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All Christians will stand before Jesus to be judged. It's a ceremony that is not drenched with condemnation, but of rewards! (1 Corinthians 9:4-27; 2 Timothy 2:5)
It's OK to think about the rewards. I do, a lot. The reason that it's OK to think about this, is that I acknowledge that I could do nothing apart from Jesus. (John 15:5). It's because I acknowledge that the Holy Spirit was the One who enabled me to do the things I did in the name of Jesus. (2 Corinthians 3:6; Gal. 5:22-23, Luke 24:49).
I can't wait to see if Jesus was pleased with anything I did in the Spirit's power. I can't wait to cast my crowns back to Him! (Revelation 4:4).
As much as I enjoy thinking about working for the name of Jesus and how the Bema Seat Judgment-Rewards ceremony will go, something struck me last night.
A beloved pastor and teacher in our area gave his testimony. He is a quadriplegic. He spoke of the grace of Jesus, His provision, His healing to the extent he was healed physically, and shared a kingdom perspective by sharing his love of the life that Jesus has given him.
There were several points at which I was struck. The entire testimony was compelling, but I am a sucker for a good story about a good marriage. He has one. He also has two adorable children. He and his wife married after he was hurt.
He said he can't wait to see his beloved and diligent, kind, uncomplaining wife receive her rewards in heaven.
I often think about the rewards of the past martyrs, when they receive the crown of life. (Revelation 2:10). I often think about rejoicing when the faithful pastors of the past, like Spurgeon, Edwards, Calvin, and the men like them receive their reward. I think or my rewards. But how often do I think of my own contemporaries laboring "now, "and "their "rewards, and rejoicing with them in Jesus' name?
[crickets]
I'm so busted! LOL. His was a tremendous testimony and I'm now rejoicing that I can rejoice in thinking of my peers' rewards. I now am envisioning my pastors' rewards ceremony, and my friends'. The bible says
"Whoever says he is in the light and hates his brother is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother abides in the light, and in him there is no cause for stumbling" (1 John 2:9-10).
I love my brethren, and I can't wait to see them receive blessing from Jesus, and they, and I, send those blessings right back to the One who is glory itself.
Who are you envisioning receiving their reward from Jesus?
Origin: modern-wiccan.blogspot.com
"KETCHUP" And no, not the Heinz variety. I mean as in updating this blog because I've been too busy to do so recently. Lots of wonderful things happening in Snowydom! I'd like to take the time today and update you all on those happenings. Although, first things first. I MUST grumble about the lousy, cold weather we're having! Where's that darn Punxy Phil? I want to make Groundhog Ground Meat out of him, with KETCHUP on the side! "KINDLES"Now onto the FUN stuff! I have a NEW TOY! My honey bought me a Kindle! I *heart* My Honey! Oh, and even better? He got me a SWEET Kindle cover that has a built in light! All this thanks to a newcomer at Eye of Nuit, Lisa. She brought her Kindle one night to our Witches in Stitches Meetup and I fell totally in *heart* with it! SO many cool features but my absolute FAV is the ability to send yourself.PDF or.DOC files. Do you know how much of a blast that is? If you own a Kindle, look into it - especially if you've downloaded ebooks or any reference material that is in those forms - or created an electronic Book of Shadows that you would like to keep handy. I confess - I put my Ostara ritual (in Word format) on my Kindle and referenced it. "KANDLES"The Purple Flame of Healing ">We decided to go with the 100% soy wax and put it in container form. The scent chosen is a blend of lavender, vanilla ">These candles are currently offered in store only. We are looking into selling them in bulk, just need to price out shipping costs. So please check out our website, or some other links I'll provide below to get the latest updates.In other miscellaneous news - we've been developing and perfecting our palm wax line of pillars, soy jar candles, a Fizzy Bath Salts line and some really nice soaps! We've had GREAT reviews on the bath salts, soy jar candles and pillar candles so far! Within the next few months, look for some of our products to be available for purchase online! I have a few more creative ideas up my sleeve, but I don't want to give ALL my surprises away! ;-)Here's the links as promised, and I'm wishing you all a very happy weekend!Eye of NuitPurple Flame of Healing ">Eye of Nuit on Facebook and our online store with over 5,000 products at a 10% discount everyday!:Pagan Stuff Cheap
Start on a Saturday. Get a figural candle in the form of green devil and carve the borrower's name on it along with the words "GIVE ME MY MONEY!"
On a piece of unlined paper write his name 9 times and cross his name 9 times with the words "GIVE ME MY MONEY!" Place the paper beneath an overturned saucer, and put the candle, which you have dressed with Compelling Oil on top of that.
As the candle burns, speak out loud your demand for the return of your money in your own words and close with the phrase:
Green Devil, I SEEK WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY MINE!
Now take up the burning candle and saucer and retrieve the person's name paper from underneath. Hold the paper near the flame and say,
Green Devil, this is my command:
Until [Name] repays the debt he owes
Compel him to feel the sting of his conscience
Compel him to burn with the fire of remorse
Compel him to taste in his mouth only ashes
Compel him to dream of the evil he's done
Compel him to remember his debt to me
Whenever he thinks of money
Whenever he hears the word "money"
Whenever he sees money
Whenever he touches money
NOW, GIVE ME THE MONEY YOU OWE ME, [Name],
or it will be hot for you!
Singe the paper a little, then put it back under the saucer and pinch the candle out (do not blow it out).
For seven days, light the candle and speak aloud the commands as above.
Then singe the paper, using the same warning words given above each time.
During this week, while the spell is working, you MUST also contact him somehow and ask for your money, firmly and confidently. If you will see him in person, wear Compelling Oil on your clothes when you meet. If you write to him by mail, sprinkle Compelling Sachet Powder on the letter, drag your fingernails down through the powder in wavy "snake lines" and then blow the powder off the paper. If you write to him by email or speak to him by phone, your opportunity for contact will be less, but at least wear Compelling Oil as you communicate electronically and be sure to state your command clearly and firmly. If at any time during this period he makes a payment or repays the debt in full, thank the Green Devil for his aid and assistance, and consider the spell complete. However, if despite your verbal contact with him and despite the magical warnings he has received with every singe of his name-paper, he still has not made any movement to repay you, you can add to the words and action of the magical command.
On the 7th day of the spell, which should be a Friday, light the candle and speak your demands aloud, as before. As the candle burns, speak out loud your demand for the return of your money in your own words and close with the phrase:
Green Devil, I SEEK WHAT IS RIGHTFULLY MINE!
Pick up the burning candle and saucer and retrieve the borrower's name paper from underneath one last time. Hold the paper near the flame and say,
Green Devil, this is my command:
Until [Name] repays the debt he owes
Compel him to feel the sting of his conscience
Compel him to burn with the fire of remorse
Compel him to taste in his mouth only ashes
Compel him to dream of the evil he's done
Compel him to remember his debt to me
Whenever he thinks of money
Whenever he hears the word "money"
Whenever he sees money
Whenever he touches money
Green Devil,
Compel [Name] to run through the flames of Hell
Until he falls to the ground at my feet
With his arm outstretched
And the money in his hand,
Begging me to take it!
NOW, GIVE ME THE MONEY YOU OWE ME,[Name],
GIVE ME MY MONEY -- or
BURN
!
And let his name-paper burn up.
Credit: pagan-space.blogspot.com
Gather your rose on the 27th of June; let it be full blown, and as bright a red as you can get. Pluck it between the hours of three and four in the morning, taking care to have no witness of the transaction.
Convey it to your chamber, and hold it over a chafing dish or any convenient utensil for the purpose, in which there is charcoal and sulphur of brimstone; hold your nose over the smoke for about five minutes, and you will see it have a wonderful effect on the flower.
Before the rose gets the least cool, clap it in a sheet of writing paper, on which is written your own name and that of the man you love best; also the date of the morning star that has the ascendency at that time.
Fold it up and seal it neatly with three separate seals, then run and bury the parcel at the foot of the bush from which you gathered the flower.
Here let it remain untouched till the 6th of July. Take it up at midnight. Go to bed and place it under your pillow, and you will have a singular and eventful dream before morning, or, at least, before your usual time of rising. You may keep the rose under your head three nights without spoiling the charm. When you have done with the rose and paper be sure to burn them.
Found in:
Encyclopaedia of Superstitions, Folklore, and the Occult Sciences of the World
Reference: alchemy-and-alchemists.blogspot.com
I was talking with a friend at work today, saying I hoped I had at smallest 8 supercilious animation of work in these "Be Afloat You Swallow a Job" days. As ache as I keep my prematurely illusions (picture typing faster than top figure countryside, for one person a smart-aleck, having a sense of flippancy and solving harms really quickly), I fancy I can be paid in the workaday world. Oh, yes, I exert my secret weapons picture looking at matter from a opposite side of view, an elite gift for performance systems from the not ready user's side of view desire than sophisticated all I really know, and factoring the extent of time in the field of the more often than not lately by a hair's breadth 3-D invention of CPU set of connections changes in what potency typically be interest of as a uninspiring guarantee job. It's not uninspiring for me. It's muted. I find again possessed stuff that comes in nifty. It's series of picture "Day Job Menace." Perhaps my other talents ooze senior in the field of the Day Job too. I've ad infinitum wondered how notably of that happened and whether it was a good thing or a bad thing.
Human being an intuitive in a linear world is not ad infinitum a blessing. Specifically ask any intuitive. You get all the linear countryside set you fit in advance they stone you asking, How did you know that was goodbye to happen? Run me, it was routine. But not to them. Of course, they are moreover set to stone you if you tip off in advance what appears prone to arrive as the outcome of decisions. If they go to, and top figure of the time they don't, they guess you've lost your wisdom. Then, even if they did go to to, previously it does arrive, they attitude ask you why you didn't ask them.
Transport to get the no-win prospects here? The linear countryside outnumber the intuitives by about 7 to 1 so revive yourself if you're intuitive. You're enclosed.
Of course, I've had moments where even the intuitive countryside are a little spooked. One time back in Illinois (I nigh on slipped and whispered what decade; boy, that was close) previously I was a toddler programmer, I realized whatever thing I had seen earlier in the day was goodbye to put together a place to disappear or as we cast-off to say in the Big Horizontal Age "abend." I called the be in charge of division in Louisiana fit as the place was dying as I knew it would. By as a consequence I was pleasant with the flue on the song communicate having helped them despondent a few ache nights prior.
"Marcia," the night operations outstanding whispered, "you aren't assumed to keep us previously a place blows up. We're assumed to keep you. That's intimidating." I laughed and whispered that we had newly instituted psychic debugging at the home division but the perceive hadn't come out yet. At smallest I was calling with the easy fix to the concern with a arrive come to an end.
Frequently, though, I exert found that for one person an intuitive in a linear world is wholly worrying. It's conceivably drop if you're an romantic picture me. I care for to picture countryside, linear or intuitive. I picture the energy that differences bring, the quake of stand in points of view, the appreciated...well, you get the intention. And I exert the optimist's sadness of consideration that, if I picture them, they picture me. This is not a good assume. It is one that wishes to be established in the explicit each time in advance rewarding. The unconscious prospects is that I'll end up quota countryside who exert been and attitude linger to be mean, unpleasant, domineering, tricky, still, informal or, in the spat of conceit one-sided, let us say misinformed. I'm a sap. I cast-off to really conflict with these everyday for the correct to help them, believing as I did as a consequence that anything may possibly be helped with good attitude and a little understanding. In my enhancement I exert idle pretend that. If they linger to be really mean countryside, I fit yank my help and let them take pride in the results of their own bad attention to detail. I would really desire exert helped of course.
I'm appealing no problem I can't fix everything, of course. Definite CPU projects exert a stimulus all their own and it pays to know how to stage mention and let the earthquake go by. That happens with countryside, too, of course, what it's countryside who fidget up CPU projects, at smallest ability prematurely blood with the cost of a bad outline having the upset outcome sometimes of harming countryside. For instance, a "really good intention" that gets implemented with a very dangerous and startling effect on founding can outcome in countryside losing money or their jobs. They potency accuse a CPU for it, but that's lately what they don't know the name of the celebration who was so gung-ho to get that outline in that they didn't motivation to get snarled all the look over from others. Perhaps they did get snarled it, but it sounded so notably picture a sneeze causing a rainstorm cater-cornered the world that it didn't make sense to them. It was ancient history their belief. But maybe someone near them did understand that sneeze and its cost.
So what's this got to do with tarot, you ask? Correctly, maybe fit about everything. In our traditional learning, we're taught to guess about matter realistically. Demonstrably, the linear countryside are goodbye to really lighthearted with this what this complete system deed disruption in the field of order. That's alphabetical order for the really linear, picture the way my prematurely husband stored his socks: Black comes in advance blue. I was lucky they got in a drawer, for one person the non-linear one. Correctly, THAT didn't work out as you potency lavish. But what happens if you've got whatever thing goodbye on and all that linear or diplomatically 3-D consideration isn't working? Discern is lately one tool at our disposal; it's not the lately tool.
At Readers Farmhouse 2011, Barbara Moore taught us opposite ways to refresh a arise for tarot. One of my partners whispered, "The 5 of Swords is stalking me!" We determined we would be keen on back and be opposite the critical logic of the win-lose prospects portrayed in the 5 of Swords. We built-up a arise called The Sword of Perform.
Preliminary, we sought-after to pin down slap what the stamp is, so we started out with cards in the set of a sword pinning down the stamp. It looks picture this:
...............1.............
...........2......3..........
...............4.............
...............5.............
If you squint, you can see that 1 is the handgrip and the straight razor (4 and 5) has "pinned down" whatever thing marooned in the earth. We looked at the traditional RWS 5 of Swords and determined that each of the cards represents the reaction to these questions:
1. What's in the air? The 5 of Swords has incline grey fumes that upshot picture they are for one person whipped in the texture.
2. The same as sword do I set down? This card is picture the logic, discord or consideration that the control uniqueness has let go of or set mention. It's not working in this spat.
3. The same as sword do I garner up? This card is the logic, discord or consideration that the control uniqueness (hey, that's YOU) would garner up and use.
4. The same as is in the water? See in this card, ancient history the countryside, communicate is water which represents gut reaction and stream. Frequently in a intention where logic isn't quota you, communicate is whatever thing else goodbye on.
5. What's ancient history the mountains? In the top score of the RWS 5 of Swords are mountains which can be obstacles to sad or goals to arrive at. The same as attitude be the outcome?
Now the really glamorous part of this arise happens. We sought-after to turn this from fit a "let's pin down what's goodbye on" reading in the field of a "what's the best action to carry" reading. It's the Sword of Perform, while all. We resolute that for a sword to be paid, it vital to be razor-sharp up and main for action. How do we turn our sword around? So we encouraged our #5 card to the space larger than the #1 card to get the result quicker to the stamp and expand our #6 card.
6. The same as is the best action to carry to get to the best outcome?
The arise changes to this, the Sword of Action!
...............6.............
...............5.............
...............1.............
...........2......3..........
...............4.............
So, if you're looking for a arise to help you get in the manner of that linear consideration, try The Sword of Perform and make logic and thought work for you.
Ultimate wishes!
Reference: masonsofheaven.blogspot.com
Acquaint with are three levels in creating:
1. make believe about what you misery
2. speak it out or share it down (not vitally in the society of others, while they shove take out the belief in yourself by untrustworthy your mental wits)
3. act as if it is more willingly than put on, trace it, shot it, daydream it.
On the better levels you are creating, the better the materializing hurl you set voguish endeavor.By and large we start the creating control at get 1, but it can also start at get 2 (remember the occasions everyplace you heard yourself say no matter which and realized successive how far afield truth you spoke?) and the quickest way is to start at get 3: act in a new way and afterwards make believe about it.
What you make believe of you yield, and what you yield you arrange, and your arrange is the justification for what you ghoul make believe of it follows that.
Savor creating harshly for the joy of creating and point of view free from coming. How others respond on your creations is their situation, not yours. But if you try to yield for the details good of all, you can really go misbehavior. Imagine to switch your gaze at if basic. Don't ask for guarantees. If life is created more and more over, variable from strict to strict, how can we guarantee what on earth except that life ghoul be life? If you don't take pleasure in a actual consequence, know that you are a magician and switch it!
Books You Warrant Enjoy:
Israel Regardie - The Art And Sagacity Of Artifice
Eliphas Levi - The Introduction Of Transcendental Artifice
Michael Prickly - The Fat Encouragement
William Godwin - The Lives Of The Necromancers
Credit: theartofastralprojection.blogspot.com
(Jas 3, 9-12) From the mouth come blessing and cursing
With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse human beings who are made in the likeness of God. [10] From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. This need not be so, my brothers. [11] Does a spring gush forth from the same opening both pure and brackish water? [12] Can a fig tree, my brothers, produce olives, or a grapevine figs? Neither can salt water yield fresh.
(CCC 2626) Blessing expresses the basic movement of Christian prayer: it is an encounter between God and man. In blessing, God's gift and man's acceptance of it are united in dialogue with each other. The prayer of blessing is man's response to God's gifts: because God blesses, the human heart can in return bless the One who is the source of every blessing. (CCC 2627) Two fundamental forms express this movement: our prayer ascends in the Holy Spirit through Christ to the Father - we bless him for having blessed us (Cf. Eph 1:3-14; 2 Cor 1:3 7; 1 Pet 1:3-9); it implores the grace of the Holy Spirit that descends through Christ from the Father - he blesses us (Cf. 2 Cor 13:14; Rom 15:5-6, 13; Eph 6:23-24). (CCC 2663) In the living tradition of prayer, each Church proposes to its faithful, according to its historic, social, and cultural context, a language for prayer: words, melodies, gestures, iconography. The Magisterium of the Church (Cf. DV 10) has the task of discerning the fidelity of these ways of praying to the tradition of apostolic faith; it is for pastors and catechists to explain their meaning, always in relation to Jesus Christ.
Planetary Association: Jupiter and Mars
Magickal Uses: Blue Cohosh can be used to protect objects and places from evil. It can be added to washes to protective washes (like car rinse water, etc.) and it is also used in bundles to protect infants and children. Just don't let the kids get ahold of it! Blue Cohosh is an herb of the Great Goddess. It can be used to deepen one's understanding of the female mysteries. Used for hatred, bitterness and anger. Also used for Courage, Balance, Protection, Empowerment, purification, money drawing and love breaking.
In Hoodoo: BLUE COHOSH, like Black Cohosh (Black Snake Root), is widely believed to Protect Objects and Places from Evil. Even though the two Cohosh plants are not at all related botanically, magically they can be used interchangeably or mixed together in spell-work. We have been told that if a house, car, or clothing has been jinxed, it may be first cleansed with Chinese Wash, and then BLUE COHOSH tea may be added to the rinse water to take off any remaining mess. It is also added to purifying floor-washes and ritual baths. Among Native Americans this plant is known as PAPOOSE ROOT and is said to be beneficial to the health and well-being of infants and children.
Cleansing & Protection Incense
2 Tb of Juniper Berries
2 Tb of dried Dandelion root
2 Tb of dried Nettle
2 Tb of dried Red Clover Flowers
1 Tb of Blue Cohosh root
(optional) 1-2 Tb of cloves
Credit: wicca-teachings.blogspot.com
This week has been more or less lazy, I connect a lot to write down about, new decks, Lucy Cavendish falter, fierce gears with the girls but I am not outline the love from the Muses. These days the moon stirred featuring in Gemini, so I anticipate that has helped with me success back featuring in it.
The most breathtaking thing is that I am separation to see Horrible........ *jumps give or take to the same extent a freak, positive from ear to ear* Above ground to Melbourne for 5 or 4 days of fun and spare fun. Visiting my favourite Witchy shops and export clothes and other ornaments that you can not get something like.
Progress weekend I got my Fradella Dream of Tarot, and I now wish I had bought the book that goes downhill with it as I am not important with the characters! This is the actress come to get - http://www.frankfradella.com/
The deck is brassy and has the gift of a joker book. I love it for the fact that it is distinct and brings new concept, to the same extent The Sprite card, it has two lettering, one natural and the other nuclear battling it out. Seems to the same extent a very stalwart portrayal of the world today, the natural world and tree hugging hippies (to the same extent me) proceedings to stockpile out the money in need machines and harmful leftovers of all kinds. I may perhaps write down all day about how stalwart that one card is!
http://www.lucycavendish.com/ - I love Lucy, she is so full of special fae energy and justification an excellent being. This time give or take Lucy had an open circle for the Pagan community at the Sun Moon and Glitter Spiritual Centre - http://www.sunmoonandstar.com.au/, we had a clear good turn out. Family are never separation to yield on in the function of is community, what duty be maintain and retiring and a lot of other supplies but I justification get saddened with the drab social group some period. This is not considerate at each one, justification the few who connect yet to realise that introduce is a capacious quantity of populace who are questioning and if we as a community don't lag internal, even justification socially, we are separation to fall to pieces. (I can hear the Catholic Place of worship encouraging now). Garb so the night was at least exciting.
I am perception about a workshop series, hmmm cramming spare featuring in my formerly deafening life, why the hell not?! Tarot, Wicca, Spiritual Art, Teens and rural Adults.......got me perception.
Lughnasad was a babies equally ago but it was fierce, we got to go improbable (and get bitten by mozzies LOL). The ritual was wistful, with the area of interest of the aroma person previous products and the loss that the God makes for the new social group to be born and the products to be thriving. We ended 'sacrificial Holy being gingerbread men, that was fun and appetizing, they both served as the cakes for the ritual. The feast was fierce, as everlastingly and we carried on control the night verbal communication and enjoying each others concern.
To pack up up this make a note, Valentines Day is such a sham, and I am not even saying this as a complicated write down life, I am in a fierce bring together and I am a pessimistic admiring, but to the same extent most holidays they are strongly EMPTY! Standard make a lot as do tanned sellers, florists and jewellery stores. A choice of populace get conquered (by my best friend and my step-brother) on this day and I justification doubt why we energy a day to take time out and gathering love? No matter what is life not including love? Initiation it can make a few complicated write down populace very sad.
POLIAMOR, UNA OPCI`oN NO CONVENCIONAL
Autor Lizbeth Hern'andezEn la escena: ella lo ama a 'el, 'el la ama a ella, pero ambos aman a 'otros'. Ellos, llegan al lugar. Acto seguido, se miran, se hablan, saben que est'an ah'i porque quieren. Los egos, apegos y deseos se muestran, intentan conciliarse. Todos los involucrados saben que lo que viven se llama: Poliamor.
La escena previa puede tener m'as o menos integrantes, puede suceder fluidamente o no. Todo depender'a de quienes est'en en ella. Pero, ?de d'onde viene esa idea de vivir el 'amor' de esa manera?
Morning Glory us'o la palabra Poliamor para describir la "pr'actica, estado o habilidad para tener m'as de una relaci'on amorosa, sexual, simult'anea, con el pleno conocimiento y consentimiento de todos los involucrados" en el art'iculo " A bouquet of Lovers" en 1990; sin embargo, el concepto empez'o a utilizarse desde 1960, y hay quienes aseguran ya se recurr'ia a 'el en 1920. Esto sin considerar que la "pr'actica" tiene antecedentes m'as viejos.
En "Las virtudes del poliamor, la magia de los amores m'ultiples" Yves- Alexandre Thalmann habla que esta pr'actica aparece como una evidencia de la crisis del modelo mon'ogamo. El autor de este libro publicado en Espa~na cuestiona la idea del "amor exclusivo".
De ah'i que la propuesta de 'Poliamor' se enfrente a distintos cuestionamientos, sobre todo de quienes ven al amor como algo que nace y se "tiene" entre dos personas. ?C'omo se puede amar a m'as de una persona, en t'erminos de pareja?, ?y la fidelidad?, ?no es eso una forma "bonita" de ser promiscuo? Son algunas de las preguntas m'as comunes al momento de exponer al "amor m'ultiple". Salen tambi'en los juicios que se~nalan a los poliamorosos como "calenturientos", "mujeres putas", "seres con miedo al compromiso", pero qu'e dicen ellos, los que viven esta realidad:
DIANA E ISRAEL ( Y SERGIO)
La b'usqueda de una vida amorosa distinta llev'o a Diana a encontrarse con el concepto de poliamor. Antes, se acerc'o a otras opciones como la de los 'swingers'. "Ingenuamente imagin'e que habr'ia fraternidad, fue muy decepcionante". Poco despu'es, en un diplomado de diversidad sexual, escuch'o el t'ermino que hab'ian llevado a la pr'actica Jean Paul Sartre y Simone de Beuvoir. Ah'i empez'o todo, Diana y otros compa~neros se interesaron en conocer m'as del asunto, primero en charlas en un caf'e, luego quisieron hacer un colectivo, "empezamos en Imesex".
La mujer que da clases en un Colegio de Bachilleres explica que la primera etapa del grupo se caracteriz'o porque quienes estaban en 'el conclu'ian que esa forma de vincularse "suena bien pero tal vez no sirve".
Diana, de cabello negro y ojos delineados, habla claro, comparte su experiencia en el poliamor. Su vivencia involucra a Sergio, con quien tiene una relaci'on desde hace 7 a~nos, y a Israel, con quien lleva 5 a~nos. En ese tiempo la relaci'on "trieja" ha "supervivido a pesar de problemas y adaptaciones".Un poliamoroso no necesariamente debe andar con milesIsrael
La mujer cuenta a Kaja Negra: "Sergio e Israel son muy distintos, pero tienen cosas en com'un". Los celos han sido un factor complicado al momento de mantener la relaci'on: "luego se les sale (a ellos) de vez en cuando el macho territorial".
Podr'ia pensarse, de primera impresi'on, que una relaci'on poliamorosa equivale a un "andemos todos"; sin embargo, la pareja Diana - Israel enfatiza que no es as'i, pues se trata de "tener proyectos de vida con esas personas".
Israel, es delgado y gusta de escribir, toma la palabra "todos (en la relaci'on) hemos expresado en diferente forma y tiempo (los celos), ha sido un reconocimiento constante, implica asumir que la cuesti'on de los celos es personal ", dice. Diana lo mira, y luego explica que por eso el poliamor implica una comunicaci'on permanente.
C`oMO EXPLICAR EL POLIAMOR?
La "idea del amor de pareja" refiere, de manera convencional, al v'inculo entre dos personas que eligen "vivirse"; pese a ello, en la historia humana las formas de llevar a cabo dichas uniones han tenido sus variantes. Diana cuenta que su modo de vida llama la atenci'on de otras personas, incluso, alguien de su trabajo la abord'o pidi'endole que le hablara del "swinger", 'el hombre le dijo: "pues qu'e el poliamor no es como el 'swinger'". Diana r'ie y niega con la cabeza.
La mujer retoma a pensadores como Michel Foucault para argumentar su postura y expresa: "te dicen a ultranza que tienes que ser mon'ogamo y casarte, ?por qu'e?". El lenguaje corporal de Diana se vuelve m'as vigoroso, ella prosigue: "estamos haciendo un cuestionamiento al tema del 'amor', se ve al amor con la aspiraci'on rom'antica, victoriana, de medias naranjas, lo que hace el poliamor es que va a cuestionar las formas en las que nos ense~naron a amar".
JULIO
Julio Jerez es un hombre que tambi'en vive el poliamor. "La curiosidad me llev'o a darle clic a un enlace en un correo" dice. A partir de ah'i el t'ermino lo condujo a involucrarse en talleres y cinedebates, se dio cuenta de que hab'ia m'as personas interesadas en esa nueva opci'on para establecer relaciones.La palabra infidelidad no cabe en el poliamor, pues seg'un nuestra concepci'on, en el poliamor se respeta el derecho de toda persona de ser libre, por lo tanto ni t'u eres mi pertenencia, ni yo la tuya, eres libre de tus decisionesJulioJulio se integr'o a Colectivo Poliamor en M'exico hace un par de a~nos. El grupo se ha vuelto activo en redes sociales y ha sido invitado al festival de La Digna Rabia, el Foro Social Mundial, adem'as de haber estado en La Casa del Lago y la Facultad de Filosof'ia y Letras de la UNAM.El hombre, egresado de la Facultad de Ciencias Pol'iticas y Sociales, explica que el trabajo en el Colectivo Poliamor se enfoca a distintos puntos, pues, cabe se~nalar, la forma de concebir el t'ermino tiene sus variantes, "hay quienes le dan un enfoque m'as social, otros m'as pol'itico y otros m'as le dan m'as peso al aspecto emocional y psicol'ogico".Julio menciona que al mismo tiempo que se integr'o al Colectivo, su vida personal tambi'en se modificaba seg'un su nuevo paradigma de relaciones. "Hasta cierto punto fue f'acil para m'i". Dice, y ya con la experiencia adquirida al trabajar talleres como 'Transitando hacia el amor libre', reconoce que a veces "no todos aquellos que se acercan al poliamor terminan embelesados con la idea, pero se dan cuenta de que es un cambio interno".
ASUMIRSE POLIAMOROSO
Israel, es enf'atico: "un poliamoroso no necesariamente debe andar con miles", y menciona una sentencia clave: "yo quiero estar con esa persona por lo que es, pero reconozco que esa persona puede ser amada por otra, no hay un derecho de exclusividad". Ah'i radica un principio del poliamor: la libertad.
Igual que Diana e Israel, Julio asegura: "la palabra infidelidad no cabe en el poliamor, pues seg'un nuestra concepci'on, en el poliamor se respeta el derecho de toda persona de ser libre, por lo tanto ni t'u eres mi pertenencia, ni yo la tuya, eres libre de tus decisiones".
Es decir, en este tipo de "amor m'ultiple" se va de "la fidelidad a la lealtad, implica una honestidad, hay una construcci'on de acuerdos para establecer de qu'e manera vamos a estar t'u y yo". Aunque Julio matiza, "el poliamor es una posibilidad, y una capacidad de las personas, es un derecho, no es un agandalle".
Diana reconoce que al asumirse poliamoroso tambi'en "se cae en crisis, pero, a veces es la manera para volverte a construir". Al respecto, Israel agrega: "las decisiones implican toma de postura y la angustia de qu'e quiero, a veces uno quiere s'olo la felicidad de la ignorancia".
POLIAMOR A LA MEXICANA?
El movimiento de Poliamor en pa'ises como Estados Unidos o Espa~na tiene una dimensi'on distinta al caso mexicano. "Los norteamericanos usan banderitas, tienen un d'ia especial, hacen convenciones", comenta Diana. En Espa~na sucede algo similar, se habla cada vez con mayor libertad al respecto, aunque a'un hay ciertas reservas.
En M'exico, el gran reto seg'un los entrevistados es el contexto. Para Israel hay que "superar la ignorancia, la falta de educaci'on, la falta de crear personas con la capacidad de pensar". No s'olo eso, Julio observa que incluso quienes son poliamorosos a veces lo ocultan por miedo a ser discriminados. Hay rechazo a la propuesta del poliamor porque se le considera como "una aberraci'on, pues no es normal". Diana comenta: "s'i, hay gente que nos 'morbosea' y me ven como una puta, nos ven como promiscuos".No apostamos a que todos sean poliamorosos, sino a que lo comprendan, que haya la opci'on de llegar de monogamias impuestas a monogamias trabajadas y que cada quien decidaDiana
Sin embargo, tras la incursi'on del Colectivo Poliamor en zonas rurales y en la urbe Julio cree: "As'i como nosotros hay otras personas con deseos de hacer las cosas diferentes, hay algo dentro de nosotros que nos hace sentir desasociados". Sobre este aspecto, Diana revela que el poliamor ha sido respetado por personas de movimientos como el del EZLN, incluso ellos le ense~naron que "las luchas inician desde los cuerpos".
Diana argumenta: "no apostamos a que todos sean poliamorosos, sino a que lo comprendan, que haya la opci'on de llegar de monogamias impuestas a monogamias trabajadas y que cada quien decida". Para ella el poliamor no s'olo es un estilo de vida, tambi'en es un proyecto pol'itico, aunque, afirma respeta a aquellos poliamorosos que no desean involucrarse en la pol'itica.
Los poliamorosos coinciden en que su cr'itica no es un ataque a la monogamia o al matrimonio. Lo mejor ser'a que cada persona se eduque y decida c'omo vivir sus relaciones. "Hay quien quiere abrazar al poliamor como una panacea y tampoco es el punto", dicen.
A D`oNDE LLEVAR SU PROPUESTA?
A trav'es de talleres, charlas y las redes sociales Colectivo Poliamor y sus integrantes hacen llegar a los interesados su propuesta. "El primer paso es plantearse que existe una alternativa", afirma Julio. Incluso, el colectivo podr'ia participar en un proyecto de documental del tema junto con 4 pa'ises latinoamericanos.
Para Diana e Israel la "lucha" es poco a poco, m'as si consideran que hablar del tema en medios es, a veces, una complicaci'on pues se trata la informaci'on de manera superficial, "el poliamor no es una idea que queramos vender, no queremos que el poliamor sea expuesto como una moda, nos interesa la difusi'on como alternativa, propuesta".
A largo plazo estos poliamorosos buscan "sobrevivir", a corto plazo trabajan en "llevar al arte esto", organizan ya un performance, adem'as le dan seguimiento a trabajos acad'emicos "queremos cuajar un libro, pues nos gustar'ia hacer una antolog'ia de experiencias, hay que sistematizar, pues en M'exico no se ha hecho esto". En la agenda tambi'en est'a la b'usqueda del reconocimiento legal para las uniones poliamorosas.Hay quien quiere abrazar al poliamor como una panacea y tampoco es el puntoDiana
Diana e Israel aseguran: "los poliamorosos pensamos que la honestidad es lo importante, promovemos la equidad, la salud sexual, optamos por la creaci'on de acuerdos, no dar nada por hecho, nada por sentado, todo est'a abierto a la discusi'on conforme va cambiando la relaci'on, por ejemplo si se da la aparici'on de otra persona, hijos".
QU'e OPINAS T^e, LE ENTRAR'iAS AL POLIAMOR?
ENT'ERATE:
Variaciones del Poliamor
Polifidelidad. Entre quienes conforman la relaci'on se establece el contacto sexual a los involucrados.
Relaciones jer'arquicas. Se establece una relaci'on "primaria" y "secundaria".
Poligamia. Una persona se casa con varios esposos (poliandria) o varias esposas (poliginia), pueden mantener relaciones entre s'i.
Relaci'on grupal. Todos los integrantes se sienten parte de la relaci'on en un mismo nivel.
Redes de relaciones conexas. Cada persona puede establecer sus relaciones en diversos grados de importancia, con varias personas.
Relaciones mono-poliamorosas. Uno de los integrantes es mon'ogamo pero acepta que el otro sostenga relaciones externas.
Arreglos geom'etricos. Se describe por el n'umero de personas involucradas y su relaci'on de conexi'on. (tr`io, cuadra, etc. )
Personajes poliamorosos: Jean- Paul Sartre, Simone de Beuvoir, William Wilkie Collins, Percy Shelley
"*Si quieres contactar y saber m'as del Poliamor:"
http://mx.groups.yahoo.com/group/poliamor en mexico
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Poliamor-en-Mexic/105691430355
http://poliamor-en-mexico.hi5.com
http://www.radiomenteabierta.com/ludico/?cat=3
LA DIVINIDAD NOS BENDICE SIEMPRE. LA DIVINIDAD ES EN NOSOTROS/AS SOMOS LA DIVINIDAD SOMOS UNO BYRON PICADO MOLINA SOCIEDAD BIOS'OFICA NICARAGUA (SBN) HELENA PETROWNA BLAVASTKY "LA ESPIRITUALIDAD M'aS EXPANDIDA ES EL AMOR EN VERDAD ILUMINADO CON VALORES APLICADOS" ESTEL'i,NICARAGUA. AM'eRICA CENTRAL (RED NICARAG~aENSE DE LUZ) HTTP://SINTESIS-NICALUZ.GALEON.COM
BLOG HTTP://RENLUZ.BLOGSPOT.COM/ BLOG http://huellasestelares.blogspot.com/ ( RED ESTEL'i CULTURAL) HTTP://TEXOXES.GALEON.COM
ESCUELA DE ESCRITORES http://escueladescritores.blogspot.com
Como Muchos Sabemos Hace Siglos Se Inicio La Inquisicion, Justo Cuando Pensamos Se Habia Terminado, Esta Ya Regreso, En Facebook Existen Cuentas De Paganos Y Paginas, Bien Ahi Una Llamada Wicca Mexico exactamente HOY Hace Poco De Una Hora Una Fanatica Religiosa Ah Escrito:
MadresCristianas ContraelPaganismojuvenil
"Wicca Mexico Es El Mayor Centro De Reclutamiento Pagano De La Red, Trabaja Como Parte De Una Organizacion Masonica Que Busca Capturar Jovenes Para Asi Iniciarlos A La Wicca, Luego La Masoneria Y Finalmente El Satanismo."
Afirma Una Madre De Familia En Facebook, Lo Cual Se~nora Esta Completamente EQUIVOCADO, Esta Se~nora Afirma Haber Perdido A Su Hija De El Buen Camino Y Haber Sido Alejado De Wicca, Como Se Sabe Wicca No Recluta Jovenes, Yo Nunca Fui Reclutado, Y Nunca He Reclutado A Alguien, He Ense~nado A Personas A Usar Su Poder Porque Me Lo Han Pedido Mas Nunca Los He Reclutado, Esta Se~nora Aun Piensa Que Vivimos En Los Tiempos De La Hoguera, Donde Si No Creemos En Cristo Debemos Morir.
Este Tipo De Personas Me Dan Lastima, Y No Es Por Tratar De Da~nar, Pero Si Ellos Aseguran Ser Unas Buenas Personas Porque Han Venido A Hacer Cuentas Y Decirnos Que Nos Iremos Al Infierno, Este Tipo De Personas No Tienen TOLERANCIA,y Esta Ocultando Muchas Cosas; Algo Por Lo Cual La Iglesia Catolica Ah Perdido Mucho Fieles.
Le Deseo Lo Mejor A Esta Persona Y A Los Demas Fanaticos Religiosos, Es Que Les Vaya Muy Bien Y Los Dioses Los Bendigan, No Resta Nada Mas Que Decir Solo Que Abran Los Ojos Y Se Den Cuenta Que NO Es La Unica Religion Y Lo Mas Importante QUE RESPETEN.
Source: just-wicca.blogspot.com
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25 WAYS TO CELEBRATE THE TURNING OF THE WHEEL TO THE SUMMER SOLSTICE.
Watch the sun rise and set on this longest midsummer day.
Keep a candle burning all day as a lovely homage to the power of the sun.
Celebrate solar energy at Litha by decorating your home with yellow, gold, orange, and red.
Cherry Quartz Sun Catcher
Go outside into the countryside or your local park and enjoy being at one with our mother earth.
Make or buy pretty Sun-Catchers to hang in your windows to welcome the sun into your home at Litha.
Leave out milk and honey as an offering to the Fae folk
Make a list of everything you wish to manifest during the next six months
Practice candle or fire divination.
Make a sunny Litha decoration from dried oranges.
Deck your house with Birch, Fennel, St. John's Wort, Orpin and White Lilies, traditionally popular at Litha.
Tie Vervain, Rosemary, and Hyssop with white thread and dip the tips into a bowl of spring water and sprinkle the water around the house to chase out negativity.
Have an outdoor breakfast picnic to welcome the summer Solstice.
Make a pledge to our Mother Earth, Gaia, for something that you will do to improve the environment and then begin carrying it out
Go bird watching. Take a guidebook, so you will know what you are looking at. The birds may bless you with a feather.Paint images of the sun or make sun models from discarded packaging and hang them up around your home.
Wear gemstones in green or warm colours such as tigers eye or malachite.
Tigers Eye Pentacle Protection Earrings
Make solar water by leaving a bowl of springwater under the midday sun for a few hours and then use to drink or cleanse your crystals.
Lavender is abundant at this time of year, collect some, hang it upside down and then make into herb pillows for restful sleep.
Leave any crystals or items of jewellery you would like to imbue with the sun's energy out in the sun for a few hours during the day of Litha.
When you get the opportunity at some point during the day of the summer solstice, stand with your feet firmly grounded and raise your arm and palms upwards towards the sun. Imagine the sun's vital energy coursing through your body filling you with love and light.
Burn sun oils and incense such as Orange Essential Oil and Frankincense to welcome warmth and light into your home.
Build a fairy house with your children to welcome the fae folk into your garden.
Bring roses into your home, as this is the Goddess flower for this time of the year.
Make a garland out of garden flowers, or a daisy chain.
Tie a bunch of Fennel with red ribbons and hang over the door for long life and protection of the home.
However you spend this long midsummers day of Litha, alone or with friends or family, enjoy it and try and spend some time in Mother Nature. Sing and dance if you feel like it, do whatever comes naturally to you to celebrate summer and enjoy the day.
Litha blessings to you, Alison xx
Sources: Cassandra Eason:Pagan in the City: How to Live and Work by Natural Cycles in the Everyday World Glennie Kindred:Sacred Celebrations : A Sourcebook
http://www.astarte-moon.co.uk
by mapantsula
Reposted from: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/19/18451/0971
I am an atheist and a professor at Virginia Tech. Dinesh D'Souza says that I don't exist, that I have nothing to say, that I am nowhere to be found.
But I am here.
Dinesh D'Souza writes:
Notice something interesting about the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings? Atheists are nowhere to be found. Every time there is a public gathering there is talk of God and divine mercy and spiritual healing. Even secular people like the poet Nikki Giovanni use language that is heavily drenched with religious symbolism and meaning.
The atheist writer Richard Dawkins has observed that according to the findings of modern science, the universe has all the properties of a system that is utterly devoid of meaning. The main characteristic of the universe is pitiless indifference. Dawkins further argues that we human beings are simply agglomerations of molecules, assembled into functional units over millennia of natural selection, and as for the soul--well, that's an illusion!
To no one's surprise, Dawkins has not been invited to speak to the grieving Virginia Tech community. What this tells me is that if it's difficult to know where God is when bad things happen, it is even more difficult for atheism to deal with the problem of evil. The reason is that in a purely materialist universe, immaterial things like good and evil and souls simply do not exist. For scientific atheists like Dawkins, Cho's shooting of all those people can be understood in this way--molecules acting upon molecules.
If this is the best that modern science has to offer us, I think we need something more than modern science.
It is hardly surprising that Dinesh D'Souza is once again not only profoundly mistaken but also deeply offensive. But I thought it worthwhile to say something in response, not because most people would put the point in the same morally reptilian manner as D'Souza, but because there is at least some vague sense amongst people that we atheists don't quite grasp the enormity of Monday's events, that we tend towards a cold-hearted manner of thinking, that we condescend to expressions of community, meaning, or bereavement.
So I will tell you, Mr D'Souza, what I grasp and where I am to be found.
I understand why my wife was frantic on Monday morning, trying to contact me through jammed phone lines. I can still feel the tenor of her voice resonating in my veins when she got through to me, how she shook with relief and tears. I remember how my mother looked the last time she thought she might have lost a son, so I have a vivid image of her and a thousand other mothers that hasn't quite left my mind yet.
I am to be found in Lane Stadium, looking out over a sea of maroon and orange, trying not to break down when someone mentions the inviolability of the classroom and the bond between a teacher and his students. That is my classroom, Mr D'Souza, my students, my chosen responsibility in this godless life, my small office in the care of humanity and its youth.
I know that brutal death can come unannounced into any life, but that we should aspire to look at our approaching death with equanimity, with a sense that it completes a well-walked trail, that it is a privilege to have our stories run through to their proper end. I don't need to live forever to live once and to live completely. It is precisely because I don't believe there is an afterlife that I am so horrified by the stabbing and slashing and tattering of so many lives around me this week, the despoliation and ruination of the only thing each of us will ever have.
We atheists do not believe in gods, or angels, or demons, or souls that endure, or a meeting place after all is said and done where more can be said and done and the point of it all revealed. We don't believe in the possibility of redemption after our lives, but the necessity of compassion in our lives. We believe in people, in their joys and pains, in their good ideas and their wit and wisdom. We believe in human rights and dignity, and we know what it is for those to be trampled on by brutes and vandals. We may believe that the universe is pitilessly indifferent but we know that friends and strangers alike most certainly are not. We despise atrocity, not because a god tells us that it is wrong, but because if not massacre then nothing could be wrong.
I am to be found on the drillfield with a candle in my hand. "Amazing Grace" is a beautiful song, and I can sing it for its beauty and its peacefulness. I don't believe in any god, but I do believe in those people who have struggled through pain and found beauty and peace in their religion. I am not at odds with them any more than I am at odds with Americans when we sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" just because I am not American. I can sing "Lean on Me" and chant for the Hokies in just the same way and for just the same reason.
I know that the theory of natural selection is the best explanation for the emergence and development of human beings and other species. I know that our bodies are composed of flesh, bone, and blood, and cells, and molecules. I also know that this does not account for all aspects of our lives, but I know no-one who ever thought it did. That is why we have science, and novels, and friendships, and poetry, and practical jokes, and photography, and a sense of awe at the immensity of time and the planet's natural history, and walks with loved ones along the Huckleberry Trail, and atheist friends who keep kosher because, well just because, and passionate reverence for both those heroes who believed and those who did not, and have all this without needing a god to stitch together the tapestry of life.
I believe this young man was both sick and vicious, that his actions were both heinous and the result of a phenomenon that we must try to understand precisely so that we can prevent it in future. I have no sympathy for him. Given what he has done, I am not particularly sorry he has spared the world his continued existence; there was no possibility of redemption for him. You think we atheists have difficulty with the concept of evil. Quite the contrary. We can accept a description of this man as evil. We just don't think that is an explanation. That is why we are exasperated at your mindless demonology.
I feel humbled by the sense of composure of a family who lost someone on Monday. I will not insult that dignity by pretending there is sense to be made of this senselessness, or that there is some greater consolation to be found in the loss of a husband and son.
I know my students are now more than students.
You can find us next week in the bloodied classrooms of a violated campus, trying to piece our thoughts and lives and studies back together.
With or without a belief in a god, with or without your asinine bigotry, we will make progress, we will breathe life back into our university, I will succeed in explaining this or that point, slowly, eventually, in a ham-handed way, at risk of tears half-way through, my students will come to feel comfortable again in a classroom with no windows or escape route, and hell yes we will prevail.
You see Mr D'Souza, I am an atheist professor at Virginia Tech and a man of great faith. Not faith in your god. Faith in my people.
Update
Mr D'Souza has more to say:
And boy the atheists are up in arms! They're mad as hell about my post "Where is Atheism When Bad Things Happen." Many responders informed me that tragedies are normally considered a problem for religion, not atheism. Where is God when bad things happen? Yes, people, I know this. My point was that if evil and suffering are a problem for religion--and they are--they are an even bigger problem for atheism.
The reason is suggested from the quotation given above. When there is a tragedy like the one at Virginia Tech, the ones who are suffering cannot help asking questions, "Why did this have to happen? Why is there so much evil in the world? How can I possibly go on after losing my child?" And so on.
In my post I noted that Richard Dawkins had not been invited to address the mourners at Virginia Tech. Several atheists--who haven't yet lost their fundamentalist habit of reading--took this sarcastic statement literally. "So what? The Pope hasn't been invited either!" My point was that atheism has nothing to offer in the face of tragedy except C'est la vie. Deal with it. Get over it. This is why the ceremonies were suffused with religious rhetoric. Only the language of religion seems appropriate to the magnitude of tragedy. Only God seems to have the power to heal hearts in such circumstances. If someone started to read from Dawkins on why there is no good and no evil in the universe, people would start vomiting or leaving.
One clever writer informs me that atheists don't deny meaning, they simply insist that meaning is not inherent in the universe, it is created by us. Okay, pal, here's the Virginia Tech situation. Go create some meaning and share it with the rest of us Give us that atheist sermon with you in the pulpit of the campus chapel. I'm not being facetious here. I really want to hear what the atheist would tell the grieving mothers.
We think the pain is complete and absolute. We know it is.
We think that nothing can heal these hearts, that time can only take the sharpness off the agony, that only in time can beauty be wholeheartedly seen again or laughter felt deep inside.
We insist there is no sense or meaning to be made of this massacre. There was only sense and meaning to be created within the lives of each person gunned down. That is why we are horrified by it. That is precisely why it is so horrific.
We don't believe these people have died for anything: God's plan, as a beacon to the rest of us, to be a vivid memento mori for all. We just believe they have died, brutally and without mercy. We refuse to lie to grieving mothers out of some patronising sense that a pleasant myth is more respectful than a terrible truth.
Those of us with the slightest shred of deceny do not tell widows to deal with it, to get over it. That the world can be callous is no reason to be so myself. I know that no family could ever get over this loss, that no family should ever be expected to get over this loss -- either by themselves, by religious rhetoricians bearing false platitudes, or by inane political pundits -- but that not getting over the loss does not preclude some other kind of happiness, some other source of joy, at some other time. Not now, not in this moment, not when they have moved on, but only when it comes to them one day, like light dawning slowly.
We know the world is cold, and that only people can make it warmer. We believe we can live in this imperfection, like a child can live without fulfilling her desperate wish for wings. We rail against injustice and tragedy, not the absence of deeper guarantees.
Some of us are those grieving mothers and wives and friends and colleagues. Some of us are inconsolable, but dignified for all that.
There is no language appropriate to the magnitude of the tragedy. Not stories about a poor man nailed to a cross, not fine words about a time for healing and a time for dying, not even the lines of the poet who, in the midst of his own horror, struggles to ask:
How can I embellish this carnival of slaughter,
How decorate the massacre?
But it is that same poet who also writes of death:
I have certainly
no faith in miracles, yet I long
that when death come to take me
from this great song
of a world, it permits me to return
to your door and knock
and knock
and call out: "If you need someone
to share your anguish, your simplest pain,
then let me be the one.
If not, let me again
embark, this time never
to return, in that final direction,
forever.
Spring has come to Virginia. Monday morning was the last snow we will have this season. All those who have come to Blacksburg this week have told us how beautiful our countryside is. They're right, of course, there is all this terrible, unforgiving beauty here.
Second Update
I would leave this alone, but Mr D'Souza is once again demonstrating his truly remarkable vapidity:
Actually my point was a simple one, and it seems to be unrefuted. Atheism seems to have nothing to say to people when there is serious bereavement or tragedy. Of course atheists have feelings and there were undoubtedly atheists among the mourners at Virginia Tech. But the Richard Dawkins philosophy--that we live in a meaningless world where there is no good and no evil--whatever its intellectual merit, seems arid and unconsoling when human beings are really hurting.
Atheists are hurting here themselves, and we don't see much to console ourselves or our colleagues and students and their families. But there is nothing arid in what we believe. Our lives are replete with colour, and friendships, and loving relationships, and curious books to read, and papers to write, and difficult points to figure out. There may be no deity, but there is a world of wonder to take its place.
And this week, our lives have also been trashed by this brutal man, So part of that world is heartache and horror, and in the middle of that heartache and horror we will spurn your trite consolations, your happily-ever-after fairy tales, as a denial of our grief, as a repudiation of the reality of this pain.
Atheists like to portray themselves as devotees of reason, but read the responses and see how much reason you discover there. Rather, it looks like these fellows hate God, and this hate spills over to anyone who brings up God's name. Call it the atheism of revenge. They blame God for screwing them over in some way, and unbelief is their form of payback.
How can I hate an entity that I don't believe exists? If I did actually blame a god for something, then I could hardly be an atheist. Atheism is not high school silent treatment, Mr D'Souza. It is not the rejection, forsaking, or loathing of a god, but the belief that there is no god there to reject, forsake, or loathe.
We atheists are liberated from the belief that these events must make sense, that there must be something else to it other than the eruption of a psychopathic impulse. We are horrified, not puzzled, by its absurdity.
I don't blame a god for screwing over my campus, for murdering my colleagues, for terrorising my students, Mr D'Souza, I blame the man who thought he was your new christ.
Related posting: What caused the shooting?
"To monitor comments posted to this topic, use."
Kali
Kali is the greatest closely realized of all the Grim Goddesses. It has been claimed that Her name is resultant from the Hindu word for Distance, yet also major "black."
She is also called Durga.
Her very defenses is intended to distress. She is black and high, with fangs and claws. She wears a girdle of cut off arms, a necklace of skulls or cut off heads, trinkets of low-grade corpses, cobras as bracelets or garlands.
Her jaw is blood-smeared. She is accompanied by she-demons.
Habitually She is prohibited standing or dancing on the association of the god Shiva. Here and there in She is feasts on his guts.
Yet She also is a loving mother, and fantastically in that aspect is worshipped by millions of Hindus.
Cast-off to a god that is all-"good", Westerners wear found it grumpy to understand why Hindus would exalt such a deity, or why their art emphasizes Her greatest revolting forms.
"Tantric people attending worship of Kali concept it essential to encompass her Pledge, the terror of death, as unhesitatingly as they recognizable Blessings from her sensational, gardening, protective aspect. For them, wisdom intended learning that no coin has simply one side: as death can't be present not up to scratch life, so also life can't be present not up to scratch death. Kali's sages communed with her in the grisly idea of the wake showground, to become familiarized with images of death. They understood, 'His Goddess, his loving Blood relation in time, who gives him beginning and loves him in the flesh, also destroys him in the flesh. His image of Her is suspended if he does not know Her as his tearer and devourer.'"
-- Barbara Tourist, The Woman's Calendar of Mythology and Secrets
Changed photo, paramount black and white, of coppice statue from the 18th or
19th century, Nepal, now in the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Prefer Reading:
* The Goddess Kali, part of a Web site dependable to Tantrism. Warning: very
slow loading.
* The Grim Goddess and me, an passionately group and well-written record of
beginning to know Kali, by Del Marshall.
Source: religion-events.blogspot.com
WITCHCRAFT, YOUR LIFE AND HOW TO MAKE IT FIT TOGETHERThe single greatest problem that most Wiccans and 'proto-Wiccans' especially face, is that of shifting our lives around so that our Craft fits in with all the day to day demands that we have as members of a modern society.Family, work, non-Wiccan friends, clashes between festivals or Esbats and other demands, explaining to others why we can't go to their parties or why they can't come round and visit at certain times, and those awkward moments when you frantically scrabble for a 'reasonable' explanation as to why there are candles, figurines, flowers and stones on a table in your front room and a lingering smell of incense.....Been there- done it- lied creatively as to why there's an altar in your living room and candle wax on the carpet?I have to say that it's at times like this that we sometimes find out who our true friends are.We have to start from this: If someone truly likes or loves you, then discovering that you're into something that makes you happy, encourages and focuses your creativity, and brings meaning, purpose and fulfillment into your life should make them happy too.If it doesn't, well then perhaps their friendship or love isn't as deep as you thought. Sure they might be worried about you- the gutter religions have managed to link Wicca and Satanism together very successfully in many peoples minds, and those not too well informed can be concerned to discover that their nearest and dearest are 'suddenly' into something strange and potentially threatening, but if you take a deep breath and explain simply but clearly what these things are about for you, then if they truly do love you they'll at least listen positively and be prepared to accept that what you're into isn't harmful.That's ok for real friends, but family and our circle of less deep relationships might not be so simple:We all tend to have few real friends, but a much larger circle of 'mates', acquaintances, and people we might term friends, but who we are perhaps more accurately just on friendly terms with.These are the people we might go out for a drink with, might work with but get on sufficiently well with to socialize with them also, the mates from the local, from school and similar.If some of these discover that you're a Witch/Pagan/Druid you may well very quickly discover whether they truly are friends or not. My best advice here is to do your best not to let them find out, and then to take a strong stance if they do- stand your ground without being aggressive, don't bother trying to explain if they try to give you grief, and simply out stare them- if you are 'outed', you may as well be strong as you've nothing to lose have you? I don't mean you should be ashamed of who and what you are, but rather that the Craft is something to treasure, and like me with that bottle of 12 year old malt Whisky I received for my birthday, you may also be choosy of whom you share your treasures with.In among your circle of acquaintances though you may well also discover that some of them are more open and interested than others.And then there's family: Family are easy to deal with. Unless you are a Witch with dogmatic born-again in-laws, then the simple strategy for dealing with family relative to this is to just let them make their own explanations, steer that in a vague but positive direction, sprinkle in some general-purpose new-age terms- Feng Shui, crystals, sun sign Astrology, Reiki, empowerment, healing, etc and guide them towards creating a bland, vague rationalization for themselves that will help them come to terms with your strangeness but without it being anything for them to get excited about. They might make little jokes at family gatherings, but in front of non-family members they'll actually become quite proud of you- having a weirdo in the family is almost as good as having a child with an 'ology in the family.I'd advise caution if you have children at school as your children may well be taunted or even bullied on account of your activities if you aren't too careful of what gets seen or talked about. If you can avoid it by being discrete that is the best policy. if it is discovered that you're a Witch and your children are bullied, go see the head teacher. There are very few schools in Britain now without at least a few Sikh, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish or Jehovah Witness children. if their kids are protected from bullying because of their beliefs, yours should be also. If push comes to shove threaten the press, civil liberties, play the 'race card'- if Muslim/Hindu/Jewish children can't be picked on, neither can Wiccan children, and use your wiles and wits to make the teaching staff as uncomfortable as possible. Most people will take the path of least resistance. If you cause no trouble but your children are bullied, cause lots of trouble. if it's out in the open, bring it right out- or at least convincingly threaten to. Most normal people will back away nowadays without the mob of accepted prejudice to back them up- if push comes to shove, always put them on the spot but provide an easy way out for them. let them know clearly that if the bullying stops you won't need to talk to the press about institutionalized prejudice at their school. Work: Potentially this is tricky. Strictly speaking you are protected from religious discrimination by recent European rulings, but in practice some of our people will be subtly discriminated against at the very least if they are outed.If possible use the same kind of strategies at work as I've outlined for dealing with family. if you are found out, stay vague, guide them in bland, vague but positive directions, and let them create their own rationalizations. Most ordinary people will go along with this if you don't shove what you do in their faces- unless you've seriously upset your boss or work colleagues so that they leap at any opportunity to do you down, they don't want their vague pprehensions of day to day 'reality' to be shaken or disturbed at all. if you insist on wearing 'goth' to work when everyone else is in office 'uniform, then you're asking for trouble. if you keep your pentagram under your blouse/shirt but get 'caught' reading a book about Wicca in your lunch break, then your colleagues will either be easily led into bland rationalizations or may even make an appointment for a Tarot reading. You'd be surprised.Fitting it in: Is never so difficult if you have learned how to use 'headology; as I've detailed above. Actually it's often easier if you are a Witch, as many Witches; especially Wiccan-Witches; are quite adept at the art of creative social camouflage and aren't usually inclined towards gothic clothing styles or standing out in crowds- more often than not you can spot the Wiccans at pagan gatherings by their knowing look rather than their clothing. Unless of course they're in the mood to dress up, but that's another matter.If you are newly upon the Wiccan path and have joined a Coven you'll undoubtedly have clashes between such as Esbats or Sabbats and social and family activities at times. There's no easy way around this and sometimes you'll just need to decide what is most important in your life. More often than not you can compromise or make arrangements in ways that make life easier by not having clashes between coven, work or family activities, but sometimes you just have to set your priorities and choose how to work with them.If you persevere you will find that your life shakes down around what else is going on- just like having a new child in the house when you start a family, or starting a new job with shift work. There's a period of upheaval, but then that settles into new patterns and new routines. Just the same with Wicca: There may well be a temporary period of upheaval in your life, but a new, better pattern will emerge if you stay with the process and flow with that.Above all else remember this- if you're a Witch you're not a victim, and sometimes you have to be crafty to be a Crafter.Blessed be.Alan TickhillContributed by Morning Star
Origin: wiccalessons.blogspot.com
