Posts Tagged ‘pagan life’

Ok, better late than never, right? I got a LOT of books for Yule, books were the bulk of my holiday gifts. So, I was very busy reading. I swear, every year, to do a once a month listing of what I have read. I always forget. And I am sure I HAVE forgotten something that I read since January 1st; but here is what I do remember. And the rudest, roughest book reviews EVAH.

I am still reading my birthday gift, the massive “Red Book” of Carl Jung—formally titled “Liber Novus.”

Also still reading Hutton’s “Stations of the Sun”.

I always enjoy Hutton’s thorough debunking of bullshit! That is why I read it so slowly, to savor it when the burning stupid starts leaking in the edges of my life!

And in between other books, a book by Eric Blehm called
“The Only Thing Worth Dying For”
about how “Eleven Green Berets Forged a New Afghanistan”(subtitle) and the other subtitle should have been “And How George Frakking Bush Fucked THAT Up By Taking Off to Iraq With the Rest of the Army.” I am enjoying the rather journalistic writing style even tho’ events in the book make me grind my teeth.

But I took a mad fiction break with a couple exceptions:

I finished the gruelingly horrid Mythago Wood series by Robert Holdstock that began immediately after Yule, in January this meant:

“Gate of Ivory, Gate of Horn”

“Avilion”

They sucked, ok? Holdstock sucks, even when dead. I don’t know how he won fantasy prizes cause he SUCKS.
He starts all these threads and teases the hell out of the reader and NEVER wraps the fricking questions up. He drops characters (poorly developed at that) into black holes after making it seem that they will pop back up in the next installment. I hope there is some kind of writer’s hell where his own characters thought forms can torture him for eternity!

But then I got on to other gifts. I got Dan Simmons books to read:

“Illium” — the long sought first in a set of two, absolutely delightful novel, science, literature, history and marvelous characters. Then I re-read the second book which I had long owned and been mystified by until I finally got it’s other half! That one is “Olympos” and it was again quite awesome and this time, comprehensible!

Inspired by that experience, I got a four book series by Simmons:

“Hyperion”
“The Fall of Hyperion”
“Endymion”
“The Rise of Endymion”

I also enjoyed these greatly. I think he finished this one a wee bit more sloppily than the first two-book set. But still, very well done and an enjoyable romp thru a future of artificial intelligences trying to take over or destroy mankind in a way completely different than say the Battlestar Galactica story-line.

Then, because I really HAVE to get back to work, I began reading a trio of books by David Rankine and Sorita d’Este. I finished the first,

“Practical Elemental Magick”

It is a touch more fussily ceremonial than my usual practice, but I AM getting a bit more tight-assed in magic at my age than I used to be, so it works for me. I think there was a it of rush at the end—not sure why. Looking at the other books I have obtained, I wonder if a set length is their goal—and so they hit a page count and hustle to shove in the last vital bits?

I could totally skip their “hymns” to various assigned deities to the Elements. They did a good job explaining their attributions (Hera to Earth, for instance), but somehow it still feels forced to me. I find assigning deities to the Elements a bit odd in concept anyway, though, so perhaps that is just me.

I am now continuing to work thru “Practical Planetary Magick.” and their slim book “Practical Qabalah Magick” is next. They have a ton of books out there; apparently being Brit powerhouses of magical how to; it makes me wonder just how expert at EVERYthing one can be? For all I know, “Avalonia” is the Brit version of Llewellyn. But it doesn’t seem quite so watered down.

There is a bit of fluffy seeming “You can triumph over all these negative aspects by working the positive ones….” preaching, but I don’t know if that is Llewellyn-styled “Yes, we witchy wiccans are perfectly SAFE lovey-dovey sorts” bullshit, or if it stems from a Theosophist “Great Work” mentality. In any case, it grinds a bit on on couple nerves. You can’t tell me on one page how to create an elemental servitor to use for purposes “Good or Ill” and turn on your heel to tell me how to triumph over “negatives” like anger or egoism without tripping over your tongue. Or so it seems to me. As above, so below, right? Sun AND shadow, damn it!!

But it is keeping me occupied. I will have plenty of mad-priestess games to occupy me for the next couple months of experimentation.

I am too sore from last week’s hiking and the weekend yard work to be ambitious about much in terms of physical duties today. So, I am catching up on apparently rampant stupidity out there in the world. At the current rate or idiocy, we will need to light candles, not for magic purposes, but simply to find our way in the new Dark Ages! Hat-tips to the Bedazzler and Sonic at the Pagan/Wiccan message boards for some of these jaw-dropping bits of nutcake-ness.
Examples follow:

The Handmaiden’s Tale begins in Utah. The morons in the State House there have decided to criminalize having a miscarriage, so see to it you don’t fall down any stairs. Or maybe just keep it super secret if you become pregnant—don’t tell a soul! Cause heavens forfend if Mother Nature should spontaneously abort that fetus, as She does about half to two-thirds of the time; the right to lifers want you in jail for your uterine incompetence! You WISHED (witched?) that fetus to death, didn’t you?

This kind of lunacy would strike me as more heart-felt if any of these asshats gave a tinker’s damn about children already living and breathing on planet—-why not criminalize those who deny poor children health care, for instance?

And hey, public education delivers nothing but a class trip in grade 12, right? Again, Utah, really? They want to graduate you in 11th grade in Utah to shave money off the education budget. If I was faced with such a dire choice, I’d take kindergarten off the list, not senior year. But oh, that IS when students learn pesky things like their legal rights under the Bill of Rights, isn’t it? Yeah, dumb ‘em down so they make better church-going corporate clones. Dark ages, folks, devolution revolution!

The “party of Lincoln” wants naught to do with him? Say what? And burn those “Teddy” bears in effigy, too, because Republican Prez Theodore Roosevelt was guilty of “progressivism” ! Come on, you Grand Old Poops, those are the only contributions you have to polite American Society! But Glen-brain-dead Beck is haranguing his audiences about how they don’t represent what the GOP is all about. Well, no shit, Glen—it is now the Grand Oil Party, the Great Oligarch Patriarchs, the Gray Old Poofters (closeted, of course), any number of things that Lincoln and Roosevelt would not recognize at all!

And if you needed more proof that the ideals of the Medieval Era are returning to common conversation, look no further than the war crime trial against murderous Serbian Karadzic! His actions were “just and holy” because you know, the 21st century is just ripe for a new Crusade against those Islamic sorts, right?

Has everyone on the freaking planet gone nuts? Somehow, I just cannot see Jesus launching a war against another monotheistic faith that counts him as a major prophet; but hey, I am a damned and accursed pagan, what the fuck do I know? About twelve percent of world-wide Christians are crazy fundamental Dominionist murderous sorts; and about the same percentage of Muslims belong to hateful jihad-mad sects of Islam. Why can’t we round JUST those members of the respective faiths up and toss ‘em in a ring. I am pretty sure the rest of us, even we benighted pagans, could get along just fine after that!

But then, the bumper sticker seen this week defies that bit of common sense, I guess. It said “Liberate Constantinople!” I said, “Say what??” The reply was that Constantinople, once Byzantium and head of the Eastern half of the Roman Empire, had been under the ‘vile’ domination of the Turks for too long—time to return the city to it’s “Christian” beginnings.

Saaaay??? Has someone been burning history books again when I was not watching? Cause, damn, people—may I very gently remind you that the “Christian Era” is only 2010 years old and before the Roman Emperor Constantine decided to make it a new Roman capital it was a Greek city—Byzantium. And pagan. Not Christian at all. The star and the crescent were favored symbols of the city and they were said to be sacred to Hekate, the favorite deity of the city for her aid defending them against Alexander the Great’s similarly conquest minded father–Philip of Macedon.

So hey, yeah. Liberate Istanbul/Constantinople/Byzantium. Let’s take it back to it’s Hellenic (and pre-hellenic) paganism, shall we?

Honestly, evolve already. Or at least turn OFF the brain-lights so we will KNOW that nobody is at home. But hey, we have the final word from would-be-beauty-queen Lauren Ashley. This twatchen gives blondes a bad name; she thinks that the Bible is very clear and gays need to be put to death! As a friend said, she might want to duck a few flying stones herself; after all, it ain’t exactly kosher to be shaking your ta-tas in swimsuits in public either.

I just love Cafeteria Christians (yes, roasted with a side of sweet potato fries), don’t you? They cherry-pick favorite bits of murderous mayhem for holy reasons and never, ever examine their own “sinful” ways in the Gospel light. Oh, wait, there goes my Hellenic paganism bit again….that whole “examined life” was a Greek ideal, wasn’t it? Silly me, it’s all good if you are a blonde bombshell Christian with a big mouth and tiny brain.
Arete and hubris are lost concepts on those types…..I say hubris and hypocrisy, she says righteousness. Uh-huh, keep talking, Lauren—Jesus isn’t the only one listening.

February begins tomorrow. Wiccans and several other neo-pagan traditions celebrate Imbolc immediately. When I first acknowledged the “heretical” urgings of my own heart (privately in 1986, publicly in 1993), I “tried on” the traditional eight holidays to see which ones “grabbed” and Imbolc simply did not move me.

It is normally still very deep winter here on Feb 2nd; and although we occasionally were sick of it enough to stage a roaring bonfire outdoors in hopes of calling back some warmth and life, it simply did not become a ritual event in my mind.

However, about five years ago, my life-battered eldest son came home on leave in February. And since his birthday was near, we built a huge fire in the pit and sat long around the leaping flames lighting the cold wet night. A bird gave a lonely solitary cry from the firs as midnight neared. And a male figure appeared at the edge of the Labyrinth, and as he vanished from my astonished sight, I cried out for his name. He replied “Hrolf”….which, as near as I can fathom, is related to names that mean “Wolf Counselor.” Since his coming, apparently to the large rock under the cherry tree, my duties on the Walk have felt lighter. He came to my need, as we celebrated a neo-pagan Lupercalia in the February rains of Washington State.

We have celebrated a February festival annually since. We call it the Feast of the Wolf. I make a gingerbread cookie with a wolf’s head imprinted upon it, and we burn the storm downed wood of the winter. We often hear both the captive wolves of a nearby breeding facility and the coyotes in full cry as we sit fireside. This was inspiration, perhaps, for us to think of this fire fest, in the midst of winter as a time to welcome into ourselves all the unbidden wildness our hemmed in hearts can hold.

America is mostly an urban culture. Rules for every aspect of life crowd in on the much lauded “freedoms” of our nation. We are free, alright…to starve, to die for lack of health care; free to take jobs where labor laws are blissfully ignored and more and more workers are treated almost as badly as medieval serfs. Bright lights are on everywhere to illuminate everything anyone might want to steal. There is no escape from glaring lights and they make the stars fade out of sight.

There is little room for darkness except in the hammering frenzy of our frantic hearts. There is no place for the darkness of nature—a bird cry, a wolf call, the tiny shriek of something captured by the night-flying owl. We are all to be “civilized” and take our lumps from the richer “betters” of our ever more stratified society. To accept in good grace that our lacks and sufferings are all our own fault; and never hint that the game is fixed.

And for the most part, that is what Americans do. A friend, at Yule, with a bitter look, saying she got no sick days, no paid holidays at all (in violation of federal labor law—but since they call her an “independent contractor” it plays anyhow), and she missed working Christmas because the money loss was a problem. She followed this with the statement “But that’s ok,” because she is a good Republican and it is her place to work hard and not complain. Yes, soon, we all will be “independent contractors” to companies that will make fortunes for their top folks and stock holders who do not labor for the riches made off the sweat of others. Oh, yes, of course….we are all free to be stockholders, too? And lose our homes when the stocks fail and they take what little we have? The game is rigged.

We seem, as a nation, trapped in good behavior. Religion is resurgent—and I believe for the precise reasons Marx elucidated so long ago—to keep the poor from killing the rich. Karl Marx laughs from whatever afterlife he inhabits. Russian peasants were not his target audience; but they had more of a hold on the wild, within and without, than the average American.

Light a candle, light a bonfire. Sit in the night and turn off the lights. Let in the wild, remember running with wolves and howling. Eat your meat rare, find something that knows survival and cling to it.

The full moon rides the clouds, lighting up the billows of vapour carrying snow to my mountains. The bright light keeps me awake nights. And gives me, like those mourning the fallen below, too much time to think about the losses of the wars. Too much time to wonder what these men’s lives bought, for all they lost. May wisdom prevail….and soon!

US Marine Lance Cpl. Jeremy M. Kane, 22, of Towson, Md., died Jan. 23 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan.

Rifleman Peter Aldridge, 19, of Folkestone in Kent, England, died in Afghanistan on January 22, from wounds caused by an IED detonating near his patrol.

The following US Marines died Jan. 24 while supporting combat operations in Helmand province, Afghanistan:

Sgt. Daniel M. Angus, 28, of Thonotosassa, Fla.

Lance Cpl. Timothy J. Poole, 22, of Bowling Green, Ky.

Lance Cpl. Zachary D. Smith, 19, of Hornell, N.Y.

Soldier Claes Jochim Olsson, 22, of Gressvik, Norway, died in Afghanistan on January 25, when his vehicle hit an IED.

LCpl Daniel Cooper, 22, of Hereford, England, died in Afghanistan on January 24, of wounds resulting from an IED explosion.

US Army Sgt. Carlos E. Gill, 25, of Fayetteville, N.C., died Jan. 26 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center of an illness. He was evacuated from Kandahar Air Field, Afghanistan, Dec. 19, 2009, where he was supporting combat operations. He was a member of the local Ft. Lewis, WA Stryker Bde.

US Army Pfc. Scott G. Barnett, 24, of Concord, Calif., died Jan. 28 in Iraq, of injuries sustained while supporting combat operations.

There is the idea out there that anything you do consistently for at least three weeks begins to be habitual. This could be beneficial of course….I have spent most of the adult years of my 56 years trying to make exercise habitual, if not happy. Thus far, no joy. Unlike most people I know, in the average three weeks of exercise, I feel worse not better. I hate exercise. Three weeks straight of it has been known to put me in bed in nigh unbearable pain. But since everything in society assures me I simply suffer from a bad attitude, I keep striving to find a sustainable form that does not half-cripple me with exhaustion and agony.

So, I took special care and actually made New Year’s resolutions this year—an oddity in itself. The “exercise” one is the first item. I will amend it through the year….right now it is “Just do it, 3 times a week for at least 20 minutes.” So far, not hard. In February, I will amend it to “Just do it, 5 times a week, walking for 30-40 minutes. In March, I will add a twice weekly work-out to the walks. In April, I will make it three workouts plus walk—two of them with weights. And so forth. I tell myself my former failures were due to (1) Over doing it and thus sabotaging myself, and (2) my bad attitude.

Some list items are obviously not habit-bound; they have to do with particular projects I wish to finish—but at least one of those will take me more than one year. The exercise resolution needs to be habitual. Of course, I am not yet doing it daily, so it will take, one presumes, longer. But I get a big kick out of marking it ‘done’ on my little chart. Only foil stick on stars could make it more satisfying to my OCD inner child!

I have thirteen items on my list….these, with the number of times I must do some that are multiple times per week comprise 23 separate operations. So, to get it done in the seven day week, I must do at least three items per day…and more twice a week. This in addition to normal things—cleaning, sleeping, pet care, gardening, bathing, making candles for my business, and of course, Labyrinth work. It is keeping me very busy. I have no time left to be bored or depressed. This is a good thing.

I better watch out, soon I will have more offline life than online! Living in my actual life could get to be a habit!

Running late on a rainy, sodden, cold week. The month turns in this new year, and the death count grows. Same sh*t, different day, we used to say. I’d like to say something inspiring, but bitter grief weighs my words. I can only bow my head in sorrow and salute those who are finished with the wars.

US Army Spc. Brushaun X. Anderson, 20, of Columbus, Ga., died Jan. 1 in Iraq, of wounds suffered from a non-combat related incident. He died of wounds suffered when attacked by an unknown assailant.

US Air Force Senior Airman Bradley R. Smith, 24, of Troy, Ill., died Jan. 3 in Afghanistan, of wounds sustained while supporting combat operations

The following three US Army personnel died Jan. 3, in Afghanistan, when their position was attacked with multiple IEDs and small arms fire:

Sgt. Joshua A. Lengstorf, 24, of Yoncalla, Ore.

Spc. Brian R. Bowman, 24, of Crawfordsville, Ind.

Pvt. John P. Dion, 19, of Shattuck, Okla.

Pvt. Robert Hayes, 19, of England, died Jan. 3 in Afghanistan, when an IED exploded as his security patrol passed.

US Army Spc. David A. Croft Jr., 22, of Plant City, Fla., died Jan. 5 in Iraq, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device and small arms fire.

I have been giving a lot of thought to the topic of religion for the last couple decades. Way back when Carter was President and Iran seemingly fell over the edge of reason and rationality, not to mention falling out of the 20th century, it fired up the burner in the back of my brain.

Much of the Mideast fell onto the same path—-one full of religious animosity attached to economic and political issues where America was found to blame. I found the increasing politicization of spiritual life distressing, and then depressing….and finally by the 1990’s, utterly terrifying.

And that terror did not relate only to the horrors unfolding in Afghanistan and other Islamic nations. Finally, it came home to roost in America as the rhetoric from American pulpits began to echo the same sentiments as what turbaned mullahs screamed in Arabic or Farsi. I was baffled when I talked to Christian friends and asked them if they did not think it just as dangerous when ANY religion reached for the reins of political power; they looked at me as if I had taken leave of my senses.

There are American churchmen who think a theocratically guided government would be best. So much for freedom of religion in the United States if a legal code based fully on “Biblical truths” is ever brought into being. Thus, because I love my country and I believe that the Constitutional promise of “freedom of religion” means ALL religions, I find myself engaging in magic to protect that right.

I sometimes think the self-proclaimed “righteous” religious types who believe in a Dominionist approach to governing my nation have altogether forgotten who Jesus was and what he taught; when he said “Render unto Caesar…” he did not mean taxes alone and he clearly said his kingdom was NOT “of this world.” I believe the churchmen who would turn American into a Christian version of Iran or Afghanistan have forgotten the God they claim to worship. They worship a false deity of power and hatred, of repression and guilt—a deity of their own creation.

It reminds me of stories told of stone age peoples seeing an eclipse of the moon: terrified that the beautiful moon that lit their nights was being devoured by a monster, they threw spears and shot arrows where that black and invisible enemy would have to be located. They fought to rescue the moon. Our freedom to worship as we see fit (or freedom from worshiping) is a Constitutional right as beautiful as the full moon we saw on New Year’s Eve. The Religious Right that wants to make their religious ideals the law of the land are as ravenous for power over the Constitution as the legendary monster; they talk of shepherds like Christ, but are wolves indeed! It is time for all Americans of many faiths, or no faith at all, to take up arms—verbal arms, legal arms, logical arms, and yes, for us pagans, even magical arms to fight for our rights before they are gone.

My magic this week revolved around the visualization of a partially eclipsed full moon, being devoured by a power-mad monster. And I shot magically visualized arrows into the night, to drive it away. To save the beauty and light of our nights; to save the American right that many original colonists of this nation came here to find—freedom to practice their religion as they saw fit. Not all were Puritans, by the way. We are a nation of immigrants with many traditions of spirituality. If we allow the loudest, most self-righteous and right wing religious leaders to gain control of even portions our government, further weakening the wall between Church and State, the night that falls upon America will be far darker than a moonless night in winter.

Shoot off a letter, a magic arrow….and yes, shoot off your MOUTH at anyone telling you it’s ok because “God said so.” Because, Voltaire had it right when he said, “Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” It has already begun.

Barely a week from now is our Yule Celebration. This year, it begins with three days of friends and dinners and fun before settling into a two week winter vacation. This means that for the next week, I will bake and cook and obsess!

But not today. Today is traditionally called “Little Yule” and will be a day of fasting in preparation of a rite marking the end of my Elemental Attunement year. I began last January, with Fire—meditating three times a week on all the forms fire takes in our lives. I worked fire-fueled hobbies, doing woodburning and more candle making than usual during the three month stint.

As spring rains hit, I switched to Water and was dismayed at my own emotional floods for three months. A customized fountain burbled on my altar while I wrestled old feelings to ground.

Summer was Earth, and the garden kept me immersed in it. But summer was also a financial trial as we struggled to support and aid two unemployed artists as our guests for seven long weeks. We learned a LOT about the many aspects of Earth element before autumn brought me back to familiar Air.

And in the Air I am now….the cold, clear crisp frozen air of December. New ideas blossomed at once and with more clarity than ever before. New goals leapt from mind to paper and budget sheets.
I feel more assertive with regard to my own magical tradtion and actions than ever before.

So today, on Little Yule, the 13th of December….I will sit amidst the shining ornaments of the season at my hearth altar working clay that will dry to make an incense burner. And tonight when the sun has sunk and plunged my world into a long winter’s night, I will cast a circle and take my steps into a new level of empowerment and communion with my world.

May the holidays bring you similar direction and joys, whatever your spiritual tradition!

Possibly a description of weather conditions, right? The sky was a dazzling blue this morning as my thermometer read about 12 degrees. Frost and ice glistened on every surface. My stack of Yule-tide cheering cards lay on the table, awaiting a journey to the post office.

Water was running in my bathroom sinks, a steady little stream to make sure water moves in the pipes to keep them from freezing. For my house is still more or less heatless. The propane fireplace is without flame; awaiting repair in a season of screw ups and delay. A few small electric radiators are keeping the house about 60, the central rooms anyway. In the bedrooms, it is icy as old stone castle chambers.

And yet, it seems somehow appropriate. Everything this year, from last February onward, slowed down to an agonizing crawl to a distant finish line.
Spring was slow coming, and the garden didn’t sprout till June. Strange and uncanny truths came to light as summer proceeded. Difficult and painful alliances were made and broken. A heat wave sweltered the end of summer and made fall a relief, and still the pace of dragging zombie-dead-effect continued. Illness and bizarre allergy effects dragged me down and rendered me ineffective at everything.

Winter came hard and sudden with bitter early cold. Holidays loomed, people around me in life and online began getting that snappy tone of holiday-baggage-stress. Nothing worked. Everything seemed impossible. And finally, in the icy rooms and shivering; I had enough of it. To my hearth altar I went to light the “mother of all problem solvers” candle.

This was a pyramidal beeswax candle I made one day while feeling bored over other candles. I was making hand-dipped tapers at the same time. I trim the ends off the tapers….little conical ends that often end up as breasts on my hand-shaped “God & Goddess” tapers. I studded all four sides of the pyramid candle with these. I bronzed the dark black wax with metallic dust and sprayed it with a shine. The very look would have sent good little church ladies into shock.

So I used oils composed for magical effect…one for change of luck, one for financial ease, one for protection, one for purification. I stated my needs and when I wanted to see the change happen. I stressed the need for heat before the pipe froze and burst….before weekend’s end, I emphasized. I said I was ready to move forward, done sitting still. Done being polite and waiting for call backs all many aspects of my life. Ready to pick up the reins, lash the “horses” and gallop onto several fields of endeavor.

I have someone coming tomorrow. I will have heat. I will continue with holiday and magical plans. I am finished sitting. My mind, like the weather, is clear, cold….and making peanut brittle!

Six years ago, tonight, we opened the Walk of the Fallen—the Labyrinth itself, not this blog. Upon that night, we lit a fire, I put on my very old Army Class A uniform and those simple ribbons and awards I was entitled to wear, and I went out to read a list of the dead from the Iraq War. I had not yet begun writing the names of those fallen in Afghanistan.

The Labyrinth began as a form of mourning and protesting a war I thought unjustly begun, based upon lies. The war in Afghanistan, at least then, struck me as having more plausible cause. I had just over 400 names that night, and besides the list in my hand, each of those was written upon a luminaria glowing in the dark around the circuits of the Walk. Pagan friends and family were with us that night as the full moon appeared and disappeared behind heavy clouds. A young trumpeteer came and played “Taps” at the end and the clouds wept upon the stones in finish.

The second year, there were over 1100 dead, in Iraq alone. And in 2005, I listed 2500+ names on tiny slips of card-stock, slipped them into glass test tubes and mounted them on a wall behind plexiglass frames. That was the last year I opened the Walk to the public on Veterans’ Day…and nobody came at all.

The year Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, I quietly stung beads, one per dead troop and hung them upon the monument. The following Memorial Day, I wrote names and added strands for the troops that had died in Afghanistan.

So it has gone since. I keep the books of the dead—Americans and Coalition troops from the effort in Afghanistan and Iraq. At each new moon, I look at the totals and when a full 200 more bright lives have been snuffed out, I string shining beads and carry them to the center stone. Weekly, I walk each newly released name within, and pour a libation upon the stone and wish them peace and justice.

In winter now, the beads will reside inside for shelter from the wet and bitter cold; some of the more fragile beads shattered and I have re-strung and replaced half the strands. They hang by my altar and indoors or out, remind me of the debts of a nation not nearly grateful enough for the courage and fortitude of its military men and women.

I will soon add more beads, including beads for those who died at Ft. Hood this week. For although the Army will not count them as casualties of the wars, they certainly would not be dead if those wars were not ongoing.

My praise and honor to the men and women of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, and Coast Guard! May your God(s) keep you and bless you with all good things, or if the fortunes of war so fall out, may they take you to whatever eternal home comforts you and bring solace to your survivors.