Putting It Out There

The following is a post that I had written for another blog:

When CJ came to me a while ago and asked me to write a guest post about my religion for her blog, my initial reaction was that it was quite an honor. My next reaction was, "Oh no, what should I write????" I am Pagan and have been for almost 11 years. My religion has a bad reputation and is widely misunderstood, so having the opportunity to explain things is both exciting and daunting.

I'll start off by clearing up a few common misconceptions. Pagans do not worship Satan. Pagans do not eat babies. Pagans do not sacrifice people or animals. Pagans are not interested in converting you, your children, or anyone else to our religion. If you've seen the movie, "The Craft," then you've seen a perfect example of what we are not.

Talking about what Paganism is, well, that's a lot more challenging. Paganism is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of belief systems. At the core of all of them is the concept that God/Goddess/Deity/Universal Spirit (or whatever you want to call him/her/it/them) is imminent. Divinity is present in the earth and in all living and natural things. That means that god is within me, within you, within my cat, within the trees, within the soil, within butterflies, within spiders, within the food we eat, even within the mountains and stones. God is not to be found, however, in man-made creations such as plastic, vinyl, or polyester, etc. Because of this belief, you'll find that most Pagans have a very strong sense of environmentalism, social justice, and a reverence for life and nature.

From there, it branches into multitudes of sub-religions. Paganism is an non-illuminated religion; there are no holy texts or prophets. It's about your personal experience with the divine, so there are almost as many variations as there are Pagans. It's common to find Pagans who are polytheistic - ranging from as few as 2 deities to as many as thousands. Some believe in only one god or universal spirit, and some believe that all gods are facets of one overarching power. Most of us believe in reincarnation, and few, if any, of us believe in eternal damnation. Some believe that they are practicing truly ancient traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation, dating back to pre-Christian times. Others have done their best to reconstruct what they think was practiced in ancient times based on archaeological evidence and texts. Still others, myself included, think that we are worshipping ancient gods in a completely new way that is pertinent to modern life. Some of the more common Pagan traditions are Wicca, Druidism (or neo-Druidism), Asatru, Witchcraft, Shamanism, and Order of the Golden Dawn.

One of the most controversial practices common in Paganism is the use of magic. The word conjures images of wart-faced hags chanting evil things over a massive cauldron filled with vile substances like eye of newt and tongue of bat. The reality is much less dramatic, and much less scary. At its core, magic is putting your will into the universe in order to affect change. Many Pagans ask for their spells to be blessed by a deity or deities. In fact, prayer is one very potent form of magic. Making a wish and blowing out the candles on a birthday cake is another somewhat less potent form of magic. At its core, magic is not evil or good. It is a tool, and just as a chainsaw can be used constructively, it can also be used for nefarious purposes. Fortunately, Pagans have very strict ethical codes regarding magic. The most common rule boils down to: do what you want, as long as it doesn't harm anyone. This means that curses and hexes (spells intended to hurt someone), and even most love spells are forbidden. The most common spells are those of healing, good luck, and in today's economy, help finding a job. The second most common rule is that you may never cast a spell on someone or for someone without their knowledge and consent. Another is the "rule of three," which states that whatever you do comes back to you three times. It's basically karma - if you do something good, good things will happen to you, but if you do something bad, bad things happen to you. It's a very strong motivator to only cast benevolent spells!

Obviously, this post only touches on the smallest fraction of what Paganism is. www.witchvox.com is a great online resource for additional information if you're interested.

I Belong in a Field

I started reading Neil Gaiman's blog this morning. He's one of my favorite authors of all time, and his blog is wonderful to read. I was tickled pink when I read the post he wrote on my birthday. Halfway down the post he answers a letter from someone asking him about his garden. Part of his reply was, "...American Supermarket vegetables and fruit don't tend to taste like very much. They're grown for looks and for hardiness in transportation, I tend to think, not for taste." He also buys local. I think it's safe to say that a lot more people read his blog than mine, and it makes me happy that he put in a little plug for eating locally grown food.

On a related topic, lately I've been feeling more and more like I need to get out of the city and into the country. I have begun my small balcony garden, but I long to have my own land to sink my fingers into. Not only that, but I want to be able to look at the sky at night and see multitudes of stars. Last night, I went up to Anacortes for my friends' engagement party. Anacortes isn't my favorite town, but it's right near La Conner and Mount Vernon, two absolutely charming towns in Skagit Valley. There are probably many more adorable towns there as well. Skagit Valley is a fertile valley on the Skagit River in Western Washington. Multitudes of tulips and daffodils are grown there, and they have an annual tulip festival. I feel at home there, and it doesn't seem unreasonable that I could live in La Conner and have a practice in Mount Vernon. Of course, it doesn't have to be there. I need to explore more. I need to find the place that feels most like home. Home isn't, and has never been, Seattle. Don't get me wrong, Seattle is a great city, and I have come to love it. But it is a city. A single family home in a good neighborhood costs more than I could ever hope to make in a lifetime, and a home with land... well, that would require that I win the lottery or find a very rich sugar daddy to marry. I've never been a fan of suburbs, with the exception of places like in New England where the suburb is a town in its own right and not just a series of strip malls and tract housing.

I'm not entirely sure what happened to make me want to leave the city life for the small town life. A year or two ago, I would happily and loudly tell anyone who asked that I planned on living in cities for the rest of my life. I even said that Seattle is too small. Now... well, now I just want a quiet, simple life. I'd like to live close enough to the city for the occasional day trip, but the urban life isn't for me. A Strokes song sums up my feelings quite well: "I'm stuck in a city, but I belong in a field."

I'm not planning on moving anywhere for a while, and I probably won't even switch apartments until I'm done with school. But nature and small town living are calling my name. It's only a matter of time.

Generic Vs. Name Brand

I'm not a fan of popping pills. If I'm taking an analgesic it's because I hurt like hell and can't take the pain any longer. Yesterday, my back hurt so badly that I had to take something, or I felt like my spine was going to burst out my skin (bulging disks are so much fun. Really). Unfortunately, I couldn't find my trusty tylenol anywhere. I did find my roommate's generic Aleve, and since he had offered one to me previously, I didn't feel terribly guilty about taking one. I've taken Aleve before, and while I don't love it (it usually wreaks havoc on my stomach), I decided that any reduction of pain would be worth it.

I wasn't expecting that about half an hour after taking the medicine that I would become exceedingly drowsy (it was about 8:45PM - not exactly bed time). I got up to go to bed and staggered around like I had been drinking, unable to walk in a straight line. I also began talking to myself. Mostly I was just narrating what was happening. "I'm walking down the hall. I'm talking to myself. There's my cat, " etc. When I climbed into bed, I started singing nonsense. I remember singing tunelessly, "I am a monkey. I'm wearing a purple hat." My cat jumped into bed with me, and I thought that I had figured out the key to getting my cat to do what I wanted! I just had to sing that little ditty, and she was mine to command. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work. Then my left arm started to feel like it was moving through wet clay. I couldn't get it to do what I wanted it to do, but my right arm worked just fine. Eventually I drifted into a strange state of semi-consciousness. I was fully aware when my roommate came home, but I wasn't able to say hi. I finally fell asleep and woke up with a bit of a headache.

I've had this sort of reaction to medicine twice before - both were generic versions of OTC medicine that I have taken without any problems at all (and both were designed to treat very different ailments). Although I have taken plenty of generic pills without incident, it's clear that there is an inactive ingredient that is used in some generic pills that makes me lose my mind. The last time this happened was several years ago, so I don't have a list of ingredients to compare. I'll admit, though, I'm pretty wary of generic pills at the moment. That doesn't mean I'm going to stop buying ones I haven't had any problems with, but I'll certainly be exercising caution and probably spending a little more for peace of mind that if I take the medicine, I won't go insane.

Vegan Pesto

Tonight, my roommate and I made vegan pesto for dinner. I was a little skeptical. After all, parmesan cheese is one of the key ingredients in pesto. In fact, I hadn't been able to eat pesto in ages because I'm avoiding dairy.

I shouldn't have doubted. The recipe was simple, quick, and amazingly delicious. We roasted about 2 bulbs of garlic with olive oil and salt, and used that instead of the raw garlic. Due to an... incident (my roommate decided that toasted pine nuts would be delicious, and they would have been... if we hadn't left them in the toaster oven until they were charred. Oops), we only had about half the pine nuts called for, so we made up the difference with almonds. The combination was surprisingly delicious. The only thing I would do differently next time is to add a small amount of lemon juice. We ate the sauce on whole wheat spaghetti, and it was an awesome meal.

Happy Ostara

Two posts in one day? What is the world coming to??? I guess that's what happens when I am free from the burden of finals.

Today is Ostara, the spring equinox, the first day of spring. A lot of Easter traditions come from this Pagan holiday - specifically the eggs and the bunny, two potent fertility symbols. According to lore, Ostara is the day the Goddess and God get it on and conceive... the God (he gets reborn in nine months on the winter solstice). This is the perfect time for new endeavors, and of course, it's a great time for sex if you have someone special.

My original plan for the day was to go to the garden store, buy loads of gardening supplies and begin my experimental vegetable garden on my extremely small balcony that only gets partial sun. After all, today is all about growth and seeds becoming something new. Alas, my back decided it wanted none of that and has been killing me all day. I guess my little garden will have to wait until I am able to bend over again. I have been online for a good deal of the day perusing gardening websites and blogs, getting ideas and trying to figure out how best to use the very limited space I have. I wish my cat didn't like to eat plants so much, or I would try an indoor garden as well.

Tomorrow, I will be having dinner with my parents, and my mom is going to give me a bunch of pots that she and my dad aren't using. Hooray for free pots! Figuring out how not to spend more money than I have on this garden is just as much work as gardening will be.

Food Rules - Review

Yesterday, I picked up a copy of Food Rules by Michael Pollan. The book is exactly what its title implies - 64 rules about food to get you to eat better. It is a very quick read, and he summarizes all the rules as, "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." He covers pretty much everything I've covered in my blog - eat whole foods rather than processed foods, eat animals that have eaten well, eat organic, and when possible, eat local, plus some other great suggestions.

The book is very accessible, and it's correct. If you follow the rules, you will have a much healthier diet than the average American, you will probably lose weight, and you will be less likely to succumb to all of the horrible diseases that are caused by the American diet (this statement was not approved by the FDA).

This morning, my roommate, who isn't nearly as excited about food and diet as I am, picked the book up off the coffee table and started reading it. He even told me, excitedly, that he had started following the rule, "Drink your food, chew your drink," which can be summarized as: eat and drink very slowly. At lunch today, I also followed that rule (while blatantly breaking a few of the other rules, but you have to start somewhere, right?), and I found that I ate about 2/3 of what I would normally eat.

The book lacks sources and data to back up its claims, though the author comes right out and says that he's not going to include them, but the data is out there if you look. On the plus side, the lack of scholarly language makes it much easier to read, so the average Joe can pick it up and start eating better immediately. On the negative side, the book is left wide open to criticism and ridicule from the corporations who don't want you to follow the rules in the book.

Overall, I give the book 4 out of 5 stars. It's definitely worth spending $11 and taking an hour of your time to read it.

Like I Needed Another Reason

Ew. Just... ew. There is something fundamentally wrong about food that doesn't go bad. Yet another reason not to eat McDonald's ever again.

The Coffee Party

I didn't start this blog to discuss politics - largely because it's a subject that invariably leads to me getting depressed, dejected, or angry, and I want my blog to have a positive message. Amazingly, I think that there just might be a way to stay positive and bring up politics.

I learned about the Coffee Party today. It's a grassroots organization created as a sort of response to the Tea Party. The idea is not to be radical leftists, but rather to be truly non-partisan (if that's even possible) and to bridge the gap between the left and right and to find common ground. The following quote from the group's founder, Annabel Park, in an article in the Washington Postsums it up nicely:

"We want to shift the paradigm from thinking of politics as a zero-sum game with two opposing sides. If one side loses, the other side wins. This is not a democracy. This is a misunderstanding of the tenets of democracy. Democracy is based on the notion of the common good. People should come together to go through a deliberation process to produce collective decisions that benefit the common good. As citizens, we need to find ways to, first, create a stronger sense of community and common good among Americans. And this is precisely why we believe that the rhetorical frameworks currently dominating our political process is not good for the country."

I hope I'm not jumping the gun, but based on what I've seen so far, it seems like the Coffee Party may be the first political organization that I can really get behind. I know I'm not alone in my frustration with the system. It seriously bothers me that our elected officials have a very strong tendency to disagree with the other party just for spite. I'm also not happy about how corporations are able to buy votes. The Coffee Party is trying to change that. I'm not sure how they plan to achieve this, and I don't know if I'm confident that they will be able to, but as long as the movement stays true to its current ideals, then I'm in.

I went to a meeting this afternoon. It wasn't publicized very well, and there were about a dozen people. We had an interesting discussion about what brought us there and what we think we can do to get the message out. The exciting thing was that the people there truly did represent both the right, the left, the middle, and the disenchanted with politics but hopeful that this movement might bring about positive change. It's not a bunch of radical liberals, but rather people genuinely interested in fixing the problems with our current political system.

Next Saturday is "National Coffee Party Day," and there will be meetings all across the country for interested people to get together and to share ideas. These meetings should be well attended, and I'm looking forward to seeing what comes of it. If you're interested in finding a meeting in your area, go here.