Non Fluffy Wicca

I had been forced to turn off comments on my weblogs because of evil comment spammers who should be thrown into the Bog of Eternal Stench. They inundated all of my blogs, taking my work, efforts, and creations for themselves, by using them as a platform to spew stupid ads for cruft that nobody needs. In the bad old days, I would have to delete these things one by one, rebuilding all of the files of the website every time.

The wonderful people at Six Apart came up with a solution, but it was necessary to install a new version of their blog software, Movable Type. This was a daunting task, remembering how many things I had to tweak in order to make it work the first time. However, the spammers annoyed me SO much that I had to do something. I downloaded the new software, followed the directions, found something didn't work right, became confused, contacted tech support, and voila....a quick response that solved my problem. Hooray! So this is the new version. Comments are back ON. I get to review them before posting, so I can weed out the evil spam.

I am pleased. All is well with the world.

Posted by mikki at 09:36 PM | Permalink

There has been a call for all REAL Christians (i.e. those who follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, who I doubt would ever condone such actions as are being done to torment Darla Wynne) to send letters of condolence to Ms. Wynne through the South Carolina ACLU. This type of thing should be an affront to all thinking humans across the world. This woman's cat was killed and hanged for her to find. Her house has been vandalized multiple times. All because she chose a religion that teaches "an it harm none, do as you will."

United States: A parrot belonging to a Wiccan woman who launched a legal challenge to her town's unconstitutional prayers has been slaughtered in a highly ritualistic manner. Darla Wynne, of Great Falls, South Carolina, came home one night last week to find her parrot, Little One, beheaded with his heart cut out. A note warned her she would be next. It is just the latest in a long series of incidents.

Many of the town's 2,200 residents regard Wynne as a witch and disapprove of her pagan faith, she said. The vandalism has ranged from destruction of her cars to several of her animals being poisoned, Wynne said.

No one will say anything, Wynne said. They think they're protecting their own....

...Wynne said she has endured numerous verbal and written threats. She received by mail a booklet, Thou Shalt not Suffer a Witch to Live, and said a man yelled at her, Witch, you're going down.

Twice last week before her bird was killed, Wynne said she received threats in the mail.

Parrot's death latest threat to woman in prayer case - The Herald (Rock Hill), 17th August 2004.

Posted by mikki at 11:24 AM | Permalink

Go figure. Military guys don't like Wiccans. Hopefully one of the rights that they are supposedly fighting for over there will include the First Amendment right to Freedom of Religion. But that would be just too logical, eh?

United States (and occupied territories): Wiccan service people face a number of problems. In one incident, a small circle was pelted with bottles and stones by fellow squaddies while worshipping in Iraq. Military chaplain Patrick McCollum described some of the other problems:

An advisory team became a Pentagon priority when Wiccan military personnel reported problems while conducting rites and religious activities.

The Wiccans said that some chaplains were trying to convert them and that commanding officers made it difficult to practice, McCollum said.

Wiccans also have been pressuring the Department of Veterans Affairs to allow a Wiccan emblem, most likely the pentacle (sic.), for armed forces burial headstones or markers. Mike Nacincik of Veterans Affairs, said the department authorizes 38 emblems, including one for atheists, but none for Wiccans.

The military should honor the beliefs of Wiccans asked to fight and die to uphold freedom of speech and religion, McCollum said.

If these freedoms are taken away while they're defending these values, it creates a paradox.

Interestingly, the Air Force boasts the highest number of Wiccans - perhaps a fast jet is the closest they'll ever get to a broomstick.

Military casts Wicca in the shadows - Contra Costa Times (via Religion News Blog), 12th August 2004.

Posted by mikki at 10:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

A good friend lost her baby, Hurricane Charley hammered Florida, and then yesterday, we had to put my Filix cat to sleep. As expected, I am very sad, with a massive hole in my heart.

Filix (named after the final approach fix at Gaithersburg Airport) was chosen by my daughter as an addition to our family in 1999. He was an 8 month old kitten at the time, and almost immediately we found that he had difficulties. He was diagnosed with Inflammatory Bowel Disease and various other immune disorders. His breeder didn't seem to care, and just wanted to know if we wanted to "exchange it." How could anyone send an animal back to someone like that? He was put on a special diet, and medications.

Filix was a very intelligent cat who amazed us with his brains and methods of communication. Whenever something was not quite right, Filix would come over to us, sit down squarely in front of us, and MEOWL until we paid attention. It was usually something like a door being left over, or Spot getting locked in the bird room. He and Spot were very close, and usually slept together in their little cat bed. His fur was softer than any cat's I ever had. He loved vanilla ice cream, and would demand it when he wanted it.

When Spot died, Filix was devastated. He went into a physical tail spin that he did not recover from, despite very strong medications including chemotherapy drugs. He would spend days not eating, and losing weight to the point where yesterday he weighed 4 pounds. I fed him with a spoon, trying desperately to keep him eating. We gave him fluids by needle, B12 shots, force fed him ensure, and begged him to eat anything at all. He gave up a few days ago and totally refused to eat even tuna, salmon, beef, pork, or anything else. It was clear that he took no pleasure in most of anything, and I didn't have the heart to force him anymore. Rather than let him starve to death "naturally," we made the decision to help him along. It was done yesterday afternoon. I couldn't attend because it was too painful.

Wes brought his tiny body home, and we buried him near his best friend, Spot. I cut his thread and lit a green candle at the head of his grave and said goodbye. I have a pillar candle burning as long as it lasts to light his way, although I feel he's already gone to his reward and/or his next incarnation. I miss him terribly.

Posted by mikki at 08:06 AM | Permalink

I've been way busy with the witchy website at www.enchantedworks.com . Looking around for wholesalers, setting up pricing, the site itself, etc. has taken a lot of time, as well as the problems I've been having with one of my fur babbies. He isn't doing very well, and I'm spending lots of time spoon feeding him and giving him meds. We'll see how that goes, but nobody's very hopeful.

I'll likely have a lot more to say real soon now, and I'll write some more Witchy Rants :-) Stick around.

Posted by mikki at 08:28 PM | Permalink

I'd been waiting for the Blue Moon for quite a long time. I had some new ritual tools that I was going to consecrate that night, as well as do some serious celebrating. I was going to go up to Albany to the Temple of Astral Light, but I haven't been physically great, so scrubbed that idea. So when the evil Mark of the Correllian Shrine of the Sacred Arts asked to use my house and back yard for their ritual, I was of mixed mind. After some thought, I decided that would be a fine thing, and we might have some fun. Yeah, why not?

When I saw the Shrine's ritual, it was immediately evident that they wanted to go in a different direction regarding the importance of the Blue Moon vs. Lammas. I'm much more a Goddess oriented person at heart, so the Moon was the major thing for me. Well, all righty then, I would have a Blue Moon ritual and tool consecration myself, and then the Lammas ritual the next night. When I told Mark of my plan, he decided he'd like to come to my Blue Moon ritual as well, and bring Carolina, who was going to do the cooking for the Shrine ritual, and was going to help me clean up beforehand. Sounds great so far, eh?

Well, I went out to the ritual space, which is a beautiful little grove in the woods behind my house, and set up the candles and a few things on the altar. Then I went to wait for the other guys. When they arrived, they decided to have dinner first, with which we had a few glasses of wine. Maybe a bit more than a few, actually, but it was really good wine. Then we were ready to partake in ritual. We collected the stuff, and went outside, pointed in the direction of the ritual area, holding candles to light the way.

Little did we know that the candles lit not very bloody much at all, and soon we were wandering around the woods looking for a tiny little altar bench in the midst of 5 acres of dark wilderness. It was then, in the midst of Chaos, that Our Lady Eris made herself known in complete accord with this Discordian Moon. She appeared in the form of the Wasp Queen and her minions, flying forth from the ground and stinging the living shit out of us, causing us to run like hell into the night, not sure where we were going, but eventually making it home. To deal with the stings, we quickly jumped into the pool, hoping the cool water and chlorine would take care of things. It was indeed better, but the stings were really awful and we are still suffering.

So, when we came back inside, I held an impromptu VERY irreverent ritual to Eris and the Discordian Moon. I consecrated my tools, consecrated another bottle of wine, and we watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show and tried to get Mark to do the floor show without success, as he had passed out.

Posted by mikki at 12:28 PM | Permalink