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Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Touching the Earth

Pre-dawn yoga. As we flowed from pose to pose, the teacher’s words emerged from the rhythm of her own movement:  “Since we were in the womb…the universe has never stopped… supporting us. That’s why…we are still…alive.”

I knew in my bones it was true. Looking at the moon, wandering the woods, touching the earth, I find that truth again. When I disappoint myself, I know the trees and the sky do not judge. Good or bad, I am held in the web of life and known by an awareness that goes beyond my own. 

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  • Archer
    Archer says #
    Thanks, Ted. I'm glad you enjoyed it.
  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    This is great, Archer; it really speaks to me! OM Mani Padme Hum.

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Crush

“I don’t have crushes.”

 

I accepted long ago that my friend has achieved a higher level of consciousness than I. But, seriously? No crushes?

 

“But when you were a teenager, surely…”

 

“Nope.”

 

It turned out the reason was not her high-mindedness, but her feeling that crushing on someone was unsafe, reviving an ancient, powerful fear of rejection.

 

That threw me. I crush early and often and am always vaguely ashamed of having done so. I certainly enjoy all the pleasures of a good crush, but I’d never considered that my crushes might reveal a belief in my own potential. Yet if a crush allows us to see the beauty in someone else, perhaps it also helps us see our own. At some level when we dream of someone, we also dream of who we can become in their eyes or at their side. 

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  • James  Tomlinson
    James Tomlinson says #
    Another brilliant piece, Archer!

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

As I came down from the muddy hillside, sweat dripping off my brow, my head reeled over what had just occurred. The Indian heat had certainly affected me, but I was somewhat sure the events of the past two hours were not a hallucination. Trekking up earlier in the morning, I had been greeted by two black-clad young men who beckoned me in Hindi to come. Yes, I had hesitated; but their insistence was smoothed by a sweet kindness and the sentiment offered that it was their Babaji, their “respected father” or guru, who was asking me to make the detour.

The year was 2003, and it was just after Solstice. I followed the men, two devotees of Lord Shiva in his most fierce of forms, to Babaji’s encampment on the top of Nilachal Hill. I was in Assam, and the place was called Kamakhya, abode of the lover’s dance, place where Shiva and Shakti, the eternal Female Force, joined. At this time, Devi, Goddess, bled. Her moon cycle came but once a year, and now the red earth and menstrual blood metaphor mixed in a harmonious shout out to the life Divine. I was enthralled to be there once more, my annual pilgrimages since 1998 necessary soul-felt recharges of all my mind, heart and spirit.

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  • Chandra Alexandre
    Chandra Alexandre says #
    Namaste-ji! Indeed, it was just my hair that I lost. I am glad to know of your joyful connections. So many Babas! My Babaji is Nat
  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    Namaste, Chandraji! Can you clarify for me that it was just your long hair that was cut off? And what relationship does that Babaj

Posted by on in Studies Blogs

When mature theologians study the question without pubescent embarrassment, it is clear that there is a point at which female Goddess worship is inseparable from pornography. Try as we might to separate the sacred from the profane, and to tease out the purely biological facts of procreation from the universal hormonal urge to have a good time, we are continually faced with areas in which they become the same thing. To most spiritual Pagans, the congress of vulva and phallus is sacred - a celebration of the life-rhythms of the universe.

 

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  • Joseph Bloch
    Joseph Bloch says #
    Excellent stuff, Ted. Although now we have a boomerang effect from the sexual revolution of the 60's, where people are trying to e
  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    Good point, Joseph. Thank you.
  • Ted Czukor
    Ted Czukor says #
    Thank you so much, Francesca. I love your Baba Yaga poem.
  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    YW. Am so glad u like the poem, tu!
  • Francesca De Grandis
    Francesca De Grandis says #
    Ted, i love this celebration of sexuality's sacredness that you penned. Mind you, I am no historian, so have no idea if yr history

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

While reading Dianne Sylvan's latest novel this past March, I had a flash of insight that knocked me out of her Shadow World and into the timeless, space-less realm of what Ellen Dugan calls “just knowing.” The scene in the book was of a young Witch drawing down the moon – pulling the Goddess into herself. I told my empty bedroom, “She's not pulling the Goddess into her. She's awakening the spark of divinity within herself!” Cool! I thought. Then I went back into the reading.

When I first came home to the Pagan path eleven years ago, I felt very uncomfortable with the Goddess and God concepts. The Wiccan Lady and Lord felt extremely foreign and abstract to me. I was raised Buddhist, and as a teen had gone through a period of absolutely despising religion altogether, especially the Judeo-Christian religions, whom I held accountable for committing torture, rape, murder, and genocide in the name of their Lord.

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  • Lizann Bassham
    Lizann Bassham says #
    Lovely - thanks for sharing this bit of your journey. We do indeed contain all that is holy within each molecule of our whirling
  • Ashley Rae
    Ashley Rae says #
    Thank you, Lizann!
  • Ashling Kelly
    Ashling Kelly says #
    What a powerful homecoming for you....thanks for sharing such a personal story.
  • Ashley Rae
    Ashley Rae says #
    Thank you, Ashling!

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