Category: Bouncing off the Gods

There is no knowledge that is not power

On By PaxIn Bouncing off the Gods, everyday, Food for Thought, Pagan Values Blogging, Pax's BeliefsLeave a comment

(or) Learning and the Quest for Wisdom as Pagan Values

If the Abrahamic Faiths are the Religions of the Book,

then the Pagan Faiths must be Religions of the Library…

~An old, old joke about Paganism

It is not just that in order to become a Pagan many of us have had to amass, and/or read, a library of books or sites in addition to what other forms of learning we have had the privilege of having on our life journeys.  It is also the fact that in all of the Pagan cultures out of history we can see knowledge and wisdom and learning were much valued.

Of course, I am a bit biased on the matter of the value of learning.  I grew up in a house that, while not Pagan, was similarly devoted to learning.

“Ignorance means there are things you haven’t learned yet,

Stupidity means you aren’t able to learn.”

I grew up in a house whose walls were almost literally lined with words.  The house I grew up in was a split-level Ranch style house with the lower level being a sort of daylight-basement where it was half-underground so at about chest level to your average adult there was a shelf along several of the walls.  Above that shelf on many of the walls that would support them, were book shelves.  Books of all sorts, reference works and classics and various treasured novels both intellectual and popular in hardcover and paperback.

I grew up with a mother who had originally planned on being a school teacher and who had double-majored and double-minored in College… only to marry at a time when most respectable married women did not work outside the home.   I could ask that classic child’s question “Why….” all the live long day and my mom would either answer,  or if she wasn’t sure aim me at a dictionary or encyclopedia… often both because of course a child’s stock of “Why…”‘s is often much larger than even 5 average adults schedules can allow…

Once the Internet started getting navigable and usefully informative (to those of us in the general populace) sometime in the 90’s it was a boon to me… especially as informational and educational sites blossomed at the turn of the 21st Century.  While I am aware of its limitations, I consider the Wikipedia project to be one of the noblest endeavors of the 21st Century. I find it invigorating and exciting to live in a time where society is changing because of a new information technology… a time of change and transformation as big as Writing, or The Printing Press, or Radio.

I am sometimes surprised when, at local Pagan events or in online chats, I will bring up ideas from Psychology or (my own admittedly limited understanding of) Physics, or History, or any of a number of other subjects where my interests and reading and willingness to look stuff up have cross-polinated…. and then finding myself having to explain ideas like Entrainment, or Venn Diagrams, or Transference and Counter-Transferance, or the blossoming of the Spiritualist movement in the late 19th Century and the 20th Century Occult revival starting in the 1960’s as a continuation of The Great Awakening, or… well stuff that I am surprised not everybody knows about.

“Well, maybe my frame of reference is a little obscure…”

~Pax

The ancient societies featured Bards, and Skalds, and Law-speakers, and Philosopher’s and traveling Poets; all of whom had to memorize hundreds of books worth of material.  Our Pagan ancestors created great Temples and Store-Houses of Learning in the Philosophical Schools and the Mouseaum/Mousaion (a Temple to the Muses/University of which the Library of Alexandria was but one part) was a wonder of the Ancient World that has continued to inspire humanity down through to the present day.  Never mind the surprising technical sophistication of even the near Stone Age monuments, much less Greece and Roman technology.  Pagan Culture’s have always valued learning and wisdom, and I feel our Contemporary Paganism’s are striving in our own ways to do the same, this is why you see a LOT of Pagan content online and why we seem to be early and eager adapter’s of technology.

Unfortunately, Pagans have not always had a firm line between the categories of History and Folklore…  and between honoring and being inspired by our ancestral cultures and slavishly trying to recreate a world-view that is better adapted to the world of the 9th Century BCE than for the 21st CE…. and of mediating between our metaphysical beliefs and our understandings of the Hard and Soft Sciences.   We live in a world where it is becoming more and more common to be isolated from ideas and information that challenges our world-view as we ‘like’ and select certain articles and sites which results in your various media sites aiming only certain types of information in your direction; we also live in a world where discussion and cooperation and compromise are being replaced by screaming and rhetoric and ideology.  What can we do to balance these issues?

Listen.  Learn.  Read.  Be open to conversation and knowledge and ideas.

When I was thinking about writing a piece for Pagan Values Month, I was originally thinking of either Hospitality or Community as my topic and I was reminded of the folk-tales of Gods or Culture Heroes who go abroad in the world disguised as mortals/regular folk, how they go amongst the humans and reward or punish their hosts depending upon their treatment.   The Gods (Divine, or The Good) are, or can be, present in any person … or book, or idea, that we encounter so why not be open to them.

Perservering

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Cross-roads5 Comments

Dear, dear friends,

This morning, a God journeyed through Osceola County.

I was working on the Motel’s Night Audit, getting it printed and getting some additional chores taken care of… changes in some of the paperwork procedures related to having a new GM made me want to mix up the morning routine a bit in order to give myself some extra time to take care of everything.

The sound of rolling thunder interrupted my everyday office early 21st Century routine.  I started printing the let’s-hope-we-don’t-have-to-use-this-in-an-emergency-or-blackout-report (not it’s formal name), un-locked the Lobby door and stepped outside for a moment or two…

The pre-dawn sky was dark, but I could tell it was overcast and cloudy, and the humid air was zephyring about.  The winds was shaking the palm fronds with a silken rustling sound.  It was near to rain, but not quite there yet, although the clouds coming in from the South West hinted that there was already rain fall on the Peninsula somewhere.  Flashes of lightening, like old-fashioned camera flash-bulbs, lit some of the clouds from the inside.  These alternated with streaks of cloud-bound lightening spider-webbing across the sky. All strangely silent, accompanied only by the petticoat rustlings of the leaves and tree limbs, then long moments later the thunder would roll across the landscape.  The lightest splatters of rain falling from the sky, seeming almost indecisive as the elements dances.

I spoke some greetings to the Powers of Air and Water and Fire, although I wasn’t entirely certain if Lightening belonged to the realm of Fire or Air… then too in my relations with the Natural world I am feeling increasingly drawn to the 3 elements model in some respects.

I also spoke a greeting to Zeus.  The Thunderer, who was storming through the skies and raining down upon the land of the local earth-mother Our Lady of The Feast of Flowers, Holy Florida.

I had to go inside and return to my reports for a while, my work as a Hospitality worker and my calling as a Witch having to dance and wrestle with one another for a while…

I returned to the doorway after the quick pre-dawn rainstorm had moved on,  The many layers of cloud-cover were doing a Brownian dance in the dawn-lit skies above me.  The early morning light, dancing and bouncing between land and cloud-covered sky and sea lit everything with a gentle yet revealing quality of light that seemed almost cinematic.  The rain quenched plants and grasses and leaves seemed a vibrant green even in the dim light.  The air was cool, for the moment, as the spent humidity rested on the ground before it began its inevitable creep back up into the air.  The day seemed clean and new, the air clear and cool, life full of possibilities.

The last month or so has been a tough time.  My Friends Sandi’s Death, by ex-beloved Eugene’s death, the ups and downs of matters at work, moving in with my now-beloved fabulous Jonathan…  busy, hectic, a true roller-coaster of emotions and experiences… and through all but a few days I have held to prayer and practice and the counsel of dear friends and wise words from many sources, and prayed and turned my heart over to the Holy Powers for their care.

Sometimes that is all we can do.

Sometimes there is grief and pain and pressure, sometimes there is joy and calm and beauty, accept them both, bless them both, and keep moving forward.

Sometimes, if we are lucky, patience and perseverance are rewarded with limnal numinous moments that feel like a cross-roads that allows us to set out in a new direction or that helps us to get back on the path we were on before.

Peace, and Perserverance,

Pax / Geoffrey

We must stand up for the future

On By PaxIn An Important Message..., Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods2 Comments

Dear Friends,

Jason Pitzl-Waters recently shared one of the previously mentioned Symphony of Science videos on his Facebook.  I was deeply moved by it and shared it here.

The ideas and images and words of these pieces have played themselves out and over, again and again in my mind and heart.  I can remember watching some of the episodes of  Cosmos with my family as a child back in the nearly forgotten days when there were 3  networks and television stations would go off the air.  I listen to the musical pieces inspired, in part, by that series and by the scientific wonders and vast possibilities of the world around us; I find myself wondering how and when the once widely popular veneer of hip cynicism became a bone deep cynical nihilism?

Why do so many people choose rage and fear and bitterness and fanaticism?

It seems sometimes that folks think that joy and hope and happiness are either simple minded pursuits; or that people have the idea that these things are achieved only by venting their anger and running away from their fears.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  In my experience, happiness and joy and hope are complicated and difficult.  More often than not they seem to come from doing the hard work of facing our fears and working through them, from harvesting the energy of our anger and using it for something more productive to make a positive difference in our lives and the lives of others.

So much of what we hear from popular culture and society is weighted down with despair and predictions of doom and collapse…  Do the authors of such things not realize that the future of humanity is a self-fulfilling prophecy?

We must stand up for the future.

Not only for ourselves and our future generations, but to honor our ancestors and thank them for the gift of our lives and the precious gifts they have given or passed down to us, to honor and be in right relationship with the spirits of the world around us – whatever we concieve them to be, to serve and honor our loving relationships with The Holy Powers ~ whatever our experience or understanding of them; for all of these reasons I believe we have a holy duty to stand up for the future.

We must not be afraid to discuss the values and virtues and ethics we have discovered in our contemporary Pagan faiths.  There are enough books on rituals and spells and prayers to last us a few generations… lets start writing works on confronting poverty and hunger from Pagan perspectives.   Let us set aside the fear of prejudice, and the once glamorous but now tattered and worn mantle of the outsider and the rebel, and take pride in ourselves and our faiths, in our works and lives and worship and in our Pagan communities and our larger communities.

This I believe, is the challenge and the duty the Gods have set before us.

Peace,

Pax

…and what are you actually DOING about that?

On By PaxIn Activist Alert, Bouncing off the Gods, Cross-roads, Highest Ideals1 Comment

Dear Friends,

I have unilaterally decided that there is entirely to much anger and fist shaking and fear and fear-mongering in the world.  I see blog posts and Facebook status messages full of woe and inevitably, when asked, the only thing a lot of these folks do with their outrage is vent it on their friends on FB or on their blog or what-not.  If you ask them about how they spend their free-time trying to make the world a better place and to improve the social/political/cultural ill or situation that they’ve railed against; inevariably there is a litany of reasons why they couldn’t possibly spend time on this or that or the other.

I am going to start calling people on it.

For the record, I currently do what I can where I can to do good in the world. Sometimes that is sharing information, sometimes that is volunteering time to my U.U. faith community, sometimes that is blogging about practice and work, sometimes it is work at the Pagan Newswire Collective, sometimes it is engaging in religious and spiritual fellowship in support of some of my friends and fellow Pagans and U.U.’s – either in person or online.

When I have money, and as an adult who has lived at or bellow the poverty line his entire adult life and who may have to work till the day I die just to get by that is all to infrequently, I give to causes I believe in.  When my jobs allow me I volunteer my time working for causes I believe in, at least I used too… I kind of lost my way for a few years on that score, and lost sight of my self along the way, but I am getting back together on that score….

For now, I am content to hold myself together in balance and seek Spirit. I am content, for now, to lend my hand or voice to another in need of reassurance or nurturing.  I am content to do these things as I look for ways to do more, hoping… to lend or inspire in many others the strength to change a world that seems so off the rails to me.

For now, I seek to stabilize and improve my own situation.

For now.

And for now, I am going to start calling people on spewing rage or mongering fear whilst assuming their own helplessness.

I would appreciate your prayers, your thoughts and words of encouragement, and what blessings you may give.

Sincerely,

Pax

Freewriting and Notes on the Journey 3/02/11

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Brigid, Imbolc, Notes on the Journey, The Fabulous Jonathan, witcheryLeave a comment
Image found here thanks to Google Images search...

Dear Friends,

So there have been a LOT of little nudges from the Cosmos, Kledon’s found in random discussions and comments from friends, and outright urgings from friends and acquaintances.  Keep Writing.  You should write a book.  Look at how successful online writers/E-book authors are…  So the Altar’s lit with the various candles and Brighid’s Candle from Imbolc is lit atop my Computer tower as I sit here writing freely and from the heart.

I feel like a fraud sometimes.  I write here about my practices and journey and yet my Practice is a sometimes fragile thing in the face of rapid changes in schedule or routine… yet still I try to keep my log book of Practices, and at least Ground and Center each day… the prayers and Chakra exercises and Meditation ebb and flow… but at least I ground and Center each day.

I sometimes wonder if one of the most difficult things we can do on our journeys of Spirit on our many Religious paths isn’t just going back to them each day?  Letting go of the distractions and the doubts and just trusting in the journey….

Today I stayed home from work, overwhelmed by allergies and a sky-high pollen count in Orlan0do in the wake of this Winter’s freezes; overwhelmed too by Benadryl… which always hits me like a trippy tidal wave when I first take it each year.  I slept for several hours this afternoon and have been up for a few hours this evening and am getting ready to pass out as my modern day flying ointment (aka benedryl) takes affect.

Sometimes you just have to slow down and let things happen in their own time… been getting that message too lately.  From the Spirits and from my own magickal work..

As I may have mentioned here I have been doing some prosperity related work lately.  Made myself a money candle and used some oils and herbs and added them to a 7day candle and used some silver and gold metalic craft ink to write things on the outside of the glass.  Been burning that a bit each day… had to re-make it once when the first ink I chose rubbed off quickly…

Made myself a money powder with a popular chamomile tea blend, which happened to have a lot of lucky and prosperity herbs in it for flavor balance – handy that, and some rice and ground them together in the coffee grinder.  (I lack a mortar and pestle as the mortar was re-purposed to an incense burning bowl a couple of years ago whilst the pestle was misplaced, and lets be honest, for a lot of uses a grinder makes more sense you can charge the herbs without inducing early onset carpel tunnel)  Sometimes though, it would be nice to have that mortar and pestle, to grind the herbs as best I could by hand and feel them breaking down, to smell their scents, to feel the energy of my action and will flowing into them as I break them down… sometimes.  Sometimes its nice to simply have some things on hand that I can say a quick prayer over and toss a pinch of powder into my pocket as I get ready to leave the house.

I Also started in on some Crown of Success oil.  Found all SORTS of recipes, but I started out by using the one in Judika Isles 500,000 Spells book.  Started by steeping fresh and dried bay leaves in Olive and Jojoba oil.  Blended that with some Sandalwood essential oil in Jojoba (because I need more success until I can afford retail Sandalwood essential oil), some Frankincense (because I was in a hurry and didn’t realize that the Frankincense was nearly twice the cost of the other until I got home and read the reciept) and Vetivert essential oils, and gifted the results to The Fabulous Jonathan.

That was the quick Crown of Success Oil, now I’m working on the slow long-term success so all that left-over Bay leaves and Olive/Jojoba Oil will come in handy!  I bought some Frankincense tears and ground them up and added them to the oil and leaves that remained, gonna try an old school home-made batch of Crown of Success.   May not have the “pow” of an essential oil batch, at least not for a long time and multiple herbal additions and steeping cycles, but I think a longer term steeping might be instructive and useful…. at lest thats the urgings/leadings/impression I’ve been getting.  Slow down, relax, do what you need to do but don’t be afraid to let things develop naturally you don’t have to be doing it all to have everything you need to have happen, happen.

So I will trust in the Gods and the Spirits and the Ancestors and light Brighids Candle and write something somewhere each day, and breathe, and Center, and do what I need to do.

What will you do?  What do you need to do?

Peace, and Curiosity, always the Curiosity,

Pax

PS- Technically speaking I shouldn’t be surprised at the changes and upheavals and jumping around going on in my life since I ASKED for it….  I need to remember to bless and remember that fact when the universe forces me to think and breathe and dance between the lines of the spiritual tides on the shores of my life.

The Lady

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits, remembering, The Goddess, witchery3 Comments

I Call upon and Invoke Thee

Oh Triple Goddess of the Witches

Mighty Mother Celestial

Black Robed and Silver Clad Queen of the Mysteries

Lady of Spirit and Inspiration and Magick

Ever-changing Goddess of the moon

Lady of the Groves and Gardens

Bride of the Sun

You who is at once, The Maiden of Creativity,

The Mother of Possibilities, and The Secret Wielding Crone,

I Invoke Thee by Perfect Love and Perfect Trust

Please be present in this rite in Thy Honor and Praise

Share with me Your Love and Lore and Law

That Thy Servant and Friend may be Fulfilled

Hail & Well Met

~Invocation, (c) 2010 Pax/Geoffrey Stewart

Dear Friends,

This, which I was determined would be the first entry in this little series, has been a tough post to write for all its brevity.  It is strange to note that I don’t have many dramatic or deep encounters with The Witches Goddess, the Three-fold Lady who is Maiden and Mother and Crone… a couple stand out… but Her presence in my life is a largely subtle one compared to some of my other encounters with Divinities.

The Charge

The Charge, or rather, Valiente’s Charge of The Goddess is the first time I can specifically remember encountering Her.  After all these years I can’t recall which version in which book or where I was when I first read it…. I want to say it was in the back of either Complete Art of White Witchcraft or Diary of A Witch, both by Sybil Leek.

I remember it was an older book.   Anchorage is blessed with some world class used bookstores because it can be ridiculously expensive to move to and from Alaska thus a lot of folks jettison stuff on their way out, I remember the worn pages of a paperback in my hand,the sensation of that light almost feathery quality of the page edges that old paperback books have.  I remember the old paperback/used book scent overlaying that slightest hint of Metaphysical/Occult bookstore.  I remember the slightly old fashioned type against the sepia kissed creme of the page.

I remember the words, as I read them, seeming to flow off the page, up my arms deep into my head and heart.  I remember how filled to bursting I was with Spirit and Love and Hope and Power as I first experienced a sense of Her deep and abiding love.

I remember the sense of the rest of the world receding and the sense of the words speaking directly to the deepest part of my soul.  Drinking down the words of the Charge, I can remember feeling changed.  Touched and Transformed by Her words, sent through Doreen, so many years before I was born.  She was there, and although Her presence in my life has been an often subtle one, She has been with me ever since.

A Voice in The Rec Room

This was one of the few, dramatic, moments in my experiences of the Triple Goddess.  An acquaintance of mine who was claiming to suffer from Multiple Personalities (Dissociative Identity Disorder) had had, or decided to have (which I say looking back on the episode with the perspective of many years experience of the ways people seek to suck up attention and specialness in dysfunctional ways) an episode.

I wasn’t entirely sold on the MPD, had some inkling it might just be attention seeking, but also felt that it was possible that there WAS some mental illness going on or at least some emotional troubles… so I did what any self-respecting Witch would do; I decided to turn it over to the Gods… or in this case The Witches Goddess.  This was early enough in my journey and practice as a Solitary Witch that She was in the spotlight of my practice at the time.

I had decided to try something different, and instead of putting the tools on an altar table or cloth, I arrayed them and the various notions and lotions and potions that inhabited my early altars around me in a circle, and Cast Circle through and upon them.  I did the usual Cirlce rites and then after The Rite, in symbol, I began praying to Her.  I asked Her what I could do for my friend and lay the situation out before here as I understood it at the time and prayed for Her guidance.

“Love him.” She said.

I.  Heard.  The.  Words. Aloud.  Not in the conversation-in-my-head-but-not-my-words style, which is the usual way I get impressions from The Holy Powers, but aloud.  Out, friggin’, Loud!

I spun around, startled, and knocked over the lit Candle for Fire… which luckily went out and did NOT ignite the synthetic orange shag of  daylight basement rec-room.  After a moment of processing this, one of my earliest this-shit-is-real experiences, I uprighted and relit the Candle for Fire and continued to pray for a time.  She, of course, was maddeningly silent after this, but I tried to remain content knowing She was and is there and will put a hand or word in if needed.

Reflection

Mostly I am aware of her on Full Moon nights, or nearly full nights.  The familiar embracing Presence.  The sense of settling in as I begin Invoking Her in Circle, the passionate thread that runs through me as the Blade and Chalice meet.  While I haven’t had a lot of woo-woo experiences involving Her, I have almost never really doubted She is there.

I’d love to be able to say that I have NEVER doubted Them or The Craft, but I am as human as anyone else and sometimes I wrestle with fear and doubt and confusion.  Always though, I return.  I return to Them and to Her.

Lately my relationship with Her has taken a bit of a turn as I encountered the Feri Trad way of addressing Her as “Holy Mother in Whom we live move and have our being”… this has resonated strongly for me and for my practice and I have incorporated that phrase into some of my own Craft.

Peace,

Pax

…

Intro

Libertas (whilst written before this series was conceived of, it fits a little too perfectly into the theme to be ignored…)

The Witches Goddess (this post)

The WitchFather

The Morrigan

Hecate

Dionysus

The Honored and Beloved Dead

Spirits of the World Around Us

My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Gospel Pagan, My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits, Pagan Evangelical, remembering12 Comments

(Intro to a series…)

Hello Dear Friends,

This series of posts has its origins in reading Dver’s marvelous post A light in the darkness, which was in turn inspired by Sarah Lawless’ post They’re Watching You.  Most especially it’s been sparked by reading and re-reading Dver’s other post, Committing.  There are other posts that are inspiring and re-inspiring me (including They Hold Our Hands,  from Aquila ka Hecate, and It’s not about us also from Dver, and Gods, Goods and shadows… from CredenceDawg) as I seek to write of my encounters with some of The Holy Powers, and why I believe THEY are important….

That Paganism and Witchcraft and Spirituality and Religion and Devotion are about THEM at least as much as, if not more than, they are about US.  Increasingly I am seeing that this is something of a scandalous or shocking, or perhaps I should say unfashionable, idea amongst a number of my fellow Pagans.  So let me clarify my own personal position.

The. Gods. Are. Real.

So I am going to engage in some commitment with this series of posts.  I am going to write about my personal experiences of some of the Holy Powers and Spirits as I remember experiencing them.  Some of these I have written about before or in part, but I am going to share them here again.  Because they really happened.

For the skeptical or non-theistic out there, especially the ones I know and socialize with in my off-line worlds, some of whom might become concerned or made uncomfortable by this series; I am willing to allow you all the polite escape clause that on some level that its possible that what I describe is all in my head and some psychological peak experience or whatever psychological make-it-some-how-safe-and-rational-excuses you prefer

HOWEVER

The experiences I will write about are such that they have  pushed (or pulled, or perhaps danced) me past the point of Agnosticism, over the borderlands of Belief  and deep into the complex terrain of Experience.

I am not a Polytheist or a Witch because I think that The Gods or Magick are nifty ideas, I am not a Pagan because it helps me to be a better person, I am not a Witch because its some nifty magickal lifestyle choice; I am a Witch and Polytheist because I have experienced Magick and encountered some of the Gods and Spirits and felt the phantom touch of the Ancestors in my life.

Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey

(tip of the hat to Lon Milo Duquette for inspiring the title of the present series of posts)

Intro (this post)

Libertas (whilst written before this series was conceived of, it fits a little too perfectly into the theme to be ignored…)

The Witches Goddess

The WitchFather

The Morrigan

Hecate

Dionysus

The Honored and Beloved Dead

Spirits of the World Around Us

Rekindling the Sacred Fires

On By PaxIn Bouncing off the Gods, Brigid, Cross-roads, everyday, Food for Thought, Honoring the New Year, Imbolc, My Florida Sabbats, Pagan Values Blogging2 Comments

“In the light of truth,

and in the warmth of love,

We gather to seek, to sustain, and to share.”

~ Chalice Lighting from1st Unitarian Church Orlando

Dear Friends,

I ~may~ be a bit of an absentee blogger for the next few weeks as I look and write and practice and work and Work towards Imbolc.

I am working on an Imbolc ritual for a group of Pagans.  I am doing it, primarilly, out of obligation.  I said I would do it and so I will.  We should keep our word, both when it is convenient and when it is not; that is the path of integrity, and why we should be damn careful about promising or volunteering for things!

It’s not that they are bad people, its just that the group itself has become incredibly hidebound and cliqueish and self-satisfied and convinced of their own glorious golden energy-ness.  New people with new ideas, experiences, and education, could not possibly have anything to offer this group they are just perfect… at least as they seem to see it.  So I have pulled back from my involvement with them, and Imbolc will be my last entangelment with the group.

It is ironic that this Feast of Rekindling and celebration of New Beginnings will also be, at its heart for me, a blessed release… but I suppose it is appropriate that for me the time between Samhain and Imbolc is sort of The Cross-Roads of the Year…

We celebrate the Honored and Beloved Dead at Samhain when according to the lore the walls between the worlds are at their thinnest, then we turn to celebrating the Honored and Beloved Living at Solstice…

… Of course some Traditions, including Heathenry Celebrate the Honored and Beloved Living AND Dead at the Solstice, or near it…

Samhain is, for many, a spiritual/religious New Years based on the old (and increasingly suspect historically) idea that the Celts celebrated the New Year on Samhain.  (Whilst suspect historically, this is nonetheless valid, but lets cop to our innovations and inspirations shall we?)  For me the New Years will always be the Winter Solstice, hard NOT to think of it as a Major Sabbat and as the Turning of the Year when you spent most of you life to date someplace where you see 4 hours daylight on that day and know undeniably that the days will get longer…  one kind of thirsts for sunlight and Spring in that sort of situation…

Now we are moving towards Imbolc and I am trying to write a Rite that will express my Witchcraft and Honor the Gods and especially Honor the Holy Tides of this Sabbat and celebrate and Honor Brighid.  This is a challenge as, due to an early experience with The Morrigan, left young Witchlet Pax more than a little wary of the Celtic Gods… so I have been doing a lot of research and am STILL debating with myself after 3 months as to whether I want to do a Witches Circle or a more generally Celtic/Druidic inspired Ritual am trying to write an invocation to Brighid…

I had asked a number of trusted folks if they would help, only the Fabulous Jonathan got back to me… but I am doing the right on my own, for a group of people with whom (with only very few exceptions) I will not likely be willing to Circle with again, nor break bread…

And yet even with the mixed feelings I have about this coming Imbolc, I am working on it as best I can.  I am thinking and writing and meditating on it and going to to the best I can for this Holy Day… not only out of obligation, but if this is the ONLY real chance I am to be allowed to give my best for this community, that once meant so much to me to be involved, then I will give them my BEST…for both myself and for The Gods.

Then too as painful as my association with this group was, and as near as it came to causing me to give up on a lot of things, it not only taught me some valuable lessons, but led me to involvement and friendships and much healthier associations that I would not have found without them; so I will celebrate the Sabbat and ballance my accounts with them… paying the coin as the Traditional Witchcraft folks say…

Peace,

Pax

PS- New links have been added to the Online Resources and New Books to the Suggested Reading…

Libertas, Tiananmen Square, and Me

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Community Building, Cross-roads, My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits, Religio-Americana, remembering, The Goddess, The Numinous Divine1 Comment

Dear Friends,

So this years Nobel Peace Prize winner has dedicated his award to the memory of those who died in the June Fourth Incident, as the  Tiananmen Square massacre is known inside China.  It took me a while to decipher the reasons why this news stirred my heart.  Since that time, the Chinese government has done what they can to block the incident or otherwise discredit the ceremony.   When this news broke in early November, though, I was transported back in time….

21 years ago, 1989, the Summer between my Junior and Senior year of High School.  Technically speaking I wasn’t really a Pagan or a Witch yet…  and yet… from early childhood I had had a fascination with stories of magic and the occult and E.S.P. and folklore and mythology.  From the time I got a couple of fill-in-the-blanks word/spelling workbooks with the stories of the Greek and Roman gods started  my fascination with Ancient Greece, which was later aided and abetted by my passionate love of Wonder Woman tv show; I had immersed myself in mythology and folk-lore and stories of the unexplained and such, and if there had been a book in any of my school libraries on such topics I had read it.

My family didn’t go to Church or anything…. we prayed at the Holidays but I wasn’t Churched growing up except for a couple of Christian Summer School experiments that I think Mom and Dad tried out because they felt I should get some species of religious education.  While I am sure that the Baptist Afternoon Bible Summer School must have spoken of God’s Love, all my A.D.D. blessed brain caught a hold of was the whole tow-the-line-or-go-directly-to-Hellfire-and-Brimstone-do-not-pass-go-do-not-collect-$200 part of the theology…; this left young Geoffrey with some issues with Christianity and organized Religion!  I had begun skirting the barest edges of metaphysical and magickal practices from readings in the folklore and Mysteries of the Unexplained Woo Woo readings I had done over the years.  It hadn’t really yet occurred to me that there were other games in town OTHER than Christianity/Judaism (which, since I didn’t know one could convert to, I considered myself wholly ineligible for)/Islam;  I had yet to start reading any Daoist or Buddhist books, that would come later….

Like many people of my generation I found great hope and inspiration in the early days of the coverage of Tienanmen Square, people finding their voice and demanding redress of their grievances from their government…. as a young man born in 1972 and raised with all the patriotic fervor of the U.S. Bicentennial floating about and the (admittedly rose-colored and simplistic) emphasis on U.S. History and Americana and Democracy etc. etc…  how could I not feel moved by the happenings across the Pacific from my homeland of Alaska U.S.A.?

Then, then I saw Her.  It was not simply that they had raised a statue resembling Lady Liberty, although that did stir my soul, but that they outright named Her as Goddess… The Goddess of Democracy… I did not know then that Lady Liberty who stands beside the golden door is meant to represent Libertas…  Yet, something about the fact that people all over the world were being enthralled and inspired by the struggle for freedom and inspired by the image of The Goddess of Democracy, stirred within my mind the idea that the ancient Gods and Godesses were still abroad in the world, stirred my senses and struck chord in my heart and soul and knocked upon the doors of my perception.  It was a deep and abiding and everlasting and celestially symphonic chorus of…

“Yes!  Yes, yes, oh Sweet, oh Divine, oh Glorious; Yes!!!”

…that rang forth from and within my every dancing atom and singing cell.   The swift winged winds of change blowing through my soul, inspiring me and stirring a sea change deep within me.  Even though I didn’t have the language for it at the time, and even though I did not formally start my studies or formally separate myself from the mainstream or from the presumed Judeo-Christian matrix of my late 20th Century U.S. upbringing until a few years later, I can honestly say THAT was the exact moment I truly became a Pagan.

What about you?  When did you say YES?

Peace, and Curiosity,

Pax

PS- after this post was written and posted, a series of posts entitled “My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits” started trickling out of me, and this post was too obviously a part of that NOT to be included… for ease of cross referencing Links to the other articles discussing the characters in my life’s Divine and semi-Divine Dramatis Personae will be included below as the posts are written…

Intro

Libertas (this post)

The Witches Goddess

The WitchFather

The Morrigan

Hecate

Dionysus

The Honored and Beloved Dead

Spirits of the World Around Us

Regarding a couple of classics…

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, Chrysalis, Love Unto All Beings, Notes on the Journey, Pagans of Note1 Comment

Dear Friends,

There are a couple of very eloquent and talented writers in the Pagan community who I see regularly on a particular online forum.  Learned gentlemen whose writings are reputed to be some of the sharpest and most intellectually convincing and heartfelt explorations of Pagan thought and polytheology.  Unfortunately my heart and mind tend to slam shut at the sight of their noms-de-Pagan.

This is because the very first place I encountered them is in the comment stream of a popular Pagan blog, where they are both frequently found pouring out their anger and bitterness and venom towards Monotheism in general and Christianity in particular.  Although in light of recent event over the last few months they have been throwing dog dirt upon Islam as well.  Anyone who disagrees with them, no matter how gently or politely,  is subjected to their ridicule and scorn; if the objector is Pagan then the legitimacy of their particular religious path and their basic intelligence are called into question.  In their ongoing campaigns of vitriol they will cherry pick their examples from the worst of human behavior in whatever form of Christianity or Islam or Monotheism they are currently attacking; or the particular form of religion/Paganism of those who dare disagree with either of these theoretically august personages.  When they are not insulting the intelligence or character of their detractors they will be found busily and casually ignoring any evidence or examples that counter their examples or might contradict their passionately proselytized prejudices.

They have given me a lot to think about and I am once again contemplating why it is that I have such a powerful emotional response when the two of them start writing about other religions, mainly but not limited to monotheistic ones. My reaction is often one of not just no, but a sometimes very angry “Oh Hell to the No!”

In my anger and outrage I have sometimes gotten rude and petty and pissy, again I apologize to them.

The more I think about it the more I have realized that when one of the two of them starts to vent their, admittedly well written, spleen on the topics of monotheism the two of them remind me of nothing so much as Jerry Fallwell or Fred Phelps or Anita Bryant or any of the many others who have tried to tell me all my life that as a Gay man I am evil and vile and worthless and without worth and value and values and that I don’t deserve the same basic legal rights as others.  There is the exact same sort of righteous anger, and venom. The same willingness to deeply research matters as long as the facts they find match their preconcieved notions, and to casually sweep aside anything that is counter to their set opinions. There is the exact same cruelty and condescension to any and all who disagrees with them, and the same willingness to comdemn them as wrong or suspect of representing “the enemy’. There is the same eagerness to force their opinions onto others no matter what it takes. The same willingness to play the martyr card the second that the system or popular opinion isn’t playing in their favor. The same sort of tactics, the same sort of fanatic zeal, the same sort of hatefullness, and the same sort of bigotry.

Then again the two of them aren’t all that much like any of the fanatics I’ve named, after all neither of them has ever showed the courage of your convictions to attach their legal names to their little opinion pieces, either int heir comments on other blogs or on their own. They are content to cower behind pseudonyms while spraying their negative opinions about like a cat marking its territory.

I do take comfort in the fact that for many, although admittedly not all, of the readers of the forums they comment in they represent the same sort of place within Paganism, that Fred Phelps or the Church of Christ Aryan occupies in Christianity.   So I shall let them spout their hatred and vent their spleens.

I shall pray for them.   I shall strive to resist the urge to give in to my own shock and outrage at their slings and arrows with the shaking of fists or giving them the attention and reaction they so desperately crave.   I remain content in the knowledge that for most Pagans the kind of bigotry, pettyness, and anger that they represent are absolutely NOT what the many Paths of Pagans Movement are about.

Still praying the prayers of Peace,

Pax / Geoffrey Stewart

NOT an ‘Earth Religion’?

On By PaxIn Bouncing off the Gods, Food for Thought, Highest Ideals5 Comments

Hello friends,

So thanks to the wonders of Facebook I came across this article about the voyage of the Plastiki, a catamaran that is largely made from recycled materials and is sailing the ocean to highlight the dangers of over-fishing and ocean pollution.  This is how I learned about the Eastern Garbage Patch.

“The ocean’s fragility they witnessed in the place where much of the world’s discarded plastic ends up, the “eastern garbage patch”. This, the focus of their voyage, is a floating “continent” of debris. Nothing that the crew had read in advance could prepare them for what they found navigating an area twice as large as the North Sea. “You don’t see it at first,” De Rothschild says. “But when you get into the sea, and under the water, you realise that it is all like a soup, millions and millions of tiny fragments of plastic, suspended in the water. It is mostly microscopic, but once your eye adjusts you start to see the reflectiveness of some of the larger pieces. The red fragments stand out most clearly.”

The garbage patch was first identified 12 years ago within the “North Pacific gyre” – a vortex where the ocean circulates slowly because of light wind and extreme high pressure systems. Oceanographers have since suggested that perhaps 100 million tonnes of plastic are held in suspension in these waters. One of the things that the Plastiki voyage has demonstrated is just how durable modern polymers are: the pressurised bottles of its hull have hardly been knocked out of shape, let alone broken up by the 8,000-mile voyage. “That’s why just about every plastic bottle that has been made still exists,” De Rothschild says.

The voyage has been overshadowed by the more graphic pollution of the BP oil spill, but even that is dwarfed by the scale of the problem the Plastiki highlights. While the deaths of seabirds and marine life in the Gulf of Mexico are still being measured in the hundreds, according to the UN Environment Programme, plastic debris causes the deaths of more than a million seabirds every year, and more than 100,000 marine mammals. Back in 2006, the UN concluded that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic. Since then the problem has only grown.”

~ from the Tim Adams article at Guardian.co.uk observer (full article here)

Its odd, but I was having a very good and deep conversation with some Heathen friends of mine today and one of the topics that came up was the definition of Paganism as an “Earth Centered Religion” and how that does not always theologically apply to all forms of Contemporary Paganism.  It was a great discussion and some fascinating points were made.  Although it’s a very good thing I hadn’t seen this article first or I would have probably been a lot more pissy on the topic…

This evening…

(or is it morning? I think it shall NOT be evening until I’ve had some sleep no matter the clock hour.)

… anyhow my mind, upon reading the article above, began to turn back over the years to the many times I have seen both online and in person various members of our Pagan community sneer and whine when some Pagans define Paganism as an ‘earth centered religion’.

Not the engaging and a reasoned and reasonable discussion of earlier this evening, nor the less frequently encountered but entirely reasonable “Well, so and so is making very big blanket statements about Paganism….”; no, I meant the knee-jerk “So-and-so (often Starhawk) doesn’t speak for me…” or “(insert name of whiner’s Tradition here) isn’t centered on the Earth it’s centered on the Gods”  or “Well those neo-Pagan fluff types can drum and chant about the Earth all they want I’m going to do the real Paganism over here…”

Usually involving/followed by a lot of noise and flouncing to the effect that their Paganism is concerned with The Gods and the Ancestors and the really kewl [sic] stuff and doesn’t worry the Earth…

To which I would like to say,

“Why NOT?”

Setting aside, for now, the fact that the Earth is increasingly in trouble and it is the only home we have right now…

Does someone really expect me to believe that the Holy Powers and the Ancestors are HAPPY or PROUD at the way our societies treat this precious jewel of a world or ours?   There is a patch of floating plastic and debris floating in the Atlantic that is large enough to have earned a NAME!

Is it possible that you could stop your whining about how superior your particular form of Paganism is long enough to actually do something useful to your larger community (i.e. the world) that would both honor your Gods and your Ancestors and do something useful to help ensure that when We are the Ancestors that there is a healthy and beautiful world with enough nourishing food and clean water that our descendants may enjoy their lives rather than cursing our selfishness or laziness?

Now I would love to be able to say that I have been walking this talk for a long time.

I can’t.

I am learning to recycle, trying to shop smarter and reduce and re-use as well as recycle.  I am trying to figure out how to walk this talk and I for one am rather thankful that there are Pagans out there who are more experienced at this and are already putting thought and action into this sacred trust.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that we are not separate from the Earth.  Humans are a part of nature, despite what some of my more radically Earth Centered bretheren, that HUMANS are a PART of the Earth, Humans are OF Nature.   Not, or at least not solely, nature and the Earths enemy.

Try looking forward to a sustainable future featuring humanity shall we?

Just saying,

Pax

Memorial Day and the Mystery of Sacrifice

On By PaxIn Bouncing off the Gods, Food for Thought, Food of the Gods, Honoring the Heroes, Memorial Day, Modern Pagan, Pagan Ponderings, Religio-Americana2 Comments

Wherein our hero, Pax, muses about the Mysteries of Sacrifice and the Memorial Day Holiday….

Hello Friends,

So my mind is turning towards the Religious Mystery of Sacrifice this year and it being Memorial Day here in the United States it seems like an apt time to write upon it.

Now I have been contemplating various aspects of this particular Mystery for a few months now, since our Church ran it’s annual Stewardship campaign.  That’s where the members of the congregation decide upon their monthly membership pledges to the Church.  I have also been slowly reading through Walter Burkert’s Greek Religion as I explore Hellenic Polytheism and my own increasingly Polytheistic self.

Now when you start talking of sacrifice in a religious sense, a lot of sensationalistic and bloody imagery may come to mind as the influence of both sensationalist (and often wildly inaccurate) portrayals from Hollywood and the (also wildly inaccurate and often venomous) propaganda of some of the more extreme ends of the dominant Monotheistic faiths.  So let me issue this disclaimer… I have never participated in an animal Sacrifice, but not for the reasons you might think.  (more on that last part in a bit…)

Let’s start with the Religious Mystery part of the equation.  A Religious  Mystery is something you must experience, or undergo, in order to truly understand.  Mysteries are, or should be, informative and transformative.  That’s the modern sense of it anyway and why in Contemporary Paganism (and elsewhere) one can hear reference to Women’s Mysteries and Men’s Mysteries, the Mysteries of Childbirth, The Mysteries of Sex, and the Mysteries of Death and the like.  This use of Mystery comes to us from the Mystery religions of the Ancient Mediterranean where initiates to the sacred and secret rites would undergo rituals and swear, upon pain of death, not to reveal the content of the Mysteries.

Now we get into Sacrifice.  A term and act which can be a source of some controversy in Contemporary Pagan society when discussions of Religious Freedom and its  interplay with those modern world regions such as Santeria and Voudoun (among others) who both practice animal sacrifice and share some similarities with Contemporary Paganism come up.  The word sacrifice comes to us, or so my research says, from the Old French and means “to make sacred”.   It is related to, at least thematically, an ancient Greek word that translates as “the working of sacred things.”   The ancient Greek word was used to denote the sacrifice of animals in ancient Greek religion, an examination of which topic can be enlightening and provocative.

I mentioned earlier that I have not participated in an animal sacrifice, although I have made offerings of food and money and poured libations of water and wine ~ which follow some of the same dynamics and rules as a Sacrifice and are a part of why I am writing about and exploring this topic.

I have not participated in animal sacrifice.

First and foremost this is because, like the vast majority of Contemporary Pagans (at least here in the U.S.) I am a child of the cities and suburbs and lack the requisite skills and knowledge to mercifully, quickly, cleanly, and as painlessly as possible slaughter an animal and butcher it into it’s component parts for cooking and sharing with whatever Gods one worships and ones religious community.   Which was the general model in the Ancient world and is also the general model for those religions that still practice animal sacrifice.

Then too there is the fact that having grown up in a world where I get my meat in a nice neat Styrofoam and plastic wrapped package from the market, I don’t know if I would have the stomach to partake of meat I’ve watched slaughtered; despite having eaten fish I have caught and killed and clean in the past.

Setting aside my squeamishness, or potential squeamishness, lets go back to sacrifice.  I have just mentioned the idea of a general model for animal sacrifice in the Ancient and Contemporary world.   The animal is quickly, cleanly, and as mercifully as possible, slaughtered and butchered and cooked and served to the participants and the Gods.  The keys to this Mystery are not about Death, although admittedly in an animal sacrifice observing and honoring the Mystery of Death is a part of the equation, the Mystery of Sacrifice is about Life and about Community.

The core of any true Sacrifice is a Willing giving up of something of Value to be Shared with ones community and with the Holy Powers.

It is worth noting that the same sort of ground rules apply to a votive offering of a piece of poetry shared with others at a festival and burned in the festival fire, or to a Statue created or commissioned and left in sacred precincts, or to money tithed to ones congregation or religious community, as apply to an animal sacrifice.  Lets examine my theoretical core or ground rules…

Willing

The sacrifice, or votive offering, must be given willingly.  Not coerced or forced.  In Ancient Greece, at least, this was taken to the rather amusing extreme of the animal in question (often a Sheep or a Bull) being asked some variation of the phrase “Do You Consent?”  The animal, in part because of training, and in part because an attendant would place a dish of water in front of it, would nod it’s head and the rite would proceed.

Value

In the case of animal sacrifice, the animals in question were in the Ancient World, and often in the Contemporary world, quite valuable as livestock in a society where meat did not/does not make up a regular part of the every day diet.  Thus offering up a Sheep or a Goat or an Ox was a financial big deal.  The same idea holds true with votive offerings where one might put a great deal of effort, thought, care, and sometimes expense in creating something precious to the owner/creator to be given to the Gods or left for the temple.

Sharing

In the case of an animal sacrifice this sharing was a meal where in the participants ate of the meat, sometimes the only meat they might see in their diet, and offering (depending on the times and specific tradition) either the finest cuts or the bones and offal to the Gods.  In a votive offering this sharing also holds true as humble necklaces and inscriptions would lay side by side in the ancient temples with glorious works of art and jewelry and the arms and armor of defeated enemies from war.  The humbler gifts were periodically taken away and buried in the sacred precincts (to the delight of modern archaeologists) and the arms and armor and more precious works were kept and displayed within the temple… or occasionally melted down by subsequent governments to finance various projects.

…

Thus it is not just the giving up, in the case of a votive offering, that makes an offering an offering; or a food offering a sacrifice.  It is the conscious knowledge of the offerings value, it’s meaning and preciousness to the giver that is a part of the Mystery.  It is the true willingness to not only give, but to share with the Holy Powers or that which is greater than yourself AND with your community that opens the doors onto this Mystery.

So by now you may be wondering what any of this has to do with Memorial Day?

Well, this civic holiday is one where we in the U.S. honor our fallen soldiers, the Honored Dead, who have given their lives in service to the protection and defense of our Constitution.  The word sacrifice is often bandied about in discussing this.  I would put forth that theirs is a true Sacrifice in the religious/magical sense.

They willingly give the most precious thing they possess, their lives, in service to their nation in defense and protection of it’s highest ideals.  They willingly offer up their Lives to their community & country in service to something greater than themselves.  They sacrifice themselves that others may live and enjoy Freedom. In serving those ideals, as embodied in the U.S. Constitution, and in offering the greatest of sacrifices it is my contention that they thereby sanctify those ideals.  The Constitution thus becomes a sacred text and a set of sacred ideals.

Now, I recognize the complexities of politics and wars past and present, and of military service and government agendas.  I also choose to recognize those who have given their lives that I might live mine.

That which is remembered, lives.

Peace,

Pax

Wrestling with Definitions: Pagansim as Connection or Reconnecting

On By PaxIn Bouncing off the Gods, everyday, Food for Thought, Pagan Ponderings2 Comments

Hello Friends and Fellow Spiritual Travelers!!

So In response to a comment I left over at Druid Journal on the first post of a series talking about Defining Paganism, writer and blogger Jeff Lilly left some kind words over on my Definitions Page!

Hey Pax! I really like these definitions, in their structure and substance, and I think they square well with what I’m driving at in my series of posts. In fact, I think you’ve covered the ground pretty exhaustively. In my posts, I’ll go into more of the linguistic theory behind word meaning and why “pagan” is such a tricky word to pin down, but I’m basically going to arrive at what you have here: a web of overlapping, interlinking archetypes. Awesome!

The thing is that those definitions ~especially the one for Paganism~ are STILL a work in progress, and I’ve been moving recently towards adding to the definition of Paganism, and I’d love some constructive or appreciative input/commentary!

So I recently heard about this new book God Is Not One, by Stephen Prothero…

There was a recent story about it on The Wild Hunt, with a follow-up article and some deeply fascinating comment stream discussions,  and a fabulous review over at Pagan Godspell.

It was Ruby Sara’s review that started me thinking about defining Paganism, again.  Especially this part….

Prothero’s unifying conceit for the eight religions explicated in the book is that each has four elements – a problem that the religion perceives, a solution to the problem, techniques for implementing the solution, and exemplars to demonstrate how to effectively go about it.  Prothero admits that this formula of “problem/solution/technique/exemplar” is simplistic, but it is fairly functional…though an excellent topic of debate would be whether all religions can be said to being with a problem – do the various Pagan religions, for instance, address problems?

Not only would I say that the Pagan religions address problems, I would like to put forth that in one way or another we strive to address the SAME problem and that that is a unifying feature of our diverse theologies and practices and group cultures!

It seems to me that the central problem that our many Paganisms address is one of Disconnection.

Disconnection from one another, disconnection between our true selves and the influence of our over-culture, disconnection from the Natural and Spiritual World(s) around us, disconnection from our Ancestors and from our Ancestral Cultures, disconnection from the Spirits and Gods present and/or manifest in the World around us…

The commonly found solution for this problem is to engage in Active Relationship.

Engaging in active and participatory and respectful and reciprocal relationships with our friends and family, engaging in the holy work of sort out our personal bull****, learning about and being conscious of the physical and spiritual World around us, finding ways to relate to or honor our Ancestral spirits and the honored and beloved dead, and learning about and begining to build relationships with the Spirits and the Gods/The Divine/The Ground of All Being.

The technique most often used to engage in Active Relationship is “Ritual”.

It is not enough to think about ones Active Relationships, at some point you actually have to start DOING something, no matter what species of Paganism you practice at some point YOU are the one who has to try addressing the Big Divine Whatyamacallit of your particular Paganism… even if it’s only on a private level in your household, and maybe you go to public rites and festival rites organized by others… but at some point in every form of Paganism to actually start being a Pagan you have got to use the language of ritual to begin and build and have most of your most important religious and spiritual relationships.  The quotation marks represent the fact that what that actual ritual is can vary widely and wildly depending upon which of the Pagan paths you practice and what subgroup of your faith you are involved in.

Our exemplars are ___________ .

There are as many exemplars as there are Pagan paths, and in somecases they have been known to crossover between Pagan faiths.

Anyhow that’s what’s been on my mind lately…

Peace,

Pax