Apocalypse Prophecies

We humans have some sort of weird obsession with the End of the World. Not just now, but always.  

D'OH

If Family Radio (and their supporters) have it right, it may come at the end of this month. According to others, sometime next year. If you’ve looked around a bit, you’ll know it wouldn’t be the first time in the history of mankind that people have looked at some old books or up at the sky and decided, “Well, this is it! Time to stop planning for the future, because there isn’t one.”

While listening to NPR the other night, I heard a couple who believe in the May 21st date speaking about what they’ve been doing since they believe that the end of the world, or at least the beginning of the end, is coming in just over a week: and everyone who is a truly faithful Christian will be lifted up to heaven. They have budgeted everything so that by the time the 21st rolls around, they will have absolutely nothing left in their savings. The wife (or at least girlfriend, I wasn’t sure from just listening) commented at one point that they have a baby daughter. I admire their faith and resolve, but I was somewhat aghast at the fact that they hadn’t decided to leave just a little money - just in case - because the idea that the world will end on the 21st wasn’t exactly divinely issued.

When is right to hurt someone?

    Sometimes we need to do things that just aren’t nice. How do we know when that is, though? What if no one is actually being hurt, physically - is it better to just stand aside and let something continue?

I’ve been trying to be a ‘better person’ (whatever that means) - and a big part of that is trying not to be ‘unnecessarily cruel.’ That is, don’t gossip, don’t hurt people thoughtlessly, etc. Even if someone raises my ire, better to ignore them and move on than get into an unnecessary conflict. But what is the right course of action if there’s something or someone bothering me, or me and my friends?

    Every week, I gather with friends to watch movies and shows of group interest. It’s an official club recognized by the college we attend, with a club ’mission’ and everything - in not so many words, the purpose of our group is to hang out, watch things, and have a good time. Sometimes we play board games or cards, but for the most part, it’s just a place for us to get together. Most of us have classes or work schedules that prevent us from meeting all together for the rest of the week, so it’s like a weekly reunion.
    Our club has been changing and growing for some years, and gone through splits, unions, and changes in leadership. I consider most of the people who show up pretty good friends, and most of those friends I met in club - and we get new people moving in and out of the group all the time. But, it being open to anyone in the student body, sometimes people who don’t exactly ‘click’ with the rest of the group show up.
    For the most part, none of us really mind. Some of the people are pretty awesome, even if they don’t come every week, and we usually hang out at one of our houses at the end of the night after club is over, so anyone who proves to be a bother isn’t a huge issue - they just don‘t get invited along. Any annoyance we deal with during club is just an annoyance at club - and that’s all. Even then, we don’t typically run into any huge problems.
    It being a gathering where we watch things on a single TV - typically recently released movies or new episodes of series we’re all following - the greatest annoyance is background noise. We have club rules (posted, as well as in a binder for anyone to look at) against playing videogames with the sound on, loud conversation, loud, unrelated talk or discussion (that’s what the student center is for!) and general distraction. Anyone who breaks these rules doesn’t just get kicked out of the room without a chance to stop being distracting - they get Warnings. After a number of Warnings have been issued to the same person, the Officers of the club meet and discuss what action to take - usually this ends up in some sort of confrontation, and if it’s really bad, a month long suspension. Multiple suspensions may result in a Ban, but this has yet to happen - and we‘ve only ever issued one suspension. Depending on how distracting or inconsiderate a person is being, warnings may range from 3-10 or not even counting. After all, we’ve all been excited by something or laughed inappropriately loudly, or forgotten that there aren’t subtitles on if it’s an anime, so it’d be wrong to give someone a Warning because of a small slip up. But, when it’s a constant issue, like someone who comes in every club meeting and is known to make a lot of noise or be generally disagreeable to the majority of the room, it can be a little difficult to deal with. We’ve had to deal with such an issue a number of times, and it usually follows the same steps:

-The person comes in and rather than sit and watch what’s on the screen, will attempt to strike up loud or unrelated conversation.
-They are asked to please quiet down or leave the room if it‘s really bad. This may happen multiple times before a warning occurs.
-Feeling like the people who issue the warning (typically one of the top three officers of the club) are ‘mean‘ or ‘unfair,’ the person being Warned will sit in the back of the room and complain to anyone who will listen about how rude and hateful we are.
-The person being Warned will continue to attend the club, every week, and continue to complain from the back, or carry on having loud conversations or being distracting, and receiving warnings.
-Tension will eventually reach a head, and the person is confronted by our ‘Warden’ - aka, the Officer responsible for dealing with people who are being a constant bother.
-The person storms out and may return at a later date, more subdued, or not at all - though they may continue to complain about us outside of the group.

Morals, and 'Morals'

One of my friends believes that religion, ALL religion, is pointless superstition. He has taken the stance, more or less, that most religious conflicts come down to ‘who has the best imaginary friend.‘ I don’t know that I completely disagree - many laws and rules come off as archaic and discriminatory in modern society (rules preventing women from being as ‘free’ as men in society, or rules against homosexuality for example) and it can be difficult to pin point which laws were formed with the goal of making a peaceful society or just giving religious significance to things already in place. If you’re interested in reading more on that, take a moment to google “why are there religious laws against pork.‘

What exactly is this kid supposed to honor here?

Other things, like the Judeo-Christian commandment “Thou shalt not commit Murder” or the Buddhist precept against killing other living beings are pretty intuitive - killing people is terrible in that it causes pain, loss, etc. Others, like “Honor they mother and father” can be a little trickier. What if your parents don’t care about you, abuse you, make poor decisions and put you in danger constantly? Are you still required to honor them?

I think there’s a difference between ‘religious’ morals and just plain morals. ‘Religious’ morals dictate doing or not doing something “Because you should/n’t,” and if you do, some great, invisible being in the sky will punish you at some point. Just plain old morals are personal and constantly developing, and drive you to do what you consider right or wrong based on your beliefs. There’s a lot more wiggle room, and - I believe - actions driven by one’s own experience-based morals tend to more sincere and thought out.

Surviving Dreams

Dreams, in the sense of goals, fantasies, desires and wishes for the future, play such a big role in western culture. So much of what we do is about plotting and planning for the future.

We save, we scrimp, we sacrifice and fight to achieve things later - and once they’ve passed, we’re still looking forward. Consumerism in our daily lives provides lots of examples in the ads we see everywhere: buy this insurance so if something happens later you’re prepared. Buy this gum so that if a kiss comes your way your breath doesn’t stink. Buy these clothes so your children will make friends at school. Buy this car to impress a possible date.

Buy these so that you don’t spend thousands on clothes/food/healthcare/college!

Certainly, I’m not saying it’s unwise to plan for the future. We know that an event in the past has direct effect on the future, and we like to be prepared for things. But we focus so much on what’s coming. I’ve been told in the past that we don’t move forward without cause - the only reason we hunt is because we’re hungry for something. We shoot for dreams: once we’ve captured them, we settle in, satisfied - or complacent. It’s either that or find something more to hunt down.

What about me? Do I have dreams?

What's in a Name?

I still haven’t figured out a satisfying response I can use to answer the question, “What religion are you?”

My problem?

After several months, I think I’ve made a lot of progress on finding something that works for me - but I’m not really sure what I’d call it.

The way things work right now, I’ve learned a lot about some common divination systems (dowsing, Tarot and Runes) but I use them for introspection - not telling the future.

I’ve learned to have a certain amount of affection for various plants (I now have a favorite birch tree in a nearby park) but I don’t feel that they can actually talk to me in any verbal sense, though I sometimes feel like I’m getting some sort of response to my presence near them.

I celebrate the Sabbats - the equinoxes and solstices, and the cross-quarter holidays that come between them. I honor the concept of the God and Goddess, but when I do, I’m honoring the idea of them inside myself. I do not get the sense that there are actually any gods or goddesses watching over me or controlling my fate.

I’ve definitely found what feels like a home in Paganism - getting closer to the earth, being more nature aware, being more in tune with my body and my environment, and learning to be more empathetic towards the people around me are all things I’ve found to be encouraged under the umbrella of Pagan beliefs. I’ve found a lot of encouragement to research not only spirituality, but art, history, culture and literature. Still, I’ve run into a lot of stuff that mixes the religious aspects of what I’ve found with what feels like a lot of metaphysical fluff.

Lately I’ve been calling myself a Pagan - but is it possible to be Pagan, but worship no gods? To practice rituals without believing in magic?

Remembering the Snakes in Ireland

I know I haven’t posted in forever - but I also know that no one probably actually reads this blog, so I’m not completely concerned. My attention has been held by work and some personal questions about my ’spiral path’ that came to a head with the discovery of the well written and often educational blog Native Appropriations (I highly recommend checking it out, regardless of what ethnicity you may claim).

Still, it being St. Patrick’s day here in the US, I felt I should recognize the history behind this holiday and it’s relation to my current leanings.

While in America it’s a holiday for vaguely celebrating (for most Americans, at least) Irish heritage via drinking, consuming boiled beef, and excessive wearing of the color green, it is important to remember that this is a Catholic Saint’s holiday - St. Patrick. He is venerated for having ‘driven the snakes out of Ireland.’ What a lot of people don’t realize is that those ‘snakes’ were actually heretical or pagan practices and beliefs held by the natives of Ireland, doggedly oppressed or co-opted by the Christian church in order to convert the pagan populace.

While the years of his birth and death are still debated, and records confuse whether or not the man ever actually existed (or was even multiple figures sort of crammed into one) If historians have it right, the man who became St. Patrick actually started his life as Maewyn (or Gaewyn, depending on your source), himself a pagan. In his teens he was sold into slavery by raiders who had taken him from his village, and during his six years of slavery began having spiritual dreams, one of which is alleged to have shown him how to escape and led him to seek service to the church.

    While he may have established schools and churches, according to legend he was just as willing to raise a hand to bless and aid as he was to curse and destroy. He did so in the name of driving out the pagan beliefs of the country and while I have yet to find a source to confirm it, I keep seeing again and again that he admitted to being 'forced' to:

"…curse their fertile lands, so that they became dreary bogs; to curse their rivers, so that they produced no fish; to curse their very kettles, so that with no amount of fire and patience could they ever be made to boil; and, as a last resort, to curse the Druids themselves, so that the earth opened and swallowed them up."

In the name of converting them to Christianity, of course - since much of the population initially resisted conversion, even under penalty of death. He even altered pagan symbols in his efforts at winning converts.

The three leafed clover, the Shamrock, was already a sacred symbol when he arrived: it symbolized the Morrigan, a goddess with three aspects. He used it instead as a symbol of the Christian trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We remember him on his believed death date, March 17 - and even after his death, his legend hid Pagan beliefs behind the stories of the Church. His funerary shroud is said to have been made by St. Brigit - the Christian colored version the Celtic Goddess of the same name.

From what I’ve encountered, there are a handful of stories describing St. Patrick ‘driving out the snakes.’ Among others, one involves drumming, another involves leaving a single snake, and the last involves tricking a snake into a box. The drumming story involves a sermon on a hill (yay Christ imagery!) and an angel coming down from heaven to repair the drum which Patrick was using to drive out the snakes. In the second story, an old snake living in Lake Dilveen was so difficult to drive out that the Bishop let him be and promised to return on Monday to finish him off. According to legend, every Monday the snake rises up to look about for the long dead bishop and declare, “it’s been a long Monday, Patrick.” The last story I’ve mentioned has St. Patrick presenting a box for a snake to get into so that he can be sealed away. When the serpent says it is too small for him to fit, St. Patrick convinces him to prove it is too small by climbing in anyway. When the snake does, the box is closed around him and cast into the sea.

Also, put on some pants.

Remembering that these ‘snakes’ represent the nature worshipping people and their beliefs, many of the almost whimsical legends about St. Patrick driving out the snakes become a bit morbid.

While pagan civilizations throughout history actively oppressed and executed Christians (remember the early Romans?) there aren’t a lot of holidays celebrating the act - and St. Patrick’s day is all about a man who led a crusade to convert (often forcibly) all manner of Irish people, and contributed to the murder of Irish Pagans and Druids, men, women and children alike.

While looking for information on this holiday, I stumbled on a facebook post comparing celebration of St. Patrick’s day to commemorating the death of any major Bishop in a position of power during the Spanish Inquisition. A different situation - but not by much.

I can’t speak for the Irish - my step-grandmother’s family on one side can claim Irish heritage, and it definitely influenced some or my memories of my childhood with her. But I can speak as someone who has been exploring a decidedly pagan path, and my take on the holiday is this:

While I’ll probably enjoy a beer tonight (I just turned 21, after all), I won’t be raising my glass in the name of St. Patrick, once Maewyn. Rather, I’ll be celebrating the approach of spring, the celebration of good times with friends, and the sprawl and mingle of all manner of cultures with one another. I’ll be remembering the culture, history and people wiped out and hidden during the spread of Christianity through Ireland and Scotland, and the many generations after. Or, should I say, incompletely wiped out: the ‘snake’ at Lake Dilveen might approve.

Overall, though, I'll be celebrating. We all want an excuse to have a good time, and I'm not going to get high-and-mighty or defensive over this holiday. There is so little known about true druid traditions (which should say something about how effective the Church was in its conversions), and most of what exists today under the term of 'celtic' or 'druid' is either reconstruction or pure fantasy. While I try not make light of the oppression and murder of any people, It's hard to defend respect for traditions that can no longer be verified as traditional, and no matter what, this is a Christian holiday. In the end, what I've learned through my experience on this side of the ocean is that, what with Shamrock shakes and green beer, it's best to not take it too seriously and just try to have fun. After all, if the majority of the people this holiday is 'holy' to don't treat is as such -  should I?

"Everybody's Irish on St. Patrick's day!" Even those from a galaxy far, far away.

Wrapping up January

So far, January has been pretty good to me. I recently finished an illustration job doing a series of speculative covers for some children’s books, as well as a handful of commissions for random designs for people. I’ve been to see some fantastic movies - Black Swan, for instance - while others, such as Season of the Witch, were just terrible (I‘ll go into that in another post).

My relationship with A’jm has been through some odd little patches - nothing I’d even go as far as to describe as ‘bumpy,’ but things feel… restless. I just feel sort of ’bleh’ lately, and I’m not completely sure why. Though I don’t believe in Tarot telling the future, I do like sitting down to do ‘year’ reading now and then. Curious about what the cards may have said about this month ahead of time, and looking for some perspective, I looked back to one such reading, which I did in August of 2010 and recorded the draw from. January was drawn as such: 

1) Moving behind me: The Knight of Pentacles
2) In love and relationships: Judgement
3) In Worldly issues: The Nine of wands
4) In Spiritual issues: The Ten of Cups
5) Things to come in February: The Knight of wands
6) The overall tone of January: The Nine of Pentacles

Spreading the cards out once more, I took a look at the reading for January a second time.

Using a New Tarot Deck

It’s strange for me to consider that I’ve been doing Tarot for over a year - close to two, now that I think of it - and the Rider Waite deck has become my favorite. Though I’ve misplaced my first deck somewhere at my mom’s house (A tiny pocket size tarot that cost me $5), not counting that one, I now own three decks. The first deck is the Thoth Tarot, which was given to me by some friends who found it in a room they were cleaning out, the second my Rider Waite, and the third the new deck which I mentioned in my last post - the Manga Tarot.

I’ll admit - when I first unwrapped it, I was a little tentative. A Manga based tarot? My first instinct was that it would be sort of cheesy and childish - for me, other decks using a ’manga’ theme are usually just fad decks, cashing in on people who enjoy anime and Japanese comics. In my opinion, most of these look terrible because it’s not truly manga style art but imitation, and cheap looking to boot.

However, as I looked through the deck, my excitement grew. Though this art doesn’t look precisely ‘manga-ish’ (in fact the work of an Italian illustrator), and while the images and symbols chosen for each card are perhaps more blunt than the traditional deck, they are still very well thought out.

Joyful Yule

Though this is a post regarding Christmas/Yule, I’m not here to talk about it’s decidedly pagan roots - a quick bit of googling will clear that up for you pretty quick if you didn't already know about all that. What I want to talk about today is what was probably the first stress free and completely wonderful Christmases I’ve had in some time.

The days leading up were a little awkward for me - this was my first year sending out my own Christmas cards, and shopping around for gifts on my own. But a white-elephant party with my friends and a family gathering with my boyfriend’s family wrapped up this holiday very nicely for me.

The dinner was fantastic, and so were all the gifts. I got pretty much everything I directly requested, and a few surprises as well.