Imajicka's Thoughts
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Imajicka's Thoughts |
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Imajicka, editor TWPT |
January 16, 2010 Some Things Never Change This past week the headlines have been filled with the news of the devastation in Haiti after the 7.0 earthquake struck on Tuesday January 12, 2010. Sometimes it is easier to visualize a tragedy when it falls within what we are able to comprehend such as when a family loses a single loved one or even when a family is tragically killed in some sort of accident. We can grieve with the victims because it is something that most of us have some experience with during our lifetimes as we have lost family members to natural causes or tragic circumstances. I have heard that the death toll in Haiti might reach into the hundreds of thousands and that is when many of us start to lose the ability to even comprehend what has happened there. The city where I live has a population of around 60,000 people and that really helps me put things into a perspective that I can understand. It is like having every man woman and child in my city all killed by a natural disaster at once. To expand that even more the county where I live has about 124,000 people living in it and so the death toll in Haiti will likely exceed the entire county where I live as well. These numbers stagger the mind as we try to comprehend what it must like not only to experience this disaster but to live through it and face the horror that the people of Haiti are now facing trying to keep their island from falling into disease and chaos. For most of us even if we can't quite comprehend the numbers that are being put out there we at least have feelings of compassion for these people as they struggle to survive each day after the earthquake. Well, most of us feel this compassion but at least one person who was speaking his mind this past week to the media doesn't seem to have those very natural feelings. I saw an interview with Pat Robertson on CNN and again I couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth. Turns out that this earthquake is the just rewards for the people of Haiti for having made a pact with the devil to win the war with the occupying French between 1791-1803 during the Haitian revolution. I have come to expect outrageous statements from this man simply because I think that it keeps them in the headlines and more than likely generates viewers and income for the 700 club. My spiritual history began with fundamentalist Christianity back in the mid 70's and I used to consider folks like Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson as shining examples of how to live your life as a Christian. And yet now I recoil when I see Pat up on the screen making statements like he did earlier this week without a hint of compassion in his voice about the deaths of thousands of human beings in the tragedy that is Haiti. My first thoughts were, "Where is the love of God for humanity in his statements? Where is the mercy? Where is the healing hand that Jesus was so willing to give in the scriptures?" Obviously nowhere to be found. It does certainly explain why I had years ago chosen to find a new visions of what deity was and the relationship between deity and the human race. I still find it hard to believe that I was ever so closed minded as I was back then willing to condemn the world if they believed differently than my fundamentalist views dictated. So what we heard was that the Haitians brought this disaster on themselves but what we didn't hear was that his organization was initiating efforts to get on the air and solicit donations from all of the viewers of the 700 club to help the peoples of Haiti. I guess if you are of the mind that they brought it on themselves and that in some way they are receiving what they have sown for their past actions and choices you will have very little motivation to actually help the people make it through this catastrophe by sending aid or money. So contradictory to the teaching that says to "Love your neighbor as yourself and to love God with all your heart, sould and mind." So again I say where is the love? I hope that the readers of TWPT will never have it said about them that they could so easily condemn their fellow human beings because their beliefs were different than they personally believed but that their actions would always demostrate the love of the Lord and Lady through them. There is a lot to be said for the old adage that, "actions speak louder than words". So here at the beginning of 2010 make it a practice to show as much love to your fellow human beings as possible remembering that we are all but works in progress with much to learn and many mistakes to be made in the life ahead. If enough people do that the this world might find itself in another golden age. For now help out Haiti in any way that you can and offer up prayers to whatever deity you follow for a healing of the devastation that has struck this already poor nation. January 6, 2010 A Brand New Year to Work With or I long ago gave up
making New Year's resolutions but rather over the years I have tried to make
changes in my life as they are needed without waiting for a new year to fix
things that need to be fixed. If resolutions work for you and you are able to
keep them each year after they are made then by all means continue to do so.
For myself I have come to realize that my life is much more important to me
than to only pay attention to it once a year around January 1st and then only
in a superficial way that fades by the time March and April roll around. I
think that this creates a mindset that says you need a special occasion such as
New Year 's Day to be able to muster enough willpower to make needed changes in
your life. I think that my life (and yours) deserves to be on my (your) radar
365 days a year and I need to be willing to make changes as I discover areas of
concern. Living in the moment is not a new concept but oftentimes
it is a concept that tends to slip away from us as the stress of getting
through each day distracts us from noticing the minutes and hours zooming by.
Unfortunately for a lot of us this distraction doesn't stop when we get off
work but stays with us right up until we fall asleep exhausted each night
wondering where the day went and dreading the encore performance come tomorrow
morning. Sound familiar? If not then count yourself fortunate. If so then perhaps 2010 is a year to do
something about it and make changes through out the year in the way that we
approach our lives and what is actually important to us. I love movies about time travel because it allows the
characters to see what might happen if they were given a 2nd chance to make
things right or to learn from mistakes in their past. It allows them to be able
to act on a regret that has been with them all their lives or to change a
course of action in a specific circumstance because in their minds it was a
turning point in their lives. The disappointing thing is that time travel is
nothing but an interesting fictional creation. (Of course Doc Brown was not
very happy that he had created the time machine by BTTF 2 when the timeline was
changed) The good thing is that every day holds choices for us that will
determine our future. So in a lot of ways we have as much power as old Biff had
in the movie to change his life for the better with a certain almanac by simply
choosing wisely in the here and now. Taking the time to
understand the moments of our lives might give us more insight into how our
choices today will alter our future. I remember reading a line from The
Peaceful Warrior books when Socrates asked Dan [Milman] a couple of questions
to emphasize this point. Socrates asked Dan where are you? Dan at first tried
to give a geographic location of where they were but the answer Socrates was looking
for was "here". The second question was similar when he asked Dan
what time is it? Dan again started off by looking at his watch and reciting the
time of day but the answer was, "now". Here and now. That is where we
are and what time it is. The point that Socrates was trying to make was that
our lives are lived in the here and now. Not in the future of what might be and
not in the past with regrets of what might have been but rather right here and
right now. We are only able to effect change in the here and now of
our lives. Everything else is an illusion. If we want to achieve a goal it is
by applying ourselves in the here and now. Planning is a good thing in terms of
goals but it still all comes down to how you carry out your plan in the moment
by moment of each day. Great plans will come to nothing if the moment to moment
aspects of your day are allowed to slip by without your notice. 2009 is gone
and we are no longer able to fix anything about it or to recover the time that
might have been "wasted on the way". On the other hand 2010 is here
and now waiting for us to shape it and mold it into something special moment by
moment. Think about the lesson that Jean Luc Picard learned in the Briar Patch
from Anij about living fully in each second and seeing the wonders that it
holds for those with eyes to see. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ba'ku#Plot)
(For the non trekkies among you that would be the movie Star Trek:
Insurrection) So in 2010 I would challenge you the same as I challenge myself to take notice of your life on a moment by moment basis. Personally I am looking to integrate my spiritual beliefs more firmly into my day to day life so that as I notice the passing of the moments of my life I will always feel connected to the earth and to deity. The point is to be present in all the moments of your life and in all the decisions that you make and all the activities that you pursue. Remember that nothing can be done about time that has already been wasted and that the future can only be manipulated in the here and now (unless you have a flying Delorean that is) by choices you make. So live by a philosophy that says you will continually learn from the past, that you will consciously shape the future by your actions while living in the here and now. Everything else will work out for the best. September 5, 2009 I was just reading an article on CNN today about how many conservatives were "enraged" over the fact that President Obama wants to address the nation's children at school in a back-to-school speech brought into the classrooms. They are worried that President Obama will use the opportunity to push a political agenda on impressionable young minds. There are days that I think that the conservative right sees plots against their civil liberties in just about anything that the Obama Administration does and it seems like they enjoy using the word "socialist" in conjunction with his policies every chance they get. Or rather than work with the Obama Administration towards achieving a healthcare system that will benefit all Americans they are too busy spreading lies and propaganda trying to raise a level of fear based on nothing more than half truths and lies. How long has the conservative right felt that it was their inalienable right to force prayer or religious beliefs on the rest of society because they felt that America should be a Christian nation? And they especially like the idea of teaching the children of our nations schools Christian beliefs every chance that they can or whenever they can get away with it. And yet they can still be "enraged" when the President of the United States wants to give a speech to the children of our country to encourage them to stay in school and study hard so that they will be prepared with an education that will make them competitive in a world that is becoming more complex day after day. I am just appalled at how things can be twisted in this country by those who understand how to use the media and their followers to spread whatever message they want to spread. The horrible thing is that most of those who adopt these beliefs as their own rarely do any research or try to see the issue from both sides. They are like those people on the internet who constantly forward spam e-mails to others because they couldn't take the time to go up to a side like snopes.com and verify whether the information is true or just another of the circulating lies that wander around the internet for years. The double standard that exists within the conservative right that allows them to be "enraged" about something that they routinely do themselves points up the sad state of affairs among the rank and file followers of the right. Herd mentality rules and originality and independent thought are looked upon as a handicap to most. I think that as a Wiccan who prides himself on independent thought and looking at the various sides of an issue and choosing the logical side I just can not understand how anyone can surrender their ideas, their beliefs and their thoughts to whatever group they belong to. To be quite fair here I don't believe in surrendering my individuality to anyone be it politician or leader within the Wiccan/Pagan community. I will listen to the arguments and I will weigh the facts but in the end it will be my choice that decides what I will do as an individual and not someone who is pushing an agenda. I chose the Wiccan path because I wanted to think for myself, follow a path that I had a hand in creating and because I didn't want to just accept a belief system simply because that was the way that my parents believed and their parents before them. As I read the news I am constantly surprised and astounded at the actions of people all over this country and around world. As I close the news site and go back to other more pleasant surfing I always leave those news pages wondering how in the world those people got that way in the first place and how they sleep at night knowing what they have done and what they continue to do. We have met the enemy and he is definitely us. June 2009 Technology and Wicca Having been on this path for 18 years now and watching the march of
technology over the years it sometimes amazes me that when I first
started to explore Wicca was about the same time that the first web
browser was introduced. It was called Mosaic and was something that I
used very little since most of my web time was spent on closed systems
like Prodigy or AOL. A few years later though in March of 1995 Netscape
was born and that changed the lives of lots of people out there as they
began to find out just how much information was out on the web. February 2009 Spiritual Simplicity I've been on a spiritual path of one kind or another since my mid twenties and now that I have reached my mid fifties it seems that I am finally grasping some of the basic truths that anyone following a spiritual path long enough finally comes to grips with and that is why do we always seem to take spirituality from simplicity to complexity? Why is it that we feel compelled to take something that was meant to be easy enough for a child to follow and make it into something that only a scholar with a bachelors degree in theology or the equivalent degree of study along the pagan path can ever truly understand? Having started along this Wiccan path in 1990 after spending over a decade on my former spiritual path I can say that there are similarities that keep cropping up in the way that we tend to add layer upon layer to a rather simple framework until we are looking at the equivalent of a mansion when we started out with a cabin in the woods. Now before everyone starts to jump all over me about this I don't have anything against living in a mansion if that is what you choose for your spiritual path. So if you need 3 degrees or 10 levels or all of the acoutrements of formalized high magick then please feel free to follow your heart in these matters. The whole purpose of spiritual paths such as Wicca is that many who find their way here had become disenchanted with their former paths and the rules and the regulations that went along with following those paths. They (We) went in search of something that would satisfy a simple urge within us and that was to commune with our deity and to understand our place in the universe and our relationship with the Earth and our fellow human beings. That sounds very complicated and I think this is the point at which folks feel that the answer to these "deep" questions needs to be complicated in order for it to do justice to the question. Now this is where I veer away from the main road and start travelling along the side roads. As most of you know there are a variety of ways to get to any destination. You can travel by car on the interstate highways, you can take that same car and use the backroads and end up there as well. You can fly to your destination or you can take a bus. You can travel by train or boat and in the end no one would ever say that you couldn't reach your destination because you didn't take the same mode of transportation or follow the same route that I took in getting there. There are many of us who really do want to stick to the back roads and enjoy the scenery of the journey and to take our time in arriving. I'm in no hurry to get there because the journey is the thing and not so much the destination. Now you might be asking yourself how any of this has to do with spiritual simplicity and following any spiritual path. Read on. When I started both of my spiritual paths everything felt new and exciting and I enjoyed every minute of my journey. That was the equivalent of driving the backroads heading towards my destination but in no hurry to arrive because I was having so much fun looking at all the neat stuff out my car window. If you make it past the initial couple of years or so you begin to notice that there are more rules to follow, more responsibilities, and the level of enjoyment that you experienced with your deity begins to become more routine and less exciting. I used the word "if" in that last sentence because many step onto a particular path with no understanding of their destination at all and end up hitting detours, dead ends or maybe road work and either get hopelessly tied up in that or get frustrated and just quit and head off looking for something else. It is hard to get anywhere at all unless you have some idea of where you are heading so those who jump into any particular spiritual path with no understanding of the path or where they are headed will most likely end up along the side of the road looking for an exit or just waiting for somone to come along and give them the answers they should have already found for themselves. Back to the journey. The problem with many spiritual paths is that there is an ever increasing level of complexity and requirements to continue along the path. First degree, second degree, third degree and a host of other things that continue to add onto the cabin in the woods that you started with. Again this is not to say that any of these things is wrong but they are not for everyone. The problems begin to mount because the other more ambitious followers of the path see those who are content to stay at a simple relational level with deity as a lack of effort, growth and dedication to the path. Nothing could be further from the truth. A spiritual path is what you want it to be and at its most basic allows a two way communication between the follower and their deities. Everything beyond that is gravy so to speak and a matter of choice for the follower. Sometimes I think that is exactly why the solitary path has seen such growth. I think that spiritual seekers are looking for a simple path to deity that they can simply step into without years of training to learn the "secrets" of the Craft so that they can be "really" close to their Gods and Goddesses. I think that inherently spiritual paths are simple from the start and it is only after the followers get done with it that the layers of complexity begin to be added. These days there are volumes and volumes dedicated to explaining Wicca, Paganism, Occult and High Magick paths to those who are seeking to know all the little details of following the path to get the most out of it. And to all those who feel compelled to absorb all these books and teachings into their paths I say good luck. Just don't look for me anywhere on those roads headed to complexity and to building multiple rooms onto my cabin in the woods. I will be the one sitting quietly by the side of the road looking at the landscape with a smile on my face and peace in my heart as I commune with my God and my Goddess without the benefit of a magick circle or ritual of any kind. This is a call to those who may feel guilty about not making all of the progress that is expected of them along a certain path or within a certain tradition and to you I say that if you have a relationship with your deities and you have an understanding of your place in the world then I say to you Blessed Be! To those others who are zooming along the path acquiring knowledge and progressing just like you should I say...Catch you later. I may not be running alongside of you but eventually I'll catch up and we can have a nice chat about what we learned along the way. See ya next time and if anyone is looking for me I'll be right here in the slow lane enjoying my journey through this world and reminding myself that spirituality was meant to be a simple thing so that all could find, follow and enjoy. It was never meant to be something that only scholars could ever truly understand and only after years of study and sacrifice. To each their own I guess. January 2009 Boudica and I have been publishing The Wiccan/Pagan Times for almost 10 years now. It was started back in Bucks County Pennsylvania and has been with us through all of the intervening years and is now published from our rural home in Ohio. We will be celebrating the 10 anniversary of The Wiccan/Pagan Times next March and as I was thinking about the journey to this point the thing that struck me about this path and many of the other paths that are available to a spiritual seeker is the diversity that exists within the ranks of those who call themselves Wiccan or Pagan. Much of what defines and characterizes many of the mainstream spiritual paths that I have run across over the years is not how diverse they are but how much they are alike they are. The followers of these paths seem to take great comfort in the fact that they are around others who believe exactly like they do and follow the same rituals as they do in their worship and their daily lives. They even go to great lengths to hive themselves off into denominations and sub denominations until they are around the exact type of followers that they desire to be around. That is not to say that Wiccans and Pagans don't do something similar when they create new traditions and hive off from mother covens into news covens but usually they don't claim any kind of special status for this new group in terms of divine inspiration for the new coven doctrine or understanding of the purposes of deity on this earth. Such is not always the case when you are referring to many of the mainstream spiritual paths. There is very little or no room at all for personal interpretation of the path that you are on. Much of the interpretation of these paths is from the top down and followers are usually told in doctrinal statements made by the leaders as to exactly what the path they are on means and what their roles are along this path. Deviations are viewed as problems to be corrected or to be dealt with by expulsion from the group lest the errancy of these deviant followers should infect others in the group with their unorthodox ideas. Many of us along the Wiccan/Pagan path have come from these types of restrictive spiritual backgrounds and we deliberately sought out something that would fit our individualistic needs. I never understood why so many find comfort in conformity to the point of submerging their own desires and their individuality within spiritual paths that offer nothing but rigid, strict doctrines that are not open for discussion. You accept these tenants of faith but you don't offer your views on them or your ideas on how they might be interpreted. We live in stressful and complicated times and perhaps this accounts for why followers seek out something less complicated when it comes to their spiritual path. They don't want to think about it, they don't want to study and understand the implications of the their spiritual choices but rather they want to be told what to believe and let it go at that. It is simple but very hollow for those of us who will never put our minds in neutral and follow the herd. Wiccans and Pagans and to be sure many other variations of spiritual paths that fall under the umbrella of these two names don't seek conformity but rather swing to an opposite position on the scale of conformity. We are non conformists to the extreme on many occasions. There are some basic beliefs that tie us together loosely but that is the extent of our conformity. For those who have sought some sort of national structure for Paganism over the years it is this very lack of widespread common doctrine that has made organizing anything other than local level structures so difficult. The very thing that powerfully draws us to this spiritual path is the very thing that will probably keep us from every organizing into something akin to the mainstream religions. To organize to that extent much individuality would have to be sacrificed to reach a compromise that would be acceptable to a larger portion of the membership and that would allow every one to feel comfortable in becoming a member. And of course by doing this you would be working counter to the very reasons that you sought to become a Wiccan or Pagan in the first place. Over the years I have found both comfort and discomfort with the spiritual path that I am on. The very fact that my beliefs are my own and formed in my own heart and mind as opposed to taking anything at face value is a great comfort to me. I don't know when it happened but at some point in my life I became more than what was poured into me by society and by my parents and other family members. I moved beyond all of the information that was poured into me and out of this chaotic societal soup I was formed. I'm sure it wasn't instantaneous but it was like a new life form being born and this new life form no longer resembled what it had been up to that point in its existence but was entirely new. Boudica used to joke with me about my being adopted because I bore no resemblance to the environment in which I had been raised. It was as if I had been formed somewhere other than Ohio and then dropped in here after I was fully formed. I still find this to be humorous but it really points up the fact that you can be an individual regardless of where you are from and regardless of what was poured into you during your childhood and adolescence. I think that a person's true nature will eventually triumph and dominate over any artificial nature that has been imposed on the individual from without. We are a diverse group who really dislike conforming to what is expected of us and that is a good thing. Even though Wicca and Paganism can be chaotic at times because of all incredible variety of beliefs that exist out there I would much rather deal with this aspect of my path than have everyone become exactly the same and believe in an identical way about what this life is all about and where it leads when we leave here. The human race is incredibly diverse when it comes to their spiritual paths and it is only when one path tries to dominate the others that we have problems and conflicts. I would encourage each of you to understand your own path but also to read about the other paths that are out there so that you can appreciate how rich and unique our spiritual heritage is. Once you understand this then the idea that anyone should have to conform to anyone else's beliefs will become a repugnant thought that is rejected whenever it surfaces in your mind. We are diverse. We do not conform. Celebrate this diversity and allow everyone else to experience the joy that comes from knowing you are an individual walking a path that you have chosen to follow because it suits the person that you are and not because that is what you were told to do by society, our parents, our friends or our relatives. As Wiccans and Pagans may we walk along together but always as individuals. Blessed be |
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