Have yourself a frolicsome Beltane! Some people refer to Beltane as the Pagan New Year, others give Samhain that name. Indeed, I believe the year is divided, like night and day. Beltane is the beginning of the day part of the year, and Samhain begins its night.
What would Beltane be without a maypole? People count off, so that every other person weaves under and clockwise, or over and counter-clockwise.
Instructions are given:
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My publicist at Llewellyn is a cool guy named Steven Pomije. He’s good to work with and I like him.
So I got a little thrill when I read on The Wild Hunt Blog that Steve was involved in a political/educational action, working to have Pagan materials included in the distribution of “religious” materials in a North Carolina school district.
Jason did a good interview with Steve here, but I thought I’d throw in a couple of questions of my own.
Deborah: How has Llewellyn reacted? Do you feel you were supported at work?
Steve: Yeah, 100%. At first I was worried, but in fact I was commended.
Saturday was Blog Against Heteronormativity Day. I didn’t participate. I live with a great many complex thoughts about gender and orientation, and I suppose if I had simply sat and written some thoughts, it would have turned into a decent essay. But I was put off by the big, self-important neologism, and a little put off by all these blogosphere Day designations as well. Also, I’m not comfortable with all this defining; I’m not convinced that gay, straight, and bi are enough categories, or the right categories.
So, last night, I saw the wonderful movie The Station Agent. In it, a dwarf (Peter Dinklage) struggles to be treated as himself, and not as an oddity. Fin (Dinklage) says “It’s funny how people see me and treat me, since I’m really just a simple, boring person.”
So I realize; it’s not heteronormativity, it’s normativity. » Read more..
Via Jason, who got it from T. Thorn Coyle:
Sex educator, author, activist, and modern Pagan Patrick Califia has suffered a heart attack. Perhaps even more tragic than suffering a heart attack is the fact that he has no health insurance to obtain proper treatment.
Califia is one of my favorite authors. He blows me away with his forthright honesty about sex, desire, freedom, perversity, and pleasure. It ain’t easy earning your living as a writer. Me, I have a day job. I couldn’t tolerate the instability of being self-employed, and things like health insurance are a big part of that. But a lot of authors choose to go it the hard way, for a lot of very good reasons.
Thorn is urging donations, which I think is a good idea:
“I just received the news that Patrick Califia has had a heart attack. Like many people I know (including myself until very recently, when I decided I could afford to shell out for it every month) Patrick lives with out health insurance. If you are a writer, a queer, a tranny in any form, a proponant of free speech and hot sex, or all of the above – or if you know someone who fits into any of these categories – and have a few extra dollars floating around, please consider making a donation. You may also wish to go to your local independent bookseller and order some of his books. Patrick’s given us roses, let’s give him some bread.”
Here is the contact information:
Checks or money orders in US funds can be sent to:
Patrick Califia
2215R Market Street, No. 261
San Francisco, CA 94114For charges and non-US funds, Patrick has a PayPal account under patcalifia@aol.com.
My friend Larry sent me this quote from Common Sense Science:
There are only four stable charged particles that are not a compound of other particles. These are the electron, proton, positron and antiproton. A single model, the spinning charged ring, accounts for the observed properties of all four elementary particles. In this model, the structure and shape of the particle are the same, including the ratio of ring diameter to the ring thickness diameter; the size of the ring and its charge each take on two values. In atomic nuclei, a “neutron” is a paired electron and proton.
Knowing of my passion for the four elements, Larry thought of me, and points out that the electron, proton, positron and antiproton correspond to the Air, Fire, Water, and Earth. As Larry explains it:
The electron is like water, flowing about the nuclei and uniting with the proton to bring neutrality. The proton is like earth, the basic building block providing stability in a nuclear world. The antiproton is like fire, bringing explosive force when it collides with normal matter. And finally, the positron is like air, free to wonder where it will, giving breath to the myriad of sub-atomic particles.
They will keep telling us that magic and the occult have absolutely nothing to do with science, and they won’t let any silly evidence stand in their way.
My father used to say that if you always win at poker, you’re not betting high enough.
This is one of my favorite sayings. It’s applicable in all sorts of situations. In magic, you find all sorts of people who hedge their spellcasting bets, who won’t risk their karma, or risk being wrong, or risk failure. And thus there’s all sorts of good work that never gets done. As Isaac says, the Gods gave us our magic well knowing we’re mortal, and there’s nothing admirable about refusing to put your ass on the line.
The saying applies to politics as well. Why has Feingold got only one co-sponsor to his censure resolution? The Democrats are hedging their bets. To a (wo)man, they’re making sure they don’t bet too high, and they’re doing it even when there’s a pair of aces in the hole.
I admire Howard Dean. He bet high and lost on the flop. His comeback as chairman of the DNC is earned, because he took the honest risk instead of playing it safe. I admire Al Gore less. He says ballsy things, but not during his Presidential campaign, only from safe retirement on the assurance he won’t run.
What I want to see is the Dems listening to my father’s advise, betting higher, losing some, and winning bigger. I don’t think they’re listening, though.
Tom has been obsessively blogging about wingnuts in sheep’s clothing.
Dobsonite theocrat Ron Luce takes great pains to project an image of good old non-political evangelism in his teen ministry; he seems to be succeeding. The Catholic Church sponsors a media campaign designed to project an image of moderation for the anti-choice side. Welcome to the future. Christian authoritarians are becoming less like Fred Phelps and more like Ron Luce and Monika Rodman. The public face is friendly and non-threatening; the reality is Vision America and Operation Rescue.
I have long noticed this tendency of certain far-right Christians to put on a false front in order to seduce the masses. This is the essential tactic of “Jews for Jesus,” they say they’re Jewish rather than Christian in order to more easily convert Jews, not because it’s in some essential way the truth. They believe in Jesus, therefore they’re Christian, ba-da-bing.
My dear friend, who is a devout Mormon, points out that this is against the teachings of Christ. He tells his followers not to “hide [their] light under a bushel.” If you’re Christian, you’re supposed to say so.
This is one of Jesus’s better ideas. “I am what I am, if you don’t like it, bite me” is more or less my philosophy, and a damn sight better than painting a false front.
Jason has an interesting post about an article purporting to analyze religion in American politics, but utterly omitting minority reilgions.
Why does this matter? Isn’t it all demographic crystal-gazing? It matters because when terms like “religious left” (and “religious right”) become defined as “lefty Jesus vs. righty Jesus” or even “lefty patriarchal sky father vs. righty patriarchal sky father,” then the voices of the faithful who don’t hold those views are shoved out of the big tent.
I think Jason might be missing the bigger problem. We’re not just shoved out of the big political tent. We’re being shoved out of the language of religion at all. All the time, I hear people say “I don’t like religion” and when asked why, they elaborate “I don’t believe an omnipotent force controls the universe.” People literally don’t know that there is such a thing as religion without an omnipotent and controlling force. They don’t know that there are religions without a complex maze of sin to navigate. They don’t know that there are religions that celebrate all forms of adult consensual sex. They don’t know that there are religions that ask people to think for themselves.
And more than that. Whenever someone says “religious” but means “Christian” (or, in a burst of ecumenism, “Christian and Jewish and perhaps, maybe, a little, my personal distorted idea of Muslim”) the idea is reinforced that the rest of us don’t have “real religions.” People still think like Sgt. Howie; we have “fake religion.”
Language (says the writer) shapes what we know. When we say “religion” but mean “majority monotheistic religion” we continue to know only those majority monotheistic religions as the real thing. We reinforce the notion that Wiccans and Hindus and Native American religionists are fluffy, or odd, or primitive, or flaky, or otherwise just not right.
When I was a li’l baby Pagan, my High Priestess was constantly tinkering with the ritual we used. It had started out as a standard Pagan Way type of script, but she kept throwing more stuff into it.
At one point, she explained that a lot of people kept the Pagan Way really light, so light, in fact, that it wasn’t very magical. People running a Pagan Way tended to be initiates who were using the Pagan Way structure as a way of training potential initiates. Since the ritual was not for initiates, they didn’t consider it “real,” so it didn’t have a lot of juicy stuff in it.
But, my teacher explained, she didn’t want to be in a ritual that wasn’t real. So she kept putting more and more juicy stuff in. No secrets, but material more resonant with what we learned from the secrets.
It should be real.
I was so profoundly influenced by that, and I still think about it to this day. It applies not just to Wicca, but to life. What we do should be real, it should count. The Pagan Way is an external, or exoteric, reflection of an internal, or esoteric, state of being. But it isn’t a fake. It isn’t a dummy. It isn’t, “let’s play the first hand without keeping score so you can learn the rules.” The Gods are real, we are real, so let’s be real.
Ampersand has an excellent post up about the Duke rape case. In it, she discusses the concept of innocent until proven guilty, and has some very smart things to say:
But “innocent until proven guilty” is a courtroom standard. My opinion is not the same as a courtroom, and blog posts don’t put anyone in prison. Nothing about the American system of justice requires ordinary citizens to refrain from having opinions; and it’s not inconsistant to want Courts to adhere to “beyond any reasonable doubt” while holding my personal opinions to a less stringent standard.
Some time back, we (my then-husband and I) were aware of a member of the Pagan community who had been accused of child molestation. The case was working its way through the courts and no verdict had been reached. We found out that the accused was going to be at a Pagan event during which children were ordinarily given a lot of freedom to roam. We contacted people in charge of both the event and the property, asking that this person be banned from this event. We were refused, and what the people we spoke to all said was “innocent until proven guilty.”
I was furious. Livid is a good word. If you’ve ever seen me mad, you might have come up with livid as the right word.
And what I said to my husband is “innocent until proven guilty” is for courts. For parents, the rule is dangerous until proven safe.
Pagans are so pluralistic, so free, that they sometimes fail to see danger in their midst. They bend over backwards to be fair, because we are a people who have suffered too much unfair treatment. But as a mom, I don’t bend in that direction. I bend over forwards, in a protective huddle. I make my child, and my community’s children, safe to the best of my ability. That’s my job.
The accused was convicted, and served some years in jail. He is now free and again has access to Pagan events. A glitch in the registration system causes him to show up on some sex offender lists but not others, affording him more freedom of movement than I, for one, find comfortable.
But again, the law is not community. People feel they have to make him welcome at events, because he served his time, and is legally able to attend the events. But legal is not personal. He’s still dangerous until proven safe.
