UberPocky

There are five core elements in this world, as I see it. I’m not talking about the periodic table. I’m just talking about the core elements of: Water, Earth, Wind, Fire & Spirit. All have a destructive side, all have a helpful side. And they are all very powerful. Ike brought forth these thoughts of elements.

Water: Water is one of the most destructive of the elements, it can get everywhere and whatever it covers it takes ages to clean up. There’s mold to be contended with if it’s left too long. It’s a devastating element. However, we would not be on this earth if it were not for water. Our bodies contain a strong majority of water. Life would never have arisen in the first place if it were not for water.

Fire: Another of the most destructive of the elements. This can completely trash everything, the result being ash. It’s a little more controllable then flooding water. It’s however just as devastating. It can ruin homes and lives in their entirety. However, it cooks our food to get rid of some bacteria, it keeps us warm. It keeps us happy. In the days of old, it kept our ancestors safe. However uncontrolled, it also, is devastating.

Wind/Air: Wind, also involved with hurricanes can do quite a bit of damage, However, it’s very “easily” repaired damage. Things will get moved, this will get unattached. However, damage caused by wind is, if you can find the pieces, quite repairable. Air for us is needed for breath. Air also has it’s hand in keeping us alive.

Earth: Earth is what I would consider the ‘quietest’ of elements. Changes in this element are slow over time. So it’s damage is quite little. However Earthquakes are related to this element. That’s when things go south. Californians know this well. I do not, however it’s said Chicago is overdue for a major quake. It’s, also necessary for our life. It gives us a place to say, things to build shelter out of. It’s quite a slow, amazing, but overlooked element.

Spirit: This element lets you get up and rebuild when other elements go their bad ways. This element can also cause people to be lethargic or depressed. This is an element that has no touchable quantifiable measurements. However, it is quite an element. This is the element that lets the great Americans on the gulf coast rebuild after, oh say, Ike.

I was looking though the zodiacs recently. Both western and eastern. I’ve been looking at my horoscope almost daily for a couple years now. I started by looking it up online and it was NEVER accurate. Not Once. I wrote it off as some stupid little thing, and gave up on in. Then my brain popped in again, “but so many people around this world can find advice and solace here.” I was wondering what I was missing…

Then I started looking around for different sources of horoscopes…. The more local they got they more accurate they got. It was strange… So I started regularly looking at the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times. I get, now, three horoscopes and I feel together they give me a good look at the day. Now the goal, for me at least, of a horoscope is not to predict specific events but just to give some general advice of the day. Advice that I have found has been much needed, either because of me, or because of another person or event in the day.

I never game much thought to the Chinese Horoscope until recently. Once I read about it in more detail I realized it really is accurate too… November 17, 1985 was a good day for me It makes me a Scorpio and an Ox. Which at first I thought was a strange and incompatible mix, until I realized that the Ox hides the darker sides of Scorpio: continue reading…

Beltane (April 30) marks the emergence of the young God into manhood. Stirred by the energies at work in nature, He desires the Goddess. They fall in love, lie among the grasses and blossoms, and unite. The Goddess becomes pregnant of the God. The Wiccans celebrate the symbol of her fertility in ritual.
Beltane (also known as May Day) has long been marked with feasts and rituals. May poles, supremely phallic symbols, where the focal point of old English village rituals. Many persons rose at dawn to gather flowers and green branches from the fields and gardens using them to decorate the May Pole, their homes and themselves.

The flowers and greenery symbolize the Goddess; the May pole the God. Beltane marks the return of vitality, of passion and hopes consummated.

May poles are sometimes used by Wiccans today during Beltane rituals, but the cauldron is a more common focal point of ceremony. It represents, of course, the Goddess–the essence of womanhood, the end of all desire, the equal but opposite of the May pole, symbolic of the God.

-From:Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner by Scott Cunningham

Beltane, or May Day–May 1
Beltane (pronounced BEL-tane) named after the sun God Belenos, marked the beginning of the summer season, when Celtic farmers took their livestock out to pasture. The livestock would be driving between the fires as a ritual of cleansing and fertility.
As the their of the great Celtic fire festivals, Beltane occurs halfway around the year from Samhain, and just as Samhain represents the end of summer, this festival represents the beginning. Even for modern pagans who see the year as divided into four seasons, this is a joyful time of celebrating the arrival of the hottest of the seasons.
Beltane is the happiest and friskiest of the Sabbats. In ancient times, the focus of this Sabbat was fertility, and people would take this literally, often spending the night out in the fertility of the land. Among modern urban pagans, the theme of the pagans, the theme of fertility can still be meaningful, not only in a literal sense for those who want to have babies but in a symbolic sense for people who are working toward manifesting something new in their lives.
Beltane survived in Christian times as May Day, a secularized festival of the coming of spring. Perhaps the most familiar May Day ceremony involves the Maypole dance, in which young couples dance around a beautiful pole, weaving ribbons together to decorate it. The fertility origins of this festival survive in the phallic symbolism of the pole (the God) penetrating the soil of the earth (the Goddess).

- From: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Paganism by Carl McColman

And there it is from two of my favorite books to consult on this kind of stuff. Let the fun begin!

I think these two readings are a great look at the holiday. Please leave comments if you’d like. This same post will cycle around every year on the day of Beltane.

The Seed Moon is tonight. Here’s what The Idiot’s Guide to Paganism has to say about it.

April, the Seed Moon The name says it all; this is a moon for planting, sowing, or simply setting new projects in motion. Dance for joy at the coming warmth and celebrate beginnings.

Spring cleaning can be done. A big project that needs to get started. It’s a moon for thoughts of the future, “What do I need to do to get to where I want?”