Paganism and Society

Some interesting thoughts occurring to me today.

It started after a meeting today with Heaven, which went loverly. I haven't often gotten time to just chat with her and it was a nice and refreshing in the middle of my usually rather solitary weekdays. It was a general check in prior to the big event of Ordination, and at the end of it she made a connection about one of my dedicating deities that I never really noticed.

The Dagda and community.

He's always been a robust god to me, the type of rougish Father figure that warms the heart and inspire one to be the best of oneself. He's one of those wandering transiant gods, that has one foot in the Otherworld and one in this. A god of duplexity that represents the primal brash parts of humanity and the intangiable mysteries of beyond.

But in all that I never really thought of his connections to community and that connection within myself. It is true though, he is a cheiftian God, in many ways to me THE Cheiftian God. And that goes hand in hand with comminuty, it is the heart of being a Cheif. Caring and tending to your people, your clan. That's something I can get behind all the more, because I love my community, and strive to be of use and merit to them.

This thought of community and how important that is lead into thinking about a post my dear coven sister recently made about how she feels the world needs more pagans, and more specifically about changing the PR of paganism. How would one go about making better PR for paganism or at least bringing the middle grade of us into the "mainstream". The answer in my mind appears to be directly to connected to community.

First you would need to get a 501 3K for non-profit status. That would then open the doors to applying to grants for community projects.

Of course that in itself wouldn't be easy, as I'm sure that there would be prejudice against a "pagan" organization and really it would be against our nature to hide that fact. But the fact is that if the project is appealing enough and the grant proposal is strong, and with the powers behind us we would get the support from somewhere.

Then the mind starts thinking about what sorts of projects would a community such as CAYA want to give to our greater community. A few thing immediatly come to mind.

• An enviormental project to either help with the up keep of the wildlife and parks in the area, could be a concert or fundraiser to donate to the parks and rec. paired with a clean up commity.
  
• A women's shelter, or some program that helps such a facility
• A community garden with educational courses

I think it would be good to begin associating paganism with humanitarism and enviormental charity. I mean it just freakin' makes sense! After all that's what we are about, within our own kind we are constantly helping our neighbors, we pride ourselves on that. Further there is such a strong connection with the Earth and we all know the problems that are arising , and further with our combined knowledge we know how things can be done better. So why not expand that? Why not reach out beyond our circle?

There are reasons, fear of ridicule from those who don't understand, or worse fear us themselves and purposfully misunderstand. And were we buried deep in a part of the country that is continually cruel to change and different flavor it would be one thing. But were better place to start reaching out than here in the bay area.

The chance of doing good appears to out weigh the bad in my mind. So much could start to be done. We could start living what we believe to an even greater extent, after all there is no small number of us. CAYA is growing and rapidly, as such we can start to really make a difference.

Maybe we aren't ready to go all non-profit and what not, but we could do other things to start with. We already have a seasonal food drive, we could as a community could start doing community work, cleaning up parks, volunteering at animal shelters. Maybe could find a local farm or start a CSA group membership, making it easier for more people to actually support local agriculture.

It'd be a lot of work, but wouldn't it be worth it?

Something to chew on.

Branwen

The Wonderful World of Paganism

Aka The Paneathcon Entry.

So it's Tuesday and I have had a couple days to reflect on my adventure into that wonderful thing called Con. I have to say it was a blast. Not for the generally thought about reasons, such as the panels and what not, though I'm sure some of them were awesome and eye opening. It's just not what I found myself wanting to do. I much preferred just...hanging out, and being put on tasks lol.

But then I've found that to be increasingly the case with all the Con's I go to. Not sure what that means but as long as I have fun I don't really care.

Rabbit was kind enough to let me bunk with her for Friday evening (Friday the 13th) in room 666. That's right, and yes it was hella awesome.

And in so being in close proximity to Rabbit you generally find yourself in the middle of everything lol. Which was very good for me, because frankly there weren't a lot of panels I wanted to go to and whenever I found myself hemming and hawing over what I was going to settle on I'd get a text, or run into Rabbit or someone and suddenly I had a much more entertaining and useful task to do. Ahhh unintentional magic how useful you are.

Basically what I learned at P-con was *drumroll please* My Coven is AWESOME. Frankly not the most astounding revelation ever as I already knew everyone was amazing. But I have habit of being somewhat single minded and focused on the next step of what we're doing so much that sometimes it's hard to see the greater impact of it all. Then something like P-con will come along and I'll just sit there observing and realize, holy jumping salmon look at us! And really honestly lets take a moment to look at us shall we.

At Pantheacon it seemed that CAYA was everywhere. And maybe this is just my small view colored by my own involvement therein, but really it seemed you couldn't walk very far without running into one of us. Not only that, but it seemed that ever where I went, people were talking about us. In a good way not a paranoid crazy way. I'd be at registration and hear about how so and so heard the ---

I just heard Thunder. Real live thunder. Sorry had to document that after running outside in glee to look at the storm (silly girl I know). It's just been so long since I heard thunder.

Anyways back to what I was saying. It seemed like I was running into either people who were going to the Brotherhood ritual and had heard good things (to which I added with enthusiasm) or women who had been to the Amazon ritual and were singing it's praises (to which I beamed with pride). And then there was the Oracle of the Living Tarot, which I know wasn't really a CAYA production but come on there were enough CAYA folks in it that it defiantly had an effect on the flavor. And oh what an grand flavor it was.

It really just sorta drove home to me, that I was exactly where I wanted and needed to be. See I'm somewhat spoiled and very lucky in that CAYA is really my first coven. Prior to that I was a very strict solitary, and I knew enough about what I wanted out of a community that I just didn't venture off to public ritual because none of them seemed to emphasis those things most important to me. Then there was CAYA whose name said it all, Come As You Are. What more really needs to be said than that.

The first ritual I went to was at Grove of Artemis, and the energy was so refreshing and exactly what I imagined group rituals should be that I just stopped looking for anywhere else. My first CAYA ritual was Ostara and I was sooo welcomed and felt like I already made connections, and that was the ritual I took up my magical name and it was just a magical fit all the way around.

I went to my first Celtic Recon. Ritual at P-con this year. First as in first group ritual, because really my personal practice is pretty inundated with Celtic Recon. Studies and the like. And they were a very nice group of people, with a very lovely ritual, and beautiful words, and music. The only thing they lacked was the energy. And apparently the energy is very very important to me.

It also made me realize that I am really going to be a "Priestess". Shocking I know, what with training for a year and a day and all you'd think that would have sunken in. But really I was never in it for the title, I was honestly uncomfortable of the title. See I'm a Celt and we've always had issues with Cergy folk, spirituality and religion is different between everyone and their Gods. But I knew that the words meaning is different here in CAYA than a Dogmatic sense, no one hear is looking to be an ultimate authority, otherwise I wouldn't be here. Still though I couldn't help but squirm a little at the thought of having a title of Priestess, I didn't see anything in me that was what I considered Preistly.

See I see myself more as a work horse than anyone holding the reigns. I like to do tasks, make myself useful, I like giving ideas and feeling like I'm contributing to the greater whole. But that never really added up to "Priestess" in my mind. Priests are leaders, they have ideas and inspire others to dream along with them. I have heard others in my coven talk of ideas of other circles and rituals they want to make happen, and that to me is befitting of the title. I never really felt that before. And then I went to the Celtic Recon. ritual, which was really more a Neo-Druid ritual but lets try not to get caught up in labels lol.

And the whole time I was trying to stay focused in the moment, energy present. But I couldn't, it was too busy taking stock of the situation and coming up with things that should be done. There needed to be drumming or chanting to keep the energy stable and ready to rise at the important moment, the clergy needed to step up and lead by example to get the audience to feel comfortable speaking aloud. And all the papers they were reading off of needed to disappear, because as a very wise Rabbit says "Anyone can read off a paper, a Priest/ess reads off the heart."

As I left that ritual my mind kept buzzing with how I would have planned it if I could, and the deep urge to go thank Rabbit. Like an apple hitting me in the head and saying "See dingbat, you do want to be a Preistess. How else would you ever be able to have a real Celtic ritual your way?" it all became clear.

I don't know if I'll ever start my own circle, frankly I'm enjoying the now too much to think that far ahead. But I now realize I like having the option and more over if I do decided I know that I will be capable of doing so with the style grace and wisdom that CAYA instilled in me.

Well now, that certaintly isn't all that happened this weekend but I think this post is long enough and will save the rest for another time.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back and
May the Sun bless you on your journey.

Branwen

Musings about the Middle and Home

I was born under a wandering star.

It's true. After spending almost all of my childhood in constant motion, where five years in one place seemed like a life time. It left a deep impression on my pysche. Mainly that I get a deep boned since of satisfaction traveling. Just getting in the car and driving for an hour or two on the open road just makes me happy. No destination needed it's all about the travel.

This has caused problems for me in the past, namely since I'm no longer under the orders of the US Marine Corps, and don't have to move every two years, I'll find myself getting restless, and grumpy, and just discontent if things get too....regular? Luckily, Bran doesn't mind driving around aimlessly on the weekends, and enjoys the mini-vacation himself. So when things get too familiar he doesn't mind throwing down a couple hundred bucks for a weekend somewhere else. And I have the good fortune to have friends and family across the country whom I can occasionally go and see.

Which is good, because I love to fly.

So you're asking where is all this going? Why this indulgence on your living habits?

Well my good friends it is so you all can have a better idea of the bigger picture when I say.

I have never been more happy to be home from a trip in my life. Ever. Ever.

While I did enjoy my plane rides, as I have this deep seated love of being in the sky. They rest of it just didn't need to occur.

To begin with the circumstances of this trip was less than desirable, it's never fun to have to rush off to a loved ones hospital bed. The fact that is was in Illinois in the middle of flat nothing and cold helped nothing.

I'm just not a middle America kinda gal, as Illinois now rates as my number two most hated state in the US. (Nebraska is number one in case you were wondering)

The stay was...difficult. A half hysterical mother, a stressed out brother, and a boat load of family members that have all their own issues and only make things worse.

It was eye opening on some level. I bonded with my older Brother as never before, though under very unfortunate circumstances. And I got to see some of the reasons as to why my mother is the way she is. Which was somewhat painful in itself.

See my grandfather, is sexist. He's really the first man that I've ever met who I could apply that label to.

Now he's not sexist in the speaking horrible things about or too women type of chauvinistic pig. No in many ways he's much worse and more damaging to his girls I think. He is charming and a complete flirt with any female in the area, be it nurse or waitress. So where is the harm?

The harm is in he's complete dissmisal of them, of what their saying, of their opinions, or their feelings. It doesn't matter if their a doctor or a nurse, if a man told him something it would be the gossple if the same thing was uttered from a woman's lips he'd smile politely but disregard it.

It was bizzare to watch, not that it had much of an effect on me. He's an old man from another time and place who is quickly losing his grasp of things and can no longer be trusted to make decisions for the better of himself. But the effect on my mother was heartbreaking.

To watch her continue to try and garner favor, validation and praise from a man who simple brushed her off, belittled her concerns, and called her emotions hysterics was just too much for me. I found myself herding her out of the room, anything to get her distracted. There wasn't much I could do, afterall there is no way to teach someone how to not feel rejected by their parents.

Oh the crazy twisted cycles of growing up. How we all get messed up, but our parents (for the most part) did there best. I realize now, that those injuries I suffered from my Mom as a kid, she really couldn't help. There were things missing from her childhood that she just couldn't give me because no one gave it to her.

But she did an amazing job with what she had, above and beyond the parenting that was given to her.

So while I am beyond words happy to be home, I recognize that this was a worthy trip for me to take.

But man oh man there is no place like home lol.

Branwen