Yesterday was an exciting day for Baby Man. First, we took his second ever subway ride over to Bloor West Village so I could pick up some DMC. (Yeah, after all of that shopping on Friday, I was still short a couple of DMC colours. ) quanta and I used to live in that area, so I know the shopping area well. It was a quick trip, because in my haste to catch the bus I forgot Baby Man’s juice and a few other baby necessities. After his nap, I introduced Baby Man to the wonderful world of gardening. Well,…
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The Seeker’s Guide by Elizabeth Lesser is one of the myriad of books that I am currently reading. I read it several years ago when I lived in a different city and was a different person. Now that I am married and have a young child, I’m finding that other parts of the book make sens to me. One of the first chapters discusses spirituality and states that we don’t need to be part of a religion, or to be religious, to be spiritual. I’m not sure if the younger me would have agreed with that, but this older me…
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With the Easter holiday finishing up in most of the Christian world, I decided to ask my family members a couple of questions this weekend. A bit of background first, though. I was raised Christian by parents who are believers but not strong church goers. My maternal grandfather, on the other hand, was a very dedicated Christian; almost a Canadian version of the Fundamentalists that the Americans have. My husband is essentially a lapsed Catholic, and I’m me: mostly Wiccan, and maybe a little bit Agnostic. Anyway, this weekend I asked my family if they believed in the literal divinity…
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A few days ago, I spent some time sitting in front of the Buddha in the picture to the right. He is part of the Royal Ontario Museum’s collection, and is perhaps my favourite. He used to sit in a quite, darkened hall, but with the renovations he is now is a light, open space that no longer has the feeling of calm found is is previous home. As I sat in front of this Buddha I wrote. I wrote about what I needed to do for myself (which was confirm a doctor appointment… baby steps), what I needed to…
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A while back I went on a bit of a Crowley binge. I wasn’t reading his works or studying his Tarot deck, instead I was studying him. I read three different biographies in an attempt to learn more about the man behind all of those nasty, naughty stories. I wanted to know if he really was the “Wickedest Man in the World”, or if he just got a bum rap from the press. It is true that I could have gone directly to the source, reading all of Crowley’s works in order to get a better view of the man. …
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I came across something in The Sacred Tarot by C.C. Zain (that Church of Light book I mentioned the other day) …The truly scientific man does not hold what he discovers, or what others have discovered, merely to benefit a chosen few… It has always seemed to me a colossal piece of selfishness for any group of men, if they really possessed information that might be beneficial to all mankind, to hoard it for themselves alone. I hold, therefore, that secrecy in any matter that will aid the soul in gaining knowledge of its true relations to the universe, or…
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My grandfather was a very religious man. He became an elder at the church we attended, and lived his faith until he died of MS at the age of 69. He did a lot of things in his life, like raising three daughters and laying communications lines during WWII. I think , though, he was perhaps most proud of the cross that he and two other men erected on the hill overlooking the Devil’s Punch Bowl in Stoney Creek, Ontario. I have a lot of documentation about the whole process of getting permission to erect the cross. I have bills…
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I have written in the past about my concerns about channelled books and about information passed on by those who have left the path, but now I’m wondering about those works which clearly contain “bad history” and other things that are widely known to have been disproved. Examples that come to mind here are Margaret Murray‘s works or that good old Ancient Potato Goddess featured in a book on Celtic spirituality published (and obviously not fact-checked) by everyone’s favourite new age publisher. Right now I’m reading The Sacred Tarot, a book published by The Church of Light (an occult organization…
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Over the years that I have been aware of the greater Pagan community, I have seen some relatively well known spokespeople step away from Paganism and declare that their beliefs now lie in another direction. Some do this vocally, and insult Paganism on their way out the door, others do it quietly, making us wonder what caused them to change their minds. When the reason for leaving the community is because the person found a new faith, I am a bit surprised. I think that to be a spokesperson, either through teaching, writing or producing a podcast, one must be…
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A little while ago I watched the Bill Maher documentary (mockumentary?) Religulous. He essentially takes a look at the Big Three religions and points out just how silly their literal beliefs are. He talks to a Vatican priest who thinks that most Christian beliefs are ridiculous, a Muslim rapper from the UK who sings about planning bombings, a Jewish rabbi who thinks the Holocaust wasn’t all that bad, and some true believers at Florida’s Holy Land Experience. Maher pokes fun at them all, but also seems to be truly trying to understand why people need to believe is some big,…