Tuesday - November 27, 2018
Friday - November 23, 2018
Monday - November 19, 2018
Do you believe
My Earth Day
❝Individuals have rights. Groups have power plays.❞— NeoWayland, On Pagan Rights
Thursday - November 15, 2018
Archaeoastronomy
Mark time
Friday - November 9, 2018
“The demand that we always wear clothing while in society causes at least four kinds of alienation: it alienates us from ourselves, from others, from nature, and from the Divine.”
Thursday - November 8, 2018
Tuesday - November 6, 2018 - election day
Monday - November 5, 2018
Saturday - November 3, 2018
Wednesday - October 31, 2018
Tuesay - October 30, 2018
Monday - October 29, 2018
Saturday - October 27, 2018
Friday - October 26, 2018
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
Thursday - October 25, 2018
Wednesday - October 24, 2018
Tuesday - October 23, 2018
Saturday - October 20, 2018
Friday - October 19, 2018
Thursday - October 18, 2018
Wednesday - October 17, 2018
Tuesday - October 16, 2018
Monday - October 15, 2018
Saturday - October 13, 2018
Friday - October 12, 2018
“Some people feel the rain. Others just get wet.”
Thursday - October 11, 2018
Wednesday - October 10, 2018
Tuesday - October 9, 2018
Monday - October 8, 2018
I played hooky and climbed up on the roof, just so I could enjoy the moon peeking through the trees on the greenbelt in my desert.
Read More...Sunday - October 7, 2018
Friday - October 5, 2018
“Just living is not enough... one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.”
Thursday - October 4, 2018
Wednesday - October 3, 2018
Granpa was a letter writer. He had a well-used old Royal and he would write letters all the time. Getting a letter from him was special. It just felt wonderful. Every time I got one I could just picture him at his typewriter hunting and pecking out the letters.
Read More...Tuesday - October 2, 2018
❝Religions are not created by the Divine.Read More...
Religions are created by people claiming to speak for the Divine.❞
Celebrate
Encyclopædia Brittanica gets it wrong
I've been working on version 3 of my lexicon. It's steady work, and helps calm me. I don't write all the definitions, I take clips if I can find well written ones.
So I was looking at Brittanica's Quarter Day page, which actually refers to the Lammas page.
““The Quarter Days—Candlemas (February 2), May Day (May 1), Lammas, and All Saints’ Day (November 1)—marked the four quarters of the calendar as observed in the British Isles and elsewhere in northern Europe. ””Every single reference I've ever seen from Valiente forward calls these the cross quarter days, they mark the transitions between the season. The actual quarter days are the solstices and the equinoxes. It helps if you visualize the year as a wheel.
— Encyclopædia Brittanica, Lammas
The second mistake is about May Day, and I am pretty sure it's a translation error and misunderstanding about agriculture. I'll just quote my own note here.
❝Enclyclopædia Britannica has it wrong here, it's a very common mistake. In some European countries especially further north, there were two seasons, winter and summer. May Day traditionally marks the beginning of the growing season, not the beginning of spring. If the summer solstice is midsummer, that makes May Day the beginning of summer.❞I doubt that anyone except a calendar geek or a pagan would have caught it. But when you're both at once, you have to tell people.— NeoWayland, May Day
In the spirt of the season
“I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.”
Today
“The second coming of the Goddess has proved of inestimable value to people everywhere, for it has provided them with a new mythic pattern, a saving story to live by.”
Today
Today
Today
≠ ✟ Circumcision of Christ
☿ Mercury at Greatest Western Elongation
🌝 bright moon - supermoon
Today
❝Every moral absolute I’ve ever encountered depends on cultural or religious assumptions that probably aren’t shared by all people present.❞— NeoWayland, as a rule, absolutes don’t
Today
Today
Today
Saturnalia begins
◊ Wayfaring Day
Migration noise
Jounal 04Aug2017
My companion pointed out to me last night that I've never shown a a picture of my raven pendant on the site.
Read More...☥ ✰ ❝The spiritual world is not unlike the natural world …❞
Margot Adler • Before passing day
Lived 16Apr1946 to 28July2014 (68)
American author, journalist, lecturer, Wiccan priestess and radio journalist
“The spiritual world is not unlike the natural world: only diversity will save it.”
☥ ▽ ❝…without being bound by them.❞
Alex Sanders • deceased birthday
Lived 06Jun1926 to 30Apr1988 (58)
Self-proclaimed "King of Witches," founder of the Alexanderian tradition of witchcraft. Plagiarist and publicity addict.
≠ ✰ Gardner Day
≠ ✰ Sanders Day
Alex Sanders • deceased birthday
Lived 06Jun1926 to 30Apr1988 (58)
Self-proclaimed "King of Witches," founder of the Alexanderian tradition of witchcraft. Plagiarist and publicity addict.
≠ ✰ Farrar Day
Stewart Farrar * deceased birthday
Lived 28Jun1916 to 07Feb2000 (83)
Witch, author, novelist. May have encouraged the sexual initiation of minor girls.
≠ ✰ Cunningham Day
☥ ❝You saw a hurting you could help…❞
Last night I wrapped myself in the blanket and spent a long time watching the flames in my small fire.
Read More...🚀 Seven
🚀 Goddard's Rocket
21Mar1970 San Francisco
My entry on Earth Day and politics.
★ Arbor Day (Arizona observance)
❝We have to laugh at ourselves. No one else would take us seriously enough.❞— NeoWayland, How to be Pagan for a day
≠ Earth Day - customary
This is not the Earth Day I celebrate.
My entry on Earth Day and politics.
★ Earth Day (original) as “the first day of spring”
21Mar1970 San Francisco
My entry on Earth Day and politics.
Dating obsessively
Donald Michael Kraig • deceased birthday
Lived 28March1951 to 07March2014
American occult author and practitioner of ceremonial magic
Author, lecturer, hypnotherapist, Magician, Tantric
☥ ✰ Adler Day
Margot Adler • Before birthday
Lived 16Apr1946 to 28July2014 (68)
American author, journalist, lecturer, Wiccan priestess and radio journalist
≠ ✰ ❝Magick is not something you do…❞
≠ ✰ Kraig Day
Donald Michael Kraig • deceased birthday
Lived 28March1951 to 07March2014
American occult author and practitioner of ceremonial magic
Author, lecturer, hypnotherapist, Magician, Tantric
≠ ✰ ❝Any and all religions are real…❞
I've been up all night with the sound of the night in my ears. Also aroused. And no companion around.
Read More...🚀 Rocketman
Journal 10Apr2017
❝We pretty much agreed that women sometimes lie about rape and the code needed to take that into account. We added one small paragraph that said accusations of rape didn't necessarily mean rape.❞Read More...
Journal 07Apr2017
❝Freedom of religion does not mean deferring to Christianity.❞— NeoWayland
NeoNotes — 10th anniversary of “Pentacle Quest”
If you don't like gambling or shows, there's not much that sets Las Vegas apart.
Read More...What does that have to do with greeting the sun?
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.
Read More...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.
Black & Blue
… taking a separate name shows dedication to your faith when you are initiated.
Read More...Flexing your calendar
One of these days I really should tell that story. But not today.
No, today I’m going to talk about calendars.This is a partial list of dates from my Lore and Wyrd calendars. The exact dates don’t matter in this example.
Pay attention to the symbols before the title in each listing.
The ☥ ankh symbol is my shorthand for a Before. Before are those who’ve inspired me and those who I choose to honor by living their example.
The ✰ shadowed star is my shorthand for a pagan.
The ▽ inverted triangle is a symbol for philosophy, I use this to designate philosophers.
The ≠ not equals sign means that I acknowledge but do not celebrate (ABNC). Just because the day is important to other people doesn’t mean that I have to celebrate it. And if you think I have a lot of these days in my Lore and Wyrd calendars, you should see the birthdays and anniversaries in my Kinship calendar.
The ★ solid star shows that this day that while not distinctively pagan is still important to my practice.
Okay, the ⊗ circled times symbol. I don’t want to use the circled cross because of it’s association with the KKK (and yes, my feelings on that go back years). This is a good alternative that maintains the same elemental associations. Of course someone who takes a title based on Wayland is going to celebrate The Firing of the Anvil. Especially someone with strong ties to the American South.
Let’s see how that actually works. As you can see, this is an event from 1971. The ankh and the inverted triangle tell us that this man is one of my Befores and he’s a philosopher. I’ve used the location field to give more expand the information a bit. This field will also show in the day list view of the iOS calendar or in my preferred option Fantastical.
I’ve included a quick URL so I can call up in-depth information.
I’ve unchecked the “Busy” box so I still show available.
My notes show his lifespan and how old he was when he died.
And I’ve listed some of the things he was known for WITHOUT giving specific works. Otherwise the entry would be way too long and clunky.
The whole purpose of this exercise is that I have a calendar in the palm of my hand that will quickly show me what I need to know for that day.
I haven’t even mentioned my Sky calendar with the astronomical events and symbols.
Have I mentioned that I have a calendar obsession?
Here’s the most important bit.
After the initial setup (and the once a year update on my Sky calendar), I don’t have to worry about it. It’s there. If I absolutely have to I can print it up (and I still do for some events and rituals).
A little bit of work, a little bit of planning, and I’m ready.
