Category: Day One

I am officially a Unitarian Universalist.

On By PaxIn Cross-roads, Day One, everyday, Unitarian Universalism, Unitarian Universalist4 Comments

Hello Dear Friends, Pagani, U.U’s, and all other readers….

So this last Sunday, 2/07/10, I formally signed my name in the membership book for the First Unitarian Church of Orlando, my Church!

It’s funny how it can change things when it’s your Church.

This event was preceded by a couple of new member classes and a potluck dinner for new members and their sponsors and various Church and Board of Trustees members.

So the new members were, at the appropriate point in the service, called up to sign their name in the book and shake hands with members of the BoT and Membership/Fellowship committee and to accept our membership cards and a flower (which is now sitting upon my altar) and to swear to our part of the Bond of Union..

“We associate ourselves together

for the study and practice of morality and religion

aas interpreted by the noblest lives of humanity,

hoping thereby to prove helpful to one another

and to promote truth, righteousness, and love in the world.”

I really hadn’t had much time to read or contemplate this oath, I read it during the early part of the service before the new members ceremony took place.  It was really incredible to be swearing this oath, which speaks to my highest ideals in the company of others who feel similarly.  Then members of the BoT and various Church groups stood and swore various oaths to us, and then the congregation as a whole stood and swore some various oaths, and then we all sang the Song of Dedication, which is a part of all of our Congregations services…

“Love is doctrine of this church,

the quest for truth is its sacrement,

and service is its prayer.

To dwell together in peace,

To seek knowledge in freedom,

To serve humankind in fellowship,

Thus do we covenant with each other,

Thus do we covenant with each other.”

I am still beginning my journey as a U.U., yet similarly to how I felt when I found Paganism, it feels like coming home.

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

A few observations on encountering the right thing at the right time

On By PaxIn Chrysalis, Day OneLeave a comment

I try never to disparage the metaphysical, magickal, or spiritual books I encounter. Even the ones that are wildly inaccurate with their facts or that seem to me to be poorly written. I know in my own experience that it has sometimes been some small thing, a sentence or an image, in or out of context, that has led me to a realization or to wisdom. I try not to deny anyone else that transformative moment/experience.

~~~

For a long time now I have been hungering for some new words about Magick and Witchcraft and the Gods, and found them in T. Thorn Coyle’s excellent book Evolutionary Witchcraft. Reading about a Witchcraft at once very different and yet, from my readings about and by members of Reclaiming, strangely familiar; it has been invigorating.

I haven’t done many of the exercises, not sure if I will. But reading of them, and of the discussions of the importance of movement, and stillness, and breath. It has reminded me of so many things I had set aside until later… or of things that I always said I would learn more about someday…

Well, someday is now!

~~~

In writing to thank T. Thorn Coyle for her book, I realized that it’s been 9 months since I started this blog and this journey towards spiritual renewal and a rekindling of my magickal and Witchy self.

I don’t imagine that this journey is over… heck it’s barely just begun; and yet I do feel renewed on some deep and powerful level.

Peace, and Blessed Be!
Pax

These are the continuing journeys of a Witch named Pax…

On By PaxIn Chrysalis, Cross-roads, Day One, rememberingLeave a comment

(cue nifty broom riding fly-by montage)

So in the last week +, myself, my Partner, and our room mate have moved South of Orlando, about 25 minutes outside the metro area. I am still settling in and still looking forward to my graduation, and still needing to keep up with my writting… a few different things are lingering in my mind of late.

I am at a place in my life where I will now have some time to resume those things that feed my soul. Ritual and Magick, Reading and Writing, Cooking and Gaming.

The more I think about my life before I met my beloved, and before I came to Orlando, the more I realize that I often let myself set important things aside. I let my practice of the Faith of Witchcraft and of Magick fade in the face of a daily grind. I would bog myself down in the daily details and lose sight of the fun in those hobbies or activities I took part in. I also would turn to some pretty dumb and self-destructive behaviors to escape needless fear.

…

At school, in the Restaurant and Hospitality Management program, they emphasized the fact that the Hospitality Industry can be especially tough to work in. You are dealing with unusual schedules a sometimes insane workload and the ever challenging nature of dealing with the public. Several of the classes were keyed to blend in with our focus on Restaurant and Hospitality Management. The Math, English, and Science classes as well as the Hospitality Law, Human Resources Management, and Accounting classes all returned time and again to Hospitality based models.

The Psychology class talked extensively about stress management and the positive and negative ways in which people choose to deal with stress.

Again and again I have seen how I have allowed the stressors of my daily life to overshadow my spiritual practice and those activities that most feed my soul. At the times I most need to touch Spirit and to renew myself, I have been most willing to surrender to the tides of work and the moment.

In this new year and new home, I have the opportunity to begin again. To renew my spiritual and magickal studies, to renew my relationships with the Gods. It is not as if the Lord and Lady of Witchcraft went anywhere… heck, they ARE everywhere! Present in every blessed atom and cell of creation! It only really takes the willingness to open oneself up to Them and to the Wonder and Magick present in all of the world around us for us to touch and be transformed and blessed by Them.

I also have the chance to renew my relationships with the Lord and Lady, as well as build upon my new relationship with Dionysus and Hecate. I will take that chance.

The Gods are many and they are real! They are present in every atom and cell of creation and they are present within each of us. With every breath we have the chance to breathe inspiration.

I do not, in the end, regret the path so far. Every step along the way has been of my choosing, and I have always tried to learn from every moment, each experience.

Now I make more conscious choices, I’d like to think I have done some growing up in the last couple of years.

Later today I will lift a glass of wine to conscious choices, and healthy ones, and to the Lord and Lady of the Witches, and to Hecate and Dionysus, and to the spirits of this new home, and to the coming year.

Blessed be,

Pax / Geoffrey Stewart

Day One, Re-opening my cocoon…

On By PaxIn Chrysalis, Day One, Witch the wordLeave a comment

Chrysalis – The form which Butterflies, moths, and other insects assume when they change from the state of larva or caterpillar and before they arrive at their winged or perfect state.

I came across this definition in a dictionary one day and it struck a cord within me. It seemed a very good definition for my journey as a Witch.

Witch, it’s a problematic word both for those of us in the Pagan community and for those outside of it. I used to use Wicca and Witch interchangeably in describing my faith. Then I had a heart to heart discussion with a good friend who is a 3rd Degree Priestess in a British Traditional coven. She had no problem with, or doubts about, my connection/relationship with the divine or my ethics or practice. It’s just that as a self-initiated Witch, by the definitions of her Trad I was not Wicca.

It shook me for a while, this disagreement. Wicca, the faith of witchcraft, was and is a big part of how I define and understand myself. I still use Wicca to describe my faith, because in the eyes of the larger world this word at least points people in the right direction as to my faith and philosophy.

Back to Chrysalis, for me witchcraft has been a journey of transformation and growth. Transformation from what I was and growth into what I can be. This is a journey that despite periods of distraction, and dormancy, and stagnation, I continue to this day and into the future. Witchcraft is more than the rituals and the spells, and all too often it seems that the magic (or magick) and the rituals are what we focus on, instead of the philosophy and faith; the process instead of the journey, the outer things instead of the inner essence of the faith.

I hope to help others to find that inner essence with this Blog while at the same time rekindling my own.

Peace,

Pax