[Pagan Blog Project] D is for Druid

A bit late with writing this. I'm in the process of moving and my schedule has been chaotic. Anyway, time to make some people angry!

It's Not About Being Right

My veil--Dedicated to Lugh.

Last weekend, I went to the local Unitarian Universalists' ritual for Mabon. I hadn't been to the monthly meetings since Lughnasa. Prior to going to this ritual, I wondered if my presence would be unwelcomed. Not outwardly, but because I don't practice in the way the rituals were conducted and my growing resentment towards how the Wiccan Wheel of the Year is constructed.

But I did end up going, and I have a lot of commentary about the entire experience.

My Beliefs ... As of Today

"Change" by NaBHaN

I am starting a new Tumblr blog, despite creating this blog so I wouldn't. But my idea behind what this blog should be changed. Instead of just being a place to store and type out my thoughts, I have started to consider this blog a platform for discussion.

And like my idea behind what this blog should be changed, so have my personal beliefs. For one, I am distancing myself from calling myself "pagan" and "witch"--two identifiers I have used for several years now. But my perceptions are changing, thus so too are my beliefs in what I am and should be.

Woe is Me: Celtic Culture and Eclectic Paganism

This is an article I have been itching to write, but I don't really know how to go about it. Perhaps it is because this is probably the most opinionated piece I have so far written; these are more about my thoughts about something that irks me, but isn't necessarily unmoral or a call to movement.

My problem boils down to this: a lot of people in the pagan community tend to use terms, practices, and holidays removed from their original cultures.

For example, pretend that someone in Europe is celebrating Fourth of July. They have fireworks and are eating outside--but why call it Fourth of July? Why celebrate another country's national holiday when that person is outside the country?

So... Why celebrate Lughnasa without understanding of the culture that created it?

Using Minecraft for Worship: A Shrine to Lugh

"Druid(?)" Shrine (source)

I live in a small apartment. My boyfriend and I do not have any space for a kitchen table, yet I managed to squeeze in a small corner of our studio to be a shrine space. Still, I find that it lacks a lot. I wish the space could be dedicated better to the shrine, and less to witchcraft tools and the nightstand with our phone chargers. 

I found a way, though, to have shrines. As large and a vast as I want: I am making them in a video game called Minecraft.

Problematic Perceptions

Walt Whitman writes in his poem, "Song of Myself":

"Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd
     the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? 

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the
     origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are
     millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor
     look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the
     spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things
     from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self."

The last line sticks with me: "filter them from your self." What a marvelous, potent phrase about understanding

Remember that game of Telephone? I remember how teachers would use it as a way to exemplify how rumors spread. Basically, everyone gets in a circle of five or more people. One person will turn to their right and whisper a phrase. That person will then turn to their right and whisper exactly what they heard. And so on. This process morphs the phrase so that by the time it reaches the last person, the phrase is almost (if not completely) indistinguishable from the first phrase. A phrase like, "I like to buy shoes at the market" becomes "Eyes are hard to mark." This is due to a number of human error problems, like speaking too fast, stuttering, emphasizing some words over others. Etc.

There is a website called Bad Translator that mimics this almost by taking a phrase in English, translating it to a different language, then back to English, then to another language, and so forth for how many iterations you set it to. I typed in, "I like to buy shoes at the market" and it became "I want to buy shoes."

My point is: the further from the source, the more distorted the message.