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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in hygiene

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Clean of Body, Clean of Spirit

If you were covered with sweat and dirt, would you walk into a ritual?

If you were seething with rage, would you walk into a ritual?

If you had just killed someone—accidentally, say—would you walk into a ritual?

Probably not, I'm guessing, And rightly so.

States of ritual purity—and impurity—were important to the ancestors. Very important. While these are not something that the new paganisms have (for the most part) spent much time thinking about, I'm going to argue that, without being consciously aware of it, we generally observe such purity laws ourselves. If that's really so, then we as pagans can only benefit from becoming more consciously aware of what we're already doing unconsciously.

In some ways, I think that language often gets in the way. “Clean/unclean,” “pure/impure”: this kind of language seems alien to us. We've had it used against us so often—and against women in particular—that we've largely excised it from our thought and our practice.

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  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    That's right, I'd forgotten about the old Hebrew practice. If you were Dinee, your family would hire a hata'ali to sing an Enemy W
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    When we had some Shinto priests visit our church from Tsubaki Grand Shrine the minister showed us a film of some boys standing und
Dental hygiene and the wheel of the year

The equinox is upon us, bringing light and dark again into balance, so it is again time for us to turn our minds to our toothbrushes.

That's right, toothbrushes.

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  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    I like it, Terence! Thanks.
  • Jamie
    Jamie says #
    That's a really great idea! I never knew about that company. Thanks for sharing.
  • Don Kraig
    Don Kraig says #
    Indeed, getting a new brush every 3 months is a great idea. Just as important, IMO, is to use the toothbrush daily. You should als

Posted by on in Studies Blogs
Magickal Litter

 

I have always taken pride in observing that most Pagans tend to leave campgrounds, hotels, and other borrowed or rented spaces in better condition than how they found them. I actually look forward to the routine of walking around my tent or cabin and not only picking up the small debris that I or my friends have dropped but also digging up the bits I see left behind by previous campers. It helps me settle in for the transition homewards. Unfortunately, this custom of cleaning a space that you have used does not seem to extend to the leftovers of magick and workings. Over the years, I've attended so many gatherings, festivals, and conferences that I cannot even begin to guess how many that may be. By comparison, I can count on my two hands the events where there was an active effort on the part of the organizers to clean up the energy of the space where a ritual or a working took place before it was used by a different practitioner or group. I do know a significant number of groups or individuals that do clean up after themselves in shared space, but it is far from the norm, and not the majority from my experience. And by clean up, I mean clearing and the settling of the energy of the space not merely putting the chairs back in their places or picking up the leftovers from a ritual or working.

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  • Deborah Blake
    Deborah Blake says #
    That's a really good point. I've been to a number of reasonably large (and sometimes unreasonably large) events where class after

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