Wednesday, September 3, 2008, 11:28 AM EST [General]
Well it's now less than two months to Halloween, or Samhain if you prefer. Either way it's one of the biggies! I'll probably have two costumes this year. The one I've been thinking of is a black robe with a large, lit-up pumpkin for a head. This one won't be too much effort to do. I can probably start with a large plastic lawn pumpkin - cut a hole in the bottom, make a mount inside to fit over my head, and then add in lights. I'll need to do something with the eyes so I can see out of the eye holes and not be blinded by the lights, but that's just detail. This will be for working the neighborhood and handing out candy.
But...the big event is the Witches Ball in Salem on Nov. 1. For that I'm going dressed up in my 1700's clothing (from my days as a drummer in the minutemen) and wearing a mask of, of course, a Silver Wolf. In fact, I've patterned it after the icon I use for my avatar. It's almost done - I just need to paint in the details now. I'll post a picture when I'm finished. I'm also making a staff with a wolfs head on the top. Can't wait! Each year I make a new costume. Last year was probably the most ambitious one I've done - I was the Lord of the Nazgul. I make my masks out of plaster first for shape, and then fiberglass for strength.
Just checked the Witches Ball website again and got a pleasant surprise. In addition to the Dragon Ritual Drummer (big fan) and Wendy Rule performing (even bigger fan), Fiona Horne is going to be there again. Now say what you will, and there are both her fans and detractors, but I totally have the hots for her. And yes, I can hear you all rolling your eyes. Oh, c'mon - I'm a wolf, what did you expect!
This one (the green man) was for a Mardi Gras party we had. Hard to see the leaf detail on the mask here but it looked pretty good.
It's been a crazy summer and for the last few weeks I've just been holed up and off-line trying to get my head above water. Not sure If I'm breathing air yet, but I did just get one project done. Not particularly Pagan by itself, but it is the result of a Pagan collaboration so I'll share it here.
I've had the Roxy Music song "Both Ends Burning" stuck in my head for a while now and so I finally decided I'd just have to do a cover of it. I've been such a big Roxy fan, as well as a fan of the individual efforts. Eno not least of, but Ferry is just too cool for words. Manzanera's solo work is great too. Anyway, I've been working on another on-line collaboration with Sky that was lumbering along when I just got the bug to record a cover of this. I happened to ask Sky if she would consider doing the backing vocals on this and to my delight she said "yes". The rest is history. I could tweak it for a while more, but I think I've reached a good stopping place so here it is! Thanks so much to Sky for providing such wonderful vocals to add to this and really making the whole song just click. This is the first Silver/Sky collaboration of hopefully many more to come. Thank you Sky - you totally rock!!!!!
The Many Moons of Astra is an entertaining Pagan on-line comic and comes out weekly. This particular one, although b/w "filler" was particularly funny and points at something of a sore spot for many wiccan guys.
I heard a great version of the old story about God helping those that help themselves. It was on the podcast "A Pagan Heart in Maine" (which is an excellent podcast) and the basic story went like this: A man was trapped in his house with a flood coming. Someone drove buy and offered to drive him to safety, and said no, that his God would save him. The waters rise and he moves to the second floor. A boat comes buy and they offer to save him but he again declines saying that his God will save him. The waters rise more and he is on his roof and a helicopter comes by and offer to save him. Of course, he turns down the offer saying that his God will save him. So of course he drowns. He goes to heaven and asks God, "Hey, why didn't you save me?" God replies "Gee, I sent you a car, a boat and a helicopter - what more do you want of me?"
The Gods will answer reasonable requests - I do believe this - but the answer may not be what you expect and you have to look for it. Most of our Gods and Goddesses have some sense of humor and it may not be the same as ours! Even if they don't play tricks on us, their idea of how to help us may be very different than ours. We are not talking about humans - we are talking about the divine - and it is presumptuous of us to assume we know how they think. So yes, maybe you did receive divine intervention - it just wasn't what you expected. Look for it, be open to it, be willing to work with what you receive even if it wasn't quite what you asked for.
And if you are going to receive divine intervention, you also need to do your part. Tapping into the primal power of the divine does not mean snapping your fingers and making outlandish things happen. This is not Charmed or I Dream of Jeannie. You are asking a God or Goddess to change the course of nature, and do so in a way that may be contrary to what others are hoping and praying and casting spells for. It's pretty egotistical to think that you can overcome all of that pressure to make unlikely events occur through divine intervention. But you have every reason to expect the Gods to help give you a push down the path you are already on...
There is also the old story of the devout person who kept asking God to help him win the lottery. Finally, as he is praying, he hears a great voice from above saying, "Help me out here - at least buy a lottery ticket."
To paraphrase slightly an old Christian saying: "The Gods help those who help themselves." It's like I constantly tell my kids when they ask me to do something for them - I reply that yes, I'll help them to do it themselves, but I won't do it for them. And I'm not even a God!
So the challenge I give myself each day is to try to remember to ask my Gods for something reasonable, to do my part to reach my goals, and be willing to recognize and appreciate divine intervention even if it's not quite what I expected.
First bounty from the garden: Chamomile! I made my first cup of home-grown Chamomile tea last night before meditating on the full moon for a while. Funny how you get used to processed stuff. Real live dried Chamomile, unlike what you get from the store, is not a faded dull brown. Yummy!
