Learn Dash
I was ecstatic upon learning that WordPress was developing an LMS. Although the world of Learning Management Systems is vast, none are stellar and rise above the rest. Most people speak of their LMS with frustration and aggravation. Hopefully LearnDash will change that. I’m most excited about the possibility of being able to customize features and functions. Being able to use themes and plugins and integrate with a WordPress site would expand the realm of possibilities. Having options like awarding certificates, being able to sell courses and use of media like video make this product a valuable training resource across industries and organizations. A streamlined and customizable LMS is exactly what eLearning needs! I have been struggling for years to build/cobble together some kind of LMS system for delivering classes to students who don’t live in my immediate area. This will drastically increase our ability to teach students who live far away from us. Wordpress has been my CMS since version 2.0 and I am excited that their is finally a workable and useful solution for making WordPress into a better LMS system....
read moreThe Worship of Strange Gods
From Grandiloquent Word of the Day Humanity is capable of many great things. One of the things that I place on that list is the ability of humanity to believe. It is upon our beliefs that we build the foundations of our everyday existence. From the small to the grandiose, everything we do is affected by the simple, constant fact that we believe. Everything we interact with is based upon this. Don’t think this is correct? Maybe you’re right. However, I would like you to think about all of the small rituals you and others do. For instance, let’s look at breakfast: Do you say a prayer before you eat? Perform any type of ceremony? Do you make your food the same way everyday? Have you ever wondered why? I think this is because of what we believe (whether consciously or unconsciously). To quote (at length) the character Sam from American Gods by Neil Gaiman: “I can believe things that are true and things that aren’t true and I can believe things where nobody knows if they’re true or not. “I can believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny and the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe and Elvis and Mister Ed. Listen – I believe that people are perfectable, that knowledge is infinite, that the world is run by secret banking cartels and is visited by aliens on a regular basis, nice ones that look like wrinkled lemurs and bad ones who mutilate cattle and want our water and our women. “I believe that the future sucks and I believe that the future rocks and I believe that one day White Buffalo Woman is going to come back and kick everyone’s ass. I believe that all men are just overgrown boys with deep problems communicating and that the decline in good sex in America is coincident with the decline in drive-in movie theaters from state to state. “I believe that all politicians are unprincipled crooks and I still believe that they are better than the alternative. I believe that California is going to sink into the sea when the big one comes, while Florida is going to dissolve into madness and alligators and toxic waste. “I believe that antibacterial soap is destroying our resistance to dirt and disease so that one day we’ll all be wiped out by the common cold like martians in War of the Worlds. “I believe that the greatest poets of the last century were Edith Sitwell and Don Marquis, that jade is dried dragon sperm, and that thousands of years ago in a former life I was a one-armed Siberian shaman. “I believe that mankind’s destiny lies in the stars. I believe that candy really did taste better when I was a kid, that it’s aerodynamically impossible for a bumble bee to fly, that light is a wave and a particle, that there’s a cat in a box somewhere who’s alive and dead at the same time (although if they don’t ever open the box to feed it it’ll eventually just be two different kinds of dead), and that there are stars in the universe billions of years older than the universe itself. “I believe in a personal god who cares about me and worries and oversees everything I do. I believe in an impersonal god who set the universe in motion and went off to hang...
read moreThe Spell of Making
I have been rereading one of my favorite books on the subject of crafting a ritual. The book is Blacksun’s Spell of Making. It is a wonderful book on ritual construction that gives you a very pragmatic approach to creating the basic structure or form of any ritual regardless of your religion. I recommend it as a worthwhile read for anyone who is interested in the subject. It is the inspiration for this post. In the beginning of the book it gives an example ritual that Blacksun calls the Spell of Making. One line in the example ritual always strikes a chord in my heart: “The balance between your air, your fire, your water, and your earth is the key to the fifth element: the element of spirit. Keep the balance and your spirit will grow. The altar of the spirit element is in the center of the circle. You are the center of the circle; you are the altar of the spirit. To grow in spirituality, keep the wheel turning and keep it balanced” -Blacksun We are our own temple. We are Sacred. And in us all – even if you do not know it – is an altar where we make the magic that we fill the world with. When was the last time you looked another human in the eyes or connected with them? When was the last time you looked yourself in the eyes and had a conversation with yourself? I think it is very important to remember to tend to this temple and the altar within yourself just as you would tend to any external altar. Do the same things that you would do to tend any external temple and apply them to yourself. Take time to treat yourself as sacred. Do the things that make you happy in your soul. Also, and I think its just as important, remember that no one can enter your temple or place anything on your altar without your express permission. Just make sure to invite people in to share that which is divinity and the sacredness that is you. It has been my personal experience that Pagans (and humanity in general) focus on the external world because it is simpler. There is always something about the introspective process that I think makes people hesitant. Sometimes we are even wary of any connection (or even the potential of one) with another human being. “There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.” – Carl Gustav Jung Don’t be hesitant, wary, or afraid. Dare to get to know your inner self. If you do not find something you love, you can always change it. But I am willing to bet that you will be better off for knowing it. I think it is always better to know than to not know, even if it hurts because that gives us the opportunity to grow. Remember “all things which have been thought, given energy, and made meaningful by your emotions are of value to neither yourself nor anyone else if not made real. But remember, what you make real, you are responsible for.”...
read moreScientific Understanding of the Seven Bodies of Light
Understanding the Seven Bodies of Light (Scientific) My thoughts on this article (WARNING: Science Ahead!) http://www.relisoft.com/Science/Physics/MicroAnt.html I have studied/been taught about our seven bodies of light, chakras, and the planes of existence and how they correspond to each other for all of my life. Throughout history people have been able to sense or perceive a person’s energy field or aura. Today, through discoveries of modern technology, we are actually able to glimpse and capture an image of someone’s aura. In most modern metaphysical teachings about auras, also known as the seven bodies of light you get a diagram similar to the one below. I find that this point of view is rather limiting in conception. It shows the bodies surrounding us in layers somewhat like an onion in a fixed position. Accordinng to Hermeticism and the principles presented in the Kybalion of Vibration, Polarity, and Rhythm we know the following. That everything “embodies the idea that motion is manifest in everything in the Universe, that nothing rests, and everything moves, vibrates, and circles”, “the idea that everything is dual, everything has two poles, and everything has its opposite”, and “that in everything there is manifested a measured motion, a to and fro, a flow and inflow, a swing backward and forward, a pendulum-like movement.” With this being said, all of these principles apply to our auras and their manifestation on the seven planes of existence. Our bodies of light fluctuate, change, shrink, and grow. We can see the differences through the use of technology, but still have a very limited understanding of all of the bodies on all of the planes. This is in in part due to the way we view these bodies. We have been trying to view something on a microcosmic scale instead of a macrocosmic one, much in the way we viewed the Earth as the center of our galaxy instead of the sun. if we switch our perspectives on reality we are better able to grasps the limits of something that seems limitless. In this day and age we know how big the Earth is even though very few of us have ever seen the Earth from any vantage point than our own two eyes. We have been able to measure it and study it based on our observations about the planet, and other objects in our solar system. So how do we measure our bodies of light? We turn to the analytical tool that humanity has relied upon for the last two centuries: Science. Putting it all together Based on the previous section it becomes easier to understand the principles I am about to put forth. The size of one celestial body has often been described as so massive it is unknowable. Certainly a field of energy that encapsulates the distance from the Earth to the Moon would be hard to comprehend! Let me explain. The speed of light is approximately 300,000km per second. As described in the previous section, this is the largest possible neighborhood (from all of the other planes of existence) that we are affected by during that single point in time (in every direction). In Paganism when we say that everything is connected (Similar to the Gaia Hypothesis) this is why. We can see the direct correlation between each object...
read moreTo be Silent
Some recent conversations have led me to ponder the wisdom of the lesson of the element of Earth: to be silent. Along with this I have been contemplating this line from the Rede ““Soft of eye and light of touch; Speak little, Listen Much”. Furthermore, I have be focusing on the form and force of Elemental earth as well. One might begin to see a pattern here. Being an epic flame headed fire sign, I must admit that I have not always been the most tenacious in dealing with the other elements. Earth and Air were there to fuel my fire, to aid in its strength, and I kind of avoided dealings with Water. I see myself and my magic through the lenses of my sacred fire. It is from this vantage point I consider the mundane and magical worlds, the gods, and even the divine itself. My fire is always within me, and I am always within it. So how do I listen to the Earth and see it as more than just fuel to be added to the Fire? Honestly, this has taken me a good long while to figure out, especially since I love to talk, to discuss, to express myself with my words. I’ve been contemplating the symbol itself for a while. I have been digging (no pun intended) about in its explicit and implicit symbolism for most of my life. Why do we as Pagan/Wiccans stress the benefits of the lesson of the element of earth? I think we can find some of the answers in what the symbol itself is a representation of. The element of Earth is thought to be dirt, stone, cave, and tree. It is the representation of those dark places hidden away from plain view. It is the womb and the tomb as many people say. It is there in those dark quiet places that we are often faced with the truth of ourselves. It is the silence of that space that gives our minds the room and time to approach and process the things we need to tackle. In essence, it allows us to speak with ourselves and hopefully find the answers we are seeking. In modern (American or western) society we are taught that we have the right and obligation to express how we think and feel in a variety of ways. In fact, we have ways that are far grander and faster to express this than any other generation alive. We can instantly share these thoughts and feelings with any one of the close to the 7 billion people on this planet. But are we actually taking the time to think, feel, process, and communicate what we are trying to say? I do not always think so. I know I can be guilty of this. I think we express only the surface of our feelings, hiding the truer, deeper meanings even from ourselves. We are taught (especially as men) to conceal our emotions, to silence ourselves to fit into the great cog of what is considered socially acceptable. We are taught by society that we need to don emotionless masks to hide ourselves behind them in order to survive and have a chance at thriving. This is why for so many people having a figurative “skeleton” in the closet is such a bad thing....
read moreBuilding the Magic of the Future
Star Foster over on the Pantheon blog got me thinking with her two recent articles on the feasibility of Pagan temples in the modern age. ( first article : second article ). Doing something like this would be a considerable undertaking by any group of Pagans in the community. It would also take a transformation of the financial mentality of Pagan community as eloquently pointed out by John Beckett over at Under the Oaks. The idea behind building a temple in the Southeast region is one I am a enthusiastic supporter of. That is not the point of the article though. The idea of a Pagan temple (whether built or converted) makes me wonder about the accomplishments of modern Paganism and its relationship to the future. Pagans around the world are blessed with a wealth of sacred sites and objects, the legacy of people’s mystical traditions left behind. There are such things as the Mayan Calendar, Stone Henge, the Great pyramids and the Sphinx, or the Bighorn Medicine Wheel.But what kind of legacy are we leaving for the generations of Pagans to come? I can think of a great many things we have gained such as religious freedoms, a level of social acceptance, knowledge/lore, and legal standing (all things that I am extremely grateful for). There are also currently projects that I am aware of such as the New Alexandrian Library that are attempting to build a lasting heritage for the Pagan community. But what have we as modern Pagans built? Nothing comes to mind (or google search). This makes me think – Why haven’t we? Do we need to? The comments on Star’s article might be a good indication as to why. They make several good points such as: Money Time Effort Diversity I think that these are all excellent reasons why. However, deep in my heart and mind I feel that a different reason is the answer. I think the answer is very simple. I think it might have to do with the Self and by extension selfishness . Modern Paganism is a religion that teaches and strives to guide us towards enlightenment. We spend a great deal of time looking at ourselves in relation to our personal journey along the path and the many trials and tribulations we encounter upon it. It takes a great amount of effort for us to detach ourselves from our personal wants and to focus on the needs of the community. I will be the first to admit that I can be guilty of this. I think that humanity as a whole does it on a subconscious level (Maslow’s_hierarchy_of_needs). I also think that Pagans may do it more than most (We are a minority religion and as such have faced a lot of hardships). Since we focus on the self I think we might also be limiting ourselves in our long-term prospects from a magical perspective. As a Pagan who practices the Wheel of the Year and the cyclical nature of the Craft, I think I might have unintentionally limited myself. I tend to focus on the current Wheel as I walk it – the path that is before me and those I share it with. Because of that focus have I limited myself and the magic I work to fit within the confines of the Wheel of the Year? I think so, and I think that...
read moreAll that sure is change…
Changes There is a saying I used to hear growing up in a coven and around the pagan community as I grew up. That saying was ” All that sure is change…“. It was a saying that was used to imply that the Wheel of the Year moves on and so does the cycle of our lives. It was a saying that was offered to people to provide comfort; to ease them into (sometimes drastic) changes they had recently undergone. Words have a lot of power and meaning, especially to those who follow the path of Paganism as their religious preference. We are told to choose our words wisely in a variety of ways. After the recent events of my life I am reminded of this saying, and I do find myself taking solace in it. Death is one of the most profound changes that occurs within life. The pagan view of death (at least the one I was taught) is a very interesting one. I was taught that the Soul or Monad does not die. That death is only the end of the rhythm of this lifetime and the beginning of a new one (The Hermetic Law of Polarity). I also think that this mirrors the scientific laws of conservation of mass and energy. The bodies of incarnation are discarded when they are no longer required, but the monad is immortal. To the monad, each incarnation is like a day’s work. Leaving the physical-etheric body behind can be compared to taking off our overcoat, leaving the emotional body behind is like taking off our clothing, and leaving the mental body behind is like taking off our underwear. We return to our causal body (soul) completely naked to sleep for a while before awakening the next morning to get dressed again for another day’s work. We begin each new incarnation by putting on our underwear (mental body), our clothes (emotional body) and our overcoat (physical-etheric body). After a long hard day at work we are tired and our overcoat is worn out, so we take it off and head back home to sleep. I have been witness to three deaths as they happened. I think the process by which the monad exits the physical-etheric body to be a deeply beautiful and magickal one, a process just as beautiful and magickal as when the monad enters the body. And the Tower.. There are some changes that forever alter, shift, or change the very reality we live in. The last year has brought me a lot of changes and difficult times. Most recently, I went through one of the most profound changes in my life. It was a grandiose change that shook the very foundation of my reality and the realities of many of the people whom I care deeply about. This change was like an earthquake or some other cataclysmic natural disaster. In essence, I had just undergone the direct effect of the Tower. Even the traditional meaning of the card seems to have a direct correlation to my life right now. In a moment, it is over. The Tower is rubble, only rocks remaining. Stunned and shaken to the core, the Fool experiences profound fear and disbelief. But also, a strange clarity of vision, as if his inner eye...
read moreLeaving a Legacy
In Paganism honoring the legacy left to you by those who come before you is important. The legacy they impart to you while they are alive and after they pass on is a great one, and one that needs to be treated with honor and humility. As Paganism grows older and matures we will need to think about what each generation will leave behind for the next. The teachings must be preserved, archives prepared, etc. I was lucky enough to grow up in a Wiccan coven and one of the things that there was never shortage of was books. My mother and father loved books and had a vast collection of them. Lady Galadriel was well known for her ability to hunt down an elusive book in the days prior to the internet. I believe that my mother was one of those people vendors both loved and hated to see come into their store as her haggling skills we nothing short of legendary. Over the years, many valiant attempts were made to record the contents the library. My dad liked to joke that we broke several librarians in attempts to do so We do not even exactly how many books the library contains. The library grew over the years, and grew, and grew to the size it is today. Our best guess is that the library contains around a few thousand books (estimates out the library at over three thousand books on the conservative side) on the occult with the main focus of the library being on subjects relevant to Paganism and Wicca in particular. Now that my father has passed into the Summerlands, stewardship of this library has past to the next generation. Willow Blue and myself have taken on the responsibility to take care of the Library that my parents spent their lives collecting. I have begun the task of cataloging the contents of the library ( http://connect.collectorz.com/users/utlibrary/books/view?viewType=list). So far I have made it through three bookshelves, with about seventeen left to go. However, our dreams do not stop there. Once we have cataloged all of the books in the library we will be opening a by mail pagan lending library (Due to the nature of some of the books they will only be available in person). We hope to have a physical location where Pagans may come and study the various subjects of the craft for a weekend or longer in person as well. We hope to continue to expand (and READ!) the collection as our lifetimes go on, and one day leave this legacy and resource for the next generation. Our hope and dream is to build this into the largest Pagan lending library in the South East or even North America. We are currently in the process of setting everything up the Unicorn’s Legacy: The Library of Lady Galadriel and Lord Athanor and I will let you know further details as we know them. In Their Service, Blessed...
read moreThe Future of Pagan Leadership
***Disclaimer: I would like to state that this is entirely my opinion and doesn’t reflect the opinions of anyone else. I am not referring to anyone but wish to have an open and honest discourse about the subject. Please let me know why you agree or disagree with me civilly! I would sincerely love to hear it.*** A few months back I stumbled upon a fascinating article on the future of Pagan clergy and a possible direction that it could take over at Penton called “Paganism: No longer a religion of clergy” by Erebos. The article espoused what I considered some revolutionary ideas in regards to differences between what being a lay clergy and full time clergy could potentially be. The article suggests that full-time Pagan clergy hypothetically should be: Clergy serve both the gods and the communities in which they practice. Clergy are those who have advanced spiritual training, commitment, service and experience. Clergy are the spiritual leaders, teachers and interpreters of their traditions and faith. Clergy are those who find that their particular talents and temperaments incline them to assist, nurture and guide the religious and spiritual practice of others. Clergy administers and runs, on a day-to-day basis temple/coven/hearth/grove/organizations, etc. business. Clergy provide a central point for communication and crisis intervention. Clergy act as the public face of the tradition or belief system; they invite interfaith dialogue and information sharing. Clergy guide those who are inspired to find their own path to the Divine. Clergy work with the Gods directly, but they do not act as permanent intermediaries, but more like guides to help others until they know their way around. I think and feel that this is a very good representation of what full-time Pagan clergy should be. I know that others may feel that some requirements should be added or taken away, but in general I believe that this represents a good solid foundation for full-time Pagan clergy to model themselves after. A few months later, I got into a discussion with Lady Charissa of North Georgia Solitaries (and several others) about Pagan leadership and ministerial duties over a couple of articles she shared. One of those articles was Sunfell’s (article link) which has been around since the early 2000′s. This means the concept and desire for change has been prevalent in the Pagan collective (sub)consciousness for over a decade now. From my own experiences, I do not think much has changed from the standard model of Pagan leadership. But why hasn’t it? One reason for this seems to be the diversity of the Pagan religious community. We are a varied bunch and I think at times that this can be both a great strength and a hindrance in some circumstances. Due to this diversity I think the Pagan community is slow to change. Much like ripples in water it takes time for them to expand after the initial cause has taken place. Another reason is Pagans tend to balk at organization and structure. The distaste with their current organized religion is a something that led many Pagans to the religion in the first place. However, I think that the concepts of organization and structure as manifestations of the Goddess (Form) in our lives is something that we as Pagans can get behind. As our religion grows to face the issues...
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