I ran across this list of facts about life in our fair country.

(from unnaturalcauses.org)
For all the rich countries for which there is data, the U.S. has:
o the highest infant mortality rate
o the highest homicide rate
o the highest teenage birth rate
o the highest incarceration rate (we house one fourth of the world’s prisoners)
o the highest child poverty rate
o the highest child injury death rate
o the greatest gap between high and low mortality rates within a country
o the highest number of people living alone
o the highest poverty rate
o the most hours worked (except for New Zealand)
o the smallest middle class
o the largest wealth gap between the rich and the rest of the population
o the lowest voter turnout

Somewhere along the way everything went horribly wrong.

I realized today that it's been a while since Zach was on my mind. I also realized that didn't make me sad or give me a feeling of loss. It would seem that I've finally moved on. It's been almost exactly a year since our last night together, so it's probably a bit overdue. While reflecting on this I think I've come up with what finally did it. About a month ago I called to see how he was doing and he mentioned it was sweet of me to think of him. I asked if he ever thinks of me and he responded "yes, at least once or twice a month." He meant no malice by it, but it stung anyway. He's moved on with his life and apparently that's what I needed to know before I could move on with mine. It's an odd feeling that I think I'm happy about.

I've neglected my observation of Kyklos Apollon for the past several weeks, so I was doubly determined that I would do it up this week. Jay was home when the time came around, so initially I just did a short purifying of miasma, a greeting of Hestia, and burned a bay leaf for Apollon. About an 45 minutes after sunrise Delphi time Jay left, so I decided to continue. Just a minor purification (I love bay laurel soap) and I dove right in. I didn't go through my whole litany of Gods as I is my custom for this. I've decided to focus it a bit. I started with a new prayer to Hestia, an invocation of Hekate and Hermes, and this time added a supplication to Artemis. I'm definitely keeping that part; it opened me to Apollon in a way that I wished I'd made preparations for ahead of time. I sung Jim's awesome Hymn to Apollon which is another definite keeper. I do need to get a bowl specifically for burning bay since burning whole leaves in my tiny tripod was really a distraction. After everything I just sat in the candle light and enjoyed his company for a while. At one point I think I could actually feel the presence of the other worshipers a bit.

It's good to be back.

I've started to add veneration of Artemis to personal practice. It's probably overdue. She seems to fit as a missing piece of a puzzle for which I still haven't figured out the picture yet. What's one more God at this point anyway?

While reading the other day, I had a rather obvious realization. With the exception of Sobek and Hestia, all of my personal Gods have a direct relationship with Persephone. I'm not sure how I've never noticed that.

Online and IRL I've been coming across a lot of talk amongst pagans concerning the impending decline and disappearance of Christianity. Many of them seem to be convinced that Christianity will meet it's twilight within a few generations. To that end I decided to crunch the numbers on that issue. Let's assume for the sake of discussion that all branches of Christianity immediately cease the growth that many of them enjoy and begin to lose %20 of their adherents per generation. Yes, that loss rate is arbitrarily high and I'll assume it will undergo no Reformations, Great Awakenings, or Holiness movements that usually rekindle its growth when it begins to stagnate.

Christianity currently has over 2.1 billion adherents. At our rate it would be over 14 generations before its numbers drop below 100,000,000. It would be almost 25 generations before its numbers drop to 14,000,000, which is the current adherent level of Judaism. After 30 generations they would still have around 4,336,000 adherents, which is more than Shinto currently has. After 35 generations it would be down to 1,500,000, which would put it where most estimates now have Paganism.

I put this out as something to keep in mind when one comes across such conversations.




Edit 2:35am: Sense struck me one moment after I posted this. I don't allow flaming in my LJ, so I'm going to screen comments as a gesture of hospitality to anyone who'd might want to discuss this.

For most of my youth I volunteered with at risk youth and teens.

In my college days I was a militant political anarchist. I still hold many of those beliefs, but nihilism set in at some point through the years.

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When I was young, I played violin in a chamber ensemble. When my hearing lose became so pronounced that I couldn't hear much of the violin's range, I tried to pick up the cello of which I could hear more. I was too deaf at that point to make the switch effectively and abandoned it. After the surgery to restore my hearing, I didn't pick the violin back up.

This weekend Jay and I ended up talking about my religious upbringing. It was odd to realize that most of it he was completely unaware of despite the fact we've been inseparable for almost seven years now. I got to thinking how much about me the folks in my life just don't know. To that end, my dear flisters, if you feel like asking me a personal question, I'll post on it.

Thanks to Hestia for guiding me to be more concerned about the comfort of those around me.

Thanks to Hekate for helping me to see things in a far less negative light.

Thanks to Hermes for his constant help and provision for my home.

Thanks to Sobek for helping me to learn moderation and to look for a middle road between extremes.

Thanks to Apollo for the many changes he has made in my life and for helping me to see parts of myself I try to ignore.

Thanks to Dionysos for emphasizing that life is about living.

Thanks to Aphrodite for helping me to appreciate the people in my life whom and love and for those who love me.

Thanks to Antinous for guiding me back to my devotions and invigorating my spiritual life.

Thanks to Persephone for shattering my former worldview and initiating many of the changes I've gone through in the past several months.

Thanks to Hades for the comfort and peace he's given me about my mortality.

Thanks to Agathosdaimon for connecting me to my gods and my self.

I'm been a tea mixin' again. The latest turned out rather nice. I'm actually cheating on with this one since I'm using tea mixes in it.

2 parts Gun Powder tea
1 part Jasmine tea (the more pungent the better)
1 part Horny Goat Weed

It's very soothing. It's also got me very randy.

For the past couple weeks, I've really been working on getting my religious life back on track. It's been going really well and my devotions have spawned some really intense moments. I've been keeping devotions on pretty much an every other day or more basis. Antinous makes his presence known almost every time.

I've writing some devotional recitation for Antinous, but it's been very slow going. I tried to do some divination about it, but he refused to comment about it. So I'm just going to slowly plod along until I'm done. I'll post it here when it's finished.

16

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Pema Chondron says in her book No Time to Lose that the giving of "perfect" offerings goes so against our selfish hoarding tendencies that it serves to "ventilate the claustrophobia of our self-absorption and moves us closer to the generous mind of Bodhichitta." She goes on to state that offerings made with intention to beings of a wider perspective of wisdom than our own sets up a resonance within us of that broader perspective of bodhichitta.

I find myself wondering whether this is what is being referred to in the myth of the descent of Persephone when the Gods are concerned that man will have nothing left with which to make offerings. Could it be that in fact they were concerned with us loosing a powerful tool of freeing ourselves from the world of delusion? I'm reminded of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Man's present tendency is to withdraw into himself when he perceives himself having unfulfilled needs. Can offerings short circuit this tendency? Do they allow us to transcend the normal hierarchy, to experience peak moments and to meet our own higher needs from within ourselves even if baser needs aren't meet? This seems to be a pointer to understanding Persephone's broader message of liberation.

Chondron refers to a passage where Shantideva points out a potent yet overlooked offering. The poorest, most empty-handed individual can offer all the beauty of the sky, mountains, flowers and fields, all the sumptuousness of life. The apprehension and appreciation of the abundance of life serve as an offering. The joyousness we experience becomes the offering that serves to further our liberation.

September 11 marked the six year anniversary of Jay and I meeting. That's right; we met because of the trade center attack. At the time I was known as something of an outspoken political dissident and I had a number of folks curious about my reaction to the events. My friend Matt was one of them. We had been kinda on the outs for a couple of months at that point, but he thought it was a good excuse to come talk to me. So, he came to the restaurant where I was working and brought Jay along to meet me. Jay accused me of being a cynical optimist. I told him I took the optimist part as an insult. Our friendship just grew from there.

Religiously, I'm almost done with my second attempt at my month of abstinence vow to Aphrodite. I've never had so many opportunities for sex with so many young hotties in my entire life. It's literally every couple days and they have an average age of about 20. And, I know this streak will end on Thursday. I have no doubt. Although I'm actually considering trying to keep going with the abstinence thing. I've learned an enormous amount about myself and my views toward and my uses of sex in my life. I'm also building something of a relationship with Aphrodite which is something I've always avoided. She's given me several remarkable insights into her nature that I would have never considered had I not been undertaking this vow.

On the health front, I've been having a series of really nasty allergic reactions this week. I've been getting the whole seizing up breathing and hives thing. That's pretty unusual for me. It's making me thing that there must be something else going on with my health.

There is a local minister who comes into the store each afternoon to write. We were very slow at that point, so we got to chatting. He asked if I go to church, to which I answered that I used to. He explained that he's been trying to work on a concept for a different kind of church. He asked what factors I would want most out of a church if I were to go. Those of you who know me IRL know never to ask me an open-ended question. My answers clearly were not what he was expecting. Being that I was at work, I wanted to be diplomatic while answering honestly, yet respectfully. I didn't mention that I'm a Hellenist, but I think it came through pretty clearly that I'm not a Christian. I was refreshed by how open he was to hearing a critical viewpoint. Our discussion went on for twenty minutes or so before I got busy again. He says that he wants to sit down with me and talk about my opinions. Now, that could be an interesting sit down.

For those of you who have not heard yet, I'm now working at the Highpoint on Union Ave. The management is pleasant and treat the staff with dignity and consideration. I like these people. It'll be a good place for my to be as I continue my ethical realignment.

Dolmena hit me up with five questions. Here are the answers:

1) How did you end up worshipping the Gods of ancient Greece? (What attracted you, how did you start?)

Long story. As I hit puberty I developed a fascination bordering on crush for Hades. But, I was taught it was a dead and defunct religion that no one had taken seriously since the rise of Christendom. Having dismissed my odd notions, I eventual committed myself as whole heartedly as I could manage to Jesus. At age 21, I went through a rather militant crisis of faith. I resolved this by exploring Christian Mysticism. This eventually became for me more of a Judeo-Christian worldview which slid into a Ceremonial Magic style monotheism. That's the backstory.

A few weeks after we moved to Memphis, I received a visitation from Sobek with a message for Jason from Hermes. I knew absolutely nothing of Sobek before this, but in that moment I knew exactly who he was, and I knew this was trouble. The experience angered me. I was happy with my nice comprehensive worldview, what gave them the right to fuck with that? Over the next year, I watched and took note as Hermes very clearly and lovingly guided and protected Jay and our home. I began to form my own relationship with him that led me to embrace Hades and other gods and eventually Sobek. I decided that converting to Hellenismos was a good way to better know and understand these gods and it had a lot to teach about ethics and human nature that I admired. My current list of gods that I regularly honor is Hestia, Hekate, Hermes, Apollo, Dionysos, Sobek, Antinous, Persephone and Hades, Agathosdaimon, and Aphrodite is now entering into this.

2) What happened with your job? (You may refuse to answer that here-- I'm not sure how well I've got these screened really.)

Basically, I couldn't tolerate the labor abuses anymore. The way I was worked is bad enough, but how he treats the employees is downright evil. Somewhere along the way I'd lost perspective on that. It's like I had Stockholm Syndrome. I was working an average of 13 hours a day, seven days a week for months on end with no real breaks. I usually had at least one or two shifts a week where I opened at 6:30 am and worked all the way until 11 pm. My salary was ludicrously small with no real benefits. The only motivation was the promise of taking over the company, which I was mostly running by the time I left. My utter exhaustion blinded me to how we were abusing the employees. Overwork them and underpay them until they burnout, then force them to quit so we don't have to pay unemployment. Behind closed doors, that was our actual stated policy. The more I fought it, the more vicious he'd become. It got so bad that someone posted an ad in the Memphis Flyer warning servers not to work there. When we got to the point that we didn't have enough staff to cover all the shift even if everyone worked everyday, I called the other owner and told him how the staff was being treated. When the local owner heard back on this, he put me on a two week suspension that was to take up my acrued vacation time, made me turn in my keys and cellphone, and told me I wasn't to even think of stepping foot anywhere near his business. I wasn't technically fired; I just wasn't supposed to come back. Nice point about the timing was that he was scheduled to leave for a month long vacation, but his little tantrum cancelled that.

3) Why would you say that death is your constant companion? (When I first read that, I assumed I knew, but then I realized that my answer was actually not necessarily so.)

Well the answer is probably what you were thinking. I have regular life-threatening health complications and I'm extremely accident prone. And, it's not just the past year; my whole life has been like this. Also, I've lost a lot of people over the years. Most of them were too young or chose their own time.

4) What makes you most happy?

I'm most happy when the people I love are really happy. Or, maybe it was sex.

5) What is the best thing about sex?

Sex has it's own kind of intoxication. I love getting lost in that intoxication.
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1. Leave me a casual comment of no particular significance, like a lyric to your current favorite song, or your favorite kind of sandwich, maybe your favorite game. Any remark, meaningless or not, with the subject "Question me."

2. I will respond by asking you five personal questions so I can get to know you better.

3. Update your LJ with the answers to the questions.

4. Include this explanation and offer to ask someone else in your own post.

5. When others respond with a desultory comment, you will ask them five questions.