Pictures of my girls

I don't think I've put any pictures of my girls on the website yet. Here they are!

My friend Wendy found this one along the side of the road. She was five weeks old and flea ridden. After a trip to the vet, I decided to take her home. I wanted beauty and wealth in my life, so I named her Sita. Sita is the name for the human manifestation of the Hindu Goddess, Laxshmi. Sita is my morning alarm clark. She's personable and straightforward in her desire for attention. I can pick her up and swaddle her and she loves it.

 

As she was growing, she certainly was demanding of all my attention. But by some fate, other friends had come upon another kitten nearly the same age, who had been abandoned by the roadside. I took her. It was fall time when I got her and she reminded me of corn. Eventually she took the name Mazey. Mazey is a Calico. She is affectionate in her own way. She does not like to be held in a confining way at all, but she loves to jump on my lap and be petted.  

Movie recommendation

I went to watch the movie, Pan's Labrynth, yesterday. It was truly a modern fairy tale. Set in Spain during Franco, the movie is about a young girl who moves with her mother to her new father's assignment. The Captain is in Franco's army and the rural setting allows the army to be close to the revolutionairies who are roaming through the Spanish countryside. The violence of fascism is very real in this movie.

The young girl stumbles upon a labrynth, follows the fairies to the center, and enters a magical world. The magical world seems far away, but yet, oh so close to the world of torture and terror surrounding her. She receives the "Book of the Crossroads" from Pan and as she reads it, is required to complete three tests. She accomplishes all of them to become....

Well, I'll save the ending for you.  

Imbolc Ritual: The Work of Dragon's Cauldron

I'm part of a local Reclaiming group here in North Carolina called Dragon's Cauldron. Imbolc occurs on February 2 and this year we are weaving some magic that moves throughout nearly half the year. Dragon's Cauldron, while not a formal coven, is a closed group and continues over the years to define its purpose in some way. This year we have made a decision to let magic help us define that purpose. We started the work at Solstice by building an egg of paper mache. Our intention was to let the mystery of the new Light begin to unfold for ourselves and our Dragon's Cauldron community. The Dragon's Egg represented the new light of the passing Winter Solstice, the newborn Dragon's Cauldron, the new spark of our inspiration.

At our Imbolc ritual we will fill the egg with our Dragon's Cauldron intentions for the group. However, they are still a mystery, so we will invite Brigid to support us and speak to us of what our intentions will be. We will trance while scrying into the cauldron. The Green Dragon is also invited to aid us in the working. In silence, as we are directed, we will write words, draw symbols, colors, etc., that represent our visions, to be placed in the egg. The outside decoration of the Egg will be performed later (probably Ostara).

We have decided that in order for this to be inclusive of all those who are part of the community to weave in those members of Dragon's  Cauldron who are not able to be physically present for this important piece of the magic. They are asked to  give to an attending member ahead of time a small, important token or talisman of personal magical value, to be inserted into the egg. This represents your personal energy. Those of us at the ritual will put all of these significant objects in, including our own significan piece of magic.

In other words, EVERYONE (attending or not) needs to bring a small (1 sq. inch or less) energetic item that has powerful meaning for themselves, to be placed inside the egg, to represent their own unique energy. These items *will* be returned at the end of the magical working at Beltane. In this way, we are working with the dedication energy of Imbolc for Dragon's Cauldron, with the blessings of Brigid.

And whenever two or more of us are gathered, whether for Dinner and a Movie, shopping, hanging out or whatever -- we will acknowledge the magical space that we are holding, and know that this is a part of the weaving and nurturing of the sacred Egg.

How's that for some magic??? 

Social Construction: See how it all connects??

So this week I started back to school for the Spring semester. I'm only taking one class this spring, but over the course of the year, I'm going to be working on a project with a professor from Communications at NCSU that focuses on how nonprofit Boards communicate with each other. I met with her this week. As we were meeting, I began to go back to some of the theoritical work that I've been reading and it has prompted me to talk about a very important concept; social construction.

Social construction is the notion that reality is not objective and given, but is socially constructed. You here it talked about in the context of gender, male, female, sexuality, money, power, creativity, management and leadership. These things are defined by ongoing actions, negotiations and agreements throughout our culture. Granted sometimes, no-most of the time, these agreements are not at all explicit and, in fact, they are inherent assumptions built around our culture. 

Research can be done from a perspective of social construction and you find four themes weaving throughout this type of research.

1. Social construction rejects the notion of dualistic ontology. Simply put this assumption means that there is a clear and distinct division between the subject of research and the object of research. For example, if you look at what makes a successful Executive Director of a nonprofit organization, you would look at the individual Executive Director for defining characteristics of success and then you would look at the organization separately to see what characteristics impact the individual.
   
2. Social construction rejects that assumption of objectivist epistemology (aren't these fabulously big words). The assumption is that there is an objective reality that we can see, feel, hear and touch and that it is a foundation for all of our knowledge.
   
3. Social construction rejects individualistic epistemology. In other words the individual holds all of the knowledge about reality.
   
4. Social construction rejects the notion that the language we have mirrors our objective reality.

So, for those of you who know me, it's clear, I'm a social constructionist. As a witch and buddhist, the things I believe and experience are not the reality that many theorists and researchers believe exists. The concept of divine immanence, where all things are related and connected, and come from that deep well of power-within, is consistent with social constructions rejection of subject and object. How many of us truely believe that there is an objective reality that we can see, feel, hear and touch, and have language for it? I've been on so many trance journeys that I know there is a reality beyond this physical world. Developing my physical and psychic senses attune me to differing realities, but that will be an ongoing, life-long process of development as far as I'm concerned. I've also experienced many things I simply have no language for and those experiences are very real.

I'm going to stop for now as it's difficult to think about these things in big chunks, but over time, there will certainly be more.  

A third Grackle experience

When things happen a third time, I take notice. In December my friend John and I went on a floating trip up the Eno/Little River. About an hour into the trip we heard, what at first I thought was traffic, but as we got closer it was clear that it was birds. We floated up into the largest flock of Grackles I've ever seen. At first they were off the shore line in the woods and every once in a while they would stop their chatter and you'd hear this "whirring" sound. They were taking flight. We kept paddling up the river and before long we were right amongst them. We had to be a bit careful of a little bird shit, but we escaped unharmed. There were several hundred of these birds and they were in trees on both sides of the river. We were able to float right between them and the chatter was amazing. The sheer number of birds was more than I've ever seen. At some point, shortly thereafter, we turned to head back down the river and they escorted us down the river a good ways before they moved away into a thick part of the woods.

 

Three weeks ago, right before the holidays, it happened again. There were hundreds of them that were right outside the window at work. They were covering an oak tree that is one of the oldest oaks I've seen and carpeting the ground. Co-workers were as amazed as I.

Yesterday, it happened again. I had gone into work to do something to catch up for the week to come. As I left about 2 pm, there they all were in the trees across the street.

What is the message from the birds? They are often considered pests and their song is harsh. However, they live in these large colonies and tend to be gregarious. I keep thinking about an excercise we do in the Reclaiming Elements class called "flocking." It is largely done to demonstrate how we can support each other as we move into a given direction. It's a model for leadership based on the "V-formation" Canadian Geese use when they are travelilng. Yet this "flocking" is different. It is about living as a community. It is about migrating together and traveling together. I wonder.