Blessed Yule

As I write this I'm also watching the sun slowly raise up through the cold air. It is a wonderful sight, and everything is glittering like diamonds.

I had fully intended to write something yesterday, but as is often the case on Yule day life and the universe was a little busy. Let me invite every in and spend a couple minutes describing the Yule traditions of my family. They start on Yule eve when we open the traditional movie gift from my mother. Then while the house is being cleaned and things are being prepared for the next day we watch a couple of movies. This year the selections included 'What a girl wants' and 'Four Christmases'

By the time the movies end it is just my wife and I left in the room and we take the time to get the stuff done that couldn't be done with others around. This year we got sucked into '8 Crazy night' by 1 am the movie was over and we were confident that things were ready enough. So it was off to bed. Staying up late the night before Yule makes it so much easier for me to go to sleep in the end. Otherwise I'd end up awake all night

Morning comes far to quickly for us with our eldest daughter her husband and our grandson arriving at 8 in the morning to start the day with presents and a big breakfast. The rest of the afternoon is spent playing around with new things. This year we played a new board game my son-in-law got called Heroscape, it was an interesting little game, then watched a few more movies as well, while preparing for dinner that night and having a good time as a family.

For the past 17 plus years my wife has hosted the annual Yule Dinner Pot luck. Over the years it has been everything from a small intimiate dinner with 10 people to a forty person monster sized event. The latter was standing room only and we had people using the stairs to the second floor has chairs it was a strange sight to see 6 people lined up in a row eating dinner that way. This year it was about average in size and had about 25 people out or so. A couple of first timers as well. I always find it a little entertaining to watch them as more and more people arrive. Most people are not expecting anything that size.


The alter is lit and so is the Yule log ushering in Peace, love and wealth into the new year. A feast is server (I have left overs for days) presents are opened (We do a secret Yule King exchange) and much fun and conversation is had by all. Until the group slowly shrinks down in size with people gradually heading out. It is a wonderful evening with friends, and family



I hope you all had as an exciting an evening as I did.

Blessed Yule Everyone.

NANO Wrimo Project - Questions of Faith

So this past weekend I reached the half way mark for word count blowing past the twenty five thousand mark with relative easy. It was a lot less effort and a lot less stressfull then it was last year. I don't know if that has more to do with the subject matter or with the writing experience I've gain over the past year. Am righting a none fiction work this time around. Sorry no bits being posted until I get some of the editting done.

Last night I reached the half way mark on questions as well. the twenty six questions have been written, and a few of the holiday question are down as well.

The Magical Earth

So I've been hinting about a new project for the past couple of months almost entitled The Magical Earth. Well just two days ago the project went out in to the real world and is not there for all of you to listen to and become fans of. The Magical Earth is a Pagan podcast host by myself, my wife and two of our best friends.

The first episode explains abit about our intent for the show and includes part one of an interview with well known medium Vickie Eaton.

So swing by and visit us at http://themagicalearth.libsyn.com/

Looking for a new pendent

So I know I have a lot of pagans who read this blog so I figured this would be a good place to ask. For the past few years I have worn my pentacle with a crescent moon along with a pewter sun. It's always felt right in my mind to have that type of balance during some recent events in my life the clasps holding the sun was broken. It is not going to be fix able, so at this point I'm now searching for a new pendent. If anyone could point me in the direction of a pentacle inside a sun I would be grateful. Thanks in advance.

*Update* Pagan Bloggers Network

Back in April I set up the Pagan Bloggers Network in hopes of connecting with other Pagan bloggers. Well it's been a success in the past three months we have gotten 19 pagan blogs together and interconnected. I'd encourage all of the readers to take the time and visit each of them. Read a couple of the enteries you never know when you might just find some hidden gem, also be sure to comment as well. You all know how much we bloggers love the comments.

Blogs

1. Between the Ticks
2. A Heathen's Day
3. Bringing Up Salamanders
4. Meta Pagans
5. Howling Hills
6. Another Ravan Perch
7. Coffee House Studio
8. Upstream From Lethe
9. Where I am, Knitting is also
10. tinkerbell
11. Centaur Cunningman Journey
12. Stir the Claudron
13. Owl's Wings
14. The Scared Space
15. Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom
16. Whisperings on the wind
17. The Holy Dark
18. Hedge Raven
19. Flight of the Fnordomancer
    

The Pope's war on Woman

Ok just read this on CNN pissed me off. Here is a better article on reuters

The Vatican announced Thursday in a general decree that it will excommunicate
anyone who would attempt to ordain a woman as a priest and the woman herself.

Where do they get off on this? Here are woman spreading the word of there god and in many case have been for some time. Now The Vatican (AKA the Pope) comes along and announces "No More" It doesn't limit itself to woman who are priests to even try and become one gets you kicked from the church and their version of heaven as well. Someone who is excommunicated would no longer be able confess (One would hope this wouldn't be a big deal for someone who wanted to be a priest) but they also wouldn't be able to take Sacraments or even sharing in public worship. Not being a christian I have to ask do they check for this before services?

Ok so here is the logic behind the ruling

The Church says it cannot change the rules banning women from the priesthood
because Christ chose only men as his apostles. Church law states that only a
baptized male can be made a priest.

At the time most woman where married and busy at home raising families and taking care of the kids. That was what was expected of woman in that day and age, they had no choice. With the exception of the prositutes... But wait did Mary Magdalin(Not sure on the spelling) travel with him as a trusted companion. I think the vatican forgets about her far to often.

Just as an interesting comparisson.

But some offences, including heresy, schism, and laying violent hands on the
Pope, are considered so disruptive of ecclesiastical life that they trigger
automatic excommunication, or "latae sententiae".

For a woman to attempt to become a priest is as bad as a woman striking the Pope. That seems it bit harsh for someone wanting to spread the word of their lord.

I think in the end I will stick with my paganism and worship the Gods of old.

An Open letter

Richard Dawkins wrote and posted an open letter in response to Expelled. I'd encourage everyone to step over and give it a read.

http://richarddawkins.net/article,2488,An-Open-Letter-to-David-J,Richard-Dawkins

The God Delusion - Pagan Point of View

So as am sure you've seen on the book shelf widget on the left that one of the books am currently reading is the The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. It's a very enjoyable read so far and am maybe a quarter of the way through it. He doesn't pull any punches in his writing style and doesn't make any excuses for his opinions. I can easily see how it could really be a difficult read for Christians to work through. While the author makes it clear from the beginning that he applies the same logic to any and all gods he does make his primary arguments against the Christian God since that will be the one that the majority of his readers will be familiar with.

As an avid reader I was pleased by the start of the book, which opens with the following instead of a dedication. Once I read that I was excited to read on.

In Memoriam

Douglas Adams

(1952 - 2001)

"Isn't it enough to see that a garden is beautiful

without having to believe that there are

fairies at the bottom of it too?"

He spells out his main goals in the preface of the book giving the readers an a good idea of where he is heading with the book. As some one who believes in the Divine, I have to say I agreed with a lot of what he had to say and his goals. The one thing that really stood out for me was the concept of a Muslim Child and a Christian Child. There is no such thing, children are far to young to make decisions about things like that. So it would be much better to describe them as children of Christian / Muslim parents. As a parent myself this idea really hit home, I remember having to deal with my eldest daughter who was raised part time in a born again Christian house hold. Where she was taught that various things where evil and would result in people 'burning in the fires of hell' . It caused a lot of problems for her and our house over the years since a lot of the people she knew at our house and liked fell in to the groups she was being taught to hate.

In the early portion of the book he uses for terms fairly regularly when talking about various historical figures.

Atheist - a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings.

Agnostic - One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God.

Theist - belief in the existence of a god or gods

Deist - The belief, based solely on reason, in a God who created the universe and then abandoned it, assuming no control over life, exerting no influence on natural phenomena, and giving no supernatural revelation.

The first two terms I had heard in the past and knew what they meant, but I had never heard the term deist used before, I find the term very interesting. Despite being a Wiccan I would put myself some where between Deist and Theist. On one hand I believe in the existence of Gods and of Goddess, but am not so certain that they really care what we do one way or the other. The best description I've every used to describe it is that the Divine is like a diamond. While the various Gods and Goddess's that we use in worship are facets of that Divine source.

The book goes on to deal with common arguments in favor of a God, but again it focuses on Christian arguments in favor of a Christian God. So while they are interesting to read from a pagan prospective they are not all that relevant. Personally I've found that the majority of them I've had brought to me by Christian friends when they lean am Wiccan. In response I used a lot of the same points that are being used by Richard and the people he is quoting.

Well that brings you to the same place I am in the book. I'll post more as I read on.