Loom of a Fireweaver

Those are the themes of CedarLight Grove's designer wreaths for Festival of Trees. If you would like to show your support for us and the event please check out our Festival of Trees Page and you can print out a $2 coupon for admission.

About all the thankfulness I can muster tonight is a bit for the fact that the brand new quart of dark green paint that popped open when it fell out of the bag only spilled on a corner of the wall. And the wood floor. And the dining room carpet.

Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

--Wilfred Owen

Today I am thankful that my chiropractor can get me an appointment at the drop of a hat.

Hoo-Rah! to all the veterans!

Items for the day:

1. Gothic Dreams Magazine Pictures from Poe's Funeral

2. Forgot lunch and ran to the local italian deli. Had two different strangers opened two different doors for me. I guess chivalry is not quite dead.

3. Window fixed. Yea!

4. 208! Yea! -22, 38 more to go.

http://www.adf.org/groups/groves/us/CT.html#184?rss=1

View all ADF groves in Connecticut, including one of our newest groves: Charter Oak Protogrove, ADF

I got a call yesterday from a friend who was going through a rough life-moment. "Could I come by? I need to be in the company of friends tonight." I replied, "Of course you can. Come over whenever you can." Between those two bits in my reply was the unspoken sentence that echoed in my head: "You're my student."

I've been teaching an "Introduction to Paganism" class at the Crescent Moon School for the past three years (off and on, depending on the number of students that register). During that time, I think I've had a total of 30+ students, although not all of those students made it to the end of the 18 week course (some drop out due to money/time/interest constraints). Every group is different, making the teaching of the class different each time (although the subject matters stay mostly the same).

Some of those students have become close friends, while others drift away and I only see them once in a blue moon, if at all, although it's always a pleasure to see them again and catch up on their news. I've seen some of my students go through radical changes over the years, in both their spiritual and personal lives. I don't pretend that the course or the teacher is the catalyst, but I was just happened to come into their lives at a tumultuous moment.

So when I think of my friend as "my student", at face value, the relationship seems to have a hierarchical tone to it: I AM THE TEACHER (up here) AND YOU ARE THE STUDENT (down there). But that's not how I see it at all. Having students is not a question of me having the knowledge and them not having the knowledge: it's about the privilege and the honor to be able share a part of my knowledge-self with another human being.

The magical part about that moment is that, in so doing, both us are changed irrevocably. Teaching is not a one-way exchange, not if it is done with the sacred in mind. The difference lies in teaching a student that 1+1=2, or in teaching a student that math is powerful life juju and deserves to get excited about.

In addition to following the course material, I'm also developing my own spiritual wisdom, so I'll often bring an idea to class that I toying/wrestling with to get the student's perspective on it. In so doing, I'll be mixing my own evolving spiritual beliefs in with the static course material, which means the substance of the course material changes over time.

And that is why it's an honor to be a teacher. It's an honor to have that moment where I can expand someone else's experience based on my own experience, but in so doing, my own experience expands as well. In that exchange, both the student and the teacher are affected, which is why they need each other.

The teacher needs the student as much as the student needs the teacher. Their relationship is symbiotic, but both are equals. In this modern society, where many of us buy into the lie that we need to be completely indepedant and self-reliant, we forget the many hands that guide our path, the many teachers that sculpt our psyche, and the many more teachers that lay ahead on our path. Even as we learn from them, we are teaching others, either directly or indirectly, and they are teaching us.

Last summer, during an outdoor ritual in Montreal, I was catching up on the news of one of my ex-students, and teasing her about I might call on her to help with me a public ritual. "It'll help with your studies, young one. Trust me," I grinned.

"Oh Hobbes," she replied, hands on her hips. "You're not my teacher any more. Scarlet is my teacher now."

"You'll have many teachers, my friend, but you'll always be my student."

I recently posted an article about the sacred relationship between students and teachers. Would it be okay if I reposted it in this forum?

Today, I am thankful for the gift of time about deciding some things about the bathroom remodeling.

You dumb ass, punk .. you left blood in my car. You are going down!

Today I am very thankful for my immediate family.

I might not have internet access this evening, so I'll do it now. I am thankful today for clean spoons.

Oh, and we're heading to Azkaban this evening and won't return until tomorrow afternoon. It's the eleventy-bazillionth anniversary of David's home church, so we're committed for the big hoo-ha around that. If I don't check in tomorrow, I'll most likely be thankful for chocolate to recover from the Dementor.

Here is your creator: John R. Landecker.

I do take complete credit for this concept's mushrooming use on LJ after I used it on here some time ago. I cannot, however, take credit for any cleverness around it. John Landecker, a DJ on WLS in Chicago when we lived there, first thought of it. He used the term to refer to his listening audience, which could generally come up with any tidbit of information he needed within a few minutes. He often shortened it to "The Vast and Unpaid."

He also coined such phrases as "Steaming Heaps of Audience Participation" and "It don't have to be good to be classic."

Anyway, I thought you might find it interesting.

Today, I am thankful for beer in general, and Guinness Stout in specific.

They came, they dusted what they could and the officer gave me a very good piece of advice. She said that if I plan on buying another one, Or on the slim chance this one is recovered,

DO NOT LEAVE IT IN THE CAR WHEN YOU GO SHOPPING

Why? Because you are in the store and there is a home button on the GPS unit and when pushed will go home. So, you could finish shopping, discover your car broken into and GPS gone, then go home to find that you have been robbed.

Nice.

And yes, she told me this because this is happening.

oh yea, the dusting on textured surfaces and using super glue and dry ice to lift fingerprints .... No funds, low man power ... it is not happening. We both agreed that is really cool.

VoicePost 393K 2:03

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Today I am thankful for the 11 boys in my American History class, who are just a heck of a lot of fun.

Mommy just tried this product called Cedarific and it really is .... Cedarific!

She no longer struggles to get a heavy bag of litter into the house and can carry two of these with no problem. For Meezers, it is easy to dig in and completely covers all scat. You know how we hate smelly boxes! It even turns dark red when wet showing mommy what needs to be cleaned out and she likes that too.

I heard Mommy say that it doesn't break the bank either ... whatever that means... but it makes her happy. A happy mommy means more treats for me. So, tell your human to buy Cedarific for you too!


[edit: Duh! should have been posted in meezerluv. I need to stop posting before 7AM]

After suffering from a mofo of a sinus headache all day (no fever--I checked) tonight I will be grateful for breakfast for dinner.