Archive for December, 2008

Outdoors, I can hear fireworks beginning to sound off.   There was no wild frolic here, tonight.  The little fir tree …the picture from a couple days ago is bright again with candles.  The holy days of our winter sabbat end tomorrow.  The candles burn tonight for healing, for peace, and for the suffering in the world.

We did not drink, though I do not rule out a nightcap.  We watched a movie called “Merry Christmas.”  It is about an infamous actual incident in World War I on Christmas Eve of 1914.  The entrenched enemies heard each others’ singing of Christmas carols and declared an unofficial truce.  They shared songs, rations, booze and simple human impulses like burying the dead, exchanging letters to relatives in occupied territories, and sharing addresses for the peace they all wished would come.

Their superiors were not amused.  How dare peace rear it’s head on the birthday of the “Prince of Peace”?  As I watched it, I found myself thinking of Gaza, being pounded with bombs.  My letter protesting this action, sent to the Israeli Embassy, got me a form letter back complaining of Hamas rocket strikes.  I understand self-defense, I do.

Does nobody in Israel remember the Warsaw Ghetto?  When attacks of whatever sort were launched against the Germans of another world war?  Often to serve as distractions while others sneaked away to seek food and fuel for those starving inside the confines of their prison?  Can nobody in Israel’s government imagine the desperation of the citizens of Gaza?  Is this the way the world goes down…on another Christmas Eve?  Is it just alright with the rest of the world, because neither side is Christian?  I am not Christian either, but it is not alright with me.

I spent my New Years with tears going down my face.  Tears of mourning and anger; tears of frustration and sorrow that we seem to be incapable of learning. We are all alike.  We all hunger and suffer; we all fear and regret.  Religion and nationality are both as artificial as the lines of political maps that do not show on the blue and white face of the planet one sees from space.  A bomb shattered body, stripped of clothing and identity, is not Christian or Moslem, Jewish or Pagan; it is a human being.  We are of one world and tell ourselves lies to the contrary in order to continue the killing.

I am no pacifist.  But I am also no fool.  We all lose when we forget the humanity we share.  Blood is being shed tonight, in Gaza and elsewhere.  I cannot toast a new year in joy, and can only take a cup in commiseration.  If we learn nothing from our sufferings, we deserve nothing better.

Soon, the candles on my little fir tree will burn down and out.  The sun will rise on sleepy party goers and piles of used fireworks.  And on bombed out buildings and broken bodies, on Americans far from home singing Auld Lang Syne and wishing for the drink I hesitate to imbibe.  In my mind’s eye, the face of my Goddess is veiled.  Veiled like a widow in mourning, and my tears are Hers.  Peace is not upon the earth.

World in Motion

Click on the link, and spend four minutes suspended in beauty.

Well, as a friend of the blog informed me today, commenting is apparently impossible.  Now, mind you, plowing through occasional spam piles, I have long wanted to eliminate the comment function from this blog.  Apparently, Wordpress makes that impossible.

Except that it is not impossible…simply not possible to know how it happened.  Comments are “closed” somehow.  Since I don’t know how they got that way, I cannot undo it!  Any of you few who read routinely, you know there is a main page (title w/o the wordpress bit) and that a button there will take you to a message forum.  A registration there will allow you to post and comment at will and length on anything that you are interested in here, there, or the world at large.

Oh, and by the way, Happy New Year…Good Riddance to 2008.  So many people dear to me have suffered so in the last year, let us all leap forward to a new one!  Bang drums, sweep out the house and make the next year BETTER!  Were we in Europe, I’d advocate fireworks!

I do love the holidays.  And this was our Yule fire, indoors as it was cold and wet outdoors.  But don’t get too comfortable; all the holiday bliss, food, family and songs in the world do not detract from the reality of the world outside:

Afghanistan has citizens starving, particularly women and children.  All the money, weapons and time…and we can’t spread the democracy of a right to eat?  Apparently not, because when the UN voted on a resolution to declare that food was a “right” of mankind, America’s was the only “nay” vote.  So, I guess, if you are Afghani and starving, it is like the unemployed in America—simply too lazy to work?

In Zimbabwe, cholera continues to kill with unabated efficiency.  And most of the world doesn’t even notice.  Cholera is caused by a lack of clean drinking water.  The world SHOULD be noticing, because water shortages in our near future will make the wars over oil look like child’s play.  And even relatively wealthy nations will need to face this issue.

Gaza is being pounded to dust by Israel, because, imagine; they had the nerve to protest because they were being starved and denied power to run anything resembling a normal life.  I can’t think of a better way to raise a whole generation of angry rebels myself, but what do I know, nobody has starved me since I attained adulthood.  The Bush White House has come down solidly on the side of Israel, what a shock?  Obama has been quiet and depressingly political about this issue.  I would say he is waiting to take office, but since he has not been silent on all else he should have spoken up about this.

The American death toll in Iraq has been dropping; but it rises in Afghanistan.  And some parts of the military are stunningly demoralized—Army recruiters for instance.  At one station in the Houston Texas area, four of them have committed suicide—three in this year alone.  Just what are we demanding of our military members that it requires that kind of escape?

And yet, my bumper stickers, and not even any “fun” ones, got head shakes and looks of disgust this weekend.  I have an Obama sticker atop my John Edwards sticker, an “End this war” sticker and a Ranger Against War sticker on my car.  Oh, and one saying that we need to become the change we want in the world.  Wow, aren’t those terrible.  But yeah, I am the one getting dirty looks?  And even with the boxed star sticker that means I have a family member IN military service right now.  I guess I am just not gung ho enough, not supporting the troops by cheer leading for what is killing them.

It is no wonder I am a hermit.   The planet is sucking and there is no Scotty to beam us the hell UP!

A tiny fir we have had for over a decade was brought inside on the Solstice to dressing in ribbon and candles against the long night of war and sorrow.  In the times ahead, I will cling to this image.  Fir trees have long represented survival and sacrifice entwined.  Light your light for America and the troubled world……….shine in 2009.

Again, it is the Coalition troops bearing the brunt of the death count this past week, mostly in Afghanistan.  At least six others are dead in Iraq, but the names are not released yet, I am sorry.  I would respectfully draw your attention to the “Links” section of the website…accessible from the main page (walkofthefallen.com) for lists of the dead, both US and Coalition kept by CNN and others.

Coalition dead of the week; all died in Afghanistan

LCpl Benjamin Whatley, 20, of the UK –killed by IED

Cpl Robert Deering, 33, of the Uk – killed by IED

Sgt Mark Weijdt, 24, of the Netherlands – killed by IED

PFC Sebastian Le Cour Holm of Denmark – killed by landmine

PFC Benjamin D. S Rasmussen of Denmark – killed by landmine

Sgt Jacob Moe Jensen, 23, of Denmark – killed by hostile fire

And America lost two nineteen year olds, one to illness and the other killed in war.

Pfc. Coleman W. Hinkefent, 19, of Coweta, Okla., Army , Iraq (transferred to hospital in Germany) to die of illness.

Lance Cpl. Thomas Reilly Jr., 19, of London, Ky., Marine – Iraq – combat ops

He died on the Solstice, on Dec 21st.  The sacrifice of a 19 year old……I have a special problem with the idea of 19 year olds dying.

And just released names:

Maj. John P. Pryor, 42, of Moorestown, N.J. died Dec. 25 in Mosul of wounds suffered when a mortar round impacted near his living quarters – Army – Iraq

The following Army men were killed in Iraq in a vehicular roll-over

Staff Sgt. Christopher G. Smith, 28, of Grand Rapids, Mich.

Spc. Stephen M. Okray, 21, of St. Clair Shores, Mich.

Spc. Stephen G. Zapasnik, 19, of Broken Arrow, Okla.

I remember my  son at nineteen,

The way he made his jaw hard,

While his eyes and cheek looked soft.

I remember being nineteen oh so long ago,

Feeling strong and young and wise,

And ready to live forever!

_____________________

Thomas Reilly was nineteen,

A strong, young, wise, tender, soft, hard youth….

He died upon the Solstice Day, upon my holy day.

Somewhere, his mother cries.

Unlike me, she won’t see her boy at thirty,

She will forever hold the memory of a sweet boy.

__________________________

Thomas Reilly died on my Solstice Day,

He was doing a man’s work in a hard place,

And died a man’s death on 21 December.

Nineteen doesn’t believe in death,

But the man-to-be died with the boy,

The Mother gets a flag, a grave, and echoes.

____________________________

Thomas Reilly died on my Holy Day,

My heart is wrung, though he was not mine,

And if I could die on his holy day to bring him back,

I’d lift my throat to the blade on 25 December.

I’d take his place, now old and soft,

To let him grow older and harder.

The sun is hours from rising.  And snow is a silencing shroud upon my part of the world.  Shoppers will be out desperately trying to make up for being housebound by weather, because today will be the last chance before Christmas.  Normally, cars would already be flying past my window here; and one occasionally glides by on the snow-shushed road.

When a winter storm descends and night comes early and stays late ,as it does in winter this far north, the quiet becomes a very physical force.  It is the kind of quiet that does not enable sleep, but makes you anxiously awaken because it is unnatural in this modern hectic world.  It is the hush that takes you back centuries.  You feel as if nothing exists out in the darkness beyond your porch lights. You are the last person in the world.

You can turn on the lights, the television, music, and computers.  And still, the quiet seeps in through well sealing doors and windows.  In the pre-dawn hours, it is the existential time of utter isolation and, conversely, unity with all. The house sleeps around you— pets, mates, and offspring; and you find yourself somewhat too eager to hear their snores and breathing to assure yourself they are really there.  Because the darkness outdoors is so palpable and near to the windows.  Even if you don’t fear darkness, the quiet deep sort that Northern winter engenders makes you feel very small and alone.

The small loneliness is what ties you to so much else.  Every other person alone in the dark…ever.  Stories of prisoners rise up in your memory, tales of illness and patients tossing in hospital beds.  You can find yourself listening for sounds your world does not contain:  cathedral bells, the call to prayer that echoes down Mideastern streets, the lowing of cattle eager for milking, a baby’s cry of hunger, or tropical birds greeting a tropical sun.   But the reality ,of course, is the thud of ice trying to go down the gutter drain pipe, the darkness and cold that seeps into your bones and the unease of being the only one awake.

You compose the ‘to do’ list of the day.  Phone calls to make to relatives.  A trial at soap making.  Perhaps candle making?  Menu planning and inventory of cupboards to shop as soon as possible after the holidays end.  Filling the short daylight hours of winter is simple.  It is the long night, even now that the Solstice marked the increase of Light, that lingers and drags because you must keep the silence while others sleep.

It is keeping that silence in the darkness that ties you, you see, to the book of names and the spirals of stone buried in the snow.  The silence of the dead in the dead of winter night when the sun lingers elsewhere and your heart beat lags with longing.

From Newsweek:

“Part of the Church’s mission is to “protect the human beings against self-destruction,” the Pope said in his annual address to the cardinals, archbishops and others who make up the Roman Curia.

The Church has as much responsibility to preserve what it sees as man and woman’s God-given roles as it does to protect endangered species, he implied.

“The rain forest deserves, yes, our protection,” Benedict said, “But mankind does not deserve it less as a creature.”

Ok, let me see if I have this straight.  Mankind’s place on the earth is threatened by homosexuality?  We have to defend ourselves against rampant gayness or we humans will be an endangered species?  Really?

Has anyone told this imbecilic medieval-minded moron that there are SIX BILLION people on this planet?  And that children starve to death every minute?   Has anyone pointed out to the man who has never had a wife or girlfriend counting days in terror and distress that historically, heterosexual couples engaged in anal sex to make sure there was no undesired child?  Or  that anal sex was practiced to prevent the loss of patent virginity, for that matter?  Can’t anyone give him a clue to the real world of sex and love…oh, and personal responsibility?  Cause the Church won’t be feeding all those so sacred babies after they survive the abortion gantlet he so obsesses over!

Benedict basically believes the future of humanity depends on Pole A being inserted into Hole B or else?  Not convincing me, Benedict.  You basically remind me of some military guys who must keep their own hair short, so they insist their kids and wives all NEVER get haircuts.  Just cause you, Benedict, can’t use your dick, doesnt’ mean the rest of us have to screw as you wish you could!  Sign me up for the crowd who believes that homosexual and non-reproductive sexual relations might just BE what could save the planet. I am SO glad I am pagan.  All acts of consensual love are acts of bliss and worship!

This week, our six month old Goslings (when do you call them geese?!) saw their first snow.  They seemed confused as to what all this chilly white stuff was.  They didnt’ like it that their little kiddie pond froze and they couldn’t paddle and float and duck their heads.

The picture is from the first snowfall over  a week ago.  It didn’t melt and has had three more snowfalls atop it since.  I am keeping the feather-heads mostly in their enclosure near the heat lamp, since night temps have been into the teens and it is very cold indeed.