From: ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy)
Newsgroups: alt.pagan
Subject: Re: my beliefs and practices
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 92 11:14:34 EDT
Organization: Ailanthus Project

AAAARGH!  it STILL didn't get out, so this is attmept number THREE to post
this!

ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com (Ailsa N.T. Murphy) writes:

> hi.  i'm reposting this because it didn't seem to get out the first time, or
> least it hasn't appeared on my soon-to-be-deleted maine account...  so, here
> is again...  if it ID get out, and just hasn't excited any response or gotten
> to my maine account yet, i apologize...
>
> > i seem to be being misunderstood by some of the newcomers to this group.  a
> > since i haev been directly asked to explain myself, in the friendliest of
> > manners, may i add, i thought i might as well do so publically as well.
> >
> > first off, i do not hate men.  there are men whom i hate, but that is not a
> > men by any stretch of the imagination.  all lesbians do not hate all men, n
> > do all dianic witches hate all men.  a lack of interest in men's mysteries
> > not indicate a hatred of men.  i count a number of men on this group (radzy
> > mark roth, bran, probably others i am forgetting [is li^ir a reader?]) as
> > friendly acquaintances at the very least.
> >
> > i have been tagged a masculine woman for most of my life for a number of
> > reasons: 1) i am aggressive, 2) i am intellectual, 3) i am too dogshit lazy
> > mess about with my appearance, 4) i am unwilling to give ground to men in a
> > argument and do not consider or treat men as if they were in any way superi
> > to me.  none of these are exclusively male properties, nor are they propert
> > that all men have.  i do not consider myself masculine.  butch, yes.
> > unrepentantly butch.  but not masculine.
> >
> > so, since i reacted rather hotly to someone else's blanket statements about
> > Goddess, what do *I* believe of the Goddess?  well, for one, i am not sure
> > i feel abotu the concept of there being a The Goddess.  i prefer multiplici
> > but if there is anything.one i refer to as The Goddess, it is the earth.  s
> > does not require a male god, or anything else, to bring forth, and is the
> > virgin child of the virgin sun, born of fire at close enough to the dawn of
> > time as to make no nevermind.  she doesn't notice that i exist.  i am much
> > small and too shortlived a phenomenon for her to notice.  but that doesn't
> > i don;t worship her.  i do not do it for what she will give me for worshipp
> > her, i do it for what worshipping her does for me.  i also honor Yemaya, Ho
> > Queen Sea, although not in the manner of her people.  and i honor
> > brother/sister moon, everchanging, eternal.  i respect Loki, but do not wor
> > him, any more than i worship myself.  he and i are too close for worship, a
> > he teaches me.  Hestia, however, is the goddess of my heart.  i have three
> > altars in my house, all of them under-maintained, two of which are directly
> > dedicated to Hestia.
> >
> > my hestia is not exacly the greek one, however.  i WOULD refer you all to a
> > excellent book about her, but i forget the title.  i THINK it is _the sacre
> > and profane: women's experiences of housework_, but i am not sure.  i also
> > her as more than just the heart of the house.  hestia is the center, the mo
> > beloved place.  a house with no hestia is profane, but one has hestia withi
> > one as well, for she is not just the home fires, but also the fires as the
> > center of one's being, the fire at teh center of the world, the fire at the
> > center of the galaxy.  she is the eternally sacred and eternally untarnishe
> > within all things.
> >
> > so what do i DO about all these deities?  well, i celebrate teh holidays (w
> > holidays and how is a subject of another post), but set holidays are, for m
> > not really things to do with deities but rather with prienting oneself with
> > the turning gears and cogs of time.  i offer food and wine and cider to the
> > land wights when i remember them (i shoudl rememebr them more often), but t
> > are not deities either.  i haev no set rituals for deities.  when i go to t
> > sea, i go down to the shore if i have the time and have a long talk with
> > Yemaya, telling her what lies heavy on my heart so that she can bear it awa
> > in the tides of time.  when i pass places that are particularly sacred to m
> > i stop and rest in awe before the earth in her majesty.  if i am up at
> > sunrise, i go out and greet the rising sun.  i live my life with the knowle
> > that the earth is sacred, that she is older than i am, that i do not have t
> > right to damage her, and act accordingly.  and i hail Motherdeath when we m
> >
> > i also read tarot and work with medicinal herbs, but these are not spiritua
> > things for ME.  tarot is a way of focusing my subconscious for whatever
> > understanding i can get from it, and medicinal herbs are, to be quite hones
> > fun and a good excuse to potter around outdoors harvesting them.
> >
> > i feel drawn to discover what the practices of my anglo-saxon ancestors wer
> > but not to follow them to the letter.  i am not them, i do not exist in the
> > time, and what was right for that time and place is not necessarily right f
> > this one.  i am dianic because women's spirituality (even christian and jew
> > women's spirituality) moves me in ways that more traditional paganism, such
> > as british traditional wicca or druidism or asatru, does not.  someday i wa
> > to dance skyclad under the light of the full moon with a circle of women,
> > laughing, barefoot, howling and baying to sister/brother moon.  for me, tha
> > woudl be a profoundly moving and spiritual experience.
> >
> > so there it is, a chunk of me.
> >
> >                                         -ailsa
> >


=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
                    ailsa%ailanth.uucp@wang.com
                                                          ________
And when they came to cut the forest,             Silence \      / Action
They cut my heart, they cut my bones.                =     \    /    =
                                                   Death    \  /    Life
                   -Cecelia Ostorow                          \/
Newsgroups: alt.pagan