Missing Posts
November 24, 2009
I’m missing about 10 posts after having moved my blog from this page to another and then back again to it’s current location…
If there’s something you don’t see that you remember being here, give me a buzz and I’ll see if I can get it back up.
Tyr
November 24, 2009
Quick nod to the new Tyr ablum: By the Light of the Northern Star. The title is an overt reference for those in the know, the northern star was a representation of TYR to our ancestors – holding the path of the heavens true. 
This album is pure pagan metal. I wouldn’t call it pagan/folk, because while it does have honest lyrics about heritage and myth, it does not include too many folk instruments or arrangements.
But if your a heathen and like metal, which seems pretty normal for pagans of the Norse stripe, this album is bold and it will penetrate you with pagan pride.
The first track “Hold Your Heathen Hammer High” nearly makes my heart explode.
I’ve gotta tell you I like these guys as well. I recently caught an interview with Singer Pól Arni Holm and I gotta say he seems like a guy that truly lives what he says. He wore a hammer proudly, yet not arrogantly, he spoke of the myths he was currently reading and seemed like a normal dude…like many of us pagans are.
I think it’s incredible how pagan metal has become in recent years it’s own genre. I’ve gotta say, as one who has loved so much black metal and pagan metal in the past, it’s awesome to see it become more pronounced and less subtle in it’s focus.
Other Pagan Metal bands I’d recommend:
Elvenking,Falconer, Mithotyn,Borknagar,Korpiklaani,Finntroll, Suidakra, Eluveitie
after
November 20, 2009
Here’s my recent concern..more of a thought really. Let’s say I’m in a hospice or in the hospital, I’m terminal and I have a few days of life left, maybe a few weeks.
Being a pagan I may want to have someone that the hospital can call or the hospice, someone within my community who can ease my last hours and days with some wisdom.
I’ve been wondering how many pagans go w/out this comfort in their final hours. Pagans are of course an insular community, it’s members used to doing fine living in a specific circle of folks. So for most this isn’t a problem. but what about the folks who are solitary?
I’ve thought about being clergy, or becoming such. Granted I am ordained, but that was more for laughs at the time…and sincerely I’m not sure I consider it valid, at least I never use the Rev. before my name. Clergy credentials in the Pagan comm. are pretty suspect anyway. To be honest, I’d love to be considered clergy in the ADF or even the AODA. I don’t see this happening anytime soon…it’s a very difficult road for me, I’m of the mind that clergy is so because the community states it to be so, not because an organization does.
So what should be the criteria for Clergy or Priesthood?
Teaching maybe. Running ritual. Aiding and building the community. Maybe those are some things.
One thing that erks me silly is when people start a coven or magickal group and it’s really just a ploy to call themselves leaders…wow is that poop. I’ve seen this a few times, and if it wasn’t so terrible.. I’d be laughing at how nonsensical it is. Usually the people that do this are those who should never be in a leadership role…hilarious and sad.
More research on hospices and pagans is needed.
Question Tendency
July 1, 2009
Tree Leaf Readings, a blogger who I keep an eye on, posted some interesting things under the topic of outgrowing paganism.
I’ve got to say that I’ve been confronted with this in the past myself. There was a time a few years back when I questioned my paganism very sincerely. I completely removed myself from pagan discussion, from the moderation of a very active local pagan message-board that I created, I even packed up my alter goods and toys and stuck them in a closet, I didn’t want anything to do with it…no reading, no talking, no practicing.
The one thing I realized during that time was that I was still compassionate for the world, that I felt deeply about and cared deeply for the earth, and felt blessed by everyday…are these things pagan? I have no problems with taking a sabbatical. When the weight of our self-proclaimed titles begin to stoop our shoulders I think it’s important to step out from under that load and examine what it is we’re doing and who we’ve allowed ourselves to be.
That eight month period of reflection, that time I went without my morning devotionals and hid the items I held sacred, and didn’t open a book that had the remotest relation to anything pagan taught me that under all the pretty moniker wrappings that I chose to clothe myself within I was still sincerely a person who loved, and admittedly found solace in, the myths of his ancestors and was comforted by the wonder of the living world and universe.
Sometimes I still question my path, I think it’s healthy. Not only that but I would find anyone who doesn’t somewhat odd. It’s hard to be a pagan. It’s difficult to be a polytheist in a modern world that constantly lessens and demeans any kind of spirituality. I know that when I step out of myself and look at me I think it’s kind of weird that this 36 year old semi-successful man, who lives with two dogs, a cat, and a wonderful woman gives offerings to his ancestors and the gods that they held dear.
But I’ve come to realize that I’ve been this person for all my life. I’m still the kid who sat by small streams for hours, who longed for the solitary quiet of wooded glens where the sun found it difficult to touch the ground through a canopy of leaves so thick you’d think the sky green, and who genuinely felt an unnatural (or very natural) connection to place and environment.
Regardless of what title I give myself, I’m a simple guy who respects the wisdom of his ancestors, who has a bit of a hippy streak, and who tends to be a bit mystical and philosophical about his life on this wonderful Earth. In modern vernacular it seems I’m a pagan or a pantheist or a polytheist or a neo-pagan…whatever.
I do what I do and honor what I feel compelled to honor, not because I adhere to a title or the need to fulfill what a title means. I am what I am because of what I am and what I do…very Dr. Suess meets Popeye. Religious proclivity is not stagnant, it changes with you, as you read, as you work, as you walk through life. Sometimes however it’s good to stop and go back, shrug off the coats you’ve put on to protect you from the cold and be naked and meek, yet powerful in your questioning.
I hear neo-pagans talking about faith these days…I’m not quite convinced that faith and paganism go hand in hand. I think I’ll leave that for another post…
Dedicant
June 10, 2009
I’ll be driving up to a small town this weekend, it’s a desert town about 92 miles north.
The reason is to attend a small gathering of ADF members who make it a point to get together and discuss ADF’s Dedicant Program. Mostly these meet ups seem to be about how they are progressing and what challenges they are facing in completing the requirements.
It can be a challenging program. For me the challenge was in making sure that the requirements were completed professionally, and that they addressed the two things that the course is intended for;
1. Giving neo-pagans (or those wanting to be neo-pagans) the knowledge of general modern neo-pagan thought and practice.
2. Understanding of what ADF is doing in relation to or in opposition with modern neo-pagan practice.
Granted most of the Dedicant Program is considered entry level, so other than the Indo-European study criteria, which requires reading mythologies from your selected hearth culture, there isn’t too much soul searching required. Don’t get me wrong, there are meditation requirements, grounding and centering requirements, home shrine requirements that can be challenging…all of these demand a bit of soul growth, but there isn’t too much that takes one outside their comfort zone, and these are things that most neo-pagans are already doing prior to joining an organization.
The biggest challenge for me was learning the ADF ritual format and how it was geared more around worship than personal transformation or what I believe is magic(k). But as I grew within ADF, I realized that the ritual format does not need to be stagnant, it can be changed, and in fact allows for quite alot of self-growth. My first few forays into ADF ritual were very disappointing, my first public ADF ritual made me angry. Looking back on that experience I think my shock was because I hadn’t ever had the experience of pagan’s honestly honoring deity, it really threw me for a loop, and like many new ADF members it was more ceremonial (hate to use that word) than anything I had been part of in the past. I had no problems with most of the other criteria, the one that got under my skin was completing my high day essays, half of which had to be done ADF style.
My reason for attending this meetup and temporarily getting out of my solitary shell is to give pointers on how to get the Dedicant finished. A big problem with getting it done is the amount of growth that happens in the year your trying to get it finalized. It’s hard not to be continually updating essays that you may have accomplished in the first few months or weeks of starting the program. I realized after about a year and half in that I was never going to finish if I was always updating my essays or starting them over due to finding new facts or receiving new insights.
So I’ll be talking a little about that, and how to get down with a strategy that completes the Dedicant requirements once and for all.
Wanderings
February 18, 2009
Since the early nineties I’ve been fascinated with the idea of Astral Projection and OBE phenomena. Eventually this interest turned into experience when I began to have my own. I’m not sure now why it began so spontaneously, or why for that matter it stopped just as suddenly…but my interest in this subject waxes and wanes on occasion and I find myself reading through Robert Monroe’s excellent book on the subject every so often.
First off I think OBE like anything else is a skill that needs to be developed through discipline. Just as learning to drive requires practice and habit, so does OBE. I have found that this skill is incredibly fickle, not utilizing it for even a brief span of time will cause one to loose the ability.
My definition of OBE is no less than the complete exit of consciousness from the body – not visualization, not meditation, and not imagination.
Also I don’t think OBE is necessarily a spiritual practice, millions of people report having this type of experience, not all of them can be godlike guru’s who have developed their kundalini, there has to be some atheists out there who have experienced this, just as there are x-tians, muslims, new agers, and pagans. I think OBE is natural, not necessarily spiritual, and not due to some higher calling or purpose – everyone, as a human being, has the innate power to have an OBE and to develop the ability.
I’m not sure exactly why I’m posting this to my blog. But it has something to do with the humorous situation we humans have gotten ourselves into lately. Seems like all that we’re told to worry about these days is the economy. Of ultra importance is when we get our new car, our new home, where we’re going to take vacation, what’s on TV. Our focus is always on consuming, whether it be consuming entertainment or literally buying whatever we’ve been convinced to lust after by that same entertainment venue. And our economic problems, both in the U.S. and worldwide, reflect the problems with this one sided material obsession.
I’m not saying that an OBE turns you against capitalism or the television, but I am saying that OBE makes you aware of the gift you have been given as a human being. We are immensely important beings….
more later.
Quotes
January 8, 2009
“…armed with the Sword of Reason and the Pentacle of Valor, the Cup of Sympathy, and the Wand of Reason.” Robert Anton Wilson, Cosmic Trigger, Vol.1 pg.6
“We could not help contrasting the equanimity of Nature with the bustle and impatience of man. His words and actions presume always a crisis near at hand, but she is forever silent and unpretending.” - Henry David Thoreau
“This world is but canvas to our imaginations.” - Henry David Thoreau
“Nothing is enough to a man whom enough is too little.” – Epicurus
“For consider the world –
A bubble, a mirage.
See the world as it is, And death shall overlook you.” - Buddha, The Dhammapad
“Nor do men light a lamp and put it under the bushel, but upon the lamp-stand, and it shines for all who are in the house.” (Matthew 5:15)
“The way of the ordinary person,
is not the way of the Tao,
for such people take from those who are poor
and give to those who are rich.
The sage knows that his possessions are none,
therefore he gives to the world;
without recognition, doing his work.
In this way he accomplishes
that which is required of him;
without dwelling upon it in any way,
he gives of his wisdom without display.”
- Tao Te Ching,
Distrust thy teacher, for ‘divine truth’ has prevented better men from wisdom. In such revelation there is no suggestion. Do thy utmost unto others; But be surely what thou wilt, and keep thy belief free of morality. Observe thyself by sensation, thus know the finer perturbations and vibrations…. Think not the words ‘I wish,’ say not the words ‘I will.’ Fear nothing, strike at the highest. Break thy commandments, be lawless unto all dogma. - Austin Osman Spare
“He who wanders in the woods perceives how natural it was to pagan imagination to find gods in every deep groves & by each fountain head. Nature seems to him not to be silent but to be eager & striving to break out into music. Each tree, flower, and stone, he invests with life & character; and it is impossible that the wind which breathes so expressive a sound amid the leaves – should mean nothing.”-Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1822
If a man walks in the woods for love of them half of each day, he is in danger of being regarded as a loafer. But if he spends his days as a speculator, shearing off those woods and making the earth bald before her time, he is deemed an industrious and enterprising citizen. – Henry David Thoreau
“You don’t have to live by their rules, if you don’t require their rewards”….- Nathan Lee
Númenórean
January 2, 2009
A few days back I was doing some investigation into the works of Tolkien and how they relate to personal gnosis. I found some very good material at a site called The Forecastle of Ilsalunte Valion , whose group charter can be found here: About the Forecastle
Specifically a lecture entitled J.R.R Tolkien’s Gnosis for Our Day caught my attention. This is a very apt lecture on the topic of Tolkien and his mythos, how it relates to our personal journeys and how it can be more than just fictional entertainment.
This could be said about most good literature, especially those that create worlds, new ideologies, and mythologies within wholly new cosmologies.
The question when investigating these concepts is: What are the differences between these newly created mythologies and those of our ancestors? Granted Tolkien was working with, and well versed in, the mythologies of his ancestors, those of the Teutons and of the British Isles, so his works were not totally created without reference. But with that being said could Tolkien be considered a conduit through which the powers of myth chose to reveal certain mysteries, those dealing with the deepest of questions about existence? Why not. We all exist in a world of myth and a world of fact, Tolkien had the gift to tell his myth to the world, most don’t.
Can these newly created myths take the place of those written by our ancestors? Here, I would say no. The ancient myths sing with the blood of our ancestors, that can never be replaced…enhanced, maybe…but not replaced.
Can fictional works assist the seeker on his/her quest for self realization and in forming a larger connection to the greater world around us? Sure, I think so. And this is where I would class the work of Tolkien.
As this is a topic I am very much interested in, there will be follow up posts…
Podcasts I'm enjoying
November 13, 2008
Current Favorite Pods:
The Following podcasts are those I have found to be incredibly informative this past month. I may update Podcasts on a monthly basis.
Great Interview with Cathbad about pagan virtues, a little about the ADF and some singing:
