Read the article at Wild Hunt:
http://www.wildhunt.org/2008/11/slandered-wiccan-denied-rehearing.html
For those of you haven’t read my paper on the custody issue yet, it’s in our literature section here at Crone Seraphim; it was written for my applied anthropology class several years ago.
BB,
Vivienne
Hey everybody! I’m leaving tomorrow (Friday Oct. 24) for a week’s vacation (yay!!!!) without internet access (booo!!!!) so I will be out of touch for a while (I’ll be back Sunday night, Nov. 2).
To make up for that, I’ve posted three new articles this week at Article Base:
The Truth About Modern Day Vampires (an excerpt of the article I wrote for the Instant Magick October newsletter):
5 Things You Can Do to Change the Country and the World and
The History of Halloween – or – What is Samhain?
These are in addition to the other two articles I had up:
Sarah Palin’s Black Magic connections and How to Use Magick Spells to Positively Affect the Presidential Election – and Why You Should, for a grand total of 5 articles at Article Base!
Hopefully these will hold you til I get back, and make for enjoyable Halloween and pre-election reading.
Blessed Samhain and Happy Halloween, everyone! I’ll talk to you when I get back.
BB,
Vivienne
P.S., don’t forget, the free bonus material being offered at www.careandfeedingofspirits.com is going to expire soon, and I won’t be here to give you another reminder. The “Subtle Samhain Celebration” article and “The Patriot’s Spell Book” will both be removed by Nov. 5 at the latest, so order On the Care and Feeding of Spirits now and don’t miss out! I think you will find this book very useful and enjoyable reading for Samhain/Halloween.
P.P.S. DON’T FORGET TO VOTE!!!!
Persephone’s Haven recently set up my On the Care and Feeding of Spirits book as an ebook through Click Bank, and the account was just approved yesterday! Check out the home page at www.careandfeedingofspirits.com - it’s got a brief excerpt and some personal accounts that might interest everyone.
I especially wanted to make sure everyone was aware of certain offers I’m making that click bank would not allow me to include because of their policy regarding event tickets. Everyone who buys the book is eligible to participate in a FREE 2 hour teleconference on the subject; I’m limiting the conference to 20 people, but if I fill one up fast I will set up another one for the overflow. I can record these through Talk Shoe, so I will also be able to make the podcast available for free for anyone who couldn’t attend by phone, but the podcast archive will only be available to people who have purchased the book.
The second offer they wouldn’t let me post was that at the end of the teleconference I will be holding a drawing from the names of the attendees. First prize will be a FREE 10 minute tarot reading over the phone, and second prize will be a FREE On the Care and Feeding of Spirits magnet.
Buying the book will take you a download page where the book and the free bonus material (a limited time offer only available through 10/31 and 11/4) can be downloaded instantly, and there is a form there to fill out to sign up for the free enewsletter that will be used to send out the schedule for the teleconference (or to mail out the bound copies of the book for the people who want one). I also hope to use the enewsletter to post some of the stories and questions that come up during the teleconference to create an additional resource.
So, lots of new free topical stuff for Halloween/Samhain, everyone. Have a Happy Halloween, and a Blessed Samhain!
BB,
Vivienne
I was invited to write an article about vampirism for the Instant Magic newsletter. It’s published in their October issue, right hand column, “The Truth About Vampires.” The publisher mentioned that several members of the local Pagan and Wiccan meet up groups have been asking a lot of questions about vampires lately, and making a lot of comments, some positive and some negative, so he asked me to write an article that would answer some of those questions and hopefully dispel some of the negativity. Please tell me what you think of the article. Also, the original version of the article that I created to post at the meet up groups themselves, is posted at the Sanford Vampire and Shadowlore meet up in the files section. I plan on turning this into an Article Base article soon, as well.
Please take a look at the articles and comment here to let me know what you think, how I can improve further articles on the subject, or if there is anything about the subject that you would like to know more about in another article.
Enjoy!
BB,
Vivienne
On September 19, 2008 I published an article at Article Base about Sarah Palin: “Palin’s Black Magic Connections.”
I’m used to the Christian Right coming after pagans, but when they become a threat to my Catholic mother I take it especially personally. Take a look at the article and let me know what you think in the comments section.
BB,
Vivienne
I’ve just added three new fixed price button listings to ebay:
A Vote for McCain is a Vote for Armageddon
- or -
If you Vote for McCain you Vote for the Apocalypse
(2 designs)
Designed by Magus Dethen
Exclusive to Persephone’s Haven
$2.99 each; up to 5 buttons ship for $1.99
Discounts available for multiple purchases - See other listings at Persephone’s Haven for sets of 2 for $5, and bulk orders of 10 or more for $1 each.
3″ diameter pin-back and magnet back buttons - please contact me to specify which design you want and whether you want pin-back or magnet-back
white and red lettering on a black and white background
“A Vote for McCain is a Vote for Armageddon”: a semi-transparent head and shoulder image of McCain is superimposed over a nuclear mushroom cloud, with the phrase overlaid in white and red lettering.
“If you Vote for McCain you Vote for the Apocalypse”: a semi-transparent head and shoulder image of McCain is superimposed over a painting of souls writhing in agony at the end of days.
Neither of these is an exaggeration:
The fate of the world literally hangs in the balance with this election. Warn as many people as you can with these buttons.
BB,
Vivienne D’Avalon
Update on the Sanford/Casselberry Vampire and Shadowlore Meet Up
I’m so happy about how well this meetup has been developing over the last several months! We’re getting more and more people in attendance and pulling in people from around the country and around the world through the talkshoe conference call set up! (I’m so happy I went to the effort of getting that set up and so grateful that I have such tech savvy members to help me keep it up and running and continually improve the sound quality. Thank you Magus and Kirra!) The comments people have been making about the quality of the content are also quite encouraging. So far it is everything I hoped it would be, and that makes me even more ambitious for what we can achieve for our members in the future.
Panera Bread worked out quite well last meeting. It was indeed quieter for our recordings, and the microphone Kirra brought worked wonderfully well. We had Doktor call in from Kansas — before his cordless phone died. Let’s all remember that technology doesn’t always work well around vampires and try not to drain the batteries on our communications equipment, shall we??? 
We also had a guest call in from NORWAY!!! We have gone international! And so dedicated was our guest Folksome that he stayed up until 2:20 a.m. his time (quite a time difference between Florida and Norway). Yay, Folksome, and yay Doktor for making the effort to join us in the midst of moving. (Sorry about your friends’ phone!)
I hope we have more and more national and international members and guests joining us in future; please do encourage any friends you have online around the world to join us for a meet up whenever they can. Talkshoe chat is free, and skype is relatively inexpensive for calling in over long distances. Please also make use of the downloadable recording of the meeting at the talk shoe site; July’s meeting is MUCH easier to hear and has lots of interesting information.
Alright, so because gays won the right to marry the world is going to end (when the Large Hadron Collider is turned on). But what does it mean to get married?
A 50% chance that you will lose 50% of your stuff (unless you get your prenups done right).
Some people insist that marriage is founded in the “good book;” but why not take a closer look at what the bible says — like the parts about forcing one’s daughter to marry some guy who killed your enemies. Sounds like a great idea! I will give my daughter to the first girl to get Hillary to finally give up.
So what is marriage besides being a reward for a favor?
Making sure your fuck spawn is really your fuck spawn.
Marriage comes from the same holier-than-thou mentality that demands you save yourself for your wedding night. It’s designed to ensure that your first-born boy (and only boys really matter) gets all your stuff. Thanks to the “sanctity” of marriage you “know” the woman you knocked up is holding “your” kid (but people forget that the size of human testicles are a direct result of our tendency to cheat [more info about that under cut- because it goes way off topic but is fun to read I promise]).
People seem to have this evil idea that:
Woman + Man= OK
Man + Man = FUCKING END OF THE WORLD (quickly turn on the Large Hadron Collider)
Man + Dog = apparently alright according to bible thumper logic
And leaving the best for last-
Woman + Woman = every guy’s dream / an accurate description of my love life (don’t ask- I’m just very, very lucky!)
Truthfully, marriage is about rights — originally the succession of property rights, but now legal rights as well. For example, if a gay person is hospitalized, as things stand currently, their life partner would not have the right to visit them, much less have any say about their care.
Some insist that civil unions are the same thing by a different name, but gays who have suffered from lack of legal standing know better, and the courts in California finally recognized that and corrected it.
In summation (never thought I would use that once I left high school), marriage is not the sanctimonious romantic ideal that our society represents it to be. Listen up, you people who have been vigorously thumping those bibles, please, please, please, wake the [tirade of expletives that even I refrain from putting on the web] up! Two same-sex people getting married are not going to “ruin marriage” — Britney Spears already beat those “damn dirty gays” to that.
So if any gay couple wants to have a nice wedding, go for it; just don’t let me catch the garter (or bouquet, for that matter) — I tend to be bad luck when I do.
-Magus-
Here we go the first Dark of the Moon Crone Cast. Vivienne D’Avalon and I’s first podcast together, we go over things from this Election, to Nanobots, to Scientology vs. a group called anonymous, to the FBI taping your Tubes. For the music clip “W’s Duty” by Jonathan Coulton go here.
Or May Day which ever you like. So hopeful you can dance around the May Pole (or what ever you want to call it or dance around) and enjoy The Great Rite. Also because he wrote Still Alive, you should check out Jonathan Coulton’s website and maybe head over to the First of May Song (because we all like fucking outside). So get the free mp3 while you can.
-Magus-
PS. Unless this computer crashes, we got something coming when the moon goes dark…
Alright, to catch you up from the last time we had this conversation,
We have figured out that religion has struck down:
Evolution
Stem cell research
Nanotechnology
So what next? How about opposing a cure for cancer?
Yep, they are against preventing cancer!
And not just some obscure cancer that no one’s ever heard of; this one affects half a million people.
The good news about this type of cancer is that there is a vaccine against it — or rather, against the virus that is the leading cause of it — genital human papillomavirus (HPV), which causes cervical cancer.
But back to why Americans are against it. Are you ready?
Because (gasp!) vaccination “might encourage premarital sex!”
How so, you ask?
Because, for the vaccine to be effective, you need to use it before there is any risk of contact with HPV, which means before someone becomes sexually active. (Though men can’t get cervical cancer, they can still catch HPV, become an asymptomatic carrier, and thus unknowingly pass it to their sexual partners). So the best strategy is, as the cigarette companies say, ” get them while they’re young.”
Unfortunately, here in America we blindly follow abstinence-only “education” policies. The proponents of such policies erroneously but fervently believe that if we vaccinate children against this virus, they’ll take that as a signal that it’s OK to go have sex, instead of waiting until marriage “like God wants you to.” (Apparently the sacrament of marriage is some kind of miraculous vaccine against HPV and a cure for cancer — wait ’til the pharmaceutical companies hear of this, and figure out a way to patent it and make a fortune off of overcharging for it!)
Well, FUCK THAT!
No, really — FUCK THAT!
This is a very personal issue for me. I have a friend who is dying from cervical cancer, not because she had consensual premarital sex, but because she was raped. If she had been given this vaccine before that horrid incident, maybe she would not be dying now, when she’s still too young to legally drink!
Use some common sense, people! Are you going to go find some rusty nails and jab yourself with them, just because you’ve been vaccinated against tetanus? Are you really looking forward to rejoicing at your 18 year-old daughter’s funeral because “the little slut got what she deserved for sinning against God?”
What worries me most about this kind of twisted logic is a big “what if ” scenario: What if we discover a vaccine that successfully prevents HIV and AIDS? HIV is also sexually transmitted (among other methods), and it’s widely believed among the religious right to have been “created by God to kill fags.”
So, how much do you want to bet that if an HIV vaccine becomes available, the religious “wrong” will try to squash that, too?
Personally, I can’t afford to take that bet. I apparently need to save every penny, just so I’ll be able to buy the life-saving vaccines I need on the black market.
-Magus-
The compendium for the 2007 New Orleans Harry Potter symposium, Phoenix Rising, is out and my paper, “Sirius Black: the Face of Eleggua in the Potterverse” is in it. The table of contents is here. It can be purchased here.
