badstar

Personal reference. Feel free to disregard unless you're interested in random Italic gods conflated with or worshiped as Apollo and wolf cults associated with them.

http://www.angelfire.com/realm/vlachs/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veiovis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soranus_%28Roman_god%29

http://www.tribwatch.com/wolf.htm (creepy but interesting apocalyptic Christian site. This particular page looks to possibly contain some actually relevant stuff, if the rapture-cult bent can be read around.)

chironcentaur:

Respecting the worship of Iris very few traces have come down to us, and we only know that the Delians offered to her on the island of Hecate cakes made of wheat and honey and dried figs


http://www.theoi.com/Pontios/Iris.html

So I'm surfing and cliking along on the internet looking up stuff on Dominionists- hey, I'm kinda liking the website http://www.theocracywatch.org but I'm looking for the original sources so if I refer to something, some crazy person (like my parents...more on that later) can't say it's some crazy left-wing fabrication.

And I come upon this guy's blog:

Dr. Bruce Prescott
http://mainstreambaptist.blogspot.com

And on this blog was this essay. I think it's well worth reading:

http://www.mainstreambaptists.org/mob4/interfaith_conscience.htm

If we have the courage to honestly look at ourselves through the eyes of others who are strange and foreign to us or who have been injured and ignored by us, then I believe our hearts will open and the whispering of God’s still, small voice will begin to ring loud and clear in our ears.

The Origins of Druidism - The Druids in Greece

Still reading it, no opinion yet. Just thought I'd share.

Check out this website

http://www.timelessmyths.com

unfortunatey, it's limited to Greek, Roman, Norse, Celtic and Arthurian Legend...but its an awesome site...its pretty simple-looking til you start clicking around, there are things like hyperlink-annotated pantheon genealogies...it rocks.

Scientists hail discovery of hundreds of new species in remote New Guinea

No registration....cool article

This entry is also posted on the Grove forum, asthefiretree (there are enough people who read this journal but not that one that may find this interesting food for thought.) and possibly The ADF discussion list. With a couple of lines cut out that are only really relevant to grove-specific discussion)

One thought that I'm adding to this journal that wasn't in the rest of the cross-posts- Many people read my journal. Of different faiths and the ack thereof. As with any of my other posts on religion...really, as with any of my other posts...please feel free to discuss, debate and dissent, but do so in the civil and respectful manner in which I know you would even if I didn't ask you to!

a·pol·o·get·ics ( P ) Pronunciation Key (-pl-jtks)
n. (used with a sing. verb)

1. The branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines.
2. Formal argumentation in defense of something, such as a position or system.


So today at the Grove, I had in hand a copy of Zondervan Guide to Cults and Religious Movements: Goddess Worship, Witchcraft And Neo-Paganism by Craig S Hawkins. This is basically an outline for Evangelical Christians to study for guidance on how to witness to pagans. Several poeple took some degree of interest to perusing this bok, and there was some on and off discussion from this ranging from..."how do we respond to the points, claims and issues raised by those Christians who prostheletize to us"? To "How can we use this in the event that these questions are raised in a public forum?"

Now...glaring errors and humorous misconceptions aside...

This is definitely information that we can all arm ourselves with, because we all encounter the occasional individual, quite eager to share the Good News, and some of us will just say "No Thanks!" and walk away, but others actually enjoy the occasional discussion and debate if circumstances allow.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you never know when you may be in some public forum and questions come up. Let's say you decide to go to some Big Olde Publick Paganne Ritual(TM) and the media decides to drop by and talk to people...and they pick you, Joe Pagan to interview. For the sake of this discussion, you're answering their questions. Do you know how you would answer such questions as...

What is ADF?
What is Druidry?
What is Paganism?
How/When/Why did you get involved?
What generated your interest in the first place?
Why are you stil involved?
What benefit do you get from it?
What needs do you feel it meets in your life?
Who/what do you worship?
What do you like most about it?
What do you like least about it?

Now...what about a few more questions, less neutral than the others

How do you know that Druidry (Wicca, paganism, whatever) is true?
How do you define truth?
How do you know what is true?
How do you know that Christianity is not true?
What would convince you- if anything would- that Druidry (or whatever you follow) is not true, or that Christianity is true?

Do you think we should all be able to give some sort of uniform- or at least similar- answer to questions like What is ADF? What is Druidry? What is paganism?

This is quite a list to start out with. I'll leave you to mull it over and discuss.

Anyone heard of it?

From the author's website:
"Ranging from the printing press to the telegraph, from radio to the Internet, TechGnosis peels away the utilitarian shell of technology to reveal the mystical and millennialist expectations that permeate the history of technology, and especially information technology. The book shows how the religious imagination, far from disappearing in our supposedly secular age, continues to feed the utopian dreams, apocalyptic visions, digital phantasms, and alien obsessions that populate today's "technological unconscious." In turn, TechGnosis also shows how the language and ideas of the information society have shaped and even transformed many aspects of contemporary spirituality. In the end, the book gestures towards a vision of "the network path": a global, pluralistic perspective capable of grappling with some of the forces that are currently tearing us apart: spirit and science, modernity and nihilism, technology and the human."

I'm on page 21, anf it's already spun my brain off into the stratoshphere...and all he's done is talk about mythologies of Hephaestus, Hermes and Thoth and culture in ancient Greece and Alexandria. I can't wait to get further into it. The writing is amazingly poetic.


Techgnosis

Heard of it?

syn·es·the·sia: n.

1.A condition in which one type of stimulation evokes the sensation of another, as when the hearing of a sound produces the visualization of a color.
2.A sensation felt in one part of the body as a result of stimulus applied to another, as in referred pain.
3.The description of one kind of sense impression by using words that normally describe another.


Mixed Signals: Synesthesia Online <--- Interesting website.

I was going to post about this last night...but then Mea decided that we had to go to the mall and I closed the window without posting by mistake.

I was just mulling over some thoughts on the subject. I've always had a few mental asciations that get me funny looks. Many of you have heard me decribing food that is spicy to then point of tongue-numbing as tasting "grey"

I've also always thought of a number of different places in terms of color. Dallas is pink with silver sparkles. Philadelphia is brick red and slate grey, but "Philly" is a mix of steel blue and sky blue. Forth Worth is sky blue and white. Baltimore is orange- that's streetlight orange, not Oriole orange. DC is white and grass green. Indiana is Violet (Ok, that was a really dumb joke. Indiana is actually chocolate brown.) Arlington (Texas) is yellow.

What prompted the intention to post yesterday was me listening to some songs on my ipod, and even thought I wasn't paying much attention, I realized that I was thinking of particular patterns and colors in reference to various songs...and realizing that these were not new. For example, a couple of songs by a group called Au Revior Borealis make me think of floral patterns in dark brown, burgundy, cream and deep teal. "Hanging By A Moment" by Lifehouse is very spirally. "Cry Ophelia" by Adam Cohen is gold like wheat. "So Few Words" by Archive is metallic gunmetal grey with various shades of pink lights.

Don't think I'd slap a label on me, but it is fascinating. Definitely a description for some of my thoughts.