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October 30th, 2008
03:35 pm - Setting the plan in motion
Part of being open and honest about my process through the Clergy Training Program has led me to an update of Chronarchy.Com. The front page now includes some of my smaller updates to the DP, as well as a chart of Study Program work (and due dates). More amusingly, it also includes a recently declassified government "Report on Discordian Cleansing Rituals" I've stumbled across that some might find interesting.
Finding ways to meet your goals sometimes takes some creative self-bitchslapping, I find. For me today, it's updating the page I see 10 to 20 times per day with my schedule, just to keep myself on track!
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) calm
Current Music: "Cheeseburger in Paradise", -JB
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August 29th, 2008
10:10 am - Discordians on ID, the lost Principia, and the JFK assasination!
Years before Creationism became Intelligent Design and began to fill the heads of our children with unscientific rot that masqueraded as science, Discordians were fighting the good fight against ID with their own myths and stories.
There is a copy of the Principia Discordia in the JFK Collection from the HSCA. It was placed there because one of the founders of Discordianism, Thornley, was investigated as part of the conspiracy to kill JFK (by virtue of having served with Oswald and writing two books on him. . . one of those books being written before the assassination).
It's an old edition, one that contains the myth that was supposed to precede Starbuck's Pebbles in the Principia, but was somehow left out. This edition is something like the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Nag Hammadi library of Discordianism, and I'll bet that very few of you even knew it existed. Honestly, almost no Discordians had ever seen these writings until the HSCA files were declassified in 1992, and it took a few years beyond that for Rev. ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) drjon to dig it out.
Even the title is different. Discordians, of course, know their holy book as "The Principia Discordia: Or, How I Found the Goddess and What I Did To Her When I Found Her". The title of this version of the Principia is, "The Principia Discordia: Or, How the West Was Lost."
For those interested, though, please take a few minutes to peruse the complete scan (minus two pages that simply do not exist) of this original~ish Principia Discordia.
( And, because we *all* need to read the original myth that went along with Starbuck's Pebbles that debunks ID in a religious context. . . read on! )
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: satisfied
Current Music: "Take Another Road", -JB
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August 15th, 2008
11:27 am - Making a Special Triptych
Last night, I spent a couple of hours making something that I'd like to share with everyone: a triptych.
Now, because this is me, you know this is not going to be just any triptych. No, I created a triptych based on one of my favourite myths, a sort of little portable Pagan shrine or altarpiece.
My triptych is the story of The Original Snub.
( For more, including a picture detailing the items on the panels, read on. . . )
Why, yes: this little triptych will be for auction at Summerland next Saturday.
Not preregistered for Summerland? Get Pre-Registered! Today is the last day to pre-register!
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Smart Woman (In a Real Short Skirt)", -JB
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August 8th, 2008
05:04 pm - Is your god on The List?
There is something odd about this List of Entities that I stumbled upon. Perhaps it is the inclusion of Harpo Marx, Discordian Saint Second Class, as an entity. Usually, this would be good, except that I can't really stand lists like this, nor can I abide the great Saint Harpo being listed with (and I quote):
Gurid - an angel of the summer equinox angel. I mean, really?
Look up your favourite god and/or goddess and see what they say about him or her!
Other gems?
- Amon - Egyptian ram-headed god of life and reproduction. Later fused with sun god Ra becoming known as Apollo - God of healing poetry and music.
- She - One of the Forgotten Ones. Invoked by the vultures atop the Pillars of the Abyss.
- Nike - Greek goddess of victory. Bewinged, she was also a messenger goddess. She also has an overprinced brand of running shoes named after her.
Okay, so I can agree to that last one. . .
Deity lists are crazy popular online, part of the general buffet-style religion that's always been popular (as many in ADF like to say, there's nothing more Indo-European than stealing someone else's gods and saying you found them first). You'll find a lot of repeats and some consistently bad stuff (a personal favourite, about Esus was just found. . . "Esus, God of war, who may have been a tree god Celtic.")
I first stumbled onto this phenomenon when I came across David Owens' dictionary of gods and goddesses, which he allowed to be electronically duplicated online, called The Gods of Man: A Small Dictionary of Pagan Gods and Goddesses. when I initially ran across it, I was pretty freaked out. I mean, it's just so. . . superficial. (I've had the pleasure of chatting with him briefly online, and he's a good guy, and the list is pretty astounding, actually.)
I suppose there's about as much wrong with a superficial interest in the deities you worship as there is in a superficial interest in cheese (which is to say, not much, especially if you're lactose intolerant), but every time I run across these lists (almost always accidentally), I wonder who actually uses them.
And then I remember: I did. My superficial list was just written by D.J. Conway. Plus, it was David Owens' book that turned me onto Esus (due to its woefully bad description, but still).
So they serve their purposes, I guess. They get people interested. They build those first steps and get 'em out the door and into the bright light of Paganism.
So, in that spirit, I think I'll go invoke Lu Dong Bin, Nexhagus, and Freddie Krueger. Hey, they're on the list, man!
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Duke's on Sunday", -JB
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July 25th, 2008
10:33 am - Discordian divniation . . .
I've recently gone back to looking at the rune dice I have, and am looking at the next Chronarchy.Com update with the possibility of selling them in the near future.
I should point out, though, that everyone already owns an amazing divination tool: Discordian Dice Divination.
You take a six-sided die and roll it. Depending on the number you roll, you compare it against the below chart to determine what the outcome should be:
| 1 | Think for yourself, schmuck |
| 2 | Think for yourself, schmuck |
| 3 | Think for yourself, schmuck |
| 4 | Think for yourself, schmuck |
| 5 | Think for yourself, schmuck |
| 6 | Think for yourself, schmuck |
And Lo, the angel did appear before them, and spake: "Dude, who am I? Your mother?"
(thanks to LMNO for the inspiration, on another forum)
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "I Don't Know", -JB
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May 6th, 2008
12:48 pm - Lectures, rites, and festivals . . .
I was fortunate enough to be asked to give a presentation on ADF and Discoridanism yesterday. This meant that I got to talk about two of my favourite things ever during my lunch hour. I was very pleased.
Dr. Urban asked me in to speak on these things to his class, which is doing an entire quarter on "Neo-Paganism, Witchcraft, and Satanism". The next class meeting is on Chaos Magic and Play, and I had a wonderful discussion with the class (well, I enjoyed it. . . I hope they did too. . .)
I'm spending the next few days working with the ADF Dedicant Path Documentation, trying to work up a monthly schedule for Grove Meetings. I'm also working on the outline for the next few Druid Moon rites, since I realized that as I head out to Desert Magic, I'm leaving shawneen_bear and tanrinia without much guidance, and because we're still feeling this out, I want to make sure that we get that guidance in place in the future.
This next rite is a lovely fire ritual, so I'm excited to see what they come up with.
It's odd, but with Desert Magic right around the corner (I literally leave from work tomorrow to go to the airport) I find myself most excited about Summerland coming up in August. . .
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: "Tampico Trauma", -JB
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December 4th, 2007
03:59 pm - St. Barbara would understand these schemes and dreams and ploys. . .
An impressive quote today, in the comments on a story about "intelligent design" being taught in Florida schools:
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
--Phillip K. Dick
Evolution = Reality
Creationism = Belief
Intelligent Design = Snake Oil
Today is St. Barbara's Feast Day, and I'll be celebrating. I feel somewhat ashamed, though, that I can't do what I did last year: I think that St. Barbara will understand that I've spent my grocery budget already. So, it will be a very, very small party of three dining in celebration of the day. And besides, my gods, the kitchen is just a mess right now.
I think, to make up for this, I will have to ensure that I celebrate St. Gulik's Feast Day next year. On that day, maybe we'll make something he'd really like: fried gum on the bottom of a movie theatre seat, cookie crumbs from the back of the cupboards, and month-old Jell-O for dessert.
Then again, maybe we'll just make sure that it covers all five Discordian elements: Orange, Prickle, Boom, Sweet, and Pungent.
Damnit, why did I have to end up with a Discordian Saint as one of my patron saints?
Please St. Barbara, save our miserable skins!
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) discontent
Current Music: "Tampico Trauma", -JB
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July 13th, 2007
08:42 am - Adventures in Currency Conversion
I have previously admitted to being low on cash. How low, one might ask? Well, on Monday morning, I was $24 short of having enough cash to pay my mortgage, which is due on Saturday.
Step one was to sell off all the books I knew I'd never look at or read again. This gathered me about $5 (or approximately a quarter per book). "Okay," I thought, "you're 20% of the way there."
The next thing I thought about was selling sets of rune dice. I've been making these with some industry for a while now, and I have a few sets made up.
( They look like this )
The central issue with that is that it doesn't solve my immediate need (as orders need filling and cash needs transferred and yada/yada/yada and I only have until Saturday to deposit this cash). So I started thinking about other things I could do.
After a lot of thought and a lot of false starts on things (such as selling Discordian Futhark runes on apples ( that look like this ) I decided that I would take the 30 Euros I had down to the currency exchange and get me some real American Dollars!
( In which hilarity ensues, things work out alright, my mortgage is paid, and I get back to work in a reasonable amount of time and even eat lunch )
And all it took was asking the airport to shove a Boeing 757 up my ass.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Carnival World", -JB
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May 1st, 2007
10:45 am - Some tired ramblings
ADF elections finally ended last night. I've been spending the past several nights at my workbench, working on things in order to keep my mind off a lot of things, but those in particular. Last night, I spent my time working to finish the set of runes I've promised for so many years to make for the Grove, but have never managed to actually do.
I also have a set of Ogham sticks that I hope to make for the Grove. As I was working last night, trying my hardest to avoid fretting over other things (a common thread in my life recently), I began thinking about the other divination tools we might need on hand.
 I'm a fan of culturally-appropriate symbol sets, which has been a perennial issue with a Gaulish hearth culture. Ian, apparently, has a new symbol set of his own that looks intriguing (I just heard about it recently, though it's apparently been discussed on ADF-Seers a couple of times. . . which doesn't help much for me, who went NOMAIL there a long time ago because it wasn't worth reading), so we might need to get something like that. I made up a set of Discordian Futhark runes for my own personal use (I don't think the Grove needs them), and I've found that they're really fun to use. [note: I have a similar creative project underway, and others have also thought about Discordian divination.]
Of course, I have no idea what to do with this whole Vedic thing and seership. I suppose I'll just do what I'm doing now: read up on the famous Vedic seers and pretend I know what I'm doing. [mental note: get a fire extinguisher for the altar, idiot.]
I've been reading as much as possible about Usas over the past few days, and as a result, I've been encountering her in my thoughts quite often. I'm back in the habit of my dawn and sunset devotionals, which are really the one thing that I will always recommend to folks who are having a hard time spiritually: it's amazing how they affect your religious life.
Of course, because I'm staying up late and getting up before sunrise, I'm getting really, really freakin' tired. At this point, we're looking at about 14 hours of daylight at this latitude, and it's only going to get longer for the next six weeks (peaking at about 15 hours). I do not expect to sleep in until late September, after the daylight savings change.
The one thing that I really feel I need to do with these rites is to wake up and stay up, which means no more lazy mornings in bed. And, if I can swing it, I'd really like to wake up, shower, and be ready for my day by the time I stand before my altar at dawn. So far, because of how late I've been up, I've chosen practicality over piety, but at least dawn is waking me: that's the real goal.
And I've been rambling for a while now, so I'm going to shut up. This, apparently, is the effect of three hours of sleep on my writing.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/tired.gif) sleepy
Current Music: "Hello Texas", -JB
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May 19th, 2006
01:56 pm - "Billy Clyde wasn't insane. . ."
So, today I'm meeting with _crow365__ and club to perform The Ritual of the Pentave. I admit to looking forward to this, and I'm happy at its timing. It reminds me of things I've generally forgotten about.
I'm happy today, as I was yesterday. I was reading Eliade recently, working up an article about the Water Skate in Zuni mythology and sacred centers, and I came across his discussion of orientation in Sacred and the Profane, a discussion I'd never read before. I realized, when I thought of why I felt so good when I expected that I would feel fairly terrible, it seems to be because I have found orientation.
For a while, I was sort of liminal. I wasn't sure where I stood in relations to a lot of things.
But on Wednesday night, I found definition. I know who I am.
And that is a huge relief.
My Buffett Oracle for the morning is:
35. The pleasure was worth all the pain.
Whatever I did, it worked with that Oracle. . .
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "The Weather is Here (I Wish You Were Beautiful)", -JB
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December 28th, 2005
10:20 am - Honestly, what did you think you'd get in response?
I received in my email:I would like to speak with Eris. Please tell me how. Thank you. I responded:( Read more... )
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Today's Message", -JB
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