Sam Webster's Blog, page 5
December 18, 2013
Restoration Reviewed
[image error] Time for a pause before the new year.
This is the twelfth post of the Pagan Restoration blog, a worthy time for reflection and assessment. Using the resources of theology, history, reason, experience and intuition, I have been examining critical ideas and practices in the Pagan community with the intent to render our community better able strengthen ourselves and face the challenges before us. What’s been done…what’s to come? [Read more...]
December 11, 2013
A Question of Charity
What is the place of charity in Paganism? Are we MIA or running cloaked? Do Christians have a monopoly on helping the poor or do our sacred stories enjoin us to help? But more importantly, what is the right thing for Pagans to do?Over on the Arkadian Anvil, I raise some questions inspired by Alley Valkyrie’s recent Wild Hunt Post.
December 4, 2013
Hermes Pantos Apolytos
Gods arise in response to need, being the embodiments of Divine Providence. Otherwise, we would never know of Them. Their appearance is a reflection of us, our understandings and predilections. Ancient Greeks acknowledged that if a dog or a cow were to see a God, the God would appear dog-like or cow-like. They are, and are far beyond any human conception of them, beyond distinctions of personhood or impersonal power. But in Their tender Providence, what we might call Compassion today, They come in forms we can grasp and with powers we need in our lives.
Thus it seemed to me, when a God I have long served, and priest for to my Pagan Community, arose and revealed a form of His: Hermes Pantos Apolytos, Hermes All-Liberating.
From His rite of Invocation:
A bearded Man in his prime
Wearing the winged Hat of Hades,
A white Tunic woven by Athena,
Over that a yellow leather Tabard from Hephaestus,
Bound by Aphrodite’s zodiacal Girdle,
About His shoulders Oranos’ Chalmys Cloak,
On His feet, His winged Boots.
His four arms tell His might:
In His upper left hand is Zeus’ Golden Rod
In His upper right, Gaia’s Gray Flint Sickle
His lower right is Hera’s Giving Hand and
In His lower left Hekate’s Torch,
Lit from Hestia’s Lamp which rests before Him,
Along with Artemis’ Arrow, Demeter’s Barley,
Dionysus’ Cup, and Apollo’s Dice.
A four-armed Greek God? Some will point to a form of Hekate (debated), but certainly it is not common to see.
Yet, this is the form of Hermes All-Liberating, Destroyer of Obstacles, Liberator of Bonds, Purifier of Poisons, so far as we have learned it.
As the year draws to a close it is a good time to clear obstructions from our lives. Our world is full of impediments internal and external, material and spiritual, that keep us from the happiness and satisfaction that is our natural state. Here is a God who has heard our need, a friendly God who comes with True Divine Wrath, who liberates all forms and forces that oppose our right actions, our rightly lived lives.
It is also clear that if we are in the wrong, or that we are the obstructions, He will Liberate us as well. And this is of All Compassion.
On Saturday December 14 from Noon to ~4pm at Arkadia, I will host an extended ritual to invoke Hermes Pantos Apolytos and activate His wrathful power to remove material and spiritual obstructions from our lives, based on the Tantric invocation I have previously taught.
You are invited to attend. Although this is not a teaching on the practice, those unfamiliar with it are welcome to attend and partake. Those familiar should practice in preparation.
Space is limited, so please let me know if you plan to attend and if you need directions.
There is no cost for this work, but donations are gratefully accepted.
Blessings of the Herm,
)O+
sam
November 27, 2013
Wisdom, because Love is not enough…
Recently, I was at an MC Yogi concert where he was working his tour’s tag line: “Yogi Revolution, Love is the Solution”. While I appreciate the sentiment, it got me thinking…
Love is oft touted as the solution to all ills. I’m not seeing it.
Without love, life is not worthwhile. It is gray, dismal, lonely and harsh. Love, mercy, compassion, care, kindness give value and joy to all we do. But is not a solution to our problems.
Our problems are from bad choices, from promoting the stupidity of selfishness over general wellbeing. What love is here is too narrow a love, just for self or those closest. Wide enough love can be the spark that leads to action, but it is not the solution.
For love, alone, is used as a palliative: Don’t worry, just love each other and all will be well. At worst is it the mere sentiment, the subjective feeling of love, that we are enjoined cultivate, having no impact on anyone except ourselves, and we feel so good about it. Yet the object of our love gets nothing of our sentiment except maybe words, perhaps flowers. Love at its best is the will for another’s happiness, and this at least has the virtue of being motivating, to someone. Yet, in and of itself love is not a solution.
Wisdom is the ability to make the right choices, even without sufficient data, because it is founded on data, which when contextualized is knowledge, and when the pattern in the knowledge is then understood and recognized time and again such that general principals of the ways of the world can be intuited. This is wisdom and takes hard work to get there. So hard is it that the most direct discipline to acquiring it is called the Love of Wisdom: Philosophy. To forestall the hubris of claiming to be wise, we only claim to aspire to wisdom through the love of it.
Wisdom, by looking at the facts, by learning them, understanding them, and then carefully crafting a solution using both reason and intuition (and testing!) can actually provide real solutions to the problems that vex us.
Arguably, we also need Power to implement Wisdom’s solutions. Knowing or intuiting the right thing to do without the power to enact it is useless. Power will require its own contemplation, one for another day.
I will close this contemplation with these ancient words…
Wisdom alone
Is the right coin with which to deal,
And with it everything of real worth is bought and sold.
And for it, Temperance and Justice, Fortitude and Prudence,
Are a kind of preliminary purification.
And those who instituted the Mysteries for us
Appear to have been by no means contemptible persons,
And to have intimated in a veiled manner that
Whoever descends into Hades uninitiated,
And without being a partaker in the Mysteries,
Shall lie in the mire;
But that whoever arrived there purified and initiated,
Shall dwell with the Gods.
Yet, as said by those who preside over the Mysteries:
Many are the candidates seeking Initiation,
But few are the perfected Initiates.
But these few are, in my judgment, true wisdom-lovers;
And that I may be of their number
I shall leave nothing unattempted,
But shall exert myself in all possible ways.
Socrates
in Plato’s Phaedo
November 20, 2013
Leadership is Relationship
A contemplation on the role and relations of leadership.
Leadership is a two way street. Those who lead only do so because of those they serve. Leadership is inalienably about service, or it is tyranny. Leadership is also risky. There are lessons to be learned from penguins and the language of ordination. Read more at Pagan Restoration…
November 13, 2013
Gods! Hard or Soft or ???
Are the Gods individual Beings or Cosmic Forces or Psychological Archetypes? Or are we just sticking Them in Boxes? A few thoughts to ponder in today’s Arkadian Anvil.
November 5, 2013
Words?
Words, Sir?
Ah, you looked them up in a dictionary
Those are not words, Sir
Not the living things that come out of our mouths
Only having real existence when they bridge between
two of us, or more, or even failing. . .
No Sir, those words in your dictionary
those are just dried bones of words
from which we can only infer the flesh of meaning
~sw, June 2011
October 30, 2013
the effect is eternal
Dawn of a day
a life renewed
a cycle completed and begun
the wheel turns, and you are on it
touch the milestone as you pass
leave your mark and be marked
the moment is ephemeral
the effect is eternal
sw, july 2012
October 23, 2013
Basic Dharma Practices in Translation
The Buddhadharma, the principles underlying Buddhism separate from the culture of Buddhism, has many profound insights about the nature of spiritual practice, which I find illuminative in my Pagan ritual and meditative practice. Since Buddhism is a cosmopolitan religion and attempts to spread itself, this relieves me of many of the problems of culture appropriation. Further, a Lama taught me that the Vajrayana, Tantric (read magical) Buddhist practice is not culturally bound, but needs to be recreated in each culture that adopts it. Hindu Tantra has the problem of being culturally bound, but also the literature on it is more pious than analytical and harder to penetrate for uncertain benefit.
For these reasons, over the last two decades I have been applying my skill as a ritualist to make the methods of Tantric Buddhism available to Pagans. This site, under the ‘Dharma’ menu above, has some of my work on this and more is to follow. Today, I am posting the “Most Basic” set of practices in translation. Translation here is the idea of bringing the ‘tech’ into our culture, not linguistic transposition.
While I am no Lama, I teach this material in the hope of improving our spirituality and ability to invoke. Contact me if that is of interest.
October 16, 2013
How Pagans can Save the World: the Pagan Restoration
Last time was why, this time is how Pagans can save the world, or what I call the Pagan Restoration of Civilization, and what I named the blog for.
Come, have a think, and let me know if you are up for the job. . .
)O+
sam
