Compassion Begins with Mother Earth

*sigh.* Not the Unca Gerry thing. :)

He's *not* considered a prophet or messiah in Wicca, CCNL. You should stop trying to treat him as though he's some 'revealed founding authority' in what seems to be the only way you can imagine things.

Of course it came from somewhere. Like... Our ancestral and ongoing culture? Why, we even went and found *more,* after Uncle Gerry was gone. Imagine that. *gasp.* :)

CCNL: ". . .both his theories and his rituals are clearly influenced by earlier writers. . ."

Both my theories and rituals are clearly influenced by other writers and it's pretty obvious that your theories and rituals are clearly influenced by other writers---that's how it's done. Saint Paul's theories and his rituals are clearly influenced by other writers, the Jesus sayings came from other writers, that's how knowledge is passed along. My mom would point to a plant, give its latin name and use, would have me rub and sniff the leaves of the plant. My mom got her herbal knowledge from other writers. Welcome to the literate world. Your approach reminds me of something Sir Thomas Beecham [the great British Conductor and wit] would say about musicologists—"They can read music but they can't hear it."

And once again CCNL proves he is incapable of thinking on his own, having to put other people's words up.

Sad..

Ooops, make that Gerald Brosseau Gardner, "the Messiah of Wicca??"

(1884-1964)
"A flamboyant and assertive personality, he was a seminal figure in the creation of modern paganism. He had developed an interest in anthropology and the occult while working in Malaya as a tea and rubber planter and a Customs officer, and on retiring to England in 1936 he made this his prime preoccupation.

In Hampshire in 1939 he joined what he claimed was a witch coven preserving unbroken medieval traditions, and from 1951 onwards he publicly promoted a fertility religion of the type now called Wicca. He recruited members into an organized initiatory cult of several grades, for which he composed rituals and spells under the title A Book of Shadows; his system shows similarities to Freemasonry, and to ceremonial magic as practised by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, and others in the early 20th century. His Witchcraft Today (1954) is the foundation of Wicca; he also set up a Museum of Witchcraft at Castletown (Isle of Man).

He always insisted that he had learnt about witchcraft through initiation, not from books, but both his theories and his rituals are clearly influenced by earlier writers, including Margaret Murray (Hutton, 1999: 225)."

ref. www.answers.com

(Also, don't try this at home, kids. All fun and games till some twitch starts pointing guns at people over it. Fricking maniacs. :) Let's be careful out there. )

(Yeah, I know, we really need our civil rights and stuff, but sometimes you run into someone who's gone to *so* much effort messing with themselves that it just seems unsporting to disappoint. :)

I've heard that one. I think my best response is a pause, a subtle twitch, and then saying deadpan, 'See me when you're ready for the antidote.' :)

PP, I did catch yer "too bad about how they treat Pagan temples" riff, I was just pickin' it up and throwin' it back, that's all.

Favorite Starhawk passage [it's from Dreaming the Dark]:

The term Witch, people tell me over and over again, has negative connotations. It is a word that scares people, a word that shocks or elicits stupid nervous laughter.

"If you're a Witch (heh, heh) turn me into a toad."

"Why be redundant?" I sometimes respond.

heh, heh. . .

Also, CCNL:

"Pagan rituals involve spells, curses, covens, black magic, witches, voodooing dolls, hoodooing the results,"

If all this nonsense you say about us were true, you wouldn't be here defaming about it. So shaddap.

Seriously. That's just pathetic.

Err, I was goofing on the 'my body is a temple' bit, Robin. :)

I think it's really more like an Italian car. Still looks pretty good, but is in the shop a lot, and was never designed for all that off-roading. :)

PAGANPLACE : "Do like butterscotch, as sweets go, yes. :)"

I like butter, could live without scotch but would fall apart entirely without COFFEE [my precious, my precious. . .].

PAGANPLACE : "My body is a temple."

My body was a temple, now it's more like a double-wide teetering on the edge of foreclosure

PAGANPLACE :"Traditional Irish lore tells us, that if you see what many of we Pagans call 'Summerland,' likelihood is you might tend to waste away pining for it."

Modern Pagan lore tells us that hanging out too long at the Ren Faire creates unreasonable expectations & you eventually crash-land back to earth anyway.

Notes to CCNL: It's "Gerald Gardner" & Don't eat the food in faerie.

You wouldn't know compassion if it wept for you, CCNL.

Back to the topic:

Pagan rituals involve spells, curses, covens, black magic, witches, voodooing dolls, hoodooing the results, shadow books, maypoles,
god(s) and goddess(es), Gerald Gardiner et al.

And a good Wiccan spell would bring these altogether in some compassionate forms??

Do like butterscotch, as sweets go, yes. :)

I'm not exactly an exemplar of the healthy diet many Pagans espouse, I even used to eat at McDonalds till they had to go cave to the Right. But generally I've cut out the white sugar.

My body is a temple. Too bad about how they treat Pagan temples, just recently. . :)

Who needs 'eternity,' though, really.

Traditional Irish lore tells us, that if you see what many of we Pagans call 'Summerland,' likelihood is you might tend to waste away pining for it.

I can't really dispute this. So there's nothing wrong in my mind with keeping a good cup of coffee this side of the Veils. Sometimes it's the little things that keep you going. :)

PaganPlace, I think you might like butterscotch. I think Priver might too.

I dunno then. An eternity without coffee might be a problem for me, although I keep meaning to sign myself up for detox....

"Somehow, during my first experience at Livermore Labs/Santa Rita Jail, I met Gwydion Penderrwen. Small world."

Not small enough that it surprises me you said that. :) Vibes, and all. You do seem the type. :)

Still need a standup bass player for my blues rendition of 'The Raven Is Calling,' though. ;)

Anyway, Farnazz:

" Farnaz2 Author Profile Page:

If a person goes to heaven, does she get to eat and drink whatever she wants?"

I dunno about Christian Heaven, but it's my understanding you can't get a good cup of coffee in the Tir. It's the little things in life, not the 'Big Promises' :)

If a person goes to heaven, does she get to eat and drink whatever she wants?

Me too. And as I recall, you mentioned Innana elsewhere.

Somehow, during my first experience at Livermore Labs/Santa Rita Jail, I met Gwydion Penderrwen. Small world.

Well, I'm actually one of those people who had that experience, (looked a little different) so, I know about the 'Get back in it' part. :)

If St. Peter met me at the gate he'd say:

"Get back down there, you know your work's not done."

On the other hand, if Jonathan Swift met me at the gate, he'd share a "terrorist fist jab."

And then he'd kick me back downstairs.

Wow, the thread got busy. :) (I have been, too. Good stuff, though. :) )

Stone soup and mead and ale, eh? :)

Arminius:

"Lep,

"I fully expect St Pete to hand me a Guinness when I get there."

Hee, I Paganized the traditional Irish song, "The Jar of Porter," since St. Peter doesn't quite fit. :)

(It was nearly there, actually.)

Something like, 'And when I'm dead and in my grave, no headstone plant above my head,to a horseman passing by I'll say, throw in a jar of porter,

'And when I meet my likely fate, I know I won't have long to wait, I'll tell the Dweller at the gate...
Brought ya a jar of porter.'

:) Think I actually mashed up some more necessity for apologies to Gwydion Penderrwen in there somewhere at the time. Not that he'd likely mind. :)

You can probably see about where the St. Peter reference was at the time.

Then again, I think that's a charming bit of folk-myth, the St. Peter thing. When people glower at me and say, 'What do you think St. Peter would tell you at the gate,' I like to say, 'He'd take one look at me, sigh, and say, 'No jokes, this time, Irish.' :)

robinlandseadel :
SPARROW4 : "omigod, what a wonderful story! I watered up on that one."

Thanks, I got that story [originally] from the late, great Judy Foster.

*************************************************

I first encountered it in Barbara Kingsolver's "The Bean Trees." I choked up when I read the scene in which Esteban tells the long spoon story to Turtle. But them I got misty in several places i that book , and was runny-eyed, snot-nosed bawling at the end.

mokey2 :
MMM.. I love stone soup. :)
*************************************************
And it tastes even better when eaten with long spoons
;)

SPARROW4 : "omigod, what a wonderful story! I watered up on that one."

Thanks, I got that story [originally] from the late, great Judy Foster.

http://www.reclaimingquarterly.org/81/rq-81-judyfoster.html

IMHO, "the long spoons" is what compassion is really about.

MMM.. I love stone soup. :)

omigod, what a wonderful story! I watered up on that one.

ARMINIUS: Stone Soup, as practiced by Food Not Bombs, is 21st century loaves & fishes. Most of FNB's produce consists of provender rejected by the farmer's market and high-end food vendors. In fact I'm cooking up a mess'o greens that the homeless & under-homed rejected at last Saturday's FNB at Roeding Park. I'll be adding other vegetables to wind up with a yummy white-bean soup.

And now for some long spoons:

Our Friend, having a near death experience, contemplates his life of sin and anxiously awaits his fate in the next world.

An escort meets him at the boundary of hereafter and with a welcoming smile says, “You’re not ready yet friend; you still have another chance. But you’ll return soon, so let me show you what goes on here on the other side.”

Together they enter a great hall where a long candle-lit banquet table is laden with bowls of steaming, fragrant soups, succulent roasts, perfectly cooked vegetables, aromatic loaves of bread, the finest of wines, fruits of every kind, and a dazzling array of cakes and pies. Diners fill every chair, but shockingly, amid luxurious bounty, the scene is one of pain and anguish. Skeletal forms are twisted and moaning in starvation, with barely the strength to strike at each other with their spoons.

Looking closer, our Friend sees that all spoons have long handles—longer than the diners’ arms; too long for the diners to feed themselves. “So this is Hell,” gasps our Friend. “Anger and misery amid abundance. Where’s the Devil?” “Evil resides in the hearts of men,” says Escort, “But, come, let me show you something else.”

The two enter another great hall. And in that hall there is another long, candle-lit banquet table, covered with a similar incredible spread of delicious foods, drinks and sweets. Here the sounds of laughter, chatter and song fill the hall while healthy and happy diners are enjoying the company and the bounty before them.

They, too, have long spoons, but they are feeding each other. “And this,“ the Escort tells our Friend, “is heaven.”

http://www.iciclefund.org/parable

Arminius :
Finger sandwiches are a strange English/American custom. But what the hell is stone soup?!?
*************************************************
You've never read the story "Stone Soup?"
A traveller comes into a tiny, very poor, and not overly friendly village. He asks at every door for a bit of food, but no one has a meal to spare.
So he asks for a cooking pot and some water, and in it, he places a stone. He tells the curious people watching him that he is going to make stone soup. The only thing that could make it better, he says, is a pinch of salt. One of the villagers says that he can spare a bit of salt. As the water begins to heat up, he comments that in better times, stone soup had potatoes in it. Another villager decides that she can spare a potato. The pot continues to heat, and the traveller continues to reminisce about better times and the various vegetables that once wentinto stone soup. Each time, a different villager decides that s/he can spare an onion, or a carrot, or a few peas, until finally, each person's small contribution has created enough delicious soup to feed the whole village.
May you never hunger.

Hah! I found Stone Soup!
http://www.extremelinux.info/stonesoup/stonesoup.html

Farnaz2 :
What are finger sandwiches?
**************************************************

Well, you start with two pieces of bread....
;-)

They're just miniature sandwiches.
It always struck me as an odd name, though, since I eat all sandwiches with my fingers.

Finger sandwiches are a strange English/American custom. But what the hell is stone soup?!?

Sparrow,

I attended a Bat Mitzvah once. That was a remarkable experience, one I treasure to this day. But I don't remember any finger sandwiches!

What are finger sandwiches?

robinlandseadel :

Howzabout a big, foxy cauldron of Stone Soup?
**************************************************
Great idea.

I'll bring the stone. Would you prefer a philosopher's stone or a scorcerer's stone?
**************************************************
With the right frame of mind, they are one and the same.

LEPIDOPTERYX :"Get a cooking fire going, I'll bring my big cast iron pot and make gumbo."

Howzabout a big, foxy cauldron of Stone Soup? I'll bring the stone. Would you prefer a philosopher's stone or a scorcerer's stone?

But arminius- Jews have to have finger sandwiches! how could we bar mitzvah properly without them??? (well, at least in my neck of the woods). However I will gleefully toss the platter aside for gumbo! Who do we have to peel the grapes? do we have grapes? :-)

sparrow4 :
arminius- Can I do mead instead of ale?(but LOVE the coffee!)

Will there be little finger sandwiches?
**************************************************

Finger sandwiches? Meh.

Get a cooking fire going, I'll bring my big cast iron pot and make gumbo.

Sparrow,

Mead, Ale, Stout - your choice. I suppose finger sandwiches too, but those I could live without....

arminius- Can I do mead instead of ale?(but LOVE the coffee!)

Will there be little finger sandwiches?

Lep,

I fully expect St Pete to hand me a Guinness when I get there.

Arminius,

If there's no Guinness and no coonass coffee (so strong it walks from the pot to the cup under its own power), how can you call it heaven?

For Pseudo: A Meditation on the Markets

The market for goods works as it should,
The market for assets does not.
Egg prices are low—to the market we go,
Egg prices are high, from the market we shy.

But when stocks roar, we demand more and more
And then when they fall, we buy not at all.

This behaviour’s perverse! Makes a bad story worse.

And though the cause is hard to see
You will not find it here from me.
Man does not value what is free.

MC
London

I see what some of you are saying about Compassion...but to me compassion is empathy as well as Namaste. It is not just feeling what the other person is going through... its empathetic to that other...but it is also knowing that at the core of each of you is a connection.
Its hard to explain.

With Namaste you are saying that what ever you call God or Goodness in you, you recognize in that other person. That there is not just a feeling of thinking you know what that other person is feeling, but a knowledge of connection.

To me compassion is the opposite of thinking you have a moral higher ground, which is arrogance. Compassion is different from tolerance...which I dislike. Commpassion sits with Acceptance.

terra

Homosexual sexual activity is just so yucky. Other than that, one assumes proper sanitary and cleaning procedures will keep homosexuals disease-free or will it??

Break's over- back to work. I am totally disappointed in you, student. You wrote:"I agree also that we as a country can and should work harder to support minority groups. However I do feel that some freedoms are crimes against nature, such as homosexuality."

And if i said that your brand of Christianity was a crime against humanity, I think you would find that offensive, no? whether people are homosexual by choice or genetics really has nothing to do with anything. The fact that 2 people love each other and to share their lives in a meaningful way is 1. nobody else's business but theirs, and 2.In no way harms you.

Your problem is not accepting that yours is not the definitive word on life- or lifestyles. You aren't able to look at gays as people, and you certainly can't understand them as people. it's your loss because basically they only want the same things evreyone else wants- a good relationship, a nice home,family. what's it to you, really, if gays get married? Are they living with you? Are they marrying your children? Are they carrying on with your wife?

C'mon! You really have no leg to stand on and certainly no constitutional leg either. So why should you, who calls yourself a moral person, an ethical and compassionate person want to see a fellow citizen treated like a second class one? You want more rights for fertilized eggs than you do for full grown men and women. You don't see something wrong with that?
-------------------------
You wrote:" I know a lot of people who live a gay life style. One is a close family member. I have never once disrespected them or hated on them.

In asking them questions I found that most if not all that I know had some traumatic event that happen to them when they were younger that possibly effected their thought process or how they process affection or love.

Some of the statistics could have to do with people hating them but I don’t recall any other group like blacks before rights and slavery having similar issues. I see it as self-infliction. "

You don't think supporting a bill like Prpo8 doesn't disrespect them? You complain that they are trying to push their lifestyle on the rest of the country but that is not the case. They are trying to be treated equally, and in fact it is you and those like you who are trying to push their religious values off on the rest of us.

If gays speak of a traumatic event in their lives, you can bet that most often it was a trauma inflicted on them by others, usually heteros who think its fun to pick on them. Gays process love and affection just fine. Not the way you might, but love is love.

I wonder what you think child abusers or wife beaters are? Now those are choices that you make. are you as offended by them?

Priver,

I post this poem, September 1, 1939, for you.

Farnaz

September 1, 1939

I sit in one of the dives
On Fifty-second Street
Uncertain and afraid
As the clever hopes expire
Of a low dishonest decade:
Waves of anger and fear
Circulate over the bright
And darkened lands of the earth,
Obsessing our private lives;
The unmentionable odour of death
Offends the September night.

Accurate scholarship can
Unearth the whole offence
From Luther until now
That has driven a culture mad,
Find what occurred at Linz,
What huge imago made
A psychopathic god:
I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn,
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

Exiled Thucydides knew
All that a speech can say
About Democracy,
And what dictators do,
The elderly rubbish they talk
To an apathetic grave;
Analysed all in his book,
The enlightenment driven away,
The habit-forming pain,
Mismanagement and grief:
We must suffer them all again.

Into this neutral air
Where blind skyscrapers use
Their full height to proclaim
The strength of Collective Man,
Each language pours its vain
Competitive excuse:
But who can live for long
In an euphoric dream;
Out of the mirror they stare,
Imperialism’s face
And the international wrong.

Faces along the bar
Cling to their average day:
The lights must never go out,
The music must always play,
All the conventions conspire
To make this fort assume
The furniture of home;
Lest we should see where we are,
Lost in a haunted wood,
Children afraid of the night
Who have never been happy or good.

The windiest militant trash
Important Persons shout
Is not so crude as our wish:
What mad Nijinsky wrote
About Diaghilev
Is true of the normal heart;
For the error bred in the bone
Of each woman and each man
Craves what it cannot have,
Not universal love
But to be loved alone.

From the conservative dark
Into the ethical life
The dense commuters come,
Repeating their morning vow;
“I will be true to the wife,
I’ll concentrate more on my work,”
And helpless governors wake
To resume their compulsory game:
Who can release them now,
Who can reach the deaf,
Who can speak for the dumb?

All I have is a voice
To undo the folded lie,
The romantic lie in the brain
Of the sensual man-in-the-street
And the lie of Authority
Whose buildings grope the sky:
There is no such thing as the State
And no one exists alone;
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.

Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.

– W. H. Auden

"You are true I do not understand homosexuals but I do not think it is a phobia. I know a lot of people who live a gay life style. One is a close family member. I have never once disrespected them or hated on them."

It is a pure phobia. Just because you don't say it to their face, the fact that you want to prevent them from doing what WE already do (ie getting married) is the ultimate in disrespect. It is saying that such people are not deserving of the same right we ALREADY afford everyone else, and therefore are less of a person. Which is wrong. Period.

Denying people their civil rights is never ok.

MOST PEOPLE have experienced trauma. It doesn't make people gay.
To say so is pure fallacy. Often it's the rejection and brutal treatment of others that can be the *source* of trauma.

"you are trying to push this alternative life style on our country"

Baloney. It's not pushing an alternative lifestyle on anyone to try to get someone else to see an injustice in our system and work to correct it. It's how it's done in our country. Two people who are in love and dedicated to one another should have the right to marry. Period.

And you or your church also should have the right to not allow them to marry in your church if you disagree. But their spousal rights should be given by the state under the term marriage.

And marriage has only been accepted as one man and one woman for a very short period of time. Look it up.

Women had to fight for the right to vote, as did blacks. These were protections that were supposed to be granted under our Constitution, and people had to be reminded of that fact.

If I was pushing an alternative lifestyle on you, I'd tell you you must be gay. Which is just as wrong. Don't do it if you don't agree with it.

But stop trying to deny a group of people the same rights. If you deny them their rights, than nobody, straight or gay should have the right to be married. All or none.

"They also treated the lowest scale of people with dignity and after 7 years they had to release them. "

Therefore slavery for 7 years is somehow ok? 'scales of dignity' for people? Are you serious? Owning people is wrong, no matter what justification you try to put on it.

Please don't reference the Old Testament. It's not your book. It was not written at all for Christians. Find a Jewish rabbi to explain it to you.

Good night all. Thanks for the conversations.

May God bless you,

Goodnight Pseudo and Mrs. Calabash, Wherever You Are

ARMINIUS :"Robin,
. . .Have you been touched by His noodley appendage?"

I'm encasing myself in a protective wrapper of Saran-Wrap even as I type.

[we now continue with our regularly scheduled program, "Kicked in the A~~ by an Angel. . .]

Student:

These are noble thoughts! Worth working for. Right now all adults, except gay adults can marry. My friends would like to but cannot.

Most gay men, if not most gay women, given the culture in which they live, would prefer not to be gay. These men are. They've accepted it. They pay taxes, meet all the obligations they have TO YOU for their citizenship.

What is yours to them?

Bonsoir Observer,

I must get going, I'm afraid, but I agree with you.

Truly empathic people do exist, but if we want to see empathy writ large, we could do worse than read the Ethics man himself. After all, our obligation, our (secularly) sacred obligation to one another is what brings us to action. Anyone can ooze compassion. As a friend of mine used to say of Bill Clinton, he is "promiscuously compassionate."

Anyway, like Didi and Gogo, I'm waiting, hoping to see the spetacular Pseudo return. Satire to soothe the savage what have you.

Regards,
Farnaz

Robin,

Of Course it's silly! It's His Noodliness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But you can't beat his heaven, which is filled with beer volcanoes and stripper factories. Have you been touched by His noodley appendage?

Well, you see, there you go. Compassion, empathy are empty terms without responsibility. And Student may not know he has an obligation to every gay man and woman in the universe.

Is s/he his brother's keeper? Yes. Levinas. Anyone can read him. Icky gooey feelings won't save us, not unless they're attached to a rock-hard understanding.

ARMINIUS :"Robin,
Here's another take on that....."

http://www.venganza.org/images/wallpapers/noodledoodle1024_768.jpg

[to be uttered in an overly fey, nearly Sylvester the Cat (or maybe just Sylvester) affect]:

"That'ss just sssssilly!"

The country should provide to all citizens, food, healthcare, clothing, education, and housing.

Mokey2
Never once did I say that gays are less then anyone, but I also don’t see where they are more than any other person where by we have to change our laws.

The PUSH goes both ways, you are trying to push this alternative life style on our country, because it feels good or a lot of people are doing it? Through out any civilization we see the union of a man and a women constituting marriage.

I have not referenced the Bible on any issue but you are correct it is where I draw my boundaries from and the principles to live by.

Your comment about slavery from the Bible is most likely misunderstood. There were slaves in the Bible but typically under Jewish law it was because they were indebted to the master or caught of a crime against the master. Often times in the New Testament when a slave is mentioned it references a paid house servant. They also treated the lowest scale of people with dignity and after 7 years they had to release them.

Homosexuality - We will have to agree to disagree on this one!

Studentoftheword:

If I may. I don't think there's such a thing as a single gay lifestyle anymore than there's such a thing as a single straight lifestyle.

Two of my neighbors are gay men, who have lived together in a wonderful relationship for more than twenty years. One is a successful lawyer, the other an academic. Both are American citizens.

What I'd like to know is since they are American citizens, aren't they entitled to the same rights as all other American Citizens?

What is your responsibility for them?

Robin,

Here's another take on that.....
http://www.venganza.org/images/wallpapers/noodledoodle1024_768.jpg

Mokey2
You are true I do not understand homosexuals but I do not think it is a phobia. I know a lot of people who live a gay life style. One is a close family member. I have never once disrespected them or hated on them.

In asking them questions I found that most if not all that I know had some traumatic event that happen to them when they were younger that possibly effected their thought process or how they process affection or love.

Some of the statistics could have to do with people hating them but I don’t recall any other group like blacks before rights and slavery having similar issues. I see it as self-infliction.

ARMINIUS :". . . you might want to know that the glorious Sistine Chapel ceiling was created by a homosexual. . ."

I've long pondered this little scene as an indication that Eve would rather switch than fight:

http://ricketyclick.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/sistineadamevew300.jpg

" . . .would you have censored the poetry of Walt Whitman?. . ."

. . .The prose of Proust? The wordplay of Cole Porter? The deep compassion of Ferron?

P.S. to ARMINIUS; "Meet me at the bottom" is one of the Wolf's great blues #'s.

Robin,

Howlin' Wolf RULES! I grinned so much my face hurts. Man, that dude blows a badass harmonica, and boy can he sing. Outstanding stuff. Can't beat good blues.

What alarms me, Student, is that you are attempting to mark a whole entire group of people as somehow 'less' of a person and you want to legislate based on such an idea.

We tried that once. It was called Slavery. And I suspect the book that you're basing a lot of this misinformation on is also the same one that was used to justify having and keeping slaves for all those years back in the day.

If you want to live your religious life by the book, by all means do so- but don't try to push others legislate as if we all followed it or believed as you do.

So gays must be restricted? How are they dangerous?

I don't know your religious choice, but I sense a fundie trait here. I don't know what you think of religious art either. But you might want to know that the glorious Sistine Chapel ceiling was created by a homosexual. Would you have prevented that? Further, would you have censored the poetry of Walt Whitman? The list is long....

Dear Great Christian Poet, Pseudo,

Are you planning on returning any time soon?

Farnaz

ARMINIUS :
Robin,

"Well, you have bewildered me. You must please explain the 'bottom of the mountain' and the 'howling wolf' sometime."

Howlin' Wolf don't need no 'spla-nin':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ou-6A3MKow

"I believe the general consensus is that it is a choice life style?"

Nope. Never was. That was put forth by people who attempted to 'cure' gays by incredibly brutal methods. People are born that way- some just happen to know earlier than others.

And there are no restrictions of rights that impact Down's Syndrome folks that I'm aware of.

They and others with disabilities are protected and given full rights by the ADA.

Many of those with Downs that I know and work with are fully capable of living on their own and holding down jobs and maintaining an active life.

Arminius
I think the survey is still out on that. I believe the general consensus is that it is a choice life style?

Certainly would not penalize those with Down Syndrome but I believe some rights are restricted because their disability may harm themselves or others. The same may be for homosexuals.

Robin,

Well, you have bewildered me. You must please explain the 'bottom of the mountain' and the 'howling wolf' sometime. In my youth, I explored many of the coves, hollows, and valleys under the mountains. But - standing on top of a mountain is somehow transcendent, lifting one up from all the rest. That's gotta be primordial.

A thought for you all as you drag up that moonshine distillery up the mountainside:

"From somewhere deep in my memory, I heard a snatch of some half-remembered conversation between a construction worker and a bartender at a bar in Colorado. The construction man was explaining why he shouldn’t have another drink: “You can’t wallow with the pigs at night and then soar with the eagles in the morning,” he said.
I thought briefly on this, then shrugged it off. My own situation was totally different, I felt. In about three hours, I was supposed to be down on the docks with my camera and tape recorder to spend another day on one of those god--mn boats.
No, I thought, that geek in Colorado had it all wrong. The real problem is how to wallow with the eagles at night and then soar with the pigs in the morning.

--Hunter S. Thompson, The Great Shark Hunt

Don't worry, Robin. There's always room for rice and beans. :)

Student,

The Declaration of Independence is the "mission statement" for America:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Now, to me, being able to marry the one you love is one of these unalienable rights, "the pusuit of happiness".

If such a thing is your 'pain', Student, by all means don't have a homosexual relationship.

And homosexuality is not a crime against N\ature. There are a LOT of examples of animals displaying homosexual behavior out in the wild.

It's all based on your irrational fear of something you don't understand, as all phobias are.

How is giving loving couples the same rights that you and I enjoy impacting my or your relationship at all? The only person responsible for my relationship with my spouse is ME. And my spouse. As you and yours are.

We should work harder to support minority groups, Student. That I agree on- just not while at the same time requiring them to believe/behave as you do under penalty of punishment.

Student,

There is a huge and growing body of evidence that homosexuality is a genetic condition. Will you also penalize those with Down syndrome?

Corn squeezings? I'd tell you of a night spent eating raspberries soaked in moonshine if I could remember it...

;-)

ARMINIUS: "Yes, endless diversity. But all good paths lead up the same mountain. I'll meet you at the top."

Somehow, in my head, I'm hearing Howlin' Wolf bellowing "Meet me at the bottom." Not to be antinominian and all if I can help it, but I've had a life-long pull towards the Goddess and the dark and the night, the zero and the least, the cosmic washerwoman who'll be the last one standing, mop and bucket in the endless blackness. If you all roll off that mountain-top ya'll can meet me at the bottom for rice and beans and soup and day-olds. It's the 21st century equivalent of loaves and fishes, updated for the tatted and pierced vegan crowd.

Mokey
I believe that in our country you don’t have to approve of what others do. I never said they had to stop, but that we don’t have to make it legal. We have been given freedom with boundaries. This is what is missed by many when they interpret the constitution. It is these boundaries that set the preverbal guardrail on our cliff of declining morals.

I agree also that we as a country can and should work harder to support minority groups. However I do feel that some freedoms are crimes against nature, such as homosexuality.

The line is not as clear as you make it out to be, one persons pleasure could be another’s pain!

Student,

What you see as the harmful effects of being homosexual I see as the harmful effects of being hated because they're homosexual.

Frankly, I live for the day when people will get as worked up over whom others hate as they do over whom others love.

"On to the Mountaintop! Hell, I'm a Man of the South, I'll bring genuine moonshine!"

Wow! I was raised in the South for a good decade of my childhood. Moonshine it is! :)

..Assuming, of course, that you have some stats to back up any of that.

On to the Mountaintop! Hell, I'm a Man of the South, I'll bring genuine moonshine!

"Higher rates of substance abuse, suicide"

Could it be what tends to happen when kicked out of families or societies or religious organizations who don't accept people for who they are?

"High statistics of promiscuity, which leads to larger percentages of STD’s."

That's about PROMISCUITY. Not gay people who've been monogamous for years and years who only want to get married.

Homosexuality is not a choice and never was.

"There are many statistics that say that the homosexually life style is harmful."

Oh, really? Where? Stats? Links? And I mean links to neutral sites, not fundie places.

Wiccan

There are many statistics that say that the homosexually life style is harmful. So my WITS tell me that it is HARMful. Higher rates of substance abuse. High statistics of promiscuity, which leads to larger percentages of STD’s. They are more likely to have mental and physical health problems drastically reducing the life expectancy. They have higher rates of domestic violence among couples. Higher suicide rates. Need I say more? This sounds harmful to me, it doesn’t to you?

By the way I do not wish to have more than 1 wife it was just an example.

I mentioned the other stuff not to brag but to support another post that accused me and others of not support needs around the world. Sorry to sound braggish.

Woo hoo! Party on the mountaintop!

Wiccan,

Ah, yes, the juice of the barley! I can look forward to that.

MMA Wiccan,

"Yours was a much better reply than mine. Mom always told me not to be so damn hasty, but certain things just get my Irish up and I act a fool."

Funny- I thought it was the other way around. :) I tend to go off a bit too much myself, especially when certain types are around. I've got to watch the whole Knee-jerk reaction thing too. :)

Priver,

I can sure handle flowers and dancing in the fields. I won't be able to bring Guinness, but, somehow, I think it will be there on that mountain top when we get there.

Look for me at the top, too. I'll be the one toting the case of Bushmills. YES!

Priver-

Yours was a much better reply than mine. Mom always told me not to be so damn hasty, but certain things just get my Irish up and I act a fool.

Student,

My apologies for being snarky.

..I'll meet you at the top."

I'll be the one picking wildflowers and dancing in the fields. I'll bring the drums, you bring the Guiness. Now *there's* a party. :)

I cannot answer for Sparrow, Studentoftheword, but I'd like to take a crack at this. You said

"Why do you feel we, as a society needs to approve and give rights to every alternative life style? I may feel I should have more than 1 wife, should everything suggested be accepted? Where do you draw the lines?"

The promise of our country is that you don't have to approve of what other people do. But in this country we have been given the freedom to make choices for ourselves about what we believe and how we should live. With that comes incredible responsibility.

There are far too many minorities in our country who still have to live in fear because of others trying to dictate through the legal process how others should live. These have real consequences on families, children and employment even in this day and age. As a result of campaigns of fear of what others do not know, these groups have to work twice as hard just to be recognized.

I'm sure you're familiar with the role that the Southern Baptists played in the founding of America- it was an important one. They were the ones who recognized that only with true freedom of religion could their religion prosper and flourish. It's because of them that America allowed for those of other faiths to live as equals under the Constitution.

Where to draw the line? When there is abuse, control, rule by fear/domination- in short.. HARM. If you are able to give of yourself to two wives without detracting anything from one to the other, then go for it. I don't have that kind of stamina, (nor would I want to try) but maybe there are people who can make it work. But we must be responsible for our actions and accept the consequences when we have harmed ourselves or another.

Hi, Priver,

Given my background in the Classics, I can certainly honor the idea of sky god and earth mother, the sun and the moon. Of course to me, the renegade Christian, God has no gender. But I see His hand in the sky and the earth....

Yes, endless diversity. But all good paths lead up the same mountain. I'll meet you at the top.

William,

Very nicely put. Keep in mind, though, that a lot of Pagans/Wiccans would define Deity differently than does Starhawk. Many of us choose to look at Divinity as both Male and Female, with both given equal weight. Father Sky and Mother Earth. Moon and Sun. Some people emphasize the Goddess more, others the God. There's such a celebration of diversity of thought because we are taught that nobody has the One True Way- that all paths lead to the center.

studentoftheword:

"Why do you feel we, as a society needs to approve and give rights to every alternative life style? I may feel I should have more than 1 wife, should everything suggested be accepted? Where do you draw the lines?"

You use the wits God/dess has given you, and you draw the line at HARM. Use your judgement, and ask yourself why the union of two adults who love each other causes harm, but ONLY if they are of the same gender. As for your polygamy, use your judgement, and ask yourself if you could give love and devotion to two wives, so that neither lacked. If so, marry and Blessed Be.

Oh, by the way, I thought the left hand wasn't supposed to know what the right was doing. You know, Pharisees and all that...

Sparrow,

Nun falling down the stairs? Say WHAT?!?

Reminds me of my old pipe smoking days, when I would occasionally stuff into my pipe a Brit tobacco by the name of Three Nuns Tobacco. Not bad, but a doubtful habit to get into, nothing to monkey around with, and certainly not something to celebate about.....

I've had parakeets when I was a child- I do love them but i discovered one thing early on, birds and gerbils don't work well with cats. I cried many a tear over that.

Interdependence and the Goddess, please feel free to post criticisms.

Introduction: Wicca’s Goddess as defined by Starhawk’s Beginner’s Guide to Wicca and Buddhism’s Thich Naht Han’s, “Interdependence”; a worthy marriage.

Starhawk just got my attention again as I returned to listen to the first published title of her’s, Beginner’s Guide to Wicca, that I bought months ago. She called the Goddess as defined by her was the animating living spirit of the universe. Because I am calling this concept more of the God while being completely willing to envision our Earth as a womb thus undoubtedly a feminine to be found there, am suggesting Hahn’s Interdependence as worthy and useful for good.

In this all of creation from the world in which we live every day, to the woods, forests, and jungles, to the vastness of space, and even to God’s mystery, is in a state that is well described by the syllables interdependence; living as a heading towards infinite Vishnu-ish multiplicity that simultaneously is a single unified being in totality.

William

Student- I was really addressing prolifer, but thank you for explaining. I've read your posts on other threads and always found you thoughtful and openminded.

I happen to have quite a boit of experience with the Southern Baptist. You guys came to NYC after 9/11 and worked alongside the Salvation Army. You guys cooked the food in the big bubble tent- we loved you guys to death! You we called the Yellow Peop because of your shirts.

One night we ran out of dessert and your ladies sat down and opened up hundreds of sugar packets, cut up apples and raided the instant oatmeal stores to make apple brown betty for the workers. It was good- who'd a thunk it?!

So you get a big thanks from me- we don't agree on religion, but the Southern Baptists, when it comes to disaster relief and compassion are second to none.

"Oh no, mokey! Like the nun falling down the stairs joke? :-0 "

ROTFL.. I hadn't heard that one. :)

Oh no, mokey! Like the nun falling down the stairs joke? :-0

I love you too, arminius. Well after your train ride you'll have to come to L.I. and raise my spirits!

In mine I'd most likely have birds, if I got my way. I've had budgie parakeets my whole life (family was too allergic for anything bigger) and they were my best friends. Still are. My current one is walking around on my keyboard right now even as I type. She likes to snuggle and curl up in my hands. I think she thinks she's a cat. :)

SP4

Out of respect for your request I will move on from my 1 subject obsession.

I am apart of the Southern Baptist, which sends out more people abroad helping in more nations then any other religion or denomination. Not just spreading the Gospel but offering real help in many areas, such as construction, food, education, in addition to other things. In addition they have the second largest disaster relief organization nationally. Of the two I have personally participated in both. As well I sponsor a child in an orphanage in Bolivia and a deaf student in a Jamaica orphanage. In addition to support some work in Iran.

I think that most people don’t know the work that is done because the news and other media outlets don’t air it. Not sure why!

Why do you feel we, as a society needs to approve and give rights to every alternative life style? I may feel I should have more than 1 wife, should everything suggested be accepted? Where do you draw the lines?

Hi Arminius,

Isn't it weird how many stripes Fundamentalists come in? In his case I guess it would be.. black and white and red all over. :)

Sparrow -

I love you, my friend. I hope we both have wild rides!

Good for you and your cats - good company in the hereafter. I love my cats too, and my dogs. And a departed ferret.

Long Island? Oh, good grief.... but next to those you love, who can argue?

Priver,

Bun-Bun is nothing but a fundamentalist in his mindset. Such shrunken intellects demand a black and white universe, because they have not the courage or the sense of beauty to explore the dynamics of creation. They are trapped in a wretched prison of their own creation, and are a continuing plague on those of us who can use our minds.

I somehow can't see my family drumming but I'd love them to do that! the only thing I want to be sure is that my cats are with me- I had them cremated and I told my sister and best friend they have to be with me. Weird, I know, but I raised most of them- they were all rescues. At least I won't be changing cat litter all the time :-). I will be next to my parents and my aunt. On Long Island (yuk) but I'll be happy next to them.

arminius- you will have one wonderful, wild ride! i see you like that guy in the emails that go around, winding up in one long slide, yelling Woo-Hoooo, what a ride! bless your heart.

I think it's because he doesn't want to have to do the actual *work* himself. He doesn't want to have to read, discover or learn anything on his own and has to take the word of others who chose to do the work for *themselves*. And then posts it ad nauseum.

He reminds me of an obsessed teenage fan of a famous person. I bet he'd just kiss Crossan's feet if he had the chance.

Priver,

I might have given parts of my anatomy to hear a choral version of St Francis' prayer. Wow!

A drum circle as we shuffle off of this mortal coil... good idea! My clan - Clan Scott - has a tradition of a modification of the wake. We can't hold company with the dead in this day and age, but, good Scots-Irish as we are, we get together and hoist a drink or five.

The tragedy of CCNL is that he refuses to accept the many hands of friendship that have been offered to him. How can anyone be so small as to reject friendship? What foul hatred drives such a pathetic creature?

"Might want to try "Googling" to find about my thinking."

All I've ever seen is your posting of other people's thoughts and words. No thoughts of your own that are original. Ever. Even when googling. Just pure Spam. Can't do your own thinking. Have to rely on others to tell you what you believe. All you've ever done is try to tell others what *we* believe and putting people down who think differently. That's cultish thinking.

Telling, isn't it, that you keep reposting other people's words (even Wikipedia!) without even answering a simple question that Sparrow put to you. How many children have you adopted? Time to put up. HOw many abused, neglected, orphaned or fostered children do you help on a daily/weekly/monthly basis? Where is YOUR compassion?

Arminius,

There is a choral version of the prayer of St. Francis that I got to perform one year.. it was absolutely beautiful.

I like your idea Sparrow, of wanting to return to the earth again. After having observed for the first time what my family considers a proper burial, 'sitting shiva'.. I've decided that if some members of my family feel like they 'have' to sit for me if I die then by Goddess I want a drum circle. A really loud, long drum circle complete with lots of stories and silliness to celebrate my life.

Arminius, that is truly beautiful. We have a little (extended) family cemetary in the mountains near the Shenandoah River. I've asked that my ashes be scattered around the daffodils planted above my mother's ashes. Virginia won't let me be scattered around my tomatos!

Sparrow, Wiccan, and friends,

Yes, we are one. It truly is We and We! Stardust we are, and to stardust we shall return. This is a direct echo of Ecclesiastes - "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was, and the spirit unto God, who gave it."

I think that embalming is an abomination. When that time comes, I shall be cremated, and my ashes shall be thrown into the firebox of an operating steam locomotive in my beloved homeland of East Tennessee, so that I will be spread about in that beautiful place.

Arminius! I was just looking for those very same lyrics!

I remember one time in my garden, as I was planting marigolds for the tomatos, I fell into a fugue and realized that the flowers and I were made of stars long gone, and will, eons hence, be part of the stars again. What was, is, and always will be.

omigod! I can't believe you quoted that!I loved those lines- i have had them pinging around in my head for years! And ain't it the truth? I've already told my family i want an orthodox burial- no preserving, plain pine box and wrapped in linen. We did that for my very beloved Aunt when she died and I love that she will become soil, then food for the insects and flowers, then pollen for the bees,then maybe back to stardust again. Someone once told me the universe sings in magnificence- and I think he was a scientist at that.

My less poetic side is shrieking, Yes- Biodegradable at last! :-)

Bonsoir Observer,

Tu écris:

Il est difficile de ne pas exister, n'est-ce pas?
Old story, eh?
******************************
Quelquefois il me sert bien. Il semble que le temps du philosophe n'est pas encore venu. En attendant, j'espère que les retours Pseudo bientôt.

Farnaz

Sparrow,

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are billion year old carbon.
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.
- Crosby, Stills, and Nash, at Woodstock, words by Joni Mitchell

Property values here in this blog just went through the basement. Bun-Bun is back, spewing his ignorance in large chunks.

Hi, Sparrow,

Ah, it goes far beyond the water molecules we shared with Plato. We are stardust! Our entire solar system was formed from the remains of other stars, those that exploded, and in their agony, gave forth the heavier elements. The wonder of the universe is profound beyond our understanding. As the astronomer said, 'The universe is not only stranger than you imagine, it is stranger than you can imagine."

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"The Prayer of Saint Francis is a Christian prayer. It is attributed to the 13th-century saint Francis of Assisi, although the prayer in its present form cannot be traced back further than 1912, when it was printed in France in French, in a small spiritual magazine called La Clochette (The Little Bell) as an anonymous prayer, as demonstrated by Dr Christian Renoux in 2001 (Cf. Christian Renoux, La prière pour la paix attribuée à saint François, une énigme à résoudre, Paris, Editions franciscaines, Paris, 2001)."

As we Catholics continue down the embellishment trail!!!

Chere Farnaz,

Il est difficile de ne pas exister, n'est-ce pas?
Old story, eh?

Observer

Once again:

Hmmm, the Immoral Majority's BO and his wife are getting a dog. Adopting an "unwanted" child would be the better option and would show that BO really does have some compassion!!!!

Mokey, Mokey, Mokey,

Might want to try "Googling" to find about my thinking. I have noted a litany of thoughts many times in the past.

To make it simple for you, I am a "Crossanized" Catholic/Christian.

definition: "Crossanized" Catholics/Christians are those who review the contemporary books/articles/net sites of the historical Jesus and NT exegetes and conclude the reviews are well researched and that the analyses therein give credence to Jesus being not deity but a simple preacher man embellished by the likes of P, M, M, L and J into some kind of messiah. Common sense and reality are quite apparent in the works of these exegetes.

""At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home.""

arminius, that was just gorgeous.I have to print that out to hang up in my studio.

i had a brilliant art history teacher once who loved to make unusual connections between things. One day he was talking about science and art and how so many "new agey" sounding concepts are actually grounded in science. We talked about energy, and the idea that atoms and molecules do not disappear, nor are new ones created (not sure if this is still the theory) and that just the simple act of breathing meant that we were breathing in the molecules and atoms of Michaelangelo, and Leonardo and all the greats and in that sense we become them. And that this is true of every living organism and even non-living. So we are an enormous ever changing but still the same organism- it was just a concept I never forgot. (Of course, it didn't give me Michaelangelo's talent, but can't have everything).

I've tried many time to speak to prolifer- I'm curious when someone is so obsessed with this one thing that she can't even relate to some of the really wonderful commentary going on here. It's not that I am all for abortion- I'm not. I hate the idea of it in general, but the whole subject is just so much more complex than she wants to think about. And she just condemns everyone out of hand who doesn't agree with her. And for those of us who have had losses or miscarriages, the subject is painful and close to home. This is not a person who has empathy, or compassion or whatever.

To her credit, she is honest about it and passionate about it. CCNL is really just a troll- he either insults all religions or he's calling everyone baby murderers. except for his limited repertoire of insults and insulting responses, you can't really hold a conversation with him. He's all about copy and paste.

Lep,

And what is more basic to the ancient code of hospitality than the offering of food and drink? Yes, we have that in common. As does much of humanity, even in the strange regions of northwest Pakistan.

In the Baptist and Methodist communions I've taken part in, there was never mention of anything except the body and blood of Jesus.

I like the fact that your church acknowledges the larger connections that are symbolized by bread and wine. It reminds me of the part of some Pagan rituals where cakes and ale are passed around the circle. As each person passes the cake (or bread, or cookie, or whatever food is used), s/he says to the next person, "May you never hunger." In the same way, as the chalice of ale (or Guinness, or wine, or juice, or lemonade) is passed, each person says as s/he passes the cup, "May you never thirst." It's not just an acknowledgement of each other's physical needs for food and drink, it's a pledge to sustain and support one another, and by extension, the rest of the living universe, to the best of our abilities. At least, that's how it feels to me.

Wiccan, Lep,et al,

As a shameless promo for us Episcopalians, here is a snippet from our Rite II of the Holy Eucharist, Prayer C:

"At your command all things came to be: the vast expanse of interstellar space, galaxies, suns, the planets in their courses, and this fragile earth, our island home."

It is a beautiful and moving service, at least to me. And in these words of our worship, you can see the connection that we have with Pagans - we are stewards, not masters.

Has anyone read "The Cartoon History of the Universe" by Larry Gonick? Very early in the book he points out that cooperation is one of the most successful survival strategies, or, as Starhawk wrote:

“But one day, as one primal organism chowed down on another, compassion intervened. Instead of dissolving and digesting its meal, the eater let its victim remain whole inside of itself, fusing into a new form of being, the ancestor of the cells in our own bodies and all complex organisms--cells with nuclei, eukaryotes.”

Lepi- I love the idea of actions causing intersecting ripples, making the effect of those actions even stronger.

Arminius- That's a powerful prayer. Part of my daily prayer is "Please make me a blessing to others, and recognize those who are a blessing to me".

Wiccan,

Actually, it was a prayer supposedly by St Francis:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Yo!

Can't say as I have a problem with the concept of Compassion, though it strikes me as one of those moral qualities that can easily be deployed without the "aid" of any religious beliefs.

But there is something in the very nature of on-line communication, its anonymous nature, that seems to encourage over-the-top writing and ranting.

I couldn't help but notice that once I addressed Prolife as a person instead of a problem or annoyance we started communicating. The 'interweb' is just sticky with intellectual viruses—memes—and memes have a way of taking over their hosts.

The anti-abortion/pro-life [depending on which side of the fence you're sitting] movement is no joke. I'm all in favor of birth control, but obviously no-one is pro-abortion, and I hope folks like Prolife understand that. Abortion should always be a last resort. It's just that it's a hard option that should remain a personal matter. When I posted the link to the Huffington Post article "Are There Just too Many People in the World?" by Johann Hari, I was hoping anti-abortionists actually read the article. Johann is not "pro-abortion", in fact he spend most of the article expressing horror at the choices set before us now. I can only hope that people like Prolife can empathize with those they disagree with, can show some compassion for "the enemy." I think a lot of the energy stirred up by the Satyagraha of the civil rights movement moved over to the anti-abortion/prolife movement. Though I don't agree with the cause, I have reason to believe that I can understand their emotions.

Back to that inherent noise and distortion in on-line communication via blogs such as these. I can't help but think of those thought experiments where one might cause some sort of harm to someone they will never know in exchange for some sort of gain. That seems to happen all the time in blogging, where a writer [such as myself] gets a charge out of making a cutting remark [to, say, CCNL] in exchange for some sort of ego boost. Doesn't really show off my [potential] better nature, does it?

Of the big four rules of magic—"To know, to will, to dare, to keep silent" —the last and greatest of the rules of Magic is knowing when it is wise to keep silent. I guess Barack Obama proved that in the election. He had many, many opportunities to rise to the bait but he knew better than to meet an insult with yet another insult.

Hi, Wiccan,

Yes, St Francis had it right. Another telling slam on hypocritical Christians was delivered by Gandhi:
"If you Christians would live like your Christ, and not just talk about him, then everybody would want to be Christian."

Also, are you familiar with the poem attributed to St Francis?

As St Francis said, "Preach the Gospel every day, and use words when necessary."

I always loved that quote. It dovetails nicely with my belief that if your life isn't sufficient witness to your faith, you're doing it wrong.

It seems to me that, as a social species, the capacity for compassion would be a survival mechanism, not merely a religious or philosophical abstraction. Regardless of their religious beliefs or lack thereof, most people have some inkling of the concept that what harms the group harms the individual, and that it is a good idea to assist your neighbor, if for no other reason than enlightened self-interest. Compassion starts with your own immediate kin, then expands to cover your clan, your village, your state, your country, your planet, etc. You do what you can where you can, and you set up a vibration that carries past your individual action - a ripple effect. Your ripples intersect with other people's ripples, and combine to spread even further.

Hi, Sparrow,

Right you are, when strings are attached to compassion, it ceases to be compassion and is a power play. If I might be Christian here for a moment, Jesus had it right when he said we should give in secret, not shout it on the street corners.

I'm always sad when beautiful words are changed over time into something they were never intended to be. I really don't have any problems with the word compassion- just with those who misuse it. I think compassion and empathy come from the same root emotion, but compassion also involves action, the need to alleviate someone else's suffering.

It's when you attach motives to compassion that the trouble begins. Now there are strings attached- I'll do this for you if you come to church, if you accept this idea, if you do this...

when people talk about compassion as some idea or part of a semantic vehicle, it's really no longer compassion, because there is no action to alleviate suffering. IMHO.

Arminius, and Wiccan, Priver,

This indeed is the problem with compassion, why it is secondary to Levinas' concept of the other, and of the "face" about which more later.

"Compassion," notwithstanding Armstrong's pseudo-conversion (no offense, Pseudo), is culturally loaded.

Emmanuel Levinas ethical writings begin with a sense of responsibility for the other. In a sense that obligation is transcendant. Several of us have tried to introduce him on this blog. Perhaps this is a good moment to consider his views as an alternative. It has clarity and vision. He has become a seminal influence in the academy, although he has yet to reach the hearts of many who read and write of him. You can find a short bio at Wikepedia. If you google him, you'll find numerous references. Below is a link that explains his thinking.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/levinas/

Wiccan and Priver,

Yes, compassion is a slippery term. Too often is it touted by we Christians in a condescending manner, implying a moral 'higher ground'. One sees it fully in the truly awful comment of 'love the sinner, hate the sin'. I think true compassion happens when one knows that, despite different conditions, one knows that there is NO DIFFERENCE in any of us, and that, even warmly clothed and well fed, I am no better than the homeless man on the street, and that I should damn well do something about that. Also - compassion is not talking the talk, it is walking the walk with your mouth shut. As St Francis said, "Preach the Gospel every day, and use words when necessary."

Priver, Wiccan,

Yes, empathy is better. But there is so much more to it, I think. Pace Levinas, darling of academia, and important ethicist, it is necessary to take responsibility for the otherness of the other. NOT to try to assimilate him/her to your experiences. To understand we can never truly "know" him/her, that to do so would be an act of VIOLENCE.

In a sense, he asks us to go beyond empathy, to responsibility.

Sorry about the Caps, but this is heady stuff. Been studying it for years, and still find it tough going.

Arminius,

Bless you. Given Pseudo's wry and unusual sense of humor, he could embed his poem in a letter, and, quite possibly, the Times would publish it as a sort of guest column. This actually happened to me a few years ago.

I wrote a rather satirical comment on the topic du jour, and the rest is very minor history.

Priver,

I think you're onto something; you've put your finger on what has been troubling me about this question. "Compassion" does seem to have a sense of superiority that "empathy" does not. It's "I give from my largesse (or graciousness) to you" vs "I'm doing my best to feel how this feels to you". With empathy you have to put your prejudices aside, and that's a hard thing to do (especially when you've convinced yourself your view is the right view).

Farnaz,

I'm sure Pseudo will be back. You are right, his poem on the economy are a triumph, and should be published.

Dear Great Christian Poet, Pseudo,

Where art thou?

Farnaz

Priver and Terra,

Your opinion of Bun-Bun is accurate. As far as I can tell, he is on these blogs for one reason: to annoy the living hell out of everyone else. He never answers questions, never debates, never says anything positive or even pleasant. To paraphrase Dilbert, he is a smart but sadistic troll with many humanoid characteristics.

But that's all that CCNL and some others here can muster- and they're not even doing anything to help anyone else out. As evidenced by his dodging any real questions on his own in favor of his endlessly quoting/spamming his favorite author(s) who do the thinking for him. (how long can his spamming go on before one of those scholars comes after him for copyright infringement, anyway?)

Not once on this site have I ever seen anything that is his *own* thoughts. Or even holding a civilized dialogue and asking questions about someone who sees things differently than he does.

Just some bizarre drivel about 'mosquitoes' and odd use of the 'supernatural' when it suits him.

For him, like so many others, it's ultimately about control over others. It's so easy to blame the so called 'proabortionist' (as he calls it) crowd rather than actually going out and DOING something every day to help someone who needs it so that as a direct result of his actions, an abandoned or orphaned child is fed, educated and loved.

You know, Terra, I can't help but think lately that what people think of as 'compassion' is mislabeled somehow. For me, the word 'compassion' carries an implication of superiority. It's become a very loaded word, especially when used by anyone who works to divide and conquer. 'I see that you are suffering, therefore I help out.' The implication being 'I lower myself to help you out.' Don't much care for that.

Maybe the word that is missing here is 'empathy'. Really taking the time to get to know another person and walk a mile in their shoes. Only when we step away from ourselves can we really work to understand what another person thinks and feels. This is what I think is missing in many of the statements on this board- and in society at large.

I have read the offerings of Bun-Bun and his cohorts...they have one thing in common...hate and a need to make them selves feel that they have some kind of control. They must not have control in their own lives, for they so need to prove themselves by controling others.

Bun-Bun with his confusing religiosity and prolife with his hatemongering for women's health and lives. They are both sad people trying to bully their ideas onto others.

No one is pro abortion...I would no more force anyone to have an abortion then to keep a woman from having one that she and her doctor decides is neccessary for her. Pro choice is not pro abortion.

One thing that the fundamentalists in the Middle East have with the Fundamenatlists here is the feeling that they have a say over the lives of women.
A 13 year old girl was stoned after she was raped...a group of school girls on their way to school had acid thrown on them, why? because educated women can not be led so easily. Fundies do not like an educated population...see Sarah Palin.

The biggest difference between the Fundies here and in Afhganistan is that here there is a wall between church and state. If that ever falls watch out...there will be Taliban Western Division.

I am a Pagan...we believe in education and individual rights, I think all people, no matter their faith should have free will. So many American Christians say they believe in free will...then try to tell others how to live. No, they do not believe in free will being God Given...they believe it should be their will over others.

I have a heritic heart and I live by my free will and, I hope, compassion for others.

terra

how many have you adopted, ccnl?

Hmmm, the Immoral Majority's BO and his wife are getting a dog. Adopting an "unwanted" child would be the better option and would show that BO really does have some compassion.

student:"In addition the faith I am apart of does more work national and international then any other non-faith program beside the Red Cross."

sp4-Well since you don't specify what faith or offer any proof, it's a little hard for me to judge, other than to say "in your opinion."
-------------------------------
"Why do you want to move on because you have no answer or compassion for the death of babies? "

sp4- The death of babies is one thing. Removing a group of cells, or preventing it from attaching to the uterine wall is something else- and not the death of babies.

Basically, I'm sick and tired of every thread becoming an anti-choice rant and every issue turned into a preaching to the masses about "the death of babies." You and pro-lifer and ccnl are 1 issue people and I'm not. Of all the things pressing on us today, salvaging every zygote out of some religious philsophy you have and I do not share is not the highest on my list. thee are millions of children dying in poverty, suffering from hunger and disease, abuse, rape- when you talk about these children, I'll listen to what you have to say. When you put as much energy and advocacy for the living as you do for the not-yets, then I'll take it seriously.

--------------------
"I have compassion toward gays, but does that mean I have to say everything is right? I don’t think so."

The issue is not whether or not it's right. this issue is whether or not you have to like it. You don't. But you don't have the right to deny gays the rights you enjoy as a citizen. don't want them in your church? Fine. You still don't have the right to tell them they cannot marry.

FARNAZ2 : "Dear Robin,

Speaking of still being here, did you happen to notice the great poet Pseudo's original work, "Bonfire of the Fundamentalists"?"

Oh yes indeedy, been cogitatin' on that un-seen hand, that money-grubbing hand since scoping the verse. Sonny Boy came to mind again:

"Take your hand outta my pocket,
I ain't got nothin' belong to you
Baby please, take your hand outta my pocket
I ain't got nothin' belong to you
If you don't keep your hand outta muh pocket,
I'd have to call the po—lice on you. . .

You know I heard about your racket,
the day I got in your town.
[harp break—20 seconds of inspired note bending]
If you don't keep your hand outta my pocket,
I gonna have
you taken down.

I don't mean to do no—body wrong,
I just want what do belong to me.
I don't mean to do no—body wrong,
I just want what—belong to me.
But if you just keep you hand outta my pocket,
I'd have the judge, set you free."

W.A.S.P.s for centuries have been keen on the notion that Adam Smith's invisible hand somehow serves them in particular. Perhaps the "End of Days" so feared by the Fundies is really the end of their days, not all days.

Dear Great Christian and Financial Crisis Poet, Pseudo,

Truly, I think you should publish this poem. I'm serious about your sending it in somewhere. If you send it to the Times as part of a letter to the editor, I really think you'll stand a chance at having it published.

Goodnight my friend, and may the force be with you.

Farnaz

Dear Robin,

Speaking of still being here, did you happen to notice the great poet Pseudo's original work, "Bonfire of the Fundamentalists"?

Farnaz

PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59: Seeing as you are still here [I am not complaining, merely observing], and noting that most people's acquaintance with Gulliver's Travel's is limited to the episodes:

Part I: A Voyage to Lilliput & Part II: A Voyage to Brobdingnag

. . .usually in an expurgated* edition designed for the amusement of the very young, here is the episode—

"CHAPTER X. The Luggnaggians commended. A particular description of the Struldbrugs, with many conversations between the author and some eminent persons upon that subject," as extreme and scathing a satire as the better known "A Modest Proposal."

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/swift/jonathan/s97g/chapter26.html

*The unexpurgated Gulliver's Travels has a level of scatology remarkable by all but the most modern or antique of acceptable social standards.

Conquering the Uncompassionate Islam

Save us from these Islamic Koranic FEMs,
Flaws, Errors, Muck and Stench,
As they ooze from the rocks of earth,
Like the many, many worms of death and wrench.

Born, Bred, and Brainwashed too,
Whatever, whatever to do?
Truth, Truth, History and Truth,
Let it Ring True, Freedom, Freedom
Freedom at Last and much left to do!!!

And with such a myth firmly in place, supporting abortion on demand amounts to support for the poor!

It is estimated that the ethnic groups that resort to abortion most are black Africans and Hispanics and they do it because of poverty. And there is an unspoken consensus that it would not be politically correct NOT to let the poor seek relief from poverty by means of abortion.

The only problem with such an unspoken assumption is that 62% of women who seek abortion can afford to keep the babies. And the myth about only the poor seeking abortions might be floated by abortion providers who have a vested interest in keeping abortion on demand legal.

Just my encore and afterthought after taking leave.

It is estimated that the ethnic groups that resort to abortion most are black Africans and Hispanics and they do it because of poverty. And there is an unspoken consensus that it would not be politically correct to let the poor seek relief from poverty by means of abortion.

The only problem with such an unspoken assumption is that 62% of women who seek abortion can afford to keep the babies. And the myth might be floated by abortion providers who have a vested interest in keeping abortion on demand legal.

Just my encore and afterthought after taking leave.

robinlandseadel:

No, I hadn't read the essay by Jonathan Swift, A Modest Proposal!

But how appropriate it is. Thanks for the suggestion. So here a link for others to read:

http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html

Dear Great Financial Crisis Poet, Pseudo,

This is it, Pseudo! Surely, this is the one. It is timely and brilliant and surely must be published. How about sending it to the Times?

Anyone have any suggestions for where to publish Pseudo's poem?

robinlandseadel:

Sorry, Ma'am, about the gender confusion.

The point can be found in the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal and very, very old. They suffer from continuous and ever-increasing decrepitude. It points to the folly of desiring immortality. "A Modest Proposal" [I'm sure you're familiar with that essay] points to a solution to the 'population problem' of increasing numbers of undesirable Irish during the so-called "Age of Enlightment." You suggestion of eliminating the elderly seemed of a similarly Swiftian nature. That was my point.

November 16, 2008 9:01 PM

__________________________________________

Nothing to apologize for. My username does not suggest a gender, so it is not your fault. If I write in a gender non-specific manner, it is not your fault either. Frankly, I don't know how to convey gender in any discussion.

Don't forget you are the one who posted an article which suggested abortion as a means to control the overpopulation. It is an idea that has been floated by several and has even a stamp of official recognition. The monstrosity is not lost on the anti-abortion crowd. Hence the suggestion that if getting rid of "inconvenient" human beings with technology is the means to limit overpopulation, then we should rightly consider applying it at the right end. As you are aware, people are living ever longer only because of medical and technological advances.

However prolifers as a rule do NOT advocate doing away with the old and are *against* euthanasia. But if pro-abortionists are determined to use medical technology by legal means to do away with the unborn, they should at least have the decency to clear the field after they have had a decent period time to live, which is far more than they granted to their own unborn child/ren.

And anyone who thinks that a blogger would sign on as a Pro-Life Activist on a pro-abortion blog, where it is considered politically incorrect and "uncool" to speak on behalf of voiceless, unborn children, and the activist was expecting a walk in the park and applause from the in-house pro-abortion crowd...you haven't utilized enough neurons in drawing your conclusions.

That will be all from me. Thanks for the responses. The poetry selection is really nice. I will enjoy reading them of course, even if it is being posted by the pro-abortionist crowd.

Hi Farnaz and Arminius,

Been thinking about the economic crisis and some of its origins:

Bonfire of the Fundamentalists

The Market's omniscient, its knowledge divine
The Market's omnipotent, its guidance benign

The traders they worship the Market's commands
With morals of commerce that make no demands

Steeped in excesses in great and in small
Trusting God-Market to manage them all

They stacked up the hedges like houses of cards
Defeating the old laws and all the old guards

They built on each layer of hedges and bets
Great drifting piles of impossible debt

They leveraged bad loans beyond all means to pay
Telling themselves that naught could go astray

And when it all crashed from some fluctuation
They did exclaim Perfect Storms wrecked the Nation

Still seeing themselves part of God-Market's plan
They say 'twill be fixed by Invisible Hands

Robin,

Thanks, and wow! I've got to get hold of a recording.

Farnaz

The Idea of Order at Key West

She sang beyond the genius of the sea.
The water never formed to mind or voice,
Like a body wholly body, fluttering
Its empty sleeves; and yet its mimic motion
Made constant cry, caused constantly a cry,
That was not ours although we understood,
Inhuman, of the veritable ocean.

The sea was not a mask. No more was she.
The song and water were not medleyed sound
Even if what she sang was what she heard,
Since what she sang was uttered word by word.
It may be that in all her phrases stirred
The grinding water and the gasping wind;
But it was she and not the sea we heard.

For she was the maker of the song she sang.
The ever-hooded, tragic-gestured sea
Was merely a place by which she walked to sing.
Whose spirit is this? we said, because we knew
It was the spirit that we sought and knew
That we should ask this often as she sang.

If it was only the dark voice of the sea
That rose, or even colored by many waves;
If it was only the outer voice of sky
And cloud, of the sunken coral water-walled,
However clear, it would have been deep air,
The heaving speech of air, a summer sound
Repeated in a summer without end
And sound alone. But it was more than that,
More even than her voice, and ours, among
The meaningless plungings of water and the wind,
Theatrical distances, bronze shadows heaped
On high horizons, mountainous atmospheres
Of sky and sea.
It was her voice that made
The sky acutest at its vanishing.
She measured to the hour its solitude.
She was the single artificer of the world
In which she sang. And when she sang, the sea,
Whatever self it had, became the self
That was her song, for she was the maker. Then we,
As we beheld her striding there alone,
Knew that there was never a world for her
Except the one she sang and, singing, made.

Ramon Fernandez, tell me, if you know,
Why, when the singing ended and we turned
Toward the town, tell why the glassy lights,
The lights in the fishing boats at anchor there,
As the night descended, tilting in the air,
Mastered the night and portioned out the sea,
Fixing emblazoned zones and fiery poles,
Arranging, deepening, enchanting night.

Oh! Blessed rage for order, pale Ramon,
The maker's rage to order words of sea
Words of the fragrant portals, dimly-starred,
And of ourselves and our origins,
In ghostlier demarcations, keener sounds.

Wallace Stevens

Celestial Fire

Now an angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in a blazing fire --

a fire that devours fire;
a fire that burns in things dry and moist;
a fire that glows amid snow and ice;
a fire that is like a crouching lion;
a fire that reveals itself in many forms;
a fire that is, and never expires;
a fire that shines and roars;
a fire that blazes and sparkles;
a fire that flies in a storm wind;
a fire that burns without wood;
a fire that renews itself every day;
a fire that is not fanned by fire;
a fire that billows like palm branches;
a fire whose sparks are flashes of lightning;
a fire black as a raven;
a fire, curled, like the colours of the rainbow!

Yannai
(Sixth Century)

Dear Farnaz : Your posting of "A Precise Woman," who "brings order to my thoughts and my dresser drawer" made me think of one of my all-time favorite Christmas songs, Sonny Boy Williamson's "Santa Claus":

My baby went shoppin yesterday,
Said, "I'm gonna buy what you need for Santa Claus."
My baby went shoppin yesterday,
Said, "I'm gonna buy what you need for Santa Claus."
"I'm gonna take mine with me,"
"But I'll leave yours in my dresser drawer."

So, that started me to ramblin,
Lookin in all of my baby's dresser drawers.
Wow, that started me to ramblin,
Lookin all in my baby's dresser drawers.
Tryin to find out,
What did she bought me for Santa Claus.

When I pulled out the bottom dresser drawer,
The landlady got mad and called the law.
When I pulled out the bottom dresser drawer,
The landlady got mad and called the law.
I was just tryin to find,
What did she bought me for Santa Claus.

The police walked in and jarred me on the shoulder,
"What you doing with your hand in that woman's dresser drawer?"
I hand the police a letter my baby wrote me,
Showin where I should find my Santa Claus.
I just kept on pullin out all of my baby's dresser drawers.

I walked out and left the police and the landlady arguin',
Said, "Look at the man done pull out all the lady's dresser drawers."
Yes, I walked out and left the police and the landlady arguin',
Said, "Look at the man done pull out all the lady's dresser drawers."
But he said, "I got the letter and show the judge."
"The boy just tryin to find his Santa Claus."
Oh yeah.

[this is followed by a harmonica solo containing several decades worth of impacted rage.]

Let what I feel
by Ed Fitch

Let what I feel, fill me
But not consume me.
Let me follow what I feel
But not be forced.
Let me become the kind of soul
Who never clings to hard,
Who lets go and yet loves.
Let me imagine better worlds,
Yet work in this one,
Let me touch, and treasure, even
People I can never hold.
And let me learn from all my losses.
Let me see and let me be,
A Window- maybe broken- but
through which a bit and sunlight comes.

terra

PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59: "Make that "Bravo lady, jolly well done," sir. I'm a woman.

Gulliver's Travels was required reading in school.

Your point? Never mind. You have no point."

Sorry, Ma'am, about the gender confusion.

The point can be found in the struldbrugs, unfortunates who are immortal and very, very old. They suffer from continuous and ever-increasing decrepitude. It points to the folly of desiring immortality. "A Modest Proposal" [I'm sure you're familiar with that essay] points to a solution to the 'population problem' of increasing numbers of undesirable Irish during the so-called "Age of Enlightment." You suggestion of eliminating the elderly seemed of a similarly Swiftian nature. That was my point.

A Precise Woman

A precise woman with a short haircut brings order
to my thoughts and my dresser drawers,
moves feelings around like furniture
into a new arrangement.
A woman whose body is cinched at the waist and firmly divided
into upper and lower,
with weather-forecast eyes
of shatterproof glass.
Even her cries of passion follow a certain order,
one after the other:
tame dove, then wild dove,
then peacock, wounded peacock, peacock, peacock,
the wild dove, tame dove, dove dove
thrush, thrush, thrush.

A precise woman: on the bedroom carpet
her shoes always point away from the bed.
(My own shoes point toward it.)

Yehuda Amichai

robinlandseadel:

As for PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59, you have come up with an interesting and inventive inversion upon Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." Bravo sir, jolly well done. I suggest you read an unexpurgated copy of "Gulliver's Travels", he has similar things to say concerning the very old...

November 16, 2008 10:21 AM

___________________________________

Make that "Bravo lady, jolly well done," sir. I'm a woman.

Gulliver's Travels was required reading in school.

Your point? Never mind. You have no point.

_______________________________________

Once A Great Love

Once a great love cut my life in two.
The first part goes on twisting
at some other place like a snake cut in two.

The passing years have calmed me
and brought healing to my heart and rest to my eyes.

And I'm like someone standing in the Judean desert, looking at a sign:
"Sea Level"
He cannot see the sea, but he knows.

Thus I remember your face everywhere
at your "face Level."

Yehuda Amichai

Good points PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59!
IT IS REAL SELECTIVE IN WHAT THEY CHOOSE TO WANT TO HAVE COMPASSION ON AND THEN OVER LOOK SOME OF THE MORE CLOSELY TO HOME MAJOR ISSUES. WHERE DOES IT STOP WITH NO ULTIMATE AUTHORITY!

To all pro-abortionist who think anti-abortionists are not involved in helping women in distress:

1. Help for the poor and needy are run by the very people who are also fighting against abortion;

2. Adoption centers, orphanages etc are similarly run by those same people;

3. Pregnancy Crisis Centers are manned, rather womened by volunteers, offering help to women who would carry their child to term.

SPARROW4:

Yes- you've finally drunk all the kool-aid. From thou shalt not kill, and unborn innocent life to Kill the Seniors! Kill the Seniors!! because, of course in your mind, such as it is, only zygotes and blastocysts have a right to life? You are truly at the foaming at the mouth stage, babe. I can hear you popping an artery there.

Yes- great suggestion- we can send all the elders who are preventing some little egg d m becoming a full fledged human being to, oh I don't know- gas chambers?? Albert Speer wrote a very informative book on how he made the camps into an efficient processing machine- I'm sure you'll find lots of helpful hints in that. And why anyone who cares enough to adopt a child should come on your hit list is weird- but then you are all about the...er....pre-born...

November 16, 2008 8:58 AM

_______________________________________

You will notice that I'm being actually generous when I suggest that it should be offered as a choice, the self administration of justice I mean. In the case of abortion innocent are being killed, without their consent.

SPARROW4:

Yes- you've finally drunk all the kool-aid. From thou shalt not kill, and unborn innocent life to Kill the Seniors! Kill the Seniors!! because, of course in your mind, such as it is, only zygotes and blastocysts have a right to life? You are truly at the foaming at the mouth stage, babe. I can hear you popping an artery there.

Yes- great suggestion- we can send all the elders who are preventing some little egg d m becoming a full fledged human being to, oh I don't know- gas chambers?? Albert Speer wrote a very informative book on how he made the camps into an efficient processing machine- I'm sure you'll find lots of helpful hints in that. And why anyone who cares enough to adopt a child should come on your hit list is weird- but then you are all about the...er....pre-born...

November 16, 2008 8:58 AM

_______________________________________________

The doctors under the Nazi regime supposedly were given instructions to drug heavily those who were sent to the gas chambers. The disabled German children who were killed usually got a shot of the most potent poison to make the death painless and immediate.

The post Roe vs Wade abortionists are extremely careful not to cause the slightest "inconvenience" to the mother as they suck out living babies with vacuum cleaners or chop up them with instruments, or suck out their brains with the rest of the baby's body flailing outside its mother's body, have the baby drink salt water, have its skin burned and die a slow painful death...(read the different abortion procedures used if you think I'm being unfunny).

Abortionists can be trusted to find the right method for pro-abortionists, at the end of their lives, as they did for the unborn children.

STARROW4

Since you ask, I did spend some time working at a deaf school orphanage over seas during the summer, doing construction among other stuff so don’t try your blanket what about those over seas. I have been there and done that and will continue to do so. I do the talk and the walk, thank you!

In addition the faith I am apart of does more work national and international then any other non-faith program beside the Red Cross.

Why do you want to move on because you have no answer or compassion for the death of babies? I do have a hard time moving on when millions of babies die each year in the name of choice. Maybe you should ponder the compassion needed to find it in your heart to see the loss of these unwilling participants in death and do something about it. I have many other issues I could discuss but this one happens to be a big one, like the kids in Darfur!

I have compassion toward gays, but does that mean I have to say everything is right? I don’t think so.

SPARROW4:

Yes- you've finally drunk all the kool-aid. From thou shalt not kill, and unborn innocent life to Kill the Seniors! Kill the Seniors!! because, of course in your mind, such as it is, only zygotes and blastocysts have a right to life? You are truly at the foaming at the mouth stage, babe. I can hear you popping an artery there.

Yes- great suggestion- we can send all the elders who are preventing some little egg from becoming a full fledged human being to, oh I don't know- gas chambers?? Albert Speer wrote a very informative book on how he made the camps into an efficient processing machine- I'm sure you'll find lots of helpful hints in that. And why anyone who cares enough to adopt a child should come on your hit list is weird- but then you are all about the...er....pre-born.

It would be futile to explain to you how even mosquitoes and fungi are important in the overall health of the planet because the word "ecosystem" is unknown to you. And explaining it to you would entail an education that it seems you aren't capable of comprehending. I mean, anyone who comes away with the suggestion to kill people over 70 in order to make babies, after reading an article on population control really lacks the moral or ethical understanding to hold an intelligent conversation.

And by the way, nearly every pro-choice person I know (and that's quite a few)put their money where their mouths are- they volunteer with organizations, they protest the war, they send care packages to soldiers in Irag and Afghanistan, they become First responders- they do a hell of a lot more than howl against the mighty wind of life.

So again- I ask you- who did you adopt today? Have you gotten a life yet? Do you have a kid who is asking for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while you're on the computer shrieking about unborn babies and murdering people over 70?

November 16, 2008 8:58 AM

_______________________________________________

The idea Sparrow4, is to make it a "choice," that is highly recommended, just like abortion really. The over 70s pro-abortionists who have aborted one or more unborn children shall be encouraged to use their right of privacy with abortionists in administering justice to themselves. They shall be duely reminded that it is simply not fair to expect the children of other parents to make the economy work and support them as they grow old and become "inconvenient burdens." After all they have had a better deal in their lives than the unborn who didn't get to taste their gift of life even for one day.

You and all the pro-abortionists were all mere zygotes and blastocytes at one point in your lives . It is understandable that you don't remember that stage. I don't remember most of what happened to me yesterday. I don't use that as an excuse for saying I didn't exist yesterday.

The "eco-system" demands that even unborn children belong to the world, right alongside the mosquitoes and fungi.

[You who never arrived ]

You who never arrived

in my arms, Beloved, who were lost

from the start,

I don't even know what songs

would please you. I have given up trying

to recognize you in the surging wave of the next

moment. All the immense

images in me—the far-off, deeply-felt landscape,

cities, towers, and bridges, and un—

suspected turns in the path,

and those powerful lands that were once

pulsing with the life of the gods—

all rise within me to mean

you, who forever elude me.

You, Beloved, who are all

the gardens I have ever gazed at,

longing. An open window

in a country house—, and you almost

stepped out, pensive, to meet me. Streets that I chanced upon—

you had just walked down them and vanished.

And sometimes, in a shop, the mirrors

were still dizzy with your presence and, startled, gave back

my too-sudden image. Who knows? perhaps the same

bird echoed through both of us

yesterday, separate, in the evening . . .

Rainer Maria Rilke

I HAVE A GARMENT

I have a garment which is like a sieve

Through which girls sift barley and wheat.

In the dead of night I spread it out like a tent

And a thousand stars pierce it with their gleams.

Sitting inside, I see the moon and the Pleiades

And on a good night, the great Orion himself.

I get awfully tired of counting all the holes

Which seem to me like the teeth of many saws.

A piece of thread to sew up all the other threads

Would be, to say the least, superfluous.

If a fly landed on it with all his weight,

The little idiot would hang by his foot, cursing.

Dear God, do what you can to mend it.

Make me a mantle of praise from these poor rags.

Abraham Ibn Ezra
(1092-1167)

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.

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi - 13th century Sufi

There is Indigestion in Islam!!!

O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, illiterate and hallucinating,
O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha greed and lustful, womanizing,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, warmongering and hateful,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Sunnis of hate, Shiites of late,
Even Pretty Wingie Thingies cannot
Save us from O Islam's hate.

Save us from these Islamic FEMs,
Flaws, Errors, Muck and Stench,
As they ooze from the rocks of earth,
Like many worms of death and wrench.

Born, Bred, and Brainwashed too,
Whatever, whatever to do?
Truth, Truth, History and Truth,
Let it Ring True, Freedom, Freedom
Freedom at Last and much left to do!!!

Robin,

Please cease with the poetry. It makes me cry.

Bun-Bun,

Please cease with your 'poetry'. It makes me puke.

I hope this fits under "Fair Use". This lyric from the Pretender's latest speaks more to our current collective condition than anything else I've seen or heard lately.

Boots Of Chinese Plastic

nam yo ho ren gay kyo - Buddah please
pity a humble little peasant who's beggin' on her knees
illusion fills my head like an empty can
I spent a million lifetimes loving the same man

every drop
that runs through the vein
always makes its way
back to the heart again
- and by the way you look fantastic
in your boots of Chinese plastic

Hari Krishna - Hari Rama too
Govinda I am still in love with you
I see you in the birds and in the trees
that's why they call me 'Krishna Mayi'

every drop
that runs through the vein
always makes its way
back to the heart again
- and by the way you look fantastic
in your boots of Chinese plastic

the prophet told us we should tolerate
the people and the things that make me want to hate
Allah have a little mixed mercy on me
to see some beauty in this human pageantry
Jesus Christ came down here as a living man
if he can live a life of virtue then I hope I can
do unto others as you would have returned
come back here and repeat until you've

learned

learned

learned

every drop
that runs through the vein
always makes its way
back to the heart again
- and by the way you look fantastic
in your boots of Chinese plastic

and every dog,
that's lived his life on a chain
knows what it's like
waiting for nothing
- and by the way you look fantastic
in your boots of Chinese plastic

Chrissie Hynde

There is No Compassion in Islam!!!

O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, illiterate and hallucinating,
O Islam, Islam, violent Islam,
Moha greed and lustful, womanizing,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Moha, warmongering and hateful,
Was he too,

O Islam, O Islam, violent Islam,
Sunnis of hate, Shiites of late,
Even Pretty Wingie Thingies cannot
Save us from O Islam's hate.

Save us from these Islamic FEMs,
Flaws, Errors, Muck and Stench,
As they ooze from the rocks of earth,
Like many worms of death and wrench.

Born, Bred, and Brainwashed too,
Whatever, whatever to do?
Truth, Truth, History and Truth,
Let it Ring True, Freedom, Freedom
Freedom at Last and much left to do!!!

My favorite story fro the Old testament is one about the Israelites crossing the Red Sea. When the sea closed on Pharoah and his armies, they rejoiced and G-d admonished them not to, that the Egyptians were His creatures too. I almost never hear people talk about that, but it defined for me the kind of G-d Jew do believe in. for me it says that justice and righteousness are nothing without compassion, that this is no contest, but that every choice comes with joy and pain, one might benefit but we cannot rejoice in even our enemies' pain.

Robin,

You are correct. I am humbled. Let us then talk to all. I think now on the words and actions of MLK, and the words and actions of a man named Jesus, and I see the wisdom of your words. Thank you.

Terra,

Thank you for the Salutation of the Dawn. I have saved it to disk. My greeting to the dawn is not nearly so profound: "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

Favorite Ghandi self-revelation:

"I have only three enemies. My favorite enemy, the one most easily influenced for the better, is the British Empire. My second enemy, the Indian people, is far more difficult. But my most formidable opponent is a man named Mohandas K. Ghandi. With him, I seem to have very little influence."

Ot's and muggles & wogs, oh my!

Speaking as the husband of a OT, ya better be careful about flinging 'round that term OT. There might be someone in the forum that finds calling the Tanakh the old testament offensive.

Hey: we're all preterites on this bus!

Ok...
I agree I do believe that Compassion is either a part of the individual or not.

I do not think it has anything to do with religion. I think we gravitate to the religions or sects that mirror our own beliefs. There are Christians that are very much open and inclusive. They see God as leading them to feed the hungry and clothe the naked..they welcome everyone as they see that is what God does.

Then there are those Christians that lean more toward the old testiment. They see their god as more the law giver, the judge then the God of love and peace. They are narrow in their acceptance of others. They would not be so compassionate...because that means they would have to be empathetic.And they are not wired for it.

Now I was born into a Liberal Christian family...but it still did not reflect my view of god. It was not inclusive enough...it did not make my soul fly. Compassion to me is knowing we are all one.

There is a quote from Babylon 5 that I really love.

"The molecules of your body are the same molecules that make up this station and the nebula outside, that burn inside the stars themselves. We are starstuff, we are the universe made manifest, trying to figure itself out. As we have both learned, sometimes the universe requires a change of perspective."
Babylon 5

Compassion is universal. You can tell those who have been short wired...they are the ones that hate and denigrate because it is fun for them. They would rather tear down then to build up. It is our job to over come those folks with our compassion, but not be fools. Change perspective...

terra

ARMINIUS :" An occasional light-hearted bashing is fine, but a reasoned reply is a waste."

Allow me to respectfully disagree. A reasoned reply is never a waste. This forum allows everyone to peer into our thoughts, our souls.

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity. . .

If the best are to rise above the worst, then the best require some conviction, some courage. That over-passionate intensity makes beasts of us all. The terms used in the days of the civil rights movement—like nonviolent civil disobedience and pacifism—veered away from Ghandi's original term: satyagraha. Satyagraha means "soul force". More precisely:

". . .Satya is the Sanskrit word for “truth”; agraha means "great enthusiasm and interest". The two words combined may be rendered as "the firmness of truth.” The term was popularized during the Indian Independence Movement, and is used in many Indian languages including Hindi. It can also mean "the force of truth."

Gandhi described it as follows:
Its root meaning is holding onto truth, hence truth-force. I have also called it love-force or soul-force. In the application of satyagraha, I discovered in the earliest stages that pursuit of truth did not admit of violence being inflicted on one’s opponent but that he must be weaned from error by patience and compassion. For what appears to be truth to the one may appear to be error to the other. And patience means self-suffering. So the doctrine came to mean vindication of truth, not by infliction of suffering on the opponent, but on oneself. . ."

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

CCNL may not be convinced by our attempts at reasoned arguments, but others will. And, possibly even more important, we who do work for these causes, will. Twas ever thus.

*[why, in Hecate's name, is this on my bookshelf???]

Recently read one of the books recommended by folks on this thread from which I progressed to two books on Buddhism, one of which took me back to Henry James (stream of consciousness).

In Hecate's name, I say you have that book on your shelf since one never knows when one may need such texts. Also, it allowed you to post a wonderful quotation. Perhaps, it would have been better for us through the ages to follow Burton's advice. No doubt, more came from anatomizing melancholoy than from analyzing it.

THE SALUTATION OF THE DAWN

LISTEN to the exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day! For it is Life, The very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the Varieties And Realities of your Existence;
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And To-morrow is only a Vision;
But To-day well lived
Makes every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every To-morrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn.
~~ ~~ ~~ ~~
terra

Blessings all...
Ok it is a new dawn and I choose not to be angry, not at the hateful or the ignorant (they tend to be one and the same). So I will be ignoring those that make my blood pressure rise. (I am one of those elders that one day will join the ether and be re-cycled...maybe to my own grand pa.)

I must say though that I believe it is everyone's job to right wrongs..that goes with lies. The state of Illinois has had a law on the books that all children born, no matter how they come into this world, are to be given all care to help them to survive. When that bill came up that all the pro lifers talk about...they tend to not say that even the Illinos medical association did not want it. All the medical agencies did not want it...why? Because it was a way to make abortion illegal and it did not allow for the health and well being of the Mother. Barack Obama was not the only person to vote against it...or it would have been passed. The majority of the state senate voted against it.
So please if you are going to use "facts" against someone, make sure they are facts. Obama has said over and over again, that as far as late term abortions, except for the health of the Mother, it should be up to the state. So again Facts have meaning. As do elections.

So now, I will not pay the least bit of attention to those who have only hate to impart. I do not need it and I have too much respect for those in here that have so much Light to share.

Goddess Bless,
terra

A few lines from Starhawk, found within Z. Budapest's "Holy Book of Woman's Mysteries"*:

"Dangers" of Magic:

" . . . Saintliness. It is hard to resist the temptation to be more-spiritual-than thou, to offer unasked-for advice to your acquaintances, and to look down on others who have not "seen the Light," all the while trying to appear humble. With any luck at all, you will come back to earth before you lose all your friends.

Showing Off. This, like Saintliness, is hard to resist. When the fanatic Jehovah's Witness in your chemistry class spouts off about religion, how can you NOT tell her you see a hypocritical green spot in her aura? With painful experience, however, you will discover that people will not hear or listen to your advice or commentary unless they have asked for it, and that magic only works when it's real, not for show. . ."

Of course, being the brightly-colored Male Robin that I am, one should expect expect a number of florid displays coming from this corner. But, as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog sez—"I keed, I keed!"

When all else fails, do as Robert Burton suggests:

". . . But to leave all declamatory speeches in praise of divine music, I will confine myself to my proper subject: besides that excellent power it hath to expel many other diseases, it is a sovereign remedy against despair and melancholy, and will drive away the devil himself. Canus, a Rhodian fiddler in Philostratus, when Apollonius was inquisitive to know what he could do with his pipe, told him, "that he would make a melancholy man merry, and him that was merry much merrier than before, a lover more enamoured, a religious man more devout." Ismenias the Theban, Chiron the centaur, is said to have cured this and many other diseases by music alone: as now they do those, saith Bodine, that are troubled with St. Vitus' Bedlam dance. . ."

*[why, in Hecate's name, is this on my bookshelf???]

Agreed, friends - anger at some of the posters. For sure, I get really pissed at Bun-Bun and Spidey, and reply to them in harsh words. Yet take the sad example of Bun-Bun. To reply in anger to him gives him the victory, because that is what he is here for. His terribly pathetic existence is apparently hinged upon getting attention, like a four-year old deliberately getting into trouble in order to be noticed.

As Disraeli said, "Life is too short to be small." The Bun-Buns, Spideys, and Prolifewhatevers make our lives small. We don't need that any more. An occasional light-hearted bashing is fine, but a reasoned reply is a waste.

Agreed, arminius, farnz2 and robinlandseadel. Just my temper gets the best of me when I'm called a baby murderer.

However, I did love where this thread was going- and how Starhawk seems to be defining compassion as something in our very genetic makeup or evolution. She seems to say being compassionate is built in. So then what makes us turn away from it? Why is a tree compassionate in the ecosphere, yet humans seem to have to make an active choice (or not)? Did we lose the compassion gene? Or did it change, as we changed?

Robin, Arminius, Sparrow, and Everybody,

Blogs seem to encourage name-calling as Robin suggests, whether it be by the bad guys or by us good guys(!). With respect to Bun, et al, it is, I think the result of the failure of rational posts to move them. No excuse.

So, I second Arminius. Best to engage rational discussion, ignore the irrational.

Farnaz

Dear everybody,

I wish Christopher Buckley was reading this blog, though Ishmael Reed could probably extract a mirthful funhouse mirror from the insane scene set before us as well. It's a flat-out war between battling do-gooders! All of us know our respective causes are just. So just, in fact, that it calls for the most high-minded and froth-mouthed of name calling to be spewed out in all directions. What's the difference between a rabid dog and a [soon to be] committed activist? Bumper stickers!

I'm really not sure what CCNL believes in, but he has contorted himself into a villain out of a James Bond movie, deliriously cackling over his newly formed squadron of disease carrying mosquitoes. As for PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59, you have come up with an interesting and inventive inversion upon Jonathan Swift's "A Modest Proposal." Bravo sir, jolly well done. I suggest you read an unexpurgated copy of "Gulliver's Travels", he has similar things to say concerning the very old. As for all of us left-leaning do-gooders, Tom Lehrer once again comes to mind:

"Members of the C.O.R.E.*,
all hate the thought of war—

They'd rather kill them off by peaceful means."

I should have known better than to take a few whacks at that hornet's nest in the middle of the room. The next time I wander in here I'll be sure to wear a Hazmat suit with full body armor. But please, don't stop on my account. For I say onto you: extremism in the name of extremism is far more entertaining than anything on the tube.

*C.O.R.E.= Congress of Racial Equality, the group of activists my parents were most involved with "back in the day."

Farnaz and Sparrow,

Let us agree to shunt Bun-Bun and his demented associates aside, and continue with our own rational dialog. And also reach out to others who do have functioning brains. These people consume our most precious resource - time - that cannot be renewed. To hell with them all.

Bun-Bun:
Tete futue atque equem in quo huc vectus es.

Bun-Bun,

I'm sure that murdered Mexican father and his family appreciate your post.

farnaz2, arminius- i think its genetic with them. they are probably all from the same inbred family and the deterioration of the genetic line is very obvious. Sad, but I guess that's why prolifer refuses to answer questions about what kind of family life she has- when you have to knit your child a sweater with holes for 2 heads it can be embarrassing.

Ahh, the pet mosquitoes have reached their mark as members of the gang of four are in hyper-itch mode.

Bun-Bun,

None of this is funny any more. You haven't an original thought in your head, which, due to your condition is way up your anus.

Your Mosquito metonym you cribbed from Observer12. Your insanity about the president is dangerous. You are clueless. You just don't understand where irresponsible speech can lead.

Some Jews, such as I, know this first hand. This country is racist, perhaps less so than many others, but racist, nonetheless.

You, with your Cranio-Rectal disorder contribute to this. Get surgery.

In the meantime, notice that a bunch of white Catholic kids in Long Island went hunting for Mexicans last week and murdered one. MURDERED A THIRTY-SIX-YEAR OLD MAN.

Shut up.

It would seem that Prolifewhatever is in direct competition with Spidey and Bun-Bun to determine who is the most demented and offensive poster on these unfortunate blogs. All three of them need to seek professioinal help.

"Pro-abortionist bloggers here have shown a great enthusiasm for defending the rights of mosquitoes and fungi while ignoring the life of an unborn child. It is somewhat beyond my intellectual capacity to understand the logic behind it.
(You got that right!-sp)
As to the article which advocates abortion as one of the means to control population: I have a better idea: why not ask the pro-abortionists, who have adopted one or more children (mothers and fathers of unborn children who denied them the right to their life) to hand in their life at age 70? That is fair enough by any standard, 70 years at living, which is 70 years more than the years they took away from their own unborn child/children. They could get abortionists to do the dirty deed, if they don't have the courage to do it themselves.

The biggest problem we can anticipate in the coming years is an overpopulation of older people"
==================
Yes- you've finally drunk all the kool-aid. From thou shalt not kill, and unborn innocent life to Kill the Seniors! Kill the Seniors!! because, of course in your mind, such as it is, only zygotes and blastocysts have a right to life? You are truly at the foaming at the mouth stage, babe. I can hear you popping an artery there.

Yes- great suggestion- we can send all the elders who are preventing some little egg from becoming a full fledged human being to, oh I don't know- gas chambers?? Albert Speer wrote a very informative book on how he made the camps into an efficient processing machine- I'm sure you'll find lots of helpful hints in that. And why anyone who cares enough to adopt a child should come on your hit list is weird- but then you are all about the...er....pre-born.

It would be futile to explain to you how even mosquitoes and fungi are important in the overall health of the planet because the word "ecosystem" is unknown to you. And explaining it to you would entail an education that it seems you aren't capable of comprehending. I mean, anyone who comes away with the suggestion to kill people over 70 in order to make babies, after reading an article on population control really lacks the moral or ethical understanding to hold an intelligent conversation.

And by the way, nearly every pro-choice person I know (and that's quite a few)put their money where their mouths are- they volunteer with organizations, they protest the war, they send care packages to soldiers in Irag and Afghanistan, they become First responders- they do a hell of a lot more than howl against the mighty wind of life.

So again- I ask you- who did you adopt today? Have you gotten a life yet? Do you have a kid who is asking for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich while you're on the computer shrieking about unborn babies and murdering people over 70?

Correction:

As to the article which advocates abortion as one of the means to control population: I have a better idea: why not ask the pro-abortionists, who have ABORTED one or more children (mothers and fathers of unborn children who denied them the right to their life) to hand in their life at age 70? That is fair enough by any standard; 70 years at living, which is 70 years more than the years they took away from their own unborn child/children. They could get abortionists to do the dirty deed, if they don't have the courage to do it themselves.

robinlandseadel:

At least when I was engaged in anti-war activism, the activists showed an ability to deal with one issue at a time. Mind you this was at a time when almost all mainstream media had mushroom clouds in their minds and saw Saddam Hussein as an imminent threat to the US. The only saving factor about the invasion is that Iraqi Shia are happy to be rid of a Sunni favoring dictator who did not even spare his own son-in-law who opposed him.

Pro-abortionist bloggers here have shown a great enthusiasm for defending the rights of mosquitoes and fungi while ignoring the life of an unborn child. It is somewhat beyond my intellectual capacity to understand the logic behind it.

As to the article which advocates abortion as one of the means to control population: I have a better idea: why not ask the pro-abortionists, who have adopted one or more children (mothers and fathers of unborn children who denied them the right to their life) to hand in their life at age 70? That is fair enough by any standard, 70 years at living, which is 70 years more than the years they took away from their own unborn child/children. They could get abortionists to do the dirty deed, if they don't have the courage to do it themselves.

The biggest problem we can anticipate in the coming years is an overpopulation of older people, using up resources without making any returns. With millions of young missing because of abortions, there are not going to be many to look after the older generation. So the solution is only just. Let those who sowed death for the unborn reap death for themselves.

To conclude that every woman who kills her unborn child is somehow doing it to alleviate the suffering in third world countries is a stretch of the imagination anti-abortionists in their right mind don't buy. So you should try another tack.

I have mentioned this before, but I will repeat it, respect for the right of life of the unborn should be taught to the young, who are still capable of forming their conscience and compassion. There is a generation for the past 35 years whose consciences are too hardened to reach.

So please take my posts as not being addressed to hardened pro-abortionists like you.

Good whatever time of the day!

PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59: "Ever heard of anti-war activists who discuss only war and not HIV/AIDS or abortion at the same time?"

None I've listened to, it always seems to get mixed up where I hang out, Especially Hiv/Aids and a woman's right to choose. Gay rights come up all the time too. U.S.A. out of the uterus is what I say. Then again, a lot of the Anti-War activists I hang out are dealing with issues of poverty and homelessness as well, so my mileage might differ.

PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59: "Btw, in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq I did some online anti-war activism. I did not discuss abortion in my posts then."

Good for you.

PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59: "FOCA looms in the horizon, hence my interest in discussing abortion. Does that make some sense?"

Yes. I disagree with you, does that make any sense?

PROLIFEACTIVISTBORN59: "The only message anti-abortionists wish to convey is :

THOU SHALT NOT KILL!"

Funny how these messages get scrambled. What I hear is a group of people creating definitions and jurisdictions that limit personal choice and freedom based on Bronze-Age notions of a Woman's place in the hierarchy of being. You obviously hear a different message than the one I'm hearing. And just so you might have some larger context, here's some rather frightening thoughts concerning our very real population crisis:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/are-there-just-too-many-p_b_144065.html

Namasté and good night.

SPARROW4:

Pro-abortionists are always talking about their concern for children in Darfur etc etc. How do any of them do for these children or adults they claim to be concerned about?

The only message anti-abortionists wish to convey is :

THOU SHALT NOT KILL!

Men and women who have sex must also take responsibility for the consequences of their act without killing an innocent third party. Is that too much to ask?

SPARROW4:

Ever heard of anti-war activists who discuss only war and not HIV/AIDS or abortion at the same time? Or does being an anti-war activist mean that one has nothing better to do?

Btw, in the lead up to the invasion of Iraq I did some online anti-war activism. I did not discuss abortion in my posts then. Anti-abortionists didn't complain that I hadn't mentioned abortion.

FOCA looms in the horizon, hence my interest in discussing abortion. Does that make some sense?

prolifer and student-oh honestly you two. Can't you rant on another thread or come up with some new concept? I'll believe you understand compassion when I hear you talk about saving living children in Darfur, or feeding the elderly poor or giving the homeless a place to stay.

it's all well and good to talk the talk but people like you never get to the walk part.

Clearly prolifer you had no interest in what Starhawk has to say- and its a shame that your whole life is only about this 1 issue. You must not have much else going on in it, and your scope is so limited. Even your user name- you really need to get a life.

and since we're speaking of compassion, when are you two going to get a little compassion toward gays?

Arminius, Arminius, Arminius,

Make sure you register the weapons and then make sure you take some lessons so you don't injure yourself or your friends.

My mosquitoes are not compassionate and typically bite while their victims sleep so even with weapons, your itch will continue.

Maybe time to teach pro-abortionists to have the compassion of a fungus?

So even fungi have compassion? But women who abort their unborn children do not.

How come paganism does not address that blatant lack of compassion more fully? A human life is surely more precious than that of a paramecium?

WOW

Not sure were to start, so much going on here.

StarHawk taking a walk through the primordial earth that has no factual evidence to support the theory. I am glad she is not talking a walk in Africa where she could be lunch for a hungry animal; maybe the starving animal will have compassion?

I agree with CCNL that BO does not stand for compassion, when not only does he support abortion but some very brutal acts of it. For one Partial birth abortion. This is where for the mothers health they deliver the late term baby breach (?) with the exception of the head ( I guess so they don’t hear it scream in pain) suck the brains out crush the head and then sell the parts off to the highest bidder. Not only that BO does not support a surviving baby of an abortion getting live saving treatment. He would rather it die lying in a wastebasket.

I also don’t think that it is because birth control is not available. What a cop out. It is because people want to act irresponsible and not take responsibility for their actions. Your choice comes long before the baby is found in the womb! Pretty selective the insights I hear on this post.

Terra and Robin,

We must not give up hope, and must keep the faith. These are not empty sound bytes - doing this is very hard in the face of hatred and bigotry. The Spidey and CCNL bigots are lurking in the darkness of their hatred, waiting to strike, urged on by their failing egos to blame their own failings on others.... what the f*** is new, anyway.

I'll reach for my claymore, sure, and my hand-cannon pistol too, if I buy one - I'm tempted. But I will talk first. Yet we see here on these blogs the terrible challange - how the hell does one talk sense into the Spideys and CCNLs of the world?

Aaarrrgghhh.....

Arminious and robinlandseadel,

I am just so angry right now. Why is it that humanity can look into a dark hole and want to fall into it?

Hope is such a large thing...Pandora, (which means All Goddess/All things Goddess, was demoted to a lesser being) the story goes, that a box was given to Pandora she was told not to open it, She did. She released all the evil into the world...all but Hope. Hope stayed in the box, it is what we have that enables us to have the strength to make it through the bad times. Hope.

I will hold on to hope. But I have no faith in the wisdom or intelligence of man. Too many people have proven that compassion and intelligence is missing in too many hearts.

terra

Arminius & Terra,

I mentioned this in passing last week, but I thought you two in particular would appreciate this. I called my stepmother, of mixed race decent, right before Obama's election was "called", in part to congratulate her, in part to hear her reaction. I assumed she would be all excited by this election as she was an activist for many years in the civil rights movement. She also worked for many years for Paul Schrade of the United Auto Workers, a major employees union. What makes that connection so very strange is that Paul Schrade happened to be "collateral damage" when RFK was assassinated:

http://www.pbs.org/kcet/tavissmiley/archive/200806/20080604_schrade.html

It's one thing to witness these terrible crimes via the "Tube" or the "Times", another altogether when it really hits home. There were people my parents marched alongside during the civil rights movement who were killed in action. Non-violent protest in America is different now than 'back in the day', though in many parts of the world little has changed. I'm sure that Farnaz could teach us all a thing or two about that.

I really hope for the best for President Obama. But I do have a memory and all I can really hope for is that the Secret Service does what it's paid for. Even in this secure little virtual circle where we communicate and share our thoughts, we have witnessed more than our fair share of hate speech.

Confused Cucumber Now Loony:

Sexual activity was always out of control. What planet are you from?

Terra,

This is beyond bad news. This is truly frightening. I thought the overt bigotry was over, but no.... At least the Secret Security and the FBI are well aware of it. But if the worst happens, this country will be sundered for generations. I too remember JFK, RFK, MLK, but if something happens like that now, the agony of the 60's will seem pleasant to the horrors that would take place. Apparently the American terrorists, the 'Christian' Al Qaida, are alive and well.

Ignore Bun-Bun, there is no hope for him. He only wastes our time.

I was just at a site, Huffington Post...I read a post there about crimes that are being threatened against Obama and what his supporters are going through. Young people beaten, crosses burned in peoples yards, a bus filled with elementry kids second and third graders, chanting "assassinate Obama"...now you know they heard that from their elders. Nooses hung in trees...an owner of a small business with a sign chargeing a dollar for people to get in on the pool of when that n_____ would be shot. And other things...and these are things that one person was able to find.
Obama is the most threatened of any president in history.
So my question? Where is the Christian spokes people telling their flock to act as Jesus would. How about the Catholic Priest that said because Obama was pro choice none of his supporters should have communion?

Bun-Bun- I am sick of your BS it is no longer funny and you are no longer merely eccentric.
Compassion? where is it where people think it is ok to teach little kids to chant about killing anyone? That hanging nooses is ok to bring fear into other people..that is terrorism. T

Here in Louisiana a few days ago a woman was killed by the KKK...here in 2008.

I am afraid. I saw JFK being killed, Bobby, MLK...and so many more. Compassion..? how about just decent human thought? How about some empathy? I am afraid and I am tired of it. I was afraid that Bush was going to start another war and thousands and millions more would be killed, I am afraid for the homeless and those dieing of simple things because of no healthcare...I am tired of people being made less then me because they are gay...Compassion? I am beginning to think that humanity needs to grow up.

Terra

To reiterate is to educate:

It is obvious that intercourse and other sexual activities are out of control with over one million abortions and 19 million cases of STDs per year in the USA alone.

from the CDC-2006
"Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) remain a major public health challenge in the United States. While substantial progress has been made in preventing, diagnosing, and treating certain STDs in recent years, CDC estimates that approximately 19 million new infections occur each year, almost half of them among young people ages 15 to 24.1 In addition to the physical and psychological consequences of STDs, these diseases also exact a tremendous economic toll. Direct medical costs associated with STDs in the United States are estimated at up to $14.7 billion annually in 2006 dollars."

How in the world do we get this situation under control? A pill to temporarily eliminate the sex drive would be a good start? (pills work well for curing ED so analogously pills might cure sex "addiction"?).

And teenagers, young adults and even adults must be constantly reminded/educated about the dangers of sexual activity and that oral sex, birth control pills, condoms and chastity belts are no protection against STDs.

Might a list of those having an STD posted on the Internet help? Sounds good to me!!!! Said names would remain until the STD has been eliminated with verification by a doctor. Lists of sexual predators are on-line. Is there a difference between these individuals and those having a STD having sexual relations while infected???

It seems 'Concerned Christian' isn't afraid to make 'supernatural' assertions when he feels like it, eh? :)

A clump of undifferentiated cells doesn't exactly accumulate any experience to 'scream' about, so that doesn't seem to say anything sensible about emergency contraception.

If you don't like to hear screaming children, then you should support sex ed and contraception and responsible social policies, ...the population stresses on our Earth are simply too much to be indulging Bronze age dogmas from when smaller populations were trying to breed armies and manual labor.

If you don't like to hear screaming children, then you should support more sustainable economic policies and ecological practices, better conditions for the poor and the workers, ..cause poor conditions exacerbate population problems, as people have more children just in hopes enough will survive to take care of them in old age... of course, when everyone does this, scarcity and infant mortality just increase.

When pregnancies happen largely where they are *wanted* and can be *supported,* then children are treated better, and in real and economic terms, the practical value of human life goes *up.*

The consumerist economy can't expand forever, even with the world's increasingly-diminished ability to provide the resources and absorb the damage aside. We have the means and knowhow to do better, preserve and expand human righs and liberties, and actually increase our standard of living in sustainable ways.

Even if all religions suddenly started getting along, we would still find ourselves faced with not just the ecological and economic devastation of world civilization, without changes in our approach to how much we *consume* and *pollute,* but inevitable wars over diminishing resources we could instead all be quite secure in.

Civilization and the tech, simply put, must adapt to ongoing reality, or it'll be done for us, in not-pretty ways.

Ooops, sorry about that, Farnaz has such a "manly" way about the way she writes:

And then there is Farnaz being an atheist yet Jewish thereby becoming forever lost in theological direction and never finding the words to explain her delusions.

She indeed needs a lot of our compassion!!!!

Hmmm, and robinlandseadel, since you are so concerned about the world's population, maybe you can show us your true commitment/compassion by doing a "dust thou art" routine.

Ooops, my pet mosquitoes are up and wanting some action and two members of the gang of four are just waiting for some itching. Go get em guys!!!

Farnaz,

Great post, I laughed a lot. Maybe we should take up a collection for Bun-Bun and send him off to Egypt - his condition is so advanced that he can't even get your gender correctly.

A pity that Bush never heard about that operation.

One of these days I'll get the nerve up to go to a drumming (If I could find one in my area).

I'm very hard of hearing- without the hearing aid just the next level below profound deafness so things like drums are some of the few sounds that completely move me because of the vibrations. Loud sounds, I love. being in the train station, hearing the roar and the vibrations is incredible. I miss all the high pitches tho' so most music is distorted to me. and since I depend so much on visual information, rather than combining sight and sound the way most people can, when I do hear musics or speech i tend to see a visual in my head that is like a psychedelic version of audio software graphics.

i also, because i have trouble making out individual words, even with the hearing aid, often have to follow the cadence of a sentence so in a sense all speech is music to me, but of course it falls into a narrow audible range and depends on the vocal chords. So your comments about the music of Obama's speeches really resonates (sorry- no pun intended) with me.

Arminius- loved the tree story- I'm the same way. there is a hundred year old Locust tree in the back yard, he's a wonderful old man but I think he may be coming to the end of his time. I always feel trees as presences and hate when people cut them down for cosmetic reasons. On one of the landscaping shows a couple made the landscaper cut down a beautiful 100 year old pine tree because they didn't like the shade. He was heartbroken, I nearly went through the TV set, I was so upset.

Here's to better days. but i fear without compassion for the earth being equal to compassion to our fellow humans, we won't have many.

And then there is Farnaz being an atheist yet Jewish thereby becoming forever lost in theological direction and never finding the words to explain his delusions.

He indeed needs a lot of our compassion!!!!

testing

Bun-Bun,

After reading Arminius on your Cranio-Rectal Syndrome problems, I did a little research into the condition.

From what I can tell, it is no longer at the Syndrome stage; it now presents as full-blown Cranio-Rectal Disease. Hence simply removing your head from your anus, and swearing off alcohol will not cure you.

There are both surgical (recommended) and medical options. Surgery is costly, since, at present, there are only seven (7) surgeons licensed to perform the delicate s*hit for brains operation. If you have insurance and get a diagnosis, arrangements will be made for you to undergo surgery at Dar El Salaam Hospital at which the US has arranged for CRD patients to receive treatment from the eminent Dr. Mooloo Abdullah, the pioneer specialist in American Cranio-Rectal Disease.

Dp keep us posted on your treatment, and much good luck to you.

CCNL: "Deal with it as you watch BO make speeches with those 35+ million aborted, wailing babies in the background."

Interesting Idee fixe you're working on there son.

Right now, thanks in part of an ongoing failure to have appropriate, easily accessible birth control available in the world—George W. Bush's Abstinence based approach to birth control being an obvious contributing factor in this unfortunate statistic—400 million children are undernourished right now. Save some compassion for those actual, living, breathing, suffering children.

People [like you] who get all crazy over folks "libertine" enough to make conscious choices in bringing new life into the world are working against the people that are really working to save the planet. Because the population bomb is exploding right now, the human population is greater than the carrying capacity of Planet Earth. People getting up on their high horses or soapboxes to tell people to stop doing "what comes naturally" should find something constructive to do instead. Because nothing ever stopped people from doing "what comes naturally," no matter how perverse you might think those activities are.

Arminius, Arminius, Arminius,

So you have a hard time coming to grips with the reality of BO's election!!! Deal with it as you watch BO make speeches with those 35+ million aborted, wailing babies in the background.

Bun-Bun,

Your cranio-rectal syndrome is painfully evident. Please withdraw your head, and maybe your brain will recover.

BO might make good speeches but he will always have 35+million aborted womb-babies wailing when he does.

To wit:

BO rode to Blood-Red House on the backs of 35+million aborted womb-babies!!!

The fastest growing USA voting bloc: The 70+ million "mothers and fathers of aborted children" whose ranks grow by two million per year.

i.e. the Immoral Majority now rules the land and will do so in the foreseeable future. How very sad and disturbing!!!

And just think, BO raised over $640 million (~10% going to his not-so-ethical campaign managers and money collectors). All BO needed to do was announce that he is a pro-choicer and was going to approve FOCA legislation and then sit back and be elected president.

"Oh and you are right about how Obama's speeches are like music...his words affect me like a symphony."

Well, Lady Keir, that's certainly a gift in the right hands. Not the dirty word it is among those who feel being badly-spoken is the same thing as 'honesty,' certainly.

It's the prime reason I supported Obama over Hillary, certain policy matters aside. Knowing that in coming times we'll most need those leadership qualities. Facts and ideas are easier to check on, but you can't buy charisma and certain skills. :) Every time the Dems have put up a smart guy, the Repubs and media tell people it's a lack of depth or personality if they aren't 'personable' in their oratory... We've seen the disastrous results there.

Thank Lady Liberty, but I think we have a true statesman on our hands this time. :)

Merry Meet ,all!

Lepi and I once talked of how sometimes we felt closer to the Lady while in our gardens than in the circle. And nothing was better to feel closer to the Lord than the woods at Canaan Lake on Long Island. They were perfumed by pine needles and the water lilies, the birds would trill hymns, and the small animals would dance in the dappled sunlight. (Can you tell this is one of my happy places? :-))

Hi, Terra!

Apparently I have an affinity for trees. I am aware of their power, and respect it. I cannot explain it, especially from a Christian standpoint! Perhaps because I grew up in East Tennessee, a land of trees, that I view them as wonderfully beautiful and somehow protective. I can put my hand on them and almost feel something.

An experience relating to trees - if I might. As a youngster, I was a boy scout. I didn't give a damn about the ranks, all I wanted to do was hike and camp. Once, we trekked the length of the Great Smokey Mountains. Climbing up one mountain, at about 5000 ft, it was softly raining, much mist. We hikers were spread out, so I was basically alone. There I was, in the heavy mist, surrounded by enormous trees - even as a brainless adolescent, I was moved. Now I realize that I was privileged to walk through God's own cathedral. I can see that as if it were yesterday.

KEIRGAZELLE: "If you have never been in a Pagan drum circle with about 20+ drums beating like the heartbeat of the Earth...with nothing else in your mind but fire, moon and heartbeat..That is like the music of the spheres I imagine...all encompassing. I suggest you try it."

I've been there, alright. There's a big drum circle out here in the Big Valley that gets together every full moon. I regularly attended the drum circles that would gather every weekend at Sproul Plaza. There were some amazing sounds full-time street-freaks could get out of empty 5 gallon plastic buckets. Hearing/seeing Starhawk drum away at this big metal dumbek during one of the Spiral Dances, I knew I wanted one and found a similar drum with a tambourine in the drumhead. Oh that drum could roar!

I was a recording engineer for about a decade, as well. Two tales:

First, the east bay vocal ensemble Kitka had a birthday party for a member of the Bulgarian Radio/Television vocal choir—made famous from the "Le Mystere du Voix Bulgare" recordings. All 20 members of the choir were in attendance at the birthday party being held at the Hillside Club in Berkeley. Somehow I managed to be standing in the center of a circle formed by these "Mystery Girls" as they sang their Bulgarian version of "Happy Birthday." It was the loudest sound I've ever heard from unamplified voices, as if all that power was being drawn straight out of the Earth herself. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

One particularly potent paying gig involved recording Kent Nagano and the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra in the West Coast premier of Olivier Messiaen's "Éclairs sur l'au-delà…", his "visions of the beyond," his final major work. Messiaen's output is about as pantheistic as anything that ever emerged from a Christian, what with the Catholic composer's love of birdsong. I made sure to be in on all the rehearsals, knowing that this was an important moment in western music and an important moment for Kent Nagano, a true devotee of Messiaen. I was lucky enough to be standing in the middle of the orchestra as they were rehearsing one of the musical aviaries in "Éclairs sur l'au-delà…", a transfixing moment. I was so lucky to be there. Some things are just unrecordable.

I loved this essay. It is just brilliant and gave me answers I've been looking for. Only someone with true wisdom and far reaching knowledge of Life could have put it so beautifully. Thanks.

Arminius,
Blessings...

Its true that if you walk through a woods..or even sit on the ground and lean against a large old tree...you will feel better, more connected with your own self, calmer.

Have you ever met anyone that you felt was just intune with themselves...happy and confortable in their own skins? They are calm and intuitive aren't they? They reason better and connect to others more readily, are more compassionate.

Starhawk, says somewhere in one of her books, that if you love self and see self in all things then you can not be but compassionate/or loving to all beings.(Forgive me Starhawk if I mangled that...its been a long time since I read it). That talks to our interconnectivness to all things. Trees keep me from sufficating on my own poisons...if we cut them all down we will die. We are connected to all things with our spirit and flesh in a very real way.
Wicca is a religion of prose and poetry, but of science and in the real.

Compassion is seeing self in that other...If I see the connection I have with that poor woman/man down the street... she could be a different color, race, religion and age...yet I know that we are in a very basic way connected. I want her to be well...I want to see that she is. I may want laws passed that protect her well being. I can not turn my back on her...or her children, for they are also mine.

Terra

robinlandseadel,

In Starhawk's book Spiral Dance, she says that "Ecatasy brings about harmony, the "music of the spheres." Music is a symbolic expression of the vibration that is the quality of all beings.Physicists inform us that the atoms and molecules of all things, from an unstable gas to the Rock of Gibralter, are in constant motion. Underlying that motion is an order, a harmony that is inherent in being. Matter sings, by its very nature.
Spiral Dance, pg.40..Starhawk.10th anniversary edition

Oh and you are right about how Obama's speeches are like music...his words affect me like a symphony. I feel it...like I feel praise songs to the Goddess...they effect my very spiritual being. His voice rises and lowers...it has a beat that draws you along, like a magnet, it is very much like a drum circle.

If you have never been in a Pagan drum circle with about 20+ drums beating like the heartbeat of the Earth...with nothing else in your mind but fire, moon and heartbeat..That is like the music of the spheres I imagine...all encompassing. I suggest you try it.

fredsndrs,
So brain dead? why because you do not understand what Starhawk says...or do not understand her faith?

That seems to me to be less her being brain dead and more you being less willing to open yours up.

terra

She also writes in Spiral Dance, that the

" msbhong

"The West attained its supremacy in the world through its technology at the expense of destrying the natural environment. So, if it is not ready to give up its massive industrialization, then it's in no position to preach environment protection to the world."

Actually, MSB, it's much more useful to think of it in terms of industrialization and technology as having been *very expensive* to us and the world. Not necessarily not worth it, but the technology and how we use it have to mature and become sustainable.... Yesterday, or it's an expensive thing that collapses, instead of an expensive thing we get to keep the benefits of.

If we'd gotten on the ball sooner, too, we would have been *exporting* greener tech to the then-'developing world' instead of just exporting our overconsumption, and wouldn't have *their* resource-rushes and pollution to worry about so much.

MSBHONG :"The West attained its supremacy in the world through its technology at the expense of destrying the natural environment. So, if it is not ready to give up its massive industrialization, then it's in no position to preach environment protection to the world."

It's true that the Genesis 1:26-28 "dominion over earth" line has been interpreted by the venture capitalists of the world as a license to rape and pillage Mother Earth. On the other hand, you gotta do something and the preacher in this case [Starhawk] does walk the talk. No point in just kvetching and then throwing up/washing your hands of the whole affair. No point in giving up just because the task is so daunting.

*laugh* Ah, well. What can we say when up against such a theological and intellectual heavyweight? :)

The West attained its supremacy in the world through its technology at the expense of destrying the natural environment. So, if it is not ready to give up its massive industrialization, then it's in no position to preach environment protection to the world.

The only 'brain dead' around here is FREDSNDRS.

Anyone who has ever walked in a forest with open mind and open heart knows exactly what Starhawk is talking about. Specific religion doesn't matter here.

Good point, Robin. We might also add Aristotle, Pythagoras, Plato and Homer as also 'brain dead'.

FREDSNDRS : "How stupid can you be.Wicca is for the brain dead."

Starhawk cites poet, translator and scholar Robert Graves as a primary influence. Was Robert Graves brain-dead? There's a jillion references to olde Celtic Culture in James Joyce's "Finnegans Wake." Does that make that renown Irish author brain-dead? Starhawk's books get [favorably] reviewed in the New York Times. Is the New York Times brain dead? Issac Newton was an alchemist. Was Issac Newton brain dead?

Dear Starhawk,

Glad to see your thoughts on compassion and interconnectedness emerge on this WaPo blog, extending beyond concerns for just good ol’ Homo Sapiens and opening up to include the rest of living beings of this world.

Where I can feel compassion at the deepest levels is through the world of sound and music. Rhythmic entrainment—a basic concept of interconnection found in science—goes to the heart of African systems of spirituality and managed to burrow into the Baptist and Pentacostal churches. Many of musical concepts from Africa have merged—in a fashion similar to your abbreviated history of evolution—with “Western” forms of music, in the process creating the hybridizations of modern “Pop” musical forms, Jazz, Blues, Rock & Hip-Hop among others.

One very good friend is a musical explorer, endlessly searching for sounds that go further and further “outside”. We had a little musical soiree last night that travelled in the direction of Africa and Arab lands. It is often said that music is an international language, yet very often the songs being sung also tell us that we are in the presence of the “other”. Arab music can sound remarkably alien. One piece we listened to last night—William Parker’s “Double Sunrise Over Neptune,” was inspired by the composer’s concept of “Universal Tonality”, the notion that “all sounds come from the same place.” “Double Sunrise” has many passages born from Africa and the Arab world. We also listened to some classic Fela liberation jams from the ’70’s [with a title that I can’t post on this blog] and a wonderful collection of tradition Iranian music. All of this music can be thought of as ‘alien’, but all of this music is the product of the cross fertilization of previously sequestered cultures. Very often the “other” becomes “one of us” through music and song.

Compassion rears its head every time a baby cries. It is sound, first and foremost, that arouses compassion. The African born slaves worked their way into the hearts of their overlords through music. During the peak years of the civil rights movement many white folk got their first taste of black culture through top ten radio. And the civil rights movement came to fruition last week via an African-American constitutional scholar with an Arabic middle name and a gift for rhetoric so great that his speech moves us as only music can. That “Good and Needed Spell” that Starhawk spoke of back in Februrary:

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/starhawk/2008/02/on_barak_obama_and_religion.html

. . .owes just as much to African-American traditions of rhythmic entrainment and “speechifying” as it does to the intellectual concepts transmitted via those old spells. The ‘sound systems’ of the African world express the fact that all is vibration, like Brownian motion or Sunlight. There is a deep level of compassion that we can all feel that has a beat and you can dance to it too.

How stupid can you be.Wicca is for the brain dead.