Last night I dreamed a coworker won the lottery. Well, bummer. Apparently I can’t even win in my dreams! lol

But he wanted to open a store for body builders and for some reason we were in Europe. All the streets were cobblestone and the houses were all quaint cottage-like buildings like you see in pictures of Bavaria. I was trying to convince him to carry vitamins in the store, but he was resistant to the idea because he didn’t want to be just another healthfood store. I convinced him that he should carry just one vitamin line and no one would think he was running a health food store with all the weightlifting gear and whatnot that would make up most of the stock. We kept trying to go to various restaurants for lunch to talk about the other things he wanted in the store, but apparently we weren’t hoitytoity enough and they kept giving us snooty looks until we would leave to look for another place to eat.

Then for some reason I was walking through catacombs beneath a castle, dressed all in white, but the darkness was chasing me. I was wearing some kind of satiny, medieval type dress with long, long ribbons tied at the waist like a belt and flowing after me as I wandered through the dark halls. Whenever the darkness stalking me caught up, bits of the long ribbon would turn black and become lacelike. I woke up just as I managed to find a way out, but by then, the dress hade become entirely black and shroud-like.

Current topics at Socrates_Cafe

1. Ayn Rand vs Albert Camus, Who Would Win? Which philosopher(s) could take either or both of them?
This topic will be discussed at the Socrates_Cafe site

2. Is capitalism immoral?

3. Would we survive without money? My post is here.

4. Is true democracy possible in our society?

5. Are there universal standards of moral behavior? I knew we covered this one already... My post is here.

Is true democracy possible in our society?

It depends upon what you would refer to as a true democracy. There’s no easy definition… the short and the quick of it would be ‘for the people by the people.’ By this loose definition, communism and socialism are both forms of democracy, as is the American form, representative democracy. To ask is a ‘true democracy’ possible, you must define the term…. a government ruled by the people in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised directly by them. By this definition, communism would be the closest thing to ‘true democracy.’

To put it bluntly then, a true democracy would be next to impossible from a national standpoint. Obviously, it’s been tried and it failed, badly, though to connect the former USSR to the ideal of communism is to connect tomatoes to raspberries. Sure they’re both technically fruit, but some people still insist that tomatoes are vegetables.

On a small scale, like the barter system I wrote about yesterday, a true democracy might be possible, but on a large, national scale, the complexity of satisfying that many people is simply not feasible. That’s not to say that democracy cannot be applied on a large scale, but that it must be adapted to fit the situation. No two democracies are going to be alike because no two groups of people are alike. Heck, most individuals can’t even agree on a thing, let alone a couple million. So no ‘true democracy’ is possible, though many variations of the theme exist and are feasible in certain situations.

(because my boss is on vacation and my schedule will be a little weird
over the weekend, here are the next three days)

April 18th

This is the seventh day of the Cerealia.

The Hindu god Rama, seventh incarnation of the god Vishnu, and the goddess Sita are honored with the festival of Rama-Navami, commemorating his royal birth as the first born son of King Dasratha. As part of the celebrations, Hindus tell their favorite stories from his epic poem Ramayana.

April 19th

This is the eighth and last day of the Cerealia. This is similar to the Thesmophoria of the Greeks.

April 20th

The Palilia or Parilia honors the goddess Pales and commemorates the day Romulus built his city. Later the Pales were a pair of familial pastoral deities who guarded cattle and sheep. At twilight, shepherds purified their sheep. First the ground was sprinkled with water, then the sheepfold was decorated with leaves and branches with a large garland at the door. The sheep were run through the smoke made by burning pure sulfur while olives and pine and laurel crackled at the hearth. A basket of millet and millet cakes were offer to the goddess with a pail of milk. As these things were offered, the worshipper requested that she look after the health of the livestock and shepherd alike and that he be forgiven for an unknowing trespass against the nature spirits of the area. The shepherd asked that his flock be numerous and their udders always full, that the cheeses from the milk bring him money and the wool of his sheep be soft. With this request he promised that should his prayers be granted, there would be great cakes for Pales every year.  This appeal said four times, facing the east, the shepherd washed his hands in dewy grass. After leaping over a bonfire three times, herdsmen would enjoy a feast in honor of the Pales. In Rome, the festival was celebrated with wine and merriment.

The Foundation of Rome is celebrated today as the Dea Roma or Natalis Urbis Romae. The walls of Rome were built during the festival of Pales. After the second century, Palilia was combined with Dea Roma and was celebrated as her birthday with processions and Circensian games, which continued till the 5th century.

On St. George’s Day, a Christian equivalent of the Parilia, Southern Slovenian peasants crowned their cows with wreaths of flowers. Later in the evening, the wreaths were taken from the cows and fastened to the door of the cattle-stall, where they remain throughout the year till the next St. George’s Day. St. George’s Day is a continuation of an ancient fertility festival in England. He is a version of Bellerophon, slayer of the Chimera, and of Sigurd, the Norse dragon slayer. The Asatru honor Sigurd and their homeland.

The seventh day of Payni is a Feast of Wadjet.

Current topics at Socrates_Cafe

1. Ayn Rand vs Albert Camus, Who Would Win? Which philosopher(s) could take either or both of them?
This topic will be discussed at the Socrates_Cafe site

2. Is capitalism immoral?

3. Would we survive without money?

4. Is true democracy possible in our society?

5. Are there universal standards of moral behavior?

Would we survive without money?

Long before there was a monetary system, there was a bartering system, wherein people traded goods or services for the same. Barter has existed as long as two people have desired something the other has. The system works best when the two parties agree upon the worth of the items to be traded. Extensive lists outlining the worth of various items have been found in archeological digs in the Middle East and Egypt. Before there was money, bartering was at least as sophisticated as our current stock market.

There is currently a grassroots effort to return to a bartering system.

Personally, I don’t see that it would be possible to return to a system which is exclusively based on barter. Too few of us today have goods or services which we could exchange. Most of us engage in unskilled or intellectual labors which are not in high demand by our fellow man. However, I think a system combining the two ideas could be viable. On a large scale, a monetary system is almost essential due to the fragmentary nature of our world’s infrastructure. On a small, local scale however, if you have the goods or services to provide then that could easily be exchanged for similar “goods.” Say you have a garden and produce too much for your own use. Taking the fruits and vegetables to the local farmers market, you could then exchange your excess for fruits and vegetables which you did not grow or for credit against future goods which they do not currently have in stock. When we enter into the realm of credit, it comes close to the monetary system we currently have. In this case, the farmers’ market might have vouchers from other local businesses which have traded their services for goods. The market might in turn use these as a rate of exchange among those clients who are not interested in exchanging their fruits and vegetables for more of the same.

The barter system could also be used on an international scale via the internet, but it works best among individuals and small businesses. Corporations and nations are at a disadvantage in attempting a barter system because of the scale of the exchange… it’s just to complex. Reducing exchange to numbers then, back to a monetary system, is the only easy way for such large groups to exchange goods and services, especially when taxes are entered into the equation.

The individual could survive without money. I doubt very much that nations could. However, if we are speaking of money as in bills and coins, then yes, I think everyone could survive without money. Having worked in a bank for three years, I’d have to say that I despise money. It’s disgusting and filthy. (I was practically OCD by the time I left.) They say money does not have enough germs to make people sick, however, having worked in jobs which cause a disproportionate exposure to money, I have to say that there’s no way the money does not contribute illness. Cumulatively speaking, people who handle money day in and day out get sick from it, and then they get other people sick from it because the people who handle money the most, usually have the least, so they can’t afford to take off from work and get better. (end mini-rant)

 In this age of technology, it is perfectly plausible that you could survive without having actual money in your pocket. I, for one, would much prefer having a little plastic card than money, if I could help it. Unfortunately, there are places which do not accept plastic, and the banks themselves make exclusive use of plastic unfeasible with the various fees they apply. But if certain changes were made in how banks do business and the technology which allows people to use plastic became wide spread in even the most rural of settings, cash money would become obsolete.

So… can we survive without money? Yes. It’s entirely possible to survive without money. Will we be able to do it any time soon? ‘Fraid not.

April 17th

This is the sixth day of the Cerealia.

Dedicated to Machendrana, the ancient and powerful Indian God of rain, an annual religious event called the Chariot Festival of the Rain God is held in the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal. Beginning today, the festival continues for approximately eight consecutive weeks.

What does it take for someone to earn your trust?

It’s really not too hard to get me to trust you. I tend to give everyone the benefit of the doubt. Keeping my trust? That’s another thing altogether. Everyone’s on probation really. It always seems like I’m only giving people enough rope to hang themselves by giving them my trust, by expecting them to live up to my expectations, by hoping that they are as honorable as I like to think I am.

Generally, the more I know someone, the more I trust them. But saying I trust them is only saying I can gauge what they will do in any situation. I can say I trust people who have wronged me, but really, what I am saying is that I already have a good idea of what they will do and so I trust them, if you want to call it trust, to act in accord with what I have observed of their character.

Does that make sense?

People disappoint me all the time. So to say that I trust people is really stretching things. I’ve yet to meet anyone who’s actions and motivations are beyond reproach, including family. As I’ve mentioned before in other posts, people are intrinsically selfish. So I expect people to act within the scope of their own self-interest. It’s when people don’t act the way I expect that they impress me. People who impress me with their actions earn my respect as well as my trust. With every selfless action, my trust in them grows. In effect, I put them on a pedestal and one little thing can bring it all down like a house of cards.

Yeah… I’m screwed up. I blame my parents. All of my trust issues stem from infancy… when my mom took off on her soul-searching tour and my dad dumped me and my little sister in foster care. When you can’t even trust your parents to be there when you need them, you tend to stop trusting other people PDQ. I was only three when my mom came back, but she says to this day that I was a different little girl than I was before she left. Yeah… being abandoned, neglected, and abused can do that to a person.

What does it take for someone to earn my trust? Honesty…integrity… loyalty… a desire to be better than the lowest common denominator… a willingness to do what is right even if other people duck their heads and look away….

Basically, if you’ve earned my respect, you have my trust. Abuse my trust and you have neither my respect nor my trust. I’ll still treat you the same, but I won’t care if you stay or go.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

April 16th

This is the fifth day of the Cerealia.

The god Apollo was worshiped by his faithful cult in ancient Greece during an annual festival called the Hiketeria.

On this date in the year 1946, Pagan author Margot Adler was born in Little Rock Arkansas. Her Wiccan handfasting on June 19, 1988, was the first Neo-Pagan Wedding to appear in the New York Times’ society pages.

It was customary to begin weeding the crops today.

The 2nd day of Payni is a Holiday of Ra and His Shemsu (followers).

More than 300 years ago, men and women (mostly women) of America were accused of “witchcraft” and hanged for their “crimes.” Over a hundred were accused, dozens died, in prison, hanged, or “pressed by rocks” until dead. Today, despite derision from critics and contempt from their peers, some of the descendants of these “witches” have requested a formal pardon of the state of Connecticut. Some are saying the request is frivolous and a waste of taxpayer money. They are criticizing the descendants of the accused, likening it to African Americans seeking an apology for the enslavement of their ancestors. (In my opinion, anyone who has been wronged is entitled to an apology, at the very least!) Some Pagans are saying we shouldn’t care about these “witches” because they probably were not witches at all.

So what’s the big deal? The victims of this injustice were not Pagans and probably not Witches, so why should I care as a Pagan and a Witch? Why should You care?

Everyone Should Care.

Whatever the events that spurred them on, the execution of these “witches” centuries ago was a hate crime. I don’t really care if the people who were killed as witches three hundred years ago were witches or not. They suffered an injustice, an injustice that is still perpetrated on those accused of “witchcraft” in many parts of the world today (Africa, India, Saudi Arabia…). If their descendants would feel better with a formal pardon, what’s the big deal? Why deny a pardon if it costs nothing to give? It costs more to deny it! Pardons, apologies, even if they’re not coming from the folk who actually condemned these people, it costs the state very little to give them. The same with apologies to African Americans for the enslavement of their ancestors, to Native Americans for the stealing of their lands…. Heck, even the Pope gave a formal apology for the persecution of Witches in Europe and the demonizing of African religions.

The fact that they have to deliberate over giving a pardon is what is costing money, not the simple request for a formal apology. Really, I think it’s disgusting that they have to think about it. And why would anyone in the committee feel compelled to bring Monty Python up at a perfectly serious hearing on the subject? That’s not respectful. I know it’s a psychological thing to not want to admit guilt for something through an apology, but it’s symbolic. Everyone knows that the people alive today did not condemn anyone to death for witchcraft. At the same time though, while the people who were hanged for witchcraft were not Pagans, a public pardon or apology would go a long way towards lessening hostility towards Pagans today. In a round about fashion, it would show some people today that such actions were not acceptable then and are not acceptable now.

Despite modern laws, there is no guarantee that something like the Witch Trials couldn’t happen again. Look at how Asian Americans were treated after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Look at the repercussions of 9/11. Look at Guantanamo Bay. We still have hate crimes (violent or discriminatory) in all levels of society from John Doe on the street to our supposedly unbiased leaders. Making something against the law doesn’t make people stop doing it. It takes peer and societal pressures to deter ignorant actions. So publicly pardoning people who were condemned for something that is grudgingly accepted today could go a long way towards protecting our rights and the rights of our own descendants. If the state gives its pardon, then it is also giving public notice to the less accepting of our countrymen that it is not okay to discriminate and attack others because they are different. If century old hate crimes connected to witchcraft are not brought to the public eye, the public tends to forget. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it. Despite what the state of Connecticut, critics, and disinterested Pagans and Witches may think, the pursuit of justice is never a waste of time… no matter how long ago a crime was committed.

April 15th

This is the fourth day of the Cerealia.

A feast was organized by the Vestal Virgins in honor of Tellus Mater, an Italian Earth-mother, to insure plenty during the year. To ensure a productive year and the continued health of the world, farmers sacrificed a pregnant cow and cremated the unborn calf. Tellus is the matron goddess of all environmentalists.

This is the New Year in Bangladesh.

The Festival of the Iron Phallus, Kanamara Matsuri, is celebrated annually in Kawasaki City, Japan. The ancient Japanese deities associated with sexuality and human reproduction give their sacred blessings and encouragement, especially to couples who wed late in life or to men who suffer from declining potency. Originally the shrine existed to honor the gods of iron, but historically, the area was also the site of lots of brothels. The workers used the temple to pray not to get syphilis and from that this festival started.

The Pi-Puppids meteor shower begins today and ends on the twenty-eighth, peaking on the twenty-third. This is a relatively young stream, only been detected since 1972, and produced by the Comet P/Grigg-Skjellerup. It is best viewed from the southern hemisphere.

The first day of Payni is a Festival of Horus and also for Bast.

Ugh, I ‘m beat. Good thing I have off tomorrow so I can sit on my butt and do nothing. heh

Actually, I’m hoping it’s nice out tomorrow. Lately it seems like any time I’ve had spare time, it’s been raining. Which is okay, we need the rain. I just wish it would rain when I was working and be nice when I had the time to enjoy it. I really want to get out to ramble in the woods before my allergies take a sharp turn for the worse.

It used to be, when I was a kid, that my food allergies where the worst. Chocolate, citrus, malic acid… too much exposure to anyone of these could make as sick as if I had the flu. My air bourn allergies were never really that bad. When I was really little, I’d have pink eye every summer. But back then, we had cats, which I am terribly allergic to, in addition to my pollen and dust mite allergies. By the time we actually got the allergy testing done when I was eleven, the air bourn allergies weren’t that bad. At the time, the main problem was that I was being exposed to so many things I was allergic to that it was like living in a poisonous environment. Once we got rid of the wool, the pine tree, the chocolate, the citrus, the apples, and the carpeting… I was a-ok… most of the time.

After that, the only time I got sick was at the end of summer. So it’s heading into summer now, and I want to get out into nature before I’m forced to seek refuge. My mother says that I belong in a bubble. But I seriously cannot open a window or be outside when someone is mowing the grass, or I might as well lick a petri dish containing a cold virus. I even run a low fever in the summer, due to my allergies, not the temperature.

It’s so frustrating to love trees and plants and to have to hide from them when they’re at their most beautiful.

We rented 30 Days of Night and Sweeney Todd yesterday. I was really impressed with Sweeney Todd, mostly because I’m not a big Depp fan and I’m even less into musicals, but it was good. Surprisingly good. I don’t know if it was all the English accents, but I found myself thinking of Oliver. I half expected the Artful Dodger to be in the background, picking pockets. There were a few parts where I was thoroughly repulsed, but they had no connection to the fake blood squirting out of the numerous victims of Mr. Todd. That was some seriously fake blood. I actually winced more whenever they showed the body of his latest victim hitting the basement floor head first. At one point, I thought I saw brains. Ewwwww. And I know the movie was partially about cannibalism, but watching all the happy patrons digging into their meat pies….. Guhhh. Makes me glad I’m a vegetarian.

30 Days of Night was really good too. After watching Sweeney Todd, I may have been desensitize to all the gore in 30 Days. The only part I didn’t like is that the vampires mostly spoke in some kind of guttural screechy language. All in all though, I felt this “reinvention” of the vampire was in some respects a suitable heir to Nosferatu. (Note: the word nosferatu is a descriptive word for the “unclean” and contagious nature of a vampire. Only Hollywood and fiction have made the word interchangeable with the word vampire….Which is not to say that there are not other words for creatures like vampires, but that nosferatu is just not one of them… little pet peeve of mine.)They had the claws, some had the beaky noses, and bleak, black eyes that reminded me entirely of the original Nosferatu silent film. I think they would have done better if all of the vampire actors had been chosen for stereotypical “Slavic” features. Their pale coloration coupled with the black eyes and sharp features made some of them seem almost shark-like and only vestigially human. So that the shrieky made up language was entirely unnecessary or at least, was more distracting than useful in the grander scheme of things. Having read the novelization and the comic though, the movie adhered to the plot without veering too much away from the original story. I liked it.

April 14th

This is the third day of the Cerealia.

This is the third day of the Japanese Kamo-Tama-Yori-Hime festival.

According to the Norse calendar, Sommersblot welcomes the summer half of the year.

According to superstitious belief, the fourteenth day of April is a very unlucky time for travel, especially by ship. (It was on this date in the year 1912 that the ocean liner Titanic collided with an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the sea.) Whether the Titanic tragedy spawned the superstition or merely served to reinforce it is unknown.

Maryamma (or Mariamne), the Hindu goddess of the sea, is honored in India with an annual festival.

On the 30th day of Pachons, Celebrations were held in the House of Ra, Osiris and Horus.

Since yesterday’s post on the neatness of my workspace, I’ve been on a cleaning kick. I got rid of a bunch of old clothes that I had been saving FOR YEARS to repair or to harvest the frabric for other projects. And really, if I kept it all for years without using it, what are the chances that I was going to use any of it this year or the next? So Goodbye! Two very large garbage bags full of fabric gone, gone, gone! Which made room in the big old chest where I was keeping them for other sewing supplies that I had been keeping in the closet. Which made room in the closet for “gifts” that I bought in advance of having anyone to give them to and which were sitting in a bag in a corner.

I like to think ahead when it comes to gifts because, well, I tend to forget important dates when they are approaching and so it’s good to have something lying around that I can wrap quickly. It never hurts to pick things up when you see them on sale either. heh I think buying gifts as you find them, rather than waiting till you actually need them, saves money. But, I have a giant plastic tub full of presents, some of which I will not be able to give until their recipients are several years older, and now there is a shelf above the tub with even more presents. I think I will have to buy another tub soon.

I also cleaned the areas where I have my plants… moved them around, cut off any dead bits. I also snipped some pieces and put them in water to root. I’ll pot them in a month or so and then let them grow until the October Canal Festival when I’ll donate it for the charity raffle. So that’s one and a half corners of my room cleaned.

But I have so much more to do. I still need to go through the rest of the closet. Get out my spring clothes and see what I want to get rid of. Every Spring and Winter, I bring a Huge tub down from the attic, which frankly dwarfs my present tub by comparison. They say if you haven’t worn something in the previous year, you probably won’t in the coming year. Every year I end up with enough clothes to fill anything from a paper bag to a large trashbag, and off that goes to the thriftstore. I bring them so many clothes, they should give me a discount when I buy. lol

When I went to H&R Block, they said that the IRS doesn’t require you to save seven years of financial information any more. Now you can get by with three. So at some point, I’ll need to dig out my box of pay stubs and whatnot and get rid of some of that. That’ll be an all day affair.

I also need to organize my comics. (I call it my “retirement fund.”) I need to buy another box, as my collection has now reach critical mass and will no longer fit in the 9 boxes I have. That will probably have to wait till next week when I can get to my comicbook store and buy another box.

And there is just a general need to clean and shift and sort and dust. So….

I will probably not post anything tomorrow, and maybe not Sunday either. Sunday at least, I have off from work, so I’ll be able to finish up most of the cleaning by then. I’m hoping to get at least one more trashbag of stuff out of my space. I just don’t have the room for all this stuff anymore. I mean, where am I going to sleep if my junk decides to take over?

I’ve been thinking about going back to school…. I want to take business classes. I want to open my own store someday and not work for a corporate entity any more. I love working at Borders, don’t get me wrong, but I want to do things my way. Some of the stuff they tell us to do is just…. stupid. So I want to have my own bookstore, a religious bookstore, where all religions are equally represented. Not five rows of Christianity, with every other religion fighting for the remaining five rows.

I want interfaith coupled with a new age store. I want to run a store where people can come and safely and comfortably talk about various religions. There are certain subjects which we are not allowed to talk about at Borders for fear of offending people…. religion is top of that list (politics is second). I think that’s horrible! Not talking about something is not going to make it go away! Making a subject taboo only invites ignorance. I think people need to get together and talk about their religious differences so that they can understand each other, so I want a bookstore which is part occult, part interfaith, and part community center.

BTW, I didn’t win the lottery again. Guess I’ll have to keep playing.

April 11th

The Ludi Cerealici or Cerealia begins tonight. Cross inscribed loaves of bread are traditionally baked in honor of the Roman goddess Diana. In Greece, branches of evergreen, myrtle, or bay were worn by children for protection against the evil eye.

In Armenia, the goddess Anahita is honored annually on this day with a sacred festival. The deity of both love and lunar power, she dwells within the silver light of the moon.

April 12th

This is the first day of the Cerealia. Games introduced at the founding of the temple of Ceres were held from the twelfth to the nineteenth of April. In later times, another festival to Ceres was established in August. While the Megalesia was mainly a patrician holiday, the lower classes had the Cerealia. This was a time to pray for peace. Offerings of grain (spelt), salt, and incense were left on the hearth. White is Ceres’ proper color. She was prayed to for peace, good government, and abundance.

 In Taiwan, the goddess who presides over birth, Chu-Si-Niu, is honored annually with a religious festival. Pregnant women go to her temples in order to receive blessings for their unborn children.

The Nepalese New Year occurs in the middle of an eight day festival called Bisket. According to tradition, a princess was possessed by two serpent demons who killed all of her lovers. A foreign prince arranged a tryst, but unlike his predecessors, he came prepared. After they made love, he resolved to stay awake and keep watch. Two dark thread-like tendrils rose from her nostrils, expanding and solidifying into two snakes which he promptly killed.

This is the first day of the Japanese Kamo-Tama-Yori-Hime festival. O-yamakui-no-kami and his wife Kamo-tama-yori-hime were honored from April twelfth to fourteenth. They each have two shrines, one for his (or her) entirety, and one for his (or her) soul or spirit of the outside world (aramitama), equaling four shrines in all.

On the first day of the religious festival (matsuri) the two aramitama, whose shrines are side by side, are brought down in two portable shrines (mikoshi) and left in the adytum (haiden) of the main shrines consecrated to the soul or spirit of the inner world (nigimitama) of the God. At 9 pm, they are married – the two mikoshi are joined, back to back, and they are left there all night.

April 13th

This is the second day of the Cerealia.

The Spring festival of Libertas, the Roman goddess of liberty, was held today. Libertas commemorated the creation of the Atrium Libertatis, the temple of the goddess Liberty.

Thailand’s Buddhists welcome the New Year for three days with ceremonies of cleansing. Statues of the Buddha are ritually bathed and people throw water at each other to wash away the old year’s evils.

This is the second day of the Japanese Kamo-Tama-Yori-Hime festival. The two nigi-mitama are taken from the haiden of the two main shrines and placed in two other mikoshi. The four mikoshi are then brought into the haiden of another shrine, the Obuyu-jinja. They are placed in separate compartments on a platform and decorated with flowers, fruit, mirrors, paint-brushes and ‘anything that may amuse a child’. Children offer artificial flowers. At 4 pm, they are offered tea, and at 9 pm, about a hundred men come to shake the four mikoshi violently for one and a half hours (symbolic of rigors of child-birth), while a ritual dance (shishimai) is performed for their benefit. They are thrown from the platform (representing the actual child-birth) and each mikoshi is taken back to its own shrine. The child-kami that was born is called Kamo-wakaikozuchi-no-kami.

What is your workspace like?

I dreamed last night that I was cleaning and finding all kinds of interesting things, for some reason on top of my tv set… like tarot cards and plants I didn’t know I had, as well as dust, lots and lots of dust. This is probably because I have been cleaning so much at work lately that I know I should be cleaning at home too. That’s the way it always seems to work out though. I use all my energy at work and have none to spare at home.

At work, my desk is VERY clean by the time I leave at the end of the day. Everything is in its place, and I know where everything is. I make it very easy for other people to find things on and in my desk if they are so inclined. And every day when I come back to work… my desk is a mess. Seriously. Papers and whatnot just lying all over the place, willynilly. Some papers pulled out of place and used as scrap paper! Grrrr. It really upsets me because I try to be courteous and conscientious about it always being clean when I leave so that people will be able to find things when I am not there to help them. It’s very frustrating, especially since I recently lost my work computer and now must share with someone else, but so far (and she’s only been with us a few days), she doesn’t ever sign any of her programs off and so I’m leery of doing it for her so that I can sign on.

At home, my desk is a complete sty. lol Oh I know where everything is, but I don’t have to share that space with anyone so I don’t have to worry about people looking for things when I’m not around. I have all my bookshelves filled to capacity and organized in a way that is convenient to me… not really in a way that would make sense to others. heh Despite the mess, everything is organized (or at least I know where I last saw something). I just wish I could get around to dusting more often.

I just answered this Featured Question, you can answer it too!

April 10th

This is the seventh and last day of the Megalesia. An array of the deities was carried through a procession, and horse races were held with the prize of the first palm.

According to ancient Celtic folklore, the Sun dances each year on this day. In many parts of Ireland, people arise at the first light of dawn to watch the Sun “dance” in a shimmering bowl of water.

Bau, the Goddess Mother of Ea, was honored each year on this day in ancient Babylon with a sacred religious festival called The Day of Bau.

This is the birthday of Montague Summers, a scholar of folklore who specialized in the occult. He was born in 1880.

That is all.

………….Just kidding!     

 Mwahahahahahaaha!

Yeah, couldn’t resist. That picture is AWESOME!

So I did just a little bit of digging yesterday on the subject of homemade shampoos (just in case). It’s too early to tell if this shampoo will be okay. Many of the recipes suggest (Dr Bronner’s) castile soap as a base. I’ll have to check the bottles to see if they are citric acid free.

………I remember my Nana used to have castile soap when I would visit her in the summer……

I did find the ingredients for one castile soap online and it included potassium citrate, but I have no way of knowing if all castile soap contains citric acid as it seems there is some variety and not all of them list their (complete) ingredients. Dr Bronner’s seems not to, but if I REALLY want to be sure, I guess I’ll have to contact them and ask. It really may be my last resort. If I do end up having to make my own shampoo, it would be more comvenient to start with a ready-made base and just add the ingredients that would do my hair the most good. Providing I can find a castile soap without citric acid, I did find some really interesting suggestions and recipes.

Herbs for Hair Types:
Normal : Horsetail, red clover, chamomile, marigold, lavender flowers, rosemary
Dry : Comfrey root or leaf, red clover, orange flowers, lavender flowers, elder flowers, chamomile flowers, marigold, jojoba oil
Oily  : Nettle leaves, rosemary leaves, peppermint leaves, burdock leaves, tea tree leaves, orris root, lemongrass
Black, Very Coarse, or Curly : Nettle leaves, rosemary leaves, sage, lavender flowers, indigo root, comfrey leaves, jojoba oil 
Gray : Sage, rosemary, nettle
Hair loss : Rosemary leaves, lavender flowers, tea tree leaves, sage, nettle, basil
Dandruff : Nettle, comfrey leaves, birch or white willow barks, peppermint, lemongrass

Basically the recipes run something like this…

1  8-12 oz bottle
7 ounces distilled or spring water
4 Tablespoons liquid castile soap
5- 6 Tablespoons of herbs (at least 2 for your hair type) [Note: If using whole flowers, it's a good idea to crush them first. Crushing them invokes even more of their aroma.]

Instructions:

Boil water. Put herbs in teaball. Add the liquid castile soap to the bottle that you’ll be using for the finished shampoo. Pour boiling water over the herbs. Cover the container and allow the herbs to steep for 10-30 minutes, depending upon how strong you want the mixture. Transfer the infusion to the bottle. Viola! Shampoo!

Well….. hopefully.

Some other recipes I found…
for bar soaps
housecleaning supplies
milk soap recipes 
some more soapy recipes with and without castile soap 
various other natural recipes for hair care 
and more

April 9th

This is the sixth Day of the Megalesia.

In the Portuguese territory of Macao on the peninsula along China’s south coast, the goddess A-Ma, patroness of sailors and fishermen, is honored.

        And… you remember how I promised more in the way of content today?

Yeah, I got nothing.                      

So I’ll just keep typing and hope my subconscious spews forth a winner.

I finally, Finally got to the gym again. It’s been, what? Like going on three months since I was last there, between being sick and then hurting my foot. (My foot still hurts BTW but only when I have my shoe on or am taking it off.) Ugh, I wish I didn’t have to auto-debit from my credit card for membership. Three times 29? That’s almost ninety dollars wasted on access to a place I couldn’t go. On the one hand, I was sick and didn’t want to get sicker. On the other, aside from being sick, I didn’t want to make anyone else sick. I mean, you can never tell if something’s germy. Even if you wipe it before you use it, which is tedious if you use close to a dozen different machines. I prefer to wash my hands before I start and after. It’s just… more efficient. And if, in the meantime, I am exposed to something contagious, well, germs are actually, technically good for you, you know. I read just the other day that lab rats which are bred in sterile surroundings actually have more health issues than rats which are exposed to various bacteria. They are hyper-sensitive and have all kinds of digestive issues. Which begs the question, is our increasingly germ-free environment to blame for the hyper-sensitivity displayed by some members of our species? Were we not exposed to enough germs as infants and so our bodies don’t function at optimal efficiency? It’s a thought, and not a particularly pleasant one.

There are some theories that claim “aliens” are really time travellers. So after we’ve bred all disease out of our species, and killed off all of predatory bacteria and viruses (virii?), we come up with sprindly Grays who abduct “primitive” humans for breeding experiments….? Yuck. I guess I’d rather believe in pervert aliens than ugly, germ-deficient, deviant descendents. heh

In other news, I may have found a new shampoo. Yesterday, I went through every single shampoo at Walmarts and every one of them had citric acid or a citrus fruit or extract. Even the baby shampoo! Even stuff that claimed to be gentle. I know that it is a preservative and that it also helps clear clogged up hair follicles, but you’d think that there would be some “mass-produced” gentle shampoo out there that doesn’t just follow what seems to be the standard formula. I mean, yeah, they all have different herbs and whatnot, but compare the ingredients and the herbal extracts are the only things that set them all apart. So today, I went to the health store….

Same Darn Thing! I was just about ready to cry, until I found one shampoo by a company called EarthScience which had a fragrance free shampoo without citric acid. Their other shampoos had it, but not the fragrance free stuff. I guess you can’t put citric acid in a frangrance free shampoo or it’d come up smelling of oranges or something. lol Technically, the shampoo is for those who are sensitive to smells, but I’m not going to split any hairs (heh, get it? Split hairs? Yeah… bad pun). It’s a little bit more expensive than I’d been paying, but at least it purports to be vegan and cruelty free. Whether or not I can actually use it without losing my hair or having more sores on my scalp and surrounding skin remains to be seen. I mean, I’ve trusted the ingredients of various hygeine products before and been lied to. The shampoo claims to be made in the US, but then why is half the bottle in French? That’s a bit puzzling….

I am such a cynic though…. I know they’ll end up changing the formula to include citric acid somehow as soon as I’m used to it, and then I’m up the creek without a paddle. I am going to have to start experiementing with making my own shampoos or something. Maybe I could even end up marketing them as all natural hypoallergenic shampoos for other people out there who are allergic to citrus. I know I can’t be the only one! Do you get diarrhea or hives after eating something with citrus fruit or tomatoes? Do you get sores and weird dry patches on your scalp and the skin near your scalp? You’re probably allergic to citrus too.

Speaking of allergies, I actually met another person the other day who is allergic to chocolate. Now that chocolate is supposed to be good for the immune system, I expect it to crop up even more in various foods than it already does… why not shampoos and conditioners? I’ve already found it in handcreams because the oil is supposed to be good for your skin, or maybe people just like the smell. I know I love the smell of chocolate… I’d eat it too, if I wasn’t allergic. I used to love chocolate as a child… my favorite icecream sundae? Rocky Road. So unfair.

Grrrr. Allergies SUCK!

April 8th

This is the fifth Day of the Megalesia.

Today or on the 12th, the Cuchumatan Indians of Guatamala perform a special ceremony called Sealing the Frost after the corn is planted. In an attempt to protect the precious crop against winter’s return, they climb a nearby cliff where frost is said to live. The Shaman is lowered on a rope to a crack in the cliff’s face which he plasters up to seal in the cold.

The Aztecs of Mexico held the feast of the Hummingbird in honor of warriors who had died in battle or offered their lives in sacrifice. They were thought to live in the sun for four years before returning as hummingbirds.

Hana Matsuri, the birth of Buddha, and the Buddhist Flower festival are celebrated today.