WitchCamp The Runes -- Hagalaz

Hail is the whitest of grain;It is whirled from the vault of heavenand is tossed about by gusts of wind and then it melts into water.

Powerful. Amazing

At camp this year were were working with Odin and Freya. The story was how Odin hung for 9 days from the world tree (would you know more?)

anyway we broke into ritual groups by drawing a rune from a pot. Mine was Hagalaz.. Wow!! Transformation. Imagine that... couldn't be mine.. LOL

I'll not say much more but It was a very powerful week. I don't know about transformation (takes time) but I do have clarification of intention.. and that's a hell of a start.

We wrote an invocation about Hagalaz for ritual. Once I get a copy from our group leader I'll post it here.

overall it was an awesome camp. I made some new friends, renewed some old friendships, and learned a lot about myself. And I even wrote some new poems!!!

There was a lot more camper involvement with ritual this year and I loved it.. We had to do an invocation for center.. it's hard to describe in words. I was impressed with it because we used no words. It was silent and was a dance.. I was worried it might be to abstract but I could tell by audience reaction that it came across loud and clear :)

Path was awesome as well. I took "The Bard's path".. I was scared to death. I am, by nature, an introvert (not that you could tell right?). I don't share my feelings or works (poetry) easily. But I felt comfortable doing so this year. I also made a point to talk with new campers and anyone I'd seen at camp and never really talked with.. I was just radiant with energy. It was invigorating. Best camp of the 3 years I've gone, says I.

The down side to this is coming back to "the real" world.. Obviously it would be unwise to be so open daily. For one everyone would think you crazy (not that that would be much different, from what they think of me anyway), but then there are those energy vampires who tend to drain you... So how do we take the energy we build and use it in daily life? I welcome your opinions.

enough for now. Just thought I better post and let everyone know I hadn't fallen into the void, never to be seen again. ;)

Where's the light at the end of the tunnel?

So last year at camp we briefly discussed staying inspired (happy, positive, whatever) while surrounded by all the shit that goes with (or what passes for) modern civilization. But we obviously didn't discuss enough.

Do you ever feel that no matter what you do nothing ever improves, perhaps only gets worse? For instance, one could live completely green (whatever that is).. Solar, get around on a horse, build and farm sustainably, recycle, compost, etc. But what real impact does one person have against all the wrongs and injustices?

I suppose one could argue that you are setting an example for others to notice and follow. But is that really happening anywhere? I know around here environmentalist are scorned and those that show interest in organics are patronized (patted on the back and told that it's not worth the extra $$ and effort).. Sounds like big business has a lot of folks by the balls.

But then again I'm amazed at what the majority of folks will believe. What passes for life.

I mean, is it really any wonder why more people don't vote; or if they do they only vote based on the smear campaign ads on TV? If they're working 60+ hrs per week what else can they do, do they honestly have time to research the candidates and their voting records? Doubtful.

Or do those christians really read and live what they profess to believe? Do they even know what they believe? or are they taking the dangerous path of believing what their minister tells them? Are we headed back to the dark ages? To a time before the enlightenment? Where no one but the enlightened were allowed to read and preach their interpretation of the gospel.. Sounds more like a Cult to me..

I feel this is where we get so many of our fundamentalist fanatics. They read (or hear) a passage from the "holy book" and take it out of context (much like politicians and journalist are wot to do) bending it to suit their current pet causes.

But here's something most folks don't think about. Where did religion start? What agenda did the "translators" have?

Hmm Let's look at religion for a second from the perspective of the ruling class. Religion professes to a moral basis with rules to live by if one wants to get to heaven.

So let's see how this works for the working class.

Thou shall not kill.. unless it is to further spread christianity (crusades anyone? .. suffer not a witch to live), for goods we (ruling class must control).

Thou shall not steal.. once again, unless it is for control for the ruling class (of course they always pass it off as being for the country's benefit)

Thou shall not commit adultery.. what's that? Oh yes, making free people the property of others. In reality this was likely put in place to ensure bloodlines. Would hate to have royal bloodlines mixing with "commoners".

Thou shall not covet.. Now of course we wouldn't want anyone thinking how they would like to have something like what we have.. It might get into their head to try and steal it.. Because we know they'd never be able to buy it with the "generous" salary we pay, or the new taxes we put in place to give us more wealth.. Can't have that. What we want to do is make them want what they can have, but then make the work harder/longer to get it.. only to have the price raised and the prize snatched from them.. we'll call this inflation..

I could go on but I think the picture is coming into focus.

Now let's look at modern day happenings.

Big business has control of not just the US, but the entire world. The scariest part is that it's got the food chain!! This scares the shit out of me. How are they ultimately going to control us all? Tax us to death, work us to death? That's a start. But for those of us who are tougher to break.. well they'll try and starve us out.. that is if they can keep from destroying the planet long enough.

So many people today are unable to think outside the box. They essentially have no life other than work, eat, sleep. That's why TV is so popular. They can sit down and veg out. Pretend to get informed by watching a bit of news (propaganda). But when it comes right down to it they are sheep..

They believe that organic/sustainability is a fad.. it could never work, couldn't feed the world.. etc

Hmmm maybe it's time to wake the fuck up!!! Maybe.. hopefully before it's too late.

What we should all be thinking about is 7 generations from now. What will be left, what do we have a right to?

Should we be destroying/using up all the natural (and often un-renewable) resources? or is it wiser to conserve so that future generations can enjoy what we have enjoyed?

Maybe instead of having 4-10 kids we could adopt.. or maybe have 1-2 max..

maybe promote birth control instead of abstinence education.

Maybe instead of teaching sex is bad/dirty/evil.. we should teach responsible safe sex practices..

or we could implement the technology for
alternative fuels/energy sources.

But then that would loosen control of the elite class.. and that's the last thing they want.

Independent thought is dangerous.. to those in power..

So instead they keep us all disoriented and misinformed. Having us fighting against one another and for the status quo.. till we have no time or energy for anything else.

hmm...

But then these are just ramblings of a madman... or are they?

Now Sports!!

I see the homeless sleeping on a cold dark street, like bodies in an open grave underneath a broken down neon sign that use to read "Jesus Saves".

A mile away live the rich folk, and I see how they're living it up. While the poor they eat from hand to mouth, rich drink from a golden cup.

It just makes me wonder why so many lose while so few win.

Give me something to believe in."

Poison

Love it

Ok this isn't really the image I wanted. Found one that says. " You pray, we dance naked in the woods" had a hippie guy and chick with pentagram.. Oh well Meanings the same.

Just something that cheered me up today..

Helen and I have been having an awsome time. My Dad went to Alaska for 2 weeks and we are house sitting. Ah.. peace/quiet/air conditioning/pool what more could we ask for?

Than and VWC is coming up fast, Yea!!!

Disinformation about farming

I was reading an interesting thread over at Homesteading Today and thought it very well sums up what I feel is going on today

Disinformation : false information deliberately and often covertly spread (as by the planting of rumors) in order to influence public opinion or obscure the truth.
Merriam Webster dictionary

When we first bought our place here it came with cattle. The family who sold it to us had health issues that forced them to move to town and they were glad they didn't have to take their cows to the sale barn. They were members of The Cattlemen's association and recommended that we join. It had lots of perqs like free monthly dinners sponsored by various Ag businesses and free loaner equipment and access to field bulls when needed. We joined a couple of other groups and got our kids in 4-H and found ourselves flooded with magazines and catalogues and listening to various agribusiness speakers.

Before we decided to buy a farm we had done our homework and we had read a lot and we mainly wanted just to feed our family of 5 good healthy organic food. We found very quickly that all the information that was being shoveled our way was giving the same message over and over and it flew in the face of organic. Questions along the lines of anything vaguely green or organic either got us pitying looks, vapid looks or the party line explaining to us why that was nice for our garden if we really liked pitiful looking crops and extra work but to be farmers we needed piles and piles of their stuff. And oh the stuff to be had! The latest feeds, minerals, pesticides, herbicides, sprays, grass seeds, other seeds, on and on it went. And then of course there was all the shiny new equipment and stuff, stuff and more stuff.

Course then you had the agri lenders always happy to sort you out a loan for all that stuff. And everyone was happy to commiserate with all of the farmers on how the cost of farming was so high and the income so low and how terrible that all was. They lauded farmers to the high heavens because they were feeding the world and nobody understood how hard it was and what heroes farmers really are.

Well we tried for a while to keep asking questions and throwing out ideas and eventually we gave up and found some like minded people who understood us and could answer our questions and we found a pretty good sized thriving and growing community of organic farmers. A lot of them were kids who were passionate about farming and they were all starting small and building from there. They were making a decent living at it too.

On the other hand the conventional farmers were up to their eyeballs in debt with all that neato stuff and it finally hit us that the reality was there were people making one heck of a lot of money off of agriculture in America and it was sadly not those farmers. It was the people in agribusiness. All those people handing out those free magazines and bringing those monthly free dinners and mailing out butt loads of disinformation. They were making money hand over fist.

So here is my question for you: why do you believe what you believe about farming? Is it because you are bombarded by people all telling you the same things? Is it possible that they have an agenda? Maybe to have you put in all the blood, sweat and tears and come out poorer in the end so they can sit in their offices and rake in the bucks on your backs?

I hear the same things over and over again: No one can start in farming today unless they inherit land, it is just too expensive. Really? I can introduce you to 15 or 20 young farmers in my area who didn't inherit anything but they are making a good living off farming.

At the end of the year farmers will have spent more than they net in profits. Really? First why would you do that, that is insane? And second again I can introduce you to a lot of farmers who are pulling in way more than they spent.

Kellogg's makes $4 for a box of cornflakes and the farmer nets 4 cents on the corn. Seems to me if you really want to make money you need to start making cornflakes....

reminds me of The Pirate Radio Song by David Rovics. Here's a excerpt from that song:

This is how it started
It's not hard to understand
From coast to coast they're lying
At a CEO's command
From Nationalist Public Radio
CNN and ABC
Big Brother's spewing propaganda
From the Disinformation Ministry

I'll post the article I wrote about food and the like.. as soon as I locate it again. In the mean time, I welcome your thoughts and comments

Meaning of the Polyamory ribbon

I've had a few people ask what the blue,red, and black ribbon with the PI symbol represents. So I googled it for an in-depth explanation:

The Poly Ribbon displayed on a website indicates that the owner of that site supports the acceptance of polyamory as a socially accepted lifestyle. It does not necessarily mean that the owner of the site is practicing such a lifestyle, merely that s/he is in support of it. A link to this page serves to promote general awareness of the lifestyle and of this campaign.

The ribbon itself is based on a flag originally created by Jim Evans. A small version of the flag is shown in the border at left. As Jim states, the colors are significant: "blue, representing the openness and honesty among all partners with which we conduct our multiple relationships; red, representing love and passion; and black, representing solidarity with those who, though they are open and honest with all participants of their relationships, must hide those relationships from the outside world due to societal pressures. The symbol in the center of the flag is a gold Greek lowercase letter 'pi,' as the first letter of 'polyamory.' The letter's gold color represents the value that we place on the emotional attachment to others, be the relationship friendly or romantic in nature, as opposed to merely primarily physical relationships."

More updates

well I've about got the wiring done (I hope). The walls/ceiling are painted and Helen is working on the cabinet doors!! Looking closer to moving in!!

next will be doing the seat covers/ curtains. still need to seal all the seams, get new tires, check the brakes..coat the roof with kool coat. then get brake controller for the truck... batteries... Yea still a lot to do but its coming together quickly. YEA!! Pictures soon

update

well we're still slaving to the trailer :) actually kind of enjoying it now that the mouse crap is gone.

Got to make this quick as I'm about out of battery!

water heater/stove/fridge work. Water has a leak but think its a $2 piece!!.. workin on lights.. gack

helen has been doing most of the paint work but I help out a bit when I get razzled on the light thing.

Ok bye bye..