I must remember to announce that I'm moving more often. In the last two weeks I've received more well-wishing emails, more visitors at home, and more invitations to parties that I can't possibly attend, than in the last year. :-)

Yes, friends: I'm moving to Ottawa tomorrow. Today, I'm at home alone, here in Elora; deciding what to pack and what to leave behind. I'll be staying with friends in Barrhaven, and looking for a job and an apartment of my own. When these are found, I'll bring up the rest of my possessions.

If I can't find permanent work in Ottawa, I may still be able to go back to my teaching gig at the U of Guelph, although -- I hesitate to say this, in case any of my colleagues are reading this -- I'd rather not.

For various reasons, most of which I'd rather not disclose in a public forum like this, I have decided that it is time for me to change my life. That is part of what the move to Ottawa is all about.

Bren's regular readers: Here we go again...

Bren: On Saturday, 11th July, I will be attending Fire in the Hearth. But I may not have books to sign! I ordered a shipment of new copies of OSV and PT, but they might not arrive soon enough. If that turns out to be the case, I'll certainly have them in time for Kaleidoscope Gathering.

In other news: as of last Saturday, I'm now 35 years old.

And finally, did I mention I'm feeling a little twitterpated?

Cue the sound of a thousand really tiny violins...

...here is a YouTube video taken at the house concert that I referred to in this LJ post a few days ago.

Sorry for missing Q of the Week yesterday. I'm afraid I was making rather merry - a wee little gathering at home to celebrate my brother C's birthday (last saturday), my sister R's engagement to her boyfriend, and my own birthday (this coming saturday). My thanks to W, and A, and H for joining me here!

Just to update:

- I will be moving to the fair city of Ottawa next week.

- On the 11th of July, I will be attending "Fire in the Hearth", a one-day Druidic conference in Ottawa hosted by Red Maple Grove, ADF. Signing books, and presenting a short lecture on philosophical spirituality. The headline act, by the way, is Isaac Bonewits.

- Chas Clifton posted a review of OSV. It's a good review, and the comments that followed after have interested me too.

- I just received the official notice that my contribution to Out of the Broom Closet, edited by Arin Murphy Hiscock, has been accepted! This book will be available in September. A number of friends of mine also contributed, and I'm looking forward to reading them.

- The text of Book the Fifth, still in progress, is now almost 80,000 words. I'm beginning to feel good about the following as a title: "Loneliness and Revelation: A Study of 27 (or however many I get to) Sacred Relationships". As soon as the first complete draft is done, I will write the cover copy (that means the paragraph of info about the book which usually goes on the back cover) and then write a proposal to send to my publisher. You can imagine what an effect it has had on my emotional life, to be thinking and writing philosophically about loneliness almost every day for the last ten months. But this is turning into a really good argument, one that I dare say I'm proud of.

this started as an email to a friend, but I thought it might make a good blog post too...

A few days ago, the house became an "interesting" place. I got lots of writing done that day, mainly because I opened up a few more of the boxes in which my library is packed away, and rooted through them in search of books I wanted to refer to and quote from. The old desk in the library that I've been using is now completely covered in notes and books and research related bits and pieces. Of course, that aggravating Rubick's Cube also sits next to my keyboard: I've figured out how to finish all but the last side! I think I may have to go online and get cheat sheets.

Around mid afternoon one of my brother Turlough's friends appeared, with his guitar, and the two of them started jamming together. Turlough is a good bodhran player, and these two lads often go to the Celtic sessions in a local pub here in Elora. They're underage, so they drink pop, of course. A little while later, one of their female friends appeared, and started singing with them. Then more people appeared, some to join in, some to listen. I wanted to be writing my book, but it was almost impossible to concentrate with the music-like noise they were making.

By dinnertime, there were 40 teenagers sitting around the side yard, listening and singing along to about half a dozen teenager musicians. Then it started to rain, and they all came into the dining room. It seems that a house concert was planned for today, which I didn't know about. The band was what you might expect of teenagers - their instruments slightly out of tune, their voices slightly off key - but they were all having wonderful fun, and that is a good thing surely.

One of my longest-known friends has set up thewicca.ca, a resource for information, people, shops, festivals, and everything Wiccan and Canadian. He bills it as "a website dedicated to the recognition and promotion of Canadian Wiccan culture. Fans can receive updates of new content as it goes live and make recommendations for future additions." It's looking like a very comprehensive resource, and it gets updated all the time. He's also set up a "fan page" on Facebook, here.

A very merry and magical Midsummer to all of you!
Yesterday was drizzly and miserable here in Elora (so I feel less bad about missing WiccanFest) but today is gloriously shiny and clear and warm and wonderful. I really ought to be outside, beating the bounds in my forest instead of sitting inside, blogging. But here's a Q of the Week, for your consideration, after you return from beating the bounds in your own landscapes, of course.

Well June was Pagan Values Blogging Month, and as mentioned before I found myself a little disappointed by a lot of what I read. In her own contribution to the Pagan Values Blogging Month, Canadian Hedge Witch summed up exactly what I found so unsatisfying about so much of it:

The first thing I noticed reading all these blog posts, is a plethora of catch phrases and key words. Pagan values as pop culture?

Read the whole blog post here.

It seemed to me too that a lot of people's blog posts about values was little more than a repetition of various cliches.

Good readers, please don't get me wrong: I know and understand the value and the power of proverbs. I published 120 pagan wisdom-teachings in my fourth book, the result of an international folklore survey I conducted, along with philosophical commentary for most of them. Someone who offers advice using a traditional proverb brings to bear the whole power of his or her culture. And sometimes a cliche has its origins in an important insight. But that isn't true all the time. In fact it can often be counter-productive, or even patronising and demeaning, to offer a cliche to someone who has experienced a serious upheval in his or her life.

For example: an article in last week's Glob and Mule discusses the problems that can arise when offering a pop-culture cliche to someone who has just lost his job. It reads, in part:

Clichés – as frowned upon as they are – have become such fixtures in our everyday chatter that we fire them off without thinking. And that's a problem when it comes to serious matters such as unemployment, career experts say. Something else may indeed “come down the pipe,” as job hunters hear from well-meaning friends and family, but such stock reassurances are often unhelpful and misguided, and, frankly, seem like a snub.

Read the whole article here.

Might this be explained by a desire to avoid facing real problems? If someone has a serious dilemma, or a serious emotional and spiritual conflict, might the cliche reply be a way for people to protect themselves from addressing the seriousness of the problem? Might it even be the case that the use of superficial catch-phrases is a sign of a superficial spirituality? As I pose these questions, let it be understood that I'm not speaking of any particular path or tradition. In fact I started thinking about this question after reading a passage from D. J. Hall, "Confessing the Faith: Christian Theology in a North American Context", which I read on much_ado's LJ. Here's a quote:

We are trying to answer all of our problems without exposing ourselves to them as real problems. There is not one crisis on our horizon — whether this means vast social problems such as poverty, unemployment, and racism or intensely personal problems such as the search for meaning, vocation, or personal integrity — that can be resolved unless we are prepared to go much further into the depths of the question than we are apparently able or willing to do... In other words, our optimism is defensive, and what it seeks to defend us from is truth.

A longer quote can be found here.

Well, friends, what do you think? Has religion and spirituality grown too superficial? Do we prefer to take an easy, sunny, uncontentious path, in order to avoid having to think seriously and deeply about things, and avoid facing serious and deep problems? I know there can be something profound in the thought that "we are children of the Goddess" (an idea which also appears in the Bible: see Romans 8:16 for instance) But I'm tired of hearing people tell me that when I describe certain problems in my life.

Or, are there any pop-culture cliches and catch-phrases which you think really are philosophically powerful, and are not given their proper due? Which ones? And can you explain what they really mean, without falling back on more cliches?

A lot of people have written to me privately over the last few weeks to ask if I was planning to contribute to something called Pagan Values Blogging Month.

I thought this a curious question, since I blog about values all the time. I've also published a book about ethics and values, and my work has been quoted by numerous other writers (see the entry on Wikipedia for the list) and most recently my work was featured on the OBOD website, among the Mount Haemus Lectures and in an article on Ethics and Values in Druidry. Perhaps the reason I was asked if I would contribute to the blogging effort is because this is the kind of research I specialise in.

(Apologies for all that blowing of my own horn there...)

I first noticed the "Pagan Values Blogging Month" on alfrecht 's blog, and I have enjoyed his work so far. As I googled around a bit, I found that the idea seems to have originated here, on a blog written by someone called "Chrysalis". I searched around Google and found lots of other contributions. I'm sorry to say I liked very few of them. But instead of complaining about them, let me offer my own contribution. Here's a short passage from the manuscript of "Book the Fifth", which I have been writing for the last few months.

( Showing here. )

In lieu of a Q of the Week (since I was in Edmonton for the last four days...)

At the Spirit of the West Gathering, I had a brilliant time. The event is run by excellent people, and I do recommend to those within reach of Edmonton to attend next year.

At this year's event, I made a suggestion. There has been talk, on and off, at various times, of forming a Canadian Druid association of some kind. The rationale is sometimes just the mere fact that as of yet there isn't one; we Canucks are members of imported American Druidic Federations, like ADF, or British groups like OBOD, if we are members of any Druidic groups at all. Why not a Canadian one? We have a distinct society (remember that phrase?), a different history, a truly flippin' huge landscape, lots of regional variations, two official languages (or we have seven, if we count unoffficial-official languages like Cree, Ojibway, Inuktituk, Jouale, and Scots Gaelic)

I've nothing against the idea of a Canadian-made druidic organisation, at least principle. However, for my part, while there are a lot of things I'd like to do and to change in the pagan movement in Canada and around the world, I don't feel the need to create an institution around me to accomplish them. I think they can be achieved by writing books, talking to people wherever I travel, posing good questions, and as we try things we keep what works and discard what doesn't work. I proposed the idea of the Clan-maker in that kind of way.

Here's another suggestion, a simpler one, which I proposed in Alberta this weekend, and now offer to everyone.

At your next ritual, or pub moot, or camp, or conference, no matter what organisation or group is hosting it, and no matter whether you are Asatru, or Wiccan, or a Ceremonialist, or whatever: if you have any reason at all to refer to the World Tree, make it the sugar maple. That's the leaf that appears on the flag of our country. And that leaf has been a symbol of Canadian national identity long before 1867.

Doing this could help create a sense of a shared Canadian spiritual identity, without a need for a "Canadian ADF".

Yes, I know that the Eddas say that the World Tree, Yggdrasil, was an ash. But I don't live in Norway. I live in Canada. I think it would be interesting and positive if we hosers decided together that here in the Great White North, the world tree is a maple.

Other countries already do similar things. I've heard that many American druids and wiccans now invoke "Lady Liberty" as a goddess in some of their rites, and refer to the signatories of the constitution as important ancestor - predecessor figures. This is perfectly appropriate for American pagans, for whom values like freedom feature so prominently in the national story.

In Canada, obviously we value freedom too, but the values that loom largest in our origin-story are peace, order, and good government. These values were symbolised in the sugar maple, a strong, tall, hardy tree, that grows everywhere in the four original provinces, was of central importance to the early lumber industry, and is so tall and beautiful that it was an almost obvious choice.

I think this can be a way for we Canadians to assert a distinct Canadian spiritual presence in the world, so that we can create the terms of our spirituality more ourselves, rather than importing almost everything from Britain and America. And this might serve as a way for us to identify each other wherever we go in the world: if you are attending a ritual in New Zealand, or South Africa, and the person presiding over the right invokes the world tree in the name of the sugar maple, then you know you have a Canadian there, or someone trained in a Canadian tradition.

What do you think?

This coming Friday, 12th June, I'll be signing books in the Chapters bookstore in the West Edmonton Mall, (the largest shopping mall in the world - until they finish the one being built in Dubai). I'll be there from noon until 3pm.

Then, I will be attending the Spirit of the West Druid Gathering, that same weekend. The gathering takes place at a camp on the shore of Pidgeon Lake, Alberta. See the link for more info.

All welcome!

Leaving aside, for the moment, the observation that not all pagans are involved in open public groups that have or require leaders; and leaving aside, for the moment, that no one is under any obligation to join such groups...

As I was surfing through the back issues of a few popular pagan blogs, I came across this, by Anne Hill, written about a year ago. It has to do with some of her personal thoughts concerning Reclaiming Tradition, but it is relevant to a lot of the pagan movement as a whole. Here's the quote that caught my attention:

"I think abolishing hierarchy is stupid and a waste of time. If you are interested in equality at all costs, you should never have gone looking for your power in the first place. Holding authority with integrity is more important than making others feel good."

Read the whole article here.

Consensus and egalitarianism was one of the founding principles of Reclaiming, since (if I understand the group's principles properly) it was thought that most, if not all, forms of heirarchy and leadership are inherently oppressive. (Reclaiming members: please correct me if I'm wrong here.)

Indeed consensus, accountability, and democratic "checks and balances" form a very important part of the organisational structure of almost every pagan group that I have been involved in, over the last almost-twenty years. In one group that I was briefly instrumental in forming, the very first thing that the other founders wanted to do was establish the means to remove anyone who takes on a leadership position of any kind. In another group I once helped to create, there was no formal leadership at all: just a shared literature and group of symbols and practices. But within a few years a certain bullish individual arranged to make herself the Archdruid and now the organisation essentially belongs to her. (Every once in a while people ask if I'm still involved in this group. The answer is no.)

In various groups that uphold consensus-building as a primary value, the word consensus often becomes code for "the opinion of the most outspoken, bullish person". Those who disagreed with that person, even if they had good reason to disagree, sometimes are accused of "holding up the process" or "disrespecting the consensus" or "not being a team player".

Because of experiences like these, I find myself agreeing with Anne's remarks above. I've also studied a little bit of anthropology, and it seems to me that a little bit of heirarchy is a normal and natural part of any human society. The evidence of 60,000 years of human history and culture has convinced me that people can't do without leaders. Even a group as small as a dozen people will have one or two members who do more than others to keep the group together and keep it active, or who are turned to more often for help and advice. This creates heirarchies of leadership, even if covertly so.

So, my friends, this week's question concerns leadership. Is the hypothesis that people can't do without leaders correct? Do others have experience with covert heirarchies in egalitarian groups? If that hypothesis is true, it might be better to encourage certains forms of personal excellence in our leaders, rather than insist upon consensus and egalitarianism. This opens the question: what should we expect from our leaders? What do we want them to do? What would a non-oppressive kind of leadership for pagans look like? Aside from integrity, as mentioned by Anne, what other values should we look for in our leaders?

As part of my research for the book I'm working on right now, I would like to talk to:

- Dancers, musicians, singers, and performing artists,
- Sailors; preferably those who have worked on big ocean-going ships
- Independent farmers
- Medical doctors and nurses
- Hunters; preferably conservation hunters and subsistence hunters
- Artisans and craftspeople, such as potters and blacksmiths;
- Professional chefs
- Soldiers, especially those who have experienced actual combat.

Canadians preferred. But I will talk to almost anyone.

I'm looking to ask a few short, conversational questions which I hope to use in part of the book. If you have a few minutes to answer a few questions about the philosophical side of the things you do, and might be willing to have me quote you in the finished text (although I can't guarantee that will do so), then please write to me and let me know.

If you are none of these, but perhaps know someone who is, please let me know how to reach that person.

Please, Do Not use LJ's internal mail system to reply to me. Write to my email address directly.

Thanks!


---
Edit:


I gave a link to the contact page on my web site in order to avoid automated programs from gathering my email address and putting it on spam lists. But a few of you noted that my web site isn't working right now, so it looks like I'll have to post it directly anyway:

doctor-brendan (at) hotmail dot com.

Thanks. :-)

This past week I've been mostly bed-ridden with the flu. No, not the swine flu, thankfully! But my condition has been unpleasant enough anyway: dizziness, nausea, drowsiness, headache, lightheadedness, and a few other unmentionable symptoms.

It seems a good time to pose a question that's been on my mind for months now. Does it seem to you, as it does to me, that the pagan movement has rather a lot of people with chronic health problems? Many of these problems are physical, and include diseases like diabetes, arthritis, severe food allergies, various STD's, and obesity. Many are also psychological, such as anxiety disorders, post-traumatic stress, clinical depression, learning disabilities, substance addictions, and mild schitzophrenia. It seems to me that as a fraction of the total, there are more sick people in the pagan movement than there is in our wider society as a whole.

I'm not a statistician, nor an anthropologist, so I'm not in a position to provide any hard numbers about the rate of health problems inside v. outside the pagan movement. I also know that some of these aforementioned problems are epidemics for the whole of our society anyway: obesity is an example. But nonetheless, it does appear to me that many of the people I meet at pagan events, who describe themselves with the vocabulary of freedom, light, spirituality, and empowerment, are also people who require numerous medications daily, and are physically incapable of doing some of the pagan movement's most distinctive ritual activities, such as dancing. And I meet more of these people in the pagan events I attend, than I do in the rest of the world.

Having experienced pagan culture in nine different countries now, I also observe that the pagans in Europe tend to have far fewer health problems than those here in Canada, or in the U.S.

Well, everyone, here's my question: Has anyone else noticed this? What might be the explanation? Is there something about paganism that attracts people with chronic health problems? What, if anything, can or should be done about it?

The Irish story of Deirdre of the Sorrows ends with a kind of stand-off between Conchobor, the king who loved (or, more acurately, who lusted for) Deirdre, and Deirdre herself, who despises the king. Conchobor had arranged for the betrayal and murder of Deirdre's lover Naoise and his two brothers, the sons of Uisneach. He locked her in one of the houses of Emain Macha. He composed songs for her, gave her gifts, and practically broke his own heart trying to win the Deirdre's favour. But she would not have him for any reason. Finally in frustration, Conchobor sends her away to live for a year in the household of a man she despises more than Conchobor himself. While on the way, Deirdre throws herself from the chariot into a ravine, cracks her head on an outcropping of rock, and dies.

This week's question concerns suicide. In the story of Deirdre, it's fairly clear that Deirdre's suicide was deliberate and rational. She concluded that the continuation of her life would bring her only continued suffering and misery, for the loss of her lover Naoise, and for the unwanted (and frankly oppressive) romantic overtures from Conchobor. This, she reasoned, rendered her life no longer worth continuing.

One could look to various other examples too: Samurai warriors taking their own lives in response to a loss of honour; the various "Sacred Kings" described by James Frazer who practically volunteer themselves for human sacrifices, and so on. In cases like these, people choose to die, for reasons that seem to make sense to them (if not to us).

When I discuss life-and-death issues with my philosophy students at the university, I often put the question this way: there are two "base categories" of moral value. One I called the "sanctity of life" view, and it holds that a human life is inherently valuable. Therefore, in any moral decision affecting whether someone lives or dies, the choice to make is the one which preserves and protects human life, no matter what the conditions or circumstances of that life. The other I called the "worthwhile life" view, in which what matters is the quality of life, and the desirability of its circumstances. A life is to be preserved and protected if the person whose life it is desires to continue living it.

The first view, because it prioritises the continuation of human life, rejects decisions like suicide: it holds that a life must always be preserved. Even those whose lives are full of misery and who foresee no end to that misery, should soldier on. Those who opposed the removal of the feeding tube from Terri Shiavo are those who support the sanctity of life view. Probably the clearest and strongest statement of this view is the Declaration on Euthanasia by the Roman Catholic Church. Some of my pagan friends endorse a view like this when they say things like "No matter what your situation, there is always something beautiful happening around you"; the hidden implication is that the benefit of being alive always outweighs whatever harms or burdens one might be enduring, no matter how severe.

The second view, because it prioritises the quality of human life, allows for (yet does not demand) decisions like suicide. It holds that if a life is no longer deemed worthwhile by the person who is living that life, then it is not wrong for that person to end his life. Someone who, because he has an incurable disease that causes him acute suffering, or someone who has lost his friends and family, might decide that his life is no longer worth continuing. People like Sue Rodriguez who campaign for the right to die are proponents of this view. Some pagan friends of mine, although they say that all life is sacred, also say that life is not worth having at any price, and that death is part of life, and death is sacred too, and so that it can be acceptable to plan one's own death, especially if doing so would prevent the continuation of needless suffering.

Are people who contemplate suicide under something like a moral obligation to "cheer up", to change how they relate to others, and to find or even invent a reason to go on? Or, are there circumstances, situations, or reasons why, in your view, it is acceptable to take one's own life? Might there be such a thing as a sacred death? Which of the two base categories of value described here is the strong one in your mind? Or is there some synthesis of the two that you can see? Or is there a third view?

I just discovered that my genius-musician brother-in-law has a much better web site than the one I originally posted.

http://www.hawp.ca/

Enjoy!

Dear Province of Nova Scotia, Canada,

My sister Niamh, her husband Andy, and their children are moving to you next week. With Niamh, you are getting a top-notch Irish dance teacher and choreographer (certified TCRG), and in Andy you are getting a world-class Celtic musician, song-writer, and multi-instrumentalist (with BFA in music from Glasgow Uni, Scotland). They are looking to settle in Bridgewater, or Wolfville.

Please treat them well, be Sociable! with them, and all that. :-) I know they have a few friends there already, and I think they might already have someone who can rent them a house until they buy one of their own, but a few more contacts may be good for them too. bluewavedruid, these people may be of interest to you, with your event planning / music promotion work. May I pass on your contact info?

I'm back in the Home and Native Land now, after my two-week visit to Europe!
Highlights of the trip:

- Visiting the Abbey of St Gall, and its famous Library,

- magnificent cathedrals, pedestrian-only cobblestone streets and public squares, open-air farmer's markets and cafés, and harbour parks in the mediaeval centres of various cities. I'd love to design a city plan some day.

- A cuppa tea in a pub in the banking district of Zurich, surrounded by some very very rich people, almost all of whom had really worried faces.

- The swiss train system! It's quiet, clean, efficient, accessible, and completely brilliant! Canada could learn a lot from Europe's public transit.

- the castles in Bellinzona,

- Dinner in a restaurant at the shore of Lake Como, Italy. Also, looking for the frog on the cathedral of Como, in the middle of the night.

- Presenting an afternoon philosophical talk in Milan, Italy, and meeting many lovely and wonderful people! Alas I was in Italy only three days and two nights, so I'd love another chance to meet everyone again. The Italians were magnificently generous, and I'm very thankful to them.

- Visiting some of Milan's famous and magnificent landmarks, like the Duomo, the Castello Sfotzesco, and the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele.

- hiking and meditating in the fields and forests of St. Gallen

- a cable-car ride up to the top of the Saentis, a mountain in the Swiss canton of Appenzell

- A beer in the biergarten in Konstanz, Germany! There was a maypole with a live tree at the top. Very cool!

- Many late night conversations with a friend, who also introduced me to the British comedy show "The Mighty Boosh". :-)

- Trying to have a conversation in French with a woman sitting next to me on the flight home. I'm feeling a need to learn French again.

Photos are up on my Facebook page (it's not necessary to be subscribed to view them) here:
St Gallen, CH, Como and Milan, IT, and Zurich CH, Bellinzona CH, and Konstanz DE.

I've visited nine countries in Europe now, and shot literally thousands of photos of various historical and sacred places. I'm thinking of adding to my repertoire of lectures a "philosophical photo slide show". :-)

A happy and delightful and fertile Beltaine to all of you!

Who knows if I'll be able to do this on a Sunday afternoon as I used to do, at least for the next little while, since I'm going to be on the move rather a lot in the next two months. I've just moved out of the house in Hamilton, and all my possessions are in storage at my parent's house in Elora. Tomorrow I'm going to Switzerland and Italy for two weeks. And after that... well, let the winds blow high, blow low, oh...

So this week's question messes with your reality by appearing on a Friday.

While in Montreal last weekend (see, I told you I've been moving around a lot!) I had a very interesting conversation with Judika Illes, author of some very large books on spellcraft. (I do mean large. One of them, "The Element Encyclopedia of Witchcraft" is over 1000 pages.) One of the things we talked about briefly was a future writing project she has in mind: an encyclopedia of saints, which would include pagan saints.

An interesting idea indeed. It seems to me there is already a small but growing trend in the movement to treat certain historical people as important fore-runners, whose accomplishments and life-stories are sufficiently inspirational that people treat them as saints, even if they don't use the word 'saint'. Judika mentioned Boadicca almost right away, as a pagan woman who many contemporary pagan women admire. I've put this question in casual conversation to friends a few times, and some of the names that pop up first are the ones you would expect: Uncle Gerald and Doreen, for instance. Other names that were frequently mentioned included Hypatia, Pericles, and Joan of Arc. A friend of mine who is a Thelemite said that in the OTO, the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is considered an important saint.

Many communities and even whole nations already have something of a tradition of honouring the nation's "Worthies"; this apparently begins in the middle ages with Jacques de Longuyon, who in 1312 drew up a list of Nine Worthies, historical or mythical people who exemplified the ideals of chivalry. Contemporary governments, or individuals who are rich enough, will sometimes build monuments to its best war heroes. Canada's Fifteen Valiants include Isaac Brock, Teyendenega (a.k.a. Joseph Brant), and Laura Secord. An excellent collection of Worthies indeed, although I would have included Billy Bishop, the RCAF pilot who shot down the Red Baron.

Who are the worthies for the contemporary pagan movement? If you had to name a few worthies for our movement, who would be on your list? Why do you consider such people worthy of being called 'worthies'? There doesn't have to be nine of them, and they don't have to be soldiers or military people. But they have to be historical people, and they have to be dead. :-)

I'll pass on the results to Judika, to help with her research.

...is deferred to some unspecified time in the future, since I'm in Montreal attending Melange Magique's Beltaine Fair. I may or may not post it later in the week, since I'm moving out of Hamilton on Wednesday. Then on Saturday of next week I'm flying to Zurich, for the two week tour of Switzerland and Italy.

I was thinking that I might make this week's question something like Which is better - Montreal or Toronto? but if I were to say anything other than Montreal, while actually sitting in Montreal, I'm sure I'd end up wearing my poutine.

Jason Pitzl-Waters probably didn't have my last Q of the Week in mind when he posted this to his blog today, in honour of Earth Day:

"Deity is not merely a transcendent force separate from creation, deity is everywhere and within every thing. Each of us holds the potential to be like the gods, and we acknowledge that the gods and powers walk and exist among us still."

Excellently said.

So, to follow up this week's question, might an idea like this one, among others, be powerful enough to stand against violence in the world? Might an idea like it be the sort of thing pagans should teach and promote and demonstrate by example, so that the fundamental changes that alfrecht spoke of might actually happen?

In other news:
Shastan, over at Pinch Pennies Save Planet blog, is having an Earth Day contest. The prize: Michael Pollan's "In Defence of Food". I learned about his work through the PPSP blog, and like what I see.

In other, other news:
The manuscript for Book the Fifth is now around 30,000 words. I'm really excited about it. It might surprise a few of you, especially when you see how I dexteriously quote from Harry Belafonte's "We come from the Mountain" and KMFDM's "Juke Joint Jezebel" in the same chapter. Ha!

"The future of civilisation depends on our overcoming the meaninglessness and hopelessness which characterize the thoughts and convictions of men to-day, and reaching a state of fresh hope and fresh determination. We shall be capable of this, however, only when the majority of individuals discover for themselves both an ethic and a profound and steadfast attitude of world- and life-affirmation, in a theory of the universe at once convincing and based on reflection. Without such a general spiritual experience there is no possibility of holding our world back from the ruin and disintegration towards which it is being hastened. It is our duty then to rouse ourselves to fresh reflection about the world and life."

- Albert Schweitzer, The Decay and Restoration of Civilisation, 1923.