Beltane

Ok, so this podcast came into the world kicking, screaming and protesting! I'm not even done converting it as I type this. I cannot be sure it will be a usable conversion. Everything that could go wrong with it, has! And its only # 2!!!

But all the same, have a happy Beltane, May Day, Law Day or Saturday!

Episode 002: Beltane & May Day!

Ogg 37.2M
Mp3 49.7M

MM

Misha

Beltane Eve!

You wouldn't know it by the storm clouds that have been hanging around. But tomorrow is May 1st and Beltane in the Northern Hemisphere, Samhain in the Southern Hemisphere.

To be good little Pagans, you should extinguish your fires tonight and relight tomorrow. And tomorrow there will be LOTS of fire! Don't forget to jump over the fire for good luck!!!

I'll be posting a new podcast sometime this Beltane Eve. If not sometime tomorrow for Beltane before I go to my own glorious fiery celebration!

• Colors: Dark Green for the God, Red for the Goddess and white.
• Symbols: Maypoles, baskets, crossroads, eggs, chalices.
  
• Flowers: bluebells, cinquefoil, daisies, lilac, marigolds, primroses and roses. Also, violets, buttercups and any springtime flower (though this does not include the early springtime flowers like daffodils, crocus, hyacinth and tulips).
  
• Herbs: ivy, angelica, hawthorn, rosemary, woodruff and yellow cowslip.
• Trees: Oak, hawthorn
• Other Plants: birch trees
• Animals: bunnies, bees, goats. Also: fairies, pegasus, satyrs and giants!
• Incenses: lilac, vanilla, rose, passion flower.
• Stones: Emeralds, Carnelians, Bloodstones, Sapphires.
• Food: Egg dishes (I make deviled eggs!), sweets, oats and honey!
• Deities: Appropriate Deities for Beltane include all Virgin-Mother Goddesses, all Young Father Gods (due to the cycle), all Gods and Goddesses of the Hunt, of Love, and of Fertility. Some Beltane Goddesses to mention by name here include Aphrodite, Arianrhod, Artemis, Astarte, Venus, Diana, Ariel, Var, Skadi, Shiela-na-gig, Cybele, Xochiquetzal, Freya, and Rhiannon. Beltane Gods include Apollo, Bacchus, Bel/Belanos, Cernunnos, Pan, Herne, Faunus, Cupid/Eros, Odin, Orion, Frey, Robin Goodfellow, Puck, and The Great Horned God.
  

Recipes:

Fried Honeycakes

These cakes were left in the garden to please Fairy visitors. If you plan to leave an offering to the Fairy, double the recipe to keep some for your family. They're scrumptious.

1/2 cup sweet white wine
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg
1 cup honey
2/3 cup flour
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon
Oil for frying
1/8 teaspoon salt

Beat the wine & egg in a medium bowl. Combine the flour, cinnamon, salt & sugar in a small bowl. Stir into the egg mixture. Let stand 30 minutes. Combine the honey & nutmeg in a small bowl.

Heat 1/2-inch of the oil in a frying pan until hot, but not smoking. Drop the batter into the oil 1 tablespoon at a time; fry until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Dip into the honey.

Yield: 1 1/2 Dozen.

May Wine

1 bottle of white wine (German is ideal)
1/2 cup strawberries, sliced
12 sprigs of woodruff, fresh

Pour wine into a wide mouth jar or carafe. Add the sliced strawberries and woodruff, and let sit for an hour or more. Strain and serve chilled.

Strawberry Cookies

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup shortening
1/4 cup milk
1 egg, lightly beaten
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/2 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
red and green food coloring

Cream the sugar and shortening until fluffy, on medium speed if using an electronic mixer. Beat in egg, milk, zest, and extract. Sift flour and powder together in a bowl and gradually add to the other mix. Wrap dough in plastic and chill for 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350ºF. Half dough and put the other half back in the fridge. Form dough into flattened balls and roll to 1/8 inch on a floured surface. Using strawberry-shaped cookie cutter, cut out cookies, and cut out little indentations like strawberry seeds if desired.

Put 1 tablespoon of water into each of two dishes and add a few drops of each color of food coloring. Paint the cookies with a paintbrush using the colors, making the body of the strawberry red and the stem and leaves green. Bake them on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8 minutes, then cool on racks. Repeat the process with the other half of the dough.

Yield: 5 dozen

First Cast

Blessed Be! At least I really hope so.

I decided to start podcasting about Pagan things. Its something that is near and dear to my heart so why not? Podcast about things you actually know about. I know! What a concept?!?

It's available in 2 formats: .mp3 and .ogg. I'd personally LOVE to not post mp3s. Wondering why? Because mp3 is not a free file format. It is not open source and in fat, fees are supposed to be paid to use the format to produce files. Its basically a file tax. And in years to come, you may have to pay fees to use these files. Hence, I like oggs.

Episode 001: The Full Moon of High Spring

Ogg 31.7M
Mp3 34.9M

Let me know of any problems with playback. And if you want to contact me, there's an e-mail in the podcast.

MM

Misha

What Would Scott Cunningham Do?

My family and I are moving to Lakeville. Its not a huge move but it does come with a few changes.

1. Gotta mow the lawn!
2. New Phone #
3. Living in a basement again! Eek! Spiders!!!
4. Shoveling a driveway
5. Switching to DSL!
6. Switching to Satellite TV

I started looking at the channels we're getting with our new thingamajig. Among the channels are fourteen (14) religious channels. One is outright Catholic. Another is nothing but services from various congregations replayed including Catholic masses and Jewish services. The rest are outright cheesy to the extreme Protestant. Programming for the Crispy Christians.

Despite my cynicism, it got me thinking. There needs to be some alternative channels to all these Christian channels. Though, I'll admit, the plethora of Christian programming has a lot to do with the population of those who purchase satellite television. I can't find statistics to back up an assertion I want to make so bear with me. I'm making an assumption that most subscribers, or at least a bulk of the early ones, were in the Midwest, regions with a more independent libertarian philosophy, or the Crispies themselves who also happen to live in those areas as well. So, its no surprise that there should be that many religious channels. There are something like 4x that in Skintillating programming (misspelling intended).

I think there should be something of a new age channel incorporating Buddhism, Hinduism, Eastern Philosophies, Paganism, Theosophy and any damn thing we can come up with. It might be difficult to dream up content but there is enough out there already to get us started! I think it would be nice if Belief.net could get on this for all of us who aren't of the Abrahamic faiths. I'd watch!

Man in the Mirror

I also have not posted about Michael Jackson because there is really is no need to. Everybody is doing it! So I thought I'd join up but for different reasons.

I really was neutral about his death. It was just another part of my childhood gone just like Cabbage Patch Dolls and music videos on MTV. But I did remember something that I have to mention.

A song on the Bad album called Man in the Mirror struck a chord with me when I was a teenager. Given that I was 8 when Bad was released, it was several years after. I was really beginning to become concerned about the world. About being a force for good in the great strain of Judeo-Catholic philosophy (Jews better the world, Catholics do good works and Protestants save souls). Of particular interest during my teen years was Sarajevo and the war in Bosnia-Hersegovina.

While my classmates were digging on the revivals of Jimi Hendrix and the Doors and buying into Alternative only when popular, I was listening to other shit. I got into Alternative, too. But I also got into the deeper messages that many were spreading. And it went back to the 80's when a lot of musician-as-activist had its real zenith. In the 60's there was protesting politics and folk anthems. But in the 80's it came to singing about social problems. Bruce Springsteen, Tracy Chapman, U2 and even Michael Jackson were singing to raise awareness of problems as far away as Ethiopia and as close as next door.

And there were lots of problems: homelessness, drugs, crack babies, oil spills, endangered species, nuclear meltdown, wars, civil wars, Cold War, nuclear weapons, inflation, recession, taxes, unemployment, pollution, malnutrition, gang violence, civil unrest, crime, school closings, rising food prices, suicide, white collar crime, sex slavery, Cola Wars, Savings and Loan collapse, suicide bombers, famine, drought, AIDS, hate, and poverty.

But the song that probably made the biggest impact brought it back home. Man in the Mirror forced the audiance to reconsider their own feelings and actions, thoughts and ideas about the world and what a person could do to make a difference. Instead of thinking just about others, we had to think about what we could change about ourselves to make it right. The song made an impact at me at that time and I will be forever grateful for it.

The video is an emotionally charged collage of various problems around the world in 1987. It also shows good things happening.

Here's the video. Real Player.

Sarah Palin

I have not said anything about her because of several reasons. First, she's not nearly as crucial to the Republican Party as pundits like Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity would have people believe. Second, she's not really worth talking about. I thought she was a lightweight, a soft politician unable to think for herself.

This former beauty queen who is a maverick unto herself doesn't have the right character to be an elected official. If anyone criticizes her right or wrong, she has to attack them with legal proceedings. I know from just being a Political Science major that its a tough field. Politicians are built of tougher stuff than the average citizen. For her to cry foul on every statement, joke or insinuation about her or her family shows her naiveté and vulnerability. The fact that she allegedly looks for criticism reveals that she is more concerned with what others think of her than her job.

By constantly needing to "set the record straight" she actually creates a bigger firestorm. Lunging at all who say anything gives nameless and faceless bloggers a bigger podium form which to reach a larger audience. Also, by calling what we do the "record" is to give us far more credit than we deserve. I'm neither her constituent nor a fellow party-member (I'm a lib lib - that's Liberal Libertarian). She owes me nothing! But I can still criticize her to my heart's content. But does what I say become a record that can be used against her in a court of law? NO! I doubt I even have any effect on any voter's mind!

Now that she has announced her resignation as Governor of Alaska she has proven many of her critics correct. She lacked the integrity to stick to the job at hand. Instead she let her ballooning and evermore cartoonish profile overwhelm her. Her "personality" became bigger than the office she held but not in the way anyone would want. It also increased her political vulnerability because those in the Alaskan government knew she had something fragile to protect: her national image, her brand. Book deals and lecture circuits are far more lucrative than the pitiful Office of Alaska Governor.

I am angry at Moose Hunter Barbie! She has set women back a decade. It may be harder for anyone to take a female Presidential Candidate seriously. Thus far, we've achieved Secretary of State thrice and Speaker of the House once. The Glass Ceiling is still the Presidential Ticket. In addition, her public face helps to reinforce a stereotype that women have increasingly worked to obliterate. The ignorant, sheltered, naive soccer/hockey mom whose ambitions go only as far as her hairdo! A woman who cares more about what others think rather than how she has lived her life. It seems her biggest problem is that instead of thinking, she just reacts. To Everything!

So like any young insecure girl uncomfortable with what she has, she stays with the "in-crowd". The trend right now is to distrust all government. Glenn Beck, a political commentator who recently left CNN for Fox News, has pointed out repeatedly how little we can trust our elected officials (Common Sense, Beck). If Palin is reading her tea leaves, she probably sees herself in the grouping that are currently unpopular. So, like a teen girl who must be seen in the latest fashion, she bails on her state in favor of more money and a maverick image that few take seriously.

I sincerely wish her luck with whatever she does. I don't think it matters much. Mostly, I think she's gunning for Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin or Laura Ingraham's job or at least their profiles and bloated bank accounts. Though I'd remind her that these women have what they have by inviting criticism! They sell more books by being polarizing and pushing so far to the right. They have what they have because of their thick skins and ability to use other's anger against them (which though I disagree with much of what they think, say and do, I do applaud this rare characteristic). I have serious reservations about Palin's ability to survive jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

On a personal note: I am an unemployed College Student who has next to nothing. Try and sue me!

1358 all over again!

On April 1, 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran was established. Things have never been perfect as any human made society isn't. But things have never been this bad.

Unless you've been in a coma, under a rock or tripping on something I don't even want to smell, you already know that many Iranians are protesting the results of an allegedly rigged election. (Trying to compare this to our 2000 election). The year 1358 is the year in the Islamic calendar when the the previous regime ending revolution occurred.