The Great Mother Goddesses

Or, How Our Own Death Wish is Causing Many of Us to Return to the Old Ways.

Let me preface the following by saying I know nothing of genetics and very little of hardcore science in general. I'm probably going to use various, or many, terms incorrectly and miss the intended point of an important theory. So, if any of you science-y people out there spot errors I encourage you to correct me. Okay, on with the wild ramblings.

Have you heard of the Toba Catastrophe Theory? It states that roughly 70,000- 75,000 years ago a volcano on what is now Sumatra, in Indonesia, blew the Hel up and set in motion a series of environmental effects that caused a pretty drastic bottleneck in the human population. What's a bottleneck in population? That's when something pretty big, nasty and scary, like a plague, earthquake, ice age, volcanic eruption, etc., brings about the deaths of so many beings of a certain species that the descendants of the survivors are incredibly close genetically because so few were left to perpetuate the species. In the case of the Toba eruption it's estimated that perhaps as few as 1,000 breeding pairs of humans survived. There are also estimates that go as high as 10,000 pairs but either way, it was a pretty big damn drop in population. And it got me thinking.

It got me thinking about how many people look to religion and spirituality in hard times. Before I started learning about population bottlenecks, and the Toba disaster is just one of many, I had always wondered about the Great Mother Goddesses. Why were they so important to our ancestors? Why were they most likely the first to be crafted into statuettes? Why were they among the first divinities to be worshiped? Why were they, in many lands, cultures and times, the most loved? Why did they, above so many others, spread out from their homelands and find adherents over many continents? What's so special about them? And the most obvious, and somewhat unsatisfying, answer was that they were in charge of the continuance of human life. They were in charge of sexuality that led to conception, pregnancy, birth and growth leading eventually back to sexuality. They were the ultimate creators, the supreme progenitors, they were the mothers of us all.

Seems pretty simple, right? Why then, I ask you, did the worship of said Great Mother Goddesses die out and eventually become despised? What made them so important and then, at best, meaningless and, at worst, evil? I know, I know. It's the fault of the Judeo-Christians and their comparatively new religions. But things must have changed to allow for such a male-centric mythos to take hold. What could it have been? Answer: The population had long since stabilized and the need for Great Mother Goddesses had waned. Which means something major must have happened long, long before that to make the production of children an extremely high priority for nearly everyone alive. But what could that have been? Answer: An extraordinary drop in the population and the resultant desperation.

Now skip ahead a couple thousand years. People began returning to the old ways and the old gods about the time of the Industrial Revolution. Just about the time factories began spewing poison into the air, the water, earth and the bodies of every living creature on the planet a few folks here and there started looking back to the ancient religions. The Great Mother Goddesses become more and more important just as pollutants, pesticides and other chemicals started invading every aspect of life. It's not the same as a massive volcanic eruption, a meteor plowing into the Earth or the plague but we may be creating our next population bottleneck. As the human-made problems of global climate change, industry-induced cancer and infertility, and our own medicines poisoning our drinking water begin to weigh on us more people are turning back to the ancient ways. As our human situation grows ever more precarious the number of Great Mother Goddess, and other pagan, adherents has risen. Coincidence? I think not.

I don't think it's about simple fear either. If it were then many people would just turn to whatever religion is handy, whichever religion is acceptable i.e. the dominant religions, that of the Judeo-Christians. No. More and more people are turning to a form of religion and spirituality that is very much not acceptable to the majority of our fellow citizens. Why? Why would this current threat to our race cause such a thing? It's because the situation is radically different this time. It's something that hasn't happened ever before in the history of our race and our planet. Instead of a volcanic eruption or a plague or other disaster that we have no control over we are putting ourselves at risk. We are killing ourselves.

Our own technological advancement, our "progress" is putting our very existence as a race at risk. And because said progress involves a would-be domination of the Earth, untold and unnecessary cruelty, unparalleled waste and monumental greed many of us are not just turning away from the mainstream way of living, eating, consuming and working. We are returning to the ancient ways because we feel and know, at least subconsciously, that the ways of the Great Mother Goddesses, and their cohorts, are the only things that can save us. If we don't return to living in balance with the land and learn to embrace life, and all its joys and indignities, as sacred then we are doomed to destroy ourselves. If we don't return to the Great Mother Goddesses we are doomed to create the next human population bottleneck.

American Hate Groups

The Southern Poverty Law Center has released the results of their study of hate groups across the United States; they report that there are 926 active groups. To see how many of these groups are active in your neighborhood visit their Hate Groups Map. The map, and the overall results, paints a pretty depressing, if fascinating, picture. The hot topic of immigration has been an obvious boon to American hate groups as they have seen a 54% jump since 2000. And given that President Obama is our first African-American president I'm not surprised that American hate groups have seen a 4% increase since 2007.

I'm also not surprised to learn that my home state of Missouri has at least 30 known hate groups. And I guess I always knew in the back of my mind that there were surely some racist organizations around my own area of southwest Missouri. This is the Ozarks after all, land of hillbillies and rednecks. But I was somewhat surprised, not to mention dismayed, to learn that there so many so close to me. There's something like 5 or 6 within an hour of my home!

I don't know quite how to feel about the Christian Identity brand of hate group and its connections to Norse neopagans. According to the SPLCenter:

In recent years, deep doctrinal disputes, the lack of a central church structure, and a shift among white supremacists towards agnosticism and racist variations of neo-Paganism have weakened the Identity movement and reduced the number of its adherents.

I've always been aware that a very small subset of Neopagans was of the racist variety but to see it discussed in such a matter of fact manner is chilling, to say the least. As far back as 1998 the SPLC has been discussing the racist varieties of Asatru and Odinism but did at least concede that:

Some 40 Websites are devoted to forms of Asatrú (most of them nonracist).

A later 2001 interview with a Swedish expert goes farther. A professor from Stockholm, Mattias Gardell, states that there are three distinct types of Norse neopagans:

There are really three positions: the militant racists, the nonracists and, in between, a third, "ethnic" position.

While I'm not of the Nordic persuasion I think Gardell did a pretty fair job of making it plain that just because one is a Norse neopagan does not necessarily mean one is a racist. He does, however, tend to lump all neopagans into one group. Or, rather, he simply leaves out the non-Norse neopagans. But as he is discussing racism within neopaganism he can perhaps be forgiven for that.

There's also another map worth visiting at the SPLC site. It's the the interactive Stand Strong Against Hate map which allows visitors to add their name and home state information in a show of tolerance. It might not really accomplish much but it is nice to see so many positive green spots on the map as opposed to the red hate group dots. Said page also has a list of recently reported hate crimes which is, again, depressing as hell but important nonetheless.

As I said on Inauguration day:

I don't know if today is the fulfillment of King's dream or just the beginning of the fulfillment of his dream.

We have an African-American president; we have made great strides. But racism, religious hatred and all that goes with it are still very much alive in this country. The above links speak to that. We haven't achieved all of our progressive goals simply because Obama won the election. We've turned a corner, yes, but we still have a long way to go now that the haters of this country are redoubling their efforts.

The Pope Did What?

So, we all know about the many cases of Catholic priests sexually molesting and abusing their church members, in most cases young boys. According to this AlterNet article there's been nearly 5000 priests officially accused of abusing children. When I first read that figure I wasn't sure I believed it, but this study commissioned by the US Catholic Church confirms it. While the number of cases investigated, and successfully prosecuted, is much lower that figure of 5000 accused priests is still pretty resounding. Imagine it: thousands of kids sexually abused by their only link with their God: a priest. And, lest we forget and the report points out, that abuse wasn't limited to inappropriately suggestive conversation or the viewing of pornographer. There was actual forced penetration being done against these children and some of them were younger than 7 years of age! And out of all those priests accused none of them have been excommunicated by the Pope. Some voluntarily went to counseling, some went to jail, some quietly retired from their posts and some just went on to find a new batch of victims in a different parish. But NONE of them were ever kicked out of the Church. Now, keep those facts in your head while I go on to the next bit.

From the AlterNet article:

"Nearly 5,000 Catholic priests [in the U.S.] have sexually abused over 12,000 Catholic children…but they were not excommunicated," says Father Roy Bourgeois, who faced the latter scenario after helping celebrate what the Vatican considers to be an illegitimate ordination mass in August 2008. Bourgeois, a Vietnam veteran with a Purple Heart who became a prominent peace activist, stood with the trailblazers of the female ordination movement in Lexington, Ky., to make Janice Sevre-Duszynska a Catholic priest.

For thumbing his nose at one of the most sacred tenets of the conservative hierarchy -- that only men are worthy of the priesthood -- Bourgeois was swiftly rebuked by the Vatican in a letter two months later, telling him he had 30 days to renounce his actions or face excommunication.

Yep, you read that right the first time. I had to read it a few times myself. It's apparently okay to willfully abuse a sacred trust by molesting and raping small children but if you place a woman, A FEMALE, on the same level as a man then you're out of the Church! Can you believe this shit? Perhaps I'm oversimplifying in an explicit way but what the Catholic Church is essentially saying is this: if you are a male, and a priest, it's perfectly okay to take a five-year-old boy into the confessional, strip his clothes off, hold him down, ignore his cries and pleas and purposely insert your penis into his anus with bloody force but if you dare to ordain a woman as a priest(ess) of the Church you will go to Hell and suffer eternal damnation. But go on permanently and irrevocably destroying the minds and bodies of children cuz that's just fine. Humiliate the kids, abuse them, dehumanize them, warp their developing minds, scar them physically and psychologically and as long as you keep women out of the Church it's just fine and dandy.

Obviously, it makes absolutely no sense at all. And so I have come to a perhaps radical conclusion: the Pope is trying to destroy his own Church. Think about it: Church attendance is in the toilet, churches are closing down left and right and the country, the world, is becoming more secular every day. So what does the Pope do? Why, give the child molesters and rapists a slap on the wrist and denounce with holy fervor a priest who dares include women. According to the AlterNet article well over 60% of American Catholics favor the ordination of women as priests so I guess the Pope is also getting the extra benefit of alienating the remaining faithful. So, what gives? What's the answer, the reason? Well, I figure there's only one of two possible answers for this craziness. One: the Pope is trying to destroy his own Church. Or, two: the Pope is batshiat insane. Or both.

Growing Pains

So if your read many pagan blogs you're likely familiar with Deo's Shadow, a popular pagan podcast, and the fact that it's two creators have switched to atheism. There are so many posts about this that it would take forever to link them. Just check out The Wild Hunt to find a few and that will get you on your way if you haven't already read about it. Apparently, this change in two apparently well-known pagans (that I've never heard of btw) has caused a little uproar. There's talk of folks outgrowing paganism and of paganism having no coherent community. Some have explained/complained that all the magic and worship and general weirdness of paganism is pointless. Some have said they couldn't get a scientific grasp on paganism and so left it behind them. And on and on and on. And some formerly die hard pagans have, for some reason, been hit pretty hard by this. They're feeling the need to re-examine their beliefs, or something like that. Personally, I don't get the big deal. So some folks who were pagan aren't anymore? Who cares? We are all walking a comparatively new path and there are bound to be dabblers who drift in for a while, some for shallow reasons, some with all sincerity, and eventually drift out. Why does this cause people to doubt themselves and their pagan path?

It makes me wonder how many of us have studied the early years of Christianity. If you haven't given that fascinating period in history a look lately, or ever, let me just tell you: it was a mess. People didn't understand what was going on because no one knew what they were doing. It was all new to them and they were creating a religion from the ground up. They started form scratch. They had less to work with than neopagans as we have a rich history of ancient paganism to study. The rituals of mass and all that didn't spring up out of the ground; they took years to become entrenched. The organization and power of the Christians didn't rise up from out of nowhere. People drifted into Christianity because it was different, because it was new or because it spoke to them. And not all of them stuck with it. And lookee at what those early Christians created: a religion that has dominated for 2000 years! I'm not saying neopaganism will do the same but what I am saying is that we've just got to expect these kinds of things. Just because these events are new to neopaganism doesn't mean they are new in the larger sense. Of course we don't have much coherence. Of course we don't have much of an established community. How could we? There are only a few of us and many of us are very far flung.

I imagine in big cities and in places like California there are a lot of pagan-y, magical people to form a community so maybe they have a different perspective. But, lest we forget, the greater part of this country is not very densely populated. Yes, I'm talking about the Midwest and the Bible Belt. I'm smack in the middle of it and I can tell you there are very few pagans around here. In my entire county there are maybe 6 pagans that I know of and probably not many more than that in the closet. We can't form much of a coherent community because, well, it's hard to galvanize a movement consisting of only 2 or 3 involved people. This is just a microcosmic example but do you see what I'm getting at? There just aren't enough of us yet to be called a movement in the true sense of the word. And I imagine that neopagans in other countries face the same lack of numbers issue that Americans face. We haven't been around long enough; there just aren't that many of us. Compared to the age of religions throughout history ours is still very young. Neopaganism is a child; we've got to expect some growing pains.

A Winter Miracle

I want to share a little story with you, dear readers. This happened a few nights ago when the temperature dipped to 8 degrees with -3 wind chill. See, we live just down the road from a small, thriving Amish community. FYI, Amish are a particular brand of Christian who don't use much, if any, electricity, don't fight in wars and generally shun those not of their faith and families. They are, however, nice folks who are always free with a smile and a wave as they pass by in their buggies. They're so nice that people don't even seem to mind the occasional horse dropping on the roads. There are quite a few Amish homes down the way and a school, of course, as the Amish don't usually send their kids to public schools. If you'd like to learn more about the Amish, or plain folks, visit Wikipedia. Now, on to the story.

The other night, at about 10 p.m., a young Amish father had just placed his two-year-old daughter, Hannah, in their buggy with the intention of hopping inside himself when something spooked the horse and off it ran, buggy and all. With the two-year-old inside it! The father attempted to run it down but, as anyone who has ever seen a horse run knows, no man could have caught up in time. This is not a usual occurrence as Amish horses are not easily spooked. In our town they can often be seen trotting alongside half a dozen fully loaded 18-wheelers (as this is a popular stop for truckers) and they don't bat an eyelash. They tolerate honking horns, blaring stereos and who knows how many coyotes and other wild creatures. But whatever the reason, something must have spooked this horse because the buggy in question quickly disappeared into the night and was nowhere to be seen or found. The family and rescue workers searched and all they found was one of the child's shoes along the roadside. The family went the entire night not knowing what had happened to their young daughter.

Eventually, at about 7:15 a.m. a passing motorist saw the child huddled by the roadside and immediately gathered her up and took her to the rescue command post. After her nightlong ordeal Hannah was examined and found to be suffering from hypothermia and skinned knees from being thrown from the buggy. She was treated and released from the hospital after only a few hours. And that's it. Doctors will keep an eye on her for a while, especially the foot that lost its shoe, but she is basically fine.

How's that for a bona fide miracle? I know, I know, I can hear some people saying that she was already a tough kid for living without electricity. But it's not like the Amish go cold all the time, they have wood heat just like we have in our home and we stay warm enough. And many Amish use kerosene for various things too. The Amish way of life is not about suffering or penance, it is about simplicity. Yeah, Amish kids work harder than other kids and are therefore tougher. But I think there's more to it than this. I think somebody of the godly persuasion was looking out for her.

I say: 'Tis the season to praise your personal god(s)! Any miracles happening around your neck of the woods??

P.S. I would include a link to the actual news story but it includes photos of the family and as Amish dislike having their photographs taken I've opted not to link to the story.

The Winter Solstice: Neolithics to Christians

The word solstice comes from the Latin: "sol" for sun and "stictere", to stand still. Did you know that in January the Earth is about 3 million miles closer to the sun than in June? It doesn't affect our climate in any way though. After all, 3 million miles is nothing in astronomical terms. Rather, it is our planet's curious 23 degree tilt that gives us our seasons. On the winter solstice our hemisphere is tilted farthest away from the sun than at any other point during the year, giving us the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. And there's more than that happening, astronomically speaking. From Wikipedia:

On the night of winter solstice, as seen from a northern sky, the three stars in Orion's Belt align with the brightest star in the eastern sky Sirius to show where the Sun will rise in the morning after winter solstice. Until this time, the Sun has exhibited since summer solstice a decreasing arc across the Southern sky. On winter solstice, the Sun ceases to decline in the sky and the length of daylight reaches its minimum for three days, during which the sun does not move on the horizon. After such a time, the Sun begins its ascent into the northern sky and days grow longer.

This special time of the year has been celebrated the world over from time out of mind. We're not really sure which ancient culture first began to study and honor the solstices and equinoxes, as there are monuments relating to these dates in nearly every ancient culture, but it's likely to have been of marked importance since Neolithic times. For the record, "neolithic" means new stone and refers to a particular stage of human technological development starting around 10,000 BCE. This period saw what is historically referred to as the "Neolithic revolution" in which farming and metal toolmaking reached previously unknown heights of sophistication. These advances allowed for intense population growth and the development of settled communities which leads us, via the ancient Sumerians in what is now termed the Middle East, to the first examples of recorded history. So, it would stand to reason that the Sumerians were among the first to recognize the solstices and equinoxes.


The first peoples to make monuments related to the winter solstice, however, came from Europe. Or, perhaps more accurately, the oldest surviving monuments known to modern archaeology that relate to the winter solstice come from late Neolithic and Bronze Age sites like Newgrange in Ireland and hundreds of henges and other monuments in Britain. Newgrange is one of my personal favorite ancient places, far closer to my heart than Stonehenge and several centuries older than said henge. It is older than even the great pyramids of Egypt at about 5,000 years of age. The huge monument was built to receive a ray of light into a deep chamber on the morning of the winter solstice that fell on beautiful spirals, solar discs and other symbols. At no other time of the year was this space illuminated which gives us a good indication of the significance of the winter solstice to those who built this ancient site. After all, the Neolithics were the first to perfect farming; the timing of the seasons was crucial to their very survival.

But, as stated above, the ancient Europeans weren't the only Neolithics to honor the solstices and equinoxes in stone. Sacred sites relating to the winter solstice alone have been found all over, including the Americas, Asia, Indonesia and the Middle East. Most notable, in my opinion, are the Chaco Canyon sites in New Mexico built by ancestors of the Pueblos and the Hopi and the Great Zimbabwe, AKA "African Stonehenge", site. These ancient sacred sites, and many others the world over, have fairly precise alignments involving the winter solstice. It gives me shivers to think of the ancient sites not yet discovered!

As the winter solstice sees the return of the sun after the longest night of the year it naturally lead to the incorporation of the worship of sun gods and no holyday holds more sway over us today than that of the ancient Greco-Roman period. The ancient Greeks celebrated the Chronia, in honor of Chronus, around the time of the winter solstice. Eventually, as is typical of the ancient Romans, the holyday was Romanized and became Saturnalia, and Chronus became Saturn, a deity of--you guessed it--agriculture and the harvest. The festivities were marked by the usual sacrifices, the exchanging of gifts, legal gambling-even by slaves, and a symbolic reversal of the roles of slaves and their owners (meaning the slaves were still doing all the work but things were a little more laid back than usual) and general partying all around. Originally the holyday was only celebrated for a single day, 17 December, but gradually grew in length due to its immense popularity. It was such an important and popular festival that, despite the efforts of more than one Caesar to shorten it, the celebrations eventually spread to encompass an entire week.

Saturnalia is tied up with such an important decision that a little Christian history is warranted to explain it. To understand this you must know that Saturnalia was eventually superseded by the festival of Sol Invictus, the Roman sun god imported from Syria, which borrowed many of the characteristics of the previously celebrated holyday. During the reign of Julius Caesar a great number of calendar reforms were instituted, one of which firmly placed the winter solstice, the celebration of the return of Sol, on 25 December. Later in the 4th century CE the Emperor Constantine, who considered Sol to be the same deity as Jesus, perhaps quite naturally decided upon 25 December as the birth of the savior of his new religion. So what was once Saturnalia became the festival of Sol Invictus and then became the celebration of the birth of the new sun god, the Christ child. So it would seem that some of the old Saturnalia traditions would quite naturally have survived in the more recent celebrations of Christmas, namely the gift giving and the general emphasis on food and drink.

And so, to honor his return and ask his favor I say a short prayer to Sol.

In these dark days of winter, and dark economic times of social unrest, may the light of the returning sun bless us all. Whether we honor Chronus, Saturn, Sol, Jesus or no god at all but simply welcome the return of warmth may we all be filled with the joyous potential of the season. As the calendar year turns and a new president takes the helm of my country may we all benefit from the better times to come.

Edited on 21 December: It has occurred to me that, given all the dates and facts being thrown around in the above, it might be good if I listed some sources. Duh! You'd think I'd never written an essay before. So, here are some of the sites I consulted for this post:

Free Republic
Wikipedia entry for Sol Invictus
Wikipedia entry for Constantine the Great
Wikipedia entry for Saturnalia
Wikipedia entry for Winter Solstice
Solstice at Candle Grove.com
December at Religio Romana
I also consulted "The Golden Bough" and a couple of other books that I'm too lazy to run upstairs to fetch. I've also read a lot about this subject over the years so I just consulted my memory and my pineal gland.

Syncretism, Or, The Fight Not Worth Fighting

There seems to be some talk about religious syncretism around the pagan blogosphere lately. And I've found it worthwhile to jump into the greater discussion. Now, I debated in high school, so I like to define key terms before I start shooting off my mouth. According to Wikipedia

Religious syncretism exhibits blending of two or more religious belief systems into a new system, or the incorporation into a religious tradition of beliefs from unrelated traditions. This can occur for many reasons, and the latter scenario happens quite commonly in areas where multiple religious traditions exist in proximity and function actively in the culture, or when a culture is conquered, and the conquerors bring their religious beliefs with them, but do not succeed in entirely eradicating the old beliefs or, especially, practices.

Jenavira over at Essais has recently reviewed a book which includes the subject of religious syncretism. According to her review the author misses the mark.

But he never gets syncretism, never seems to be able to move beyond “but that's not how Christianity works” and “but that can't really be real,” even though he obviously really, really wants to.

On the flip side, Celestite from A Pagan Tapestry takes a pretty strong stance against the syncretism of Wicca and Christianity.

How can you possibly be honest in your beliefs and say that you believe in both?
I know it is hard for some people, but you cannot walk these two spiritual paths at the same time.

Okay, cue the shooting off of the mouth. On the one hand, I can almost understand the frustration of seeing someone supposedly "pervert" one's personal religion but I have to throw my lot in with the pro-syncretism side. For one thing, no religion is entirely "pure". There is no such thing as a religion that is not, at least in some part, influenced by others. And we all know that when a religion is influenced by another various things, traditions, ideas, etc., get "borrowed". Even if the influential aspects died out hundreds, or thousands, of years ago and their meanings have been largely forgotten they're still there.

While I'm not a Christian or a Wiccan I can empathize with the desire to mix the two. After all, many of the Christian holidays are pagan in origin and those same pagan holidays make up the eight festivals of modern Wicca. I can clearly envision a Wiccan celebrating Christmas. Hell, for a few years I considered myself Wiccan and did just that. Trying to convince others to keep the two completely seperate seems a little, well, desperate to me. It stinks of some deep and unresolved issues with Christianity that one might be trying to distance oneself from. (Not that I'm a psychoanalyst or anything, this is just the coinage of my brain, to mutilate Shakespeare.) And just to be clear let's not forget that Wicca itself is a syncretic religion which draws on Celtic traditions as well as Rosicrucian, O.T.O. and other paths. Wicca itself is a perfect example of religious syncretism.

Now let's forget about Wicca and Christianity for a moment and consider other syncretic religions. How 'bout Voodou? Yes, it's a religion, not just a practice for those three of you who don't already know that. And it's a beautiful mix of African, Roman Catholic and American Indian traditions. What about the blending of the ancient Greco-Roman pantheons? What about the deities borrowed from Roman provinces that became established figures in the Roman pantheon? Can you say Cybele? What about Jewitchery, Rastafari, etc., etc.? The list goes on and on ad infinitum.

My point is that railing against religious syncretism is pointless; it's like trying to break a dam with a toothpick. Its rich history goes back to the dawn of spirituality. In fact, syncretism makes up the larger part of religious studies. You can't have religion without some form of syncretism; that's what some people just don't seem to grasp. That's why I made this rant, er, post; I'm here to help.

The "War" on Christmas

We are well into November so it's that time again. Yes, the War on Christmas is warming up. Instead of assuming that everyone celebrating a holy day this time of year is a Christian many people prefer to be inclusive about it and say "Happy Holidays". And this is such an evil thing, it is such a blatant attack against Christmas that boycotts are being encouraged, books are being written, rants are being shouted and people are getting pissed. Myself included. This is such bullshit. I am tired, tired, TIRED of this "I'm a poor persecuted Christian, I can't dictate how my government works and I can't force others to believe as I do, woe is me" argument. You know what? The "I'm so persecuted" religious line is an old one and it's an obvious call for a pity party. It's an attempt to paint yourself as the underdog; it's a self-serving bullshit story.

You feel put upon because not everyone says "Merry Christmas"? What's the big deal? Not everyone worships your savior and that's gonna...what?....hurt your personal faith? Offend Jesus? I'm pretty sure Jesus is a big boy and can handle it. But if you're still worried about Him I've got a solution, why don't you celebrate the birth of Jesus a little closer to the actual date? It's in the spring, dumbass, and any regular viewer of The History Channel can tell you that. Furthermore, give the pagans back our holiday. Ya know why the birth of your Christ is celebrated on December 25? Because that's just right next to the ancient date of the Roman holiday of Saturnalia. Ya know what else? It's right next to the winter solstice, which falls on the 22nd this year and which has been celebrated by cultures the world round since time was time. Modern neopagans, like myself, would like these warmongering, self-righteous ignoramuses to know these facts. In fact, while I'm at it, give us back the rest of the holidays you stole from us. Easter was named for the goddess Eostre, a Celtic pagan deity who was offered a special egg by a hare who was granted immortality. Imbolc got turned into Groundhog Day. Beltaine became May Day. I could go on. Of course, I'm oversimplifying, but the point still stands. The Puritans were right, Christmas is too pagan. And there's a reason for that. It was stolen from the old pagans. Give it back and celebrate Jesus' birth near the actual date. Then you won't have people offending you with their "Happy Holidays" cheer. But then, you wouldn't be able to piss and moan about the War on Christmas. Oh dear, what else would you have to whine about? Perhaps the senseless deaths occurring every day in Iraq, ya know, the real war?

Now that would be a real holiday gift.

A Mental Mind F*&! Can Be Nice

It's not easy having a good time; even smiling makes my face ache.
Why don't they make more movies like Rocky Horror Picture Show? It's got everything a body and mind need for entertainment: Music, dancing, sex, humor, murder and one helluva floor show. It's even got tobacco and alcohol if not any good drugs. It's a Halloween tradition in my neck of the woods, watching Tim Curry and Susan Sarandon and company wiggle and giggle and dance and sing. Hell, it's almost a ritual. Of course, it's not as fun sitting in the livingroom as watching it with a crowd of toilet paper throwing, squirt gun shooting, "bitch" shouting freaks in a theater. I once knew a really short and not too attractive guy who played the role of the hot dog himself at his university; I think he's a doctor now.

Anyway, I think it's a testament to our fucked up and yet sexually repressed culture that a film featuring bisexuality had to be farcical. I wonder what a serious film dealing with free love and bisexuality would be like in this day and age. Perhaps they've even made films like that and I just haven't seen it. I admit the Bible Belt isn't a great place to broaden horizons; finding openmindedness and progressive thinking isn't easy around here. In fact, it's damn near impossible around some of these Ozarks hills. But in the greater land of these purple mountains and plains you'd think that there'd be some openmindedness sneaking into the mainstream, wouldn't you? But still, there's hubbub about gay marriage and gay parents adopting children. There's still these backwoods, dark aged minded scared silly folks who simply cannot wrap their heads around the fact that their way is not the way of everyone else and that they have no right to cram their Bibles and their "morals" down our throats and up our Constitution.

Don't get me wrong: I've got nothing against the live and let live Christian. But I'm sick of the unenlightened preachers and soccor moms and sycophantic politicians and oh-so-self-righteous, narrowminded jerks. If I could invent a time machine I'd send all these evolutionary throwbacks to the 14th century and let them rot. Maybe they wouldn't rot, maybe they'd like it. I wouldn't care, I just want them outta my country and off my planet. Perhaps I should start making a scientist and inventor of myself; I figure I can master time travel in a week or two.
Don't dream it; be it.

P.S. For those of you who might wonder, I celebrate Samhain on the actual astronomical cross-quarter which falls on November 7 this year. That's why I don't post about Samhain on Halloween. To me, they're two distinct events.

Us and Them and the Colloseum

Just came across this blog post by Jonathan Jones at the Guardian Unlimited; this was posted in Wren's Nest on witchvox. Jones writes:

The first people to denounce the Roman empire were the ancient Romans themselves - and their language of self-criticism lies behind every modern denigration of what they did. It is a mark of our ignorance that we fail to recognize this, and if you do see it, the very idea of Rome becomes more human.

Because we are no longer familiar with Roman authors, we unknowingly leap on fragments of their rhetoric as fact - so Tacitus becomes a source of caricatured images, rather being seen as the sublime product of Roman civilisation that he is.

Rome was the first society to acknowledge that it failed to live up to its own values. Greeks never seem to have worried that much about the decline of their city states, but in Tacitus you find a culture in mourning for its self-betrayal. Rome is our true mirror.

The above blog post started out with a brief mention of how we moderns consider ancient Romans to have been nothing but a decadent, warlike and scandalous people. He discusses how many people generalize ancient Rome because all they know about it they learned from movies (even Gladiator commits serious historical errors) or the Bible. And I think he's right. The ancient Romans had their problems of course and they often owned up to them. They aren't that different from us. They had jobs and families and gossip and bureaucracy and everything else that comes along with "being civilized". And they had their detractors from within and without the Empire. And I find it laugh-out-loud funny when modern Americans, especially the right, criticizes The Roman Empire for its wars; it's an outrageous example of hypocrisy of the highest order. But I would go a step further. I would also say that those who mouth off about the evils of ancient Rome are the same people who think that zillions of early Christians were killed in the Colloseum and that it was therefore some kind of litmus test for the sanctity and legitimacy of Christianity. We've all heard or read that kind of rhetoric: the early Christians were hounded and murdered en masse by the evil Romans and were/are therefore of the highest holy order. And there simply isn't evidence for that. Were some of the early Christians killed by the Romans? Yes, that's almost certain. But that's as far as it goes. The ancient Romans, for the most part, disliked the Christians but didn't go to any great lengths to eradicate them until the time of Diocletian. There's no historical or archaeology evidence to support the idea that countless Christians were specifically targeted and killed in the Flavian Amphitheatre, the original name for the Colloseum. And it wasn't even considered sacred or otherwise special until Pope Pius V and Fioravante Martinelli popularized the idea in the 16th and 17th centuries. In early Christian times the place of death wasn't even all that important; it was the place of internment that was venerated. More than that, up until the 17th century the Collosseum was used for numerous and varied purposes, including a quarry, a fortress, workshops, housing and only later as a Christian shrine. At one time members of a particular Christian order lived in one section of the structure but for no particular religious reason. And just to be anal, Christians were very likely killed in other places, not just the Colloseum, but also the Circus Flaminius, the Gaianum, the Circus of Hadrian, the Ampitheatreum Castrense and the Stadium of Domitian. What's the point of this rant? Just the same point that Jones expresses: take the time to read more than just one ancient Roman's book before you shoot your mouth off about them. You just might learn something, namely, the mirror with ancient Rome on one side and modern western society on the other.

A Peek into the Future of Neopaganism?

If you're interested in Christianity or ancient history at all you've probably heard of the much ballyhooed Gospel of Judas. I haven't made a detailed study of it yet, but I've paid attention to what some "experts" have been saying. And while it's interesting to note that Judas, in the eyes of the Gnostics at least, helped to liberate Jesus from the prison of his earthly body there's another aspect of the story that, as a pagan, concerns me. It's the notion, so hard to imagine now, that in the early days of Christianity there were a lot of different gospels floating around and a lot of disagreement. It was a new faith and its followers were still figuring out what they wanted officially included in their particular religion. The more I've learned about that period of adjustment, from my research into The Gospel of Mary Magdalene, The Dead Sea Scrolls and others as well as accurate translations of Biblical texts and the related historical contexts, the more I've come to see the similarities between the beginnings of Christianity and the modern beginnings of neopaganism.

We're still figuring things out. The path is a relatively new one and there is much disagreement and dissent. And while the notion of heresy, so common in early Christianity, is blessedly absent from neopaganism there's still plenty of discussion and occasional accusations of "fluffiness" i.e. uneducated practice. There's a plethora of essays over at Witchvox discussing Wicca vs. Reconstructionism vs. eclecticism as well as self-taught vs. formal training. And these are just a few of the common problems facing neopagans. And the more I learn of early Christianity the more I wonder what forms of paganism will survive the centuries. Will some forms die out and others become the officially recognized forms? And, if so, which will be sacrificed and which will survive? Whatever the answers, I hope we don't go the way of dogma. I hope we manage to keep our sense of individuality and our freedom to pursue our own personal paths.