Quick Catch-Up Post

Being that the kiddos have been home for a couple  months, I’ve been counting the days until they finally go back to school (which thankfully was this past Monday). As is fairly typical when they’ve been home for weeks on end, my brain is generally fried at this point from the constant chaos, so needless to say haven’t been much for accomplishing much these last couple weeks. The good news is that I am spending this first week of “freedom” enjoying the peace and quiet, then hopefully I can get back to actually posting on a regular basis.

Don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before, but we have awesome squirrels that hang out in our yard. I know a lot of people think of them as pests, but I totally adore ours (even when they used to eat the bird seed). Plus they are super cool and like to tease the cats, which is always fun to watch. Anyways today, I found a baby squirrel in the yard – just curled up in the grass sleeping. As much as I hated to move it, I had to, otherwise said cats would have eventually gone after it.

Have called the wildlife rescue center, though hubby won’t be home for a few more hours, so there is still hope that mommy or daddy squirrel will come back and get baby. It’s the cutest little thing though, furry, but no fluffy tail yet, so it looks like an odd little chipmunk or something. We’ve got him in a box that is currently attached to a tree, so that the other squirrels can reach him, but the cats can’t.

Not an actual pic of the one we found (my camera is still totally non-functioning), but he looks almost the same. I just want to cuddle him… but I’m being good and haven’t. XD

 

Edit…

Ok coolest thing EVER!!! About 5 minutes before hubby got home – mommy squirrel came and got her baby. I was so happy!! It was funny because I was sitting on the porch waiting for my youngest to get home, and finally saw one of the older squirrels running through the yard, so I’m all talking to it like… “please go get your baby, I don’t want to have to take it away”, and darned if it didn’t meander around the yard for a couple minutes searching for the baby, then go to where we had the box, grab the little one by it’s tail and scamper up the tree back to the nest.

Just goes to show patience really is a virtue – as most rescue sites said to call after more than a couple hours or so, and in this case we’d had the baby for over 8 hours. I’d even called off work – which by the way I HAVE THE BEST BOSS AND CO-WORKERS IN THE WORLD!!! Just really glad it all worked out in the end.

 

 

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(P) Pagan Pride

This post is primarily based on an experience that occurred in 2008, though in all fairness it’s pretty common at almost any PPD, that I’ve been to in recent memory. As we are fast approaching PPD season, seemed like a good time to bring it up.

So…my family and I go to our local Pagan Pride Day almost every year, and though some years it’s better than others, I am often left wondering if my standards and/or expectations of other Pagans are a bit too high.

I realize too, that there are a whole group of people who categorize themselves as Pagans, who are simply “wannabes”. These are the ones who are doing this too piss off their parents, or because they saw “The Craft” once and thought it looked cool, or any number of other less than “noble” reasons.  What gets me though, is it seems to be these particular people who often show up in droves to the PPD events. Maybe they think that since it is a gathering of other Pagans, that it is ok to let loose,  not that they really have any sort of understanding of Paganism, outside of stereotypes anyways. However, I still have to question…why? Why break out the fairy wings and renaissance wear – the Harry Potter gear, and extreme Goth wear?

In this case I don’t mean people who may normally dress that way on a regular basis, but the ones – and you can tell the difference – who are dressed up like PPD is one giant Halloween party. I also understand completely the concept of ritual wear, though again (and maybe this is just a personal quirk, but I know others that feel the same way) ritual wear is generally reserved for ritual purposes only. Wearing ritual gear out into the mundane world allows it to absorb those energies, which generally leaves them kind of icky (‘cuz you know people have all sorts of crazy energetic baggage – and especially when you are around a large group of people, you never know what you are going to pick up). Then you then have to go through the effort of cleansing them, and it’s usually just better to keep them away from that sort of thing.

So we shout Pagan Pride and expect others to take us seriously, and yet if this is the public “face” that we are putting on… can we really expect for anyone to take us seriously and give us the respect we deserve? I can understand that we don’t necessarily want to exclude anyone, but part of bringing Paganism to the mainstream (or at least raising tolerance levels) is letting people know that “hey… we are just like you”. That we should be able to dress however we want (be one Pagan or otherwise) is an issue as well, but until we live in that world, it’s still seems that one should be dressing some what appropriately (not particularly fond of that word, but it will have to do). At the very least, we should not be going out of our way to dress/act in a way that perpetuates the negative stereotypes we are trying so very hard to break away from.

There are many people who have chosen a Paganism because they are seriously seeking a religion or a spiritual path that they have not been able to find elsewhere. As one of those people, I find that I resent the “intrusion” of these “wannabes”. I am sick of wading through endless amounts of fluff, to find one small shred of valid truth. Just once, I’d like to go to a Pagan gathering and come away feeling like I learned something valuable, not like I’ve been violated. If I wanted to go to the a carnival or Ren Faire, then that is where I would go. As I said in the beginning, maybe my standards are too high – but if we are ever to be taken seriously, then maybe it is time that others raised their standards as well.

Lughnasadh

In  Your Own Words: This time of year is always a bit hard on me, being that it’s near to the anniversary of my mother’s death. One of the reasons why Lughnasadh has always been one of my favorite (well… not quite the right word, but it serves in this case) Sabbats, is that it the time that Lugh bade us celebrate in honor his foster mother Tailtiu, and as such it’s somewhat of a “mother’s day” celebration for me as well. It’s made even more poignantly appropriate by the fact that my mother-in-law and my mother’s best friend (who was like a second mother to me growing up), both also died during the month of August.

So tonight I will raise a glass in honor, tell a few stories, and try not to make it a total cry-fest, because that sort of defeats the purpose of celebrating a life well lived and loved. However even after all these years, it’s sometimes difficult not to break down completely at the thought of just how much the world has been lessened by the loss of these three amazing women. You are remembered, and loved – for now and forever!

On a bit of a lighter note – I did not bake any bread, however I did make pizza… does that count?

Musical Musings: