Montreal Sabbats presents
Battle Royale for Yule
Public Yule Ritual 2005
led by Hobbes

Concordia University Pagan Society (CUPS)
7pm (after the CUPS Yule Fair (10am - 6pm)

The harvest has been taken in and, as the snow piles and the winds blow, we can't deny that Winter is upon us once again! Join us as we celebrate Yuletide with our special guests: the Holly King and the Oak King.

After the CUPS Yule Fair has wrapped up, you can bear witness as the Solstice brothers do battle to see who will reign from the Winter Solstice to the Summer Solstice.

Each participant in the ritual need to bring a candle that they can hold in their hands lit (so no wax spillage). Also, participants should NOT bring feast food because having food on the Mezzanine is problematic.

Experience is not necessary and all paths are welcome to attend. Pagan Standard Time does NOT apply (don't be late). The ritual will start promptly at 7pm.

Making the Papers

Last night, I went out to the West Island to join a few other fellow pagans to be interviewed by the Montreal Gazette. With Yule coming up, one of their reporters was curious about what Pagans do during the holidays and asked to interview us about it.

We talked about Pagan philosophy and Pagan practice. We talked about Pagan creeds and guidelines. We talked about rituals and symbology. We talked about community and public reactions. We talked about good and bad experiences about being Pagan in a non-pagan society.

He wrote all of it down and his photographer snapped off a few pictures of us in discussion and some of us in posed shot with an athame and a goblet of wine (symbolizing the Great Rite).

All in all, it was a nice discussion and we were well-pleased with it. The article is supposed to appear in the paper sometime before the CUPS Yule Fair (on December 3rd). But before the reporter left, I asked him what section the article would be in, and he replied "The A section".

The A section. That's the front of the paper. It has all the city news in it. I suddenly worried about what this would mean. I was going to be Pagan in a VERY public way now and I'm worried about what that might mean. Not worried enough that I'm going to ask for a retraction; I volunteered for this interview and I'm sticking to it.

Actually, I'm more worried what this might mean for Ms. Carotte. She's a devout Christian and she attends an Evangelical Church. She's starting to make friends there and getting involved in that community. I do stuff for that Church too since I think it offers positive contribution to our neighborhood (not that any of them know I'm Pagan).

I don't care if these Church people started to treat me differently based on my religious affiliations, but I would hate it if they started to treat Ms. Carotte differently. That would suck.

Take a Moment

If you missed the 11am moment on the 11th, take a minute now to sit or stand silently and meditate on the sacrifices made by those who were left behind and who live on today.

I find reading this poem helps to put me in the proper headspace. Lest we forget...

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Reflections of a Greater Glory

I teach a Paganism 101 class at the Crescent Moon School on Wednesday nights, so last night we were watching an NFB documentary on pagan spirituality, the new feminist movement, and the environmental movement (Full Circle).

With so much on Goddess spirituality in the mainstream media, the concept of Goddess spirituality is certainly well-known. I'm sure that in 1992 (over 13 years ago), this would've been a relatively new concept to hit the mainstream consciousness.

So the film was more than a bit dated for my students, as well as myself. There was also a nasty undercurrent of anti-male sentiment that I found disturbing (that the males were responsible for everything that had gone wrong in the world). That type of male-villification just gets my blood boiling (so don't get me started).

I was discussing this with Ms. Carotte last night and I said:

"The movie attributed everything to the Goddess! The oceans, the moon, the animals, and the earth is the Earth Mother. And what about the God? The God gets regulated to the Sun, sperm, general security, and taking out the garbage. Argh!"

"Think of it this way," she smirked. "The only reason we can see the Moon at all is because it reflects the light of the Sun. What does that say about the Goddess?"

I grinned malevolently. "I'll be sure to use that on some unsuspecting pagan feminist. Maybe I'll go get my tombstone done now and avoid the rush."

There's a reason I love that girl. She always trying to get me killed in some kind of spectacular way.

Feet are Wet

Remeber back in August when I posted about fighting Cold Feet about my new business idea? Since then, I've been meeting with a few people, discussing the project and generating some interest, but no one has formally given me the Nod.

Until this morning.

I got my first committed client and work on the project will start in January 2006 (although the setup work will probably start this month). When I complete this project, I will formally launch my new company project with some kind of shindig, probably in the Spring.

In the meantime, I celebrate my first victory. I'm very excited and terrified at the same time.

Halloween Handout Gets Bitten

As I do every year, I decked the front of the house with all things ghoulish and ghastly, including spooky music and ghostly moanings and groanings. Ms. Carotte and I both got dressed up and we freaked out the little kids as they went Trick or Treating. I really love this time of year.

It took about 2 hours for the kids to clean us out of our goodies and we got some really interesting costumes. There was one kid who had a steady stream of blood pouring down his skull face.

But then came the Teens. I hate it when Teens go trick or treating because they refuse to get into the spirit of the night. Going around with a pillowcase to get free candy doesn't make you a Trick'OTreater: it makes you a Beggar. So we refused to give anything to the teens who just showed up in their regular clothes.

I had a pair of brothers show up (with their Mom looking on) who were not only offensive, they were abusive. I made the mistake of asking the youngest one what he was as I gave him the candy. He replied loud and proud "I'm a faggot!" Stunned, I looked over to his mom who just shrugged and admonished him lightly as she laughed.

"If that's your answer, then I'll take my candy back," I said, reaching for his bag.

"Okay, okay," he laughed, snatching his bag away. "I'm really a vampire. Watch!" and he grabbed my hand and bit me hard! Again, his mum just laughed. I turned to his brother, ready to ask him what he was (he was in his regular clothes), but he just grabbed the candy from my hand and pushed me out of the way with a "Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

As they walked away from my porch, I called out "If you're trick or treating, you could at least get into the spirit of it! I spent money on these candies, so I'm not asking that much from you to just wear something interesting. And if you're going to take my candies, you can can the attitude!" I swear, I'm getting more and more like the "old guy shaking his cane at the young folks" every day.

The mother looked so torn. She was shocked and surprised that I would rant at her son, but at the same time, she knew I was right. She just waved half-heartedly and ran off after her children. Better spend a bit more time teaching your kids to pay *some* respect to others, especially when asking for food.

Halloween is one of those rare occasions when you actually get to meet your neighbours. I love doing that, but if you could just keep your bratty, arrogant, "whatever" teens away from me, it'll take the horror out of my holiday experience.

Professionalism

Sometimes it frustrates me that I'm expected to stay polite, PC, and respectful in the face of people who are everything but these things. Why do they get to be rude, non-professional, and arrogant, and just keep chugging along in their lives?

I was once like that early on in my career. After a couple of weeks of missed review deadlines, with the final deadline hanging over my head, I walked into the client's office, plunked down my guide for review, and curtly informed him that he had a week to get comments back to me. Did I mention that my client was meeting with another potential client of his at the time?

A couple of hours later, my client (the Prez of the company) knocked at my door. He came in, closed the door behind him, sat down in front of me, and said:

"Hobbes, I know you're a young guy, just starting out in your career, so you're not going to know about these things. I like you, you're a talented writer, but you need to learn how to behave with your clients." And then proceeded to lecture me for about an hour.

He was polite, but firm. I could also see he was really pissed off and I knew I had made a serious error in judgement. However, my employers never heard anything about it, so it was just between me and him.

I'll never forget that day and what he taught me, although when faced with young professionals who treat me the way I treated him, I struggle with crossing that line everytime.

Thanks Don.

Suddenly squeemish

Note: squeemish people beware

It's weird how certain imagery will bother me in one instance and not in another. I usually enjoyed watching the various flavours of CSI and Law & Order, but last night I just could not bear to hear how these people died so horribly in their last moments.

It started with CSI: Miami (just Caruso's acting might make you squeemish enough) with a description of how a woman's ribcage was crushed, puncturing her lungs. I flinched and changed the channel quickly. A bit later, we started watching L&O: Criminal Intent (pre-D'Onofrio starring Chris Noth) and watched with horror an innocent man be bound, gagged, and chained on a tugboat. Then his kidnappers ripped off the gags and threw the chains off the boat, watching expressionlessly as they let the man scream until he disappeared beneath the water. I turned the TV off immediately and went to bed, calling it a night.

But I couldn't sleep. All I could see was the drowning man's terrified face as he watched the heavy chains disappear into the black depths with nary a splash. Over and over, I couldn't help but imagine his last moments as the water pressure squeezed the air from his lungs.

I'm terrified of death and personal suffering and the older I get, the worse it becomes. I've never been a fan of horror movies, but I find myself flinching at violence that I used to be able to shrug off.

Does this mean I'm struggling with my own mortality or the mortality of my loved ones?

Trolls Leave their Bridges

The Internet has the fantastic capacity to unite people. The vast expanses of land, sea, and air fall away only to be replaced by Internet Superhighways, allowing people to connect and build friendships and communities. It's an amazing feat of technology and simple human thirst for connection.

But with all that good, there will always be an element of badness, abuse, and just plain annoying. I am reminded of the early days of the Internet (before the graphical arrival of the World Wide Web) when email and usenet groups formed the first communities. My favourite hang-outs in those days were alt.folklore.ghost-stories and alt.shenanigans. These were the days before there was any Spam on the Internet, so these usenet groups were pretty junk-free. I go back to them occasionally, but they are so overloaded with Spam, it's not worth sorting through all the messages.

And with all those fantastic connections come the Trolls. These people are not interested in positive connections. What they want is to stir emotions, make people angry, and then absorb all the attention that comes with it. At first it was easy to spot these trolls: they wrote all in CAPS and their email addresses ended in AOL.com.

But as the mainstream audience becomes more net-savvy, the Trolls become trickier, sneakier, and harder to spot. They hide behind multiple email aliases, they lurk in elists waiting for the right moment to spout, they create elists of their own so they can say and spout at will and ad nauseum (sometimes their verbiage is only heard by their own mulitiple email aliases).

And somehow, we can't look away. We're facinated by the twisted, the insane, and the rambling. The wwweb is like a window into the mind of a serial psychopath, committing text-based atrocities right on our own screens. We shake our heads in wonder, shake our fists in rage, and reply with a great pounding of our keyboards, hoping that our own textual daggers can pierce through the wall of ignorance our targets have thrown up in all its HTML glory.

I can tell you that it's rarely very satisfying. True Trolls rarely admit they're wrong, no matter how passionately and logically you argue your point. And while these Trolls sleep happily under their bridges, a satisfied smirk on their lips at the chaos they've stirred, you're lying awake at night, formulating your response in harsh whispers, clutching at the sheets as if your mouse has crawled into bed with you.

I once had to muzzle a person on one of my elists because she was infuriating the other members with her trolling ("If you're irresponsible enough to get pregnant, then you don't deserve to keep your job!"). She tried to post to the list after I had gone to bed, and because she had been moderated, her post didn't go through. She tried resending it 12 times and then sent me 22 angry emails on why her post was getting through and who did I think I was to censor her.

After a frustrating day of angry emails back and forth (effectively feeding this Troll), I went to bed and didn't sleep a wink. I was afraid she was a nut, that she'd start calling me, that maybe she'd show up at my door, demanding her Internet rights.

I'm as guilty as anyone when it comes to feeding these Trolls with the attention they so deeply crave, but they really aren't worth the effort. Let the psychologists figure these people out. We must refrain from falling victim to these Trolls who not only feed on our attention, but also our emotions. I know it's hard, but it's best to walk away and not look back.

When I figure out how to do that completely, I'll let you know.

The Sweet Taste of Power

There's been a reshuffle of positions at my client's site that has ended with me taking on more responsibility and more work, which has in turn extended the contract.

With this new position and mandate, I find I'm more motivated and feel better about my contribution to the project. I guess being in charge really suits me better.

In other business-related news, I'm working on a formal business plan with a consultant for my other writing business and I got a call from someone who is interested in me taking pictures of their handfasting (wedding).

If I could balance my worklife between writing, teaching, storytelling, and photography, I believe I'd be more fulfilled. That's important to me and I suspect it's important to you.