Month: August 2010

Praying through the Chakras before my day 08/24/10

On By PaxIn Notes on the Journey, PrayerLeave a comment

Holy Powers

Help me in my walk this day, help me to know my self and to find my Work.

Guide me and Inspire me, welcome in my words and actions as you are in my heart and hearth.

Help me to perceive clearly with all my senses and all the ways of knowing.

Help me to express myself clearly and creatively.

Help me to Love myself and all the wide world around me, help me to be Compassionate and Centered.

Let the my will be strengthened and my True Will be revealed.

Help me to know my emotions and to be fully engaged with all my senses and sensuality in the delicious dance of life.

Help me to walk Balances and Strong, and to be Grounded this day.

Holy Powers, thank you, and blessed be.

Let us not merely mourn, let us honor, let us celebrate!

On By PaxIn An Important Message...2 Comments

Hello friends,

So as most of you doubtless know by now, Isaac Bonewits passed away a few days ago…

I never had the privilege of meeting the man, but had an inkling of just how much his life had affected mine for the better as a Pagan.  I know him through his words and works and through the lenses of the words and works of the many, many people whose lives he touched; those he knew directly and those he inspired.

I have already started seeing plans on many of the e-lists I am on for memorial rituals and folks suggesting we put up memorials to him.  Stone circles and memorial gardens, rituals and memory books.

Yet, it seems to me that given the dreams and goals he had for Paganism,  and the work Isaac did in his life, that a better way to celebrate his memory would be to carry forward the ideas and the goals he had for Pagans, all Pagans of every path.  He had big dreams for Paganism as Jason Pitzl-Waters quoted in his obituary for Isaac…

“We believe that Neopaganism is eventually going to become a mainstream religious movement, with hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of members, and that this will be A Good Thing, both for the individuals involved and for the survival of the Earth Mother. Neopaganism is riding the crest of the “baby boom.” Many people who grew up in the 60′s and 70′s are discovering us at about the same time that they are realizing both the desperate state of our planet and the eternal relevance of our youthful ideals. Membership in the Neopagan community is quietly growing at a geometric rate, both through word of mouth and the many do-it-yourself books now available, giving us an ever-greater impact on the mainstream culture as a whole.”… rest of quote here

So how we find ways to honor his memory that dream as big and have as big a goal as Isaac?

How about we fund the existing Pagan Community Centers and establish new ones in his name? What about a medical clinic or eventually an Isaac Bonewits Memorial Hospital? How about a home or a small community for Pagan Elders, preferably right in the center of a thriving Pagan community.  What about establishing and endowing and supporting with our time effort and money an Isaac Bonewits Schollarship for Pagan Youth?  How about when Cherry Hill Seminary finally becomes a fully accredited University, we create a financial endowment to support that University in Isaac’s name?

If he taught us anything its that not only are The Holy Powers worth the time, energy, and effort…so are we.

Lets dream big my friends, lets do Isaac and our Gods and ourselves proud!

Peace,

Pax

Struggle

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, everyday, Notes on the Journey3 Comments

” For mine is the spirit of ecstasy, and mine is joy on Earth, and love unto all beings is my law.” ~ Charge of The Goddess by Doreen Valliente

Dear friends,

I came across some news today about how the Attorney General of Florida, who is running for Governor, has recently come out stating that same-sex foster parenting should not be legal.  The most frustrating thing about this is how he appears to be doing this solely to guarantee votes…    I wanted to lash out somehow.

Then Cat Chapin-Bishop mentioned this fascinating Quaker essay on the prevalence of hate in the U.S. today on her Facebook.

So much hate and anger in the world and so much to outrage or upset or pull anger and venom to the surface of my own soul.

Ironically enough I have been working with my Heart Chakra of late, and so have been working most directly with the capacity to love.

The desire to be a person whose words and actions are worthy of Their perfect love and perfect trust, to walk in beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, and mirth and reverence; this desire is so often at odds with my own inner feelings.  Seeing, and being the target, of so much bigotry and ignorance, seeing laws crafted that deny me rights based on lies and misdirections, seeing politicians and religious leaders who should know better turn and use falsehoods to spread fear and mistrust in an already strife-torn world.  How can I not speak up, how can I not get angry and not want to lash out?  Well, I do.

Then I breathe.

Hating the other is not the answer, even when they act with hatefulness towards me.   I know this, and yet I struggle with it so often.  Some news item will come across my path or someone will say something that will be like the slap of a glove to my face challenging me to react.   Reacting with venom and anger and outrage and cruelty.   Time was I did.  I have a temper and was taught to clamp down on it from a young age.   For years just held my anger back, burying it…deep… but never really dealing with it.

Now, now I try to breathe.  I breathe into my Center and into my Heart Chakra and into my Ground and I try to just let myself be angry and keep it to my self for a while.   Neither lashing out with it, nor burying it, simply letting it be; I let myself simply feel angry for a while.

I ask myself and my anger questions… “Why is this making me so angry?   Why do I want to lash out and hurt them back?  Why am I feeling hurt?  Why is this personal?  Can I react in a way that isn’t just going to bring more unhappiness and pain and strife into the world?  Can I take the energy of this anger and turn it into something productive and positive that will help me to deal with this issue in a way that would make me and the Holy Powers proud?”

I have similar struggles with envy, and jealousy, and with all kinds of thoughts and feelings that do not fall into the Love end of the emotional spectrum.

As always, again and again, I take a moment to breathe the breath of life, and I pray, and I seek to discern.

I have often wondered why more Witchy leaning Pagans don’t go on and on about The Law of The Goddess.  You would think that after 50 plus years that there would be a LOT of writing and wisdom teaching about Love.  At least the beginnings of a body of literature reminiscent of the Buddhist’s writings on Loving Kindness.

Why not?
Peace, and curiosity,

Pax

A prayer for a cherished and admired stranger…

On By PaxIn everyday2 Comments

Holy Powers,
We wish he could stay, happy and healthy for many more years, but as he approaches the gates between the worlds, if Isaac Bonewits must pass on, let his journey be peaceful and may he find reunion and joy with his Beloved Dead and fellowship with the Mighty Dead he would be joining, and may his loved ones find their paths through grief to healing.
Blessed Be

PNC: Florida Bureau forming….

On By PaxIn everydayLeave a comment

Hello folks,

The Pagan Newswire Collective is an open collective of Pagan journalists, newsmakers, media liaisons, and writers who are interested in sharing and promoting primary-source reporting from within our interconnected communities.

You can read more about this grass-roots media initiative at the Pagan Newswire Collective mainsite.

PNC Florida is looking for folks interested in participating in citizen journalism Reporting on news of interest to or affecting the Pagan communities here in Florida. News Releases of upcoming events, reviews of those events by community members, news and opinion pieces from within and related to our communities.

If you are interested in this project please comment on this post, if you know of anyone in Florida who might be interested in participating, please let them know about this initiative and give them my contact info…

Peace, and thank you for your time,

Pax / Geoffrey Stewart

Lammastide and Gratitude

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Blame Sannion, Lammas, Mabon, Thanksgiving1 Comment

Hello Friends,

So we are betwixt and between the Calendrical and the  Astronomical Lammas right now.   Most traditionally a time of coming together with friends and family and community.   Now I realize that Mabon is the time when I as a Witch am supposed to be thinking of Giving Thanks… but Gratitude is on my mind right now.

It is only slightly less than a year since the Big Guy broke up with me.  It is also a little less than a year since I cast the most fervent prayer/spell I have ever cast.

At the time I decided, sometime in the first couple of months, that I we feeling a LOT of grief and that the thing I needed most was time.  So I gave myself a year.

In that year I have grieved, faced a number of challenges, worked, prayed and done a lot of reading and thinking.  I have had touching messages from friends I have met face to face and friends I (currently) know only through the Internet.  I have had laughter and made new friends face to face and begun finding the pieces and parts of myself that I left behind in the move to Florida and that were knocked out of me when the Big Guy dumped me.

I take a moment to breathe in life force, and to exhale gratitude into my connection with all life.

Everything can be a lesson, every moment can make us wiser and stronger and happier and healthier… if we put in the work and are open to the inspriation.  I have so much more to learn in this particular lifetime, but I feel like the last year has helped me put together puzzle pieces of a number of my life’s lessons so far, and taught me strange and new things.  So this Lammas-tide I find myself Grateful, and looking forward to Mabon and to the Secular Thanksgiving Holidays even as I make my offerings of incense and libations to the Holy Powers in the regular rhythms of my life.

Blessed Be,

Pax / Geoffrey