*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
    

A Brita Water Filter Ad

"So drinking bottled water is like giving your car a blow job"

So I can across this on tree hugger and while it certainly is done by a company with something to gain but it's a great image. Read the whole article here.

Wicca & Triumph of the Moon

I’ve never really talked much about my own faith path and my own community. So I figured I would take some time and do that while also talking about Triumph of the Moon as well. I’m blessed to be a part of an active community of like minded pagans. There is no requirement that you follow the same pagan path as us, be part of a coven or anything like that. There druids who come out some people who aren’t sure what they are and a lot of Wiccans of different styles. A few of us are starting to use the term Gaiaist Wiccan because of strong feelings and ties towards the Earth and sustaining its future.

We get together about once a week, some weeks are Book Study night, and other weeks our Tradition gets together. Along with both of those there are also movie nights, Knit-witches and other things that get us all together. As you can see it is a fairly active real time group. We also has a web component as well, with an e-mail discussion group and a group on Facebook. Like anything online sometimes they are more active then others. And the topics can change a lot from month to month.

Am sure you’ve noticed the three books listed on side left side of the blog Triumph of the Moon is the book that we are currently reading as a book study. Basically every second Tuesday we get together as a group reading through the book as a group one paragraph at a time. It really slows down the reading process and makes you think about what your reading and helps to absorb the information. It also makes for some great discussion and sharing of ideas.

So I want to start with a bit about the book, It is a look at the history and origins of modern Pagan Witchcraft. It is written by an academic Pagan Ronald Hutton and is written like a book for academics he doesn’t hold back or pull any punches when it comes to our real history. With that being said if your one of those Wiccans who insist that millions (Or more) of Witches where burned at the stake or that you have a hand written Xeroxed book of shadows that goes back to the dawn of time you might want to stop reading here. Because you are just deluding yourself and I would hate to take that away from you.

Hutton breaks things down in to sections looking at the origins of our practices, history, and where the people who put together what is modern witchcraft got there ideas from. A good portion of the book is also spent discussion what was going on in the world at the time these things were happening and being developed. It all plays such a huge part in what people where thinking and gives a great sense of context.

I could easily go on blog after blog on this subject but am going to limit myself to the Chapter that we just finished last night entitled ‘Finding a Witchcraft’ or at least a portion of it. The chapter ended with a long section on a book published by Leland it can be found on shelves today under the title ‘Gospels of Aradia’ the so called Gospels of Witches. If you haven’t read it I would strongly recommend it, despite its questionable origins. So much of our pagan culture comes from this book, even Doreen Valiente include references to it when she wrote the original Charge of the Goddess in the Gardnerian Book of Shadows.

The problem is that we have no way of know how much if any of the book is real. Leland prime source for information was a woman from the area Maddalena who is said to have inherited a family trove of charms, spells, and other information. She shared much of it with Leland, who hired her to bring back more and more information. After a time she brought back the story of Aradia in her own hand writing, afterwards she was never seen again. There was no attempt to back these stories up with other sources or confirm them. In the end it is likely we will never know if they were real or not.

If this commentary on the book so far has gotten your interest up, then I would encourage your to listen to Ronald Hutton Speak before reading the book. The experience really leads itself well to reading him and makes it more enjoyable. You can find a speech he gave on the Druid cast pod cast

I guess in the end I have to say I would rather have some understanding of the real history of my faith. Does it matter that don’t have some direct link to ancient times? Not in the least in my opinion. Does it matter to me that a lot of it was made based on the experience of a small group of people in England in the early 20th century? Again I have to say not at all, why should it when it works.

Pascal's Wager

Tonight as I head off to bed pondering thoughts far to heavy for sleep I felt it best to lighten my own load by sharing with all of you. With that said I present you with Pascal's Wager

If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is....

..."God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.

Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."

Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. "That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite

It has been weighing on me since first thing this morning when I came across it. My thought is not weather to believe in God (Referring to the Christian deity) but how such a wage would reflect or even be worded for a Wiccan.

Pagan Blogger's Network

So I've been searching around the blog'o'sphere and the wonderful world wide web (Yes Virgina that's the wwww) and I've found surprisingly few Pagan blogs. Tons of christian ones and even networks for Christian's to blog together. I couldn't find anything like that for Pagan based blogs and was kind of disappointed about the lack of community for pagan blogger's. So like always when am disappointed I've decided to try and do something about it.

The plan is to start off slow and just build up a collection of links here in my blog, if the interest is there maybe move on and set up something a little more organized. In the mean time if your interested just take a moment and comment here and I will add you to the list and maintain it.

Welcome to the Pagan Bloggers Network. I'll try and work on some graphics this evening..

Canadian Prejudicism

This showed up on one of the Paganism egroups that I'm on and I wanted to post it as well.
http://www.thestar.com/News/GTA/article/297985

NOT IN THE CARDS

TheStar.com | GTA | Beauty queen rejected as pageant judge

Beauty queen rejected as pageant judge

Miss Toronto Tourism officials reject reigning Miss Canada Plus because she reads tarot cards

Jan 28, 2008 04:30 AM

Jim Byers
Staff Reporter

She might be a witch, but Stephanie Conover says that's no reason for officials at an upcoming Toronto beauty pageant to reject her as a potential judge.

Conover, who was crowned winner of the Miss Canada Plus Pageant last year, said she was recently invited to be a judge at the Miss Toronto Tourism pageant on Feb. 2.

"I said I'd definitely be there," Conover told the Star yesterday.

"Then, last week, on Monday, they asked me for a biography. I told them everything I do, how I'm an entertainer and a singer and a dancer. I talked about my charity work and I said I also have hobbies, including songwriting, knitting, painting, yoga, reiki and tarot cards."

That's where things got sticky.

"We just got her bio a week ago and we don't agree with it," said Karen Murray, Miss Toronto Tourism pageant director. "We want someone down to earth, not someone into the dark side or the occult."

"We need a judge who has an upright reputation and we would be proud to introduce to the audience," noted a Jan. 24 letter to the Miss Canada Plus group from Murray and another official with the Miss Toronto Tourism pageant.

"Our board of directors has eliminated her as a judge as tarot card reading and reiki are the occult and is not acceptable by God, Jews, Muslims or Christians. Tarot card reading is witchcraft and is used by witches, spiritists and mediums to consult the dark world."

The letter went on to quote a couple of passages from the Bible, including one from the book of Leviticus that warns, "Do not turn to mediums or seek out spirits for you will be defiled by them."

"We hope that Stephanie Conover will turn from these belief systems and will repent from her practice of them," the letter reads.

The Miss Toronto Tourism pageant was established in 1999 and is independent of the city of Toronto's tourism branch.

Conover said she was stunned by the letter."I was fuming. They said tarot cards are the occult and that I use them to commune with dark forces," which she insisted is not the case. "They're completely benign. I use them for healing, to give guidance. You can buy tarot cards at Chapters or the CNE."

She also said reiki is a well-known Japanese healing system that allows people to transfer positive energy to a sick person. "It definitely goes against convention, sure, but anything that helps avoid use of prescription drugs is a bonus, I think."

Conover said she practises Wicca, which to some means she's a witch. But she said the Miss Toronto Tourism people didn't know that and that they based their rejection of her on tarot cards and reiki.

"Some would call me a witch, yes. But we don't believe in the devil. There's no devil in Wicca. We believe whatever you send out, good or bad, comes back to you three times. Ninety per cent of those who practise witchcraft or Wicca do it for the betterment of themselves or others. It's a religion and we're trying to get it recognized by higher-ups in government."

Conover said she also promotes diversity and multiculturalism as her mother is black and her father is white. Murray insisted Conover is "trying to stir up trouble" by raising the issue in the press. "She's obviously a very vindictive person," she said. Murray said her group doesn't get government funding and has the right to decide who acts as a judge in their pageant.

Asked if her group is a religious one, Murray replied, "We adhere to God's principles. We're God-fearing. I wouldn't say we're religious."

Conover said she's looking into challenging the Miss Toronto Tourism pageant in court, or at a human rights tribunal.

"They said they wouldn't be proud to introduce me and that I don't present an upstanding character. I'm a very open-minded person and a very loving person. To say I'm not of upright character, it's blasphemous."