Thoughts on Justice

What is justice? 

"Morally right and fair behaviors or treatment."

Justice? 

It is a lie, plain and simple. "Justice" does not exist in the real world; it is only present in our minds, never carried out through actions. 

Where is the justice for the people who were literally blown to nothingness when the US bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki? 

Where is the justice for the woman raped by her father, her brother, her lover, her friend? 

Where is the justice for the parents who have to bury their newborn child?

Where is the justice for the antelope killed by the lion? 

Where is justice? 

"TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME...SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED." 

- The Hogfather, Terry Pratchett

Today I heard a sermon in which the pastor talked about a story in the Bible where a man asked God why bad things happened. The pastor basically said good Christians should not question their god and instead trust Him and his "Plan." 

Why should we tolerate the bad things that people do? It is not any divine power's responsibility to help us or protect us from negative experiences, whether you are a Christian or a Pagan. It is not the Goddess's job to forever hold us up, away from harm. A child does not learn by being forever protected. Do we really want to make this world just? Do we really want mercy and peace? Then we need to step up and make these things ourselves! 

Justice. It does not exist elsewhere in the world, but we humans can make it, and help it flourish. 

The world is unjust and unfair because we make it so. We can make the change. 

College Pagan Tips

For those of you who are in college, it can be tough juggling your school work, your job, your family, and your spiritual life. Whether you are a recent high school graduate or just going back to college after years in the workforce, college is a stressful time and nothing to snuff at. Grades you make now will haunt you forever, and we aren't even talking about the possible flak you will get from family if you snub them in favor of better grades. There seems like there is never time for your own spiritual growth, or any of the things you previously were doing. Astral projection, meditation, rituals, Esbats. Maybe you still squeeeeeeze in time for the Sabbats, but soon that won't be enough.

How do you do it? Nothing is simple, and there will never be an easy answer. If you find one or are given one, immediate doubt should be cast upon it. So, here are a few suggestions that might help anyway.

(source, which happens to be a very interesting article.)

First, sit down at some point and make your weekly schedule. If you are stable enough to plan a whole month, or even three months, ahead, do it. Make an hourly breakdown of your activities. Include study time, homework hours, chores, physical exercise of your choice, class times, work times, sleeping (8 hours or more) and naps if you can, and anything else that may eat your time up. Don't include any spiritual time yet. Study time should be as long as, or twice as long as, your class runs. If you have a one hour class, expect to study for two hours. Time management is a MUST.

(Side track here -- don't think you are going to study for that whole two hours. You must take breaks or your retention of the information will decrease steadily.  Study for 30 mins at a time, and then take a complete 10 min break. Trust me, you will get way more out of your studying if you do so. Also, do NOT procrastinate and wait to get things done on the day something is due. You will burn yourself out very quickly. This is coming from a lifelong procrastinator, so I know what I am talking about.)

Once you have your "available" times, you can either plug them with much needed down time, or start filling the gaps with spiritual time (or both!). I would suggest carving out 30 mins each day to sit outside and just soak up what you can. You can sit in the morning or night and drink some warm tea, stay silent and listen to the sounds that you hear. Touch the bare ground, if you can, with your feet, hands, or whole body. If you want to spend some time with the Elements, make a day where you make efforts to connect with that Element alone. You can also have a day for the God and one for the Goddess, and one more for all of them. I suggest making the last one on a day where you can do a ritual. Here is a general outline you can do:

Sunday: Sun's day. Make an effort to greet the Sun as He rises in the morning. Before you grab your tea or coffee, try a quick Sun Salutation. While you are preforming the salutation, you are welcome to think about the role of the God, where He is in His stage of life or death, and how it applies to your own life. Afterwards, you can go get your drink and bask in the Sun until you are done or have to leave.

Monday: Moon's day. Go outside at night when you have some quiet time and commune with the Goddess. Drink some non-caffeinated tea (but not coffee, because it will keep you awake) and bask in the rays of the Moon. When you are done with your tea, you can preform Shavasana, which will help with sleep. While you do this meditation, you can either keep your mind clear or you can think about the Goddess, Her role and what stage of Her life She is at, and how it applies to your life.

Tuesday: Fire's day. Fire is the warmth in our homes, the flame that cooks our food, and the spark that is our spirit. With Fire, anything can be transformed. Paper turns to ash, water turns to steam, and metal turns into a sword. Fire is connected to sex, light, and the soul. Fire lights the way to the Otherworld, is the spark in ourselves that attract spiritual beings, and burns away darkness. A great devotion for fire is flame meditations. Since I can't find the one I want, I will just write it here.

Light a candle and get comfortable. Sit where you can still see every bit of the flame, but your eyes will also naturally fall on the flame when you relax. Notice that the very outside of the flame is red, which represents your outer body or your skin. There isn't very much red, but when you go past that you see orange. This is your outer projection, what you put out into the world and what other people see. It is a facade to your overall being. Moving past this sliver, you find the bulk of your being, the white. This is your ego, your conscious mind that voice all your thoughts. As you wade through this part, you come to the yellow, which is the preconscious part of you which bridges your conscious and unconscious mind. Past this door is the blue of your unconscious mind, your soul, the inner most part of your being. This is the heart of who you are, and where your thoughts and dreams originate. Slowly expand the blue into the yellow, and then into the white, into the orange, and finally into the red. Your soul touches each part of your body and is not separated from it. Feel the power and energy that is you. Stay there for a moment before withdrawing the blue from the red, leaving just a little bit behind. Withdraw from the orange, the white, and the yellow, all the while leaving just a little bit of the blue behind. Finally, the blue is back and it is time to withdraw your conscious past the yellow, past the white, past the orange, and finally the red. Ground, and you will be done! 

Yoga pose: Warrior III and Humble Warrior.  

Wednesday: Air's day. Air surrounds us very second of the day. It keeps us alive by driving many energy cycles within our bodies and every other being on this planet -- animal and plant alike. Air is connected to thought, knowledge, and our breath. Singing, dancing, laughter, and being aware of your breathing are great devotions. Go outside and throw your soul into the wind. Feel the wind pass through your body and sweep up your spirit. Air is almost never serious, and will take you up and play around. It will make you want to laugh and feel light-hearted. REMEMBER, keep a spiritual tether between your body and your spirit, because Air is similar to the Fae in that it will lead you astray and can get you lost. Don't worry, though, keep your head on and you will be fine. Yoga pose: Cat and Cobra.

Thursday: Earth's day. Earth is around us, always. It is what we stand on, what our buildings are made of, and where we get our food and clothes. Earth is connected with the body, wealth and prosperity, and our roots. Earth is grounding, which is a good devotion. Go outside and sit on the bare Earth. Bend over and smell the dirt, touch the grass, feel the energy that comes from it. Sit up with your legs crossed and begin the Tree of Life meditation. Do the chakras if you feel like it. Another good devotion is connecting with a tree. Approach a tree that you wish to connect with and ask it if it minds helping out. If you get a yes or positive vibe, then continue by sitting with your back on the tree. Clear your mind and reach out towards the tree, feeling its entire body. Feel up the tree and into its leaves. Feel the life that lives on or in that tree, and the movement of nutrients. Follow it back down into the roots and notice how large and expansive the roots spread. As you get to know the tree, you can ask it to share any memories it may have. The older the tree, the more it knows. Do NOT lose yourself in the tree. Yoga position to try: Tree and Eagle.

Friday: Water's day. Water is connected with emotion, the astral realm, and blood. Water flows and keeps moving, going from the seen to the unseen. Scrying is a good water devotion. Another one is taking a cleansing herbal bath or taking a shower outside at night (if you have a privacy fence, a water hose with a water nozzle that sets to something soft, and some guaranteed alone time. Make sure you bring a towel with you outside!). If you take a bath, set out candles and make it like a ritual. Have music if you want, or make your own. Think about what water means to you and how it affects your life. Think about how water is the Universal Solvent, that with enough time everything dissolves into it, including your own negative emotions and bad vibes. Let water was it away, and thank it. Yoga position: Triangle and Half Moon.

Saturday: Ritual day. Do something special this day, anything you can think of. Place offerings, sit and commune, or go and volunteer somewhere. Do something nice and random: for instance, if you go shopping and you see someone struggling to pay their bill, you could help out. Or perhaps look out for another person. If you are going to do a ritual, I suggest you make your own. The more personal, the better.

Most of these ideas shouldn't take more than 30 minutes or so. If you have more to spend, great! Do it!! But if not, these will help you start. Remember that time management in college (and in high school too) is very important. Of course, no one is perfect and slip ups should be expected. Don't berate yourself. It happens.

If you have your own suggestions, feel free to put them in the comments! The more, the merrier. 

Blessed Be.

Learning From the Muslims

This past weekend, I met with a very good friend of mine who is also Muslim. We spent a few days hanging out and I can't help but notice some of the things she does.

Muslims are very clean. They wash their hands, face and feet before all prayers and take a shower before morning prayer. Most people know this. But did you know that Muslims also take a water bottle into the bathroom to wash after their business is done? The focus on cleanliness was surprising.

Now, I don't know many pagans who don't wash up before ritual; it is almost required. Who wants to come to their Gods dirty in spirit and body?

Although there is ALWAYS an exception.

"Cleanliness is Godliness." For people who originated out of a desert, they sure do focus on water a lot. I digress. Anyway, spending a weekend with a Muslim friend has given rise to a thought: should we clean ourselves every time we want to speak to our Gods? I'm not talking about rituals, but the small gestures we do throughout the day. Every time we come to our altars, mental or physical, should we ritually wash ourselves? Before meditations, before we see the Moon, before Sunrise? Yes, we are people of the Earth, who love and revel the outside world. But is there a line?

Another thing that many people often hear about is how many times a day a Muslim prays. If you don't know the exact number, it is 5 times. It is said in the Qur'an that Allah commanded humans to pray 50 times a day but was talked down to 5 because humans cannot do that and still function. Granted, our ancestors had priests and priestesses who dedicated their entire lives to worshiping and working for a particular God or Goddess and there were the people who would constantly come into the Temples. However, in our modern world, we generally don't make the time to pray that much and the Pagan community is just now starting to get places of worship up and running. How then should prayer fit into our daily lives? Should we increase our connection with the Spiritual world and decrease the hold our modern lives have gripped us in?

How many of you reading this post also have Facebook or Twitter up? I know I do, along with my school work and my own research. We Industrialized people have our heads stuck in the computers for hours on end, and don't bother to stop for a day and just go outside. According to the Census Bureau, almost 77% of households (Table 1C) have some sort of computer. How many of you with computers also go outside and commune at least once daily? (I am guilty of not going outside to commune enough. I DO go outside, but not for very long. Must. Change. This!)

So then, I learned that these people make time for their prayers. They make time to be clean. They carve out their days to praise their God wholly and completely. Should we do so too?

More on this later, maybe.

Values of the Fat Pagan

June is the Pagan Values blog carnival, where pagans across the net share their values and practices in a big catch all. I am late (but fashionably so! I'm only 28 days late, srsly) of course, but finally here is a mish mash of the values I live by.

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse

I consider myself a Witch, not a Wiccan. I don't follow the Rede but favor the Asatru "Golden Rule": I shall do unto you what you do unto my kin. What you do to me, I shall do to you. Instead of the Threefold Law, I subscribe to Actions and Consequences: what I do has consequences, good or bad. If I study for my test, I will likely pass. If I don't study, I will probably fail. With this, I don't avoid curses or hexes; I accept any consequences of my actions. I believe a witch who cannot harm cannot heal either. Avoiding one part of the circle isn't balance; I don't think a person should live in one part or another, but in both the light and dark aspects.

I practice Witchcraft, but I seldom do spells. I think it is mostly because I think that if I can get what I need through mundane means, I don't need to do a spell and I can conserve my magick for important things, like protection spells. I work a lot on this mundane plane; healing with herbs and medicine, fostering relationships through action and words, working hard for monetary success, focusing on the body. Lately I have been trying to focus on other realms. So far, it hasn't gone very far. I SHALL TRY MORE!!!!!!

Children, the elderly, and animals are especially coveted in my philosophy. These three typically have no voice and little to no protection. They are to be respected and protected, not destroyed. I also find that they typically are a lot smarter than adults think. The things that children can understand are astounding, the things that animals can do is mind blowing, and the knowledge that the elderly possess is staggering.

Music - don't get me started. Oh, how music is to the soul! It is the expression of the soul itself, its joys and sadness, its love and hate. Just the way that music can pick you up after a hard day is amazing. I could not imagine a life without music. *swoon*

There are all sorts of great bands that I listen to almost daily. A few pagan ones are The Moon and The Nightspirit, Metal Mother, Faun, Damh The Bard, and my favorite, Blackmore's Night. But that isn't even mentioning the songs that KeepMusicPagan has on hir profile. Love! I also throughly enjoy the music of other cultures. Example!

The Gods: for me, I am a hard polytheist. I believe that all gods exist in some form or fashion. Yes, I also believe that the gods are capable of walking this Earth. But my views are a complex hypothesis, hypotheses even. I will reserve for another post, but a taste... hehe.

Science knows that we have a least 9 different dimensions. We are said to be on the third dimension, and therefore also exist in the first two as well. What if, then, the beings we call Gods are actually beings that exist in a different, higher dimension? Another hypothesis is that there are an infinite number of universes, ones that run parallel to this one, or ones that are parasites, or ones so far away from us that we cannot even imagine it. What if some of these universes overlap and bleed into others, like the way that our physical world intersects with the spiritual world at certain points of the year (ie Samhain and Beltane). What if mythical creatures really did exist, but were "side effects" from a collision of two different universes? What if, what if.

Back to the point, Life is a constant choice - a constant battle between the things you should be doing and the things you are doing. Life is like a stream, it keeps moving, and eventually it ends into something larger and is recycled. The afterlife holds no fear for me. Death is a blessing, a movement into something new, a release of pain and illness. It is the end of one journey and the beginning of another. The Summerlands, a kind of rest stop or way station, is way better than the summers here in Texas, let me tell ya.

Balance... it really just boils down to balance in the end. Skepticism and faith, thought and action, light and dark, imagination and reality, magickal and mundane, right and wrong, even life and death.

There is no way that one person can completely write down their thoughts in one post, or one paper, or even one book. It takes a lifetime to learn things, and we never stop learning and never stop teaching either. "Christians and Muslims may be People of the Book, but Pagans are People of the Library." Libraries, even.

As to the other side of this blog, I am and will probably always be, a fat activist. While I don't proselytize my religion, I will totally spread HAES. It's something that everyone should believe in, instead of the FoBT. It may sound like a Christian, but this message will surely make the lives of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people (women AND men) so much better than the current self hatred they are experiencing. When children don't have to constantly worry about their body image, they can focus on other things like learning and being children. They don't have to grow up with a warped sense of themselves.

Like Joy Nash said, when you look at pictures of when you were younger, you exclaim how adorable you were, and why you weren't wearing that cute dress you always thought you were too ugly for. But when you look at yourself, you shame yourself for being ugly, and you can't wear that dress you want to wear because you are so ugly and sometime down the road, when you are older, you will again look at pics you took today and exclaim how cute and adorable you were. Just be adorable now, and believe in yourself.