Anyone still interested in this years Pagan Spirit Gathering? No is the
time to start the ball rolling, as we've received our registration form
in the mail. For more information on the gathering itself, check out
http://www.circlesanctuary.org/events/events_cal.html or send some e-mail
to circle@mhtc.net, requesting they snail mail you a registration form.
If you have any questions or comments about going this year, you can e-mail
me at moonowl@provide.net!!!

Johnny

81 responses total.

Better get your reg in ASAP, I heard they were going to limit
the number of attendees this year.

When is it?  It's at Wisteria again, isn't it?

What is this. I am very interested. I would be greatly indebted if one of you
would email me (morgana@cyberspace.org) with details etc. as I'm having
technical difficulties with this computer. 
I would also be very interested in correspondence with other local pagans.
I do look forward to hearing from you. 

Thank you

(Before you ask for mail from local pagans, you might tell us
where you are.  We have folks from all over the place.)

Liza's an Ann Arborite, unless she's moved within the last 24 hours :)

Oh, ah.  Then why so new here, Liza?  Welcome to Synth.  Been on Grex long?
Are you asking "what is PSG" or "what is Synthesis" or "what is paganism"?

Hi, Liza.  :-)

Greetings! I've been away for a time, is this a dead board or is all of the
people out at a gathering. Have been on hyatis for about two or three years
and would love to talk to the chosen of the Mother once again. 'till then,
Blessed Be! birdnoir@grex.cyberspace.org

Welcome back, birdnoir, and blessed be to you as well.

It's not dead...just napping at times.

The activity ebbs and flows around here. Let's hope that your
return gives us a good ebb.  >8)

Indeed!  I love your login!  Look me up!  you seem to be an interesting
person.  Email is always welcome!  (and that goes for the rest of you in this
conf...even those lurkers :->  )

Re: #12 of 12 ... What's your address, I'll tell you mine;
birdnoir@grex.cyberspace.org ... love too be having e-mail. By the way I'm
out here in the deadlands of La Junta, Colorado. Where are the rest of you?

Just me again, got kicked off. Special program only lets me online for 30 mins
at a shot, but I can log right back on, but that's it's clunky. Anyway, can
someone tell me how I can look people up? I'm new at this, the last time that
I had a computer there wasn't any net, nobody was even thinking about that
sort of thing. Be checking in on and off all day. G'journey.

As a general rule, checking the conferences once or twice a
day is plenty, unless you're reading Agora.  Don't spend
your entire day online just for us.  >8)

robh - wouldn't an ebb be a drop in activity?

I don't think birdnoir is _that_ scary....<grin>

Er, I meant an ebb in INactivity, yeah, that's it!

r
q
Thanks for all of the help, don't think that I seen friendlier folk in some
time. Ebb in INactivity, Can I use that?

It's an Inspired consept.  Is it free speech?  :-)

Re: 19 ... free speech should always be an inspired concept, but we all know
that it come with the weight of responsibility. 

Responsibility ... what a concept. Feeling kind of mouthy, guess I'll throw
caution to the winds. I left the community on extended 'walk about' a little
over three years ago now and I'm really wondering where all of the poinent
issues have gone. Having served as 'elder' to different groups, even being
instrmental in the foundation of the Denver Area Wiccan Network, DAWN, and
submitted articles and artwork to several pagan publications, I am notable
concerned that our little family seems to haven fallen into a state of
apathy. Is this symtomactic of the world wide 'Generation X-ism', or have we
grow old and weak in our time, content only with comfort and the well used
syllabies from the last decade.
I'd really like to be put in touch with people of dynamic character and hear
their concerns and opinions. Where's our sense of adventure. The depth of our
convections. Our lust for life and love in the honor of the Goddess and her
Consort. Have we lost some of our way? If we have then where did we step from
the path chosen.
Hope that I haven't put anyone off. I'd really love the mail. Thanks.

I think it's because people feel safe. I don't know if they are right or not,
but after rebellion people relax, thinking that is all that needs to be
done as it is hard and dangerous work.  Also, many of the people who
were kicking up their heels in the 80's are now employed, and have
less energy to do things in their path.  (employment being a tenuous
and exausting or all consuming thing to many people)
And this being the case...what can you do to keep yourself sustained
and do what needs to be done on your path?  It used to be that a division
of labor helped this, and one/more capable in spiritual ways was supported
by those who did hunting, etc.  That doesn't exist anymore, except for
the christian faith, and those who sell their spirituality for money.
(neither of which I am comfortable with)   What to do?

Hello, my friend, what to do is indeed the question ... you'r right the people
feel safe and warm and $$$ secure. As if we are no longer attacked, critizied,
and hounded
talk font
is this thing on?

(cont of 23), sorry about that ... where was I ... As if the enemy has gone
away home and is no longer of any concern to us and ours. I seems incredulus
to me that in this age of mass communication that we can be so lulled into
a state of security, false security. One only has to turn on the xtian cable
channel to see just how presecuted we still are. There is dangerous talk that
is bubbling up from the south-western parts of this country ... just last year
the Rev. Copeland on national TV fostered the idea that the streets need to
be taken back in the name of ... could it be tax ...
        talk font

Enemy?  Rash language.  Last I checked, we were of the same species, and just
as prone to intolerance, fear-based reactions, narrowness and mental/spiritual
laziness, as a whole, as any other group of people.  Moreover, "witchwars"
isn't a new phenomenon- we've done ourselves *far* too much harm.  Now, it's
certainly true that there's some scary extremists propagating hate and fear
against us.  There are also plenty of folks out there, that I've run into,
who are looking to be reassured, who are perfectly reasonable and pleasant,
and will treat us as neighbors and participants in the same society if we let
them.  Of course, normalcy is boring, but that's life...

Ignorance is to be feared.  I actually overheard 2 co-workers wondering 
outloud if witches could still be burned, if not can they report them to
law enforcement.  Being of a "non christian" spiritual persuasion myself
this caused me great concern.  One of my co workers is convinced they are
bewitched and ready to destroy his attacker.  This incident is one of many
I have experienced. Other's ignorance is indeed to be feared. I for one
will stay in the broom closet a bit longer.

Pretty scary, indeed, Nira.  A gentleman joined my "Wicca 101" class a while
back in large part because he said most of his co-workers were satanists and
he was looking for self-protection magic.  Another person called me, pretty
clearly to be un-scared; wanted to know if it was "medieval" magic, etc. In
both cases, I've handled it by being unimpressed by the "heeby-jeebies", and
really common sense and up-front.  You might be able to handle your co-worker
in the same way; don't necessarily tell them you're pagan, or that you've got
bunches of friends who are wiccan, or anything like that, but speak in
practical terms of the pagans, some of whom use the term "witch", that you
know, for whom it's just "the old religion", who have kids, pay taxes, hold
down jobs, and are basically "just folks" and go to circle instead of church
to worship god as male and female, out in nature, in a respectful manner. 
You might reference St. Francis and his disciple St. Claire if he can deal
with that comparison.  Laugh freely at the hollywood/television conception
of witchcraft, how silly and fantastical it is, like thinking disease is
caused by imps or something.  Best of luck.

Re: 25 ... Hey, kami, Ireally like that 'same species' idea. Indulge me for
just a minute ... it may be intresting to note (and it certianly isn't
anything that I can prove in finite manner at this junction) that studies of
esoterica nature and observance of the current trend in UFO abductions have
lead me to the formation of a, prehaps unorthodox, beginning theory. It may
be possible that the people that are akin to us, those who exhibit 'magikal'
aboilty, hightened ESP (that's a klunky set of three letters), and higher
evolutional learning curves may not only be from different 'tribes' of
humanity, but that humanity is  exhibiting strong leanings towards producing
another 'intra-tribal/racial' sub-species. It also seems that this trend is
one that will be hard won, in that everyday I have come across new 'news' that
these traits are becoming more and more apparent in the society at large. Even
to the point that main stream religious establishments are having to make room
within their litanies to accommodate this.

(cont 28, I just love the lag monster, but next monttalk fenomeen
talk fenomeen
Hi, what can I do for you/
o

(cont of 29 ... next month my budget says that I can afford to join for real
... joy, joy, joy!) For the record, i do not now nor have I ever been racially
biased, nor will I committe myself to any cause that is supported by or
advocates the use of violence against the world or her peoples. This is one
place and we need to begin thinking as one people.
I have found that not everyone holds these same ideals. It is and continues
to be an act of balance, supported by the Goddess and her Consort, may their
light never leave the multiverse, by which my path of ZT bushido my keep the
chosen from harm, may I never harm another.

Hopefully you found #28 of intrest. Sincerely.

It was definitely of interest, and I'm not entirely sure what I think...

On the one hand, the idea of minds evolving along with bodies makes perfect
sense.  But, on the other hand, I have trouble thinking of "magic" (for lack
of a better blanket term) as something available to only a 'chosen few'.  

Hmm...  I'll have to think about this a bit more to figure out what I really
think...

Everytime the Christian calendar turns a new century, the public interest in
"magick" has resurfaced and become more apparent to the media of the time.
But I don't think this is anything other than a mass hysteria turning to the
unknown to understand the unknown.

In a few years most folks will have turned back to the known for another
century and the interest in our ways will go away again for the most part.
The best thing we can do is to understand that ideally, some of us will remain
in the broom closet "just in case" so that our ways are assured of going on
and that some of us will be open and spread the news that pagans don't put
small animals to death, bewitch the inncocent or eat children, to improve the
chances that "just in case" doesn't happen.

I choose to be pretty open.  Many of my fellows choose to be covert.  I'm
a tidge uncomfortable with covert circles *for myself*, but I also see them
as needful things to be accepted and respected.

The interest in ESP and alien abductions are not, in my opinion, related to
the pagan faith any more than they are related to the miracles of the
Christian faith.  They are a hysterical attempt to comprehend the unknowns
that a new century -- and in this case millenium -- brings.

Subspecies?  I don't think so.  Some people are "jocks" from infancy, learning
to catch a ball and run more easily than others. Some folks learn to draw from
the time they can pick up a stick, much less a crayon, and are conspicuously
artistic, some develop language early and well, and some folks show "psychic"
ability from early on, or from adolescence, more obviously than others.  In
all those cases, they are learnable human skill.  It's just that some of those
skills may come more easily to one person, take more work for another, and
be just dreary for a third.
Misti makes a very valid point about millenialism and the occult, although
I've heard various astrological explanations for people seeming more talented
or more interested in things magical/psychic.

Misti, I think a discussion about being "open" or "closeted", open groups and
oath-bound groups, etc. might merit its own item.  There are a lot more issues
there than just safety.  Think there's enough interest to support such an
item?

probably.  It's an issue each of us has had to decide for ourselves.

Re: 31. Hi, orinoco, it might be, at least as I have seen it, that evolution
is only for the chosen few, prehaps 'magick' is a way to understand how it
might happen to everyone that would like to evolve.

Re: 32. Hello, mta, it is very possible that the alien abduction scenario is
most related to the Christian religion, and it is possible that 'they' are
the 'soul' reason that the Christian faith has changed it's litany so
drastricly since the council of 854 a.d.. It is also possible that CE4/5 may
be a phenomanom (spl?) that is primarily intrested in the Christian faiths.

Re: 33. Greetings, kami, it does seem that these are 'learnable human traits'
and I really don't want to make genetics seem more important than it may be,
but, we are observing evolution and it is happening to many, and it is
happening, I hope, to anyone that may want it. Positive mental attitude is
a learned trait, genetic or demographic, sometimes I don't know, so I've
evolved to type. Oh, by the way, have you read 'When Legends Die' ?

I have not heard of "When Legends Die".  Tell me about it.

Birdnoir: Evolution, you seem to be using a Lamarkian view of evolution
(rather than the dominant Darwinian one).

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss