Wouldn't you know it, when I started mulling the
ideas in my head along with a peanut butter and marmalade sandwich, it just all
started falling in place.
The phrases
are wrong to start with. It's not a "real" community, it's a prime
community. It's not a Greater Community™, it's a franchise
community.
With that in mind, we
can refine the definitions a bit.
A
prime community is a bottom up, self organizing, and spontaneous
group.
A franchise community is
top down, imposed from the outside, and seeks to emulate a successful group
elsewhere.
Obviously these aren't the
only possibilities. While these groups may share a similar structure, the
dynamics and goals are going to be completely
different.
Taking a step back from my
personal preferences, I can't really say that one is "better" than the other.
Blast
it.
The things important to a franchise
community won't necessarily be that important to a prime community. The values
held by a prime community won't necessarily be prized by a franchise community.
Since we are talking about (at least) two different things, there is bound to be
some confusion. Just as one example, a franchise community will tend to look
for an outside solution from the central authority for their problems. A prime
community may not recognize a central
authority.
The real problems come when
the community tries to shift from one type to another. The new dynamics will
stress the existing structure and very well may collapse the community. Force a
change and all the tensions will shift at
once.
This is why communities seldom
survive the departure of their founders. This is the "second generation"
problem revisited. Historically, the traits needed to create aren't the
same traits needed to
maintain.
And suddenly we're
moving into something much much bigger than
Paganism.
Golly gee whiz, it looks
suspiciously like a general case for social theory. Like most social theories,
it doesn't dictate as much as it gives trends and tendencies. Unusual
individuals and circumstances can certainly create their own tensions which will
significantly alter the dynamics.
It's
even possible for a larger community to be both a prime community and a
franchise community at the same time, with each individual enmeshed in a
different set of interdependent
dynamics.
Hmmm.
Now
that I've messed with everyone's head, I think I'll go work on my other
blog.
—
Posted: Mon - September 6, 2010 at 11:56 AM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Sun - September 5, 2010
On that Pagan community thing
I've already told you that part of my problem with
the "Pagan community" is that I am not good at simultaneously tracking
non-verbal cues in anything but a handful of people. And I don't like some of
the people who insist that Paganism is weirdness designed to freak out the
mundanes.
But these are my personal
issues and don't reflect the concerns of all Pagans. They are also incomplete,
although up until a few days ago I couldn't tell you
why.
Then I read a story package that Chas Clifton had linked to (gotta love how that man makes me
THINK). And I realized that the answer was obvious.
A real community is self-organizing
and built from the ground up out of what is already
there.
Hold on, that is one of those
important
bits.
A real
community is self-organizing and built from the ground up out of what is already
there.
That's
better.
I've noticed that usually when
someone talks about the need for a Greater Pagan Community™, they mean
something that is imposed from the outside. I don't think that would be an
effective community, and it certainly wouldn't last very
long.
Inspire, don't require.
Weird how many applications that phrase
has.
I'm also not convinced that most
groups should make the transition to institution. But I think I'm satisfied
with my concepts of a real community verses a Greater
Community™.
What do you
think?
—
Posted: Sun - September 5, 2010 at 02:06 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Fri - September 3, 2010
Remember this
"Power has to
be shared. It is the key to
survival."
— Andromeda TV
Series
Sometimes I shouldn't be
allowed in my quote file.
In this
context, I meant that the magick should be sent back into the world as soon as
possible.
Notice I did not say a thing
about the
lore…
—
Posted: Fri - September 3, 2010 at 12:42 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Thu - September 2, 2010
When the report doesn't match the reality
I don't know if anyone else has noticed or indeed
if it shows for anyone but my local cable company, but the Moon phases have been
wrong for days. I go to check "on the eights" and it shows the new (dark) moon
on September 3rd.
That doesn't agree
with the Moon I can see outside. Or MoonMenu on my Macs, or Phases
on my iPad. According to all of them, the new moon is next
week.
Good point here though. Don't
take anyone's unsupported word, always
confirm.
Especially if they are an
expert.
—
Posted: Thu - September 2, 2010 at 08:56 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Witchy stuff in the pockets
I want to talk a bit about what I call pertinent
magick and ritual magick.
Ritual magick
is what I do based on the solar and lunar cycles. It takes preparation and
planning. In fact, planning and preparation are "mini-rituals," I have to be in
the right state of mind with the right focus to pull them off correctly. I
don't always succeed, especially when the insomnia acts up.
Pertinent magick depends on the
situation. I don't always have time for anything but the most basic rituals.
Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the pertinent magick is for someone else.
Even then it's a last resort (see Wisdom and the Three Percent). Basically I'm
using what is in my pockets. It's partially a shortcut for me and them. I need
a quick ritual to get in the right mindspace and it helps a lot if the other
person sees me doing something weird even if they don't understand it.
But part of it is a pinch or two of something that does have virtue. A bit or
powder here, a drop or two of essential oil there, a small pile of salt, some
dried herbs.
Part of my ritual
magick time is preparing some items I might need for pertinent
magick.
Moon-blessed salt is one of my
favorite items. It keeps a zap for about a month, more if you use it only at
night and keep in a dark brown or blue jar. Sun blessed salt works after a
fashion, but doesn't hold it's zap past sunrise. And yes there is a difference
between dark moon blessed and full moon blessed. One of the great things about
blessed salt is that it transfers the zap. You can do a circle with regular
table salt, add a small pinch of blessed salt, do a bit of like calls to like,
and the whole circle will share the zap. At least until the next
sunrise.
These are not the things you
are going to read in a book or online. These are the things you'll have to work
out and experiment with yourself. Sometimes it's not going to go
well.
Besides the consumables, there is
always the charms and amulets. Rule of thumb, the intensity of the zap is
governed by how hard it was to obtain, the effort you use to maintain it, and
the passion you use it for. It may look like a pretty rock, but you know it was
a rock found in the almost dry stream bed reached only after a healthy hike
across some pretty nasty desert.
The
bits and pieces you use are more than just witchy stuff. They are symbols and
manifestations of your life, your faith, and your experience woven into your
spells.
Posted: Tue - August 31, 2010 at 02:22 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Beyond the details
I've been thinking about this book a
lot.
I've also been thinking about
writing one on liberty at the same time to balance my
brain.
Almost everything I've read and
almost everyone I have talked to agree on one thing, if I write a "Pagan" book I
need to limit the scope of what I
write.
That strikes me as wrong.
Radically wrong.
And I can't get the
blasted book to work that way.
I
don't know. I keep getting hung up on the Expert and Master thing. Here's the original
Zed Shaw essay I talked about in that entry.
This is the telling
paragraph.
The main
thing I noticed about the experts I’ve encountered is they are into
impressing you with their abilities. They are usually incredibly good, but their
need for recognition gets in the way of mastery. Everything they do is an
attempt to prove themselves and in order to do this they must perform like an
actor on stage. There’s nothing wrong with this, and I don’t think
the expert can become a master without going through this stage in life. At some
point though, the expert becomes comfortable with themselves or fed up with
impressing everyone and starts to look inward to the core of their
art.
Most Pagan books I've read
have been about the details. Those books are the works of experts, not
masters. It's true for almost every religious book I've read as well.
None them reflect "doing more with less."
Elegant. Simple. Mastery. No wasted
energy.
Now I don't claim to be a
master. Blazes, in most cases I can't claim to be an expert. What I can say is
that I'm certain there is something more, something beyond the details and much
more flexible. But just because I can perceive it dimly doesn't mean I can
write it.
It comes full circle you
know.
One of the things I used to do
even before I named myself Pagan was look for a ur-faith, the set of underlying
principles and thoughts that drove humans to seek the Divine. And now, I'm
doing the same thing, from a different angle and without the roadmaps. Decades
later.
There is something there. Maybe
I will never experience it, never live it well enough to share. But even
the promise is enough to show me that if I narrow my focus, I'll never reach it.
It's something more than Pagan, something more than religion and
faith.
And for someone who is all about
control and patterns and roadmaps, that particular leap of faith is
terrifying.
Study brought me to the
mountain. Logic and reasoning brought me to the edge. Now I just have to find
the path across. With my eyes closed.
Before that I
cleaned up the Readerware entries for my copies of the Billy Jack films so it's
four films instead of one box collection. Most of these aren't nearly as good,
although sometimes I'm in a weird
mood.
Hold it. Strike that. I'm
always in a weird mood, it's just sometimes I like watching pretentious B
movies that are heavy on the martial
arts.
*hums One Tin Soldier
under my breath*
I guess I should
really write something here too, shouldn't
I?
Just in case anyone is interested, I posted a
bit on the iPad and apps at my sloppy tech
blog.
Bottom line, while there aren't
really that many "Pagan specific" apps, there are some that make planning my
devotions and rituals easier.
Most of
the Palm applications I use have replacements in the Apple App
Store.
However, the iOS and the iPad
aren't perfect and I cover some of the problems you should know
about.
—
Posted: Sun - August 29, 2010 at 02:27 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Thu - August 26, 2010
Staring into cyberspace
This is a terrible thing to say, but I can't seem
to think of a topic.
There are three
that I am working on, but I don't think any of them are close. Two require more
research and more thought, and one came in today's email.
And since I am totally spacing on this
and the only productive thing I've done is straighten out some confusion in the
ReaderwareVW (video) database, I think I am going to go and take a
nap.
I have a date later tonight
anyway. And I am not going to fall asleep again.
—
Posted: Thu - August 26, 2010 at 04:12 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Tue - August 24, 2010
Just One
Ah, blistering blue
blazes.
Sometimes I am an
idiot.
And sometimes I am amazingly
good.
Even if I don't know it at the
time.
Today I wrote how the language is
changing and moving away from the written
word.
And I went out to gas up my car
and check the mailbox.
Then I
remembered that I am extremely proud of the way I can plant memes and get people
to change their thinking. In fact, it's probably one of my best bits on magick,
all the more so since it doesn't always use
magick.
Lately I have really been
trying to "do more with less" as I move (maybe) towards
real mastery. It's a concept I've been calling elegant
simplicity.
And in a flash I
remembered one of my best efforts at memetic
engineering.
Just.
One.
Word.
That's it. And that is the symbol for it.
J1W.
Words on a page or on a screen.
Lord and Lady, that is exactly what I want. That is much of what I
do.
So it takes me almost two
years to make all the connections. At least I made them.
—
Posted: Tue - August 24, 2010 at 03:52 PM
Permalink ◊
◊ ◊
Right or Write
I'm pretty sure we're losing the written
language.
Now I say this as an
honest-to-gods bibliophile. I read three magazines a month and between ten and
twelve books a week. That doesn't count all the articles I read online, or all
the journal articles I'll be adding now that I dug Gnosis out of a dusty
box.
But we are losing the
language.
I know I make enough
grammatical mistakes in my blogs. Part of it is because my fingers don't keep
up with my brain when I am on a roll. Some of it is because I don't always
think in language, particularly when it comes to passionate topics. And part of
it is because I don't always remember to verbalize the connections before
writing them down.
The real scary thing
is that depending on the emotional intensity, I may actually "see" the correct
version when I go back and proof-read. I have to do something totally unrelated
and shift mental gears before proofreading again. I don't always have that kind
of time.
Still, the grammar errors I
see in others are increasing, particularly if people are young enough to use
texting quite a bit. My cheapo phone technically supports texting, but it
doesn't have a decent keyboard. I bought it as a phone, not as a texting
tool.
I am not sure this is a bad
thing.
The Technopagan in me is pretty
sure that in a few years there will be implants connecting our brains to the
network that will overlay the 'web. And it won't be long before we learn to
share memories and emotional
bursts.
What's the important thing, the
language or the sharing? I'd say the
sharing.
As the "cloud" gains in
sophistication, even the origin language won't matter that much. Contextual AIs
will translate from one to the other without us
noticing.
The change has already begun.
Public libraries are dying. It's getting harder and harder to find an
independent book store. It's harder yet to find anyone who actually sits and
reads. And yes, it is beginning to
show.
One of the DVDs I watched this
last week was Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, or technically
Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. And all through
it, I wondered why the heros were redoing the adventures of the heros and gods
who came before. And why didn't anyone notice? I'm not saying that I had a
grand education, but at least knew how the Medusa was killed.
Although The Lightning Thief
does get extra credit for casting Pierce Brosnan as Chiron, the teacher of
heros. Albeit an unwounded one who focused WAY too much on the military aspects
of training.
So here was a film that
used the classic stories as a jumping off point. Was my enjoyment of the film
hampered because of that?
I've got
people around me who couldn't tell you if the the proper usage is "by" or "buy."
My question is, does it make a
difference?
There I stumbled across the
McGuffey Readers. And I remembered that until some very well meaning souls like
McGuffey and Noah Webster set out to systemize the language, the rules were a
lot more flexible. So obviously there are dogmas concerning language. Most of
those are unstated and unwritten, ironically. Were the rules limiting the
thoughts?
That is a bit of a
revelation. Because why we do not always choose to think in language, the
language we choose and the rules we use shape our
thought.
I've talked before about how
the Diné don't see the world around them linearly or even sequentially.
That shapes their thoughts and means that "their" world doesn't always match
Western Civilization.
By now you
should be able to see the magickal implications, particularly if you've ever
used chaos magick.
The language we
use and the rules we choose shape our
thought.
I think that might have to
be one of my working assumptions from here on
out.
Usually two entry pages are the most popular
month after month. The Tree of Life picture here, and Sex & The Modern Pagan. Much of the
traffic for the last comes from the Theologies of Immanence Sexuality page (thanks guys!) where they've also linked to
one of my Pagan Vigil entries. This month the number two is How out is "out?", which I suppose could be
sexual.
Believe me, I've thought about
going the sex route a few times. "Pagan" and "sex" are strongly linked in the
public mind. If all I wanted was web traffic, I could throw up pictures of
bare-breasted ladies and go to
town.
I'd like to think we stand for
something more, but lately that seems to be victimhood and a lot of
moralizing.
A narrow slice of life, but mainly a commentary on American Neopaganism and Modern Adult Pagans by NeoWayland.
Pagan philosopher, libertarian, and part-time trouble maker, NeoWayland looks at keeping truths alive despite a wash of nonsense. But don't be surprised when he's doing the "nekkid Pagan guy" thing.
Updated Tuesdays and Thursdays when I can, otherwise irregularly as circumstances permit and the mood strikes.
If your web browser does not show this address, then this page being used without permission of the author.
Views expressed by NeoWayland are his own and do not represent any other enity. NeoWayland freely accepts individual and sole responsibility for his words and actions.
Do you know what part of the problem is?
at Pagan Vigil.
