Newsgroups: alt.pagan

>>>>> On Sep, 9, Ciaran Benson (CB) wrote:

> If you've never killed an animal, you can NOT understand what it's like.
I agree.  I have only once, other than putting a seriously wounded animal
out of its misery, had to kill an animal, which was a rat that strayed into
my flat (usa readers: apartment).  Since guns are not, on the whole,
permitted over here, and I didn't have my bow at that time, it was
one-on-one man to rat combat.  Just before I eventually killed it, the damn
thing glared right at me as if to say that it knew its fate.  I felt lousy
about it for weeks afterwards, even though I know I would do the same thing
again if I had to, without hesitation.

>   I've got an atheme next to the bed, and a bokun (a wooden sword), and three
> short swords hanging on the wall in the bedroom.  There's another bokun at
> the end of the hall, a battle-axe on the wall in the TV room, a ceremonial
> sword in the temple, an entire wall of spears and knives and axes and swords
> in my study, my partner's library has two bokuns and a handful of daggers and
> staffs and a rapier, the great hall has a great sword, a hand-n-half, a
> broadleaf, a cross-bow, a 80# recurve, and four ceremonial daggers, the "Oak
> Study" has two ceremonial blades, a fantasy polearm, two quarterstaffs, and
> there's a white-and-silver katana on a black-laquer table in the entry.

> And those are just the weapons you can see.  We've hidden more.  
That's a heck of a description!  I'd like to see your house someday ;-) My
bokken is cased and stored, as is my athame, and my take-down bow is taken
down and stored.  Maybe I should put up a sign requesting that would-be
intruders write, in triplicate, giving the preferred time and date of
break-in, so that I can be ready :-)

> [lots of good stuff which I agree with deleted]

>   Defining our safety based on a weapon is ugly.  Very ugly.
>   I wish I could think of a way around that.
>   Perhaps all of this has no place in alt.pagan, 
OK, has anyone tried constructing magical wards around their house or
property?  And how effective were/are they?  I know that this is a
difficult proposition to prove - short of recruiting a team of impartial
burglars and attempting a double blind trial on warded and un-warded
houses!  I guess there could be circumstantial evidence: "I was burgled 3
times a year before I created the ward", or counter-examples: "I created a
ward and got attacked anyway".  Personally, I felt the need, real or
imagined, to protect my flat before going on vacation this year, and I
didn't get burgled.  But then, I have never been burgled in 5 years there.

Would anyone like to suggest different techniques for house shielding,
ritual or otherwise?


>   And somehow, it seems that an answer could be built from the legends of
> the Goddess and Gods of war, that the answers warring peoples found for
> themselves can be addapted for ourselves, that their mystical metaphores
> can be updated and reconstructed to suit our own needs, to give us some
> sort of spiritual solution to our physical distress.
Most of the planet lives under the teachings of a jewish thunder and war
deity.  Look where it got us. On the other hand, you could argue that this
is precisely why we should reclaim the positive aspects of the warrior.
Which brings me on to the mens' mysteries ... no, no I can't - I must do
some work :-(

>   I'll be watching ... Blessed be, Ciaran.

Blessings,
Ian

|Ian Dickinson    HP Labs Bristol (Knowledge Based Programming Dept)   England|
|Email: ijd@hplb.hpl.hp.com    | Enough if something from our hands have power|
|   These opinions are mine,   | To live and act and serve the future hour    |
|  and not (necessarily) HP's  |                                 - Wordsworth |
Newsgroups: alt.pagan