Archive | March 2014

Why we need to archive

Mar31

http://wildhunt.org/2014/03/the-importance-of-archiving.html#comments

This is something I worry about as I approach 60 years of age and know I’m getting into the part of life where your expiration date is closer than my created date.

I’m not sure I qualify as an elder after only 30 years in the community but I do know I have collected a lot of documents. Copies of rituals and music we wrote. A complete set of Pagan Digests/Pallas Society News from the Pallas Society as a member and co-editor. Programs from events and Books of Shadows and my 2 blogs and the manuscripts for my books need to go somewhere. And probably over 100,000 pictures of events and rituals in the Pagan Community and I want to leave them somewhere trustworthy.

I’ve been part of the Los Angeles Pagan Community since 1984. I’ve been on the boards of the Pallas Society, United We Circle, and FERAL, all of which are gone now but at some point played big roles in the local community. I’ve been part of TOILA and Long Beach Womenspirit for a very long time and I vended at the first LBWS Faire when I was just a baby pagan. I have a lot of memories and stuff.

Laura Janesdaughter felt very strongly about archiving and we talked about the need to record our rituals because so many people don’t and think everything should be secret. I came into the community through a coven, the Lorraine Covenant when it was down here before Merrie Foerster and Cherlyn moved up to Seattle. Comma formally initiated back in 1986.I helped with every Harvest Moon celebration. I come from the background of established Wicca and/or Dianic Craft as most people my age did. Some many people of that time are now disappearing and no one has recorded their memories and it is a huge loss of knowledge. It’s why we see tons of blog posts at the 101 level and little of higher level because it keeps having to be re-invented when the knowledge is there to be built on.

We need to build on what’s been done and stop reinventing the beginner level. We need to record our history and not let outsiders do it sometime in the future when it might be distorted through the eyes of the dominant religions.

Today’s reading

Mar31

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Rebirth

Eight of Cups

By looking at the past, acknowledging our mistakes and learning from them, we grow and attain new wisdom. The future waits to be unfolded by our positive action. The wheel has come full cycle.

On one level this represents a solstice feast, a broth made for sharing. On a deeper level this card represents a profound rebirth.

Transformation in which all the elements of oneself are being poured in order to be recombined. Focusing in the present.

Ancient Norse Women – Warriors, Housewives, Poets and Priestesses

Mar30

Metal Gaia

peter-nicolai-arbo-ingeborg (2)

There is still much about the Ancient Norse People that we do not know, so much of our current information is an attempt to fill in the gaps (since the Vikings did not write down their history and the Christians destroyed much of their existing culture). History becomes a guessing game where modern day people impose their fantasies and longings upon the past. Some of these fantasies imagine a place where every woman is a blonde haired vixen with a pointy helmet and a chain-mail bra, smashing through the faces of her enemies with sword in hand. Fantasies on the other end of the spectrum paint a picture of a male dominated society where all men fought glorious battles and women existed as mere prizes to be won.

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(Very practical battle armor)

The truth is much more nuanced. Not all men fought battles and not all women had a specific…

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