PAGANW0LF
Trust male - 43 years
Blog 158
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Being Dead
Being dead used to be ever so easy. They’d put you in a box, lower you gingerly into the ground and let you rot in peace. Or, if the ground in your town was full, they’d throw you on a fire and let you spend the rest of time in a vase, on your mother’s mantelpiece. Now, though, in the same way that you can get married underwater or during a parachute jump, you can choose how you wish to be disposed of when you have done dying. Just this week, for instance, a former navy diver called Derick Redfern was attached to the nose of a torpedo, which was then detonated on the sea bed off Plymouth. This means that now, and for all time, Mr Redfern is a part of the Gulf Stream. Meanwhile, in Spain, officials at the Catalunya circuit near Barcelona announced on Monday that motor-racing fans can now be laid to rest at the track. Quite how this will work I don’t know. It’ll certainly be a big nuisance for Lewis Hamilton next year if he skids in the final corner on Geoff Simmons of Batley. Perhaps they mean that a dead person can be used as part of the tyre wall. Or maybe to soak up oil spills. Some may argue that if you are used as a crash barrier or detonated on the sea bed, some of death’s dignity is lost. I’m not sure this is so, because I don’t see much dignity in lying in a box with your eyes leaking out of your face either. Far better, surely, to use your liquefying body as a soft landing for racing drivers. And if you wind up in the Atlantic conveyor, at least you get to see the Caribbean once in a while – something that’s not possible if you are lying under 6ft of earth.
I’ve always said that when I die I want to be buried, because the summerlands will be hard to enjoy if I’ve been cremated. Seriously, you’re never going to pull one of the Goddess's handmaided if you look like the contents of a Hoover bag. It’s for this reason I’m nervous about donor cards. I don’t think it’d be much fun in the land of milk and honey with no liver.
However, now that it’s possible to make all sorts of odd requests, I’m reconsidering my Post-Reaper strategy. This needs serious thought. I know this because I have watched people try to scatter the remains of their loved ones off the old Viaduct at Millers Dale. It sounds lovely, but because it’s always windy, the bereaved family normally ends up going home with bits of their dearly departed dad in their hair. This means that, far from ending up on a lonely rocky outcrop, he winds up being washed down the plughole amid much sobbing, wailing, gnashing of teeth and herbal essences.
Space is tempting because there’s no wind, and it doesn’t change, and I’m delighted to report there is indeed a company that will blast your ashes into orbit for just £250. A word of warning, though. While the company managed to get bits of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of Star Trek, into orbit, it made a bit of a hash of things when it came to getting the Enterprise’s chief engineer up there. The first time it tried, the rocket crashed and Scotty ended up not in the Andromeda Galaxy but just outside Santa Fe, in New Mexico. Happily he was found, and earlier this year he was launched again from a Pacific atoll. But that went wrong too when the rocket exploded, sending the Canadian actor into the sea, where, one day, he will probably crash head-on into Derick Redfern. -
Man arrested for ‘plotting to overthrow Government'
Westminster was left reeling last night, as Leader of the Conservative Party, Mr David Cameron, was arrested by Westminster police on charges of conspiracy to overthrow Her Majesty’s Government. Mr Cameron is now believed to be being held in cells at an undisclosed London police station where it is alleged, he has already fallen down the stairs on more than one occasion.
Police have given few details of the alleged plot by a shady organisation apparently calling itself ‘the shadow cabinet’. However, sources close to the investigation have revealed the detailed planning behind the Conservatives’ attempt to seize power. ‘They had recruited a network of people sympathetic to their opinions throughout the country’ said one source who had viewed documents confiscated from Mr Cameron. ‘The plan was that on a certain day in 2010, they would appeal to people to declare their support for Cameron – but only in private. Based on this clandestine approach, which they were referring to as a ‘secret ballot’, the Conservative Party would then declare Labour as overthrown, and announce David Cameron as the new leader of the UK.’
Gordon Brown and Jacqui Smith have refused to condemn the police action while watching the arrest on C.C.T.V. but there has been criticism of the Speaker Michael Martin for calling 999 and requesting armed response units, dog units and anti terrorist officers when he witnessed David Cameron say that the Prime Minister ‘was not very good.’ But one Met insider said that David Cameron had got off lightly with just an arrest. ‘If he’d gone into Westminister tube station, we would have followed agreed government protocol and had four armed officers ready to pump thirty bullets into him.’ -
Sarah Palin, breaking the law and unaccountable
http://www.eyeonpalin.org/
(March 18, 2009) The Palin administration considerably escalated its aerial wolf killing spree this past weekend, with full details only becoming clear in the hours after the killing initiated. At least 58 wolves have been killed in the Upper Yukon/Tanana area of Alaska over the past 4 days by Alaska Department of Fish and Game staff, which indicates that their target of approximately 250 wolves will be easily met.
The key ingredient is the decision by the governor and her appointed Alaska Board of Game to use helicopters as part of the state's wolf killing program in this region. The Board of Game approved the use of agency helicopters and personnel at its most recent meeting, which ended March 9, 2009, but those new regulations are not yet in effect, making the current helicopter wolf killing program in the Upper Yukon/Tanana region illegal. It is on these grounds that the board now faces a law suit, filed today by Defenders of Wildlife calling for an immediate injunction on the aerial wolf killing occurring in this area
“While the media obsesses over Governor Palin’s private family life, she is getting away with illegally slaughtering large numbers of wolves from the air,” commented Defenders Action Fund president, Rodger Schlickeisen. “The governor is even encouraging the killing of wolves that reside and den mostly on federal land, which belongs to all of us, not just Alaskans. There is no biological emergency in Alaska that warrants such measures.”
The ADF&G gave the National Park Service just a few hours notice before the killing began and as of Tuesday morning, at least 58 wolves were already known to have been killed, in addition to at least 27 that had already been killed by private hunters. According to the National Park Service’s March 15 briefing statement (attached), if ADF&G is successful in reaching its goal, “this would leave one-to-two wolves per 1,000 square kilometers in the Upper Yukon Wolf Control Area, approximating the lowest known wolf population densities in Alaska.” Upon learning of the state’s plans, the Service requested a no-wolf kill buffer zone around the preserve, but the state refused, putting at risk many of the members of seven wolf packs that reside mostly within the Yukon-Charley Rivers National Preserve, many of which are part of an ongoing wolf study conducted by the park, at federal taxpayer expense.
“The Palin administration has created the least scientific Board of Game in the state’s history and this board will stop at nothing to reach its arbitrary and overblown goals for moose and caribou populations. They don’t even play by their own rules!” continued Schlickeisen. “Removing such huge numbers of predators from a region will do untold damage to all the wildlife that depends on that habitat. Governor Palin is recklessly pursuing policies that could turn America’s last frontier into nothing more than a large game farm.”
During the recent spring Board of Game meeting, the board also approved a proposal to allow to the use of gas bombs to kill wolves and wolf pups in their dens. The consistently unanimous votes for unprecedented and increasingly extreme methods of killing wolves have caused many to question the make up of the board and the magnitude of their vendetta against wolves. Each of the seven members have been appointed or re-appointed by Governor Palin, who has consistently chosen her appointees from the hunting lobby, excluding all other interests from the board. -
Get out of my life
Ah, I remember the day i first saw you. I was stunned by how great you looked and I counted the days until I could hold you. That first day was magical, and yet, as the months went on, I noticed a change, you became more and more unreliable, I found it more and more difficult to turn you on or even to talk to you and you were unwilling to accept any time or attention lavished on you. Simple requests were ignored while you went ahead and did your own thing. It had got to such a stage where you became so unreliable, I had no choice but to let you go and move on.
Yes my Nokia 6500, you have been nothing but a pain in the ass and i'm glad to see the back of you!
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You call it Easter, we call it Ostara
Easter gets its name from the Teutonic goddess of spring and the dawn, whose name is spelled Oestre or Eastre (the origin of the word "east" comes from various Germanic, Austro-Hungarian words for dawn that share the root for the word "aurora" which means " to shine" ). Modern pagans have generally accepted the spelling "Ostara" which honours this goddess as our word for the Vernal Equinox. The 1974 edition of Webster's New World Dictionary defines Easter thus: "orig., name of pagan vernal festival almost coincident in date with paschal festival of the church; Eastre, dawn goddess; 1. An annual Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus, held on the first Sunday after the date of the first full moon that occurs on or after March 21." The Vernal Equinox usually falls somewhere between March 19th and 22nd (note that the dictionary only mentions March 21st, as opposed to the date of the actual Equinox), and depending upon when the first full moon on or after the Equinox occurs, Easter falls sometime between late-March and mid-April.
Because the Equinox and Easter are so close, many Catholics and others who celebrate Easter often see this holiday (which observes Christ's resurrection from the dead after his death on Good Friday) as being synonymous with rebirth and rejuvenation: the symbolic resurrection of Christ is echoed in the awakening of the plant and animal life around us. But if we look more closely at some of these Easter customs, we will see that the origins are surprisingly, well, pagan! Eggs, bunnies (hares? ), sweets (candy), Easter baskets, new clothes, all these "traditions" have their origin in practices which may have little or nothing to do with the Christian holiday.
For example, the traditional colouring and giving of eggs at Easter has very pagan associations. For eggs are clearly one of the most potent symbols of fertility, and spring is the season when animals begin to mate and flowers and trees pollinate and reproduce. In England and Northern Europe, eggs were often employed in folk magic when women wanted to be blessed with children. There is a great scene in the film The Wicker Man where a woman sits upon a tombstone in the cemetery, holding a child against her bared breasts with one hand, and holding up an egg in the other, rocking back and forth as she stares at the scandalized (and very uptight!) Sargent Howie. Many cultures have a strong tradition of egg colouring; among Greeks, eggs are traditionally dyed dark red and given as gifts.
As for the Easter egg hunt, a fun game for kids, I have heard at least one pagan teacher say that there is a rather scary history to this. As with many elements of our "ancient history, " there is little or no factual documentation to back this up. But the story goes like this: Eggs were decorated and offered as gifts and to bring blessings of prosperity and abundance in the coming year; this was common in Old Europe. As Christianity rose and the ways of the "Old Religion" were shunned, people took to hiding the eggs and having children make a game out of finding them. This would take place with all the children of the village looking at the same time in everyone's gardens and beneath fences and other spots.
It is said, however, that those people who sought to seek out heathens and heretics would bribe children with coins or threats, and once those children uncovered eggs on someone's property, that person was then accused of practising the old ways. I have never read any historical account of this, so I cannot offer a source for this story (though I assume the person who first told me found it somewhere); when I find one, I will let you know! When I first heard it, I was eerily reminded of the way my own family conducted such egg hunts: our parents hid money inside colourful plastic eggs that could be opened and closed up again; some eggs contained pennies, were my siblings and cousins and I mimicking the treacherous activities of children so long ago?
Traditional foods play a part in this holiday, as with so many others. Ham is the traditional main course served in many families on Easter Sunday, and the reason for this probably has to do with the agricultural way of life in old Europe. In late fall, usually in October, also known as the month of the Blood Moon, because it referred to the last time animals were slaughtered before winter, meats were salted and cured so they would last through the winter. Poorer people, who subsisted on farming and hunting, would often eat very sparingly in winter to assure their food supply would last. With the arrival of spring, there was less worry, and to celebrate the arrival of spring and of renewed abundance, they would serve the tastiest remaining cured meats, including hams. This also marked a seasonal end to eating cured foods and a return to eating fresh game (as animals emerged from hibernation looking for food), and no longer relying on stored root vegetables, but eating the young green plants so full of the vitamins and minerals that all living beings need to replenish their bodies in spring.
Modern pagans can observe these same customs by eating the fresh greens and early vegetables abundant now: dandelion greens, nettles, asparagus, and the like. There are some Witches who believe that fasting at the Equinox is very healthy and magical: it clears away all the toxins stored over winter, when we eat heavier foods to keep warm, and can create an altered state of consciousness for doing Equinox magic. By eliminating all the "poisons" from our diets for a few days (including sugar, caffeine, alcohol, red meats, dairy products, refined foods), and eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, we not only can shed a few pounds and improve the appearance of our hair and skin, but also improve our health over the long term. The overall benefit to health from an occasional cleansing fast helps strengthen our immune system, making our bodies more resistant to illness, and help us feel more alert and energetic. Try it! Be sure to "break" your fast slowly, reintroducing your normal foods one at a time, instead of going from several days of fruits, grains and herbal tea to a feast of steak, potatoes and chocolate cake! The breaking of the fast can be incorporated into the cakes and wine portion of your ritual, or at the feast many Witches have afterwards.
Speaking of food, another favourite part of Easter for kids, no doubt, is that basket of treats! Nestled in plastic "grass" coloured pink or green, we'd find foil-wrapped sweet eggs, hollow chocolate bunnies, jelly beans, marshmallow chicks (in pink, yellow or lavender!), and of course our Mum always included one of the beautiful ceramic eggs she painted by hand. Like that other holiday where children are inundated with sugar (Hallowe'en), no one seems to know precisely where, when or how this custom began. And why are the baskets supposedly brought by a bunny???
There are some modern Witches and pagans who follow traditions that integrate the faery lore of the Celtic countries. It is customary to leave food and drink out for the fairies on the nights of our festivals, and it is believed that if the fairies are not honoured with gifts at these times, they will work mischief in our lives. Certain holidays call for particular "fairy favorites." At Imbolc/Oimelc (February 2nd), for example, we leave gifts of dairy origin, like cheese, butter or fresh cream. At Lammas/Lughnasa (August 1st) we leave fresh grains or newly-baked bread. At Samhain, nuts and apples are traditional. And at Ostara, it is customary to leave something sweet (honey, or mead, or candy)--could this be connected to the Easter basket tradition? Perhaps a gift of sweets corresponds to the sweet nectar gathering in new spring flowers?
To refer again to The Wicker Man, the post office/candy shop where May Morrison works (she is the mother of Rowan Morrison, the young girl who is supposedly missing and who Sargent Howie has come to Summerisle to find) offers a large selection of candies shaped like animals. When Sargent Howie says "I like your rabbits" Mrs. Morrison scolds him saying "Those are hares! Lovely March hares, not silly old rabbits!" And when Howie goes to dig up the grave of Rowan Morrison (who it turns out is neither dead nor missing) he finds the carcass of a hare, and Lord Summerisle tries to convince him that Rowan was transformed into a hare upon her death. Clearly this is an illustration of the powerful association with animals that many ancient cultures have (Summerisle being a place where time has seemingly stood still and where the pagan pursuit of pleasure and simple agricultural ways define the way of life). The forming of candy into the shape of rabbits or chicks is a way to acknowledge them as symbols; by eating them, we take on their characteristics, and enhance our own fertility, growth and vitality.
For clearly the association of rabbits with Easter has something to do with fertility magic. Anyone who has kept rabbits as pets or knows anything about their biology has no question about the origin of the phrase "f*** like a bunny." These cute furry creatures reproduce rapidly, and often! Same with chicks, who emerge wobbly and slimy from their eggs only to become fluffy, yellow and cute within a few hours. The Easter Bunny may well have its origin in the honouring of rabbits in spring as an animal sacred to the goddess Eastre, much as horses are sacred to the Celtic Epona, and the crow is sacred to the Morrigan. As a goddess of spring, she presides over the realm of the conception and birth of babies, both animal and human, and of the pollination, flowering and ripening of fruits in the plant kingdom. Sexual activity is the root of all of life: to honor this activity is to honour our most direct connection to nature.
At Beltane (April 31st-May 1st), pagans and Witches honour the sexual union of the god and goddess amid the flowers and fruits that have begun to cover the land; but prior to that, at Ostara, we welcome the return of the spring goddess from her long season of dormant sleep. The sap begins to flow, the trees are budding, the ground softens, ice melts, and everywhere the fragrance and colour of spring slowly awakens and rejuvenates our own life force.
I have always thought this had a lot to do with the tradition of wearing newly-bought or made clothes at Easter, in pastel spring colors. Wearing such colors we echo the flowering plants, crocus, lilac, forsythia, bluebells, violets and new clothes allow us to feel we are renewing our persona. How many of us feel sort of "blah" after winter ends? Along with the fasting practice mentioned earlier, this is a time for many of us to create new beginnings in our lives: this can apply to jobs, relationships, living situations, lifestyle choices. But since the Equinox is such a potent time magically, and often (as it does this year) falls in the period when Mercury is Retrograde, starting a new endeavour at this time can be problematic if we do not take care. One good way to avoid catastrophe is to engage in small, personally-oriented rites or activities: a new haircut, a new clothing style or make-up, a new exercise program, the grand old tradition of spring cleaning, a new course of study: all of these are relatively "safe" ways to begin anew without risking the weirdness and unpredictability of Mercury Retrograde.
This is a very powerful time to do magic, not only because of the balancing of the earth's energies, but because of the way our own beings echo the earth's changes. We are literally reborn as we emerge from our winter sleep, ready to partake of all the pleasures of the earth, and to meet the challenges we will face as the world changes around us daily. As we greet and celebrate with our pagans brothers and sisters of the Southern Hemisphere (for whom the Vernal Equinox more closely resembles the beginning of autumn, in physical terms!), we remember that Spring is not only a season; it is a state of mind.
Blessings )O( -
The rite of Spring
March 20, 2009, is a date that most of us recognize as symbolic of changing seasons. As we welcome spring, people south of the equator are actually gearing up for the cooler temperatures of autumn.
What Happens at the Equinox?
Far from being an arbitrary indicator of the changing seasons, March 20 (March 21 in some years) is significant for astronomical reasons. On March 20, 2009, at precisely 7:44 A.M. EDT (March 20, 11:44 Universal Time), the Sun will cross directly over the Earth's equator. This moment is known as the vernal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. For the Southern Hemisphere, this is the moment of the autumnal equinox.
Equinox Means "Equal Night"
Translated literally, equinox means "equal night." Because the sun is positioned above the equator, day and night are about equal in length all over the world during the equinoxes. A second equinox occurs each year on September 22 or 23; in 2009, it will be on September 22 at 17:18 P.M. EDT (21:18 UT). This date will mark the autumnal equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and the vernal equinox in the Southern (vernal denotes "spring"
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Reasons for the Seasons
These brief but monumental moments owe their significance to the 23.4 degree tilt of the Earth's axis. Because of the tilt, we receive the Sun's rays most directly in the summer. In the winter, when we are tilted away from the Sun, the rays pass through the atmosphere at a greater slant, bringing lower temperatures. If the Earth rotated on an axis perpendicular to the plane of the Earth's orbit around the Sun, there would be no variation in day lengths or temperatures throughout the year, and we would not have seasons.
Rituals and Traditions
Modern astronomy aside, people have recognized the vernal equinox for thousands of years. There is no shortage of rituals and traditions surrounding the coming of spring. Many early peoples celebrated for the basic reason that their food supplies would soon be restored. The date is significant in Christianity because Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. It is also probably no coincidence that early Egyptians built the Great Sphinx so that it points directly toward the rising Sun on the day of the vernal equinox.
The first day of spring also marks the beginning of Nowruz, the Persian New Year. The celebration lasts 13 days and is rooted in the 3,000-year-old tradition of Zorastrianism. -
Me, in short, up close and personal
Well the last 48 hours have certainly been interesting, It seems that people are seeing facets in me they never thought before purely because of a few pics so in short :-
Dress : I dress normally when I choose, I have ceremonial garb for both NA and witchcraft Sabbats but I must admit my robes haven't seen the light of day in years, Yule at -3 in a robe is no fun, I wear berghaus for that sort of thing. I have clothes and adornments for Native American rituals which were made for me on the reservations. There are no pics as I am invariably solitary for these rituals.
I dress like a goth at times, I do because I am as near as damnit one. I like the styles of clothing and if you have looked at the last set of uploaded pics in the goth set, you'll see I find the gothic style clothes on a woman and the way they look and dress...........yeah, 'nuff said
I don't dress like the archetypical guitarist from the eighties, you know tight jeans and shirt etc, on the few events I play live, It is jeans, shirt and waistcoat, and I need a waistcoat to put the plectrums
Music: I am a musician so listen to anything I'm like that appeals, just because right now, I am listening to stuff like within Temptation, does not pigeon hole me, when I want to relax, I listen to Mozart and anything inbetween that suits. As I type this, i am listening to George Benson so just because I have long hair, does not make me a pure 'metalhead'
Pictures and Art: I like Don Breckans railways pictures as well as Victoria Frances for the gothic style imagery, Luis Royo and Roger Dean for Fantasy type imagery and yes, I do find Fetish / BDSM and erotic imagery appealing but again, because I have these images, It is insufficient for the invariable assumptions I am either a Sub, switch or Dom. I have experience of the scene from years ago so speak from experience, albeit limited and my proclivities are mine alone and only the closest of friends see beyond the door. and to put the record straight :-
BDSM and Erotica is not pornography. If you see Fet style porn, it is porn dressed as Fet, not the other way round
My Car(s) : Just because I have a Jaguar does not mean I have money, if you have an old Jaguar or an old car of any sorts, you'll know that money is not something you ever see. I have a hearse, big deal, it is purely for the Whitby Gothic weekends, It won't come out any other times is it is too big to manoeuvre safely at speed, too heavy on fuel (it has a 6.8 litre) to use every day and would be a bugger to get fixed if hit especially with the assumed 1,000,000 uninsured motorists doing the rounds at the moment.
Me: I'm a complicated person, I have many aspects to me that those who have known me the longest have seen. I am not stand-off-ish, I just don't preach about who and what I am. If you want to know, just ask, again those who have known me a while will know I have no secrets and carry trust in me in great respect so it is not abused. I back my friends to the hilt, I bury my enemies where they stand. I devote to my partner 100%
now....shall we get back to normal and leave the Pm's alone
)O( -
If i hold out my hand
If I held out my hand
Would you take away my fears
Would you hold me close to you
Would you wipe away these tears
Would you mend this breaking heart
And show the love you have
Would you teach me what you know
Would this broken man you'd save
Would you listen to these words
And hear my words so true
And not be offended when you hear
That I can't write anymore for you
I cannot say more than you already know
You know me to be true
And now it is your decision, yours alone
Our future is up to you
So please my love, just take a thought
And make a final choice
Take me back or let me go
But let me hear your voice.
)O( -
Northern Star
Raise my soul to the gardens of night,
Where the Northern Star shines above
To the rose that is about to be dispersed
In the moon-lit woods, eternal love
The Northern Star shines brightest of all
Leads me, shows my way
Catches the sound of hushed foot-fall
Gives light until the day.
)O( -
Everything
Every dream is filled by you
Every day time thought
Every second so it seems
Every moment caught
Every thing I say or do
Everthing I write
Every single note I sing
Everything is right
Every chord i ever play
Every passing hour
Every moment, every day
Every blooming flower
Every heart beat stole by you
Every moment shared
Every thing I say or do,
Every secret bared
Every tear you wiped away
Every wound you bathed
Every thing i'm humbled for
Every single day
)O(
