Ishtar Sunday

Easter ( from Oestre, Estre, Ester, Ishtar) is the first Sunday after the First Full Moon after the Spring Equinox. It is well known as a major Christian religious holiday, even though the themes are Pre-Christian and come from Pagan religious roots..( as does the name of this important holy day), which celebrates the return of life and the rebirth of nature as the time of light conquers the time of darkness. The symbols of the rabbit (fertility) and the egg, (new life) are sacred to the Goddess. This gives rise for some traditions to refer to the Spring Equinox (Ostara in Wiccan traditions) as "Lady Day." Easter is a blend of religious themes and it (like an interfaith organization) blends well, simply because it celebrates a common idea.

Rabbits are very sexually prolific. Eggs are the manifestations of the beginnings of life.. as can be considered by extension, the act of procreation. Therefore there are underlying sexual connotations to this Holy day. Sex/Love is the theme here. And making love and not war, would easily fit in to this same thought form. This happens to also be the message within all religious traditions and paths. "To love and honor one another." Not to hate and harm. "To help your brothers and sisters of the human race." Not to make war and maim and kill. "To give generously of yourselves to those in need." Not to take that which belongs not to you. "To seek to better yourself spiritually." Not to accumulate a lot of "stuff". Because true wealth is measured in terms of love and spiritual attainment, not monetary acquisitions.In fact some of the happiest and wealthiest people I have ever known had hardly more than the clothes on their back. But they had the wealth of love and family. They didn't hate, they did not envy, they had little to share but share they did. Then some of the most unhappy and "poorest" people I have known were quite well off financially. More than one of these were multimillionaires. They were stingy, resentful, cold and they coveted that which someone else had, that they did not as yet possess. They reveled in flaunting their wealth .. their material wealth, their "trophy wives" and bragging on the size of their house, how many expensive cars they had and yet they were still the most unhappy people I have ever met. I actually felt sorry for them. They thought all they needed to do was warm a pew on a Sunday morning, give a tax deductible contribution to the Church and they could buy a ride on that bus to Heaven. Because the rest of the week they certaintly did not follow the teachings of their own faith.

Even though the individuals I had these experiences with called themselves Christian, the same thing can be seen in other faiths. The "Islamic Terrorists" for instance.. well thats really a misnomer. They may call themselves Islamic, but they do not follow the teachings of Islam. If they did they would not be terrorists. Christians tend to dislike the Jews and Muslims, while Jews dislike Christians and Muslims and Muslims tend to dislike the Christians and Jews. Yet they all are followers of the God of Abraham. They are Brothers and Sisters in faith. They share the same religious roots. Yet their religious leaders, (or at least many of them) fan the fires of discord, and hate, while their religious teachings call for love and unity.

It is a sad thing that religious leaders teach hatred and intolerance, when their religious philosophy teaches love, tolerance, understanding and compassion. And Pagans are well aware of the persecutions we have endured by the mainstream faiths. In fact there is an interesting article written by a Christian in the Church of Seven Planes website http://www.sevenplanes.org/Sermons/morris%20taylor.htm that even uses biblical quotes to explain the validity of Wicca as a positive religious path. It is because of the unity of diverse religious paths that I became first an Interfaith Minister then finally a Bishop of the Church of Seven Planes. We have Bishops and Ministers from nearly all religious paths, and we work together in complete harmony and acceptance of all religious paths. The basic philosophy behind an Interfaith Church is "One God, many Names" For many years, something that I have tried to teach those who were actually interested, is that we are all going to the same place, we are just walking different paths to get there. And although my personal path is Wicca, I have worked with people from several other religious paths, and used their personal path to help them find the connection they needed to the Divine. How is this possible? read the website its all there  http://www.sevenplanes.org

Night Fright in the heat of the night

This old house is so drafty it really cannot be heated with a furnace. So we have used an old Earth woodstove in here for the past 22 winters. The old stove finally burned itself out, the firebrick fell out the steel brackets that hold the brick in burned away and it had gotten dangerous because a fire in it would quickly run away and catch the chimney on fire. So we decided to invest in a new wood stove. The new stove was the largest one they had and it had a glass door. We never had a stove with a glass door before. But that was the way it came. Finally got everything jury rigged and the stove installed with the old pipe because the stove collar did not come with the stove and it needed to be ordered. The new stove has a blower on it which blows heat into the room from the back of it around the heat shield. It also has a smoke re-burner in the top so the flames do not shoot directly up the stove pipe, like they did in the old stove.

The thing is when you fire up a new wood stove the paint has to cure. That paint causes some smoke in the house and smells like smoking hot metal. I got the fire lite and in short order we had to open the outside door and tune a fan on to blow the smoke outside. This was @ 5-6 pm. The smell of the curing paint still persisted but was decreasing by 11 pm. @ 9:30 pm I banked the stove for the night. I had put in a rather large chuck of wood @ 8 pm and in the old stove that would have been gone by 2 am so I laid another flat chunk on top of it. After doing so I wondered if that might have been a bit much. But that was what it took in the old one to keep a fire all night. After the stove had simmered away for an hour and a half and everything looked just fine, I went to bed.

@ 2:30 am I awoke. I noticed the curing paint smell was stronger. I got up to check on the stove and saw the room flickering brightly from the light from an intense fire. I hurriedly shut the stove and damper all the way down and turned the fan and blower on high to cool the stove down. The top piece of wood had fallen and slid forward and was right against the glass door and it was that piece that was blazing away with the intensity of an inferno.

Just  then the smoke alarm decided to start blaring. Not wanting to wake everyone up I fanned the alarm to quiet it and went to open the outside door. The alarm blared again. So there I am running back and forth in the dark between alarm and stove trying to get the stove to cool down before the chimney ignited and vent the smoke to the outside. Annwn walked in the room to see what the world I was doing dashing around in the dark and making that alarm blare again and again.

I finally got another fan on to blow the smoke out of the bedroom and keep the alarm from blasting my wife out of bed. Annwn had vanished, the door was wide open. The hunk of wood was still laying against the glass door. It was wet outside but wasn't raining or snowing hard that I could tell. I called him, and thankfully he had retired to the living room instead of dashing out the door in a bolt for freedom.

By this time the flames had died down, so I cautiously opened the stove door and pushed the big hunk of flaming wood forward enough to get it off the glass. A few minutes later the stove began popping as it started cooling back down.

Now I am wide away in the middle of the night. Everything seems fine. but still.. waking up and seeing a room brightly lit by flickering flames is not something I am at all used to. Maybe I need a stiff drink LOL! At least I can breathe again without choking on paint fumes. But between the flickering flames and the smell of hot metal. I am too nervous to sleep. Next time I will know not to put that extra piece in.. I hope..