Who am I? Ask around

With the ADF elections on, I'm getting this question from a few people. It's a worthy question, really, but not one I like to answer as such.

I will happily discuss things I have done, positions I've held. Deeds and accomplishments. But not questions to my character.

Why?

Think about it. Everybody thinks they are a good person. Those who don't think so, we tell not to be so hard on themselves, say they have esteem issues. So obviously I am not the best judge of my own character. But I can freely judge the character of others, based on my observations of their deeds and words. I can freely discuss things I have done, or not done, and why.

But how I made someone feel? You'll have to ask them. Did I meet their expectations? Ask them. Not me. I'll afford you the same courtesy.

On Offerings

This morning, as I was making pancakes, I began to think about offerings. Every Sunday, I make pancakes for the family, and one of them goes into the offering bowl for our house-wight.

Yesterday, on G+, an atheist I have circled posted a link to an article about Richard Dawkins. It excerpted parts of a letter he had written to his (then) ten year old daughter on the importance of critical thinking, and of having evidence for all things, rather than blind belief in them. Now, normally I very intensely dislike Dawkins, as his whole approach to atheism tends to be "I'm right, and you're an idiot." But the excerpts in this article were very good, and very well written. They made me think.

So, back to where I started: Offerings. In light of teaching critical thinking skills to my offspring, why should I teach her to make offerings to a house spirit that many would argue doesn't exist? Adherance to tradition? Honestly, that's really not a good answer. Belief? I hate that word, as it has become one of the most loaded terms in our modern lexicon (but I'll save that rant for another entry).

But there are other good reasons to make offerings, whether to a house wight, or to gods, ancestors, or landwights. Reciprocity. Generosity. Thankfulness.

Reciprocity is doing something for someone who has done something for you. It should usually be in equal measure or value to what you recieved, to the best of your ability. It naturally goes hand in hand with thankfulness, because it recognizes the value of what you recieved.
These are things that can be debated in light of one's opinion of the reality of these beings (wight just means "being" or "entity", btw), but if one behaves as though they are real and have an effect on the world, then teaching this attitude of reciprocity, of thankfulness to them is good - and useful when dealing with other people. If we get in the habit of saying thank you for favours done, of sharing a drink, or giving a gift, then we increase our worth as citizens. So long as we don't become trapped in the thought that we only do this for gods/ancestors/wights and not for people, we ourselves become better people.

Generosity also reflects this. In making offerings, we should always be generous - though not so generous as to bring harm to ourselves. Don't be stingy. Share. Again, a useful attitude to cultivate in society, whether to human or other wights. Giving generously when you are able increases the chances that others will be generous with you. We don't necessarily *need* to give a pancake to our house-wight. But we do, because doing so makes it more likely that favours will be done for us, perhaps something we thought lost will be found, or perhaps we will have fewer troubles with all the little things that seem to go wrong in a house.

These actions cultivate a culture of charity, that only benefits the world as a whole. If we teach these things early, then their value is learned and ingrained, even if the child grows up deciding that theism and spirits are a lot of hooey.

Because we have gods

We're coming soon to that time, the one where we tell our daughter that the old man in the Coca Cola suit is just some guy hired by the mall to bring children in with their parents, so that the parents can figure out what their kids want for Gifting Season. Some will tell their kids that the stories about this man were lies, that he is "not real." Some that tell their kids may not be so harsh, but the kids will nevertheless walk away with that impression.

"Santa isn't real," is the message. "God/the gods aren't real." "It's all just stories."

But that's disingenuous. It sends a false message. We live in a world of gods. We live in a world where a man fell from the stars and walked away. We live in a world where another man walked upon the desolate landscape of the moon. We live in a world where every day thousands fly through the sky, some on missions martial, but most merely going from one land to another, far off. We plumb the depths of the ocean, plan visits to other worlds, create miracles every day. We create new life forms, and argue whether that's wise.
We live in a world of gods. We are those gods.

So our tales of gods become ever more fantastic. Santa originally drove a sled pulled by horses - one or two, I can't remember. Now he flies in a sleigh pulled by eight caribou. We say he covers the entire planet in the course of one night, carrying enough for children everywhere, so that he doesn't need to restock midflight.

This can't be true. It doesn't make sense. It can't be literal.

Well, no, perhaps it isn't literal. But it's true. All around the world, children recieve gifts from Santa. Therefore, it is true that Santa gives gifts to children around the world. Does it matter if those children's parents are the proxy used?

Tales of gods (and yes, I consider Santa Claus a god), are meant as much to inspire us to our own greatness. Does it matter if they are literal? Does a thunderstorm have to only be an electrical discharge during a meteorological event, or can it also be Mjollnir smashing into the face of some evil giant trying to destroy us? Because I see no giant, does that mean it was not a hammerblow?

An old man dressed in red winterwear inspires us to give generously to one another, and to care for one another during the winter storms. Frankly, he does a better job of inspiring us than the tale of a baby born in a barn in a Mediterranean desert town.

A large, middle aged fellow with red beard and hammer inspires (some of) us to be strong and stand up for what is right. A one-eyed old man teaches us to be wise, and look beyond the obvious. A young man who was nailed to a tree teaches us to be forgiving.

So we follow these inspirations. We look to the stars, and say, "Let's see what is out there." We heal people of illnesses and wounds that could never before be fixed. We talk to people on the other side of the globe as if they were our next door neighbors. We eat foods from far off lands, or make new foods. We speak in one language to a person, and they read or hear our words in their own.  The blind can be made to see, the legless to walk, the deaf to hear. We can give you a new face.

Because we have gods, and they show us that it can be done.

Touching base

Got one or two things coming, but at the same time, I am looking to figure out how to import (some of my) entries from LJ.  While I probably won't delete the account there, I am looking to tighten up my digital footprint, so am eliminating old stuff and tightening things up a bit.

Admittedly I rarely blog much these days, as I don't have enough big stuff to say, but at the same time, I am rather loathe to delete my words entirely. They are, after all, who I am, or at least who I was at the time I wrote them. We shall see what ends up happening. Perhaps I shall merely print them off.

Stormy thoughts

Sitting here watching the rainstorm, I am reminded of when I was a small boy listening to a thunderstorm. Granted, there is no thunder at the moment, but still I remember being told it was "the angels bowling."

Today when I tell my daughter that it is the sound of Thunaer rolling across the skies in His chariot, or smirking a horrid ettin with His hammer, I no more expect her to take that literally than my parents expected me to continue to believe in bowling seraphim. Yes, it's certainly a part of the mythos, but the science also has to hold.

There are those who would denounce me for these tales, and I suppose if they are of an atheist bent, I can see their point, but to those others, I ask how my metaphors are less than your own?

Looking back. Looking ahead.

Well, the big move is coming up.  At the end of the school year, my family moves across the water, to begin the next chapter of our life.  I have already given my notice at my job of the last eleven years.

I feel adrift.  Floating.

I spent today going through a bunch of my stuff, discarding some of what is no longer useful, stuff that I really don't want to take with me.  I didn't trim nearly enough, but then again, I am a packrat.  :/

One of the things that I dug up was my collection of letters from my pen pal.  Looking back over them really brought a lot of memories, as I flipped through them and was reminded of the passage of time and events.  Sure, I have her on FB and G+, but there is nevertheless a strong sense of comfort in a paper letter, whether typed or handwritten.  It occurs to me that those letters are some of my most prized possessions.

And now this.  This is a big change.  I haven't done something this big (aside from getting married or becoming a father) since I was nineteen years old, when I first moved to this city.  That was almost twenty years ago....

Conformity?

Been awhile, huh? Here's some random musings for the day...

I was at my daughter's dance class today, talking with the moms of a couple of the other girls. One of the topics that came up was formalwear (I think we were talking about the Prom dress industry and teen magazines). Anyway, it occurred to me that men's formal wear is incredibly bland.

Think about it - women buy new dresses for weddings, proms, etc. Why? Rarely because they intend to ever use them again - ask anyone who's been a bridesmaid before - and these days, it's not to pass them down to their daughters on their wedding / prom day. No. It's because each dress is (supposed to be ) unique to that woman.

However, as men, we rent our tuxedos. Why do we rent them? We'll probably be able to get more use out of it than just a one time event. But we rent them because they are all the same, anyway. We don't even have a lot of choice in colours. We can have black, navy blue, charcoal grey, or black. We can accessorize with a bit more personality, but not much - a tie is still a tie, no matter the colour or print. It is tied the same, it is one of two widths (and if you wear a wide tie when fashion says narrow, or vice versa, watch out!) and must be worn to a certain length down the body. If with the primary outfit, be it a suit or a tuxedo, you stray beyond the conventional colours, you are forever branded as different. There are certain conventions you can get away with, such as a kilt, but even there you stand out. And as a guy, this is definitely a no-go. How often have we made fun of the poor schlupp who decided to wear a powder blue tux?

Such conformity is taught to guys at a very young age, and goes through all layers of our lives. While we try to teach our kids to want to stand out, be unique individuals, what we show them through things like our styles of dress and our behaviours is sameness. This is as true of the blue collar worker as the white collar. In business, you must wear a specific type of suit, of a particular cut, in certain colours. The blue collar guy wears the same (more or less) jeans, and a t-shirt. T-shirts can have some variety in them, so far as colour and print, but really there is very little else that can be done.

Hiya! Miss me? I'm doing a bit of work on this ol' blog, and it may be making a comeback. I've already made a few changes, as you can see. Stay tuned for more...

Lights!

Okay, so over the last couple of years, I have complained repeatedly about living in the 'burbs. The transit sucks, there isn't as much "going on," I'm a lot further from many of my friends, which has had the effect of losing touch with many of them, etc.

This post isn't about that. See, for as much as I loved living in the city proper, there was always one thing lacking: Christmas lights. Sure, some homes and apartments would put some up, but not very many, and the city itself never seemed to. However, in the suburban municipality where I now find myself, it's a very different story... there are lights everywhere. The city has garland strung above the roads along the telephone wires, park trees have lights all over them - and just about every third house (so far this year) is well lit. Even the Hindu family next door has lights strung and a Christmas tree set up in the front window. For that matter, there are a lot of families from the subcontinent of India, and a great many of them have very well-lit houses. Some put them up for Vaisakhi, but more of them waited until just these last couple of weeks.

Makes you re-think some of the pagan stances on the holidays.

Bardry..?

I have been listening to a lot more music lately, than I have in recent years. Being given an MP3 player by a friend, as well as having this new computer upon which to keep music, has particularly helped.

So I was ripping some of my CDs the other day, and came across one called TAP into Tradition, which was put out by Alexander Keith's beer. Basically it's a bunch of East Coast Celtic stuff. Awesome stuff, mostly. The CD begins with the song Barret's Privateers, a beautiful piece performed with just voice and bodhran. I got to thinking - I've got a bodhran, and have been looking for stuff just like this to learn and maybe play with Stardancer (though I wouldn't play this one with her - the chorus begins with "God damn them all") or perform at events.

I even offered to my gods (in this case Thunor and Ing) to do this, and to do it in their honour. They seemed to really like the idea.

Now I am hunting out the lyrics for songs that I can play with just my drum as accompaniment. Great Big Sea has a lot, and there are a lot of good Irish pieces out there, but I don't want everything to be Irish, after all. I am looking for other good stuff, and I will be putting together a songbook to play from while I memorize the lyrics. So far I have "Barret's Privateers" by Stan Rogers, "The Scolding Wife" performed by Great Big Sea (though I did not see a writer's credit..?), and "Hal an Toe," which is an English traditional song for May Day. Oh, and my own "Down by the Fire to Pray." One friend sent me a link to a page with hundreds of traditional songs that the SCA uses, so I will be going over that as time goes on.

Any other suggestions?

Recent events

So recently I was contacted by someone I most definitely did NOT want to be contacted by on FB. I don't want contact with this individual at all, but FB was the medium chosen. One of the comments they made, though, seemed to refer to a blog entry from a year or so ago (which would make it on LJ). Nevertheless, between this and their "offering" to look up my number and phone me, I was rather worried. So I have now, at this point gone back through my entire Livejournal account, and locked the majority of the posts up so that they are readable only by those on my "Friends" list (similar to FB, really). There's still a lot of stuff publically readable, but it's mostly articles, etc, not my personal life or reflections.

An interesting side effect was getting a look at all of my old posts. One thing that really stood out for me was in one of the very forst posts. I was discussing the "Patron Gods" dream that led me to a Germanic path in my Druidry - only the dream had been the night before the post was written, which means there were details that I had since forgotten. They were rather enlightening to see, really, and reflect upon.

Anyway, back to the point, here. This newfound caution with what I have written naturally extended to this blog as well - especially since I had put a link to it recently, along with an invitation, in my LJ. So some thought has been put into it. What does this blog want to be? At first it was for some of my more personal observations, with the thought that it would be easier for a couple of my friends, who use Blogger, not LJ, to follow. Perhaps a bit naive, I know, but I assumed that Blogger worked similar to LJ, with lockable posts, Friends lists, etc. Now I know that you either lock the entire blog to all but your friends, or you leave it open. But it's measured by the whole blog, not on a post-by-post basis.

Hm. this explains why Fourleaf deleted her words, rather than merely lock them up.

So if everything I write here must be public, then a certain caution must be placed upon it. It can be easy to forget that caution, honestly, and in the meantime I have continued using LJ, and locking things as I go. Sorry, gang. But what of the ol' Blogger account? Well, my articles have been mostly getting put up in LJ, lately (though there haven't been many), since that was set up to be my ADF log, and they were written largely for that purpose. Personal stuff ought to be less public, more lockable. Hm.

But not all personal stuff need be. Hence this entry. Some of what I write can and should still be viewable, I think. I considered moving some of the more personal entries from here, over to LJ, but the time date stamp thing kind of blocked that idea (I wonder if I can change the date on a post there...?). So this journal remains, warts and all. It's not as though I didn't suffer another recent attack over there, as well, anyway, over something publicly posted.

Basically, I had attended an event, then written a review of it. While I didn't think I was being horribly unkind in it, I did write it as honestly as I could, and I suppose one or two things I said could be seen as rather unkind. Well, the post was found and read by a friend of the event's hostess, who attacked me in the comments field, then sent the link to the hostess herself and one other friend of theirs. The hostess was most upset, and also unleashed a verbal barrage upon me, but the other friend, who also commented, was more reasonable in his comments. So I locked the post up. Sigh.

The hostess and her friend also cut me from their FB lists.

The upshot of this is that I need to be more.. cautios with my words, I suppose, though I thought I had made clear that my observations were purely my own experiences.

So that is where things stand at the moment.

Isaac Bonewits

By now I'm sure you've heard - Isaac Bonewits is dead. He died Thursday morning at roughly 08:00 ET. There have been a lot of people writing of his life, several obituaries, and a lot of personal observations floating around the Web since then.

Mine falls into the last category.

I never met the man. I live on the opposite coast, and in a different country, than he did. I would like to have met him, but it didn't happen, and now never will. I was first introduced to his work maybe five years ago, when I found a copy of Real Magic in a used bookstore. I was excited, but also a bit sceptical. I picked it up, though, and began to read it (still haven't finished), and found it good.

Then a friend of mine joined ADF, and invited me to join as well. Again, I looked at it with a certain scepticism (this is not like me, not at that time. If it was druidic, I was interested in those days, and tended to jump in with both feet). There was something... different here. I couldn't quite place my finger on it but it didn't feel quite the same as other stuff I'd looked at in the past.

In the end, I joined, and have bought several other of Isaac's books. I found his writing style to be casual, friendly and laced with humour. Yet for all the ease of reading he provided, his works are incredibly informative, and more importantly, accurate. This last is something you all too often find lacking in pagan books, so it's a very refreshing thing to find. The scolarship that show in his histories, etc, is as accurate as it can be for the time it was written. He actually did the research.

So, yeah, this has left an impact. And his creation, the ADF, has come to mean so very much to me. I think of myself as a druid (ADF style) before even being a Heathen, though that's more in terms of organizational stuff, because obviously my troth with the gods is with those of my Anglo Saxon ancestors. But that's okay, because he made it a Pan Indo European organization, not just a Celtic one. His vision was to have a public pagan church organization, and that's what it is.

He has gone on, now, to the Halls of his ancestors, but to many of us, he is an Ancestor of the heart, one of the Ancient Wise. May you rest comfortably in that Hall, Isaac. Hail, and Farewell!

Pondering the Gylfagginning

Sacred Feces!

This morning, in order to facilitate my article-writing (which is going slowly, but is still going), I grabbed my Eddas to read on the bus ride in to work. So I began reading the Gylfagginning, and do you know what the first thing I noticed was? Here, let me quote:

"He saw three high-seats one above the other, and a man seated in each of them. Then he asked what names those chieftains had. The man who had taken him inside answered that the one siting on the lowest seat was a king called High One, the next was Just-as-high, and the topmost one was called Third." Jean I. Young, translator.

Do you see it? You may not. Think about the Temple at Uppsala (in Sweden...? Hmmm). Actually, the description of the stronghold he visits is similar, too...

Anyway, inside the Temple, it is described that there were three statues, each placed on high-seats. Odhinn, Freyr, and, on the highest seat, Thor.

Maybe High One, Just-as-high, and Third aren't all Odhinn, after all? Something to ponder...

The Caffeine Psalm

(Always a favourite...)

Caffeine is my shepherd;
I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in Green Pastures;
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses;
It restoreth my buzz;
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for it's name's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the shadow of the valley of addiction
I will fear no Equal (R)
For Thou art with me.
Thy Cream and Thy Sugar comfort me;
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of Juan Valdez;
Thou anointest my day with pep;
My mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life
And I will dwell in the House of Maxwell forever
Amen.

By Ann O. Nymous

America

So I am reading a couple of things at the moment: Tacitus' Germania and this blog entry of my daughter's Godsmother. Together they formed a very interesting realization about my American neighbors, to wit: the modern American shows an incredible similarity to the ancient Germanic peoples.

In her blog post, she talks of the irony of how she is shown incredible hospitality on the one hand, but is asked about what kind of protective measures she is carrying with her as she travels (most of this blog is detailing the travels of a young, beautiful woman on her own in a VW Westfalia). In the Germania, Tacitus states how every adult carries arms, and how hospitality is the greatest of virtues.

Given how the news is always debating about gun control measures, etc, this stuck out as particularly noteworthy. Hm. I wonder how Canada stacks up, with this in mind..?

Proof...

Coffee is proof that the gods love us and want us to be happy. Just sayin'.

A Crazy Idea...

So I was just over at FB, looking at my newsfeed in boredom, when I noticed something in the ads in the sidebar. Now, this isn't the first time I've seen this ad, in this medium or another. I've seen other ads for the same thing on TV, for instance. But it made me think. It's a crazy thought. But it might work, and be something to consider in the future.

What is the ad? It's an ad from Okanagan Spring Brewery, wherein they are offering to sponsor peoples' small events. And from the tv ads, at least, that is a pretty open definition.

What is the idea? Sponsorship... for a ritual. A High Day. They make good beer - it would make a pleasing offering to the gods, and the other Kindreds.

Hm.

Worth thinking about...

A thought

I had a thought this morning while on the bus. I was looking at an ad for the new Blackberry, and it occurred to me. We "older folk" - which is to say, those of us that grew up before all of the social networking technology came about - can often be heard to say something along the lines of, "When I was young, I would never have posted such and such out there for everyone to see." This, of course, in relation to a lot of the TMI (Too Much Info) photos, Tweets, etc that teens and twentysomethings seem to put all over the 'net.

The fact of the matter is, though - had we been able to, and it were as normalized as it is today - most of us would have. It's a natural thing to want to tell all of your friends about the dumb stuff you just did, or about that really cool thing you just saw, or whatever. And how many times have we wished we could have just taken a picture to show them? The biggest generational difference is that the kids these days (did I really just say that?) actually can. And they haven't yet learned the wisdom to say that maybe they shouldn't.

Just random thoughts from my brain.

Thoughts on Sif

Most scholars seem to agree that Sif is/was a goddess of agriculture, of the harvest, and/or of the wheat. This theory stems entirely from the myth wherein Loki shaves her head, then has to get the dwarves to make new, golden hair for her. The supporting "evidence" is the fact that she is married to Thor.

This theory doesn't make a lot of sense to me. Sure, there is very little that we know about her, but she does appear in two other places in the lore. One is in the Lokasenna where Loki accuses her of cheating on her husband with himself. A lot of people have put forth the idea that this is why he cut her hair off in the first place. But the other place she is mentioned is the place most often forgotten.

In the Prologue (part III) to his Edda, Snorri tells us that Thor was married to a woman named Sibyl. What does this mean? Well, a sibyl is a prophetess, a seer. What in later Norse lore became known to us as a Volva.

What does this have to do with wheat? Very little, I'm afraid.

I have seen translations of the name Sif give us the name Sib in Old English. Granted, this is only a translation, but it is acknowledged to be related to our modern word sibling, and seems to refer to the fact that her husband, Thor, is related in a stepfatherly way, to her son Ull. Not sure how that fits, but okay.

So, siblings, and prophecy. Now we're getting somewhere. Who else do we know that fits that description? Hint: starts with an 'N' and end with 'orns.' 3 sisters (sometimes called the Wyrd Sisters).

Here's another fun correllation for you: Frigga. The wife of Odhinn. No, I am not saying that the two ladies are one and the same. I hate when people try to correllate dieties down too much that way. But Frigga is considered to be the "Queen of the Norns" by some. Certainly she has a lot to do with fate and is said to know the fates of all things, though she tells none. Perhaps another one of the Wyrd Sisters? It certainly gives us the sibling link in Sif's name (incidentally, the name Frigga means 'beloved').

So to follow this up a bit, let's look at Sif's hubby, Thor. By and large (!) he's much the same as most of the other Indo-Europena sky gods, such as Jupiter, Zeus, etc. The greatest difference is that in Thor's "portfolio" he is not a chieftain or king of the gods. He's got all the rest, though - sky, thunder/storms, justice, law, protection, fertility, etc. So with this in mind, let's look to the wives of these other gods, shall we? Maybe there is something similar to Sif there?

Let's see: Zeus is married to Hera. Most godly ties to Hera, though, are made with Frigga, which makes a certain sense, as they are both the Queen goddesses of their pantheons. As such, Frigga tends to get the "motherly" and "wife" portfolios (though I suppose these might be able to be shared). Jupiter is married to Juno, I believe, though I know very little about her other than that she is also equated to Hera (but most of the Roman dieties are correllated to the Hellenic ones, so much so that most people these days don't even realize that they are in act seperate sets of gods, with often vast differences between them).

I'll continue this train of thought later, though. Feel free to add your own ideas into the comments section below.

A Prayer to the Dawn

This morning as I was headed to the bus stop to begin my hour-and-a-half journey to work, I saw the most beautiful sunrise over the mountains to the (duh!) East. The sky was clear except for some light clouds which were tinged with pink and orange. Around the mountains they were a little misty, but there were two streamers of cloud a little further out. I was inspired, and came up with this:

Hail to the Queen of the Morning
Hail to the Lady of the Dawn
With your orange and pink ribbons fluttering across the sky
As you usher and guide the sun,
Glory of Elves,
As it begins it's journey across the heavens.
Hail Beautiful Morning Lady
Hail Daughter of the Sky
Hail Eostre!