I was linked to this video on an Interfaith community in Livejournal. You NEED to see this documentary. It's long, I know. But you will be rivetted. Make the time one evening, sit down, and watch it.

Everything you always wanted to know about the separation of church and state (but were afraid to ask)

I don't care if you're 80 or 14, you need to see it. I'm not an American, and I am still so glad I saw it. (And ever more glad that I live in a secular country. New Zealand is nowhere near as religious-right as America.) Even if you know separation of church and state inside out, you will enjoy this.

You will see and hear from some of the most intelligent, open-minded, and fantastic Christians there are. These people are the sort that set the most amazing example for Christianity. These people need to be shared with the world.

You will learn about what some of the organizations supporting separation feel are essential parts of the constitution, and their main points that they want to ensure are upheld.

There are comments from actors that I am genuinely happy to see. Michael J. Fox is there, and he always makes me feel a bit teary. But there are others as well. Now, I certainly don't think you should do something because an actor does. But the fact that they took the time to do it is something valuable.

Patrick Stewart gets a fair mention. When I started watching the video I honestly thought that they were going to go with the main faiths and kinda gloss over Pagan faiths in order to keep the fundies happy so that they could get their point across with the minimum of fuss. They did not. I was genuinely surprised to see them put a focus on Patrick Stewart, and much pleased. They did not come out guns blazing. They treated it with the calm respect as they did the rest of the program. Roberta did very well, and it occurred to me while watching it exactly how much she did for the Pagan community. We have a tendency to take such people for granted sometimes, I think. Big ups, Roberta. You did it with class. Thanks.

Something that I found moving was actually a speech by a preacher. I'm not going to spoil it for you. It's a ways in, but you will enjoy it. He spoke about abortion and pro-choice, and the "sermon" was actually quite beautiful. Really it was. Jesus didn't even get a mention. It kinda touched on Women's Mysteries from a Christian perspective and I think it was fantastic. Go and show it to all your female Christian friends. Some of them may disagree with what he says, but personally I think it's wonderful.

I really do think that they should show this in schools. It highlights important issues that affect kids in school - in fact, the first guest they have is a guy whose history teacher was preaching in class. The guy (whose name I forget) said to himself "this isn't okay", and he stood up and tried to do something about it. He didn't even sue, because he said it wasn't about the money, and certainly it wasn't. Anyway, it's relevant.

It talks about evolution, explains how it's not "just a theory" and how one can be religious and still support sound science, which I think is important to stress, because a great many people seem unaware of this fact.

Plus, there are too many people out there, many of them young, who dislike all Christians based on the fact that they seem to be bible-bashing religious nuts with only one braincell between them. The fact that the two men who run these organisations supporting separation of church and state are not only Christians, but reverends. should help to dislodge this conception of Christians as hateful idiots. To Christian-haters, these men are blatant evidence that Christians can be, and often are, insightful, intelligent, open-minded and genuine people. To young Christians, some of whom may be somewhat angry themselves, who may in fact represent the more bigoted or ignorant form of Christian, one can say "these men went to religious school. They studied, they had faith, they are reverends. They are good Christians, but importantly, they are good people. They stand up not only for their own faith, but for the faiths of others - and for the rights of those who choose to have no faith."

Seriously, watch the video. It's good.

How many blogs does one need? I hear you ask.

Yeah, I know. I have a problem. I wonder if there are support groups...

I have my normal-everyday Livejournal, upon which I post my life events.

I have my Aspirancy Livejournal, for the Order of the Verdant Path and related Pagan matters.

I have my Covenspace blog, for thoughts, comments, community interaction, Witches' Weeklies, rants, musings, and so on and so forth.

There's also interaction blogs on Blogger for the OVP: the main community blog, wherein all members are added as authors so we can communicate; and my aspirancy blog, wherein my mentor Bjorn and I can talk together privately about mentorly matters.

But blogger's pretty neat, you know. And being of a Writerly frame of mind (and out of work, and considering how one actually breaks into freelancing when one has no experience) I decided to start up a blog that's actually serious. Well, mostly serious - I am still a Lokean, after all. I might transplant a musing or two from here, in fact. I'll dress them up a little - perhaps rewrite them entirely. But there we are.

I may or may not comment on Current Events from the polytheistic perspective. I may or may not comment on different Pagan concepts from a polytheistic perspective. To be honest, buggered if I know exactly what will end up there. There might even end up being little short stories or poems.

All I know is that it is going to be a serious writing exercise, rather than a blog in the sense that "this is what happened to me, yay!" or "I really need to do this, this and that" or "I wonder whether...."

Here it is, for all it counts for anything. Nothing on it yet, but give me time. And hey, if you have a similar blog, do link me to it. I am interested.

Warning: the following will be a totally unfair rant that over-generalises. You may be offended, so read at your own risk. I accept no responsibility for hurt feelings or offended sensibilities.

Please know that I am aware most representatives of the groups mentioned are wonderful, thoughtful people. The following rant contains references to small numbers of people within these groups that I have unfortunately been over-exposed to of late. I just really need to vent.

The Things that Fuck Me Off Lately

1) People who use the words "witchcraft" and "Wicca" as synonymous. I know this is a minority of people, but browsing Amazon.com, all I come across is books on Wicca. So, SO few are about witchcraft. All I'm reading is how witchcraft is a religion, which is utter BS. A book about witchcraft will go on and on about ethical guidelines that are Wicca-specific, it will talk about Sabbats and so on.... many witches aren't even Pagan! I know a book on all witchcraft would be exceedingly difficult but even if you're talking about witchcraft in a Pagan framework, can you make it about witchcraft, please?! Wicca is NOT witchcraft. Wicca and Neo-Wicca are religions that CONTAIN the practice of witchcraft. As a witch who is not a Wiccan, I'm getting more and more fucked off by people who think I follow the Rede or something. Generalisations about witchcraft are as idiotic as generalisations about Paganism. You can never say "all Pagans..." because there will always be someone who totally disagrees. Likewise you can't expect any two witches to necessarily follow similar guidelines.

2) People who confuse Wicca with Neo-Wicca. Both are beautiful and wonderful paths, but they're not the same thing. There are secrets and Mysteries within Wicca that are essential to the practice. If you aren't initiated into a lineaged coven, you won't know them. If these are essential to the practice of Wicca, can one call themselves Wiccan? I do not know them, and so I refuse to say that those who believe that they practice Wicca, and are not initiated into a Garnerian, Alexandrian or Blue Star coven, do not practice a form of Wicca. I do not feel that I can do that. Therefore I compromise. I will refer to "Wicca" as a whole. However, I will often distinguish between Wicca and Neo-Wicca, being that which is based upon Wicca (or Trad Wicca, if you like) but is not privy to those secrets. I don't want to be anal and pedantic about it, of course. I just think that it's important to note the distinction. There are enough misunderstandings as it is.

3) People who think Neo-Wicca is "anything you want it to be". Obviously this applies even more so to Wicca proper. But Neo-Wicca is a distinct religion. It has particular deities. It is duotheistic (sometimes it is soft-polytheistic or even polytheistic). Rituals are conducted a certain way (Cunningham provides a good general outline). The eight Sabbats are celebrated, and sometimes the phases of the moon. Magick is used in ritual to cast a circle etc. There is a belief in the return of your deeds to you, good or bad, in the Western interpretation of karma. (The threefold idea is optional.) There is a belief in reincarnation. There is the ethical guideline of "an it harm none, do what thou wilt" which differs depending on one's personal interpretation. (Note: this one rule is something that definitely demonstrates the difference between Neo-Wicca and Wicca, which has over one hundred rules.)

The Christian god is NOT the one worshipped. If you want to reinterpret Christianity by overlaying it with a vague Wiccan framework, fine, but it is not Neo-Wicca, it's not a form of Neo-Wicca, and it is certainly not Wicca. If anything it would be Christo-Paganism. Which is FINE, I'm not bagging on your religious choice here. It's what you call it that matters.

And people will say "don't get so hung up on labels!" Well, okay. If the labels are so unimportant, then stop calling it Wicca. Labels are not important, true. So if your chosen path does not meet a definition, don't use that label. Wicca means something. If we keep diluting the definition, it will mean nothing. Look at me. I don't have a name for my chosen path. All I go by is "Pagan". And this does hurt me sometimes, because "Pagan" is so broad that I occasionally feel a little... undefined. It would be nice to have a name. But I do not and that is okay.

4) People who utterly divorce things from their origins... like people who worship Egyptian deities as separately from the Greek influence as they can, and yet still call Aset "Isis". I know she probably doesn't have a problem with it, I mean, names are simply another form of a kenning. Many of us as Pagans have more than one name. But even so, I just can't fathom it.

I came across that horrible book on runes by Ralph Blum the other day on Amazon, and some of the people who had rated it 5 were absolutely confused by those people who hated the book. To separate it from its gods and its culture seems utterly awful to me. Odin sacrificed himself to himself for those runes. He hung on the bloody tree for nine bloody nights! To overlay and reinterpret the runes from an eastern and Christianised perspective is offensive to me.

New agers (she generalises) are very guilty of this. They have misinterpreted karma, they have abused the runes by ignoring their source (one Asatru called it cultural theft, I'm not sure I'd go that far but still). There are soft polytheists (again, refering to a minority) that will take deities and discard large aspects of their personality, use them like an ingredient in their spell or ritual, use them interchangably. There are people who think Hekate is a crone, people who match two gods from different pantheons based on their specialities and then act as if they were the same deity. Which is fine if you really do believe that these deities are just ideas. But even if they are just ideas, they are specific ideas. Hera is not Frigga. Not by any stretch. A little respect for the cultures and those who do - and did, centuries ago - worship these deities would not go amiss. What I don't get is that, if you believe all goddesses are one Goddess, why don't they just worship the one Goddess? Why complicate things with "aspects"? If it's your thing, then okay, but please respect the origins and cultures.

While my view of New Agers in general isn't exactly favourable (Doreen Virtue, anybody? she disgusts me), one really does expect more of Neo-Wiccans, who incorporate these things into their faith. It does upset me that some people choose not to make the effort, even with the gods they worship. I know long and involved study is not for everyone. If this is the case, perhaps a mystery religion is not for you. My standards are probably a bit high, but I hold myself to these standards and am not one to lower them for others. *sigh*

Alright, rant over. I'm feeling much better now that's all off my chest. I did not mean to offend anyone with this, so if you were offended, well, I'm not going to apologise, but there we are.

Funny thing. The vast majority of my friends list seems to have migrated elsewhere. Many haven't updated for over six months. Probably they forgot about Covenspace, which is fine, I do as well.

Still, it makes one wonder whether one should stay here. I could copy all my decent blogs onto another online journal. I've been half-considering starting a Blogger account. This place is nice, but so many people no longer use it.

At any rate, I've changed my homepage a little. It was time for a change.

And I may have mentioned in my last post, about the OVP, I have a journal dedicated to my aspirancy (and beyond). Yes, I am a freak who collects blogs. (Hush. I have a normal-life blog, this blog, and my aspirancy blog. That's all!)

The aspirancy blog is here if you'd like to read it. (And if by some chance R.E. or Bjorn are reading this, you're forbidden to follow that link ;) Don't worry, I've said only lovely things about you, but I do like having the space as mentor-free, at least for now.)

My search for structured learning has continued.

So, my time with Ar nDraiocht Fein didn't really work out. There was far too much in their program that I couldn't do, for various reasons, and too many things theologically that I didn't agree with. It serves me right for not properly looking at the program before I signed up. Oh well, a lesson learned.

So, obviously after that I was a bit disillusioned with programs for seekers. But I was still at that point of things, I really want to learn more and am having difficulty doing so. I need that structure at this point on my path.

I came across a new Pagan order called the Order of the Verdant Path. It's free, which was a selling point. But it's also the sort of thing that isn't just... isn't just a list of things you have to complete, a program that comes by mail that you can go through and do and then send in. You decide what you want to study, and you and your mentor develop the program for you.

It took me a while to decide to give it a try, so I emailed R.E. (one of the founders of the Order) and let her know I was interested. After some questions and answers, she told me to think it over. There followed some weeks of meditation and consideration, in which I decided what I wanted to do and why. Obviously, since I'm bothering to write this, I did decide to take on the program.

I've just finished the first month of my Aspirancy, the time of preparation in which one develops one's dedicancy curriculum and decide whether one wants to go forward with the OVP and the year of Dedicancy.

Aspirancy lasts three to six months, followed by a year as a Dedicant, then a year as an Acolyte, and finally a year as a Priest/ess. There are other roles after that: more years of study as a teacher and mentor. However, since they only founded the Order recently, and seeing as they believe in practicing what they preach (so to speak), the founders - R.E. and Bjorn - are not too far along in their own studies. Further than me, of course.

It's interesting to be a part of something so near to its beginnings. I really hope it will develop into something wonderful.

I thought I'd mention it, anyway. It's interesting and exciting starting something new like this. The OVP isn't for everyone, and it isn't right for everyone at every point on their path. A year ago I'm not sure I would have been happy with the idea. But it's an important thing for me now. And I think someone else might be on the same point on their path, so I'm putting it out there. Check it out.