Month: November 2008

Chop Wood, Carry Water…

On By PaxIn Carry Water, Chop Wood, Chrysalis1 Comment

“Before Enlightenment, Chop Wood, Carry Water,

After Enlightenment, Chop Wood, Carry Water.”

~Chinese Proverb

The Big Guy and I are going to be visiting some of his family for the next week for Thanksgiving.  Part of this involved getting the cargo/topper for the back of his truck out of the back yard.  We have this Bougainvillea that grew in the corner of the front yard in front of the gate to the side-yard.  We figured we’d cut a few branches and get it out…

FOUR HOURS OF YARD WORK LATER…

~sigh~  The plant had grown in on itself and there were brambles and tangles and thorns like some nearly impenetrable wall of purple flower bearing thorn filled doom.  But, we did it!  I am tired and sweaty and dirty and yet, paradoxically, I feel cleaner and (on some levels) more energized that I have in weeks.

There was something deeply powerful about taking that tangled thorny bush, whose beautiful and placid outer layer hid a mass of dead and dieing thorny branches, and taking it apart and hauling it away; and behind it was the gate.  Not just a sense of accomplishment but a living metaphor for getting things done and dealling with obstacles and painful problems.  Some useful triggers for my visualizations in the future!  I also found a couple of potential wands, but I need to do some research on Bougainvilia to see if I can really use these wands for my regular work or if they will be a special ocasion item… or the ingredient for some new charm or spell.

I have a feeling that the sense of power and metaphor and magic I felt during this unexpected bit of hard labor both culminated something I needed, and will serve as a useful tool and experience in the relatively near future.  I will have to do some work with the Tarot and some meditation this week…

Peace, and a Happy Thanksgiving!

Pax

PS- Please go to the upper right-hand corner of this page and click on the Links! link, I am trying to build my resource pages and am inviting any and all to post some suggestions for more links and more categories!  (It’s very much a work in progress right now, sorry for the mess!)

One Witches Journey… into activism and optimism

On By PaxIn Activist Alert, An Important Message..., Chrysalis, Creativity, Cross-roads, everyday, Food for Thought, Highest Ideals, Love Unto All Beings, Seeking, The Gifts of Giving2 Comments

So…

I am blogging a lot more on my other site.  Or at least I am working on the site, and adding links and adding to the blog roll and learning a lot about my LGBT community.  I am also learning a lot about myself.  I am learning about my ideals, and my hopes and dreams.  I am also seeing, once more, the parallels between my two communities… the GLBT (or LGBT if you prefer) and the Pagan.  I find myself trying to figure out how to balance my new found passion for standing up for the Highest Ideals, with the practicality of working an exceptionally part time job and looking for work in one of the worst economies in the last 100 years.  Yet I feel more alive, more truly myself, when I am working on my GLBT civil rights blog, and when I am contemplating similar projects within the Pagan community.

In re-reading this post and contemplating publishing it I looked again at that last sentence…

Yet I feel more alive, more truly myself, when I am working on my GLBT civil rights blog, and when I am contemplating similar projects within the Pagan community.

Hmm… I am reminded of my ideas about Beauty, and my thought that when we are striving to live our Virtues as Witches, and to live out our Highest Ideals is when we are most Beautiful.  I also find myself remembering some of the times where I have invoked the Lord and Lady, and how at those times too I have felt most truly alive (if not necessarily myself).

I know that the weeks and months to come will require me to keep a balance between feeding my pocket book and feeding my soul.  In the past keeping a balance between my professional (or job) life and my spiritual and personal life has been a difficult zig-zagging between priorities.  I would like to believe that I am at a point in my life where I can actually do this, seemingly simple, balancing act.  So many other folks make this sort of thing look so blessed effortless!

I know that in these times feeding oneself, ones family, and ones pocketbook, is becoming increasingly difficult.  I know that there are a lot of tough decisions and times ahead.  In the end though, I am not afraid.

I know that the Lady and Lord are with me.

I know that if I continue to tread the path they have laid out for me, if I continue to speak and live in accordance with Truth, and Beauty, and the Highest of Ideals, if I strive to find within myself Love for All Beings, including myself, if I honor Them, and remember to honor the Gods and Godesses of my heart and the Heroes of my Nation; if I do these things I will find a way through the troubled times and I will be able to keep my ballance and do right by my Gods, my family, and myself.

Freedom of Religion?

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Highest Ideals, Pax's Beliefs, Witches Virtues2 Comments

Ok, folks time to get busy!!!

A mother has been denied custody of her child because of the mere
perception that she is a Wiccan!

http://www.wildhunt.org/2008/11/slandered-wiccan-denied-rehearing.html

The lady in question may or may not be Wiccan( or a Witch, or a Pagan
for that matter), but the mere perception that she might be has caused
one intolerant judge to deny her custody of her child!  And another
group of judges to uphold the decision!  What can we do?

Prayers, spells, petitions to our many Goddesses and Gods, these
things can work wonders.  This is a part of my faith and philosophy as
a Witch.  Acting in accord also works wonders, making a phone-call, or
writing letters to the editor, writing your State representatives if
you live in the U.S..  Send letters to the ACLU and to who ever else
you can think of.  Please do something in both the physical and the
metaphysical world to stand up for Religious freedom and basic human
rights!

Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey
https://chrysalis1witchesjourney.wordpress.com/

http://gaymarriageorsomethinglikeit.blogspot.com/

A pledge towards creativity and action… and a couple notes…

On By PaxIn Chrysalis, CreativityLeave a comment

So in writing for and working on my new GLBT civil rights blog, I have come to appreciate the power of taking an organized approach to my blogging.  If you read this little strange journal/bully pulpit of mine you will be seeing some changes in the next few days.  I am going to be trying to make this site more useful and more surfable.

My recent blogging has also helped me to find a few parts of myself that had been languishing.  I think contemplating and writing about these things that matter so much to me is helping me to once more find my voice and access my creativity.

I am pledging, to myself and to the Gods, that I shall put more creative effort into my blogs and my life!  I am also trying to be a little more outspoken on issues that matter.  See the next post for details!

A house guest and a few random notes…

On By PaxIn everyday, Witches VirtuesLeave a comment

We’ve had a guest in from out of town for the last few days, so I haven’t been able to indulge my blogaholic and mouse-potato tendancies.  I’ve been re-reading Elements of Ritual by Deborah Lipp.

It’s a great book and really well worth the read.

I am also in the process of my continueing job hunt and of working on my new GLBT civil rights blog.  I am also wanting to re-read 7 Habits of Highly Effective People and to work some on my own personal writing projects…  ambitous thing aren’t I?!?

I don’t feel overworked or intimidated.  Determined, focused even, but not intimidated even though I am setting the bar high.  I think on some level I have really begun to absorb some of the ideas inherent in my daily prayer … I have hesitated with the Witches Virtues posts because I was wrestling with the issue of Power and wasn’t really feeling all that powerful.  The thing is though that at heart we are as powerful as we allow ourselves to be… but that’s another post…

Peace,

Pax

Reacting (more constructively) to the Election and Anti-GLBT votes…

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Community Building, Cross-roads, Day One, everyday, Gay Pride, magick, Pax's Beliefs, Religio-AmericanaLeave a comment

I am a Patriot, an Idealist, and a Witch.  I find myself overflowing with hope in the promise of America.  Optimism that through the efforts of committed hardworking people the world can be changed.   Barrack Obama’s election proves that.  There were volunteers in all 50 states canvassing and calling and working day in and day out to reach out to their fellow Americans in support of their cause.  It worked.  Yes, as a matter of fact, they could!

Even as I experience the wrestling match of emotions between elation at the results of the election, and grievous disappointment at the results of the anti-GLBT ballot innitiatives, I know that I can either sit sullenly and complain or I can do something about it.

As a Witch my Goddess has been giving me my marching orders for years now…

“Keep pure your highest ideal; strive ever towards it;
let nothing stop you or turn you aside.”
~From The Charge of the Goddess by Doreen Valliente

I just didn’t have the compass until now.  While I am not a rich man, I am , on occassion, an eloquent and sometimes even persuasive one.  I am impelled to use my words and my Will in the cause of justice and equality.

I have seen how the grass roots efforts of the Democratic Party and Obama’s vollunteers has changed the world; we in the GLBT community can do nothing less.  I should do nothing less.

To that end I have started a new blog…

Gay Marriage (or something like it)

I am still working out some of my thoughts and feelings… and trying to figure out where to start my research… I think I shall have to track down the writings of Dr. King.  I also need to reach out to like minded souls.

Thus I have created a companion Yahoogroup to go along with the blog.  Here is the group description…

This group is founded upon the belief that Marriage, and all other GLBT Rights are Civil Rights issues.

This is a place for discussion, planning, sharing, and mobilization. Let us form a grass roots movement towards the end that we will see Gay Marriage (or something like it) in all 50 States in our lifetimes.

While national organizations like the HRC and GLAAD have helped GLBT people make great strides over the last 30 years or so, the elections of 2008 have shown us that we need to do more. The victory of President Elect Obama is instructive. He took his message to every corner of our great Nation and mobilized thousands of people in support of his cause. We the GLBT people can do now less in our efforts to reach out to our fellow Americans, calmly quietly and consistently speaking our truth so that, in the end, it is We The People who stand up for GLBT Civil Rights!

If this sounds like something you’d like to be involved in bookmark the other blog and join the Yahoogroup.

Peace, and Equality,

Pax

Praying and Pouring

On By PaxIn Chrysalis, Dionysus, Hecate, Honoring the Heroes, Prayer, Religio-Americana, witcheryLeave a comment

I went about my day today in a bit of a daze.  Strange hours of sleep and a lot of emotional ups and downs.  I’ve written some of my thoughts about Prop 8 and its ilk already.

I didn’t do any sort of formal ritual today.  I simply prayed and made some offerings.

I lit some incense for President Bush, President Elect Obama, and for John McCain and their guiding and guardian spirits.  I lit some Incense for the Lord and Lady of Witchcraft.  I poured some libations of water and wine to my beloved dead and to the Mighty Dead of the Craft and to our Fallen Soldiers.  I poured Water for Hecate.  I poured Wine for Dionysus.  I drank some wine and though some thoughts and am trying to assess a question on the minds of a lot of people right now.

What can I do?

I’m still working on that one.  I have a lot more praying and thinking to do.

Peace,

Pax

As Goddess is my Witness…

On By PaxIn everyday, Gay Pride2 Comments

Hello folks,

The Big Guy and I are in our 30’s and given the current lifespan we have 30 to 50 years left together. I would like to spend at least some small portion of that time married (or something close) to the man I love. The thing is that Prop 8 passed in California, and Amendment 2 passed in Florida. Marriage as One Man – One Woman is becoming the law of the land in many states. Two of my dearest and oldest friends are no longer legally wed, though they have been together for well over a decade.

I could say a lot right now, about how hurt I feel, or how disheartening this is. I could reference the discussion my Partner and I have had about moving to Canada; comparing and contrasting the thriving economy and the legality of Gay marriage and the affordability of health care Up North with the much more dismal situation here in the States. (and before someone starts I would HAPPILY pay higher taxes to ensure health care for myself ~ as it is I have spent most of my adult life with no insurance or health care at or below the poverty line, I AM the working poor that the candidates like to talk so much about, so don’t start with me!)

I could question why so many denominations of Christianity and Judaism, among other Religions, that have no problem whatsoever with Gay marriage are NOT filing suit against such laws as violations of their Constitutional Freedom of Religion?!?

I could discuss at length the irony present (and my personal outrage) in the fact that some of the same people who helped organize these laws against gay marriage were, until yesterday, supporting an Adulterer and Oath breaker as their Presidential Candidate. Oh, all-right, actually here I will indulge a little…

If John McCain chose, freely and of his own will to break his marriage oath to his first wife and to his God, why in heavens name should I trust him with the Presidential Oath of Office?

(and, again, before anyone starts with me, I wondered the same blessed thing about President Clinton during that whole semen-stained Lewinsky debacle only I wasn’t blogging at the time, just mouthing off)

I could spend a lot more time on any of those topics, and have briefly but therapeutically vented on one of them, but no more. I would only get needlessly upset and distracted from my cause.

That cause is Civil Unions, or Domestic Partnerships, or what-ever-you-wish-to-call-them-but-I-want-them-A.S.A.P! I want to see some legal rights and protections for Gay and Lesbian couples and I will cheerfully move heaven and earth and to see it happen in my, and The Big Guy’s, lifetime!

Peace, Love, and Damn the Man!!

Pax

A new day dawns…

On By PaxIn Chrysalis, Cross-roads, Honoring the Heroes, Religio-AmericanaLeave a comment

…and Pax rambles out some thoughts!

A new year, a new President-Elect, in a spiritual New Year…

My candidate, has won.  I feel in some measure relieved even as I aknowledge that NOW the real work begins.

As a Witch any time politicians invoke spiritual or religious sounding language in their speeches (and I actually happen to be hearing/reading it) it piques my interest.  The BBC has an excellend page quoting Obama’s acceptance/victory speech here…  The passage that sparked my imagination and attracted my Witches Eye is…

“So let us summon a new spirit of patriotism; of service and responsibility where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.”

Heady thought that, at least to this Witch.  Especially given my thoughts and beliefs and relationships with Columbia and Uncle Sam and others of the American Pantheon.  I have some thinking to do, some incense to burn, and libations to pour… later today… after some sleep and a good ritual bath…

A lot of folks have written in blog posts and in message groups of doing magic to ensure a particular outcome in the election.  Not all of them were supporters of our new President Elect.   I find myself thinking about the heresy that drove early Christianity underground.  One of the Treasonous things they did, in the eyes of Rome, was to refuse to pay honor to the gods of the State and to refuse to sacrifice to the guiding and guardian spirits of the Emperor.

I know that I will be praying and pouring for my Nation, and its President Elect… as I have tried to for the current President.  I would like to think I would have found it in myself to pray and pour for McCain had he won the election.

Peace and more on the morrow, or at least what will feel like the morrow after I’ve had some coffee and some sleep… not in that order!

Peace,

Pax

Holding my breath at a cross-roads

On By PaxIn Cross-roads, everyday, Religio-AmericanaLeave a comment

I have held back from a lot of things in the last year.  Persuing job opportunities, speaking (or writing) my mind here, I have held back from working magick and prayer for fear of failure … or more accurately dissapointment.  I am realizing, though, that holding oneself back is no way to live ones life.

Especially as a Witch and a U.S. citizen I know from the lessons of History and Life, that nothing good is not worth fighting for!  If I am to continue to enjoy my Freedoms of Religion and Speech, then I need to excercise them with every fiber of my being and every moment of my day.

Samhaintide has brought with it the U.S. Presidential elections.  My partner, The Big Guy (6’8″ tall and a husky Wisconsin lad), and I have actually talked about the idea of moving to Canada if McCain and Palin win…

I have written elsewhere on this blog about Religio Americana and my love of Country.  I voted early.  I have tried to stay informed, but I have hesitated to speak out, to put more energy into supporting Obama and the Democrats.  Partly my poverty has interferred with my ambitions, in this as in so many other things.

I spent a lot of time last night thinking about the idea of emigrating away in the face of tyrrany and corruption I see present in the current administration and any possible Republican successors.  Mind you a few years ago I saw myself as more of an old-school Barry Goldwater conservative… the times, they are a-changin.  As a gay man, and a Pagan, a McCaine/Palin America is a scary and potentially deadly place for me and my beloved.

The Big Guy and I discuss moving, and mostly I am willing.  I am tired of waiting for equality, for justice, for fairness.

There is, however, that part of me that has pledged alliegance to the Flag and the Country for which it stands… the part of me that is heir to the Great Work of Democracy wrought so many years ago in Philladelphia, the part of me who is the beneficiary of the sacrifices made at Valley Forge, at Bull-Run, at Verdun, and at the Bulge; the part of me whose very life and freedom were secured by the dead at Arlington…

That part of me says, “No.”

The Founding Fathers were willing to live and die for the cuase of Democracy, of Freedom.  So many soldiers gave given of their safety and security and even their lives for this Nation.  I am not willing to give up on the United States.

I know that the U.S. has not always lived up to the ideals set forth in our founding documents, our nation has had mighty growing pains and fought a bloody civil war in working towards those ideals.  I believe, with all my heart, that now, in a time of dire threats, is NOT the time to set aside these ideals in the service of expediency.  I know that Extraordinary Rendition, and secret trials, would sicken and disgust the founding fathers, and mothers.

I pray, tonight, that I will not have to make a decision about moving, that Lady Liberty may shine her torch and illuminate in the hearts and minds of us all the best path to Truth and Justice, that our Nation may be led by a man of honor and integrity and not one who seems to be guided by the same spirit of expediency guiding the current regime.

Peace,

Pax