A son of Prometheus.

Described as a writer "in the tradition of Hemingway and Orwell," atheist Christopher Hitchens' voice might arguably have been among the most significantly articulate for earth-spiritual people to hear and understand. His recent death, at age 62 to pneumonia as a complication to esophageal cancer, robs enlightened people everywhere of a powerful presence.

Does it seem contradictory that a man who tirelessly argued against mysticism and belief and superstition might be praiseworthy among people who, to some, might be among the most mystical and, on the face of it, superstitious in all religious communities? Pause and reflect.

In articulating how organized religion has become an abhorrent threat to thinking and free people the world over, and how religion arguably is the primary source for most hatred and violence in the world, Hitchens did more than petulantly thumbnose the icons of religious doctrines. Perhaps it was not so much that "God" was his enemy as it was what he described as the "theocratic fascists" of the world, those people whose alleged devotion to any variety of a Supreme Deity brought them down the path toward hurtfulness, hate, and control. His enemy was the institutionalization of faith and the violent discord, from any number of doctrines, that such organization seemed to inevitably let loose upon the world for centuries.

Judeo-Christian theologians, particularly fundamentalist Christian media pundits, loved attempting to take Hitchens to task. Consistently, they found themselves intellectually unarmed however, as Hitchens' humanistic genius found itself coupled with his inexhaustible literary experience as a journalist, critic, essayist, editor: an analyst of words and its power. But as they attempted to defend the merits of their beliefs, many of these same monotheist theologians seemed to miss a consistent underlying point within almost all of Hitchens' arguments: that it is the imposition of belief, not the individual presence of belief, that is a danger to society.

This is a point which, I desperately hope, all Pagan spiritual people can agree with.

Hitchens was not, as some of his detractors would have you think, entirely unawed by what some people might characterize as sacred. In one interview, he agreed that holding his infant children filled him with enough awe that he asked himself if it were possible that some supernatural comprehension could exist. Speaking during one of the many symposiums he gleefully participated in, he implied that any belief that could found itself on the empowerment of women might actually succeed in bringing more good than harm into the world. In both voice and written word, he reminded us, again and again and again, that any institutionalization that contributes to divisiveness, discord, and disharmony in any way whatsoever ultimately only contributes to anguish in the world.

No community of religious or spiritual people is entirely homogenous in its understanding and celebration of whatever it is it identifies as "sacredness." Even among One True believers, there really is no such thing as a one true belief, as the feral complexity of both the human spirit and imagination is simply too expansive. Hitchens himself, a militant atheist, did not acknowledge any sort of anthropomorphic personified divinities, and he happily ridiculed that any such personification could be acceptable to intelligent people. Most theists would cry out in angered frustration.

Yet many deists (and here, arguably, I could include pantheists, panentheists, and henotheists) can appreciate the broadness of scope that arguments like Hitchens' could contribute to spiritual discourse. Even if one were to completely disagree with Hitchens' atheism, the bedrock of his arguments nevertheless aid enlightened and thinking people into powerful directions of thought. These directions demand that everyone, spiritual or nonspiritual alike, fearlessly examine the nuances and messages and repercussions associated with whatever belief system we've chosen.

Ultimately, how can any compassionate person anywhere, participating in any community, not find merit and importance in reflecting upon that? We may find ourselves uncomfortably "doubting" foundations of belief, but then that would beg the question: is it wrong to "doubt" a belief that, upon critical observation, is fundamentally hurtful or hateful or divisive? When does a healthy message become superceded by an unhealthy method? And if the message itself can be found to be unhealthy, how long can it expect to be sustained, and what might it suggest about the people who would choose to so sustain it?

Changing the world.

I really like my 2004 Honda Accord sedan. I do. I like the leather seats, the sunroof, the kickass air conditioning, the barleycorn interior colour and the way it classily matches the rich phthalo green exterior.

I'm cruising around the city, running errands for a barbecue party that I'm planning for the weekend. It's warm, so that air conditioning is blasting away. ...Oh, wait: I need gas.

I pull into the nearby Shell station where I pump my $1.27 per litre into the tank. I tug my debit card from my wallet, insert it into the so-modern kiosk, ignore the brightly coloured advertising pleas encouraging me to buy some chips and candy as well, and enjoy the breeze after I punch the keypad so Shell can take my twenty dollars.

And then the little grey screen flashes just before posting a message before me.

help us change the world

My first reponse is to smile. Change the world? Sure! I'm all about that. Aren't I? Changing the world, yeah, that's a great thing. Damned right.

And then, just after I gun that fine 240-horsepower engine again, I start thinking. Help Shell change the world. Yes, I just did that, didn't I? After all, I just gave them my money in return for their gasoline product. For my car that I love.

I helped Shell change the world by selling unregistered pesticides that violated EPA standards. I helped Shell change the world by bribing Nigerian customs officials. I helped Shell change the world by stripping the Alberta tar sands. I helped Shell change the world by participating in our addiction to fossil fuels, raising global warming to such a threatening stage that polar bears, coral reefs, and Gods know how many other species are rapidly facing increased risk of extinction.

But man, I sure do love my 2004 Honda Accord. Did I mention its neato shade of green? Damned right.

I drive it down to the market next. I'm hosting this barbecue party this weekend, you know. It's Canada Day weekend. Yeah. So many Torontonians will be driving the cars that they love too, driving to cottage country where they'll be hosting barbecue parties also. All those cars driving to scenic, rustic cottage country because all those driving Torontonians want to spend time in those great outdoors. Yeah.

You know, those great, pristine Ontario outdoors that used to be teeming with black bears and wolves and mountain lions. But, hey, they're gone now because the little fuckers get into our trash, don't they? Like those goddamned raccoons back home in the city. Might as well beat 'em with a gardening spade, huh? Yeah, that's what that guy in Cabbagetown did. Damned right.

In Ontario, the stag moose and the saiga antelope are extinct. The Eastern elk is too. The Labrador duck. The Lake Ontario kiyi and several species of trout. But, hey, you've eaten one trout, you've eaten them all. Damned right.

I'm in the No Frills Market. I drove here. About five blocks from the Shell station. I'm squeezing lemons. Were these lemons trucked to this market from somewhere far off? Two young, probably non-union, workers are organizing the tomatoes. Where are those tomatoes from, anyway? I'm sure some migrant workers in some blisteringly hot US state were thrilled to make their forty cents, if that, to pick them for us folks here in Ontario. How many litres of $1.27 per did that trucker burn to get it here? Because, nah, we can't be growing lemons or tomatoes here in Ontario. Nah. Bad for the economy. Damned right.

"Heard you got your car back," one No Frills worker says to the other.

"Yeah," the second replies. "Didn't have it for a whole day. I thought my life was over."

Yeah. We're all doing our part to change the world.

Damned right.

Don't you dare let go.

Recently, I found myself taking a look at a child's parochial grade-school notebook that had come across my path. To my surprise and amusement, this particular notebook included notes and lesson plans from a class on comparative world religions.

My first thought was how fantastic to know that a grade-school was offering such a course, and to see that at least some children in the region were being introduced to the ideas behind not only Christendom, but of Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, and Sikhism. Paganism, unsurprisingly, was not included in these studies, although there were numerous references to "humanism," which really can't be all that bad.

But as I read through the child's chicken-scrawl and the assorted teacher's remarks more closely, I came upon a test essay question that raised my eyebrows. "As distressing as it is," read the question, "religion is in sharp decline. What outcome might we expect from this?"

What struck me was the completely subjective value judgment behind the query. Granted, the purpose of this particular class was to introduce youths to various theories and maxims of various world religions, that in itself being a huge leap in educational pluralism since when I was a kid... but the question's structure seemed to reify the concept that religion is a vitally necessary component to human society.

What if we disagree? What if 'the decline of (organized) religion' was not necessarily perceived as something "distressing"?

Candles in a stranger's house.

I've long since reached the point where I haven't been a Roman Catholic for most of life. I left the church in my mid-teens, and have enjoyed the embrace of the ancient and elder Gods, in one form or another, ever since.

And yet, sometime over the last few years, my personal Samhain work has included at least two visits to Christian churches in the month.

And I've come to enjoy it.

In an odd way, it seems fitting to me that both of my parents died during the month of October. My father first, on the 29th, and later, my mother on the 15th. After most of their lives apart over irreconcilable issues that I'd never completely understand (and to my father's constant unhappiness), they both died within two weeks of the same season, albeit five years apart.

I go to honour them, in the sound heathen spirit of honouring one's ancestors, and in the houses they would have felt most appropriate for them. I don't feel at home there, but in desiring to light candles for them in their sacred places, it warms me.

I don't worship, but I do get to talk to the god who resides there. I tell him how pissed off I am that my mother suffered as much, and for as long, as she did. I tell him how my father deserved better. Then I reflect on the pervasive imagery that deifies death and celebrates suffering, makes an art of it, makes a faith of the capitulation to it, and I begin to understand.

Catholic funerary tradition prohibits eulogies, as they serve to recall and praise the deceased rather than the divine. But as I light their candles at one of the usually several shrines, I make certain to pronounce their full names aloud, and then sit to discuss their virtues with the icon of Mary, or Jesus, or whomever stands in artistic form as the messenger for the words.

Yet, returning to those houses also fills me with a pleasure. It's become my habit, on the anniversaries of their deaths, to find the nearest church I can wherever I might be so that I can be present at the very hour they each died. I go out of my way, twice a year, to do this, and the seeking has sometimes resulted in finding me in the most interesting places. A Catholic church is preferable, but in the last few years I've found myself in United, Anglican, and Greek Orthodox churches just because my self-imposed scheduling made it necessary. My more ecumenical and anthropological selves have enjoyed seeing the differences in worship style, in sacred space construction, among even these factions within Christendom. As a devoted heathen with a love of history, they intrigue me.

As the Fates would have it, this year both got Catholic places. My mother's spirit was celebrated this year in Toronto's St. Paschal Baylon Church, a modern church (only fifty years old) that was undergoing extensive renovation when I was there. My father made out a little better with his candle lit at St. Michael's Cathedral, erected even before there was a Canada, in 1848, and the closest Toronto has to St. Patrick's Cathedral back home in New York. I call my Christian godfather, my uncle Robert in Florida, and he's totally amused when I share how I actually went into a church. We laugh.

I can't be home to attend to their graves. Mom still needs her stone, and Dad needs much more. There are obstacles on my path to giving them what they deserve, but I hope to accomplish them.

Autumn.

The scent of feral, joyful earth.

Maybe it's because I've started this wee little Pagan blog and have been thinking about my past a lot. Maybe it's because I miss old friends. Maybe it's because it's the Lammastide season, and that always makes me reflective as Mabon, and then Samhain, draw closer and closer. The Veil has begun to thin.

But recently, I found myself looking at an old photo of me (and my stepdaughter, if one can spot her) taken in the Magickal Childe perhaps some twentysomething years ago, and the vast array of jars and vessels behind me caught my attention. It had me remembering when, in my youth, as I waited for my covenmates to arrive at the store for our weekly Pagan Way rites, going to one particular jar on one particular dusty, musty shelf had become part of my personal routine.

Removing the lid, I would breathe the heady vapours from the jar, filling my lungs, and somehow, synapses in head, heart, and spirit conjoined to tell me that everything was all right with the world. For me, the scent in this vessel bespoke of Home like none other.

It was Herman Slater's Cernunnos blend, and along with recipes such as High Church, Kyphi, and straight frankincense, was among the first and most impression-making incenses to arouse my spirit. I loved our group's censer, which dangled from a long length of thin iron chain from a tall, iron rod, and how this incense would dance in thick, white ropes through the candlelight like pipe smoke from a fantasy wizard's mouth.

I remarked on how I missed this scent on my Facebook profile this morning, and a few friends who had also been to the Childe back in the day commented warmly. One asked me what the incense was like, and so I've decided to share it.

CERNUNNOS #1

pine
sandalwood
civit
valerian
musk
cinnamon
frankincense



CERNUNNOS #2

oak leaves
sandalwood
allspice
coriander
cedar
carnation

Herman would eventually publish these recipes in his Magickal Formulary Spellbook, which contains a host of incenses and powders that he and his staff at the store would use. I love the stuff, and regard it as classic material.

He never really detailed proportions for this incense, but with the way the recipes are written, I'm inclined to believe that they're either listed in descending volume order, or as equal parts. Experimentation required, season "to taste." I'm also fairly certain that it was recipe #1 I experienced most often, although I have vague memories of juniper berries and a tiny hint of camphor sometimes being in the mix. Let the pine needles be long. It's also completely possible that the store staff wasn't always particular about mixing batches of both versions, but I have nothing to support that with. Take it as art, not science.

But the resulting incense should be heady, feral, rich, and with an almost soil-like texture. Ground around the bases of a boreal wood at dusk, following a spring rain, near a cluster of mead-drinking dancers. For me, that was part of its charm, and the resulting burn should be sweet and dense, thick and smoky, like an incense equivalent to a deep Italian red wine loaded with body and nose.

For me, it was the essence of The God.

There is no sawdust on the streets of Leslieville.

James McKay had had enough. He and his family were enjoying a perfectly relaxing Sunday evening, digesting a delicious dinner and enjoying some television when he and his neighbours' peace were, once again, shaken by the bellowing strains of Amazing Grace and thundering citations from Deuteronomy.

No, James doesn't live near some roadside carnival where the sand or sawdust might get into his shoes, and the year isn't 1930. This is Leslieville, a charming 'hood in the Toronto east end, it's 2010, and he and his neighbours were fed up.

The folks from the Highfield Road Gospel Hall were at it again. Like clockwork, a handful of the devoutly faithful appeared one recent evening on the otherwise quiet, tree-lined residential street and, once again, did everything possible to alert the locals of their impending, divinely-planned doom should they ignore the Lord's Word.

Well dressed and very audible, they stood before a particular house. They'd been in front of that house before. Was it because, as some among them would later claim, the fire hydrant there provided a spot where the cars wouldn't be able to park and crowd them in? Or was it because the couple residing in the home they crowded before to shout and sing just happened to be gay?

James got his camera. He walked a few doors down to that house. He asked the people to leave. They refused, stating their right to be there. James continued to talk with them, and gradually, more of his neighbours came out of their homes too. Some of them knew the gay couple and were angry for them. Some of them simply saw an awaited confrontation finally happening. Someone began capturing events on video. The Highfield Road people were surprised, but remained adamant.

"We, the people of this neighbourhood, are asking you to leave," they were told. Eventually, when more and more residents began to crowd them with their displeasure, they went away, but not before threatening that they'd be back.

None of this would have been even slightly newsworthy had the people from Highfield Road Gospel Hall accepted that the very folks they were trying their style of outreach to simply weren't buying it, and that in fact, they'd actually been aggravating them.

None of this would have made a blip on the internet or the newspapers or the talk radio shows had they simply apologized for causing a disturbance and went home to their pot roasts.

In other words, if they had been conscientious. Polite, even.

But no. As is all too common in this city, it had to be an argument about who was, and who wasn't, 'more right' than the other guy. One might have expected more from the self-styled representatives of the Prince of Peace, because they certainly weren't providing any to the people on that residential street.

That the group was targeting the gay household is what made the news. Since then, voices from both sides have begun to suggest that perhaps this was a misunderstanding, although not all are convinced.

But whether or not the church group was genuinely targeting the gay couple's home, the response also demonstrates a building resentment in the Leslieville community toward the loud, boistrous proselytizing and condescending door-knocking on their streets. They've been called "sinners" to their face. They've been subjected to regular, systematic disturbances. Families with small children have probably altered the bedtimes of toddlers, and those who work graveyard shifts must be completely thrilled.

The group defends its loudness. In a recent National Post article, a member of Highfield Road (who would not give his name) stated that such street sermons are "not just so one household can hear it, (but) so many can hear it. Of course it's not a common thing anymore," he said.

That's correct; it isn't. Neither are public lynchings, lawn jockeys, war toys, asbestos pipe coverings, cans of lead paint, and any number of other unhealthy things that were commonplace fifty or one hundred years ago. Perhaps it's 'not a common thing anymore' because, in the evening on a residential street in a pluralistic society, it's completely inappropriate?

Ya think?

"It's not like we're going, forcing religion down people's throats," he adds.

Hrm. Really?

"We have the authority to preach the gospel," says another unnamed church member in a YouTube video.

Don Hutchinson, vice-president of the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, has supported the church group's residential prayer campaign, citing Canadian laws concerning freedoms of religion and expression, as well as the long history of evangelical street preaching. When suggested to him that Leslieville residents believe evangelicals don't have the right to 'shout on their streets,' he replies to journalists by stating, "Yes. We do."

Nice guy.

One might expect that a religious group seeking converts, or to at least receive a reasonably favourable response to their message, would approach people in a far less confrontationally invasive way. That this church group does not, and that numerous members have gone on record to defend their more audacious approaches, says a lot about their consciousness and attitude toward others who may (or even may not) believe differently.

Proselytizing is an ugly, disclusive, invasive, arrogant, confrontational process with condescending undertones. It sends the message that a pluralistic society is in itself bereft of value and merit, that diversity is something to be undermined, that regimentation is not only desirable but divinely sanctioned. There is a difference between being on the street and engaging in religious celebration in an inclusive way, and to repeatedly knock on doors or bellow on a residential street during a family's dinner or social hour to browbeat others into one's own personal paradigm.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, of which Canada is a part, declares that "freedom to manifest one's religion or beliefs may be subject only to such limitations as are prescribed by law and are necessary to protect public safety, order, health, or morals or the fundamental rights and freedoms of others."

"We've been doing this for seventy years," one church member argued with the crowd around him, "and we'll be back, by the will of God."

"And we've hated it the whole time," replied a resident.

But maybe, before they do, they'll take this experience as a lesson on how to treat their fellow man. I'm no expert, but I suspect their boss would approve.