Travel Log 1-13: My lucky Day

The thirteenth has always been a lucky day for me, even more so if it's a Friday, but even a Thursday will do and as I sit here looking forward to the luck I hope to get on this odd numbered day I have been reminded of something by Mrs. B over at Confessions of a Pagan Soccer Mom. Please read her blog post here before you continue with mine because then you'll understand what I am about to "discuss" (code word for rant, sorry).

    Imagine your grandmother (if you like her, if not then imagine a little old lady who is for these purposes, sweet and slightly eccentric). A dear little old woman who should be home in her kitchen whipping up some cookies for the grandkids, or the neighborhood kids, or maybe she is a woman who fought her way through life and provided for her family and is still proud and strong, an example to the women in her family. Now picture that woman sitting in a small cell in an orange jumpsuit, no privacy, surrounded by prison hardened inmates, her pride and spirit broken, all because someone called her a witch. Pretty damn offensive isn't it. Makes you want to rail and scream and write your senator and generally raise Hel and Hecate to ride to her rescue.
     Now imagine that the prison she was in was so overcrowded that she didn't even have the mercy of the space reserved for a cell in our prisons. No sanitation and prisoners pressed so close together as to resemble sardines. One meal a day served in a bag that she must figure out how to prepare for herself. Desease rampant with no bathrooms and very little opportunities to clean herself.
    What Mrs. B reminded me of in her post hit me strong enough that I felt the need to step away from my usually light tone here and remind myself and you of something that we take for granted. While we all sit behind our computers and talk about how offended we are that some beer company has put out a label that we think is offensive, or some politician has said something that we think slanders witches real people are being persecuted with real, serious damage for a word that we fight so hard to defend and elevate- witchcraft.
     I have honestly read many of the posts that Mrs. B puts up about the plight of those accused of witchcraft around the world and have thought to myself "that sucks" and even mentioned it to others, but what the hell have I done to help them? Yes it's a different country so we can't demand they change their ways or impose our laws and codes of conduct and that makes it really easy to comment and move on, but we can damn well find people who are trying to help them and add some form of support, even if it's just a letter saying that their fight is not in vain and others care about what they are doing.
    I was going to post today about some cool boxes I got at Micheal's and how I'm using them. How lowering is it to look myself in the mirror and know that  for the same money I had spent on storage boxes could have bought a woman her freedom and dignity back.
    Please read Mrs. B's post and do what your conscience demands. The link again is here.
    Tomorrow I will back back to my regularly scheduled levity, but for today I think I will try and send my luck to someone who really needs it.

Travel Log 1-12: My First Book Review

 Well the plague has finally retreated from our household, and I'm ready to hop back into blogland contagion free!
     And what fun I get to start back with my very first ever blog review!

The look inside doesn't work but I couldn't get just the regular image, lol.
      I was first interested in this book because I have a young man of my own that I really haven't been able to be open with my faith with ( ex, court system, you know the drill, sigh) and so I've been running around trying to soak up as much material as possible to figure out how to handle this.
    The Way of the Horned God is, frankly, and awesome book for young males of a certain age ( I would say about 12-19 depending on the maturity level of the child) who is either already pagan, or thinking about taking the pagan pathway.
    From the beginning he discusses that paganism is very diverse and in fact not a by rote religion with entrenched and universal dogma, but is in fact a pathway with many branches, as well as a lifestyle that brings interaction with the divine in every aspect of our lives in a myriad of small ways. He takes on some pretty sticky subjects, such as dealing with telling your parents and puberty and sex. Throughout he deals with these subjects in a way that stresses personal responsibility, maturity, and honesty. He shows ways to incorporate ritual and worship, as well as spells, into daily life in unobtrusive ways. From cleaning your room to taking responsibility of chores and finding mentors in life Dancing Rabbit lives up to his name and dances the line between "how to" and "must do".
    This is very much not a follow the dotted line guide to being a perfect cookie cutter pagan, but is instead a guide book for young men on how to build their own pathway and how to find a way into manhood in these muddled modern times. If my young man wasn't slightly too young (he's not going to be 11 until May) this would already be in his hands. For me the willingness for an author to forgo the "my way is right" is invaluable, especially when dealing with young people looking for their identity. Instead this work guides a young man to find his own definition of manhood based on an inner moral code, society, and his own ideals of independance and makes growth into manhood a personal and achievable goal.
    I would recommend this to any parent with boys entering the dreaded teen years. I think it would be good for them and him.