PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.
A “Theological” Short
In Bollywood, films about the gods are known as “theologicals.”
The Gods are rehearsing a play.
As the Old Gods act onstage, the Younger Gods stand backstage as chorus. One of the Younger Gods, though, keeps dashing onstage and interfering with the action.
Finally the Great Mother, who is directing the show, can't stand it anymore.
“Knock it off, Yahweh,” she remonstrates. Her mouth twists wryly. “Younger Gods should be heard, but not seen.”
The Old Gods laugh.
At the Astragalomancy Workshop
(Blows horn.)
Sure beats “May I have your attention, please?”, doesn't it?
(Laughter.)
So, welcome to Paganistan. My name is Steven Posch, and this is the workshop on astragalomancy. Long ago, in the dawn of days, the Horned, God of Witches, gave us the bones, and taught us how to read them.
This is a sacred knowledge, and so we'll begin our sacred work today in a sacred way. But first, some demographics.
How many witches here today?
(Voice from crowd:)
By whose definition?
(Laughter.)
Well, by yours, of course!
(Show of hands.)
Well, to all of you, whatever your pagan tribe: welcome, and a thousand times welcome.
So, members of the tribe and guests of the tribe both, let us together take up our sacred work today. Could I have a volunteer? (Show of hands.) Yes, you, thanks.
Robert Cochrane, the Father of the modern Old Craft movement, once said: “There is no true religion without fire.” (Gestures toward lighted candle.) This Fire has burned continuously for nearly 40 years at the Temple of the Moon here in Minneapolis.
You Sing to Your Familiar, Don't You?
Look, look: up in the air!
It's a bunny!
It's a cat!
No...it's Bunnycat!
what a freakish and funny cat.
Everybody's knows that she
is a minor deity. Look out!
Here comes a kitty that's funny;
her butt looks just like a bunny's.
We call her Bunnycat!
I know she looks a bit bizarre,
but with Bunnycat (Bunnycat!),
that's just the way things are....
was filled with pain...
The little Manx kitty, asleep on the hay....
my Bunny lies over the sea,
my Bunny lies over the ocean:
please bring back my Bunny to me....
Oh what a freakish and funny cat!
Bunnycat Superstar:
are you as bad as they say you are?
wasn't always a stumpy cat
till that fateful day when she
backed into a guillotine.
Look out! (Rrrrraow!)
Now she's a kitty that's funny,
her butt looks just like a bunny's:
we call her Bunnybutt!
She's the stumpy-tailed Cat of Heaven,
so well-behaved, so well-behaved,
full of stumpiness like the new Moon,
full of stumpiness like the new Moon....
My kitty is a Manx kitty,
one with a stumpy tail.
My kitty is a Manx kitty,
one with a stumpy tail.
She is the cutest kitty of all:
it's not her fault
she comes from St. Paul.
(How heinous!)
Oh, and another thing: never ask an oracle—and especially not the Bones—readily falsifiable questions. That's not what they're for, and it shows deep disrespect.
Say you ask...
(Puts hand behind back)
“How many fingers am I holding up behind my back?”
(Brings hand from behind back, showing three fingers raised)
...and then you throw the Bones to see whether or not they get it right.
Assuming they even deign to answer—and they may just tell you, in effect, to go f*ck yourself—you'll get “One,” you'll get “Two,” you'll get “Four,” you'll get “Five.”
Will you ever get “Three”? No, you won't. Not ever.
Remember, this is the oracle of the Horned, god of witches, and—you'll pardon my Anglo-Saxon—he's a bigger f*cker than anybody.
So a rede to the Wise: don't f*ck with the Bones, and they won't f*ck with you, OK?
A Lost Poem from Book XII of the Greek Anthology
So fiery is his seed, they say,
that, in his potency, he kindles
men and women both,
and they bring forth. Well,
so they say. Man to man,
I'd gladly put it to the test.
The red eggs are cooling on the table.
My father picks one up, an unreadable expression on his face.
"What did you use to get this color?" he asks. “My grandmother used to make eggs that looked like this."
I'm back East for Spring Break. Easter is coming.
“Do you want to dye up some eggs?” my mother asks.
Of course I do. If you need eggs dyed, pumpkins carved, or trees trimmed, call Steve. That's my niche in the family ecology.
“Sure. I'll show you how we do it in Minneapolis,” I say, obnoxiously.
We gather up all the old skins from the onion bin and throw them into the pot, along with the boiling eggs.
1980. That was the year of the first All-Pagan, All-Natural Spring Equinox Egg-Dye.
I'd been reading up on dyeing eggs using natural dye-stocks. That year we used onionskins and tumeric. (This year will be the 45th Annual Egg-Dye. Our repertoire has expanded considerably since then.) Tumeric produces a bright, sunny yellow; onionskins a rich Minoan red.
It was the latter that gave my father that tender moment of deep memory.
Somehow, this scenario seems to me the perfect metaphor for the whole New Pagan project: the recovery of lost, ancestral wisdom.
In Which Our Intrepid Blogger Meets Up with a Rattlesnake in the Woods, and What Happened Then
Actually, I never even saw the rattlesnake.
Hearing it was enough.
Let me admit just it up front: snakes scare me.
(I can't help but feel that, as a pagan, this constitutes something of a moral failing on my part, but there we are.)
That's why my first encounter with a rattlesnake in the wild surprised me so much.
“You be careful in those woods,” said my Aunt Bernie, “this is Snake Country.”
Well, I'd known the woods for years and felt perfectly at home in them. So, bushwhacking down the old overgrown logging trail, I wasn't being particularly careful that day, or even paying much attention.
When I heard the rattle, my first instinct was to laugh: it sounded exactly like a baby's rattle. Exactly.
I stop and stand still. I look and see nothing.
A sense of utter calm descends.
You know the old story.
The holy man is sitting by the river one day when he sees a snake borne along on the current. He grabs a stick and fishes the snake out of the water. It's stiff with cold, practically dead.
The holy man opens his shirt and puts the snake in his bosom. Slowly, the warmth of his body revives the snake.
Then it bites him.
“What the f*ck?” says the holy man. “Here I am, a holy man, filled with love and compassion for all living beings. I save your life, and your response is to bite me? What the f*ck?”
The snake looks at the holy man.
“Dude,” he says, “I'm a snake.”
The logic was inescapable.
