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Occasionally I wandered in where I was not wanted and gave truthful answers.
Sometimes I even did it deliberately. A little disruption now can prevent disaster later.

Solstice snow

The first snowfall of the year in my high desert was about a half hour and melted as soon as it fell.

Last night I was keeping vigil, well, sort of. My knees don't like me these days, so I can't kneel in front of the fireplace for extended times anymore. But I was still feeding the fire and still meditating. About 22:30 or so I noticed that the streets were wet and I thought that was the rain we were expecting. Then I noticed that the car had snow on the top. So it was a very wet snow. Somewhere about 4 it started sticking, and as I write this at 8:22 it is coming down slowly but steadily.

Today marks the last day of Starwell, my version of the solstice. I'll need to go check on my mother later. Obviously I don't want her going outside in the snow.

I'm winter-born, so a good snow always touches my soul in a quiet joyful way. I could watch it for hours. I did watch it for hours.

Mostly my high Arizona desert gets mild weather. Not too hot in the summer, not too much rain, and not too much snow.

I'm thankful that I have snow, a fireplace, and a big set of windows to watch it this day.

Take joy in the day as the light returns.

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Must be chosen

October 24, 1946

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Stranger

It's back to "a narrow slice of life."

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Nude Skull

Our energy fields often look like mosaics of pieces from family, friends, co-workers, people seen on TV, or even random strangers encountered on the street.
— Rebecca Wilson from “The Art of Psychic Healing”, Gnosis № 34, Winter 1995
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Just a glimpse

Very intriguing design

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Updating

For the very first time, humans stood somewhere else and looked at the World that birthed and cradled humanity.

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Mosaics

We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of the dream.
Wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams.
World losers and world forsakers, for whom the pale moon gleams.
Yet we are movers and the shakers of the world forever it seems.
— Arthur William Edgar O'Shaughnessy
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Another tree of life

I really love pictures of the Moon

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Earthrise

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
— anonymous
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❝We are the music makers…❞

See a path?

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Triple Moon

Sorrow and regret

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Blessing this day

It really looks that way

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Spiraling

Power with versus power over

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“Reflection-Medusa”


h/t Maggie McNeill

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Overlook

Outdoor ritual area

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Five words

I wish a picture could do it justice.

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Inspiring space

Sex is one of the nine reasons for incarnation. The other eight are unimportant.
— George Burns
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Fellow-feeling

Thinking by blogging

The best thing I can do is find a way to channel the passion.

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Azure

I liked it better when they were their own species.

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Journal 18Nov2016

Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold — all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.
— Doreen Valiente, Charge of the Goddess
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❝One of nine…❞

When there is fog in Arizona, it is amazing

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Just plain fun

She keeps the Great Secret

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❝All acts of love and pleasure…❞

Let My worship be in the heart that rejoices, for behold — all acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.
— Doreen Valiente, Charge of the Goddess
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Hidden but still grand

The Pagan Vigil Reader is my new aggregator

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Lady Liberty

Plus he’s having way too much fun.

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The Pagan Vigil Reader - updated

No big Tuesday entry this week

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Life is good

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.
— Stephen King
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Speculate this

Keep close to Nature's heart... and break clear away, once in awhile, and climb a mountain or spend a week in the woods. Wash your spirit clean.
— John Muir
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Not this week

Just watching

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Talent

Talent is cheaper than table salt. What separates the talented individual from the successful one is a lot of hard work.
— Stephen King
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❝Keep close to Nature's heart…❞

Thanks to gods, we have to Manifest.

It’s still the Spark of Inspiration

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He stands there curious

I identify with bears

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Depreciated polytheism

Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have all depreciated polytheism as intrinsically inferior - primitive, crude, lost. But much of the profundity of Paganism lies in its deep appreciation for the complexity and richness of life, its embrace of the world that surrounds us, that indeed is us.
— Frank Donnola from “Reconciling One and Many,” Gnosis № 28, Spring 1993
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Train

So it's with shorter hair and hot chocolate that I anticipate this High Holiday.

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Handsome fellow

Elections bring out some very idiotic behavior

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Patterns

Raven is about bridging the worlds.

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Point of view

We define the labels, the labels should not define us.
     — from the journal of NeoWayland

I don’t believe I should use this blog to teach.

I think the best teachers are the ones you see face to face. That personal relationship helps you learn faster.

But we live in an age of wonders connected digitally across the planet. Even if it’s not my place to teach, maybe sometimes I can tell beginners where to start looking for their own answers and their own path.

So I’m answering my email again, indirectly.

I’m using ideas that I work with most. My
WebTree path (not a tradition) draws heavily on Celtic Reconstructionism and modern Druidry with just a smidge more Wiccanism than I am comfortable admitting.

Yule - around December 21
Imbolc - February 2
Ostera - around March 21
Beltane - April 30
Litha - around June 21
Lughnasad - August 1
Mabon - around September 21
Samhain - October 31

You’ve probably seen that list a few hundred times before. It’s obviously the neopagan sabbats. But what the list doesn’t tell you is how those dates interrelate. For that, you need an eight pointed star. I just happen to have one on file.

Concentrate on the list alone and you can miss the relationships. The power isn’t in the list. The power is in how the ideas weave together.

Put Yule at the top point of the star.

Technically you don’t need the star, but it sure helps you see the connections. You can see that the winter solstice is opposite the summer solstice and that the equinoxes are opposite each other.

Yes, I’ve covered this
before. Please bear with me.

You can also see that the cross quarter days are really the gateways between seasons. And you can see that the solstices and the equinoxes are really the peak moments
and middle of the seasons.

Cross quarter days are High Holidays for my path. The equinoxes and solstices are Solar Festivals.

Now I could explain that in three or four pages. Or I can show you with a single picture and a few sentences.

It’s not enough to know the seasons, you have to know the connections and the relationships.

This isn’t something that is commonly taught in paganism these days. Absolutely I am not teaching it. I’m just telling you where you might begin.

I will point out that the eight-pointed star is just a start. Before the digital age, many traditions would expect you to draw something like this.


That’s a lot more complex.

Notice the
relationships.

You just couldn’t draw that right at first.You’d have to start over and over again. You’d frustrate yourself because it should be easy for you. You’re passionate about your faith and you WANT to learn. You’d make many tries. Some of the hardest attempts would be with your teacher watching closely over your shoulder while you got it almost perfect. The slightest flaw means the whole picture has to be destroyed. You’d have to start over
again until you could draw it on demand. By the time you were done, you could visualize the connections without the diagram.

You’d
understand.

The power is not the drawing. The power is
you understanding the connections.

Sure, you could get that from a list, but it would take much longer.

The tools we use shape our thought.

This isn't one of mine. But think about the work that went into this even if you don't agree with the assumptions.

Let me give you another example.


Before WWII and quick mix boxes, recipes were usually by ratios. Sure, you can memorize individual recipies that use 1 cup of that mixed with 2/3 cups of this, but it won’t teach you the relationships.

If you stood in a kitchen full of ingredients but without the pre-measured portions and the oh so precise instuctions, you’d be stuck. You wouldn’t
know the relationships.

You wouldn’t
know what separated a bread from a cake.

You wouldn’t
know what made a soup or a sauce.

One look at a grocery store tells you that there are entire industries devoted to your ignorance and willing to sell you easy to use products so you don’t have to think about it too hard.

Someone doesn’t
want you thinking about it too hard. Someone profits from you not thinking hard.

Something really simple looks enormously complicated because you’re
stuck with one perspective.

Hmm, that sounds
familiar. Somebody out to impress you with what they know and what they can show. Like one of Shaw’s experts.

But the way of the master means do more with less. To do that you need to understand how things interrelate. It’s not about one cup of
that mixed with 2/3 cup of this, it’s about three parts of that mixed with two parts of this. The measure isn’t what you need, the ratio is.

It’s about the relationships and the connections. Think in those terms and you’ve expanded what you can do. Do more with less complication.

One last bit.

Environmentalism is about control. Control of the surroundings, control of human behavior, control of the lifeforms, everything carefully monitored and measured.

But that is not the way the world works.

Ecology is about the relationships and tradeoffs.

Guess which works better longer.

Understanding is the key. You can’t go poking around with the primal forces of the universe without understanding.

Well, you could, but it’s much safer if you understand the connections.

Change your perspective, change the world.

Change youself.

As above, so below.

Change.


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Ravens

Be careful the cloaks you wear lest you be soiled by their dirt.
— from the shadow book of Red Cedar Owl
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Winter begins

I've not been handling people very well this season. I'm glad that winter is finally beginning.

Wintergate is my three day
WebTree High Holiday that marks the gateway between autumn and winter. The middle day (tomorrow) of the holiday is the cross quarter day or midpoint between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice.

Wintergate also marks my semi-annual
Hair ot the Bear. I did it myself yesterday this year. This autumn made me prickly, I've been trying not to take it out on the people around me that I care about. That includes my companions, bless their hearts. Well, my mood should start improving in a couple of days. Then I owe them both big time.

So it's with shorter hair and hot chocolate that I anticipate this High Holiday. Solar Festivals last from dawn to dawn, but High Holidays last from sunset to sunset. I still have a few hours to prepare.

And that means I need to put this entry up.

Bright & Dark Blessings, everyone.

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Season of my idiocy

It's almost like they want to be stroked

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❝If I talk about Nature…❞

“What knife?”

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❝Cloaks you wear❞

The Supernatural is only the Natural disclosed.
— Emily Dickinson
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Asperitas

There is something pagan in me that I cannot shake off. In short, I deny nothing, but doubt everything.
— Lord Byron
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❝Something pagan in me❞

A dragon waiting to break out

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“Knife?”

Notice the relationships

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❝Only the Natural❞

A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
— anonymous, often attributed to Roald Dahl


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Dragon

You are connected.

see also Season of my idiocy Read More...
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Nonsense

I can no longer recommend The Wild Hunt as a news site.

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❝Mother Nature was the only one who fit❞

I didn't have a word for what I was for years. I was the small kid who announced to his family that if there was a God the Father, it was only natural that there had to be a God the Mother too. And Mother Nature was the only one who fit the bill.
— NeoWayland, Why are you Pagan?
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Truthful

I usually just call this kind Gaia

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Revising my expectations

These are from thirteen or fourteen years ago I think.

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Lady in repose

This one is obviously a god and She’s creating life

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More important

Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than one's fear. The timid presume it is lack of fear that allows the brave to act when the timid do not. But to take action when one is not afraid is easy. To refrain when afraid is also easy. To take action regardless of fear is brave.
— Ambrose Hollingworth Redmoon from “No Peaceful Warriors!”, Gnosis № 21, Fall 1991
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Billboards

I’m adding a new category

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Gets sent out for snacks

Bone, Heart, Thought, Deed, and Spirit, I honor those who helped shape my life

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She gives Life

There are worse ways to spend an evening

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Gallery

I think it’s time to go the the Kaibab

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Before this Year ends

The simple answer is that moral responsibility is always a personal choice. You can't compel virtue or it ceases to be virtue.
     — NeoWayland

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Soft rain

How we treat our culture may be the second defining mark of an adult

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Red & gold

Remember your loved ones

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Personal Choice

She is a parasite who is capitalizing on tragedy

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Neighborhood pagan

How we treat the Other may be the defining mark of a civilization. How we treat civilization may be the second defining mark of an individual.

"I. Was. Different." Some outgrow it. Others Want To Be Noticed. Still others
DEMAND attention.

I never have understood why someone would wear ritual garb in public. It probably has something to do with crossover with the SCA, the RenFaire crowd, and cosplay. But these things don't have
pockets. Where do you keep things like your keys, your wallet, and your smart phone? In my case, there are even fewer pockets in my ritual garb.

It's not that hard to "freak the mundanes." But does that mean that people will trust you? Can you trust them? And yes, there will be times
you need to trust someone who doesn't share your beliefs.

Or your
victimhood.

We should discuss that too. I've said before you should not draw power from victimhood. It draws on the pity of others and will probably fade the more you depend on it.

So if your paganism can't depend on how weird you are or how much a victim you are, what should it depend on?

How about your connection to Nature?
Magick may be about changing the world, but paganism is about finding the place where you balance.

You start by being a good neighbor. Not just to the plants and the creatures and the four-foots around you, but to your fellow humans. Those humans are
important.

Yes, really.

Humans are a part of the World. We're not separate.

And that means you should trust your neighbors. That they should trust you. You won't get that with a six inch pentagram and ritual garb. You won't get that with "mysterious" symbols painted on your house. You won't get that if you are too strange.

How we treat our culture may be the defining mark of an adult.

Are you ready?

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You're missed

It's the calendar that has got it wrong

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NeoNotes — Witchcraft as rebellion

Ravens are amazing birds aren't they?

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Black & Blue

… taking a separate name shows dedication to your faith when you are initiated.

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NeoNotes — Ravens today

Um, how big are your cats?

Ravens in Northern AZ can get very big. I've seen them face down large cats and even coyotes.

ETA: More information here. And What's the difference between a crow and a raven?

I'd change the law so I could legally pick up feathers that ravens shed.

Ravens are amazing birds aren't they?

There's a lot of them in Northern Arizona, especially in the small towns and around the canyons. Visitors call them big crows but they are definitely ravens. It's not unusual to see feathers on the ground, although they disappear quickly. It is rare though, I hardly ever see it more than two or three times a year.

I tell you this merely as a point of information. I'm sure you're a law abiding citizen.

In the summer I sometimes share my breakfast with a local raven. The rest of the year (like today) I'll go outside around sunrise with a hot drink and something to nibble. That's usually for him.
NeoNotes are the selected comments that I made on other boards, in email, or in response to articles where I could not respond directly.

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NeoNotes — SRW

Sex without the emotional connection is masturbation. And just as fulfilling.
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NeoNotes — The name thing

“Taproots”

Because this post discusses child sexuality, the entry text has been removed from the front page and the category pages. Click the post title above or the link below to load.

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NeoNotes — Sex positive

That's when I squirm out of bed and go find a place to read or skim the internet. At least one of us should sleep.

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Taproot: Taboo

You're thinking of magick as cheat codes that let you get around universal rules.

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A brief update

At some point you should go out and find your own way.

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Insomina at 3 a.m.

I was adding commentary to some of my lexicon entries.

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NeoNotes — Nothing supernatural exists

I am recoding the Lexicon.

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NeoNotes — Origin of Wicca

”And The Rhythm Of Life is a powerful beat…”

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Kafkatrap

Let's talk about how your mind works.

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Recoding

You know the thing I love most about the summer?

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Rhythm Of Life

The last few days you may have seen some site issues.

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Coding your mind

This only happens every seventy years or so.

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Naturally yours

I should have thought of this years ago

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Thank you

Short answer - I LIKE green.

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NeoNotes — What witch?

I don't think animals should be killed for ritual use. I have issues with animals being killed for food. It's why I still pray before meals. I'm honoring their sacrifice even though I know they don't understand.

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No significance

I spent WAY too much time yesterday on this site

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Redirecting

Just because we humans don’t like a species doesn’t mean it’s not absolutely essential.

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What's with all the GREEN?

The "Witch Winter Solstice Ritual" in Nylon is populist pap. It's a lot like having Easter using only Cadbury eggs and never once mentioning a resurrection or what it might mean.

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Carried away

I'm changing the tag "sex" to the category "sex."

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Interconnections

Since I don't have much time this week, I thought talk about the daily things we sometimes overlook.

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Changing sex

You have to begin by learning. Intuition relies on knowledge and experience.

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Daily

Since I don't have much time this week, I thought talk about the daily things we sometimes overlook.

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Bloody sacrifice

This year it's a bit cooler than I like. And we had scattered rainstorms, so the party was inside. Then the heat pump blower quit (on a Saturday), I built a fire in the firepace (fire GOOD grunts Neo).

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Intuition & Inspiration

According to popular culture, magick is about breaking the rules and molding reality.

Nope.

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Religion and politics

Hold her hands, gently, almost like a caress. Tell her how you feel about her. Tell her how you feel when you are with her. Do it again in thirteen minutes, precisely.

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Welcome to summer

As my regular readers know, I don't celebrate Baltaine as such. I celebrate Summergate, a three day High Holiday that starts on sunset Tuesday. The cross-quarter day is on May 4th this year.

However, at the end of April and the end of October every year, I host small dinner parties. The highlight of these parties is the
Hair of the Bear, my semi-annual haircut. I'm reserved in public, and this is one of my chances to let loose a little bit.

This year it's a bit cooler than I like. And we had scattered rainstorms, so the party was inside. Then the heat pump blower quit (on a Saturday), I built a fire in the fireplace (fire GOOD grunts Neo).

I wasn't in charge of the menu, it was a potluck of everyone's favorite summer dishes. Somebody brought catfish grilled in cornmeal. When it's done right, that's one of the most delicious things ever.

I don't think the ladies quite got the full three inches, but I can live with it. My hair is short for summer.


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Act of Change

Poetic inspiration gives a glimse. That's a long way from manifesting.

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Sex advice

Hold her hands, gently, almost like a caress. Tell her how you feel about her. Tell her how you feel when you are with her. Do it again in thirteen minutes, precisely.

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Starlight

No matter what the inspiration, you still have to come down off the mountain. Living in the Here & Now helps make you human.

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The Lady Always Chooses

At some point you come back from the mountain and across the wilderness.

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Taproot: Through the Woods

I’ve put the Sex catagory in the main menu

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Faith Triad

Thinking by blogging

No, it wasn’t responsible. No, I’m not proud of it. And yes, it lasted longer than it should have with me.

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Manifest

It was a warm summer night and I was laying on my roof staring deep into the sky. One of the local cats was on the corner cleaning itself and hoping I would share some food.

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New sex menu item

Today I am indulging in a mostly day off. I’ve not had one for two months.

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Collecting pelts

Mom ended up with a broken clavicle, a punctured lung, massive bruising, and some confusion.

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☯ Lady in the Court of…

It made my childhood interesting, some of my “imaginary” friends were really there.

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Just before it sparks

Eggnog French toast

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Accident

I joke about it, but that is the heart of it. Or maybe the hearth. It’s the center.

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Sunfell Tech Mage Rede Nine Words Serve The Tech Mage Best Keep What Works Fix What’s Broke Ditch The Rest

A narrow slice of life, but now and again pondering American neopaganism, modern adult pagans & the World.

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