From: uphrrmk@Msu.oscs.montana.edu
Subject: Re: Meaning of pentagram, pentacle for You
Reply-To: uphrrmk@Msu.oscs.montana.edu
Organization: Montana State University
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 00:50:26 GMT

In article <28DEC199205402791@elroy.uh.edu>, lib1p@elroy.uh.edu (Tammy Stark Blandino) writes:
>In article <Bzvvor.A49@pcuf.fi>, luikero@pcuf.fi (Lauri Kero) writes...
>>Reply_to_article_from: adams@mari.acc-admin.stolaf.edu (Brynach ap Add>
>See, to me that really sucks, cause look how many people use a 5-pointed star
>and all the things they use them for.  Hell, the US flag has 50 5-pointed stars,
>but you don't hear anybody call it satanic.  But put one on a rock album or
>on a piece of jewelry...watch out!...them gawdless, un-american, sob's are
>are worshipping the DEVIL....sheez...give me a fucking break.  Do you realize 
>how stupid all that blustering looks? 

I know how you feel, Tammy.   I've had to hide my pentacle ever since I've
moved to Montana.   Which is sad, because I love it, and it's always been a
source of strenth and happiness for me.
>I'm sorry folks.  I'm just getting my 
fill of it.  I try to be nice.  I try
>to be open minded.  I try to turn the other cheek as THEIR GOD said to do.
>I try to be fair.  I try not to ridicule others beliefs.  I try to get along.
>But I am just getting so fucking tired......
Me too.  to have to bury your joy so you won't be persecuted by it sucks.
to feel put upon everytime you hear an X-mas carol, to have to hide your anger
when you see a Halloween witch in the pamphlets these jerks leave in the
fuckin' LAUNDROMAT... I hate it.
>
>I didn't intend to write this when I started.  I'm just so tied up into knots. 
>I have never, NEVER, felt the beauty of nature and life the way I do now.  Never
>in all my life being raised as a devoted Christian.  And yet they hammer at us.
>Not because of anything we have done, but because they think we're evil.  And
>they won't even take the time to find out the truth.  Not even our side of the
>story, for all stories do have two sides.  They don't care.  So here we sit.
>Being pounded on all sides because we're different.  And its not like its a 
>choice really.  I can't just say I don't believe in this or that now.  I can't
>turn my beliefs on and off like a television set.  They are a part of my soul.
>Like my hazel eye


Yeah.  Every minority knows this feeling. From women to blacks to gays to jews
to Native Anybody. We all have to be so careful, because we all know that one
false move or mistake can mean our children, our beliefs, and our lives can be
stolen, no matter what the laws are.  What we have to change are attitudes.
>

>These things that I hold so dear have meaning to me beyond explaination.  Its
>like a piece of me.  It is the warm embrace of a lover.  It is the tender 
>embrace of a parent, sibling, or child.  It is the embrace of the wind as it
>carresses your cheek and whips through your hair.  It is the embrace of the
>spirit as you breathe it in, filling your every cell with life.  It is the flow
>of water over your hand, the leafy bed of brown leaves in autumn that comforts
>you, the fur of a cat as it purrs its way into you heart.  These are things
>which that pentagram represents, whether it be point up representing option A
>(for me the elements, life, womanhood) or point down representing option B
>(for me the horned god, green man, manhood).
  
And for me.  I tend to be Celtish, and the pentacle has been the symbol of the 
Three that have guarded, watched, taught and loved me.  It's like I've always
known that the pentacle was something different from what my mother, very
Protestant, always told me. 
>
>These are the things they call EVIL and SATANIC and UNGODLY!
>
>I cry.
Aye.  I've cried myself to sleep, too.  So has my mate, surrounded by bigots
where he works--in the Physics Dept, for the Lady's sake!>
>If they only knew.  If I could only tell them.  If they 
would only listen.
>
>But they won't and so we suffer in silence.  And try to get along.  And try
>to be considerate. And try not to offend.  ........  And try not to be caught.

Whereas those who have decided that we're their Opposite Numbers  knock on our
doors, tell their children lies about us to frighten them into behaving, co-opt
our holidays, and burn crosses on our lawns if we're unlucky enough to be
caught. And then claim everything was theirs to begin with. Sigh.

>AT WHAT! I say.  Something so beautiful.  Who gives a damned what its called?
>Paganism, Wicca, Witchcraft, What the fuck ever!  It all the same.  Its all
>the beauty of the nature around us.  How can they be so BLIND?  

Fear tends to do that.  My Grandfather remembers the McCarthy hearings very
well.  There were taps on his phone, and threats because his father and mother
escpaed what used to be the Soviet Union three years before the Communist
Revolution.  What's worse, he hasn't learned anything from it--still talks
about "niggers" and "japs" and " them Jewboys'" My mother can't figure out why
i don't send them letters or cards on the holidays.
>>
>If you find it evil, so be it.  I am sadden for you.  But do not foist your
>ideas on me.  Do not foist your concepts of name or symbol or definition or
>whose damned fault it is that we are so persecuted.  Because in the end there
>is still the cats purr and the wind and water and the loving embrace of the
>goddess and her consort which is visible all around us.  You may be able to
>hurt me, and curse me, and make my existence in this society miserable, but
>you can never take that embrace away.  For it fills my being with every breathe
>I take.  And even when I die, my body will return to her.  Even in death you 
>cannot rob me of the beauty that is represented by that pentagram, or the word
>witch, or the rites we perform.  These things bind us to the spirit of our
>belief.
>(no tag)

...And it is rumored that things which don't kill us make us stronger.  I think
it's more along the lines of that which does not kill us makes us mad and makes
us do something about it.  I have noticed that us pagan folk as a whole tend to 
fight very hard, think very hard, and do a hell of a lot of research.  I know
I've found out more about the spanish Inquisition than I 've ever wanted to
know, and enough of their Bible to have a working knowledge. We tend to demand 
sources and documentation, mostly because it's in our own best interests to
have the knowledge to fight with.  Thus our fight for what is the " real"
meaning of words, names, etc-to legitimize us in the eyes of the world.
To have PROOF that we're not baby-eating, human-sacrificing, Satan-worshipping,
evil Lovecraftian people.  Poeple that are safe to hire, people who can babysit 
your children, people who can fix your computer, people you can rent apartments
to.  But it shouldn't make us rip each other apart.
    I'll always check my sources, and I'll always love my pentacle, no matter
what other people call it.  If I goof in my documentation, set me on my ass as
lovingly as possible, and I'll try to do the same.  Thank you for existing,
everybody.  All of you make it easier to get through the day.

                            With great affection, kisses, and 60 hrs of Mystery
                            Science Theatre 3000 on tape just for you!

                            La Mort.

Newsgroups: alt.pagan