Tag Archives: Thoughts

Sparkling lights, Souls of the Ancestors

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Sometimes I stand on the Sand dunes looking out to sea or up to the heavens to stare at the stars and the glory of the moon as she turns all around me to magic.

On cold, clear night, especially when there is a full moon you can see sparkles dancing around you. They whorl around and at the slightest breath of breeze dance away only to return as if they were curious about you and want to connect with you.

They seem to have a light, and a life, all of their own like tiny fire fly’s glinting and dancing before and around you.

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Posted in Esoterica

What is magic?

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Recently I was talking about Paganism to somebody and was asked about Magic, was it like the bang flash Harry Potter type of magic?
This led me to start thinking about how I see Magik, how it manifests and how I work with it.

So no magic isn’t the wave a wand and turn somebody into a frog neither is it the brash kick in the door type of magic we see in films. Magic is much more subtle than that, so subtle in fact that you won’t even see it working!

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Posted in Esoterica, Theology

An Astronomical Lammas?

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At Lammas we celebrate the first harvest, obviously this has connotations with agriculture and we shouldn’t ignore or minimise that. It is likely that it is this connection that most preoccupied our ancestors. But they would undoubtedly have also thought about how this ‘First Harvest’ and the “Second Harvest” that it presages was reflected in their own lives.

For modern Pagans we also use this time to reflect on how our lives have developed and look forward to the second harvest which with the Goddesses help and guidance we can row and bring to fruition all that is positive and work with her on those aspects, the weeds in our lives, that are negative and holding us back.

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Posted in Esoterica, Theology

Schrodinger’s Solstice?

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We are now approaching the Summer Solstice, this, along with the Winter Solstice, is a special time for me. For some reason I feel that these two aspects of the wheel of the year are somewhat more important, more special, than the other six points on the wheel.
I feel that at summer and particularly winter solstice the universe stops, hesitates and then reverses direction. These are decision points, points of fragility, when the momentum of existence is at its weakest and most prone to changes in direction and emphasis. They are quite simply balance points where the future is most malleable, most open to our input and most at risk.
It is at these times that I feel in honoring, celebrating and acknowledging we can take our place in the long line of people throughout history that have done their bit to nudge the universe back in the right direction.

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Posted in Esoterica, Theology

A Pagans thoughts on End of life care

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This is a personal subject, having very recently experienced  both the provision of End of Life care to my Father and his eventual death.

Death and dying are, in most western societies at least, something of a taboo subject. Difficult to think about and even more difficult to talk about, We tend I feel to leave this difficult task to the health care professionals.

But the we all have a responsibility to help shape the care that people get during their final weeks and months, and to do that we need to talk about what our expectations for such care are and what informs our views.

Religion of course, dealing with death and what comes after as it does, acts to form the basis of many decisions on what sort of care is appropriate, but this usually means that the decisions are based around the ethics and ethos of Christianity in large part. This is not to suggest that Christianity has it all wrong, but I do feel it is about time the Pagan voice was heard in these discussions and Pagan ethics and ethos fed into the process.

So to this end I would like to start the dialog by bringing together some of my thoughts on what a pagan approach to End of life Care might look like.

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Posted in Life, Theology

To walk the Shadows

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I am tired of this life

Joy has left

Hope has fled

Memories return to give pain in fair measure as they once gave happiness

A decision folds the future, taking what may have been and returning the walk to the edge of the shadows.

The past moulds what is, and what may be. But our actions, choices and omissions take us to where we find ourselves, at the start of the shadows.

The box of secrets is opened, trusted to another, its contents freed for a Time,

But closed tight again as the journey to the edge of the shadow begins.

Enter the shadows and the darkness seems deep, the traveller longs for the light of the past memories which still seemed so sweet

The shadows darken but the eyes and mind adapt, even believing that somehow the shadows might be but a darkening of the light. But the soul knows the truth, and fears the path the travellers must tread,

The soul knows the truth, the terrors of the shadows may be faced, the brave may stand, and the weak run but no man may stand or run from the true terrors, those he brings with him into the path of the shadows. The truth the soul knows wakes.

Even those that enter the shadows with the belief of love at their side are destined to be no more than those who enter alone, the truth the soul knows gathers.

But still hope survives, the memory of the light and the memories still bring some solace. But as the moon traces her path and the wheel turns even the memories turn against hope. And the truth the soul knows, watches.

Signs and portents come and go, we bend them to our dreams and desires, though the truth the soul knows sees through them all and builds its strengths.

The tears when they come water no flowers, quench no fires, but extinguish the light that exists in the shadows, and the truth the soul knows waits

The truth the soul knows, knows its quarry, and at the edge of the shadows it knows it’s time.

I am tired of this life

Joy has left

Hope has fled

And memories return to give pain in fair measure as they once gave happiness

Posted in Esoterica, Life

To vote, or not to vote. That is the Question!

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As some of you may have noticed there is an election looming, and all the parties are fighting for our vote. But almost every election the numbers of people not voting is a significant proportion of the electorate, since 2000 its been running at over 30% not bothering to vote. [2]

But do we, as citizens, have a duty, an obligation, to vote? And more particularly does a Pagan have a moral / religious obligation to vote?

I would argue that we do, but to support that view I would like to look at one or two reasons for voting. Firstly within Wicca, and quite a few other Pagan traditions there is the concept of some sort of ‘law of return’. The idea that every decision we make, every action we take has an impact that one way or another will impact back on us. From the ideas around Karma to the rule of 3 in Wicca [3] we see that Pagan traditions support the idea of our actions coming back to us.

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Posted in Life, Politics, Theology

Is Christmas Christian?

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Why December the 25th?

The main problem in trying to establish the date of Christ’s birth is that there simply isn’t any real evidence to go on. The gospels don’t provide any dating evidence apart from the reported roman census and an astronomical phenomena, the star, to go on. Nowhere in the gospels is the date of conception or birth actually mentioned. Unfortunately there seems to be no records of any census undertaken in that period, strange as the Romans were methodical record keepers, and research has shown no contemporary records of any astronomical event sufficient to pinpoint a date to more than a few years accuracy let alone an actual day.

This wasn’t a problem for the early church as birthdays were not seen as something to actually celebrate so the only interest in establishing the date was purely theological. The main problem is that despite the hard work of the theologians, they generally met with a stunning lack of success in actually agreeing on a date.

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Posted in History, Life, Theology

A rag on a poll!

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“Sharpe: Do you really believe men will fight and die for a rag on a pole, sir?

 

 

Hogan: You do, Richard, you do”

 

 

Sharps Rifles.

The quote, for a book by Bernard Cornwall, clearly shows both the power and danger of symbols. Now Shape, a fictional soldier in the British army fighting Napoleon during the peninsular wars, was referring to a flag but one with religious meaning to the local people who it was hoped would rise up if the flag was flown. What that simple quote shows is that symbols, especially those that embody religious meaning, can inspire fanatical loyalty and deep reverence in people. It also shows how difficult we find it to understand why others feel the same way about their symbols.

Part of this dichotomy is probably in the way that symbols, particularly religious ones, are given their meaning. Possibly the most powerful part of religious symbology is that it provides the wearer a way of identifying with the group that they belong to. This feeling of group identity is very powerful, as can be seen with the way that groups will behave in a way totally different to that of any of the individual members. This group dynamic can be seen in the football fans following their team or in the ‘esprit de corps’ developed by military groupings.

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Posted in Esoterica, Theology

A Wyrd Fate

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Those that know me will know that I was brought up as a Christian, mainly due to my paternal grandmothers influence, and that my journey from where I was to where I am now has taken a number of turns, not all of them expected. Part of the problem I had with Christianity was that I simply couldn’t reconcile the idea of an all-powerful God with the concept of free will

You see for me the concept of an all-powerful God has a couple of implications. One possibility is that God, being all powerful has built the universe and pre designed in all of our choices. We have no real free will at all; we are just following the grand plan. This simply isn’t something I am prepared to accept. I can not just roll over and hand over control of my life and destiny to somebody else, not even to a god!

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Posted in Esoterica, Theology
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