheism treats women...

Empowerment, (which is probably a term many would define a bit differently, but let's presume we all have some idea there,) ...isn't always served by such vicarious notions as identifying people by sex with an all-knowing, all-powerful, distant intelligence that sits in judgment of perfection: that idea doesn't seem to really empower men, it sets them up to be compared to that distant, jealous, (and often abusive) character... they tend to feel they're *supposed* to know everything and be more powerful than anyone else, but in the end they aren't empowered to be real human men.

Likewise, perhaps, the NFL may inspire fanaticism and even hooliganism, in cases, but it rarely gets anyone out playing football. Someone else is doing it *for* them, and they need only watch and identify with these 'champions.' Maybe give people a hard time if they don't fit whatever model they find so admirable. (Not to come off like I think sports fandom is irredeemably-awful, but I do question if the sense of 'empowerment' CCNL refers to is anything really that empowering.)

In Pagan religion, there is a great diversity of faces of the God and Goddess, all part of the natural world and human experience: the relationship is far more cooperative than subservient, (at least in comparison to the authoritarian religions with which most are more familiar, these days.)

Still, even within Paganism, there's often an idea that the presence of so many strong women in leadership positions necessarily must imply some exclusion of *men,* of all things, ...a perception I often think is over-emphasized, given all the great and definitely empowered Pagan men out there, but one that I think among ourselves we could do to be sure and address.

So we get back to what 'empowerment' means...

In monotheistic religion, there's certainly a lot of basis to figure the sexes are in an unequal relationship: we need look no further than the recent election, where from the Right a well-qualified candidate, Senator Clinton, has been called a b-word and had her character attacked over a scandal her husband was in, while Gov. Palin, who got things handed to her based on her looks and being an attack dog for the Religious Right gets rewarded.

Some foolishly think this means Palin is 'empowered,' but is she? Would she have been given that 150,000 dollar wardrobe by the RNC and all the applause when she stumbles through interviews and proves she doesn't even know the job (she still hasn't looked up which body of Congress the VP presides over) ...if she were 'empowered' to go her own way, or do anything but obey the party line?

She's not empowered, ...in fact, she only serves to discredit the idea of women in office at all, when it's the Religious Right saying, 'What an admirably-virulent MILF.'

Empowerment is something else.

Something real.

Daniel ITLD,

The Bagel is CCNL, known as the Bewildered Bagel, the Benighted Bagel, or the Barfing Bagel. Farnaz and I had a delightful web evening thinking these things up. All started when I called CCNL the Confused Croissant.

As to women in church - my current Episcopal parish has a woman as rector, and a woman as deacon. No one has a problem with that. The times they are a-changing.

It's okay MOKEY2, I know who I'm dealing with here. I do suspect that many people encountering a discussion of this sort, with references to spiritual concepts that have been systematically denigrated, will have a cultural p.o.v. imposed by bad movies, bad TV and other negative, anti-spiritual propaganda. Countering stupidity with reason is one of the best uses of public forums such as these.

Blessed Be, ya'll

With regards to Starhawks essay, I cannot relate in any way to a gendered diety. In my own culture, it is the convention to refer to God as "male" and that is how alot of people think of God. But that is just a cultural shortcut, an idiom of the way we think and speak, without any real meaning. In a way, we expect God to have a gender, and we just assign him a gender of "maleness;" it is a place holder, in computer lingo, dummy data, to complete the field. But once again, it has no meaning.

Usually, I would not go into this. See how much it has taken just to begin to explain it, and most people would steadfastly cling to God as a male, and it would take a very great deal of arguing and explaining just to get them to begin to entertain my idea. So, normally, I would not say anything about the gender of God, but I would instead, go along with the cultural norm, and refer to God as "him."

Whenever someone refers to God as "her," I assume that they are trying to make a point about the cultural bias of assuming that God is male. I would not suppose that God would be female anymore than I would suppose God to be male.

On these things, my beliefs are firm, and unshakeable. Therefore, the New Testament, the Bible, and other religeous scriptures cannot be literally true. On this I am unshakeable, as well.

Also, more specifically, what are the references to the Bagel?

And also, I agree that these questions are difficult to answer because they are not particularly meaningful. The pervious question about "what should we do?" was so broad, and so shallow, that it was almost impossible to address. And this one seems almost silly.

In almost all politically organized religions, women are seen as subordinate to men. This is true even in more liberal Protestant sects like the Episcopal Church. Yet, a predisposition to religion and religious belief is a feminine trait, at least that is my observation. There seem to be many more womean attending church than men. It seems to me that men set up and manage the political structure of religions, they write the theology, and shepherd the people to behave and believe a certain way, but it is the women who "believe."

Robin,

Please don't bother with him. He's just an internet troll who seems to think he knows better than everyone else. he doesn't bother to think for himself, just prefers to quote other people ad nauseum. He demeans and belittles things and people he has no idea about. As such, he would get out of it exactly what he put into it- nothing.

He won't understand even if he wanted to. His intent is to try to 'prove' that only 'he' (read: the authors he quotes) has all the answers. No matter what anyone says.

The physics behind it all are true and repeatable and the ideas take a long time to really understand even for those who *make* such an effort. he is not one of them and not worth the effort.

CCNL :"Ahh, but there is. Who remains to test the validity of said Wiccan spells?? Hmmm, the world in general????"

Werner Heisenberg and the Observer Effect: "In physics, the term observer effect refers to changes that the act of observation will make on the phenomenon being observed. This is often the result of instruments that, by necessity, alter the state of what they measure in some manner. This effect can be observed in many domains of physics."

This effect can be seen everywhere. If you go into a concert of Music and you're the kind of person who hates 'that sort' of Music, not only are you nearly guaranteed to have a lousy time, your bad vibes will probably take the performance down a notch or two and almost always bum out the folks that came with you. Similarly, an enthusiastic crowd is always good for musical performers and can lift a performance to new heights.

Intent is everything. Spells are, in large part, an active form of meditation. The candles, callings, scents and colors mainly serve as mnemonic devices and the changes wrought by the spell are on the consciousness of the participants of that spell. If you don't want a spell to work as you are working on that spell, you are absolutely guaranteed that the spell will not work.

Arminius:
"Two weeks ago, it was 'Pets in the Pews' Sunday, and half a dozen very well behaved dogs showed up. On leash with owners in tow, of course. They all got blessed, and one of them even barked during the sermon, which brought the house down! Pure joy."

I see. So you Episcopalians believe in Dog? Sounds dyslexic to me :]

I've always liked the various blessings of the animals that many different Christian Churches indulge in from time to time. They serve as a good reminder of our relative position in the panoply of nature.

If you wonder what goes on during Samhain among self-described wiccans, there's always the option of checking out Reclaiming's Spiral Dance. I've been to three of these public events, feeling the presence of real magic each time I participated. This year it will be at Kezar Pavilion in San Francisco on November 1 [all saints day---go figure]. There's more information in the link below.

http://www.reclaiming.org/rituals/samhain.html

On the attached video, starting at 1:35, while Starhawk is speaking of "Our beloved dead" there is an image of Judy Foster. I really miss her, one of my personal 'patron saints.'

Ahh, but there is. Who remains to test the validity of said Wiccan spells?? Hmmm, the world in general????

A case of 'Help- my spells don't work' and suddenly there's no need for them? Smells like sour grapes to me.

Actually there's no need for CCNL.

Actually Mom Nature empowered women with brains, common sense, mammary glands and other interesting parts!! There is no need for Starhawks, Wiccan loves spells/potions, priests, priestesses, witches, witch doctors, voodoo, and/or hoodoo.

"You know there are strange things that happen when you are close to someone and that person is near death. These are unique experiences. '

They escape the best empirical minds, I'm talking hardcore scientists. "

What types of experiences are you thinking of?

And you don't have to know anything about my loss to understand what it's like to lose someone you adored. Who shaped you in ways you never realized until they were gone.

Thanks, Farnaz.

It's so hard when you lose someone who helped shape your life.

Keep in mind too that each group will most likely do things somewhat differently, according to their leader's particular tradition. And that's ok. It might also help to contact the leader of the group that you were planning on visiting. Most leaders seem to be pretty open to giving newcomers and observers an idea of what to expect for an open circle.

Hm.. as for reading material.. a lot of what I used to understand how ritual is used and what is often used in it came from Starhawk's 'the Spiral Dance', Laurie Cabot's 'Celebrate the Earth'.
Scott Cunningham as an author is also widely admired. His 'Truth about Witchcraft today' is very good, among other things.

Friend Farnaz,

"New and then ARK"

ooh... now there's something worth thinking about.
Lots of interdenominational reflections possible from there.

Got to sleep now.

Pax Vubiscum aka Shalom

Mokey,

You know there are strange things that happen when you are close to someone and that person is near death. These are unique experiences. '

They escape the best empirical minds, I'm talking hardcore scientists.

I don't know anything about your loss. I don't know what you've experienced. This old historical, yet logical positivist type, a maze of contradictions, knows who's around here and there, and who is there, but not here.

Dear Pseudo,

I read your verses on Chane's thread and they were great. You really have talent, my friend! For prose, too, I'll bet.

Farnaz

Pseudo,

I mean you could type in New and then ARK. That's what I did. The Hebrew didn't work. Neither did Newark. But, really, a different way might inspire you more. These two poems were great! Do you find Episcopalianism dry? (Apologies to Arminius)

Have you read Emerson's Divinity School Address? (A riot, in parts) He wasn't invited back for decades. You can get it on the web if you haven't already seen it.

But look at Arminius, a noble, spiritual, Episcopalian soul.

Hi Mokey2,

I'm so sorry to hear of your loss. You know I'm a lot in this liminal state between people whom I love but who are gone and those whom I love but who are here. Maybe this would be a good thing for me.

Could you suggest something for me to read?

Dear Pseudo,

A difficult project, said rhyme. I think you may have to break it up into two syllables and proceed from there. Far be it from me to advise. I am the mere Pound to your Eliot.

Have you tried this?

http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=ark&typeofrhyme=perfect&org1=syl&org2=l

Samhain is usually the biggest of the holidays for us because it's considered our New Year. Usually when folks who are unsure or want to learn more decide to check out a new group they do so at Samhain cause there's likely to be a lot of others doing the same thing who might not at other times of the year. It's how I started, and I never looked back.

If you do decide to go, it helps to read a little beforehand about the holiday so that the symbolism will make more sense to you and you'll understand at least some of what's happening. You don't have to believe the same things, but learning a little ahead of time will make it more recognizable. I did and it made me able to say 'ok, I know what that means' and helped me to feel more a part of things.

Samhain is the holiday celebrating our New Year and the end of summer, sometimes told in a story about the death of the Sun God who will be reborn at Yule.

Celebrations vary from year to year. There is usually a bonfire of sorts (we're in a public courtyard surrounded by buildings so we really can't have a big one, so a small one in a portable cauldron usually does it.) It's considered to be the time of preparations for winter,and of the last harvest, and a time that the veils between the world of the living and the dead are the thinnest so we also take the time to honor those people we have lost during the past year. As I have recently buried someone dear to me, this will be the hardest part- saying hello and goodbye. Not sure what form that will take.

Usually stories are told (they vary depending on what the leader wants to impart) and a lesson shared, often with lots of symbolism. Then we hold hands in a circle and walk in a circle to symbolize the turning of the Wheel of the year, during which spontaneous dancing has been known to break out. After that.. the feasting begins. Potluck. Lots of fun if it's not TOO cold outside. :)

The Celtic Myths are so rich in their complexity. Which makes them difficult to follow sometimes- so I can definitely understand how they'd be hard to follow as a kid, never mind as an adult. But they're so beautiful.

Hello my dear Farnaz-2
I left some couplets just for you.

On Chane's so stultifying thread
From which you and Arminius may have fled

They're on the question of Sophia
And and the forbidden feminine idea.

I need an idea of what to rhyme
in lyrical and metric lines

to the Hebrew word called Ruach
(And I really don't want to just use Newark)

%-}

Any thoughts?

mokey2

Once, two summers ago, I went to a Pagan celebration that involved a bonfire, but I wasn't entirely sure of what I was doing, didn't really understand. But, I was told, to come back during Samhain.

Arminius,

Pseudo has returned! He posted on Chane's thread.

CCNL Reading List Continued

Sa'di, Hafiz, Omar Khayyam

As we approach this festive season, I wonder if it would be appropriate for us to take up a collection for CCNL. I was thinking of the Tales from the Arabian Nights, and the verses of Rumi.

Then there are all those wonderful stories in the Talmud, and the gay childrens' story books.

You know, the entire blog is so fond of Bagel, who does so love reading....

The poetry of Iqbal...

mokey2

Do you have a bonfire?

Celtic tales--I started them too early. Became deeply sad, terribly sad. When I read Celtic Twilight, I couldn't stop crying. Didn't even know who the author was at that point!

Can't wait for Samhain.

How do you celebrate it?

I read them all. Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic, Asian, Grimm, Anderson.. the list just goes on.

The best part of rituals is the storytelling, something to fit with the theme of the seasons or holiday. We take whatever story helps convey the lesson we are meant to learn.

Well, that and the music and the dancing and the food. And the company. Oh I guess I just can't pick a favorite.

Can't wait for Samhain.

Myths and legends....

I remember rifling feverishly through my mother's books, discovering tales from East and West. Grimm's, the highly political Anderson, the Green Fairy book, etc.

Then I hit upon Greek legends, and I was sunk, or so I thought. Roman legends didn't do it for me, so for awhile I thought myth ended with the Greeks. Then, however, I uncovered an beautifully written book on norse legends, and then and then and then.

Cambell used to have a wonderful dictionary cum encyclopedia of mythology, but then they chopped up all his books to sell them separately. Too bad.

Miss myths.

Hi Arminius, Mokey2, and All,

I don't think there is any hatred on Chane's thread, or in fact, on any of the others. There's a paranoid post, and the Belching Bagel is blasting hot air comme d'habitude, but the essays are lucid, as are the bloggers,for the most part.

Quinn needs to step aside for the good of the human mind and turn this over to people whose thinking is more sophisticated. Of course, her essay is on the mark, but BFD, pardon me. Yeah, like, I know, yawn. Got something a little higher up cerebrally speaking?

Let's move beyond small talk, etc.
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Paganplace, wherever you are:

Thought about our big truths, small truths exchange yesterday. Universal truths? Or only historical truths? Here's on ferya. What if the notion of universal truths is too small to accommodate history?

I had always grown up believing that the world was more sacred than it was made out to be. It was impressed on me early on that we cannot sustain ourselves forever with limited, finite natural resources. Taking from the Earth without giving a thought as to what we were doing to it.

I was taught that whatever we do to the Earth, or anything on it, we also do to ourselves. That all life is interconnected and interdependent. I'd also loved the stories about the old Greek Myths I'd been told early on. Many of the shows I'd watched as a kid also held those same themes.

Meanwhile I was raised Jewish in an interfaith house and getting pounded for it after having to stand up in school and tell the other students what it's 'like' to be Jewish in the name of 'cultural diversity.' But there was no coherency to the biblical tales for me. No explanation for why do the things you're supposed to do other than 'because I say so'. I went with other kids to church to see what it was like and got kicked out for asking one too many questions about the Bible stories and not getting any answers.

It wasn't until much later that I discovered Paganism- that there was a name for what I felt- but the more I learned about it the more I realized that everything I needed to know I'd already learned as a child. All the mystery, beauty and wonder that was lost to a fake 'worldly cynicism', came flooding back.

The Goddess and her consort have taught me about true unconditional love, from family and friends and relationships. To break the cycles of abuse endured for way too long. To stand up for what is right and to be heard on my own terms. To bring support and comfort to those who need it. Is that empowering? You'd better believe it. :)

Hi, Farnaz,

I suspect Jacoby will chime in soon.

Quinn is not doing well with this site, although her most recent essay is not too bad.

This blog of Starhawk's is the only one on the site with mostly positive posts - the Benighted Bagel's pathetic offering being the only exception. All other blogs are infected with the ebola virus variant of bigotry and hatred.

Hi Arminius,

Yes. Is the problem that he's conservative, I wonder. Again and again, I have heard priests say, much to my horror, that their can be no female priests since Jesus was a man.

Yet, I've also heard nuns comment on the intellectual backwardness of this view, so, I wonder.

This topic would seem to be right up Jacoby's alley. Sometimes, she seems to shy away from just that which is located there.

It's also not the most stimulating questions. IMO, if Quinn doesn't start elevating the discourse, this blog shall perish. What with the trite questions, bigots, and vanishing smart people, who will want to blog here?

Hi, Farnaz,

Yes, Father Reese delivered a positive essay. But the truth remains that Roman Catholics have no female priests, while Wiccans and Episcopalians do.

Interesting to see how many of the clerics who have responded have answered the question in the negative. One notable exception is Fr. Reese.

Susan Jacoby should come out of hiding on this one.

Hi, Friends,

Well, that crazy Jewish Lady with the weird name sure writes a dynamite essay.

This old Christian guy was raised Episcopalian, back when it was the poster child of boring religions. I dutifully attended, went the whole route, including an Episcopal college (NOT strict!). Then I decided it was not worth any attention. This lasted 30 years or more. Then, a spiritual experience. I next attended an Episcopal service on a whim, discovered that it was now radically different - dynamic, inclusive, really great. So here I am.....

As to God(s). (An aside comment: in the past, I was known to occasionally pour libations to the Greek deities.) From tradition and habit, I think of God as the Father, and pray that way. But if you push me hard enough, I will admit that God has no gender, God is pure spirit, and God is Love.

I'm not preaching, just defining where I think I am.

Women are very much empowered in the Episcopal church, and I think that is fantastic. We even do wild and crazy things. Two weeks ago, it was 'Pets in the Pews' Sunday, and half a dozen very well behaved dogs showed up. On leash with owners in tow, of course. They all got blessed, and one of them even barked during the sermon, which brought the house down! Pure joy.

Arminius

Arminius

Hey, who is empowering Men??? The NFL of course!!!

I was born and raised a Roman Catholic. I was a huge reader, and loved Greek and Roman mythology. I was really turned off by Catholicism for a number of reasons. Mainly their treatment of women, but mostly I was just bored with it. I tried "born again" Christianity when I was in high school, after going to a Christian camp for many years. That didn't stick, either. I tried Buddhism in college, but they wanted me to get up early on Sunday mornings and chant with them. To heck with that!

One of my closest friends in college was a Wiccan. She taught me how to read Tarot Cards. Over the summer, I read a book on Goddess Tarot, and stuff seemed to click. I borrowed her copy of "Drawing Down the Moon" when I got back to school in September, and it blew me away! Especially the part about pouring libations to the Greek Gods in Central Park. Then I read "The Spiral Dance" by this "lady with a weird name". It was like I finally found what I'd been looking for. This was in 1986. I've been a Wiccan ever since.

Does "religion" empower women? It depends on the religion, and the interpretation of it. Christianity initially empowered women, but that part of it got stamped out when it started becoming popular. And don't even get me started on women priests. Many of the more liberal Christian and Jewish denominations have realized that women do more than 50% of the work in their congregations, and have allowed female spiritual leaders. But they're still worshipping Big Daddy, no matter how much of a feminist face they put on it.

Viewing the Divine as both male and female takes a radical shift in perception. You have to think about two equals, yin and yang, positive and negative (as in electricity), summer and winter. Neither is greater than the other. They are partners, lovers, mother and son. It's a step that Humanity needs to take in order to mature.

I can’t say for absolute certain when I first encountered the Goddess. Being in a bi-racial, politically active family there were all sorts of jokes that were family standards. Numero uno was that familiar punchline to the question asked of someone who managed to get past St, Peter: “What is God really Like?” ”Well, first of all, she’s Black.” I must have been ten when that meme settled in.

Fifteen years later, my sister Miki handed me a copy of “Dreaming the Dark”, by this crazy Jewish lady who changed her name to Starhawk. Like Miki, I was involved in the anti-nuclear movement and wondering how humans could come up with something as suicidal as our amassed weapons systems with policies of nuclear deterrence based on mutually assured destruction and a massive stockpile of explosive poisons that grew every year. I knew [and still know] that eventually one of these “devices” will go off accidently. Our greatest nuclear---terrorist---threat is the one we created.

Reading “Dreaming the Dark” I could finally see a way out. I started reading John Hershey’s “Hiroshima” when I was eight---bad Idea! That image of a clock whose hands had been permanently melted onto a face of a clock from the atomic blast haunted my nightmares for years to come. Reading “Dreaming the Dark” freed me to plunge into researches into nuclear weapons and their tight link to nuclear power. I finally got through “Hiroshima.”

The seed planted by the Goddess grew in me, producing many unintended consequences. Over at KPFA in Berkeley, I somehow managed to interview Starhawk [not so hard, considering the family ties], then Diana Paxson, Elinor Gadon, Z. Budapest, Luisa Teish and many others. Being a man who embraces the Goddess has many unintended consequences. Dieties like Quan Yin, a Goddess of Compassion and nurturing or Lakshmi, Goddess of material abundance offers up models of how to live in this quotidian world. I now find reassurance and grace in Holy Mary, Mother of God [kinda changes hierarchal positioning in the Christian faith, eh?] and wisdom in Sophia, strength in Hecate and Jai Durga. Above all, I am freed from the fear of having ‘wrong thoughts’ about God. If God is omniscient and omnipotent then that God can be whatever God wants to be.

And as we all know, she’s Black.

Thank You crazy Jewish Lady with that weird name.