Theatricality

Last night's post was deeper than I had expected. I'm not ready to share my musings from last night's meditations as there's so much more to explore and I'm wiped out from tech tonight. Here is what I was going to post last night before things got deep: I adore Sondheim and I really like the play The Frogs. I blogged about The Frogs months ago, in the Spring, because it "stars" Dionysus. The opening number is called "An Invocation to the Gods of theatre" hence last night's mistaken blog title! Here is a concert version. It's very clever (Sondheim is always clever!) and includes instructions to the audience on how to behave!

Enjoy!

Deck the Halls

Today is thanksgiving. I've started decorating the house for the coming winter. It's been so depressingly dark lately that I knew I wanted to get a jump on putting up the sparkly things. I often wait until December to get started. It's been a long, fun day of sleeping in, eating favorite foods, drinking yummy wine, decorating, and spending time with family.

I have officially lifted the ban on playing holiday music in the house, especially on the piano.

My holiday playlist? Mostly secular. For the rest I change the words to suit myself ;)
Jingle Bells
Santa Baby
Let it Snow
Winter Wonderland
Frosty the Snowman
Sleigh Ride
Deck the Halls
And my favorite... which I'm posting below: You know the song! No, it's not the dogs barking jingle bells :P I'm Italian! What do you think it is? I sing it as "The Italian Solstice Donkey!" Yeah, I'm a sucker for the song Dominick the Donkey. Best song ever... Italy, Brooklyn, o ciucciarell, and dancing a taratell! What else could you possibly want in a holiday song?

Enjoy! Hope your holiday season has gotten off to a great start!

Other fun things

I did some really wonderful, necessary, Mercury-is-direct-and-we're-retreading-ground type work tonight for the new moon, and I'm just wiped out from the energetic output. I'm going to take a mulligan on this post and hope to be up n at em again tomorrow! In the meanwhile, here are some fun articles to read and videos to watch:

An article by James Jacob Pierri on Hypatia of Alexandria and Aradia. A good, quick read!

Nemesis is recommending Tubelo's Green Fire by Shani Oates. I've always had an interest in the Clan of Tubal Cain and the way Nemesis is gushing about this book, I plan to read it too. Bibliophiles unite!!!

The movie Anonymous, about Edward De Vere as the real writer behind "Shakespeare." Why do I care so much? Because I love a good conspiracy, Shakespeare moves me, and Edward De Vere was a contemporary of Giordano Bruno and John Dee and wrote about both in Hamlet and The Tempest respectively. He also included Pagan deities in every play, including Diana, Apollo, Mercury, and Hecate. Also, everything in the plays matches up to events in De Vere's life. I also love a well costumed period piece and I need folks to go see this with with me. Check out the trailer!

Recommendations

I used to DJ an internet radio show and for a while I've been thinking about doing it again. I was introduced to so much diverse music thanks to my listeners sending in requests. That's part of what I miss- the adventure of discovery. I've taken a poll tonight, asking what my Pagan Friends have been listening to. I personally have Firebird's Child by SJ Tucker stuck in my head! What are you listening to, Pagan-wise? Kindly share in comments here or on the facebook page!

Songs stuck in other heads:

Calling the twelve Gods -  Daemonia Nymphe

The Magus - Cassandra Syndrome

The Burning Times - Charlie Murphy

Mind Of The Wonderful -  Blank & Jones

Hope you've had a bit of fun discovering some new songs along with me. I'll leave you tonight with the video for the number one Pagan song virus, Inkubus Sukubus and their Wytches Chant. It really is a good bedtime song! 

Linka-a-dink-a-doo

Tonight I've decided to post some links and websites I currently enjoy. It's been a day and a half and I'm getting ready for tonight's Dark moon festivities!


I really liked the Love, Hermes entry http://argeiphontes.com/

Love crunchy bloggers! http://hecatedemetersdatter.blogspot.com/

Meridian tapping to help clear your energy/habits/etc. http://www.eftuniverse.com/

Homage to Pythagoras http://users.ucom.net/~vegan/

Theoi, The wiki of the Gods. http://www.theoi.com/

Mountain Astrologer Magazine http://mountainastrologer.com/tma/

Astro Grrl http://www.astrogrrl.com/

Where air fresheners go to die!

I read the Sookie Stackhouse series before it was turned into True Blood. I have to say that I've been pretty impressed at how they've taken a single line or two from the book and spun it into a whole storyline for a character. It's interesting to see what happens as the show departs further and further from the book series. The third book in the Sookie series, the one that this season is (loosely) based on is my favorite, so I feel a bit invested. I'm also invested because of the portrayal of Witches on the show.

Spoilers abound! Don't read on if you don't want to be spoiled! Plus a few comparisons with the book series because hubby is tired of hearing it from me:


I love that Lafayette has been to Pagan Festivals! "First your meditation group, then the Dallas Pagan Fair..." lol  I've been in a few occult shops where it smells like "where air fresheners go to die."

But that circle... Someone did their homework. I wonder who the consultant was, or if they had an intern grab info off the internet. Miriam, the leader of the circle, said her bird, her familiar, died and she asked everyone to join her in a ritual to help ease the bird's spirit into the spirit world. The sigils around Minerva the bird (haha @ Minerva) looked like modified Goetic symbols.

I'm pretty sure that one was the Agare symbol. And considering there was a gigantic alligator in the preview (not that there aren't gators down there), I think I'm right: The gator is one of his symbols. Another was Mars and honestly, the third I don't recognize, it looks like a modification/combination. I could be wrong, it's not my forte, and tho I do like Agrippa's comments on The Aeneid, I don't like looking at a bunch of symbols before I get ready to go to bed. I will be looking at hearts and stars and cute baby animals before I go to sleep tonight.

She was speaking Latin. Stupid closed captioning said "(speaking foreign language)." Pft! Spell it out! At the end she called on the Angels of heaven and the demons of hell. I couldn't tell if she was saying the word for spirit, or cleanse, or the world. Either definition fits. Does it really matter if they made up something in Latin or if they ganked something from a book of necromancy? Not really the point I suppose, just a curiosity.

The books are from Sookie's point of view and in them Lafayette is long dead, so in the books this group gets on the radar as "zomg! evil witches! Let's git em!" It's nice to see that it's one scary leader and a bunch of earnest students (and a few fluffy bunnies in there too lol). I chuckled at how all of them prepared to work by brushing off their arms from elbow to fingertips.

I'm working on a post about Mother Goddesses and the meaning of the name "Mary" and its use as an epithet for The Sea Goddess (Mare or Mari = sea). No idea when or if it's going to get up here, I just don't want to leave all of you thinking I'm not at work here and just posting teh fluff!

Smack'd

Today I was part of a ritual in which someone was added to the group mind and another was removed. I find this formality a bit odd. I appreciate and understand its use and purpose, but again, this seems like a conceit, a false or forced step in a process which should be completely organic. I keep examining my feelings about things like this to see if they have changed. Hmmm... nope, not yet. (edit: I feel it necessary to note that this ritual was Wiccan and not Italian in the least. I "commune with the Wiccans" from time to time. Maybe it's just to note the difference? Back to the topic!).

One of the chants used in the ritual was a ditty I learned while spiral dancing with the Radical Faeries in front of the Jefferson Memorial almost 15 years ago:

Come and be one
Become one
Be one
Be

It's been a favorite chant used at NYC Pagan Pride too. Whenever I tried to explain the chant to someone, I would sing this:




Come and be one/I'm not the one
Become one, be one, be/Who's so far away

Think he'd heard the chant before he wrote the song?  Can you believe the HPs wouldn't let us sing it to illustrate the chant? ;)

Quiet moments

It's an exhausted kind of night. Instead of trying to cobble together a less than stellar post, I'm going to share a quote that has been on my mind lately:

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives." - Henry David Thoreau

Until tomorrow...

Caught between the Scylla and Charybdis

Oh, Sting, they just don't write em like they used to.

I started to write my blog tonight and, after a long day, thought "I got nothin." But that's never true. If there's a day when I'm truly not up for writing, I'll post something from Ovid or The Aeneid. I was going in this direction tonight, when I realized that I wanted to talk about these two. Odysseus, in the travels chronicled in The Odyssey, found lost himself all over Magna Graecia, which of course included Sicily and other settlements in mainland Italy. The location of Scylla and Charybdis, has long thought to be Sicily's Strait of Messina. So who/what were Scylla and Charybdis?

Scylla was, according to The Odyssey, a land monster who stood high atop a cliff and would chomp on the crew of the ship as it sailed by. Some of her characteristics: 12 tentacles, a cat's tail, dog heads ringing her waist, 4 eyes, 6 heads... Can we pile anything else onto this thing?
Charybdis was a giant yawning whirlpool within an arrow's length from Scylla's post.
Monsters were often something perfectly wonderful before they became monsters. Sounds like marriage (rimshot!). This seems especially true of the female monsters we come across in the lore of Greece. I'd like to be knowledgeable enough about other pantheons and societies to make an actual comparison. I can't go saying Greece was more sexist than their counterparts, even tho they did take a perfectly lovely Women's Mystery and insert kidnapping into it, Dionysus, and have it run by a man. But I digress. Eleusis is for the summer.

As the various legends go, Scylla was a naiad (water nymph). Someone, either Posideon or  another sea divinity, Glaucus, fell in love with her. She evaded him by going up onto the land where he (whichever "he" it was) couldn't follow. Either Poseidon's wife Amphitrite poisoned her bath or Circe did after falling for Glaucus who asked Circe for a spell to win Scylla. Nice, huh? The poor girl was trying to avoid being pursued and look what she got for her troubles!

Charybdis, another naiad, was the daughter of Poseidon and Gaia. She would take land and villages and forests for her Father while in the form of a whirlpool. For her loyalty to her father, Uncle Zeus came along and turned her into a monster, lest she help Dad take over his territory.

I find it sadly fitting that these women, who came to be known as the first "rock and a hard place," found themselves in that very same situation.

But not to end on a down-note, here's a favorite poem by Ovid
(it only looks long. It's worth the read and delicious licentious!)

To his Mistress...
Your husband will be with us at the Treat;
May that be the last Supper he shall Eat.
And am poor I, a Guest invited there,
Only to see, while he may touch the Fair?

To see you Kiss and Hug your nauseous Lord,
While his lewd Hand descends below the Board?
Now wonder not that Hippodamia's Charms,
At such a sight, the Centaurs urged to Arms;
That in a rage they threw their Cups aside,
Assailed the Bridegroom, and would force the Bride.
I am not half a Horse (I would I were):
Yet hardly can from you my Hands forbear.
Take then my Counsel; which observed, may be
Of some Importance both to you and me.

Be sure to come before your Man be there;
There's nothing can be done; but come how e'er.
Sit next him (that belongs to Decency);
But tread upon my Foot in passing by.
Read in my Looks what silently they speak,
And slily, with your Eyes, your Answer make.
My Lifted Eyebrow shall declare my Pain;
My Right-Hand to his fellow shall complain;

And on the Back of a Letter shall design;
Besides a Note that shall be Writ in Wine.
When e'er you think upon our last Embrace,
With your Fore-finger gently touch your Face.
If you are pleased with what I do or say,
Handle your Rings, or with your Fingers play.
As Suppliants use at Altars, hold the Board,
When e'er you wish the Devil may take your Lord.

When he fills for you, never touch the Cup;
But bid th' officious Cuckold drink it up.
The Waiter on those Services employ.
Drink you, and I will snatch it from the Boy:
Watching the part where your sweet Mouth hath been,
And thence, with eager Lips, will suck it in.

If he, with Clownish Manners, thinks it fit
To taste, and offer you the nasty bit,
Reject his greasy Kindness, and restore
Th' unsavory Morsel he had chewed before.
Nor let his Arms embrace your Neck, nor rest
Your tender Cheek upon his hairy Breast.
Let not his Hand within your Bosom stray,
And rudely with your pretty Bubbies play.

But above all, let him no Kiss receive;
That's an Offence I never can forgive.
Do not, O do not that sweet Mouth resign,
Lest I rise up in Arms, and cry, 'Tis mine!
I shall thrust in betwixt, and void of Fear
The manifest Adult'rer will appear.
These things are plain to Sight; but more I doubt
What you conceal beneath your Petticoat.

Take not his Leg between your tender Thighs,
Nor, with your Hand, provoke my Foe to rise.
Which I, myself, have practised all before!
How oft have I been forced the Robe to lift
In Company to make a homely shift
For a bare Bout, ill huddled o'er in hast,
While o'er my side the Fair her Mantle cast.

You to your Husband shall not be so kind;
But, lest you should, your Mantle leave behind.
Encourage him to Tope; but Kiss him not,
Nor mix one drop of Water in his Pot.
If he be Fuddled well, and Snores apace
Then we may take Advice from Time and Place,
When all depart, when Complements are loud,
Be sure to mix among the thickest Crowd.
There I will be, and there we cannot miss,
Alas, what length of Labour I employ,
Just to secure a short and transient Joy!

For Night must part us; and when Night is come,
Tucked underneath his Arm he leads you Home.
He locks you in; I follow to the Door,
His Fortune envy, and my own deplore.
He kisses you, he more than kisses too;
Th' outrageous Cuckold thinks it all his due.

But, add not to his Joy, by your consent,
And let it not be given, but only lent.
Return no Kiss, nor move in any sort;
Make it a dull and a malignant Sport.

Had I my Wish, he should no Pleasure take,
But slubber o'er your Business for my sake.
And what e'er Fortune shall this Night befall,
Coax me to-morrow, by forswearing all.