And my maternal grandfather was an Oddfellow ...

Democrat & Chronicle: Old skeleton rattles Canandaigua

"We went into a storage room, and saw the skeleton there in the coffin," recalls Lambert, now a police investigator. "It was around Halloween, so we thought it was some kind of stage prop or something. It looked very real, but because of the fact it was around Halloween time ... we just didn't expect it could be real. If it had been any other time of year, we would have investigated further."

Full story here.

Midnight has come and gone

And I am alone.

Maya is in Texas with her brothers.
Srsti is at a party at Fordham.

And this is not a holiday I have a solitary ritual for.
(If I were still a Roman Catholic I could read Vespers and Compline of All Saints, and feel I had done the right thing.)

There is a sense of incompletion, though the parade was fine, and I was very happy to meet up with starroses and Aelf, and when I reached the All State inagamontoya was still in costume, at least for a few minutes, and had a chance to see mine.

I think I shall pour myself a small drink of Agavero, and allow the damiana flower in it represent all to which I desire to pay homage tonight.

I do not drink to my dead. They were honored Sunday in the crypt under St. Patrick's Old Cathedral around the tomb of St. Michael's founder, who died toward the end of October in his easy chair with a prayer book in one hand and a cigar in the other.

I drink to all in me that has been consigned to the darkness, to all desire fallen prey to false shame, and to all the images of the season that have ever served to invoke it.

That is part of the wholeness, the remembrance part of the healing.

And I drink to all of you whose fellowship has kept me faithful to it, those who know who you are, and those who do not, those who will read these words and those who will not.

May you all be blessed,
Unto the age of ages,
Amen.

Israel's False Friends

Gary North on Christian Zionism:

The Unannounced Reason Behind American Fundamentalism's Support for the State of Israel

This specific motivation for the support of Israel is never preached from any fundamentalist pulpit. The faithful hear sermons -- many, many sermons -- on the pretribulation Rapture. On other occasions, they hear sermons on the Great Tribulation. But they do not hear the two themes put together: "We can avoid death, but only because two-thirds of the Jews of Israel will inevitably die in a future holocaust. America must therefore support the nation of Israel in order to keep the Israelis alive until after the Rapture." Fundamentalist ministers expect their congregations to put two and two together on their own. It would be politically incorrect to add up these figures in public

Full story here.

In short, the people behind Bush support Likud only because they desire the extermination of the Jews. When will American Jews wake up to this ugly fact?

Mr. North takes up the theme again in a new article posted by Lew Rockwell today. You can subscribe to Rockwell's feed here.

Damiani on Sophia

Kathleen Damiani: SOPHIA & THE DRAGON

Who is this fierce immensity that is female, cosmic, who holds life love and healing? She speaks of herself through ancient poets and visionaries as Perfect Nature, as the Soul of the World, as the ancient goddesses of justice and natural law, and as Sophia, guardian angel of philosophy and teacher of men in the Wisdom literature of the Bible.

Full story here.

It's Monstrous

I tell you, it's Monstrous!

[And where were you yesterday, you coy devil?]

Put yourself on my map

Note: I'ts a pretty big map. Nobody will be able to use it to find your house.

I'm trying to get all my Livejournal friends' locations plotted on a map - please add your location starting with this form. Username: (Then get your friends to!)