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...

B is for - Blue Crow

What I'm about to share with you now is very personal. It is about my spiritual path and how I was given the name Blue Crow. I'm a bit wary expressing it as it goes but I think it's time.

Back in the day of forums, we had to invent a user name. Remember those? Lots of well known goddesses and the such were used.  I used to be IckleSlaine after my tattoo of an ickle Slaine McRoth (2000ad geek n proud). This was circa 2002. I then shortened it to Slaine, which I used for a few years.

Ickle Slaine

I went to work for the MOD in 2004 at RAF Henlow and outside my window was the Hunter gate guardian and some chestnut trees that these two crows used to sit in. I always did stare out of windows as a kid and not much has really changed.  I'd just started discovering my spiritual path. I had been down the spiritualist route and was the Secretary of the SNU church in Letchworth GC.  By 2004, I had discovered that what I was had a name and that was 'pagan'.  Everyone had their paths and discussed these at length and of course, people had their 'spirit' names. Usually these had some mystical creature in them and they often assumed a whole new personality (online) to match their character name. Yes, I went there, character name.  It is too easy to get caught up in playgan roleplaying... yes I went there too! Aren't I naughty lol ! I think what I'm saying is that a fair few of these people were full of shit really.  They did it because it was fashionable and because the big kids on the forum did it too and looked cool and knowledgeable. Fair enough, it's easy to get caught up in it all.

The point is, at the time, I didn't really know what path I was on. I had been told by three shamans (proper ones, not like the latest fad of wannabes DON'T GET ME STARTED ON THAT FFS) that I was a shaman. I had no idea what that was, other than the American Indian sort.  I did some research and found an excellent book called Shamans through time - 500 years. It was a big fat book of written accounts by anthropologists, missionaries and that ilk who'd gone into the world to study/explore/convert and had found shamans in near enough every culture. Their accounts vary from Christian bias to those who went to live with the tribe for a month and learn how the shaman works in their community healing the sick etc.  The original term of shaman was used for a tribe in Siberia but it has since become a generic term throughout the world. Not that the know-it-alls on the forum cared, if you weren't from that tribe in Siberia you weren't a shaman and you were a fake. 20 posts per page, 15 pages later... I'm still being flayed for daring to 'come out' as someone who'd been told I was a shaman but didn't know what that meant.  Oh My Gods, it was horrendous.  Nearly a decade has gone by and it still haunts me... and that's why I get wary sharing! Nice way to help someone on their path isn't it? So much for peace and love! Don't get me started....

View outside my office window on a foggy day

Anyway, I digress!
One of the many lunchtimes gazing out the window, I was daydreaming (also normal) and I wondered what my spirit name was. The crows were out front, playing about, looking for food, chasing off the magpie (usual stuff for them) and I got the name 'Blue Crow'.  It was just there, in my head. I asked why and what it meant and I received no reply.  It was about two years later that I was told what it meant.

I was writing a lot of poetry at this time and here is one I penned about my friends the crows at work. My friend Cliff Carr turned it into a song and has performed it at Avebury, which is a bit surreal hearing your words being turned into music.

Crow he calls

Oh how he calls to me

‘Pick up your ears and listen

For I have much to say!’

Can you not hear the call?

Can you not understand?

You can see crow everywhere

You can hear his calls

Loudly he cries his message

Over and over again

I pick up my ears and listen

To what he’s trying to say

‘Come follow me!

Go deep within yourself

Close your eyes and slow your breath

Spread your wings and fly’

‘Fly above it all and survey the land

Call out what you see

Feel the earth and skies unite

Ride the updraft of the breath of life’

This is the path of Sacred Law

This is the call of crow

These are the words that reach my ears

Crows call penetrates my soul

December 2004

Time flies and roll on December 2007 and I had that 'aha!' moment and then it made sense.. for a short time because you're not supposed to make sense of your life, only the lessons passing through it at that time.

Blue is the sky

That envelopes us all

Blue is the healing rays

Blue is the deepest seas & skies

Crow is the Keeper of Sacred Law

Truth of Time kept

Blue Crow is the Keeper of what covers us all

The whole world

All times

I hold it all

I cannot unlock these secrets I keep

Only Time will reveal them 

when they need to be

So there you have it. How I got my name and what I was told it means. It's hard to believe it's been six years since all that happened.  I will probably write more about it when I get to the letter S on the blog project. Blimey, just thought, that will be nearly at the end of this year... who knows what will happen til then. 

That last paragraph of the last poem may need some explaining. All I can say for now is - it's a past life thing.

B is for bloody Facebook, Bipolar & Bitchcraft (kinda)

Yes... bloody Facebook!

It's now Monday, my blogs have until now, been promptly done by Friday, usually in the very early hours.  I don't know what happened this time but I blame Facebook for sucking me into it's virtual world of friends, groups, managing pages and just being addicted to the interactions.  Yep, my name is Naomi and I'm a addicted to Facebook.  And now it's Tuesday. I was in mid blog when I was reminded via my phone alert, that it was my moot tonight.  How pants am I?!  Forgot what bloody day it was, sheesh!

Where was I? Oh yes... bloody Facebook. Before it was Myspace and forums and now it's Facebook. Not really got the Google+ thing, yet, although I have a profile, never used it.

My life seems to revolve around the cyberworld. I spend far too much time networking for the people I work for to get their deeds out there into cyberland.  99% of this is on Facebook.  You have the best intentions of 'just checking a page' and then before you know it, 6 hours have gone by.  I'm addicted to the interaction from faraway friends.  People I knew off forums from the last decade, people on the other side of the world whom I've never met, people I have never met but who are in my 'circles'. I spent so much time on the forums, which is where some of you may know me from. It's been 3 years or so since I went on the pagan forums, can't be bothered with the Bitchcraft. Funnily enough, that was another B I was going to blog about.  I think the Arsehole blog from week one from a fellow Pagan Blog Project summed it up without me having to add anything really, well I could but there'd be lots of swearing. Read it, it's good!

Whilst it's great to connect with my friends and have a laugh at the stupid shit people post up, it's not the same as getting into the real world. And when we do, what do we do? That's right, we take a picture of it and upload it to......... Facebook! We check in to places, we tag our friends in pictures and whilst we are all doing that, we aren't really where we really are - THE REAL WORLD.

The Matrix is on the tv behind me... bit ironic really.

I'm a nightowl, always have been. It's 3am as I type this. Yesterday I had a mad clean til 5am, which meant I woke up at lunch time, which means I missed a lot of daylight.  It doesn't help that I do not have paid employment at the moment and I don't HAVE to get up, other than to make sure my 16 year old son is up for school and out the door on time.  At least then, I get to see the sunrise but that's only cos it's winter and that happens at 7.30-8am.  The night time is a magical place, I live in the countryside, so there's only owl hoots and the occasional lorry rumbling past.  But it sucks missing the day, really does. On the plus side in the summer, I get to watch the world get lighter, the explosion of bird song and the sunrise, it's usually then I say 'bugger it's daytime' and go to bed.

I live right next to the River Derwent with loads of lovely walks around me. What do I do all day? Nothing. All that has to change.  I cannot and will not be an internet pagan!  How can I talk about being part of the earth when I stay indoors all the time... what's that about? A rhetorical question. Of course it doesn't help having depression (not a constant state) and the fact I have to have an op soon because I've been diagnosed with arthritis in my knees. This last year has seen me going from being active (but still addicted to FB) to being in quite a lot of pain and some days not being able to climb the stairs.  I'm only 37, it's depressing!  But I am not my illness and I refuse to let it consume me, obviously I'm having a good day today.

Originally I was going to blog about Bipolar.  How is that pagan, you ask? Well with my big network of friends in all walks of pagan life, it occurred to me that there are loads who all suffer from varying degrees of Bipolar Disorder or manic depression as it used to be called.  I have wondered if there is a connection, is it just that they are pagan AND have BPD? Or is it they are more spiritually aware because of their intense down/high times?  Is it cos they walk between the lines of mortality when they are so low they want to end it all?   I'm not sure and I don't know enough to really write about it. No offence is meant of course, just me thinking out loud really.  I've been described as being 'a bit Bipolar' - how can you be a bit Bipolar? I can see it though, I do have extreme ups and downs but most of the time I bounce along.  I would be interested to hear your views on it though.  Not that anyone reads my blog, let alone comments on it!

A lovely FB friend of mine (never met him and not even sure how he came to be on my friends list but he is a talented model and very positive person, with lots of great uplifting status') has just modeled for the MIND calendar.  You may recognise him from Celebrity Juice where he was standing on the desk in front of Danny Dyer - naked.  That fella's been working out.. obviously the link goes to the YouTube clip and Mr Dyer says f*ck a lot and Mark gets naked ... enjoy!

Google is your friend or Bing.. but it's all there at your fingertips - most people when they are in the throes of depression won't reach out or say anything but there is a world of info and help out there. Use it.

Help is out there in internet land for all sorts of disorders, alas nothing for Facebook addiction.

Friday's blog will be on time and about something that I AM.

Peace y'all /|\

If the text is in orange, it's a link - in this blog to MIND website etc