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My Philosophy on Life

Over the past year I've struggled with dealing with birth family issues, weight loss/gain, starting a new business and re-opening an old one.  All while working a full time job.  I've started working with clay and sculpting as well as doing other odds and ends.  I've joined many groups on Facebook related to these different aspects of my life.

This past week an incident occurred in one of my groups that really bugged me.  Someone shared an art piece they did and another member shared that piece outside the group in such a way as to mock the artist, simply because they did not like it.

One word came to mine.  Asshole.

As I began to dig around in my brain about why this bothered me so much I began to see a pattern emerge.  I don’t mind if other people are not like me.  I really don’t.  But why ya gotta be an asshole? (Yeah I went there) let’s examine this.

Pat Robertson. 
Dear Pat, you can bible thump till the cows come home.  You can believe whatever you want to believe and I will defend your right to worship as you choose.  Just don’t be an ass about it.




Bryan Fischer.
Dear Bryan, you can hate gay people.  You can believe that marriage should be between one man and one woman. You can believe that the Boy Scouts of America are wrong for allowing gay scouts.  Just don’t be an ass about it.




Westboro Baptist Church.
Dear WBC, you can hate everyone.  You can witness to people, you can even make up little parody songs if you want to.  But please… please don’t be an ass about it.





People for the Ethical of Animals
Dear PETA, you can believe it’s great to be a vegetarian.  You can make “Go Daddy” style videos to try to help people adopt a healthier, more animal friendly stance on food.  Again.. just don’t be an ass about it.






See that’s the problem with many people in the world today.  They are not happy just being an advocate for what they want to accomplish in life.  They want to make those decisions for everyone.  No one can live and let live.

If your religion says it’s a sin to have gay sex, guess what… don’t have gay sex.  It doesn't say that I can’t have gay sex.  It says YOU can’t have gay sex.

If your personal belief is that it is wrong to have a dog as a pet, then don’t have one.   But don’t try to make it illegal for me to have one.

If you believe that it is wrong to eat meat, then don’t eat meat.  Do NOT walk around trying to outlaw bacon!

I posted a similar status message related to not condemning others for their likes and a friend shared the following video.





I love it!  That’s exactly it.  In my discussions with Hubby we talked about how people shouldn't be an ass about things.  I think that maybe dick maybe more fitting.

So if only just for today, if you don’t like something… Don’t be a dick about it.

Namaste & Blessed Be
Sosanna

)O(


*Note:  Asses are all over the place, not just in the areas mentioned above.  Everyone has an ass and yes, some of them stink.
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Pagan Blog Project 2012 - Z is for Zealot


Z is for Zealot

A Zealot is defined by Merriam-Webster.com as:

1: Capitalized: a member of a fanatical sect arising in Judea during the first century a.d. and militantly opposing the Roman domination of Palestine

2: A zealous person; especially: a fanatical partisan <a religious zealot>


I've been a zealous advocate of many things.  For example, I fight for LGBT rights with zeal but I can listen to others and not be closed minded.  When I think about the word zealot my mind automatically goes to those of the religious nature.  I've met Catholic zealots, Protestant zealots and even Pagan zealots. 

To me, a zealot is someone who is so immersed in their own religious views that they have no room to allow others to have their own views.  They do not allow for any open dialog or discussion.  They are the “It’s my way or the highway” crowds.

One of these would be the folks out at Westboro Baptist Church (WBC).  Classified as Independent Baptists, WBC is listed as a hate group with the Southern Poverty Law Center.  This group was founded in 1955 by Fred Phelps and holds a hard and fast line on interpreting the Bible.  Known for picketing the funerals of everyone from the military to LGBT children, WBC has one other call to fame.  Recently it was published that a petition on the White House site “We the People”, to legally recognize the church as a hate group became the most populate petition to date with 297,566 signatures at the time of this writing.

However I’d like to point out that in my opinion these are not the only type of zealots out there.  As I mentioned above I believe Pagans can be zealots to.

Take Z Budapest for example.  The action of banning all female identified trans* from her Dianic Wiccan rituals led to outright protests.  If I understand her logic, she believes that due to some of the rituals of Dianic Wicca being led skyclad; the members of her group would be offended if trans* members did not have bottom surgery.  A post by Teo Bishop on Patheos.com outlined the events he witnessed at the protest.  It is indeed a powerful review of the events.  Many bloggers took on the story and wrote about the event.  I wrote a piece here.

After this I started to be concerned with Z’s non-inclusion and felt that maybe this was not the kind of energy that I wanted to be associated with.  Then I saw the announcement on her Facebook page that she would put a hex on anyone that changed the words of “We All Come from the Goddess” to include men/male energy.  I was shocked.

I understand feminism.  Feminism is not male hatred, its female loving.  To me if you do not have the ability in your heart to care for others, you cannot care for yourself.  That was it for me.  I changed my ritual playlist to INCLUDE the version with “Hoof and Horn” and I do indeed think about being open, understanding and inclusive when I hear it.  I removed Z from my Facebook friends and stopped following her on Twitter.  That type of energy is something I do not need in my life.

So you see, you can have zealots all over the spectrum.  In this case I’ve addressed only religious zealots.  There are lots of others.  PETA for example.  I believe they are zealots for animal rights. 

Any time a person takes a cause and closes their eyes to the ability to see others as the true life energy that they are.  You my friend are a zealot.




  

This is my last post for the Pagan Blog Project 2012.  It’s been amazing! I’m looking forward to 2013.

Namaste and Blessed Be
Sosanna
)O(
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Save the Earthlings

Last night I finally got around to sitting down and watching a documentary that a friend recommended. She's a newly found friend from the Pagan group that I joined. She makes a mean chocolate cake and is Vegan.

We've been chatting online for a few weeks now and she mentioned to me that she saw a very powerful film called "Earthlings". I found the program on Top Documentary Films.com. A note about this website. They have some really good content here. The majority of it is free to watch online. There are many powerful films available and I highly recommend it.

Now, Back to Earthlings. For the last three years, I've been a vegetarian. I've changed my purchases to buying organic when ever I can and I try my best to stay away from animal products. However, I know that I am not Vegan. I do have a passion for leather and riding a motorcycle with hubby, we use the leathers to protect us from harm when we ride. I look around my house and generally it's pretty animal friendly. Meaning, the little fur babies that live here, live very well and the objects in my home are for the most part, not made from animals.

For a long time I didn't understand why PETA stance on keeping animals as pets was so strong. I felt that it was basically ludricis to think that we should not have pets. I am a good person and I take care of my pets. Watching this program last night however they showed the actual bodies piled up from the gas chambers where unwanted "Pets" are literally dumped out of the little box cages and piled onto the concrete. It was heart wrenching. I get it now. Because a few people are not responsible enough to correctly care for their animals, their stance is that no one should have them.

The prospective of this film is that Earthlings, are everyone and everything that live on Earth. It shows how racism, sexism and speciesism are actually all very similar in the Human race. When you think about it, White Supremacy for example, is a belief that they their particular race is superior and other races, "lower races" are not worthy of the same respect as their own. Their race is the master, and all others the slaves. Now looking at sexism we can see the same type of belief structure. One group, in this case "gender" looks at it's own gender as being the master and all others the slave. We can see that Feminism was brought about just to empower females and combat misogyny. The new word that I was introduced to in this film was Specisism. The belief, that the Human Species has a greater right or is superior to any other species on the planet. I never really considered this. I mean I look around at the animals here and I think that they need to be protected. They really only need to be protected by us, FROM US.

We, as humans are the ones that are destroying them. We, as humans are the ones who are removing their habitats, poisoning the oceans and streams and polluting the air. If we didn't do this, they would not need us to save them.

I could not watch the entire show. The images were extremely graphic and I was in tears nearly immediately watching it. I switched it off and took on a new film called "Westboro Baptist Church: A Family in Crisis". I watched as the Fred Phelps' family proceeded to explain why they are superior and why everyone else was worthy of only hate and death. I watched as this group removed members of their own family and shunned them for not being "godly". I couldn't help but compare the venom they spewed as being on the same level as those that seek out to harm others based on race, gender, sexual orientation and yes, species.

I cannot say that this film has made me Vegan. I can however say that I will never look at our fellow Earthlings the same way. We are no important than the beetle bug or the butterfly. We are just a neighbor, living here on this planet and sharing this Earth with every other living being here.


Namaste & Blessed Be
Sosanna
)O(
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