Halloween - Jesusween?

Jesusween? Seriously? Am I the only one who has trouble taking that seriously as a name?
Yep, it's silly season again when all kinds of opinions come flying out of the woodwork - yes I am aware that includes my own! Some though are definitely saner and more intelligent than others, no matter how heartfelt. Happens every year at this time. (Wonder if King Kev will make his presence felt again? Hmmm)

Whoever or whatever doesn't actually detract from what is one of the most fun filled nights of the year for many, especially kids young and old. Nor from what is for many people, myself included, one of the most important ritual/religious nights of the year.

If you want to hand out bibles instead of candy or treats then go ahead - but I'm pretty sure that means I can hand you a pentacle or a Wicca 101 book in return. Or even, as @ashareem suggested a Koran. After all it never hurts to learn about and understand another religion, right? (Why yes I have read and studied the bible over the years)

One commenter after the original story said that s/he would text a prayer for each trick or treater (not sure why text but that's besides the point), then I should be able to offer up an invocation for him/her in return, right? Fair's fair since we have freedom of speech and religion after all. You believe in your god and I believe in my gods. Or as facebook recently put it, "Sure you can offer up a prayer for me, and I'll dance naked in the woods for you." Each to their own ;)

Pretty damn sure though that you, whoever you may think you are, have no claim on my son's soul to a religion that neither his father nor I follow and FWIW I wouldn't want to be the one handing a bible to our son if he's trick or treating with his father. Just saying.

Yup, silly season is here, Halloween is coming. I thought twice about blogging over Jesusween but in the end..... I just couldn't resist. Let the countdown continue, and don't let anyone spoil the fun you want to have. Stay safe and don't let the ghosts and goblins bite!

Halloween pt1

This is about the third incarnation of a post on Halloween - yes I am aware it's a month away yet, however, it's been on my mind all week. Been thinking about ideas for decorating for (hopefully) all the little trick or treaters who usually come around. Wondering how many there will this year since last season was the lowest count in the 6 years we've been here - about 50% lower than previous years. We do get a high turnover of residents here since these are rental properties, and the vast majority of kids here are newer than we are, many new this year. Wonder how many of them are going to trick or treat, or even celebrate Halloween?

In the schools it's orange and black day, not Halloween, at home it's Halloween and the Witch's New year - don't ask lol That's just how it's known around here. That or Easter - slip of someone's tongue many years ago ;)

On the plus side there's Boo at the Zoo on the weekend before and both local malls will be handing out candy and treats to kids in costume.

There will be decorating and dressing up and handing out of candy and possibly partying. Possibly. Maybe. Perhaps. There will be pumpkins lit and candles and haunted trees - which if anyone looked REAL close also carry the names of those who have passed over. But no-one except me looks that closely and they make great decorations! There will be hats and bats and a big spider, a magical clock and a cauldron of plenty.... what else what else? Still working on it....

That Invisible Shingle

some things change and yet others stay the same - apparently my invisible shingle is still hanging out there for everyone - except me - to see! D2 is still after a card reading, C asked me to cleanse the latest addition to her rock collection for her, D and Sh still want me to cleanse their house as there's still the issue of a certain 'presence' there - whose name is Donald fyi.

C and her rock cleansing? Conversation actually went "Would you cleanse this one for me please?" "Sure if you want me to." Pause. "What exactly does cleanse mean anyway?" Don't ya love 11 yr old kids? lol She asked me cos her grandma, Sh, recently asked me to cleanse a stone for her too - actually a nice piece of amethyst that Sh carries everywhere and so it had definitely picked up a little too much junk. To put it mildly.

So it seems that shingle is still hanging out there somewhere, at least I know I'm not alone in that, Christopher Penczak makes comment on a similar phenomenon in one of his books - City Magick I think :/
Not that it's any secret as anyone who has ever read my blog or followed me on Twitter know, and ever since my sister sent it to me a few months back I've been wearing my silver pentacle (which isn't small) as openly asI used to wear my Triskele. I used to have another pent before but I gave that one to our room-mate, B.

Then of course spirits are still hanging around, although they probably deserves a blog post of their own if I ever get the time! Read something interesting recently about guides, and while I'm not sure I agree with the author's assertion about 'we all have 5', her comments about them always showing up in the same place, relative to ourselves, did strike a chord. At least from my experiences. Blue and Rahk have always shown up in the same positions, not that they can't move elsewhere, they can and do, however when they show up they're always 'in position'. So did Olivia before she left and nowadays Jimson does too. Welcome to my own personal world of crazy ;)

When I first wrote out this blog post yesterday I made comment about having a feeling things were about to get busier again, said comments are now unnecessary as they've been proven right. Ever doodled in the margin and looked down to realize you have just written Chinese characters with no idea what they mean? Apparently that's what I was doodling yesterday - turns out they mean a child, a gifted scholar.... Ties in with the latest 'visitor', goes by the name of Mei Lin..... that's ongoing apparently. Seems my instinct was on track.

Also appears that those who have passed through, in general, want their stories told.... now where am I supposed to find time for that???? Seriously? Although there ARE some interesting stories, I just wonder when I'll ever find time?! NOT that it's optional apparently, My Lady says. Sheesh.

Apparently instinct is also why I had the urge to give a book on pendulum dowsing to Sh yesterday, and just as I was thinking that for the umpteenth time, her daughter D knocked on the door - so I gave her the book for her mum. So that shingle is definitely still there and from her eon in it's only going to get crazier as Halloween approaches. Happens every year as the veil thins, not that it really ever thickened again from last year but that's a whole other story! Time to pin the hat, lace the boots tighter - and fix the GPS on the broom!

Visitors and the veil

Apparently I'm not the only one thinking that the veil is still thin even though Samhain is past. I mentioned it first several weeks before then, and wasn't alone, and now I'm not alone in that the other side is still restless, talkative - well except Olivia - and more visible than usual. Curiouser and curiouser, said Alice.....

It's actually been pretty quiet around here the last week or so, since Kody moved on. Don't think it was him i caught out of the corner of my eye this morning, which means that yes, it seems I have a new visitor.... kinda feels like being in Piccadilly Station some days ;) Not that I mind, mostly.
Olivia is still here on and off, although she's still not talking, although she seems oddly.... happier. Long story for another day i think. Pretty sure she actually spends much of her time next door, not that she's the only presence there, the other isn't nearly as quiet as she is but he stays there and hasn't come visiting yet. One day soon the neighbours and I will get our act together and try and figure something out with him :/

But I digress, the veil is still thin, they are still restless - I've had way more pop in visitors in the last month than in at least the six months before that. And now apparently another new visitor, life is anything but dull ;)

Halloween Pagans

Another thing that came up was Halloween pagans. I'm guessing every religion has their equivalent o Christmas Christians, those who only claim their religion once or twice a year and then forget about it for the rest of the year. We get the ones who come out on Halloween, and then spend the rest of the year calling witchcraft evil.

Yes there are some who are still in the Broom Closet and for them Halloween is the one time of the year it's socially acceptable to be a witch or a pagan or whatever - although in some places even on Halloween it's not acceptable but that's another matter.
And then there are the ones who just want a brief, safe, thrill, or to shock a neighbour or play - gotta say it - those who want a chance to "dabble" safely without any consequences.

Oh please. Paganism in whatever form is a way of life, not a dress you put on once a year. Same applies to any religion - either walk the walk or go play somewhere I can't see or hear you. I don't care what religion anyone is if it's real to them, dabblers and those who pay lip service but don't mean it - I don't have time for.

Please note, seekers, those looking for answers or being curious, that's not the same thing and that's fine - they're looking and asking, not pretending to be something they aren't.

Apparently my inner bitch is awake this morning :/

The Burning Times and the Islands

There's a lot of heated debate surrounding the "Burning Times", the Inquisition, Witch hunts and everything associated with it.

I grew up in a place where they did burn witches and heretics. They burned them, hung them and more. Burning, as in the infamous image of burning them at the stake, was largely a European practise, though not a British one. The British preferred that their witches 'hang by the neck until dead'.

Except in the Channel Islands. There hanging was only one of several methods of punishment meted out to those convicted of witchcraft. Other sentences included banishment - for life or for a fixed term, burning, disfigurement or lashes.

There's a book, Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands that not only tells the story of witchcraft in the islands but also details the names and sentences of those accused of witchcraft and brought before the courts. The list is taken from the original french court records that still lie in the island archives.

"June 4th, 1624.

Ester Henry, wife of Jean de France.

This woman was burnt alive. The sentence states that her flesh and bones are to be reduced to ashes and scattered by the winds, as being unworthy of any sepulture."

The witch hunts, and witchcraft, are just one part of the history of islands steeped in myth, legend and history.

Ancestors

Inspired by Tanila's comments about ancestors and ancestor photos I had to go find this. Samhain is coming, time to remember those who came before.

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It's not just our personal past we should remember for it's part in making us who and where we are now. We should also remember the people and the generations who have gone before us, our parents and grandparents and the many generations beyond them, lost now to the haze of history. They each had their part to play in how we came to be who and where we are now.

Most people don't think too much about their ancestors, and most people don't need to. It does seem though that there really is at least one born into every generation who does care, who is driven to find and document them and to rediscover them before they are lost to obscurity forever. Driven to put names, places, faces and dates together, to piece together some parts of their stories, be they happy, sad, tragic or heroic, for each of them did have their own story.

Perhaps it's the modern day equivalent of being the storyteller, the one who preserved for the next generation the tales of myth and legend, the stories of hardship and celebration, and shared them with everyone else during long winter nights huddled together around the fire. Maybe those who are driven to uncover family history are simply the modern day incarnation of an ancient tradition.

There will always be skeletons hidden away that some would prefer be forgotten, there will be heroes and homemakers, adventurers, rascals, scoundrels and simple hardworking men who did nothing more remarkable in their lives than toil day in and day out to keep their families housed and fed. They are all a part of our past and deserve to be remembered.

"Putting together a family tree is like weaving an intricate multi-dimensional tapestry without knowing anything about the final design, because that final design doesn't exist."
Peter Baltensperger - Roaming in Ancestral Cycles.

Some people will always be little more than names and dates, the rest of their story already forgotten. Others will carry more colour, the sadness of children lost in infancy, the joys of children surviving to adulthood and producing offspring of their own. Still others come to life in faded photographs, or put a name to previously anonymous face, or turn out to be the grain of truth behind an old family anecdote.

Better that someone collect and record the fragments so that it remains available for the next generation than for their stories, great or small, to be lost, for once they are lost they might be gone forever.

Some families lived generations in the same place, working the same land, facing the same struggles to raise their families. They deserve to be remembered too, or do we want to forget the Audoires, French descended farmers raising generations on rough farmland on a tiny windswept island? Like Jane, who raised thirteen children there before her eldest son, Peter Henry, inherited the farmland and sold it off, using the proceeds to buy her the 'first real house' she had ever lived in.

Do we want to forget the Patton boys of Grayson county, Virginia, who left behind wives and children to fight for the Confederacy, in defence of their homeland and for what they believed was right? Leftwich and Creed Patton, close as brothers could be, grew up together, enlisted to fight together, forever torn apart when Leftwich was killed at the Battle of Middle Creek. Creed fought on, leading his company through the rest of the war before he finally returned home.

Or should we forget the women they left behind to hold home and family together not knowing when or if they would see their menfolk again? Or the Patton sisters, Cynthia and Martha, who devoted years to helping raise Leftwich's children after he was killed in the War Between the States, four small children who never had a chance to know their father.

The same goes for the Guernseymen who volunteered to fight a war they could not drafted into because they believed it was right. Many marched away to the Great War and a lot of them never returned home, and many of those who did return were never the same again. Should we forget the women and families they left behind? Or the babies who died, as so many did in times past, before they ever had a chance at life?

Perhaps we should forget the women like the two Nancy Patton's, of different lines and generations, who each defied society, convention and church to raise the children they bore outside wedlock, and whose children each married and raised large families of their own. Or the Guernseman who stood before God and congregation on his wedding day and declared that the child his new wife held in her arms was his? Was it? who knows, it doesn't matter, his declaration is forever recorded immediately below his marriage in the church register and it would have taken a brave man to call it other than truth.

Perhaps we could ignore the quarrymen, like Thomas Smith Brown, who did nothing more than work long back breaking days quarrying granite in Guernsey, a world away from their native Devon and Cornwall. Or maybe immigrants like the Aeicheles who came from Russia, Poland and Germany, halfway around the world in search of a better life in Canada and America?

Maybe the Whalleys and Kays from Lancashire, who were 'only' miners and weavers, the very backbone of life in the north of England. Maybe the interestingly mis-transcribed "card loom worker" who was listed as the much more mysterious and exotic sounding "card Room Worker" when one census was released. Or perhaps the Scottish tenant farmer, William Murray, a man of obvious means, who late in life married the innkeeper's daughter and raised a large family.

Could we forget Cornish born Susan Jane who literally married the boy next door, then followed him to Canada with their children, suffering the loss of one child before she even reached Manitoba? Or Cecil, who was invalided out of the Great War, and had to wear his silver discharge badge so as to avoid being accused of cowardice? One war wasn't enough for him, for he also endured four long years of his island home being occupied by invading German forces, separated from the wife and child he had evacuated to safety in Rochester, and facing the same near starvation as everyone else who remained behind on the island, a starvation only alleviated by the ships of the Red Cross.

They all have a part in the story of our past, they are our roots, they are part of the foundation on which we can build our future, without any one of them we wouldn't be here. And for that, they deserve to be remembered.

Is your neighbour a witch?

Halloween is almost here, the favourite time of year of many witches and Pagans. Is your neighbour a witch? He could be and you would probably never know it unless he told you. And yes, witches and Pagan an be any sex.

Do you know if you live next door to a Pagan? Maybe you do. Paganism is the fastest growing religion in North America according to census figures, and that only counts those who openly identify as, and admit to being, Pagan when completing the forms. Many more Pagans are still hidden in the proverbial Broom Closet and keep their beliefs to themselves. Even those of us who are out rarely go around waving the fact in the faces of the people we meet every day. For a start ours is not a faith that believes in proselytisation, and we also consider that a person's faith is something between them and their gods and no-one else.

Anyway, most of us are too busy living our lives just like everyone else. We still have to juggle work, school, home, kids, bills and all the other facets of every day life. We're just like everyone else in that respect, and many others. We don't have two heads, we don't eat babies - except jelly babies. We don't put newts eyes or lizard legs in our supper, and we don't worship the devil. As an Abrahamic construction he's not even part of our cosmology so why would we worship something we don't believe in?

Generally speaking Pagans respect and honour the earth and everyone and everything on it. We note the passing of the seasons and the cycles of life, and of the Earth itself. Many of us worship in private, some alone, some in concert with like minded souls, depending on personal preference and circumstance. We consider that the gods will call who they wish to follow the Pagan path, so don't feel the need to actively seek out converts. Most of us, however, are more than happy to answer questions asked us about our beliefs as best we can.

Some of us do perform our religious rituals naked, many of us don't. Again it comes down to personal preference, location and the weather. The last being a not small consideration up here in Calgary. That and Pagans are no more likely to be exhibitionists than anyone else, so you're not likely to see us dancing naked in Olympic Plaza. Mind you, anything is possible!

Pagans respect life, so no we don't sacrifice animals or eat babies. We value children, especially our own and raise them to be free thinking individuals who know enough to be able to choose their own religion when they are mature enough to make an informed choice, even if they choose a religion different from our own. Pagans don't believe in any one right religion, only that the one a person is following is the right for that particular person. We accept and respect the existence of many gods, our own and those of others and do not disrespect the gods, holy places or sacred items of another religion. We ask only that other people show us the same respect.

Is your neighbour a witch? She could be but you probably wouldn't know just by looking at her. Pagans and witches come in all shapes, sizes and colours, and from all races, places, political affiliations and income brackets. In short, there are Pagans in all walks of life, you'd be surprised if you knew how widespread and diverse we are. But you know what? We're also just like you, we're no worse as neighbours than anyone else. Ask my neighbours, they live next door to a witch.

(Apologies for any typos - tiredness!)

Dabblegate

Somehow I don't think Christine O'Donnell ever expected to become a teaching aid and opportunity for the
Pagan community.

Thanks almost entirely to her own efforts to apparently play it down, Dabblegate isn't going to be forgotten any time soon. And you know, that may not be an entirely bad thing - bad for her, not so bad for the Pagan community.

I was struck today by the realization that Dabblegate and Christine O'Donnell could actually turn out to be good for the Pagan community.

Let me explain. In the beginning was her now infamous comment about 'dabbling in witchcraft' in high school and having a date one a 'satanic altar'. Her comments were just another rerun of old, worn misinformed stereotype - although in one fell swoop she did manage to irritate both Pagans and Satanists alike - no mean feat. Pretty sure she didn't win herself any voters either but that's her problem.

Christine O'Donnell did, however, provide what Rev, Selena Fox called a 'teachable moment', and Selena, T Thorn Coyle and many others have been swift to make the most of that moment, publicly and privately, nationally and locally, to set the record straight as to what paganism is and who Pagans are.

Christine O'Donnell's denials, and her attempt to defuse the situation and salvage her candidacy probably sealed her loss of the Pagan vote when she tried to say that her 'dabbling' was simply a result of her hanging out with undesirables in high school.

Certainly her comments have given Paganism in general and witches in particular a moment in the national media spotlight, and there are enough well known Pagans willing to speak publicly to set the record straight. It has been a perfect chance to get accurate information out there in a calm, civilized way with a hint of humour. That in itself may well do the Pagan community more good in the long run than any amount of 'we do not worship the devil' type statements.

Then Christine O'Donnel comes out with her "I am not a witch" campaign ad, while looking as if she had stepped straight off the set of "Charmed". My first thought was that i would love to make an ad that began "I am a witch" and apparently i was far from alone in that thought. So far today I have seen two, and I just know that is going to be the tip of the iceberg - one kind lady http://aquakerwitch.blogspot.com/ is going to collect up all the links she can find and assemble them in one place.

Christine O'Donnell's misguided, ill informed comments see to have backfired and brought out many Pagans and united them in a way that doesn't happen every day. She has given us a chance, both individually and as a community, to stand up and speak out and offer accurate, straightforward information and to show that we don't have two heads or bat wings - we are just people with morals, ethics and our own religions.

And she has also managed to crack open the door of the Broom Closet a little wide than it was before, and that can only be a good thing .

Yep, call me odd, but I can see many ways that as time passes we could well come to see Dabblegate as a good thing for witches, pagans, and the Pagan community.
Pretty sure it won't go down in history as a good thing for Christine O'Donnell though, unless she one day decides to come out of the Broom Closet. And I'm pretty sure she has permanently lost the Pagan vote. Sorry Christine.