Druids and domestica

The gale the other night took out the town's Christmas tree. They had rooted this thing in a two foot hole, but the wind just sheared it off at the trunk. Luckily, it missed our rather ancient market cross, which it has been standing next to.

We had the druids down en masse last night for my re-Ovation (my druidic order is divided into 3 grades, but when you enter this particular group, you go through them again, but faster, so that you get to know everyone. T persists in calling it my re-Ovulation). It's a while since I was initiated into anything and it's curious how unnerving it is, even when you're expecting what's to come.

We then ate our way through the immense amount of food that I'd cooked and everyone else had brought with them and had a discussion about pagan nursing homes, which is getting to be a slight issue now that the movement enters a certain age. Could be dreadful. 'Now then, Elizabeth! It's time to INVOKE! - and then you can have a nice cup of cocoa.'

Also got to grips with the new digital recorder and lo, it's a piece of cake. We now have a 20 minute interview with Professor Hutton, due out on Wednesday night.

Sure, I'm uncertain

karentraviss has interesting things, as always, to say about some folks' need for certainty in what is undoubtedly an often random and terrifying universe.

As I've said in the comments section, my own spiritual leanings might be no more than stories in the dark. I've no real need for certainty myself, and I think that a rigid and unswervable fundamentalism is an evil of the age. I think Karen is quite right, in that it stems from fear. As Karen says, yes, the world is scary - get over it.

A background in academic philosophy, particularly the philosophy of science, will beat any yen for epistemological surety out of a girl. I don't consider it to be any great loss. It's why I won't prosyletize: paganism works fine for me (most of the time), but it's not for everyone and why should it be? Most of the people with whom I discuss this are intelligent adults who have reasons for the faith/lack of it that they hold; I don't see it as my task to convince them otherwise.

Would I abandon what passes for my faith if satisfactory proof to the contrary actually came along? Yes, I would.