I Opened My Eyes

Poison, It's everywhere. 

I had McDonald's this morning. I had my favorite; steak, eggs, and cheese all on a bagel. Oh, and I had a large Dr. Pepper, even though I ordered a medium. Welcome to America I guess. I then went and did something I haven't done in the two years since I started dialysis; I worked. Sure, I clean up around the house, do some grocery shopping, and cook most of the meals but I don't stand on my feet all day and actually work with the public. Why did I do this? Simple, my wife got to work today and found out that there was no one to help her make any bricks for the kids workshop. So she volunteered me to help. Long story short my wife works at a historic home and this was a learning activity for a field trip. So I worked all day making clay balls to be pressed into little bricks for the kids. It's a heck of a lot harder then it sounds. Trust me, I know, I made fun of it when I first heard what I was going to be doing. After eight hours of this my hands hurt, my feet hurt, and I was starving as we didn't have time to take a lunch break. Eight hours and 108 kids later I was ready to go home. I was far too tired to do any cooking so I made us each a sandwich. The wife had some fruit juice and I had another soda.

I then spent several hours looking at some Facebook pages from local anti-GMO, homesteading, organic, and local eating movements. I had known about GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) foods for a while now but never gave it too much thought. Then I watched this lovely little video:

Did you watch it? No. Then go watch it!

I hate to say it but that should have freaked you out. If it didn't then stop reading this and go on about your fast food and TV watching life.

After much reading about the horrible things they do to our food I decided to go make some more food! I thought I would try some "Instant Low Sodium Miso Soup" for some Goddess forsaken reason. It was horrible, plain old beef stock would have been better. I made my wife some canned potato soup and another sandwich while I made myself some black bean soup with some canned corn. At least this time I didn't have another soda, only because we were all out, I had some homemade lemonade. Yes, actually homemade not that weird powdered stuff. Though the lemon juice did come from a bottle so who knows what was in it.

That brings me to today's topic (well yesterday's topic since my wife made me come to bed last night): How much real food do you actually eat during a day? Well, lets see, everything from McDonald's we will classify as not being real food as we know it was highly processed. How about the sandwiches? Well after reading the ingredients labels I would have to say no. Also, we all know the sodas are super processed so they are out too.

Side Note: Go look up "cellulose", it's an ingredient in most baked goods. I'll save some of you the trouble, cellulose is another name for wood pulp. 

The Instant Miso will not being included in this as I am pretty sure its not food at all. Oh, what about the soups? Hey yeah, they were organic soups each with less then 5 ingredients and each ingredient was a food I would eat on it's own. Finally we found some real food! Then I go dump some GMO corn into my soup. How do I know it was GMO corn? I looked up the company on some anti-GMO websites. If your wondering about the homemade lemonade let me stop you right there. The same company that made the corn made the lemon juice so it's out. Though, I did have some apple cider from a local farm and its ingredients list is so short I will post it right here. Apple Cider Ingredients: Apple Cider, Water. Just a side not it was the best apple cider I have ever had. I know its not organic or anything and who knows maybe they use toxic pesticides but hey, it still has less death in it then the mega-mart brands.

So to sum all of that up, the only real food the wife and I had were two cans of soup.

Why is this such a big deal and what does it have to do with being a Pagan Man? Simple, Pagan Men are humans and as humans our health is a big deal in our lives. Though this post might not have anything to do with your religion it will have something to do with keeping you alive and healthy longer so you can enjoy that religion.

Oh, these GMO vegetables secrete pesticide but they are totally safe to eat!

The sad fact is that you have no idea what that GMO food is going to do to you. Lets think about that for a minute. We know that companies have manufactured GMO vegetables that will secrete pesticides. Why? Simple, so the farmer doesn't have to spray the crops with pesticides. Why is that an improvement? Because it saves the farmer money. Think about it, I don't have to rent a giant sprayer if I don't own one, I don't have to pay for the diesel to make it run, or along the same lines if I am using a plane, and I don't have to pay someone to run the machinery. Also, it saves on time since I don't have to do any of the above since its built in to the crop.

What do you think happens when you eat a vegetable that secretes poison? No, there is nothing to wash off, the plant literally makes it on the cellular level so its everywhere in the plant. Want to know some of the real world side effects? Then read this article. Here, let me quote something from it:

"In 2003, approximately 100 people living next to a Bt cornfield in the Philippines developed skin, respiratory, intestinal reactions and other symptoms while the corn was shedding pollen."

What is Bt?

Sounds fun huh? This stuff literally kills insects, and animals that eat it yet somehow it's completely safe for humans. We have messed up stomachs. I mean it seems we can eat things that kill other animals. I don't just mean GMOs, we are one of the few mammals alive with a stomach acid level high enough to drink some sodas and not die, but I digress.

Let me paraphrase the Bible for a moment: "Your body is a temple, STOP defacing it!"

I could continue to rant about GMOs and highly processed food all day if you let me but I wont (at least not here). 

I will wrap all of this up be saying I am tired. I sick and tired of being sick and tired. I am tired of having no energy. I am tired of feeling bad all the time. I know it is far too late for me to fix some of the more permanent things done to my body but you know what? It's not too late for me to try and fix the things I can. What do I plan on doing? Buying real food for one. I know it can be expensive and I know I won't be able to do it all at once but slow and steady wins the race. I also plan on exercising on the days I don't have dialysis, I might even do some light walking before dialysis in the morning too. Am I going to count calories? No. Why? The goal is to feel better and eat better, I am sure that weight lose will be a happy side effect of that.

So here's to my fellow Pagan Men! Get up, do something! Act like the proud man we should all be! I doubt the Horned God sits around all day staring at the TV. Know what your putting in your body! How can we do our sacred duty as men in our community, be it Priest, Warrior, or Father if we are too tired and sick to move?

As one of my favorite Pagan author says: "Be Glorious!" You will receive some Pagan Man point if you can tell me who that is in the comment section.

As always,

May the Gods watch over you all,
Snow Wolf

Being a man in Wicca

Let me start off by saying, wow! 52 page views in just four days! That’s just awesome! I want to thank you for just dropping by folks, it means a lot to me! Now, on to the insanity!..... 

BOOM! You’re in circle and you’re the only man in the room, what goes through your head? No, seriously, stop reading, think about it for a few minutes and come back, I’ll wait.

*pours myself some Bourbon and puts on the Jeopardy music….promptly deletes the MP3 after three seconds of music and shudders*

Never, never again! Anyway, back to the topic at hand. 

(You will earn 10 Pagan Man points if you can tell me who that is on my shot glass in the comments below)

So, how did you feel? Alone? Outnumbered? Isolated? Or did you like being the only man in a room full of women? If the latter, then this post is not for you, that’s next week.

Keep in mind that this blog is about being a Pagan Man, not a Wiccan man. What’s the difference? 

Oh, Oh, I know! I know!

The hell? Who let you back in?

A modern day Pagan is, roughly, someone in an Earth based religion. While as, a Wiccan is someone in the Wicca religion. Wicca it’s self is considered an Earth based religion. Therefore, all Wiccans are Pagans but not all Pagans are Wiccans.

Man I got to get a lock for that door. Anyway, yeah, he’s right. So, what does that mean? Well it means that there are other religions than Wicca that we will cover in this blog. But for now, on to the circle!

Wicca, the religion of the Goddess. Why? Sure, Wicca recognizes Goddesses, but is it strictly a Goddess worship religion? Well, that depends on who you talk to. There are many, many, many branches of Wicca. Some actually are Goddess only, and most aren't.

I know, as a man, this can seem a little intimidating. I mean being in a Goddess religion and keeping your masculinity in tact....

Hey, wait a minute! You just said it wasn't a Goddess religion.

Yeah, you sit through a Wiccan ritual and see how many times the God is talked about as compared to the Goddess. If its actually more than the God I will bake you a friggin cookie. All I am saying is that if your going to be in Wicca you have to be able to realize that you don't have to be anything less then what you are to worship a Goddess. By that I mean you can keep being a manly man all you want and still be part of a religion that honors a Goddess. Also, that's not to say that you have to only worship a Goddess and not a God as well.

So, why would a man feel uncomfortable surrounded by women that have probably been jaded by a male oriented and dominated religion that also have immediate access to sharp pointy things at the ritual space?

Geez, I have no idea.....

Yeah there is a lot of resentment in the Wiccan community for the Christian religion. That also translates into a lot of resentment and sometimes outright hate from Wiccan women towards men in general. I have seen such women completely run ram-shot over men in ritual. Its ranged from correcting them about something trivial during the ritual, making a male bashing joke and expecting us to not take it personally, and all the way to telling the man to sit down and shut up. In the most extreme case I was once told that I couldn't do anything but stand in the circle as I was a man and could not invoke the Gods or the elements. I wonder what some jerk did to her?

Yeah, so your going to run into some man hating on various levels here and there in the Wiccan community.

To those that say that this is untrue; screw you. Yup, that's right, screw you. I know that man hating happens because I have been to enough events and circles to see it first hand.

Now that I have that out of the way, what can you do about it?

Smile. Yeah, that's about it. There is little you can do except sit down with the man hater and point out how you feel. If they continue to act like an ass, it's time for you to move on from that poisonous environment. And yes, it is poisonous if its hurting your self esteem and making you feel bad about yourself.

I have met some men that practice alone because they say their masculinity makes the women in the circle feel uncomfortable. One man said that he has noticed that Wiccan women feel more comfortable circling with effeminate men. To be honest I have noticed this as well but I can't say anything because I am Pansexual. Not to say that I am effeminate at all, but still.

Stop, now look around. How many non-effeminate or purely straight Wiccan men do you know? If your community is anything like mine that's not too many. Sure there is a small number of them but not all that many that I have seen. But hey, that's a whole other topic.

Why do you feel intimidated? Because there are more of them then you? Weird feeling isn't it? Makes you wonder how they must feel sometimes.

Maybe your not intimidated, maybe you feel left out. Do you ever feel like your on the outside of circle looking in?

"Okay go sit in the next room while we set up for ritual and then come invoke the God." - Random High Priestess

That ever happen to you? Makes you feel like a commodity doesn't it?

Man this blog post is alllll over the place.

Well maybe if you were sober...

Oh hush you, your not even real.

If you are having trouble feeling like a man in a Goddess oriented religion well, get over it.

That's right, you heard me, get the heck over it. Your a man, period. Nothing can change that. Its up to you how you behave and how you feel. Just because you worship a Goddess doesn't mean you can grunt, scratch, and spit as much as you like. Just, don't do it in public, or in front of women, that's just wrong.

The simple fact is that you are now a minority. That's right, there are more of them then there are of us and you just have to get use to that. Some women are going to be upset that there are men in the religion of the Goddess, as they see it, and they will take that out on you. 

Anyway, these are my ramblings. They aren't always coherent but I think I got the point across.

Have something to add?

I do! I do!

Not you!

*Cough, Cough* As I was saying, leave your thoughts down in the comments.

Later folks,
May the Gods watch over you all,
Snow Wolf

What the? I'm Back? How? Oh Gods no...

Four years. Has it been four years since I tried to make this project work? Well, since then I have been running two other blogs about my experiences going through renal (kidney) failure over at WordPress.com. They aren't the most popular blogs either but I have my small cult following.

*Holds my fingers like Mr. Burns* Excellent *evil laughter*

"The Pagan Man Blog!" Just the name conjures so many images, doesn't it? When I hear it I think about a stereotypical lumberjack with his foot up on a log, in a Captain Morgan pose, holding an axe over his shoulder with one hand and oddly enough a jug of maple syrup in the other. I guess since he is suppose to be Pagan he can have a pentacle, or something. Shouldn't I be thinking of, I don't know, The Green Man, or a Druid, maybe even a Shaman? Well, *takes a deep breath*, SCREW THAT!

(Image Source)

*exhales*

Alright, I have been holding that one in for years. Feels good to get it off my chest! Labels....they kinda suck, don't they? Yeah, they do, they totally do. I mean come on, a Pagan man could look like any man....though some women I have met think we should all look like this guy.

(Image Source)

I mean come on! How the hell are we suppose to live up to that!? I mean geez, I would have to go on a high protein diet and workout all the freaking time! I mean come on, look at him, with his rugged yet neatly trimmed beard. His hairy yet trimmed chest, his um....perfectly formed chest....wait, what was I saying?

Do a Google Image search and see what you come up with. I loved this one.

(Image Source)

Though I can't really look at this without speaking in a high pitch voice and saying, "You shall bring me a shrubbery!"

"The Pagan Man", what the hell is a Pagan man?

Oh! Oh! I know! I know! Pick me! Pick meeeeeeee!

Okay fine, geez, the annoying guy in the front with the rapis....er....coke bottle glasses..

Yes! *coughs* er, um......a Pagan Man, by definition, would be an adult male who belongs to an earth based religion or any religion claiming to be Pagan. This could include Pantheism, Wicca, Druidism,and a whole host of religions. *beams with pride over reciting this fact so well*

Riiiiiight. Well, I suppose that is true. A Pagan man would just be a man, who is in fact, a Pagan. Awesome, well this blog is done, good work everybody! 

*shakes hands, tosses confetti, passes out the bonus checks, and opens the champagne while humming "Gonna Party like its 199..*

Hey, wait a minute!

*For some reason a record is scratched as the music stops....that's an odd MP3 player pause feature...*

Yeah?

Well, just because we know that being a Pagan and being a man makes one a male Pagan, does it really explain what it is to be a Pagan man? Does that really explain what a man goes through in the Pagan community? What is expected of a Pagan man by his peers? The milestones one should go through, and all of the other important things that make up the sum of a Pagan man.

*grumbles as he takes back the bonus checks and keeps the bottle for himself*

Alright, alright, back to work you lazy bums....seems we have a blog to write, thanks to the "scholar" in the front row. * mumbles: "I just haaaad to open up the first post in four years to an audience."*

Well, you heard the man. We have more work to do. So sit back, strap in, and grab a beer, this are about to get weird. Because, I am done with trying to be the neat and proper little blog writer everyone says I have to be. It's time to just be a guy and say screw it! Yeah, I'm keeping it PG-13 too.

Well it's 7:20 AM, you know what that means? Mini-Doughnuts and Mt. Dew for breakfast over South Park reruns before I get back to work on the Book of Shadows project. Yeah, that's right I'm cross topicing baby! Trying to keep my online identities separate is hard enough, so here I say screw it!

Huh, I think we alright have a blog saying. How about this for a title: "The Pagan Man Blog; Screw It!"? Too in your face? Too edgy? Nah, it just sucks.

Okay, I'm off to enjoy my mini-doughnuts.

Mini-doughnuts you say?

~sigh~ Come on, let me introduce you to a little something called a sugar and caffeine coma. 

Sugar!

Later folks.
May the Gods watch over you all,
Snow Wolf

Welcome to The Pagan Man

The other day my wife bought a new book for me, this book was titled "Sacred Paths for Modern Men" by Dagonet Dewr.

I had only gotten into the first few chapters of this book when I put it down and glanced over at my "Pagan" book shelf. I looked very hard through the 105+ books that I own for those books specifically for Pagan Men. What I came up with was three books; "The Pagan Man: Priests, Warriors, Hunters, and Drummers" by Isaac Bonewits, "Wicca Spellcraft for Men" by A.J. Drew, and the book I mentioned earlier.

All three of them are wonderful books and I fully suggest all of them. Especially the one by A.J. Drew as he is my favorite Pagan author for men at the moment. That and I have met him a few times at the Ohio and Kentucky Renaissance Fair and I have to say he is a great guy to talk to.

What got me thinking today is that I only have three books on the subject of Pagan men because that is all that I could find. I mean three books? Come on there has to be more then that right? Well I fired up FireFox and quickly went to www.Amazon.com to see what I could find. It seems I was wrong there are not just three books for Pagan men....there are actually four. It seems A.J. wrote another one titled "Wicca For Men: A Handbook for Male Pagans Seeking a Spiritual Path". Well, I guess that is a slight improvement over my last theory of only three books.

I decided that maybe I should do something. I once started to write a book about being a Pagan man and then stopped once Llewellyn and New Page both told me that it would not be a book of interest. You know what? I think they were wrong personally. I think more books for Pagan men would be a great idea. So even if I can not get them to publish me I will use www.LuLu.com to get myself published I suppose.

Either way, this blog is not about my adventures in writing a book for Pagan men. This blog is going to be my view on the modern Pagan society and my role in it as a male Pagan.

I hope someone finds this blog of some use and maybe some comfort when you think that your all alone being a Pagan man in a religion that seems to be 95% dominated and or occupied by women. Not that I don't like women, I am married for Lugh's sake, but I understand what it feels like to be a minority and then treated like its no big deal because I am still a white "privileged" man. All I have to say to that is "Yes, I am white, no I am not privileged....I'm middle class and unemployed."

-Blessed Be all,
Snow Wolf.

WolfOfTheSnow@GMail.com