Nine Things I Think

September 21, 2014 By John Beckett

Nine Things I Think is an irregular feature whenever I have a list of things I want to talk about that aren’t long enough for their own individual posts. There’s no theme, just nine things I want to bring to your attention. Feel free to expand on any of these topics in the comments section.

1) Pagan Pride season is in full swing. Whether you call yourself Pagan, polytheist, reconstructionist, occultist, witch, or whatever term you prefer, I encourage you to participate in your local Pagan Pride Day. There are rituals, classes, music and vendors, but most importantly, there’s the opportunity to meet like-minded people and connect with like-minded groups in your area.

The Dallas – Fort Worth Pagan Pride Day will be Saturday, September 27, from 9 to 5 at Arlington UU Church. This will be the first time DFW Pagan Pride Day has been held in Tarrant County – and that’s a big deal for those who live on the Fort Worth side of this huge region!

I’ll be teaching Daily Spiritual Practice For Pagans at 2:00. Come out and say hello.

2) We’ve had a very good initial response to the CUUPS Revisioning Survey. If you haven’t participated yet, please do. Whether you’re a CUUPS member or not, if you have an opinion on what CUUPS is and what it should be, we want to hear from you. Our first survey will be up for another week at:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CUUPS_Revisioning_1

Other surveys will follow over the coming weeks.

A detailed description of the goals and methods of the Revisioning process can be found on the CUUPS website.

3) Polytheist.com has added more writers to its already-diverse lineup of polytheists. They present a nice variety of viewpoints, but perhaps more importantly, they’re accessible. None of them are so academic or so deep that anyone with a budding interest in many Gods can’t understand them.

I’m reminded of a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche I got from Brendan Myers: “Those who know they are deep strive for clarity. Those who would like to seem deep to the crowd strive for obscurity.” The writers on Polytheist.com know they’re deep.

4) I usually find the phrase “follow the money” to be unhelpful and distracting. It ignores the fact that many people do horrible things because they think they’re good, not just because they can profit from them personally.

But when it comes to the NFL’s response to domestic violence and child abuse by its players, there seems to be no other explanation. Mediocre players get cut at the first sign of controversy. Good players get a pass when they do horrible things… unless they start generating bad publicity, in which case they’re suspended indefinitely. When the outrage dies down, they’ll be back – even if they killed a teammate driving drunk.

I’m uncomfortable with people losing jobs for things that aren’t job-related. But professional athletes aren’t accountants or assembly line workers. They’re role models for millions of people (they shouldn’t be, but they are) and what the NFL decides is acceptable conduct will be deemed acceptable conduct by many in the wider society.

Domestic violence and child abuse are never acceptable.

5) I’ve heard some say we should forgive Ray Rice because his then-finance, now-wife Janay Palmer married him despite him knocking her cold, and asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell not to suspend him. Obviously, if he’s suspended he’s not getting paid and that affects her too.

I know victims of domestic violence often stay in abusive relationships for reasons that seem incomprehensible to me. Sometimes victims stay because they feel they have no other choice. Our obligation to Janay Palmer and to every other victim of domestic violence is to make sure they have a viable option to leave: that they have someplace safe to go and help getting out of a bad situation.

If Janay Palmer really and truly wants to stay with the man who knocked her out cold, I can’t do anything about that. But her decision has no impact on my belief that what Ray Rice did was wrong, criminal, and deserving of sanction by society.

6) Last year I attended the Sacred Lands and Spiritual Landscapes conference in South Carolina, coordinated by Holli Emore. Fellow Patheos Pagan bloggers Sara Amis, Elinor Prędota, and Byron Ballard were presenters. Now the conference presentations have been combined into a book and published by ADF Publishing. It’s not quite the same as being there, but if you weren’t able to attend, here’s your chance to read all the presentations, plus an introduction by Ronald Hutton.

woods, a creek, a train - yep, it's North Georgia — *woods, a creek, a train – yep, it’s North Georgia*

My favorite is Sara Amis’s “Song of the Chattahoochee,” subtitled “On Being a Southern (Pagan) Witch in Atlanta’s Urban Landscape.” When I met her, I found out Sara grew up about 10 miles south of my home, though considerably later. And like Sara, I spent several years living in Atlanta. When I heard her presentation I found myself smiling in recognition of common places and common experiences, and when I read the chapter in the book I was again reminded that there’s a lot more magic in Southern culture than most people – including many Southerners – recognize.

7) I’ll be speaking at First Jefferson UU Church in Fort Worth on Sunday, October 19 at 11:00 AM on “The Art of Wild Wisdom.” As with Pagan Pride Day, if you’re in the area, stop in and say hello. This will be my fourth time in the pulpit at First Jefferson – they’re some great people and a nice UU church.

8) As this is being posted, I’m on my way home from the 2014 OBOD East Coast Gathering. This year was the fifth anniversary for the ECG and my fourth year attending. There is simply no substitute for spending a long weekend immersed in Druidry… and for spending a few days at home in the woods with my tribe. I’ll have a more detailed write-up on the camp sometime next week.

If you have the chance to attend a spiritual retreat, I strongly encourage it.

9) Remember that Facebook is throttling all posts and only showing about 5% of posts from pages. A simple way to make sure you get all the posts from Under the Ancient Oaks (and the other blogs on Patheos) is to subscribe by e-mail. Simply enter your address in the box on the right of the screen. You’ll get e-mail notifications when new posts go up, and you won’t be signing up for a boatload of spam.

That’s what I’m thinking – what about you?

Nine Things I Think

August 14, 2014 By John Beckett

PPD 2013 11 — *DFW Pagan Pride Day 2013*

1) Pagan Pride Days will be starting soon – the day-long mini-festivals designed to promote cooperation between the various forms of modern Paganism and to tell the general public we’re here. For the celebration near you, check the national Pagan Pride Day website.

Last year’s DFW Pagan Pride Day at White Rock Lake was wonderful. This year it’s moving to the west side of the Metroplex.

The DFW Pagan Pride Day will be Saturday, September 27 from 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM at Arlington UU Church, 2001 California Lane in Arlington. There will be rituals, workshops, music, and a blood drive. I’m not part of the planning committee this year, but I will be leading a workshop on Daily Spiritual Practice for Pagans.

2) I’ll be speaking this Sunday at the Denton UU Fellowship. The service title is “Pilgrimage and Convocation.” For almost 2000 years, Greeks from all over the Mediterranean traveled to Eleusis for initiation in the Mysteries. Jews traveled to Jerusalem to offer sacrifices at the Temple prior to its destruction by the Romans in 70 CE. A pilgrimage to Mecca is one of the Five Pillars of Islam. Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales is set on a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. This service will explore the nature of religious travel and how it can be meaningful to us today.

And on August 31 I’ll be speaking at the Arlington UU Church on “The Art of Wild Wisdom.” The title comes from Thea Worthington, who holds the office of Modron in the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. Thea defined Druidry as “the art of wild wisdom” – the spirituality Nature teaches us, if only we’ll slow down, go outside, and listen.

If you’re in the North Texas area, come by and say hello.

3) On Tuesday night, the CUUPS National Board of Trustees voted to begin a revisioning process. This will be a series of surveys, discussions, and analysis designed to identify our common principles and values, create a shared sense of identity and purpose among Pagan-friendly UUs and UU-friendly Pagans, and develop a mission and vision for CUUPS for the next ten years.

I volunteered to lead the process – there will be three or four other CUUPS members on the team that will lead the discussions and distill the results. Over the coming months you’ll see multiple surveys, open-ended questions with opportunities for both private responses and public discussion, and presentations of findings. Once the process is complete, the mission and vision will be presented for a vote and the Board has committed to issuing an implementation plan two months later.

We will be soliciting input from all CUUPS stakeholders: not just members of CUUPS National and participants in local chapters, but all Pagan-friendly UUs and UU-friendly Pagans. If you have an opinion on what CUUPS is and what it should be we want to hear from you.

More details to come when our Revisioning Team is assembled and the initial survey is prepared.

4) Three weeks ago I wrote about the complicated situation with refugees who’ve come across our southern border. I’m no closer to finding a grand solution to advocate than I was then. I’m not sure there is one, other than to remind everyone that all people – including refugees – are people who possesses inherent dignity and worth. It matters if they live or die.

The facts remain what they were. Thousands of children are here, now, and they’re in need. Solar Cross Temple is raising funds to send to the Refugee and Immigrant Center for Education and Legal Services. If you can give, please do so.

5) What can I say about the situation in Gaza? The Israelis and the Palestinians both have valid complaints. They both have engaged in unjustified acts of violence.

And there the equivalence ends. According to the Washington Post, as of August 6 the death toll stands at 1890 Palestinians and 68 Israelis. Living conditions in Gaza are somewhere between bad and horrible.

The Jewish people’s desire to return to their traditional homeland was and is valid, but not at the cost of displacing the people who were and are already there. And when has an attempt by colonial powers to redraw national boundaries ever turned out well? Still, Israel has been here long enough – and it’s well-armed enough – that it’s not going away. Neither are the Palestinians… as though they had any place to go. Both sides will figure out how to live together, or they’ll keep killing each other.

And while the same nations that created this situation wring our collective hands, people are suffering and dying. I’m not optimistic.

6) I was never a Robin Williams fan – his humor veered too much toward the absurd for my tastes. I liked him in Hook and in Dead Poets Society, and I thought he was a great fit in Good Morning, Vietnam. Other than that I didn’t watch him much.

Clearly, though, I’m in a distinct minority, and his death earlier this week is a terrible loss, as well as a reminder that money and success are no surety against depression.

I’m not a psychologist, but I know more about depression and suicide than I wish I did. I doubt I’m particularly unique in that regard. But clearly I know more than the people who are calling his death a “bad choice” (no, I won’t link to them – I’m not giving them the traffic).

Choice is when you decide that dying now is better than continuing to live with suffering that cannot be relieved – or when you decide you’d rather live on with the pain. Choice is when you decide that dying while you still can choose is better than living with a disease that will rob you of your mind, or your body, or both – or when you decide to live on until your body expires on its own.

Depression steals your ability to make rational choices. Depression tells you things are worse than they really are. Depression tells you things will never get better, and that it’s your fault they won’t.

Depression lies.

Sometimes the cause is chemical. Sometimes it’s spiritual. Sometimes it’s circumstantial. All of those can be treated. Not always easily and not always as completely as we’d like, but things can get better.

Trying to get better? That’s a choice.

7) Last Sunday Denton CUUPS conducted our bi-monthly Adopt-a-Spot roadside cleanup. We adopted a stretch of road near the Denton UU Fellowship in 2005 and we’ve been cleaning it regularly ever since. It’s a small but meaningful way we can take this-world action to make the world a better place here and now.

August is Polytheist Community Outreach Month. While not all members of Denton CUUPS are polytheists, we can attest to the value of these activities. We’ve never gotten much feedback from our cleanups, but the signs are there for all to see, all day every day. The streets of our town are cleaner. And we see the tangible difference we made.

What can you do in your community?

8) It’s August – that means football is back. NFL training camps opened in late July and preseason games started last week. I know a lot of Pagans are too cool for sports (and certainly too cool for something as popular with the mainstream as football), but I enjoy it. There is no other game that has football’s combination of athleticism, teamwork and strategy. I follow baseball and basketball, and I’ll watch soccer at the Olympics and the World Cup, but football is the only game I’ll actually sit down and watch an ordinary matchup – I even watched half of the Cleveland – Detroit game last week, and if you know anything about the first week’s preseason games, you know that’s saying something.

It’s not looking good for my favorite teams. The Cowboys have gone 8-8 the last three years and I’m not seeing anything to make me think they’ll be any better this year. I’ll always be a Tennessee fan when it comes to college football, but the Volunteers haven’t had a winning season since 2009 and haven’t had a good season since 2007. I like what I’ve seen from second-year head coach Butch Jones, but they play in the toughest conference in all of college sports.

Maybe I can enjoy the Jacksonville State – Michigan State game on the 29^th. It won’t be much of a contest, but I can drink some cider and try to guess what Jason Mankey is yelling at the TV when the Spartans do something amazing… or something stupid.

9) Notice things running faster around here the last few weeks? Patheos made some major technical upgrades last month (including a big jump with their WordPress installation) that have resulted in significantly faster page loads and far less downtime.

Patheos hosts such a wide variety of religions and religious viewpoints that it’s easy to forget it’s still basically a small company with small company resources. When they do manage to make a big upgrade the change is dramatic.

There are some bloggers who feel the need for their own standalone website. I respect that, but I’m happy to be a part of the multi-religion community that is Patheos.

That’s what I’m thinking – what about you?

Nine Things I Think

May 18, 2014 By John Beckett

1) I’ve lived in Texas for twelve years and as I wrote last month, it’s time to stop thinking of Texas as “where I live” and start thinking of Texas as home. So I borrowed one of Cathy’s history books: Gone To Texas by Randolph Campbell, a history professor at the University of North Texas in Denton. It was exactly what I was looking for. It starts with the arrival of the First Nations about 12,000 years ago and runs through the election of George W. Bush as President in 2000.

I knew the highlights of Texas history: the Spanish missions, the war for independence and the Republic of Texas. Cotton, slavery, and the Civil War. Spindletop and the oil boom, TI and the tech boom. LBJ, John Connally, Ann Richards, and the Bushes. But that was about it. You can’t understand the history of a place by reading one book any more than you can become a competent Druid or Witch by reading one book, but this really helps me understand why Texas is what it is.

2) I’m now convinced that the Republic and the State of Texas were founded by pirates, in both the romantic and the realistic sense of the term. There’s something admirable about people who say “screw your rules, I’m taking what I want” particularly in this land that can be as harsh and unforgiving as any sea. It is entirely understandable why the Texians rebelled against the Mexican government and somewhat amazing they succeeded. On the other hand, when “what I want” includes wiping out the Natives, keeping people in slavery and near-slavery, exploiting the poor, and demagoguery to keep the rich in power, it’s a reminder that sometimes pirates are just thieves and murderers.

Stephen F. Austin comes across as an honest man but only Sam Houston comes across as a statesman. Everyone else comes across as a pirate concerned only with themselves and their close associates… and the legacy of piracy continues to this day.

3) One thing that stands out from the pre-Civil War era is the way in which many people who believed slavery was a great moral wrong defended it as necessary and insisted that it could and must continue forever. Of course, there were also plenty of people who never saw past their own benefits and concocted various philosophical and religious rationalizations of why slavery was perfectly fine.

The end result was a horrible war and a century in which the South lagged the rest of the country in virtually every aspect of life.

I see the same thing happening today with peak oil and climate change. While there is no moral equivalence between slavery and fossil fuel use, in both cases otherwise-intelligent humans are willfully blind to great forces simply because acknowledging them would require us to change familiar and comfortable ways of living.

4) I’m convinced the majority of humans will continue to ignore peak oil and climate change until it smacks them in the face. I’m also convinced we’re well past the point of taking effective action – it’s now time to figure out how we’re going to deal with the changes. I’ll be OK – I’ll be gone before the worst of it hits, I have a few financial resources, and I live 630 feet above sea level.

I worry about my younger friends, and I’m extremely worried about their children. And I’m concerned for the hundreds of millions of people who live within a few feet of sea level – the vast majority of whom do not have the resources to deal with displacement.

5) OMNIA has a new album out titled Earth Warrior. Their website says:

Welcome to the year 2014! The climate has changed, the polar ice is melting, the sky weeps acid… Our beautiful Earth is under constant attack… the time for the Earth warriors to rise up has come!

OMNIA’s 14th independent production is a studio concept-album all about the Living Earth and the fight against her destruction by humanity, containing 14 OMNIA compositions written in varying acoustic-musick styles, from classical, country, bluegrass, hard rock, jazz, Native American, Celtic-folk, Balkan, all the way to OMNIA’s original PaganFolk.

The title track “Earth Warrior” is the best of the album. I’d love “Call Me Satan” if it had a different title. The song is a nice tribute to the Horned Gods and the only connection between Them and the Abrahamic Satan is medieval propaganda.

If you like OMNIA’s other music, you’ll like Earth Warrior. If you haven’t heard them yet, they have a large presence on YouTube (though not yet for this album). Check them out yourself.

6) The only downside to attending the Pan Druid Retreat was missing the NFL Draft. I’m not a draft junkie, but I do enjoy watching the strategies of the various teams play out, at least through the first three rounds. And I find it interesting how the experts grade drafts immediately after they’re done, when you can’t really assess a draft until at least the end of the season, and better after about three seasons.

The Texans made the smart move picking Clowney at #1. If he decides to make football a priority he’ll be a Hall of Famer, and if he doesn’t he’ll still be very good. Manziel to Cleveland was a good move – he’s undersized for a quarterback and he’s shown some immaturity off the field, but he strikes me as someone who wants to win badly enough to do what it takes to win.

I’m generally happy with Dallas’ draft, but it all comes down to how Demarcus Lawrence turns out. A 3^rd round pick is a lot to give up to move up in the 2^nd round, particularly when you need as many upgrades on defense as the Cowboys do. Would they have been better off with two players at #47 and #78 than with Lawrence at #34? Time will tell, but I would not have made the trade.

7) I was happy to see Michael Sam drafted by the Rams. It’s close to home, a defensive scheme that’s a good fit for him, and a coach who won’t put up with nonsense. I know his combine numbers weren’t very good, but you don’t get to be defensive player of the year in the toughest conference in college football if you can’t play. Michael Sam is a football player – given a chance, he’ll do well.

I’m not so sure allowing a film crew to document his training camp is a good idea. Yes, the first openly gay player in the NFL is a historic thing, but he needs to devote his full attention to football between now and January, and a film crew will be a distraction.

8) I’ve done more traveling in the last five months than in any other time in my life, and much of it has been religiously motivated. Trips to visit family, Druid gatherings, my first visit to Pantheacon, and the big trip to England, Wales, and Ireland, plus some local gatherings. It’s been great, but I’ll be happy to stay home over the next few months, and I’m really looking forward to the upcoming three-day weekend, for which I currently have zero plans.

I’m working on a Sunday service for Denton UU in August titled “Pilgrimage and Convocation” on the value of religious travel.

That’s what I’m thinking – what about you?

Nine Things I Think

April 10, 2014 By John Beckett

Nine Things I Think is an irregular feature whenever I have a list of things I want to talk about that aren’t long enough for their own individual posts. Normally there’s no theme, but this time there is – these are the odds and ends from last month’s trip to England, Wales and Ireland.

1) England drew the short straw on this trip in both time and impressions, but I hope my English friends don’t think I don’t like their country. It’s beautiful and fascinating and it has more history than I could absorb in a lifetime. But all five of us had been to England before, so we cut our time there short so we could spend more time in Wales and Ireland.

My long range plans (i.e. – before I die) include at least two more trips to England – one an extended stay in London with a side trip to Canterbury, and another to Glastonbury and points west. Plus I’d love to participate in a seasonal ritual at Avebury some time, preferably with a local group.

2) Neither the English nor the Irish can make a decent sandwich. But other than that, the stereotypical bad British food was more urban legend than fact. Now, none of it was pizza-in-Sicily good, but I didn’t have a bad meal the whole trip, and the fish was excellent – whether it was fish & chips (I so wish we could get that here!) or grilled fish or one of the seafood soups/chowders. And English bacon is about a hundred times better than American bacon – it’s more like a mild version of country ham.

Two other nice things about eating in the Isles: whether we were at a deli, a pub, or a restaurant, I don’t recall one time when someone tried to sell me something I didn’t order. And the price on the menu is the price you pay – taxes are included in the menu price.

3) Guinness tastes better in Dublin. I don’t know why, but it does. I’m sure some of that is due to it being fresh, but it was better in Dublin than in Galway, all of two hours away. And the bartenders know how to pour it – slowly, in stages. It’s just not the same out of bottles or cans in America. If you’re going to drink beer, drink local beer.

4) I didn’t watch much TV while we were gone, but I did catch some newscasts here and there. And when I got back, it struck me just how bad American TV news is. I’m not talking about Fox’s right-wing propaganda or MSNBC’s ineffective attempt to provide balance. I’m talking about the vapid emptiness of local and national news: cutesy anchors and mindless banter, meaningless remote locations, endless teasers, obsessing on celebrities, and an emphasis on personal anecdotes instead of the big picture. I’m not sure when news stopped being news and started being entertainment, but that’s all it is any more.

5) I’m done with rental cars outside the US and Canada. I had a stressful experience driving in England in 2007, and the mechanical problems with our car in Ireland on this trip cost us a significant amount of money and time, including our planned stop at Rathcroghan. Trains, buses and taxis are far more readily available in Europe than they are here, and the added cost is more than offset by the lower stress of not driving on the wrong side of the road, dealing with narrow roads and heavy traffic, and shifting with your left hand.

6) Dublin is great and Dublin has a lot of cool stuff in or near it, but for just hanging out and relaxing, I loved Galway, on the west coast of Ireland. Lots of good food, lots of good music, and it’s all walkable. Yes, it’s a bit touristy – especially on the weekend with all the bachelor and bachelorette parties – but not in a bad way. Just remember you’re on the Atlantic coast – you’re going to get rain.

05 11 Old Library — *The Old Library, Trinity College, Dublin*

7) As a bibliophile, seeing the Book of Kells was an amazing experience. But walking through the Old Library at Trinity College in Dublin was even more impressive. My vision of the afterlife includes a place very much like this – only without the green ropes to keep the tourists out of the stacks.

8) Did you know that beard trimmers can change their settings when they’re packed in your luggage? Either that, or the Welsh faeries decided the visiting Druid needed a much shorter beard. I keep my trimmer on “5” and use it about twice a week. On the last morning in Wales, I picked it up and turned it on for the first time on the trip. In my half-awake state, the first hint that something was wrong was after I had already made a pass along one side of my face and realized “that’s a lot more resistance than I’m used to…” followed by a rather panicked look in the mirror. The trimmer was on “1” – the shortest setting. Nothing to do at that point other than trim the whole thing short.

Oh well – my beard is more white than brown these days, but it still grows fairly fast. All was back to normal in about a week and a half.

9) My Paganism is both Nature-centered and Deity-centered and I’m in a constant dance to find the right mixture of the two. But on this trip – and especially in Wales – I felt a deeper connection with the land than I’ve experienced in many years. I had that connection to the land when I lived in Tennessee, particularly when I still had access to the land where I grew up. The land is different here in Texas, and I haven’t developed a deep connection with it even though I’ve been here for 12 years.

I think it’s time to make that connection a priority.

That’s the last of my trip-related posts, although the impressions and memories – and the pictures – will keep coming for a very long time.

Nine Things I Think

February 27, 2014 By John Beckett

This isn’t entirely a Pantheacon post, but I’ve still got a few odds and ends better suited for this format than for their own posts, so here goes.

1) Maybe I’m just getting old and grumpy (as opposed to young and grumpy), but I don’t get the ribbon collecting thing at Pantheacon. They do add color and variety to the convention badges, and I picked up ribbons for the things I went to (most of them, anyway) as mementos. But I passed some con-goers with ribbon chains so long they looked like a UU minister’s stole – they must have spent more time collecting ribbons than going to events. I had enough trouble walking outside or washing my hands without soaking the ribbons and I only had eight – I can’t imagine wrangling a string of ribbons down to my knees. I heard the phrase “ribbon slut” used more than once…

2) Confession time for those of you who weren’t at the House of Danu ritual on Sunday night: I choked on the Druid’s Prayer. It’s bad enough for a Druid to forget the Druid’s Prayer, but I’ve been saying that prayer EVERY DAY for the past three years, and most days for several years before that.

There’s a lesson in here for me – and maybe for others as well. I’ve said that prayer so many times it rolls off my tongue without thinking about it – it’s as much a meditation as it is a prayer. But for this ritual, we wanted to do the prayer as a call and response. So instead of one line flowing right after another, it was say the line, wait for the response, say the line, wait for the response.

The flow was broken. I had to think about what came next. And I choked. I went back to the beginning, closed my eyes and started over. This time I repeated the line along with the responders and the flow resumed.

I now understand I should have practiced the prayer as a call and response. If I done that even a handful of times in the days leading up to the ritual it would have gone off smoothly. But I thought I knew it, so I spend all my time working on my other part – which went off fine, since I practiced it.

3) I’m a ritual geek and I enjoyed observing and participating with some first-class ritualists at Pantheacon. Some read from scripts and some memorized their lines. There is something powerful about a speech – whether a few lines of a quarter call or a lengthy recitation or a call to action – delivered without a script. But unless you’re doing a ritual you’ve done many times – or unless you’ve got professional grade acting skills – very few people can do a ritual from memory and do it well.

I’ve always said it’s better to read well than to memorize poorly. Now I’ll say it’s better to read well than to memorize adequately.

Lest you think I’m making excuses for the choke job described above, I’m not. If that ritual had scripts, I would have said “I say that prayer every day – I don’t need a script” and then done exactly the same thing.

I think some people’s aversion to scripts is that they’re understandably turned off by shuffling note cards or turning pages in a stapled script, or by ritualists who aren’t familiar with their own rituals even with a script. But reading from a nice ritual book looks good, and it makes for a much smoother delivery.

4) I was in three rituals that had the participants chanting or toning while the ritual leader recited prayers or invocations over them. I’ve never seen that before – or if I have I’ve forgotten it – it was powerful. In the best of them, the chant was simple and repetitive, allowing for a slight shift in consciousness. This made the words of the leader even stronger, which helped facilitate the invocation. I will definitely be incorporating this into future rituals.

Remember: keep the chant simple, and the leader has to have a voice strong enough to be heard over the chanting.

5) Coru Cathubodua member Amelia Hogan gave me one of her new CDs: Transplants – From the Old World to the New. It’s a collection of 14 songs of Ireland (“Fiddler of Dooney” “Wild Mountain Thyme”) and of the Irish in America (“No Irish Need Apply” “Lakes of Pontchartrain”). On her website, Amelia says

This is an Irish-American story, and it’s all of ours. Who would speak their story now that they’re gone? It’s ours to tell so that no one forgets what they our ancestors worked so hard to afford us. Thank you to every one of my family for these gifts of songs, tales, hopes, and possibilities. I couldn’t have done this without such a grand legacy.

Amelia has a beautiful voice and the accompaniment is clean and simple. If you like traditional Irish music, you’ll probably like this. Here’s a very good video for “Paddy’s Green Shamrock Shore.”

6) I’ve added two new links to the blog roll on the right. Aedicula Antinoi: A Small Shrine of Antinous is the home of P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, who first suggested the term “devotional polytheist” to me and who may be the most prolific blogger in all of Pagandom. Lupus and I have corresponded before – sometimes contentiously but always courteously – and we met for the first time at Pantheacon.

Thracian Exodus is the home of Anomalous Thracian, who describes himself as “a polytheist spirit-worker, shaman, and Temple priest.” We had a wonderful time talking at Pantheacon and sharing experiences of the Gods and spirits. His writings are pretty much stream of consciousness filtered through whiskey – if you object to strong language or strong opinions you may want to skip this one. But you’ll be missing some excellent writing.

7) Game of Thrones returns for its fourth season on HBO on April 6. When season three ended last Summer, the Red Wedding had just concluded, leaving the Starks in shambles. The Mother of Dragons was still building her army, and some really strange things were happening beyond the Wall.

Despite George R.R. Martin’s deserved reputation as a murderous storyteller, the three characters I called out at the beginning of season two because of their resilience are still alive: Tyrion Lannister, Daenerys Targaryen and Arya Stark. Here’s hoping they stay that way.

What do we say to the God of Death? Not today.

I haven’t read the books so I don’t know how the story will progress. They look fascinating, but I just don’t have time for that much fiction. But this is one of the few TV shows I make time to watch – I just wish we got more than ten episodes a year.

8) I’ll be speaking at Denton UU on Sunday, March 9 at 9:30 and 11:30 AM. This will be a revision of “The Art of Wild Wisdom” that I presented at Pathways UU last November. I’m going to do some editing on the sermon, and I’ve got a new Story For All Ages: “How Cú Chulainn Got His Name.” If you’re in the North Texas area, come out and say hello.

That’s what I’m thinking – what about you?

Nine Things I Think

January 30, 2014 By John Beckett

1) I’m really enjoying reading the accounts of Pagan Tea Time conversations. There’s nothing quite like meeting someone in person, but Skype is a very useful – and affordable – substitute. This is a good start to the kind of conversation and collaboration I had in mind for a Druid college.

Along these lines, Jason Mankey and I will be hosting a Pagan Tea Time Google Hangout on Wednesday, February 5 from 7:00 PM till 8:30 PM CST (that’s an 8:00 PM start in the East and a 5:00 PM start on the West Coast). We’ve already had a few responses – come hang out and talk Pagan stuff with us.

I’ve had a couple requests for one-on-one calls and I’d love to do more, but they’re going to have to wait till after Pantheacon.

2) And that’s because I’m in the middle of John’s 2014 Winter Pagan Intensive. Last weekend I drove to Houston for the Melting POT – Pagans of Texas gathering. This Saturday is Denton CUUPS’ Imbolc Circle, and Sunday I’m officiating a handfasting. Next weekend I’m driving to Central Texas for the ADF Texas Imbolc Retreat where I’ll be leading two workshops. The weekend of February 14 is my first trip to Pantheacon in San Jose, California.

At the same time, I’m leading a class in Magical Theory and Practice, facilitating a deeper practice group, and trying to maintain my own studies. Plus keep up with this blog and my paying job.

If you’d like to do a Pagan Tea Time chat, contact me some time after February 18.

3) I’m thrilled to be part of this year’s Pan Druid Retreat, May 8 – 11 in Virginia. I’m honored to be part of a panel discussion on Approaching the Sacred Through Ritual with fellow OBOD Druid Art Scarbrough, ADF Archdruid Kirk Thomas, and Ivo Dominguez Jr. When I talked about Five Ritualists at Dinner, this is very close what I had in mind.

Ideas that were expressed symbolically are manifesting in our world – ah, magic!

4) Damh the Bard has a new single titled “The Wicker Man” inspired by his experience of Wicker Man camps, where huge wooden effigies are built and then burned in sacrifice. There’s not enough talk – or enough action – in the modern Pagan community about sacrifice: what it is, what it isn’t, and why it’s necessary. This song goes a long way toward correcting that.

“The Wicker Man” is, in my personal opinion, Damh’s best song since “The Cauldron Born” in 2008. The video for it is pretty good too.

No uptight British police sergeants were harmed in the making of this video.

5) Australian musician Wendy Rule has a new album titled Black Snake. On her website, Wendy says it’s

Wendy Rule

an album of transformation … of stripping back and letting go of everything that was holding me back, and of reaching a point of vulnerability that allows for true growth … Even though the 12 songs explore my own journey, they are really celebrating universal themes of death and rebirth, of descent and re-awakening. It’s your story, too! And it’s Mother Earth’s story.

Black Snake is clearly inspired by The Descent of Inanna, and not just the song “Ereshkigal.” It sounds and feels like what I’ve come to expect from Wendy Rule: spiritual, mystical, and ethereal. If you like Wendy’s other music, you’ll like Black Snake. If you haven’t heard Wendy before, go to her website or to YouTube and check her out.

6) The recent Pagan shouting match over the term “polytheist” and who gets to use it strikes me as unfortunate, even if it was perhaps inevitable. I suspect that as various Pagans dive deeper into Divinity as they understand and experience it, increasingly precise language will be required. Our challenge will be to develop language that is clear and meaningful without being confusing to newcomers.

I really like this piece by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus, who says “I’m going to call myself a ‘devotional polytheist’ from now on.” “Hard polytheism” – a term I have used to describe myself – is an arbitrary term setting up a binary opposition with “soft polytheism” (the belief that all Gods are aspects of one God). But the Pagan world is far more diverse than hard or soft. “Devotional polytheist” isn’t just a label, it’s also a fitting description of those who see the Gods as real, distinct, individual beings with agency.

Rather than trying to come up with some grand taxonomy of polytheism, I think it would be much more helpful for me to simply talk about what I’ve experienced, what I believe, what I do, and why. Look for “Why I Am a Devotional Polytheist” in the near future.

7) In the social media world, Facebook is the 500 pound gorilla. Under the Ancient Oaks gets far more traffic via Facebook than from any other source, and about 20x more than from Google+. Unfortunately, Facebook is trying to use that influence like a 500 pound gorilla, throttling posts from everyone and choking off posts from organizational pages unless the page owners pay to “promote” them.

A simple way to make sure you get all the posts from Under the Ancient Oaks (and the other blogs on Patheos) is to subscribe by e-mail. Simply enter your address in the box on the right of the screen. You’ll get e-mail notifications when new posts go up, and you won’t be signing up for a boatload of spam.

8) The Winter Olympics begin next Friday in Sochi, Russia. There has been controversy over Russia’s anti-gay laws and concerns about security, and there is always concern about the cost of the games. This is particularly troublesome in host countries whose desire for national pride and international recognition is greatly exceeded by the need of their citizens.

Though I’m not a big winter sports fan, I’ll be watching at least some of the events. While a few of the athletes are star performers making star money, most are ordinary people who have made immense sacrifices to train and compete. We see them for a few minutes every four years – they live lives devoted to training, treatment, rest, and very little else. Even if can’t relate to cross country skiing or speed skating or luge, I can admire the dedication of those who’ve reached the Olympic level.

And perhaps, learn something from them.

*This is Alaska, not Russia. A) I’ve never been to Russia, and B) it’s a pretty cool picture anyway.*

9) Finally, this Sunday is perhaps the highest of the High Holy Days of American culture, the Super Bowl. Yes, I’ll be watching, and not just for the commercials. As I’ve mentioned before, I love football, especially when I don’t have a team in the game and can enjoy it without screaming every time something bad happens.

I love the city of Seattle and I have no animosity toward the Seahawks, but I’ll be pulling for Denver. I’ve been a Peyton Manning fan ever since he walked into Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee in 1994. He’s a rare athlete with superior physical skills and superior intelligence and superior work habits. I’d love for him to get a second Super Bowl ring… and maybe a third next year.

What I’m not loving is the location. While I enjoy watching football played in bad weather, in a championship game I want to focus totally on the players. Bad calls are a part of the game, but I don’t want to see the Super Bowl turn on a questionable holding penalty. Likewise, I’d hate to see the outcome of the game influenced by cold or snow or especially by wind. New York has a lot of clout in professional sports – no other cold weather city has ever hosted an outdoor Super Bowl. Hopefully this will be the only one.

That’s what I’m thinking – what about you?

Nine Things I Think

December 22, 2013 By John Beckett

1) A recent commenter asked if my thoughts on something were “common among OBOD.” Short answer – probably not.

Both of my primary spiritual groups – the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids and the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans – are non-creedal organizations that appeal to people with a wide variety of beliefs and practices. OBOD is centered on spiritual growth and a love of Nature. CUUPS is centered on Paganism within a UU context. I suspect my hard polytheism is a distinctly minority viewpoint within both groups, though my connections with Nature are probably fairly typical.

Though I am both a local and a national officer in CUUPS and a Druid graduate in OBOD, I never speak as an authority for these organizations. My opinions – especially my opinions on the Big Questions of Life – are mine and mine alone.

2) The photos on this blog are mine too… most of them, anyway. Book covers and publicity photos obviously aren’t mine, and photos with a credit belong to whoever is credited. Photos with me in them were probably taken by Cathy. Everything else is mine.

Some of them were taken on various trips. Others were set up and shot five minutes before posting. Any time I’ve got a camera in my hand the thought of “what can I use on the blog?” is in my mind.

For those who care, I use a Canon EOS T1i. If I ever get good enough to make use of a professional camera I’ll get one, but right now it’s all I need and then some. I also have an older Canon PowerShot I use when I don’t want to carry the bigger camera. And some of the pictures were taken with my iPhone – the best camera is the one you have with you when you need it.

john 06.29.13 11 — *professional shot by Tesa Morin*

The head shots I use here and on social media – as well as a few others from that set – are professional photos taken by Tesa Morin.

3) The new calendar year will bring busy weekends. On January 25, I’ll be leading a workshop at the Melting Pot Pagans gathering in the Houston area. February 1 is Denton CUUPS Imbolc circle. February 7-9 is the ADF Texas Imbolc Retreat – I’ve been invited to be a guest speaker and I’ll be leading two workshops. February 14-17 is my first trip to Pantheacon in San Jose, California. I won’t be teaching or leading anything at Pantheacon, just meeting and talking in person with a lot of friends I either only know on-line or haven’t seen since 2010.

The weekend of February 21-23 I’ll be sleeping.

4) The Patheos Pagan channel continues to grow. This month has seen the addition of Niki Whiting’s blog A Witch’s Ashram. Niki has an MA and has done doctoral level work in religious studies. Her education shows in the breadth of her religious awareness and in the depth of her writing, but never in its complexity – you don’t have to have a dictionary of religious jargon to read her posts.

As they did with my blog, the Patheos tech wizards imported all the posts from Niki’s previous blog My Own Ashram. There’s 2-½ years worth of interesting posts for your reading enjoyment and enlightenment.

5) When Pope Francis was elected in March, I expressed my Pagan Wishes for the New Pope. I said

I do not expect Catholic teachings to change. But every pope chooses which teachings he will emphasize, and I hope Pope Francis will choose to emphasize his church’s teachings on compassion to all and service to the poor.

This is exactly what Francis has done. He’s shaken up the Vatican bureaucracy, annoyed Rush Limbaugh and other right wing commentators, and been named TIME Magazine’s Person of the Year.

He’s not perfect. He refuses to consider women’s ordination or marriage for gay people, and a recent statement calling arrogant Christians “pagan” shows his knowledge of Paganism is limited. But as I said in March

It is not reasonable to expect this pope to reform his church in the ways those of us on the liberal side of the religious spectrum would prefer. But there are things he can do within the bounds of traditional Catholicism that will make our world a better place.

This is what he’s doing. I’m thankful for him and I wish him many more years of compassionate leadership.

6) As for the current entertainment cum political kerfuffle, I’ll just say this: there is no “liberal war on free speech.” Speech is still (mostly) free from government restrictions and repercussions, but it is not free from consequences in the marketplace of ideas. Conservatives upset about Phil Robertson’s treatment should remember the Dixie Chicks and Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

It is no longer socially acceptable to demonize whole groups of people for simply being who and what they are.

Still, I hate to see anyone lose a job (even though producing a television series about a dramatized version of your life hardly compares to a job on an assembly line or in a classroom) over something that’s not job-related. But if I was the head of A&E programming, would I want those comments associated with my brand? No.

That’s why I’m glad I have a job where I don’t have to interact with customers or the public, and why I never mention my employer anywhere on the internet.

7) I wish Christians who want gay people to go back in the closet would own their feelings and stop hiding behind the Bible. A) The Bible is not a source of authority for non-Christians. B) There are many parts of the Bible these people ignore. C) There are plenty of Christians who recognize that love is love and have no issue with homosexuality.

If you truly believe gay sex is offensive to your god, then by all means don’t have gay sex. My gods care that I honor my marriage vows to Cathy, but they celebrate love and pleasure in all its forms.

In a pluralistic society, the only way to make persuasive arguments is to ground them in shared values. The primacy of heterosexuality is no longer a shared value.

8) When California passed Prop 8 in 2008 I assumed the country was a generation away from accepting the idea of equal rights for gay people. But since then, referendums, legislation and court decisions have done a 180 degree turn, reflecting a massive cultural change. The speed of this change borders on miraculous and it’s clearly more than some people can handle.

There is still more work to do, particularly in the red states. Texas will be dragged kicking and screaming to marriage equality. But the tide has turned.

9) And after all that, let’s end on something a little more pleasant. Cathy and I are headed to Tennessee tomorrow to visit family and friends for Christmas. We’re driving this time… it’s longer than I like to drive, but we’re breaking it up into two days both going out and coming back, and making a couple stops along the way. Some of those may end up as blog material, depending on how things go. The good thing about driving is that I can take more than one bag, meaning the computer and the good camera go with me.

I hope your Solstice was blessed and your Christmas is merry!

ice storm Dec2013 12 — *From the recent North Texas ice storm. Shot with an iPhone 4S on the way to the mailbox.*

Nine Things I Think

November 26, 2013 By John Beckett

1) It’s been three weeks since Teo Bishop announced he was returning to Christianity. Twice I started writing a blog post on his decision and I abandoned them both – neither of them seemed to be saying anything that hadn’t already been said.

I consider Teo a friend and I wish him well. The world needs more compassionate, mystical, universalist Christians, and if that’s his calling, I hope he pursues it with passion. I hope he finds in the Episcopal Church what he couldn’t find in Paganism.

I hope those who are angry with Teo – and those who are angry about Teo – will do some digging and find the root cause of their anger. And then I hope they channel that anger into productive changes that will make things better for themselves and for our community.

While I wish Teo nothing but the best and while I will continue to follow his spiritual journey, I’ve removed Bishop in the Grove from my blogroll. Its Christian focus no longer supports the mission of Under the Ancient Oaks. But Teo’s writing is good and I may link to specific essays if I find them inspiring or enlightening from a Pagan perspective.

2) Teo Bishop is not the first Pagan to return to Christianity and he won’t be the last. Some come to Paganism with unrealistic expectations formed by pop culture. Some are unable to dislodge the roots of fear a toxic version of Christianity planted in their youth. And some have deep ties of family and tradition they simply don’t want to abandon even if they don’t agree with what’s being preached. We can’t do anything about those folks other than to wish them well and to do our best to be a good example of what Paganism can be.

But some people go back to Christianity because they miss the church – both the body and the building. Churches provide ready-made community – they’re there for anyone to walk in or join in whenever they feel the need. Buildings make a tangible statement: we’re here and we’re going to be here a while. The reality may not always measure up to the ideal, but it’s there. Some day I’d like to see Pagan temples in every city, providing centers of worship and gathering places for our community.

I don’t know if having a functional temple in Portland would have made a difference for Teo and I won’t speculate. But I know it would make a difference for some.

3) In other Nine Things I Think I’ve written about my love of football. I need to clarify that – I love football when my team wins easily, or when I’m watching two goods teams I don’t have strong feelings about. Games where my team loses are painful and close games are torture. I’m almost to the point where I won’t watch a game I care about – the thrill of victory is nothing compared to the agony of defeat. And there’s been a lot of defeat here in Dallas in recent years.

4) “That’s their culture and we should respect it” doesn’t fly for female genital mutilation in Africa or for criminal prosecution for religious apostasy in the Middle East. It also doesn’t fly for bullying in NFL locker rooms.

We spend limited educational resources on school sports in the name of teaching “life lessons.” Athletes in college, high school and at lower levels look up to the NFL and what they’re seeing are lessons we don’t want to teach. Football is a tough game played by tough men, but being tough has nothing to do with putting up with cruel and needless abuse. The NFL needs to clean up its act in a hurry.

5) I’m enjoying the new Dracula series on NBC. Watching it is like sipping a really good wine – it’s beautiful and sensual and you never want it to end. Between the actors, the costumes and the sets, the show is a feast for the eyes.

I just wish I loved the characters as much as I love looking at them. Dracula is more Batman than Bela Lugosi – his Alexander Grayson alias might as well be Bruce Wayne. Mina as a medical student is a not-unreasonable update (particularly if you’ve read The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen), and an African-American Renfield who shoots straight with Dracula makes more sense than a crazed fly-eater for an assistant. But I can’t get my head wrapped around Dracula and Van Helsing being on the same side.

The story is borrowing from Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Dark Shadows, and the Order of the Dragon adds more conspiracy theory than I’d like. The plot is complicated and it has the potential to run off the rails in a hurry.

Early ratings aren’t good and there’s already talk of cancellation. Hopefully the show will make it – Dracula is so much fun to watch.

6) I’m also enjoying American Horror Story: Coven. Maybe “enjoying” isn’t the right word – I certainly don’t enjoy scenes of the historical Madame LaLaurie torturing and terrorizing her slaves and her daughters. But the idea of a school for witches and of witches growing into their power is appealing.

This is another complicated plot and none of the characters are entirely sympathetic. But they’re believable, and they do things – like magically flipping a bus full of date-raping frat boys – that part of me finds highly unethical and another part finds very, very attractive.

My fellow Patheos Pagan bloggers aren’t overly impressed with the show. Voodoo priestess Lilith Dorsey doesn’t like its portrayal of Voodoo and the famous Marie Laveau. Peg Aloi’s disappointment is clearly expressed in the title of her last post: Help Us, Stevie Nicks. You’re Our Only Hope. Jason Mankey hasn’t written about the show since the Halloween episode. I understand – and share – their concerns. AHS shows witches and other magic users neither as we are nor as we wish we could be.

But as dark fantasy I find it quite enjoyable.

“When witches don’t fight, we burn” – Fiona Goode, The Supreme

What I’m not enjoying is FX’s practice of not making their shows available On Demand till after the next week’s show has aired. I’ve been teaching CUUPS classes on Wednesday nights so I’m always at least a week behind, with no way to catch up. Unless I want to pay $2.99 per episode to watch it on iTunes, which I don’t.

7) I’ve given up on Sleepy Hollow. I’ve only got so much time for TV watching and Sleepy Hollow has neither the visual beauty of Dracula nor the emotional appeal of AHS. Rewriting classic fiction is one thing – playing fast and loose with history is another.

8) I haven’t been shopping on Black Friday since the only people calling it that were corporate accountants and I’m certainly not going shopping on Thanksgiving Day. While I’m in sympathy with those who are objecting to retailers being open on this holiday, I can’t quite muster outrage.

I’m old enough to remember when everything closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, and New Year’s and Easter. Then convenience stores and gas stations started staying open. Then grocery stores. Then movie theaters starting opening late afternoon. I suppose some restaurants have always been open, but it seems like more and more are open now. Hospitals, of course, never close.

The well-intended concern for retail workers not getting to spend Thanksgiving with their families doesn’t seem to extend to other areas of our society. Hospitals are one thing (i.e. – a life and death necessity), but gas stations, movie theaters, and restaurants are open for the convenience of their customers – that’s us. The Monday through Friday, morning through afternoon, all holidays off routine we learn in school simply doesn’t exist for many people.

It can exist – if we’re willing to give up our 24/7 conveniences.

9) As a kid, nothing beat Christmas morning. But once I got into my college years, Thanksgiving became my favorite holiday. What was not to like? I got a day off school or work, I got to eat tons of great food (that I didn’t have to cook!), see family I didn’t get to see very often, watch football, and then eat some more. We rarely played football on Thanksgiving, but throwing it around in the front yard was common. Whether I was living nearby, two hours down the interstate, or 600 miles away in Indiana, I made it home for Thanksgiving every year except one.

We kept up the gathering after my father died in 2000, but it wasn’t the same without him. Then I moved to Texas and that was pretty much the end, at least for me. I usually have Thanksgiving dinner with Cathy’s family, and while the foods and the rituals are similar, it’s not home.

I’m thankful for many things, including the home I have here and now. But at this time of year I’m especially thankful for Thanksgiving memories.

That’s what I’m thinking right now – what about you?