Justice

Week 19

JUSTICE

1. The quality of being just; fairness.
2. a. The principle of moral rightness; equity.         b. Conformity to moral rightness in action or attitude; righteousness. 
3. a. The upholding of what is just, especially fair treatment and due reward in accordance with honor, standards, or law.                                b. Law The administration and procedure of law.
4. Conformity to truth, fact, or sound reason

Is it me, or do pagans feel outraged more about injustices? The smallest slights against them and it's end of the world stuff, citing lack of honour etc etc.  Not just me? Good.. thought it was.  Is it because Playgans like to fantasise about the olde days of yore, of chivalry and the such? A lot of them do live in a fantasy world. So maybe it's only the natural progression of their life to be outraged about injustice to them. By outraged I mean talking a lot about (and by talk, I mean slag off to the nines) the wronger and not actually doing anything about it. 

When I started this particular blog 3 weeks ago, things were kicking off in the little world I occupy.  Maybe it was right to leave it until after it had all settled to finish what I was blogging, or it could have been a very angry soap box session.  Ok, it WILL be a soapbox but now with some more perspective and calm thrown in lol.

People come and go in our Warband. They blow in with big intentions, even bigger declarations of respect, get branded with tattoos, tabbards, the whole nine yards and then blow out again with even bigger noise on their way out.  Usually with their noses in the proverbial slings citing some bullshit reason why they now hate us.  Having been around in the Warband for the last decade, I've seen them come and go.  Those who stick around, work quietly in the background, not looking for any kind of glory and they are ALWAYS there when they are needed most.  Quality, not quantity as they say.

Now the last lot that just left were just unbelievable. 'We don't do gossip' and yet.. that's right, in spite (spite being the operative word!) of their claims of wanting to leave quietly, they are still kicking off about us being big meanies.  Now, I wouldn't mind but they won't even say what it is about! How can you make things right, when they ALL won't discuss it? How can you amend any wrongs if they won't tell you what you've done wrong? How can you move forward, without knowing what's holding you back?  Now as far as I'm concerned, I tried for ages to mediate with them and got the biggest loads of wankybollox you've ever read... big long posts that contained absolutely NO explanations to why they were pissed off.  Hail and farewell, says I....  and then when we didn't plaster it all over social media and slag them off, guess what? Yes, that's right, they started and they told enough people of their 'hurt' that others felt bad for them and then also started.  Shitstirring I believe it's called. So I posted up their own words and then some said 'aha' and realised they'd been lied to and some didn't.  Victim mentality at it's finest.  I have no patience with people who play the victim.

If it's not known by now, know it now... I keep all the messages, emails and screenshots of the shit I have sent to me.  I will quite happily post it up as proof that you are talking shit. I do not tell people who they can and cannot be friends with and I don't encourage others to unfriend others because of a fall out I've had. People can read both sides and make their own minds up.  I have quite a collection now of these screenshots and emails going back years.  I keep them because I need too.  I don't like having to argue with people I previously thought highly of.  But it seems I do indeed have a target on my back and you know what? This warrior will fight back, especially when I know I'm right. Sticking up for myself and my friends is Just. Anyway, as I've seen, they all come back eventually eating humble pie.  They are welcomed back every time but that doesn't mean I don't remember the poisons they poured in others ears. I watch. I wait. I hope they got it out of their systems and I don't have to add yet more screenshots to my folder.

So Justice.  The last word in our Oath we take under the Sword of Britain - Truth, Honour and Justice. They are words I live by.  I even had them included in my paint job on my bike. They are not words I will just discard like many others have done before.  You don't throw away an Oath like that because you don't like Arthur and the Warband anymore.   Those who can, never truly believed in the value of those words they swore to uphold.  You can throw away the friendships you made when you were declaring we were your family, your brother and sisters; you can turn your backs on those who loved you but the Universe is watching and you will be measured in Time for what you have done to others.  Is that karma? Nah, I think karma is something different but I can't exactly put my finger on why it's different... not yet anyway.

From my own personal experiences, I know that wanting Justice for wrongs levied against you and yours, can soon turn into holding on to those traumas and letting them consume you.  Some times you just have to ask the Universe to serve up it's own Justice and move on with your life.  Hindsight is a bitch!  I do hold on to these things, I do feel them deeply and I do take them personally.  Is that a character flaw on my part? No, I don't think so. I think it's a character flaw for those who take advantage of those with good natures who welcome them to their heaths and heart.  I know what personal trauma is, real nasty horrible stuff, and what these people are doing now, doesn't really register on my scale of giving a shit.  It's as simple as that.

I am nice right up to the point when they cross the line... and then they wish they hadn't.  No, not hexing or any of that. It's quite possible to go through life without threatening people with magic.  If you can't use your own Truths to fight your battles, then you shouldn't be commanding a damned thing, let alone magical intent. As Granny Weatherwax says, you might know how to do magic, but that doesn't mean you should.

Oh and before I go, I just remember this pearl of wisdom someone shared once.

When you point the finger of blame, three fingers point back to yourself. Think about it... even me lol

I

Week 18

From a very young age, you develop the sense of 'I', who you are, what makes you an individual. Your character develops and you become your own person. This is before you're walking.  You don't stop developing who you are, as a kid, as a teenager, as a young adult, as a parent - til the day you die. The friends you have, the people you love, the music you enjoy, the places you go... everything is every day changing in who you are.  More so when you're made aware of your spiritual path, be it a religion or spiritual path, it applies to it all.  I can only discuss my own experience of this though.  A bit about where I am now and who I am.

I recall cycling down a hill in town and thinking 'what religion should I follow'. I'd left school (I was about 17), I knew about the main religions and what they get up to, so I went through each one in my head, weighing up the pros and cons and if any of them felt right.  They didn't.  So I wasn't anything. I'd been raised in a Church of England village, went to a CoF school, had been Christened and brainwashed by the school and Brownies to go to church every Sunday, to sing the hymns in class and have a Christian view of the world.  I still think I'm more Christian than those who claim they are lol.. but that's another story.

Anyway..... nothing fit. It wasn't until 1998 that I found spiritualism but it still wasn't quite right. Then a couple of years later, the thing I felt, the thing I believed in was given a name - pagan.  Of course you later find out that it was a derogatory name and was an umbrella term but it was an identity, a place to start on the path. And boy was that path a twisty one!  This was around the time of Charmed, so finding books on the subject of paganism was a tad fluffy and targeted the teenage market.  That was another thing, this became fashionable.  Everyone was suddenly a witch, wearing the jewellery and outfits and claiming ancient heritage - which upset those on those paths. It made a mockery of their journey, or so they cried.

At the time, online forums were the place to go to learn, to meet like-minded people and meet at events. I certainly learned a lot about people! I met some good ones, whom I still keep in touch with and some absolute (insert expletive of your choice here) who still rear their poisonous Hydra heads when you least expect it.  I learnt a lot about myself but most importantly, I learned what I am NOT.  I discussed in my Blue Crow blog about how I found my name and what it meant. I have covered part of this before.  I learnt it was ok not to know where you are going on your path, what you're doing or how to do it. I learned that you don't have to know these things, just let your heart guide you.  I haven't gotten anything out of a book to help me in this way, it's all come from within my self and the world around me.  I learned that in spite of these people out there who will shoot you down, who make themselves out to be some kind of forum-messiah, that they only taught me what I didn't want to be - a know-it-all fuckwit.  In hindsight, and it is in hindsight because I beat myself up about 'why' for years, I do not need their approval to be who I am.  They are keyboard warriors, they don't do anything constructive and they poison people. That said, they did teach me those lessons and for that, at least I should be thankful.  What am I saying?! Did I just hear myself saying I was grateful for being treated like shit? No way... well yeah, I did lol.  Remember my words from the last blog (what do you mean you didn't read it! lol) ...

"Every now and then, you have to go back through the door of your past and see exactly what brought you to the present -where you are now. By looking at your past in this way, you can recognise how much you have truly grown as a person, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The doors of the past should never be shut, as they will inevitable seal the progression of your future self."

So as hard as those lessons were, they are part of who you are now. Slam the door on those (insert expletive here), learn from it, move on. Keep screenshots!

My best advice to give those starting on their paths or even those halfway up them is this:

Be yourself. 

Go where your heart takes you. 

Listen to your gut feelings, 
they are rarely wrong.

Like attracts like

It's ok to be you - be an individual

You are not a sheep or a shepherd

Think for yourself - not others.

Never let anyone make you feel,

that you don't deserve what you want.

Be you.

Avebury sheep... no really it is! 

You never stop learning. You never stop finding out who 'you' are. You are you. It's ok to be you...

If ..........

Week 17

I don't have an 'i' but I shall share this poem that starts with an IF.. I wrote it about a decade ago. My brother and I had gotten into a debate about the past and it not existing anymore. I found myself writing this.

                              ----------------

If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear as it is infinite. - William Blake

There are things known and things unknown and in between are the doors of perception. - Jim Morrison

It has always seemed to me possible that by taking the appropriate drug, I might so change my ordinary mode of consciousness as to be able to know, from the inside, what the visionary, the medium, even the mystic were talking about.

But the man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out.  He will be less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to the unfathomable Mystery which it tries forever, vainly, to comprehend. - Aldous Huxley

Every now and then, you have to go back through the door of your past and see exactly what brought you to the present -where you are now. By looking at your past in this way, you can recognise how much you have truly grown as a person, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. The doors of the past should never be shut, as they will inevitable seal the progression of your future self. - Blue Crow


Need I say more....? No really, do I need to? lol... that's your lot, for now.

Horned God

Week 16 .... I know, I know! It's really really late... soz!

I have a real thing for the Horned God.  My first encounter with this figure was in 2000ad and Slaine, I think I was about 11 years old.  I used to read the comic at the paper shop before going off on my rounds and the customer always got a well thumbed copy. Sacrilege, I know! hehehehe.  As an adult, I continued my love of Slaine and his Celtic warrior world and the goddess stories, well before I knew the term 'pagan'. So it's fair to say that the horned one is well established in this life time.

In the stories of Slaine, he does the work of the goddess and in later tales, travels through time, becoming part of history, fighting the bad guys who are defiling the goddess ie the land.  I've since read many Celtic mythology books and can see that Pat Mills (the writer of Slaine) has really done his homework. So those comics I read as a kid, were the real tales of ancient myths.  Love it!  Add in a healthy dose of sex and extreme violence (not at same time!) and I'm a happy puppy indeed.

He didn't think it too many

There are many interpretations of our Horny one and I happily admit that I'm no scholar, so can't debate it really. I'm just a girl who loves what he embodies.  Why? It's raw nature, it's base, it's it's it's life! That's the best you'll get out of me. I did have a Google on the subject and found some interesting sites you may wish to look at. Who is Cernunnos? - some history and debate about origins etc in there. Also check out Celtic Myth podshow - loads of links on the horned god and tonnes of other stuff.

I was sitting up my woods a few years back and was meditating. I was given a vision of a black stag human head in the big beech tree opposite. I'm no artist but I tried to transfer this vision from my mind to paint and this is the result.  The shapes of the branches/roots were symbolic to the vision I had, all to to do with the tree of life.

said it wasn't brill ...

A few years later, I asked my friend to tattoo his interpretation of this on to me. This was the result:

Crow outline was already there... first sitting

Gonna get some more added to this

And then there's my motorbike......

Slaine travels through time, in this saga he's Robin Goodfellow - spirit of the wood

Petrol tank

Side of the tank

Mudguard

Seat unit/tail piece

Damn right!

So there you go... not very informative but if you want that, click the links in the text.