Books, Paganism, Religion

Spending time with the Volsungs

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Over this past weekend, I decided to buy and read a copy of The Saga of the Volsungs. It was a relatively easy read, at only about 109 pages (with 20 of those pages being part of the translator’s introduction). I got through it in a couple of days — and it only took me that long because I was taking my time and taking breaks in between reading.

One of the first things that struck me is just how many themes it has in common with Tolkein’s books. The most notable one was the “broken sword reforged” motiff. In the saga, Sigmund’s sword (gifted to him by none other than Odin) is broken during the battle in which he falls. The fragments of the sword are then rescued from the battlefield by his wife, who later gives them to their son, Sigurd, so that he can have a new sword forged from them. This new sword is even stronger, and eventually enables Sigurd to kill the dragon, Fafnir. As I read the story, I couldn’t help but think of Aragorn’s sword the entire time. Of course, Tolkein’s tale lacks the whole part of the story where Regin tries unsuccessfully to forge Sigurd a satisfactory blade before the hero asks his mother for the fragments of his father’s sword.

The other thing I noted was how the gods and feats of magic were flawlessly weaved into the first half of the saga. Odin makes several appearances, both helping various heros and bringing about the doom of one (Sigmund). sadly, the fact that this saga is about warriors pretty much guarantees a strong presence of Odin rather than appearances of Vanic deities, but enough of my biases. I can at least take comfort in the fact that the mention of the she-wolf who kills Sigmund’s brothers being a shape-shifted witch probably shows some Vanic influences in the tale, even if poorly aspected. It made for a rather interesting read.

Reading the saga also reaffirmed just how family-oriented ancient Scandinavian society really was. Seeing how each family was left to seek justice — or more accurately, vengeance — for the wrongs done against their kin demonstrated the lack of central authority that historical commentaries can only describe in bland words. Of course, it also demonstrates just how treacherous individuals living in such a society truly can be.

The other thing I noted is that the ancient saga writers were not exactly verbose or descriptive in their tales. Actions are described matter-of-factly, and little attention is given to scenic details, if any attention is given at all. As such, the reading tends to be on the bland side, and doesn’t spark the imagination as much as one might hope. But it was well worth reading, for cultural/religious reasons.

According to one Amazon reviewer, another translator has published a copy of this saga with the Icelandic and their translation side-by-side. I may have to see if I can find a copy. It didn’t come up on Amazon, unfortunately.

Family, Grief

Remembering loved ones a bit late

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As I mentioned in my previous entry, my family suffered a tragedy during the time that my blog was offline. During the early afternoon of December 31, 2006, my Aunt Betty and Uncle Fred were killed in an automobile accident just a few miles from their home in Virginia. The Washington Post has an article which describes the details of the accident fairly well. Since the article was written, I believe that the two surviving victims of the collision (the driver of the van and her 5 year old daughter) have been released from the hospital. The woman, however, did lose a leg.

The whole experience was indescribable. My family first found out about the accident that afternoon when my father’s sister, Jennifer, called from York. Apparently, Uncle Fred’s daughter, Faith, called her. When Aunt Jennifer got through, she was hysterical. In fact, my mother had to ask her a couple of times who was calling because she couldn’t recognize Aunt Jennifer’s voice. During that call, we found out that Aunt Betty had died, but Uncle Fred’s status was still unknown. Aunt Jennifer called back about an hour later with the rest of the bad news.

Much of the rest of the night was spent relaying details to other members in my father’s family, as well as fielding calls from concerned friends who wanted to offer their condolences. we did manage to keep our standard New Year’s Eve tradition of getting friends and family together to play cards and eat snacks. And a good time was had by all, even with the underlying sadness and frequent phone interruptions.

One of the things that really struck me was how various people in my family chose to deal with the grieving process. Most notable was my aunt, Marlene, who went into overdrive in her role as the unofficial family historian. She spent much of Sunday and Monday trying to get as much information about Uncle Fred and Aunt Betty and their lives (including the details of Uncle Fred’s military service) and writing it all down. You’d have sworn that if she didn’t get it all in order right then, the information would be lost forever. But it kept her busy and allowed her to keep them alive in her heart and honor them in her own way.

To be honest, I’m not sure how I’ve dealt with this loss. I think that writing this blog entry is my way of grieving, in many ways. After all, the best way I can honor my aunt and uncle is to share them with the rest of the world. I just wish I had more memories to share.

One thing that I found surprising is how much it bothered me to not be able to attend the funeral services. Due to being out of work so much, I felt I couldn’t afford to give up the hours I was scheduled to work last week. And as the funeral was down in Virginia, I would’ve had to called off the entire week. And while my boss certainly would have understood if I chose to do so, I doubt my debtors would’ve been so understanding when I had no money to pay them.

Normally, I don’t think much of funeral services. I think they’re horribly long and dreadfully dull. And I certainly don’t think I get a lot out of them, personally. I’d rather take care of my own grieving and even my own goodbyes (as when I visited my grandfather’s grave the weekend after his funeral) more privately. But I realize now that the one thing I do like about attending funerals of loved ones is the communal aspect. While it may not be how I express my grief best, I do like being with my loved ones as they grieve, too.

Uncle Fred and Aunt Betty, you will be missed. May your souls find peace and comfort until they return to this world anew.

Meta-Blogging

And I’m back

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I’m pleased to announce that this blog is now back online. I’d like to apologize to my readers for the lengthy delay. The original plan was to move to a new hosting service over the weekend before New Year’s Day and be back up in time to celebrate 2007. Unfortunately, the best laid plans of mice and men…

Originally I had everything downloaded from my previous service by December 28. So on December 29, I contacted the new service I had decided to go with. I had some experience with their services, as they currently hose the website for Paths of the Old Ways, and a friend had nothing but wonderful things to say about them. Unfortunately, my experiences were radically different. Let’s just say that despite charging my credit card for a two year subscription on December 29, they had not provided me with the details to log into my account and upload my site when I called and demanded a refund this morning. And this was in spite of the fact that I contacted them several times via email and phone to get this information. Each time I talked to them, i was assured that the matter would be taken care of “immediately,” only to be forgotten immediately instead.

Fortunately, I spent today finding a much more attentive and responsive company to host this blog and my other sites. Indeed, despite the fact that I only signed on with them today, they’ve worked with me to get everything set up in under eight hours. So to my new hosting service, I say, “Thank you and may the gods smile upon you always.”

Beyond that, I hope everyone had a pleasant New Year. Mine was okay, though somewhat darkened by a family tragedy. But I’ll go into more details about that in an upcoming entry.

Meta-Blogging

Preparing for a move

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Howdy, folks. This is a quick entry to let you know that I’m getting ready to change webhosting services. I will spend the next day or two downloading all of my webpages on three subdomains, creating a backup copy of my Movable Type database, aquiring hosting elsewhere, and restoring everything to the new site. I hope to have everything done by the start of the new year, but who knows what will happen.

From your perspective, the change should be transparent. I’ll still be located at the northerngrove.com domain. So once I’ve gotten set back up and the new DNS information has propogated, things will be business as usual.

In preparation for the move, I’m disabling comments and trackbacks. That way, nothing gets lost once I start the moving process. I hope all my readers have a wonderful new year, and I’ll see you when the dust settles.

Gender and Sexuality, Sexuality

Masculinity and Sexuality

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My friend, James, once commented to me that in our society, masculinity is a terribly fragile thing. To underscore his point, he offered an example: ?If a guy likes flowers, it?s automatically assumed he?s gay.? I?m certainly inclined to agree with James on his observation, but I also have to admit that I find myself wondering what being gay has to do with one?s masculinity. After all, I?m gay, and I consider myself 100% male. My masculinity is not up to debate.

Because of this conversation, I started wondering why this idea that gays are inherently ?not masculine? comes from. And while I considered all of the stereotypes which are the source of James?s lament, I decided that the matter had to go deeper than that. So I dug deeper, and realized that the real issue is deeply routed in how our society ? and especially the men in it ? have viewed sex in general over the past few decades.

Sex and sexual prowess has been the primary determination of a man?s masculinity for quite some time, now. Indeed, the only other factor of masculinity that even comes close to degree of importance is athleticism and physical strength. To comfirm this, one merely needs to go back to the high school locker room and pay attention to the two things that teenage boys brag to each other about: How great they did at the last game and what girl they ?bagged? over the weekend.

When you look at it from the most common view in our society, sex is all about the man. The man is the active partner, doing his thing to the woman, who is often seen as just laying there and letting him go at it. If she gets any pleasure from the experience, that?s fine. But even her pleasure is often seen merely as a sign of the man?s prowess and ability in bed. After all, anyone who watched the episode of Seinfeld where Elaine tells Jerry that she always faked orgasm whenever the two of them had sex knows that Jerry was far more concerned about how this demonstrated a lack of his own skill in bed than any sincere concern for Elaine?s lack of pleasure. Based on my own observations and conversations with people, I think it is safe to say that this is a clear case of television portraying a strong cultural trend.

But obviously, this paradigm only works when the sexual activity in question involves both a man and a woman. When you introduce a sexual situation which only involves men, this paradigm less becomes comfortable. Suddenly, rather than the activity being all about the man and the woman being a more-or-less passive participant, you have two men. Under this paradigm ? and it is only natural for us to try and squeeze any situation into our current paradigm because we are comfortable with it ? you are left with the problem that suddenly, one of the men must become passive and let it be all about the other man. Suddenly, a man has to subject himself to the needs and whims of another. This is a scenario that most men in our society cannot comprehend, and it makes them uncomfortable.

This passivity is something which men in our society have been taught to avoid as a rule. Indeed, in this sense, the idea of passively submitting to another man?s sexual prowess also collides with the competitive, athletic, and physical strength components of our understanding of masculinity.

Interestingly, some society?s ? and even some segments of our own society ? have dealt with this dissonance to some degree by only ostracizing gay men who take on the ?passive? role in male-to-male sex. In our society, you can see this by the fact that many men seem to be disgusted by the idea of ?taking it up the ass,? but remain relatively quiet about having anal sex with a receptive partner ? male or female.

The solution to this, of course, is to develop a new paradigm of human sexuality that does not rely so heavily on a strict dichotomy between passive partners and active partners, as well as coming to appreciate the importance of a receptive ? be it actively receptive or passively receptive ? role in sex. Not only will this help undo the divide between masculinity and homosexuality, but it will force us to further explore a broader and deeper understanding of masculinity.

Friends, Going Out

Great Party

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I had the most excellent time last night. My friends Michele and Belinda were invited by the Western New York Paranormal Society to come to their Christmas party. Well, Belinda was unable to go due to a previous engagement, so Michele wrote the hostess back and asked if she could bring me instead. After all, who wants to go to a party alone — especially one where you don’t necessarily know the majority of the attendees? Sarah said that was okay — in fact, she said all three of us could have come if we wanted to. So I went through my wardrobe, picked out something tastefull, bought and wrapped a small gift for the gift exchange, and headed to Michele’s house. From there, we hopped in her car to go to the party.

The party was absolutely spectacular. It was a great mix of friendly people, with personalities ranging from quiet and reserved to “Oh my goodness, I can’t believe he just said that!” I recognized a good number of faces from psychic fairs that I’ve attended with Michele (or helped with, in the case of the one sponsored by the Pagan Outreach Center, though the only person at the party I’d ever been formally intoduced to before was Ralph. But even having been involved in some of the same events (the paranormal group gets a vendor booth at many psychic fairs and similar events) made the situation somewhat more comfortable.

The gift exchange was quite a lively event, especially once a trio of people kept “fighting” over two sets of holiday candy dishes. I ended up coming home with a coin purse shaped like a stocking, which was rather amusing. And food and drink flowed freely the entire night. It was nice to be able to meet and talk with many more like-minded people for the night.

Michele and I ended up leaving at about quarter of midnight, as we were both starting to get a bit tired. I had to find a quiet place about an hour prior to that just to refocus my energies and strengthen my shields. While fun, parties like that tend to be hell on you when you’re empathic. Trying not to get bowled over by the mental and emotional state of at least twenty people congregated in a relatively small space can be quite a challenge. But let me tell you, if they were having another party tonight and saw fit to invite me again, I’d be in the car before they finished telling me I was invited.

Paganism, Religion

Greatly Amused

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In checking one of the various mailing lists I’m on, I found a link to an article about a Unitarian church who invited school students to their Pagan themed Yule celebration through a system a local school uses to distribute literature and notices. And the great beauty of the whole thing is that those Christians who want to complain about it can’t, because the right Reverend Jerry Falwell and his associates opened the door for it to happen. You see, they took the school to court so to force them to allow an evangelical church to use the same distribution system to circulate invitations to their Vacation Bible School program earlier this summer. Of course, many Christians who supported the court case this summer are finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of havng to live with the unforeseen fruits of their labor. Personally, I’m rather amused by their sudden epiphany concerning their own shortsightedness.

It just goes to show you that the old adage is true: Beware what you ask for, because you may just get it.

Paganism, Personal Development, Religion, Tarot

Tarot Musings: Eight of Disks

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Deck: Tarot of Transformation
Card: Eight of Disks
Keyphrase: Skillful Perseverance

A lone woman, dressed in a long, simple dress, stands with her back to us in the lower right quadrant of the card. Her eyes are fixed on a point near the center of the distant horizon. There is no path before her, merely a broad, rolling landscape. The sun shines overhead just above her distant destination, and birds circle around it. A spiral pattern ? suggesting air currents ? flows from the foreground around and towards the glowing orb in the sky. To the left of the woman stands a transparent image of an antlered beast, possibly a moose.

This card calls us to keep moving forward in our journey. Though there may be no apparent path before us, we know our destination and the direction in which it lies. So it is up to us to begin walking towards it as best we can, taking comfort that our path will become more clear as we continue our quest. Indeed, quite often, the first stage in a journey is to find the path that will guide us in the rest of the journey.

However, this card reminds us that we are not left completely alone in this stage of the journey. Even without a true path, there will be those small cues that will help us find our way and make course adjustments as necessary. One merely needs to open oneself up to sensing the ?currents in the air? which will beckon us on. Or perhaps we will get more tangible clues, like the birds who follow the currents. Or perhaps even a guide ? such as the animal totem in the picture ? will show up to offer us guidance. We merely need to keep striving for our goals with an open mind and an open heart. After all, perseverance and openness are always rewarded when the time is right.

Introspection, Paganism, Religion, Tarot

Tarot Musings: The Star

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Deck: Tarot of Transformation
Card: The Star (XVII)
Keyphrase: Guiding Light

A lone female figure stands in the center of this card, leaning against a tree. The tree?s barren limbs and the mostly white ground at the figure?s feet tell us that it is winter. The woman wears a long, heavy dress, and a dark shawl is draped around her shoulders. From her neck hangs a pendant of an upturned crescent moon with a single flame nestled in the inner curve. The woman?s head is slightly inclined to view the lone star shining in the sky towards the left edge of the card (to the figure?s right).

This card speaks of the inner wisdom that comes from within the individual. This wisdom is available to us when we allow ourselves to stop and listen to it, divesting ourselves of the distractions that often fill our lives. The woman on the card stands in a barren winter-land because she knows that it will enable her to focus more on that wisdom she carries with herself, as symbolized by her pendant. The crescent moon suggests that this is more an intuitive wisdom rather than intellectual knowledge.

There is a strong correlation between the star in the sky and the pendant of the figure. These symbols remind us that consulting this inner wisdom is a matter of consulting the source of that wisdom ? that Divine source to which we are connected. In essence, we are reminded that the search for the sublime starts within, for that is our guiding light.

The wintry background also reminds us that cultivating and accessing this inner wisdom and the resulting cosmic understanding requires some unseen work. There may be times which we must go through a period of silence while our unconscious works to rearrange things and prepare us for the next stage of the journey.

Paganism, Personal Development, Religion, Tarot

Tarot Musings: Seven of Pentacles

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Deck: Robin Wood Tarot
Card: Seven of Pentacles

A young man, perhaps in his late twenties or thirties, stands in the middle ofthe card so that his upper body is visible. His hands rest ato one another, the fingers of his lefthand slightly curved downwards. The end of a handle — perhaps to a shovel or a hoe — pokes into the center of his left palm. He wears thick gloves and a canvas jacket, the perfect attire for yardwork or gardening. He also wears a grey hat with a brim and a green kerchief tied around his neck, the latter being reminiscent of a boy scout uniform.

Around him are numerous leafy plants, some of which are taller than him. The pentacles rest in the leaves of these plants, sugesting they grew from them. A partly cloudy sky overhead completes this idyllic scene, creating the perfect spot for the figure’s quiet musings.

This card speaks of the relationship between effort and success. It reminds us that our projects are most successful and rewarding when we immerse ourselves in our work and lose ourselves in the process. The figure beckons us to find true enjoyment in the process as he has.

His stance also reminds us that there is no race. Great outcomes require us to lean to work through things and cultivate them over time and at an appropriate pace. The growth of green things cannot be rushed, nor can many other goals we may choose to work towards.

The kerchief suggests learning and kowledge of the ways of cultivation. In this respect, this card also reminds us to consult the sources of wisdom — whether that wisdom comes from ourselves or others — that will aid us in our work. Also, this card calls us to further develop that wisdom within ourselves as we proceed, as there’s always ways for even a master to improve.

It is only by doing these things that our efforts can be as rewarding and fruitful as possible.

The thoughts of a gay witch living in upstate New York.