Green Egg issue 157

GREEN EGG ISSUE No. 157 YULU 2011

Green Egg Magazine ……………………Table of Contents…………………………………

FEATURES:

HOLOGRAPHIC ARCHETYPES (Iona Miller)………………………………………………………………….…….8

INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL SORTOMME (Betty Dobson)…………………………………………………28

A GIFT FROM GODDESS BRIGHID (Radagast the Bard)………………………………………………….32

INTO TRADITION (Marc Sylvir)……………………………………………………………………………………….…33

CONVERSATION WITH REV. SYLVANUS TREEWALKER (Sylveey Selu)……………………….…..45

A RECONNECTING WITH ALL LIFE (Vajranagini Om)……………………………………………………...50

COLUMNS

EDITOR”S PAGE: (Psyche Lamplighter)……………………………………………………………………………4

VOCATIONAL ASTROLOGY (Diane Wing)………………………………………………………………………….54

MUSE REVIEWS: The Witching Hour by Lady Isadora (Kenny Klein)………………………………37

Songs of the Otherworld by Ruth Barret (Kenny Klein)……………….………39

Radical Nature by Christian de Quincey (Tom Donohue)……………………..41

Secret Lives by Barbara Ardinger (Psyche Lamplighter)……………………..43

CONTRIBUTOR’S SHOWCASE………………………………………………….………….…………………………….57

POETRY:

BLESSED BRIGHID (Radagast the Bard)....FIRE GODDESS Photo by B.A.S.T………………..2

THE TIME OF ICE, A MEDITATION FOR THE SOLSTICE (Tony Bellows)……………………………48

YULE (Radagast the Bard) ………………………………………………………………………….…………………….56.

Cover Art Oberon Zell-Ravenheart

Oberon Zell-Ravenheart ~ Founder

Psyche Lamplighter ~ Publisher/ Managing Editor

Tom Donohue ~ Science Editor/ Layout and Design

GREEN EGG is the official journal of the Church of All Worlds, whose mission is to evolve a network of information, mythology and experience that provides a context and stimulus for reawakening Gaea, and reuniting her children through tribal community dedicated to responsible stewardship and evolving consciousness. We publish four times per year. Visit the website at: http://www.greeneggzine.com copyright 2011 Church of All Worlds. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written permission from the publisher. Opinions expressed are those of the authors.

EDITOR'S PAGE

by Psyche Lamplighter

A LOOK BACK AT 2011

About a year ago, I researched astrological

forecasts for the year 2011. I was looking

for specific events such as the

American/global economy and what it was

doing; apocalyptic events, revolutions and

uprisings around the world and possibly in

America; and a host of other things that

determine the fate of our beloved Earth and

all Her inhabitants. What I found astounded

and amazed me.

More than one astrologer predicted that the

year of 2011 would see more change than

any other year in human history. Keeping in

mind that astrology forecasts portend events

and energies that MAY occur, depending on

the choices that humans make, and that far

more often than not, it takes quite awhile

after the celestial arrangements are noted by

us, for them to manifest for the masses. I

was taught that astrological charts are simply

road maps to give us a general idea of what's

ahead and that they are not carved in stone.

Anyone who works with Tarot cards, does

psychic readings or uses other divinatory

skills, knows that things are always subject

to change due to human unpredictability.

Possibly the most important event that I

found, was the lunar eclipse of last January

4, 2011, exactly one year ago. Most of the

astrologers I found predicted that this lunar

passage marked the end of patriarchal

thoughts, values and laws; indeed, these

same astrologers predicted the Return of the

Feminine. They interpreted this to mean that

reverence and respect for traditional so-

called feminine qualities and characteristics

such as compassion, empathy, nurturing etc

would return. Astrological events also

foretold that a great change was upon us and

that women would be the ones to lead the

way. This only makes sense, of course,

seeing as how the end of patriarchy had been

predicted. I began to look for signs of this

but I knew that they would be very small,

subtle things, hard to find. It's as if the

great wheel of life stops for a moment and is

reset and in that moment that it stops, it's

hard to see any change that might be

forthcoming.

Looking back over this past year, I can say

that it's been very difficult to see any sign of

the return of feminine values but one thing

did occur which caught my attention. About a

quarter of the way through the year, women

began appearing in my life. Women with

ideas, creativity, fire and passion and a deep

wish and need to change the world for the

better. They began to find me through Green

Egg, through the radio show I do with

Oberon every Wednesday night on Blog Talk

Radio's Witch School broadcast. I have been

networking with these women to facilitate

healing of all types, to exchange ideas,

thoughts and feelings. I have also noticed

that other groups of women are being formed

and they are doing the exact same things as

my group of women are doing.

I noticed many years ago, when I worked in

a women's drug rehab program, that when

women are inspired to unite in a common

goal, they can do literally ANYTHING.

ABSOLUTELY anything. Women have been

known to stop wars, protect and rescue

children, change laws and culture and inspire

heroic deeds. It seems that I have finally

found my purpose in life. It is to work with

others, women in particular, to build a new

world. This world will be based on universal

love and equality, on compassion and

kindness, honesty, honor and serving the

Goddess and all Her children.

During this past year, I also had many great

books with wonderful ideas come my way.

Because Green Egg does book reviews, I had

a number of people contact me with their

books and they have inspired, informed and

changed me for the better this past year.

One such book was “Biological Exuberance”

by Jonathan Balcombe. It is safe to say that

this book changed my life. (Note: Green

Egg's Tom Donohue reviewed this book in an

earlier edition of Green Egg). The main

premise of the book is that the purpose of

animals is to simply enjoy life, to revel in the

beauty of this marvelous planet and to

experience ecstatic joy in each moment of

existence. If you're like me and you love to

watch animals, you may have noticed that

animals enjoy the natural beauty of our

planet quite a bit. Years ago, I used to get

up to watch the sunrise with my 2 cats. We

all sat together in front of the large picture

window in my living room and quietly

enjoyed the closeness of each other while we

marveled at the beauty and wondrousness of

the sun's return for yet another day of life-

giving energy. Nowadays, I often see my

horse standing in his pasture, perfectly still,

watching the clouds race across the sky on a

windy day or watching the sun go down. He

watches and listens for the birds, deer and

rabbits that cross his territory and he loves to

sniff the various wild herbs that grow on our

land. I can tell he is absorbing the

excitement of simply being alive and

surrounded by natural beauty. I watch my

little cat, Button, who was rescued from a

garbage can at the age of 2 weeks and is

still very healthy and youthful at the age of

13. She loves to go outside and chase

grasshoppers, butterflies, birds, toads and

anything else that moves. She loves to hide

in the tall grasses on our land and play

Jungle Kitty. I can see the bright excitement

in her eyes, the sheer joy of being alive and

part of Life with the sun on her back and a

floral-scented breeze wafting over her face.

She runs and jumps at the excitement of a

beautiful spring day, as does my horse, who

tosses his head and kicks up his heels on a

brisk, chilly fall day or when it snows.

As I read this book, I began to understand

that our job, as human inhabitants of this

miraculous Earth, is to do exactly the same

as animals, which is to exuberantly rejoice in

Nature and our surroundings. It is our job

not only to participate in this great Dance of

Life, but to also ensure that it keeps going.

To procreate by either having children, or

developing a creative idea that makes this

world a better place, is to join in the

excitement of Great Mystery and all of

creation. To do so is to be fully human; to

abstain is to not be fully alive, free or joyous.

After I read this book, I began to consciously

cultivate the ability to be outside in Nature

and to rejoice in simply being alive and

surrounded by Nature. I nurtured this ability

and I knew that whatever happened, I

always had the great outdoors to cheer and

center me no matter what else might be

going on.

Many years ago I realized that the Powers

That Be have a much different agenda, one

which serves no one but themselves. Their

agenda has nothing to do with making the

Earth a better place, nor in improving the lot

of humanity or any other life form. This

realization was harshly and cruelly brought

home to me again last April when I looked up

at the sky and saw the tell-tale white X's that

are created by chemtrails. For years, I had

heard about chemtrails but didn't know what

to look for or what they were. Now, here it

was, literally on my front door step. I had

first seen them about 2 or 3 years ago but

they were very infrequent. This past April,

and up until the present, they have sprayed

almost every single day. We now have about

3 days of rain and one day of pale sunlight,

followed by 3 more days of rain and

chemtrails. That is what chemtrails do, they

create rain and storms; but that is only one

side effect of chemtrails. I couldn't figure out

why Tom and I had chronic sinus infections

that lasted for over 3 straight months. I was

on 3 courses of antibiotics but they did

nothing. Finally, I began to research

chemtrails in earnest. I discovered that they

contained aluminum, barium, strontium and

modified molds among other things. Some

areas are also sprayed with dessicated red

blood cells that cause disease. It has been

discovered that Morgellon's disease is caused

by chemtrails. I am allergic to mold and

fungus and it leaves me with no energy and

lots of depression and sickness. I had these

symptoms non-stop until someone suggested

I try a neti-pot. I had to use it 3 times a day

to keep the molds, chemicals etc at bay and

so that I could function in my daily life. My

horse became sick and finally was diagnosed

with COPD. This means he can never take

me for a ride again or exercise, run, jump

and cavort with joy or he risks making

himself even sicker. At the same time, his

ankles became puffy and swollen. This was

last May and they are still that way; I can't

find a vet who knows what is causing this.

Because of the COPD, he probably will only

live a few more years. He is 11 y.o. and

should have at least another 10 to 20 years

of good life ahead of him. I wonder if the

chemtrails are what made him sick, since he

is always outside.

I began to notice other signs of High

Strangeness as well. Last Thanksgiving, we

had a wonderful time with some friends of

ours coming to visit and share our turkey

dinner with us. The next day, as I was

stripping the meat off the bones of the

turkey, I discovered that it had 4 legs. That's

right, FOUR legs. I could see that there were

four little drumsticks and no wings on the

bird. It was shocking and I can tell you that

I didn't even know how to feel. I know that

many farm animals that are raised for food

by large industrial farms are genetically-

modified, but to see it right in front of you

after you've eaten it is pretty unnerving.

There were a number of other odd things

that happened this past year. This last

summer when I was out in my garden, I

began to harvest tomatoes from a small

bush. As I leaned over the plant to pick my

first tomato, I noticed a medium-sized white

cabbage moth sleeping on a leaf. I also

noticed that there was no wind blowing, and

thus nothing on the plant was

moving...except for the leaf that the small

creature was on. The leaf was shaking and

when I looked closer, I noticed that the tiny

creature on the leaf was what made the leaf

shake; for the moth was trembling and

shaking after I had disturbed her from a deep

sleep. I can imagine that she must have

been terribly frightened that some awful

giant had come to harm her. As I watched

this little moth shaking on the leaf, it became

very clear to me that she was trembling in

fear. I felt horrible at having done anything

that would produce fear in such a small being

and so I turned away and slowly, yet quietly

turned around and away from her. A minute

later, I looked back again at the leaf, but the

moth had disappeared, apparently taking

advantage of my momentary absence to

escape unseen to a new resting place. That

brief moment in time is still very much with

me and every time, I am amazed that such a

small little being could experience so much

fear that it would cause her to tremble. It

was an enormous message to me from the

Goddess to tread carefully and even though I

might think of my small piece of land as My

Garden, in truth it wasn't. My Garden is also

shared with many spiders and toads that I

see every year, the small helpful life forms

that keep the pesky harmful insects away

from my vegetables. In the fall and winter,

the birds benefit from all of the seeds that

are left over in the garden and this past fall,

even though the garden is fully enclosed

several times I saw a beautiful young stag in

the garden, eating blueberry leaves. There is

also a toad that lives there as welland I see

him every year, a bit bigger than the year

before. I have a spider who guards the tall

stalks of Jerusalem artichokes and keeps

them from being harmed by hungry insects.

Indeed, this is not completely My Garden,

any more than the land I live on is solely my

land. It is shared with all the inhabitants

that populate it and have a right to be here.

That one small moment changed my life

forever for I now know that even the tiniest

of creatures can experience feelings of fear,

something which I try very hard not to

engender in any live thing. It also brought

home to me that I don't own the land that I

live on, I am a steward of it, as are all of us.

We are all inhabitants who share the same

planet.

Probably the strangest thing I saw this year

was a UFO. Tom and I were outside about an

hour and a half before sunset and it was still

bright daylight. I happened to look over at

where the skyline meets the treeline and,

just above the trees, I noticed what looked

like the sun. It was a large, amorphous

golden yellow disc, but with a huge difference

from the Sun: it moved!!! I watched it as it

moved behind the tree and then suddenly

disappeared. To this day, I have no idea

what it was but I did see several videos on

You Tube that showed the exact same thing.

It even moved just like the one that I saw.

Was it a UFO? A government experiment?

Aliens? Who knows but it was just one more

thing that happened this year that let me

know that our reality here on Planet Earth

has entered the surreal place known as the

Twilight Zone. Several years ago, Tom had

made a wonderful sign that was black with

white markings and said You Are Entering the

Twilight Zone. Maybe it was toxic magick

coming home to roost?

All of this is to say that Terence McKenna's

Time Wave Zero prediction seems to be

coming true; that as we move closer to the

Winter Solstice of 2012, the weirdness factor

is growing. Some of it, such as chemtrails,

are man-made, but some of it also is

produced by Nature. Then there is the

complete lunacy of our government but I

don't think I need to expound further there,

because I'm sure our readers have seen for

themselves that our legislators seem to have

completely lost all reason and sanity. There

are other examples I could give of weird

natural events going on this past year, but I

won't list them all here since I don't have

room but you get the picture, I'm sure. As

we move closer to December 21, 2012, I

believe that all of us will be seeing a growing

number of anomalies as time goes on. I

wouldn't be surprised if “weird” didn't

become the new “normal”.

I don't know if these things are portents of

the Return of the Goddess or not, but for me,

they are indicators of the growing awareness

and sensitivity that is usually considered a

feminine aspect. I believe they are signs of

change, that we are about to leave normalcy

behind and grow into a new reality where all

things are possible, even universal peace and

love.

Have you been experiencing weird

phenomena? Would you like to share what

you've experienced that seems abnormal? I'd

love to know what our readers are seeing

and experiencing. We magickal types who

like to live close to the earth are at the

forefront of weirdness and innovation so I

figure we'll be some of the first ones to

notice these phenomena. I'd also love to

know what you make of it. If you care to,

you can send me your articles or even just

your thoughts and opinions about the

Weirdness Factor that seems to be growing.

Please send them to:

[email protected]

Please enter “Weirdness Factor” in the

subject line so I can keep things organized.

I'd love to hear from you and I hope you

have a truly wondrous new year. Somehow, I

feel that we are in for quite a ride this year.

To be continued....

(EDITOR'S NOTE: You might have noticed

this is signed by Psyche Lampligher. As part

of a New Year's Resolution, I have decided to

use my magickal name in Green Egg. Hope

this clears up any confusion.

Holographic Archetypes

by Iona Miller, ©2011

"We have not understood yet that the discovery of the unconscious means an enormous spiritual task, which must be accomplished if we wish to preserve our civilization." C.G. Jung

My thesis, then, is as follows: In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature and which we believe to be the only empirical psyche (even if we tack on the personal unconscious as an appendix), there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes, which can only become conscious secondarily and which give definite form to certain psychic contents. - Carl Jung, The Concept of

the Collective Unconscious "Contemporary neurology and psychology [and physics]/show that we already live in one or more internal virtual realities, generated by neurological and psychological processes. Stable patterns, stabilized systems of these internal virtual realities, constitute states of consciousness, our ordinary personality, and multiple personalities." - Charles Tart (1990)

THE VACUUM IS A COSMIC VIRTUAL-STATE HOLOGRAM. INTEGRATING (KINDLING) ONE OF THESE FORMS WILL RESULT IN IT BECOMING FIRST A NEUTRINIC PATTERN, THEN A PHOTONIC (LIGHT) PATTERN, THEN A MATERIALIZING PATTERN, AND FINALLY A MATERIAL PATTERN.

Preface "Not for a moment dare we succumb to the illusion that an archetype can be finally explained and disposed of. Even the best attempts at explanation are only more or less successful translations into another metaphorical language. (Indeed, language itself is only an image.) The most we can do is dream the myth onwards and give it a modern dress." --Jung "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the distinction between past, present and future is only a stubborn, persistent illusion. -- Albert Einstein

The most deconstructed archetypal forms are vortexes, toroids, and solitons. Depth Psychology, New Physics or Philosophy of Nature?

What are Archetypes? Are they structural, emergent, neurological, hereditary, divine, or an as-yet-unknown element of reality? How can we know them and understand the patterns of our lives? Ultraholism & Psychic Superpositions

*Soma Sophia. Iona Miller, 1993* *Meta-Nexus* Thinking Big requires a new approach to the way we pursue knowledge about our universe, our lives, and our species. We're still asking life's Big Questions and tackling humanity's Big Problems, but in the context of Big History -- a blend of cosmology, physics, chemistry, geology, biology, anthropology, psychology, sociology, and history. Such a meta-disciplinary approach yields a single, unifying, compelling narrative that continues unfolding meaning, purpose, and insight. Cosmic pattern recognition is the root of human culture from Paleolithic and Neolithic times. Humans have always pursued cosmology. Perhaps the greatest ancient discovery was the Precession of the Equinoxes, a recurrent 26,000 year cycle, leading to the model of astrological Ages and the mytheme of Eternal Return and The Great Year. Jung took an interest in astrology because he found it archetypally predictive.

The change of Age, such as we face now, was always considered a challenging time of crisis and chaos as the old ways die while new forms emerge. Therefore, today we find the mindscape riddled with the transitional, messianic, and apocalyptic memes of "2012", the Rapture, and Ascensionism. A crisis can be a blessing when it gets us to the devastating point where the pain of letting go is less than the pain of hanging on to a self-system that is so undeniably wounding. Not just the world, but "psyche" is in a time of crisis. The modern apocalyptic imagination, the economics of the spiritual marketplace, the commodification of countercultural values, and the cult of celebrity reign supreme. We must acknowledge the variety of manifest emotional and active responses globally to the onslaught of crises facing humanity and the centrality of psyche in articulating, holding and acting on these concerns, in a fragile world in turmoil. We’ve always wanted to understand our origins, going right back to creation stories or creation myths. Physics connects the largest and smallest things in the Cosmos: "As Above; So Below". It is our common story because, for the first time, humans have an origin story that transcends our regional, religious, and tribal differences. That is, at least in theory. The flip side is that there is no consensus in physics, behind rather desperate attempts to rescue the Standard Theory from oblivion and the proliferation of orthodox and heterodox models. What may be closer is that we have a fantasy about how we think this has revolutionized our world. The narratives of the past were as clear as the grossly limited understandings, beliefs, and superstitions and power structures of their times allowed them to be. Chasing an ancient past that we are ill-equipped to understand in its original context, is a sure path to detour or

derailment in all conclusions resulting from it , if we take it literally. Old ideas are rediscovered, and succeeding generations find new applications, valid and illusory, for these ideas. People identify with their beliefs, and they identify with their own self-image most strongly and enthusiastically -- even desperately. Both "official culture" and denial can lead to tunnel vision, medieval and older mindsets. We need to differentiate between lies and truth not only out there, but more importantly in ourselves. Most people can’t face the lies “out there” because they can’t face the many lies in themselves, which make up part of their existence, be it popular held beliefs about politics, government, religion, education, etc, up to more subtle lies we tell ourselves to make our lives more comfortable and justified. Questioned on any of the mass-accepted beliefs, we may have to reevaluate our own lives and realize we may have been largely living a lie. Truth is not always pleasant. However, there is no judgment in truth. It only IS, neither good or bad. Because of the identification with certain beliefs that make up their whole life and existence, people tend to ignore truth and/or the lies they tell themselves. We tend to build buffers, excuses and all forms of denial to keep their world view intact. Ultimately we defend and argue limitations and the prison we are in to defend false ego states. We defend our tragic social systems the same way. This is why Jung noted, “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to stop from facing their souls.” And he goes on to say, “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” In short, if people can’t face the lies within themselves, they will never be able to face the lies in the world and find truth within and without. Their whole life just becomes a way of shutting oneself out

from anything that may be a threat to their beliefs and way of life. As the Russian mystic Gurdjieff wrote: “In order to understand the interrelation of truth and falsehood in life, a man must understand falsehood in himself, the constant incessant lies he tells himself.” Hence, the most important aspect in life life is to Know Thyself. In States of Denial , (Cambridge), Stanley Cohen remarks that “the scientific discourse misses the fact that the ability to deny is an amazing human phenomenon [...] a product of sheer complexity of our emotional, linguistic, moral and intellectual lives.†He writes that Denial is a complex “unconscious defense mechanism for coping with guilt, anxiety and other disturbing emotions aroused by reality.” Even skepticism and solipsistic arguments including epistemological relativism about the existence of objective truth, are generally a social construction. Much of the value of studying these 'Holy Grail-type' notions, in science, psychology and philosophy, comes from making connections across disciplines and ultimately building up our intellectual muscle power -- conceptual background. Learning different perspectives from our own is a primary source of human creativity. It can also be fallacious. To the extent such ideas spark insight they may help us move forward, but new ideas in reductionistic form can stall progress, too. We know more than previous generations and have caused more problems than previous generations. The future we craft together depends on transformational dialogue and sharing worldviews. Exponential growth must be curbed to avoid catastrophic consequences. Decisions made now have effects over a very long period. There is a hidden revolution in science today. Instead of focus on a part, focus has moved to relationships. A psyche

capable of manipulating forms can create logical relationships, but logic remains a limited tool. Imaginal images have enabled interaction, projection and cultural expansion. The human capacity itself is an extension of nature. So, instead of what something is, we look instead toward what something is doing and its non-deterministic effects on whole systems. The solutions lie not in the past but the future-perfect tense. Still, the near future is unlikely to be perfect. Furthermore, the nature of that future is a wide-open field, subject to endless confabulation -- personal and collective delusion. The ability to shift approaches with agility and speed is the essence of future adaptation. *We sense we are ending and yet just beginning because both are simultaneously and timelessly true. Humanity's race is against time toward the great Unknown. The perennial question remains, "What is wrong with the world and why is it that way?" Neither religion, philosophy, nor systems theory has been able to do more than balance out the negative, much like Yin and Yang. Transcendental religions seek to escape time and its dichotomies altogether. The treasures of cultural history and spontaneous renewal reside within this living field, our connection with the primal source of life and parallel phenomena. The history of the world emerges from the multidimensional field of possibilities. Somehow life works despite infinite deviations. Viability can be anticipated if not planned. But we've outgrown Earth's carrying capacity. Though barely aware of them, we are tied together by deep processes. We can learn to consciously understand and apply, rather than destructively act out these eternal patterns. We must learn to recognize what is being revealed even though it is always open to interpretation. We are also subject to delusions and misperceptions, so we need to learn

discernment. *We need to focus on our own dynamic process, not just its finite contents, personalistic signs and symbols. **Do we have to imagine our end to find a new beginning, to reinvent civilization? Change starts with the questions we ask because they have the potential to shift our awareness. What is inconceivable one day may not be the next. The tipping point could come at any juncture.** Reality is neither structure nor chaos, but a process in which structure and chaos dance between form and formlessness. This is the eternal cycle of death and renewal. Abrams and Primack write: "if we were to possess a transnationally shared, believable picture of the cosmos, including a mythic-quality story of its origins and our origins -- a picture recognized as equally true for everyone on this planet -- we humans would see our problems in an entirely new light, and we would almost certainly solve them." Is this the meaning of today's crises rooted in the changing Age? Our ancestors may have had as much native intelligence as we do, but being dead doesn't make you smarter, so in retrieving their "wisdom" we may bog ourselves down in the undertow of outmoded thinking, swayed by emotional draw to archetypal fascinations, stereotypical superstitions, and magnetic symbolism. Yet, each person cleaves to their limited interpretations, conceptions, and overdrawn conclusions like a jealous lover. Our theories of self, others and world are constrained by the limitations of our individual minds. Consciousness doesn't mistake itself for a god; people do. Some cultures are still locked in worshiping their version of God, while others have reduced god to the personalistic level, wishing to be that through such memes as co-creation, LOA, and "intentionality". The later is thinly disguised ego-aggrandizement. Whether that is possible in any sense or not, it is

hubris, or spiritual pride, an addictive state of the ego that opens the door to self-deception, even in science. Big Questions will always remain as our understanding is necessarily limited. We are receivers of revelatory downloads in symbolic and cognitive form that can change the paradigm. But we lack the capacity to "know" it all, which is reserved to the archetypal domain. Thus, the unified theory, which would be more than theory because it actually describes reality, remains elusive. Professor Russell Stannard offers unanswerable questions that include: * “The brain is a physical object and many people liken it to an elaborate computer. But unlike a computer the brain is conscious.” What is consciousness? * Free will versus determinism: Will a scientist be able to to predict what anyone does in the future? That doesn’t match with our decision to make a choice “ it is the free will versus determinism question” . * Why is there a world in the first place? Why is there something rather than nothing? * If the world was chaotic, there’s nothing to explain. Certain things happen and other things cannot happen because of the Laws of Nature. But why are there any laws at all? * Is mathematics something human beings invented or something we discovered? For all of us to be here, many many conditions had to be satisfied. The chance of life happening on earth, and satisfying those conditions were practically zero . We find ourselves in one of these freak universes. * How do you prove that there are universes other than our own?

* Cosmologists are able to describe the tiniest fraction of a second after the Big Bang. There was neither space nor time before the Big Bang. Some theories do not require nor include a Big Bang at all, making it's "cause" meaningless. * Does the universe go on forever? Where is its border and where does it stop? * No one knows what the smallest unit of distance or time is, or the length of a "string". http://news.techeye.net/science/science-is-grinding-to-a-halt#ixzz1fb1MqE7U We are appropriating for our own consumption a large and increasing fraction of the biological productivity of the entire earth. This is why we need to figure out quickly how to transition out of the current period of worldwide human inflationary growth as gently and justly as possible. Cosmology can help by providing a model for this seemingly insurmountable task. The way that cosmology, and cosmic thinking, can help is to provide an accurate big picture of the universe that might motivate people to change enough, fast enough. Abrams and Primack argue that for the human race to take responsible and meaningful action, we must first agree on a common creation story. http://bigthink.com/ideas/41338 ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Entanglement: Impossible Objectivity

Quantum measurements do not fit with the idea of an objective reality. John Bell showed, in his profound and simple proof, that NO CONCEIVABLE LOCAL REALITY CAN UNDERLIE THE LOCAL QUANTUM FACTS. Bell proved, in short, that REALITY IS NON-LOCAL. In other words, even though all the quantum facts are local, these facts cannot be simulated by an underlying local reality. Any reality that fits the facts must be non-local and entangled. http://quantumtantra.com/bell2.html We now have to face the possibility that there is nothing inherently real about the properties of an object that we measure, which brings them into existence. Rather than passively observing it, we in fact create reality from a superposition of probabilities. Physics doesn't tell us how nature is, it only tells us what we can say about nature. This raises deep concerns for theories attempting to unify the universe. General relativity, Einstein's theory of gravity, is fully realistic -- it relies on things existing independent of measurements. So the search for a theory of everything, which involves uniting quantum physics with general relativity, may be even more difficult than we thought. String theory is getting nowhere, so the answer lies elsewhere,

perhaps within absolute space itself. Einstein suggested decades ago, entanglement could be the key. We need to radically revision our basic physical concepts before we can make the next big breakthrough in physics. Physicist David Deutsch at the University of Oxford warns that even re-examining entanglement might not help us find the path to a theory of everything. According to Deutsch, we are blocked by something even more fundamental than that. Entanglement is real, he says, but it tells us more about how information can be extracted from quantum systems than the nature of the physical universe. "All the philosophical hand-wringing over entanglement is based on the delusion that we have a basic grasp on quantum theory". All Deutsch says of a theory of everything is that it is likely to come from uniting quantum theory and relativity at a more fundamental level than current entanglement experiments allow. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

http://www.anecdote.com.au/papers/EmergenceAsAConsutructIssue1_1_3.pdf Cosmic Pattern Recognition

There are many types of archetypes or "generating entities": the Jungian types come from the unconscious and are biological; the Freudian archetypes are also unconscious but are personal and biographical. The term archetype represents spiritual and initiatory mediums (or vehicles) and keys into which a variety of divine impulses are poured so as to form a language of the soul. Archetypes are universal symbols ingrained in the psyche of human beings, and are interconnected to unfold a meaningful idea or a teaching. Archetypes are also linked to seed ideas and are part of a subtle and refined spiritual teaching method that unfolds the Intuition and Abstract Mind. Archetypes are factors and motifs that arrange the psychic elements into certain images, but in such a way that they can be recognized only by the effects they produce. An archetype is emerging the archetype of participatory wisdom. Collective wisdom potential is a participatory, integral and pluralistic spiritual culture. The psychic field of creative people is integral. People all over the world care about the life on and of this planet, and experience themselves as embedded in continually expanding networks and environments. We are seeking genuine, open and constructive dialogue and mutual support in transformative work. We are all moved in the same direction, though they follow an unknown impulse in themselves rather than any new road charted in advance. This phenomenon is simply called “Zeitgeist”. Self-organization is a way of conceptualizing structure, order, and reality that emerges out of the most simple elements of what is already manifest, No underlying drives, forces or structures are needed. Missing seems to be any understanding of how nature as a whole can be reframed as the template of coherence for one's own psyche.

The concept of archetype touches on some of the central concerns of contemporary philosophy of nature and philosophy of science. Science itself is based on archetypes. Mathematical models are the archetypes that predominant in modern science. It suggests a new approach to conceptualizing the dynamics of matter and energy throughout all levels of nested hierarchical organization found in Nature. We have discovered Her synergetic, fractal and emergent means of self-assembly, self-organization and dynamics. Psyche is an emergent phenomena. Emergence is the process of complex pattern formation from simpler rules. Emergence is a natural phenomenon associated with systems. Criticality is an archetype to describe natural phenomena, self-organized critical behavior ranging from cosmic pattern recognition to microcosmic scales. Symmetries are formal factors which regulate material data according to set laws. A symmetry element or a symmetry operation is in itself something irrepresentational. Only when it has an effect upon something material does it become both representational and comprehensible. As primal images the symmetry groups underlie, as it were, crystallized matter. They are the essential patterns according to which matter is arranged in a crystal. Symmetries are ways of reframing dichotomous relationships. The analogy between symmetry elements and the archetypes is clearly unusually close. This is the pivot of the structure of reality. These fundamental symmetries could be thought of as the archetypes of all matter and the ground of material existence. The elementary particles themselves would be simply the material realizations of these underlying symmetries. It is not clear that symmetries can be simply equated with archetypes, but the fundamental role of symmetry in quantum mechanics and

particle physics seems to point in a direction that justifies an intensive consideration of the archetype concept in these areas. Pioneering work for just this purpose was performed by Werner Heisenberg, who with the dictum, "In the beginning there was symmetry," closely associated symmetry as a fundamental ordering principle of nature to the Platonic doctrine of Ideas. (F. David Peat) Pattern Recognition Pattern recognition is a mental state. Our human brains are hard-wired for data collection, concept extraction, and pattern recognition, needed for the emergence of species-specific recognition patterns. Inferior temporal (IT) cortex is critical for visual pattern recognition in adult primates, and probably in humans. Pattern recognition comprises the bulk of our neural circuitry. We recognize emergent patterns in partial data and augment incomplete patterns with our imagination. We innovate from uncertainty with flexibility to recognize fuzzy patterns, but often we get it wrong, leading to assumptions without the balance of critical thinking, or ignorant of our assumed truths and hidden variables. These are our psychological blind spots. Wave interference (the interference of circular waves emerging from every point particle and virtual photons standing wave)is the primordial pattern which we are ill-equipped to observe without hi-tech mechanisms, but infer in the holographic concept. Meaning is a fuzzy (low rez) web of patterns. For an intelligence to understand the meaning of a word, concept or other entity, this entity must be "grounded" in the system's own experience. The population of symbol grounding agents associated with a piece of information expresses that piece of information, explicitly, as a fuzzy set of patterns.

The major skills of understanding situations and people in one process is called Human Pattern Recognition. In human pattern recognition, we have a general idea of what a category of event sequences look like. The ability to spot existing or emerging patterns is one of the most (if not the most) critical skills in intelligent decision making, though we’re mostly unaware that we do it all the time. In the emergence-based view, categorization is emergence-seeking. Abstraction, concept acquisition, and self-organization of proto-symbols are performed through an incremental and gradual learning algorithm. Combining past experience, intuition, and common sense, the ability to recognize patterns gives us the ability to predict what will happen next with some degree of accuracy. The better able we are to predict what will happen, the more intelligent we become. So, you might say that the purpose of intelligence is prediction. Integration or "sensemaking" is knowing which information to integrate and which to disregard -- a skill in and of itself. But our strength is also our weakness if we fill in the gaps, leaping to erroneous conclusions. Humans force-feed their experiences into their brains, only to find false precision and deeply mistaken pattern recognition. Any number of things interfere with pattern-recognition. Even creative and genius-level pattern-recognition can derail into delusional interpretations or meta-errors. Subjects who make pattern recognition errors tend to reason with one or two cues at a time instead of attempting to reason with the combination of all crucial signal to noise parameters. Faulty pattern recognition leads to faulty judgments and behaviors.Those with very narrow interest lack the even the terms to carry on coherent discussion, much less understanding of multidisciplinarian theories.

Bottom-up, emergent thinking changes what we pay attention to and therefore influences the general drift of our questions.A simple type of pattern is a repeating structure (redundancy) in space and time, cycles, and relationships. A pattern can also be a prototype or exemplar or prototype, arising from relationships between parts of a system, and those that arise from relationships between the system and its environment. Metaphor mediates selection, anticipation and innovation, by telling us what our experience is 'like'. Whether it’s something you see, hear, taste, touch, or smell, at the same moment as you are having the current experience, your brain is comparing it to things you already know, and seeing how it fits. If it has a reference point, your brain files it away as a correlation or similarity or tangent. If it’s a novelty, your brain is challenged and will either construct a new model for understanding and processing this information, save it for later consideration, or simply reject and discard the information. Mindfulness and metacognition are powerful tools expanding cognitive capacity. Patterns and distortions in the observed phenomena are there because we define and recognize them as such. Ancient man first began connecting the dots between the stars of the night sky and the wandering planets that provided a spiritual framework for existence. They drew the analogy between what happened in the heavens with what they saw reflected in their earthly lives. Great systems of civilization and religion arose from such connective conjecture, categorizing a vast body of chaotic phenomenology with associative symbolic links, largely based on observing and mythologizing the cosmos. Such correspondences, spiritual technologies, and cosmic systems still yield wisdom today, if we understand them in contemporary terms.

A general concept of archetype used today should be understood to include the mathematical /primal intuition which expresses itself, among other ways, in arithmetic, in the idea of the infinite series of integers, in sacred geometry, and in the idea of the continuum and primordial fields, from ZPE to the Higgs Field (God Particle), that gives all matter its mass, the space-between-space the force which connects all things. Pattern recognition mirrors the process of psychology. It is an active attentional processing of raw sensory input, feature extraction, pattern generation, and pattern identification. Signal detection, response criteria, and sensitivity affect interpretation, decisions and behavior. The archetype itself is a pattern that channels our psychic energies. They structure both our insights and blocks. The archetype is experienced in projections, powerful affect images, symbols, moods, behavior patterns such as rituals, ceremonials and love. Jung suggested that dreams might be probed by looking for repetitive patterns. The concept of archetype that was initially developed by Jung is an abstraction obtained only by inference from archetypal representations that appear in the form of images or ideas that share a common isomorphic structure. Only these archetypal representations are ever consciously experienced. Because the archetype- as- such functions in the unconscious mind, it is not directly known or knowable. Because archetypes-as-such are held to be prior to conscious thought and to support it, they can never be exhaustively characterized by conscious thought. Thus, inherent in the archetype concept is the assertion of the limitedness of rational thought to provide a complete description of reality. The inferred existence of the archetype-as-such implies an inherently non-rational aspect of reality which assures that no attempt to describe reality in its totality can be

held to be completely unique or complete. http://www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/1996/natphil.html The archetypal idea when actualized and experienced becomes a complex of ideas held together by the feeling tone common to all the individual ideas. Jung observed that there was prolonged time delay in responding to charged words associated with crucial conflicts. Complexes interfere with conscious performance - action, will, memory and associations. A complex, according to Jung is the sum of all the associated ideas and feelings that are attracted to an archetype. The complex gives the archetype a form of expression, complex is powered by affect and it is feeling this affect which tells us that we are experiencing an archetype. Therefore archetype images are among the highest values of the human psyche and treasures of the motifs of mythology. Symbols are infinitely variable expressions of underlying archetypes and collective archetypes endow the personal individual with strong affect. The archetype is a tendency to form motifs; they are not inherited images but forms to which our culture and life experience give substance. They are a priori patterns for universal symbols that are characteristic of eternal human nature. The archetypal content of powerful language is metaphor. The metaphor, like the archetype, is an organizing symbol that facilitates depth of meaning. The form in which an archetype appears is a projection clothed and formed according to one's personal life experiences that are drawn from conscious andrepressed unconscious elements. Intuition is another form of pre-conscious pattern recognition. An idea or solution to a problem pops into our mind, but we have no idea where it came from. Intuition is often perceived as an external force. Because intuition is a generalized pattern recognition process, you cannot

break up the result into a series of steps or analyze the process for mistakes. The way you discipline and develop intuition is different from the way you develop intellect. With intuition the search for patterns often includes archetypal material. The contingent negative variation (CNV; go/no go sequence) was one of the first discovered event-related evoked potential components, described by Dr. W. Grey Walter, et al, in Nature (1964). Consistent patterns of the amplitude of electric responses can be obtained from the large background noise which occurs in electroencephalography (EEG) recordings and that this activity could be related to cognitive processes such as attenion, expectancy, intensity and probability. Many theories have been suggested for cognitive processes underlying the CNV component. Walter and colleagues suggested that CNV amplitude varies directly with subjective probability or expectancy of the imperative stimuli. Other researchers suggested that the CNV amplitude varies with the intention to perform an act. Another theory is that CNV varies with the motivation of the subject to complete the task. Tecce suggests that the CNV is related to both attention and arousal level.It is the root of selective attention, compulsions, and deflections – nonrational archetypal effects. We have recently developed two technologies for pattern recognition, neural nets and genetic algorithms, that do not use rational or deductive processes. There is no precise definition of a neural net, but they generally consist of a large number of simple processors connected to near neighbors, with input and output connections. Simple algorithms determine their relationship. The networks are trained through some process that adjusts the relationship between inputs and outputs to enhance some global result. There is no simple

way to explain why a neural net or genetic algorithm produces one response rather than another. Dr. Manfred Clynes suggested a theory of genetically programmed (hereditary) dynamic forms of emotional expression he called sentics. When people have emotional experience, their nervous system always responds in a characteristic way which is measurable. This means that everyone has a common frame reference, or common experience given the same stimuli. Clynes measured the physiological brainwave responses to word cues for specific emotions. Clynes confirmed that we all experience basic emotions internally in the same way regardless of nationality, creed, religion, etc. Clynes to generalize the shapes of these precise patterns of physiological shift and behavior in mathematical equations that describe the "sentic form" for each emotion. Universally, specific emotions --- anger, hate, grief, love, sex, joy and reverence --- produce distinct muscle movement. Emotional terms would evoke common motor reactions, expressed as pressure patterns. Clynes was able to resolve at least 20 different emotional states, or Essentic Forms Patterns including: anger, hate, grief, love, sex, joy, reverence, and no-emotion. Others essentic forms studied included hope, courage, guilt, and shame. There are probably a lot more, but sometimes they are combinations of emotions, like envy. This allowed Dr. Clynes to precisely map different physiological and behavior patterns based on the particular evoked emotion. Another surprising result of the study is that there really wasn't a significant measurable difference between men and women. *He shows that emotions, or cognitive sentic states, are systemic holorganismic patterns of information flow--production, recognition and reproduction.

Each sentic state is characterized by specific and distinct EEG brainwave patterns, as well as by arbitrary motor motions which can be quantified and graphed.* *Here is the symbol-making unconscious, holographically linked by coded meaningful electromagnetic patterns to the rest of Nature, without which our relatively recent speech-tokens could mean nothing. This is the real languageability which underlies human speech, with electromagnetically patterned "words" composed of qualities far more precise than the speech-words used to describe them. We respond predictably to emotionally-loaded words.* There is a specific dynamic form of action underlying the expression of each emotion, and the dynamic character of this action-form probably is universal, unlearned, and genetically programmed. Emotions may be experienced in various aspects: (1) in a real situation, or (2) through fantasy --- as when one imagines being with a loved person. Also one may experience emotion through empathy with another person who is (1) either really experiencing the emotion, or (2) experiencing it as fantasy. Little in our lives is fundamentally original. Almost every situation we encounter is similar to an immense number of previous situations. These similarities are not limited to the human species. They go back through the history of evolution. Many traditional approaches to developing intuition, like astrology, Qabbalah, the /I Ching/ and Tarot connect with archetypes. Evolution molds life to respond to recurring situations. The I Ching is a catalog of recurring life patterns. It can strengthen our awareness and sensitivity to the archetypal patterns that intuition recognizes. With a better conscious understanding we know more about what to make of these patterns and we can better focus our intuition.

Archetypes for humanity are all our possible patterns. In the case of the archetype’ these patterns seem to be transpersonal, that is they transcend and pervade individual /human/ experience. By this definition, the common factor of all synchronicity experiences is that they involve /pattern recognition/. Archetypal Pattern Recognition is a modality that assists people in recognizing the core currents at play in their lives. Pattern recognition is a human state like feelings or thoughts. Archetypes are elemental forces, recurring personality patterns which play a vital role in the creation of the world and the human mind itself. Realizations become alive and effective when they reach back like the Ouroboros into the depths of the psyche from which they arose in nascent form. The main aspect of archetypal patterns is that they are universally recognized. Archetypes point to innate configurations that need not be learned. The distinction between form and content is useful. The form is the built-in part of innate configurations that receive content via feature detectors that recognize patterns in nature. Form is ancient and universal. Content is local and specific. The natural world is an immense repository of repeating events, designs and sequences. The original archetypes are manifestations of our built-in receptivity to the patterns of nature. Recognizing that a pattern exists can be a powerful tool. We are adept at detecting signals that enhance or threaten survival amid a very noisy world. This capability is association learning—associating the causal connections between A and B. For example, our ancestors associated the seasons with the migration of game animals. We are skilled enough at it to have survived and passed on the genes for the capacity of association learning. Unfortunately, the system has flaws. Superstitions are false associations.So are flawed theories.

Jung took the term `archetype' from two sources, namely the Corpus Hermeticum and Dionysius the Areopagite's De Divinis

nominibus.. Use of the term also appears in Irenaeus's Adversus haereses, and its Latin equivalent, `ideae principa lis', can be found in St. Augustine's De diversis

quaestionibus, and later in Agrippa von Nette sheim's De occulta philosophia,

Libra tres. Instances of its use also appear in De Dignitate Hominis of Pico della Mirandola (1463- 1494). Rightly or wrongly, Jung imagined archetypes operating at the deepest level of the psyche, and originating in the collective unconscious. We cannot observe them directly; they are but general structures determining a probability field that encompasses a range of actual events, images and experiences (Jacobi, 1974; von Franz, 1975; Edinger, 1972). From the archetypes arise archetypal images (Jacobi, 1962)--universal symbols, myths and motifs. The key to the scientific method, of course, is incrementalism in observation. Virtually all our theories about both matter and psyche are mythic metaphors of this kind. Even "the unconscious" is a reification of unconscious processes which by their very nature are not easily knowable. Jung's structuralism has also been questioned in the new millennium, which is more process oriented. We need to rethink our concepts and frameworks. We can talk about archetypes, but as emergent phenomena, not as reified somethings out there in the genes or in the head. The problem is not that this occurs, but that assumptions are given more ontological weight than any other aspect of our being in the world. So a structural approach, which is quite justifiable when regarded as heuristic metaphor, has a tendency to become reified and sedimented until it can’t be shifted at all.

The new "orthodoxy", in this case 'emergence', doesn't replace the old; they rely on one another for meaning. Any number of metaphors and models can spark insight. Ideas about archetypes, emergentism and innateness, may not be right, or truth, or even represent those sciences accurately. But they have symbolic substantiality and facilitate discussion and representation of what, in ancient times were called gods and goddesses, or divine forces. Armchair philosophers often borrow from science and apply formulaic conclusions to both meaningful and fallacious arguments. Recognizing this tendency, we can assume the provisional "as if" approach for our arguments and draw some analogies that are, in fact, likely to be overturned or superseded by others in the future. Metaphors are of their own time and speak to the viewpoint of the moment, the state-of-the-art. Whether they turn out to be more than metaphors is for the future to decide. Whether archetypes are inheritable structures, cultural artifacts, image schemas or developmental achievements, or something as-yet-to-be-discovered, their symbolic richness is undeniable. The synthesis of activities, producing the emergent pattern, cannot be paralleled in a corresponding synthesis of neurological correlates or mathematical characterizations. Interactive emergence means there exists no overall formal description of the high-level phenomenon, though its pattern will be clearly recognizable within the context of the creature’s environment. (Hendricks†Jansen, 1996)(p. 228f) This leads to a view of archetypal images as complex emergent symbolic forms without which psychic life in general and emotional life in particular remains chaotic and unmanageable. In this sense archetypes are tools to think with . . .and symbols are the clothing of affect in image. Inevitably, there is a search for the most apt clothing but also the

clothing reciprocally affects the affect, by giving it meaning and form. "Warren" http://www.jungianstudies.org/pdf/George-Hogenson-Emergence-Discussion.pdf Models (structural hypothesis) are heuristic devices, useful ways of understanding things. We tend to reify (fallaciously concretize) our models, especially at the popular level of faddish ideas. But the very fact that psychological theories are so diverse argues against any one model being the reality. We may not get it exactly right but such conceptualizations lead to possible, plausible and probable fruitful directions that bring meaning into our lives. Jung’s acausal theory of synchronicity was a step toward a complete theory of the symbol. Hogenson (2004) calls synchronicity "extreme pattern recognition" and "pattern attribution" (narrative), suggesting symbolic systems obey the same rules of scaling as other systems. Symbolic systems can therefore be understood as exhibiting the characteristics of a power law distribution, which led to the discovery of fractals. Mandelbrot discovered that the exponent in a power law defined a pattern of self-similar structure in the phenomenon under investigation that was “scale invariant" -- fractal. A power law means that there is no such thing as a normal or typical event, and that there is no qualitative difference between the larger and smaller fluctuations. Scale-free power laws reveal a lack of any expected size for the next event. Upheavals are not unusual. A big event need not have a cause. The causes that trigger a small change on one occasion may initiate a devastating change on another, and no analysis of the conditions at the initial point will suffice to predict the event. The famous example of the "butterfly theory" in chaos theory was understated, as the butterfly would be only one event that led to the hurricane's emergence.

Archetypes & Criticality Jung described synchronicity as a juxtaposition of a psychic state with a state in the material world that resulted in the emergence of meaning and a transition in the individual’s state or understanding of the world. Synchronicity is an emergent aspect of the symbolic that exhibits a high degree of “symbolic density.” Tuning is crucial to reach that point in which any tiny event can trigger a huge upheaval. Sometimes criticality can be tuned by nature on its own. Each theme has its archetypes. Archetypes are universal concepts determining a probability field. All the most powerful ideas in history are rooted in archetypes. When the density of symbolic activity reaches a steep pitch, a phase transition or a symbolic avalanche is precipitated, radically reorganizing the whole subjective/objective world. What counts in the critical state is the simple underlying features of geometry that control how influences can propagate. Fractals and power laws are at work in settings where the critical state underlies their dynamics. Fractals can be produced by chaos, but they also arise in processes of growth or evolution. Dynamic phenomena manifest physical and energetic characteristics which are archetypal..Criticality is an archetype describing natural phenomena. Organizing criticality occurs at a bifurcation or saddle point of crisis/opportunity. The system is also more sensitive to disruption or trajectory changes at these points. However, following this brief, variable period, the system will reorganize, and the missing behaviors may spontaneously re-emerge. Usually they will be more stable, reliable, and more complex than before the reorganization.(Tucker & Hirsh-Pasek 1993, p. 366). Thus, psyche is a self-organizing, self-similar domain. Most phenomena are smaller in their own right, but self-similar

to the great events of the collective unconscious. The system reflects on or mirrors itself. The objectivity of the psyche is a self-reflective capacity, evident as modes of consciousness, then retrojected, somewhat modified, back into the psyche. The symbolic world is characterized by phase transitions, that occur at the threshold of phenomenal transformation. An associative network shapes the psychic reality of the individual. Associative networks (gestalts), complexes, archetypes, synchronistic events and creative emergence become evident through a series of self-organized critical transitional moments that result in phase transitions within the symbolic system as a whole. A complex is a nexus of multiple interacting forces. They are the result of small symbolic developments that don’t stop. Small symbols add together into denser symbol sets with chaotic structure. Details are not important in deciding the outcome. In the /Journal of Analytical Psychology/, Saunders, a mathematician, and Skar, a Jungian analyst, argue that the developmental forces usually thought to originate from the archetype arise instead out of the complexes, which are formed through self-organization in the brain/mind. In this view, the archetype is not something that forms the complexes; it is a class of complexes which fall into the same general category (Saunders and Skar 2001). Archetypes represent something as a state of self-organized /criticality/, an “iterative moment” of psychic synthesis. Archetypes are emergent properties of developmental processes. Given that archetypes exist, how do they come into being and how can the idea of archetypes can be aligned with advances in scientific thinking? Hogenson says the archetype does not exist, in the sense of being a discrete ontologically definable entity with a place

in the genome or the cognitive arrangement of modules or schemas in the brain. Rather, the archetype, like the complex, is an iterative moment in the self-organization of the symbolic world in a critical phase change that radically reorganizes while maintaining its fractal, self-similar structure. The complex and the archetype are fundamentally structured like the symbol, only the archetype exhibits itself at the point where symbolic density transcends the carrying capacity of the complex and moves into a more collective realm. http://iaap.org/congresses/barcelona-2004/the-self-the-symbolic-and-synchronicity-virtual-realties-and-the-emergence-of-the-psyche.html The brain at rest or in expectancy holds itself in a state of self-organized criticality (SOC). Nature as a computational process is at the heart of self-organized criticality. Not all events in the physical world are predetermined with absolute precision, or causal results. Indeterminism is the concept that events (certain events, or events of certain types) are not caused, at least deterministically (causally) by prior events. It is the opposite of determinism and related to chance. Indeterminism has been promoted by the French biologist Jacques Monod (Nobel Prize 1965,), Werner Heisenberg (Nobel Prize 1932), and Murray Gell-Mann (Nobel Prize 1969). The physicist-chemist Ilya Prigogine (Nobel Prize 1977) argued for indeterminism in complex systems. Chaos theory and its succesor theory, self-organizing criticality (SOC) have shown that large interactive systems perpetually organize themselves to a critical state in which a minor event starts a chain reaction that can lead to a catastrophe. Criticality describes a dynamical process, merely metastable, which is even now building toward the next set of catastrophic reorderings. Although composite systems produce more minor events than catastrophes,

chain reactions of all sizes are an integral part of the dynamics. Furthermore, composite systems never reach equilibrium but instead evolve from one metastable state to the next. A system in criticality, however, offers no neutral ground. Once in it, you are of it, as we learn after catastrophe. Though we face a relative ignorance in our own time, we are moving beyond Jung's conditioned view, structured by the science of his time. Archetypes may be revisioned from developmental, genetic or primordial patterns, common to all human beings. They still appear to affect the way we perceive, imagine and think, and by structuring psychic apprehension, influencing behavior profoundly. They are paradigms, rules or schema: "active living dispositions, ideas in the Platonic sense [or not], that perform and continually influence our thoughts feelings and actions" (CW 8:154)i. Re-Envisioning Reality In each Age, every generation revisions and articulates their contemporary notions of reality in terms of the language, idioms, and tropes of their day. In so doing, we hope to overcome the self-delusion and inaccurate presumptions or assumed truths that have led us in the wrong direction, toward the past and retrievals of superstitions, instead of into the eternally self-renewing NOW, and our own emergent future. We are infinitely suggestible and prone to identification and dissociation. Many are operating within mental pictures of the universe that we know scientifically are wrong. Furthermore, many cherish their anti-scientific attitudes, defaulting toward utter lack of critical thinking. Others cherish beliefs characteristic of centuries gone-by. Archetypes foster such inaccuracies. They can also help us attach to the shape of things to come.

The archetype, meme, and symbol of this emergent, but as-yet-unknown future is the "phase transition" or Singularity, a new tipping-point or threshold of transformation, expressing the zeitgeist or Strange Attractor of the Age. But 'singularlity' as a term for technical convergence is a meme, not an event. “Technological singularity” refers to the hypothetical future emergence of greater-than-human intelligence through technological means, very likely resulting in explosive superintelligence. A “gravitational singularity” or “spacetime singularity” is a location where the quantities that are used to measure the gravitational field become infinite in a way that does not depend on the coordinate system. These quantities are the scalar invariant curvatures of spacetime, which includes a measure of the density of matter. In multidisciplinary conferences, Jungians (among others) are seek deepening among themselves around critical issues: * What affect and action are taking place or needs yet to take place regarding: politics, cultural change, economics, education, international relations, conflict and war? * What affect and action are taking place or needs yet to take place regarding: race, gender, identity, nation, history and spirituality? * What affect and action are taking place or needs to take place to promote individuation during a time of personal crisis? What are significant examples of affect and action in any cultural or artistic medium? * What responses are open and sustainable to individuals and communities in the face of such concerns? * What affect and action are taking place or need yet to take place regarding nature, eco-systems, climate, space, animals and human bodies?

Thinking cosmically means recognizing the turning point that after 14 billion years we have most of the puzzle pieces figured out due to the explosive growth of science. In science, metaphors matter. Metaphors can be symbolically profound, but are not literally true. Metaphors enrich language and thought, but if we become literal fundamentalists, we are sadly and sometimes tragically mistaken. The same holds true in our personal lives. We take the signs, symbols, and metaphors of our psychological journey literally at the peril of self-delusion, misplaced concreteness that leads us down a psychic blackhole, rather than toward a unified theory and world. Existential Mechanics The photon is a quantum of action and light seems to be the first directly observable manifestation of Ultime Reality. Virtual photon flux underlies photon emergence from compactified space. Neutrinos are almost massless, travel close to the speed of light, and pass through matter almost undisturbed. Photons, on the other hand, have no mass, travel at the speed of light, yet are absorbed and/or reflected even by fairly sparse matter. The aether is a three-dimensional environment, the space itself, and the transverse vibration of light is performed in a space with four dimensions. The aether is not being driven by the movement of bodies. Light is a form of transition from the three-dimensional space, the aether, to the space with four dimensions. As a general rule, the transition from a space with n dimensions to a space with n+1 dimension occurs by curving the n-dimensional space. A photon has an electromagnetic field that can interact with charged particles - a neutrino has no charge and so unless it hits something head-on, it doesn't interact. So both particles have little or no mass,

travel close to or at the speed of light, and have no charge. But the photon has an electromagnetic field whereas the neutrino doesn't. Photons are electromagnetic fields, or rather waves in the electromagnetic fields. Noether's theorem demonstrates conserved quantities from symmetries of the laws of nature. Time translation symmetry gives conservation of energy; space translation symmetry gives conservation of momentum; rotation symmetry gives conservation of angular momentum, and so on. In matter, light's (broken) symmetries are conserved by charge and spin; in spacetime, light's symmetries are protected by inertial forces, and conserved (when broken) by gravitational forces. All forms of energy originate as light; matter carries charges which are the symmetry/entropy debts of the light which created it (both concepts are required to fully integrate gravity - which has a double conservation role - with the other forces). Charges produce forces which act to return the material system to its original symmetric state (light), repaying matter's symmetry/entropy debts. Repayment is exampled by any spontaneous interaction producing net free energy, including: chemical reactions and matter-antimatter annihilation reactions; radioactivity, particle and proton decay; the nucleosynthetic pathway of stars, and Hawking's "quantum radiance" of black holes. Identifying the broken symmetries of light associated with each of the 4 charges and forces of physics is the first step toward a conceptual unification.(J.A. Gowan) While atomic nuclei promote symmetry conservation through an exothermic nucleosynthetic pathway in stars, their associated electron shells create life through a negentropic chemical pathway on planets. Using energy and heavy elements ultimately provided by gravity,

the information pathway of biology is the means whereby the universe becomes aware of and experiences itself, including evolving new modes of creativity. Carbon with its multiple 4x3 fractal resonances (5) is the crucial link between the abiotic and biotic metrics of the Cosmos. (John A. Gowan) http://www.johnagowan.org/ We're beginning to understand what nature's been hiding. The zero-point field is a blinding light. Since it is everywhere, inside and outside of us, permeating every atom in our bodies, we are effectively blind to it. It blinds us by its presence. The world of light that we do see is all the rest of the light that is over and above the zero-point field. We cannot eliminate the zero-point field from our eyes. So, the vacuum is filled with a distinctive pattern of electromagnetic fields. Even with its pattern of electric and magnetic fields in continual fluctuation, the vacuum remains the simplest state of nature. Life takes refuge in a single space - absolute space. Metaphysical space is the unconscious. Each form that is in each human mind is, in some sense, an archetype -- some more common than others. There are shallower levels of unconsciousness between the total collective unconscious and an individual mind. A self-replicating archetype that is kindled from the collective unconscious is kindled through a mechanism of unconscious levels of tuning, and the reality format that is kindled is determined by the type of pressure and the content, biases, or tuning of all the levels between it and the conscious minds of the individuals who observe the phenomena. On the archetypal level, repetition creates a thermodynamic dis-equilibrium. At this point in the replicative mode, the human psyche is pushed toward a bifurcation point because of our intrinsic need for growth and meaning making. Psyche has the possibility of utilizing repetition as a chaotic, rather than a fixed or periodic attractor, thus moving the entire system

to a higher level of complexity (negentropy) or of dissolving into endless repetitions. Describing nonlinear dynamics and the types of processes activated as the system moves from stability to instability, Ervin Laszlo states that a system that is far from equilibrium may evolve toward a new dynamic regime that is radically different from a stationary state at or near equilibrium. (Evolution,1987, 21) As the repetition moves an individual or system into a chaotic regime, the possibility for complexity and greater development is activated. Recall that, as already established, evolution becomes virtually impossible if the system's parameters remain overly constricted. Behavioral patterns, thoughts, and actions tend to cluster more and more tightly around specific archetypal alignments/themes thus further diminishing the opportunity for growth. With clustering and complexing around an archetypal and informational singularity, an individual is, developmentally speaking, thrown back to a phylogenetically earlier phase of life. Similar to life and dynamics at the unicellular level, movement within the replicative mode proceeds through a spinning out of autopoietic, self-similar processes. Disruption of stability represents a natural phase transition in the life of every system. While we have the continual drive toward self-replication, there is an equally strong movement toward complexity inherent in the evolution of life at virtually every level. Continual repetition will eventually result in a deadening of possibilities thus reinforcing tendencies to stay closed. Freud observed the existence of two seemingly opposing forces within the psyche. One trajectory moves toward replication-a repetitive cycling of energy-a death instinct while the other arm of

the system's growth involves a movement toward a life instinct- -a higher form of new life. Repetition, if it endlessly spins in its own cycle and parameters, becomes entropic and eventually dampens the creation of new energy and growth possibilities. Hence the progressive is suddenly punctuated by what is novel, is thrown into chaos by the introduction of an information catastrophe. As we now understand from chaos theory, nonlinear dynamics, and from much of Ervin Laszlo's work in General and Dynamical Systems Theory, complexity only arises in response to a system's move from either equilibrium or non-equilibrium to a far-from equilibrium position. Laszlo (1987) describes the far-from-equilibrium state with the following: The third possible state of systems is the state far from thermal and chemical equilibrium. Systems in this state are nonlinear and occasionally indeterminate. They do not tend toward minimum free energy and maximum entropy but may amplify certain fluctuations and evolve toward a new dynamic regime that is radically different from stationary states at or near equilibrium. (Evolution, 21) Just as the phoenix bursts into flames so that it may rise new and immortal from its ashes-winged, soaring creature that it is-it appears that all of life endures encoded partial destruction of key elements at special moments to insure evolution. The symbol of the phoenix is fitting to capture this image of freedom reborn from the destruction of its earlier self than this archetype-fed process of self creation. Opportunities for Healing Understanding of field phenomena may help us to translate and convert unconscious behaviors into opportunities for greater understanding. Awareness of what I am calling an "archetypal morphology" and the capacity to recognize the formation of transpersonal patterns may help us understand those movements which all too often become national and global catastrophes

(Conforti) http://www.ofj.org/story/december-1999-newsletter-archive Archetypes also shape collective consciousness. They are coherent, complex, intelligible patterns of meaning and improvisational creativity. All manifestations are kindled through this mechanism. All of them are shaped by the multilevel unconscious tuning. All of them are caused by an unresolved conflict in the deeper unconscious layers. Neuroscientists are now learning how to replicate images people are seeing based on the brain activity patterns, combined with transcranial magnetic stimulation for electronically delivering targeted highs. The legendary Philosopher's Stone, apart from being a real and solid object or substance, constitutes the hub or central axis through which all contemplations pass. It is the metaphorical center of all that is, has been and ever will or can be. Thus it confers a vantage point from which all that exists can be seen at a single glance of the mind;s eye. Therefore, it equates with Jung's notion of the mandala as a unifying symbol and the elusive Unified Field of physics. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ References Hendricks-Jansen, H. (1996). Catching Ourselves in the Act: Situated Activity, Interactive Hogenson, George - http://www.jungianstudies.org/pdf/George-Hogenson-Emergence-Discussion.pdf Emergence, Evolution, and Human Thought. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Hogenson, G. B. (2001). The Baldwin Effect: a Neglected Influence on C. G. Jung's Evolutionary Thinking. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 46, 591-611. Hogenson, G. B. (2009). Archetypes as action patterns. Journal of Analytical Psychology, 54(3), 325-337.

Kitcher, P. (1995). Freud's dream: A complete interdisciplinary science of mind. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Metzinger, T. (2003). Being no one: The self-model theory of subjectivity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Zizek, S. (2006). The parallax view. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

Holographic Memory…………………Iona Miller

For more about Holographic Archetypes visit: http://holographicarchetypes.weebly.com/

INKSPOTTING: WRITING, LIFE AND THE

WRITING LIFE

AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR AND ARTIST MICHAEL SORTOMME BY BETTY DOBSON Monday, November 14, 2011

Michael Sortomme

Michael Sortomme is an author, artist and

retired teacher of metaphysics, the occult

arts and Active Indigenous Shamanism.

Educated in anthropology and modern

literature, she has journeyed in pursuit of

truth that she translates into vivid paintings

and equally compelling stories. A

Reincarnationist, her prodigious past-life

memory has motivated passions in Genetic

Genealogy, Herstory and the Levant. The

Pacific Northwest is home—the Oregon wine

country—her piece of heaven. You may

contact her through her main website at:

http://www.michaelsortomme.com/

What motivated you to start writing?

Lost in grief, I plunged head-first into poetry,

prose and free writing after my baby sister

died. The surrender changed me, opened me

to words in a new way, using them to vent

anger, sort through despair.

What is the primary source of inspiration

for you?

My major inspirational subjects are the rise

and fall of ancient and current civilizations,

reincarnation, creative self-empowerment,

the need for social justice, the human

genome and evolution in all of its forms.

Do you write when the muse strikes, or

do you follow a writing schedule?

When I saw myself as a starving, ill-fated

poet, I waited for the Universe to hit me over

the head with revelation and inspiration. But

lesson plans, lectures and speeches broke me

of that habit, to my benefit. It’s all about the

schedule now, else I am lured away from the

job at hand far too easily.

Please describe your process.

My body learned to listen to the demands of

creative process, applying flow and trust to

words as well as multi-media art. The

process was almost sexual at first; it lured

me to be better and bolder, taught me to pay

attention. When a subject or happening

stimulated my body, my brain learned to

ignite and ideas sparked, words flew,

paintings were visualized. When I combined

the right mix of stimulation and a schedule,

magick began to happen. I have always

depended on my passion to keep me

motivated.

It’s not mysterious in reality, if a schedule is

properly kept, writing at least one “keeper”

page per day, a year goes by and you have a

book. The challenge is to stay plugged-in and

focused, inspired to give it every last drop of

energy available. Flexibility helps, regarding

what constitutes a full work day—it takes the

sting out of a seven day work week. When

dealing with a painful or cathartic subject, I

give myself permission to stop and regroup

whenever the need arises. Sometimes I go

back to it, sometimes not. Short but

consistent work-blocks keep me from burning

out and getting lost in my own dramas.

Illustrating my books helps the process stay

fresh; no time is ever wasted, including

staring out a window. No embarrassment or

waste of energy exists; I am free to take

mental license in order to expand space and

time—my meaning of a bard.

I live large in my office—the hub of my

world—always a legend in the making. I

embrace my work as worthy, use expletives

at forces that try to lead me astray and, the

struggle of all time: I try NOT to be a people

pleaser! My keyboard is well dusted—a tea

cup on my right and pens on my left, a line of

painted miniature horses and fairies face

me—ready for action on my terms.

What have you done to promote yourself

as a writer?

Website creation, social networking,

befriending other authors wherever and

whenever possible, entering awards,

whatever I can do without making myself a

total pest and an enemy of all. A creative

person cannot hide, only if one wants a life

as a miserably lonely, forgotten outcast. I

don’t dig the whole Sylvia Plath thing; I want

my words to heal, inspire, reinvigorate, so I

navigate promotional land mines daily.

What's left to do?

So much to do—there’s never enough time! I

am frazzled at present, getting two titles to

market in a year. After a few months in the

studio painting and another month or so

working on our enormous family tree, I’ll be

ready to hit the keyboard with a non-fiction

occult overview for 2013. You never know

until the very moment you sit down to write

what’s going to come out—if you are not paid

up front, that is. What needs and wants to be

written will, as obtuse as that sounds.

Another mystery featuring Emancipation’s

hero, Sophie St. Cloud, might surface at any

time though; the world needs more bad-ass

women, in my worldview.

When did you discover your unique

voice? How long did the process take?

Language was second nature for me,

reading, writing and speaking before I could

understand the meaning of the word

vocabulary. My parents were artists and my

mother had been, for periods of time, a

serious poet. Paper and pencils, drawing

boards and rulers found me, props for classes

taught to invisible audiences. My head

thought out-of-the-box from the beginning.

Outer-world success frightened me;

several career choices further confused my

way. People, including professors, complained

my writing was embarrassingly

autobiographical, they doubted anyone would

ever relate. Withering for a time after

college, I abandoned written words for a

spiritual career. Several decades later, as a

teacher too busy to keep up with her own

concepts, I was forced to return to writing,

producing several volumes of guidebooks for

in-house use. Since retiring from private

practice and teaching, I have rediscovered

my passion for words. Putting other people’s

work aside allowed me to confront my

demons head-on, make priorities and follow

through with rough choices, by and for

myself, my sanity and success. That’s when I

became a real writer.

What do you consider your greatest

achievement as a writer?

Thus far, The Emancipation of Giles Corey,

my first historical novel, is my crown. It won

the Indie Excellence Award for Best Historical

Fiction of 2011, Honourable Mention for the

Hoffer Award and finalist for the Montaigne

Medal.

What's the most recent book you read?

Fires in the Dark by Louise Doughty

Who are the writers you admire most?

The trailblazing women that have moulded

literature in all forms and genres in the last

century are my heroes; my limited list would

never do them justice. Fiction, spirituality,

feminist culture, social action, anthropology

and the natural sciences, fine art or good

read—all important, all valuable, all changing

and fine-tuning the art as we know it.

Margaret Atwood Margaret Meade

Ruth Benedict Patricia Monaghan

Geraldine Brooks Alice Munro

Rita Mae Brown Anne Rice

Zusanna Budapest Dalia Sofer

Tatiana de Rosnay StarHawk

Anita Diamant Gertrude Stein

Louise Erdrich Gloria Steinem

Alice Hoffman Kathryn Stockett

Marija Gimbutus Susan Vreeland

Erica Jong Alice Walker

Stephanie Kallos Barbara G. Walker

Sue Monk Kid Sarah Waters

Shirley Maclaine

What's your best piece of advice for

novice writers?

1. Be authentic. Write what you know to be

true and what you feel is right. It makes no

difference whether you write fiction or non,

write from a place of experience.

2. Risk disapproval. Regardless of how

talented you are, not everybody will embrace

the work you produce. Accept that fact and

let it set you free. Write what you need to

communicate, what you are driven to expose.

Those who are inspired by your concepts will

find you.

3. Don’t be shy! Artists of all disciplines must

believe in the work that is being created to

have a successful outcome. It takes a strong

ego to propel one into the spotlight; even a

pale glimmer needs work and follow through

to interest an audience. However, building

one’s ego up enough to put a work of art on

the chopping block of public opinion can lead

to extremes: arrogance and its complement,

low self-esteem. Temper your methods to

avoid overt aggressiveness, but be strong

enough to make a positive impression.

4. Have a day job. Admit it, being an accepted

published author takes time, energy,

determination, luck, money, connections,

Karma, and most probably, lots of gifts of

expensive dark chocolate sprinkled

throughout the publishing world on a regular

basis. Not everybody has the magickal

combination to get noticed, but everybody

needs to pay the rent. Be smart, get a job

and pay your bills, including college loans.

Eating, drinking, having proper supplies and

a working lamp are necessary ingredients for

this work; wrap your head around the

concept early, it will make your life more

productive and a hell of a lot more secure.

Poverty is over rated!

Is there anything else you'd like to add?

I would like to thank Betty Dobson for the

opportunity to share my thoughts, hopes and

experiences with her blog audience. Her

invitation to appear in written form for

InkSpotter Publishing was generous and the

support for my work is greatly appreciated.

The new world of publishing appears, to

the untrained eye, open, accessible,

affordable—yours for the taking. For those of

us in the publishing trenches, the pitfalls of

today’s industry are apparent and it’s tough

out there for everybody—maybe not for

Stephen King, but he’s a rare success story.

No matter how stubborn, jaded, irritatingly

isolationist and grizzled a creative person

may be, to be truly successful one must

reach out and be accepted on some level by

others. Understanding, support and greater-

world encouragement for the creative

process must be had for the artistic

temperament to produce consistently.

Without it, it is far too emotionally paralyzing

to be chronically misunderstood and rejected.

An artist needs an audience, one that is

hopeful.

The world is ripe for talent, new and old—

there's room for all genres and personalities

as long as quality rules. We need a talent

driven market instead of a celebrity

showcase. The hard part is convincing large

publishing houses, distributors and the

people who still buy books that the world is

much richer with diversity and subsequent

choice. Large conglomerates are dictating

intellectual future in streamlined catalogues.

Have creative people devoted their lives for

naught, unique ideas replaced by episodic

reruns? It is my hope that independent

thinkers and the small presses that print

their work will flourish like never before

because of the support of people unafraid to

use their voices. Let us keep a growing

library of ideas in circulation, not settle for a

top five hundred play list of someone else's

choosing.

Welcome 2012—let the drama continue—

write on, my companeros!

A GIFT FROM GODDESS BRIGHID

Two years ago my son and his girlfriend

surprised me by bringing a beautiful female

Golden Retriever puppy to my house. They

asked if I would keep the puppy for them while

they were away at college.

Although I said that I would, I really knew

better, that such a request was not likely to

work. The puppy was just seven months old and

really quite adorable! She was with me on and

off throughout the summer, and we became

very attached to one another. I had taken her to

the veterinarian that summer for her first

physical and series of vaccinations. Her initial

diagnosis was that she was a very healthy

puppy. The veterinarian also did blood work to

be sure that she had no signs of heart worm or

other problems. I waited about three days for

the blood work analysis, when I received a call

that she had contracted Lyme Disease! How

could this be? She was only a puppy and never

yet out in the field!

The veterinarian gave her a Lyme Disease shot,

but advised me that she would have the disease

for the rest of her life and would need a booster

at least once a year, hopefully to keep it in

remission. I called my son to tell him the bad

news, and we were both shocked. I told him that

the veterinarian assumed that she may have

contracted the disease directly from the litter, as

she was one of six AKC registered siblings born

on a farm.

As the year progressed she mostly appeared to

be healthy, although I noticed that at times she

became seemingly tired and somewhat

lethargic. We became very much attached to

each other, as was to be expected. Many nights

while I was watching television, she would

cuddle up on my lap and fall asleep while

staring into my eyes.

Such unconditional love from an animal to a

human is something to behold! Anyone who

thinks animals have no soul or spirit are so

sadly mistaken so many times that first year.

She cuddled up on my lap, still thinking she's

just a little puppy, stared into my eyes until

falling asleep, but this time smiled just before

dosing off. She is now just a little over two years

old; a beautiful grown up Golden Retriever, as

sweet and loving as any dog could ever be! She

still sits by my side whenever I am working at

my altar, and I always thank Goddess Brighid

for her wonderful gift to me. As I look over at her

watching me, I can see in those big brown eyes

that she is also thanking the Goddess as well.

Blessed Be,

Radagast the Bard

Pennsylvania

Into Tradition By Marc Sylvir

Merry Christmas everyone! What’s that? I

shouldn’t be saying that? Why not?!? Oh I

see; it’s because I’m Pagan. It’s not my

religion. Let me say something right up front:

I am not someone who gets upset when a

store clerk wishes me Merry Christmas. Quite

often I say Blessed Yule in return (and most

of the times I get a “Huh?” look back.) But

the clerk in the store, or the person on the

street, who gives me Christmas greetings

usually means it. And I always say that

positive intentions are positive intentions.

The Origin

Let’s delve a little into the traditions behind

Christmas. When and how did the Christmas

tradition come into being? Sometime around

320 CE (Common Era), the Holy Roman

Emperor Constantine came to a realization:

unity in his forces was unsettled due to

religious differences. His force was split

between followers of the Catholic Church#,

followers of traditional Roman mythology,

and followers of Mithras.

The soldiers who followed the Roman

mythology celebrated the Feast of Saturnalia

on December 17th, but they were

outnumbered by the followers of Mithras who

celebrated his Feast day on December 25th#.

Thinking on this, Constantine had an idea

which soon became the standard operation

procedure of the Holy Roman Empire for

years to come: It might be possible to

supplant an existing religious holiday by

replacing it with a similar holiday. And thus

was born Christmas; literally Christ’s Mass,

determined to be celebrated on December

25th.

The soldiers who followed Mithras adapted to

this new tradition mainly because of their

loyalty to Constantine. The Mithraistic belief

was a rigid system of degrees, but it was

based on a Persian belief of a personification

of a Sun God. The Book of Malachi was, in

part, written to re-enforce the identification

of Christ with Mithras portraying Him as "the

Sun of righteousness.”

It was inconsequential to Constantine that

the scriptures state that Jesus Christ was

born during a time of lambing. Any farmer

worth his salt will tell you that, although it is

not an exact science, they try to arrange

mating so that the young are born in the

spring, giving them time to mature to a point

where they can survive winter more easily.

The date of His actual birth is still a matter of

great debate among Christian scholars. It

should also be noted that there is no

historical mention of a specific birth date for

Christ before the time of Constantine.

As the Holy Roman Empire spread north the

opportunities to use Constantine’s innovation

became numerous. Sometimes the attempts

were successful and sometimes they were

not, but regardless of the success rate, the

traditions were absorbed into the modern

Christian mythologies surrounding various

holidays. For the purpose of this article, I will

focus only on the Christmas traditions.

The additional benefits of placing Christmas

in December, in part, can be listed as follows:

• Victory of the Sun God (Sol Invictus) in

the Babylonian world.

• The Fire Festival of Isis (Mother of the

Sun God Horus)

• The Celebration of Jul, Yula, Iul, or Yule.

The Scandinavian name of the God translated

to wheel. Neo-pagans have taken this as a

symbol of the wheel of the year.

• The Jewish festival of Channukah.

• The Winter Solstice celebrated in various

forms throughout the ancient world including

the religions of Persia, Hindi, and Hopi. The

last was an unexpected benefit for Christian

missionaries. After all, where would all those

savages be without a church on their

reservation?

Specific Traditions incorporated in the

modern Christmas Celebration:

1. The Yule log

• In Norse tradition, the Yule log was lit to

emulate the Sun, as well as to call the Sun to

return.

• Each spark of fire represented a new pig

or calf which would be born in the coming

year.

• The Druids adopted this tradition from

the Viking invaders

• Yuletide was a twelve day celebration

(Twelve days? Now why does that ring a

bell?).

2. Holly, Ivy, and Mistletoe

• Holly was the sacred plant of Saturn.

• Holly was representative of man, and Ivy

was representative of woman. The joining of

the two represented the union of man and

woman, and symbolized fertility.

• Holly was thought to induce prophetic

dreams when placed under the head of a

sleeper.

• Holly is also representative of the Holly

King, who rules this season following his

defeat of the Oak King.

• Ivy was the plant of Bacchus <Greek>

and Dyonisius <Roman>.

• The Holly and the Ivy are traditionally

burned at the end of the celebration. To

simply throw them away could bring bad luck

to the household

• In Norse mythology, if two warriors of

opposing forces met by chance beneath

mistletoe, they had to lay down their arms.

• Mistletoe was harvested by the Druids

using "golden sickles".

• Mistletoe is a parasitic plant which grows

on other trees, including the Oak Tree. The

Druids chose the largest oak tree with

mistletoe growing on it to hold their

meetings. Between the Norse and Druidic

(adopted somewhat from the Norse)

traditions, the mistletoe became a symbol of

a contract; and a kiss sealed the contract and

brought good luck to the two parties.

• All three plants grow in the winter. It's no

wonder that they symbolize the hope of

winter's end, and the green to come in

spring.

3. The Christmas Tree

• The evergreen, being a tree of colder

climates, is usually associated with this time

of year through Northern European

traditions. However the Egyptians brought

palm leaves into their households as a

symbol of life triumphing over death.

• From the Norse mythology, Ygdrasil is the

World Tree. Its branches symbolized life, and

its roots were thought to hold the universe

together.

• Decoration of evergreen trees was an

important part of the Norse Yule celebration.

• The mother of Adonis (the Sun God) was

turned into a tree.

4. Santa Claus and giving gifts

• The legend of Santa Claus comes from a

mixture of many mythologies, including the

well-known legend of Saint Nicholas.

• The sleigh and reindeer actually come

from ancient Norse mythology. Odin (Wotan)

drove a sleigh pulled by reindeer.

• Gift giving was a common theme in all

the celebrations at this time of the year. For

example, the Germanic Goddess Hertha or

Nerthus, a Goddess associated with fertility

who brought gifts of good fortune and health.

In many of these celebrations homes were

decorated with candles and ornamentation.

Mid-winter feasts were also a large part of

the celebration. This was bringing light and

joy to the darkest time of the year.

The Wrapping

The most curious thing I encountered in my

research on this topic, started many years

ago, was the fact that 90% of the pages

pulled up in a search engine with the words

"Christmas" and "Pagan" were Christian web

pages. For the most part they were declaring

that Christmas "traditions" should be

abandoned, as they are all Pagan in origin.

Besides that, they were all imported by the

Catholic Church!! Ah, the horror of it all.

On a web page titled "The Pagan Christmas

Cult" (which is no longer available) a page off

of the Van Naatan family's "Down Home

Christian Journal" (also no longer available),

the Rev. Van Naatan goes to great lengths

"proving" that Santa Claus is really Satan.

Included was a 35 minute WAV file of a

sermon on this topic. This, and the Pagan

rites of Christ Mass (they spell it that way on

every one of these pages so that you know

it's all the Catholic's fault) is the common

theme on most of the pages I encountered.

Conversely, a web page entitled "Is

Christmas Pagan?" (Wow. these pages just

go away left and right…) stated that,

although the traditions have Pagan roots, it's

okay! Because "we" practice them as

Christians, they've become Christian! You

see, it's the Spirit of the thing which counts.

A pretty Pagan concept, don't you think? And

Christianitytoday.com echoes that sentiment.

Pages like these, however, are definitely in

the minority.

A web page of an Islamic organization

(apparently they are also not very good at

keeping domain names) even used this

theme to discredit all of Christianity. After all,

if their "holy days" are stolen, what good is

the rest of their religion? What good, indeed?

Allah only knows.

The irony of it all lies in the fact that, without

the expansion of the Holy Roman Empire

(Catholicism), Christianity would not be the

dominant religion it is today. So, where would

all the fundamentalists be without it? And

that would definitely leave Islam without a

good enemy.

The theme of the martyred God is

incorporated into most of the world's

religions. Christianity is not unique in that.

Their uniqueness lies in the fact that they

managed to spread their beliefs so

successfully throughout the world.

So, Saturnalia and the Feast of Mithras

became Christmas. The twelve days of Yule

became the days between Christ's birth and

the Epiphany. And down the road, Samhain

became All Hallow's Eve, Imbolc became

Candlemass (don't even ask where

Groundhog day came in! My mother's from

Punxsutawnee), Beltain and Oestarra were

usurped by Easter (and by the way,

crucifixion was performed on crosses shaped

like an "X"; not a "+"), "The Holly and the

Ivy" was magically transformed into a

Christian song, and the Holy Roman Empire

became the wealthiest religion to date.

So for now, Blessed Yule, Happy Channukah,

Happy Kwanza, and Merry Christmas!

"Once in a royal David's city, stood a lonely

cattle shed, where a mother held her baby,

you'd do well to remember the things he

later said. When you're stuffing yourselves at

the Christmas parties, you'll just laugh when

I tell you to take a running jump; You're

missing the point I feel should not need

making, the Christmas spirit is not what you

drink. So how can you laugh when your own

mother's hungry? And how can you smile,

when your reasons for smiling are wrong?

And if I've just messed up your thoughtless

pleasures, remember if you wish, this is just

a Christmas song".

Jethro Tull - "A Christmas Song"

Classic Pagan Albums

The Witching Hour Lady Isadora

www.ladyisadora.com

Review by Kenny Klein

When I was new to Pagan music (and

dinosaurs ruled the Earth), I began

traveling across the U.S. to play the

very new Pagan festival circuit.

Wisconsin, Ohio, Georgia, where

there was a gathering of Pagans, I

finagled a gig. In making the rounds

of the early gatherings of our

fledgling Pagan community, I began

to meet and interact with the very

few Pagan musicians who were doing

the same rounds as I. There weren't

many of us... but the outstanding

voice of the day (and I nod

respectfully at Ruth Barrett, whose

new CD will be reviewed soon in this

column) was Lady Isadora.

Lady Isadora was a major presence in

the early Pagan festival community.

An amazing singer/songwriter with

excellent lyrics (kind of a rarity back

then) and well recorded albums (also

somewhat rare). She could play her

guitar well, which was unusual in

women recording in both the Pagan

and Pop arenas of the '70s (St. Joan,

and I mean Jett, was still somewhat

unknown outside of the Punk scene in

the early 80s, and in the great

Clapton vs. Hendrix best guitarist

debate, no one ever seemed to

mention the other St. Joan, Joni

Mitchell). All in all, Lady Isadora was

an inspiration to Pagans, be they

musicians or fans.

Her 1981 release with musical

partner Lord Pan, The Witching

Hour, was one of the first times a

Pagan musician created an album of

entirely original music. Aside from the

originality of the writing, the project

was professionally played and

recorded. This was a landmark event

for the infant world of music played

by performers who identified as

Pagans, and performed for a primarily

Pagan audience.

The moment I heard the title track, I

was captivated. Here was a woman

with an amazing voice and a wry

humor, singing about both her

childhood dreams, which guided her

to Paganism, and about her strength

as a grown Pagan woman:

“Oh, the witching hour is striking and

the moon is riding high Come Peter

Pan from Neverland and teach me

how to fly

I'm old enough to be your mom but

please don't pass me by It's been my

dream to make your scene since I

was two feet feet high And I was

wearing green since I was just a

gleam in my father's bright green

eyes”

The song goes on to comment on

how the stories heard in childhood

shaped the woman of today, the bard

and performer, asking “Oh great

ancestral muses, please accept this

gift of song.”

From song to song, Lady Isadora's

summation of what it means to be a

Witch involves both the deep magic

(Tis Hallowe'en), and the strong

history (Witches And Amazons) of our

culture.

Like most Pagan music of the day,

the songs are deeply rooted in

Renaissance Faire and folk styles.

While this genre is something I feel is

too present in today's Pagan music

(and I say that having recording just

that style for 20 years), at the time of

its release The Witching Hour was

unique in its approach to these roots,

creating a modern Pagan classic from

this musical Phoenix. The themes of

King Arthur, the Faerie world, knights

and enchantment all find a new voice

in Lady Isadora's agile singing and

capable musicianship.

You will love this CD if you love

classic Pagan recordings that shaped

the history of our culture; if you love

beautiful, artistic female vocals; and

if you love music of magic and

bardcraft rooted in the styles of

Renaissance and traditional Folk.

������������������������������������

New Pagan Music

Songs Of The Otherworld Ruth Barrett

Dancing Tree Music , 2011 Review by Kenny Klein

I have always loved Ruth Barrett's

music, both for her gorgeous voice,

and even more (as an

instrumentalist) for her unusual

approach to the mountain dulcimer.

Traditionally the mountain dulcimer

is strummed, giving it a droning,

modal sound (you can hear this in

the playing of Holly Tannen, or on

Joni Mitchell's original recording of

her song Woodstock). Ruth finger-

picks the instrument, making it

sound more like a classical guitar.

In the many years that Ruth played

with Aeolus partner Cyntia Smith,

the two finger-picking their

instruments together gave nearly

the full range of a single classical

guitar.

On her many projects, both with

Cyntia and during her solo career,

Ruth's CDs have always been a mix

of original and traditional songs,

many of which have focused on the

roles of woman in societies both

past and present. While her 1991

album Parthenogenesis was a foray

into more contemporary feminist

territory, most of her projects

reflect the roles women have

traditionally played in history,

taking us through songs of

weavers, forlorn lovers, doffers,

lute players, and even women

highway robbers. She has always

approached these songs with a

strong sense of pride in the lives

women have led, and in the

traditional songs and stories that

have come to her from across the

centuries.

Ruth's newest CD is a collection of

songs both original and traditional,

all of which focus on the passion

and complexities of women

entering the Faerie World. It may

be my favorite project of hers yet

(and not just because she recorded

one of my songs, though that does

make me sort of tingly inside). As

much as I adore all of the albums

Ruth has ever produced, this one

focuses on themes I am very

invested in. It also features Ruth as

the leader of a larger ensemble,

featuring guitar, fiddle, flute,

mandolin and synthesizer;

somewhat paradoxically, she

continues to approach the songs

with a simple style, allowing

melodies and lyrics to dominate the

ensemble playing.

Joining Ruth on this collection are

some of my favorite musicians in

the world: the brilliant harper

Sylvia Woods (alum of Robin

Williamson's Merry Band); and

Ruth's daughter and daughter-in-

law, Amanda Barrett and Abby

DeWald of the band The Ditty Bops

(one of my very favorite new

bands, even before I realized the

family connection). Former musical

partner Cyntia Smith also joins

Ruth on this project, which is a

very welcome reunion.

The songs center on the

complexities of love between

humans and Faeries (Faerie's Love

Song, Thomas The Rhymer, The

Mermaid, Tam Lin), on Faerie

figures (Birds of Rhiannon, Naiad,

Fairy Queen, Apples of Avalon), on

Faerie enchantment and

Changelings (The Fairy Boy, Tam

Lin) and on lessons carried to our

world from Faerie (Tree Lessons).

Ruth never seems to forget that

our relationship with the Fae is

difficult, passionate, and tenuous,

and that Faeries inspire in humans

reactions that defy rational

thought. In The Fairy Boy, a

mother bitterly laments losing her

son to the Faeries, yet describes

her bittersweet joy that her boy

will be one of those enchanted

creatures. In Tam Lin, (a much

different version than the one

popularized by Fairport Convention,

and subsequently by every Ren

Faire act that ever donned a

jerkin), she captures both the the

desire and the fear in a maiden

who allows herself to be seduced

and impregnated by a Changeling

of the wild woods. Throughout,

Ruth's amazing voice carries each

song (aided on several tracks by

the singing of Cyntia Smith, and by

Amanda and Abbey), lending just

enough of her technique to create

a thrilling vocal without

overpowering the enchantment of

the song itself.

This is an excellent CD for any long

time fan of Ruth's; for anyone who

loves the traditional music of

Faerie, in which Faeries are seen as

seductive, dangerous and beautiful

(as opposed to the modern view of

faeries as diminutive and trivial);

and to anyone who loves the sound

of folk instruments played well

beneath superb vocals by a woman

who grows into her vast musical

power with every new project.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....... ...

Radical Nature The Soul of Matter by Christian de Quincey ISBN 978-1-59477-340-2

Copyright 2002, 2010 Christian de Quincey

Christian de Quincey’s Radical Nature: the

Soul of Matter, is the very best book that

I’ve read this millennium and might turn

out to be the most significant

philosophical treatise ever written. For

the past few decades, I have been

devouring every book that I have

encountered, concerning the connection

between Science and the world of the

spirit. Numerous works have promised a

new paradigm; this one delivers. Years

ago, Earth First printed a bumper sticker

which read, “Subvert the Dominant

Paradigm.” My first question was, “Which

Dominant Paradigm? Do they mean the

scientific materialism which has removed

all meaning and value from the natural

world, or the patriarchal monotheism

which sees all reality as the handiwork of

a transcendent deity?” In reality, the

paradigm in which most of us try to

function is Cartesian dualism, which

claims that the two realities exist

simultaneously and are exclusive of each

other. It is this separation of body from

mind that has led to our abuse of our

fellow animals (including humans) and the

removal of all meaning and sacredness

from Nature. Most scientists’ attempts to

resolve the two realities assert that mind

is epiphenomenal to matter and has only

emerged as a function of the material

brain. Meaning and value, therefore, are

simply human constructs. Religionists and

mystics claim the reverse, saying that the

world of matter and energy are simply

illusion and only spirit is real somewhat

like Platonic idealism in which perfect

forms exist in the world of the spirit and

all material objects are inferior

expressions of these ideals. As the Greek

Gnostics put it: “In the beginning was the

word…”

Radical Nature posits a new ontology and

a new epistemology, one which addresses

“the essential sentience and sacredness of

matter.” As de Quincey so aptly states,

“Our culture’s desacralization of nature

has profound effects on how we relate to

ourselves and the world… The need for

spiritual healing, a deep longing

characteristic of our age, will be fulfilled

only if we radically alter our

understanding of and attitude toward the

deep nature of matter. Once we recognize

that matter feels - tingles with interiority

– we see that nature and cosmos are

themselves intrinsically meaningful,

purposeful and valuable”

We, and in fact the entire universe are

made up of atoms, but we are not our

atoms. All of the atoms in our body

change over the years and yet there is

something about each of us that remains

the same. Life is not a matter of what our

atoms are but what they are doing. The

atoms are the dancers but we are the

dance. In Radical Nature the author

explores a worldview wherein “The atoms

themselves choreograph their own dance

– a worldview that tells us that

consciousness matters and that matter is

conscious.”

Numerous authors have tried to use the

principles of quantum mechanics to

explain the existence of spirit. Mostly what

they’ve accomplished is to reveal their

own lack of understanding of particle

Physics. They start with the fact that, in

the world of the atom, the observer

influences the outcome of certain

experiments. From here they take a leap

of faith and proclaim that consciousness

creates reality. Mr. de Quincey, on the

other hand, explores quantum

indeterminacy and the collapse of the

wave function, with great depth and

understanding and actually explains how

the entire material world is partly created

by some participating consciousness. He

sees evolution as matter, “feeling its way

forward toward ever-increasing

complexity.”

Today’s creationists have focused on the

theory of “intelligent design” as the

ultimate proof that the universe was

created by a craftsman-like transcendent

god. They have introduced the idea of

“irreducible complexity” inherent in

biochemical processes as proof of the

involvement of some intelligence. I agree

that this intelligence is self-evident but

reject the leap of faith they take from this

observation to their own brand of theism.

Christian de Quincy explains this apparent

intelligence as an inherent characteristic

of matter itself. While he never uses the

term “Pagan” his ideas certainly support

the basic Pagan concept of immanent

divinity. He goes one giant step beyond

animism.

Panpsychism, as de Quincy has aptly

named his philosophy, is the cure for Rene

DesCartes’ dualism which has dominated

Western thought for centuries. This rift

between matter and mind has been the

source of other dichotomies like

logic/intuition, the wave/particle duality,

even racism, specism and sexism.

True breakthroughs in human thought

exhibit a quality that Physicists like to call

“elegance”, when an equation is briefly

stated yet all-encompassing like E=mc2.

Panpsychism has that quality.

This book is actually the first book of a

trilogy. I plan to review the next book,

Radical Knowing in a future issue of Green

Egg. The third volume, Radical Science

has not yet been released. All three are

(or will be) available from Inner Traditions

– Bear and Company P.O. Box 388

Rochester VT. 05767

Tom Donohue

SECRET LIVES by Barbara Ardinger

ISBN: 978-1466251786

Copyright Barbara Ardinger, 2011

Barbara Ardinger's new book Secret Lives,

reads like Terry Pratchett on acid. It is

enormously creative, zany, well-crafted and

full of people you'd love to know and have as

friends. How can you not love a group of

outrageous, eccentric old ladies who still

have enough life in them to perform antics

most young people would be too fearful to

even ponder?

If you have a sense of humor, or are an

iconoclast or original thinker, you should read

this book. If you are a Pagan, you should

read this book. If you are a Witch you should

ESPECIALLY read this book. If you are an

older woman you MUST read this book and

consider it as a great instruction manual for

becoming an outrageous old lady. In fact, if

you are human you should read this book. If

you aren't human you should still read it

because you'll still thoroughly enjoy the read.

This is a great book to lift your spirits in

these trying times.

It is a rare author that can create characters

that are so memorable that you hate to see

the book end; characters that live on inside

your head and your heart; characters that

you can actually learn from and that become

a part of your Self. Barbara Ardinger is one

such author and her newest offering, Secret

Lives is one such memorable book. Like,

Terry Pratchett, Ms. Ardinger has a gift for

creating lovable and eccentric crackpot

personalities that live on long after you've

finished reading the book. The pages of

Secret Lives are peopled with a circle of little

old ladies who are Witchy eccentrics reeking

mischief on those who deserve it. The

setting is a retirement center known as The

Towers, as in London Tower, which was used

for imprisoning unwanted members of society

whether they had committed crimes or not.

It is run by a corporation who has hired a

manager named Frances who believes in

living life strictly by the book; a book that

she never read and whose author she never

knew, but nonetheless, she lives by that book

as if her life depended on it. She makes it her

job to make sure that everything that

happens in the Towers is tidy, ship-shaped,

nailed down, organized and in short, lifeless.

She prides herself on whipping the residents

into shape. But it's difficult to control some

little old ladies, especially when they are

Witches. For example, how does the

manager ensure that everyone follows the

“no pet” rule of the Towers when there is an

invisible cat living in one of the apartments?

Following the adventures of these Witchy

ladies is an adventure in itself. These are not

ladies who like to sit back and watch life

unfold; indeed, they are women who make

things happen. They help out the vulnerable,

sick and unfortunate; they take seriously

their roles as elder women whose duty it is to

teach the younger generations the fine art of

magick and mischief-making and all that they

have learned in their long lives. The youngest

of the senior ladies is in her 70's and the

oldest is 98 years old. They are retired but

they come out of retirement when they

realize that their neighborhood in Long

Beach, California has been overtaken by

gang members, people with no compassion

or respect for others and other assorted

undesirables. They not only clean up the

neighborhood but the retirement home as

well and along the way they have A LOT of

fun, as does the reader.

One of my favorite characters is Bertha, who

likes to wear outrageous costumes while

making political statements and protests.

She variously wears a werewolf costume,

green bunny ears, a Tupperware bowl on her

head and lots of other wonderful costumes

that would make Central Casting in

Hollywood envious. Along with these ladies'

passion for life and mischievous antics, we

are made aware that they are profoundly

united in a tight band of love between all of

them. They have been making magick for

decades and are really good at it and they

never hesitate to help each other out, as well

as helping strangers at times. In short,

these are women who know how to have fun

and enjoy life in ways that only the most

imaginative of people are fortunate enough

to envision.

In closing, I can truthfully say that the only

criticism I have of this book is that there isn't

a sequel. But perhaps Ms. Ardinger will have

pity on us and change that in the near future.

I know I sure hope so.

-Psyche Lamplighter

.

Conversation with Rev.

Sylvanus Treewalker

by Sylveey Selu

As some of you know, I am a regular on

Face Book. I have found many wonderful

pages and communities where I can

participate in conversations with people

from all over the world. One place I really

like, is Progressive Pagans of America.

This is a group for those of a Pagan or

Pagan-friendly spiritual path, who are

progressive and left-leaning in their

political outlook. It is hosted and

maintained by Rev Sylvanus Treewalker,

who is with the Order of the Standing

Oak. Sylvanus wants to see equality for all

Americans regardless of race, sex,

physical handicap, or sexual orientation;

to see the laws of our land enforced

regarding marriage, gun ownership, etc.

He also wishes to see an end to Corporate

greed and socialism for the wealthy.

Sylvanus advocates for a single payer

health system, wants our jobs to be

brought back to America, and stands for

religious freedom for ALL, in this world.

Sylvanus feels we can make this world a

better place and provides a platform

where Pagans are welcome to discuss the

issues that are inportant to them. Rev

Sylvanus Treewalker also hosts a radio

program on Blog Talk Radio, called Pagan

Perspectives.

I want to introduce you to Sylvanus

because I find him to be an interesting

man who holds to his convictions and is a

joy to listen to and speak with.

SS: Rev. Sylvanus; You're the host of

Pagan Perspectives on Blog Talk Radio.

What prompted you to begin your radio

program? What are your goals for Pagan

Perspectives? --

ST: Pagan Perspectives started as a test.

My best friend at that time had his own

show on Blog Talk Radio. I thought why

couldn't there be a Pagan show that

focuses on topics and issues affecting the

Pagan community, instead of just doing a

readings show. So in 2009 the show was

born with lots of great topics and I have

met and talked to some of the most

fascinating folk in our community. As far

as goals , I would like to see the show

grow, maybe move off of BTR to another

venue, plus invest in a quality website for

the show, PLUS I'm looking for more

participation from the Pagan community in

the show, from topic ideas to actually

being a part of the shows. Pagan

Perspectives is by and for the Pagan

community, not just about me.

SS: You also host a popular forum on

Face Book, Progressive Pagans of

America. What challenges have you found

in dealing with over 900 members?

ST: Mostly the challenges have been by

other Pagans to me about my political

outlook, I'm a Democratic Socialist who

does not follow after Barack Obama, I

believe America can be better, and do

better. The group lost members after

some Face Book changes, but "m seeing it

slowly grow again

SS: What does it mean to be a

Progressive Pagan?

ST: To be Progressive in a political sense,

is to move forward, to be mindful of

others, to care about humanity, to be

there for each other. As a Pagan it means

we have a duty to our community, our

Gods, and the Earth to save who we can,

and what we can.. To seek to replenish

the good things of our society, and to

jettison those things which corrupt and

enslave. Progressive Pagans seek

freedom for all – whether it is animal,

plant, or stone.

SS: What goes through your mind when a

Pagan tells you that they are a

Conservative? What does the term

"conservative" mean to you?

ST: Unfortunately, I know some very

hardcore right Wing Pagans. There are no

very true conservatives anymore. These

people hate Islam, have advocated for

raping the planet and subjugating its

people for profit. These folks are in my

mind, NOT pagan at all.

SS: Rev. Sylvanus, you came from a

Christian Pentecostal background into

Paganism. What happened that caused

you to begin walking your own path?

ST: Yes that's true. I spent my early

years in the Church of God, in Cleveland

Tennessee; these people were America's

first snake-handler Pentecostals, although

the church I attended did not take up

snakes. For a time I even flirted with

becoming a Pentecostal preacher, but

after awhile I started to question the

Bible. Later I moved to where I

currently live, in Springfield Missouri. I

met some folks when a friend and I were

invited to a camp-out, a Samhain ritual by

a coven here in town. I knew nothing of

Paganism so I was intrigued. My friend

and I watched the ritual from the parking

lot. There was chanting, dancing, and

drumming. At first it scared me. but then

it was like a light came on. I started to

interact with that coven, to learn about

Pagan practices, and to learn about the

gods.

SS: Where did it take you?

ST: It took me to an interest in magick,

Ceremonial Magick. I was initiated into the

Greenleaf Coven, and later I discovered

Druidism. In 2001 I joined the Henge of

Keltria and later, in 2006, I founded an

independent Druid order, The Order of the

Standing Oak.

SS: Where do you see yourself on your

magickal path 10 years from now?

ST: I hope to see myself still active,

spiritually wiser and magickally stronger. I

want to be more connected. I am, in a

sense, preparing for my next life.

SS: What advice would you give someone

in the Pentecostal denomination of

Christianity

that is contemplating stepping onto a

Pagan path?

ST: This is for anyone of Christian

background: follow your heart, don’t let

fear stop you from learning. If it is right

for you, embrace it. You are not alone.

This is your spiritual life. Live it.

SS: During your time among Pentecostal

people, did you ever see teachings that

closely resemble the things you've learned

since you became Pagan, and would you

describe what you've seen?

ST: I see a lot of Pagan myths that were

borrowed, I believe by the early

Christians, and put into their Bible. Also, I

see ecstatic dance and trance, specifically

in Pentecostalism that ties into things that

we, as Pagans, do.

SS: Rev. Sylvanus, you have been

walking the Druidic Path for the last 11

years. Tell us about your path.

ST: Druidry for me was that diamond in

the rough that we all search for. After

spending years involved in Witchcraft, and

Wicca, I was seeking something more .

Wicca is fine, but for me the dualist nature

of the tradition made me ask questions.

The Lord and Lady have some type of

family right, so why not look into the

Pantheons, and also, why are the Gods

just archetypes? Why couldn't they be

real, each with their own attributes. How

could I incorporate this into my work?

Also being a HUGE Celtophile really

helped. I love anything Celtic, which is

the basis of the Order of the Standing

Oak. We honor the Gods of the Tuatha De

Dannan, we honor the Earth and our

ancestors, we seek to work with the

magicks of the Celts and their Druids. My

connection to LIFE and living has grown. I

see the Power of the Trees, and thru all

my learning, I take things one step at a

time, and at the end of my path- there

will be happiness.

Rev. Sylvanus Treewalker is sending a

shout out to the Spirit of the Bards within

you. Pagan Perspectives is seeking YOU!

Sylvanus is inviting you to send your

original poems, stories, and songs, to

share with the listeners of Pagan

Perspectives. Send your creations to:

[email protected]. Rev. Sylvanus

is able to view most file types, so Word

and Office files are fine. Also if you feel

really creative, please feel free to record

your poems, stories, and songs into an

mp3 format. For those stories that are

lengthy, i.e. more than 20 minutes long,

please send in 10 minute segments. When

you e-mail your submissions, please

include your name. Rev. Sylvanus will

share these on Monday, Wednesday and

Friday evenings. Multiple submissions

welcome..!!! You can find the past shows

of Pagan Perspectives at:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/search/pag

an-perspectives ---

and you will be able to see what's coming

up.

Rev. Sylvanus has been interviewing some

interesting authors, and is giving away

books to those who enter their name for

the drawing. Stop by and see who is in

the line-up, and register to win a book for

your collection. Follow Pagan Perspectives

on Twitter:

http://twitter.com/Pagantalkshow

Join in on the discussions at Rev.

Sylvanus Treewalkers Face Book

community at:

http://www.facebook.com/groups/317216

641985

and at;

http://paganperspectives.weebly.com :

also visit Rev. Sylvanus' blog at :

http://paganperspectives.xanga.com

Hope to see you there!

The Time of Ice

A Meditation for the Solstice

Come in, and sit down, as the fire burns brightly. Close the door, and keep the droughts at bay. For this indeed is a tale told by the fireside, a tale for fire, but also a tale when there is ice outside, and the cold fingers of the Northerly wind rake their frosty hands upon the window pane. It is said, and was told to me, that long ago, the days were mild and temperate, and the sun shone brightly throughout the year. The trees blossomed with fruit all year long, and rivers irrigated the land. This was the golden age of the world, and happy indeed were those who lived in those glorious days. But one day, there was a change, as a breeze sprang up, and the breeze became a strong wind, and then a gale, coming from the North, and the land grew colder, and the days grew ever shorter. The sun lost its strength. The crops failed, the land grew cold and barren, leaves turned brown and began to fall from trees, and there was hunger in the land. There was a blight on the land, and the tribe felt the darkening of the days, the cold that chilled to the bones. They were full of a deep foreboding, a deepening gloom, a malaise that only the sun could shake off, but little by little, the days drew in, and the cold, dark night came, and brought only despair and melancholy. It was a cold walk to the cottage where the wise woman lived, so the leaders of the tribe, an old man and a young maiden, set off in search of an answer to the blight that had afflicted their lands. And she welcomed them in, and soon they stood warming themselves before her fire. They asked her for help, and she gazed into the fire, as if falling into a trance, and spoke softly: Branches dancing wildly through a stormy night Sea foaming, waves churning against sea walls As if an elemental force was loose, an evil wight With destruction in its wake, as darkness falls Seek the wisdom in the sacred fire, heart of gold The sparks from where the shattered vessels fell And fight against the darkness rising, be so bold And venture forth into the lands where shadows dwell

And in those days, there was also a wise man, the keeper of the sacred flame. This was surely were wisdom was to come from. So they went to the wise man. Now the wise man kept the flame upon the high places, set among the stones of the ancestors, and it burned as a beacon to guide sailors by night, and also a place where the tribe made the offerings to the gods of wheat and barley, of the first fruits, and of young lamb, when they sang of the blessings of the land, and gave a measure to the gods in thanksgiving. The keeper of the flame told them that the seasons were out of balance, and the strange weather days were the result of an evil come upon the world, and he would strive to find the cause, and return to the tribe the heat of the sun. But the days grew ever dark and cold, and it seemed that the land would become a land of night, beset by wolves and bears, where no crops would grow, and all hope would die. And so he set forth, and they kept the flame alight, in faith that he would return, and never gave up hope, even when the children cried with hunger pains, and their parents sought firewood with, venturing out with fingers chilled to the bone, and hurting in the cold winds that tore through this once pleasant land. But when all hope had almost gone, he returned, after forty days, from the wilderness, and sat down by the fire, and told us his tale; the tale that I tell you now. The keeper of the sacred flame had ventured far into the north, along the narrow mountain paths, and passed down through deep gullies, and the snow was thick upon this land. At last he came upon a mountain. This mountain was taller than any he had seen. On the mountain's peak, lightening struck the land, with powerful energies, while all around a thunderous boom echoed across the valley. And on its summit stood a fortress, wall upon wall, battlement upon battlement, black, immeasurably strong, with a gate of cold steel, and above those cruel pinnacles, a great tower of black stone. Upon that tower, the keeper saw a dark shape around which the firestorm blazed out, and yet sucked in the heat and light, and remained in shadow. He held a staff high in his hand,

summoning the elements, and crying out an ancient spell: Cold and blackness on the land The void consumes the light Gather darkness, reach out hand And bring forth endless night Tenebrae, O Tenebrae! Et Ite Nunc! And as he spoke, a colder wind spring up, and flakes of snow began to fall. The keeper knew that this was the Ice Lord, and he had taken our fire and bound it to his will, stealing the light and warmth from our sun, drawing it to his mountain realm, and causing the days to weaken, and the tribe to feel despair, as all light and joy was stolen from them. The keeper raised his own staff, and chanted an incantation of light: We celebrate the sun returning Growing light, early dawning The sun brings life and growth Rain and sun bring fruits both As the light of the sun grows Passion for life it now bestows. Love is as powerful as death Passion for life in each breath Bursting into strongest flame Let us rejoice, now proclaim Burning heat like raging fire Tongues of flame to inspire So it was that the keeper of the sacred flame battled the Ice Lord, and great was their struggle. Bolts of fire rained down, setting fir trees on fire, and a storm raged around the mountain peak. But the Ice Lord was held at bay, and weakened, and his fortress crumbled, and the dark tower fell. The rocks of the mountain themselves slid, and all came crashing down. Then the keeper bound the Ice Lord, and chained him with many binding spells, and with his baneful power gone, the days began to grow longer once more, and the warmth and light of the sun began its slow return. The keeper of the sacred flame was weary from his struggle, but victorious, and gradually, he retraced his steps, returning to our village. But it can cost him dear; he lost all his powers in that fight, and died soon afterward.

Now all that took place many years ago, and the tale was forgotten, almost lost, except among those who passed it down the years, telling it to each other. And it is said that every year, the Ice Lord breaks his chains, and casts an evil enchantment, binding the sun to him, summoning warmth from the land, and robbing the earth of life, and the people of joy. Then the winter storms bring a dying year, and a fading sun, and despair casts a shadow on the land. But also every year, we rekindle a portion of the sacred flame, when we take the Yule log and burn it anew And as we do so, it is said that the spirit of the keeper of the flame returns to keep us safe, as he awakens from his deep sleep within the trees. Then he ventures forth once more to battle against the dying light, and at the shortest day, he holds the darkness at bay, and the days begin their slow march back to light, growing longer and longer once more. As the trees burned brightly when the battle fought, so we keep a remnant of the burning fires ourselves, and light the Yule log, for hope, for the renewal of the sun at the turning point of the year, and as we leap over the smoldering wood, we too cross the threshold from darkness into light and are reborn. Pass through fire, be not burned Such is promise now discerned.

Tony Bellows

A Re-connecting with all life

Here we are, on the verge of the highly anticipated, media-hyped, sometimes feared, mysterious year, here in the west, known as 2012. The world around us, is in an uproar, as there is major uncertainty and fear. There is the "Occupy Movement" around the world and the establishments reaction to it; we see corporations stepping up pressure on their lackeys in government to secure their own wealth and safety; we see extremist religionists working magick to attempt to destroy Mother Earth and her Children and reshape it all in their fearful images. People are losing their healthcare benefits, jobs, homes and security. The old ways of right verses left, of Democrat verses Republican, are not working anymore. People are starting to seek local foods and sustainable living as they see how life as we know it may not last until the next generation. Some are living off the grid completely, while others just do what they can, while being stuck or preferring city life. This is a time of extreme chaos and some see it as a time of great danger.

Yet this can be a time of new beginnings and of Gaia awakening Herself. Since the old patterns of culture and government are not working, people are creating new ways. Many are learning to live simply and lightly; turning their back on the consumeristic culture they are surrounded by. Some are turning to holistic healing, others are growing their own food and others are learning to spin and weave. The "Old Ways" are coming back out of sheer necessity and out of a desire to a more meaningful and compassionate life. Many people are concerned with ascension, that is moving into higher dimensions and leaving this realm behind; which can be a good thing depending on your motive.

I would like to propose that some of us, literally, want to follow the Buddhist teachings, and take all life with us when we "ascend". It does not matter if we're Pagan, Buddhist, OtherKin, Witches, Druids, Natives, Aboriginals, Magickians, metaphysical students, Shamans, people of more mainstream religions who love the earth or even the common person who loves the earth. We are here to help Mother Earth awaken Herself. We are here to come back into balance and connection with all Life. We are here to shift the balance of energies into a gestalt, moving past the right brain-left

brain, male-female, violence-pacifism, rational-emotional etc conflicts that have been so destructive in our lives and the world around us. I've worked with a specific group of Dragon Spirits for over 20 years and wrote a blog about the magickal system they helped me create as a reaction to the DC40 activities.

(http://thedragonsgraal.wordpress.com).

The Dragons showed me, and a friend confirmed it by tapping into it, that Gaia has a rainbow grid of energy flowing around the world which is found in the crystal layer of this planet. I was told that this is Her new consciousness. If we, here in the west, seek to actively become a part of Her and move past our imbalances, then we are to ground into this new energy grid and open a new set of chakra-grids that connect us in new ways, to the: mineral, animal, plant, spirit, Gaia and human realms.

This is one of many ways to reconnect, you do not have to do it this way, it just happens to be something you can do on your own and is fairly simple. An advantage of this way is that you are consciously creating horizontal grids that connect you to the different realms I mentioned earlier. The more of us who

connect to this deep rainbow bring and bring the energies to the surface, even if we do not open the chakra-grids, will be helping shift the energies toward a better more healthy world for all. However, the more of us who connect the chakra-grids with the realms will be helping all life to move into a better dimension, not an fancy ascension, just a simple re-integrating and uplifting.This is not a religion, you do not need any formal initiation (though being in the presence of someone who is connected is helpful as it lets you get a feel of what you are connecting to). You do have to be willing to work with Dragons.

Basically you find open a new energy tube along your spine and send it deep into the earth and connect with the rainbow grid deep in the Mother. After this is an active circuit between you and the Mother, you need to ask a Dragon to come help you establish your five earth connecting chakra-grids. S/he will help you create five new chakras that each in time will become a horizontal grid into infinity in the associate realm. Another Dragon will help you create a way to modulate and manage all the new energies coming into your being so you are not overwhelmed.

Many of us have heard about some form of energy channel running along our spire that goes deep into the earth and may pass through us into the sky. We could have studied Tai Chi, Yoga or energy healing. Some traditions talk about another tube closer to the spine than the common one we experience when we ground ourselves. Here, however, we are looking for a faint, flat whitish channel in front of the common spinal energy channel. If you can not find it, pretend it is there and act accordingly. That is a classic concept from hypnotherapy; our subconscious mind does not know the difference between reality and pretending. Here is how you do it.

Part I. Energizing the tube and creating a permanent link to Gaias' new rainbow grid.

Set up whatever sacred space you are used to, do a general grounding, centering and protecting. Focus on your breathing while imaging the room filled with rainbow light. See

your frustrations, negativity, blocks, illness, aches, pains etc being exhaled on your breath as black smoke. See the rainbow light shift the smoke into colored light. As you inhale, bring in the rainbow light and let it flow through out your body. Create a gentle breathing pattern so your body is comfortable while you are focusing on this other activity. Now, intend that you are focused on the "Taproot to the Mother" that lies along your spine. As you breath in rainbow light, see the taproot being filled with rainbow light until it sprouts a strong taproot. Imagine this taproot, going from your sacroiliac deep into the earth and connecting with the rainbow grid. After awhile you will feel vibrant, mother-of-pearl, rainbow light flowing up into your new channel along your spine and to your pineal gland, it flows back down again. Please see the following illustration.

Part II. Establishing the new Horizontal Chakra-Grids with the Five realms.

After you are comfortable with this new energy line, ask while meditating, for a Dragon Guide to help you re-activate the horizontal "chakra-grids". You will, in the beginning, sense five areas start to create energy balls in this taproot along your spine. After a point, these balls of rainbow light will turn into flower-buds. After more breathing the flower buds will turn the correct color of the center along the taproot. You may discover that there will be a block when you work with a center; this means you have some kind of issue with the kingdom in question. Once you resolve that, then the opening will be easier.

Open the crown chakra-grid first while asking to work with your special dragon spirit so you can safely open each of the flowers. This dragon will help you with the opening and integrating of the energies of each grid and realm. Think about it, if you are truly connected to the plant realm, you could be overwhelmed with the energies and impression of trees who're crudely cut down or if you are new to the animal realm, you may feel the emotions of animals being abused. We want to re-connect to life, not be overwhelmed by it. We need to be able to process and integrate the energies so we become part of the greater whole, not overwhelmed by it.

Here are the table of correspondences to use to help open and connect the Chakra-grids. You can use color, vowel sounds and vocal tones as you visualize and connect to each realm.

Just stay with the flow and let the energies enlarge the buds. After a while you will see the flower open and in the center will be Gaia, sort of a 3-D image. Keep gently sending energy to the center and intending that you connect with Gaia on whatever realm you are focusing on. After awhile you will notice the lowest flower petals growing larger and larger, then shredding at the edges. Stay relaxed and focused, this is normal. This is how the grid forms. As more rainbow energy is converted to the center energy, more petals will form and grow, feeding the petals that form the growing grid. Eventually you see the edges of the whole flower shredded and the grid extending into infinity.

As long as Gaia is in the center of the flower, you are not yet completely connected. Once Gaia is replaced by a Double Dragon Eye (aka as a merkaba or double tetrahedron), then you know you're permanently connected. When all five flowers have the Double Dragons Eye in their center, you are horizontally linked to the Spirit Realm, the Plant realm, the animal realm, the mineral realm and both gaia herself and the Human realms in a new way.

During this time, you need to work closely with your Dragons and guides; one of them will be your "Integrator". S/He will help you create a way to control, integrate and access all these new energies. S/He will help you create a special "control room" at the back of your pineal gland. Here you will be able to control the energies so you can still live your day to day life, yet you will be able to access and view energies when you feel a call for help or need to access information.

There is a yoga mudra that can help integrate the energies in your physical body. It is called the "Surabhi" or "5 Element Balancing" mudra. Despite the picture below, all fingers should be joined at their tips (I'm not that coordinated). The left pinkie finger touches the right ring

finger, the right pinkie finger touches the left ring finger; the left index finger touches the right middle finger, the right index finger touches the left middle finger and finally the thumbs touch. Spend 5-10 minutes here while breathing gently.

I hope this may inspire you to help create the conditions for Gaia and all life to be brought back into balance. May all Beings be Happy, may all Beings be Free, may all Beings be Interconnected and Whole again. So mote it be. Vajranagini Om.

Vocational Astrology – The

Key to Revealing Your

Ideal Career Direction

By ©Diane Wing, M.A.

Article #2

Astrology has many factions and focuses.

The planetary energies and their

placements can be interpreted to reveal

health issues, ideal relationships, and to

predict how these energies can impact

your life. Astrology is a complex system

of metaphysics that requires a lifetime of

study to truly master. With each new

piece of knowledge learned, more layers

are discovered ripe for analysis. Its

complexity allows for myriad opportunities

for interpretation. That is the art and the

science of it, all based on the perspective

and level of understanding of the

astrologer.

In this series of articles, the focus will be

on vocational astrology, the indicators

that reveal your ideal career, purpose,

and work in this lifetime. I write from the

perspective of the Occult Astrologer. My

underlying philosophy is that as we come

closer to self-mastery, we have the ability

to overcome the challenges we came with

into this life as revealed by the natal

chart. Hence, whatever we uncover in

this process is not written in stone; you

have the ability to create your destiny.

This is article #2 in the series.

The Rising Sign

The rising sign or ascendant reveals your

projected self, or how others see you. It

is also the sign that reflects the planet

ruling your chart, that is, whichever planet

rules the sign that was rising over the

horizon at your time of birth. For

example, if you have a Taurus rising,

Taurus is ruled by Venus, and so Venus

becomes the chart ruler. Having this

point allows us to determine the way the

native comes across to other people and

the planetary energies that drive outward

behavior.

You need your time of birth in order to

calculate the ascendant. If you are not

sure, know that the ascendant changes

every 2 hours, so you can adjust the time

starting at 12 am and see which best fits

you. As mentioned in the last article,

there are many websites that offer free

natal charts.

Once you know your ascendant, check out

the sign meanings in any book or site on

the 12 zodiac signs and see how it fits

with the way others see you. Your rising

sign could be the reason that you don’t

completely fit with descriptions of your

Sun sign. For example, one of the main

description of the sign of Sagittarius is

that they love to travel – whether

physically or mentally. The rising sign can

be the determining factor in how the

person expresses this particular

characteristic. If the rising sign is Taurus,

this particular Sag is most likely a

homebody who likes to travel using her

imagination, reading, or watching travel

programs from the comfort of her own

home. If she has a Sag rising, there is a

high likelihood that she will enjoy actual

physical travel.

Back to the rising sign’s ruler being the

chart ruler, let’s stick with Taurus rising

and Venus being the chart ruler. The next

step is to find in which house Venus sits

and which sign it is in. This will give you

another clue as to your primary vocational

preferences and where your gifts can best

be expressed. The house will indicate

which aspect of your life/work it will be

expressed and the sign will show how it

will be expressed.

In the next installment, we’ll talk about

the Midheaven as a primary indicator of

your career focus.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

YULE Yule logs burn this Solstice night, As wolf and stag observe the light. Deep within the Oak King's wood; We call forth our God beneath our hood. Cernunnos, Herne, the one called Nick; Whatever names you choose to pick. Our Goddess gives birth to our God of light; Rebirth and immortality this sacred night. The bonfire's warmth lessens the chill, As the sacred flames brighten a nearby hill. The wolf and stag seen in the moon's light; Watching over our Sabbat this sacred night. The wolf calls forth in the glistening snow, As the stag calls too in the moon's soft glow; Blessed Be to thee they seem to call, As the wolf's eyes brighten and the stag stands tall. We returned home from our Oak King's wood; Our lanterns lighting the way, as we lower our hood. As we enter the cobblestone path, now moonlit bright; We see our homes in welcoming candlelight. The scent of evergreen, myrrh and spice, With the warmth of home will be quite nice. Wreaths of mistletoe and bayberry adorn our door; A reminder that our God is reborn once more. Our windows bright with candles white Brings peace and joy this sacred night. Our Goddess gave birth to our God of light. The wolf and stag called forth this night. Our ancient sacred fires forever burn, As the Old Ones call forth and forever return. Blessed Be they call on this Solstice night; Our sacred Yule Sabbat so Pagan bright. Radagast the Bard Pennsylvania

Cernunnos by Shaneesja

TONY BELLOWS I am a 54 year old

mathematician, living on the Island of

Jersey and working doing I.T. for a local

accountancy firm. My interests include

Neo-Platonism, Christianity, Buddhism,

Druidry, New Age, Jewish Renewal,

science, philosophy and history. Writes

articles for a local magazine in his spare

time, and writes Wheel of the Year

meditations for rituals in a local

Pagan group. Jersey has a history

reaching back to Neanderthal settlements

in the Paleolithic, many dolmens and

menhirs from the Neolithic, and ancient

churches from the 10th century, some

with murals on the walls. The rich

prehistory and history, and the closeness

of the sea, give me the inspiration for my

meditations.

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/tonytheprof

Selected books:

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/o

gham-meditations/15240009

Ogham Meditations - a series of poems

with color photographs

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/

witch-trials-in-jersey-and-

guernsey/12656704

Witch Trials in Jersey and Guernsey: A

Critical Survey

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/

witch-light/4346685

Witch Light: Poems on Pagan Themes

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/j

ersey-wonders/3837145

Jersey Wonders: Narrative poems on

Jersey history, legends and Jersey today

BETTY DOBSON is an award-winning

creative writer, freelance editor and

independent publisher with a neverending

passion for genealogy and golden age

comic books. You can find her blogs at:

InkSpotting:Writing, life and the writing

life.

http://bettydobson.blogspot.com/

The Golden Rage

http://goldenrage.blogspot.com/

The Poetry Bug

http://thepoetrybug.blogspot.com/http://r

ovinggenealogist.blogspot.com/

The Roving Genealogist

http://rovinggenealogist.blogspot.com/htt

p://rovinggenealogist.blogspot.com/

Editor's Note: this article originally

appeared on Betty Dobson's blog page at:

http://bettydobson.blogspot.com

TOM DONOHUE is a recently retired

teacher from Lowell High School in San

Francisco, where he taught for twenty

years. Prior to that, he was a Public Health

Microbiologist, first in Bacteriology then in

Virology. He has been a researcher on

telomerase at the Blackburn Lab, UCSF.

under Nobel Laureate, Elizabeth

Blackburn. He has been a member of

CAW for over 25 years but considers

himself to have been Pagan since the age

of seven. He has an identical twin brother

who is also Pagan.

KENNY KLEIN is a fiddler, guitarist,

singer and all-around performer, a

veteran of Renaissance Festivals, concert

venues and smoky Country bars. Well

known for both serious songs and for his

tongue-in-cheek, spry lyrics, Kenny

performs such original songs as "Maria's

Not A Catholic Anymore," "Goth Girl

Blues," and his show ender "What Do You

Do With An Old Dead Gerbil?". His stories

of renaissance festival life and of the

streets of New York are seriously funny.

Originally from New York City, Kenny has

traveled throughout the U.S.A. and

Europe, playing and collecting fiddle tunes

and songs. He has played main stage

shows and pub shows at Renaissance

Festivals, including Colorado, Georgia,

Maryland, New York, Ohio, Scarborough

Fair (Texas), Four Winds (Texas),and

Northern California; He has performed in

legendary folk bars and venues including

Folk City (NYC) and Speakeasy (NYC),

Ramblin Conrad's (VA), and Marie Poll's

(L.A.). He's played with country bands in

Missouri, Celtic bands in Belgium, and he's

won fiddling championships in New York

and Kansas.

PSYCHE LAMPLIGHTER has been a

Pagan since 1996 and was a member of

the Church of All Worlds. She and her

mate of eight years, Tom Donohue,

moved from northern California to the

mountains of Tennessee in 2005. After a

number of various careers, including that

of psychotherapist for 15 years and a

flight attendant, she has finally found her

calling as editor of Green Egg. You can

contact her at: www.greeneggzine.com

IONA MILLER is a non-fiction writer for

the academic and popular press,

hypnotherapist (ACHE) and multimedia

artist. She has appeared in Nexus and

Paranoia, authored several books and

international publications. She is

interested in the effects of doctrines from

esoterics, religion, science, psychology

and the arts. http://ionamiller.weebly.com

VAJRANAGINI OM has spent over the

last 25 years intensely studying the

spiritual path, mostly as a solitary. She

grew up a fundamentalist Christian in the

rural Midwest; received a Bachelors

degree in Biology/Psychology and a

Masters degree in library science. She is a

Reiki master-teacher of the Usui Shiki

Ryoho tradition and has been training in

Animal Reiki as taught by Kathleen

Prasad. She considers herself a

DragonMage, a student of Tibetan

Buddhism and Priestess of Privithee She is

a first level student at the Grey School of

Wizardry and is finishing her basic training

with the Sound Healers Association.

(Jonathan Goldman). She is a life

member of Witch School International.

She is very interested in using spiritual

means to support green, sustainable living

and is forming a career consisting so far,

of Animal Reiki, Himalayan Singing Bowls

and Sound for Sustainability. Her studies

included Neo-Paganism, Wicca, Druidism,

the New Age, general Metaphysics, the

Qabalah, Ritual Magic and Hermeticism;

Tae Kwon Do, Ninjutsu and the Chi Gong

system of Taoist Master Mantak Chia.

RADAGAST THE BARD is a solitary

eclectic Pagan from Pennsylvania. He has

been a student of the occult and esoteric

arts for over 35 years, including the

Egyptian Mythos. He is a member of the

Fellowship of Isis, Ar nDraiocht Fein: a

Druid fellowship, and Circle Sanctuary. He

credits his Welsh ancestry for his Druidic

and Wiccan leanings and worships the

Goddess Diana; although his strong

affinity for ancient Egypt continues to

draw him to the Goddess Isis.

[email protected]

SYLVEEY SELU is the founder of the

Pentacle Project which brings to light the

lies perpetuated against Pagans and

confronts those lies with the truth. You

can find Sylveey on Face Book

http://www.facebook.com/Pentacleproject

t?sk=wall

MARC SYLVIR is a teacher of

metaphysics and meditation and has been

writing guided meditations for over 15

years. He was formerly a High Priest for a

Celtic trad coven, and is currently the

High Priest for a small group of eclectics.

He wrote the book The Elemental Path

about meditating on the elements. He

currently lives in Denver, CO and in

addition to teaching, he also works for a

national non-profit and emcees for

concerts in and around the Denver metro

area and for a yearly science fiction/horror

convention.

DIANE WING M.A. is an author, teacher,

personal transformation guide and

intuitive consultant. Diane has a masters

degree in clinical Psychology and almost

three decades of professional experience

helping people reach their full potential. In

addition to her many articles, she is the

author of the books, The True Nature of

Tarot: Your path to personal

empowerment and the novel Coven- both

available on Amazon.com- as well as two

tools of self-empowerment, Insight Stones TM- a game of self awareness and

Pathways- an interactive journey of self

discovery. Diane works with her clients to

find meaning and fulfillment in their lives

by helping them release their Inner

Magick. She believes it is never too late to

change your life, to come fully into

yourself, or to expand your mind beyond

its current state. It is possible to manifest

your purpose, have healthy relationships

and live an inspired life free to create

anything you want.

She offers a safe place for transformation

so you can experience profound changes

in your life. Her programs allow clients to

work at their own pace in order for them

to release that which no longer serves

them and to get relief from the anxiety

and worry of constantly taking

responsibility for those around them.

Diane has been providing valuable insights

for the highest good of her clients for over

27 years. She has appeared on many blog

talk radio programs and has been

published in various magazines, both in

print and on line. Her website is:

www.forestwitch.com When you join her

Forest Witch community, you’ll receive a

copy of her eBook, How to Release your

Inner Magick.

OBERON ZELL-RAVENHEART is a

cofounder of the Church of All Worlds and

founding editor/publisher of Green Egg

Magazine, as well as a writer and speaker

on the subject of Neopaganism. He

completed a Bachelor of Arts degree in

Psychology from Westminster College in

Fulton, Missouri in 1965. In 1967 he

received a Doctor of Divinity from Life

Science College in Rolling Meadows,

Illinois then a teaching certificate from

Harris Teacher’s College in St. Louis in

1968. He also spent some time on

graduate studies at Washington University

in St. Louis. An early advocate of deep

ecology, Zell-Ravenheart articulated the

Gaea Thesis in 1970, independently of Dr.

James Lovelock who is usually credited

with the theory’s development. Along with

his co-wife, Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart

and the other members of his group

marriage, he has been influential in the

modern polyamoury movement.

Zell-Ravenheart also co-founded the

Ecosophical Research Association in 1977,

an organization that explores the truth

behind myths. This group was known for

the “living unicorns” they created by

minor surgery to the horn buds of goats.

One of their unicorns, Lancelot, toured

with the Ringling Brothers’ Barnum and

Bailey Circus.

*******************************************************************