Pagan Postings 12/28/09: Joe and the sea shell.

I can remember it like it was yesterday, though I could not tell you what year it was, or how long ago it occurred.

We lined that long narrow hallway at Stonehaven, must have been at least 30 or more of us. It was dark and it was cold outside and the smell of the two fires in the Great Room was scenting the darkness. I could still smell the pasta we'd made for dinner, and I was warm and loved and all was right with the world.

Joe was smudging us into circle with copal resin. A LOT of copal resin. He was new to the act and the hall was so narrow and there were so many of us. The air became thick and heavy and by the end, almost overpowering.

I fell in love with copal that night. It was not my first sniff, nor my first exposure. But that smell is now forever ingrained in my mind with being among my people.

Some of those people are my people still.

I am so very blessed, I live in a world where it's mostly OK for me to differ from the dominant religion. I live in a world where the books and supplies and tools and pretty sparkling things indicative of my religion are readily available.

I live in a world where the man with the copal resin in that sea shell, laid his sword on a red porch a springtime years after Stonehaven, so I could jump it at my handfasting. I am no longer handfasted to that man, but I am honored to still call him friend and mean it.

Now I learn that Joe's seashell has broken. It was crushed in one of those small tragic accidents that befall all practitioners, who place time and love and work into their Craft. It was just a thing, and we all know that symbols are not necessary, and we can practice and worship without them just fine. But it is a small tragedy.

So I have the smell of copal in my mind's eye, as I hold a small alter cauldron that I have used and loved for years I no longer can count.

And I smile. It will be Joe's cauldron soon, we will meet and eat and remember the love that stretches between us that time and distance can not break.

It is another cold winter night, I am warm and I am loved and I am happy. Happier still that I have a gift to give, and the smell of copal in my memory.

Pagan Posting 12/27/09 Avatar, pluging in and Killing your Mother.

So, we emptied the change jar and went to see Avatar. It was our gift to us, as the money situation precluded any gift-giving or receiving this year.

I can not say how beautiful this movie is, visually and spiritually.

There is a line in the movie "We have killed our Mother." Now those who know me, know I don't believe the natural world is intrinsically female.

But we, as a species, are in the process of killing our planet, our "mother", our protector, that which shields, nourishes and protects us. We have stopped "seeing" and long since stopped "listening".

Now, I'm not one of those people who think that climate change is ALL the fault of humanity.I think climate change is part of a cycle we have accelerated.

Destruction of the wild and beautiful places for greed? That is our fault.
Disrespect for the natural world is our fault.

There is a song by John Prine that illustrates this point for me.


I'm so very sad for us as a species. We have "unplugged" ourselves. Some of us, the Pagan, those on the Red-Road, and the other followers of animist and nature-based religions are still "listening" we still "see" our world.

I just wonder, how much will be gone before we look up one day and realize it's all been taken away?