Musings For A Darkened Room

This past week has been pure hell for me. Something other than my gout attacked my right foot and I have been off of work and off of my feet since this past Tuesday. I go to the foot doctor tomorrow to hopefully determine what is going on. Thought this week has been a painful and long one, I have to be thankful for a few things that it has brought me:

1. I was able to focus on my Web Design and Graphics Design work.
2. I got to feel my babies move for the first time.
3. I realized that I have strongly strayed off of my spiritual path.

I find these three experiences to be quite important since each seem to represent a different aspect of my life that I have been longing for. This week I have been completely removed from the day to day that I have been living since I returned to school last November. I was confined to my room or bed 99% of the time completely separated from work, school, and the like.

Web Design/Graphics Design is my dream job, and the reason I went back to school. I have been slaving through the basic GE classes and general art classes just waiting for those final few classes that will give me what I need to make a serious career out of my web work. This week I not only was given a lead to a potential freelance job, but also had the opportunity to learn some new skills on my own.

A friend from High School contacted me in hopes that I could create a Myspace page, album art, and internet banners for his band We Are The Arsenal. I gladly obliged and completed and incredible concept for the album and the Myspace that the band was quite fond of. If all goes well it will be the first paid composition created under the name Nevermore Graphics. The project forced me to use a strong creative process as well as learn some new skills.

The concept of their forthcoming album, “They Worshiped The Trees” is the apocalypse, but rather than focus on the death and destruction of apocalyptic war they wanted to capture poetry and beauty in it. I managed to capture just that, by combining a sunset lit nuke test, a hill featuring a lone tree, and an image from an old article circa WWII featuring an adult and two small children in gas masks. Below is the final concept of the work:

The process forced me to learn some new techniques including black and white colorization in Photoshop as well as creating realistic shadows. The final product is perhaps one of my best graphics projects ever, and the fact that the band was happy made it that much better.

As I also mentioned I got the opportunity to feel my babies move for the first time. Up until now the most I had experienced was feeling the hard lump in Misty’s stomach that basically told us where the babies were, but the other night one or both of the babies actually moved across her stomach and I was able to feel the whole thing. Feeling your babies move for the first time is by far one of the most surreal experiences ever. It is that final piece of the puzzle that reiterates that you are going to be a parent. Had I not been home this week with this foot problem I never would have experienced this since I would have been at school. For those of you who don’t know, Misty and I are expecting twins that are due this December.

Finally, what I think really sums up this whole experience and this week is the realization that I have severely strayed from my spiritual path. I was able to catch some TV this week since I had to spend a lot of time in bed due to my foot swelling so bad and I caught some Charmed as well as some good shows on the supernatural and what not and it really got me thinking about how much I have lacked in my spiritual focus.

I’ve spent some time the past few nights just reading on the internet about paganism again. I really need to get focused again and make it a part of my life. Perhaps it was what was calling out to me this week and it was what got me back on the right path.

About an hour ago I finally got the chance to sit down and listen to the CD my friend Russell burned me. He had the chance to get a copy of Louise Hubner’s Seduction Through Witchcraft a while back and gave me a copy. While the whole thing is VERY Hollywood with a lot of reverb and psychedelic ambiance, it has some interesting information in it and some intriguing insights and spells.

With my focus in my spirituality rejuvenated I am currently searching the net to see if there are any local groups in our area that Misty and I may be able to get involved in that could help keep me on my path. If you know of any pagan groups in the Riverside Area let me know!

This week has really been a reality check for me. I’m not sure how much longer I will be off work and school from this, but I hope that regardless of how long I plan to do something with this new energy that has been sent in my direction and can hopefully focus more on the work I truly enjoy, my wife and my babies, and my spiritual path as a pagan.

I recently picked up the most recent issue of newWitch Magazine and was pleased to see the piece written by Dagonet Dewr on the pagan influence that can be found in the C.S. Lewis’ book The Lion, the Witch, and The Wardrobe. People have always been quick to point out the strong Christian undertones in this book and even more so with the recent release of the film, however Dewr clearly argues that there is in fact just as much pagan teaching in the book as there is Christian dogma. Many Christian churches have been pushing the book and film on children, probably in hopes to bring them closer to the Christian faith. However they don’t realize that with the book as well as the film these children will find many other things common to pagans. Things such as magic, mythical creatures, and of course witches. Things that will make them ask questions that many Christian parents may or may not be ready to answer. A full transcript of the article from newWitch.com can be found below…

I have been watching with some veiled amusement an absolute tornado buzzing and whirring around on some of the Pagan e-lists I’m on. Seems that some evangelical Christian churches have been putting together trips for public school kids to see the movie adaptation of C. S. Lewis’ book The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. I suspect the organizers of this effort believe that exposure to Lion will help bring the poor, unchurched kids to Jesus. In response, some Pagans are hideously offended and are calling for efforts to try and stop kids from seeing the movie.

My response is a little different ­ I ask, “where do I send a check to help fund this noble effort?”

This whole brouhaha is, to me, a perfect example of the notorious Pagan inferiority complex run amuck. Here’s my question: If one didn’t know that the author was a fervent evangelical would you categorize Lion as a Christian story with Pagan overtones, or a Pagan story with Christian overtones?

It is true that the central plot device of Lion involves a sacrificial death, and the primary antagonist of the story is the White Witch. But although Lewis meant for the story to be an allegory for the Christian gospel, the motif of the sacrificial (and resurrected) god is far older than Christianity. Ask any worshipper of Baldur, Dionysos Dendritus, Tammuz, Osiris, or any one of a number of other gods; sacrifice is a an element of myths about the human virtue or condition, not a solely Christian one.

Is there Pagan content in Lion? You bet. A short list: Dryads. Fauns. Centaurs. Magick. A truly Pagan Father Christmas. Talking animals. A creator deity who is also an animal spirit. A villain who subverts the natural order of the seasons. Griffons. Unicorns. Healing that comes from a maiden figure (if Lucy isn’t the Maiden in disguise as a British pre-teen, I don’t know who is.) There’s a lot more Paganism in there than Christian dogma. We need to evaluate the real threats to our community and concentrate our efforts on campaigns that matter. C.S. Lewis was a good storyteller, and a passionate and orthodox (though not fundamentalist) Christian, but I wonder if the folks who want to make sure that every kid in the world sees Lion know what they are really doing. They are exposing kids to magic and just because it is supposed to be Christian magic doesn’t mean that it is any less magical. For every Pagan kid who is converted to Christianity by seeing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe there will surely be hundreds of Christian kids who will be exposed to magic, and perhaps, get to Paganism through wondering about dryads. I should know, I was one of them.