The Laws of UPG

I was going to write something else, but the concept of the Laws of Undocumented Personal Gnosis came up during the first one and seemed to be a much better topic than ranting about the Plastic Paddy Racist of the Month (Na Astaraichean, if you want to Google the loon).

The laws, in first draft:
1) No UPG is allowed to contradict known facts about the associated pagan culture and stand as more than a modern invention. It is also probably useless unless you don't care for accuracy.
2) If a UPG does not contradict known facts but cannot be verified within the same body of knowledge, it remains a modern invention. This does not mean it is useless.
3) If a UPG turns out to fit a gap in known tradition in a fashion that does not activate the first law, it is worth pursuing further.
4) If a UPG that meets the second or third law is arrived at by people who have had no real contact with each other, it remains modern but is Shared. This means the group just may be getting somewhere interesting.
5) If a UPG becomes a SPG and said SPG is adopted outside of the groups who first thought of it, it becomes a modern tradition.
6) There is no way for a UPG to become Ancient Lore unless it is kept mostly intact for at least 1,000 years.

Any refinements that y'all might want to suggest, leave them in comments. I'll be grateful.

Time to blog?

I'm at Pantheacon this weekend. Time to blog is at a very tight premium accordingly.

Personal bits update

The contract-to-hire position I mentioned late last month is reaching the "to-hire" part next week. It's a very good environment for me. My boss is mellow about my paganism as far as she's been exposed to it (my description of Pantheacon was met with, "Oh, that sounds pretty cool"), the company encourages its people to do more than act like a cog, and I see lots of room for growth in my career there. They know I blog. They don't care as long as I'm not divulging company secrets or abusing company time to post.

This does mean my thoughts of migrating to a different blogging software package and domain are in abeyance for now, though. I'm not chafing at this setup so much that my lesser quantity of free time is crying to be sacrificed on that particular altar.

A lovely debunking

Every so often, Barry Fell's claims about ogam in the United States come around. Monroe Oppenheimer and William Wirtz did those of us who have large issues with Fell a big favor by laying out exactly where he went completely off the deep end.

New with potential

Brehon Law Project is a new blog which looks to serve as an adjunct to the website and real-life symposia on the subject. I hope it lasts a good long time.

Personal note

If any of you are planning on being at Pantheacon this year, I'll be around. My husband and I co-edit the convention newsletter. We're also participating in two rituals. On Friday night, we'll be working the Pomba Gira ritual. I'll be on stage helping with the singing. Sunday evening's Brigid ritual includes me as one of the three Brigids. Both promise to be excellent, even if I do say so myself. I'll also be hovering around from place to place, as is my wont at Pantheacon.

Identity politics of a different sort

One of the more personally disheartening divides in modern Celtic paganism is over the matter of gay rights. One individual who identifies as Gaelic Traditionalist (I'm led to believe some GTs would rather he stop making them look stupid, thus the dodge language) recently snarked that "the bridge crew of the USS CR" hauled its personal politics into Celtic religion along with them. I put it as "them" because I wasn't there for the start of it. I just happen to agree wholeheartedly with keeping Celtic reconstructionism a safe place to be queer.

In a large respect, the pro-gay stance of CR/senistrognata is indeed an import with no easy proof our ancestors would have felt comfortable about it. Same-sex marriage was impossible under brehon law, albeit for heavily biological reasons. Marriage and children were linked to where some of the lesser degrees of it were designed to protect the interests of both the mother and the offspring gotten by a one-night stand or a rape. Brehon law is mostly silent on the topic of homosexuality. The modern concept of a queer identity was non-existent then. But the fact some people had same-sex relations was well known. One of the valid grounds for divorce under brehon law was discovering your spouse was only interested in having sex with members of their own gender. My readings in early Irish Christian penitentials has led me to discover very specific descriptions of same-sex activities that were frowned upon by the Church, so the behavior was religiously proscribed under that tradition. But the pre-Christian attitude in Ireland is not noted.

Greek writings about the behavior of Gaulish soldiers may shed some light, though. Those men had no problem with at least situational homosexuality with little respect for military rank in their choice of partners. We're not talking Theban pair-bonding, which was blatantly pederastic. The writer made it sound as if the soldiers' idea of a good night off would be fit for a Castro District porn store shelf. Was it just because the women weren't there? Quite possibly. But that to me indicates a more flexible attitude toward sexual behavior than that of modern times. Your average American male would see extended time away from women as a reason to learn new variations on what his dominant hand can do. I've also seen a translation of Roman graffiti in which one man declared he was abandoning all attempts at dating women in favor of men. No identity labels were involved, just a statement of behavior.

It would be easy to romanticize the situation based on scanty evidence. At the same time, I am hard put to see where refusing to treat queers as equals is inherently more Celtic than embracing the concept. And if it's more Celtic to sneer at the notion of supporting rights for all regardless of sexual orientation or identity, then I think I'd rather be American for that aspect of my beliefs. Self-hatred is quite definitely not one of the Celtic virtues, and I know what I'd rather be Gaelically incorrect about.

A small poke at presumption

Circle Jerk at the Square Dance invites people to play Spot the persecution. I see in this both a critique of the fundamentalist right wing of modern Christianity and perhaps an unsubtle reminder to some of my fellow pagans about the difference between social difficulty and persecution.

Personal update

I am about to start a contract-to-hire position performing software QA at a startup. I realize I've been a once-a-week poster already, but it's possible this will drop even further down my priority list depending on how the rest of my life fares around my day job. It may be a hiccup where I only do the first three weeks and the company decides I'm not worth keeping after all. I may have more leisure at the job than I've been warned about. Either way, I wanted to make note of the change in case I get even more quiet than usual here. I'll try to maintain some contact with blogging, though. I've been enjoying this.

They will know we are pagans by... what?

I mentioned in my last entry that I've embarked on a dedication to Manannán mac Lir. One of the conditions of the dedication is my wearing a symbol of it on a daily basis. After due meditation, I chose a mermaid as the symbol. Other events confirmed that I chose properly. So far, there's been no reaction to my wearing one around my neck. I recently added what I will charitably call a fan art cloisonne pin of Jessica Rabbit as a mermaid to my purse to make sure I have a mermaid no matter what (I sometimes forget to wear the necklace). But should someone ask why, I am duty-bound to answer.

This leads me to contemplate what it means to have a closer walk with my god and being more open about it than I used to be. It's sensitizing me to how others approach it in their lives. I'm one of the last people to think we need to evangelize the unfaithful. One of the aspects of my tradition that I appreciate is how we don't think we have all the answers. And I know there are people in situations where being out isn't a wise idea. But I think some of us, myself included, can be too cautious about this.

I live in one of the most liberal areas of the United States. I am also primarily surrounded by free-thinkers in my social circles, whether they're pagan, atheist, Christian or Jewish. I still get touchy about revealing some bits of my beliefs. That's common in pagan circles. I see people online who claim to be pagan but never discuss their faith, even in their own blogs. There's a wide difference between admitting what some of your beliefs are and sharing oathbound material, but some pagans don't seem to want to do even that much

I do know there are places where it isn't safe to admit much. But as with the gay rights movement, which I've had contact with longer than I've been a pagan, the question comes down to this: how long does keeping silent act as a safeguard, and how long does it act like a means of maintaining the status quo? Does our refusal to admit what we are perpetuate the reasons to keep it to ourselves? And when does the burden of speaking the truth outweigh other considerations?

Notes and meditations

Neopagan fundamentalism is as hateful, vindictive and closed-minded as any other religion's. The only real difference between the neopagan form and the larger faiths' approaches is that there is no such thing as a neopagan-run organization with enough weapons to do anything more than take over a 7-Eleven. At least not this week.

***

In a semi-related sense, I'm debating whether the label "pagan" is properly applied to me. I don't mean I'm returning to Christianity. I mean whether it's appropriate for a Celtic reconstructionist to use the term. Is it reclaiming in the sense that "queer" is being reclaimed, or is it muddying the issue? I may revisit this later.

***

I forgot to mention that I'm now on a year and a day dedication to Manannan mac Lir. I can't predict what that will mean to this blog, though I suspect it'll continue in some form. I won't be changing the name. That's already been discarded as a meaningless idea.

Admin: Contemplating migration

I discovered recently that my domain server provides me access to WordPress for no extra charge. Blogger's not a bad site, but I find it a little restrictive. I also dislike how people can report blogs here as offensive and, with enough votes, get them dropped from Blogger's promotional areas for no reason other than personal sentiment. So I'm curious if anyone reading this has performed the migration and whether they have any suggestions for how I can do it in a relatively painless fashion. I'd like, ideally, to transfer the posts. I know I'll need to get my LiveJournal RSS feed redone, as it'll be a new URL, but that will be the easy part.

Also, any pros and cons of WordPress would be useful for me to hear if you'd be willing to share. Thanks.

A bit of history for your Solstice

The Passing Parade: Cheap Shots from a Drive By Mind points out in his unique style how the timing of the celebration of Jesus' birth came about. It also supports my belief that Emperor Constantine did far more to reduce the influence of pagan beliefs in Europe than St. Patrick. But I guess it's easier to pick on an itinerant bishop in the same way that some animal rights groups bellow more about socialites in fur coats than bikers in leather.

Seasonal fare

Isaac Bonewits' latest project on his blog reminded me that my husband produced a T-shirt design to point out a truth about any shift in the seasons.



To keep within the theme of this blog, his pagan-specific designs can be found under Woo Beach Designs. He's done some interesting work with bindogam.

Carnival time

The latest Pagan Carnival is up.

The failing which market, now?

There was a lot of chatter in the pagan blogosphere about Phyllis Curott's claims that the big-name booksellers were abandoning pagan books in the face of pressure from the Moral Mafia (to resurrect Playboy's term for them). I found her claims to be somewhat unlikely, but I wasn't entirely sure why. It was more of an instinct than something I could throw facts at.

Until this week, at any rate. I received an early Christmas present. Sitting amongst the gift book section at Barnes and Noble, I spotted The Element Encyclopedia of 5000 Spells by Judika Illes. Not just one, but a stack, sharing space with the coffee table books on ancient Rome and Monty Python. My traveling companion bought it for me when he saw how intrigued I was by it. And the word on the street is that Illes did a fair bit of good homework in putting it together.

If Barnes and Noble is too scared to sell pagan books, they have a funny way of showing it.

My first fisking

I had the idea at the start of this blog that I'd do “I Read This So You Don’t Have To” reviews of bad Celtic books. This is related to that idea, but it’s a website instead. I’m usually mellow and balanced, but false claims are not the same as differing opinions. That said, I present a personally annotated history of the Celts and Druidry as presented by the Druidic Craft of the Wise.

The Cwmry, or Celts, are a collection of tribes that descended from a fair-skinned People who survived the Great Flood on the western slopes of the Himalayan Mountains.

The book of Genesis says that the waters completely covered the planet. Ararat only emerged long after the rains stopped. Or are Celts really merpeople? Can't be that. He didn't mention Atlantis.

As for the name of the people, I would love to cut them a little slack, but I can't seem to find enough rope. I know Welsh is a language that divorced itself from Hawaiian and lost the custody battle over the vowels, but it does have rules. And amongst them is that “Cwmry” anglicizes to Cumbria.

And trust me on this one, even if I am merely an amateur anthropology geek. “Pale-skinned” and “Himalayans” match as well as “Swedish Bikini Team look-alikes” and “Bantu tribesmen.”

When asked who they were, the teachers replied, "We are Pan," meaning "We are all of one mind," for this is the meaning of the name. These bearers of ancient Wisdom are commemorated with the head of a goat and the pipes of music to remind us of the age when the Old Wisdom Religion was first introduced to the Celtic people.

This would then mean that Wikipedia got it wrong when it says:

His nature and name is alluring, particularly since often his name is mistakenly thought to be identical to the Greek word pan, meaning "all", when in fact the name of the god is derived from the word pa-on, which means "herdsman" and shares its prefix with the modern English word "pasture".

The Encyclopedia Britannica would probably love to know that, too.

After about 2,150 years, the Sun moved into alignment with the stars of Sagittarius and the Celts befriended the horses who had multiplied and flourished in the mountains.

Wikipedia freely grants that the domestication question is up for considerable debate. But even if you take the Ukrainian evidence that page mention as proof of riding, it still places DCoW’s claims in the wrong millennium and about a thousand miles too far to the west, as you will see in a moment.

For the record, I’m polevaulting over a couple of paragraphs to spare you more than a passing mention of how Aescalapius (sic), the “man-teaching serpent,” was a Celt. It proves I care.

By the Age of Gemini, about 8,500 years ago, the Celts had migrated across the European continent.

Doing the math, this places our stalwart Celts as a flourishing culture about 6500 BCE. The early Greeks had only just started domesticating animals. There’s no sign of this activity in central or western Europe for another millennium or so. Our friends here claim the Celts civilized the Greeks at least 1,000 years prior. The archaeologists must be doing their math wrong.

At that time a new priesthood of Wisdom arose to lead the tribes of Cwmry (the traditional name for the Celtic people). With their guidance they entered into a time of peace and prosperity that lasted for nearly 6,000 years.

Why, of course the original Celts spoke Welsh. Never mind the Gaulish inscriptions behind the curtain! The great and powerful Father Eli has spoken.

And do I have to mention that the Celts didn’t emerge as a unique cultural group until sometime between 1200 and 600 BCE? No? Didn’t think so.

The Druids were the teachers, historians, physicians, counselors, musicians, seers, artisans and warrior chiefs of their tribes and villages.

Oh, damn. They almost got one right. I was so hoping.

In 432 A.D., the Grand Council of Druids met for the last time at Stonehenge.

I think he means the first time.

The Archdruid, Agricola, had received a vision that the Old Wisdom Religion preserved by the Druids throughout the past three ages, must yield to the revelations and traditions which were to become prevalent in the coming Age of Pisces.

Any relation to Cnaeus Julius Agricola? Georg Agricola? Coca-Cola? Hey, I know! It's Agri-Cola, the pause that refreshes your awen and awakens the fires of imbas forosnai!

More seriously, tell me how any druids at the time were only discussing Christianity in 432 when there were priests of that faith in Ireland before Patrick showed up. And he wasn’t even the first bishop the Pope sent. That honor goes to Palladius, who showed up the year before and worked an entirely different section of the country. And yes, sending a bishop to a country means you already have priests there. Do you really think the Church would send an officer to do an enlisted man’s job?

A vast majority of the Druidic Council shared Agricola's vision, and disbanded the Council to re-form as the Orthodox Celtic Church. (original link theirs - ed.)

Wow. So the Eastern Orthodox Churches are really Irish? Oh, right. The Greeks are really Celts, so the rest of them have to be. I forgot.

A young Druidic priest named Patrick was sent to Ireland, and a descendant of his mission has survived as The Church of the Culdees.

The particular church they link to seems to actually be descended from Polish Old Catholicism. As for the real Culdees, I think those anchorites from France would’ve been surprised to hear they were Druids.

In later centuries, when the Roman Inquisition found the clergy of the Celtic Church guilty of heresy for their differing philosophical beliefs, the teachings of Druidic wisdom were preserved with the rites of secret societies such as the Freemasons, and "The Knights of the Star and Garter."

An inquisition started in 1542 to combat Protestantism was really aimed at Catholic churches that were too Druidic, so an organization that existed in some form over 400 years earlier was created in retaliation to protect their teachings.

Pull the other one. It has mistletoe on it.

After 432 AD, the Old Wisdom Religion no longer had the Druids to guide them, but many families and clans preserved the ancient teachings in what has come to be called the Old Religion, the "Wiccan" or "Wisdom" religion, also known as the Craft of the Wise, or "Witchcraft."

And lo, the Celts of antiquity, who spoke bastardized Welsh since the waters of the Great Flood receded, switched to Anglo-Saxon.

In the Golden Age of Knowledge, the spirit of Chiro, the Lord of Time...

And the patron of bonesetters.

OK, OK, I just swiped at a typo. It was a straight line the width of a freeway.

The Age of Knowledge dawned over the center of the American continent at the Winter Solstice of 1971, as Jupiter, Mars and Venus moved into a conjunction in the sign of Scorpio, forming a brilliant star in the heavens during the early morning hours that Christmas Day. Three months later, astrologers watched in the dawning hours of the Equinox as the rising sun's rays touched the first stars of Aquarius. ... Perhaps the perspective of where we have been might provide a light for what path we should take in this New Age, as the Christian Era of Belief yields to the new Era of Knowledge in the Age of Aquarius.

The Age of Aquarius actually started in 1997. No, 2000. Um, wait, maybe it’s coming in 2150. Or is it 2638? Oh, if only I had the wisdom of Chiro to show me the way!

Well, I could, according to that site. For a small fee. But I think I’d be better off going to a chiropractic college and learning something that’d earn me an honest living. And no hating on chiropractors. Mine’s a peach and hasn’t pushed any snake oil on me the entire time I’ve been seeing him. Unless there’s some in the massage lotion he uses on my neck.

And thus concludes my first foray into “I Visit Websites So You Don’t Have To.” Any bets on how long it’ll take for a member of that organization to email me or leave a comment about how I just don’t get it?

A nod to the day

I hope all of my American readers have a good Thanksgiving, no matter what your politics are about the day.

For my non-American readers, I hope you're having a good Thursday.

I'm taking time today for friends, cheesy oversized balloons, and Arlo Guthrie.

The memories linger on

A housing project in St. Fillans, Perthshire, UK had to be redesigned when the locals pointed out the large rock they wanted to move had fairies living under it.

He said: “A neighbour came over shouting, ‘Don’t move that rock. You’ll kill the fairies’.” The rock protruded from the centre of a gently shelving field, edged by the steep slopes of Dundurn mountain, where in the sixth century the Celtic missionary St Fillan set up camp and attempted to convert the Picts from the pagan darkness of superstition.

In a fit of wisdom not always seen, the laws in the UK dictate that local customs need to be honored in such matters, so they have to redesign the project to go around the rock. I find myself hoping the owners remember to set out some cream at least once in a while.

It also seems to me that the aforementioned saint didn't completely succeed in his quest. But most of the Celtic saints were just about that effective, no matter what they tell you about St. Patrick. Elsewise, the Rev. Robert Kirk and W. Y. Evans-Wentz would have had nothing to write about.

It's that time again

The Pagan Carnival is up.