August 28, 2010 marked the the 40th anniversary of the March on Washington for African American Civil Rights and the I Have A Dream Speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

I have included a portion of the speech below.  The source of the speech is the website “American Rhetoric.” 

 

My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing.

Land where my fathers died, land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountainside, let freedom ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire.

Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia.

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual:

                Free at last! Free at last!

                Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Lammas has come and gone and as I noted in another post, there was a nice gathering here at Red Dragon House to celebrate.  I generally don’t celebrate Lammas in a big way because I usually reserve that for Mabon.  That is when I try and get everyone together for a big harvest feast with roast bird and beast to celebrate the harvest for the year – the Thanksgiving for kith and kin.  This year was different. 

This year Lammas weighed on my mind as early as late June or early July.   Over and over I kept thinking “do something for Lammas.”  So, do something I did.  I decided to celebrate the holiday by baking bread, cooking a meal, and inviting friends for ritual.  The intent for the ritual focused on renewing our committment to service – whether to the environment, people, or our other allies – we looked at our committment to service in what way works best for us.  Working in the circle was a nourishing experience for me and everyone else seemed to really take something away from the ritual (everyone also seemed to like the meal and time to talk and enjoy themselves as well).

It wasn’t until after the dishes were done (thank you to my friend C. for cleaning up the kitchen for me), and all were long gone home that I really realized what the core of the celebration was about for me.  While preparing for the ritual, I read about Lammas to remind myself of the traditions associated with the holiday.  Some of those traditions include getting together with kith and kin that you haven’t seen in a long time (that is why we still see family reunions around this time of the year) and it is also the time of the year when the Irish would take a “year and a day” wedding vow to see how things would work out between two people in a relationship.  They would take the vow at Lammas and for one year and one day, they would stay together to see how it would work.  If it worked, they would stay together, if no – no harm, no foul – they would call it off and go their seperate ways (seems it would save a whole lot of money in divorce court if we had a similar tradition these days!).

 That evening, as I sat thinking about the evening , the various traditions, and how much I enjoyed having everyone up on the mountain to celebrate the holiday I realized what a nice balance it was with my life over the last few months of solitude.  I thought about it and I have spent much of my time in these past months in solitude and reflection here on the mountain.  I have followed that path on which I set out early in the year.  Sometimes I’ve had to find my way in the dark, but I’ve kept going.  I know that with this first harvest I am tasting the first fruits of this path. 

I hasn’t been a year and a day since I’d picked up Sr. Jeanne’s book  and started my exploration of living the life of a hermit in the modern world, but enough time has passed.  I have spent enough time walking this path to know that it is right for me.  The celebration at Lammas was, in essence, a celebration of that committment to the path of the hermit for me – an affirmation if you will.  I suppose that is why the Universe kept pushing me toward a celebration of a holiday that I don’t normally celebrate in a big way. 

Of course, the very next thought that crossed my mind is, “how do you tell your friends that you’ve become a hermit?”  The next thought,  “They are going to think you’ve lost your mind.”  The reactions will be mixed of course.  In my understanding of Hermit, it does not mean that I will cut off all communication and connection, it just means that I value my solitude and quiet time.  I don’t know honestly, that my life will change a whole lot from the way it exists now.  But, how does one share something like this with friends who live in a world where such a thing is an antiquated or odd concept?

Before reading Sr. Jeanne’s book, I really conceived of living the life of a hermit as someone who lives totally by themself, in a cave or shack on the top of a mountain, with no communication with anyone.  That is, I believe, what people tend to think of when you mention hermit.  That is not the only model or concept for living your life as a hermit.  I’ve lived it over the last seven months and it is a far cry from that almost mythological creature in this modern world. 

I suppose, what this really means, is that I will have to develop a solid definition of what it means to be a hermit so that I can clearly convey it to my friends and family.  So that they understand what it means for me and what it means for them and, hopefully, so that they will understand why it important for me.

Ἑστία  – Hestia (Roman Vesta), seems to be one of the forgotten or little mentioned Goddesses.  Who is She?  What does She do? 

She “is the virgin goddess of the hearth and of the right ordering of domesticity and the family. She received the first offering at every sacrifice in the household. In the public domain, the hearth of the prytaneum functioned as her official sanctuary. With the establishment of a new colony, flame from Hestia’s public hearth in the mother city would be carried to the new settlement. She sat on a plain wooden throne with a white woolen cushion and did not trouble to choose an emblem for herself.” (Source: Wikipedia)

 As far as Greek Goddesses go, Ἑστία was really low maintenance!  She had no adventures that were recorded in the various myths and in the Homeric Hymns, she got just what seems to be a perfunctory hymn.  She didn’t have any affairs or children with mortals, cause any wars, release any pestilence or plagues, cause trauma or generally cause drama.  Yet, based upon what She received by the people – first offering at every sacrifice in the household and Her sanctuary was located at the political and religious center of the City – She held a rather important place in ancient Greek society.  These are rather important things for a seemingly unimportant Goddess.  Why is it that She was so ignored in much of the writings in Classical Greece, yet was given such honors?  In fact, in the Homeric Hymn, She “is located in ancient Delphi (rather than at the hearth of Zeus on Mount Olympus), which was considered the central hearth of all the Hellenes.”  (Source: Wikipedia)  Perhaps this is a part of Ancient Goddess Culture that the restructuring by Patriarchal culture just couldn’t break or hide?  It remains a question for sure.  

At Lammas, I cooked for a large number of people for the first time in a long time.  I asked Ἑστία to bless the endeavor and to bless the house and all those coming to the event.  It seemed as though I could feel her warmth and presence all around me throughout the day as I cooked, as guests arrived, ate, and even somewhat during the ritual.  She blessed my home, that not so much remembered Ἑστία of Greece, Goddess of Hearth, Home, and Family – the Goddess who wasn’t written about, but who got the first portion of the sacrifice and was at the center of government, religion, and community. 

In thinking about everything after-the-fact, I realized how important hearth and home is to me not just as a Pagan, but really as an Appalachian, so, I erected a small shrine to Ἑστία here in my own home.  It is simple and located in the kitchen.  She has been present since then.  Never in an overpowering way, but just always there.  I try each time I cook to ask her blessing.  Each morning, when I can remember, I try and thank her for her blessings on my home and those who enter. 

Blessings to you Ἑστία

Philip Emmons Isaac Bonewits, founder and Archdruid Emeritus of of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship, one of North America’s leading experts on ancient and modern Druidism, Witchcraft, magic and the occult, and the rapidly growing Earth Religions movement, died today after a short struggle with cancer.

Mr. Bonewits first came into the public eye when he graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a Bachelor of Arts in Magic and Thaumaturgy (1970). During his tenure there, Mr. Bonewits worked with many renowned professors including Nobel Prize Laureate Owen Chamberlain. The work he did for that degree became his first book, Real Magic: An Introductory Treatise on the Basic Principles of Yellow Magic (1971).

In 1983, he founded and became the first Archdruid of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship (ADF) an international fellowship devoted to creating a public tradition of Neopagan Druidry. In 1995, he retired from a leadership role due to complications from eosinophilia-myalgia syndrome. ADF has grown to become the best-known Neopagan Druid group based in North America. At his death, Mr. Bonewits held the title of ArchDruid Emeritus.

During his forty years as a Neopagan priest, scholar, teacher, bard, and polytheologian, Isaac Bonewits coined much of the vocabulary and articulated many of the issues that have shaped the rapidly growing Neopagan movement in the United States and Canada.

Mr. Bonewits was internationally known as a speaker who educated, enlightened and entertained two generations of modern Goddess worshippers, nature mystics, and followers of other minority belief systems, as well as explained these movements to journalists, law enforcement officers, college students, and academic researchers.

His personal papers will become part of the American Religions Collection at the Library of University of California at Santa Barbara.

One of his most influential contributions was the Advanced Bonewits Cult Danger Evaluation Frame (the “ABCDEF”), developed in 1979 as a response to the Jim Jones People’s Temple tragedy. It has been translated into many languages and used around the world to evaluate how dangerous or harmless an organization might be. It was the first such scale to use theories of mental health and personal growth to judge rather than theological or ideological standards.

His other books include Authentic Thaumaturgy (1979, 1998), The Pagan Man (2005), Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Witchcraft and Wicca (2006), Bonewits’s Essential Guide to Druidism (2006), Neopagan Rites (2007), and Real Energy (2007), which was co-authored with his wife, Phaedra, as well as numerous articles, reviews and essays. As a singer-songwriter, he released two albums, Be Pagan Once Again (1988), and Avalon is Rising (1992).

He is survived by his wife, Phaedra, his son from a previous marriage, Arthur Lipp-Bonewits of Bardonia NY, his mother Jeannette, his brothers Michael and Richard, and sisters Simone Arris and Melissa Banbury.

SOURCE: http://www.witchschool.com/forum/topics/breaking-news-isaac-bonewits?xg_source=facebook

Issac Bonewits 1949-2010

May the air carry his spirit gently.

May the fire release his soul.

May water wash him clean of pain & suffering & sorrow.

May the earth receive him.

May the wheel turn again and bring him to rebirth.

Starhawk –
The 5th Sacred Thing

“Life is life—whether in a cat, or dog or man. There is no difference there between a cat or a man. The idea of difference is a human conception for man’s own advantage.”—Sri Aurobindo

Saying goodbye is never easy.  Making a decision to end the life of one that you dearly love is a pain that I would not wish upon anyone. But, sometimes it is something that we have to do. On June 21, 2010, I had to make that decision for my sweet companion Beetle Bailey.  This is his story, what I know of it, and my farewell to him.

Beetle came to live with  me via Almost Home Dachshund Rescue Society.  Mommy Kym, as she is known around my house, knew I have a special place in my heart for senior dogs and thought that Beetle would do well with me.  So, I took the little fellow and it wasn’t long before he won a very special place in my heart.  

Beetle was, well, if you picture Walter Matthau, you have Beetle.  He was a grumpy old man.  He didn’t like other dogs, loved to eat, and loved treats and to go outside to pee a lot!     

When he came to live with me, he made the fourth doxie in the house.  About a year after he came to live with me, I had a heart attack and subsequently cardiac by-pass surgery.  I was seperated from my doxies for two months while recovering.  I missed them all so much.  One of the things that kept me going each day, was the desire to see my babies.  So, after I got home, I tried to look after them all, but my health would just not allow it.  I realized that I couldn’t handle four of them.  So, three of them went to live with good friends of mine.  I decided to keep Beetle because he didn’t need the trauma of being moved to a new house with new surroundings.  

After those other dogs were gone, Beetle perked up like a new man.  He pranced around the house checking for two days to make sure they were gone.  He explored and conquered his yard (and it was his yard and not anyone elses).  He ate well, got lots of love, and lived like the little prince that he was.  He was my companion.  I talked to him, loved him, and occasionally laughed at him. We had a wonderful time together.  

Over the years that he lived with me, he had, what I thought, was some minor arthritis issues (one doesn’t get that old without a little trouble).  But, with some glucosamine and an occasional baby asprin, he did quite well.  

However, about a week before I had to say goodbye to him, he began to get worse.  He was just not his energetic little self and by the end of the week didn’t really leave his bed.  Finally over the last weekend, I had to carry him outside so he could do his business and that was a struggle for him.  I knew what that meant, but I held out hope that some injection or some miracle could be worked and that he would be just fine. 

I took him to the vet that day and they found multiple problems.  His lower back had major problems, his bladder and kidneys were full of stones, and a tooth had absessed.  The Vet came in and was very honest and sweet.  She told me that he was in such bad shape, she did not believe make it through the first of multiple surgeries he would have to have and sadly recommended that he leave us.

Sadly, I knew it was time for us to part.  They gave me about thirty minutes with him.  I held him and talked to him.  Finally, the Vet came in, and while I held him, administred the injection to make him just go to sleep.  I said goodbye to my dear, sweet, friend Beetle Bailey.  

The Vet and her staff was so very supportive and kind.  I didn’t know quite what to do with him at that point, so they kept him while I decided what to do.   The next day I picked up Beetle and we buried him out under the trees on the mountain where I live.  I decided that I wanted him where he loved running around on this beautiful mountain. 

I miss him.  I will always miss him.  I still find it hard to talk about him without a lump forming in my throat and tears welling in my eyes.  I would give almost anything for just one more day with him.  But, I know that he will meet me one day when I go to the rainbow bridge.  

I love you Beetle. 

Beetle Bailey

From www.papilio.ca – In memory of all the pets that have touched our human souls…

No Copyright infringement intended! 

You have carried us, these long millions of years,
We beasts, we leafy fronds, we crouching walkers.
The ice has come, the ice has gone again.
Your crust has softened, hardened, cooled, and warmed…

Oh! Unsurpassed in beauty are you, lover!
I seek each day to look upon your face.
Your gentle wind, your raging fire, rain’s torrents,
And underneath, your shifting, massive, plates,

All seem to me a wonder.
Each day brings some new sound unto my ears,
And night, the scents: datura, damp, and steel.
The tattoo of my own heart thrills to you,

To heaving core, the molten, moving iron.
That so often leaves one shivering, or in sweat,
Between your textured surfaces and sky.
And then sometimes I forget you…

Oil gushes from your sandy floor, betrayal.
Chemicals suffuse once fertile soil.
Holes are rent above your southern quadrant,
Mountains blasted open, or felled clear.

And too many like me, on you dependent,
Your body stretched and waiting for a touch.
But solipsistic minds forget this knowledge:
That your skin is ours,

Your oceans saline quick, flow in our blood.
Lover, forever we can say, “I’m sorry,”
But actions speak far louder than strong words,
And we, though brave and brash, are also feeble.

Lover, I fall now to my knees before you.
I will not beg forgiveness, not just yet.
My good friends shall be gathered all around me,
Holding hands, we will make better still, amends.

Together, we will clean, slow down, and listen.
Together, we will sow and reap, and kiss.
We will arc around combusting star in season.
And learn to better love you.

So I pray.

SOURCE:  T. Thorn Coyle (http://www.thorncoyle.com/musings/?p=239)

Today is Holocaust Rememberance Day.  It is a day, a time, set aside for us to remember the victims of the Nazis.  I choose to remember all victims of the Nazis.   The Nazis murdered millions of people – Jews as well as Homosexual men, Gypsies, Slavs, Mentally Ill, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Political dissidents to name a few.  They were murdered simply because of who they were and what they believed.  I remember them today and promise to keep them in my mind and heart as I go through the year.

I have included the Pink Triangle because it was used to single out homosexual men by the Nazis during the Holocaust.  For more information about the Pink Triangle, click here.

Why is it important to remember? 

So it does not happen again. 

Because there are those who deny it ever occured. 

Because we need to become aware that genocide is occuring in the world as we speak. 

Because we need to speak out against intolerance in any of its forms.

“We are all different; because of that, each of us has something different and special to offer and each and every one of us can make a difference by not being indifferent.”

- Henry Friedman Chairman of the Holocaust Education Center, Washington.

Mourning in the Mountains

PEOPLE in West Virginia had hoped that on Monday night we would gather around televisions with family and friends to watch our beloved Mountaineers face Butler in our first chance at the men’s N.C.A.A. basketball title since 1959. Men working evening shifts in the coal mines would get to listen thanks to radio coverage piped in from the surface. Expectations ran high; even President Obama, surveying the Final Four, predicted West Virginia would win.

Then, on Tuesday morning, we would wake to triumphant headlines in sports pages across the country. At last, we would say, something good has happened to West Virginia. The whole nation would see us in a new light. And we would cry.

Instead, halfway through Saturday night’s semifinal against Duke, our star forward, Da’Sean Butler, tore a ligament in his knee, and the Mountaineers crumbled. And on Monday evening, while Duke and Butler played in what for us was now merely a game, West Virginians gathered around televisions to watch news of a coal mine disaster.

On Tuesday, the headline in The Charleston Gazette read instead: Miners Dead, Missing in Raleigh Explosion. And we cried.

Despite the sunny skies and unseasonably warm weather, the mood here in southern West Virginia is subdued. As of Tuesday afternoon, 25 men have been confirmed dead, two are critically injured, and four are missing and presumed dead. Their fellow West Virginians work round the clock and risk their own lives to retrieve the bodies.

Already outrage is focused on Massey Energy, owner of the Upper Big Branch mine. Massey has a history of negligence, and Upper Big Branch has often been cited in recent years for problems, including failure to properly vent methane gas, which officials say might have been the cause of Monday’s explosion.

It seems we can’t escape our heritage. I grew up in a coal camp in the southern part of the state. Every day my school bus drove past a sign posted by the local coal company keeping tally, like a basketball scoreboard, of “man hours” lost to accidents. From time to time classmates whose fathers had been killed or maimed would disappear, their families gone elsewhere to seek work.

We knew then, and know now, that we are a national sacrifice area. We mine coal despite the danger to miners, the damage to the environment and the monomaniacal control of an industry that keeps economic diversity from flourishing here. We do it because America says it needs the coal we provide.

West Virginians get little thanks in return. Our miners have historically received little protection, and our politicians remain subservient to Big Coal. Meanwhile, West Virginia is either ignored by the rest of the nation or is the butt of jokes about ignorant hillbillies.

Here in West Virginia we will forget our fleeting dream of basketball glory and get about the business of mourning. It is, after all, something we do very well. In the area around the Upper Big Branch, families of the dead will gather in churches and their neighbors will come to pray with them. They will go home, and the same neighbors will show up bearing platters of fried chicken and potato salad and cakes. The funeral homes will be jammed, the mourners in their best suits and ties and Sunday dresses.

And perhaps this time President Obama and Americans will pay attention, and notice West Virginia at last.

Blair Mountain, West Virginia – the site of the largest civil uprising since the civil war.  This uprising is also the only time that the Government of the United States turned its armed forces (they planned to drop bombs on the miners) on its citizens.  That incident occured in 1921.  Today, the battle continues.  The following is a report by Emily Corio of West Virginia Public Radio.  You may hear the original broadcast click: 0325BlairMtn.  For more information on Blair Mountain or how you can help save this important piece of Appalachian/West Virginian History, visit the Friends of Blair Mountain.

March 25, 2010 · In the original Battle at Blair Mountain (1921) Logan County coal miners trying to unionize confronted company detectives and sheriffs deputies, but the present day battle over Blair Mountain pits history buffs and environmentalists against coal companies and state officials.

The history of the mountain and the current day battle were the topic of a labor law forum at West Virginia University’s College of Law Wednesday.

Efforts to get the National Park Service to list Blair Mountain on the National Register of Historic Places have been ongoing for a few decades.

Barbara Rasmussen is the lead historian on the National Register nomination. It’s her objective to see that the site of the largest organized armed civil uprising since the Civil War is recognized and preserved as a significant part of the country’s labor history.

But it’s been a difficult task to try to have Blair Mountain listed on the National Register. The site was on the list for 274 days last year, but the state’s Historic Preservation Office asked that Blair Mountain be removed because the majority of property owners who were affected didn’t want the land listed.

Rasmussen and Appalachian State University Professor Harvard Ayers are now challenging this.

“Far more than 50 percent of property owners in the district do very much support the nomination and the list that had been supplied, we believe is faulty,” Rasmussen said.

“In the meantime, there’s been a grassroots letter writing campaign. We have a Web site. We are looking at asking our Congressional representatives to look into this. It’s very much a moving target. I don’t know what the outcome will be.”

Christopher Williamson is president of the democratic law caucus and a third year law student at WVU. He organized Rasmussen’s discussion on Blair Mountain, because he cares about the history; it’s part of his family’s story.

“I’m from the southern coal fields, had a lot of family who were miners. My great-grandfather was involved in the battle to get unionization in the southern coal fields,” Williamson said. “Not only is it a really important piece of labor history, it’s a very important piece of West Virginia history and a piece of West Virginia history that doesn’t get near the recognition, near the attention, near the appreciation that it deserves.”

Williamson didn’t learn about the Battle of Blair Mountain from text books or history courses in the public schools he attended in Mingo County.

“I had to learn about those things from my grandmother who told me stories about her father who was involved in it and company men would come to their home and he would have to hide under the floor,” Williamson said. “That history does need to be in the classroom.”

With that in mind, Williamson wrote a bill this year as part of a law school course that would have required public schools to teach aspects of the state’s labor history during one week in September.

“They (House members) changed it, took the wording from that, made it into a resolution, and it was adopted in both the House and the Senate this legislative session.”

And thanks to that resolution, West Virginia will recognize labor history week every September. Williamson hopes during that week, more school children learn about Blair Mountain and other labor events in the state’s past.

Always one to admit when I’m wrong (or at least I try), I share this post from the blog Ocean’s Ways, which corrects misinformation about St. Patrick and his driving pagans from Ireland.  I have long believed his driving the “snakes” from Ireland to mean the pagans – i.e., druids, etc.  This however is not correct.  So, I stand corrected and say a hearty Happy, though belated, St. Patrick’s day!

 Let’s get this one settled out here and now.

Thank you. Good night. Happy St. Patrick’s Day. Please skip the green beer. You don’t know where it’s been.

 SOURCE:  Ocean’s Ways