I have been thinking lately about the way many people come at pagan religions these days. It seems that the neo folk, those joining neo-paganism, neo-Wicca and neo-shamanism, are looking for safety. They are not ready to let go of the comfort of their modern ways of thinking, so they look at old religions and practices and try to sanitize them. Take away anything that might be 'dangerous' because they have not developed a long term cultural understanding of the thing. Right now, seeking the journey is the end of means, not the means to the end. Maybe someday that will change.

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My beliefs are turning more animistic as time goes by. Immanence of deity seen on a whole new level. Not only in the forces of nature such as storms, wind, rain and fire... but also in the life that courses through a blade of grass, or the ways through which living beings organize.

More recently I have felt some sort of an ephiphany regarding my own patroness. Eris is not, and never was, simply an anthropomorphic Greek deity. She is strife. Hardship. Not fun. But necessary. Man is honed through the hardships he faces. Strife, as I was often told, comes from the same root word as to strive. Two faces of the same coin.

Eris is also considered the goddess of Chaos. Not simply discord, but the forces of sheer possibility. I once likened her as this:

Goddess of the Maelstrom of possibility from which all creation is born.

In an odd moments recently, I have been reading about subquantum kinetics and the cosmic superwave theory. This speculates that the centers of galaxies are not black holes, but huge star like objects which continuously combust and send out new matter. Creation. Not a one time thing such as the Big Bang, but continuous and ongoing.

The Maelstrom from which creation is born.

These Galactic Cores apparently go through quiet and active phases. In their active phases they become quasars capable of spewing out matter and energy in waves that will sweep the entire galaxy in minutes, leaving destruction and... dare I say... strife... in its path.

Another force of nature given personification.  

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I have believed that all things were connected for a long time. Probably long before I formally became Wiccan. But I think it has always remained a mostly mental exercise. Up until very recently, that is.

Native Americans say it in this way: All my relations. All my relations includes the animals, the birds, the fish, the insects, and the land. It is one thing to know this, and entirely different thing to KNOW this and to feel it. To understand just what it means.

Modern western culture has the attitude that the world was made for us. For mankind. Man is the pinnacle of all things. It is unfortunate that so many do not realize that man is just one member of the community of life on this planet, and that if he continues to try and defy the Laws of Nature, man will eventually fall victim to those same laws.

Being only one member of this community that is life upon this planet, we are related to all things via that life, and the Laws of Nature. You are what you eat takes on new meaning in light of the animistic mind set. What you eat becomes a part of you and therefore it is you. On a fundamental level. When things die, they should be returned to the earth, and therefore feeds the land and the plants that grow from it. In turn, the plants are fed upon by herbivores and omnivores, some of whom are fed upon by carnivores...and omnivores.

Everything depends on everything else. There are no exceptions. In this way, all things are possessed of spirit, and the entire earth is in the hands of the gods.
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I had a mtDNA test done a few months ago, to check my maternal line as I had gotten stuck on what seemed to be a brick wall. My maternal line goes back to French Canada, therefore I was expecting a European Haplogroup. Wrong. It was Native American. Probably Algonquian or Wendat/Huron. 

Via the DNA test site, I have been hooked up with several people whom my DNA matches and have discovered a fascinating mystery in the process.  The genealogy says I go back to France, which obviously can't be the case. DNA doesn't lie. There is at least one other woma, a related line, whose papers state she came from France, but her direct maternal descendants also come up Native American. So the mystery deepens. 

Are these two women more directly related? They are of ages to be mother and daughter, and they did live in the same town, Trois-Rivieres. Did one of the women die on the crossing from France, and her identity given to a native woman to legitimize her? Or her offspring? 

It might make for a good movie. :)

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Starting Saturday, I'm off to San Francisco to visit friends for a week. ~California here I come, right back where I started from. Open up those Golden Gates, cuz California here I come! ~371d36d75e05eda735858f8e467be99c

Say goodbye to a valiant heart. She was retired from racing, and then retired from breeding. 18 puppies and 15 years of life is a good run for a greyhound. She is being taken home, to be buried around the Circle.

Light a candle in your heart.

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First my father died in January. He was followed by my husband's godmother, then our Chow, Bethoven. My husband's grandmother passed away within a couple of weeks of that. Now, it seems as if it may be our female Greyhound's turn.  Kerrigan is 15 going on 16. She's very ill, and spent the weekend in the Emergency Vet clinic. She has a bad case of hookworms, but her serious weight loss and weakness leave them to believe she may also have cancer. At this stage of her life, it is likely not worthwhile to pursue treatment for it. My husband just picked her up from the emergency clinic and is taking her to the regular vet. her protein counts are down again and they were already very low.

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The Rosemary has finally been planted. Between illness and bad weather, it took some time, but it now takes up a place of honor  with the north standing stone.

Life is somewhat odd these days. I feel as if I am in a holding pattern, on the verge of something extremely interesting. I am enchanted, trepidatious, wary and excited. I am, perhaps, lapsing a bit in my religious practices. In part, it is this 'waiting' that I fee. In part, I have been extremely unmotivated physically. Academically, I my interest in archaeology has surged again, from childhood dreams of digging for dinosaur bones and lost cities, to seeking out the beginnings of mankind, and of our spiritual journeys. I do need to get back to practice, however. The warm, electrified glow of a ritual in which the connection is made is something rarely felt otherwise, and something very precious. When I went too long without it in the past, I felt bereft, and turned to seeking something to fill me. Right now, I am at another crossroad, with a wish to carry forward intellectually, and a need to draw back to the most basic of roots.

I have set up a small shrine on my altar for the moment. I hunted down a frame today for an old picture of my father. One from his days in the Marine Corps. It sits at the center, flanked by his candle and a glass of wine. The incense curls nicely in front. After the ritual, I'll hang the picture on my living room wall.

 

Miss you, Dad.