Maebius Musings

I sometimes am astounded that I have been at this blog for about 3 years now, and it all started with a Story of the Birds.

As much time has passed, I still remember.

Our decorations are up, our costumes are completed, and this weekend we prepare for the annual feast of Candy! (I am a robot and the kid’s a vampire, not sure which of 3 ideas the wife is planning)

Beside that celebration of gluttony and glee however, I also prepare for a nice quiet meditation out on our porch, under the silvery light of the moon, thinking about my relatives beyond the Veil.

Have you celebrated their lives lately, even though they are no longer living? Say hello again, this weekend if you get a chance. Reconnect, even if their spiritual beliefs are different from yours. Remember them, if even for this one day.

After all, you’ll be meeting them eventually, and might as well have them remember you too.

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Ok, usually I don’t like to post political/commercial stuff here, and prefer “Life and Times of Maebius” sprinkled with spirituality-themed musings.

Then I read this today…

In summary: …the Walt Disney Company is now offering refunds for all those “Baby Einstein” videos that did not make children into geniuses… lawyers threatened a class-action lawsuit for unfair and deceptive practices unless Disney agreed to refund the full purchase price to all who bought the videos since 2004.

Now I am not sure about you, but just seeing the name Einstein on a product does not endear me to believe that it will make me, or the users of such product, a genius.  Apparently, some lawyers, and the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood thought otherwise and were shocked, SHOCKED, that kids glued to the TV while these types of things were showing, are surprisingly not all a prodigy of enormous proportions!! I know, wow.   /sarcasm

I never even considered this topic a matter of deluded parenting strategy or false advertising.

My kid watched some of these CDs and I happily shared them with family and friends of ours.  Yet I shared them not so much as some Promethean Torch of Brilliant Brain, but a cute and at least non-violent show to watch for tiny infants.   My own experience was one where I’d watch with the kid and help sound out colours and shapes, smiling as some stuffed toy would bounce across the screen and the tot would giggle at it.

Still, I weep for our future.

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UPDATE: The images are not showing on my work PC, but can be viewed from outside the network. Here are the links to the images directly, if they are not displaying for you.

Maebius Ghost Pumpkin

Kid Spooky Pumpkin

Kid Spooky Pumpkin (dark)

Kid by himself Pumpkin

This weekend (after church) we did a lot of work outside, raking, decorating with corn stalks all around the mailbox, porch, and house, and all the various “post-harvest” type of things.   Still have a few potatoes to dig up that will get done tonight probably, but the rest of the garden is gone, and frost has taken the majority of the weeds down to root.    And in further signs of the season, we carved our annual pumpkins for next weekend’s Halloween/Samhain celebration.

First, my rather spartan and simplistic “Boo to you!” ghost.  It turned out pretty good, but seems rather lacklustre for some reason, especially compared to the kid’s Awesome spooky-face!

Here is the Spooky Face. He drew on the pumpkin with a pen, then helped Mom use the sharp knife to carve out the face he drew. Turned out Awesome, if I do say so myself, and is seriously spooky!

Last but not least, we found the somewhat more kid-safe pumpkin saw and let him carve whatever he wanted, entirely without assistance (except for helping scoop out the innards). This also turned out pretty awesome, if I do say so myself.

The goblins should be properly frightened from our doorstep this year!

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The title refers to my mental image on “Church” and the biblical story of Jericho, minus the whole “sacking hte town” part that came after the trumpets sounded…

(short post, but wanted to get words to e-paper before I forgot).

For the past three weeks, I’ve been going to the local Unitarian Universalist Church here in town, and it’s a nice little place. Not quite the same grand Catachismic liturgy from my youth, but still holds that sense of community that I was craving, and a spiritually grounded peer-group to learn from for my son.

In my own mind, Church still apparently held an exclusionary connotation with my more polytheistic beliefs, but the UUC is, by definition, much more open and tolerant of alternative spirituality. I took this as a given, and figured it would help provide a rough foundation of “Divinity” to expose the kid to, which we could then add onto with our own practices and festival camping.

Imagine my surprise then, when this week’s sermon was on (unsurprisingly) Halloween, and the announcement was made that Thursday evening would be the church’s Samhain ritual.

I kinda had a few moments of disconnect, where the logic of “Tolerant and welcoming spirituality” embraced by this church smacked me in the face with the realization that it was evident in Deeds and not just Words on their website.

Forgive me, any readers who are smiling with a knowing “D’uh” here, but I apparently never expected to hear a Church Pastor take a few moments in the midst of talking about God and Sacred Awe during this winter eve and tell the assemblage that “Witch night was on Thursday, feel free to attend.”

There’s a sordid swirl of emotions that swept through me the rest of that short service, but it made me profoundly happy that we started going here. It may not be quite the Epic Pomp & Circumstance that I grew up with, but it’s so much bigger than I first thought it was.

Those first few sermons seemed a bit shallow and vague, but I am now realizing that it’s due to the extremely varied congregation that goes there. Over that day’s “coffee chatter” after the service (while the kids played tag outside), I met a wonderul woman from Pakistan who prays that Allah forgives her countrymen for bombing us all so we are driven to bomb them back, three pagan-types (1 Wiccan, 1 Fae-kin, and 1 undisclosed), and a few gnostic-ish Christians.

What an awesome group! I need to re-define “Church” in my head now. It’s always been open to interpretation, but it surprised me how deep-rooted my pre-conceptions of the institution still were/are.

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FYI:  I’m not dead yet.   Just very, very busy.

I got a NEW CAR today, to replace the one that decided to blow up the engine on my way to work earlier this week.    Here’s a picture of the same model and colour that I will be driving for [hopefully] the next 10 years.    So far I need a nickname, but Pumpkin and Tigger have been ruled completely out.   (My old blue Hyundai Accent was called “Bluey” by the kid).

As I mentioned over on this post, I was attending a few College classes on herbalism and such.   Unfortunately, the first class was canceled due to low attendance numbers and I missed the rain-date.

Tonight, I will be actually attending the second course, and just got confirmation that the class is not postponed.

Off to grab my notebook and supply of pens!

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I admit, with all the media spam about this new movie, I’d at least try to run alongside the bandwagon and hitch a ride on the rails for a post or two.

I so totally want to go see this movie the more I read about it.   This link was sent to me by a kindly lady at work to warn me that Sendak appears to be a rude SOB and it’s a scary movie potentially inappropriate for my son.    I read the interview, and am actually more willing to take him now.

In summary:

Ever since the media got word of the film, reporters have hounded Sendak, Eggers, and Jonze. One of the main questions reporters are asking is, Will this film based on one of the best children’s books of all-time be appropriate for children?

Reporter: “What do you say to parents who think the Wild Things film may be too scary?”

Sendak: “I would tell them to go to hell. That’s a question I will not tolerate.”

Reporter: “Because kids can handle it?”

Sendak: “If they can’t handle it, go home. Or wet your pants. Do whatever you like. But it’s not a question that can be answered.”

The main issue I see, is concerned parents being actually interested in the movie and wanting to apply their filters to anything inappropriate or not.   This is a good thing, and it is beyond MY ability to say if your particular filter deems one thing or another “bad”.

The author seems to be thinking along those lines (but being particularly witty/snarky/pompous in his wording). He can not tell one person if this movie is inappropriate or not.  And if it is found to be “bad” to a particular person, it is not his fault.

The other subtext here is one of overprotective parenting.  I myself have steered my child away from some topics.  He isn’t going to be watching “Saving Private Ryan” this year, even if it would foster a discussion on war, or social injustice, or bravery.    Yet  think I’ve tried to be  open enough to let him try new things and offer to discuss his thoughts afterwards.

It’s a fine line, we parents try to tread, but I agree with the author’s (presumed) point here.  They made a movie about being a kid, not a movie For kids.  It’s not his job to then tell us parents if it’s appropriate or not.

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Got you with that title, didn’t I? 

If it weren’t so rainy, I’d hang out my clothes to dry more days than not, and underwear displays be darned.

Sadly, this probably makes me a poor slovenly wreck of a human being, if I were to live in a more suburban area.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/10/fight_to_legali.php?dcitc=th_rss

Thankfully, though, states are starting to, as the article says, “hanging clotheslines was against the rules in so many communities nationwide that state governments are being forced to step in and make it against the law to ban them.”

*sigh*    Sometimes, I welcome the zombie apocalypse.

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Forgive the somewhat cliche and lengthy title, but it sums up my mood today (monday).

This weekend, we took the long five hour+ journey to PA to help out a friend and get some things done that needed done. It involved shopping, and sawing, and such, but was not overly strenuous in terms of physical chores.  Still, there was much productivity and Things Got Done(tm).

The amazing thing about the whole weekend, was the transformation that overcame our family (or at least my wife and I) over the course of it.  Lately, things have been a bit grey and mundane.  We dealt with a death in the family, a relative’s unrelated auto accident, and one of those every project at work deadlines Today times that crop up.  The fact I had to miss my herb class made the weekend seem initially like just another Chore.
(no insult intended to those we visited, we still were going to come regardless. *grin*)

In reality, with such an unexpectedly relaxed atmosphere, and high productivity, it felt like this was a weekend quite well spent!  The trip down was made in record time, so much so that I am almost convinced that my joking comment about “taking the moon roads” (a ley-line shortcut) was partially correct.

The shopping resulted in new shoes that make walking comfortable, and thus firming the foundations of my family.   We ate tasty food that nourished our bodies as well as my heart (huevos rancheros = divinity on a plate!).   I played at the park and watched my usually shy son wander right up and get himself involved with both a pick-up Baseball game, and a Soccer match!

It was one of those weekends that just worked. Things went right, the sun shone unseasonably bright and warm, and a myriad of magical minutiae happened.

Even the ride home, usually long and arduous, was filled with the three of us howling at the moon when it peeked from the clouds, interspersed with an unusually chatty kid who put away his video game to play “alphabet games”.  I’m sure any bystanders seeing a family of 3 driving slowly with faces suddenly stretched upwards to the window in a long Awwrroooooo, would think we were nuts.   But we had fun, darn it.

The root beer?   A tasty treat from Trader Joes, to ease parched throats along the ride. Nothing less, but perchance more.  It was magic potion faerie root elixir if the kid is to be believed.

I couldn’t have asked for a better vacation!

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Sandy over on Though Soup just posted an interesting bit on Initiation practices.  I’ve often mused about such topics, but after searching my own blog, I don’t think I ever really wrote them out here.

I agree that for many, the concept of initiation in simply a membership into a group.  This pans out when you look at the accepted Definition of the term:

I think many people forget part C.2 above, where the initiate is “invested with a particular function or status“.   Initiation is both for the benefit of the group being joined, as well as the person joining.   It is a sort of liminal, transitional, empowering state.

For myself, I was active in the local Boy Scouts of America program in my youth.  One facet of that organization is a sub-group called “Order of the Arrow“. You do not apply for this group, you are invited.  (The mission statement for this group: The mission of the Order of the Arrow is to fulfill its purpose as an integral part of the Boy Scouts of America
through positive youth leadership under the guidance of selected capable adults.)

It is steeped in a cloak of not-quite-authentic Native American symbolism and pseudo-morality, but I’ll forgive that since I never considered it when I was first made a member.  At that time, it was the “cool mysterious group who got to go on extra camp-outs and do more stupid work-projects in the community“.

The group itself had a number of ritual trappings, from the dramatic “invitation” itself, to a number of service-oriented events.  Yet the one thing I really connected with was the “initiation” camping trip.   As Sandy mentions, a Good Initiation prepares the initiate. They do not simply join up.   The initiate is held accountable for their actions and decision.

In my case, the invitation was made, I attended the usual initiate’s camping trips, complete with a bit of good-natured hazing, but also with lots of personal decision making.  We were given a history of the group, told what to expect, and then told to find a project to work on.

It’s a classic example, in my mind, of how “leadership training” should work.  We weren’t given projects, we were told to go find a project and complete it. The details of what project, necessary materials, and even what constitutes a project, were left unsaid.  The initiate had to organize the pool of non-initiates, formulate a plan to complete something, and then do it.

The end result of this, which was felt to be “stupid making us do all the work” by some, was that those who finished all the tasks requested of them, were able to undergo the Initiation and join the ranks of this leadership council.

To those of us who did it, more than one of us realized in hind-sight that after all we did, we already were in the club.  The ordeals and lessons and challenges provided to us just helped us realize that fact.

And in realizing it, that was the shift.

The big ceremony afterward was more for the group and those spectators attending it.  To the initiate, the ‘lines of energy’ were already set  in place.   We were initiated, and then just had to formalize it in a ritual setting to let the others know.  

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