Hmmm? A friend of mine was called elderly last nigth which got me to wondering how we will know when we are elderly. Maybe if its two or more of the following.....

 You need a walker to dance naked in the woods under the full moon?

You can't dance naked under the full moon anymore because you trip over your tits?

 The only full moon you can seem to keep track off is when your overweight neighbor bends over to pick up his newspaper of the yard?

 You use prune mead for your sumbels and rituals because you and the rest of your coven/witchy friends need that extra push for regularity?

 Your altar wood came from a one hundred year old oak... when it was ten years old?

 You are sure read somewhere that there was a Mesopotamian god named Geritol?

 Your flying ointment smells like mentholatum and feels wonderfully hot when you rub it on?

 Your Book of Shadows is now going on volume forty?

 Your Book of Shadows contains spells for constipation relief, renewed hair growth and gravity defying bodywork?

 Your Book of Shadows was sold  to the Smithsonian Antiquities Department by your rotten great, great grandson for an undisclosed amount of money?

 Crone magick was something you did twenty years ago?

 Your goddess responds to your calling with "You're still around?"

 Your only nature walks consist of sudden rushes to the bathroom?

 You can't remember your deorsil from your widdershins but you are sure it has something to do with your nature walks?

 Depends are now a standard part of ritual robes?

 Just a few random thoughts... Tree

The Pagan Monthly Gathering of SE WV The Pagan Monthly Gathering is a social meet up for Pagans of all different paths to get to know one another, to learn they are not alone, and to learn from one another. While there will time for social interaction, we will also have mini presentations, directed discussion of topics in both contemporary and historical Pagan issues. This gathering will be held at one o’clock on the first Sunday of each month. Initially, it will be held in Lewisberg since it has the coffee shops open on Sundays. All Pagans in Greenbrier and Nicholas Counties as well as adjoining counties are welcome. We are not a coven nor are we limited to one Pagan Path. We are a trans-Pagan gathering offering like-minded companionship, spiritual support and learning. We are starting this gathering because there is a lack of Pagan networking in southern West Virginia, particularly in the more rural counties. Many of the Pagans here have bemoaned the lack of like minds and spiritual community. You do not need to be out of the broom closet to come and we will expect that people attending to keep confidential anyone who does come since coming out of the broom closet (or any other closet for that matter) is a deeply personal decision. We are looking forward to finding great community in these mountains. If you are interested, please email me at freeheart57@yahoo.com with PAGAN GATHERING in the header line. This will put you on the mailing list with times and dates of each gathering. If you need transportation, we will put up a carpooling post for people in your area but cannot promise you’ll find a ride. If you are willing to carpool, please let me know and we will pass on your offer. This event is without any charge but, since we are meeting in a commercial establishment, we will be taking the seats of paying customers so please support the business by buying a drink or food. (Coffees run from three to six dollars. Small snacks are usually available in these coffee shops.) For routine information on upcoming meet-ups in this area we have started a Yahoo group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PaganSEWVGathering  

 May you be blessed as you walk your Path. Tree

On Mother's Day, let us not forget the Great Mother, Earth (Gaia). Give her a few words of thanks and wish her good health. She has, afer all, supported every mother who ever existed on this planet (and all offsprings as well!)

A cold, wet wind returns after seventy degree weather. It is not freezing but the dampness makes the cold more piercing. I set a pot of pinto beans on the stove early today. The aroma permeated the house. Ruefully, I started a fire in the woodstove. I have having afire after the first of May. It just doesn't seem right, somehow.

In the last few weeks, I watched the spring flowers stretching their faces ever upward. The bright yellow Coltsfoot was first, followed quickly by the periwinkle. Suddenly, trilliums and violets mingled everywhere with the dandelions. My hyacinth and crocus competed with their wild cousins for attention at the edges of the yard. I hated mowing because of the magnificent carpet of violets and dandelions.

It occurred to me as I was taking all this in one day that the most courageous of living things are the spring flowers. Buried snugly beneath the rotted leaves of last year and rough mountain dirt, these little beings take a great chance when they decide to reach for the sun. A sudden cold snap or late snow will quickly kill the blossoms and even the plants. What tiny little things they are to take such a big chance in this cold world! The usually have only one attempt. The energy it takes to awaken their sap and stir their roots to reach green arms up through the dirt is enormous. It is such a great effort that they cannot repeat it. When I look at the trillium on the mountainside or the violets in the yard and forest, I am reminded of the incredible courage of simple flowers.

Being the first to do anything must take courage. Unfortunately, there are little or no firsts these days to challenge ourselves with. We must make do with testing our courage in other ways.  Courage is both defined and defining our actions. For some, the simple act of getting out of bed in the morning is courageous. My people of old were warriors, traders and explorers. To sail a wooden ship half way around the world to an unknown land required courage. To set the first foot of that ship on those strange shores was even braver. Today, courage means saying no when everyone else is saying yes. It means following a spiritual path that others shun. Courage today is still so wound up in just military concepts that it is overlooked in the struggles of a single mother making a better life for her children or in the eco warrior's sacrifices or in the people who stand up to major corporations. Courage is in the people who shake up the status quo when the status quo has failed the people. Courage is in taking that first step outside yourself and all you were taught to believe so you can start looking around at the world.

Courage is needed in these trying days and the days to come but first we must find it within ourselves.

Illusions.

Many years ago, when I took Psychology 101 at a state university, I remember an amusing lecture on people who had illusions of grandeur. A few snide remarks were made about people who thought they were Napoleon. Several decades later, I have decided that most of the people I know suffer from the opposite. Most people suffer from illusions of smallness. This disorder's symptoms include the belief that there is little one person can do to change the world for the better so the sufferer lives a life filled with the feeling that he or she is helpless and merely flotsam upon the great ocean of life. The need to feel some measure of control becomes a driving factor in that person's life.  After all, what can flotsam do for itself?

            That control need is expressed in the way the person lives his or her life. Artificial structure is made. Rules are made for the tiniest of natural motions. Have you ever tried to walk up the left side of a busy mall stairwell? People look at you as if you were jumping up and down on their flotsam!  Lunch is always between eleven and one. Dinner at six. Put on the right shoe and sock first then the left. Control! Control! Control! The list of small things goes on forever.

            While some may insist that order is the result of control and rules, I think our culture has gone too far. We have put ourselves in tiny little boxes that limit what we think we can do for the larger world around us. One of the boxes is regional. I live in the West Virginia box so I cannot do anything to change the larger, more complex United States box. Certainly, the global box is way beyond my reach because the rules tell me my limitations and the rules are what gave me the artificial structure of my box!

            We define our abilities by the box we make for ourselves. We think we are ordinary human beings: just a "regular kind of guy" and the "average" person who cannot control anything greater than what we can reach. That is the Great Lie because we are part of the ocean we are floating on just as much as the fish beneath the surface and birds of the air are. We all have the potential to become great waves that move the world but we first have to stop thinking about what limits us and start thinking about the unlimited things we really can do. There have been individuals who tore up their boxes and shrugged off their limitations to become great waves. Many were ordinary people like Rosa Parks or Martin Luther or Buddha. Take the Wright brothers, for example. They wanted to fly. The box given at birth and all the boxes given afterward told the Wrights human beings could not fly. There must have been a hundred boxes laying on that North Carolina shore when they flew for the first time! They dropped the illusion of smallness given them from everyone around and became who they were meant to be...extraordinary men who reached higher than anyone else around them. They dropped the illusion of their limitations and flew.

            Suppose today ten people driving to the grocery store decided to drop their limitations. They think about a news report on starving children in East Wickywack, These ten people have children of their own, medium or low wage jobs and bills that seem to get higher by the hour. Yet, the image of these children stays with them on the drive. Eight of these people want to buy a few can goods and drop them off at a Wickywack collection point. They are disappointed to find there is no collection point so they simply take the can goods home and put them on the shelf. The ninth person, while feeling terrible about the starving children decides it is beyond her to do anything so she does her shopping and goes home. The tenth person, as loaded down as the other nine with bills, family and work, buys food for the Wickywack children then discovers there is no collection point and decides to make one. She begins by putting food in her tiny little box but, as soon as the other eight find out she has a box, they fill it. The box gets bigger as does the person living in it. The tenth person sends off the box but, when she gets a letter from Wickywack, she finds out the children are starving because their parents have no tools or seeds to grow food since a flood took all they owned down the Wickywack River. The tenth person gets hold of the other eight and they start a drive for farming implements and seeds for Wickywack. Wickywack gets its seeds, plants its crops and becomes a self-sustaining community. Wait a moment! The ensuing publicity has taught the nine do-gooders that this lack of seed and implements is common in more places. The tenth person asks the other nine if they would like to continue to collect for other people in need. More people in their own community join them until seeds and implements are being sent on a monthly basis. Did I mention that Wickywack is on the other side of the world? The first eight people tapped the sides of their boxes and gave up until the tenth showed them how to break open a door. The illusions of being small evaporated when they accomplished a global task. The ninth person is still sitting on the couch with a remote control watching a news story about farm implements and seeds being collected for needy peoples.

            Whether it is politics, charity, or matters of faith and spirit, one person dropping the illusion of being small and starting a ripple in the ocean can make enormous differences in history and in the world. It can make a difference in everyday life, as well. We can step outside our boxes and decide that we can and will make a difference for the better.

The first step is, of course, in reaching.