From: ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: men's spirituality (was Re: New Pagans and Reading)
Keywords: do it thineself
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 18:25:39 EDT
Organization: Ailanthus Project

corun@access.digex.com (Corun MacAnndra) writes:

> I must really be uninformed. I have understood that the whole God/Goddess
> thing stemmed from our very early experiments with religion, and, at least
> in the Celtic traditions, there was a clear definition between the Horned
> God and the Goddess (don't know about Her horns and don't want to offend
> by only referring to fertility). But that they realized that the two were
> congruent. Anyway, I didn't realize that all this Mysteries stuff (men's
> and women's) was all new creations. I'd have sworn they were born out of
> ancient mysteries, and that the women's stuff was so pronounced simply
> because of a long needed recognition of women as equal partners in the
> overall scheme of things.
>
not to be too terribly insulting, but if you thought that the women's mysteries
and such taht are being celebrated today are in any way ancient, yes, you ARE
uninformed.  any wiccan, pagan, women's spirituality, men's spirituality ritual
that you go to is NEW, created fairly recently, by people who are most likely
still alive.  women's stuff is so pronounced because women want women's
rituals, so they are creating them.  the lack of men's rituals stems from the
lack of men willing to create men's rituals.  everyone seems to want to sit
around and ask "Why don't they create the rituals i want?"

well, the only "they" out there is you.  if you want a ritual - make it.  no
one else is you, and no one can create the perfect ritual for you.  nor do
they want to.  rituals are created by their creators to meet their own needs.
if current rituals do not meet yours, tehn you have soem work to do.  eitehr
keep looking in hopes that someone else's vision matches your own, or make
your vision a reality.

> I guess if it has so much to do with sex, that's why I missed it. I'm not
> to up on Tantric stuff. I tend to view sex as much more personal than to
> involve it in any religion. Maybe I'm too conservative (if my father could
> only hear me now <grin>).

not all that contains sexual symbolism is tantra.  in fact most things that
contain sexual symbolism are NOT tantra.  if you don't think rituals contain
sexual symbolism, you haven't been paying very close attention.
>
> Anyway, thanks for your reply. It's given me something to think about, and
> I may be beginning to understand whythe one session I went to was such a
> debacle.
>
the reason teh session you went to was such a debacle is obvious: you should
only do X mysteries in a group composed only of X.  otherwise you don;t have X
mysteries, you have kibitzing from others on what X mysteries ought to be.
women are not men.  men are not women.  straigh women are not lesbians.  black
peopel are not american indians.  white people are not american indians.
women in their twenties are not crones.  only members of group X know what
the mnysteries of X are.

                                                -ailsa

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                    ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com
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