Just some graphical fun. Taking a page from the Yin Yang symbol - which represents a balance of the two opposing forces in the world - I created an "elements" version that represents the balance of the four elements. Each element is balanced directly across it's opposite. The key of course is to achieve an even balance of all four.

Hey - What if mosquitoes are really malevolent vampire faeries? There are like a gazillion of them in my faerie circle...

...or...maybe I should have just stuck with flowers again today.....

Nothing particularly intelligent, witty, topical, or at all intreresting to say today. Just flowers.

 Two interesting quotes I  ran across:

On the wayside pulpit of a Baptist church I drive by on my way to work: "upload prayer, download peace". Well, if only it were quite that easy,  Once again it made me think of the differences between Christianity and Paganism - and yet the similarities. If you pray hard enough, God will answer your prayers and bring peace. But...is that really so different that saying that if you will it hard enough, it will happen? While we differ dramatically on our understanding of the mechanism involved, the actions we take and the results we strive for are not so different. Of course, there are other implications in your life to these differences. The one asks you to give up your self to a higher power. The other asks you to become that higher power.

The second comes from the book "Simplicity" by Richard Rohr. Rohr is a Franciscan priest and a brilliant author. While his philosophy is completely Christian, it's fun to read his shots at the establishment, the patriarchy, the Catholic church (of which he is actually part of), greed, etc. Much of his views on simplicity resonate soundly and if you merely replaced the parts about Jesus with Nature, this could be a Pagan book. There are many great quotes from this book, but the one that caught my eye yesterday was: "I believe that religion is the safest place to avoid God, because God wants to lead us to self-surrender, and all too often religion teaches us only self-control...genuine self-control is a fruit of the spirit, but it's not the cause of the spirit."

Here again we see the differences between submission and will, but he does make a good point. While most of Paganism does not call for a submission to the spirit, it does generally call for a respect for our world (which is probably the best equivalent for us to their "spirit"). Not a submission, but to treat it as an equal - we are a part of our world, it is a part of us, and while we should not submit to it, neither should we try to force our will upon it. Walk gently....and in this, we are not so far apart when he says that genuine self-control is a fruit of the spirit. If we instead say that genuine self-control is a fruit of living in harmony with nature - our equivalent - then we are close. To be constantly fighting the world, to try to reshape it in our image, to dominate - these are not expressions of true self-control but rather distractions that cause us to become slaves to material desires. To gently steer a course and use the flow of the river to help us, instead of trying to swim upstream, we can be so much more powerful. Should we accept everything blindly? No, of course, not, but neither should we waste our will and our efforts and become consumed struggling for something that is "unnatural".

I watched two movies over the weekend: "Factory Girl" and "Conan the Barbarian". Conan I have seen many times before, of course. Factory Girl is the story of Edie Sedgwick and her involvement with Andy Warhol. Talk about opposite movies! I got to thinking about these two and I thought that they are perfect examples of using your will to control your world, and of not using your will and letting others control your world. Edie was a pathetic character. She had her moment in the limelight, to be sure, but  it was always as Andy's creation.  When things fell apart, so did she.  BTW - the movie was supposed to be fairly accurate and Andy was definitely manipulative, mean, and generally a bit of a whack-job.  My favorite line from the move was when Andy meets Edie's mother and tells her that he is going to make Edie famous. Edie's mother replies that she had always had rather higher hopes for her daughter.  Tragic movie, but Edie did it all to herself. As long as she seemed to be living her dream she was content to let others control her life.  The end result is disastrous.

And then there is Conan. This has always been my favorite Arnold move by far. Sure, Conan is a bit over the top, but he marches to no one's drum but his own. In the final battle scene he asks Crom (his God) for help in battle and says, "And if you won't help me, then to hell with you!" Now there is someone  who is in control. Raised as a slave, once he is freed he determines to never again be at the beck and call of someone else's will. He knows what he wants and he takes it. He follows no rules but his own. Conan is a caricature of a hero, but for exactly that reason he represents the ultimate mastery of yourself and your world.  When asked what is best in life, Conan replies, "To crush your enemy, drive him before you, and hear the lamentations of his women." No subscriber to the three-fold law here!  But note that he says "enemy" here - Conan won't attack without provocation.

So - just an interesting juxtaposition here of these two opposites. I'm not suggesting that we should all be quite like Conan, but his mastery of himself and his world through the application of his will certainly puts him in category of a successful practitioner of Magick. Certainly better to be Conan than Edie!