Its a funny thing really. My last posting was religiously based, and after making my post and speaking my peace on the matter, thought I would be done and over with the subject. I did however mention towards the end of my post wanting to see about becoming a certified pagan priestess for the sake of saying its one more thing I've accomplished for myself, so I began looking into what it would take to become that very thing.
Now, "Why?" you may ask would I want to count that among one of the accomplishments I've made in my life. There are several reasons really, but it mostly boils down to wanting to be able to legally say that I am capable of performing things like weddings, funerals, and other such ceremonies and rites of passage, without having to go through a Christian church to do so. During my investigations on becoming such a thing, I came across reading material about Druidism. After all, the term "Pagan" is a general term, for anything that isn't directly "Christian" is considered pagan belief, and there are hundred of them out there.
After going through various pagan religions, I found that where I stand on life and everything in it is vastly similar to a Druid outlook on life. I still hold a generally Gnostic point of view, but it just so happens that Gnosticism and Druidism are very similar in many ways. Suppose I've been a Druid all these years without ever really waking up and realizing it.
So I'm a Druid. I've found where I stand, but how again do I become legally recognized as a priestess? The answer was much much MUCH simpler than I imagined.
Turns out my field of search wasn't entirely accurate for the knowledge I was seeking when I first started my investigations. When starting, I neglected to search under the term "ordain". Including this in my search however brought about more direct result.
Under the Universal Life Church, all religious views are welcomed and embraced, and all members are capable of becoming ordained members of the church regardless of personal faith, as they hold but two tenets -
-to promote religious freedom
-to do that which is right.
I'd never heard of or seen a church that was all accepting of faiths, and willing to ordain anyone under their faith in the name of their church. But, I decided to climb on board, and seek ordain-ship through them. It was as simple as filling out a very short form, and thanks to the wonders of electronic communications, my information is now documented in the United Life Headquarters as an ordained member of the church. As such, I am free to practice and fellowship among others of my own beliefs, legally perform weddings, funeral, and other ceremonial rites of passage, and can even start my own church if I wish (which I don't).
So here I am. A Druid, and legally ordained. I can officially be claimed by law as a Druid Priestess (even if I'm not part of any coven or Druid sect that would recognize me as such). I prefer a solitary path anyway.
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Friday, May 18, 2012
Continuing Onward
As I suspected I would, I sit here and type this with no real regularity to the intervals between my postings. A small part of me is surprised I sit here and type this at all, as my musings are largely kept to myself. Who would listen if I spoke? There was a time when I sought the creative release poetry extends to entertain my muse's linguistic passions with, but I haven't penned a poem in years and I'm not sure when next the inspiration to do so will truly hit me.
But I'm already going off on a tangent and I haven't even made mention where I plan to go with this.
Before I go any further, regardless of what I venture put to words hereafter, I do want to go on record as saying that while my childhood may not have been pleasant more often than not, my father is not a bad man. He did the best he could to raise two children on his own, poured his blood, sweat, and tears (literally) into providing for us, and made his share of mistakes as a mostly lonely single father. I watched how hard he worked my entire childhood life to make sure we had a bed to sleep in and food on the table, even if it wasn't much. I understand now the hardships of adulthood, being one myself, and have nothing but the utmost respect for my father. After all, my father did eventually find religion as I started maturing into a young teenage girl, and his temper at very least began to curb. According to his current wife of the past 10+ years (I can never remember exactly how long it's been) the man I describe to her that raised me acts and sounds absolutely nothing like the man she married. And, if there were any irony to show for all this, I can say he'll get the opportunity to go back and do it all over again with parenting, as he was blessed four years ago with the birth of yet another son. Prior to this I was his youngest child aside from his step daughter, and I am as of now 30 years old.
What I am about to delve into I typically never do under any circumstance for any reason. As it is one of those touchy subjects that lead into seething debates where others involved take conversations and arguments to a level of feeling personal attack when I express my point of view, I have learned that some things are best never broached, especially in mixed or unfamiliar company.
I'm talking about religion.
In the time I've been on this planet, I've been preached to, yelled at, and drilled over who or what I ought to believe in. I spent some of my childhood years in a Mormon church while my father began exploring his religious options, and then thrown into a New Pentecostal house after my father remarried. His marriage didn't last long, but he took with him his new Christian roots, and attempted pounding them into me with an iron fist of authority while I still lived under his roof. Too young, naive, and outright afraid to ask questions then, I did what I was told, and parroted the material like an obedient child.
At fifteen years of age I was finally able to escape what felt like the oppressive bonds of my father's authority in favor of my mother's less abrasive approach to child rearing. By fifteen though I had already possessed the maturity level of a woman about my age now, and thanks to the strict rules and structure instilled in me under my father's care, was responsible enough to be as self sufficient as was legally possible for a minor. Child rearing for my mother was as accomplished as it was ever going to be before ever stepping foot across the thresh-hold of her doorstep.
But I digress.
Living under my mother's roof for the majority of my high school years afforded me the opportunity to begin exposing myself to everything I dared to try that was absolutely forbidden in my father's house. As my mother lived a significant distance away from civilization (making for a long bus ride to and from school every day) I was unable to get out of the house much save for when my motorcycle riding rock n' roll uncle with a striking resemblance to Jesus himself would come rescue me over the weekends to hang out and go for rides with him.
My freedoms as a result still felt stifled, but they were a far cry more than I would have ever received under my father's roof. My clothing style went from simple plain and basic printed shirts or shirts with Christian prints on them, typical jeans, and tennis shoes to funky pop culture or rock band printed shirts, cut off jean shorts or jean pants, chain wallet, biker leather jacket, and steel toed boots. Around this time I was beginning to blossom with the resemblance of something I could claim as an identity of my own instead of something someone had attempted to pound and mold and manipulate me into. I began getting curious, and not just about the typical peer pressure and hormonally driven instincts my teenage body was throwing at me. I was for the most part able to stave off peer pressure stupidity (resulting in a very small social circle throughout high school) and my commitment to my out of state boyfriend at the time kept me from getting into dating trouble with boys (instead driving me to a ritual of feverish multiple nightly bouts of masturbation and sleeping in the nude.)
But again, I digress.
No, my hunger was for things with which to feed my mind, and my curiosity was, as it has been ever since, insatiable. I began questioning what little I had learned of the bible that had before been so zealously shoved in my face, and I started to explore what life had to offer a young impressionable mind. I was fascinated by various pagan beliefs and cultures, and while I never took on any one particular belief system, I did begin to cast aside my chains of Christianity in favor of meditation on what seemed to make sense. I have been in a meditative state over where my exact religious views stand for many a year, and have only recently begun solidifying what my views are on the subject.
After years of watching the news or reading headlining news articles on the latest religiously driven atrocities we as a human race inflict on our own kind, I've come to the consensus that there isn't a single damned organized religion out there that makes one iota of sense. Each one seems to follow it's own mythical version of some Godman, each with its own equally absurd historically false accounts, and each claiming to be the one and only infallible truth to salvation. Those that don't follow entire polytheistic pantheons of deific power, but pose just as little historical evidence to prove the actual existence of the deities they so willingly turn to for guidance. Verses in Scripture are constantly contradicted throughout books of the Bible, and just as equally so in the Koran, proving to indeed have been written by the hands of men and proving even further to be probably THE first, and worst hack editorial job ever seen of a printed work. Some sects of the Christian faith only teach and follow in the New Testament of the Bible, while others teach and follow the new and old. All of them seem to carry and display the same bigotry and prejudice displayed in either book, or adopt only what they feel serves them best out of the book they so unwaveringly follow as God's Truth. At least the notion of peace and treating your fellow brothers and sisters as you would expect to be treated as taught by some pagan beliefs makes sense and doesn't instigate reason for hostilities between people. The absolute atrocities displayed in the various Holy Wars our planet has seen fought on its surface only ever boils down to which side has the better imaginary friend, no matter how zealously protective either is about said figment. Just about every organized religion known to man has an "us vs. them" approach to how they view the world, where wars today are still fought over a "convert or die" attitude. The Godman so many follow supposedly teaches love and patience in one breadth, but resonates with jealousy, demands sacrifice, and condones the killing of "sinners" through either stoning to death or cleansing by fire. The so called "Book of Truth" sounds more like a Tyrant's Guide to Successful Dictatorship.
No, I have cast aside the chains of Christianity placed upon me as a child, and have instead made it a point to live my life under a philosophy of love, tolerance, and acceptance to the diversity of all people that share existence with me. I've read and mused over a variety of beliefs and teachings, and take particular interest in the whimsical ways of Discordianism, but probably fit the category of "Gnostic" if I were to be labeled anything. I have considered studying in earnest to become a certified Pagan Priestess as just one more thing to fit under my belt of "things accomplished in my lifetime" but as it stands I have quite a full plate and I'm not sure if/when I will ever be able to make the time to accomplish said task.
And why this of all things did I feel the need to post, when I could have made my post on any number of other subjects? Suppose it was the inspiration I gathered for it while "Heresy" by Nine Inch Nails blared down the road in my van whilst returning home from weekly grocery shopping, and the meditative thought processes it sent me through while driving. Regardless, it is what it is, and a good bit of what makes up my identity.
But I'm already going off on a tangent and I haven't even made mention where I plan to go with this.
Before I go any further, regardless of what I venture put to words hereafter, I do want to go on record as saying that while my childhood may not have been pleasant more often than not, my father is not a bad man. He did the best he could to raise two children on his own, poured his blood, sweat, and tears (literally) into providing for us, and made his share of mistakes as a mostly lonely single father. I watched how hard he worked my entire childhood life to make sure we had a bed to sleep in and food on the table, even if it wasn't much. I understand now the hardships of adulthood, being one myself, and have nothing but the utmost respect for my father. After all, my father did eventually find religion as I started maturing into a young teenage girl, and his temper at very least began to curb. According to his current wife of the past 10+ years (I can never remember exactly how long it's been) the man I describe to her that raised me acts and sounds absolutely nothing like the man she married. And, if there were any irony to show for all this, I can say he'll get the opportunity to go back and do it all over again with parenting, as he was blessed four years ago with the birth of yet another son. Prior to this I was his youngest child aside from his step daughter, and I am as of now 30 years old.
What I am about to delve into I typically never do under any circumstance for any reason. As it is one of those touchy subjects that lead into seething debates where others involved take conversations and arguments to a level of feeling personal attack when I express my point of view, I have learned that some things are best never broached, especially in mixed or unfamiliar company.
I'm talking about religion.
In the time I've been on this planet, I've been preached to, yelled at, and drilled over who or what I ought to believe in. I spent some of my childhood years in a Mormon church while my father began exploring his religious options, and then thrown into a New Pentecostal house after my father remarried. His marriage didn't last long, but he took with him his new Christian roots, and attempted pounding them into me with an iron fist of authority while I still lived under his roof. Too young, naive, and outright afraid to ask questions then, I did what I was told, and parroted the material like an obedient child.
At fifteen years of age I was finally able to escape what felt like the oppressive bonds of my father's authority in favor of my mother's less abrasive approach to child rearing. By fifteen though I had already possessed the maturity level of a woman about my age now, and thanks to the strict rules and structure instilled in me under my father's care, was responsible enough to be as self sufficient as was legally possible for a minor. Child rearing for my mother was as accomplished as it was ever going to be before ever stepping foot across the thresh-hold of her doorstep.
But I digress.
Living under my mother's roof for the majority of my high school years afforded me the opportunity to begin exposing myself to everything I dared to try that was absolutely forbidden in my father's house. As my mother lived a significant distance away from civilization (making for a long bus ride to and from school every day) I was unable to get out of the house much save for when my motorcycle riding rock n' roll uncle with a striking resemblance to Jesus himself would come rescue me over the weekends to hang out and go for rides with him.
 |
| This is my Uncle Jim (a.k.a. "Jesus") as he appeared during my high school years, and that is the bike we rode together on. |
My freedoms as a result still felt stifled, but they were a far cry more than I would have ever received under my father's roof. My clothing style went from simple plain and basic printed shirts or shirts with Christian prints on them, typical jeans, and tennis shoes to funky pop culture or rock band printed shirts, cut off jean shorts or jean pants, chain wallet, biker leather jacket, and steel toed boots. Around this time I was beginning to blossom with the resemblance of something I could claim as an identity of my own instead of something someone had attempted to pound and mold and manipulate me into. I began getting curious, and not just about the typical peer pressure and hormonally driven instincts my teenage body was throwing at me. I was for the most part able to stave off peer pressure stupidity (resulting in a very small social circle throughout high school) and my commitment to my out of state boyfriend at the time kept me from getting into dating trouble with boys (instead driving me to a ritual of feverish multiple nightly bouts of masturbation and sleeping in the nude.)
But again, I digress.
No, my hunger was for things with which to feed my mind, and my curiosity was, as it has been ever since, insatiable. I began questioning what little I had learned of the bible that had before been so zealously shoved in my face, and I started to explore what life had to offer a young impressionable mind. I was fascinated by various pagan beliefs and cultures, and while I never took on any one particular belief system, I did begin to cast aside my chains of Christianity in favor of meditation on what seemed to make sense. I have been in a meditative state over where my exact religious views stand for many a year, and have only recently begun solidifying what my views are on the subject.
After years of watching the news or reading headlining news articles on the latest religiously driven atrocities we as a human race inflict on our own kind, I've come to the consensus that there isn't a single damned organized religion out there that makes one iota of sense. Each one seems to follow it's own mythical version of some Godman, each with its own equally absurd historically false accounts, and each claiming to be the one and only infallible truth to salvation. Those that don't follow entire polytheistic pantheons of deific power, but pose just as little historical evidence to prove the actual existence of the deities they so willingly turn to for guidance. Verses in Scripture are constantly contradicted throughout books of the Bible, and just as equally so in the Koran, proving to indeed have been written by the hands of men and proving even further to be probably THE first, and worst hack editorial job ever seen of a printed work. Some sects of the Christian faith only teach and follow in the New Testament of the Bible, while others teach and follow the new and old. All of them seem to carry and display the same bigotry and prejudice displayed in either book, or adopt only what they feel serves them best out of the book they so unwaveringly follow as God's Truth. At least the notion of peace and treating your fellow brothers and sisters as you would expect to be treated as taught by some pagan beliefs makes sense and doesn't instigate reason for hostilities between people. The absolute atrocities displayed in the various Holy Wars our planet has seen fought on its surface only ever boils down to which side has the better imaginary friend, no matter how zealously protective either is about said figment. Just about every organized religion known to man has an "us vs. them" approach to how they view the world, where wars today are still fought over a "convert or die" attitude. The Godman so many follow supposedly teaches love and patience in one breadth, but resonates with jealousy, demands sacrifice, and condones the killing of "sinners" through either stoning to death or cleansing by fire. The so called "Book of Truth" sounds more like a Tyrant's Guide to Successful Dictatorship.
No, I have cast aside the chains of Christianity placed upon me as a child, and have instead made it a point to live my life under a philosophy of love, tolerance, and acceptance to the diversity of all people that share existence with me. I've read and mused over a variety of beliefs and teachings, and take particular interest in the whimsical ways of Discordianism, but probably fit the category of "Gnostic" if I were to be labeled anything. I have considered studying in earnest to become a certified Pagan Priestess as just one more thing to fit under my belt of "things accomplished in my lifetime" but as it stands I have quite a full plate and I'm not sure if/when I will ever be able to make the time to accomplish said task.
And why this of all things did I feel the need to post, when I could have made my post on any number of other subjects? Suppose it was the inspiration I gathered for it while "Heresy" by Nine Inch Nails blared down the road in my van whilst returning home from weekly grocery shopping, and the meditative thought processes it sent me through while driving. Regardless, it is what it is, and a good bit of what makes up my identity.
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Square One
Sometimes its hard to flesh out a beginning of something. Knowing how far back to go is just a portion of the conundrum, and then knowing what to include to get from point A to point B can be just as tricky. I sit here and type this vastly for my own amusement and musings, but on the off chance that others see this too, I would hope that it is presented in at least a half coherent manner that is easy to follow. After all, what could be more nerve wracking than finding yourself in the middle of an adventure when you don't even know what the story is about? Frustrating indeed I'd say.
To begin with, I was not the product of a loving man and wife who's aspirations were to live in marital bliss together for the rest of their lives. Married though they were, they were rather two young individuals desperate to escape the tyrannical rule of their own parentage, my mother seeking a hasty marriage with a high school beau and my father seeking the enlisting of the military. Both accomplished escaping the walls with which they were previously confined miserably in, but it resulted in a marital bond that never had a solid foundation. By the age of five and my brother six, my parents were divorced, and the two of us were swept away into the custody of a father we didn't know outside of the terrible fights he and our mother got into pre-divorce. We feared him. We feared him more than we feared the wrath of God itself, and with good reason. He wasn't a man known for his charm or his compassion. He wasn't known for his gentle demeanor or his patience. My father swept us away with sole custodial rights as a dishonorably discharged military vet with no patience and a very short temper exiting a bitter divorce with children he hardly knew. I don't blame him for his frustrations now, but at such a young age I had no idea what was happening, only that the world I knew with the mother I loved and was so familiar with and attached to had been ripped away from me. With no support behind my father to help guide him in rearing children properly, we were conformed to a lifestyle he was most familiar with. In many ways our broken home was lead with military-like structure. To cross my father was to invoke the wrath of his belt, and he was not a man of control when enraged. The welts, cuts, and bruises endured by the lashing received from the leather my father wore around his waist quickly taught me that the way of survival in my house was absolute and unquestioning obedience. I was very much a daddy's girl, not because I felt a special loving bond with my father, but because I feared him and eagerly sought to keep him pleased with me, minimizing my chances at encounters with his belt.
Suddenly my thoughts are flooded with memories of the terror... memories of the events. Its taken me to a darker place than I realized it might, I thought I had long grown past these memories and where they took me emotionally. I discover now how wrong I was, and am mentally in a far darker place for it. I will have to continue this some other time...
To begin with, I was not the product of a loving man and wife who's aspirations were to live in marital bliss together for the rest of their lives. Married though they were, they were rather two young individuals desperate to escape the tyrannical rule of their own parentage, my mother seeking a hasty marriage with a high school beau and my father seeking the enlisting of the military. Both accomplished escaping the walls with which they were previously confined miserably in, but it resulted in a marital bond that never had a solid foundation. By the age of five and my brother six, my parents were divorced, and the two of us were swept away into the custody of a father we didn't know outside of the terrible fights he and our mother got into pre-divorce. We feared him. We feared him more than we feared the wrath of God itself, and with good reason. He wasn't a man known for his charm or his compassion. He wasn't known for his gentle demeanor or his patience. My father swept us away with sole custodial rights as a dishonorably discharged military vet with no patience and a very short temper exiting a bitter divorce with children he hardly knew. I don't blame him for his frustrations now, but at such a young age I had no idea what was happening, only that the world I knew with the mother I loved and was so familiar with and attached to had been ripped away from me. With no support behind my father to help guide him in rearing children properly, we were conformed to a lifestyle he was most familiar with. In many ways our broken home was lead with military-like structure. To cross my father was to invoke the wrath of his belt, and he was not a man of control when enraged. The welts, cuts, and bruises endured by the lashing received from the leather my father wore around his waist quickly taught me that the way of survival in my house was absolute and unquestioning obedience. I was very much a daddy's girl, not because I felt a special loving bond with my father, but because I feared him and eagerly sought to keep him pleased with me, minimizing my chances at encounters with his belt.
Suddenly my thoughts are flooded with memories of the terror... memories of the events. Its taken me to a darker place than I realized it might, I thought I had long grown past these memories and where they took me emotionally. I discover now how wrong I was, and am mentally in a far darker place for it. I will have to continue this some other time...
Precursor to Madness
Ah yes, why have I started this yet again? Perhaps a portion of me longs to reach out and make a difference in someone's life, however insignificant that difference may be. Perhaps I just need a place with which to put personal thoughts to words for the sake of self expression. Perhaps I'm just looking for a new way to stave off boredom. I haven't quite decided, although to be completely frank I don't much care either. If this goes the way I anticipate, I will end up making a post or so in obscure intervals, find my time too consumed with mundane daily routines to devote any of it to a would-be therapeutic means of self expression, and eventually abandon this endeavor, as I have done in the past with blogging efforts. Mind you, (and by you, I mean me, as there will likely be no other that reads this) I do hope to prove myself wrong, and continue to string words and thoughts together, even if just half coherent ones, so that I have mumblings and at least a faint echo of what life has brought before me as I continue on in this grand play we all take part in.
But where to start?
An introduction of myself is as good a place as any I suppose. Vain as it may sound, (which is actually the farthest from me characteristically speaking) jotting down a bit of who I am now and where I've been may be the best way for me to find bearings and thus direct this vehicle of expression in where to go next. But enough for now. My bearings can wait until morning hours seen by more than just graveyard shifters and night owls with too much time on their hands (like me in this particular moment.) Until then...
But where to start?
An introduction of myself is as good a place as any I suppose. Vain as it may sound, (which is actually the farthest from me characteristically speaking) jotting down a bit of who I am now and where I've been may be the best way for me to find bearings and thus direct this vehicle of expression in where to go next. But enough for now. My bearings can wait until morning hours seen by more than just graveyard shifters and night owls with too much time on their hands (like me in this particular moment.) Until then...
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