I'm struggling with myself right now. I'm feeling tired and worn, not entirely physically and in ways that mere sleep cannot mend.
Because he's on probation, there are things that Someone is not permitted to do, a curfew he must adhere to, and things that he must do to satisfy the terms of his plea agreement and his probation.
There are varying consequences for failing to do what he must or for doing what he mustn't. They call these consequences "sanctions".
He was doing well enough, but in the last month he's had four sanctions. He used substances bot unlawful and prohibited by probation. The first sanction was extra community service and extra AA meetings. The second sanction was 24 hours in jail. The third was 6 days in jail. Now he's on his fourth, a probation violation, and I'm told he'll be in jail until at least January 3.
He's barely been home and he's gone again.
Once again he will not be with us for Yule. It is possible that he will miss both children's birthdays as well. I am once again a single mother.
This has an impact on me, on my children, on our collective lives. Not only do we not have what income he may have earned because he cannot work while in jail, I have the added expense of paying for phone calls and commissary if I choose to do so, and I can't just leave him in there without the means to communicate, at least. I won't make the kids do without anything, but it does add to my struggle. This on top of it being a time for spending on gifts and whatnot.
I hate feeling like I can't give my children very much when it comes to prezzies. Luckily there are others in their lives who make up for my slack, people like Mom and T and K2 and Mizz A, and many more, all of whom love my children and spoil them silly. At their ages, keeping the power and water on (not a given on a good day) and food available aren't awfully interesting or important, and honestly I don't even do that on my own, so I can't take credit. Anyway, it's difficult to wrap the power, but sometimes I'm tempted to put a bow on the faucet.
I suppose I am just feeling the usual ebb that comes with this time of year. I'm so frustrated by my inability to earn income, to manage finances like a wizard, to keep up with myself...everything seems so bleak to me.
I know it's crass to talk about money, but it'd be easier to avoid talking about if so much of one's value didn't hinge upon one's financial worth and if so much of our life in this country wasn't centered on income, on cash flow.
To help combat these feelings, I'm spending as much time as I can manage in the kitchen for the next few days. It's cookie season, and while I don't have the demand for them that I used to, I still like to make up plates of cookies and give them to people. I can still manage a little holiday cheer, even when I'm feeling rather in the dumps...and if making (and saying the name of) Snickerdoodles doesn't bring at least a small smile to my face, then I know things are dire, indeed.
Seriously. Say "Snickerdoodle" without cracking even the tiniest grim. Betcha can't.
Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Holidays. Show all posts
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Friday, October 31, 2014
Samhain
Blessed be those who have gone beforeBlessed be those who live in the now
Blessed be those who follow after
Blessed be we on the ever turning wheel
Tonight I remember Papa, Margot Adler, Robin Williams, Morning Glory, Vivian, and all who passed through the veil since last Samhain. May the journey be easy, the destination be beautiful, and may they be welcomed int the halls of the dead with warmth and fellowship. May those who loved them in this life recognize them should they return to the wheel once more.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Yule
Annual re-post freshened up with current info.
~~~~~
Happy Yule, y'all!
Wait, what? Yule - you know...Yule? The holiday that some people celebrated waaayyy before that poor wee baby was born in a pile of hay? Evergreens ring a bell? Holly? Ivy? Mistletoe??
OK, go get a snack and a nice beverage (eggnog on the right, pink punch in the center, pick a bottle from the high chair to spike it with)(yes, the high chair is our bar - the Evil Genius doesn't need it any more, Sprout is getting a new one that's a little more stable and able to handle her wiggling without that alarming creaking noise, and it's an heirloom that I want to keep on display - so why not??) and get comfy. All set?
Yule, or Winter Solstice, is a celebration of the returning light.
Yep, it's that simple.
The God is reborn today, and the days will lengthen with his growth, into the fullness of Summer. In some villages, way back in the past, hearth fires would be extinguished (a brave thing when you didn't have Zippos or matches or even two sticks to rub together). They would be relit from brands taken from a community balefire, lit by the sun himself with a little help from some glass (or a hidden coal or two - c'mon, we weren't above a little showmanship, back then), thereby bringing the sun (and, one hoped, his blessings) into the home. It also kept the community united, because everyone shared the same fire, the same light and heat. Cool, huh? Gotta love a religion that encourages playing with fire. Ahem.
The fir tree was (and is) a symbol of life lasting even through death, the promise of life and light renewed, and a reminder that beneath the snow, the Earth-heart beats on. Holly and Ivy were green, too, but they were also symbols of the Green Man, the Forest Lord, Jack o' the Green - the God primeval. The Holly King and the Ivy King, the old and the young, the constant, changing balance. Deep stuff, yo.
Mistletoe is still used in a fairly traditional way, although it wasn't always just kissing done under the stuff. I still use the leaves and occasional berry when I make love bundles for people (Note - a love bundle isn't a love spell, it is meant to strengthen what is already there, not coerce or sublimate the free will of another. I don't DO love spells, so don't even ask.)(I mean it.), and it's a terrific symbol. It was also a fertility and aphrodisiac herb, but only symbolically - even wigged out Druids knew the stuff was toxic!
We light a yule log, in our house one that's cut from the trunk of last year's tree (the rest of which is providing habitat and nutrients in the woods out back). Old tales say if it lights on the first try and burns for twelve hours, we'll have good luck...this year, I'm soaking one end in water, first. What? We need all the good fortune we can get...don't you??
This year we are spending Yule at Mum's, lighting the burn pile, celebrating the returning light with a little spark of our own. We'll collect some of the ash and bring it home to add to the ash jar and sprinkle around the foundation for a blessing.
Sometimes a group of us will get together and just spend a quiet day nibbling snacks, enjoying each other's company, and taking a break from the holiday insanity out there among the English. If we exchange gifts, we try to make them ourselves, or give things that encourage and nurture our spiritual or creative selves. Things will be a little sparse this year, and Someone and I have agreed not to exchange anything...we want the kids to have a nice holiday, although Sprout wouldn't know or care if she got a gift as long as there was a box and some ribbon to play with.
But mostly, it's a celebration of the returning sun, the waxing light, the cycle renewed.
Happy Yule - When the days be cold, may your hearth be warm. When the nights be long, may your fire burn bright. When the wind blows, may you find snug shelter. When tree and field are bare, may your larder be full. May you never know Winter's chill a moment longer than you care to, nor hunger nor want, and should you find you have all that you need and a bit more besides, may you find someone who will gladly take what you offer and live better for the receiving. Blessed be.
~~~~~
Happy Yule, y'all!
Wait, what? Yule - you know...Yule? The holiday that some people celebrated waaayyy before that poor wee baby was born in a pile of hay? Evergreens ring a bell? Holly? Ivy? Mistletoe??
OK, go get a snack and a nice beverage (eggnog on the right, pink punch in the center, pick a bottle from the high chair to spike it with)(yes, the high chair is our bar - the Evil Genius doesn't need it any more, Sprout is getting a new one that's a little more stable and able to handle her wiggling without that alarming creaking noise, and it's an heirloom that I want to keep on display - so why not??) and get comfy. All set?
Yule, or Winter Solstice, is a celebration of the returning light.
Yep, it's that simple.
The God is reborn today, and the days will lengthen with his growth, into the fullness of Summer. In some villages, way back in the past, hearth fires would be extinguished (a brave thing when you didn't have Zippos or matches or even two sticks to rub together). They would be relit from brands taken from a community balefire, lit by the sun himself with a little help from some glass (or a hidden coal or two - c'mon, we weren't above a little showmanship, back then), thereby bringing the sun (and, one hoped, his blessings) into the home. It also kept the community united, because everyone shared the same fire, the same light and heat. Cool, huh? Gotta love a religion that encourages playing with fire. Ahem.
The fir tree was (and is) a symbol of life lasting even through death, the promise of life and light renewed, and a reminder that beneath the snow, the Earth-heart beats on. Holly and Ivy were green, too, but they were also symbols of the Green Man, the Forest Lord, Jack o' the Green - the God primeval. The Holly King and the Ivy King, the old and the young, the constant, changing balance. Deep stuff, yo.
Mistletoe is still used in a fairly traditional way, although it wasn't always just kissing done under the stuff. I still use the leaves and occasional berry when I make love bundles for people (Note - a love bundle isn't a love spell, it is meant to strengthen what is already there, not coerce or sublimate the free will of another. I don't DO love spells, so don't even ask.)(I mean it.), and it's a terrific symbol. It was also a fertility and aphrodisiac herb, but only symbolically - even wigged out Druids knew the stuff was toxic!
We light a yule log, in our house one that's cut from the trunk of last year's tree (the rest of which is providing habitat and nutrients in the woods out back). Old tales say if it lights on the first try and burns for twelve hours, we'll have good luck...this year, I'm soaking one end in water, first. What? We need all the good fortune we can get...don't you??
This year we are spending Yule at Mum's, lighting the burn pile, celebrating the returning light with a little spark of our own. We'll collect some of the ash and bring it home to add to the ash jar and sprinkle around the foundation for a blessing.
Sometimes a group of us will get together and just spend a quiet day nibbling snacks, enjoying each other's company, and taking a break from the holiday insanity out there among the English. If we exchange gifts, we try to make them ourselves, or give things that encourage and nurture our spiritual or creative selves. Things will be a little sparse this year, and Someone and I have agreed not to exchange anything...we want the kids to have a nice holiday, although Sprout wouldn't know or care if she got a gift as long as there was a box and some ribbon to play with.
But mostly, it's a celebration of the returning sun, the waxing light, the cycle renewed.
Happy Yule - When the days be cold, may your hearth be warm. When the nights be long, may your fire burn bright. When the wind blows, may you find snug shelter. When tree and field are bare, may your larder be full. May you never know Winter's chill a moment longer than you care to, nor hunger nor want, and should you find you have all that you need and a bit more besides, may you find someone who will gladly take what you offer and live better for the receiving. Blessed be.
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Pimpin' My Pal
Well hey there!
Ohmuhgoodness, look at the dust in here! I don't know what just brushed my face - it was either a cobweb or a gauze curtain.
Cough.
Is anyone still here? Looks like my little shanty in Blogopolis has been abandoned.
Is that...wildlife...I see creeping in the corners? Augh!
I need to get this place back in order, huh? M'kay - while I'm out renting a Blue Nowhere rated wet-dry vac, how about I give you a link to follow?
Trust me, this is a good link. I don't share it with just anybody. No - you're special!
Looking for a holiday/birthday/special occasion/no reason at all gift? Go see my friend, sister of my heart, and a talented-as-heck artist K2: Unleash the Goddess. She makes beautiful, unique, wearable art - and sometimes she lets me play with her glass.
Glass, people, glass!! Geeze...
Meanwhile, I am going to find an air filter and a giant incense stick - this blog smells stale...
I'll be back soon, just in case you have missed me...
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Just Hear Me Out
I am thinking about forgoing holiday decorations this year.
Trees are expensive. We have cats who view ornaments as their personal playthings, and a baby who will be eleven months old when the holidays rollover us in on us, and she's very...umm...grabby. And Put-it-in-my-mouth-y. There will be a tree and decorations at Mum's for Yule, and a tree and decorations at T's mother's house where the Evil Genius will celebrate Christmas. The Evil Genius will not miss out on sparkly wonderment just because there isn't any all up in our house. Sprout will not notice or remember - I love her and think her the cleverest Sprout ever, but right now she has the attention span/memory of a goldfish.
Trees are expensive. We have cats who view ornaments as their personal playthings, and a baby who will be eleven months old when the holidays roll
Half my lights, decorations, garland and bows for the outside of the house are trashed and I can't fix or replace 'em with wishful thinking. Wal Mart is so unreasonable - they actually want me to pay for that stuff. Imagine, a business wanting to make a profit - the nerve!
And, if I'm being honest? I ain't feelin' it. Usually, I have stuff started by now, if not done. Usually, I am feelin' it.
If I were to tart Casa de Crazy up to match my mood these days, I'd need an accelerant and an ignition source. Or a manure spreader.
Since I'm the one who puts up/takes down all that happy crap, I figure it'll keep until next year, or whenever I feel like dealing with it.
So general "poor me, I'm feeling sorry for myself" tuff aside, I can skip it, right? Does anyone really care??
Monday, October 31, 2011
Samhain
Partial reprint with some new stuff mixed in, just to keep you on your toes.
~~~~~
Samhain. All Hallows Eve. Hallowe'en. Halloween.
While little (and not so little) people are out extorting candy from strangers (On the one night a year Mum and Dad aren't telling them NOT to take candy from strangers, and isn't that a mixed message?)(And if you don't think it's extortion, think about it - "Give me a treat or I'll play a prank on you" is exactly that - extortion), more than a few pagans are spending the evening in an entirely different fashion.
Samhain (pronounced "sawin") is sometimes called the Witches' New Year. It's thought to be the time of year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, and so best suited for speaking with our dead, with those who passed on in the previous year.
On Samhain, our living God dies, and until he is born again on Yule the Goddess and all the world mourns him. Poor Goddess, carrying her child alone for the next two months - throughout eternity she must suffer this loss before she can know her joy once more. Don't worry if you don't get it - it's a cyclic thing, a nature thing, and a deeply, weirdly Pagan thing.
Some will have large meetings, solemnly chant and circle the fire, call upon the gods of old. Some will dance wildly around bonfires, drumming, singing, shrieking, leaping the flames, looking for all the world like the imps and devils we were once purported to be. Some will just hand out candy and let the night pass, and some will put out the lights, draw the blinds, and pretend not to be home. A few (Pagan and non) will look for and find trouble. Many will feast, drink, and hold the dumb supper - the meal placed out for the those who've gone through the veil - whether alone or in numbers. These days, none who are truly Pagan will sacrifice anything more than a glass of wine and/or a plate of food to the fire, the earth, the old gods.
This year it's just us Casa de Crazians. T will come get Bird after the boy makes the rounds in this neighborhood, and they'll go raid another neighborhood or two. We've carved pumpkins, one for each of us.
Of course we'll roast the pumpkin seeds because I adore them.
At dusk, we'll light the jack-o-lanterns and take the kids (or the kid, anyway) out for their bit of begging. If the night is fine, we may fire up the outdoor fireplace and sit out on the drive reminiscing about the past, about family and friends long gone but not forgotten. I may or may not mull some cider and have some cups to ladle out portions for the adults trailing the kids who will start coming around soon. Heh - come and drink my Witch's Brew - you won't fly or turn into a newt, but it'll take the chill off. I may or may not have a bit of whisky or rum to add medicinal value to the drink.
I will make a special dinner for Samhain night. I don't have anything traditional - this year it's spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and garlic bread. I try to make something that my ancestors or anyone I've lost in the previous year would like to eat. The first portion of each item is carefully plated and placed at the head of the table or on the altar. A bit of whatever's to drink will be placed with the laden plate).
Later tonight, after we've eaten, handed out candy, taken the kids out for some socially sanctioned begging, we'll take food and drink down to the woods and leave the contents for our ancestors. We may or may not name them. We may or may not sing a song for them. We will honor them, wish them well, and remember. We will ask their blessing in the coming year. It will be short, but heartfelt - we don't need a lot of ritual, these days, just a few quiet minutes with our Gods.
It's an odd hodgepodge of a night - some modern traditions that were founded in the old, and some straight from the days (and nights) when our people could be openly themselves, could worship the gods of field and wood, river and rock, without fear of censure or death.
Blessed be those who have gone before; blessed be those who live now; blessed be those who will follow after. The wheel turns once more, and blessed are we who turn with it. Blessed be.
This year, I celebrate: two years year ago, Someone made his first visit to Casa de Crazy, began the process of coming Home.
This year I honor: my friend Lo, who passed through the veil last November, and my friend Jenny, his wife, who passed through the veil this past June on the day we were to honor Lo and place his ashes; my grandfather, who passed many years ago but whom I still miss.
~~~~~
Samhain. All Hallows Eve. Hallowe'en. Halloween.
While little (and not so little) people are out extorting candy from strangers (On the one night a year Mum and Dad aren't telling them NOT to take candy from strangers, and isn't that a mixed message?)(And if you don't think it's extortion, think about it - "Give me a treat or I'll play a prank on you" is exactly that - extortion), more than a few pagans are spending the evening in an entirely different fashion.
Samhain (pronounced "sawin") is sometimes called the Witches' New Year. It's thought to be the time of year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, and so best suited for speaking with our dead, with those who passed on in the previous year.
On Samhain, our living God dies, and until he is born again on Yule the Goddess and all the world mourns him. Poor Goddess, carrying her child alone for the next two months - throughout eternity she must suffer this loss before she can know her joy once more. Don't worry if you don't get it - it's a cyclic thing, a nature thing, and a deeply, weirdly Pagan thing.
Some will have large meetings, solemnly chant and circle the fire, call upon the gods of old. Some will dance wildly around bonfires, drumming, singing, shrieking, leaping the flames, looking for all the world like the imps and devils we were once purported to be. Some will just hand out candy and let the night pass, and some will put out the lights, draw the blinds, and pretend not to be home. A few (Pagan and non) will look for and find trouble. Many will feast, drink, and hold the dumb supper - the meal placed out for the those who've gone through the veil - whether alone or in numbers. These days, none who are truly Pagan will sacrifice anything more than a glass of wine and/or a plate of food to the fire, the earth, the old gods.
This year it's just us Casa de Crazians. T will come get Bird after the boy makes the rounds in this neighborhood, and they'll go raid another neighborhood or two. We've carved pumpkins, one for each of us.
Of course we'll roast the pumpkin seeds because I adore them.
At dusk, we'll light the jack-o-lanterns and take the kids (or the kid, anyway) out for their bit of begging. If the night is fine, we may fire up the outdoor fireplace and sit out on the drive reminiscing about the past, about family and friends long gone but not forgotten. I may or may not mull some cider and have some cups to ladle out portions for the adults trailing the kids who will start coming around soon. Heh - come and drink my Witch's Brew - you won't fly or turn into a newt, but it'll take the chill off. I may or may not have a bit of whisky or rum to add medicinal value to the drink.
I will make a special dinner for Samhain night. I don't have anything traditional - this year it's spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and garlic bread. I try to make something that my ancestors or anyone I've lost in the previous year would like to eat. The first portion of each item is carefully plated and placed at the head of the table or on the altar. A bit of whatever's to drink will be placed with the laden plate).
Later tonight, after we've eaten, handed out candy, taken the kids out for some socially sanctioned begging, we'll take food and drink down to the woods and leave the contents for our ancestors. We may or may not name them. We may or may not sing a song for them. We will honor them, wish them well, and remember. We will ask their blessing in the coming year. It will be short, but heartfelt - we don't need a lot of ritual, these days, just a few quiet minutes with our Gods.
It's an odd hodgepodge of a night - some modern traditions that were founded in the old, and some straight from the days (and nights) when our people could be openly themselves, could worship the gods of field and wood, river and rock, without fear of censure or death.
Blessed be those who have gone before; blessed be those who live now; blessed be those who will follow after. The wheel turns once more, and blessed are we who turn with it. Blessed be.
This year, I celebrate: two years year ago, Someone made his first visit to Casa de Crazy, began the process of coming Home.
This year I honor: my friend Lo, who passed through the veil last November, and my friend Jenny, his wife, who passed through the veil this past June on the day we were to honor Lo and place his ashes; my grandfather, who passed many years ago but whom I still miss.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Lammas
Today I was busy with vague, time-devouring stuff and didn't post this in a timely fashion. Whoopsie. Anyway, it's Lammas and I've recycled a post below. Meanwhile, to celebrate the day, I baked bread, and for dinner we had BLTs made with that bread and tomatoes from the garden...loverly...
~~~
Happy Lammas, y'all!
Wait, you don't know what Lammas is?
Well, you've come to the right place!
Loaf Mass, it was called long ago, a day to celebrate the first of the grain harvested and ground to flour. It's a day for baking, for sharing the bounty of the field with family and friends, for celebrating the hope of a Winter without starvation and the renewing of the cycle in the Spring.
Sharing bread is old, a tradition rooted back beyond religion to something so primal it didn't even have a name. Bread is life. Bread is a blessing. The wedding cake we have today began as loaves that were broken and crumbled over the bride's head for luck and fortune, fertility and abundance.
When you greet new neighbors, if you follow old traditions, you bring them bread or some other baked good. Houses aren't warmed until bread has been baked, or at least served in them. There are bread traditions in almost every faith.
One of the oldest forms of hospitality is to offer bread and salt - representatives of the elements, the sacred things. To offer them is to offer a place in the home to one's guest, to make them welcome like family, to offer not just food and hearth, but protection as well. To accept them is to promise not to break the peace of the home, to honor the family, the traditions, to do no harm.
Lammas, Loaf Mass, a day to bake, to break bread with friends and celebrate the wonder of grain and all its goodness.
It's also a day for beer and ale, if you're into those sorts of things.
Celebrate the harvest with me today. Take a bite of toast, or a sweet, tart, crisp apple, or a sun-warmed tomato fresh from the vine, or anything that smacks of "harvest", and savor it. The taste, the texture, the hours of sunlight and gallons of rain that went into the making of it. Taste of the wind and the earth, as well. Whatever you've planted, I hope it comes to fruition and will sustain you through leaner times, as the grain from the field carries us all through Winter.
Blessed be, y'all, and happy Lammas.
~~~
Happy Lammas, y'all!
Wait, you don't know what Lammas is?
Well, you've come to the right place!
Loaf Mass, it was called long ago, a day to celebrate the first of the grain harvested and ground to flour. It's a day for baking, for sharing the bounty of the field with family and friends, for celebrating the hope of a Winter without starvation and the renewing of the cycle in the Spring.
Sharing bread is old, a tradition rooted back beyond religion to something so primal it didn't even have a name. Bread is life. Bread is a blessing. The wedding cake we have today began as loaves that were broken and crumbled over the bride's head for luck and fortune, fertility and abundance.
When you greet new neighbors, if you follow old traditions, you bring them bread or some other baked good. Houses aren't warmed until bread has been baked, or at least served in them. There are bread traditions in almost every faith.
One of the oldest forms of hospitality is to offer bread and salt - representatives of the elements, the sacred things. To offer them is to offer a place in the home to one's guest, to make them welcome like family, to offer not just food and hearth, but protection as well. To accept them is to promise not to break the peace of the home, to honor the family, the traditions, to do no harm.
Lammas, Loaf Mass, a day to bake, to break bread with friends and celebrate the wonder of grain and all its goodness.
It's also a day for beer and ale, if you're into those sorts of things.
Celebrate the harvest with me today. Take a bite of toast, or a sweet, tart, crisp apple, or a sun-warmed tomato fresh from the vine, or anything that smacks of "harvest", and savor it. The taste, the texture, the hours of sunlight and gallons of rain that went into the making of it. Taste of the wind and the earth, as well. Whatever you've planted, I hope it comes to fruition and will sustain you through leaner times, as the grain from the field carries us all through Winter.
Blessed be, y'all, and happy Lammas.
Sunday, March 20, 2011
The Annual Ostara Shirk...er...Post
So it's Ostara again, and once again I have not written a post about what Ostara is besides the Equinox.
I know you're terribly disappointed. How 'bout I make it up to you with some chocolate? It's on the table in the kitchen, help yourself.
Meanwhile, we're at Mum's, coloring eggs and celebrating Spring. What're y'all up to today?
I know you're terribly disappointed. How 'bout I make it up to you with some chocolate? It's on the table in the kitchen, help yourself.
Meanwhile, we're at Mum's, coloring eggs and celebrating Spring. What're y'all up to today?
Thursday, March 17, 2011
St. Whatsis Day
This is a (slightly edited) re-repost. You'll survive.
~~~~~
I'll be cooking corned beef and cabbage for dinner tonight, much to my family's delight. Mum may come down because she, like me, loves the stuff. Bird likes the bread and meat fine, but not the cabbage, and he doesn't want the potatoes, which leads me to wonder if any of the one-quarter Irish in my veins made it to him. I get not liking cabbage, but potatoes? Something's not right with the child. Someone will happily scarf the lot, because he's a good Irish lad.
Seeing as I'm Pagan, you wouldn't think I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Better than most, I know what St. Patrick did to get famous and earn his sainthood. However, I'm also part Irish, and I happen to love corned beef and cabbage. Also, I consider it a reclaiming of the day for Pagans, or some junk.
A bit of rather bent history (that has, I'll grant you, been mangled in my head over the years and is rather truncated because I'm not writing a book, here)(I'm writing a book somewhere else). When I was a child, we were told that St. Patrick's day was to celebrate his chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. It is an historically serpent-free bit of earth, and the church attributed this to St. Pat and his efforts...kind of overlooking that there weren't any of the slithery things on the island to begin with, if you ask me. Which they didn't, because I was a kid and most grown-ups weren't prepared for my staggering logic and keen grasp of history but rather appalling lack of respect for theology .
Many years later, people were saying St. Patrick's Day was a celebration of all things Irish, like green beer (wait, isn't beer German??) and green clothes, and green hair, and green mashed potatoes (which I won't eat on a dare because, really...green potatoes???), and rivers dyed green (I'm sure the fish are all so very thankful to be included...like Fridays and Lent weren't enough for them!)(that might only be funny if you're Catholic)(or not) and exclusionary parades, and funny little men waving their shillelaghs about (look it up you pervs!!) and that sort of thing.
In none of the many different explanations for this seemingly random holiday did anyone mention pagans. A most curious oversight of you know what St. Patrick, who was just Patrick at the time (not really, I have no idea what his real name was. For all I know, it was Fred), was actually doing on the Emerald Isle.
He was born and lived sometime between 490 and 461 AD, give or take. Around age sixteen, he was either sent or stolen and taken to Ireland where he spent some time hanging out with sheep and being lonely. He talked to God a lot. You may notice that lots of shepherds do that. You would too if all you had for company all day was a bunch of mutton-heads. Christianity was rolling along like a snowball in those days, spreading out all over the dang place. Good grief, it was getting so that a simple Pagan/Heathen (there's a difference between the two, not that the church cared much) couldn't get any peace any more. Everywhere they turned, there was a church being built where a sacred grove used to be, from the trees that used to be the sacred grove, or a church going up on a sacred hill, or someone bathing their dirty feet in a sacred stream. To be fare, there was a lot of real estate lumped under that "sacred" heading in the pagan world. We're like that - we just love our planet so. Plus, you know, all those gods needed housing, and they don't do the roommate thing very well. So the pagans were running out of places to have sex on the ground, in the woods, up a tree - they were big on the sex, those little devils - and to read entrails in their spare time.
I digressed. Sorry.
So there was this lonely kid, Patrick Whatsisname, hanging out with sheep and pondering life, the universe, and everything. He got the idea, somewhere along the way, that maybe other folks should share his God. He got out of his contract (OK, probably slavery) and went around telling folks how terrific his God was, and how he reckoned they should convert.
It seems that polite conversation wasn't doing it for the pagans, who tended to stare at him, or point and laugh. Rude beggars, huh? Now young Patrick (or middle aged Patrick, or old Patrick, I have no idea) decided he needed to be a bit more...persuasive. He had noticed something common among the pagan big-wigs. The guys at the top of the food-chain, magic/spirituality wise speaking tended to have a symbol on them somewhere...usually around their wrist. On the wrist that indicated their "hand of power", or the hand which they believed their "magic" flowed from. If it wasn't a tattoo, it was a torque. Guess what the tattoo/torque was? A critter called the oroborus. For them as what doesn't ken what that critter is, it's a snake eating its tail, and often represents eternity.
Pat realized that if he took away this "power", he took away their mystique and leadership ability. So he removed the snakes - often with something edged and unpleasant. Yes, he whacked off their hands. Or branded their skin. Or took their trinkets. Converting Heathens is such messy work!! It was for their own good, of course.
Some pagans today go on "snake crawls", a sort of pub crawl where they wear snakes and proclaim their paganism. I'm not quite that...er...proactive. I also don't necessarily think old Pat went around mauling everyone he met in an effort to build church membership and win a nifty prize. But it's the bloody aspect of what he did that earned his name in Christendom and for which his holiday is celebrated.
So again, why would I celebrate the day? Well, I'm all for a day when families get together and discuss history, theology, spirituality, and the like. Traditions are important - they give us a foundation on which to build our lives. People should discuss their history so they don't repeat it - whatever side of the issue they're on. Also, as I mentioned, I am part Irish. I can celebrate that heritage even as I acknowledge its imperfection. And I am Pagan - and I am celebrating the fact that I can be pagan today without (much) fear of having my (largely not visible when I'm clothed) tattoos painfully removed and other unpleasantness (except for the odd zealot who thinks I'm fair game, but I'm used to that. I live in the Bible belt, after all). Precisely because we didn't get wiped out, I celebrate. And have you ever had a really nice corned beef and cabbage dinner? I mean, yum!
Oh, but I won't be wearing green. I wear blue. Don't even think about pinching me.
~~~~~
I'll be cooking corned beef and cabbage for dinner tonight, much to my family's delight. Mum may come down because she, like me, loves the stuff. Bird likes the bread and meat fine, but not the cabbage, and he doesn't want the potatoes, which leads me to wonder if any of the one-quarter Irish in my veins made it to him. I get not liking cabbage, but potatoes? Something's not right with the child. Someone will happily scarf the lot, because he's a good Irish lad.
Seeing as I'm Pagan, you wouldn't think I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Better than most, I know what St. Patrick did to get famous and earn his sainthood. However, I'm also part Irish, and I happen to love corned beef and cabbage. Also, I consider it a reclaiming of the day for Pagans, or some junk.
A bit of rather bent history (that has, I'll grant you, been mangled in my head over the years and is rather truncated because I'm not writing a book, here)(I'm writing a book somewhere else). When I was a child, we were told that St. Patrick's day was to celebrate his chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. It is an historically serpent-free bit of earth, and the church attributed this to St. Pat and his efforts...kind of overlooking that there weren't any of the slithery things on the island to begin with, if you ask me. Which they didn't, because I was a kid and most grown-ups weren't prepared for my staggering logic and keen grasp of history but rather appalling lack of respect for theology .
Many years later, people were saying St. Patrick's Day was a celebration of all things Irish, like green beer (wait, isn't beer German??) and green clothes, and green hair, and green mashed potatoes (which I won't eat on a dare because, really...green potatoes???), and rivers dyed green (I'm sure the fish are all so very thankful to be included...like Fridays and Lent weren't enough for them!)(that might only be funny if you're Catholic)(or not) and exclusionary parades, and funny little men waving their shillelaghs about (look it up you pervs!!) and that sort of thing.
In none of the many different explanations for this seemingly random holiday did anyone mention pagans. A most curious oversight of you know what St. Patrick, who was just Patrick at the time (not really, I have no idea what his real name was. For all I know, it was Fred), was actually doing on the Emerald Isle.
He was born and lived sometime between 490 and 461 AD, give or take. Around age sixteen, he was either sent or stolen and taken to Ireland where he spent some time hanging out with sheep and being lonely. He talked to God a lot. You may notice that lots of shepherds do that. You would too if all you had for company all day was a bunch of mutton-heads. Christianity was rolling along like a snowball in those days, spreading out all over the dang place. Good grief, it was getting so that a simple Pagan/Heathen (there's a difference between the two, not that the church cared much) couldn't get any peace any more. Everywhere they turned, there was a church being built where a sacred grove used to be, from the trees that used to be the sacred grove, or a church going up on a sacred hill, or someone bathing their dirty feet in a sacred stream. To be fare, there was a lot of real estate lumped under that "sacred" heading in the pagan world. We're like that - we just love our planet so. Plus, you know, all those gods needed housing, and they don't do the roommate thing very well. So the pagans were running out of places to have sex on the ground, in the woods, up a tree - they were big on the sex, those little devils - and to read entrails in their spare time.
I digressed. Sorry.
So there was this lonely kid, Patrick Whatsisname, hanging out with sheep and pondering life, the universe, and everything. He got the idea, somewhere along the way, that maybe other folks should share his God. He got out of his contract (OK, probably slavery) and went around telling folks how terrific his God was, and how he reckoned they should convert.
It seems that polite conversation wasn't doing it for the pagans, who tended to stare at him, or point and laugh. Rude beggars, huh? Now young Patrick (or middle aged Patrick, or old Patrick, I have no idea) decided he needed to be a bit more...persuasive. He had noticed something common among the pagan big-wigs. The guys at the top of the food-chain, magic/spirituality wise speaking tended to have a symbol on them somewhere...usually around their wrist. On the wrist that indicated their "hand of power", or the hand which they believed their "magic" flowed from. If it wasn't a tattoo, it was a torque. Guess what the tattoo/torque was? A critter called the oroborus. For them as what doesn't ken what that critter is, it's a snake eating its tail, and often represents eternity.
Pat realized that if he took away this "power", he took away their mystique and leadership ability. So he removed the snakes - often with something edged and unpleasant. Yes, he whacked off their hands. Or branded their skin. Or took their trinkets. Converting Heathens is such messy work!! It was for their own good, of course.
Some pagans today go on "snake crawls", a sort of pub crawl where they wear snakes and proclaim their paganism. I'm not quite that...er...proactive. I also don't necessarily think old Pat went around mauling everyone he met in an effort to build church membership and win a nifty prize. But it's the bloody aspect of what he did that earned his name in Christendom and for which his holiday is celebrated.
So again, why would I celebrate the day? Well, I'm all for a day when families get together and discuss history, theology, spirituality, and the like. Traditions are important - they give us a foundation on which to build our lives. People should discuss their history so they don't repeat it - whatever side of the issue they're on. Also, as I mentioned, I am part Irish. I can celebrate that heritage even as I acknowledge its imperfection. And I am Pagan - and I am celebrating the fact that I can be pagan today without (much) fear of having my (largely not visible when I'm clothed) tattoos painfully removed and other unpleasantness (except for the odd zealot who thinks I'm fair game, but I'm used to that. I live in the Bible belt, after all). Precisely because we didn't get wiped out, I celebrate. And have you ever had a really nice corned beef and cabbage dinner? I mean, yum!
Oh, but I won't be wearing green. I wear blue. Don't even think about pinching me.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Yule
Annual re-post
~~~~~
Happy Yule, y'all!
Wait, what? Yule - you know...Yule? The holiday that some people celebrated waaayyy before that poor wee baby was born in a pile of hay? Evergreens ring a bell? Holly? Ivy? Mistletoe??
OK, go get a snack and a nice beverage (eggnog on the right, pink punch in the center, pick a bottle from the high chair to spike it with)(yes, the high chair is our bar - the Evil Genius doesn't need it any more, Sprout won't need it for a while, and it's an heirloom that I want to keep on display - so why not??) and get comfy. All set?
Yule, or Winter Solstice, is a celebration of the returning light.
Yep, it's that simple.
The God is reborn today, and the days will lengthen with his growth, into the fullness of Summer. In some villages, way back in the past, hearth fires would be extinguished (a brave thing when you didn't have Zippos or matches or even two sticks to rub together). They would be relit from brands taken from a community balefire, lit by the sun himself with a little help from some glass (or a hidden coal or two - c'mon, we weren't above a little showmanship, back then), thereby bringing the sun (and, one hoped, his blessings) into the home. It also kept the community united, because everyone shared the same fire, the same light and heat. Cool, huh? Gotta love a religion that encourages playing with fire. Ahem.
The fir tree was (and is) a symbol of life lasting even through death, the promise of life and light renewed, and a reminder that beneath the snow, the Earth-heart beats on. Holly and Ivy were green, too, but they were also symbols of the Green Man, the Forest Lord, Jack o' the Green - the God primeval. The Holly King and the Ivy King, the old and the young, the constant, changing balance. Deep stuff, yo.
Mistletoe is still used in a fairly traditional way, although it wasn't always just kissing done under the stuff. I still use the leaves and occasional berry when I make love bundles for people (Note - a love bundle isn't a love spell, it is meant to strengthen what is already there, not coerce or sublimate the free will of another. I don't DO love spells, so don't even ask.)(I mean it.), and it's a terrific symbol. It was also a fertility and aphrodisiac herb, but only symbolically - even wigged out Druids knew the stuff was toxic!
We light a yule log, in our house one that's cut from the trunk of last year's tree (the rest of which is providing habitat and nutrients in the woods out back). Old tales say if it lights on the first try and burns for twelve hours, we'll have good luck...this year, I'm soaking one end in water, first. What? We need all the good fortune we can get...don't you??
This year we are spending Yule at Mum's, lighting the burn pile, celebrating the returning light with a little spark of our own. We're stoked, too, because there's a lunar eclipse as well - awesome!
Sometimes a group of us will get together and just spend a quiet day nibbling snacks, enjoying each other's company, and taking a break from the holiday insanity out there among the English. If we exchange gifts, we try to make them ourselves, or give things that encourage and nurture our spiritual or creative selves.
But mostly, it's a celebration of the returning sun, the waxing light, the cycle renewed.
Happy Yule - When the days be cold, may your hearth be warm. When the nights be long, may your fire burn bright. When the wind blows, may you find snug shelter. When tree and field are bare, may your larder be full. May you never know Winter's chill a moment longer than you care to, nor hunger nor want, and should you find you have all that you need and a bit more besides, may you find someone who will gladly take what you offer and live better for the receiving. Blessed be.
~~~~~
Happy Yule, y'all!
Wait, what? Yule - you know...Yule? The holiday that some people celebrated waaayyy before that poor wee baby was born in a pile of hay? Evergreens ring a bell? Holly? Ivy? Mistletoe??
OK, go get a snack and a nice beverage (eggnog on the right, pink punch in the center, pick a bottle from the high chair to spike it with)(yes, the high chair is our bar - the Evil Genius doesn't need it any more, Sprout won't need it for a while, and it's an heirloom that I want to keep on display - so why not??) and get comfy. All set?
Yule, or Winter Solstice, is a celebration of the returning light.
Yep, it's that simple.
The God is reborn today, and the days will lengthen with his growth, into the fullness of Summer. In some villages, way back in the past, hearth fires would be extinguished (a brave thing when you didn't have Zippos or matches or even two sticks to rub together). They would be relit from brands taken from a community balefire, lit by the sun himself with a little help from some glass (or a hidden coal or two - c'mon, we weren't above a little showmanship, back then), thereby bringing the sun (and, one hoped, his blessings) into the home. It also kept the community united, because everyone shared the same fire, the same light and heat. Cool, huh? Gotta love a religion that encourages playing with fire. Ahem.
The fir tree was (and is) a symbol of life lasting even through death, the promise of life and light renewed, and a reminder that beneath the snow, the Earth-heart beats on. Holly and Ivy were green, too, but they were also symbols of the Green Man, the Forest Lord, Jack o' the Green - the God primeval. The Holly King and the Ivy King, the old and the young, the constant, changing balance. Deep stuff, yo.
Mistletoe is still used in a fairly traditional way, although it wasn't always just kissing done under the stuff. I still use the leaves and occasional berry when I make love bundles for people (Note - a love bundle isn't a love spell, it is meant to strengthen what is already there, not coerce or sublimate the free will of another. I don't DO love spells, so don't even ask.)(I mean it.), and it's a terrific symbol. It was also a fertility and aphrodisiac herb, but only symbolically - even wigged out Druids knew the stuff was toxic!
We light a yule log, in our house one that's cut from the trunk of last year's tree (the rest of which is providing habitat and nutrients in the woods out back). Old tales say if it lights on the first try and burns for twelve hours, we'll have good luck...this year, I'm soaking one end in water, first. What? We need all the good fortune we can get...don't you??
This year we are spending Yule at Mum's, lighting the burn pile, celebrating the returning light with a little spark of our own. We're stoked, too, because there's a lunar eclipse as well - awesome!
Sometimes a group of us will get together and just spend a quiet day nibbling snacks, enjoying each other's company, and taking a break from the holiday insanity out there among the English. If we exchange gifts, we try to make them ourselves, or give things that encourage and nurture our spiritual or creative selves.
But mostly, it's a celebration of the returning sun, the waxing light, the cycle renewed.
Happy Yule - When the days be cold, may your hearth be warm. When the nights be long, may your fire burn bright. When the wind blows, may you find snug shelter. When tree and field are bare, may your larder be full. May you never know Winter's chill a moment longer than you care to, nor hunger nor want, and should you find you have all that you need and a bit more besides, may you find someone who will gladly take what you offer and live better for the receiving. Blessed be.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Bah! Or Some Junk
Woke to rain and ice, how nice.
I drove into the city for my weekly appointment with the Specialist, and that was fun...but at least people were being slightly more cautious than usual. Half of the parking lot was blocked off because of ice, and there were icicles hanging from car mirrors and roof racks. I was very careful walking into the building - didn't want the ambulance sitting in the port cochere to have a second passenger!
Sprout is doing fine. Little minx, she's turned toward my spine so we can't see her face on the ultrasound, but she was happy to show me her butt.
Came home to a crying Evil Genius. I usually let him know the night before I have an appointment so he'll know I won't be here when he wakes up, and he's fine with that. I forgot to last night. He saw me driving away and though maybe I was leaving him here and not coming back.
Ouch.
We had a cuddle and read a bit, and I once again reassured him that I would never, ever, just go off and leave him. He's still feeling clingy, though.
Sigh.
I would like to go hide under the covers for a bit...but there's no vacation from being Mommy, no Spring break or Summer break, or even coffee break. 24/7 for the rest of my life, and most of the time I'm more than fine with that.
I need to finish addressing holiday cards. Every year, the list shortens. People die, or move, or grow so distant as to make it seem moot. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. Does anyone even give a damn? Would they notice if the little cards with the photos of the Evil Genius tucked inside and the hand-written greetings stopped coming?
There are one or two folks whom I believe are happy to receive what may be the one missive I fire off during the year...but the rest? I wonder why bother. Who cares?
I'm having a difficult time mustering good cheer, this year. Depression sucks. Anger sucks. Being broke and broken sucks. It might be more bearable if there was an end in sight, but given I've hauled this load since I was a child, and given that it has never, ever, lightened...I ain't holding my breath.
Nothing's right, right now.
It'll pass. It always does. Sooner rather than later, I hope...because ready or not, whatever my frame of mind may be at the time, come late January a certain Sprout is going to spring into the world...and I'd like her to see me smiling.
I drove into the city for my weekly appointment with the Specialist, and that was fun...but at least people were being slightly more cautious than usual. Half of the parking lot was blocked off because of ice, and there were icicles hanging from car mirrors and roof racks. I was very careful walking into the building - didn't want the ambulance sitting in the port cochere to have a second passenger!
Sprout is doing fine. Little minx, she's turned toward my spine so we can't see her face on the ultrasound, but she was happy to show me her butt.
Came home to a crying Evil Genius. I usually let him know the night before I have an appointment so he'll know I won't be here when he wakes up, and he's fine with that. I forgot to last night. He saw me driving away and though maybe I was leaving him here and not coming back.
Ouch.
We had a cuddle and read a bit, and I once again reassured him that I would never, ever, just go off and leave him. He's still feeling clingy, though.
Sigh.
I would like to go hide under the covers for a bit...but there's no vacation from being Mommy, no Spring break or Summer break, or even coffee break. 24/7 for the rest of my life, and most of the time I'm more than fine with that.
I need to finish addressing holiday cards. Every year, the list shortens. People die, or move, or grow so distant as to make it seem moot. Sometimes I wonder if it's worth it. Does anyone even give a damn? Would they notice if the little cards with the photos of the Evil Genius tucked inside and the hand-written greetings stopped coming?
There are one or two folks whom I believe are happy to receive what may be the one missive I fire off during the year...but the rest? I wonder why bother. Who cares?
I'm having a difficult time mustering good cheer, this year. Depression sucks. Anger sucks. Being broke and broken sucks. It might be more bearable if there was an end in sight, but given I've hauled this load since I was a child, and given that it has never, ever, lightened...I ain't holding my breath.
Nothing's right, right now.
It'll pass. It always does. Sooner rather than later, I hope...because ready or not, whatever my frame of mind may be at the time, come late January a certain Sprout is going to spring into the world...and I'd like her to see me smiling.
Monday, December 13, 2010
One, Two, Tree
It was cold, grey, and even a touch snowy yesterday - perfect weather for tarting up a yule tree.
Someone helped me re-hang the lights, and it went much better than Saturday's sad effort - really, you never know how terribly wrong lights can go, do you??
T was coming to get the Evil Genius, but not until late afternoon/early evening, so we went ahead and hung ornaments as well. All three of us had a lovely time, and although I chose to leave about half the ornaments boxed, the tree is loaded with shiny, funny, nostalgic baubles.
I'll have pics up eventually...as soon as I manage to take some that aren't over-exposed or blurry and dark. Sigh.
How was your Sunday?
Someone helped me re-hang the lights, and it went much better than Saturday's sad effort - really, you never know how terribly wrong lights can go, do you??
T was coming to get the Evil Genius, but not until late afternoon/early evening, so we went ahead and hung ornaments as well. All three of us had a lovely time, and although I chose to leave about half the ornaments boxed, the tree is loaded with shiny, funny, nostalgic baubles.
I'll have pics up eventually...as soon as I manage to take some that aren't over-exposed or blurry and dark. Sigh.
How was your Sunday?
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Deja Lumiere
Yesterday was a prickly sort of day. It started late and slow and doing anything felt like moving through corn syrup - sticky, resisting, , requiring greater effort for less effect.
Up came the boxes of lights, home decorations, and ornaments.
Slowly around the tree I went with the lights.
Turned 'em on.
Sighed.
No good.
Didn't have time to fix 'em, though - we had a cookie swap to get to.
I would like to know how I brought two batches of cookies, maybe four pound or so, and left with enough cookies to require assistance getting them into the house? Like a forklift...
Oh, well - the mail carrier, bank ladies, and doctor's offices will all have a cookielicious week, for sure.
Meanwhile, today Someone is going to help me de-light the tree and do it again, this time making sure it doesn't look like someone put them on during a seizure.
Someday I really will wad them up, throw them at the tree, and call it a day.
Up came the boxes of lights, home decorations, and ornaments.
Slowly around the tree I went with the lights.
Turned 'em on.
Sighed.
No good.
Didn't have time to fix 'em, though - we had a cookie swap to get to.
I would like to know how I brought two batches of cookies, maybe four pound or so, and left with enough cookies to require assistance getting them into the house? Like a forklift...
Oh, well - the mail carrier, bank ladies, and doctor's offices will all have a cookielicious week, for sure.
Meanwhile, today Someone is going to help me de-light the tree and do it again, this time making sure it doesn't look like someone put them on during a seizure.
Someday I really will wad them up, throw them at the tree, and call it a day.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Getting Into It
I have a love/hate thing with the holidays.
I love some of the music, the lights, baking, time spent with friends and family, wrapping gifts, the looks of surprise and delight that well-chosen gifts can elicit, and the way the season, if only briefly, can bring out the best in people.
I don't love the mad scramble to buy! buy!! buy!!!, the feelings of obligation engendered by relentless consumerism, the relentless music blaring distortedly over PA systems, the ceaseless auditory hammering of commercials touting cheap plastic crap as the next big thing, the marketing aimed at children that encourages them to equate gifts with love, the fact that this holiday's simple origins have been lost in the glitz, glam, lights and inflatable animatronic doo-dads, and that retailers are now readying their stores for the holidays in October.
I love putting up my few lights outside, and eventually getting a tree up indoors. I look forward to doing these things with Someone for the first of (what I hope will be) many times this year. I love filling my home with the scent of baking cookies and breads, then sending those baked goods out into the world for others to (hopefully) enjoy.
I hate being broker than a politician's promise, and so unable to give gifts as lavishly as I otherwise would. I hate how this time of year can bring out the very worst in people - beatings, stabbings, shootings, thefts, and cruelty abound, usually over some stupid sale item that a retailer has unceasingly advertised as available for one day only, while supplies last, creating huge demand...and yet only ordered a few of them, first come, first served.
I love popping in my Trans Siberian Orchestra CDs and singing along with them. Likewise my Bing Crosby CD and my GRP Jazz collection, all holiday music.
I hate the electronic, frenetic, blaring, grating, saccharine, over-played crap that runs over most retailer's loudspeakers.
I could go on, but why?
I used to work setup for a venerable local tradition, a week-long charity event. That was the beginning of the season for me - setting up the Festival of Trees. The event, like many things, was a victim of the economy and went away. I'm told there's a version of it still going on, but when I offered to volunteer or design something for the sale, I was rebuffed. Sigh.
Now it's the cookie swap that gets me started. Usually in the first week of December, it's a fun way to get rolling - bake up a storm and go swap delectables with friends, telling stories about our recipes and why we enjoy them.
During the next week, I'll haul out the outdoor decorations - a few lights, some garland for the banisters - and run extension cords. Who builds a house with no outdoor sockets? I'd like to ask the builder what he was thinking...
The lights need testing. I had to toss some strands last year because they were beyond my limited ability to salvage. Some of the garland had to go, too - the neighbor's cad had peed all over it, and that's a smell that doesn't go away...and is something less than festive.
I'm not feeling festive right now...but know I will get there.
Today will help - I'm off to the co-op to demonstrate my mad card making skillz, yo...and I'm making holiday cards to (hopefully) sell.
What gets you in the mood?
I love some of the music, the lights, baking, time spent with friends and family, wrapping gifts, the looks of surprise and delight that well-chosen gifts can elicit, and the way the season, if only briefly, can bring out the best in people.
I don't love the mad scramble to buy! buy!! buy!!!, the feelings of obligation engendered by relentless consumerism, the relentless music blaring distortedly over PA systems, the ceaseless auditory hammering of commercials touting cheap plastic crap as the next big thing, the marketing aimed at children that encourages them to equate gifts with love, the fact that this holiday's simple origins have been lost in the glitz, glam, lights and inflatable animatronic doo-dads, and that retailers are now readying their stores for the holidays in October.
I love putting up my few lights outside, and eventually getting a tree up indoors. I look forward to doing these things with Someone for the first of (what I hope will be) many times this year. I love filling my home with the scent of baking cookies and breads, then sending those baked goods out into the world for others to (hopefully) enjoy.
I hate being broker than a politician's promise, and so unable to give gifts as lavishly as I otherwise would. I hate how this time of year can bring out the very worst in people - beatings, stabbings, shootings, thefts, and cruelty abound, usually over some stupid sale item that a retailer has unceasingly advertised as available for one day only, while supplies last, creating huge demand...and yet only ordered a few of them, first come, first served.
I love popping in my Trans Siberian Orchestra CDs and singing along with them. Likewise my Bing Crosby CD and my GRP Jazz collection, all holiday music.
I hate the electronic, frenetic, blaring, grating, saccharine, over-played crap that runs over most retailer's loudspeakers.
I could go on, but why?
I used to work setup for a venerable local tradition, a week-long charity event. That was the beginning of the season for me - setting up the Festival of Trees. The event, like many things, was a victim of the economy and went away. I'm told there's a version of it still going on, but when I offered to volunteer or design something for the sale, I was rebuffed. Sigh.
Now it's the cookie swap that gets me started. Usually in the first week of December, it's a fun way to get rolling - bake up a storm and go swap delectables with friends, telling stories about our recipes and why we enjoy them.
During the next week, I'll haul out the outdoor decorations - a few lights, some garland for the banisters - and run extension cords. Who builds a house with no outdoor sockets? I'd like to ask the builder what he was thinking...
The lights need testing. I had to toss some strands last year because they were beyond my limited ability to salvage. Some of the garland had to go, too - the neighbor's cad had peed all over it, and that's a smell that doesn't go away...and is something less than festive.
I'm not feeling festive right now...but know I will get there.
Today will help - I'm off to the co-op to demonstrate my mad card making skillz, yo...and I'm making holiday cards to (hopefully) sell.
What gets you in the mood?
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Samhain
Partial reprint with some new stuff mixed in, just to keep you on your toes.
~~~~~
Samhain. All Hallows Eve. Hallowe'en. Halloween.
While little (and not so little) people are out extorting candy from strangers (On the one night a year Mum and Dad aren't telling them NOT to take candy from strangers, and isn't that a mixed message?)(And if you don't think it's extortion, think about it - "Give me a treat or I'll play a prank on you" is exactly that - extortion), more than a few pagans are spending the evening in an entirely different fashion.
Samhain (pronounced "sawin") is sometimes called the Witches' New Year. It's thought to be the time of year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, and so best suited for speaking with our dead, with those who passed on in the previous year. On Samhain, our living God dies, and until he is born again on Yule the Goddess and all the world mourns him. Poor Goddess, carrying her child alone for the next two months - throughout eternity she must suffer this loss before she can know her joy once more. Don't worry if you don't get it - it's a cyclic thing, a nature thing, and a deeply, weirdly Pagan thing.
Some will have large meetings, solemnly chant and circle the fire, call upon the gods of old. Some will dance wildly around bonfires, drumming, singing, shrieking, leaping the flames, looking for all the world like the imps and devils we were once purported to be. Some will just hand out candy and let the night pass, and some will put out the lights, draw the blinds, and pretend not to be home. A few (Pagan and non) will look for and find trouble. Most will feast, drink, and hold the dumb supper - the meal placed out for the those who've gone through the veil - whether alone or in numbers. These days, none who are truly Pagan will sacrifice anything more than a glass of wine and/or a plate of food to the fire, the earth, the old gods.
This year I don't know who will be hanging about - Mum, for certain, Someone, me. T has Bird but will bring him home in time to carve a pumpkin and go trick-or-treating (I am hoping both in out neighborhood and in one where there's a bit more action...it's gotten a little lame here). I don't know if anyone else will be about - I haven't been a proactive with the invites and folks are busy. The house is a little messy, but it'll do. At least one room is clean - the baby's. I have a few pumpkins to carve, one each for me, Mum, Someone, and Bird, plus a few small ones to be made into puree for cakes later in the year.
Of course we'll roast the pumpkin seeds becausethe baby needs them to live I adore them.
We'll carve pumpkins, the lot of us, and nosh the snacks I've put out. I'll roast the seeds and may even share them. At dusk, we'll light the jack-o-lanterns and take the kids (or the kid, anyway) out for their bit of begging.
If the night is fine, we may fire up the outdoor fireplace and sit out on the drive reminiscing about the past, about family and friends long gone but not forgotten. I may or may not mull some cider and have some cups to ladle out portions for the adults trailing the kids who will start coming around soon. Heh - come and drink my Witch's Brew - you won't fly or turn into a newt, but it'll take the chill off. I may or may not have a bit of whisky or rum to add medicinal value to the drink.
I will make a special dinner for Samhain night. I don't have anything traditional - this year it's a crockpot roast, potatoes, carrots, and pumpkin spice cake with cinnamon spice buttercream icing. I try to make something that my ancestors or anyone I've lost in the previous year would like to eat. The first portion of each item is carefully plated and placed at the head of the table or on the altar. A bit of whatever's to drink will be placed with the laden plate - probably whisky for Snake and cider for B (she just got her one-year token before she died).
Later tonight, after we've eaten, handed out candy, taken the kids out for some socially sanctioned begging, we'll take food and drink down to the woods and leave the contents for our ancestors. We may or may not name them. We may or may not sing a song for them. We will honor them, wish them well, and remember. We will ask their blessing in the coming year. It will be short, but heartfelt - we don't need a lot of ritual, these days, just a few quiet minutes with our Gods.
It's an odd hodgepodge of a night - some modern traditions that were founded in the old, and some straight from the days (and nights) when our people could be openly themselves, could worship the gods of field and wood, or river and rock, without fear of censure or death.
Blessed be those who have gone before; blessed be those who live now; blessed be those who will follow after. The wheel turns once more, and blessed are we who turn with it. Blessed be.
This year, I celebrate: one year ago, Someone made his first visit to Casa de Crazy, began the process of coming Home.
This year I honor: Aunt D, who passed last spring; my friend Snake; my friend B, and old friend from the track who died suddenly and unexpectedly last month; my grandfather, who passed many years ago but whom I still miss.
~~~~~
Samhain. All Hallows Eve. Hallowe'en. Halloween.
While little (and not so little) people are out extorting candy from strangers (On the one night a year Mum and Dad aren't telling them NOT to take candy from strangers, and isn't that a mixed message?)(And if you don't think it's extortion, think about it - "Give me a treat or I'll play a prank on you" is exactly that - extortion), more than a few pagans are spending the evening in an entirely different fashion.
Samhain (pronounced "sawin") is sometimes called the Witches' New Year. It's thought to be the time of year when the veil between the worlds is thinnest, and so best suited for speaking with our dead, with those who passed on in the previous year. On Samhain, our living God dies, and until he is born again on Yule the Goddess and all the world mourns him. Poor Goddess, carrying her child alone for the next two months - throughout eternity she must suffer this loss before she can know her joy once more. Don't worry if you don't get it - it's a cyclic thing, a nature thing, and a deeply, weirdly Pagan thing.
Some will have large meetings, solemnly chant and circle the fire, call upon the gods of old. Some will dance wildly around bonfires, drumming, singing, shrieking, leaping the flames, looking for all the world like the imps and devils we were once purported to be. Some will just hand out candy and let the night pass, and some will put out the lights, draw the blinds, and pretend not to be home. A few (Pagan and non) will look for and find trouble. Most will feast, drink, and hold the dumb supper - the meal placed out for the those who've gone through the veil - whether alone or in numbers. These days, none who are truly Pagan will sacrifice anything more than a glass of wine and/or a plate of food to the fire, the earth, the old gods.
This year I don't know who will be hanging about - Mum, for certain, Someone, me. T has Bird but will bring him home in time to carve a pumpkin and go trick-or-treating (I am hoping both in out neighborhood and in one where there's a bit more action...it's gotten a little lame here). I don't know if anyone else will be about - I haven't been a proactive with the invites and folks are busy. The house is a little messy, but it'll do. At least one room is clean - the baby's. I have a few pumpkins to carve, one each for me, Mum, Someone, and Bird, plus a few small ones to be made into puree for cakes later in the year.
Of course we'll roast the pumpkin seeds because
We'll carve pumpkins, the lot of us, and nosh the snacks I've put out. I'll roast the seeds and may even share them. At dusk, we'll light the jack-o-lanterns and take the kids (or the kid, anyway) out for their bit of begging.
If the night is fine, we may fire up the outdoor fireplace and sit out on the drive reminiscing about the past, about family and friends long gone but not forgotten. I may or may not mull some cider and have some cups to ladle out portions for the adults trailing the kids who will start coming around soon. Heh - come and drink my Witch's Brew - you won't fly or turn into a newt, but it'll take the chill off. I may or may not have a bit of whisky or rum to add medicinal value to the drink.
I will make a special dinner for Samhain night. I don't have anything traditional - this year it's a crockpot roast, potatoes, carrots, and pumpkin spice cake with cinnamon spice buttercream icing. I try to make something that my ancestors or anyone I've lost in the previous year would like to eat. The first portion of each item is carefully plated and placed at the head of the table or on the altar. A bit of whatever's to drink will be placed with the laden plate - probably whisky for Snake and cider for B (she just got her one-year token before she died).
Later tonight, after we've eaten, handed out candy, taken the kids out for some socially sanctioned begging, we'll take food and drink down to the woods and leave the contents for our ancestors. We may or may not name them. We may or may not sing a song for them. We will honor them, wish them well, and remember. We will ask their blessing in the coming year. It will be short, but heartfelt - we don't need a lot of ritual, these days, just a few quiet minutes with our Gods.
It's an odd hodgepodge of a night - some modern traditions that were founded in the old, and some straight from the days (and nights) when our people could be openly themselves, could worship the gods of field and wood, or river and rock, without fear of censure or death.
Blessed be those who have gone before; blessed be those who live now; blessed be those who will follow after. The wheel turns once more, and blessed are we who turn with it. Blessed be.
This year, I celebrate: one year ago, Someone made his first visit to Casa de Crazy, began the process of coming Home.
This year I honor: Aunt D, who passed last spring; my friend Snake; my friend B, and old friend from the track who died suddenly and unexpectedly last month; my grandfather, who passed many years ago but whom I still miss.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Lammas
Happy Lammas, y'all!
Wait, you don't know what Lammas is?
Well, you've come to the right place!
Loaf Mass, it was called long ago, a day to celebrate the first of the grain harvested and ground to flour. It's a day for baking, for sharing the bounty of the field with family and friends, for celebrating the hope of a Winter without starvation and the renewing of the cycle in the Spring.
Sharing bread is old, a tradition rooted back beyond religion to something so primal it didn't even have a name. Bread is life. Bread is a blessing. The wedding cake we have today began as loaves that were broken and crumbled over the bride's head for luck and fortune, fertility and abundance.
When you greet new neighbors, if you follow old traditions, you bring them bread or some other baked good. Houses aren't warmed until bread has been baked, or at least served in them. There are bread traditions in almost every faith.
One of the oldest forms of hospitality is to offer bread and salt - representatives of the elements, the sacred things. To offer them is to offer a place in the home to one's guest, to make them welcome like family, to offer not just food and hearth, but protection as well. To accept them is to promise not to break the peace of the home, to honor the family, the traditions, to do no harm.
Lammas, Loaf Mass, a day to bake, to break bread with friends and celebrate the wonder of grain and all its goodness.
It's also a day for beer and ale, if you're into those sorts of things.
Celebrate the harvest with me today. Take a bite of toast, or a sweet, tart, crisp apple, or a sun-warmed tomato fresh from the vine, or anything that smacks of "harvest", and savor it. The taste, the texture, the hours of sunlight and gallons of rain that went into the making of it. Taste of the wind and the earth, as well. Whatever you've planted, I hope it comes to fruition and will sustain you through leaner times, as the grain from the field carries us all through Winter.
Blessed be, y'all, and happy Lammas.
Wait, you don't know what Lammas is?
Well, you've come to the right place!
Loaf Mass, it was called long ago, a day to celebrate the first of the grain harvested and ground to flour. It's a day for baking, for sharing the bounty of the field with family and friends, for celebrating the hope of a Winter without starvation and the renewing of the cycle in the Spring.
Sharing bread is old, a tradition rooted back beyond religion to something so primal it didn't even have a name. Bread is life. Bread is a blessing. The wedding cake we have today began as loaves that were broken and crumbled over the bride's head for luck and fortune, fertility and abundance.
When you greet new neighbors, if you follow old traditions, you bring them bread or some other baked good. Houses aren't warmed until bread has been baked, or at least served in them. There are bread traditions in almost every faith.
One of the oldest forms of hospitality is to offer bread and salt - representatives of the elements, the sacred things. To offer them is to offer a place in the home to one's guest, to make them welcome like family, to offer not just food and hearth, but protection as well. To accept them is to promise not to break the peace of the home, to honor the family, the traditions, to do no harm.
Lammas, Loaf Mass, a day to bake, to break bread with friends and celebrate the wonder of grain and all its goodness.
It's also a day for beer and ale, if you're into those sorts of things.
Celebrate the harvest with me today. Take a bite of toast, or a sweet, tart, crisp apple, or a sun-warmed tomato fresh from the vine, or anything that smacks of "harvest", and savor it. The taste, the texture, the hours of sunlight and gallons of rain that went into the making of it. Taste of the wind and the earth, as well. Whatever you've planted, I hope it comes to fruition and will sustain you through leaner times, as the grain from the field carries us all through Winter.
Blessed be, y'all, and happy Lammas.
Sunday, May 9, 2010
One Day?
Mother. Mom. Mommy. Mama. Mam. Mum. Ma.
There's more than one way to refer to one's mater.
It hardly seems fair that someone who figures so largely in a body's life should get one day a year in her honor. Well...two if you count birthdays. Still.
I don't much care for mother's day, truth be told. It's not that I don't love my Mum, 'cause I do. I just don't love how commercialized it's become, how it's been made to be about presents and flowers and going out to eat. Hmph. None of the ads on TV or radio, or here in the blue nowhere, mention taking out the trash or doing dishes or laundry, or mowing the yard, or any of a number of things a mom might like better than trinkets or chocolates or clothes that don't fit.
I love and appreciate my Mum every day of the year, without the aid of Hallmark or Kay jewelers, or any other commercial concern, thankyouverymuch.
And the Evil Genius constantly tells me he loves me, plasters me with hugs and kisses, cuddles up and wants to be with me, so I'm good in that department, too.
I'm working the RenFest this weekend for my friend K. I imagine there will be mothers there, out with their families. I hope they have fun. I hope it's not the only day this year their kids pay them any mind.
Happy Mother's Day, y'all...every day.
There's more than one way to refer to one's mater.
It hardly seems fair that someone who figures so largely in a body's life should get one day a year in her honor. Well...two if you count birthdays. Still.
I don't much care for mother's day, truth be told. It's not that I don't love my Mum, 'cause I do. I just don't love how commercialized it's become, how it's been made to be about presents and flowers and going out to eat. Hmph. None of the ads on TV or radio, or here in the blue nowhere, mention taking out the trash or doing dishes or laundry, or mowing the yard, or any of a number of things a mom might like better than trinkets or chocolates or clothes that don't fit.
I love and appreciate my Mum every day of the year, without the aid of Hallmark or Kay jewelers, or any other commercial concern, thankyouverymuch.
And the Evil Genius constantly tells me he loves me, plasters me with hugs and kisses, cuddles up and wants to be with me, so I'm good in that department, too.
I'm working the RenFest this weekend for my friend K. I imagine there will be mothers there, out with their families. I hope they have fun. I hope it's not the only day this year their kids pay them any mind.
Happy Mother's Day, y'all...every day.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Spring!
Happy Ostara, y'all. Wait, what? Umm...Ostara is the Vernal Equinox to them what's not pagan. You know, when the days are no longer shorter than the nights and it warms up and we thaw out and rabbits lay chocolate eggs in plastic baskets because that's what bunnies do when...oh, whoops...sorry.
It IS the equinox, though, and we're dying eggs and enjoying the day here at Casa de Crazy. I scored some hockey tickets from a friend, so I'm dragging Someone out on an actual date tonight...score!
Usually I'd explain what a pagan holiday is all about, but I'm kinda tired from telling fortunes at the New Moon release party at Borders (gaggles of giggling girls, good grief)(but also awesome), so I'll just leave you wondering and wish you a happy Spring.
It IS the equinox, though, and we're dying eggs and enjoying the day here at Casa de Crazy. I scored some hockey tickets from a friend, so I'm dragging Someone out on an actual date tonight...score!
Usually I'd explain what a pagan holiday is all about, but I'm kinda tired from telling fortunes at the New Moon release party at Borders (gaggles of giggling girls, good grief)(but also awesome), so I'll just leave you wondering and wish you a happy Spring.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
St. Pat's, A Slightly Edited Redux
This is a (slightly edited) repost. You'll survive.
~~~~~
I'll be cooking corned beef and cabbage and soda bread for dinner tonight, much to my family's delight. Mum may come down because she, like me, loves the stuff. Bird likes the bread and meat fine, but not the cabbage, and he doesn't want the potatoes, which leads me to wonder if any of the one-quarter Irish in my veins made it to him. I get not liking cabbage, but potatoes? Something's not right with the child. Someone will happily scarf the lot, because he's a good Irish lad.
Seeing as I'm Pagan, you wouldn't think I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Better than most, I know what St. Patrick did to get famous and earn his sainthood. However, I'm also part Irish, and I happen to love corned beef and cabbage. Also, I consider it a reclaiming of the day for Pagans, or some junk.
A bit of rather bent history (that has, I'll grant you, been mangled in my head over the years and is rather truncated because I'm not writing a book, here)(I'm writing a book somewhere else). When I was a child, we were told that St. Patrick's day was to celebrate his chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. It is an historically serpent-free bit of earth, and the church attributed this to St. Pat and his efforts...kind of overlooking that there weren't any of the slithery things on the island to begin with, if you ask me. Which they didn't, because I was a kid and most grown-ups weren't prepared for my staggering logic and keen grasp of history but rather appalling lack of respect for theology .
Many years later, people were saying St. Patrick's Day was a celebration of all things Irish, like green beer (wait, isn't beer German??) and green clothes, and green hair, and green mashed potatoes (which I won't eat on a dare because, really...green potatoes???), and rivers dyed green (I'm sure the fish are all so very thankful to be included...like Fridays and Lent weren't enough for them!)(that might only be funny if you're Catholic)(or not) and exclusionary parades, and funny little men waving their shillelaghs about (look it up you pervs!!) and that sort of thing.
In none of the many different explanations for this seemingly random holiday did anyone mention pagans. A most curious oversight of you know what St. Patrick, who was just Patrick at the time (not really, I have no idea what his real name was. For all I know, it was Fred), was actually doing on the Emerald Isle.
He was born and lived sometime between 490 and 461 AD, give or take. Around age sixteen, he was either sent or stolen and taken to Ireland where he spent some time hanging out with sheep and being lonely. He talked to God a lot. You may notice that lots of shepherds do that. You would too if all you had for company all day was a bunch of mutton-heads. Christianity was rolling along like a snowball in those days, spreading out all over the dang place. Good grief, it was getting so that a simple Pagan/Heathen (there's a difference between the two, not that the church cared much) couldn't get any peace any more. Everywhere they turned, there was a church being built where a sacred grove used to be, from the trees that used to be the sacred grove, or a church going up on a sacred hill, or someone bathing their dirty feet in a sacred stream. To be fare, there was a lot of real estate lumped under that "sacred" heading in the pagan world. We're like that - we just love our planet so. Plus, you know, all those gods needed housing, and they don't do the roommate thing very well. So the pagans were running out of places to have sex on the ground, in the woods, up a tree - they were big on the sex, those little devils - and to read entrails in their spare time.
I digressed. Sorry.
So there was this lonely kid, Patrick Whatsisname, hanging out with sheep and pondering life, the universe, and everything. He got the idea, somewhere along the way, that maybe other folks should share his God. He got out of his contract (OK, probably slavery) and went around telling folks how terrific his God was, and how he reckoned they should convert.
It seems that polite conversation wasn't doing it for the pagans, who tended to stare at him, or point and laugh. Rude beggars, huh? Now young Patrick (or middle aged Patrick, or old Patrick, I have no idea) decided he needed to be a bit more...persuasive. He had noticed something common among the pagan big-wigs. The guys at the top of the food-chain, magic/spirituality wise speaking tended to have a symbol on them somewhere...usually around their wrist. On the wrist that indicated their "hand of power", or the hand which they believed their "magic" flowed from. If it wasn't a tattoo, it was a torque. Guess what the tattoo/torque was? A critter called the oroborus. For them as what doesn't ken what that critter is, it's a snake eating its tail, and often represents eternity.
Pat realized that if he took away this "power", he took away their mystique and leadership ability. So he removed the snakes - often with something edged and unpleasant. Yes, he whacked off their hands. Or branded their skin. Or took their trinkets. Converting Heathens is such messy work!! It was for their own good, of course.
Some pagans today go on "snake crawls", a sort of pub crawl where they wear snakes and proclaim their paganism. I'm not quite that...er...proactive. I also don't necessarily think old Pat went around mauling everyone he met in an effort to build church membership and win a nifty prize. But it's the bloody aspect of what he did that earned his name in Christendom and for which his holiday is celebrated.
So again, why would I celebrate the day? Well, I'm all for a day when families get together and discuss history, theology, spirituality, and the like. Traditions are important - they give us a foundation on which to build our lives. People should discuss their history so they don't repeat it - whatever side of the issue they're on. Also, as I mentioned, I am part Irish. I can celebrate that heritage even as I acknowledge its imperfection. And I am Pagan - and I am celebrating the fact that I can be pagan today without (much) fear of having my (largely not visible when I'm clothed) tattoos painfully removed and other unpleasantness (except for the odd zealot who thinks I'm fair game, but I'm used to that. I live in the Bible belt, after all). Precisely because we didn't get wiped out, I celebrate. And have you ever had a really nice corned beef and cabbage dinner? I mean, yum!
Oh, but I won't be wearing green. I wear blue. Don't even think about pinching me
~~~~~
I'll be cooking corned beef and cabbage and soda bread for dinner tonight, much to my family's delight. Mum may come down because she, like me, loves the stuff. Bird likes the bread and meat fine, but not the cabbage, and he doesn't want the potatoes, which leads me to wonder if any of the one-quarter Irish in my veins made it to him. I get not liking cabbage, but potatoes? Something's not right with the child. Someone will happily scarf the lot, because he's a good Irish lad.
Seeing as I'm Pagan, you wouldn't think I'd celebrate St. Patrick's Day. Better than most, I know what St. Patrick did to get famous and earn his sainthood. However, I'm also part Irish, and I happen to love corned beef and cabbage. Also, I consider it a reclaiming of the day for Pagans, or some junk.
A bit of rather bent history (that has, I'll grant you, been mangled in my head over the years and is rather truncated because I'm not writing a book, here)(I'm writing a book somewhere else). When I was a child, we were told that St. Patrick's day was to celebrate his chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. It is an historically serpent-free bit of earth, and the church attributed this to St. Pat and his efforts...kind of overlooking that there weren't any of the slithery things on the island to begin with, if you ask me. Which they didn't, because I was a kid and most grown-ups weren't prepared for my staggering logic and keen grasp of history but rather appalling lack of respect for theology .
Many years later, people were saying St. Patrick's Day was a celebration of all things Irish, like green beer (wait, isn't beer German??) and green clothes, and green hair, and green mashed potatoes (which I won't eat on a dare because, really...green potatoes???), and rivers dyed green (I'm sure the fish are all so very thankful to be included...like Fridays and Lent weren't enough for them!)(that might only be funny if you're Catholic)(or not) and exclusionary parades, and funny little men waving their shillelaghs about (look it up you pervs!!) and that sort of thing.
In none of the many different explanations for this seemingly random holiday did anyone mention pagans. A most curious oversight of you know what St. Patrick, who was just Patrick at the time (not really, I have no idea what his real name was. For all I know, it was Fred), was actually doing on the Emerald Isle.
He was born and lived sometime between 490 and 461 AD, give or take. Around age sixteen, he was either sent or stolen and taken to Ireland where he spent some time hanging out with sheep and being lonely. He talked to God a lot. You may notice that lots of shepherds do that. You would too if all you had for company all day was a bunch of mutton-heads. Christianity was rolling along like a snowball in those days, spreading out all over the dang place. Good grief, it was getting so that a simple Pagan/Heathen (there's a difference between the two, not that the church cared much) couldn't get any peace any more. Everywhere they turned, there was a church being built where a sacred grove used to be, from the trees that used to be the sacred grove, or a church going up on a sacred hill, or someone bathing their dirty feet in a sacred stream. To be fare, there was a lot of real estate lumped under that "sacred" heading in the pagan world. We're like that - we just love our planet so. Plus, you know, all those gods needed housing, and they don't do the roommate thing very well. So the pagans were running out of places to have sex on the ground, in the woods, up a tree - they were big on the sex, those little devils - and to read entrails in their spare time.
I digressed. Sorry.
So there was this lonely kid, Patrick Whatsisname, hanging out with sheep and pondering life, the universe, and everything. He got the idea, somewhere along the way, that maybe other folks should share his God. He got out of his contract (OK, probably slavery) and went around telling folks how terrific his God was, and how he reckoned they should convert.
It seems that polite conversation wasn't doing it for the pagans, who tended to stare at him, or point and laugh. Rude beggars, huh? Now young Patrick (or middle aged Patrick, or old Patrick, I have no idea) decided he needed to be a bit more...persuasive. He had noticed something common among the pagan big-wigs. The guys at the top of the food-chain, magic/spirituality wise speaking tended to have a symbol on them somewhere...usually around their wrist. On the wrist that indicated their "hand of power", or the hand which they believed their "magic" flowed from. If it wasn't a tattoo, it was a torque. Guess what the tattoo/torque was? A critter called the oroborus. For them as what doesn't ken what that critter is, it's a snake eating its tail, and often represents eternity.
Pat realized that if he took away this "power", he took away their mystique and leadership ability. So he removed the snakes - often with something edged and unpleasant. Yes, he whacked off their hands. Or branded their skin. Or took their trinkets. Converting Heathens is such messy work!! It was for their own good, of course.
Some pagans today go on "snake crawls", a sort of pub crawl where they wear snakes and proclaim their paganism. I'm not quite that...er...proactive. I also don't necessarily think old Pat went around mauling everyone he met in an effort to build church membership and win a nifty prize. But it's the bloody aspect of what he did that earned his name in Christendom and for which his holiday is celebrated.
So again, why would I celebrate the day? Well, I'm all for a day when families get together and discuss history, theology, spirituality, and the like. Traditions are important - they give us a foundation on which to build our lives. People should discuss their history so they don't repeat it - whatever side of the issue they're on. Also, as I mentioned, I am part Irish. I can celebrate that heritage even as I acknowledge its imperfection. And I am Pagan - and I am celebrating the fact that I can be pagan today without (much) fear of having my (largely not visible when I'm clothed) tattoos painfully removed and other unpleasantness (except for the odd zealot who thinks I'm fair game, but I'm used to that. I live in the Bible belt, after all). Precisely because we didn't get wiped out, I celebrate. And have you ever had a really nice corned beef and cabbage dinner? I mean, yum!
Oh, but I won't be wearing green. I wear blue. Don't even think about pinching me
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